leader

The business leader 2009: Chief Meaning Officer

2009 will be a year of major uncertainty. The doom and gloom of the economic downturn, the deterioration of mass markets, the pervasiveness of the digital lifestyle, a host of explosive political conflicts, and the fragmentation of traditional societal institutions are causing anxiety and propel a new search for simplicity and non-economic value systems.

Consumption-driven wealth and status are being replaced by identity, belonging, and a strong desire to contribute and do something "meaningful" rather than just acquire things. Trust and reputation are no longer enablers for the exchange of goods, services, and information, they are replacing them. … Read more

Patent suit filed against Facebook: Here we go again

I'm sick of patent lawsuits.

Earlier this week Spansion filed suit against Samsung for alleged patent violations in the latter's flash chips. On Thursday, Leader Technologies actually issued a press release announcing a lawsuit before it had even bothered to serve notice on Facebook, as Techdirt points out.

Is Leader playing to the judge or to the media?

From the press release:

Leader was founded by Michael McKibben in 1997 and is a pioneer in Web-based collaboration platforms. Leader has filed several patent applications, dating back to 2002, that cover its technology. "We have spent a great … Read more

Gates: Businesses need to embrace the poor

MIAMI--In two separate speeches on Friday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made the case that businesses need to see serving the poor as part of their mission and that governments need to see private businesses as potential partners.

One of the big topics for both audiences was the notion of microfinance--improving the access to credit and banking to the poor.

"The idea of how they create loans for the poorest is part of it," he said at the Government Leaders Forum. But although today microfinance has focused on loans, there is more to it. "We need to get … Read more

Microsoft in new e-government push

Microsoft is making a new bid to get governments to go with its technology, rather than open-source alternatives such as Linux and OpenOffice.

At its Government Leaders Forum in Berlin, which kicks off on Tuesday, the company plans to announce what it is calling the Citizen Service Platform. It's not a whole new set of products, but rather templates and architecture that use a range of Microsoft products to provide electronic access for residents.

At its most elaborate, large governments could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on everything from Dynamics CRM to SharePoint to Internet Information Server to … Read more

Searchy thankfulness

Seeing how it is nearly Thanksgiving here in the States, what better time to take a look at the SEO industry and give a little thought for some of the things that I give thanks for.

Search Engines

First and foremost would have to be search engines themselves, since without them, SEO would not be as important as it is. This isn't to say that SEO's value is only tied to the existence of search engines. SEO has really become much more encompassing than the acronym it is as SEO continues to evolve more as an extension of traditional marketing.

Ability to Rank

While every client and site owner feels challenged when it comes to ranking...… Read more

Maintaining journalistic integrity while handling human remains

A reporter is sent on an unusual assignment. A distraught women claims to have a deceased man's scalp and the reporter has been chosen to cover the story. Upon his arrival, the teary-eyed women implores the reporter to take the man's remains to the coroner. It sounds like the plot for an episode of Picket Fences, but for police reporter Steve Lannen at the Herald-Leader in Kentucky this perplexing scenario was far more than just a plot device.

As reported by metro editor Peter Baniak for the Behind the Headlines blog:It was one of the strangest phone calls I've taken as metro editor at the Herald-Leader -- and I've taken plenty of odd phone calls over the years. The woman on the line was despondent because she said the county coroner had left her friend's scalp in wooded area along Newtown Pike. The man had died there, apparently under accidental circumstances, and the coroner had removed the rest of the body several days earlier. But the woman said a piece of her friend's scalp, including hair, had been left behind. Further, she said she couldn't get the coroner's office to come out and get it.… Read more

Study: Nordic companies lead in corporate responsibility

Sweden has the world's most "responsibly competitive" companies, according to a State of Responsible Competitiveness 2007 report released on Friday.

The report, issued by the London-based think thank AccountAbility, graded countries based on corporate responsibility issues like environment, climate change, anti-corruption and human rights.

Nordic countries reached the top four positions, with Denmark, Finland and Iceland following No. 1 Sweden. Those were followed by Great Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia and Canada. The U.S. was lower on the list but managed to make the top 20.

The report was released during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit … Read more