Monthly Archive for March, 2011

2011 Management Conference – Evening Tours of Madrid

Published on March 31, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Evening Sightseeing Tour of Madrid by Coach – Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:30pm (18:30)

Panoramic sightseeing tour at dusk through the wide avenues and beautiful boulevards with its lighted buildings and fountains. Enjoy Madrid from a different perspective by cruising the main urban streets, squares, boulevards and avenues at dusk time, with the beautiful lighting display.
A private tour with a professional guide will make your visit to Madrid more meaningful and enjoyable. As well as seeing the major attractions close up, you will delve into some of the “Hidden city” which tourists often miss. You will also hear the history created by some of the extraordinary people who make up the city’s past and present. Along the way we will inform you about Madrid life, shopping areas and the best places to go to. Join us and you will know the heart of Madrid like the locals do!

Evening Walking Tour of Madrid – Friday, 17 June 2011 6:30pm (18:30)

To start our visit, we propose the Plaza de la Encarnación, where one of the most significant monuments of the XVII Century can be found: the Monasterio de las monjas agustinas descalzas de La Encarnación. In the centre of the Plaza de Oriente, we find the famous statue on horse of King Phillip IV, another treasure of the XVIIth Century. Our route continues past the Calle Bailén towards its intersection with Calle Mayor, in order to gaze at the magnificent Palacio del Duque de Uceda, favourite of King Phillip III, typical palace of the XVIIth Century. Next to it another building will attract our attention, the Iglesia del Sacramento, church with one of the few mentideros (places where villagers would get together to gossip) that still exist in Madrid nowadays. Walking through the Calle del Sacramento we continue towards the Plaza de la Villa, a beautiful square with interesting buildings: the Ayuntamiento (town hall) and the Casa de Cisneros. From there, we walk past Calle del Codo, Plaza del Conde de Miranda and the Convento de las Carboneras (convent) towards the Plaza Mayor, landmark of the city. Exiting this square and walking towards the Calle de Atocha, we end up in the Plaza de la Provincia, where the Carcel de la Corte lies, formerly a prison, nowadays headquarters of the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (Spanish Foreign Office).

For Booking Information Please Visit the Management Conference Web-Site

Management Journal Associate Editors

Published on March 23, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

As part of the process of publishing The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management all submissions are sent for peer refereeing, prior to publication.

Assessment, comments and guidance by the referees are an essential part of the publication process and invaluable to the authors of the submitted papers.

In recognition of the important role of referees, the international advisory board acknowledges all referees who have refereed papers as an ‘Associate Editor’ for the volume of the journal they have contributed to.

The Associate Editors listing for Volume 10 of  The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management is now available.

Management Journal, Volume 10, Number 8 available

Published on March 17, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 1 Comment

management_frontThe eighth issue of Volume 10 of The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management has now been published.

Volume 10, Number 8 contains:


The Psychology of Collaboration: An IBM researcher examines the limitations of collaborating through software

Published on March 16, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments
Irene Greif

from the article

By Jodi Slater in Technology Review:

In the 1980s, long before the rise of online social networks, Irene Greif helped found the field of computer-supported coöperative work (CSCW), which explores how technology helps people collaborate. Today Greif is an IBM fellow, the company’s highest technical honor, and director of collaborative user experience in IBM Research. Jodi Slater, who worked with Greif at Lotus Development after it was bought by IBM in the 1990s and later cofounded the business consultancy MarketspaceNext, recently spoke with Greif for Technology Review about why some of the hardest collaboration problems have nothing to do with technology.

The flow of formal and informal communication is the circulatory system of the organization. How networked technology does and does not carry this flow is an ongoing focus of attention.

For more…

MBA Diary: Chaos Theory

Published on March 16, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 2 Comments

From The Economist

Last month, MBA students from Canada’s McGill University travelled to India to investigate business, culture and national competitiveness. Here one of them, Melanie Walsh, says that six-sigma management theory is thriving among the dabbawalas of Mumbai

Ten students stand on the would-be shoulder of a road under construction. “One, two, three…” calls one student. There is a pause, then “four, five, six,” calls a second and everyone laughs at their own hesitation at crossing the street. Who gets priority? Some say the largest vehicle. However, small motorised rickshaws are bypassing trucks, busses move at different paces, and cars and taxis seem to be going where ever they want. Yet, pedestrians still cross between the cars without causing accidents or stopping the flow of traffic. Flow is perhaps the best word I have to describe India; everything is moving and growing in a seemingly chaotic manner, yet there must be some method to the madness because it is growing incredibly.

Invisible growth is a concept I heard a lot of while I was in India. The Indian economy is growing consistently, yet the outward signs of development—such as new skyscrapers, public transit, roads and other elements of infrastructure—are not apparent. Western-style development is obvious only in small pockets of gated and secured communities. The disparity between these enclosures and generally accessible India is amazing. In Mumbai for example, you look out the 15th story window of your five-star hotel and watch people going about their everyday lives in the adjacent slums.

To Read More…

The Leaky Corporation

Published on March 9, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 1 Comment

From The Economist

In early February Hewlett-Packard showed off its new tablet computer, which it hopes will be a rival to Apple’s iPad. The event was less exciting than it might have been, thanks to the leaking of the design in mid-January. Other technology companies have suffered similar embarrassments lately. Dell’s timetable for bringing tablets to market appeared on a tech-news website. A schedule for new products from NVIDIA, which makes graphics chips, also seeped out.

Geeks aren’t the only ones who can’t keep a secret. In January it emerged that Renault had suspended three senior executives, allegedly for passing on blueprints for electric cars (which the executives deny). An American radio show has claimed to have found the recipe for Coca-Cola’s secret ingredient in an old newspaper photograph. Facebook’s corporate privacy settings went awry when some of the social network’s finances were published. A strategy document from AOL came to light, revealing that the internet and media firm’s journalists were expected to write five to ten articles a day.

To Read More…

Technology Will Make Collaboration Your Next Competitive Advantage

Published on March 1, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 1 Comment

Credit: Technology Review

From Jeffrey F. Rayport in Technology Review:

Since the dawn of managerial capitalism, collaboration and work have almost always been synonymous. People need other people to realize their greatest impact, and innovation, perhaps the most valuable activity in business, depends critically on the kind of cross-pollination of ideas that collaboration enables.

But technology has changed how we collaborate, especially since the communications revolution began 150 years ago with the telegraph and the telephone. This wave of change continued with the commercialization of the fax machine in the 1970s and of e-mail in the 1980s. The last 20 years have brought a convergence of communications and computing technologies that has expanded the possibilities for technology-enabled collaboration, whether synchronous or asynchronous, proximal or distant. With voice mail, videoconferencing, instant messaging, chat forums, blogs, wikis, social networking, microblogging (through services such as Twitter and Foursquare), voice-over-IP, telepresence, and, of course, mobile communications and computing, never have we had so many ways to collaborate without having to be in the same place at the same time.

This article introduces the magazine’s “Business Impact” section for the month of March. The theme is technology-supported collaboration tools, which prove to be many and varied!

For more…