As Confucius said, To see the future, one must grasp the past. China has emerged amazingly in the last three decades as an economic powerhouse set to play a major global political role, its future posing one of the great questions for the twenty-first century as it grapples with enormous internal challenges. Understanding how that transformation came about and what China constitutes today means understanding its epic journey since 1850 and recognizing how the past influences the present. Welcome to a Big Picture edition of Total Picture Radio. China has been a reoccurring theme here - for good reason. There's little you can discuss - be it the environment, the economy, monetary policy, oil, trade, or manufacturing -- where China does not play a dominant role in the conversation. Joining us today from London is Jonathan Fenby, a former editor of the Observer and South China Morning Post, he is editor in chief of the information website, Trusted Sources. Jonathan knows China. His brilliant new book is titled "Modern China. The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present" published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. Add this one to your summer reading list, and the next time "China" comes up in a conversation, you'll be able to take the lead. Questions Peter Clayton asked Jonathan Fenby In your book, you quote Confucius: To see the future, one must grasp the past. And when you look at China's past - the amount of violence is on an epic scale, is it not? And how has that violent past influenced today's China? Modern China - the China we're dealing with in business and politics has only been around for the past 30 years. Can you give us some context? You wrote a commentary for the Guardian on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Was this anniversary observed in China? Although China is part of the WTO, it seems to operate on its own set of rules. How much of the current run-up of global oil prices is due to the growth of China as a modern industrial society? You wrote a commentary on the recent G8 meeting in Japan. What is your perspective? The environmental impact of China's growth on the entire globe is well known. Does the government care? How important are the Olympics to China? As you know a number of global corporations have established important manufacturing and research facilities in China -- do you think there's a risk of them being taken over by the government? If I worked for an Intel or GE and was offered a ex-pat assignment in China, what advice would you give me? What do you think is the most misunderstood fact in the West of modern China?

Questions Peter Clayton asked Alice Graves Alice are baby boomers really going to retire? Do companies get the fact that there are 9 million fewer gen-xers than boomers? The i4cp survey you conducted in May 2008 of 118 organizations and asked what they have done or plan to do about tapping into the knowledge and experience of Boomers as they approach retirement. “When asked, for example, whether their organization incorporates retirement forecasts into knowledge transfer practices, the majority (71%) of the companies responding to the i4cp survey said no.” Are these large, multinational companies that you surveyed? Was this US only? Of the companies that are doing something about developing a knowledge transfer program, what are they doing? In researching the article, did you find any innovative strategies companies were using for knowledge transfer? There seems to be an effort by many companies to keep their boomers around a little longer - through part-time or flex schedules or by simply extending out eliminating mandatory retirement age policies - did you find any of these initiatives when you did your research? Are there any trends in this area? In looking at the research you did for the article, what surprised you? The Boomer Exodus: Ready to Pass the Torch? When half a million Baby Boomers descended on Woodstock in 1969, the size of the crowd was considered to be unprecedented by all accounts. Today, there are 76 million Boomers in the workforce, with 19 million poised for retirement by 2011 ("Small Businesses," 2008), making that historic festival of "peace and music" seem more like an intimate gathering of close friends. What is HR doing to ease the transition and the transfer of knowledge from retiring Boomers to younger workers awaiting the passing of the torch? Not enough, it appears. The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), in conjunction with HR.com, conducted a survey in May 2008 of 118 organizations and asked what they have done or plan to do about tapping into the knowledge and experience of Boomers as they approach retirement. When asked, for example, whether their organization incorporates retirement forecasts into knowledge transfer practices, the majority (71%) of the companies responding to the i4cp survey said no. Just a third said they incorporate a skills gap analysis into their retirement forecasts. And less than a quarter of respondents (23%) say they train their managers in the art of critical skills transfer. It's not too surprising, really. The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations conducted a similar survey in February 2008. Just 28% of 404 small business owners said they are currently working on plans to facilitate knowledge transfer to newer workers, while only 4% have created a formal procedure to do so ("Small Businesses," 2008). A 2007 study commissioned by Novations produced comparable results. According to Tim Vigue, executive consultant for Novations, even though concern about knowledge loss is looming, "employers have been slow off the mark in seeking solutions" (Gurchiek, 2007). Taken as a whole, knowledge transfer methods have not been particularly innovative, either. When asked what practices are used to transfer knowledge within their organization, the majority of i4cp respondents identified using training courses (81% of organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees; 92% for those with 10,000 plus). There were no close seconds. Other methods were coaching (about 50% across the board) and, for larger organizations, mentoring (11% for organizations of 1,000 to 5,000 employees; 64% for those with greater than 10,000). One recent SHRM report shows that only 36% of companies have developed succession plans to allow older workers to pass their expertise on to the younger generation, and just 44% are in the process of developing methods to capture institutional knowledge and organizational memory.... Visit totalpicture.com for the complete article

Doug Berg is Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Minneapolis-based Jobs2Web Inc. and is an expert in online recruiting strategies. Doug has worked with hundreds of companies to leverage the internet for recruiting on the web, and is a pioneer in the interactive recruiting industry. Questions Peter Clayton Asked Doug Berg Doug, what is Jobs2 Web? Who uses your services? What makes you different? How do you attract talent? Why are ATS such a nightmare? (Spend $$$ of dollars to attract candidates and then not let them through the door) As a job candidate, what are some of the best things I can do to help advance my career and promote myself online? What are some of the really stupid things professionals do, in conducting a job search. (like posting their resumes on a job board perhaps?) So I just asked Paul Forster at Indeed this question... How many people actually find their jobs on job boards? Depending on who I talk to, it’s between 4% and 25%. What’s your estimate? How do most internal recruiters go about finding candidates for their open recs? How do most executive recruiters -- head hunters go about finding candidates? What trends do you see companies using to try and retain their best employees? What new tools do you see companies employing to try and attract the best talent? I’ve heard that recruiters are having to completely rethink their approach - to find Gen Y talent. Would you agree? You recently wrote an article for ERE titled: 100 Million Job-Related Searches on Google in June! - Tell us about it You work with a number of Fortune 500 companies. What trends do see regarding recruiting and hiring for the balance of 2008? Prior to Jobs2Web, Doug founded techies.com which was a leading technology career site which had nearly 1 million IT professional members nationally, and won PC Weeks number 1 career website in 1999. Doug was also founder and CEO of Quantum Consulting & Placement a Minneapolis based IT consulting and placement services company. Doug is frequently quoted in the press on workforce and career related trends including major publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Business 2.0 and is a featured speaker/presenter at HR and technology conferences, and holds an honorary Doctorate Degree from Capella University.

Welcome to a Online Savvy edition of Total Picture Radio. Joining us today is the co-founder and CEO of Indeed, Paul Forster. Paul and his partner Rony Kahan previously founded Jobsinthemoney, a leading site for finance professionals. In 2004, they founded Indeed to help provide job seekers with a comprehensive job search solution. At the recent SHRM Annual convention, Indeed launched Job Analytics, which gives companies a snapshot of where thier jobs are posted, which jobs are receiving the most clicks from Indeed.com, what keyword searches people are using to find jobs, and how their jobs are performing compared with similar companies. Indeed added a beta test for Job Search by Salary last April. You can now enter an annual salary in the keyword search box to find all jobs Indeed estimates pay at least that much. Questions Peter Clayton asked Paul Forster: Paul, How many people actually find their jobs on job boards? Depending on who I talk to, it’s between 4% and 25%. What’s your estimate? What are the current trends in job postings? Are there more jobs than this time last year, or less? Who do you aggregate your job listings from? A couple of new features and initiatives you’ve recently announced I’d like to discuss -- first Job Search by Salary - how does this work? Most job postings don’t have salaries associated to them, so how do you determine what a salary level is? What feedback have you received from job seekers using this feature? Okay, tell us about Indeed Job Analytics™ What’s Paul Forster’s economic outlook for 2008? Is Indeed hiring? About Indeed Indeed is a search engine for jobs - with a radically different approach to job search. In one simple search, Indeed gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Indeed.com includes all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages - and we continue to add new sites every day. With the familiar look and feel of general search engines, Indeed makes it easy for you to drill down by keyword and location to jobs that fit your requirements precisely. You may save your searches and have jobs delivered to you by email alert, MyYahoo, or other RSS feed readers. If you have a MyYahoo account, for example, your saved Indeed job search may be added at the click of a button

The letter usually reads something like this; “Congratulations! (name) on your recent promotion to (whatever) and 4% pay raise. We’re sure you are up to the exciting challenges we all face at XYZ, as well as your increased visibility, now that you are in charge of our (title), globally. As you know, about 50% of the individuals in your department have elected to take early retirement, and there are no immediate plans to replace them until we complete our current reorganization, and implement the recommendations of the McKinsey team, (who have made your life miserable for the last six months and cost us millions of dollars). As a friendly reminder, the new corporate travel policy states that business class travel is only allowed on flights of 15 hours or more. We’re all very proud of your continued success and advancement! Have a great day.” Which is all to say that: Llfe is faster and more complex. We're deluged with information. Tortured by impossible deadlines. And overwhelmed by high-spiraling expectations. No matter how well-organized we are, we simply can't get it all done. Mission Control is a new approach to productivity that, according to our guest, Eb Schmidt, provides a dramatic increase in your productivity and effectiveness, while reducing your stress. Eb has worked in the areas of quality and operations in various global companies of the consumer industry. When starting his own consulting firm he looked at the expertise he had gained over the past 25 years, his strengths, what he really likes to do and what the market was looking for: He found that his own passion for organization, productivity improvement and cost reduction supported through the use of newly developed and highly effective tool sets (ERA 10 Step Process, Mission Control and Hoshin Kanri) were in real need across the industry. Shortly after starting the company it became more and more clear that teaching, coaching and in depth consulting of business tools for the 21st century was indeed a rewarding and needed area to engage in. In short, Eb believes he can help us: 1. save money, 2. reduce waste, improve quality and increase production and 3. experience power, freedom and peace of mind in the face of everything you have to do and handle.