Category: biz

For many, the work place can feel like imprisonment--a necessary, inconvenient, and sometimes oppressive sacrifice of freedom to obtain the means of survival.  For at least one employer, however, she sees a potential for the environment to provide a profound sense of fulfillment and in the process generating far more productivity and profits.

Shankari the Alchemist, the world renowned jewelry designer of Talismans of Power by Shankari, pays her employees to meditate for the first hour of every work day.  At eight am her staff meets in a modest sized ballroom with carved stone dragon pillars and timber floors to do nothing except sit, breathe, and clear their minds to focus on the now--yoga and quiet Hindu chants are encouraged as well.

"People who are balanced and happy do great work," says Shankari.  "The first hour of each day is an investment in the quality of the work.  It sets the tone for the rest of the day and the good will created carries into each piece of jewelry and ultimately to the wearer.  This creates a product that not only looks great but it has spiritual integrity as well.  I think consumers really care about that sort of thing.  These days you must walk your talk to be taken seriously."

Talismans of Power jewelry is known for its original, homemade look and feel--there is a certain logic at play for happy workers to create such a product.

Shankari would love to see meditation become more widespread in other work places, but even she has to admit a certain image comes with the practice that doesn't quite jive with western thought systems.  As Andy Puddicombe notes on the corporate news site Management-Issues, "For most people the word meditation conjures up images of shaven-headed monks and nuns sitting in mountain retreats high in the himalayas.  Very few people would associate it with their office or place of work."

But as any practicing Buddhist can tell you, it isn't the place that is sacred, rather the person who makes it so.  People who can find a sense of meaning in their environment and work are bound to treat it more seriously, or if nothing else, they realize the helpful service it provides to another and still perform it well even if they are personally detached.

For any employers considering testing it out in the work place, know this:  at least meditation is cost-free.  As far as I see it, there's nothing to lose in giving it a shot.

It might seem strange, but when the economy's struggling, it could be the best time to fulfill that dream of owning your own business.  As layoffs and foreclosures become more prevalent, it might actually leave you with nothing else better to do.

Internet startups are always a plausible road to venture down because of low cost of entry, but others are even moving to new locations and embracing a lower cost of living in other ways to be their own employers.  The August 2008 issue of Redbook magazine chronicled five people who trusted their instincts and realized their dreams in an article entitled "Trust Your Gut.  Change Your Life."  Two of the people were a couple from California who decided to start an online, self-publishing company in Idaho.

"Our business plan was also a life plan," says James Byrd, who left California in 1994 with his partner Susan Daffron during the country's recession.  Real estate was crashing and layoffs were rampant at the time, particularly where they had lived.  "By lowering our overhead costs, we didn't need to earn as much money from our business than if we had stayed in Southern California."  Working from home under a more affordable mortgage, strategically using technology, and driving infrequently made the dream become a reality.  But it also took a desire to live a more simplistic lifestyle--one away from the busyness of cities like Los Angeles and San Diego.

It may seem counter-intuitive to embark on a new business during a recession, but historically, plenty of businesses have started during economic downtimes.  Hewlett Packard, Coors, Disney, Super 8 Motels, and even Microsoft came about during particularly difficult financial times, and not all originated in the country's biggest metropolitan areas--would all the businesses of Sillicon Valley be as well known if it wasn't for their location?

Byrd and Daffron's story could serve as inspiration.  As Daffron puts it: "You only have one shot at life; do you really want to spend it in a cubicle?"  Or how about an expensive, arbitrary location for that matter?

Allocating environmentally friendly resources can be hard when they aren’t reaching the poorest communities who are most at risk from the impact global warming. That’s why a London based coalition, with the help of the International Institute for Environment and Development, (IIED) is launching a new funding scheme that addresses such concerns, particularly on “existing trade in carbon credits.” (Megan Rowling, Reuters) Other partners in the project include the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Greenpeace, CARE International and Irish based charity center Trocaire. The plan is a way to have both individuals and business organizations “take some responsibility for the damage caused by their carbon emissions in the short term.”

“It connects me with a human being at the other end of the world who’s being affected by my pollution, and I then invest in that person and relate to that person, and feel there is solidarity between us,” Saleemul Huq said, who leads the climate change group at IIED. “It’s not buying and selling,” he added. “It’s is much more investing in people.”

The new plan includes not necessarily concentrating on conventional carbon offsetting “which has focused mostly on promoting renewable energy” but coming up with plans to help vulnerable people cope with drought and flooding. The scheme will mainly deal in fusing, “mitigation” promoting activities that enable some of the poorest communities in the world to deal with climate-related problems they already face.

The program is designed to give these people more practical skills in order to survive these global climate changes. Certain activities include teaching children to swim in India so they can survive floods, as well as planting drought-resistant cashew trees where families sell them to schools for their main source of income.

However, activities are not just practical skills. The group will also be implanting solar powered lighting in certain communities in order for young schoolchildren to complete their homework at night, as well as solar powered freezers in Brazil so residents can store natural products they use to make and sell juice. The coalition also hopes to use wasted resources and turn them into workable ones. For example, in Bosnia, partners of the coalition are pairing up with a pastry manufacturer to “convert used cooking oil into biodiesel that could power city buses in Tuzia.” (Reuters)

“This is very much not a minor absolution for your carbon sins, but is honestly a compensation payment for the impact you know your personal carbon emissions will have,” Andrew Simms, policy leader at the New Economics Foundation (NEF) said on Tuesday.

Some businesses are cautious of the collation as it relies on ‘offsetting’ which makes it hard to tell exactly where the money goes. Critics of the plan also say it’s a way to simply delay businesses in taking accountability for their carbon footprint. Charities who are participating also worry that funding small projects is growing more difficult because companies, “who act as brokers,” are more concerned with projects that deliver massive emissions savings.

Other businesses are finding it hard to measure exactly what is being saved. As Michael Schlup, director of the Gold Standard Foundation, points out, “with mitigation, you have tons of carbon, but with adaptation, are you saving lives or dollars?” Schlup’s company makes clean energy products and supports sustainable development.

But the coalition claims skeptics can continually track their progress online, which should give possible investors more faith in what they’re accomplishing and how.

The United Nations has set a budget of approximately 86 billion dollars in new financing by 2015 to help the world’s poor population cope with climate change. But this is merely a fraction of what is needed, according to aid agencies, which is why coalitions concentrating on carbon offsetting are taking the stage.

The program will be tested in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America next year.

 New Batman installment and marketing phenomenon The Dark Knight broke a record today as becoming the second highest grossing film at the box office next to Titanic. This is something producers were expecting, but only now officially happened, with the film grossing 502.4 million dollars within 6 weeks of its premiere. Titanic took double the time to make its 600.8 million dollars.

Despite its steady showing at the box office, Knight isn’t expected to ultimately beat Titanic, “which put up smaller numbers week after week but lingered at the top of the box office for months.” (David Germain, Associated Press) Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Brothers, expects the film to finish at around 530 million, thought he admits it could reach as high as 550 million if “business persists as strongly as it has.”

One must also take into account the price of admission today as opposed to 1997 when Titanic hit theatres. Factoring that in, Knight would have to make 900 million more to match the number of tickets sold by the ship sinking tragedy.

Labor Day weekend will bring an end to this year’s highest grossing movie season, and Knight is expected to reach at least 505 million by the end of it. After Knight, the highest grossing films this year were Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, raking in 355.9 million, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at 310.8 million, Hancock with 280.4 million, Iron Man grossing 267.7 million and Tropic Thunder is still going strong momentarily with 146.6 million so far.

“This is kind of an inauspicious end to a really incredible summer," Paul Dergaragedian, president of Media by Numbers, said. “We limped past the finish line.” 

 I could see it coming, but I didn’t want to believe the day would ever actually arrive. My favorite means of cruising the skies, Zoom Airlines, has gone under.

The Canadian based company can no longer afford to both charge such low prices and provide such amazing quality service. I’ve flown Zoom overseas twice now; from London to New York and then from Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) direct to London, and have been incredibly impressed. Not only was my flight peanuts compared to its competitor’s prices, but the flights were also the most pleasant by far of my life--and I’ve flown on lots of planes.

One of the main complaints about airline flights today is the lack of space, and then of course getting stuck sitting next to that nightmare passenger. Both times I flew Zoom I didn’t even have a next-door neighbor. On one flight I had the middle seat and entire row to myself, and the second time I had an aisle to myself. There was extra legroom, the staff members were extra chipper and accommodating, and the food was even nice! Not to mention the selection of entertainment viewing was above average.

Sound too good to be true? It was. I had hoped to continue to be a loyal and valued client of the airline, but I can’t say I’m surprised they went under either. Zoom, based out of Ottawa, was forced to cancel all flights until further notice yesterday due to “economic downturn.” (The Canadian Press) Both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are offering discounted outgoing flights to those immediately affected by Zoom’s termination.

Company founders Hugh and John Boyle said in a statement that they “left no stone unturned to secure a re-financing package that would have kept our aircraft flying."

I even received a personal apology email from the company claiming that, “the collapse of Zoom is a result of matter beyond our control.” 

Zoom turned a loss of profits due to the “unprecedented” increase in aviation fuel costs, which jumped to nearly 50 million more in one year’s time. The airline is certainly not alone in finding it hard to fuel their planes. US domestic airlines have also been increasing costs, cutting back on flights and in flight conveniences for the same reasons.

For those of you who’ve also flown Zoom, I can imagine you’re most likely as upset as I am for reasons previously stated. “It is a tragic day for our passengers and more than 600 staff,” the email concluded (Zoom employed 450 people in Canada and 250 people in the United Kingdom). “We would like to thank the many thousands of passengers who chose to travel with Zoom during the last seven years and efforts of the airline’s staff.”

I may actually have a tear in my eye. Goodbye Zoom. Both my pocketbook and my genuine love for flying will miss you dearly. 

As the green movement gains force, more and more major companies are jumping on the profitable green bandwagon, and the phone book company is the latest.

The Yellow Pages are offering customers a green way to opt out of having the heavy phone books delivered to your door. To save paper, fill out the form found at YellowPagesGoesGreen.org to get rid of your paper phone book.

It seems like these days, most people use the Internet find phone numbers, so you probably won’t miss those heavy yellow deliveries appearing on your doorstep.

Special effects are about to to reach a pinnacle in realism for Hollywood movies.  Image Metrics, a huge company in the realm of facial animation, just created the most photo-realistic computer-generated (CG) face yet known.  

At the Siggraph Expo in Los Angeles, they recently demonstrated an animation of actress Emily O'Brien that has entertainment industry types in a joyous uproar.  The video, available here, depicts a short a video clip of O'Brien sitting and engaging in a dialogue that, in my opinion, looks just like an HD image of the real deal.  

According to an Image Works press release, the animation was created with a patented high-resolution image scanning process:

This newest process from the ICT Graphics Lab places the actor inside a sphere of LED lights, illuminating the talent with a set of polarized spherical gradient illumination patterns while a pair of high-resolution digital cameras takes around 15 photographs in under three seconds.

These patterns allow the shine of the skin to be photographed independently from the main skin tone so that precise colors and characteristics can be calculated at hundreds of measurements per square millimeter. The resulting CG models provide unprecedented detail of natural facial expressions - down to skin pores and fine wrinkles - with perfectly aligned shading information that allows photo-real faces to be rendered under any illumination and viewpoint with standard rendering packages.

David Barton, Image Metrics' producer said, "Out goal was to create a completely convincing, animated computer-generated face...Given the caliber of creative work and talent in our industry, it was a challenging goal, but one we were confident we could accomplish..."  Currently ICT's scanning method is the only one capable of acquiring such high-definition images. 

Expect James Cameron, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg to make some jaw-dropping films in the coming years.  

Harry Shearer knows what is funny. He spent years working on "Saturday Night Live" at NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters. He’s the bassist of Spinal Tap. And he’s the man who shows the world what newscasters are really thinking behind their plastic smiles.

Shearer's "Found Objects," a semi-regular feature of the "My Damn Channel" Web site, is a place where news personalities don't want to find themselves. The site shows Shearer’s collection of newscaster personalities trapped between on-air and off-air. The camera is rolling, but the news is over.

In a nine-minute video clip of on-set behavior at Fox News Channel, Laura Ingraham rants at everything and everyone once her red light switched off.

Last fall, the first posting on the site was of an excruciating 17-minute video of former CBS News anchor Dan Rather on a chilly rooftop in Seattle, obsessing over whether to wear an overcoat during a standup, or whether the coat's collar should be turned up or down.

Katie Couric, Rather’s replacement, has put her own spin on the site after Shearer posted a video of off-air behavior before a New Hampshire primary. In the footage she jokes about her voice, swearing in frustration, and admitting to a weird fascination with Cindy McCain's eyes. Couric now has her own channel on YouTube, which was originally purposed to show segments of her interviews that don’t air, and also occasionally shows behind-the-scenes videos. In her first appearance, the popular blonde joked, "It's nice to be on YouTube when I know the cameras are rolling. Harry Shearer, I'm gonna get you!"

Indeed, it seems Shearer has got the newscasters of America on the run as America laughs.

Across the country, windmills are starting to appear as alternative energy sources are explored. But along with new energy, new feuds are starting as the unsightly and noisy windmills tear families apart.

In upstate New York, farmer John Yancey hates the 24-hour sights and sounds of the windmills.  His father recently allowed an energy company to place seven of the white towers on his land. Ed Yancey sold out for his family, a minimum of $6,600 for each turbine. But the younger Yancey says all he wants is “to be able to get a good night's sleep and to live in my home without these monstrosities hovering over me."

Tug Hill project, where the Yancey’s farm is located, is the largest area of windmill turbines in the state of New York. T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore have hailed the windmills as the wave of the future.

But like John Yancey, whose family have farmed Tug Hill, for generations,  more and more small towns grappling with big money and big wind are asking, "Is it worth destroying families, pitting neighbor against neighbor, father against son? Is it worth destroying a whole way of life?"

As gas prices and global warming concerns rise, The U.S Department of Energy recently released a report that examines the feasibility of harnessing wind power to provide up to 20 percent of the nation's total electricity by 2030. U.S. wind power plants now produce less than 1 percent.

For many, the income from the windmills is lucrative enough to risk upsetting family and friends; even when the sun goes down and red spots gleam eerily atop the windmills.

Read the full article here

Twenty-five or more years ago, women’s only floors in hotels disappeared amidst an outcry of sexism. Now, they have returned and the Crowne Plaza Hotel chain is leading the way, according to an article in the New York Times by Paul Burnham Finney.

The Crowne Plaza Milwaukee-Wauwatosa allows not only women, but men as well, to book a room on the hotels seventh floor, which provides access to a variety of amenities like a Victoria’s Secret robe, a blow dryer and vanity mirrors. One floor up, on the King Executive Level, which many hotels refer to as the concierge or club level, guests receive perks including free cocktails and concierge services, like making reservations at restaurants. Although these amenities have traditionally been for men, women can book a floor on this level as well.

“That Women’s Level isn’t really an exclusive woman’s floor,” said Bill DeForrest, president of Lane Hospitality, which manages three Crowne Plazas. “It’s simply designed to cater to the needs of women travelers, who are growing faster in numbers than male travelers. One of the things we’ve changed is to keep our fitness facilities open 24/7. So much of what we do, by the way, is applicable to both men and women.”

Other hotels are also providing female travelers with options, but so far the Crowne Plaza is the only chain to do so nationally, although a Women’s Level is not offered in all hotels.

“It’s up to the hotels,” said Gina LaBarre, Crowne Plaza vice president for brand management. “All we want is to go the extra mile to make women feel welcome.”

Although many companies often group women traveling on business together, many still consider the concept backwards, no matter how forward thinking the hotels try to present it.

Lalia Rach, a divisional dean and hotel specialist at New York University’s Tisch Center, described the concept of women’s floors as “19th-century thinking.” Back then, she said, “women couldn’t stay in a hotel unless their fathers or husbands checked them in.” Later, the Palmer House in Chicago had what were called “Lady Hilton” rooms.

“By the mid-’80s, separate floors in hotels offended many women who were traveling on business,” said Bjorn Hanson, hotel analyst and faculty member at the Tisch Center. “They were trying to be C.E.O.’s but were looked on as the weaker sex. Women’s floors became a kind of sexist thing instead of a polite offer.”

And today women’s floors remain controversial. Before opening last September, the JW Marriott in Grand Rapids, Mich., found “some 90 percent favored the women’s floor concept,” said Chad LeRoux, corporate director of marketing. “But the 10 percent who panned the idea led us to back off.”

Instead, the hotel offers women a luxurious room on one of the four concierge floors for an extra $40.

The amenities for both men and women seem like good ideas; so maybe offering them to all travelers would help eliminate the separation of the sexes.