Cool Consortium

Well Orange, the broadband and mobile provider appear to have been up to rather a lot of late. In October Orange launched an advice page on their website covering all sorts of information on unwanted e-mails and texts, phishing and spam and also a section aimed at helping families deal with issues ranging from cyber bullying and email fraud.

If advice pages aren’t your bag then early in November Orange came up with a free Broadband for Business plan; the Orange Solo mobile plan aimed at those in business who work for themselves costing £30 a month. The plan, with a single bill for voice and broadband use, includes up to 8Mb download speed, unlimited downloads (subject to fair use policy) and a free wireless router.

Then the latest thing Orange introduced was its 3G portable newspaper reader ‘Easy on the eye’ during Mobile Asia Congress 2008, which features 1GB storage capacity to carry over 200 newspapers and 30 e-books.

Now Orange has re-launched its popular “free laptop” deal where consumers get a brand new laptop with a mobile broadband contract. As from the middle of November, new customers signing up for Orange mobile broadband will be offered the new Asus Eee 901 laptop. The Orange laptop deal comprises an Eee PC 901 (available in black and even pink) with built-in mobile broadband which is currently capable of 3.6Mb connection speeds. Bundles extras include 3GB usage a month, and 100 free texts from your laptop.

For those who are looking for a mobile broadband service, Orange now have a lot of different packages to choose from, with they say more on the way in the lead up to Christmas.

As long as there have been baseball games played, teams have worn some sort of Baseball Uniform. The uniform gives the team an identity and wearing the team’s colors is not just for the players, fans get in the spirit by wearing the team’s colors or even replica jerseys but the baseball players are the ones who wear the official Baseball Uniform.

The New York Knickerbockers Baseball Club was the first organized team known to wear matching uniforms when they wore matching white flannel shirts, wool pants, and straw hats in 1849. Although the uniforms did match the players found the uniforms to be restrictive limiting their mobility and work began on a new and improved Baseball Uniform that would allow more freedom of movement as well as a good look for the team.

Today the Baseball Jersey is a very important part of the game as are the Baseball Pants. On the jersey you find the team name, the players last name, and the number of the player. Also found is a patch that designates the league the team is a part of and an special patches that the team may be authorized to wear.

While the Baseball Pants usually do not have any insignia on them they are very functional in nature. When a player has to dive or slide the Baseball Pants protect the player from injury. Many types of Baseball Pants have extra padding and support on the areas a player will be sliding to help protect them during the slide.

The Baseball Uniform has come a long way since it was first worn in 1849.

Norman Steisel, who served New York City as Sanitation Commissioner and as Deputy Mayor has the reputation as one of the first professional managers to bring modern management techniques to city government.

In recent years, Norman Steisel has been working in the private sector; presently he is an executive with the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

However, it was the hardscrabble world of city government that Norman Steisel made his reputation, as a tough be fair manager who always got results.

For some excellent background on the career of Norman Steisel in NYC government see the article by Deirdre Carmody in the February 9 issue of the New York Times.

In this article Deirde Carmody provides several dramatic examples of Norman Steisel’s effective management methods.

This quote, from a researcher at Columbia Business School was contained in the article:

“Here was a department (Sanitation) that was operating with 19th century methods-it really hadn’t changed the way it operated in decades and decades, both in its daily procedures in the field and in its bureaucratic procedures in headquarters,” said John Kaiser, a senior research associate at the Columbia University Business School. Mr. Kaiser wrote the chapter in the Sanitation Department for “Setting Municipal Priorities in 1986,” the annual analysis on the New York City government by two professors, Charles Brecher and Raymond D. Horton.”

Mr. Kaiser pointed out that when Norman Steisel came to the Sanitation Department it had high absenteeism, and a high injury rate.

Under Norman Steisel’s leadership the Sanitation Department was rejuvenated and reorganized.

When Norman Steisel was appointed commissioner, he brought with him training as a chemical engineer and systems analyst as well respect for modern management practices. He took an innovative approach to his job and one of the first things he did was to send some of his subordinates to Harvard Business School, an extremely unusual and controversial decision.

Better management, under Commissioner Norman Steisel, paid off big for the city. Productivity and morale soared and NYC saved millions of dollars.