Josh Lafazan, an 18-year-old high school senior from Syosset, New York, shattered all kinds of records when he was elected to his school district’s board last week. He became the youngest-ever elected official in New York state, and voter turnout was well above normal. How did Lafazan make such an achievement possible? In part, thanks to smart use of the web and social media. While many commentators are marveling at the Internet’s ability to bring together large swaths of people from across nat...  show all text

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The Facebook IPO has ignited a predictable frenzy. It's certainly true that social media have profoundly changed the way we interact, find information, and network — but the billion-dollar question is whether all this activity is going to generate solid economic returns. The conversation about the business model behind sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest reminds me of the conversations that took place during the 1990s tech bubble. There is the same faith that, if we can just  show all text

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Reluctantly or otherwise, Facebook is the place most of us have chosen to share our lives online. In spite of its many useful features, the social media site can be a constant source of annoyance, embarrassment, and trouble if you make a few stupid decisions you might not even realize you're making. Fortunately, with a little effort, you can get Facebook under your control. More »

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President Obama, responding to a reporter's question at today's NATO summit, makes the case for why Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital is relevant to the 2012 campaign:The reason why this is ...

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In his book, The Lean Startup, Eric Ries puts forth a entrepreneur’s playbook inspired by the Japanese lean manufacturing model: Start small with a 'minimum viable product,' gauge customers’ reactions regularly and often, make improvements efficiently, and eventually scale up to a profitable business. The following is an excerpt from the book--Ed. To accelerate, lean startups need a process that provides a natural feedback loop. When you’re going too fast, you cause more problems. Adaptive proc...  show all text

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’The Ice Age is back,’ says British economist who describes coming period of little or no inflation; reduced financial leverage, sliding bond yields and volatility

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So you want to keep fit, help the environment, stay on top of your work and make sure your gadgets are always charged. How can you stay productive in business without casting one of these priorities aside? That’s where WeBike steps in — or should we say pedals in. Created by Belgian company WeWatt, WeBike is a hybrid bicycle desk that requires people to pedal to generate the energy they need to work. Users are able to charge their laptops, cell phones and other devices by pedaling. You can place  show all text

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Textile art by Gundega Strautmane based on the network maps of Valdis Krebs — Relational Ornaments. Gundega works with vision impaired folks in Riga Latvia — creating art that they can touch & feel, allowing them to see & sense the data visualizations.  As opposed to most art objects, this is art you are invited to touch! The network, pictured above, is a TB outbreak.  Ideas, like disease, can be contagious. Enjoy!

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You can run, hide, duck, turn, cover your eyes, plug your ears, maybe then you will have successfully avoided hearing, seeing or otherwise experiencing the Facebook IPO. I sometimes; no, quite often, wonder what the fascination is all about. What exactly has changed? What is really different? Is it that Everything simply happens faster. Yes that is one part, I suppose. I am not sure that is always good though. When presented with the opportunity to put our foot in our mouth, we see it as an opp...  show all text

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Business bloggers at Harvard Business Review discuss a variety of business topics including managing people, innovation, leadership, and more.

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The automaker’s decision to pull ads from Facebook and the Super Bowl is all about its own lack of social media skills

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When it comes to search engine optimization for a new website, some businesses can be intimidated due to the amount of information out there. And often, if they don’t have the help of an experienced in-house SEO or consultant, they will do nothing. Today, we’re going to look at some easy things you can do to start your website’s SEO on the right foot – even if you can’t hire a professional to help you out. 1. On-Site SEO Basics Some of the most important elements for search engine optimization ...  show all text

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Facebook analytics provider Wise Metrics came up with a neat trick for manipulating the way photos are displayed on users’ news feeds so that brands can draw more attention to their posts. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” For the past half-century, Joan Didion has been dissecting the complexities of cultural chaos with equal parts elegant anxiety, keen criticism, and moral imagination. From her 1968 anthology of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, comes “On Self Respect” — a magnificent meditation on what it means to live well in one’s soul, touching on previously explored inadequate exter...  show all text

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Good governance is like great marketing--it takes the long view, and relentlessly focuses on delivering on agreed upon goals over time. Politics, on the other hand, is more like a ping pong match, and, thanks to electronic media, it's getting faster when we'd be better off if it slowed down. Those that work in politics are now addicted to today's emergency, whatever it is. It could be a world event, a faux scandal or merely something the other side said. They use it to fundraise, they use it to...  show all text

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(Bryan Rhoads, Editor-in-Chief of iQ at Intel's offices in the Presidio, San Francisco.) Earlier today, I met the team responsible for this morning's launch of 'iQ by Intel', an online magazine featuring daily news and feature articles from around the globe plus original content from Intel. The magazine is curated by Intel employees, choosing and sharing articles from a river of media content surfaced by special tools developed by Intel. I was pleased to hear Bryan Rhoads, the mastermind behind...  show all text

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The sophistication of federal lawmakers' speech patterns is on the decline, with members of Congress now talking, on average, at the level of high school sophomores. According to a new report by the Sunlight Foundation, Congress has fallen by almost a full grade-level since 2005.

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Lawrence Lessig called Internet privacy an “oxymoron” in a backstage interview during this year’s Mashable Connect, held in Orlando, Florida. Lessig added that the solution lies in building what he called an “identity layer” into the Internet. “In this world, [Internet privacy] is an oxymoron,” said Lessig. “But, if we could build an identity layer into the Internet, we could actually recreate the idea of Internet privacy, so there would be both more privacy and more security.” However, he said...  show all text

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Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, post links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

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You might think of your desk or cubicle as simply a place to do work, but forward-looking executives have found that the physical workspace has a profound impact on increasing not just productivity but also innovation. Silicon Valley didn’t invent the cubicle, but it certainly made it an integral part of not only high-tech but also business life. You may even work at a cubicle right now, but you might be surprised to know that the cubicle is dying and going the way of the fax machine and the fi...  show all text

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I got off Facebook over 2 years ago. I am smiling as others publicly proclaim their freedom from, or their disappoint with, the (still growing) superorganism. Facebook is currently facing a barrage of negative feedback about its privacy policies and methods. Yes, these are valid criticisms, but they are not Facebook's achilles heel. They have a bigger problem. It is the structure of Facebook that foretells it a fate of AOL -- a popular online site in the 1990s that grew quickly, with great pro...  show all text

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Real-Time Advice: Newlywed CEO Mark Zuckerberg may want to watch his status updates, divorce lawyers say. Facebook often gets blamed for breakups.

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Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf on Monday warned that Internet freedom is under threat from governments around the world, including the United States. Cerf, a computer scientist who was instrumental in the Internet’s creation, now employed by Google as its Internet evangelist, said officials in the U.

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There are lots of “learning specialists” in organizations and they work for variously named departments. As learning specialists, I assume they are supporting workplace learning, so let me ask: If I’m sitting at my desk with a work-related problem, can I call the Training Department to quickly get me up to speed? If I want to learn about a new market sector, will the Learning & Development specialist help me? If I need some coaching to prepare me for a meeting with a new client, can I call Human  show all text

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This article is by David Armano, executive VP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman. In the wake of Facebook's IPO, and despite where the stock goes from here, one thing is clear: Entrepreneurs--especially successful ones--are the new rock stars of business culture. Despite this trend, the reality remains that for [...]

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The Achilles Heel: that fatal weakness which can bring you down despite your overall strength. For otherwise outstanding leaders, it is a lack of clarity. You may be a brilliant motivator and leader of great character who empowers their team for success and inspires them to move to action. You may be trustworthy and a leader who lives each value of the organization in an exemplary fashion. You may approach your leadership role with a servant mentality and recognize every success and strength of...  show all text

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Research shows that more than half of office workers are dissatisfied with the level of “speech privacy” in their offices, and managers are hearing their complaints.

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Share your Search. Rediscover search through your friends and community on the all new social search experiment from Microsoft Research FUSE Labs.

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