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Daily Archives: September 16, 2016

Empathy Global Index

World Economic Forum – “When it comes to empathy and inclusion, which company department would you expect to see at the forefront? Your guess might be Human Resources – but bizarrely, you’d be wrong. In fact, according to many who work in the field of “soft skills” and workplace inclusion, HR departments are the least likely of all departments – more than even CEOs and board members – to take on an office empathy programme. According to data in the Global Empathy Index, the more empathic the company the higher its growth and productivity rates. Most senior business leaders understand that empathy correlates with profit. But all too often, it’s not leaders but HR departments that call meetings with diversity consultants and inclusion experts to try to explain why empathy has no place in their organization…”

GAO – Patent Office Has Opportunities to Further Improve Application Review and Patent Quality

Intellectual Property: Patent Office Has Opportunities to Further Improve Application Review and Patent Quality, GAO-16-883T: Published: Sep 16, 2016. Publicly Released: Sep 16, 2016. “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiners face a variety of challenges in reviewing patent applications and issuing high quality patents. Some challenges affect examiners’ ability to complete a thorough review… Continue Reading

Agency chief info officers – roles and challenges reviewed by GAO

Federal Chief Information Security Officers: Opportunities Exist to Improve Roles and Address Challenges to Authority, GAO-16-686: Published: Aug 26, 2016. Publicly Released: Sep 15, 2016. “Under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA 2014), the agency chief information security officer (CISO) has the responsibility to ensure that the agency is meeting the requirements… Continue Reading

Study – Political Dysfunction Makes America Less Competitive

Dina Gerdeman – “The American economy is a mess, and our broken political system is largely to blame, according to a Harvard Business School US Competitiveness Project report released today. Harvard’s Michael E. Porter, Jan W. Rivkin, and Mihir A. Desai say American economic performance peaked in the late 1990s and since then has experienced… Continue Reading

Medications in public wastewater focuses need for better safeguards

Mental Floss – “A new study reveals that most of the high concentrations of pharmaceuticals in wastewater don’t come from people flushing their meds willy-nilly down the toilet, as New Scientist reports. Rather, we are flushing meds through our bodies into the sewers.  In a new study in Science of the Total Environment, scientists collected wastewater… Continue Reading