Predicting where the June 27 lava flow will go next is a fluid business.
In addition to the original topography of the landscape impacted by lava flows, workers with Hawaii County Civil Defense must take into account the changes made to the topography by the hardened lava left on the surface and how that will affect future flows.
In Europe, it’s been a longstanding tradition for high school students to embark on a “gap year” of traveling and volunteering before entering their post-secondary studies. This trend is now becoming more popular amongst American students who want to explore their interests through real world experiences.
The American Gap Association, an organization that accredits gap year programs, discovered in its research that enrollment in these programs climbed 27 percent from 2012 to 2013.
Several educators believe that high school students should take a mental break from academic life. Some universities are even encouraging this practice by offering students scholarships and fellowships.
Princeton’s Bridge Year Program offers a few newly admitted undergraduates a nine-month, tuition-free opportunity to defer their enrollment for a year. While engaging in community service in another country, students gain an international perspective and intercultural skills.
The Global Gap Year Fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was funded by an anonymous donation of $1.5 million to support gap years for students who could not afford the expense. Now, qualified students can receive $7,500 toward a service-oriented gap year abroad.
Self-awareness and academic burnout are the two common reasons students desire a gap year. Students are yearning for experiential learning that gives them a chance to actually practice multiple crafts. With the pressure of choosing the “right” major, students want to explore the real-life work before committing to a four-year journey.
Zack Sills, who completed a gap year, stated, “I learned just as much in my nineteenth year than I probably learned in my last two years of high school. When I was in Canada, I was the only American at the ranch. There were Canadians, Germans, and Australians, so it really made me appreciate other cultures. I learned a lot in Canada; the type of work I did made me come outside of my comfort zone.”
Several programs tout the benefits students receive from gap years. Research shows that “gappers” outperform their peers. A 2011 study at Middlebury College found that students who experience a gap year consistently maintain higher GPAs than those who didn’t. Moreover, gap year students reported being 75% more likely to be “happy” or “extremely satisfied” with their careers after college.
In order to prepare for a gap year, experts recommend that students talk to their parents and college counselors. Students should be ready to map out a strategic plan for their gap year with goals and action steps.
Students must know why they want to pursue a gap year. What do they want out of the entire experience? The mere idea of just traveling around the world may wear off after the first month. So, students should focus on a career goal or life direction. Then, they can coordinate the logistics, program structure, financial assistance, and safety precautions with their parents and university.
Overall, the effectiveness of a gap year varies from person to person. However, with a little research and first-hand knowledge from other gappers, students can make a decision that’s right for them.
Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I have a daily subscription to Google Alerts on “Nonprofit Management” and “Nonprofit Governance.” Every week, several nonprofit case stories surface, related to inadequate oversight by nonprofit boards of directors. Many of the cases result in huge losses losses to the nonprofits. Following is my personal list of what I consider to be reasonable board oversight responsibilities, to attempt to help nonprofit boards of directors to avoid such losses.
Financial Related Actions
• At least half the board should be able to analyze the monthly or quarterly financial statements. Have voluntary information sessions available for those who do not have the skills.
• The board chair needs to be alert to “teachable moments” during board meetings. When a complex financial or board related legal issue arises, the chair needs to make certain that all have a basic understanding of what is involved. Otherwise some directors will sit quietly and nod there heads in agreement!
• Make certain that an external audit is conducted at least every two years, and the board is involved in the selection of the external auditor from a list of two or three suggested by board members and/or management.
• Be certain the organization has either a comprehensive assessment committee, finance committee, and/or audit committee. (Some states require nonprofits to have an audit committee once the organization has specific annual revenues.)
• Be alert to the development process for filing critical reports -Examples: IRS 990s, employee tax withholdings and both state and federal tax reports. With the recent expansion of the 990 Form, the board and/or audit committee needs to be involved with the developed of the form respond to the 28 new questions related to nonprofit governance.
• Make certain the board has developed or is developing a current strategic plan and that it becomes a useful document.
• Be especially alert when financial reports are frequently late or one or more directors perceive financial personnel are inadequately skilled.
Other Governance Actions
• Be alert to the system used for developing new programs. Be wary when new programs are described such as “mind-boggling.” However, be certain at all reasonable opportunities are examined in a robust manner. Otherwise the organization may be a candidate for long-term disruption, like Eastman Kodak.
• Although engaging the CEO is the only hiring decision the board makes, it still has a responsibility to understand the strengths and weaknesses of promotable internal staff. This will require some board interactions with these staff persons
• Make certain that the organization has a knowledgeable CFO. No board member should have to worry about the safety of the organization’s financial assets.
• Directors need to be ready to raise questions, even if they fear the questions may appears to be inadequate ones.
• Nonprofit transparency is critical in the 21st century. Malfeasance, in any format, must not be covered-up for the “sake of the organization’s reputation.”
“Trust But Overview & Verify.”
I tend to think of seasons in terms of the food we eat and how I prepare meals for my family; it’s either grilling season or slow cooker season. The warmer months of spring and summer are filled with fresh vegetables, salads, and everything and anything on the grill. But the cooler months of fall and winter are filled with soups, casseroles, chili and anything I can dump into my slow cooker. Between the ease of preparing a meal and the all-day smell of comfort food, I highly recommend a quality slow cooker for your kitchen. Whether you are looking to purchase your first slow cooker or upgrade to a newer model, these five are as droolworthy as the food in them.
This Star Trek wall clock boldly goes where no clock has gone before. Assuming that spot on your wall has never had a clock, anyway. This brushed metal clock has a dozen vintage Action Fleet Micro Machine starships indicating the hours, with DS9 in the center.
The ships are finished in a black and silver pewter-like color. Just pick your favorite ships and the seller will include them if they can. It’s Romulan o’clock. It’s five after Ferengi. No, it’s 11 o’Klingon!
This is a fun timepiece to give as a gift if you know a Star Trek fan who’s always running late. It is $129.99(USD) from Etsy seller YOUbNeek.
The second phase of Expedition 42 will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome via Soyuz rocket (above) today at 4:01PM EST. Carrying three astronauts from ESA, NASA, and the Russian Federal Space Agency, the rocket will then rendezvous with the International Space Station about six hours later.
Unlike most gadgets and peripherals, our computer monitors tend to stay with us for a good chunk of time. My current 23-incher has been with me since the days of my Palm Centro. So when it comes to shopping for a new display, it certainly pays to…
WASHINGTON — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Sunday criticized what he described as lopsided coverage of the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, calling on the media to stop focusing on racially disproportionate police forces and pay more attention to black people killing one another.
“I find it very disappointing that you’re not discussing the fact that 93 percent of blacks in America are killed by other blacks. We’re talking about the exception here,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” referring to the Aug. 9 killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, in Ferguson by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Brown’s death, which sparked extended and widely covered protests, has become a symbol for racial tensions in the United States.
Giuliani’s comments, which were a response to a question from host Chuck Todd about the racial makeup of police departments, prompted an outraged reaction from fellow panelist Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University.
“First of all, most black of people who commit crimes against other black people go to jail,” said Dyson. “Number two, they are not sworn by the police department as an agent of the state to uphold the law. So in both cases, that’s a false equivalency that the mayor has drawn. … Black people who kill black people go to jail. White people who are policemen who kill black people do not go to jail.”
“It’s hardly insignificant,” Giuliani interjected. “It is the reason for the heavy police presence in the black community.”
Dyson and Giuliani’s exchange continued back and forth, with the former mayor finally asking, “So why don’t you cut it down [black-on-black crime] so so many white police officers don’t have to be in black areas?”
“White police officers won’t be there if you weren’t killing each other 70 percent of the time,” Giuliani added.
“This is a defense mechanism of white supremacy at work in your mind, sir,” Dyson replied.
ProPublica recently found that “young black men are 21 times as likely as their white peers to be killed by police,” according to data collected between 2010 and 2012.
And this tension isn’t anything new. In 1967, a panel convened by President Lyndon Johnson after the race riots in Newark and Detroit characterized the relationship between police and minority communities as “abrasive.”
“To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values,” the panel concluded.
The racial disparity between police forces and communities at large remains significant. According to The New York Times, “[i]n hundreds of police departments across the country, the percentage of whites on the force is more than 30 percentage points higher than in the communities they serve, according to an analysis of a government survey of police departments.”
Giuliani said on “Meet The Press” that as mayor, he had tried to make sure the racial makeup of New York City’s police force was proportional to that of the general population.
Despite what Giuliani’s comments may have implied, black-on-black crime is not a hidden, under-covered epidemic that’s unique to the black community. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out at Vox, 83 percent of white murder victims in 2011 were killed by fellow white people.
Ferguson continues to await word on whether a grand jury will indict Wilson for shooting Brown. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has already, controversially, declared a state of emergency in anticipation of possible violence after the verdict. Many people believe it is unlikely that Wilson will be charged, given that it’s rare for police officers to be arrested for on-the-job killings.
Giuliani said he didn’t want to question Nixon’s decision, but added, “What I would’ve done — and I’ve had three situations similar to this — I would’ve had a state of emergency, but I would’ve kept it quiet.”
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Stopping in Sydney, Australia during her Prismatic World Tour, Katy Perry tolerated about all of the “perverted & disgusting” paparazzi she could stand and decided to turn the camera back on them.
Posting a note on her Twitter, Perry explained how the paparazzi followed her around on the beach, “laughing” at her pleas for privacy, and offering her a “deal” that they would leave for a bathing suit shot.
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) November 22, 2014
Perry then tweeted out a picture of three of the different “stalkers.”
THESE ARE A FEW OF THE STALKERS: pic.twitter.com/1JtHSIVuqc
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) November 22, 2014
Remember AUS anyone printing or posting unauthorized photos of me in a bikini from these DISGUSTING/PERVERTED OLD MEN is AGAINST my will!
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) November 23, 2014
H/T Jezebel
“A little bit of the right info, just a little beforehand, is more valuable than all the info in the world, 6 months after the fact.” – @Vivek
What does a software-run businesses and a professional basketball team have in common? According to Vivek Ranadivé, CEO of the software company Tibco and lead owner of the Sacramento Kings, a lot. Ranadivé believes that every business is a social network – an ecosystem of customers and fans where all of the products are perishable. Whether you’re selling basketball tickets, airline tickets, hospital beds, hotel rooms or consumer electronics, they’re all perishable – they decline in value. Ranadivé believes that companies of the future are going to use technology to engage and capture and expand that social network on the one hand, and then marry that to all of that perishable inventory on the other.
Vivek Ranadivé – Twitter (@vivek) | CEO of Tibco, Owner of NBA Sacramento Kings
However, there is one big difference that sets enterprise businesses and professional sports teams apart and that is the fact that the first has customers and the latter has fans. “Fans will paint their face purple. Fans will evangelize 24/7. Fans are engaged, and fans are talking about the Kings all the time,” says Ranadivé, who feels that every business is striving to be a business that can convert its customers into fans. This is where the technology comes in to allow businesses to engage and give people exactly the right offer, at the right time, at the right place – a concept that is showcased at the Sacramento King’s new smart arena which is 100% powered by Tibco software.
Ranadivé describes how to use real-time Fast Data to convert customers of any business into fans and turn your business into a social network.
5 Ways to Convert Customers into Fans using Fast Data:
1. “Uberize” your business with civilization 3.0 – Ranadivé believes we are entering a new and exciting era which he calls Civilization 3.0 – a time when the world’s largest bookseller has no book stores, where the world’s largest music seller has no music store, where the world’s largest taxi company owns no cars and where the world’s largest hotel company owns no hotel rooms. In Civilization 3.0 the individual contributor can now reach large audiences and companies have to understand and harness the five forces that are driving this new era -extreme service, mobility, the rise of social platforms and the growth and expansion of Asian economies.
But what do these five forces mean for your business? Ranadivé says that every business looks like his basketball team. To people that ask why he spends so much money on his basketball team, he says he thinks it’s undervalued: “It’s really not a basketball team, it’s a social network and it’s a type of perishable inventory,” he says.
Ranadivé says that businesses like Uber have cracked the code, and he likes to talk about how every business will get “Uberized” in the future, noting that in Civilization 3.0, the cost of supply is free and the cost of your demand is free. When you’re able to do that, then you’ve created a Civilization 3.0 company.
2. Recognize the power of the two second advantage – Ranadivé is converting customers to fans in all types of businesses with the two-second advantage. A simple premise that Ranadive writes about in his New York Times Bestseller, the two-second advantage is based on the fact that a little bit of the right information, just a little bit beforehand, is more valuable than all of the information in the world six months later.
Ranadivé asks: “What’s the point of knowing that you’ve lost a customer after the customer has gone? What’s the point of knowing that there’s going to be fraud committed after you lose the money or that there’s going to be a power outage when you’re already sitting in darkness?” This is the idea behind the two-second advantage, it’s really about getting that right information beforehand and combining it with historical insights and then being able to take advantage of opportunities or prevent disasters and the Tibco technology helps to do just that.
3. Convert sentiment into retention using perishable inventory – Ranadivé says that it’s the backend that matters. Sure, the front end has to be fun and engaging and something that people want to use, but the “secret sauce” is the backend. “The backend is where you can look at each person and create a profile of that person and the predictive and the prescriptive – all of that is what I call the psychological router,” says Ranadivé.
The psychological router refers to the place where companies are able to pick up sentiment and ask what things they must do to convert that sentiment into retention. Ranadivé provides us an example of how they are doing this with Kings fans: “If you are at one of my games and you Tweet that you had cold pizza, then we would pick it up. But then we would also know that you are there with your family and that you are coming to the next game and you don’t yet have parking. We have access to VIP parking, which is perishable. We would also know that it’s late in the first quarter, and it turns out we have too many hot dogs for the game and we are not going to be able to sell them, and your kids have historically liked hot dogs. So even before you have a chance to become unhappy, we’ll give you parking for the next game and we’ll give you some hot dogs. It’s all perishable inventory and it will make you happy.”
4. Big data is important, but fast data is where the magic happens – We are living in a time where it’s all about the data, but while there is a need to collect a lot of data all the time, a lot of it is transactional data. Ranadivé says that often times the real-time data is much more valuable because that’s what gives the data greater context, for example knowing if a customer is walking towards a store vs. walking away from the store or being able to see that a customer is not with their usual group but instead is with a bigger party – all of this information could be important context.
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” ― Albert Einstein
Fast Data is all about delivering the right information at the right time. “What we do is what I call Fast Data, when you are looking at real-time data and then combining that with historical context to then come up with the exact right thing,” says Ranadivé who believes that you need that real-time data to make it extremely contextual, because if it is not contextual then it ends up just being spam.
“The same software that we use to discover what combinations of drugs will cure what different types of cancer is the same software that is being used to figure out how to give fans a great experience by making them relevant, real-time offers so that they become raving fans,” says Ranadivé.
5. Maintain the ‘Fire in your eyes’ – When Ranadivé was a little start-up, his first big deal was with Salomon Brothers and he was involved in a bakeoff where he competed with big companies like IBM. At the final meeting, the head of technology asked him to come to New York to have lunch with them. Ranadivé was asked why he should be given the order. After stating many reasons that did not elicit a positive reaction, he said, “Those are not good reasons, there is only one reason why you should give me the order – because I have fire in my eyes. Go and look at my engineers who are on the trading floor and you are never going to find people who are more passionate, who are going to work harder and who are going to be more committed to your success than we are.” That’s fire in the eyes, and Ranadive advises entrepreneurs to have the fire and keep the fire and to be successful.
In closing, Ranadivé gives us a glimpse of what the rapidly-evolving world might look like in 15 years. He says that there isn’t an industry that will not be disrupted: “I predict that in 15 years most medical diagnosis will be done by a computer. I predict that many of the diseases that we are facing today, Aids and Ebola, Malaria and so on will actually be behind us.” He believes the planet will become a significantly better place in 15 years. I believe it will take the collective work of visionaries like Ranadivé to help make the world a better place.
You can watch the full interview with Vivek Ranadivé here. Please join me and Michael Krigsman every Friday at 3PM EST as we host CXOTalk – connecting with thought leaders and innovative executives who are pushing the boundaries within their companies and their fields.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.