Can New Building Toys for Girls Improve Math and Science Skills? “The old chestnut that girls don’t build is really gone. Now there is considerable interest in girls building”

April 16, 2013, 7:03 p.m. ET

Can New Building Toys for Girls Improve Math and Science Skills?

By DIANA KAPP

Amid concern among parents and educators about girls’ math and engineering skills, a growing number of companies say they have an answer: toys.

Construction toys for girls, once a well-intentioned but unsuccessful part of the toy market, are blossoming. Small toy makers littleBits, GoldieBlox Inc. and Maykah Inc. are marketing products they say can bolster spatial skills, which recent research has linked to degrees and careers in these disciplines.

A Maykah Inc.’s Roominate kit, which girls can use to build dollhouses and other products, includes circuits to power a light or fan.

The Lego Friends line launched last year with items like ‘Olivia’s Tree House.’

For the founder of GoldieBlox, one aim is to get girls to love engineering.

LittleBits aims for its snap-together electronic modules to appeal to both genders. Read more of this post

The Art of Thinking Clearly

The Art of Thinking Clearly [Hardcover]

Rolf Dobelli (Author)

Release date: May 14, 2013

The Art of Thinking Clearly by world-class thinker and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli is an eye-opening look at human psychology and reasoning — essential reading for anyone who wants to avoid “cognitive errors” and make better choices in all aspects of their lives.

Have you ever: Invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn’t worth it? Or continued doing something you knew was bad for you? These are examples of cognitive biases, simple errors we all make in our day-to-day thinking. But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better decisions.

Simple, clear, and always surprising, this indispensable book will change the way you think and transform your decision-making—work, at home, every day. It reveals, in 99 short chapters, the most common errors of judgment, and how to avoid them. Read more of this post

Sir Luke Johnson: Red tape is stifling job creation; Gold-plating regulations provides yet another reason for entrepreneurs to ask: “Why bother?”

April 16, 2013 4:46 pm

Red tape is stifling job creation

By Luke Johnson

Gold-plating regulations provides yet another reason for entrepreneurs to ask: “Why bother?”

In Westminster and in Washington alike, politicians constantly say they want to stimulate entrepreneurship and promote investment. But warm words count for nothing if actions on the ground do not match the positive rhetoric from Downing Street and the White House.

The only pub in the village near my house in rural Malvern went bust and shut down. As an adventure, I bought it, refurbished the premises and relaunched the business late last year. The idea was never to make a significant profit but to open an establishment that would suit the community and of which I could be proud. Trading there has been tough, partly because of the poor weather. But we are making progress, and the locals have been supportive.

The ones who have not been so encouraging are the bureaucrats, despite the challenges facing the region. This part of the country is not wealthy: there are dozens of closed pubs and almost no outsiders putting money into the region. Yet the only communication of any kind I have had from government since I started the business has been bills, especially from the various tax authorities: property, employee, corporation, value added tax, licensing and so on. Never so much as a “thank you” or “good luck”. Read more of this post

Charities try their luck with online game amid a slowdown in cash donations and government funding; “Charities are looking to innovate, and reaching new audiences is the Holy Grail.”

April 16, 2013 12:00 am

Charities try their luck with online game

By Henry Mance

Leading charities are aiming to raise $1bn from an online game, in their latest effort to swap rattling coin collections for the digital marketplace.

Jaro.com, which is supported by 11 big charities including Age UK and the British Red Cross, will charge players of its battleships game $10 to enter a knockout tournament. Users will decide how to split their entrance fee between a particular good cause and a jackpot prize.

The move highlights charities’ increasing engagement with new technology, amid a slowdown in cash donations and government funding. The Disasters Emergency Committee announced last week that for the first time one of its appeals had received most of its donations from digital platforms, rather than by post or phone.

Computer games, which are played by about one in three people in the UK, have excited particular enthusiasm as a way of raising funds while engaging donors.

Jaro.com is aiming to sign up more than 100m users worldwide within 12 months.

“It’s not a traditional gambling product – it’s a social game. It gives people a new way to control where the money goes. That’s the key difference with the lottery,” said Anthony Farah, head of Jaro.com. Read more of this post

Forget the personality pigeonholes; backlash against the dominance of extroversion in the workplace; More people are sick of being told they have to work constantly in groups to be creative and spend three-quarters of their day in meetings

Forget the personality pigeonholes

April 16, 2013

The Venture

Promotion of the strong, silent types – introverts – gets louder by the day. A growing number of authors and academics argue introverts are potentially more creative than their extroverted peers, better team players and superior managers.

The most recent cheerleading for introversion is an article in the prestigious Academy of Management Journal: “The downfall of extroverts and rise of neurotics: the dynamic process of status allocation in task groups,” by UCLA Anderson School of Management’s Corinne Bendersky and Rutgers Business School’s Neha Parikh Shah.

It follows Susan Cain’s excellent 2012 book Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking, and her widely watched TED video that espoused the benefits of introversion. Other management experts are surely queuing up to push the case for introversion over extroversion, such is the growing interest in the topic.

Worthy as it is, none of this research considers the merits of introversion over extroversion from a start-up entrepreneurship perspective.

What’s your view?

• Do you need to be extroverted to get a venture off the ground and grow it quickly – at least in the first few years?
• Is it much harder for introverted start-up entrepreneurs to succeed?
• Can you be an effective salesperson if you are introverted?
• Can introverts change to extroversion when needed, with practice?

 What are the benefits of introversion in start-up entrepreneurship?

I suspect the big push for introversion is, in part, a backlash against the dominance of extroversion in the workplace. More people are sick of being told they have to work constantly in groups to be creative, have open-plan offices and spend three-quarters of their day in meetings.

They know they are more creative and effective in a quiet work space on their own, yet find opportunities to shut the door and think deeply about issues are increasingly limited. Cain’s book forcefully argued the case to give workers more time to think on their own. Read more of this post

When Swindlers Worked the ‘Big Con’ on Stock Investors; Enter the confidence man, who calibrated his pitch just right: He wasn’t offering something for nothing; he was looking for a wide-awake investor who knew how to read the winds.

When Swindlers Worked the ‘Big Con’ on Stock Investors

In the 1900s and 1910s, hundreds of swindling teams worked the Big Con in U.S. cities.

The time was right because, by the beginning of the century, the sensational exploits of robber barons and the vast fortunes to be had from railroad, mining and other industrial enterprises had created an appetite for financial speculation that most Americans couldn’t satisfy.

The stock markets were open only to the few who could afford the high share minimum and margin requirements. This moment in history — after gambling ceased to be widely considered immoral and before securities became a standard part of retirement funds — left middle-class businessmen quivering for opportunity.

Enter the confidence man, who calibrated his pitch just right: He wasn’t offering something for nothing; he was looking for a wide-awake investor who knew how to read the winds. Read more of this post

Fathers struggling to ‘have it all’; Men are reluctant to speak of problems with their work-life balance – but there are remedies

April 15, 2013 3:22 pm

Fathers struggling to ‘have it all’

By Naomi Shragai

A senior television executive is reading a bedtime story to his eight-year-old daughter. It is 10pm and he has just returned home from work. His phone rings – a work call – and he answers it, leaving the story unfinished.

His daughter shouts from her bed: “You’re a terrible father!” He returns to his daughter and tries to explain, with little success, why the call was important.

This executive works late and sees his daughter for only about two hours during the working week. Although he feels guilty about this and fears he is missing the best moments of family life, he seems unable to switch off from work.

This scene will be familiar to many men in senior positions who have have taxing jobs and struggle to respond to respond to the demands of family life. Read more of this post

Why Well-Informed People Are Also Close-Minded

Why Well-Informed People Are Also Close-Minded

How do people form political beliefs? When will they change their minds? When will actual facts matter? A recent study, conducted by political scientist Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College and two co-authors, offers some clues. One group of participants was provided with a 2009 news article in which Sarah Palin claimed that the Barack Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act created death panels and that these panels included bureaucrats authorized to decide whether seniors were “worthy of health care.” A separate group was given the same news story, but with an appended correction saying that “nonpartisan health care experts have concluded that Palin is wrong.”

The study’s big question: Would the correction have any effect? Would people who saw the correction be less likely to believe that the Affordable Care Act calls for death panels? Not surprisingly, the correction was more likely to convince people who viewed Palin unfavorably than those who had a high opinion of her. Notably, the correction also tended to sway the participants who liked Palin but who didn’t have a lot of political knowledge (as measured by their answers to general questions, such as how many terms a president may serve).

Here’s the most interesting finding in the study. Those who viewed Palin favorably, and who also had a lot of political knowledge, were not persuaded by the correction. On the contrary, it made them more likely to believe Palin was right. Read more of this post

Are accountants and CFOs killing innovation?

Are accountants and CFOs killing innovation?

Alvin Lee | Business | Sat, April 13 2013, 2:53 PM

What can you do when penny-pinchers get in the way of your disruptive ideas to make necessary, often disruptive, changes in your company?

When Dell announced in February its decision to take the company private in a deal estimated at US$24.4 billion, founder and CEO Michael Dell said in a statement the move was part of the strategy to “continue the execution of our long-term strategy and focus on delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers as a private enterprise”.

One could have added that the deal was necessary to give Dell the breathing space it needed – away from the demands of shareholders and the market – to re-boot its strategy and recover its profits from its bread-and-butter PC business, which have been badly hit by sexier, more innovative products such Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle.

For big corporations – regardless of industry – making disruptive changes isn’t a question of money: many have substantial budgets and can ride out the disruption. It’s a question of mindset and how you position the innovative disruption on the balance sheet– and that can be the downfall.

INSEAD Associate Professor of Accounting and Control Gilles Hilary, in the research paper Does Accounting Conservatism Impede Corporate Innovation?, makes the case that firms with a greater degree of accounting conservatism are less innovative because of, among other things, the requisite accounting practice of immediately provisioning for future losses.  Read more of this post

Disseminating Strategy: A User’s Guide; Your new strategy looks good on paper, it looks good in the executive suite. But what does it take for the work force to get it?

Disseminating Strategy: A User’s Guide

By Charles Galunic, Professor of Organizational Behaviour with Alvin Lee, Web Editor | April 8, 2013

Your new strategy looks good on paper, it looks good in the executive suite. But what does it take for the work force to get it?

Britain’s Prime Minister during World War II, Winston Churchill, once quipped, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”  And as managers know, an important part of getting the results you want is ensuring employees “get” the strategy so they can carry it out.

In his latest research paper titled “Embedding Strategy”, INSEAD Professor of Organisational BehaviourCharles Galunic explores how senior management can increase those odds of being able to “embed” strategy in the workforce. “We measure strategy embeddedness as basically two things,” says Galunic. “One is: Do you understand the strategy? The second issue is: Do you accept it? Do you like the strategy? So when we talk about strategic embeddedness, there’s this combination of understanding and accepting.” Read more of this post

From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Keynes

From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Keynes (Harvard East Asian Monographs)[Paperback]

Publication Date: November 30, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0674036204 | ISBN-13: 978-0674036208

From his birth in the lowest stratum of the samurai class to his assassination at the hands of right-wing militarists, Takahashi Korekiyo (1854-1936) lived through tumultuous times that shaped the course of modern Japanese history. Takahashi is considered “Japan’s Keynes” in many circles because of the forward-thinking (and controversial) fiscal and monetary policies–including deficit financing, currency devaluation, and lower interest rates–that he implemented to help Japan rebound from the Great Depression and move toward a modern economy.

Richard J. Smethurst’s engaging biography underscores the profound influence of the seven-time finance minister on the political and economic development of Japan by casting new light on Takahashi’s unusual background, unique talents, and singular experiences as a charismatic and cosmopolitan financial statesman.

Along with the many fascinating personal episodes–such as working as a houseboy in California and running a silver mine in the Andes–that molded Takahashi and his thinking, the book also highlights four major aspects of Takahashi’s life: his unorthodox self-education, his two decades of service at the highest levels of government, his pathbreaking economic and political policies before and during the Depression, and his efforts to stem the rising tide of militarism in the 1930s. Deftly weaving together archival sources, personal correspondence, and historical analysis, Smethurst’s study paints an intimate portrait of a key figure in the history of modern Japan. Read more of this post

Charles Handy: Righting management wrongs; Britain’s best-known business guru believes modern companies damage personal relationships

THE MONDAY INTERVIEW

April 14, 2013 4:50 pm

Charles Handy: righting management wrongs
By Andrew Hill

Portfolio careers, the rise of the home-worker, the spread of outsourcing, the dangers of an obsession with shareholder value. Charles Handy was talking about these ideas two decades ago. At the time they sounded radical, now they are commonplace. At 80, he ought to be content.

Yet, from his armchair in front of the fire, overlooking the garden of his flat in a prosperous part of Putney, southwest London, the management writer and self-described social philosopher sounds gloomy. “I am seriously worried that the rather frenetic atmosphere in some organisations. . . . is really damaging relationships at home,” he says.

In a lecture on Monday night for Relate, the UK relationship counselling service, he will take employers to task for setting a breakneck pace for their staff. He will also urge individuals, specifically couples, to reformulate the unspoken contract with their employers, and with each other, at critical phases of their lives. Read more of this post

Antarctic Ice Melt Is Worst In 1,000 Years [Study]

Antarctic Ice Melt Is Worst In 1,000 Years [Study]

Posted: April 15, 2013

This year’s Antarctic ice melt is the continent’s worst in 1,000 years, according to a new study by a research team from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey. Read more of this post

The family-run firms of Savile Row are an object lesson in how to update a centuries-old brand. Campden looks at the family business keeping classic tailoring on-trend

THE GREATEST ROW ON EARTH

ARTICLE | 11 APRIL, 2013 09:30 AM | BY SIMON BROOKE

If you’d walked into the upstairs offices of Savile Row tailor Henry Poole & Co a few weeks ago you’d have been met by a plaster model of the seated figure of the late Emperor Hirohito of Japan, completely naked except for a pair of smartly polished black City brogues.  His Imperial Majesty was waiting to be measured for a new suit ready for his appearance in a new branch of Madame Tussauds in the Far East. It’s all part of everyday life for the celebrated tailors, which was founded in 1822 and dressed the real life emperor, along with Edward VII (see panel), Buffalo Bill and Charles Dickens.

“We’re constantly finding famous people that we’ve dressed over the centuries,” explains Simon Cundey, the seventh generation of the family which founded and still runs Henry Poole, as he points to huge leather bound books containing measurements, cloth details and delivery dates. Next to them are row upon row of brown paper patterns for current clients and racks of jackets and trousers, tacking stitches and linings on display, ready for first fittings. Alongside them sits a magnificent piece of military finery in brilliant red fabric with lashings of gold braid (pictured, right). Read more of this post

Creative ambition is lovely, but what happens when you need real money?

I’M FOR SALE

Creative ambition is lovely, but what happens when you need real money?

BY GENEVIEVE SMITH

When I was 26, my then roommate was a great scavenger of furniture. One day, she came home with a daybed frame: a twin-size wooden box with only three legs, which is likely why someone had left it on a curb in the first place. The frame sat propped against our dining room wall for the next year, until I moved in with my boyfriend (now husband), and she let us take it. My husband made a fourth leg out of salvaged wood, and we found a cushion that more or less fit the frame in the “as is” section of IKEA. The back was constructed from a mattress pad rolled up and stuffed into a homemade pillowcase, and the whole ensemble was eventually covered with some black corduroy fabric that we bought for $10. All told, I think we spent about $40 on the “couch.” That was six years ago. At the time, I thought of our jury-rigged furniture as a temporary arrangement, a way station on the path to adulthood. Now it serves as a reminder of how slow and grueling the road to financial security can be.

Which brings me to a second anecdote, one that occurred about a year ago. Over a plate of pasta one night, my husband told me that I needed to make more money. I don’t remember what prompted it, whether we were discussing saving for a down payment or planning a vacation, but regardless of the topic, it was hard to argue with his point. If I really wanted the things I said I did, we’d need more than we were bringing in, than I was bringing in, because, as he implied, I was the one who wasn’t really holding up my end.

My husband and I both chose careers in so-called creative professions—he in architecture, I in magazines. Both are fields in which the prestige often outstrips the financial rewards, but for years that was fine by me. Beyond the fact of having a paycheck, I’d never really thought it mattered how much I actually brought home. Instead, every major career decision I made I’d decided with my heart, not my bank account. My first job, at a nonprofit, paid $23,000 a year. When I decided to pursue journalism, I got a job at a glossy financial magazine, but a year and a half later, I happily left it to work at my favorite publication, accepting a $31,000 salary—and a $20,000 pay cut in the process. Four-plus years passed, and, at 30, I still hadn’t closed the gap on those lost wages. Still, I had no doubt that I’d made the right decision. I loved the work and my colleagues, and I thought of my relative poverty as the price I had to pay. As a friend said of her own professional choices, “I cared about career success. I didn’t care about security.” Read more of this post

Persistence, preparation and a fearless attitude speak volumes in success; PT Hakuhodo Indonesia’s eye-catching advertisement for a language school took top honors at the recent region-wide Adfest 2013 competition

Persistence, preparation and a fearless attitude speak volumes in success

Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Business | Sat, April 13 2013, 2:50 PM

Paper Edition | Page: 16

Words of wisdom: PT Hakuhodo Indonesia’s eye-catching advertisement for a language school took top honors at the recent region-wide Adfest 2013 competition in Pattaya.(Courtesy of PT Hakuhodo Indonesia)

Many people reveal grand ambitions to head out of their own backyard and achieve success in international arenas. In most instances, they remain ambitions, based mostly on boasting and bragging, or taking a bit of creative license, in the attempt to show they can compete on the world stage.

It’s not so for Irfan Ramli, director of PT Hakuhodo Indonesia, which scooped Agency of the Year in the 2012 Citra Pariwara awards for ad agencies in Indonesia. His company also has the metal – and the mettle – of international success after taking one gold and two bronzes at the prestigious Adfest 2013 competition in Pattaya, Thailand, in March.  Read more of this post

300-year-old Phoenix Ancient Town consumed by fire of anger because of new government-imposed entrance charge; “None of the ancient towns in Europe charges an entrance fee. I’d rather go there.”

300-year-old Phoenix Ancient Town consumed by fire of anger because of new government-imposed entrance charge

Alia | April 14th, 2013 – 10:31 pm

Fenghuang Gucheng, or Phoenix Ancient Town in English, has been the center of much online discussion in the past week. The small town, located on the western boundary of Hunan province, can be dated back to Ming and Qing Dynasties. It’s a very popular tourism destination in China due to its outstanding natural beauty, untouched ancient architecture and unique culture of the Miao ethnic minority who live there.

This little small town had a restless week last week when on Thursday, local small business owners took to the street to protest against a newly-imposed “entrance ticket” of RMB 148 yuan, effective on April 10. All of a sudden, pictures of cheng guan officers (China’s city law enforcement officers) and anti-riot police raiding the little town are everywhere on the Chinese internet.

Read more of this post

Check Here to Tip Taxi Drivers or Save for 401(k); The broadest lesson is that for better or for worse, default rules and settings have a great deal of power. Businesses and governments need to think hard about them

Check Here to Tip Taxi Drivers or Save for 401(k)

By Cass R. Sunstein – Apr 9, 2013

If you have recently been in a taxi in New York City, you may have noticed a credit-card touchscreen, which suggests three possible tips. For rides of more than $15, the suggested amounts are usually 20 percent, 25 percent or 30 percent. You can give a larger tip, a smaller tip or no tip at all, but it’s easiest just to touch one of the three conspicuous options.

The touchscreen makes everything simpler. It also raises an intriguing question: Do the suggestions affect the average tip? Behavioral economists would offer a clear prediction: Because people don’t like to do even a little bit of extra work, the suggestions will matter a lot, and the average tip will increase significantly.

The prediction has turned out to be right, with one important qualification: There’s a backlash effect, with more customers giving no tip at all. This natural experiment illuminates human behavior in a lot of diverse settings, and it has implications for business and for public policy as well.

The instructive study has been done by Kareem Haggag of the University of Chicago and Giovanni Paci of Columbia University, who have compiled data on more than 13 million New York taxi rides. Using the standard social-science jargon, Haggag and Paci describe the suggested percentages as “defaults,” in the sense that they establish what customers will do if they don’t exert extra effort. Read more of this post

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want (BK Business) [Paperback]

Beverly Kaye (Author), Julie Winkle Giulioni (Author)

Release date: September 17, 2012 | Series: BK Business

Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.

But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Beverly Kaye, coauthor of the bestselling Love ’Em or Lose ’Em, and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career plans.

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions. Read more of this post