Facebook’s new easier-to-manage ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ rolling out globally

Managing Facebook (FB) privacy settings can be a daunting nightmare. Facebook’s new “Privacy Shortcuts” is designed to make sharing items as transparent as possible with always-visible privacy button on the top toolbar. The update also brings “an easier-to-use Activity Log, and a new Request and Removal tool for managing multiple photos you’re tagged in.” The new Facebook privacy controls are rolling out globally starting on Friday and will arrive for all users by the end of the year. For the full details on all of the new changes, be sure to visit Facebook’s Newsroom here.

[More from BGR: Fan-made tweak gives Apple a blueprint for better multitasking in iOS 7 [video]]

This article was originally published by BGR

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Facebook’s new easier-to-manage ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ rolling out globally
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See If You Can Spot the One Color That Popped on the Carpet This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/21/2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Getty; Splash News Online; WireImage

Even though we didn’t see as many stars on the red carpet this week as last — it’s quiet in Hollywood this holiday season! — we still saw some strong trends emerge at various events. What were they? Let’s get to it!

Up: Pops of red. You can thank the holidays for this festive mini-trend, which we spotted on Hailee Steinfeld’s purse, Bella Heathcote’s dress and Rose Byrne’s jacket. Adding just a hint of the bold hue to your outfit is an easy way to look all holiday-y without going overboard.

Up: Head-to-toe black. What, are stars sick of sequined dresses already? This week we saw nearly one dozen leading ladies wear all black: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, LeAnn Rimes, Alexa Chung, Jessica Chastain, Miley Cyrus, Krysten Ritter and Kerry Washington … to name a few. As New Yorkers, we’re always happy to see all-black ensembles en force, and it is a look that’s usually pretty failsafe — and slimming.

Down: Stick-straight hair. Rita Ora was the only woman we saw with pin-straight locks this week; everyone else went for bouncy curls and elegant updos (and cropped cuts, if you count Miley Cyrus!). With Christmas and New Year’s Even upon us, we predict we’ll be seeing a lot more exciting hairdos and less of the minimalist straight looks.

Tell us: Which color are you more likely to wear at the holidays: red or black?

Want more Trend Report? Click to hear our thoughts on mini dresses, cut-outs and collars.

FIND ALL THE LATEST RED CARPET NEWS AND PHOTOS HERE!

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.

Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.

Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)

Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.

Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.

"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."

In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:

—Previous violent or aggressive behavior

—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse

—Guns in the home

—Use of drugs or alcohol

—Brain damage from a head injury

Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.

Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.

Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.

According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.

Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.

Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.

And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.

All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.

Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.

Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.

Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.

___

Online:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Letting strangers live rent-free in his house: cool or crazy?

When Tony Tolbert turned 50 last year, he marked the occasion by moving in with his mother.

The decision wasn't about money. He's a Harvard-educated attorney, on the staff of UCLA's law school. And it wasn't because his mother wanted or needed him home.

It was Tolbert's response to the sort of midlife milestone that prompts us to take stock. Instead of buying a sports car, he decided to turn his home — rent free — over to strangers.

He'd been inspired by a magazine article about a family that sold their house, squeezed into a tiny replacement and donated to charity the $800,000 proceeds from the sale.

"It just struck me how powerful a gesture that was," Tolbert said. "It challenged me to think about what I could do, where I might have some overflow in my life."

His overflow was a modest home on a quiet tree-lined street a short walk from Crenshaw Boulevard. He'd lived there alone for 10 years.

Last January, he moved out and a young single mother with three little children moved in. A South Los Angeles domestic violence program chose the family from its shelter and brokered the deal.

He agreed to let her pay one dollar a month, and imposed on her only one rule: "Whatever has to happen to keep things drama free, that's what I need you to do."

When Tolbert first shared his story with me, he wanted me to write about it but not name him. He didn't want publicity. He just hoped that, since he'd gotten the idea from something he'd read, maybe someone reading my column would be inspired to … do what?

Let strangers take over their homes rent-free?

I figured he was either crazy, very rich or hopelessly naive.

That was last summer, when he didn't know himself how the experiment would work out. There were times, he said, when he wondered if his leap of faith had gone a step too far.

"A couple of friends said 'You're out of your mind.' But others said 'That's great.'"

His mother worried that he was being too trusting — and didn't exactly relish the idea of sharing space with her grown son for the first time in 30 years.

But he'd grown up in a family where sharing your blessings mattered.

So Tolbert left the good furniture for the woman who moved in. He didn't hide his grandmother's heirloom quilt or put away the fine art.

"I told her straight out, this is my home. I'm leaving these things for you to enjoy. I want you to be comfortable here."

That was a learning process for Tolbert: "It was a good exercise in not grasping and hanging on to stuff.... Short of them burning the house down, I had to accept that whatever they tear up, it can also be repaired."

And he had to accept that generosity and gratitude aren't always a matched pair.

"I had all kinds of preconceived notions about how this would play out. We would meet, she would be weeping, want to give me a big hug.... I had to learn to detach, not be attached to any particular outcome or course."

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North Korea Says It Has Detained an American Citizen

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Friday that it had detained an American citizen on charges of committing “hostile acts against the republic,” a crime punishable by years in prison in the isolated country.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said the American, Bae Jun-ho, had entered the country on Nov. 3 through a port city near the Russian border. Human rights activists in South Korea said they believed Mr. Bae to be Kenneth Bae, 44, who they said earlier this month had been detained in the North.

The North Korean report said, without elaborating, that an investigation had established Mr. Bae’s guilt and that he had confessed. It said he had been allowed to meet with officials from the Swedish Embassy in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The Swidish Embassy intervenes on Washington’s behalf on issues involving American citizens in North Korea. Washington has no diplomatic relations with the North.

The charge comes at a sensitive time for Washington, which is trying to rally support for a new round of penalties against North Korea over its launch of a long-range rocket earlier this month. In recent years, North Korea has detained several Americans, in some cases agreeing to let them go only after high-profile American figures visited Pyongyang to seek their release. Analysts have suspected North Korea of trying to use such arrests to counter Washington’s diplomatic pressure over its nuclear and missile programs and force it to engage with the regime.

The human rights activists in South Korea said Mr. Bae ran a travel company that specialized in taking tourists and prospective investors to North Korea. Mr. Bae, a naturalized American citizen born in South Korea, was detained after escorting five European tourists into the North, said Do Hee-youn, who heads the Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees, based in Seoul. The Europeans were allowed to leave the country, Mr. Do said.

The South Korean daily newspaper Kookmin Ilbo earlier cited an unnamed source as saying that Mr. Bae was detained after North Korean security officials found a computer hard disk in his possession that they believed contained sensitive information about the country. Mr. Do said that Mr. Bae may have taken pictures of North Korean orphans he wanted to help and that the authorities may have considered that an act of anti-North Korean propaganda.

In 2009, North Korea arrested two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the North and committing “hostile acts against the Korean nation.” But the women were pardoned and released five months later, after former President Clinton visited Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader at the time.

In 2010, North Korea released Robert Park, a Korean-American Christian activist who entered the country in December 2009 to draw international attention to the North’s poor human rights record. Another American, named Aijalon Mahli Gomes, was arrested the same year in North Korea and was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegal entry and “hostile acts.” He was freed after former President Carter visited Pyongyang and, according to North Korea, “apologized” for the man’s crime.

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Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams a 'Dream' to Dress in On the Road

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/20/2012 at 09:00 AM ET

Michele K. Short

Sure, one of the more notable scenes in the new movie On the Road actually features an actress without clothes, but costume designer Danny Glicker promises that audiences will be blown away by the film’s clothes. And with all of the work he put into these looks, they’d better be.

“It was a hugely immersive research period,” Glicker (who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Milk) tells PEOPLE. “We obviously started with the script, but then I really had to reconstruct Jack Kerouac’s entire journey, so that we’d have a reference point for every place that the characters go.”

The film takes viewers on a trip that extends throughout the U.S. and Mexico of the 1950s, so Glicker says he “had to look with a fresh set of eyes at what the countries really did look like back then, in post-war America.”

However, a perk of the job was dressing the film’s leads: Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams and Kirsten Dunst. “It was a dream,” Glicker says. “They were amazing. I had so much fun with all of them.”

Glicker says each woman “had a very specific piece of the puzzle. Kristen and I worked super closely together — she was so committed to the role,” he shares. “And to see her intelligence and awareness of how clothing can inform every aspect of her understanding of a character … that was pure pleasure.”

Working with Adams was also “a dream,” because Glicker considers himself “such a huge fan. I got to make her look quite awful, actually — she’s playing a woman who’s incredibly strung-out on drugs — but thankfully she’s a brilliant actress. We had a ball.”

Dunst had one of the more fun characters to dress, Glicker says, because “she had an elegance about her,” he explains. “It was fun to show that elegance through her clothing, and that then impacted everything, like her posture, and how she appeared against the other characters in the larger picture.”

Michele K. Short

Dressing the men of the cast was interesting, too, and of course lots of thought went into the actor’s outfits. “Sam Riley, who is our Kerouac, was a nice partner in crime,” Glicker says. And one of his pieces was the most important in the film.

“Something you may not notice when you see the movie, is that he has this incredibly iconic red-and-black plaid jacket — it was designed specially for the movie.”

Glicker sourced five of the pieces for filming, since Riley wears the coat throughout the movie, but as time goes on, “it gets more destroyed,” the designer says. “It’s not at all a gag, but wouldn’t you notice if it was clean over the course of a four-year roadtrip? So it was really fun to explore clothing in that way.”

Since Glicker had to create so many costumes — seriously, the cast list is long! — was he able to pick just one favorite? Not a chance. As he says, “There were thousands of standouts.” On the Road opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, and throughout the rest of the country soon. Tell us: Do you plan to see the film? 

–Kate Hogan

PHOTOS: SEE MORE STARS ALL DRESSED UP ON SET IN ‘LIGHTS! CAMERA! FASHION!’

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Apocalypses: There's one around every corner

Today is the last day on Earth. Then again, if you're reading this, maybe not.

Doomsday, predicted by Mayan cycle adherents for Dec. 21, didn't come after all. Well, not yet anyway. Depending on when you picked up this story, there may be hours to go.

But if you're still with me, civilization as we know it hasn't collapsed and Los Angeles is still standing. This is good news, especially for me. Imagine my frustration on awakening to find that, instead of lolling on the beach, I was grinding out a column as the wandering planet Nibiru/ tsunami/ hyperinflation was fast approaching.

You might think members of the Los Angeles Based Survival Community, who have been stockpiling food and supplies in anticipation of this day since June, would be feeling a twinge of regret. Especially with the guff they took for staying in L.A., by general consensus the worst place on Earth to wait out the apocalypse, zombie or otherwise.

But apparently not. There's always another cataclysm around the corner, the group's organizer told me.

"It might be something incredibly different: a supervolcano eruption or even a major earthquake," he said.

The organizer, Tony, is a security consultant and private eye with a military background. He asked me to keep his full name, location and other identifiers out of this column. He doesn't want to tempt the masses.

"Within days people determined to feed their family — your neighbors — will come knocking on your door asking for help," Tony said. "It won't be your TV set they want, it will be your food. Some of them aren't going to be nice about it."

I visited Tony's home, and I can vouch it would be the place to be if we run out of food. A flesh-colored stucco house in the San Fernando Valley, it's several doors down from a looming freeway overpass.

Two trailers are parked at the curb — getaway vehicles to the group's "bugout" locations and temporary homes upon arrival. An old U-haul truck in the driveway is stuffed with food and supplies: water filtration devices, gas masks, sleeping bags and tents.

In the kitchen and spilling into the living room are racks of food, including soy milk ("lasts almost a year"), canned chicken, mac and cheese and an alarming quantity of mayonnaise. The chickens out back are being kept for eggs. Buckets of dehydrated meals labeled "2,100 calories," 400-pound bags of pinto beans, flour and rice, 500-pound bags of salt and a carton with thousands of vegetable seeds also crowd the house.

A row of barbecue sauce jars takes up one shelf. "We want to make sure food tastes good, with the different wildlife we might be eating," Tony explained.

The layout cost Tony thousands of dollars, but he said it's not wasted. With each apocalypse averted, he will eat the old supplies and rotate in new ones.

Tony, who dressed in a Mission College sweat shirt and backward baseball cap, said he never bought the Dec. 21 Mayan end-days prophecy, anyway, and I could tell he was telling the truth. A snowman knocker hung on his front door, and he was part-way through trimming the Christmas tree when I arrived.

But several of the group's 65 "preppers" — the term preferred to "survivalists" — were convinced the end was nigh, he said. Tony found most of the preppers on the Internet and vetted them for useful "skill sets" like carpenter, electrician and doctor. A professional clown didn't make the cut, he said.

When catastrophe hits, the 65 members, their spouses and significant others will be notified, by ham radio if necessary, to gather at one of five secret locations, mostly in the mountains around the L.A. Basin, Tony said.

"Let's say there's a supervolcano, the location is underground," Tony said.

Some of the redoubts are on private property and some are on public land. Preppers in Glendale and Burbank also have their spots mapped out, he doesn't know where; hopefully they won't trip over each other.

Backup hideouts have been chosen in case the primary ones are destroyed. Wells have been dug, and all the shelters have access to fresh water. Pets and farm animals will be transported in collapsible cages, he said.

But if outsiders show up, they will be turned away by the group's "security forces," Tony said. Even if they include children.

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IHT Rendezvous: In London for the Holidays? Theatrical Gifts for Everyone on Your List

So who needs more possessions? The holidays afford the chance to give the gift of theatergoing, the kind of present that will be remembered (one hopes) throughout the year. With that in mind, what follows is a handful of London theater suggestions for the festive season.
Enjoy, and curtain up!

For parents (or grandparents)

“Singin’ in the Rain” at the Palace Theater should fit the bill, whether or not your grandparents (or parents, even) first saw the 1952 MGM film musical at the time of its release. Set against the backdrop of the uneasy transition in moviedom from silent pictures to the talkies, the Gene Kelly film has spawned multiple stage versions on both sides of the Atlantic, of which the director Jonathan Church’s current incarnation is by some measure the best of the three that I have seen.

Inheriting Kelly’s role as silent film star Don Lockwood, onetime Tony nominee Adam Cooper (“Swan Lake”) makes as charming and insouciant a leading man as you could wish for, and his own family must thrill at the larger-than-life facsimile of Mr. Cooper (sporting an umbrella, ‘natch) on view to passers-by in front of the playhouse. The production has time-honored songs (“Good Morning,” “Moses Supposes,” and the title number among them), nifty choreography from Andrew Wright and lashings of real rain. Go and get soaked! And I don’t just mean over that extra intermission gin and tonic.

Is that just too familiar a title, or you would you rather give the family a taste of next year’s likely Broadway biggie? In that case, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s buoyant and witty “Matilda” is a good bet, continuing strong in London at the Cambridge Theater even as its New York bow gets nearer. A child-oriented piece that possibly means even more to adults, Matthew Warchus’s production also offers a prime man-as-woman star turn, more on which below.

For lovers

“The Effect,” running in repertory at the National Theater’s Cottesloe auditorium through Feb. 23, represents an intriguing date-night theatrical prospect largely because it places the speedy bloom of passion at its feverishly pulsating heart. One frequently hears the term “meet cute” to describe (often sniffily) an adorable if unlikely impromptu meeting.

But initial concerns that this play’s Connie and Tristan might not rise above the shopworn cliché inherent in the above phrase are soon dispelled by the unexpected path forged by Lucy Prebble’s play, which lands its newfound couple in the world of pharmaceutical research where desire is not to be trusted. Is romance actually having its day, the play asks, or are such reactions merely drug-induced? Ms. Prebble seems to come down on something resembling the primacy of truly authentic feeling, but not before taking her audience on a wild emotional ride. What more could you ask from the theater – well, that and Billie Piper’s gorgeous portrayal of Connie, which ranks among the year’s best performances.

For students

You don’t have to be engaged in academia, of course, to enjoy the current Royal Court mainstage entry, “In the Republic of Happiness,” but it helps to be alive and alert to theatrical form when taking in the playwright Martin Crimp’s latest. And if students don’t fit that bill, who does? And as London’s – some would say the English-speaking theater’s – premier playhouse for new writing, the Court has the added appeal of the “cool” factor, and the further attractions of the downstairs café/bar don’t hurt, either.

Told across three scenes, the shifts between visual environments managed with characteristically easeful dazzle by the designer Miriam Buether, Mr. Crimp here anatomizes a world given over to self-obsession and self-improvement whereby our constant quest for happiness has resulted only in hollowing us out. Brainiacs in the house will enjoy making clear the connections that are implicit in writing that asks the audience to do some work and then pays off with an ending that recalls (in tone if not content) the finale to Robert Altman’s seminal film, “Nashville,” as a requiem for a benumbed society. Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Court, has done a tricky piece proud, and those who don’t walk out – as quite a few did at the performance I caught – will stay to cheer and possibly even book to see the show again.

For gender-benders

You thought cross-dressing was confined to the British tradition of the seasonal pantomime, which demands that a leggy young woman play the principal boy and usually casts a man of some seniority as the principal dame? (Ian McKellen, of all distinguished folk, filled that latter bill for two consecutive seasonal runs of “Aladdin” at the Old Vic.)

Pantos continue to proliferate on cue across the capital, but the so-called “legit” theater, too, seems to have gone cross-dressing mad. Consider for starters Miss Trunchbull that armor-plated harridan of a headmistress in “Matilda.” David Leonard is doing the honors now, while original leading man (um, woman?) Bertie Carvel readies for his New York debut. Not to be outdone are Mark Rylance and the cast of the all-male productions of “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III,” now at the Apollo Theater following sellout engagements at Shakespeare’s Globe last summer, and Simon Russell Beale in “Privates On Parade” at the Noel Coward Theater sporting baubles, bangles and sometimes not much at all as Terri Dennis, the campest – and most irresistible – of military captains.

Too many men, what about the women? Get in line for return tickets for Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female “Julius Caesar” at the Donmar: the London play that boasts by some measure the most swagger in town.

For someone you hope never to see again

“Viva Forever!”, at the Piccadilly Theater: Gift this one, scored to the back catalog of the Spice Girls, to someone from whom you hope to part company: trust me, they’ll never speak to you again.

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Best Practice Institute Introduces New Social Network that Promises ‘Future of 360′

A new social network, skillrater.com launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

West Palm Beach, Fla. (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Skillrater.com, an online social network that launched today, makes it easy for members to request work performance ratings from overseers, co-workers and direct reports across a domestic and global workforce.

“This is the future of 360-degree assessment and social learning,” said the network’s creator, Louis Carter, CEO of Best Practice Institute.

“Get rated. Get better. Get noticed,” says Skillrater.com’s website, which describes the new social network as “the world’s first rating, networking and feedback tool on a social platform.”

Executives, employees and entrepreneurs who have already been friended, linked and tweeted can now get feedback and rating on their skill sets and work at Skillrater.com. Individuals may join the Skillrater social network at no cost; corporations may purchase a premium or enterprise membership to use Skillrater as an in-house platform for feedback, talent management and social networking.

The Next Thing in 360 Assessment and Corporate Social Networking

“I want to bring a revolution to 360 so that organizations become more open and transparent, and driven by the desire for employees to request feedback on their competencies/skills and activities they execute on a daily basis” said Carter, BPI’s founder and a social-organizational psychologist.

The world of work is becoming more open and transparent. “A new IBM study of 1709 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide reveals that CEOs are changing the nature of work by adding a powerful dose of openness, transparency and employee empowerment to the command-and-control ethos that has characterized the modern corporation for more than a century.”

Employees using skillrater engage in conversations and threaded discussions around improving their activities at work. Instead of hiding feedback from employees, employees may receive immediate correction of negatively reinforcing workplace habits directly from their bosses, peers, and customers. Employees may continue the feedback process in a threaded discussion to receive deeper advice and help from executive coaches or other members of the team. Repeating this process will show measurable changes in behavior and actions over time for your organization, as well as show patterns for the changes that need to me made on an individual, team, and organization level. The employee requests feedback of others directly, so that a culture of accountability and feedback is encouraged. Instead of “big brother/sister” HR forcing feedback of competencies and workplace performance, employees take ownership for creating their own culture of transparency so they may show their progress toward growth.

One study found that as many as 90 percent of all Fortune 500 companies use 360-degree feedback with their employees. In a 360 assessment, feedback is sought from all directions of an employee’s circle: overseers, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even external sources, such as customers and suppliers.

Skillrater brings several innovations to the 360-degree process to make the technique easier to use and to increase the tool’s beneficial results. Features include:

“Skillrater is a great tool. Leaders and managers are going to fall in love with it,” said the world’s leading executive coach and bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith. “There is no better way for organizational leaders to track talent data. Skillrater gives you a simple way to request receive feedback on what you are doing, while building an in-house social network to discuss the feedback. The ability to customize Skillrater around the desired competencies of your organization is brilliant.”"

Focus on Leadership Development in Globally Dispersed Workforces

Most importantly, Carter said, Skillrater provides a social network through which members can springboard from quantitative ratings to qualitative discussions that make the feedback truly transformative. This is especially beneficial for dispersed workforces where consistent face-to-face communication is costly to accomplish.”

“Our goal is to create a social network within an organization that is focused on helping employees improve their skills and improve performance,” Carter said. “Skillrater is not primarily about promotion and pay decisions, it’s about leadership development and positive behavioral change throughout a national or global workforce.”

Studies have shown 360-degree feedback is an effective way to help workers identify their strengths and weaknesses, including blind spots in which they need further development. Skillrater’s convenient online platform, along with the addition of a social networking dimension, makes Skillrater a powerful leadership development for dispersed or collective learning environments.

After corporate clients learn their way around all the bells and whistles of Skillrater’s multi-rater feedback tool, Carter said, they will move on to appreciate the richness of the in-house social network, creating a dispersed learning environment in which ongoing leadership development and action learning is cultivated within domestic or global workforces.

Skillrater Benefits for Individual Users

Individuals may join Skillrater.com for free and choose up to five skills upon which to be rated. Top executives, mid-level rising stars and lower-level workers with an eye on advancement may all use Skillrater to request feedback and map their own course of development. Requesting a Skillrater rating is an excellent way for an individual to confirm satisfaction with a completed project or identify additional steps needed to achieve satisfaction. Using Skillrater, a worker can demonstrate to higher-ups one’s desire to perform well and also document tangible improvement.

An individual who has acquired several ratings on one’s Skillrater profile and has made those ratings public may catch the attention of employers on the search for talent. Skillrater will become a go-to destination for talent recruitment. Other social networks provide an individual’s name, personal background and employment history, but Skillrater provides rubber-meets-the-road details of how an individual has been evaluated by co-workers, clients and customers on actual projects.

Skillrater Benefits for Corporate Users

Companies may purchase an enterprise membership, giving executives an unparalleled tool for talent management and leadership development. Enterprise membership enables companies to enroll 1,000 users and place them in 20 groups or divisions.

For senior talent management executives, Skillrater provides a remarkable way to track the job performance, skill sets and leadership development of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of employees spread out across a national or global workforce. For years, connecting the right employees with the right tasks has been the elusive aim of talent management. With Skillrater, when a particular skill set is needed for a particular task, a manager can search on those specific skills, and then read fresh feedback on recent projects, including not only numerical ratings but subsequent comments and discussion. That is rich, valuable talent data, which Skillrater puts at executives’ fingertips.

Managers from different divisions may customize their own groups to have specific skills or competencies that are important for success on-the-job. Users can select these group skills when requesting ratings to get targeted feedback that meets the need of the department head or head of leadership development. The ability to customize skills is critical to an organization’s success, making this a key feature of Skillrater’s enterprise membership level.

VPs of leadership development have the ability to set up action learning groups with specific action items. Group members work together online to achieve goals and get ratings on the skills that will make them most successful on the action learning project. Changes in behavior and actual project results may be tracked over time, proving the ROI of the leadership development program.

How Does Skillrater Work?

Joining Skillrater is easy and painless. An individual can create a Skillrater profile in a few moments or import one’s profile and skill set from LinkedIn.

A Skillrater member may request a rating from anybody on anything. It really is that simple. The user simply clicks the “Request Rating” button, specifies the task or activity for which one seeks a rating and the specific skills on which feedback is desired.

Then the member sends off the rating requests. If the desired rater is already a Skillrater.com member, requesting a rating is just one additional click. If not, the user enters the desired rater’s email address, and a message is sent requesting the rating and providing the necessary link.

After feedback has been received, Skillrater notifies the user. Results include a spider chart, an easy-to-understand graphical interpretation of how the feedback lines up with one’s self-assessment. Users continue to share advice and further clarification via a discussion thread to continue the social learning and coaching experience online.

ABOUT BEST PRACTICE INSTITUTE

Best Practice Institute is an award-winning leadership development center, think tank, peer network, research institute and online learning portal with more than 10,000 corporate and individual members around the world. Corporate members include Walmart, Bank of America, Pfizer, Hilton Hotels Worldwide, Scripps and many more of the world’s top corporations. BPI is based in West Palm Beach, FL, and is on the web at http://www.bestpracticeinstitute.org. BPI is ranked as one of the top ten “Best in Leadership Development” by Leadership Excellence Magazine.

Louis Carter is the founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute. Carter is a social-organizational psychologist, concept innovator, entrepreneur and a highly regarded authority on learning, talent, leadership development and change. He is the author or co-author of 11 books and a regular contributor to Fast Company, Chief Learning Officer, Talent Management, and Training Magazine.

For More Information or to schedule an interview, please contact Louis Carter: 800-718-4274; lou(at)bestpracticeinstitute.org

Louis Carter
Best Practice Institute
800-718-4274
Email Information

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Miss USA Olivia Culpo Wins Miss Universe

By Tim Nudd

12/20/2012 at 08:35 AM EST

Miss Universe Olivia Culpo

Julie Jacobson/AP

USA! USA!

Olivia Culpo, the 20-year-old Miss USA and former Miss Rhode Island, won the Miss Universe pageant on Wednesday night in Las Vegas, becoming the first American to do so since 1997.

The Boston University sophomore outlasted 88 other competitors. Miss Philippines, Janine Tugonon, came in second, and Miss Venezuela, Irene Sofia Esser Quintero, finished third.

"What an honor! This night was a dream come true. Thank you everyone for your support tonight!! USA finally did it!" Culpo wrote on Twitter after the competition ended.

The U.S. drought in the competition had gone back 15 years. The last American to win was Hawaii's Brook Lee.

With Culpo earning her new title, Miss Maryland, Nana Meriwether, now becomes the new Miss USA.

Culpo had told the Boston Herald this week, before she won, that the Miss Universe competition was a whole different challenge than Miss USA. "For Miss USA, I felt more pressure to be lean," she said. "Here, they're bigger and taller. The look of Miss Universe is more voluptuous."

On Thursday, Culpo was ready to embrace everything that comes with the Miss Universe title. "Rise and shine!!" she wrote on Twitter. "Makeup time with @Yukyan51 for a long day of media. Ready for day one of #MissUniverse life :)"

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