Nobody epitomizes the fame obtainable by a professor more than Alan Dershowitz. The Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School racked up 5,778 media mentions between 1995 and 2000, making him the 12th-most-mentioned among both the living and dead, according to Richard Posner’s critical look at the production of popular work by academics, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. (If anything, his visibility has only increased since then.) Dershowitz has published 12 books since 2000, of which only two were for university presses. Last year, he also wrote 13 op-eds and one law review article. He’s big on the speaking circuit and also finds the time to take on high-profile criminal and civil cases, such as that of Harvard donor Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier charged with soliciting prostitution. Dershowitz blogs for the Huffington Post, and he also repackages his own work; Blasphemy: How the Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence, released this year, is his 2003 book America Declares Independence almost verbatim, with a few new chapters tacked on.
Project Information Project life cycle: Ongoing Project's area of focus: A self-sustaining, community-led, driven and managed social security system.
the fear among some is that the US is softening up world opinion for an attack on Iran. Such an attack would be aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities. At the moment, the US lacks a casus belli and by claiming that Iran is responsible for killing USA troops, it could be laying the groundwork for a 'self-defence' justification, according to this theory.
I'd never joke about anti-Semitism, not least because my Jewish friends tell me increasingly about the "civilised" or "respectable" version of it that they find creeping into everyday life - notably, it seems, in the BBC's coverage of the Middle East, which appears to uphold the view that Israel is evil and an international Jewish conspiracy is trying to take over the world (Adolf Hitler, q.v.). But can it be right that Lord Levy is being "hung out to dry" in the cash-for-honours case because, as his rabbi has said, he is Jewish? I very much doubt it. You might think there are all sorts of reasons why Lord Levy deserves to be locked up and the key thrown away that have nothing to do with his ethnicity - his invention of Alvin Stardust being principal among them. The main reason most of us know Lord Levy is Jewish is that he has made such a big deal of telling everyone what a prominent member of the Jewish community he is: he can't have it both ways.
To be sure, Rand makes a key point about altruism. A philosophy of sacrificing for others can lead to a political system that mandates sacrificing for others. That, Rand shows with frightening clarity, leads to a dysfunctional society of deadbeats and bleeding-heart do-gooders (Rand calls them "looters") who are corrupted by benefits and unearned income, and constantly tax the productive citizens to pay for their pet philanthropic missions. According to Rand, they are "anti-life."
"....Why do you need other people? Can't you just think of new ideas yourself? The empirical answer is: no. Even Einstein needed people to bounce ideas off. Ideas get developed in the process of explaining them to the right kind of person. You need that resistance, just as a carver needs the resistance of the wood.
Initially the students worked on selling the blank T-shirts to colleges within the university, where they could be screen-printed with appropriate logos. They also created a generic T-shirt that promoted the initiative. They sold for $10-$15 each and in total the students sold more than 1,500 T-shirts. That was clearly not enough to generate real social change, says Prof Smith. “The ultimate mission is to maximise the value in Africa. To be honest, to scale this we need to roll it out across the world.”
Steven Pinker Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chapter to appear in L. R. Gleitman, M. Liberman, and D. N. Osherson (Eds.), An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd Ed. Volume 1: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. NONFINAL VERSION: PLEASE DO NOTE QUOTE.
To Pentagon researchers, capturing and categorizing every aspect of a person's life is only the beginning.
Recently on Teach42, I took a little survey to find out what people's favorite Web 2.0 websites were. I was more than a little surprised by the clear winner, del.icio.us.
The Sole of Africa is a campaign created by the Mineseeker Foundation. The Foundation works to remove landmines from previous old battlefields. Thus, returning killing fields to agricultural use. The Mineseeker Foundation is also working to end hunger and generate sustainable economic development in 70 areas around the world. Its list of patrons and supporters is impressive. It includes: Nelson Mandela, Queen Noor, Sir Richard Branson, John Paul DeJoria and many other notables (check its website for a more complete list).
I've long suggested that modularity is a key element in the success of open source as well as a key element of success in Web 2.0. In a talk a couple of days ago at Eric von Hippel's Innovation Lab meeting held at the Googleplex, Ely Dahan of UCLA reported on some work with prediction markets (which he prefers to call preference markets [pdf]). It turns out that modularity is important there too. In one experiment, with various designs of laptop bags, the prediction market failed, but worked very well when they focused on individual features that distinguished the designs. It was interesting to see this same theme emerge in a very different context. Modularity breaks down a problem to the level where it can be grasped by a single individual or a small group. It also allows people to respond to features that matter to them rather than to the entire package.
The Amazing Change campaign encourages people to sign a petition to end modern-day slavery, donate to the cause, and learn how they can take an active part in the movement. A percentage of funds donated will help four nonprofit groups (Free the Slaves, International Justice Mission, Rugmark, and Child Voice International) collect evidence, go to court to free people from current forms of slavery, and help former slaves establish a new life.
My thesis is simply this: to know something of this song's meaning is to comprehend both the Eastern Orthodox faith and Dostoevsky's greatest novel.
Social entrepreneurs should find the above examples pregnant with meaning. In line with my observation that there world is full of innovation, but not of people who recognise it when they see it, Chipchase states: The tough part of the job is in using the data to inform, inspire and affect how my colleagues think and what they do.
There has been interest in neuroethics for years - the ethical dilemmas involved in everything from brain scans to cognitive enhancement drugs have been long apparent to neuroscientists. Recent research seems to have brought renewed attention the field, as reported in Reuters: Call for “neuroethics” as brain science races ahead. I suppose the mere fact that the big news agency put the word in quotes indicates that for a lot of people neuroethics is a brand-new concept.
in corporate America, top-down information flow remains the rule. And nowhere is that more true than in the sales department (check out a salesforce.com user hierarchy to see what I mean). And it's hurting businesses, especially when they sell complex products.
There isn't a lot that we can do to change human nature. Resistance to change is here to stay, but that doesn't mean it's insurmountable. We can - we must - learn to present our innovative ideas in ways that overcome the natural inertia resident in all of us. In short, we need to learn to sell our ideas.
companies and society are not in different camps; they are in the same boat. Companies cannot thrive in corrupt, enervated, impoverished societies; and the train of social progress will move much faster with locomotives of private enterprise at its head. If you start from the premise that business and society are interdependent, CSR becomes an opportunity, not a duty.
You head up a multimillion-dollar company built on your brand. How are you as a manager? I’m tough but fair. I always communicate clearly what I expect to be done, and then I always inspect what I expect. I’m very easy to get along with as long as people do their best and take responsibility for any mistake they make. If someone comes to me and says “Larry, I screwed up, and I’m sorry, and here’s what I plan to do to fix it, and I need your help in this way,” that goes a long way with me. But if someone lies to me, or shirks their responsibility, they’re done.
The first thing that becomes clear is that successful professionals are working harder than ever. The 40-hour workweek, it seems, is a thing of the past. Even the 60-hour workweek, once the path to the top, is now practically considered part-time, as a recent Fortune magazine article put it. Our data reveal that 62% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week, 35% work more than 60 hours a week, and 10% work more than 80 hours a week. Add in a typical one-hour commute, and a 60-hour workweek translates into leaving the house at 7 am and getting home at 9 pm five days a week. If we focus on the subset of those workers who hold what we consider extreme jobs (a designation based on responsibilities and other attributes beyond pay), the hours are even more punishing. The majority of them (56%) work 70 hours or more a week, and 9% work 100 hours or more.
We’ve paired these articles partly as a thought experiment: Wouldn’t it be fascinating if a company adopted the Porter/Kramer approach—essentially marrying its strategy and its CSR investments—but invested in disruptive social sector innovations? That company might just change the world, for the better.
Creating a social dimension to the value proposition. At the heart of any strategy is a unique value proposition: a set of needs a company can meet for its chosen customers that others cannot. The most strategic CSR occurs when a company adds a social dimension to its value proposition, making social impact integral to the overall strategy.
Assess the business models. Just because an organization has come up with a good idea for systemic social change doesn’t mean that it will succeed in implementing that change. At this third stage in the evaluation of a potential catalytic innovation, assess whether the group’s business model can allow it not only to effectively introduce the innovation but also to scale it up and sustain it. Organizations that have aligned their resources, processes, and values according to the five catalytic-innovation criteria to support their innovations are most likely to succeed. That means investors or donors should look for organizations whose work in one location is transferable to other locations and that have produced the same results elsewhere, for example. It also means investors should seek candidates that turn down funders that would require them to alter their models in ways that are incompatible with catalytic-innovation principles. Keep in mind that tax classification—for profit versus nonprofit—is not a useful criterion for identifying catalytic innovators. While the business models for the two types may differ, neither has an automatic advantage in addressing social challenges. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar recognized this fact when he and his wife, Pam, restructured their grant-making organization, the Omidyar Foundation, as the Omidyar Network so that it could make gifts in support of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations that focus on social change.
innovators share five qualities: 1. They create systemic social change through scaling and replication. 2. They meet a need that is either overserved (because the existing solution is more complex than many people require) or not served at all. 3. They offer products and services that are simpler and less costly than existing alternatives and may be perceived as having a lower level of performance, but users consider them good enough. 4. They generate resources in ways that are initially unattractive to incumbent competitors. 5. They are often ignored, disparaged, or even encouraged by existing players for whom the business model is unprofitable or otherwise unattractive and who therefore avoid or retreat from the market segment.”
There are several MBA programs with a strong program in Social Entrepreneurship. Visit www.UniversityNetwork.org to see a full list of schools and links to their programs. Go to the teaching section, then Universities. Duke, Stanford, NYU and Oxford have some of the best programs. Many universities are also in the process of developing their own programs and have several classes.
Peter is both a successful feature film producer, and a successful social entrepreneur. He is the founder of three philanthropies that together have raised (as reported in his 2005 Skoll Forum biography) over $150 million for disadvantaged children.
IN our celebrity-studded world, where we make a cult of genius and individual achievement, the mind rebels at the notion that geography trumps personality. Yet the inescapable lesson of the iPod, Google, eBay, Netflix and Silicon Valley in general is that where you live often trumps who you are.
Democratizing Innovation is available from the MIT Press Web site in an electronic format at no cost, provided that its use is for non-commercial purposes and proper attribution is made, otherwise it sells for $32.00/£20.95.
In Extremis Leadership (IEL) is distinctly different than Crisis Leadership. Generally, Crisis Leadership is not asked for, nor is it required on a daily basis... most people who find themselves in a crisis would probably not choose to live that way all the time.
In Extremis Leadership: adj. at the point of death - giving purpose, direction, and motivation to people when there is eminent physical danger, and where followers believe that leader behavior will influence their physical well-being or survival.
Joseph Conrad once wrote that his purpose as a novelist was simply "to make you see." According to Viktor Shklovsky -- the influential Russian formalist critic of the 1920s and '30s -- our daily, automatic routines leach all the freshness from existence, so that we no longer experience the wonder of the people and life around us. Art's purpose, consequently, is to "defamiliarize" the familiar, to shake up our dulled perceptions, to reinvest the dingy, gray and arthritic universe with richness, color, vitality.
Senator Robert A. Taft, objected to the NATO treaty, saying that it involved unforeseeable commitments. (We can only imagine what he would have made of NATO in Afghanistan today.) He was, on the other hand, in favor of "international law defining the duties and obligations of nations ...international courts...and joint armed force to enforce the law and the decisions of that court." He felt the UN did not yet fulfill this ideal "but it goes a long way in that direction."
Even when companies do carefully consider the economic and social impacts of their products on the poor, they may still face reputational threats if their BOP ventures are seen as "excessively profitable."
Even when companies do carefully consider the economic and social impacts of their products on the poor, they may still face reputational threats if their BOP ventures are seen as "excessively profitable." Of course, it can be argued that without this profit, businesses targeting the poor will not attract the level of investment necessary to be sustainable or scaleable across the entire BOP. According to this view, above-average profitability should be seen as a sign of success, one that will no doubt invite competition and thereby bring down prices, ultimately benefiting the poor. To minimize negative public perception, however, companies that find that they are "profiting from the poor" must be willing to publicly address the profit debate, work collaboratively with NGOs and governments, and also measure and report on the social value they are creating for the poor.
This year's Oxford Skoll Forum will focus on enabling social innovation. It's an interesting problem: we aren't very good at recognising and supporting innovation . . .
The Nature of Creative Development is about the creative development of individuals engaged in creative endeavors, across a wide range of fields, including the arts, business, science, technology, the social sciences and humanities, and public policy. The book presents a theoretical description of creative development, outlined below. The theory is illustrated with extensive case study material, drawn from two sources: interviews I have conducted with individuals in different fields engaged in creative work; and the study of biographical materials of individuals famous for their creative contributions, including Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Galileo, John Maynard Keynes, Piet Mondrian, Ray Kroc, John von Neumann, Rachel Carson, Pierre Omidyar of eBay, and others.
As my late former colleague on this page, Frank Johnson, noticed, even before Tony Blair reached Downing Street: "They can't nationalise companies any more, so they've decided to nationalise people." Much of the territory for this struggle has been in the area of "rights". Labour moved away from the traditional understanding of rights as processes that protect people against arbitrary power, such as the right to silence or habeas corpus. Indeed, they have attacked such rights vigorously. Their idea of rights was much more all-embracing, and much more moralistic. It was not enough, for example, that ethnic minorities or homosexuals should have the same rights as everyone else. It must be asserted, and enforced in law, that these groups were good. It followed that the opponents of such laws were bad.
If these apps are to achieve use and value beyond fun and novelty, however, they need to become more effective, and they need to address real, urgent, important needs and problems. I would suggest there are at least four urgent needs/problems that SNAs could, and hopefully will, fulfil: 1. Finding people to love and live with 2. Finding people to make a living with 3. Finding people who share important or urgent affinities (and then enabling them to organize, activate, and exchange context-rich information peer-to-peer with those people, such as health counsel and 'epinions') 4. Enabling powerful virtual collaboration when face-to-face is, for economic or logistic reasons, impossible
Enterprise Knowledge Platform, BrainEKP™, an easy-to-use system for organizing and sharing information. BrainEKP connects your people, processes, and information in a single interface so you can see and share your thinking.
Registration is under way for the 2007 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at https://www.oxforduniversityshops.co.uk/sbsCPG. This annual event will take place March 27-29, 2007, at Said Business School at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. To view more information about the 2007 program, schedule and fees, click here: http://www.skollfoundation.org/skollcentre/swf2007.pdf
Some of these editions (all in print) should be familiar from period paper work, and are useful for ease of reference and instructive for the different ways they attempt to rationalise the extremely complex state of Donne's texts. Students for this paper, however, should not only familiarise themselves with the competing claims of old- and modern-spelling editions, but also of printed editions vs. manuscripts as copy texts, by using the scholarly editions in I.2 (below) on which these student texts are based.
Already, with your help, we have been able to bring sixty acres of arid land under cultivation as a result of the construction of a new dam.
Lending money directly to people is a great way to earn a fair return. And when you make lots of small loans rather than one or two big ones, you spread your risk out and ensure a more reliable return. It's called diversification and the pros do it every day. Here's how it works.
"Over the past few years, various initiatives have been proposed to equip Third World countries -- especially those in Africa -- with cheap computers. Believers in the concept that computers will solve all the world's ills are behind much of this. . . . " 'The fact that these people need electricity more than they need a laptop is only part of the problem,' he says. 'The real problem is lost mind share. The people are harmed because these sorts of schemes are sopping up mind-share time of the people who might be doing something actually useful.'
In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind, MBA students at Harvard Business School recently analyzed the financial returns generated by 110 early-stage companies backed by Investors' Circle, a national network dedicated to early-stage investments in companies that "deliver commercial solutions to social and environmental problems."
Batchelor asks whether the IMF and OECD, with their statistics and highly qualified analysts, might contribute to forecast accuracy beyond what is offered by the private firms. Batchelor used a two-tailed significance test on whether these forecasts do better than the consensus. He examined forecasts for the G7 countries for seven years (1990-1996) using three starting points for each year for six variables. In all, there were comparisons for 1,200 forecasts. Using the Mean Absolute Errors, the consensus forecasts were superior to the OECD and IMF forecasts on 23 of 27 comparisons (summarized by variable by starting month). On average, the combined forecast error was 9.6% less than the IMF forecast and 8.1% less than the OECD forecast. These gains are in line with the estimate that combining will reduce the error by about 12% versus a single component forecast (Armstrong, 2001). Batchelor then examined whether the Consensus Forecasts would be improved through the addition of the OECD and IMF forecasts. It was not, which is not surprising given the large number of forecasts included in the combined forecasts; the results for combining suggest that the gains in accuracy from adding forecasts become small after one has combined five forecasts (Armstrong, 2001).
The Selection Tree provides a more effective scheme for selecting forecasting methods for a problem. In addition to explicitly covering more methods, improvements have been made in the decision nodes. Also, the nodes are explained more clearly. Simply, place your mouse over the topic of interest.
All of the evidence supports the conclusion that competitor-oriented objectives are harmful. However, this evidence has had only a modest impact on academic research and it seems to be largely ignored by managers. Until this situation changes, we expect that many firms will continue to use competitor-oriented objectives to the detriment of their profitability. Key words: competition, market share, objectives, profitability.
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