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

When I worked at Microsoft in the late 1990s, Alex St.

Have you ever had the experience of buying a deal from Groupon or LivingSocial, getting to the merchant (a restaurant, let's say), and awkwardly giving the server a crumpled piece of paper to prove that you deserve $20 worth of food for just $10?

Mergers and acquisitions can create strange bedfellows, but the drawbacks of companies' cultures not meshing together can have an impact on the bottom line. Through all the mergers he's been a part of, Mike Sprouse has yet to see one that doesn't entail at least a few hiccups.

One morning last January, a franchisee of Nurse Next Door in Edmonton, Alberta, sent an e-mail to company headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. John DeHart, Nurse Next Door's co-founder and co-CEO, clicked on a link in the message, which led to the website of Eldercare, a competing company based in Toronto

And other stories about how the news of Al Qaeda’s leader’s passing ping-ponged around the web and social media, from BNO News to George W. Bush. It was one of the most tweeted--but not the single most tweeted--events, Twitter tells us.

"The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden," President Barack Obama has just announced.

Scott Harrison was 28 years old, sitting on a beach in Uruguay with a model girlfriend, a Rolex watch and a BMW waiting nearby—a life the nightclub promoter in New York City had been chasing after for nearly 10 years—when he realized (in his own words) "what a selfish scumbag" he was. His entire adult life had been geared towards serving himself and the club patrons, and when he had done nothing to help others, it made him step back. Seven years removed from that day on the beach, Harrison is still in New York, heading up charity: water , a non-profit organization that has delivered clean drinking water to over 1 million underserved people in 17 different countries, and aspires to help more than 100 million in the next ten years.

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day. Verizon Can Hear You...24 Hours Later Verizon's 4G LTE data network has just come back online after a 24-hour blackout

Birth certificate, schmirth certificate. The Yale Cultural Recognition Project's theory suggests that die-hard birthers will hold firm to their political philosophies in the face of incontrovertible evidence--until they're given a way to save face. Anyone eager to confront genuine issues plaguing the nation--from staunch lefties to sober leaders on the political right--got a moment of respite today with the release of President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

DIY survey platforms make constructing questionnaires easy, but the results could be biased, contradictory, or deeply misleading. Online surveys often have to compete for attention against the backdrop of Netflix , Gmail alerts, and 25 open browser tabs. The minimal cognitive effort given to answering questions may exacerbate all the problems that lead to biased or outright distorted results.

Photograph by Tanit Sakakini Padmasree Warrior Chief Technology Officer, CISCO San Jose Warrior, 50, traveled to Russia in 2010 on a State Department technology delegation that included eBay CEO John Donahoe and actor Ashton Kutcher. "THE PURPOSE OF the delegation was to explore and begin a dialogue with Russia.

By Alister Bull and David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged world oil producers to lift crude output as he sought to deflect public anger over high gasoline prices that is hurting his popularity among voters.

Chances are, you've at least heard of Kiva , the microfinancing nonprofit that allows users to give bite-sized loans to entrepreneurs in poverty-stricken regions. Because people like to feel good by offering cash to worthy causes (or so we've heard), Kiva has done exceptionally well, funding $200 million worth of microloans since its launch in 2004. And as of today, you can specifically fund what are, in our opinion, the smartest entrepreneurs--the ones who realize that efficiency is the key to becoming self-sufficient.

Forget lying in a memoir, we should be talking about what it means that Mortenson's Central Asia Institutes in Pakistan and Afghanistan are failing. The 60 Minutes expose of much-lauded author and social entrepreneur Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea; Stones into Schools) is rocketing around the web

What do guns, burglar alarms, and condoms have in common?