There is tremendous goodwill, not to mention countless exciting experiments, around making the world of work more human – designed to promote more freedom, equity, engagement, and passion. Why, then, can those words sound so cheap when we hear them repeated over and over by leaders of all stripes? Probably because these words are uttered much more often than they are ever enacted. (Fortune)
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Keeping connections fresh is entirely about giving. You are giving someone attention, and you are not asking for anything. It is a pleasant contact for them. And it makes a huge difference. If someone hears from you, even once a year in an email when you don’t need anything, then when you ultimately do need something, it is very comfortable for both parties. (Fast Company)
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Not all hours are created equal. Some hours produce more net value – for you, your customers and your firm – than others. As my old partner liked to say, "Some of my hours are priceless and some of them are worthless." Look at your appointment calendar from last week. In every day there were probably only two hours of high productivity. Use the following steps to make the most of them. (Inc.)
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Who said you have to get all your professional fulfillment (and income) from your day job? Picking up side projects – provided you have your own time to devote to them – can be a great way to further your skills and could even help make your company more profitable. (Portfolio)
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My informal survey of a dozen people I know under the age of 35, working in a range of desk jobs, all in the U.S. — law firms, big entertainment companies, small start-ups, publishing houses – revealed that whatever the design of their office spaces, most younger people in our increasingly post-telephonic office world wear headphones about half of the time they're working. And all but one of those I interviewed said that they had at least one G-chat or Skype window open throughout the day, every day – some of them checking in with as many as five non-work friends or family members every hour. (Harvard Business Review)
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Companies are grooming more women for the corner office. With a growing pool of highly qualified women and intensified investor pressure on boards to diversify corporate management teams, companies "are hiring more high-potential women who could be CEO," says Judith von Seldeneck, head of Diversified Search, a Philadelphia executive-recruitment firm. (Wall Street Journal)
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Unemployment in the eurozone reached a record high again in March as spending cuts continued to hit the working population. (BBC News)
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In Tapachula, a furnace of a city in southern Mexico, people line up inside an air-conditioned branch of Banco Azteca to process their remittances. Last year Mexicans received an estimated $24 billion from friends and family working abroad, mainly in the United States, with which Mexico forms the world’s busiest remittance corridor. (The Economist)
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Of all the people rocked by the debt and austerity tumult rattling Europe, the famously prudent but prosperous Dutch were seldom on anybody’s watch list. Until now. (New York Times)
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n the workshop I ran, the Qatari nationals were uninterested. They sat at the back of the room, and spent the entire time talking amongst themselves. Try as I might, I couldn’t engage them. I expressed my frustration to the conference organizer, but he just shrugged, explaining that this behavior is normal in Doha. (Fast Company)
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In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans – one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world – Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities. (The New York Times)
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From internships to business analysts and senior management positions, the NBMBAA Employment Network features hundreds of current jobs for diverse business professionals, with new positions being posted every day.
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The mobile-device revolution and proliferation of image-fat documents have led millions of workers to use consumer cloud-based services that make it easy to access files from any device and get them onto the screens of coworkers, partners and clients. But all the high-flying documents stashed in free services such as Dropbox and SugarSync are becoming a concern to many companies. (Entrepreneur)
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Another day, another flailing tech company trying to get back in the game. Welcome to Research in Motion. And welcome to BlackBerry 10 – the next version of the company’s mobile operating system just unveiled at BlackBerry World, a huge gathering the Canadian phonemaker holds every year in Florida. (Washington Post)
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Black Enterprise and Dell launch the Black Enterprise Small Business University Powered by Dell, an eight-week, online video course offering expert advice to entrepreneurs looking to start and grow profitable small businesses.
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Every entrepreneur goes through highs and lows. You come up with an idea: high. You tell your idea to a close friend or mentor and they knock it down: low. You hire a brilliant development team: high. Your star developer leaves for a better offer: low. You launch to great fanfare: high. After the celebration is over, nobody returns to your site: low. (Entrepreneur)
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Wahooly is part Kickstarter, part Y Combinator. It turns everyday people into social ambassadors for startups. But is it creating a new order of micro-angels or inflating a giant bubble? (Fast Company)
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Ever since the financial crisis started, we’ve heard plenty from the 1 percent. We’ve heard them giving defensive testimony in Congressional hearings or issuing anodyne statements flanked by lawyers and image consultants. They typically repeat platitudes about investment, risk-taking and job creation with the veiled contempt that the nation doesn’t understand their contribution. You get the sense that they’re afraid to say what they really believe. What do the superrich say when the cameras aren’t there? (The New York Times)
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It used to be easy – and I mean Uncle Pennybags-laughing-to-the-bank easy – to be a mutual fund. During the heyday of the cult of equity, investors would dutifully chase returns at Fidelity, Janus Capital (JNS), Munder NetNet, or whatever was the performance flavor of the year. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Don't rush out to buy the newest gadget. Patience pays off with lower prices. Time it right. Want a TV? Look just before the Super Bowl. In the market for a digital camera? New models are out early in the year. Notebook computers are often discounted in late summer for back-to-school shoppers. (CNN/Money)
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Gasoline prices have been rising. Paying $4 a gallon (on average) when the heavy driving season begins this summer is not out of the question. What if gas hits $5? An attack on Iran’s nuclear sites or a severe hurricane hitting U.S. refineries could do that. And though the economy is no longer as dependent on oil as it was 40, 30 or even 20 years ago, sharp energy price hikes still pack a wallop. (Kiplinger)
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Delta Air Lines announced plans Monday to purchase an oil refinery outside of Philadelphia, a novel approach to reducing its fuel costs. A Delta spokesman said the company believes the purchase is the first of its kind by a major U.S. airline. (CNN/Money)
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Target will soon stop selling the Amazon Kindle line of e-readers and tablets, the retailer confirmed Wednesday. Target representative Molly Snyder said the company, which began carrying the Kindle in its physical stores nearly two years ago, is "phasing out Kindles and Amazon- and Kindle-branded products in the spring of 2012." (CNN/Money)
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Insurance markets can be unraveled by adverse selection: if people who need insurance less don’t pay into the risk pool, that raises the costs for everyone left. That’s why the health reform law has mandates for both individuals and employers with more than 50 staff: everybody pays in to make insurance affordable. (Bloomberg/Busniessweek)
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It’s widely recognized that a company’s leadership, culture and core competencies can be important to its success. But another, often overlooked, critical source of differentiation is the company’s beliefs. (MIT/Sloan Management Review)
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Your passion for your career can sabotage your attempts to succeed. When you go from feeling energized, excited and in control of your work to feeling an overwhelming compulsion to achieve and produce, you've tipped from helpful harmonious passion into harmful obsessive passion. (Harvard Business Review)
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You have a business. Maybe you have a couple of kids. You hope to have some shred of a social life. What you probably don't have many of then is good nights' sleep. You might be exhausted but at least you're not alone. A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control reveals 30 percent of American adults – that's 40.6 million of us – sleep six hours a day or fewer. (Inc.)
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There's a battle for better health going on in poor neighborhoods across the country, and part of that battle involves getting people living in so-called food deserts access to healthy food. But as many activists have learned, it takes a combination of access, innovation, and education to change peoples' habits for the better. (NPR)
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