Working Women Respond to Sandberg's
'Lean In' Revolution
“A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and men ran half our homes,” writes Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, a self-named “manifesto” for her proposed women’s revolution.
As appealing as such a world may sound, some working women argue that it’s easier said than done.
Nonsense, Sandberg says. Too many women are being overlooked for promotions due to lack of confidence and poor negotiation skills, not lack of opportunity. It has become the norm for women to sidestep advancement in order to focus on family responsibilities, she writes, and the result is a shocking imbalance of power on the workforce.
Women still only hold 4 percent of top government posts worldwide, 14 percent of top corporate jobs and 17 percent of board seats, and those numbers haven’t budged over the past decade. With a skilled, college-educated female army out there, there is no reason men are still holding the keys the kingdom.
To read full story, click HERE
How 3-D printing will radically change the world
If you're not excited by 3-D printing it's because you're not thinking big enough, say some technology visionaries who predict that life on Earth will soon radically change because of it.
According to these futurists, 3-D printing will make life as we know it today barely recognizable in 50 to 75 years.
"Realistically, we're going to be living to 100 ...110. With bio-printed organs, living to 110 won't be anything like living to that age today," contends Jack Uldrich, a technology trend expert. "We're already printing skin, kidneys, a replica of a beating human heart. If a person loses a limb, we'll be able to print, layer by layer, a replacement. It's theoretically possible."
To read full story, click HERE
Tiny Houses: A Big Idea to End Homelessness
Advocates tackling the nation's homeless problem are thinking small.
In Austin, Texas, a village of 200 tiny houses is being built for the homeless. In upstate New York, Rochester Greenovation has designed a prototype for small-scale individualized shelters. “Homeless No More Survival Pods” have been built in Utah, micro-pods in Florida, miniature homes in Wisconsin and mini mobile houses in California.
The “Tiny House Movement,” once an architectural component to a downsized life, is now becoming something much bigger: an escape from chronic homelessness.
“This is a plan that could revolutionize the housing movement in the United States,” declares Alan Graham, 58, a Texas activist who says his self-founded organization, Community First, has already lifted 100 homeless people off the streets.
“The city of Austin loves us,” he says. “They think we’re on the verge of breaking the code.”
To read full story, click HERE
Architects pushing the envelope with tiny homes
Here are a few truisms about tiny homes: They are ecologically friendly. They are generally inexpensive. They can help avoid house debt. They reduce one's carbon footprint. They offer the possibility for a freer, simpler life.
Plus, they're cute.
And now, tiny homes have something else: a coolness factor. Architectural innovation has become part of the tiny home movement, with some of today's top designers testing the boundaries of imagination and possibility, transforming ultrasmall spaces into marvels of eco-sustainable, microminimalist design.
Just look at what a tiny home can be: A "free-spirit" tree sphere, hanging above the forest floor. A steel hut constructed of salvaged car parts. Aplastic "loft cube" that can be airlifted by helicopter. A Space Age microhouse with round, rotating rooms. A diamond-shaped glass house suspended on a pole.
To read full story, click HERE
Unpaid interns pose new challenge for job seekers
Still trying to rebound from the recession, American workers competing for scarce jobs are facing a new enemy: a youthful, eager and educated army willing to work for free.
In numbers up to 2 million, the increasingly dominant presence of unpaid or low-paid interns in the workforce is taking much-needed entry level jobs away from salaried employees.
"It's not like give and take, it's more like just taking," said Army veteran Eric Ortiz, 41, who worked as an unpaid intern at a publishing company from September 2012 to May 2013. Doing graphic design work in exchange for college credit, Ortiz said the company continually added extensions on to his contract with the implied promise of a future paid job.
"They'd say, 'Things are looking up, but we can still use your help,' so I hung around, hoping they'd make me an offer. It turned out to be just a lot of empty promises."
To read full story, click HERE
NBC NEWS
CNBC
News stories