What Caught My Eye This Week - Magazine Edition

BusinessWeek
Career Advancement - In a recent survey, nearly 1 in 5 managers ranked getting a promotion as their most challenging life event saying that they get little or no support as they enter their new jobs. Here are the rankings for the top five:
Promotion - 19%, Bereavement - 15%, Divorce - 11%, Moving - 10% and Raising Teenage Children - 9%. I may be slightly biased, what with being a guy and all, but that first rectal exam is no picnic either, especially when the doctor says, 'next time we'll use the scope'.

Innovation - BusinessWeek released its list of the world's most innovate companies. Here are the top 10 (2007 ranking / 2006 ranking)

Apple (1 / 1) - That iPod deal worked out pretty well for these guys, didn't it?
Google (2 / 2) - $500 a share and now this? Lucky bastards.
Toyota (3 / 4)
General Electric (4 / 6)
Microsoft (5 / 5) - I assume they got this for coming up with new ways to complicate operating systems
Procter & Gamble (6 / 7)
3M (7 / 3) - Who you ask? These are the folks that brought us Post-it Notes
Walt Disney (8 / 43)
IBM (9 / 10)
Sony (10 /13)

The Week
Israel - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Almert's centrist coalition government was on the verge of collapse after a government report harshly criticized his leadership during last summer's war in Lebanon. The report said Olmert was guilty of "a serious failure in exercisinging judgment, responsibility and prudence." Polls show that two-thirds of Israelis want Olmert to step down. Just to be clear, this is not a typo. I'm talking about Israel's prime minister, not the head of some other country in the midst of a rather unpopular war.

France - No one has a more negative view of the French than the French themselves according to a recnet poll conducted by a French television network. 44% of Frenchmen and women say they hold a negative view of the French, compared with 38% of Americans who hold the Frech in low esteem (I suppose that's one way of saying it). 14% of Germans, 25% of Italians, 29% of Spaniards and 33% of Britons think poorly of the French. I'm not saying its right to hate the French, its just that they make it so easy to do so.

Dishonesty - The dean of admissions at MIT resigned last week after acknowledging that she fabricated her educational credentials. When she first applied for a post at MIT in 1979, she falsely claimed to have degrees from 3 different institutions. she never corrected the record as she moved up the ranks of academia and has received national acclaim for her campaign urging high school students not to stress themselves out building up impressive resumes for college. Here's a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do.' You have to give the broad credit though. Sure she lied to get the job (like that's never happened before), but it certainly appears as if she advanced on her own merits.