Bring Nomadic Employees Back to the Mothership - Philip Tidd ...

By 2015, 1.3 billion people worldwide will be working remotely. That's almost 40% of the entire global workforce. While we can thank technology and increasingly flexible office policies for the shift away from the office, for many companies, mobility has simply been an unintended consequence of trying to keep pace with change, as well as a calculable means to rein in real estate costs. But while the movement toward less square footage and mobile workforces will likely continue, we shouldn't discount the importance of the office.

Having consulted with scores of companies over the last twenty years, I have seen the power of physical place. A good workplace bonds employees to one another in ways that virtual communication cannot replicate. It reconnects employees to the company and offers an organization the chance to showcase its culture. A good workplace can transform a business.

But today's offices need to be reimagined ? and redesigned ? to make them more effective for a mobile workforce. Perhaps we even need to rethink the term "office" itself. I like "mother ship" and "home base." These terms reveal a yearning for the office as a place associated with comfort, security, learning, and collegiality ? even family. The office needs to be a place that calls nomadic employees back home, because it has the potential to refresh and energize them ? not stress them out with distractions and unwanted interruptions.

In a mobile world, companies need to think about what their office space is actually achieving. Does your physical space reflect what makes your company unique? Does the office inspire employees, promote camaraderie, and enhance productivity? When planning your office, it's important to consider some general trends happening in today's workplaces:

? An evolving need for collaborative and private space. The open-plan office promised increased collaboration, economies of space, and cost savings. What it's delivered is a dilemma: visually exciting offices with lots of buzz on the one hand, and on the other, a lack of privacy and quiet. Research done by Gensler (the firm where I work, sometimes remotely) bears that out. Our findings show that the most significant factor in workplace effectiveness is focus work. Employees rate it as their most critical work activity, but our research shows it as the least-supported activity in today's offices. To function well, an office must provide a healthy mix of spaces ? quiet, collaborative, and social.

Take Microsoft's new office at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam: the colorful, inspiring environment gets the mix of group space and private space right. And it helps that the Microsoft team has blended this new working environment with an open, trust- and results-based management style, allowing staff to choose how and when they go to the office ? all supported by excellent virtual collaboration tools.

? The rise of the emotionally intelligent workplace. Much has been written about the power and impact of the emotionally intelligent leader. If one of the key roles of the new generation of modern executive is to create a more emotionally open, collaborative working environment, then we should be designing physical space that supports that mandate.

To that point, organizations such Telefonica in Germany are doing away with their standard, hierarchical office layout (enclosed team spaces) and are instead creating an open, vibrant space with a variety of settings for meetings and collaborations among teams. When leaders moved out of their enclosed cellular offices and into the team space, not only did they feel more connected to their teams, but their teams felt more connected to them as leaders ? and to the whole sense of Telefonica's community.

22squared, an advertising agency in Atlanta, Georgia, is likewise fostering greater emotional/working connections at the office among previously siloed teams to bolster productivity. Conceptualizing its new workplace as a city grid with avenues, boulevards, and intersections among desks, the agency literally designed interaction into its space and increased collaboration by 20%, according to pre- and post-occupancy research done by Gensler.

? Generation whY in the workplace. More than anyone else in the workplace today, Millennials question the status quo. Why email when IM is faster? Why not form instant teams around a project when and where it works best? In response to this young workforce, a new workplace model is evolving in social media companies and other start-ups ? one built on speed, transparency, democracy, and a melding of virtual and real office spaces. In addition to a high degree of mobile technologies and channels used externally and internally, these offices are forging new ground in what I call "un-designed" space and what researchers call "empowered" space: Ultra flexible working arrangements that allow staff to team up as they like, where they want, and even take control over the design of their personal workspace.

In London's Tech City, young digital media companies are embracing self-customized office space which employees can furnish as they like. At ustwo, for example, the CEO is often found working in his off-the-shelf children's wooden garden playhouse situated inside the 10,000-square-foot open office. He typically takes his Skype calls or videoconferences from his laptop in the playhouse. Not only does it provide some privacy, but according to ustwo, it encourages creativity and is a culture-defining symbol.

There is still plenty of room and purpose for the twenty-first century office. It's one of the few tangibles that binds the nomads together and interprets for them in a very real way, how we work today. And if we design them right, our offices can be a catalyst for better business and a happier, more productive, and more connected workforce.

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/bring_nomadic_employees_back_t.html

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The ABCDs of Impact Investing and Social Enterprise - Huffington Post

Around the world, inspiring pioneers are demonstrating that business and investment can be a morally legitimate and economically effective way to tackle social challenges. But how will we move beyond these inspiring anecdotes to harness the potential of the social enterprise and impact investing movements? Asking four fundamental questions can help steer our path. Are we:

  • Asking the right question?
  • Building the systems?
  • Considering the context?
  • Deepening our sense of obligation to each other?

Asking the Right Questions

If we orient around the question "where can we find investments that generate social good?" we limit the power of our work. What we should be asking instead is: "What are the social issues we want to address and how can we best contribute to their solution?

This is more than mere semantics. The Nonprofit Finance Fund has been making impact investments for more than 30 years. In 2009 we set up a program to lend to social service agencies in the City of New York to help them weather the fallout of the financial crisis. We set out asking, "Where can we find credit-worthy borrowers in the social service sector?" But many of these organizations were no longer healthy enough to take on debt in the face of first payment delays and then budget cuts from the City of New York. We could not lend to them.

But when we changed our question to, "What part can we play to ensure that New York has a viable safety net?" we realized that we needed to combine debt, loan guarantees, and grant money for advisory services to help these organizations reposition themselves for long-term sustainability. So by focusing on what we could do to help solve the problem confronting these organizations, we came up with this approach we now call "Complete Capital." We believe many of the most powerful social solutions will employ "Complete Capital" approaches bringing donors together with government, investors and the strategic advisory services necessary to transform these organizations in a way that allows them to thrive in this new operating context. That's just one example of how asking the right question can change the way your approach your work.

Building the systems

As important as asking the right question is, it's not enough. Without the systems to support our work, it will be harder than it needs to be, and the frustrations will drive many people away. Legal systems, educational systems, and measurement systems all support activity that is either purely charitable or purely profit-seeking, but what happens for those of us working in the middle? How do we create laws and regulations that incentivize impact investors without creating an easy-way for people to falsely claim impact intentions in order to avoid taxes? How do we train a new generation of professionals who want the market savvy a business school offers and the social insight our policy and social work schools currently offer? And how will we measure the success of our social enterprises and impact investments that generate a blended value of social and financial return?

The great thing about systems change is that it creates a role for everybody. You can participate in changing the educational system by the questions you ask your professors. You can participate in changing the legal systems through your vote and the way you engage with lawmakers. In measurement, you can become a more savvy consumer of the information that is available to those who care about social outcomes. Our systems are not handed to us; we create them everyday through our actions.

Considering the Context

Too many social enterprise and impact investing discussions ignore the context in which we work. We talk a lot about amazing innovations, but we don't talk enough about how they apply to the great challenges of our time. In the West over the next decade, we need to figure out: how will we secure and expand the social safety net so that it endures as government retreats? In emerging markets, we need to determine: how economic growth can reach more and more people? Our work as social entrepreneurs and impact investors need to contribute to the answers to those fundamental questions. If we continue to have conferences and conversations and businesses that ignore this operating context we will never reach our potential.

Deeping our Connections

Given our focus on business and markets, we often understate how important basic human compassion is to our work. At some point, the fuel that allows any of our ventures to succeed is a recognition that we all need to take care of each other. This commitment motivates many social entrepreneurs. It motivates impact investors. And it motivates governments and philanthropists to buy our services directly or help provide income to our clients to pay for them.

I worry that this sense of mutual obligation is in retreat. In the West, macroeconomic pressures are causing too many people to hunker down and protect their own narrow interests. And in fast-growing emerging markets, a generation is grabbing an opportunity to attain unimagined wealth for themselves even while leaving others behind. If we don't reignite the sense that we have an obligation to each other, then the fuel that runs this whole machine is eventually going to run out.

My grandfather Yudel Levy was born around the turn of the 20th century in Germany. He was orphaned as a young boy and quit school to work. After a few years he found work in a textile factory. When my grandfather was a young adult, the factory owner gave my grandfather money to start his own factory in another town. Now that man did not call himself an impact investor, but his investment embodied the spirit of impact investing. He didn't believe that the only purpose of investing was to make money. And while he felt a sense of obligation to my grandfather, he did not give him charity. Instead he offered my grandfather start-up capital and told my grandfather to pay him back when his company became profitable.

I suspect that everyone in this room today got here because at some point in your family line, someone supported you or your forebears out of a similar recognition that we have an obligation to support each other. If we don't reinvigorate that spirit, then not only will our work be much harder, but we could will ultimately not contribute to realizing the world we want to see.

So I will leave you with a quote from my favorite political philosopher, Bruce Springsteen:

"Where are the eyes, the eyes with the will to see? Where are the hearts that run over with mercy? Where is the work that will set my hands, my soul free?"

If you have the eyes with the will to see what's going on around you, if you have the hearts to connect the work you do to a sense that we have an obligation to one another, then this is the work that will set your hands and your soul free.

This post was originally the keynote address at the Wharton Social Impact Conference.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/antony-bugglevine/the-abcds-of-impact-inves_b_2204908.html

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Brewer rejects state-run health exchange for Ariz.

PHOENIX (AP) ? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has decided against creating a state-run health insurance exchange required to implement a key part of President Barack Obama's federal health care law.

Brewer's decision announced Wednesday means the federal government will set up an online marketplace for the state, offering subsidized private health coverage to the middle class.

Brewer, who reiterated her opposition to the health care overhaul, said there are too many costs and questions associated with a state-run exchange.

Federal requirements mean the state "would wield little actual authority over its 'state' exchange," she said in a statement.

"The federal government would maintain oversight and control over virtually every aspect of our exchange, limiting our ability to meet the unique needs of Arizonans and the Arizona insurance market," she said.

Brewer sent a federal official a one-page letter disclosing her decision.

Her announcement preceded a Dec. 14 deadline for states to declare whether they'd run their own exchanges.

A decision to create an exchange would have been subject to approval by the Republican-led state Legislature.

Though the Nov. 6 election results reduced the size of Republicans' majorities in the state House and Senate, a Brewer push to create a state-run exchange would have faced a fight from GOP lawmakers who oppose the law.

An alliance of hospitals, insurance companies and business groups wanted Arizona to have a state-run exchange, arguing that it would increase coverage while giving the state flexibility in designing a program to its liking.

Conservative advocacy groups such as the Goldwater Institute stand in opposition. They say Arizona shouldn't help implement a law that could foist new expenses on the state and raise health insurance prices for residents.

Brewer's administration spent two years planning for a possible exchange, accepting approximately $31 million of federal funding to pay for the advance work.

As part of that planning, Brewer in September selected a minimum benefits package for a state-run exchange based on current insurance coverage for state employees. She noted in a Sept. 28 letter to the Obama administration that the package she chose excludes abortion coverage.

While some Republican governors in such states as Texas and Maine have balked at creating state-run exchanges, others in Nevada and New Mexico have opted to proceed.

On another implementation issue with state versus federal considerations, Brewer has decided it was better to have the state run its own program to review health insurance rates, rather than leave that to the federal government. The state has formally approved rules for a rate-review program.

Brewer still must decide whether to expand eligibility for the state's Medicaid program as called for by the law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brewer-rejects-state-run-health-exchange-ariz-223144062--finance.html

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Google adds spreadsheet editing to Drive mobile app

Google adds spreadsheet editing to Drive mobile app

It's frustrated many a Drive user, and Google has taken heed, adding on-the-go spreadsheet editing to the service's iOS and Android apps. In addition to making tweaks to existing cells, users will also be able to create new spreadsheets from their iPads, iPhones or any Android device. You'll also have realtime access, letting you see changes from friends and colleagues as they're made. Other app tweaks include improved formatting reproduction for content pasted between Google documents, along with the ability to add Android home screen shortcuts to any Drive file. Hit up Google Play for the updated application today.

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Source: Google Drive Blog

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/28/google-drive-spreadsheet-editing/

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Shoppers' habits not changed by garment plant fire

Bangladeshi protesters hold placards as some of them lie down on the ground posing as dead bodies as they condemn the death of workers in a weekend fire at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2012. Saturday's fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd., a factory in a Dhaka suburb, killed 112 people. Activists in the South Asian country hope the tragedy will invigorate their lengthy, but so far fruitless efforts to upgrade safety standards and force stronger government oversight of the powerful industry. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)

Bangladeshi protesters hold placards as some of them lie down on the ground posing as dead bodies as they condemn the death of workers in a weekend fire at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2012. Saturday's fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd., a factory in a Dhaka suburb, killed 112 people. Activists in the South Asian country hope the tragedy will invigorate their lengthy, but so far fruitless efforts to upgrade safety standards and force stronger government oversight of the powerful industry. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)

(AP) ? Before purchasing a shirt, shoppers will run their hands over the fabric, look at the price tag and wonder how it will hold up in the washing machine. Some might even ask if it makes them look fat.

The one detail, however, that is rarely considered: What are the conditions like for the workers making the shirt?

A horrific fire that raced through a Bangladesh garment factory Saturday, killing 112 people, has put the spotlight ? at least temporarily ? back on those workers and their sometimes treacherous work environment.

The factory, owned by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., made clothing for several retailers around the globe including Wal-Mart, Sears and The Walt Disney Co. All three companies have distanced themselves from responsibility for the incident, saying they didn't know that their subcontractors were using the factory.

Holiday shoppers have also maintained their distance from the tragedy.

"Truthfully, I hadn't even thought about it," said Megan Miller of Philadelphia as she walked out of the Disney Store in Times Square. "I had Christmas on my mind and getting my kids something from New York."

Shoppers from Cincinnati to Paris to Singapore all said the same thing: They were aware of the fatal factory fire, but they weren't thinking about it while browsing stores in the days since. Brand name, fit and ? above all ? prices were on their minds.

"Either our pockets get lighter or we have to live with more blood on our hands," said Amy Hong, a college student who was at a store in Singapore. "I try not to think about it."

Experts who survey shoppers say the out of sight, out of mind attitude is nothing new.

"When you talk to them about their biggest concerns, where something is made, or the abuses in some country, almost never show up," said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, which interviews 10,000 to 15,000 consumers a week, mostly on behalf of retailers. "The numbers are so small, I quit asking the question."

Convenience is much more important to shoppers.

Take Tammy Johnson who was at a Walmart in Bloomington, Minn. this week. She lives nearby and appreciates that the store has a large grocery section in addition to clothing and other goods.

"It's easier and it's cheaper," she said of her decision to shop there. "I hate that, but it is true."

Even those who want to make socially responsible purchases a priority have little information available to work with.

There's no widespread system in place to say where all the materials in a shirt come from let alone whether it was made in a sweatshop or not.

A label saying "Made in USA of imported fabrics" doesn't provide as much information to shoppers as they might think. Maybe tailors assembled it under good working conditions, but what about the people who wove the fabrics? Another label saying that a shirt is made from 100 percent organic cotton fails to say anything about the conditions of the factory in which it was made.

"What do they know at the point of sale about where it comes from, other than the tag?" said Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, which studies consumer behavior. "Our hearts are generally are in the right places. It's the question of making sure we have the knowledge and pocketbook to follow."

And it's not just clothing. It is hard to tell where televisions or laptop components are made.

Companies selling products say they even struggle to tell. Work is often given to subcontractors who themselves use subcontractors. While many major companies stipulate ethics and standards that their subcontractors must follow, policing them is a costly, time-consuming process that sounds easier than it is.

In the case of the Bangladesh factory, Wal-Mart said it had received a safety audit showing the factory was "high-risk" and had decided months before the blaze to stop doing business with Tazreen. But it said a supplier had continued to use Tazreen without authorization.

In recent years, consumers have become much more aware about the food they eat, and where it comes from.

Supermarkets are full of eggs laid by free-range chickens, organically-grown apples and beef from grass-fed, hormone-free cows. Some upscale restaurants now name the farm that provided them with pork chops. And customers pay a premium for these foods.

The difference: They perceive a direct benefit, since the food is going into their bodies.

Ethical choices when buying clothing ? or the latest version of Apple's iPhone ? are much more blurred.

Jean MacLeod, who was shopping at a Walmart on the south side of Indianapolis, is willing to pay more for goods if they are made in an ethically responsible manner and does it all the time when she buys food.

Walmart wants the best prices for its customers, she said, but the company also has power as a buyer to make sure factories have decent working conditions.

"They should be able to say, 'Look it, we don't want to buy from you unless you do things a little more our way,'" MacLeod said. "If they don't want to buy from them, then that means that factory will go out of business."

Arguments have been made that producing items with cheap labor isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Factories in the Third World can provide jobs with wages well above a region's average. They can help lift families out of severe poverty. The catch is that there are fewer safeguards to protect workers from being exploited from unscrupulous employers.

At the Bangladesh factory, locked exits prevented many workers from escaping after fire broke out.

It draws eerie parallels to New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, where 146 people died within 18 minutes of a fire starting in a factory with locked exits.

That fire was the catalyst for widespread changes in labor laws in U.S. But in the 100 years since, the desire for cheap clothing hasn't abated and costly labor has just shifted to factories overseas.

"To put it maybe too frankly, profit and efficiency and competition always trump safety and health," said James A. Gross, a labor relations professor at Cornell University.

Not every company sees things that way.

Los Angeles-based American Apparel promotes itself as a line of "sweatshop free" clothing. Its founder and CEO, Dov Charney, said that companies can control working conditions ? they just need to bring production closer to home. American Apparel knits, dyes, cuts and sews all of its products in-house.

"When the company knows the face of its worker, that's important," Charney said. "You can control working conditions and quality."

Yes, American Apparel spends more on labor, but it isn't as much as you would expect. Charney estimates that an imported T-shirt selling for $6 at Walmart would cost about $6.30 if produced domestically thanks to the company's massive scale.

"The consumer can care. They can buy from companies that are committed to fair trade and try to seek out those companies," he said.

Take Nike.

In the mid-1990s, the sneaker giant came under pressure to change its ways after numerous reports of child labor, low wages and poor working conditions. Eventually wages climbed, minimum age requirements were put in place and Nike increased monitoring at its factories.

But such change only comes after persistent public pressure.

"Clothes makers will always do what they want, but the buyer should educate himself," said Paris shopper Pierre Lefebvre.

Not all buyers have that luxury. Family budgets are tight.

"Especially with this economy, we like our money to go as far as it can," said Lesley Schuldt, who left a Cincinnati Macy's this week with five shopping bags worth of jewelry, cookware and gifts. "I have no idea where half the stuff I bought was made, but I imagine it was not in the U.S."

___

Associated Press reporters Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati, Josh Freed in Bloomington, Minn., Tom Murphy in Indianapolis, Meghan Barr in New York, Heather Tan in Singapore and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this report.

___

Scott Mayerowitz can be reached at http://twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-30-Bangladesh-Factory%20Fire-Shoppers/id-307a6de943024f3f9948a6d011b19f6e

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Powerball millions will buy you a lot of ... misery

As the Powerball frenzy continues, people across the nation are rushing out to buy their ticket to a dream, but winning the jackpot can sometime translate to major losses. NBC's Erica Hill reports on the lottery "curse" and two September Powerball winners how their lives have changed, for better and for worse.

By Melissa Dahl, NBC News

You surely know by now that the Powerball jackpot is set to hit at least $550 million tonight. You should also know that your odds of winning the grand prize are somewhere around 1 in 176 million?(at least, we really hope you know that). So here's a bit of comfort for you tonight as you stare dejectedly at your losing ticket: Most lottery winners don't end up any happier than the rest of us.?

Yeah, yeah, you can probably name 550 million reasons why winning the jackpot tonight will make you happy. But here's the truth: A?handful of psychology studies over the years have evaluated the happiness of lottery winners over time, and found that after the initial glee of getting one of those big giant checks has faded away, most winners actually end up no happier than they were before hitting the jackpot.

Arguably the most famous paper on this subject was published the late 1970s, and it's a doozy: Psychologists interviewed winners of the Illinois State Lottery and compared them with non-winners -- and, just for good measure, people who had suffered some terrible accident that left them paraplegic or quadriplegic. (You can find the abstract here, but you'll have to pay to read the full report.) Each group answered a series of questions designed to measure their level of happiness.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Stefanie Graef holds what she hopes is the winning Powerball ticket she just bought at Circle News Stand on Tuesday in Hollywood, Fla. If she's lucky, she won't win.

What they found was counterintuitive, to say the least: In terms of overall happiness, the lottery winners were not significantly happier than the non-lottery winners. (The accident victims were less happy, but not by much.)?But when it came to rating everyday happiness, the lottery winners took "significantly less pleasure" in the simple things like chatting with a friend, reading a magazine or receiving a compliment.?

"Humans tend to have a relatively set point of mood," explains Gail Saltz, a New York City psychiatrist and frequent TODAY contributor. Most people tend to bounce back to that set point after a major life event, whether it's something negative or positive. But for some lottery winners, psychologists believe hitting an especially huge jackpot may alter that happiness baseline, making it harder to see the joy in everyday things.?

More recently than the '70s research, a?2008 University of California, Santa Barbara, paper?measured people's happiness six months after winning a relatively modest lottery prize -- a lump sum equivalent to about eight months' worth of income. "We found that this had zero detectable effect on happiness at that time," says Peter Kuhn, one of the study authors and a professor of economics at the university.?

Andrew Jackson "Jack'' Whittaker Jr., his wife Jewell, right, and their granddaughter Brandi Bragg, left, pose for a photograph after being interviewed by TODAY in this December 2002. In his darkest moments, Whittaker has said he sometimes wondered if winning the nearly $315 million Powerball game was really worth it.

You've heard the stories of lottery winners?whose post-jackpot lives turned sour. There's Jack Whittaker, the West Virginia man who in 2002 won the nearly $315 million Powerball jackpot. Initially, he generously gave millions to charities, including $14 million to start his own Jack Whittaker Foundation. But later, the dream turned to nightmare: A briefcase with $545,000 in cash and cashier's checks was stolen from his car while it was parked outside of a Cross Lanes, W. Va., strip club. His office and home were broken into, he was arrested twice for drunken-driving -- and the list goes on.?

Or there's Alex Toth, a Florida man who in 1990 won $13 million to be doled out in 20-year-payments of $666,666. (Seriously.) At his death in 2008, the Tampa Bay Times reported on the sad direction his life had taken: Years of living it up led to a split from his wife and charges of fradulent tax returns, among other serious woes.

What gives? Behavior experts have a couple theories. One is simply that we humans just tend to get used to stuff -- the good and the bad. The psychological concept is called "happiness adaptation," and?Michael Norton,?associate professor at Harvard Business School,?co-authored a 2007 paper that sought to uncover why hitting major life goals -- including the dreamlike goal of winning the lottery and the more down-to-earth goal of getting married -- don't end up making us as happy as we expect them to.?

"The idea of adaptation seems like a negative thing -- ?it's a shame that we have to get used to the good things in our life, from lottery winnings to ice cream.?But adaptation also helps us when bad things happen to us, making the impact of losing our job or getting divorced less painful over time," explains Norton, who is also the?coauthor of the forthcoming book, "Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending."?

He continues, "Big positive and negative events can have a lasting impact on our happiness, but this impact tends to decrease over time. In some sense, because people have so many facets of their life - from their job to their friends to their family to their hobbies - the impact of a change in any one of those facets is less extreme than we think, because many of the other things in our lives stay the same. (We win the lottery but we are still stuck with our same siblings, for example.) As a result of this, people tend to adapt to life events and end up closer to where they were than they think they'd be."

Tonight's historic Powerball jackpot has reached a whopping half-billion dollars and continues to grow. Andrea Canning reports on the frenzy for tickets in New York City.

This is partially because we are terrible at predicting how happy more money is going to make us.?The truth is, money?can?make you happy -- but only up to a point.?"Research shows that the impact of additional income on happiness begins to level off around $75,000 of income - but people keep trying to make more and more money in the mistaken belief that their happiness will continue to increase," Norton says. "As a result of this mistaken belief, people think that big windfalls will change their happiness dramatically - and may end up with less happiness than they expected."

On the other end of the spectrum, landing a windfall that lifts you out of a financial pit really can provide significant, lasting happiness. In 2006, Sandra Hayes, then a 46-year-old?social worker making $25,000?a year,?and 12 of her coworkers won the $224 million Powerball jackpot. After taxes and splitting the money with her coworkers, Hayes had won $10 million. She bought her dream car (a brand-new Lexus) and her dream home (a half-million dollar house in St. Louis). But first, she paid off her current home and then gave that house to her daughter and grandchildren, who'd been living in a rough neighborhood. She quit her job and now spends her days writing -- she's already published one book and is working on a second one.?

"Yes, my life is different, and it feels good," says Hayes. "This summer I had a $900 water bill. Six years ago, well, if I had a substantially huge bill, I would?ve had to make payment arrangements. That?s one of the things I like, that I?m able to pay my bills in full and not scuffle."

The first secret, as Hayes tells it, to winning the lottery without losing your mind is to immediately meet with a financial planner you trust and make a plan that works for you. The second is a little simpler.?She says, "Just because you win the lottery, it does not change you as a person."

Related:?

Hey, Powerball winner: Here's your holiday shopping list

Advice for the Powerball winner: Pay taxes

11 crazy things more likely to happen than winning the Powerball jackpot

Follow NBCNews.com health writer Melissa Dahl on Twitter: @melissadahl.?

Source: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15463411-can-500-million-make-you-happy-not-really?lite

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California Supreme Court Rules Against Costa Mesa

SUPREME COURT SAYS NO!? TWICE!
In a press release this afternoon the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA) announced that the California Supreme Court today "denied the City of Costa Mesa's attempt to overturn the injunction blocking the City from laying off more than 100 City employees and outsourcing their jobs to the private sector."

"DEPUBLISHING" REQUEST DENIED, TOO
The Court also denied the request to depublish the Appellate Court opinion upholding the preliminary injunction, which apparently means that many California cities now find themselves on the horns of a dilemma.? As we understand previous information on this issue, this may mean that many California cities are now in violation of the law regarding outsourcing city operations.

A BIG PROBLEM!
Both the League of California Cities and the Association of California Cities Orange County had joined the petition to the Supreme Court on the depublishing issue.

CITY RESPONSE NOT AVAILABLE
Calls to city officials had gone unanswered by the time I decided to publish this information.? As I get more information I'll update this entry.? Check back later.

PRESS RELEASE BELOW
The OCEA press release follows:? (click on image to enlarge)

Labels: California Supreme Court, Layoffs, OCEA, outsourcing

Source: http://abubblingcauldron.blogspot.com/2012/11/california-supreme-court-rules-against.html

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Diving In Albania Adventure Hits Virtual News Stands! | Psycho Solo ...

Diving In Albania Adventure Hits Virtual News Stands!

Adventure Diving Magazine - November 2012 Issue

This month?s issue of Adventure Diving Magazine features my Diving In Albania article - 12 full color pages, never before seen photographs and five videos of my trip to dive in the small, 70% Muslim country in Europe that does not legally recognized SCUBA diving as a recreational sport.

Now, in one sitting, you can relive what it took to dive, travel and survive in one of the poorest parts of the former Eastern bloc.

There?s some other cool stuff in there, too.

Available on:

- Android

- Any Device

- Apple ITunes

Buy now, while digital supplies last!

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Source: http://psychosolodiver.com/?p=2474

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SpaceX Bows Out of Stratolaunch Mission

The world's largest plane is going to be carrying some different cargo. Stratolaunch, the colossal launch system envisioned by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and legendary engineer Burt Rutan, announced that it would no longer parter on the project with Elon Musk and SpaceX.

A quick refresher: Stratolaunch is a giant aircraft built from the pieces of two 747s. It would fly into the atmosphere and drop a rocket, which would then ignite in air and zoom off into space. Air-launched rockets carry a weight advantage over their ground-launched counterparts; they can be lighter since they need to carry less fuel to reach orbit.

When PopMech wrote a cover story on Stratolaunch this April, SpaceX was slated to provide a two-stage rocket to launch from the aircraft. But no longer. Stratolaunch CEO Gary Wentz said in a statement that changes to the aircraft's design mean the mission now calls for a rocket that's different from the Falcon derivative SpaceX had imagined. Orbital Sciences Corporation will take over.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/spacex-bows-out-of-stratolaunch-mission-14793074?src=rss

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College students more eager for marriage than their parents are

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? Reaching adulthood certainly takes longer than it did a generation ago, but new research shows one way that parents are contributing to the delay.

A national study found that college students think 25 years old is the "right age" to get married, while a majority of parents feel 25 is still a little too soon. So it's no coincidence that when Justin Bieber said he'd like to wed by 25, Oprah Winfrey urged him to wait longer.

"The assumption has been that the younger generation wants to delay marriage and parents are hassling them about when they would get married," said Brian Willoughby, a professor at Brigham Young University and lead author of the study. "We actually found the opposite, that the parental generation is showing the 'slow down' mindset more than the young adults."

Willoughby and his co-authors in BYU's School of Family Life gathered info from 536 college students and their parents from five college campuses around the country (BYU was not in the sample). As they report in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,the scholars found the hesitation is consistent across gender.

"Initially we thought that this might be dads wanting their daughters to delay marriage," Willoughby said. "Moms and dads trended together -- gender wasn't a factor."

One of the driving forces behind parents' restraint is the feeling that their children should get an education first. While they generally feel marriage is important, parents think the "right age" is one year older than what their children say. Excluding teen marriages, research doesn't support the notion that there is an optimal time to tie the knot.

"I think parents have a lot of fear for their kids that makes them want to delay the transitions to adulthood," Willoughby said.

According to Census data, the median age for first marriages is 27. Willoughby says that what people say is the "right age" generally comes a few years before the actual marriage age.

"What happens is that someone thinks that 25 is when they want to get married," Willoughby said. "So at age 25, they start changing their patterns around dating, and it takes two or so years to make the transition."

Though BYU students weren't in Willoughby's sample, the university's own records show about 25 percent of its students are married. Willoughby said that Mormon young adults typically marry about two years younger than their peers nationally and have risen in sync with national trends.

Chad Olsen, a graduate student in BYU's School of Family Life, is a co-author on the new study. Professors Jason Carroll, Larry Nelson and Rick Miller are also co-authors.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brigham Young University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. B. J. Willoughby, C. D. Olson, J. S. Carroll, L. J. Nelson, R. B. Miller. Sooner or later? The marital horizons of parents and their emerging adult children. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2012; 29 (7): 967 DOI: 10.1177/0265407512443637

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/4tHh3RCbzOA/121128122101.htm

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