Past Episodes
Our audio archive was erroneously deleted by our hosting provider. We are in the process of recovering these episodes. We expect to have them back online by March 4,2011.
September 2011
-
Business Matters is now Inside Out Radio!
Our archives will remain available here, but will not continue to be updated, make sure to subscribe to the InsideOutPodcast and join our Facebook page and thanks to all our listeners for supporting us over the years.
May 2011
-
Since the advent of the industrial revolutions there has been a noble experiment both here and abroad of businesses that owned and democratically controlled by their worker/owners. If you know about these types of businesses, you probably think of them as small and local. For the most part that's true here in the US. However, if we look across the Atlantic we find a very different story.
Since its modest beginnings in 1956 as technical college and a small workshop producing paraffin heaters, the Mondragon Corporation is a worker owned collective of cooperatives that is the seventh largest Spanish company in terms of turnover (almost $2B) and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2008 it was providing employment for 92,773 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. This model is also prominent in Italy and other countries in Europe. The story in the US has been not so strong.
Today on Business Matters, we will explore the history of the worker owned cooperatives in the US. We will talk with several success stories and a financial collective that provides funding for these type of businesses. Finally, we will talk about a recent remarkable development that links the Mondragon folks and a large US union in a novel experiment.
Originally Broadcast on January 15, 2010
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
- Melissa Hoover
- Executive Director
- US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives is a national grassroots membership organization of and for worker cooperatives, democratic workplaces, and organizations that support the growth and development of worker cooperatives. Founded in 2004 as the result of several years of organizing on the part of worker cooperatives and regional groups from around the country.
They provide support to their members and educational outreach to the public through conferences and events, resource referrals, and networking and training opportunities. Check out the various sections of their site to connect to resources and see what's happening in the dynamic and growing world of worker cooperatives!
- Erbin Crowell
- Outreach Coordinator
- Cooperative Fund of New England
- Download MP3
Erbin worked for over ten years with Equal Exchange, a worker-owned co-operative marketing fairly traded coffee, tea and chocolate from small farmer co-ops. He is currently working on a pilot program for Domestic Fair Trade. He has served in a number of elected roles with Equal Exchange, including chair of the board and worker-owner coordinator. Erbin brings to Cooperative Fund of New England a commitment to workplace democracy, community-based economics and sustainable agriculture. He holds a BA in anthropology and the visual arts from Brown University, and is currently working toward a Masters in Management (Co-operatives and Credit Unions) from St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia, Canada.
The Cooperative Fund of New England is a non-profit organization supporting cooperative development in the Northeast area of the United States. The Fund provides alternative financial services and related technical assistance to cooperative organizations at favorable rates and terms. Its policies generally accord eligibility on the basis of community service, need and merit.
Operating on a small budget, the Fund has been successfully assisting a wide variety of cooperatives, non-profits, worker owned businesses, and community groups since 1975. Funds for program lending are provided by "social investment loans" from individuals, religious groups, cooperatives and other organizations. Social investment loans are furnished on a long-term basis at low to moderate rates of interest. This investment option may be of interest to persons with discretionary financial resources who have strong social concerns about the use of their funds. Support may also be provided through tax-deductible contributions.
- Joseph Tuck
- CEO/ General Coordinator
- Alvarado Street Bakery
- Download MP3
-
Joseph Tuck is the General Coordinator/C.E.O. of Alvarado Street Bakery. Joseph started work at Alvarado Street Bakery in 1981 as a sanitation worker and over the years gained expertise both in the baking business and in worker cooperatives. Joseph has held his current position for over twenty years. In this period of time Alvarado Street Bakery has been fortunate in realizing significant growth both in its revenues and profits. Joseph has assisted the cooperative’s evolution organizationally in ways that meet the needs of their customers while giving good returns to its worker members. Currently the average hourly worker/member earns $30 dollars an hour that is augmented by a robust benefit and 401k plan. On top of the compensation package worker/members have also had yearly redemption of stock dividends that has averaged around $14,000 per year.
Joseph has provided technical assistance to various bakeries and food processors in the Russian Federation. His experience in managing a worker cooperative in a free market economy did give Joseph a unique perspective in terms of assisting Russian businesses during the first years of Perestroika. Before his employment at Alvarado Street Bakery Joseph lived in the western highlands of Scotland and was employed as a shepherd/ghille.
Alvarado Street Bakery is one of the most successful worker-owned cooperatives in the US. It provides quality baked goods to its customers nationwide. For over 20 years Alvarado Street Bakery has been a leader in producing healthy, organic whole grain breads.
Alvarado started producing whole grain organic baked goods for their local community in 1979. Their roots can be traced back to the “Food for People not for Profit” movement in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were originally part of a non-profit organization called Red Clover Worker’s Brigade. The brigade consisted of the bakery, a retail store (Santa Rosa Community Market), a trucking company, and a wholesale warehouse.
In 1981 five brigade workers decided to form a worker cooperative. They purchased the bakery and formed Semper Virens Bakery Food Cooperative. Semper Virens in Latin means “ever green” and is the botanical name for one of our area’s largest treasures, our ancient redwood forests. They decided to change the business name to Alvarado Street due to a serendipitous placement of a road sign stowed away in the bakery.
- Michelle Matos
- Co-op Development Trainer
- WAGES Cooperative
- Download MP3
Michelle joined the WAGES team in November 2008 as a Co-op Development Trainer, and provides tailored technical assistance and workshops to foster skills for new and existing co-op members. Michelle is a promoter of social justice with over 10 years of experience in organizing, leadership development and facilitation. Together with community-based organizations, Michelle has developed the leadership of immigrant workers and communities of color by conducting issue-based research and facilitating grassroots leadership development, trainings and strategic planning processes for both short-term campaigns and long-term community initiatives. Michelle holds a degree in Cultural Studies from The New School University.In the years that have passed they have continued to grow and reach out to customers that now span the globe. Currently they employ over 100 people and produce and distribute over 30 organic baked goods.
For 15 years, WAGES, Women's Action to Gain Economic Security, has worked with low-income immigrant Latinas to launch green business cooperatives, a model that enables women to work together to succeed.
As co-op members, women have healthy work, good pay, and a voice and a vote in key decisions – and they distribute business profits equitably. WAGES provides training and technical assistance to incubate the co-ops and a framework for continued learning and business growth through our Co-op Network.
In addition to building successful cooperative businesses locally, WAGES conducts community workshops throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and consults with other groups around the country. They offer an in-depth Co-op Development Toolkit to qualified organizations, and we have provided technical assistance for a number of new co-ops inspired by their model.
- Rob Witherell
- Organizer
- United Steelworkers Download MP3
The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (United Steelworkers or USW) is the largest industrial labor union in North America, with 705,000 members.[1] Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United Steelworkers represents workers in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. The United Steelworkers represent workers in a diverse range of industries, including primary and fabricated metals, chemicals, glass, rubber, heavy-duty conveyor belting, tires,transportation, utilities, container industries, pharmaceuticals, call centers andhealth care.
The United Steelworkers is currently affiliated with both the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), as well as several international union federations. On July 2, 2008 the United Steelworkers signed an agreement to merge with the United Kingdomand Ireland based union, Unite, to form a new global union entity called Workers Uniting.
Find our about their agreement with the Mondragon Corporation by clicking this link.
For Your Consideration
Find out about the grass roots campaign to move bank deposits from the "big banks" to community banks and credit unions.
Download MP3
-
On this week's Business Matters, we're examining at ways for business leaders to use the power of language to be a more effective. We'll talk with a poet and a professor of ethics at Harvard, both of whom have explored how language and storytelling can be used in business.
Originally broadcast on March 13, 2009
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |
Download MP3
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.
David Whyte, Poet, Lecturer, Author, The Three Marriages;
Founder, Many Rivers Company |
Download MP3
Poet David Whyte is the author of six books of poetry, and two best selling prose books, he holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes the Amazon and the Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops.
In addition to his six volumes of poetry, including his latest volume River Flow: New and Selected Poems, David Whyte is the author of The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, an audio lecture series and an album of poetry and music. His newest prose book The Three Marriages: Understanding the Essentials of Work, Self and Relationship.
An Associate Fellow at Templeton College and Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace.
For Your Consideration | Download MP3
Is it possible to have successful businesses that are good for everyone? -
Over the past 30 years dramatic changes have altered the agricultural landscape both here and around the world. Since 1981 we have lost over 750,000 family farms and half of those that are left augment their income from off farm sources.
There is less diversity in our farming (just look a the mile after mile of corn or soybeans on the farms along our highways with no farm animals in sight to see it first hand) that has raised alarms with everyone from environmentalists to economists. Since the 1950s our government policies have created rewards for farmers who are larger, large agribusiness companies and made it harder to be a family farmer.
The companies selling the essential products in the agricultural food chain like seeds or feed or fertilizer have vertically integrated so that they control things from the farm to the dinner plate. What's the impact of all this change? In our digging around, we have become alarmed. Many experts are raising concerns about risks we face because of this intense consolidation, and today we'll explore these concerns on Business Matters.
(Originally broadcast February 19, 2010)
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson | Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson is director of Food Circles Networking Project, a program of the University of Missouri Extension. She currently is focusing her work efforts on consumer education and community building as well as connecting farmers with distributors and helping food service source locally produced food. Her work has led to several community-based processing activities, making local food programming a strong priority in the Kansas City and St. Louis urban extension programs.
She is the author of The Global Food System and Nodes of Power. Mary also serves as associate director of Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program where she works with mid-sized cooperatives in beef and pork processing from initial planning to start-up, researching potential opportunities in direct-marketing to restaurants and establishing connections between distributors and farmers.
Hendrickson was a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow. She was awarded the 2001 Cooperative Service Award by the National Farmers Union and received the Family Farm Leadership Award presented by the Missouri Farmers Union.
Doug Gurian-Sherman| Download MP3
Doug Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist in the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) where he focuses on agricultural biotechnology and sustainable agriculture. He is the author of numerous papers and reports, including No Sure Fix: Prospects for Reducing Nitrogen Fertilizer Pollution through Genetic Engineering, Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops, and CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations.
From 2004 to 2006, Dr. Gurian-Sherman was senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety in Washington, DC. Previously, he was founding co-director and science director for the biotechnology project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he was responsible for assessing human health and environmental risks from transgenic plants and microorganisms and developing biotechnology policy. Before joining the EPA, he worked in the Biotechnology Group at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From 2002 to 2005, Dr. Gurian-Sherman served on the Food and Drug Administration's inaugural advisory food biotechnology subcommittee.
Dr. Gurian-Sherman holds a doctorate degree in plant pathology from the University of California at Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral research on rice and wheat molecular biology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Albany, California.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
UCS began as a collaboration between students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 is now an alliance of more than 250,000 citizens and scientists. UCS members are people from all walks of life: parents and businesspeople, biologists and physicists, teachers and students. Their achievements over the decades show that thoughtful action based on the best available science can help safeguard our future and the future of our planet.
Vandana Shiva | Download MP3
Dr. Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of many books, including: Water Wars, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.
She founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. This institute is dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. Vandana Shiva is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, etc.), and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as anti-globalization movement.
Vandana is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') "...For placing women and ecology at the heart of modern development discourse."
April 2011
-
Apple and Google are tracking our every move with their cell phones. The U.S. government is seeking all sorts of personal information from the users of online services. On this program we explore the new norm for privacy, how can we raise our awareness of what others know about us and what can we do to have our laws protest us from abuses of this abundance of personal information that is a product of our times.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Colin Bennett
Colin is a Professor in th e Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria and was also a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
His research has focused on the comparative analysis of surveillance technologies and privacy protection policies at the domestic and international levels. He is the author of the The Privacy Advocates (MIT Press 2009) and Security Games: Surveillance and Control at Mega-Events.
Listen to this Interview | Download MP3
Ginger McCall - Assistant Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center Government Program
Ginger McCall is Assistant Director of EPIC's Open Government Project. Ms. McCall works on a variety of issues at EPIC, including consumer protection, open government requests, amicus curiae briefs, and national security matters. She litigates EPIC's Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and is a co-editor of Litigation Under the Federal Government Laws 2010. Ms. McCall has co-authored several amicus curiae briefs on privacy issues to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Listen to this Interview | Download MP3
Rebecca Jeschke - Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Director
Rebecca Jeschke is EFF's Media Relations Director. Before joining EFF, she worked in television and Internet news for more than ten years, including stints as an Internet producer for CBS 5 in San Francisco and as a senior supervising producer for TechTV.
About the Electronic Frontier Foundation
From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people's radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.
Blending the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. By mobilizing more than 61,000 concerned citizens through its Action Center, EFF beats back bad legislation. In addition to advising policymakers, EFF educates the press and public.
Listen to this Interview | Download MP3
-
Considered out of touch just a few years ago, these two clear thinkers predictions have proven to be on the money. They offer an astute picture of the near future and practical advice on landing on our feet.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Dmitry Orlov
Emigrating from the Soviet Union at 12, Dmitry Orlov became an eye witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union. These lessons have
informed his observations and writing about the collapse of the U.S economy and our preparedness to handle the fallout.
In 2005, Dmitry wrote Closing the Collapse Gap, about how Russia was much better prepared for the collapse after the fall of communism that America is after the fall of consumerism. `He has also written other articles on culture change include The New Age of Sail , The Despotism of the Image, and That Bastion of American Socialism and Thriving in an Age of Collapse
In 2008, Orlov's book Reinventing Collapse was published. It has received numerous awards including the 2009 independentPublisher Silver Medal. Expect Reinventing Collapse 2.0 is out in April of this year. His website is cluborlov.blogspot.com.
Download MP3
Catherine Austin Fitts
Catherine Austin Fitts understanding of the global financial system and the inner workings of the Wall Street-Washington axis are unparalleled. As the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner, Catherine was one of the first to warn of an approaching housing bubble. Her prediction that a 'strong dollar policy' would ultimately lead to a weakened federal credit is currently being proven correct.Catherine is the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.; and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. Earlier she was a Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
Download MP3
-
This week we learn the lessons of wisdom from a west Texas grandmother that are the foundation for personal success. We learn the traits of successful rowers that is the foundation for building great teams in business. We also find that love is the secret ingredient in creating corporate cultures that will thrive in the days ahead.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Tim Sanders
Tim has valuable experience in cutting-edge businesses, sales and marketing.
He's weathered the quality movement as well as the dotcom crash and emerged with precious insight. He was the Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and later their Leadership Coach. He was also an early member of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's broadcast.com, the most successful opening day IPO in history.
His first book, Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends is a New York Times and international business best seller, translated in a dozen languages. It stresses the importance of knowledge sharing, networking and compassion. His newest book is Today We are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence. Tim now runs Deeper Media, conducts research on business trends, new media and human behavior.
Download MP3
Marilyn Krichko
Marilyn is the founder of The OARS Program team building company. Over the past decade she developed "The Rowers Code", which is a foundation for team building programs. Wanting to share the lessons learned from her successes with corporate teams, Marilyn wrote The Rower's Code: A Business Parable of How to Pull Together as a Team and Win.
Download MP3
Debbie Robins
Author, Shovel It
Debbie Robins is an executive, career and life coach with deep roots in the entertainment industry. For over twenty years Debbie was a Hollywood film and television producer, now she’s been named one of the top 600 executive coaches in the country by Marshall Goldsmith and Brian Underhill. She’s also the author of Shovel It: Kick-Ass Advice to Turn Life's Crap into the Peace and Happiness You Deserve and a recent blog post on the Huffington Post, CEOs: Here's One 4-Letter Word You Need to Start Using.
Download MP3
-
One of the hidden risks for all Americans is the basically unchecked losses that are being covered by the federal government to keep the mortgage industry alive. The two key players are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Today we look at the current state of these institutions in federal receivership and the role of Congressional pressure on regulators that will keep us at risk for many years.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Lawrence J. White
Lawrence J. White is Arthur E. Imperatore Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business and where he is also the Deputy Chair of the Economics Department. During 1986-1989 he was on leave to serve as Board Member, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, in which capacity he also served as Board Member for Freddie Mac; and during 1982-1983 he was on leave to serve as Director of the Economic Policy Office, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice.
Larry is co-author of the book, Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the debacle of Mortgage Finance
Download MP3 of this Interview
Bill Black
(From our December 2009 interview)
Bill Black is an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. He is also author of the book, The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One. You can watch the Bill Moyers interview that Black references in his interview with Business Matters here
Download MP3 of this Interview
March 2011
-
We pay tribute to Joe Bageant who passed away this past week. His writing has inspired a truthful conversation about the diminishment of the working class in America. Also we look at new research that shows our human nature to bond may be our saving grace.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Joe Bageant
Joe Bageant
Author, Rainbow Pie and Dear Hunting With Jesus
JJoe was in the Navy, an anti-war hippie in communes, a Marxist and a “half-assed Buddhist.” He’s written about the American counterculture and third world issues since 1971. He’s lived on an Indian reservation in Idaho as well as in small Central American towns. His newest book is “Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir” and before that he was the author of “Dear Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War“. He wrote regularly at his blog, JoeBageant.com and at the Huffington Post.
Download MP3 of this Interview
Lynne McTaggart
Lynne writes a newsletter on the risks of some medical practices and has authored a book of the same title, "What Doctors Don't Tell You: The Truths about Modern Medicine." She discusses scientific discoveries that support the theory that the universe is unified by an interactive field in the book "The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe". Her latest book, which is the topic of this interview is "The Bond: Connecting the Space Between Us". She uses scientific data to support how our orientation to bond with each other may be the force that overcomes many of our societal challenges.
Download MP3 of this Interview
-
A wave of unsettling circumstances is sweeping across the globe. Natural disasters, nuclear accidents, economic turmoil, oil depletion and environmental collapse. With the news media often proving unreliable and the doomsayers seemingly unbelievable, what is a reasonable way to consider the future. We can all agree that the next 20 years will be very different than the past. Yet governments and businesses seem to believe that the way forward is to replicate the past. This week we give you a "crash course" on what's really happening and some practical advice on what you can do to navigate these uncertain waters.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Chris Martenson
Chris received his PhD in neurotoxicology and then went on to receive a MBA from Cornell. He was very successful at climbing the corporate ladder becoming a Vice President of a global Fortune 300 company. At some point, Chris began to realize that something wasn't right. He was reading world events and knew that the perspective presented by the media and government assurances just didn't make sense.
Chris decided to leave behind his high paying job and move to rural western Massachusetts. He wanted to share his perspectives with others and created The Crash Course. This program helps people see the truth and make sound decisions for themselves and their families. Chris now shares his insights in his new book The Crash Course.
Download MP3 of this Interview
Daniel Lerch
Daniel is Program Director of Post Carbon Institute. He is the author of Post Carbon Cities (2007), the first major municipal guidebook on peak oil and global warming, and the lead editor of The Post Carbon Reader (2010), a collection of original essays by some of the world's most provocative thinkers on the 21st century's interconnected sustainability crises.
One of the few experts specializing in local government responses to global fossil fuel depletion, Daniel has delivered presentations and workshops to elected officials, planners, and other audiences across the United States, as well as in Canada, Ireland, the UK, and Spain.
Daniel has worked with urban sustainability and planning issues for nearly fifteen years in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Master of Urban Studies from Portland State University in Oregon.
Download MP3 of this Interview
-
From time to time, we explore human nature in depth to give us a better understanding of ourselves and each other. Over the past weeks, we have seen turmoil across the globe. Whether it was the dramatic political changes in the Middle East and North Africa or the turmoil in Wisconsin and other states of union rights or the human tragedy and nuclear worries from Japan. These situations bring into sharp focus the question of how we make decisions about what’s important.
We talk with the author of Willful Blindness about how we often ignore the truth to our own peril. We also talk to Rob Kurzban, whose book, "Why Everyone (else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind" helps make sense of our inherent tendency to be inconsistent.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Margaret Heffernan|
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". Her most recent book is Willful Blindness: Why we Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril.
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.
Robert Kurzban
Robert Kurzban is associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and did postdoctoral work in economics and anthropology. In 2008, he won the inaugural Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Rob is the author of Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. -
This week, we explore the simple lessons that nature offers us. Can we observe the way that natural systems evolve and adapt so that we can approach business, social, political and financial problems from a fresh and possibly more effective perspective?
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
[audio:http://businessmatters.net/episodes/03-09-11_Business_Matters_Full.mp3
Janine Benyus
Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest − Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests).
Janine has received several awards including the 2009 Champion of the Earth award in Science & Innovation from the United Nations Environmental Programme, Rachel Carson Environmental Ethics Award, Lud Browman Award for Science Writing, Science Writing in Society Journalism Award, Barrows and Heinz Distinguished Lectureships, and has been honored as one of TIME International's Heros of the Environment.
Peter Forbes
Peter Forbes is a U.K. based science writer who writes on the area of biomimetrics in his book The Gecko’s foot, Bio-inspiration Engineering New Materials from Nature.
Peter initially trained as a chemist and worked in pharmaceutical and popular natural history publishing. He has written numerous articles and reviews, for the Guardian, Independent, The Times, Daily Mail, Financial Times, Scientific American, New Scientist, World Medicine, Modern Painters, New Statesman, and other magazines.
In addition to the Gecko’s foot, Peter is also the author of Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage. -
As we moved into the heart of the Great Recession, many who were given pink slips decided that their best solution for employment wasn’t to get a job, where their livelihood was at the whim of someone else. So, they have joined the ranks of entrepreneurs.
Starting your own business at a time like this might seem crazy. Actually, there are many opportunities for people who can be adaptable and focused. Larger companies are more prone to hire people as contractors and to outsource work rather than increase payroll. This means that business is available.
This week on Business Matters, we offer some practical advice for anyone who is either thinking of going into business or is in the early stages of staring a new business. This advice can save you some, heartache and may help you gain some momentum as your new venture takes off.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Brad Feld- Managing Director Foundry Group
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. He is the co-founder and managing director at Foundry Group.. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. and co-authored, Do More Faster, TechStars Lessons to Accelerate your Startup.
Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston’s leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition.
Download MP3 of this segment
Dan Zarrella - Social Media Scientist
Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist at HubSpot and author of two O’Reilly Media books: “The Social Media Marketing Book” and The Facebook Marketing Book.
His Link Attraction Factors report helped readers determine which topics, days, times, and keywords attract links in social media stories for semantic content optimization, while his Viral Content report details the motivations, preferences and habits involved in online content sharing.
Download MP3 of this segment
Peter LaMantia, President of aplus.net
Peter is the President of web hosting company aplus.net. They are owned by Deluxe Corporation. Aplus has been the hosting company for this program since its inception. We talk with Peter about a meltdown we experienced with aplus on the 8th of February. Peter courageously answered our questions about this situation on the air. His stance for accountability and customer service have been exemplary. Listen to the story to find out how we got in to a pickle and the good news at the end.
Download MP3 of this segment
February 2011
-
Americans owe over 860 Billion in college tuition debt. This debt is often incurred to secure the valued ticket to a good job. Yet this isn’t always the case because of a changing job market and declining academic standards. Find out the real truth about the value of a college education and other avenues needed to build a strong workforce that supports this country’s need for innovation and growth.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News with Dan Peak
Daniel Peak is the CEO of World-Check, a global risk intelligence information company. Mr. Peak joined World-Check in 2003 from Thomson Financial where he was General Manager of Thomson Sheshunoff and prior to this he served as Managing Director for Thompson Financial Publishing joining Thomson in 1998. From 1992 Mr. Peak was Vice President of Product Management for McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group which he joined after his previous employer, Computer Aided Planning, was acquired by McGraw-Hill.
Download MP3 of this segment
William Symonds, Director, Pathways to Prosperity Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Bill Symonds is the Program Direction of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to this, Bill was a Senior Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he researched the role of business in improving education, and helped conceive and organize the Forgotten Half Project. The work of this project isvsupported by grants from Accenture, the Pearson Foundation, and the General Electric Foundation, as well as the James Irvine Foundation and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
Prior to coming to Harvard, Bill spent nearly 25 years as a bureau chief and senior correspondent for Business Week Magazine. During his career, he led bureaus in Pittsburgh; Rome, Italy; and Toronto.
Access the Pathways to Prosperity” (pdf) report.
Download MP3 of this segment
Richard Arums - co-Author of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
Richard Arum is professor of sociology in New York University's Department of Sociology and professor of education at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. In January 2011 his book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, was published by the University of Chicago Press. The book received national media attention for its findings that, after the first two years of college, a significant number of students demonstrate no improvement in a range of skills including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing.
Download MP3 of this segment
-
Since the end of World War II, we have been living in an expanding economy that showed little signs of letting up. The growth in the standard of living in the U.S has been fueled by the desire of many to attain the American dream. A dream that offers each citizen a better, richer, happier life. This dream has played itself out in new and bigger houses, faster and fancier cars and a landscape filled with shopping malls.
A few years ago this dream began to crumble as the economy slowed, housing prices tumbled and unemployment invaded all areas of the country. The winning 2008 presidential campaign was based upon hope. Hope in part that the American dream can be resurrected. The mantra once again was growth.
All the while some keen observers of the American way of life were seeing a different future. They were diligently foretelling of the economic decline long before it was fashionable. Not only did they accurately predict the downturn, they are saying this is only the beginning.
At Business Matters we are committed to offering differing and sometimes controversial points of view about change. Today, we bring you two of the most articulate writers about the decline of the middle class and the collapse of the American economy, who may be the canaries in the mine of our collective future.
This program was originally Broadcast on March 10,2010
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Joe Bageant |
Joe's been in the Navy, an anti-war hippie in communes, a Marxist and a "half-assed Buddhist." He's been writing about the American counterculture and third world issues since 1971. He's lived on an Indian reservation in Idaho as well as in small Central American towns. He is the author of the best-selling "Dear Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" and his latest book is Rainbow Pie, A Redneck Memoir.. He writes regularly at his blog, JoeBageant.com and at the Huffington Post.
Dmitry Orlov
Emigrating from the Soviet Union at 12, Dmitry Orlov became an eye witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union. These lessons haveinformed his observations and writing about the collapse of the U.S economy and our preparedness to handle the fallout.
In 2005, Dmitry wrote Closing the Collapse Gap, about how Russia was much better prepared for the collapse after the fall of communism that America is after the fall of consumerism. `He has also written other articles on culture change include The New Age of Sail , The Despotism of the Image, and That Bastion of American Socialism and Thriving in an Age of Collapse
In 2008, Orlov's book Reinventing Collapse was published. It has received numerous awards including the 2009 independentPublisher Silver Medal. Expect Reinventing Collapse 2.0 out in April of this year. His website is cluborlov.blogspot.com. -
Since the time of Aristotle language has been appreciated, studied and regarded as a vibrant element of culture. Everyone from playwrights to company presidents to prime ministers use language to persuade. They know that they must find a way to evoke strong emotions in their listeners to be effective. For its not the words we use but the stories we tell that bring people up from their seats in a theater, creating with innovation in business and to the streets demanding action in the political arena. This week we talk about metaphors and storytelling and look beyond the economic news to see how we are impacted by government policy and corporate decisions.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
James Geary
James Geary is an author and journalist based in London. He worked for Time Magazine for more than a decade, during which time he wrote about everything from neuroscience to European politics, was founding editor of timeeurope.com, and ultimately served as Europe editor, responsible for the European edition of the magazine. He is also the editor of Ode Magazine and the N.Y. Times best selling author of The World in a Phrase, The History of Aphorisms. This latest book is I is an Other: The Secret Life of a Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way we See the World. You can find out what's on James mind at his "All Aphorisms, All the Time" blog. You can also see him at this TED presentation.
Download MP3 of this segment
Beyond the News with Michael Mandel
Michael Mandel is the CEO of South Mountain Economics. He was formerly the chief economist at BusinessWeek, responsible for formulating BusinessWeek’s coverage of economic policy. Mandel is the author of several books, including “Rational Exuberance”, “The Coming Internet Depression”, and “The High Risk Society”.
Download MP3 of this segment
Rod Thorn - Director of Communication, Pepsi Beverages Company
As a playwright and author Rod tells his own stories, and as a corporate communicator he helps many of the world's most well-known companies tell theirs. Whether the goal is to elicit a response from an audience, or to help a company achieve its objectives, he believes in the power of stories. he also believe in the less-glamorous side of storytelling: building a team, gathering data, managing a budget -- whatever it takes to get the story told.
Download MP3 of this segment
January 2011
-
The way ahead is very different than the road we have traveled. The modern definition of success measured by monetary gain and material acquisition has been rendered both unsustainable and incomplete. Today we explore exquisite sufficiency and ask the question, "What is enough?"
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
This Week's Guests
Catherine Austin Fitts - Beyond the News
Catherine Austin Fitts understanding of the global financial system and the inner workings of the Wall Street-Washington axis are unparalleled. As the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner, Catherine was one of the first to warn of an approaching housing bubble. Her prediction that a 'strong dollar policy' would ultimately lead to a weakened federal credit is currently being proven correct.Catherine is the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.; and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. Earlier she was a Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
Listen to this Interview | Download MP3
Jennifer Cohen
Jennifer Cohen is a leadership and organizational coach and consultant with 20 years in the field coaching hundreds of individuals and groups. She founded Seven Stones Leadership Group, a consulting consortium, where she teaches a unique model of leadership development and is pioneering work in moving organizations and individuals to a partnership model of living and leading based on the mind set and practice of Exquisite Sufficiency first offered by Buckminster Fuller and popularized by Lynne Twist. Jennifer’s fresh approach is informed by communication theories ranging from quantum physics and philosophy to neuroscience and Somatics. She loves working with social entrepreneurs, visionary thinkers, and leaders who know they must develop the capacity to shift with this quickly changing landscape.
Listen to this Interview | Download MP3
Jennifer Cohen
-
There is a common belief that businesses that do the right thing can’t succeed. We have good news. That’s simply not so. This week we bring stories of two businesses that are practicing “sacred commerce”. Find out how they have the fundamentals of business with these principles and are bringing a renewed sense of integrity and purpose to the lives of those who work in these organizations.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Beyond the News with Dan Peak, CEO of World-Check
Daniel Peak is the CEO of World-Check, a global risk intelligence information company. Mr. Peak joined World-Check in 2003 from Thomson Financial where he was General Manager of Thomson Sheshunoff and prior to this he served as Managing Director for Thompson Financial Publishing.
Download MP3 of this segment
Matthew and Terces Englehart, co-owners Café Gratitude
This story starts when Matthew and Terces Engelhart developed the board game Abounding River. The Abounding River is an interactive way of practicing “being” Abundance in your life. Once the game was complete, Matthew and Terces agreed that it would be wonderful to offer a place where people could gather, eat, and play the game. They decided to create a living foods café, and so the idea for Café Gratitude was born. It has been a ground-breaking example of Sacred Commerce and its capacity to build community, encourage healthful living, and achieve abundance. They now have 6 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, and sell their products in partnering stores country wide.
Download MP3 of this segment
Alexia Marcous, co-founder Dharma Merchant Services
Dharma Merchant Services was founded by Alexia Marcous and her father Jeff. They wanted to create a business that brought together their spiritual practices and business experience. Dharma Merchant Service, the winner of the 2009 Green Business Leader of the Year, is committed to providing services with integrity that also offer financial support to non-profits who contribute to people and places in need.
Download MP3 of this segment
-
With the state of the economy in uncertainty and the unfolding environmental dilemma knocking on our door, what type of leadership will help companies make the best decisions for themselves and everyone impacted by their choices? Find out about research on the evolution of the brain of leaders and a radical idea for a new foundation for organizations.
(Last week of our winter break - Encore edition - Program originally aired on September 22, 2010)
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Catherine Austin Fitts, President, Solari, Inc.
Download MP3
Catherine Austin Fitts has an unparalleled perspective on the current banking crisis, having witnessed the corruption in the market during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. Since then, she’s become the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.; and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. She’s also been president of The Hamilton Securities Group, investment bank and financial software developer and an Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
Paul Lawrence
Author, Driven to Lead
Download MP3
Paul R. Lawrence is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School and he’s the author of twenty-five books and numerous articles across the entire field of social sciences. His most recent is Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership.
Debbie Robins
Author, Shovel It
Download MP3
Debbie Robins is an executive, career and life coach with deep roots in the entertainment industry. For over twenty years Debbie was a Hollywood film and television producer, now she’s been named one of the top 600 executive coaches in the country by Marshall Goldsmith and Brian Underhill. She’s also the author of Shovel It: Kick-Ass Advice to Turn Life's Crap into the Peace and Happiness You Deserve and a recent blog post on the Huffington Post, CEOs: Here's One 4-Letter Word You Need to Start Using.
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |
- Download MP3
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 |
Download MP3
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.
Download MP3
- Download MP3
December 2010
-
This holiday season we're meeting people who are creating powerful counter-messages to the onslaught of pro-consumption propaganda that we're all bombarded with every year around this time.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Kalle Lasn - Founder, Adbusters
-Buy Nothing Day
-Digital Detox Week
Sarah Haskins - Writer, Infomania
-Infomania: Target Women
-Sarah Haskins on Twitter
Reverend Billy - Anti-consumerism Evangelist
-The Church of Life After Shopping
-Music from the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir -
As we approach the end of 2010, one things for certain: "business as usual" is not working. The coming years will reveal new ways of doing business that are collaborative, caring and in service to everyone--not just a few. This week on Business Matters, we'll hear two stories of people on the the leading edge of these changes.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Michael Mandel - CEO, Visible Economy
Download MP3
Kenneth Schwenker
Download MP3
Kenneth Schwenker, has produced over 20 feature films. He founded Leaders Causing Leaders and produced the LeaderShift Conference, a groundbreaking experience that awakens the leader within.
Jared Rosen
Download MP3
Jared is founder of DreamSculpt Media, and co-author of The Flip: Turn Your World Around and Inner Security And Infinite Wealth. His focus in his work is on human evolution, global ethics and sustainable economics, all while recognizing that "love is the highest standard." His ideas have been published in business journals, MBA textbooks and on the web through his own social media site with members in 46 countries. -
This week on Business Matters we talk with business leaders about how to change up your game and succeed when others are failing while maintaining a clear conscious about yourself.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Dan Peak - CEO, World-Check
Download MP3
Tim Sanders
Download MP3
Tim has valuable experience in cutting-edge businesses, sales and marketing. He's weathered the quality movement as well as the dotcom crash and emerged with precious insight. He was the Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and later their Leadership Coach. He was also an early member of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's broadcast.com, the most successful opening day IPO in history.
His first book, Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends is a New York Times and international business best seller, translated in a dozen languages. It stresses the importance of knowledge sharing, networking and compassion. His newest book, Saving the World at Work, examines the external relationship between a business, its people and society. Tim now runs Deeper Media, conducts research on business trends, new media and human behavior.
Tom Asacker
Download MP3
Tom Asacker has been teaching and inspiring organizations and entrepreneurs
for over 20 years. Tom specializes in marketplace evolution, customer relationships, branding, and innovation. Companies including Procter & Gamble, UPS, Hewlett Packard, and G.E. have called on Tom to shake up their people, fill them with ideas and charge them with inspiration.
Tom is the author of A Little Less Conversation: Connecting with Customers in a Noisy World and A Clear Eye for Branding. Most recently, he is author of Opportunity Screams: Unlocking Hearts and Minds in Today’s Idea Economy. -
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. Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3 Nicholas Carr
Download MP3 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. -
As our attention moves from the mid-term election to the road ahead, we decided to take stock of the how effective a leader is President Obama. We bring you the views of someone who has personal contact with the President and someone who is one of the world’s best leadership teachers to help us see what we can expect over the next two years and beyond.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Catherine Austin Fitts - CEO, Solari Inc.
Download MP3
Richard Wolffe
Download MP3
Richard Wolffe is an award-winning journalist and political analyst for MSNBC television. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine, traveling with the candidate and his inner circle from his announcement through election day, 21 months later. His book about the Obama campaign, entitled "Renegade: The Making of a President", was published in June 2009 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. His latest book is Revival, The struggle for survival inside the Obama White House.
Lance Secretan
Download MP3
Lance is widely acknowledged as one of the most insightful and provocative leadership teachers of our time. He is the former CEO of a Fortune 100 company, university professor, award-winning columnist and author of 15 books about leadership emphasizing the connection between high performance and the heart, the mind and the soul and inspiration and leadership. His teachings and writings on conscious leadership are courageous, radical and ingenious and have been hailed as among the most original, authentic and effective contributions to leadership thinking currently available.
For Your Consideration for December 1, 2010
Download MP3
-Read the full text
November 2010
-
Well, it's hard to believe that it's that time of year again. Thanksgiving is less than a week away and although it can be a time of stress, travel, and visiting relatives we might rather forget we're related to, it's also a time to eat, a time to give and share with the people we love, and a time to remember everything we have to be thankful for. That's why this week on Business Matters, we'll be talking about the business of food; the economy of giving; and the value of gratitude.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Sharon Astyk, Author
Sharon Astyk is a writer, teacher and subsistence farmer, and the author of two books on Peak Oil and Climate Change — Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front and A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil , the latter co-authored with Aaron Newton. Sharon used to run a small, Jewish themed CSA, but is now concentrating on subsistence agriculture, growing food to share and teaching others to grow food.
Jonathan Safron Foer, Author
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. His newest book about not eating meat is called Eating Animals. His work has received numerous awards and been translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Lewis Hyde, Author and Scholar, on Giving
Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His 1983 book, The Gift, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice. Hyde is currently at work on a book about our “cultural commons,” that vast store of ideas, inventions, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to produce. Hyde teaches during the fall semesters at Kenyon College, where he is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing. During the rest of the year he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Craig Cuccia, Founder of Cafe Reconcile In New Orleans
Craig Cuccia is the co-founder and executive director of Café Reconcile, a restaurant that provides on-the-job training in the service industry for inner city teens in New Orleans. -
The number one item on the minds of voters in the recent election was the economy. So as the new Congress begins its work in January, the message that has been sent is to pay attention to getting more people employed, as well as resolving the debt and deficit. So this week on Business Matters we'll hear some very different perspectives on the greatest economic challenges of today and what can we do about them.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Michael Mandel - CEO, Visible Economy
Download MP3
Dr. Larry Bates
Download MP3
Dr. Larry Bates, an economist, is Publisher and Editor of Monetary and Economic
Review, a quarterly economic and financial publication that analyzes the economy and financial markets from a geopolitical perspective. Bates is a former bank CEO and taught money and banking for the Bank Administration Institute and the state college system in Tennessee. He is a former member of the Tennessee House of Representatives where he chaired the Committee on Banking and Commerce. Dr. Bates is also CEO of the Information Radio Network/IRN USA Radio News and is the author of the books The New Economic Disorder and A Nation In Crisis.
Ian Fletcher
Download MP3
Ian Fletcher is an Adjunct Fellow at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank founded in 1933. He was previously an economist in private practice, mostly serving hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter. Details about his book Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace it and Why are available here, and you can read his articles here. -
It seems that everyone has one. We use them for talking, community and finding the latest news. They're our cell phones. Cellphones are now ubiquitous not just in developed countries but all over the world. But are the radio waves transmitted from these devices we bring next to our heads dangerous? We'll find out this week on Business Matters.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Bob Newman
Bob is a highly regarded public relations veteran, with more than 20 years of media experience and is the CEO of Newman Communications. In addition to leading Newman Communications, Bob is a nationally known columnist for Talkers magazine and a consultant to a number of talk show hosts, radio stations and political groups. Bob has been quoted widely in national newspapers including USA Today, The New York Post and The Boston Globe and has appeared on national television networks, including C-SPAN.
Dr. John Boice
John Boice is professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute (IEI), involved in the design, conduct and analysis of epidemiologic studies into the causes of cancer and other diseases. He is an international authority on radiation effects and currently serves on the Main Commission of the International Commission on Radiological Protection as well as the US delegation to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
James Geary
James Geary is an author and journalist based in London. He also writes for Popular Science and Salon, and blogs for The Huffington Post. He worked for Time Magazine for more than a decade, during which time he wrote about everything from neuroscience to European politics, was founding editor of timeeurope.com, and ultimately served as Europe editor, responsible for the European edition of the magazine. He is also the editor of Ode Magazine and author of "The Body Electric: An Anatomy of the New Bionic Senses." He wrote a feature story and follow-up in Popular Science on cell phone risks. When he's not writing about science these days he writes the "All Aphorisms, All the Time" blog. -
One of the key factors in getting the US economy going again is innovation. Innovation has been the hallmark of America’s contribution to science and technology. Everything from the space program to the Internet have been led by the US, yet today we are falling behind. This week on Business Matters, we ask: Is there a new paradigm for innovation that can revitalize our ability to generate new opportunities? Plus, what is the impact of intellectual property rights in bringing the value of innovation home?
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Catherine Austin Fitts
<
Catherine Austin Fitts has an unparalleled perspective on the current banking crisis, having witnessed the corruption in the market during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. Since then, she’s become the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC. and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. She’s also been president of The Hamilton Securities Group, investment bank and financial software developer and an Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
Robert Dunham - Founder, Enterprise Performance; Author, The Innovator's Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation
Robert Dunham, founder of Enterprise Performance, works closely with executives and management teams to design
competitive enterprises. He has been developing the content of the Mastering Professional Management (MPM) program since 1981, drawing from his own executive experience, from consulting for companies, and from producing executive and management development programs.
Prior to founding Enterprise Performance in 1993, Bob was a Vice President of consulting for Business Design Associates (BDA), an international business process redesign firm. Prior to working with BDA, Bob was Chief Operating Officer for Action Technologies, Inc., and co-holds two patents for their ActionWorkflow technology. Prior to that he served as Vice President of System Development for Motorola Computer Systems, where he directed the development of three hardward and software system product lines and delivered over one hundred and fifty software product releases to the marketplace. Earlier in his career, he led the on-board software development team for the Hubble Space Telescope for several years.
Bruce Lehman - President, International Intellectual Property Institute
Bruce Lehman is the former President and CEO of the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), a non-partisan,
not-for-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C. The Institute promotes the creation of modern intellectual property systems and the use of intellectual property rights as a mechanism for investment, technology transfer and the creation of wealth in all countries of the world.
Lehman is a member of the Policy Advisory Commission to the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the specialized United Nations agency headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. From August 1993 through December 1998, Lehman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. As the Clinton Administration's primary representative for intellectual property rights protection, he was a key player on these issues, both domestically and internationally.
October 2010
-
In the midst of an endemic unemployment and foreclosure crisis, more and more Americans are slipping from the "middle class" into poverty. Even those who can find work are often stuck with long hours at low wages without health insurance. Each month is another struggle to make ends meet and to avoid falling deeper into debt. This week on Business Matters we'll assess the most recent poverty data on the changing shape of poverty in America and debunk the myths about poverty with someone who's lived it.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Amy Terpstra - Associate Director, Social IMPACT Research Center, Heartland Alliance
Download MP3
Amy is a data analyst with expertise in Census Bureau, economic, health, and human services data collection, interpretation, and communication. Amy’s analyses have informed the work of thousands of service providers, advocacy groups, local and county governments, coalitions, and policy makers throughout Illinois and the Midwest. Her work focuses on poverty, income, and housing-related issues. She conducts research for and jointly authors the Social IMPACT Research Center's annual Reports on Illinois and Chicago Region Poverty and works on IMPACT's Self-Sufficiency Project.
Alexandra Cawthorne - Research Associate, Center for American Progress
Download MP3
Alexandra Cawthorne is a Research Associate in the Poverty & Prosperity and Women’s Health & Rights programs at the Center for American Progress. She has also worked as a legislative assistant on the Senate Banking Committee for chairman Chris Dodd primarily on housing-related issues. After graduating from Vassar College in 2004 with a dual degree in urban studies and psychology, she served as a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow during which she lived for six months in New Orleans working for the southern regional office of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness. As a fellow, Alex also worked in Washington, DC for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Following the fellowship, she was a research associate for the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.
Jacqueline Homan - Author, Classism for Dimwits
Download MP3
Jacqueline S. Homan is non-fiction author and freelance journalist. Her concern about the social and economic injustices in our society due to age, sex, race, and class discrimination fueled her determination to prove that America is not the meritocracy everyone thinks. She gives a stunningly brutal inside look at just how classism serves to keep the poor "in their place", and how corporate America rigged the game against the middle class in her first book Classism For Dimwits — which served as the prelude for her third book, Nothing You Can Possess, which tackles the issue of global capital. Her second book, Eyes of a Monster, is the true account of the Pennsylvania death penalty conviction and appeal of Richard Laird who is targeted and murdered another man, Anthony Milano, specifically for being gay. Her fourth book, Divine Right: The Truth is a Lie, takes the gloves off in showing how religion has promoted past and present crimes against humanity aimed almost exclusively at women. She also writes the blog: Feminism — The Other "F" Word. -
What a year for political elections. Our anger has seemingly frosted over our common sense and candidates that would never pass muster in previous years are in close races across the country. What’s driving this groundswell of political change, is it sustainable and who's really behind it on this week's Business Matters.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Michael Mandel, South Mountain Economics
Download MP3
Julian Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University
Download MP3
Julian E. Zelizer is Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Zelizer, received his B.A. at Brandeis University and Ph.D. at The Johns Hopkins University. He is one of the leading figures in the field of American political history and a well known public intellectual. Professor Zelizer is the author and editor of numerous books that examine U.S. political leaders, policies, and institutions since the New Deal. He is the author of Jimmy Carter and Arsenal of Democracy and the editor of The Presidency of George W. Bush.
-See Prof. Zelizer's writings for CNN.com
Joe Bageant, Author of Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir
Download MP3
Joe’s been in the Navy, an anti-war hippie in communes, a Marxist and a “half-assed Buddhist.” He’s been writing about the American counterculture and third world issues since 1971. He’s lived on an Indian reservation in Idaho as well as in small Central American towns. His newest book is "Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir" and before that he was the author of “Dear Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War“. He writes regularly at his blog, JoeBageant.com and at the Huffington Post.
For Your Consideration
Download MP3
-Read Full Text -
Business as usual has brought us big bank bailouts, high unemployment, out of control foreclosure and the largest executives bonuses in our history. Surely somethings got to give. This week on Business Matters, find out about a revolutionary new approach to improving how companies can work for all stakeholders.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Dan Peak, CEO of World-Check
Download MP3
Rajendra Sisodia, Author, Firms of Endearment; Chairman, Conscious Capitalism Institute
Download MP3
Rajendra Sisodia is professor of marketing and founding director of the Center for Marketing Technology at Bentley College. He has a Ph.D. in marketing and business policy from Columbia University. He has published nearly 100 articles in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Strategy, Journal of Business Research, and many others. He also writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal. His research, teaching, and consulting expertise spans the areas of strategic marketing, marketing productivity, marketing ethics, and stakeholder-based marketing. In addition to Firms of Endearment, he coauthored The Rule of Three, Tectonic Shift: The Geoeconomic Realignment of Globalizing Markets and Does Marketing Need Reform? with Jag Sheth.
Joseph Tuck, CEO, Alvarado Street Bakery
Download MP3
Joseph Tuck is the General Coordinator/C.E.O. of Alvarado Street Bakery, a worker-owned co-op based in Petaluma, California. Joseph started work at Alvarado Street Bakery in 1981 as a sanitation worker and over the years gained expertise both in the baking business and in worker cooperatives. Joseph has held his current position for over twenty years. In this period of time Alvarado Street Bakery has been fortunate in realizing significant growth both in its revenues and profits. Joseph has assisted the cooperative’s evolution organizationally in ways that meet the needs of their customers while giving good returns to its worker members. Currently the average hourly worker/member earns $30 dollars an hour that is augmented by a robust benefit and 401k plan. On top of the compensation package worker/members have also had yearly redemption of stock dividends that has averaged around $14,000 per year. (originally broadcast January 15, 2010)
For Your Consideration
Download MP3
-
With all the dust in the air from the political rhetoric of the fall congressional campaign, what's the truth about the key issues we face as a nation? Are we any better off than we were a decade ago? This week on Business Matters we'll asses our progress in the areas of health care, financial markets and happiness.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News,
With Contributor: Trudy Lieberman, Contributing Editor, Columbia Journalism Review
Download MP3
Roger Lowenstein, Journalist; Author, The End of Wall Street
Download MP3
Roger reported for the Wall Street Journal for more than a decade and wrote the Journal's stock market column "Heard on the Street" and also its "Intrinsic Value" column. He now contributes articles and reviews to the Journal and the New York Times Magazine and is a columnist for SmartMoney Magazine.
Sonya Lyubomirsky, Professor, UC Riverside; Author, The How of Happiness
Download MP3
Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She currently teaches courses in social psychology and positive psychology and serves as the Department of Psychology's graduate advisor. Her teaching and mentoring of students have been recognized with the Faculty of the Year and Faculty Mentor of the Year Awards.
September 2010
-
Over the past 30 years dramatic changes have altered the agricultural landscape both here and around the world. Since 1981 we have lost over 750,000 family farms and half of those that are left augment their income from off farm sources.
There is less diversity in our farming (just look a the mile after mile of corn or soybeans on the farms along our highways with no farm animals in sight to see it first hand) that has raised alarms with everyone from environmentalists to economists. Since the 1950s our government policies have created rewards for farmers who are larger, large agribusiness companies and made it harder to be a family farmer.
The companies selling the essential products in the agricultural food chain like seeds or feed or fertilizer have vertically integrated so that they control things from the farm to the dinner plate. What's the impact of all this change? In our digging around, we have become alarmed. Many experts are raising concerns about risks we face because of this intense consolidation, and today we'll explore these concerns on Business Matters.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson | Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson is director of Food Circles Networking Project, a program of the University of Missouri Extension. She currently is focusing her work efforts on consumer education and community building as well as connecting farmers with distributors and helping food service source locally produced food. Her work has led to several community-based processing activities, making local food programming a strong priority in the Kansas City and St. Louis urban extension programs.
She is the author of The Global Food System and Nodes of Power. Mary also serves as associate director of Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program where she works with mid-sized cooperatives in beef and pork processing from initial planning to start-up, researching potential opportunities in direct-marketing to restaurants and establishing connections between distributors and farmers.
Hendrickson was a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow. She was awarded the 2001 Cooperative Service Award by the National Farmers Union and received the Family Farm Leadership Award presented by the Missouri Farmers Union.
Doug Gurian-Sherman| Download MP3
Doug Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist in the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) where he focuses on agricultural biotechnology and sustainable agriculture. He is the author of numerous papers and reports, including No Sure Fix: Prospects for Reducing Nitrogen Fertilizer Pollution through Genetic Engineering, Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops, and CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations.
From 2004 to 2006, Dr. Gurian-Sherman was senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety in Washington, DC. Previously, he was founding co-director and science director for the biotechnology project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he was responsible for assessing human health and environmental risks from transgenic plants and microorganisms and developing biotechnology policy. Before joining the EPA, he worked in the Biotechnology Group at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From 2002 to 2005, Dr. Gurian-Sherman served on the Food and Drug Administration's inaugural advisory food biotechnology subcommittee.
Dr. Gurian-Sherman holds a doctorate degree in plant pathology from the University of California at Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral research on rice and wheat molecular biology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Albany, California.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
UCS began as a collaboration between students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 is now an alliance of more than 250,000 citizens and scientists. UCS members are people from all walks of life: parents and businesspeople, biologists and physicists, teachers and students. Their achievements over the decades show that thoughtful action based on the best available science can help safeguard our future and the future of our planet.
Vandana Shiva | Download MP3
Dr. Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of many books, including: Water Wars, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.
She founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. This institute is dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. Vandana Shiva is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, etc.), and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as anti-globalization movement.
Vandana is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') "...For placing women and ecology at the heart of modern development discourse." -
With the state of the economy in uncertainty and the unfolding environmental dilemma knocking on our door, what type of leadership will help companies make the best decisions for themselves and everyone impacted by their choices? Find out about research on the evolution of the brain of leaders and a radical idea for a new foundation for organizations.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Beyond the News, With Contributor
Catherine Austin Fitts, President, Solari, Inc.
Download MP3
Catherine Austin Fitts has an unparalleled perspective on the current banking crisis, having witnessed the corruption in the market during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. Since then, she’s become the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.; and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. She’s also been president of The Hamilton Securities Group, investment bank and financial software developer and an Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
Paul Lawrence
Author, Driven to Lead
Download MP3
Paul R. Lawrence is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School and he’s the author of twenty-five books and numerous articles across the entire field of social sciences. His most recent is Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership.
Debbie Robins
Author, Shovel It
Download MP3
Debbie Robins is an executive, career and life coach with deep roots in the entertainment industry. For over twenty years Debbie was a Hollywood film and television producer, now she’s been named one of the top 600 executive coaches in the country by Marshall Goldsmith and Brian Underhill. She’s also the author of Shovel It: Kick-Ass Advice to Turn Life's Crap into the Peace and Happiness You Deserve and a recent blog post on the Huffington Post, CEOs: Here's One 4-Letter Word You Need to Start Using.
-
This week we're examining how businesses can expand and stay strong even in rough economic times through the cooperative model. In time of diminished trust in remote corporate and financial institutions, co-ops provide a model for how to increase the level of trust in every level of business relations. From consumers knowing that their dollars are benefiting local economies to members gaining strength through numbers, we'll find out ways co-ops can be the most democratic business model around.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Paul Hazen
President, National Cooperative Business Association
Download MP3
Members of the NCBA range from large Fortune 500 companies to small consumer food cooperatives located in small towns across the United States. In addition to being President of the NCBA, the only cross-sector member association representing all cooperatives in the US, Paul is on the board of the International Cooperative Alliance.
Tom Knox
Director of Retail Development, ACE Hardware
Download MP3
Founded in Chicago in 1924, Ace is the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the industry with 4,600 stores in all 50 states and 60 countries generating annual retail sales of more than $13 billion.
Theresa Marquez
Chief Marketing Executive, Organic Valley
Download MP3
CROPP Cooperative, and its brand, Organic Valley Family of Farms is the largest organic farmers cooperative in the United States, CROPP consists of over 700 small and mid-size family farmers. Theresa Marquez has been involved in food and farming since the mid 1970s, and she joined the Cooperative in 1995 and has helped to grow the business from $5 million to $209 million in 2004. -
There’s an old saying that an informed consumer is a dangerous consumer. On this week’s program we talk about the payday loan industry and some of the issues with practices by some of its operators.
As we found out, each state regulates payday loan companies differently. The first place for you to understand how this works in your state is to visit this chart. It is put together by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Find out the rules in your state and see if you feel they are in the best interest of consumers, especially poor consumers.
Then you can visit the website of the Center for Responsible Lending. They have some very practical advice if you find yourself in a cycle of debt you can’t seem to get out of. They also have the latest information on legislative and activist initiatives across the country.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Behind the News
With Special Guest Michael Mandel, South Mountain Economics | Download MP3
Samantha Solleveld, Spokesperson, CFSA| Download MP3
The Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) was established in 1999 to ensure consumer confidence in, and long-term success of, the payday advance industry—one of the fastest-growing financial service industries in the United States. Today, CFSA’s member companies represent more than half of the nearly 24 thousand payday advance locations nationally.
Gary Rivlin| Download MP3
Gary Rivlin's latest book is BROKE, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. -- How the Working Poor Became Big Business. A two-time Gerald Loeb Award winner, he has worked as a writer and reporter for The New York Times, The Industry Standard, East Bay Express, and the Chicago Reader, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Salon, Newsweek, and Wired, among other publications.
Lynda DeLaForgue, Co-Director, Illinois Citizen's Action| Download MP3
Lynda has over 22 years of experience working in the public interest. In 1997, she became Associate Director of Citizen Action/Illinois. From 1998 to 2000, she served as Executive Director of the national food safety group, Safe Tables Our Priority. In 2000, she became Co-Director of the organization. Ms. DeLaforgue was a founding board member of the Healthy Schools Campaign. She earned a B.F.A. from Rockford College.
August 2010
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
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. -
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.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
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. -
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. -
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.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
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.
Related Links:
-Save The Internet Campaign
-Network Neutrality Information
-Google-Verizon Pact: It Gets Worse -
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.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
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.
July 2010
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Nicholas Carr
Download MP3
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. -
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.
Listen to the Full Recording of Live Episode| Download MP3
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
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 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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
David Gumpert
Download MP3
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
Download MP3
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
Download MP3
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.
Download MP3
June 2010
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |
- Download MP3
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 |
Download MP3
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.
Download MP3
- Download MP3
-
This week, we'll talk with regional winners of Small Business Administration awards for outstanding small businesspeople in several different categories from all over the country. Each of our guests has been honored in different fields and in different regions, but by listening to their stories together, we'll explore the most important and consistent elements that make a small business successful.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Oscar and Melinda Vizcarra,
Owners of Becker Farms & Vizcarra Vinyards
Winners of the Family Owned Business Award for Buffalo Region
Download MP3
Becker Farms and Vizcarra Vineyards is a 5th Generation family owned 340 acre working fruit and vegetable farm that sells most of their products directly to the public. For the past 100 years Becker Farms has harvested its own fruits and vegetables to provide fresh produce and a wide variety hand-made products. In the last two years Becker Farms has adopted a field to table approach with all of its catered events serving items grown and picked for the occasion right from the farm or brought in from other local growers within a 100 mile radius of Becker Farms.
Robert Beadle, Founder Northeast Public Relations
Winner of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for New England
Download MP3
Robert Beadle is president of Northeast Public Relations, Inc., (NEPR) a communications firm that helps organizations become successful by enhancing their public image. NEPR specializes in a variety of public relations and marketing services including new media and Web 2.0 strategies, news releases, social media outreach, Internet video and corporate social responsibility programs.
Dalen Gunn, Owner BulletTools
Winner, Small Business Exporter of the Year for Northwest Region
Download MP3
Gunntech Manufacturing/Bullet Tools began in 1998 when Dalen Gunn, after working in the various facets of the floor covering industry for more than 25 years, invented a tool called the Skimmer. The tool was an instant success and was sold throughout the U.S. and around the world. The BulletTools brand has earned a permanent place in the flooring tool market, helping installers and distributors become more profitable through time saving innovations. -
This week, we'll examine ways that large and small companies can maintain sustainable practices for combining sustainable practices with a for-profit business model. First, we'll talk to two entrepreneurs from sustainable start-ups and then hear about a new initiative by one of the world's largest corporations to be greener by building smarter technology.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Dan Tefft - CEO, Treebanking
Download MP3
Rob Brazzele - CEO, Safety Power
Download MP3
Matt Preschern - VP of Ecosystem Communications, IBM
Download MP3
Jack Mason - IBM Smarter Planet Initiative
Download MP3
(This program was originally broadcast 7-10-2009) -
We'll explore the vast industry that keeps our food sweet and our children obese: Sugar. We'll help you become a food detective and offer some alternatives for your own cooking and shopping on next week's Business Matters.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Part 1: Anne Louise Gittleman PhD. | Download MP3
Visionary, health guru, diet/detox expert, author, spokesperson, role model, and natural foods icon, Ann Louise Gittleman has always been a trendsetter. Highly respected as a health pioneer, weight loss expert and award-winning author of 30 books, including the New York Times bestseller The Fat Flush Plan. She later introduced The Fast Track ONE-DAY Detox Diet, which takes the age-old method of fasting and incorporates it into a modern day detox diet. Ann Louise's latest release, The Gut Flush Plan, reveals the sources of toxins that make you sick, tired and bloated, and offers a three-week, three-step program to rebuild your digestive system.
Today, she continues to dedicate herself to carving out new landmarks in holistic health and healing based on science and ancient healing arts. Through her many books, Web site, and free e-letter, Ann Louise offers a “virtual” health support system for men and women that provides educational and self-health assessment services to empower people everywhere to achieve total health.
Part 2: Nancy Appleton, PhD, Download MP3
Nancy Appleton, Ph.D. is an author, lecturer, researcher and nutritional consultant. Dr. Appleton received her Bachelor of Science in Foods and Nutrition from U.C.L.A., her Ph.D. from Walden University with honors in Health Services. Dr. Appleton has written 5 books that are available here: Lick the Sugar Habit, The Curse of Louis Pasteur, Healthy Bones, Lick the Sugar Habit Sugar Counter and Stopping Inflammation. She is also the creator of the Body Monitor Test Kit, an easy at-home tool for testing for homeostasis available at this site. She has retired from her nutrition counseling practice in Los Angeles but continues to write, lecture and broadcast on health subjects.
Part 3: Cori Brackett, Producer, Sweet Misery| Download MP3
As President of Sweet Remedy Films: Embracing Community toward an Authentic Life, Cori's work is geared toward empowering individuals to make intelligent and healthy choices for themselves and their loved ones. After having been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2002, Cori Brackett found herself falling into a deep pit of doctor's appointments and medications, while continuing to get worse. Eventually, she found herself in a wheelchair with double vision and slurred speech. Slowly, she learned to maintain the balancing act between pushing herself to get better and having the patience to accept her then-current limitations. Hungry for knowledge and a clue to her symptoms, she stumbled upon some information linking aspartame to ms-like symptoms. As she had been a fairly heavy consumer of aspartame and aspartame-containing products (an average of a six-pack/day of diet soda for twenty years) she thought there might be something to this and proceeded to investigate. What resulted from her investigation was the seering and heart-stopping documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, its sequel, Sweet Remedy: The World Reacts and her multi-media memoir, Through the Shadows. Today, she lives a happy, healthy and authentic life and enjoys speaking to groups around the country and sharing guests with you who can help you envision a better world as well as providing the tools you need to discover that better life.
May 2010
-
The headlines tell us that new financial regulation is just around the corner but it feels like the same people who created the current crisis are going to be left in charge. This week on Business Matters, we focus our attention on what the real effects of the proposed "financial reform" being tossed around Congress.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Catherine Austin Fitts, President, Solari; Former Assistant Secretary of Housing
Catherine Austin Fitts has an unparalleled perspective on the current banking crisis, having witnessed the corruption in the market during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. Since then, she’s become the founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.; and President of Solari, Inc. an online media company focused on ethical investment. She’s also been president of The Hamilton Securities Group, investment bank and financial software developer and an Managing Director and member of the board of Wall Street investment banking firm Dillon Read & Co. Inc. (She writes about her experience there in Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits.)
-
Leadership in a world of rapid change and upheaval is not for the faint of heart. It request courage, honesty and determination. To help our listeners explore this vital topic, we invited Frank Wagner, one of the top leadership educators and coaches around.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Frank Wagner helps leaders achieve positive, long-term change in behavior. He combines his experience since 1976 in
developing leaders through workshop facilitation with his skills in working one-on-one with leaders as a behavioral coach. When working at NationsBank (now Bank of America) Frank was nicknamed “The Consultant’s Consultant.” When working with IDS American Express, he was nicknamed “The Federal Express of Feedback” for assisting the senior executives in their teaching leadership throughout IDS.
Marshall Goldsmith, selected by the American Management Association as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have impacted the field of management over the past 80 years and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal – as one of the top ten executive educators, in Forbes – as one of five most-respected executive coaches and in Fast Company – as America’s preeminent executive coach, says about Frank:
"Frank Wagner is clearly one of the greatest leadership educators, coaches and teacher of coaches that I have ever met. As an educator, Dr. Wagner combines a deep knowledge of leadership development with a gift for teaching that few teachers can match. As a coach, he has an incredible track record of helping his clients achieve positive, measurable, long-term change in leadership behavior. As a teacher of coaches, Frank is the person that Marshall Goldsmith Partners has chosen to lead the practice. The graduates of his coaching training have gone on to produce results that rival his own success!"
This program is from a live recording of our Business Matters dialogue with Frank that took place on May 17th. -
Just as we are feeling the impact of one of the worse ecological disasters in history, Senators Kerry and Lieberman introduce a new energy bill. It seems that we are replaying old movies rather than learning from our mistakes and creating policy that will fix current problems and reverse the impact of conspicuous consumption of fossil fuel such as climate change.
Since we aren't finding new approaches to one of our most pressing issues from the minds of man, where could we look? This week, we explore the simple lessons that nature offers us. Can we observe the way that natural systems evolve and adapt so that we can approach business, social, political and financial problems from a fresh and possibly more effective perspective?
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Janine Benyus
Download MP3
Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest − Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests).
Janine has cultivated a deep knowledge of the natural world, beginning with direct observation in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, continuing in habitats from Maine to West Virginia where she worked as a backcountry guide, and now, in her home wilds of Montana.
Janine has received several awards including the 2009 Champion of the Earth award in Science & Innovation from the United Nations Environmental Programme, Rachel Carson Environmental Ethics Award, Lud Browman Award for Science Writing, Science Writing in Society Journalism Award, Barrows and Heinz Distinguished Lectureships, and has been honored as one of TIME International's Heros of the Environment.
Learning from nature will help us think and understand the world differently. Translating this understanding to create new policy and solutions requires the support and wisdom of elders who have learned from their mistakes and now want to help us get things right. One such person is Matt Simmons.
Matt Simmons
Download MP3
Matthew R. Simmons is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of the world's largest energy investment banking company,
Simmons & Co. International.
He graduated cum laude from the University of Utah and received a Masters degree with distinction in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. He then served on the faculty as a research associate for two years. In 1974, he founded Simmons & Company International. He serves as a Board Member of Kerr-McGee Corporation, Brown-Forman Corporation, the Center for Houston's Future, Houston Technology Center, ICIC and The Atlantic Council of The United States of America. He is also a member of the Counsel of Foreign Relations.
He is author of the book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which examines oil reserve decline rates to help raise awareness of the unreliability of Middle East oil reserves.
Matt has focused his attention on finding alternative approaches to our energy needs. He is the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute. More information about Simmons & Company, as well as recent speeches and papers presented by Matthew can be found here. -
In times of dramatic change, it important to remember the wisdom of success. To often we are caught up in the fad of the moment looking for the "silver bullet" that will bring us instant results.
Real success is earned. Its earned by learning from our experiences, remembering who we are, unbending determination and adherence to our core values.
This weeks' guest shares timeless wisdom to help entrepreneurs learn from his lessons. These lessons are spelled out in his new book, The Mirror Test: How to breathe New Life into Your Business. He joined us for an on-line version of Business Matters, where our listeners weighed in on what is important to them.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Jeffrey Hayzlett | Chief Marketing Officer & Vice President of the Eastman Kodak Company
Jeffrey Hayzlett is widely recognized as one of the most influential marketers of our time. As Chief Marketing Officer of the iconic Eastman Kodak Company, Hayzlett is responsible for the company's worldwide marketing operations including the design and execution of all marketing strategies, branding and corporate communications. With Hayzlett at the helm of Kodak's marketing and business development initiatives, the company has experienced record growth, unveiled revolutionary new products and has established a global brand as a leader in cutting-edge research and product development.
With his highly anticipated debut book, The Mirror Test: How to Breathe New Life Into Your Business, Hayzlett holds a mirror up to the face of readers– first to see if their company is alive, then to see how it can grow and benefit from change. Since business owners can't expect a "business-as-usual" approach to succeed in today's economy, Hayzlett teaches audiences -- through entertaining and timely anecdotes – "to adapt or die" and "win before you begin," providing constructive techniques relevant to any industry.
Jeff is the recipient of numerous global marketing and business awards and honors, including the Frost & Sullivan Lifetime Achievement Award for marketing, He was named "Business to Business Marketer of the Year" by BtoB Magazine and "Direct Marketer of the Year" by the University of Akron Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. A member of the College of Business Administration Direct Marketers Hall of Fame, Hayzlett also holds the prestigious "G.D. Crain Jr. Award for Marketing."
Prior to joining Kodak, Hayzlett led a private business development and public relations firm specializing in the technology and visual communications industries. He also held senior management positions in strategic business development and marketing at several companies, including Cenveo.
April 2010
-
Over the past twenty years, the landscape of broadcast and print journalism has changed dramatically. With the consolidation of media ownership, closing of outlets and wholesale firing of reporters, few sources of unbiased journalism remain.
This change preceded the decline of advertising revenue that fueled these media machines and the rise of the dissemination of free content through the Internet. With the proliferation of “citizen journalist” as bloggers and YouTube creators, what is the future of the news and information we need to be an informed public?
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Catharine P. Taylor
Download MP3
Cathy writes about media, advertising and marketing. Her work has been featured in Advertising Age, Business Week, Newsweek, strategy+business and Wired. Currently, she writes a daily posting for BNET Media and is the Social Media Insider for Mediapost.
Amy Goodman
Download MP3
Amy is the co-host of Democracy Now, which she helped launch in 1966. She has received many awards as an investigative journalist for works such as Massacre: The Story of East Timor and Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship. Amy is the author of three best selling books including her most recent, Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times.
David Weir
Download MP3
David has been a professional journal for 40 years, writing for Rolling Stone, The Economist, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New York Times, New York Magazine and Salon.com. In 1977, he was a co-founder of the Center for Investigative Reporting. David has also taught journalism at the University of California Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University.
(Interviews Originally Broadcast May of 2009)
For Your Consideration | Download MP3
-
This week on Business Matters, we explore the dynamics of change and how to adapt to inevitable personal and organizational change. We've brought together two wise guests with vast experience helping individuals and organizations thrive from that great constant of the universe: Change.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Margaret Wheatley
| Download MP3
Margaret Wheatley is an speaker, writer and organizational consultant. She's been a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea and a public school teacher in New York. She's been Associate Professor of Management at the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University, and Cambridge College, Massachusetts. "Turning To One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future", proposes that it is the simple, familiar act of conversation that offers the most hope for changing the world. This book is being widely used by communities, schools, religious organizations, and social change efforts.
Richard Strozzi-Heckler | Download MP3
Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Ph.D. is founder and President of Strozzi Institute. He's been a leading teacher of the practical application of Somatics (the unity of language, action, and meaning) to business leaders and executive managers. Richard is the author of five books, including The Anatomy of Change, and he has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is a black belt in the martial art of Aikido. He also holds ranks in Judo, Jujitsu, and Capoeira.
Note: Interviews were originally broadcast in 2008-2009
-
This week, we explore the marketplace and culture of youth sports. How are adults and our broader national culture of competition impacting childhood development? How can youth sports help kids grow up to be successful? We'll lay out some of the challenges facing youth sports today and then talk to some innovators in the field to find out new ways for parents, coaches and kids to build healthy emotional and physical skills.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Mark Hyman
Download MP3
Mark Hyman is a contributing editor at BusinessWeek and the author of the new book Until It Hurts: America's Obsession With Youth Sports. Prior to joining BusinessWeek, he spent nearly 20 years as a reporter for newspapers including the Baltimore Sun where he was an enterprise and investigative reporter in the sports department. During his time at the Sun, earned his law degree from the University of Maryland. He blogs at youthsportsparents.blogspot.com and also contributes to BusinessWeek's Working Parents blog.
Jim Thompson
Download MP3
Jim Thompson is the founder and director of Positive Coaching Alliance, a national nonprofit organization of parents, coaches and youth sports organizations dedicated to improving youth sports by developing a positive character building approach. Jim has more than 20 years of teaching, coaching and management experience working with a variety of individuals and groups. He was formerly Director of Stanford Business School's Public Management Program and his experiences as a youth coach led him to write two books on the subject: "Positive Coaching: Building Character and Self-Esteem Through Sports" and "Shooting in the Dark: Tales of Coaching and Leadership".
Frank Fiume
Download MP3
Frank Fiume is founder and CEO of i9 Sports Corporation. Noticing from his own experience that the amateur sports industry was poorly organized on the local level, Frank applied the marketing and business skills he acquired with medical device companies to create ABA Sports in 1995. Over time, it grew at an astonishing rate, becoming i9 Sports corporation, the nation‘s first complete amateur sports franchise business allowing individuals to organize leagues, tournaments, camps, clinics, train officials, and sell sporting goods and custom uniforms while working with the local amateur organizations and parks and recreation departments.
(this program was originally broadcast on July 3rd, 2009) -
The publishing industry is going through a change that many say is as dramatic as the invention of the printing press. Like with the music business, electronic distribution has changed the game. Traditional publishers are trying to hold onto the old ways and the results may not be what they expect.
This week, we look at the future of publishing from the perspective of the publishing, author, book seller and reader.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Richard Nash
Download MP3
Richard ran Soft Skull Press, now an imprint of Counterpoint, from 2001 to 2009. He is now consulting on how to reach readers and developing a start-up called Cursor, a portfolio of niche social publishing communities, one of which will be called Red Lemonade.
Richard's consulting focus is largely of the strategic variety, helping authors or publishers supercharge the publishing of a given title, or group of titles. He has one of the clearest views of what's ahead in the publishing industry.
Mark Corker, CEO Smashwords.com
Download MP3
Mark Coker founded Smashwords to change the way books are published, sampled, marketed and sold.
Mark is co-author along with his wife, Lesleyann, of Boob Tube, a novel that explores the behind-the-scenes world of daytime television soap operas. It was Mark's frustration trying to get Boob Tube published that inspired him to start Smashwords. He believes Smashwords holds the promise to make publishing more enriching for authors, readers and publishers.
With Mark's previous startup, BestCalls.com, which he launched in 1999, he helped level the playing field for small stock market investors, who at the time were denied access to the earnings conference calls of publicly traded companies. His work with BestCalls, as a champion for fair disclosure, was a catalyst for the SEC’s ground breaking Regulation FD. BestCalls was acquired in 2002 by Shareholder.com and is now owned and operated by the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
In addition to Mark's work with Smashwords, since 1993 he has owned Dovetail Public Relations, an award-winning Silicon Valley PR firm. -
Social media has covered the world like a virtual tsunami. Over 400 million Facebook users, millions of bloggers and 80 million Twitter accounts. Growth of these on-line communities continues with no end in site. This week we explore how the new world of transparency and connectivity affects how we think of ourselves, our relationships and our world. We dig into how companies are using social media to have more authentic relationships with their customers and stakeholders. We also uncover risks that exist because we are disclosing so much about ourselves in such a public way.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
David Weir
Download MP3
David has been a professional journal for 40 years, writing for Rolling Stone, The Economist, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New York Times, New York Magazine and Salon.com. In 1977, he was a co-founder of the Center for Investigative Reporting. David has also taught journalism at the University of California Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University.
You can find some of David's latest writing about the media on Bnet by clicking on this link.
Alexandra Samuel
Download MP3
Alexandra is the the Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and a blogger for the Harvard Business Review and Oprah.com
Alexandra is also a principal with Social Signal, one of the world’s first social media agencies, She has shaped the online strategy for a wide range of online community projects, including Tyze, Change Everything and NetSquared.
Robert Siciliano
Download MP3
Robert is a security consultant for Intelius Corporation. He is an expert on personal security and identity theft and the focus of his work is educating Americans about emerging consumer trends and challenges. Robert is American television news correspondent, security analyst, Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist, and author of "The Safety Minute: Living on high alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud".
March 2010
-
This week we're exploring the impact of the social media on our business, our media and the way we see the world. In future weeks we'll be continuing our series, but this week we wanted to start out by revisiting our interviews a pair of groundbreaking agents of change in marketing, communications and social media.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Seth Godin
Download MP3
Seth Godin was called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week. He is a popular public speaker, writes the #1 ranked marketing blog, and has authored ten bestselling books. His most recent is Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Seth founded Yoyodyne, the industry's leading interactive direct marketing company.
David Meerman Scott
Download MP3
David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of World Wide Rave. His previous book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR is an award-winning BusinessWeek bestseller. He worked as VP of marketing for two publicly traded technology companies and was also Asia marketing director for Knight-Ridder.
(This program originally aired June 6 2009) -
This week on Business Matters we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews from our Women Entrepreneurs series.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
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.
Jody Weiss
Download MP3
Jody Weiss is a former sports agent who has decided to dedicate her life to promoting peace in the world. She took some of her righteous anger from a first marriage, a politically divided nation, and a violent world and decided that she wanted to take Madison avenue dollars to teach about real collaborative giving. To raise awareness about real urgent human rights issues affecting women that in all parts of the world, she founded Peacekeepers, a socially conscious cosmetics company.
Deb Parsons
Co-Director, Investor’s Circle
Download MP3
Deb is Co-Director of Investors’ Circle, a group made up of angel investors, professional venture capitalists, foundations, family offices and others who are using private capital to promote the transition to a sustainable economy. Prior to joining IC, Deb served as a member of SJF Ventures and Good Capital. For the past two years she was Vice President at Good Capital, where she managed the fund’s operational aspects, investor relations, and deployment of capital. Deb was formerly an associate at SJF Ventures, a community development fund focusing on cleantech and the LOHAS sector. Before that, she spent six years in business development, marketing, and partner management at WGGH, Intuit, and North Face.
Simone Brummelhuis
Download MP3
Simone Brummelhuis is the founder and CEO of The NextWomen, the First Women’s Internet Business Magazine and Community. She worked for 10 years as a successful lawyer before becoming an entrepreneur by setting up her own B2B publishing company Brummsbooks. Thereafter, as co-owner and managing director IENS, she developed this start-up into the number one user-generated-content database publisher of restaurant guides in The Netherlands. With the Europeanmuseumguide.com, she intends to do the same. She is in the jury of the Accenture Media Innovation Awards 2008, she presents the internet program SHE (interviews with business women) on Blueshotstv, she is on the UK Advisory Board of Astia.org, supporting women led high-growth companies. She sits on the NCL Committee, and is a frequent speaker through Women.Inc and TheNextSpeaker.
For Your Consideration | Download MP3
-
Since the end of World War II, we have been living in an expanding economy that showed little signs of letting up. The growth in the standard of living in the U.S has been fueled by the desire of many to attain the American dream. A dream that offers each citizen a better, richer, happier life. This dream has played itself out in new and bigger houses, faster and fancier cars and a landscape filled with shopping malls.
A few years ago this dream began to crumble as the economy slowed, housing prices tumbled and unemployment invaded all areas of the country. The winning 2008 presidential campaign was based upon hope. Hope in part that the American dream can be resurrected. The mantra once again was growth.
All the while some keen observers of the American way of life were seeing a different future. They were diligently foretelling of the economic decline long before it was fashionable. Not only did they accurately predict the downturn, they are saying this is only the beginning.
At Business Matters we are committed to offering differing and sometimes controversial points of view about change. Today, we bring you two of the most articulate writers about the decline of the middle class and the collapse of the American economy, who may be the canaries in the mine of our collective future.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Joe Bageant | Download MP3
Joe's been in the Navy, an anti-war hippie in communes, a Marxist and a "half-assed Buddhist." He's been writing about the American counterculture and third world issues since 1971. He's lived on an Indian reservation in Idaho as well as in small Central American towns. His newest book is "Dear Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War". He writes regularly at his blog, JoeBageant.com and at the Huffington Post.
Dmitry Orlov| Download MP3
Emigrating from the Soviet Union at 12, Dmitry Orlov became an eye witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union. These lessons haveinformed his observations and writing about the collapse of the U.S economy and our preparedness to handle the fallout.
In 2005, Dmitry wrote Closing the Collapse Gap, about how Russia was much better prepared for the collapse after the fall of communism that America is after the fall of consumerism. `He has also written other articles on culture change include The New Age of Sail , The Despotism of the Image, and That Bastion of American Socialism and Thriving in an Age of Collapse
In 2008, Orlov's book Reinventing Collapse was published. It has received numerous awards including the 2009 independentPublisher Silver Medal. His website is cluborlov.blogspot.com. -
We all know about the challenges arising from the Toyota recall, so we decided to look beyond the headlines to understand the implications of this crisis in confidence beyond the numbers of cars involved.
We talked with a customer experience guru to understand the implications of Toyota's actions on the attitude of customers about Toyota. We found that a “cognitive dissonance” has created a confusion with this loyal base that may be difficult for Toyota to change.
We then find out how Toyota has been doing in managing public perceptions from a crisis management expert. In the process, we get a basic tutorial and the "dos and don'ts" of crisis management.
What many may not know is that Toyota's approach to manufacturing and business has been adopted by thousands of companies around the world. This week we'll find out the impact of Toyota's deviation from their well regarded operational blueprint.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Tom Asacker | Download MP3
Tom Asacker has been teaching and inspiring organizations and entrepreneurs for over 20 years. Tom specializes in marketplace evolution, customer relationships, branding, and innovation. Companies including Procter & Gamble, UPS, Hewlett Packard, and G.E. have called on Tom to shake up their people, fill them with ideas and charge them with inspiration.
Tom is the author of A Little Less Conversation: Connecting with Customers in a Noisy World and A Clear Eye for Branding. He is also author of the soon to be released Opportunity Screams: Unlocking Hearts and Minds in Today's Idea Economy.
Jonathan Bernstein| Download MP3
Jonathan L. Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of crisis management - crisis response, vulnerability assessment, planning, training and simulations. Prior to launching what was then known as Bernstein Communications in 1994, Bernstein created and served as the first director of the Crisis Communications Group for Ruder Finn, Inc., one of the world's largest public relations agencies.
Bernstein is publisher and editor of Crisis Manager, a first-of-its-kind email newsletter written for "those who are crisis managers whether they want to be or not," currently read in 75 countries. He is also the author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay: A Media Training Manual
Steven Spear | Download MP3
Steven Spear, five-time winner of the Shingo Prize for research excellence and recipient of the McKinsey Award, is a senior lecturer at MIT and former assistant professor at Harvard. A senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, he is the author of numerous articles appearing in academic and trade publications, including the Harvard Business Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, Academic Medicine, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times.
In particular he is well known for his Harvard Business Review article, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System”. More recently he wrote the award winner book, Chasing the Rabbit: How Market Leaders Outdistance the Competition and How Great Companies Can Catch Up and Win
In his consulting practice, Spear works with organizations to develop the capabilities of high velocity about which he writes. This involves developing senior leadership’s understanding and training a cadre of internal process experts whose system expertise compliments the functional expertise that exists within specialties and disciplines. His clients span a broad range of industrial, high tech, software, service, and healthcare organizations.
For Your Consideration | Download MP3
February 2010
-
On this week's Business Matters, we're examining at ways for business leaders to use the power of language to be a more effective. We'll talk with a poet and a professor of ethics at Harvard, both of whom have explored how language and storytelling can be used in business.
Listen to the Full Episode | Download MP3
Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |
Download MP3
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.
David Whyte, Poet, Lecturer, Author, The Three Marriages;
Founder, Many Rivers Company |
Download MP3
Poet David Whyte is the author of six books of poetry, and two best selling prose books, he holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes the Amazon and the Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops.
In addition to his six volumes of poetry, including his latest volume River Flow: New and Selected Poems, David Whyte is the author of The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, an audio lecture series and an album of poetry and music. His newest prose book The Three Marriages: Understanding the Essentials of Work, Self and Relationship.
An Associate Fellow at Templeton College and Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace.
For Your Consideration | Download MP3
Is it possible to have successful businesses that are good for everyone? -
Over the past 30 years dramatic changes have altered the agricultural landscape both here and around the world. Since 1981 we have lost over 750,000 family farms and half of those that are left augment their income from off farm sources.
There is less diversity in our farming (just look a the mile after mile of corn or soybeans on the farms along our highways with no farm animals in sight to see it first hand) that has raised alarms with everyone from environmentalists to economists.
Since the 1950s our government policies have created rewards for farmers who are larger, large agribusiness companies and made it harder to be a family farmer.
The companies selling the essential products in the agricultural food chain like seeds or feed or fertilizer have vertically integrated so that they control things from the farm to the dinner plate. What's the impact of all this change? In our digging around, we have become alarmed. Many experts are raising concerns about risks we face because of this intense consolidation.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson | Download MP3
Mary Hendrickson is director of Food Circles Networking Project, a program of the University of Missouri Extension. She currently is focusing her work efforts on consumer education and community building as well as connecting farmers with distributors and helping food service source locally produced food. Her work has led to several community-based processing activities, making local food programming a strong priority in the Kansas City and St. Louis urban extension programs.
She is the author of The Global Food System and Nodes of Power. Mary also serves as associate director of Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program where she works with mid-sized cooperatives in beef and pork processing from initial planning to start-up, researching potential opportunities in direct-marketing to restaurants and establishing connections between distributors and farmers.
Hendrickson was a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow. She was awarded the 2001 Cooperative Service Award by the National Farmers Union and received the Family Farm Leadership Award presented by the Missouri Farmers Union.
Doug Gurian-Sherman| Download MP3
Doug Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist in the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) where he focuses on agricultural biotechnology and sustainable agriculture. He is the author of numerous papers and reports, including No Sure Fix: Prospects for Reducing Nitrogen Fertilizer Pollution through Genetic Engineering, Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops, and CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations.
From 2004 to 2006, Dr. Gurian-Sherman was senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety in Washington, DC. Previously, he was founding co-director and science director for the biotechnology project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He also worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he was responsible for assessing human health and environmental risks from transgenic plants and microorganisms and developing biotechnology policy. Before joining the EPA, he worked in the Biotechnology Group at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From 2002 to 2005, Dr. Gurian-Sherman served on the Food and Drug Administration's inaugural advisory food biotechnology subcommittee.
Dr. Gurian-Sherman holds a doctorate degree in plant pathology from the University of California at Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral research on rice and wheat molecular biology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Albany, California.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
UCS began as a collaboration between students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 is now an alliance of more than 250,000 citizens and scientists. UCS members are people from all walks of life: parents and businesspeople, biologists and physicists, teachers and students. Their achievements over the decades show that thoughtful action based on the best available science can help safeguard our future and the future of our planet.
Vandana Shiva | Download MP3
Dr. Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of many books, including: Water Wars, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.
She founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. This institute is dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. Vandana Shiva is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization, (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, etc.), and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as anti-globalization movement.
Vandana is the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') "...For placing women and ecology at the heart of modern development discourse." -
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
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.
Links:
Get a copy of the Kaiser Family Foundation study, “M2 Media in the lives of 8 to 18 year-olds.” -
What's written about the economy seems to change daily. Today it's good news and tomorrow there are storm clouds fast approaching. Most economists missed the downturn and yet they continue to predict the future like they now know what's going on.
To help educate our listeners about what really caused the biggest economic dip since the Great Depression, we devoted our first Business Matters Monthly Dialog to the topic of the innovation and the economy. To help get to the truth in plain English, we invited Michael Mandel, the former chief economist of BusinessWeek, to be our guest. During this one hour dialog, 20 invited callers were able to ask Michael penetrating and sometimes uncomfortable questions. These questions ranged from “how is it that you and your colleagues missed the warning signs” to “how can innovation help get us back on track”.
Michael is well qualified to be our guide during this live conversation. While at BusinessWeek, Michael was responsible for formulating BusinessWeek’s coverage of economic policy. Prior to that, Mandel was economics editor for the magazine. Michael is the author of several books, including “Rational Exuberance”, “The Coming Internet Depression”, and “The High Risk Society”. Michael recently started South Mountain Economics where he writes his blog, Mandel on Innovation and Growth.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
For Your Consideration
This week, a possible explanation for how Fox News has become the "most trusted" media source.
Download MP3
January 2010
-
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.
Listen to the Full Episode| Download MP3
Joe Badaracco, Author, Question of Character,
Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School |
- Download MP3
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 |
Download MP3
- Download MP3