Bulgaria's ex-king and former prime minister says he will resign from the leadership of his party after it failed to enter parliament in national elections.
Simeon Saxcoburggotski, speaking Monday, says he's taking responsibility for the poor showing of the party.
After decades in exile in Spain, the 72-year-old former monarch returned to Bulgaria in 2001 to …
DETROIT Elmer Johnson, former General Motors executive vicepresident, sees a future in which motorists entering major urbancenters such as Chicago or Dallas will be charged an access fee forthe privilege.
That is one of several measures that would help alleviatetraffic congestion, reduce pollution and improve driving safety ininner cities, Johnson says.
He also advocates: Building streetcar systems in urban areas so suburban motorists canpark outside cities and take streetcars the rest of the way. Increasing fuel taxes 50 to 75 cents per gallon over five years. Creating government incentives to encourage motorists to acceptdifferent modes of transportation. …
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Twelve soldiers assigned to combat drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic have been arrested in an alleged scheme to smuggle cocaine to Canada in a child's suitcase, a prosecutor said Monday.
Eight of the soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel and captain, were detailed to the national anti-drug agency at the airport in Puerto Plata while four were assigned to security duties at the airport terminal, said prosecutor Elvis Garcia. Two civilians who work there were also arrested.
A judge ordered all …
A 100-ton concrete-and-steel box plunged toward a blown-out well at the bottom of the sea Friday in a first-of-its-kind attempt to stop most of the gushing crude fouling the Gulf of Mexico.
Douglas Peake, first mate of the supply boat that brought the box to the site, confirmed he had received a radio transmission from the nearby vessel lowering the device that it would be in position over the well soon.
The transmission early Friday said undersea robots were placing buoys around the main oil leak to act as markers to help line up the 40-foot-tall box. But seven hours later, BP spokesman Bill Salvin said the device was still being lowered and had not reached …
Starting in spring, you can get rid of your junk electronics theright way at least once a month.
New bells and whistles are turning not-so-old computers, cellphones and TVs into garbage faster than you can say "technologyupgrade."
But because they contain lead and other toxic stuff, outdatedgadgets shouldn't just be thrown out with the trash. Many are becausethe city accepts household hazardous waste only twice a year attemporary drop-off sites.
That will change in spring, when residents can take their obsoleteelectronics -- along with old paint, oil, pesticides …
A near capacity crowd was present at The Spirit of a Woman Concert at the Civic Opera House recently that featured Queen Aretha Franklin and India.Arie as entertainers and Iyanla Vanzant as host of the reception.
The fund-raiser was a benefit for the prevention of domestic violence. During the video presentation and testimonies, the audience learned some very devastating facts about how women have been treated in every phase of society. The 29-year-old Southwest Women Working Together has been sincerely working to heal broken homes and the bruised lives of children as well as providing relief to battered women.
Following Southwest Women Working Together, showing video clips …
Top-ranked Jelena Jankovic of Serbia won the women's Kremlin Cup on Sunday for her third straight title, and Igor Kunitsyn won his first ATP Tour title by upsetting fellow Russian Marat Safin.
Jankovic beat Russia's Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 6-4, while Kunitsyn survived seventh-seeded Safin's 21 aces to win 7-6 (6), 6-7 (4), 6-3.
The 23-year-old Serb was coming off back-to-back titles at the China Open and the Porsche Grand Prix in Germany.
It was her fourth title this season and the eighth in her career. She was also runner-up twice this season, losing to Serena Williams in Miami and at the U.S. Open.
The No. 9-ranked Zvonareva could not …
VAMPIRES and heroes were among the hot topics when pupils triedto talk their way into the next round of a public speakingcompetition.
A team from Brentwood School, comprising Sam Turnpenny, TomCarswell and Thomas Mitchell, proved they had the gift of the gab toclinch the victory in a local round of the Youth Speaks competitionrun by the Brentwood a Becket, Billericay and Romford rotary clubs.
The team won the contest with the topic 'Do parents worry toomuch about teenagers' use of computers?' and Tom Carswell wascrowned the best speaker.
Tom, 14, said: "My mum is always worried about how much time Ispend on my computer.
"She sometimes sneaks …
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Tom Sizemore, on probation for a drug rap, was arrested Tuesday for investigation of possessing methamphetamine as he sat in a car outside a Bakersfield hotel.
The 45-year-old actor, of Calabasas, was arrested after drugs were found in his car outside the Four Points Sheraton hotel, said police Detective Greg Terry.
Officers were called to the hotel at about 7:30 a.m. by a report that a man had challenged an employee to fight while trying to check in, Terry said.
The man, believed to be an associate of Sizemore's, had gotten into a dispute over whether he had a reservation, the detective said.
Jason Salcido, 33, of Whittier, was …
Rahul Dravid top-scored with 66 to lift the Bangalore Royal Challengers to 133-8 after Dimitri Mascharenhas took two wickets in the first over for the Rajasthan Royals in the second match of the Indian Premier League.
Mascharenhas removed New Zealanders Jess Ryder and Ross Taylor in successive balls for ducks. Taking the pace off and getting the ball to move off the seam, Mascharenhas had Ryder edging to wicketkeeper Mahesh Rawat off the second …
Rolling Stones, "Flashpoint" (Rolling Stones) (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
What the world needs now is love, sweet love, not another damnRolling Stones live album. I mean, heck, this is the Rolling Stonesand the songs are great, but on a necessity level, this ranks withanother product endorsement by Mike Ditka or one more televisedtribute to the Desert Storm returnees.
One big difference between this live Stones set (recordedduring the '89 "Steel Wheels" tour) and the previous four live LPs isthat "Flashpoint" is much cleaner, with a horn section and backupsingers and very proficient playing by the middle-age former badboys.
I much prefer the raunch of "Get …
BEIJING (AP) — China Unicom Ltd., one of China's three major phone carriers, says Wednesday its 2010 profit fell 60 percent as it spent heavily to roll out third-generation service.
Profit was 3.8 billion yuan ($579 million) or 0.16 yuan (2 U.S. cents) per share for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, the Beijing-based company said. That was down from 9.6 billion yuan or 0.40 yuan in 2009.
Revenue rose 11 percent from 2009 to 171.3 billion yuan ($26 billion.)
Unicom competes with rivals China Telecom Ltd. and China Mobile Ltd. to attract users to its third-generation service, which supports mobile video and other services that carriers hope will boost revenue.
Chinese …
LA CEIBA, Honduras - Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua's Miskito Coast as a record-setting Category 5 storm Tuesday, whipping metal rooftops through the air like razors and forcing thousands to flee. Hurricane Henriette made for a direct hit on the Cabos resorts of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
Twin Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes making landfall on the same day is unprecedented, according to National Hurricane Center records dating back to 1949. The closest comparison happened at 5 a.m. on Aug. 24, 1992, when Hurricane Andrew devastated southern Florida 23 hours after Hurricane Lester hit Baja California, Mexico.
"The winds are horrible," Red Cross official Claudio Vanegas said by phone from the Nicaraguan town of Puerto Cabezas shortly after Felix struck land nearby with 160 mph winds. "They send roofs flying through the air, so we aren't going outside because it is too dangerous."
Felix landed around dawn, destroying many homes, before weakening to a Category 2 storm. "There are some that are nothing more than a few remaing walls," he said.
Only two weeks earlier, Hurricane Dean struck Mexico further up the Caribbean coast. Never before in recorded hurricane history have two Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes made landfall in the same year. Only 31 Category 5 storms have been seen in the Atlantic since record-keeping began in 1886, including eight in the last five seasons.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Henriette's top winds increased to 85 mph as it bore down on Baja resorts popular with Hollywood stars and sports fishermen. Few tourists or residents had expected a direct hit, but they woke to dangerous winds and a closed airport. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center would likely hit the tip of the peninsula Tuesday afternoon.
Already, 15-foot waves sent plumes of whitewater 30 feet into the air at the main Cabo San Lucas marina, and waves hit the walls of beachfront hotels. One restaurant owner said he lost 40 percent of his beach before the storm even hit. Catamarans crashed against their moorings, rain fell in sheets and palm trees bent in the wind.
A deep-sea fishing trip was out of the question for Cynthia White, a 64-year-old retiree from Fort Myers, Fla., who spent hours before the storm watching waves break against the resort's famous rock arch.
"We're Florida tourists, so we know what it's about," White said. "It didn't ruin the vacation, but it ain't helping the case."
Henriette claimed seven lives even before it strengthened into a hurricane. One woman drowned in high surf in Cabo San Lucas on Monday, and the storm caused flooding and landslides that killed six people in Acapulco.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Henriette was centered 60 miles south-southeast of the Baja California peninsula, on a path to drench Mexico's northern deserts and then the U.S. southwest on Thursday night.
And as Felix roared inland, its winds weakened to near 100 mph and it was about 75 miles west of Puerto Cabezas by 2 p.m. EDT. It was moving at 14 mph, on a path to drench central Honduras and Guatemala before passing as a weakened tropical storm over Mexico's Tehuantepec Peninsula.
"The major concern now shifts to the threat of torrential rains over the mountains of Central America. Isolated maximum totals of 25 inches are possible. Persons living in flood-prone areas should take all precautions to protect life and property," said senior hurricane specialist Richard Pasch at the Hurricane Center in Miami.
In Nicaragua's remote northeast corner, more than 12,000 people were evacuated just ahead of Felix's landfall, including from a local hospital, but some refused to leave vulnerable coastal communities, and distress calls were received from three boats with a total of 49 people on board, civil defense official Rogelio Flores said.
In neighboring Honduras, about 5,000 residents and 3,000 tourists were evacuated from offshore islands just before Felix hit. Grupo Taca Airlines airlifted tourists from Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts, and a U.S. Chinook helicopter evacuated 19 Americans who were visiting the island, according to the U.S. Southern Command.
"I only got seven dives in. I hope they didn't jump the gun too soon," said Bob Shearer, 54, of Butler, Pa., who was disappointed his family's scuba-diving trip was cut short.
Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruises changed itineraries for a total of six cruises to avoid ports in the area.
Phones and power were out in much of the Miskito Coast, making it difficult to find out what was happening in the remote, swampy area where many people get around on canoes. Radio reports said a Catholic church in Puerto Cabezas was destroyed by winds.
Rogelio Perez, a local emergency official, said the army was preparing to fly over the area and assess damage. However, emergency officials said they had no immediate reports of victims, and that most people in low-lying areas had been moved to shelters on higher ground.
"Some refused to leave their homes, but most are safe," Vanegas said.
The only path to safety for many of those Indians was up rivers and across lakes that are too shallow for regular boats, and the damaging winds and floods could wipe out their small crops of beans, rice, cassava and plantains.
Felix was following a similar path to 1998's Hurricane Mitch, a sluggish storm that stalled for a week over Central America, killing nearly 11,000 people and leaving more than 8,000 missing, mostly in Honduras and Nicaragua.
In the highland capital of Tegucigalpa, more than 100 miles inland, authorities cleared vendors from markets prone to flooding.
In Honduras' seaside resort of La Ceiba, residents spent the night reinforcing flimsy house walls with plywood and sandbags.
"It's going to be strong, but we have faith that Christ will protect us," said 37-year-old housewife Sandra Hernandez, watching satellite images of the storm on television.
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Associated Press writers Paul Kiernan in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Diego Mendez in San Salvador, El Salvador; and Freddy Cuevas en Tegicugalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Jesse Buttrick Davis is considered to be the 1st school counselor in the United States because he was the 1st to implement a systematic guidance program in the schools. Through his work in the Michigan public schools, he became an important leader in the development of vocational guidance in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His pioneering work in the Detroit and Grand Rapids public schools laid the foundation for the counseling specialties of career counseling and school counseling. He was also 1 of the founders of the National Vocational Guidance Association (now National Career Development Association) and National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Jesse Buttrick Davis is widely considered to be the first school counselor in the United States, because he was the first to implement a systematic guidance program in the public schools (Brewer, 1942; Gladding, 2006; Schmidt, 2003). Through his work in the public schools of Michigan, he became one of the primary leaders in the development of vocational guidance in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1956b). His pioneering work in the Detroit and Grand Rapids public schools laid the foundation for the professional counseling specialties of career counseling and school counseling.
Values and Beliefs That Contributed to Davis's Achievements
Davis had a bias toward environment over heredity, toward free public schools, against racial prejudice, toward equal access to education for women, and toward the role of humor in education. Although his mother was an elitist, Davis was a man of the people who believed strongly in the free public schools and the critically important role of education in a democracy. He was a very human person, concerned with the rules as well as how to break them. His memoirs are filled with anecdotes that show the humanity of people as he pokes holes through their stuffy facades. Raised by a patrician mother who talked of the "blue bloods" (Davis, 1956b, p. 59), he learned to eschew such attitudes and became a leader in the public schools, designing education "to meet the needs of youth in a democracy" (Davis, 1956b, p. 62).
Davis was also an inveterate "joiner" because he strongly believed in the idea of giving back to his community. "The teacher who does not take his place as an active member of his community is neglecting his duty as a good citizen and is narrowing his own field of thought and service" (Davis, 1956b, p. 230). A list of the organizations in which he held membership and the groups of which he was a leader and an officer would fill too many pages for this article. He walked the walk when it came to leadership and participation in his local and professional communities. Davis valued extracurricular activities as an integral part of a well-rounded education. He gladly accepted the role of mentor, even developing a leaders' club at Grand Rapids Central High School composed of presidents, captains, editors, and so on, of school organizations that met at his house monthly (Davis, 1956b).
When Davis founded the Grand Rapids Junior College and became its first president, his bias toward a more practical education emerged. "As a professor of education, I have often told my classes that when I was graduated from college I was fairly well prepared to live in the Middle Ages" (Davis, 1956b, p. 58). He had a classic liberal arts education that included (both high school and college) 6.5 years of Latin, 4.5 years of Greek, 3 years of German, and 2 years of French; however, he could not speak the modern languages, having read the prescribed standard literature, and could not even read a newspaper in those languages, saying, "I knew practically nothing of the century in which I lived nor of the workaday world into which I was soon to launch" (p. 58).
Much of Davis's (1956b) motivation for innovation in education was in decreasing the amount of time required for students to achieve their educational objectives.
When we consider that it is now taking practically one third of a person's life expectation to prepare himself effectively to enter upon his lifework, and also that he will be forced to retire at sixty-five years of age, it is evident that the individual's period of service or production is limited beyond reason, (p. 171)
Career Decisions and an Emerging Career Path
Davis's awareness of the need for guidance came, like too many students, as he prepared for high school graduation, saying, "But I could get no help from anyone" (Davis, 1956b, p. 36). His father did not want to influence him and just told him to get his baccalaureate degree first and then he could worry about an occupation. "Teachers were concerned only with preparing you for college entrance" (Davis, 1956b, p. 37). Finally, he succumbed to his peers and decided that he would go into electrical engineering at the University of Michigan with several of his closest high school companions. After a trip to the University of Michigan, and seeing what it was that electrical engineering students studied and did, he lost interest. Later, a kindly, older Baptist minister told him to steer clear of the ministry if he could do so with a clear conscience. With such indecision and his father's guidance, he took a year off from academics right after high school but continued his classical studies of Latin and Greek with a private tutor. And, although he did not have a career epiphany during that time, he became convinced that college was the path, but to exactly what he was unsure.
Davis was, however, more worried about his career decision during his high school senior year than he was during his college years because
in the liberal arts college there was nothing to decide or worry about. It was all taken for granted. There was just one royal road to learning and I was on that road. Just as Father had said, "Get your A.B. degree first, then you can decide upon a profession." (Davis, 1956b, p. 66)
As Davis approached his college graduation, he was, however, still without a career plan and not knowing what he was going to do with his life. He even put this question to the dean of his college, to no avail. As he entered Colgate University, Davis took all of the history courses that were offered and, by default, became a history major. "Following the influence of my Aunt Sally in my childhood days, I took all the history that was offered, just because I liked it and not with any conscious vocational plan" (Davis, 1956b, p. 56).
A Peak Experience
In 1895, during Davis's senior year in college, he had a "peak experience" - so named by Abraham Maslow (1994) because of the life-changing effect that it has on an individual's life and/or career. Professor Charles H. Thurber of Colgate selected Davis to teach a class of 30 boys in English history for an ailing faculty member until the faculty member was healthy enough to return to teach. Davis liked teaching.
Later, Professor Thurber took him on a walk and, after some pleasantries, queried, "Just what are you going to build as a career on your foundation?" (Davis, 1956b, p. 67). Davis ruminated on this for days and then another chance meeting occurred with Professor Thurber, who began to help him gather some additional career information by integrating Davis's expressed interests into three potential career scenarios: two that Davis had identified (minister and lawyer), and another that Thurber had discussed (teacher).
As Davis (1956b) described it, it went something like this:
Then he [Thurber] began to draw mental pictures of [the three occupations]. . . . [H]e [also] pictured what I could do as a teacher in a high school, leading musical clubs with the pupils, coaching the boys in athletics, teaching the subject I liked best, possibly administering a school some day helping to build better men. (p. 68)
Later, Davis found himself "lying awake at night planning and still planning (about what I could do as a teacher)" (Davis, 1956b, p. 68). He was astonished at what had happened.
Davis then sought out Professor Thurber to take another walk and inform him of what he had decided. Thurber was skeptical and asked "have you made this decision because I have said anything that you have taken as my advice that you ought to teach?" Following that with "What would you say if I told you I thought you would make a rotten schoolteacher?" These questions provoked Davis to anger, and he replied that "I'll show you some day" (Davis, 1956b, p. 69). Thurber laughed and right then offered Davis his first academic position as his teaching assistant.
In Davis's memoirs, after this story, he went on to outline the basic Parsonian career counseling process (Parsons, 1909), although he did not know that at that time: He wrote that Professor Thurber (a) "helped me know myself (self-knowledge), (b) "opened my eyes to the possible fields" (gather occupational information), and (c) "made certain that I had made my own choice" (i.e., understand the relationship between these issues and make a decision [Davis, 1956b, p. 69]). "Vocational guidance was not known at that time, but it impressed the fundamental principles upon me in such a manner that it has been a major factor in my entire professional career" (Davis, 1956b, p. 69).
After College
After graduation from Colgate University in 1895, Davis applied and was selected for his first job - as a teacher in the Detroit Central High School, the same school from which he had graduated. He was paid $60 per month for 10 months - $600 per year. He taught six classes of beginning algebra, not his major, but all that was available that 1st year. In 2 years, in 1897, he was finally able to teach history and was assigned to teach Ancient History (as the least senior person), but it was his passion and he believed he was trained enough through his studies at Colgate.
Later, as he and another faculty member (head of the history department and principal of the 11th grade) were organizing a union in his high school to combat the politicization of the school (educational decisions being influenced by political leaders in the community), they were both discovered by the school administration. The other faculty member was fired, but Davis was elevated to take his school positions. Two other administrators resigned in protest of this and, with the fired faculty member, went off to start their own school. Davis struggled with the decision to resign too, but finally decided to stay and take over as head of the history department and as 11th -grade principal - a most important compromise that set the tone for his career. As llth-grade principal, he began to identify the skills and competencies of and to develop the role of school counselor (Davis, 1956b).
In 1907, Davis became the principal of the Grand Rapids Central High School in Michigan. Through his work in Grand Rapids, he also established both the first junior high school as well as the first "junior" college in Michigan, the Grand Rapids Junior College, where he served as its first president. This new junior college was developed for the express purpose of providing postsecondary training in occupations, and, because it offered courses in the evenings, it presaged the adult education movement. In 1912, he was appointed vocational guidance director for the city of Grand Rapids concurrently with his other educational duties in that city.
The year 1914 was of particular importance in the life of Davis and the vocational guidance movement. With the 1914 publication of his book, Vocational and Moral Guidance, and his election to office in the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA [secretary, in 1913, and president, in 1914]), Davis traveled throughout the United States speaking on issues concerning guidance in secondary schools.
Also, in 1914, Davis began to teach classes at various universities. From 1914 to 1916, he was invited by a number of universities to give brief courses on guidance as part of the universities' training of teachers. He lectured at the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Nebraska, and University of Illinois. He was also invited by the University of Minnesota to teach two courses as part of the summer session of 1915: Principles of Vocational Guidance and Public School Administration. Davis greatly enjoyed that level of teaching - a portent of things to come.
In 1915, Davis was one of the founders and the second president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, when 30 high school principals met at the Lasalle Hotel in Chicago during the convention of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1917, Davis was made director of the Boys' Working Reserve in the U.S. Department of Labor, and later, in 1918, chief of the Junior Section, U.S. Employment Service, and associate director of the Boys' Working Reserve, U.S. Department of Labor. His role there was to develop and initiate a system of junior counselors in the federal employment offices throughout the country.
In 1920, Davis began teaching at Yale as an adjunct professor during the regular term and at Harvard in the summers. The portent was resolved when, in 1924, he moved into university teaching full-time and accepted the positions of professor at Boston University and part-time lecturer at Harvard University. In 1935, he became the dean of the School of Education at Boston University. He retired as dean in 1942 and from Boston University in 1951, died in November, 1955, and his completed memoirs were published in 1956 (Davis, 1956b).
On Becoming a School Counselor
Davis was a very student-focused educator and had a passion for his role of helping his students. The four grade principals (Grade-9 principal, etc.) at Detroit Central High School were responsible for students'
attendance and issuing permits to re-enter classes after absence, the planning of their individual programs of study, and for handling all matters of discipline . . . [as well as assisting] ... the principal of the school in problems of administration such as preparing the schedule of classes and determining general policies. (Davis, 1956b, p. 114)
He also had "the opportunity to serve as a guidance counselor, a term not yet invented" (p. 1 14), for his 500+ students, similar, unfortunately, to today's school counselor workload. He believed that "(a)s a guide of youth, he must know the kind of world and the workaday problems his pupils must be prepared to face" (Davis, 1956b, p. 122) and that a case of discipline was an "opportunity for character building" (p. 134).
Davis (1956b) believed that the role of parents in guidance counseling was not always positive:
Guidance counselors will testify that it is often more difficult to deal with the parents than with the pupils. They are wont to determine what their offspring should enter as a profession or business with no consideration of the pupils' aptitude or ability or their own interests and desires for themselves. Too often they cannot realize that the child has matured to the point of having some judgment of his own and a strong desire for a little independence and responsibility, (p. 120)
At Grand Rapids Central High School, during his principalship, Davis had the opportunity to implement his beliefs and did so with passion (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1912, 1914, 1956b). He established a systematic guidance program that reached from the junior high school to the high school, again using the three steps that he observed earlier in his life. Guidance was made the major function of Grades 7, 8, and 9. The process for the "guidance period" was that every Friday, in the English classes, students would prepare essays on various assigned topics. In Grades 7 and 8, the theme was "Ambition" and the "attempt was to arouse the desire to be someone worthwhile" (Step 1: self-knowledge [Davis, 1956b, p. 179]). The emphasis was on character building in Grade 9. In Grade 10, the focus was on "World's Work," where students reported on the occupations of their parents, friends, or on some occupation in which they were interested (Step 2: occupational information). The Grade- 1 1 theme was "Choice of a Vocation and Preparing for It," and the Grade- 12 theme was "Service" - "the use of one's vocation as a loyal citizen serving his community" (Step 3: career choice [Davis, 1956b, p. 179]).
But, the "spirit of guidance" was not limited to 1 day and one class each week; it permeated the entire curriculum under the leadership of Davis:
The "career motive" was used by all teachers to inspire a new interest in their fields of study. . . . History teachers had their pupils looking up the origins or historical backgrounds of the vocations in which they were interested. (Davis, 1956b, pp. 179-180)
The success of the systematic guidance program that was developed under the leadership of Davis was chronicled in his aforementioned book, Vocational and Moral Guidance. In this book, Davis and his teachers presented what he called the "Grand Rapids Plan." Davis wrote chapters and edited the manuscript while his teachers also contributed chapters, reviewed the manuscripts, and even typed the final copy. This book became the blueprint for implementing a systematic guidance program in the schools through several editions and over 20 years in publication (Davis, 1956b).
There was also such a great need for occupational information to inform the student's career decision making that Davis even was able to get himself appointed by the governor of Michigan as a "State Factory Inspector." He did this so that he could have access to the occupational information that was included in other inspectors' reports on the industries in Grand Rapids.
In 1917, during World War I, as mentioned earlier, Davis was made director of the Boys' Working Reserve in the U.S. Department of Labor, and later, in 1918, chief of the Iunior Section, U.S. Employment Service, and associate director, Boys' Working Reserve, U.S. Department of Labor. His role was to develop and initiate a system of junior counselors in the federal employment offices throughout the country. The role of such counselors was to "keep youth in school and away from the temptations prevailing at that period" (Davis, 1956b, p. 203). Davis laid out the role of these junior counselors that might be the first ever statement of the role of school counselors:
The specific duties of Junior Counselors shall be as follows:
(a) To influence boys and girls to remain in school as long as possible.
(b) To help youth who have to leave school to go to work in making a start in right lines.
(c) To arouse the ambition of boys and girls to fit themselves for definite life careers.
(d)To advise youth who are employed where they could find some form of trade, technical, or business school for special training.
(e) To encourage the establishing of needed opportunities for vocational guidance in the community.
(f) To follow up all applicants in their training and at their work to see tJhat they have the best available advantages of study and labor. This process should continue until they are well established in their vocational plans.
(g)To keep (a) system of files and reports. (Davis, 1956b, p. 204)
In his final report to the director general of the U.S. Employment Service, he wrote of his passion to help those who were less fortunate and must go to work directly from high school.
Vast sums of money are being spent annually in behalf of tile two million boys and girls of the "teen" age whose parents are able to keep them in school, but very little has been done for the less privileged nine million boys and girls of the same age who have had to go out unaided and unguided to make their way in the workaday world. It is for these boys and girls that the Junior Section has been established. (Davis, 1956b, p. 205)
The junior section did not survive long, as is the fate of many political entities. It was, however, an important governmental initiative and laid the foundation for school counseling in the 1920s and employment counseling in government in the 1940s.
Leader in the. Vocational Guidance Movement
From 1910 to 1920, Davis devoted his major attention to pioneering and promoting the new vocational guidance movement. Even in 1956, his concept of guidance had not changed much over the years, and he still approved of his definition to the extent that, in 1914, he wrote the following:
Vocational guidance means the gradual unfolding of the individual's better understanding of his own aptitudes and abilities, and an awakening of his own moral consciousness; it means the opening of his eyes to the broad fields of opportunity in the world; it means a selection of and a preparation for his own best field of service; it means a conception of himself as a social being in some future occupation, and from this viewpoint, an appreciation of his duty and obligation toward his business associates, his neighbors, and the law. (Davis, 1956b, p. 207)
Davis's pioneering work in vocational guidance in the schools came to the attention of many people during that time, so much so that the organizing convention of the new NVGA was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from October 22 to 24, 1913. On Wednesday, October 22, 1913, during the convention, Davis led a full school demonstration of the Grand Rapids guidance plan. The members of the entire convention came to the Grand Rapids Central High School at 9:00 a.m. and were firsthand observers of how this plan worked. They attended guidance classes and observed the actual group guidance procedures of the graded plan, they heard from the Junior Chamber of Commerce about its guidance work of collecting career information and from the Boys and Girls Leadership Clubs about how they promoted leadership and participation, and they were even presented a film showing apprentice training in an industry. The day ended with a luncheon prepared by the high school's Department of Domestic Science and a question and answer session.
Davis's rise, however, to becoming a founder and leader of this new vocational guidance movement came about through his extensive involvement in national professional activities and his success in developing a systematic and comprehensive program of vocational guidance that permeated the junior and senior high schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1910, Davis attended the First National Conference on vocational guidance, which was held in Boston (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1956a). This conference was initiated by David Snedden, Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts; supported by Frank Thompson of the Boston schools; and organized by Meyer Bloomfield, Director of the Vocation Bureau of Boston. This conference drew delegates from 35 cities around the United States for presentations and discussions on vocational guidance and its various manifestations. Davis gave an account of his work in the Grand Rapids schools, but "was ruled out of order at first when he began to tell of using English classes for guidance. Apparently few had envisioned the possibilities through curriculum studies" (Brewer, 1942, p. 139).
Davis, however, had made his point and, at the Second National Conference (held from October 23 to 26 in 1912 at Teachers College, Columbia University), he was recognized for his contributions by being appointed to the committee charged to "consider the possibility of effecting a national organization to further the interests of vocational guidance" (Brewer, 1942, p. 141). Committee members were Arthur Dean (Chairman), director of Industrial Education, New York State; Mrs. Bryant B. Glenney and Meyer Bloomfield from Boston; lesse B. Davis, Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Benjamin Gruenberg, New York City.
At the first meeting of this committee, however, there was a rebellion by the members who were not from New York City. The members from New York City had prepared a draft report that those not from New York City believed was too locally focused. The members not from New York City then proposed a different approach. They proposed that the organizing group should (a) represent all parts of the United States to make it a national movement, (b) represent the various organizations interested in the guidance of youth (YMCA, YWCA, etc. ), (c) be given the authority to add to its membership such persons who might be helpful in carrying out its task, and (d) be empowered to call the organizing convention at such time and place as they deemed expethent and there to perfect the organization and elect its officers.
After two meetings, the organizing group accepted this new proposal and reported this to the national conference. This report was accepted and, as a result, a new committee was appointed with the following membership: Jesse B. Davis (chairman), Grand Rapids, Michigan; Meyer Bloomfield, Boston; Eli W. Weaver, Brooklyn, New York; Edith Campbell, Cincinnati, Ohio; J. G. Olmstead, YMCA, New York City; Arthur Dean, state director of Industrial Education, Albany, New York; and William Weiner, principal of a high school, Newark, New Jersey. At the first meeting of this new committee, they added Frank Leavitt, University of Chicago; James Hiatt, Philadelphia Public School Association; and Charles A. Prosser, executive secretary of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (later to be called the National Vocational Education Association).
The first meeting of this new committee was held during the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education convention in Philadelphia, in 1913. Plans were developed to hold the organizing convention from October 21 to 24, 1913, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the same time as the convention of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. Frank Leavitt was chosen to chair the committee to plan the details of the convention. The program was chosen by Davis (as the local host), Prosser, and Leavitt, and the first mailing list was provided by Davis on the basis of those who had inquired about the Grand Rapids plan of guidance in the schools. The committee recommended that the new organization be called the NVGA.
That first NVGA convention had 274 participants, from 26 states; the District of Columbia; Ontario, Canada; Puerto Rico; and the Institute of Sociology in Brussels, Belgium. There were 44 participants from Illinois, 34 from New York, 31 from Michigan, 24 from Pennsylvania, 23 from Ohio, and 14 from Wisconsin; the Pacific Coast states had 19 and the South had 12 participants. The speakers were a tremendous collection of prominent people ofthat era, including Owen R Lovejoy, secretary of the National Child Labor Committee; Leonard P. Ayres, Russell Sage Foundation; Ida M. Tarbell, editor, American Magazine; Julia C. Lathrop, head of the Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor; and Woodbridge N. Ferris, governor of the state of Michigan. The current president of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education was William C. Redfield, who was also the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and was very active in developing the program (Davis, 1956b).
At the organizing convention of NVGA, in 1913, the first officers were also chosen and included Frank Leavitt (president), Chicago; Alice M. Barrows (vice president), New York City; Jesse B. Davis (secretary), Grand Rapids, Michigan; James S. Hiatt (treasurer), Philadelphia; with an Executive Council of Meyer Bloomfield, M. Edith Campbell, George P. Knox, O. W. Burroughs, and E. M. Robinson.
The second NVGA convention was held in Richmond, Virginia, in 1914, again, in conjunction with the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. New NVGA officers were elected and included Jesse B. Davis (president), Grand Rapids, Michigan; Anne Davis (vice president), Chicago; W. Carson Ryan (secretary), Washington, DC; James S. Hiatt (treasurer), Philadelphia. An Executive Council was also elected and was composed of Frank Leavitt, Charles A. Prosser, Arthur W. Dunn, F. B. Dyer, and Meyer Bloomfield (Brewer, 1942).
At that convention, it was decided that the next NVGA convention should be held in Oakland, California, in 1915, but it would not be held in conjunction with the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education's annual convention (Davis, 1956a). Davis strongly believed that vocational guidance and vocational education were being confused in the minds of the public as evidenced in newspaper accounts and that NVGA needed to develop its own identity. He used his influence to hold the convention just in advance of the NEA convention as a number of other professional associations were also doing (Davis, 1956b).
In 1916, at the NVGA convention, Meyer Bloomfield was elected the third president. As the United States entered the World War I years, NVGA struggled (as did many other associations) in 1918. There was no convention in 1919, but an annual meeting was held in St. Louis, Missouri, with an address and several reports on guidance activities around the country. Most of the current officers of NVGA did not attend this meeting, and there was no election of new officers. This nascent organization almost died, but it was revived in 1920 largely through the efforts of John M. Brewer of Harvard and Dean of Women Katherine F. Ball at the University of Minnesota (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1956b). Davis again played an important role in saving this new organization and in maintaining its historical continuity as he fought to preserve the original name, the NVGA (Brewer, 1942).
Today, the National Career Development Association (formerly NVGA) is the preeminent career development and career counseling professional association in the world. With more than 5,000 members, the association continued the traditions and focus established by Davis and his colleagues in 1913.
Summary and Conclusion
Davis was the first school guidance counselor in the United States and was the first person in the United States to implement a systematic guidance program in the public schools (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1914; Gladding, 2006; Schmidt, 2003). Like most new ideas or inventions, they arise at a specific point in time because of a special confluence of external forces, especially societal epochs, economics, and people. I have written about this phenomenon in my social transitions stage model (Pope, 2000), describing the development of the career counseling profession in the United States. The late 1890s and early 1900s were a time of much turmoil with a society in transition from an agricultural to an industrial foundation. Millions of young people were being thrown into the world of work with little preparation or guidance (Davis, 1956a). As these social forces compelled a citizenry toward change, the need for help with this difficult process spread into the schools. Davis and other educators saw the need and responded.
Although Davis was the first, others also deserve mention as important leaders in this new guidance movement in the schools (Brewer, 1942). Eli Weaver at the Boys High School of Brooklyn implemented similar programs in New York City in 1908. Frank Goodwin led this work in the Cincinnati, Ohio, schools by 1911. I. B. Morgan carried on similar guidance work in the Kansas City, Missouri, schools beginning in 1912 as well as James S. Hiatt in the Philadelphia schools. In 1913, Anna Y. Reed developed guidance programs in the Seattle, Washington, school system along with O. W. Burroughs in Pittsburgh. Davis and other pioneers richly deserve the credit for their work: "These and other efforts in guidance established the beginnings of what was to become the school counseling profession" (Schmidt, 2003, p. 7). These pioneers were influenced gready by the work of Frank Parsons (1909) through his book, Choosing a Vocation, and the Vocation Bureau that he established in Boston (Brewer, 1942).
Although many of the pioneers of vocational guidance were social workers or religious workers, Davis was an educator, which gave him a unique perspective on these issues. Through his groundbreaking work in the public schools of Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan, he became one of the primary leaders in the development of vocational guidance in the United States, in the late 180Os and early 1900s, and laid the foundation for the professional counseling specialties of both career counseling and school counseling (Brewer, 1942; Davis, 1956b). Davis's (1914) book, Vocational and Moral Guidance, became the blueprint for implementing vocational guidance in educational settings throughout the early years of the 20th century.
Davis went from a high school teacher to a college of education dean over his lifetime. He had many achievements, including founder of the first junior high school and junior college in Michigan, founder and second president of the NVGA (now National Career Development Association), and founder and second president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to name a few. He had an exceptional career that spanned 50 years of the most important times in our society's educational development, and he was an important contributor to those times.
As an educator, he touched many lives, and those students have gone on to also make important contributions to U.S. society. Davis's (1956b) book is replete with statements regarding the pride he had for the success of his pupils and about how they had gone on in their lives to become prominent citizens. His students fondly referred to him as "Uncle J. B.," and he never called them students but "his boys and girls" (Davis, 1956b, p. 21 1 ). Even in his writings, he never referred to them as students, only "pupils." "Pupils" at Grand Rapids Central High School came to his office, not afraid of being called into the principal's office but for help. Like the young girl who exclaimed as she entered, "Oh Uncle J. B., I am in trouble, will you help me?" (Davis, 1956b, p. 21 1). And, as any good school counselor would, he always found time and a way to help.
( Note. Extensive quotations from The Saga of a Schoolmaster, by J. B. Davis, 1956, Boston: Boston University Press. Copyright 1956 by Trustees of Boston University. Extensive quotations reprinted with permission.)
[Reference]
References
Brewer, J. M. (1942). History of vocational guidance: Origins and early development. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Davis, J. B. (1912). Vocational and moral guidance through English composition. The English Journal, 1, 457-465.
Davis, J. B. (1914). Vocational and moral guidance. Boston: Ginn.
Davis, J. B. (1956a). Looking backwards: The problem of vocational guidance stated. The Personnel and Guidance Journal, 34, 420-422.
Davis, J. B. (1956b). The saga of a schoolmaster. Boston: Boston University Press.
Gladding, S. T. (2006). Counseling: A comprehensive profession (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Maslow, A. H. (1994). Religion, values, and peak experiences. New York: Penguin Books/ Arkana.
Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a vocation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Pope, M. (2000). A brief history of career counseling in the United States. The Career Development Quarterly, 48, 194-211.
Schmidt, J. J. (2003). Counseling in the schools: Essential services and comprehensive programs (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
[Author Affiliation]
Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, University of Missouri-St. Louis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark Pope, Division of Counseling and Family Therapy, College of Education, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 415 Marillac Hall, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4499 (e-mail: pope@umsl.edu).
� 2009 by the National Career Development Association. All rights reserved.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — An official says 24 people have died in a remote region in northern Kenya after two communities clashed over resources.
Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Osman Warfa said Tuesday that Monday's fighting was caused by disputes over boundaries, scarce water resources and herding ground for cattle owned by the communities that live near the border between Kenya and Ethiopia.
He said members of the Merille community from Ethiopia shot and killed an elder of the Turkana community from Kenya, sparking a series of revenge attacks. Warfa says 20 Turkana and four Merille men were shot dead.
Guns have become readily available in Kenya's border regions, since neighboring countries have been involved in conflicts.
MILWAUKEE - Prince Fielder set a franchise record with his 13th homer this month, J.J. Hardy drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth and the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Florida Marlins 4-3 on Thursday night.
Corey Hart doubled with two outs in the eighth and Hardy followed with a single off Matt Lindstrom (0-2) for his team-leading 46th RBI.
The Marlins made a move to improve their bullpen late Thursday, agreeing to send reliever Randy Messenger to the San Francisco Giants for struggling closer Armando Benitez.
The struggling Brewers have lost seven of nine and are 6-14 since starting 24-10, but snapped the Marlins' six-game road winning streak.
Fielder got to Wes Obermueller in the fourth for a two-run homer off the bottom of the batter's eye in center field to give the Brewers a 3-2 lead.
Fielder moved into a tie with the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez for the major league lead with 19 homers overall. He also set a franchise record for homers in any month, surpassing 12 set by Gorman Thomas (August 1979) and tied by Greg Vaughn (June 1996) and Jeromy Burnitz (June 1999).
Milwaukee's bullpen held up a day after its relievers allowed eight runs in the final two innings of a 9-3 loss to Atlanta. Carlos Villanueva (4-0) threw two scoreless innings and Francisco Cordero earned his 19th save in as many chances.
The Marlins, on an 11-game, 10-day road trip, had started 3-0 and were looking to get back to .500 for the first time since May 4, but they squandered a bunch of opportunities, including a bases-loaded threat with one out in the fourth.
Brewers starter Claudio Vargas struck out Alfredo Amezaga and got Dan Uggla to pop out to get out of the fourth. Vargas went six innings, giving up three runs and six hits with two walks. He struck out six.
Obermueller, who pitched for the Brewers from 2003-05, looked much sharper than his previous start, when he gave up seven runs and eight hits in four innings against the Mets.
He went seven innings against Milwaukee and allowed six hits and three runs. Miguel Cabrera drove in two runs for Florida.
Hardy went 3-for-4 with two RBIs for Milwaukee.
Notes:@ Third base umpire Eric Cooper wasn't on the field when the game started after "traffic issues" kept him from the ballpark. Cooper arrived and ran out to his position after three batters in the top of the first. ... Brewers 2B Rickie Weeks (right wrist) missed his second straight game. ... Marlins RHP Josh Johnson (right elbow) will make a rehab start Sunday for Single-A Jupiter. ... Marlins 1B Mike Jacobs (broken right thumb) will not participate in baseball activities for the next three to five days.
Amid all the death in the bridge collapse were untold scores ofpeople amazed to have survived the fall.
"The first vehicle we came up on was completely submerged andcrushed," police Sgt. Ed Nelson said. "I asked a gentleman if he sawanybody get out of that vehicle. He looked at me and said, 'That wasme.' "
Melissa Hughes, a warehouse manager, remembers the view from thebridge tumbling around her.
"All of a sudden, things were up in the air. Things weren't onthe ground anymore," she said. "I swear I saw a construction workerin mid-air. Then I had that free-falling feeling."
As suddenly as it plunged, her car had stopped. Then she heard ahuge crash as her back window exploded. Later, looking over thescene, she realized the noise had come from a black pickup truckthat had flipped and fallen on top of her car.
"I heard people yelling. There was one person standing outsidethe vehicle just screaming in pain, grabbing his back and justfalling to his knees."
Jay Reeves, driving home from his office at the American RedCross, saw the bridge collapse. The first thing he heard waschildren's voices from inside a bus.
"Screaming kids are good," Reeves said. "That means they're aliveand full of a lot of energy."
Results Monday in English soccer (home teams listed first):
Premier League
Manchester City 1, Sunderland 0
League Championship
Barnsley 2, Blackpool 1
PORTLAND, Ore. - Scotland's largest utility is buying U.S.utilityPacifiCorp for about $7.9 billion in stock.
The deal announced today would create a company with 7 millioncustomers in Britain and the United States.
While other foreign companies have invested in power plants intheUnited States, this deal if approved by regulators would be thefirstpurchase of an entire U.S. electric utility by a foreign company.PacifiCorp, the third-largest utility west of the Mississippi, has1.4 million customers in seven Western states and about 10,000employees. It is the holding company for Pacific Power and UtahPower.ScottishPower, with some 15,000 employees, supplies gas, water,electricity and phone services to 5 million British homes and hasholdings in the telecommunications, electrical and homeentertainmentindustries."PacifiCorp is an ideal partner for ScottishPower," ScottishPowerchief executive officer Ian Robinson said in a statement. "Thecompany combines an attractive asset base and customer profile withacore utility business offering substantial scope for improvedefficiency."ScottishPower shares dropped 48 cents a share, or 4.3 percent, to$1.07 in early trading in London.Under the terms of the deal, ScottishPower will pay stock worth$25.13 per share at Friday's close for each share of PacifiCorp.PacifiCorp stock closed Friday at $20.75, meaning shareholders wouldgain a 21 percent increase.The deal will give ScottishPower shareholders 64 percent ownershipof the combined company and 36 percent to PacifiCorp shareholders.ScottishPower also will assume PacifiCorp's $4.9 billion debt.Either company must pay a $250 million fee if the deal is terminatedunder certain circumstances.The new company will be based in Glasgow, but PacifiCorp would runScottishPower's U.S. operations from Portland.
Twelve hundred of the 3,700 employees who work for Bruce Power, a utility company in Tiverton, Ontario, are eligible to retire in the next three years. CEO Duncan Hawthorne sees that as a threat - and an opportunity.
The opportunity: Infuse Canada's first private nuclear power generator with new blood, thinking and technical skills.
The threat: Retirees leave with more than two decades of knowledge about Bruce Power's reactors, how those units are maintained, and all the little items - such as the quirks of an aging steam generator and ways to weld metals that have been altered by extreme heat - that can't be found in textbooks.
Simply put, the generator of 20% of Ontario's power could come apart almost literally at its seams.
Hawthorne can, of course, afford to lose the retirees' salaries. What he can't afford to lose is what's in their heads.
"These workers were here in the mid-1970s when the site was commissioned and the boilers were installed," Hawthorne says. "They have the full history. We can replace the certifications, but not the tricks of the trade and the skills of a craftsman. We don't want to lose that corporate knowledge."
His answer? Making "sure we've sucked dry the experience of workers before they leave." His tool? A knowledge database created using Kana Software's IQ application. When finished, the company will have access to information on everything from how to weld steam-pipe fittings and their supports, to how to perform an exit interview properly, to workarounds for repairing an office printer.
A knowledge management project might seem like a no-brainer, but it's hard to quantify, according to Jim Murphy, an analyst at AMR Research. First, a system has to be developed so it can apply to multiple parts of the business such as human resources and plant maintenance. Then you need employees to use the system and deliver their knowledge by inputting tips into a Web form. Even if that goes well, measuring returns on sharing experience and saving time isn't easy.
Nevertheless, Murphy says knowledge management software is being used in businesses that have a large number of pending retirees, and where operating efficiencies or a competitive advantage such as a novel R&D technique can be promised. A pharmaceutical company, for instance, can't just let the scientist who has developed a patented drug defect to a rival.
The rub: "It's an inexact way of approaching the problem, but it's better than nothing," Murphy says.
Hawthorne says most of Bruce Power's returns are anecdotal - a crew, say, that used information from the knowledge base to save an hour on a reactor repair. But there aren't any hard numbers linking knowledge management to the end result. "We track work crew tasks, compare crews and look at errors and time to completion, but it's hard to say how much can be attributed directly to knowledge management," he says.
However, Hawthorne sees knowledge management as a necessity. And supervisors can create and maintain metrics that will give some idea of the benefits produced.
Murphy says most companies using knowledge management software try to calculate returns based on phone calls saved, time saved - say, 15 minutes a day - or lower training costs.
But that assumes you could put a value on saved time, and employees used the time for work. "If I had an extra 4 minutes a day, what would I really do with it?" Murphy asks.
Hawthorne went ahead with the knowledge management project because it serves as an insurance policy. "We can never be in a position of not knowing how to do something," he says. "This allows older workers to pass along skills and help train future workers."
Christophe Michel, manager of technology solutions at Bruce Power, says the company began its knowledge management rollout slowly in early 2002 by focusing on human resources. The problem: Bruce Power had too many phone calls about policies governing vacation time and benefits. The fix was developing a portal that could handle the most basic questions and free up managers for more complicated queries.
The project, completed in November 2002, served as a template for a dozen areas, ranging from welding to strategic issues such as company positions on the environment and technology support.
According to Michel, each knowledge base has the same look and feel, and includes Web forms to allow workers to input "knowledge deliverables" about a specific activity. For instance, a report on a turbine repair would include the job, time to complete it, and details on any hurdles such as metal that unexpectedly fused and how they were overcome. The data is shared across the company and, in some cases, the nuclear power industry, which shares information about plant operations since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979.
The challenge is convincing employees that sharing knowledge about something like maintaining the brackets that hold steam pipes in a generator is important. "The success of knowledge management might be 20% to 30% technology, and the rest is process and culture," Michel says. "The most significant hurdle is changing the attitudes toward daily work."
Hawthorne says the goal is to capture data on jobs that don't occur daily, say, restarting a steam generator after an outage. He says that knowledge is the most likely information to be lost as retirees walk off into the sunset.
If all goes well, Hawthorne says Bruce Power will retain its corporate culture and provide road maps to do both routine and once-in-a-decade tasks. Hawthorne likens knowledge management to the difference between getting directions from Mapquest and a local truck driver.
"You can print a map that gives you a route; that's easy," Hawthorne says. "But that route won't tell you where the construction is unless you get directions from someone who has traveled that route. We're trying to retain that knowledge."
Bruce Power collects employee experience with knowledge management software. Quantifying returns is the hard part.
YELLOW LIGHT Evaluate. The value of encoding knowledge is hard to quantify.
GREEN LIGHT Go
YELLOW LIGHT Caution
RED LIGHT Stop
CEO: Duncan Hawthorne Decision: Whether to use knowledge management software to ease a retirement wave.
How Do You Know If You're Getting a Return?
Decision
*license supports 100 concurrent users at $1,500 each in 2003, 2004. Company didn't disclose costs. **first-year development cost $500,000, with a full-time and part-time developer in future years. ***assumes 1,850 workers use software after two years. one employee accounted for $74,971 in profit before taxes in 2004. Assumes an 8-hour workday; 7.5 minutes saved is used on work. Sources: AMR Research; Baseline; kana software
EXPENDITURES 2002 2003 2004
Software costs* $1,000,000 $150,000 $150,000
Development costs** $500,000 $120,000 $120,000
TOTAL $1,500,000 $270,000 $270,000
SAVINGS
15 minutes a day*** $0 $0 $2,160,800
$0 $0 $0
TOTAL $0 $0 $2,160,800
NET ($1,500,000) ($270,000) $1,890,800
NET in first-year dollars (2002) ($1,500,000) ($245,455) $1,562,645
Discounted to present at 10% a year. Calculations in U.S. dollars
Dashboard
NET PRESENT VALUE: ($182,809.92) Three years of net values
FreshDirect chairman Rick Braddock, 63, isn't going to dazzle you with technology know-how, but he has a knack for using systems to make commerce a little easier.
At Citibank, where he served as president from 1990 to 1992, Braddock helped double use of the bank's automated teller machines. As chief executive of Priceline, he brought reverse auctions to the travel business. Now he leads New York-based online grocer FreshDirect as it marches toward an initial public offering.
Experience has taught Braddock not to look at return on investment as the magic metric, because it doesn't foretell success. Instead, Braddock focuses on sales metrics such as average order size. His take: Monitor how you're doing with customers, and the rest will take care of itself.
Baseline news editor Larry Dignan recently spoke with Braddock about FreshDirect's prospects and metrics.
Why does the FreshDirect model work where Webvan [an online grocer that went bankrupt] didn't?
Look at the business model of FreshDirect. We have a 300,000-square-foot facility and buy product directly from the source, turn it around and ship it directly to customers. We get [groceries to customers] at least seven days faster than a traditional grocery store supply chain. We have no stores, so we can reduce costs and have higher margins [and can pass that] along to customers. Since the product is directly shipped, it's higher quality and fresher. That's the reason we exist. Webvan didn't have that model with direct purchase and turnaround. They didn't develop a consumer proposition and had a low average order size. They used their capital to build out their warehouse and manufacturing network around the country before they validated the proposition for the customer.
What are your best performance metrics? What's the big number?
I'm very numeric the way I manage, but I believe you can have big problems when you pick out one big number. I think naming one metric would be a mistake as a leader. Because if I did that, it would convey that I only care about one thing. I'm 63 years old and have run businesses for 30 years, and I've learned that what I look at as a businessman influences the development of the people who work with me. If I take a simplistic view of the business, which one number would imply, I do a bad training job, a bad development job and a bad management job.
So what measurements are important to you?
For FreshDirect, trial and repeat customers matter. You have to get a new customer to try FreshDirect, but that doesn't always mean he'll become a loyal customer. So frequency matters. There's also a set of customer service metrics you have to track. Early in a customer relationship, you have to be strong in your service delivery. In all Internet businesses - and perhaps more in this one - you need to replace a [person's] face with reliable, high-quality service. You also have average order size - which is what harpooned Webvan. You have to have a nuanced view of the customer from a lot of different dimensions.
Why not focus on returns on investment and capital?
To me, those types of return metrics are lagging indicators of business performance. If you don't get your business right from a customer perspective, you're not going to have a fun time looking at returns on investment. In my view, the first thing to do is work the customer dimensions and then look to the ROI and similar measures. Usually when a company misses its financial metrics, it has been in decline for a while. And the reaction to fix it is usually a financial reaction when it should be to go back and look at the business proposition to the consumer to see what's wrong.
So, the behind-the-scenes technology - bar codes, manufacturing lines and distribution centers - doesn't interest you?
I don't consider myself good at that kind of thing. I'm more engaged strategically with technology. The kind of issue that interests me with FreshDirect, Priceline and the Internet in general is the conversation with the customer where you have a real-time relationship. The problem with most Internet applications is that there has to be a stake in the ground between a dumb application - the historical way people bought books, music and airline tickets - and a conversational one-on-one approach where you're pivoting off the knowledge you gain from e-commerce transactions. Just like a credit card company, FreshDirect has a ton of information on its customers, but I'd call it data, not information, at this point.
B. Mar. 2, 1949 in Toronto, Ont. Political Career: Elected to the H. of C. g.e. 2004. Party: Lib. Address: Leg. Office: House of Commons, Ottawa, ON., K1A 0A6, (613)996-4984, Fax: (613)996-4986 Riding office: 2 King St. W, Unit 2, Dundas, Ont., L9H 6Z1; Email: powers.r@parl.gc.ca.
POWERS, RUSS (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale) Né le 2 mars 1949 à Toronto, Ont. Carrière politique: Élu pour la première fois à la C. des c. é.g. 2004. Parti pol.: Lib. Adresse: Bureau Lég.: Chambre des communes, Ottawa, ON., K1A 0A6, (613)996-4984, Fax: (613)996-4986 Bureau Circonscription: 2, rue King Ouest, Unit 2, Dundas, Ont., L9H 6Z1; Courriel: powers.r@parl.gc.ca.
A Third party looks "very unlikely" to be sought over the deathsof a North-east beauty queen and a drug addict.
A preliminary inquiry will almost certainly rule out theinvolvement of a third person in Saranna Buchan, pictured, and JamieLogan's deaths.
The pair were found dead in their Peterhead flat just over a monthago. Peterhead fiscal Sandy Hutchison is finalising a probe into thetragedy based on extensive police evidence.
He is awaiting the results of tests before he reveals how hebelieves they died.
Mr Hutchison said it was "very unlikely" that anyone else wasinvolved in the deaths and he hoped to finish his inquiry in thenext few weeks.
Miss Buchan, 20, whose funeral is being held tomorrow, was killedby a severe blow to the head.
Mr Logan, 41, died after taking a lethal cocktail of drugs.
Police were working on the theory that Mr Logan beat hisgirlfriend to death before taking an overdose.
Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. are in talks about a possible combination of the two financial companies, according to an official with direct knowledge of the talks.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly because the discussions were ongoing. Spokesmen for Bank of America and Merrill Lynch did not return calls seeking comment.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America has the most deposits of any U.S. bank, while Merrill Lynch is the world's largest brokerage. A combination of the two would create a global banking giant to rival Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank in terms of assets.
Major banks and brokerages met this weekend with government officials to try to formulate a rescue of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The withdrawal of Bank of America, along with the pullout of Barclays PLC from the talks, raised the possibility that Lehman might be forced to file for bankruptcy protection.
Many market participants believe Merrill Lynch _ the first of the major financial services firms to oust its CEO after the credit markets seized up last year _ might have been the next firm to lose the confidence of its investors, counterparties and clients.
Lehman's shares fell a stunning 77 percent last week to $3.65 a share, but Merrill's also performed poorly, dropping 36 percent to $17.05.
Merrill Lynch, whose current chief executive is former New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain, is a more attractive takeover candidate to Bank of America than Lehman is, however, given its size, scope, and foothold in the retail market.
"This is the ultimate New York institution," said Jim Wilcox, professor of financial institutions at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas Business School. "Bank of America has had designs on Manhattan one way or another for some time."
And while Merrill's books are far from clean, there is less uncertainty about its financial health.
"It's awfully difficult to get anyone to take on a fundamentally insolvent instution. And if that's the concern that people had about Lehman, it's a much tougher sale," Wilcox said.
In July, Merrill sold its stake in financial news and data provider Bloomberg LP for $4.43 billion to raise capital, and then sold a huge chunk of its toxic asset-backed securities and issued new stock to raise another $8.5 billion.
Bank of America Corp. has tried many times to build a strong investment bank, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the business only to see it underperform.
"At Bank of America, their investment bank never really dominated any product area. Merrill Lynch is stronger," said Len Blum, managing director at Westwood Capital LLC and former managing director of Prudential Securities Inc.'s investment banking group.
After a massive drop in the investment bank's earnings in last year's third quarter, Bank of America's CEO Ken Lewis said during a conference call: "I never say never. But I've had all of the fun I can stand in investment banking at the moment. So to get bigger in it is not something I really want to do."
___
AP Business Writer Joe Bel Bruno contributed to this report.
No, there is no proof that they exist. I don't think it's truethat there is other life on Mars, I think this is it.
Fiona Smillie, 18, care assistant, Ellon
No, I haven't seen one and there's no evidence as far as I can seethat aliens do exist.
Keith Fentiman, 60, contracts engineer, Oldmeldrum
For the size of the solar system there's bound to be somethingelse, but until there is some proof, I don't believe in them.
John Duncan, 26, joiner, Danestone
Yes, I feel technology has caught up with us and where did it comefrom, there has got to be something else out there.
Jackie Hutchison, 43, product and purchasing manager, Danestone
Scoreboard Monday after Sri Lanka's innings in the Asia Cup Super Four match against Bangladesh at National Stadium in Karachi:
Sri Lanka Innings
Sanath Jayasuriya c Iqbal b Kapali 130
Kumar Sangakkara b Razzak 121
Mahela Jayawardene c Ashraful b Kapali 20
Chamara Kapugedera c Kapali b Hossain 1
Chamara Silva lbw b Reza 5
Tillakaratne Dilshan run out 2
Chaminda Vaas c Hasan b Reza 7
Thilan Thushara b Mortaza 10
Nuwan Kulasekera not out 18
Ajantha Mendis not out 8
Extras: (3lb, 5w, 2nb) 10
TOTAL: (for 8 wickets) 332.
Overs: 50.
Batting time: 219 minutes.
Fall of wickets: 1-201, 2-235, 3-243, 4-263, 5-267, 6-292, 7-304, 8-310.
Did not bat: Muttiah Muralitharan.
Bowling: Mashrafe Mortaza 10-0-78-1 (3w), Shahadat Hossain 7-1-46-1 (2w), Abdur Razzak 10-0-71-1 (2nb), Farhad Reza 9-1-51-2, Mahmudullah 8-0-43-0, Alok Kapali 6-0-40-2.
Toss: Sri Lanka.
Umpires: Simon Taufel, Australia, and Brian Jerling, South Africa.
TV Umpire: Amish Saheba, India. Match Referee: Alan Hurst, Australia.
ABSTRACT Meridional x-ray diffraction diagrams, recorded with high angular resolution, from muscles contracting at the plateau of isometric tension show that the myosin diffraction orders are clusters of peaks. These clusters are due to pronounced interference effects between the myosin diffracting units on either side of the M-line. A theoretical analysis based on the polarity of the myosin (and actin) filaments shows that it is possible to extract phase information from which the axial disposition of the myosin heads can be determined. The results show that each head in a crown pair has a distinct structural disposition. It appears that only one of the heads in the pair stereospecifically interacts with the thin filament at any one time.
INTRODUCTION
The meridional part of the x-ray diffraction diagram of striated muscles is proportional to the square of the modulus of the Fourier transform of the mass projection of the structure onto the muscle axis. Therefore, and especially given the elongated shape of the S1 sub-fragment (Rayment et al., 1993), the meridional reflections on the myosin layer lines, following a sequence of orders of a repeat of ~43.0 nm at rest, are sensitive to the axial orientation of the myosin heads. For these reasons, the myosin meridional reflections, and in particular the strongest order on the third myosin layer line (3M) at a rest spacing of 14.34 nm, have been extensively used as markers for myosin head disposition during various forms of contraction, initially in whole muscles (Huxley et al., 1981, 1982, 1983) and more recently in muscle fibers (Irving et al., 1992; Dobbie et al., 1998). These experiments have been interpreted as providing supportive, but not conclusive, evidence for models of contraction based on axial swings of various parts of the myosin molecule coupled to the hydrolysis of ATP (Huxley, 1969, 1974; Holmes, 1997). Because the knowledge of the phases associated with the diffraction features have been up to date lacking, the interpretation of the data had to rely on modeling. The fact that there is a pair of heads in the doubleheaded myosin molecule adds an additional complication, and generally, data were interpreted assuming that both heads in the pair had the same axial orientation.
Here we present experimental results where the meridional diffraction features at the plateau of isometric tension (P^sub o^) are recorded with the kind of angular resolution only achievable with third-generation synchrotron radiation (SR) sources. The data show that all the meridional reflections on the myosin layer lines, up to the 15th order (i.e., the 3M, 6M, 9M, and 15M, with the 12M being too weak to measure) are carved up by interference effects so that clusters of peaks appear on the meridional reflections due to the axial disposition of the heads. We show that with appropriate theoretical analysis of these effects one can extract phase information from which the axial distribution of the myosin heads can be determined. The results show that at Po, each myosin head in the pair has a distinctly different axial orientation.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data collection and reduction
Which one of the heads in the pair forms an AM complex is ambiguous at this stage
Even though for the reasons stated above, and also from time-resolved x-ray diffraction data (where the response of the interference spacing of the 3M has been followed during a quick release; unpublished data), we tend to favor the hypothesis that the more perpendicular head forms an AM complex, whereas the other one is ready to take over if/ when needed. Therefore it is the population of the former type of head that is responsible for the appearance of the actin-based layer lines during isometric contraction, whereas the latter type is responsible for the remnants of myosin layer lines at Po (Bordas et aL, 1993, 1999). However, at this stage one must leave open the possibility that the actual situation may be the other way around. If indeed that was the case, we note that the inclined and now assumed attached head (Fig. 6) is reminiscent of that in rigor (Whittaker et al., 1995). The other, more perpendicularly aligned, head exhibits, on the chosen view for the projection, the ~120 deg bent configuration of the nucleotide-free myosin head (Rayment et al., 1993). However, it is conceivable that an equally good fit to the mass projection might be obtained by bending the rigor head, via a hinged movement of its tail, such as it has been proposed from analysis of crystals of myosin fragments (Holmes 1997). If this were the case, we note that the swing of the tail between the two configurations shown in Fig. 6 would be close to 10.0 nm rather than the much smaller swing of ~3.5 nm deduced from electron microscopy (Whittaker et al., 1995).
Be what it may, the point at this stage is that to interpret x-ray diffraction data from muscle tissues, during the various mechanical protocols to which they are submitted, it is important to include in the modeling that the two myosin heads may have distinctly different axial orientation at the plateau of isometric contraction.
[Reference]
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[Author Affiliation]
J. Juanhuix,* J. Bordas,* J. Campmany,* A. Svensson,^ M. L. Bassford,^ and T. Narayanan^^
*Laboratori Llum Sincrotro-Institut Fisica Aites Energies, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; ^Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, United Kingdom; and ^^European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, F-38043 Grenoble, France
[Author Affiliation]
Received for publication 28 January 2000 and in final form 12 December 2000.
Address reprint requests to Dr. Joan Bordas, Edifici Ciencies Nord, LSBIFAE, Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra, Spain. Tel.: 34-93-581-28-54; Fax: 34-93-581-32-13; E-mail: jbordas@ifae.es.
(C) 2001 by the Biophysical Society
