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Whether your team members work off-site, on-site, or a little of both, the fact remains that individual effectiveness drives the team’s overall performance. Ironically, today’s flexible workplace arrangements that allow greater productivity can also undermine team communication, trust, and unity. Add the challenge of bringing everyone together at once, and it’s no surprise that your team seldom experiences the training it so desperately needs.

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Imagine an environment where your offsite employees, virtual teams, and those who can’t leave their desk for extended training feel connected to your team and the organization. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® Interactive Edition enables all your employees—regardless of work location—to reach the highest levels of effectiveness and productivity and feel a stronger sense of cohesion. The 7 Habits Interactive Edition heightens learning by enabling participants to apply principles proven to yield greater productivity, improved communication, strengthened relationships, increased influence, and a laser-like focus on critical priorities.

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During the three-hour online instruction, participants engage in interactive exercises that illustrate how to use the seven habits in real work situations. Participants then get to test their new skills in a state-of-the-art virtual simulation that shows the real-world triumphs and challenges associated with the choices they’ve made. Participants can also join a live one-day application workshop to dive deeper in the content and practice what they’ve learned. According to past class participants, it’s informative in a way that other learning formats simply can’t match—and a lot of fun, too.

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Twitter Backup Failure Sent the Site Crashing

By Zee on January 20, 2010

Twitter has released an official statement regarding the outage that saw the site come to a crashing halt.

The statement says:

“We are recovering from this incident. A sudden failure coupled with problems in switching to a backup system produced a high number of errors for around 90 minutes. This made the site largely inaccessible. No data was lost or compromised during this outage.”

The outage was the longest downtime for some time for the Silicon Valley company, lasting almost an hour. The downtime also arrived as news of a second earthquake in Haiti broke, leading many, including ourselves, to believe the two were related.

Zee Twitter/Facebook
Based in London, Zee is Editor in Chief of The Next Web.Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

« Keith Olbermann loves Scott Brown | Main

Some Salesman

Posted by Jay Tea
Published: January 19, 2010 - 7:30 AM

Barack Obama has never really held a job in the private sector. And man oh man, is it showing.

Currently, he (as Chief Executive of the United States) owns General Motors. You'd think that, like most CEOs, that would make him "head salesman," right? Or, at least, not to run down the company and its products in public, right? (The current example of Domino's Pizza being the exception to the rule.)

Well, it's pretty damned clear that Obama has never had to sell anything besides himself in his life.

When he briefly stepped aboard the S.S. Titanic that is the Martha Coakley campaign on Sunday, he repeated derided her opponent, Scott Brown, for his truck. You know, the 9-year-old pickup Brown's tooled around the state and racked up over 200K miles.

Specifically, a 2002 GMC compact pickup.

A rolling testament that GM can make good, reliable, solid, dependable vehicles.

Which the owner of GM thinks is laughable.

Meanwhile, in the battle over nationalized health care, Obama is working to find ways to fund the whole thing. He's backing away from a campaign promise to not tax the high-end health care plans, instead carving out exceptions for union members and government employees -- but everyone else who has a really, really good health plan can expect to pay taxes for the privilege.

And what is Obama doing in the midst of this?

Referring to those really, really good plans as "Cadillac plans."

He's hanging a negative association on yet another General Motors brand.

Cadillac and GMC have been, historically, the most profitable of GM's marques. And here Obama is flinging mud on both nameplates in the interest of his political expediency.

We've already seen GM pared down, with brands being discarded. (Pontiac, Saturn, and Saab are gone or going soon.) The remaining brands will have to work extra hard to regain market share.

And here's their main owner piling negative associations on the two best.

It's a good thing that Obama has spent nearly his entire adult career outside the dreaded public sector. The guy could never cut it if he had to actually earn his living.

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Comments (3)

Everybody can buy a truck. ... (Below threshold)

1. Posted by Barack Obama | January 19, 2010 7:38 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)

Barack Obama:

Everybody can buy a truck. Look at me, I liked GM so much I bought the company.

1. Posted by Barack Obama | January 19, 2010 7:38 AM |

Score: 2 (2 votes cast)

Posted on January 19, 2010 07:38

Just when I think this Troj... (Below threshold)

2. Posted by GianiD | January 19, 2010 7:42 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)

GianiD:

Just when I think this Trojan Horse of a President can't get any more ignorant about 'people', he outdoes himself.

2. Posted by GianiD | January 19, 2010 7:42 AM |

Score: 2 (2 votes cast)

Posted on January 19, 2010 07:42

I could well be wrong on th... (Below threshold)

3. Posted by Jlawson | January 19, 2010 8:05 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)

Jlawson:

I could well be wrong on this - but the only 'management' style Obama seems to know comes straight from the Alinsky playbook. Alinsky's all about GETTING power - not about what you have to do to MANAGE it effectively once you've got it. It's briefly touched on in Rule 12 -

"12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." "

But when all you know is how to attack - you're going to have a hell of a time constructing a workable alternative. In fact, you'll have a hell of a time even MAINTAINING what you've already got going, much less build something new.

And that's the big problem I've got with the left - that there seems to be a belief that if you just smash what already exists, you can create something much better out of the broken remnants... when you haven't any knowledge of how what already exists came to be and what the functions are of the things you're trying to break.

Destruction's pretty damn easy. Creation and maintenance is a whole lot harder - and beyond those who think that all you've got to do is tear down the old and something magical will happen and new stuff will appear.

The Dems have been busy tearing down for the new stuff - and it's not appearing on schedule. Oh, noes! Could it be they haven't a clue beyond teardown?

3. Posted by Jlawson | January 19, 2010 8:05 AM |

Score: 0 (0 votes cast)

Posted on January 19, 2010 08:05

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Why I Rejoined FriendFeed

By Holden Page on January 16, 2010

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I suppose I should’ve written this post like… idk… a week ago.

BUT!

I didn’t, so I am writing it now.

First off, if you didn’t know already, this is why I left FriendFeed. As I said in the post, I would not be returning.

LIES!

I have returned and here’s why:

1. Twitter Sucks

Twitter is good at pushing out content and personal updates, but going one level deeper in conversation makes me want to rip off the screen on my laptop. Honestly, 140 characters is not enough! GIMME MORE! And good lord, can we get some threaded conversations please?

2. I Don’t Belong

I am not a hardcore Twitter nut and I am not the type of person that is like “Hey, TWITTER IS DA SHIT, FOLLOW ME NAOW!!” I honestly just use Twitter because everyone else is there, but I don’t feel the passion of Twitter that many other people do.

On FriendFeed the passion I had for the service was shared by many other people. Anyone who used FriendFeed and got over the initial confusion of it (yes, it was confusing at first) was passionate about the product as well. It’s just fun when you feel like you belong.

3. Hell, I Missed Everyone

I missed my friends. Honestly, some of you I have become really close to me and it is just not cool ditching your friends. So I decided I could get over myself.

4. Realizing FriendFeed Is Still The Internet

On FriendFeed, the community is so tight it is hard to remember that the internet still exists and that means we play by different rules. Personal insults and rude comments are norm and you don’t belong on the internet if you can’t handle it. I forgot that about FriendFeed and took too many things personally when I never would have on any other service. That won’t be happening again.

AND… that’s all I got for you.

Why I returned to FriendFeed *hugs*

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The Denver Post:

SILVERTHORNE -- The mountain pine beetles that have ravaged about 3 million acres of Colorado and southern Wyoming forests may be exhausting their primary food source -- raising the prospect that the beetle epidemic could end, state and federal foresters said this week.

Regeneration of decimated forests has begun as the U.S. Forest Service hires loggers to remove dead trees.

Read the whole story: The Denver Post

I don’t usual post on political topics (I think this site should be a politically neutral place to discuss ancient and modern religious ideas), but I thought this piece was interesting.

A recent Gallup poll concluded that Mormons (Latter-day Saints) are the most conservative major religious group in the U.S.

The study showed that 6 out of every 10 Mormons describe themselves as politically conservative.  That’s 59% of Mormons compared to 46% of Protestants/Other Christian, 39% of Catholics, 20% of Jewish, and 23% of Muslims that would describe themselves as politically conservative.

Another interesting find is that Mormons’ tendencies towards conservative thinking is not changed by geography (they tend to be almost equally conservative whether in Utah or in other states), but it is changed by religious activity (65% of “active” Mormons being conservative while only 36% of “lapsed” Mormons identifying themselves as such).

Mormons are not only the most conservative major religious group, but also the most Republican.

You can see the whole study here:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/125021/Mormons-Conservative-Major-Religious-Group.aspx

In other related news, a well-known LDS blog (www.timesandseasons.com) has named Harry Reid (Active Mormon, but not conservative nor Republican) as Mormon of the Year for 2009! Now that’s just more than a wee bit ironic! Go figure…

For more on this, see: http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2010/01/times-and-seasons-2009-mormon-of-the-year-harry-reid/

Also, see the Salt Lake Tribune’s take on it: http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_14166894

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Will Gilmer of Alabama Elected as YF&R Committee Chair

SEATTLE, January 11, 2010 – Members of the American Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee elected Will Gilmer of Alabama as the committee’s chairperson for 2010. He will take over as chair in February, at the end of the committee’s leadership conference and serve for one year.

After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural engineering technology and business from Mississippi State University in 2001, Gilmer returned home to his family’s dairy farm in central Lamar County, Ala. In partnership with his father, Gilmer now owns and operates Gilmer Dairy Farm, which includes a herd of 450 Holstein cows, heifers and calves, as well as more than 500 acres of pasture and forage crop production.

In addition to his daily farming duties, Gilmer maintains a Web site, www.gilmerdairy.com, along with The Dairyman’s Blog, http://gilmerdairy.blogspot.com/, in an effort to reach out to the public about modern farming practices. Gilmer also is active on the micro-blogging Web site Twitter under @gilmerdairy.

It’s these efforts and others he’s taken to tell agriculture’s story that Gilmer hopes will serve as an example to the committee members.

“I want young farmers, all farmers, really, to get more comfortable talking about their own operations,” Gilmer said. “Once they get there, they’ll be better equipped to discuss how the hot issues relate to their farms. They’ll be able to go more in-depth on those topics while maintaining their personal farming perspective.”

Being well-versed and confident on the issues most critical to agriculture will help farmers be better prepared for the front lines, telling consumers what agriculture is really about.

Although Gilmer has a heavy online presence, he doesn’t expect the committee’s outreach to be limited to the Internet. 

“I want producers to get their stories out there – one-on-one in grocery stores, in presentations to civic organizations, on farm tours, through traditional media, as well as social media,” he explained.

A fourth-generation Farm Bureau member, Gilmer and his wife, Joni, also have served as their dairy cooperative’s regional young cooperators’ steering committee chair-couple.

The YF&R program includes men and women between the ages of 18 and 35. The program’s goals are to help younger Farm Bureau members learn more about agriculture, network with other farmers and become future leaders in agriculture and Farm Bureau.

-30-

Contacts:

Tracy Taylor Grondine (202) 316-6377 tracyg@fb.org

Mace Thornton (540) 846-0263 macet@fb.org

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin signed on with America’s top cable news network, FOX News.
The Washington Post reported:

Sarah Palin, who regularly rips the media, is becoming a television pundit at a place where she’s likely to feel at home.

A Fox News executive says the network will shortly announce that the former vice-presidential nominee is signing on as a contributor.

Palin, who resigned as governor of Alaska last summer, will appear as a commentator on various Fox shows. She will also host an occasional program that will examine inspirational tales involving ordinary Americans.

Palin will join Mike Huckabee as a Fox contributor who was also involved in the 2008 campaign. The exposure can only help Palin if she decides to pursue a 2012 presidential bid.

FORT COLLINS (AP) - The father who pleaded guilty to orchestrating the balloon boy hoax is to turn himself in to begin serving a 90-day jail sentence Monday following a media blitz in which he said he was innocent.

Richard Heene told The Associated Press that his Japanese wife misunderstood the meaning of the word "hoax" when she purportedly confessed to authorities.

"She cries, now and then, stating that I'm going to jail for 90 days because of what she said," Heene said in an interview Friday, about Mayumi Heene's statements to police.

He maintained there was no balloon hoax, even though he pleaded guilty and agreed to be sentenced to 90 days in jail. He said he truly believed his son was inside the balloon when it floated away in October, and that he pleaded guilty only to appease authorities and save his wife from being deported to Japan.

But District Attorney Larry Abrahamson said it was the Heenes and their attorneys, not prosecutors, who brought up the issue of deportation.

Richard Heene must serve 30 days starting Monday before he can participate in the jail's work release program.

In interviews with several media outlets last week, he said investigators presented inconsistencies to the media shortly after the Oct. 15 event, which captivated a national television audience. He says his phone records show he called 911 before calling a TV station for a helicopter. And he maintains he told authorities the truth about whether the balloon could float away carrying his 6-year-old son.

But it was Mayumi Heene's confession to sheriff's investigators -- in which she detailed the couple's efforts to pitch a television show, their financial difficulties, and their actions in the weeks leading up to the event -- that make up the bulk of Larimer County authorities' case against the Heenes.

"The interview was much more than, 'Mayumi, is this a hoax?' and she admitted to it. She went into the details of it," Sheriff Jim Alderden said in an interview with the AP. "So, clearly she has a better understanding of the English language than Richard Heene would have you believe."

Added Abrahamson: "We had been working with the attorneys for both he and his wife before charges were even filed. There was a lot of discussion about what was going to happen, about how and why. We were surprised that now he's coming out and saying that it wasn't a hoax."

Mayumi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and faces a 20-day jail term.

"My wife's first language is Japanese, not English," Richard Heene said. "My wife came home in tears wondering what she might have said. She opened this Japanese-to-English dictionary, and she walks up to me crying her head off, and she says to me, 'I thought hoax meant an exhibition."

Mayumi Heene was not speaking to the media.

The Heenes must also pay restitution for the rescue effort that sent officers from two counties and other agencies scrambling. The Colorado National Guard launched two helicopters to track the balloon and possibly rescue the boy. Prosecutors estimate the Heenes owe $48,000, though Richard Heene's attorney could provide a different estimate by a Jan. 25 deadline.

Richard Heene also faces an $11,000 civil penalty from the Federal Aviation Administration. The balloon briefly shut down a runway at Denver International Airport.

Sheriff's investigators suspected the family's claims that Falcon Heene was inside the balloon were a hoax after Falcon declared in a CNN interview that "we did this for the show." The boy hid for five hours in the garage as the saga unfolded.

Alderden said that Falcon's comments had clearly "raised everybody's level of skepticism."

Asked about whether Falcon feels to blame for his parents' jail sentences, Heene said: "First off, we never presented the idea that that statement caused anything, so he's completely unaware of that, in that arena. We've done that because it wouldn't be fair to him, it's just, it's not.

"We don't have cable. The kids don't watch. And the reason why we disconnected the cable is because there's so much negative news out there. Well, now I'm a part of it."

(Copyright Associated Press, All Rights Reserved)