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Secretary-General Condemns Attack on UN Office in Nigeria

by on August 28, 2011

menafn.com…

(MENAFN – Qatar News Agency) Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has condemned the terrorist attack that targeted the United …

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Secretary-General Condemns Attack on UN Office in Nigeria

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Caroline Dowd-Higgins: Does Your Career Zig or Zag?

by on June 2, 2011

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My father spent his entire career with one organization and 45+ years working his way up the ladder of the competitive banking and finance industry. While he enjoyed multiple retirement parties and was given the proverbial gold watch upon his self-determined exit from the workforce, he represents a generation of professionals that are becoming extinct. In 2011, it’s not so much that people have changed their professional values but that organizations don’t honor the long-term employee as they did in years past. The “grow talent from within” philosophy can still be found in some of the corporate giants like Proctor & Gamble and DuPont but today organizations are also embracing the new industry zig-zaggers . These individuals have multiple companies represented on their resumes and work for brief stints, then move on. What they bring to the table is innovation, an ability to be flexible and embrace change, and a fresh approach to solving problems with creative solutions. Recruiters and hiring managers are now welcoming the new industry zig-zaggers because these professionals know their unique value-add in the workplace. They bring with them a breath of fresh air and often the industry tricks-of-the-trade from competitor organizations. Many zig-zaggers have made conscious career transitions because they find change stimulating, while others have had to showcase their resiliency in an unmerciful job market and needed to reinvent quickly. It used to be that having short stints at multiple companies was a red flag when applying for a new position. Times have changed and these candidates can market themselves wisely as desirable hires if they don’t present as an immediate flight risk. Here are some things to consider if you are a conscious zig-zagger , or someone trying to make a fresh start in this unpredictable job economy. Showcase Your Value-Add . Every employer wants to know what they will get as a return on their investment if they hire you. Be prepared to clearly define what you bring to the table. Develop your 30/60/90 day plan and systematically outline your strategy for success in the organization. Be well prepared and know what the company needs before your interview. Illustrate Your Flexibility, Innovation, and Ability to Handle Change . These are the most highly sought after competencies as reported by head hunters and recruiters these days. The company can train you for additional skills but you must be a good cultural fit and be ready to handle whatever comes your way. The only consistent thing about this career world is that it will continue to change quickly. Zig-zaggers should demonstrate how they bounced back after a set-back and handle uncertainty with an open mind and a positive attitude during the new job interview. Often new leaders are born when they step up to the plate and accept organizational change without complaining. Here’s where a zig-zagger can have an edge. Know the Value of Transferable Skills in Career Reinvention . Many zig-zaggers have reinvented their careers in entirely different industries. Be firmly in control of your own marketing message to help others understand the value of your transferable skills. Be ready to give examples and consider this when selecting your references that will be called if you are a final candidate. They too should be able to speak to the power of your transferable skills. Long Term Career Plan . Some professionals became zig-zaggers beyond their control, and others have opted for short-term assignments to consciously grow their careers when they hit the glass ceiling. In many companies, moving up and out is the only opportunity for promotion and career growth. Any hiring manager worth their salt is going to probe into your long-term career plan. If you value security and longevity in an organization, don’t be shy about saying so, especially if this is also a company value. But be aware that organizations want you around long enough so that you become profitable to them after the initial training and orientation period. If you are a perpetual zig-zagger you will need to choose organizations that embrace your constant momentum and have a shorter value-add period for their pay back. Since a lifelong career path in a single organization is going by the way of the dinosaur, you must be in control of your own career destiny. Don’t assume your boss is looking out for your career future. Consider where you want to be in five-year increments and develop a plan to get yourself there. If upward mobility requires a bit of zig-zagging , you will not be ostracized as long as you can definitively show your value to a company and a sincere interest in working at the organization. Whether you zig or zag — your career destiny is in your hands! Caroline Dowd-Higgins authored the book This Is Not the Career I Ordered and maintains the career reinvention blog of the same name ( www.carolinedowdhiggins.com ) She is also the Director of Career & Professional Development at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

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Caroline Dowd-Higgins: Does Your Career Zig or Zag?

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Inder Sidhu: Decisions, Decisions: How to Make Them Better and More Impactful

June 2, 2011

Brown shoes or black? This destination or that one? More risk or greater security? Every day, I make a lot of decisions, some big, some small. Naturally, I am always on the lookout for ways to improve decision-making. Regular readers know I’m not a fan of boiling difficult choices down to this or that. Whenever possible, I believe its better to take on two seemingly divergent things simultaneously. Disruptive or sustaining innovation? Tuning or transforming? More often than not, the benefits of doing both outweigh the extra effort that it requires. In fact, taking on two different things creates a multiplier effect in which one successfully executed decision can benefit another, and vice versa. But what about instances when doing both is not an option? You can’t go to two places at once, for example, or hire two candidates to fill a single position. For moments like these — as well as times when you commit to doing both — there are things you can do to improve the quality of decisions you make. Here are three suggestions. Make definitive choices : The key to any decision, researchers have found, is making it decisively . A recent article for Fast Company highlights why. When you keep your options open, you deny yourself the benefits of what our “psychological immune system” can provide. It protects us in the aftermath of a difficult decision by reducing our inclination to second guess ourselves. Once you commit to a decision to pursue one objective — or even two, the mind actively works to alleviate your stress by helping you move on to other matters. But it only works if you make a definitive decision. If you take a position on a fence instead, you’ll distract yourself with doubts over whether or not you chose wisely. As every good leader knows, you can’t get far in business sitting on a fence. Get in touch with yourself : Writer David Brooks of the New York Times has a new book out, entitled The Social Animal . In it, he examines why people with superb social skills often wind up in leadership positions. Their high emotional quotients, he believes, help them better connect with people, leading to professional advancement. But only a fraction of emotionally gifted people lead effectively. Why? Brooks believes the answer is because we are taught to discount our emotions when it comes to decision-making. This, he believes, is nuts, and leads many otherwise talented people to make poor choices. If you’re not convinced, then try a little test the next time you face a tough decision. Chances are you’ll stew over which option is better based on its pros and cons. Instead of debating endlessly with yourself, flip a coin, Brooks suggests. Don’t go by what the outcome dictates, but rather your reaction to it. If your gut says “make it two of out three,” then you know what you truly want. Effective leaders understand the value of human emotion and consider them when making difficult decisions. Stand by your convictions : When he was a young man, jazz leader Wynton Marsalis told his father Ellis that he decided to follow in his footsteps and pursue music as a profession. But the younger Marsalis was worried about the hardships of late nights and deprivations of low pay. So he asked his father if he should form a backup plan in case he failed. No, said the elder Marsalis . “The only advice I can give you is don’t have anything to fall back on … If you have something to fall back on, you gonna fall back.” The point of the story? Unwavering commitment, the kind that comes from having no other option, can often spell the difference between success and failure. NASA’s mission control specialists understand this. So do entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and others who have stared down defeat. When faced with adversity, they don’t give up quickly and switch to another option. Instead, they rely on their passion and will to carry them through. So what about you: Do you make definitive choices? Are you in touch with your emotions or prepared to stand by your convictions? If so, then you’re on your way to being an effective leader. If not, then consider the preceding advice. Not all of it will work in every situation, but it will serve you well just the same. As I have learned over the years, better decisions lead to better outcomes. Wouldn’t your organization — and your career — benefit from more of these? Inder Sidhu is the Senior Vice President of Strategy & Planning for Worldwide Operations at Cisco , and the author of Doing Both: Capturing Today’s Profits and Driving Tomorrow’s Growth . Author proceeds from sales of Doing Both go to charity. Follow Inder on Twitter at @indersidhu .

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Federal Tax Rate At Lowest Level In Over 60 Years, Bartlett Says

May 31, 2011

Hearing some politicians talk about taxes, one might be convinced the United States has one of the highest tax rates in the world. But the reality is the federal tax rate, broadly measured, is the lowest it has been in 60 years, Bruce Bartlett writes in a new column. A look at the effective tax rate, which expresses taxes as a share of the country’s economic output, belies the stream of political rhetoric arguing that taxes are relatively high, says Bartlett, who was a senior policy analyst under President Ronald Reagan. Federal taxes will be 14.8 percent of the nation’s economic output this year, according to a recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office . That’s compared to a postwar annual average rate of 18.5 percent, Bartlett notes. With the nation’s gross domestic product at about $15 trillion, that low effective rate means the federal government is missing out on hundreds of billions of dollars every year. “Revenues have been at a historically low level for three years now, so we’ve probably left a trillion dollars on the table,” Bartlett said in an interview with The Huffington Post. He added that the most recent year when the federal government took less from the economy was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget. There’s no evidence, he said, that lowering taxes further would help stimulate the economy. The effective federal tax rate is “low by that historical standard, and it’s rarely been as low,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said in an interview. “It’s very hard to understand where the impression has come about that we currently have high taxes, or that our taxes are high in relation to those of other rich countries,” said Gary Burtless, a former Labor Department economist and a current fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington. “These are low tax rates that we’re currently facing, in relationship to our incomes, in relationship to the size of the national economy.” The low effective rate, Zandi said, is the result both of the weak economy and recent tax cuts. While Americans suffering in the wake of the recession might feel heavily taxed, the federal government takes a relatively small portion of the country’s income. For American corporations, the tax situation could hardly be sweeter. Measured as a share of economic output, the U.S. enjoys the lowest corporate tax burden of any of the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Bartlett notes in his column. And yet, politicians and pundits insist that Americans are overtaxed. One way to do so is to use the statutory tax rate. That’s the number that lawmakers discuss when debating tax cut legislation, and it can be made to seem even bigger if combined with state and local statutory tax rates. But the more relevant measure, economists say, is the effective rate, since it takes the country’s income into account. Here’s Bartlett: The economic importance of statutory tax rates is blown far out of proportion by Republicans looking for ways to make taxes look high when they are quite low. And they almost never note that the statutory tax rate applies only to the last dollar earned or that the effective tax rate is substantially lower even for the richest taxpayers and largest corporations because of tax exclusions, deductions, credits and the 15 percent top rate on dividends and capital gains. Read the rest of the column here .

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Lagarde Heads To Brazil After Securing G8 Support

May 30, 2011

BRASILIA, Brazil — French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was in Brazil on Monday to kick off a global tour promoting her candidacy to head the International Monetary Fund. Lagarde has emerged as the odds-on favorite for the job. Her appointment would make her the first woman in charge of the scandal-rocked fund but may also increase tensions with developing nations that argue countries outside of Europe should be allowed to lead the organization. Brazilian officials have not spoken out in favor or against Lagarde’s candidacy. But they previously have emphasized that the IMF’s next leader should be chosen on merits, not based on geography. The IMF is hunting for a new leader to replace former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of France, who quit May 18 after he was accused of attempting to rape a New York hotel maid. He has denied the allegations. Lagarde will meet with the head of Brazil’s Central Bank and also the nation’s finance minister, Guido Mantega. In recent years, Mantega has loudly fought for reforms in the IMF, World Bank and other multilateral institutions that would take into account the growth of emerging nations such as Brazil, China and India. “We must establish meritocracy, so that the person leading the IMF is selected for their merits and not for being European,” Mantega said earlier this month. “You can have a competent European … but you can have a representative from an emerging nation who is competent as well.” Mantega also has said that whoever is chosen to replace Strauss-Kahn should only hold the job until Strauss-Kahn’s term expires at the end of 2012. That, Mantega has argued, would give IMF member nations more time to carefully choose a full-term chief. China has suggested it is time to shake things up at the IMF, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu saying the leadership “should be based on fairness, transparency and merit.” South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan spoke in stronger terms earlier this month. He said the new director should come from an emerging economy, to “bring a new perspective that will ensure that the interests of all countries, both developed and developing, are fully reflected in the operations and policies of the IMF.” French Embassy spokesman Stephane Schorderet said Lagarde will return to Paris on Monday night and plans to stump for the IMF job in China next week. She also plans to visit other influential developing nations to convince them that if given the job, she will not exclusively focus on Europe, where the fund is closely involved in a half-dozen bailout deals. According to France’s foreign minister, Lagarde has already won the backing of the Group of Eight rich nations. Interviewed Sunday on French television channel Canal+, Alain Juppe said there was unanimous support for Lagarde among the eight leaders at their annual summit in Deauville, France, last week. The U.S., whose vote will be crucial for Lagarde’s nomination, has not officially endorsed a candidate.

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Raymond J. Learsy: Iran and the OPEC Follies — What a Difference a Day Makes

May 27, 2011

On Monday this corner posted ” Trouble Ahead! Iran and Saudi Arabia the “Oil” Brothers .” The post was a rumination on the impact the June 8 OPEC meeting in Vienna will reflect as result of the ascendency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Presidency not only of Iran but as the President of OPEC by virtue of his assuming the post of Iran’s oil minister while Iran held the rotating presidency of OPEC. An event that was “setting the stage for a highly politicized gathering of the cartel,” according to the Financial Times . It became common consensus that Ahmadinejad would use his OPEC prominence not only to push for higher prices to shore up Iran’s flagging economy, but to grandstand, thereby consolidating his position at home. Shortly thereafter however, poof, we learned that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would not participate in the upcoming OPEC meeting . The report thereby undercut a statement last week by a senior government official that Ahmadinejad would chair the next OPEC meeting in his capacity as the country’s caretaker oil minister. It appears that the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog body, had ruled that Ahmadinejad could not also serve in the oil ministry role. But then, lo and behold, another bit of news trickled out of Tehran. The Financial Times reported that a senior Iranian government official acknowledged that there exists a “global shortage in the supply of crude” and promised (I repeat the word “promised”) that OPEC will keep the market in balance. This from Mohammad Ali Khatabi, an OPEC governor who serves as Iran’s permanent representative to the organization. He went on “… OPEC will continue its onerous duty, which is to create balance in the market.” This is a fundamental change in tone and tune. Is it the beginnings of the stirrings of a more liberal and responsible Iran? That would be a most pleasant surprise. Now if only one could get the Saudis similarly responsive in deed rather than in vacuous word, all would benefit.

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Angel Gurría: Déjà Vu All Over Again?

May 25, 2011

We’d like to think we’re through the worst of the biggest crisis in 70 years. And yet derivatives, a chief culprit of the financial meltdown, continue to account for 10 times world GDP and counting. A major $8.5 billion takeover has analysts speculating about a new internet bubble. Some emerging economies are showing classic signs of overheating with property prices, consumer credit and bank profits hitting all time highs. We could be forgiven for wondering if we have learned anything over the past few years. We would deserve less forgiveness if we were unwittingly preparing the ground for the next slump and no one sounded the alarm. If international institutions do their job and fulfill their purpose, we stand a good chance of avoiding the mistakes of the past. The crisis has brought the roles of organizations like the OECD into sharp focus. Like never before, we are coordinating our efforts with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Labor Organization. But much more needs to be done. The G20, governments, civil society actors and citizens around the world now have higher expectations of us. Since the OECD was founded 50 years ago, it has provided a unique forum where leaders and decision makers meet to discuss which policies work and which don’t. We have had a solid track-record freeing people from economic and social wreckage, beginning with the Marshall Plan in the aftermath of WWII. Helping governments and countries understand the interdependence of their economies and societies paved the way for an era of cooperation. In addressing the latest crisis we have delivered some concrete results: closing down tax havens worldwide so taxpayers and collectors are sure we’re all making a contribution to clear up the mess. OECD standards to fight international bribery have global reach with Russia on the brink of becoming the 40th country to sign up to them. Bribery takes money out of people’s hands, food out of people’s mouths and undermines development. In an effort to bring renewed focus on the need for robust corporate governance we have fundamentally overhauled our international Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. We continue to push for the separation of risky business investments such as derivatives from high-street banking. And we are making real efforts to address the deficit in citizens’ financial education and protection that the crisis so flagrantly revealed. We are leading G20 efforts to enforce proper consumer protection so that people are never placed in the position where they sign a mortgage document that they don’t understand. In regions like the Middle East, we can bring our experience to bear to help rebuild societies and economies, as we have done throughout Western and Eastern Europe. And we are pushing boundaries of knowledge and understanding by questioning conventional wisdom. After seven years working to better measure societal progress, the launch of Your Better Life Index is designed to respond to a pent-up demand from citizens the world over to move beyond GDP as the means of measuring well-being and gauging progress. By giving ordinary people the instrument to measure their well-being we are changing the face of public policy making, helping them help us deliver the best public policies to improve their lives. The pre-crisis system let us down. We need to restore trust and make good on what people want most — growth and jobs. The best way to do this is to start from the facts, the evidence, the numbers, to share best practices, to make an honest assessment of what works and what doesn’t. And to develop standards that can ensure the global community can benefit from the accrued wisdom of experience. Good public policy is about good ideas. There is no political monopoly on them. They should be formulated not in competing corners of the policy landscape, but rather at the nexus of where economics, government, the private sector and everyday people meet. We’re clearly not out of the woods as far as the crisis is concerned. It is all too human to indulge in wishful thinking and end up back where we started with business as usual. But it would be a temptation we could never forgive ourselves for falling into. Angel Gurria is Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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U.S. Should Raise Interest Rates, OECD Says

May 25, 2011

WASHINGTON (By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa) – The Federal Reserve should begin to hike interest rates in coming months, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Wednesday, as it raised its outlook for U.S. economic growth. In its semi-annual forecast, the OECD said it sees U.S. economic growth of 2.6 percent in 2011, up from its forecast last November for growth of just 2.2 percent. The outlook, however, is much lower than the Fed’s own “central tendency” estimates, which as of April 27 pegged growth for this year in the 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent range. Despite what it sees as significant potential downside risks to expansion from higher energy and commodity prices, the OECD recommends the Fed begin slowly withdrawing some of its extraordinary aid to the economy as 2011 progresses. “A modest reduction in monetary stimulus should get under way in the second half of this year,” the OECD said in its report. Alan Detmeister, the OECD Economics Department’s U.S. desk officer, said in a press briefing the Fed should raise its benchmark federal funds rate to 1 percent from the current zero to 0.25 percent range before the end of the year. Continued high levels of unemployment are not enough of a reason to keep rates at rock-bottom lows, the OECD said, since low rates raise the risk of future bubbles or inflationary shocks. The group predicts the U.S. jobless rate, currently at 9 percent, will remain close to 8 percent for much of 2012. “At present there is little sign that continued extraordinarily loose monetary policy settings have increased inflation expectations more than a small amount or are resulting in another asset price bubble,” the OECD added, citing oil and other commodities as a “possible exception.” The OECD expects the trend of subdued inflation to continue for the foreseeable future, predicting U.S. consumer price inflation of 1.9 percent for this year and just 1.3 percent next year — well beneath the Fed’s implicit target of 2 percent or a bit below. The Fed looks set to complete its $600 billion bond-buying program aimed at keeping long-term rates down in June, as scheduled. Its balance sheet now stands at a record $2.74 trillion, but a large amount of bank reserves remain parked at the Fed rather than being lent out to businesses. A LITTLE TOO LOOSE? Still, the OECD’s call for rate hikes, potentially controversial given a still-fragile U.S. recovery, appears to be based on the presumption that rates are so far below their normal levels that the tightening process must begin soon. Detmeister believes a “neutral” U.S. benchmark rate that neither retards or stimulates growth should be around 4.5 percent. “Tightening somewhat now would reduce the need for steeper, and potentially disruptive, increases in interest rates later,” the OECD said. At the same time, the group said long-term unemployment presents a dangerous challenge for the United States, since it risks becoming self-reinforcing and reducing the productivity of the labor force over time. Just under half of the 13.7 million jobless Americans have been out of work for six months or longer, the highest ever. The OECD noted that countries such as Germany and Japan, where firms were either reluctant to lay off workers or were able to reduce their hours through workshare arrangements, fared better than countries without such programs in place. “The ability of these countries to cushion the employment impact of the crisis may offer lessons that could help improve labor market resilience to future shocks,” the report said. (Reporting by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Leslie Adler) Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Beverly Macy: The LinkedIn IPO Changes Everything

May 23, 2011

Brand new horizons for start-ups, conferences, corporate education and more. I was at a financial services conference this weekend and someone remarked, ” LinkedIn changes everything. It’s like Netscape in 1995.” So true. Yes, the flag dropped on Thursday, May 19, 2011 and the race is on. Yippee! It seems everyone is finally waking up from a long slumber — the VCs are suddenly voraciously looking for dealflow, the job market seems brighter somehow and there’s a kind of hope that smells of innovation, money and success in the air. And like 1995, we’re just at the beginning. Remember, Yahoo!, Google and Amazon weren’t even born in 1995. Jump to May 2011 and corporations are just waking up to the fact that they better get smart fast because real-time social media is here to stay. Yes, that conversation about their brand is taking place whether they’re in it or not. Yes, influence matters, and if you don’t know your Klout score, you’re not with it. Not only that, but the organization alignment issues that business process change engenders are coming like a fire hose blast. Does social belong in marketing or customer service? What about the legal implications, regulatory and policy considerations, talent sourcing (LinkedIn, again!) and more? We offer Social Media for Executives corporate education and since Thursday, my email inbox is full and my phone is ringing off the hook with requests to schedule that internal corporate ed seminar we discussed months ago. And rightly so. The social media revolution is going to happen with you or without you, so get on board now. Conferences have a new level of excitement as well. Whew, just when we thought we’d all die of boredom if yet one more smug executive preached the blah blah blah about “digital marketing,” something has shifted. We launched Gravity Summit back in February 2009 to great accolades and buzz. But our next event as part of the FutureM week in Boston is drawing the biggest buzz yet. Sponsors are lining up at the door. We believe it’s partially because we’re part of the MITX’s FutureM — an intellectual marketing mash-up: a five-day long offering of events, discussions and parties throughout the Greater Boston area. We see this as the way of the future in the ‘new conference experience’ and we’re excited to be involved. Second Line in New Orleans is another intriguing concept and format. Earlier this month, the inaugural Second Line launched as an interactive conference celebrating the New Economy successes and strategies with disruptive innovation, value creation and sustainable social impact. I’ll be involved in next year’s event and can’t wait. I’m personally fired up and ready to go. I’m excited about influencing what happens next and how this will play out. I’m also passionate about educating the business community on what this all means. So come on in, the social media water is fine. Beverly Macy is the CEO of Gravity Summit, Inc. the Co-Author of The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing . Contact her to schedule Social Media for Executives training at beverlymacy@gmail.com. And follow her on Twitter @beverlymacy; @PowerRTM; @GravitySummit or email her at beverlymacy@gmail.com .

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Ron Ashkenas: Job Available: No Experience Preferred

May 20, 2011

Have you ever tried to get a job where you were told that you had all the right skills but lacked experience ? It’s a Catch-22 : You can’t get the job without experience , and you can’t get experience without getting the job. But how important is experience , and should it be such a critical asset for hiring managers? Not long ago I was talking about this issue with Michael Dowling , the President and CEO of North Shore-LIJ Health System, one of the largest and most successful health systems in the U.S. NS-LIJ includes fifteen hospitals and a number of other health care businesses on Long Island and New York City. With 42,000 employees, it is the largest employer on Long Island and one of the largest in New York City. And despite being confronted with all of the same challenges as every other health care organization in the country, NS-LIJ is financially sound and achieves consistently high marks for quality of care. Surprisingly, one of the reasons that Dowling cites for NS-LIJ’s success is the fact that traditional “experience” is not a pre-condition for hiring new managers. In fact, in many cases it’s a liability. Dowling explains: “We’re in an industry that needs to change and re-examine almost every facet of how we do business. So people who have been trained and reinforced in the traditional ways of running hospitals and health system departments often don’t look at doing things in new and creative ways. They don’t challenge everything and ask tough questions.Instead they’re locked into the old paradigms. So the last thing we need is someone with that kind of ‘experience.’” Of course, this doesn’t mean that anybody can walk in the door and get a job. Depending on the position, there are certainly technical knowledge requirements. But for managerial jobs, Dowling cares less about past experience and more about personal characteristics like passion for improving patient care, the ability to think outside the box, openness to learning, being a self-starter, and the capability to work as part of a team. Having worked directly with patients in some capacity doesn’t hurt either. For example, Kathy Gallo, North Shore’s Chief Learning Officer — who is also responsible for HR — has a background in nursing, but didn’t have any experience with HR or training when she took the job. Similarly the Chief Administrative Officer doesn’t have an MBA — he began his career as an EMT. In fact, as Dowling pointed out, not a single one of NS-LIJ’s top leaders has a traditional health care administration background — and that includes Dowling himself, who was a social worker and then served as a health care policy adviser to former NY governor Mario Cuomo. Naturally, it’s impossible to draw a general conclusion about the usefulness of experience from one organization in one industry. But if you are looking to dramatically transform your organization — or if you are in an industry that is undergoing radical change — then you might want to consider the idea of bringing in managers who don’t fit the traditional mold, who can challenge the way things have been done, and who lack traditional “experience.” Without injecting people like this into your organization, you may run the risk of recycling the same solutions and going down paths that used to work but may no longer be viable. In the same vein, if you are a manager that is passionate about change, wants to make a difference, and is willing to take a risk, think about intentionally making a lateral move to an area where you have little or no experience, either within your own company or elsewhere.But instead of being anxious about, or apologizing for your lack of experience, make the case that “no experience” is an asset that the business can’t do without. You’ll see the organization through fresh eyes and be able to make contributions that would never come from a traditional candidate. And personally you’ll be compelled to learn and grow in ways that wouldn’t have happened in a comfortable and familiar setting. It could be a win-win — for you and for the organization. What are your thoughts on the need for “experience” in a management job? Cross-posted from Harvard Business Online

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‘Trump University’ Under Investigation For ‘Deceptive Business Practices’

May 20, 2011

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A for-profit university operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump is being investigated by the New York Attorney General’s office. A spokesman for the Trump Entrepreneurial Initiative acknowledged receiving an inquiry from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office and said the organization would cooperate with the probe. A person familiar with the situation tells The Associated Press that Schneiderman’s office is looking into claims that the developer and TV host exaggerated Trump University’s success. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe hasn’t yet been made public. The person says Schneiderman is investigating four other for-profit schools in a case looking at deceptive business practices. He’s found more than a dozen credible complaints. Trump announced Monday he would not pursue a presidential bid. The investigation was first reported by The New York Times.

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Ilene H. Lang: Check the Chart

May 17, 2011

Commencement addresses are often peppered with inspiring quotes, stories of perseverance, and warm anecdotes intended to uplift and inspire the next generation. But in a recent piece for the Washington Post geared for college grads, I opted to get straight to the point about the challenges ahead. The fact is that a level playing field does not exist for women in the business world. Gender-based stereotypes have a real impact on the careers of young women today. But there is one way to ensure the first step from college is the right one. Companies with high percentages of women and minorities at the top indicate that women and minorities are valued and enmeshed in the corporate culture. Such companies have invested in women. They are where you’ll have a career, not merely a job. Below is my advice for the Class of 2011. If you know any graduates who are at this critical point in their lives, please share it: The  Mad Men days of open, unabashed sexism in the workplace are largely gone — at least in the United States. But just because you can’t see sexism doesn’t mean it’s not there. For all the future leaders in this audience, a word of caution: Unintentional biases — assumptions about how a business leader should look or act — still exist in the business world. Women, on average, earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Even today, Catalyst research shows that women often start at lower positions than equally skilled men. And very few women occupy top positions in our most powerful companies. In fact, only 12 Fortune 500 CEOs are women. How do you navigate this uneven playing field? Your first step can be critical. When considering where to work after graduation, look at the top of an organization. If you don’t see women included  and leading on the highest levels, keep on walking. And men, keep your eyes open too. Here’s why. Companies with more women leaders correlate with better financial performance and signal an environment where everyone is valued and rewarded, a place where advancement is not dictated by sexist stereotypes. Diversity on top also indicates a broader and deeper talent pool throughout the organization. This is crucial as these are the role models, women and men alike, who can mentor, sponsor and nurture your career. So when you look for your first job, check the org charts along with the job description — and do this throughout your professional life, too. Value the companies that value women. Ask yourself, what do the leaders look like? Are there some that look like you? And if you don’t see women as part of the organizational leadership, let your feet do the talking.

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Ron Ashkenas: Get Your Money’s Worth From Consultants

May 11, 2011

Have you ever hired a consultant or been asked to work with one? If not, you’re a distinct minority. Management consulting is a $160 billion industry, projected to grow at over 6 percent per year. In the U.S. alone, there are 258,239 listings for management consulting firms, with the largest capturing only 3.1 percent of the market. The question is: Are consulting services worth the expense ? There is very little objective data on the subject, partly because when evaluating a project the consulting firm can almost always claim success based on completing the project plan, while “implementation” and “getting results” is the responsibility of the client. And clients will usually report that they’ve received good value because otherwise they would be perceived as having wasted time and money. It’s a wonderfully collusive arrangement, in which both parties always look good. Being a consultant myself, I am not of course saying that consultants are a waste of money. However, like any investment, consultants need to be deployed for the right reasons and in the right ways. To do that, managers need to pay attention to two success factors: The first is to understand the different types of consultants and what they bring to the table; the second is to appreciate that hiring a consultant is not a passive activity — it’s an investment that requires active management. Without hiring the right kinds of consultants and working with them in the right ways, the investment is likely to yield very little. For example, some consultants are merely arms and legs. These consultants are essentially hired as temporary workers. Often called “contractors,” these people fill in on projects because the organization does not have enough full-time people to do the job. Sometimes — when not managed properly — contractors become “permanent-temporary” workers, particularly when they are used to get around head-count restrictions. To avoid this situation (which often represents a substantial cost) you should set strict time limits on the use of contractors. In addition you need to consider whether the work they are doing could be redesigned so that your full-time people would have the bandwidth to do it. A second type of consultants are technical experts, who are brought in to develop or install a system, conduct training on a particular subject, or solve a well-defined problem. Technical experts are particularly useful when you require certain expertise, but don’t need to have it permanently. The challenge for managing experts is that they know more than you do (they are the “experts,” after all). As such they tend to find ways of expanding their work and becoming permanent fixtures. In one particular financial services company, for example, IT experts were brought in to update a client management system. At every key milestone they would recommend further work to enhance not only the client management system but other systems as well — and ended up turning a six-month engagement into an in-house IT shop. Similarly at a large pharmaceutical firm, many of the expert strategy consultants outlasted their departmental clients — which made them indispensable to the new managers. What was worse was that the new managers asked them to refresh the strategy that these same consultants had previously developed, which allowed them to start the cycle all over again. But not all consultants try to create an ongoing presence. In addition to “arms and legs” and “experts,” there are partner consultants. These are people who bring their talents and experience to the organization by working side-by-side with clients, helping them achieve their goals in new ways while building their clients’ capacity. Leadership coaches, team facilitators, and some management consultants fall into this category. Partner consultants — including experts who make their inputs in a collaborative way — give you an opportunity to change the collusive dynamic mentioned earlier. The main vehicle for doing this is to hold them accountable — along with you — for the goals that you are aiming to achieve. If they are truly working with you hand-in-hand, then they will want to have a stake in the business outcome (even if it makes them uncomfortable), and not just in the completion of their assignment. Results will then become the true measure of success. Hiring the wrong consultants or mismanaging them can cause severe problems in organizations — unnecessary expenditures, low morale, and misdirected efforts. By bringing in people with the right roles and keeping them focused on the right goals however, you stand a better chance of getting your money’s worth. What’s your experience with consultants? Cross-Posted from Harvard Business Online

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Simon Segars (ARM) Joins the EDA Consortium Board of Directors

May 10, 2011

SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwire – May 10, 2011) – The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Consortium announced today that it has appointed Simon Segars, ARM Executive Vice President and General Manager, Physical IP Division, to its board of directors to serve the organization through the spring of 2012.

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Rogerscasey Hires Managing Director for Canadian Office

May 10, 2011

DARIEN, CT–(Marketwire – May 10, 2011) – Rogerscasey, a global investment solutions firm serving institutional asset owners and financial services firms, announces that Claude Macorin has joined the organization as Managing Director of Rogerscasey Canada and will be primarily focused on servicing and developing the firm’s Canadian institutional business.

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WATCH: Donald Trump Responds To Charges Of Racism

May 9, 2011

Donald Trump came to his own defense in the wake of facing charges of racism during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “I am the least racist person there is,” asserted the potential presidential contender. “And I think most people who know me would tell you that. I am the least racist, I’ve had great relationships.” Trump pointed to his “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show to make his case. “In fact, Randal Pinkett won as you know on ‘The Apprentice’ a little while ago, a couple of years ago,” he said. “And Randall’s been outstanding in every way. So I am the least racist person.” Reuters reported last week: An African-American political advocacy group is targeting “Celebrity Apprentice” star Donald Trump in the aftermath of what many feel are racially tinged political comments made about President Obama. On Thursday, the organization ColorOfChange launched a Twitter-based campaign to persuade black “Celebrity Apprentice” cast members Star Jones and Lil Jon to denounce Trump for what the group terms “race-baiting.” During a recent appearance on CNN, Trump was asked whether his repeated calls for President Barack Obama to disclose his long-form birth certificate were motivated by racism. The question was presented to the billionaire on the heels of the White House releasing the document and after weeks of Trump raising skepticism over the issue . The billionaire said that he is “the least racist” and suggested that those who know him “would laugh” at the suggestion that wasn’t the case. As for whether he plans to run in 2012, Trump recently told Bloomberg News, “In my mind, I have already decided.” He signaled his intent to jump into the presidential race, though said he could not be expected to make a formal announcement until the end of “Celebrity Apprentice,” which culminates its season on May 22. WATCH:

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Inder Sidhu: Mixed Economic Signals Call for Unambiguous Action: Leading in Confusing Times

May 2, 2011

The economy is going gangbusters. The economy is poised for a fall. Depending on the signals you tune into, you could see things going either way. Take recent economic events. In late April, for example, the NASDAQ index topped a 10-year old mark while The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks achieved an all-time high. These milestones came on the heels of other signs that the economy is revving its engines. In Detroit, Ford delivered its best first-quarter since 1998. In Chicago, Boeing announced earnings that soundly beat expectations. And in Silicon Valley, demand for office space reached its highest levels in years, sending vacancies tumbling. All good signals, right? Not so fast. On the same day that the NASDAQ hit its recent high-water mark, Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke said his company’s core customers were “under a lot of pressure” and “running out of money” at the end of the month to buy basic items — even more so than one year ago. The next day, the government announced that economic growth in the United States actually slowed in the first quarter. On top of that, home prices fell again, raising concerns that the housing market may be experiencing a double-dip recession. Then there’s the price of gas, which, as of writing, was solidly above $4 per gallon across the U.S. and weighing heavily on everyone who depends on it. Confused about the signals? Don’t be. At any given time, economic news is almost always mixed. When one sector is up, another is down. The same is true of indices, indicators and bellwethers. They are constantly in motion and often at cross currents with one another. If the economy is slowing, for example, then why are orders for durable goods increasing, as they did in March? As a leader, you have to be careful not to read too much into some signals and not enough into others. Broad economic indicators, for example, provide a sense of the general direction of the world and national economies, but they can’t tell you when it’s time to take a risk. As a general rule, the things that you know and control have a greater impact on your results than the things that you have no sway over. Rather than fret over macro signals that are beyond your realm, focus on the things you can influence. This includes many business basics such as customer satisfaction, product quality or operational excellence. When you zero in on the things that are relevant to your organization, you can make informed decisions about strategic planning, resource allocation and risk management. This is what Ford did so cleverly at the onset of the recession when it mortgaged many of its assets to borrow more than $20 billion. The move was derided by critics as risky and desperate. But CEO Alan Mulally convinced lenders it was precisely the bold step Ford needed to fund a turnaround. While others debated what to do amid the economic uncertainty, Mulally took decisive action to save his organization. In a similar vein, Apple also moves swiftly when opportunity arises. When other computer manufacturers were unsure whether to jump into the market for tablet computers, Apple proceeded full-speed ahead with a breakthrough design and plans to secure access to critical device components. The moves gave the company a one-year lead in tablets and a majority market-share position. To make the most of the bold decisions you make in uncertain times, you must provide unambiguous leadership to help your employees achieve their aims. The more mixed the signals around you, the more clear your messaging needs to be. Tell your employees exactly where your organization is headed, how it plans on getting there and the specific steps it will take along the way. This will go a long way in aligning your strategy with their execution. If you should encounter bumps, do not panic. Stumbles are bound to happen. In fact, count on them to occur in 3 if not 4 of every 10 actions you take. Portfolio managers such as Warren Buffet operate this way. And so can you. In times of uncertainty, don’t forget that you were never as infallible as you thought on your best day or as inept as you feared on your worst. Stayed focused on the indicators that impact your business and influence your market. Calculate your opportunities accordingly, and identify the challenges that you are likely to encounter. Then communicate clearly to your stakeholders what your objectives are. The approach will take some courage. But isn’t that the substance of true leadership? Inder Sidhu is the Senior Vice President of Strategy & Planning for Worldwide Operations at Cisco , and the author of Doing Both: Capturing Today’s Profits and Driving Tomorrow’s Growth . Author proceeds from sales of Doing Both go to charity. Follow Inder on Twitter at @indersidhu .

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Donna Fenn: When Is It Okay To ‘Fire’ A Customer?

April 27, 2011

Q: How much of my company’s resources should be devoted to a difficult but valuable customer? The following answers are provided by the Y.E.C. Mentors . Co-Founded by Donna Fenn and Scott Gerber , Y.E.C. Mentors is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council , a nonprofit organization that provides young entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, community and educational resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. Y.E.C. Mentors’ members are successful executives, serial entrepreneurs and thought leaders. A: Are They Really Worth It? This is a great question — especially critical for startups as you are looking to establish and grown your business. You should focus on the lifetime potential value of the customer — are they a customer for “now” with not much potential in the future or is there a lot of potential for growth in the future? Weigh the economic value of the particular customer. –Leonard Schlesinger ( @lschlesinger ), Babson College A: Trust Your Gut If you are transparent about your product and services and offer a Customer Service phone number or electronic means of transparency like a Blog, then consumers will typically not remain difficult. Due to social media and the viral effect of negative crisis to erupt, companies and CEOs are closely monitoring their customers’ feedback on Twitter or Blogs. –Naveen Jain ( @Naveen_Jain_CEO ), Intelius A: Determine the Customer’s True Worth We are in business to serve our customers. That said, some customers are more difficult than others and demand a lot of time and resources to service them. Business should also be fun! (We work hard enough as it is). If they make you miserable- the answer is easy- time to end it. Its not worth being miserable to service a client- might as well work for someone else if you do that. –Ingrid Vanderveldt ( @ontheroadwithiv ), Ingrid Vanderveldt LLC A: Do the Drain Test Companies need to be crystal clear about the profile of customers who align with their strategy, culture and resources. “Difficult” customers can range from an ill-mannered executive to an account that always needs extra hand-holding and support. Prune non-ideal customers relentlessly. Over time, they drain the life force out of your organization, and stop you from finding more ideal fits. –Pamela Slim ( @pamslim ), Escape from Cubicle Nation A: Minimize Contact With Your Staff

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Robert F. Brands: Feels Like the First Time: Innovation Through Product Experience

April 25, 2011

When was the last time you experienced your product like it was your first time? Product development is a process of cycles — followed by closure. We innovate and create a new concept. Assemble teams to research, develop, manufacture and market the product or service. We then ship it to market. And then … what? We leave it out there for consumers to embrace, or ignore. Meanwhile, as our products mature on the store shelves of the marketplace, we mentally have moved on to the next next thing. Instead, we should revisit our product to gain a fresh perspective. The CBS Television show Undercover Boss follows the adventures of executives who embark on an undercover mission “to examine the inner workings of their companies…Working alongside their employees, they see the effects that their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organizations and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their companies run.” When was the last time you were an undercover boss or prospect? As the CEO or Chief Innovation Officer, when did you last sample your wares, walk your store, demo your product or read your user manual? Playing the role of a “cold prospect” often gives a new point of view on even the most mature products. Innovation Manager-as-Mystery Shopper touches on several of Robert’s Rules of Innovation . It allows us to Observe & Measure our products first hand. We take Ownership of our product lifecycle to an entirely new level. It may even encourage fresh lines of new product development. Hopefully, it encourages us to think about ways to train and coach other innovators — and even our customer-facing employees — on the finer points of the product, service or company mission. Want to play mystery shopper or prospect? Call your customer service or main office line to make an appointment or reach an individual. Do you get trapped in phone bank hell? Is it easy to “zero out” to a receptionist? I recently spoke with a physician who lamented it taking him almost an hour to get lab results over the phone — from his own office. “Welcome to our world,” I chided. Record and listen to your customer service rep encounters. If your organization actually records customer phone calls (you hear it all the time, “This call may be recorded for training purposes…”), listen to the calls. Find high and low points. Look for ways to improve the user experience. Walk the aisles. Watch your salespeople or retail associates in action. How responsive are they? How effective are they at engaging the customer? Are they upselling where possible? Stanley Steemer maximizes upsell opportunities once they’re in a customer’s home. Keep a notepad handy. Be on the lookout for fresh ideas about process or product innovation. Assemble or use your own product. Are your instructions clear? Does “Ready to Assemble” really mean ready to assemble? The saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” may be only part true. Being an undercover prospect may give you that second chance to see your product like the first time — and innovate anew. By Robert F. Brands with Jeff Zbar

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Video: OECD’s White Sees Spain Determined to Sort Out Problems

April 21, 2011

April 21 (Bloomberg) — William White, chairman of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Economic and Development Review Committee, talks about the European debt and financial markets. He speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Erik Rasmussen: Green Growth: Buzz Word or a New Sustainable Economy?

April 19, 2011

Since the old economy broke down in 2008, presidents, prime ministers and mayors have been promising their electorate “green” or “sustainable growth” — and that is good news. In order to confront “the epidemic” of global warming and shape a safe economic future, we need to combine green and growth. The bad news is that nobody knows what “green growth” is. The term has risen to stardom despite a very fragile fact base and almost no academic understanding of how, e.g., reducing emissions of CO2 can actually create jobs and additional activity in the economy. And that is a very dangerous situation. Without firm definitions and a body of evidence to support policies and investments, there is a great deal of risk that green growth will not happen. It will be too easy to argue against. This is why a new study on green growth by researchers at UC Berkeley, released last week in Copenhagen by the organization Green Growth Leaders, is so important. The study, “Shaping The Green Growth Economy,” provides a foundation and qualification for the global discussions on how to shape a greener economy. The researchers have gone through the literature and evidence behind green growth, and offer some fascinating and provoking ways of looking at the green economy. The fact that it is probably the first study in the world to investigate the concept of green growth is in itself amazing — and it underlines the importance. It concludes, first of all, that that green growth is possible. Economic growth can be compatible with reductions of emissions of CO2. Basic as it seems, this is a fundamental piece of know-how. The dichotomy that environmental progress will be at the expense of the economy — often used by skeptics — is, in other words, false. In fact, evidence show that green strategies can drive growth. When the EU, President Obama and governments in Korea, China, Germany and the UK propose economic growth driven by emissions reduction, it is a viable strategy. They are not dreaming. Their views can be substantiated. This does not mean, though, that the best argument for sustainable growth is that it creates green jobs in the energy or clean tech industry. Actually, one should be careful about pointing to very direct, short-term links between green and jobs or GDP since it very quickly becomes a tricky discussion on causal relations and on how many brown jobs are lost when creating green jobs. The experts recommend us to see “green growth” as something bigger. Much bigger. Something that grows out of a system transformation like that of the railroad in the 18th century or the internet in the 1990es. Achieving green growth will require capitalizing on the advantages created by a new energy system — but the gains could be enormous. Sustainable, long-term green growth will depend on identifying and capturing the economic opportunity in three domains: new sources of renewable energy; smarter power grids and more efficient means of distributing energy; and better means of managing and optimizing energy consumption. And growth might very well happen outside the energy and clean tech sector, through innovations, services, and products, we cannot even imagine today. Identifying today the growth caused by the new energy system in 2020 is like guessing in 1992 what kind of activity the internet would create in 2002. Nobody could foresee Facebook or Amazon, and nobody today can foresee how intelligent energy systems will transform our houses, our cars, or our work places in the future and what new businesses will be created on the back of this evolution. But history tells us that this will happen — and that this will lead to a new economy and a new kind of wealth, which should be the starting point of long term decisions today.

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Prolifics Ends Q1 2011 With New Hires and Continued Growth

April 19, 2011

IBM Systems Integrator Looks to Immediately Increase Staffing Within the Organization

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Ed Lawler: Sustainable Leadership: The Problem With Iconic Leaders

April 18, 2011

For the last several months CEO succession at Apple has gotten a considerable amount of attention because of Steve Jobs’ health problems. The corporate board has been asked what their succession plan is for the CEO role and so far, they have avoided giving a definitive answer. It’s no wonder that investors are concerned. There are many examples in the history of American business that demonstrate how hard it is to replace an iconic leader. GE has not done well since Jack Welch left. Polaroid went bankrupt a few years after its founder Edwin Land retired. Disney floundered for a number of years after Walt Disney retired. The most common reason given for the failure to find replacements for iconic leaders is poor leadership development on the part of their companies. But there is much more to the problem of succession in icon-led companies than simply the lack of talent development and of the succession planning. Iconic leaders such as Welch and Disney often spend decades in their CEO roles and exert enormous influence through all aspects of their company’s strategy, operations and design. They create leadership roles that fit them. They institutionalize their way of managing to such an extent that their replacements simply have to do the job the way they did it or make enormous changes in the way senior management operates. Of course, it is virtually impossible to find a leader who can replace icons such as Welch and Disney in the jobs they have created, no matter how good the internal development system of a company is. But in essence, these icons create unsustainable leadership roles in their companies. What’s the antidote to this? There is an alternative to the kind of iconic leader who is impossible to replace: have a senior leader who installs a sustainable leadership model. This of course raises the question: What is a sustainable leadership model? Perhaps, the best way to describe it is as a shared leadership approach, one where individuals throughout the organization are expected to demonstrate leadership behavior and not be overly dependent on the CEO to provide a sense of direction, mission and purpose for the organization. When leadership is shared, people throughout the organization take advantage of leadership moments to influence the direction of the corporation. Finding a new CEO is much easier with the shared leadership approach. Bill Gates did it at Microsoft and the pay-off as been continued high performance. Herb Kelleher did it at Southwest Airlines and it has continued to perform well. The implication of this for boards is clear; they need to focus on talent development and how their firm is led, not just on succession planning. But what about Apple? Is Steve Jobs more like Bill Gates and Herb Kelleher or more like Jack Welch and Walt Disney? Is he a leader that has created a sustainable leadership approach for Apple? It does not look like it to me, but only time will tell. Edward E. Lawler III is a distinguished professor of business at the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business and founder/director of the University’s Center for Effective Organizations (CEO), one of the country’s leading management research organizations. He’s authored more than 40 books, including his most recent — Management Reset: Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness (Jossey-Bass, March 2011). Cross-posted from Forbes.com .

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Video: OPEC’s El Badri Says Oil Price Has $15 to $20 Premium

April 18, 2011

April 18 (Bloomberg) — Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Secretary General Abdalla El Badri speaks to reporters in Kuwait about oil prices and Libyan production.

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WATCH: Donald Trump’s Big Idea To Lower Gas Prices

April 17, 2011

WASHINGTON — With gas prices rising above $3.50 a gallon in all but one state , Americans are getting hit hard at the pump. But billionaire and presidential aspirant Donald Trump thinks he has the solution: Simply tell OPEC to cut prices. Trump blamed gas costs on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a conglomerate of developing nations responsible for 40 percent of global oil supplies . He said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that lowering the price of gas is as easy as telling OPEC’s members to do so — something he believes President Obama is incapable of. When host Candy Crowley argued that the United States can’t control OPEC, Trump disagreed, saying our country only needs “brain power.” “Candy, it’s the messenger,” said Trump. “You know, I can send two executives into a room. They can say the same thing. One guy comes home with the bacon and the other one doesn’t. And I’ve seen it a thousand times. It’s the messenger.” “We don’t have the right messenger. Obama is not the right messenger,” he continued. “We are not a respected nation anymore. The world is laughing at us. … Let me tell you, it’ll go down if you say it properly.” Trump also criticized Obama’s handling of the conflict in Libya, saying the United States should just go in there and take the country’s oil. “Either I’d go in and take the oil or I don’t go in at all,” he said. “We can’t be the policeman for the world.” He added that he would leave Libya “plenty” of oil so that “they can live very happily” as well. WATCH: Other Republican presidential aspirants have more directly blamed the Obama administration for rising gas prices. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, for example, has suggested the White House deliberately drives up prices. “This administration’s policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive,” said Barbour in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC last month. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner cited tensions in the Middle East and North Africa along with the nuclear situation in Japan for impacting gas costs. He said that high gas prices have a ” measurable impact on the economy ” by slowing the recovery process “moderately.”

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The Day The Music Died: Major Orchestra Files For Bankruptcy

April 17, 2011

PHILADELPHIA — The world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra, long considered one of the best in the nation, will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection – an apparent first in recent history for a major U.S. orchestra. Board chairman Richard Worley said members made a nearly unanimous vote Saturday to file for reorganization in a federal bankruptcy court in Philadelphia after a “long meeting, thoughtful meeting, emotional meeting.” “We’re running low on cash, we’re running a deficit, and we have to put ourselves in a position to attract investment funds to help us,” Worley told reporters. Allison Vulgamore, president and chief executive officer, also cited a “tremendous decline” in audiences over the past five years. Officials stressed, however, that concerts would go on as scheduled, including the evening’s performance of a Mahler symphony. And they said a revitalization campaign was planned to increase revenues by about two-thirds and bring in new art and audiences. John Koen, chairman of the members committee, which represents the musicians, said the five musicians at the meeting were the only “no” votes on the 65-member board. “It was a terrible letdown. I think this is a tragic decision for the orchestra,” said Koen, who said he has been with the organization for almost half of his 44 years. “A big orchestra has never done this before. It’s impossible for the musicians not to feel betrayed by the board of directors … It feels like a vote of no confidence for the future of this orchestra that’s been around for 111 years and world famous for 99 of those years at least.” “We’re in a state of shock, really,” said Richard Woodhams, principal oboe. “I think it’s a very, very sad day for culture in the United States and the world.” The orchestra is expected to take in a combined $33 million from this season’s ticket sales, fund-raising, endowment income and other revenue, according to its financial records. That won’t cover its $46 million operating costs, and its projected deficit is $5 million despite an emergency fund-raising effort. The country’s economic woes have taken a toll on nonprofit arts organizations, and smaller orchestras in cities such as Syracuse, N.Y., and Honolulu have filed for bankruptcy in recent years. But Philadelphia’s is the first major metropolitan orchestra to do so, said John Bence, spokesman for the League of American Orchestras, citing records his organization has kept dating as far back as 1986. Jesse Rosen, the orchestra league’s president and CEO, said the Philadelphia Orchestra is experiencing the same challenges as other arts organizations in figuring out how to stay viable in the current economy and an era of “on demand” entertainment made possible through technology. “We’ve had a belief for a long time that if we’re really, really good, and the Philadelphia Orchestra is off-the-charts fantastic … everything will follow, and really, times have changed and it’s not enough anymore,” Rosen said. Philadelphia Orchestra musicians who object to a bankruptcy filing distributed leaflets to the audience before Thursday night’s concert, calling such an action “unnecessary” and saying it would have “both an immediate and a long-term devastating impact” on the orchestra. Union officials and others have cited the orchestra’s $140 million endowment, but Vulgamore said use of that money was restricted. “Thank heavens it’s there, it’s the future we have to live off of,” she said. “If we take that money now, then we frankly don’t have annual monies to keep going.” Musicians, who in recent years have agreed to take pay cuts totaling millions of dollars, have expressed concern about the effect of bankruptcy on their pensions. Worley said that would be worked out in negotiations, but officials want orchestra members to have a “reasonable and respectable pension.” The orchestra’s management is seeking a 16-percent pay cut and other concessions from the musicians as part of ongoing contract negotiations. Players say there have been no talks since March 27 and none are scheduled. The Philadelphia Orchestra, which rose to national prominence under conductors Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, has traditionally been considered one of the “Big Five” American orchestras along with those in New York, Chicago, Boston and Cleveland. It made history in 1973 when it became the first American orchestra to tour communist China. Its hundreds of recordings include the soundtrack for Walt Disney’s 1940 film “Fantasia,” which helped popularize symphonic music in the U.S. “I think it’s emotional because we feel the weight and burden of a tremendous legacy,” Vulgamore said. But she said the situation was not unique even in the orchestra’s long history, citing “Save the Symphony” campaigns from early in the 20th century. “We’ve been through this before, we’ve been through two world wars and a depression,” she said. “We’re going to need to pull ourselves through this bankruptcy with pride and will to remain the Philadelphia Orchestra.” Audience members picking up tickets in the lobby of the Kimmel Center for the evening performance were taken aback by the news. “It’s shocking,” said Tianhui Ng, 32, who said he tries to see concerts every week. “I think they do a wonderful job, and the city loves them.” Stan Swigoda, 53, of Philadelphia has heard of the orchestra’s endowment and wonders why some of that can’t be tapped. “It seems to me that this whole movement to Chapter 11 is just an attempt to … renege on the union contract,” he said. Spencer Jarrett, a visiting 17-year-old high school junior from Highland, Utah, said he hopes to make playing trombone his career and said the impending bankruptcy filing was “kind of scary to be honest.” But he said he was generally optimistic about the future of his calling. “There’s always going to be an orchestra in the world,” he said. “Music is just that thing that we can’t live without. It’s a necessary part of being human. It’s a shame that people aren’t recognizing it.”

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Mortgage Debt Relief For Distressed Homeowners Won’t Hurt Big Banks, IMF Says

April 15, 2011

NEW YORK — A broad mortgage debt-relief program for distressed homeowners would not significantly impact the nation’s four biggest banks, according to a report released this week by the International Monetary Fund. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo have enough money to withstand the resulting losses, IMF economists projected in their report . The findings cast doubt on the notion that a broad-based program to reduce troubled homeowners’ mortgage debt would hurt the nation’s financial system. If the four lenders established a year-and-a-half long program to reduce debt on first mortgages by 15 percent for borrowers at risk of foreclosure, and also worked to lower loan balances by 30 percent until 2015 for seriously-delinquent borrowers and those in foreclosure, they’d face little consequence, the IMF said. “Our stress tests highlight the capital strength of U.S. banks,” the organization said in its report, noting the lenders’ ability to manage “even under a severe shock.” State attorneys general and some federal agencies are seeking to penalize the nation’s five biggest banks for abusing homeowners and breaking federal rules and state laws during the foreclosure process. Officials are pursuing as much as $30 billion in fines. Federal bank regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency object to those efforts, instead pursuing modest fines and a redesign of how mortgage firms treat borrowers to ensure abuses don’t occur going forward. Some Republicans in Congress have argued that a broad-based mortgage relief program would hurt banks’ balance sheets and impede lending. The costs associated with a widespread principal reduction effort — which would impact millions of homeowners — as forecast by the IMF is significantly greater than what is currently under discussion by state and federal officials in the foreclosure abuse probes. The nation’s five largest mortgage firms have saved more than $20 billion since the housing crisis began in 2007 by taking shortcuts in processing troubled borrowers’ home loans, according to a confidential presentation prepared for state attorneys general by the nascent consumer bureau inside the Treasury Department and obtained by The Huffington Post . The report, prepared by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, suggests the $20 billion figure should be used as a starting point in settlement discussions with the targeted firms. Many more billions would likely have to be levied as penalties to discourage the firms from taking a similar approach in the future and compensate homeowners for abuses, including reducing distressed borrowers’ loan balances, some officials have argued. The IMF’s projections came as part of a report that touched on the problems afflicting the nation’s housing market. Purchases of new U.S. homes dropped in February to the slowest pace on record, according to the Commerce Department. Prices declined to the lowest level since 2003, according to the National Association of Realtors. About 6.9 million homeowners were either delinquent or in foreclosure proceedings in February, according to Lender Processing Services, a Florida-based data provider. More than 2.8 million homes received a foreclosure filing in 2009, and nearly 2.9 million residences received a foreclosure filing last year, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based data provider. Government programs designed to reduce monthly mortgage payments — like the Obama administration’s signature effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program — have had limited success. Industry programs to mitigate foreclosures have had a similarly lackluster result. “The primary shortcoming has been the inability to induce the payment reductions needed to address borrowers’ high-debt profiles and/or the principal reductions to address the large negative equity position of many homeowners,” the IMF said in its report. Nearly a quarter of homeowners with a mortgage owe more on that debt than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic, another real estate data provider. Underwater homeowners collectively owe $751 billion more than their homes are worth. “As a result, modified loans have had high redefault rates, slowing homeowners’ efforts to de-leverage and restore their credit scores and lengthening the foreclosure process,” the IMF wrote in its report. The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 537 days before eviction, up from 319 days in January 2009, according to LPS. “These considerations suggest that more structural policies, such as renegotiation or some form of debt reduction — including writedowns of mortgage principal by banks — may be needed,” the IMF wrote in its report. The international organization said its analysis “suggests that banks in the United States have room to take such measures, which could help relieve some of the problems in residential real estate markets.” Representatives from 10 state attorneys general offices, along with officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, met with banks again this week, the second time they’ve discussed the ongoing investigation with bank representatives, Associate U.S. Attorney General Tom Perrelli said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. A settlement that includes reducing distressed homeowners’ mortgage balances is still on the table, officials said, despite banks’ objections.

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Defining Economic Security For American Families

April 14, 2011

What does it take to have economic stability in America? That was the question posed by the organization Wider Opportunities for Women, which recently released a report on the topic. NPR reports the organization, which seeks to help women and families gain financial security, found that a family of four needs at least $67,920 a year to cover their necessities such as food, housing and transportation. Shawn McMahon told NPR , “We’re not talking about surviving. We are talking about economic security that allows people to live day to day without fear of a lot of the economic insecurity that we’ve been seeing in recent years.” LISTEN:

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Akhtar Badshah: Creative Capitalism, a CEO’s Viewpoint

April 14, 2011

I had a pleasure of moderating a discussion with Arunas A. Chesonis, the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of PAETEC, founded in 1998. I sought to understand why he — as a CEO and business leader — invests in the city of Rochester, New York, and why he has developed a culture of investing back into the community at PAETEC. Chesonis, an MIT graduate and an entrepreneur, is a visionary who thinks outside of the box regarding how to build a business and how to build a community around him. He told the audience at the BCLC Corporate Community Investment 2011 conference in Philadelphia that one of his company’s four guiding principles is “caring culture,” a concept in PAETEC’s objectives and a metric for performance evaluation. Chesonis said: “If you have two managers and both are very good, but one is involved in the community, he’ll drive more business and will build more relationships within the company, outside the company, and with clients. That’s the manager who will get the promotion. People like that get to move up in the organization because they’re the ones who do business better.” Community involvement at the individual employee level, he said, not only helps managers excel — their success helps to grow the business. In our talk, he explained that PAETEC also uses the same criteria when considering procurement bids from his partners. With price being more or less equal, PAETEC wants to know how engaged potential business partners are in investing back in the community. He wants to know how they’re investing in communities, how they’re giving back, how they’re making the country do better. For Chesonis, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a strategic weapon. He said that if you’re not doing CSR, if you’re not engaged in CSR, then you’re not going to be as successful, you’re not going to optimize your stock price, you’re not going to optimize your performance, and you’re not truly, fully engaged with all your team members. In short, it’s better business to be engaged in CSR. So how does Chesonis make sure engagement is constant and thorough? First, he sees engagement in CSR as building an extended family among a range of stakeholders (even the name of the company stems from the first letter of the names of the Chesonis family). He said he came to Philadelphia for the BCLC conference to lend support to those who are in the CSR business. “Maybe,” he said, “I’ll give you some tricks that we’ve used to trick people within our ecosystem into seeing why this is important for all of us.” Second, engagement in CSR work should be decentralized. At PAETEC, Chesonis lets his community relations managers decide where to focus the company’s CSR efforts instead of dictating what to do with a top-down approach. “I feel like I’m the match.com for CSR at my company. It’s my responsibility to connect my employees with our community,” he said and noted that he wants connections to grow organically between his community relations managers and the local organizations. Building your own community is important, and connecting your community to other communities in common goals is the next step in building capacity. Chesonis asked, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a BCLC in all communities?” Organizations that convene and connect, he said, are needed at the local chamber level so that local corporate citizens and community leaders can come together, learn, and expand their capacity. Having a network of local BCLC-like organizations, he said, would encourage public-private partnerships. Chesonis said: “It’s hard for SMEs to travel to national conferences and major events like this — that makes local collaboration level so much more needed. People could develop their own approaches at the local levels and decide what fits best with their communities and businesses.” While his community relations managers guide the company’s strategy, the Chesonis family is building its own legacy in environment and energy research — the need for intense research in these fields is astounding, he said. With the belief that researchers should be allowed time to fail and experiment to find the best, most innovative solutions, Arunas and his family are funding long-term research spots for post-grad MIT students. Most Nobel Prize winners in science, he noted, made their discoveries at the age of 28: “We need to be funding young, energetic people who have time and inspiration to immerse themselves in their research 100 hours per week.” He ended the thought that corporate responsibility should be a strategic priority for all companies. “Don’t be a ‘dumb philanthropist’ and just write checks,” he said. “Work on the strategic piece-what’s good for a company can be good for a community and vice versa.” For those in business still sitting on the fence, this is a good piece of advice.

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Alan Lewis: How My Company Hires for Culture First, Skills Second

April 13, 2011

Cross-posted from Harvard Business Online No two organizations’ hiring processes are alike. No technology company hiring manager would ask a programmer applicant to teach the alphabet, but it’s the first thing a school administrator might ask of a teacher. Obviously, you need different criteria to assess if people possess the skills needed to succeed in different positions. But skills don’t tell the whole story. Every organization needs employees who mesh with its core values — the principles that define who you are as an organization and that shape day-to-day business decisions. Employees who do not adhere to a shared corporate culture dilute it, detracting from the essence that gives your company its identity and helps it achieve aggressive goals. In my view, every organization’s hiring process — from Microsoft to PS 90 to everything in between — should screen candidates for the best cultural fit. I’m the owner of Grand Circle Travel , a $600 million international tour operator for Americans 50+, and like many executives, I’ve found that in my business, alignment with my company’s culture and values counts far more than do skills or experience. In most cases, if an associate shares our values, we can teach the job skills. That’s why more than a decade ago we adopted a values-based hiring model. This decision has not only enhanced our recruiting efforts, it has contributed to the long-term success of our associates and of our organization. Interviewing for values may sound difficult, but it can be easily embraced throughout the organization and by hiring managers. Here are three pieces of advice to keep in mind when working to develop a values-based hiring process: Don’t just ask candidates to tell you how they espouse your company’s values; let them show you . You can learn a lot more about a person from watching him or her interact with other job applicants and employees. At Grand Circle, our process includes a group interview, in which multiple candidates interview for various open jobs at the same time. We observe candidates undertaking unique and often quirky challenges, and interacting with each other. Candidates act out scenarios that show us whether or not they exhibit our core values — open and courageous communication, risk-taking, speed, quality, teamwork, and thriving in change. To test for risk-taking, for example, candidates role-play how they would deal with a situation in which one colleague has been called out of town and needs a less-experienced coworker to take his or her place in an important presentation. We also engage candidates in a “raw-egg drop exercise,” in which they work in teams to design a travel vessel for the egg (using only straws and tape), develop a marketing presentation to “sell” the trip the designed vessel will take the egg on, and then drop the vessel from about 10 feet. From this exercise, we’re able to quickly learn which candidates exhibit leadership and teamwork qualities, which ones perform well in unusual situations, and which have done their background research on the company. Be crystal clear about your culture and values. You don’t want to hire someone destined to fail, wasting their time and energy (and yours). Being open is the best way to avoid that. Prospective associates will walk away on their own if they don’t believe they can fit in with your culture. We’ve seen it many times — as in the man who called our raw-egg exercise “really weird” and the woman who announced she didn’t want to be part of our “kumbaya culture.” It was far better to screen out these people in the initial interview than learn of their discomfort with our values during their first months on the job. Don’t combine skills interviews with values interviews. When values are assessed in a separate and distinct process, you will very likely learn something that you would have missed had you screened a candidate for skills simultaneously. One of our organization’s young superstars came to his group interview with virtually no relevant job experience — which would have held him back had we been focusing on skills — but he demonstrated such ambition and leadership that we jumped to hire him. Hiring good cultural matches is the best way to assure the continued success of your company. It leads to higher retention (43 percent of our employees have been on board for five or more years), better employee engagement, and deeper connections with customers. In your hiring process, isn’t it time you looked beyond skills to what’s most important — your company’s values? Alan Lewis is owner and chairman of Grand Circle Corporation , the largest U.S. direct market tour operator of international vacations for older Americans, and co-author of Driving With No Brakes: How a Bunch of Hooligans Built the Best ravel Company in the World .

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Mexicans Work More Than Any Other OECD Nation

April 12, 2011

Mexicans work the longest days and Belgians the shortest, according to a study of 29 industrialized countries released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday. The stereotype of a laid-back “manana” culture was turned on its head by the OECD’s “Society at a Glance” study, which showed Mexicans toil for 10 hours a day on average in paid and unpaid work, such as household chores. Belgians work just seven, an hour less than the average in most other OECD countries. The study is based on surveys of people between the ages of 15 and 64 in 26 OECD member countries plus China, India and South Africa. The surveys required people to say what they were doing every five minutes or so over the course of the day. The poll covered people in retirement or on days off from work, meaning the averages are skewed by countries with more generous holiday allowances or earlier retirement ages. In Mexico, where tens of millions toil in an informal grey economy, low-paid workers often take only a handful of days off a year and work until they are elderly. A typical Belgian, on the other hand, will take several weeks of holiday a year and enjoy early retirement at around age 60. On the basis of paid labor only, Japanese work the most, spending just over six hours a day at work on average, followed by South Koreans and then Mexicans. The Danish spend the least time — less than four hours a day –in paid employment. Looking at unpaid work, the OECD found Mexicans spend the most time doing housework, at more than three hours a day, and South Koreans the least — one hour and 19 minutes a day. Much of the time counted as unpaid work was spent cooking, where Americans spend the least time at half an hour per day and Turks spend the most time at a full 74 minutes. The Paris-based organization said the value of unpaid work in the 25 countries studied amounted to the equivalent of one third of gross domestic product in the full OECD bloc. (Reporting by Leigh Thomas, editing by Paul Casciato) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Judge In Target Case Rules In Favor Of Gay Rights Group

April 8, 2011

SAN DIEGO — A judge ruled Thursday that a San Diego pro-gay marriage group can continue canvassing outside of Target stores in California, but the group’s volunteers must stay 30 feet away from store entrances and canvass at just one entrance at a time. The Minnesota-based retail giant had sought an injunction barring the activists from every outlet in the state, alleging they harass customers by cornering them near store entrances to discuss gay marriage, solicit donations and collect signatures on petitions. Rights advocates have warned that the legal battle between Target and Canvass For A Cause could further damage the retailer’s already strained relations with the gay and lesbian community. Canvass For A Cause director Tres Watson called Thursday’s ruling a win for not only his organization, but also for free speech. “I think this is a victory for every American that cherishes our fundamental values,” he said. Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Barton said some Target stores may fall under California’s law that considers shopping centers to be public forums. Also, canvassing over the last year occurred mainly without incident and Target failed to demonstrate that customers were being harassed, he said. “Target has not met its burden to show that its blanket policy to ban all solicitors at all stores in California is proper,” he wrote. The corporation has said at least eight Target stores in the San Diego area have received more than a dozen complaints daily since canvassers started working the locations in October 2010. The activists have refused to leave when asked politely and shown the company’s policy prohibiting “expressive activity” on its property, Target said. During a court hearing last month in San Diego, Barton asked Target’s Los Angeles-based attorney David McDowell why the company didn’t present testimony from customers who the company said had complained. McDowell said the testimony could have been obtained, but he didn’t think it was necessary since the complaints weren’t the central issue. The case was about Target’s right to enforce its rules on its land, he said. “The question is Target’s property right and its right to exclude,” McDowell said. Target Corp. said in a statement Thursday that the legal action was “to provide a distraction-free shopping environment for our guests.” “Target’s long-standing policy is that we do not permit solicitation or petitioning at our stores regardless of the cause or issue being represented,” the company said. Barton warned the San Diego group to be respectful and to not block the flow of traffic. The restriction to canvass at just one entrance at a time was to ensure that customer access wasn’t impeded, he said in the ruling. Watson said the constraints wouldn’t affect the group’s work because volunteers don’t follow people into stores or block store entrances. Target was seen as an ally of the gay and lesbian community before it made a $150,000 donation to a business group backing Minnesota Republican candidate Tom Emmer, an opponent of gay marriage who lost last year’s governor’s race to Democrat Mark Dayton. The company later apologized for the hurt feelings and tried to repair its image by creating a committee to help scrutinize its decisions on donations. Target also negotiated a deal with Lady Gaga to sell a special edition of her upcoming album in a partnership Gaga said was tied to their “reform” – supporting the gay community and making up for past mistakes. The singer cancelled the deal a few weeks ago.

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Joe Keefe: Saying "No" to All-Male Corporate Boards

April 6, 2011

Each year, we hear the latest, discouraging figures on the glacial progress women have made in cracking the male-dominated board rooms of corporate America. According to a recent Catalyst study, women hold only 3 percent of the CEO positions and 15 percent of the board positions among Fortune 500 companies. It is time to ask why progress has been so slow and what can be done differently to accelerate it. This failure is not due to lack of effort. Many well-motivated individuals and organizations have worked for years to alter this state of affairs, deploying a range of strategies aimed at encouraging companies to embrace gender diversity on their boards. There is also considerable evidence that the paucity of women on corporate boards and management teams is costing us, as numerous studies underscore the nexus between greater board and management diversity, on the one hand, and improved corporate governance and financial performance, on the other. When women are at the table, the discussion is richer, the decision-making process is better, management is more innovative and collaborative, and the organization is stronger. This is particularly the case with a critical mass of women in leadership roles. Moreover, the persistence of male-dominated boardrooms takes place against a backdrop of abysmal failures in corporate governance. The recent financial crisis is only the latest reminder that many boards of directors are simply not doing their job. And if this is true, then the old canard that “there aren’t enough qualified women” to fill more board seats can be turned on its head: After all, the (mostly) men who led so many of our largest financial institutions to ruin turn out not to have been very “qualified” either. But there is one indisputable fact about non-diverse boards that we never seem to acknowledge, perhaps because the truth hurts: we elect them. That’s right, even those of us who think that gender discrimination is wrong, and that women should be better represented in corporate board rooms — we elect these non-diverse boards, often unwittingly, year after year. How is that? Well, all publicly traded corporations send out a proxy ballot to their shareholders in advance of their annual general meeting, with a list of director nominees to serve on the company’s board. The shareholders — or at least those who vote — then ordinarily rubber stamp this list of director nominees, which means, in most cases, either no women or a slate of nominees where women are grossly underrepresented. Why do we rubber stamp all-male boards while we profess to believe that more diverse boards are needed? Because we either don’t vote our proxies at all or we assign them to someone else who votes them for us, sometimes contrary to our values and our interests. If we own stock directly, many of us simply throw away the proxy ballot when it arrives in the mail. If we invest in stocks or mutual funds through a broker or investment adviser, or invest in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan at work, or in an IRA, we generally assign responsibility for voting our proxies to an agent. In either case, we are these companies’ shareholders, and if we believe there needs to be greater gender diversity on corporate boards, then we need to start taking rather than abdicating responsibility. We need to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. There is a simple way to do this. We can withhold support for all-male director slates, or instruct whoever is voting our proxies to withhold such support. If enough investors ask this of their investment advisers, or their retirement plan administrators at work, or their mutual fund managers, then we can begin to make a difference. In fact, if we each wrote a letter to the companies, and enclosed it with our proxy ballot, letting them know why we are saying “no” to their board, the companies we own would begin to get the picture. Companies will respond to investor pressure. They will listen to their shareholders if enough of us are willing to raise our voices. When it comes to increasing gender diversity on America’s corporate boards, the business case is clear. Companies — and their shareholders — will actually be better off. Let your voice be heard. Take the time to vote your proxies for greater gender equality. Jacki Zehner was the youngest woman, and first female trader, to be become a partner at Goldman Sachs and is Co-Chair of Women Moving Millions. Joe Keefe is the President and CEO of Pax World Funds.

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Caroline Dowd-Higgins: Use the Side Door To Enter This Tough Job Market

April 5, 2011

With the new realities of this job economy you can’t rely on posted positions to land career opportunities. Innovation, creativity and strategic thinking are the most sought after competencies by employers, so use these skills to get into organizations where the front door is clearly locked. A side door entry is possible and will distinguish you as a resilient career builder that found an alternative route. Some employers don’t want to post openings because they will be flooded with applicants, many of whom are just fishing for any opportunity. Hiring managers have gone back to the basics of hiring who they know and who they trust based on network referrals. You need to be seen and heard on the inside of organizations in order to get noticed and to be taken seriously. Since the hidden job market represents up to 90% of positions that are never posted, you can use these strategies to get yourself into organizations and to become recognizable as a valuable hire. The Informational Interview is a tried and true technique that works for students and professionals alike. By requesting information from a person in an organization, preferably someone with whom you have some common ground, you are non-threatening. Nothing is worse than outright asking your contact for a job. But people love to talk about themselves and by using the informational interview you will have an opportunity to learn about the person, the organization, and to describe your strengths and potential value-add when the conversation eventually shifts towards you. Treat it as a real interview — be well prepared and at your professional best. The key is getting inside the organization so you can be seen and heard by people in the know and to assess the culture and company mission to see if it’s a good fit for you. If an opportunity does become available, you will be someone already in the pipeline. If you made a good impression, your resume will rise to the top of the pile. With a job shadow opportunity you can walk proudly into an organization because you have been invited inside to see the inner workings and experience the firm culture in-person. This can be a follow-up step to the informational interview. A job shadow experience will get you exposure to different people in the organization and illustrate that you are a savvy career seeker. Be careful not to exploit the generosity of your contact since they still have work to do on your given shadow day. Don’t offer your professional opinion unless asked and be sensitive about over staying your welcome. Less is more when invited to observe — take the lead of the professional who responded to your request and respect their schedule. Volunteer your way into the company . This is a great way to research career fields you have no experience with. If you are pursuing a career transition, or simply have not landed your dream position, being an unpaid professional can allow you see things from the inside to help you find the right match. Volunteering has been a standard practice for students and now with the returnship model for non-students, volunteering is a career development strategy for all. The trendy new returnship is for seasoned professionals and provides a way for you to test-drive an organization to determine if it’s a good fit. Do set realistic time limits and clear expectations with your new volunteer employer so you are not exploited while giving away your time and talents. If they have not heard about the returnship concept, offer it as new career development tool being used by the likes of the Sara Lee Corporation and Goldman Sachs. Is your LinkedIn profile representing you to your best advantage? Headhunters and recruiters troll social media sites for talent and LinkedIn is one of the leading sites where you can put your professional best out there for the world to see. Join groups, participate in discussions, solicit recommendations, and consider upgrading to the business level (19.95/month) to expand your network and access leads on candidate searches. This is a virtual door into an organization and can also make introductions for informational interviews, job shadow opportunities, and good old fashioned network building in-person. Create your own buzz by writing a blog or online articles in your respective industry. Being recognized as a specialist in your field in print (or online) will establish you as someone with credibility. You will ramp up your recruiting potential and hiring managers may even find you based on your written work. It’s equally important to scrub your social media sites and online presence to make sure your image is 100% professional and ready for prospective employer consumption. What’s on the web about you is fair game, whether you authored it or not. It’s easy to get down about the job search when opportunities are rarely, if ever posted. But you can take this opportunity to enter organizations through an alternative door and distinguish yourself amongst the masses as one who is industrious and willing to go beyond the job boards to find opportunities. The job search is still a full-time endeavor and whether you are an entry-level hire, a seasoned professional or a career changer, meeting people face-to-face is always the best way to make a lasting positive impression. You need an opportunity to tell your personal strengths story and explain your value-add proposition. So if the front door is locked — find a side door and use your creativity and strategic thinking to get inside and show your professional best. Check out the first segment of my new video series with valuable career & professional development advice. Caroline Dowd-Higgins authored the book “This Is Not the Career I Ordered” and maintains the career reinvention blog of the same name ( www.carolinedowdhiggins.com ) She is also the Director of Career & Professional Development at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

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Kenneth Cole, Compass Partners Launch Support For College-Aged Social Entrepreneurs

April 1, 2011

NEW YORK — As famous for his side-buckle shoes as for his work combining the political and sartorial, designer Kenneth Cole on Friday announced his latest effort to promote activism and engagement at the community level. Awearness , Cole’s philanthropic foundation, has pledged $500,000 to the nonprofit group Compass Partners, launching a partnership to support and mentor college-aged entrepreneurs aiming to develop the next generation of socially-conscious businesses. The effort is not Cole’s first foray into the world of social activism: he serves as chairman of the American Foundation for AIDS Research and has supported similar community engagement programs at Columbia and Emory universities. Awearness’ support for the two-year Compass Fellowship, presently on offer at nine schools, will help the organization to expand its training and mentoring program to 15 universities by year’s end. Describing what initially attracted him to Compass, Cole said, “I was overwhelmed by the extent of their understanding, and the opportunity to affect a generation of individuals who still have a genuine sense of social justice. They want to and are inspired to maintain and create a meaningful and sustainable difference. They also want to do it globally.” Compass Partners , a 2-year-old nonprofit founded by onetime fair-trade tea dealer Neil Shah and would-be farmer’s market delivery-service entrepreneur Arthur Woods, began as a project at Georgetown University while both Shah and Woods were still undergraduates (their other respective businesses ultimately shuttered). Sensing the need for greater support and training for socially-conscious businesses, the Compass Incubator gave way to the Compass Fellowship, which Awearness will support. Shah and Woods first contacted Cole after reading about his involvement with similar programs at Columbia and Emory. Describing their first encounter in New York, Shah said, “We didn’t know what to expect, but we explained what we were doing, and Kenneth said, ‘Let me know how I can help, give me a pitch.’ And it just blossomed into this relationship.” Cole, for his part, said he understands the need for greater resources for young, socially-minded entrepreneurs. “They’ve got a great sense of content, but not context,” he said. “They’re not taught how to do it — the skills of doing business.” Speaking to the importance of reaching college-aged students specifically, Cole said, “It’s so much easier to connect with people at that right point in their lives, when they believe that social justice is everyone’s right. While they’re students, they’re far more inclined to launch and experiment with new opportunities. In the real world, you don’t have the luxury of figuring it out along the way.”

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U.S. Economy Growing Faster Than Rivals, But Creating Far Fewer Jobs

March 31, 2011

WASHINGTON — The United States is out of step with the rest of the world’s richest industrialized nations: Its economy is growing faster than theirs but creating far fewer jobs. The reason is U.S. workers have become so productive that it’s harder for anyone without a job to get one. Companies are producing and profiting more than when the recession began, despite fewer workers. They’re hiring again, but not fast enough to replace most of the 7.5 million jobs lost since the recession began. Measured in growth, the American economy has outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – every Group of 7 developed nation except Canada, according to The Associated Press’ new Global Economy Tracker, a quarterly analysis of 22 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output. Yet the U.S. job market remains the group’s weakest. U.S. employment bottomed and started growing again a year ago, but there are still 5.4 percent fewer American jobs than in December 2007. That’s a much sharper drop than in any other G-7 country. The U.S. had the G-7′s highest unemployment rate as of December. Canada and Germany have actually added jobs since the recession ended in June 2009. U.S. companies aren’t acting the way economists had expected them to. In the past, when the U.S. economy fell into recession, companies typically cut jobs but often kept more than they needed. Some might have felt protective of their staffs. Or they didn’t want to risk losing skilled employees they’d need once business rebounded. Among manufacturers, for example, some tended to hoard workers during downturns by giving them make-work assignments – sweeping factory floors, counting inventory, painting warehouses. The result is that productivity – output per workers – has typically decelerated or even dropped as the economy has weakened. Japan and Europe have been following that script. At the depth of the recession in 2009, productivity shrank 3.7 percent in Japan and 2.2 percent in Europe. The United States has proved the exception. U.S. productivity growth doubled from 2008 to 2009, then doubled again in 2010, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Panicked by the 2008 financial crisis and deepening recession, U.S. employers cut jobs pitilessly. They slashed an average of 780,000 jobs a month in the January-March quarter of 2009. “My sense is there was much more weeding out of the weakest workers – the ones they didn’t want,” says Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff. Yet after shrinking payrolls, many companies found they could produce just as much with fewer workers. And with that higher productivity came higher profits. By July-September quarter of 2010, U.S. corporate earnings were 12 percent more than when the recession began. By contrast, corporate profits fell 6 percent in Japan and 16 percent in Canada from the October-December quarter of 2007, according to Haver Analytics. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Remcon Plastics moved fast once sales evaporated in the fall of 2008. “I have never seen my business go so quiet,” says Peter Connors, founder of the company, which makes pharmaceutical equipment. “I recognized that business wasn’t going to be strong for some time.” So he laid off 25 temporary workers. And he put his 50 full-time employees on a three-day workweek. Remcon rethought how it did business – restructuring the workplace, for example, so employees didn’t have to walk as far to do their tasks. A plastic part that once had to be made by six workers now needs three. It can be produced faster. “So even as demand came back, we could wait to add people,” Connors says. Japanese, European and Canadian companies are less inclined to purge employees. Their customs, labor regulations and unions discourage aggressive layoffs. U.S. management practices “make it easier for employers to avoid adding permanent jobs,” says economist Erica Groshen, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “They have temporary help they can hire easily. They’re less constrained by traditional human resources practices or by union contracts.” Fewer than 12 percent of American workers belong to unions, which provide some protection against job cuts. That’s the fourth-lowest union participation rate among 31 countries the OECD tracks. “When there’s pressure to cut costs in the United States, it’s borne by the workers,” says Howard Rosen, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “In Europe, it’s borne differently.” In Germany, unemployment is lower now than before the recession. To limit layoffs, German companies spread the pain by reducing workers’ hours. “Japanese companies took it upon themselves to paint the factory – do more stuff that kept people on the payroll,” says Gary Burtless, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. That helps explain why Japan’s unemployment rate was the lowest among G-7 countries in December at just 4.9 percent, though it may rise after the earthquake and nuclear disaster that struck Japan’s northeastern coastline. The United States is “on the other end of the spectrum,” says Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. “Everything is tilted in favor of the employers… The employee has no leverage. If your boss says, `I want you to come in the next two Saturdays,’ what are you going to say – no?” ____ AP Business Writer Pallavi Gogoi in New York contributed to this report.

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Scrum Alliance Announces New Managing Director

March 30, 2011

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – March 30, 2011) –  The Scrum Alliance has selected Carol McEwan as its new Managing Director. Beginning April 1, 2011, McEwan will lead the non-profit organization, working with the staff and Board of Directors to realize the organization’s vision, mission, and goals.

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Government Shutdown Could Slow Tax Refunds, Crimp Use Of Largest Federal Anti-Poverty Program

March 29, 2011

WASHINGTON — A prolonged government shutdown could deliver a blow to many poor American families by limiting or delaying access to the federal government’s largest anti-poverty program, the Earned Income Tax Credit. Last year, 26 million families received about $59 billion from the EITC, according to the Treasury Department . While a broad majority of recipients may be unaffected by a possible government shutdown, which at the earliest could come little over a week from this year’s April 18 deadline for individual tax returns, the sheer scope of EITC recipients means a vast number of households can still be hurt by any problems with poverty-relief payments. Such pain could throw a wrench into federal efforts to fight poverty during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The details of a potential shutdown — including its possible duration and effects — remain unclear . And even if Congress cannot strike a deal to continue government operations, some programs would still be designated as “essential” functions and permitted to continue running. But it remains to be seen exactly which programs would be considered essential, and some operations of the Internal Revenue Service may not be. The IRS and the Treasury Department declined to comment for this report, but policy observers say that while it is very unlikely that a shutdown would prevent the government from collecting tax money, other key IRS functions — including the delivery of billions in tax refunds — could be affected. “Our expectations are … taxes will be processed as if there was no shutdown,” said Cristina Martin Firvida, the director for economic security for AARP’s government-relations division. “We’re unclear whether or not there would be significant delays in refunds, including refunds that involve the EITC.” For many citizens, their tax refund from the EITC program represents a critical component of their annual income, sometimes as much as 30 percent of their household finances. The average EITC benefit is around $2,250, but some families receive as much as $5,666, depending on their circumstances. Benefits are scaled to the number of children a family has and the family’s annual income. Individuals making $13,460 or less can receive $467 from the EITC, while families with up to three children can receive the $5,666 benefit if they make less than $48,362. For families at the lower end of the economic spectrum, the EITC can be essential for paying their bills. Fortunately, most poor families file their refunds relatively early in tax season, hoping to receive government checks sooner rather than later. But many families still wait until the mid-April tax filing deadline, and roughly one-fourth of American households who qualify for the EITC never actually apply for it, according to Adam Perry, an organizer for Capital Area Asset Builders ‘ DC EITC assistance program . Those unaware citizens often file much later in tax season, since they do not realize they are eligible for anti-poverty benefits in earlier months. DC EITC provides free tax preparation and advice to low-income residents of the nation’s capital, avoiding expensive tax preparation services , some of which have been flagged as predatory by consumer advocates. Perry says his group’s efforts to reach out to potential EITC recipients continue right up to the filing deadline. “The good news is that since its April 8, it’s almost the end of tax time, so the majority of people will have it done,” he said. “The bad news is, a lot of people still wait to the last date.” The consequences of a delayed refund for poor households can be devastating. “If that check was to be delayed, that would cause a problem, much more so than for families making $100,000 a year,” said Lee Davenport of OneEconomy Corp. , a global nonprofit that attempts to advance the interests of low-income households through techonology. OneEconomy is currently promoting software that helps low-income households file their taxes online for free. Perry said he is also concerned that the IRS may not be available to answer questions from taxpayers, noting that his volunteer advocates frequently confer with IRS experts about individual cases. “The problem is, if the IRS call centers are classified as ‘not essential’ and they’re not able to answer questions, the folks who need help the most are going to be the ones left to try and figure things out on their own,” Perry said. The peculiar funding specifics of the local Washington, D.C. government could also create hurdles for poor taxpayers living in the nation’s capital. Local government funds rely on congressional approval, and if they don’t get it, many local buildings will be forced to close. DC EITC offers help at 11 locations in the city, including one at the public Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Perry estimated that between 400 and 500 people who planned on filing with his organization during the last week before tax day will have to make alternative plans if the library closes for the second week in April.

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Elaine Edgcomb: Budget Cuts Threaten America’s Smallest Businesses

March 29, 2011

Budget cuts can have a very real effect on our nation’s smallest businesses and the organization’s that serve them. I’m not referring to the well-off entrepreneurs, those with high incomes who might run a small office. Rather, I’m referring to the estimated 10 million mom-and-pop businesses whose owners have low-to-moderate incomes. These companies with five or fewer employees, also known as “microenterprises,” often generate significant employment in many of the regions hardest hit by the most recent recession. According to a recent census conducted by FIELD at the Aspen Institute, there are an estimated 696 microenterprise organizations across the U.S. Two-hundred and sixty-three of those organizations provide loans to microenterprises that, for a myriad of reasons, cannot access credit from traditional sources to start or grow their businesses. So what’s on the table in the budget proposals of both parties? Substantial cuts to key programs serving microenterprises both through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Community Development Financial Institution Fund (CDFI Fund) are proposed. Specifically, President Obama’s budget proposes to eliminate PRIME (Program for Investment in Micro-Entrepreneurs) funds that go towards the training of micro-entrepreneurs, and a 50 percent reduction in training dollars linked to the provision of capital under the SBA Microloan program. Proposals for cuts at the CDFI Fund could be just as dramatic. The bill proposed by the House contains reductions in funding for the agency by 81 percent, curtailing programs that provide funding and low-cost capital to lenders across the U.S. A recent report released on the scale and scope of the microlending industry speaks to the ripple effect that deep cuts to this area can have on small businesses. Of those microlenders surveyed in the report, federal funding makes up 31 percent of their aggregate operating budgets. So what does this country give up by not investing in these small enterprises? For starters, consider the diversity of businesses supported by microlenders. While they include street vendors and daycare providers, food producers and artisans, they also include retail and wholesale businesses of a wide variety, transportation companies, construction and health care companies, arts and entertainment professionals, manufacturers, educational companies, and scientific and technical services startups, among others. Data from 2009 , which documents the outcomes reported by the clients of 24 microenterprise development organizations, included firms in 18 different sectors. While many may be modest in size and ambitions, others have the potential for high growth and significant employment generation. Also, consider the jobs the sector produces . The 2009 data indicated that, on average, for every microenterprise supported, there were 3.1 paid workers. While the majority of these jobs were part-time, they provided hourly earnings higher than minimum wage and were an important contribution to household incomes. And these jobs were sustained in 2008 as the economic and financial crises broke across the nation. In an economy that has yet to feel a full-fledged recovery, with a national unemployment rate that remains elevated, those jobs would seem invaluable to its eventual recovery. Given that banks are still struggling to boost their commercial lending, especially for businesses that need loans under $50,000, microlenders can be the only source of funding for America’s smallest businesses. As both parties continue to battle over spending and the budget, one hopes that rather than weaken the microlending sector in the short-term, they will see the return on investment the sector can produce in the long-run.

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Donald Trump Releases Birth Certificate

March 28, 2011

Potential presidential candidate Donald Trump released his birth certificate exclusively to Newsmax on Monday, the news outlet reports . An image of the document featured on the organization’s website indicates that Trump was born at the Jamaica Hospital in New York on June 14, 1946. Trump questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States during a phone interview on “Fox and Friends” on Monday morning. “He could have been born outside of this country,” he said before asking, “Why can’t he produce a birth certificate?” Just last week, Trump found himself in a fiery exchange with Whoopi Goldberg while discussing the issue during an appearance on “The View.” Here’s the background on the drama that went down: Trump appeared on the ABC show last week and set Goldberg off by saying that there was “something on [Obama's] birth certificate that he doesn’t like.” Goldberg called this “the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages” and asked, “it’s not ’cause he’s black, is it? …Because I’ve never heard any white President asked to be shown the birth certificate.” On Monday’s “Fox and Friends,” Trump struck back. Asked if his comments had anything to do with race, he said, “absolutely not. I like Whoopi. I’ve always had a good relationship with Whoopi…but frankly, I mean, I think that’s insulting that she brings up–what does that have to do with race?” Trump said on Monday morning that the president’s birthplace is an issue that has him “really concerned.” He told Newsmax it took him only an hour to get his birth certificate. “It’s inconceivable that after four years of questioning, the president still hasn’t produced his birth certificate,” he said. “I’m just asking President Obama to show the public his birth certificate. Why’s he making an issue out of this?” Politico’s Ben Smith notes : As I wrote earlier, an official copy of Obama’s birth certificate — the same thing Trump would have to prove his own birth — has been available and online for more than three years. WATCH:

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Lisa Murkowski: Planned Parenthood Funding Fight Isn’t Over

March 28, 2011

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has gotten attention around the country for being one of few Republicans to speak out in support of Planned Parenthood. She says the organization provides vital services to those in need. “I think there are some that feel very strongly and will continue the effort to defund. I think that is a fight that is not yet resolved,” she said in a recent telephone interview.

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Target Sues San Diego Gay Rights Group

March 25, 2011

SAN DIEGO — A judge said Friday he would issue a ruling next week in a lawsuit filed by Target Corp. against a pro-gay marriage group to make it stop canvassing outside the retailer’s San Diego County stores. The suit alleges the activists are driving away customers by cornering them and talking about gay marriage. Rights advocates say the legal battle between Target and Canvass For A Cause could further strain the retailer’s relations with the gay and lesbian community. Target previously made a $150,000 donation to a business group backing a Minnesota Republican candidate opposed to gay marriage. Minnesota-based Target insisted it remained committed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its lawsuit has nothing to do with the political agenda of the organization. During a court hearing Friday in San Diego, Target attorney David McDowell told Judge Jeffrey Barton that the solicitors are on private property, and Target has the right to enforce its policy against solicitors. “The question is Target’s property right and its right to exclude,” McDowell told Barton. The group tries to collect signatures and donations in support of gay marriage. Barton had asked McDowell why the company did not present testimony from customers complaining about the activists. McDowell said Target could get such testimony if needed, but it was not needed since Target just wants to exercise its right to ask people to leave its property. Bryan W. Pease, the attorney for Canvass For A Cause, said Target does not have that right. He told the judge the outside area surrounding stores in shopping centers like Target have been considered by the courts to be public domain for free speech. He argued that Target is taking action because it does not agree with the group’s message about gay marriage. Barton said he will issue a written ruling by the end of next week. Target says it has taken similar action against a number of organizations representing a variety of causes. It alleges in the lawsuit that activists with the San Diego group harass customers by cornering them near front entrances of stores and debating with them about their views on gay marriage. The corporation says at least eight Target stores in the area have reported receiving more than a dozen complaints daily since canvassers started working outside their stores in October 2010. Target says the activists have refused to leave when asked politely and shown the company’s policy prohibiting “expressive activity” on its property. Canvass For A Cause director Tres Watson says Target wants to silence the 12,000-member group that formed in 2009 because it promotes gay marriage. “It’s very David vs. Goliath,” he said. “We understand they’re the Goliath in the room. They’ve got all money in world to get us to stop talking about gay marriage.” Watson says volunteers are trained daily on being professional and polite and their aim is to educate the public about the rights of gays and lesbians. He says they have a right to work outside the stores and the courts have ruled in the past that shopping centers are today’s public squares where freedom of speech should be allowed. “We train our staff and volunteers very carefully in techniques in winning people over,” he said. “When you’re trying to persuade voters and reach out to the community with a message, there is no advantage to being aggressive.” Target was seen as an ally of the gay and lesbian community before it gave money to MN Forward, which supported Tom Emmer, who lost the governor’s race to Democrat Mark Dayton. Target later said it was sorry for the hurt feelings and tried to repair its public relations damage from the controversial donation. Target created a committee to help it better scrutinize decisions regarding financial donations. The company also negotiated a deal with Lady Gaga to sell a special edition of her upcoming album in a partnership Gaga said was tied to their “reform,” supporting the gay community and making up for past mistakes. But the singer backed out a few weeks ago.

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Video: OECD’s Gurria Sees `No Time For Bickering’ in Portugal

March 25, 2011

March 25 (Bloomberg) — Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, talks about the outlook for the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the need for political stability in Portugal. He speaks from Washington with Andrea Catherwood on Bloomberg Television’s “Last Word.”

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U.S. Firms Growing Impatient With Chinese Bureaucracy, Survey Says

March 22, 2011

By Koh Gui Qing BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. firms are increasingly vexed over growing Chinese red tape that prevents them from expanding quickly in China’s vast market, a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce showed on Tuesday. Road blocks faced by firms in getting business licenses have multiplied to the extent that companies are now more worried about bureaucratic hurdles than by nebulous laws and regulation or corruption, AmCham’s annual survey on China’s business climate showed. “The number-one challenge that our members listed this year is bureaucracy,” Ted Dean, AmCham’s chairman in China, told reporters at a briefing. “Members are saying that licensing procedures have become more difficult.” The survey took pains to stress that U.S. firms want to stay in China, but criticisms were also thinly veiled, making plain the alternating love and hate that executives feel when it comes to doing business in a tightly controlled environment in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. “As China enters the tenth year in the World Trade Organization, the goal of a fair and transparent regulatory environment has not yet been achieved,” Dean said. Dean said U.S. firms believe they are discriminated against when they apply for licenses as they face delays and a lack of transparency, and at times are unable to get the licenses that their Chinese peers have received. Nearly 435 firms took part in the AmCham survey. A total of 31 percent of 338 respondents said bureaucratic processing was their biggest challenge, compared with 23 percent last year. To a question on what permit was most difficult to get, 42 percent of 220 respondents said it was a new business license. This is frustrating U.S. firms at a time they want to court the Chinese consumer. “This is just the moment when companies are looking to benefit from domestic demand in the market and looking to sell into the domestic market,” Dean said. Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Yao Jian said, however, that China was committed to treating foreign companies well and to opening its market. “We will continue to further promote the opening up of the domestic market,” he told a regular news conference. “We will give equal treatment to foreign investors and Chinese companies alike.” FIRMS STILL EXPANDING Though China has made significant progress in welcoming foreign firms since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, companies want China to move even faster. Occasional setbacks, as with Google Inc’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) accusation on Monday that the Chinese government is foiling its Gmail service, are also unhelpful. China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday dismissed Google’s accusation as “unacceptable.” The AmCham survey outlined a laundry list of concerns that foreign firms usually have when operating in China — difficulties in hiring managers, unclear laws and regulations, inconsistent interpretation of regulations as well as infringement of intellectual property rights. Preferential treatment that Chinese firms get when it comes to bidding for contracts from China’s government was also a growing concern among foreign firms. Forty percent of firms polled said they believe China’s policy of favoring “indigenous innovation” would soon start to hurt their profits. But for now, almost 70 percent said they have yet to feel an impact. Still, firms are not slowing their China expansion plans. Nearly 10 percent of 281 respondents said they plan to expand their business by more than 50 percent this year, with 33 percent planning to grow operations by between one-tenth and one-fifth. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Richard Borsuk) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions

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Rising Oil Prices Seen As ‘Primary Threat’ To U.S. Economy As Libyan Violence Mounts

March 21, 2011

NEW YORK — As international military forces strike Libya, oil prices are again rising, reviving concerns that expensive energy could impede economic recovery in the United States. U.S. consumers and businesses got a brief reprieve this month as oil prices eased off two-and-a-half-year highs. But escalating violence in Libya and rising tensions among the Middle East’s oil-producing powers have raised fresh fears of a supply disruption. With investors nervous, benchmark crude prices are again rising, threatening a broader recovery that had barely begun to gather momentum. “A spike in energy prices to $125 or $150 a barrel is the primary threat to the recovery at this point, now that it appears the situation in Japan has settled down somewhat,” said Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Analytics. “This could play out over a period of weeks and months.” Those prices continue to roil in the wake of Mideast unrest, including the Western intervention in Libya that began this weekend on behalf of rebels opposing longtime head of state Muammar Gaddafi. In Yemen, meanwhile, scores of demonstrators were killed on Friday, prompting the country’s U.N. ambassador to resign. And tension between two of the region’s major powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, appears to be mounting in Bahrain. Already, Libya’s crude oil output has fallen to a quarter of its pre-crisis level, as multinational oil producers have been taking workers out of the country. That output, which makes up 2 percent of the world’s oil, could fall to zero, said Shokri Ghanem , chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, during a televised media conference last week. These are among the key developments that have sent oil skyward. Since last Tuesday, when prices hit their recent bottom, the price of Brent crude , an industry benchmark, has climbed nearly 7 percent. Since the beginning of this year, Brent has climbed more than 20 percent. The price fell after an earthquake struck Japan’s northeast coast earlier this month, but it has since rebounded, clearing $116 a barrel on Friday. Oil has hit a level not seen since 2008, when high energy prices helped drag the U.S. economy deeper into recession. And now the price is again on the rise. “If prices come back down after a short while, the impact on the U.S. economy is relatively limited,” said Gregory Daco, a senior economist in the U.S. macroeconomics group at IHS Global Insight, an economic and financial analysis firm. “However, if prices do stay at a higher level for six months to a year, the impact on growth can be relatively important.” High energy prices have forced businesses to delay hiring plans and to consider passing fees onto customers. Rising prices at the pump have sapped spending power from consumers, crippling a major source of U.S. economic growth. Expensive oil even threatens the housing market’s recovery, as the prospect of a costly commute makes moving to the suburbs less attractive. Each $10 rise in the price of a barrel of oil translates into a 25-cent increase in gas prices, which tears more than $25 billion from the U.S. economy yearly, economists say. The economic risk posed to the United States by rising oil prices eclipses the effects of the disaster in Japan, experts say. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake that stuck Japan this month, which could plunge that country into recession , won’t pose a major risk to the U.S. economy, economists say, as companies will find ways to work around supply disruptions. But high energy prices drain resources from consumers and businesses, crippling the nation’s economic foundations. “Oil prices are even more of a concern to the U.S. outlook than what’s going on in Japan right now,” said Scott Anderson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. “The consumer is still working to recover form the excesses of the financial crisis.” The oil supply disruption that’s already occurred is relatively minor, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has pledged to correct any shortage with its oil reserves. But the price of a barrel of oil reflects the perception of a mounting crisis. Even without a significant shortage, that perception is helping to cause real economic damage. As fighting continues in the Middle East, investors fear the damage to the global oil trade could worsen. Experts are keeping a close eye on Saudi Arabia, which has sent to troops to Bahrain to help quell anti-government actions. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which each support rival groups in Bahrain, could turn into outright conflict, experts fear. Combined, Saudi Arabia and Iran produce more than 17 percent of the world’s oil. An oil supply disruption in Saudi Arabia could inflict widespread economic strain. “Whats starting to bubble up to the surface here is this major clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” said Bernard Baumohl, the chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. “That can have much more dire consequences for the global economy.”

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Christine M. Riordan: It’s a Matter of Mindset: Ten Principles for Unleashing Critical Thinking

March 21, 2011

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” — Albert Einstein Recently a product manager at a leading financial services company organized a team meeting to talk about a product launched over two years ago, whose sales fell significantly short of initial projections. Comments about the shortfall from the product team members in the meeting ranged from saying the initial sales projections were set too high (even though the product team had been involved in setting those goals and projections), the market for this product just wasn’t there, we have done everything we can to sell the product, to why aren’t there higher goals for other products that the organization carries, and we simply can’t meet the goals set. Other company staff attending the meeting and who weren’t part of the product team saw a complete lack of critical thinking on the part of the product team on how to increase sales or even frame the problem. The product team offered no data that indicated the market had vanished for the product or that the initial sales forecasts were inaccurate. Worse, they summarily dismissed suggestions for improvement by others. Rather than approaching the failure to meet sales goals as a “challenge” to solve, the product team resigned itself to sub-par sales because of alleged factors beyond its control and hoped the rest of the organization would carry the load. They refused to think differently about the problem, their approach to sales, and changes they needed to make immediately to try to bolster sales. In short, the product team did not have a critical thinking mindset for solving a significant problem. It Requires Skill And Mindset In 2011, the business world is changing at an astonishing and complex pace. Companies need critical thinking skills to not only thrive but also survive in this environment. High performance firms require people that capture opportunities, make sound decisions, create new revenue streams, expand their customer base, and create strength for the future. While much has been written about how to develop employees’ skills around critical thinking that include diagnosing and defining problems, gathering data, testing assumptions, infusing creativity, and generating solutions – the real key to success is to have a critical thinking mindset or attitude as a foundation. It’s simply not enough to have the critical thinking skills. A critical thinking mindset is required – it is a way of doing business, an attitude, a behavior, an approach, an inclination, a disposition, a confidence, a frame of mind, the drive, or motivation to solving big problems. Individuals with a critical thinking mindset believe they can solve any problem and no challenge is too great. They approach problems with the attitude of optimism, persistence, confidence, and resolution to improve the situation. This is in sharp contrast to a defeatist attitude, which accepts status quo or failure as a natural consequence of the situation or of others and believes that not much can be done to improve the situation. Bill Gates is the epitome of a leader with a critical thinking mindset both in the workplace and in solving the world’s big challenges. In 2005, Gates said , “I’ve always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted in my belief that the power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a better place. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved learning new things and solving problems. I believe that progress on even the world’s toughest problems is possible — and it’s happening every day. We’re seeing new drugs for deadly diseases, new diagnostic tools, and new attention paid to the health problems in the developing world. I’m excited by the possibilities I see for medicine, for education and, of course, for technology. And I believe that through our natural inventiveness, creativity, and willingness to solve tough problems, we’re going to make some amazing achievements in all these areas in my lifetime.” Ten Principles Underlying a Critical Thinking Mindset There are at the very least ten fundamental principles underlying a critical thinking mindset. 1. View problems as an exciting challenge. The willingness to solve tough problems is at the very core of a critical thinking mindset. People with a critical thinking mindset respond to new demands and challenges by maintaining a constructive, positive outlook about change. New challenges and problems excite them. In fact, they thrive on tackling problems. When presented with organizational change, they see an opportunity not a threat. Seemingly unsolvable problems thrill them, and they find the time and energy to solve the big issues of the day. Author, inventor, and entrepreneur Jock Brandis is such a person. On a 2001 trip to Mali, West Africa to fix a water treatment plant, Brandis noticed women shelling peanuts by hand – a very slow process. Before he left, he promised to send them back a peanut sheller but found upon returning to the U.S. that no such thing existed. So he invented one, now called the Universal Peanut Sheller. One sheller can serve 5,600 people or 731 homes. Brandis is now a part of the non-profit group, the Full Belly Project, exploring other technologies to help improve living conditions in some of the most poverty-stricken areas of the world. As quoted in an interview, Brandis said, “there are many problems that can be solved with an oil drum and a few spare parts.” 2. Act courageously and take risks . Fear of risk or failure inhibits a critical thinking mindset. Additionally, many people fear pointing out new ways of doing things or flaws in current methods for fear of retribution or being thought of as someone who “rocks the boat” rather than a “team player.” Nevertheless, it’s imperative to gauge when to speak up, suggest creative new ideas, or take on a risk. LivingSocial is a company formed in 2007, offering daily deals at restaurants, and other enterprises, using social media to tap into local business advertising. During an interview (2011), CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy stated that part of the company’s culture is to take risks. “One of the things I like to say around the office is, if you’re not making at least one decision a month where you are genuinely nervous about it, you’re probably not trying hard enough,” he says. Asked for an example, O’Shaughnessy says, “We actually started to go and advertise, and promote our service, in markets that we weren’t ‘live’ in.” The gamble paid off — LivingSocial quickly added markets and signed up more members. And the company’s fast growth attracted more venture capital, to help level out its balance sheet. “We took our [cash] burn rate from about a 12-month time frame to about a month-and-a-half time frame — in the span of about a week,” O’Shaughnessy says. These courageous and risk taking tactics worked well for the young company that now employs hundreds of people and is in more than 100 cities. Amazon also just invested a cool $175 million in the company in December 2010. 3. Don’t use excuses. How much easier is it for people to use excuses for lack of success or results and blame factors such as market, inadequate resources, organizational barriers, or other people rather than working to figure out ways to solve problems? Companies and people embracing a critical thinking mindset learn from failure and mistakes, with the ability to rebound from setbacks and/or changes. And when things do not go well, they work to make them better. Case in point: many financial investment firms find that they are transforming themselves through extensive changes due to failures. Late in 2010, Marsico Capital Management, LLC Denver restructured $2.7 billion in debt as they now fight for their company survival. In November 2010, assets were 54% of the high value base – losses had been significant over the last year or so. Currently analysts from S&P and Moody’s remain skeptical about the survival of Marsico Capital. Marsico company executives aren’t providing excuses, but solutions and a concrete game plan. With a steadfast commitment to maintaining a strong investment process and commitment to clients, they work to move forward and build back their asset base. While problems at Marsico mirror those of other boutique equity firms, the executives at Marsico have a strong reputation for their creativity and critical thinking mindset and some analysts believe they will rebound and thrive. 4. Blink. Many times inadequate information exists or there is a lack of awareness of what is really happening in the environment to identify problems, much less solve them. In these situations, executives must act with incomplete knowledge. If they wait until the information is complete, they could miss key windows of opportunity. In some cases, executives must learn to use their hunches, gut reactions, and intuition because they don’t have access to complete information. They have to simply make a decision and move forward. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink , makes the case for times when using “thin-slicing” or just a few pieces of critical information suffice to make fast decisions. As Gladwell notes, sometimes it is essential that we pay attention to those short moments of first reactions, impressions, and conclusions when we confront complex situations and problems. 5. Learn and question. Individuals with a critical thinking mindset often frame difficult challenges as learning opportunities, with an innate concern to know the business and stay well informed, to gain clarity in questions, to seek relevant information and to be open to learning about new ideas. As an example, the onslaught of social media tools, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter among others, creates opportunities and challenges for companies and employees to learn new ways of marketing, think differently about their products, and interact with consumers. Those with a critical thinking mindset open themselves to new ideas; new ways of viewing issues, and constantly ask relevant questions. 6. Think at the organization-environment level. Organizations need people whom are “active stewards” and think of ways to help the organization achieve its overall goals. This contrasts sharply a mindset that focuses solely on oneself or one’s unit. While understandable, viewing an organization’s needs through the lens of a particular unit or oneself often hinders critical thinking. Defensive and protective thinking is probably one of the biggest disasters with internal organizational interactions, and unfortunately, it is part of a normal thought pattern that exists within many organizations. People sometimes spend way too much precious psychic energy endlessly guarding their own ego or their own area, and it’s especially easy to fall into this type of mindset while under pressure. Yet, organizations need executives who put their own feelings and needs aside to think about issues from an organizational perspective towards accomplishing the greater goal. 7. Push through roadblocks. Too often people hit a roadblock and simply stop trying to develop a new idea or new way of conducting business. A research development executive at Microsoft shared that often as he pushes out a new idea at first, he is thought of as crazy for a few months, then he becomes a hero as the idea gains acceptance, and then goes back to being a nobody as the product takes traction. And so the cycle goes – generation of idea, perseverance through roadblocks to gain buy-in, to implementation – to final results. In contrast, I often see executives suggest great ideas in meetings, but if not acknowledged by others, they withdraw from the conversation, never to mention the idea again. People with critical thinking mindsets continue to think of new ways to communicate, gain buy-in for ideas and push through the roadblocks. As noted by Warren Bennis, “innovation– any new idea–by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.” 8. Be open to new __________ (fill in the blank). Often, problems require a paradigm shift – a new way of thinking about the business. Many people can’t conceptualize a new paradigm for their business or industry. What we often don’t hear in solving problems is a critical reframing of the questions to address root causes. Individuals and companies with a critical thinking mindset open themselves to new ways of doing business, new ways of thinking about product lines and customers, and to business model paradigm shifts. Questions such as, “if you could start with the blank sheet of paper, how would you design the solution to your business problems” must be asked. Pay attention to the directions that the trends and data suggest. Starbucks recently launched a new instant coffee product called Via. CEO Howard Shultz was criticized by others saying that the launch of Via was an act of desperation and that Starbucks was driving sales simply through promotions. However, sales reached $100 million in just 10 months and Starbucks just launched another flavor of the instant coffee mirroring its most popular brewed product. As Howard Shultz noted in an interview, “it wasn’t a desperate move. It was really finding an opportunity that we could create, and bring something to the market that our customers would embrace. We have created a business that will exceed $100 million in its first year. That category of instant coffee has not had any innovation over 50 years, and we’re going to build a major business.” 9. Be optimistic. When thinking about significant issues, it is important to be realistically optimistic and anticipate positive outcomes. Martin Seligman’s research on learned optimism demonstrates that optimism allows a person to be proactive and productive in the face of the possibility of failure, to lead and encourage others. Optimism inspires and inspiration is often needed for success. 10. Create an environment that supports it. Executives should create an environment conducive to a critical thinking mindset. Often the size of the organization can influence the development of a positive mindset. Large organizations may have more difficulty being nimble and flexible around their thinking due to complexity and communication. In organizations with a deep history and culture of maintaining the status quo and not promoting innovative thought, it is much more difficult to move quickly to a critical thinking culture. Lack of rewards within the organization limits how much people engage in a critical thinking mindset. If critical thinking is not rewarded within the organization through praise, promotions, merit increases, it simply won’t happen as often. 3M is a corporation highly regarded for its innovation. In Century of Innovation , a 3M book about its history, it points to “four key ingredients that foster a culture of innovation at 3M: attracting and retaining imaginative and productive people; creating a challenging environment; designing an organization that doesn’t get in people’s way; and offering rewards that nourish both self-esteem and personal bank accounts.” Unleashing a Critical Thinking Mindset To succeed in our rapidly changing business environment, leaders, employees, and organizations must place a critical thinking mindset on the top of the agenda. The big issues facing organizations today require dramatic change that is bold, optimistic, innovative, and courageous. Leaders need to approach all sectors with a critical thinking mindset, not just those traditionally known for innovation such as technology, biotech, and space science. Energy, health care, transportation, education, financial markets, non-profits, among many others are going to need to take on the next decade with a new lens… an attitude and persistence to solve the big problems and move forward in bold, courageous, and new ways. In the words of Albert Einstein, “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

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Ron Ashkenas: Solving the Rubik’s Cube of Organizational Structure

March 17, 2011

A recent post by fellow HBR blogger Gill Corkindale illustrates how dysfunctional or outdated organizational designs can make it difficult for managers to operate effectively. Judging by the spirited responses , her examples resonated with many readers. As today’s executives struggle with the fallout of a globalized economy, they are likely to make their organizational structures even more complex. It’s like trying to solve a constantly moving Rubik’s Cube . The colors will never line up, no matter how many times you spin it. What results are multi-dimensional matrix structures where decision-making is torturous and unclear; siloed functions that underleverage people’s efforts; or serial reorganizations that create constant uncertainty. Despite this whitewater environment, there are still steps that managers can take towards simplifying their own structure — which may influence senior executives to adjust the broader design. Here are a few approaches that you can try: Work with the current structure: Managers love to reorganize when results are not what they need to be. After all, it’s a convenient way to create the appearance of taking decisive action to reduce costs, refocus priorities, etc. But often this just creates more complexity . Most organizations can be made to work if leaders set the right goals, hold people accountable, streamline end-to-end processes, and put in place appropriate disciplines. In the absence of these (and other leadership actions) any structure can appear to be dysfunctional. A few years ago, the consumer division of a packaged goods company went through five different redesigns in an eighteen-month period, with little change in performance. Only after a stronger consumer business leader was put in place did results get better — without any further reorganization. Make sure that structure is aligned with strategy: It seems obvious that organizations should be designed to advance business strategies. But many times strategies evolve and change while seasoned managers clutch tightly to their old ways of structuring their units and organizing their teams. In a certain copier company, sales branches traditionally had been responsible for re-selling equipment that had gone off lease. However as lease times were shortened and new models were introduced more frequently, the backlog of used equipment grew dramatically. To reduce the backlog, the head of sales proposed setting up a centralized unit that would focus exclusively on re-selling the old machines. However, his branch managers opposed doing this, wanting to keep these extra “sales” for their teams. Not wanting to fight his branch people, the sales manager shelved his strategic idea — and the backlog continued to grow until the company president was forced to intervene. Structure around purpose instead of personalities: While organizational structures are usually portrayed as sets of interconnected boxes, the reality is that the boxes contain human beings with strengths, weaknesses, and personalities that often don’t fit with the logic of the organizational design. But instead of directly dealing with those “misfits,” most managers make accommodations to the design of the organization. This leads to structures that don’t quite work as they should. In one major teaching hospital, for example, a very skilled physician was selected to direct several small outpatient clinics. As these clinics expanded and multiplied, her lack of managerial discipline created severe operating issues, unnecessary cost overruns, and frustration among the clinics’ staff. To avoid offending the doctor by shifting her to a more appropriate role, the hospital president added a Chief Operating Officer for the clinics, who subsequently added other operating managers. Soon the overall structure grew more complex, with added layers and fuzzy accountability. Two years later the hospital president realized his mistake and brought in a new director (one with managerial experience) for the outpatient clinics, who quickly streamlined the structure and brought the operation under control. It may not be possible to fully solve the dysfunctional design puzzle in your organization. But a good way to start is to ask yourself these three questions: (1) Is the problem the structure, or the way we are managing it? (2) Does the structure match our strategy? (3) Has our organization design been compromised by accommodating to personalities? You can tackle these tough questions with your team or with more senior managers. Starting a dialogue like this may not solve everything, but it might help you start shifting those organizational pieces into their correct place. What is your experience with trying to change organizational structure? Cross-posted from Harvard Business Review

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Inder Sidhu: The Worst SEO Mistake You Can Make

March 11, 2011

Google the words “bunk beds” or “towels” and you’ll see links for Amazon.com, WalMart, Macy’s, Target and other popular companies. One name you won’t see until wading through several screens, however, is Overstock.com — and not by accident. In February, the Sale Lake City-company was penalized by Google for trying to outsmart the Internet company. Overstock’s transgression? It offered discounts to college kids who linked their “.edu” pages to Overstock.com. Because .edu pages don’t normally drive commercial traffic, Google considers them to be important sources of information and ranks them high in Internet searches. Overstock’s attempt to exploit this insight helped increase its visibility on Google.com. Or at least it did until it changed its tactics. Afterwards, Google announced changes designed to penalize those who try to artificially boost their results through questionable search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and other methods. From a historical perspective, “gaming” Google’s search engine is not new. To many spammers, it’s little more than standard operating procedure. Not until recently, however, has evidence surfaced that brand-name companies with storied histories and vaunted reputations benefited from questionable practices. In addition to Overstock, J.C. Penney has also been penalized for supposedly leveraging “black hat” techniques such as connecting to “link farms” whose sole purpose is to outfox Internet search engines. J.C. Penney denies that it knowingly did anything wrong, and so does the Web search consulting company hired to help it. But Google let it be known that it won’t stand for this type of activity. What lesson can you learn from these stumbles? Be careful when it comes to technology you may not fully understand. Today, countless organizations — small businesses especially — are being told that their fortunes will improve if they learn to harness the magical powers of SEO. If you own or operate a Web site for your business, the come-ons are no doubt familiar: “I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines,” goes one popular one. Do organizations fall for these pitches? They sure do. In fact, entire industries have become enamored with SEO. Take the media business. Today, many publishing companies are putting more investment into search gimmicks than in quality content. The result? Fewer impactful features, more animated slideshows and plenty of SEO-optimized headlines, including one from the Washington Post that read simply, ” SEO headline here .” Infatuation with SEO and related technologies extends to companies of all stripes. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), North American spending on search marketing is growing nearly 15 percent annually and will top $17 billion this year. This is in addition to the vast sums spent on SEO technology and consulting. Add it all up and it’s clear that search has seized the attention of scores of business executives worldwide. It joins a long list of technologies and business innovations such as Six Sigma and thin-client computing that have done so. Don’t get me wrong, many of these have provided tremendous value to companies. And so will SEO — to a point. Sooner or later, every competitive company will develop or invest in SEO capabilities. When this happens, distinguishing your organization with basic SEO technology will become very difficult. SEO has not matured to this point yet, especially in the areas of social media and digital asset optimization. But there are signs that some SEO companies are having to go to greater extremes to produce results for their clients. This has led some experts to wonder if the sun will set on SEO . It might, but don’t cancel your contract with your SEO provider just yet. For the foreseeable future, SEO technology will remain a valuable business tool — but one that you should keep in perspective. Putting too much stock in what it can do for your organization is the worst SEO mistake a company can make. Contrary to promises, SEO technology will not provide you a sustainable, competitive advantage. For that, you’re going to have to focus on business basics, including your innovation, prices and operational excellence. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s as true today as ever. Inder Sidhu is the Senior Vice President of Strategy & Planning for Worldwide Operations at Cisco , and the author of Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today’s Profits and Drives Tomorrow’s Growth . Author proceeds from sales of Doing Both go to charity. Follow Inder on Twitter at @indersidhu .

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Mark Logan Appointed Chief Operating Officer of Emptoris, Inc., Lori Webber Promoted to Chief Marketing Officer

March 10, 2011

On Heels of Rivermine Acquisition, Logan Brings Additional Senior Leadership Experience to an Expanding Global Organization

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