Climate Change Talks-Is it really all about money?

Too bad the climate change talks aren't about making a serious improvement on the environment. Instead it is all about money. Problem with wealthy nations contributing money to poor nations is that money is too easily embezzled or redirected into other "programs" i.e. defense.

clipped from www.nytimes.com The Major Players in the Copenhagen Talks and Their Positions Targets -- how much countries are willing to scale back the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere -- may appear to be the main issue at hand. But there are others that delegates will be absorbed with. Poor countries want billions of dollars to stave off global warming disasters and help reduce costs of lowering their own rising emissions. Wealthy nations are tiptoeing cautiously around the money question, and are demanding their own new set of checks and balances on whatever new agreement emerges that replaces or builds upon the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. What it wants: for developed countries to collectively slash up to 40 percent of CO2 below 1990 levels by 2020. It also has called for wealthy nations to contribute 0.5 to 1 percent of their gross domestic product to help poor ones address the threats of climate change.

Taking a closer look at Diversity Training

In the end, the good ole boy network is prevailing?

clipped from www.fistfuloftalent.com We Don't Need No Stinking Diversity Training It needs to be said: diversity training is futile. Training like this provides instant gratification for companies who can declare, Well, alrightee! We’ve done diversity. That wasn’t so bad. What it doesn’t deliver is results. Despite the good intentions and assumed good business sense, diversity training often achieves just the opposite of its intended effect: a study led by a sociologist at the University of Arizona found that after mandatory diversity training, representation in upper management dropped for women (7.5 percent), black men (12 percent), and black women (10%). The Latinos and Asians suffered a similar drop. Bottom line: stop talking about not tolerating intolerance and just stop tolerating it.

More Money being dumped into Email Marketing

Oh yippee...more spam for my poor email filter.

clipped from www.marketingprofs.com Marketers to Invest in Email, Social Media in 2010 Businesses are gearing up to increase their marketing spend on email marketing and social media in 2010, making those the top two areas of marketing investment in 2010, according to the just-released  2010 Marketing Trends Survey by StrongMail Systems. Asked to identify the top benefits of social media  as a marketing channel , marketers selected the following: Awareness building (64%) Customer loyalty and retention (49%) Expanded reach (46%) B2B lead generation (20%) Driving revenue (12%)

Message to Virtual Assistants is confusing

This message is touting the progressiveness of the organization and industry while in the same breath using outdated format.

There are many industry leaders who consider the term "virtual assistant" outdated. If this organization were truly innovative they would have thought of an updated term.

Secondly, many people are environmentally conscience these days. Being environmentally friendly is a sign of being progressive. Why is this organization hyping it's print publication? Seems like a throwback to the old school and not very progressive.

A visit to their website informed me the organization does have an electronic version of their publication. Now their message seems confusing and unfocused.

clipped from www.pr-inside.com Dee Middlebrooks-Bernal, Chairwoman of NAVAH, "However, we quickly discovered that that format is outdated and no longer relevant to today’s virtual assistants. Virtual assisting is no longer a business, it’s an industry. If those of us in the field don’t start treating it that way, the entire profession risks being labeled a fad and fading into irrelevance." NAVAH is also the publisher of VA Today Magazine, the first print publication for the virtual assistant industry.

Veterans Deserve So Much More

Wish there was more we could do

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Game developer's newest 'call of duty': Help vets find jobs Unemployment may have hit double digits in the nation last week, but for veterans, finding a job has always had its challenges. The unemployment rate among people who served in the military since 2001 was 11.6 percent in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those veterans who had found work, 25 percent earned less than $21,840 per year, the VA study said. Fifty-eight percent of recent veterans worked in the private sector and 36 percent had government jobs, according to the study. The foundation will make its first donation of $125,000 to the Paralyzed Veterans of America to help open a vocational rehabilitation center, the company said.

Entrepreneurship on the rise

""Rather than creating the next generation of employees, we want to create the next generation of employers," says Ted Zoller, associate professor and executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (Kenan-Flagler Full-Time MBA Profile)."

clipped from www.businessweek.com With Jobs Scant, MBAs Consider Startups Landing a banking or consulting job used to be the main reason for going to B-school. These days, it's just as likely to be launching a business Aspiring MBAs have always had an interest in starting their own businesses, say experts. But student loan debt and attractive career prospects at traditional firms have usually swayed them from pursuing startup dreams during and right out of school. Now, they're breaking with tradition and feeling less risk-averse because there isn't as much to lose. "Before students looked at entrepreneurship as job options three, four, and five," says Rob Adams, director of the Moot Corp business plan competition and lecturer at the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business (McCombs Full-Time MBA Profile)."Now, it's job option one, two, and three."

Understanding Google Sitelinks

Does your website have a Google Sitelink?

clipped from www.dailyblogtips.com How To Get Google Sitelinks The last question is: what are the benefits of having Google sitelinks? I believe there are two, one tangible and one intangible. The tangible benefit is an increase in traffic for your website, because the sitelinks will give you more exposure in the search results, increasing the CTR you will get on search queries. The intangible benefit is the credibility that you get from having sitelinks. Only established and authority sites have sitelinks, so when users come across them after searching for the name of your website or blog they will get a reassurance from Google itself that your content or products must be good.

Monitoring your own Google experience

Thank you Google for giving us access to our own data

clipped from www.techcrunch.com Google Gives You A Privacy Dashboard To Show Just How Much It Knows About you So now the company is launching a Google Dashboard, which will give you a high-level summary of everything Google knows about you by virtue of the Google products you use. This might include how many emails are in your inbox, recent subject lines, which YouTube video you’ve watched lately (yes, all of them), appointments on your calendar, and more.

Indie consultant - Overated Business

This is one of those career choices that takes a village. As an independent consultant you need a spouse with a stable full time job to provide financial stability and benefits.

clipped from smallbusinessanswers.yahoo.com The 7 Most Overrated Businesses 5. Independent Consulting. Common advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to stick with industries they know. So, for many looking to escape the corporate treadmill that means turning their professional expertise into a one-person consulting firm. more companies are indeed relying on independent contractors and freelancers these days – but it's not as easy to pull off as many imagine Many consultants struggle with time management problems, spending so much time scouting work that it's very difficult to earn steady income. "The difficulty many face is they go through peaks and valleys of having work," says Prof. Ceru. "When the engagement ends, they are frantically looking for work," which may take weeks or months. A possible solution: "A successful consulting firm needs people to find the work, grind out the work and mind the work. Unless you know you can do all three yourself, you potentially expose your business to great risk."

Video Gamers are fat

"The results of this study don’t quite showcase a development in social examination, but are a big “duh” with a side of “yeah, so?”

clipped from www.testfreaks.com You’re All a Bunch of Fat, Depressed Gamer Bums A recent study by the Center for Disease Control, published by the no less than the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is perhaps the most poorly-examined case study released about video gamers in recent years. I’m fairly certain that the average anything in America is 35 and fat. It’s a general median age, and Americans have the highest obesity rate in the world. Perhaps the average basketball player wouldn’t fit the bill, but I bet the average accountant, average TV watcher, average grocery store clerk, or average stamp collector would come back as fat, too. Especially if you only take a look at one group of people who are previously known to fit the bill…

Clever way to be a responisble pet owner

There are some mighty clever folks out there. Are you a dog owner? If yes, now be honest, when you walk your dog do you pick up after it? I hope you said yes. I know it is very easy to just step around the issue.

I was surfing around the blog-o-sphere and happened upon "A Chick with Sticks." She had a wonderful post reminding and urging us dog owners to be responsible. She showed us an adorable little bag for holding plastic bags for picking up after our dogs.

I hope you will check out Puppy Poopy Bag Holder.

Online To Do List

I like the versatility of this tool.

clipped from www.toodledo.com  An easy to use, online to-do list. Get organized, stay motivated, and be more productive. Go Anywhere Always have your todo list at hand. You can get Toodledo on your mobile phone, in your email, on your calendar, in your RSS reader, via IM, and integrated directly into your web browser. You can even print up a special foldable booklet that will fit in your pocket. Import Your Existing Tasks If you already use a task manager, you won't want to type in your tasks all over again. Toodledo can import tasks from many sources, including your Palm OS PDA, Microsoft Outlook, Apple's iCal, and other online todo lists.

Political side of Food

Are we not thinking about the political side of food because someone has already given us the answers? There are so many questions. The answers are not easy to obtain. We let someone else filter the information for us.

clipped from food.change.org Branding Food As Politics Think about going out of town and needing to buy something. Maybe food, maybe something else. You look for the name of a store or restaurant chain that you know. Say you don't find one you recognize, but you go into a place that looks like they'll have what you need. Do you find yourself looking first for a familiar brand or dish before you'll start evaluating the alternatives? An excess of choice actually being paralyzing, it's useful to have symbolic shortcuts that let us wade quickly through our options. Having once taken the time to find out what we like, or can at least tolerate, why redo that process every time? Where it comes from, who grows it and how, who harvests it, who buys it, who processes it, who it's sold to, who gets the profits. These are the political issues surrounding food, and they need to be branded that way.

Outlook 2007 Tutorial

this valuable content will enhance your Outlook skills.

clipped from www.virtualassist.net Andrea Kalli E-Learning Center: Courses Outlook 2007 - What's New videos Are you already a seasoned Outlook user and just want training that targets the new features of Outlook 2007? Maybe you want to evaluate what the new version has to offer before you decide if you want to upgrade. Look no further! $9.95 USD NOW FREE for 22 videos / approx 2 hours To Do Bar (4:47) RSS (3:04) Tasks in the Calendar (1:57) Calendar Snapshot (11:47) Calendar Subscriptions 1 (4:06) Calendar Overlay (2:45) Business Cards (16:30) Trust Center (2:46) Reminders (2:53) QuickParts (10:06) Email Editor based on Word (2:11)

How to cook an egg

one day I will cook an egg so it turns out the way I like it.

clipped from lifehacker.com Cook the Perfect Boiled Egg with the Power of Science Their "Art of cooking an egg" page contains a handy little Flash application that turns variables like egg circumference, desired yolk hardness, the egg's current temperature, and your elevation, then spits out exactly how long you should boil that egg. The site is in Norwegian, but this page provides a translation (minus the Flash app)—and reader Martin offered a quick rundown of what each segment of the Flash app asks for: 1st slider: The circumference of the egg (in cm) 2nd slider: How hard you want the egg yolk to be. (Hard = Hard, Middels = Medium, Bløtt = Soft) 3rd slider: Start temprature of the egg (on the botton, its directly from the fridge. In celcius) 4th slider: How high over the sea level you are in meters. (Because water boils faster the higher you are.) moh = meters over the sea level

Stitch Simple For the quilter

clipped from www.stitchsimple.com Escape from tedious quilt fabric preparation- without sacrificing choice Does fabric preparation annoy you? Does having to prewash and cut fabric take the fun out of quilting? Stitch Simple understands and we have the solution.

Looking for Home Staging?

Would you like to be a home stager?

clipped from www.stagingdiva.com Learn how to make money as a home stager Help your clients ~ Sell High. Sell Fast. Sell Smart. What is Home Staging? Home Staging (House Staging, House Fluffing, House Primping, Real Estate Staging) is the art of decorating a home to sell quickly and for top dollar. Established in 2004, Staging Diva® is one of the most recognized and respected names in home staging today.