Posted by Aaron King, Director

[This is Part Five of Aaron's "Campus Division in Cambodia" story. Here's Part Four and look out for the subsequent tales in the coming week...]

Thursday January 3, 2008

Believe it or not, we again began the day with a phenomenal breakfast. We met up with a few RTR staff, and then took a van out to see the first school. Upon entrance, all the students were lined up and clapping for us. Similar to the fanfare of our first night, this was quite humbling; these students were so appreciative of RTR, and I was left feeling like I hadn’t done enough.

Posted by Aaron King, Director

[This is Part Four of Aaron's "Campus Division in Cambodia" story. Here's Part Three and look out for the subsequent tales in the coming week...]

Tuesday January 1, 2008

5am felt more like the end of the night than the beginning of a day. Unfortunately, this was too early for the breakfast buffet, so we had to forgo it and instead have breakfast to go in a box. We drove and hiked out to the temples in almost complete darkness. To our surprise, there must have been hundreds of people out there making the trip to see the first sunrise of the New Year over the temple. When the sun rose up over the temple, and cast a reflection on the pool in front, it was quite astonishing. I cannot imagine a better way to ring in the New Year than the overall experience I had in Cambodia.

Posted by Abby Rae LaCombe, Rocky Mountain Regional Director

At the conference, IMPACT invited Better World Books to discuss our awesome business model in a three hour forum entitled "Blurring the Lines: Public Good in the Private Sector."  Jack represented us on the panel, which also had a fellow Holy Cross grad, Ken DeBlois of the Venture Consortium in Providence, RI and some folks from the Willamette University MBA program.  It was very interesting and the attendees had a lot of great questions, but it was very clear that we here at Better World Books are doing something decidedly NEW.  So new and innovative (I LOVE our business model) that folks at times have a hard time comprehending it.  The example that jumps to mind is regarding the triple bottom line – “Even if you do value social and environmental, won’t profit always be most important?”

Now I’m no business major, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand some business theory as Better World Books offers a unique opportunity to see something very exciting and new in the world of business from up close.  I always start my research projects on the Wikipedia and while you won’t feel like you have an MBA by the time you’re finished with the article, you will have some ideas of good terms to use in your triple bottom line research!

Triple Bottom Line

Social Enterprise

If you want to hear a little more about the topic, a full podcast of this forum will be available later this month!

Posted by Abby Rae LaCombe, Rocky Mountain Regional Director

In honor of the holiday ... Oh, hadn't you heard? Saturday, March 7 is International Women's Day! That's right folks, Better World Books is keepin' you up to date on the obscure but AWESOME holidays.

Anyway, in honor of the holiday, the Better World Books team has narrowed our list of most amazing, substantial and generally badass women (and through thorough debate and numerous arm-wrestling tournaments) down to 10.  We'll be the first to admit that it is not all inclusive, but it's a start ... Just in case you don't feel comfortable conversing on any of these fine women, we've included book suggestions:

(Listed in NO particular order ... seriously, that would be impossible)


Dian Fossey - Gorillas in the Mist


Maria Faustina Kowalska - Diary of...


Mother Teresa - In My Own Words


Princess Diana by Richard Buskin


Jehan Sadat - A Woman of Egypt


Eleanor Roosevelt by Russell Freedman


True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis deMontfort


Lynne Cox - Swimming to Antarctica

 
Jane Goodall - In the Shadow of Man


Rosa Parks - My Story

So get reading and here's your excuse to worship the ladies in your life (as if you don't all the time)

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

We're currently at the Northeastern IMPACT conference (see previous post) I just got back from my forum (which was awesome!).  I'm going to do some editing of a recording of the forum so a podcast of the talk is coming up soon, great stuff indeed about mobilizing students and the differences in the sectors in the business world.  People asked me hard questions and I gave them honest answers [insert warm and fuzzy feeling here].

Now I'm playing Scrabble with three students at Middlsex Community College in Edison, NJ, and let me tell you, despite their smiles, they're rough customers.  Erin just laid down "Quell" on a triple word score for 45 points and is absolutely killing us.



Garima, Erin (hustler), Barum and Ham from MCC

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist


(Abby, me, Roselle) Yeah, ok, the bookmark is mirrored.  You can handle it!

Hey all, I'm currently at IMPACT/Idealist conference at Northeastern University this weekend.  After setting up our gear and breaking out Scrabble (I just put down "Fastens."  64 points!  All others, owned.  (Without Niko here I'm totally going to win).)
 
You can find us in the ballroom between the lovely ladies (Jessica and Amanda) at Hostelling International USA and the folks at UNICEF USA who are soon to arrive.  Later today I'll be an expert (seriously...) on a forum entitled "Blurring the lines: Public Good in the Private Sector" whilst my killer coworkers (seen above), Roselle (Mid-South Regional Director (ATL baby!)) and Abby (Rocky Mountain Regional Director (Reppin' Minnehaha!)), are kicking it live at the table.

Today's highlights will include my super sweet forum (look for a podcast coming soon), our ongoing scrabble throwdown, these sweet new www.BetterWorld.com

Tomorrow is our workshop and more well-meaning shenanigans... check in often for updates (and tomorrow for photos!) shirts and the very un-Boston 50 degree weather.

Posted by Aaron King, Director

[This is Part Three of Aaron's "Campus Division in Cambodia" story. Here's Part Two and look out for the subsequent tales in the coming week...]

Monday December 31, 2008

Before departure, we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. This was hands down the most amazing breakfast buffet I have ever seen. Big trays of rice and noodles and stir fries and meats and eggs and bread and fruit were everywhere. The fruit selection alone would have been enough to put this breakfast over the top as one of my most amazing ever. I don’t think I even recognized half the fruits there.

Posted by Aaron King, Director

[This is Part Two of Aaron's "Campus Division in Cambodia" story. Here's Part One and look out for the subsequent tales in the coming week...]

Sunday, December 30th, 2007 After a few hours sleep we got up to explore the city. Our itinerary was to take us to Cambodia later that night, so we had limited time. Our consensus was to visit a nearby Pagoda. There were golden statues and tributes to Buddha all around where people could light incense and pray to Buddha and hope for good luck. The atmosphere was peaceful, serene, refreshing and relaxing, a good omen for things to come.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist

Slate Magazine ran an article the other day in their "Hot Document" series that's sure to leave you shaking your head over what leaves high-schoolers scratching theirs.  

...the new education-advocacy group Common Core posed these and 30 similar questions about history and literature to 1,200 17-year-old high-school students (below on the following four pages), it discovered that American teenagers are "stunningly ignorant."

Common Core puts some of the blame on six years of George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" law, which forced schools to concentrate lessons on standardized-test measures for math and reading at the expense of education in the humanities. The organization debuted on Feb. 26 with a press conference that unveiled the findings in a glossy pamphlet titled Still at Risk, an allusion to the landmark 1983 education survey, A Nation At Risk. That earlier survey famously stated, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." Apparently, we lost.

The test posed a series of questions whose answers even the slowest-witted high-schoolers might reasonably be expected to know. But only one question (Who gave the "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963?, Page 3), yielded the correct response on a near-unanimous basis (97 percent). Only 61 percent knew what the Renaissance was (Page 2), and only half knew why the Federalist papers were written (Page 3). Fewer than half knew when the Civil War was fought (see below). And this test was multiple-choice!

(Full story and full test over here)