The Invisible Badge: Moving Past Conspicuous Consumption
By Rob Walker

Published June 4, 2008 9:04 p.m. - Thorstein Veblen introduced the idea of “conspicuous consumption” in The Theory of the Leisure Class, in 1899. And it’s still being recycled today. Veblen gave examples like the man who parades down Main Street in “stainless” linen, with a superfluous walking stick. These objects supposedly told a story—“evidence of lei ...
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Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track
By Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg

Published June 4, 2008 8:52 p.m. - Education should be a lifelong enterprise, a process enhanced by an environment that supports to the greatest extent possible the attempt of people to “find themselves” throughout their lives. For too long, we have educated people for a world that no longer exists, extinguishing their creativit ...
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The Career Employee Bill of Rights
By Milo Sindell and Thuy Sindell, Ph.D.

Published June 4, 2008 8:37 p.m. - In the past, an employee’s relationship with their job was about work life boundaries. Today and in the future, work is and will be an integral expression of who you are. More than ever before, people need resources that will give them a framework to organize their ideas, sources of motivation, skills, and tools and sources of ...
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Escaping Corporate America: Changing Your Career Can Change Your Life
By Pamela Skillings

Published June 4, 2008 8:16 p.m. - You can find meaningful work in corporations, but if the company values are too different from your own or if you are stuck in a job that doesn’t tap into your talents, it’s probably time to escape. Too often, corporate jobs revolve around meetings and bureaucracy and don’t offer you enough opportunities to d ...
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Business Improvisation: The Diving Catch of the Corporate World
By Randy Sabourin

Published June 4, 2008 8:02 p.m. - Recall that moment when you where your most creative, aware, and tuned into the world around you. Imagine how valuable it would be to harness that state of mind and apply it at will to your most stressful and challenging business situations. To shine when others collapse or choke. To take a potentially disastrous circumsta ...
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Seinfeld on Marketing: 7 Marketing Lessons from the Cast of the Show About Nothing
By Bill Gammell

Published June 4, 2008 7:38 p.m. - All this time we thought Seinfeld was a show about “nothing.” Little did we know that peppered in its nine seasons were hidden, real-world marketing lessons taught from the masters themselves. But, unlike the Soup Nazi’s secret soup recipes, these marketing lessons are to be shared freely with everyo ...
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