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When David Petraeus visited the Harvard Kennedy School in 2009, one of the meetings he requested was with author Doris Kearns Goodwin. Petraeus, who holds a PhD in International Relations from Princeton, is a fan of Team of Rivals and wanted time to speak to the famed historian about her work. Apparently, the great general (and current CIA Director) is something of a bibliophile. (Harvard Business Review)

Visit http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/for_those_who_want_to_lead_rea.html to view the full article online.

 

Now that a group of prominent retailers has announced a plan to embrace mobile payments, consumers are once again facing the Big Question: Namely, is it finally time to ditch that Costanza wallet? (SmartMoney)

Visit http://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2012/08/15/do-you-need-a-mobile-wallet/?link=SM_hp_featStory to view the full article online.

 

I’ve still got to deal with 100 emails, finalize those two PowerPoints, read and be able to speak intelligibly about this 150-page report by this afternoon’s meeting. I can’t believe I just lost about 20 minutes web surfing. I also have only three weeks left till I take the GMAT, and I’ve barely had time to study. I’d hoped to this weekend, but now it looks like I might be called in to work on an emergency project. When am I going to even think about doing the essays? (Poets & Quants)

Visit http://poetsandquants.com/2012/08/02/train-your-mind-improve-your-game-meditation-for-the-21st-century-leader/ to view the full article online.

 

The trend towards shorter job tenures goes hand-in-hand with volatile times that demand regular adaptation to risk to succeed at reinvention. While some members of Generation Flux make it seem easy to be fearless (hello danah boyd), the more cautious-minded find change a scary prospect. Especially with bills to pay, mouths to feed (your own counts!) and finite funds. (Fast Company)

Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/3000435/4-things-consider-when-contemplating-major-career-change to view the full article online.

 

Great candidates ask questions they want answered because they're evaluating you, your company – and whether they really want to work for you. Here are five questions great candidates ask: (Inc.)

Visit http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/5-questions-great-job-candidates-ask-interviewers.html?nav=pop to view the full article online.

 

The Portuguese couple relocated to the southeastern African country a few months ago, making a deliberate career move to swap the economic uncertainty of their crisis-hit country for the prospect of a better future abroad. They are part of a growing Portuguese community fleeing the severe eurozone crisis in search for jobs and economic opportunities in their country's former colony. (CNN International)

Visit http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/15/business/mozambique-portugal-economy/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2 to view the full article online.

 

China’s retailers, already struggling because of an economic slowdown, got another jolt of bad news on Tuesday. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) announced it had finally received Chinese government approval for a proposal to buy a majority stake in Yihaodian, a Shanghai company that is a leader in the country’s booming online retail industry. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-15/wal-mart-moves-into-chinas-hot-e-commerce-sector to view the full article online.

 

Just five months after announcing the breakup of the Berkeley-Columbia Executive M.B.A., University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business is unveiling its own M.B.A. for executives. (Wall Street Journal)

Visit http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2012/08/14/haas-launches-m-b-a-for-the-executive-set/?mod=WSJ_Careers_At_Work to view the full article online.

 

The anxiety that caused thousands of MBA applicants this year to take the GMAT early to evade a new integrated reasoning section may have been for naught. Several business schools are now saying they will give the IR scores little to no weight in this year’s MBA admission decisions. (Poets & Quants)

Visit http://poetsandquants.com/2012/08/13/some-schools-will-ignore-new-ir-gmat-section/ to view the full article online.

 

Got a business idea and up for a challenge? If so, register to compete in NBMBAA's Innovation Whiteboard Challenge®. The Innovation Whiteboard Challenge gives you the chance to pitch your great business idea with just a marker and a whiteboard. Take the chance and sell the concept you've been thinking off to a panel of distinguished judges at the 34th Annual Conference and Exposition in Indianapolis this September.

 

There's no doubt as to when the dot-com bubble popped: it was on March 10, 2000, the day the Nasdaq peaked at 5,132.52. But when exactly did the social media bubble pop? Was it Nov. 23, when Groupon shares fell below their $20 IPO price or this week, when they neared $5? Was it May 18, the day of Facebook's IPO fiasco? Was it even more recently, when Facebook shares dipped below $20 for the first time or the day Zynga's began trading at less than $3 each, a whopping 70% below their offering price? Hard to say. But pop, it did. (Fortune)

Visit http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/16/pop-went-the-social-media-bubble-now-what/?iid=SF_F_Highlight to view the full article online.

 

The hot news in Silicon Valley legal circles these days is Apple’s titanic lawsuit against Samsung. Apple maintains that Samsung pilfered some of its iPhone and iPad designs when creating the Samsung Galaxy series of phones and tablets. (The New York Times)

Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/technology/personaltech/samsungs-rival-for-the-ipad-loads-on-the-features.html to view the full article online.

 

Once used mostly for one-time promos and marketing, Twitter is now something businesses are relying on to provide customer service. For instance, Southwest Airlines tweets to alert folks about delays. And Best Buy responds to questions and complaints via Twitter. And they're not alone. (NPR)

Visit http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/08/15/158781405/twitter-lets-customers-skip-recordings-and-make-choices to view the full article online.

 

Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney (NYSE: DIS), was once asked the most important characteristic of a leader. Optimism was his answer. After all, pessimists don’t start and build successful companies. Pessimists don’t create the future. Pessimists don’t change the world. It’s the optimistic entrepreneurs that overcome naysayers, funding issues, and hundreds of setbacks and challenges to ultimately build a successful company. (Upstart Business Journal)

Visit http://upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/author/2012/08/16/entrepreneurs-need-one-thing-to-succeed.html to view the full article online.

 

In 2008, Lynda Weinman and her husband, Bruce Heavin, were feeling overwhelmed by the fast-growing online education business they had launched 13 years earlier. Initially intended as a way to teach Weinman’s design students to post their portfolios on the Web, the duo had transformed lynda.com into a "$24 million-a-year" venture attracting "a lot of investor inquiries," she says. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-14/when-founders-hire-a-boss-and-give-up-control to view the full article online.

 

Over the past four years, Bruce Marks has been on a traveling road show to help people avoid foreclosure. His nonprofit, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, has held more than 80 events in cities around the country. So far, Marks says, NACA has helped 202,000 people get their payments lowered so they can afford to keep their homes. (NPR)

Visit http://www.npr.org/2012/08/16/158877539/persuading-banks-to-give-homeowners-a-break to view the full article online.

 

Didn’t get a raise this year? Blame inflation. American wages didn’t budge last month, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. And with inflation remaining at near zero, experts say it could be quite a while before many workers see their next raise. (SmartMoney)

Visit http://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2012/08/15/why-youre-not-getting-a-raise/?link=SM_hp_featStory to view the full article online.

 

Delaying retirement can be a powerful pick-me-up for a flagging 401(k). But banking on additional working years to revive retirement savings is also risky business. (Kiplinger's)

Visit http://www.kiplingers.com/columns/retirement/archives/dont-count-on-working-longer.html to view the full article online.

 

While the experience of raising a child may be priceless, the cost to provide care for them is getting to be more than most parents can afford. (CNN/Money)

Visit http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/16/pf/child-care-cost/index.html to view the full article online.

 

Are you tied up in knots over hassles such as getting through to your credit card company, gaining access to family health records, fixing an error on your credit report, changing telecom providers, or even changing your name? (Kiplinger's)

Visit http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/cut-the-red-tape.html to view the full article online.

 

Like the prospect of criminal prosecution, clawbacks can seem less like a real threat and more like a sop to public clamor for tangible punishment. (Fortune)

Visit http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/16/executive-pay-clawbacks/?iid=SF_F_River to view the full article online.

 

When considering risks to their business, employers tend to worry about hackers or burglars, but the biggest threat to security might come from within. (CNN)

Visit http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/07/business/stealing-information-work/index.html?hpt=ibu_bn1 to view the full article online.

 

Twenty-six big U.S. companies paid their CEOs more last year than they paid the federal government in tax, according to a study released Thursday by a liberal-leaning think tank. (Washington Post)

Visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-says-26-kingpin-ceos-made-more-last-year-than-their-companies-paid-in-federal-tax/2012/08/15/7b522fc4-e723-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html to view the full article online.

 

America's leaders aren't leading – and the damage is mounting. Citizens have complained for years about Washington's squabbling children, who'd rather stamp their feet and hold their breath than resolve momentous issues of economic policy. The games are childish, but the resulting suffering is serious: Millions can't find work, confidence withers, growth slows, and the self-reinforcing upward spiral that makes an economy grow can't get going – largely because our supposed leaders won't grow up. (Fortune)

Visit http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/16/washington-economy-fix/?iid=SF_F_River to view the full article online.

 

Local governments from New York to California are increasingly considering plans to seize mortgages to protect their housing markets against homeowners abandoning properties with values below what they owe. (Bloomberg)

Visit http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-16/cusack-spars-with-pimco-on-underwater-mortgages-as-risk-recedes.html to view the full article online.

 

Hard Knocks is only nominally about the action on a football field. It’s a show about powerful people running a high-speed, lucrative business – and all the hiring, firing, arguing, disciplining, high-fiving, and team-building that comes with the territory. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-13/why-every-manager-should-watch-hbo-s-hard-knocks to view the full article online.

 

Congratulations, smartypants, you've got the highest IQ in the room – too bad it'll make you a pain to work with. Here are 6 techniques for dealing when your genius just gets in the way. (Fast Company)

Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/3000430/you-cant-be-effective-when-youre-too-smart-your-own-good to view the full article online.

 

Companies find plenty to brag about – products that are cheaper, faster, tastier, even smarter. One boast you're not likely to hear, though, is: "We're No. 2!" But while firms aren't likely to brag about being the runner-up, experts say it sometimes pays for investors to shoot for second place. (SmartMoney)

Visit http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/when-it-pays-to-finish-second-1345065697803/?link=SM_hp_ls4e to view the full article online.

 

"You've got a bad case of deconditioning," the doctor says. Actually, it would be the rare doctor who would say that to anyone. And though it might sound like something to do with hair, in fact, deconditioning is a familiar and more profound problem: the decidedly unnatural state of being physically inactive. (NPR)

Visit http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/15/158831652/should-lack-of-exercise-be-considered-a-medical-condition?ps=view&ec=mostpopular to view the full article online.