Third World's Corporate Giants Embarking On Global Takeovers

FROM INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

As the developing world churns out companies with global ambitions, India's new multinationals have been on the fast track making acquisitions.

India's firms have forged ahead with takeovers in the U.S., Canada and Europe, while Chinese and Russian firms still get the cold shoulder.

India's new multinationals are mostly in private hands, with some run by families. Many Chinese and Russian multinationals are still state-controlled, or have opaque ties to government-run banks.

While attempted takeovers by Chinese or Russian firms continue to raise national security issues in the West, the welcome mat seems out for India-based companies.

In the auto industry, India's Tata Motors ttm -- which just unveiled a $2,500 car -- is the favorite to buy Ford's F high-end Jaguar and Land Rover brands. In earlier deals, parent Tata Group bought U.K.-based Tetley Tea, steel maker Corus and the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain.
Advantage: Private Sector

Tata isn't the only India-based company to go global via takeovers. Suzlon Energy (OOTC:SZEYF) , which builds wind farms, acquired Germany's Repower in June. Hindalco Industries (OOTC:HNDFF) snapped up Canada's aluminum maker Novelis. And India's drug firms have used deals to expand into Europe.

"Indian companies get cut some slack because generally they're private, so there is not much anxiety involved in acquisitions," said Ravi Ramamurti, professor at Northeastern University. "Many of the multinationals coming out of China or Russia still have close government ties, and state control is viewed with trepidation. It's a red flag. That's why China gets more flack."

For more information, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/thirdworlds.htm

Florals, Fantasies, & Safaris: A Look into Spring 2008

FROM JUSTLUXE.COM

A Fashion Review: We all have heard of or become familiar with the term "fashion forward," but with a dynamic year of fashion from 2007, many wonder where can it go? Below are six collections from designers that have proved once again the possibilities are endless. Some of them are fresh faces, others undying classics- the differences speak for themselves. What they have in common: their artistic and distinctive points of view that are in fact guaranteed to move fashion forward.

To read more about the big fashion shows in Milan and Paris, please visit: http://www.justluxe.com/fine-living/fashion/feature-229446.php

Power Of Pictures

Photograph Books Play Key Role In Baby’s Development
By Jessica Wasmund
12/30/2007

While a picture’s worth one thousand words, for a baby, it can result in his first words.

New studies on babies’ minds show that books which use photographs instead of illustrations can help young children learn to associate words quicker.

Erika O’Connor, author of the ‘‘My ABC Photo Book,’’ was sorting photos in her office one day when her daughter began pointing out objects she recognized in the pictures.

‘‘My two-year-old was picking up the pictures and pointing out what was in the pictures to me... and it occurred to me she was making the association because they were real-life pictures,’’ Ms. O’Connor said.

While looking for some unique gift ideas, Ms. O’Connor came across a study online by Dr. Judy DeLoache entitled ‘‘Get the Picture? The Effects of Iconicity on Toddlers’ Reenactment From Picture Books.’’

The study presented some material to back up her motherly instincts on what she was seeing with her own children.

‘‘I’ve spent many years studying infants and varying children’s understanding of different kinds of symbolic objects,’’ said Dr. DeLoache, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia.

‘‘The single-most common one is pictures, so my research on children and pictures goes back to the late ’80s and early ’90s and has taken various forms.’’

Ms. O’Connor started searching the market for toddlers books that used real photographs and discovered there were very few available.

She then came up the idea of personalizing the photos, to make the book more interesting to the children.

‘‘I think that the idea of having a book of meaningful people and things to the child is a very nice idea,’’ Dr. DeLoache said. ‘‘I actually made one for my son, and he’s now 29, so I’m sure it was one of the earliest versions. I included pictures of his parents, his grandparents, favorite toys and he found it very interesting. So it depends what you want to get out of it — a given child might or might not relate it to people they stand for.’’

To read this entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/powerof.htm

B-school students launch and run innovative social program in Africa

Launched last year, the Meheba Entrepreneurs Society & Institute is a student-led entrepreneurship center to offer business training and microcredit loans to refuges in the Meheba refugee camp, which operates under the aegis of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zambia. Rather than simply giving and recollecting loans like traditional microfinance initiatives, the MESI program ensures that all loan recipients are fully prepared to start a small business. It provides entrepreneurial education workshops covering subjects such as Leadership, Microfinance, Business Management, and Accounting. Before receiving loans, recipients must complete a two month training process. Social entrepreneurship students collaborated with an executive professor at the College of Business Administration to develop the MESI curriculum, and the entire program has been implemented and run by students.

Below is a mini-case study on the project – let me know if you’d like to explore developing a story on this.

Located in the Northwestern region of Zambia, the Meheba refugee camp operates under the aegis of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The swollen settlement shelters an estimated 18,000 displaced persons. Primarily Angolan, the population also includes smaller refugee concentrations from Burundi, the Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, and Uganda. While language and culture vary, most Meheba inhabitants share the common experience of desperate flight from a homeland laden with violence and civil war.

Once inside the gates, settlement life poses new challenges to refugees. Family units often arrive incomplete due separation en route. High rates of HIV and other infectious diseases, compounded by limited public health resources, leave many debilitated. The loss of primary providers places surviving relations at especially high risk. Without formal skills, education, or training, widowed mothers are particularly vulnerable in Meheba. Even for families with two healthy parents, daily survival is a struggle. The economically-barren camp holds limited opportunity for employment. Income generation requires ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and skills.

In 2005, Northeastern University planted a seed of hope for Meheba. While a volunteer at the camp, Northeastern student Esther Chou investigated economic issues of income generation. Back on campus, Chou reported her observations to undergraduate peers Nayeli Vivanco and Pete D’Aleo. Recognizing the urgent issues at stake, the group set a course for immediate action.

Executive Professor Dennis Shaughnessy in the College of Business Administration was approached for social enterprise guidance. After articulating the critical need to foster self-reliance amongst refugees, the team presented a case-based solution; a model to create a student-led entrepreneurship center in Meheba to offer business training and microcredit loans to refuges.

The students collaborated to methodically design a business skills curriculum and customized loan structure for the community. Working on campus, they routinely turned to their mentor for entrepreneurial expertise and encouragement. Confident in their social enterprise plan, impressed by their capabilities, and moved by their passion, Professor Shaughnessy also decided to take action. Using personal resources, Shaughnessy established the Calpurnia Fund to help launch the project. The Northeastern Social Enterprise Fund and the Northeastern International Affairs Program also provided the team with seed capital.

Later that year, vision became reality when Chou, Vivanco, and D’Aleo landed in Zambia. The students built an office, selected staff members, and trained administrators. Within three weeks, the Meheba Entrepreneurs Society & Institute (MESI) officially opened enrollment. Throughout the summer, the co-founders delivered and directed the first skills enrichment training and microcredit program for refugees.

Today the MESI program remains distant from traditional microfinance initiatives. Rather than simply giving and recollecting loans, the program ensures that all loan recipients are fully prepared to start a small business. It provides entrepreneurial education workshops covering subjects such as Leadership, Microfinance, Business Management, and Accounting. Before receiving loans, recipients must complete a two month training process.

The curriculum is specially-tailored to the African refugee small business setting. This five-week course is translated into languages such as Swahili, Luvale, French or English and provides loan recipients with the skills necessary to succeed in their entrepreneurial ventures.

Upon successful completion of the training course, refugee participants submit individual plans for small, start-up businesses. Student leaders review the plans and, when applicable, grant loans to newly-inducted refugee entrepreneurs. Loans are given in the form of Zambian Kwacha or investment capital, and are offered to both male and female applicants. Loan amounts range anywhere from $75 to start small scale entrepreneurial ventures, such as mat-making or fish trading, to $2,000 for large scale group endeavors, such as the purchase of hammer mills or butcheries.

In its first year of existence, MESI provided loans to 112 individuals, whose lives were transformed through economic self-sufficiency. The current rate of loan repayment exceeds 90 percent. Rather than traditional repayment, loans from this program are repaid to a community fund which will be used to sustain business training in Meheba.

This fund also already provided for the creation of a new firm with five lending officers. These partners work as microfinance officers, office managers, and workshop instructors. MESI staff members come from all over the African continent, including Sudan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia.

Other measurable impacts for participants in the pilot program included:

· Integrated guidance/loans that launched 80 new businesses in a poor economy.
· Customized entrepreneurship training and increased levels of job-readiness.
· Personal empowerment – most especially women who endure great suffering.
· Sustained, economic empowerment for the community as ensured by the fund.


Let me know if you’d like to incorporate this into a social entrepreneurship story.

Expert offers his advice on ID theft

FROM THE TRI-VALLEY HERALD

Most people know to avoid e-mails offering millions of dollars in exchange for a transfer fee, that it's impossible to win a lottery for which they never applied and to hang up on phone calls asking for money for a charity.

Those are called scams, identity theft consultant Mike Prusinski said, because they have spread to the point that many people know about it.

Prusinski's job, as vice president and spokesman for ID theft prevention company LifeLock, is to warn people that they can become victims even if they do nothing.

"There is no sure-fire way to stop identity thieves," he said. "You can't stop anybody from stealing your wallet, purse or whatever. But you can put tools in place to stop people from using your personal information."

LifeLock was founded in 2005 in Arizona and has 560,000 clients throughout the country. But people who want to protect their privacy don't have to pay the monthly fee for the company's services — they can do everything themselves for less.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, ID theft has been the fastest-growing crime nationwide in the last seven years. In 2006, the commission ranked California third in the country in terms of victims per 100,000 residents.

"It's still a huge problem and criminals are very smart," Prusinski said. "They are always finding new ways to get your information."

If you'd like to read this entire story, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/expertoffers.htm

Career Watch: What's cooking in Northeastern's High-Tech MBA program

FROM COMPUTERWORLD

Business Meets Academia

How U.S. colleges and universities are working with the private sector to develop next-generation IT leaders

School:Northeastern University’s High-Tech MBA program, Boston

Does it have an IT advisory council? Northeastern has an “alumni board” made up of a cadre of alumni from different graduating classes who are CIOs, IT managers and industry executives, says Marc Meyer, Matthews Distinguished University Professor and a director of the school’s High-Tech MBA program. In addition, Northeastern draws input from people who have attended a version of the program offered at EMC Corp. and IBM.

IT executive feedback that has helped amend the curriculum: Business model innovation, including ways that a company can profit from new products or services such as software as a service, was introduced to an IT innovation course early last year, says Meyer. In 2006, Northeastern added a course on mergers and acquisitions after several of its recent alumni were placed into M&A-related roles, Meyer adds.

To read this entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/careerwatch.htm

Law professor outlines implication of "crack cocaine" Supreme Court decision

In December, The Supreme Court today said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder. I thought you might be interested in some preliminary thoughts from Katherine Darmer, a professor and criminal procedure expert at Chapman University’s School of Law:

1. This decision is a natrual outgrowth of the Court's prior decision holding that the sentencing guidelines are "advisory" rather than mandatory. In the Booker case, the Court actually held that the guidelines are unconstitutional if they are viewed as "mandatory."

2. The case-- as others in this line -- bring togtether interesting bedfellows, e.g., conservative Scalia and liberal Stevens.
Both have viewed the sentencing guidelines as unconstitutional if mandatory. Their alliance continues in this latest case.

3. The crack/cocaine sentencing disparity has been a political hot potato for years. Crack has been punished 100 times more severely than cocaine, a largely politically driven decision that has plagued judges for years when they were forced to apply the differentials under the old, mandatory guidelines.

4. This defendant --a veteran -- is particularly sympathetic. Even those "tough on crime" who may normally FAVOR harsher sentences for crack are likely to find his case compelling. It was a brilliant "test case" for this issue.

Below is Prof. Darmer’s bio. If you’d like to speak to her about the implications of this case, I’d be happy to facilitate an interview.

Professor Katherine Darmer specializes in criminal procedure. Before joining the full-time faculty at Chapman in 2000, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted public corruption, violent gang and narcotics cases. In 1998, she served as lead counsel in a three-month criminal RICO trial that resulted in the conviction of numerous Bronx-based gang members of crimes ranging from murder to narcotics distribution. During her tenure as an AUSA, she also argued seven cases in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Darmer received her A.B. from Princeton University, with high honors, and her Juris Doctor from Columbia University, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for two years and served as Articles Editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. She then clerked for the Honorable Kimba M. Wood in the Southern District of New York and the Honorable William H. Timbers on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Following her clerkships and before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she worked for three years as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. While at Davis Polk, she was a member of the trial team that successfully defended Delta Air Lines in a $2.5 billion lawsuit brought by the Pan Am Corporation and the Pan Am Creditor's Committee. In 2003, Professor Darmer was co-editor of the book Civil Liberties vs. National Security in a Post-9/11 World, which is the text used in her Advanced Criminal Procedure seminar. Her co-edited book, Morality and the Law, is forthcoming in 2007. Professor Darmer’s other scholarship has focused primarily on Fifth Amendment and national security issues.

State files lawsuit over EPA's decision on auto emissions

FROM SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

By Michael Gardner
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
January 3, 2008

California will not be alone in court. Several national environmental groups and states are expected to join the petition filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

John Eastman, dean of the Chapman University School of Law, said the case is of such “monumental importance” that it likely will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said the legal challenge could turn on how the courts interpret EPA's waiver authority: Is it discretionary or is EPA required to issue permission if California meets all of the conditions?
EPA has a strong case in that the federal government regulates commerce so there is precedent for national standards, Eastman said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has asked the inspector general to investigate how it was reached. Other congressional investigations have been launched.

To read this entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/statefiles.htm

Photos vs. Illustrations: What a Child with Autism Might See

FROM HEALING THOUGHTS BLOG

Erika O'Connor authored My ABC Photo Book in response to her daughter and niece's reaction to photographs rather than illustrations. She found that the girls associated the photographs with real life events in a way that they did not with illustrations of events. The girls enjoyed books that included pictures of them or things with which they were familiar. In addition to English language text, O'Connor has included Spanish and Italian text to increase multi-lingual abilities.

3D video helps Pentagon visualize future weapons

Military contractors oftentimes have to “sell” people at the Pentagon and Congress to make investments in new military/weapons technology before it is even developed. Military contractors are finding that 3D video animations of their technology proposals can provide a powerful visual representation of the capabilities of newly proposed military/weapons technology.

We can share with you a few examples of such 3D video animations created for Raytheon, ATK and EDO by Heartwood Studios (www.hwd3d.com). Two examples include:

· Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile – ATK wanted to communicate the drastically improved performance, utility and capability of its Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM). They went to Heartwood Studios to create a digital story using 3D animation and visual effects to illustrate how the product would be implemented and how it fit into the current system of existing components. Moreover, the 3D animation video provided the stimulation and emotional appeal that they had previously lacked. ATK used the digital story to educate its entire acquisition chain about the advantages of the new system, from the operator to the eventual developer and procurement officer, ensuring purchase and keeping this $150 million program alive in the military and in congress. This success gave ATK a leading edge in engaging the Italian Air Force and Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division for a successful test firing from an F/A-18 aircraft on May 25, 2007.

· Electronic Protection System – EDO worked with Heartwood Studios to develop a 3D animation video for their Electronic Protection System, which represented a $200 million contract that had initially been approved but then was shelved at the start of the war in Iraq. The 3D video is being used to reauthorize the project, and EDO believes it has been very helpful to their efforts to do this.

Media Cos. Battle Web Portals on Ads

By ANICK JESDANUN – 19 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Traditional media companies trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and other large Internet companies are increasingly building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands.

The latest, Forbes Inc., is expected to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs. In recent months, Conde Nast, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. and other major media companies also have unveiled topic-specific ad networks to lure advertisers that want to buy more ads than any single site can sell.

If newspapers, magazines and broadcasters cannot expand online ad inventory, they are "under threat of becoming less and less relevant to the advertiser," said Russ Fradin, chief executive of Adify Corp., whose technology runs ad networks for Forbes and others.

But these media networks — some linking fewer than a dozen hand-picked Web sites — may have a tough time competing with the larger networks of thousands assembled by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.

Those companies have been expanding, too, spending at least $11 billion collectively to buy smaller ad networks and technologies — and in Microsoft's case, also bidding more than $40 billion for Yahoo.

"As our technology has continued to advance, we've gotten better and better," said Lynda Clarizio, president of AOL's emerging Platform A advertising unit. "We can handle a lot of demand from advertisers."

To read this entire article, please visit: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jnhxKeH7mqm8kbwIa45cJvPQd9DQD8VJANEO0

When Bad Resumes Happen to Good IT People

FROM EWEEK


By Deborah Perelman
December 26, 2007
Even one error can keep you from getting your foot in the door, but stupid mistakes find their way onto the smartest resumes.

If you're like a lot of workers out there, the top of a new year seems as ideal a time as any to launch the hunt for a new job—if you're lucky, you've just received your year-end bonus and your next one is far away. If you haven't, you're likely hoping to get one next year, even if you have to go elsewhere to get it.

Yet even where bonuses are not a concern, once the mood for new year's resolutions strikes a less-than-perfect employment situation is ripe for the picking, or picking on.

But before even finding a job worth applying for, one needs a resume that is worth a recruiter looking at twice, and for most people, this hasn't been updated in the two, four or eight years. And those that work with lines of code and computers all day have not likely tuned up their writing skills in years.

"Recruiters often have hundreds of resumes to review and will make split second judgments about you based on your resume. Think of it as the sales brochure for you—it has to demonstrate a successful track record that makes them want to talk to you. Attention to detail is critical," said Lynne Sarikas, director of the MBA career center at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University.

Below are five of the easiest mistakes to make, and ones that could lead to a painful missed opportunity.

If you'd like to see the five easiest mistakes, and read the whole article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/whengood.htm

American dreams built on a shaky foundation of subprime loans

FROM THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Wall Street connection

Soaring subprime profits quickly attracted Wall Street investors.

As fast as brokers sold more teaser-rate loans, they quickly bundled them into packages and sold them like securities to investors, who pumped even more money into the subprime market.
The Compliance Technologies study showed that more than half of the subprime loans made in Kansas City’s 5th District were securitized and sold off to investors.

“Originators were making loans based on quantity rather than quality,” said Kurt Eggert, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., who served on the Federal Reserve’s consumer advisory counsel. “They made loans even when they didn’t make sense from an underwriting standpoint.”

If you'd like to read this entire story, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/americandreams.htm

Adidas Brand in the Hand

Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration started a new MBA program last fall. This new program placed an emphasis on MBA students working closely with the business community. The issue that marketing departments of today’s companies is to try to come up with new ways of getting their product in front of consumers. Fareena Sultan, marketing professor and head of the marketing track at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, wrote a case study entitled, “The Brand In The Hand: Mobile Marketing at Adidas,” where she provides a current example of how Adidas went beyond the traditional marketing medium and what obstacles they had to overcome to do it.

The study explores the development of telecommunications technology with cell phones which led up to the possibility of mobile marketing. Initially, Adidas’ marketing firm, Global Media Group presented this new mobile marketing for the company. “The Global Group had been arguing that mobile marketing was the surest, and perhaps only, way for Adidas to break free from the advertising clutter and fragmentation of traditional media.” The biggest challenge was to place this message out there without forcing it on consumers and so Adidas decided to allow the consumer the option of receiving the message. “Adidas opted an ‘opt-in’ policy for all Internet and mobile advertising.”

Below is Professor Sultan’s bio:

Professor Sultan is the Robert Morrison Fellow, and the MBA Marketing Career Track Chair at the College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Boston. Professor Sultan holds a PhD from Columbia University, an MS from MIT, and BS and MS degrees from the University of Karachi. Prior to joining the CBA faculty, she served as assistant professor at Harvard University, associate professor at Golden Gate University, and visiting associate professor at the University of California - Berkeley, where she received the Earl F. Chiet Teaching Excellence Award. She has consulted and taught in executive education programs in the U.S. and overseas. Professor Sultan has research interest in Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations, Global E-Business, Mobile Marketing, Digital Marketing, Media Multitasking and the Role of IT in New Product Development. Professor Sultan has published in such journals as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, IEEE Transactions, Marketing Letters, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and Journal of Economic Psychology among others. She is the author of Harvard Business School and Ivey cases. Professor Sultan is the recipient of the 1995 O'Dell Award from the American Marketing Association for her research. In 2006, she received the College of Business Administration’s Robert Morrison Fellowship.

If you would like to speak to Professor Sultan or would like a copy of this study, please let me know.