any Acid tests? Davies report on Women on boards, Feb 2011 (pdf)

Great summary below from 30% club:

Fact of the matter is, if boards are aware of the material impact on the bottom line having women on the board.. then surely the competitive pressure and opportunity cost would mean they would also want to appoint women!??

of course if there is also a good pool of talent around! or am I missing something!?

"We welcome the recommendations contained in the Davies Report, published in February 2011, which calls strongly for concerted voluntary action by UK companies to redress the gender imbalance of UK boards.

The report requires that all Chairmen of FTSE 350 companies set out the percentage of women they aim to have on their boards in 2013 and 2015. FTSE 100 boards should aim for a minimum of 25% female representation by 2015.

Furthermore, all CEOs are required to review the percentage of women they aim to have on their executive committees in 2013 and 2015.

The deadline for announcing these goals is September 2011."

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Amazon Kindle Fire’s Silk browser sounds privacy alarm bells | Naked Security

Amazon Kindle Fire’s Silk browser sounds privacy alarm bells | Naked Security:

food for thought indeed.

"It sounds as if Amazon will install a trusted certificate in the Silk browser allowing them to provide a man-in-the-middle (MITM) SSL proxy to accelerate your SSL browsing as well.

As Amazon is a US based company this would enable a US court order to intercept and record your secure communications.

Fortunately Amazon will support an "off-cloud" mode for Silk. This lets users opt-out of the benefits of using EC2 while retaining the traditional privacy benefits of connecting directly to remote web sites.

While most of us roll our eyes when confronted with long privacy policies and pages of legalese, privacy risks lurk around every corner. If you buy a Fire device, think carefully as to whether your privacy is worth trading for a few milliseconds faster web surfing experience.

"

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I would like to argue its 1) Vision, 2) balls & then 3) courage! CEOs Need Courage - Jeffrey Pfeffer - Harvard Business Review

CEOs Need Courage - Jeffrey Pfeffer - Harvard Business Review:

I would like to argue CEOs would need:

1) right Vision first,

2) then balls to make it happen

3) & then courage to stick to it as this article mentioned!

"One might think that in a world of soaring CEO salaries, the high pay would have produced innovative and courageous leaders who both know and do the right thing for the long-term well-being of their enterprises. But that's not what goes on. For the most part, CEOs hire outside experts to help them benchmark — as though you could benchmark your way to the top. And they pay way too much attention to business pundits and analysts who are great at commenting on what has gone on but poor prognosticators of the future (if I had a dollar for every person who has written Apple off in the past as being irrelevant in the market, I could retire).

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How to kickstart your co-creation platform - 20 examples

How to kickstart your co-creation platform - 20 examples:

very interesting!

How to kickstart your co-creation platform - 20 examples

View more presentations from Board of Innovation (BOI)

Pew Finds Many Children Fall Out of the Middle Class as Adults - The Pew Charitable Trusts

Pew Finds Many Children Fall Out of the Middle Class as Adults - The Pew Charitable Trusts:

"Those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall down the economic ladder than those who are married.

If men and women raised in a middle-class home obtain education after high school, they are less likely to be downwardly mobile.
"

very interesting read.

suggest you check out the full report pdf.

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catastrophe insurance vertical hit (naturally) UPDATE 1-Australia's QBE cuts insurance margin fcast, shares hit | Reuters

UPDATE 1-Australia's QBE cuts insurance margin fcast, shares hit | Reuters:

plus other verticals within insurance/re-insurance being hit, it is surprising that not much visible efforts been done to look for 'new markets'... it is surely a bit strange!? ;-)

"Large catastrophe claims for the financial year to date came from storms and a cyclone in Australia's Queensland state, storms in the state of Victoria, other storms in Australia, New Zealand's Christchurch earthquake, the Japan earthquake and eight major tornadoes in the United States.

QBE is not alone. Global insurers including Travelers Cos (TRV.N), Allstate Corp (ALL.N) and MetLife (MET.N) have also warned of difficulties following an unprecedented start to the year for the industry. [ID:nN10172421].

"

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