Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles to Help You This Week

February 13th, 2017

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles and the submissions of others (with credit to you if I post them). I wish you a terrific week!Big Investors Cut Back on Commercial Property as Bull Market Loses SteamIs the pendulum swinging back the tenant's way? "Some prominent real-estate investors are reducing their holdings and getting more selective about new deals, in a sign that the eight-year bull market for U.S. commercial property is coming to a close.Asset managers at pension funds and endowments, as well as private-equity firms and other big investors, are throttling back on new acquisitions, selling more assets and shifting to less risky strategies as a way to protect against potential losses in a downturn." www.wsj.com[tweet_box design="box_09" float="none"]Is the pendulum finally swinging back the #tenant's way? #cre[/tweet_box]

Finally, Proof That Managing for the Long Term Pays Off“Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations. This has long seemed intuitively true to us. We’ve seen companies such as Unilever, AT&T, and Amazon succeed by sticking resolutely to a long-term view. And yet we have not had the comprehensive data needed to quantify the payoff from managing for the long term — until now.

New research, led by a team from McKinsey Global Institute in cooperation with FCLT Global, found that companies that operate with a true long-term mindset have consistently outperformed their industry peers since 2001 across almost every financial measure that matters." www.hbr.0rgSorry, Working From Home Isn't the Future of Job Flexibility"Workers say in survey after survey that flexibility is a very important aspect of job satisfaction. But what they really want is to work from home, according to a recently published study by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.That's not realistic for many of the fields of work that are growing fastest, and it's not something most employers are offering.The average worker would take an 8 percent pay cut to work from home, the study found. Other possible work arrangements, such as compressing five days' worth of work into four or picking different start and end times, don't seem to justify a lower salary." www.bloomberg.com

How to Make Sure Your Emails Give the Right Impression"Given the avalanche of email we receive each year — 121 messages per day, on average — it’s no wonder that we have become somewhat desensitized to its impact on our professional brand. We’ll spend hours polishing our LinkedIn profiles and revising our résumés, but hastily hit send on an unintelligible missive simply because we’re in a rush. “Sent from my device, please overlook typos” is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for shoddy communications.

Have you ever thought about the brand you’re conveying through your emails? You should. Every email you send affects your professional reputation, or brand. Don’t make these all-too-common mistakes in your communication:" www.hbr.org

10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts"One key question for any publication is this: If a reporter gets facts in a story wrong, will the news outlet investigate a complaint and publish a correction? Does the publication have its own code of ethics? Or does it subscribe to and endorse the Society of Professional Journalist's code of ethics? And if a reporter or editor seriously violates ethical codes - such as being a blatant or serial plagiarizer, fabulist or exaggerator - will they be fired at a given news outlet? While some may criticize mainstream media outlets for a variety of sins, top outlets such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC News and the New Republic have fired journalists for such ethics violations. That is remarkable in a world where some celebrities, politicians and other realms of media (other than news... such as Hollywood films "based on a true story") can spread falsehood with impunity." www.forbes.com

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!Ken