There will be no post next week, due to the LOGIS Librarian being on leave.
Business & management:
• Even after 10 years, Google as a company still manages to “instill a sense of creative fearlessness and ambition”, even as it has grown to more than 16,000 employees.
• We all use spreadsheets in our work, but how well do we use them? There are a range of tools in Excel that can make reading or understanding data quicker or easier.
• Although not all of them are working due to financial need, 12% of pensioners are working in the UK and the number of retirement-age workers has risen by almost a quarter in the last 3 years.
• There was a time when some companies took time to make an investment in the Web, because “it’s for kids and geeks”. History may be repeating itself with the way companies are slow to take on social media.
• A recent article by a New York Times columnist on using social networking tools to cut down his incoming emails by 80% has generated discussion and blog posts.
•Data visualization is now easier with the website “many eyes”. If you register, you can upload your own datasets and create visualizations, start a discussion forum, and be alerted to comments about your datasets.
• Auckland has been rated 8th on a list of Australian favourite international destinations for business travel.
Education
• There is a belief that there are not enough resources to build all the campuses needed to cater for the growing number of students wanting higher education. The Internet is having an impact on the kind of education students need and on the means of providing it.
• Becta is the UK Government's lead agency for ICT in education, and has released a revised learning e-strategy: “Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008-14”.
• The iPphone has truly arrived in NZ, but a European company that develops software to deliver e-learning within companies, has become the first to offer companies mobile e-learning via the iPhone.
Environment & sustainability:
• In the article “An Oceans Manifesto: The Present Global Crisis”, the author looks at how the international community can avoid the ecological destruction of the oceans without diverting attention or draining scarce resources from other pressing national and international concerns.
• The growing scarcity of fresh water is believed by some to be as serious a threat as global warming but is “under-reported in the … media and ignored by most political leaders”. In one scenario by Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant, a “powerful corporate water cartel has emerged to seize control of every aspect of water for its own profit” – water becomes a high-priced, traded commodity, and Barlow advocates for public stewardship of fresh water resources in order to avoid this future.
• A recent Scientific American article talks about handling climate change as an ethical question.
• A private members bill will be introduced to the Australian Capital Territory legislative assembly later this year that proposes that people would be offered the financial incentive to generate their own energy from a renewable source and be paid for the electricity they put back into the grid at a higher rate.
• The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), the NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU) and Business New Zealand are working together to develop an industry training programme to improve energy efficiency in the workplace.
• The Gas Association of NZ and the LPG Association have jointly commissioned a report that says that direct use of gas for domestic water and space heating could cut NZ’s CO2 output by millions of tonnes per year.
Health & wellbeing:
• The UK children’s minister is suggesting that children under the age of 16 should be locked into school grounds over lunch hours, to prevent them from leaving school to buy junk food.
• The European Commission is proposing to establish a European Union-wide scheme to provide free fruit and vegetables to school children in an effort to improve health and nutrition.
• While gaming has been known to cause injuries to those who play too much, virtual games can also have beneficial effects on your health.
Law & Government:
• A UN document “Civic engagement in public policies : a toolkit” is available, that provides a toolkit for fostering the engagement of civil society, the private sector and citizens in general in public policies at all levels and types of government. (Also held in print format in the Libraries UN collection).
• A UK commentator writes from the British perspective on the economics of nationalisation versus privatization, comparing NZ with the UK.
• Richmond, California suffers from poverty and violence. The municipal government is sponsoring a programme that enrols inner-city youths for job training in energy efficiency, solar power and “green” construction.
• The UK government has just released a white paper that covers “proposals to deliver a fundamental shift in power, influence and responsibility into the hands of communities and citizens”, giving locals more ability to hold councils to account.
• Although the result wouldn’t be affected, glitches in the electronic counting system used in the London mayoral election are highlighting ongoing concerns about their use in voting.
• A UK town has imposed a curfew on teenagers in an attempt to curb “antisocial behaviour”
• Web commentator Gerry McGovern talks about how the Web has affected the way people do or don’t place their trust in experts and organisations any more.
• Fast Company.Com has released the 2008 list of their “Fast Cities” – cities that are “vibrant, creative, and growing, full of life and bursting with diversity in race, in culture, and in business”.
People, culture & diversity:
• Librarians have been discussing the role of gaming in libraries to attract young readers for some time, and the American Library Association has promoted the concept at its recent conference.
• “Asians in New Zealand: implications of a changing demography” has just been released by the Asia New Zealand Foundation. The report shows that NZ’s dependence on the Asian region economically will mean that the Asian population in NZ will continue to grow.
• A discussion document has been released as part of a review of outdoor recreation in NZ, with the review aiming to revitalize the sector.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a report on public transport: “The value of new public transport in deprived areas: who benefits, how and why?”
• The sci-fi theme of a having a persona that can move around inside a virtual world has been around for a while, and many individual virtual worlds now exist online. One company has gone a step further, and created a way that an avatar can leave virtual worlds like Second Life behind, and roam across the Web.
• Google plans to launch its new Street View mapping tool in the UK, but could face problems due to differences in the privacy laws there, from those in the US.
• A new study suggests that Internet browser software should have a “best before” date as a way to educate users that they need to regular refresh and update their browser software to avoid security issues.
• A flaw in the Internet’s addressing system could allow criminals to redirect users to fake web pages, even if they typed the correct address into a browser.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Thursday, 3 July 2008
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 03/07):
Business & management:
• With auditing due to begin in 2010, it has been predicted that 130 EDRMS experts will be needed to ensure that all the organisations needing to comply with the Public Records Act will be ready in time.
• Gated communities for people above a certain age is expected to become a trend in the UK with the aging population’s need for retirement housing seen as a market with investing in for the property industry.
• The UN Environmental Programme report on sustainable energy investment, showing that investors are continuing to pour money into the renewable energy industries is available here.
• The government of South Korea is hoping that the location of the city of Songdo will make it a new regional business hub for north-east Asia. It has been designed as a ”ubiquitous city” with wireless networks and radio-frequency identification linking all major information systems - residential, business, medical and governmental.
Education
•. The way we read online is different from the way we read books, and web pages and blogs need to be designed to allow for the differences. Libraries have just launched a new series of blogs, so it’s timely to read posts 1 & 2 about avoiding “visual noise”, from the Visual Speak blog.
Environment & sustainability:
• Scientists have discovered that as climate change raises temperatures, plants in the French alps are “moving” to higher altitudes to regain the cool temperatures they prefer.
• An essay on one way that cities could have sustainable urban agriculture from a professor of environmental health sciences.
• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has developed a structured methodology that allows businesses to carry out an Ecosystem Services Review. The review helps managers to proactively develop strategies to manage risks and opportunities arising from their company’s dependence and impact on ecosystems.
• The idea of bulb-hoarding, now that incandescent light-bulbs are on the way out is an issue even in the UK, where the change-over is still voluntary - people have already begun stock-piling.
• A mixed-use apartment building in San Francisco is sustainable while providing 106 apartments for the previously homeless as well as retail space and an arts venue.
Health & wellbeing:
• The new edition of the Atlas of socioeconomic deprivation in New Zealand has been released by the Ministry of Health. It includes maps and is based on the district health board areas.
Law & Government:
• Some Britons are protesting at the way councils are changing the way their streets look and removing their local heritage, by removing trees or lampposts. While protected streetscapes in heritage areas have protection, ordinary streets don’t.
• The new targeted based system of local area agreements for councils in the UK has a new “Local Priorities Website” where people can check on which targets have been prioritised by the council in their area. A large number of councils have chosen to give high priority to the volunteer sector.
People, culture & diversity:
• A new way of getting your news out has been launched by an online publisher. Voxy.co.nz is an online community newswire, where news can be added (and commented on) by anybody.
• At the World Forum on Human Right, UNESCO has announced the launch of an international coalition of cities against racism and discrimination.
• The Library of Congress (LC) has been hosting a series of lectures on “Digital Natives” – the generation of young people growing up who never know a time without digital technologies. The series of the lectures will be available on the LC’s webcasting pages.
• Cyber bullying is often carried out using text messaging, but increasingly, social networking sites are also being used.
• A draft version of the UK’s Equality Framework for Local Government is available for Britons to provide their feedback. The framework looks at improving performance on equality and diversity for council communities.
People in the UK are afraid to interact with other people’s children, in case they are accused of being paedophiles, according to a new study by Civitas. The Civitas blog posting about the report gives some examples, and talks about the impact on the voluntary sector.
Science, technology & transport:
• InternetNZ has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the research and analysis of broadband strategy options for New Zealand.
• Research in 14 countries shows that the majority of people are not yet convinced the mobile devices are safe enough to use for financial transactions.
• Plans to extend London’s congestion zone are not to go ahead, according to London’s mayor, although transport experts wanted the charge to be applied as a way to handle gridlock in the outer suburbs.
• With auditing due to begin in 2010, it has been predicted that 130 EDRMS experts will be needed to ensure that all the organisations needing to comply with the Public Records Act will be ready in time.
• Gated communities for people above a certain age is expected to become a trend in the UK with the aging population’s need for retirement housing seen as a market with investing in for the property industry.
• The UN Environmental Programme report on sustainable energy investment, showing that investors are continuing to pour money into the renewable energy industries is available here.
• The government of South Korea is hoping that the location of the city of Songdo will make it a new regional business hub for north-east Asia. It has been designed as a ”ubiquitous city” with wireless networks and radio-frequency identification linking all major information systems - residential, business, medical and governmental.
Education
•. The way we read online is different from the way we read books, and web pages and blogs need to be designed to allow for the differences. Libraries have just launched a new series of blogs, so it’s timely to read posts 1 & 2 about avoiding “visual noise”, from the Visual Speak blog.
Environment & sustainability:
• Scientists have discovered that as climate change raises temperatures, plants in the French alps are “moving” to higher altitudes to regain the cool temperatures they prefer.
• An essay on one way that cities could have sustainable urban agriculture from a professor of environmental health sciences.
• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has developed a structured methodology that allows businesses to carry out an Ecosystem Services Review. The review helps managers to proactively develop strategies to manage risks and opportunities arising from their company’s dependence and impact on ecosystems.
• The idea of bulb-hoarding, now that incandescent light-bulbs are on the way out is an issue even in the UK, where the change-over is still voluntary - people have already begun stock-piling.
• A mixed-use apartment building in San Francisco is sustainable while providing 106 apartments for the previously homeless as well as retail space and an arts venue.
Health & wellbeing:
• The new edition of the Atlas of socioeconomic deprivation in New Zealand has been released by the Ministry of Health. It includes maps and is based on the district health board areas.
Law & Government:
• Some Britons are protesting at the way councils are changing the way their streets look and removing their local heritage, by removing trees or lampposts. While protected streetscapes in heritage areas have protection, ordinary streets don’t.
• The new targeted based system of local area agreements for councils in the UK has a new “Local Priorities Website” where people can check on which targets have been prioritised by the council in their area. A large number of councils have chosen to give high priority to the volunteer sector.
People, culture & diversity:
• A new way of getting your news out has been launched by an online publisher. Voxy.co.nz is an online community newswire, where news can be added (and commented on) by anybody.
• At the World Forum on Human Right, UNESCO has announced the launch of an international coalition of cities against racism and discrimination.
• The Library of Congress (LC) has been hosting a series of lectures on “Digital Natives” – the generation of young people growing up who never know a time without digital technologies. The series of the lectures will be available on the LC’s webcasting pages.
• Cyber bullying is often carried out using text messaging, but increasingly, social networking sites are also being used.
• A draft version of the UK’s Equality Framework for Local Government is available for Britons to provide their feedback. The framework looks at improving performance on equality and diversity for council communities.
People in the UK are afraid to interact with other people’s children, in case they are accused of being paedophiles, according to a new study by Civitas. The Civitas blog posting about the report gives some examples, and talks about the impact on the voluntary sector.
Science, technology & transport:
• InternetNZ has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the research and analysis of broadband strategy options for New Zealand.
• Research in 14 countries shows that the majority of people are not yet convinced the mobile devices are safe enough to use for financial transactions.
• Plans to extend London’s congestion zone are not to go ahead, according to London’s mayor, although transport experts wanted the charge to be applied as a way to handle gridlock in the outer suburbs.
Friday, 27 June 2008
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 27/06):
Business & management:
• As part of the NZ Tourism Strategy 2015, a series of guides have been produced that help tourism operators ensure that their businesses are sustainable.
• The international snow sports community is backing the Winter Games NZ planned to take place next year, with about 800 athletes from around the world projected to attend.
• The way people manage their documentation at work is rapidly changing. Increasing amounts of data and documentation are being stored online, and the new name for digital document storage and use is “cloud computing”.
• eBay is going to the European Parliament in an attempt to get what it considers to be outdated trading laws changed, because they allow traditional manufacturers to limit the impact of online trading.
• There are plans in Dubai to build the world’s first “moving” building – an 80 storey tower with rotating floors that will change the shape of the building.
• Sustainable procurement is an approach that many businesses are taking not just because it’s good for the environment, but because it can lower costs and result in more valuable business practices.
• The UK’s Idea and Development Agency has a series of web pages on strategic workforce planning, including a section on producing a workforce development plan.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water calculators are increasingly seen on websites looking at sustainability issues, and now local bodies here in NZ are using them as well – North Shore City offers one, and Rodney links you through to a very detailed Australian water calculator. (According to NIWA, the mean annual rainfall for Auckland from 1971-2000 was 1240 mm, if you feel like checking your water use.)
• A UN meeting on waste management has discussed the safe disposal of old cell phones and computers and given consideration to writing new guidelines for the disposal of “e-waste”.
• Floods, drought and disease are resulting in increasing numbers of “climate refugees” around the world, with people being forced to leave regions or countries as a result of the impact of climate change.
• Sales of heat pumps have risen sharply in NZ in recent years. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority want users to remember some “smart tips” to ensure that they don’t waste electricity unnecessarily in the way they use heat pumps.
• The sites to go on a shortlist for Britain’s first eco-towns are being criticised due to a series of issues, including inadequate public transport links.
Health & wellbeing:
• Both NZ & international research shows that tobacco displays are an unhealthy influence on children and on people trying to quit.
• The Legal Services Agency has produced an education kit “The Law and Mental Health”, which provides information from acts like the Mental Health Act, the Privacy Act, etc.
• A global opinion poll covering people from 19 countries, shows that a high proportion are against the use of torture, even in the case of terrorists who have information that could save innocent lives.
• RFID technology is increasing in use (many libraries use it now to make issues and returns faster). Dutch scientists say that they may interfere with lifesaving hospital equipment, while UK computer scientists say that they could actually help patients.
Law & Government:
• As part of the Thames / Coromandel Blueprint Project, almost 150 children have supplied the project partners with some definite themes and in-depth submissions on what they feel the future should be like for the Coromandel area.
• Community engagement and community cohesion is a UK report that looks at the challenges of bringing together government policies on getting people involved in their community and promoting cohesion rather than conflict between newer and more established communities.
• The UK’s Local Government Association is urging councils and their staff to avoid clichés and jargon and was prompted to publish a list of such words by the news that one council had advised staff to stop using “brainstorming” because it might offend epileptics, and start using “thought shower”.
• A UK government working group is proposing that all radio stations transfer from analogue to digital by 2020. But while 90% of households in the UK have a digital TV, some people are still buying analogue sets because they are unaware that they need extra equipment to allow the TV to receive digital signals.
• UK researchers are working on CCTV cameras that can “hear” sounds like a window smashing or that can react to crowd noise.
• The UK Ministry of Defence is concerned that young recruits from the Facebook generation don’t take data security seriously enough.
People, culture & diversity:
• A recent US survey of the baby boomer generation, shows that of those not already working in them, over half are interested in “encore careers” – ie jobs that combine income, personal meaning and social impact.
• Arguments about whether or not climate change is real are meaningless for a Colombian culture that has survived for centuries, but can see every day that nature is changing all around them.
Science, technology & transport:
• The International Civil Aviation Organisation has produced a carbon footprint calculator that will allow travellers to estimate the carbon footprint of any flight that they make.
• Backlogs in the patent system are bad for business and create uncertainty for innovators – there are between five and ten million inventions globally queuing for approval.
• The Internet’s regulator ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved a proposal to relax rules around “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .nz, and has also approved domain names in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.
• “Green, clean and never seen” may be the nanotechnology motto, but researchers have only just started to look into whether it may pose risks to environmental or human health, and any damage may take years to become obvious.
• As part of the NZ Tourism Strategy 2015, a series of guides have been produced that help tourism operators ensure that their businesses are sustainable.
• The international snow sports community is backing the Winter Games NZ planned to take place next year, with about 800 athletes from around the world projected to attend.
• The way people manage their documentation at work is rapidly changing. Increasing amounts of data and documentation are being stored online, and the new name for digital document storage and use is “cloud computing”.
• eBay is going to the European Parliament in an attempt to get what it considers to be outdated trading laws changed, because they allow traditional manufacturers to limit the impact of online trading.
• There are plans in Dubai to build the world’s first “moving” building – an 80 storey tower with rotating floors that will change the shape of the building.
• Sustainable procurement is an approach that many businesses are taking not just because it’s good for the environment, but because it can lower costs and result in more valuable business practices.
• The UK’s Idea and Development Agency has a series of web pages on strategic workforce planning, including a section on producing a workforce development plan.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water calculators are increasingly seen on websites looking at sustainability issues, and now local bodies here in NZ are using them as well – North Shore City offers one, and Rodney links you through to a very detailed Australian water calculator. (According to NIWA, the mean annual rainfall for Auckland from 1971-2000 was 1240 mm, if you feel like checking your water use.)
• A UN meeting on waste management has discussed the safe disposal of old cell phones and computers and given consideration to writing new guidelines for the disposal of “e-waste”.
• Floods, drought and disease are resulting in increasing numbers of “climate refugees” around the world, with people being forced to leave regions or countries as a result of the impact of climate change.
• Sales of heat pumps have risen sharply in NZ in recent years. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority want users to remember some “smart tips” to ensure that they don’t waste electricity unnecessarily in the way they use heat pumps.
• The sites to go on a shortlist for Britain’s first eco-towns are being criticised due to a series of issues, including inadequate public transport links.
Health & wellbeing:
• Both NZ & international research shows that tobacco displays are an unhealthy influence on children and on people trying to quit.
• The Legal Services Agency has produced an education kit “The Law and Mental Health”, which provides information from acts like the Mental Health Act, the Privacy Act, etc.
• A global opinion poll covering people from 19 countries, shows that a high proportion are against the use of torture, even in the case of terrorists who have information that could save innocent lives.
• RFID technology is increasing in use (many libraries use it now to make issues and returns faster). Dutch scientists say that they may interfere with lifesaving hospital equipment, while UK computer scientists say that they could actually help patients.
Law & Government:
• As part of the Thames / Coromandel Blueprint Project, almost 150 children have supplied the project partners with some definite themes and in-depth submissions on what they feel the future should be like for the Coromandel area.
• Community engagement and community cohesion is a UK report that looks at the challenges of bringing together government policies on getting people involved in their community and promoting cohesion rather than conflict between newer and more established communities.
• The UK’s Local Government Association is urging councils and their staff to avoid clichés and jargon and was prompted to publish a list of such words by the news that one council had advised staff to stop using “brainstorming” because it might offend epileptics, and start using “thought shower”.
• A UK government working group is proposing that all radio stations transfer from analogue to digital by 2020. But while 90% of households in the UK have a digital TV, some people are still buying analogue sets because they are unaware that they need extra equipment to allow the TV to receive digital signals.
• UK researchers are working on CCTV cameras that can “hear” sounds like a window smashing or that can react to crowd noise.
• The UK Ministry of Defence is concerned that young recruits from the Facebook generation don’t take data security seriously enough.
People, culture & diversity:
• A recent US survey of the baby boomer generation, shows that of those not already working in them, over half are interested in “encore careers” – ie jobs that combine income, personal meaning and social impact.
• Arguments about whether or not climate change is real are meaningless for a Colombian culture that has survived for centuries, but can see every day that nature is changing all around them.
Science, technology & transport:
• The International Civil Aviation Organisation has produced a carbon footprint calculator that will allow travellers to estimate the carbon footprint of any flight that they make.
• Backlogs in the patent system are bad for business and create uncertainty for innovators – there are between five and ten million inventions globally queuing for approval.
• The Internet’s regulator ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved a proposal to relax rules around “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .nz, and has also approved domain names in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.
• “Green, clean and never seen” may be the nanotechnology motto, but researchers have only just started to look into whether it may pose risks to environmental or human health, and any damage may take years to become obvious.
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