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I'll Be Seeing You | Billie Holiday
how it warms my heart
I finally got access to my Twitter archive. By request, here are my #noirfiction tweets from quite a ways back:
She was a nutty broad, with hair that was bonkers, and legs that just didn't make any sense at all #noirfiction
She had a pair of legs that wouldn't quit, no matter how politely you asked #noirfiction
She was the kind of dame where you couldn't wait for her to leave so you could write about her on your blog #noirfiction
It was a dark and stormy…. DAY #noirfictiontwists
Her legs only went halfway up and then there was just an inescapable shrieking void, like all women #noirfictiontwists #noirbydavesim
She had legs that went all the way up, and so did the rest of her. "Get back down here," I said. She looked at me and said "No" #noirfiction
She had a nice set of legs, and then a second, less-nice set she'd found in her foyer. That's why she came to me. #noirfiction
Her legs were like a metaphor, and the imagery they brought to mind was extreme evocative #noirfiction
She had a body like a poem, and a face like a limerick #noirfiction
She was a real classy broad: top hat, monocle, tuxedo, twirled mustache… oh wait #noirfiction
Normally a dame like this would put me on every edge I had, but nectarines were in season and I had an entire bag. #noirfiction
She had a torso and then two weird lower limbs sticking out of the bottom of it. What were those things #noirfiction
I never cared for conversation, so I let my gun do the talking. Problem was, he was shy too #noirfiction
It's a dirty job in a dirty city, but I'm not the cleanest guy so that's fine by me. The name's Paul Blart… Mall Cop. #noirfiction #blart
He had a face like a stack of pancakes and whenever he talked he sprayed butter and syrup everywhere #noirfiction
She stormed into my office like a hurricane, swinging her arms around and knocking over all my things. "Hey," I said. #noirfiction
She had a face like this :) and a pair of legs to match < #noirfiction
She had a nice face. It was pretty. She was in my office. I was a detective! It was my first day of being a detective. #noirfiction
She had a pair of legs that ended in rollerskates and the kind of body that could stay upright #noirfiction
She had a face like a zen koan: thought-provoking but impossible to figure out #noirfiction
: 15-Year-Old African Kid Tells Madonna To Go 'Have Sex' with Herself
Dakarai Molokomme, a 15-year-old starving child from a small village in Zimbabwe, has just told Madonna, one of the most famous pop stars in the world, to go and f*** herself, the local media are reporting exclusively.
"Yes, it's true, I told Madonna to go f*** herself. Do you want to know why?" Dakarai asked. "It's the same thing every time with these snobby rich Americans. Every once in a while they come to show us their support for the so-called eradication of poverty by adopting a child from a starving family, but they actually do more harm than good. Transracial international adoptions are part of the white savior industrial complex," Dakarai explained.
In further discussions with journalists from the media, the kid stated that "none of the children here actually want to be taken away from their family and friends so they can be displayed as some kind of trophy in the homes of self-righteous singers or actors who want to score some points with the media and Oprah."
"If they really want to help us, they should get Big Pharma to ship us some anti-retroviral drugs for the AIDS epidemic, or build schools and hospitals. If they don't want to do that, then they can all go f** themselves!" the child told reporters.
The 15-year-old also stated that he would say the same thing to any one of those American or European "faux humanitarian posers", except for Bono, whom he said he would also kick in the groin.
"Bono's efforts to save the African savage from itself prove that the colonial imperative is alive and well," Dakarai said as he walked with other village children collecting sticks to build a tree fort.
My new hero.
Also "Kelly Rowland is the true gay icon."
Damn. Tell 'em why you mad.
I really hope Lady Gaga and Katy Perry watch this on a loop with tears in their eyes.


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San Gabriel, CAUSA 91775
August 27, 2011
I have my picture
No answer yet
I love to sing, dance and perform at different occasions. I also know some magic tricks. I love to do business networking
I work for the public sector. I am a Social worker and a beauty products distributor
I am a happy outgoing person who is always ready to meet new friends from different walk of life. I am ready to accept and open to new ideas
Welcome Aaron! :D
Greeting! hi just want to see if you still coming for the karaoke :) can you please confirm your rsvp ? so i can have a better handle on the rooms?
Thank you
Hi Aaron, thx for coming out to Flappy Jack's twice. sorry we missed u the first time around. Hope you enjoyed your breakfast. Hope to see u in future events.
Mr. Banh still looking BANG BANG!!
Is this Aaron Kwok? Man, you need to come out to do some Karaoke with us. Also update your profile with something poetic dude. Welcome to CLG!
Aaron, Auto show...cool.... one of our meetup event in the future. ^_^
Hello Aaron, welcome to Dinner for 8! Please take a few minutes to fill out the questionnaire so the members can get to know you better. Thanks!
Aaron, welcome to CLG. Please update your profile with something about yourself. I am sure you have something interesting you want to share with the group.
Hi, I found you on the Pleasure Palate meetup page and I noticed your interest in good food. I just started an LA Foodie Specials meetup group to bring together friends who love food, like yourself, while saving you $$$ on your dinner expenses. We've got fun & adventurous events coming up like the Kitchen Nightmares Meetup, where we'll be exploring an L.A. restaurant that Chef Gordon Ramsey turned around on his TV show. Hop on board and come have some fun with us! http://bit.ly/mummb
Meetup members, Log in
By clicking "Sign up" or "Sign up using Facebook", you confirm that you accept our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

subset: commoncrawl


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Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum…who is sexier? (Pick ONE Only)
Who do you think is sexier? Not necessarily a better actor! LINK http://polldaddy.com/poll/8341210/ P.HariRead more...
Nawazuddin : Saab, main bheek mangta hoon, khaane ke liye bhi paisa nahin rehta hai.
*Mobile phone rings*
Aamir : *smirk*
LMAO what a scene!
It's a Classic Movie for Sure… Even Ghajin had Some Good Thrills.
Like that Scene where those Killers Hide Inside Asin's Apartment was Chilling Man!
Agree JTW, It's an awesome scene Talaash is looking good!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Who do you think is sexier? Not necessarily a better actor! LINK http://polldaddy.com/poll/8341210/ P.HariRead more...
LINK Who is a better actor (Al Pacino or Robert De Niro) My vote goes to De Niro! P.HariRead more...
LINK Quick Poll: Hollywood's Best Romantic Comedy (Vote ONE only) Vote once as always! Look forward to the answers.Read more...
LINK And the winner is Amitabh Bachchan in and as Vijay Dinanath Chauhan followed by Al Pacino in Scarface and Marlon Brando in The Godfather) Amitabh Bachchan (Agneepath, 40.54%) Al Pacino (Scarface, 18.92%)Read more...
Quick Poll: Best Actor in a Gangster Film Ever? (Please Vote ONE Only) 1 vote only or add your own:-) See video links below. 1) Agneepath (Amitabh Bachchan in and as Vijay DeenanathRead more...
First Look at Channing Tatum in 'Magic Mike XXL' et.tv/1ByVgBo via @etnow
ATandT says 2 million customers using connected-car service ATandT gave its first look at the performance of the... 247pk.pk/news/atandt-sa…
so here is the first lesson of my html5 course! have a look. youtu.be/f27W-pK-VO4?a
The new MSN arrives: Earlier this month, we unveiled a first look at the new MSN. Over the past 3 weeks, nearl... bit.ly/YK4wpi
People and Shoes both have same virtue. At first We look for good-looking ones. But in the end we choose the ones [SendSMS.pk]
First Look: Ruger AR-556: Ruger's new AR-556 marks the company's first M4-style rifle with a direct... defence.pk/threads/first-…
Android Auto screenshots provide another look at Google's in-car software: We're still waiting for the first ... bit.ly/1nA965P
Look out New York City! Microsoft to open flagship retail store on Fifth Avenue: When we opened the first Micr... bit.ly/1nyg23t
PK-Raj Kumar Hirani Or OK-Kanti Shah Comment Fast PK First Look - youtube.com/watch?v=M2sMUx… OK... fb.me/1JluCBYWY
Ducks look to a motivated Dany Heatley to fill out the first line With good timing, a hunch and a mutual gamble,... ift.tt/YsKGPB
@Riz2525 What's the first thing you do when your PK sucks? You look at it. youtu.be/ibzmOlBZemQ
जारी पोस्टरमा आफ्नो गोप्य अंगलाई रेडियोले छोपेका छन्। आमिरले बलिउड फिल्ममा पहिलो पटक यस्तो गरेका हुन। ebestvideo.blogspot.com/2014/…
First look: Check out Sushant Singh Rajput as MS Dhoni in the biopic of the cricketer After the success of Bhaag... ift.tt/1qB9H1x
Being a former first basemen PK was always my idol and although I don't keep up with baseball as much I will always look up to him. #PK14 ⚾
Victoria Beckham Opens Her First Flagship Store to the Public (Take a Look Inside!) The wait is over: Victoria B... ift.tt/1n1t357
@B_R_Bonner @austinkurkowski pk subban look him up I figured he would be your first pick
One of my followers who saw me in person for the first time yesterday told me I look bigger in person. So that's pretty cool
independence day - indians vs pakistanis on phones .: look when indians pakistanis spoke on phones first... defence.pk/threads/indepe…
First Look At #Fuddu Movie Detail >> bit.ly/Y1nuaB fb.me/6T4PN7Ylk
First Look Poster of Movie Fuddu is PK Inspired goo.gl/fb/z6ndIX


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Tag Results
11 posts tagged nikki
11 posts tagged nikki
Days after Nintendo closed Swapnote's online messaging feature, we finally know more about what might have caused the sudden service stoppage.
According to a couple reports popping up in Japanese outlets Mainichi and Yomiuri Online, a 44-year-old man is said to have used the app to communicate with pre-teen girls, convincing them to send back nude photos. Two other men allegedly lured a 12-year-old girl to a hotel multiple times to perform "improper acts" after connecting with her through an online dating site she accessed with her 3DS (possibly using the handheld's browser?).
Kotaku says the reports mention the victims' parents turned off the online functions of their daughters' 3DSes, but the children turned them back on.
Terrible, terrible people. The sad Nikki artwork above is courtesy of Koto by the way. You can hear us talking more about Swapnote's demise in our new podcast episode published this morning.
BUY Nintendo 2DS and 3DS/XL consoles, upcoming games
Another TinyCast episode for your morning! We spent the first segment lamenting the loss of popular 3DS messaging app Swapnote, but we have other eShop news to lift our spirits: Farewell, Umihara Kawase is coming to North America, the Sega 3D Classics line finally debuts in North America this month, and more!
Direct download (MP3, 26.3 MB) / RSS
Follow us on the iTunes Store! Leave a nice review! :o)
With Swapnote shuttered and the chances for a Super Smash Bros. playable role looking slim, the 3DS app's mascot has to look for a new home. There's a new and very cute Tumblr following Nikki's Adventures in Animal Crossing as the ex-postmistress tries to find her way.
It looks like she's landed on her feet. With few funds to her name, Nikki lived in a tent for a while, but at least now she has a house (and a lot of debt to go along with it). Still, there are moments when Nikki's reminded of what she's lost — not just her home or countless penpals, but her purpose. It could be a long time before she really recovers from that.
BUY Animal Crossing: New Leaf, AC:NL guide, upcoming games
Before you complain that this isn't the NES palette or that it's not a real homebrew release or whatever contrived annoyance you've created to power that hate-device you call your heart, watch this. Listen to this. Oh my god, it's perfect. Big ups to composer James Roach and artist Merrigo for creating this amazing tribute.
Top five things I'll miss about Swapnote, now that Nintendo's all but killed it:
I think we're going to make this month Nikki November.
BUY Nintendo 2DS and 3DS/XL consoles, upcoming games
If Swapnote's mascot Nikki had a cameo in a 2D game — and I really hope Nintendo's in-house and second-party development teams find excuses to make this happen — she'd probably look a lot like this sprite!
BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases
If the idea of opening Swapnote and sorting through a deluge of unread messages gives you stomach upsets, you can see the app's one-year anniversary note here.
BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases
Apparently you can set the 3DS clock ahead to 12/21 to see it?
Swapnote is absolutely the most precious thing, which I'm terrified to open because it would result in something like the courtroom scene from Miracle on 34th St., but with Yoshi drawings and cat pictures instead of letters to Santa.
BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases
I hope Miiverse is home to more hilarity like this, and I wish the same for the unofficial Miiverse Tumblr where I found these images. I'm kicking myself over not being the one to start this site.
Buy: New Super Mario Bros. U
See also: More New Super Mario Bros. U posts
If you ever wanted to send messages to Swapnote's mascot Nikki, you sort of can now — some young lass has set up a Tumblr blog for the green sweatered character.
There's an Ask form for submitting questions, and if Nikki likes them (and if they're not inappropriate queries that make her blush), she'll post a sketch response. Neat!
Buy: Nintendo 3DS console (Flame Red, Black, & Blue) Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more See also: More Swapnote news
Freakyforms QR code for Swapnote's Nikki. The 3DS's messaging app mascot is everywhere nowadays — she's in Mii Plazas, user photos (OMGGG), foot fetish fanart, and now Freakyforms! What next? A Pushmo puzzle? A cameo in Super Smash Bros. 3DS?? A guest verse on the remix for Birdman/Nicki Minaj/Lil' Wayne's "Y.U. MAD"?!?
Buy: Nintendo 3DS console (Flame Red, Black, & Blue)
Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more
See also: More Swapnote news
[Via Takuya, Superjezmerelda]
Fanart for Swapnote's Nikki by Happy Freshener. Wow, people love this app so much, they're drawing tributes for this minor character from the Nintendo-verse. Of course, perverts have even made "sex" comics with her.
I know dudes want me to add them for Swapnote fun, but my Friends List is pretty much full right now! And I need to stop inviting people to send me messages — as much as I enjoy them, it's totally getting in my way of playing the other eShop stuff I've downloaded.
Like, with what little free time I have, I'll sit down to play Mighty Switch Force, VVVVVV, or Pushmo, but nope, there's two dozen new Swapnotes for me to check out first! And then there goes the rest of my night.
Buy: Nintendo 3DS console (Flame Red, Black, & Blue)
Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more
See also: More Swapnote news
[Via Happy Freshener]


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COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) - Monarch Community Bank in Coldwater this week announced a corporate restructuring and the raising of investor funds aimed at retiring U.S. Treasury Department TARP obligations. Monarch said the fund total that's been raised is $16.5 million. It will be used to purchase approximately eight-and-a-quarter million shares of Monarch's newly issued common stock at $2.00 per share. The funds will remain in escrow pending the completion of the company's retirement of TARP obligations and the closing of the transaction, which is expected by mid-November. Richard DeVries, President and CEO of Monarch said they're very gratified at the response of the investment community. He said funds will be used to recapitalize Monarch Community Bank for the $8.2 million TARP retirement for about $4.4 million dollars and to support the ongoing growth of the bank.
Delaney in the Morning 6:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Watch us live now! http://wtvbam.com/delaney-in-the-morning/


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Home > Post > Post 1 > Post 1 News Release > 2009 News Releases > News Release
News Release
TFC Jay Thomas
Public Affairs Officer
Kentucky State Police
Post 1, Mayfield
(270) 856-3721
Click here to e-mail TFC Jay Thomas
Homicide Anniversaries (Cold Case Investigations)
Date of News Release: 07/15/2009
(Hickory, Ky.) -- July marks the anniversary of two homicides which occurred in the Post One district. July 16th marks the 13 year anniversary of the murder of Bobbi Holman Williams in Marshall County. Mrs. Williams was found murdered in her Marshall County home in 1996. Though no one has been charged for her murder, Kentucky State Police are actively investigating the death of Mrs. Williams.
July 17th marks three years since the homicide of Margaret Anderson in Ledbetter Kentucky. Three years ago, Kentucky State Police responded to Anderson's residence on McCollum Dr. in Ledbetter to find the 61 year-old, mother of four, murdered in her home. Since the homicide investigation began, numerous people have been interviewed and multiple leads have been pursued. Though much has been accomplished in this investigation, detectives are still searching for critical information that could assist in the capture of Margaret Anderson's killer.
Anyone having any information on either of the above mentioned cases are asked to contact the Kentucky State Police, Post One, at 270-856-3721 or 1-800-222-5555 (in the state of Kentucky only, does not work out of state). You can also access the Kentucky State Police cold case website at http://www.kentuckystatepolice.org/cold_case.htm


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Quick Weight Loss or Quackery? (cont.)
Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist, and founder of the Healthy Weight Network, agrees. "If you want to tone your body or become more fit, you need to do the work. It's not lying on a table, and having [a gadget] lift your feet," she says referring to no-effort toning tables, beds, and machines.
The value of toning and weight-loss equipment depends on how much work you can get a person to do to burn energy, says Berg, pointing out that when people see desired results with normally passive devices and treatments, it's usually because they've also made efforts to eat well or exercise.
Truth With a Twist
Berg coordinates the Task Force on Weight Loss Abuse for the National Council Against Health Fraud, which gives out annual Slim Chance Awards to selected weight-loss products.
This year's "worst gimmick" prize went out to MagnaSlim, which claims to relieve stress, and its byproduct of overeating by placing magnets and a magnetized solution at specific acupuncture points. The magnet at the acupressure point would supposedly improve cell function, restore Chi (life force energy), and give a person more control over what they put in their mouths.
Weight-loss promoters have long cashed in on the concept of acupressure and magnetic therapy for weight loss, even though there is no proof it works, says Berg. Items using similar concepts on the market include magnetic weight-loss earrings, adhesives, beads, and seeds.
It is apparently not uncommon for manufacturers to piggyback on ideas and studies that may have genuine validity, and twist them for commercial purposes.
Another example would be the electrical muscle stimulators (EMS) promoted to do anything from slough off weight, to tone muscle, to form six-pack abs. Some ads claim this is possible without exercise.
Health experts scoff at such an idea, but do say EMS is a valuable tool for physical therapy. "There are times when that really helps," says Anderson, pointing to rehabilitation programs for people with physical injuries or stroke-related debilitation.
"The problem I have with it is if it's being marketed as muscle stimulation, and that will help you tone up and lose weight," says Anderson. "Well, it probably will help you tone a little bit, but it shouldn't take place of being more active, and looking at how many calories we put in our mouth each day."
Gad Alon, PhD, associate professor in the department of physical therapy and rehabilitation science at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, has studied the effects of EMS, and many promoters often refer to his research in peddling their wares.
He says many of these marketers misuse his work, saying things like, 'Seven physicians at the University of Maryland have concluded that you may never have to do sit-ups again.'
First of all, says Alon, there were no physicians present for the studies; he and his students conducted the studies, and they never addressed the topic of weight loss.
Alon warns, though, that some EMS devices in the market might not have the proper specifications to work properly. He says they may use electrodes that do not have good conductivity, or some may be too small to cover large muscle areas.
The Damage and What to Do About It
Some of the weight-loss gadgets may seem too good to be true, yet even smart people fall for them. Why are people so willing to believe these quick and easy schemes?
"Hope springs eternal," says Edward Abramson, PhD, a clinical psychologist, and author of Emotional Eating: What You Need to Know Before Starting Another Diet. He says people are always looking for a shortcut, especially for difficult, ongoing problems.
Besides losing money on bunk products, however, consumers could get their hopes dashed. Abramson says repeated disappointments with weight loss could undermine a person's overall sense of well-being. He says some people could even internalize blame to a point that could lead to eating disorders.
Berg adds that false weight-loss systems and goods could also prevent people from seeking real treatment, interfere with responsible programs that do work, and promote distrust of the medical community.
To avoid falling prey to such schemes, the FDA says consumers should be particularly skeptical of claims containing words like easy, effortless, guaranteed, miraculous, magical, breakthrough, new discovery, mysterious, exotic, secret, exclusive, and ancient.
The experts interviewed by WebMD also recommend concentrating on weight-management strategies that are proven to work, such as incorporating a balanced diet with reduced calories with a regular exercise regimen. Some tips include:
Published Feb. 26, 2004.
SOURCES: Sallie Elizabeth. Smooth Synergy. Richard Cotton, spokesman, American Council on Exercise; chief exercise physiologist, myexerciseplan.com. Federal Trade Commission report, "Deception in Weight-Loss Advertising Workshop: Seizing Opportunities and Building Partnerships to Stop Weight-Loss Fraud," December 2003.Federal Trade Commission report, "Weight-Loss Advertising: An Analysis of Current Trends," September 2002. Jennifer Anderson, PhD, RD, professor; extension specialist, department of food science and human nutrition, Colorado State University. Francie M. Berg, licensed nutritionist; founder, Healthy Weight Network; coordinator, Task Force on Weight Loss Abuse for the National Council Against Health Fraud. Gad Alon, PhD, associate professor, school of medicine and department of physical therapy and rehabilitation science, University of Maryland, Baltimore. Edward Abramson, PhD, clinical psychologist; author, Emotional Eating: What You Need to Know Before Starting Another Diet. MagnaSlim web site. Cellulite USA web site. WebMD News Article: "Americans in Denial About Their Weight."
©2004 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Last Editorial Review: 1/31/2005 7:39:32 AM


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Over the space of many years, we have developed a unique database containing the annual accounts of companies in the Norwegian seafood sector. These figures are used in economic models to analyse the development of profitability, production and structure of companies and industry sectors in the seafood industry.
Knowledge developed from such models is used to provide advice about strategic choices to the administrative organs, industry sectors and companies. We also provide advice about how authorities can develop their regulation of business activities, such that companies and industries gain increased profitability and an enhanced competitive position. This knowledge is also important for the management of marine resources, such that these can be utilised in an effective and sustainable manner.
The research group is localised and integrated in a technological and scientific research environment. The group includes a strong specialist community within the field of traceability. Consequently, the relevant issues selected and scientific approach shows the signs of close collaboration with the specialist communities within production technology and biology. Nofima's applied profile demands that the research within corporate and industrial economics is adapted and used with solid knowledge about the industry and the competitive area being studied.
Success criteria
Strategic choices are not static but rather dynamic. This relates to the fact that the company and its conditions are undergoing constant change. The surroundings change, such that strategic choices must be corrected. Over the years Nofima has studied how the companies' ability to adapt to changing surroundings influences the performance and competitive position of the industry sector and company. This has proven to be an extremely important, but demanding quality. The priority, therefore, is on enhanced knowledge about how the company's flexibility, along many dimensions, is developed and applied.
Management and value adding
The marine sector is developed around large fish stocks and good aquaculture localities. Increasingly more industries have an interest in good access to the coastal zone, e.g. the traditional fisheries industry, aquaculture and the tourism industry. The research group is interested in developing knowledge about how these natural advantages should be managed in a sustainable manner and at the same time form the basis for industries with international competitiveness.
Large sectors of the fisheries industry live by fishing and producing food from wild fish stocks. The research group has developed unique competence about how the choice of catch/harvesting strategies influences the quality of the raw materials and the total value adding from a given quantum. This knowledge has been heavily applied in order to adapt the catch to market preferences. In this way, the values of scarce resources increase.
Environmentally-friendly production
Food production is energy intensive. Nofima is working to acquire knowledge about which different driving forces influence energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in food production. We have placed particular weight on understanding how the choice of strategies for catch, production and technology choice influence the energy consumption and environmental strain. This knowledge is utilised to develop management and strategic choices that may reduce energy consumption and strain on the environment.


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This paper attempts to quantify the degree of inequality of opportunity in labor market outcomes for a selection of countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. ... See More + The authors adapt the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) methodology that has been widely used to study opportunities of children to measures of inequality in the labor market for working age adults, using data from the Life in Transition Surveys (LiTS) conducted in 2006. The authors decompose the observed inequalities into components that are attributable to circumstances an individual was born into (e.g., gender, parents' education, minority status, etc) and other characteristics (education and age). The authors conduct additional exercises with this measure, which examine: (i) comparisons with an expenditure-based measure of inequality of opportunity; (ii) the extent to which the measures of inequality resonate with individual perceptions of life satisfaction and fairness; and (iii) how the results for ECA countries compare with similar measures in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. The authors findings show substantial inequality of opportunity (attributable to circumstances that an individual was born into) in employment status in the ECA region and a high degree of heterogeneity across countries in the circumstances that matter the most for inequality. The correlations between measures and perceptions of inequality among citizens across ECA countries suggest that inequality between groups, including measures of inequality of opportunity, matter more than overall measures of inequality for citizen perceptions of fairness. The results are robust to different definitions of jobs as opportunities. See Less -
Working Paper 73698 NOV 15, 2012
Abras, Ana; Narayan, Ambar; Tiwari, Sailesh; Hoyos, Alejandro
This study analyzes opportunities for children in Cote d'Ivoire, where opportunities refer to access to basic services and goods that improve the likelihood of a child maximizing his or her human potential. ... See More + The principle that guides this analysis is one of equality of opportunity, which is that a child's circumstances at birth should not determine his or her access to opportunities. The analysis computes the Human Opportunity Index, which measures the extent to which access to basic services is universal and evenly distributed among children of different circumstances. Opportunities are limited in Cote d'Ivoire, despite some improvements in access to electricity and timely access to primary education. Otherwise, trends on access remain stagnant. Scale effects (variations across the board) are behind these trends, with little improvement observed from equalizing interventions. Circumstances such as region and household head characteristics affect a child's access to opportunities, while household incomes and a child's gender and ethnicity play a relatively small role in access differentials. Public spending on education opportunities is shown to be regressive and pro-rich, especially when analyzed across the distribution of circumstances rather than acroos income level.The groups of children that are particularly behind in terms of educational opportunities are those whose household heads lack primary education and reside in rural areas. Closing the enrollment gap of these children should be a priority for targeted educational interventions. However, improving opportunities may require more than a single type of intervention: opportunities with low coverage may need to be scaled up, while those with large inequalities of access may require equalizing interventions. See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS6048 APR 01, 2012
Abras, Ana; Narayan, Ambar; Cuesta, Jose; Hoyos, Alejandro
Section one provides an economic update and assesses the challenges and near-term prospects facing the South African economy. In particular, it looks at the implications for South Africa of the resurgence of uncertainty in global financial markets, the surge in capital flows to safe-haven assets, the continuing Euro zone crisis, and signs of slowdown in some of the large emerging market economies. ... See More + Section two focuses on inequality of opportunity in South Africa. For the first time, using innovative techniques, this section presents an analysis of the interlinked inequality of opportunities for children and for access to employment. Every society has a degree of inequality of outcomes that reflects differences in innate human capabilities, effort, education, experience, and skills. But a recognized goal for public policy is to ensure at least the equality of opportunity for every individual in a country. Many countries have used this new approach to develop targeted policies to promote such equality of opportunity and to monitor and evaluate the success of public programs. See Less -
Working Paper (Numbered Series) 71553 JAN 01, 2012
Mahajan, Sandeep; Suarez, Alejandro Hoyos; Narayan, Ambar; Tiwari, Sailesh; Dennis, Allen; Ngwenya, Phindile; Im, Fernando; Mitra, Shabana
|Document Date
|Report No.
|Document Type
|Also available in
|World development report 2013 : inequality of opportunities in the labor market - evidence from life in transition surveys in Europe and Central Asia (English) See More +
|Working Paper
|Equality of opportunities and fiscal incidence in Cote d'Ivoire (English) See More +
|Policy Research Working Paper
|South Africa economic update : focus on inequality of opportunity (English) See More +
|Working Paper (Numbered Series)


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Big Potential In Disney's 'Star Wars: Commander'
Alcaraz Research • Yesterday, 3:19 AM • 3 Comments
- "Star Wars: Commander" is the best "Clash of Clans" clone. More than 5 million iOS gamers now play it.
- An all-out global advertising campaign for "Star Wars: Commander" can lure players away from "Clash of Clans".
- Cheaper in-game items may encourage players in emerging countries to also spend money on this game.


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In the lead up to DIA, I put together my thoughts on how the pharma value chain can be transformed by improved information management in a post on the Doculabs site. If you haven't already checked it out, get over there now and then let me know what you think. Pharma (and life sciences in general) is at a very interesting place on a number of levels, particularly in terms of information management. I'd love to get a good conversation going about all this…so jump in!
It seems like analyst types and talking heads (that's me) are always looking for whitespace – after all, one way to add value to a domain is to point out places where either practitioners and organizations aren't paying enough attention or will soon be paying lots of attention. For me, one of the most glaring swaths of whitespace in enterprise content management (ECM) is the integration between sync and share capabilities and behind the firewall ECM platforms.
If you work in ECM, the reasons for this make sense: most Fortune 500 organizations already have ECM platforms in place and over the last three years, their employees have been adopting sync and share tools like crazy, for a number of reasons:
And although there are a bunch of sync and share tools out there, for large organizations, Box has been at the forefront. they've got lots of corporate users out there, lots of big organizations have official contracts with them, and they are gearing up for a big IPO. And until recently, there's been an uneasy coexistence between ECM and Box, with both sides kind of doing their own thing–not really excited to share the stage with the other side, but not doing anything overt to crush them either.
I've been telling clients for some time now that this situation is coming to a head and that the Box/ECM coexistence is rushing headlong towards a less than amicable stand off. With the big three ECM platforms developing their own sync and share capabilities and Microsoft going like gangbusters on O365, there's a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born…and for my money, it doesn't bode well for Box and the other independent sync and share platforms.
This week we got what I think is the opening salvo in the coming conflict between ECM and sync and share: OpenText filing suit against Box for copyright infringements. Now, I don't want to weigh in on the merits of the case – I know too little about the under the hood technology to say anything intelligent. But I do think that, the merits of the case aside, this is just the first conflict of many that are coming between ECM and sync and share.
And, unless sync and share vendors can develop robust, effective integration between their solutions and their customers' ECM repositories, I'm afraid that independent sync and share tools are doomed: who would want to create the mess and headache of a behind the firewall repository and a public one with only a homegrown integration (or no integration) between them–especially when your ECM vendor has its own integrated sync and share solution? You guessed it…no one.
So much for what this talking head thinks, what about you all out there? Am I being too chicken little about the future of independent sync and share? Or do you agree that the writing is on the wall for Box and others? Jump in and let's get the conversation started!
I came to sales, if not kicking and screaming, then certainly not doing backflips. Until four years ago, I was always a doer: musician, teacher, editor, project manager, business analyst, IT leader, then consultant (yes, folks, consulting does count as doing something). In 2010, however, I got the opportunity to step into a role at Doculabs that was my first serious sales role.
Sure, at the time I told myself it was business development, not sales, as if that would somehow insulate me from the unsavory, somewhat slimy world of selling people things. But in the end, of course, they both really amount to the same thing: you need to convince folks who aren't doing business with you to do business with you by selling them something. Full stop.
Now, to be fair, I had (and continue to have) other responsibilities at Doculabs: creating and nurturing new service offerings, contributing to our go to market strategies, sponsoring and delivering on consulting engagements, coaching and mentoring my colleagues, growing the Doculabs brand through thought leadership activities, and working with my fellow leadership team members to chart a course for Doculabs as a whole to ensure that it will continue to thrive for years to come. But the fact is, if we don't sell our services to clients, then all the rest of this stuff is meaningless—without a viable business, we have to pack it up and go home.
So the reality was that I took a sales job and needed to figure out how to sell successfully without turning into a sales guy, or at least the kind of sales guy that made my skin crawl. You know the type: totally focused on closing a deal, doesn't matter what the client needs or what the product or service can do, just get them to sign on the line that is dotted, and once it's a done deal, move on to the next one.
I was fortunate both to work at a firm that espouses a philosophy of selling that's 180 degrees away from what I thought sales was and also to have mentors that showed me another way to sell, a way that generated revenue while allowing you to sleep at night.
The Doctor is in
The first breakthrough I had was to look at our sales process as analogous to practicing medicine rather than selling snake oil. That is, when you go to your GP because something is wrong and she gives you a diagnosis, you expect her to follow up by administering a cure (if there is one). When she recommends an x-ray or blood tests or prescribes some medicine, your first thought isn't usually that she's just trying to sell you stuff you don't need. Typically, you're relieved to know what's wrong and what you need to do about it…and that your trusted physician will be with you every step of the way
In contrast, imagine if she delivered her diagnosis and showed you the door: how would that feel? Far from relieved, you'd feel frustrated and abandoned—how could she know what's wrong with me and not do anything about it, or at least refer me on to someone who can?
What Doculabs does isn't that much different from what a GP does. We meet with folks and talk to them about their problems. We facilitate a discussion and try to help them articulate their issues, challenges, and opportunities. We seek to understand the client context and make sure we've "heard" them before we suggest ways they can solve their issues and challenges to capitalize on their opportunities. And once we're absolutely sure that we've done all that, we sketch out clearly and directly what we can do for the client and, as importantly, what we can't, fostering an open, honest, transparent dialogue about whether what we can do fits what the client needs and what the next steps are, whether or not we plan to work together.
How strange would it be if we did all that with our prospects and clients and then bid them good day without offering to provide more services to them? They would feel like a patient whose GP didn't stick around to cure them: abandoned, confused, let down, lost.
This breakthrough realization not only made me excited to take on a sales role, but it also gave me a framework within which I could be successful at sales and feel good about my job.
Live to Serve
The second big aha moment for me was when I realized that everything Doculabs does, from marketing and sales to delivery, is about serving clients—if we're not serving our clients, nothing else matters. And if we focus on serving clients, then everything else, from revenue to the strength of our brand, follows of its own accord.
So, when I'm embarking on the process of selling I described above, I work hard to stay totally focused on serving the client, i.e., before I speak or act, I ask myself, is what I'm about to do or say grounded in serving the client or not?
This is easier said than done, because I have student loans and three kids with all the expenses that brings, and a mortgage, car payments, etc., and a wife who's a stay at home mom—so I wouldn't be human if some part of my brain wasn't crunching the numbers and imaging how great it would be to get the sale and collect the commission. And I also have strong opinions about how to do enterprise content management (ECM) and IT and lots of other stuff, and my ideas don't always gel with what the client thinks, needs, or wants. So sometimes I need to suppress my strong opinions to better serve the client, but other times I need to push back and speak my mind—and risk putting them off or angering them. In either case, showing how smart I think I am or how right I am is not the first concern…it's doing what's needed to serve the client no matter what my ego wants to do or my wallet needs me to do.
The Final Word
Okay, so much for the confessions of a reluctant salesman, who's come to really enjoy sales in the sense that I've described it here. For me, honestly, my job doesn't even feel like a job: I get to read and write and think about how to make organizations better; I get to meet folks from all over the world from all different industries and organizations and partner with them to figure out how to solve their problems; and I get the chance to work with some of them to actually solve those problems elbow to elbow in the trenches (and mostly live to tell about it). For me, I couldn't think of a better way to earn a living.
I'm excited to be co-chairing a new enterprise content management (ECM) conference this spring: Connect-IT. The goal is to bring ECM leaders from IT and the business together to spend two days sharing what works and what doesn't on customer led panels and sessions and networking with peers across industries.
The conference is May 13-14 in Greenwich, CT and is gearing up to be a great two days. Advanced registration is going on now – click here to check out our brochure, which has full information about the conference.
You can also join our LinkedIn group to stay up to date with what's going on with the conference leading up to May, connect with other attendees, and continue your discussions and networking after the conference is over.
In the coming weeks, I'll be posting more information here, both about speakers and topics, so I hope even if you aren't able to make it this year, that you'll find the information valuable and keep Connect-IT in mind for your 2015 plans.
So I did my first Google Hang Out – http://bit.ly/1e52enP. Other than not smiling and looking like a wax mannequin while listening to the other folks talk, I think it went well!
Thanks to David Jenness from IBM for hosting it and to Larry Hawes from Dow Brook Advisory Services for participating with me.
Would love to hear what folks think–so click through, watch it, and come back and heckle!
On Thursday, October 3rd, AIIM is bringing their "Information Governance in a Social & Mobile World Seminar" to the Doubletree by Hilton in Arlington Heights, IL. Doculabs is participating. Stop by our table if you're there. Doculabs co-founder and information management guru Richard Medina will there and would love to talk about information governance or anything else you have in mind.
Here's AIIM's description of the event:
AIIM President, John Mancini, subject-matter-experts, and your peers will come together to learn how to:
There's no charge to attend the seminar, you don't need to be a member, and you'll join local organizations like Abbott Laboratories, Allstate, American Hotel Register, Argonne National Laboratory, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Chicago Housing Authority, City of Chicago, DePaul University, GE, Grainger, Harley-Davidson, Northwestern Mutual, VW Credit and many more.
Check out the program agenda and register (for FREE) here.
At least not enough to pay for it, it seems to me.
Here's where I'm coming from: I've been at Doculabs helping clients for a little over six years now. In that time, I've worked with something on the order of 120 Fortune 1000 organizations directly and had substantive discussions with probably four or five hundred others at conferences, through marketing events, and doing general business development. And I can count on one hand (with some fingers left over) the number of organizations I've seen fund any kind of enterprise content management (ECM) initiative based on risk or cost avoidance alone.
Look at it this way: every Fortune 500 company has a substantial e-discovery problem, big time compliance constraints, and a serious over-retention problem. And lots of them will tell you that they are "very, very concerned" about these and that they have the support to do something about them (or at least are getting close to getting that support). And, imagine this, they may even have the money to hire a strategy consulting firm to help them build out the business case and roadmap for solving these problems. But no matter how good that strategy and roadmap may turn out to be, when the chips are down and their CXOs have to decide yea or nay, I'll always put my money on a nay—especially given the current economic climate.
Why's that?
First, cost and risk avoidance are always less attractive than direct cost savings or revenue generators. And in any given budget cycle, it's a 100% certainty that your CXOs are reviewing a portfolio of projects that include a good many that drive direct cost savings or revenue generation. Next to them, your ECM initiative to avoid cost and risk will pale in comparison.
Second, consider the organizational change management required. Let's assume that you make the cut and survive the first round against all those direct cost savings and revenue generating projects. Shortly thereafter, your CXOs will calculate the change management required to achieve the return your project promises. Here's where things get really bad for ECM, because it order to impact e-discovery, compliance, and over-retention in any meaningful way, ECM requires that pretty much every knowledge worker has to change the way they work every day, day in and day out with every document they touch. That's a big deal at no matter the organization and will make your CXOs pause, because I can bet you that almost no other proposal they're considering will have quite so big an organizational change management price tag.
Third, and finally, consider the riskiness of the proposed initiative, i.e., how likely is it to succeed (or fail)? To answer this, your CXOs are going to look into two things:
On the flip side, they're going to ask, how would we be better off funding the ECM initiative rather than doing more of what we typically do in our operations, e.g., building another cell tower, bringing another crusher on-line, drilling more wells, hiring more financial advisors, standing up more factories, etc.?
Answer: we wouldn't be better off, because the huge increase in cost savings, revenue, or margins due to these projects will more than offset any e-discovery, compliance, or storage cost and risk we currently face.
The result? Unless you can argue successfully for a direct line to revenue, savings, or margin, don't hold your breath to get your ECM initiative funded.
The Final Word
So much for my admittedly biased perspective. Have a different one? Been part of an ECM initiative that was funded based on cost or risk avoidance alone? Think I'm crazy in general? Great! Jump in, and let's get the conversation started!
Almost three years ago, I did some prognostication about SharePoint owning enterprise content management (ECM) in the not-too-distant future.
At the time, SharePoint 2010 was just released to market and the post raised some eyebrows because I thought it entirely plausible that one day SharePoint could be all the ECM anyone needed (other than heavy-duty workflow and image management).
Before you rush to judge me one way or the other, you need both to understand that I was fresh of the heels of a pretty amazing demo at a F500 client who had made the decision to use SharePoint 2010 as their sole ECM platform and to remember that in the summer of 2010, traditional ECM vendors were scrambling pretty hard to figure out how to position themselves relative to SharePoint.
Three years later, what do I think of my prediction?
It all depends
One the one hand, I was right, because SharePoint does own ECM today, in the sense that, no matter what other ECM tool(s) an organization has, they almost certainly have SharePoint. No other ECM vendor can make that claim.
On the other hand, I was wrong, because, as successful as SharePoint has been and as much market share as it's taken from traditional ECM in the last three years, it has not displaced (or significantly disrupted) OpenText, IBM, EMC, Oracle, Hyland, etc., at the majority of F1000 organizations.
So, knowing what I know today, I have to admit that I'm less bullish on SharePoint owning ECM in the sense of being the sole/primary ECM system for the majority of F1000 organizations anytime soon.
Too risky, too costly, other targets
The main reason is that the risk profile of SharePoint as primary ECM system for a F1000 organization is higher than the risk profile of SharePoint plus a traditional ECM tool. Full stop.
I'm happy to scrap with Microsoft partners in the comments on this one (you all know I love a good fight), but I'd be much more interested to hear from all you end users out there on this one: would you rather bet on OpenText, IBM, EMC, Oracle, etc. as your provider for capabilities SharePoint can't provide (e.g., workflow, image management, ERP integration, LOB applications) or a range of generally smaller Microsoft partners?
My guess is that having SharePoint plus two, three, four (or more) smaller partners is just going to be too risky for most F1000 firms to justify getting rid of traditional ECM in favor of this path. These partners are mostly under $200M – $300M in revenue–some of them way under. So as a responsible F1000 firm, you have to ask yourself what your plan is if they get bought, go out of business, change product direction, etc. All of which are very real risks to consider.
You also need to take into account the significant time, effort, and cost organizations have already put into making traditional ECM work for them. And while sometimes this is an inadvisable throwing good money after bad type situation, in the majority of cases, F1000 organizations have some flavor of ECM humming along nicely, thank you very much. Quite rightly, then, they would balk at the idea of ripping and replacing their existing ECM with SharePoint. I just don't think the ROI is consistently there to justify it…especially if you add in the heightened vendor risk I mentioned earlier. To me, taking all this into consideration, it becomes almost a total non starter.
The final reason I don't think SharePoint will be the sole ECM system for F1000 organizations anytime soon is that I don't think this is Microsoft's goal anymore. Nothing in their product strategy for SharePoint suggests that they want to have organizations move hundreds of millions of images, for example, out of Mobius or IBM CMOD and into SharePoint; nor do they want to displace IBM, OpenText, Pega, K2, or whatever, as the workflow engine of choice.
Instead, I think they've eaten as much of traditional ECM's lunch as they care to and are now moving on to a domain that holds out the potential for a much larger and much more lucritive lunch to eat: cloud content management providers like Box and Dropbox. I think they have their eye on all those terabytes and petabytes of unstructured shared drive and hard drive content just begging to be moved into a more managed repository, which traditional ECM vendors are not only bad at doing, but have pretty much given up on: enter SharePoint backed by Office 365.
The final word
Okay, so that's my take on SharePoint owning ECM in 2013. What do you all think? Jump in, share your thoughts, maybe some specifics about what your organization is doing, and let's get a good discussion going on this one!
In the last post, I called it like I seen it: SharePoint out of the box can't do records management. 2007, 2010, 2013—none of 'em left to their own devices are worth much when it comes to automating the retention and (more importantly) disposition of your records according to the retention schedule.
But as if that weren't provocative enough, I also argued that, regardless of system (SharePoint, IBM FileNet/P8/CMOD, EMC Documentum, OpenText, Hyland OnBase, whatever), and regardless of the capabilities of that system, pretty much no one is actually doing real records management on their electronic content.
Check out the last post to see my reasoning for this being true (and let me know what you think of it). In this post, however, let's turn to what might be driving the fact that almost no one is doing electronic records management (whether in SharePoint or any other enterprise content management system).
If only technology were the problem
I find myself saying this a lot in my day-to-day travels as a strategy consultant focused on ECM, but it's especially true of automated records management. Here's why.
Imagine you're a Fortune 500 bank. One of your record types will be some flavor of account holder documentation, which in the U.S. will likely have an event-based retention trigger along the lines of death of the account holder plus three years. So far so good, except your ECM system has no idea when an account holder dies, which means it won't be able to automate the retention and disposition of account holder documentation—at least not easily.
One option is to pull a list of all deceased account holders from your customer relationship management (CRM)system into your ECM system and then use that to drive the trigger. Except that at most organizations, simply getting an account holder's correct phone number or email requires a database administrator to write a custom query, let alone something as exotic as the date they died.
Another option, and this is the most common, is to simply take the account opening date and add 100 years, because this should reasonably cover the lifespan of 99.999% of your account holders. The downside is that you're keeping account holder documentation 97 years too long, which is akin to not disposing of it at all.
Let's leave aside the issue of joint account holders (because you'll need to check for them every time you're getting ready to dispose three years after the death of a primary account holder), and just assume that you're able to find accurate and timely death dates for all account holders in your CRM and pull them into your ECM system to automate the disposition of account holder documentation. Give yourself a pat on the back, but don't celebrate too long: all that work only solved your problem for a single record type—now get cracking on the other few hundred you likely have kicking around.
Ok, some of you might be saying, "But what you've described is a technology problem—if only the system could manage to know when an account holder dies, we could do RM!" And there's a measure of truth in this, but that's sort of like saying technology problems are what mainly prevent us from colonizing Venus. Yes, if we had the technology, we could do it, but really it's the practical constraints on colonization (temperature, atmosphere, etc.) that are the problem.
Electronic records management offers analogous challenges: the way most organizations approach records management as well as the way regulators have framed the requirements for corporate record keeping are primarily what make electronic records management difficult/impossible, not weaknesses in technology (although these don't help).
The final word
We've gotten away from the intentionally provocative start to this series of posts (SharePoint can't do records management) and have reached the people/process heart of the matter: organizations need to reframe how they approach records management if they hope to manage electronic records in an automated way. Hopefully I got past sensationalism to offer insights you found valuable and maybe inspired you to think about how you could better address electronic records at your organization, whether or not you use SharePoint.
So I've been involved in municipal government for a few months now, and my biggest takeaway is, "Damn, things move slow." Don't get me wrong, I've worked with (and at) some execution-challenged organizations in the private sector, but they look positively agile compared to my experience with municipal government.
Now, I don't mean this to be some kind of anti-government rant—I really don't. But in retooling this blog to chronicle my foray into state and local government, I wanted to remain true to my outsider status and call it like I see it, for what it's worth.
And I'll be honest, one of the biggest stumbling blocks so far has been the Open Meetings Act (OMA), which was created to prevent back room, nefarious dealings in government (a noble and important goal), but which seems more often than not, these days at least, to prevent well-intentioned government stakeholders from being able to get a blessed thing done when not in a public meeting.
Think of it this way: imagine if a corporation couldn't make decisions or do substantive work unless they held a public meeting, the agenda of which had to be published 48 hours beforehand, and no real work could go on outside of these meetings. I mean, it's a common complaint that meetings are the main thing preventing corporations from getting work done. So given these constraints, what could you expect them to really accomplish if meetings were the only vehicle for doing work?
Without answering that semi-rhetorical question, I want to take a look at an avenue for both complying with the OMA and getting work done in spite of it: social media. Consumer social media tools like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so on, hold out the promise of fostering ongoing productive government work while complying with the OMA…an exciting possibility for those of us frustrated with the limitations on how municipal stakeholders can work to do the people's business.
To that end, I've been doing some research on how government entities can use social media, and I'll have to admit that there are no clear answers out there—heck, there aren't even really any clear directions emerging. But based on my research, I've built a light infographic that sums up the possibilities open to government entities looking to use social media tools/methods to get work done.
The horizontal axis tracks three things:
The vertical axis tracks:
The final word
This should give you all a good overview of my experience to date with the OMA and trying to foster effective municipal government. In the next post, I'll dig into the specifics of the figure above to talk about how municipal (and state and local governments) could begin to use social media to further their agendas and get work done despite the very real barriers presented by antiquated legislation like the OMA.
But in the meantime, I'd love to hear from you all out there about this stuff—so jump in and let's get the conversation started!
I live in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago that borders the city directly to the west. I was appointed recently to the Civic Information Systems Committee (CISC), a body charged with advising the village board on village's use of technology and information systems, both internally and with the outside community of residents, vendors, partners, and the wider world in general.
Although I've been following developments in Gov2.0 closely over the last two years or so, this is my first direct involvement with it. And in the interest of jumping in with both feet, I figured it would be a good idea to use this blog to document my experiences on the CISC and with Gov2.0 more generally.
In the coming weeks and months, then, I plan to cover a full range of Gov2.0 topics, from the airy heights of theory to the nitty-gritty, down-in-the-weeds view of trying to actually get stuff done on the committee. And I look forward to making this a place for you all to share your thoughts and experiences with Gov2.0, not only to keep me honest with good old-fashioned heckling, but also to widen the conversation beyond my point of view to include yours.
My first post will be after the winter recess, but in the meantime, jump in and make suggestions for topics I should address, and I'll get them on the docket for 2012.
I hope you all have safe and enjoyable holidays with family and friends and look forward to seeing you back here in January!
I'm a total book snob. The list of great books out there that I want to read is so long that, even if I spent twelve hours a day doing nothing but reading and lived another hundred years, it would be difficult to get through all of them. So I'm pretty protective of the few hours a week I actually have to devote to reading.
Given this, I was fairly skeptical when I dove into Patrick Lencioni's Getting Naked last Saturday, because it was written as a fictional account of the takeover of a boutique consulting firm by a "big five" type firm.
I was ready for the worst that business books have to offer: hackneyed story line, wooden dialogue, obvious, Dr. Phil-esque "learnings" (just typing the word makes me cringe…when did "lesson" stop being good enough?)—and I was imagining all the books on my bucket list that I would never get to read because I chose to read Lencioni's.Cut to an hour later, with me fifty pages in and not only totally engrossed but fired up about putting my suit back on Monday morning and getting back in the trenches with my clients—this is a fantastic book.
Lencioni does such a great job telling the story of Lighthouse Partners, the boutique firm that gets gobbled up by a Big Five firm, that you quickly forget how trite the idea of a business fable is and just get engrossed in the story. And the lessons here are anything but obvious, especially for folks used to working in the cutthroat, work-em-to-death environment of large professional services firms.
Lencioni gets at what the heart of consulting should be: a complete focus on serving the client. He shows us a firm where no one sells, they simply consult. Sales calls are just the opportunity to begin solving the client's problems. If they find value in that activity and want to pay for more they will; if they don't, they won't, and both parties shake hands and part amicably.
Projects are not the delivery of the work agreed to in an SOW. They are the creation of value for the client, and the SOW is merely a starting point for that activity. And the creation of value for a client does not happen through having the smartest, most confident consultants in place telling the client what to do; it comes from having consultants who are egoless, fearless, and graceful under pressure work with clients to help facilitate solutions, all predicated on doing what's best for the client, even if it means losing the business.
In this way, Getting Naked shares its fundamental orientation with Mahan Khalsa's Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play, although the latter is more about how to transform your sales process from a transactional approach to a consultative one.
And before you dismiss Lencioni's approach as pie in the sky and untenable in the real world of management consulting, you should know that it's based on the work he's been doing with his own real-world, boutique firm for years now. And if you take a deep breath and think through your own experience with clients (with what's gone well, what hasn't, your successes, your failures), I think you'll begin to see that the times you were most successful were the times you were focused on the client rather than the contract, your numbers, or selling, and that Lencioni's approach is a powerful way to do that on a more consistent basis.
The final word
Clearly I think this is an important read for anyone who works in consulting. But I would expand that to include anyone who works with consultants, because you should be getting this kind of service from the folks you're paying good money to (and lots of it) to get help solving your most important business problems. And if you're not, Getting Naked will help you know what to ask for or, if that doesn't work, find the kind of consulting firm that puts client service first, and everything else second.
At long last, I've finished James Gleick's The Information: A History. A Theory. A Flood. As those of you who are regulars here know, I've been on a bit of a Gleick kick over the last six months, so I had high expectations for his latest work.
I'm happy to say that The Information doesn't disappoint. This book is a tour de force, even for Gleick, who specializes in tours de force. His scope is sweeping, from Plato to quantum computing, and, as we've come to expect from Gleick, he gets deep into the details of long-forgotten science and technology innovations.
He begins the book with an overview of the fascinating story of Claude Shannon, a researcher at Bell Labs who pioneered the concept of the byte. With the stage set, he steps back to give readers the long view of the emergence of information in the West.
From the decoding of West African drumming by colonial powers, the invention of formal logic, Charles Babbage's difference engine, and the history of the dictionary in English (all of which are interesting enough to be books in their own right but seemingly tangential to Shannon's work) Gleick starts to more obviously hone in on his main subject.
Chapter by chapter, Gleick traces the ascendance of information in a range of scientific disciplines, from biology to electrical engineering and physics. And as these pursuits became less and less about processes or things and more and more about the information that structured things and processes, new disciplines almost wholly build on information began to arise, such as genetics.
The result is a challenging but eminently rewarding work of intellectual history that manages to both give readers almost overwhelming detail in conjunction with a solid grounding in the big picture—largely due to Gleick's adept prose and narrative skills.
This book is essential reading, not only for information professionals across a range of fields but simply for anyone who wants a better appreciation for the historical roots of our current information-based society—neither will be disappointed.
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book to use in preparing for this post.
At every client these days, mobility is a big deal, whether because increasing numbers of employees are demanding that the enterprise support their personal smart phones and tablets or because the organization is looking to gain competitive advantage through the strategic use of mobility in its core business processes.
And although most of my clients have been enabling mobility since the advent of laptops, just about every one of those clients is in more or less uncharted territory when it comes to the new wave of mobility ushered in by smartphones and tablets. increasing numbers of employees are demanding that the enterprise support their personal smart phones and tablets or because the organization is looking to gain competitive advantage through the strategic use of mobility in its core business processes.
This makes a certain amount of sense: after all, laptops are essentially portable desktop computers, while smartphones and tablets are radically new form factors that demand a reimagination of the entire end user experience. On top of which, these devices are often consumer devices, owned by employees, that therefore exist outside the reach of IT control.
Given all the urgency and uncertainty around the enterprise use of mobile devices, iPad for the Enterprise is a welcome addition to the literature available on the topic.
Nathan Clevenger has been involved in the development of mobile strategies and applications for over a decade, and the book reflects it. He begins with a consideration of iPad strategy that's a wonderful primer for anyone involved in mobility at their organization, from developers in the trenches to executive leadership.
It sets the stage through a consideration of how we reached the current state of mobility and introduces the concept of the consumerization of IT, i.e., IT changes being driven in a decentralized way by the "consumers" in the enterprise (the employees) rather than in a centralized way by IT.
From there, it moves to more practical considerations and presents an overview of how to build an enterprise mobile strategy and application roadmap. Both are somewhat general—it's difficult to generalize meaningfully about either of these activities—but nonetheless useful, especially for folks who've never participated in creating enterprise strategy before.
With the groundwork in place, Clevenger moves through all the phases of iPad app development: architecture, design, development, and deployment. And while none of this is not intended as a detailed ho- to guide or instructional manual for app development, he manages to get in enough technical detail and code samples to make this a valuable first-stop for technical folks looking to better understand what's happening under the hood of the iPad.
All in all, the book is a strong offering. Non-technical readers will benefit greatly not only from the first section on strategy, but also from the more technical sections, which they can read selectively to gain a better preliminary understanding of concepts like sandbox security or iOS Human Interface Guidelines. Technical readers will not be disappointed in Clevenger's treatment of app development and will also benefit from a better understanding of the context and strategy of iPad app development.
My wife and I just welcomed our second child into the world last week, so I'm taking a few weeks off from the blog to spend some quality time with my family.
While I'm doing that, here's some oldie but goodie posts you may not have seen before:
I recently kicked off a series of posts on insulation that's meant to talk about the critical ways leaders can become disconnected—and hopefully provide some ideas on how they can fight against it.
I listed four kinds of insulation in the introductory post:
In this post I want to dig into the last one, insulation from the marketplace.
The problem
Of the four kinds of insulation, this one is the easiest to fall prey to and the most difficult to counteract. After all, the marketplace is made up of your competition and your customers—two very difficult folks to get familiar with. But without knowing as much as possible about both, you won't be as effective a leader as you could be.
For those of you out there in sales, marketing, and customer service, being attuned to your customers or your competition (or both) is part and parcel of your job description. But for the rest of us, our day-to-day, short-term responsibilities can keep us so busy that we forget about the larger context of our work.
The solution
There's no single best way to get to know your customers and competition better. But I want to share a few techniques I've used over the years to fight against this kind of insulation.
The final word
That's my best advice for how to get to know your competitors and customers—how about you folks? Got any tried and true advice on how to do this? Horror stories of what happens when you're out of touch with either (or both) of them? Success stories about how you connected with either (or both) of them? Jump in, and let's get the conversation started!
I'm on a bit of a James Gleick kick right now, and before I dig into reading The Information in earnest, I figured I'd step back and write up my thoughts on What Just Happened, a collection of his technology essays from 1990 – 2001.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Gleick, he's a fantastic science and technology writer, best known for his biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman…although when you're a polymath like Gleick, "best known for" oversimplifies the breadth of your accomplishments.
During the nineties, he was at the forefront of those who understood just how profound the changes taking place to the information landscape were. He may not have been right 100% of the time (more on that in a minute), but he was always willing to see past the immediate wow factor of any given technological innovation to get at the larger implications for us as individuals, for our culture, and for society as a whole.
As you might expect, he covers a lot of ground in WJH, from the joys and frustrations of being a WinWord power user, to the radical transformation of telcos, the growth of Microsoft, the Internet and politics, the death of money, Y2K, and even the state of Internet porn circa 1995.
All the essays are excellent here, although some are more substantial than others. And while Gleick is always well-informed on his subject matter, you can definitely tell which topics he's engaged with more deeply (especially the history of telephony, which is the starting point for The Information).
Mostly right
What was most striking to me, his modesty in the preface notwithstanding, is how often Gleick gets it right here. Even in the dim first light of the Internet age, he saw with surprising clarity just what this new thing would mean for us.
We definitely laugh when he pokes fun at the Bell Labs employees running around with their buzzing, beeping devices getting plain-text stock quotes or news items and forwarded answering machine messages from their voice mail. But he also steps back from this near-sighted perspective to give us his real thoughts on the matter: these science experiments and toy gadgets will fundamentally alter how we live our lives–and had already started to do so, even way back when he was writing these essays.
And when he does step back, you almost suspect him of having revised the essays in light of what was to come…except in the case of porn ("This is Sex?"), which he doesn't see as all that suited to the online world. A small misstep in an otherwise eerily prescient collection of essays.
A state of wonder
Beyond how right Gleick is about most of this stuff, there's also a real sense of wonderment here, a slack-jawed stare at the changes going on that asks could this really come to pass during my lifetime?
It's like looking at one of of those "Home of the Future" spreads in a 50s issue of Popular Mechanics, where computers cook meals and robots put your slippers on, except that in hindsight we know that Gleick was right–the amazing gadgets and technologies he previews have become an expected, even routine part of our everyday lives. It makes me wonder which of the futuristic capabilities that we marvel at today will be ho-hum in ten year's time.
Getting used to it
Finally, I was amazed throughout the book at how rapidly we've adapted to all these seismic changes to the way we live our lives. From how we communicate with family, friends, and colleagues, to how we pay for goods and services, consume news and entertainment, do business, and participate in politics, things have changed radically since 1990. And as Gleick points out, we struggled with them deeply, and in retrospect, almost comically so, as they were emerging.
But from this side of the shift, it's hard to remember in any tangible way what it was like before debit cards, cell phones, Microsoft Word, and seamless e-commerce. Reading Gleick's first-hand account from the front lines of these shifts is a reminder both of just how difficult and how short-lived such transitions are these days.
The final word
All in all, this is a great book–required reading for anyone interested in technology and its impact on society, both looking forward and looking back.
And while I turn now plow through The Information, I'd love to hear from folks out there who've read WJH: what'd you all think? Love it? Hate it? Did I miss anything in my assessment? Jump in, and let's get the conversation started!
I recently kicked off a series of posts on insulation that's meant to talk about the critical ways leaders can become disconnected—and hopefully provide some ideas on how they can fight against it.
I listed four kinds of insulation in the introductory post:
In this post I want to dig into the third, insulation from wider communities of practice.
Something's got to give
We all have enough to do for our jobs without taking on additional work. Most days it seems like just keeping on top of the currently burning fires is all we do.
Given this, it's all too easy to lose touch with the wider world out there, i.e., the community of practitioners in your discipline. These are the folks who are doing the same job you are but at different organizations, are involved in standards boards and working groups, speak at conferences, write expert blogs, or publish articles and books.
You may know some of them…heck, you may have been one of them once upon a time before your regular job sapped all your professional energies.
My hero
Whatever the case may be, you likely envy them a bit–who hasn't wondered how they manage to keep up with their day job and be a thought leader (and maybe daydreamed a bit about what it would be like to be them for a day or two)? Or maybe you think participating in the wider community of practice is a distraction, a nice to have, a way to put feathers in your cap that has little to do with getting the job done.
Just do it
The reality is that participation in the wider community of practice is vital to being an effective leader for a number of reasons.
The final word
No surprise: I think everyone should make the effort to participate in the wider communities of practice that are relevant for them…what do you all think? Are you currently an active participant? How do you stay involved and balance your responsibilities to your "real" job? Of if you think participating in the wider community of practice is a nice to have, tell us why.
I'd love to hear what folks out there think about all this…so jump in and let's get the conversation started!
I recently kicked off a series of posts on insulation that's meant to talk about the critical ways leaders can become disconnected—and hopefully provide some ideas on how they can fight against it.
I listed four kinds of insulation in the introductory post:
In this post I want to dig into the second, insulation from the work being done on the ground.
It's good to be the king?
Insulation from the work being done on the ground tends to be more acute and pervasive the higher you move in the organization. After all, as you move up the food chain, you naturally get more and more abstracted from day-to-day work–what you do becomes more about enabling others to do that work…or enabling others to enable others to enable others to do that work (and so on).
But it can also be a problem for those line managers just one step removed from the work being done in the trenches. I know I've seen my fair share of newly-minted managers, fresh from the front lines, who all of a sudden have no clue what their team is doing. it seems that some leaders simply have a tendency to get out of touch with what their directs are doing, no matter that they're sitting across the aisle from them day in and day out.
Here's what I don't mean
Before I dig in, however, I want to clarify what I do and don't mean by being in touch with the work on the ground. I don't mean that the leader should be doing the work side by side with their teams or even that they should be able to do it (or even know how it's done).
Rather, a leader who's in touch with the work being done on the ground understands the tasks their team is working on at any given time, the constraints on these tasks, the reasons why the work is being done, and the organizational stakeholders counting in it. They "get" what their teams are doing and can articulate it crisply to outsiders (their boss, peers, and others outside their group) and also discuss it intelligently with their teams.
I think we've all seen what happens when a leader is disconnected from the work being done on the ground (and most of us at one time or another have probably fallen into this trap):
Enough about me, what do YOU think about me
So much for what's wrong—how can leaders reconnect with the work on the ground if they find themselves disconnected? They need to do three things…
The final word
That's what I have to say about being insulated from the work on the ground. In the next post, we'll turn outwards and look at a kind of insulation that cuts leaders off from the wider world: insulation from wider communities of practice.
But while I'm cooking that up, I'd love to hear from those of you out there who have your own thoughts on how leaders can better align with the day-to-day work of the organization: give me criticism and feedback, ask a question of the group, share your own experiences or thoughts…jump in and let's get the conversation started!
I help organizations plan the work they need to do.
I help teams get political support and organizational funding.
I help organizations understand how technology can meaningfully affect the way they do business.
I help IT understand what end-users need and how technology can deliver it.
I strive to be an active, informed, and informative participant in the wider communities of technology, process, and strategy professionals.
I serve clients.
I work closely with our marketing, sales, and delivery teams to:
- Manage client relationships
- Ensure high-quality engagements
- Coordinate service development and delivery
- Cultivate industry thought leadership
- Grow the Doculabs brand
"Where Business & IT Leadership Converge"
CONNECT IT's conference co-chairs Joe Shepley and Seth Earley have teamed up to create an agenda that will give business and IT leaders the practical, actionable strategies to bring back to the enterprise and apply for short-term return on investment and long-term advantage.
Co-located with the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum and the BFMA Annual Conference, attendees of the CONNECT IT Conference have full cross-over access to all three educational programs and all special events.
Learn more here: http://www.documentstrategyforum.com/
Delve helps clients reduce the risks and costs associated with unmanaged documents and data on their corporate systems by defensibly disposing of that content once it's past its legal and operational life.
I work with sales, marketing, and delivery to ensure high quality engagements, grow the Delve brand, and develop and evolve our service offerings to meet the needs of the marketplace and better serve our clients.
Appointed to serve on a citizen commission tasked by the Village Board to help the Village of Oak Park better use technology to fulfill its mission to serve its citizens and the community.
Deliver strategic enterprise content management engagements with global, Fortune 2000 companies in banking, financial services, insurance, health care, mining, and manufacturing, as well as for state and local governments.
Developed new taxonomy service offering—in first 12 months after launch, represented 10% of firm's revenue.
Designed and co-taught Arts and the City, a weekly seminar for college seniors that fostered a critical approach to the arts through experience, reflection, and practice.
Manager of start-up SWAT development team (6 people, $850K annual budget); successfully introduced agile development methods into waterfall IT environment and shifted delivery schedules from ad hoc to regular releases. Resolved 550 service requests and completed 50 enhancement projects in first 8 months.
Project manager and lead analyst on $500K website redesign (350 B2B relationships, 1000 co-branded sites): managed team of 35; lead executive steering committee in risk analysis and mitigation.
Single-handedly automated the content transformation pipeline with process redesign and the end-to-end development and implementation of software tools. Resulted in the department being the most productive online content development group Kaplan-wide from 2003 – 2007.
Co-taught core seminar, focused on critical approaches to art, in Fall and Spring sessions.
Designed and taught a creative writing seminar in the Fall session.
As an instructor in the University's academic writing program, was paired with senior faculty members in the Humanities Core program to co-teach first-year students. Shared responsibilities for grading papers, but had primary responsibility for teaching academic writing skills through small group instruction and one-on-one mentoring.
strategy | process | transformation | enterprise 2.0


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Austin Kleon is a writer and artist living in Austin, Texas.
A scrapbook of stuff I'm reading / looking at / listening to / thinking about...
Anders Nilsen, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow
Really happy Drawn and Quarterly is rereleasing this — it's a heartbreaking and beautiful book. Here's what I wrote in 2007:
This beautiful little book came out sometime around when Meg and I got married. It is a document of Anders Nilsen's relationship with his fiance, Cheryl Weaver, who died of hodgkins lymphoma in 2005. It reads somewhat like a heartbreaking, full-color issue of FOUND magazine dedicated to a couple: there are scanned postcards, hand-written letters on notebook paper, ticket stubs, photographs, and of course, Nilsen's wonderful comics.
Filed under: Anders Nilsen
Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) is a writer and artist living in Austin, Texas. Read more→
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The chef behind Marrakech and Mediterranean Café returns with Kasbah
Sergio Salvador salvadorphoto.com
Longtime Albuquerque favorite Ridha Bouajila is back making Moroccan, Tunisian and Mediterranean specialties like tagine and bastilla. He's over in that spot at Central and Monroe that's perpetually haunted by short-lived restaurants like Guicho's, Don Yasmany Cuban Restaurant and Bakery and Country Vittles ... and remember Punjab? Here's hoping Kasbah bucks the trend. And from the sounds of it, Bouajila will.
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