Compared to my usual jam-packed and torturous USC schedule, however, I am taking a lighter load this semester. I’m only taking two engineering courses (Hydraulics and Flood Hydrology) and the other two are easy elective type classes (Intro to Oceanography and a first-year Economic History course). Maybe its because of the light load, but I really am enjoying school. I’m more engaged in the material and have time to think about what I’m learning, instead of the usual cram-and-move-on I’m forced into.

It’s about a 40 minute commute to school every day: I walk a mile from my house to the station (15 min), ride ten stops till UCT (20 min), and then take a shuttle from lower to upper campus. The train is ‘only safe at night’ so I often think of myself as Cinderella as I rush to get home before the sun sets (though even Cinderella had a later curfew than me …) The commute often limits me in terms of extracurriculars & my social life, but I wouldn’t trade my homestay for anything.

UCT is at the bottom of table mountain. It’s literally built on the steep terrain of the mountain, so it’s a myriad of uphills and stairs. Not exactly handicapped friendly. The campus is huge, and is divided into “upper” and “lower” campus. Most academic buildings are on upper campus, which is a 20 min hike (literally an uphill hike) from lower campus/the train station. To ease the life of the less-athletic students, there’s a “jammie shuttle” that runs between the two campuses regularly. The jammie also services the neighboring suburbs for some commuter students and off-campus residences.

Despite the steep landscape, I really couldn’t have asked for a better campus to spend a semester at. Upper campus is a row of beautiful old buildings covered in ivy. It has this real academic feel to it. Like a place where serious learning and thinking is getting done. It’s SO BEAUTIFUL – ranked third most beautiful campus in the world!

UCT is an amazing university, but there are definite differences between it and my american university.

One positive difference is that the engineering school really forces students to think like engineers. Assignments often give a task with little explanation on how to do it or where to get information (even with material not covered in class). Basically, you’re given an assignment that you have no idea how to do. It’s so frustrating (cant stress that enough) but it really does force you to be resourceful, work together, and “figure it out”. Such a contrast to USC which practically spoonfeeds us everything.

Hydraulics class competition last week

My group placed first :_

Unfortunately though, there are some negatives that come with the developing nature of this country. South Africa, especially Cape Town, looks like a highly developed country in many ways (the city’s infrastructure, etc), and sometimes its easy to forget that it’s not. Other times, however, you are blatantly reminded that South Africa is still trying to climb its way up. These reminders come as you drive past the townships, as you come to terms with the great socio-economic divides, as you hear of the various strikes going on, etc. Just this week there is a massive bus driver’s strike, which is causing all sorts of commotion and setbacks–the main one being heavy traffic. A daily reminder for me though is internet accessibility. At UCT each student has a 3GB monthly quota. And the computers available in the labs are so slow I’ve realllllly had to learn to be patient.

**Sorry for the text heavy entry!

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/

My friend, Martin, and I arrived at Weston Park ready to take on what this morning had to offer us. I had no training for today as I’m still recovering from a running injury and I’ve been spending the last three weeks resting.

We were in the last wave of five to go and we had to go do a silly warm up before the 10km gruelling run would begin. There was about a 100 of us, all getting ready to do something ridiculously difficult but so much fun we would all want to do it again in the near future.

After a countdown from 10 seconds we were off. After the first obstacle the group was split up into the two courses, the 5km race and the 10km one, which I’m signed up for. I couldn’t tell you how many people went which way, I was up front with the others trying to keep up with Martin who was in second place. I had to slow down after the first kilometre, Martin’s pace was just too much for me to keep up with.

I had to drop down a few places before I found my own pace, slightly slower than I wanted but I’m not currently at my fittest. I had to wade through the muddy streams, climb over almost a dozen large haystacks, clamber though mud that was so deep would make your legs disappear into it, slide down a hill on tarpaulin over 10 metres long, jumping over electric fences and even a little bit of swimming in ponds.

I believe I came 8^th in the wave, but Martin came 2^nd.  I finished the 10km race in 1 hour 19 minutes, but Martin finished it in a very impressive time of 1 hour 3 minutes.

It was an amazing experience and the last couple of days I have been paying for how much I have pushed my body. All of my muscles have been aching and I’ve had a dodgy stomach and headache ever since Saturday, but the cause is well worth it and worth the few days of illness.

I want to thank everyone who has donated towards my fundraising target so far and would like to encourage the people who are yet to. I am still very far away from my total. Azafady is a brilliant cause to give money to and please check out my post on 5 reasons to help Madagascar.

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

Listening is overrated. Most of us want to be good listeners. We are often told it is one of the most important skills that any of us can have. People confide in good listeners. They are trusted more often. Yet here is a question that we usually never ask:

What does a good listener actually do?

If you think that good listeners are the people who spend more time silently listening and letting others talk more often, you’d be wrong. One of the first skills anyone who has studied psychiatry or counseling learns is the art of active listening. Active listening requires you to not remain silent as a listener.

Instead, you are taught to ask probing questions. You reflect back what you hear people say so they might hear and digest their own thoughts. And you find the right balance to actively … interrupt.

That’s right—interrupting can be a skill, just like listening.

Just as we think of listening as an always positive force, we often think of interrupting as a negative one.

People who interrupt are usually the ones who put themselves first. They go through a conversation not really listening, but thinking about the next thing they can say.

If you consider listening and interrupting as two opposite sides of the same skill — learning how to actively listen is just as important as learning how to actively interrupt.

If you spend an entire conversation nodding along as someone else talks, you aren’t adding anything to the conversation. If, on the other hand, you spend the entire conversation interrupting, you have the same problem.

So how do you learn to actively listen AND actively interrupt?

Here are three tips that might help:

1. Interrupt with questions. The negative side of interrupting usually comes from that situation when you have something you just can’t wait to share. If you interrupt with a question instead, you are giving the other person a chance to continue sharing something with you, but you can be a more active part of the discussion.
2. Connect with an interjection. An interjection is a useful way to interrupt with a personal point while still letting the conversation continue. If, for example, someone mentions having worked in Australia—sometimes I will share that I lived there for five years and loved it, and then invite them to continue sharing their story. The result is that the conversation can continue, but now we have a shared connection to Australia that we might talk about later.
3. Share an action. Sometimes a conversation will spark an item to add to your mental to-do list. Those can be perfect thoughts to share as a way of taking a conversation to the next step. It can also offer you a polite way to interrupt a conversation that you may need to continue later for some personal or timing reason.

No matter which of these lessons you might use, it’s important to remember that interrupting is something of an art. When you do it badly, you can alienate others and kill great conversations. When you do it well, not only will your conversation skills stand out—but you’ll also have better conversations with just about anyone as a result.

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

The Carrot Principle unwraps one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken. Involving nearly 200,000 people over a ten-year period, it showed that the most central characteristic of any successful manager is that they offer frequent and effective recognition to their employees on an ongoing basis. Productivity skyrocketed when managers took a hands-on approach to constructive praise and gave small, yet meaningful, rewards that motivate employees.

According to the book, the missing ingredient in the workplace is an accelerator. This so-called ingredient is supposed to bridge the gap between untapped potential within teams in the workplace. The biggest workplace accelerator is purpose-based recognition. As Generation Y slowly makes it into the workplace, this accelerator is not just a way to drive company success, but it’s necessary in order for this generation to feel appreciated.

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

Are your employees underperforming? There’s a good chance your staff has been doing the same jobs, with the same salaries, for the past four or five years—and they’re not seeing much hope of change (or finding a new job) in the near future. So before their productivity tanks any more, you need to motivate them. Here are some ideas.

1. Restructure jobs. As a small-business owner, you have more flexibility than most employers to design jobs that fit your employees. If someone has a talent that isn’t being used, offer him or her the chance to work on something new that uses that skill. Job-sharing and cross-training are other ways to keep work fresh day to day, while also benefiting your business.

2. Focus on relationships. When duties and salary are the same-old, same-old, relationships with co-workers can make or break the job experience. Ensure your workplace is a fun place to be. Do things that build team camaraderie without feeling forced, whether that’s going out to lunch together, having potlucks, Friday happy hours or Wednesday-night bowling.

3. Make it meaningful. When employees feel what they do doesn’t matter, interacting with the end users of your product or service can make all the difference. For instance, I spend most of my time behind a computer writing about small businesses, so actually getting out and meeting small-business owners reenergizes me. Take your team to conferences, events and situations where they can meet the people your business helps.

4. Set goals and celebrate them. It’s human nature that we all enjoy a challenge. Celebrate your victories, both large and small. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive, but it’s important to acknowledge the wins.

5. Treat them like adults. Autonomy at work is a big motivator for most people—employees chafe at being treated like kids. Trust your employees; tell them what they need to do, then give them the freedom to decide how they’ll do it. You may be surprised at how much better the outcome is when you stop micromanaging.

6. Offer regular recognition. A study called The Carrot Principle followed nearly 200,000 people for 10 years and found that the single most common thing the best managers did was regularly offer recognition to their employees. Don’t create a spectacle; just acknowledging someone’s work verbally, with an email or with a note. The key is to do it frequently—not just at your annual Christmas party or review time.

7. Tie rewards to results. If you can’t afford raises, consider performance-based bonuses or profit-sharing plans where employees are rewarded financially when they bring additional revenues to the company. You won’t have to shell out additional cash unless it’s there to be given.

8. Think small, but creative. Make the most of your limited budget with small rewards that show your understanding of each person. One employee might love to get a gift card for a mani-pedi at a local nail salon, while another might be thrilled with two tickets to check out the local baseball team. The fact that you chose a reward tailored to them is what makes it special.

9. Share the (lack of) wealth. If your employees’ salaries have stayed the same for five years while you’re flaunting a new BMW every year, you can hardly blame them for being bitter. Enjoy the rewards of your business, but don’t flaunt them.

10. Nip negativity in the bud. No matter what you do, you may have some employees who downplay or badmouth it. When employees are feeling stagnant, resentment and negativity easily spread. Be aware of what employees are saying and, if someone is sending out bad vibes, don’t delay in calling them on it. Don’t sugarcoat reality, but make sure they know what you are doing to make your business a great place to work.

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

Employee Turnover Rates

Employee turnover is driven by many factors including inadequate compensation, lack of employee engagement, poor job fit, etc. Whatever the cause, you can easily calculate your company’s rate of turnover. This is a critical benchmark that can help you understand your relationship with your competition and with your employees. You should continually monitor this rate so you can make informed choices in the future.

The Meridian Institute and Climate Development and Knowledge Network (CDKN)  recently  launched a set of case studies and headline findings on ‘Agriculture and Climate Change: Learning from experience and early interventions.’

Agriculture is on the frontline of climate change impacts and solutions. The scientific community continues to deepen its understanding of how changing temperatures and rainfall patterns, and climate impacts such as salt water intrusion, will affect agricultural yields.  Climate change affects the incidence of diseases and pests, as well as beneficial species such as pollinators, and so urges us to reassess the relationships among the many elements of agricultural ecosystems.

Adapting our agricultural systems and practices to these new realities will be essential for human food security and nutrition, as well as for sustaining the other goods and services (including products for fuel and fibre) that such ecosystems provide.

Many aspects of farming practice affect greenhouse gas emissions and are important to the conversation on climate mitigation. Some farming systems generate significant emissions but, with some modification, these emissions could be reduced. Introducing new forms of land management and inputs (for fertility and pest control) can make a big difference to agriculture’s carbon footprint.

CDKN has been supporting the Meridian Institute since November 2011 to convene a dialogue among developing country leaders on how agriculture’s contribution to climate change adaptation and mitigation could  be effectively taken forward under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As detailed in our project description and the Meridian Institute’s website, Meridian facilitated these dialogues throughout 2012-13 and produced a set of case studies and briefing notes to support the discussions.

Practical case studies of early efforts to develop climate-smart agriculture are now presented in a collected volume, available for download here.

The collection aims to provide comparison across diverse initiatives from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia to Vietnam, Nepal, and India, to Bolivia. For each pilot initiative, programme managers present:

• The objectives of the initiative
• Funding arrangements
• How local capacities and community involvement are engendered
• How success is defined and measured and
• Outcomes and lessons learned.

Sam Bickersteth, CDKN’s Chief Executive and an agriculture specialist, outlines the current status of agriculture talks within the UNFCCC here.

For additional resources including a graphical summary of the workshop at which the case studies were presented, a film of panel presentations, and PowerPoint slides, please visit: http://www.climate-agriculture.org/LEEI.aspx

*This article was published by CDKN Global | on: 2pm, April 19th, 2013

You work hard to find, interview, and hire the right employees. They have great skills, great experience, and great attitude.

So once they’re hired… turn them loose, right?

Not so fast. Knowing how to do a job is certainly important, but approaching a job with the right perspective and right mindset means everything.

Never assume the conversations you had during the interview process were enough. They aren’t. Here are four things to do on the very first day to make sure every new employee gets off to a great start:

1. Thoroughly describe how your business creates value.

New employees need to learn how to do their jobs, but first they need to thoroughly understand your company’s underlying value proposition and competitive advantage.

No matter what your business, one or two things truly drive results:

Maybe it’s quality.

Maybe it’s service.

Maybe you’re the low-cost provider. Maybe it’s the personal connection you make with each individual customer, and the true sense of community you’ve worked hard to create.

Other aspects are important, but one or two are absolutely make-or-break.

Start there and then go farther. Explain how their job directly creates value. Explain how their job directly helps your business create and sustain a competitive advantage.

As a new employee I certainly need to know what to do but more importantly, I need to know why I do it.

Always start with why. Then you can move on to what.

2. Map out the employee’s internal and external customers.

The new employee may have direct reports. She has external customers, even if she never meets them, and she definitely has internal customers. No job exists in a vacuum; understanding the needs of every constituent helps define the job and the way it should be done.

Take time to explain how the employee will create value for your business whileserving all their internal and external customers. Achieving that balance is often tricky–don’t assume new employees will eventually figure it out on their own.

Besides, they shouldn’t have to figure it out on their own.

3. Set immediate, concrete goals–and start giving feedback.

Successful businesses execute. Your business executes. Set that productivity tone by ensuring every new employee completes at least one specific job-related task on their first day.

Why? Not only do you establish that output is all-important, your new employees go home feeling a sense of personal achievement. A whole day or days spent in orientation is boring and unfulfilling and makes the eventual transition to “work” harder.

Focus on training but make every day a blend of training and accomplishment. Your eventual goal is to train comprehensively by breaking large processes down into manageable chunks.

That way new employees can immediately see how their role directly connects to creating value for your company, and you get great opportunities to provide immediate, constructive feedback–which helps new employees do an even better job of creating value for your company.

4. Explain exactly why you hired them.

Every employee is hired for one or two specific reasons, but often those reasons get lost in all the fluff of the interview process. (Be honest: It’s nice to find a well-rounded employee, but most of the time you really need an employee who is a superstar at doing X.)

Sit down with new employees and share the primary reason you hired them. It’s a great opportunity to praise their skills and experience, and praise their attitude and work ethic.

What new employee doesn’t like that? More importantly you reinforce the connection between their skills, experience, attitude, and work ethic and the actual job you hired them to perform.

Don’t let new employees lose sight of what makes them different. They have qualities and attributes other candidates didn’t. Explain what those qualities are and how they helped you make your hiring decision.

Few statements are more motivating and set the stage better than, “I hired you because you are absolutely awesome at X… and we’re all counting on you to crush X.”

from INC

Fewer people live in extreme poverty today than 30 years ago, new estimates find. But 1.2 billion people in the world still live on less than $1.25 a day.

United Nations in Blue (Photo credit: Duda Arraes)

By Iftikhar Ali

UNITED NATIONS, April 14 : Poorer developing countries are finding it harder under current conditions to foster industrial development than states that earlier hauled themselves out of poverty, like the Asian tigers, according to new book by a specialized U.N. agency.
“They face a more complex, and daunting set of circumstances than the developing countries that embarked on industrialization after 1950,” the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) warned.

“These changing and challenging circumstances require new thinking, and in particular new paradigms to guide researchers, policy makers, and international development organizations in the future.”

The book, presented in London last week and entitled ‘Pathways to Industrialization in the Twenty-First Century: New Challenges and Emerging Paradigms,’ analyzes the circumstances and challenges facing developing countries in industrialization, and offers fresh ideas for new paradigms to carry forward industrial policy in the future.

It was co-edited by UNIDO Director of the Development Policy, Statistics and Research Branch Ludovico Alcorta, and is the result of a study prepared by UNIDO in partnership with the UN University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and the Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT).
Over the last two centuries, the experiences of the first wave of industrialized countries in Europe and the United States, and the more recent experiences of the East Asian Tigers (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, India, and Viet Nam), have illustrated the transformative nature of industrialization, Mr. Alcorta said.

Developing countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“There are reasons to believe that industrialization will continue to be one of the major engines of growth, transformation, and socioeconomic development. Industrial development enables a more rapid advancement toward developed country living standards. But many challenges remain, and new challenges have arisen,” he added.

“These include: integration into global value chains; the shrinking of policy space in the present international order; the rise of the Asian driver economies; new opportunities provided by resource-based industrialization; the accelerating pace of technological change in manufacturing; how to deal with jobless growth in manufacturing; creating adequate systems of financial intermediation; and how to respond to the threats of global warming and climate change.”

UNIDO’s mission UNIDO) is to promote and accelerate sustainable industrial development in developing countries and economies in transition. In recent years, it has assumed an enhanced role in the global development agenda by focusing its activities on poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and environmental sustainability.

It carries out two core functions: as a global forum, it generates and disseminaNews Tracker: past stories on this issue

This story was written by Iftikhar Ali for the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Related articles

• Guest post: how do we power Africa’s economic renaissance? (blogs.ft.com)
• North-South cooperation a historic responsibility: India (thehindu.com)
• Strong Demand in Developing Countries Drives the Global Sealants Market, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (prweb.com)
• Profile: Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella – Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (newstimeafrica.com)

Overview

Eligibility

Application deadline : June 14, 2013 (Friday)

Guidelines and application forms

Submit applications by post to

Reference

Post Source: https://sites.google.com/a/terravivagrants.org/directory/Home/funding-news/agriculture-fisheries-forestry/japaninternationalresearchcenterforagriculturalsciences–internationalawardsforyoungagriculturalresearchers2013

There was a great diversity among people attending the conference Global Health 2015 and Sahlgrenska Academy had sent their own representative in the person of Henrik Sjövall.

One keypoint from the reflections published in the article I’m linking to was that “Global health should be given a clear place in the regular curriculum.”

What are your thoughts?

These are mine:

Being a university student, education is close to my heart. Introducing global health into the curriculum of Swedish medical students was one of the practical suggestions mostly discussed during the Global Health beyond 2015 Conference. I remember, that in the course of the conference it was pointed out that global health issues are not discussed during the five and a half year education of medical students.

On one hand I have some understanding for it because as a medical practitioner you might feel quite detached from the public health problems of say, Vietnam and India, when you are taking care of Swedish patients. On the other hand, it is rather odd that medical students are not informed about medical issues burdening people in the world. I’m not sure that this is a firm example to stand upon, but as an infection biology student I was introduced to all kind of infectious diseases, regardless if it most prevalent in high-income countries or in middle- or low-income countries. So why shouldn’t medical students be also included into the global perspective? They need to have a clear understanding of the state of health of the entire world. Without that they are excluded from the discussion and the action to help middle- and low-income countries to improve the health of their people.

A medical practitioner here in Sweden can share precious information to practitioners in countries of need and be involved in the growing avalanche of information sharing across country borders. “All countries can learn from each other about how to strengthen health systems” – as stated in Health in the post- 2015 agenda.

REACT AND ACT!

Bori out

Related articles

• Universities “Not Living up to Missions” on Global Health Research (ipsnews.net)

We still took anti-Malaria drugs and only drank bottled water while we were there but most other things felt similar to the west.  There were American restaurants, products and shops everywhere.  The fashion trends were more parallel than in the past.  There was tons of construction of new malls, cineplexes, and highways.  With the increase in foreign businesses and tourism, many things catered to more than just the locals.  It was really impressive to see the massive growth in such a short time.  After all, India only gained independence from the British in 1947.  After years of oppression and now a partitioned country as well, they struggled to get back on their feet.

Many people in the past, like my parents, had left India to gain better opportunities in the US.  This was the land of growth and opportunity.  I still believe it is but now with all the globalization and changes in India, that has become a land of opportunity as well.  Many more recent immigrants from India are actually choosing to move back.  For people like my parents, this is not an option since they are now more American than Indian and lived here for much longer than in India.  However, for many new immigrants who came purely for job opportunities, moving back to family and their home sounds great if the jobs are similar.

There are still a lot of problems in India too, as with any country.  Even though there are people with way too much money, there is rampant poverty as well.   There is also a lot of corruption and bribery that goes on at every level.  Bribing policeman and government officials seems to be a regular part of doing business.  Where people can be bought like that, rules and regulations are often bypassed leading to dangerous outcomes.  This is when we hear about buildings collapsing because the builders got away with using poor materials or adding unauthorized floors.

I was also disappointed in the lack of community feeling and responsibility.  Each person, rich or poor, is only concerned with their own family and not what is going on around them.  Or, there are some who recognize issues but don’t make changes because they feel like their changes wouldn’t make a difference in the larger problem.  With such a large population of talent and resources, there is so much potential if people had more of an attitude of working together for the benefit of the community and country.  Instead I heard of politicians selling public lands to grease their own pockets.  There was also no sense of concern for the environment but I guess it has taken the West a long time to change on that front as well.

I guess every country goes through growing pains and has downfalls after successes.  We have seen plenty of that in the US as well.  Though, I still consider myself a proud American at heart, I was very happy to see all the progress in the country of my heritage and extended family.  I was proud to take my kids there and show them what they come from.  It also felt nice that they have the impression to pass on to their friends that India is a country of riches and luxury.  That is quite a change from the India we visited as kids.  Regardless of the monetary changes though, I was happy to see that a lot of the cultural and family values haven’t faded too much.  My kids received the same warm welcome and love that I used to get and I’m sure they would love to visit again!

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/

1.  Lemurs

Lemurs are the first thing that comes to mind when anyone says Madagascar. They are the little mascots of the country and epitomises how unique and special the large island to the east of Africa is.

But the cute little lemurs aren’t the only animals that are unique to the island, over 80% of all the species are exclusive to the isolated country. There are the fussa, eupleridea, tenrecidae, rodents, bats, mesites, ground-rollers, cuckoo-rollers, asities, vangas, chameleons, geckoes, skinks, girdle-tailed lizards, iguanids, snakes, tortoises, frogs and many, many more.

Their habitat isn’t what it used to be. The forest that once covered all the land, has now all but gone. Only 10% of what once was now remains.

There is good news, there are charities set up and others that take an emphasis on reforestation, but it’s not just about planting trees. Re-education and lobbying local governments need to take place, to be able to change the attitudes of the people to stop anymore of the forests and their inhabitants disappearing forever.

2.  Child mortality

In parts of Madagascar, 4 out of every 10 children die before their 5^th birthday and if they are the lucky few that survive, there is a good chance that they suffer from retarded growth due to a chronically inadequate diet.

These deaths and lifelong syndromes/illnesses are preventable. It’s due to poor food security, dwindling crop yields, little or no access to clean/safe water and simply the fact that people just can’t afford to feed their families.

In rural parts of the country, only 80% have access to clean/safe drinking water and they live on less than 32p a day. 32p a day makes Live Below the Line look like a five course banquet.

There is little or no sanitation causing easily preventable spread diseases set into communities and the effects are drastic, causing a shortened life span and unneeded deaths.

Building wells to the safe drinking water deep underground and constructing latrines for a village can stop this and improve the overall health of a whole community.

3.  Mass Illiteracy

One of the key factors of poverty is lack of education, specifically primary education. It’s one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals to provide universal primary education to everyone.

In Madagascar the countries average literacy rating is 64.5%, which for women is just over 61%. Can you imagine a world that one in three can’t spell their own name?

In rural parts of the island this is far worse, 4 out 5 people (80%) are illiterate and many, many children don’t have access to a school. There is little chance of lifting themselves out of poverty, all jobs, apart from working on the fields, are pretty much out of the reach to them.

A good foundation to anything is the only way to create something great. The future of Madagascar can be great and it all comes down to the people, who need a good basic education to lift them out of poverty.

4.  Global Warming

Climate change has hit Madagascar hard. The climate isn’t as stable as it used to be, there’s relentless droughts which have increased the number of wildfires, but there’s been an increase in the intensity and number of cyclones, which displaces human communities and leads to local famine and cholera outbreaks.

The island is particularly susceptible to any increase in sea levels, with its hundreds of miles of unique coast line inhabited by its unique flora and fauna at risk of being lost forever.

The farmers’ yields are dwindling, each year the weather is too unpredictable and the once nutritious soil is now lacking in all the important ingredients for any crop to grow strong and successfully. The use of pesticides is an endless battle that just end in debt and depleted soils.

The Malagasy people often prepare their meals with charcoal, buy environmentally unfriendly imported products (which are inexpensive but of poor quality), throw their rubbish in a corner, chops wood to make furniture. It’s a way of life in Madagascar and also in other developing countries.

Education and lobbying is the only way to wake up the people of Madagascar to effects of climate change and how they can alter their lives to adapt to the changes and not add to the problem.

5.  They Just Need a Helping Hand

Unemployment in the country is a major issue, in parts of the country only a small proportion actually receive regular monetary wages. Madagascar in no matter what league table you look at is in the bottom 10 of the world’s richest economies.

Women are often still seen as nothing more as child bearers, often giving birth to their first child at the age of 15. Most women work at home because of this, but women need to be empowered and increase their household income and helping them create a small business is a brilliant way to do this.

Small business loans and grants can make people’s entrepreneurial ideas more than just working to stay alive but actually contribute to the country’s economic growth.

Education and training for the entrepreneurs is also essential, most of the training in Madagascar is given in agricultural techniques. The country’s main business sectors are in fishing and farming.

These people just need a little booster to help themselves out of poverty.

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/

References

http://www.madagascar.co.uk

http://what-when-how.com/global-warming/madagascar-global-warming/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/nov/10/madagascar-kiribati-climate-change-conference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/ 

My latest challenge I’ve set myself is the Woodhall Spa 10km road race. It’s on the 2nd June 2013, giving me just over seven weeks to train and gain sponsorship.

I’ve already signed up for a 10km obstacle course race, which is in less than two week time, but I knew I still can do more. I’m asking for sponsorship from people, I’m asking for money that could be spent on other things. I’m doing everything I can to show you that your sponsorship is well spent.

I ran this race last year and I’ve got a time of 52 minutes to beat.

This year, I am aiming for running the 10k race in 48 minutes.

Shaving four minutes off a 10k run is a hard time to beat and I’m not taking it lightly. Since last year I have done a lot of training and even though I am injured at the moment, it is something I believe I can do.

So please sponsor me. All money goes to Azafady.

http://www.bmycharity.com/HughRichards/ 

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

The one thing everyone on the planet has in common is the undeniable fact we’ve all made our fair share of regrettable decisions.

“Show me someone who hasn’t made a bad decision and I’ll show you someone who is either not being honest, or someone who avoids decisioning at all costs”

Making sound decisions is a skill set that needs to be developed like any other.

All leaders (nowadays called CEOs) are not created equal when it comes to the competency of their decisioning skills. Nothing will test your leadership mettle more than your ability to make decisions.

Why do leaders fail?

They make poor choices that lead to bad decisions. And in some cases they compound bad decision upon bad decision. You cannot separate leadership from decisioning, for like it or not, they are inexorably linked. Put simply, the outcome of a leader’s choices and decisions can, and usually will, make or break them.

The fact of the matter is that senior executives who rise to the C-suite do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions. What most fail to realize is while it may take years of solid decision making to reach the boardroom, it often times only takes one bad decision to fall from the ivory tower. As much as you may wish it wasn’t so, when it comes to being a leader you’re really only as good as your last decision.

Here’s the thing – even leaders who don’t fail make bad decisions from time-to-time.

Reflect back upon the poor decisions made, it’s not that not capable of making the correct decision, but for whatever reason failed to use sound decisioning methodology.

Gut instincts can only take you so far in life, and anyone who operates outside of a sound decisioning framework will eventually fall prey to an act of oversight, misinformation, misunderstanding, manipulation, impulsivity or some other negative influencing factor.

The first key in understanding how to make great decisions is learning how to synthesize the overwhelming amount incoming information leaders must deal with on a daily basis, while making the best decisions possible in a timely fashion. The key to dealing with the voluminous amounts of information is as simple as becoming discerning surrounding the filtering of various inputs.

Understanding that a hierarchy of knowledge exists is critically important when attempting to make prudent decisions.

News Flash – not all inputs should weigh equally in one’s decisioning process. By developing a qualitative and quantitative filtering mechanism for your decisioning process you can make better decisions in a shorter period of time. The hierarchy of knowledge is as follows:

• Gut Instincts: This is an experiential and/or emotional filter that may often times have no current underpinning of hard analytical support. That said, in absence of other decisioning filters it can sometimes be all a person has to go on when making a decision. Even when more refined analytics are available, your instincts can often provide a very valuable gut check against the reasonability or bias of other inputs. The big take away here is that intuitive decisioning can be refined and improved. My advice is to actually work at becoming very discerning.
• Data: Raw data is comprised of disparate facts, statistics, or random inputs that in-and-of-themselves hold little value. Making conclusions based on data in its raw form will lead to flawed decisions based on incomplete data sets.
• Information: Information is simply an evolved, or more complete data set. Information is therefore derived from a collection of processed data where context and meaning have been added to disparate facts which allow for a more thorough analysis.
• Knowledge: Knowledge is information that has been refined by analysis such that it has been assimilated, tested and/or validated. Most importantly, knowledge is actionable with a high degree of accuracy because proof of concept exists.

Even though people often treat theory and opinion as fact, they are not one and the same.

Decisions made at the gut instinct or data level can be made quickly, but offer a higher level of risk. Decisioning at the information level affords a higher degree of risk management, but are still not as safe as those decisions based upon actionable knowledge.

Another aspect that needs to be factored into the decisioning process is the source of the input.

Was Cyrus the Great who said “diversity in counsel, unity in command” meaning that good leaders seek the counsel of others, but maintain control over the final decision. While most successful leaders subscribe to this theory, the real question in not whether you should seek counsel, but in fact where, and how much counsel you should seek. You see more input, or the wrong input, doesn’t necessarily add value to a decisioning process. Volume for the sake of volume will only tend to confuse matters, and seeking input from sources that can’t offer significant contributions is likely a waste of time. Two other issues that should be considered in your decisioning process as they relate to the source of input are as follows:

1. Credibility: What is the track record of your source? Is the source reliable and credible? Are they delivering data, information or knowledge? Will the source tell you what you want to hear, what they want you to hear, or will they provide the unedited version of cold hard truth?
2. Bias: Are there any hidden and/or competing agendas that are coloring the input being received? Is the input being provided for the benefit of the source or the benefit of the enterprise?

The complexity of the current business landscape, combined with ever increasing expectations of performance, and the speed at which decisions must be made, are a potential recipe for disaster for today’s executive unless a defined methodology for decisioning is put into place. If you incorporate the following metrics into your decisioning framework you will minimize the chances of making a bad decision:

1. Perform a Situation Analysis: What is motivating the need for a decision? What would happen if no decision is made? Who will the decision impact (both directly and indirectly)? What data, analytics, research, or supporting information do you have to validate the inclinations driving your decision?
2. Subject your Decision to Public Scrutiny: There are no private decisions. Sooner or later the details surrounding any decision will likely come out. If your decision were printed on the front page of the newspaper how would you feel? What would your family think of your decision? How would your shareholders and employees feel about your decision? Have you sought counsel and/or feedback before making your decision?
3. Conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis: Do the potential benefits derived from the decision justify the expected costs? What if the costs exceed projections, and the benefits fall short of projections?
4. Assess the Risk/Reward Ratio: What are all the possible rewards, and when contrasted with all the potential risks are the odds in your favor, or are they stacked against you?
5. Assess Whether it is the Right Thing To Do: Standing behind decisions that everyone supports doesn’t particularly require a lot of chutzpah. On the other hand, standing behind what one believes is the right decision in the face of tremendous controversy is the stuff great leaders are made of. My wife has always told me that “you can’t go wrong by going right,” and as usual, I find her advice to be spot on. There are many areas where compromise yields significant benefits, but your value system, your character, or your integrity should never be compromised.
6. Make The Decision: Perhaps most importantly, you must have a bias toward action, and be willing to make the decision. Moreover, you must learn to make the best decision possible even if you possess an incomplete data set. Don’t fall prey to analysis paralysis, but rather make the best decision possible with the information at hand using some of the methods mentioned above. Opportunities and not static, and the law of diminishing returns applies to most opportunities in that the longer you wait to seize the opportunity the smaller the return typically is. In fact, more likely is the case that the opportunity will completely evaporate if you wait too long to seize it.
7. Bonus - Always have a back-up plan: The real test of a leader is what happens in the moments following the realization they’ve made the wrong decision. Great leaders understand all plans are made up of both constants and variables, and that sometimes the variables work against you. Smart leaders always have a contingency plan knowing circumstances can sometimes fall beyond the boundaries of reason or control – no “Plan B” equals a flawed plan.

from FORBES

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

“There is always room, if only in one’s own soul, to create a spot of Paradise, crazy though it may sound.”

– Henry Miller, Preface to Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.”

– Frederick Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

“The fact that order and creativity are complementary has been basic to man’s cultural development; for he has to internalize order to be able to give external form to his creativity.”

– Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine

Anyone who says “I don’t have a creative bone in my body” is seriously underestimating their skeleton.  More to the point, they are drastically undervaluing their brain.

My contention in this article is that creativity is an integral part of being human, and to deny its expression is like denying the expression of other crucial human elements that we intuitively realize we’d be miserable without. How about a life without sex, to use one bare-knuckled example? Creativity is no less a part of who and what we are. What follows are 10 reasons why we frequently struggle to get into a creative space, along with suggestions on how to get there.

1. Your brain is always putting out fires.

Cognitive science research tells us that our brains are equipped with sensitive threat-alert systems (of which the amygdala is a significant part), and these systems are older than we are, evolutionarily speaking. In our brains, the limbic system–home of the well-known fight or flight response–is ready to click on with a micro seconds’s notice. That’s a good thing. The problem is that it’s ready to click on with a micro second’s notice. As with many paradoxes within our brains, the good is also the bad depending on context. Because we are so neurobiologically predisposed to looking for the next fire, it’s challenging to carve out a “safe space” for creativity.

What can we do about that?  The video at the end of this article, featuring the inestimable creative genius John Cleese, offers some quality suggestions.

2. Chunks of time are hard to come by.

Even when we can outwit our brain’s threat-alert system, it’s still difficult to find what the late, great management philosopher Peter Drucker advised we must find to be effective in any capacity: “chunks of time.”  Spurts of time riddled with interruptions aren’t conducive to creativity because each time our focus is wrecked, we struggle to get back to the point we’d reached in our creative “flow” (a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).  Creativity isn’t like restarting a blu ray disk and picking up exactly where we left off. A great deal of energy went into getting to that place, and we must expend more energy to get into it again.

Cleese’s video also offers suggestions for this problem, but in short — we must set firm, impenetrable parameters for being creative. If you think you’ll need two solid hours to get there, then make those two hours nonnegotiable.

3. The “self-efficacy” problem.

Pioneering psychologist Albert Bandura devoted a large part of his expansive career to figuring out how people can develop a necessary sense of self-efficacy–the outcome when accomplishment yields compounding confidence in one’s abilities. The irony that Bandura uncovered is that we only get there when we’ve experienced enough failure to demonstrate the difficulty of our eventual accomplishment. Another way to say that is — if it were easy, none of us would have a problem. But creativity isn’t easy, and we’re going to stomach failure–probably more than we think–before achieving something that starts depositing confidence in our cerebral bank accounts.

The thing to remember is that confidence compounds with time, and most people give up before they start earning a return on their investment.

4. The “governing scenes” problem. 

Two more great psychologists, Silvan S. Tomkins and Gershen Kaufman, devoted much of their careers to figuring out why shame wields so much power in our mental lives.  Tomkins (who is the father of “Affect Theory” and “Script Theory”) coined the term “governing scripts,” and Kaufman built on his work, later coining the term “governing scenes,” which are the mental images of past experience that our brains conjure when we come across a “trigger” for that experience.

The tricky part is that our brains conjure governing scenes automatically–they arise from the unconscious. So when we experience a creative failure, our brains toss out vivid images–not just vague memories, but “scenes”–of past failures.  Kaufman saw this as the pivotal dynamic that makes shame such a potent emotion — it’s not just an externally triggered feeling, but also an internal saboteur.

What can we do about that?  Look to Albert Bandura’s discoveries (#3 above) and get back to the hard work of overcoming, and overcoming, and, oh yeah, overcoming. In other words, don’t quit, because in all likelihood you are giving up far too early.

5. The functionary temptation.

“So, what are you going to do with that?”  Tough question to answer for anyone trying to be creative, because there probably isn’t an answer. What we seem to have a hard time getting our arms around is the fact that there also doesn’t need to be an answer.  What would a world driven by purely functionary concerns look like?  Is that a world you’d want to live in?

The answer to this one is self-evident: stop asking the functionary question about everything in your life, or others’ lives. The question itself is designed to drain creativity from your bones.

6. Fear of disruption.

Getting into creative flow can disrupt your life. Henry Miller referred to this disruption in Sexus with the pregnant term “primal flux.” It’s a hard fact to handle, but the truth is that creativity isn’t all sweetness and light — it’s a volatile, disruptive force that can shatter presumptions, undermine expectations, and dismantle unquestioned standards.  That’s part of what makes it a frightening prospect for our threat-sensitive brains (see #1).

What can we do about that? Decide how much creativity your life can handle — more precisely, how much you are willing to handle.

7. Misunderstanding the “background noise” dimension of creativity. 

For some reason we think that to be creative means constantly creating something tangible, but that’s not how creativity works.  Much of the creative process goes on in the background of your conscious mind space and emerges in conscious flurries.  As discussed in #2, we need chunks of time to create something tangible, but leading up to those chunks of time is an enormous amount of background processing. This is also why #8 that follows is so important.

8. Opportunities slip through the cracks.

You know the old story about how writers keep a notebook by their beds in case they have an idea in the middle of the night?  There’s only two things untrue about that story — it’s not just writers who do it (or at least it’s not just writers who should do it) and it’s not just in the middle of the night that a notebook or something to scribble on is invaluable to capture rapidly evaporating thoughts.  Those thoughts are creative opportunities, any one of which can open doors to new thoughts, fresh ideas, and untapped creative energy.

Easy fix for this one: get a notebook and a pen, and get ready.

9. It’s easier to get numb.

Irony of ironies, the same incredible organ in our heads that allows us to be creative is also perilously prone to brain-numbing distractions. Sure, those can be chemical distractions–drugs, alcohol, etc–but in this case I mean just the regular old “plug-in drugs” like TV (using the term coined by author Marie Winn).  The problem with TV, of course, isn’t TV, it’s the hours upon hours that it draws us in. At the very least, at that level it’s a time sink that makes finding those essential chunks of time even harder. At worst, it’s a brain backwater–a complacency refuge from the challenge of creativity.

What to do?  Regulate time. Distractions aren’t the problem; it’s our unregulated devotion to them that doesn’t allow creativity to spark.

10. Limited exposure to the creativity of others. 

I’m a firm believer that creative inspiration isn’t all about originality; it’s more about being driven by the creative achievements of others. After reading a great novel, creative energy swirls in the brain like a newly spawned tornado. After watching an incredible movie, mental wormholes open to challenging ideas and possibilities. Same goes for museums and galleries and concerts and even electronics shows. It doesn’t matter where the ideas originate — it matters where they take you.  To the extent that we limit our exposure to an array of creative ideas (and focus instead on just one source; TV, for example), we limit our creative potential.

The solution: get up, get out, and get exposed.

from Forbes

Roberto Scaramuzza – Linkedin profile

Firms forced to clarify Web notices

Two Singaporean firms have apologised online for discriminatory job advertisements looking for specific foreign nationalities, which were placed on the Web last month.
Expedia Inc, the online travel agency, and consultancy Incofood International put up apologies after the Manpower Ministry (MOM) suggested they do so.

The complaint that some firms favour foreigners over Singaporeans was highlighted in last month’s budget debate by acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin, who pledged to tackle such discrimination. A MOM spokesman said the ministry was informed of the ads last month by members of the public. “We engaged the companies at a senior level, informed them to remove the advertisements immediately, and also suspended their work pass privileges,” he said.

He added that the companies were cooperative and took the matter seriously.

On March 22, Expedia Inc posted a public apology on its jobs website on behalf of Expedia Singapore, for an ad “which created the perception that the position required an individual of Filipino descent, which was not the intention”. What was required was an individual who knew Tagalog, added the firm.

It said it had removed the ad and taken steps to ensure that “language skills that are necessary for any position are clearly stated”, and added that the error would not happen again.

It was also made clear to The Straits Times that Expedia Singapore is not related to the Expedia.com.sg site, which is a joint venture with AirAsia. A spokesman said the ad had been put up by an Expedia Inc staff member based in Hong Kong.

Separately, Incofood International apologised on hiring portal Jobstreet.com for an ad it put up for the position of admin officer. Incofood acknowledged “a discriminatory ad has been posted” and also insisted it would not happen again.

The amended ad, which included the apology, now seeks a Singaporean or permanent resident “with excellent writing skills for good translation and interpretation in English from Malay, Chinese, or Burmese”.

Incofood could not reply by press time but The Straits Times understands that the original ad had sought “a native of Malaysia, Myanmar or China” able to translate between mother tongue and English.

The MOM spokesman said the ministry “will continue to take action against companies that put up such advertisements, as part of efforts to ensure companies give fair consideration to Singaporeans in their hiring practices”.