The Friday Round-Up

The boss is coming! Look busy. Here is the City offers some tips on "how to look busy" even if you're not... But don't let yourself become too busy, lest it drive you to an early grave. Apparently, a senior car engineer at Toyota in Japan was clocking up an average of 80 hours a week of overtime, plus weekend and night work.

An acronym to impress the board: Big Picture brings you PIGS -- Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. Unlike the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) these are not emerging markets but ones on the brink of recession. They are "the soft white underbelly of Europe", but their economic woes could still have a viral effect on richer EU nations, apparently. Isn't this already happening?

Google's changing the way children learn -- kids are 'digital natives' , to the manner born, and so better at assimilating from a variety of different sources. But they need variety and have a lower boredom threshold than 'digital immigrants'. The story's a reminder of Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", picked up by Big Think last month. What was the question again?

How Americans see Britain: Reuters' boss Tom Glocer comes to praise (Heathrow's T5, of all things). But Ariel Leve comes to bury, taking issue with the British tendency to complain after the fact rather than speak up there and then.

Ignore anyone who tells you not to speak your mind in meetings, adds Brazen Careerist. They are only afraid of dismissal. "Does middle management even want solutions and answers to their objectives or just a boardroom full of yes-men ready to shower praise on the boss?"

Speaking of bosses and yes-men, Gordon Brown tells us not to waste food... while the G8 enjoys a 13-course meal.

Then he wants us to learn to learn eco-driving. But it might be better to cycle anyway, as it's so expensive to lose weight. According to a Virgin Money survey, it costs £148 to lose one pound, or £4,500 to shift 30lbs.

At least your business cards will be weightless. Techcrunch features a couple of UK companies for virtual business cards: idlasso allows you to create cards that can be used as widgets or in a social networking application. You can add your accounts and create different cards for various contexts. Founder George Palmer keeps you updated via his blog. The other, Retggr, apparently has quite a tech pedigree. But I couldn't access the site.

Two from the Beeb. First, Robert Peston picks up on a report for John Hutton, industry secretary, on how government outsourcing has created a highly skilled 'public services' industry worth £45bn to the UK economy.

Whether they sap the taxpayers' money is open for debate. But consultancies are increasingly working on a risk-reward basis -- that is, they have to deliver against set targets in order to earn their crust. Peston may be dubious, but this 'services' sector -- if exportable -- may be the UK's way out of a deep financial hole.

Second, it transpires that today's Queuing Day in Beijing -- the city uses the 11th because the digits look like two people standing next to each other. Apparently, the 22nd is 'Give up Your Seat Day'. Guess what a 2 looks like? I have no idea if this is a joke or not.

But it wasn't just Beijing that got in line. At Apple Stores worldwide, the queues formed early for the iPhone 3G's debut. London's launch was a bit of a shambles. Why? Computer problems, of course.