What is the real value of an MBA? The skills developed, or the prestige of the issuing institution? For those seeking to add an MBA to their resume, their answer to that question will make the difference between spending thousands of dollars and spending no dollars at all.
In manufacturing, one measure of the efficiency and quality of a process is its sigma rating – which can refer either to yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. The number in front of the sigma symbol (σ) indicates where the process’s output lies on the bell curve of standard deviation. 1σ is terrible, with 69% of products coming off the production line with defects – a massive waste of resources. 2σ would see around a 31% defect rate. 3σ would be about 7%.
Business is all about calculated risk. The key word there is ‘calculated’. In order for a business to prosper in the long term, it needs to identify, quantify and manage the risks it faces. In the mind of the astute businessperson ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ is not a rhetorical question. If it IS used as a rhetorical question, it often heralds disaster in the same way as the words ’Here, hold my beer!’ often herald some kind of pratfall that delights YouTube viewers.
The #MeToo movement has brought all forms of sexual harassment into the spotlight and there has been a corresponding spike in subscriptions to online workplace harassment training videos and eLearning courses for staff training.
May 25th, 2018 is going to be an interesting day. It’s when the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force, and it affects anyone, globally, who deals with the personal data of EU citizens. That might come as a shock to organizations outside the EU who thought it didn’t affect them. The new rules were announced two years ago so there has been plenty of time to prepare, but human nature and the not-particularly-interesting subject matter have made sure that there is now a rush to get compliance before the May deadline.
In recent years a series of legal dominoes have toppled in the United States surrounding the supply and consumption of a well-known herb with serrated leaves. In 2016 alone Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts legalized recreational cannabis, joining other legalized states like Oregon, Colorado, Alaska and, most recently, California. As the dominoes topple, an industry is being created that has already netted billions of dollars, not only in the supply of cannabis as a commodity but also in the education sector.
If we really want the cool stuff we see in Science Fiction Movies, we are going to have to train more people in nanotechnology: the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular and supramolecular scale. We’ve already got graphene, bendy screens, hydrophobic coatings and bandages infused with silver nanoparticles to help heal wounds faster. Those are cool. But where is Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak? Where are the sci-fi chairs that grow out of the floor and disappear when you stand up?
In 2010, Katy Perry walked into the MET Costume Institute Gala wearing a dress that constantly changed colour. 3000 shimmering LEDs created the effect, with Perry lighting up like a rainbow in the couture dress designed by wearable tech company CuteCircuit. Back in 2009, Sony Ericsson and the London College of Fashion ran a contest to design digital clothing, and the winner was a Bluetooth-enabled cocktail dress that lit up when a call was received.
When we go into a restaurant, we put our trust in its staff to give us food that’s in tip-top shape. Our health and happiness depend on procedures like maintaining the cold chain, cleaning surfaces, sterilizing utensils, checking cooking temperatures and a lot of other details that can make the difference between healthy and dangerous. A chef can kill a customer with a bad scallop, and even if everything is impeccably clean, you can still kill an allergy sufferer with a fragment of peanut. Hence the need for a tightly-regulated catering industry.
The macros function within Excel is such a powerful feature that only the initiated can handle it. You are ready to enter the realm of Excel macros when you are a confident and experienced use of Excel and comfortable creating formulas and manipulating spreadsheet data. A little experience in Visual Basic won’t go amiss, either. You will have mastered most of the functions that come as standard with Excel and be ready to create your own.
If you are into comic books, it can seem that their creators are so far beyond the rest of us in skill and imagination that only they have the divine right to produce comic books. The fantastic epics that roll off the presses and into comic book stores seem to be born in another realm to which mere mortals have no access. Yet if you stop to think about it, those people had to start somewhere and were once shaky novices producing forgettable work.
