The HBS 2+2 Program is an interesting concept. A chat with a former Wharton Alumni revealed that an average of 4 years is the minimum work experience required of candidates applying to big B-Schools like Stanford GSB, Chicago GSB, Kellogg and Wharton - something that I really do not agree with. Some of the biggest business ventures of our times have been born in colleges dorm rooms, and it makes sense to harness that entrepreneurial spirit when it is most vibrant. Well, I'm not complaining about the HBS 2+2. Hopefully the other B-schools will follow suit.

Anshuman

July 4, 2028

Americans will go through the motions of gathering for backyard barbeques, watching fireworks and chasing after kids who throw firecrackers into their lawns.  But the overall mood of the country will be anything but patriotic.

In the last three months, the country has transitioned from a democratic republic to a corporation to a dictatorship and finally back to a republic.  It began with Google’s acquisition of the U.S., followed by a military coup led by former Sen. Hillary Clinton and an ultimate rescue by the lunar armed forces.   

“The American people are more confused about their identity, about their leadership and about the future of our form of government,” said Horatio Ivee, a history professor at Harvard University.  “It’s created a kind of despondency, a kind of decadent resignation that I’ve never witnessed before. It’s like Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw’ is the new national anthem.” 

The national mood stems partly from a crisis of leadership. President George Prescott Bush has decided against running for a second term, and both political parties are scrambling to get nominees onto the November ballot. 

Festering environmental crises have also been weighing on the America spirit.  Several major coastal cities, including Seattle, Boston and New York City, are suffering from ongoing flooding due to climate change.  Water shortages abound in many southwestern states, resulting in widespread rioting.  And the shift to alternative forms of fuel, including cranberry juice cocktail, are proceeding slowly.   

The Bush administration is hoping the Olympic Games, set to begin in August in Des Moine, Ia., will lift the country’s spirits a bit. 

Meanwhile, temperatures in Washington, D.C. are expected to hit 135º F today, which is expected to suppress the number of people attending activities on the National Mall.  A concert on the lawn of Capitol Building will feature Miley Cyrus, David Archuleta, the National Robotic Orchestra, and the president himself performing with his old high-school pal Enrique Iglesias. 

Jimmy Buffett is also expected to perform, although organizers of the event have asked him to stick to uplifting songs. That means fans won’t get to hear his aforementioned hit and his signature “Margaritaville.”

Country crooner Lee Greenwood, best known for his hit "God Bless the USA," turned down an invitation to perform at the event, saying that he would rather spend the day at his villa in the south of France. 

Performers on the Capitol lawn tonight include, from left, Miley Cyrus, David Archuleta and Enrique Iglesias and President Bush

mous the Farm at San Benito. These went to the spam box. Thanks God, I got the urge to open the box this morning and inspired by this gift. Sometimes, great gifts go to spam box. It helps to open the box once in a while.

Let me share with you this gift from JK Rowling which Perla shared with me. I am one of those who stopped romanticizing poverty as there is nothing to love about poverty. Out of oppression and poverty, Rowling "learned more about human goodness". We can also. Enjoy reading. And leave your comments afterwards. --jef Listen to this Audio File 159-Rowling.mp3

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

June 5, 2008 J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination," at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. - Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008 President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.. The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention. Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement. Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this. I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination. These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me. Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me. I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor. I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom. I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools. What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers. I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically. Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned. Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes. You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London. There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes. Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind. I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness. And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed. Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone. Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read. And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before. Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life. Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing. But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden. If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

-Cambridge, Massachusetts (AIP)

A new study conducted by Harvard Medical School recommends sucking on coins as a remedy to treat various dietary mineral deficiencies.

Says Dr. Kenneth Kaufmann, head of the NIH-funded study, “More than 80 percent of Americans suffer from a lack of essential minerals—such as copper, nickel, and zinc—in their daily diets. We’ve found that the best solution for such deficiencies is no further than your own pants pocket.”

Experimental results indicated that sucking on a penny for 60 to 70 minutes a day will provide one daily serving of zinc, while sucking on a quarter for 45 minutes is enough for daily serving of nickel and copper.

While such a method of treatment is likely to be met with a degree of skepticism by many, Kaufmann stresses that sucking on coins is a healthy, safe method of ingesting certain minerals and nutrients necessary to proper body function.

“Let me make one thing clear: You can never suck on enough coins.”

In the future, Kaufmann and his research team plan on investigating whether paper-eating is a good source of fiber.

Desde el harvard Business review les dejo este resumén con los tips que según la profesora Rosabeth Kanter son trampas para la innovación. Leanlo es muy interesante.

 Nunca una tendencia pasajera, aunque siempre dentro o fuera de la moda, la innovación es redescubierta como una habilitadora del crecimiento cada media docena de años. Demasiado a menudo, sin embargo, las grandiosas declaraciones sobre innovación van seguidas de una ejecución mediocre, mientras los equipos de innovación se desbandan silenciosamente en medio de reducciones de costos.

Cada generación ejecutiva se embarca en la misma búsqueda entusiasta de la próxima novedad. Y cada generación enfrenta los mismos desagradables desafíos, la mayoría de los cuales deriva de las tensiones entre proteger los flujos de ingresos existentes versus apoyar nuevos conceptos que pueden ser cruciales para el éxito futuro. En este artículo, la profesora de Harvard Bussines School, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, reflexiona sobre las diferentes olas de entusiasmo por la innovación que ha observado en los últimos 25 años; describe los errores clásicos que cometen las empresas en estrategia de innovación, procesos, estructura, y evaluación de destrezas.

Algunos errores que cita kanter.

 1-Un típico y burdo error estratégico se presenta cuando los ejecutivos ubican demasiado alto sus obstáculos o limitan el ámbito de sus esfuerzos de innovación. Quaker Oats, por ejemplo, estaba tan ocupada en los años 90 haciendo pequeñas modificaciones a las formulas de sus productos que perdió oportunidades más grandes en distribución.

2-Otro error de proceso común se da cuando se ahogan las iniciativas de innovación con la planificación rígida, el presupuesto y los métodos de revisión que son característicos de los negocios actuales. Las empresas deben ser cuidadosas en cómo estructurar a las unidades novatas junto a las ya exixtentes, dice Kanter, para evitar un choque de culturas y proyectos.

3-Finalmente, las empresas normalmente subvaloran y subinvierten en el lado humano de la innovación, por ejemplo, promoviendo a las personas de los equipos de innovación mucho antes de que sus esfuerzos puedan entregar su retorno.

Quizá estas reflexiones sean mayormente compatibles con un modelo off line de negocio, mi experiencia online me confirma que son muy pocas las grandes empresas de Internet que se reflejan con estas "trampas". 

Para tenerlo muy en cuenta.

saludos:)

We know Obama took out loans to get himself through school. But the campaign provided information on just two jobs Obama had in those years, and they were both in the summer.

The ad also says he "passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Actually, the Illinois law was a required follow-up to the 1996 federal welfare reform law worked out by President Clinton and the Republican Congress. Welfare rolls did go down by nearly as much as the ad says, but Obama can't claim sole credit [...]

N.

Or look at Hawai'i. My dear friend Trudi, who lives there, called me today. She was calling from Harvard Square; she's in Boston for a teaching seminar. She was thrilled to be in "the seat of liberty", she said, and in a place with brick buildings. Apparently, there's no brick in Hawai'i.

She was even excited about getting into a fight with a cab driver. Only in Boston would you call for a cab and have the cab driver yell at you after failing to see you waiting on the street in the rain. But for a delicate island flower, Trudi has a foul mouth, and she told me proudly that she gave as good as she got. I advised her that next time she got into a cab, she should remember these classic words: "Shut the fuck up, you stupid fuck."

Actually, I was horrified to hear this story, but Trood seemed as exhilarated by this interaction as by the fabled ivy walls of Harvard, the cobbled streets and old Victorian houses.

"Why would you ever LEAVE here?" she demanded.

This is a Japanese-American woman who lives in PARADISE, yet envies me growing up in a place where you could layer wool sweaters from J. Crew. She longs for chilly days in Honolulu (70 degrees) so she can wear corduroy. Her favorite food is French rustic country cuisine. She decorates in shabby chic and has a designer handbag and shoes to match every outfit. She is in every way more East Coast than I am.

Nonetheless, she is from Hawai'i. Things are just slower in the islands, gentler too. Cab drivers do not use customers as verbal whipping posts. "Fuck off, shithead" is not a standard form of greeting. When my husband and I clerked in Honolulu during law school, we were amazed that even in a large, high-powered firm, ties were optional, and every Friday was "Aloha Friday", when the men wore aloha shirts and the women their best muu-muus.

The last time Trudi was in Boston was for my wedding. I took a group of friends into Boston for the day, and we met Trudi at the upscale hotel where the wedding was taking place. She stepped out of the elevator in an elegant outfit, just right for walking around the city a fancy cocktail party. There was NO WAY she was going to walk the Freedom Trail in those heels, let alone fight her way onto the T. I diffidently suggested she go back and change into something more suitable. Though disappointed, she eventually returned in another beautiful outfit, this one perfect for an afternoon garden party. At least she was wearing flats.

At that point I assigned my friend Claudia, born and raised in New Jersey, to be Trudi's chaperone, because we were about to step out of Boston proper and into Boston propah, where she had about as much chance of survival as a hothouse orchid in Siberia. Claudia made sure Trudi got on and off the subway, did not get impaled on the turnstiles, and navigated the crowded streets without incident. She enjoyed herself thoroughly.

So, in answer to Trudi's question, I told her my theory: people should live in a place diametrically opposed to their natural personality. If I still lived in Boston, I'd be so hostile that my blood pressure would be higher than a hummingbird's heartbeat. It's just too easy to send me over the edge. My family's pet name for me is "Short Fuse". And let me tell you, THAT pisses me off royally. That's why I'm much better off in a place like Alaska, where there's a low population and little opportunity for road rage.

My sister, in contrast, lives quite happily in New York. That's because compared to me, she has the temperament of a golden retriever. Very little bothers her, and what does, she can handle. She once warded off a gang of young would-be muggers by threatening to call their mothers.

Using my theory, I think Trudi should move to Boston. She would bring some beautiful aloha spirit to a city that sorely needs it. And I, clearly, should move back to Hawai'i - because there's no such thing as "beach rage."

july fourth is tomorrow; the last place i want to be is in the basement of annenberg, watching fireworks on the big screen. so i guess i'll read the thousand pages due and forget about school?

i miss you, jordan.

Es algo así como el "Windows Mexicano", sólo que está vez, es un campus universitario ¡y es de Harvard! ¿Quién dijo que sólo EE.UU. podía? (colegiaturas accesibles)

¡(Gracias gio903)!

Ce livre est un recueille d'articles parus dans la prestigieuse revue de management de l'école d'Harvard. La plupart des articles proposent également des outils systémiques d'analyse pour mettre en pratique les concepts énoncés ce qui est un vrai plus.

And now, perhaps, another opportunity. A new Harvard Business Review article ("Should You Invest in the Long Tail?" by HBS Professor Anita Elberse) throws water on Chris Anderson's paradigm, arguing that "hit products" are still more valuable than the conglomerated also-rans in the tail; her research is mostly in retail products. Chris has responded on his blog, sparking many comments and debate, and today the Wall Street Journal covered the back-and-forth debate.

I'm interested in the debate mostly because of the interest in the Long Tail way of thinking in some circles of the intelligence community.  I've written about the approach and its relevance to some intelligence issues (see "Tradecraft in the Long Tail" and "IARPA and the Virtual Long Tail").

I'm just not certain that even a total debunking of the retail-oriented paradigm would undercut its value as applied to intelligence analysis. 

For intelligence analysts, obscure "facts" and patterns hidden snugly within the low-scale noise are all important - whether or not they gain numerative bulk in any accumulative way.  The paradoxical "unknown unknowns" are what's being sought by dogged collection and analysis, and I'm not sure that's analogous to Elberse's acknowledged findings. 

Your thoughts welcome, here or by email back to me.

 
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P.S.: Her speech is copyrighted. Do not attempt to reproduce it without her permission or she'll sue!

Using our tax money.

The Obama campaign issued a press release on Tuesday claiming that most Americans just LOVE the new trend that faith-based groups can seek government funding for "social services." Apparently we love it so much, that Obama wants to enormify Bush's unconstitutional 'faith based initiative' by $500 million MORE dollars.

The godtardery forgot to mention that the source of their fairytale thinking is a 2005 poll by the Pew Forum, which also detailed how Americans “find the practical implications of this idea troubling.”

Duh!

Nobody really wants their tax money going to the churchies. Those guys don't pay any tax to begin with. Most Americans feel fortunate that the government does not engage in tax-supported proselytizing. Or we used to, anyway.

Besides, look at what lurks within the alleged providers of "social services." Would you give your money to boy-buggering Catholic priests like Father Michael Wempe?

It's pretty clear that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright needs some kind of intervention.

But why should your tax money go to pay for his cure?

And look at this happy group! Obama and his army of godtards think Americans are in favor of their tax dollars going to help this Mormon guy and his six wives operate a weekly teen abstinence program. Think again!

Quick reminder to all the JE-sus lovin', ass-clown Obamacons out there: The fundamental law of our nation -- the basis of our liberties -- is the Constitution, not the Bible.

Obama went to Harvard - he should already know this.

SimonTheLabRat-
EmergingFromCan

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Watson, J. B. (John Broadus, 1878-1958 ) American psychologist who developed the work of the influential Russian Pavlov and others to establish the school of Behaviorism.

Watson has been roundly criticized by depth psychologists, writers and theologians, alike, but we must remember that he was reacting to the introspective (and arguably unscientific) psychoanalysis of his time.

Watson believed that given the right conditions, a person could become almost anything. That is, he emphasized observable environmental factors and apparently related behavior.

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.

John B. Watson, Behaviorism (revised) University of Chicago Press, 1930, p. 82

This view dominated American psychology into the 1950s until modern genetics and other, philosophical and theologically-based arguments threw Watson's one-sided theory into question.

But it's clear that nurture - as opposed to nature or spirit - remains an important factor in human development.

And the above shows that Watson was being scientific by stating that he was extrapolating from observation.

In other words, he wasn't completely wrong. However, most find distasteful his entire disregard for the ideas of inherited traits, mind (i.e. subjectivity), free will, grace and animal rights--although not everyone necessarily dislikes his work for all of these perceived deficiencies.

The following from Aldous Huxley illustrates the, perhaps, general dislike for Watson among those who champion and regard themselves as belonging to the literary establishment.

For practical or theoretical reasons, dictators, Organization Men and certain scientists are anxious to reduce the maddening diversity of men's natures to some kind of manageable uniformity. In the first flush of his Behaviouristic fervour, J.B. Watson roundly declared that he could find "no support for hereditary patterns of behaviour, nor for special abilities (music, art, etc.) which are supposed to run in families." And even today we find a distinguished psychologist, Professor B.F. Skinner of Harvard, insisting that, "as scientific explanation becomes more and more comprehensive, the contribution which may be claimed by the individual himself appears to approach zero. Man's vaunted creative powers, his achievements in art, science and morals, his capacity to choose and our right to hold him responsible for the consequences of his choice - none of these is conspicuous in the new scientific self-portrait.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958, cited by Brad in "The Long Dark Night of Behaviorism" at Psych 101 REVISITED » http://robothink.blogspot.com/2005/09/long-dark-night-of-behaviorism.html

Watson's academic career came to a standstill when it was made known that he was having an affair with one of his students, Rosalie Rayner.

Not surprisingly, he went into and excelled in advertising.

Watson has been lampooned for raising his children according to a strict, authoritarian schedule devoid of affection as if they were lab rats.

To add to his notoriety, his son William committed suicide at age 40.

But as any good scientist will note, this tragic event cannot be directly attributed to upbringing. The two factors of William's unusual upbringing and his suicide may only be said to exist in a correlational relationship, not necessarily a causal one.

Before Watson's own death he destroyed a significant amount of personal notes and letters, making historical reconstruction of this pivotal and provocative thinker somewhat difficult.

Add to this, report errors, suggest edits or voice your opinion by posting a comment

The first condition is a stable political environment. There can not be any long-term political stability without the consent of the governed. This consent must be reaffirmed periodically, not later than 4-6 years. When a government looses the confidence of the governed, there must be a peaceful transfer of power as and when necessary. A single party in power breeds corruption, cronyism and stalemate, no matter how well intentioned. No country in the world has sustained growth and prosperity over long periods of time, without a political consensus. How many of the BRIC countries would qualify in this test?

The second and probably the most important condition is the 'Rule of Law'. Every country must have a written 'Constitution', giving equal protection to all it's citizens under all circumstances. There must be an independent Judiciary, capable of interpreting the laws and providing justice to all including the foreigners and international agreements. The government must be accountable to the Courts and Justices. The Executive and the Legislator must stand by the law of the land. Without the rule of law and the transparency of justice, long term trade and agreements can not be sustained. Where do BRIC countries stand on this?

Another important condition for the 'Emerging Economies', is the development of Intellectual Infrastructure. We are not just talking about basic educational institutions, we are talking about the world-class universities and research laboratories. How many countries around the world have centers of excellence like Stanford, Harvard, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge and Oxford? How many countries produce innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Would Brazil, Russia, India and China, encourage students from around the world to come to their Universities and do research, find jobs, raise families and then become full citizens of their countries?

Immigration has been the foundation of an idea called "America". The United States of America was founded by immigrants. Few would know that even their 'Revolutionary War' for independence was fought by Irish immigrants who were not even born in America. Hundreds of thousands of people come to The United States every year and over time become permanent residents and finally citizens of this country. It is the genius of these immigrants, that has fired the imagination of this country. Immigrants have rejuvenated the creative instincts of this 'Economic Power House'. If BRIC countries and others around the world aspire to be the great powers of the 21st Century, they would have to learn to live with others, in peace and harmony.

"We have rebelled against God. We have lost the true spirit of Christianity, though we retain the outward profession and form of it. We have neglected and set light by the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and His holy commands and institutions. The worship of many is but mere compliment to the Deity, while their hearts are far from Him. By many the Gospel is corrupted into a superficial system of moral philosophy, little better than ancient Platonism.

'Wherefore is all this evil upon us? Is it not because we have forsaken the Lord? Can we say we are innocent of crimes against God? No, surely it becomes us to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, that He may exalt us in due time... My brethren, let us repent and implore the divine mercy. Let us amend our ways and our doings, reform everything that has been provoking the Most High, and thus endeavor to obtain the gracious interpositions of providence for our deliverance...

'If God be for us, who can be against us? The enemy has reproached us for calling on His name and professing our trust in Him. They have made a mock of our solemn fasts and every appearance of serious Christianity in the land... May our land be purged from all its sins! Then the Lord will be our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble, and we will have no reason to be afraid, though thousands of enemies set themselves against us round about.

'May the Lord hear us in this day of trouble... we will rejoice in His salvation, and in the name of our God, we will set up our banners..." From THE LIGHT AND THE GLORY pp. 277 & 278.

Can we see that this is a message that is pertinent for our day?

-Tim A. Blankenship

Artigo de opinião de John Sviokla em Harvard Business Publishing.

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Are you taking no more than a squirt gun to the talent wars? Most people find jobs through social connections. In 1974, Harvard sociologist Mark Granovetter published his landmark study that showed four out of five people find jobs through personal connections. Yet, in our recent Diamond Digital IQ survey, only one in three senior executives think information technology will impact their human resource management function over the next three years! This means they will lose out on the most powerful, fastest growing, and most influential channel to be find talent.

Take the case of LinkedIn, the upstart social networking site whose aspiration is to become the world’s dominant professional network. It had 19 million members as of February. It took LinkedIn about a year and a half to achieve its first million members, and only 29 days to get its 19th million. For $7,000 per seat per year, you can look at its entire network.

The company is already profitable through three sources of revenue. The first is its InMail product, which allows you a prescribed number of email to people you don’t know in the network who have agreed to accept emails from people they don’t yet know. LinkedIn charges for access to the other people in the network – think of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon but charging for the second through sixth degree. The second source of money is the service mentioned above in which HR directors can see the full network, and there is some advertising, too.

Many firms have found great success using Craigslist, which has over 450 cities covered around the globe, and over two million new job postings each month. The other social media like Facebook, MySpace and a host of others also energize how people connect and share information on everything – including jobs. Social media are only going to grow as technology gets ever more pervasive – with half the world’s people having mobile phones within five years. It will not stop – but only increase in importance.

When the implications of IT and social media are so apparent, why is your HR department and your management team missing this trend? Because the people who run companies, the 40-somethings to 50-somethings, are not usually in these social networking sites. They don’t know how the world of job hunting has changed.

Get all the details at Ana Ivanovic.com.

TMac has started a new business project. Recently, he has recruited a handful of Harvard students to create a new fitness website where college and high school athletes can have access to professional trainers.

Elite trainers such as Gary Sheffield's trainer, Micheal Pittman's trainer, and even Tracy's very own trainer, Wayne Hall. There will be instructional videos lead by them.

This website will allow young athletes to improve their diets, and workout regimens and even get professional medical advice if injured.

Underprivileged athletes who can't afford the proper medical attention can have access to how professional athletes treat their injuries.

There will also be software programs that can help them with calculate if they are getting enough protein in their diets and tell them how to achieve their desired weight and build. All they would have to do is enter their body information.

All of this information will be accessible of course for a small price, the amount is still in the works but it could be as low as $5.99 a month!

This project is still underway and is still in the creation stages. On June 25, 2008 Tracy flew those Harvard students into Texas to discuss the project further and to see if they can actually accomplish his venture. I have to say from my sources that it is looking pretty good and we just might see this site up soon.

It was a strange, and certainly ground breaking Special Comment on Countdown last night. Olbermann devoted it to criticizing Barack Obama over his support for the FISA bill.

OIbermann's first criticism was that the Republicans are going to criticize Obama for being soft on terror regardless of his vote on FISA. That may be true, but look what happened when Kerry voted for the 87 Billion dollars before he voted against it. Giving people a concrete example may not be a great idea.

But the truly stupid, self-righteous, and arrogant point Olbermann brought up is that the FISA bill, as much as people whine about civil immunity, does NOT provide criminal immunity to them. He quoted the Christian Fascist Republican Party Senator Sam Brownback in stating that the bill has no such clause. Yet somehow, Olbermann thinks only he and someone he holds in high regard, John Dean, know this.

This is despite the fact that Olbermann was a former Sportscenter anchor. And that Senator Obama is a former civil rights attourney, and even taught classes on the subject.

In the spirit of Olbermann's hyperbolic special comments, I give you a rant in its style, not necessarily suitable for basic cable:

He knows, asshole. He did this shit for a living. You know that school he mentioned he went to? Harvard? They teach smart people there, and as history would show, decent lawyers. They tend to be able to figure out what the hell is in a bill going through congress.

Now the people you self-righteously defend don't get it. We are a nation of idiots, consumerists, and most of all, the easily frightened. The same people you claim to stand up for re-elected this idiot known as George W. Bush. We base our votes on totally irrational standards; in 2000 we would rather have a beer with Bush so he wins, and in 2004 we vote for the draft dodger over the war hero because the draft dodger is "tough on terror," which means he engages in warrant-less wiretaps and torture.

We love this shit; we have never been the democracy our constitution promises us. When we lauded our freedoms early in our nation's history, we built our infrastructure on brutal slave labor. When we decry Germany's holocaust, we call the mass murder of native Americans "manifest destiny." When we feared the USSR was setting up communist revolutions in countries, we got busy assassinating democratically-elected leaders and installing military fascisms. When we started a war on drugs, our CIA started selling heroin to veterans to finance wars. The government will do what it wants, as it always has, we just have a loose control over the reigns during every election. We have no control over the CIA, FBI, or other non-elected offices, and truth be told, they commit more crimes than George Bush probably ever has.

So when against all odds, a politician with good ideas actually gains a lot popular support, we don't have to take it for granted that he knows of a loophole such as this one in the FISA bill. We can just look at the very quote Olbermann gives, which is something Obama has said numerous times before: Criminal Investigations will be pursued.

But the point, Olbermann, shouldn't be in trying to get the Harvard-educated- attorney to recognize a rather simple provision in the FISA bill. Instead it should be, if you are opposed to telecom spying as you want us to believe, shutting up and letting the bill pass with no criminal immunity. Now all the certifiable crazies in the house can draft a bill for criminal immunity and it just might get passed.

The irony of this whole special comment is that, in accusing Obama of possibly wanting to cave to the telecoms, you have caved yourself. Glenn Greenwald called you out on not criticizing Obama on FISA, and naturally you had to devote 10 minutes to blowing a Democratic strategy that would actually make criminal arrests in these cases, which could have deterred the Republicans from ever practicing this fascism again. They would actually face jail if they did. So you get called out, and all you can do is continue to add to the problem, whether it be by helping to lessen the left's support of Obama, or giving away the strategy for prosecuting Bush and/or telecoms.

So, you screw over proper strategy to cover your own ass. Who does that sound like?

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Those old enough to remember the 1970 film Love Story will surely remember that classic line; those not familiar with the movie must take our word that this is actually one of the ultimate 'preppy films,' with a plot revolving around a Radcliffe music student (Ali MacGraw) and a Harvard Law student (Ryan O'Neal) named Oliver Barrett IV. How's that for a character's pedigree, at least in a movie?

At any rate, The Princess begs to differ with this insipid statement, for the time has come that she must stand up tall, reach up to re-adjust the tiara, and say loudly and clearly for all to hear: "I am sorry. I was wrong" to designer Thom Browne and retailer Brooks Brothers. There you have it. 'My bad' as is said these days, I believe...?

For those not familiar with the saga, Thom Browne is a gifted fashion designer, a professional with many years in the industry and far too many honors and awards to mention. Mr. Browne is also the first individual retained by Brooks Brothers to be a 'Guest Designer,' asked to create a Collection for the company's upscale Black Fleece line. As Brooks' agreement with Mr. Browne was nearing its end, we did a little speculating in a post back on June 5th that the arrangement would not be renewed and the two entities would part company. This is where we were quite mistaken, with word today that Brooks and Mr. Browne have not only renewed their agreement, Mr. Browne will be with the firm through the Spring 2011 season. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa and congratulations to both parties!

In fact the company is so pleased with the micro-brand's performance they are moving ahead with plans to open a freestanding Black Fleece store! Woo-hoo! (Calm yourself Princess.) As seen in the artist's renderings below, this will be a new stand-alone Black Fleece shop in Greenwich Village!

Now just to be clear, we do stand by our comments regarding Mr. Browne's design taste and talents as detailed in our May 29th post entitled "When Preppy Goes Wrong (How Thom Browne Helps Brooks Brothers Make the Cut)". If you missed that particular day's mindless meanderings thoughts on the topic, we were far kinder in our comments about the Women's Collection than we were when discussing Mr. Browne's designs for the Men's line. Oddly (or not, knowing TP), this is completely out of step with actual sales numbers, which were lower than projected in Women's, and higher in Men's. Below, a few reasons why we find positive signs on the Ladies' side of the store:

On the left we show a Black Fleece Women's Button Back skirt and on the right the women's Cricket Sweater, both of which we find to be quite fetching, although we would throw up a question here: how does the Black Fleece 'Cricket Sweater' differ from the Polo Ralph Lauren Wimbledon Collection Cricket sweaters? (We show those below.)

We raise the issue acknowledging that when approaching this from a classic design perspective, there is little room for substantive alteration to the original. It just struck us as odd here at the Prepatorium; perhaps a simple case of too many tennis/cricket sweaters!

Also seen in this post, way, way, way up top we show a few Black Fleece women's accessories: a pair of Knee-High Embroidered socks, a Navy Leather Belt, and a pair of Women's Wingtip Spectators, all of which happen to be on SALE!

Since we have dragged Ralph Lauren into the conversation we'll just move ahead with some early photos of the US Open Collection, available sometime in July, possibly as soon as tomorrow. All of the pieces are Limited Edition (ahem) items; most are constructed of very high-tech fabric that is just fabulous. Our 'ahem' is aimed at the 'Limited Edition' notion. I mean really...hhmm. We'll do everyone a favor and slug back a Prozac Latte and save this topic for another day, but honestly... (Imagine the alltime big-big-biggety-biggest sigh ever heard being sighed here at the office. The weight of the world is on the shoulders of one small, old, Logophobic, cranky Princess. Imagine that sigh being sighed again. Sigh.)

Above we show the US Open Lineswoman Polo in stretch microfiber.

Now just below is the Official limited-edition US Open Ball Girl Skirt

And finally we show the Official Limited Edition US Open Avondale Track Jacket, described as being made of "soft cotton jersey, knit with a hint of stretch for ease of movement on the court."

For example when I was younger, see photo, that's me in the chair sobbing, no of course not, that's me the mother, sorrowing over the first haircut... When I was younger my mom died at a party right in front of us all just as we were toasting her birthday, and this highly shocking event caused me in the 2 or 3 years following her death to do all kinds of odd things: Like wearing hats, I think to channel her old jauntiness. Like CRYING while giving speeches that were suppose to be light and funny, making the whole audience cry too, talk about your Typhoid Mary. And like writing letters to famous people.

I wrote to Ronald Reagan and sent him the column I did about him when I saw him in Concord NH. I wrote to the Prince of Wales after seeing him at the 350 birthday of Harvard. I remember sitting in the Yard looking up at all those ivy leaves declining like Latin nouns down the sides of the old buildings and thinking 'Damn you Ten Thousand Men of Harvard, why did you keep my kind out for like 99 % of your history?'

I wrote to Garrison Keillor when I applied to be the first Journalist in Space. I had mentioned him in my application essay and have always kinda figured that's why I got to the final 40 in that contest.

I even wrote to the great John Updike when I read a short story of his in the New Yorker that made it apparent his mum had died too. I sent him a condolence note and a copy of the column I wrote about Cal’s dramatic death – that was my mom's name, 'Cal', as jaunty a name as she was a person, a cigarette held tight in her teeth as she took the corners on two-wheels to get us to that convent school she enrolled us in by mistake where she was in a fight with the nuns from DAY ONE.

And they all wrote back, these famous characters: Ronnie R. wrote right back. The future King of England did too or at least His Honor Lord High-Fanny of the Royal Equerry wrote on his behalf. And Garrison Keillor and John Updike sent actual postcards, John Updike's saying a thing so nice about my writing it pulled me up out of obscurity like the wave of the Bibbity Bobbity Boo wand of Cinderella’s fairy godmother. In fact just last month he had another story in the New Yorker, this one so beautiful I was forced to write him again and what do you think? Another postcard came, as gracious as the first.

Now 15 years had passed between my first letter to him and my second, that's how careful I am. And I wouldn’t DREAM of writing to the Pope even if I had his email address, and the same goes for Lord High-Fanny who gave me some serious attitude in his letter just because my column said Prince Charlie wore the academic hood of his alma mater whereas in fact he wears the robes of the University of Wales just because he like OWNS Wales or some insignificant thing like that.

Gloria Steinem though? Gloria’s address I was saving for a special occasion, like offering myself to come be the jester at the next Inter-Galactic Women’s Conference. And now – agony!- my girl has called her girl if you can call an Address Book a girl and I seem to have asked her to be my friend on Facebook! The Queen gets invited to the worker bee’s after school party, Aaargh I could die! But, on the other hand in the last 24 hours I've heard from people I haven’t seen in decade and have admired their pictures and have written on their walls so why be embarrassed? Because really we're ALL members of the Class of '08, right? So really, why NOT write in each other's yearbooks?

In a really interesting article in the NYTimes on June 26, Heather Timmons profiles the Children's Investment Fund (T.C.I.) hedge fund and its non-profit twin, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. The fund and the foundation are run by Christopher Cooper-Hohn and his wife, Jamie, respectively, and have grown into one of the largest, best performing funds, and one of the largest charities in the UK.

T.C.I. has grown a somewhat fearsome reputation for shareholder advocacy, and a number of articles published in the last year have explored the Foundation's "venture philanthropy" approach of bringing private sector principles to the charitable process, but the thing that intrigued me about the NY Times article was its exploration of how the couple's private lives and inter-personal negotiations were reflected in the way they had structured their organizations.

"The couple met at a party while they were attending Harvard. Mr. Cooper-Hohn was smitten immediately, but Ms. Cooper-Hohn was openly uninterested in a man whose goal in life was to become wealthy. Mr. Cooper-Hohn, displaying skills he would later use to shake up boardrooms around the world, eventually won her over. The foundation, and T.C.I.’s role in financing it, sprung out of a spirit of compromise between the two.

T.C.I. and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation were set up simultaneously in 2003 with an unusual fee structure. Investors pay T.C.I. a 1 percent fee, about half the industry average, as well as a 0.5 percent fee to the foundation. If the fund earns more than 11 percent profit, investors pay another 0.5 percent to the foundation. T.C.I.’s profits are funneled back to the foundation, not to Mr. Cooper-Hohn."

I think the structure is fascinating. Some critiques have accused T.C.I. of adopting their philanthropic practices to soften the firms aggressive reputation, but at least on initial glance, that seems unlikely. I think structuring returns to require that your investors 'buy in' to the philanthropic mission is a really compelling strategy to integrate a social mission with financial goals.

The other type of 'integration' that the article brings up is the question of how one integrates a sense of social purpose and a desire to create change with a fulfilling, economically comfortable lifestyle. While the Cooper-Hohn's have structured their organizations to bring these two sets of needs together, there is still a clear division between their social and economic missions. Earlier this year, Shelby Davis, the philanthropist behind the Davis Scholarships for international students from the United World Colleges to study at American Universities, explained his philosophy as "you learn until you're 30, make money till your 60, then spend the rest of your life giving back."

This Dharmic pattern seems to be the norm for many philanthropists, but people in my generation are increasingly questioning the logic upon which it is based. Young people today are accutely aware of the challenges in their world, and have created or found more opportunities than ever before to do something about it now. Rates of volunteerism and study abroad are up and increasing. Universities are having to rapidly adapt to the creative ways their students are creating change (see more about some of the leading student-led organizations here).

The idea, then, that graduation means either scraping by on meager nonprofit salaries or abandoning their social missions for a well paying private sector job is increasingly untenable for today's undergraduates. There has to be a middle space where people can make change even as they make a life. If we can't provide that, we will loose an incredible opportunity.

You may live a longer life by eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fish, and poultry.

A study in the upcoming July 15, 2008 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association followed the diets of 72,000 U.S. women (Nurse's Health Study).

The researchers at Harvard University found that women who ate the largest amount of these foods were:

• 17% less likely to die during the 18 year study period
• 28% less likely to die of heart disease or stroke

"Traditionally, there has been a focus on single nutrients or foods, but in terms of longevity a greater focus on dietary patterns can take into account the complexity of the overall diet," lead researcher Dr. Christin Heidemann, said in a statement.

A highly "Western" eating pattern, in contrast, was one that featured plenty of red and processed meat, sweets, French fries and refined grains like white bread. Women who ate Western diets, the researchers found, were 21% more likely to die during the study period than women who shunned those foods.

These results," Heidemann said, "highlight the importance of intensifying efforts to promote the adoption of a healthy overall diet including high intakes of vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, fish and poultry and low intakes of red and processed meat, refined grains, French fries and sweets."

Source: MedlinePlus

Are you eating a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fish, and poultry? How many servings do you eat per day?

Life is too short so you should refine your diet if you haven’t already, because

After all, it’s about a healthy lifestyle!

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