September 11th

Ten years ago, on a usual working day, I was teaching a group of adults, when one of my students came into the classroom and said that the Twin Towers had exploded. He didn't know more than this, and was shocked by the image he'd caught a glimpse of before leaving home. We all wondered what had happened? Later on that day, we could learn the extent of what had taken place and the only images we could see on TV were those of the attacks.
Now, ten years later, the people of the USA remember that day and have organized tributes to those who were killed.
Here's a report of how security has changed since then:

To read the script, click onto: http://www.newsy.com/videoshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif/how-has-security-changed-since-9-11/


An account of that day: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-09/Sept-11-newspaper-coverage/50340276/1

Views from abroad: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/09/9-11-changed-world-forever

History Channel: http://www.history.com/9-11-anniversary (press on 102 Interactive to watch videos taken in different places)

Person of the year

Mark Zuckerberg has been named "Person of the Year". This man is the co-founder and CEO of Facebook,the social network that has changed many things on the Internet.
You can read his bio at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
You can also listen to him talking about his company:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ092B7YMsM&feature=related
(if you want to read the subtitles, press on CC)

What do you think about this choice? Who would you choose instead?

Listen to this interesting piece about the giant search engine Google. When you listen (then, you can read the script), pay attention to all the vocabulary connected with employment.

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

BY PAUL ROLFE


It’s a big payday for Googlers. Each of the search giant’s 23,000 employees is getting a 10% pay raise come January -- plus -- a $1000 Christmas bonus. Fox Business has some reasons that this makes sense for the company.

“Its trying to create a moat around itself from its employees leaving to Facebook. Ten percent of Facebook employees have Google on their resume in some way shape or form... People are often a competitive advantage in these technology companies. The brain trust -- it wants to protect that. Frankly its also cheaper to retain employees than hire new employees... Last but not least, frankly the company can afford to do so. Profits were up more than 32% in the third quarter. It has $33 billion of cash sitting on its balance sheet.”

Google doesn’t usually comment on internal matters, but in a statement to the press it said competitive compensation plans are important for the future of the company. CNN Money points out how important it is for Google to retain good employees, after losing some noteworthy ones.

“Google has lost top minds such as YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley, AdMob co-founder Omar Hamoui, and Google Maps and Wave creator Lars Rasmussen.”

Many ex-Googlers have defected to Facebook. Computer World spoke to an analyst from Gartner who highlights the growing tension between the two companies.

“There is a battle for the future of the Web, and it is not about search engines, but about the social Web. The competition is between the new and the old -- between Facebook as the early leader in the social Web, and Google as the dominant player in the content Web.”

But wait a second -- aren’t we in a recession? Well -- The Wall Street Journal says its actually not bad news for investors.

“If Google is making this ten percent raise now, it means that they’re doing probably pretty well in the fourth quarter. So, I don’t know how concerned investors are going to be. Google has been acquiring a lot of companies for talent. They’ve also been acquiring a lot of companies for technology. I don’t think this is going to be too big of a concern.”

Oddly, Google is already number four on Fortune’s top 100 companies to work for. Facebook -- not even on the list. So, what do you think? Will this move spark other tech companies to start hiring -- and paying -- more?


Get more multi-source tech news analysis from Newsy.com

For more practice on the language of work, you can click on these links:
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/vocabulary/lefg1_vocabulary34.html
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/vocabulary/lefg1_vocabulary38.html

Education in the workplace

The following is an extract from an article in Business Week. In it, the writer argues to what extent an online programme that helps employees at Wall-Mart get university credits. I find the following extract very interesting. What's your opinion of it? You may click on those words you find more difficult. The full article can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2010/ca20100617_324567.htm

The Intellectual vs. the Manager

Too often, we consider learning to be something done stiffly, in a classroom. But that's silly. "Learning is a continuing biological process," Drucker said. "It begins at conception and ends only at death. We further know that learning is not an activity of one specific learning organ—the mind or the intellect. It is a process in which the whole person is engaged: the hand, the eye, the nervous system, the brain."

Being able to use all of these assets, Drucker suggested, will increasingly come to define "the educated person." More and more, he wrote in his 1993 book Post-Capitalist Society, we are going to "have to be prepared to live and work simultaneously in two cultures—that of 'the intellectual,' who focuses on words and ideas, and that of the 'manager,' who focuses on people and work.

"The intellectual's world, unless counterbalanced by the manager, becomes one in which everybody 'does his own thing' but nobody achieves anything. The manager's world, unless counterbalanced by the intellectual, becomes the stultifying bureaucracy of the 'Organization Man.' But if the two balance each other, there can be creativity and order, fulfillment and mission."