• TEAM COLLABORATION IS CHALLENGING WHEN WORKING REMOTELY, but with clear strategy and a structured approach virtual collaboration can still be very effective. Tips to avoid “spending more time talking about doing things than actually getting them done: (1) Set regular agenda meetings with assigned persons to facilitate, take notes & distribute to avoid wasting time about the same topics in future sessions; (2) Share documents with deadlines for review, track changes, etc.; (3) If/when questions or problems can’t be easily resolved with chat tools or text, switch to conversation via old-fashioned phone calls; (4) Remember that the purpose behind team collaboration isn’t to always be available, but to best ensure that all are aligned on goals and most effectively moving ahead in accomplishing them with intention and focus.” [HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW – 10/13/20]
  • THE ‘SHAPE’ OF RECOVERY FROM A RECESSION is typically described with letters which match the graph of recovery time. Rapid recovery is depicted as the upside of a V, longer duration as a U (like the two years after 2001 dot-com bust), and L for a plodding recovery (the five years after 2008 financial markets plunge). Today’s recession is being forecast by the Federal Reserve as a ‘two-track’ K graph: a sharp drop with beginnings of rapid increase for some – which is indeed happening for medium to high-wage remote workers – but not so fast for low-wage workers still stalling 20% below the pre-pandemic employment peak. “Recessions are tough for anyone to live through, but shape of the recovery can make it more or less bearable.”  [THE CONVERSATION – 10/13/20]
  • WHETHER ‘SANCTUARY’ CITIES & STATES ARE LEGAL usurps of federal power to regulate immigration has (strangely) yet to be determined by the Supreme Court, but they have created conflict for over a decade, as liberal city politicians increasingly opted to release convicted illegals from jails and directly back into society, in direct opposition to Federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) requirements. After ACLU litigation in southern California to “protect immigrants rights from ‘unlawful’ detainer,” the LA County Board of Supervisors last week agreed to pay compensation of $14million to over 19,000 people who, as this battle unfolded, were “held in detention past their release date from jail” at the request of ICE, without a specific judge-approved warrant. [BUSINESS INSIDER – 10/13/20]  
  • “ONCE UPON A TIME, A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION PREPARED YOUNG PEOPLE for careers – the academically acquired aptitude of which society was in need… Now, spurred by this summer’s resurgence of the BLM movement, universities are calling on their Departments to really rethink everyday practices around racism.” Accordingly, ‘Wokeness’ is the new priority in Universities like: (1) Cornell – changing its English Dep’t name to Literatures in English, in order to “eliminate the conflation of English as a language and English as a nationality,” plus offering a minor in Inequality Studies; (2) Duke – where the History Dep’t is similarly offering an Inequality Studies curriculum; and (3) Connecticut – now offering a Racial Justice Workshop led by author of best-selling book ‘White Fragility’ (which proclaims White Superiority to be the defining characteristic of our society, “elevated as the ideal for humanity and everyone else is a deficient version”). And academic education continues preparing our students for global competition. [RED STATE 10/15-16/20]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

     “With over a quarter of people now age 30-44 having zero Retirement Savings, and Medicare part A forecast for insolvency by 2024, many desk workers spending time at home during the pandemic are now contemplating what their post-employment life might look like.”  [CFO – Oct 20]

      “I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office… When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re number one. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, [and latest Kamala Harris], they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on “Macbeth”. They are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of speech. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words” [Burt Prelutsky, conservative pundit blog, confirms Snopes]