Inline aggressive skate

came from inline skating. Aggressive skating is a different form of inline skating. It involves grinds, spins, grabs, flips and more. Aggressive skating was born in the 1980's. It first started with people jumping over barriers and doing spins in the air. The first grind was the "frontside." It was invented by Chris Edwards who is a legend in the sport. After that, all skaters during that time were trying to invent new tricks to help the sport grow. Many new tricks came about in the late 80's and early 90s. Today there are many different variations of the tricks such as alley-oop, truspin, and topside. Also skaters today are doing spins and grabs in and out of grinds to make the trick harder. There are also different types of skating. Vert skating is a half pipe which gets vertical at the top of the ramp. Street skating is where skating was born, and involves skaters going around cities and towns grinding hand rails, grinding ledges, jumping stairs, turning anything on the regular street into an obstacle.

There is also park skating(a form of street skating, on purposely built terrain). As long ago as the early 90s inline skates have been seen at outdoor and indoor skateparks, first built and named for skateboards.

Slusarski up for challenge

BARTOSZ Slusarski is challenging for a debut in the survival scrap with Blackpool on Saturday as the Owls grapple with fresh injury problems.

Brian Laws will need to make late checks on Deon Burton (eye injury) and Wade Small (hamstring) before deciding on his line-up.

Both suffered problems in the 1-1 draw with Plymouth.

Graham Kavanagh, Steve Watson and Richard Hinds missed the Plymouth match and are rated as 50-50.

Burton has suffered a scratch on his eyeball for the third time in a year and the club will need to make sure that his vision is not impaired come the weekend.

Laws, though not saying whether or not Slusarski will start, admitted that he is in contention: "He's done very well; he feels very confident and thinks he is ready."

The Owls manager shrugged off the injury problems: "We're used to them."

Laws has been satisfied with the general play of strikers Burton and Ben Sahar but, in a quest for a scoring touch, brought on Slusarski for Sahar in the 64th minute against Plymouth and admitted afterwards that he should have made a change sooner.

Slusarski was signed in March on loan from West Brom for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, publishing firm Dunwoody have apologised to fans for the non-delivery of Plymouth match programmes, which was forced by the closure of their printers. A Plymouth programme will be given free to anyone who buys a programme for the Norwich game on May 4.

Business Judgement

Craig Drummonds brief is to lead investment house Goldman Sachs JBWere to No.1 in the Australian market. It's a CEO role that sees him act as strategist, salesman and firefighter. By Jennifer Alexander.

When New York-based investment banking giant Goldman Sachs and Australian stockbroker JBWere formed a joint venture (GSJBW) in 2003, the pundits weren't surprised. The 160-year-old Melbourne establishment was the last all-Australian firm to hold out against the tide of mergers with British, European and American investment banks.

What was surprising was that in three years then chairman and CEO Terry Campbell built up the entity from middle-ranking player to come in at No.3 in the cutthroat Australian market. His successor, Craig Drummond, who took over in February 2007, has a clear brief: make GSJBW top dog in Australia.

It's an ambitious goal to knock off Macquarie and UBS Warburg, the two investment banking houses that regularly swap the No.1 and No.2 spots. However, in a sense it's a job that Drummond has been building up to for 21 years.

Drummond graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Commerce. After completing his professional year at KPMG, he spent five years as a chartered accountant before joining JBWere as a stock analyst in 1986.

As well as a number of short courses to keep his skills up, in 2001 Drummond attended the advanced management course at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School.

Now that he's in the chair with a big, hairy, audacious goal, Drummond sees his role as that of a strategist, high-level salesman and firefighter.

Q: Could you outline your role?

A: As the Chief Executive, my role is to set the strategy inside the firm and undertake high level interaction with clients. By high level, I mean being involved in major corporate pitches or major client issues.

It's also about recruiting the appropriate people for the organisation, motivating them, and overviewing the direction of the business. Of course, it also includes making sure that our people have a clear vision of where we're going as an organisation, articulating the principles that sit behind the vision, and working on the strategies to get us there.

Q: Were you identified as being a potential leader for GSJBW before securing the position?

A: Historically, the company has had a good succession planning process. Most recently, Bruce Teele identified Terry Campbell, and Terry identified me.
I have a number of business leaders inside our organisation that I'm looking at for the future. Succession planning and people development is one of the crucial things that we must do in a professional services organisation.

Q: What do you enjoy about your job?

A: I most enjoy dealing with and providing our clients with the satisfaction of a great outcome. I also like dealing with and developing people. Organisations in our industry thrive on recruiting and developing the best people. We have a Goldman Sachs University that travels around the world, and we've developed a leadership and learning group here in Sydney that uses global and local coaches. Bringing that sort of resource to our people is a phenomenal experience for them and has been a key initiative in our attempts to attract and retain talent.

Q: Do you have a specific agenda?

A: Certainly. My overall vision for the organisation is to be the leading investment bank in Australasia. We define the success of that as exceeding the expectations of our stakeholder groups: clients, our own people, the community, and our shareholders.

If we exceed our client's expectations and deliver outstanding results, this will create opportunities for our people. If we do a great job for clients and have the best people, we will be able to fund our community involvements. We will also be able to exceed the expectations of our own shareholders, who are 100 local executives with an expectation that we earn post-tax return on capital of 20 per cent.

Q: Often mergers are thought to be problematic. Has this been a successful one?

A: Yes, it's been an incredibly successful merger from our point of view. First, by bringing two phenomenally good brand names together, we have been able to deliver the best of a global and local situation to clients.

Second, we have been able to attract some outstanding people. To give you an example, we had 1800 people apply for 30 graduate positions last year. I believe our first 27 choices came with us. In a labour market that is pretty tight, to have that many candidates apply for 30 roles gives you a sense about whether people want to work in this organisation or not, and whether the brand has cache.

Third, we have continued to win a very large share of the major corporate flow in this country. And I suppose if you look at the major deals we have won with, for example, Telstra, it has helped to validate the organisation.

Q: Is it just the numbers, or is judgement needed in financial decision making and to avoid risk?

A: Ultimately, what underpins our work is our assessment of the financial numbers. We first look at a detailed financial analysis as to whether a transaction makes sense; whether it is aligned to our corporate strategy, for example. Once the financials are finalised, considerable judgement is involved and based upon the very best expectations of our sales trading, underwriting commodities and fixed interest equities specialists.

For sure, we have a very clear delegation in terms of the dollar amounts of risk that people can take. We are managed through a committee structure; we have a compliance committee, a risk committee and a capital committee.

The bigger decisions are made at a committee level – who may choose to refer a decision to a smaller group of the committee – some of the more senior people. There's a very clear delineation and it's made very clear to everyone what decisions need to go up to the various committees and who is ultimately accountable.

Q: So there's a clear governing structure supporting the judgement of risk?

A: Yes. It's very important to educate your people as to where and how decisions are made. We are in a business where decisions need to be made in minutes. For example, a large institution may say 'I've got 10 million BHP shares to sell and would you like to buy them?' We say, 'How long have we got to get back to you?' They say, 'Fifteen minutes.' So, you have a quarter of an hour to make a 200, 300, perhaps 400 million dollar decision.

Q: How would you describe your leadership or management style?

A: It's very open. I aim to be very inclusive. I believe in getting the right person in the first place, but then giving them a lot of freedom to run their business.
Of course, as I've mentioned there are boundaries, but I don't believe in sitting over people.

Also, we have a culture of encouraging 'bad news up'. I want to hear the bad news first so that we can address it. And, given risk management is so important to us, we do have a series of limits, so people can only make a decision up to a certain dollar amount and then it needs to get referred up.

Q: How do you define leadership as opposed to management?

A: In this organisation we are very focused on growth; we're not solely focused on managing the business. We don't remunerate people just to run the daily business – keep it turning over, running it in a steady state, and so on – what I regard as managing. That's not what we're about; we're actually about building new business lines.

In our business, and it's the same with a lot of corporations in the world these days, businesses commoditise very quickly. So today, 35 per cent of our sources of profit were not even in existence three years ago. That's the sort of leadership challenge we like to set ourselves. Not only just to set the vision, the strategy and to make sure all of your senior staff are rowing the boat in the same direction. It's about growing the business.

Q: So, in your opinion, what are the key capacities that your leaders need to be able to do that?

A: It's a given that they're competent in their chosen field. What differentiates, in my mind, outstanding leaders from average leaders is emotional intelligence. It's the ability to read situations, read people, and be empathetic in terms of the decisions you're making, because again, in a professional services firm, so much of it is about people.

Q: Can you give an example of a situation in which emotional intelligence was important?

A: A number of our competitors decided to close down parts of their Melbourne businesses, because the financial capital of Australia is Sydney. We looked at the decision and it's just not something that we want to do. Financially, the numbers suggest we could perhaps get a better outcome. But the relationship we have between senior leaders in Melbourne and Sydney is valuable; to go ahead on a purely financial basis is not the right decision to make.

Q: Can leadership and management skills be taught?

A: I think management skills can be learnt, but I'm not sure leadership can. Yes, people grow into and become more comfortable in a role; but I haven't seen too many examples of average leaders growing into becoming great leaders.

Q: Do you have a key message for young people wishing to achieve in management and leadership?

A: Two things. I know it is an old adage, but hard work is one of them. The other point I would make is to find a point of difference. Don't do what everyone else is doing, either inside or external to your organisation. That was something I consciously set out to do when I was an analyst. I would not write or say anything that I knew my peers were saying. It was just a waste of paper or breath. And even if you spend a third of your day thinking about how you're going to be different, that's time well spent.

Q: What are the essential qualities you look for when bringing young bankers onboard?

A:To get a job here is not simple; it's an extremely thorough process. While we don't do psychometric testing, candidates will meet dozens of our team members; 15 or 20 interviews is not uncommon.

Clearly, the first essential attribute is outstanding academic performance. Then we look at their interpersonal skills. Historically, there's not been such a focus on this. Rather, it's all been very focused on academic performance; everything else was just meant to look after itself. But in a people business, we're asking our young people to relate strongly to clients, and interpersonal skills are particularly important.

We are also looking hard at diversity. There is absolutely no question in our mind that our industry has done a very poor job on diversity. Not only just women, but also ethnicity because we need to reflect the community we operate in.

Q: Have you had mentors?

A: I have. Terry Campbell's probably the most recent, someone who I have a great deal of respect for both commercially and as a person. The other mentor is George Parsons, a US-based executive coach I've seen since 2003. He's done a lot of work for Goldman Sachs globally, but has also done a lot of work for large Australian listed corporations. He's been phenomenally helpful, looking at me as a person, who I am, what I stand for, what I want to achieve.

Q: It helps to have a mirror held up to yourself?

A: Very much so. As an organisation we do online 360 degree reviews. So we hear what our subordinates and superiors think about us as people and our performance in the role. But George sits down with a whole range of people that interrelate with me and asks 'What do you think of this guy? What are his strengths and weaknesses? What's he need to change, what's he need to do more of?'

Q: Have you found out anything surprising?

A: One thing that people felt about me, which surprised me a bit, was that I was sometimes too quick to come to a decision. It is a function of this industry where quick decisions need to be made. And yet, I like looking at the facts. I appreciate that it's something that I've needed to be better at.

Q: Any learning experiences that have stood you
in good stead?

A: Placing appropriate focus on performance management is viewed as important. People need clear feedback on their progress, particularly if you have higher expectations around their performance. Setting goals and clearly communicating them is key to maintaining focus on team performance.

Q: Finally, what is your point of difference?

A:The point of difference I work hardest on is to grow the business, not just manage. I could comfortably sit here and manage what we've got. We've got 1500 people in Australia, with six core businesses doing lots and lots of interesting things, but that's not the main game. The main game is growing the business.

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Jennifer Alexander is the CEO of the Australian Institute of Management - NSW and ACT.

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Is Getting Movies Off The Internet Legal?

In these days of spiraling prices and costly goods one would almost forgive the fact that many people download things from the net that they should not. I`m not talking about objectionable material, i`m talking about copyrighted materials. While the net is flooded with such things most of it is appalling quality and not worthy of viewing on a cellular phone, never mind a television set. Which brings me to quality issues...

Now a regular television displays images at roughly 640x480 resolution, this suits many of us fine. Of course we now have HDTV and that is often four times the resolution of the regular signal we`re used to. It requires us to have an HDTV and some sort of receiver either built-in or as a separate unit depending where you are. When it comes to viewing at our leisure our options are down to DVD`s and their higher definition brothers HDDVD and Blu-Ray. Many folks, however will prefer to view their entertainment on their computer, often this will provide a higher resolution, depending on your source and screen size.

There are many places on the internet where you can find good quality material, usually at a user fee. These sites have releases from studios that allow them to offer movies etc to their customers in the open and legally. Watching movies on a pc can be enjoyable if one has a comfortable seat and a large enough screen. Laptops are a bonus as you can sit back and watch anything you wish in privacy using you ear phones if you want. So, with our digital age comes new ways to be entertained and new easier ways to find entertainment using the internet.

So, however you find you digital entertainment, enjoy, and keep going to the cinema!!

The top three legal download sites can be found at: http://downloadsystems.googlepages.com/

HDTV on the Verge of Exploding

Informa Telecoms and Media estimates that only 4% of global TV households will actively watch high definition (HD), programming by the end of 2008, equating to 44 million households.

By 2012, however, Informa forecasts 179 million active HD homes, representing 16% of TV households.

HD adoption will be highest in North America. By 2012, HD penetration is expected to reach 70% or 82.5 million active US HD homes and 9.4 million HD homes in Canada.

Asia-Pacific is the second-largest HD region due to early adoption in Japan. By 2012, there will be 49.3 million HD households in Asia-Pacific.

Owning an HD-capable television set does not necessarily mean HD programming is being watched. Informa estimated the number of HD-ready homes in 2008 at 117 million, implying that only 37% of these households are actually watching HD programming.

WEEK OF APRIL 2008

LEAD STORY
China's societal self-improvement in preparation for the 2008 Olympics continues. The Beijing Tourism Bureau ordered hotels to re-translate English signs, hoping to avoid such notorious past gaffes as "Racist Park," which is now "Park of Ethnic Minorities," and a cafe's attempt to salute Western visitors with "Welcome, big nose friends." And the Beijing Olympics Committee has been training hostesses for months to stand in military-like precision, straight enough to hold a sheet of paper between their knees, and to smile continuously, showing "six to eight teeth" (even if placing a chopstick in the mouth sideways is necessary for practice). There are height and weight requirements for the hostesses, and each must have an upper- to lower-body ratio of no more than 11-to-13, to eliminate, according to local newspapers, "big bottoms." [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-20-08] [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-11-08]

Too Much Time on Their Hands

It struck Leo Hill, 81, of Lakewood, Colo., that he was being shorted sheets of toilet paper (in the 12-pack, whose rolls allegedly yielded fewer sheets than similar rolls in the 4-pack), and he earnestly counted 60 rolls, sheet by sheet, concluding that the shortage amounted to enough paper to service one sit-down session per roll. He took his complaint to the Denver Post (and even to the Better Business Bureau), but the reporter, trying to replicate Leo's work, found no shortage, in Leo's brand or eight others. [Denver Post, 1-26-08]

Jonathan Lee Riches is believed to be the most prolific lawsuit-filer ever to operate from behind bars. His "docket" now includes more than 1,000 cases in just over two years (with eight more years to go on a federal sentence for fraud), including claims totaling several trillion dollars from "injuries" inflicted on him by such people as President Bush, Martha Stewart, Steve Jobs, Britney Spears, Tiger Woods (luggage theft), Barry Bonds (illegal moonshine production), and football player Michael Vick ($63 billion for allegedly stealing Riches' pit bulls and selling them on eBay so that Vick could in turn buy missiles from Iran). [Guardian (London), 3-2-08; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8-17-07]