Thanks to the folks at MARC (Men Advocating Real Change) for asking me to be a guest blogger on their site this month. I’ve written a post on how and when men can speak out effectively about workplace inequality, which you can find here.
The MARC site has some excellent and very honest discussions taking place. I encourage you to take a look at it.
Lately I haven’t posted a lot of news from the world of Canadian industrial relations – but suddenly, at the end of the summer, all sorts of things are happening. (more…)
I’ve written a few posts already about the Jonah Lehrer story – the case of the writer whose self-plagiarism episode blew up into a case of outright fabrication. This story fascinates me because of what it says about how modern media organizations operate, how writing careers work, and more broadly, about another theme that I’ve also touched on before – definitions of “success”. (more…)
British singer Kate Bush has had a singular, if not unique, musical career. Her first album came out in 1978, and her most recent album was released last year to excellent reviews. Her career has spanned radical transformations in technology, in the record industry, and in how artists interact with the public. But, as a long-time fan, I’m curious whether the reaction to her participation in the London Olympics closing ceremony marks the point where she might finally have to change her business model.
In a previous post, I mentioned the initiative by the Academy of Management at the 2012 Academy of Management (AoM) meeting to promote live Twittering during conference sessions. The listing for each session in the conference program included a hashtag for the session, assigned by the conference organizers, to encourage attendees to send Tweets about the session and the presentations.
The conference ended this past Tuesday (August 7), so I thought I’d look on Twitter to see whether or how the AoM hashtags were used. (more…)
It’s been a busy week for organizations trying to control how people communicate, but an interesting one if you’re intrigued by issues of how social and electronic media are, or should be, used. (more…)
Jonah Lehrer, the New Yorker columnist I wrote about here in relation to the issue of “self-plagiarism” in writing, has resigned from his position at The New Yorker. According to this story, he was accused of, and has admitted to, fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan – ironically (or maybe not) in Imagine, his book on creativity. Here’s the story with the details of the fabricated quotes.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and whether this discovery is just the tip of the iceberg as to what else might be unreliable in Lehrer’s work. As I discussed in my previous post, I have more of a problem with his inaccurate reporting than with his self-plagiarism. But there’s no question that making stuff up is wrong – and with Lehrer’s high profile and prodigious output, his past work will now be much more closely and critically scrutinized. It looks like Imagine has already been pulled from some sales outlets. I have a feeling that the story isn’t going to end here.
As you might imagine, when I saw the headline Do Business Schools Incubate Criminals? floating around the Internet, I got more than a tad nervous. Given what I do for a living, I started to wonder if the RCMP would soon be dropping by to arrest me for aiding and abetting. However, once I started reading the articles in question, I relaxed a little bit. Both make very broad and questionable claims, and I found neither to be completely convincing. However, they both raise points that are worth considering for business degree programs, and, I would contend, for degree programs in general. (more…)
Following up on my earlier post about the new website MARC (Men Advocating Real Change), the MARC administrators were kind enough to ask me to participate in MARC’s “Ask A Woman” question-and-answer forum. The question I answered was about the impact of pregnancy or motherhood on a woman’s ability to succeed in an executive job. You can read my answer here.
Thanks to MARC for the invitation to join the discussion, and for paying attention to these important and timely issues.
I recently wrote about the closure of the very fine British music magazine The Word. Two days ago, the magazine’s website also ceased doing business, although the site is maintaining an archive of all of The Word podcasts (which are well worth listening to).
The phonograph is part of The Afterword’s logo. (Credit: Wikipedia)
However, a dedicated group of the Word’s readers and website participants – known collectively as The Word Massive – have decided to attempt to continue the broad cultural coverage, the wit, and the fine writing that made The Word so exceptional. Their website, The Afterword, has just launched, and it’s excellent. It has many of the same features that made The Word website so lively – and, as demonstrated by this post asking for volunteer moderators, the volume of activity on the site has been far beyond anyone’s expectations.
The dedication and professionalism that’s evident on The Afterword shows the impact that The Word had on its readers during its nine years in print. It will be interesting to see how The Afterword evolves – other reader-initiated sites, like The Blizzard, have been able to find a niche, and to survive financially, by finding audiences that appreciate good writing and broad-ranging discussion.
Please visit The Afterword and take a look at what’s happening. I think you’ll be impressed.
All About Work 