Cuban wins

This weekend I caught up on my blog reading backlog when I ran across a recent post on Mark Cuban’s Blog Maverick. While you may not always agree with Cuban, you have to respect the man – from sharing his opinions to dancing on national television – he takes risks and steps into his vision.

While I admit, I don’t follow Dancing With the Stars, Cuban’s blog post on the day he was voted off might just make me watch!

Cuban wrote on Blog Maverick: (more…)

Help! I’m addicted to Free Rice!

Are you someone who can get lost playing Soduku for hours? Is the NY Times Crossword Puzzle a Sunday ritual?

Well, I have a new addiction for you – I stumbled onto the Wikinomics blog the other day and have been addicted to Free Rice ever since! FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

The site let’s you put your stunning vocabulary to good use addressing world hunger. When you enter the site, you are simply asked to play. For each correct answer rice is donated through the UN World Food Programme.

The rice is paid for by site advertisers. The more you play, the more you learn and the more rice is donated to feed hungry people around the world.

Isn’t amazing what a little collaboration, a sense community and a little smarts can accomplish? I enthusiastically advocate your perusal!

Check out FreeRice.com and while you’re building your brainpower you will also be making an impact…one grain of rice at a time.

Making the Connection

Who are the most powerful people in your network of colleagues, peers, friends, family and acquaintances? Are you thinking of high level executives in prestigious companies, elected officials, prominent philanthropists, notable artists?

While these individuals are indeed powerful, they may not be the most powerful in your network. To identify your power players, other factors need to be considered.

Brian Uzzi, a professor at Kellogg School of Management and Shannon Dunlap, formerly of Kellogg’s Center for Executive Women (currently teaching at NYU) explored the power of networks in a Harvard Business Review article How to Build Your Network (December 2005). They identified three major advantages of networks. These factors are useful in identifying the most powerful people within your personal and professional network. (more…)