The good news this week is that the Network Solutions book manuscript is going out on Friday to our red team for review. My understanding is that they have been asked to get us their comments and suggestions within about two months.
Our current plans are to synthesize and incorporate the suggestions from the red team, and then create the final book manuscript. We will probably publish the book as an e-book with availability through Amazon.com and through the FED by way of the Internet, and perhaps eventually as a printed book.
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I was pleased to learn that the FED has made some awards in its national student essay contest: Creating Wealth by Sharing Wealth. More than 430 graduate and undergraduate students participated from across the nation. These participating students were asked to describe their strategies for increasing employee motivation, creating innovative and productive firms, and establishing more sustainable economies in the 21st century through broad-based employee ownership and profit sharing within the corporation. The responses were quite good.
The national first place award went to Terry Williamson, an MBA candidate at the University of California, San Diego. You can click here (PDF) to read the winning essay.
In addition, the second place award was given to Douglas Ashburn, an MBA candidate at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the third place award went to Alexandr Bolgari, a BA candidate in International Relations at Kent State, and fourth went to Scotty McWilliams, a BBA candidate at Lamar University. There were also 23 best-in-class awards given, and 24 honorable mentions.
The four national winners and two best-in-class winners will be sponsored to attend the NCEO/Beyster Institute Employee Ownership Conference on April 13-15, 2011 in Denver, Colorado. I would like to thank all the students who submitted essays. Your work is impressive.
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Although I’m not quite my old self, I am feeling better and managing to get out on the boat again. Last week we took the boat to Oceanside, and I think that’s where we’ll go again this week.
Speaking of boats, I was pleased to receive a copy of America’s Cup sailor Peter Isler’s latest book which details his sailing secrets. I look forward to reading it soon.