Daily Archives: April 17, 2005

Verizon CEO – Muni Wireless a “Dumb Idea”

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Todd Wallack visits with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg:

The head of the country’s largest phone company ridiculed San Francisco’s interest in building a municipal Wi-Fi network that is designed to offer cheap or free Internet service throughout the city.

“That could be one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive officer of Verizon Communications, during a meeting with Chronicle editors and writers on Friday. “It sounds like a good thing, but the trouble is someone will have to design it, someone will have to upgrade it, someone will have to maintain it and someone will have to run it.”

I might agree with Seidenberg IF the incumbent telco’s provided true broadband, which they don’t (we’re stuck at very slow, costly speeds compared with Japan & Korea).

Paradox: WSJ: Skilled Labor Shortage: Milwaukee Journal: State Short on Jobs for Graduates

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Jason Stein writes in the Wisconsin State Journal that there’s a skilled labor shortage here:

Colleges and training programs aren’t keeping up with the demand for skilled workers in a variety of industries, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has found. Rough state projections show Wisconsin needs 2,430 registered nurses to enter the work force each year until 2012. But in 2004, only 1,755 nursing graduates took the state exam to become registered nurses.

Wisconsin’s construction industry needs a projected 1,020 new carpenters a year, but only 340 carpentry graduates are coming out of the state’s apprenticeship and tech college programs.

Meanwhile, Joel Dresang writes in the Milwuakee Journal-Sentinel that we don’t have enough jobs for graduates.

“In many cases, the jobs aren’t here,” says Karen Stauffacher, assistant dean and director of the Business Career Center at UW-Madison.

As of last week, more than a third of the job offers accepted by the business school’s spring graduates were with companies based in Minneapolis (18% of the accepted offers) and Chicago (17%).

Only 31% of accepted offers were from Wisconsin employers, mostly in Madison (13%) and Milwaukee (8%). On average, the Chicago employers offered salaries $10,000 higher than in Madison, and Minneapolis companies offered about $7,000 more.

The Legacy of Jules Verne

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Brian Taves:

Jules Verne died 100 years ago this spring. We’ll talk about his legacy to literature and science, and take a look at two research projects he might have appreciated: drilling to the center of the Earth and finding the right place to live on the Moon.

audio