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Risky Global Business IN TODAY'S GLOBALIZED business environments, business leaders have to manage terrorist and cybersecurity risks that were unimaginable 20 years ago. That's why "Doing Business in an Unsafe World" was the theme of the inaugural Hariri Symposium held last April by the Business, Society, and Public Policy Initiative at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business in Wash- ington, D.C. At the event, a distinguished panel discussed topics ranging from the attacks of September 11, 2001, to the international challenges of cybersecurity to the role that business students and educators can have in navigating modern social and technological risks. Panelists included Tom Daschle, majority leader of the U.S. Senate; Robert Mosbacher Jr., chairman of Mosbacher Energy Compa- ny; Ann Veneman, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and former executive director of UNICEF; and James P. Moore Jr., director of the Business, Society, and Public Policy Initiative. Daschle noted that security for every venue, from airplanes to public buildings, has radically changed. He said, "I think we could call it hyphenated security. It's nuclear- , it's cyber-, it's bio-. But it's security in di'erent ways that a'ect us in a very personal way." Veneman emphasized the human impact that conflict can have, especially on children and young adults. Atrocities of war have long-term consequences, which are even longer-term for those without an education. "The uneducated refugee then becomes the unemployable youth," she said. "This then perpetu- ates the cycle of poverty, which often breeds more conflict." Despite the challenges facing the world, the panelists agreed that business schools are vital to transformation. "We have to focus on how we can promote economic opportunity in countries all around the world for the poorest popu- lations," Veneman said. "There is a growing recognition that if we don't bring more business principles and economic opportunity to poverty alleviation, we're never going to succeed." EFFECTS OF MADDING CROWDS When social networks make it easier and cheaper for users to generate content, it should lead to more content creators, right? Wrong, say research- ers from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berke- ley. In reality, easier access to large audiences on social media has led to more content consumers, but far fewer content creators. In their analysis of social media behaviors, co-authors Ganesh Iyer and Zsolt Katona find that ease of use on social media does initially lead to some users generating more content. But more content leads to cluttered media feeds, which leads to greater compe- tition for attention. Unable to build audi- ences, many users stop posting any content—and others never start. Iyer and Katona note that, by some reports, only 10 percent of Twitter users generate 90 percent of all tweets. Such imbalances could be driving people away from popular networks to platforms with fewer users—such as Path, a new social network that limits the number of friends users can have. The co-authors suggest that if social media platforms adopted features that encouraged smaller, more targeted audiences—and even increased the cost of sending messages—they could "not only encourage sender entry, but also make receivers better o¥." "Competing for Attention in Social Communication Markets" is forth- coming in Management Science. A draft is available at ssrn.com/ abstract=2322435. research+insights 16 BizEd JULY | AUGUST 2015