Thursday, January 31, 2013

Touchdown on TpT, a Freebie, and a Super Bowl Surprise!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?  GREAT DEALS?  TpT is gearing up for the big game by adding an additional percentage off already "on sale" stores!  Most of your favorite players (sellers) will have items on sale for 20% off, and TpT is throwing in an additional 8%.    YOU SCORE with a 28% savings with the following code:  SUPER.   TpT is running their sale for ONE DAY ONLY on Super Bowl Sunday!   Don't fumble! Grab some goodies for spring, Valentines fun, large units or bundles that you've been saving up for, reviews for state mandated testing, or precious clipart for some half-time entertainment! My locker room (cart) is already full! YIKES!  :-)

I put my entire field on sale, so if there's something you want, you KNOW you can grab it for 28% off on Sunday!  (20% off on Saturday and Monday because I'm running a sale for a few days!)  I bundled some of my own first round draft picks to hopefully help some folks out. :-)   I currently have 6 math interactive notebooks done and more coming.  I bundled all 6 together for some SUPER notebooking fun and savings!   

I've had a few fans ask if I would huddle the monthly problem solving units together as well.  My plan was to wait until all 12 were done, but why not kickoff a good thing by throwing them together for Super Bowl Sunday?!  I have October, November, December, January, and February on a team and ready to go!  

Don't forget to quarterback sneak off with a graphic organizer freebie on Academic Vocabulary words.  My teammates and I would HIDE new academic vocabulary words in the 3rd grade hall for students to be on the lookout for.  They got to find and define them as we introduced them that week.  

"Extra points" for the amazingly talented 3 am Teacher with her adorable backgrounds (like the one in my super bowl sale ad above!) http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com   The football froggie friend comes from Scrappindoodles.com 


TIMEOUT before you go...I have some Super Bowl surprises of my own.  #1 How many SUPER BOWL (football related) words or phrases did I use in my blog post today?  Count carefully!  The first one to post the correct answer (or get the closest by toin coss on Sunday) gets a $6.00 item or less FREE from my TpT store!  (*Since my boys helped me with the words, I'll go by their count and what they intentionally helped me put in there!)
#2 Make a prediction about the score of the game!  A.) Pick the winner B.) How many points will they win by?  **Closest to the correct score also wins a $6.00 item from my TpT store. ***All predications must be made before the players leave their locker rooms to come onto the field on Sunday!     GOOD LUCK!

Bananas for my boys who know more about football than I do!  I'm just cooking. ;-)


Monday, January 28, 2013

The Business January 30th 2013, The "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Graduate Management Admission Test" Edition

 
This week, you’re either on the bus or off the bus as we take off on a tripped out psychedelic adventure, man!

Come experience a perception of the comic unity of a higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos. I mean comedy. Yeah, comedy.

This week, The Business welcome’s two guests, freshly returned from tours through the gates of inner-consciousness.

Josh Androsky is one of the clowns behind Hamclown: Los Angeles comedy hotspot and a Skateboard Rabbi on Shrooms that OWNED the Price is Right.

Keith D’Souza is a rare and beautiful bird. We will cage him for you and let you laugh at him.

Your regulars will be there as well Alex “Furthur” Koll, Sean “Kesey” Keane, Bucky “Hysterical Realism” Sinister, Nato “Prankster” Green and Caitlin “whoa man… when we were in the womb was all breathed through a” Gill.

We are also happy to have founding member Chris "Passed the Acid Test" Garcia back for the week! Come see him before he heads back to The Business LA!

BYOBurrito into the unknown.

This whole freaky trip is just $5! AND you can bring a friend for free with one of our 2-for-1 coupons.

We sell out! Get there early for a seat.

YOU ARE HEREBY EMPOWERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Business Jazz – 27th January 2013 – How to Sell by Turning People Away


Selling is a mind game – much of it is psychology. Very often, we experience the bad side of it. Think Glengarry Glen Ross. We've all been on the receiving end of those tactics. It is selling as an adversarial pursuit of of someone else's purse.

Nobody, except the vulture-like salesperson, enjoys that experience. Ultimately, it benefits nobody. Not even the salesperson. In the long run, they lose our trust. Trust is the key that unlocks our purses. Without it, the lock stays firmly shut.

In this episode Paul and Roger discuss an email by Chris Brogan that starts with a declaration of intent. It intends to promote something that Chris hopes the receiver will buy. However, he advises strongly in the first paragraph that if you don't want to be bothered by a sales pitch, you should set the email aside. He doesn't want to waste your time or impose upon you. He recognizes that the recipient of the email will buy from him when they are good and ready. And when they do, the sales process will be smooth and, importantly, enjoyable.

A smooth and enjoyable sales process (or purchasing process, if you look at it from the buyer's side) is one of the things that makes a business genuinely attractive.

You can listen to this week's podcast using the player at the top of the post or download it directly here: Business Jazz – 27th January 2012.

We're also in iTunes. We'd love it if you subscribed or left some feedback.

Don't Buy From Chris Brogan



If you'd like to have the opportunity to not buy from Chris, you can subscribe to his emails (the ones we discuss here), on his website.

If you're interested in The Impact Equation, the book he recently published with Julien Smith, you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK (these aren't affiliate links, by the way).

Business Jazz Players


This podcast is a collaboration of people dotted around the world. Most of us have never met each other. It's quite a story and it's still evolving. 
If you'd like to read what's happened so far, you'll find it here: Our Story.


PS 


Would you like to hear more? Immediately after each recording of the podcast proper, Paul gets out his iPhone and we record an Audioboo with additional thoughts.

This week's hasn't made it to air, but you can listen to Paul's thoughts on his way to Blackrock Castle for the recording:

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Eyes Right


 There are times when you have to feel good about India. In the prevailing atmosphere of extreme negativity, it is easy to fall into the trap of despair. Patriotism may be the last refuge of the scoundrel (no thanks Samuel Johnson), but it has its uses and I don't mind being a scoundrel. The Republic Day parade is one such occasion, to feel good.


I know very few watch the parade these days, but it is an eminently watchable spectacle. Other countries put on a show like this - the Bastille Day parade in France and the Victory Day parade in Russia, being the more prominent. But the Indian parade is extremely impressive and can raise goose pimples, especially if you can understand the honour and significance of it.

It all begins with the laying of the wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyothi - the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the sounding of the Last Post - a tribute to the fallen. The Parade itself is rich in tradition. The President's bodyguard gives the order for the National Salute and you cannot but help feel a lump in the throat as the National Anthem in played. After the Parade Commanders, come the living recipients of the Param Vir Chakra and the Ashok Chakra - India's highest gallantry medals.  This year it was nice to see all the three living PVC holders in the parade - Subedar Major Bana Singh, Naik Subedar Yogendra Singh Yadav and Havaldar Sanjay Kumar. The 61st cavalry often leads out the marching contingents - this is probably the last Cavalry regiment anywhere in the world ; old traditions kept alive.  The impeccably turned out Army contingents lead the parade - this year the famous Maratha Light Infantry, the Dogra Regiment, the Kumaon Regiment, the Garhwal Rifles were all there - regiments with traditions going back 200 years. The Air Force contingent had a surprise with Flight Lieutenant Heena Pore leading - probably the first time a lady officer was the commandant . When the camera cut to probably her family wildly cheering, you could not have failed to be moved. Contingents vie with each other to win the best marching contingent award. To me the highlight is often the NCC boys and the NCC Girls contingent ; when she gives the call to salute the President, you can't quell the surge of emotion.

I normally discount the cultural shows that follow ; the military parade is the highlight. Its is an honour to march - if you wish to know how much of an honour it is and how much of training and selection precedes it, read this lovely account by Smriti Rao.

The dampener is the extremely poor coverage by Doordarshan. For a lesson on how not to cover an occasion of such grandeur, turn to Doordarshan. They have to cut all the time to show the faces of sundry VIPs - this being Delhi after all. How can you cut away, when the commandant's deep bass voice is giving the command for the salute. They couldn't even get the national anthem right - there was static and blackouts. Yuk !

But despite Doordarshan, this is an event that can make riveting viewing. You can watch it here, if you like.

Which is why, I say - I am sorry Colleen Braganza - I simply cannot stomach your article in the DNA.  There is a time to protest and make your voice heard. There is also a time to honour and cherish.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Business January 23rd 2013, The "Mrs. Doubtfire 2: Revenge of the Fallen" Edition

San Francisco loves a home-grown star, and even though our guest this week now lives in London, he will always be the dude from SF that was in that movie where Robin Williams wore a dress.
 
Scott Capurro was reared in Daly City, California; at age 3, he swam the English Channel. Since 1993, he's avoided AIDS by telling unsavory jokes in every English speaking country. Described by San Francisco Weekly (free press, edited by lesbians and designed by trannys with large hands and hidden agendas) as "stand-up in the very best possible sense - deadpan, ever-alert and hilarious". Scott has appeared in Mrs. Doubtfire, where, effortlessly, he played a homosexual; and Star Wars: Phantom Menace, where, breathlessly, he wore a body stocking.

We are also happy to welcome one of Fresno’s finest, Raphi Barakat!

And your regulars! Caitlin “Mrs. Apprehensionflame” Gill, Sean “Mrs. Concernedblaze” Keane, Bucky “Mrs. Badfeelingaboutthatspark” Sinister and Alex “Mrs. Incredulouscoals” Koll.

WE SELL OUT so get there early if you want a seat.

This whole show is just $5!! Just $5!!! Plus you can bring a friend for free with one of our 2 for 1 coupons up top.

BYOBurrito and instagram it.

Super Bowl Challenge...Recipes and a Mini Unit

Well, the results are in. It looks like we have a couple of teams set for Super Bowl Sunday!  Congratulations to the Ravens and 49ers.  So who are you pulling for?  I would love to hear!  ME?  I don't have a dog in this fight, so I'll be spending all my energy and efforts into rounding up some delicious Super Bowl munchies for all the men in my life.  (Husband, sons, their friends, dog, etc.)  
In honor of the quickly approaching Super Bowl, here are some of our favorite Super Bowl recipes. 

HANKY PANKIES--(1 pkg of sausage (med), 1 pkg of Velveeta cheese, crushed red pepper, and rye coctail bread)  Brown sausage in skillet.  Add cheese and crushed red pepper to skillet.  Continue to cook/heat until cheese is completely melted and sausage is cooked through.  Remove from heat.  Add a spoonful of the mixture to each of the rye cocktail bread slices.  Heat in oven to toast the bread.  Serve warm.


BBQ CHICKEN TORTILLA PIZZAS-- flour tortillas, cooked and shredded chicken, your favorite brand of Salsa, BBQ sauce, chopped red pepper, shredded Mexican cheese    Heat oven to 350.  Top each tortilla with a layer of BBQ sauce (like a pizza), Drop shredded chicken all over the layer of BBQ sauce.  Top with chopped red bell pepper and shredded cheese.  Place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes or until cheese bubbles. Serve with your favorite salsa.

HOMEMADE BROWNIES--1 1/4 cup margarine, 4 eggs, 2 cups of sugar, 1 1/2 cups of flour, 2 tsp of vanilla, 3/4 cup cocoa, 2 cups nuts (optional) Preheat oven to 350.  Melt butter and add cocoa mix.  Stir in sugar and blend in eggs.  Add vanilla.  Stir in flour and nuts.  Mix well.  Bake in greased 9x13 pan for 30 minutes.  Cool; Serve


Let's hear it Super Bowl Fans...what's your favorite snack recipe for Super Bowl Sunday?  I'm looking for something NEW, QUICK, and EASY this year to add to my existing list.  Leave me a comment with a recipe for something you think we'll like!  If I select your recipe to try, (my family gets to vote on which one we'll try) I'll send you the Super Bowl Challenge for your classroom FREE!  (See image below)   **We'll select by Monday, Jan. 28th 8:00 p.m. EST

If you have a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade classroom, you might enjoy the Super Bowl Challenge for your students! This mini-unit has a variety of activities that appeal to all the little sports fans in your class. (And even those who aren't)  If you purchased last year, be sure to RE-DOWNLOAD it...as it has been updated for 2013!  You and your class can make some predictions, do some problem solving, interpret a graph of super bowl wins, share some recipes, practice with fact/opinion, etc.  It makes for great fun on the Friday before the big game!  $1.95  

Bananas for a good excuse to have a smorgasboard of goodies sitting around to GRAZE on,

Friday, January 18, 2013

Business Jazz - 18th January 2013 - How Could a Campfire Help Instagram?


Fire is powerful.

It burns and destroys.

Fire also warms and rejuvenates.

It provides a place to come together. In a house around the fireside; outside around a campfire. It is where we gain comfort and where conversations are held.

In his latest email, Chris Brogan uses the campfire as a metaphor for creating content and story around your business. Content so compelling that it attracts others to it and compels them to discuss it.

Paul and Roger look at how we can apply this to our own businesses to make ourselves attractive to our customers. They also try to fit the campfire model into a rehabilitation programme for Instagram.


You can listen to this week's podcast using the player at the top of the post or download it directly here: Business Jazz - 18th January 2012.

We're also in iTunes. We'd love it if you subscribed or left some feedback.

Join Chris Brogan's Campfire



If you'd like to get the warmth directly from Chris' campfire, you can subscribe to his emails (the ones we discuss here), on his website.

If you're interested in The Impact Equation, the book he recently published with Julien Smith, you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK (these aren't affiliate links, by the way).

Business Jazz Players


This podcast is a collaboration of people dotted around the world. Most of us have never met each other. It's quite a story and it's still evolving. 
If you'd like to read what's happened so far, you'll find it here: Our Story.


PS 


Would you like to hear more? Immediately after each recording of the podcast proper, Paul gets out his iPhone and we record an Audioboo with additional thoughts.

Here is this week's:

Monday, January 14, 2013

Geometry Fun & Freebie

As a student myself, years and years (and years....but we won't go there) ago, I didn't like Geometry.  I didn't understand it, didn't see a need for it, and certainly didn't enjoy it.   So how did it become one of my very favorite things to teach?  I think that occurred when I realized there were so many fun things you could do with Geometry when presenting  it to youngsters.  I wish some of my teachers 'back in the day' had presented it a little differently.  I might have actually had a good time with it!  I decided to dedicate this blog post to a smorgasbord of Geometry FUN!    Check out the some amazing interactive websites, blog posts, and products all dedicated to GEOMETRY!

Need a quick online interactive practice for your kiddos at a computer station?  This website (click image) will take you to a good handful of geometry games with SIMPLE instructions and very little clicking to get started!  Let your students try their hand at classifying triangles, classifying polygons, or other geometric figures.

Here's another website with quick and easy access to a variety of geometric games, including shapes, angles, and transformations.  This site is a little more challenging than the previous one, so if you teach geometry 3rd grade and up, this might be a better place to start.  The image will take you there.

Finally, this one is a site that our school bought a membership to after a 30 day trial.  It's IXL math.  They have some free games and promos that you and your kids can investigate to see if it's worth a subscription.  Our students LOVE the site and welcome any time they can grab to practice their math on IXL.  As an educator, I love the immediate feedback given to students if they miss something.  A small tutorial "reteaching" that skill pops up when they miss a question. Check it out!

Some of you know I'm totally into my Math notebooking these days.  I started them last year with my students and became a believer that if students can journal about what they've learned in their own words, with their own explanations, then they know it!  I started creating some math notebooks for my teammates and I to use along side our Math series.  They've been a big hit.  I finished the Geometry one and can't wait for some classrooms to give it a whirl!  **SO...the FIRST 3 teachers that teach grades 2-4 that want to try it out, give me a shout out in the blog post comments with your email and I'll send it to you FREE!

It's my favorite of the interactive notebooks so far!!  Grab your notebooks, colored pens, popsicle sticks, glue sticks, etc. to have some interactive Geometry fun!








FINALLY, grab a FREEBIE while you're here!
I always loved putting out some solid shapes on the table and letting students make some guesses on the number of faces, edges, and vertices each solid shape has.  They record with their cooperative groups, then we discuss and clarify any misconceptions.  It's a fun way to investigate shapes!

Bananas for Geometry after all,

The Business January 16th 2013, The "Night Of January 16th- A Comedy Show by Ayn Rand" Edition

A night of passion and intrigue! Marvel at the legal spectacle as a jury decides if Bjorn Faulkner threw himself out of his penthouse or if he was pushed to his death by his secretary, Karen Andre!!!

Contemplate the heady moral nuances of contrasting ideas of individualism versus conformity! Wonder at which verdict the jury will return, IT CHANGES WITH EACH PERFORMANCE OF THE PLAY!! HOW NOVEL!!!! (It was also a novel.)

…or we can just have a fun comedy show instead.

The verdict is in on Brendan Lynch. He has been found funny by a jury of his peers (though we’re not sure they were really his peers, as they were all shorter than he is).

Brendan Lynch has established himself as a comedian to look out for in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a regular performer at clubs all over the Northern California and has performed in the San Francisco SketchFest for the last two years. Don't be deceived by Brendan's low-key manner. Prepare yourself for an outrageous slice outside the cookie cutter of life. Brendan's astute observational comedy will surprise you with its bold sarcasm, absurd twists, and hilarious punchlines.

Your regulars, Alex Koll, Sean Keane, Bucky Sinister and Caitlin Gill will be there as well.

We SELL OUT. Get there early for a seat.

Reserved seating for Paul Ryan (it’s a workout bench).

BYOBurrito but don’t share it with anyone else. It is your individual right to possess your burrito.

Out of the mouths of babes ......



Isn't that a brilliant question.  This is a question asked by 7 year old Loulou.
 
This is part of Facebook initiative by the Holland based banking giant ING . Its is part of their recruitment portal called ING Careers and this idea is called Next Generation banking. In it they are asking children to ask simple questions and for prospective employees who wish to join ING to answer them.
 
Here are some of the answers
 
  • We need banks to keep money moving and safe
  • Banks are also a safe place to put your money and not only that but the bank will even make sure the amount you gave them increases over time by using it in different businesses
  • We need banks for your money:
    1. To be safe - Your piggy bank can get lost, stolen or empty.
    2. To grow - Do nothing and see your money grow each year because of interest.
  • So banks were a place you could keep your money safe and also get some extra money if you agreed to pay it back soon
  • So you see banks are there to help people. They have a lot of helpful ideas to make life easier for everyone
  • We need banks because there are two kinds of people, people who has money and want their money to be in a safe place where they could get it anytime they want and people who wants money to make things and sell them in order to make more money.
  • To keep it very simple. Banks make our life easy
 
------- And so on and so on.
All perfectly true of course. The problem is that this is no longer what banks mostly do.  If senior bankers read this and reflect, perhaps some blinding truths may strike them.
 
Maybe every industry must do something similar and try and explain their reason for existence to children. They may find themselves squirming and very uncomfortable.
 
As it is said in Psalm  8:2 , "Out of the mouth of babies and sucklings hast thou established strength ......... "


PS : This blogger had to hold his nose and go into Facebook to get the material for this post. He has quickly exited and is somewhat affected even by this short experience. He won't be going anywhere there in a hurry !

Friday, January 11, 2013

Do Firms Trust Universities?

Earlier this week, I attended a seminar at the London Business School by Michaël Bikard – a PhD candidate at MIT – who presented his research on technological inventions. Such inventions are, of course, often patented. Examining these patents allowed Michaël to determine on which technological breakthrough discoveries these inventions were based. Hence, these inventions are basically commercial applications of the more fundamental discoveries.

Fairly regularly, a university or a firm builds on and commercializes its own discoveries but, quite often, such an organisation may also be building on the discoveries of others. That is possible because such fundamental discoveries will often be published, in academic journals such as Nature or Science, and hence are accessible to everyone. And that’s when it gets interesting; because on whose discoveries are firms more likely to build when working on applied inventions: on the discoveries of universities or of other companies?

It matters where a discovery was made

Past research on the topic has basically been comparing apples and oranges, because the discoveries coming out of universities are often fundamentally different from the breakthroughs achieved in firms. Michaël, however, wanted to know whether it mattered to companies where the breakthrough had taken place – regardless of the actual content of the breakthrough. Therefore, he analysed a unique yet fascinating set of technological discoveries, namely the instances where the exact same breakthrough happened at the exact same time in a university and in a firm.

This happens surprisingly often. For example, in the winter of 1999, two teams of scientists simultaneously discovered VR1 (vanilloid receptor1), the receptor for the pain caused by excessive heat. The first team of scientists – who published the finding in Science in May 2000 – was from the University of California in San Francisco. The second team, however, worked at SmithKline Beecham. Hence, the same idea originated simultaneously in a university and in a firm. In total, there were 39 of such simultaneous discoveries in firms and universities between 1970 and 2009.

Then, through patent analysis, Michaël tracked all commercial inventions that built on one of the 39 fundamental discoveries, such as VR1. And he found out that the patenting companies much more often had picked up on the discovery from the publication by the firms. Now, note that these companies could have picked up on the exact same idea from the publication by the universities, but they didn’t – apparently companies scanning for fundamental knowledge pay more attention to the discoveries of other firms. In comparison, they don’t bother with stuff coming out of universities. And that begs the question: why?

Firms do not monitor universities

Why do firms not pay attention to the discoveries by universities? It’s not about the content of the discovery; that, in this case, is the exact same thing. To find out, Michaël started interviewing people; the R&D folk that had worked on the commercial inventions.

And they confirmed that they basically did not bother much looking at the stuff coming out of universities. The first reason is because that is simply what companies are used to doing: indeed, most firms I know obsessively monitor their competitors, so if such a competitor comes up with a new discovery, they will notice. They don’t habitually look at universities. Therefore, they miss stuff. And that’s their loss.

The second reason is more worrying (at least, to me, as an academic): The interviewees proclaimed that they don’t pay much attention to the publications about fundamental discoveries by universities because they don’t trust them. Some feel that academics are too heavily incentivised and put under pressure to publish stuff; i.e. the infamous “publish or perish” culture. This, in their view, increases the chance that the publications are dubious, flawed, or outright fraudulent. And they’re not taking any chances with them.

One inventor proclaimed: “It’s a much higher bar [for industry], higher standards, because every error, or every piece of fraud along the way, the end game is going to fail. … Therefore, I have more faith in what industry puts out there as a publication”. Firms don’t pay attention to published discoveries by universities because they think chances are that it is bogus.

I remember that the company MORI used to run surveys on “who do you trust?” – and they probably still do – dividing, among others, the results by profession. Ten years ago, priests and professors used to come out on top; businessmen and politicians near the bottom. I don’t know exactly what people nowadays think of the trustworthiness of businessmen and politicians, but I have a fair idea what happened to the faith in priests and professors.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Business Jazz - 11th January 2013 - Keep on Going


Last week we talked about ambitions, execution and failure. This week, we riff off an email sent by AJ Leon in which he talks about the decision whether or not to give up. He recently stuck with something and ended up $8,000 lighter. Good decision? Bad decision?

That's a key question we're all faced with. Is it better to cut our losses and abandon a road we've set off down, or should we push on?

Chris Brogan gets his regular airing too as Paul and Roger discuss his recent email about the rise of bespoke business.

In the podcast, Roger alludes to a story about Walt Disney being born in Mojácar, a village in Spain. It's quite likely nonsense, but you can find out more here: The Spanish Connection.

You can listen to this week's podcast using the player at the top of the post or download it directly here: Business Jazz - 11th January 2012.

We're also in iTunes. We'd love it if you subscribed or left some feedback.

Chris and AJ have bespoke insights for you



If you'd like to subscribe to Chris' emails (the ones we discuss here), you'll find a place to sign up on his website.
If you're interested in The Impact Equation, the book he recently published with Julien Smith, you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK (these aren't affiliate links, by the way).

AJ Leon regularly sends out inspiring emails as well. You can sign up for them here: Pursuit of Everything.

Business Jazz Players


This podcast is a collaboration of people dotted around the world. Most of us have never met each other. It's quite a story and it's still evolving. 
If you'd like to read what's happened so far, you'll find it here: Our Story.


PS 


Would you like to hear more? Immediately after each recording of the podcast proper, Paul gets out his iPhone and we record an Audioboo with additional thoughts.

Here is this week's:

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Business January 9th 2013, The "There’s GOLD in This Here Show!!" Edition

 The Business has elemental riches! Our lush lands are bursting with precious metals. You can’t dip a pan in our rivers without coming up with gold. ..

HEATHER GOLD!

Our guest this week is none other than sweet cookie Heather Gold.
Heather Gold is a writer, performer and audience involver whom boingboing calls "brilliant" and "one of our favourite comedians." She scales conversation and public intimacy. Her mission is to create a space and a world where we can be ourselves together. Heather emcees and performs for venues and clients across North America, and contributes to magazines and newspapers like The San Jose Mercury News, the Toronto Globe & Mail and CBC Radio. Heather hosts the weekly podcast Tummelvision.tv the leading show about social engagement in a networked world. She’s been quoted and covered in places like WIRED, Salon and NPR.

Of course, your regulars will be there as well. Though Mike Drucker will always be IN The Business, he is off to New York to make TV funny, so he can’t be in The Business every week anymore. We are very pleased to welcome our new Businessman, Nato Green! Nato has long been a favorite guest of The Business, he will continue to delight as a regular member.

Come join us! Sean “Silver” Keane, Bucky “Bismuth” Sinister, Alex “Mercury” Koll, Caitlin “Palladium” Gill and “PLATINUM” Nato Green.
We sell out! Get there early.

BYOBeryllium.

(JK BYOBURRRRRRITO!!!!)

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Giveaway Winner & 103 Things to Do With a Book

Let me start with a YAY and CONGRATULATIONS to my Giveaway winner, Laura Cooney!  Rafflecopter has spoken, and she won with her blog comment entry!  Thanks to everyone who joined the fun and participated in one way or another.  I appreciate you!

I read so many books to students and with  students, it's easy to find myself getting caught up in the "same ole', same ole' " activities.  I stumbled upon this website and found a helpful article on a variety of things (103) to do with books...before, during, and or after reading.  In my new coaching position, where I never know what will unfold in front of me, I often have to think fast and on the fly.  I've bookmarked this article and found that it's a fantastic resource on the days when I have no time to plan. It can be adapted to ANY age or grade level.   Some of my favorites include:

  • Business Card book-Students retell the story in as many creative ways as they can on a business card (*You can simply use small paper, the size of a business card, but the REAL business cards are more fun!)  They'll come up with a variety of ways to express what they know...story maps, lists, summaries, etc.
  • Roundtable-Students LOVE to talk, right?  This gives them the floor and the opportunity to just "discuss" the book as adults would at a book study....What confused you?  What do you think the author meant when...?  What would you change about the book?  
  • Timeline-Timeline skills can always use a little extra practice. There's no better way than to create a timeline of the events in the story!
  • Transparencies-Who says you can't have fun with "old school" teaching?  We still have some overhead projectors sitting around the school collecting dust, but they still work.  Give students some transparencies to create a story map on, character list, setting drawings, theme statements or illustrations, problem solution and/or cause and effect situations.  Slap them up on that dusty overhead projector and let them present.  
  • Make Your Own Test-Kids quickly find out how difficult teaching is when they have to design their own questions and test to go along with their reading.  They get creative and have to really think about the answers before they write them!  

Enjoy the article and trying some of these creative and fun things to do with your students and the literature they're reading!  The image at the right will take you to the article!

Bananas for somebody else's quick ideas when my brain is on overload,

The Eighth Deadly Sin

Alongside  wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony - the seven deadly sins - should surely be added "money". For it is now proving to be a deadly sin even in the Vatican.

News came out on Wednesday that all forms of plastic money - ATM cards, credit cards, debit cards, etc have stopped functioning in the Vatican. So if you want to visit the Sistine Chapel, you have to fork out cash for admission - cannot wave your plastic.

This has happened because the Bank of Italy (Italy's Central Bank) has suspended all electronic operations by banks inside the Vatican in exasperation at the Vatican's continued inability to follow anti money laundering and anti terrorist financing regulations. This has been going on for a long time - the Vatican does not meet the anti money laundering requirements that all countries have to meet and has not been able to set this right for years.

Part of the problem is "Ramamrithamisque". Regulations demand all sorts of KYC forms and it is quite likely that the Holy Fathers have not been rigorous enough in filling 74,432 forms - their minds being, hopefully, absorbed with higher matters. Here, my sympathies are with the Vatican.

But the other half of the problem is serious. The Vatican, as indeed many successful religious organisations are, is a huge business enterprise. In this, they must follow laws that seek to curb international crime. But they usually turn a blind eye to where their money comes from , and this is an unpardonable eighth deadly sin.

This problem is not unique to the Vatican alone. Every religious organisation, I dare speculate, would fail the test of anti money laundering. Much of their finances are murky, shady, and accounting rigour, transparency and tightness of control is conspicuous by their absence.  If you stretch the argument, is it right for the Tirupathi temple,to accept donations from every scoundrel who goes and makes an offering of a fraction of his ill gotten wealth as appeasement ?

Religious organisations have to be whiter than white. These days, they are as much business organisations as religious ones, commanding large capital and cash flows. Excuses that they are solely concerned with matters temporal, won't fly. They must meet every test of international law, as all of us are expected to. Failing which they must be blacklisted, as the Bank of Italy has tried to in a small way.

"In God we trust" cannot be an empty slogan.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Ramamritham has been found !

Voilà . The real Ramamritham has been found !! He does exist. Hurray !  Or at least he did.

See this post from my good friend Sriram for irrefutable proof !



Friday, January 4, 2013

Business Jazz - 4th January 2013 - Guiding Words


It's that time of year again when we tell ourselves we're going to put our best foot forward - change a few things. Some changes will be quite radical; some less so. They will all make our lives better.

Change isn't easy, though. Before you know it, your resolutions are in the waste paper basket, along with last year's.

Chris Brogan has a suggestion for you. Instead of committing yourself to radical change in the shape of ambitious resolutions, he recommends choosing three words that will act as your guides in the year ahead. They will be beacons for you to steer a course by; criteria on which to base decisions.

Paul and Roger discuss this concept and reveal some of their words for 2013.

They also talk about the inevitable: Failure. At some time in 2013, we will all fall down. Most probably, we'll do it repeatedly. Then what?


You can listen to this week's podcast using the player at the top of the post or download it directly here: Business Jazz - 4th January 2012.

We're also in iTunes. We'd love it if you subscribed or left some feedback.

Chris can guide you in 2013



If you'd like to subscribe to Chris' emails (the ones we discuss here), you'll find a place to sign up on his website.

If you're interested in The Impact Equation, the book he recently published with Julien Smith, you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK (these aren't affiliate links, by the way).

Business Jazz Players


This podcast is a collaboration of people dotted around the world. Most of us have never met each other. It's quite a story and it's still evolving. 
If you'd like to read what's happened so far, you'll find it here: Our Story.


PS 


Would you like to hear more? Immediately after each recording of the podcast proper, Paul gets out his iPhone and we record an Audioboo with additional thoughts.

Here is this week's:

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

The Business January 2nd 2013, The “2013- the Exciting Sequel to 2012 Starring John Cusack” Edition

Roland Emmerich guest directs this very exciting edition of The Business, in which we will face off with Godzilla in a terrible storm that happened cause we flooded the atmosphere with carbons while we were fighting aliens for our Independence.

We have guest stars to help us! (and they are the good kind that will survive til the end of the movie!


… OR WILL THEY?!?!)

Jules Posner!

Jules Posner is a stand up comedian and San Francisco native. He has been described as a comedian who, “puts the ‘b’ in subtle”. Jules performs all over the country and is a regular at the SF Punchline. Jules Posner has been featured on Jokes.com, Hulu, and SF Sketchfest 2011-2012.

Tony Camin!

Tony has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Real Time with Bill Maher, and lots of others that have been cancelled. He's has performed at The Just For Laughs festival in Montreal as well as The HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, as well as the Melbourne Comedy festival in Australia. Tony has written for programs on NBC, VH1, and Comedy Central. In addition to being co-creator/ performer of "The Marijuana-Logues", he can also be seen as a correspondent for "The Media Project", on IFC.

This Big Big show is just $5. You can even bring a friend for free!!!!!!!$!!! with one of our two-for-one coupons.
http://thebusinesscomedy.blogspot.com/

We sell out, get there early for a seat!

BYONYBurrito

The young shall inherit the earth

The birth of a new year is a time of rejoicing, of drink and dance, of fireworks, of endless wishes, of resolutions and maybe the odd wistfulness of a year gone by. It is also a moment to reflect on the passage of time - of years whizzing by. I was prompted by this brilliant article in the FT  to muse on what sort of a world are we leaving for the young - for it is they who shall inherit the earth.

It is the fond wish of every parent to care and provide for his children. Yet collectively, humanity seems to be doing the opposite. How can it be that a powerful motive for the self, disappears when it comes to the whole ?

December was an awful month for the young. The shooting of school children in Newton, Connecticut and the rape and death of a young lady in Delhi would have shocked the most hardened of souls.  But those awful incidents have to stand by the side of equally awful things we do to the young

Many children under the age of 5 die. Its a shame on humankind that 19000 children under the age of five die every day, largely from preventable causes,  and my own country India, is the top contributor. I don't even want to guess the number of children we enslave, prostitute and kill. We are unable as a race to send 70 million children to school. We discriminate against the girl child in all sorts of ways and shoot the brave Malala, all because she wanted an education. In some countries, mainly the US, we have made the cost of college education so prohibitive that every student passing out starts life with a staggering amount of debt on her back.

All countries in the world are on a borrowing binge and leave the debt to be picked up by future generations. Every nation. including China, has a mountain of debt. We would individually cringe at leaving a debt for our child instead of a house, but as a collective nation, our sense of responsibility seems to have deadened.We all want fat pensions, but do not want to pay for it and are very happy to leave that liability unfunded for our children to bear. In many countries in the developed world, we offer no chance of employment for the young - we want to protect our jobs and make it impossible for anybody to fire us, but are happy to not even give an opportunity of a job to our children.

We debunk the theory of global warming because it does not suit us. We do not care much for the environment and are happy to leave the world a littered and polluted place. We do not even want to begin action on climate change. We exploit every fossil fuel that we can , knowing that very soon they would run out - that's a problem for our children to deal with. We deplete ground water in my country at such an alarming rate that very soon the next generation will fight wars over water. The less said about the number of trees we leave for our children, the better.

Our families are no longer the rock on which the young can grow on. Joint families have given way to nuclear families. Nuclear families are giving way to single parents. Many of us are far too busy running our lives. Our time, the most precious commodity for a child is, alas, is short supply. What has happened to the values, the most precious gift we can give our young. Not one of us, in my country, stops at a red light unless a policeman is watching - and sometimes not even then.  We teach the next generation by example, it is OK to do virtually anything as long as you don't get caught.

What has my generation come to. What do we do the many things we do, for ? Aren't we interested in how history will judge us by - aren't we afraid that we will be looked at with contempt by future generations.

Forgive us Lord for we know not what we do. And show us the way, for we are lost.