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Week 27, 2006
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles):
1) AUDIO/Marketplace: Our long legacy of slackers [Emission radio sur l'économie, avec transcription et téléchargement streaming, cette fois-ci un entretien avec l'auteur d'un livre sur les glandeurs.]
2) Dark Reading: Social Engineering, the USB Way [Sécurité informatique et social engineering par l'emploi de clés USB.]
3) The Economist: Business continuity planning [Lacunes dans la planification des entreprises pour les catastrophes.]
4) The Economist: Sport and politics [La Coupe du monde FIFA, c'est mieux que les JO.]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Independence Day [La fête nationale américaine c'est le 4 juillet.]
6) Puzzle: Time out [Un casse-tête]
7) Retour sur le casse-tête de la femme qui tue sa soeur.
8) AUDIO/Marketplace: Mom Corps recruiting [Emission radio sur l'économie, avec transcription et téléchargement streaming, cette fois-ci sur une agence de recrutement spécialisé dans les postes à temps partiel pour les femmes qui souhaitent garder un lien avec le monde de l'entreprise tout en passant plus de temps avec leurs enfants.]

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1) AUDIO/Marketplace: Our long legacy of slackers [Emission radio sur l'économie, avec transcription et téléchargement streaming, cette fois-ci un entretien avec l'auteur d'un livre sur les glandeurs.]
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/06/14/PM200606146.html

Tom Lutz talks to host Kai Ryssdal about his new book on the history of slackers in America. You know, like Benjamin Franklin.

TEXT OF INTERVIEW

KAI RYSSDAL: Senators and members of the House of Representatives disclosed their personal finances today. And, as it turns out, no, they're not very representative. In fact, only a few lawmakers said their congressional salary is their primary source of income. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist earned millions of dollars in interest alone. Hillary Clinton has $50 million in the bank. So why do these people work? When they could be, you know, slacking off? Tom Lutz's new book, "Doing Nothing," is about those who work and those who choose not to. Mister Lutz, are you a slacker, lying on the couch all day?

TOM LUTZ: It was actually not me, it was my son lying on the couch. He moved into my house when he was 18 and started to just lay on the couch day in and day out. I found that it made me completely furious. I just was enraged by it. So I was surprised by my own emotional reaction to seeing my son doing something that I'd done a million times. That I'd watched him do a million times. So, I wanted to understand my own emotional reaction to his slackerdom.

RYSSDAL: We should probably start with the term, though. I mean, how do you define being a slacker?

LUTZ: Well, slacker, as a term, originates in World War I as a term for "draft dodger." But it's not until the 1980s that slacker becomes the common term for somebody who has a principled aversion to work.

RYSSDAL: As opposed to the unprincipled aversion . . .

LUTZ: Exactly. . . . As opposed to the purely lazy.

RYSSDAL: We can go back even farther in the history of this country and find some really prime examples of people who specialized at doing nothing. Ben Franklin is one of your key examples.

LUTZ: Well, Ben Franklin in America and Samuel Johnson in England are the two people I start out with. Franklin is a guy who we associate with the work ethic. He's got his famous schedule which he charts out what he's going to do hour by hour, day by day. And Samuel Johnson is the guy who signed himself, in his essays, as the idler. In fact, Johnson was constantly beset by guilt over his sloth. And Franklin, on the other hand, is a guy who just, as soon as he could, retired. He retired at the age of 42. He loved to take air baths, which meant taking all of his clothes off, laying with the windows open for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. John Adams said the only thing he's not late for is lunch.

RYSSDAL: So, I have the book here, and it is 320-something pages long of text. And you have, in a book on doing nothing, 34 pages of bibliography and notes. This was not a do-nothing kind of project.

LUTZ: No, I feel this book very strongly, in part, because I do work way too much.

RYSSDAL: You're a workaholic, you think?

LUTZ: I'm a bit of a workaholic. When I get going, I can sit at the computer, y'know, 16-17 hours and then wake up in the middle of the night and go back down and write a couple of paragraphs.

RYSSDAL: You talk, actually, about writers and how you're never comfortable with the time off that you need to be writing. But you're never happy working, so you can't write.

LUTZ: Yeah, writers have a particular problem with slacking, partly because we never looked like we're working.

RYSSDAL: Y'know, they say the same thing about radio journalists . . .

LUTZ: Of course! . . . Well, actually, it's a problem for all professionals who have control over their own time, [they] are faced with that issue 10-20 times a day. Y'know, "How am I going to spend the next hour?" We have to read to get ready to write. We have to kind of constantly be doing research. That research can slide off into reading the New York Times, which can slide off to reading Salon, which can slide off reading whatever . . .

RYSSDAL: Take your pick, sure.

LUTZ: Yeah, and since a lot of us watch culture for a living, watching "The Sopranos" is probably an important part of our job. We need to watch it. We need to be up with that. And the NBA Finals? .. .

RYSSDAL: Absolutely.

LUTZ: I think so. But, y'know, we have this sort of slacker crisis on a regular basis simply because of the nature of our work.

RYSSDAL: Before I let you go, I want to have read the very last paragraph in this book.

LUTZ: OK . . . Right now, I'd rather stop and rest. Do nothing for a while. I know that people have said that doing nothing is the hardest thing in the world to do. But I feel that now, after the work of making this book, I'm ready for the challenge. I'm ready to get off the treadmill to face the slow, beautiful emptiness and say, "Yes, this too is good."

RYSSDAL: The latest book from Tom Lutz is called, "Doing Nothing." Mr. Lutz, thanks for your time.

LUTZ: I'm glad to be here. Thanks.

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2) Dark Reading: Social Engineering, the USB Way [Sécurité informatique et social engineering par l'emploi de clés USB.]
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=95556&WT.svl=column1_1

Social Engineering, the USB Way

JUNE 7, 2006 | We recently got hired by a credit union to assess the security of its network. The client asked that we really push hard on the social engineering button. In the past, they'd had problems with employees sharing passwords and giving up information easily. Leveraging our effort in the report was a way to drive the message home to the employees.

The client also indicated that USB drives were a concern, since they were an easy way for employees to steal information, as well as bring in potential vulnerabilities such as viruses and Trojans. Several other clients have raised the same concern, yet few have done much to protect themselves from a rogue USB drive plugging into their network. I wanted to see if we could tempt someone into plugging one into their employer's network.

In the past we had used a variety of social engineering tactics to compromise a network. Typically we would hang out with the smokers, sweet-talk a receptionist, or commandeer a meeting room and jack into the network. This time I knew we had to do something different. We heard that employees were talking within the credit union and were telling each other that somebody was going to test the security of the network, including the people element.

We figured we would try something different by baiting the same employees that were on high alert. We gathered all the worthless vendor giveaway thumb drives collected over the years and imprinted them with our own special piece of software. I had one of my guys write a Trojan that, when run, would collect passwords, logins and machine-specific information from the user’s computer, and then email the findings back to us.

The next hurdle we had was getting the USB drives in the hands of the credit union’s internal users. I made my way to the credit union at about 6 a.m. to make sure no employees saw us. I then proceeded to scatter the drives in the parking lot, smoking areas, and other areas employees frequented.

Once I seeded the USB drives, I decided to grab some coffee and watch the employees show up for work. Surveillance of the facility was worth the time involved. It was really amusing to watch the reaction of the employees who found a USB drive. You know they plugged them into their computers the minute they got to their desks.

I immediately called my guy that wrote the Trojan and asked if anything was received at his end. Slowly but surely info was being mailed back to him. I would have loved to be on the inside of the building watching as people started plugging the USB drives in, scouring through the planted image files, then unknowingly running our piece of software.

After about three days, we figured we had collected enough data. When I started to review our findings, I was amazed at the results. Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience. We never broke a sweat. Everything that needed to happen did, and in a way it was completely transparent to the users, the network, and credit union management.

Of all the social engineering efforts we have performed over the years, I always had to worry about being caught, getting detained by the police, or not getting anything of value. The USB route is really the way to go. With the exception of possibly getting caught when seeding the facility, my chances of having a problem are reduced significantly.

You’ve probably seen the experiments where users can be conned into giving up their passwords for a chocolate bar or a $1 bill. But this little giveaway took those a step further, working off humans' innate curiosity. Emailed virus writers exploit this same vulnerability, as do phishers and their clever faux Websites. Our credit union client wasn’t unique or special. All the technology and filtering and scanning in the world won’t address human nature. But it remains the single biggest open door to any company’s secrets.

Disagree? Sprinkle your receptionist's candy dish with USB drives and see for yourself how long it takes for human nature to manifest itself.

— Steve Stasiukonis is VP and founder of Secure Network Technologies Inc. Special to Dark Reading

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3) The Economist: Business continuity planning [Lacunes dans la planification des entreprises pour les catastrophes.]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VDJPQJD

Business continuity planning: When lightning strikes
Oct 27th 2005
From The Economist print edition

How to maintain business as usual in unusual times

COMPANIES' contingency planning used to consist of little more than duplicating IT facilities in case their systems went down or the hardware in their basement was flooded. Today, however, firms are aware that they need to think about many more potential disruptions. Hardly a week goes by without a new threat. Last week, the government of New Zealand issued a pandemic planning guide for businesses, suggesting how firms should prepare for an outbreak of avian flu. Gartner, a large IT research firm, has advised companies to consider whether their systems could continue if up to 30% of their staff were to be absent from the workplace.

This week yet another hurricane swept across the southern states of America. Every time a Katrina, Rita or Wilma wreaks her havoc, firms around the world worry that a vital supplier may have been knocked out of their increasingly global supply chains. In a recent survey by Harris Interactive, a polling firm, and FM Global, an American property insurer, financial executives in Britain and North America said that the top threat to their revenues came not from terrorism or natural disasters directly, but from a breakdown in their supply chain.

The effect on Ericsson, a Swedish mobile-phone company, of a fire in a New Mexico chipmaking plant belonging to the Dutch firm Philips, has become a legend. The fire, in March 2000, started by a bolt of lightning, lasted less than 10 minutes, but it caused havoc to the super-clean environment that chipmaking requires. Ericsson, unable to find an alternative source of supply, went on to report a loss of over $2 billion in its mobile-phone division that year, a loss that left it as an also-ran in an industry where it had once been a leader. The lesson was not lost on other firms with far-flung global supply chains. General Motors, for example, now systematically tracks the geographic origin of all the bits that go into making its cars.

The growth of outsourcing has added to the complexity of the issue. Removing back-office business services to low-cost (and frequently more hazardous) locations leaves firms vulnerable to hard-to-monitor disruptions in those faraway places. Susir Kumar, chief executive of Intelenet, an Indian outsourcing firm that is 50% owned by Britain's Barclays Bank, says that Indian firms are in fact more diligent about continuity planning than firms in the West—partly because disruptions there are more frequent (so they get more practice), and partly because costs are so much lower they can afford to duplicate more facilities. Indian outsourcers say there was little consequence for their clients from the flooding in Mumbai in July.

Firms around the Gulf of Mexico also get plenty of practice at business continuity plans that kick in when the storms blow in. Companies such as Boeing, UPS and Wal-Mart, which have thousands of employees in and around Houston, for instance, were up and running again a couple of days after Hurricane Rita hit the city in September. NASA's flight controllers were away from their desks for six days, during which time control of the international space station passed seamlessly to colleagues in Moscow. Good planning can save both money and lives.

For businesses around the Gulf, property damage is the least of their worries. Relatively cheap techniques now minimise the damage: using top-quality roof fastenings, for example. The biggest challenge during this year's spate of hurricanes has been keeping in touch with employees forced to flee to new locations. Mobile phones proved unreliable as masts were blown down, and Boeing, Southwest Airlines and UPS are among those companies that have modified their procedures as a result, relying more on e-mails, hot lines and their own websites to keep in touch with distant employees.

While most big companies are continually refining their business continuity plans, many smaller firms are not. Recent research by AXA, a European insurer, found that 46% of small and medium-sized businesses in Britain do not have a business continuity plan of any sort, despite being alerted again to the risks of disruption by this summer's terrorist bombings in London. For some, the task is too daunting; the risks too universal. They prefer, says AXA's Douglas Barnett, to assume “they can deal with disruptions as and when they happen.”

In a book published this month (“The Resilient Enterprise” by Yossi Sheffi; MIT Press), the author, a professor of engineering systems at MIT, gives some guidance to firms that are shy of examining these risks. “Large-scale disruptions”, he says, “rarely take place without any warning ”. By carefully monitoring and analysing near-misses, the airline industry has avoided many a crash. Likewise, says Mr Sheffi, “learning from small incidents can help organisations correct the conditions that lead to accidents.” Lightning can strike twice in New Mexico.

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4) The Economist: Sport and politics [La Coupe du monde FIFA, c'est mieux que les JO.]
http://economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7038930

Sport and politics: Let the games begin
Jun 8th 2006

Why the World Cup is better than the Olympics

SEVENTY years after Jesse Owens sprinted to victory in the 1936 Olympic Games, the Berlin Olympic stadium is once again at the centre of the sporting world. Football's World Cup, which starts this week, will come to a climax with a final in the refurbished Olympic stadium in Berlin next month.

Fortunately, the political overtones that made the Berlin Olympics such a sinister event are completely absent. This is not just because Germany is now a democratic country. It is also because the World Cup, unlike the Olympics, is wonderfully difficult to manipulate for political purposes. Over its long history, success at the Olympics has usually been a fairly accurate measure of global political power. Although the world now remembers the snub that Jesse Owens delivered to Nazi theories of racial superiority, the Germans came top of the Olympic medal table in 1936, reflecting the Nazi regime's growing power. During the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union repeatedly struggled to gain a symbolic victory, by winning the most medals at the Olympics. Already a similar, politically charged battle for supremacy between America and China looks likely in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

By contrast, the World Cup has its own hierarchy, which is pleasingly divorced from the global pecking order. There is a sole superpower—Brazil. The Italians and French, apparently doomed to gentle decline in the real world, remain formidable competitors on the football field. And then there are the rising powers—which are more likely to hail from Africa than Asia. America will field a serious team at the World Cup, but nobody expects it to win. The Chinese, who have discovered a passion for football, failed to qualify for the tournament.

Football's power structure reflects a satisfying characteristic of the global game. Despite the undoubted prestige to be had by becoming champions of the world, it is extremely hard—if not impossible—for a determined and well-resourced government to create a World Cup-winning team. Arguably, the Italians managed it in the 1930s; and Argentina's World Cup winners in 1978 received plenty of backing from the ruling military junta. But a modern-day dictator who ordered his minions to create a team that could beat Brazil—or even play in their style—would be swiftly disappointed.
How to run rings around the Olympics

Again, the comparison with the Olympics is striking. Think of all those robotic East German sprinters, Romanian gymnasts and Chinese swimmers churned out by state-backed programmes. By contrast, a winning football team needs not just athleticism but also a spark of creativity and style that cannot be manufactured by sport's central planners. Even taking drugs does not appear to be much help for footballers.

As a result, every World Cup seems to throw up a team that suddenly clicks at the right time and beats a much-fancied opponent. Think of North Korea vanquishing Italy in 1966 or Senegal turning over France, the reigning champions, in 2002. It is this capacity to surprise that helps make the World Cup such a gripping event. And it is why in the endless competition between the Olympics and the World Cup for the title of “the world's greatest sporting event” we vote for the World Cup.

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5) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Independence Day [La fête nationale américaine c'est le 4 juillet.]
http://www.kidzworld.com

Independence Day - The Fourth of July

In light of recent political events, the level of patriotism has sharply risen in the hearts of most Americans and July 4th is the perfect time to let that abundance of patriotism shine. Read on to find out how the United States of America came to be the country you have grown to love.

Independence Day History
In the beginning of United States history, 13 colonies were ruled by the King of England, King George III. These colonies were tired of having a king 3,000 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean. Two acts of defiance made history. Tea was purposely dumped into the Massachusetts Bay (this event, known as the Boston tea party, was in a reaction by the people to England raising their taxes), and in Boston harbor, British soldiers fired into a crowd after being jeered and stoned. The number of people killed was exaggerated (only a few people died), but the event became known as the Massacre.

The United States Gains Independence
Virginia took the first step and voted to set up a group to represent the colonies. The first meeting was in 1774 and a draft of a document that would give them freedom from England was written. This document, called the Declaration of Independence, was considered treason and the 56 men who signed it were in some serious danger of being executed. But, they stood by what they believed in - the right to independence.

The First Fourth of July
Things didn't happen overnight. It took years for the final draft to be written. At the same time The American Revolution was taking place. The draft was finally accepted on July 4, 1776. From July 8th until the next month the document was read to the public and people celebrated whenever they heard it. In 1783 the
One of the many parades on July fourth.
Independence Day
war finally ended and Independence Day was made an official holiday.

Fourth of July Celebrations
Every July 4th, Americans have a day off work and stuff themselves full of food at picnics. There are activities in the afternoon including baseball games, music and more food. Some cities have parades. Then, at dusk, people watch the fireworks display. This is one birthday celebration you don't want to miss.

Interesting United States Facts
# There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the US than real ones.
# According to NASA, the US has the world's most violent weather. In an average year, the US can expect about 10,000 really bad thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, 1,000 tornadoes, and several hurricanes.
# The most popular fruit in the states is the banana. The average person eats 33 pounds of bananas every year.
# The Liberty Bell wasn't made in the US and wasn't rung on the first Independence Day. It was actually made in London in 1752, cracked in 1835 and wasn't named Liberty 'til the 1830s, in memory of slaves pursuing their freedom.

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8) AUDIO/Marketplace: Mom Corps recruiting [Emission radio sur l'économie, avec transcription et téléchargement streaming, cette fois-ci sur une agence de recrutement spécialisé dans les postes à temps partiel pour les femmes qui souhaitent garder un lien avec le monde de l'entreprise tout en passant plus de temps avec leurs enfants.]
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/05/12/AM200605121.html

Mom Corps recruiting

In honor of Mother's Day this Sunday, Hillary Wicai reports on a job-placement service exclusively for corporate-minded moms looking to work part-time to keep their skills sharp.

SCOTT JAGOW: Sunday we honor mothers and their sacrifices. One of them is financial. Studies show moms who step off the career ladder to raise kids lose more than a third of their earning power if they spend three or more years at home. Interesting and flexible part-time work can be hard to find. But companies are also desperate for experience. From the Marketplace Work and Family Desk, Hillary Wicai reports.

CINDY SHAY: "Sweetie are you thirsty? Did you get to do your digging?"

HILLARY WICAI: Cindy Shay's six year old's been looking for bugs.

CINDY SHAY: "You were digging, did you find anything?"

SHAY'S DAUGHTER: "Just a little green thing..."

Shay cherishes the time with her children, but she also loved her job as a CPA and comptroller for a major national non-profit. The company wouldn't let her work part-time, so she quit. But she wants to work full-time again someday.

CINDY SHAY: "One day they'll all be in school."

In the meantime, she wants to keep her skills sharp with part-time work. But with three kids, flexibility is key.

[ Baby crying ]

But, like many women, Shay discovered once you take a ramp off the career highway, on-ramps can be tough to find.

CINDY SHAY: "So many stay-at-home parents are very isolated. They're not getting to have power lunches with anyone because they're sitting at home with squash on their shirts..."

A Center for Work Life Policy study last year found that three quarters of all women who want to rejoin the workplace end up doing so. Only 40 percent do so full-time. At the same time, many employers say they're hungry for experience.

DOUG PALMER: "I spend about 25 percent of my time looking for talent."

Doug Palmer runs his own accounting firm and he's in the market for good part-time help. If only CFO Palmer and stay-at-home mom Shay could meet.

Companies that actually make that happen are springing up.

[ Song: "Matchmaker, Matchmaker make me a match... " ]

Allison O'Kelly never fancied herself a matchmaker. This mom of two with a Harvard MBA first started her own accounting firm. Then she saw that clients needed all sorts of help and she knew plenty of moms looking for all sorts of part-time work. Her business morphed into Mom Corps.

ALLISON O'KELLY: "You know, it just made sense, that's really what it came down to.

Mom Corps, in Atlanta and DC, pairs employers with experienced moms who used to be CPAs, brand managers, marketing directors, even lawyers. Some women work from home. They all make about $50-75 an hour.

ALLISON O'KELLY: "I wanted to make sure that any mom anywhere who wanted this access to part time work should be able to have it."

It's working for CPA Cindy Shay. Mom Corps quickly introduced her to Doug Palmer.

DOUG PALMER: "It saves me a lot of time trying to find good people."

Shelly Waters Boots is with Parents Action for Children. She says companies like Mom Corps are long overdue but they don't let policymakers off the hook.

SHELLY WATERS BOOTS: "The one trick to this, is that working for Mom Corps or a business like this is a great option if you've got somebody else that's bringing home the benefits."

Still, Boots says it's a good first step. And Mom Corps has plans to open soon in three more cities.

In Washington, I'm Hillary Wicai for Marketplace.

SCOTT JAGOW: And in Los Angeles, I'm Scott Jagow. And to all you moms out there, especially mine, happy Mother's Day. And have a great weekend.

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9) Reuters: Are flip-flops damaging your career? [Les tongs peuvent nuire à votre carrière, surtout chez BNPP.]
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/29062006/80-132/flip-flops-damaging-career.html

Are flip-flops damaging your career?
Reuters Thursday June 29, 01:12 PM
B y Belinda Goldsmith

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With more women wearing flip-flops to the office this summer, U.S. style gurus are warning that the casual shoe once mainly seen on the beach could be damaging to careers -- as well as to feet.

Lauren Cardinale, 25, who works at West Glen Communications, wears beaded or other fancy flip flops to the office -- when she can get away with it. "Occasionally I wear flip flops to work," she said. "I wear nicer shoes if I'm meeting with clients or if I know there will be someone in the office who doesn't approve of flip flops."

Cardinale is one of thousands of young women in New York who consider flip-flops an essential part of their summer wardrobe.

An online survey conducted for retailers Old Navy and Gap found flip-flops topped the list of wardrobe items that college and high school students planned to wear to work this summer. More than 31 percent of women said flip-flops were the single "must have" item for work this summer.

But many companies disagree. "The dress code says no beach wear and flip-flops are considered beach wear," said a spokeswoman for BNP Paribas.

Style gurus warn that flip-flops, which are worn mainly by younger women, could be harmful to a career. "Shoes convey the mood of a woman. Wearing flip-flops conveys the mood that you are relaxed and on vacation. That's not a good message in the office," said Meghan Cleary, a style commentator who wrote the book "The Perfect Fit: What Your Shoes Say About You."

Doctors say it's not just careers they could harm. Physicians at the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons say flip-flops are linked to a growing number of heel problems among teens and young adults. "We're seeing more heel pain than ever in patients 15 to 25 years old, a group that usually doesn't have this problem," said spokeswoman Marybeth Crane in a recent statement. She said flip-flops with thin soles have no arch support and can accentuate any abnormal biomechanics in foot motion which eventually brings pain and inflammation.

$140 FOR FLIP-FLOPS?

Flip-flops are far from new, dating back at least 70 years and believed developed out of traditional Japanese woven or wooden soled sandals in New Zealand. The basic flat sole with a Y-shaped strap, that passes between the toes and around either side of the foot, is known in every nation and to every social class. In developing countries, they are the cheapest -- and often only -- form of footwear, easy to make and easy to fit.

The term "flip-flop" derives from the noise they make while slapping against the wearer's heels and the floor but they are also known as thongs in Australia, jandals in New Zealand, and slippers in Hawaii.

But flip-flops took on a new life among the young and trendy a few years ago. They have surged in popularity with shops now selling them in every conceivable colour, with sequins, flowers, and even bridal flip-flops with over 300 Swarovski crystals on the straps for about $140 (77 pounds) a pair. Last June the Northwestern University's champion women's lacrosse team was widely criticised for wearing flip-flops when they visited the White House and met President George W. Bush.

Ellen Campuzano, president of the Committee of Colour and Trends, a New York-based forecasting service specialising in footwear and accessories, thinks flip-flops' popularity will wane. "Usually these trends come and go in about five years," she said. "I think we've reached the peak, they can't be any more widespread, so maybe next summer something will replace them."

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10) Business Week: Top Ten Goofs Interns Make [Les dix erreurs principales des stagiaires.]
h ttp://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/06/intern_mistakes/index_01.htm?campaign_id=di2

Top Ten Goofs Interns Make
Internships are becoming more important as an entrypoint to the working world. Here are the top mistakes interns make, and how to avoid them

By Kerry Miller

When companies like Philip Morris come recruiting on college campuses, they can put on quite a show for starry-eyed undergrads, as Andrew Dill, a student at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business can attest. After potential interns are wined and dined with fancy meals and frequent follow-up phone calls, he says, "You start out thinking it'll be a 10-week carpet ride." But when the wooing ends and the work begins, interns may find the ride to be a bit bumpier than expected, especially for college students who are first-timers in the corporate world.

While sweatpants and gum-smacking won't lose you points on your finance final, as an intern, what you do often counts as much as how you do it. And unlike a summer spent lifeguarding by the pool, the consequences don't end when you hang up your whistle. An internship is potentially the beginning of your business career, says David Sanderson, head of global recruiting for Bain & Co. "Every interaction you have is making an impression." And even interns who understand the importance of an internship are often clueless about just what kind of impression they're making.

Think working late makes you look dedicated? Your boss might just be wondering why you can't get your work done on time. Or is your air of confidence coming off as cockiness instead? We asked top recruiters and former interns for the low-down on the top intern mistakes -- and got their advice on how to avoid them.

With the strongest job market in half a decade (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/21/06, "The Jobs Come Looking for Grads"), it's true that by landing an internship you've already sweetened your chances of securing a full-time position. Georgia student Andrew Dill says he saw many of his fellow interns slip into complacency -- coming in late, or taking two-hour lunches, with the attitude that, "Oh, it's just an internship." But an internship is also a summer-long job interview. "Interns are being scrutinized as they go through their summer even as they scrutinize us as a potential employer," says Margaret Ashida, Director of University Talent Programs for IBM (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/30/06, "Big Blue on Campus"). You wouldn't be late for a job interview, would you?

Though it seems that even the most buttoned-up firms have engaged in some collective tie-loosening as far as dress code is concerned, recruiter Christine Layton at PriceWaterhouseCoopers says that misinterpreting "business casual" to mean just "casual" is a common intern mistake. Monica Schulz, a senior economics student at the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business, says her intern coordinator at Merrill Lynch has to repeatedly remind female interns that open-toed shoes and tank-tops were not appropriate office wear. While standards vary depending on your location and job function, interns with job responsibilities that include a lot of client interaction should be prepared to dress more formally. And when in doubt, Layton says, "go conservative." Button up that button-down.

It's obvious that using your cell phone to firm up your weekend plans isn't the best way to make a good impression in the workplace. And many companies explicitly forbid interns from blogging about their work. But even if you think listening to your iPod or chatting on Instant Messenger isn't interfering with your job responsibilities, your behavior might be interfering with the way you're being assessed as an overall professional -- especially by members of, ahem, older generations. E-mail is another area where recruiters say younger employees too often err on the side of informality. E-mail may be a less-formal medium, but that doesn't mean you won't be judged on your spelling errors -- or your abuse of the all-mighty "reply-all."

Painfully shy interns are at a definite disadvantage, says Roger Conner, Vice- President of Communications at Marriott International. "They may be quite intelligent, but it does not reflect well on them." Good interpersonal skills, such as making good eye contact, are extremely important, he says. Put those skills to use, and take advantage of company-wide events to get some face time with the company's top brass. Kevin Bell, an intern-turned-full-time-employee at IBM, says higher-ups are often more than willing to share their advice with interns, when asked. "Maybe they can spare the 30 minutes on their calendars, and maybe they can't -- but it doesn't hurt to try."

Most companies make an effort to arrange informal events and outings such as ball games or community service days -- sometimes for a whole department, sometimes just for interns. While you may think that skipping a cocktail party to work makes you look dedicated, you might actually be sending the message that you don't understand the company's values about life-work balance. You'll also lose out on what may be the best opportunities to get to know your co-workers on a more personal level.

Monica Schulz says one intern she worked with at Merrill Lynch started shirking on menial tasks like filing client records midway through his summer internship, reasoning that by the time his supervisor found out, he'd be long gone. Yet whether it's making photocopies or placing dinner orders, administrative duties are a fact of life even at top-notch internship programs. "We treat interns as first-year associates," says Christine Layton, PriceWaterhouseCooper's New York Metro Recruiting Leader, "but regardless of what level you are, there's always going to be some mundane task that you don't particularly enjoy doing." So just smile and do it.

Recruiter David Sanderson says that "spending as much time as you can with as many people as you can" is the best way to learn about the company you're working for. Don't be afraid to venture outside your immediate team or department to learn how your responsibilities fit into the big picture. Tristi Kersey, a newly minted graduate of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, says that's how she gained an edge on her final project at Miller Brewing Co. last summer. While other branding interns dug in with their teammates, Kersey reached out to representatives in operations, sales, and finance to get their advice, which she says brought a broader insight to her project as well as a better understanding of the business at large. Big-picture thinking can also be a boon for making grunt work a little less grunt-worthy, says Kevin Bell: "Being able to see a project's end goal really helped motivate me when I was working on smaller tasks."

8. FAILING TO ASK QUESTIONS

Tristi Kersey spent the first month of her internship at Miller Brewing Co. trying to work through her project deliverables on her own. It wasn't until her first deadline was approaching that she finally asked her manager. Luckily, she got the clarity she needed before it was too late. And while asking questions can be crucial to avoid wasting time and energy by approaching problems in the wrong way, they can also speak volumes about your desire to learn. There's perhaps no better way to show off your intellectual curiosity than by asking intelligent questions. It's the rare person in any organization who knows everything.

9. REJECTING CRITICISM

One downside of a recruiting process that often targets confident student leaders is that you have an internship program staffed by interns who act like, well, confident student leaders. Students used to being at the head of the class may not be as open to criticism as they should be. Instead of really listening to feedback, says Georgia's Andrew Dill, a number of interns he worked with simply shut it out. And he wasn't the only one who noticed the negative attitudes that resulted. Overly cocky interns aren't just making a bad impression; they're also missing out on valuable opportunities to improve their skills, says recruiter Christine Layton. "Critical feedback is the most challenging to give and receive -- but it's also the most useful." That means it's smart for interns to seek out constructive criticism, rather than waiting for a formal review.

10. WASTING TIME

Recruiters consistently cite being proactive as one of the most important qualities in a successful intern. If you're waiting to be told what to do, says Roger Conner of Marriott International, you're not doing enough. The summer's short, and there's a lot you can learn by asking for new tasks. And please, he says, "Don't play solitaire."

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11) The Telegraph: Actors play happy families to sell homes [Dernière trouvaille des promoteurs immobiliers US, les maisons témoins avec une équipe de comédiens présente pour simuler la famille idéale qui pourrait y résider.]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/04/wact04.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/04/ixnews.html

Actors play happy families to sell homes
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
(Filed: 04/06/2006)

The smell of freshly baked bread, coffee on the stove and a few props depicting a desirable lifestyle have become the stock-in-trade of the ambitious home seller. Now it seems that may not be enough. Anxious that even the most gushing of descriptions may not market its wares hard enough, one property company has begun a trend that it thinks could catch on everywhere: hiring teams of actors to play "happy families" in its show homes. Attractive film and stage actors are cast in the roles of cheerful-looking parents and their angelic children, recreating scenes of domestic bliss that they hope will impress prospective buyers.

The "HomeLife shows" have been launched in California, the home of Hollywood, Disneyland and plenty of out-of-work actors. "Model homes are wonderful and give you an idea about the potential a house has, but what's really missing is the soul," said Jim Garfield, of Roddan Paolucci Roddan, the property public relations firm behind the concept. "It's a theatrical, interactive, experiential show that allows visitors to see a home's heart."

The approach is being pioneered by Centex Homes in a development of 166 detached properties in Santa Clarita, California, 35 miles north of Los Angeles. With Hollywood just down the road, there is no shortage of photogenic and unemployed actors, for whom the alternatives are normally bit parts in television advertisements and waiting on tables.

Centex recruited Jaason Simmons, 35, best known for his three-year stint as a lifeguard on Baywatch, to play the father of the fictitious family. Camille Chen, a television and film actress, is "mother" while two children from a local theatre company are the couple's offspring.

While the "family" cooks, eats, chats, plays games and watches television, a stream of house-hunters passes through. The viewers are encouraged to treat the occupants as "real" people and quiz them on the items such as the oven or refrigerator, for which the actors are given fact sheets to mug up on beforehand. Normally, the "guests" will find themselves gatecrashing an uplifting family occasion, such as the baking of a birthday cake. "We do it as a free-flowing improvisation - set the parameters and make it like a play, with specific acts," said Mr Garfield.

While British house buyers would almost certainly find such a ploy too stage-managed, Americans appear to have taken it entirely at face value. According to Digna Barbieto, 62, who lives in Santa Clarita, it felt neither stage-managed or artificial. "When we came in, the family was preparing for the surprise and the kids were so excited," she said. "They offered us cookies and some of the viewers chatted to them. It felt very real and made you want to own a house just like that. I'm encouraging my son and daughter-in-law to buy one."

A second show day at the development, which features three to five-bedroom homes from $500,000 (£280,000) to $610,000, is planned for Saturday. The cast will be the same except for Miss Chen, who has a previous engagement and will be "changed out" for a new mum.

Mr Garfield agreed that the "reality" genre of television shows such as Big Brother might have been a partial inspiration. "It's become so much a part of our everyday lives, fantasy bleeding into reality, so I'm sure it played some kind of role. Our aim was more how to portray our -client's message in the most authentic way possible," he said.

His British counterparts are in no rush to copy the idea. Daphne Leck, of Banbury-based Property Presentation Services, said: "Most people get rid of their kids when they are showing people around, not put them on display. "And would you have different types of actors for different homes? If you were selling an upper-middle class home, would you have an old codger in jodhpurs wandering round the house? "This is a typically American, wonderful idea, which would never work here."

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12) KDKA TV: Suburban mom goes on strike [Une mère fait grève pour dénoncer ses enfants qui ne font rien à la maison.]
http://kdka.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_153195751.html

Suburban Mom Goes On Strike, Pickets Own Home

(CBS) DEERFIELD, Ill. Being a stay-at-home mom isn't easy. The pay stinks, and you're not always properly appreciated. So a mother of three in the north suburbs decided she wouldn't take it anymore.

WBBM-TV's Alita Guillen reports on the yogurt spill that sent a mom over the edge and onto the pavement. Joanna Fishman did something she didn't want to do, but had to do, when her two boys stopped doing their daily chores. Her 7- and 9-year-old stopped making their beds, packing their own baseball gear and taking out the trash.

"I had been threatening and threatening that I was going to go on strike, and I wasn't going to do anything. And I knew if I was sitting in the house they'd still be coming to me," she said. So she made a sign and hit the sidewalk. With the help of her two-year-old, who was exempt from the strike, she chanted, "Mom on strike!" "When I was growing up, I had to make my bed and I don't even remember my mom helping me get ready for school at all," Joanna said.

After one day on strike, Joanna thought her boys got the message. Her husband even sat them down for a little talk. It turns out they didn't get it. She had to come out for day two. She picketed mostly during high traffic hours and especially when the bus came by. "My older one got off the bus and said, 'This is so embarrassing. What do I have to do to get you to go back inside?'" she recalled. "And I said, 'I told you guys if you don't start helping out, I'm going on strike.'"

That was more than a week ago. Things have gotten better, sort of. She has signs reminding the kids of their chores and is still cleaning up, but she feels she's a few steps closer to raising responsible children. As for the sign, Joanna's "going to keep it in a hidden place" just in case.

Joanna's sort of a local celebrity now. Strangers come up and congratulate her.

As for her husband, he's trying to help.

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Cleo Ouellette's school in Frenchville made her write "I will not speak French" over and over if she uttered so much as a "oui" or "non" — and rewarded students with extra recess if they ratted out French-speaking classmates.

And Howard Paradis, a teacher in Madawaska forced to reprimand French-speaking students, made the painful decision not to teach French to his own children. "I wasn't going to put my kids through that," Mr. Paradis said. "If you wanted to get ahead you had to speak English."

That was Maine in the 1950's and 1960's, and the stigma of being French-American reverberated for decades afterward. But now, le Français fait une rentrée — French is making a comeback. The State Legislature began holding an annual French-American Day four years ago, with legislative business and the Pledge of Allegiance done in French and "The Star-Spangled Banner" sung with French and English verses.

Maine elected its first openly French-American congressman, Michael H. Michaud, in 2002. And Gov. John E. Baldacci has steadily increased commerce with French-speaking countries and led a trade delegation to France last fall, one of the first since tension with France began after the Sept. 11 attacks. In an interview, the governor, who is of Lebanese-Italian descent and studied Russian in high school, added, "I've been working on my French."

The Franco-American Heritage Center, opened in Lewiston a few years ago, fines guests at its luncheons up to a dollar if they lapse into English — jovial retaliation for the schools that once gave students movie tickets or no homework if they squealed on French speakers.

"Reacquisition classes" and conversation groups have sprung up at places like the South Portland Public Library, giving people a chance to relearn their mothballed French. Census figures show Maine has a greater proportion of people speaking French at home than any other state — about 5.3 percent.

And in South Freeport, there is L'École Française du Maine, a French-immersion program that began as a preschool in 2001 and proved so popular it has added a grade each year. Many students have French-American parents who were estranged from the language, and some commute long distances to the school.

"My dad grew up speaking only French and went to school and got teased by other kids, and he wanted to spare his kids that experience, so both my wife and I are kind of a generation that got skipped," said Bob Michaud, whose son, Alexandre, attends second grade at L'École Française, 45 minutes from home. "I'm doing it because I want Alex to learn more about our heritage and background."

The school has made Anna Bilodeau, 8, and her brother Markus, 7, so fluent that they routinely speak French with their grandmother Arlene Bilodeau, 68, who regrets that she did not ensure her own children were well versed in French. "It made me feel sad — this was our language," Ms. Bilodeau said. "When I hear Anna and Markus speaking, I just admire what they're doing."

People of French descent poured into Maine and other New England states from Canada beginning in the 1870's and became the backbone of textile mills and shoe factories. But resistance developed, and people began stereotyping the newcomers as rednecks, dolts or inadequate patriots. In 1919, Maine passed a law requiring schools to teach in English.

French-Americans had a saying: "Qui perd sa langue, perd sa foi" ("Who loses his language, loses his faith"). But many assimilated or limited their children's exposure to French to avoid discrimination or because of a now-outmoded belief that erasing French would make learning English easier.

"There was just a stigma that maybe you weren't as bright as anybody else, that you didn't speak English as well," said Linda Wagner, 53, of Lewiston, who takes classes to reclaim language lost as a child.

Suzanne Bourassa Woodward, 46, of South Portland, who recently joined a conversation group and enrolled her 10-year-old daughter in French classes, said "my French went underground" in fourth grade because "I was ridiculed, the dumb Frenchman jokes came out." "After that," she said, "my parents would always speak to me in French, but I always responded in English."

As recently as the early 1990's, a character named Frenchie, who caricatured French-Americans, was a fixture on a Maine radio show until protests drove him off the air. The stigma was compounded by the French-American dialect, which can differ from French spoken in France in idiom, pronunciation, vocabulary — like British and American English. French-American French, derived from people who left France for Canada centuries ago, resembles the French of Louis XIV more than the modern Parisian variety, said Yvon Labbé, director of the French-American Center at the University of Southern Maine.

French-Americans may say "chassis" instead of "fenêtre" for window, "char" instead of "voiture" for car. Mr. Labbé said many French-Americans pronounced "moi" as Molière did: "moé." A saying illustrated French-Americans' inferiority complex about their language: "On est né pour être petit pain; on ne peut pas s'attendre à la boulangerie" ("We are born to be little breads; we cannot expect the bakery").

"We were always told that we spoke bad French, that we were worthless as people because we spoke neither French nor English," said Ms. Ouelette, 69. Indeed, when Jim Bishop, son of Fred Bishop (né Frederick Levesque), took high school and college classes to recapture French "it was just a nightmare," he said. "At times I would say words and they would turn out not to be real words."

Maine's French renaissance is partly due to the collapse of the mills and factories, which put French-Americans into the mainstream. It was aided by a group of legislators who in 2002 began holding weekly meetings in French.

The revival includes both French-American patois and culture, celebrated at places like the Lewiston center, and Parisian language and curriculum, taught at L'École Française. The government of France is also involved, seeing "very big potential" to "develop trade relations, tourism," said Alexis Berthier, a spokesman for the French consulate in Boston, which is promoting programs and events in Maine and working to establish sister cities.

Most Maine schools, like those elsewhere, teach considerably more Spanish than French. But for those like Norman Marquis of Old Orchard Beach, who takes reacquisition classes, the resurgence of his lost language is profound."It's almost like I found religion," said Mr. Marquis, 68, suddenly choking with emotion. "My religion, No. 1, was French. I have a personal movement in my heart for it."

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14) The Daily Mail: Why women who want to get ahead get a husky voice [Les femmes qui veulent réussir baissent le ton de leur voix.]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=389130&in_page_id=1879

Why women who want to get ahead get a husky voice
By REBECCA CAMBER, Daily Mail 10:22am 5th June 2006

Career-driven women are lowering their voices to get ahead in the workplace and gain acceptance in a society that is still male-dominated, a study suggests. Researchers claim ambitious women are increasingly adopting the husky tones of stars such as broadcaster Mariella Frostrup or actress Kathleen Turner to compete with their deep-voiced male counterparts.

A comparison of women's voices between 1945 and 1993 reveals they deepened significantly in the second half of the century. During that time, the average pitch of women aged 18 to 25 lowered by 23 hertz - equivalent to a semi-tone drop.

Jonnie Robinson, a curator at the British Library who specialises in dialects, said: "Women's voices do seem to have lowered over the last 50 years. "Women have been striving to attain acceptance in a previously male-dominated society and they may have lowered their tone to enter that realm. A deeper voice might be associated more with power."

According to a new book, pressure for women to imitate the deep voices of actresses and television presenters was first observed in the 1970s.

One academic study found women were tending to pitch their voices lower than advisable at around two-thirds of an octave higher than men's, rather than the more usual one octave.

Anne Karpf, author of The Human Voice, claims singing coaches and audio archivists have noted the deepening trend as high-powered female politicians and television correspondents are being encouraged to lower their pitch. Lady Thatcher was famously advised by spin doctor Gordon Reece to swop her shrill tones for a deeper delivery, while voice coaching toned down Princess Diana's soft, breathy speech. And Anne Robinson reportedly lowered her register to sound more authoritative when presenting The Weakest Link quiz show.

However, experts have also linked the change to women's burgeoning body shape. Yorkshire voice trainer Francis Newton said: 'One reason women's voices have become lower is changes to their vocal cords. "Now women are becoming larger the cords are longer, which means frequency or pitch is lower."

But doctors have warned that deliberately switching your natural pitch risks hoarseness, a sore larynx and vocal fatigue.

The news comes as research reveals women are still being cheated by a pay gap with their male co-workers. The latest Government figures show that the UK's top male earners rake in 27 per cent more on average than the highest-earning women. According to the Equal Opportunities Commission, the more senior the position, the bigger the wage difference. Typically, women in full-time work take home 17 per cent less than their male counterparts.

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These days, we tend to communicate via the keyboard as much as we do verbally. Often, we're in a hurry, quickly dashing off emails with typos, grammatical shortcuts (I'm being kind here), and that breezy, e.e. cummings, no-caps look. It's expected. It's no big deal. But other times, we try to invest a little care, avoiding mistakes so that there's no confusion about what we're saying and so that we look professional and reasonably bright.

In general, we can slip up in a verbal conversation and get away with it. A colleague may be thinking, "Did she just say 'irregardless'?", but the words flow on, and our worst transgressions are carried away and with luck, forgotten.

That's not the case with written communications. When we commit a grammatical crime in emails, discussion posts, reports, memos, and other professional documents, there's no going back. We've just officially gone on record as being careless or clueless. And here's the worst thing. It's not necessary to be an editor or a language whiz or a spelling bee triathlete to spot such mistakes. They have a way of doing a little wiggle dance on the screen and then reaching out to grab the reader by the throat.

So here we are in the era of Word's red-underline "wrong spelling, dumb ass" feature and Outlook's Always Check Spelling Before Sending option, and still the mistakes proliferate. Catching typos is easy (although not everyone does it). It's the other stuff — correctly spelled but incorrectly wielded — that sneaks through and makes us look stupid. Here's a quick review of some of the big ones.

#1: Loose for lose
No: I always loose the product key.
Yes: I always lose the product key.

#2: It's for its (or god forbid, its')
No: Download the HTA, along with it's readme file.
Yes: Download the HTA, along with its readme file.
No: The laptop is overheating and its making that funny noise again.
Yes: The laptop is overheating and it's making that funny noise again.

#3: They're for their for there
No: The managers are in they're weekly planning meeting.
Yes: The managers are in their weekly planning meeting.
No: The techs have to check there cell phones at the door, and their not happy about it.
Yes: The techs have to check their cell phones at the door, and they're not happy about it.

#4: i.e. for e.g.
No: Use an anti-spyware program (i.e., Ad-Aware).
Yes: Use an anti-spyware program (e.g., Ad-Aware).
Note: The term i.e. means "that is"; e.g. means "for example". And a comma follows both of them.

#5: Effect for affect
No: The outage shouldn't effect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't have any effect on users.
Yes: We will effect several changes during the downtime.

Note: Impact is not a verb. Purists, at least, beg you to use affect instead:
No: The outage shouldn't impact any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage should have no impact on users during work hours.

#6: You're for your
No: Remember to defrag you're machine on a regular basis.
Yes: Remember to defrag your machine on a regular basis.
No: Your right about the changes.
Yes: You're right about the changes.

#7: Different than for different from
No: This setup is different than the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is different from the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is better than the one at the main office.

#8 Lay for lie
No: I got dizzy and had to lay down.
Yes: I got dizzy and had to lie down.
Yes: Just lay those books over there.

#9: Then for than
No: The accounting department had more problems then we did.
Yes: The accounting department had more problems than we did.

Note: Here's a sub-peeve. When a sentence construction begins with If, you don't need a then. Then is implicit, so it's superfluous and wordy:
No: If you can't get Windows to boot, then you'll need to call Ted.
Yes: If you can't get Windows to boot, you'll need to call Ted.

#10: Could of, would of for could have, would have
No: I could of installed that app by mistake.
Yes: I could have installed that app by mistake.
No: I would of sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.
Yes: I would have sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.