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Here are five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about succeeding in a commodity industry, a looming tech problem, picking the right technology, measuring human capital, and happiness.

From Forbes: The Man Who Made a Chicken Egg Glamorous
"Eggs have been a declining business. In the 1960s Americans ate an average of 365 of them a year. By the early 1990s that was down to 234. They are a highly commoditized industry, too, that doesn't have many apparent avenues for growth. Still, one company has bucked the trend and succeeded significantly. Charles Lanktree has been an executive of Eggland's Best since its founding in 1990, and he took the helm as chief executive officer in 1996."

Wally's Comment: Perhaps you eat eggs for breakfast. I often do. And perhaps you buy Eggland's Best. I do. But even if you don't like eggs, you'll like this story of how to compete in a commodity business. The interviewer asks Charles Lanktree that very question. I love his answer: "Avoid being a commodity."

The story of Lanktree and Eggland reminded me of another man who created a brand in what was a commodity business: Frank Perdue .

From Business Week: Big Tech Problem as Mainframes Outlast Workforce
"IBM and CA are hard-pressed to replace the aging corps of Baby Boomers who support their still-indispensable mainframe business."

Wally's Comment: Think of this as "Son of Y2K." Then we had Peter de Jager, whom I call "The Paul Revere of Y2K" to sound the alarm. He began with a classic article in ComputerWorld in 1993 titled "Doomsday 2000." Then he worked tirelessly to spread the word. The result was that the turn of the Millennium was a non-event as far as computers were concerned.

It could have been very different. In 1997, the Gartner Group estimated that 80 percent of the world's business ran on COBOL on mainframe computers. When Peter wrote his article, that language was incapable of handling dates in two centuries.

That's changed, but now we've got another crisis coming. The code works fine, but the people who've worked with it for decades are retiring.

From Workforce Management: The Wisdom of Choosing 'Good-Enough' HR Over 'World-Class' HR
"Name a segment of the HR and talent world, and it’s easy to find complex, overloaded solutions that confuse HR pros and, more important, the team members we support. Nowhere was this more apparent than the vendor floor at the SHRM 2010 annual conference."

Wally's Comment: If you're not in HR, don't pass this one by just because it has "HR" in the title. This is an article about choosing technology.

The premise is simple. Complex technology is not necessarily the best technology. For most people and businesses, most of the time, ease of use trumps sophisticated functions.

And just having the "best" gear doesn't mean you'll perform better. I learned that when I was a small boy.

There was a fishing contest in our town. I had a new fishing rod, so I was sure I would win. Alas, children who knew how to fish were the ones who did well.

For more on the issue, I suggest Ann Bares' post from last year: "HR Technology... Only as Good as the Underlying HR ".

From Fast Company: Report: Is Human Capital the New Venture Capital?
"How often do we hear about how many millions of dollars a startup raised in this round or that? Venture capital is likely the most oft-cited figure for measuring the potential for a new business' success, but research firm CB Insights aims to change that misconception in a new report measuring human capital--not venture capital. "

Wally's Comment: This piece is about the quest for a measurement of human capital. There's compelling logic to it all. People are the source of long term competitive advantage. That's why many businesses claim that "people are our most important asset."

But while we can measure all sorts of things about our buildings, machinery, and office equipment, there's no common measurement for people (except for professional athletes whose value can be depreciated). The Fast Company article addresses the issue in the context of a venture capitalist's search for a way to measure human potential in a start up.

For a look at the same issue in the area of talent management, read Erik Samdahl's excellent post, "Talent Management Metrics Get an 'F .'

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, searching for a way to measure human capital will help us identify and define key issues and elements. But we humans are easy prey to the "Illusion of False Concreteness" and willing to value any measurement expressed in numbers more than one expressed in words and one expressed to multiple decimal places most of all.

From the NY Times: But Will It Make You Happy?
"Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon. On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses."

Wally's Comment: Are we having fun yet?

This article looks at how we've begun behaving since the beginning of the recession and concludes that we're doing more of the things that make for real happiness. You'll find a nice, quick overview of some "happiness science" too.

For some additional reading, I suggest "A note from the boss," from Alexander Kjerulf, The Chief Happiness Officer. You may enjoy my post, "If you want to be happy" and there's value in almost anything on Gretchen Rubin's site, The Happiness Project.

Just for fun, you can read about a whole country that's trying to measure happiness on a national scale. The country is Bhutan. The article is from the NY Times: "A New Measure of Well-Being from a Happy Little Kingdom ."

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to check back on Wednesday when I select five excellent posts from the week's independent business blogs. Last week I highlighted posts on becoming a leader, results orientation (or not), making the most of your people time, sustainable business excellence, and creating a culture of fear .

And be sure to find out more about my latest book, Ruthless Focus: How to use key core strategies to grow your business or just jump right over to Amazon and buy a few.