Thursday, January 31, 2013

US supported Afghan Business delegation visits Jafza ... - AME Info

The delegation comprised top executives of leading companies from the construction and construction materials sector and was part of the United States Department of Commerce Afghan Business Development Program (ABDP), designed to help Afghan businesses identify and grow their business capabilities through strategic planning and international study tours.

The ABDP provided leading Afghan business leaders the opportunity to explore possibilities to set-up their regional hubs in Jafza to serve the Middle East region. US Department of Commerce selected Dubai and Jafza for their strategic importance as the Middle East's trade and business hub.

Afghani business leaders sought Jafza's help in exploring business opportunities in the Middle East and in finding key potential partners in the region.

The delegation was received by Adil Al Zarooni, Senior Vice President, Global Sales at the Free Zone. Al Zarooni briefed the delegation on the strategic importance of Jafza as the Middle East's "the business and trading hub".

"Jafza's strategic importance can easily be adjudged by the fact that more than 6,800 world's finest companies have chosen the Free Zone for their regional base. These companies have generated trade worth $70bn through Jafza alone in the year."
Al Zarooni said.

Speaking on the opportunities for the construction sector focused delegation, Al Zarooni said: "An estimated $4.2 trillion will be invested in construction projects across the Middle East and North Africa region in the next ten years, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) representing the largest slice at $698bn. At present, construction projects worth more than $1 trillion are underway in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar alone.

"This affords major opportunities for industry majors in the construction sector from Afghanistan. Jafza, Middle East's trade and logistics hub, offers perfect platform to the investors from where they can reach the entire region efficiently."

There are currently over 1,350 construction companies in Jafza who together generated over $4bn in trade in 2011.

Al Zarooni assured the delegates Jafza's full support in all their ventures whenever they need.

Jafza is currently home to more than 20 Afghani companies. The combined turnover of these companies stood at $396m in 2011.

Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/supported-afghan-business-delegation-visits-jafza-327841

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One Direction roleplay :)

Well, roleplay is normally set up in the Roleplay section of the site.

Once made, all your friends will be able to join it.

This place is unfortunately for talking about things that happen in and around roleplay, so you'll probably end up with this topic moved somewhere else by the staff. But don't worry, just make a roleplay in that link up there and you're half way to your own RP.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

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Facebook?s mobile ad revenue made up 23% of its total ad revenue in Q4, worth $305 million

Facebook is continuing to see more mobile usage of the social network. In its fourth quarter earnings report, the company shared that it has 680 million mobile active users, up 57 percent year over year. This number is even more important because its also the first time Facebook has seen more mobile users than desktop users. This quarter, Facebook has seen its total advertising revenue increase 41 percent year over year and worth $305 million.

In Q3 2012, Facebook?s mobile advertising revenue made up 14 percent of its total revenue. This quarter, it was 23 percent. In its Q3 10-Q filing, the social network stated:

In the third quarter and the first nine months of 2012, mobile advertising revenue as a percentage of adverting revenue was 14% and 6%, respectively. As mobile advertising was not offered prior to the first quarter of 2012, comparisons to prior year are not meaningful. Advertising revenue grew primarily due to a 27% increase in the number of ads delivered during both the?third?quarter and the first?nine months of?2012?and to a lesser extent, due to a 7% and 5% increase in the average price per ad in those same periods.

To paint a bigger picture, Facebook made $1.585 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, an increase of 40 percent from the year prior. The majority of it came from advertising constituting $1.33 billion, or 84 percent of total revenue. The company says that the ad revenue this quarter is a 41 percent increase from the same quarter last year ? it would have been 43 percent if Facebook excluded the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates.

Snap 2013 01 30 at 13.37.33 730x554 Facebooks mobile ad revenue made up 23% of its total ad revenue in Q4, worth $305 million

Analysts believed that today?s earnings were going to be impressive due to improved monetization of its mobile ads. They predicted that Facebook?s mobile business will grow by more than 75 percent from Q3 and would make up 26 percent of total ad revenue.

The fourth quarter was marked with lots of activity designed to support Facebook?s mobile advertising efforts. In October, it launched its mobile app install ads platform which it stated receives a 50% higher click-through rate and 8-10x reach from its early users. Earlier this month, a Kenshoo Social study said that mobile accounted for 20 percent of Facebook ad spend.

Aside from the ads, the social network has made some updates to its applications to help make the mobile experience better. For those with Android devices, the company rebuilt its Facebook for Android app to deliver a stable and faster performance. It also opened up Facebook Messenger to anyone with a phone number.

Snap 2013 01 30 at 13.36.10 730x552 Facebooks mobile ad revenue made up 23% of its total ad revenue in Q4, worth $305 million Snap 2013 01 30 at 13.37.05 730x555 Facebooks mobile ad revenue made up 23% of its total ad revenue in Q4, worth $305 million

Photo credit:?BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Source: http://thenextweb.com/2013/01/30/facebook-mobile-ad-revenue-q4-2013/

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Nexus 4 reportedly back in stock beginning today at noon

Google Nexus 4 Availability Nexus 4

Availability of the Nexus 4 smartphone has been scarce since it was released last November. Supply chain woes have kept the flagship device out of stock, however Google (GOOG) CEO Larry Page has vowed to fix the supply chain problems and get the handset back in stock as soon as possible. On Monday evening, the company changed the availability of the Nexus 4 on the Play Store to ?Temporarily Out of Stock,? leaving many to speculate that the device would soon return. Google confirmed to The Verge?on Tuesday that it is now offering the Nexus 4 in Germany and plans to offer the device in additional markets ?very soon.? Sources speaking with?Droid-Life and Android Police have also suggested that the smartphone will be available once again in the U.S. on Tuesday beginning at 12:00 p.m.

[More from BGR: Apple unveils new 128GB iPad]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nexus-4-reportedly-back-stock-beginning-today-noon-152522895.html

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

In liberated Timbuktu, new rains begin to wash away harsh rule of rebels (+video)

After months of blasphemy laws, destruction of precious monuments, and brutal punishments, locals dance at arrival of French and nature's cloudbursts.

By John Thorne,?Correspondent / January 28, 2013

Chadian soldiers assisted by Malian gendarmes, patrol the streets of Gao, Northern Mali, Monday. French and Malian troops held a strategic bridge and the airport in the northern town of Gao on Sunday as their force also pressed toward Timbuktu, another stronghold of Islamic extremists in northern Mali, officials said.

Jerome Delay/AP

Enlarge

In Timbuktu, rains out of season are a portent of hope. Rain fell unexpectedly here today in a gentle spatter on streets and houses, and on the French and Malian soldiers who drove through town and the crowds who turned out to applaud them.

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?Today, to see this, I feel joy, joy,? says Adaraoui Maiga, Timbuktu?s acting mayor, who joined the procession. For the first time in nearly a year, he wore an official sash striped green, yellow, and red after the Malian flag.

Timbuktu?s liberation, following that of the city of Goa, concludes a one-two combination blow struck by French and Malian forces over the weekend against Islamist militants who overran northern Mali last year in the wake of an ethnic Tuareg rebellion.

For French commanders and Mali?s interim government, hard work still lies ahead. Islamist fighters are scattered, but may launch a guerrilla war. Meanwhile, there are schools to re-open, electricity and phone networks to restore, and state administration to rebuild.

But today at least, in Timbuktu, people are celebrating. French and Malian flags fly in union, and cries of ?Vive la France!? and ?Vive Mali!? ring in the streets.

The procession ? part victory-lap, part signal to locals that liberation is real ? meandered through the streets. Malian soldiers hopped down from their gun-trucks to mingle; the French waved from atop armored personnel carriers.

?I?m so happy today that France is here!? says Moussa Maiga, a middle-aged man watching soldiers drive by. ?I don?t want them to leave.?

For now Mr. Maiga?s wish will come true. France wants to hand off to Malian and other West African troops as soon as possible, but has also pledged to stay in Mali until the country is stable.

?This rain, at this time, gives me hope that things will be put back in order,? says Inamoi Kunta, a middle-aged woman who watched troops pass from beneath a cane awning. ?We were convinced the Islamists would be punished for all they made us suffer.?

Opposite her stands the abandoned headquarters of the "Commission for Ordering the Virtuous and Forbidding the Damnable" - the now-defunct morality police established here by the radicals, in the name of Islam.?

Mrs. Kunta ran afoul of them four months ago when she went to her door unveiled for a breath of air. A commission member pounced. To escape a beating with his rifle, Kunta let him take a scissors to a so-called grigri in her hair ? a protective talisman or charm that Islamists deemed heretical.

Kunta got off lightly. Across the north, ad-hoc Islamist courts ordered the beating of cigarette smokers, the stoning of alleged adulterers, and the amputation of hands from those accused of stealing, according to human rights reports.?

Timbuktu suffered a different kind of violence last summer when Islamists wrecked the graves of Sufi leaders that were venerated as access points to God ??a practice in some forms of Islamic mysticism that deeply conservative Muslims often call blasphemous.

Rain fell today on Timbuktu's Djingareyber cemetery, fell on graves and mausoleums busted up in the past year. As Kunta sees it, the Islamists invited downfall by daring offend ?those who have always brought us good.?

Brutality, bullying, and a certain joylessness about the rebels' governing style, almost surely played a role, too. The quick collapse by Islamists as French and Malian forces bore down on the town suggests a lack of popular support.

?This is the first cigarette I?ve smoked in public in eight months,? says Ciss? Al Mansour, a Timbuktu cook left jobless by crisis, taking a drag at a roadside butcher stall. Beside him, music was thumping from a stereo.

?Under the Islamists, you could never see this ? people listening to music together in the open air,? he says.

Meanwhile, a butcher threw hanks of meat on the grill, and a crowd gathered. It was only a matter of time ? and it was a very short time ? before the girls were dancing.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/HPASCXVBaKA/In-liberated-Timbuktu-new-rains-begin-to-wash-away-harsh-rule-of-rebels-video

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Berlin film fest mixes US stars, global contenders

BERLIN (AP) ? New movies from directors Steven Soderbergh and Gus Van Sant and a trio of films starring French divas will be competing this year at the Berlin International Film Festival.

A diverse selection of 19 movies, including films from Kazakhstan and Iran, will vie for the main Golden Bear prize at Europe's first major film festival of the year. The event runs from Feb. 7-17.

Van Sant's film about the shale gas industry, "Promised Land," starring Matt Damon, and Soderbergh's thriller "Side Effects," featuring Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are the most prominent U.S. offerings.

There's a strong contingent from eastern Europe, including Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic's "An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker," about a poor Gypsy family; Calin Peter Netzer's "Child's Pose," which highlights corruption in Romania; and Malgoska Szumowska's "In the name of," a film about a gay priest in Poland.

French actresses Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert all star in separate competition entries this year ? Binoche in "Camille Claudel 1915," about the French sculptor's later years; Deneuve in "On My Way;" and Huppert in "The Nun," a movie about a convent.

From Iran comes "Closed Curtain," directed by dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi and fellow Iranian Kamboziya Partovi. Panahi was sentenced to house arrest in Iran and banned from filmmaking after being convicted in 2011 of "making propaganda" against Iran's ruling system. Festival director Dieter Kosslick said Panahi's no longer confined to his home but still isn't supposed to make films.

Kosslick said Monday that organizers "tried to bring new people who are making films for the first or second time into the program," continuing a tradition of having less-heralded directors rub shoulders with established names. This year, there's an entry from Kazakhstan ? "Harmony Lessons," directed by Emir Baigazin.

The top prize will be awarded by a seven-member jury under Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, whose members include actor-director Tim Robbins. Wong's new movie about two kung fu masters, "The Grandmaster," is screening out of competition and will open the festival.

Last year's Golden Bear went to "Caesar Must Die," by Italy's Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, which showed inmates of a high-security prison staging Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlin-film-fest-mixes-us-stars-global-contenders-132513013.html

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Mophie Juice Pack for the Galaxy S3

Mophie Juice Pack for Galaxy S3.

I have no qualms about admitting my lust for the iPhone's Mophie Juice Pack battery case. My wife's used one with her iPhone, and it's a great combination of extra juice and protection in a form factor that doesn't kill the overall feel of the phone. We've looked at a couple of Galaxy S3 battery cases here before -- the Powerskin Battery Case and the Droidax Power Pack. Neither of them were bad cases, but neither of them had the name recognition and legacy of Mophie. 

So now that we've got a Mophie for the GS3 in our hot little hands, how's it shaking out? Read on for the full skinny.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/9e4fH4t3Nc8/story01.htm

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Monday, January 28, 2013

Murdoch apologizes for "offensive" Netanyahu cartoon

LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch apologized on Monday for a "grotesque" cartoon in his London-based Sunday Times newspaper depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a bloody wall trapping the bodies of Palestinians, after complaints from Jewish groups.

The image, which shows Netanyahu holding a trowel dripping blood, was published on Holocaust Memorial Day and carried the caption "Israeli elections. Will cementing peace continue?"

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the cartoon was "shockingly reminiscent of the blood libel imagery more usually found in parts of the virulently anti-Semitic Arab press".

The so-called "blood libel" - accusations that Jewish peoples murder children and use their blood in rituals - go back centuries and have led to persecution and attacks.

The wall image by the weekly paper's cartoonist Gerald Scarfe was a reference to the barrier that Israel has been building for a decade on West Bank territory.

The project was launched at the height of a Palestinian uprising and was billed as a way to stop suicide bombers from penetrating the country.

The Sunday Times's acting editor was due to meet Jewish community leaders in Britain on Tuesday to express his regrets over the cartoon, said a spokesman for Murdoch's News International, the paper's publisher.

Murdoch said Scarfe had never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. "Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon," he said in a Twitter message.

The Board of Deputies, representing Jewish communities in Britain, said it had lodged a complaint over the image with the Press Complaints Commission, an industry-run watchdog.

"Its use is all the more disgusting on Holocaust Memorial Day, given the similar tropes leveled against Jews by the Nazis," the board added.

The paper denied the cartoon was anti-Semitic, saying it was aimed at Netanyahu and not the Israeli people. It said the timing of its publication was linked to the victory of Netanyahu's party in last week's Israeli elections.

"The last thing I or anyone connected with the Sunday Times would countenance would be insulting the memory of the Shoah (the Holocaust) or invoking the blood libel," said Martin Ivens, who was appointed as the paper's acting editor earlier this month.

"We are however reminded of the sensitivities in this area by the reaction to the cartoon and I will of course bear them very carefully in mind in future," he added.

Ivens was expected to tell Jewish leaders that the cartoon was a case of "bad taste and extremely bad timing", the News International spokesman said.

Scarfe told Britain's Jewish Chronicle he had been unaware it was Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday and regretted the timing of the cartoon's publication.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/murdoch-apologizes-offensive-netanyahu-cartoon-220142551--finance.html

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RIM unveils lower BlackBerry World price tiers, starts with the Euro, British Pound

RIM unveils lower BlackBerry World price tiers, starts with the Euro, British Pound

BlackBerry-toting penny-pinchers have cause to rejoice, as RIM is introducing lower price tiers in BlackBerry World, starting with the British Pound and Euro. New price tags have yet to take hold across the board, but the the UK will see their lowest level fall from £1.00 to £0.75. When it comes to the Euro, prices will vary by country, and we spotted apps as low as €0.75 on Spain's version of the shop. According to RIM, the tweak takes currency exchange rates and VAT requirements into account, and is an effort to gain a competitive edge and catch the eyes of consumers. If you're hankering to save coin in other countries, more currencies are set to follow suit shortly after this round of changes take effect. RIM says the price adjustment is automatic, but developers who yearn to change their asking prices can sort things out at BlackBerry World's vendor portal.

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Via: N4BB

Source: BlackBerry Developer Blog

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/28/rim-lower-pricing-tiers-blackberry-world-apps/

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Penicillin, not the pill, may have launched the sexual revolution

Jan. 28, 2013 ? The rise in risky, non-traditional sexual relations that marked the swinging '60s actually began as much as a decade earlier, during the conformist '50s, suggests an analysis recently published by the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," notes Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who conducted the analysis. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era."

As penicillin drove down the cost of having risky sex, the population started having more of it, Francis says, comparing the phenomena to the economic law of demand: When the cost of a good falls, people buy more of the good.

"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms," he says, "but it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives."

Syphilis reached its peak in the United States in 1939, when it killed 20,000 people. "It was the AIDS of the late 1930s and early 1940s," Francis says. "Fear of catching syphilis and dying of it loomed large."

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it was not put into clinical use until 1941. As World War II escalated, and sexually transmitted diseases threatened the troops overseas, penicillin was found to be an effective treatment against syphilis.

"The military wanted to rid the troops of STDs and all kinds of infections, so that they could keep fighting," Francis says. "That really sped up the development of penicillin as an antibiotic."

Right after the war, penicillin became a clinical staple for the general population as well. In the United States, syphilis went from a chronic, debilitating and potentially fatal disease to one that could be cured with a single dose of medicine.

From 1947 to 1957, the syphilis death rate fell by 75 percent and the syphilis incidence rate fell by 95 percent. "That's a huge drop in syphilis. It's essentially a collapse," Francis says.

In order to test his theory that risky sex increased as the cost of syphilis dropped, Francis analyzed data from the 1930s through the 1970s from state and federal health agencies. Some of the data was only available on paper documents, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) digitized it at the request of Francis.

For his study, Francis chose three measures of sexual behavior: The illegitimate birth ratio; the teen birth share; and the incidence of gonorrhea, a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease that tends to spread quickly.

"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis says.

While many factors likely continued to fuel the sexual revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, Francis says the 1950s and the role of penicillin have been largely overlooked. "The 1950s are associated with prudish, more traditional sexual behaviors," he notes. "That may have been true for many adults, but not necessarily for young adults. It's important to recognize how reducing the fear of syphilis affected sexual behaviors."

A few physicians sounded moralistic warnings during the 1950s about the potential for penicillin to affect behavior. Spanish physician Eduardo Martinez Alonso referenced Romans 6:23, and the notion that God uses diseases to punish people, when he wrote: "The wages of sin are now negligible. One can almost sin with impunity, since the sting of sinning has been removed."

Such moralistic approaches, equating disease with sin, are counterproductive, Francis says, stressing that interventions need to focus on how individuals may respond to the cost of disease.

He found that the historical data of the syphilis epidemic parallels the contemporary AIDS epidemic. "Some studies have indicated that the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV may have caused some men who have sex with men to be less concerned about contracting and transmitting HIV, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors," Francis says.

"Policy makers need to take into consideration behavioral responses to changes in the cost of disease, and implement strategies that are holistic and longsighted," he concludes. "To focus exclusively on the defeat of one disease can set the stage for the onset of another if preemptive measures are not taken."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Emory University.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Andrew M. Francis. The Wages of Sin: How the Discovery of Penicillin Reshaped Modern Sexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2012; 42 (1): 5 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-012-0018-4

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/sOD_sCZNhYA/130128082906.htm

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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Try These Magnificent Self Help Tips To Increase Your Confidence ...

Self improvement is when you work to make yourself a better person, and to ultimately improve your life. To reach your goals with personal development, you must educate yourself on how you can make yourself a better person and decide what works for you and what doesn?t. The article you are about to read will give you plenty of tips to get going on your personal development plan.

Most employers will not care what school or college you went to, they will care that you earned the degree and can do the work. Working with large financial institutions or law firms is an exception to this rule. Truthfully, it?s more crucial that you have obtained a degree and expanded your horizons.

Exercise is not only for people wanting to lose weight. There are tons of reasons to exercise. As you work out, your body will release chemicals necessary to relieving your stress.

TIP! Stay around like-minded individuals. This will help you to have a better attitude and maintain it as well as keeping you away from bad people that aren?t behind your dreams and goals.

You can?t change unless you make a directed, continuous effort to do so. It is important to make any changes that are necessary for growth.

You need to be your highest priority since you can?t please everybody. That doesn?t mean you should become selfish, but rather that you take control of your own emotions. You should never sacrifice your beliefs in the search for happiness.

One part of depression you may not thought of to look at is your diet and increasing the amount of complex carbohydrates that you consume. If you are not getting enough complex carbs, you serotonin levels will be low. You can do this by eating more raw veggies, fruits, nuts, brown rice, whole grains and assorted beans.

TIP! Make sure the goals you set for yourself are small and manageable so you can easily achieve them and develop the lifestyle that will make you happy. Figuring out your weaknesses and doing what you can to deal with them will make you a happier, more satisfied person.

Be ready to take down any ideas you may have, no matter what the setting is. Use a notepad app on your phone or even carry a real notepad with you. Just write down what their idea or thought is and then develop it more when you have the time and are feeling creative.

Strengthening your faith and expressing love are two great self improvement goals. You can not have faith without love. Therefore, it is important that you never become complacent in your faithfulness. Put your faith into action by helping others and loving not only your peers, but yourself as well.

Figure out what you want your life to be and do what it takes to accomplish it. If you lay around all day wishing your life was better but not doing anything to make it better, it will never happen. Make your dreams reality by taking decisive action.

TIP! We all make mistakes which includes making poor food choices once in a while. Stress is as bad for your body as a piece of cake, so remember that life is too short to sweat the small stuff.

Leadership is the cornerstone of personal development. Leadership is generally approached as being influential. Reflect back on your leadership experiences. What experiences have had the greatest impact on your life? What changes have occurred thanks to these events? What do you feel makes you a good team player? When you examine these thoughts, you will become more of a team player and leader.

You must understand that a divide exists between where you currently are, and the place you would like to go. This first step can start you on the way to reaching your goals. If you cannot see this discrepancy, it is unlikely that you will reach your highest potential.

TIP! Consider your personal character attributes when determining what you want to change. Your aesthetics can be changed quicker than your personality can! Clothes and looks are no reflection of the true personality of person.

If you suffer from anxiety, try going to see a movie with a friend. You will be out and about but you don?t have to talk a lot or even see who you?re with most of the time. This will give you the chance to get acquainted with the idea of being around more people.

Stress is one of the biggest road blocks to happiness. When the human mind is preoccupied with a state of stress, damage can be caused to both physical and mental aspects of the body. All of us need to have clear, relaxed thinking to enable us to plan and execute our life?s purpose, and this only happens when we let go of stressful thoughts. Allow yourself a set time during each day that you can relax and empty your mind. Taking a little bit of time for yourself will help you stay calm, and keep your goals in mind.

It is important that you feel comfortable using the abilities that you have. Being different isn?t a bad thing, since we all have different strengths and skills, which makes for an interesting world of personalities. Concentrate on good skills you already have rather than worry about talents you would like to acquire.

TIP! Are you experiencing difficulty meeting romantic partners? Think about looking on the Internet. Up to 40% of couples meet over the Internet nowadays.

You need to have an emergency fund. Many people handle every unexpected expense with a credit card, building up debt. If you put back just a few dollars every week you will quickly build up an emergency fund. Having an emergency fund in place can help provide a safety net throughout all the phases of one?s financial life.

Try writing down goals you want to reach if you want to better yourself. For example, should you want a greater amount of confidence, write about it. Then, brainstorm things that you could do or have done that will improve your confidence. Finally, you will need to put yourself in a situation where you can practice being confident. Developing a plan of attack will make it more likely that you succeed.

When you are trying to improve yourself, you should aim to have a high amount of self-discipline. Learn to exercise restraint over the desires of the flesh to achieve a higher level of self control. Overindulgence, overeating, lust, and selfishness are all base impulses that you can overcome. If you can cut out the negative aspects of your personality you?ll find your entire being becomes healthier and happier.

TIP! Choose one element of your life to focus on improving. You may want to improve multiple aspects of yourself, but keeping a narrow focus makes it easier to define and achieve your goals.

Start each morning believing that it will be better that day than it was the day before. Put the effort that is needed to accomplish this. Steady, unending improvement should be your goal. Try your hardest to achieve something different today than what you achieved yesterday.

Your reaction to a situation can determine your level of stress. Acknowledge and manage your stress by carefully analyzing your circumstances. If a mistake is the issue, there are ways to correct it or cope with living with your mistake. Focus more on your accomplishments instead of your failures.

Avoid going shopping as a form of entertainment or comfort. Shopping your stress away, or ?retail therapy? as some people say, is really more of a stress inducer, because it distracts you from the stress for a while but it all comes back with big bills and interest charges when the bills come in.

TIP! Try to make the most of your time at work and get more done. Take an ample amount of breaks when you are working hard.

Don?t just respect people who have power or something to offer you; treat everyone with respect. The way you deal with people speaks volumes about your character.

Leadership is about exercising authority, but good leaders are humble, too. When rebukes are necessary, be gentle yet firm, and keep in mind that you must be able to serve to be able to lead effectively. A real leader models integrity and upholds the appropriate virtues. These qualities are required in order to lead successfully.

Behind every great champion is an equally great coach. It is important to surround yourself with a positive mentor and coach. Everyone should help one another. This is an important strategy for ensuring that everyone is able to achieve their goals. Behind every successful story, there?s a great mentor.

TIP! Do you drink a lot? Do you use tobacco products or any other harmful things? You should treat your body as if it is a temple. One way to improve your life is by getting rid of any bad habits that you have.

Know the obstacles you face before you hit them. This is very hard for many people to do. In order to change problems you are having, you must identify what they are. It?s easier to move forward if you take care of what is standing in your way.

Find books that inspire you. Everyone?s idea of a positive piece of writing is different. It may be a religious bible, or alternatively a book of inspirational quotes. By keeping something around that you can refer to for encouragement, you will be better able to handle all that life throws at you.

Take care of yourself physically to get the most out of your personal development activities. Just simple things, such as exercise, getting enough rest and a proper diet, will all keep your energy level up and make you feel good enough to be successful in your personal development journey. It might seem easy, but it can prove to be very difficult.

TIP! Focus on the things that you have determined are most important to you. Focus on the more positive things in life because they matter.

As was mentioned earlier, self improvement can help you better yourself. Try different things and select the strategies that work best for your situation. Use the advice in the article and you can take the first step in a journey of self improvement.

Humbled by the flurry of internet success in the last three years. So proud to have a system that actually works for people to earn $10,000 per month faster than any MLM or Network Marketing System I have ever seen. Simply put, I have never seen anything like the system I am lucky enough to be a top 1% earner in the world for. By the way, I can show you how to do exactly what I do. Sailed a good chunk of the world as a delivery yacht captain in sailboats, strum the guitar with my band, ?Green Eggs n? Sam, living in Hawaii with my wife, Vanessa and dog, Mookie. I speak Spanish, Italian, some French and loads of gibberish.
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Source: http://www.samuellevitz.com/try-these-magnificent-self-help-tips-to-increase-your-confidence

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Smartphone sales rise 36 percent worldwide

Smartphone sales increase for the fourth quarter is in sharp contrast to the 6 decline in PC shipments. Smartphone sales accounted for 45 percent of mobile phone shipments, a new record.?

By Michael Liedtke,?AP Technology Writer / January 27, 2013

Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note II is displayed at the showroom of the company's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday. Samsung was tops in smartphone sales in the fourth quarter, shipping nearly 64 million devices for a 29 percent share of the global market. Apple was No. 2 with nearly 48 million shipments.

Ahn Young-joon/AP

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Smartphone?shipments rose 36 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter as the sleek devices supplanted personal computers and other gadgets on holiday shopping lists, according to a report released Friday.

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The findings from the research firm International Data Corp. are the latest sign of the technology upheaval being wrought by the growing popularity of?smartphones?that can perform a wide variety of tasks, including surfing the Web and taking high-quality photos.

Companies whose fortunes are tied to the PC industry have been particularly hard hit by the shift to?smartphones?and tablet computers.

While some?smartphone?models were in short supply during the holiday season, fourth-quarter PC shipments fell by 6 percent from the previous year, according to another IDC report released earlier this month.

IDC estimates 219 million?smartphones?were shipped during the final three months of last year. That compares with nearly 161 million in the same 2011 period.?Smartphones accounted for about 45 percent of all mobile phone shipments in the fourth quarter, the highest percentage recorded by IDC.

Samsung Electronics Co. retained its bragging rights as the?smartphone sales leader, shipping nearly 64 million devices for a 29 percent share of the global market.

Apple Inc. ranked second with nearly 48 million iPhones shipped during the fourth quarter, translating into a market share of 22 percent.

For all of 2012, IDC estimated nearly 713 million?smartphones?were shipped worldwide, a 44 percent increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, annual PC shipments fell 3 percent from 2011, IDC said. It was the first annual decline since 2001.

Entering 2012, Apple held a slight edge over Samsung in the?smartphone?market. But Samsung sprinted past Apple in smartphone sales during the year as it introduced an array of models, most of which run on Google Inc.'s free Android software. Samsung's top-selling line, the Galaxy, boasts larger display screens than the iPhone and other features.

Apple alleges Samsung's devices illegally ripped off the iPhone's innovations. After a high-profile trial in federal court, a jury in San Jose, Calif. sided with some of the patent infringement claims last August and decided Samsung should pay more than $1 billion in damages. Samsung has been trying to overturn the verdict.

Lower-priced?smartphones?from Samsung and other device makers also have hurt Apple, whose slowing iPhone growth has contributed to a $250 billion decline in its market value since its stock price peaked in late September.

IDC says Huawei Technologies Ltd.'s emphasis on less expensive handsets helped it become the third largest?smartphone?maker with a market share of 5 percent at the end of the fourth quarter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cSXawXNoSAI/Smartphone-sales-rise-36-percent-worldwide

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Short Film Round Up - NewsPlurk Entertainment

Headlines from the nation's top news sources. All news and images on this website are NOT hosted on our server and are NOT owned by NewsPlurk. All news and images published within this website belong to their respective owners, and therefore, must adhere to their respective data-hosting websites rules and policies. You can access other sites via links from NewsPlurk. These sites are not under our control and we are not responsible in any way for any of their contents.

Source: http://entertainment.newsplurk.com/2013/01/short-film-round-up-sundance-chicago.html

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'Breaking Bad's' Walter White is a Lego man

By Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter

Courtesy of Citizen Brick LLC

Meet ?Chemistry Enthusiast,? a little guy who bears a striking resemblance to "Breaking Bad"?protagonist Walter White. He?s got Walter's trademark facial hair, glasses and hazmat suit. But while he may look like a Walter White Lego, officially speaking this "Breaking Bad"?figurine is not associated with Lego or the AMC hit.

Photos from THR: Cooking up season 5 of 'Breaking Bad' with Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan

Chemistry Enthusiast is a new, limited-edition product from Citizen Brick, a Chicago-based company which specializes in creating customized Lego pieces.

?I like to think I make stuff for guys that are like me,? Citizen Brick founder and "Breaking Bad"?fan?Joe Trupia?tells?The Hollywood Reporter. ?Adults who still enjoy playing with Legos.?

Trupia, the father of two young sons, started off his career as a printer and eventually began experimenting with customizing Legos. His company uses Lego parts and says it employs the toy giant?s technique for adding color to them.

Photos from THR: 'Breaking Bad' fan gives lifelike drawings to show's stars

In addition to the "Breaking Bad"?homage, Citizen Brick has also?tackled "The Wire,"?though most of its products are not TV-related.

Does the company fear facing the legal wrath of Lego or "Breaking Bad"?network AMC? Trupia hopes the companies will see his work as a fan's tribute and says he doubts his small operation is cutting into their profits.

Citizen Brick is doing a limited run of 400 Chemistry Enthusiast figurines with no immediate plans to produce more. They are selling for $15 each. The complete lineup of Citizen Brick figurines can be viewed?here.

What other TV characters would you like to see get turned into Lego figures? Tell us on our Facebook page!

Related content:

More in The Clicker:

Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2013/01/25/16699055-breaking-bads-walter-white-is-a-lego-man?lite

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Apple TV would signal future innovation

3 hrs.

Somebody pass Apple the remote ? Wall Street wants the channel changed.

Skittish investors sent Apple stock down 12?percent Thursday, one day after the computer giant?s quarterly revenue came in below estimates, and some analysts worried that weaker demand for its products was an indication that the company?s innovative prowess died with former CEO Steve Jobs.

?In any other context, the idea of punishing a company that delivered an 18 percent year-over-year increase, bringing quarterly revenue to $54.5 billion, would be absurd, but Apple, in a way, is a victim of its own success. Investors now expect the company to come in and reinvent entire practices and product categories, as it did with listening to music and cell phones, and they expect the next candidate for an iMakeover to be the television.

?We don?t think the old game plan is working,? Keith Bachman, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a research note Thursday, lowering his 12-month target price from $640 to $580.

Related:?Why?stocks?rallied?even?while?Apple?got?crushed

While analysts tend to have more or less a clear consensus about the hurdles to entering the television market, they?re not unified around a clear idea of what "Apple TV" would come to mean. Whether or not they believe Apple management has a vision and the means to execute it shape their longer-term view of the company?s future.

?If products we hoped for like an iOS-based TV, and significant enhancements to platform components like Siri and iCloud don?t appear to be in store for 2013, we would lose confidence in the pace of innovation at Apple,? Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope wrote, lowering his 12-month target price from $760 to $660.

Analysts also voiced more prosaic, near-term concerns in response to Apple?s report and forward-looking guidance: A faster timeline for introducing new products and a slate of offerings that includes cheaper devices both could eat into Apple?s profit margin. ?I think that the challenge of the company would be present today with or without Jobs,? Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management, said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

But these factors wouldn?t matter as much if Wall Street believed that Tim Cook has the Next Big Thing up his sleeve. On the subject of TV, Cook was emphatic but vague on yesterday?s conference call. He touted the two?million-plus unit sales of the Apple TV set-top box and told analysts, ?I have said in the past this is an area of intense interest for us and it remains that, and I tend to believe that there is a lot we can contribute in this space.?

In an interview with NBC?s Brian Williams in December, Cook also expounded on TV, saying, ?It?s a market that we see that has been left behind.?

?It?s definitely the next area where investors are looking in terms of innovation,? said Brian Colello, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar.

The TV industry doesn?t necessarily need ? or want ? Apple, though. ?The difficulty is that the vast majority of TV content is owned by a small handful of companies who?s primary business model is bundling and cable [and] satellite distribution,? Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said via email. ?Those companies have little interest in contributing content to a service that could disrupt their primary business model.?

When Apple reinvented the way we listen to music, it presented the ailing record industry with a solution to flagging sales and rampant piracy. When it turned the smartphone from an executive tool to a go-everywhere gadget, mobile carriers came around to the realization that they could create a whole new revenue stream by selling data plans to casual users.

Today, Americans have more choice than ever when it comes to their TV-viewing habits: They can digitally record a show to watch later, access streaming content from sources like Hulu or Netflix, get premium sports or movie content via subscriptions stacked onto their cable bundle and so on.

It?s a jumble of options that can be hard to sort and search through, and often requires juggling multiple remote controls and services. Smart TVs that attempt to corral this overflow of content are on the market, but they?re not user-friendly enough to be appealing to the masses, Colello said. ?There have been some improvements but nothing is seamless yet, so Apple has an opportunity to close the door and make that a seamless interface,? he said.

Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffrey, also thinks a focus on TV content delivery could be Apple?s silver bullet. ?The question is, how can Apple improve the user experience without disrupting the amount of money the content providers are making,? he said. ?They can do things around content that can make the experience much different,? he said. In theory, a viewer only would have to go to a single platform and use one, intuitive remote control ? maybe one that understands plain English ? to search for or schedule shows to watch.

Munster thinks Apple plans to go beyond the set-top box. ?Our feeling is, and we feel strongly about this, is that it?s an actual television... given Apple?s DNA of design as a feature, plus the only way to truly fix the remote control problem is to put it all in one panel,? he said.

Trip Chowdhry, managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research, suggested Apple could make use of new display technology to develop TVs with ?ultra? or ?4HD? high-definition resolution.

It?s an intriguing idea, but Colello said Apple doesn?t have the luxury of time on its side. ?Apple does not have several years to do this,? he said. ?I think the stock tells you that investors are antsy already.? TV is the best category for Apple to redeem itself with a new blockbuster, he said. ?It would be an important signal after Steve Jobs? passing that innovation still exists at the company.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/apple-tv-would-give-investors-important-signal-future-innovation-1C8106563

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Vehicle collision sparks mass riot in Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) ? Hundreds of people in a central town in Azerbaijan surrounded a regional government building Thursday demanding the governor's resignation after a night of rioting in which a hotel and several cars were torched.

Aziz Kerimov, a journalist for independent news agency Turan who traveled to Ismayilli, told The Associated Press that police intermittently deployed tear gas and water cannons at half-hour intervals as the crowd refused to disperse.

Some in the crowd responded to police appeals to free the area by throwing rocks. Between 10 and 15 people have been detained, Kerimov said.

The rioting Wednesday night does not appear to have been politically motivated, but it highlights widespread frustrations over the deep disparity between the poor and wealthy in the oil-rich former Soviet nation. Business is often perceived in Azerbaijan as operating in intimate collusion with the government, which opposition activists argue is riddled with corruption.

Berlin-based Transparency International ranked Azerbaijan 139th out of 176 countries in its 2012 Corruption Perception Index. Opposition parties and independent journalists are routinely harassed by the authorities.

Trouble in Ismayilli, a town some 175 kilometers (110 miles) from the capital, Baku, began when the owner of a local hotel, 22-year-old Emil Shamsaddinov, reacted to his Chevrolet Camaro sports car veering onto a sidewalk and colliding with an electricity pole by getting into a fight with another motorist, who was parked by the side of the road in a Soviet-era car.

It is unclear whether Shamsaddinov held the other driver responsible for the crash, but police say he may have been drunk-driving. Shamsaddinov and his passenger have been arrested, but no rioters have been detained, police said.

The dispute spiraled, leading to around 3,000 residents raiding Shamsaddinov's Chyrag hotel and setting alight several of his cars, which included the Camaro, a Chevrolet Niva and a Hummer. Police say the rampage lasted around four hours.

In amateur video of burning vehicles and buildings uploaded to the Internet, people in the crowd are heard laughing and cheering.

The crowd then moved on to the house of Ismayilli district chief's son where they set fire to a Toyota Land Cruiser and two motorcycles.

Kerimov said people protesting Thursday in Ismayilli believe a relative of the regional authority chief may have been involved in the incident that led to the rioting.

This is the second major instance of public disorder in the authoritarian former Soviet nation in a few days.

On Saturday, market traders blocked a highway 50 kilometers (31 miles) outside Baku and clashed with riot police in a spontaneous protest over increased rent for their stalls.

A week before that, in Baku itself, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a central square in protest at the death earlier this month of a military conscript. It was broken up by police.

That rally was organized through social media, rather than by the established opposition parties, in an indication that opposition to the government is increasingly being propelled by grass-roots activism.

Authorities are particularly anxious about any signs of public discontent in view of this October's presidential election, which is expected to see incumbent Ilham Aliyev retain his iron grip over the Caspian Sea nation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vehicle-collision-sparks-mass-riot-azerbaijan-072652090.html

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Thursday, January 24, 2013

Health and Wellness at Work | Shannon Miller Lifestyle

Posted In: Health & Wellness : 1/23/2013

Yes, we?re past the hype of making New Year?s resolutions, but we?re going to keep reminding you about them!

In fact, we will keep reminding you about them until it becomes a habit, which then becomes a lifestyle for you. We?re willing to bet that some people have already abandoned theirs! (Not you, of course.)

If your New Year?s Resolutions involved getting more fit, losing weight, eating better, etc?We have a better way to make sure yours sticks.

Have you thought about asking your employer to jump on board with your health and fitness plan?

Go talk to someone at the place where you spend half your time; get them on board with your health and wellness goals ? Ask your boss!

But first, arm yourself with some good points you can make if there is no health and wellness program in your office:

  • From small businesses to large corporations, companies want their employees to feel and look their best so their performance matches. A happy and healthy employee makes for a more pleasant work atmosphere AND it creates a sense of loyalty between the employer and the employee.
  • A growing body of research indicates that these programs can change employees? behavior, improve their biometric risk profile and work productivity, reduce use of and spending for health care services, and achieve a positive return on investment.
  • Even with research, the return on investment (ROI) is an important but limited measure of program success. Know this, but point out the positive things: worker productivity and ability to work, patient empowerment and ability to manage own care, behavior changes and clinical outcomes, employee satisfaction, recruitment/ retention, and corporate image. Corporate image is HUGE nowadays, and you want to be proud of the company you work for like the employees of CSX.

An Example of? a Company providing health and wellness for their employees, and Doing it Right!

CSX?s Health and Wellness Program is all about Raising Awareness and Improving Lives (RAIL) for their employees. Talk about a mission statement! We are passionate about that, and we couldn?t have been happier to dig a little deeper into why they provide this to their employees. Their answer? ?It?s the right thing to do.?


Employee wellness programs strive to promote a healthy lifestyle for employees, maintain or improve health and well being, and prevent or delay the onset of disease. At their core, these programs assess participants? health risks and deliver tailored educational and lifestyle management interventions designed to lower risks and improve outcomes. By having your employer on board with your goals, you?re much? more likely to succeed!

SML TIP:? If you need help trying to convince your boss about starting a health and fitness program at work, go directly to your HR department and see how they can help.? Good Luck!

Tags: health, video-heath-tips, wellness

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Source: http://shannonmillerlifestyle.com/health-and-nutrition/health-and-wellness/having-an-employer-help-you-make-your-resolutions-stick

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Kelly Osbourne: Engaged to Matthew Mosshart!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/01/kelly-osbourne-engaged-to-matthew-mosshart/

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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Can Games Help Your Company Innovate? | | Management ...

In a recent blog, ?Searching For New Markets? Go Exploring!,??I shared with you ways to ?Go Exploring? to find a Blue Ocean Strategy?. Now I thought I would provide you with some other ways to creatively ?see, feel and think? about your business, your markets, your customers and your wish list of future customers. Maybe you need some new ideas and innovations. See if this helps.

As certified facilitators of Innovation Games? we work with a lot of organizations that must shift from good processes to great innovations. There are many tools to help you become more creative.?Innovation Games??are some of the best to ignite change.

The word Innovation is on the tip of every CEO?s tongue. They want their company to be the next Steve Jobs? Apple. Nice idea. Too often they do not have any way to encourage innovation.

Think for a moment. What are you really doing in your organization to encourage idea generation, convert ideas into innovations and support an innovative culture? Do you have an idea bank? Do you hold idea jams? How about an Innovation Gym where you can work on an idea and build a business plan? Do you empower your staff to make decisions? Or are you efficiency and process-driven?

Perhaps you need some games to play.?

Igniting Change Workshops

In a recent series of?Igniting Change?workshops I held in various parts of the country I watched as CEOs or their management teams played games. It was actually fun. ?The games proved extremely valuable methodology for these CEOs and managers to ?see, feel and think? in totally different ways about their companies, and in some cases about themselves.

To help them, we chose some of our favorite games??Reverse Everything? and ?Now, Wow, How.? These are games that help their minds deconstruct their current businesses and reinvent them, all within three hours.

You might want to try them yourself. Let me share with you how to do one of these. Let?s?Reverse Everything!

How to ?Reverse Everything?

Depending on the size of the group we break into 3-5 person teams. In each group they select one company to deconstruct using Reverse Everything. Participants are asked to write down their assumptions about this company, or perhaps a problem or issue that they are facing. The assumptions are simple statements about the way things are TODAY.? Try using the P?s: Product, Pricing, Placement, Promotion, People, for starters. Then list OPPOSITES.? These are easy?We Don?t or We Do More. Then, let the NEW ELEMENTS flow. The more ideas, the more likely there are good ones. You just don?t which they are.

What could happen next? This hypothetical Reverse Everything Exercise might be yours:

Next, take the ideas and see which ones you can do ?Now.? Which would be big original ideas??WOW?? And which seem very cool but you don?t really know ?How.? It is a very effective way to take abundant ideas and help prioritize them before you finish the game.

Why are games such an important part of the creative process? Games create randomness within rules. They take people into a new space. Games do have rules and boundaries but they are beyond the realities of the moment.

The big ideas often appear at the intersections. In one group three different companies came together with a new concept that they could do together.

It is hard to explain to adults why games are such an important part of the creative process. Games create randomness within rules. They take people into a new space. Games have rules and boundaries but they are beyond the realities of the moment.

What we?ve noticed is that the big ideas often appear at the intersections. In one group, three different companies came together with a new concept they could achieve together.

Want to play? View games on our website or www.innovationgames.com.

Here are the specific games I mentioned:
Reverse Everything
Build a Better Product Box
How Now Wow

?

To?read the Executive Street interview in its entirety, click?here. For the latest Business Change Management news, follow me on?Facebook,?Twitter?and?LinkedIn.

?

Source: http://simonassociates.net/can-games-help-your-company-innovate/

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Make Innovation Part Of Your Organization - Business Insider

It?s been a brutal period for retail firms since the global financial crisis hit. ?Despite this, I?ve spoken recently with the CEOs of four different retail firms (Lorna Jane, Unit, Di Bella Coffee and The Cloakroom) that have all more than doubled their sales in that time.

What do they have in common? ?A few things. ?All four CEOs are founders, all of them are very passionate about what they do, and all four firms have innovation embedded in their DNA, as Phil Di Bella put it.

This is expressed a few different ways. The common factors among them are:

A strong culture of experimentation. ?Experimenting is central to innovating effectively. ?All four firms are great at this ? having an idea, and trying it to see if it works. ?If it does, they scale it. ?For this to work, you also need to support the experimental approach with a strong learning culture ? there?s no point in testing ideas fail if you don?t learn from the ones that fail.

Their passion is driven by a shared purpose. ?Phil appears to be personally affronted by mediocre coffee. ?Lorna and Bill are committed to helping women live healthier lives, Paul and Ian want Unit to change the sports they support, and Andrew and the Cloakroom gents are deeply committed to helping men dress well. ?More importantly, this message is shared by everyone that works at these firms. ?I?ve spoken with people on all four shop floors, and the message is very consistent with what I?ve heard from the top. Here is how Nilofer Merchants puts it:

In the social era, purpose precedes scale. And as we discussed in part two of the series, shared purpose allows many communities to engage with you ? without you having to invest resources in controlling their actions. When TED unleashed TEDx, they created a force multiplier. Shared purpose aligns people without coordination costs.

Purpose is also a better motivator than money. Money, while necessary, motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. Purpose does.

Their people are empowered. ?This goes hand-in-hand in with the previous two points. ?Even if people have a shared purpose, and the organization has a culture of learning, you can still kill innovation if there is no autonomy. ?To take advantage of purpose + experiments, everyone needs to feel as though they are allowed to test out ideas as they have them.

Lorna Jane and Unit are also both exceptional at social media ? I saw the social media tracking boards at Lorna Jane last week, and they are amazing.

When times get tough, it is easy to go for efficiency. Stefan Lindegaard outlines what happens when you focus on efficiency at the expense of innovation:

No one wins this battle. The employees are taken as hostages, the customers or end-users lose out on the benefits of innovation and in the long term the shareholders will suffer. The latter is true because there is actually one winner. That is the competitor that decides to become competitively unpredictable through innovation and gets this right.

These are tricky times for retail (and for many other sectors as well). In addition to widespread economic problems, Tom Fishburne?s latest post addresses one of the factors unique to retail. Fishburne describes what happens when a retail store focuses on efficiency at the expense of innovation.

The last time I shopped at Best Buy, I ended up buying at Amazon, but not because of price. I really wanted to buy from Best Buy, particularly after I?d invested the time to travel there and preferred to have the product the same day. But the store experience was so transactional and it was so hard to find a knowledgeable sales rep that I gave up. Best Buy could have won me over with a better retail experience, but they dropped the ball. They were trying so hard to be like Amazon on price, they didn?t excel at what could have made them different.

What makes the successful retail shops different? ?Passion. ?Purpose. Experiments.

Innovation is part of their DNA.

NOW READ: Here's Why So Many Innovation Initiatives Fail

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/make-innovation-part-of-your-organization-2013-1

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