ADHD – A conspiracy?

There are many ways to deal with ADHD.
I already told you about the different ways of treating ADHD. Some bear more risks than others.
If you already forgot about it, you can of course reread everything in one of my earlier blog post (Introduction, How to live with it, Identity issues) about ADHD. More and more kids are diagnosed ADHD and prescribed with drugs, which leads to the various implications I have described earlier.
But how did it come so far? What is the cause for the increase in ADHD patients?
Until a few decades ago, kids’ problems were just considered to be caused by shyness, “kids being kids,” or adolescent angst.
But with the beginning of the late 1980s and early 1990s, doctors and parents started to see symptoms of psychiatric disorders in them that needed treatment. With new drugs coming on the market and new research showing the benefits of early intervention, more kids got drug treatment at younger ages. Prescriptions of ADHD drugs tripled during this time and still continue to increase.
Especially today everyone seems to be jumping on the ADHD train.
I am not talking just about doctors and pediatricians here but also teachers.

Colorful recipe share or minimalist individualism!? Part II

The last post explained some aspects of marketability of Pinterest and Tumblr. We learned that target groups and brand appearance are some important factors to consider when deciding which platform to use for marketing.

This week we will contrast both social platforms from a user’s point of view: Which one supports individualism and usability, how do they differ in terms of functionality ?

Women In Management – We can do it! Part II

Last week I started introducing a topic very close to my heart as well as the majority of the people reading this Blog “Women in Management” and more precisely what you can do to improve your situtation. Check it out right here. This week I would like to fruther elaborate on this topic.

Confidence and Determination

The guardian wirtes “according to a recent study by the UK Institute of Leadership and Management, compared to their male counterparts, female managers tend to have lower levels of self-confidence and higher levels of self-doubt.”

This comes as no surprise since stereotypically women are seen as more self critical than men. But to what degree is self criticsm constructive and when does it start being destructive. A good dose of modesty is generally useful but in management this self criticism and maybe even lack in confidence might not be helpful to your career.

Exam next week? No problem!

“Hey, how was your weekend?”
“Very exciting! I celebrated the birthday of my sister and had a good night´s rest. And you?”
“Well, I started to prepare for the Corporate Finance exam.”
“How commendable! Have you progressed well?”
“Somehow yes. In the beginning, I had problems with computing the liquidity ratios and didn´t understand the concept of financial leverage as well as what the internal growth rate is. But now I even can calculate ROE by heart, isn´t that fantastic?”
“Well…are you kidding me?”

You know situations like that either?
You can swear to high heaven that you never have heard terms like “leverage” and “return on equity”?
You also repressed that you are going to write this exam in one week?

CSR & ethical fashion part III- when luxury brands make a difference

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

We all know this wise saying, but one fashion brand made it its credo. Mail&Guardian online summarized the company’s mission statement as follows:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to make a giant hand-carved fish pendant with a black horn chain-link necklace and you feed him for a lifetime.“

Instead of trying to save third-world countries with donations, the new luxury label Maiyet from New York gambles on a philanthropic business model. The fish that was described above was made in Kenya, debuted on a runway show in Paris and can be purchased at Barney’s in New York.

This video shows how Maiyet brings the work of their global artisans onto the Paris Fashion Week:

This week on “fastexposure”!

Like every Sunday, “fastexposure” is going to inform you about our upcoming blog posts this week.

On Monday, Mirella is going to focus on a special issue with regards to ethical fashion and CSR.

Kathi is going to publish a post about future perspectives of doctors on Thusday.

On Wednesday, Lilly wants to talk about time management, especially why students are prone to procrastination.

Nicola is going to continue with her topic “Women in Management” on Thursday and

Mai will write about contrasting tumblr and pinterest´s marketing purposes as well as user differences on Friday.

Are you ready for some new exposures?

Colorful recipe share or minimalist individualism!? Part I

Last week I gave you a short impression on both Pinterest and Tumblr and we checked some general differences.

Today let’s have a closer look on their differences and in what way they are more or less suitable for various purposes, determining the types of users and businesses practiced on these platforms.

Women in Management – We can do it! Part I

I want to start this post by telling you a little story. Last week some of my fellow students were invited to participate in the Google workshop. Once it was finished one of them Conny aka LittleMissPanda told me about it enthusiastically and completely blown away. However she also mentioned that now she could really comprehend what it is probably going to be like for us women to try to make it as influential managers. She was the sole female in a group of males and when trying to include her opinion and input she was often passed over. A lot of the time the males of the group did not sufficiently include or communicate with her.

In my last blog post Women and Management  – Prejudice or Truth I wrote about how women are still underrepresented in top management position. This week I originally planned on writing about what is being done by governments and corporations. However after hearing this story and after talking to Mai, Mirella and Kathi some of my fellow Bloggers I decided to change my topic to a more relevant one. In my last two posts I do not want to write about what is being done but what can we do!

The “CSR double life” of Deichmann

In my last posts I wrote about two different kinds of companies: the “CSR light” ones and the deep CSR enterprises. I also mentioned some examples of firms like “Krombacher” as well as “dm” which are representatives of those CSR categories.

However, there are also some controversial companies in discussion:
do they perform real CSR activities or not?

A well-known example with regards to this issue is Deichmann, a German shoe retail chain, headquartered in Essen. You may don´t know a lot of facts about the economic activities of that company because it rarely informs the public about its subsistence strategy.

On the one hand, the company acts as a real “CSR heavyweight” because of it focuses on customer service and improved working conditions. But on the other hand, some critics claim that the enterprise do not pays attention to a sustainable and environmentally production.

Are those opinions true?
Why is Deichmann reserved about talking about its subsistence strategy?
Does the company want to hide something?
What are the pro-arguments for Deichmann as a deep CSR company?
What are the cons?
How do professionals evaluate this problem?

Fastexposure has the answers!

ADHD – Identity issues

In my last post I told you about all the different ways of treating ADHD.
Medication, therapy, dieting and even homeopathic remedies.
But what happens if you decide to leave it untreated or worse, to stop the treatment?

“I don’t exactly know when I started taking the medications. I think it was around first grade when the little mysterious pills began appearing next to my cup of apple juice at breakfast. I had what my parents called “ADHD.”

I recognized in myself everything that they and the doctors told me about myself: I was hyper, easily distracted, and persistently bugging just about everyone in my vicinity.

[…] These symptoms seemed to improve with the meds, and whenever I forgot to take the pills, it was unbearable. I threw tantrums, disagreed with everything and got nothing done. […]

I got into my dream school, a very prestigious liberal arts school far from home, and made a decision. This decision changed my concept of identity: I decided to go off of the ADHD medication. […]

Above all, I wanted to prove to myself that my behavioral problems weren’t anything I couldn’t control without my meds.

Man, was I wrong.”  (20-year-old college student)