Myanmar rejects US criticism over ethnic conflict

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? U.S. criticism of Myanmar's conflict with ethnic minority rebels has drawn a sharp rejoinder from the government, which says it is offended that Washington still calls the country by its old name, Burma.

The rejection of the U.S. criticism came in a Myanmar Foreign Ministry statement published Saturday in the state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper.

The exchange is a reminder that the rapprochement between the two countries is still far from complete as Myanmar transitions from ostracized military state to fledging democracy, even though Washington has eased most sanctions it imposed on the previous army regime.

U.S. concern was triggered by reports that fighting has continued against ethic Kachin guerrillas in northern Myanmar despite a unilateral cease-fire declared by the government.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-rejects-us-criticism-over-ethnic-conflict-095353911.html

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Harkin's Exit Sets Off Scramble for Senate Seat (WSJ)

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Consumer alert: new health care markets on the way

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Buying your own health insurance will never be the same.

This fall, new insurance markets called exchanges will open in each state, marking the long-awaited and much-debated debut of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The goal is quality coverage for millions of uninsured people in the United States. What the reality will look like is anybody's guess ? from bureaucracy, confusion and indifference to seamless service and satisfied customers.

Exchanges will offer individuals and their families a choice of private health plans resembling what workers at major companies already get. The government will help many middle-class households pay their premiums, while low-income people will be referred to safety-net programs they might qualify for.

Most people will go online to pick a plan when open enrollment starts Oct. 1. Counselors will be available at call centers and in local communities, too. Some areas will get a storefront operation or kiosks at the mall. Translation to Spanish and other languages spoken by immigrants will be provided.

When you pick a plan, you'll no longer have to worry about getting turned down or charged more because of a medical problem. If you're a woman, you can't be charged a higher premium because of gender. Middle-aged people and those nearing retirement will get a price break: They can't be charged more than three times what younger customers pay, compared with six times or seven times today.

If all this sounds too good to be true, remember that nothing in life is free and change isn't easy.

Starting Jan. 1, 2014, when coverage takes effect in the exchanges, virtually everyone in the country will be required by law to have health insurance or face fines. The mandate is meant to get everybody paying into the insurance pool.

Obama's law is called the Affordable Care Act, but some people in the new markets might experience sticker shock over their premiums. Smokers will face a financial penalty. Younger, well-to-do people who haven't seen the need for health insurance may not be eligible for income-based assistance with their premiums.

Many people, even if they get government help, will find that health insurance still doesn't come cheaply. Monthly premiums will be less than the mortgage or rent, but maybe more than a car loan. The coverage, however, will be more robust than most individual plans currently sold.

Consider a hypothetical family of four making $60,000 and headed by a 40-year-old. They'll be eligible for a government tax credit of $7,193 toward their annual premium of $12,130. But they'd still have to pay $4,937, about 8 percent of their income, or about $410 a month.

A lower-income family would get a better deal from the government's sliding-scale subsidies.

Consider a similar four-person family making $35,000. They'd get a $10,742 tax credit toward the $12,130 annual premium. They'd have to pay $1,388, about 4 percent of their income, or about $115 a month.

The figures come from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation's online Health Reform Subsidy Calculator. But while the government assistance is called a tax credit and computed through the income tax system, the money doesn't come to you in a refund. It goes directly to insurers.

Obama's law is the biggest thing that's happened to health care since Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. But with open enrollment for exchange plans less than 10 months away, there's a dearth of consumer information. It's as if the consumer angle got drowned out by the political world's dispute over "Obamacare," the dismissive label coined by Republican foes.

Yet exchanges are coming to every state, even those led by staunch GOP opponents of the overhaul, such as Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Nikki Haley of South Carolina. In their states and close to 20 others that are objecting, the exchanges will be operated by the federal government, over state opposition. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has pledged that every citizen will have access to an exchange come next Jan. 1, and few doubt her word.

But what's starting to dawn on Obama administration officials, activists, and important players in the health care industry is that the lack of consumer involvement, unless reversed, could turn the big health care launch into a dud. What if Obama cut the ribbon and nobody cared?

"The people who stand to benefit the most are the least aware of the changes that are coming," said Rachel Klein, executive director of Enroll America, a nonprofit that's trying to generate consumer enthusiasm.

"My biggest fear is that we get to Oct. 1 and people haven't heard there is help coming, and they won't benefit from it as soon as they can," she added. "I think it is a realistic fear."

Even the term "exchange" could be a stumbling block. It was invented by policy nerds. Although the law calls them "American Health Benefit Exchanges," Sebelius is starting to use the term "marketplaces" instead.

Polls underscore the concerns. A national survey last October found that only 37 percent of the uninsured said they would personally be better off because of the health care law. Twenty-three percent said they would be worse off in the Kaiser poll, while 31 percent said it would make no difference to them.

Insurers, hospitals, drug companies and other businesses that stand to benefit from the hundreds of billions of dollars the government will pump in to subsidize coverage aren't waiting for Washington to educate the public.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, for example, are trying to carve out a new role for themselves as explainers of the exchanges. Somewhere around 12 million people now purchase coverage individually, but the size of the market could double or triple with the new approach, and taxpayers will underwrite it.

"Consumers are expecting their health insurance provider to be a helpful navigator to them," said Maureen Sullivan, a senior vice president for the Blues' national association. "We see 2013 as a huge year for education."

One goal is to help consumers master the "metals," the four levels of coverage that will be available through exchange plans ? bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.

Blue Cross is also working with tax preparer H&R Block, which is offering its customers a health insurance checkup at no additional charge this tax season. Returns filed this year for 2012 will be used by the government to help determine premium subsidies for 2014.

"This tax season is one of historical significance," said Meg Sutton, senior advisor for tax and health care at H&R Block. "The tax return you are filing is going to be key to determining your health care benefits on the exchange."

Only one state, Massachusetts, now has an exchange resembling what the administration wants to see around the country. With six years in business, the Health Connector enrolls about 240,000 Massachusetts residents. It was created under the health overhaul plan passed by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney and has gotten generally positive reviews.

Connector customer Robert Schultz is a Boston area startup business consultant who got his MBA in 2008, when the economy was tanking. Yet he was able to find coverage when he graduated and hang on to his insurance through job changes since. Schultz says that's freed him to pursue his ambition of becoming a successful entrepreneur ? a job creator instead of an employee.

"It's being portrayed by opponents as being socialistic," Schultz said.. "It is only socialistic in the sense of making sure that everybody in society is covered, because the cost of making sure everybody is covered in advance is much less than the cost of putting out fires."

The Connector's executive director, Glen Shor, said his state has proven the concept works and he's confident other states can succeed on their own terms.

"There is no backing away from all the challenges associated with expanding coverage," Shor said. "We are proud in Massachusetts that we overcame what had been years of policy paralysis."

___

Online:

Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator - http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/consumer-alert-health-care-markets-131529045.html

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Printable Mardi Gras Mask | Fun Family Crafts

Here is an easy Mardi Gras mask. Set out sequins, jewels, feathers and whatever other supplies you have on hand. Let your young crafters use their creativity to decorate their masks however they want. You?ll love the results.

Get the instructions for ??> Printable Mardi Gras Mask

---

Source: http://funfamilycrafts.com/printable-mardi-gras-mask/

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Ackman confident JC Penney CEO can turn around company: CNBC

(Reuters) - Activist investor Bill Ackman said on Friday that he was confident in the ability of JC Penney Inc Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson to turn around the company.

Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund has taken a long position in JC Penney, told CNBC that the company would "make progress" under Johnson's leadership.

He added, however, that Johnson might be the wrong choice for chief executive if the company does not recover in three years.

"If three years from now, Ron Johnson is still struggling to turn around JC Penney, he's probably the wrong guy," Ackman said.

Shortly after his comments on JC Penney, Ackman feuded with activist investor Carl Icahn about a nearly 10-year-old investment the two had agreed upon.

They also feuded over Ackman's publicly announced "short" of, or bet against, the shares of weight-loss and nutrition product company Herbalife Inc. .

Meanwhile, shares of Herbalife surged after Icahn said that Ackman, by going public with his big short on the nutritional supplement company, would cause the "mother of all short squeezes" in the stock.

A short squeeze is when short sellers are forced to cover their position, a move that pushes a stock higher.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ackman-confident-jc-penney-ceo-turn-around-company-182828565--sector.html

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Exxon passes Apple as most valuable company

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2012 photo, people line up to enter a newly-opened Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing. Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter, according to reports Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2012 photo, people line up to enter a newly-opened Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing. Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter, according to reports Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

FILE - This Jan. 30, 2012 photo shows the sign for the ExxonMobil Torerance Refinery in Torrance, Calif. Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter, according to reports Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2009 file photo, the Apple logo is seen on an Apple store in San Francisco. Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter, according to reports Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012. (AP Photo/Russel A. Daniels, File)

FILE - This Oct. 26, 2006 file photo shows an Exxon logo seen at a Dallas gas station. Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter, according to reports Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter.

Apple Inc.'s stock has been on the decline since the company's quarterly earnings report Wednesday suggested that its fast growth phase, rare for a company of its size, may be coming to an end.

Apple's stock fell 2.4 percent to close Friday at $439.88 for a market capitalization of $413 billion. That followed a 12 percent drop on Thursday, the biggest one-day percentage drop for the company since 2008.

Exxon Mobil Corp. gained 38 cents Friday to $91.73 for a market capitalization of $418 billion.

Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011, displacing the oil company from a perch it had held since 2005. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012 ? at least until Friday.

China's largest oil company, PetroChina, could lay claim to having hit a market capitalization even higher than either Exxon's or Apple's, but only based on prices on the Shanghai stock exchange, which is isolated from the rest of the financial world because of Chinese laws on foreign investment. PetroChina's shares also trade in Hong Kong and on the New York Stock Exchange. Based on prices there, its market capitalization never went as high as $500 billion.

Apple and Exxon are among only a half dozen U.S. companies to have ever reached $500 billion in market value. Apple and Microsoft Corp. are the only ones to have ever hit $600 billion.

Apple's stock price peaked in September at $705.07 on the day the iPhone 5 was released. Exxon, in the meantime, has been trading steady. Its business ? oil ? seems less prone to stock market ups and downs than the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech darling.

Exxon, which is based in Irving, Texas, set a record in 2008 for the highest quarterly earnings by any company. In the first nine months of 2012, Exxon earned nearly $35 billion, or 10 percent more than the same period in 2011, on revenue of $367 billion. Results for the fourth quarter are due Feb. 1.

Exxon, the biggest investor-owned energy company in the world, predicted in December that oil will continue to be the most important source of energy. That's because cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and ships will still depend heavily on oil-derived fuels such as gasoline and diesel.

This year, investors seem unforgiving with Apple, looking for perfection and punishing the stock for anything less. The company's stock price slipped below $500 for the first time last week, as investors saw signs that the iPhone 5 was falling behind competition from phones running Google's Android software, especially those from Samsung Electronics Co.

The latest quarterly report added to the concerns. Apple warned that its revenue growth, which had been running at a speed more reminiscent of promising startups than multi-national corporations, is slowing down considerably.

A big reason: It has been nearly three years since a new product has come from a company still seen as the embodiment of innovation. That last product, the iPad, came in 2010, when its CEO Steve Jobs was still alive. Some analysts question whether Apple can keep growing by just releasing new versions of its old products. The long-rumored Apple TV, is still just that, a rumor.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-01-25-Apple-Stock/id-b1f4e58269fd4298be551878f295acb2

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Four-stranded DNA discovered

Sixty years after scientists described the chemical code of life ? an interweaving double helix called DNA ? researchers have found four-stranded DNA is also lurking in human cells.

The odd structures are called G-quadruplexes because they form in regions of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that are full of guanine, one of the DNA molecule's four building blocks, with the others being adenine, cytosine, thymine. The structure comprises four guanines held together by a type of hydrogen bonding to form a sort of squarelike shape. (The DNA molecule is itself a double strand held together by these building blocks and wrapped together like a helix.)

The new visualization of the G-quadruplex is detailed this week in the journal Nature Chemistry.

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"I think this paper is important in showing directly the existence of this structure in vivo in the human genome, but it is not completely unexpected," said Hans-Joachim Lipps, of the University of Witten in Germany, who was not involved in the study. [ See Images of the 4-Stranded DNA ]

Scientists had shown in the past that such quadruplex DNA could form in test tubes and had even been found in the cells of ciliated protozoa, or single-celled organisms with hairlike appendages. Also there were hints of its existence in human cells, though no direct proof, Lipps said.

But scientists still didn't have concrete evidence for its existence in the human genome. In the new study, researchers, including chemist Shankar Balasubramanian, of the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Research Institute, crafted antibody proteins specifically for this type of DNA. The proteins were marked with a fluorescent chemical, so when they hooked up to areas in the human genome packed with G-quadruplexes, they lit up.

Next, they incubated the antibodies with human cells in the lab, finding these structures tended to occur in genes of cells that were rapidly dividing, a telltale feature of cancer cells. They also found a spike in quadruplexes during the s-phase of the cell cycle, or the phase when DNA replicates just before the cell divides.

As such, the researchers think the four-stranded DNA could be a target for personalized medicine in the future. If they could block these odd ducks perhaps they could stop the rapid cell division of cancer cells.

"We are seeing links between trapping the quadruplexes with molecules and the ability to stop cells dividing, which is hugely exciting," Balasubramanian said in a statement.

The finding "is certainly a technical (not scientific) breakthrough in designing antibodies sensitive enough to demonstrate this structure in vivo in the human genome," Lipps wrote.

Lipps and his colleagues had suggested previously these structures regulate basic biological mechanisms, such as the replication of DNA.

"What makes me personally very happy about this work is that it again demonstrates that mechanisms first described in ciliated protozoa hold also true for other organisms up to human, demonstrating the strength of this model organism," wrote Lipps wrote.

The team still has several questions about quadruplexes, such as how the structures operate. "One thought is that these quadruplex structures might be a bit of a nuisance during DNA replication ? like knots or tangles that form," Balasubramanian said.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter@livescience. We're also on Facebook &Google+.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50575704/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Steps to making small businesses successful | FOX5 San Diego

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Source: http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/01/24/steps-to-make-small-businesses-successful/

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Oil posts slight loss; gasoline up to $3.33

The price of oil fell slightly Friday as a report showing a cooling off in new home sales offset the positive influence of ebullient U.S. stock markets.

Benchmark oil fell 7 cents to close at $95.88 in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It ended the week with a gain of 32 cents.

The Commerce Department said new-home sales fell 7.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000. That's down from November's rate, which was the fastest in 2 ? years. Still, sales for the entire year were the best since 2009.

Oil prices are being supported by investors' confident mood, reflected by rising indexes in global stock markets and gains by the euro against the dollar.

A weaker dollar makes crude cheaper ? and a more attractive investment ? for traders using other currencies. On Friday, the euro was up at $1.3458 from $1.3378 late Thursday in New York.

A batch of mostly positive earnings reports from Corporate America buoyed U.S. stock markets. The S&P 500 broke through 1,500 Thursday for the first time since December 2007 and lingered above that milestone on Friday. European stocks posted strong gains as well.

In the U.S., the average price for a gallon of gas rose a penny to $3.33, up 4 cents from a week ago. Although the price of oil moved little this week, it did rise more than $4 in the year's first three weeks, and that increase is starting to show up at the gas pump.

Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, ended flat at $113.28 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex:

? Wholesale gasoline rose 1 cent to finish at $2.88 per gallon.

? Natural gas ended unchanged at $3.44 per 1,000 cubic feet.

? Heating oil fell 3 cents to finish at $3.06 a gallon.

___

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok and Pablo Gorondi in Budapest contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-posts-slight-loss-gasoline-3-33-203837416--finance.html

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AT&T gains customers in 4Q, posts big loss

NEW YORK (AP) ? The launch of the iPhone 5 helped AT&T attract more new customers in the holiday quarter than it has in three years, but the company posted a big loss because of an annual adjustment to its pension obligations.

AT&T Inc. on Thursday said it added a net 780,000 new phones and other devices on contract-based plans from October to December, its best result in three years. It activated 8.6 million iPhones in the quarter ? a record for any company. AT&T was the first company to introduce the iPhone in 2007, and has more iPhone users than any other U.S. carrier.

AT&T's push to expand its market by getting non-phone devices connected to its network also helped, as nearly half of the new contract devices, or 380,000, were tablets.

However, AT&T remained well behind Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellphone company. It added 2.2 million devices on contract-based plans to its network in the quarter, extending its lead.

Dallas-based AT&T's quarterly loss was $3.86 billion, or 68 cents per share. That compares with a loss of $6.68 billion, or $1.12 per share, a year earlier, also caused by an adjustment to pension and retiree benefit obligations.

AT&T provides benefits to about 360,000 retirees. Two years ago, it started accounting for its retirement benefit obligations with an annual fourth-quarter adjustment. That produces wild swings in fourth-quarter net income that don't relate to the company's underlying business, but do illustrate its large obligations to retirees.

Excluding the pension adjustment and some of the cost of repairs from Superstorm Sandy, AT&T earned 44 cents per share, 2 cents short of the average analyst estimate as polled by FactSet.

Revenue was $32.6 billion, up a hair from $32.5 billion a year ago. It slightly exceeded analyst estimates of $32.2 billion.

For the full year, AT&T said it was looking at expanding revenue by more than 2 percent and earnings per share by a "high single-digit percentage." The revenue forecast was slightly higher than analysts expected.

AT&T shares fell 2 cents to $33.73 in extended trading, after the release of the results.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that AT&T was considering the possible purchase of a European cellphone company to take advantage of depressed prices and perhaps boost results by bringing U.S. business formulas to the continent. On a conference call with analysts, CEO Randall Stephenson neither supported nor ruled out the idea, but suggested that the company is looking at other types of international ventures, like partnerships and roaming agreements. He also noted that the company is licensing its Digital Life home security and automation technology to European carriers.

For all of 2012, AT&T earned $7.3 billion, up 84 percent from $3.9 billion in 2011. Revenue rose 0.6 percent to $127.4 billion.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-01-24-Earns-ATandT/id-32819fabb1b84eee8fc8a3acb4264ae4

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30 years of internet | Business Economics

Posted by admin on Jan 23, 2013 in Cover Story | 0 comments

Meghaduta (?cloud messenger?) is a poem written by Kalidasa, who was considered to be one of the greatest Sanskrit poets. It recounts how a yaksa, a subject of King Kubera after being exiled for a year to Central India, convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife at Alaka on Mount Kailasa.

Today it is the cloud, which carries our message to our loved ones but through the internet. Three decades ago the modern internet became operational as the US military flipped the switch on TCP/IP on January 1, 1983.? Arpanet as it was called then, paved the way for the global internet as we know it today. In 1984, the US Department of Defence made TCP/IP the standard for all military computer networks, which led to its increased adoption in research facilities and educational establishments, and also set it on the path to becoming a standard for commercial IT products. As more and more get covered by this virtual world, life becomes a chronicler of mini-revolutions of growth, communication and development.

Netizens to globizens

The world currently has 2 billion internet users, of whom 50% live outside the developed world. The global internet population is projected to climb to 2.6-2.9 billion by 2015. By then, based on existing projections, India, which with 120 million users has the third largest internet user base in the world, is projected to hit 350 million, catapulting it to a global ranking of 2, with the fastest rate of growth.

Internet through mobile is literally a revolution. Those who could not afford computer use internet through mobilephones and devices.? India is expected to have close to 165 million mobile internet users by March 2015, up from 87.1 million in December 2012 as more people are accessing the web through mobile devices and dongles, as per a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB.

The internet has established its role as a powerful economic force multiplier with a new study projecting that its contribution to India?s GDP will explode to USD 100 billion (`5 lakh crore) by 2015 from USD 30 billion (`1.5 lakh crore) at present. The study on the ?Impact of Internet on the Indian Economy? by McKinsey, which is still to be released, could well become a new anchor for the government?s programmes to enhance digital citizenship.

THIRTY TAKES

Web Search Engine

It can be seen as the Jack of all trades, but it is indeed a master to fish out information on anything under the sun. It turned an ordinary computer into a box of info goodies. In the early 1980s, when the internet took its modern shape, no one had thought about a modern Aladdin?s lamp called search engine. Today one just has to type the words, and voila, one has thousands of options to pick and choose from. With time, search engines are fine-tuning their facilities and adding value-based services. Today Google is the most popular among search engines. Other biggies are yahoo, bing, AltaVista,? etc.

Domain name

A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control on the internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). In general, a domain name represents an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the internet, a server computer hosting a website, or the website itself or any other service communicated via the internet.

It is again a significant change that has helped to revolutionize the entire sphere of communication, business and many others. By 1992, fewer than 15,000. com domains had been registered.In December 2009 there were 192 million domain names. These statistics are enough to show the extent of change brought by this. Today every company, however small has a specific domain name to have a specific identity in the virtual world. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. l gov ? Government agencies l? edu ? Educational institutions

l org ? Organizations (nonprofit) l? mil ? Military

l com ? commercial business l? net ? Network organizations

l ca ? Canada? l? th ? Thailand

Because the Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, every Web server? requires a Domain Name System (DNS) server to translate domain names into IP addresses. But very recently the International Internet Monitoring Association has decided to approve more domain names.

YouTube

YouTube is still smashing the rest of the web video industry, at least when it comes to how many videos people watch every month. There is no doubt that YouTube has turned into a way in which people can become famous and has even turned numerous peoples lives round. Examples of this is the now teenage pop sensation Justin Bieber, who was unknown about four years ago but after he posted himself singing on YouTube he soon had well over a million views and was quickly approached by top artists such as Usher.

Videos going ?viral? has made YouTube an instant success magnet. The more one monetizes one?s YouTube channel, the more can one earn. Nowadays, even TV channels are beaming their shows on YouTube and movies are being released on it.

The videos can be made public or customised to ?private? viewing. No wonder, it was named by Time Magazine as its ?2006 Person of the Year? because the power of the people was best presented by YouTube.

Facebook and social network

Social media has revolutionized the media and communication system. They connect one 24?7 where one can share his thoughts and feelings with other people. The role of these media has gradually been extended beyond a site that helps people to ?post? comments and ?connect? to ?mobilize? and ?influence?. Twitter was used to spark the Arab Spring uprising. Closer home, take the incident of gang rape of the young Delhi Girl. There was a huge uproar against the brutal incident and these networking sites are so powerful that no one tends to ignore them. It was a humble tweet that led to the resignation of Shashi Tharoor, when he was a junior minister of external affairs.

There are limitless choices and immense potential of social networking sites, though it depends on how we use them.

In 2008, Orkut was the trendsetter, though with the new decade of the millennium, Facebook and Twitter outpaced Orkut. According to internet world statistics, there are 232,835,740 people who use Facebook worldwide. This huge user base has prompted companies to promote their business online and mop huge revenue. For example, Dell?s social media efforts soon led to sales of USD 6.5 million through its Twitter account in 2009. Many have since stepped up efforts to generate sales using social media.? Barack Obama, during the US Presidential elections, used social media to the hilt to translate his Facebook ?Likes? or what is called ?vanity metrics? into actual votes.

Further, social media marketing when hitched on to the wagon of e-retailing has changed shopping and advertising businesses.

Sameer Bajaj, Associate Director, ESPN, feels, ?It is strongly recommended for anybody who wants to understand the social media place and how one can leverage it for meeting business objectives.?

Development of Public opinion and Platform for exchanging views

While West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee used Facebook to generate mass support against the FDI in multi-brand retail, film actors took to Twitter to promote their views and movies. Political debates increasingly find social network a hospitable debating platform.

Online media along newspapers and audio-visual media come out daily with polls and questions inviting analysts public opinion just to keep readers on their toes. Market analysis have contended the more interactive the news media, the more is its business. Newspaper majors coined terms for public commentators like ?influencers?,? ?news-king?, ?opinion-maker?, etc, to invite their participation in their quest for more viewership/readership. In fact, it is felt that more than columnists, it is public commentators that news media want.

The Pew Research Center?s Global Attitudes Project survey showed? in all countries, those in the 18-29 age group were the heaviest users of social network to publicize their opinions on political and social issues as well as music and movies. ?Recently, Mohun Bagan fan club expressed anger over the club authority after the ban faced by the club from AIFA. It posted more than 15000 comments in a day instead of physical protests,? said Aveek Sarkar, a member of the fan club.

Email- A new address of anyone

Some 2 billion e-mails a day from PCs, tablets and mobile phones are sent and the estimated current regular users of email is about 1.3 billion. Email users? exponential growth is because it is easy, quick and free, though in some cases it does cost. The concept of email was first explored at MIT in 1965 while the first email message was sent in 1971. Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson working in the US defence sent the first text message. However, the first printed use of the word ?E-Mail? appeared in a July, 1982 in the issue of Computerworld.

In 1999, a fraudulent chain mail stating that Bill Gates would pay you to ?forward this mail to your friends? was circulated to millions of people. Politicians grabbed this opportunity of free communication with two hands. The then US preseidential candidate made a 13 million email database. However, the Associated Press changed the word email to email and Oxford dictionary recognized email and chat short-form of words like LOL, TMI, FYI and OMG as words.

Business outsourcing

Even though business outsourcing started as an instrument for cost saving, it now turns up as a strategic tool of power shift in the twenty-first century global economy. Outsourcing can increase productivity and competitiveness ten times. British Airways saves about USD 23 million for every 1000 jobs sent to India. Corporate giants are no longer putting importance on outsourcing as a mere business tactic. It has now become an obvious choice to remain competitive on the world stage.

Michael F. Corbett, President and CEO of Michael F. Corbett & Associates, Ltd. said in an emailed response to BE, ?The average company only spends about 2% of the value of its outsourcing contracts to manage its relationship with the outsource provider. In a survey, 90% of respondents cited outsourcing as crucial to their growth strategies.? He added that a Java programmer earned USD 60,000 a year in the US while a worker assigned with the same job in India got USD 5,000 a year.

India has become the global leader in the outsourcing industry with half of the world?s back office? located here. ?Indian outsourcing revenue at USD 59 billion for 2011, accounts for 51% of the global offshore market share,? said a report from Tholons Research, a Bangalore based advisory firm.

Business outsourcing has yielded solution to jobless growth. The total direct employment by Indian IT-BPO sector (as of 2011) was 1.98 million and indirect employment was 7.5 million. Jai Gill, Senior Consultant with the strategic consulting firm Gallup in India, felt that BPO in India has experienced exponential growth but yet BPO companies were struggling to attract the right talent. Datamonitor, a London-based independent market analysis firm?s report showed that outsourcing would continuously expand.

E banking-money transfer, payment

N. R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, once said that he did not know whether banks will be there in future or not, but banking will definitely be there. Most of us can remember the long queues in front of bank counters in our childhood days. Whether one wanted to deposit or withdraw even hundred bucks, one had to go through long lines. Cases were also there, when a person was hospitalised, his family members had to borrow money if it was Sunday or bank holiday.

ATMs and online money transfer have changed our lives. We now have 24?7 banking through out the year. Now salaries and payments are being paid directly to respective accounts. Nowadays most of the banking activities can be done online like fixed deposits, mutual funds, insurance and what not? It can be done overseas as well. ICICI Bank was the first to launch online banking under the name of ?Infinity?.

Online Stock market

Anywhere from the world one can participate in the same stock market. The moment X offers a price to sell a stock, it is visible all over the world whoever is following the stock market and Y can buy it immediately. It can be the case that X and Y are sitting in the south and north poles. This is a paradigm shift from the early days when brokers went to the market to bid and offer manually. Nobody was able to know what the exact price of the stock was. Other important information like dividend, balance sheet, production and sales were confined to those inside.

In contrast, not only best buying and best selling prices are available but the top 5 buyers and sellers are available with quantity, that too, on a real time basis. Moreover, now it is mandatory that all information related to the company including prospective orders should be told to SEBI first and SEBI will make it public. Anybody sitting anywhere can access it on a real time basis with the help of the internet.

Online business

Nikhil Rungta, Country Head Marketing, Google India, told BE, ?With 120 million internet users in the country, India is already the third biggest internet user base in the world and has tremendous headroom for growth. The e-commerce industry in India is already USD 6 billion.?

Across India, more and more people are connecting with local businesses online. Now websites are made at dirt cheap cost and even free of cost. Current and prospective customers can contact an organisation online. Entire business and marketing has changed after the introduction of social media. In the coming days, the virtual might surpass the actual market.

Online tax payment

It is a kind of ?Do it Yourself? that allows one to pay one?s tax online. There are many websites to compute tax liability for you including www.law.incometaxindia.gov.in. There are many websites which help to understand one?s net income, property tax, wealth tax and other payables.

The process is also very simple. One has to open a net-banking account with any of the banks. Go to website www.incometaxindia.gov.in, click on ?pay taxes on-line?. Fill in the required challan online.? Help is available on screen as FAQ, downloads etc. Make tax payment through net-banking account online. A challan counterfoil will be available instantaneously on the screen with Challan Identification Number (CIN). The CIN on this counterfoil should be quoted in Return of Income. It is gaining popularity day by day.

Business related data, trends, market research reports all are given online. Some are paid and some are not.

E-Governance

NeGP (National e-Governance Plan) makes all government services available to the citizens of India via electronic media. This plan was an outcome of the recommendations of the second Administrative Reforms Commission.

The immediacy and accessibility of the internet makes it an ideal medium for transparency, whether intended or not.? Now anyone can know what is the law, rule and regulations.? Even departments and regions cannot give the excuse of lack of coordination as each can know what the other is doing.

E-Governance thus greatly simplifies the process of information accumulation for citizens and businesses. It empowers people who can get services from the government and have a record of these.

Work from home

Thirty years ago, if people were told that they can perform office work from home they would have scoffed at the notion. With the option of emails, online transactions, etc., one can run a business from home. There are also many bloggers and writers who earn from their blogs.

E-shopping

For those who are too busy to find the time for shopping, e-shopping has brought the shops within their reach with a click of a mouse. The icing on the cake is cash on delivery option and easy exchange facility. According to a study by ASSOCHAM, the online retail industry would reach `7,000 crore mark by 2015. According to D.S. Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, ?Earlier, most online shoppers used to evaluate options by gathering information on available products and prices or buy low-value items like gift products but finally opted for final transactions at the traditional retail outlets.But now the trend is changing fast. Leading companies have gauged the potential of online retail industry and are gearing up fast to cash in.? Big e-shopping and auctioning sites include ebay, flipkart, infibeam, amazon, groupon, etc.

Booking tickets, paying bills

Like e-shopping, one can also book travel tickets, hotels, order food, book gas cylinders? pay utility bills- all through the internet.

Free tender and advertisement

The internet advertising space in India has reached an inflection point to become a billion dollar industry. The internet advertising industry in India is still relatively small and is about 4% of the total advertising industry. It has been going through a process of evolution that has so far led to transformations of ideas without bringing about abrupt displacements in the marketer?s world.

Previously if one wanted to publish a tender notice or advertisement, he needed to pay for it. On the other side, who wanted to bid for the tender or respond to the advertisement also had to pay. Now both options are free so the opportunities for the business have increased. Even payments are made? online. It has minimized the ?raj? of middlemen in the business.

Access to vast data and online reports

Initially it was next to impossible to get a company?s balance sheet if one was not the shareholder of the company. Even if one was ready to pay huge amounts, government reports and annual reports difficult to access. Now all these reports can be accessed easily and many of these are free of cost.? It helps researchers, academicians, journalists, and especially trend analysts. If one wants to know what has happened ten years back, archival support is there.

E-Learning

Today, thanks to the internet, students do not need to be in the classroom always. Even pupils all over the world, enrolled for a certain course, can attend lectures from home. Once can access the digital library of universities. For example, in the Stanford University, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng started an online education company, its free college courses had drawn in a million users, a faster launching than either Facebook or Twitter. Computer professors at Stanford University watched in amazement as enrollment passed 2 million last month, with 70,000 new students a week signing up for over 200 courses, including Human-Computer Interaction, Songwriting and Gamification, taught by faculty members at the company?s partners, 33 elite universities.

Not only education, there are also possibilities to teach music and dancing online. Online tutoring brings together people of different professions with different knowledge backgrounds who share their knowledge, ideas, information and experiences via the World Wide Web. In short, online tutorials provide a platform for students and the online tutor for interactive e-learning process. This has helped to revolutionize the entire education system from what it had been three decades ago.

Video Conferencing & Chatting

Business can be done ?face-to-face while not in-person?. In the internet world, video conferencing allows this. Business travellers can make it to their sales or strategic market oriented meeting without leaving their home office. They avoid flights across the continent and star hotel reservations. Virtual reality is that travel companies and hoteliers are now in steep competition with the growing use of video conferencing as an alternative to business travel. Video conferencing was rated as one of the seven major trends reshaping the US corporate travel landscape in PhoCusWright?s US Corporate Travel Distribution Fourth Edition.

In fact, Frost & Sullivan project video conferencing usage to grow by 20% annually over the next three years to become a more than a USD 2 billion industry. ?The cost of video conferencing technology is shrinking, precisely at a time when the economic cost of traditional business travel is being questioned. In its early stages, video conferencing was limited to non-client facing, intra-company interactions,? Ajit Dandekar, Manager, Miland Hotel, Bhubaneswar, told BE.

The growing importance of video conferencing presents not only competition for business travel, but also potential for partnership and profit. ?Some major travel suppliers have already positioned themselves as facilitators of video conferencing as a benefit to their clients. Major hotel chains, for instance, can bear the cost of expensive cutting edge video confe-rencing systems that could potentially create an ancillary revenue stream,? Dandekar added. Travel companies that recognize this growing corporate travel trend, now have the best opportunity to leverage it to their advantage.

Not only business, even educational courses can be learnt through video conferencing. What is even more surprising is that surgeries can be governed by experts through video conferencing.

Apurba Roy, a software engineer working in Quebec, Canada, often opts for video chatting while talking to his parents staying in Kolkata. He told BE, ?When my parents wanted to communicate with my 5-year-old son, they were delighted to see how much he has grown. In the era of telephone, they could not, but now they can. Technology gives that extra? ?pleasure? to my parents that cannot be valued through price.?

Video chat not only serves people who are away from home to keep them in touch with their roots but also offers professionals like doctors to be at one?s door step. Dr. Kaustav Dalal, a health economist working in KarolinskaInstituet in Sweden, told BE, ?During freezing time, doctors would offer video chat with patients. Around 60% of? people call in for rashes or cold symptoms that can be fully handled online. Follow-up visits can also be scheduled. For the rest, patients are advised to go for clinic.?

Delhi police, in fact, any city?s police can? take lessons Copenhagen police. Citizens across Denmark have taken advantage of their first opportunity to connect with the police through online video chat. Officers at Station Bellah?j in Copenhagen used Netop Live Guide chat technology to conduct a public forum on crime prevention. National television coverage prompted hundreds of citizens to take advantage of this new form of communication with the police.

However in case of business operation through video chatting, Indian micro and small units are at a nascent stage while SMEs in European countries bank on video communication to scale up their business along improving customer care. However Nikhil Rungta, Country Head Marketing Google India, said, ?Only 5% of India?s 8 million small businesses have a website. We?ve already published over 100,000 websites for small medium businesses (SMBs) through our ?India Get Online? initiative.? He added, ?Building websites free of cost for SMBs took off well as 50,000 websites were created, which are quick, easy and free to set up in the next three years.?

Online gaming

For thousands of years, people have been playing games of chance or wagering on the outcomes of various games and events. Today, that activity often takes place at casinos, game parlors, bookmakers and?increasingly?online. rom cricket to puzzles to interactive games, this is a billion dollar industry. The market value of the global gaming industry is expected to rise 20% this year to USD 90 billion. Gaming apps like Angry Birds have encouraged a new generation of young gamers to design and sell their own games.

i Tunes

iTunes changed the way the entertainment industry did its business with its easy and customized download options. Apple priced its content? reasonably, with individual songs starting at `7 and music albums starting at `70, while in the US iTunes store, tracks cost upwards of $0.99. Apple?s iTunes also allows one to rent and download movies. Users? get the option to rent the title for just `120 (HD version) or `80 (SD version). As the song goes ?video killed the radio star?, now iTunes seems ready to trump the VCD/DVD and multiplex phenomena.

Apps

Life is all about apps today. From games to movies to news?everything can be made into an app that is free or can be downloaded at nominal rates. Mobile apps are the fastest growing way of communicating with one?s audience. In some countries, mobile phones outnumber the amount of people! And it still continues to grow, as the internet technology spreads throughout the world, and becomes indespensible to our lives.

Medical transcription

Medical transcription is a very important part of clinical documentation and when done by electronic means, it is cost effective. Medical transcription outsourcing has become possible thanks to the information technology masters. What is more is that it keeps the information about the patient?s medical records very safe and secure. All the data is archived in a systematic way and thus one can gain access to it anytime one wants, even
after years.

Natural Calamity Awareness

Given that losses due to disasters account for around 2% of our GDP, disaster alerts through the net has gained traction. After the 2004 tsunami, India has taken up the issue of early warning mechanism seriously. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) installed 12 bottom pressure early warning tsunami buoys (a kind of censors) in the Indian Ocean, six each in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. ?If there is any indication of tsunami, INCOIS will communicate computer generated warnings (including possible run up, areas to be inundated etc.) to the district and state disaster management cell,? said Dr. S. Hazra, Director, School of Ocenograohic Studies, Government of India to BE.

He added, ?There are 138 agro floating buoys in the Indian oceans, which are related to climate to communicate climatic information. As a part of the sea warning mechanism we have installed warning equipments in five fishing harbours namely Shankarpur, Petuaghat, Kakdwip, Namkhana and Fejargunj in West Bengal.?

Mahmood Hossein, an engineer working on earthquake preparedness said, ?Prevention begins with information. An improved reliability of disaster information from satellite image due to the recent advanced image processing technology enables us to obtain various disaster information via remote sensing at anytime and anyplace, improving an environment to utilize it for disaster mitigation. Satellite technology can be useful in collecting and the dissemination of disaster mitigation information.?

In the world of internet, however, in developing countries, due to the strict governments? control, the topographic access is somehow limited. That is why Geographical Information System (GIS) is a very effective tool for planning, especially in risk mitigation activities.

Developed countries like the US through fema.gov and other sites have already set up disaster alert, response and prevention sites that can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection through different devices.

Internet reduces paper usage, saves environment and cost

?Please print only if absolutely necessary. Save Paper, Save Trees?- the message is being circulated nowadays through all modes of internet communication. Encyclopedia Britannica stopped its printing and went online perhaps to reduce cost and save trees. Analysts say, ?One tonne of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees.? According to a Citigroup-Environmental Defense study, the actual cost of printing is 13 to 31 times the purchase price of the paper used, or somewhere between USD 0.06 and USD 0.13 per page. ?With such a huge cost, paper and printing industry feel the pinch from internet,? said Bijoy Bharadwaj, senior executive, KPMG.

Blogging

Blogging changed the game for websites. People could open their blogs (web diaries, video or audio journals, picture chronicle), for free, upgrade it at nominal rates and air their views and showcase their creativity to the public or their select friends. The Blogosphere is a networked planet of netizens who share and promote their works as well as of those whom they like or do business with (through Blogroll, etc.). Bloggers are now opinion makers and the beauty is that one can write whatever one likes and if one attracts enough audience, one becomes a rich blogger indeed. Indiblogger.in is a premier directory for bloggers in India.

Cyber crime

More than 42 million people in India fell victim to cybercrime in the past 12 months, suffering approximately USD 8 billion (`44,400 crore) in direct financial losses, according to a new report by security firm Symantec. According to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, 66% of Indian online adults have been victims of cybercrime in their lifetime. In the past twelve months, 56% of online adults in India have experienced cybercrime?more than 115,000 victims of cybercrimes every day, 80 victims per minute and more than 1 per second?and the average direct financial cost per victim is USD 192?up 18% over 2011 (USD163), according to the 2012 edition of the Norton Cybercrime Report 2012.

Data insecurity

Around 50% of security threats in India are a result of Malicious Code. The same figure for the western world is around 20%. This points towards the distinct nature of threats India Inc. faces and needs to address urgently. Even the most common threat propagation methods in India are in the form of file sharing mechanisms, be it flash drives, CDs or DVDs.The overall level of IT security implementation in the country is definitely low compared to global standards. As a services destination, in spite of cost advantages and quality, Data Security could become India?s greatest disadvantage. The coming of Web 2.0 also has meant that IT security systems need to evolve. With the coming of social networking and Wikis, security must expand to adapt to the new generation of threats.

Another major development, has been that the quantity of data in unstructured form as in e-mail, Word files, Excel sheets etc. is much greater than those in structured form (databases). Defining rules around that is rather crude today. Understanding unstructured data is critical today and lessons can be learnt from the information retrieval world, basically, search engines.

Privacy

Various social networking sites are widely being used primarily for sharing of information among friends. Company employees are especially vulnerable as they post information related to their business or company. Many of the social networking sites make all information public by default. These sites can provide a wealth of information on issues such as employment history. The trouble with such information sharing is that it makes users more vulnerable to invitations from nefarious characters. Social networking sites are also goldmine for phishers. Identity theft is also on the rise.

There is no general data protection law in India. In May of 2000, the government passed the Information Technology Act, a set of laws intended to provide a comprehensive regulatory environment for electronic commerce. The Act also addresses computer crime, hacking, damage to computer source code, breach of confidentiality and viewing of pornography. ChapterX of the Act creates a Cyber Appellate Tribunal to oversee adjudication of cyber-crimes such as damage to computer systems (Section 43) and breach of confidentiality (Section 72). It was amended in 2008 with such sweeping provisions that it could also be misused by so-called cyber guardians.

Addiction to internet and isolation from society

Internet addiction disorder (IAD) has become common. It has been added to the list of serious mental disorders following an alarming rise in children who cannot log off. Mike Kyrios from Swinburne University of Technology said that? ?internet-use disorder? would be? included in the list of mental disorders in DSM-IV.

Students and professionals get distracted from their work by online game, even online porno-graphy. In just over a month, more than 120 sexually exploited children were identified in an international operation that found them depicted in child pornography on the Internet.? ?In Operation Sunflower, led by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement?s Homeland Security Investigation unit found that from November 1 to December 7, 2012, about 123 victims of child sexual exploitation were identified,? ICE Director John Morton said.

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Source: http://www.businesseconomics.in/?p=5254

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Video: Conservatives blame Obama for creating polarized environment

Apple TV would signal future innovation

In any other context, the idea of punishing a company that delivered an 18 percent year-over-year increase, bringing quarterly revenue to $54.5 billion, would be absurd, but Apple, in a way, is a victim of its own success.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/50579607/

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Video: Over one million attend Obama?s second inaugural

How dogs adapted to our starchy diet

Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Researchers say dogs underwent genetic changes thousands of years ago to adapt to a diet with more starch ? suggesting that domestication might have gone hand in hand with the rise of agriculture.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/50553761/

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Samsung?s $50 Ativ Odyssey Windows Phone Lands January 24

Samsung has announced that its first U.S.-based Windows Phone 8 device, the Ativ Odyssey, will launch with Verizon's network on Friday.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/60-RQE1mdSU/

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Credit union vision and strategic planning - Prism Decision Systems

Tactical priorities often trump strategic visioning, which is put off and pushed down the road. In the meantime, industry after industry is threatened by the unexpected emergence of disruptive technologies. Exponential increases in computing power and storage act as the accelerant. Here is a short list of industries engulfed in the fires of change:

Is the sun rising or setting on your business?

• Once dominant BlackBerry? teeters on the brink of irrelevance.
• Dell struggles to respond to the unprecedented success of the iPad?.
• Newsweek? halts publication of its print edition.
• Priceline and Expedia send traditional travel agencies to the verge of extinction.
• Print advertising is supplanted by Google Adwords.
• Barcode scanning turns Best Buy into a display case for Amazon.
• Free massive open online courses (MOOCs) threaten the traditional university business model.

Visionizing the ideal credit union in 2020

Cornerstone Community Federal Credit Union is in the midst of a significant, multi-year IT installation. CEO Ann Brittin does not want the significant focus on this tactical priority to come at the expense of strategic visioning: ?Cornerstone has done traditional strategic planning for years. We know what our priorities are for the next couple of years. We now need to open up our thought process on where the credit union industry will be in 2020 and where Cornerstone will position itself. To help us do that, we reached out to Prism Decision Systems.?

A provocative strategic retreat

8:30 a.m. ? We begin the day viewing Corning Incorporated?s A Day Made of Glass 2. We want to shake up the 32 participants, make them very uncomfortable in their thinking about the pace of change and instill a little cognitive dissonance early on a Saturday morning. Senior managers then deliver superbly prepared presentations on emerging technologies such as personal teller machines and the ?mobile wallet.?

The facilitator reviews examples of sudden disruptions to business models, shares Ray Kurzweil?s stunning forecast that $1000 will buy computing power equivalent to that of the human brain by around the year 2023, and asks,

• Like so many other industries, is banking at an inflection point?
  • Will the mobile channel radically reinvent banking?
  • Will new disruptive technologies threaten the current credit union business model?
  • What new competitors will emerge? Google? Apple? Wal-Mart?
  • Who will be our future customers?
  • What is the emerging role of social networks?
  • What credit union business models will survive?

9:30 a.m. ? All 32 participants are energetically engaged. Conversations flow.

Assumption busting and backwards-from-perfect thinking

The team is starting to remove the blinders of their habitual thinking. The power of their biases is diminishing. They are beginning to see differently and are ripe for some assumption busting. Small groups are asked to

• Identify Cornerstone?s key assumptions about the future.
• Ruthlessly question their validity.
• Generate new assumptions that will govern in 2020.
• Then ask: ?What if??

Participants describe possible alternative futures. There is laughter in the room. With this cue, the facilitator unleashes backwards-from-perfect thinking:

Imagine the industry-leading credit union in 2020. What are its characteristics or attributes. What makes it ideal, perfect?

Small groups share and cluster their responses. Together, we produce an affinity diagram that reveals seven distinct attributes of the ideal credit union in 2020.

11:30 a.m. ? We break as vigorous conversations continue over lunch.

Strategic profiling reveals immediate opportunities

Using Prism?s Group Decision Support System?, the team assesses those seven attributes in a strategic opportunity profile that (a) ranks them in terms of importance to future success, (b) assesses Cornerstone?s performance against each and (c) identifies whether or not each was new and innovative. After discussing the vote profile and looking at the disaggregated results of the board, management team and volunteers, the team agrees that there are two immediate, high-leverage strategic opportunities. Subgroups conclude by eagerly presenting immediate implications to Cornerstone?s planning over the next 12 to 14 months and then out to December 2015.

2:00 p.m. ? We adjourn. We meet our primary objective: to agree to a targeted list of implications to planning over the next 12 to 14 months and then out to December 2015. We also meet our secondary objective: to elicit testimonials that this was the most enjoyable, engaging and productive one-day strategic retreat ever.

For another approach to the credit union retreat, see: Credit Union ?Micro? Strategic Planning.

Source: http://www.prismdecision.com/credit-union-vision-and-strategic-planning

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Lexington Short Films: Consignment, Sour Notes, Watch Me ...

BY EVAN O. ALBERT

Lexington filmmaker Justin Hannah

As Sundance lights up the big screens out west, Lexington doesn?t yet have its own film festival for local filmmakers. But it does have a rich history, from the days of 100 Proof up through KET?s ongoing Reel Visions series, and? more recent efforts last year like Hitting the Cycle and Pleased to Meet Me. Fall also offers Filmslang, an opportunity for Lexington filmmakers to show their work as part of WRFL?s annual Boomslang.

January 30 will offer a unique dinner and a movie night out ? five short films by five local filmmakers, all to be screened at Natasha?s downtown.? Is the next Lena Dunham or Henry Joost? living next door?

Justin Hannah has been making films and animation since 2003, and he organized the evening. He?s a filmmaker and artist based in Lexington, Kentucky who works in marketing, web design and video production. He recently set out to find the best short films from central Kentucky filmmakers. He spent hours scouring YouTube, Vimeo and social networking sites to find top-notch local work. ?I looked at films to see what Kentucky was doing. I emailed a lot of people, watched their films and picked the five best.?

Hopefully, pending the success of this night, this becomes somewhat of a regular event in Lexington. Hannah claims that there is enough material out there to support many more events. ?You could do something like this almost quarterly, and have enough good movies to actually make this happen. There?s a vacuum that we haven?t filled, there isn?t a film festival in Lexington. There is a theme here, a lot of people are making things in this area.?

Endeavors such as this are part of what some are calling a ?Lexington Renaissance,? a cultural makeover of our fine city. There are more places to play music, more places to perform, more galleries to hang art in and more local products to enjoy. The corner of 6th and Limestone has gradually filled up with bars and shops, many of which offer performance spaces for musicians. Cheapside is now surrounded by bars, food, and live music around the Fifth Third Pavilion, which also serves as a downtown outdoor venue. Lexington?s Distillery District is now anchored by Buster?s, a mid-size venue comparable to the Exit/In in Nashville and Headliners in Louisville. The downtown LexArts Gallery Hop is still going strong, and innovative entrepreneurs have given us a brewgrass trail of craft beer.? This event is a foot in the door for filmmakers to share in the fun alongside of musicians, painters, actors and entrepreneurs.

The featured films are all under twenty minutes and touch on subjects spanning a myspace bromance, misplaced briefcases filled with cash, a wedding singer, puppets, and consignment stores with dark secrets.

I took a night to sit down and watch every one of these films and was not only impressed by their quality but was thoroughly entertained. Each offering is short and captivating, evidence of strong curation and central Kentucky filmmaking talent.. Here is what you can expect to see on January 30th.

Age/Sex/Location

Kentucky natives and musicians Jon Moore and Jeremy Midkiff (Big Fresh) settled on a mockumentary set in ?Shoulderblade,? Kentucky because they could do it on their own ?without a huge production.?

They shot eight hours of footage for a 15-minute short, with zero budget. ?We shot everything on borrowed gear and had no other expenses. Our goal is to use the enthusiasm about the short to launch an IndieGoGo fundraising page in the next week or two to raise funds for the feature film we are making. We have stepped it up by getting a better HD camera and we hope to raise enough money to get a few lights, audio equipment, and other gear to make a more professional film this go around. The goal is to finish shooting the feature (which revolves around the characters we created for Age/Sex/Location) by August and editing the film to submit to film festivals at the end of the year.?

Jeremy Midkiff (Left) hanging out with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys

They?ve been encouraged by the response so far. ?We did have a screening as a part of the LFL/Lexington Public Library Film Night at the Farish Theater (at Central Library) back in April of 2012. We were very encouraged by this screening because there was a lot of people and most of them laughed the whole time. This is one of the beauties of making a straight comedy ? there is instant feedback to know if you are successful. If people laugh then you have succeeded.?
Midkiff?s elevator pitch is ?a mockumentary set in small-town Kentucky about the most awkward Myspace party ever thrown. Pyramid-schemer Rob Bronson threw the party, but only one person stayed, Ova Reynolds, who raises cockfighting roosters. An unlikely friendship blossoms before our eyes.? Presented by Claw Machine Films.

The Walk Softly Films crew and the cast of ?Bizanival?

Bizarnival: Shot all over Danville (the filmmakers? hometown), this film has won some recognition at local and international film festivals. It is an experimental journey through the creative process. Expect a carpet-bombing puppet pilot (?my plane? have you seen it?? ?is it puppet size??) and mimes (?Guys, it?s mime night?).

They?d already purchased the camera they used for another project. ?So, our total budget for Bizarnival was about $400 dollars,? and that was paid for out of their own pockets. No crowdfunding yet. How did they spend it? ?That consisted of a few costume pieces, a puppet, three? tuxedos (off eBay), and a piece of music.? A lot of people donate their time to us that we would never be able to pay? them for. For example, there is an amazing little robot character in the? film that everyone loves. Matt Todd is a part of the WSF family and he? built that for us just because he?s a great guy and likes to help us out.?

Their elevator pitch is simple, ?Mr. Weinstein, this is a weird flick about puppets, mimes, and tiny? robots that won?t make a dime.?

This film is presented by Walk Softly Films. Winner of the Audience Choice Award at the Danville Lawn Chair Film Festival, the Best Narrative Short at River?s Edge International Film Festival and the Best U.S Short at the Derby City Film Festival.

Consignment

Margaret Wuertz and Abbra Smallwood in Consignment

Justin Hannah kicked off the $1600 budget for Consignment by winning a Beach Boys video contest, along with a few others. ?The rest came from savings. It should?ve cost a lot more,? he says, ?but I was lucky to get the assistance and support of some very cool local business ? Pink Door Boutique of Louisville provided the vintage wardrobe, and let us use their shop as a filming location. TKO Hair Studio (of Nicholasville and Lexington) recreated the 1950s hairstyles, and Street Scene (of Lexington) provided all the vintage accessories and antiques.?

The atmospheric black and white short? was inspired by a ?women?s consignment shop in Lexington that I would pass every day on my drive home from work. Every day, I?d sit at the red light and while waiting for the light to change, I?d glance into the windows of that store, and it would give me ideas. I?m not sure if it was because of the vintage/older clothing in the window, or because it was dark from the outside and you couldn?t really see beyond that front window. But it gave me this feeling of another time, and of an unresolved mood. I love the style of films from the 1950s (everything from the lighting to the pacing to the performances), so as these ideas started to coalesce, I began to see it in terms of a film from the 1950s, about a lonely woman staring into the window of a dark consignment shop, longing for something dark and mysterious inside.?

Justin Hannah (Left) on the set of ?Consignment?

Casting??was difficult, because the actors didn?t only have to perform in this specific way, they also had to ?look? right, if you know what I mean.? Abbra Smallwood as Margaret, in her film debut, was the first person cast. Her performance (and her look) is a? little bit January Jones as Betty Draper mixed with Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn.

?Margaret Wuertz as the Shopkeeper [is] a wonderful actress from Louisville. She couldn?t make any of the auditions, so we met at a Starbucks and she did her audition right there in the middle of the coffee shop. And of course she nailed it.?

Consignment is a dark tale seasoned to perfection with riveting music and cinematography. Justin Hannah claims it is the ?most ambitious thing I?ve ever made.? Justin Hannah?s hard work has paid off, Consignment looks and feels like a professional piece.

Sour Notes

Harlan County native Jesse Harris is a Georgetown College grad now living in LA who interned with veteran filmmaker Tom Thurman years ago at KET. Harris?s film is inspired by a short story he wrote and decided to revisit for an MFA thesis at Boston?s Emerson College, where he graduated last spring. The pitch? ?A wild-child wedding singer has to mentor a 10-year-old girl on the same day she has to sing at her ex-boyfriend?s wedding. It?s Rachel Getting Married meets About a Boy.?

?Budget was $8,600, and we raised just north 0f $8,700 on Kickstarter. Kickstarter takes 5%, so we had to raise a little north of what we wanted to reach the mark.? (Kickstarter is a popular resource for Kentucky filmmakers, partially funding Archie Borders? Aimee Mann/Joe Henry/John Doe effort, Pleased to Meet Me last year.)

?Shot around central Kentucky, with locations in Georgetown, Lexington, and Frankfort, the second half of the film was shot in the First United Methodist Church in Frankfort.? It stars Jessie Rose Pennington as Emily, Rhyan Sprague as Sally, and Clay Burke as Jack.? ?Jessie Rose is an old friend of mine and a ridiculous talent, and when I knew that I was going to make a film about a wedding singer, I knew she was going to play the part.? Rhyan was a student of Joe Gatton, ?who helped out as an associate producer, mostly assisting with location scouting and casting.?

His? first feature film, Surviving Guthrie, grew out of a short he wrote for screenwriting class at Georgetown. ?During filming, I was working days at First State Financial bank in Lexington, and driving at night to work on the shoot. ?There was a month during filming where between the two jobs I worked four straight weeks of 60-80 hours a week.?

Jesse Harris, creator of ?Sour Notes?

Next was graduate school. Harris says,? ?I could have stayed in Lexington and worked at the bank and made movies on the side for the rest of my life, but I wanted to put out the best product I could. ?Emerson College is one of the best film schools in the world, and really gave me a chance to test my strengths (writing, producing) and work on my weaknesses (editing, directing). ?It was an all-around program that gave me access to award-winning writers, directors, and producers that wouldn?t in a million years look at my work otherwise, not to mention workshop my material with some fellow sharp young minds.?

Watch Me

?If you?re watching this, I?m dead.? So begins Watch Me.

Co-directors Lee Clements and Erin Picone were both Asbury students in media communications, casting fellow students. ?Part of our preproduction time was spent in Whistler, British Columbia during the 2010 Winter Olympics.?? They?ve since graduated. Lee says, ?I?m currently getting my Masters of Fine Arts in Directing Cinema & Television while pursuing freelance and engineering work, while Erin is living in Los Angeles, freelancing and working with several casting agencies.?

?The main camera,? used for Watch Me, ?was a Canon 5D Mark II, bought only a few months after it began taking over the indie film scene.?

Lee Clements in action

?It started from a music video idea I had, which involved the agents and briefcase and dead partner, so the bones were there. The rest of the film came from an idea to tell the story in only eight minutes, with a main character who has almost no dialogue?carving out things that didn?t tell the story or advance the plot.?

Bad guys chasing good guys through the city, in cars and at the airport. It?s fun to see an action thriller that takes you through Lexington. Fans of the Bourne series and The Matrix will get a kick out of this. Winner of Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Editing at the 2010 Highbridge Film Festival at Asbury University.

This article also appears on page 12 of the January 24, 2013 print edition of Ace.

Source: http://www.aceweekly.com/2013/01/move-over-sundance-lexington-short-film-night-debuts/

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