VW suspends media chief amid scandal over fume tests on monkeys; Guardian, January 30, 2018

Kate Connolly, Guardian; VW suspends media chief amid scandal over fume tests on monkeys

"The company initially tried to distance itself from the institute which commissioned the tests, the European Research Group of Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT), a car lobby group funded by Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. But it is now known that VW managers were informed about the testing before and after it was carried out...

VW is already under close scrutiny over “dieselgate”, in which the carmaker manipulated tests on about 11m cars worldwide to make it appear they met emissions tests when in reality they exceeded levels many times over when used on the road.

The company said on Monday a small internal group had mistakenly pushed for the animal tests to be carried out and that they did not reflect VW’s ethos. But industry observers said the excuses held little water, as the experiments had been well-documented and the results presented to managers at BMW, Daimler and VW, all of whom belonged to the EUGT, which has since been disbanded."

ALA Full Membership to Vote on Executive Director Qualifications; Library Journal, January 25, 2018

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; ALA Full Membership to Vote on Executive Director Qualifications

"When Keith Michael Fiels, the former executive director (ED) of the American Library Association (ALA), announced in September 2016 that he would retire the following July, ALA leadership began considering its requirements for the role. As ALA convened a search committee and engaged a search firm to find the next ED, the question arose as to whether potential candidates should be required to hold an MLIS—or the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)/school librarian equivalent—or whether the degree should be merely preferred."

Exclusive: Frustrated State Department employees hire attorneys, charging 'political retribution'; CNN, January 28, 2018

Elise Labott, CNN; Exclusive: Frustrated State Department employees hire attorneys, charging 'political retribution'

"This ambassador, and several other State Department officials said they don't think the problem is not only the result of the political whims of the White House but is also due to a combination of a poorly-managed redesign and distrust of the career employees by the State Department's leadership -- all of which has contributed to a morale problem that continues unabated.

Low morale

Multiple sources have told CNN morale inside the State Department is at the lowest level in years, largely because of the perceived talent flight and an insular and distrustful approach from Tillerson and his team that's being interpreted by longtime employees as evidence their input is not valued."

Hillary Clinton, Burns Strider, and the Fault Lines of #MeToo; The Atlantic, January 26, 2018

Megan Garber, The Atlantic; Hillary Clinton, Burns Strider, and the Fault Lines of #MeToo

"The Times story paints a picture of a Hillary Clinton who is, given her history, both a recipient of harassment and a passive enabler of it. A manager, in other words, like so many of the others who have been revealed in the journalism of the post-Weinstein months: one who learns of an accusation of harassment and addresses it by disrupting the life of the alleged victim, rather than the life of the alleged perpetrator. The boss who found enough evidence of Burns Strider’s wrongdoing to dock his pay and put him in counseling … but who kept him on staff—with all its many other young women—nonetheless. Here is Clinton serving, yet again, as a rich metaphor—this time, though, for complacency and complicity. For powerful people who are concerned, but not concerned enough.

And also: for managers who meet the humanity at the heart of harassment allegations with the clinical language of corporate callousness. It’s unsurprising, perhaps, but notable nonetheless that Clinton responded to the Times’ reporting with a statement that was many steps removed from Clinton, the person: It was written by Utrecht, Kleinfeld, Fiori, Partners, the law firm that had represented the campaign in 2008 (and that, the Times puts it, has “been involved on sexual harassment issues”). The statement was delivered, from there, through an unnamed Clinton spokesman. “To ensure a safe working environment,” it read, “the campaign had a process to address complaints of misconduct or harassment. When matters arose, they were reviewed in accordance with these policies, and appropriate action was taken. This complaint was no exception.”

So while it was Clinton, the manager, the Times report goes, who made the decision to keep Strider on her team, Clinton, the manager, is notably absent from today’s explanation of things. She has outsourced her own decision-making, it seems, to discussions of process and policies—the same anonymous structures that so many other managers have relied on for legal, and moral, insulation. What were the “processes” that kept Strider in his job and his accuser out of hers? You are not supposed to ask. “Processes” are meant to be the answers to their own questions. So are “policies.” Corporations-as-people, if you’d like, but the framework falls apart when organizations are able to deny that humanity as soon as it becomes a liability."

Nonprofits face crisis as baby-boomer leaders prepare to retire; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 26, 2018

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Nonprofits face crisis as baby-boomer leaders prepare to retire

"Nonprofit workers pour their passions into causes such as providing food and shelter to the needy, counseling troubled veterans and staging live theater and music.

But nonprofit organizations often fall short taking care of themselves —  in grooming their next generation of executive leaders and helping their employees save enough for retirement.

Those are among the findings in new research by the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University that says the nonprofit sector faces a crisis as the current crop of baby boomers who lead them prepares to exit the workforce."

USOC gives USA Gymnastics board six days to resign or federation will be decertified; USA Today, January 25, 2018

Nancy Armour and Rachel Axon, USA Today; USOC gives USA Gymnastics board six days to resign or federation will be decertified

"The other conditions imposed by the USOC are:

--All USA Gymnastics staff and board members must complete SafeSport training offered by the U.S. Center for Safe Sport within three months.

--All staff and board members must complete a comprehensive ethics training unit within the next six months.

“USA Gymnastics completely embraces the requirements outlined in the (email),” USA Gymnastics said in a statement posted on its website. “We understand that the requirements imposed by the letter will help us enhance our ability to build a culture of empowerment throughout the organization, with an increased focus on athlete safety and well-being.”

Exclusive: Theresa May to announce ethical oversight of AI used to drive cars, diagnose patients and even sentence criminals; The Telegraph, January 22, 2018

Steven Swinford, The Telegraph; 

Exclusive: Theresa May to announce ethical oversight of AI used to drive cars, diagnose patients and even sentence criminals

"The Prime Minister is expected to use her keynote speech at a summit of World leaders in Davos on Thursday to discuss the opportunities and ethical challenges presented by the rise of artificial intelligence.

Ministers believe that Britain has the chance to become a World leader in artificial intelligence, just as it currently is in other cutting-edge technologies such as genomics.

However there are significant concerns that computer algorithms could end up making critical ethical decisions without human oversight."

Hawaii governor: I was slow to correct the bogus missile scare because I forgot my Twitter password; Vox, January 23, 2018

Emily Stewart, Vox; 

Hawaii governor: I was slow to correct the bogus missile scare because I forgot my Twitter password

"Hawaii’s ballistic missile scare earlier this month took the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency 38 minutes to correct. It took the state’s governor 17 minutes to tell everyone it was fake on Twitter — which, while faster, still isn’t ideal.

Now we know the explanation: Gov. David Ige didn’t know his Twitter password.

Ige, after delivering his State of the State address on Monday, told reporters the reason it took him nearly 20 minutes to tweet, “There is NO missile threat,” is that he didn’t have his ducks in a row, password-wise. “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that’s one of the changes I made,” the Hawaii Democrat told the Honolulu Star Advertiser. “I’ve been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly.”"

Every College Student's Dream: An 8 AM Class On Patents; Wired, January 20, 2018

David Kline, Wired; Every College Student's Dream: An 8 AM Class On Patents

[Kip Currier: Money quote from this Wired article making a very persuasive quantitative and qualitative argument for more Intellectual Property (IP) undergraduate courses--

 "...IP literacy is not just for lawyers anymore."

As a related aside: Reflecting an increasing student desire and need for IP education, two out of every three terms per academic year since 2009, I've been teaching an IP elective course to graduate students at Pitt's School of Information Sciences (now the School of Computing and Information). 

Additionally, in IP guest talks I've given for undergraduate students participating in Pitt's groundbreaking iSchool Inclusion Institute, it's been exciting to see first-hand many students' interest in augmenting their IP awareness...as well as more and more students creating and leveraging their own IP works!]

"Nor is there any doubt that IP plays a pivotal role in powering today’s knowledge economy, where intangible assets such as IP represent more than 80 percent of the market value of all publicly traded companies. Indeed, intellectual-property-intensive industries now account for a surprising 38.2 percent of total US GDP, according to a recent US Department of Commerce report. That’s more than $6 trillion a year, more than the GDP of any other nation except China. IP-based industries are also responsible for 30 percent, of national employment, or roughly 40 million jobs.

Yet despite IP's enormous role in the US economy, few universities offer any sort of course on IP to undergraduates. Among the first is the University of Southern California, which last fall launched a course on the basic workings of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. The new course, through the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies within USC’s Marshall School of Business, aims to train tomorrow’s leaders in the skills they need to navigate our increasingly IP-driven economy...

Put another way, just as tech literacy was once a requirement only for IT specialists but is now considered almost as essential as verbal literacy, IP literacy is not just for lawyers anymore.

All of which calls to mind that scene from the 1967 movie The Graduate, when Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke) offers career advice to a young Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman)?

“Plastics!” he says. “There’s a great future in plastics.”

Half a century later, USC is demonstrating that intellectual property has become the new watchword for almost any career of the future."

Comey to teach ethical leadership course at College of William & Mary; Politico, January 19, 2018

Aubree Eliza Weaver, Politico; 

Comey to teach ethical leadership course at College of William & Mary

"Former FBI Director James Comey is joining the faculty at his alma mater, the College of William & Mary, and will teach a course on ethical leadership starting this fall, the school announced Friday morning.

“I am thrilled to have the chance to engage with William & Mary students about a vital topic — ethical leadership,” Comey said in a statement. “Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly to the truth.”

“Building and maintaining that kind of leadership, in both the private sector and government, is the challenge of our time,” Comey said."

Mike O’Neill Wants You to Put Away Your Phone; New York Times, April 28, 2017

Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; 

Mike O’Neill Wants You to Put Away Your Phone

This interview with Mike O’Neill, chief executive of BMI, a music-rights management company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant...

"What are some key leadership lessons you’ve learned?

You can’t treat everybody the same. People are different. You can have a tendency to think everyone’s going to receive information or react to it like you would, and they’re not. That was a key insight for me."

The future belongs to those with ‘soft skills’; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 2018

Gregg Behr, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The future belongs to those with ‘soft skills’

"As the world changes in rapid, unpredictable ways, tomorrow’s most successful learners will “need more than the ability to read, write and do arithmetic,” according to researchers writing in the journal The Future of Children. To thrive, they’ll also need to understand and manage their emotions, set and achieve goals, feel and show concern for others, establish positive relationships and make responsible decisions.

Now, many educators and parents are leading the charge to restore these skills — often called social-emotional or 21st-century skills — to their deserved role in a learner’s development...

A review of 82 social-emotional learning programs, conducted last year by a team of international researchers, found that students with soft-skills training scored 13 points higher academically than their peers — a boost that persisted well into adulthood. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that 90 percent of educators on the front lines think soft skills are both beneficial and teachable, according to The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development.

These benefits aren’t limited to academics, either. Writing in The Washington Post, author and educator Cathy N. Davidson recalled how Project Oxygen, a 2013 analysis of Google’s human-resources data, “shocked everyone” by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, expertise in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — “comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills.” In fact, 80 percent of employers said they value such skills above all."

Duquesne University is embracing the future: We will help reinvent the region while instilling core values in the next generation of leaders; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 2018

Ken Gormley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Duquesne University is embracing the future: We will help reinvent the region while instilling core values in the next generation of leaders

"Ken Gormley is a former dean of the Duquesne University School of Law and has served as the university’s president since July 2016...

As the only Catholic, Spiritan university in the United States, we have a duty to address troublesome trends. Fewer students than ever enter college today with foundations in religious faith or possessing core values. Fewer students than ever have grown up in close-knit communities where respectful treatment of others is practiced and moral compasses are shaped.

Technology is amazing. Yet young people raised on smartphones, text messaging and Instagram often have stunted social skills and difficulty interacting with others. Shout-fests on cable TV and insensitive postings on social media have become the norm, in lieu of productive social discourse. If society is going to get a grip on today’s crisis of moral ambiguity, universities like Duquesne must play a larger and more creative role in shaping responsible, ethical leaders.

We also have a duty to help reinvent Western Pennsylvania...

Duquesne faces more daunting responsibilities than ever, and we’re prepared to shoulder them. We recently completed a five-year strategic plan that doubles down on Duquesne’s historic role in this region. Duquesne has a rich tradition of serving people of all faiths and backgrounds. We welcomed African-American students, Jewish students and women to our campus more than 100 years ago — long before most universities opened their doors to such diverse groups."

Bad behavior and rise in ethical dilemmas are an advantage to Denver’s Convercent, which just raised $25M; Denver Post, December 19, 2017

Tamara Chuang, Denver Post; 

Bad behavior and rise in ethical dilemmas are an advantage

 to Denver’s Convercent, which just raised $25M

"Ethics software developer Convercent said Tuesday it raised $25 million in new funding. The investment was led by Rho Ventures.

The Denver firm has seen interest in its software surge as tech companies and others battle ethical issues that went public, such as Uber’s problems with workplace harassment. Uber is reportedly a new client. Convercent’s software can pop up a reminder to employees when they’re facing a potential issue, such as rules that kick in when traveling overseas. But closer to home, companies are reaching out to Convercent in the wake of celebrity sexual harassment scandals."

5 Signs Your Organization Might Be Headed for an Ethics Scandal; Harvard Business Review, December 18, 2017

Alison Taylor, Harvard Business Review; 

5 Signs Your Organization Might Be Headed for an Ethics Scandal

"Corporations often approach ethics as an individual problem, designing oversight systems to identify the “bad apples” before they can turn the organization into a “rotten barrel.” But at places like Wells Fargo, FIFA, and Volkswagen, we can’t fully describe what happened by reading profiles of John Stumpf, Sepp Blatter, or Martin Winterkorn. Bad apple explanations also fail to explain the string of ethical crises at Uber, the long-term impunity of powerful men who sexually harass colleagues, or any of the other ethics scandals we’ve seen this year. Rather, we see a “tone at the top” underpinned by widespread willful blindness, toxic incentives, and mechanisms that deflect scrutiny. These conditions seem to persist and metastasize. They replicate despite changes in leadership and in management systems."