Turning philanthropy into a spectator sport

 The Funding Network’s 10th anniversary event raised £40,000. Tom Levitt explains how the donations will help worthy causes.

… there is a strong community feeling and the passions of the givers are genuine. “We can achieve more by giving together than we can by giving alone“, is tangible.

Read Tom’s article in The Guardian Professional.  Former MP Tom Levitt is author of Gower’s Partners for Good

Gower author and editor appears on BBC Breakfast News

Distinguished professor at Lancaster University Management School, Professor Cary Cooper is a regular guest on  BBC Breakfast News. This morning he was there to discuss how to create motivation at work and keep sickness absence low. In April he was there to underline the importance of taking holidays. Despite the current climate,  Professor Cooper says “research shows it’s good for you, both physically and mentally.”

Cary Cooper, who specialises in Organizational Psychology and Health, has authored over 150 books pertaining to psychology and was heralded the ’5th Most Influential Thinker in HR in 2011.’

Risk management is an ongoing concern for modern organizations in terms of their finance, their people, their assets, their projects and their reputation. That’s why the research and exploration detailed in the series edited by Professor Cary (Psychological and Behavioural Aspects of Risk) is so important.

The truth about shareholder primacy by Gordon Pearson in The Guardian

It is time for business leaders to move away from Milton Friedman’s target of short term shareholder gain and head towards long term sustainability, says Gordon Pearson.

And Unilever’s Paul Polman must be a chief executive in a million – or more, he concludes in his interesting piece in The Guardian

PMI Global Congress EMEA 2012: Sustainability in Project Management

Gower Author Professor A.J.Gilbert Silvius (Sustainability in Project Management), will be joining a panel of presenters at the PMI Global Congress EMEA in Marseille 7-9 May 2012.

Titled ‘Sustainability in Project Management: The Future is Now’ the research working session on Sunday 6 May 8.30–16.00, will focus on current global issues and initiatives surrounding sustainability in all aspects of project management.

The panel of presenters will include both practitioners and researchers, including members of PMI’s Academic Member Advisory Group and other subject matter experts in the field. Other topics on the agenda include:

• Summary of current research on sustainable projects
• Considering the environmental impact and implications of projects
• Integrating sustainability initiatives as key components of project management life cycle
• What project managers and organisations can do better in terms of sustainable/green initiatives
• Sustainability initiatives in project management moving forward/for the future

This programme provides researchers, academics and advanced practitioners the opportunity to exchange ideas on new research and its application.

Sustainability in Project Management will be published in May 2012 by Gower.

Anglo-American Post-Industrial Waste

Thought-provoking if somewhat alarming piece on Gordon Pearson’s blog: Anglo-American Post-Industrial Waste. He is not describing waste in terms that might immediately occur to you or I, but rather waste in human terms; the loss of employment associated with the economic decline of the West. Sobering stuff! Gordon is author of The Road to Cooperation: Escaping the Bottom Line and The Rise and Fall of Management: A Brief History of Practice, Theory and Context.
 

Taking Responsibility through Your Projects

In this month’s issue of PM World Today, A.J.Gilbert Silvius and Ron Schipper offer a perspective on project management that, whilst not entirely new, is still paradoxically something of a rarity: the role of projects and project managers in business sustainability. I say, paradoxically because given the function of projects to deliver business change, you’d have thought they would be the standard bearers of sustainable practice. Let’s hope that Gilbert and Ron’s work will strike a chord and provide a catalyst to enable projects to assume that role. Gilbert Silvius and Ron Schipper are authors of the forthcoming Gower book, Sustainability in Project Management.

Engaging Developing Markets (with mobile technology)

To many of us, mobile phones may seem to represent everything that is wrong about the current economic model; products associated with unbridled consumerism, with people’s wants rather than needs, and products that are produced using resources from conflict zones. So I found the article Engaging Developing Markets, co-authored by Anxo Roibás, a very interesting read. The authors focus on how mobile phone providers have engaged with developing markets and, in the process, reveal the extraordinary power this techology has for enabling technological and social change. It is interesting to see such a contrasting perspective on the same technology, seen through the lens of the developed and the developing world. Anxo Roibás is co-editor of the Gower book, Design for Sport.

What more is there apart from profit?

Whilst it’s very easy for organizations to confuse spirituality with religion, it is a very dangerous confusion; not least because it robs any business of the basis for exploring what kind of human values can underpin the workplace and the competitive advantage of the business. I am very interested in the conference that Judi Neal (co-author of the forthcoming Gower book, The Spirit of Project Management) is co-chairing in November (Faith and Spirit at Work Conference) at the University of Arkansas’ Tyson Center for Faith and Spirituality in the Workplace. Given the economic challenges, complexity and sheer scale of many modern business endeavours, spirituality seems to me to offer ways of connecting the individual, the team and the whole organization to the purpose behind their business.

Live Question and Answer with Professor Cary Cooper

On 15th September, Cary Cooper who is a Gower author and Editor of the Psychological and Behavioural Aspects of Risk series, took part in a one hour live Q&A with the Chartered Management Institute. Please see Cary’s Q&A correspondence here.

APM Conference Chairman Prof Darren Dalcher awarded Honorary Fellowship

APM Project Management Conference chairman and founder and director of the National Centre for Project Management, Professor Darren Dalcher, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Association for Project Management. Professor Dalcher is also Series Editor of Gower’s Fundamentals and Advances of Project Management Books. He has built a reputation as leader and innovator in the area of practice-based education and reflection in project management and has worked with many major industrial and commercial organisations and government bodies. He received international recognition in 2009 with appointment as a member of the PMForum’s International Academic Advisory Council, which includes leading academics in project management from some of the world’s top universities and academic institutions. The Council showcases accomplished researchers, influential educators shaping the next generation of project managers and recognised authorities on modern project management.

Professor Dalcher is a Fellow of both APM and the BCS as well as a member of PMI, the Academy of Management, the IEEE and the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a member of the PMI Advisory Board responsible for the prestigious David I Cleland project management award. In 2008 he was recognised in Project magazine top 10 for his contribution in “integrating and weaving academic work with practice”. He has been chairman of the agenda setting APM Project Management Conference since 2009. He is Professor of Software Project Management, at Middlesex University and visiting Professor of Computer Science at the University of Iceland. Professor Dalcher will receive his Honorary Fellowship at the APM Project Management Awards on 20th October 2011 at the Brewery, London.