Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Two U.S. Terrorism Cases Have Ties To Pakistan : NPR
Two terrorism cases now winding their way through the federal court system have links to Pakistan: One involves a Chicago businessman who stands accused of helping plot the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, India. The other case is in Miami, where two local imams and several family members were charged with allegedly providing money and support to the Pakistani Taliban. Both cases come at a time when the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is under intense scrutiny.
Two U.S. Terrorism Cases Have Ties To Pakistan : NPR
Two U.S. Terrorism Cases Have Ties To Pakistan : NPR
Mumbai Attacks Accused Rana on Trial in Chicago
Anchor Marco Werman talks with senior ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella about the trial in Chicago of Tahawwur Rana in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Rotella has written extensively on this case in the Washington Post.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why don't we love our intellectuals? | Books | The Observer
Why don't we love our intellectuals? | Books | The Observer: "While France celebrates its intelligentsia, you have to go back to Orwell and Huxley to find British intellectuals at the heart of national public debate. Why did we stop caring about ideas? When did 'braininess' become a laughing matter?
Who are our great, neglected intellectuals?"
Who are our great, neglected intellectuals?"
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Gold in them bins image - 'Demanufacturing' e-waste for profit (photos) - CNET News
A small recycling company focuses on responsible electronics disposal by dismantling everything and pulling out high-value materials, including precious metals, in all manner of electronics.
This slideshow will show the operations of Metech Recycling in Worcester, Mass, which is an e-Stewards-certified recycler. That means all the material is handled in the U.S. and processed by a network of audited scrap handlers. Some companies have invested in high-tech automation to sort and shred e-waste, but Metech manually takes things apart which allows them to deliver a uniform product to metal smelters.
See related article, "Where electronics go to die, responsibly."
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
Executive Summaries - Harvard Business Review
The Wise Leader
Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi
Many leaders find it difficult to reinvent their corporations rapidly enough to cope with new technologies, demographic shifts, and consumption trends. They can’t develop truly global organizations that operate effortlessly across borders. And they find it tough to ensure that their people adhere to values and ethics. The authors assert that leaders must acquire practical wisdom, or what Aristotle called phronesis:experiential knowledge that enables people to make ethically sound judgments.
Wise leaders demonstrate six abilities:
(1) They make decisions on the basis of what is good for the organization and for society.
(2) They quickly grasp the essence of a situation and fathom the nature and meaning of people, things, and events.
(3) They provide contexts in which executives and employees can interact to create new meaning.
(4) They employ metaphors and stories to convert their experience into tacit knowledge that others can use.
(5) They exert political power to bring people together and spur them to act.
(6) They use apprenticeship and mentoring to cultivate practical wisdom in others.
How to Build Risk into Your Business Model
Karan Girotra and Serguei Netessine
To create value, companies typically focus on revenue, cost structure, and resource velocity. Improving those factors is the main focus of management literature. But all of them are vulnerable to sharp changes in demand and supply.
Companies can innovate their business models to reduce the impact of such swings. But they can also create value by adding some risk. For instance, more than 30 years ago Rolls-Royce identified a major pain point in the aircraft industry: maintenance of airplane engines. An engine breakdown grounds the plane while the airline pays for repair time and materials. So Rolls-Royce offered a service contract whereby the airline would pay for an engine’s flight hours rather than for time and materials. The new contract triggered a completely new value creation dynamic, because Rolls-Royce was motivated to improve its own products and maintenance processes.
Business model innovations are much cheaper than product and technology innovations, and they can be approached in a systematic way.
Extreme Productivity
Robert C. Pozen
Know your comparative advantage. Focus not on what you do best but on what your organization most needs from you—and don’t spend too much time on operational details.
It’s not the time you spend but the results you produce. Most executives put a huge amount of time into their jobs, assuming that more hours equal more value added. That’s too simplistic.
Think first, read or write second. Figure out your argument in advance; then jot down your four or five key points and write the concluding paragraph.
Prepare your plan, but be ready to change it. Arrive early for a speaking engagement in order to grasp the mood of your audience and tailor your speech accordingly.
Let others own their space. Instead of assigning detailed tasks, present general priorities and let your reports decide how to implement them.
Keep things short and simple. Routine meals, naps, and travel habits can save time, effort, and health.
How Will You Measure Your Life? - Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School’s Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In this article, he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity?
The answer to the first question comes from Frederick Herzberg’s assertion that the most powerful motivator isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute, and be recognized. That’s why management, if practiced well, can be the noblest of occupations; no others offer as many ways to help people find those opportunities. It isn’t about buying, selling, and investing in companies, as many think.
The principles of resource allocation can help people attain happiness at home. If not managed masterfully, what emerges from a firm’s resource allocation process can be very different from the strategy management intended to follow. That’s true in life too: If you’re not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you’re likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what’s really important to you.
And just as a focus on marginal costs can cause bad corporate decisions, it can lead people astray. The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. You don’t see the end result to which that path leads. The key is to define what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.
Primer on China’s Leadership Transition « Patrick Chovanec
The first and most important thing to understand about that political system is that it is composed of three parts. In the U.S., we have the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. In China there is the Party, the Army, and the State. Unlike in the U.S., where the three branches are co-equal and are specifically designed to check and balance each other’s powers, in China the Party is supreme and rules over the other two elements.
Friday, May 06, 2011
NPR Fresh Air
NPR Fresh Air
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
— Ira Glass (via nefffy)
You are NOT a Software Engineer!
Chris Aitchison posted "You are NOT a Software Engineer!" saying that you're a Software Gardener instead. An engineer knows what his output is supposed to be, a gardener works by gently tending his garden to a hoped-for result.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Inside bin Laden's Compound
WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF DEATH AND INJURY BELOW
Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.
The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
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