And you thought you didn’t need to take ethics

If you ever aspire to be a top banker at a Bank in Britain – you better know your ethics! Just announced – “senior bankers will face new tests to see if they are ethical enough to run large financial institutions.” Given all of our recent economic problems – perhaps this should be a requirement in the U.S. as well…and for all top managers!!! Of course, if you are unethical I guess you can fake your ethics for the test.

Nap Rooms at Work?

I have always thought there should be “nap rooms” in companies – where exhausted employees could take a quick snooze. It could have an automatic wake up function to prevent sleeping – say – more than 30 minutes. I think overall productivity would increase!

Johns Hopkins Health Alerts:

Another Reason to Nap <http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/memory/JohnsHopkinsHealthAlertsMemory_3177-1.html?ET=johnshopkins_blog:e32493:15333a:&st=email&st=email&s=EMH_091102_005>

German researchers conducted two experiments involving 26 university students ages 20 to 29. In the first experiment, the volunteers were asked to memorize 30 adjectives within two minutes and then to recall as many as possible after either a one-hour nap or one hour of waking activities. Each participant was tested in both the napping and waking conditions, and the experiments were repeated one week after the first testing sessions.

The results showed that the students performed significantly better after napping, and their performance was not affected by the time spent in slow-wave sleep (deep sleep). The second experiment tested participants for word recall after no nap, a long nap (35 minutes), and a short nap (six minutes).

Bottom line: The students performed the best after the long nap, but even the very brief nap significantly boosted memory processing compared with no nap at all. It may be that sleep onset itself activates memory consolidation and once the process is triggered it remains effective, even when sleep time is cut short.

Reflections on Life

I don’t usually write about personal things, but I thought this was important enough to share. This part March, I gave birth to twins. They were about 2 months early, prompted by a low heart rate detected for one baby.  When he came out, he did not have a heart beat for 7 minutes. I was knocked out at the time, but they told my husband that the baby would die.  The next few weeks were torturous, as we didn’t know just how damaged he would be from oxygen deprivation. The first few days they implied that there was not much hope. Then he developed had a blockage in his brain that was causing fluid to build up, there was some bleeding in the brain.  A few weeks later, he developed an infection and a blood clot in his heart, and it seemed like the problems were piling up rather than going down.  But, slowly, he started to “come to life.” He could breathe on his own, then eat, etc. Finally – two months later – we got the MRI back and it showed no brain damage (he does have some hearing loss and may have some developmental problems as time passes) Every nurse and Dr. there said it was a miracle. The chances of him recovering like that after 7 minutes of CPR were so small.

As life slowly returns to normal, I feel that a new peace has entered my life. I was one of the lucky ones. There were so many things that if they happened a few minutes (or seconds) earlier or later – we would have seen a VERY different ending.  Everyday now is a gift because I am not in mourning.

I’m a realist and I know that I’ll be sucked into the everyday of life, worrying about publications or my new grey hairs (lately, its the wrinkles that are really bugging me), etc….but I hope that I can hold on to this feeling for a while longer.

Cash for Clunkers

How can we get Americans to buy lots of new cars?  Disguise it as an environmental program!   If we really wanted to encourage SUSTAINED demand for more fuel efficient vehicles we would implement market mechanisms to encourage consumers over the long term. This could include rebates, tax incentives and – yes – even higher fuel costs.

If cash for clunkers is a program to really improve the environment, why are there significant rebates for only modest fuel economy increases and why do you need to purchase a NEW car?  Instead, we could offer an incentive that increases with increase in fuel economy resulting from the trade AND let people exchange a car for a certified used vehicles. That way you not only get a fuel economy increase but you avoid the environmental impact of producing a new car.

For those who say that this program helps local dealers – exactly how many jobs are we saving for our billions of dollars?  How about pouring that money into infrastructure improvements or job retraining, where the employment bang for the buck would be much higher?

Cell Phone Scams – Verizon is GUILTY

Last week my husband read something online about a person encountering unexplained charges on phone bills. Following a hunch, he decided to take another look at our phone bill and we noticed a charge called “premium text package”. I had been paying this charge for months, assuming it was the text package that came with his phone.  We called Verizon and they said it was a charge from a third party that neither of us recalled authorizing. She said that it happens all the time when people put in their cell phone to get “free” ring tones or when they complete online “IQ” tests.  They unknowingly enter an agreement to pay money from some service (we can’t even figure out what this service is).  The same day we discovered this charge – I found out that a friend of mine also had lost a few hundred dollars with the same problem on both his home AND cell phone. Clearly something unethical is going on. First is the hidden contractual agreement that people have entered into. The second is the phone company adding things to our bill without consulting us first – PARTICULARLY when they know that this is a common scam that is costing their customers hundreds of dollars. What made it worse is that they listed it on the bill in a way that made it seem like it was a normal charge.  While this may be legal, it is clearly not ethical.  Take the high road Verizon and help your customers protect themselves! (Note that my friend was using AT&T wireless – so they are guilty too)

Government Information Suppressed at the Cost of Human Life

A few years back I remembered hearing that even with hands-free use of phones, using cell phones while driving caused so much distraction that it was similar to drinking and driving. Given these findings, I was waiting for the ban on cell phone use while driving to happen – but it never did.  Now, information has come to light that these findings were SUPPRESSED – and there is some evidence that the officials were threatened with funding cuts if they went forward with this information and encouraged a ban on driving while using cell phones. What I don’t understand is who, exactly, is threatened by this ban? People won’t stop buying cell phones. People won’t stop driving. The worst that will happen is that people will have to give up the luxury of talking while driving.  I think its worth the annoyance if it means I might save my own life, or the life of others.

Announcing the Sustainable Print Systems Laboratory at RIT

The Sustainable Print Systems Laboratory (SPSL) at RIT is a collaborative of researchers at RIT focused on understanding sustainability issues in printing systems.  The main objective of the Lab is to develop insights and tools specific to the print industry that can be used by product development practitioners to better integrate environmental, social and economic considerations into their R&D decision-making process. In support of this overarching objective, the Lab focuses on projects that are:

Relevant: of interest to a range of printer and printing supply companies. In particular, projects need to consider the entire value chain of the print
industry, as well as the entire product life-cycle.

System-level and multi-disciplinary: having the unifying theme of strategic business or product development decision making. The main contribution that SPSL can make is to study the problem holistically and leverage the extensive resources both at RIT and within the Print Industry.

Innovative: involving technical and inventive approaches to reach solutions. While the decisions may be business or product development focused, they ultimately need to relate to technical decisions facing the print industry, a particular print value chain, or specific organization within that chain.

Learn more at http://sustainable.print.rit.edu/

Jack Welsh Takes on the Shareholder Focused Strategy

In a recent Financial Times Article, Jack Welsh stated:

“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world,” he said. “Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy…your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.”

(Link to Article)
This is an idea that reflects what is taught in our Business, Government and Society – Namely, that successful business strategies don’t focus solely on shareholder profit maximization – but on all stakeholders. This is in contrast to a speech made by Welsh in 1981, which many saw as a full fledged endorsement of the idea that maximizing shareholder value is what should drive business strategy.  Welsh, however, has changed his tune.  The FT article states:

“Mr Welch said last week he never meant to suggest that setting, and meeting, profit expectations quarter after quarter in an effort to boost a company’s share price should be the main goal of corporate executives. “It is a dumb idea,” he said. “The idea that shareholder value is a strategy is insane. It is the product of your combined efforts – from the management to the employees”.”

In legal terms, many stakeholders are called “residual claimants.” Since firms have a legal obligation to all  residual claimants, the claim that managers have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder wealth is not true. Managers have an obligation to balance their obligation to all residual claimants.  Of course, this balancing act is not an easy one, particularly when our  financial system gives such weight to short term shareholder returns. But busting the shareholder focused strategy myth is the first step – its nice to see that Welsh is finally recognizing that!

The True Cost of Global Warming

For a laugh

Dan-imal Planet: Polar Bears

the 80s in a Nutshell

Someone passed 80s Wendy’s training video to me and I started cracking up. This is the 80s in a nutshell!

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