Best wishes for the holidays

Be back after New Years.

"Ready Indiana" and Workforce Innovation

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is rolling out a new distance learning platform to assist employers in training incumbent workers:

The Indiana Chamber has provided information and instruction for years through its employee training seminars and regulatory compliance publications. Our Ready Indiana program (in the last three years) has helped make the connections between employer training needs and the available providers and funding resources.

Now, a new and powerful tool – the Indiana Chamber’s E-Learning Services – is available to assist Indiana companies and their employees. This nationally successful program comes to Indiana with courses focused on improving basic business skills (writing, math, communication and common computer applications) as well as more advanced topics like project management, human resources, accounting, compliance and top technical certifications.

The full story is here.

Technorati Tags: innovation, talent

How Not for Profits Use Social Media for Fundraising

Web 2.0 is dramatically changing the way fundraising takes place in many not-for-profits across the country. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has put together a presentation highlighting some of the more successful and innovative applications of social media for that purpose.

Their presentation is here.

Technorati Tags: innovation, strategy

Creative way to Tie Tax Breaks More Closely to Job Creation

The Orange County, NY Industrial Development Agency has added a new wrinkle to a PILOT agreement (i.e., payment in lieu of taxes) with IBM.

Should IBM fail to meet its annual job targets, its annual PILOT payment to the IDA would increase to provide more resources for economic development activities to offset that shortfall. Read more about it here.

Technorati Tags: innovation, strategy

Friday Music Break

From an oldie-but-goodie film, "The Commitments."



A little compare and contrast?

World's Best Design Schools

For those of us that see design skills as critical for productivity (economic and otherwise), BusinessWeek had an interesting post last week: its list of the world's best design schools. Check it out here.

Technorati Tags: innovation

BMW Gives Up on Hydrogen-fueled cars

Deutsche Welle reports that BMW is scrapping its program to develop hydrogen-fueled cars:

While German carmakers acknowledge they are under increasing pressure to cut their vehicles' carbon emissions, the global economic downturn has suppressed demand for automobiles, making it difficult for companies to finance the hefty investments required to develop alternative drive-train technology.

BMW's decision to roll back its hydrogen test program will help the company save millions of euros and free up resources for research aimed at increasing the efficiency of its regular engines and developing plug-and-drive electric vehicles that use conventional battery packs. . . .

Stefan Bratzel from the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch-Gladbach said hydrogen fuel-cells face "major cost problems" that carmakers are unlikely to solve satisfactorily..

Daimler, however, says it remains committed to using hydrogen fuel-cells as the source of electricity for future models.

"It is good for the environment and good for people. That's why we want to bring this technology on to the market as quickly as possible," said Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche.

The full story is here.

Technorati Tags: innovation