challenge

Angela Haines: Girl Tech Inventors and Mentors!

by on June 2, 2011

Huffington Post…

HailNYC Team , credit C. Colon One night in May, the premises of AOL in downtown NYC vibrated with the chatty energy and nerves of 47 teenage girls from 17 local high schools getting ready to pitch their newly created apps to a group of four judges from the worlds of both technology and venture capital. The Technovation Challenge pitch night, the first on the East Coast, was the culmination of a nine week program, matching high school girls with high tech mentors from local industry and universities to create mobile phone app prototypes using Google’s App Inventor for Android. The teams met weekly for three hour sessions at Google ‘s New York offices. Early support for the program came from the U.S. Office of Naval Research seeking solutions to a crisis in recruiting sufficient tech savvy professionals. The winning team created a product called HailNYC to help both passengers and drivers find each other efficiently, so they can both navigate the city at a safer and faster rate. Both drivers and passengers open maps on their apps; passengers request a driver at a specific location which alerts drivers who consult maps with dots indicating locations of waiting passengers. Drivers then notify passengers that they are on the way. One member of the winning team, Sharnice Ottley, a senior at Boys and Girls High School, says the idea occurred to the team when they brainstormed the problems of getting around New York City. While Sharnice “jumped at the chance” to participate in the program, the process “really got our brains churning and showed us how to design our app. I learned, for example, that to make the graphics we had envisioned, we had to do a lot of math. This wasn’t the kind of chalk and talk education I am used to; besides creating technology, we had to do marketing research so we could come up with a good business plan.” Team mentor Tamar Shinar, a postdoctorate fellow at NYU’s Courant Institute , says that what surprised her was her team’s deep engagement in a process which was so different from their more passive, routine school work. She observes, “They showed an amazing amount of persistence and patience for three months to get to the end line.” Their victory gave all members of the winning team an Android Tablet, donated by Dell, along with an all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco a week later to participate in the national Technovation Challenge where they placed third, competing against five other wining teams. Technovation Challenge Founder, Anuranjita Tewary, currently a senior data scientist at Linked In , started the program two years ago after spending a weekend with a program called Startup Weekend which paired professionals for an intense weekend of bringing an idea to launch with a prototype. Despite her math and physics degree from MIT and a PhD in applied physics from Stanford, followed by good jobs at Microsoft and Ad Mob, Anu remained a successful scientist who had never considered she could start, or become CEO of, a company. The Startup Weekend, she says, “made me think if I had had this experience early on, my outlook on life would have been as different as I pursued my career.” So she left her job to develop the Technovation Program for underprivileged girls around the Bay Area, relying heavily on her network to bring in mentors, instructors and coaches for the girls. “I wanted to show these girls not to use computer science only as a tool, but to learn to program so they can create products that become tools.” Because she had little experience in the nonprofit world, Anu folded her program into Iridescent Learning , a nonprofit educational organization in Los Angeles founded by Tara Chklovski, an aerospace engineer and former school principal. Currently, Iridescent stimulates interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) for about 8,000 underprivileged students and their families with a number of programs, including Summer Engineering Boot Camp, Family Science Program and Science Studios in Los Angeles and New York. In her opening remarks at Pitch Night NYC, current executive director of Irisdescent , New York, Erika Allison, formerly a Dow engineer who has initiated several engineering programs for high school girls, told the assembled girls and their families that because there is a critical shortage of women in technology, the goal of the Challenge is to inspire girls to see themselves not just as users but as inventors and designers of technology. After the event, Erika admits, “I was completely blown away by all that these 47 girls mastered in just 12 weeks, along with the level of detail in both their apps and their business plans, including market research.” Another New York Technovation mentor, Vanessa Hurst, a database engineer for Paperless Post which provides customized formal invitations online, says since her days as a computer science major at the University of Virginia, she has been aware of the underrepresentation of women in computer science. Working with Technovation to develop an app that allows people to monitor their personal recycling habits, Vanessa was amazed “at how capable the girls were, but then how easily they got caught up in the tango of timidity so that no one wanted to step up, even when she had a great idea because she didn’t want to take the credit.” Vanessa continues, “Besides teaching the girls technical skills like programming and product design, the Challenge also provided a psychological journey for the girls to believe they can do anything.” For more on women entrepreneurs, visit www.wStartup.com .

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Angela Haines: Girl Tech Inventors and Mentors!

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Florida Workforce Agency Ends Program That Gave Superhero Capes To Jobless

by on April 20, 2011

Huffington Post…

A workforce agency in central Florida has ended a campaign to give superhero capes to the unemployed. Since its launch last week, the “Cape-A-Bility Challenge” faced intense media skepticism and an investigation from the statewide Agency for Workforce Innovation , which apparently considered the program a bit too innovative. In a Wednesday press release, Workforce Central Florida announced that it has “listened to the public” and will withdraw it’s “admittedly out-of-the-box creative campaign.” “Even though it seemed to offend some, it was the farthest thing from our intention which was to introduce our programs and services to job seekers and employers who need them,” the release said. “The decision was made today by our board leadership team in concern that the campaign may have been a little too out-of-the-box and missed the mark with such a broad audience.” The Associated Press reported that the job center spent more than $14,000 on 6,000 red capes as part of the campaign, which encouraged the unemployed to vanquish “Dr. Evil Unemployment,” a cartoon villain brandishing a pink slip. Cynthia Lorenzo, director of the state’s unemployment agency, reportedly called the spending “insensitive and wasteful.” The campaign included several photos, a comic strip, and a video on the central Florida agency’s website. The agency said the program had not been all bad news: “Fortunately, we’ve achieved some success in the short week-and-a-half the campaign has run, including new job postings online, new job candidates registered for services and an increase in usage of our website,” the release said. Dr. Evil Unemployment remains at large: The unemployment rate in Florida stands at 11.1 percent, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. Here’s a picture of the supervillain facing off with a Florida worker: HuffPost readers: Did you, or did someone you know, participate in the Cape-A-Bility Challenge? PLEASE tell us about it — email arthur@huffingtonpost.com .

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Florida Workforce Agency Ends Program That Gave Superhero Capes To Jobless

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Japan Plans Spending Package as Quake Slams World’s Most Indebted Economy

March 13, 2011

Prime Minister Naoto Kan, battling what he called Japan’s worst crisis since the end of World War II, plans a post-earthquake rebuilding package, a step that may worsen the challenge of curbing the world’s biggest public debt.

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USDJPY: Bulls Move to Challenge 83.00

March 11, 2011

USDJPY: Bulls Move to Challenge 83.00

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Video: Rendell Says `No Need’ to End Collective Bargaining

February 25, 2011

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) — Former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell talks about the challenge of cutting expenses and raising revenue to close government budget deficits at the state level, and the importance of collective bargaining and unions to the U.S. middle class. Wisconsin’s Assembly passed Governor Scott Walker’s limits on the collective-bargaining power of government workers’ unions, ending a debate that began Feb. 22, while Senate Democrats remained out of state to block the bill. Rendell speaks with Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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FXCM Announces the Winner of FXCM Automated Trading Challenge

December 13, 2010

FXCM Announces the Winner of FXCM Automated Trading Challenge

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Tom Morris: If Harry Potter Ran General Electric

December 5, 2010

How would Harry Potter run a major American company? Would he have any good suggestions about how you should run your life? After all, the most loved wizard of all time famously stood up to the most dangerous challenges of his day and prevailed magnificently. He must know something the rest of us could benefit from hearing. His exploits have been the inspiration of an entire generation, who sometimes even choose the colleges they will attend based on whose dining halls look most like Hogwarts. Today, the New York Times featured on the front page of their Business Day section, an article about General Electric, entitled ” G.E. Goes With What It Knows: Making Stuff .” Under a big picture of Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, a lead caption said: “Jeffrey Immelt, C.E.O. since 2000, has pared down General Electric to rely less on financial wizardry in its lending unit and more on physical products from the manufacturing divisions.” Jeff knows that not all wizardry should be leading the way forward. In fact, it was his sensibility, along with J.K. Rowling’s prodigious insights, that persuaded me to name my most recent business book, If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Lessons from the World of the Wizards . Not many people know that Rowling, the best selling and wealthiest author of all time – as long as you don’t include God – was a classics major in college, and based much in her beloved stories on what she understood to be the chief virtues and vices of human life, from lessons she learned well in the philosophical works of the ancients. In Rowling’s stories, the young Harry’s defining properties seem to be his natural intellect, his passion, courage, loyalty, a feel for the real, and an uncanny adaptability. His friends sense something different about him. He’s not only an extraordinary young man. They know they can count on him. And they follow his lead even if it seems to mean risking everything to do so. General Electric, founded by the wizard Thomas Edison, has prospered over the years in many different ways, but has been challenged, of late, as most other companies, individuals, and families have, by our severe economic downturn. In their case, a financial division, GE Capital, had risen to an elite status within the company because some very smart people there were doing some deals that seemed magically productive. I know first hand, because I’ve spent time as a philosopher with some of the top producers of that division, in a retreat setting, and I came away quite impressed with their talent, intellect, and general business abilities. But GE historically has been mostly about making good things that people need. Former C.E.O. Jack Welch grew the company for years through acquisitions and other means. But when Jeff Immelt took over, he felt a pull right away back to the core business that has always driven the company – making useful and helpful things. Early on, he began talking about eco-friendly business and practical nanotechnology, some of the most magical stuff on the planet. As I’ve watched Mr. Immelt over the years, I’ve been impressed that he has so many of Harry Potter’s defining qualities. He’s very smart, extraordinarily talented, deeply passionate, courageous, loyal, and adaptable. He’s been able to change course to bring GE back to the core of their business, while still admiring and appreciating the financial acumen that is necessarily still an important part of the overall enterprise. In Rowling’s great stories, Harry Potter seems to take five steps very naturally to summon the courage he needs in whatever challenges he faces. These five steps also allow him to make the changes that need to be made and lead others to do likewise. I see this in Jeff Immelt, and in other great C.E.O.s. I also see it in successful individuals generally. I’d like to present these five steps very briefly here, for your possible edification and reflection. Harry Potter’s 5 Steps To Courage and Change (1) Prepare for the challenge. (2) Surround yourself with support. (3) Engage in positive self-talk. (4) Focus on what’s at stake. (5) Take appropriate action. This is great advice for any of us. When facing a new challenge, first prepare. Then gather a team. Remind yourself of your abilities and preparation, building your own confidence for the challenge. Well grounded confidence is contagious. Focus on what’s most important, keeping in view all the values that are at stake in the situation you face. Then act. Don’t wait forever, or prepare forever. Act courageously, even if you’re not feeling particularly courageous. This is a key to business success and is equally of great value to life success. The most extraordinary people do it naturally. All of us can do it deliberately. Then, our enterprises flourish, whether that enterprise is writing novels about a young wizard, or steering a global company. If Harry Potter ran General Electric, I think he’d be a lot like Jeff Immelt. And the results would be magical.

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USD/CAD: Bulls Return to Challenge Channel Top

June 25, 2010

USD/CAD: Bulls Return to Challenge Channel Top

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Leo W. Gerard: American Wind Turbines Sound Like Freedom

June 18, 2010

The sound that American wind turbines produce as their giant, breeze-propelled blades whip around is a distinctive: Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh . The anticipation is that those energy-generating, whirling arms would create a whooshing sound. And maybe they do in some countries. But here, in America, they echo the almost melodic taunt of a schoolyard victor — Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh: You can’t get me . That’s because American wind turbines are the manifestation of freedom from foreign oil. The more American wind turbines, the fewer barrels of oil America must import to meet its energy needs. And American-built wind turbines help propel the nation out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression by generating good-paying American jobs. President Obama talked about the ugly results of the nation’s refusal to solve its dependency problem – its guzzling of 20 percent of the world’s oil while controlling less than two percent of the world’s reserves. America’s combination of oil addiction and lack of adequate oil resources enslaves the nation to foreign sources, often foreign sources hostile to America. A generation ago, former President Jimmy Carter warned of the consequences of this abusive relationship as Iran held 52 Americans hostages and long lines formed at gasoline stations during a season of shortages. Carter installed on the White House roof a symbol of the solution — solar panels. His successor there, Ronald Reagan, pulled them down. And the nation went on its merry way forgetting the once-empty gasoline stations and ignoring its ever-increasing foreign dependency – even as the Exxon Valdez mucked Prince William Sound two months after Reagan left office. Here’s what Obama said about that wasted opportunity: “And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked – not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor. The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.” The explosion of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the deaths of 11 workers, the uncontrolled gushing of more than 50,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the mucking of brown pelicans and four states’ coastlines have given Obama the ability to take up Carter’s righteous clean energy campaign. And Obama accepted the challenge: “The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.” The president noted that wind turbines are being built in retrofitted factories that were once abandoned right here in America. That happened in Pennsylvania. The wind turbine manufacturer Gamesa converted defunct mills into centers for wind turbine construction. And it cooperated with the United Steelworkers (USW) to provide good-paying union jobs. That is the potential President Obama sees – independence from foreign sources and resurgence of America’s economy. It is the potential that the USW and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) pictured when they agreed earlier this month to work together to accelerate development and deployment of wind energy production in the U.S. Like the Steelworkers, the national trade association of America’s wind industry believes the U.S. must move toward renewable energy sources and must construct them itself. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio explained it simply when the USW and AWEA announced their partnership: “We can’t replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on Chinese-made wind turbines. It’s critical that American manufacturers have the resources to develop and deploy wind energy components. Clean energy will help America regain its leadership in manufacturing. We need to ensure American workers and manufacturers are building the clean energy components that will be used around the world.” Obama called on Americans to “seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” But like any rehab program, success won’t come easily. Oil companies will continue to lobby against it. Swayed by their money, some politicians will oppose the legislation essential to encourage it. But symbolic solar panels must remain on the White House roof this time. Renewable energy, as Obama said, enables America to shape its own destiny The President urged the nation to free itself from its oil dependency now: “As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs – but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment.” This is the time for wind turbines. For solar. For hydro. This is the moment to hear increasing numbers of rotor blades whipping up the sound of independence. Carpe diem.

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Obama Says BP Gulf Spill a Call to Action to Cut U.S. `Addiction’ to Oil

June 15, 2010

By Nicholas Johnston and Catherine Dodge June 15 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said the unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should be an urgent call to action on legislation that will cut the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. “For decades, we have talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels,” Obama said in the text of a speech tonight, his first national address delivered from the Oval Office. “And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.” Obama also said he will tell BP Plc Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg in a meeting tomorrow that the company must set aside “whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness.” The fund must be administered by an independent third party, he said. Obama also named former Justice Department official Michael Bromwich to revamp federal management of offshore oil and gas exploration as part of an effort to clean up an agency he says was plagued by corruption and a “cozy” relationship with the industry it regulates. To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net

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The Challenge of Regaining Lost Equity

May 27, 2010

The Challenge of Regaining Lost Equity

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USDJPY: Bulls Poised to Challenge April High

April 26, 2010

USDJPY: Bulls Poised to Challenge April High

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Dudley Says Fed Must Be Willing to Act on Asset Bubbles to Prevent Crises

April 7, 2010

By Caroline Salas and Vivien Lou Chen April 7 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said central bankers must “be willing to act” under certain conditions to combat asset bubbles, backing regulatory or supervisory actions over monetary policy. Dudley, in the text of a speech in New York today, said monetary policy isn’t likely to work as well because “it is too broad.” He also said that speaking out on the dangers of bubbles as they are forming “would allow the central bank to signal its concern.” “Let me underscore the challenge that central bankers face in combating asset-price bubbles,” Dudley said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York. “Asset bubbles are hard to recognize in real time and each asset bubble is different. However, these challenges cannot be an excuse for inaction.” Dudley’s comments go beyond remarks he made in December, when he said it is “still an open question” whether limiting leverage through regulatory and supervisory means or via monetary policy would be more effective. The Fed’s record in the years before the economic crisis has been criticized in Congress, which is considering the most sweeping changes to financial regulation in decades. Fed policy makers are trying to spot potential imbalances in the financial system, and determine the right time for removing monetary accommodation before inflation takes hold. Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 16 meeting show officials attempting to determine whether financial firms are using too much debt to boost returns. In his speech, Dudley defined bubbles as price changes that become “unmoored from fundamental valuations.” “We should be willing to act” when there is a “meaningful risk” of an asset-price decline that might threaten financial stability, officials can identify the right means of averting it, and the costs of acting are likely to be outweighed by the benefits of avoiding a crash, he said. “For now at least, monetary policy appears to be inferior to macro-prudential tools that seek either to limit the size of prospective bubbles or to strengthen the financial system,” he said. As New York Fed chief, Dudley has a permanent vote on the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, where he is vice chairman under Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke . To contact the reporters on this story: Vivien Lou Chen in San Francisco at vchen1@bloomberg.net ; Caroline Salas in New York at csalas1@bloomberg.net .

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U.K. Financial Services Authority CEO Hector Sants to Step Down This Year

February 9, 2010

By Caroline Binham Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Hector Sants , the chief executive officer of Britain’s financial regulator, said he will leave the agency later this year. Sants, CEO of the Financial Services Authority since July 2007, will step down by the end of the summer, the regulator said in a statement. “When I was appointed I told the board that I planned to serve as CEO for three years, and I intend to stick to that timetable” said Sants, 54, in the statement. “Those three years have encompassed the most extraordinary circumstances for a financial regulator, and I am very proud of the manner in which the FSA rose to the challenge of dealing with such unprecedented turbulence across global financial markets.” Sants’s resignation comes at a key time for regulation both in the U.K. and across the world, where policy makers are trying to grapple with rules in the wake of the worst financial crisis in a generation. The opposition Conservative lawmakers in the U.K. have pledged to abolish the FSA and carve up its duties should they win this year’s election. They say the FSA’s lax oversight of banks contributed to the crisis. To contact the reporters on this story: Caroline Binham in London at cbinham@bloomberg.net

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Sarah O’Leary: Overthinking to Stinking: The Dangers of Overly Complicated Marketing

October 21, 2009

Since the beginning of ad time, marketers sold salad dressing. Today, we still sell salad dressing. The two most important constants of Shopper Mom haven’t wavered: she’s still a mom, and she’s still trying to make the best decisions for her family. She might have worked then, and probably does now. “Go play outside” has morphed into playgroups and play dates. Technology has had an impact on her family’s life, but isn’t really a factor when she’s pushing a cart down the aisle of her grocery store. The retail environment has changed, albeit not drastically. Stores still sell products, and she still buys for her family. The basics of Shopper Mom haven’t become more complex, but our attempts at reaching her have grown substantially. In today’s marketing world, seemingly endless cadres of marketing personnel at corporate and its agencies often spend countless hours pouring over a marketing solution for a product before Mom can pick it from the shelf. Marketing solutions are often created by committee and agreed to by quorum. In the 70s we had research, but our logic and intuition and common sense drove us. Now, reams of analysis and formulas and equations and modules and charts of all shapes and sizes complicate the jobs we do. And, in most instances, the over overabundance is unnecessary as it is time and cost ineffective. A unique marketing idea is like a rock on the side of a riverbank. It has flat spots and rough spots and points and dips and crags and a host of things that make it different from the rest. Walk into the river a few steps, and you’ll find water polished stones. They are more similar with one another than different. Too much interaction with the water has softened them into commonness. When you want the best creative idea, you need to allow the rocks their uniqueness. By complicating the marketing process with too much input of both human and data forms, we risk polishing the rock beyond effectiveness and waste time and money in our process. For most consumer products sold at retail, marketers don’t need the complications that we feel make us smarter. When considering creative concept generation, there’s an easy way for you to test the theory. Let’s say chewy granola bars is our product, and the time frame is back to school. Target is Mom for kids. Give the assignment to a strong two-person creative team. Give them a week to come up with 3 – 4 concepts. (You only need one winning idea, so coming up with 20 ideas is a waste of time and effort). Now, create reams of research and data of all shapes/sizes about Mom and kids and back to school and granola bars and lunch boxes and snacking occasions, etc. and brief a second team. Let that team consist of as many talented people as you can find, and make sure that everyone is motivated to participate. Give Team 2 team a month to solve the challenge. When Team 2 is finished, regroup. Both teams will have logical, creative solutions that meet the goals/objectives of the challenge. Both teams will have ideas that will deliver motivation to Shopper Mom and increase sales during the promotional period. The difference? You’ll have spent thousands of dollars and countless hours of time and effort on the second, more complicated effort. Further, because there were less cooks in the kitchen, the small group will probably deliver even better creative than the much larger team. The majority of great ideas in our industry didn’t come from a series of committees armed with a plethora of charts and graphs and a host of opinions. They came from a handful of creative thinkers who possessed a fair balance of fact and gray matter. Over thinking isn’t a formula for success, but for failure. Creative “Brainstorms”, groups of marketers sitting in a room pondering creative solutions for marketing challenges, are valuable tools provided the persons assembled are creative thinkers and the manner in which the group is hosted is valuable. It’s when/where they are used in a creative process that should be considered carefully. When I began in the 80s in marketing, a two-person creative team would get a two-page assignment and sent on its way to come up with ideas. That was our job, after all, as creatives working for a marketing agency. After the ideas were in concept form (a program theme, and brief description often in 3 – 4 bullet points), we regrouped with creative supervisors. If we didn’t think we had the winning ideas yet, we held a brainstorm with other creative thinkers. When the creative group was satisfied, we brought the ideas to the account team and then to the client. The process used to create ideas 30 years ago worked. They just cost the client a lot less money. As an industry, we need to trust ourselves like we once did, and we need to begrudgingly accept failure. We need to trust our instincts without committees and over the top attempts to make fact out of our guesses through inordinate amounts of analysis. We have to realize that even the best guesses at times miss the mark. Over thinking doesn’t make an idea stronger, and might have the exact opposite affect. There are no guarantees in what we do, and feeling that stacking the deck involves beating dead horses gives us a feigned sense of security. Ray Kroc didn’t have a committee when he met the McDonald’s brothers. He just had an idea. Big thinking doesn’t need to be complex, it simply needs has a logical soul designed to drives sales. Shopper Mom’s wants/needs/desires haven’t changed a lot in the past thirty or so years. She still stands in front of the salad dressing, and still has a choice to make. She’s not inundated the process with opinion or information, we have. At the end of the day, she’s going to buy Wishbone, or she’s not. We’re the ones that need to persuade her effectively and efficiently. We can all learn a lesson from Shopper Mom. She doesn’t go out of her way to waste time and money, and neither should we.

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Obama Tells UN Assembly All Nations Must Share Burden on Climate Change

September 22, 2009

By Kim Chipman and Kate Andersen Brower Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said no nation can escape the effects of climate change and called on every country to “do what we can when we can” to promote economic growth without damaging the planet. Obama, in the text of a speech today at a United Nations forum in New York on climate change, said the world’s richest nations have a responsibility to lead on the issue and that fast- growing countries such as China and Brazil “must do their part.” “We cannot meet this challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together,” he said in the text. “There is no other way.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in New York at kchipman@bloomberg.net

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Obama Cabinet Members Outline $242 Million in Budget Cuts Over Two Years

July 27, 2009

By Roger Runningen July 27 (Bloomberg) –President Barack Obama’s Cabinet officers responded to his challenge to cut their budgets with $242 million in trims over two years, the Office of Management and Budget said today. Obama in April ordered his Cabinet members to find at least $100 million in cuts, a fraction of the $3.9 trillion the federal government is likely to spend this year, to demonstrate his commitment to reducing the deficit. To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningen@bloomberg.net

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Linda Buzzell: Faux Localization: The New Greenwashing?

July 27, 2009

The big word these days in green and sustainability circles is “Relocalization.” Aware of the community and environmental destruction involved in importing everything from everywhere else, more and more towns are encouraging the return to supporting local businesses and farms. So how are the big international conglomerates dealing with this challenge? The trend toward local economies may be convincing the giant multinationals like Starbucks to start disguising the affiliations of their stores to convince unwary locals that they’re sipping their latte in a locally-owned shop. A story in AlterNet reports that “Starbucks’ new stealth strategy is de-branding: giving stores different names and more local ‘community personality.’” Perhaps the recession can be blamed

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Katie Hood: Health Care Reform: There’s an Elephant in the Room

July 22, 2009

Every day on my Metro North commuter train to Grand Central, a group of friends (strangers to me) travel together. They always sit in the same “five-seater,” talking and laughing among themselves. I couldn’t tell you what they talk about most mornings, although certainly when one of them had twins, that was an exciting topic of conversation for a few days.

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