Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Chances are, your company is just a lightweight when it comes to being eco-friendly. Want to go hardcore

MANILA (Reuters) - Rescue helicopters and boats distributed food, water and medicine to thousands of Filipinos marooned in flooded towns north of the capital on Monday and authorities said water levels were starting to recede. Wide areas of rice-producing Bulacan and Pampanga provinces have been submerged since late last week after the Philippines was hit by two typhoons.

Readers respond to our story about the constant feeling of crisis that is entrepreneurship in Argentina, and others. Risky Business Our story about doing business in Argentina [" A Constant Feeling of Crisis ," June] garnered a mixed reaction from readers on Hacker News and Inc.com, many of whom are U.S. expats running businesses in South America

Dear EarthTalk : I heard of a practice called cyanide fishing, which is used mostly to collect aquarium specimens, but I understand it is also used to catch fish we eat. Isn’t this very unhealthy? --Phil Seymour, Albany, N.Y.

Sick of being paid tiny wages to make crafts, Reese Fernandez-Ruiz started an organization to get famous designers to give her work cachet, and started helping get local craftswomen out of poverty. Reese Fernandez-Ruiz was teaching children math, science, and reading skills in Payatas--one of the Philippines' biggest dump sites--when she noticed something: local mothers were making foot rugs out of scrap cloth that was furnished to them by a group of middlemen, who got the cloth directly from a factory and retrieved the finished products to sell

Understanding people through direct experience has become a forgotten part of American business. Here's how strangers can and should help shape brands. As I crawled up to the 19th floor, stumbling over broken glass, old beer cans, rat droppings, and a smell that made me gag, I found my way to apartment number 19294--my home for the next two days

Wall-climbing lizards in the Philippines are being exported to treat health problems - unsafe and possibly illegal, officials say

LivingSocial has acquired popular pan-Arab coupon site GoNabit for an undisclosed sum, which is good news for local startups and quite bad news for Groupon's struggling Middle East operations. LivingSocial announced the acquisition of pan-Arab deals site GoNabit for an undisclosed sum today

When you buy a silk Goddess Scarf from the online retailer Gianna Fair Trade, not only are you getting a stylish new accessory, you're also helping Mae Ta, the Laotian mother of five who made the garment, send her children to school.

Knowing the bathroom, eating, and cleanliness habits of consumers can make or break a campaign. Question is: How far are you willing to go? How well would you say you know your consumer--not just the broad-stroke stuff, either, like their income or marital status

Greg Tseng, CEO of the social networking website Tagged, had just landed in Manila, on Saturday, June 6, 2009, to kick off a long-awaited vacation. As soon as he dragged his jet-lagged body up to his hotel room, though, an onslaught of phone calls, e-mails, and text messages from his co-founder, Johann Schleier-Smith, and other Tagged employees began: Something was seriously wrong with the site. In the 24 hours since Tseng had left his office in San Francisco, thousands of complaints had been filed by users—who claimed that Tagged's new registration process had somehow tricked them into spamming all of the contacts in their e-mail address books

Art may not be able to solve our most pressing environmental problems, but it can at least bring attention to them.