US ends phone data collection exposed by Snowden

The US government has halted its controversial program to collect vast troves of information from Americans' phone calls, a move prompted by the revelations of former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden. As of Sunday, the National Security Agency (NSA) ended the program whose existence its former analyst Snowden revealed in 2013. US lawmakers earlier this year passed legislation known as the USA Freedom Act to stop the program and roll back some powers the NSA had gained under the Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

10 Management Practices to Drive Results

In this excerpt from my book, Tell Me I Can't...and I Will, I offer 10 management practices that I have learned along my own journey that have driven results, results that I have witnessed firsthand. From managing student organizations to launching and turning around nonprofit organizations to investing in communities across the country, these lessons represent parts of my management philosophy that I challenge you to reflect on and test drive in your own management practices.

No. 1: People are not widgets. People matter... period. They have fears, aspirations, insecurities, and commitments outside of work. People want to be respected, engaged and valued. They want you to sincerely acknowledge their presence, contributions and commitment. Genuinely care about people. Challenge yourself to continually step into other people's shoes and look at the world through their perspective. Consider how your words (or lack thereof) will be translated in their minds. Treat people with compassion by employing empathy. Create a space where people can bring their whole self to the team. Remember and celebrate milestones like birthdays, employment anniversaries, weddings and births.

No. 2: Step away from your desk. Roll up your sleeves and work alongside people. Experience what they experience. Challenge your assumptions. Gather context on what it takes for each person to meet performance goals by witnessing them in action. Andrew Carnegie once stated, "The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do." Gather insight from people's actions on the front line.

No. 3: Question more and talk less. Engage in the role of coach, advisor, or thought partner. Use questions to call out and challenge people's assumptions. Inquire about what is and is not working. Ask why. Clarify understanding and direction. Listen to what is not being said. Identify trends across team members. Clarify the big picture. When you are micro-managing, turn questions around and empower people to make decisions.

No. 4: Transparency builds trust. Deliver the truth. Provide context. Admit what you don't know. Don't speculate or create rumors. Don't say something about someone else unless you have already told them directly. Stating you know something but cannot share it fosters power plays, breeds frustration and weakens collaboration.

No. 5: Get direct feedback. Ask your team directly how you are managing. Embrace their feedback openly and often. Don't get defensive or make excuses. Just listen. Retain what is working. Reflect on what is not working and try a different approach. Pulse check your performance at the water cooler, over coffee or through desk-side chats.

No. 6: Remove obstacles. Identify barriers to your team's performance. Brainstorm solutions together. Take the lead on removing hurdles. Verify that the obstacle has been removed. Differentiate between what is in your control versus what you can influence.

No. 7: Be authentic. Commit to being the best "you." Humanize yourself by sharing and relating your personal and professional stories. Don't change your character depending on the scene and audience. Be consistent. Be present or don't show up.

No. 8: Push hard. Play hard. Challenge people to achieve their potential. Stretch their performance. Put more faith in people than they have in themselves. Make good better and stretch better to become the best. Set challenging yet obtainable goals. Listen to advertising guru David Ogilvy's advice, "Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine." Celebrate victory at each milestone. Laugh. Have fun together.

No. 9: Focus and prioritize. Provide clarity on goals and direction on action. Drive efficiency and promote effective practices. Constantly prioritize to remain relevant and within a balanced workload. Set clear expectations. Maintain a scorecard. Put it all in writing as a desktop guide and reference it often.

No. 10: Feed people's hunger. Consider John Quincy Adams' wisdom, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." Keep work fresh, engaging and challenging for your team. Acknowledge when greener pastures would elevate people and guide them there.

Overall, I believe that management is about getting grounded in why and focusing on how. Managers must understand the big picture (the why) to effectively guide their teams. They must also know how to operationalize a vision and strategy (the how) to efficiently get things done. When people on teams do not see the connection between their work and the bigger picture or purpose, they will often lose motivation and feel disconnected from the team and organization overall.

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Markets hack away at Cyber Security ETF

By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK (Reuters) - One year after a set of high-profile cyber attacks and a hot market for trendy exchange traded funds propelled the PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF to one of the most successful ETF launches in history, it is facing a major test of its investment strategy.

Google Photos to help users save space

Google Photos is rolling out a series of changes, including one that will help users free up space. Announced on Google+, the first two changes are rolling out on Android starting on Tuesday and include a "Free Up Space" button on the Settings screen that will prompt the user to bulk-delete copies of photos already backed up from their device.

The Art of Noise and the Power of Communication

Matt Harvey


This is a picture of Matt Harvey, a poet in Devon, outside his shed where he sometimes gets inspiration. He does really brilliant shows and is passionate about getting his message across, and mostly he is a lot of fun and really entertaining. Since his residency, with RegenSW, he is the closest thing the South West of England has to an official climate poet.

Climate Poets

We definitely need more climate poet because, to be frank, for most people, in simple talk, the science is not exactly straightforward, doesn't paint a particularly rosy picture and leaves you thinking, "Well, what on earth I am supposed to do?"

It is also grist to the mill for those campaigning for things as they are: the marketing and communication mind of the scientist, I am afraid to say, is no match for the nimbler 'hands-on' street fighting competitor. The communication of this infinitely interesting and actually rather inspiring topic of conversation has been, rather sadly, a bit of a balls up.

Rules of the Game

The rules of the game don't apply equally well. There is no match referee to call offside and manage fair play. It's not a fair fight; it's plain to see that the 'cause for common good' is handicapped by its earnest sense of doing the right thing. This is especially true when all the bad climate news is labored, up until a point where people are doom laden and in the mood to switch off and indulge in some comfort shopping.

So there needs to be a change in the style of communication. In terms of bringing a message home, the more potentially disruptive it is, the more people will tend to use their defenses to ignore it, discredit or put it in the just too difficult box.

For a message to work it has to have some key ingredients: it needs to be relevant, it needs to be actionable, it needs to be positive and it needs to provide some sense of comfort. It also really helps when your friends, colleagues, peers and leaders are also thinking and feeling along the same lines.

Change the Game

The art of noise is about how to confuse the picture so nothing changes; it is in part an appeal to our lazier habits. It tends to favor 'old school' and monopolistic institutions and is not good for free markets, competition, innovation, personal freedom or the common good.

One way to change the game is to appeal to the instincts of competition, growth and innovation rather than play the moral 'my science is better than yours' blame game. There are millions of people who work creatively with climate risk and sustainability across all areas of work life and make good money from purposeful risk.

Mapping this shows real change and it is a much more helpful starting point. It meets the criteria of communicating a relevant, actionable, positive and comforting message, where many people are in the same boat.

Another way is to have some fun; here is one of Matt's poems which has been turned into song for a new crowd funded Transition-inspired musical (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/862794604/something-wonderful-in-my-back-yard-or-swimby-the):

Pie in the Sky

"Put a saddle on a sunbeam
Hang a bridle on a breeze
Ride the tide into the future
Land of Possibilities

They tell me: If you want that kilowatt
You've gotta frack 'n' drill a lot
And then of course you spill a lot
And when I ask them WHY?
They say: Don't let 'em tell you otherwise
Those Greenies tell a pack of lies
When will you people realise
It's all just pie in the sky!
Yee-ha!

Well slap my thigh,
Pie in the sky!
Hi de hi and Ho de ho
It's the high-wide sky-pie rodeo

And I say: If the sky can provide
Gee, that's kinda nice of it
If there's pie in the sky
Then cut me a slice of it

Serve me up a plateful
I'll be glad and I'll be grateful
Earth, water, wind 'n' fire are my dream team
Let's tap the to-ing and the fro-ing
Bag the beaming and the blowing
Milk the movement of the ever-flowing stream
Yee-ha!

So frack me no fracture
And drill me no well
And nuke me no reactor
'Cos I'm goin' for to dwell

In the Land of Possibility
The Land of Ingenuity
Exploiting every property
Of earth, sea, wind and sun
It puts the fill in my philosophy
A sigh in my psychology
Adds meat to meteorology
An' I guess it's kind of fun (Yee-ha!)

In the land where the sky can provide
Yee ha!
In the land where the sky's made of pie
Yee ha!

Because the reckoning is beckoning
The planetary auditors
Are reeling every second in
There's flooding and there's shortages

Put a saddle on a sunbeam
Hang a bridle on a breeze
Ride the tide into the future
Land of Possibilities"

By Matt Harvey, The Element in the Room
https://thequixoticpress.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/theelementintheroom.pdf

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Sarah Palin ‘willing’ to run for office again

Watch out, world: Sarah Palin said she's open to running for political office again. The former Alaska governor touched on a possible return to politics during a wide-ranging interview on CBS's "Sunday Morning." "This will always be home," she said of Wasilla, Ala. "I would know that I could always come back here." "You're willing […]

YouTube Music is a great music-video app _ if you pay up

LOS ANGELES (AP) — If you were going to reinvent MTV for a mobile generation, you'd probably come up with something like YouTube Music. It's a video-first music service that also plays in the background like you'd expect a music app to do. That sets it apart from other music apps out there, many of which give you a choice of videos or songs, but not interchangeably.