Why all Construction should be LEED

Google Strikes Back at Rupert Murdoch!

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, strikes back at Rupert Murdoch in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (which is owned by Rupert Murdock by the way). Before we get to the good stuff I’ll quickly explain who Rupert Murdoch is for those who don’t know.  He owns lots of media outlets (Newspapers, Magazines, Radio Stations, TV Networks, Cable & Internet Companies etc.) He is the founder, a major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation (News Corp).  He’s been in the news lately because he wants to ban Google from searching his sites and has been trying to make an agreement with Bing (Microsoft).  I don’t think he should be able to control the message people can and cannot hear.  I think and I hope he loses big on this!

With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise.

Google is a great source of promotion. We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue—for free. In terms of copyright, another bone of contention, we only show a headline and a couple of lines from each story. If readers want to read on they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site. (The exception are stories we host through a licensing agreement with news services.) And if they wish, publishers can remove their content from our search index, or from Google News.

here’s even better stuff:

It’s understandable to look to find someone else to blame. But as Rupert Murdoch has said, it is complacency caused by past monopolies, not technology, that has been the real threat to the news industry.

Kudos to the WSJ for running the piece—assuming some editor didn’t lose his or her job for doing this. I just can’t wait to watch Google and News Corp go at it.

President Brack Obama to Address the Nation Later Today (30 000 More Troops to Afghanistan))

** A new objective in Afghanistan…

President Barack Obama plans to send 30,000 to 35,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan,it will be the largest single U.S. deployment since the 2003 invasion of Iraq,”  He will address the nation later today (December 1st 2009)

I don’t envy this mess and responsibilities that he has inherited.  But this might be a big mistake!  I know there will be a back lash from the people and republicans!  But who knows this might be part of a bigger plan and I hope its not just about a war that will stimulate the US economy.

“Is the Golden Temple all real gold?” asked Canadian PM

During his recent visit to the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper could not believe that the Golden Temple was all covered with real gold. Harper was so struck by the sight of the resplendent Sikh temple that he asked someone in his entourage whether it was all real gold.

“When the prime minister had his first glimpse of the Golden Temple on that beautiful sunny day, he asked someone next to him: Is it real gold? ‘Yes, it is real gold, sir,’ the person told the prime minister,” says Amritsar-born Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia who was one of the eight top Indo-Canadians picked up by the prime minister for his India visit.

Toronto-based Ahluwalia, who runs one of the biggest diagnostic centres in Canada, says, “The Canadian prime minister was thrilled by the golden beauty of the temple and kept looking at it. He paid his obeisance, made an offering of Rs 1,000 and received a siropa.”

Alhuwalia, who moved to Canada more than 25 years ago, said, “There were thousands and thousands of people to see the Canadian prime minister. Seeing this welcome in my hometown, I told his executive assistant (Jeremy Hunt) that the PM is more popular here than the fifth Beatle. There was so much response and energy.”

And this overwhelming welcome for the Canadian prime minister in Amritsar was reported back as “chaos’ by the Canadian journalists accompanying Harper.

“From the viewpoint of the Canadian media, it was chaos, but it was excitement and energy generated by the prime minister’s visit,” added another entourage member and biggest Indo-Canadian landlord Bob Dhillon.

“When the PM came to the Golden Temple, he was treated like a rock star. There were 100,000 people and the energy was overwhelming. The amount of respect the prime minister got there surpassed anything I have seen in my whole life,” the self-made multi-millionaire said.

“Personally, I went to the Golden Temple for the first time in my life, and the irony is that it was the prime minister of Canada who took me there. It was an uplifting spiritual experience for me,” said Calgary-based Dhillon whose Mainstreet Equity company has more than 6,000 rental properties across Canada.

“The sight of tall Nihang Sikhs throwing a security cordon around the Canadian prime minister was just unbelievable,” added the second biggest landlord in Canada.

Dhillon said, “During the state dinner at Hyderabad House, when I told prime minister Manmohan Singh that I am the biggest Indian landlord in Canada, he put his hand on my shoulder said: ‘I am very proud of you.’ I will never forget that.”

(Author Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)

10 Questions Businesses Should Never Stop Asking

Here are the 10 questions businesses should have asked when starting and they are the very questions that any business owner should continue to ask, year in and year out:

 

What is our purpose for existing?

Who is our target customer? and why?

Why does anyone need what we’re selling?

If there is a need, is it enough to support a profitable business?

What are our competitors up to?

Can you reduce expenses–without harming the product?

Do the company have the right leadership?

Do we have the right employees?

How will we continue to drive revenue?

How are your employees holding up?

Please add any suggestions:

Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is a concept in green economics and welfare economics that has been suggested to replace gross domestic product (GDP) as a metric of economic growth.

GPI is an attempt to measure whether a country’s growth, increased production of goods, and expanding services have actually resulted in the improvement of the welfare (or well-being) of the people in the country. GPI advocates claim that it can more reliably measure economic progress, as it distinguishes between worthwhile growth and uneconomic growth.

The GDP vs the GPI is analogous to the difference between the gross profit of a company and the net profit; the Net Profit is the Gross Profit minus the costs incurred. Accordingly, the GPI will be zero if the financial costs of crime and pollution equal the financial gains in production of goods and services, all other factors being constan

Most economists assess the progress in welfare of the people by comparing the gross domestic product over time, that is, by adding up the annual dollar value of all goods and services produced within a country over successive years. However, GDP was never intended to be used for such purpose. It is prone to productivism or consumerism, over-valuing production and consumption of goods, and not reflecting improvement in human well-being.

Simon Kuznets, the inventor of the concept of the GDP, notes in his very first report to the US Congress in 1934:

…the welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income…

The problem with Centralized Purchasing

Definition of Centralized Purchasing: The control by a central department of all the purchasing undertaken within a large organization. Centralized purchasing is often located in the headquarters and centralization has the advantages of reducing duplication of effort, pooling volume purchases for discounts, enabling more effective inventory control, increasing skills development in purchasing personnel and sometime by consolidating transport loads to achieve lower costs (unless everything has to repackage and shipped to other branches).

The Financial & Administrative Impacts

Organizations are focusing too much on centralized purchasing because of the typical administrative and financial benefits associated.  Economies of scale kicks in when buying bulk and it many cases it is easier to manage.  But here’s the idea; what if executives responsible form Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR & Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) sat together and rethought a strategy that would fulfill not just the bottom line ($) but the triple bottom line (Finance, Social, Environment) while meeting all departmental objectives.

Helping develop the local economy benefits any business operating in that community, the case same would go for the branch location of any multinational.   The decision to decentralize purchasing and purchase from small businesses owned locally would do wonders for multinational CSR and branding.  Logistically it would have less of a carbon footprint because less transportation.

The success stories and highlighting local businesses would be a new approach of viral marketing for the Marketing department.  Financially it would make sense as head office already knows the price targets each branch needs to meet.

The case can be made that centralized purchasing you have fewer suppliers and thats more control.  This is translated into “stronger or better relationships.” If we look at the turnover and promotions within large multinationals do you really think its stronger relationships or is it entirely bottom line driven.

Now imagine an organization that goes away from playing the global market and but instead now develops the local economy.  Now each branch of the multinational would purchase its supplies from local small business community, which in return could generate more business for that branch.  This helps the local economy and all the employees of the multinational.  How does it do that?  Take your wife/husband, kids, neighbours and/ or siblings, then think about where they work and how the development of local business community can effect their lives and your community.  The stronger we make each community the more robust in can grow leading to a great satisfaction of everyday life.   Plus look at the simple economics of the multiplier effect where everyone is buying from small businesses and that same dollar is being spent several times over in the community where before it would have left without anyone even seeing it.  All this can make a HR (Human Resources) department more efficient when you start looking at statistics that community driven and sustainable organization have higher retention rates and higher levels of productivity.

The branch would play a vital part in the local economy and help keep dollars in the pockets of their customers and the employees families, who live work and play in that community.

 

How Procurement Helps Organizations Stay on Course in a Tough Economic Climate

Recent economic conditions require immediate, measurable, and sustainable cost reductions, and it’s essential

that procurement leads the way in delivering savings. The link below leads to research conducted by SAP in conjunction with the Procurement Leaders Network.  You will find the results of a survey taken in April–May 2009, where over 200 procurement executives about what strategies are working today, in a period of economic free fall.  63% of stakeholders interviewed are responsible for procurement with companies that have annual sales in excess of €1 billion euros.

http://204.154.71.138/data/UPLOAD/files/Succeeding_with_New_Procurement_Strategies_50096186_en_2009.8.6-14.25.1.pdf

Gross National Happiness Index Vs. Consumption (GDP)

From an ecological and community focused perspective, how can we expect our communities to change in these ever-changing times when we measure growth and success based on consumption (GDP)?  The concept of gross national happiness (GNH) is an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than gross national product.  Below you’ll find out the basics of GNH and I’ll be sure to blog about GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) in a later post as it’s just as interesting.

History of GNH

The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization, soon after the demise of his father, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. It signaled his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. Like many moral goals, it is somewhat easier to state than to define. Nonetheless, it serves as a unifying vision for Bhutan’s five-year planning process and all the derived planning documents that guide the economic and development plans of the country.

Principals (How ti works)

There is no exact quantitative definition of GNH it refers to the concept of a quantitative measurement of well-being and happiness. The two measures are both motivated by the notion that subjective measures like well-being are more relevant and important than more objective measures like consumption. It is not measured directly, but only the factors which are believed to lead to it.  While conventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH claims to be based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.

GNH has grown and expanded over the years, the metric measures socioeconomic development by tracking 7 development areas including the nation’s mental and emotional health. GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures:

1. Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution
2. Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic
3. Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses
4. Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients
5. Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits
6. Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates
7. Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

Another Link: GDP & GNP Explained in an understandable way.  (below link)

http://sonoffiverivers.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/gdp-gnp-explained/

Cold Play, The Pioneers of Carbon Credits

I think some artist have the canny  ability to see the world from a different perspective, one different from those who haven’t dared explore their creative side and ask the basic questions of our existence.   Although I don’t listen to Cold Plays all to often I can heartedly appreciate them bring the change they want to see.

Cold Play is an iconic music group that has an international fan base, they reach million upon million of people with their messages.

So when they decided to Offset the re carbon footprint for their world tours by selling carbon certificates to their fans that was an amazing point in history!  They wanted to offset the carbon dioxide from there travels, there concerts by planting and grow mango’s in India that would suck up some of the CO2.  The plan was brilliant and nobel.  the only problem was that the mango tree’s died and there were other logistic problems.   But my hat goes off to a group with that sort of influence trying to make a change, even if they didn’t succeed the first time around.

Here’s an article by Amrit Dhillon in Gudibanda and Toby Harnden published by The Telegraph Paper in the United Kingdom in early 2006, it outlines the problems and challenges the Cold Play Forest Project faced.

When Coldplay released its second hit album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, the band said that part of the environmental damage caused by its production would be offset by the planting of 10,000 mango trees in southern India.

More than four years after the album’s release, however, many of Coldplay’s good intentions have withered in the arid soil of Gudibanda, Karnataka state, where the saplings it sponsored were planted.

The idea of saving the world while making music was proposed by Future Forests, a British company since renamed CarbonNeutral. It declared that the scheme would soak up carbon dioxide emissions and help to improve the livelihoods of local farmers.

“You can dedicate more saplings in Coldplay’s forest, a specially-selected section in Karnataka, India,” its website said. For £17.50, fans could invest in the scheme and receive a certificate packaged in a tube bearing the words “The Coldplay Forest”.

CarbonNeutral meanwhile, gave the task of planting the trees to a group called Women for Sustainable Development (WSD), as part of a £33,000 contract. WSD is headed by Anandi Sharan Mieli, 44, born in Switzerland of Indian origin and a Cambridge graduate. She now claims that the scheme was doomed from the outset.

In the impoverished villages of Varlakonda, Lakshmisagara and Muddireddihalli, among the dozen that Miss Mieli said had received mango saplings, no one had heard of Coldplay. Most of those who received saplings said they had not been given funding for labour, insecticide or spraying equipment to nurture them.

One woman, called Jayamma was the only person out of 130 families in Lakshmisagara, to receive saplings from Miss Meili, according to Ashwattamma, a farmer’s wife. She said: “No one else got any trees. Some of us were offered saplings but we don’t have any water.”

Jayamma managed to get 50 of her 150 trees to survive because she had a well on her land. “I was promised 2,000 rupees (£26) every year to take care of the plants and a bag of fertiliser. But I got only the saplings,” she said.

In nearby Varlakonda, about 10 families were given approximately 1,400 saplings. Of these, just 600 survived. Another farmer who took 100 saplings, said: “[Miss Meili] promised us that she’d arrange the water.” But villagers said a tanker came only twice.

The land in Gudibanda is dry and rocky. Farmers depend on rainfall but the monsoon failed every year between 1995 and 2004, causing drought.

One of the few successes are the 300 mango trees owned by Narayanamma, 69, and her husband Venkatarayappa, 74. They were apparently the only couple to receive 4,000 rupees from Miss Meili. They also spent 30,000 rupees on tankers and labourers. “We were promised money for maintenance every year but got nothing,” said Narayanamma.

Sitting in her spacious house in Bangalore, Miss Meili said that she had distributed 8,000 saplings and acknowledged that 40 per cent had died. The project had foundered, she said, because of inadequate funding. She accused Future Forests of having a “condescending” attitude. “They do it for their interests, not really for reducing emissions. They do it because it’s good money,” she said. CarbonNeutral said that it did not fund the whole programme and that WSD had a contractual responsibility to provide irrigation and support to farmers. Jonathan Shopley, the chief executive, conceded that while the project might still succeed, it had “struggled to reach its full potential”.

Coldplay is supporting a similar project, which CarbonNeutral says is much more successful, in Chiapas, Mexico. If the Karnataka project does not offset the carbon emissions that Coldplay specified, then CarbonNeutral will make good the amount from other projects.

Richard Tipper, the director of the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management, which monitored the project for CarbonNeutral, said that the Karnataka project had “experienced major problems” because WSD had not raised the necessary money to administer the project and because of the long drought.

A monitoring visit in 2003 had found that “WSD had been unable to make the anticipated progress with the project and had not delivered carbon payments to farmers”. He added that “practices for screening projects have developed considerably based on this experience”.

Chris Latham, the spokesman for Coldplay in Britain, declined to comment but a source close to the band said: “Coldplay signed up to the scheme in good faith with Future Forests and it’s in their hands. There are loads of bands involved in this kind of thing. For a band on the road all the time, it would be difficult to monitor a forest.”

COLDPLAY The Coldplay Forest (2002 UK Future Forests/CarbonNeutral’ gift pack featuring a double-sided commerative certificate with a black & white image of Coldplay in the studio and a map showing the location of the Coldplay forest in Gudibanda Taluk, Karnataka, India. Housed in a custom 9½” x 2″ diameter tube with ‘The Coldplay Forest’ text and ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ album artwork logo with red and white printed belly band!).