« November 27, 2011 - December 03, 2011 | Main | December 11, 2011 - December 17, 2011 »
December 10, 2011
Query: Has David Cameron won a short-term political boost at the cost of isolating and hurting the UK long-term?
Did the Prime Minster demand an opt-out for London and the UK from EU financial services regulation? If he did, did he go too far? See at BBC News "Cameron Blocks EU-Wide Deal to Tackle Euro Crisis" and at Bloomberg "Euro Weakens After ECB, EU Leaders Fail to Boost Confidence".
Eton's Pride: Cameron last night protecting UK sovereignty.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2011
Today: Just Santa Monica.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2011
DC-based global IP voice Timothy Trainer: See video of his talk to US foreign service officers on importance of strong IP rights regimes, given at the USPTO.
Don't miss this video of a compelling and wonderfully practical talk our friend and veteran DC intellectual property rights lawyer Tim Trainer gave in the summer of 2010 to US State Department foreign service officers at the USPTO on the effect of strong IPR regimes on economic growth and development. The video was finally made available last month. Trainer spends much of his time all over the globe raising awareness of intellectual property rights--and educating a broad spectrum of people on the importance of strong IPR regimes to business, and to specific economies, nations and governments. For two decades, he's worked for both government and private industry in everything from developing early IP infrastructure to anti-counterfeiting and enforcement strategies in Asia, Egypt, Brunei, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Philippines, and Vietnam, to name a few. Trainer also directs the well-regarded Washington-based Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center, or GIPSC, and is President of Galaxy Systems, which develops innovative ways of providing intellectual property training and education. Galaxy has already developed an engaging and interactive online game in which the player--using IP and an allotment of money--builds a business, and develops a local economy.
Trainer with university students after June 2011 talk in Tbilisi, Georgia, its capital and largest city.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2011
Mercer: "Oh, Vienna!"
And who could disagree? Mega-consultant Mercer has ranked Vienna as the best place on earth to live. See this recent piece in The Economist, which begins:
Vienna is the best place in the world to live, according to the latest annual survey of living standards compiled by Mercer, a consultancy. With three German and three Swiss cities, the top ten has a very European feel, something Mercer's Slagin Parakatil attributes to the fact that European cities "enjoy advanced and modern city infrastructures combined with high-class medical, recreational and leisure facilities."
Gustave Mahler at the Vienna Court Opera, 1903.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
Finally, Europe may embrace audit reform: Sarbanes-Oxley Lite.
Nearly 10 years after enactment of the American Sarbanes-Oxley Act (also known as "the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act"), and just as many years of hearing Europe-based lawyers and their clients complain about it, Europe may get its own legislation: a kind of Sarbanes-Oxley Lite, proposed last week by the European Commission. If passed, the legislation would require more stringent but not draconian oversight of the auditing profession in the European Union. See for details this one at Broc Romanek's TheCorporateCounsel.net
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:31 AM | Comments (4)
December 05, 2011
Part 2 of McIlwrath CPR Interview with William Ury.
So, again, what is a BANTA? The continuation of the November 23 William Ury interview is at IDN Podcast #102. In episode two, GE's Mike McIlwrath and Ury discuss the art of negotiating with difficult people. Now in its fifth year, the CPR-IDN podcast series on international dispute negotiation is always excellent. McIlwrath's to-the-point introduction, and some feisty jazz violin, open every interview.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
"A First-Rate Madness": A Book that Expands Your Take on Leadership Styles.
If you think your boss might be a whack job some days, bet on him anyway. While its writing and organization could have been even better, and the research perhaps deeper, the ideas in A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center, will likely change the way you think about leadership. At the same time it gives you an empathy for both internal personal pain and exterior quirk in decision-makers you almost certainly never had. It's also a brave book. "Mental Illness" is given a broad definition here but most of Ghaemi's subjects--he includes among others Churchill, Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Kennedy, General W.T. Sherman and Ted Turner--are explained according to biologically-inherited and/or drug or chemical-induced traits (usually a combination of the two) that will stand the genre of biographical "psycho-history" on its already tormented head. The thesis: In times of crisis, leaders with abnormal or even "bad" mental health are much more effective than sane ones. And, of course, they are a lot more interesting to consider.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
GE's Mike McIlwrath interviews Negotiation-Dispute Resolution Pioneer and "Getting to Yes" Author William Ury.
You can hear the first episode here, taped on November 23. McIlwrath interviews "Getting to Yes" author William Ury on credibility and trust in negotiations, reducing tensions at the bargaining table and even Ury's role, after a request by the Carter Center, to mediate a standoff a few years ago in Venezuela between President Hugo Chavez’s supporters and the opposition. This podcast is #101 in the well-regarded International Dispute Negotiation (IDN) series of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR). The second episode (#102), on negotiating with "difficult people", airs later today. McIlwrath is Senior Counsel, Litigation for GE Infrastructure-Oil & Gas, and works out of Florence, Italy.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)