The state Senate on Thursday gave final passage to a bill banning the sale of .50-caliber rifles, high-powered weapons that are accurate to more than one mile and popular with some firearms enthusiasts.
The measure was included in a package of gun measures crafted by Senate Democrats after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14. It passed largely along party lines.
The Senate also passed a bill calling for encoding firearms permit information on driver's licenses and requiring gun purchasers to take a firearms safety course.
"This is a far-reaching plan to reduce gun violence that will serve as a national model for gun safety," Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney (D., Gloucester) said of the package of gun bills. "We are accomplishing here in New Jersey what couldn't get done in Washington."
Gov. Christie has his own plan, including measures that would make it a crime to provide a weapon to a convicted criminal, bolster penalties for illegal gun trafficking, and make it easier to confine and treat psychiatrically disturbed people who pose a risk of gun violence.
Christie has voiced support for a ban on .50-caliber rifles. But a spokesman said Thursday that the governor had not committed to any specific measures proposed by the Democrats.
"Gov. Christie is committed to measures that will sensibly reduce gun violence and address underlying issues, including mental health," said Colin Reed. "He is grateful to the Legislature for its efforts, and will review the legislative proposals when they hit his desk."
The bill calling for the firearms permit information to be encoded in driver's licenses, or a "smart card" for people without a driver's license, would mark a significant change in the state's system of firearms regulation were it to be passed by the Assembly and signed by the governor.
Firearms dealers would have access to a state database that could tell them instantly whether the potential buyer had been approved for weapons purchases by the state.
Currently, people wishing to purchase a rifle or a shotgun in New Jersey must pass a criminal-background check. Restrictions on handgun purchases are even more stringent.
That information would now be included on a state database and instantly checkable. Under the Sweeney bill adopted by the Senate, by a vote of 23-17, purchasers would also be required for the first time to pass a firearms safety course.
How all this will play out with a governor's race and both houses of the Legislature up for reelection this year remains unclear.
While an effort to tighten oversight of gun sales failed on Capitol Hill this year, New Jersey always has been more receptive to tighter controls.
The state, for example, has an assault-weapons ban, while the federal government does not. Handgun purchases in New Jersey have long been tightly regulated, while the federal government has left regulation of those weapons largely up to states.
While the governor's gun and antiviolence package shares some elements of the Democrats' plan, notably an emphasis on tougher penalties for gun crimes and the proposed ban on .50-caliber rifles, they take fundamentally different approaches.
Sweeney's plan, in encoding firearms identification-card information on driver's licenses, essentially would revamp the state's system for regulating firearms purchases.
Christie's plan places significant emphasis on easing the process for involuntarily committing mentally ill people who pose a potential danger.
In keeping with the widely held view among Republicans that violent entertainment has desensitized society and created a climate where gun violence is more likely, Christie has also proposed restrictions on access to violent video games by children and teenagers.
That is only the first of many, many great programs and activities we have lined up for the summer. Watch this space, along with our website and the library’s Facebook page for all the updates on what’s going on.
We are also very excited about some changes to Zinio. Zinio is our downloadable magazine online resource. With Zinio you can checkout, download and read the latest issues of many of the most popular magazines on your computer, iPad, smart phone, e-reader, tablet computer, or other electronic device.
I love using Zinio to keep up to date with some of my favorite magazines. The Friends of the Algona Public Library were generous enough to fund 60 different magazine subscriptions.
Recently we joined a group of other public libraries in our area on Zinio. By pooling resources and subscriptions, we are able to provide many more magazine titles for our patrons. Not only do we have original 60 titles the Friends purchased but also there are 141 additional magazine titles that our patrons can download and read. Out of all of those magazine titles there is bound to be one that fits just about anyone’s interests.Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
2013年5月30日星期四
2013年5月28日星期二
Breathing the Same Air as Genius
In his descent to Savannah, the day before he entered Milledgeville, Georgia, General Sherman camped at a crossroads about ten miles northwest of town. He learned, from slaves, that the plantation "a few yards to the north" historical marker was that of Howell Cobb, one of the Secessionist Triumvirate of Georgia—a kind of rebel trifecta for a marauder the others are Robert Toombs and A.H. Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, whose plantation was fifty miles northeast at Crawfordville, where I have been for a week in the state park that preserves his estate planning my own campaign on Milledgeville. He burned the plantation house down, and everything else of Mr. Cobb's except the slave quarters. Then he proceeded to Milledgeville down Old Monticello Road, passing within four miles of a plantation that at some point would be named Andalusia and be owned by the family of Flannery O'Connor. He did not burn it.
In town he slept in the Governor's Mansion Milledgeville was then the capital of Georgia a diagonal block northwest from 311 West Greene Street, a house that had served as a temporary governor's mansion at one time, and that would come to be owned by Flannery O'Connor's family. After living in Savannah and briefly in Atlanta, Flannery O'Connor would live in this house when not at Iowa or Yaddo or at the Fitzgeralds' until her health compelled her to live at Andalusia in 1951 in a ground-floor room made into a bedroom for her because she was too weak to climb stairs. She had been diagnosed with lupus erythematosus; she liked to call it the Red Wolf. She suffered without real time Location system.
It is there that she lived until her death in 1964, writing famously of her affections for the peafowl she raised, and writing more famously the fiction that prompted Evelyn Waugh to say, "If these stories are in fact the work of a young lady, they are indeed remarkable." From a room in this house she saw Enoch Emery steal a mummy with peas coming out of its mouth and give it to Hazel Motes to be the new Jesus. She saw Hulga née Joy Freeman, Ph.D., unwittingly give her wooden leg to a Bible salesman in a loft in a barn. She saw Mrs. May gored by her own handyman's bull and "bent over him whispering some last discovery into the animal's ear." She saw a grandmother in a moment of grace accept the Misfit and be shot for it, and heard the Misfit say, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life." She saw things that thrill people. Certain of these things Enoch she saw before taking her last stand in this room, but I am not in a bibliographic hair-splitting mood.
She saw things from one window of this house, facing south on a livestock pond now hard to see, that thrill people, whether they understand the religious fundament in the writing or not, and then she died, at thirty-nine, making her a member of the American Keats club, and her mother, who had taken care of her in her decline, moved back to 311 West Greene Street, where she would live for another thirty-one years, dying at age ninety-nine in 1995. At this point some things began to change within the estate. Margaret Florencourt Mann who died last year and Louise Florencourt, two contemporary cousins to Flannery one nine months older, one nine months younger, the estate's literary executors, as officers of the Mary Flannery O'Connor Charitable Trust formed the Flannery O'Connor Andalusia Foundation, whose mission is to present Andalusia to the public.
The word has gotten out that one can go to Milledgeville and take a trolley to Andalusia and see where the visionary stuff sprang full blown from the head of Hera. If Faulkner is Zeus, and one goes to Rowan Oak to touch a spot of Olympus, or for whatever reasons one goes to a writer's house, then one surely regards O'Connor as Hera and Andalusia as another spot on Olympus. The idea of a trolley on Olympus is disturbing. It suggests a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood affair, a dinging, and worst of all it suggests a conductor who might point out the sights. O'Connor on pointing things out: "'Mist O.T. he in town, Mist E.T. he off yonder in the field,' the Negro said, pointing first to the left and then to the right as if he were naming the position of two planets." I have this horrible vision en route to Andalusia: of a man in a grey and red uniform—specifically, the uniform of an organ grinder's monkey—pointing out where the tractor crushed the Displaced Person, the loft where Hulga realized that she wasn't so smart, the field crossed by the boy in the toast-colored hat who proved it to her, his liquor and condom within his Bible, that Bible and her leg in his valise. These are private visions for me, I realize; they served as my formative literary moments, and I do not want them Mr. Rogers' Neighborhooded. Nor do I wish to discredit the venture. So I go to Milledgeville with a bad attitude with a good attitude on top of it, like Sherman, and I go first thing to where he camped out of town, and proceed in the way I think he did. To wreck nothing, maybe just mess things up a bit. Sherman did little damage in town; he formed his troops due west of the Statehouse, struck up his band, left-faced the troops, and marched them to the Statehouse, which they trashed in the course of a mock secession ordinance, amidst bashed desks and strewn papers. Neither it nor much else in town was burned, to judge from the historic walking tour you can take today to over forty antebellum sites. Some prisoners set the state penitentiary on fire expecting him to rescue them, or liberate them. He did not.
If you are looking for a styling epicenter of the Old South, Milledgeville has flat got it going on. The hand of history is palpably upon her. On May 2, 2003, at a poolside party of teachers celebrating the end of the school year, Marianne Ennis Joris can walk up to Bob Wilson, professor of history at the local Georgia College & State University, and say, "Bob, do you know what today is? It was fifty years ago today that my father was murdered." She is the daughter of Marion Ennis, the county attorney who was shot by Marion Stembridge, model for Pete Dexter's Paris Trout. Stembridge conveniently picked the morning of Milledgeville's sesquicentennial celebration in 1953 to shoot two lawyers and himself. The office where the first slaying took place is extant, above the campus theater, across the street from Dodo's, a pool hall unchanged from the '40s that once was a vaudeville theater where Oliver Hardy played. Hardy is from Milledgeville. The hexagon-tile flooring of the theater atrium is in place, showing the outline of the ticket booth. Stembridge's infamous fortified basement is beneath Ryal's Bakery around the corner. Milledgeville is largely intact down to its archaeology. To this amalgam add a good insane asylum and a military academy and Milledgeville has all the South is good at.
In town he slept in the Governor's Mansion Milledgeville was then the capital of Georgia a diagonal block northwest from 311 West Greene Street, a house that had served as a temporary governor's mansion at one time, and that would come to be owned by Flannery O'Connor's family. After living in Savannah and briefly in Atlanta, Flannery O'Connor would live in this house when not at Iowa or Yaddo or at the Fitzgeralds' until her health compelled her to live at Andalusia in 1951 in a ground-floor room made into a bedroom for her because she was too weak to climb stairs. She had been diagnosed with lupus erythematosus; she liked to call it the Red Wolf. She suffered without real time Location system.
It is there that she lived until her death in 1964, writing famously of her affections for the peafowl she raised, and writing more famously the fiction that prompted Evelyn Waugh to say, "If these stories are in fact the work of a young lady, they are indeed remarkable." From a room in this house she saw Enoch Emery steal a mummy with peas coming out of its mouth and give it to Hazel Motes to be the new Jesus. She saw Hulga née Joy Freeman, Ph.D., unwittingly give her wooden leg to a Bible salesman in a loft in a barn. She saw Mrs. May gored by her own handyman's bull and "bent over him whispering some last discovery into the animal's ear." She saw a grandmother in a moment of grace accept the Misfit and be shot for it, and heard the Misfit say, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life." She saw things that thrill people. Certain of these things Enoch she saw before taking her last stand in this room, but I am not in a bibliographic hair-splitting mood.
She saw things from one window of this house, facing south on a livestock pond now hard to see, that thrill people, whether they understand the religious fundament in the writing or not, and then she died, at thirty-nine, making her a member of the American Keats club, and her mother, who had taken care of her in her decline, moved back to 311 West Greene Street, where she would live for another thirty-one years, dying at age ninety-nine in 1995. At this point some things began to change within the estate. Margaret Florencourt Mann who died last year and Louise Florencourt, two contemporary cousins to Flannery one nine months older, one nine months younger, the estate's literary executors, as officers of the Mary Flannery O'Connor Charitable Trust formed the Flannery O'Connor Andalusia Foundation, whose mission is to present Andalusia to the public.
The word has gotten out that one can go to Milledgeville and take a trolley to Andalusia and see where the visionary stuff sprang full blown from the head of Hera. If Faulkner is Zeus, and one goes to Rowan Oak to touch a spot of Olympus, or for whatever reasons one goes to a writer's house, then one surely regards O'Connor as Hera and Andalusia as another spot on Olympus. The idea of a trolley on Olympus is disturbing. It suggests a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood affair, a dinging, and worst of all it suggests a conductor who might point out the sights. O'Connor on pointing things out: "'Mist O.T. he in town, Mist E.T. he off yonder in the field,' the Negro said, pointing first to the left and then to the right as if he were naming the position of two planets." I have this horrible vision en route to Andalusia: of a man in a grey and red uniform—specifically, the uniform of an organ grinder's monkey—pointing out where the tractor crushed the Displaced Person, the loft where Hulga realized that she wasn't so smart, the field crossed by the boy in the toast-colored hat who proved it to her, his liquor and condom within his Bible, that Bible and her leg in his valise. These are private visions for me, I realize; they served as my formative literary moments, and I do not want them Mr. Rogers' Neighborhooded. Nor do I wish to discredit the venture. So I go to Milledgeville with a bad attitude with a good attitude on top of it, like Sherman, and I go first thing to where he camped out of town, and proceed in the way I think he did. To wreck nothing, maybe just mess things up a bit. Sherman did little damage in town; he formed his troops due west of the Statehouse, struck up his band, left-faced the troops, and marched them to the Statehouse, which they trashed in the course of a mock secession ordinance, amidst bashed desks and strewn papers. Neither it nor much else in town was burned, to judge from the historic walking tour you can take today to over forty antebellum sites. Some prisoners set the state penitentiary on fire expecting him to rescue them, or liberate them. He did not.
If you are looking for a styling epicenter of the Old South, Milledgeville has flat got it going on. The hand of history is palpably upon her. On May 2, 2003, at a poolside party of teachers celebrating the end of the school year, Marianne Ennis Joris can walk up to Bob Wilson, professor of history at the local Georgia College & State University, and say, "Bob, do you know what today is? It was fifty years ago today that my father was murdered." She is the daughter of Marion Ennis, the county attorney who was shot by Marion Stembridge, model for Pete Dexter's Paris Trout. Stembridge conveniently picked the morning of Milledgeville's sesquicentennial celebration in 1953 to shoot two lawyers and himself. The office where the first slaying took place is extant, above the campus theater, across the street from Dodo's, a pool hall unchanged from the '40s that once was a vaudeville theater where Oliver Hardy played. Hardy is from Milledgeville. The hexagon-tile flooring of the theater atrium is in place, showing the outline of the ticket booth. Stembridge's infamous fortified basement is beneath Ryal's Bakery around the corner. Milledgeville is largely intact down to its archaeology. To this amalgam add a good insane asylum and a military academy and Milledgeville has all the South is good at.
Flooding likely across Iowa this week
Meteorologist Jeff Johnson of the National Weather Service in Johnston said most of Iowa’s rivers are at risk of flooding. Thunderstorms forecast for the rest of the week could bring heavy rainfall to the already high rivers, Johnson said.
The National Weather Service forecasts 1 to 3 inches of rain to fall across Iowa from Monday to Wednesday, with some locations possibly receiving 3 to 4 inches. On Thursday, 1 to 2 more inches or rain is forecast.
However, the variability of thunderstorms makes it difficult to predict which rivers are most at risk to flooding, said meteorologist Jim Meyer of the National Weather Service in Omaha.
“It’s the nature of thunderstorms, and that’s why the meteorologists like me have grey hair,” Meyer said. “Trying to predict where a thunderstorm is going to develop until it’s on the radar is almost impossible.”
Weekend storms brought up to 10 inches of rainfall to portions of Iowa, according to the Iowa State University department of agronomy. There were reports of cities in Iowa receiving more than 5 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period.
Grinnell received at least 4.5 inches of rain Saturday. This heavy rainfall caused the city’s sewer system to become inundated with water, according to a news release from the Poweshiek County Emergency Management office and the city of Grinnell.
The release stated several Grinnell residents experienced flooding in their houses’ basements. The city is working with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to drain the water, the real time Location system.
The National Weather Service forecasts the South Skunk River to experience minor flooding in Ames. To address that issue, the city of Ames is offering two self-serve sandbag sites for residents and business owners, according to a city of Ames news release. The two locations are Iowa State University Towers parking lot and South Dayton Place and Southeast 16th Street.
Thunderstorms also caused 3,500 Mid-American customers to be without power Monday, said Tina Potthoff, media relations manager for Mid-American Energy. Potthoff said all but 300 of those customers had power restored by Monday afternoon.
The weekend’s rainfall affected eastern Iowa the most. According to the National Weather Service, most of the rivers in eastern Iowa are forecast to experience moderate to major flooding this week.
Meteorologist David Cousins of the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities said flooding was confined to mainly the Mississippi River until yesterday.
“New water is just aggravating the problem,” Cousins said. “Water levels are rising on most rivers out here.”
In Des Moines, the Raccoon River and Des Moines River are both forecast to experience moderate flooding this week, according to the National Weather Service. Johnson said all rivers in Des Moines will likely reach flood capacity this week.
Kevin Baskins, communications bureau chief for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said he had heard no reports of flooding in Des Moines’ parks. He also said he had heard of no reports of water-related injuries.
If flooding does occur, people and their pets should avoid contact with the water, Baskins said. He explained that bacteria is washed into the water whenever there is flooding.
The anniversary will celebrate the Market’s second year on the expansive grassy field just off River Street at Plimoth Plantation and the ceremonial passing of the cowbell from Market founder and long time manager Barbara Anglin to two new, yet familiar faces: Martha Stone and Lieza Dagher.
The Market’s 10th season of presenting locally grown foods in America’s Hometown will celebrate returning and new farmers, foodmakers and artisans from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. every Thursday through October, rain or shine, plus musical entertainment, storytellers, community partners and food literacy demonstrations.
Regional farmers will offer their fresh seasonal fruits, vegetables, eggs and dairy cheese, freshly caught lobsters, grass-fed meats, herbs, honey, cut flowers and plants. Expect local cooks preparing nourishing fare, preserves and take-home foods. Bakers will bring small-batch breads and baked goods, and you’ll find the work of the makers of fine crafts.
EBT/SNAP/debit cards are accepted, as well as WIC, senior and Jordan Hospital fresh food vouchers. The Market location offers ample free parking, with handicap and senior parking close to the field. Plimoth Plantation is also accessible on the GATRA Mayflower Link bus, and free market bags will be available for GATRA riders.
While Anglin is stepping away from the helm, she will continue to serve as a member of the market’s 12-person advisory group.
“Martha and Lieza both have a deep understanding of local farms and nourishing foods, and are like family within our market community,” Anglin said. “They are excited to support the wider community’s appetite for a strong and healthy local-food system, and I feel fortunate they are willing to devote time and attention to oversee the next decade of presenting locally grown food in Plymouth.”
On opening day more than 40 farmers, cooks and foodmakers will raise their tents on the River Street field, with new farmers and cooks joining several who have grown and cooked for Plymouth for many years. And you can pause to enjoy foot-stomping performances by the Lindsays of Plymouth and meet Megan Parker, who’s seeking entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, as she blows a display of giant bubbles. Plus, Joanna Farrar, the chef at Rye Tavern in The Pinehills, will cook up a seasonal demonstration of local cuisine.
The National Weather Service forecasts 1 to 3 inches of rain to fall across Iowa from Monday to Wednesday, with some locations possibly receiving 3 to 4 inches. On Thursday, 1 to 2 more inches or rain is forecast.
However, the variability of thunderstorms makes it difficult to predict which rivers are most at risk to flooding, said meteorologist Jim Meyer of the National Weather Service in Omaha.
“It’s the nature of thunderstorms, and that’s why the meteorologists like me have grey hair,” Meyer said. “Trying to predict where a thunderstorm is going to develop until it’s on the radar is almost impossible.”
Weekend storms brought up to 10 inches of rainfall to portions of Iowa, according to the Iowa State University department of agronomy. There were reports of cities in Iowa receiving more than 5 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period.
Grinnell received at least 4.5 inches of rain Saturday. This heavy rainfall caused the city’s sewer system to become inundated with water, according to a news release from the Poweshiek County Emergency Management office and the city of Grinnell.
The release stated several Grinnell residents experienced flooding in their houses’ basements. The city is working with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to drain the water, the real time Location system.
The National Weather Service forecasts the South Skunk River to experience minor flooding in Ames. To address that issue, the city of Ames is offering two self-serve sandbag sites for residents and business owners, according to a city of Ames news release. The two locations are Iowa State University Towers parking lot and South Dayton Place and Southeast 16th Street.
Thunderstorms also caused 3,500 Mid-American customers to be without power Monday, said Tina Potthoff, media relations manager for Mid-American Energy. Potthoff said all but 300 of those customers had power restored by Monday afternoon.
The weekend’s rainfall affected eastern Iowa the most. According to the National Weather Service, most of the rivers in eastern Iowa are forecast to experience moderate to major flooding this week.
Meteorologist David Cousins of the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities said flooding was confined to mainly the Mississippi River until yesterday.
“New water is just aggravating the problem,” Cousins said. “Water levels are rising on most rivers out here.”
In Des Moines, the Raccoon River and Des Moines River are both forecast to experience moderate flooding this week, according to the National Weather Service. Johnson said all rivers in Des Moines will likely reach flood capacity this week.
Kevin Baskins, communications bureau chief for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said he had heard no reports of flooding in Des Moines’ parks. He also said he had heard of no reports of water-related injuries.
If flooding does occur, people and their pets should avoid contact with the water, Baskins said. He explained that bacteria is washed into the water whenever there is flooding.
The anniversary will celebrate the Market’s second year on the expansive grassy field just off River Street at Plimoth Plantation and the ceremonial passing of the cowbell from Market founder and long time manager Barbara Anglin to two new, yet familiar faces: Martha Stone and Lieza Dagher.
The Market’s 10th season of presenting locally grown foods in America’s Hometown will celebrate returning and new farmers, foodmakers and artisans from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. every Thursday through October, rain or shine, plus musical entertainment, storytellers, community partners and food literacy demonstrations.
Regional farmers will offer their fresh seasonal fruits, vegetables, eggs and dairy cheese, freshly caught lobsters, grass-fed meats, herbs, honey, cut flowers and plants. Expect local cooks preparing nourishing fare, preserves and take-home foods. Bakers will bring small-batch breads and baked goods, and you’ll find the work of the makers of fine crafts.
EBT/SNAP/debit cards are accepted, as well as WIC, senior and Jordan Hospital fresh food vouchers. The Market location offers ample free parking, with handicap and senior parking close to the field. Plimoth Plantation is also accessible on the GATRA Mayflower Link bus, and free market bags will be available for GATRA riders.
While Anglin is stepping away from the helm, she will continue to serve as a member of the market’s 12-person advisory group.
“Martha and Lieza both have a deep understanding of local farms and nourishing foods, and are like family within our market community,” Anglin said. “They are excited to support the wider community’s appetite for a strong and healthy local-food system, and I feel fortunate they are willing to devote time and attention to oversee the next decade of presenting locally grown food in Plymouth.”
On opening day more than 40 farmers, cooks and foodmakers will raise their tents on the River Street field, with new farmers and cooks joining several who have grown and cooked for Plymouth for many years. And you can pause to enjoy foot-stomping performances by the Lindsays of Plymouth and meet Megan Parker, who’s seeking entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, as she blows a display of giant bubbles. Plus, Joanna Farrar, the chef at Rye Tavern in The Pinehills, will cook up a seasonal demonstration of local cuisine.
2013年5月26日星期日
America’s Ecological Precipice
Alaska is a good-sized part of the Arctic, the world’s epicenter of climate change, where sensitivity to human-caused global warming is magnified much more than in the 48 lower states, but the likely consequences of this climatic drama have not sunk in with the public, just yet.
As such, America’s largest state, Alaska (twice the size of Texas), is part of the ongoing, rapid meltdown of the Arctic, which is certain to bring more scorching heat waves and more severe weather patterns, i.e., extreme droughts and sudden, torrential downpours onto America’s landscape. And, most disturbingly, as a result of the rapidity of the meltdown of the Arctic, a group of top-level scientists fear the onset of unstoppable global warming.
As the Arctic warms, which is currently happening 2-to-3 times faster than elsewhere on the planet, two prongs of looming disaster occur with increasing frequency and severity: (1) The warming Arctic alters the atmospheric jet streams, bringing in its wake embedded droughts similar to the 2012 blistering drought, the worst drought since the 1950s. (2) Additionally, and more critically, the warming Arctic is flat-out releasing methane into the atmosphere like there is no tomorrow, threatening to heat up the entire planet, which, over time, could turn into a worldwide scorcher, possibly triggering an extinction event.
This lackadaisical attitude in America is one of the most haunting aspects of the very real threat of an extinction event. But, the threat is no longer just a threat. It is already in its early stages! According to the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (www.ameg.me), a group of world-renowned scientists, “The planet is on the verge of runaway climate change, leading to the distinct possibility of an extinction event” because of the massive release of methane trapped under the warming Arctic, which is currently happening with wild abandon all across the Arctic from Russia to America.
As it happens, if the American public is ill-informed and if people are of the opinion that the threat is distant… ‘let future generations worry about it’… this attitude,real time Location system, almost guarantees nothing constructive will be done about the threat of an extinction event. Left to its own devices, the extinction event will simply creep up on humanity over time until all hell breaks loose. Moreover, in this regard, the “creeping up” is already in the process of shifting into higher gears.
Based upon eight (8) joint Russian/American scientific expeditions into the Arctic under the aegis of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University Alaska Fairbanks, methane fields of a breathtakingly fantastic scale have been discovered with plumes over a half-mile wide spewing methane directly into the atmosphere in concentrations 100 times higher than normal. The Russian and American scientists have never before experienced anything of such magnitude, and in addition to powerful emissions from shallow waters where over 100 readings were recorded, it is spewing up from within cracks in the Arctic ice in the open seas far from land.
As the NCA report makes clear, during this century several nasty consequences are expected as a result of the changing climate. People will experience increased risk of asthma. The country will undergo widespread power blackouts, similar to third world countries, and mass transit shutdowns. As well, for the first time in living memory, food shortages are likely in America, also similar to third world countries.
The NCA report, which is not due for official adoption until 2014, is meant as a guide for governmental jurisdictions in making long-term plans. And, the report clearly states the steps taken by the Obama administration are “not close to sufficient” to prevent the harmful consequences of climate change.
As mentioned in the NCA report, America is already feeling the effects of climate change, for example, 2012 was by far and away the hottest year on record, “an off-the-charts rate of increase.” In March 2012 winter turned to summer with temperatures into the 80s, overnight, leading to the worst drought in 50 years, a prime example of the effect of the warming Arctic interfering with the jet streams. And, if not for America’s extensive system of aquifers and natural resources, crops would have suffered much more severely.
And, the same report concludes: “Of all the climate-related changes in the US, the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice cover in the past decade may be the most striking of all.”
The Northeast, in particular, is at increasing risk of coastal flooding because of sea-level rise and storm surges. Alas, New York City has already gotten a taste of this. As well, the Northeast is subject to massive river flooding because of heavy downpours. Between 1958 and 2010, the Northeast experienced a 74% increase in heavy downpours.
Asthma, flooding, droughts, power outages, and food shortages, similar to a third world country, should be enough to light a fire within the government of any advanced society, but, and contrarily, an earlier National Climate Assessment report released in 2009 was “swept under the rug,” according to Lou Leonard, director of the climate change programme for the World Wildlife Fund. The response by America’s leading political operatives seemed to be: ‘Who cares?’
This pronounced lackadaisical, carefree attitude ensconced within America’s political establishment is nearly unconscionable. Furthermore, the White House response to the 2013 report is extraordinarily circumspect, as stated: “The draft NCA is a scientific document – not a policy document – and does not make recommendations regarding actions that might be taken in response to climate change.” Implicit in this statement: Nobody’s in a big hurry… no alarm bells are ringing.
Somebody in the White House needs to re-review, re-read, and maybe memorize, the portion of the report that mentions the “most striking of all” climate-related changes is the rapid decline of the sea ice cover in the Arctic, which is setting the stage for an extinction event because of the massive release of methane directly into the atmosphere. Methane is at least 20 times more powerful than CO2. And, the repercussions, down the line, will likely make the 2012 drought in America’s breadbasket seem like a ‘walk in the park’ given a few more years of methane gushing into the atmosphere, as America’s crops are toasted.
As such, America’s largest state, Alaska (twice the size of Texas), is part of the ongoing, rapid meltdown of the Arctic, which is certain to bring more scorching heat waves and more severe weather patterns, i.e., extreme droughts and sudden, torrential downpours onto America’s landscape. And, most disturbingly, as a result of the rapidity of the meltdown of the Arctic, a group of top-level scientists fear the onset of unstoppable global warming.
As the Arctic warms, which is currently happening 2-to-3 times faster than elsewhere on the planet, two prongs of looming disaster occur with increasing frequency and severity: (1) The warming Arctic alters the atmospheric jet streams, bringing in its wake embedded droughts similar to the 2012 blistering drought, the worst drought since the 1950s. (2) Additionally, and more critically, the warming Arctic is flat-out releasing methane into the atmosphere like there is no tomorrow, threatening to heat up the entire planet, which, over time, could turn into a worldwide scorcher, possibly triggering an extinction event.
This lackadaisical attitude in America is one of the most haunting aspects of the very real threat of an extinction event. But, the threat is no longer just a threat. It is already in its early stages! According to the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (www.ameg.me), a group of world-renowned scientists, “The planet is on the verge of runaway climate change, leading to the distinct possibility of an extinction event” because of the massive release of methane trapped under the warming Arctic, which is currently happening with wild abandon all across the Arctic from Russia to America.
As it happens, if the American public is ill-informed and if people are of the opinion that the threat is distant… ‘let future generations worry about it’… this attitude,real time Location system, almost guarantees nothing constructive will be done about the threat of an extinction event. Left to its own devices, the extinction event will simply creep up on humanity over time until all hell breaks loose. Moreover, in this regard, the “creeping up” is already in the process of shifting into higher gears.
Based upon eight (8) joint Russian/American scientific expeditions into the Arctic under the aegis of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University Alaska Fairbanks, methane fields of a breathtakingly fantastic scale have been discovered with plumes over a half-mile wide spewing methane directly into the atmosphere in concentrations 100 times higher than normal. The Russian and American scientists have never before experienced anything of such magnitude, and in addition to powerful emissions from shallow waters where over 100 readings were recorded, it is spewing up from within cracks in the Arctic ice in the open seas far from land.
As the NCA report makes clear, during this century several nasty consequences are expected as a result of the changing climate. People will experience increased risk of asthma. The country will undergo widespread power blackouts, similar to third world countries, and mass transit shutdowns. As well, for the first time in living memory, food shortages are likely in America, also similar to third world countries.
The NCA report, which is not due for official adoption until 2014, is meant as a guide for governmental jurisdictions in making long-term plans. And, the report clearly states the steps taken by the Obama administration are “not close to sufficient” to prevent the harmful consequences of climate change.
As mentioned in the NCA report, America is already feeling the effects of climate change, for example, 2012 was by far and away the hottest year on record, “an off-the-charts rate of increase.” In March 2012 winter turned to summer with temperatures into the 80s, overnight, leading to the worst drought in 50 years, a prime example of the effect of the warming Arctic interfering with the jet streams. And, if not for America’s extensive system of aquifers and natural resources, crops would have suffered much more severely.
And, the same report concludes: “Of all the climate-related changes in the US, the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice cover in the past decade may be the most striking of all.”
The Northeast, in particular, is at increasing risk of coastal flooding because of sea-level rise and storm surges. Alas, New York City has already gotten a taste of this. As well, the Northeast is subject to massive river flooding because of heavy downpours. Between 1958 and 2010, the Northeast experienced a 74% increase in heavy downpours.
Asthma, flooding, droughts, power outages, and food shortages, similar to a third world country, should be enough to light a fire within the government of any advanced society, but, and contrarily, an earlier National Climate Assessment report released in 2009 was “swept under the rug,” according to Lou Leonard, director of the climate change programme for the World Wildlife Fund. The response by America’s leading political operatives seemed to be: ‘Who cares?’
This pronounced lackadaisical, carefree attitude ensconced within America’s political establishment is nearly unconscionable. Furthermore, the White House response to the 2013 report is extraordinarily circumspect, as stated: “The draft NCA is a scientific document – not a policy document – and does not make recommendations regarding actions that might be taken in response to climate change.” Implicit in this statement: Nobody’s in a big hurry… no alarm bells are ringing.
Somebody in the White House needs to re-review, re-read, and maybe memorize, the portion of the report that mentions the “most striking of all” climate-related changes is the rapid decline of the sea ice cover in the Arctic, which is setting the stage for an extinction event because of the massive release of methane directly into the atmosphere. Methane is at least 20 times more powerful than CO2. And, the repercussions, down the line, will likely make the 2012 drought in America’s breadbasket seem like a ‘walk in the park’ given a few more years of methane gushing into the atmosphere, as America’s crops are toasted.
2013年5月23日星期四
And How To Overcome Them
While we all know that the goal to win and retain engagement extends beyond the inbox experience and across channels, I continue to come across situations where otherwise smart marketers wind up hurting engagement with some regrettable (but avoidable) practices.
Gone are the days when customer interaction was limited to the retail store or call center. The number of channels available for consumers to interact with brands is getting bigger every year (remember marketing before Pinterest?), so it's all the more important that we are able to consider the entire consumer experience across all potential touch points. That means marketers need to stop viewing the customer experience by channel or line-of-business, which creates silo-ed customer data and engagement views.
During the holidays I received a gift card from my aunt for one of my favorite clothing stores. However, when I tried to use it, their records indicated it had already been used. After some uncomfortable conversation and further research, it was determined that this card had been used by the clerk who sold it. Not surprisingly, this negative experience resulted in some pretty serious disengagement, including unsubscribing from email, un-liking on Facebook and resolving not to shop at their stores. While this is an extreme example, it highlights how a negative experience in one channel can affect others.
How many times have you provided preference and interest information, either via a preference center, survey, polling, or even customer service, only to receive email, SMS or even direct-mail promotions that don't recognize or speak to any of them? Last fall, I updated my interest categories at one of my favorite brands to shoes, workout clothing and handbags. But what did I receive in my next email? Offers for Outwear and Kids, which have nothing to do with my stated interests, past purchases or real time location system.
We've all been there. You visit a website and within moments, you're accosted with a pop-up requesting that you take a survey at the end of your visit. From a marketer's perspective, it seems reasonable, but you're asking consumers to commit to a survey before they've had any experience at all. In essence, you're asking them to help improve an experience they haven't even had yet.
It's true that surveys, polls, and progressive profiling are very effective ways of gathering additional preference and profile information to fine-tune engagement. However, when used too often, too soon or across multiple departments, this “survey abuse” can damage your brand image and lead to complete disengagement.
Last fall, a friend was looking for some new furniture and received a “Last Chance” email from a well-known furniture company inviting her to participate in their “Inventory Close-out Sale” that weekend. She wound up buying a couch and love seat, feeling happy she hadn’t missed out on a great sale. This feeling of retail success lasted only until she received another “Last Chance” email from that same furniture company with the same offer the following week. Not only did this hurt the retailer’s credibility – the company also missed an opportunity to present a cross-sell offer to complement her purchase.
According to NPD, one-third of U.S. smartphone sales were prepaid in Q1, so it’s clear that the prepaid market is growing fast. That said, Windows Phone has taken its time to bring a prepaid phone to market, but it was worth the wait. The new Nokia 521 for T-Mobile has been designed especially for T-Mobile’s prepaid customers and offers a ton of value for just $149.
The Lumia 521 runs on a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 512MB of RAM, and packs in 8GB of storage and packs in Nokia’s super sensitive touchscreen. The screen is also a 4″ IPS display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and 235 ppi. This display can hardly go head to head with the display on the Nokia Lumia 920, or a higher end smartphone like the Galaxy S4, but it’s still quite a good display. It’s also a lot better than most of the displays we have seen on sub $250 smartphones. To that effect, its colors tend to be quite accurate, if not super vivid. It’s also able to get adequately bright so that you won’t be straining your eyes. Plus, the 480 x 800 pixel does Windows 8 enough justice, and the IPS display also offers good viewing angles.
The device itself measures 4.72″ x 2.52″ x 0.39″ and weighs 4.39 oz. T-Mobile is offering the Lumia in a choice of white or black, but the backplate is removable, so keeping in line with Nokia’s tradition for interchangeable faceplates, you’re sure to see other colors available as accessories down the line. The actual build quality of the device is very good too. The backplate is very touch and overall it seems like the device will be able to handle wear and tear well. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to believe that the build quality is this hardy at this price point. Other features include a removable battery and a MicroSD card slot, which are actually two welcome design features that many premium Windows Phone devices lack.
The Lumia 521 packs in a 5MP camera with auto focus and 720p HD video recording. Unfortunately, they have cut corners by not including a front-facing camera, and the rear-facing camera doesn’t have a flash. But don’t most flashes on phone cameras suck anyway? In any case, 5MP is more megapixel then you’ll see on a budget prepaid smartphone. Besides, megapixel count is not everything – image equality is. Fortunately, the Lumia 521′s camera does not disappoint too much and is quite good for this price point. The camera app opens fast and the shutter responds quickly. Unfortunately, colors are very washed out and muted, and indoor shots tend to be quite grainy, but the pictures do tend to be pretty sharp. A Panorama app is also included. Overall, the camera is still quite good for this price point.
Gone are the days when customer interaction was limited to the retail store or call center. The number of channels available for consumers to interact with brands is getting bigger every year (remember marketing before Pinterest?), so it's all the more important that we are able to consider the entire consumer experience across all potential touch points. That means marketers need to stop viewing the customer experience by channel or line-of-business, which creates silo-ed customer data and engagement views.
During the holidays I received a gift card from my aunt for one of my favorite clothing stores. However, when I tried to use it, their records indicated it had already been used. After some uncomfortable conversation and further research, it was determined that this card had been used by the clerk who sold it. Not surprisingly, this negative experience resulted in some pretty serious disengagement, including unsubscribing from email, un-liking on Facebook and resolving not to shop at their stores. While this is an extreme example, it highlights how a negative experience in one channel can affect others.
How many times have you provided preference and interest information, either via a preference center, survey, polling, or even customer service, only to receive email, SMS or even direct-mail promotions that don't recognize or speak to any of them? Last fall, I updated my interest categories at one of my favorite brands to shoes, workout clothing and handbags. But what did I receive in my next email? Offers for Outwear and Kids, which have nothing to do with my stated interests, past purchases or real time location system.
We've all been there. You visit a website and within moments, you're accosted with a pop-up requesting that you take a survey at the end of your visit. From a marketer's perspective, it seems reasonable, but you're asking consumers to commit to a survey before they've had any experience at all. In essence, you're asking them to help improve an experience they haven't even had yet.
It's true that surveys, polls, and progressive profiling are very effective ways of gathering additional preference and profile information to fine-tune engagement. However, when used too often, too soon or across multiple departments, this “survey abuse” can damage your brand image and lead to complete disengagement.
Last fall, a friend was looking for some new furniture and received a “Last Chance” email from a well-known furniture company inviting her to participate in their “Inventory Close-out Sale” that weekend. She wound up buying a couch and love seat, feeling happy she hadn’t missed out on a great sale. This feeling of retail success lasted only until she received another “Last Chance” email from that same furniture company with the same offer the following week. Not only did this hurt the retailer’s credibility – the company also missed an opportunity to present a cross-sell offer to complement her purchase.
According to NPD, one-third of U.S. smartphone sales were prepaid in Q1, so it’s clear that the prepaid market is growing fast. That said, Windows Phone has taken its time to bring a prepaid phone to market, but it was worth the wait. The new Nokia 521 for T-Mobile has been designed especially for T-Mobile’s prepaid customers and offers a ton of value for just $149.
The Lumia 521 runs on a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 512MB of RAM, and packs in 8GB of storage and packs in Nokia’s super sensitive touchscreen. The screen is also a 4″ IPS display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution and 235 ppi. This display can hardly go head to head with the display on the Nokia Lumia 920, or a higher end smartphone like the Galaxy S4, but it’s still quite a good display. It’s also a lot better than most of the displays we have seen on sub $250 smartphones. To that effect, its colors tend to be quite accurate, if not super vivid. It’s also able to get adequately bright so that you won’t be straining your eyes. Plus, the 480 x 800 pixel does Windows 8 enough justice, and the IPS display also offers good viewing angles.
The device itself measures 4.72″ x 2.52″ x 0.39″ and weighs 4.39 oz. T-Mobile is offering the Lumia in a choice of white or black, but the backplate is removable, so keeping in line with Nokia’s tradition for interchangeable faceplates, you’re sure to see other colors available as accessories down the line. The actual build quality of the device is very good too. The backplate is very touch and overall it seems like the device will be able to handle wear and tear well. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to believe that the build quality is this hardy at this price point. Other features include a removable battery and a MicroSD card slot, which are actually two welcome design features that many premium Windows Phone devices lack.
The Lumia 521 packs in a 5MP camera with auto focus and 720p HD video recording. Unfortunately, they have cut corners by not including a front-facing camera, and the rear-facing camera doesn’t have a flash. But don’t most flashes on phone cameras suck anyway? In any case, 5MP is more megapixel then you’ll see on a budget prepaid smartphone. Besides, megapixel count is not everything – image equality is. Fortunately, the Lumia 521′s camera does not disappoint too much and is quite good for this price point. The camera app opens fast and the shutter responds quickly. Unfortunately, colors are very washed out and muted, and indoor shots tend to be quite grainy, but the pictures do tend to be pretty sharp. A Panorama app is also included. Overall, the camera is still quite good for this price point.
2013年5月21日星期二
Jamie Dimon Gets What He Wants, But Is It Best for JPMorgan?
Like a petulant child who’s been told he can’t have chocolate cake for breakfast, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon indicated before today’s shareholder vote that he might have quit if shareholders had voted to split the roles of chairman and CEO.
If Dimon is as smart a corporate leader as many claim he is, he would recognize that a wise CEO recognizes that checks and balances are essential for sound corporate governance, and that an independent board – led by an independent chairman – is vital to any public company, particularly one with business operations as vast as JPMorgan’s. There is an inherent conflict in having a CEO who reports to himself as chairman. Typically when CEOs serve in both roles, it is the chairman’s position that tends to get short shrift.
There’s no dispute that shareholders have benefited financially from Dimon’s leadership. But profits alone don’t equate to good governance.
The need to have different people serve as CEO and chairman is particularly acute in JP Morgan’s case given the litany of problems the firm has had recently.
At the top of the list is the “London Whale” fiasco, causing trading losses that so far have cost the bank more than $6 billion. Dimon initially dismissed media reports about the scandal, calling the situation a “complete tempest in a teapot.” A damning report by a Senate investigation subcommittee questioned whether he deliberately downplayed what he knew were the major consequences of the trades.
The report, issued last month, said that when Dimon made that statement, the evidence indicates that he “was already in possession of information about the SCP’s [Synthetic Credit Portfolio’s] complex and sizeable portfolio, its sustained losses for three straight months, the exponential increase in those losses during March, and the difficulty of exiting the SCP’s real time Location system.”
Meanwhile, JPMorgan has paid $4.3 billion to settle charges regarding mortgage abuses and $88.3 million to settle claims it violated sanctions against Iran, Cuba and the Sudan. There are government inquiries into whether JPMorgan manipulated energy markets. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency singled out JPMorgan in a blistering critique of its anti-money-laundering controls, noting “critical deficiencies” in the way JP Morgan monitors transactions, flags suspicious activity and conducts basic due diligence on its customers. The state of California is suing JPMorgan for fraudulent and unlawful credit-card debt collection practices.
The need for strong, independent leadership of corporate boards is reinforced by the results of a recent survey of chief financial officers by Ernst & Young . The survey found that 47% of CFOs thought legally and ethically questionable actions were justified in an economic downturn, and 52% thought management is likely to cut corners to meet targets.
The JPMorgan shareholder debate has highlighted the problems with a profits-above-all mentality. That attitude is the reason JPMorgan and other banks ran roughshod over 4.2 million homeowners during the foreclosure crisis, ignoring critical steps in the foreclosure process; that is why JP Morgan failed to properly manage its London trading operation that “piled on risk, ignored limits on risk-taking, hid losses, dodged oversight and misinformed the public,” as Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) put it; and that is why JPMorgan faces litigation that takes 10 singled-space pages to describe in its quarterly filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A public company is not a private fiefdom, no matter what Dimon and his supporters believe. Boards of directors need to hold their CEOs accountable, which can lead to better outcomes for shareholders overall. That is done best when there are different people who are CEO and chairman.
The receptionist handed over the card key for the room with a slightly apologetic instruction. “You put it in the slot beside the door, this way round, then wait” – he gave the word “wait” a special emphasis – “until you hear a click, then the door is open.” Oh, the vagaries of the hotel card key. Oh, the incompetence, so the receptionist hinted, of the average hotel guest.
But I did wait, and the door did open. Then the difficulties began. I couldn’t find the little cradle that such cards often slot into to operate the electricity. I searched high and low, but to no effect. Fortunately, a chambermaid was still at work down the corridor. I looked pathetic, affected my best Italian pronunciation of “elettricita”, and she pointed to a horizontal slot actually in the wall, unmarked and almost invisible. The power sprang to life. I could now make the door say, “Do not disturb”; I could make it say “Clean the room, please”. I could, in theory, set the room temperature and the air conditioning (though I couldn’t make them work; my fault, I’m sure).
Someone, it seems, has sold Italian hotels, even small ones, a job lot of these all-embracing “smart” systems; I’ve come across quite a few of them over the past 10 days, and become adept at wiggling the card in the slot when, as often, it did not immediately connect.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of card keys and the eco-friendly power-saving they facilitate. But, as the brains behind the recent failed launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 learnt to their cost, those who spend all their waking hours refining hi-tech gadgetry can get so far ahead of the rest of us that they end up making our lives more complicated, not less.
Italians have long been in the vanguard of techie progress. On assignment in Rome in the late 1980s – long before mobile phones, the internet and online anything, a time when we foreign correspondents routinely dismantled phone sockets and teased out the wires to send reports electronically – the press room had screens on wheels that scrolled the latest news from major international news agencies, continually updated. They were elegant, efficient, state of the art, but – best of all – you didn’t need to know how to work them.
If Dimon is as smart a corporate leader as many claim he is, he would recognize that a wise CEO recognizes that checks and balances are essential for sound corporate governance, and that an independent board – led by an independent chairman – is vital to any public company, particularly one with business operations as vast as JPMorgan’s. There is an inherent conflict in having a CEO who reports to himself as chairman. Typically when CEOs serve in both roles, it is the chairman’s position that tends to get short shrift.
There’s no dispute that shareholders have benefited financially from Dimon’s leadership. But profits alone don’t equate to good governance.
The need to have different people serve as CEO and chairman is particularly acute in JP Morgan’s case given the litany of problems the firm has had recently.
At the top of the list is the “London Whale” fiasco, causing trading losses that so far have cost the bank more than $6 billion. Dimon initially dismissed media reports about the scandal, calling the situation a “complete tempest in a teapot.” A damning report by a Senate investigation subcommittee questioned whether he deliberately downplayed what he knew were the major consequences of the trades.
The report, issued last month, said that when Dimon made that statement, the evidence indicates that he “was already in possession of information about the SCP’s [Synthetic Credit Portfolio’s] complex and sizeable portfolio, its sustained losses for three straight months, the exponential increase in those losses during March, and the difficulty of exiting the SCP’s real time Location system.”
Meanwhile, JPMorgan has paid $4.3 billion to settle charges regarding mortgage abuses and $88.3 million to settle claims it violated sanctions against Iran, Cuba and the Sudan. There are government inquiries into whether JPMorgan manipulated energy markets. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency singled out JPMorgan in a blistering critique of its anti-money-laundering controls, noting “critical deficiencies” in the way JP Morgan monitors transactions, flags suspicious activity and conducts basic due diligence on its customers. The state of California is suing JPMorgan for fraudulent and unlawful credit-card debt collection practices.
The need for strong, independent leadership of corporate boards is reinforced by the results of a recent survey of chief financial officers by Ernst & Young . The survey found that 47% of CFOs thought legally and ethically questionable actions were justified in an economic downturn, and 52% thought management is likely to cut corners to meet targets.
The JPMorgan shareholder debate has highlighted the problems with a profits-above-all mentality. That attitude is the reason JPMorgan and other banks ran roughshod over 4.2 million homeowners during the foreclosure crisis, ignoring critical steps in the foreclosure process; that is why JP Morgan failed to properly manage its London trading operation that “piled on risk, ignored limits on risk-taking, hid losses, dodged oversight and misinformed the public,” as Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) put it; and that is why JPMorgan faces litigation that takes 10 singled-space pages to describe in its quarterly filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A public company is not a private fiefdom, no matter what Dimon and his supporters believe. Boards of directors need to hold their CEOs accountable, which can lead to better outcomes for shareholders overall. That is done best when there are different people who are CEO and chairman.
The receptionist handed over the card key for the room with a slightly apologetic instruction. “You put it in the slot beside the door, this way round, then wait” – he gave the word “wait” a special emphasis – “until you hear a click, then the door is open.” Oh, the vagaries of the hotel card key. Oh, the incompetence, so the receptionist hinted, of the average hotel guest.
But I did wait, and the door did open. Then the difficulties began. I couldn’t find the little cradle that such cards often slot into to operate the electricity. I searched high and low, but to no effect. Fortunately, a chambermaid was still at work down the corridor. I looked pathetic, affected my best Italian pronunciation of “elettricita”, and she pointed to a horizontal slot actually in the wall, unmarked and almost invisible. The power sprang to life. I could now make the door say, “Do not disturb”; I could make it say “Clean the room, please”. I could, in theory, set the room temperature and the air conditioning (though I couldn’t make them work; my fault, I’m sure).
Someone, it seems, has sold Italian hotels, even small ones, a job lot of these all-embracing “smart” systems; I’ve come across quite a few of them over the past 10 days, and become adept at wiggling the card in the slot when, as often, it did not immediately connect.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of card keys and the eco-friendly power-saving they facilitate. But, as the brains behind the recent failed launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 learnt to their cost, those who spend all their waking hours refining hi-tech gadgetry can get so far ahead of the rest of us that they end up making our lives more complicated, not less.
Italians have long been in the vanguard of techie progress. On assignment in Rome in the late 1980s – long before mobile phones, the internet and online anything, a time when we foreign correspondents routinely dismantled phone sockets and teased out the wires to send reports electronically – the press room had screens on wheels that scrolled the latest news from major international news agencies, continually updated. They were elegant, efficient, state of the art, but – best of all – you didn’t need to know how to work them.
2013年5月19日星期日
Stephenson, Pacers ready to take next step
Forget the previous model of the Pacers as a plodding, defensive-oriented team winning ugly. Stephenson's slash-and-dash, 25-point, 10-rebound coming-out party in the Pacers' 106-99 playoff series-clinching win over the New York Knicks in Game 6 on Saturday changes everything.
The Pacers move on to face the mighty Miami Heat in the NBA Eastern Conference finals, beginning Wednesday in Miami.
They move on as a legitimate threat now, with a wild-card shooting star in Stephenson and chemistry as a team that might be the best in the league.
“This is the most together group I've been a part of,” Pacers forward David West said. “At some point every day, every guy speaks to every other guy, and I've been on teams where that's not the indoor Tracking.”
Because of that togetherness and that built-up trust, West and the other Pacers, as well as coach Frank Vogel, can be honest with each other. A great example: Vogel was blunt with Stephenson about his poor play in Game 5 in New York. His teammates told Stephenson they needed more from him in Game 6.
Stephenson responded with the best game of his life. He sprinted from the opening tip, putting up nine points, six rebounds and three assists in the first quarter. Late in the game, when the Knicks had taken the lead and threatened to force a Game 7, there was Stephenson again. He missed a bad three-point shot – not his specialty – but then stole the ball on the next play, turned it into a three-point play.
A year ago, Stephenson was the raw talent with a bit of a questionable past that led people to question whether former Pacers president Larry Bird was wrong to take a chance on him. Stephenson's most memorable moment from last season was mouthing off to the Heat during warmups and on the bench. Not exactly the stuff legends are made of.
A year later, a year more mature, Stephenson gives the Pacers another dynamic player that defenses must take into account.
“Believable, but unbelievable,” Vogel said. “He's got no playoff experience whatsoever, but he has some of the best basketball instincts I've been around. He's a gamer. Put him in a situation like this, Game 6, a close-out game, the kid's got guts and great, great basketball instincts.”
Stephenson has one trait that the great players always possess: Supreme confidence.
At one point late in the game, he waved off the Pacers' top offensive player, Paul George, as well as no-longer-concussed George Hill, essentially seizing temporary control of the offense. It was bold. It was a new look for the Pacers. It was effective.
Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he felt like Stephenson's scoring burst “somewhat came out of nowhere.”
Stephenson said his intensity came out of a desire to make up for his poor Game 5. He said he couldn't sleep Friday night in anticipation of Game 6.
“I just wanted to be aggressive,” Stephenson said. “Just try to penetrate and dish, try to take it to the basket. Just try to make smart plays. We did that tonight and we got the win. …It's just great to be part of this team, everybody believing in me the whole season.”
The Pacers' five starters came to the postgame news conference, each having scored in double figures: Stephenson 25, George 23, Roy Hibbert 21, West 17 and Hill 12. Each had a part of buckling down after the Knicks cut a 10-point lead to no lead at all by the end of the third quarter.
While Knicks star Carmelo Anthony scored 39 points, only four of those came in the fourth quarter, and the game's momentum – not to mention the crowd's decibel level – changed when Hibbert blocked Anthony's dunk attempt with the Knicks up 92-90. The next possession, Stephenson tied the score.
“Roy did an unbelievable job going straight up and finishing at the rim,” George said. “When a guy like Melo gets hot, the whole team shoots well. When we kind of neutralized Melo, the whole thing shifted.”
There was a shift in the game, no question. The Pacers went back to being the aggressor, as Woodson described them. They turned up their defense, as the Pacers crowd shook Bankers Life Fieldhouse with “De-fense! De-fense!” chants.
“We need to win our home games,” said coach Frank Yallop, “but it’s about getting points. I like our effort right now, our drive, but we need to play with more confidence, more guile around the goal. … We are good when we have confidence, and we are not quite there.”
The visitors had taken a first half lead through defender Nathan Sturgis on a Rapids corner kick and did well to neutralize a Quakes side that was looking to bounce back from a 4-0 loss at Seattle the weekend before.
“It’s important for us to stay positive as a team and move forward,” said Alan Gordon, still working himself into match fitness following a four game suspension. “We are not going to get anything out of getting down on ourselves, and that is not what we are about. We fought well, we played well, we just need to get the results.”
Chavez, who might want to consider sending MLS Commissioner Don Garber a thank you fruit basket gift for reinstating the dynamic midfielder earlier in the week, scored in the last quarter hour of the match to level the match. For San Jose, it was their eighth goal after halftime at Buck Shaw Stadium and sixth of the season scored after the 75th minute.
“I learned from Victor Bernardez; he has a very strong shot,” said Chavez via a translator, referring to his fellow Honduran teammate who is well known for his devastating free kicks. “You can always learn something good from him and tonight I was able to put one into the back of the net.”
The Pacers move on to face the mighty Miami Heat in the NBA Eastern Conference finals, beginning Wednesday in Miami.
They move on as a legitimate threat now, with a wild-card shooting star in Stephenson and chemistry as a team that might be the best in the league.
“This is the most together group I've been a part of,” Pacers forward David West said. “At some point every day, every guy speaks to every other guy, and I've been on teams where that's not the indoor Tracking.”
Because of that togetherness and that built-up trust, West and the other Pacers, as well as coach Frank Vogel, can be honest with each other. A great example: Vogel was blunt with Stephenson about his poor play in Game 5 in New York. His teammates told Stephenson they needed more from him in Game 6.
Stephenson responded with the best game of his life. He sprinted from the opening tip, putting up nine points, six rebounds and three assists in the first quarter. Late in the game, when the Knicks had taken the lead and threatened to force a Game 7, there was Stephenson again. He missed a bad three-point shot – not his specialty – but then stole the ball on the next play, turned it into a three-point play.
A year ago, Stephenson was the raw talent with a bit of a questionable past that led people to question whether former Pacers president Larry Bird was wrong to take a chance on him. Stephenson's most memorable moment from last season was mouthing off to the Heat during warmups and on the bench. Not exactly the stuff legends are made of.
A year later, a year more mature, Stephenson gives the Pacers another dynamic player that defenses must take into account.
“Believable, but unbelievable,” Vogel said. “He's got no playoff experience whatsoever, but he has some of the best basketball instincts I've been around. He's a gamer. Put him in a situation like this, Game 6, a close-out game, the kid's got guts and great, great basketball instincts.”
Stephenson has one trait that the great players always possess: Supreme confidence.
At one point late in the game, he waved off the Pacers' top offensive player, Paul George, as well as no-longer-concussed George Hill, essentially seizing temporary control of the offense. It was bold. It was a new look for the Pacers. It was effective.
Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he felt like Stephenson's scoring burst “somewhat came out of nowhere.”
Stephenson said his intensity came out of a desire to make up for his poor Game 5. He said he couldn't sleep Friday night in anticipation of Game 6.
“I just wanted to be aggressive,” Stephenson said. “Just try to penetrate and dish, try to take it to the basket. Just try to make smart plays. We did that tonight and we got the win. …It's just great to be part of this team, everybody believing in me the whole season.”
The Pacers' five starters came to the postgame news conference, each having scored in double figures: Stephenson 25, George 23, Roy Hibbert 21, West 17 and Hill 12. Each had a part of buckling down after the Knicks cut a 10-point lead to no lead at all by the end of the third quarter.
While Knicks star Carmelo Anthony scored 39 points, only four of those came in the fourth quarter, and the game's momentum – not to mention the crowd's decibel level – changed when Hibbert blocked Anthony's dunk attempt with the Knicks up 92-90. The next possession, Stephenson tied the score.
“Roy did an unbelievable job going straight up and finishing at the rim,” George said. “When a guy like Melo gets hot, the whole team shoots well. When we kind of neutralized Melo, the whole thing shifted.”
There was a shift in the game, no question. The Pacers went back to being the aggressor, as Woodson described them. They turned up their defense, as the Pacers crowd shook Bankers Life Fieldhouse with “De-fense! De-fense!” chants.
“We need to win our home games,” said coach Frank Yallop, “but it’s about getting points. I like our effort right now, our drive, but we need to play with more confidence, more guile around the goal. … We are good when we have confidence, and we are not quite there.”
The visitors had taken a first half lead through defender Nathan Sturgis on a Rapids corner kick and did well to neutralize a Quakes side that was looking to bounce back from a 4-0 loss at Seattle the weekend before.
“It’s important for us to stay positive as a team and move forward,” said Alan Gordon, still working himself into match fitness following a four game suspension. “We are not going to get anything out of getting down on ourselves, and that is not what we are about. We fought well, we played well, we just need to get the results.”
Chavez, who might want to consider sending MLS Commissioner Don Garber a thank you fruit basket gift for reinstating the dynamic midfielder earlier in the week, scored in the last quarter hour of the match to level the match. For San Jose, it was their eighth goal after halftime at Buck Shaw Stadium and sixth of the season scored after the 75th minute.
“I learned from Victor Bernardez; he has a very strong shot,” said Chavez via a translator, referring to his fellow Honduran teammate who is well known for his devastating free kicks. “You can always learn something good from him and tonight I was able to put one into the back of the net.”
2013年5月16日星期四
Internet cafe law may have unintended targets
House Bill 155 was designed to sweep the state of illegal gambling cafes, and it worked. Internet cafes from Jacksonville to Key West have closed.
But the law's wide net appears to have caught some unintended prey: Restaurants, bowling alleys and skating rinks. Chuck E. Cheese's and Dave & Buster's. Even Disney World may be a violator.
Experts say the language of the new law throws nearly all arcade games in the state of Florida into a gray area, leaving many business owners worried their games might not be legal. And to make matters worse, there appears to be no state agency where they can get a definitive answer to these questions.
"It's a very confusing thing," said Anthony Perrone, owner of Pin Chasers. Each of his three bowling centers in the Tampa Bay area has an arcade.
"Our guard is up and we are watching the situation," he said. "We will do what's asked of us."
Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, a co-sponsor of the bill to outlaw Internet cafes, told the Tampa Bay Times he believes either the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation or the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is in charge of enforcement. But officials at each of those agencies say that's wrong.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the law is the responsibility of the State Attorney's Office. The State Attorney told the Times to talk to local law enforcement.
One possible reason for the confusion: The ban on Internet cafes came into being quickly in the wake of an investigation that led to the resignation of former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who had ties to an Internet gaming organization authorities said was masquerading as a veterans' charity. Lawmakers reacted with lightning speed.
"This bill was railroaded through the Legislature so fast — I mean warp speed — that there was no time taken to understand how this was being done," said Michael Wolf, an attorney for the Florida Arcade and Bingo Association. His group has filed a lawsuit challenging the law.
The McQueen booking photos—which have an enduring life on the Internet—and newspaper reports that were wired across the country in late June of 1972, seem to be all that remain of the actor’s supposed arrest in Anchorage. The courthouse trail is cold. I spent nearly an hour flipping through tiny blue index cards in a vintage steel cabinet at Anchorage’s Nesbitt Courthouse. Plenty of men with surnames beginning with “Mc” and “M” have court cases with corresponding cards in that steel catalogue. Just to be sure, I checked under “N” and under years other than 1972, and among civil cases—anyplace I thought the card could be misfiled. I found no court case for “Steve T. McQueen” or “Terence S. McQueen” or any other version of the actor’s name. His case seems to have disappeared from the Alaska Court System. Maybe someone took the blue card as a memento, not unlikely given his fame, or maybe McQueen’s case never made it to court, also not unlikely given his fame.
McQueen’s mug shots are part of a disappearing past in another way. Alaska police authorities aren’t in the habit of releasing the pictures simply because the public is interested in a specific person’s arrest. The state Department of Corrections, the keeper of booking photos in Alaska, adopted a policy in 2012 that prohibits doling out mug shots to the media. The public relations people at Anchorage Police Department, the Alaska State Troopers and Corrections all say they don’t routinely release mug shots unless a police agency has a need to circulate a specific photo.
The mug shots you see in Alaska news media are released because police circulate them for their own reasons—celebrity voyeurism, political muckraking and journalistic storytelling are not among those reasons. The PR people at APD and the State Troopers call their reasons “legitimate law enforcement purposes” and, like most police work, it’s pretty heavy stuff. Cops release a mug shot—taken either from Corrections booking photos or Division of Motor Vehicle files—in missing persons cases. Police also use ID photos if they hope to find witnesses or victims who may recognize the person in the photo. Often that person is being accused or investigated for a crime.
The photos accompanying this story were issued by police agencies in Alaska over the last two years. Some of the men in the photos were accused of sex crimes and investigators wanted to know if unknown victims might come forward if the photo circulated. I collected the photos as they came to the Press in emailed press releases. We’ve obscured the faces of the accused, because some of the men pictured still have cases pending in court. They’re not convicted, only accused—one dilemma of publishing mug shots. It’s a dilemma police and media share, sometimes uncomfortably, but most often with the media dutifully following the cop’s plans, circulating photos in the name of public safety.
We’ve printed three mug shots inside the paper for your inspection: Steve McQueen, the police trophy subject who apparently never made it to court; an ID photo of accused serial-killer Israel Keyes, whose photo is still available on the FBI’s website and who committed suicide in jail; and one of my own. (I’m the guy with a beard and a blank expression. McQueen is the man who looks damn cool.)
My mug shot was taken in 2004 at the Anchorage jail, following an embarrassing arrest that I later reported in this newspaper. (I was obliged by an in-house rule.) I am pretty sure this is what happened: I was accused of pissing in an alley, I mouthed-off to a cop and I spent a night behind bars. No charges appear in the court system database so I can’t confirm any of that. The photo, however, is dated October 14, 2004, about the time Alaskans received a Permanent Fund Dividend that year.
But the law's wide net appears to have caught some unintended prey: Restaurants, bowling alleys and skating rinks. Chuck E. Cheese's and Dave & Buster's. Even Disney World may be a violator.
Experts say the language of the new law throws nearly all arcade games in the state of Florida into a gray area, leaving many business owners worried their games might not be legal. And to make matters worse, there appears to be no state agency where they can get a definitive answer to these questions.
"It's a very confusing thing," said Anthony Perrone, owner of Pin Chasers. Each of his three bowling centers in the Tampa Bay area has an arcade.
"Our guard is up and we are watching the situation," he said. "We will do what's asked of us."
Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, a co-sponsor of the bill to outlaw Internet cafes, told the Tampa Bay Times he believes either the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation or the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is in charge of enforcement. But officials at each of those agencies say that's wrong.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the law is the responsibility of the State Attorney's Office. The State Attorney told the Times to talk to local law enforcement.
One possible reason for the confusion: The ban on Internet cafes came into being quickly in the wake of an investigation that led to the resignation of former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who had ties to an Internet gaming organization authorities said was masquerading as a veterans' charity. Lawmakers reacted with lightning speed.
"This bill was railroaded through the Legislature so fast — I mean warp speed — that there was no time taken to understand how this was being done," said Michael Wolf, an attorney for the Florida Arcade and Bingo Association. His group has filed a lawsuit challenging the law.
The McQueen booking photos—which have an enduring life on the Internet—and newspaper reports that were wired across the country in late June of 1972, seem to be all that remain of the actor’s supposed arrest in Anchorage. The courthouse trail is cold. I spent nearly an hour flipping through tiny blue index cards in a vintage steel cabinet at Anchorage’s Nesbitt Courthouse. Plenty of men with surnames beginning with “Mc” and “M” have court cases with corresponding cards in that steel catalogue. Just to be sure, I checked under “N” and under years other than 1972, and among civil cases—anyplace I thought the card could be misfiled. I found no court case for “Steve T. McQueen” or “Terence S. McQueen” or any other version of the actor’s name. His case seems to have disappeared from the Alaska Court System. Maybe someone took the blue card as a memento, not unlikely given his fame, or maybe McQueen’s case never made it to court, also not unlikely given his fame.
McQueen’s mug shots are part of a disappearing past in another way. Alaska police authorities aren’t in the habit of releasing the pictures simply because the public is interested in a specific person’s arrest. The state Department of Corrections, the keeper of booking photos in Alaska, adopted a policy in 2012 that prohibits doling out mug shots to the media. The public relations people at Anchorage Police Department, the Alaska State Troopers and Corrections all say they don’t routinely release mug shots unless a police agency has a need to circulate a specific photo.
The mug shots you see in Alaska news media are released because police circulate them for their own reasons—celebrity voyeurism, political muckraking and journalistic storytelling are not among those reasons. The PR people at APD and the State Troopers call their reasons “legitimate law enforcement purposes” and, like most police work, it’s pretty heavy stuff. Cops release a mug shot—taken either from Corrections booking photos or Division of Motor Vehicle files—in missing persons cases. Police also use ID photos if they hope to find witnesses or victims who may recognize the person in the photo. Often that person is being accused or investigated for a crime.
The photos accompanying this story were issued by police agencies in Alaska over the last two years. Some of the men in the photos were accused of sex crimes and investigators wanted to know if unknown victims might come forward if the photo circulated. I collected the photos as they came to the Press in emailed press releases. We’ve obscured the faces of the accused, because some of the men pictured still have cases pending in court. They’re not convicted, only accused—one dilemma of publishing mug shots. It’s a dilemma police and media share, sometimes uncomfortably, but most often with the media dutifully following the cop’s plans, circulating photos in the name of public safety.
We’ve printed three mug shots inside the paper for your inspection: Steve McQueen, the police trophy subject who apparently never made it to court; an ID photo of accused serial-killer Israel Keyes, whose photo is still available on the FBI’s website and who committed suicide in jail; and one of my own. (I’m the guy with a beard and a blank expression. McQueen is the man who looks damn cool.)
My mug shot was taken in 2004 at the Anchorage jail, following an embarrassing arrest that I later reported in this newspaper. (I was obliged by an in-house rule.) I am pretty sure this is what happened: I was accused of pissing in an alley, I mouthed-off to a cop and I spent a night behind bars. No charges appear in the court system database so I can’t confirm any of that. The photo, however, is dated October 14, 2004, about the time Alaskans received a Permanent Fund Dividend that year.
2013年5月14日星期二
Abu Dhabi Recognizes Efforts of Strategic Partners
As part of the ceremony, the Center rewarded relevant authorities for their meaningful initiatives that supported the objective of environment management, including national flagship organizations such as Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, Higher Corporation of Specialized Economic Zones (ZonesCorp), Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat), Statistics Centre ? Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre.
Contractors including environmental service providers, as well as cleaning and pest control companies were recognized for the delivery of round-the-clock and efficient support. Companies across Abu Dhabi that succeeded in reducing their waste production were also applauded. Honoring the exemplary commitment of employees at the Center, the event also gave away accolades in several categories including best worker, best driver, and best supervisor.
Dr Salem Al Kaabi, acting General Manager, Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi, said: "Ensuring the cleanliness and protecting the natural environment of Abu Dhabi is the responsibility of every individual and public sector authority - which we sometimes tend to forget. It is very encouraging to see companies recognize their onus towards this obligation and take responsibility for reducing their waste and carbon footprint. It is even more exciting to see individuals and companies opting to invest their resources in the indoor Tracking. As the authority for waste management in Abu Dhabi, we believe it is our role to identify, honor and encourage every meaningful effort in this direction."
On the sidelines of the event, the Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA). The agreement that was signed by Dr Salem Al Kaabi and His Excellency Engineer Ahmed Mohamed Al Shareef, Under Secretary of DMA, paves the way for collaboration in strategic waste management projects for the long term benefit of the emirate.
Following the signing of the MoU, Dr Salem Al Kaabi said: "The Center reiterates its keenness to collaborate more closely with other government organizations based on the goals of the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030. Through the agreement, DMA will help us consolidate our efforts to ensure the delivery of a sustainable environment and protect the health needs of our community. Together, we will work towards a shared goal of raising the bar of public services and quality of life in Abu Dhabi."
His Excellency Engineer Ahmed Mohamed Al Shareef said: "Signing the MOU reflects the sincere intent of both parties to forge partnerships towards maintaining a safe and clean ecosystem in Abu Dhabi and safeguarding the community's wellbeing. The objective gains added significance for us at the Department of Municipal Affairs, given our mandate to regulate areas that concern the safety and health of residents and visitors. Our collaboration with the Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi will facilitate us in achieving our common goal of ensuring that Abu Dhabi is perceived as one of the best places to live, work and visit."
Summarizing the Center's achievements, Engineer Hani Hosni, Head of EHS Sector, Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi, said: "Through awareness campaigns, the Center has promoted best practices in reducing waste from the source, reusing and recycling...We have also achieved about 90 percent rate of Emiratization among our workforce."
He added: "On the operational front, in addition to implementing a GPS system to track over 4,700 vehicles dedicated to waste transfer the Center has inked an MoU with Ittihad Rails to reuse recyclable debris from construction and demolition activities. We have also gained authorization from the Abu Dhabi Center of Environment, Health and Safety as the emirate's regulator in waste management and joined the Abu Dhabi Sustainably Group. Furthermore, the Center's plastic and tire recycling facility in Al Ain won the Environmental Performance Card 2012 in the industrial facilities category from the Ministry of Environment and Water."
The Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi focuses on the promotion of best practices in waste management, including reuse, recycling and waste segregation at source. The Center periodically runs educational and awareness initiatives for the community at large in line with Abu Dhabi's long term vision.
The ambitious plan, driven jointly by UTL and Vodafone, was to introduce automation that would significantly reduce costs, improve service levels and shrink the footprint of the entire picking and packing operation within the warehouse.
James Hodgetts was the programme manager working on behalf of UTL on this major project, he comments, “My brief was to select a partner who could help us to develop a completely bespoke solution to automate around 80% of the volume of single item orders which were all previously processed by hand.
“We shortlisted two companies for the project, Axiom and one other. The contract was awarded to Axiom as they demonstrated a superior knowledge and expertise of automated systems. They’re a forward thinking company and of the people we spoke to they were right out in front in terms of new technology.
Contractors including environmental service providers, as well as cleaning and pest control companies were recognized for the delivery of round-the-clock and efficient support. Companies across Abu Dhabi that succeeded in reducing their waste production were also applauded. Honoring the exemplary commitment of employees at the Center, the event also gave away accolades in several categories including best worker, best driver, and best supervisor.
Dr Salem Al Kaabi, acting General Manager, Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi, said: "Ensuring the cleanliness and protecting the natural environment of Abu Dhabi is the responsibility of every individual and public sector authority - which we sometimes tend to forget. It is very encouraging to see companies recognize their onus towards this obligation and take responsibility for reducing their waste and carbon footprint. It is even more exciting to see individuals and companies opting to invest their resources in the indoor Tracking. As the authority for waste management in Abu Dhabi, we believe it is our role to identify, honor and encourage every meaningful effort in this direction."
On the sidelines of the event, the Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA). The agreement that was signed by Dr Salem Al Kaabi and His Excellency Engineer Ahmed Mohamed Al Shareef, Under Secretary of DMA, paves the way for collaboration in strategic waste management projects for the long term benefit of the emirate.
Following the signing of the MoU, Dr Salem Al Kaabi said: "The Center reiterates its keenness to collaborate more closely with other government organizations based on the goals of the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030. Through the agreement, DMA will help us consolidate our efforts to ensure the delivery of a sustainable environment and protect the health needs of our community. Together, we will work towards a shared goal of raising the bar of public services and quality of life in Abu Dhabi."
His Excellency Engineer Ahmed Mohamed Al Shareef said: "Signing the MOU reflects the sincere intent of both parties to forge partnerships towards maintaining a safe and clean ecosystem in Abu Dhabi and safeguarding the community's wellbeing. The objective gains added significance for us at the Department of Municipal Affairs, given our mandate to regulate areas that concern the safety and health of residents and visitors. Our collaboration with the Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi will facilitate us in achieving our common goal of ensuring that Abu Dhabi is perceived as one of the best places to live, work and visit."
Summarizing the Center's achievements, Engineer Hani Hosni, Head of EHS Sector, Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi, said: "Through awareness campaigns, the Center has promoted best practices in reducing waste from the source, reusing and recycling...We have also achieved about 90 percent rate of Emiratization among our workforce."
He added: "On the operational front, in addition to implementing a GPS system to track over 4,700 vehicles dedicated to waste transfer the Center has inked an MoU with Ittihad Rails to reuse recyclable debris from construction and demolition activities. We have also gained authorization from the Abu Dhabi Center of Environment, Health and Safety as the emirate's regulator in waste management and joined the Abu Dhabi Sustainably Group. Furthermore, the Center's plastic and tire recycling facility in Al Ain won the Environmental Performance Card 2012 in the industrial facilities category from the Ministry of Environment and Water."
The Center of Waste Management - Abu Dhabi focuses on the promotion of best practices in waste management, including reuse, recycling and waste segregation at source. The Center periodically runs educational and awareness initiatives for the community at large in line with Abu Dhabi's long term vision.
The ambitious plan, driven jointly by UTL and Vodafone, was to introduce automation that would significantly reduce costs, improve service levels and shrink the footprint of the entire picking and packing operation within the warehouse.
James Hodgetts was the programme manager working on behalf of UTL on this major project, he comments, “My brief was to select a partner who could help us to develop a completely bespoke solution to automate around 80% of the volume of single item orders which were all previously processed by hand.
“We shortlisted two companies for the project, Axiom and one other. The contract was awarded to Axiom as they demonstrated a superior knowledge and expertise of automated systems. They’re a forward thinking company and of the people we spoke to they were right out in front in terms of new technology.
2013年5月12日星期日
How to make the most of your yearly bonus
It is appraisal time. Incentives, bonuses and arrears are here. Women love spending hours dreaming about how they are going to spend the windfall. But they give little thought to how they can invest this bonus or an increase in our pay packet.
Times have changed and women have certainly become smart with their money. Nowadays women want to invest in financial instruments, accumulate and create wealth and plan for their sunset years. They want to save for their children's education and marriage, shouldering the responsibility of an earning member. But they don't want to miss out on shopping, gifting or vacationing.
A typical woman, suffering from overspending, needs an expert financial advisor. But first and foremost you should draw an investment roadmap and then set aside some amount for your own consumption.
To begin with, one should sacrifice typical women tendencies of swooning over the solitaire ring on your friend's finger. It may not be a great value addition to your assets. Instead you can park your money in a liquid fund and start the STP (Systematic Transfer Plan). With STP you can invests a lump sum amount in one scheme and regularly switch a pre-defined amount into another scheme of your choice.
Also you can start investing in New Pension Scheme. If you are going to be a mother, you can save that money for the hiatus that motherhood brings along.
As a thumb rule, one should try to clear pending debts like car loan, personal loan or credit card outstanding. Accordingly, you can choose a mix of equity, debt or a combination of both instruments. Thumb rule would be save at least 50 per cent of your income, rest you can plan to splurge on your Zaras and Guccis.
It is said that women tend to live longer than their spouse, hence it becomes all the more important for them to save their money in those instruments which can enable them build corpus for the life time. The nature of expenses is different for different age groups. If you are young and your goals are a decade away then you can invest in mutual funds through STP with 90 per cent equity and 10 per cent debt in your indoor Tracking.
A Photographic Exhibit of Mothers and Daughters,” hangs in the MacDowell Gallery at Reid Hospital in Richmond and will be shown at other sites throughout the year. The exhibition is presented by Girls Inc. of Wayne County, in partnership with Susanna Tanner Photography and sponsor Reid Hospital & Health Care Services.
“The title of the story came to me one day as I was thinking that these images have captured each pair ‘As They Are’ at this moment in time. Right now. Photograph them next year, and the image and the thoughts expressed in text may be different due to growth, experiences, maturity, etc.,” Tanner said.
The image of 17-year-old Richmond High School senior Roshni Brahmbhatti and her mother Neena Brahmbhatti resonated with Tanner because her daughters are teens. Madison Tanner is 15 and Kennedy Tanner is 13.
“It made me think I need to do this with my kids,” Tanner said. “I appreciate the honesty that those people gave in the moment. They (Roshni and Neena) posed together so naturally.”
The Brahmbhattis were volunteers at the Girls Inc. mother-daughter event, serving as representatives of India among booths about different countries and cultures around the world. They were so busy talking with participants, they didn’t realize they, too, could have a portrait taken until nearly the end of the event.
“We didn’t give it a second thought,” Neena said. “They are really nice. I don’t have any of Roshni and myself. We would have never thought to do a photo shoot.”
Roshni said she and her mother are so busy, or they’re spending time as a family with her brothers Kunal, 19, and Parth, 13, that mother and daughter don’t get to spend enough time together. The photograph captures a rare shared moment.
I‘ve wanted to sign up for a Sam’s Club membership for a while but was waiting until I could score a good deal on one. In February, we signed up for a Sam’s card through my husband’s employer. Sam’s was offering a $25 gift card to employees who signed up for the Advantage Plus membership. We paid the $100 up front for the membership and received the $25 gift card.
I love gift cards, and was thrilled at the idea of going on a shopping spree at Sam’s. But how would I recoup the extra $75? I’m not a fan of paying to shop, especially since I get many things free or close to it when I combine a coupon with a sale. Sam’s doesn’t take manufacturers coupons, so I knew that wasn’t an option to help me get the best deal.
Even though I have had the membership since February, I hadn’t used it. I wasn’t quite sure what I could buy at Sam’s that would be a better deal than I could score with my coupons at other stores. I turned to the other savvy shoppers on the Savannah Savvy Shopper Facebook page for their advice.
Here’s the question: Do you have a Sam’s Club membership? If so what do you find great deals on that you couldn’t beat by being a savvy shopper and combining a coupon with a sale?
Times have changed and women have certainly become smart with their money. Nowadays women want to invest in financial instruments, accumulate and create wealth and plan for their sunset years. They want to save for their children's education and marriage, shouldering the responsibility of an earning member. But they don't want to miss out on shopping, gifting or vacationing.
A typical woman, suffering from overspending, needs an expert financial advisor. But first and foremost you should draw an investment roadmap and then set aside some amount for your own consumption.
To begin with, one should sacrifice typical women tendencies of swooning over the solitaire ring on your friend's finger. It may not be a great value addition to your assets. Instead you can park your money in a liquid fund and start the STP (Systematic Transfer Plan). With STP you can invests a lump sum amount in one scheme and regularly switch a pre-defined amount into another scheme of your choice.
Also you can start investing in New Pension Scheme. If you are going to be a mother, you can save that money for the hiatus that motherhood brings along.
As a thumb rule, one should try to clear pending debts like car loan, personal loan or credit card outstanding. Accordingly, you can choose a mix of equity, debt or a combination of both instruments. Thumb rule would be save at least 50 per cent of your income, rest you can plan to splurge on your Zaras and Guccis.
It is said that women tend to live longer than their spouse, hence it becomes all the more important for them to save their money in those instruments which can enable them build corpus for the life time. The nature of expenses is different for different age groups. If you are young and your goals are a decade away then you can invest in mutual funds through STP with 90 per cent equity and 10 per cent debt in your indoor Tracking.
A Photographic Exhibit of Mothers and Daughters,” hangs in the MacDowell Gallery at Reid Hospital in Richmond and will be shown at other sites throughout the year. The exhibition is presented by Girls Inc. of Wayne County, in partnership with Susanna Tanner Photography and sponsor Reid Hospital & Health Care Services.
“The title of the story came to me one day as I was thinking that these images have captured each pair ‘As They Are’ at this moment in time. Right now. Photograph them next year, and the image and the thoughts expressed in text may be different due to growth, experiences, maturity, etc.,” Tanner said.
The image of 17-year-old Richmond High School senior Roshni Brahmbhatti and her mother Neena Brahmbhatti resonated with Tanner because her daughters are teens. Madison Tanner is 15 and Kennedy Tanner is 13.
“It made me think I need to do this with my kids,” Tanner said. “I appreciate the honesty that those people gave in the moment. They (Roshni and Neena) posed together so naturally.”
The Brahmbhattis were volunteers at the Girls Inc. mother-daughter event, serving as representatives of India among booths about different countries and cultures around the world. They were so busy talking with participants, they didn’t realize they, too, could have a portrait taken until nearly the end of the event.
“We didn’t give it a second thought,” Neena said. “They are really nice. I don’t have any of Roshni and myself. We would have never thought to do a photo shoot.”
Roshni said she and her mother are so busy, or they’re spending time as a family with her brothers Kunal, 19, and Parth, 13, that mother and daughter don’t get to spend enough time together. The photograph captures a rare shared moment.
I‘ve wanted to sign up for a Sam’s Club membership for a while but was waiting until I could score a good deal on one. In February, we signed up for a Sam’s card through my husband’s employer. Sam’s was offering a $25 gift card to employees who signed up for the Advantage Plus membership. We paid the $100 up front for the membership and received the $25 gift card.
I love gift cards, and was thrilled at the idea of going on a shopping spree at Sam’s. But how would I recoup the extra $75? I’m not a fan of paying to shop, especially since I get many things free or close to it when I combine a coupon with a sale. Sam’s doesn’t take manufacturers coupons, so I knew that wasn’t an option to help me get the best deal.
Even though I have had the membership since February, I hadn’t used it. I wasn’t quite sure what I could buy at Sam’s that would be a better deal than I could score with my coupons at other stores. I turned to the other savvy shoppers on the Savannah Savvy Shopper Facebook page for their advice.
Here’s the question: Do you have a Sam’s Club membership? If so what do you find great deals on that you couldn’t beat by being a savvy shopper and combining a coupon with a sale?
2013年5月9日星期四
The did you know of a PATA summit
“Raise your hand if you have more than one mobile device on the table here today”, a whiz kid from Google asked delegates attending the recent PATA Summit. I can count. I raised my hand reckoning I had around five items. My reading glasses are for ever mobile, so is my pen if it is still on the table. Then there is my Iphone, a laptop and a wrist watch, an ancient mobile device that you can strap to your wrist or hang off a chain and dangle it from your waistcoat. That’s a fob watch and I don’t have one.
I thought I played the quiz quite well and the speaker was happy as he made his point. I was hoping he would sit down and call it day, but no he had to labour the point. Considering we all raised our hands and our mobile devices you would have thought the proverbial penny would have dropped. He was preaching to the converted. But he motored on; a speech had to be Hands free access.
Do you know half the world is right now on Facebook or twittering, he said and that if you started to check out all the websites on the internet you would still be here in 350 years. I groaned. No, I was planning to leave shortly after lunch.
As PATA Summits go, it wasn’t a bad effort. Around 280 people turned up for the one-day talk fest. Unfortunately, the speakers were all cloned and programmed to repeat exactly what the first smart fellow had said over and over again at sessions that rolled out on the hour until the cocktail bell rang.
Why is it that every high tech savvy speaker representing the likes of TripAdvisor, Google and Twitter assume we need to go back to basics every time we sit in a conference hall?
We got the usual rehashed tales of once up a time the internet sparked to life and spread at the speed of light across our globe in the time it would take you to say Bob’s your uncle.
Then there was the typical “did you know” question from a speaker who thought he was talking to a row of dumb terminals. No we didn’t know that every Chinese over the age of four owns a smart phone and twitters to mum and dad to turn the sound down on the telly. But we had a sneaking suspicion after hearing the same clap trap at every travel conference since the first Iphone was sold.
Then there were thoughts on multi-tasking. Today’s consumers are sitting watching the telly in the evening and checking what their friends are doing on Facebook. They are not missing a thing. How do we work a benefit out of that information nugget? All the travel industry has to fathom is how to get on the telly and shout “read my bloody Facebook entry.” Work that one out and we will have a travel boom on our doorstep.
I haven’t yet attended a conference that closed on time. Speakers always warn us we are short of time and have heaps to cover. Then why are they repeating stuff during the first 20 minutes that we have heard a million times? We are already bedazzled by technology, overwhelmed by the thought a billion Chinese glued to smart phones.
Yes, we are in a wonderful connected world and none of us can work out what the next development will be other than to acknowledge Google Glasses are just around the corner and who knows a high tech nose attachment will follow to dispatch the exact smells that belong to the photos forwarded to our Facebook page.
If its annual general meeting was anything to gauge the future by, then we would have to say, members were not fighting to find a seat, but those who did bother to attend witnessed discussion, even a few heated arguments; all good signs that PATA is alive and some members are kicking. It is not the time to call in the house doctor to write a death certificate for this association. There is hope mainly because its leaders know they have to do business differently than ever before. Transparency and association democracy are the buzz words voiced by people who earlier nurtured the PATA closed shop mentality.
Mr Craigs hails from Northern Ireland, a substantial man who fills a seat and towers like a crane over a Belfast shipyard. I would venture if he is given tools and mandate from the association’s executive board, he will have his ship under full steam in a year well clear of the snipes and storms that have so far assailed PATA.
“Shell is one of the first companies to make fuel economy claims on maingrade fuels. We have more than 100 years’ experience in helping the world’s drivers get more out of their fuel. The Shell Fuel Economy Refresh campaign goes that extra mile in demonstrating that through the use of these fuels and making a few simple changes to your driving habits, you achieve fuel economy.” said Ravi Sundararajan, Director & General Manager, Shell Retail India.
The cleaning system in Shell Fuel Economy is designed to prevent the build-up of deposits that can harm an engine’s performance over time. Friction and build-up of deposits on the engine are known to cause engine operation problems. Over a period of time, fuel and lubricants tend to wear down the engine by leaving behind deposits causing poor driveability, power loss, increased exhaust emissions and thereby increasing the fuel consumption. The Fuel Economy Formula therefore helps maximise the amount of fuel energy that can be transmitted usefully to the wheels propelling the extra drive.
“The team of fuel technology experts are passionate about producing the best possible fuels for our customers’ needs. They are constantly innovating to create some of the most advanced fuels in the world, says Loke Chee Hin, Technologist at Shell India. “In India, we are focused on helping our customers make the right fuelling decisions, therefore inspiring them to lead the way in fuel efficiency,” he adds.
As part of the Shell Fuel Economy Refresh initiative, Shell Retail has kicked off a comprehensive awareness and consumer engagement drive across all Shell fuel pumps. The company is initiating a campaign on radio and on the Outdoor media to encourage vehicle owners to experience the benefits of Shell Fuel Economy across its product range. Additionally, a comprehensive orientation exercise, targeted at Shell’s retailers, attempts to reinforce the Fuel Economy philosophy, therefore enabling them to guide customers meaningfully.
I thought I played the quiz quite well and the speaker was happy as he made his point. I was hoping he would sit down and call it day, but no he had to labour the point. Considering we all raised our hands and our mobile devices you would have thought the proverbial penny would have dropped. He was preaching to the converted. But he motored on; a speech had to be Hands free access.
Do you know half the world is right now on Facebook or twittering, he said and that if you started to check out all the websites on the internet you would still be here in 350 years. I groaned. No, I was planning to leave shortly after lunch.
As PATA Summits go, it wasn’t a bad effort. Around 280 people turned up for the one-day talk fest. Unfortunately, the speakers were all cloned and programmed to repeat exactly what the first smart fellow had said over and over again at sessions that rolled out on the hour until the cocktail bell rang.
Why is it that every high tech savvy speaker representing the likes of TripAdvisor, Google and Twitter assume we need to go back to basics every time we sit in a conference hall?
We got the usual rehashed tales of once up a time the internet sparked to life and spread at the speed of light across our globe in the time it would take you to say Bob’s your uncle.
Then there was the typical “did you know” question from a speaker who thought he was talking to a row of dumb terminals. No we didn’t know that every Chinese over the age of four owns a smart phone and twitters to mum and dad to turn the sound down on the telly. But we had a sneaking suspicion after hearing the same clap trap at every travel conference since the first Iphone was sold.
Then there were thoughts on multi-tasking. Today’s consumers are sitting watching the telly in the evening and checking what their friends are doing on Facebook. They are not missing a thing. How do we work a benefit out of that information nugget? All the travel industry has to fathom is how to get on the telly and shout “read my bloody Facebook entry.” Work that one out and we will have a travel boom on our doorstep.
I haven’t yet attended a conference that closed on time. Speakers always warn us we are short of time and have heaps to cover. Then why are they repeating stuff during the first 20 minutes that we have heard a million times? We are already bedazzled by technology, overwhelmed by the thought a billion Chinese glued to smart phones.
Yes, we are in a wonderful connected world and none of us can work out what the next development will be other than to acknowledge Google Glasses are just around the corner and who knows a high tech nose attachment will follow to dispatch the exact smells that belong to the photos forwarded to our Facebook page.
If its annual general meeting was anything to gauge the future by, then we would have to say, members were not fighting to find a seat, but those who did bother to attend witnessed discussion, even a few heated arguments; all good signs that PATA is alive and some members are kicking. It is not the time to call in the house doctor to write a death certificate for this association. There is hope mainly because its leaders know they have to do business differently than ever before. Transparency and association democracy are the buzz words voiced by people who earlier nurtured the PATA closed shop mentality.
Mr Craigs hails from Northern Ireland, a substantial man who fills a seat and towers like a crane over a Belfast shipyard. I would venture if he is given tools and mandate from the association’s executive board, he will have his ship under full steam in a year well clear of the snipes and storms that have so far assailed PATA.
“Shell is one of the first companies to make fuel economy claims on maingrade fuels. We have more than 100 years’ experience in helping the world’s drivers get more out of their fuel. The Shell Fuel Economy Refresh campaign goes that extra mile in demonstrating that through the use of these fuels and making a few simple changes to your driving habits, you achieve fuel economy.” said Ravi Sundararajan, Director & General Manager, Shell Retail India.
The cleaning system in Shell Fuel Economy is designed to prevent the build-up of deposits that can harm an engine’s performance over time. Friction and build-up of deposits on the engine are known to cause engine operation problems. Over a period of time, fuel and lubricants tend to wear down the engine by leaving behind deposits causing poor driveability, power loss, increased exhaust emissions and thereby increasing the fuel consumption. The Fuel Economy Formula therefore helps maximise the amount of fuel energy that can be transmitted usefully to the wheels propelling the extra drive.
“The team of fuel technology experts are passionate about producing the best possible fuels for our customers’ needs. They are constantly innovating to create some of the most advanced fuels in the world, says Loke Chee Hin, Technologist at Shell India. “In India, we are focused on helping our customers make the right fuelling decisions, therefore inspiring them to lead the way in fuel efficiency,” he adds.
As part of the Shell Fuel Economy Refresh initiative, Shell Retail has kicked off a comprehensive awareness and consumer engagement drive across all Shell fuel pumps. The company is initiating a campaign on radio and on the Outdoor media to encourage vehicle owners to experience the benefits of Shell Fuel Economy across its product range. Additionally, a comprehensive orientation exercise, targeted at Shell’s retailers, attempts to reinforce the Fuel Economy philosophy, therefore enabling them to guide customers meaningfully.
Nokia Asha 501 with 'free' Facebook access unveiled
"Asha raises the bar for what is possible in affordable smartphone design and optimization... The synergy between the physical design and the engine that is the new Asha platform has created a smartphone without style and substance," said Timo Toikkanen, executive vice president (mobile phones), Nokia.
Nokia also announced a global partnership with Facebook, saying that Asha 501 users on Airtel and MTNL will get free access to the social networking site.
Nokia has been counting on Asha phones to compete with affordable Android phones selling for less than Rs 10,000. Though initially the company got some success with its plan, in the last one year the cheaper Android phones have improved significantly and are hurting Asha sales hard.
The fact that Asha phones are finding the going tough was reflected in Nokia's quarterly results. Last month, the company reported that it shipped 5 million Asha phones in Q1, 2013 compared to 9.3 million devices in the previous quarter.
In total the company shipped 55.8 million phones in Q1, 2013, a 30% decline compared to the numbers in previous quarter. The decline in the Nokia's business was particularly bad in China, where cheap Android phones made by local companies have found a favour with indoor Tracking. In Q1, 2012 the company shipped 9.2 million phones in Greater China. In the first quarter of 2013, it shipped only 3.4 million phones.
During the same duration, the shipment of Nokia phones fell by 11% in Asia-pacific, 28% in Middle East and Africa, 20% in Latin America 25% in Europe.
In 2011, when Nokia decided to make a switch to Windows Phone, Elop had asked two years of time from shareholders to show results. However, Nokia's performance so far has not been particularly great. At a meeting with Nokia shareholders a few days ago, Elop reportedly said, "we're not out of the woods yet."
While the company is selling more Lumia devices every quarter, it has failed to compensate for the business the company has lost in the overall phone market.
According to a report by Reuters, the shareholders were not happy with the CEO. "You're a nice guy ... and the leadership team is doing its best, but clearly, it's not enough," a shareholder told Elop. "Are you aware that results are what matter? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please switch to another road."
As Tabrizi points out, MLMs have been under increasing pressure, partially because of the increased role of IT. With the automation of certain business processes and the easy distribution of information, many middle manager positions have been eliminated or shunted to places where they have little influence over the enterprise.
Unfortunately, this is a huge mistake. Tabrizi's research shows that successful enterprises make superior use of middle management. There are some very good reasons for middle management being a source of positive change. For one, executives are often too far from line employees to effectively inspire change. Middle management is usually better placed to make effective use of cross-functional teams work, and they also have a greater impact on the culture of the company as a whole.
In effective, innovative companies, middle management spent most of their time on new initiatives. They were often the authors of these new initiatives or they would be close enough to the line workers to help facilitate their initiatives. In less successful companies, Tabrizi found that MLMs were devoting more than 60 percent of their time to "sheer corporate survival." Middle managers were not being the levers of change or growth, but simply helping the company grind through its day.
Since IT is partially to blame for the plight of the middle manager, is it possible that IT can help the middle manager rebound? Tabrizi doesn't fully tackle the question, but I believe IT is the only part of the company that can. And since IT's job is to help the company grow, it is their duty to try.
The first place to start is remembering that no business initiative can be started these days without IT's help. Unless it can be done with a spreadsheet and email, it is going to require some new resources from IT -- a new app, a new automated process, a new mobile tool, or something to get it going. The first question you're likely to ask is "Who is going to pay for this?" or "Where do I find the time?"
But these questions are exactly why you see rogue users decide to take a credit card and start their own public cloud behind your back. What some CIOs don't get is that the fight between the "rogue user" and the "department of no" is really a battle of convenience for IT... but sheer survival for the middle manager. The middle manager is perceived as "overhead" just as much as IT is, and they're being constantly watched for ROI. IT and MLMs have so much in common they really need to start working together.
How? Start with helping them self-provision. Or if you can't handle self-provisioning, then start listening carefully and responding fast. Remember that effective middle managers spend more than half of their time on new initiatives. If you're the bottleneck, they're not going to be able to keep those initiatives coming.
Beyond that, you need to provide middle management with data they need to do their jobs. Before the rise of IT, middle management held power because senior executives couldn't see what was happening across regions and departments. They relied on skilled middle management to help them understand the whole field. For at least a decade or two, IT has been serving up data and communications tools to senior executives upon request -- and that has routinely allowed executives to cut out the middle man. It is time to provide increased data support to middle management to help them gain the kind of granular, detailed insight that will make them indispensable again.
Another important goal is to break down silos. Remember that middle management is best suited for making cross-functional teams work. Can you break down the silos so that resources and data are at the fingertips of any middle manager smart enough to use them?
Nokia also announced a global partnership with Facebook, saying that Asha 501 users on Airtel and MTNL will get free access to the social networking site.
Nokia has been counting on Asha phones to compete with affordable Android phones selling for less than Rs 10,000. Though initially the company got some success with its plan, in the last one year the cheaper Android phones have improved significantly and are hurting Asha sales hard.
The fact that Asha phones are finding the going tough was reflected in Nokia's quarterly results. Last month, the company reported that it shipped 5 million Asha phones in Q1, 2013 compared to 9.3 million devices in the previous quarter.
In total the company shipped 55.8 million phones in Q1, 2013, a 30% decline compared to the numbers in previous quarter. The decline in the Nokia's business was particularly bad in China, where cheap Android phones made by local companies have found a favour with indoor Tracking. In Q1, 2012 the company shipped 9.2 million phones in Greater China. In the first quarter of 2013, it shipped only 3.4 million phones.
During the same duration, the shipment of Nokia phones fell by 11% in Asia-pacific, 28% in Middle East and Africa, 20% in Latin America 25% in Europe.
In 2011, when Nokia decided to make a switch to Windows Phone, Elop had asked two years of time from shareholders to show results. However, Nokia's performance so far has not been particularly great. At a meeting with Nokia shareholders a few days ago, Elop reportedly said, "we're not out of the woods yet."
While the company is selling more Lumia devices every quarter, it has failed to compensate for the business the company has lost in the overall phone market.
According to a report by Reuters, the shareholders were not happy with the CEO. "You're a nice guy ... and the leadership team is doing its best, but clearly, it's not enough," a shareholder told Elop. "Are you aware that results are what matter? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please switch to another road."
As Tabrizi points out, MLMs have been under increasing pressure, partially because of the increased role of IT. With the automation of certain business processes and the easy distribution of information, many middle manager positions have been eliminated or shunted to places where they have little influence over the enterprise.
Unfortunately, this is a huge mistake. Tabrizi's research shows that successful enterprises make superior use of middle management. There are some very good reasons for middle management being a source of positive change. For one, executives are often too far from line employees to effectively inspire change. Middle management is usually better placed to make effective use of cross-functional teams work, and they also have a greater impact on the culture of the company as a whole.
In effective, innovative companies, middle management spent most of their time on new initiatives. They were often the authors of these new initiatives or they would be close enough to the line workers to help facilitate their initiatives. In less successful companies, Tabrizi found that MLMs were devoting more than 60 percent of their time to "sheer corporate survival." Middle managers were not being the levers of change or growth, but simply helping the company grind through its day.
Since IT is partially to blame for the plight of the middle manager, is it possible that IT can help the middle manager rebound? Tabrizi doesn't fully tackle the question, but I believe IT is the only part of the company that can. And since IT's job is to help the company grow, it is their duty to try.
The first place to start is remembering that no business initiative can be started these days without IT's help. Unless it can be done with a spreadsheet and email, it is going to require some new resources from IT -- a new app, a new automated process, a new mobile tool, or something to get it going. The first question you're likely to ask is "Who is going to pay for this?" or "Where do I find the time?"
But these questions are exactly why you see rogue users decide to take a credit card and start their own public cloud behind your back. What some CIOs don't get is that the fight between the "rogue user" and the "department of no" is really a battle of convenience for IT... but sheer survival for the middle manager. The middle manager is perceived as "overhead" just as much as IT is, and they're being constantly watched for ROI. IT and MLMs have so much in common they really need to start working together.
How? Start with helping them self-provision. Or if you can't handle self-provisioning, then start listening carefully and responding fast. Remember that effective middle managers spend more than half of their time on new initiatives. If you're the bottleneck, they're not going to be able to keep those initiatives coming.
Beyond that, you need to provide middle management with data they need to do their jobs. Before the rise of IT, middle management held power because senior executives couldn't see what was happening across regions and departments. They relied on skilled middle management to help them understand the whole field. For at least a decade or two, IT has been serving up data and communications tools to senior executives upon request -- and that has routinely allowed executives to cut out the middle man. It is time to provide increased data support to middle management to help them gain the kind of granular, detailed insight that will make them indispensable again.
Another important goal is to break down silos. Remember that middle management is best suited for making cross-functional teams work. Can you break down the silos so that resources and data are at the fingertips of any middle manager smart enough to use them?
2013年5月7日星期二
Soccer land swap could solve problems for DC and United
City officials are currently talking with DC United and developer Akridge about swapping some empty parcels of land at Buzzard Point for government-owned properties around the city, like the Reeves Center near 14th & U streets. In return, Akridge would build a new public safety campus elsewhere in the city and DC United would get the land at Buzzard Point for a stadium.
While other uses have been considered for Buzzard Point in the past, putting a new DC United stadium there would be the best use of that land, while opening up other properties around the city that are better suited for housing or commercial activities.
The current Metropolitan Police Department headquarters at Judiciary Square is outdated and needs to be replaced. It's in such poor shape that MPD employees would have to move somewhere else if the building were renovated.
Meanwhile, the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the Department of Corrections are temporarily moving from their obsolete facilities on Vermont Avenue to the Reeves Center. All three government agencies are in need of new permanent headquarters, but the catch is that there are currently no funds allocated to building them.
Slate business and economics correspondent Matt Yglesias recently argued that this site should be used for affordable housing indoor Tracking. While he's right that DC needs more housing, the Buzzard Point site doesn't make sense for housing under current market conditions. Akridge bought the land that currently sits idle as a parking lot in 2005. They hoped to build an office building but the GSA refused to lease space there, saying the 15-minute walk from the Navy Yard Metro was too far.
There was a residential construction boom when Akridge bought the land in 2005, and there's one happening now due to limited supply and high rents. If they thought that they could sell or rent new homes there, they would have already done so. The Buzzard Point site is a vacant parking lot because there simply isn't enough economic incentive to build there.
If DC United moved to Buzzard Point, the land would become more valuable, much like the Capitol Riverfront after Nationals Park opened. The District could gain tax revenue from surrounding vacant properties as they were developed. Now in private hands, the highly valuable properties at Judiciary Square and 14th and U could also raise tax revenue for the city.
This gives DC more funds that could be used for affordable housing programs. Meanwhile, the market rate housing supply would increase due to new residential buildings at 14th and U and Buzzard Point.
The increase in housing supply would help stabilize rents. Individual buildings may not do much to stabilize rising rents, since they are only a small part of the new supply needed to meet demand. However, every little bit counts.
While the District of Columbia needs more market rate and affordable housing, it can accomplish those goals without throwing around money to induce development where there's no demand for it. Perhaps that was the only option available to our forebears in the second half of the 20th century, but the present situation is different with a growing, desirable city and private investors like Akridge and DC United falling all over themselves to invest in the District of Columbia.
It appears that the District government understands the present circumstances and is negotiating to indirectly use this private investment to improve city services, increase its tax base, and increase its housing supply without having to issue debt that would affect its bond rating. That's exactly how a growing city should operate.
Still, despite those guffaws, Dickinson made his mark in more productive ways. He was first elected to a three-year term as selectmen in 1970, serving with Chet Lucy and Fran Deasy.
During his years in the House, he took leadership in crafting legislation on current-use assessment, the right to bear arms, and on protecting ski areas from unwarranted lawsuits regarding skier safety.
Asked what legislation he was most proud of, Dickinson said, "First and foremost, our Current Use Assessment Law (RSA 79-A), which is recognized as the best in the nation," he said. "Also there is our Right to Bear Arms Constitutional Amendment which I first introduced at the 1974 Constitutional Convention and states that 'all persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.'
"I also drafted the skier liability policy with Stan Judge (then of Wildcat) and Phil Gravnik (then of Loon, later of Cannon and Attitash) in 1979, which is now used by ski resorts across America," Dickinson continued. "One other accomplishment that comes to mind is the Shoreline Protection Act in 1991 which protects the shores of our lakes and rivers from ill-considered and poorly planned development."
While other uses have been considered for Buzzard Point in the past, putting a new DC United stadium there would be the best use of that land, while opening up other properties around the city that are better suited for housing or commercial activities.
The current Metropolitan Police Department headquarters at Judiciary Square is outdated and needs to be replaced. It's in such poor shape that MPD employees would have to move somewhere else if the building were renovated.
Meanwhile, the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the Department of Corrections are temporarily moving from their obsolete facilities on Vermont Avenue to the Reeves Center. All three government agencies are in need of new permanent headquarters, but the catch is that there are currently no funds allocated to building them.
Slate business and economics correspondent Matt Yglesias recently argued that this site should be used for affordable housing indoor Tracking. While he's right that DC needs more housing, the Buzzard Point site doesn't make sense for housing under current market conditions. Akridge bought the land that currently sits idle as a parking lot in 2005. They hoped to build an office building but the GSA refused to lease space there, saying the 15-minute walk from the Navy Yard Metro was too far.
There was a residential construction boom when Akridge bought the land in 2005, and there's one happening now due to limited supply and high rents. If they thought that they could sell or rent new homes there, they would have already done so. The Buzzard Point site is a vacant parking lot because there simply isn't enough economic incentive to build there.
If DC United moved to Buzzard Point, the land would become more valuable, much like the Capitol Riverfront after Nationals Park opened. The District could gain tax revenue from surrounding vacant properties as they were developed. Now in private hands, the highly valuable properties at Judiciary Square and 14th and U could also raise tax revenue for the city.
This gives DC more funds that could be used for affordable housing programs. Meanwhile, the market rate housing supply would increase due to new residential buildings at 14th and U and Buzzard Point.
The increase in housing supply would help stabilize rents. Individual buildings may not do much to stabilize rising rents, since they are only a small part of the new supply needed to meet demand. However, every little bit counts.
While the District of Columbia needs more market rate and affordable housing, it can accomplish those goals without throwing around money to induce development where there's no demand for it. Perhaps that was the only option available to our forebears in the second half of the 20th century, but the present situation is different with a growing, desirable city and private investors like Akridge and DC United falling all over themselves to invest in the District of Columbia.
It appears that the District government understands the present circumstances and is negotiating to indirectly use this private investment to improve city services, increase its tax base, and increase its housing supply without having to issue debt that would affect its bond rating. That's exactly how a growing city should operate.
Still, despite those guffaws, Dickinson made his mark in more productive ways. He was first elected to a three-year term as selectmen in 1970, serving with Chet Lucy and Fran Deasy.
During his years in the House, he took leadership in crafting legislation on current-use assessment, the right to bear arms, and on protecting ski areas from unwarranted lawsuits regarding skier safety.
Asked what legislation he was most proud of, Dickinson said, "First and foremost, our Current Use Assessment Law (RSA 79-A), which is recognized as the best in the nation," he said. "Also there is our Right to Bear Arms Constitutional Amendment which I first introduced at the 1974 Constitutional Convention and states that 'all persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.'
"I also drafted the skier liability policy with Stan Judge (then of Wildcat) and Phil Gravnik (then of Loon, later of Cannon and Attitash) in 1979, which is now used by ski resorts across America," Dickinson continued. "One other accomplishment that comes to mind is the Shoreline Protection Act in 1991 which protects the shores of our lakes and rivers from ill-considered and poorly planned development."
2013年5月5日星期日
Who gives a four-year-old a gun?
That line, from an Associated Press story, captures the horror a young mother in Kentucky will live with forever, the moment her 5-year-old son accidentally shot her 2-year-old daughter with a .22 caliber rifle. The boy had been playing with the gun — his own weapon, unbelievably — which had a shell in it. He killed his sister with one shot to her chest.
Yet there’s more to this horrible incident than some irreconcilable difference between rural and city attitudes toward guns. The boy’s weapon was sold by a company that markets the product under the slogan "My first rifle." They make a blue one for boys and a pink one for girls. Who says the arms industry is cynical?
I don’t care where you’re from or what "culture" you purport to be a part of: You don’t "play" with guns. And if a child is too young to understand that fact, to respect weaponry, adults shouldn’t be giving them guns as gifts. And companies have no business marketing to indoor Tracking.
This little girl’s death has seized the public’s attention, and, in the wake of the failed gun reform legislation in Congress, it offers some slim hope that Americans might come to their senses about responsible gun laws and ownership.
Some observers, of course, dismiss any notion that this death has anything to do with the thousands of other gun fatalities that happen in America each year. But that isn’t entirely accurate.
While violent crime rates in general are dropping, accidental gun deaths are holding steady; at about 500 to 600 per year. (Suicides make up nearly two-thirds of the approximate 32,000 U.S. gun deaths annually.) More than 14,000 people are injured every year by accidental gunfire.
News stories are filed daily of such accidental shootings, across race and class barriers, in rural communities and in cities. Near the neighborhood where I grew up, the body of an African American 14-year-old boy was recently found by police, his hand sticking out of a pile of dirt. After investigating, it was found that his 12-year-old brother had accidentally shot him with a neighbour’s gun — and another teen buried the body afterward in panic.
Second Amendment zealots like to talk about "law-abiding" gun owners, and about how their ownership of firearms should not be regulated in any way. But law-abiding doesn’t mean responsible. It’s time that gun owners, manufacturers and sellers were held accountable for gun safety.
For its part, the gun industry just wants more guns in the hands of more Americans, period. So its line on this tragedy is: "Accidents happen."
This has nothing to do with criticizing hunters, or rural family life. It’s about at least trying to temper the gun industry’s efforts to market a product to younger and younger audiences, unabated by respect for the lethal nature of guns.
My maternal grandfather was an excellent shot. Like most Kansas farmers, he relied on his shotgun for hunting, for protecting the chicken coops from coyotes, and on one sad afternoon to kill his favorite dog. Old Foxie had gone rabid and was running in a circle in the field.
A lot of farmers kept their shotguns loaded and at the ready in that Depression era. Grandfather never did. He had a house full of children, and he knew that children are curious.
New medicines are a central component of modern medical care, treating illness effectively, providing more comfortable treatment regimes, extending life and reducing disability, and sometimes offering new treatment options where none previously existed. These benefits, however, come with the potential for harm, which is why governments around the world regulate access to new medicines.
Unfortunately for Canadians, the federal government takes an approach that is slower than others, unnecessarily costly for taxpayers, and is ultimately of questionable benefit to Canadians. Canadian approvals for market access to new drugs take longer than similar approvals in both Europe (under the European Medicines Agency) and the U.S. (under the FDA). Specifically, the median approval time was longer in Canada than in the other jurisdictions in four of the past five years, with median approval times differing by an average of 63 days and 49 days respectively over that period.
In fact, this is likely an underestimate of the drug approval lag Canadians endure. Drugs may not be submitted to Health Canada for approval at the same time as they are submitted to regulatory agencies in Europe and the U.S., or even in the same year. A recent study of access to new cancer drugs found that drugs were submitted to Canadian regulators for approval much later than they were submitted to U.S. or European regulators. The data used in that study show a median difference of 119 and 96 days respectively and with approximately one quarter of submissions in both cases coming more than six months later.
Numerous studies show that pharmaceutical spending and use of pharmaceuticals generally are related to reduced mortality, increased longevity, and decreased disability, none of which should be surprising to survivors of critical illness or those whose chronic or potentially fatal condition is being controlled through prescriptions.
Prof. Frank Lichtenberg of Columbia University took this one step further and found that using newer drugs rather than older ones increased prescription costs by $18 per patient in the U.S. but reduced non-drug health spending (primarily hospital and physician spending) by $129. Put differently, the benefits of new drugs come at increased cost but ultimately may be a more cost effective approach than sticking with older (and less expensive) drugs.
For example, there can be little doubt that later approvals in Canada afford regulators the time to observe post-market experiences in other nations before Canadians are permitted access to new drugs. This may allow regulators to deny market access to those drugs that are found to be associated with serious negative events.
Good drug policy is all about balance. In this case, balancing the rights of Canadians to access (and benefit) from new medicines against the potential for harm associated with them. There is a straightforward solution Canada might pursue that will strike a better balance between these competing factors than the one we have today.
Yet there’s more to this horrible incident than some irreconcilable difference between rural and city attitudes toward guns. The boy’s weapon was sold by a company that markets the product under the slogan "My first rifle." They make a blue one for boys and a pink one for girls. Who says the arms industry is cynical?
I don’t care where you’re from or what "culture" you purport to be a part of: You don’t "play" with guns. And if a child is too young to understand that fact, to respect weaponry, adults shouldn’t be giving them guns as gifts. And companies have no business marketing to indoor Tracking.
This little girl’s death has seized the public’s attention, and, in the wake of the failed gun reform legislation in Congress, it offers some slim hope that Americans might come to their senses about responsible gun laws and ownership.
Some observers, of course, dismiss any notion that this death has anything to do with the thousands of other gun fatalities that happen in America each year. But that isn’t entirely accurate.
While violent crime rates in general are dropping, accidental gun deaths are holding steady; at about 500 to 600 per year. (Suicides make up nearly two-thirds of the approximate 32,000 U.S. gun deaths annually.) More than 14,000 people are injured every year by accidental gunfire.
News stories are filed daily of such accidental shootings, across race and class barriers, in rural communities and in cities. Near the neighborhood where I grew up, the body of an African American 14-year-old boy was recently found by police, his hand sticking out of a pile of dirt. After investigating, it was found that his 12-year-old brother had accidentally shot him with a neighbour’s gun — and another teen buried the body afterward in panic.
Second Amendment zealots like to talk about "law-abiding" gun owners, and about how their ownership of firearms should not be regulated in any way. But law-abiding doesn’t mean responsible. It’s time that gun owners, manufacturers and sellers were held accountable for gun safety.
For its part, the gun industry just wants more guns in the hands of more Americans, period. So its line on this tragedy is: "Accidents happen."
This has nothing to do with criticizing hunters, or rural family life. It’s about at least trying to temper the gun industry’s efforts to market a product to younger and younger audiences, unabated by respect for the lethal nature of guns.
My maternal grandfather was an excellent shot. Like most Kansas farmers, he relied on his shotgun for hunting, for protecting the chicken coops from coyotes, and on one sad afternoon to kill his favorite dog. Old Foxie had gone rabid and was running in a circle in the field.
A lot of farmers kept their shotguns loaded and at the ready in that Depression era. Grandfather never did. He had a house full of children, and he knew that children are curious.
New medicines are a central component of modern medical care, treating illness effectively, providing more comfortable treatment regimes, extending life and reducing disability, and sometimes offering new treatment options where none previously existed. These benefits, however, come with the potential for harm, which is why governments around the world regulate access to new medicines.
Unfortunately for Canadians, the federal government takes an approach that is slower than others, unnecessarily costly for taxpayers, and is ultimately of questionable benefit to Canadians. Canadian approvals for market access to new drugs take longer than similar approvals in both Europe (under the European Medicines Agency) and the U.S. (under the FDA). Specifically, the median approval time was longer in Canada than in the other jurisdictions in four of the past five years, with median approval times differing by an average of 63 days and 49 days respectively over that period.
In fact, this is likely an underestimate of the drug approval lag Canadians endure. Drugs may not be submitted to Health Canada for approval at the same time as they are submitted to regulatory agencies in Europe and the U.S., or even in the same year. A recent study of access to new cancer drugs found that drugs were submitted to Canadian regulators for approval much later than they were submitted to U.S. or European regulators. The data used in that study show a median difference of 119 and 96 days respectively and with approximately one quarter of submissions in both cases coming more than six months later.
Numerous studies show that pharmaceutical spending and use of pharmaceuticals generally are related to reduced mortality, increased longevity, and decreased disability, none of which should be surprising to survivors of critical illness or those whose chronic or potentially fatal condition is being controlled through prescriptions.
Prof. Frank Lichtenberg of Columbia University took this one step further and found that using newer drugs rather than older ones increased prescription costs by $18 per patient in the U.S. but reduced non-drug health spending (primarily hospital and physician spending) by $129. Put differently, the benefits of new drugs come at increased cost but ultimately may be a more cost effective approach than sticking with older (and less expensive) drugs.
For example, there can be little doubt that later approvals in Canada afford regulators the time to observe post-market experiences in other nations before Canadians are permitted access to new drugs. This may allow regulators to deny market access to those drugs that are found to be associated with serious negative events.
Good drug policy is all about balance. In this case, balancing the rights of Canadians to access (and benefit) from new medicines against the potential for harm associated with them. There is a straightforward solution Canada might pursue that will strike a better balance between these competing factors than the one we have today.
2013年5月1日星期三
Four Game Changing Companies That Could Debut
We’re not yet in the frothy internet bubble days when companies with simply a website and an idea of a seemingly untapped market were going public, raising millions and later crashing and burning, taking many investors down with them but we are coming out of the new issue doldrums. However, as with all speculative investments — and that’s what an initial offering is — not all are guaranteed successes.
Facebook one of the biggest and certainly most well-known IPOs of recent memory went public to tremendous fanfare last year. Everyone wanted in as this was a ‘sure thing’ as any. Who wasn’t familiar with Facebook? As Justin Timberlake’s character said in The Social Network, “a billion dollars is cool.” But contrary to most public views, while Facebook raised millions, as an IPO it was a bust. While early investors realized extraordinary gains, those ‘lucky’ enough to get in to the IPO, institutions and individual investors alike, saw the first day closing price well below its offering price, immediately experiencing losses on this investment. While Facebook has stabilized and has been working its way up, it’s still far below its offering price and known as a disastrous IPO
And Facebook wasn’t the only offering scaring folks away from the new issue market. Other well-known names like game app developer Zynga and deal site Groupon are far below their offering price bringing untold losses to many early public buyers of these companies, and scaring many retail investors from the IPO market in general
However, as with the market in general, not all IPOs behave similarly. Business networking site while certainly taking investors on an eventful ride, is at an all-time high from its May, 2011 $45 price and is now flirting with $200. Another tech company, an enterprise-focused ‘Big Data’ one called Splunk SPLK -0.25% also saw a big first day gain, another roller coaster ride, and now a steady climb to all-time highs.
While co-founder Jack Dorsey keeps saying that an offering isn’t in the cards anytime soon, Twitter’s the 800 pound gorilla standing on the IPOs sidelines. With private transactions earlier this year reportedly valuing the firm at $9 billion, Twitter would be the largest consumer internet IPO since Facebook’s. While it’s certainly smaller, the so-called ‘micro blogging’ service is bringing in substantial indoor Tracking, and is still just scratching the surface of its monetization potential. Reports have their making $600 million this year and over a $1 billion next year.
What makes Twitter particularly appealing is its mobile usage and focus on monetization through ‘native advertising.’ Twitter makes money through ad products like Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts. Different from more traditional online advertising and the often overabundance of display ads causing ‘banner blindness,’ Twitter’s offerings appear in the regular content stream of a user and work just like its regular content. A promoted tweet from a brand can appear right in line with tweets from your friends, celebrities or anyone else you’re following.
Founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Square is another often talk-about IPO candidate. A completely separate company, Square’s building a presence in the huge electronic payments business. Basically, they enable virtually anyone selling anything, from small shopkeepers to artists to service providers to easily and effortlessly accept plastic for payment on a mobile device. Simply run a buyer’s card through a small Square gadget that plugs into your smartphone or tablet and your payment is processed. Any sector of the economy that until now had not accepted credit cards can now enable their acceptance.
While not as well-known as some of the more consumer-focused web stories, Square is targeting a huge market with its mobile-based payment processing system. It’s built a great team from many of the tech sector’s leaders and is growing through attractive – low – processing fees that are critical for building small business and individuals’ usage. New products like the Square Register further support brick and mortar establishments and their payment processing needs.
Last year, they were already processing over $6 billion in payments and have one million customers. While not a household name yet, they inked a major deal with Starbucks last year and reportedly have a valuation over $3 billion. With a combined business and consumer focus, Square is likely to be another attractive offering when they approach the public equity markets.
With the extraordinary increases in all the data people are creating, from media files to documents to photos, it only takes one hiccup on your laptop to realize how much at risk your data is and how important backing it all up is. Dropbox is a growing player in this burgeoning market, providing an easy way to store your data safely and securely in the ‘cloud,’ rather than relying on your own computer or external hardware devices for backup.
Dropbox has built its business around what’s commonly called a freemium model, where basic services (i.e. a limited amount of storage) is available for free and more extensive services (i.e. more space) is available for a monthly fee. Towards the end of last year, they had over 100 million users and a reported valuation of $4 billion. While only a small percentage of those users are currently paying customers, they are making significant revenue; analysts have them as the largest player in the rapidly expanding file storage and sharing space by far.
What’s behind this apparent direction to the public markets? Well, Eventbrite recently announced an excess of $1.5 billion in total gross sales and 100 million tickets sold. The key part of their announcement relates to the growth acceleration they’re seeing. The company was founded in 2006 and they took about five years to reach a billion dollars in gross sales. However, the next half a billion dollars took only nine months to attain. With $600 million in gross ticket sales last year and its rapid growth rate, the company estimates $1 billion in ticket sales this year.
The company started with ticketing for small, often private events like reunions and professional events. It’s now expanding into larger entertainment type events like the Tribeca Film Festival and concerts from major acts like the Black Eyed Peas. While the company only makes money on a percent of tickets sold, it’s demonstrating a proven revenue-producing business model, something often not seen with many fast growing companies.
Facebook one of the biggest and certainly most well-known IPOs of recent memory went public to tremendous fanfare last year. Everyone wanted in as this was a ‘sure thing’ as any. Who wasn’t familiar with Facebook? As Justin Timberlake’s character said in The Social Network, “a billion dollars is cool.” But contrary to most public views, while Facebook raised millions, as an IPO it was a bust. While early investors realized extraordinary gains, those ‘lucky’ enough to get in to the IPO, institutions and individual investors alike, saw the first day closing price well below its offering price, immediately experiencing losses on this investment. While Facebook has stabilized and has been working its way up, it’s still far below its offering price and known as a disastrous IPO
And Facebook wasn’t the only offering scaring folks away from the new issue market. Other well-known names like game app developer Zynga and deal site Groupon are far below their offering price bringing untold losses to many early public buyers of these companies, and scaring many retail investors from the IPO market in general
However, as with the market in general, not all IPOs behave similarly. Business networking site while certainly taking investors on an eventful ride, is at an all-time high from its May, 2011 $45 price and is now flirting with $200. Another tech company, an enterprise-focused ‘Big Data’ one called Splunk SPLK -0.25% also saw a big first day gain, another roller coaster ride, and now a steady climb to all-time highs.
While co-founder Jack Dorsey keeps saying that an offering isn’t in the cards anytime soon, Twitter’s the 800 pound gorilla standing on the IPOs sidelines. With private transactions earlier this year reportedly valuing the firm at $9 billion, Twitter would be the largest consumer internet IPO since Facebook’s. While it’s certainly smaller, the so-called ‘micro blogging’ service is bringing in substantial indoor Tracking, and is still just scratching the surface of its monetization potential. Reports have their making $600 million this year and over a $1 billion next year.
What makes Twitter particularly appealing is its mobile usage and focus on monetization through ‘native advertising.’ Twitter makes money through ad products like Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts. Different from more traditional online advertising and the often overabundance of display ads causing ‘banner blindness,’ Twitter’s offerings appear in the regular content stream of a user and work just like its regular content. A promoted tweet from a brand can appear right in line with tweets from your friends, celebrities or anyone else you’re following.
Founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Square is another often talk-about IPO candidate. A completely separate company, Square’s building a presence in the huge electronic payments business. Basically, they enable virtually anyone selling anything, from small shopkeepers to artists to service providers to easily and effortlessly accept plastic for payment on a mobile device. Simply run a buyer’s card through a small Square gadget that plugs into your smartphone or tablet and your payment is processed. Any sector of the economy that until now had not accepted credit cards can now enable their acceptance.
While not as well-known as some of the more consumer-focused web stories, Square is targeting a huge market with its mobile-based payment processing system. It’s built a great team from many of the tech sector’s leaders and is growing through attractive – low – processing fees that are critical for building small business and individuals’ usage. New products like the Square Register further support brick and mortar establishments and their payment processing needs.
Last year, they were already processing over $6 billion in payments and have one million customers. While not a household name yet, they inked a major deal with Starbucks last year and reportedly have a valuation over $3 billion. With a combined business and consumer focus, Square is likely to be another attractive offering when they approach the public equity markets.
With the extraordinary increases in all the data people are creating, from media files to documents to photos, it only takes one hiccup on your laptop to realize how much at risk your data is and how important backing it all up is. Dropbox is a growing player in this burgeoning market, providing an easy way to store your data safely and securely in the ‘cloud,’ rather than relying on your own computer or external hardware devices for backup.
Dropbox has built its business around what’s commonly called a freemium model, where basic services (i.e. a limited amount of storage) is available for free and more extensive services (i.e. more space) is available for a monthly fee. Towards the end of last year, they had over 100 million users and a reported valuation of $4 billion. While only a small percentage of those users are currently paying customers, they are making significant revenue; analysts have them as the largest player in the rapidly expanding file storage and sharing space by far.
What’s behind this apparent direction to the public markets? Well, Eventbrite recently announced an excess of $1.5 billion in total gross sales and 100 million tickets sold. The key part of their announcement relates to the growth acceleration they’re seeing. The company was founded in 2006 and they took about five years to reach a billion dollars in gross sales. However, the next half a billion dollars took only nine months to attain. With $600 million in gross ticket sales last year and its rapid growth rate, the company estimates $1 billion in ticket sales this year.
The company started with ticketing for small, often private events like reunions and professional events. It’s now expanding into larger entertainment type events like the Tribeca Film Festival and concerts from major acts like the Black Eyed Peas. While the company only makes money on a percent of tickets sold, it’s demonstrating a proven revenue-producing business model, something often not seen with many fast growing companies.
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