There was a fair amount of reaction to my last blog on Huffington Post about the potential benefits of $200 oil. Most of the negativity centered around the fact that many, many folks (truckers, etc) would clearly be devastated by the hardship this would bring were it to come to pass. I get that. In fact, my optimistic side really hopes it doesn't come to pass. But, my realistic side expects it will...
Regardless of exactly how high the cost per barrel goes however, there will be some good news - in addition to the obvious bad news - I hope. This morning I was heartened to hear on NPR that even at current gas prices there is a boom in people using public transportation. I'm not saying all those folks are happy to be using public transportation. But, when I think about the world as a whole, this is good news.
As someone who has lived and worked literally all over the world - and who lived by using public transportation for years while living and working in both Singapore and London - I have always been frustrated by America's pathetic transportation infrastructure. Our roads are poorly made. Our bridges are collapsing. And, my personal preferred mode of transportation - trains - are virtually nonexistent outside of a few major cities. There is simply no excuse for this in my mind.
I get that we are a big country. I get that there are vast distances to cover and huge costs to upgrading everything. But, I also get that compared to European standards our historically "cheap" gas has provided no incentive to build commuter or long haul rail services that really work.
So, in addition to an explosion of remote working, as my second hope for a potential benefit of $200 oil, I hope that we get much better public transportation for all Americans - and that we choose to use it!
As originally appeared on Huffington Post June 16.
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In June, ExpatWomen.com features Anna Catalano as a Success Story. I've included part of the interview here, as well as the link to read the entire article. It's a great piece, and focuses on how Anna made a new career for herself as a senior board director on several companies. Her combined experience as a senior executive in a Fortune 100 company and an internationalist enables her to manage an active board portfolio, serving on the Boards of Directors of SSL International, plc, Hercules Incorporated, and Willis Group Holdings. She serves as a member of the Strategy and Marketing Advisory Board of BT Global Services, as well as the Advisory Board of Amyris Biotechnologies. Anna is also a board member of the Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. |
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MBA programs are incorporating study abroad in their curricula. Approaches vary but mandatory time abroad working on a specific business problem is proving most valuable. Two schools leading the pack are Yale School of Management and George Washington University’s Global MBA program.
Yale SOM revamped its curriculum in 2006 by replacing standard finance and marketing courses with “progressive yet practical multidisciplinary courses that cut across functional boundaries," says SOM professor Doug Rae. “Our focus is not only to prepare students for graduation – but to be ready to tackle business problems that are five to ten years out.”
Role-playing future managers learn various perspectives, such as customer, regulator and manufacturer for example. During students’ first year and after a 12-week preparatory course covering culture, history, language, background and world economics, students embark on a 10-14 day field trip in January. They mix study with meetings with business, government, and nonprofit organization leaders. They complete a trip project and take part in cultural activities. Yale’s first global students are graduating this spring.
GW will offer its revamped program to full-time students beginning fall 2008. Its MBA program is overhauled with new courses on cross-cultural diversity, international business and management, social impact of global business and micro and macroeconomics.
“Students cannot learn to do international business without having international business experience,” says associate dean Murat Tarimcilar, who himself has worked on four continents. “All full-time MBA students will participate in an international residency, which provides an interactive close-up with the complexities of the global economy.”
The international residency is a project-based consultancy. In March, an international business executive visits the campus to share information about a specific company problem in an overseas market. Students then spend weeks writing up the case study and working through the problems. In May, students spend two weeks in the host country before making a final presentation of its recommendations to company executives.
Both Tarimcilar and Rae are passionate about the important role international now plays in a student’s ability to successfully tackle present-day business problems. Although the brief international exposure doesn’t replace living in-country for a length of time, “it teaches the students to ask the right questions” and to do so in completely foreign environments. There are no memorized answers; students must learn to think through the problems – a critical skill to working successfully across borders.
In 2004, I was teaching at a University in Connecticut. The subject was globalization. In that class, I predicted that based on the rapid development taking place in countries like China and India, we would see $100 oil within 5 years. (If only I'd put my money where my mouth was...but that's another story...)
Several weeks ago, prior to the oil industry experts announcing the same, I predicted we'd see $200 oil within the next 5 years. Maybe I'll be right. Maybe I'll be wrong. But if it comes to pass my hope is that with all the difficulty and disruption that will undoubtedly cause, it will also offer real opportunity for improved quality of life - and not just for the oil companies. I hope that $200 oil will finally make alternate work scenarios not only affordable but desirable for most employers. I hope that with the high cost of transportation and heating/cooling, etc., companies will finally see that technology is cheaper than office space. And that employees, freed from an often torturous daily commute, can be even more productive and engaged working remotely.
Because the truth is that while personal relationships and team work will always be important, we can all learn how to be more effective in managing these things, even when we are not in the same location every day. In fact, it will become just like it is right now for those of us who have international teams.
Throughout my career, I have had teams that I worked with every day or every week but only saw in person a couple times a year. It's not as easy, especially with junior folks you are trying to mentor or when you are first starting to work together, but it can be highly effective in many instances and indeed it can liberating for senior folks - allowing or forcing (depending on the person) the individual to make more of their own decisions and to be more accountable for the results.
As my husband will attest, I am not a big technology buff. But, even I LOVE the personal freedom and power that comes from the ability to do work whenever and wherever I please. Like right now, as I'm sitting at the Wilmette community center, waiting for my daughter to finish her first ballet class, and writing this blog.
So if $200 oil is inevitable, I say let's at least be sure we get some personal benefits along with the obvious difficulties.
As originally published in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-yeatman/the-good-news-about-200-o_b_105865.html
For years I've been telling people to go abroad. My argument has been simple: working overseas is personally and professionally transformative. It's good for you, good for your career, good for your company.
This is still true. However, today as never before, there is yet another option that more and more Americans and American companies are catching on to - one I think could make the proposition of working overseas even more enticing to many. It's what I call "getting ahead by going abroad...to do some good."
In short, it's about high-skill volunteering in a foreign land. This can take many forms, but let me give you just one example of what I mean. Say you're a logistics expert. You know how best to get things from point A to point B. Well, that's not only a skill your company needs, it's exactly the type of skill many humanitarian aid organizations need to carry out their relief missions, to get food aid from where it is to where it is needed, for example.
So, if you're interested, maybe your company would sponsor you to volunteer with one of these great organizations. It just takes a few months to help an organization deal with a particular long-term crisis or to help them build the skills and capabilities of their own staff on the ground whose job it is to do this every day.
High skill volunteering is a real win-win-win-win proposition in my book. You win by getting overseas experience (often in an emerging market), personal development and probably personal fulfillment. Your company wins from you getting this exposure and development. The non-profit wins as you've helped them carry out their mission and enhance their capabilities. And, the people that non-profit serves win as well since, in the example above, you've used your expertise to deliver the aid they so need.
At my company, Kraft Foods, we've been doing this for years. One program we've been running since 2001 sees several members of our R&D team competing to volunteer in developing markets on behalf of the UN. Each opportunity lasts about 8 weeks and the feedback we've gotten from the Kraft volunteers and the UN has been amazingly positive. Another example is the story of a friend of mine, Jeanne Shalvoy. In her early 20s she went off to volunteer in Africa. It was there she says she learned the skills and confidence to start her own business. Today, she is a successful business woman deftly juggling work and family. Volunteering in Africa was good for her, good for her company, and, good for those villages she helped.
As originaly posted on Huffington Post on June 7:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-yeatman/get-ahead-by-going-abroad_b_105499.html
The End of
by Marshall S. Berdan as published in the Chicago Tribune
For outdoor enthusiasts,
For more information on Lubec: www.visitlubecmaine.com
Arizona’s Tombstone Corrals the Tourists
by Marshall S. Berdan as published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The “town too tough to die” was born at the end of a Pennsylvania prospector’s pick-ax. In the case of Tombstone, you can be forgiven for having seen the movie instead of reading the book. After all, there’ve been nearly a dozen feature movies depicting the events that transpired – and those who expired – at the O.K. Corral on the afternoon of October 26th, 1881 when the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, and their friend, “Doc” Holliday shot it out with the Clantons and McLaurys. It was among the most dramatic 30 seconds in American history, and the stuff of which legends – and movies – are made For more information on Tombstone: www.cityoftombstone.com by Marshall S. Berdan as published by the Miami Herald
For Mom, Dad and the Kids, It’s a Wild, Wild Life in
Alaska is for kids, especially suburban kids like ours whose only regular exposure to the great outdoors is limited to the 1,750-acre local Nature Conservancy preserve. Now 1,750 acres is certainly nothing to sneeze at – at least not in
Although more women are choosing to take their careers global, there still aren’t that many tools to help her along the way. Since we launched our book, Get Ahead By Going Abroad last fall, we’ve begun to uncover some little gems and want to help spread the word. One of these is www.ExpatWomen.com
ExpatWomen was created by, what else, two expat women! They combined their experience to develop a web site designed to “inspire your success abroad by providing you with a first-stop website to share stories, network globally, develop personally and find the best resources.” For any one who’s longed to build camaraderie with like-minded global women, you’ll enjoy this site.
On it you’ll find lots of information: one thousand resources pages with links to the important stuff on the ground in 194 countries, such as expat clubs, associations, sites of interest and international schools. You can join truly global community of women who gather online to submit blogs and personal stories to share in the adventure in the hopes others can empathize and learn. And of course, you will be inspired by the combination of success stories, business ideas, and interviews with authors and entrepreneurs, motivating articles and a monthly e-newsletter.
I must admit that Get Ahead By Going Abroad was featured in April in the “Books” section http://www.expatwomen.com/books_authors.php#book and I was profiled under the success stories. Many other fabulous women are featured, including Anna Catalano coming up in June! But the depth and breadth of these interviews is truly inspiring. Check them out: http://www.expatwomen.com/success_stories.php
If you’re an female expat professional, I encourage you to network online at www.ExpatWomen.com
I just finished a great book that I believe every internationalist should read, A Shattered Peace by David Andelman (Wiley 2007). Although David is an acquaintance – we worked together at Burson-Marsteller in
Scanning our library shelves as I tried to determine which books to bring on an transpacific flight, I started reading A Shattered Peace -- and couldn’t stop. It's a must-read for internationalists and anyone interested in the going global, including today's students and new professionals entering the new world marketplace. A Shattered Peace will take you on an important journey through history, beginning at the decision-making center of Paris, post WWI, which is filled with political intrigue, high-minded Western idealism, and lack of cultural awareness (sometimes cultural superiority). With 20/20 hindsight you follow in the footsteps of various diplomats and revolutionaries around the world as their hopes are dashed and the playing field is set for the coming century. It is compact, yet gives a full taste of "what could have been", encouraging me to read further about the players and their roles back at the critical moment in history. It's also stimulated quite a few conversations with friends and colleagues around the table.
The sad and perhaps most alarming point of the book is past and present lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity. As an author of a book focusing on the critical importance working globally, today's leaders haven't seemed to learn much. This relevance to today’s state of affairs – most recently
For more information go to www.ashatteredpeace.com