Reading of the Week!

Little Hope for Facebook Rival

Sep 2, 2011 7:53 PM EDT

Diaspora, the new alternative to the social networking behemoth, has great ideas—no ads, user data ownership—but Google+ already grabbed the tech-savvy geeks, and most other people will stay on Facebook, says Dan Lyons.             

To continue reading the article, click the link below: 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/02/diaspora-social-network-little-hope-for-facebook-rival.print.html                         

Reading of the Week!

CULTURAL STUDIES

Authentic? Get Real

Bennett Raglin/Getty Images (Anderson Cooper); Jim Cole, via Associated Press (Jon M. Huntsman Jr.); Mark Wilson, via Getty Images (Hillary Rodham Clinton); Heidi Gutman, via ABC (Katie Couric); Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times (Michele Bachmann).

From left: Anderson Cooper, Jon M. Huntsman Jr.,  Hillary Rodham Clinton, Katie Couric  and Michele Bachmann.

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

Published: September 9, 2011

“I THINK what people see in me is that I’m a real person,” Representative Michele Bachmann told ABC News, after her victory in Iowa last month. “I’m authentic.”

To continue reading the article, click the link below: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/fashion/for-only-the-authentic-cultural-studies.html?ref=style&src=me&pagewanted=print

Reading of the Week!

HBR Blog Network

RON ASHKENAS

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

The Art of Asking Questions

How well do you ask questions? From my experience, most managers don't think about this issue. After all, you don't usually find "the ability to ask questions" on any list of managerial competencies; nor is it an explicit part of the curriculum of business schools or executive educationprograms. But asking questions effectively is a major underlying part of a manager's job — which suggests that it might be worth giving this skill a little more focus.

To continue reading the article, click the link below: 
http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2011/08/the-art-of-asking-questions.html?cm_sp=most_widget-_-blog_posts-_-The%20Art%20of%20Asking%20Questions