festival

A Local Legend Lost

by on December 19, 2011

Huffington Post…

Warren Hellman, San Francisco’s beloved, banjo-picking billionaire, died Sunday night after a long battle with leukemia. He was 77. A local legend, Hellman was best known as the founder and force behind the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival , the weekend of free music — completely funded by the financier — that takes over Golden Gate Park each autumn and draws big-name acts ranging from Emmylou Harris to Broken Social Scene. But Hellman’s legacy extends far deeper into the fabric of the city than the three days of joy he sponsored each September in the park. He spent his life giving to the causes he cared most deeply about. Since building his fortune in finance, first as the youngest partner in the now-defunct Lehman Brothers investment bank’s history (at age 28) and later as co-founder of the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, Hellman donated almost everything he had to his passion projects and political causes throughout San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Chronicle , the investor often joked that he had little interest in collecting expensive cars or art. “What does move me is the philanthropic stuff,” he told Forbes magazine in 2006 . “Giving really does move me.” In addition to creating and maintaining one of the city’s most cherished festivals, Hellman funded the San Francisco Free Clinic, built an underground parking garage in Golden Gate Park to help keep the DeYoung Museum intact after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, spearheaded a major pension reform effort during the November elections and co-founded online local news website The Bay Citizen . “Warren was San Francisco, and his passion for the city ran deep,” longtime friend Phil Bronstein, the former Chronicle editor, told The Bay Citizen . “His philanthropy and quiet leadership were unparalleled.” And San Francisco recently had a chance to show its gratitude. Last Thursday, the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission unanimously voted to rename Golden Gate Park’s Speedway Meadow , the nucleus of Hardly Strictly, to “Hellman Hollow.” “I can’t think of another citizen of San Francisco that has done more for the city or had the City as his highest priority on almost everything he has ever done,” Mark Buell, chairman of the commission, told the San Francisco Examiner . A budding banjo player himself, Hellman performed at nearly every iteration of Hardly Strictly with his band, The Wronglers, writing songs about the various causes and issues that made him tick. Unconventional to the core, the lifelong Republican supported labor unions, was known for his rugged, frayed wardrobe and attended Burning Man the year he turned 70. He even postponed chemotherapy treatments in order to appear onstage with The Wronglers during this year’s Hardly Strictly festival. Good-spirited until the very end, Hellman would more recently joke that he had changed his name to Luke Emia, according to The Bay Citizen . And festival fans need not fret: Hardly Strictly will continue in Hellman’s wake for many years to come. The financier created an endowment fund for the explicit purpose of funding the event “after I croak.” “Yes, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival will go on!” his daughter, Patricia Hellman Gibbs, confirmed to the Chronicle on Sunday. Public services will be held in Hellman’s honor on Wednesday at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El. According to his family, a community celebration of his life will take place in the following weeks. The family has requested that instead of sending flowers, mourners pay their respects by making donations to the San Francisco Free Clinic , The Bay Citizen , and the San Francisco School Alliance . Take a look at a video of Hellman playing with The Wronglers during 2009′s Hardly Strictly festival below, and click over to The Bay Citizen for more comprehensive coverage and celebration of his life.

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A Local Legend Lost

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Watch: AOL Real Estate’s Interview With a Ghost Hunter (VIDEO)

by on July 8, 2011

Huffington Post…

Is there anything scarier than plummeting home value? According to Kris Williams, ghost hunter extraordinaire, there’s plenty to give homeowners the willies — and not just around Halloween either.

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Watch: AOL Real Estate’s Interview With a Ghost Hunter (VIDEO)

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Joblessness Plagues College Graduates In Ongoing Recession

July 8, 2011

This story was reported in collaboration with our partners at Patch.com. NEW YORK — Seventy-five job applications. Forty cover letters. Twelve interviews. Zero job offers. Since graduating from Wellesley College four years ago, Kayla Calkin, 25, has yet to get a break. In May, Calkin completed a master’s degree in public policy from George Washington University. Like so many her age, she believed a graduate degree might guarantee a more stable future. Calkin now works as a full-time nanny in Washington, D.C., while continuing to scour for an eventual dream job in politics. Her two degrees make her overqualified for even the most basic, entry-level position. “I guess I’m overqualified to work on Capitol Hill, but I’m not overqualified to watch one-year-olds play in a playground,” said Calkin, who tries to remain optimistic despite an uncertain future . “It’s a scary, scary time.” Calkin is hardly alone in her quest to find decent work amidst a bleak job market. According to a report released earlier today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , June’s unemployment rate ticked steadily higher from 9.1 to 9.2 percent. Combined with a rising jobless rate and news that only 18,000 jobs were added to the economy in the last month, many recent graduates fear the worst is not yet over. For 20-somethings hoping to jumpstart their adult lives, the economic “recovery” is starting to feel endless and euphemistic . College graduates still fare better than their peers with only a high school diploma, but even their job prospects show signs of fatigue. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, the unemployment rate for college graduates between the ages of 20 to 24-year-olds soared five percentage points in the past month — from 7.1 percent in May to 12.1 percent in June, compared with a three percent jump during the same period last year. “It’s terrible. I’ve never seen a recovery like this,” said Andrew Sum, a professor of economics at Northeastern University. Sum is particularly concerned for recent graduates, whose fate depends on strong job growth. He says a minimum of 125,000 jobs must be added each month in order to keep pace with population growth — a growth requirement approximately seven times larger than the 18,000 jobs added last month. “Today’s report is really bad but last month’s was bad and the answer is that this recovery has just come to a grinding halt,” said Sum. “There’s really no growth happening.” Carl E. Van Horn, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University recently looked at what happened to college graduates who finished school between 2006 and 2010 . Of these, only half found full-time jobs. Van Horn now worries for the approximately 1.5 million 2011 graduates vying for those same slots. “You have another class of graduates that are facing not only a difficult labor market but competition from the previous three, four and five years of young graduates also clamoring to find their way into the labor market,” said Van Horn. “The continued weak recovery will mean more graduates finding themselves in part-time jobs and contingency jobs and jobs that are far below their level of education.” Sum advises young people in search of work to continue casting a wide net. Van Horn cautions recent graduates to resist the temptation to see graduate school as a guaranteed refuge during rough economic times. “Not every graduate program leads to a guaranteed job. You likely already have debt and you’re going to incur more debt and what’s it going to translate into down the road?” asked Van Horn. “While it’s okay to major in cultural anthropology, understand that you may not end up as the next Margaret Mead. You may end up as the manager of a Sports Authority.” Since graduating from the University of Tampa in 2009, Jeff Swederski, 26, is learning to adjust his expectations. Swederski currently works at a Walgreens in Tampa, Fla., where he alternates work as a photo specialist, cosmetics consultant and pharmacy technician. “It’s a little sad,” said Swederski, who owes $60,000 in student loan debt. He also works part-time at a local law firm, filing papers and answering phones. The two jobs are barely enough to make his rent and monthly loan repayments. “The jobs I have — I certainly didn’t need to go to college in order to get them.” An increased debt load is a burden for many job seekers searching for any work they can find. During more robust economic times, Yvonne Kline, 30, began studying for a Ph.D. in communications. She quickly racked up $138,000 in student loan debt. She still hasn’t finished her degree at the University of Southern Florida. And, while her doctoral dissertation is still pending, her loan payments start next month. Kline is looking for work in human resources, advertising or marketing. In the mean time, she makes ends meet by teaching community college classes in three different counties, and teaching a contortion class for pole dancers at Rock N Body Pole Studios in nearby Bradenton, Fla. For now, money worries loom above all else. “My loans are coming due this month and I am going to call them and hopefully get it deferred,” said Kline. “I am going to be paying that debt off for a very long time. That’s not dischargeable debt either — I can’t file bankruptcy and get rid of these loans.” Debt worries aside, many 20-somethings struggle to make a modest, living wage. Jeffrey Dalrymple, 26, of Westfield, N.J., took on a work-study job at Saint Peter’s College library while an undergrad, becoming a library assistant following his graduation in 2008. Working 32 hours a week at $16,000 a year, the job was seen as a stepping-stone toward an eventual career as a full-time librarian or museum curator. But unable to secure a better job, Dalrymple remains at Saint Peters — and without benefits, he’s barely scraping by. “I think a lot of people in my generation have it tough,” said Dalrymple . “We are entering into a workforce that is virtually dead. The economy is on the verge of collapse.” Explaining the situation to his parents’ generation is an entirely different challenge. Dalrymple can’t help but take their reaction personally: “My family sees that it’s my fault that I am in the predicament that I am in now.”

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Bill Clinton Discusses Struggling Economy

July 7, 2011

ASPEN, Colo.–During Bill Clinton’s two terms as president, the median family income increased by 14 percent, the number of Americans in poverty declined by nearly 17 percent, and the number of children in poverty fell by almost one-fourth.

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Xcel Acquitted In 5 Worker Deaths During Plant Fire

June 29, 2011

DENVER (Reuters) – Public utility Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL.N) and a subsidiary were acquitted on Tuesday of criminal charges stemming from a fire that killed five workers in 2007 at a Colorado hydroelectric plant. A U.S. District Court jury returned the not guilty verdicts on the second day of deliberations after a 16-day trial in Denver. Xcel and subsidiary Public Service Company of Colorado each were each charged with five counts of violating federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration regulations and causing deaths. The workers were relining a tunnel at the Georgetown, Colorado plant, about 45 miles west of Denver, when chemical vapors ignited in the pipe and fire blocked their escape. Xcel has characterized the deaths at the plant as a tragic accident. “It’s not a day of joy,” Xcel’s lead attorney, Cliff Stricklin, told reporters after the verdict. “Xcel sends its deepest and heart-felt sympathy to the families of those men.” The company that employed the workers, RPI Coating Inc., of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., as a contractor for the utility, and two of its executives are scheduled to stand trial later this year on the same charge. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board concluded in a report issued last year that Xcel and RPI failed to implement safety procedures for the safe handling of flammable liquids, the hazard of static discharge, emergency response and rescue, and fire prevention. “Today the jury has spoken, finding Xcel Energy and Public Service Company not guilty of criminal violations of certain OSHA safety regulations,” U.S. Justice Department spokesman Jeff Dorschner said in a written statement. “We believe that this was an important case to prosecute, as it involved the loss of five lives. That said, we respect the jury’s verdict,” Dorschner said. (Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Bohan) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Banks in race to shed commercial property debt | Stock News

June 5, 2011

Banks in race to shed commercial property debt . Posted on May 24, 2011 by. Lenders are fighting to slash their exposure to £224bn in commercial property loans, with half of that set to mature by 2013, a report from De Monfort University …

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On The National Mall, Worries Over Lost Business

April 7, 2011

WASHINGTON — As many speculate the economic implications of a government shutdown, here in the capital, jitters are felt by one economy in particular–the one that trades in hot dogs, snow cones, and CIA t-shirts down on the National Mall. Washington’s vendors, it turns out, are feeling pretty “non-essential” amidst all the politicking. “If they shut down, there’s no business,” said Abdul Bangura, who shuttles a van loaded with ice cream up and down the Mall each day. “Nobody’s gonna come down here.” A federal shutdown would include much of the National Park Service, which runs the Mall and its monuments, as well as the Smithsonian’s museum network, which draws 3.8 million tourists to the area in April alone, according to the Washington Post . If the White House and Congressional leaders can’t hammer out an agreement, the vendors and other small businesses that cluster around the Mall stand to be hit with a double whammy. No tourists and no federal workers, the two demographics they rely on most. “Ninety-nine percent of my customers work here,” said Tony, pointing to the Environmental Protection Agency offices across the street from his hot dog stand. Tony’s been manning a cart in this spot for a decade and knows many of the EPA employees personally. He explained moving his cart to another part of town isn’t an option; it would violate D.C. vending rules. Tony doesn’t normally follow politics on the Hill, but the standoff has certainly caught his attention. “It will affect my life,” he said. In the event of a shutdown, he said he would simply stay home rather than waste money on gas. Downtown tour companies stand to take a hit, too. Over at the Bike and Roll kiosk, a bicycle rental company, manager Jeff Holliday said higher-ups had convened to discuss what they might do differently in the event of a shutdown. He said he’d gotten a call from a tourist who said she’d already changed her vacation plans because of the shutdown possibility. Rather than head to D.C., she was visiting– gasp –Colonial Williamsburg. Holliday estimated that 75 percent of Bike and Roll’s rentals go to tourists, many of whom may not be there next week. “But we’ll figure it out,” he added optimistically. Dave Cohen, general manager at Historic Tours of America , said his company’s Washington vessels, the Old Town Trolley and the D.C. Duck boats, would continue their amphibious tours of downtown Washington. But he’s wondering if the tourists will still come if they can’t hop on and off and see the monuments and museums along the Mall like normal. “I don’t think it’s sunk in around the country yet,” Cohen said, explaining they hadn’t received any cancellations. “Naturally, we’re concerned. I’m just hoping it doesn’t happen.” Suong Xuan Le, 71, has been hawking hot dogs and egg rolls around town ten hours a day for 34 years, spending last seven of them across from the National Museum of American History. A prolonged shutdown, he said, could devastate his business. “My customers, they’re tourist people,” he said. “If the White House and Congress don’t have an agreement, that’s terrible.” Rob Milford, here on business, said his local high school in Fairhope, Ala., had raised roughly $80,000 to send its marching band to the Cherry Blossom Festival, a costly expedition that’s now uncertain . “For those of us from outside of Washington, it’s a tremendous disappointment that Congress can’t make a decision. They had every opportunity,” said Milford, poking around the Mall vendor trucks in search of an “Obama: One and Done” t-shirt. Down near the monuments, it isn’t just vendors worried about a drop in wages. A group of five contractors working a construction job at the Department of Commerce said they don’t know if they’ll have any work next week. A landscaper whose company has a contract with the EPA said he thinks he’ll still have a job in the event of a shutdown, but only because he’s salaried; his colleagues classified as “laborers” will probably be out of a gig. And Chris Armstrong, a busker who’s been playing his trumpet at 14th and Constitution for seven years, said he expects an empty bucket at his feet next week if the museums are shuttered. “And it’s just politics,” he said. The overriding feeling on the Mall is one of uncertainty – and that extends to the very workers who keep it running. One National Park Service maintenance employee, clad in the agency’s trademark forest green and a pair of protective knee pads, said all the workers in his shop are “worried,” not knowing what their status is and whether they can expect a paycheck come next week. “These are America’s treasures,” he said, gesturing to the Washington Monument while on a hot dog break. “We’re here to keep these treasures going.” As for the possibility of a shutdown, “I just don’t get it,” he said.

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Obama: Government Shutdown Will Delay Pay To Troops

April 6, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration warned Wednesday that a federal shutdown would undermine the economic recovery, delay pay to U.S. troops fighting in three wars, slow the processing of tax returns and limit small business loans and government-backed mortgages during peak home buying season. ( SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES ) The dire message, delivered two days before the federal government’s current spending authority expires, appeared aimed at jolting congressional Republicans into a budget compromise. Billions of dollars apart, congressional negotiators were working to strike a deal by Friday to avert a shutdown by setting spending limits through the end of September. The last such shutdown took place 15 years ago and lasted 21 days. President Barack Obama telephoned House Speaker John Boehner Wednesday, and Boehner’s office said the speaker told Obama he was hopeful a deal could be reached. As the talks continued, the White House sought to put the prospect of a shutdown in terms people would care about, warning even that the beloved Cherry Blossom parade in the nation’s capital would be wiped out. The Smithsonian Institution and national parks around the country would also be closed. A shutdown would come at an especially busy time for the Smithsonian. The Cherry Blossom Festival, which concludes this weekend, draws many tourists to an area near the museums. The Smithsonian counts about 3 million visits each April and has already sold 23,000 IMAX movie and lunch combos to school groups for the month. Under long-standing federal rules, agencies would not be affected that provide for U.S. national security, dispense most types of federal benefit payments, offer inpatient medical care or outpatient emergency care, ensure the safe use of food and drugs, manage air traffic, protect and monitor borders and coastlines, guard prisoners, conduct criminal investigations and law enforcement, oversee power distribution and oversee banks. Mail deliveries will continue in the event of a shutdown. U.S. postal operations are not subsidized by tax dollars. According to the shutdown scenario described by the administration, the government would have to significantly cut staffing across the executive branch, including workers at the White House and civilian employees at the Defense Department; close to 800,000 workers would be affected. Congress and the federal court system will also be subject to a shutdown. At the Pentagon, defense officials were finalizing plans that would lay out how the department would deal with a shutdown. But they already have acknowledged that U.S. military troops – including those in war zones – would receive one-week’s pay instead of two in their next paycheck if the government closes. Military personnel at home and abroad would continue to earn pay, but they won’t get paychecks until there is a budget agreement and government operations resume. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the Pentagon will be open on Monday and will be staffed. He said decisions on which Defense Department employees must report to work will depend on their jobs, rather than where they are based. Key national security responsibilities, including operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and earthquake assistance to Japan would not be interrupted by a shutdown, the Pentagon said. The CIA also won’t be closing, though it will be drawing down some non-essential personnel, to be in compliance with federal law, according to a senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. Officials familiar with the shutdown say essential counterterrorism functions in other parts of the intelligence community will continue, like monitoring of the terrorist watch lists, and essential intelligence collection and analysis. At the Internal Revenue Service, the tax filing deadline remains April 18 – delayed three days because of a local holiday in Washington. Tax audits, however, will be suspended if there is a shutdown. The IRS won’t process paper returns during a shutdown. Those expecting a refund should file their returns electronically and ask that the money be deposited directly into their bank accounts. Tax payments are welcome, though it is still unclear whether help lines for taxpayers will be staffed. Social Security payments will continue to be delivered, and applications for benefits will continue to be processed. But some services will be limited, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said. “The checks will continue to go out. The problem will be on an extended CR, it will be increasingly difficult to get changes in address, changes in status, and those types of things done,” Astrue said. Astrue said Social Security headquarters and regional offices will be closed. Some limited services will still be available at field offices, but the details are still being worked out, he said. Medicare would still pay medical claims for its 48 million recipients, who are mainly seniors but also several million younger people who are permanently disabled or have kidney failure. Payments to doctors, hospitals and other service providers could be delayed, however, should a shutdown continue for several months. At the National Institutes of Health, groundbreaking medical research would experience a disruption. Patients already being treated at the NIH’s famed hospital in Bethesda, Md., would continue to get that care, but new patients could not be admitted. Likewise, no new studies of drugs or other treatments could begin. The Federal Housing Administration, which guarantees about 30 percent of home mortgages, would stop guaranteeing loans. The issuance of government backed loans to small businesses would be suspended, according to the White House. The Obama administration said the impact on the housing market would be more severe than in 1995, the last time there was a government shutdown. The Federal Housing Administration accounts for 30 percent of the mortgage market, nearly three times the amount 16 years ago. The nation’s 15,700 air traffic controllers would keep working, as would many of the Federal Aviation Administration’s 6,100 technicians who install and maintain the equipment for the nation’s air traffic control system. ___ Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor, Anne Gearan, Joan Lowy, Lauran Neergaard, Stephen Ohlemacher, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Brett Zongker and Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral contributed to this report.

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Joan K. Smith: Startup Fever: Why it Matters

April 6, 2011

Last month, in the midst of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival when I was reporting on the Startup Bus here on Huffington Post, Michael Taylor of the New York Observer wrote a piece called “Abolish South by Southwest!” in which he cast smart-aleck barbs at the culture surrounding the Interactive portion of SXSW, calling it a “sham of technological confabulation” that uses ideas of techno-utopian progress as a pretense for a self-congratulatory, evangelical frat party. Easy enough to dismiss as attention-getting snarkiness, right? But a few days after that piece ran, Taylor and I appeared as guests on a Minnesota Public Radio segment about Startup Bus and SXSWi. He elaborated on his serious point behind the admittedly tongue-in-cheek article, namely a concern that the rash of entrepreneurial ventures spurred on by movements like the Startup Bus were creating a misallocation of capital toward sure-to-fail “whimsical” projects, and away from “serious” existing businesses. The venerable Mr. Taylor bemoaned the fact that there were Startup Bus projects that dared deal with such fluff as bar trivia, and bemoaned further “cheerleader” media hype surrounding a field where less than 50 percent were destined to successfully find a market. Oh, and the irony of a real-life conference “like our parents went to” being held in an age when we have apps and social media available to “erase [physical] distance.” Unfortunately, Mr. Taylor got the last word before the segment ended. My first instinct in terms of a counterpoint — after dismissing as not worthy of response the notion that without a startup to fund, “misallocated capital” would magically be directed toward established businesses, a notion that ignores the pesky little reality of a free market — would have been to point out the many Startup Bus projects that were not even remotely frivolous. “Help Near Me” from the Cleveland bus dealt with finding geo-located human services to aid individuals in crisis situations, and” Mom and Pop Co-ops,” also from the Cleveland Bus, was a system to enable small businesses to amass aggregate buying power in order to compete with mega-retailers like Walmart; or the finalist from the New York bus, “TripMedi,” which offered a service for making intelligent decisions about finding affordable healthcare procedures overseas, aimed mainly at those who are uninsured and priced out of the American market; or maybe “Isitgood4me” from the Miami bus, an app to scan food barcodes to compare with personal dietary restrictions…the list goes on. But in retrospect that counter-argument would miss the broader point at hand. The fact is, whether the startups are frivolous or not, the crazy energy and direct, interactive spirit of real-life collaboration behind projects like Startup Bus is exactly why they matter, and the very reason they can have a broader impact on innovation culture at large. For me, the value of startup culture crystallized even more completely a few weeks ago when I was a judge for a mobile app development competition sponsored by NJ Mobile Meetup in the Converge Coworking Space at Kean University. After judging, we had the opportunity to chat with a number of the participants and got an impressive view of the collaborative process that prevailed over their 24 hours of work. Just as in the case of Startup Bus, where participants reported a virtual love-fest of cooperation and skill-sharing across competing teams, those who had come into this mobile app competition with more creative ideas than tech chops were readily assisted by those with more advanced skills. Even the teams who didn’t have a project ready for judging came out of the experience with new knowledge, and everyone came away with new connections forged by a shared, high-pressure, and focused work session. The experience provided lessons valuable across the board, whether the fledgling entrepreneurs succeed in getting investment dollars for their own venture or end up joining the traditional workforce as an employee. Getting a massive amount of creative people not just thinking about their own startup, but going through the tangible steps in an intensified and collaborative way, can only be positive for overall business culture. At the very least, this flock of creative and enterprising souls coming up with new ideas — even if they ultimately fail — can goose existing businesses out of staid complacency and into generating their own innovation. Particularly in the exponentially flourishing area of technology, a culture that doesn’t encourage the support of new, young – and yes, even crazy — ideas is a moribund culture that will not keep up with rapid fire changes in the global marketplace. So rather than considering the startup trend to be a hype-driven bubble leading to little more than broken dreams and wasted investments, we should be appreciating the culture of networked innovators that it engenders — a culture of dynamic energy and readiness for challenge. After all, exuberance doesn’t have to be irrational.

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Most Inspirational Tweets From The Women Entrepreneurs Festival

February 6, 2011

Last weekend, nearly 200 women and men gathered for the Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Festival at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The event was hosted by the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), a graduate-level program in alternative media encouraging creative innovations in communications technologies. With the goal of fostering a community of established and aspiring female entrepreneurs, conference attendees explored creative solutions to the unique challenges facing women in business and technology while celebrating the achievements of those women. Venture capitalists as well as media, green, social and design entrepreneurs delivered speeches and engaged in discussions with conference-goers. Using the hashtag #WEFestival, attendees tweeted insightful snippets throughout the festival. Take a look through our slideshow of the most inspirational tweets, and vote for your favorites. Did you attend the WE Festival? Share your favorite inspirational moment in the comments below, or email us at technology@huffingtonpost.com . You can learn more about the festival and its speakers here .

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Eboo Patel: Davos: The Global Village and the Local Community

January 26, 2011

The World Economic Forum — like the Clinton Global Initiative, the TED Conference, the Aspen Ideas Festival and other such global confabs — is a carnival of ideas, opportunities, dreams and confessions. It’s less manic than CGI, not quite as laid back as TED, but definitely part of the same family. And it has the added distinction of being, as far as I can tell at least, the Mothership — the event that launched the pattern in which the global meritocratic elite would gather together face-to-face to discuss a wide-ranging, even eclectic agenda. Clinton very definitely shaped his conference to be Davos-like (with the added layer of the attendees making “commitments” to do good works in the world), and while TED began life with a smaller and quirkier dream, it has morphed under Chris Anderson’s leadership to rival (in talent and ideas at least) any other gathering on the planet. Other major conferences tend to gather a narrower range of people to talk about a single subject (the World Health Organization) or have become so unwieldy as to be impossible to navigate (most UN gatherings). The World Economic Forum and its close cousins are different, and professor Klaus Schwab, the founder, knows it. In his introductory session for Davos newbies, he explained the big idea and how it came about. As a Management Professor, he advanced something called “stakeholder theory” – the idea that companies are not just responsible to their shareholders but to a broader range of stakeholders. If such stakeholders gathered to discuss issues, shape a common agenda and find resonances, not only would the company be stronger, but society would be better. Schwab wrote a book about the idea in 1970, and then decided that he wanted to build a platform to try putting it into practice. The first World Economic Forum took place in 1971. The result, 40 years later – a conference that CEOs, presidents and prime ministers feel like they have to come to, and that some happily pay literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend – is nothing short of astonishing. The people who come to the World Economic Forum are segmented into different communities – government leaders, media leaders, strategic partners (which are basically Fortune 500 companies, and are the ones who pay the big bucks to attend). Over time, Schwab has added other key communities — technology pioneers, young global leaders, social entrepreneurs, global growth companies (which are going to be the future Fortune 500 and are largely in China). The list of communities shows that he’s a man who is on the cutting edge without being faddish. All in all, it’s a reasonable representation of many of the groups who make things happen at the global level in our world. The more I thought about it, the more I realize that the core idea — and this is not a criticism, simply an observation — is quite old and simple: a healthy social ecology gathers its various segments every so often to bat around ideas, address recurring problems and shape a to-do list for the year or ten ahead. It’s old-school community development really, something that good alderman do in their neighborhoods and good mayors do in their cities: gather the shopkeepers and real estate developers and homeowners and cops and kids and teachers and say, “So what’s this neighborhood going to be about next year?” The fact that Professor Schwab came out of the management world simply means that his scope was global and his network was CEOs. Comparing Davos to a local community development meeting will inevitably bring up local/global issues. The image is so crystal clear it begs to be said out loud. Isn’t it quaint that a slice of the world’s ecology gathers in a Swiss hamlet to engage face-to-face. It makes that global village metaphor feel so, well, real. I wish. In a smart Atlantic piece, Chrystia Freeland explains the rub: “Today’s global super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves.” They move their companies where their customers are (increasingly Asia), they can’t find their way around their hometowns because they are so infrequently at home. If lifting people into the middle class in India with jobs and goods means someone has to fall out of the middle class in Indiana, well, that’s globalization. One of the reasons for the increase in the number of World Economic Forum-type events is because the group that gathers here likes to be together. The down-low on Davos is that the really exciting events – the soirees, the nightcaps, the endless-discussion dinners — happen after 10 p.m., like in a college dorm. Leading up to the World Economic Forum, I got dozens of e-mails advertising various late-night social events, and almost nothing touting the formal agenda during the day. These people like to socialize with each other. This is their community. Look, nobody expects the CEO of Citi to walk to work, become president of the PTA and support the neighborhood Little League team. But there was a time that great companies were proud of the cities they were based in. That meant something for jobs, neighborhoods, art museums, local charities. Are those days numbered? Interesting that a stakeholder-driven, community-development-like approach to shaping an agenda for a globalized world could hold such dangerous consequences for local communities. (This piece is re-posted from the Washington Post .)

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Video: Obamas Honor Diwali With Candle-Light Service, Dancing

November 8, 2010

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met with school children and attended a candle-lighting service and dance performance honoring Diwali, the festival of lights, this past weekend in Mumbai. They joined young children in a dance dedicated to the Indian region’s fishing traditions. Bloomberg’s Deirdre Bolton reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Georges Ugeux: Barack Obama Visits Mumbai…on Diwali!

November 5, 2010

Diwali is the most important celebration in India: it begins today and continues through November 9th. It is the equivalent of Christmas for the Christians or Yom Kippur for the Jews. This is the day that the President of the United States has chosen to visit Mumbai. While the Indian authorities have obviously agreed with the decision to pick this time for the President’s trip, much of the Indian press and public percieve the timing as a lack of sensitivity on the part of the U.S. However, this was not an oversight, and the President lit the traditional “diya” or oil lamp for Diwali at the White House yesterday before embarking on this trip. While observing Diwali was a tradition initiated by George W. Bush, Obama is the first U.S. President to attend events associated with the Indian holiday. “To those celebrating Diwali in India, I look forward to visiting you over the next few days. And to all those who will celebrate this joyous occasion on Friday, I wish you, your families and loved ones Happy Diwali and Saal Mubarak,” said the President. He will pay homage to the victims of the heinous Mumbai attack of November 26, 2008, by Pakistani terrorists. He even decided to stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel Palace in Mumbai, the iconic landmark that remained under the control of terrorists for four days. Was it, however, necessary to send home 90% of the 1,400 employees of the hotel, in order to replace them with US staff sent from thousands of miles away? Was it necessary to have a party of 3,000 people accompany the President? And what about the 43 warships around Mumbai? Was it really important to remove the coconuts from the trees surrounding Mumbai’s Gandhi museum? Was it necessary to prohibit Diwali celebrations in the whole District of Colaba in Southern Mumbai? At a time when we are looking for public saving opportunities, shouldn’t we rethink such escalations in security? The United States protects itself by constantly building higher walls. It reminds us of it the illusion of the Babel Tower: we cannot protect ourselves against the sky, let alone reach it. We human beings, are not able to protect ourselves against every risk. Our denial is very expensive. It is interesting to note that he will visit Holy Name High School, run by the Archdiocese of Mumbai, a very exclusive school but not exactly representative of Indian education. What matters, however, is that Mumbaites and Indians in general, are thrilled to receive the U.S. President who enjoys a hugely positive reputation in India. He and the First Lady are extremely popular, and the pride of welcoming them will supersede the rather strange aspects of the trip. The most delicate economic issue that will be addressed by business leaders from India is the attitude of the United States towards outsourcing. Generally demonized and sometimes considered the source of unemployment in the United States, outsourcing has massively improved the competitiveness of US companies and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States. Outsourcing is for India what the value of the Yuan is for China: the target of considerable misconceptions as well as blunt attacks by U.S. officials. Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that the United States could not satisfy its IT needs with the insufficient number of engineers produced by the country’s Universities. At the end of the day, India and the United States have more fundamental issues to discuss, such as the situations in Pakistan and Iran. And it is true: the countries are natural partners. If the U.S. could realize the immensity of its power and influence in India, perhaps any feelings of being threatened by the country would subside. As to the question of a permanent seat for India at the United Nations Security Council, President Obama acknowledges the difficulty of the issue. There is no doubt that President Sarkozy (who favors India’s entrance) will relinquish the French seat to India! Happy Diwali, the Festival of Lights.

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Curtis Valentine: The Economic Crisis: Is There a Silver Lining?

August 15, 2010

The Great Recession of the 20th century may very well have a silver lining. Once upon a time the notion of troubling a neighbor for a cup of sugar or flour was an everyday occurrence in America. During and after the only other economic crisis to be given the designation of “Great”, Americans utilized the informal system of bartering to supplement sparse foodstuffs they couldn’t afford themselves. The idea of borrowing and sharing created a communal system that fostered trust and reinforced interdependence amongst groups from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Over the past twenty-five years, the exorbitant increase in the American standard of living has had an inverse affect on our tendencies to borrow and share. With millions of Americans enjoying a flourishing economy, the idea of Keeping up with the Jones’ was given new meaning and the term community development was reserved for poor neighborhoods filled with America’s underprivileged. For all the Americans migrating to major cities and the immigrants arriving on our shores over the past century, this sense of community was the expectation not the exception. The recent age of overconsumption has caused the middle class to become less dependent on one another creating a level of independence that altered the traditional idea of community as we all envisioned it. For decades we have debated the role and importance of the middle class. Ironically, while we debated, countries around the world have sought to replicate the model of a middle class we have yet to perfect. The recent 2010 Ideas Festival sponsored by the Aspen Institute, thought so much of the subject that it assembled a panel of experts [including Huffington Post co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington] to discuss Is America The Land of Opportunity: Taking a Hard Look at the Middle Class . One “Great Idea” emerging from the discussion was the notion that though the current economic crisis has brought devastation to millions of Americans, it can very well be the means by which America returns to the very system of community that formed the foundation for the country’s first middle class. For all the stories about the devastation brought on by the crisis millions of Americans are going through, there very well may be a silver lining awaiting them on the other end. In small towns and major cities around the country, Americans are choosing to use the institutions that were historically established to develop and strengthen communities. Formal institutions like the Community College are, for some, a way to better prepare for a 4-year college, but for many it’s a cost saver. The Pew Research Center and U.S. Census Bureau have reported a continuous increase in Community College enrollment due, in part, to the decline in household income brought on by the crisis. Approximately 11.5 million students, or 39.6% of all young adults ages 18 to 24, were enrolled in either a two- or four-year college in October 2008. Informal institutions, like carpools, often overlooked but incredibly important to building and sustaining community relations, are on the rise as well. The rise and fall of the American carpool: 1970-1990 , suggested that the most important factors associated with declines in carpooling to and from work in the US included increasing household vehicle availability, falling real marginal fuel costs, and higher average educational attainments among commuters. The economic crisis has reversed each of these indicators and, invariably, aided in the re-establishment of an institution on the decline. Necessity is still the mother of invention and the motivation to do more and invest further in one’s community has traditionally come down to need. Budget cuts in public schooling and policing has brought with it an increase in the need for volunteerism in our schools and in Neighborhood Watch groups. As cuts in the number of classroom teachers will invariably increase student-teacher ratios, already overworked teachers will have additional demands placed on them. In cases like these, the community will be called upon to fill in the gaps. Fortunately, in the case of public safety, we have seen how effective ordinary citizens can be if integrated into a larger system. Increases to participation in community institutions like Neighborhood Watch have resulted in a decrease in the crime rate as much as 41% in places like Orlando, Florida. With all the talk about preserving the institution of marriage and strengthening the American family, there has been little discussion about creating communities and institutions that can act as a support system or safety net for the families in times of need. The need is even more pronounced in single-parent homes that depend on extended family members, friends, and neighbors for emotional and financial support. The early 20th century American concept of community exists in the developing world and South Africans have even given it a name: Umbuntu. South Africans believe a person is a person , through other people and that only through strong personal relationships do we create and sustain community. The long-term benefits of a resurgence of America’s community-based institutions like Community Colleges and Neighborhood Watch can very well usher in the revival of community. Americans will rebound, the unemployment rate will improve, and if we’ve learned from our past, what will remain will be a middle class less preoccupied with overconsumption and more prepared to live a lifestyle of moderation and interdependence. If America can sustain the community institutions that have been built during this crisis, America will in fact stronger for it. Ultimately, Americans will be better prepared to support themselves and, most importantly, one another through the next economic crisis. Curtis Valentine is a humanitarian aid professional, community organizer, and political consultant. A 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar Fellow, Curtis is currently drafting a memoir documenting his experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-apartheid South Africa.

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Video: Greenspan Concerned Financial Overhaul Will Hurt Lending: Video

July 9, 2010

July 9 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed concern about legislation to overhaul U.S. financial regulation during an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Matt Miller reports on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Solis Says U.S. Focused on Energy, Infrastructure Jobs: Vide

July 9, 2010

July 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis talks with Bloomberg’s Mark Crumpton and Julie Hyman about renewable energy jobs and unemployment benefits. Solis speaks from the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Amar Bhide Says Banks Should Only Focus on Basic Lending: Video

July 9, 2010

July 9 (Bloomberg) — Amar Bhide, a visiting scholar at Harvard University, talks about his view that banks should only focus on basic lending. Bhide talks with Eric Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” He speaks from the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Bill Gates Says More State Budget Transparency Needed: Video

July 9, 2010

July 9 (Bloomberg) — Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., says state budgets need more transparency. Gates spoke yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Bloomberg’s Deirdre Bolton reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Kennedy Sees Challenges for Colorado State Budget: Video

July 6, 2010

July 6 (Bloomberg) — Colorado Treasurer Cary Kennedy talks about the state’s budget and fiscal challenges. Kennedy, speaking with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, also discusses the outlook for the U.S. budget. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Robert Redford: Joe Berlinger vs. Chevron: Why We Must All Defend Independent Filmmaking

June 4, 2010

I have devoted a significant part of my life’s work in support of the independent artist — independent referring not to the size of a project, its funding or subject matter; rather, to the singular vision and voice of that artist. I founded Sundance Institute 30 years ago out of the belief that it is vital to ensure that the artist’s voice remains vibrant, valued and heard in civil society at large. It is with this in mind that I ask you to join me in bringing wider attention and broader support to a critically important case currently in play in U.S. courts. On May 6, 2010 Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered filmmaker Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron Corporation all raw footage — some 600 hours — from the making of his documentary, Crude: The Real Price of Oil . Chevron has sued to use this footage to bolster its legal proceedings in the very same case that is the central subject of Berlinger’s film. The potential ramifications of this for the journalist community, film world and society in general are both shocking and profound. Joe Berlinger has been connected to the Sundance family in a variety of ways for a number of years. Crude made its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival; he has volunteered his time and expertise to Sundance Institute by serving as both a competition Juror and a Festival panelist, and he has participated in the Institute’s Documentary Film Program. He has directed Sundance Channel’s award-winning Iconoclast series along with Bruce Sinofsky and his films have been broadcast on the Channel as well. His stellar career includes such landmark documentaries as Brothers Keeper , Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster , all of which premiered at our Festival. But even if there were not these connections, I would strongly call for his support. Here’s why. Filmmakers like Joe Berlinger fulfill a crucial role in today’s society by providing independent information on pressing contemporary human rights and social issues. Their success as storytellers depends on access to those men and women willing to talk on camera. If the subjects of those documentaries are fearful of the ramifications of telling the truth then the filmmaker has no story. Without a shield law, there is no recognized journalist/filmmaker/source protection, creating the very scenario we have now. The judges in this case must recognize this is first and foremost a first amendment issue. The higher courts need to overturn the decision and adhere to higher standards of journalistic privilege. If we allow the voice of the independent artist to be stifled we should expect nothing less than extreme repercussions for freedom of information…and freedom in general. You can support Berlinger’s legal efforts by going here . Robert Redford is the Founder and President of Sundance Institute, a non-profit arts organization which supports independent artists worldwide. www.sundance.org

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`Avatar’ Digital Aliens Spell Doom for Europe’s Independent Movie Theater

May 18, 2010

By Kristen Schweizer May 18 (Bloomberg) — The Prince Charles , a London movie theater that’s more likely to screen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” than a James Cameron blockbuster, is struggling to pay for Hollywood demands to go digital. The two-screen, independent cinema doesn’t have the funds of the neighboring Odeon theater at Leicester Square , where Hollywood films premiere and stars walk the red carpet. It must still pay the same 60,000 pounds ($86,500) to convert each of its screens to digital, as studios replace celluloid. “We are financially stretched,” said its manager, Gregory Lynn. “So many indie cinemas like us cannot afford to go digital, but we don’t really have a choice.” The movie house is among thousands of small cinemas — mostly in Europe — in danger of going bust unless they make the switch. The conversion costs may leave some small towns with no theaters, and fewer venues to screen movies may result in the shrinking of the European film industry, already concerned about the cultural dominance of Hollywood. “European films are mostly watched in Europe and generally only seen in their own country,” said Jean Cazes , a producer of movies including the Oscar-winning “Leaving Las Vegas” and vice president of the European Producers’ Club. With Hollywood studios counting on savings of $1 billion a year by ditching 35-millimeter prints for digital, the days of “Cinema Paradiso” may be history in as little as three years, replaced by 3-D blockbusters “Avatar,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Clash of the Titans.” Cannes Spotlight The issue took spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival, currently under way, in a Council of Europe-sponsored seminar. In Europe, where the largest chains represent only 10 percent of the continent’s 30,000 screens, more cinemas could fold. North America’s largest cinema chains account for 60 percent of about 39,000 screens. “A cinema will absolutely go out of business if they don’t upgrade,” said John Fithian , head of the North American Theater Owners . “Smaller exhibitors that cannot afford digital technology will go out of business.” Theater owners are switching to higher-quality digital following the success of 3-D movies, which command higher ticket prices. “Avatar” is the world’s top-grossing film, having taken in $2.72 billion in worldwide box-office receipts since its Dec. 18 release. A digital projector and server also allow a cinema to show a variety of content including live sporting events and concerts, said David Hancock , head of the cinema market at researcher Screen Digest, based in London. ‘If, Not When’ For Hollywood studios like Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. , Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, digital significantly cuts the price of manufacturing and distributing 35-mm film. They can deliver video files electronically. Studios plan to release 19 3-D films this year, according to Hollywood.com. Box office receipts reached records worldwide last year with total sales in Europe of $9.6 billion and $9.7 billion in the U.S., according to Hancock. “Digital is not an ‘if’ thing, it’s a ‘when’,” he said. “Within four years major markets like the U.S., U.K. and France will be fully digital.” France leads the way in Europe for digital screens, with 959 converted so far out of 5,440, according to Screen Digest. Europe has 4,580 digital screens out of 37,600, while the U.S. has 7,418 out of 39,233. Government Help Governments in Europe are stepping in to help small, beleaguered movie theaters. The European Union plans to pay as much as 50 percent of the cost of digital equipment for cinemas that show a majority of European films. The U.K. Cinema Exhibitors’ Association formed the U.K. Digital Funding Partnership this year to help smaller cinemas secure financing for the switchover and negotiate fees studios pay to theaters for movies shown on digital screens. The partnership aims to have 500 U.K. screens signed up by the end of the summer and is in loan talks with financial institutions, said Phil Clapp , the association’s head. The U.S.’s National Association of Theater Owners did the same several years ago when it worked with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. to raise funds to convert screens, Fithian said. “The real danger here is in the small towns, where we could see cinemas disappear,” Fithian said. “I think where we are now the model is relatively fair. Where it started was unfair and the studios wanted it right away. George Lucas and his team described us as dinosaurs holding back the industry.” Survival JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised almost $700 million to equip the three largest U.S. cinema chains, Regal Entertainment Group , AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Cinemark Holdings Inc. this year. Europe’s largest cinema chain, Berlin-based Odeon Film AG , raised 37 million pounds in private equity in direct negotiations with studios to help foot conversion costs, and is funding the switchover itself. Cineworld Group Plc in London has converted about a third of its screens, about 232, to digital, with its own funds, said Chief Executive Officer Steve Wiener . “In the cinema industry, whenever there’s been a major technological change, the good small exhibitors will find resources and survive,” he said. “The smaller ones won’t.” At the Coronet Cinema in London’s Notting Hill, projectionist Chris Bird isn’t convinced his two-screen picture house needs to go digital. “3-D comes and goes and who know how long it will hang around now,” the 40-year-old said. “Just like Quentin Tarantino said he likes working with film, I think you’ll have some filmmakers that will resist working with digital.” ‘Avatar’ Effect Arts Alliance Media Ltd. , a London-based company that supplies software and services for digital-film projection, has done deals with exhibitors in countries including the U.K., France and Denmark. In March, it secured 50 million euros ($63.3 million) from Bain Capital LLC’s credit affiliate Sankaty Advisors to help fund the rollout of equipment. “It’s obviously harder for small cinemas who need to figure out what to do with digital,” said Howard Kiedaisch , chief of Arts Alliance Media. “It’s like going from using a typewriter to a computer.” Kiedaisch said the turning point for digital gaining momentum was the release of “Avatar.” “Now, if you order digital equipment it won’t arrive until November or December,” he said. “Six months ago it would come the next week.” At London’s Prince Charles, manager Lynn is hoping his cinema’s recent membership in the U.K. Digital Fund will help it pay for the conversion of its second screen to digital. “We’ve had no encouragement from any film company to make the changes so we’re lucky to have done it by ourselves. We don’t have luxury like the big chains.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kristen Schweizer in London at kschweizer1@bloomberg.net .

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Shia LaBeouf, ‘Wall Street 2′ Star: I Turned $20K Into $380k Investing In Stocks

May 17, 2010

CANNES — If you want to play the stock market like Shia LaBeouf, then prepare to zig when the others zag. “I made most of my money by contrarian investing,” the actor said when queried by WalletPop at the Cannes Film Festival this week. “Nobody was putting money into financials, then financials exploded.”

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Patricia Handschiegel: The New Power Girls: Women in Business Talk Shop About Innovation, Learning, and Experimenting

April 9, 2010

It was a quiet weekend at my house the day I launched my first startup, Stylediary.net . I had kicked around the idea of creating a digital media property for a year or so before that afternoon in 2004, when armed with a free “Host your own website” service from then-independent iVillage.com (NBC later bought it) I launched what became the first media outlet to focus solely on what real people — not models — were wearing. It was new and innovative, and has since sparked a trend in the market that can be seen in dozens of print and online media companies to this day. I sold Stylediary three years later. Whenever people ask me, “How did you get the idea for the site?” the answer is easy: I learned what was missing, and what people wished might exist. Then, I created it. I’ve relied on learning to stay ahead ever since. Learning, innovation and experimenting go hand in hand. Today’s article is all about that. There is no better people to tap on the subject than the women entrepreneurs and executives I’ve met and know. They are some of the most innovative learners and experimenters I’ve met. My first stop was the incredible Jessica Igoe, Director of Global Sponsorship Marketing at American Express . Jessica’s the force behind some of AMEX’s most innovative ideas and projects, including leveraging fashion, film and technology to create new and exciting experiences for their customers. It’s a case study for business owners everywhere — much of what Jessica has brought to the company are strategies and mindsets that anybody can incorporate — whether you’re heading up a company of your own, launching a new one, or trying to take a project to the next level. “It starts with being manically focused on your customer,” Jessica shared via email this past week. “I am always thinking about ways that I can help deliver a new perspective on the things our Cardmembers are most passionate about in film, fashion or tennis.” And that she does. In the past few years, AMEX has done incredible things under Jessica’s charge, from leveraging social media to include remote customers in major events, to partnering with amazing organizations like USTA, Tribeca Film Festival, and IMG fashion. “We are really focused on the “why” behind what we are doing. Why does our strategy make sense? Why would Cardmembers be interested in the experiences we are creating?” she added. “Staying consistently curious about your business enables you to ask questions that will uncover new ideas.” Asking questions and uncovering new ideas is something Smarty LA founder Amy Swift was born to do — and has since passed on to dozens (and dozens) of women through her Los Angeles-based organization. Amy hosts events, workshops and other get-togethers designed to spark innovation, growth and learning for women-owned businesses, attracting incredible founders and speakers like to learn and teach together. If you’re in the city, Smarty’s next event will be on celebrity endorsements , and innovative ways to leverage it with your brand. For New Power Girls co-founder Meghan Cleary , experimentation and learning have been a major part of her brand. She was one of the first fashion experts to take a 360 degree marketing approach leveraging social media, publishing and television. LiveloveshopLA founder Barbra Night leveraged more than twenty years of retail, lifestyle and beauty connections to create a new innovative new multi-platform project that’ll help drive her business in fresh — and exciting — new directions. Power Girls know that innovation, learning and experimenting go hand in hand with success. How to do it in your own business? Focus on what your customers want first, learn as much as you can, experiment and most of all — don’t be afraid to innovate. Like all of the women above show, it can pay off in more ways you an imagine!

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Patricia Handschiegel: The New Power Girls: Women in Business Talk Shop About Innovation, Learning, and Experimenting

April 9, 2010

It was a quiet weekend at my house the day I launched my first startup, Stylediary.net . I had kicked around the idea of creating a digital media property for a year or so before that afternoon in 2004, when armed with a free “Host your own website” service from then-independent iVillage.com (NBC later bought it) I launched what became the first media outlet to focus solely on what real people — not models — were wearing. It was new and innovative, and has since sparked a trend in the market that can be seen in dozens of print and online media companies to this day. I sold Stylediary three years later. Whenever people ask me, “How did you get the idea for the site?” the answer is easy: I learned what was missing, and what people wished might exist. Then, I created it. I’ve relied on learning to stay ahead ever since. Learning, innovation and experimenting go hand in hand. Today’s article is all about that. There is no better people to tap on the subject than the women entrepreneurs and executives I’ve met and know. They are some of the most innovative learners and experimenters I’ve met. My first stop was the incredible Jessica Igoe, Director of Global Sponsorship Marketing at American Express . Jessica’s the force behind some of AMEX’s most innovative ideas and projects, including leveraging fashion, film and technology to create new and exciting experiences for their customers. It’s a case study for business owners everywhere — much of what Jessica has brought to the company are strategies and mindsets that anybody can incorporate — whether you’re heading up a company of your own, launching a new one, or trying to take a project to the next level. “It starts with being manically focused on your customer,” Jessica shared via email this past week. “I am always thinking about ways that I can help deliver a new perspective on the things our Cardmembers are most passionate about in film, fashion or tennis.” And that she does. In the past few years, AMEX has done incredible things under Jessica’s charge, from leveraging social media to include remote customers in major events, to partnering with amazing organizations like USTA, Tribeca Film Festival, and IMG fashion. “We are really focused on the “why” behind what we are doing. Why does our strategy make sense? Why would Cardmembers be interested in the experiences we are creating?” she added. “Staying consistently curious about your business enables you to ask questions that will uncover new ideas.” Asking questions and uncovering new ideas is something Smarty LA founder Amy Swift was born to do — and has since passed on to dozens (and dozens) of women through her Los Angeles-based organization. Amy hosts events, workshops and other get-togethers designed to spark innovation, growth and learning for women-owned businesses, attracting incredible founders and speakers like to learn and teach together. If you’re in the city, Smarty’s next event will be on celebrity endorsements , and innovative ways to leverage it with your brand. For New Power Girls co-founder Meghan Cleary , experimentation and learning have been a major part of her brand. She was one of the first fashion experts to take a 360 degree marketing approach leveraging social media, publishing and television. LiveloveshopLA founder Barbra Night leveraged more than twenty years of retail, lifestyle and beauty connections to create a new innovative new multi-platform project that’ll help drive her business in fresh — and exciting — new directions. Power Girls know that innovation, learning and experimenting go hand in hand with success. How to do it in your own business? Focus on what your customers want first, learn as much as you can, experiment and most of all — don’t be afraid to innovate. Like all of the women above show, it can pay off in more ways you an imagine!

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Mindich Hedge Fund Counts on Film Department IPO to Recover Defaulted Debt

March 24, 2010

By Miles Weiss March 24 (Bloomberg) — Hedge-fund manager Eric Mindich has as much as $36 million riding on the initial public offering of Film Department Holdings Inc., the movie-studio startup that defaulted on debt held by his Eton Park Capital Management LP. Film Department said in December it wanted to raise $85 million from an IPO as part of an agreement to repay notes held by New York-based Eton Park. The filmmaker, based in West Hollywood, California, delayed the deal last week after cutting it to $60 million earlier this month. Eton Park, which oversees about $13 billion, is seeking to avoid the losses that befell hedge funds after they poured cash into Hollywood during the past decade. The funds participated in more than $11 billion of film financings since 2004, according to Clear Scope Partners, a Los Angeles-based entertainment advisory firm, only to begin withdrawing from the business during the past several years. “The influx of hedge-fund money caused an abundance of films to get made, which artificially increased competition and hurt film performance,” said P. Clark Hallren, Clear Scope’s managing director and a former executive in the entertainment industries group at JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s securities unit. “The combination of the financial crisis and the relatively negative performance of the film funds caused hedge funds to retreat.” Capital Shortage As a result, the film industry faced a capital shortage that cut the number of movies being produced and forced companies such as Film Department to seek alternative funding sources. Because independent film studios have traditionally relied on private financing, there are only a few that are publicly traded, including Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and DreamWorks Animation SKG. Mark Gill , 47, who co-founded Film Department with Neil Sacker , 48, after establishing and running Warner Independent Pictures from 2003 to 2006, declined to comment. Mary Beth Grover , a spokeswoman for Eton Park, also declined to comment. Film Department started in June 2007, the same month it issued $30 million of notes as part of an effort to raise about $200 million through private stock sales and loans. Eton Park, founded in 2004 by Mindich, a 42-year-old former partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., holds all of the notes, which have a second lien on Film Department’s assets, according to an amended IPO prospectus filed March 22 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Including accrued interest, Eton Park is owed $36 million. Debt Default After failing to meet film-production targets last year, Film Department defaulted on the notes in August and reported a $10 million net loss for 2009. Outside auditor BDO Seidman LLP said on March 2 that there was “substantial doubt” about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Film Department agreed in a November recapitalization plan to use proceeds from a private or public stock sale to repay the Eton Park notes, whose annual interest rate jumped to 16 percent from 12 percent when the company defaulted on the debt, its SEC filing shows. The company’s financial picture has improved since last year, partly because its first release, a thriller called “Law Abiding Citizen” starring Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx , has reaped $120 million in worldwide box-office receipts and has had higher DVD and Blu-Ray sales than expected. That reduced the amount of cash Film Department needed to raise in an IPO, said Richard Woltman, chairman of Girard Securities Inc., the San Diego-based brokerage that is underwriting the stock offering. ‘Improved’ Cash Flow “As this thing has evolved, the cash flow has been much improved from the distribution of ‘Law Abiding Citizen,’” said Woltman, who added that other underwriting firms have shown a “terrific” interest in participating in the stock sale. Film Department currently plans to sell 4.6 million shares through the IPO at $13 each, according to the March 22 filing. The company expects to repay about $12 million of second-lien notes by the time the IPO takes place, and will need about $22.5 million of the IPO proceeds to repay the remainder of the money owed Eton Park as of March 19. Eton Park will also receive $1.5 million of shares as partial payment. The IPO, which was scheduled to take place last week, may be further delayed because many people are taking breaks for Easter and Passover, Woltman said. Should Film Department fail to complete the IPO and repay Eton Park by April 1, Mindich’s firm will be entitled to an 8.6 percent stake in the box-office receipts from “Earthbound,” a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson that finished production in New Orleans earlier this month, according to the March 22 filing. As president of Warner Independent Pictures, Gill purchased the documentary “March of the Penguins” at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and turned it into a blockbuster that grossed $129 million at the box office worldwide. He also ran the Los Angeles office of Harvey Weinstein ’s Miramax Films Corp., where Gill worked from 1994 until 2002, helping to develop movies such as “The English Patient” and “Shakespeare in Love.” To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Miles Weiss in Washington at mweiss@bloomberg.net

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Cheung Kong Caps Homes Per Buyer at Hong Kong Project to Curb Speculation

March 22, 2010

By Chia-Peck Wong March 23 (Bloomberg) — Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd. , the Hong Kong-based real estate company controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing , is capping the number of apartments for each buyer at a new residential project to “protect” home-buyers from speculators, an executive said today. Each buyer, either using a personal name or that of a company, can purchase a maximum of two homes at the Festival City project located in the New Territories district, said William Kwok , director of Cheung Kong’s real estate arm. “We found that many speculators are very interested in our project, and we want to protect the self-users,” Kwok, referring to those who buy homes for their own use, said in an interview by phone today. “The Hong Kong property situation is very hot, and we don’t want this project to be focused on the speculators.” Hong Kong’s government has expressed concern about surging property prices and will raise stamp duties on luxury residences from April 1 after increasing the amount of down payments for homes costing more than HK$20 million ($2.58 million). It also has pledged to supply more land and proposed selling more public homes. Luxury homes in Hong Kong are typically defined as those costing more than HK$10 million each or are bigger than 1,000 square feet (92.9 square meters). To contact the reporter on this story: Chia-Peck Wong in Hong Kong at cpwong@bloomberg.net

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Debt-Laden Dubai May Spend `Billions’ to Expand One Airport, Build Another

January 31, 2010

By Chan Sue Ling and Vivian Salama Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — Dubai Airports, the government-owned airfield operator, plans to seek approval for expansion plans costing “billions of dirham” undeterred by the emirate’s need for a $20 billion bailout last year. The company will make a recommendation on boosting capacity within the next few months, Chief Executive Officer Paul Griffiths said today in an interview in Singapore. He declined to elaborate further on the costs. Dubai plans to press ahead with expanding its current airport and building a new one, even after having to get help from neighbor Abu Dhabi to pay off debts used to finance real- estate projects. Aviation generates as much as 25 percent of the emirate’s economy, according to Griffiths, as Dubai has invested in facilities and Emirates Airline to make up for a lack of oil reserves. “Dubai’s vision, attitude towards airport infrastructure is that if you constrain, the growth will go elsewhere,” he said. “So we are not going to constrain that growth.” Dubai International Airport , the 17th-biggest worldwide in terms of passengers, handled 40.9 million travelers last year, a 9.2 percent increase. The airport operator expects passenger numbers to rise 14 percent this year to 46 million. The airport’s capacity is due to rise to 75 million passengers a year in 2012 from 60 million now. That will be followed by an increase to as much as 97 million, Griffiths said. Some 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, the emirate is also building the Al Maktoum Airport, which will eventually have a capacity of 120 million passengers. Dubai pushed back the opening of the first phase of the airport to this year because of construction delays. The new airport will cost $33 billion, Griffiths has said. “Recognizing that the airports are a critical part of the economy here, it seems to me the capacity of the airports and expansions already announced would satisfy Dubai’s needs for the foreseeable future,” said Nicholas Maclean , managing director of CB Richard Ellis Middle East. “Unless it comes as a partnership with said Abu Dhabi, it seems to be a very ambitious plan and we’d need to see the plans and understand more about how they intend to fund” any new infrastructure plans, Maclean said. Dubai and its state-owned companies borrowed at least $80 billion through 2008 to transform the emirate into a tourism and financial hub. The seizure of debt markets after the onset of the global credit crisis led to a 50 percent decline in property prices in the city and hampered the ability of Dubai-based companies to raise new loans to refinance maturing debt. Dubai, the second-biggest of seven states that make up the U.A.E., has geared itself to host as many as 15 million tourists annually by 2015, according to government estimates. It built islands in the shape of palms, the world’s tallest tower and a ski slope inside a shopping mall in hope to lure travelers from around the world. The Dubai Shopping Festival, which kicked off this week, seeks to position the emirate among the world’s leading retail destinations. Dubai Duty Free said on Jan. 4 it made a record $1.1 billion in sales last year, or 5 percent of all airport retail sales worldwide. To contact the reporters on this story: Sue Ling Chan in Singapore at slchan@bloomberg.net ; Vivian Salama in Abu Dhabi at vsalama@bloomberg.net

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Uighur Activist Kadeer’s Film to Be Shown Before Taiwan Kaohsiung Festival

September 19, 2009

By Tim Culpan Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) — Taiwan’s second-largest city will screen a movie about an exiled Uighur activist who’s been criticized by China, before its local film festival starts. “The 10 Conditions of Love,” a film about Rebiya Kadeer , who China has called “an ironclad separatist,” will be shown in four sessions on Sept. 22 and Sept. 23, instead of during the Kaohsiung Film Festival which begins Oct. 16, Liu Hsiu-ying, director of the Kaohsiung Film Library, the event’s organizer, said by phone yesterday. The compromise comes after tourism groups urged the local government in Kaohsiung not to show the film on concerns it may provoke China, the largest source of tourists to Taiwan. Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan controlled by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, drew criticism from China earlier this month for hosting the Dalai Lama . “Tourism in Kaohsiung is already hurting” from a deadly typhoon, swine flu and Chinese opposition to the Dalai Lama’s visit, and “we don’t need to aggravate the situation by screening the movie and further provoking China,” Lin Shang- Chih, president of the Kaohsiung Travel Agency Association , said earlier in a telephone interview. Typhoon Morakot, which left more than 600 dead in southern Taiwan last month, triggered criticism of President Ma Ying- jeou , who was accused of not doing enough to save lives. Ma consented to the Kaohsiung city and county’s proposal to allow the Dalai Lama to visit after the typhoon. ‘Political Turmoil’ “The government information office noted the different views, including those from city councilors, the tourism industry, film and artist groups, and respects each of those standpoints,” the Kaohsiung city government said in a faxed statement last night. The government “faced political turmoil caused by mainland China’s Taiwan Affairs Office,” it said in the statement. Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi said at a press conference in Beijing on Sept. 16 that Taiwan wants to avoid “any repeat of incidents that might disturb the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.” “10 Conditions” is an Australian-made film about Rebiya Kadeer , who China has accused of instigating clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang in July that left 192 people dead. Chinese officials tried to stop the Australian premiere of the film at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. More than 80,000 mainland Chinese visited Taiwan last month, compared with 29,281 a year earlier, according to the Taiwan tourism bureau. To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net .

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