Multilevel Marketing (MLM)
Many of you have probably heard of network marketing or multi-level marketing (aka, MLM). There are many legitimate MLM and network marketing opportunities (both online and off) that allow you to work as an independent agent brokering or selling someone else’s products or services. The problem with MLM is well-documented, however. Some networking marketing or MLM opportunities run afoul by placing the recruitment of other “down line” sales reps at the very top of their priority list rather than the legitimate marketing of their product. Down line recruitment is a cornerstone concept of MLM but should be more of an organically grown outcome that results from the sales of a great product. People buy the product, they love it and end up wanting to share their passion and enthusiasm for the product by selling it themselves. When down line recruitment is the primary focus of any MLM enterprise, you should approach it with extreme caution. There are a lot of tricky pyramid schemes disguised as legitimate MLM’s which are considered fraudulent in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission.
If you are involved in what the FTC considers a fraudulent MLM pyramid scheme, losing all of your MLM investment might just be the least of your worries.
Again, it may not be totally obvious that any particular MLM enterprise is a scam. Some other tips for spotting not-so-legitimate opportunities include taking a look at the amount of money the company guarantees to pay you.
If you’re still unsure about the legitimacy of any of these aforementioned enterprises, at the very least you should check with your local Better Business Bureau for complaints and any other publicly reported information about the company that you are considering doing business with.
http://sellitontheweb.com/blog/top-internet-business-scams-to-watch-out-for/
Friday, December 30, 2011
Significance of Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste
Significance of Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste
by Salman Zafar
Anaerobic digestion is the most important method for the treatment of organic waste because of its techno-economic viability and environmental sustainability. The use of anaerobic digestion technology generates biogas and preserves the nutrients which are recycled back to the agricultural land in the form of slurry or solid fertilizer. The relevance of biogas technology lies in the fact that it makes the best possible utilization of various organic wastes as a renewable source of clean energy. A biogas plant is a decentralized energy system, which can lead to self-sufficiency in heat and power needs, and at the same time reduces environmental pollution. Thus, anaerobic digestion of food waste can lead to climate change mitigation, economic benefits and landfill diversion opportunities.
Of the different types of organic wastes available, food waste holds the highest potential in terms of economic exploitation as it contains high amount of carbon and can be efficiently converted into biogas and organic fertilizer. Food waste can either be utilized as a single substrate in a biogas plant, or can be co-digested with organic wastes like cow manure, poultry litter, sewage, crop residues, abattoir wastes etc.
Food waste is one of the single largest constituent of municipal solid waste stream. Diversion of food waste from landfills can provide significant contribution towards climate change mitigation, apart from generating revenues and creating employment opportunities. Rising energy prices and increasing environmental pollution makes it more important to harness renewable energy from food wastes. Anaerobic digestion technology is widely available worldwide and successful projects are already in place in several European as well as Asian countries which makes it imperative on waste generators and environmental agencies to root for a sustainable food waste management system.
http://bioenergyconsult.wordpress.com/tag/food-waste/
by Salman Zafar
Anaerobic digestion is the most important method for the treatment of organic waste because of its techno-economic viability and environmental sustainability. The use of anaerobic digestion technology generates biogas and preserves the nutrients which are recycled back to the agricultural land in the form of slurry or solid fertilizer. The relevance of biogas technology lies in the fact that it makes the best possible utilization of various organic wastes as a renewable source of clean energy. A biogas plant is a decentralized energy system, which can lead to self-sufficiency in heat and power needs, and at the same time reduces environmental pollution. Thus, anaerobic digestion of food waste can lead to climate change mitigation, economic benefits and landfill diversion opportunities.
Of the different types of organic wastes available, food waste holds the highest potential in terms of economic exploitation as it contains high amount of carbon and can be efficiently converted into biogas and organic fertilizer. Food waste can either be utilized as a single substrate in a biogas plant, or can be co-digested with organic wastes like cow manure, poultry litter, sewage, crop residues, abattoir wastes etc.
Food waste is one of the single largest constituent of municipal solid waste stream. Diversion of food waste from landfills can provide significant contribution towards climate change mitigation, apart from generating revenues and creating employment opportunities. Rising energy prices and increasing environmental pollution makes it more important to harness renewable energy from food wastes. Anaerobic digestion technology is widely available worldwide and successful projects are already in place in several European as well as Asian countries which makes it imperative on waste generators and environmental agencies to root for a sustainable food waste management system.
http://bioenergyconsult.wordpress.com/tag/food-waste/
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
January 2012 Gatherings by Camelia
January 2012 Gatherings by Camelia
“Came” means Business Networking (referral business/business gathering)
welcome to Camelia gatherings
Came 423
2 January 2012 (monday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Teh Chawan, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
Came 424
6 January 2012 (friday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Red Island Cafe, Jalan ss2/61,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 425
8 January 2012 (sunday)
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Mc Donald,Masjid Jamek,Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. (next STAR and PUTRALINE station)
Came 426
8 January 2012 (sunday)
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Jaya One,Jalan University,Petaling Jaya,Malaysia.
Came 427
9 January 2012 (monday)
Time: 3pm to 5pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Leisure Mall,Taman Segar,Cheras,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
Came 428
10 January 2012 (tuesday)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Sri Melaka Restuarant,Amcorp Mall,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 429
19 January 2012 (thursday)
Time : 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Teh Tarik Place,Curve Shopping Mall,Petaling Jaya,Selangor, Malaysia
Came 430
19 January 2012 (thursday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Jalan Raja Laut,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia. (next to STAR Bandaraya and SOGO shopping mall)
Came 431
24 January 2012 (tuesday)
Time: 4pm to 6pm
Venue: Mc Donalds,Jalan SS2,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 432
27 January 2012 (friday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Star Buck,KL Sentral Station,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia
Came 433
28 January 2012 (saturday)
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Venue: Station 1cafe,Sunway Metro,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia (next Sunway Pyramid Mall)
Pls Call /SMS to confirm the date/place/time.
Please give me time to reserve a seat for you.
Do not be LAST MINUTE.I will not entertain you.
You may bring your friends or bosses or spouse.
PLEASE BE PUNCTUAL, Thank you!!
Mobile : 6-016-9795515
Love Camelia
Malaysian Chinese lady
*Venue and time subject to change
*Please pay your drinks / meals
*No entrance fee and no membership
“Came” means Business Networking (referral business/business gathering)
welcome to Camelia gatherings
Came 423
2 January 2012 (monday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Teh Chawan, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
Came 424
6 January 2012 (friday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Red Island Cafe, Jalan ss2/61,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 425
8 January 2012 (sunday)
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Mc Donald,Masjid Jamek,Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. (next STAR and PUTRALINE station)
Came 426
8 January 2012 (sunday)
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Jaya One,Jalan University,Petaling Jaya,Malaysia.
Came 427
9 January 2012 (monday)
Time: 3pm to 5pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Leisure Mall,Taman Segar,Cheras,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.
Came 428
10 January 2012 (tuesday)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Sri Melaka Restuarant,Amcorp Mall,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 429
19 January 2012 (thursday)
Time : 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Teh Tarik Place,Curve Shopping Mall,Petaling Jaya,Selangor, Malaysia
Came 430
19 January 2012 (thursday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Jalan Raja Laut,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia. (next to STAR Bandaraya and SOGO shopping mall)
Came 431
24 January 2012 (tuesday)
Time: 4pm to 6pm
Venue: Mc Donalds,Jalan SS2,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 432
27 January 2012 (friday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Star Buck,KL Sentral Station,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia
Came 433
28 January 2012 (saturday)
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Venue: Station 1cafe,Sunway Metro,Petaling Jaya,Selangor,Malaysia (next Sunway Pyramid Mall)
Pls Call /SMS to confirm the date/place/time.
Please give me time to reserve a seat for you.
Do not be LAST MINUTE.I will not entertain you.
You may bring your friends or bosses or spouse.
PLEASE BE PUNCTUAL, Thank you!!
Mobile : 6-016-9795515
Love Camelia
Malaysian Chinese lady
*Venue and time subject to change
*Please pay your drinks / meals
*No entrance fee and no membership
Monday, December 19, 2011
Nickel Cadmium Battery
Nickel Cadmium Battery
According to the Batteries Plus website, they recycle these types of spent batteries: “lead acid (Pb) batteries used in cars, trucks and emergency lighting, Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) batteries used in cordless phones, cordless tools and two way radios, Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries used in camcorders, bar code scanners and digital cameras, Lithium Ion (Li Ion) or Lithium Polymer (Li Poly) used in cell phones and laptops.”
This retail store has locations all over the U.S. and you can find a location near you to take the batteries mentioned above there and they actually do recycle them. And not “recycle” as defined by “throw into a hole in the ground…” What happens to some of our e-waste is the topic for another day. In any case, I wondered- “What happens to the batteries after I drop them off at their store?” It’s important to know if the common household batteries you bring in are actually recycled in the United States. Here are some important recycling questions to ask any place you bring items.
It turns out, batteries are sent out to a company by the name of Battery Solutions, Inc. or BSI. BSI is an approved recycling vendor that also supplies containers/boxes to anyone that wants one, in which you can put specific types of batteries. Then they are sent out to BSI under guidelines set by the DOT and EPA. The U.S. Department of Transportation tightened regulations for shipping batteries (because some of them caught fire during shipping). This is why the battery terminals need to be taped! On the BSI website, they also talk about what happens to batteries after they receive them! Success!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China
List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China
Social Networks, Blogging Platforms, Video, Image Sharing and Web Hosting Services
* Facebook
* YouTube[6][7][8][9]
* Vimeo – Blocked since October 15, 2009.[10]
* Twitter – Blocked since June 2, 2009.[7][11][12]
* Google Documents
* Google App Engine - Unblocked as of November 27th 2011.
* Google Plus
* Picasa Web Albums – Blocked since July 2009.[13]
* Technorati (www.technorati.com) – Still blocked as of July 2, 2008.[14]
* Blogspot blogs – Still blocked as of July 4, 2010, but Blogger no longer appears blocked. Both Blogspot blogs and Blogger as of May 15, 2009, had been fully blocked.[7][8][15]
* Wordpress - All Wordpress-powered blogs are still blocked as of November 2011.
* Plurk (www.plurk.com) – Still blocked as of April 23, 2009.[16]
* Wretch – The largest Taiwanese blog and image hoster, blocked since August 2007;[17] blocked as of April 25, 2009.
* PBworks – Still blocked as of January 19, 2011.[18]
Non-governmental organizations
* China Bill of Rights (www.chinabillofrights.org)[19]
* Reporters Without Borders (www.rsf.org)[19]
* Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.org) （possible to access now,2011.10.18)[20]
* Falun Gong – related websites like (www.falundafa.org).[1][21]
* Nobel Prize Foundation (nobelprize.org)
* Amnesty International (amnesty.org)
Political organizations
* Central Tibetan Administration (www.tibet.com) - Blocked October 2002.[19]
* Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (http://www.alliance.org.hk/) - Block as of June 17, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
Social Networks, Blogging Platforms, Video, Image Sharing and Web Hosting Services
* YouTube[6][7][8][9]
* Vimeo – Blocked since October 15, 2009.[10]
* Twitter – Blocked since June 2, 2009.[7][11][12]
* Google Documents
* Google App Engine - Unblocked as of November 27th 2011.
* Google Plus
* Picasa Web Albums – Blocked since July 2009.[13]
* Technorati (www.technorati.com) – Still blocked as of July 2, 2008.[14]
* Blogspot blogs – Still blocked as of July 4, 2010, but Blogger no longer appears blocked. Both Blogspot blogs and Blogger as of May 15, 2009, had been fully blocked.[7][8][15]
* Wordpress - All Wordpress-powered blogs are still blocked as of November 2011.
* Plurk (www.plurk.com) – Still blocked as of April 23, 2009.[16]
* Wretch – The largest Taiwanese blog and image hoster, blocked since August 2007;[17] blocked as of April 25, 2009.
* PBworks – Still blocked as of January 19, 2011.[18]
Non-governmental organizations
* China Bill of Rights (www.chinabillofrights.org)[19]
* Reporters Without Borders (www.rsf.org)[19]
* Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.org) （possible to access now,2011.10.18)[20]
* Falun Gong – related websites like (www.falundafa.org).[1][21]
* Nobel Prize Foundation (nobelprize.org)
* Amnesty International (amnesty.org)
Political organizations
* Central Tibetan Administration (www.tibet.com) - Blocked October 2002.[19]
* Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (http://www.alliance.org.hk/) - Block as of June 17, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
Sunday, November 27, 2011
6 Reasons I’m Obsessed With WordPress
6 Reasons I’m Obsessed With WordPress
By Julie Hanks, LCSW
WordPress is a fantastic platform for your private practice website. Originally a blogging platform, it’s commonly used for websites because it’s user friendly, functional, and easy to customize. I’m completely “in love” with it. For clarification, I’m talking about WordPress.org that is installed on your web hosting system, not WordPress.com – a web-based blogging platform.
Since I changed to WordPress about a year ago for my practice website, I’ve been able to create a more dynamic and interactive website with fresh content, social media interaction, and an integrated a blog. So here’s more about why I love WordPress:
1) You can be the webmaster
Even without knowing HTML, you can be the webmaster of your website with the ability to customize the function and appearance at any time. You can easily add or delete pages, change the color scheme, add blog posts, and customize the features at any time and from anywhere. Once I paid to have the basic WordPress site installed on my web host and had a few custom images made, I took over from there.
2) Free themes
WordPress allows you to “try on” different themes to your site with the click of a button. A “theme” is the skin of your site — the format, colors, layout, etc. There are many free themes available, in addition to customized themes for a variety of fees. ThemeForest.net is a great site to explore variety in custom website themes.
3) Plugins and widgets galore
Plugins are tools that extend the functionality of your WordPress site and allow customization to your site. Widgets are WordPress plugins “that add visitor visual and interactivity options and features, such as sidebar widgets for post categories, tag clouds, navigation, search, etc.” (WordPress.org)
Here are a few of my favorites:
YouTube Videos — feeds YouTube channel to websites
Author Bio — shows customized bio at the bottom of each blog post
Amazon Associate — integrates a bookshelf of our recommended books with a link to buy on Amazon.com.
Google Analytics — tracks visitor information.
Constant Contact API — integrates our newsletter sign up on the website.
SexyBookmarks (by Shareaholic) — add social media share links to each blog post.
Share and Follow — adds social media links bar on pages.
4) Easy to navigate
OK, that one’s partially true. Though navigating the WordPress dashboard can be a bit overwhelming at first, once you’re familiar with it, you can easily navigate it. For example, my juliehanks.com and wasatchfamilytherapy.com sites are built on WordPress, so when I started writing for PsychCentral (also built on WordPress) it was easy to jump right in.
5) It’s cheap!
After paying for domain registration, web hosting service, and basic site installation costs, there are minimal expenses to update and maintain your WordPress website. I will occasionally hire a web designer to consult or add elements that are beyond my abilities, but that is the exception. I used to pay around $60 a month for a website service but I quickly outgrew the options they provided. Even with the start up costs, WordPress has been a cheaper option and much more fun to create a dynamic practice website.
6) Integrated blog
One of the reasons I started looking for a better website platform was that my current site platform didn’t allow for an integrated blog. I had a blog on an external blogging site, but hated sending my visitors away from my private practice website in order to read my blog. Since WordPress is a blogging platform, visitors can stay on our site and read blog posts.
What platform do you use for your practice website?
Are there any other WordPress lovers out there?
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/private-practice/2011/11/6-reasons-im-obsessed-with-wordpress/
By Julie Hanks, LCSW
WordPress is a fantastic platform for your private practice website. Originally a blogging platform, it’s commonly used for websites because it’s user friendly, functional, and easy to customize. I’m completely “in love” with it. For clarification, I’m talking about WordPress.org that is installed on your web hosting system, not WordPress.com – a web-based blogging platform.
Since I changed to WordPress about a year ago for my practice website, I’ve been able to create a more dynamic and interactive website with fresh content, social media interaction, and an integrated a blog. So here’s more about why I love WordPress:
1) You can be the webmaster
Even without knowing HTML, you can be the webmaster of your website with the ability to customize the function and appearance at any time. You can easily add or delete pages, change the color scheme, add blog posts, and customize the features at any time and from anywhere. Once I paid to have the basic WordPress site installed on my web host and had a few custom images made, I took over from there.
2) Free themes
WordPress allows you to “try on” different themes to your site with the click of a button. A “theme” is the skin of your site — the format, colors, layout, etc. There are many free themes available, in addition to customized themes for a variety of fees. ThemeForest.net is a great site to explore variety in custom website themes.
3) Plugins and widgets galore
Plugins are tools that extend the functionality of your WordPress site and allow customization to your site. Widgets are WordPress plugins “that add visitor visual and interactivity options and features, such as sidebar widgets for post categories, tag clouds, navigation, search, etc.” (WordPress.org)
Here are a few of my favorites:
YouTube Videos — feeds YouTube channel to websites
Author Bio — shows customized bio at the bottom of each blog post
Amazon Associate — integrates a bookshelf of our recommended books with a link to buy on Amazon.com.
Google Analytics — tracks visitor information.
Constant Contact API — integrates our newsletter sign up on the website.
SexyBookmarks (by Shareaholic) — add social media share links to each blog post.
Share and Follow — adds social media links bar on pages.
4) Easy to navigate
OK, that one’s partially true. Though navigating the WordPress dashboard can be a bit overwhelming at first, once you’re familiar with it, you can easily navigate it. For example, my juliehanks.com and wasatchfamilytherapy.com sites are built on WordPress, so when I started writing for PsychCentral (also built on WordPress) it was easy to jump right in.
5) It’s cheap!
After paying for domain registration, web hosting service, and basic site installation costs, there are minimal expenses to update and maintain your WordPress website. I will occasionally hire a web designer to consult or add elements that are beyond my abilities, but that is the exception. I used to pay around $60 a month for a website service but I quickly outgrew the options they provided. Even with the start up costs, WordPress has been a cheaper option and much more fun to create a dynamic practice website.
6) Integrated blog
One of the reasons I started looking for a better website platform was that my current site platform didn’t allow for an integrated blog. I had a blog on an external blogging site, but hated sending my visitors away from my private practice website in order to read my blog. Since WordPress is a blogging platform, visitors can stay on our site and read blog posts.
What platform do you use for your practice website?
Are there any other WordPress lovers out there?
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/private-practice/2011/11/6-reasons-im-obsessed-with-wordpress/
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Angry Bird
http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/this_urban_jungle/770318/inconsiderate_commuters_this_chicken_will.html
Friday, November 11, 2011
What Bill Gates Says About Drug Companies
What Bill Gates Says About Drug Companies
Most of what Bill Gates said to me over the course of two interviews found its way into the cover profile of him I wrote for the most recent issue of Forbes. But one set of ideas didn’t really make it: his unique and thoughtful perspective on the pharmaceuticals industry.
Few outsiders have had as clear a view of the drug business as Gates. Over the past decade, Gates has relied on giants like Merck, Pfizer, and Sanofi-Aventis to provide the vaccines that are a lynchpin of his charitable work. He’s had a long-standing collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline over a malaria vaccine. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recruited its last research head, Tachi Yamada, from Glaxo, where he had headed drug R&D. During his tenure, Yamada helped the Gates Foundation develop a meningitis vaccine from scratch to help people in parts of Africa. Yamada’s replacement, Trevor Mundel, hails from Novartis, where he ran clinical trials – a sign that some industry insiders say means that the Gates Foundation may be heading even further into the development of new vaccines and drugs.
After a conversation with Gates, one wonders if the drug industry has hurt itself by focusing too much on $100,000 cancer drugs and blockbuster pills that can be sold to millions, and not enough on products that are far more cost-effective. And then, of course, there’s the fact that the entire $600 billion pharmaceutical industry has spent the past decade in a research drought, getting comparatively few new medicines to market.
“Fortunately, our vaccine discovery rate has been better than the recent drug discovery rate of pharma,” Gates said. “And, you know, pharma doing well is important for the world, so hopefully their discovery rate will go up.”
Ten or fifteen years ago, nobody in the drug business would have held up vaccines as profit centers. That was the age of Pfizer’s Viagra having the fastest drug launch in history, of the even bigger cholesterol-lowering medicine Lipitor becoming the best-selling drug in history and forcing Pfizer’s $116 billion buyout of partner Warner-Lambert, ushering in a new age of megamergers that experts believe may have squelched innovation in drug company labs.
Says Gates: “If you 15 years ago had said, ‘How important are vaccines to these various businesses?’ They would have said, “You know, our drug businesses are going to do so well. And vaccines are so tough, particularly because of liability issues.’”
But vaccines, Gates argues, “actually have more impact on health than all the new drugs.” And the pharmaceutical businesses didn’t do as well as expected. For Pfizer, for instance, a big bet on a Lipitor follow-up went down in flames when the drug turned out to increase, not decrease, the death rate. But now Pfizer is betting big on a vaccine, called Prevnar, against the pneumococcus bacteria. After Lipitor loses patent protection, Prevnar may well be the company’s top seller.
Gates thinks it is “ironic” that vaccines have done so well, along with AIDS drugs that have been a boon to companies like Gilead, one of the biggest biotechnology companies, and Merck, while heartburn medicines, cholesterol drugs, and antidepressants have failed to pay off.
When it comes to cancer drugs like Avastin and Erbitux, some of the biggest sales successes of the past decade, Gates seems unimpressed. “There’s always this divergence between what’s financially attractive and what has dramatic profit and the number of life years that you really save.” Take for instance, Novartis’ Gleevec, the crown jewel of targeted cancer drugs that can put chronic myelogenous leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors into remission. “Do the math on that versus, says, preventing Parkinson’s or preventing Alzheimer’s. It’s in a different universe.”
The good news, to Gates’ mind, is that right now people are making money in the vaccine business. That means that more research is getting funded, and more innovation is happening.
“The rich world companies do more,” he says, “and that means the Chinese and Indian companies see that and they do more. You know, so it’s a pretty good virtuous cycle right now in terms of focus on vaccines. ”
Part of the drug industry’s problem, though, is that the process of inventing new drugs and vaccines has gotten more complex. Forty years ago, Leo Sternbach, a Roche scientist, could invent whole swaths of anti-anxiety drugs, and Merck vaccine researcher Maurice Hilleman, one of Gates’ heroes, could develop the bulk of the vaccines still given to children today.
“It’s like the breadth of software I got to do at Microsoft,” says Gates. “Things become more specialized and, you know, and more complex. So the idea that one guy does, like, ten different vaccines, including multiple iterations of them. And the combinations of them. He was on a roll. He got Merck into that. He figured out how it worked. He had the guts to go and try things.”
The sad reality: as innovation piles on innovation, doing something new and different only gets harder.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/10/what-bill-gates-says-about-drug-companies-2/2/
Most of what Bill Gates said to me over the course of two interviews found its way into the cover profile of him I wrote for the most recent issue of Forbes. But one set of ideas didn’t really make it: his unique and thoughtful perspective on the pharmaceuticals industry.
Few outsiders have had as clear a view of the drug business as Gates. Over the past decade, Gates has relied on giants like Merck, Pfizer, and Sanofi-Aventis to provide the vaccines that are a lynchpin of his charitable work. He’s had a long-standing collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline over a malaria vaccine. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recruited its last research head, Tachi Yamada, from Glaxo, where he had headed drug R&D. During his tenure, Yamada helped the Gates Foundation develop a meningitis vaccine from scratch to help people in parts of Africa. Yamada’s replacement, Trevor Mundel, hails from Novartis, where he ran clinical trials – a sign that some industry insiders say means that the Gates Foundation may be heading even further into the development of new vaccines and drugs.
After a conversation with Gates, one wonders if the drug industry has hurt itself by focusing too much on $100,000 cancer drugs and blockbuster pills that can be sold to millions, and not enough on products that are far more cost-effective. And then, of course, there’s the fact that the entire $600 billion pharmaceutical industry has spent the past decade in a research drought, getting comparatively few new medicines to market.
“Fortunately, our vaccine discovery rate has been better than the recent drug discovery rate of pharma,” Gates said. “And, you know, pharma doing well is important for the world, so hopefully their discovery rate will go up.”
Ten or fifteen years ago, nobody in the drug business would have held up vaccines as profit centers. That was the age of Pfizer’s Viagra having the fastest drug launch in history, of the even bigger cholesterol-lowering medicine Lipitor becoming the best-selling drug in history and forcing Pfizer’s $116 billion buyout of partner Warner-Lambert, ushering in a new age of megamergers that experts believe may have squelched innovation in drug company labs.
Says Gates: “If you 15 years ago had said, ‘How important are vaccines to these various businesses?’ They would have said, “You know, our drug businesses are going to do so well. And vaccines are so tough, particularly because of liability issues.’”
But vaccines, Gates argues, “actually have more impact on health than all the new drugs.” And the pharmaceutical businesses didn’t do as well as expected. For Pfizer, for instance, a big bet on a Lipitor follow-up went down in flames when the drug turned out to increase, not decrease, the death rate. But now Pfizer is betting big on a vaccine, called Prevnar, against the pneumococcus bacteria. After Lipitor loses patent protection, Prevnar may well be the company’s top seller.
Gates thinks it is “ironic” that vaccines have done so well, along with AIDS drugs that have been a boon to companies like Gilead, one of the biggest biotechnology companies, and Merck, while heartburn medicines, cholesterol drugs, and antidepressants have failed to pay off.
When it comes to cancer drugs like Avastin and Erbitux, some of the biggest sales successes of the past decade, Gates seems unimpressed. “There’s always this divergence between what’s financially attractive and what has dramatic profit and the number of life years that you really save.” Take for instance, Novartis’ Gleevec, the crown jewel of targeted cancer drugs that can put chronic myelogenous leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors into remission. “Do the math on that versus, says, preventing Parkinson’s or preventing Alzheimer’s. It’s in a different universe.”
The good news, to Gates’ mind, is that right now people are making money in the vaccine business. That means that more research is getting funded, and more innovation is happening.
“The rich world companies do more,” he says, “and that means the Chinese and Indian companies see that and they do more. You know, so it’s a pretty good virtuous cycle right now in terms of focus on vaccines. ”
Part of the drug industry’s problem, though, is that the process of inventing new drugs and vaccines has gotten more complex. Forty years ago, Leo Sternbach, a Roche scientist, could invent whole swaths of anti-anxiety drugs, and Merck vaccine researcher Maurice Hilleman, one of Gates’ heroes, could develop the bulk of the vaccines still given to children today.
“It’s like the breadth of software I got to do at Microsoft,” says Gates. “Things become more specialized and, you know, and more complex. So the idea that one guy does, like, ten different vaccines, including multiple iterations of them. And the combinations of them. He was on a roll. He got Merck into that. He figured out how it worked. He had the guts to go and try things.”
The sad reality: as innovation piles on innovation, doing something new and different only gets harder.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/10/what-bill-gates-says-about-drug-companies-2/2/
Twenty-One Top Twitter Tips
Twenty-One Top Twitter Tips
Daniel Adler
Silly time waster? Sure. Powerful business tool? You bet.
You've heard about Twitter--that curious, strangely addictive social-networking technology that facilitates torrents of truncated messages among millions of users. You might even know your hashtags from your re-tweets. But how can you make money with it?
Forbes canvassed scads of businesses and pricey social-networking gurus looking for honest answers. Admittedly, we were skeptical. After all, how much can you accomplish in 140 characters or less?
Turns out there are myriad ways Twitter can have an impact, and not just as a marginal marketing tool. Indeed, we found 21 clever ways to use Twitter--for everything from boosting sales and scouting talent, to conducting market research and raising capital. Chances are, there will be many more.
"I believe Twitter is a communication platform," says Nathan Egan, founder of Freesource Agency, a social-networking consultancy in Philadelphia. "In a year or two, everyone will be on it, using it in totally new ways." Better yet, getting results "doesn't take a year or six months, but a matter of weeks," adds Mark Schaefer, head of Schaefer Marketing Solutions in Knoxville, Tenn.
Some strategies take more time, or are more industry-specific, than others. Taken together, though, this collection of techniques and real-world examples constitutes a powerful online arsenal for companies large and small. Herewith, some highlights:
Coupon Campaigns
Congratulations for getting to the end of this sentence. "As an online culture, people are not reading; they're scanning," says Dell ( DELL - news - people ) Computer's Stefanie Nelson, voice of @DellOutlet. "The shorter and more direct your message is, the more successful you're going to be." Dell tweets links to coupons at Dell Outlet's Facebook page, which shoppers use during checkout at Dell.com.
This strategy works for small companies, too: The abbreviated offers are easy to produce--you don't need an ad agency to write 140 characters. California Tortilla, a chain of 39 causal Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, Md., spread coupon "passwords"--through its Twitter feed @caltort--that must be spoken at checkout to be redeemed.
Viral Marketing
In July, in honor of its 10th birthday, London-based do-it-yourself Web site builder Moonfruit gave away 11 Macbook Pro computers and 10 iPod Touches. Contestants had to tweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. (Hashtags collate Twitter responses.) Nearly a month after the contest ended, traffic to Moonfruit's Web site is up 300%. Sales are up 20% this month, more than paying off the $15,000 investment. And the Moonfruit Web site has climbed onto the first Google ( GOOG - news - people ) page for "free website builder" (it used to be on the fourth).
Word to the wise, says Moonfruit founder Wendy White: Such campaigns must be courteous and fit with a company's brand, lest you draw the ire of the Twitter-sphere: "There's a fine line between annoying people and getting the thumbs up."
Artful Customer Service
Frank Eliason, director of digital care at Comcast ( CMCSA - news - people ), uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day with issues ranging from sporadic Internet service to errant e-mails. Frank and his team receive direct questions at the @comcastcares account and search for complaints. Twitter has a built-in search, but it's more efficient to set up a permanent search on one of the free, third-party Twitter applications, such as TweetDeck.
Eliason's key to success: maintaining friendly relationships, not foisting unwanted advice. "If they want assistance, they'll let me know," he says. Eliason has a 10-person help desk at his disposal, but small businesses can use Twitter to provide better customer service, too. Even a little help goes a long way.
Focus Groups
Back in the old days (last year), companies actually paid customers to solicit their opinions. There were 3.37 million mentions of Starbucks ( SBUX - news - people ) on Twitter through early May 2009, and all of that information is available for less than the cost of a frappucino. "There is a major element of Twitter that's about listening and learning," says Brad Nelson, the man behind @Starbucks. "Twitter is a leading indicator." Collecting the information is as simple as searching for references to your company.
Morgan Johnston, manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, abolished a $50 fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter. "Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine," says Johnston. "We watch for customers' discussions about amenities we have, and what they'd like to see made better." For a more formal approach, lob a simple post asking for feedback and provide a hashtag to collect the responses.
Poaching Customers
"Twitter is not just a kid story," says Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. Brogan should know: He is one of several Twitter experts advising companies on how to spy on their competition and to swoop in with a better service or discount.
Freesource's Egan describes how to do it: Using TweetDeck, set up a permanent search for all permutations of your competitor's name, as well as words that convey dissatisfaction ("sucks" or "hate"). Public replies to those new prospects are dangerous, as your competition may see them, so the best bet is to follow them and get followed back, allowing you to send direct messages.
Customer Expectation Management
Bad things happen--it's how you condition customers to deal with it that counts. Jet Blue tweets flight delays. In April, when a Stanley Cup broadcast was interrupted, cable provider Comcast used Twitter to immediately inform its subscribers that the culprit was a lightning storm, and that transmission would soon be restored.
Small companies--like United Linen, a linens and uniform company in Bartlesville, Okla.--can manage expectations this way, too. When a major snowstorm hit the area, Marketing Director Scott Townsend used Twitter to let customers know deliveries would be delayed. "It was a great way to send information to everyone," he says. "They understood we wouldn't be there, but they wanted to know what our status was and updates as the situation changed."
Corralling Eyeballs
During last year's NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, Turner Broadcasting managed to weave social-media feeds into its home page. Fans accessed the conversation by logging onto Twitter through TNT.com, and the tweets were also posted on Twitter with links back to TNT.com. Those forums mean more Web traffic--and thus more advertising revenue. "It's exciting to sell this to an advertiser," said Liza Hausman, vice president of marketing for Gigya Socialize, the brains behind the integration technology.
Vendor Selection
Twitter can snag customers, but how about suppliers? Crowdspring, an online marketplace that marries businesses with graphic designers (see "The Creativity Of Crowds"), used Twitter to build up its stable of contributors--now 12,000 strong globally.
Business travelers can apply this same logic: Tweeting that you're about to visit a city can scare up discount offers from hotels, bus companies and other travel-services providers.
Conflict Resolution
Wiggly Wigglers, a Herfordshire, U.K.-based marketer of gardening and farming supplies, was recently overcharged $10,500 by British Telecom. Five months passed without restitution.
Finally, Wiggly owner Heather Gorringe hit the Twitter-sphere, asking if anyone else had had problems with BT. @BTCare sent Gorringe a message within 30 minutes promising help; two days later, the bill was amended. "When I phone them up, I'm an isolated call to deal with, so I'm less important," says Gorringe. "But if I tweet, and 1,193 people re-tweet, 100,000 people see it within 30 seconds."
Employee Recruitment
Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company, trains its recruiters on Twitter and other social media. An automated program sends prospects a direct message whenever a position opens up, and the messages are opened 30% of the time.
The trick, says Arie Ball, vice president of talent acquisition at Sodexo, is to be as personal and engaging as possible: "People get an insider's view, a sense if this is a company they want to work for." The company says that using Twitter as a recruitment tool has helped cut its investment in online job boards by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Raising Capital
As in the physical world, no one likes to be solicited for contributions online. A better Twitter tack: Don't ask, just inform.
Last Thanksgiving, Epic Change, a nonprofit that encourages people to tell their stories to transform communities, launched the Tweetsgiving Web site, with the help of theKbuzz, a word-of-mouth marketing firm. Tweetsgiving asked people to tweet what they were grateful for, and compiled the responses at #tweetsgiving, with a link back to the Tweetsgiving site, where users had the option of contributing money to build classrooms in Tanzania.
Over the 48-hour campaign, 15,000 people came to the Tweetsgiving site; 360 donated, for a total of $11,000. "We never asked people to give," says Stacey Monk, founder of Epic Change. "We got people invested in their own, personalized way."
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/31/top-twitter-tips-entrepreneurs-technology-twitter.html
Daniel Adler
Silly time waster? Sure. Powerful business tool? You bet.
You've heard about Twitter--that curious, strangely addictive social-networking technology that facilitates torrents of truncated messages among millions of users. You might even know your hashtags from your re-tweets. But how can you make money with it?
Forbes canvassed scads of businesses and pricey social-networking gurus looking for honest answers. Admittedly, we were skeptical. After all, how much can you accomplish in 140 characters or less?
Turns out there are myriad ways Twitter can have an impact, and not just as a marginal marketing tool. Indeed, we found 21 clever ways to use Twitter--for everything from boosting sales and scouting talent, to conducting market research and raising capital. Chances are, there will be many more.
"I believe Twitter is a communication platform," says Nathan Egan, founder of Freesource Agency, a social-networking consultancy in Philadelphia. "In a year or two, everyone will be on it, using it in totally new ways." Better yet, getting results "doesn't take a year or six months, but a matter of weeks," adds Mark Schaefer, head of Schaefer Marketing Solutions in Knoxville, Tenn.
Some strategies take more time, or are more industry-specific, than others. Taken together, though, this collection of techniques and real-world examples constitutes a powerful online arsenal for companies large and small. Herewith, some highlights:
Coupon Campaigns
Congratulations for getting to the end of this sentence. "As an online culture, people are not reading; they're scanning," says Dell ( DELL - news - people ) Computer's Stefanie Nelson, voice of @DellOutlet. "The shorter and more direct your message is, the more successful you're going to be." Dell tweets links to coupons at Dell Outlet's Facebook page, which shoppers use during checkout at Dell.com.
This strategy works for small companies, too: The abbreviated offers are easy to produce--you don't need an ad agency to write 140 characters. California Tortilla, a chain of 39 causal Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, Md., spread coupon "passwords"--through its Twitter feed @caltort--that must be spoken at checkout to be redeemed.
Viral Marketing
In July, in honor of its 10th birthday, London-based do-it-yourself Web site builder Moonfruit gave away 11 Macbook Pro computers and 10 iPod Touches. Contestants had to tweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. (Hashtags collate Twitter responses.) Nearly a month after the contest ended, traffic to Moonfruit's Web site is up 300%. Sales are up 20% this month, more than paying off the $15,000 investment. And the Moonfruit Web site has climbed onto the first Google ( GOOG - news - people ) page for "free website builder" (it used to be on the fourth).
Word to the wise, says Moonfruit founder Wendy White: Such campaigns must be courteous and fit with a company's brand, lest you draw the ire of the Twitter-sphere: "There's a fine line between annoying people and getting the thumbs up."
Artful Customer Service
Frank Eliason, director of digital care at Comcast ( CMCSA - news - people ), uses Twitter to help 200 to 300 subscribers a day with issues ranging from sporadic Internet service to errant e-mails. Frank and his team receive direct questions at the @comcastcares account and search for complaints. Twitter has a built-in search, but it's more efficient to set up a permanent search on one of the free, third-party Twitter applications, such as TweetDeck.
Eliason's key to success: maintaining friendly relationships, not foisting unwanted advice. "If they want assistance, they'll let me know," he says. Eliason has a 10-person help desk at his disposal, but small businesses can use Twitter to provide better customer service, too. Even a little help goes a long way.
Focus Groups
Back in the old days (last year), companies actually paid customers to solicit their opinions. There were 3.37 million mentions of Starbucks ( SBUX - news - people ) on Twitter through early May 2009, and all of that information is available for less than the cost of a frappucino. "There is a major element of Twitter that's about listening and learning," says Brad Nelson, the man behind @Starbucks. "Twitter is a leading indicator." Collecting the information is as simple as searching for references to your company.
Morgan Johnston, manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, abolished a $50 fee for carry-on bikes after hearing complaints via Twitter. "Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine," says Johnston. "We watch for customers' discussions about amenities we have, and what they'd like to see made better." For a more formal approach, lob a simple post asking for feedback and provide a hashtag to collect the responses.
Poaching Customers
"Twitter is not just a kid story," says Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. Brogan should know: He is one of several Twitter experts advising companies on how to spy on their competition and to swoop in with a better service or discount.
Freesource's Egan describes how to do it: Using TweetDeck, set up a permanent search for all permutations of your competitor's name, as well as words that convey dissatisfaction ("sucks" or "hate"). Public replies to those new prospects are dangerous, as your competition may see them, so the best bet is to follow them and get followed back, allowing you to send direct messages.
Customer Expectation Management
Bad things happen--it's how you condition customers to deal with it that counts. Jet Blue tweets flight delays. In April, when a Stanley Cup broadcast was interrupted, cable provider Comcast used Twitter to immediately inform its subscribers that the culprit was a lightning storm, and that transmission would soon be restored.
Small companies--like United Linen, a linens and uniform company in Bartlesville, Okla.--can manage expectations this way, too. When a major snowstorm hit the area, Marketing Director Scott Townsend used Twitter to let customers know deliveries would be delayed. "It was a great way to send information to everyone," he says. "They understood we wouldn't be there, but they wanted to know what our status was and updates as the situation changed."
Corralling Eyeballs
During last year's NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, Turner Broadcasting managed to weave social-media feeds into its home page. Fans accessed the conversation by logging onto Twitter through TNT.com, and the tweets were also posted on Twitter with links back to TNT.com. Those forums mean more Web traffic--and thus more advertising revenue. "It's exciting to sell this to an advertiser," said Liza Hausman, vice president of marketing for Gigya Socialize, the brains behind the integration technology.
Vendor Selection
Twitter can snag customers, but how about suppliers? Crowdspring, an online marketplace that marries businesses with graphic designers (see "The Creativity Of Crowds"), used Twitter to build up its stable of contributors--now 12,000 strong globally.
Business travelers can apply this same logic: Tweeting that you're about to visit a city can scare up discount offers from hotels, bus companies and other travel-services providers.
Conflict Resolution
Wiggly Wigglers, a Herfordshire, U.K.-based marketer of gardening and farming supplies, was recently overcharged $10,500 by British Telecom. Five months passed without restitution.
Finally, Wiggly owner Heather Gorringe hit the Twitter-sphere, asking if anyone else had had problems with BT. @BTCare sent Gorringe a message within 30 minutes promising help; two days later, the bill was amended. "When I phone them up, I'm an isolated call to deal with, so I'm less important," says Gorringe. "But if I tweet, and 1,193 people re-tweet, 100,000 people see it within 30 seconds."
Employee Recruitment
Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company, trains its recruiters on Twitter and other social media. An automated program sends prospects a direct message whenever a position opens up, and the messages are opened 30% of the time.
The trick, says Arie Ball, vice president of talent acquisition at Sodexo, is to be as personal and engaging as possible: "People get an insider's view, a sense if this is a company they want to work for." The company says that using Twitter as a recruitment tool has helped cut its investment in online job boards by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Raising Capital
As in the physical world, no one likes to be solicited for contributions online. A better Twitter tack: Don't ask, just inform.
Last Thanksgiving, Epic Change, a nonprofit that encourages people to tell their stories to transform communities, launched the Tweetsgiving Web site, with the help of theKbuzz, a word-of-mouth marketing firm. Tweetsgiving asked people to tweet what they were grateful for, and compiled the responses at #tweetsgiving, with a link back to the Tweetsgiving site, where users had the option of contributing money to build classrooms in Tanzania.
Over the 48-hour campaign, 15,000 people came to the Tweetsgiving site; 360 donated, for a total of $11,000. "We never asked people to give," says Stacey Monk, founder of Epic Change. "We got people invested in their own, personalized way."
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/31/top-twitter-tips-entrepreneurs-technology-twitter.html
Law of Patience, with business
Patience is not a skill that comes naturally. At least not to me. I’m just as aggressive as the next person when it comes to wanting to see the impact from my ideas. What I have plenty of is impatience. I want to see the results now, not years down the line. The reality is that innovation takes time.
One example of getting it right is the story of David Packard and HP’s decision to jump into the computer market. At the time, the industry was dominated by IBM, DEC and others. HP managers made their case that HP should enter the market based on the companies expertise and capabilities. David wasn’t convinced but made the decision to follow the expertise, commitment and passion of his executives. When the decision was made, David made it clear to everyone inside HP, that this was a total commitment on the part of the company. The timeline he set out? To be the #1 computer manufacturer in the world in 25 years. How long did it take? HP became the #1 computer manufacturer in 23 years. That’s what I call “sticking with it“.
At the same time, some innovations do need to be killed. They should be killed when all other options for success have been exhausted and its obvious that they aren’t going to deliver.
Be careful not to be too quick to pull the trigger and kill an idea. Anyone can use short term metrics to rationalize a decision not to go forward. The safe answer is “no” as it eliminates the risk while the risky answer is “yes”, when the path to success is not guaranteed. There are no guarantees in life. I’m sure Bill and Dave questioned the decision to go into computers, but they had patience and stuck with it.
How should you instill patience into your innovation programs?
1. Be realistic about how long this is going to take and set an appropriate time horizon. If it will take decades, then set the timeline accordingly.
2. Define regular checkpoints/gates with clear objectives for each gate. Do not make these gates correspond to budget or planning cycles.
3. Do NOT use the gates to rationalize killing the project, but instead, use the gates as a prompt for management to know where to commit time and resources to ensure the project is successful.
4. Only after you’ve exhausted all options over multiple gates, do you consider killing the project. Even then, make sure you aren’t killing it for the wrong reasons (e.g. getting nervous, wall street pressure, etc)
The point is, when you start down the path of creating breakthrough innovations, realize that you are making one of the most significant commitments for the organization. Once you commit, then really commit. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble.
How important is the law of patience to your organization?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/philmckinney/2011/09/07/innovation-law-4-the-law-of-patience/
One example of getting it right is the story of David Packard and HP’s decision to jump into the computer market. At the time, the industry was dominated by IBM, DEC and others. HP managers made their case that HP should enter the market based on the companies expertise and capabilities. David wasn’t convinced but made the decision to follow the expertise, commitment and passion of his executives. When the decision was made, David made it clear to everyone inside HP, that this was a total commitment on the part of the company. The timeline he set out? To be the #1 computer manufacturer in the world in 25 years. How long did it take? HP became the #1 computer manufacturer in 23 years. That’s what I call “sticking with it“.
At the same time, some innovations do need to be killed. They should be killed when all other options for success have been exhausted and its obvious that they aren’t going to deliver.
Be careful not to be too quick to pull the trigger and kill an idea. Anyone can use short term metrics to rationalize a decision not to go forward. The safe answer is “no” as it eliminates the risk while the risky answer is “yes”, when the path to success is not guaranteed. There are no guarantees in life. I’m sure Bill and Dave questioned the decision to go into computers, but they had patience and stuck with it.
How should you instill patience into your innovation programs?
1. Be realistic about how long this is going to take and set an appropriate time horizon. If it will take decades, then set the timeline accordingly.
2. Define regular checkpoints/gates with clear objectives for each gate. Do not make these gates correspond to budget or planning cycles.
3. Do NOT use the gates to rationalize killing the project, but instead, use the gates as a prompt for management to know where to commit time and resources to ensure the project is successful.
4. Only after you’ve exhausted all options over multiple gates, do you consider killing the project. Even then, make sure you aren’t killing it for the wrong reasons (e.g. getting nervous, wall street pressure, etc)
The point is, when you start down the path of creating breakthrough innovations, realize that you are making one of the most significant commitments for the organization. Once you commit, then really commit. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble.
How important is the law of patience to your organization?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/philmckinney/2011/09/07/innovation-law-4-the-law-of-patience/
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Steve Jobs regretted cancer surgery delay, biographer says
Steve Jobs regretted cancer surgery delay, biographer says
David Sarno
October 21, 2011 - 9:33AM
For months after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2004, Steve Jobs decided to try to treat his illness with eastern-style remedies, rather than surgery. But delaying that surgery may have cost him his long-term health - and it was a decision he regretted.
This comes from Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, who will appear in an interview this weekend on 60 Minutes in the US to discuss Jobs and his upcoming book, Steve Jobs.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Walter Isaacson.
Watch: preview the 60 Minutes interview
According to Isaacson, Jobs had a "very slow growing" type of pancreatic cancer "that can actually be cured", but still opted not to get the surgery until nine months had gone by and it may have been too late.
"I've asked him" why he didn't get the operation, Isaacson told Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. "And he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened. … I didn't want to be violated in that way'. I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking. It'd work for him in the past. He'd regret it."
Soon, Isaacson says, Jobs's wife and everyone around him convinced him to "quit trying to treat it with all these roots and vegetables and things", he said. But by then it may have been too late, as the cancer had spread to surrounding tissues.
Isaacson is the only author to whom Jobs gave long-term access, and he conducted more than 40 interviews. The book is scheduled to come out next week.
LA Times
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/steve-jobs-regretted-cancer-surgery-delay-biographer-says-20111021-1mb1m.html#ixzz1bQ5HpB9T
-----------------------------------------------------------------
David Sarno
October 21, 2011 - 9:33AM
For months after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2004, Steve Jobs decided to try to treat his illness with eastern-style remedies, rather than surgery. But delaying that surgery may have cost him his long-term health - and it was a decision he regretted.
This comes from Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, who will appear in an interview this weekend on 60 Minutes in the US to discuss Jobs and his upcoming book, Steve Jobs.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Walter Isaacson.
Watch: preview the 60 Minutes interview
According to Isaacson, Jobs had a "very slow growing" type of pancreatic cancer "that can actually be cured", but still opted not to get the surgery until nine months had gone by and it may have been too late.
"I've asked him" why he didn't get the operation, Isaacson told Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. "And he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened. … I didn't want to be violated in that way'. I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking. It'd work for him in the past. He'd regret it."
Soon, Isaacson says, Jobs's wife and everyone around him convinced him to "quit trying to treat it with all these roots and vegetables and things", he said. But by then it may have been too late, as the cancer had spread to surrounding tissues.
Isaacson is the only author to whom Jobs gave long-term access, and he conducted more than 40 interviews. The book is scheduled to come out next week.
LA Times
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/steve-jobs-regretted-cancer-surgery-delay-biographer-says-20111021-1mb1m.html#ixzz1bQ5HpB9T
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'I'm going to destroy Android': Jobs declared 'thermonuclear war' on Google
'I'm going to destroy Android': Jobs declared 'thermonuclear war' on Google
Rachel Metz, Barbara Ortutay and Jordan Robertson
October 21, 2011 - 1:35PM
Steve Jobs ... regretted not having surgery earlier. Photo: Paul Sakuma
Apple closes for staff to say last goodbye to Jobs
A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a sceptic all his life - giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple "corrupt" and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, to be published in the US on Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company's name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.
The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book on Thursday in the US.
The book delves into Jobs's decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour - a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.
Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He went to a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproved approaches before having surgery in 2004.
Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: "'I really didn't want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,' he told me years later with a hint of regret."
Jobs died on October 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.
The book also provides insight into the unravelling of Jobs's relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple's board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.
Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the touch and other popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft".
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $US40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google's internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a cafe in Palo Alto, California, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
"I don't want your money. If you offer me $US5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want."
The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author's name starkly printed in black and grey type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.
The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple's products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.
Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO on August 24, six weeks before he died.
Doctors said on Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs's chances of survival.
"People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they're even diagnosed," so it's not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
Dr Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, said people were often in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some took a long time to accept recommended treatments.
"We've had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay," he said.
Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.
The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at the age of 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.
Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.
Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after he was ousted in 1985 "corrupt people" with "corrupt values" who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.
He told Issacson they cared only about making money "for themselves mainly, and also for Apple - rather than making great products".
Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.
The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple's iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.
"Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands," Jobs told Isaacson. "But now it's being dismembered and destroyed."
"I hope I've left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple," he added.
Advance sales of the book have topped best-seller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs's story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.
Jobs reveals in the book that he did not want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon.
Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn't go to college if they didn't let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.
Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was "on one of my fruitarian diets". He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded "fun, spirited and not intimidating".
Jobs's eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.
He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of molded plastic.
He called Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief, his "spiritual partner" at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had "more operation power" at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself - that there's no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, said Jobs, was "the way I set it up".
Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple's first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn't work.
Jobs's dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD "reinforced my sense of what was important - creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could".
He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple's revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles' music went on sale on iTunes late last year.
The book was originally called iSteve and was scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs's death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $US35.
Isaacson will appear on Sunday on 60 Minutes in the US. CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book on Thursday.
Watch: preview the 60 Minutes interview
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/im-going-to-destroy-android-jobs-declared-thermonuclear-war-on-google-20111021-1mbaq.html#ixzz1bPhla9Io
Rachel Metz, Barbara Ortutay and Jordan Robertson
October 21, 2011 - 1:35PM
Steve Jobs ... regretted not having surgery earlier. Photo: Paul Sakuma
Apple closes for staff to say last goodbye to Jobs
A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a sceptic all his life - giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple "corrupt" and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, to be published in the US on Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company's name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.
The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book on Thursday in the US.
The book delves into Jobs's decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour - a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.
Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He went to a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproved approaches before having surgery in 2004.
Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: "'I really didn't want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,' he told me years later with a hint of regret."
Jobs died on October 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.
The book also provides insight into the unravelling of Jobs's relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple's board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.
Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the touch and other popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft".
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $US40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google's internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a cafe in Palo Alto, California, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
"I don't want your money. If you offer me $US5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want."
The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author's name starkly printed in black and grey type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.
The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple's products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.
Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO on August 24, six weeks before he died.
Doctors said on Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs's chances of survival.
"People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they're even diagnosed," so it's not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
Dr Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, said people were often in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some took a long time to accept recommended treatments.
"We've had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay," he said.
Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.
The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at the age of 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.
Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.
Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after he was ousted in 1985 "corrupt people" with "corrupt values" who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.
He told Issacson they cared only about making money "for themselves mainly, and also for Apple - rather than making great products".
Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.
The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple's iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.
"Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands," Jobs told Isaacson. "But now it's being dismembered and destroyed."
"I hope I've left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple," he added.
Advance sales of the book have topped best-seller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs's story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.
Jobs reveals in the book that he did not want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon.
Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn't go to college if they didn't let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.
Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was "on one of my fruitarian diets". He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded "fun, spirited and not intimidating".
Jobs's eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.
He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of molded plastic.
He called Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief, his "spiritual partner" at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had "more operation power" at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself - that there's no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, said Jobs, was "the way I set it up".
Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple's first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn't work.
Jobs's dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD "reinforced my sense of what was important - creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could".
He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple's revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles' music went on sale on iTunes late last year.
The book was originally called iSteve and was scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs's death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $US35.
Isaacson will appear on Sunday on 60 Minutes in the US. CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book on Thursday.
Watch: preview the 60 Minutes interview
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/im-going-to-destroy-android-jobs-declared-thermonuclear-war-on-google-20111021-1mbaq.html#ixzz1bPhla9Io
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tips for Reaching Out to Twitter's 50 Million Daily Users
Tips for Reaching Out to Twitter's 50 Million Daily Users
by Angela West
19.10.2011 kl 22:22 | PC World (US)
Web designers, advertising agencies, and people with a firm grip on the online world have known for years that Twitter is indispensable. The trick has always been how to communicate that to the business owners who were their clients.
Web designers, advertising agencies, and people with a firm grip on the online world have known for years that Twitter is indispensable. The trick has always been how to communicate that to the business owners who were their clients.
Flash to today. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that Twitter is valued at $8 billion and boasts over 100 million users, 50 million of whom log in daily. Those users send 250 million tweets a day. In addition, Facebook is letting users update their Twitter accounts from Facebook, which will encourage even more use .
The number of daily users and tweets being sent per day represent missed business opportunities if you're not using Twitter well. Luckily, getting on Twitter is simple. For your business, you might want to take the extra step of having a graphic designer create a properly branded Twitter background for your profile. Also create a decent photo or logo to use as your Twitter avatar, the picture that appears to the left of your tweets and at the top of your page.
Find Followers Who Are Potential Clients
If you're a real estate agent, adding people interested in properties is likely to net you a following of other agents, not people interested in purchasing homes in your area. Go where your customers are. Search for users in your area who have interests similar to those in your usual demographic. If you sell condos, add a few followers a day who look like young urban professionals. If you sell homes, look for local mom bloggers and add them. This method takes a little more time, but it's much more likely to net relevant followers.
Use Twitter Properly as a Business
Many companies get on Twitter and tweet boring stuff like corporate donations, company news, and their latest press release. While there is room on Twitter for these announcements, if they're all your company pumps out, potential clients will largely ignore your Twitter account.
Remember that Twitter is, at its core, a two-way channel to communicate your and brand to the world. It's not a one-way advertising channel. You need to make sure that you're interacting with your followers rather than just throwing links out to the world. Give a couple of people in your organization the job of managing the Twitter account, and make sure to pass along and follow up on inquiries and service requests.
Take a look at your core demographic. If they're seniors, they'll appreciate links to helpful articles about programs to fight identity theft or other scams. If they're younger adults, they'll more likely to click on links to cool YouTube videos.
Schedule Tweets to Save Time
With HootSuite, multiple users can log into a Twitter account and manage it from anywhere. You can schedule tweets, which means you can take a few minutes in the morning to line up tweets throughout the day. You can also set Twitter up to email you when someone mentions you on Twitter or asks you a question, which lets your company jump on the request right away without constantly monitoring the service.
If you were off the Twitter bandwagon until now, have a look at the numbers and examine if you can devote a small amount of resources to start up your account and maintain a Twitter account.
Angela West dreams of opening a Fallout-themed pub featuring wait staff with Pip-Boys. She's written for big insurance companies, small wildlife control businesses, gourmet food chains, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @angelawest.
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=334E9AF7-1A64-6A71-CEE2D6187B86E484
by Angela West
19.10.2011 kl 22:22 | PC World (US)
Web designers, advertising agencies, and people with a firm grip on the online world have known for years that Twitter is indispensable. The trick has always been how to communicate that to the business owners who were their clients.
Web designers, advertising agencies, and people with a firm grip on the online world have known for years that Twitter is indispensable. The trick has always been how to communicate that to the business owners who were their clients.
Flash to today. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that Twitter is valued at $8 billion and boasts over 100 million users, 50 million of whom log in daily. Those users send 250 million tweets a day. In addition, Facebook is letting users update their Twitter accounts from Facebook, which will encourage even more use .
The number of daily users and tweets being sent per day represent missed business opportunities if you're not using Twitter well. Luckily, getting on Twitter is simple. For your business, you might want to take the extra step of having a graphic designer create a properly branded Twitter background for your profile. Also create a decent photo or logo to use as your Twitter avatar, the picture that appears to the left of your tweets and at the top of your page.
Find Followers Who Are Potential Clients
If you're a real estate agent, adding people interested in properties is likely to net you a following of other agents, not people interested in purchasing homes in your area. Go where your customers are. Search for users in your area who have interests similar to those in your usual demographic. If you sell condos, add a few followers a day who look like young urban professionals. If you sell homes, look for local mom bloggers and add them. This method takes a little more time, but it's much more likely to net relevant followers.
Use Twitter Properly as a Business
Many companies get on Twitter and tweet boring stuff like corporate donations, company news, and their latest press release. While there is room on Twitter for these announcements, if they're all your company pumps out, potential clients will largely ignore your Twitter account.
Remember that Twitter is, at its core, a two-way channel to communicate your and brand to the world. It's not a one-way advertising channel. You need to make sure that you're interacting with your followers rather than just throwing links out to the world. Give a couple of people in your organization the job of managing the Twitter account, and make sure to pass along and follow up on inquiries and service requests.
Take a look at your core demographic. If they're seniors, they'll appreciate links to helpful articles about programs to fight identity theft or other scams. If they're younger adults, they'll more likely to click on links to cool YouTube videos.
Schedule Tweets to Save Time
With HootSuite, multiple users can log into a Twitter account and manage it from anywhere. You can schedule tweets, which means you can take a few minutes in the morning to line up tweets throughout the day. You can also set Twitter up to email you when someone mentions you on Twitter or asks you a question, which lets your company jump on the request right away without constantly monitoring the service.
If you were off the Twitter bandwagon until now, have a look at the numbers and examine if you can devote a small amount of resources to start up your account and maintain a Twitter account.
Angela West dreams of opening a Fallout-themed pub featuring wait staff with Pip-Boys. She's written for big insurance companies, small wildlife control businesses, gourmet food chains, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @angelawest.
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=334E9AF7-1A64-6A71-CEE2D6187B86E484
Sunday, October 9, 2011
What is Management Skills Pyramid?
What is Management Skills Pyramid?
To be successful, there are many skills a manager needs to master. I adapted Kammy Hatnes' pyramid structure to show the increasingly difficult management skills you must master at each level and to also display how these management skills build on each other to help you achieve success in your management career. The result is the Management Skills Pyramid shown here. Each level of the Management Skills Pyramid is listed below and is discussed in more detail on the linked pages.
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 1
Level 1 of the Management Skills Pyramid shows the basic skills a manager must master just to get the job done. These are the fundamentals of the management job:
Plan
Organize
Direct
Control
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 2
After you have mastered the basic skills in level 1, you need to move on and develop your skills onLevel 2 of the Management Skills Pyramid.
These are the management skills that you use to develop your staff. There are many specific skills required, and these are discussed in Level 2 of the Management Skills Pyramid, but they are grouped into these categories:
Motivation
Training and Coaching
Employee Involvement
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 3
When you have become skilled in developing your staff, it's time to focus on Level 3 of the Management Skills Pyramid, improving your own development. These management skills are grouped as:
Self Management and
Time Management
Time management gets its own category because it is so important to your success in all the other skills.
The Management Skills Pyramid, Top Level
The peak of the Management Skills Pyramid, the single skill that will help you the most in developing success in your management career, is leadership.
As you develop your skill as a leader, as you make the transition from manager to leader, you will achieve the success you truly want in your management career.
http://business.ezinemark.com/what-is-management-skills-pyramid-16b60414c9e.html
To be successful, there are many skills a manager needs to master. I adapted Kammy Hatnes' pyramid structure to show the increasingly difficult management skills you must master at each level and to also display how these management skills build on each other to help you achieve success in your management career. The result is the Management Skills Pyramid shown here. Each level of the Management Skills Pyramid is listed below and is discussed in more detail on the linked pages.
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 1
Level 1 of the Management Skills Pyramid shows the basic skills a manager must master just to get the job done. These are the fundamentals of the management job:
Plan
Organize
Direct
Control
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 2
After you have mastered the basic skills in level 1, you need to move on and develop your skills onLevel 2 of the Management Skills Pyramid.
These are the management skills that you use to develop your staff. There are many specific skills required, and these are discussed in Level 2 of the Management Skills Pyramid, but they are grouped into these categories:
Motivation
Training and Coaching
Employee Involvement
The Management Skills Pyramid, Level 3
When you have become skilled in developing your staff, it's time to focus on Level 3 of the Management Skills Pyramid, improving your own development. These management skills are grouped as:
Self Management and
Time Management
Time management gets its own category because it is so important to your success in all the other skills.
The Management Skills Pyramid, Top Level
The peak of the Management Skills Pyramid, the single skill that will help you the most in developing success in your management career, is leadership.
As you develop your skill as a leader, as you make the transition from manager to leader, you will achieve the success you truly want in your management career.
http://business.ezinemark.com/what-is-management-skills-pyramid-16b60414c9e.html
Management skills by john wooden
http://www.maximisepotential.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pyramid-of-success-by-John-Wooden.jpg
To do list software
http://www.dextronet.com/swift-to-do-list-software
Simple daily task list organizer
Day-by-day organized to-do lists
Rich text notes for each task
Inbuilt reminder which can be activated for any task
Custom color your tasks by their category
Print & export your tasks
All to-do tasks can have customized priority level, category and reminder
Minimize to notification area, global activation hotkey
Drag & drop tasks around to change their order
Automaticaly transfer undone tasks to next day
... and more!
Simple daily task list organizer
Day-by-day organized to-do lists
Rich text notes for each task
Inbuilt reminder which can be activated for any task
Custom color your tasks by their category
Print & export your tasks
All to-do tasks can have customized priority level, category and reminder
Minimize to notification area, global activation hotkey
Drag & drop tasks around to change their order
Automaticaly transfer undone tasks to next day
... and more!
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg tells the 2,000 software developers attending the company's annual conference Thursday in San Francisco that new features, including a dramatic redesign of users' profiles, will "transform" the media industry. (David Paul Morris, Bloomberg / September 23, 2011)
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg outlines a new look for the social-networking site and a media push. The moves come amid growing competition from Google, which in June launched rival social-networking service Google+.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Think out of the Box..
Think out of the Box..
Here are some of the typical HR questions asked to find out
if candidates have "out of the box" thinking capability
Question 1:
"What will you do if I run away with your sister?"
The candidate who was selected answered " I will not get a better match for my sister than you, sir."
Question 2:
Interviewer (to a student girl candidate) -
What if one morning you woke up & found that you were pregnant ?
I will be very excited and take a day off, to celebrate with my husband.
(Normally an unmarried girl will be shocked to hear this, but she managed it well.
Why should I think it in the wrong way, she said later when asked.)
Question 3:
Interviewer: He ordered a cup of coffee for the candidate.
Coffee arrived and was kept before the candidate, then he asked "What is before you?"
Candidate: Instantly replied "Tea" and got selected.
(why did he say "TEA" when he knows very well that coffee was kept before him?
Answer: The question was "What is before you U? (-alphabet). Reply was "TEA" T (- alphabet)
Question 4:
You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night, it's raining heavily,
When suddenly you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for a bus:
An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
An old friend who once saved your life.
The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
Which one would you choose to offer a ride to,
knowing very well that there could only be one passenger in your car?
This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.
* You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first;
* or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life,
* However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again...
The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants)
had no trouble coming up with his answer.
He simply answered:
"I would give the car keys to my Old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital.
I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations.
Question 6:
The interviewer asked the candidate "This is your last question of the interview.
Please tell me the exact position of the center of this table where you have kept your files."
Candidate confidently put one of his finger at some point at the table and said
that this was the central point at the table. Interviewer asked
"how did you decide that this is the central point of this table?",
then he answers quickly "Sir you are not supposed to ask any more questions,
as it was the last question as you promised .....
He was selected because of his quick-wittedness.
This is what an Interviewer expects from the Interviewee. ....
"THINK OUT OF THE BOX"
Here are some of the typical HR questions asked to find out
if candidates have "out of the box" thinking capability
Question 1:
"What will you do if I run away with your sister?"
The candidate who was selected answered " I will not get a better match for my sister than you, sir."
Question 2:
Interviewer (to a student girl candidate) -
What if one morning you woke up & found that you were pregnant ?
I will be very excited and take a day off, to celebrate with my husband.
(Normally an unmarried girl will be shocked to hear this, but she managed it well.
Why should I think it in the wrong way, she said later when asked.)
Question 3:
Interviewer: He ordered a cup of coffee for the candidate.
Coffee arrived and was kept before the candidate, then he asked "What is before you?"
Candidate: Instantly replied "Tea" and got selected.
(why did he say "TEA" when he knows very well that coffee was kept before him?
Answer: The question was "What is before you U? (-alphabet). Reply was "TEA" T (- alphabet)
Question 4:
You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night, it's raining heavily,
When suddenly you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for a bus:
An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
An old friend who once saved your life.
The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
Which one would you choose to offer a ride to,
knowing very well that there could only be one passenger in your car?
This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.
* You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first;
* or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life,
* However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again...
The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants)
had no trouble coming up with his answer.
He simply answered:
"I would give the car keys to my Old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital.
I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."
Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations.
Question 6:
The interviewer asked the candidate "This is your last question of the interview.
Please tell me the exact position of the center of this table where you have kept your files."
Candidate confidently put one of his finger at some point at the table and said
that this was the central point at the table. Interviewer asked
"how did you decide that this is the central point of this table?",
then he answers quickly "Sir you are not supposed to ask any more questions,
as it was the last question as you promised .....
He was selected because of his quick-wittedness.
This is what an Interviewer expects from the Interviewee. ....
"THINK OUT OF THE BOX"
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Have a LAUGH
自行車的最高境界! (The bicycle!!!)
旅行家的最高境界! (what a traveler)
攝影師的最高境界! (the most skillful cameraman)
懶人衣掛的最高境界! (the most innovative hangers)
汽車防盜的最高境界! (Anti-theft device in the car)
運鈔車的最高境界! (The armored vehicle for transporting money)
交通肇事的最高境界! (the most weird accident)
愛的最高境界!? (The most 'honest' love)
大學生宿舍的最高境界 The college dorm
獻愛心的最高境界! (The dearest lover)
比賽中的最高境界! (the most skillful contestant)
環衛車的最高境界! (The most environmental sweeper)
China is a big country and you can find all sorts of unusual way of doing things
Have a laugh
售貨員的最高境界! (The 'best' shopkeeper)
學習的最高境界! (The most hardworking student)
旅行家的最高境界! (what a traveler)
攝影師的最高境界! (the most skillful cameraman)
懶人衣掛的最高境界! (the most innovative hangers)
汽車防盜的最高境界! (Anti-theft device in the car)
運鈔車的最高境界! (The armored vehicle for transporting money)
交通肇事的最高境界! (the most weird accident)
愛的最高境界!? (The most 'honest' love)
大學生宿舍的最高境界 The college dorm
獻愛心的最高境界! (The dearest lover)
比賽中的最高境界! (the most skillful contestant)
環衛車的最高境界! (The most environmental sweeper)
China is a big country and you can find all sorts of unusual way of doing things
Have a laugh
售貨員的最高境界! (The 'best' shopkeeper)
學習的最高境界! (The most hardworking student)
How to be Patient
How to be Patient
Learning to Stay Calm
The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it open.
– Arnold Glasgow, American humorist
Here's the problem: You're waiting for someone to finish compiling a report that you need for a meeting. Because of an issue that came up, you're already 15 minutes late.
You can feel your body getting tense, and you're getting quite cross. You start sweating, and suddenly you yell at the person for being slow and putting you behind schedule. You can tell she's hurt, but you can't help it. She's making you late!
Does this sound familiar?
Many of us are impatient at times. Losing control of our patience hurts not only us, but those around us. Impatience raises our stress level and can even cause physical harm to our bodies. Being impatient can also damage relationships.
In this article, we'll examine strategies that you can use to be more patient.
Why Practice Patience?
Others often see impatient people as arrogant, insensitive, and impulsive. They can be viewed as poor decision makers, because they make quick judgments or interrupt people. Some people will even avoid impatient people, because of their poor people skills and bad tempers.
People with these personality traits are unlikely to be at the top of the list for promotions to leadership positions. Impatience can even affect relationships at home.
The more patient you are with others, the likelier you are to be viewed positively by your peers and your managers, not to mention your family and friends.
Signs of Impatience
How do you know when you're being impatient? You will probably experience one of more of the following symptoms:
•Shallow breathing (short breaths).
•Muscle tension.
•Hand clenching/tightening.
•Jiggling/restless feet.
•Irritability/anger.
•Anxiety/nervousness.
•Rushing.
•Snap/quick decisions.
Finding Your Causes
If you experience the symptoms of impatience, your next step is to discover the true cause. Many of us have "triggers." These could be people, phrases, or specific situations (like rush-hour traffic) that regularly cause us to enter an impatient frame of mind.
Make a list of things that cause you to become impatient. If you're having trouble identifying your triggers, use these tips:
•Stop and think about the last time you were impatient. What caused it? You can narrow this down to the root cause by using the 5 Whys technique.
•Ask your family, friends, and co-workers about your impatience. Chances are that they know what gets you "wound up".
•Many people become impatient due to physical factors such as hunger, dehydration, or fatigue. Analyze your body the next time you start to feel impatient. A simple remedy might be a snack and a glass of water!
•Keep a journal with you to record when you start to feel impatient. Write down what the situation is, and why you're getting frustrated.
Identifying your triggers helps because it forces you to examine your actions and uncover why you're doing what you're doing. This knowledge also helps you devise strategies to avoid becoming impatient.
Of course, it would be great if you could avoid the triggers that make you impatient. But for most of us, that's just not possible. So you have to learn to manage impatience instead.
Managing the Symptoms
When you feel impatient, it's important to get out of this frame of mind as quickly as possible. Try these strategies:
•Take deep, slow breaths, and count to 10. Doing this helps slow your heart rate, relaxes your body, and distances you emotionally from the situation. If you're feeling really impatient, you might need to do a longer count, or do this several times.
•Impatience can cause you to tense your muscles involuntarily. So, consciously focus on relaxing your body. Again, take slow, deep breaths. Relax your muscles, from your toes up to the top of your head.
•Learn to manage your emotions. Remember, you have a choice in how you react in every situation. You can choose to be patient, or choose not to be: it's all up to you.
•Force yourself to slow down. Make yourself speak and move more slowly. It will appear to others as if you're calm – and, by "acting" patient, you can often "feel" more patient.
•Practice active listening and empathic listening. Make sure you give other people your full attention, and patiently plan your response to what they say.
•Remind yourself that your impatience rarely gets others to move faster – in fact, it can interfere with other people's ability to perform complex or highly-skilled work. All you're doing is creating more stress, which is completely unproductive.
•Try to talk yourself out of your impatient frame of mind. Remind yourself how silly it is that you're reacting this way. People often don't mind if a meeting is delayed, just as long as you let them know that you're running late in advance.
•If your impatience causes you to react in anger toward others, use anger management techniques to calm down.
•Some people become impatient because they're perfectionists. However, in addition to causing impatience, perfectionism can actually slow productivity and increase stress. Learn how to stop being a perfectionist with our Coaching Clinic I'm a Perfectionist!
Remember that, although many people are naturally patient, the rest of us need to practice patience for it to become a habit. Becoming more patient won't happen overnight, but do persist – it's so important!
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_78.htm
Learning to Stay Calm
The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it open.
– Arnold Glasgow, American humorist
Here's the problem: You're waiting for someone to finish compiling a report that you need for a meeting. Because of an issue that came up, you're already 15 minutes late.
You can feel your body getting tense, and you're getting quite cross. You start sweating, and suddenly you yell at the person for being slow and putting you behind schedule. You can tell she's hurt, but you can't help it. She's making you late!
Does this sound familiar?
Many of us are impatient at times. Losing control of our patience hurts not only us, but those around us. Impatience raises our stress level and can even cause physical harm to our bodies. Being impatient can also damage relationships.
In this article, we'll examine strategies that you can use to be more patient.
Why Practice Patience?
Others often see impatient people as arrogant, insensitive, and impulsive. They can be viewed as poor decision makers, because they make quick judgments or interrupt people. Some people will even avoid impatient people, because of their poor people skills and bad tempers.
People with these personality traits are unlikely to be at the top of the list for promotions to leadership positions. Impatience can even affect relationships at home.
The more patient you are with others, the likelier you are to be viewed positively by your peers and your managers, not to mention your family and friends.
Signs of Impatience
How do you know when you're being impatient? You will probably experience one of more of the following symptoms:
•Shallow breathing (short breaths).
•Muscle tension.
•Hand clenching/tightening.
•Jiggling/restless feet.
•Irritability/anger.
•Anxiety/nervousness.
•Rushing.
•Snap/quick decisions.
Finding Your Causes
If you experience the symptoms of impatience, your next step is to discover the true cause. Many of us have "triggers." These could be people, phrases, or specific situations (like rush-hour traffic) that regularly cause us to enter an impatient frame of mind.
Make a list of things that cause you to become impatient. If you're having trouble identifying your triggers, use these tips:
•Stop and think about the last time you were impatient. What caused it? You can narrow this down to the root cause by using the 5 Whys technique.
•Ask your family, friends, and co-workers about your impatience. Chances are that they know what gets you "wound up".
•Many people become impatient due to physical factors such as hunger, dehydration, or fatigue. Analyze your body the next time you start to feel impatient. A simple remedy might be a snack and a glass of water!
•Keep a journal with you to record when you start to feel impatient. Write down what the situation is, and why you're getting frustrated.
Identifying your triggers helps because it forces you to examine your actions and uncover why you're doing what you're doing. This knowledge also helps you devise strategies to avoid becoming impatient.
Of course, it would be great if you could avoid the triggers that make you impatient. But for most of us, that's just not possible. So you have to learn to manage impatience instead.
Managing the Symptoms
When you feel impatient, it's important to get out of this frame of mind as quickly as possible. Try these strategies:
•Take deep, slow breaths, and count to 10. Doing this helps slow your heart rate, relaxes your body, and distances you emotionally from the situation. If you're feeling really impatient, you might need to do a longer count, or do this several times.
•Impatience can cause you to tense your muscles involuntarily. So, consciously focus on relaxing your body. Again, take slow, deep breaths. Relax your muscles, from your toes up to the top of your head.
•Learn to manage your emotions. Remember, you have a choice in how you react in every situation. You can choose to be patient, or choose not to be: it's all up to you.
•Force yourself to slow down. Make yourself speak and move more slowly. It will appear to others as if you're calm – and, by "acting" patient, you can often "feel" more patient.
•Practice active listening and empathic listening. Make sure you give other people your full attention, and patiently plan your response to what they say.
•Remind yourself that your impatience rarely gets others to move faster – in fact, it can interfere with other people's ability to perform complex or highly-skilled work. All you're doing is creating more stress, which is completely unproductive.
•Try to talk yourself out of your impatient frame of mind. Remind yourself how silly it is that you're reacting this way. People often don't mind if a meeting is delayed, just as long as you let them know that you're running late in advance.
•If your impatience causes you to react in anger toward others, use anger management techniques to calm down.
•Some people become impatient because they're perfectionists. However, in addition to causing impatience, perfectionism can actually slow productivity and increase stress. Learn how to stop being a perfectionist with our Coaching Clinic I'm a Perfectionist!
Remember that, although many people are naturally patient, the rest of us need to practice patience for it to become a habit. Becoming more patient won't happen overnight, but do persist – it's so important!
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_78.htm
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