Kaizen (Japanese for “improvement” or “change for the better”) refers to a philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. It has been applied in healthcare, government, banking, and many other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers.
I remain suspicious, however, of anyone who argues that online social networks, like Facebook, will revolutionize human interactions. Whenever I encounter some utopian celebration of Facebook, I always go back and read some Jane Goodall, or Robert Sapolsky, and remind myself that our social lives haven’t changed that much since we were hairy apes patrolling the African forest. In fact, the most obvious parallel for just about every primate troop remains high school. It’s not that Facebook doesn’t matter - it’s just that our social lives are stubborn things, and tend to revolve around the same constants regardless of the technology.
Research from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and some NGOs seems to suggest that consumers who see labels like the dolphin-friendly image on Starkist tuna or the “Totally Chlorine Free” stamp on paper products, tend to prefer those products over others. Of course, price points and other variables come into play, but in general, a green label encourages people to shift their purchases toward environmentally-friendly products.
Consumers don’t like to customize. They don’t like to be forced to learn new ways of doing things. They actually don’t like “technology”—at least not for technology’s sake. Consumers like to keep things simple and easy.
Conan’s Contract Provisions
Young people now devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use, or about 53 hours a week — more than a full-time job — according to Kaiser Family Foundation findings released today.
— Young people spend 7 hours, 38 minutes a day on TV, video games, computer - latimes.com
About Pomplamoose (via their website): Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn started making music together in the summer of ‘08, and decided to form a band. Pomplamoose thus represents the collaborative efforts of the two afore-mentioned musicians. It also means grapefruit in French.
$2 Million in Donations for Haiti, via Text Message
three-quarters of online adults (77%) say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a newspaper’s content online.
The longer a motorist looks away from the road, “the risk of crash or near crash goes up exponentially — not a linear increase, but exponentially,” Ms. Klauer said. “So when you start introducing things like e-mail, Internet access, restaurant options or anything like that, the risk goes up.
