Leadership and Laying People Off

First-Hand Account of a Leader Faced with Laying People off:

"I’M vice president for strategy and operations at Accolo, a recruitment outsourcing company near San Francisco. I also run the sales organization and manage our finances, so I have a unique view of our revenue and expenses. I’m the first to notice an imbalance, which means that I’m the one to sound the alarm if we need to lay people off. I had to do that last November. . ."

Statistics: School Enrollment in the U.S. 2006

Statistics: School Enrollment in the U.S. 2006. Note that statistics for previous years are also available.

The National Center for Education Statistics

The National Center for Education Statistics, located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. (Refdesk.com)

The NEA Higher Education Almanac 2008

The NEA Higher Education Almanac 2008. Note that you also can view earlier editions of the almanac from this site.

Zotero

Zotero is a sophisticated free product that works is a somewhat similar way to Ref Works (a $6,000 database). Here is what Zotero says about its product - Zotero "is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work - in the web browser itself."

FedStats

"FedStats provides access to the full range of official statistical information produced by the Federal Government without having to know in advance which Federal agency produces which particular statistic. FedStats is your one location for access to the full breadth of Federal statistical information." (Refdesk.com)

What People Can Learn From How Social Animals Make Collective

"DICTATORS and authoritarians will disagree, but democracies work better. It has long been held that decisions made collectively by large groups of people are more likely to turn out to be accurate than decisions made by individuals. The idea goes back to the “jury theorem” of Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century French philosopher who was one of the first to apply mathematics to the social sciences. Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making."