Business Matters » podcast

The Job Market of the Future

jonah — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:00:31 +0000

This week on Business Matters we’re looking beyond the figures about fluctuations in the unemployment rate to find out what’s really ahead for the job market. We’ll find out which jobs won’t be outsourced and learn the perspective of a human resources specialist on ways to improve your human capital in the job market. Also, in our Beyond the News segment, find out why NPR refused to air promos for one of its own hosts.

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Behind the News
With Special Guest Dan Peak, President of World-Check | Download MP3

Related Links:
-The Big Uneasy
-Harry Shearer

Ron Hira, Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology| Download MP3

Ron Hira is assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of “Outsourcing America: The True Cost of Shipping Jobs Overseas and What Can Be Done About It” Ron is a recognized expert on outsourcing, and the only person to testify twice before Congress on its implications.

Steve Miranda, Global HR Executive, SHRM | Download MP3

Steve is the Chief Global HR and Content Integration Officer for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Steve is a former HR Vice President at Lucent Technologies where his work took him around the world, including a 3 ½ year assignment as head of Lucent’s HR operations for the Asia Pacific region. SHRM represents more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries and serves the needs of HR professionals and the interests of the HR profession.

The Dynamics of Change

jonah — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:47 +0000

According to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, almost 75 percent of all programs of organizational change fail because they don’t create the necessary of support among their membership. This week on Business Matters, we examine the dynamics of change. We’ll be joined by a change management expert to explain the challenges of a leader trying to implement change and ways to roll with changes as they come, rather than fearing change. But first we explore the background behind the closing of a historic community bank in Chicago.

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Beyond the News
With Special Guest Robert Kuttner, Co-Editor of The American Prospect| Download MP3

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow. He was a longtime columnist for BusinessWeek, and continues to write columns in the Boston Globe.

Bob is the author of eight books, including the recent New York Times bestseller, Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency. His last book, The Squandering of America (2007), explores political roots of America’s narrowing prosperity and the systemic risks facing the U.S. economy. Bob has also begun work on a new book on the challenge of regulating global capitalism.

Rick Maurer, Author, Beyond the Wall of Resistance| Download MP3

Rick Maurer works with leaders who want to lead change without migraines™. Through Maurer & Associates, he provides expertise to help you identify even deeply hidden resistance, overcome it rapidly, and thereby implement even the most difficult strategic and tactical changes.

Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking

jonah — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:00:29 +0000

This week on Business Matters, we’ve invited science writer Jonah Lehrer to discuss the brain mechanics underlying decision-making. We’ll talk about how too much information can sometimes make decisions more difficult, a condition he describes as “paralysis by analysis” in his recent book, “How We Decide.” We’ll also explore how one can improve on their own decision making process by practicing “metacognition,” or “thinking about thinking.” Also this week, Market-Check CEO Dan Peak joins us to discuss the deeper meaning beyond the headlines in our weekly feature, “Beyond the News.”

Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3

Beyond the News
With Special Guest Dan Peak, CEO of World-Check| Download MP3

Jonah Lehrer, Author, How We Decide| Download MP3

Jonah Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired Magazine and the author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. He’s also contributed to the New Yorker, the NY Times Magazine, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe and he’s a frequent contributor on WNYC’s Radiolab. He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, but Jonah first become interested in science journalism after a stint as a lab technician performing menial tasks. He also writes the Frontal Cortex blog for Wired.

The Business of Net Neutrality

jonah — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:00:43 +0000

This week on Business Matters, we explore how the debate over prioritizing of internet bandwidth could shift the future of the internet from its largely free and open roots. Google and Verizon have just announced a policy framework which includes a re-definition of network neutrality that risks leading to increased corporate power and decreased consumer accessibility on the internet. Today we invited Craig Aaron to help explain the importance of net neutrality.

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Craig Aaron, Managing Director of Free Press | Download MP3

Craig leads all Free Press program, advocacy, and public education work. He works in the Washington office and speaks often on media, Internet and journalism issues. His commentaries appear regularly in the Guardian and the Huffington Post. He recently edited and co-authored the book Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age. Before joining Free Press, he was an investigative reporter for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch. Craig previously worked as the managing editor of In These Times magazine and edited the book Appeal to Reason: 25 Years In These Times. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Women in Charge

jonah — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:22:51 +0000

This week on Business Matters we explore how women have gradually but steadily become a majority of the workforce. Partly, it’s been accentuated by the ongoing recession as traditionally male-dominated sectors contract. While women are already a slight majority in managerial and professional jobs, only 2 growth industries (janitorial and computer engineer) are still mainly composed of men. We were inspired to explore this subject today by Hanna Rosin’s article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, entitled “The End of Men.” So we invited on a friend of our show, Margaret Heffernan.

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Margaret Heffernan| Download MP3

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, Chief Executive and author. She was born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University. In 2004, Margaret published “The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto about Business and What Really Matters” and in 2007 she brought out “How She Does It: How Female Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules for Business Success“. She is Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Simmons College in Boston and Executive in Residence at Babson College. She sits on the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the UK as well as one the boards of several private companies. Margaret blogs for the Huffington Post and writes for Fast Company, Real Business, MORE, and other magazines around the world.

How the Internet is Taking Over our Minds

jonah — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:24:49 +0000

This week on Business Matters we’re exploring the ways that the saturation of technology is changing our very nature. We’ll find out how our minds are being shaped by our changing relationship with information and what the evolutionary implications for the future will be. We’ll find out if the internet is shortening out attention spans, if Google is making us stupider, if we are programming ourselves out of creativity, and if anyone is really any good at multitasking.

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Nicholas Carr
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Nicholas Carr writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology. He is the author of the 2008 Wall Street Journal bestseller The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which is “widely considered to be the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement,” according the Christian Science Monitor. His earlier book, Does IT Matter?, published in 2004, “lays out the simple truths of the economics of information technology in a lucid way, with cogent examples and clear analysis,” said the New York Times. His new book is: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

Carr has written for many periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, The Financial Times, Die Zeit, The Futurist, and Advertising Age, and has been a columnist for The Guardian and The Industry Standard. His much-discussed essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” which appeared as the cover story of the Atlantic Monthly’s Ideas issue in the summer of 2008, has been collected in three popular anthologies:The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Technology Writing, and The Best Spiritual Writing. Carr has written a personal blog, Rough Type, since 2005.

The Future of the Tech “Big Three”

jonah — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:54:05 +0000

This week on Business Matters, we will explore the future of the “Big Three” in the consumer technology arena. Apple and Microsoft have been dueling over software and hardware for decades, but Google is the new kid on the block. This week we’ll ask Matt Burns, News Editor of TechCrunch to help us understand where the world of computing, smart phones and the next frontier: tablets.

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Violence in the Media

jonah — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:00:41 +0000

Periodically our attention is brought to the possible impact of media violence on the behaviors in society. This usually happens when there has been some human tragedy such as Columbine or Virginia Tech. Then we are searching for answers and we then wonder if violence in the media isn’t a contributor to the terrible situation. There will be hearings and reports. This is on top of the 50 years of every kind of psychological and physiological study imagined. We will solemnly agree that media violence should be addressed and then we move on to the next high profile crisis.

Yet, with all this evidence and public support as voiced in numerous studies and surveys, we continue to spend increasing amounts on media that is deemed violent. This week we find out about why this disparity exists and what we can do to help children make the best media choices.

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James Potter| Download MP3

For over 25 years, Dr. James Potter has been studying the impact of violence in the media. Jim is a Professor in the Communications Department of the University of California Santa Barbara. His seminal book, 11 Myths of Media Violence has been studied across the US He is a former editor of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media as well as the editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Media Violence. He has published numerous scholarly articles, book chapters, and 13 other books. He is currently at work on a general of theory of the mass media in which he plans to integrate the theories and research findings about the mass media industries, their content, audiences, and effects into a unified system of explanation.

Michael Mann| Download MP3

Michael Mann is an award-winning storyteller, author, training consultant and speaker, bringing a variety of educational programs and workshops to children and adults. Michael has been an active advocate of the mission of the National Institute on Media and the Family since 1997, originally as a media rater for the MediaWise® KidScore® program.

Michael was a nominee for the Anne Richardson Reading is Fundamental national award and is currently working in the area of storytelling and emergent literacy. As a founding member of Cygnus Storytelling, he worked with the families and staff of the Waldorf Schools to develop a family storytelling curriculum. He is past president of the Northlands Storytelling Network, and on the artist rosters of COMPAS Global Arts Presentations, Artists to Go, and the Minnesota Story Alliance. Michael is an active member of the National Storytelling Network, where he participates in the “Stories in Organizations” special interest group.

For Your Consideration | Download MP3

A challenge to parents to increase their involvement in their children’s media choices.

(Originally broadcast February, 2010)

Links:

Get a copy of the Kaiser Family Foundation study, “M² Media in the lives of 8 to 18 year-olds.”

The Raw Milk Program

jonah — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:43:51 +0000

The power of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been focused on a national effort to ban the consumption of raw milk. This tireless effort has not been entirely successful. Today raw milk can be purchased at either the farm or retail in 28 states. Wisconsin has a bill currently winding its way through the legislature to legalize farm sales of raw milk.

Those who are on the front line of this issue clearly see that the fight is about more than raw milk. It s about the consumers’ right to decide what they eat. This concern has risen with the recent approval by the by the US House of Representatives, known as Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. This legislation is making its way through the US Senate. This will give the FDA much broader authority particularly in the area of food safety. This wasn’t motivated by the raw milk controversy, it came out of other food borne disease issues. The FDA stance on raw milk gives many consumer advocates concern about the impact this legislation will have.

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David Gumpert
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David Gumpert is a journalist who contributes regularly to BusinessWeek, Grist and The Nation. Faced with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, David found out first hand about the business of health care. This motivated him to share what he has learned in his popular blog, The Complete Patient Blog. He has also written a number of books about small business and entrepreneurship, including Burn Your Business Plan! His latest book is, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights

Peter Kennedy
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Peter is a Sarasota, Fl. Attorney who is the President of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund Pete works on dairy issues for the Weston A. Price Foundation, particularly, the right of farmers to distribute raw milk and raw milk products direct to consumers. He has represented or assisted in the representation of dairy farmers facing possible state enforcement action in Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. He has helped farmers get started in the business of distributing raw milk and raw milk products in many other states. He has written articles for Wise Traditions Magazine on the interstate ban on raw milk products for human consumption and on the legality of selling raw milk interstate for animal consumption. He compiled the state raw milk laws and state raw milk summaries posted at www.realmilk.com. He is currently working with others to challenge the federal ban on the interstate shipment of raw milk for human consumption.

Max Kane
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Max is a Viroqua, Wisconsin resident who was diagnosed with Crohnes disease at the age of 10. As a young adult Max was 5′11” and weighted just 110 pounds. Finding that traditional medicine wasn’t providing a cure, Max went on a raw food diet. It worked. Max gained 80 pounds and is in the pink of health. This experience has motivated Max to be a national advocate for the benefits of raw milk. Last year Max went coast-to-coast on his Ride for Raw Milk. More recently, Max is defending himself in court as the attorney general of Wisconsin is trying to get Max to divulge information on members of a raw milk cooperative* in Chicago named Belle’s Lunchbox.

For Your Consideration
Find out who’s watching over us when it comes to food safety.
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The Accountability of Business

jonah — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:00:07 +0000

This week on Business Matters, find out if accountability is possible in world of complexity and political expediency. When you talk to people, they wholeheartedly want accountability. When you ask if they want it in their own workplace, they begin to worry if it is just another way to be blamed when things go wrong.

We explore the adoption of accountability in organizations from three perspectives. First we look at it from the eyes of an academic. Then we talk with the author of the most popular book on the subject. Finally, we talk with a CEO who not only believes in accountability, he practices it big time.

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Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |

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Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr., is the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School. He is also Senior Associate Dean and Chair of the MBA Program. Badaracco has taught courses on business ethics, strategy, and management in the School’s MBA and executive programs. Badaracco is a graduate of St. Louis University, Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar, and Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA and a DBA. He has also been chairman of the Harvard University Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and has served on the boards of two public companies. Badaracco has taught in executive programs in the United States, Japan, and many other countries and has spoken to a wide variety of organizations on issues of leadership, values, and ethics.

Badaracco’s research focuses on business ethics, particularly on leadership and individual decision making, and he has written four books on these topics. These are Business Ethics: Roles and Responsibilities, Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose between Right and Right, and Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing. His most recent book, Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership through Literature, was published in April, 2006. It presents the lessons for leaders suggested by works of serious literature.

Roger Connors
Author
The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Individual and Organizational Accountability

Download MP3 Roger Connors is a principal and founder of Partners In Leadership, Inc. Over the last twenty years, Partners In Leadership has become a widely respected international leadership and management consulting firm that has implemented consulting and training services in a myriad of organizations ranging in size from small “start-ups” to Fortune 500 companies. Roger has assisted scores of management teams in successfully Accelerating The Cultural Transition(R) in their organizations to a Culture Of Accountability. He has significant experience in helping management teams facilitate large scale Cultural Transition. In addition, he has worked with numerous management groups to assist them in building teams and in building greater accountability at all levels in the organization. Roger holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Brigham Young University and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University He is the co-author of the best-selling book, The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual And Organizational Accountability. He is also co-author of Journey To The Emerald City: Achieve A Competitive Edge By Creating A Culture Of Accountability. In 2009, Roger co-wrote, How did that Happen: Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way.

Shawn Boyer, Founder & CEO, SnagAJob.com
2008 National Small Business Person of the Year |
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Shawn Boyer founded SnagAJob.com in 1999, and since then, he has taken the company from being a start-up to the nation’s largest part-time and hourly job-posting site. In 2008, Shawn was named the nation’s Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. That same year, he also saw one of his most ambitious goals for the company come true when SnagAJob.com was named a Best Small & Medium Company to Work for in America by the Great Places to Work Institute.

Prior to starting SnagAJob, this big thinker and passionate leader was actually a transactional attorney for Brown & Wood LLP (now Sidley Austin, LLP) and Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald, LLP. He holds a Master of Law in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center, a Juris Doctor from Washington & Lee University, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the College of William and Mary.

Aside from mowing lawns in middle school, Shawn’s first hourly job was in a retail store in his sophomore year in high school. “From day one, that job taught me that the customer is absolutely the organization’s lifeblood, that they drive the business, and that you need to bend over backwards to wow them.” That same philosophy is embraced throughout SnagAJob.com today.

For Your Consideration

A personal challenge to be accountable for everything.

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