08 May 28: Zappos

Zappos offers new call-centre employees US$1,000 on top of what they have earned after a few weeks of intensive training, if they want to quit. The theory is that the people who take the money ‘obviously don't have the sense of sense of commitment’ Zappos requires. About 10% of its trainees take the offer.

08 April 27: Southdale

The Southdale shopping centre in Minnesota is the world's first true shopping mall, making it a landmark as important to architectural history as the Louvre or New York's Woolworth Tower.

08 March 31: PR

Edward L. Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, is widely recognized as the father of public relations.

08 March 9: Employees

As of March 2008, Facebook was home to 500 employees.

08 February 14: Formation

‘The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.’

08 February 6: Philanthropy

‘In a recent year, American corporations and their foundations gave more than $12 billion to a variety of causes. Although there is a common perception that corporate philanthropy provides the lion's share of donations, the actual percentage is very small. Of the $241 billion given in 2002, only 5.1 percent was from corporations. The largest amount of money given, 76.3 percent, was given by individuals.’

December 7: M&Ms

At SAS, the ritual of handing out free M&Ms every Wednesday began accidentally, when an assistant collecting supplies accepted a big bag of the chocolate sweets as a substitute from a local grocer who had run short of change.

November 25: Redeem!

Estimated amount that Americans lose every year by not redeeming gift cards: $8,000,000,000

October 24: Marijuana

‘The National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that the rate of marijuana use in California has barely risen in the past few years, whereas production has hugely increased.’

October 23: Ontario

56% of Ontario's workforce has a post-secondary education, the highest rate of any industrialized nation.

October 21: Retail

India's retail industry has sales of $300 million, which will swell to $560 billion by 2012, according to HSBC.

October 17: Not Spending

‘Chinese households are hardly the most eager shoppers. Consumer spending has fallen from 47% of GDP in the early 1990s to only 36% in 2006, the lowest proportion in any large economy.’

October 15: 130

Time Inc. is one of the largest content companies in the world, with a portfolio of approximately 130 titles.

October 12: Relations

‘It is clear that employee-employer relations are at one of the lowest points in history.’ Wayne Hochwarter, FSU College of Business in a recent study

October 10: 77%

77 % of American companies monitor their employees' email, according to PC Mag.

September 28: Control

In June 2007, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhilips refused to hand over majority control of their operations in the Orinoco Belt to the Venezuelan government.

September 23: Bernays

Edward L. Bernays, Father of Modern Public Relations, was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

September 17: Google

Google is often compared to Microsoft, ‘but its evolution is actually closer to that of the banking industry. Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people’s money, and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information about individuals.’

August 31: Cirque

Among Montreal business-school graduates, according to HEC Montréal, a job at Cirque du Soleil is more coveted than one at any other big-name employer in the city.

August 16: Radar

Advertising agency DDB Canada has launched a unique social media arm. Radar DDB is ‘a hybrid resource that reinvents the agency model by combining the skill sets of a news-gathering organization, a Hollywood publicity agent, an ad agency, a guerrilla event company and a digital programming expert.’