7gen Bloc
Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Thu, Jul. 3, 2008
"Judge King wrote that Ms. Braun had recounted the humiliating experience of soiling herself while at work because she had not been permitted time to use the restroom."
I'm hoping that the recent ruling by a Minnesota state judge, who found that Wal-Mart violated state laws on wages more than two million times, marks the end of a culture that put profits ahead of people.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Fri, Jun. 27, 2008
Over the years, I have frequently spoken out against companies that preach a "we're-all-in-this-together" ethos while tolerating Austrian-Afghanistan disparities in executive-employee pay. But I have offered little in the way of a real-world solution to such hypocrisy.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Mon, Jun. 23, 2008
Last year, we drank our way through three billion cases of bottled water — an increase of 14 percent over 2006, according to Beverage Digest. Most of that bottled water is treated with chlorine and shipped insanely long distances; too many of the plastic bottles end up in landfills. In most cases, the quality of the bottled water is not even better than the water flowing out of the tap.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Fri, Jun. 20, 2008
We simply buy too much stuff. I have more t-shirts in my closet than I could wear in several lifetimes. Yet someone always wants to give me another one. I have an iPhone, but the newest upgrade looks almost irresistible. In fact, so does the MacBook Air. Shoes, cars, cameras, and clothes almost never wear out before we replace them. We are painfully addicted to buying new stuff.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Tue, Jun. 17, 2008
It takes a lot for Americans to be truly shocked by the Austrian-Afghanistan disparities in executive-employee pay. Perhaps, when we read that the hedge-fund manager John Paulson was paid an estimated $3.7 billion last year, we might raise an eyebrow in surprise.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Fri, Jun. 13, 2008
I have spent much of my life battling the dangers of chlorine and the household form of that chemical element, sodium hypochlorite. So it was with great interest that I sat in on a talk by Bill Morrissey, Clorox's vice president of sustainability, at the recent "Sustainable Brands" conference in Monterey, California.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Mon, Jun. 9, 2008
A conversation with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt
Here are outtakes from my notes on Eric Schmidt's talk at the Future of Management conference (see Part 4 from June 6):
"The culture defines the outcome," in terms of the products and services Google creates.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Fri, Jun. 6, 2008
Maximizing the Organization's Potential
A discussion with W. L. Gore CEO Terri Kelly
Last week, at Gary Hamel's Future of Management conference (see Part 3 from yesterday), I had a chance to sit down with Terri Kelly, CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates. While Gore, the makers of Gore-Tex fabric, generates more than $2 billion in annual sales, employs more than 8,000 people worldwide, and is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding,
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Thu, Jun. 5, 2008
All of the attendees at Gary Hamel's conference on management innovation were assembled in one room (see Part 2 from yesterday). The entire group engaged in a dialogue during the day's first few hours. It was quite amazing that 35 highly opinionated people could (for the most part) hold one conversation.
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Posted by Inspired Protagonist | Wed, Jun. 4, 2008
It is impossible to describe all of the conversations at Gary Hamel's conference on management innovation (see Part 1 from yesterday). The dialogue ranged from questions on whether we had the right language to describe how to drag management into the 21st century; is "management" even a relevant concept in a world where the "wisdom of crowds" and wikis increasingly hold sway; do we even want to help business become more effective, when it's already too effective at destroying the world's resources;
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