The one thing that could hamper major green initiatives

Mining can be of great use in the promotion of green initiatives. Mining is important in finding rare earth metals necessary for refining petroleum, reducing energy use and producing environmentally-friendly vehicles. These metals are widely used in gadgets and consumer goods, specially in a new breed of technology and products branded as clean and green.

For example, the rare earth neodymium is an important element in the electric motor of the Toyota Prius. In addition, each battery required in the Prius uses lanthanum, another type of rare earth. As demand for items and equipment like Prius drastically escalates, a shortage of 40,000-tonne per year of this type of metals is expected by 2015.

There are plans to resume the extraction and refinery of thousands of tons of rare earth in the United States. The open-pit mine in Mountain Pass, CA has been proven to contain the world’s richest reserve of rare earth metals. It is an undertaking intended to replace China, the leading rare earth producer, which is currently reducing its exports of the products due to increasing local demand for it.

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Filed under: Information, Sustainability , China rare earth production, Commodities trade, Green debacle, Green Innovation, Green products, Hybrid car production, Rare earth Metals, US rare earth production

To understand a principle, infer from other disciplines

Herd behavior is a principled used to explain crowd movement. It was first discuss in W.D. Hamilton’s paper, Geometry For the Selfish Herd. The evolutionary biologist explained that an individual reduces danger or risk to his/herself by being as close as possible to the group that’s fleeing a particular event, person or place. Because of this, what seems like a unit acting in unison is actually unorganized behavior of individuals trying to protect themselves. This principle of biology is now commonly used to analyze a market crash by explaining investor sentiment.

Seed magazine has an interesting article that addresses how scientists look outside their science to understand relationships within.

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Filed under: Art, Information, Science , Business and Science, Correlation, Herd Behavior, Interdisciplinary, Theoretical Inferrence, W.D. Hamilton

Building Your Version of Facebook (or LinkedIn, for that matter)

Engaging your customers in a dialogue is what social media is all about. ENGAGEMENTdb ranks the world’s top brands and their measures their ability to leverage social media to interact with customers. As consumers gain more influence through user-generated media and has expanded their own individual reach in their personal networks, the need to connect through this medium effectively will soon be a requirement for effective marketing.

There are two ways to approach social media marketing though. First, is by being a participant. You can leverage the tools offered, or made available by third-party developers, to connect with your consumers. The fan pages of Facebook and the array of tools, from HootSuite to SocialOomph, for Twitter enables you to measure, track and penetrate the current base of the two most famous social networking sites.

The second way, however, is to build your own social network. For example, Ning let’s you create social networks while allowing you to join the many social networks available, while SocialGo does the same while also offering a concierge service where they will design, configure and customized the network for you.

The benefit here is you’re not only able to engage into conversations but actually controls the platform where the conversation happens. By doing so you allow your company to capitalize on the viral spread that can occur in a social networking site and serve as a starting point for dialogue on matters relating to your niche or core competency.

Filed under: Information, Social Media , Brand Engagement, Branding, customer dialogue, customer engagement, Facebook, HootSuite, LinkedIn, Marketing, Ning, Social Media, social media engagement, social network development, social network marketing, SocialGo, SocialOomph, viral marketing

Video: A Valuable Idea On Developing In-House Talent

Human resource costs is one of the big line items in companies’ income statements and it’s no surprise that any company, whether it’s an SME or a Fortune 500 corporation spends hundreds to thousands of dollars in searching for the right employee, for the right position with the right qualifications and attitude.

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Filed under: Information , Human Capital, Human Resource Development, Human Resource Investments, Information

Recession, social media adds risk on companies’ data loss issues

Now that there are more ways for employees to casually interact online, companies cites an increasing risk of exposing sensitive data to the general public. A recent study shows a more than 10% increase in the number of companies “impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information.”  Although email is still the number one source of data leaks, social networking sites like  Facebook,  YouTube, blogs and Twitter contribute to the risk of company employees divulging proprietary and confidential information  online.  

Aside from the technological aspect, the current economic state brings risks to companies’ data concerns. Data leakage caused by the recession have been attributed to layoffs, budget constraints and resignations. 

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Filed under: Information, Networks , Company Security, Data Leakage, Privacy Issues, Social Media

Open Source and the Academe

Since top universities like MIT and Berkeley have integrated Open Source into their learning programs, even making some courses available for free, the debate continues as to the necessity, value and effectiveness of open source software on non-commercial applications.

But just like Linux revolutionizing the OS market, open source software can bring about a transformative impact on the way knowledge is shared, developed and nurtured in any academic setting. The benefits the new technology can bring ranges from reduction of school’s administrative costs to enhanced electronic interaction between teacher and students.

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Filed under: Information, Innovation, Networks , Academic Innovation, Knowledge Sharing, MIT, Open Source

Organic foods not necessarily more healthy

A recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on more than 50 years of research with 162 studies containing 3,558 comparisons of food items nutritional value reveals that the difference, in terms of which is healthier, between organic and non-organic foods are negligible.

Marion Nestle, who blogs at Food Politics says that the American public does not believe in the claims made by the benefits of organic food. If that’s the case, we wonder where all the long lines at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s come from?

Filed under: Information, Science , Food Politics, Food Research, Health and Nutrition, Non-organic Food, Nutrition, Organic Food

Pictures of a Fallen Dubai

The crisis was merciless to some of the most ambitious projects in real estate development and construction. Dubai has suffered a devastating downturn because of the recession and the tangible residues of a fallen Dubai is evident in this photo essay by Lauren Greenfield.

Filed under: Architecture, Information , Construction, Dubai, Gulf States, Middle East Economy, Overexpansion, Recession

TV websites’ gain online advantage

The assumption that broadcaster’s websites can be beaten by dedicated Internet-based companies proves to be false. A survey in the UK commissioned by the Edinburgh Television Festival found that BBC’ s iPlayer service had overtaken YouTube and iTunes on viewer awareness, gaining 84% compared with the sites’ 76% and 64% ratings respectively.

Deloitte media and telecoms partner James Bates says that “Broadcasters may increasingly use online television to support their core, traditional objective of maximizing broadcast audience size and quality”.

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Filed under: Information , BBC, Digital Media, iTunes, Online Television, Online TV viewing, Television Statistics, YouTube

US productivity posts largest gains since 2003

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor released its second quarter productivity and cost data, showing that American productivity gains have seen their largest increase in six years. Productivity has been measured by output per hour of workers.

The report indicates that the annual rate of productivity change in the second quarter was 6.3 percent in the business sector and 6.4 percent in the nonfarm business sector. Productivity changes for manufacturing in the same quarter were 5.3 percent, while durable goods manufacturing changed by 3.9 percent and nondurable goods manufacturing changed by 2.0 percent.

Productivity gains in all manufacturing sectors were due to hours falling faster than output.

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Filed under: Information , Economics, Manufacturing, Productivity, Statistics