For the next few weeks,  we’ll be bombarded by the “end of the year” stories…what was the hottest news story, funniest video, who died, who went to jail. But here’s a “shout out” to the local Alcoa Inc. employees, who did not have the smoothest of years.
Even in a dark year …(with the smelter gearing down [...]

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Congrats to local healthcare leader Ron German, chief executive officer of East Tennessee Medical Group, who’s been named chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee of the national Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).
A long-time leader in MGMA business (and a former MGMA local and state president), German now oversees the corporate investments & retirement plans of [...]

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J. Craig Madison dreams in technicolor Royal icing, sprinkles, candy canes and most of all….gingerbread.
For the last two evenings, I’ve been to a reception and a dinner hosted by Madison, president and CEO of the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa in Asheville, N.C. He told a fascinating story of how he solved a marketing [...]

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A couple weeks ago while working in Italy, I heard a fascinating presentation regarding security, privacy and the risks therein for social networking in the workplace.
Darryl Woo, one of the partners at Fenwick & West LLP, (based in the Silicon Valley) gave a compelling overview regarding the current push-pull in many companies re: how Facebook, [...]

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I’m finding more uses for Facebook all the time…and this past week it literally hit me like a ton of rocks.
With apologies to poet Robert Frost, my “Road Not Taken” last week was I-40 East over to Asheville. Last Sunday a huge rockslide closed both sides of I-40 around the N.C./Tennessee border. And, as luck [...]

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