Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Iceberg of Voices


In challenging situations is when we need to harness our skills of innovation, wisdom, insight and empathy. I often say that business has a role to play in making the world a better place, but the same can be said for people – by being enthusiastic and energetic we can make this possible.

The Month of May tends to be the season when even the icebergs get into the news especially on the opening day so the 83rd winter season started and has been captured by the daily terror! Iceberg: Winning In The Age of Now - The ice and voices - Even forever now sad looking Dominic was smiling on Sunday

Come Fly With Me There's gotta be easier ways to make a living!...

Over the last seven days I've sat through 3 aborted airplane landings.

A week ago I was flying into Heathrow on British Airways and we were virtually on the ground. We were parallel with the roofs of the terminals when suddenly the pilot hit the accelerator and took the plane up vertically on its nose. Engines screeched, pressure increased, wheels went up and so did we. We screamed into the clouds and there was a fair bit of activity and noise in the cabin around me. The captain then came over the intercom and said we have been pretty close to an A380 and the wind following it had shaken us around. Being off balance the captain felt it was safer to hit wheels up and go around again. We landed safely.

• Saatchi & Saatch The Lovemarks Company Kevin Roberts CEO Worldwide; Samurai warriors used all of their physical and mental skills to ensure that failure wasn’t an option, and they shared their knowledge with others on how to be successful. The Way of the Samurai [ One-Word Exam; Science and art represent two completely different ways of thinking but they can both work together to give us a clearer picture of the whole. Kandel uses the example of anxiety to illustrate this point; a brain scan may reveal the neural signs of anxiety, but a painting can show what being in a state of anxiety feels like ]

• · In France Sarkozy gives way to Hollande, but what does that mean? Est-ce que 'Monsieur Normal' est normal? ; In a blog post that recounts his experience of walking the Formula One track in Abu Dhabi, and how ‘going against the grain’ can lead to great reward, Tim Leberecht makes an interesting point on the difference between speed and motion. “Speed, like happiness, is relative. Motion, on the other hand, is happiness’ absolute requirement. Motion is what holds it all together.” Once a shark stops swimming it dies. (The same can be said for relationships. As Bob Dylan said if you aren’t busy being born you are busy dying.) As Bob Dylan said if you aren’t busy being born you are busy dying

• · · Anyone who has faced a rival at work-a colleague threatened by your skills, a superior unwilling to acknowledge your good ideas, or a subordinate who undermines you-knows having adversarial dynamics can prove catastrophic for your career, and for your group or organization Make your enemies your allies; For more than 5 years, Marieke Hardy had been subject to vicious verbal abuse by a blogger using the alias "James Vincent McKenzie". In November 2011, Ms Hardy posted a comment on Twitter, accusing a Melbourne man, Joshua Meggitt, of being the true identity of the person harassing her in a series of "ranting, violent" passages online. She boasted to her 60,000 Twitter followers: "I name and shame my 'anonymous' internet bully. Liberating business! However, the identification was entirely inaccurate. Mr Meggitt has initiated defamation proceedings against Twitter, based in San Francisco, with his lawyer reportedly stating: "Twitter are [sic] a publisher, and at law anyone involved in the publication can be sued. It is the first time an Australian will sue Twitter for defamation. Twitter sued: next we'll be suing telephones for carrying gossip ; Hateful blogging

• · · · Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” recently sold for $120 million at an auction conducted by Sotheby’s in New York. ... Jeffery Yablon, a partner at the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman law firm in Washington who tracks memorable tax quotations, notes this one from Munch (as quoted in Sue Prideaux’s Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, Yale University Press, 2005): Was ‘The Scream’ Inspired by Munch’s Tax Return?, ; Taxes

• · · · · The verdict: is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it? London School of Economics: "Eager to find out what impact blogging and social media could have on the dissemination of her work, Melissa Terras took all of her academic research, including papers that have been available online for years, to the web and found that her audience responded with a huge leap in interest in her work." is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it? ; The power academic journals hold is incredible and it does not seem that academics have done enough to challenge their power. Why not open-access journals? ; Murdoch remains a grand vizier, pulling the strings and being the ventriloquist of political puppets Strings of power: Rupert Murdoch and the Leveson Inquiry

• · · · · · Eric Kroh reviews the movie We're Not Broke, a documentary about corporate tax avoidance. How do you make corporate tax avoidance interesting? That was the dilemma facing filmmakers Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce as they made their documentary We're Not Broke, which attempts to explain the consequences of corporations seeking to minimize their tax exposure, politicians who help them do it, and a public that is kept in the dark. We're Not Broke,; The name of the film comes from the argument promulgated mostly by Republican policymakers and their supporters that the United States is "broke," which they use to justify a platform of less government spending and tax cuts that primarily benefit large corporations and high-income individuals. Bouncing Czechs according to Mark D’arcy ; At the moment, because we live with the myth that we're a high-tax country, because we live with the myth that the government is our enemy, we're setting ourselves up for unsustainable budget deficits that will lead ultimately to a financial, economic calamity of a magnitude completely unappreciated by the average American How to tackle corporate tax loopholes