im om twittwer ..www.twitter.com/nadamutawa
Developing A Self-Learning Distance Program on Copyright for Librarians
Copyright for Librarians (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/copyrightforlibrarians/) is a project developed at the Berkman Center in partnership with eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), aiming at developing a distance learning program on copyright targeted to librarians. Berkman Fellow Melanie Dulong de Rosnay will present the objectives and main steps of the project. As new technologies impact on the work of libraries and copyright law increasingly challenges library practices and access to knowledge, the aim of the course is to provide a sound understanding of the fundamentals of copyright and to raise awareness amongst librarians for balanced copyright laws and practices.
What was the primary cause of the current financial crisis? Subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, or excessive debt? None of those, says Steve Forbes, chairman of Forbes Media and sometime political candidate. In his view, mark-to-market accounting was “the principal reason” that the U.S. financial system melted down in 2008.
Do accounting rules actually pack such a wallop? For readers not schooled in financial jargon, marking to market is the practice of revaluing an asset quarterly according to the price it would fetch if sold on the open market, regardless of what was actually paid for it. Because the practice allows for no outdated or wishful-thinking valuations, it is a key component of what is known as fair value accounting. And it is at the center of the hottest accounting debate in decades. www.hbr.com
Managers now have the tools to conduct small-scale tests and gain real insight. But too many “experiments” don’t prove much of anything.
Every day, managers in your organization take steps to implement new ideas without having any real evidence to back them up. They fiddle with offerings, try out distribution approaches, and alter how work gets done, usually acting on little more than gut feel or seeming common sense—“I’ll bet this” or “I think that.” Even more disturbing, some wrap their decisions in the language of science, creating an illusion of evidence. Their so-called experiments aren’t worthy of the name, because they lack investigative rigor. It’s likely that the resulting guesses will be wrong and, worst of all, that very little will have been learned in the process. source http://harvardbusiness.org/
In a guest article, Christina Romer says policymakers must learn from the errors that prolonged the Depression
AT A recent congressional hearing I cautiously noted some “glimmers of hope” that the economy could stabilise and perhaps start to rebound later in the year. I was asked if this meant that we should cancel much of the remaining spending in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I responded that the expected recovery was both months away and predicated on Recovery Act spending ramping up greatly. Only later did it hit me that I should have told the story of 1937. ( article)
some books are to be tasted ,others swalowed and few to be chewed and digested..francis beacon
book :Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
What forces lead to democracy's creation? Why does it sometimes consolidate only to collapse at other times? Written by two of the foremost authorities on this subject in the world, this volume develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. It revolutionizes scholarship on the factors underlying government and popular movements toward democracy or dictatorship. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources>
Daron Acemoglu is Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal awarded by the American Economic Association as the best economist working in the United States under age 40. He is the author of the forthcoming text Introduction to Modern Economic Growth.
James A. Robinson is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a Harvard Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Program on Institutions, Organizations, and Growth. He is coeditor with Jared Diamond of the forthcoming book Natural Experiments in
intrview with dr ayed al mnaa and dr nada al mutawa at al watan tv this summer
During a steep recession, managers obsess over short-term performance goals such as cost cutting, sales, and market share growth. Meanwhile, economists chart data like GDP growth, unemployment levels, and balance-of-trade shifts to gauge the health of the overall business environment. The problem is, focusing only on traditional metrics often masks long-term forces of change that undercut normal sources of economic value. “Normal” may in fact be a thing of the past: Even when the economy heats up again, companies’ returns will remain under pressure. source http://harvardbusiness.org/
Many of the current government initiatives were triggered by the worldwide economic meltdown that commenced in 2008. When the economy recovers, some will cease to exist; stimulus packages and industry bailouts are temporary measures by design. But in the United States as well as Europe and Japan, government oversight will not return to what it was before the recession. Change has been on the horizon for years; it will be the culmination of several long-term trends SOURCE http://harvardbusiness.org/
Countries around the world are putting innovation at the top of their agendas. As a result, companies now have access to a global market for talent, capital, tax credits, and regulatory relief. Before setting up a research laboratory or a marketing office in one of the world's innovation hot spots, organizations must consider which of the emerging innovation models best suit their requirements. An astute company can also blend elements of each model in a systems integration approach. In the foc...Read More » http://harvardbusiness.org/
Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World
by Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow
352 pages. Publication date: May 18, 2009. Prod. #: 5764-HBK-ENG
When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context, whether in the private or the public sector, many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work. Ron Heifetz first defined this problem with his distinctive theory of 'adaptive leadership' in Leadership Without Easy Answers. In a second book, Leadership on the Line, Heifetz and coauthor Marty Linsky highlight...Read More »
When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context, whether in the private or the public sector, many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work. Ron Heifetz first defined this problem with his distinctive theory of 'adaptive leadership' in Leadership Without Easy Answers. In a second book, Leadership on the Line, Heifetz and coauthor Marty Linsky highlighted the individual and organizational dangers of leading through deep change in business, politics, and community life. Now, Heifetz, Linsky, and coauthor Alexander Grashow are taking the next step: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is a hands-on, practical guide containing stories, tools, diagrams, cases, and worksheets to help you develop your skills as an adaptive leader, able to take people outside their comfort zones and assess and address the toughest challenges. The authors have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership. In today's rapidly changing world, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership can be your handbook to meeting the demands of leadership in a complex world.
Kuwait's mould-breaking election
2009 | CAIRO From The Economist print edition
THE economy of Kuwait is exceedingly well oiled. With just 3.4m residents, only a third of them indigenous citizens, the emirate sits on a claimed 8% of the world’s petroleum reserves. Yet for all this wealth, Kuwait’s political system remains creaky and crash-prone. Rather than inspiring the Persian Gulf’s more authoritarian monarchies to reform, its 46-year-old experiment with limited democracy has often seemed a model to be avoided. Just since 2006, batterings from the 50-member parliament, which has tended lately to be dominated by Islamists and conservative tribal leaders, have sent five successive governments tumbling like ninepins.
more ..click here
Winfrey, the US television star, topped the list for the previous two years and remains its highest earner, m aking $275 million in the past 12 months. However, she is relegated to second place this year by Jolie, 34, the Hollywood actress, human rights campaigner and mother-of-six.
Who Sold the Eiffel Tower Twice?
Victor Lustig was born in 1890 in Czechoslovakia. Though brilliant as a child, he turned to a life of crime, excelling in gambling, card games and scams.
Lustig became a riverside gambler plying the various cruise boats that invariably consisted of the rich and famous. Here he met other experts and under their tutelage fine-tuned his skills. (click)
CAN we blame the “experts” for not predicting the financial crisis? I don’t know of any scientific method that could have perfectly called and timed it. Some things were very troubling—global imbalances and the housing bubble—but did it have to get this bad? There were probably a myriad of ways it might have played out, some even worse, some better (remember the IMF hoping for a happy and gradual unwinding). How can you predict a tepid, inconsistent government reaction (economists suffered a touch of hubris there) and market panic? Human behaviour is tough to predict and when humans try to anticipate what other humans will do—you can get a big mess.
Philip Tetlock, a professor of organisational behaviour at the Haas Business School at the University of California-Berkeley, talks to Money about why humans make poor forecasters and, if you must listen to one, what qualities to look for. He reckons there exists two types of experts:The most important factor was not how much education or experience the experts had but how they thought. You know the famous line that [philosopher] Isaiah Berlin borrowed from a Greek poet, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing"? The most important factor was not how much education or experience the experts had but how they thought. You know the famous line that [philosopher] Isaiah Berlin borrowed from a Greek poet, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing"? click here
Harvard Review poet featured on Poetry Daily click
BASIC PANCAKE BATTER
Enough for 8 pancakes
1 large egg or 1 egg and one yolk
½ pint/280ml milk
4oz/110g plain flour (4 heaped dessertspoons)
1 tbsp melted butter
By hand: sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Break in the egg (and yolk, if using) and add a pinch of salt and a splash of the milk. Whisk the egg, gradually incorporating the flour, to make a smooth cream. Whisk in the rest of the milk and the melted butter. With a blender: put all the ingredients in a blender jug with a pinch of salt. Whizz until smooth. from the telegraph.com
Pareto's Principle - The 80-20 Rule
Pareto's Principle, the 80/20 Rule, should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of you work that is really important. Don't just "work smart", work smart on the right things.read more