The twenty-first century is the age of information and knowledge. It is a century that is characterized by knowledge as the important resource that gains competitive advantage for companies. To acquire all these knowledge and information, organizations must rely on the data that they store. Data, the basic element, is gathered daily from different input sources. Information is extracted or learned from these sources of data, and this captured information is then transformed into knowledge that is eventually used to trigger actions or decisions. By and large, organizations do not have any problem of not having enough data because most organizations are rich with data. The problem however is that many organizations are poor in information and knowledge. This fact translates into one of the biggest challenges faced by organizations: how to transform raw data into information and eventually into knowledge, which if exploited correctly provides the capabilities to predict customers' behaviour and business trends.

We are not just what we eat; we are also how we eat. If we eat mindlessly, to the extent to which mindless eating leads to overeating, our bodies expand and our minds shrink - experientially, of course, not literally. When we eat mindlessly, we miss out on the experience of that eating moment of life as it passes by. If, however, we eat mindfully, to the extent to which mindful eating curbs overeating and assists weight loss, our bodies shrink and our minds expand - again, experientially, not literally. Of course we don't go up a hat size, but our conscious event horizon widens and our view becomes more spacious and inclusive. We grow existentially and feel enriched experientially. We come back to life. Open your mind to open your view before you open your mouth. Remember, a living tube must stay open to the flow.

As a counselor, you often have to deal with clients who ask questions that are related only to their individual situations. Example question: "I'm new to the job. Hired six months ago. But I can already tell that there seems to be a distance between me and my boss - even though he's the one that hired me. We went to a trade show last week; he didn't mention going out to dinner in the evenings. Several things like that. He's very friendly with the other guy he hired at the same time. But not much critique on my work. Should I say something about this sudden distance, or wait until he does?" How would you respond to this situation as a counselor? All you have to do is to turn the question into a universal application. Otherwise, clients quickly lose interest. So the best response: "So the question is, How do you get feedback from a boss who seems reluctant to give it? Let me address it this way..."

Cross-cultural variations in traits and behaviors have attracted tremendous interest for a long time, and these variations have often been used in a deplorable way to justify contempt for, or oppression of, "outsiders." These cultural variations are sometimes linked to observations about genetic variations in human physical traits (such as different types of hemoglobin, which can confer benefits such as tolerance of high altitudes or resistance to malaria). This might make it seem reasonable to search for genetic causes for variation in cultural practices, and there is some limited evidence for this with respect to traits such as violence, novelty seeking, risk aversion, and migratory behavior. But genes surely explain very little of the variation among cultural groups in the long lists of traits put forward by anthropologists. There are no genes for surgery or idolatry that explain why some societies, cut people open or make images of gods. Such variation is due to culture.

Most novitiate advertisers and creative people believe that if you say something in an advertisement, this is what people will take from it. Maybe, maybe not. Just as it is easy for people to misunderstand what they are told in conversation, it is doubly easy for them to misunderstand what they see and hear in advertisements. They generally pay little attention to advertisements, picking up only the broadest outline; they frequently focus on aspects of advertisements that were included only as unimportant props; they often forget most of the content of an advertisement, remembering only the bits that grabbed them. So it is essential not to overcrowd advertisements with too much information, a failing of many advertisers. Often, people can remember the advertisement but not remember which brand it was for. For all these reasons, the brief for the 'message that must be communicated' must be concise and clear. And any ideas the creative team comes up with must be checked rigorously against this guideline.

For a long time, tourism was seen as a huge monster invading the areas of indigenous peoples, introducing them to the evils of the modern world. However, research has shown that this is not the correct way to perceive it. In most places, tourists are welcome and indigenous people see tourism as a path to modernity and economic development. But such development is always a two-edged sword. Tourism can mean progress, but most often also means the loss of traditions and cultural uniqueness. And, of course, there are examples of 'cultural pollution', 'vulgarization' and 'phony-folk-cultures'. The background for such characteristics is often more or less romantic and the normative ideas of a former or prevailing authenticity. Ideally (to some) there should exist ancient cultures for modern consumers to gaze at, or even step into for a while, while travelling or on holiday. This is a cage model that is difficult to defend in a global world where we all, indigenous or not, are part of the same social fabric.

Humans appear to have a need for certainty, a motivation to hold on to something rather than to question it. People with a high need for certainty are more prone to stereotypes than others and are less inclined to remember information that contradicts their stereotypes. They find ambiguity confusing and have a desire to plan out their lives rationally. First get a degree, a car, and then a career, find the perfect partner, buy a home, and have beautiful babies. But then the economy breaks down, the job is lost, there is disharmony in the family, and one finds oneself packing boxes to move to a cheaper place. In an uncertain world, we cannot plan everything ahead. Here, we can only cross each bridge when we come to it, not beforehand. The very desire to plan and organize everything may be part of the problem, not the solution. There is a Jewish joke: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

Tourism arises when people use the available means of travel for leisure-time pursuits. At the point in the industrial cycle where significant tourism appears, people are beginning to live in a society where productivity is great enough, the horizons broad enough, and the social mobility significant enough to nourish the touristic impulse. Though people could stay home in their spare time, they now have the desire and an increasing opportunity to tour. Who has the opportunity will, of course, depend on the distribution of leisure and resources in a society, but in an advanced industrial society widespread tourism is to be expected. Many people in such a society have come to expect a trip or a vacation away from home at some point in the year. Such expectations may be temporarily frustrated by economic conditions, political events, or military developments, but the aspirations have been normalized and are not likely to disappear so long as the industrial base remains.

For too long, business executives have been force-feeding their subordinates the "criticism sandwich." The idea, also called the "feedback sandwich," was popularized in the 1980s by Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, who advised managers to use this method. It sounds logical enough, and it makes the annual evaluation less painful for the manager. Giving criticism face-to-face is difficult for most people, so it's more pleasant to start with the good stuff. The manager goes on at length about the employee's strengths and achievements before getting to the meat of the criticism. Then she switches back to conclude with a few nice words and end on a happy note - or so it seems to the manager. But that's usually not how it feels to the employee. By this time, all the opening praise has been forgotten. The employee can't get the bad stuff out of his mind. He's choking on the middle of the sandwich. A conversation that was supposed to inspire better work has left him demoralized.

In previous centuries, national identities were forged because humans faced problems and opportunities that were far beyond the scope of local tribes, and that only countrywide cooperation could hope to handle. In the twenty-first century, nations find themselves in the same situation as the old tribes: they have a duty to find a new way to overcome the situation. We now have a global ecology, a global economy and a global science - but we are still stuck with only national politics. This mismatch prevents the political system from effectively countering our main problems. To have effective politics, we must either de-globalise the ecology, the economy and the march of science - or we must globalise our politics. Since it is impossible to de-globalise the ecology and the march of science, and since the cost of de-globalising the economy would probably be prohibitive, the only real solution is to globalise politics. This does not mean establishing a global government - a doubtful and unrealistic vision. Rather, to globalise politics means that political dynamics within countries and even cities should give far more weight to global problems and interests.

Human beings do not enter the world as competent moral agents. Nor does everyone leave the world in that state. But somewhere in between, most people acquire a bit of decency that qualifies them for membership in the community of moral agents. Genes, development, and learning all contribute to the process of becoming a decent human being. The interaction between nature and nature is, however, highly complex, and developmental biologists are only just beginning to grasp just how complex it is. Without the context provided by cells, organisms, social groups, and culture, DNA is inert. Anyone who says that people are "genetically programmed" to be moral has an oversimplified view of how genes work. Genes and environment interact in ways that make it nonsensical to think that the process of moral development in children, or any other developmental process, can be discussed in terms of nature versus nurture. Developmental biologists now know that it is really both, or nature through nurture. A complete scientific explanation of moral evolution and development in the human species is a very long way off.

In a recent study, participants included both males and females ranging in age from 12 to 83. During the experiment, they were given a variety of breakfasts, and sometimes they had to skip breakfast completely. Special tests, including blood tests and endurance tests, were set up to analyze how well their bodies functioned when they had eaten a certain kind of breakfast. The results showed that if people eat an adequate breakfast, they will work more efficiently and more productively than if they skip breakfast or eat a very poor breakfast. This fact appears to be especially true if a person's work involves mental activity. The study showed that if schoolchildren eat fruit, eggs, bread, and milk before going to school, they will learn more quickly and will be able to concentrate on their lessons for a longer period of time than if their breakfast diet is inadequate.

In one fascinating study, the psychologists Stephanie Clancy and Stephen Dollinger recruited 201 college students and instructed them to collect 12 photographs that "describe who you are as you see yourself." The students themselves could take the photographs, they could ask other people to take the photographs, or they could use photographs that had already been taken. Clancy and Dollinger found that male students were more likely to submit pictures that captured them engaged in an activity (such as playing a sport), displaying prized possessions (such as a car), or alone. Female students were more likely to submit pictures of themselves with other people. The authors concluded that women tend to define themselves more in terms of their relationships while men tend to define themselves more in terms of their abilities and accomplishments-terms reflective of their individuality, independence, and separateness.

Habits provide a way to reduce the amount of mental energy that must be expended on routine tasks. Habits also form a mindset, which gives us cues on how to behave in certain settings. So when we enter a familiar setting, like the streets around our house, habitual behavior takes over. On the one hand, this is efficient: It frees us from having to gather all sorts of new information, from getting sidetracked. Yet on the other hand, because we are expending less energy on analyzing what is around us, we may be letting our mental guard down. If in three years there has never been a car coming out of the neighborhood's driveway in the morning, what happens on the first day of the fourth year, when suddenly there is? Will we see it in time? Will we see it at all? Our feeling of safety and control is also a weakness. A study by a group of Israeli researchers found that drivers committed more traffic violations on familiar routes than on unfamiliar routes.

People know knowledge is power and hence make their peers dependent on them. Sometimes people do not ask others for their knowledge as they feel guilty and they try to acquire the same by themselves. Some people do not know that whatever they know will be very useful for others for innovation and accomplishing tasks. People think that if they share knowledge with others, besides getting no recognition or acknowledgment from the beneficiaries, they may be blamed for no reason if application of their knowledge fails or does not provide good results. Also, people do not get time to talk to others. Each one is busy and pressurized by deadlines, milestones and targets. Functional silos, wrong methods of acquiring knowledge, lack of knowledge about technology, too much emphasis on information systems, competitive spirit, decision making process and individual attitudes, and values are some of the barriers of knowledge sharing.

Racial and ethnic relations in the United States are better today than in the past, but many changes are needed before sports are a model of inclusion and fairness. The challenges today are different from the ones faced twenty years ago, and experience shows that when current challenges are met, a new social situation is created in which new challenges emerge. For example, once racial and ethnic segregation is eliminated and people come together, they must learn to live, work, and play with each other despite diverse experiences and cultural perspectives. Meeting this challenge requires a commitment to equal treatment, plus learning about the perspectives of others, understanding how they define and give meaning to the world, and then determining how to form and maintain relationships while respecting differences, making compromises, and supporting one another in the pursuit of goals that may not always be shared. None of this is easy, and challenges are never met once and for all time.

Paul Harvey tells the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood. Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more - until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!

Fasting is one of the best ways to remove toxic material from the body. The process gives the body's enzymes "time off" from working on foods so they can devote time to detoxification. During fasting, the body's enzyme system is cleaning up and digesting and eliminating damaged tissues and foods that have been hard to digest. While fasting reduces the risks of weight-related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, it also helps clear the body of toxic wastes. About six hours after the last meal, the body starts to use glycogen, which is a carbohydrate stored in the liver and muscles. When there is no food in the stomach, the body stops the process of assimilation and concentrates on getting rid of toxins and other waste products.

Uncertainty is an inescapable feature of science that, counterintuitive as it might sound, does not prevent us from gaining scientific knowledge and understanding. As individuals, and as societies, we need to understand and accept uncertainty in science. Perhaps surprisingly, it is because of this feature that science has made, and still makes, important advancements. Uncertainty motivates further research and a better understanding of natural phenomena. Scientific knowledge is perhaps the sort of knowledge that is as close to certainty as we can get, but this only means that it is closer to being certain than other kinds of knowledge, not that it is absolutely so. Whereas nothing compares to scientific knowledge when it comes to understanding the natural world around us, such knowledge is at the same time flexible enough to accommodate new findings. This happens because continuous research deals better and better with uncertainty and produces an increasingly reliable body of knowledge on the basis of solid evidence and rational thinking.

In the booming global travel business, ecotourism is among the fastest-growing segments. Costa Rica and Belize have built national identities around their celebrated environmental allure, while parts of the world once all but inaccessible-from Antarctica to the Galapagos Islands to Mount Everest-are now featured in travel guides, just like Manhattan, Rome and other less exotic destinations. Advocates see ecotourism as a powerful yet environmental-friendly tool for sustainable economic development in even the poorest nations. But as the trend expands, critics see threats to the very flora and fauna tourists flock to visit. Moreover, traditional subsistence cultures may be obliterated by the ecotourism attack, replaced by service jobs that pay native peoples poverty wages. Meanwhile, tour promoters are using the increasingly popular "green" label to attract visitors to places unable to withstand large numbers of tourists.

To begin with a psychological reason, the knowledge of another's personal affairs can tempt the possessor of this information to repeat it as gossip because as unrevealed information it remains socially inactive. Only when the information is repeated can its possessor turn the fact that he knows something into something socially valuable like social recognition, prestige, and notoriety. As long as he keeps his information to himself, he may feel superior to those who do not know it. But knowing and not telling does not give him that feeling of "superiority that, so to say, latently contained in the secret, fully actualizes itself only at the moment of disclosure." This is the main motive for gossiping about well-known figures and superiors. The producer assumes that some of the "fame" of the subject of gossip, as whose "friend" he presents himself, will rub off on him.

Why do we find it so difficult to slow down? We may, in part, be the inheritors of a Protestant ethic which encourages us to believe that time must be used 'productively' and 'efficiently.' We feel we should be getting things done, ticking them off a list. But it could be that many of us are driven by fear. We are so afraid of having longer, emptier hours that we fill them with distractions or strive to stay occupied. How often do we sit quietly on the sofa for half an hour without switching on the television, picking up a magazine or making a phone call, and instead just thinking? Within minutes we find ourselves channel-surfing and multitasking. What exactly are we afraid of? On some level we fear boredom. A deeper explanation is that we are afraid that an extended pause would give us the time to realize that our lives are not as meaningful and fulfilled as we would like them to be. The time for contemplation has become an object of fear.

Everybody knows the population of the world is growing. But remarkably few people seem to know that the rate of increase in world population has been falling since the early 1960s and that the raw number of new people added each year has been falling since the late 1980s. As the environmentalist Stewart Brand puts it, "Most environmentalists still haven't got the word. Worldwide, birth rates are in free fall. On every part of every continent and in every culture, birth rates are headed down. They reach replacement level and keep on dropping." This is happening despite people living longer and thus increasing the numbers of the world population for longer, and despite the fact that babies are no longer dying as frequently as they did in the early twentieth century. Population growth is slowing even while death rates are falling.

Social psychologists have debated for decades the question of whether consistency is rooted in nature or nurture. Cultural variation would be one indication that it is learned. Some evidence indicates that the same basic drive for consistency can be found in very different cultures, but making choices does not seem to cause dissonance processes among East Asians the way it does for North Americans. On the other hand, the influence of social pressures toward consistency probably strengthens the drive. Either way, the root probably lies in the fact that groups of people can get along better if the people understand each other, and understanding each other is easier if people are somewhat consistent. People expect and pressure each other to be consistent, and people respond to these pressures and expectations by seeking to be consistent. Quite possibly the drive for consistency is rooted in our biological nature and strengthened by learning and socialization.

Joost Smiers, director of the Centre for Research at the Utrecht School of the Arts, stated that it is important to discuss the abolition of copyrights, which are now mainly in the hands of the transnational cultural conglomerates. In his eyes, this economic concentration of power and rights damages free artistic and cultural developments, on both a local and global level. In general, art and culture are not an expression of the individual genius artist but have their roots in the historical developments of culture. If (Western) conglomerates claim their collected copyrights for profit reasons, they hinder artists and developing countries in processing existing cultural expressions and creating new ones. One of the alternatives could be to establish a cultural fund, fed by tax from companies that use the expressions of artistic values for their own purpose. With the financial support of such a fund, artists and developing countries will be stimulated to contribute to free cultural living.