|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
||
| Note: The FORTUNE Preview Guide is created in HTML. If you are unable to properly view the cover image, Course Connector, or hyperlinks, please view the online version at http://www.fortuneeducation.com/preview_guides/index.html. |
| COURSE CONNECTOR |
| ARTICLE SUMMARIES AND QUESTIONS |
"What's Your House Really Worth?" pp. 56-68: Real estate brokers beware: the guys behind Expedia.com are about to do to your industry what they did for the travel business. And while Zillow.com founders Richard Barton and Lloyd Frink insist they're not trying to cut you out of the home-buying process, they aren't exactly making you any more indispensable either. With 52 million house valuations (and growing) across the U.S., Zillow attracts as many as 4 million visitors a month, and has become one of the Internet's biggest real estate destinations in less than a year. What it is trying to do is make the real estate market more like the stock exchange — a transparent market where all information about every property is readily available to every buyer and seller. Barton and Frink started with the basics — square footage, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, and a "Zestimate" of a home's worth, based on government data. But with new features that allow users to edit home records and post a sale price online, Zillow is clearly moving toward a system that unlocks all the proprietary information once stored in brokers' heads and laptops. Needless to say, brokers are not pleased. Many insist that Zillow's Zestimates are inaccurate, and they have difficulty persuading their clients to follow their advice. Barton and Frink's response is that an educated client is a better client, and that equipping consumers with information serves only to improve communication between agents and clients, and make for a more satisfying experience for all parties involved. Students take a closer look at the real estate website Zillow.com and why it threatens to one day eliminate the middleman from the home sales business. Discussion Questions:
"A Texas Coal Rush," pp. 70-74: At a time when corporate America finally seems ready to take environmental concerns seriously, along comes TXU. The $10.4-billion-a-year energy company, based in Dallas, has just announced plans to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas at a cost of nearly $1 billion apiece. The problem? Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels used to generate electricity. One environmental group, furious with the plan, calculated that the new plants would release 78 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. But TXU faces a backlash not only from the usual green groups but also from politicians on both sides of the aisle, prominent businesspeople, and the general public. Opponents have filed suit against the company and Texas regulators, calling for a moratorium on new coal plants. They've lobbied the lead underwriters for the plants, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup. And they've taken the fight to Washington, as Congress moves closer to setting mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. But despite the firestorm of opposition, unless Texas passes global warming laws soon, TXU is going to build. In its defense, CEO Mike McCall claims his company is simply trying to meet the country's ever-growing demand for electricity, and coal is a cheap, abundant resource mined in the U.S. In that sense, the situation has as much to do with us as with TXU, a sure indication that it's time for all of us, politically and economically, to get serious about conservation. In this article, students read about energy giant TXU's plans to build new coal plants in Texas and how the company's opponents are working to block them. Discussion Questions:
"Diary of a Mad Businessman," pp. 76-84: Tyler Perry is one-of-a-kind in Hollywood. The 37-year-old son of a New Orleans carpenter has built a multimillion-dollar media empire around "urban theater" — the frequently melodramatic, revival-style stage plays that tour the country catering to black audiences — and is the only producer to successfully translate the genre into mainstream movies, television shows, and books. Even more remarkable, Perry has achieved this success while retaining ownership of all his work, a feat nearly unheard of in the industry and immensely more lucrative for Perry in the long run. With the opening of Tyler Perry Studios last September, one of the country's first movie studios owned by an African American, and the upcoming release of the film "Daddy's Little Girls" and the TBS television series "House of Payne," 2007 should prove to be another profitable year for the maverick producer. Of course, like any prosperous person, Perry is not without his critics — primarily academics, classically trained actors, and cultural elites from within the African-American community who reject his raucous portrayal of blacks. But the numbers don't lie, and Perry's vast fortune indicates that he has far more supporters than detractors. Among those supporters is white Hollywood, which is finally showing Perry some respect, despite his largely unorthodox approach. That respect, however, is surely mixed with some apprehension that the traditional Hollywood system that Perry so lucratively sidestepped may be on its way out. This article reveals who Tyler Perry is and why he is poised to become a mainstream superstar. Discussion Questions:
"Saving the World One Cup of Yogurt at a Time," pp. 96-102: Imagine a world where the measure of any large corporation's performance isn't found in earnings reports or sales figures but in the amount of people it helps. Sound like some sort of hippie utopia? Perhaps. But for banker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, it’s his Big New Idea. It’s called "social business enterprise," and Yunus considers it a logical extension of his first idea, microcredit. Through his Grameen Bank, Yunus has spent three decades making small loans to the poor — mainly poor women — in Bangladesh. The loans are used to start small businesses that pull people out of poverty, enabling them to become self-sufficient and, ultimately, to pay back their loans. Social business enterprise encourages corporations to assist in this economic development in mutually beneficial ways. Companies would draw on microcredit-funded businesses to incorporate nonprofit models into their bottom-line operations, seeking not just revenue but social returns, and returning the profits to communities. On board with Yunus in Bangladesh is the French food company Danone. Danone's new plant will use milk from microborrowers' cows to produce nutritionally fortified, reasonably priced yogurt that will be sold by microvendors to the community. If the business is sustainable, Danone is prepared to build 50 more similar facilities in the region. But more importantly, success for Danone may usher in a new era in socially responsible business — and Yunus is proudly leading the charge. Students examine how Muhammad Yunus and Danone are working together to revolutionize corporate philanthropy through a social business enterprise in Bangladesh. Discussion Questions:
|
|
|
WHAT DO YOU THINK? CHANGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION
OPTIONS CONTACT US |
|
© 2007, FORTUNE Education Program Read our Privacy Policy www.fortuneeducation.com |
