Now: March 2008

Steve Parsons

• Infographic: Numerology: SXSW
• Infographic: Numerology: SXSW
• The Journal-ist: In the Lead
  From this month's academic journals, four views on what makes a top-notch 21st-century leader: curiosity, charisma, neuroscience, and Ivy League thinking.

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Infographic: Numerology: SXSW

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Open House: Just Plane Ambitious

march 1
BID
Meg Whitman's 10th Anniversary as CEO of eBay

When Whitman signed on as CEO in 1998, eBay had a staff of 29 and $47.4 million in annual revenue; now it's at 11,000 and $7 billion plus. But as she marks 10 years of proving there's a market for fragrantly well-worn size-12 Air Jordans, the "time left" on her tenure is ticking down. Whitman's impending departure from the top job at eBay is stirring analysts' hopes that new leadership will bring new growth. After all, as Whitman said herself early in her eBay days, no CEO should serve more than 10 years. --Ellen Gibson

march 2
VOTE
Russian Presidential Election

Mitt Romney must be a bit jealous. In the other big 2008 presidential race, the leader, Dmitry Medvedev, has wealth, corporate bona fides, the blessing of an incumbent that most of the country still likes, and poll numbers around 80%. But the incumbent is Vladimir Putin, who's expected to become Medvedev's premier/puppet master and shows every sign of taking the power of the presidency with him. Medvedev, now chair of energy giant Gazprom, says he'll quit his corporate gig if he wins. His primary goal as president will be to maintain "stability." His chief strategy: "To maintain the capable team of the current president." --Jeff Chu

march 2
CLICK
New York Board of Trade Goes Fully Electronic
New York

"Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the unlimited carnage you are about to witness," Dan Aykroyd's character says to Eddie Murphy's as they approach the Board of Trade in the film Trading Places. Well, the carnage is ending. By March 2, NYBOT open-outcry futures trading in commodities including coffee, cocoa, and frozen OJ will be totally replaced by electronic transactions. As frenzied as the pit may have seemed, its share of trades had dwindled to about 20%, with the rest handled electronically. If you really miss the floor action, buy the DVD; 2008 is the 25th anniversary of Trading Places, and a collector's edition--including a primer on the commodities-contract biz, featuring real traders--recently came out. --JC

march 3
READ
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
By Jennifer 8. Lee

There are twice as many Chinese restaurants in the U.S. as McDonald's, an accomplishment all the more astounding because it has happened without a single corporate force plotting the dominance of egg rolls and fried rice. Lee, a Chinese-American reporter for New York Times, traces the roots of the innovations that helped make the cuisine ubiquitous, including chop suey (San Francisco), fortune cookies (Japan), takeout containers (Hazelton, Pennsylvania), delivery (New York), and soy-sauce packets (Totowa, New Jersey). The book's unifying conceit--tracking Powerball winners who used fortune-cookie lucky numbers--never quite congeals like MSG-laden brown sauce, but Lee throws in enough tasty morsels to make this book a pretty satisfying meal. --David Lidsky

march 3-6
NETWORK
O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
San Diego

It's a conference truism that "the most important conversations happen in the hallways between attendees," as conference chair Brady Forrest says of the O'Reilly Emerging Tech gathering. But the topics at this meeting will be especially hot, including online sexual identity and Internet gaming. The sessions we're most keen on? "My Daughter's DNA," in which Hugh Reinhoff will discuss how he sequenced his daughter's own genome to help treat her degenerative disease after conventional medicine failed, and "Reality Mining," in which MIT professor Nathan Eagle explains how he is using the cell-phone logs of an entire country (Nigeria) to study social networks and predict behavior. --William Lee Adams

march 11-15
BUILD
CONEXPO-CON/AGG
Las Vegas

There's probably no more appropriate venue than Vegas--with its condo towers, its glitzy new casinos, and mile after mile of subdivisions--for this triennial gathering of 125,000 construction-industry professionals. The country's largest trade show will feature 48 acres of exhibits--think the very latest in earthmovers and concrete admixtures. There will be a Construction Safety Boot Camp to help reduce those pesky workers' comp costs; a session called "Building Codes--The Devil in Your Backyard," sure to charm the local building inspector; and an I Can Read-sounding seminar called "Concrete Always Cracks." All those, however, are trumped by what we hope will become a regular event: the first Conexpo Concrete Mixer Truck Driver Competition. Gentlemen, start your 13-liter engines. --EG