Silicon Valley Culture
Connect… Then Lead: HBS Professor John Kotter
One of my most popular posts from July 8, 2013 Harvard Business School Professor John…
Canada
OOPS!! Amazon’s Vancouver expansion tightens local competition for tech talent
SOMEONE FORGOT TO THINK OF THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Marc-David Seidel, UBC Apologist for the Amazon…
Silicon Valley Culture
Silicon Valley Is Suffering From A Lack of Humanity
The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College, the pre-eminent Liberal Arts college in North America. To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.
International Relations
Pope Francis TED talk echoes Harvard Professor John Kotter on Leadership
Humility and Leadership Go Hand in Hand
There is a fundamental truth here. Pope Francis and the Harvard Business School are aligned.
Global
University degree no longer comes with promise of stable job
The unwritten promise of a post-secondary education has been to earn a degree in an applied field such as engineering and you’ll end up with a good, stable job, but the millennial generation is finding that can no longer be counted on. I have been thinking about this issue for some time. Last year, I posted an article on this blog by Robert Reich, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. I was stimulated to share that article by what I was seeing with my own students from the University of British Columbia, and contrasting that with my own experience years ago, walking into my Silicon Valley dream career by sheer chance. That simply no longer happens. Grads must begin plotting out a plan early, no later than the beginning of their third year, and begin to execute on it in order to find an entry-level position commensurate with their education. Networking and cold calling is imperative, but as this article points out, even that may not guarantee solid employment.
Canada
10 Best Industries To Target For Internships and Entry Level Positions
Let’s be frank. Finding a decent job commensurate with your new UBC degree in Management has become extremely difficult. I have blogged previously here on the discounted value of a degree, as explained by UC Berkeley economist and former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich. For those living in the Okanagan or hoping to stay here to enjoy the sunshine, I urge you to relocate to a region with better employment prospects. BC Business recently published a ranking of BC cities for employment prospects. Kelowna ranked 17th, despite being the second largest region in B.C.. Calgary is no better option for jobs these days.
Human Resources
Why Success Breeds Success: The Science of "The Winner Effect"
This is an area of animal and human behavior that has absolutely fascinated me. I believe that I have experienced this in my own life and career. If you simply believe strongly and achieve, the next round will become an even easier hurdle to climb. It is one of those things that seems to defy objective explanation.
Human Resources
How To Answer The Dreaded "What is your biggest weakness?" Question
For my UBC students facing tough interviews, here is some serious advice on how to…
Human Resources
"So Do You Have Any Questions for Me?"
Joel Peterson, Stanford Business School Professor, and Chairman of JetBlue Airways, is the author of…
Silicon Valley Culture
More Pressure on Telecommuting: Now It's Hewlett-Packard
As the pressure on struggling Silicon Valley companies Yahoo, and now Hewlett-Packard have increased, the pressure on telecommuting has increased. Now, Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard has joined Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer in calling HP’s telecommuting employees back to work. The problem seems to be that telecommuting employees are now being perceived like recipients of food stamps and welfare: freeloaders taking advantage of corporations, being less productive and costing corporations more than they are worth.
