Rhode Island High School Football Team Sends The Wrong Message

Earlier this month St. George's, a private school in Rhode Island cancelled their football game against fellow Independent School Lawrence Academy from Massachusetts. St. George's headmaster Eric Peterson told the Boston Globe that they cancelled the game because of the students safety. "We are trying to keep our kids reasonably safe in a game that can be terribly exciting but has risks", said Peterson.

Lawrence Academy has been dominant thus far, putting up over 30 points a game on their way to a 4-0 start. They have five players that have committed to Division I schools and an offensive line that outweighs St. George's by an average of 100 pounds. Still the announcement of a forfeit came as bit of a surprise as it’s not something we typically see in high school sports.

If you go to St. George's athletic page on their website you will find articles titled "Athletics is a way of life at St. George's" and "St. George's has along athletic tradition." To me cancelling a game based on the competition's size and athletic ability seems to be a contradiction of these headlines.

In life there is always someone that is going to be bigger, stronger, smarter or faster than you. However, the bigger team does not always win. Not allowing young men to compete in athletics because they face a superior team sends the wrong message. Football is a physical sport and injuries do occur. Why would St. George’s field a football team if the school was concerned about the young men getting injured?

Once you quit one thing it becomes easier to quit on other things in life. These are young men that are in high school they are not little kids. The message that was sent to these young men is that when you encounter something in life that may be difficult it is ok to give up. What about those young men on the team that wanted to play because they respect competition? Eric Peterson’s message to them was that you’re not good enough to compete with Lawrence Academy.

Part of growing up involves being defeated at times. You learn from your mistakes after a bad loss and try to improve for the next game. Suffering a sound defeat could have been a humbling experience to the St. George’s program. The forfeit sent the wrong message to young men about facing difficult challenges in life.

March Madness and Business Sadness

March Madness, it’s every sports fans favorite time of the year and business owners’ nightmare. Employees spend hours surfing online sites, researching all 64/65 teams in hopes of picking that winning bracket. They use the company scanners and printers to fill in their brackets. In between creating TPS reports for their boss they also check sites like ESPN and CBS Sports for scores and updates. Some of these brave employees even stream live games from work (not me of course).

What does all this wasted time mean for employees? Well for starters productivity is down during this three week period. Employees make fewer calls and send less e-mails. According to the consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, it’s estimated that March Madness could cost employers as much as $1.7 billion in wasted work time over the course of the tournament. The study also found that employees spent an average of 10 minutes a day checking scores or updates from work. I find this estimate to be on the conservative side since none of my friends took part in this study.

Another problem that businesses are faced with during the tournament are busy servers and slower internet speeds. With many employees streaming live games and refreshing their browsers every 30 seconds for score updates, many systems aren’t equipped to handle the surge in activity. Slower Internet connection can be a serious problem for companies who depend on systems to log customer data or provide an online service.

On the positive side, March Madness brings a new excitement into the workplace. It also brings a fun social aspect back into the office and provides grounds for a good water cooler conversation or two. The tournament sparks office rivalries with different employee Alma maters. And usually, an unsuspected worker emerges victorious from the company pool.


March Madness is the one time of the year when most employees engage in sports gambling. According to Las Vegas, the NCAA tournament is the second largest sports betting event behind the Super Bowl. Most employees take part in multiple brackets to better their chances of cashing in at the end of the tournament. Every game has a significant meaning to person’s pool, which provides excitement as well as stress.

This March Madness we’ve already witnessed buzzer beaters and a double overtime game. We’ve seen two number 1 seeds go down and a number 14 seed knock off a number 3 seed. And even crazier, we watched an Ivy League school and a Mid-major turn most brackets upside down. If the true definition of March Madness is what you want to seen, then this tournament has not disappointed. On any given day any one of the 64/65 teams selected could win. This madness is what myself and millions of other workers look forward to every spring and what many business owners can’t wait to see end.

How Dangerous Is Your Cell Phone?

The link between prolonged cell phone use and brain tumors is a widely debated topic. It has been studied extensively in Europe for many years, however it seems to have flown under the radar in the U.S. Conspiracy theorists would argue that this is due to the big cell phone companies keeping a lid on the harmful findings. But recently more and more reports in the U.S. have been surfacing regarding the highly debated topic.

Recent reports include the World Health Organization (WHO) announcing a 10-year study that has provided significant findings that link long-term cell phone usage to an increased risk of brain cancer and tumors. Also, the new February 2010 issue of GQ has a great article about the microwaves that are emitted from cell phones and how an Investment Banker on Wall Street believes his brain tumor was linked to prolonged cell phone use. There has also been speculation that late Senator Kennedy’s brain tumor could have been linked to his long-term cell phone use.

All of these findings and speculations have brought concern to individuals who spend a substantial amount of time on their cell phones. Some cell phones have higher SAR levels than others. According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, SAR is specific absorption rate and is a way of measuring the quantity of radio frequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body. CNET posted a review for the 20 highest-radiation cell phones.


A product that has been making some noise because of its tremendous upside is Safe Cell Phone’s SAR Shield. Safe Cell Phone’s SAR Shield can reduce potentially harmful radiation waves by upwards of 89%. It’s the only tested, FCC-approved device proven to lessen SAR levels.


The SAR Shield is about the size of a quarter and fits on the back of your cell phone with adhesive tape. It also fits under most cell phone cases because of its sleek design. It retails for about $15 dollars and can be purchased directly from www.safecellphoneinc.com. The product is a smart investment for anyone that uses a cell phone as it has potential to decrease the radiation levels your cell phone emits.

While the expert opinions vary on the direct correlation of prolonged cell phone use and brain tumors, it remains clear that more research is needed as most of the 300 million cell phone uses just recently started using cell phones within the past 5 to 10 years.

Searching for Dinning and Nightlife in Rhode Island Just Got Easier

These days, Rhode Islanders have enough things to worry about like the unemployment rate and Iway traffic. Deciding on places to go out at night shouldn’t have to be one of them. And now with the launch of TonightInRI.com... it doesn’t have to be.

The Rhode Island website offers a hyper local search for premier restaurants, bars, and clubs. TonightInRI.com currently has over eighty different establishments featured on their site. Searchable options on the site allow the user to browse for specific types of venues. See what venues are busiest, have a college crowd, offer dining, etc.

The website is set up to provide each participating venue with a customized interface that allows them to easily upload the content they want to share with viewers and potential customers. Local Rhode Island establishments that aren’t currently on the site can get into the action by contacting TonightInRI.com at quickresponse@TonightInRI.com.

So far, my experience with the site has been very positive. TonightInRI.com is extremely active on social media sites like FaceBook, Twitter and MySpace. They’ve responded to any questions I’ve had regarding hotspots to check out on certain nights and made me aware of a new Rhode Island restaurant that I ended taking my girlfriend to and having a great meal.

They’ve also done a great job with inbound marketing and rank near the top of search engines for key words related to dinning, restaurants, clubs and nightlife in Rhode Island.

It’s definitely a site worth checking out. You can also check them out on FaceBook and Twitter.
www.facebook.com/tonightinri
www.twitter.com/tonightinri

The Changing Media Landscape

Over the past six years we have seen a major shift in the way we access information, share that information and communicate with others. With the launch of new media sites/ social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook we're able to share information as it happens. The shift from print to digital has had huge impact on newspaper industry. It's sad to say but my generation may have been the last generation to grow up with our parents reading the daily paper. Now I check my local paper's website and receive RSS feeds for content that I'm interested in. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy reading the Sunday paper but now I'm able to access faster online. Why would someone pay for content when they can access it for free? This has been mindset of my generation. We have access to free content from blogs and sharing sites. We're able to find what we want online for free. More importantly we access things when we want it and how we want it. We access content from our laptops and mobile devices on the go. It's a double edge sword for the newspaper industry because while the circulation numbers have decreased for many papers, online viewership is at an all time high. I believe this changing landscape has helped our society to become more informed on daily issues as well as provided us with new platforms to communicate with others. So for me, this changing landscape is for the better. It has provided us with more opportunities to interact with our investors, customers, other businesses and media.

The following video titled "Did You Know 4.0" takes a deeper look at this shift in media.