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5th Feb 2008, 05:15
The quality of the materials and build quality of the Buick Enclave are superior to the Hyundai. The engine is just OK in the Hyundai, but not great. And the depreciaion rates are so bad that when you pay $45k for the Veracruz in 2007 you can sell it for half in 2008. Think about that.
11th Mar 2008, 15:43
You actually believe what Car & Driver prints? Have you ever driven a Lexus or personally compared your Hyundai with a Lexus?
There is a saying that exemplifies the automotive world, "You Get What You Pay For"! Your Hyundai is a Lexus wannabe. It's inferior in every aspect but marketing. Believe whatever you want if that makes you happy, however you'll have to face the facts some day. The Veracruz is no Lexus and never will be.
12th Mar 2008, 13:30
Hey 15:43, You can rave about Lexus all you want. It's nothing, but an overpriced and overrated Toyota. The Koreans don't have to pay extravagant union wages. That is why their prices are reasonable. Look at the lemon the Mercedes ML series was. Yeah, people got what they paid for with that.
14th Mar 2008, 00:14
To the person questioning what Car & Driver prints; I happen to put a great deal of faith in what they say as I have found most of it to be true. I also subscribe to Consumer Reports, who have had excellent reliability reports for recent Hyundai vehicles. If both of these reputable publications like these cars that much, then Hyundai is definitely on my shopping list.
Also, very good response to the unreliable "you get what you pay for" comment when you brought up the Mercedes ML, could not have said it better. I am still a Mercedes fan, but facts are facts and I would purchase a Veracruz before a used ML for the same money. Cheers.
18th Mar 2008, 19:39
Car & Driver will print whatever they get paid to print. All manufacturers, especially the Asian manufacturers have used this mag as an advertising conduit for years. If reading it makes you feel good and you actually believe what they print, well then I'm happy for you.
I'm also a Canadian and I know that we are getting ripped off. Our U.S. neighbours can pick up a Veracruz for about $10 grand less than we can and they also get a ten year warranty. On the other hand, a Lexus 350 is priced the same, carries the same warranty, and is accepted as a benchmark vehicle on both sides of the border.
There's no way I'd pay $47,000 plus to buy a Top of Line Veracruz in Canada. I can get an Acura RDX Tech for less than that. Hyundai needs to re-think their pricing a bit, no one with any common sense should even think about paying those kind of dollars for a Veracruz. The Veracruz will depreciate 50% as soon as you drive it off the lot.
Some of you need to get your heads out of the clouds. Korean vehicle manufacturers are subsidized and protected by government import restrictions. We promote open and fair trade where as they don't. They pay their employees poverty wages with little or no benefits, and yet north americans buy the crap they send over without a second thought. If any of you think they don't send over junk, look at the reviews for the Kia Sedona posted here.
Yes, for those of you who don't understand, You do get what you pay for. Think about total end use cost including resale. The Veracruz is a Lexus or a Mercedes Wanna Be. Hyundai wants you to think it's on the same level, but there's really no comparison when you think of it over the long run.
19th Mar 2008, 14:35
I own two Hyundai vehicles; a 2003 Santa Fe and a 2004 Sonata. Problems with either one: NONE!
I wish I could say that about any North American car I've owned. Maybe you need to realize this is 2008, not 1988, and the days of the Excel are over.
20th Mar 2008, 18:13
Re: You get what you pay for
I'm Canadian and I'm looking for a new 4WD vehicle that's reliable and more fuel efficient than conventional SUV's. I've had a chance to compare the Veracruz with the Lexus RX350 and I can report the following.
I'm comparing a Veracruz LTD that priced out at $47,273 cdn including the options I wanted. Inclusive of the delivery and destination fee of $1,810 the total price of the vehicle is $55,577 including taxes.
The Lexus is the RX350 premium package that priced out at $49,350 cdn including the similar options. Inclusive of the delivery and destination fee of $1,780 the total price of the vehicle is $58,115 including taxes.
The price variance is about $2,500, not a considerable difference. However, the difference in interest rates are 1.9% over 60 months for the Veracruz compared to 8.5% for the RX350.
Upon doing the math, the total cost to purchase the Veracruz over five years is $58,303 compared to $71,520 for the RX350. The estimated five year residual value of the Veracruz is $14,100 compared to the RX350's value of $20,400. The total net actual purchase price for the Veracruz is $44,203 compared to $51,120 for the RX350.
These figures don't include maintenance etc but I would assume both vehicles would be similar. Warranty coverage is also similar.
I like both vehicles. The ride and overall quality of RX350 seems superior to the Veracruz but only marginally. Based solely on total cost, I'd buy the Veracruz. It is less expensive to buy than the RX350 and as far as I'm concerned, it's as nice as the RX350. Nevertheless, the Veracruz does not possess the Snob vale of the RX350. A tough choice, maybe I'll buy an Enclave instead.
13th Apr 2008, 11:27
First off you should buy yours in the US. I have one on our lot that has the saddle leather, dvd based navigation with aftermarket backup camera and every other option available for only 38 grand. Good luck with yours I absolutely love mine. Also note that we traded a year old GLS in and gave in trade 20999 that cost him 26000. to start that's your average depreciation that's great and btw he traded for a limited.
28th Aug 2008, 13:16
Consumer Reports is the worst magazine. They don't have a clue. The people I know that relied on their recommendations have regretted it. The magazine is pretentious and never fairly evaluates the products. I subscribed to CR magazine for a year an never found them to be reliable.


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I do not think there has been a mobile phone company that has changed more in the past few years than Motorola. They went from one of the leaders in cellphones in the 80's with their thin, clamshell, Razr device where they held 6.1-percent of the global smartphone business and were the third largest manufacturer in the world, down to 1.2-percent and a world ranking of number 15. After their Razr clamshell, they just never seemed to keep up with the newer manufacturers nor the market – it was as if they lost their way.
Motorola never made a true flagship phone to match the competition – they always built a great quality device, but their specifications never matched the other high-end devices and their cameras…well, let's just say that Motorola never took photography very seriously on their devices, while other manufacturers were striving to improve theirs. They never really had the market covered with a range of phones and pricing, like Samsung…they could never attract the low-end market where there was rapid growth and they never reached the heights of the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S or Note series, or the new LG models – so they were foundering about and losing lots of money.
Enter Google – When Google purchased Motorola in late 2011 for $12.5 billion, they were less concerned about manufacturing smartphones than they were about firming up the Android fragmentation and getting Android out to more users around the world. Oh, and getting the Motorola patents was also a huge reason. There was a huge shift in philosophy brought on by reducing the work force and filling key positions with individuals that had a different outlook on smartphones. Newly appointed, Charlie Tritschler, senior vice president of product at Motorola Mobility said, "We believe that a quality mobile experience is a right, not a privilege." This could be Moto's new slogan.
After the Moto X, they concentrated on lowering costs while keeping their quality. The Moto G hit the streets and was a huge success – and is the company's most successful smartphone to date. However, one success can hardly revive the financials of a company that hasn't seen a profit in more than three years. With this weak market position one wonders what Lenovo will do to turn it around and what changes it will need to make to accomplish that task. Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research said it best, "Motorola is a reflection of what Google wanted it to be and what it needed to be. It's not an indication of what it will be under Lenovo." Although Lenovo's CEO Yang Yuanqing called Motorola a "treasure" and promised to protect and strengthen the brand – something they accomplished when they purchased the IBM ThinkPad
Right now, Motorola's new guard is dead set on offering a low-cost, high-quality smartphone. It was only a six month period from the Moto G release that Motorola lowered the price bar by $50 on the recent Motorola Moto E, which has a smaller 4.3-inch display, slower dual-core processor, and no front-facing camera. It still shares the same design and feel as its higher priced siblings and even has dual-SIM capabilities in some markets, all for only $129. One has to wonder if Lenovo will allow them to keep competing in that crowded field – look at the many China entries already in that category – or will they use Motorola for a flagship device.
Moto is confident that the products already in the "pipeline" will still come to fruition, such as the upcoming Moto 360 smartwatch and a possible successor to the Moto X. However, Lenovo will certainly have to instill changes to make it once again profitable – such as further job cuts and possibly switching production from Fort Worth, Texas to their China based facilities. They did say that they will keep the new Chicago headquarters building, but beyond that, not much was laid out. Lenovo is already has its own philosophy in the low-end market and ranks only second behind Samsung in China – how will this line up with Motorola's current vision. One of the reasons Lenovo was interested in Motorola was their strategy of driving down phone costs and Rick Osterloh, President and COO of Motorola said, Lenovo is "committed to helping us deliver the products we're working on now." When asked about after that, he said they would look at other opportunities at that time…spoken like a true team player.
Please let us know on our Google+ Page what direction you see Moto taking now that Lenovo is the new owner – are you excited about the possibilities or worried that Motorola will lose its identity…as always, we would love to hear what you think.

subset: commoncrawl


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Need an idea for a firecracker of a 4th of July Centerpiece? Look no further than Uncle Sam's jaunty tophat, gold 'sparklers' of dried flower seed heads and red, white, and blue blooms for some flag waving inspiration! See VIDEO with Linda Vater's creation below!
Here's what you'll need:
Spray paint dried seed heads in a well ventilated area.
Using floral tape, make a grid across top of coffee can to support the blooms
Fill container with cool water, then begin placing flowers. Start with hydrangea blooms around the edges, then place daisies and veronica
Insert 'sparklers' and flags last
Place arrangement on top of cake plate to complete your tophat! Cascading r, w, & b ribbon is a nice flourish.
To complete the tablescape:
Add iced tea, hot dogs, potato salad, watermelon and baked beans and you'll have a spread Yankee Doodle would approve of!
{find a garden center near you}


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The promises from the candidates are a flying... of course most of it is totally meaningless. I would guess that nearly 100% of presidential candidate's promises fail to come to pass.
Net result... even if Obama wins, the country won't become a socialist state. Likewise, McCain won't be able to balance the budget and cut taxes while providing increased spending on energy and such. My bet... neither will be able to pass their health care reform bills, etc.
They are both in the Senate right now. If these things(health care, taxes, etc) were so critical, how come they haven't already submitted the bill to the congress?
Answer.. they know they won't pass... yet they can promise them anyway.


text: 16th Global Bottled Water Congress 8 - 10 October 2019, Dubai, UAE Tour major new bottling plants of Dubai Refreshment and Mai Dubai, followed by two days of conference sessions, networking opportunities and a gala awards dinner in the iconic Burj Al Arab ballroom. Hear from leading international and regional brands on market and strategic developments as well as from other innovators and entrepreneurs helping to shape future market growth. Download the programme


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The warmly aromatic and resinous scent of the juniper berry (Juniperus communis, Family: Cupressaceae) is like the fragrance of a pine woods. A teaspoon of the blue-black berries steeping in a pot of simmering water for a cup of tea will fill the kitchen with the aroma of the great outdoors. The berries are borne on the common juniper, which grows widely throughout the northern hemisphere. In fact, it is the most widespread conifer in the world. It may be a shrub four to six feet high or a tree of forty feet.
The berries, which ripen in their second or third year, contain a cordial oil, an alkaloid called juniperin, resins, sugar, fat, formic and acetic acids, and malates. They are used commercially to flavor gins, liqueurs, beer, and bitters. They are used in the kitchen to season sauerkraut, game, beans, pickles, sauces, and marinades. Generally, three to five berries are allowed per serving. If harvesting your own, gather the ripe blue berries and spread them on a clean surface to dry slowly in a cool, dry place; in the process they'll turn their characteristic purple-black.
In olden days the juniper was known as the "tree of sanctuary." Legend has it that the Holy Family found shelter and protection from Herod in the juniper's thick-growing branches, and they protect small game today. Still another old tale deals with witches and their obsession with the exact number of needles on a tree. They counted and counted but always lost track and had to start over. Finally, giving up, they would leave the home or garden where the juniper grew and it would be free of their spell. So it came to be accepted that a juniper tree planted at a door protected a home against witches. A juniper planted in a garden countered the effect of a tree, such as the alder or larch, liked by witches.
Reprinted from Lore and Legend of the Culinary Herbs and Spices, Second Edition © St Louis Herb Society 2014


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ABS-CBN, "In The Service of the Filipino," brings a free-to-air television channel to our Kapamilyas who not only watch and support their favorite teams and athletes, but analyze and play the games themselves. ABS-CBN Sports+Action goes hand-in-hand with the network's cable TV, pay-per-view, and digital platforms to create a unique and engaging sports hub for Pinoy sports fans.
ABS-CBN Sports+Action will continue its coverage of the of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP), the Azkals, the highest-ranked Southeast Asian football club, Top Rank fights including champion Nonito Donaire, and ALA Boxing fighters' bouts in "Pinoy Pride."
Stand by for special coverages of the greatest global athletes in the sporting worlds' biggest stages like the courts of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the octagons of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and football fields of 2014 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup.
ABS-CBN Sports+Action keeps you up-to-date with current events via "News +", with Anthony "Tunying" Taberna breaking down the day's biggest issues so viewers' can understand how it affects their daily lives. Meanwhile, TJ Manotoc gives us "The Score", in this 15-minute daily sports news program which tackles the biggest stories in sports.
Meanwhile, action thrill seekers get their fix reliving the memorable films of the "King of Philippine Movies," Fernando Poe Jr. in "FPJ: Hari ng Aksyon." ABS-CBN Sports+Action also debuts the explosive new series "The Ultimate Fighter: China" and "Zero Hours," joining returning series "CSI," "NCIS," "Once Upon a Time," and "WWE."
Watch out for the drama, action, and excitement of sports on ABS-CBN Sports+Action Channel 23 beginning Saturday (January 18).
For more Kapamilya updates follow/like BIDA KAPAMILYA on Twitter and Facebook.


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Times Past
Iconic 'Migrant Mother' photo to be celebrated in Nipomo
"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet."
Dorothea Lange was working as a photographer for the Federal Farm Security Administration. Her job was to document rural poverty in America. She photographed conditions among the Mexican farm working community, the problems of flooding in the Arroyo Grande Valley and, in 1942, she recorded the plight of Japanese-Americans in the Manzanar War Relocation Camp.
Driving north of the tiny town of Nipomo on Highway 101, something caught her eye. She turned her car around and took six images with her cumbersome Graflex camera. The last was soon named, "Migrant Mother."
By 1936, America's population had shifted to the cities where the soup kitchens and long lines of the unemployed had been the subject of photographers since 1930. Lange's "Migrant Mother" quickly supplanted urban themes as the iconic photo of the Depression Era.
Lange described her February or March, 1936 encounter with Florence Thompson for Popular Photography in 1960.
"It was raining, the camera bags were packed, and I had on the seat beside me in the car the results of my long trip, the box containing all those rolls and packs of exposed film ready to mail back to Washington … . Sixty-five miles an hour for seven hours would get me home to my family that night … . I was on my way and barely saw a crude sign, 'PEA-PICKERS CAMP,' with a pointing arrow which flashed by at the side of the road, but out of the corner of my eye I did see it.
"I didn't want to stop, and didn't. I didn't want to remember that I had seen it. I drove on and ignored the summons. Then … arose an inner argument … . Having well convinced myself for miles that I could continue on, I did the opposite. Almost without realizing what I was doing, I made a U-turn on the empty highway. I went back those 20 miles and turned off the highway at that sign, PEA-PICKERS CAMP.
"I was following instinct, not reason; I drove into that wet and soggy camp and parked my car like a homing pigeon.
"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions … I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed."
Despite the fame of "Migrant Mother," the name of Dorothea Lange's subject, Florence Thompson, was usually omitted when the photograph was reprinted in articles and books. When I saw it in the Library of Congress in the 1950s, there was no mention of her identity.
It was only after she suffered from cancer in 1983 that her son, Troy Owens, enlisted the aid of San Jose Mercury News reporter Jack Foley to raise funds for her nursing care. More than $35,000 in donations came in from throughout America, mostly in small donations with beautiful notes. It was a tribute to Florence Thompson.
Santa Cruz author Geoffrey Dunn's 2002 essay for the San Luis Obispo New Times, titled "Photographic License," cast a dark light on the background of the images, suggesting that they were an intrusion on the privacy of Thompson's family. Other critics have suggested that Lange may have "arranged" her subjects in a more sympathetic pose.
That notwithstanding, the "Migrant Mother" photos continue to be among the most famous in the history of photography.
Many San Luis Obispo County residents are unacquainted with the fact that "Migrant Mother" was taken in Nipomo. A "Migrant Mother Recognition Ceremony" marking the 80th anniversary of Lange's "ultimate photograph representing the Great Depression" will be held at the site of the 2,500-resident labor camp at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at Tefft and Carrillo streets. The public is invited.
Dan Krieger's column is special to The Tribune. He is a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly and past president of the California Mission Studies Association.


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Be a part of the memories for the Roanoke Valley's premiere holiday celebration, The Roanoke Times Dickens of a Christmas! Celebrating its 36th anniversary, Dickens occurs on the first three Fridays in December. This free, family-friendly event happens annually in Downtown Roanoke and includes favorites like roasted chestnuts, carriage rides, street performers, Amtrak's Kids Zone and more!
Friday, December 21, 6:00pm - 10:00pm - featuring Coca Cola Snow Zone and RVSPCA Pet Costume Contest at 6:30pm. Registration for the pet costume contest starts at 5:30pm in Wells Fargo Plaza. Register, get a number for your pet, and be ready for the contest starting at 6:30pm.
For more information, visit https://www.downtownroanoke.org/events/signature-events/dickens-of-a-christmas


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Dunne on Wine
Embrace Criterion and Mt. Beautiful wines
The American wine consumer is adventurous, willing to embrace uncommon styles of wines from unfamiliar places, despite the strength in the market of a few highly popular varietals and a few especially dominant brands. If the American wine consumer weren't eager to explore, neither domestic wine production nor the import of foreign wine would have climbed as dramatically as it has in the U.S. over the past few decades.
To capitalize on the intrepid spirit of the American wine consumer, I'd like to introduce a couple of brands that may be overlooked. This selection is based on tastings over the past several months in which wines from these producers especially impressed me with their overall consistency. I might not have been blown away by every sample I tasted, but a disproportionate number of their wines won me over for their lucidity and verve. As a bonus, they almost invariably were priced appealingly.
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a long-standing company that distributes films, not wines.
Criterion Collection, on the other hand, is an upstart, conceived two years ago by two wine principals of Whole Foods Market in Austin – Doug Bell and Devon Broglie.
They were unaware of The Criterion Collection, but they are now. After officials of The Criterion Collection tapped them on the shoulder about the overlap in names, the new labels for the pair's wines simply will say Criterion.
With that cleared up, let's stick to the wine collection called Criterion. It began with six wines introduced last spring. Bell and Broglie added two more in the fall and are to extend the lineup with another two any day now. So far, about 10,000 cases have been released, and Broglie can see the lineup growing to more than 30 wines. Eventual total annual production is anyone's guess.
"We were really interested in creating a brand … that represented varietal typicity from specific world-renowned growing regions," Broglie said via email.
He and Bell work with another company and on their own to scout for winemaking talent and sources of grapes from throughout the wine world. They ultimately taste sample wines – more than 100 for their first eight releases – before settling on those that they feel hit their target of providing "the best possible quality in the bottle for the best possible price," Broglie says.
For me, the early wines to hit that bull's-eye are:
▪ From the cool Friuli Grave region in the far northeast reaches of Italy, Criterion Collection 2014 Friuli Grave Pinot Grigio ($11) is classically dry but nonetheless evocative of a small, intense Italian pastry for its bright gold color, juicy fruit and lacy suggestions of pistachios and almonds.
▪ Also from Italy, Criterion Collection 2011 Chianti Classico ($14) is characteristically lean and sharp, its cherry fruit clean, refreshing and underscored with a thread of fetching herbalness.
▪ From the other side of the world, Criterion Collection 2013 South Australia Coonawarra Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($17) is exceptional not only for its price but for its stuffing, which includes cherries and plums, eucalyptus and mint, a dash of anise and a strange but alluring thread of spiced balsamico.
▪ In an earlier column on Chilean carmenere, I mentioned Criterion Collection 2013 Valle de Colchagua Reserva Carmenere ($16), which warrants another endorsement for its lithe build and vibrant fruit, running mostly to cherries, berries and plums, with just a hint of bell pepper.
▪ From Argentina's Uco Valley, Criterion Collection 2013 Mendoza Reserva Malbec ($14) is forward, beefy, fruity and, most notably, spicy, the veritable pepper spray of the malbec world.
Criterion wines are stocked at Whole Foods Markets.
Mt. Beautiful
Few people who jump into the wine business must feel the pressure to succeed as keenly as David and Leigh Teece. He, after all, is the Tusher Professor in Global Business at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, while she is founder and chair of World Mentor, a Web-based mentoring program for educational institutions, companies and so forth.
Their investment in the wine trade, not surprisingly, looks to be working out quite favorably, for both themselves and for wine consumers. In just a decade, their brand, Mt. Beautiful, has become an especially exciting label, particularly for aromatic white wines like sauvignon blanc, pinot gris and riesling.
In 2004, the Teeces ventured into his native New Zealand – she's a native Californian – to start planting grapes in the North Canterbury region along the South Island's northeast reaches. They made their first wines off the 2007 harvest and ever since have been cultivating a devoted clientele both in New Zealand and the United States.
Their current releases include these notably satisfying wines:
▪ Mt. Beautiful 2014 North Canterbury Sauvignon Blanc ($16): The 2014 growing year was progressing splendidly right up to harvest, but then rain complicated the outlook for the vintage. By being selective in their picking and then clever in their winemaking, the vineyard and cellar crews of Mt. Beautiful salvaged a sauvignon blanc without blemishes. It's actually a quite vibrant interpretation of New Zealand's best-known varietal wine – pungent and floral in smell, ripe with grapefruit and lime on the palate, intriguing in its suggestions of watermelon and jasmine, and nervy with acidity in its refreshing finish.
▪ Mt. Beautiful 2015 North Canterbury Riesling ($22): I first wrote of a Mt. Beautiful riesling nearly four years ago, when the 2009 version caught my attention for its floral aroma, willowy grace, and vivid suggestions of apricot, apple and lime. This release is cut from the same cloth, though a little riper, with more texture and more grapefruit, especially in the energy of its acidity.
▪ Mt. Beautiful 2014 North Canterbury Pinot Gris ($19): Grapes for this wine were picked in two sweeps through the vineyard, the earlier harvest intending to capture and retain the variety's floral aromatics and high-toned acidity, the later one to get grapes that would yield more ripe-fruit flavors and more body. The method worked, resulting in an unusually well-proportioned pinot gris that gives off suggestions of fully ripe pears in flavor but also finishing with the snap of a crisp apple.
▪ Mt. Beautiful 2014 North Canterbury Pinot Noir ($26): "Elegance" is a word best reserved for the finest of wines. This has it, even if the bottle is finished with a screw cap, not a cork. Get over it. The wine is brilliantly colored, vivid with cherry and strawberry fruit, and just tannic enough to reinforce its backbone. Its complexity lies in understatement more than bravado.
In the Sacramento region, the Mt. Beautiful sauvignon blanc is available at Whole Foods Market along Arden Way and in Roseville. The pinot noir is stocked by Nugget Markets. One or the other or both are at some branches of Total Wine. All can be ordered through the winery's website, mtbeautiful.co.nz.
Wine critic and competition judge Mike Dunne's selections are based solely on open and blind tastings, judging at competitions, and visits to wine regions. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Who Represents Me?
An Elected Officials Lookup
Use the search box below to find U.S. Congress (Senate + House) and state elected officials (governor + legislators) for any address or Zip Code in the United States. Results will include contact information, including select social media accounts, as available. For any congressional or gubernatorial seats contested in 2020, results will also include a race competitiveness rating.To find elected officials at your current location*, use the icon below. Additional search options are listed below the map.


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Ex-Gomez aide and council hopeful faces political ethics penalty
$3,140 spent for "cash withdrawals at local food establishments" and "the Men's Warehouse for menswear"
Matt Potter 4:35 p.m., Nov. 15
10151 Prospect Avenue, Santee(No longer in business.)
From day one, the first image visitors to the tasting room at Manzanita Brewing Company's associated with the Santee operation was its namesake lumber. The twisted tree was painted on the walls, and front and center in the company's logo. It worked well as a symbol for the East County hotspot, even after they moved to a larger tasting room and brewery in 2012.
But, last winter, as owner Jeff Trevaskis and his staff readied to open a distilling arm and contemplated expansion into numerous new states, they started to think the timing might be right for a name change. The result is the new handles, Twisted Manzanita Ales and Twisted Manzanita Spirits.
"We wanted to unify our logos and focus on our tree. People always ask us what Manzanita stands for or if we make cider due to the alternate meaning of Manzanita," says Trevaskis, referring to cider made from berries from the Manzanita tree. "By clearly focusing on the uniquely beautiful and twisted Manzantia tree, we are making it clear what our logo represents. Manzanita will always focus on making great beer, but adding the 'Twisted' just helps define our image."
The change will become effective on February 21, and the plan is to make it as seamless as possible. Helping with that is a complete redesign of the companies' website and a new Twitter account for Twisted Manzanita Spirits. Other than, everything should remain the same.


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Product Features:
The birthday girls friends will look so cute in these headbands! The headbands says "It's My Sweet 16" and "Happy Sweet 16" in cardstock and are decorated with a fringe paper trim in white. It's an inexpensive and fantastic headband to help your birthday party stand out in the crowd!


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Guest blog by Don Leslie, recruiter at management consultancy recruiters BLT and a careers adviser for Bradford University School of Management ©Don Leslie Continue reading
Guest blog by Don Leslie, recruiter at management consultancy recruiters BLT and a careers adviser for Bradford University School of Management ©Don Leslie Continue reading
Guest blog by Pol O Morain, MBA alumnus and advisory board member of Bradford University School of Management, international marketing commentator and partner at EnterpriseLab.
We've all been there. A business project requires expert research-oriented knowledge or you are researching for your MBA in international business management. A Google search turns up some relevant academic research content.
But when you click to view you are suddenly confronted by a pay wall. What is even more frustrating is that often the research paper behind the pay wall is the output of publicly funded research.
1. Should publicly funded research be freely available?
This, of course, begs the question "Who owns the research?" Surely publicly funded research should be freely available. Where there is a charge should the income not go back into the research pot to fund further knowledge creation?
The business of research knowledge has become big business globally. We have a system whereby publicly funded research results and knowledge become the intellectual property of major publishing houses. These publishers then charge universities, businesses and individuals for access. It's a nice business model – if you are a publisher. But not for anyone else.
2. Journals enjoy profit margins up to 70%
A recent study by a British university suggests journals enjoy profit margins of up to 70%. The British Government announced earlier this year that they will act on the recommendations in a commissioned report on open access for research publishing by Dame Janet Finch. However they have indicated an intention to pay the publishers for the content which would, in turn, be publicly available.
So the publishers will continue to be rewarded and paid for content that either results directly from publicly funded research – or that which is cross subsidised by universities from teaching budgets.
3. The government spends £5bn on research
In an article earlier this year in the Guardian newspaper, David Willetts the Universities and Science Minister indicated the UK spends £5bn per year on research.
He said: "We fund this research because it furthers human knowledge and drives intellectual, social and economic progress. In line with our commitment to open information, I will be announcing at the Publishers Association annual meeting that we will make publicly funded research accessible free of charge to readers. Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the forefront of open research."
£5bn is a substantial sum of money by anyone's standard. The value of knowledge and intellectual capital created by research must reasonably be assumed to represent a multiple value increase over research spend. The economic and business value of research, were it to be made freely available, is enormous.
4. Open access must become the norm
Open access to such knowledge should be a requisite of research funding and open access publishing should become the norm rather than the exception.
Over recent months we have seen major public campaigns around business taxation and including the tax affairs of Starbucks. Yet there is little public debate on the practices surrounding research knowledge nor on the tax affairs of some of the leading publishers.
Indeed, some of these publishers, including Informa, have moved their businesses offshore for the purpose of gaining tax efficiencies. Tax avoidance.
So the research knowledge becomes a double-edged farce where even the argument that the corporate tax paid by publishers effectively contributes to the public purse, which then funds the research, no longer exists.
The tax affairs of Starbucks and their offer of a £10m annual tax payment in the UK is paltry in comparison to the huge sums involved in academic publishing.
Is open access the answer to this issue?
Mother and daughter academic team – Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, Professor of Leadership, Bradford University School of Management and Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, Managing Director, Real World Group – are the first winners of a new Chartered Management Institute (CMI) competition to find the most useful research to practising managers. This article achieved the highest average rating from CMI members.
Even before the effects of the current economic crisis, organisations were aware of the need to be more innovative, handling rapid and complex change competently, and to be more effective in utilising organisational resources, including, most importantly, their people resources.
It falls to leaders to get more from their staff, in ways that do not reduce morale, not only for ethical reasons, but because damaging either will ensure that any benefits will be short-lived, with the most talented probably taking their talents elsewhere.
This raises critical questions about the nature of leadership and the use of human capital – the knowledge, skills and personal attributes that when applied in people's efforts create economic value; and the sharing of social capital – the connections between people and groups that increase innovation, learning, and productivity in organisations.
We identified a model that enables organisations to build leadership capacity, and embed cultures of innovation, proactivity, and high 'readiness for change', while at the same time creating an environment in which employees can be more productive and experience higher levels of motivation and well-being.
This was tested with thousands of managers, in a range of organisations internationally, from petrochemical and luxury goods to healthcare and local government, and found to significantly increase levels of employee engagement. A second three-year investigation showed that this approach to leadership, when embedded in the culture of teams, has a significant impact on productivity.
This paper briefly describes the research findings from these two studies and the implications for managers and organisations in creating cultures of engagement, innovation, high 'readiness for change', and high levels of productivity.
1. What form of leadership produces high levels of employee engagement?
Notions of leadership evolve over time, affected by changes in economic, political, social, technological, and ecological factors.
US 'heroic' models of leadership, dominated the 1980s and 90s, including 'visionary', 'charismatic' and 'transformational' leadership, based largely on studies (often self-reports) of CEOs of large US-based multi-national companies, most of whom were male. Criticism of an emphasis on the 'inspirational-charismatic' aspects of leadership grew in the 1990s alongside awareness of the 'dark side of charisma', which might include arrogance, narcissistic and manipulative behaviours, and be associated with an inability to build and support a team. The focus of researchers on 'the leader' failed to acknowledge the reciprocal influence of the follower-leader relationship, or the concept of 'shared' leadership, that is, that leadership is not the sole preserve of those occupying formal leadership roles, but also emerges when people work together effectively.
Challenges to the 'heroic' models of leadership grew in the wake of the series of corporate scandals, including those involving Enron and Lehman Brothers in the US, and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK, which were attributed largely to the failure of corporate governance and the hubris of those occupying the most senior leadership roles.
In the wake of growing dissatisfaction with 'distant', 'heroic' leadership, new notions of leadership evolved placing emphasis on leadership as a social process – ie emerging as the product of effective interaction – and emphasising the ethical behaviour of leaders. These included models of 'ethical' and 'authentic' leadership.
However, while providing valuable contributions to the notion of what characteristics make an effective 'leader', they do not directly address the question as to how to engage employees in the work of the organisation.
The nature of the relationship between staff and their line managers became the focus of our first major investigation into the characteristics of 'nearby' (day-to-day) leadership, which ultimately enabled us to create a model of 'engaging transformational leadership'. Our interest was to identify the behaviours of line managers that had "a particularly powerful effect on the motivation, self-confidence, self-efficacy, or performance" of their staff.
We argued that 'nearby' leadership was best judged by leaders' direct reports, rather than by asking leaders what made them effective. These are the 14 dimensions in their four clusters.
Engaging with Individuals
Engaging the Organisation/Team
Engaging the Stakeholders – Moving Forward Together
Personal Qualities and Values
2. A Model of Engaging Transformational Leadership
This model emphases working in genuine partnership with a range of other internal and external stakeholders, being sensitive to their agenda and needs, and being decisive when required.
Strong themes emerged relating to building shared visions, and creating environments in which empowerment, appreciation, curiosity, experimentation, questioning the status quo, and learning are highly valued. Such leadership is not confined to those who occupy formal leadership roles; rather, it is a process distributed throughout an organisation.
The 360-feedback instrument developed to assess these behaviours, the Transformational Leadership Questionnaire™ (TLQ™), includes 10 measures of the impact of leadership on staff's motivation, job satisfaction, commitment, and reduced work-related stress, etc., enabling us to analyse the effect of specific leadership behaviours on staff. The evidence, based on data gathered from the 360 ratings of several thousand private and public sector managers, is that, whatever the organisation, sector, or occupational group, an engaging style of leadership does have a significant positive effect on staff attitudes and well-being.
While these findings provide evidence that these behaviours of leadership affect levels of engagement of employees, the most important question is whether they ultimately affect the performance and productivity of an organisation.
3. Engaging Leadership and its Impact on Performance & Productivity
We undertook a three year longitudinal investigation of the impact of the leadership culture of teams, on their productivity, using our model of engaging transformational leadership. We also assessed team morale and wellbeing, since this potentially impacts on sustainability of performance.
We controlled for a range of important variables (eg range of expertise within the team, resources available) that could affect the teams' performance. Leadership was assessed using the Leadership Culture & Change Inventory (LCCI), which is based on a combination of the engaging leadership dimensions in the TLQ, plus the 14 leadership competencies, identified by experts in the field.
Analysis of the anonymous ratings of a national sample of 731 team members led to the emergence of three dimensions of leadership culture: 'Engaging with Others', 'Visionary Leadership'; and 'Leadership Capabilities'.
These were assessed along with 12 aspects of staff attitudes and wellbeing. All three leadership dimensions were significant 'predictors' of different aspects of staff's attitudes to work, and well-being at work.
by Andrew Isherwood, associate lecturer and runs a business and technology consultancy ai:consortia
Three reasons why industry should get involved with a university
I've recently been working with Bradford School of Management on developing and delivering a Technology and Innovation Management course for their MSc students. During this course I have encouraged external companies to get involved in both presenting to the students and evaluating them in 'dragon's den' style business presentations. The top three reasons why I think this has been good for the companies involved are:
The primary motivation for a company to be involved with a university is to get some PR from it. This is probably a good idea, as being involved with a university helps to publicise your company with maybe a joint news release when you have done something worthwhile which you can share with potential customers. However, the publicity is more than just a PR event; the company involved becomes recognised by the students, maybe your next star employee finds you this way. These students do go on to do a variety of jobs and the connections made during joint endeavours may become important in future years. Therefore don't just think of the immediate publicity or networking opportunities but think of the long term opportunities of spreading the word about your organisation by becoming known in academic circles as a 'listening' organisation.
Ideas are hard to come by, especially good ones, by working with a university companies can tap into these new ideas. The obvious case here is to directly benefit through joint venture or licensing technology however, this takes considerable resources and is usually a long term strategic decision. The other way of idea creation is by linking partial ideas together to make new ideas. Working alongside university students and staff, a company's employees are relaxed and in a different environment to their usual busy work life. This enables them to think unconstrained, facilitating new idea generation and approaches, problems can be talked through, ideas shared or help asked for in a very organic way.
Life moves at an ever increasing pace and the young technology savvy student who has their finger on the pulse of trends and the latest happenings can be a useful resource, either to run ideas by or to check what they want from their technology in the future.
There are two other important points, which deserve a mention. Cost, this approach is particularly cost efficient – all a company needs is to contribute the time of its employees. Finally, it is about giving back. If people can benefit from your experience and knowledge and you can influence the potential work force of tomorrow, it's got to be a good thing.
So get in contact and see how you can both benefit from and contribute to the next generation of leaders at the School of Management
By Jane Vincent, Managing Director of Bradford-based ethical recruitment consultancy Candelisa People and Co Founder of Positive Bradford
I was born, raised and educated in Bradford and when I decided to set up my own recruitment business in 1997, I couldn't think of a better place to do it. It's a city full of talented, diverse and motivated people and businesses. A place where there is more entrepreneurialism than anywhere else in the UK.
Just over ten years later I sold the business and started another in the city – one that was as much about giving something back as it was about turning a profit. Despite (or maybe even because of) its reputational problems, there has always been a very social element to doing business in Bradford. We Bradfordians are a proud breed and want to see our local communities thrive.
In 2011, I was in the car on my way to give up a day of my time to take part in a Dragon's Den style competition for school children at Bradford-based Seabrooks crisps. There was a story on the radio about some new research carried about by Travelodge which claimed that Bradford was the most unsafe city to visit in the UK. As a Bradfordian, I hear negative news stories about my home city on a weekly basis. However, I had rarely heard it called unsafe. In comparison to other major cities in the UK, it was known for being incredibly welcoming.
When I arrived at Seabrooks, I found that the other panel members were riled as well. The then CEO of Seabrooks was a Liverpudlian who remarked on the fact that there was nowhere in the city where he felt intimidated – unlike his beloved home town.
Somehow this story was the tipping point that made us want to take some serious action against all the negativity. It was having a major impact on the success and regeneration of the city and we weren't going to sit back and take it any longer.
So Saleem Kader (the Managing Director of Bradford institution Bombay Stores) and I decided that we needed to do something that epitomised everything that Bradford was about. Something that was totally inclusive, not political and that tapped into the city's entrepreneurial spirit. It also had to be something that didn't look at the city through rose tinted glasses but that accepted and celebrated what made it different to other nearby cities like Leeds.
We came up with Positive Bradford Day and last September we got people to come together to speak up for the city we love and showcase everything that is great about it. It brought all the entrepreneurial and creative people and businesses out of the woodwork and into the spotlight.
Since then, we've launched the Positive Bradford 200 Club that pumps money into community groups, filled empty shops with art work, created retail space for creative businesses and started a campaign to train taxi drivers in how to 'sell' the city's highlights. All of this is voluntary but it hasn't been difficult to get Bradfordians on board to help – it is in our nature.
As we approach the second Positive Bradford Day, to be held on 22 June 2012, we're looking at a city centre that is on its way to being transformed. The newly completed City Park has given us a focal point, which is already a hive of activity, the Westfield shopping centre has now been given the definite go ahead, and many of the empty shops and buildings are now being used and are drawing peoples' eyes away from boarded up shop fronts up to breath-taking architecture.
These small changes have given the city a new lease of life and renewed ambition for the future. We are not a Leeds – and we don't want to be – so we no longer need to play the part of its poor relation. Instead, we can focus on what is unique about Bradford. In the future, it will be a cultural and creative hub that people go out of their way to visit for its heritage and diversity – but we need people to believe it.
Behaviour breeds behaviour and as people see the creative business popping up in the city centre and people getting together to celebrate what we love about Bradford, attitudes will start to change. If everyone who moaned about or put down Bradford did something about it, it would happen much more quickly.
Positive Bradford Day is on 22 June 2012. Find out more at www.positivebradford.co.uk
Neil Gaydon, former ceo Pace, speaks at a free event organised by Bradford School of Management at the Leopold Hotel in Sheffield on Wednesday 13 June from 7pm – 9pm. He has written a blog on senior management skills for today which featured on the Huffington Post.
You can read more about it here.
Andrew Johnson is Operations Director, Worldwide IT at JWT in New York, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. He graduated from Bradford University School of Management's Distance Learning MBA in 2010.
I started out doing a Business Information Systems degree and went on to work as a software developer. After eight years, I was in a management role and felt the need for a more rounded understanding of business in order to take the next step in my career.
Not a typical IT professional
Despite my 'tech' background, I had always been interested in different aspects of business and found that I was more confident talking outside of technology than some of my IT colleagues. Many IT professionals want to stay behind closed doors, whereas I liked being client-facing and engaging with others from various different areas of the business.
I decided to embark on an MBA to keep my career options open and ensure that I didn't get boxed into a specific role in a specific industry.
Virtual MBA study for international travellers
After relocating to the US with a small UK company I was doing a lot of international travel. I didn't know where I was going to be based in the longer term and couldn't commit to being in one place. I looked at a number of different options and came to the conclusion that distance learning was the best path for me, particularly because of its interface with technology. However, I still wanted the kudos of getting the qualification from a prestigious university – something that's particularly important in the US market.
Working remotely with international MBA colleagues
I chose Bradford University School of Management because it offered incredibly good value for money for a globally recognised, highly rated programme. I was particularly attracted to the support system in place for distance learning students, which includes the opportunity to work remotely with people from around the world.
From IT specialist to international project manager
Half way through doing the MBA, I moved to a role at JWT in New York – one of the longest-running advertising agencies in the world – as Operations Director of Worldwide IT. I was attracted to the role because of the mix of technology, creative and business elements. Despite not having completed my MBA, I felt I was able to make this move because I'd been able to re-market myself as more of an all-rounder with a strategic overview, rather than an IT person. I had to demonstrate that I could fit my technical skills into the business context of a global company.
What the MBA has given me is the confidence to sit in a room with people from across the business and understand how everything fits together and translate business problems into effective IT solutions. Every business needs people who understand the capabilities of technology and how to apply them in order to achieve business goals. Without that, it is impossible to innovate.
I also benefited from the international perspective that Bradford's MBA gave me. My current role is truly international and I work with people from around the world on a daily basis.
Choose your Distance Learning MBA Business School carefully
My advice to those thinking of embarking on a distance learning MBA is to get some experience and network before starting. It can be a lonely process and you need to know that you can be proactive and motivate yourself. Despite distance learning being a very independent study mode, your choice of business school and modules is really important. You need to ensure that the programme is designed for distance learning and it is not just an afterthought. The opportunity to listen to/watch lectures makes it much easier to engage with the subject matter. It is also really important that you keep up with modules so that you can take advantage of engaging in conversation with others about them.
Peter Popena is currently on Bradford University School of Management's Accelerated MBA. He has come to the UK from Papua New Guinea on a scholarship programme and will return to his environment management role to undertake his MBA project in the summer, just eight months after starting the programme.
I am from Papua New Guinea, which is a developing country in the South Pacific with a population of 7.5m. My employer, Steamships Trading Company, is part of an international company called Swire and I was lucky enough to be selected for a scholarship to do an MBA in the UK, jointly funded by the company and the British Council.
I have got 19 years experience specialising in environmental management in the petroleum, palm oil, gold mining and other industries. I joined Steamships Trading Company as Group Health, Safety, Security and Environment Manager a year ago and am responsible for auditing, coordinating with and advising the various different divisions of the company. We work in the road transport, IT, shipping, food manufacturing, real estate and hotel industries and are a major player in Papua New Guinea's economy.
An MBA for social good
I wanted to do an MBA to help me develop my overall understanding of business strategy with a view to moving into an executive management role. I also want to be able to contribute meaningfully to the development of Papua New Guinea and help formulate policy that will ensure that environmental protection is a priority.
An MBA that makes a difference quickly
When I researched MBA programmes in the UK, I was attracted to Bradford University School of Management for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was impressed by the School's reputation and ranking in the UK and internationally. The facilities also looked fantastic. The Accelerated MBA was ideal for me because my employer had agreed to sponsor and pay me during my time studying in the UK and it meant I could get back to work in Papua New Guinea within 10 months.
An MBA with sustainability and sustainable development at its heart
However, my main reason for choosing the Bradford MBA over the others that I looked at in the UK was the School's focus on sustainability in its research and teaching. Sustainability used to just be about environmental management – now it is relevant to every aspect of business and society – and I strongly believe that economic development and environmental protection should go hand in hand. Doing the Bradford MBA is a fantastic opportunity for both me and my home country to build stronger international links and gain greater understanding of sustainable development.
An MBA that gets you back into learning
After 19 years out of the classroom, the first few weeks of a full time MBA were tough, especially moving to a different country. However, the staff and my fellow classmates have been very welcoming and I have received a lot of support. As the weeks go by, I am becoming much more comfortable with learning again and am getting a lot out of the experience that I look forward to taking back to my home country.
by Dr Charlie Shepherd, who runs business improvement consultancy Charles Shepherd Consulting. Co-author of Innovation Management, he was recently a guest speaker at the School's Innovation Club.
Earlier this month I was invited to join a group of business leaders at Bradford University School of Management's Innovation Club.
I co-authored a book, Innovation Management, with Prof Pervaiz Ahmed, and I was asked to talk about new approaches to product development that we have been involved in at NCR, Raytheon and other companies.
Here is a snapshot of some of the areas we covered
1. How do you drive more profit from the business?
Businesses need to find ways of deciding which, of many potential new products and services to invest in. The key to this is aligning the R&D interface with marketing. Marketing should understand the customer and their needs and market trends. They should be able to work in partnership with R&D development and challenge the relevance of new ideas and the value they will have for the customer.
The closer these two work together, the less wasted effort in the business, the more profit.
2. Customers don't have a clue what they want
The caveat of what I said above is that if you give a customer what they said they wanted – there is a high chance they don't sufficiently value what they said and more importantly, are not prepared to pay the cost of it.
Over the years I have seen customers delaying signing off projects because every time you start coming up with what they thought they wanted, the target has moved.
Market research can cost a fortune – and most of the time only tells you what you knew.
The way over all this is to build relationships in order to understand the customer better – to become trusted advisers to your customers. The closer you get to a customer, the more you can both understand what will really add value – and what is worth paying for.
We needed to develop our skills in understanding the exact customer need and how we could satisfy that. And the customer had to really understand what we were developing and put value on the cost.
Perhaps the most innovative part of our approach was that we shared the gains from a project – if we could deliver £20m more savings on a project, we would return 50% of that to the customer. That incentivised them to become involved and 'own' the project – and us to make sure we were listening and feeding back to the customer.
Below is the model we developed for aligning marketing with technology.
3. Partnering can speed up R&D – at a profit
One of the processes we have previously developed was to identify the competencies of all the various businesses we had acquired or units we had set up, such as knowledge labs.
Sometimes the competencies were not immediately obvious. I remember one where the skills were in managing services, as in an eBay-type approach.
I was interested in the School's Innovation Club – and have made my own suggestion to them that we should put business problems on the table at future events and do peer problem solving.
What are the best things that you have done to speed up innovation?
Tim Yeardley graduated from Bradford University School of Management's Part-time Executive MBA in 2008. He was sponsored by his employer at the time, HBOS, where he was Communications and Finance Manager. Since completing his MBA, Tim has published research into management training in the UK and set up his own company, Mnemoysne Training. He recently returned to the School of Management to give a guest lecture.
My interest in management training started when I realised the UK's productivity figures were pretty poor compared to other countries. After years spent on a farm in Lincolnshire during my teens, I wasn't really up for flogging myself for hours for little reward. Yet that's what we basically do in the UK; work the longest hours, for the least reward, in Europe.
I always thought – why are managers making us work so long for so little? After all, they are in charge.
I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem. It took 25 years' experience in UK, American and Australian management, but I realised that a key problem is that managers are poorly trained in the basic competencies (or soft skills) for management.
Learning to be a manager 'on the job'
I didn't get any management training before being a manager (like 80% of all managers). The training I did receive I couldn't remember; it was pitched too high, with too many unrealistic models, was reactive in nature and more about problem colleagues, rather than problem managers. It was assumed that I knew the basic soft skills needed to manage people and could only really develop them through 'on the job' experience.
This 'sink or swim' attitude towards manager training means that courses on conflict management, assertiveness training and time management are usually only attended after issues are identified at work.
The link between poor management training and poor performance
In order to prove what was to me the obvious link between poor management training and poor performance, I did some research into what training (those lucky enough to get it!) is given to new managers.
The research paper I produced, which I received international recognition for alongside notable academics and best selling authors via an Emerald Literati Excellence Award, confirmed that managers are not taught basic managerial core competencies, even at entry level. I looked, for example, at the mention of the core management competency of 'communication' in new manager courses. A third made no mention of it! In tough economic times such as these with redundancies and restructures, communication ought to be a key skill for any new manager.
Leadership training only for leaders
The separation of management from leadership has been widely documented and argued in management literature for many years. The issue this has caused is that it is assumed that new managers do not need leadership training. I found that over half of new manager courses do not cover any leadership discussion at all. The new economy, though, demands all managers be leaders and vice versa. Why would businesses limit the capabilities of new managers by denying them access to leadership values? Research in the US found just 10% of new managers get leadership training as all the leadership training goes to… the leaders! In the UK the position is equally poor.
Management training for Generation 'I'
What I found most astonishing about all my findings was that the new manager training courses I looked at didn't take into account the new challenges and competencies needed by the next generation of managers. I use the term Generation 'I' rather than Generation 'Y' – meaning 'internet' and 'I' myself. Just 2% of courses actually considered the impact of today's culture on the new managers of tomorrow.
This is relevant because the managers of tomorrow have grown up in a completely different world to their predecessors. How will those who do most of their interaction online cope in a managerial position? The management training available to them just assumes they will adapt.
And what about the perception of business young people are gaining through programmes such as Dragons Den and The Apprentice? Evidence suggests these programmes leave our younger audiences cold to the aggressiveness and harsh reality of being in business. We really are not doing ourselves any favours in encouraging aspiring youngsters into the world of work. It is easy to see why the UK only comes 18th out of 31 in the OECD league table of lower and intermediate management skills.
From my own experience and research, I believe manager training has not progressed for the past 20-25 years and needs to catch up with the core competencies needed by new managers of today. It is still a tick box exercise and not fit for purpose.
The next generation of management training
There clearly needs to be a rethink towards management training and the tools new managers need to get the job done. It must start with the basics – such as awareness and setting standards – and we must stop assuming that the excellent technocrat can move straight into a managerial position. Management training should be a pre-requisite of being a manager – and it should be integrated into the 'day job', not a one-off, reactive event.
I set up Mnemosyne Training to assist all managers with innovative and unique core competency learning – based on six 'soft skills' which are inter-linked to make them simple to understand and remember
Are you confident that your new managers have all these skills?


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// Outfit Details //
Me -
Shirt - GAP (similar)
Jeans - Thrifted (American Eagle)
Shoes - GAP (on sale today!)
Backpack - Everlane
Earrings - Nickel & Suede
Shirt - Target
Jeans - Old Navy
Shoes - Stride Rite
Belt - ONE little BELT
I LOVE the idea of a gratitude journal. I think this may be something I'm going to start doing!! And those pants?! To die for!ReplyDelete
Both my girls are in school full time. So, in order to make mornings run smoothly I need to get as much prepared the night before. Sometimes its hard, I'm tired after working all day, cooking dinner and getting through all the homework. But, its a must! I must get the coffee ready, lunches packed and backpacks ready for the next morning. I also prep as much as possible for the week on Sunday. We get all their clothes for the entire week picked out on Sunday evening, so we don't even have to think about it each night. So, I've made it a habit. I don't stop until all those things are done. It makes our mornings so much smoother. Its s a relief to have them done when we are goin' and a blowin' in the mornings. BTW...just received my first pair of earrings from N&S....LOVE! I plan to get more :)ReplyDelete
So cute! Those shoes are fantastic!! And good job being better at scripture study and prayer. They really do help us put our day into perspective :) you're such a cute momma! ;)
Lindsay @ Country Girl Home Blog
Thanks so much for the motivation. I love the idea of the gratitude journal and will be joining with you tonight. The habit I have been working on is to get ready for the day. It is amazing how much better you feel and your day goes with a shower, styled hair, and change out of the sweats.ReplyDelete
I love this outfit! Those pants are so good - I've never tried AE jeans before - how do you find they fit compared to Lucky Brand or Gap? I may or may not have found some on eBay :) I'm so glad I found your blog and your store!ReplyDelete
They usually fit in the small side. I'm usually between two sizes and these are the bigger of the two I waffle between.Delete
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Jody Cundy has said that lack of competitive events make it very difficult for track para-cyclists to remain motivated and focused, and has called for more racing opportunity and reform of the Paralympic qualification process. Speaking exclusively to road.cc, the world para-cycling Kilo champion also outlined his ambition of breaking into the England team to ride that event in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year.
Yesterday, after IPC Athletics announced plans for an annual series of six track and field Grand Prix events, Cundy had taken to Twitter to ask, "Where is our legacy?" pointing out that no track para-cycling events, still less a world championships, has yet been confirmed for 2013.
Given the huge attention focused on the sport during last summer's Paralympic Games in London, we asked the 34-year-old from Cambridgeshire, who is now based in Manchester, what could be done to ensure that it became more than a once-every-four-years phenomenon?
"It needs events for a start," replied Cundy, a sprint specialist who had his lower right leg amputated when he was just three years old and competes in the C4 class.
"Track cycling itself is low on racing events and when you combine that with para-cycling, the amount of events is very, very few," as he outlined his racing at international level over the past three years, comprising a couple of world championships and the London Paralympics.
"There's a lack of progress and no moving forward," he went on. "You've got nobody willing to put races on either," a point he emphasised by listing the world championships that have taken place since the first such event was held jointly by the UCI and the International Paralympic Committee at the World Cycling Headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland.
Those were followed by championships in Bordeaux in 2007, Manchester in 2009, Montichiari in 2011 and Los Angeles last year; in 2013, as in 2008 and 2010, there will be no such event. "It is supposed to be every year but that pattern seems to have disappeared with this year," he reflects.
Jody Cundy on the track © Kelkel
So, does Cundy feel that British Cycling has a role to play in raising the profile of the sport? "The problem is that a lot of nations expect us to put on a major championships and we just don't have the money to be able to do it," he says.
"But the other problem is that the races people want to put on, they don't actually qualify any points for the next Paralympic Games.
"British Cycling were wanting to put events on, but they weren't going to be counting for points to go to the next Paralympic Games in London so we didn't put events on, and because of that there's no interest for people from other nations to attend or come across."
Cundy believes that the way in which points are awarded for Paralympic qualification disadvantages a strong track nation such as Great Britain and that the system should be reformed.
"The way para-cycling works is you qualify points on the track and the road and they're all added together.
"Well, most nations have such big road teams that they can score all the points they ever need on the road and top up with the track worlds, whereas with GB, we seem to be very good on the track, so we score all our points on the track and top up the points on the road.
"But if you had a specific track slot and a specific road slot and you qualified for events by scoring points on either the track or the road, then I think you'd end up with nations committing a little bit more to the track programme so both forms of the sport would go forward.
"At the moment you have a situation where a lot of the guys who ride on the road ride on the track as well and vice-versa, but among the guys who ride on the track, not many of the track-specific riders like sprinters race on the road, so they maybe race once a year – national championships and maybe a world championships if you're lucky and that's all the training they do.
"The guys who are lucky enough to race week-in, week-out at C1 events or world cup or world championships on the road, they've got more racing opportunities than we have on the track."
We put it to him that the system must put increased pressure on track riders to get those all-important points.
"Exactly, and especially for our GB team. We know that we've some of the best riders in the world on the track but we needed to finish with golds preferably at world championships to make sure we qualified enough places," he explains, referring to qualification for London.
"It got to the point where we didn't have enough points really and we had riders who only ever ride the track or who are out and out sprinters going out on the road and doing time trials and road races in the hope of scoring top ten places to boost our tally, which isn't really pushing the sport forward.
That has another counter-productive effect, states Cundy. "It's almost pushing it backwards because you're not becoming specialists as sprinters or track riders, you're becoming all rounders."
Jody Cundy racing at London 2012 © Kelkel
Cundy went into London 2012 as favourite for the Kilo, the event he had won in Beijing and in which he is para-cycling world champion and world record holder.
However, he found himself at the centre of one of the most dramatic episodes of the entire Paralympic Games when he was refused a restart after his rear wheel became stuck in the starting gate.
TV footage showed Cundy in the track centre leaving the commissaires in no uncertain terms over how he felt about their decision – he would later reappear to apologise to the crowd for his outburst.
He would go on to take bronze in the C4/5 individual pursuit raced over 4 kilometres, where his time in qualifying over the first 1,000 metres would have secured him gold in the Kilo.
While the once-in-a-lifetime nature of a home Paralympics added to the emotion of the situation, we asked Cundy whether the fact that there is such a dearth of top-level events for him to compete in added to the frustration of the moment.
"I think it did, yes. What happened in London is unfortunate, but the frustrations are down to the fact that we only race so few and far between that you want to get it right that time, because you never actually know when the next time is you're actually going to get to race.
"That's a big thing to push forward," he continues. "Obviously there's a demand for track cycling, we had four days of track cycling at the London Paralympics and they were sold out every day, and they were one of the hardest tickets to get hold of.
"So there's a demand there but it's not really sold that way, other nations don't seem to have the same kind of passion for it compared to what we do in the UK.
"We need to be at the forefront of pushing forward events to show the rest of the world that it is possible to get sell-out crowds to come and watch paracycling and that it is possible to make money off these events.
"But at the moment, we're waiting on other people, whether it's worth something to put these events on, if it attracts the people you need, the sponsors, the general public to come and watch, it's very hard for it to move forward.
"It's hard to be part of a sport where you peak once a year if you're lucky," he concedes, "and that makes training very hard, because it's a constant day-in, day-out process and you sometimes wonder what the end goal actually is."
At Los Angeles world championships in 2012 © Kelkel
The Revolution Series has given able-bodied track cyclists in Britain increased opportunities to race at top level in front of packed crowds, and while Cundy, who has competed in the event, maintains that its organisers have been supportive of para-cycling, he says there is only so far they can go in embracing it within the format.
"It's very good in that regard, they had the tandem racing last season, I think that went down really well, and I've competed alongside the able-bodied guys because I'm fortunate enough that I can actually do that – the guys that are in a lower disability class just don't have that opportunity.
"One of the things for para-cycling I think is all of the events other than the team sprint and the tandem sprint are individual time trials or pursuits, which in the Revolution format isn't entertaining for the crowd.
"They debuted a scratch race at the world championships in February last year and that went down really well, the men's race and the women's race were really exciting, very fast, quality riding throughout.
"I think that's a future where para-cycling needs to go, getting people up and racing and making it entertaining for people to watch, and for something to be incorporated into a Revolution format, that's kind of what you need.
"Tandem sprinting is fortunate in that you've got head-to-head sprinting and people understand what sprinting is and there's already sprinting going on at Revolution, so that kind of fits in to the whole programme.
"But individual pursuits and time trials don't really fit into the Revolution format. In a space where you only have three hours to do some racing, you need little bunch races or something else to really help promote para-cycling.
"Revolution does a good job of helping when they can, but I think that the whole programme for para-cycling needs to be looked at as well, if you're going to keep that whole entertainment factor as well as the performances."
Cundy, who took a similar route to Dame Sarah Storey into cycling – like her, he is a multiple Paralympic champion in the swimming pool and he was talent-spotted after trying out track cycling at Newport in 2005 – is clearly very driven, and that manifests itself as he outlines his hopes to clinch a berth at Glasgow next year.
"As I said, we've not really got that many events between now and Rio that are planned, and one of the ambitions that I have set myself is to try and qualify for the Commonwealth team for England, to ride the Kilo at the Commonwealth Games," he reveals.
"I'm going to be meeting Shane Sutton to discuss what I need to do to make that team, and I'll be aiming to try and do that. I don't want any special compensation because if I make the team, I want to make it on merit, as it's an able bodied team.
"There's only tandem sprinting as a para-cycling event at the Commonwealth Games, which means that I'd have to compete on an able-bodied level and at the highest level to make it.
"I know it's a very hard task but if I make the Commonwealth team then it gets me into the ball park of making the Olympic team as well. I know I have to make a bit of improvement and it's an ambitious target but if you don't have a target then you never know how far you can go.
"It's a goal for me and I'll aim for it – if it comes off, it comes off, and if it doesn't, it just makes me a better para-cycling rider to hopefully push on the boundaries of the sport and prove what's possible.
And that meeting with the Australian who played such a key role in Team GB's Olympic success and Sir Bradley Wiggins' Tour de France victory?
"Shane Sutton is one of the people who is going to have a say in who the team is, so if I go to him and say, 'What do I need to do?' and he says, 'You have to ride a 58-second Kilo,' then much as I know that's almost impossible, it will give me a goal and a target to aim for," confides Cundy, whose paracycling world record for the Kilo stands at 1 minute 05.144 seconds.
"I should be meeting with him some time next week hopefully and get that goal set, and everything will change and be geared towards that."
In conclusion, Cundy says: "The demand for the sport is there, it just needs the organisation and events to show the rest of the world and get the athletes on board and up and running. I think that's ultimately what needs doing.
"We need events, we need to be able to showcase not only to guys that are in the sport but also for the guys that have seen it on TV and want to compete, but don't actually have any opportunity to go racing to see if they're any good.
"That's the ultimate thing we need to find at the moment, and to come to an agreement about how we're going to push that forward. I think we need to get quite a few people together and work out what's best for the sport and how it is.
"I know there are a lot of frustrated riders out there who are training for no reason or who are training just to compete on the road, so it's knowing where we go from here."
Simon has been news editor at road.cc since 2009, reporting on 10 editions and counting of pro cycling's biggest races such as the Tour de France, stories on issues including infrastructure and campaigning, and interviewing some of the biggest names in cycling. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, his background has proved invaluable in reporting on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, and the bike industry. He splits his time between London and Cambridge, and loves taking his miniature schnauzer Elodie on adventures in the basket of her Elephant Bike.


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The following camps are not run, sponsored, or endorsed by the Southington Public Schools or the Southington Board of Education. Brochures are available at southingtonsports.com/Sports-Camps.html
BLUE KNIGHTS GIRLS BASKETBALL CLINIC—June 25-29, 8:30 a.m. to noon, in the SHS gym. Open to girls entering grades 4-9. Lady Knight coach Mike Forgione will direct a camp focusing on individual player development with instruction stations, drills, and games. Cost is $160. Contact: Mike Forgione, (860) 919-4991.
BLUE KNIGHT FUTURE VOLLEYBALL STARS INDIVIDUAL SKILLS CAMP—June 25-29, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., in the SHS gym. Open to girls entering grades 4-9. Lady Knight coach Rich Heitz will direct a camp that's focused on improving skills with individual attention in small groups based on age and ability. Cost is $159. Register online at www.camppros.com/register/detail_new.aspx?ListingId=5677&OrgId=131. Contact: Rich Heitz, (860) 665-2746 or (860) 621-8895.
BLUE KNIGHTS SUMMER BASKETBALL CLINIC—July 30-Aug. 3 (grades 2-5) or Aug. 6-10 (grades 6-8), 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the SHS gym. Open to boys entering grades 2-8. Register by July 13. John Cessario will direct the camp that's focused on fundamentals with guest speakers. Cost is $250 ($225 for multiple siblings) and includes t-shirt. Contact: John Cessario at firstname.lastname@example.com.
WAYTON OPEN TENNIS TOURNAMENT—July 7-July 15 at the Southington High School tennis courts. All proceeds benefit Thank Dog Rescue. Cost is $20 for singles and $35 for doubles. Divisions: men's A or B singles, men's over 45, men's A or B doubles, women's singles, women's doubles, mixed A or B doubles, high school boys or girls singles.
Each player receives a t-shirt, wristband, tennis balls, and water for every match. Register by July 4 at www.waytonopen.com.
WINT FILIPEK SR. MEMORIAL TENNIS TOURNAMENT—June 2-June 10 at Copper Valley Swim & Tennis Club, 1235 Wolf Hill Rd., Cheshire. Proceeds benefit the Winton S. Filipek Sr. Scholarship Fund. Cost is $20 (singles), $30 (doubles), or $15 (high school divisions). A free kids and high school clinic and fun day available by registration. Register at www.wintfilipeksrtennis.com. Questions, contact Wint Filipek Jr. at (860) 621-5655 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Registration for the following classes and programs, unless otherwise noted, can be made at the Southington Community YMCA Membership Services Desk at (860) 628-5597 or on-line at www.southington-cheshireymca.org.
BEN'S FUN RUN—Saturday, May 19, 8 a.m. registration, races start at 8:30 a.m., at YMCA Camp Sloper, 1000 East St. Free race open to Connecticut children in grades 3-6. Memorial race for Benjamin Buckley, sponsored by the Ben Was Here foundation in collaboration with the Southington-Cheshire Community YMCA.
OSTEOPOROSIS AND OSTEOPENIA FITNESS CLASSES—Southington Community YMCA is offering classes for people with Osteoporosis or Osteopenia. Classes are for all fitness levels to help improve balance, build strength, and lengthen the spine. Classes follow the Meeks Method, a safe and effective method which emphasizes the reversal of postural change. YMCA trainers work in conjunction with Community Physical Therapy. Early afternoon, evening, and weekend classes are available. Contact: Jolene Miceli, (860) 426-9589 or email@example.com.
SHS TURF CONTESTS—Athletic events on the Southington High School Turf Field will be subject to ticket sales. All contests starting at 5 p.m. costs $5 (adults) or $3 (students and seniors). Football contests cost $7 (adults) or $5 (students and seniors). Contact: SHS Athletic Office, (860) 628-3229, ext. 425 daily from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. or by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.
SHS INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY & SENIOR GOLD CARD PASSES—Available at the SHS Athletic office, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Family passes for regular season contests cost $110 and includes immediate family members for boys/girls volleyball, football with the exception of the Thanksgiving game, boys/girls basketball, wrestling, and night baseball. Individual passes cost $45 ($30 for students). Senior gold cards are free for Southington residents ages 62 and over and are good for all regular season home games. Those who already have gold cards do not need new ones. Contact: SHS Athletic Office, (860) 628-3229 x 425 or at firstname.lastname@example.com.
THE SPEEDWAY LINE REPORT WITH GARY DANKO—Mondays, 6 p.m.-7 p.m., April-November, on WATR 1320 or on-line at www.speedwaylinereport.com. The call-in radio show focuses on the world of auto racing with in-studio guests. Southington's Gary Danko leads the discussion and provides results from local tracks and periodic vintage historical shows. Call-ins: (203) 757-1320.
If you would like to your event announced in The Observer, please e-mail information to firstname.lastname@example.com. The Observer reserves the right to edit for content and space.


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For Father's Day, my wife bought me a shiny new drill. While I was very appreciative, I knew that it would go unopened for at least a month or two as I had just completed the home project it was intended for. And since we are going to move soon, it might even go unopened longer, as my old drill still works fine.
So I returned it, and got an XBox 360 from Wal-Mart. I got the Ultimate package. And I bought Halo 2. And Ridge Racer 6. I wanted Project Gotham Racing 3, but the store didn't have it in stock.
Setup was simple, although I was disappointed that the TV in my bedroom only has a cable input and no RCA jacks. I plugged it up to the kids' toy room TV, and played Ridge Racer for about 2 hours. I haven't opened Halo 2 yet.
So the first question is, are there any games that a 5-year old boy and a 4-year old girl could play easily?
Really, the whole point of this post is… now what? What would you say is a must-have for a new XBox 360 system? I know that the 360 can serve as a media center extender… but I don't have a Media Center PC yet.
Here is what I think I need to buy first:
What other goodies would you recommend?


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25th Anniversary Tournament
The Jay Sigel Invitational will celebrate its 25th Anniversary as the premier charity golf tournament in the Delaware Valley. We invite you to join us on Monday, September 11, 2017 to support our Host & Founder's efforts, Jay Sigel, on behalf of both breast cancer and prostate cancer research and patient care. Beginning in early 2016, The Sigel Invitational broadened its fundraising initiative to include breast cancer research through clinical trials involving novel therapies for advanced metastatic disease. This charity tournament also supports research into lower dose radiation therapy, and groundbreaking trials to determine prediction of recurrent disease.
The 2017 Sigel Invitational will return to its home at the prestigious Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, which has hosted the 1962 PGA Championship, 1977 U.S. Amateur Championship, 1997 U.S. Junior Championship, 2003 Senior PGA Championship, the 2010 & 2011 AT&T National, among other premier events. And, in 2018 Aronimink will play host to the 2018 BMW Championship.
In 2017 as The Sigel Invitational enters its 25th Anniversary, it will have proudly raised $3.5 million for cancer research. The fundraising efforts of The Sigel Invitational will continue to support prostate cancer research, and now include breast cancer research, at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute,which is the research arm of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Past Special Guests lending their time & talent to help raise money for this worthy cause include Jim Colbert, Ed Dougherty, Hubert Green, Gary Hallberg, Scott Hamilton, Chuck Hiter, Mark Lye, Bob Murphy, Vince Papale, Gary Player, Don Pooley, Jim Roy, and media personalities Ed Abrams, Neil Hartman, Lou Tilley, Jim "Sports" Kelly, Peter Kessler and the late Gary Papa. These "very special guests" have now become Honorary Chairmen of The Sigel Invitational, joining Jay to promote the event and support his efforts in fighting cancer.
We invite you to help us fund initiatives in cancer research, leading to more advanced patient cancer. Should you, or someone you know, have questions about treatment options such as proton therapy at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, or the breast cancer and prostate cancer research programs at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, please call (215) 662-3963.
25th Anniversary Invitational Tournament
Monday, Sept. 11, 2017
Aronimink Golf Club- Newtown Square, PA
2017 Honored Guest: Gary Koch
CONTACT: Jackie Adamczyk 610-902-1790 firstname.lastname@example.com
Gary Koch
Special Guest at the 2017 Jay Sigel Invitational
Gary Koch joined NBC Sports' PGA TOUR tournament coverage full-time in 1997 after having debuted as a course reporter in 1996 at THE PLAYERS Championship and U.S. Open. He currently serves as a tower announcer and analyst for the network's Golf Channel on NBC coverage.
The six-time PGA TOUR winner earned 44 top-10 finishes over the course of his career. Koch currently competes part-time on the Champions Tour, previously winning the Raphael division of the former Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf tournament on three separate occasions with fellow Golf Channel on NBC colleague Roger Maltbie.
Earlier in his career, Koch served as a course reporter and tower announcer for ESPN's coverage of the Champions Tour (Senior Tour at the time).
Koch earned a Bachelor of Science degree in public relations from the University of Florida in 1974, and was the Gators' first four-time All-American selection. He was a member of Florida's 1973 NCAA championship team and a two-time Southeastern Conference medalist. Koch won 10 collegiate events at Florida.


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Our Thursday green news bring you the latest on green architecture, climate change, energy and communities:
- Affordable green architecture from Czech students: The AIR house was designed by Czech architecture students and the name reflects its mission: affordable (A), innovative (I), recyclable (R). It has a very small environmental footprint thanks to its low-waste prefab process, net-zero operating costs, and its smart design allowing for easy disassembly and recycling at the end of its service lifetime. The authors explain: "The AIR house was designed for the generation of our parents (50+), the so-called "empty nesters". We have chosen this target group because the senior housing, at present, 20% of the sum of households in the Czech Republic will be more and more relevant. The concept combines a minimum interior living area with a generous outside area. We find inspiration in a typical Czech custom of spending weekends out in the country and in the tradition of minimal social housing."
- A year later, hurricane Sandy fuels grid innovation: In the past year since hurricane Sandy ravished the East Coast of the US, there's been a significant shift in thinking about grid innovation. Five years ago, smart grid advocates were focusing on reducing carbon emissions with a larger implementation of renewable energy sources and educating consumers about better energy savings. But today, technologies that provide a more durable and reliable grid are on the frontline, mainly in places susceptible to severe storms. According to Rick Nicholson, vice president of transmission and distribution solutions at Ventyx: "With stimulus dollars spent, utilities now need to justify smart-grid investments with promises of better reliability and storm preparedness".
- 30 years left for World's carbon budget to be used up: The last report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered a shocking assessment that climate change impacts are accelerating, fueled by human-caused emissions. These new findings mean that we have about 30 more years until the world's carbon budget is spent. The agreed limit for global warming was to keep temperature rise below 2°C. Exceeding this limit could mean higher risk of forest fires, faster rise of sea level, coral bleaching and other dangerous impacts of climate change.


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It's not unlikely for bitcoin to come up as a topic at a conference titled 2016 Internet, Media and Telecommunications Conference.
But what is a little unlikely is a CEO of a major company giving indication that it may be open to bitcoin payments. Well, unless you're Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.
But at the conference, Netflix CFO David Wells was asked about the concept of bitcoin and accepting bitcoin as a payment method on the video streaming site. This question was raised in relation to Netflix's presence in Latin America, where the company has reportedly had payment integration issues.
But as payments evolve, he noted, so could Netflix's ability to accept more nontraditional payments.
And that's where bitcoin came into the mix.
"We'll see where we go from here in the next 10, 15 years from a payments perspective, because countries still want to hold on to their monetary policy. But [it] sure would be nice to have bitcoin, in terms of a global currency, that you could use globally," Wells was quoted as saying at the conference.
Of course, the CFO didn't go as far as saying the company actually has or would have plans for enabling bitcoin payments, but it seems this exec is open to the concept. In either case, that's a potential win for the bitcoin community.
Netflix also made the news this week about the possibility of dropping the five-star rating system that has been a hallmark of the site since its inception as a streaming service.
In an interview with Business Insider, CPO Neil Hunt noted that the review system as is encourages people to rate movies based on "quality" instead of "enjoyment," which leads to odd paradoxes in data. For example, Adam Sandler's opus "The Ridiculous 6" is attracting lots and lots of viewers, who all go on to give it a terrible review and then watch it again.
The problem, Hunt says, is that if you rate a movie you enjoy poorly on quality grounds, the algorithm Netflix uses to sort data about what consumers like and dislike — and the data sets those algorithms spit out — ends up being suboptimal.
However, though the five-star system is eliciting doubts about its efficacy, for the time being, it is safe, as Netflix has yet to come up with a better solution that will replace it.
Latest Insights:
Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation that's reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem. In the November 2019 AML/KYC Report, Zillow's Justin Farris tells PYMNTS how the platform incorporates stringent authentication without making the onboarding and buying experiences too complex.


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You may have heard that Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, is in hot water with the SEC over a public facebook post he made back in July about the number of hours that had been viewed on the video streaming service.
The rule he supposedly violated is in place to ensure that individual investors have access to the same information that larger investment houses have. Basically, the SEC thinks Facebook isn't public enough.
Face meet palm.
Here's what's maddening though:
Back in September courts ruled that Twitter could not block an FBI subpoena requesting tweets sent by an Occupy Wall Street protester.
You guessed it - because according the FBI tweets are public and therefore cannot be protected. When different government agencies can harass and punish its citizens for their behavior on social media, based on conflicting theories of privacy, it's time to worry.
Can we start thinking about an electronic bill of rights now?


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Seminar: Recent Supreme Court Cases on Patent Eligibility: Part II by Prof. Kevin Collins
Detail summary
Topic: Recent Supreme Court Cases on Patent Eligibility: Part II
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2015
Time: Noon-1pm
Location: Farrell Teaching and Learning Center (FTLC) on the Med School campus - Room 303
Due to the enthusiasm of the audience during Professor Collins's first seminar, he was not able to finish his original presentation. However, he has graciously volunteered to give a second seminar to bring us up to date on some recent activity in the IP case law. No need to have attended the first seminar to attend this one!
Lunch will be provided so please RSVP!
Professor Collins is a scholar and teacher of intellectual property law. He taught at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington until, in 2010, he joined the faculty at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He earned his BA in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale and his JD from Stanford. He clerked for Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Raymond Clevenger III on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Having earned an M. Arch. from Columbia and worked as a project architect and lead designer with Bernard Tschumi Architects, Professor Collins is also interested in the intersection of law and architecture.
Non-Technical Background Reading List
Alice v. CLS Bank (patenting computer software)
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad (patenting human genes)


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On October 27, students in grades K through 5 at Sunbury Christian Academy enjoyed a presentation about the use of seatbelts and traffic laws. Mr. Bob Shaffaer,from the North Central Highway Network and coordinator for the Seatbelt Safety Program, used DVD presentations and a toy car with "egg passengers" to help demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of properly using seatbelts and car-seats for young children.
Seatbelt Safety Program
October 30, 2011


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Luxury car tax (LCT) is a tax on cars with a GST-inclusive value above the LCT threshold.
LCT is imposed at the rate of 33% on the amount above the luxury car threshold.
LCT is paid by businesses that sell or import luxury cars (dealers), and also by individuals who import luxury cars.
(Taken from ATO website)
July 19, 2016 16:10