1202-Two articles about Walking (Walking may reduce the risk of stroke and Seoul walking tour turns to the ‘Dark Side’)

Walking may reduce the risk of stroke: study 

Maintaining an active lifestyle is one of the best ways to prevent strokes for the elderly at high risk, according to research reported by HealthDay News.

British professor Barbara Jefferis at University College London conducted a 10-year experiment on 3,435 men aged between 60 and 80, and divided them into five groups: those who walked zero to three hours a week, four to seven hours a week, eight to 14 hours a week, 15 to 21 hours a week and more than 22 hours a week. 

The data shows that men who walked eight to 14 hours a week cut their risk of stroke by one-third compared with those who walked zero to three hours a week. 

Regular walking is seen to help reduce the chance of strokes, regardless of the speed of walking. 

Other activities also help lower the risk. Neurology professor Ralph Sacco at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine said that all forms of physical activity, including walking, can promote ideal health and reduce stroke risk.

By Sung Jin-woo, Intern reporter

Seoul walking tour turns to the ‘Dark Side’

It is a Saturday evening on a street corner in Seoul’s Ahyeon-dong, and a foreign man is handing out baggies of powder to a group of women.

This is the Dark Side of Seoul Tour, Seoul’s only ghost walk in English, and host Joe McPherson is concerned about the safety of the women on the tour, after rumors in the area from colonial times.

“There were tales of women being harassed by Japanese ghosts, so they used to carry a little bit of chili powder in their purses to throw at Japanese ghosts, because, you know, Japanese ghosts don’t like hot things,” said McPherson, handing out small pouches of chili powder.

“Only Japanese ghosts. ... Korean ghosts, they’ll love it.”

The tour starts by ducking into a nearby alley at the earliest opportunity to explain how a particular area became known as the Alley of Ashes.

It sets the tone well for the rest of the way, as the Dark Side of Seoul tour lives up to its name, covering murderous royal plots, massacres, prostitutes meeting grisly ends, and even a restaurant with blood dripping from the ceiling.

There are one or two less grim asides, including the story of how locals got one over on the government in building the Nakwon Arcade, now the biggest musical instrument market in Korea, and a lament over the passing of Pimatgol’s bustling fish restaurants.

McPherson runs food tours in Seoul with his ZenKimchi food promotion business, introducing people to Korean dining favorites along different themed courses. This is his only non-food tour.

He decided to start the tours out of a combination of missing the traditions of Halloween in his native Alabama and inspiration from the Jack the Ripper tours that are popular in London’s East End. Many other cities have similar tours showing the underbellies as an alternative to the more conventional historical attractions like castles, palaces and cathedrals, and McPherson decided there was room for one in Seoul.

McPherson said he was always looking for more stories ― a tale about a haunted well that draws people to the bottom has been added to a collection of ghost stories told by Cheonggyecheon Stream ― but he has had to leave some out.

This is often because of provenance, or because he can’t find out enough detail about the stories. But in another, a neighbor objected, and in one case he tracked down the site of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Seoul, but said there was nothing left of the place.

One pursuit at a school was abandoned because “I went out to research and then realized I was basically just this middle-aged man skulking round a girls’ school, so I kind of had to give up on that one.”

The tours have been well received, with evenings in October particularly busy, but there is a hiatus in December when it gets too cold.

The Dark Side of Seoul tours run Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in October and then Fridays at 7 p.m. until Dec. 6. It costs 35,000 won per person to join or 30,000 won for groups of four or more. To find out more or reserve a spot, visit www.zenkimchi.com.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)

1128-Home alone

Shifting social trends see record number of single households

Singletons enjoy a meal at a Sinchon restaurant in Seoul. This restaurant offers single seats for lone diners. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)

The Roman emperor Augustus prohibited unmarried women between the ages of 20 and 50 from inheriting property because dying without legitimate children left properties heirless. Living alone in Ancient Rome was frowned upon by both state and citizenry.

After 2,000 years, prospects for those living alone have changed, although of course, not entirely for the better.

The modern day independent soul is sometimes known as a “singleton,” a one-person householder who voluntarily or involuntarily chooses to forfeit the comforts or discomforts of family life. The inclusive moniker inevitably includes unwilling singletons such as senior citizens who outlive their spouses, lonely divorcees in their 40s or 50s, and young job hunters living alone.

The trend is already prevalent in the United States (where 27 percent of households have a single occupant), Sweden (where over 2 million are solo dwellers in a country of 9.5 million) and Japan (over 30 percent).

Here in Korea, a record-high and ever increasing proportion of 23.89 percent of all households are one-person abodes. In fact, 23.8 percent of men and 18.9 percent of women in their 20s will stay single until 45 if the present trends continue, according to Lee Sang-lim of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

“If the marriage rate of 2010 persists, one in four or five men and one in five or six women who are now in their 20s are expected to stay single,” said Lee.

A July study by Lee Eun-mi of the Samsung Economic Research Institute further posited that “the growth rate of the number of Korean one-person households is the fastest on the planet,” while by 2035, reported Statistics Korea, over one third, or over 7 million households in Korea, will be one-person homes.

Fundamental social changes that have rocked traditional Korean Confucian values have contributed to the rise in solo dwellers. Marriage, for example, is losing its status as an indispensable rite of passage among Koreans, especially women. In 2010, 39.4 percent of Seoul women thought they didn’t have to get married while 41.8 percent thought divorce was no longer a big no-no in Korean society. In the same year, 34 percent of Koreans over the age of 15 answered they were either indifferent to marriage or were outright against in a national survey conducted by Statistics Korea.

“I love the freedom in my life; the freedom to engage in hobbies, to develop myself. I went to China in 2011 for one year to learn the language. And after my work life ends, I plan to travel. That’s all I want in retirement,” said 46 year-old Kim Na-young, a 15-year veteran of the single life and divorcee living in Seoul.

“I see no particular reason to get married again.”

The rising divorce rate among even elderly couples, who have lived through times when divorce was an enormous social taboo in Korea, has also been a factor in the increase of singletons. In 1991, 978 senior couples divorced after having shared a home for more than two decades. By 2012, the figure had increased six-fold to 6,062.

But it’s not all about not getting married or getting a happy (or unhappy) divorce. Being a singleton means a lot more.

Leaving the bathroom door open while taking a shower, cooking in the kitchen naked, and taking the liberty to make the living room another bedroom are luxuries only some can enjoy.

“I think the most enjoyable part of living alone is that I don’t have to worry about the things other people in the home might say. I can leave the bathroom door open and I can sleep with only my underwear on,” said Han Se-sik, a 23 year-old college student living alone in Seoul.

David Song, a 34 year-old writer, told The Korea Herald his love for go-it-alone activities such as reading convinced him that going solo was the right thing to do.

“I’ve always been a ‘self-person’ so to speak, and perhaps that’s why I’ve never been that lonely living alone.”

Owning an exclusive living space, however, is not pure glamour, as may have been the case in Ancient Rome. Better healthcare means longer lives in the 21st century, which in turn implies that more spouses are sending off their lifelong partners to the next world and living alone for ten or twenty extra years.

In the most recent national census conducted in 2010, over 1.06 million senior citizens (or over 23 percent of all one-person households) over the age of 65 lived alone. By 2035, Statistics Korea estimates that 1.5 million men and women over 70 will be living in solitude.

Unlike many of their younger counterparts, though, aging singletons must cope with financial, healthcare, and psychological issues. Because close to 40 percent of current senior singletons never attended school while another 37.5 percent only attended elementary school, they face great difficulty finding jobs that will finance their daily lives. Not to mention the loneliness senior citizens can face as they live out their remaining days.

South Korea took the unenvied top spot in elderly suicides in the OECD in 2012 with 81.8 per 100,000 people between the ages of 65 and 74 taking their own lives, while a staggering 160 per 100,000 of those aged over 74 committed suicide.

Younger singletons have their own worries.

“When I get sick, there is no easy solution,” admitted Song, while Lee, a 36-year-old working female, said she worries about home robberies targeting single women like herself. “I pretend as best I can that there is someone else in the home when I order food, or meet a delivery guy at the front door.”

Kim Seo-hee, a 26 year-old female singleton living in Seoul, admitted there had been an occurrence in which an unknown male had followed her home.

“I have been scared many times while living alone. During nights, I get sensitive a lot and wake up at the slightest of sounds,” she said.

And then, there are the other implications of singledom Korea must face ― fewer babies, for instance.

“Even having children is considered a spec,” said Park Keong-suk, professor of sociology at Seoul National University, in reference to the overheated credential-focused job hunting environment for Korea’s 20-somethings.

“It’s not that everyone is avoiding marriage or trying out new lifestyles by living alone ... Living alone is rather one of the many by-products of today’s economic difficulties, insecure future and hardships in finding the right person to live with ... There are many who just simply give up trying to marry.”

Whatever the causes, fewer marriages mean fewer babies, contributing to an extremely low birth rate. Right now, Korea’s fertility rate stands at 1.3, a slight improvement from 2005 when it stood at 1.076. A declining birth rate would strain pension funds, to which younger generations must pay taxes, while at the same time aggravating manpower shortages in the private sector, the public sector, and even the military.

Park cautioned that Korea was ill-prepared for the increasing number of singles.

“I think it’s a paradox. Korea is still, at the moment, a communal society more or less. But there are increasing numbers of people who are feeling lonely, and increasing numbers of those who are trying to live it out alone, meaning more single households and a lower fertility rate” she said.

“But we aren’t prepared for this big change.”

By Chun Sung-woo, Jeong Hunny (swchun@heraldcorp.comhj257@heraldcorp.com)

1127-Uncertain Future for Historic Seoul Building

• By Jeyup S. Kwaak

Space Group

The Space Group building in Seoul.

Space Group’s four-story studio in downtown Seoul is no ordinary property, which is why the architecture firm’s decision to sell the building earlier this year was met with fierce opposition.

The structure was designed by Kim Swoo Geun, one of South Korea’s first modern architects. Its admirers consider it to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the capital. They fear it could be modified or demolished by a private buyer looking to turn it into office or retail space.

Mr. Kim, whose other designs include the main stadium for the 1988 Summer Olympics and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, used the building as his studio from its construction in 1971 to his death 15 years later. Since then, his protégés have run the company he founded, Space Group.

The current director is Lee Sang Leem, who decided to put the building up for sale after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

Space Group

The building was put up for sale after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

At a press conference this week, the Kim Swoo Geun Foundation, which commemorates Mr. Kim and promotes arts in the country, said the Seoul municipal government must buy the property and open it to the general public. More than 100 artists have signed a petition in support of the proposal.

Mr. Lee said he will only sell to a buyer who promises to keep the building intact. “I feel as passionately about this as anyone else,” he said.

A government official said the city had planned to buy the property in April but council members later voted against the purchase, citing a lack of funds. The official said the city government was no longer considering an acquisition.

This week, Mr. Lee told The Wall Street Journal that a ballpark figure for the 1,018 square meters of land and 1,577 square meters of floor space was 15 billion won ($14.1 million). Getting that price would help his company recover from a squeeze that pushed him to put the property up for sale in the first place, he said.

Space Group

Artists have signed a petition in support of a proposal for the Seoul government to purchase the building.

The company was accepting bids from buyers Thursday, but it didn’t receive an offer. Mr. Lee’s son, Lee Choong-hun, who is an assistant manager at Space Group, said three potential bidders showed up but they all left without making an offer.

He said they were worried about the negative publicity the proposed sale had generated. He didn’t name the three parties.

From a business standpoint, the property isn’t an attractive investment, two property developers said. The low ceilings and labyrinthine layout of the building and its annexes would make alternate use difficult without making structural adjustments. A height restriction is also in place due to the proximity to Changdeokgung, a royal palace and Unesco World Heritage Site.

The Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea says it will decide early next month whether to add the building to a list of national heritage sites. But even that wouldn’t guarantee its survival, as South Korean law states that buildings less than 50 years old don’t receive complete protection, a spokesman from the administration said.

Space Group

1126-Loeb Bets on Son’s Leadership at SoftBank

By 
• KANA INAGAKI
 
• CONNECT

Daniel Loeb‘s latest bet on SoftBank Corp. indicates the U.S. hedge fund investor’s confidence in billionaire founder Masayoshi Son‘s ability to deliver more synergies between the firm’s diverse Internet and mobile businesses.

Bloomberg News

The leadership of CEO Masayoshi Son at SoftBank Corp. has inspired the confidence of Daniel Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund.

Third Point LLC has a $1 billion position in SoftBank, according to a fund spokeswoman, who confirmed remarks made by Mr. Loeb on Thursday at an investor conference in New York.

It remains unclear when he made the investment, but Third Point was not among SoftBank’s biggest shareholders with a stake of more than 1% as of the end of September. SoftBank’s market value stood at $94 billion on Thursday. The stock has already gone up 29% since the end of August and added another 2.9% at the open of the Tokyo stock market Friday.

A person close to Third Point said Mr. Loeb finds SoftBank’s “multiple portfolio” attractive, referring to Mr. Son’s 35% stake in Web portal Yahoo Japan Corp., a majority stake in GungHo Online Entertainment Inc., and a 36.7% stake in China’s top online retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Mr. Son has also made a big push into the U.S. market through July’s $21.6 billion acquisition of U.S. telecommunications carrier Sprint Corp. Considering the company’s growth potential especially with Alibaba, Mr. Loeb views SoftBank shares as being undervalued, the person added.

Mr. Loeb also met with Mr. Son and was impressed by his leadership and vision, according to the person. It’s unclear when the meeting took place, but Mr. Loeb visited Japan in early October.

The U.S. hedge fund has been active in the Japanese market with Mr. Loeb bullish on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policies.

Third Point also made an investment in Sony Corp. and called unsuccessfully for a partial spin-off of its entertainment business.

So far, Mr. Loeb’s stake in SoftBank appears to be a pure investment and he has not sent out any letters to SoftBank calling for any changes, according to the person.

How long Mr. Loeb will remain invested in SoftBank is an open-ended question, but he’s certainly not the only one betting on the company’s future. The stock has soared 161% so far this year and it’s a favorite pick for many institutional and retail investors.

Brad Frischkorn contributed to this item.

1125-Expressive writing heals wound more quickly

Expressive writing can help people recover more quickly from physical injuries, reported Medical Daily Friday. Older adults who had undergone a biopsy were able to heal more quickly if they wrote about traumatic events and their emotions relating to those events, than other biopsy patients who simply wrote about daily activities, according to the study. “Writing about personally distressing events can speed wound healing in [an older] population that is at risk of poor healing,” said Elizabeth Broadbent, senior lecturer in health psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, according to Time. The study reviewed 49 overall healthy adults, ages 64 to 97, who were all assigned to write for 20 minutes per day for three consecutive days. Half of these patients were asked to “write about the most traumatic/upsetting experience in their life, delving into their deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the event, ideally not previously shared with others,” while the other half were required to “write about their daily activities for tomorrow, without mentioning emotions, opinions, or beliefs.” Two weeks after writing, the researchers took small skin biopsies, which left wounds on all the participants’ arms. These wounds were photographed to mark the healing progress. Broadbent found that 76 percent of those who had written about difficult events in an expressive manner had fully healed 11 days after the biopsies, while 42 percent of the other group had. “We think writing about distressing events helped participants make sense of the events and reduce distress,” Broadbent told Scientific American.

1122-The end of libraries?

By Yoon Min-sik

Friendly librarians mill around towering bookshelves, with the smell of newly printed books and dusty paperbacks in the air. The traditional image of a library is of a place to study, read books and hang out at a leisurely pace. 

With the emergence of the digital age, however, people are turning away from traditional libraries. 

According to Statistics Korea, a Korean household spent an average of 19,026 won a month on books in 2012, down from 20,570 won the year before. It marked the first time since 2003 that the figure fell below 20,000 won.

Last year also saw the smallest number of newly published books in 12 years, at 86.9 million volumes. 

The implication is ominous: People are reading far less than before. To cope with the harsh reality, Korean libraries are embracing digital platforms to win their old users back. 

“Data from 2009 showed that out of seven major cities in South Korea, Incheon ranked last in the percentage of people who have read at least one book in a year, and fifth in total number of books that citizens read,” Son Myeong-Hee, an official from the Incheon Metropolitan City Library Association, told The Korea Herald. The seven major cities are Korea’s most populated metropolises.

“Incheon Metropolitan government recognized the problem with such poor reading habits, and launched the ‘Reading City Incheon’ project,” Son said. 

The project is centered on the E-book Digital Library System, which provides Incheon citizens access to e-books anywhere, anytime. The e-book lending system works in two ways. Users can download the Reading City Incheon app to read e-books or they can find one of 23 “Smart Library” machines, swipe the QR code and “borrow” an e-book on their mobile devices.

“Since we introduced the E-book Electronic Library System, the average number of books read by Incheon citizens rose from 1.4 books a month to 1.72 books. On an average day, 397 people borrow 682 e-books,” Son said.

While Incheon’s e-book lending system focuses on offering easy access to books, the state-run National Library of Korea emphasized the aspect of collecting and preserving information when establishing their own version of a digital library.

Since its opening in 2009, the digital library saw an increasing number of users each year, from 165,898 in 2009 to 217,640 last year. Its offline counterpart, on the other hand, had its ups and downs.

It is basically a digital version of the National Library of Korea, a repository of online and offline documents in South Korea. But it has the advantage as it allows users to find information with a few clicks. Another merit of the digital library is the three-dimensional images of ancient rare books, which anyone can access and are hardly ever made public in hard copy.

“We have digitized 91,256 of our 270,000 ancient books, some of which are kept away completely from the public eye, namely national treasures like Dongui Bogam,” said Cho Su-yeon, an official from the NLK’s public relations team. Dongui Bogam refers to a medical encyclopedia written by royal physician Heo Jun during the Joseon Dynasty.

While the NLK and IMLA turn analog content into digital format, Naver Library 1 is a perfect example of a company putting digital content into analog format. 

Naver, the operator of Korea’s most-widely used Internet portal, opened the design-and IT-themed facility in 2010. The offline library boasts some 24,000 books on IT and design from 29 countries, attracting tech-savvy readers. 

Except for a few exceptions, the broader direction is toward digitalization. Professor Lee Jong-moon of the Department of Library & Information Science at Kyungsung University told The Korea Herald that the trend of digitization of libraries and books will quicken its pace in the future.

“For two reasons: it is economical and more convenient. E-books are easier to create and distribute, and are more accessible to readers because they can be read in a networked environment,” Lee said. 

Despite the gloomy outlook, physical libraries will continue to function, he said. The key would be whether libraries can secure their expertise in filtering useful information and providing guidelines. 

Many of the wooden shelves will be turned into digital bits and bytes, but libraries are likely to carry out important roles, only in a different fashion.

“From ancient times to modern society, libraries have always undergone restructuring. As paradigms (of reading) change, libraries will not fade away but will keep on changing themselves,” Lee said.

1021-To Persuade People, Tell Them a Story

Narrative Is a Powerful Way to Get a Message Across.

By 
• DENNIS NISHI

Paul Smith had 20 minutes to sell the CEO of Procter & Gamble, and his team of managers, on new market-research techniques for which Mr. Smith's department wanted funding. As associate director ofP&G's market research, Mr. Smith had spent three weeks assembling a concise pitch with more than 30 PowerPoint slides.

On the day of the meeting, CEO A.G. Lafley entered the room, greeted everybody and turned his back to the screen. He then stared intently at Mr. Smith throughout the entire presentation, not once turning to look at a slide.

"I felt like maybe I hadn't done a very good job because he wasn't looking at my slides like everyone else," says Mr. Smith, who also noticed that the other managers didn't seem very engaged. "It didn't occur to me until later that he did that because he was more interested in what I had to say than in what my slides looked like."

The experience prompted Mr. Smith to alter his approach. These days, he uses far fewer slides and a lot more anecdotes, turning his presentations into stories his audience can relate to instead of lecturing them on what needs changing. As a result, Mr. Smith says, he's subsequently had much greater success getting his ideas across. In four subsequent presentations to Mr. Lafley and his team, they've followed along more closely, asked more questions and given better feedback, says Mr. Smith.

Even with digital and social-media tools, employees often struggle to convey ideas to each other, to managers and to customers. That's why companies such as FedEx, Kimberly-Clark and Microsoft are teaching executives to tell relatable stories as a way to improve workplace communication.

It's a tool that's more useful than PowerPoint presentations, say career experts, who note that storytelling can also be used on a day-to-day basis to sell ideas to one person or a hundred. But being an effective storyteller requires preparation.

Move beyond facts and figures, which aren't as memorable as narratives, says Cliff Atkinson, a communications consultant from Kensington, Calif., and author of "Beyond Bullet Points."

Many people in business think raw data is persuasive. But when you're dealing with people from other departments and in different fields who don't understand how you got that data, you can lose them pretty quickly.

"You have to step back and put yourself into their shoes and take them through the process of understanding," says Mr. Atkinson. "That requires you to distill the most important facts and wrap them in an engaging story."

Find ways to connect with your audience on an emotional level, says Mr. Atkinson. Neuroscientists have discovered that most decisions—whether people realize it or not—are informed by emotional responses. Do some legwork to find significant events in your audience's lives or your own that you can base your story on or use to reinforce your points, he says.

This can include dropping in anecdotes about taking care of a sick family member or a memorable customer story, says Mr. Smith, now a corporate trainer and author of "Lead With a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire."

Mr. Smith's book mentions a story told by a single mother to P&G about the trade-offs that she made to support her children. Her experiences, more than anything else that year, convinced P&G executives to lower their price on shortening.

Mr. Atkinson suggests organizing your story into three acts and starting by establishing context. You want to let your audience know who the main characters are, what the background of the story is, and what you'd like to accomplish by telling it, he says. You might open, for example, by describing a department that's consistently failed to meet sales goals.

Move on to how your main character—you or the company—fights to resolve the conflicts that create tension in the story, Mr. Atkinson says. Success may require the main character to make additional capital investments or take on new training. Provide real-world examples and detail that can anchor the narrative, he advises.

The ending should inspire a call to action, since you are allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions about your story versus just telling them what to do. Don't be afraid to use your own failures in support of your main points, says Mr. Smith.

Whatever you do, don't preface your story with an apology or ask permission to tell it. Be confident that your story has enough relevance to be told and just launch into it, says Mr. Smith. Confidence and authority, he says, help to sell the idea to your audience.

1120-Amazon's Greatest Weapon: Jeff Bezos's Paranoia

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By 
• FARHAD MANJOO

Let me ask you to do something scary: Imagine you're Jeff Bezos and you've just spent the morning studying your retail empire. How do you feel? Do you brim with confidence? Or do you harbor profound, unshakable paranoia about the rivals storming your gates?

I'm betting you're paranoid. Indeed, I suspect your paranoia explains the frenzy of expansion that has gripped Amazon.comInc. over the past few years, from its new effort to launch Sunday delivery to its move into grocery service to providing instant, face-to-face technical support on the Kindle Fire.

What could Mr. Bezos possibly have to fear? Impermanence. Mr. Bezos is in an industry, retail sales, in which every innovation is instantly pored over and copied, in which (thanks partly to him) margins are constantly driven to zero, and in which customers are governed by passing fancy and whim. Being online confers fantastic advantages to Amazon, but it also comes at a deep cost: Very little about its business is burned into customers' minds.

Hence, frenzy: Amazon is in a race to embed itself into the fabric of world-wide commerce in a way that would make it indispensable to everyone's shopping habits—and to do so before its rivals wise up to its plans.

The Sunday-shipping plan illustrates its M.O. The plan calls for spending every available resource to build a massively imposing shopping platform that rewires the key feature of modern commerce, from servers to shipping to customer service to marketing. Indeed, when you consider many of its recent efforts, including its $600 million contract to store the CIA's data, it is more useful to think of Amazon as a global infrastructure company rather than a shopping site—more like Maersk thanMacy's.

Through this platform, the company hopes to become integral and unavoidable for all your shopping, even for stuff sold by other companies. And then, perhaps, it will begin to make real money.

Amazon's deal with the U.S. Postal Service to ship items on Sundays is just a small piece of this plan, but it's a shining example of the grand strategy. Over the past two years, the company has rapidly expanded its operations so that it can deliver items faster. In the past, in an effort to escape collecting state sales taxes from most customers, the company set up a handful of big warehouses in low-cost states from which it shipped items to the rest of the country.

Then Mr. Bezos changed the game. In deals with states that gave him temporary tax breaks, Mr. Bezos dropped his sales-tax opposition and instead began to build warehouses everywhere, including many that are close to big cities. Bringing items closer to customers let Amazon lower its shipping costs, making up for the perceived bump in prices due to sales tax. The new warehouses also made for much faster shipping, including, in some cities, same-day service.

Sunday delivery—which the company will offer at no extra cost to shoppers—continues this effort, and will likely inspire just the kind of delight that sends Amazon loyalists gushing to their friends. This delight is a key piece of the plan. By ferociously outspending rivals, Amazon can offer consumers a level of service that constantly surprises us—and that pushes everyone else in the business to spend just as much to compete.

Here's a case in point: Not long ago, when I tried to return a too-large, $13 pair of sweatpants I bought from the site, I was presented with this amazing message: "As a valued customer, you don't need to return this item to get a refund." In other words, having calculated my value as a customer and the probability that return shipping would cost the company more than the item was worth, Amazon was willing to take a loss on the sale.

The Postal Service deal also points out the canny way that Amazon is attempting to commodify the consumer shipping industry. By helping to prop up the struggling USPS, Amazon is preserving competition forFedEx Corp. and United Parcel ServiceInc.; if Sunday shipping proves popular enough for other retailers to adopt it, those private shipping giants might be forced to offer it, too.

But that is just the first piece. Amazon's larger goal is to co-opt these shippers into its own shopping platform—to make Amazon, and not UPS or FedEx, the brand that businesses think of when they want to ship items to customers. Shoppers might not notice it, but many of the products on Amazon.com aren't actually sold by Amazon itself; instead, these items are being sold by other companies who have contracted with Amazon to market, store, pack, and ship their wares. That is, instead of setting up separate deals with shippers, smaller retailers just go to Amazon.

By some estimates, Amazon's sales of these third-party goods now exceeds sales of its own goods. Because Amazon collects a commissions on these sales—and because its marginal costs to service the sales are small, since it is using infrastructure that it has already built for itself—the company earns more on many third-party sales than it does for sales on its own goods.

This sets up a nice set of network effects for the company: Third-party items expand Amazon's selection, which attracts more consumers to its site, which in turn makes Amazon more attractive for other third-party sellers. At the same time, as Amazon claims more third-party sellers, more customers and more sales, it wins further leverage over shippers like UPS and FedEx, further driving down its infrastructure costs-which, once again, feeds greater sales. It wouldn't be crazy to guess that at some point, third-party sales will become Amazon's main business, with its own goods just a slice of a much larger company that is mostly about e-commerce infrastructure, not e-commerce itself.

None of this answers the key questions plaguing the firm: Can it eventually make money on this plan? And, if so, how much? There is a ferocious debate about this among Amazon-watchers, though the real answer, clearly, is that no one knows. But if you like to buy things, you're sure to benefit from Mr. Bezos's paranoia.

1119-Google prevails in long-running book digitization case

A US judge Thursday threw out a long-running challenge to Google's massive book-scanning project in a decision that could transform copyright law in the digital age.

Federal Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case which dates back to 2005, saying Google's project is "fair use" under copyright law because it provides vital educational and other public benefits.

In a 28-page decision, Chin said the Google program, dubbed the "Library Project," preserves books, gives "new life" to forgotten editions, sustains "print-disabled" users and benefit authors and publishers by finding them new readers.

"In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits," Chin wrote. "Indeed, all society benefits."

The Authors Guild, one of the original plaintiffs in the case, vowed an appeal, saying the decision runs counter to copyright standards.

"This case presents a fundamental challenge to copyright that merits review by a higher court," said Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken.

"Google made unauthorized digital editions of nearly all of the world's valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from displaying those works. In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the bounds of fair use defense."

Google hailed Thursday's ruling.

"This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today's judgement," a Google spokesperson said.

"As we have long said Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow."

The case centers on a Google program started in 2004 to create an electronic database of books that could be searchable by keywords.

Google has scanned more than 20 million books so far in the project. Books in the public domain -- without current copyrights -- are made available online to the public for free. For copyrighted books, Google offers a searchable database that displays snippets of text.

Google argued that the Library Project creates new information and new insights. The program "has been used to analyze the evolution of the American novel and how word usage reflects changes in American society and values," Google said in a legal brief.

But the Authors Guild, who were joined in  the litigation by three authors, had argued Google violated the rights of authors by scanning works without obtaining approval from the authors.

The Authors Guild had argued that Google's objectives were purely commercial in that the main goal in the endeavor is to boost use of its search engine, which generates advertising revenue.

But Chin concluded that Google's use of the copyrighted works is "highly transformative" in that it enables readers, scholars and others to find out about new books and permits book text to be transformed "for purposes of substantive research, including data mining and text mining... thereby opening up new fields of research."

While Chin acknowledged that Google is a for-profit entity, he noted that Google does not sell the scans of the books or the snippets or "engage in the direct commercialization of copyrighted works."

"The fact is that Google Books serves several important educational purposes," the judge wrote.

The decision was also praised by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, whose members include Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung and other technology companies.

"This ruling is a vindication for transformative technologies online," said Matt Schruers, CCIA's vice president for law and policy.

Schruers said the ruling, if upheld on appeal, could encourage social media companies and others to compete with Google on a similar project using published content, and would generally encourage more investment from parties interested in "transformative" use of content who might be fearful of stringent copyright enforcement.

"Investors are going to be far likelier to invest in digital media services," Schruers said.

Librarians also hailed the ruling.

The decision "enables the discovery of a wealth of resources by researchers and scholars," said Trevor Dawes, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Google and US publishing firms announced a settlement last year in the case, leaving the Authors Guild to pursue the lawsuit.

A tentative settlement in the case was reached in 2008 under which Google would pay $125 million to resolve copyright claims and to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry." But the court rejected the deal. (AFP)

1118-Lego caught up in blame game

Lego’s headquarters in Denmark and its Korean subsidiary are passing the responsibility to each other over complaints here that the prices of its toys sold to Korean consumers are too high.

Lego has been drawing criticism for setting “higher-than-normal” prices for its product in Korea. For instance, the Lion CHI Temple, a popular toy, is priced at 198,000 won ($186.32) in Korea, 63 percent higher than in France.

The question is who sets the prices of toys sold in global markets and by what standards.

Lego Korea says it only follows a pricing policy set by its parent firm. However, the Lego Group claims pricing is up to its local units.

“The Lego Group does not set the price of Lego products anywhere in the world and that is our global policy,” the group’s Press Chief Roar Rude Trangbaek told The Korea Times in an e-mail. “There are suggested retail prices in all markets, which can vary from market to market depending on a range of factors.”

“The suggested retail price is as it states, a suggestion, and the price Lego products sell for in our own channels,” the official added.

Lego Korea however said pricing is not its responsibility. A Lego Korea official said the Korean unit cannot decide on the prices but only provide the necessary information about pricing to headquarters.

“The head office decides the prices of toys sold in global markets based on the business situation in each country and the size of local toy market,” the official said.

Critics say they can’t understand why Lego toys should be sold so expensively because it doesn’t operate any shops for direct sale to Korean consumers. Korean consumers can buy Lego toys only through its online store and partner shops.

It also doesn’t run a direct after-service center, which means those who bought Lego toys overseas can’t receive repair and exchange services in Korea.

“I believe Lego is passing the burden of high marketing costs to consumers. That’s why their products are expensive here,” a source in the toy industry said.

“Lego allegedly accounts for half of the plastic toy market in Korea. Korean toy firms find it hard to survive in this situation.”

The toy firm has 29 offices internationally including China, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea in Asia, however, Korea is the only country where the Lego runs a direct online mall among Asian countries.

1115-Pollutants from China

Pollutants from China

People are feeling increasingly uneasy about toxic smog that reaches the Korean Peninsula, brought here by northwesterly winds from China. According to the National Institute of Environmental Research, the number of days in which the concentration of PM2.5, fine particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, exceeds the acceptable level of 100 micrograms per cubic meter for more than 12 hours reached 19 this year, compared with three last year. In late October, this particulate matter concentration was three to four times that of normal levels, eclipsing our efforts to improve air quality so far.

The smog in China is its worst in 52 years, and the pollution problem will get worse when Chinese power plants begin burning coal in earnest for heating during the approaching wintertime. As part of its efforts to ease contamination levels, the world’s second-largest economy is poised to stop operating factories, introduce flexible working hours and suspend some school days.

While it’s generally learned that the smog crosses the West Sea and reaches the peninsula, Beijing denies that Seoul’s increased concentration of fine particles has been caused by the smog from China. But scientists have confirmed that air contaminants from China blanketed the peninsula through satellites, noting that about 30-50 percent of pollution is attributed to the smog from China.

More worrisome is that smog contains toxic heavy metals such as lead and cadmium and ultrafine particles. These most hazardous substances cannot be filtered by the bronchial tubes and directly enter the lungs where they can cause pneumonia.

This perilous process can’t go on any longer, and the government needs to address the problem more aggressively. Still, our anti-pollution responses leave much to be desired. The Korea Meteorological Administration has been issuing alerts on fine particles in the metropolitan area since August, but the nationwide forecast will begin only next year. What’s most disheartening is that the alert system for ultrafine particles will be established as late as early 2015, which means that the public has no alternative but to remain defenseless to the ''air raids’’ arriving from China.

While it’s true there are no easy solutions, the only viable option to the cross-border pollution problem will be strengthening international coordination. Given that Japan is similarly threatened by the smog from China, it’s imperative that Seoul and Tokyo join forces to pressure Beijing to provide accurate information and take measures to curtail air pollutants. China, in particular, should shake off its half-hearted attitude and take a forward-looking stance regarding its responsibilities as a major source of air pollution.

1113-Career Makeover: Stepping Up to Lead

How can people change their reputation at work, once they feel they've been pigeonholed? Sue Shellenbarger and executive Lisa Gable take a look at how an employee can successfully change his or her image. Photo: Melissa Golden for The Wall Street Journal.

It is easy to get pigeonholed at work. Finding a way out is another story.

Becky Johnson, 30, shook off her old identity as a deferential helper and took on an expanded role at her organization. Here's how she did it.

The Problem: A loyal follower needed to become more of a leader.

Ms. Johnson, a former Commerce Department staffer, was hired by Lisa Gable as project coordinator in 2009 to help her start a foundation. As the organization grew from 16 to 250 members, Ms. Gable promoted Ms. Johnson three times, to senior director, and started asking her to fill in for her in meetings and conference calls with the corporate chief executives who lead the group, the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, a coalition of food, beverage, restaurant and other companies and groups aiming to reduce obesity.

Enlarge Image

Becky Johnson, right, was asked by her boss, Lisa Gable, left, to take on a leadership role at their Washington, D.C., foundation. Melissa Golden for The Wall Street Journal

But Ms. Johnson, 30, lacked the presence and air of authority needed to command a room. In conference calls, "I'd turn to her and say, 'Becky, what do you think?' And she'd be startled," says Ms. Gable, the foundation's president. If Ms. Gable asked Ms. Johnson to run a meeting in her absence, she deferred decision-making until Ms. Gable returned. "I needed her to learn how to speak up," Ms. Gable says, "to embrace the fact that she was no longer just a participant. It was time to be a driver."

Ms. Johnson had essentially pigeonholed herself. In her previous job as deputy scheduling director for former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, being a loyal staffer meant staying behind the scenes, orchestrating events. Her job, she says, was to help her boss "look as good as possible. The story is never about you." She had built a mental "barrier, a line in the sand," against taking the spotlight.

At the Washington, D.C.-based foundation, she developed website content and oversaw the launch of a school curriculum on exercise and nutrition. But she hadn't made the mental shift from working in a bureaucracy where rank is explicit to helping run an entrepreneurial organization with four full-time and three part-time employees and a boss intent on stretching her skills. "Getting past my perspective on rank was the biggest" roadblock, she says.

The Solution: Rethinking the meaning of "loyalty."

Becky Johnson says a turning point was realizing she could be both loyal and assertive. Melissa Golden for The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Gable asked executive coach Michele Woodward to work with Ms. Johnson earlier this year on developing leadership. Ms. Johnson says she wasn't surprised, given that her boss often talked about the value of coaching.

During the coaching, Ms. Woodward realized Ms. Johnson was deferring to her boss out of loyalty. "Structure and respect for authority had become a real hallmark for her," says Ms. Woodward, also of Washington. "She didn't want to be disloyal to a CEO she admired very much by stepping on her toes."

Ms. Woodward told her that learning to stand in for Ms. Gable would be an act of loyalty, because it would help her reach the foundation's goals. That was a turning point, Ms. Johnson says. Once she understood "this is what's expected of me, and this is what I need to do, that aligns your whole value system with the job at hand."

Personality tests helped Ms. Johnson see that her introverted style, coupled with her training as a staffer, made her hesitant to speak up when working with large groups. Spending more time preparing for meetings would increase her confidence and make it easier, Ms. Woodward told her. She also realized she would mesh better with more outgoing colleagues if she was more assertive in meetings and updated them more often on her work.

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The Implementation: Ms. Woodward coached Ms. Johnson to strike a more authoritative stance, straightening her shoulders and making eye contact. In meetings, taking a seat near the middle of the table, rather than in the corner, would signal that she intended to take part. When speaking to others around the table, pointing her toes toward the person she was addressing would automatically square her shoulders to face the listener, Ms. Woodward said.

Ms. Johnson made the same changes in her posture when talking on the phone, she says. "When you have a more commanding presence physically, you feel even more prepared to speak up," she says. She likens it to "having a little more swagger when you go into a meeting."

Ms. Woodward also urged her to swap her classic pantsuits and button-down shirts for more stylish clothing, "so that you look the part of chief of staff, you look like a CEO—like somebody who owns the room." Ms. Johnson bought a few dresses and gold bangle bracelets that "add a little more excitement" than her customary silver jewelry, she says. The clothes helped her feel she is "getting more polish and stepping up to more of a leadership role."

The Outcome: Ms. Johnson is running more meetings for her boss and making decisions on the spot. Ms. Gable says "she is much more self-confident. She is putting her ideas forward without any hesitancy." Ms. Gable says Ms. Johnson is briefing board members during conference calls with confidence.

When Ms. Gable was asked in a recent meeting to describe a school project that had won one of the foundation's grant competitions, Ms. Johnson spoke up to explain how the school involved parents. Later, Ms. Gable says, she told her, "That was an amazing point. I'm so glad you raised it."

Ms. Gable is so pleased with the outcome of the coaching that she recently sent Ms. Woodward an email: "I don't know what you've done with Becky, but thank you so much. It's awesome."

For her part, Ms. Johnson says she is grateful to be working "with a boss who looks for opportunities for growth for all of her employees." Last week, Ms. Johnson was promoted to vice president.

—Have you felt pigeonholed in your career and broken out? Send your story tosue.shellenbarger@wsj.com.