Trusting Google and Yahoo: Search Engines & Information Literacy

We pride ourselves on thinking critically. But how do our critical thinking skills apply to what we find in our searches? Because the results seem to appear like magic, many of us tend to think of search results as being “unbiased.” But in actual fact, there are many individuals and companies working hard every day to try to push their information to the top of the page in your Google search.

Download the full article here

Source: Change This

Building Value through Enterprise Architecture: A Global Study

The economic crisis has taught organisations a critical lesson: Only by focusing on long-term value can they ensure their survival during difficult times—and be ready to change when the opportunity or the need arises. Among the capabilities required to create value now and in the long term, we believe, is Enterprise Architecture (EA)—the process of aligning an enterprise’s structure and operations, including business functions, processes, and information systems, with its business goals and strategic direction. Yet questions remain concerning the value of EA: Does investment in EA really deliver value to the business? If so, what types of value are being realized? What are successful organizations doing to capture value from EA, and what are the greatest challenges to an effective EA? What are the most important actions that companies should take to develop their EA capabilities? And how can EA be used in the short term and the longer term, given the challenges in the economic climate?

Click to read more ...

The Ageing Workforce - Have you contributed to the research...

I'm researching the views of employers (those who make the final decision whether to hire one person over another) as opposed to HR people (who generally filter applicants and compile short lists of candidates for the consideration of the final decision-maker) in the finance/financial services sector. A survey I'm using can be found by clicking here. It is now well acknowledged that the Australian population is ageing. The number of older adults living in Australia is steadily increasing meaning that the age of our workforce will also increase. The baby boomers are approaching the traditional retirement age, most within the next two decades. It makes sense that the longer baby boomers work, the more beneficial it will be for our economy. Compared to their predecessors, the baby boomer cohort is generally better educated, and this is correlated with higher workforce participation. Further, research has indicated that many do not intend to fully retire but wish to continue working part time or in less demanding roles.

Click to read more ...

Party Animals: Early Human Culture Thrived in Crowds

This must be 'Live Science'... Party planners know that scrunching a bunch of people into a small space will result in plenty of mingling and discourse. A new study suggests this was as true for our ancestors as it is for us today, and that ancient social networking led to a renaissance of new ideas that helped make us human. The research, which is published in the June 5 issue of the journal Science, suggests that tens of thousands of years ago, as human population density increased so did the transmission of ideas and skills. The result: the emergence of more and more clever innovations. "Our paper proposes a new model for why modern human behavior started at different times in different regions of the world, why it disappeared in some places before coming back, and why in all cases it occurred more than 100,000 years after modern humans first appeared," said study researcher Adam Powell of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity at University College London. The idea that demography is linked to modern human behavior has been around for decades, but this is the first time scientists have run

Click to read more ...

Digital Darwinism

Audiences today relish the on-demand lifestyle afforded by digital technology, which makes those audiences more fragmented, distracted, and mercurial than ever. Many of MTV’s young viewers are online while they are watching TV, and they are prone to skip through ads with the aid of their digital video recorders (DVRs). We know this, and our advertisers know it too, which is why MTV Networks (MTVN) has made branded entertainment and brand integration a major part of the company’s business model.

Click to read more ...