2006 INDEX OF ARTICLES

This weblog is not a personal diary, but a collection of essays and links that are educational and professional, mostly for the UN staffer. 169 articles were posted in 2006 on a wide array of subjects.  I started out this weblog in January 2006 on first writing a few articles on personal finance of particular appeal to UN staff. Then I branched on to writing a number of other articles on finance, management, human relations, web-tech, etc. All the articles appear in the two weblogs http://merrillc.typepad.com/unwind (UN issues) and http://merrillc.typepad.com/2merrill (non-UN issues). In these two web logs you can also review articles by subject.  I hope you enjoyed the read in 2006.

The UN weblog "unwind" has several categories related to finance, management and productivity ( Business issues, Finance & Economics, human relations, management, social sector, UN issues, web/tech and your career) and other miscellaneous categories (books, film and religion). The UN may be mentioned in several of the listed categories but those pertain to business and other non-profits as well. The category "personal finance" is stricly of an investment nature.

The Non-UN web log "2merrill" has categories of books, business issues, film, finance, current affairs, education, energy and health.

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1. Liberalism and Neurology - Is freewill the concept of philosophy or neuroscience?
2. Economics takes on happiness is a great read on the fact that wealth unequals happiness.
3. Organization deadwood - An often quoted remark by staff who pose as destiny boys of the organization.  A flagrant and rude remark that violates good HRM conduct.
4. Racism and Discrimination - The personal experience.
5. Racism and Discrimination - The UNICEF experience.
6. Dollar-A-Day - Is it a good measure to signal poverty levels?
7. Annual Performance Review - Are you truly evaluated for the preceding twelve months?
8. Keeping English on Course is about the struggle for purity in the English language.
9. Liberal Arts Degrees - If they pay so little at start up, why get it?
10. Don't worry be happy is about why happiness is so elusive.
11. When E-mail run amok, the perils of e-mail may be greater than the benefits.
12. Rapid Results Initiative -is about accelerating executing time. Read it, try it.
13. You got a deal! But did you? is about the profitability of chasing after discount sales.
14. Job security - It makes sense to give UN staff some job security.
15. What is tangible decentralization? It's all about releasing power with the process.
16. Switching altitudes -too much time at high altitudes is not good for the organization.
17. Appointments Wanted - Integrity, Honesty, Objectivity and Impartiality.
18. The Top Givers - The potential to extract donations from  rich private individuals could be more fully explored by UN agencies.
19. Who Gets the Credit and Who Gets the Blame some folks take great performance for their success even if the wind accidentally blew their way.
20. The Rising - A memorial at Westchester, New York.
21. Lords of Poverty -See in pictures the logistical superiority of some poor countries.
22. How to succeed in the UN - check out whether know-how or know-who is the career ladder.
23. Effort and Contribution shows that you don't have to be a CEO or Executive Director to make a difference.
24. The Girl Child - mutilation exported - Africans cannot export this horrible practice.
25. Your next PC - when? better wait until early next year for Windows Vista.
26. Forget the World Bank, try Wal-mart shows that free markets give jobs and reduce poverty.
27. The Best Intentions: A book review of Koffi Annan in the Era of American World Power, could also be a good read for those undertaking the UNICEF course on budget policies and investments for children.
28. How backward are some developing parts of the world? If there was an economic categorization, you can scale some countries beyond the classification of third-world, even 4th or 20th-world; so bad is the state of life of those peoples.
29. A course on budget policies and investments for children: What budget process? Budgets are out-of-date before the ink has dried on the print. Budget processes need much reforming from methodology, framework and timescale. It is a shame if UNICEF ignores this aspect of the course.
30. A course on budget policies and investments for children - Politics rules after all.  Politics determines the level of prosperity or poverty of a country, however good are UNICEF's intentions. How politics affects development progress ought to be a big component of the course.
31. Breakthrough ideas is about the mass of management literature of a new fad when all else is common sense........
32. Micro-inequality is the need for management reform from oneupmanship.
33. Practical experience and not speaks of the importance of practical experience on the job.
34. Good to Great are my comments on Jim Collin's monograph on "Good to Great and the Social Sector."
35. Standardization vs. Harmonization - which should the UN pursue?
36. Effectiveness of competition - To become more effective the UN has to find ways of encouraging some internal competition.
37. Change in economic models can affect HQ size reckons that what impacts the private sector can eventually impact UN locations.
38. Words of wisdom - To be successful, children must expose to the four basic sciences. In addition, participation in sports will teach them about teamwork at an early stage in life.
39. Low Costs & Exaggerated benefits shows how easy it is to misinterpret a cost overrun as a budget saving in social development.
40. Blog It UNICEF is the IT way to get input from staff on the 60 year-old institution.
41. Power loss draws on the analogy of electricity outages and institutional power.
42. Retirement - The discomfort zone is about the huge change in the friendship circle.
43. Saving for a rainy day gives an uplift to Grandma's theory of investing.
44. The office move unless properly executed can cause headaches and heartaches.
45. Tax reform - expensing capital expenditures as a single charge may be a good act to follow.
46. Listing more than doing really gets in the way of rapid execution.
47. Hands on the keyboard. It is refreshing that leading economists are using blogs for the intellectual influence game.  The UN/UN Agencies have great opportunities to capitalize the web to reduce meeting times and work cycle times. What is UNICEF doing?
48. Extra work for nothing is about all the additional work you do in anticipation it will be needed.  Being frank about this unnecessary work may save any business or non-profit organization money and time.
49. Ten commandments depicts how more direct even Pidgin English was in 1871 by the Kanka tribe in New Zealand.
50. My Race & My Religion shows how little you are to blame for the choice of who you are.
51. Why do third-world countries continue to remain poor is explained in the power of public policy.
52. When writing justifications look for the opposition and improve your statement.
53. Overhead is a poor benchmark to add value to an expense.
54. Slow dance is about the erratic flight of our fast pace of life. Don't dance so fast, time is short, the music won't last........
55. The case against helping the poor gives a link to the Garrett Hardin essay on the lifeboat hypothesis.  A must read for all UNICEF staff, particularly for those working in development programs. Check out next week on this blog, why we must see the opposite point of view.
56. Digital photography provides links to three great sites that offer practical tips on getting the best of your digital camera.
57. Investing through the ages will teach you that investing is a long-term activity that distinguishes investing from gambling. Ever so much have UN retirees gambled their lump-sum pensions, so much so that the full pension may be the better investment option. Also see other numerous links on investing written by me.
58. Poverty-line is a moving target - as others get richer others get poorer in relative terms. Perhaps, in absolute terms, there is progress in eradicating poverty.
59. Prehistoric periods of Sri Lanka - ethnic problems did not begin yesterday.
60. Monitoring your way - you can learn a lot about good management when you take long risky bicycle rides.
61. IT Investments vs. productivity hints to the pitfalls that diminish the value of information technology.
62. Power in organizations -is of the ruling power in organizations and how power plays in running an organization.
63. PROMS - Distance still mattered speaks about some developmental aspects of PROMS and raises the question whether good money was thrown after a bad product.
64. To unleash hidden ideas what must we do? Let's gather people around and storm...
65. Unnecessary rules carry a price tag. One way around it is to reform the regulators.
66. The bicycle accident is a personal experience showing how anyone can be reduced to infirmity in less than one second. Who said that only old people need long-term care?
67. Staff must consciously lie to exist in a management culture that prohibits free expression of speech. A truth telling program is what just may be required for equal opportunity employment.
68. When unable to get ideas across staff may just feel inclined to send An Open Letter to the Executive Director. Ideas should never be blocked but flow seamlessly  upward.
69. Does Gossip Promote Friendships? Or is friendship more than someone to gossip with?
70. Global Non-Profits - Revised Budgeting Framework is a prescription for integrated social development budgeting.
71. The Power of Blogs - The web has certainly created a space for organizations to capitalize on using the web to its advantage. It also has given an opportunity for the public to air their opinions as well with the UN of no exempt.
72. Drug Therapy - Fatal Mistake - Price supports are an upside-down welfare program that will bring the same demise of grain.
73. Retirement - Another state of life may bring you to recognize that the past must be left behind.
74. Cycling to Work is a possibility with rising gas prices. Has health benefits too. Employers must support the idea and employees must participate. The environmentally friendly United Nations may want to support this idea.
75. E-mail Clutter - Can we reduce it? is about the use of web-based technology to enhance e-mail use.
76. Pension Payout - Making the Right Decision offers guidance on full-pension or lump-sum.
77. The Birth of Plenty is reference to a great book on how wealth in this world was built.
78. Movie "water" also banned in India is about the horrific treatment of widows.
79. Da Vinci Code banned in Sri Lanka - Right or wrong thing to do? I like you to comment.
80. Ethics as a way of life in the UN - Reality or Daydreaming? Oil for food scandals have sparked an external visible image of ethics in the UN. However, the UN will miss the point if it ignores ethics in its internal administration  while trying to rescue itself in the public eye. This essay points to that conclusion.
81. A woman's work is never done is about a book of three generations of Arab women.
82. UN Pension & Salary - Is there discrimination against women? Seems to me this is unconscious bias theory.
83. Unconscious bias theory is about the discrimination of people by people in unconscious ways.
84. Field: A Survival Guide is about the transformation from HQ to the Field.
85. New York: A Survival Guide is about working and living in New York. Some tips for field staff.
86. UN Career World can offer a satisfying career with some constraints.
87. What's Good Before An MBA? Even if you missed out, you can still catch up, otherwise, here is good advice - Go for it.
88. UNICEF's Salts of Life  was the late Jim Grant - New York Times, Dec 25, 1984.
89. UN Bashing - Think Again what a world will be without the UN. It is up to the UN agencies to be good at execution though!
90. Out of Retirement - Are there better ways to deny death than keep on working?
91. The aging mind - We can be surprised that the mind ages from an early part of our lives. We must exercise our minds as much as we think of our bodies.
92. Questions as powerful stabilizers is about stretching your mind through question and answer.
93. Boeing Opens to the Public is a great act for UNICEF to follow. Blogs are the modern interactive form of communication and one-sided communication will soon be in the obituary columns.
94. Welcome to the Dance - Corruption Scenes shows that honesty is the best medicine.
95. The fallen target is about the ugly processes used to dismiss staff for no reason whatsoever with HRM powerless to honestly practice their faith.
96. UN Peacekeepers - more than keeping the peace is a shocking report of misconduct.
97. A child drowns in swimming pool is a true report. Just two weeks ago I posted in swimming away that it could just happen to any child.
98. A different motivation is about your responsibility in the motivation game. It takes two to tango.
99. Tips for Pre-retirement Program proposes upheaval changes to make it happen.
100. UN Pension - Beneficiary Designation Forms - it is important keep it up-to-date.
101. In the name of God you are healed are about fake healers.
102. Yahoo Tech is a great resource for information on gadgetry before you buy.
103. Sri Lanka Con Artists who fleece you in name of God- Sri Lanka Times, April 30, 2006
104. Women abuse, "no" equals "yes" at least in Kenya. Human rights at stake....
105. Pedophile Priests - Child abuse by religious heads, Mexico escape hatch for US culprits.
106. Retirees with power, not in UN, so much for UN management and the pension fund.
107. Who Am I? Constraints at work make you not feel yourself anymore. What can be done?
108. Why developing nations remain poor - currency devaluation brings poverty to the door.
109. Energy alternatives are being explored, but people can take action now.
110. It took Ellen a crisis to exercise, but you don't have to wait for that?
111. The flat tax is simple and fair.
112. UN has mission and private sector has markets - an opinion.
113. Unless developing countries pull their weight, UN work is a mission impossible.
114. Never Again, Never - some of Africa destroys itself over and over again.
115. Getting Fit points to ways that you can get fit.  These rest is up to you.
116. Swimming away points to the best exercise on  planet earth.
117. Running Long shows how you can better performance by just running less.
118. Swimmers dream - soon you may be breathing underwater like a fish.
119. 2WHEELS is an inspiration piece for bikers and those who like to try this sport.
120. Women at work shows how economic growth is driven by women.
121. Annual Buying Guide - PC vs Vista is some great advice from Walter Mossberg for PC lovers.
122. The Technocrat boys - learn how Bill Gates works, especially handling of e-mail.
123. YOUR CAREER - WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY? is it yours or that of HRM?
124. JD+P11+RESUME shows how a resume can powerfully bring out your talent and skills
125. Getting ahead includes your JD from 62 to 99 years of age.
126. UN Pension - tax implications for US citizens/residents
127. The Near Dead is a moral essay and a reminder of an unavoidable biological process.
128. Speech misunderstood is important in this day of globalization.
129. With the Wrong Recognition it can ruin your career in the UN and elsewhere too.
130. Lost luggage - why could not the airline industry use RFID's?
131. Tech help the TYPEPAD way is a great act for UNICEF to follow.
132. What is the point of Christians going to church if there is no forgiveness.
133. Cycling in Key Biscayne is a treat.
134. As a transport alternative walk and cycle to school and work for better health..
135. US Taxes E-filing - Why does not the UN join the bandwagon.
136. The Politics of Small Things form the foundations of democratic culture.
137. Liberal Arts Education makes you more rounded and a better thinker?
138. Improving processes is the call for UN organizations to shorten lead times.....
139. Reaching Old Friends - How technology helps.
140. UN Reorganization - some issues to consider, tip of the iceberg.
141. UNICEF Supply Function Evaluation - An opinion
142. Discounting financial numbers may show a different financial picture.
143. Leading through conflict - book review with UN as outstanding example.
144. More retirement blues - Investing - You just arrived too late for the party.
145. Management accounting - A fantastic field of study. Makes you think out of the box.
146. The UN Pension Plan in the extended portfolio - Is your UN pension like a bond fund?
147. International accounting - A book on this subject was long overdue.
148. Appreciation boosts motivation - Don't you feel good when you are appreciated?
149. Sri Lanka has to give peace a tidal wave priority - would the tsunami bring closure?
150. Sri Lanka - economic challenges ahead.
151. UN Pension Fund - threat of privatization.
152. More retirement blues - Long-term care - how about a group UN plan?
153. The UN Past Masters - They can be the best consultants.
154. To A Happier Retirement - we all long for that, some clues......
155. Be a good sport - Diversify your movements for better health and minimal injury.
156. Personal Risk and Pension - the risks in hoarding your lump-sum
157. Turnover - It's more than cash - supply and cash tied-up is = development entangled
158. Math will rock the world - and is the prime property of intellectual real estate.
159. Beyond Staff Morale - without appreciation there is no staff morale
160. The Crazy American - Jim Grant - He was the seventh wonders.......
161. Budgeting has failed - it is cumbersome, bureaucratic, time-consuming, gaming...
162. Who Needs Budgets? - there are better alternatives
163. Got a question? - post a comment here or on any listed or unlisted topic
164. Why is the UN Pension Tax Exempt? - explains "cost basis."
165. One-third Tsunami funds on overheads
166. UN Protection for Whistle Blowers - more needs to implement this wishlist.
167. Is the UN Really Reforming? - fact or fiction.
168. Working for UNICEF - The Personal Experience - Operations can help programs.
169. UN Pension - Tax-exemption letter - Sample letter for ex-G4 visa holders