Mostly BizLinks

As it so happens, with the exception of one, there aren't really any residual political/economic tabs that I want to rant about at the moment but there are a few posts/articles that I found to be interesting:

• [Economics] How one Danish professor proposes we rid ourselves of massive cost overruns on infrastructure projects that politicians say "have to" be built (Miller-McCune): benchmarking to other similar projects and adding financial incentives. Seems pretty shocking that this hasn't been done before.
  
  
• [Human Resources, Entrepreneurship] How startups can compete effectively for the best candidates against big, better funded firms (HRWorld). More here from Funnelholic: 3 Keys to Hiring Success.
  
  
• [Manufacturing] Cool new resource on designing and specifying die castings (NADCA via Core77)
  
  
• [Trends, Entrepreneurship] Figuring out what the trends are before they affect you (Inside Retailing via Core77). While it's a bit fuzzy, the way I look at it is understanding what the need you/your business serve / major business costs and understand how that need / costs can change based on both traditional competitors and marginally related/emerging industries.
  
  
• [Manufacturing] They call it mistake-proofing, I call it idiot-proofing (Reliable Plant via Core77). Excellent advice and a source of competitive advantage especially as customers are more apt to consider the broader cost/value of a product/service. The idea is simple, design your products for the lowest common denominator of who you see to be your customers.
  
  
• [Turnarounds, Finance] A profile of Lone Star: a vulture capital firm that specializes in recapturing value in assets other Wall Street firms no longer want (Portfolio). If I had to do things differently, vulture capital is definitely where I would want to be. While I suspect there's a lot of minutiae, the problem solving aspect under tight timelines definitely appeals to me.
  
  
• [Finance, Entrepreneurship] Lessons from a startup buyout (Gigaom). If you're a startup, how to position and prepare yourself (and your firm) for being bought out.
  
  
• [Marketing] Advice I should probably be following: Six Rules for Rewriting (Michael Nielsen). Advice I actually found to be quite useful when you have to proof/rewrite your own work.
  
  
• [Entrepreneurship] 7 startup mistakes (Lending Club)