What About Paris? ™

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January 14, 2012

At Cross-Culture: Are Chinese business people getting their American thing on?

At Richard Lewis's great Cross-Culture, Maria Chow, based in Singapore, and a founder of Spark Asian Leadership Practice, has written "As the Dragon Leads..." in which she contends that the traditional Chinese business style of "collective" and "reactive" is being slowly but noticeably replaced by more competitive and individualistic modes of behavior. In short, Chow says, China business leaders are starting to act more and more like Americans. Excerpt:

...I have trained hundreds of Chinese managers and hi-potential graduates from state-owned companies as well as multinationals in leadership.

What strikes me as rather unique in terms of Chinese talent is how competitive everyone is: individuals do all that they can to stand out from the “crowd”. Few shy away from stating openly their career aspirations. This contrasts interestingly with the common belief that socialistic societies are largely collective in most things people do.

With increasing opportunities in the country though, Chinese managers are displaying individualistic behaviour, pursuing their own careers and dreams with much fervour, almost as if to catch up on lost time.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:48 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2012

Patrick Lamb: Two Posts on Writing Well that Cover it All.

Read two fine back-to-back posts on writing spanning the sublime to the all-important nuts and bolts. Flowing from the irrepressible pen of Chicago trial lawyer and thought leader Patrick Lamb--Pat's responsible for getting me started blogging seven years ago, so I have sharply conflicting emotions whenever I even think about the guy--are two recent items at his highly-regarded In Search of Perfect Client Service on writing well: "Do you have a Muse?" and "The Importance of Proofreading".

Posted by JD Hull at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2012

London's Mayoral Race: Is Boris Johnson going to keep his job?

That is one of the questions--and a good one--posed by The Economist this past weekend in "London's Mayoral Race: Back into the Fray". In May, London's incumbent mayor Boris Johnson, a flamboyant and often very funny Conservative, former MP, journalist and author (hatched from the Conservative Party's usual lower England Etonian-Oxford tribe) will run against the same opponent he faced in 2008: "Red" Ken Livingstone, the Labour Party candidate, and a serious lefty, who was Johnson's predecessor. Both Johnson and Livingstone are capable pols and managers. While Johnson's eccentricities and manic kind of charisma have made him a popular mayor, Livingstone, who is two decades older than Johnson, may have the advantage of pitching to his more natural constituency in the traditionally liberal urban electorate of London. Johnson is eccentric as hell, fun to watch and connected very well with voters in 2008. Whether or not he is re-elected five months from now, he is expected by many to become Prime Minister some day. But he may not be a shoe-in May. Excerpt from The Economist January 7 article:

London leans left—-as big, diverse cities tend to. Mr Livingstone, knowing that voters often punish governments between general elections, aims to paint his rival as just another Tory. And although the polls suggest that Londoners prefer Mr Johnson on policing, the economy and the Olympics, he trails on the vital issue of transport. A spate of strikes on the Tube has encouraged the view that Mr Livingstone, a machine politician and a man of the left, is better at dealing with London’s ornery unions.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Mayor of London.

Posted by JD Hull at 04:09 AM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2012

The Clean Water Act case before SCOTUS today: Backyard or Protected Wetland?

Homeowners or Industrial Polluters? Given the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, the case of Sackett v. EPA being argued before it today is probably as important, and certainly as "political", as environmental law gets. Our take? Despite the David v. Goliath hype, it's a relatively straightforward exercise on the right to pre-enforcement review under the APA. Lots of amicus briefs, mainly by private industry in support of petitioners, the Sacketts. Before this Court, the Sacketts have a shot of prevailing in their pre-enforcement argument. In any event, the due process challenge they are claiming in the alternative should fail. For background, see in the Los Angeles Times "Supreme Court Takes Up Property Rights Dispute" plus this summary and Lyle Deniston's preview, both at the SCOTUS blog.

Posted by JD Hull at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

January 08, 2012

At Invisible Paris: A New Revolution in Levallois.

Levallois is a town without a museum, and seemingly also a place that feels no need to display any traces of its past. It's the classic tale of the nouveau riche with a deep feeling of shame about its unprosperous ancestors.

--Invisible Paris, January 4, 2012

Some of the best parts of our world disappear without much fanfare. But one of the Internet's redeeming cultural features is its ability to set down a meaningful biography of place, and indulge in a fair tribute, before a storied town or village is reduced to a few memories, or to a fleeting mention in history. Don't miss the photographs and some fine and poignant writing at Invisible Paris in "Disappearing Levallois: The Rue Marjolin", about Levallois-Perret, a mid-19th century commune in working class suburbs, just a few miles north of Paris.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)