http://apps.aomonline.org/Calls/cfp/paper_info.asp?user_lname=&user_id=&cfp_id=672
UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING CARING AND COMPASSIONATE ORGANIZATIONS
| AMR SPECIAL TOPIC FORUM: UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING CARING AND COMPASSIONATE ORGANIZATIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Call for Papers: Creating Caring and Compassionate Organizations
http://www.aom.pace.edu/amr/
http://apps.aomonline.org/Calls/cfp/paper_info.asp?user_lname=&user_id=&cfp_id=672
UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING CARING AND COMPASSIONATE ORGANIZATIONS
http://apps.aomonline.org/Calls/cfp/paper_info.asp?user_lname=&user_id=&cfp_id=672
UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING CARING AND COMPASSIONATE ORGANIZATIONS
Self-esteem is the cause of our shame
by Krishnamurti
We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall. If there is no pedestal on which you have put yourself, how can there be any fall? Why have you put yourself on a pedestal called self-esteem, human dignity, the ideal, and so on? If you can understand this, then there will be no shame of the past; it will have completely gone. You will be what you are without the pedestal. If the pedestal is not there, the height that makes you look down or look up, then you are what you have always avoided. It is this avoidance of what is, of what you are, that brings about confusion and antagonism, shame and resentment. You do not have to tell me or another what you are, but be aware of what you are, whatever it is, pleasant or unpleasant: live with it without justifying or resisting it. Live with it without naming it; for the very term is a condemnation or an identification. Live with it without fear, for fear prevents communion, and without communion you cannot live with it. To be in communion is to love. Without love, you cannot wipe out the past; with love, there is no past. Love, and time is not. - Commentaries on Living Series I, Self-Esteem
We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall. If there is no pedestal on which you have put yourself, how can there be any fall? Why have you put yourself on a pedestal called self-esteem, human dignity, the ideal, and so on? If you can understand this, then there will be no shame of the past; it will have completely gone. You will be what you are without the pedestal. If the pedestal is not there, the height that makes you look down or look up, then you are what you have always avoided. It is this avoidance of what is, of what you are, that brings about confusion and antagonism, shame and resentment. You do not have to tell me or another what you are, but be aware of what you are, whatever it is, pleasant or unpleasant: live with it without justifying or resisting it. Live with it without naming it; for the very term is a condemnation or an identification. Live with it without fear, for fear prevents communion, and without communion you cannot live with it. To be in communion is to love. Without love, you cannot wipe out the past; with love, there is no past. Love, and time is not. - Commentaries on Living Series I, Self-Esteem
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
composite reliability and average variance extracted
http://www.watoowatoo.net/sem/sem.html
check Dr. Dirk 's email
check Dr. Dirk 's email
multivariae normality in Amos
http://ssc.utexas.edu/software/faqs/amos
AMOS can assess the univariate skewness and kurtosis of each variable contained in the model, as well as the joint multivariate kurtosis. To request that these statistics be included in the AMOS output, choose:
View
Analysis Properties
Click the Output tab and then check the Tests for normality and outliers check box. Also check the Standardized estimates and Squared multiple correlations tabs.
Run the model by selecting Calculate Estimates from the Analyze menu. Next, examine the Normality portion of the output. Each observed variable has a minimum value, maximum value, skewness value, critical ratio for skewness, kurtosis value, and critical value for kurtosis reported. Critical values that exceed +2.00 or that are smaller than -2.00 indicate statistically significant degrees of non-normality. AMOS also reports the joint multivariate kurtosis value and its associated critical ratio at the bottom of the table in the row labeled Multivariate.
Practically, very small multivariate kurtosis values (e.g., less than 1.00) are considered negligible while values ranging from one to ten often indicate moderate non-normality. Values that exceed ten indicate severe non-normality. In this example, every variable departs significantly from normality according to the critical ratio criterion.
AMOS can assess the univariate skewness and kurtosis of each variable contained in the model, as well as the joint multivariate kurtosis. To request that these statistics be included in the AMOS output, choose:
View
Analysis Properties
Click the Output tab and then check the Tests for normality and outliers check box. Also check the Standardized estimates and Squared multiple correlations tabs.
Run the model by selecting Calculate Estimates from the Analyze menu. Next, examine the Normality portion of the output. Each observed variable has a minimum value, maximum value, skewness value, critical ratio for skewness, kurtosis value, and critical value for kurtosis reported. Critical values that exceed +2.00 or that are smaller than -2.00 indicate statistically significant degrees of non-normality. AMOS also reports the joint multivariate kurtosis value and its associated critical ratio at the bottom of the table in the row labeled Multivariate.
Practically, very small multivariate kurtosis values (e.g., less than 1.00) are considered negligible while values ranging from one to ten often indicate moderate non-normality. Values that exceed ten indicate severe non-normality. In this example, every variable departs significantly from normality according to the critical ratio criterion.
Bootstrapped parameter estimates and standard errors
http://ssc.utexas.edu/software/faqs/amos
After you obtain satisfactory overall model fit, the next questions you are likely to pose are: What path coefficients are statistically significant and what are their values? AMOS provides an array of bootstrapping options to address these questions. Unfortunately, you cannot obtain bootstrap parameter estimates and their associated standard errors at the same time as the Bollen-Stine p-value, so you must return to the Bootstrap tab in the Analysis Properties window.
In this analysis, you deselect the Bollen-Stine bootstrap checkbox and select the Percentile confidence intervals and Bias-corrected confidence intervals check boxes. Set the number of bootstrap samples at 250 based upon the recommendations of Nevitt and Hancock (1998); the authors found little improvement in the quality of bootsrap estimates due to larger numbers of bootstrap samples. If you plan to interpret probability values (also known as p-values) as shown below, you should use a larger number of bootstrap samples (e.g., 2000) to ensure stable probability estimates.
The relevant output from the analysis appears below. Bootstrap parameter estimates are computed for each parameter estimate in the model: regression (path) coefficients, variances, covariances, and means and intercepts (if these quantities are estimated). For presentation purposes, selected output showing the original normal theory maximum likelihood-based covariance estimates and their bootstrap-based counterparts are shown here. The first figure, shown immediately below, displays the normal theory maximum likelihood estimates of the covariances of the independent variables in the model.
The initial part of this output contains the familiar Estimate, S.E. (standard error), and C.R. (Critical Ratio, the estimate divided by its standard error) quantities that are computed assuming normal distribution of the observed variables. Notice that each covariance is statistically significant. (In the column labeled 'P', three stars, '***', means the p-value is less than .001.) In particular, take note of the hypothesis test that the WEIGHT with YEAR covariance is equal to zero in the population of cars from which this sample was drawn. The normal theory parameter estimate is -504.570 with an estimated standard error of 229.771. Dividing
-504.570 by 229.771 returns a critical ratio of -2.196, which is statistically significant using the conventional .05 cutoff level for statistical significance (at alpha = .05, critical ratios that fall between -1.96 and +1.96 are not statistically significant). The p-value of .028 shown in the table above is the p-value from the normal theory test of the null hypothesis that the covariance between WEIGHT and YEAR is zero in the population of cars from which this sample was drawn. Next, consider the bootstrap output from the Bootstrap
Standard Errors table found in the Estimates/Bootstrap section:
The Bootstrap section of the output contains the mean of the parameter estimates from the multiple bootstrap samples. The difference between the maximum likelihood-based estimate and the bootstrap-based estimate is shown in the Bias column. Large bias values, as is the case here, suggest a substantial discrepancy between the results of the bootstrap analysis and the original normal theory-based analysis.
You can use the bootstrap Mean and SE columns to compute critical ratio values based on the bootstrap results. For example, consider testing the null hypothesis that the covariance between WEIGHT and YEAR in the table shown above is zero. The mean parameter estimate value from the 250 bootstrap samples is
-503.194 with an estimated standard error equal to 441.729. Notice that the estimated standard error across the bootstrap samples is almost twice as large as the normal theory standard error. The result of this discrepancy has a profound impact on the significance test for the WEIGHT and YEAR covariance: When you divide the bootstrap parameter estimate by the estimated standard error
(-503.194/441.729), the resulting critical ratio, -1.14, is not statistically significant. There is no p-value for this test reported in the AMOS output. Instead, consider referring to the bias-corrected and percentile-corrected hypothesis tests. These tables are found below the Bootstrap Standard Errors table. The bias-corrected confidence intervals and p-values are shown below.
The percentile-corrected confidence intervals and p-values are shown in the following table.
After you obtain satisfactory overall model fit, the next questions you are likely to pose are: What path coefficients are statistically significant and what are their values? AMOS provides an array of bootstrapping options to address these questions. Unfortunately, you cannot obtain bootstrap parameter estimates and their associated standard errors at the same time as the Bollen-Stine p-value, so you must return to the Bootstrap tab in the Analysis Properties window.
In this analysis, you deselect the Bollen-Stine bootstrap checkbox and select the Percentile confidence intervals and Bias-corrected confidence intervals check boxes. Set the number of bootstrap samples at 250 based upon the recommendations of Nevitt and Hancock (1998); the authors found little improvement in the quality of bootsrap estimates due to larger numbers of bootstrap samples. If you plan to interpret probability values (also known as p-values) as shown below, you should use a larger number of bootstrap samples (e.g., 2000) to ensure stable probability estimates.
The relevant output from the analysis appears below. Bootstrap parameter estimates are computed for each parameter estimate in the model: regression (path) coefficients, variances, covariances, and means and intercepts (if these quantities are estimated). For presentation purposes, selected output showing the original normal theory maximum likelihood-based covariance estimates and their bootstrap-based counterparts are shown here. The first figure, shown immediately below, displays the normal theory maximum likelihood estimates of the covariances of the independent variables in the model.
The initial part of this output contains the familiar Estimate, S.E. (standard error), and C.R. (Critical Ratio, the estimate divided by its standard error) quantities that are computed assuming normal distribution of the observed variables. Notice that each covariance is statistically significant. (In the column labeled 'P', three stars, '***', means the p-value is less than .001.) In particular, take note of the hypothesis test that the WEIGHT with YEAR covariance is equal to zero in the population of cars from which this sample was drawn. The normal theory parameter estimate is -504.570 with an estimated standard error of 229.771. Dividing
-504.570 by 229.771 returns a critical ratio of -2.196, which is statistically significant using the conventional .05 cutoff level for statistical significance (at alpha = .05, critical ratios that fall between -1.96 and +1.96 are not statistically significant). The p-value of .028 shown in the table above is the p-value from the normal theory test of the null hypothesis that the covariance between WEIGHT and YEAR is zero in the population of cars from which this sample was drawn. Next, consider the bootstrap output from the Bootstrap
Standard Errors table found in the Estimates/Bootstrap section:
The Bootstrap section of the output contains the mean of the parameter estimates from the multiple bootstrap samples. The difference between the maximum likelihood-based estimate and the bootstrap-based estimate is shown in the Bias column. Large bias values, as is the case here, suggest a substantial discrepancy between the results of the bootstrap analysis and the original normal theory-based analysis.
You can use the bootstrap Mean and SE columns to compute critical ratio values based on the bootstrap results. For example, consider testing the null hypothesis that the covariance between WEIGHT and YEAR in the table shown above is zero. The mean parameter estimate value from the 250 bootstrap samples is
-503.194 with an estimated standard error equal to 441.729. Notice that the estimated standard error across the bootstrap samples is almost twice as large as the normal theory standard error. The result of this discrepancy has a profound impact on the significance test for the WEIGHT and YEAR covariance: When you divide the bootstrap parameter estimate by the estimated standard error
(-503.194/441.729), the resulting critical ratio, -1.14, is not statistically significant. There is no p-value for this test reported in the AMOS output. Instead, consider referring to the bias-corrected and percentile-corrected hypothesis tests. These tables are found below the Bootstrap Standard Errors table. The bias-corrected confidence intervals and p-values are shown below.
The percentile-corrected confidence intervals and p-values are shown in the following table.
The Bollen-Stine Bootstrap and associated test of overall model fit
One method to correct for non-normality in the underlying database is to use the Bollen-Stine p-value rather than the usual maximum likelihood-based p-value to assess overall model fit. To obtain the Bollen-Stine test, choose:
View
Analysis Properties
then select the Bootstrap tab and check the Perform bootstrap and Bollen-Stine boostrap check boxes. Specify the number of bootstrap samples you would like AMOS to draw for computing the Bollen-Stine p-value. The example shown here features 2000 drawn samples.
The second portion of the output displays the p-value for the hypothesis test of overall model fit.
http://ssc.utexas.edu/software/faqs/amos
View
Analysis Properties
then select the Bootstrap tab and check the Perform bootstrap and Bollen-Stine boostrap check boxes. Specify the number of bootstrap samples you would like AMOS to draw for computing the Bollen-Stine p-value. The example shown here features 2000 drawn samples.
The second portion of the output displays the p-value for the hypothesis test of overall model fit.
http://ssc.utexas.edu/software/faqs/amos
Friday, August 27, 2010
Black rice beats blueberry antioxidants
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/08/27/con-black-rice.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_rice_01.JPG
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/acs-brr080610.php
Blueberries are a well-known source of antioxidants, but black rice bran is better, according to scientists reporting to the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_rice_01.JPG
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/acs-brr080610.php
Blueberries are a well-known source of antioxidants, but black rice bran is better, according to scientists reporting to the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Grouping and Recoding Variables
1 Introduction
Recoding may be needed in a number of different situtions:
• To categorise a continuous variable. For example, you may have measured people’s BMI
(body mass index) as a continuous variable but may want to use it to create groups
such as underweight, normal, overweight, obese.
• You may have a categorical variable but want to combine some of the categories — for
example, if you’ve ended up with categories with very few observations in them.
• To reverse the coding for a particular variable. For example, the response to a particular
question may have been measured on a 5-point scale and you might want to reverse the
coding so that 1 becomes 5, and so on.
2 Categorising a continuous variable
1 Choose Transform, Recode, Into Different Variables.
2 Put the variable you want to recode in the Input Variable ! Output Variable box.
In the Output Variable box, type in a name for the new (grouped) variable. For example,
if you are grouping BMI you might use the name ’BMIgroup’. Click on Change.
3 Click on Old and New Values.
4 To define the first group, under Old Value click on Range, LOWEST through value:
and, in the box below this, type in the upper limit for that group. For example, using the
BMI example the lowest group (underweight) is a BMI below 18.5, so you would type 18.4
(or 18.49) into this box (this will depend on how many decimal places you have recorded
BMI to). Now, under New Value select Value and type in the code for this group
(i.e. 1 for the first group). Now click on Add.
5 To define the middle group(s), under Old Value click on Range: and, in the two boxes,
type in the lower and upper limit for that group (e.g. 18.5 and 24.99 for ’normal’ BMI).
Define the code for this group as above and click on Add. Repeat for all groups apart
from the last.
6 To define the last group, under Old Value click on Range, value through HIGHEST:
and, in the box below this, type in the lower limit for this last group. For example, using
the BMI example the last group (obese) is a BMI of 30 or higher, so you would type 30
into this box. Define the code for this group in the usual way and click on Add.
7 Finally click on Continue then OK.
3 Combining groups
This is done in a similar way to that described above. For example you might have eight age
groups, coded from 1 to 8, and want to change them such that groups 1 and 2 were combined,
3 and 4 were combined, 5 remained as an group on its own and groups 6 to 8 were combined.
You would do this as follows:
1 Follow steps 1 to 3 as above.
2 Use step 5 described above to combine groups. (in our example Range 1 through 2
would become new value 1, 3 through 4 would become new value 2, and 6 through 8
would become new value 4.
2 To simply recode one group (e.g. here we would want group 5 to become group 3),
under Old Value select Value and the old code. Under New Value select Value
and type in the corresponding new code. Click on Add. Repeat this above for all the
single codes you want to change.
4 If there are any values you want kept the same (this would not apply in our example),
then you need to specify this: under Old Value select All other values and under
New Value select Copy old value(s). Click on Add.
5 Click on Continue then OK.
4 Recoding a categorical or ordinal variable
Again, this is done in a similar way to that described above:
1 Follow steps 1 to 3 as previously.
2 Under Old Value select Value and enter one of the old codes. Under New Value
select Value and type in the corresponding new code. Click on Add.
3 Repeat the above for all the codes you want to change.
4 If there are any values you want kept the same follow step 4 above.
5 Click on Continue then OK.
NOTE
Once you have done any recoding / regrouping you may want to switch to variable view to (a)
change your new variable so that it has no decimal places and (b) add value labels (e.g. so
that ’Underweight, Normal, Overweight, and Obese’ appear in tables and charts rather than
the codes 1,2,3 and 4). See SPSS Handout 2 for how to add value labels.
2
Recoding may be needed in a number of different situtions:
• To categorise a continuous variable. For example, you may have measured people’s BMI
(body mass index) as a continuous variable but may want to use it to create groups
such as underweight, normal, overweight, obese.
• You may have a categorical variable but want to combine some of the categories — for
example, if you’ve ended up with categories with very few observations in them.
• To reverse the coding for a particular variable. For example, the response to a particular
question may have been measured on a 5-point scale and you might want to reverse the
coding so that 1 becomes 5, and so on.
2 Categorising a continuous variable
1 Choose Transform, Recode, Into Different Variables.
2 Put the variable you want to recode in the Input Variable ! Output Variable box.
In the Output Variable box, type in a name for the new (grouped) variable. For example,
if you are grouping BMI you might use the name ’BMIgroup’. Click on Change.
3 Click on Old and New Values.
4 To define the first group, under Old Value click on Range, LOWEST through value:
and, in the box below this, type in the upper limit for that group. For example, using the
BMI example the lowest group (underweight) is a BMI below 18.5, so you would type 18.4
(or 18.49) into this box (this will depend on how many decimal places you have recorded
BMI to). Now, under New Value select Value and type in the code for this group
(i.e. 1 for the first group). Now click on Add.
5 To define the middle group(s), under Old Value click on Range: and, in the two boxes,
type in the lower and upper limit for that group (e.g. 18.5 and 24.99 for ’normal’ BMI).
Define the code for this group as above and click on Add. Repeat for all groups apart
from the last.
6 To define the last group, under Old Value click on Range, value through HIGHEST:
and, in the box below this, type in the lower limit for this last group. For example, using
the BMI example the last group (obese) is a BMI of 30 or higher, so you would type 30
into this box. Define the code for this group in the usual way and click on Add.
7 Finally click on Continue then OK.
3 Combining groups
This is done in a similar way to that described above. For example you might have eight age
groups, coded from 1 to 8, and want to change them such that groups 1 and 2 were combined,
3 and 4 were combined, 5 remained as an group on its own and groups 6 to 8 were combined.
You would do this as follows:
1 Follow steps 1 to 3 as above.
2 Use step 5 described above to combine groups. (in our example Range 1 through 2
would become new value 1, 3 through 4 would become new value 2, and 6 through 8
would become new value 4.
2 To simply recode one group (e.g. here we would want group 5 to become group 3),
under Old Value select Value and the old code. Under New Value select Value
and type in the corresponding new code. Click on Add. Repeat this above for all the
single codes you want to change.
4 If there are any values you want kept the same (this would not apply in our example),
then you need to specify this: under Old Value select All other values and under
New Value select Copy old value(s). Click on Add.
5 Click on Continue then OK.
4 Recoding a categorical or ordinal variable
Again, this is done in a similar way to that described above:
1 Follow steps 1 to 3 as previously.
2 Under Old Value select Value and enter one of the old codes. Under New Value
select Value and type in the corresponding new code. Click on Add.
3 Repeat the above for all the codes you want to change.
4 If there are any values you want kept the same follow step 4 above.
5 Click on Continue then OK.
NOTE
Once you have done any recoding / regrouping you may want to switch to variable view to (a)
change your new variable so that it has no decimal places and (b) add value labels (e.g. so
that ’Underweight, Normal, Overweight, and Obese’ appear in tables and charts rather than
the codes 1,2,3 and 4). See SPSS Handout 2 for how to add value labels.
2
seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence
The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence:
wealth without work
pleasure without conscience
knowledge without character
commerce without morality
science without humanity
worship without sacrifice
politics without principles.
MK Gandhi, Young India, 22-10-1925
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Illumina CEO on the future of genetic sequencing
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/17/q-illumina-ceo/
As president and chief executive of Illumina, Jay Flatley heads one of the fastest-growing life sciences companies in San Diego’s biotechnology hub.
Illumina has led the way in recent years in moving genetic sequencing — the mapping of the massive biological code that shapes each individual — out of the research lab and into doctors’ offices and mobile computers, where the information can potentially be used to diagnose disease, direct treatments and guide health choices.
Since Illumina acquired its DNA sequencing business in 2007, the company’s annual revenue has nearly quadrupled, hitting $666 million last year.
Flatley sat down recently to discuss the future of genetic sequencing, Illumina’s foray into cutting-edge cancer diagnostics and a federal government review of several Illumina customers that sell genetic testing services directly to consumers.
Q: What’s leading Illumina’s agenda right now?
A: We’re focused on two major markets — DNA sequencing and microarrays. The faster growing of those two markets is DNA sequencing.
Q: What’s driving that growth?
A: It has tremendous (public) attention. A lot of funding is pouring into it. And tremendous scientific progress is being made because of the advances in sequencing, both in throughput and cost.
We have a (global) market share of somewhere in the 60 to 65 percent range. So we are clearly the leading player in that space.
Q: In June, the company lowered prices on individual genomic sequencing. How has that affected business?
A: We significantly changed the pricing on consumer sequencing to $19,500 for (any individual), $14,500 for groups of five or more who work with the same physician, and $9,500 for clinical cases where someone has a life-threatening disease. We did that to begin to demonstrate the potential for sequencing in direct clinical applications.
Q: Do health insurance plans cover the cost of sequencing?
A: I don’t know of a case where it’s been reimbursed by insurance.
Q: How many people have purchased full sequencing from Illumina?
A: In the first year, we did 14. We haven’t announced any number since, but the number in our pipeline has gone up considerably since we reduced the prices. The original price was $48,000.
Q: What will happen to sequencing prices in the future?
A: In our projection, it will take us roughly to (reach the) $1,000 genome in the three- to five-year time frame. Once a whole human genome is at $1,000 — and the utility of this information will be so much higher — it will begin to make significant sense for (Medicare and private insurers) to become very involved in this.
Q: Is it really useful at this point to have your genome sequenced?
A: We’re still in the very earliest phases of understanding what the humane genome sequence means. So there is going to be a tremendous amount of work done in the next few years in learning how to interpret the genome.
In some of these early situations we may have some chance of payoff. but the most likely case is that we won’t.
The more of these that we do, the probability will go up that we will have some direct clinical relevance of the genome because we understand more about what it means.
Q: Why is Illumina pushing into the genomic sequencing market so aggressively?
A: This is something that is very important, not only for our company but for society as a whole. This genetic information is going to become increasingly valuable and useful for physicians and for individuals to manage their health care.
Part of the reason we entered the market early was to begin the discussions about resolving issues around how to clinically validate genetic information and deal with issues of ethics and privacy.
Q: Have your genes been mapped?
A: I’ve had my human genome sequenced, and it’s on my iPad. We developed an elementary application (to view the data on the device).
I went into my physician’s office about two months ago, and they wanted to prescribe a blood test. They said I needed to have this genetic test done as well. I said, “Don’t need that. I have my whole human genome here. We’ll just go check it.”
Q: Illumina has begun developing diagnostic genetic tests for certain cancers. Explain that strategy.
A: The opportunity has a couple of pieces to it. One is the work that we’re doing for us internally looking to discover the molecular basis of ovarian and gastric cancers. Using sequencing, you can look at the entire genome of a tumor biopsy. If you look at enough of these and compare them, you can begin to look for what’s similar and what’s different about these tumors.
The second really interesting opportunity is to take cancers that are untreatable for some reason — are not responsive to existing therapies — and begin to pull in other existing therapies that may begin to impact the pathway of that tumor.
Q: Why are you focusing on ovarian and gastric cancers?
A: One factor was to pick cancers that had bad outcomes. Ovarian and gastric tend to be detected late, so their mortality rates are high. Their five-year survival rates are low.
We wanted to work on cancers where we could get reasonable access to samples ... as opposed to something like pancreatic cancer where it’s very hard to get samples. They are so highly mutated by the time anyone detects them, sequencing doesn’t tell you much.
The third factor was to pick cancers that had not already been worked on by hundreds of other people.
Q: Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to Illumina and 18 other companies warning that their genetic tests could require agency oversight. At the center of the query are San Diego-based Pathway Genomics and two other companies that sell broad-based genetic tests directly to consumers without going through physicians. What role is Illumina playing in this regulatory review?
A: We supply the (genetic testing) technology to a couple of those companies, but we don’t do the genotyping. That’s done by third parties. 23andMe, Decode Genetics and Pathway are all our customers.
What (the FDA) has asked us and the direct-to-consumer companies to do is to help them figure out how to get these products through the FDA validation process.
It’s not that they want to shut this business down, as far as we can tell. Their goal is to make sure there are appropriate regulatory standards around it.
Q: What are the agency’s biggest concerns?
A: There generally are three categories of data that get fed back on these (genetic) arrays. One is the ancestry and (related) traits, which I think is a set of information that the FDA is not concerned about.
On the other side are the pharmacogenomic pieces of information. This has to do with whether you are a responder to Warfarin. What about Plavix? In these cases, the FDA wants to know that these (genetic testing) devices are accurately reporting out the results. We’re working on various ways that clinical validation could be done on those sets of (genetic) markers.
Then, in the middle, you have a broad set of predictive (disease markers) that nobody quite yet knows how to deal with. That’s where we’re working with the FDA to design a new paradigm for how we do that. Nobody knows yet how it will work.
As president and chief executive of Illumina, Jay Flatley heads one of the fastest-growing life sciences companies in San Diego’s biotechnology hub.
Illumina has led the way in recent years in moving genetic sequencing — the mapping of the massive biological code that shapes each individual — out of the research lab and into doctors’ offices and mobile computers, where the information can potentially be used to diagnose disease, direct treatments and guide health choices.
Since Illumina acquired its DNA sequencing business in 2007, the company’s annual revenue has nearly quadrupled, hitting $666 million last year.
Flatley sat down recently to discuss the future of genetic sequencing, Illumina’s foray into cutting-edge cancer diagnostics and a federal government review of several Illumina customers that sell genetic testing services directly to consumers.
Q: What’s leading Illumina’s agenda right now?
A: We’re focused on two major markets — DNA sequencing and microarrays. The faster growing of those two markets is DNA sequencing.
Q: What’s driving that growth?
A: It has tremendous (public) attention. A lot of funding is pouring into it. And tremendous scientific progress is being made because of the advances in sequencing, both in throughput and cost.
We have a (global) market share of somewhere in the 60 to 65 percent range. So we are clearly the leading player in that space.
Q: In June, the company lowered prices on individual genomic sequencing. How has that affected business?
A: We significantly changed the pricing on consumer sequencing to $19,500 for (any individual), $14,500 for groups of five or more who work with the same physician, and $9,500 for clinical cases where someone has a life-threatening disease. We did that to begin to demonstrate the potential for sequencing in direct clinical applications.
Q: Do health insurance plans cover the cost of sequencing?
A: I don’t know of a case where it’s been reimbursed by insurance.
Q: How many people have purchased full sequencing from Illumina?
A: In the first year, we did 14. We haven’t announced any number since, but the number in our pipeline has gone up considerably since we reduced the prices. The original price was $48,000.
Q: What will happen to sequencing prices in the future?
A: In our projection, it will take us roughly to (reach the) $1,000 genome in the three- to five-year time frame. Once a whole human genome is at $1,000 — and the utility of this information will be so much higher — it will begin to make significant sense for (Medicare and private insurers) to become very involved in this.
Q: Is it really useful at this point to have your genome sequenced?
A: We’re still in the very earliest phases of understanding what the humane genome sequence means. So there is going to be a tremendous amount of work done in the next few years in learning how to interpret the genome.
In some of these early situations we may have some chance of payoff. but the most likely case is that we won’t.
The more of these that we do, the probability will go up that we will have some direct clinical relevance of the genome because we understand more about what it means.
Q: Why is Illumina pushing into the genomic sequencing market so aggressively?
A: This is something that is very important, not only for our company but for society as a whole. This genetic information is going to become increasingly valuable and useful for physicians and for individuals to manage their health care.
Part of the reason we entered the market early was to begin the discussions about resolving issues around how to clinically validate genetic information and deal with issues of ethics and privacy.
Q: Have your genes been mapped?
A: I’ve had my human genome sequenced, and it’s on my iPad. We developed an elementary application (to view the data on the device).
I went into my physician’s office about two months ago, and they wanted to prescribe a blood test. They said I needed to have this genetic test done as well. I said, “Don’t need that. I have my whole human genome here. We’ll just go check it.”
Q: Illumina has begun developing diagnostic genetic tests for certain cancers. Explain that strategy.
A: The opportunity has a couple of pieces to it. One is the work that we’re doing for us internally looking to discover the molecular basis of ovarian and gastric cancers. Using sequencing, you can look at the entire genome of a tumor biopsy. If you look at enough of these and compare them, you can begin to look for what’s similar and what’s different about these tumors.
The second really interesting opportunity is to take cancers that are untreatable for some reason — are not responsive to existing therapies — and begin to pull in other existing therapies that may begin to impact the pathway of that tumor.
Q: Why are you focusing on ovarian and gastric cancers?
A: One factor was to pick cancers that had bad outcomes. Ovarian and gastric tend to be detected late, so their mortality rates are high. Their five-year survival rates are low.
We wanted to work on cancers where we could get reasonable access to samples ... as opposed to something like pancreatic cancer where it’s very hard to get samples. They are so highly mutated by the time anyone detects them, sequencing doesn’t tell you much.
The third factor was to pick cancers that had not already been worked on by hundreds of other people.
Q: Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to Illumina and 18 other companies warning that their genetic tests could require agency oversight. At the center of the query are San Diego-based Pathway Genomics and two other companies that sell broad-based genetic tests directly to consumers without going through physicians. What role is Illumina playing in this regulatory review?
A: We supply the (genetic testing) technology to a couple of those companies, but we don’t do the genotyping. That’s done by third parties. 23andMe, Decode Genetics and Pathway are all our customers.
What (the FDA) has asked us and the direct-to-consumer companies to do is to help them figure out how to get these products through the FDA validation process.
It’s not that they want to shut this business down, as far as we can tell. Their goal is to make sure there are appropriate regulatory standards around it.
Q: What are the agency’s biggest concerns?
A: There generally are three categories of data that get fed back on these (genetic) arrays. One is the ancestry and (related) traits, which I think is a set of information that the FDA is not concerned about.
On the other side are the pharmacogenomic pieces of information. This has to do with whether you are a responder to Warfarin. What about Plavix? In these cases, the FDA wants to know that these (genetic testing) devices are accurately reporting out the results. We’re working on various ways that clinical validation could be done on those sets of (genetic) markers.
Then, in the middle, you have a broad set of predictive (disease markers) that nobody quite yet knows how to deal with. That’s where we’re working with the FDA to design a new paradigm for how we do that. Nobody knows yet how it will work.
Phys Ed: The Right Kind of Sports Bra
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/phys-ed-the-right-kind-of-sports-bra/?ex=1297828800&en=78442d28ecfbfe18&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M163-ROS-0810-L1&WT.mc_ev=click
Cool Summer Cucumber Dishes
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/cool-summer-cucumber-dishes/?ex=1297828800&en=65b9ec75963b4956&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M163-ROS-0810-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click
Robert Epstein
http://drrobertepstein.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=38
http://drrobertepstein.com/ECI/
http://drrobertepstein.com/ECI/
Friday, August 20, 2010
National Universities Rankings
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings
life is short
Life is too precious to worry about stupid things.
So have fun, Say what you feel and do what you want to do.
Regret nothing and don't let people who don't matter Bring You Down ---- by Caroline's friend
New study finds new connection between yoga and mood
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_
Boston, MA—Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that yoga may be superior to other forms of exercise in its positive effect on mood and anxiety. The findings, which currently appear on-line at Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, is the first to demonstrate an association between yoga postures, increased GABA levels and decreased anxiety.
The researchers set out to contrast the brain gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) levels of yoga subjects with those of participants who spent time walking. Low GABA levels are associated with depression and other widespread anxiety disorders.
The researchers followed two randomized groups of healthy individuals over a 12-week long period. One group practiced yoga three times a week for one hour, while the remaining subjects walked for the same period of time. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging, the participants' brains were scanned before the study began. At week 12, the researchers compared the GABA levels of both groups before and after their final 60-minute session.
Each subject was also asked to assess his or her psychological state at several points throughout the study, and those who practiced yoga reported a more significant decrease in anxiety and greater improvements in mood than those who walked. "Over time, positive changes in these reports were associated with climbing GABA levels," said lead author Chris Streeter, MD, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at BUSM.
According to Streeter, this promising research warrants further study of the relationship between yoga and mood, and suggests that the practice of yoga be considered as a potential therapy for certain mental disorders.
Boston, MA—Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that yoga may be superior to other forms of exercise in its positive effect on mood and anxiety. The findings, which currently appear on-line at Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, is the first to demonstrate an association between yoga postures, increased GABA levels and decreased anxiety.
The researchers set out to contrast the brain gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) levels of yoga subjects with those of participants who spent time walking. Low GABA levels are associated with depression and other widespread anxiety disorders.
The researchers followed two randomized groups of healthy individuals over a 12-week long period. One group practiced yoga three times a week for one hour, while the remaining subjects walked for the same period of time. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging, the participants' brains were scanned before the study began. At week 12, the researchers compared the GABA levels of both groups before and after their final 60-minute session.
Each subject was also asked to assess his or her psychological state at several points throughout the study, and those who practiced yoga reported a more significant decrease in anxiety and greater improvements in mood than those who walked. "Over time, positive changes in these reports were associated with climbing GABA levels," said lead author Chris Streeter, MD, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at BUSM.
According to Streeter, this promising research warrants further study of the relationship between yoga and mood, and suggests that the practice of yoga be considered as a potential therapy for certain mental disorders.
Reanimated ‘Junk’ DNA Is Found to Cause Disease
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/science/20gene.html?_r=1&hpw
The human genome is riddled with dead genes, fossils of a sort, dating back hundreds of thousands of years — the genome’s equivalent of an attic full of broken and useless junk.
Some of those genes, surprised geneticists reported Thursday, can rise from the dead like zombies, waking up to cause one of the most common forms of muscular dystrophy. This is the first time, geneticists say, that they have seen a dead gene come back to life and cause a disease.
“If we were thinking of a collection of the genome’s greatest hits, this would go on the list,” said Dr. Francis Collins, a human geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health.
The disease, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, known as FSHD, is one of the most common forms of muscular dystrophy. It was known to be inherited in a simple pattern. But before this paper, published online Thursday in Science by a group of researchers, its cause was poorly understood.
The culprit gene is part of what has been called junk DNA, regions whose function, if any, is largely unknown. In this case, the dead genes had seemed permanently disabled. But, said Dr. Collins, “the first law of the genome is that anything that can go wrong, will.” David Housman, a geneticist at M.I.T., said scientists will now be looking for other diseases with similar causes, and they expect to find them.
“As soon as you understand something that was staring you in the face and leaving you clueless, the first thing you ask is, ‘Where else is this happening?’ ” Dr. Housman said.
But, he added, in a way FSHD was the easy case — it is a disease that affects every single person who inherits the genetic defect. Other diseases are more subtle, affecting some people more than others, causing a range of symptoms. The trick, he said, is to be “astute enough to pick out the patterns that connect you to the DNA.”
FSHD affects about 1 in 20,000 people, causing a progressive weakening of muscles in the upper arms, around the shoulder blades and in the face — people who have the disease cannot smile. It is a dominant genetic disease. If a parent has the gene mutation that causes it, each child has a 50 percent chance of getting it too. And anyone who inherits the gene is absolutely certain to get the disease.
About two decades ago, geneticists zeroed in on the region of the genome that seemed to be the culprit: the tip of the longer arm of chromosome 4, which was made up of a long chain of repeated copies of a dead gene. The dead gene was also repeated on chromosome 10, but that area of repeats seemed innocuous, unrelated to the disease. Only chromosome 4 was a problem.
“It was a repeated element,” said Dr. Kenneth Fischbeck, chief of the neurogenetics branch at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “An ancient gene stuck on the tip of chromosome 4. It was a dead gene; there was no evidence that it was expressed.”
And the more they looked at that region of chromosome 4, the more puzzling it was. No one whose dead gene was repeated more than 10 times ever got FSHD. But only some people with fewer than 10 copies got the disease.
A group of researchers in the Netherlands and the United States had a meeting about five years ago to try to figure it out, and began collaborating. “We kept meeting here, year after year,” said Dr. Stephen J. Tapscott, a neurology professor at the University of Washington.
As they studied the repeated, but dead, gene, Dr. Tapscott and his colleagues realized that it was not completely inactive. It is always transcribed — copied by the cell as a first step to making a protein. But the transcriptions were faulty, disintegrating right away. They were missing a crucial section, called a poly (A) sequence, needed to stabilize them.
When the dead gene had this sequence, it came back to life. “It’s an if and only if,” Dr. Housman said. “You have to have 10 copies or fewer. And you have to have poly (A). Either one is not enough.”
But why would people be protected if they have more than 10 copies of the dead gene? Researchers say that those extra copies change the chromosome’s structure, shutting off the whole region so it cannot be used.
Why the reactivated gene affects only muscles of the face, shoulders and arms remains a mystery. The only clue is that the gene is similar to ones that are important in development.
In the meantime, says Dr. Housman, who was not involved in the research but is chairman of the scientific advisory board of the FSHD Society, an advocacy group led by patients, the work reveals a way to search for treatments.
“It has made it clear what the target is,” he said. “Turning off that dead gene. I am certain you can hit it.”
The bigger lesson, Dr. Collins said, is that diseases can arise in very complicated ways. Scientists used to think the genetic basis for medical disorders, like dominantly inherited diseases, would be straightforward. Only complex diseases, like diabetes, would have complex genetic origins.
“Well, my gosh,” Dr. Collins said. “Here’s a simple disease with an incredibly elaborate mechanism.”
“To come up with this sort of mechanism for a disease to arise — I don’t think we expected that,” Dr. Collins said.
The human genome is riddled with dead genes, fossils of a sort, dating back hundreds of thousands of years — the genome’s equivalent of an attic full of broken and useless junk.
Some of those genes, surprised geneticists reported Thursday, can rise from the dead like zombies, waking up to cause one of the most common forms of muscular dystrophy. This is the first time, geneticists say, that they have seen a dead gene come back to life and cause a disease.
“If we were thinking of a collection of the genome’s greatest hits, this would go on the list,” said Dr. Francis Collins, a human geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health.
The disease, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, known as FSHD, is one of the most common forms of muscular dystrophy. It was known to be inherited in a simple pattern. But before this paper, published online Thursday in Science by a group of researchers, its cause was poorly understood.
The culprit gene is part of what has been called junk DNA, regions whose function, if any, is largely unknown. In this case, the dead genes had seemed permanently disabled. But, said Dr. Collins, “the first law of the genome is that anything that can go wrong, will.” David Housman, a geneticist at M.I.T., said scientists will now be looking for other diseases with similar causes, and they expect to find them.
“As soon as you understand something that was staring you in the face and leaving you clueless, the first thing you ask is, ‘Where else is this happening?’ ” Dr. Housman said.
But, he added, in a way FSHD was the easy case — it is a disease that affects every single person who inherits the genetic defect. Other diseases are more subtle, affecting some people more than others, causing a range of symptoms. The trick, he said, is to be “astute enough to pick out the patterns that connect you to the DNA.”
FSHD affects about 1 in 20,000 people, causing a progressive weakening of muscles in the upper arms, around the shoulder blades and in the face — people who have the disease cannot smile. It is a dominant genetic disease. If a parent has the gene mutation that causes it, each child has a 50 percent chance of getting it too. And anyone who inherits the gene is absolutely certain to get the disease.
About two decades ago, geneticists zeroed in on the region of the genome that seemed to be the culprit: the tip of the longer arm of chromosome 4, which was made up of a long chain of repeated copies of a dead gene. The dead gene was also repeated on chromosome 10, but that area of repeats seemed innocuous, unrelated to the disease. Only chromosome 4 was a problem.
“It was a repeated element,” said Dr. Kenneth Fischbeck, chief of the neurogenetics branch at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “An ancient gene stuck on the tip of chromosome 4. It was a dead gene; there was no evidence that it was expressed.”
And the more they looked at that region of chromosome 4, the more puzzling it was. No one whose dead gene was repeated more than 10 times ever got FSHD. But only some people with fewer than 10 copies got the disease.
A group of researchers in the Netherlands and the United States had a meeting about five years ago to try to figure it out, and began collaborating. “We kept meeting here, year after year,” said Dr. Stephen J. Tapscott, a neurology professor at the University of Washington.
As they studied the repeated, but dead, gene, Dr. Tapscott and his colleagues realized that it was not completely inactive. It is always transcribed — copied by the cell as a first step to making a protein. But the transcriptions were faulty, disintegrating right away. They were missing a crucial section, called a poly (A) sequence, needed to stabilize them.
When the dead gene had this sequence, it came back to life. “It’s an if and only if,” Dr. Housman said. “You have to have 10 copies or fewer. And you have to have poly (A). Either one is not enough.”
But why would people be protected if they have more than 10 copies of the dead gene? Researchers say that those extra copies change the chromosome’s structure, shutting off the whole region so it cannot be used.
Why the reactivated gene affects only muscles of the face, shoulders and arms remains a mystery. The only clue is that the gene is similar to ones that are important in development.
In the meantime, says Dr. Housman, who was not involved in the research but is chairman of the scientific advisory board of the FSHD Society, an advocacy group led by patients, the work reveals a way to search for treatments.
“It has made it clear what the target is,” he said. “Turning off that dead gene. I am certain you can hit it.”
The bigger lesson, Dr. Collins said, is that diseases can arise in very complicated ways. Scientists used to think the genetic basis for medical disorders, like dominantly inherited diseases, would be straightforward. Only complex diseases, like diabetes, would have complex genetic origins.
“Well, my gosh,” Dr. Collins said. “Here’s a simple disease with an incredibly elaborate mechanism.”
“To come up with this sort of mechanism for a disease to arise — I don’t think we expected that,” Dr. Collins said.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
MDA awards 14.1 million grant to advance treatments for muscle and nerve diseases
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/18/2966439/mda-awards-141-million-in-new.html
Published: Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010 - 3:03 am
TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 18 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Muscular Dystrophy Association, which has invested almost $39 million in 2010 in worldwide research seeking treatments and cures for muscle diseases, today announced that it has awarded $14.1 million in new grants.
"Thanks to generous public support of MDA, we're able to keep funding vital muscle disease research at a time when such investments by government agencies, nonprofit organizations and private sources have tightened due to severe economic pressures," said R. Rodney Howell, M.D., chairman of the MDA Board of Directors.
Attachment is an escape from loneliness
by Krishnamurti
What you are concerned with is dependence, which is a fact, with all its implications. Then there is a deeper fact, which is loneliness, the feeling of being isolated. Feeling lonely, we attach ourselves to people, drink, and all sorts of other escapes. Attachment is an escape from loneliness. Can this loneliness be understood and can one find out for oneself what is beyond it? That is the real question, not what to do about attachment to people or environment. Can this deep sense of loneliness, emptiness, be transcended? Any movement at all away from loneliness strengthens the loneliness, and so there is more need than ever before to get away from it. This makes for attachment which brings its own problems. The problems of attachment occupy the mind so much that one loses sight of the loneliness and disregards it. So we disregard the cause and occupy ourselves with the effect. But the loneliness is acting all the time because there is no difference between cause and effect. There is only what is. It becomes a cause only when it moves away from itself. It is important to understand that this movement away from itself is itself, and therefore it is its own effect. There is, therefore, no cause and effect at all, no movement anywhere at all, but only what is. You don't see what is because you cling to the effect. There is loneliness, and apparent movement away from this loneliness to attachment; then this attachment with all its complications becomes so important, so dominating, that it prevents one from looking at what is. Movement away from what is, is fear, and we try to resolve it by another escape. This is perpetual motion, apparently away from what is, but in actuality there is no movement at all. So it is only the mind which sees what is and doesn't move away from it in any direction that is free of what is. Since this chain of cause and effect is the action of loneliness, it is clear that the only ending of loneliness is the ending of this action. - Freedom, Love and Action Eight Conversations
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Greatness is anonymity
by Krishnamurti
Greatness is anonymity, to be anonymous is the greatest thing. The great cathedral, the great things of life, great sculpture, must be anonymous. They do not belong to any particular person, like truth. Truth does not belong to you or to me, it is totally impersonal and anonymous; if you say you have got truth, then you are not anonymous, you are far more important than truth. But an anonymous person may never be great. Probably he will never be great, because he does not want to be great, great in the sense of the world or even inwardly because he is nobody. He has no followers. He has no shrine, he does not puff himself up. But most of us unfortunately want to puff ourselves up, we want to be great, we want to be known, we want to have success. Success leads to fame, but that is an empty thing, is it not? It is like ashes. Every politician is known and it is his business to be known and therefore he is not great. Greatness is to be unknown, inwardly and outwardly to be as nothing; and that requires great penetration, great understanding, great affection. - Banaras, India 20th January 1954 13th, Collected Works.
Monday, August 16, 2010
book -- Fostering Sustainable Behavior
Sustainability Communications: A Toolkit for Marketing and Advertising Courses
http://www.unep.fr/scp/
http://www.unep.fr/scp/
Dos and Don'ts for the In-Person Interview
http://chronicle.com/article/DosDonts-for-the/123828/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en
As search consultants, we frequently have the best seat in the house for the conversations that shape, and sometimes radically change, people's lives: job interviews.
Our focus here is on interviews for administrative appointments—not the top leadership jobs, but the more common ones: deans, general counsels, executive directors. The atmosphere in those interviews is always cordial but charged beyond belief. Members of the search committee have thoughtfully crafted questions, so as to ensure softballs, hardballs, theoreticals, and a sprinkling of feel-goods. The interview must take no longer than the prescribed time, cover roughly the same territory for each of the candidates, and help the committee arrive at an understanding of how to feel about each one.
We have watched perfectly reasonable candidates with terrific credentials and experience walk in like ambassadors from another world, offering a regal, modest hand wave to the assembled committee as they try to figure out whether to shake everyone's hand individually or just slip into the one vacant seat and meet their fate.
We are prevented by our roles from intervening on the candidates' behalf. Other than basic advice regarding how to prepare for the interview, we cannot possibly tell them everything they might need to know. Some candidates will discover many of the issues, criticisms, and triumphs the institution is facing; those with less initiative will not. You'd better believe that if we were in their shoes, we would learn as much as we possibly could about the place. No investigatory holds would be barred.
But what else do we, as search consultants, think job candidates should do in advance of the interview ritual?
Internal preparation. Aka headwork. Try to figure out in advance how interested you are in the job, and why. Your level of interest, or lack thereof, will become glaringly obvious, especially to those committee members who are not asking the questions and are observing you closely. They will watch you like a hawk for signs of ambivalence, which is probably not fatal early on, but can be if it carries over to the final interview.
Our preliminary conversations often weed out people who are just kicking tires, but sometimes they slip through because they are really well qualified and the employer is flattered by their apparent interest.
Here are some of the mental calculations you should be making at this stage: Think about the changes the job would require in your personal life, and whether everyone in your household would be on board with a move.
You would be surprised by the number of candidates who secretly interview for jobs hundreds of miles from where they live when their kids are juniors in high school. They suddenly remember, once they become finalists, that their son Horace, the tennis ace who might get a scholarship if he can sustain his athletics and academic record during his senior year, might not want to move. Did Horace just appear on the scene wielding a golden tennis racket, or might the candidate have known about him for 16 or 17 years?
If candidates don't have the courage to discuss tough stuff with their families, how can they be expected to deal with tough stuff on the job?
Then there is the job that would not require relocation but would involve logistical challenges. Two-hour commutes are fine several times a month, but most people become unglued with a steady diet of NPR. And what about the after-hours committee meetings? What about the required professional conferences? How will all of that play at home?
It's not just personal issues you have to consider. What about the new professional skills you will need to master if you land the job? You have never dealt with budgets before; just thinking about them gives you hives. What made you think you could address the state Legislature with graphs, flow charts, and 25-year debt projections? Sit and think: "I want my career challenges to grow with time, but am I really ready for this one? At this time?"
It is likely you will run into people on the hiring committee again. The judgments they make about your candidacy and your readiness for the job will stay fixed in their minds. You might grow and change, but their impression of you will remain fixed until they acquire new information about you.
External preparation. When people haven't been on the job market recently, they relax. They may forget that they haven't interviewed in five years. They haven't put on that navy pinstripe suit in a while. Does it still fit? What about the shoes?
Take the time to spruce yourself up. If your clothes don't fit, get them altered or buy some new ones. Now is not the time to arrive with your shirt creeping out of the waistband, buttons pulling, or wrinkles and stains on your dress. Committee members will notice, no matter how robust your presentation.
It doesn't take much to make a negative impression. One candidate arrived late, breathless and flustered. Her cab driver had feigned familiarity with the destination, only to admit that he was lost and clueless about how to find his way. She was forced to set off on foot—in heels. She eventually made it, but the fiasco could have been avoided had she used the driver we recommended. Another candidate arrived on St. Patrick's Day sporting a green suit, shirt, tie, hankie, and socks.
Substantive preparation. No matter how hard you prepare, you will seldom know more than the internal candidates do. They have an ear to the ground, they are privy to gossip that never makes the blogs (which you should read, by the way, both general academic blogs and ones relating to the institution in question), and they have internal sources with whom they exchange information. Gossip is the coin of the realm. If you learn nothing else from this article, please remember that.
Searches at academic institutions are often leaky vessels. People blog about the finalist lists, they speculate, they gossip. They shouldn't, because spectacular candidates might well be willing to surface if they thought their identity would remain confidential. Occasionally even the most private of candidates can be lured into interviewing for a golden opportunity. They simply can't help themselves. Then, in their exuberance, after swearing the committee members and the consultants to secrecy, they pick up the phone, call a buddy at the hiring institution, reveal their candidacy, swear that colleague to secrecy, and then ask for the scoop about the place.
The minute they hang up the phone, the confidentiality is breached. Trust us, in the majority of cases, word escapes slowly, like a leak in a balloon. Sooner or later, the news reaches someone who will use it to entertain his friends at lunch. From then on, you are a dead duck.
Interestingly, that seldom happens in the private sector, where people seem to understand and respect a job candidate's need for privacy. They realize that jobs, promotions, entire careers are at stake. So next time, resist the temptation to share the news of your candidacy just to get some inside information. Do your own research, using Web sites, newspapers, and the myriad other sources available.
Don't look at just the specific circumstances of the college. Look into the trends that are affecting all of higher education. Strive to place the institution, and its future, within the context of those trends. How will the challenges faced by public institutions change in the next 10 years? How will private institutions be impacted?
Try to imagine the future, because the position you are interviewing for is likely to require that you be an active participant in its shaping. The more broadly you educate yourself about the issues on the horizon, including the ever-present money issues, the more you will be able to contribute to the dialogue, and to the interviews, as committee members search for meaningful ways to interact with you.
We applaud those search-committeemembers who struggle to get it right, who put countless hours into the selection of candidates, who use all their antennae to help them understand the humans in front of them, warts and all. We are mindful of the fellow who describes a beautiful woman in glowing terms, and the friend who wants to know more about the mole on her neck.
Unfortunately, sometimes that's how it feels inside a committee's deliberations. We all have a mole somewhere, and most of us are forgiven for it as we roll through life. But the search-committee process is, by its nature, a deliberate and careful one. The human under consideration should be prepared to be examined in full. The search committee has been given a task, will be judged on the results, and wants desperately to succeed.
Our focus here is on interviews for administrative appointments—not the top leadership jobs, but the more common ones: deans, general counsels, executive directors. The atmosphere in those interviews is always cordial but charged beyond belief. Members of the search committee have thoughtfully crafted questions, so as to ensure softballs, hardballs, theoreticals, and a sprinkling of feel-goods. The interview must take no longer than the prescribed time, cover roughly the same territory for each of the candidates, and help the committee arrive at an understanding of how to feel about each one.
We have watched perfectly reasonable candidates with terrific credentials and experience walk in like ambassadors from another world, offering a regal, modest hand wave to the assembled committee as they try to figure out whether to shake everyone's hand individually or just slip into the one vacant seat and meet their fate.
We are prevented by our roles from intervening on the candidates' behalf. Other than basic advice regarding how to prepare for the interview, we cannot possibly tell them everything they might need to know. Some candidates will discover many of the issues, criticisms, and triumphs the institution is facing; those with less initiative will not. You'd better believe that if we were in their shoes, we would learn as much as we possibly could about the place. No investigatory holds would be barred.
But what else do we, as search consultants, think job candidates should do in advance of the interview ritual?
Internal preparation. Aka headwork. Try to figure out in advance how interested you are in the job, and why. Your level of interest, or lack thereof, will become glaringly obvious, especially to those committee members who are not asking the questions and are observing you closely. They will watch you like a hawk for signs of ambivalence, which is probably not fatal early on, but can be if it carries over to the final interview.
Our preliminary conversations often weed out people who are just kicking tires, but sometimes they slip through because they are really well qualified and the employer is flattered by their apparent interest.
Here are some of the mental calculations you should be making at this stage: Think about the changes the job would require in your personal life, and whether everyone in your household would be on board with a move.
You would be surprised by the number of candidates who secretly interview for jobs hundreds of miles from where they live when their kids are juniors in high school. They suddenly remember, once they become finalists, that their son Horace, the tennis ace who might get a scholarship if he can sustain his athletics and academic record during his senior year, might not want to move. Did Horace just appear on the scene wielding a golden tennis racket, or might the candidate have known about him for 16 or 17 years?
If candidates don't have the courage to discuss tough stuff with their families, how can they be expected to deal with tough stuff on the job?
Then there is the job that would not require relocation but would involve logistical challenges. Two-hour commutes are fine several times a month, but most people become unglued with a steady diet of NPR. And what about the after-hours committee meetings? What about the required professional conferences? How will all of that play at home?
It's not just personal issues you have to consider. What about the new professional skills you will need to master if you land the job? You have never dealt with budgets before; just thinking about them gives you hives. What made you think you could address the state Legislature with graphs, flow charts, and 25-year debt projections? Sit and think: "I want my career challenges to grow with time, but am I really ready for this one? At this time?"
It is likely you will run into people on the hiring committee again. The judgments they make about your candidacy and your readiness for the job will stay fixed in their minds. You might grow and change, but their impression of you will remain fixed until they acquire new information about you.
External preparation. When people haven't been on the job market recently, they relax. They may forget that they haven't interviewed in five years. They haven't put on that navy pinstripe suit in a while. Does it still fit? What about the shoes?
Take the time to spruce yourself up. If your clothes don't fit, get them altered or buy some new ones. Now is not the time to arrive with your shirt creeping out of the waistband, buttons pulling, or wrinkles and stains on your dress. Committee members will notice, no matter how robust your presentation.
It doesn't take much to make a negative impression. One candidate arrived late, breathless and flustered. Her cab driver had feigned familiarity with the destination, only to admit that he was lost and clueless about how to find his way. She was forced to set off on foot—in heels. She eventually made it, but the fiasco could have been avoided had she used the driver we recommended. Another candidate arrived on St. Patrick's Day sporting a green suit, shirt, tie, hankie, and socks.
Substantive preparation. No matter how hard you prepare, you will seldom know more than the internal candidates do. They have an ear to the ground, they are privy to gossip that never makes the blogs (which you should read, by the way, both general academic blogs and ones relating to the institution in question), and they have internal sources with whom they exchange information. Gossip is the coin of the realm. If you learn nothing else from this article, please remember that.
Searches at academic institutions are often leaky vessels. People blog about the finalist lists, they speculate, they gossip. They shouldn't, because spectacular candidates might well be willing to surface if they thought their identity would remain confidential. Occasionally even the most private of candidates can be lured into interviewing for a golden opportunity. They simply can't help themselves. Then, in their exuberance, after swearing the committee members and the consultants to secrecy, they pick up the phone, call a buddy at the hiring institution, reveal their candidacy, swear that colleague to secrecy, and then ask for the scoop about the place.
The minute they hang up the phone, the confidentiality is breached. Trust us, in the majority of cases, word escapes slowly, like a leak in a balloon. Sooner or later, the news reaches someone who will use it to entertain his friends at lunch. From then on, you are a dead duck.
Interestingly, that seldom happens in the private sector, where people seem to understand and respect a job candidate's need for privacy. They realize that jobs, promotions, entire careers are at stake. So next time, resist the temptation to share the news of your candidacy just to get some inside information. Do your own research, using Web sites, newspapers, and the myriad other sources available.
Don't look at just the specific circumstances of the college. Look into the trends that are affecting all of higher education. Strive to place the institution, and its future, within the context of those trends. How will the challenges faced by public institutions change in the next 10 years? How will private institutions be impacted?
Try to imagine the future, because the position you are interviewing for is likely to require that you be an active participant in its shaping. The more broadly you educate yourself about the issues on the horizon, including the ever-present money issues, the more you will be able to contribute to the dialogue, and to the interviews, as committee members search for meaningful ways to interact with you.
We applaud those search-committeemembers who struggle to get it right, who put countless hours into the selection of candidates, who use all their antennae to help them understand the humans in front of them, warts and all. We are mindful of the fellow who describes a beautiful woman in glowing terms, and the friend who wants to know more about the mole on her neck.
Unfortunately, sometimes that's how it feels inside a committee's deliberations. We all have a mole somewhere, and most of us are forgiven for it as we roll through life. But the search-committee process is, by its nature, a deliberate and careful one. The human under consideration should be prepared to be examined in full. The search committee has been given a task, will be judged on the results, and wants desperately to succeed.
Being Nice or Getting the Job Done
http://chronicle.com/article/Being-Nice-or-Getting-the-Job/123829/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en
Question (from "Delpha"): Am I turning into a shark?
I'm in charge of campus life at Good Little College, where we pride ourselves on working harmoniously and making everyone happy with dorm life and student activities. My assistant director, "Etta," a recent college graduate in her first professional job, is in charge of the arts program, which brings speakers, writers, and entertainers to our isolated little town. She oversees a student intern, who gets a chance to learn to do publicity, catering, and other arranging.
"Franny," this year's intern, had spectacular qualifications but has been an almost total flake. She's under the thumb of a boyfriend, "Petey," whose demands have controlled her life. ("I can't come to any meetings this week—Petey keeps texting me that he's feeling lonely. He needs me.")
Here's the last straw. Franny (who told us all this) washed Petey's laundry as usual and brought it to his room, where she found a classmate, "Germa," naked in his bed. (Petey'd gone out to buy beer.) Franny was so distraught that she didn't write the press release or contact the caterer or do anything for the appearance of Mr. Bigwig Political Figure—who wound up with an audience of 20 people. There wasn't even a microphone.
I fired Franny, but Etta's been imploring me to rehire her, because "she's a great kid, and she's so sorry you were annoyed, and she's crying her eyes out." Etta thinks I'm the meanie of the universe.
I'd like to throw them all out the window, Petey first, but we're on the first floor. What do I do now?
Answer: Ms. Mentor caught herself cooing, "Too bad about the first floor," but then pinched herself awake. Defenestration is not an appropriate sanction in any student handbook she's ever seen.
Instead, your job is education.
Franny will have to figure out on her own that that there are other frogs in the swamp. Ms. Mentor hopes she's not deluded into thinking that Petey will change his selfish ways ("All he needs is enough love, and we'll live happily ever after"). That's been the ruin of countless women. A little tough love might help Franny—but to administer it, you have to be tough yourself. Don't hire her back. This is her life lesson.
Etta is the one for you to educate and change. She's confronting one of the great tasks of adult life: learning to separate the personal and the professional. It means figuring out which side she's on, and that's especially hard for people who've been in school all their lives.
School has a structure and a hierarchy that's known and comforting (which is why thousands of students still apply, like lemmings, to graduate school in the humanities). School life is Us versus Them: teachers as judges and barriers, students as a community united to get better grades, credits, and entertainment. There are warring cliques, but students are more apt to feel loyal to one another, in a We're-All-In-This-Together mode that's abruptly shattered if they get real jobs.
Youngish new professors often want to hang with graduate students closer to their age—rather than with senior faculty members who blather on about Vietnam and Socrates. But the senior folks know the rules, and newbies have to watch, listen, and learn—not simply decide who they're for and who they're against. It stops being a matter of liking.
("Justin," a new instructor of Ms. Mentor's acquaintance, was sure the old guys in his department didn't notice or care about him. He certainly didn't care about them. He didn't bother to learn their names, greet them, or even make eye contact in the halls. He acted as if they were a different species, while he gallivanted about with students, and was shocked when his elders, recognizing that "this young man doesn't contribute anything to the life of the department," voted not to rehire him.)
Etta also seems to be in the student mind-set, where happiness, personal relationships, and emotional temperatures are the center of one's life. (When the anthropologist "Rebekah Nathan" went undercover as a college student to write My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, she was shocked at what a tiny space students gave schoolwork in their conversations. Social life was everything.) In Etta's case, she identifies with Franny's pain, rather than seeing what professional harm has been done.
Mr. Bigwig Political Figure is unlikely to come to Good Little College again. His donors, and his political party, will be furious. The college president may be berated for the humiliation. In some small towns, where the college is the only entertainment, there may be a firestorm of angry letters to the newspaper.
Etta needs to put damage control first. That can be done through social calls, flattering notes, and apologies, but humble pie is never enough. There must also be announcements that the arts program "will be restructured" so such a fiasco won't happen again. There has to be the appearance of change—official and serious. Etta has to be Good Little College's defender—not Franny's hanky.
Ms. Mentor knows that there are always people willing to throw stones. Etta can be called "careerist," and as her boss, Delpha may be called a hard-hearted Hannah, a shrew, and a shark. But coddling Franny ("you poor dear") trains her to be a ninny, and forgiving Etta ("you didn't know any better") trains her to be an irresponsible administrator, wanting to be liked rather than respected.
Ms. Mentor also urges faculty members and administrators to pay more attention to the Delphas and Ettas of academic life. Staff members in student services are always underpaid and underappreciated, although they are the ones who handle the crises and terrors of campus life. They respond to crimes as well as plagiarism; they provide support for desperate students—including the angry ones, the violent ones, the self-destructive ones. Those administrators are often the kindest face of academic life.
Their job used to seem easy: announce a "Volleyball game on the Old Main Lawn!" and everyone would come on down. Now students' fingers would have to be wrenched away from their BlackBerrys and iPods, and they'd have to make face-to-face conversations—a prospect so daunting that one freshman orientation offers a "Facebook in the Flesh" seminar, to help students learn to talk to one another with their voices.
Ms. Mentor trusts that Delpha and Etta have found their voices, and that poor Franny will learn to use her voice to say "No" to Petey and tell him to do his own dirty laundry. She's about to have a life.
Question: My assistant is lazy and disorganized, but if I fire him, I'll lose the money and not be able to hire anyone at all. Do I need to figure out how to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, or a swine into pearls, or a pig into a prince?
Answer: Oink.
Sage Readers: Ms. Mentor welcomes end-of-summer odes and rants from her readers, along with queries and commentary. As universities downsize draconianly, she fears for American education, and would like to know of problems that can be solved. She regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never immediately. Identifying details are always minced and pureed, and confidentiality is guaranteed, and anyway, everyone else has the same problems that you do.
(c) Emily Toth
I'm in charge of campus life at Good Little College, where we pride ourselves on working harmoniously and making everyone happy with dorm life and student activities. My assistant director, "Etta," a recent college graduate in her first professional job, is in charge of the arts program, which brings speakers, writers, and entertainers to our isolated little town. She oversees a student intern, who gets a chance to learn to do publicity, catering, and other arranging.
"Franny," this year's intern, had spectacular qualifications but has been an almost total flake. She's under the thumb of a boyfriend, "Petey," whose demands have controlled her life. ("I can't come to any meetings this week—Petey keeps texting me that he's feeling lonely. He needs me.")
Here's the last straw. Franny (who told us all this) washed Petey's laundry as usual and brought it to his room, where she found a classmate, "Germa," naked in his bed. (Petey'd gone out to buy beer.) Franny was so distraught that she didn't write the press release or contact the caterer or do anything for the appearance of Mr. Bigwig Political Figure—who wound up with an audience of 20 people. There wasn't even a microphone.
I fired Franny, but Etta's been imploring me to rehire her, because "she's a great kid, and she's so sorry you were annoyed, and she's crying her eyes out." Etta thinks I'm the meanie of the universe.
I'd like to throw them all out the window, Petey first, but we're on the first floor. What do I do now?
Answer: Ms. Mentor caught herself cooing, "Too bad about the first floor," but then pinched herself awake. Defenestration is not an appropriate sanction in any student handbook she's ever seen.
Instead, your job is education.
Franny will have to figure out on her own that that there are other frogs in the swamp. Ms. Mentor hopes she's not deluded into thinking that Petey will change his selfish ways ("All he needs is enough love, and we'll live happily ever after"). That's been the ruin of countless women. A little tough love might help Franny—but to administer it, you have to be tough yourself. Don't hire her back. This is her life lesson.
Etta is the one for you to educate and change. She's confronting one of the great tasks of adult life: learning to separate the personal and the professional. It means figuring out which side she's on, and that's especially hard for people who've been in school all their lives.
School has a structure and a hierarchy that's known and comforting (which is why thousands of students still apply, like lemmings, to graduate school in the humanities). School life is Us versus Them: teachers as judges and barriers, students as a community united to get better grades, credits, and entertainment. There are warring cliques, but students are more apt to feel loyal to one another, in a We're-All-In-This-Together mode that's abruptly shattered if they get real jobs.
Youngish new professors often want to hang with graduate students closer to their age—rather than with senior faculty members who blather on about Vietnam and Socrates. But the senior folks know the rules, and newbies have to watch, listen, and learn—not simply decide who they're for and who they're against. It stops being a matter of liking.
("Justin," a new instructor of Ms. Mentor's acquaintance, was sure the old guys in his department didn't notice or care about him. He certainly didn't care about them. He didn't bother to learn their names, greet them, or even make eye contact in the halls. He acted as if they were a different species, while he gallivanted about with students, and was shocked when his elders, recognizing that "this young man doesn't contribute anything to the life of the department," voted not to rehire him.)
Etta also seems to be in the student mind-set, where happiness, personal relationships, and emotional temperatures are the center of one's life. (When the anthropologist "Rebekah Nathan" went undercover as a college student to write My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, she was shocked at what a tiny space students gave schoolwork in their conversations. Social life was everything.) In Etta's case, she identifies with Franny's pain, rather than seeing what professional harm has been done.
Mr. Bigwig Political Figure is unlikely to come to Good Little College again. His donors, and his political party, will be furious. The college president may be berated for the humiliation. In some small towns, where the college is the only entertainment, there may be a firestorm of angry letters to the newspaper.
Etta needs to put damage control first. That can be done through social calls, flattering notes, and apologies, but humble pie is never enough. There must also be announcements that the arts program "will be restructured" so such a fiasco won't happen again. There has to be the appearance of change—official and serious. Etta has to be Good Little College's defender—not Franny's hanky.
Ms. Mentor knows that there are always people willing to throw stones. Etta can be called "careerist," and as her boss, Delpha may be called a hard-hearted Hannah, a shrew, and a shark. But coddling Franny ("you poor dear") trains her to be a ninny, and forgiving Etta ("you didn't know any better") trains her to be an irresponsible administrator, wanting to be liked rather than respected.
Ms. Mentor also urges faculty members and administrators to pay more attention to the Delphas and Ettas of academic life. Staff members in student services are always underpaid and underappreciated, although they are the ones who handle the crises and terrors of campus life. They respond to crimes as well as plagiarism; they provide support for desperate students—including the angry ones, the violent ones, the self-destructive ones. Those administrators are often the kindest face of academic life.
Their job used to seem easy: announce a "Volleyball game on the Old Main Lawn!" and everyone would come on down. Now students' fingers would have to be wrenched away from their BlackBerrys and iPods, and they'd have to make face-to-face conversations—a prospect so daunting that one freshman orientation offers a "Facebook in the Flesh" seminar, to help students learn to talk to one another with their voices.
Ms. Mentor trusts that Delpha and Etta have found their voices, and that poor Franny will learn to use her voice to say "No" to Petey and tell him to do his own dirty laundry. She's about to have a life.
Question: My assistant is lazy and disorganized, but if I fire him, I'll lose the money and not be able to hire anyone at all. Do I need to figure out how to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, or a swine into pearls, or a pig into a prince?
Answer: Oink.
Sage Readers: Ms. Mentor welcomes end-of-summer odes and rants from her readers, along with queries and commentary. As universities downsize draconianly, she fears for American education, and would like to know of problems that can be solved. She regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never immediately. Identifying details are always minced and pureed, and confidentiality is guaranteed, and anyway, everyone else has the same problems that you do.
(c) Emily Toth
A Meaningful Life
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=133298473374807#!/video/video.php?v=139654796072508
His Holiness the Dalai Lama talks about making our lives meaningful during the dialogue with students and teachers held at Delhi University, New Delhi, India, on August 10th, 2010. Entire dialogue, "What Life is All About", can be viewed at http://bit.ly/93vHfb
His Holiness the Dalai Lama talks about making our lives meaningful during the dialogue with students and teachers held at Delhi University, New Delhi, India, on August 10th, 2010. Entire dialogue, "What Life is All About", can be viewed at http://bit.ly/93vHfb
Sunday, August 15, 2010
respect, excellence, no mediocrity
There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity."
-- Buck Rodgers
-- Buck Rodgers
an unlived life
I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit
my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me
as blossom, goes on as fruit.
-- Dawna Markova
my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me
as blossom, goes on as fruit.
-- Dawna Markova
Friday, August 13, 2010
(www.projectcharm.info) which examines sustainability related behaviour change drawing on the work of Robert Cialdini (also see his company www.opower.com)
Mainstreaming the environment? The third sector and environmental performance management
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/Research/ServiceDeliverySD/Environment/Mainstreamingtheenvironment/tabid/708/Default.aspx
Third sector organisations (TSOs) are increasingly seeking to find ways in which their performance can be evaluated, in order to demonstrate the value of their activities. While the focus has been predominantly on the analysis of their social benefits, there is increasing awareness that the third sector needs to better consider its environmental impact. This has been given increased momentum by the publication of Shaping Our Future: The Joint Ministerial and Third Sector Task Force Report on Climate Change, the Environment and Sustainable Development in March 2010.
Given the prominence of environmental issues in recent years, it is disarming to discover that there is only a limited literature on how TSOs evaluate their environmental performance. In an attempt to develop a more systematic approach to this field of study, this paper provides a brief summary of the tools that are currently available to TSOs to evaluate their environmental performance. It offers an analytical framework for understanding and evaluating the variety of tools and outlines an agenda for field research on understanding the application of such tools in practice.
Third sector organisations (TSOs) are increasingly seeking to find ways in which their performance can be evaluated, in order to demonstrate the value of their activities. While the focus has been predominantly on the analysis of their social benefits, there is increasing awareness that the third sector needs to better consider its environmental impact. This has been given increased momentum by the publication of Shaping Our Future: The Joint Ministerial and Third Sector Task Force Report on Climate Change, the Environment and Sustainable Development in March 2010.
Given the prominence of environmental issues in recent years, it is disarming to discover that there is only a limited literature on how TSOs evaluate their environmental performance. In an attempt to develop a more systematic approach to this field of study, this paper provides a brief summary of the tools that are currently available to TSOs to evaluate their environmental performance. It offers an analytical framework for understanding and evaluating the variety of tools and outlines an agenda for field research on understanding the application of such tools in practice.
social enterprise and the environment
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/Research/SocialEnterprise/Socialenterpriseandtheenvironment/tabid/654/Default.aspx
Not-for-private-profit organisations and entrepreneurs within the social economy have long played a role in pioneering creative responses to environmental issues, although often with only limited impact in terms of the wider dissemination of solutions. In recent decades, social enterprise activities that aim to combine environmental and social benefits have been particularly centred around employment creation and work experience initiatives targeted at disadvantaged groups and communities. Sustainable waste and resource management constitutes the largest sector of the green social economy and, as such, has received the most systematic attention. Other activities include nature conservation, community-based renewable energy, sustainable housing, transport, food production and distribution, and environmental education and awareness raising.
Issues and challenges identified in the recent policy literature relate to the financially precarious nature of social enterprise operations, the dynamic and increasingly competitive nature of the markets involved, the obstacles to scaling-up and potential adverse consequences of this, and the difficulties involved in assessing environmental as well as social impacts. Other academic literature examines entrepreneurship and innovation that is motivated by environmental and social/ethical concerns. Entrepreneurial actors, with their propensity for innovation, experimentation and risk taking, are identified by these authors as the driving force of a sustainable society, although with the co-operation of governmental actors.
In conclusion, social enterprises, with their (in the main) local focus and concern with community engagement, are seen as integral to the advancement of environmental and social innovation in support of sustainability.
Not-for-private-profit organisations and entrepreneurs within the social economy have long played a role in pioneering creative responses to environmental issues, although often with only limited impact in terms of the wider dissemination of solutions. In recent decades, social enterprise activities that aim to combine environmental and social benefits have been particularly centred around employment creation and work experience initiatives targeted at disadvantaged groups and communities. Sustainable waste and resource management constitutes the largest sector of the green social economy and, as such, has received the most systematic attention. Other activities include nature conservation, community-based renewable energy, sustainable housing, transport, food production and distribution, and environmental education and awareness raising.
Issues and challenges identified in the recent policy literature relate to the financially precarious nature of social enterprise operations, the dynamic and increasingly competitive nature of the markets involved, the obstacles to scaling-up and potential adverse consequences of this, and the difficulties involved in assessing environmental as well as social impacts. Other academic literature examines entrepreneurship and innovation that is motivated by environmental and social/ethical concerns. Entrepreneurial actors, with their propensity for innovation, experimentation and risk taking, are identified by these authors as the driving force of a sustainable society, although with the co-operation of governmental actors.
In conclusion, social enterprises, with their (in the main) local focus and concern with community engagement, are seen as integral to the advancement of environmental and social innovation in support of sustainability.
sustainability --- books
- Barbara Kingsolver's 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life' (HarperCollins)
- Affluenza (DeGraaf et al., Berrett-Koehler, 2005).
- Tim Jackson's work ---- Motivating Sustainable Consumption research
- http://www.sd-research.org.uk/
post.php?p=126 - Prosperity Without Growth report:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining- prosperity.html - The High Price of Materialism - Tim Kasser (2002)
- Robert Cialdini whose work centres on Influence, he has several studies on behaviour change and sustainability.
http://www.pdftop.com/view/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5tYXJzaGFsbC5lZH Uvd2FjL3dlYnNpdGUlMjBtZWRpYS9D aWFsZGluaV9Sb2JlcnRfQi5wZGY= - CHANGING BEHAVIOUR” (www.energychange.info) – addresses behavioural change in the field of energy
- Natural Capitalism
- Ethics and Sustainability: Sustainable Development and the Moral Life-- Lisa N. Newton---we should be doing things now to ensure that our descendants seven generations in the future will not be harmed.
- Jeff Sachs-- find a way for developed nations to enjoy rising standards of living while poorer nations also catch up - without damaging the environment.
Inquiry on Harvard Lab Threatens Ripple Effect
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/education/13harvard.html?hpw
Harvard’s slow-motion inquiry about the laboratory of Marc Hauser, one of its star academics, has cast a shadow over the several different fields in which Dr. Hauser and his students published papers.
So far only one of Dr. Hauser’s articles has been retracted, for unspecified reasons, and two have been amended. Harvard has given no reason for the retraction, leaving researchers to wonder whether that article alone was flawed or whether all of Dr. Hauser’s results are suspect. He and his students have published widely in fields ranging from animal communication to the nature of morality.
“Most universities in these situations try to be open because that is usually the best policy,” said Michael Tomasello, a leading psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “We have no statement from anyone, just one withdrawn paper. The scientific community needs to know if this was a quirk or a pattern.”
Jeff Neal, a public affairs officer at Harvard, suggested in an e-mail that it was up to the federal government, which financed some of the research, to publish any report on the case. Harvard reports any findings about research misconduct to the government, he said, and “in cases where the government concludes scientific misconduct occurred, the federal agency makes those findings publicly available.”
The Office of Research Integrity, a federal agency, investigates cases of academic misconduct. Jennifer Bushnick, a spokeswoman, said she could not confirm or deny there was a case pending into the Hauser matter. In any case, she said, no report is imminent.
Mr. Neal also said Harvard had taken steps to see that the scientific record was corrected because the university had directed Dr. Hauser, and in one instance his colleague, “to explain the issues with these articles to the academic journals that published those papers.”
The journal Cognition is about to retract an article published by Dr. Hauser and others in 2002 that suggested cotton-top tamarin monkeys could learn algebraic rules. The retraction says an internal examination at Harvard “found that the data do not support the reported findings,” adding that Dr. Hauser “accepts responsibility for the error.”
In the case of two other articles, one published in Science in 2007 and the other in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, also in 2007, the Harvard panel found that records of part of the data did not exist or were incomplete. Dr. Hauser and his co-author, Justin Wood of the University of Southern California, have said they then returned to the island of Cayo Santiago, in Puerto Rico, where they study free-ranging rhesus monkeys, and redid the experiments reported in the two journals, obtaining the same results as published.
The Proceedings has published an “addendum” stating this fact. Science magazine has received a letter to the same effect from Dr. Wood and is deciding whether to publish a retraction.
Dr. Wood declined to discuss how the original data came to be missing, saying in an e-mail Thursday that “the details of the investigation are confidential, so I have no further information to provide.”
Though Harvard has corrected the record on these three articles, the university’s action has raised the larger problem of how far the many other articles from Dr. Hauser’s prolific pen can be trusted. Since the committee has made no charges public, the nature of Dr. Hauser’s errors is unknown and could fall anywhere within a wide range, from minor sins like sloppiness and bad record-keeping to self-deception to outright fabrication of data.
“We don’t know what he’s been accused of and what his particular role in all of this was,” said Robert Seyfarth, a leading student of animal behavior at the University of Pennsylvania. “Science is cumulative, and there are many scientists in many related fields who would like to build on Marc’s work, and they have no way of judging what’s besmirched and what’s not.”
Much of Dr. Hauser’s work is written with other researchers, including his students, putting all those who published with him under a possible cloud until Harvard makes clear what happened. These co-authors “run the risk of being tarred with the same brush,” Dr. Seyfarth said. “Something must be done to say what was done by whom and when, so that the role of the students, or hopefully the lack of it, can be clarified.”
Harvard’s slow-motion inquiry about the laboratory of Marc Hauser, one of its star academics, has cast a shadow over the several different fields in which Dr. Hauser and his students published papers.
So far only one of Dr. Hauser’s articles has been retracted, for unspecified reasons, and two have been amended. Harvard has given no reason for the retraction, leaving researchers to wonder whether that article alone was flawed or whether all of Dr. Hauser’s results are suspect. He and his students have published widely in fields ranging from animal communication to the nature of morality.
“Most universities in these situations try to be open because that is usually the best policy,” said Michael Tomasello, a leading psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “We have no statement from anyone, just one withdrawn paper. The scientific community needs to know if this was a quirk or a pattern.”
Jeff Neal, a public affairs officer at Harvard, suggested in an e-mail that it was up to the federal government, which financed some of the research, to publish any report on the case. Harvard reports any findings about research misconduct to the government, he said, and “in cases where the government concludes scientific misconduct occurred, the federal agency makes those findings publicly available.”
The Office of Research Integrity, a federal agency, investigates cases of academic misconduct. Jennifer Bushnick, a spokeswoman, said she could not confirm or deny there was a case pending into the Hauser matter. In any case, she said, no report is imminent.
Mr. Neal also said Harvard had taken steps to see that the scientific record was corrected because the university had directed Dr. Hauser, and in one instance his colleague, “to explain the issues with these articles to the academic journals that published those papers.”
The journal Cognition is about to retract an article published by Dr. Hauser and others in 2002 that suggested cotton-top tamarin monkeys could learn algebraic rules. The retraction says an internal examination at Harvard “found that the data do not support the reported findings,” adding that Dr. Hauser “accepts responsibility for the error.”
In the case of two other articles, one published in Science in 2007 and the other in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, also in 2007, the Harvard panel found that records of part of the data did not exist or were incomplete. Dr. Hauser and his co-author, Justin Wood of the University of Southern California, have said they then returned to the island of Cayo Santiago, in Puerto Rico, where they study free-ranging rhesus monkeys, and redid the experiments reported in the two journals, obtaining the same results as published.
The Proceedings has published an “addendum” stating this fact. Science magazine has received a letter to the same effect from Dr. Wood and is deciding whether to publish a retraction.
Dr. Wood declined to discuss how the original data came to be missing, saying in an e-mail Thursday that “the details of the investigation are confidential, so I have no further information to provide.”
Though Harvard has corrected the record on these three articles, the university’s action has raised the larger problem of how far the many other articles from Dr. Hauser’s prolific pen can be trusted. Since the committee has made no charges public, the nature of Dr. Hauser’s errors is unknown and could fall anywhere within a wide range, from minor sins like sloppiness and bad record-keeping to self-deception to outright fabrication of data.
“We don’t know what he’s been accused of and what his particular role in all of this was,” said Robert Seyfarth, a leading student of animal behavior at the University of Pennsylvania. “Science is cumulative, and there are many scientists in many related fields who would like to build on Marc’s work, and they have no way of judging what’s besmirched and what’s not.”
Much of Dr. Hauser’s work is written with other researchers, including his students, putting all those who published with him under a possible cloud until Harvard makes clear what happened. These co-authors “run the risk of being tarred with the same brush,” Dr. Seyfarth said. “Something must be done to say what was done by whom and when, so that the role of the students, or hopefully the lack of it, can be clarified.”
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