News roundup: Cavalcade of Risk, Ohio, productivity and blogging

July 21st, 2006 by Julie Ferguson

Cavalcade of Risk #4 – Christopher at MedBill Manager is hosting a baker’s dozen of fine posts at the latest edition of Cavalcade of Risk. Grab a coffee and hunker down for a read.
More from Ohio – Robert Ceniceros of Business Insurance breaks the story that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation will return $52 million to injured workers as a result of a class action suit involving subrogation. The court found that neither BWC nor self-insured employers should receive more in reimbursement than the actual value of the claims so the money will be returned to about 7,900 workers who were injured between 1993 and 1995. More from the Cincinatti Post
Extreme flex time – yesterday’s Morning Edition from NPR featured an interesting segment on an experiment in productivity that retailer Best Buy conducted at its corporate headquarters. In response to high turnover, it implemented the ultimate flex time program that it calls Results Oriented Work Environment (audio clip): Employees are totally free to set their own work hours as long as they get the job done. This includes choosing their own work environment – even if they want to work from home. Managers say that it has been wildly popular with workers, fostering an entrepreneurial spirit, and that they produced 20% more output in work orders.
Meet the bloggers – Pew Internet & American Life has issued a research report on blogging, finding that about 12 million American adults have blogs, and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million American adults. Of course, the vast majority of blogs are personal blogs, not business blogs, which are a more recent phenomena. I guess that would put us in the 64% of bloggers who say that, “a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others” If you are reading this blog, you are still in the early adapter crowd – currently about 39% of the web population who consumes blogs.