Month: March 2020

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  Work was well underway to set up the Palexpo convention center in Geneva for this year's auto show when the decision was made to cancel the event. [credit: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg/Getty Images ]

This past Friday, the organizers of the 2020 Geneva International Motor Show could avoid coronavirus no longer. Following a decree by the Swiss government banning public gatherings of more than 1,000 people, they were forced to declare force majeure and cancel this year's auto show. Although this new coronavirus is more dangerous the older you are, it appears it's most lethal to trade shows—GIMS now lines up alongside GDC, the Beijing Auto Show, and Mobile World Congress as one more trade show taken down by the bug.

With the decision made so late in the process—the media preview days were scheduled for March 3 and 4—work was already well underway at the Palexpo convention center. Swiss publication Radical took a wander through the half-assembled booths, their photos providing a poignant look behind the curtain. Even before the Swiss called time on GIMS, attendees were reconsidering their plans. The OEMs were petrified of having teams of high-ranking executives sequestered into quarantine should a case be reported in their hotels (particularly given Geneva's hotel prices!), and plans to bring journalists to the show were mostly shelved by late last week.

So instead of filling the convention halls with the new Volkswagen Golf or some low-volume electric hypercar bearing a nameplate that fell from popularity a century ago, everyone's scrambling to move those reveals online. In retrospect, it makes the approach taken by some other OEMS—to do just that but in the week leading up to GIMS—look increasingly wise.

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  Screens looking at screens.

There was a weird feeling permeating this year's PAX East. Even as plans for the mid-March Game Developers Conference were falling apart over coronavirus travel concerns, tens of thousands once again gathered together in the Boston Convention and Entertainment Center to celebrate all things gaming.

Organizers did their best to mitigate any contagion fears, with copious hand sanitizer at practically every demo booth and a visible phalanx of workers constantly wiping down exposed handrails and other surfaces. But there was still an uneasiness in the air, noticeable by the swiveling heads whenever anyone coughed or sneezed. The weekend crowds felt notably lighter than previous years as well, with more open space to navigate usually packed aisleways.

None of that lessened the usual excitement of so many like-minded gaming fans gathering together, though. As we work through our thoughts on some of the best games we saw over the last four days, enjoy this collection of some of the best cosplay, collectibles, and eye-catching convention booths straight from Boston.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Until the 1980s, big companies in America tended to take a paternalistic attitude toward their workforce. Many corporate CEOs took pride in taking care of everyone who worked at their corporate campuses. Business leaders loved to tell stories about someone working their way up from the mailroom to a C-suite office.

But this began to change in the 1980s. Wall Street investors demanded that companies focus more on maximizing returns for shareholders. An emerging corporate orthodoxy held that a company should focus on its "core competence"—the one or two functions that truly sets it apart from other companies—while contracting out other functions to third parties.

Often, companies found they could save money this way. Big companies often pay above the market rate for routine services like cleaning offices, answering phones, staffing a cafeteria, or working on an assembly line. Putting these services out for competitive bid helped the companies get these functions completed at rock-bottom rates, while avoiding the hassle of managing employees. It also saved them from having to pay the same generous benefits they offered to higher-skilled employees.