CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SPEAK OUT AGAINST POVERTY

The 2009 observance will take place on Monday, October 19 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

There is an International Committee for the International Day which released their annual message recently to mark the Day.

Two American economists, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, who study the way decisions are made outside the markets on which many other economists focus, were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics Monday.

Ms. Ostrom, who teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ill., is the first woman to win the prize, which, before Monday, had been awarded to 62 men since it was launched in 1969 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Swedish bank. The judges cited “her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons,” the way in which natural resources are managed as shared resources. It is an area of research that she said was relevant to questions surrounding global warming, and suggests that decisions by individuals can help solve the problem even as governments work to reach an international agreement.

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Elinor Ostrom, left, and Oliver E. Williamson

Ms. Ostrom “challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized,” the Nobel judges said. “Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, [Ms.] Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.”

Ms. Ostrom, who was interviewed by phone during the announcement press conference in Stockholm, described the prize as “an immense surprise,” and said, “I’m still a little bit in shock.”

Her Ph.D. is in political science, but she said she considers herself a political economist.

Mr. Williamson, who is at the University of California at Berkeley, was cited for “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm” — the reason some economic decisions are made at arm’s length in markets and others are made inside a corporation.

“The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement,” the judges said. “The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of [Mr.] Williamson’s theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.”

The economics prize is the only one of the six Nobel prizes not created in Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel’s 1896 will, and is officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

The two economists will share a 10 million kronor prize (about $1.4 million). Ms. Ostrom said she hopes to devote the proceeds to supporting research and graduate students.

Cornell University’s Integrated Web Services
has good advice for web authors…

http://wpg.cornell.edu/iws2/resources/writing.cfm

1. Write for scanners and grazers.

• Research: According to Jakob Nielsen, only 16% of typical web users read each word. 79% of users scan a page, and then move on.
• Tip: To engage users, avoid using too many adjectives or jargon-heavy promotional language. Highlight the most important points and use the language that will reach the widest possible audience.
• Good Example: Penn Law School identified the unique qualities that they wanted users to remember about Penn. They made these points prominent on the page, and they didn’t dilute the message with too many words. The result is scanner’s delight, and each point receives the emphasis it deserves. http://www.law.upenn.edu/about/index.html
• Bad Example: Duke Law’s “About” section is a long unbroken text with no place for the eye to rest. Users must work hard to discover what is unique about Duke. http://www.law.duke.edu/about.html

2. Leave your users satisfied. Users become frustrated when they can’t find expected information.

• Tip: Think of a page from the user’s perspective. For instance, a user expects to find out how to visit a school in an Admissions section. This information is important for prospective students, prospective faculty, conference attendees, and anyone else who needs to find their way around. Of the top ten law schools, only Northwestern, Michigan, and UVA include easily accessible information about hotels and parking.
• Good Example: While Northwestern Law School’s site has some visual weaknesses, they’ve done a good job of satisfying users hoping to visit the school. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/mainpages/visit/
• Bad Example: Harvard’s site buries important information, including accommodations and parking maps for notoriously congested Cambridge. Users, including faculty visitors, prospective students, and vendors may become frustrated by the inaccessibility and lack of navigation to help find practical visitor information. http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/

3. Write for a global audience.

• Include content that appeals to international users.
• Good Example: Columbia Law School has a strong presence in international law. At all levels of their site, they emphasize their international connections and make their international audience comfortable. The site even lists current students and graduates who are foreign nationals. http://www.law.columbia.edu/intl
• Bad Example: Michigan Law School, despite requiring a course in Transnational Law and having a strong joint degree program in Japanese and Chinese studies, includes no information for international visitors or prospective students. Judging only from site content and navigation, Michigan feels like a regional school trying to cash in on global buzz words. http://www.law.umich.edu/curriculum/index.htm

4. Users want to know how you can help them.

• Make information relevant.
• Anticipate needs.
• Show, don’t tell.
• Good Example: Tuck, Dartmouth’s business school, prominently features photographs and quotes from alumni that discuss the aspects of Tuck that have helped them in their legal careers. http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/

5. Tell Your Story. Before you begin writing your content, develop a list of themes and important adjectives to incorporate into your copy, images, and captions.

• Tip: Be sure to maintain a consistent voice that develops your unit’s themes throughout the site.
• Good Example: UCLA Law changed a potential liability–their relatively short history–into a strength. On their “About” page, a lack of tradition became a “tradition of innovation.” The school extends the theme of innovation throughout their site. http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/index.asp?page=2
• Bad Example: Stanford Law’s website is a jumble of information. From the scrolling graphics to the difficult to read navigation, it’s hard to know Stanford’s story by looking at their site. http://www.law.stanford.edu/about/history/

6. Use an inverted pyramid structure. The broad side represents the most important information; the tip represents the least important.

• Get to the point immediately.
• Users want to know at a glance whether a page is going to either contain, or point them to, the information for which they’re looking.
• Think newspaper, not journal article.
• Good Example: The University of Pennsylvania’s site consistently uses pyramid structure and fewer words to tell their story. www.law.upenn.edu

7. Avoid complicated sentence structure and vary the sentence structure. Reading text on the web is much more taxing than reading it on paper. Don’t tire your audience.

8. Limit your great ideas to one per paragraph.

9. Chunk information.

• Research shows that people learn best with information presented in small chunks.
• Use formatting techniques, such as bullets, to chunk information.

10. Proofread your work. Then ask someone who does not work with the information to proofread it again.

11. Use bullets, but not too many.

• Bullets lead the eye down the page.
• Too many bullets are overwhelming, and detract from the prominence of each.

12. Use internal sub-headings as scan-able markers.

13. Use active voice and action words wherever possible. Avoid tired, promotional language. For example, on MIT’s Business School, they describe the faculty/student interaction as having “crackling energy.”

14. Create a style document for your section of the site.

15. Think before breaking multi-page documents into multi-pages. Sometimes breaking text into different pages causes user fatigue. Users don’t always want to click and wait for a page load. Consider whether breaking a long document into multiple pages will disrupt the flow.

Follow this link for the video

This speech will go down in history as one of the most convincing arguments for genetic modification for some members of parliament.

Victorian MP Jason Wood was supposed to be talking about genetically modified organisms when he ran into trouble.

And just in case anyone missed him talking about "genetically modified orgasms" the first time, he repeated it.

"I support the member for McMillan's call for the government to conduct an independent broad-ranging scientific investigation into the genetic modification of food and biotechnology to assess not only the health of the crops and the food, but also the potential for contamination, the commercial implications for Australian primary industry, and the benefits and risks associated with genetically modified orgasms, orgasms," Mr Wood said.

The La Trobe MP, who did not have the hallmarks of a great orator, sounded a little confused about the word, so tried pronouncing it two ways.

He did not correct his mistake, instead moving on rather hurriedly to the climax of his speech.

Later in the speech he did refer to "genetically modified organisms."

Perhaps fortunately for Mr Wood, who hails from Melbourne's outer east, he gave his orgasm speech at 9.25pm when the house was almost empty.

He was speaking in support of a motion moved by fellow Liberal Russell Broadbent during the adjournment debate, raising concerns about genetically modified crops.

It is officially the first day of SPRING!  But wait…it is snowing.

Keong Hee Huat Chye(Hokkien)
Xi Fa Cai (Mandarin)

The year of the OX kicked off today and New Year celebrations last for 15 days. For Hokkiens the 15th Night (Chap Goh Mei) – the last night of the New Year festivities – is celebrated in a big way since it coincides with the first full moon of the New Year.

Our modest dinner:

Steamed Red Snapper; Garlic Shrimps; Baby Bok Choy and "Joo Hoo Char".

Snowfall in New York 18 January 2009

This winter has been pretty cold by New York standards and the forecast is for more snow and a couple of very cold weeks ahead.