The corporate conscience

The corporate conscience

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 8/31/10

There isn't one.

Corporations don't have a conscience, people do.

That means that every time you say, "It's just my job," or "My department has a policy," or "All I do is work here," what you've done is abdicated responsibility--to no one.

It's convenient and even comfortable to blame the anonymous actions of many working in concert on a evanescent brand or organization, but that starts you on an inevitable race to the bottom. Organizations have more power than ever before. They are better synchronized, faster, and possess more tools to change the economy and the people in it than ever before. And the only option available to the rest of us is for individuals to take responsibility (it's not given) for what they do and how they do it.

The very same tools that permit organizations to synchronize their efforts are now available to you and to me. I guess the question is: will we use that power to humanize the systems we've created?

PS It's not just about being a good citizen: when bad behavior comes back to hurt the company, it hurts you, too.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

The first step is to start

The first step is to start

via Signal vs. Noise by Jason Z. on 8/31/10

Many people ask me, “How can I get started in web design?” or, “What skills do I need to start making web applications?” While it would be easy to recommend stacks of books, and dozens of articles with 55 tips for being 115% better than the next guy, the truth is that you don’t need learn anything new in order to begin. The most important thing is simply to start.

Start making something. If you want to learn web design, make a website. Want to be an entreprenuer and start a business selling web based products? Make an app. Maybe you don’t have the skills yet, but why worry about that? You probably don’t even know what skills you need.

Start with what you already know

If you want to build something on the web, don’t worry about learning HTML, CSS, Ruby, PHP, SQL, etc. They might be necessary for a finished product, but you don’t need any of them to start. Why not mock-up your app idea in Keynote or Powerpoint? Draw boxes for form fields, write copy, link this page to that page. You can make a pretty robust interactive prototype right there with software you already know. Not computer saavy? Start with pencil and paper or Post-it Notes. Draw the screens, tape them to the wall, and see how it flows.

You probably don’t even know what skills you need, so don’t worry about it. Start with what you already know.

You can do a lot of the work with simple sketches or slides. You’ll be able to see your idea take form and begin to evaluate whether or not it really is something special. It’s at that point you can take the next step, which might be learning enough HTML to take your prototype into the browser. The point is, go as far as you can with the skills and tools that you have.

Avoid self doubt

Many times the reasons we don’t start something have nothing to do with lack of skills, materials, or facilities. The real blockers are self-criticism and excuses. In the excellent book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the author, Betty Edwards, discusses how we all draw as kids but around adolescence, many of us stop developing that ability.

“The beginning of adolescence seems to mark the abrupt end of artistic development in terms of drawing skills for many adults. As children, they confronted an artisitc crisis, a conflict between their increasingly complex perceptions of the world around them and their current level of art skill.”

At that age kids become increasingly self-critical and equally interested in drawing realistically. When they fail to draw as well as they know is possible many give up drawing at all.

This feeling continues into adulthood. We want to design a website or build an application but if our own toolset doesn’t match up to the perceived skillset we never start. It doesn’t help that the internet gives us nearly limitless exposure to amazing work, talented individuals, and excellent execution. It’s easy to feel inadequate when you compare yourself to the very best, but even they weren’t born with those skills and they wouldn’t have them if they never started.

Do—there is no try

People who succeed somehow find a way to keep working despite the self-doubt. The artist, Vincent Van Gogh was only an artist for the last ten years of his life. We all know him for masterful works of art, but he didn’t start out as a master. Compare these examples from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain showing an early drawing compared to one completed two years later:

Vincent Van Gogh Carpenter, 1880 and Woman Mourning, 1882

He wasn’t some child prodigy (he was 27 when he started painting), he learned his craft by hard work. If he’d listened to his own self doubt or despaired that his skills didn’t compare to Paul Gauguin’s it’s likely he never would have even tried.

This is all to say that there are many things that can get in the way of the things we should be creating. To never follow a dream because you don’t think you’re good enough or don’t have the skills, or knowledge, or experience is a waste. In fact, these projects where there is doubt are the ones to pursue. They offer the greatest challenge and the greatest rewards. Why bother doing something you already have done a hundred times, where there is nothing left to learn? Don’t worry about what you need to know in order to finish a project, you already have everything you need to start.

Posted via email from jimuleda's posterous

Time, Teaching, and Lost Boys

Time, Teaching, and Lost Boys

via Sociological Images by lisa on 8/21/10

In this ten-minute talk, super-famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo talks about cultural differences in the perception and orientation towards time… and  how that translates into boys dropping out of high school and underperforming in college.  How does he make the link?  Watch:

Via BoingBoing.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

The Will

The Will

via Chiron by Rory on 8/20/10

I'm cribbing from an unknown author today. Somebody wrote something and I penciled it on a post-it note and it now hangs on the bathroom mirror. I didn't write down who said it, and it deserves a lot of credit.

Everyone has the will to win. When two people show up at a contest, both want to win. Both have their spirits set on prevailing. In the nasty world of predators and victims, the will to win is even more pronounced. The coyote is hungry. The rabbit wants to live.

Everyone has the will to win. When everyone has something, it is meaningless.

What many lack is the will to prepare to win.

It is a disservice to say that the one who wants the win most, the one who is hungriest, has the edge. Wanting isn't enough. When we say that it matters, we say that desire itself has a magical power to shift the world in our favor.

What does shift the world into our favor is preparation, and preparation is an act of will. You train when there is no immediate goal. You study the problem. You learn the factors and the nuances. For the deep and dangerous stuff, you have to know your own heart. Not what you think you can do if and when-- those are fantasies. You need to know your core and where you core starts to shift...and which direction it shifts to... under fear and pain and hunger and ego threat and all of the other different ways that identity shifts.

As broad and deep as you can go, you can increase your chances through preparation.

It's amazing how lucky someone who trains four hours a day can get.

The stick-it on the mirror? It says, "The will to PREPARE to win."

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Resource Directory Sample

Download now or preview on posterous

SPARC Directory Sample.pdf (1402 KB)

This is a sample. Please send your comments and corrections to <jreid@monvalleyinitiative.com>

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Groups Press Justice Department on Prison Rape

Groups Press Justice Department on Prison Rape

via Colorlines by Michelle Chen on 8/18/10

Rape is an abominable crime everywhere, except behind bars. In state and federal prisons, sexual assault occurs at appalling rates, and the perpetrators often go unpunished--another symbol of the culture of impunity that looms over the incarcerated. On Tuesday, a coalition of civil liberties groups called on the Justice Department to finally enact structural reforms to hold attackers, and the institutions that create an abusive environment, accountable.

About one in every 20 people in prison were sexually assaulted last year, according to federal statistics. For juvenile inmates, the annual rate is about one in eight. The threat of sexual violence and coercion stems from both fellow inmates as well as staff, and women and girls especially are at risk of being exploited by the officers controlling their facilities.

The problem, says the ACLU and other groups, is compounded by restrictions on litigation that limit the legal remedies available to incarcerated people, which means that assault survivors must first go through a labyrinth of internal grievance procedures before they can seek justice in the courts.

Despite the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, prisons around the country have yet to adopt uniform standards for addressing sexual abuse and assault.

In a letter issued to Attorney General Eric Holder, the coalition wrote, "For each day that the standards are delayed, more men and women--and, yes, boys and girls-will be raped." The groups urged Holder to implement (way past a congressional deadline) the standards recommended by the National Prison Rape Commission, which focus on prevention, detection, legal response and monitoring of sexual assault, and to set guidelines for responding to complaints among high-risk populations.

A demographic overview of the groups most at risk says a lot about why the problem has gone unaddressed for so long. The racial and gender hierarchy in the prison system mirrors that of society at large, but in an institution that harbors society's most marginalized, the consequences are far more brutal.

According to the Commission's report, youth, especially girls, are extremely vulnerable:

Juveniles are ill-equipped to respond to sexual advances by older, more experienced youth or adult caretakers. Based on reports of rampant physical violence and sexual abuse in a juvenile correctional facility in Plainfield, Indiana, the U.S. Department of Justice began investigating conditions of confinement in 2004. Investigators were shocked by the age and size disparity between many of the youth involved. Youth as old as 18 were assaulting or coercing children as young as 12; children weighing as little as 70 pounds were sexually abused by youth outweighing them by 100 pounds.

Simply being female is a risk factor. Girls are disproportionately represented among sexual abuse victims. According to data collected by BJS in 2005-2006, 36 percent of all victims in substantiated incidents of sexual violence were female, even though girls represented only 15 percent of confined youth in 2006. And they are much more at risk of abuse by staff than by their peers. Pervasive misconduct at a residential facility for girls in Chalkville, Alabama, beginning in 1994 and continuing through 2001, led 49 girls to bring charges that male staff had fondled, raped, and sexually harassed them. Abusive behavior is not limited to male staff. In 2005, the Department of Justice found that numerous female staff in an Oklahoma juvenile facility for boys had sexual relations with the youth under their care.

Immigrants are also especially at risk, not least because they lack many of the legal protections afforded to citizens:

Many factors--personal and circumstantial, alone or in combination--make immigration detainees especially vulnerable to sexual abuse. One of the most pervasive factors is social isolation. Individuals are often confined far from family or friends and may not speak the language of other detainees or staff. Those who have already suffered terrifying experiences in their home countries or in the United States can be almost defenseless by the time they are detained and may even expect to be abused.

People who defy gender norms are easy targets for both staff and fellow inmates:

Unless facility managers and administrators take decisive steps to protect these individuals, they may be forced to live in close proximity or even in the same cell with potential assailants. When Alexis Giraldo was sentenced to serve time in the California correctional system, her male-to-female transgender identity and appearance as a woman triggered a recommendation to place her in a facility with higher concentrations of transgender prisoners, where she might be safer. Yet officials ignored the recommendation and sent her to Folsom Prison in 2006, where she was raped and beaten by two different cellmates.

The most horrific aspect of the issue is that many of these survivors will be released one day, and then be forced to reintegrate into society with few, if any, resources for healing their sexual trauma. Prison rape doesn't happen in a vacuum, but it's not inevitable, either. It's just another accepted reality in a system that dehumanizes people by design.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Where to Get the Best Free Education Online

Where to Get the Best Free Education Online [Back To School]

via Lifehacker by Whitson Gordon on 8/18/10

Whether you're a student looking for supplemental learning or you're in the workforce but thirsty for knowledge, you don't have to drop thousands of dollars in tuition to enjoy a top-notch education from some of the best schools in the world. More »

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

The decision before the decision

The decision before the decision

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 8/8/10

This is the one that was made before you even showed up. This is the one that sets the agenda, determines the goal and establishes the frame.

The decision before the decision is the box.

When you think outside the box, what you're actually doing is questioning the decision before the decision.

That decision is far more important and much more difficult to change than the decision you actually believe you're about to make.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

New York Ends Prison Gerrymandering

New York Ends Prison Gerrymandering

via Colorlines by Michelle Chen on 8/9/10

You've heard the shrill debate about shredding the 14th amendment and redefining citizenship, mostly driven by reactionaries who are willing to gut the Constitution in order to exclude immigrants. To understand just how radical such a change would be, look at new legislation in New York that shows how the constitutional concept of citizenship and representation has enabled the enfranchisement of marginalized groups across three centuries of U.S. history.

The New York bill, approved by the legislature last week, aims to eliminate so-called prison-based gerrymandering, by barring counties from using census data to inflate their population numbers. Under current policy, the census counts the state's incarcerated residents in the county where they're imprisoned. So a young man from the Bronx convicted of a felony may spend much of his adult life as a "resident" of the upstate prison town where he rarely even sees the world outside his cell block. His story, multiplied by tens of thousands, has led to a skewing of political district lines, shifting power to whiter upstate regions from the darker, poorer five boroughs, home to a cluster of troubled communities from which prisoners are disproportionately drawn.

The Prison Policy Initiative explains that this numbers game of local politicians "padding" their districts with prison headcounts, which has impacted an estimated 44,000 mostly Black and Latino New Yorkers, "artificially enhances the weight of a vote cast in those districts at the expense of all districts that do not contain a prison."

This distortion of the demographic landscape has an eerie historical precedent: The Three-fifths compromise of the slavery era allowed Southern states to count enslaved (disenfranchised) Blacks as a fraction of a "real" citizen for electoral purposes.

According to PPI's research, seven New York State Senate districts depend on prison-based gerrymandering for their very existence. In one City Council ward in Rome, New York, residents should thank the thousands of imprisoned neighbors they've passed by on the way to the polls, who constitute about half of the "official" population, for making local votes count a little bit more.

While the new bill parallels other recent reforms to New York's criminal justice system, the legislation alone will not reverse the incarceration frenzy that has hollowed out poor urban communities. It also won't alter public funding allotted based on census data, nor will it correct the misrepresentation of gender ratios in communities where young men of color are systematically swept up by police.

But the initiative, which reflects similar campaigns underway in other states, does begin to undo the perverse incentive to keep shoving people into upstate prisons, where county governments may profit from their physical presence without heeding their political interests.

Forty-five years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people have been politically and socially disenfranchised, removed from the electorate and the workforce, and their communities. Until they're free to participate fully in democracy, the new law ensures that many at least will be counted as part of the communities they've been pulled away from, instead of the ones that lock them up.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Conflict Shouldn’t Surprise Franchisors and Franchisees

Conflict Shouldn’t Surprise Franchisors and Franchisees

via Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends by Scott Shane on 8/9/10

A recent Wall Street Journal article described several conflicts between Burger King and its franchisees. In one of these disagreements, three franchisees sued Burger King over the franchisor’s effort to get them to keep their outlets open later at night.

While the courts will have to decide the legal question of whether franchisors have the right to mandate franchisees’ hours, the case points to a bigger problem. Many franchisors and franchisees don’t seem to understand why they often end up in conflict.

The economics behind the conflicts
The basic economics of the franchise arrangement is behind many franchisor-franchisee disputes. Franchisees run outlets according to systems sold to them by franchisors. Under the standard arrangement, franchisees pay franchisors a royalty of a few percent of their gross sales for access to an operating system and a brand name, which is how franchisors make money.

Like most businesses, franchisees earn a profit when their revenues exceed their costs. The difference in how franchisors and franchisees make money is behind much of the conflict between franchisees and franchisors.

Because franchisors earn royalties on franchisees’ sales, anything that increases franchisees’ revenues benefits franchisors. If, as the Wall Street Journal reported, franchisees generate an extra $30 in revenue for each additional hour they are open, the franchisors benefit from longer operating hours. More revenues equate to higher royalties.

Franchisees, on the other hand, don’t necessarily make money when their revenues increase. Consider operating hours again. According to the attorney for the franchisees suing Burger King, staying open late costs the typical franchisee $100 per hour. Assuming these numbers are true, franchisees lose $70 each hour they are open late at night.

If a particular policy makes money for a franchisor, but loses money for his or her franchisees, conflict between the franchisor and franchisee over the policy shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Other types of conflict
Hours of operation aren’t the only thing that can increase franchisor earnings while decreasing franchisee profits. Expansion of the number of outlets in the chain is another example. If a franchisor adds another location near an existing franchisee, the chain’s overall sales often go up because more customers can be served by the two locations than by the original one alone.

The higher overall sales mean more royalties to the franchisor, but not necessarily greater profits for the original franchisee. If the new outlet cannibalizes some of the first franchisee’s sales, the franchisee might end up with lower revenues than before, but with little reduction in costs. In short, adding locations can boost franchisor earnings at the expense of franchisee profits, leading to conflict between the parties.

The franchisees’ surprise is surprising
When conflicts between franchisors and franchisees emerge, franchisees often seem genuinely surprised. Their surprise is disconcerting because many books explain how these conflicts emerge naturally from the franchise structure.

Before people buy a franchise, they should read something about the economics of franchising. Knowledge of the economics of the business might well save them from needing a later education in franchise law.

From Small Business Trends

Conflict Shouldn’t Surprise Franchisors and Franchisees

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

They’d become the people they’d never wanted to be:...

They’d become the people they’d never wanted to be:...

via Unhappy Hipsters on 8/9/10

They’d become the people they’d never wanted to be: bitter, witholding, consumed by the trappings of upper middle class life. In other words—their parents.

(Photo: Alejandro Gandarillas; ArchDaily)

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Guards Represent Citizens

Guards Represent Citizens

via Ella Baker Center Blog by Glenn on 8/9/10

This post originally appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the Sacramento Bee.

I am very grateful to the brave and honest men and women who work as police officers, sheriff’s deputies and prison guards. But as a taxpaying citizen, I feel that I am culpable in their acts; that not only do they protect me, my family and my community, but they also represent me, my family, my community and our values, as well.

We entrust them with deadly force, the power to incapacitate and incarcerate – to deprive persons of life and liberty. We need to insist on a system that ensures civilian accountability and oversight of corrections and law enforcement personnel, to make sure that dishonesty and brutality – in our names – are not tolerated.

In my heart, I believe that we cannot pay cops and guards enough for the work they do. Nor can we allow the unjust acts of corrections supervisors and front-line staff to go unpunished. Unjust acts by justice officials breed contempt for authority and law, and undermines the safety of our neighborhoods. Get the bad cops and bad guards out, for the safety of good cops, good guards and our neighborhoods.

Glenn Backes lives in Sacramento and is a Public Policy Researcher and Consultant. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Seeking "on-the-ground" reports on what is going on with crack sentencings

Seeking "on-the-ground" reports on what is going on with crack sentencings

via Sentencing Law and Policy by Doug B. on 8/9/10

It has now been almost two weeks since the House of Representatives voted in favor of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, and almost a full week since the FSA became law.  Though I have now seen lots of editorials from large and small papers praising the modification of crack mandatory sentencing provisions, I have yet to see a single story about how the new law is starting to impact actual crack sentencings.

There is a practical reason I am in a rush to figure all this out: there are, on average, over 100 crack sentencings in federal court every week.  And I had been hearing that a whole lot of crack sentencings had been put on hold after the Senate passed the FSA way back in March.  Further, the US Sentencing Commission now has less than three months to conform the crack guidelines to the intricate (and not always pro-defendant) provisions of the FSA.  So I wonder is there a rush to get sentencings done now, or is there more delay, or does this vary district-to-district and courtroom-to-courtroom?

I hope folks might use the comments or send me e-mail with any and all notable post-FSA-enactment crack sentencing reports.  Thanks!

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Job Market Is Bad for Everyone–And Even Worse For Ex-Cons

Job Market Is Bad for Everyone–And Even Worse For Ex-Cons

via The Crime Report by david on 8/9/10

The labor market, bad for everyone right now, is even worse for those with serious criminal records, reports the Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress. Jason Ness, the reentry program manager for a Virginia community corrections program, said those coming out of jail are now competing against law-abiding unemployed men and women looking for jobs below their qualifications.

Ness’ program provides transitional planning for offenders who are about to be released from jail. Many face the burden of not only supporting themselves and their families but a need to pay off court costs and fines before they can get their driver’s license back. Most of Ness’ clients are looking for entry level jobs in kitchens or construction. He said half of his clients find jobs within the first three months of working with the program. Of those people, 83 percent have kept that job for at least three months.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Competition

Competition

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 8/9/10

The number one reason people give me for giving up on something great is, "someone else is already doing that."

Or, parsed another way, "my idea is not brand new." Or even, "Oh no, now we'll have competition."

Two big pieces of news for you:

1. Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no. And this or that is a much easier sale to make. It also makes decisions about pricing easier, because you have someone to compare against and lean on.

2. There are six billion people in the world. Even if your market is hand-made spoke shaves for left-handed woodworkers, there are more people in your market than you can ever hope to track down.

There are lots of good reasons to abandon a project. Having a little competition is not one of them. Even if it's Google you're up against.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog