Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The World is Flat

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion,
or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle,
or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

This African proverb provides the tone for The World is Flat, a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Author Thomas Friedman will receive the award for Webby Person of the Year at the 10th annual Webby Awards on June 12.

Business executives across the country have kept this book atop the BusinessWeek Best-Seller List for more than a year. These leaders are making decisions about the future of work in America, the future of your work -- your job. Can you afford not to add this book to your personal reading list?

Friedman chronicles The Ten Forces That Flattened the World. Starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 these ten forces reached a tipping point around the turn of the century. About that time you and I began competing, unknowingly, with 150 million educated, Web-enabled workers outside the United States. These workers want your job and are willing to take a lot less money to do it.

Friedman details how you and I can stay relevant and remain competitive in a flattened world. The goal is to become an Untouchable -- a person whose job can not be outsourced. Untouchables come in four categories:

The bottom line is that "while technology advances make last year's work a commodity, reskilling, continual professional education and client intimacy to develop new relationships keeps him or her ahead of the commodity curve and away from a potential offshore."

The World is Flat, start running!
// posted by Gene Babon @ Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Globe 100

The Boston Globe has released The Globe 100 -- the best performing public companies of 2005 in Massachusetts. Topping the list as Company of the Year is dot-com survivor Akamai Technologies, Inc. of Cambridge.

A complete list of 27 stories is available at the Boston Globe. Registration is required, but is free.

If you are looking for a job, consider the 50 Fastest Growth Companies. You can also consider the Top 10 Technology Companies ranked by revenue. They are as follows:

  1. Raytheon
  2. EMC Corporation
  3. Analog Devices
  4. CMGI
  5. Teradyne
  6. Avid Technology
  7. Parametric Technology Corp.
  8. Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates
  9. Kronos
  10. MKS Instruments
Looking to work for a company a little closer to home? Then access an interactive map of The Globe 100.
// posted by Gene Babon @ Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Webby Awards -- 2006

The Webby Awards is the leading international honor for Web sites and the innovators behind them. New York Times proclaimed the Webby Awards "the online equivalent of an Oscar." This year's winners have been announced in 69 categories.

The 10th Annual Webby Awards received a record 5,500 entries from over 40 countries around the world. In addition, more than 300,000 votes were cast by people around the world to identify the People's Voice Awards.

Organizers also announced recipients of this year's Webby Special Achievement awards, including the following:

[ NOTE: Beantown Web will review Friedman's influential book, The World is Flat, in a upcoming issue. ]

The 2006 Webby Awards winners are as follows:
Learn more about the Webby Awards by accessing a press release. You can also review the People's Voice Winners and additional category nominees at the Web Awards Website.
// posted by Gene Babon @ Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Boston Market -- May

Trend #1: The Consumer Confidence Index rose in April to its highest level since March 2002. "Recent improvements in the labor market have been a major driver behind the rise in confidence in early 2006," according to a Conference Board representative.

Trend #2: The most recent Monster Employment Index for Boston (pdf) reached its highest level since it was launched 12 months ago.

Trend #3: The Yoh Index of Technology Wages ended the first quarter of 2006 at the highest level since its inception.

Trend #4: Microsoft will invest an additional $2 billion in a variety of technologies designed to transform its way of doing business on the Web.

So how do technology professionals capitalize on these powerful trends? By making a commitment to learning Microsoft's Web-based technologies. SQL is the generic database language that cements these technologies together.

BostonWorks.com lists the following opportunities:

Monster.com lists the following opportunities:

The best training value this month is to download the following FREE software:

Then, make an investment in one of three new Dummies books:

You invest $20. Microsoft invests $2 billion. Where can you get a better return on investment than that?
// posted by Gene Babon @ Tuesday, May 02, 2006

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