Stories by Anthony Sibillin

If their first experience of joblessness wasn't enough, generation Y's assumed technological lead over earlier generations is being challenged by researchers.
A University College London research project has found that young and old alike only skim the surface of what they read online. But the project's leader, David Nicholas, considers this more of a problem for younger, "digital natives" who lack the information assessment skills of those trained to use conventional libraries. "I think a lot of people ... are not able to benefit from the fruits of an information society," Nicholas says, "because they don't know how to handle that vast amount of information which they have to make sense of."

If anyone is a "homo economicus" - that rational decision-maker feted
by economics textbooks - it is Damien Waller, chairman and chief

Many companies find that a downturn is the mother of invention.
Warren Buffet advises investors to "be fearful when others are greedy

Envious of younger colleagues able to carry on a conversation while tapping out an email and listening to their iPod?
Don't be. Scientists now think humans cannot really multitask. Your colleague is actually switching his or her attention between you, the computer screen and the iPod. And recent brain-scanning experiments suggest this rapid switching may come at a cost.

The final witness in last year's C7 trial in Australia was, fittingly, neither an economist nor an accountant but an electronic sleuth named Adam Daniel. With the case generating an astonishing 85,000 electronic documents, Daniel was called to assess whether the Seven Network had backdated one of them to bolster its claim that rivals had colluded to destroy its failed C7 pay-TV platform.
Considered exotic just a few years ago, forensic examinations of crucial electronic documents are now common in corporate litigation. The same is true of drawn-out "discovery" processes, whereby teams of lawyers and technologists comb emails, reports, presentations and even text messages to uncover any "smoking gun" information.

Establishing an innovation "culture" within organisations is an important driver of innovation, according to the second annual survey of Australian and New Zealand companies commissioned by technology services group Fujitsu.
Respondents continue to be exercised by a lack of financial and human resources, but short-termism and resistance to change have become bigger barriers to innovation.

There's an old maxim that organisations often have "too many chiefs and not enough Indians". So why are an increasing number of companies in the business world swelling their ranks of executives with "chief" and other impressive-sounding superlatives in their titles?
To stop those same executives from leaving is one reason, according to the director of knowledge management at Vedior Asia Pacific, Victoria Bethlehem. She says titles such as chief risk officer, chief marketing officer and chief innovation officer reflect the extra clout that chief executive officers are delegating to their staff.

Talks by writers, artists and thinkers are now common. But 17 years ago, bookseller Dymocks broke ground by hosting lunches and wine-and-cheese evenings fronted by popular authors spruiking their newest release. Their initial appeal has endured, with each event today attracting between 300 and 1000 fans, according to Dymocks chief executive Don Grover.
Literary events are an example of what economists call a "complement" to books: The more literary events people attend, the more books they tend to buy. Grover agrees this link is behind the Dymocks program. "It is absolutely a commercially sensible thing to do," he says. Discount chains such as Kmart and Target will always offer bestsellers at a lower price, so literary events help to build a class of book buyer who values the wider range available at Dymocks.