+ THREE INSIGHTS FOR THE WEEK

1. Turns out GDP doesn’t cut it when it comes to measuring the value of free digital services. Wikipedia, email, YouTube, and other digital technologies contribute significantly to our economic well-being, but gross domestic product, the measure favored by policymakers, doesn’t translate well to our new digital age.

A team including MIT Sloan economist Erik Brynjolfsson and doctoral candidate Avinash Collis used massive online choice experiments to measure the value that digital goods and services create. Their findings? The median user would require compensation of $17,530 to forgo internet search engines for a year. Users would need $8,414 to lose access to email for a year, and $3,648 to go without digital maps for that same period.

2. Your career path doesn’t have to be all ‘up and to the right.’ Kate Bergeron was unemployed, uninsured, and pregnant when she first interviewed at Apple. Seventeen years later, Bergeron is a vice president of hardware engineering, heading up Apple’s expanding footprint in audio. Bergeron discussed her path from interview to VP in a recent talk. Her takeaways on navigating a successful career in Silicon Valley and beyond:

Think less ‘career path’ and more ‘Chutes and Ladders.’ Sometimes you have to take a step back or make a parallel move to ultimately advance.
Want kids? Go for it. “It’s not easy, but by making holistic family changes we were able to pull it off,” Bergeron said about raising two daughters with her husband while rising through the ranks.
Trust your managers when they trust you. If your boss thinks you can handle a stretch assignment, you can.
Build your team, then let them lead. You can’t advance your career without learning how to delegate — and then actually doing it.
Determine if you’re leadership material. “I could have been a pretty good engineer at Apple,” Bergeron said, “but I figured out I'm a much better manager of people.”

3. Every market can be digitally disrupted. Even underwear. At first blush, lingerie might not seem like a market that’s particularly vulnerable to digitization. But Heidi Zak and David Spector thought differently. Their startup, ThirdLove, uses technology to eliminate customer pain points, refine product offerings, and improve the shopping experience — all of which has underwear giant Victoria’s Secret looking over its shoulder. The lesson for any market: When an industry leader loses sight of customer needs, it creates space for upstarts to grab market share.

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+ Ideas made to matter

The one thing missing from your board of directors — and why it matters

Every market has digital opportunities waiting to be harnessed. A tech-forward board of directors can help you find yours.

Worried that your organization isn’t moving fast enough to identify and capitalize on digital opportunities? Your board of directors might be to blame. A new study from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research shows that having three or more “digitally savvy” board members can help a company's growth skyrocket.

Research scientists Stephanie Woerner and Peter Weill used machine learning to analyze data from 1,233 companies earning more than $1 billion in revenue annually. Those that had three or more members with a deep understanding of technology significantly outpaced their peers on key metrics, posting 38 percent higher revenue growth and 17 percent higher profit margins. “If a company’s directors are not digitally savvy, they’re really putting the future of their company at risk,” Woerner said.

HOW TO DIGITIZE YOUR BOARD

+ Numbers That matter

$498 billion

The real cost of the U.S. government bailouts during the financial crisis of 2008 – 2009, according to work by Professor Deborah J. Lucas.

+ WORKING DEFINITION

intrapreneurship

The practice of acting as an entrepreneur within an established company. To survive in today's market, corporations should consider nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit.

+ Flag these events

APRIL 5 -7:
MIT/Harvard Brazil Conference Livestream

APRIL 9:
Webinar: Academic Director Bryan Moser, MIT System Design and Management program

APRIL19:
MIT Tech Conference

MIT Sloan Office of Communications
Building E90, 9th Floor
1 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142

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