Skip to main content

Ideal companies in the second millenium

Companies that thrive in the knowledge-driven global economy are spread out, with loose hierarchies, not rigid centralized structures. They depend on complex, constantly changing streams of information that can't be contained by any one source. And the tasks of groups within these firms link them to people within the company and without. The distributed-yet-interconnected character of contemporary work dictates reaching outward...And a bedrock for any successful team is a culture that supports frank discussion even if it's about bad news or mistakes.

TIME: It's what's on the outside that counts
As a poor student at Peking University in the early 1980s, Michael Yu wanted to follow his ambitious classmates to the U.S. for graduate school. He scored high on the required Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and was accepted at several universities, but he couldn't land the scholarships he needed to pay his way. So he stayed in Beijing, teaching English grammar and composition by day at Peking University and working nights coaching students on how to do well on overseas-placement tests.
But small defeats sometimes have a way of turning into big successes. While Yu's family lacked the money to send him abroad, the young teacher recognized China was changing. "Most parents, if they have the financial ability, want their kids to study English," Yu says today. "And with the development of the Chinese economy, every family is becoming richer and richer." Yu put the two trends together — and realized his moonlighting gig was actually a much larger opportunity.... He founded Beijing New Oriental School, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year, continues to dominate the test-preparation market in education-obsessed China.... Classes should be "very inspiring, humorous and causal," he says. "This is a style taht most Chinese teachers lack."

TIME: New Oriental Education & Technology Group
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On 'natural'

I don't think 'natural' is good. There are many things that we apply (some almost arbitrary) (some ignorant and backward ideas of natural and not-natural agenda-propagating) rules of morality. I think 'natural' is a political rhetoric, profoundly abused.  'Diversity' is the only defensible rhetoric for 'thinking' beings. We are not, of course, the only creatures that do thinking, but we are the only creatures with the power to oppress others and other creatures whose languages we don't understand.  Us (badly) thinking creatures, slowly, ponderously gathering the evidence of our badness (I see no reason for your (god's) patience with us), have the ability to decide to be better than (the fashionable) 'natural' of the day.  It is our responsibility to transcend our vileness. Just that. That one task. Our thinkingness I believe is for that. A world (constructed by god) to demonstrate this point. And we will find every rhetor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grrl counter-power, I love Doris Day

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions ... To be fair - it's difficult to think of a non-self-defining feminist woman as anything but a tool of the patriarchy. I have to concentrate on the fact that even though a woman would not call herself a feminist, she would never endorse footbinding (to name a radical example) and it doesn't necessarily mean she is a doormat either. In fact, some of my favorite women scorn my feminism and hate it when they are judged solely on their marital status or gender. Ironically if you look at films made during the so-called liberal 60s and 70s you will see that movies align the woman's role less to what is happening politically in the big wide world and more to what is happening in pornography. The rise of the snuff movie mirrored the rise of violence towards women in the movies, serial killer paradise. Pornography always centers on the woman - probably in an attempt to hide the size of the penis. From my perspective, I am less un...
8 comments
Read more

Mary Daly explains the pejoration (of one) of the words related to women

Of Death and Conscience: Brief thoughts on gender role and the values of the dominant culture in medicine : "“Under the influence of the Church and the newly formed male-dominated medical establishment, the word “witch,” which originally meant “wise one,” became a term of scorn. It took a reign of terror lasting several hundred years to radically alter a way of life thousands of years old. Millions of women who carried the healing lineage were systematically killed (see The Church and the Second Sex by Mary Daly).”"
4 comments
Read more