Since I don't see myself updating the blog anytime soon (at least until graduation next year) I am selling the Tidalnetworks.com Domain.
This is probably the last post for a few months:
1- dotSub, videosite with captions in many languages, users can also add new translations.
The Major Challenges facing humanity and awaiting an engineering solution. An effort by the National Academy of Engineering. "The focus was not to find what could be invented, but what needed to be invented"
The List:
Maps covering topics ranging from disease (turberculosis, malaria, influenza) to military expenditure, civil liberities, minority rights, climate change, competitiveness, corporate governance and many others...
MISSION STATEMENT Serve as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders
Also check the resources section: route 21
Mission:
Mission
To support social entrepreneurs with their recruitment and hiring needs at every organizational level, to provide resources for socially driven jobseekers, and to address talent related issues throughout the sector.
"...Its agenda emphasizes global macroeconomic topics, international money and finance, trade and related social issues, energy and the environment, investment, and domestic adjustment measures. Current priority is attached to China, globalization (including its financial aspects) and the backlash against it, global trade imbalances and currency misalignments, the competitiveness of the United States and other major countries, reform of the international financial architecture, and new trade negotiations at the multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels...."
Mission: The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) helps developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their fight against marginalization in today's globalized world. It mobilizes knowledge, skills, information and technology to promote productive employment, a competitive economy and a sound environment.
Portfolio Magazine, a refreshing recent addition to the business section compiled the following list of blogs:
(Click on graphic or Title to visit link)In their words:
The Max Planck Institute for Human Development is a multidisciplinary research establishment dedicated to the study of human development and education. Its inquiries are broadly defined, but concentrate on the evolutionary, social, historical, and institutional contexts of human development, as well as examining it from life-span and life-course perspectives.
(Click on Graphic to visit site)
and Simple Heuristics
(two excellent books) is co-director of the institute.Hans Rosling's talk at TED talk in 2006 was a rare example of charts being both informative and fun.
Gapminder World is a powerful learning and presentation tool.
Big hat-tip to the New York Times, today for this:
Two really good Journals from MIT Press:
The book is at times as enjoyable to read as a Malcolm Gladwell book, slows down a few chapters in but is nonetheless quite interesting.
You can also read the original article that spawned the book here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
Be that person that actually read the book being cited.
Interesting methods in deconstructing how thinking work.
Generally interesting, both in terms of the dynamics of the tech industry and the actions behind a turn-around plan.
Highlighted feature: Video and Audio of Jeff Sachs' speeches under his Bio.
Talks from TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) events. Extremely diverse but always interesting.
Two excellent Blogs:
'Applied Imagination' By Steve Dahlberg focuses on creativity and competitiveness.
'Presentation Zen' By Garr Reynolds highlights great presentation methods.
"Applied Imagination"
"Presentation Zen"
Some recently read books that were interesting and valuable:
(Direct links from Amazon's afilliate program, buy from the site of your choice!)
Systems Thinking
Marketing
Business Process Improvement
Value Stream Mapping in low volume high mix environments
Capitalism: key ingredients
Cognitive Science: human judgement
Linking strategy with metrics
China Leadership monitor, Stanford.
China in the red, a video broadcast by Frontline.
Learn Mandarin: (Audio, Text)
ChinesePod.com
Mandarin Lessons with Serge Melnyk
Books:
"The vision of the Open Business Guide is to share, mix and facilitate the spread of innovative business ideas. Here the entrepreneurial community can share success stories and failures. From both we can learn."
Articles and book excerpts from Maclom Gladwell, author of: "The Tipping Point" and "Blink".
(Marketing, Management, and much more.)
A partnership between the WSJ, InformationWeek and Optimize. Seems this site will have IT focused stories, case studies, etc.
"The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness is dedicated to the study of competition and its implications for company strategy; the competitiveness of nations, regions, and cities; and the relationship between competition and society."
(Click on graphic to open link)
"Project Syndicate is an international association of 230 newspapers in 108 countries, devoted to the following objectives:
bringing distinguished voices from around the world to informed national audiences so as to create a global forum for broadening debate and exchanging ideas;..."
Commentary from Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Charles Taylor, and many others.
4 blogs by Businessweek: 'Brand new day', 'Deal flow', 'Tech beat', and 'Well spent'
ResearchChannel is a consortium of research universities and corporate research divisions dedicated to broadening the access to and appreciation of our individual and collective activities, ideas, and opportunities in basic and applied research.
Interactive tutorials and audio-video presentations from the Economics network.%202%2013%202005%2012%2048%2056%20PM.jpg)
(click on graphic to open page)
" ChangeThis is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.
We're on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds."
Regular readers of HBR are quite familiar with Nick Carr and his May 2003 article: 'IT doesn't matter.'
Here's a link to his site,featuring his latest book and other discussions:
NGC
And, a couple of related articles:
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/04213?pg=0 [S+B: Free registration required]
http://www.cio.com/archive/050104/carr.html [CIO.com]
Deloitte, like most other consulting firms, offers case studies and research focusing on business strategy and enterprise value creation.
You can also order books for free from their: Straight Talk Series.
(Deloitte)
Prize announcements, lectures , interviews with winners...
(Nobel videos)
Most everyone heard of the Gallup organization and its polls.
In this management journal Gallup also offers other business insights collected from its research on "human nature and behavior".
(click to open the website in a new window)
E.O Wilson, Ray Kurzweil, Benoit Mandelbrot are some of the names that appear weekly on Edge for interviews and discussions.
A wide range of topics covering science and philosophy.
(Edge)
From the website:
"Each episode of FRONTLINE/World features two or three "short stories" told by a diverse group of reporters and video journalists. These first-person stories will take viewers on adventurous journeys to foreign lands from Argentina to Zimbabwe." "By presenting viewers with compelling stories from around the planet, the series aims to not only help fill the void in current international news coverage but also to engage the American public in global stories that resonate in their own lives."
(Program also airs on PBS, check your local listings.)
Game theory is a branch of mathematics that uses models to study interactions with formalized incentive structures ("games"). It has applications in a variety of fields, including economics, evolutionary biology, political science, and military strategy. Game theorists study the predicted and actual behavior of individuals in games, as well as optimal strategies. From the Game theory article on Wikipedia.
(Also from wikipedia, the most commonly used beginners example in game theory: The prisoner's dilemma)
Here are a few other links on Game Theory and its applications:
Gametheory.net:a portal with many links to lecture notes,articles.
An interesting article, with examples of how game theory is used in FCC auctions, Intel/AMD price war and other applications.
And this is a link to a lecture [audio] from the Stanford GSB.
The following link is to Mckinsey, again a management & strategy consulting firm.
The MGI offers research publications on the state of local and global economies as well as forecasts covering industries and future opportunities.
You can also subscribe to the monthly newsletter and more frequent topic alerts, from your choice of industries,regions or functions, on the MckinseyQuarterly website. (I have been a subscriber for while and I have never received an uninteresting email. However, some are for premium subscribers only.)
Management/Strategy consulting firms will always be prominently represented on this blog. The research papers they publish are usually key for understanding the dynamics of industries/markets, consumer behavior, economic growth opportunities, etc.
The following link is form Mercer. Click on 'Perspectives' and choose one of the options [Whitepapers, specialty journals, articles,...] for interesting reports.
(Mercer MC)
I got this article last week from s+b, a previously recommended magazine. It mentions how Dell is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better serve its customers.
So I decided to post a couple of articles about how AI and business are coming together, and, a link to Ray Kurzweil's AI website.[about Ray Kurzweil]
Recommended Wired articles:
-It's Alive!
(Don't miss the linkbox inside the introduction for the different examples of AI applications)
-A Machine With a Mind of Its Own
(Kurzweil AI Website)
MIT's open courseware offers a considerable number of courses covering all disciplines of study at MIT. Some offer few class notes and others offer in-depth and interactive material.
(MIT open courseware)
Fathom used to be a fee-based educational website by institutions like Columbia university, The London school of economics, The science museum and others. Now it offers its archives for free.
(Fathom)
Both RedHerring and FastCompany are great magazines to read. The links below point to their respective blogs.
(Fast Company blog)
(RedHerring Blog)
The two links below include publications on worldwide economic and demographic trends.
I have already linked to one of the Goldman publications.
Also, the IMF has tons of interesting data, research papers and videos. However, The design of the whole website is not user friendly. But if you are patient you might find something like this. (A summary of the international financial system from 1871 to 1999)
(IMF: World economic outlook)
(Click on image to open in new window)
(Goldman Sachs research insights)
(Click on image to open in new window)
NASA has many initiatives to share the wealth of technologies and expertise.
The following page includes links to some, including:
-NASA small business innovation research/technology transfer.
-NASA technology portal.
-NASA SpinOff
(NASA: Innovation Partnership Program)
L
Quoting the blog's author: "My name is Joe Kraus and Bnoopy is a blog about entrepreneurship -- thoughts, lessons learned, open questions. It's all stuff I'm thinking about right now in the midst of starting a new company. My background is that I was one of the founders of Excite. Then I co-founded DigitalConsumer.org and now, I've got a new project still in stealth mode."
(Bnoopy: an entrepreneurship blog.)
There are a few blogs that definitely need to be highlighted. I will try to post some, hopefully sticking to the 5 main subjects of 'links-eyed':
Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Business, and, Strategy.
I will start with Venture blog because it covers all five.
The contributors are investors and high-tech entrepreneurs.
The posts cover:'Conferences, Entrepreneurial Success,Legal Issues, Management Issues, Presenting Your Company, Semiconductors, Software, The Economy & Finance' and many others.
(Venture Blog: a random walk down sand hill road)
Whenever you feel like using your energy and skills for a good cause, you should consider the vast opportunities in social entrepreneurship.
Here are a few links that will provide some information about joining or starting and managing a succesful social enterprise.
(Socialedge: online community for social entrepreneurs)
(Social enterprise at Harvard Business School)
(Net Impact: Business leaders for a better world)
L
Strategy+Business is a very interesting magazine published by Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy consulting firm.
Topics range from HR to the science of complexity management [s+b34 recommended].
And, unlike HBR, you can read most of the articles online by doing a quick free registration.
(Strategy+Business:click on graphic to open page in new window.)
For anyone not familiar with the term a Think-Tank is: 'a research institute or other organization providing advice and ideas on national or commercial problems; an interdisciplinary group of specialist consultants.'-OED
There are dozens of think-tanks but the following 3 are my personal favorites for in-depth research, analysis and forecasts.
(Rand Corporation)
(The Brookings Institution)
(The Cato Institute)
(Click on the picture to open in new window)
This page mainly includes recommendations from business school professors.
The books are very diverse and the short summaries are quite informative.
Commanding heights is a six hour documentary based on the book by the same title.
You can watch the full documentary online (in short clips), and, get more in-depth information for several countries, covering economic and geopolitical issues.
Very insightful points of view and cases, for anyone interested in globalization.
enjoy,
L
Another, link from Stanford.
This time it's from the graduate school of business.
(Speakers, Conferences, etc)
The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) educators corner:a comprehensive site for entrepreneurs; covering a wide range of topics from building a good founding team to product marketing, financials, and many others.
(STVP)
Two great links from two great authors:
Tom Peters (In search of excellence, Re-Imagine)
and Jim Collins(Built to last,Good to Great)
Focus on: :Leadership &business strategies.
Tom Peters
Jim Collins
To check (on websites) : presentations, ideas, lectures, articles and case studies.
Further reading
I believe Industrial design is a great example of how creativity is used to balance form and function.
Today's first link is to IDEO one of the best (and best-known) design firms. You can browse their projects gallery, see conceptual designs and read about the design process.
(IDEO)
The second link is to the industrial design society of america (IDSA). Make sure you visit the design awards [IDEA] galleries.
IDSA
The following is a link to a page that displays Google news in a visual format. It could also be configured according to your preferences.
(click on graphic to open page)
Speeches by CEO's of major companies, nobel prize winners & other leaders. [Northwestern university Kellogg school of management]
(click on the picture to open the new page)
Recommended:
Jack Welch
Sumner Redstone
Joseph Stiglitz
L
A few of the most intriguing and informative magazines out there:
1- Culture, Politics, Art:
Harper's Magazine
The New Yorker
2- Business:
Inc. 'The magazine for growing companies'
Business 2.0
Harvard Business Review (my personal favorite, subscription only)
3- Foreign affairs/policy:
Foreign Affairs (published by the CFR)
Foreign Policy
4- Technology:
Tech Review (by MIT)
IEEE spectrum
enjoy!
L
If you are reading this, chances are, you are much more fortunate than the majority of the world's population.
It is never too early to think about giving back; you don't have to wait until you are a millionaire. Consider all the unnecessary things we waste our money on; trust me, you can afford to donate some money and maybe even some time for a good cause.
To make it even easier The hungersite only asks for a mouseclick. By visiting that webpage (and the affiliated pages:breastcancersite,childrenhealth,rainforest, and, animal rescue) and clicking a button you are redirected to a new page with a few banners, and, the sponsors donate on your behalf for the respective cause.
You can also learn about many important issues by visiting the: UNDP where you can learn about the issues facing the developing world. And the AD council, where you can learn about current campaigns and research specific issue you might be interested in.
If you want to be more active, consider:
Volunteering:
-Search for opportunities by location or area of focus
-With the United nations
-And more opportunities.
-also consider mentoring
thanks,
L
