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« November 2008 | Main | January 2009 »December 24, 2008Vote for your favorite holiday movie in December JacksonLineWhat is your favorite holiday movie? Take a "Quick Vote" in our December JacksonLine. Our bloggers will return after January 5, 2009. Have a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year!
.......................................................................... December 18, 2008CPI 2008 (Christmas Price Index)It’s that time of year again the Christmas Price Index is out, which estimates how much the cost would be to buy all the items in the song Twelve Days of Christmas. This year the 12 Days have been the most expensive ever since the index began in 1984. The cost went up 8.1% ($1,500) over the last year. The biggest culprits? High cost of energy and swans which were up 33.3% due to their scarcity. Read more and watch an overview at PNC.
.......................................................................... December 17, 2008Painting Ourselves Out of a CornerPaint your roof white -- and save the earth. A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley found that white or light colored surfaces could impact global warming. According to Hashem Akbari, a physicist with Lawrence Berkeley Lab, if the 100 biggest cities in the world installed white roofs and mandated concrete pavement instead of asphalt, the change could negate 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases. That's a lot of tons -- more than all the nations on earth emit in a year. This could offset the growth in carbon dioxide emissions, which accounts for 75% of greenhouse gases.
.......................................................................... The Egg and IAt the library staff meeting today, one of our staff, Jan Driscoll, brought in a yummy egg treat that met with such instant acclaim that I have decided to share it shamelessly with the world (with Jan's permission). In the spirit of the holidays, hereunder follows the recipe. Perhaps you will enjoy it yourself at home some wintry morning. 1 dozen eggs Beat eggs with electric mixer Refrigerate at least overnight
.......................................................................... Web Crime: Cyber WarfareThe term “cyber warfare” sounds like a game for Xbox 360, sadly it is not. Cyber warfare has become the focus of government and industry trying to secure data and services available through the internet. The Center for Foreign Relations has put together a narrative of how cyber warfare developed over time entitled The Evolution of Cyber Warfare. It’s easy to see how governments could be threatened however companies are also at risk. Frontline produced a show highlighting the development and challeges encountered by an intelligence group dedicated to investigating attacks in cyberspace and what we can expect the future to hold. You can watch the CyberWar! in its entirety. The table of contents of the report entitled Cyberwarfare 2008-2018 gives an idea of which companies are active in combating cyber warfare. The Georgia Tech Information Security Center has written a report entitled Emerging Cyber Threat Report for 2009 in which it is easy to read how vulnerable corporations are to attacks.
.......................................................................... December 16, 2008Library Closure for the HolidaysPlease note that Jackson Library will be closed beginning Saturday, December 20 through Sunday January 4. We wish you all a happy holiday season and a PROSPEROUS new year.
.......................................................................... December 15, 2008Curl Up With A Good Book
From our Popular Books rack in Jackson Library comes some more suggested holiday reading. Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (HF5383.H6147 2008) by Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm, describes how he built a successful $300 million-per-year business by incorporating environmental principles and practices. Hirshberg uses practical pointers and advice, as well as anecdotes from his own life, to demonstrate how companies can work to save the planet while achieving greater profits. Donald R. Keough comes down from the mountaintop with The Ten Commandments For Business Failure, (HG3761.K46 2008), foreword by Warren Buffett. Keough, former President of Coca-Cola, offers a light-hearted cautionary guide from the perspective of his extensive management experience. "After a lifetime in business, I've never been able to develop a set of rules ... that will guarantee success in anything ... . What I can do, however, is talk about how to lose." Clean Car Wars: How Honda and Toyota are Winning the Battle of Eco-friendly Autos (HD9710.J34 T62174513 2008) from Yozo Hasegawa brings us a very timely description of the intensifying competition over green technologies in the automotive sector, and which automakers are best positioned to survive. Hasegawa is a journalist who has met frequently with automotive leaders in America and Japan, and is now adjunct professor at Gakushuin University in Tokyo. With Green: Your Place in the New Energy Revolution (HC110.E5 H625 2008), the title says it all. Authors Jane and Michael Hoffman flesh out the coming energy crisis, and what we all can do about it, with an extensive guide to technologies for renewable energy for both businesses and homes. Finally, A Sense of Urgency (HD58.8.K673 2008) by change guru John P. Kotter (Leading Change) shows that what is missing in most organizations today is an attitude of urgency that leads people to grab opportunities and avoid hazards. Kotter argues that in a world of continuous change, this urgency must become a sustained core value.
.......................................................................... December 11, 2008Top o' the HeapComputerworld has released its tenth annual list of Premier IT Leaders for 2009. Their awards honor men and women driving innovation in the IT realm, taking on new roles and executing new strategies. The list includes highlight pieces on a number of the best and brightest, such as Viji Murali, CIO of Washington State University, Anthony L. Abbattista, VP of Technology Solutions at Allstate, Timothy Cox, CIO of Onstar Corp, Jo Lee Hayes, VP of Enterprise Technologies at Sallie Mae, and many more. See the full list in our latest issue on the Jackson Current Periodical rack.
.......................................................................... The ITIF IndexThe Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-partisan research and educational institute – a think tank – whose mission is to formulate and promote public policies to advance technological innovation and productivity internationally, in Washington, and in the states, released a State New Economy Index to measure the economic structure of states, showing which states are leading and which are lagging in the country's transformation to a global, entrepreneurial and innovation-based economy. Overall, the index report uses twenty-nine indicators (listed on pages 11-14), divided into the following five categories that best capture what is new about the New Economy: 1) Knowledge jobs, 2) Globalization, 3) Economic dynamism, 4) Transformation to a digital economy, 5) Technological innovation capacity. View report
.......................................................................... December 9, 2008Web Crime : Social NetworksIn theory, everyone you have agreed to have as a “friend” on any number of given social networking sites really is your friend. However, criminals have found new ways of parting you from your money by exploiting the implied trust in social networks. A Business Week article entitled Cyberscams Befriend Social Networks found a 16.2 % increase since 2005 in the number of scams perpetrated through websites (as compared to email). In some cases the scams were brought to the attention of authorities by the members of a service.
.......................................................................... December 7, 2008Edward Norton's $9 billion Housing ProjectWell, not just Edward Norton’s personal project; it’s a family business called Enterprise Community Partners. However, the actor plays a lead role in this company. This year he was presenting the Social Enterprise of the Year award to none other than his grandmother, Patty Rouse. Mrs. Rouse received this high civic award for her role in Enterprise Community Partners that she cofounded with Norton's grandfather, real-estate developer, James Rouse. The Enterprise is a hybrid of for-profit and non-profit. It is dedicated to the development of low-income and middle-class affordable housing, and revitalizing decayed neighborhoods. Edward Norton’s first job was with the Enterprise, and his latest contribution to the family business, the Solar Neighbors program, is the route the company adheres to in order to continue with affordable housing construction. The Enterprise is highly influential, though not known in general circles. To learn more, read the article in the December/January issue of Fast Company in Jackson's periodicals collection or online.
.......................................................................... December 5, 2008To Bail or Not To BailGSB Professor Bob Sutton was surprised at the heavy response to his recent blog on the auto industry bailout. As he notes in a follow-up posting, his original entry generated thousands of page views and dozens of comments. Based on years of attending meetings at GM, Sutton argues that it is a dysfunctional corporation, hobbled with a "can't do" attitude and designed to keep its executives clueless. He includes an account from Matthew E. May (The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula For Mastering Innovation), where May describes techniques he used to surface problems during meetings at GM. You can read both the original post and the follow-up on Sutton's blog Work Matters.
.......................................................................... Participate in philanthropy without your own moneyEverywun, the website that allows you to support a worthy cause by simply clicking online, pulls communities and resources together for great causes. For example, pick a charity badge of your choice from Everywun and post it to your blog as follows. Each subsequent click on the badge by your visitors generates income from a corporate sponsor that has contracted with Everywun in an effort to support that charity. This badge is for US Education & Connectivity: using technology and the Internet to support education in the US.
SFGate, December 5, 2008
.......................................................................... The Art of BusinessSome artists have begun to figure out ways to make money and make art — aiming to end the notion that “starving” and “artist” are necessarily linked. In these somewhat tubulent financial times, is it a good thing to go out on a limb for your artistic dreams? Read about some entrepreneurs who are trying make a career out of their art.
.......................................................................... December 4, 2008McDonald's Opens 1,000th Store in ChinaChina is the fastest country in the world outside of the U.S. to reach the milestone of 1,000 restaurants. McDonald's has focused heavily on growing its operation in China over the last four years but lags behind its chief rival Yum! Brands' more than 2,200 KFC outlets in about 450 Chinese cities. McDonald's has also started rolling out drive-through restaurants, helped by a 20-year deal with China oil giant Sinopec to build restaurants at its 30,000 petrol stations across China. AdAgeChina, November 2008
.......................................................................... December 2, 2008Leading The ChargeUS News & World Report highlights America's best leaders -- doctors, educators, soldiers and others who are changing the world. Included are names both familiar and new, such as social activist Marian Wright Edelman, economist Jeffrey Sachs, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Miami mayor Manny Diaz, director Stephen Spielberg, entrepreneur Linda Rottenberg, musicians Terence Blanshard and Herbie Hancock, physician Regina Benjamin, executive Jeff Bezos and educator Freeman Hrabowski.
.......................................................................... Web Crime: Online GamblingThis is the first in a series of blogs which focuses on crime in the internet and what companies are doing (or not) to try and stop it. What brought this up? Well several things. First was a research request that came in requesting background information on cyberwarfare. Who knew something like that existed? Then a friend of mine had one of her social network sites hacked into. How safe are social networks really? Finally, a report this weekend by 60 Minutes on fraud in the online gambling industry prompted me to write this series.
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