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Report: Susan Lucci Takes Pay Cut
Tweet Share on Facebook November 27, 2008 Comment (5)The financial crisis has hit Hollywood: Advertising Age is reporting that Susan Lucci, along with others in the cast of All My Children, has agreed to take a pay cut, as soap operas contend with a pullback in advertising--particularly local auto dealer advertising--and smaller audiences. Susan Lucci has been on the TV show since 1970.
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Executive Leadership at the Holiday Table
Tweet Share on Facebook November 26, 2008 Comment (1)Thankgiving meals tend to be rather chaotic, democratic affairs. But how different might the holiday feast be if it gained the vision and leadership that would (ideally) come with the oversight of a chief executive?
The New York Times talks to several leadership experts about what a CEO-run Thanksgiving meal might look like. A key goal, as articulated by Stewart Friedman, a management professor at the Wharton School, would be to start with “a compelling image of an achievable Thanksgiving.” (I guess you could count on plenty of delicious corporate-speak to accompany the sweet potatoes.)
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When You're a Working Woman Among Many Men
Tweet Share on Facebook November 25, 2008 Comment (4)This is, to be sure, 2008--Hillary Clinton is expected to replace Condoleezza Rice and Katie Couric hosts the evening news. But while female leaders/executives may be more commonplace today than they were in the past, they are often still working mostly among men. (The same goes for some women among the rank-and-file.)
The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on "ways women can hold their own" and "navigate a mostly male office." It's a bit strange to read the suggestions, such as erasing tentative-sounding vocabulary and avoiding sentences that start with "I think"; separating the alpha and beta males for separate kinds of treatment; even organizing your own work events if you're left out of the all-male social hour.
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Why Criticism Can Be Better Than Uncertainty
Tweet Share on Facebook November 25, 2008 Comment (2)In a recent study, University of Toronto psychologists measured the responses of neurotic individuals to negative feedback and to uncertain feedback. Guess which caused them more stress?
The researchers found there was more brain activity in response to uncertainty than in response to criticism in an area of the brain associated with conflict-related anxiety.
From ScienceDaily: "The results of this study have important implications for human behavior, as they suggest that some individuals, namely those high in Neuroticism, 'prefer the devil they know over the devil they do not know.'"
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225,000 Jobs May Be Lost in New York
Tweet Share on Facebook November 24, 2008 Comment (4)The New York state Comptroller is predicting that 225,000 jobs could be lost in the state over the two-year period ending October 2009, Bloomberg reports.
"Wall Street’s importance to the economy is so great that for each financial-sector job lost, two positions will vanish in other industries in New York City and 1.3 jobs will disappear elsewhere in the state," according to the comptroller's report.
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Obama: 2.5 Million Jobs By 2011
Tweet Share on Facebook November 24, 2008 Comment (5)President-elect Barack Obama said this weekend he's planning to introduce an economic recovery program that would create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011. Obama supports infrastructure and green energy spending as job creators--putting people to work building roads and bridges, hybrid cars and wind farms. Estimates show it could take between $75 billion and $100 billion in ready-to-go infrastructure projects to create 1 million new jobs.
Here are a few economists' takes on this kind of spending:
Larry Summers: "Properly designed infrastructure projects have the virtue of being helpful as short run stimulus, especially for the employment of the workers most hard hit by the housing decline, while at the same time augmenting the economy’s productive potential in the long run."
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Cobbler: Hot Job in a Recession
Tweet Share on Facebook November 24, 2008 Comment (6)American consumers are increasingly keeping their wallets closed, and the halcyon days of Hollywood-driven, Main Street stilletto-mania seem a distant memory bathed in a fuzzy glow. But while consumers today may not be able to afford new shoes, they can't exactly head to work with holes in their soles.
So shoe cobblers are back in vogue. John McLoughlin, president of the Shoe Service Institute of America told USA Today that "cobblers at the nation's roughly 7,000 repair shops — down from more than 100,000 in the 1930s — are thriving, bordering on overwhelmed."
Some are even hiring.
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Friday Quiz: Favorability Ratings
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2008 Comment (1)Here's a little low-tech quiz for Friday afternoon:
Match the individual to their recently reported favorability/job approval rating (or, for Hollywood stars, their likability measure, called a Q score). I'll put the correct answers in the comments.
- President Bush, Sarah Palin, Angelina Jolie, Barack Obama, average female star
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Verizon Employees Take a Peek
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2008 Comment (2)Verizon Wireless says several employees accessed the records of one of President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone accounts--albeit an old one that Obama no longer uses, an aide to Obama told Reuters.
The company has put the employees on leave (with pay) and promises disciplinary action against anyone who peeked at the account improperly.
Curiosity can indeed be a fireable offense. Several employees at St. Vincent Health System in Arkansas were fired recently for looking at slain TV anchor Anne Pressly's medical records.
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Obama's Change Was Moderate Before, Too
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2008 Comment (1)Starting a new job is tough. President-elect Barack Obama has clearly disappointed some pundits with early choices that speak more to tradition and a bit less to change.
It's not the first time his style of leadership has proven more moderate than some had expected it would be. When Obama was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990, a Los Angeles Times story noted that while he was escorted in on the wings of change, some students found it "puzzling" that Obama received the support of "staunch conservatives," despite his progessive social views, and he was criticized for being "too conciliatory toward conservatives and not choosing more blacks to other top positions on the law review," the Times reported.
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