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This blog is not longer active, to learn the latest news and information, please visit Orfalea Foundations (www.orfaleafoundations.org) or West Coast Asset Management (www.WCAM.com)

Jul 1 2010

Pointless Pollution: The Chlorine Whitewash

Paper mills dump tons of dioxins - byproducts of the chlorine bleaching process - into American streams and rivers. Dioxins accumulate in fat cells, and have been implicated in higher cancer rates, as well as reproductive and developmental harm in both animals and humans. If paper mills only had to bleach a very few premium products, how much less dioxin would be released into the environment?

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Categories: Corporate Culture | Leadership | Environment | Optimism

2 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:56 AM

May 2 2010

Why You Should Study Accounting

When a person living in a small village in India buys a can of Campbell's soup, that act triggers an elaborate economic scorekeeping system that both describes and empowers worldwide commerce. The scorekeeping system is called accounting, and the score is a measure of rewards owed to people along the value chain for their effort, ideas and investments.

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Categories: Education | Entrepreneurialism | Finance | Economics

3 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 10:40 PM

Apr 22 2010

Firing People is Easy

Many supervisors feel tremendous angst when they must fire a coworker. But there are two groups for whom the termination process is easy: bad supervisors and great supervisors.

2 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:38 AM

Apr 9 2010

Other People's Money at the Game

I've written in the past about Manhattan's opulent restaurants, crowded to capacity at lunchtime as executives treat each other to lunch on the shareholder's dime. I also find it outrageous that people brag about their $2,500 Lakers tickets. Companies purchase expensive tickets because they are tax deductible - those fancy skyboxes are taxpayer-subsidized entertainment.

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Categories: Corporate Culture | Economics | Ethics

1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 2:07 PM

Apr 2 2010

Are People The Biggest Impediment to Customer Service?

Online retailers Overstock.com, Zappos.com, and Amazon.com came in 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th in the 2009 NRF Foundation/American Express Customers' Choice survey, right behind 1^st place winner L.L. Bean, the catalog-retailing giant. Television shopping channel QVC came in fifth, which means that none of the top five retailers in this customer service survey is known for face-to-face service.

4 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 4:29 PM

Mar 25 2010

Customer Service Heroes: Veterans Health Administration

Did you know that the Veterans Health Administration is the largest single medical system in the country? It is also one of the most efficient, and, according to numerous independent surveys, provides the highest quality of care.

1 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 7:22 PM

Mar 11 2010

Why I Teach the Way I Teach

I do not require exams because I am interested in what people know, not what they can remember for a few hours after cramming. The students are tested every week through their required participation in class, where each must ask three questions related to selected stories in the news. Many students make it through four years of college without ever raising their hand to ask a question. Not in my class. Every student learns to look me in the eye, speak clearly, and ask intelligent questions about the news of the day.

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Categories: Creativity | Education

13 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 10:05 PM

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