【推荐3】On September 10, 2018, Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced his successor(继任者)at the company he founded 19 years ago. Surprisingly, in a country where 70 to 80 percent of private companies are still family run, Mr. Ma did not name a family member. Rather, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies will be led by Daniel Zhang, an 11-year Alibaba old hand chosen only for his “professional talent.”

The history of many countries can be marked by a trend away from dependence on family succession in business, or the belief that qualities of leadership flow through bloodlines. Ma is a true innovator(创新者)in many ways, most famously for building an innovative online shopping market worth more than the economies of most countries. But his legacy(遗产)may lie in showing how China as well as much of Asia can produce founders of successful organizations unwilling to pass the torch to relatives.

“Alibaba was never about Jack Ma,” he stated in announcing his succession plan. Instead, the former schoolteacher who came from lowly origins is stepping back from day-to-day operations because he has built a system that takes root in a company culture based on innovation, transparency, and responsibility. “For the last 10 years, we kept working on these ingredients,” he stated.

The company’s future will depend on developing a wealth of talent that drives innovation, he said. And in a society with a long tradition of cautious distrust toward those outside the family circle, Ma has built an “architecture of trust” with customers, who number over half a billion. Chinese now readily rely on Alibaba’s online payment system, its ratings of products and services, and other trust-building systems or methods pioneered by the company.

China’s rapid growth now produces a new billionaire almost every day. Many of them, like Ma, have favored systems of management based on talent and honesty. As many countries have discovered as they progress, it is better to swim in a talent pool, not a gene(基因)pool.

【推荐1】It is hard for modern people to imagine the life one hundred years ago. No television, no plastic, no ATMs, no DVDs. Illnesses like tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia meant only death. Of course, cloning appeared only in science fiction. Not to mention, computer and the Internet.

Today, our workplaces are equipped with assembly lines, fax machines, computers. Our daily life is cushioned by air conditioners, cell phones. Antibiotics helped created a long list of miracle drugs. The by-pass operation saved millions. The discovery of DNA has revolutionized the way scientists think about new therapies. Man finally stepped on the magical and mysterious Moon. With the rapid changes we have been experiencing, the anticipation for the future is higher than ever.

A revolutionary manufacturing process made it possible for anyone to own a car. Henry Ford is the man who put the world on wheels.

When it comes to singling out those who have made a difference in all our lives, you cannot overlook Henry Ford. A historian a century from now might well conclude that it was Henry Ford who most influenced all manufacturing everywhere, even to this day, by introducing a new way to make cars—one, strange to say, that originated in slaughter houses(屠宰场).

Back in the early 1900s, slaughter houses used what could have been called a “disassembly line.” That is, the carcass(尸体) of a pig was moved past various meat-cutters, each of whom cut off only a certain portion. Ford reversed this process to see if it would speed up production of a part of an automobile engine called a magneto. Rather than have each worker completely assemble a magneto, one of its elements was placed on a conveyer, and each worker, as it passed, added another component to it, the same one each time. Professor David Hounshell, of The University of Delaware, an expert on industrial development tells what happened: “The previous day, workers carrying out the entire process had averaged one magneto every 20 minutes. But on that day, on the line, the assembly team averaged one every 13 minutes and 10 seconds per person.”

Within a year, the time had been reduced to five minutes. In 1913, Ford went all the way. Hooked together by ropes, partially assembled vehicles were towed past workers who completed them one piece at a time. It wasn’t long before Ford was turning out several hundred thousand cars a year, a remarkable achievement then. And so efficient and economical was this new system that he cut the price of his cars in half, to $260, putting them within reach of all those who, up until that time, could not afford them. Soon, auto makers over the world copied him. In fact, he encouraged them to do so by writing a book about all of his innovations, entitled Today and Tomorrow. The Age of the Automobile had arrived. Today, aided by robots and other forms of automation, everything from toasters to perfumes is made on assembly lines.

Edsel Ford, Henry’s great-grandson, and a Ford vice president: “I think that my great-grandfather would just be amazed at how far technology has come.”

Many of today’s innovations come from Japan. Norman Bodek, who publishes books about manufacturing processes, finds this ironic. On a recent trip to Japan, he talked to two of the top officials of Toyota. “When I asked them where these secrets came from, where their ideas came from to manufacture in a totally different way, they laughed, and they said, ‘Well. We just read it in Henry Ford’s book from 1926: Today and Tomorrow.’”

【推荐2】Earlier this year I traveled to Turkana in Kenya. I was there to take pictures of the “broken food system”.

As a special visitor, I was greeted with songs and dances. The locals used to sing and dance all the time but now Turkana is silent and has been for some years. No one is singing or dancing any more because they have no food, nothing to celebrate. Many of them are surviving on one handful of corn a day and water, which they can get just every two days.

I met Tede Lokapelo, a local farmer who described the experience of a six-year drought (干旱). Tede used to have 200 goats, but now he has only seven left. He told me that this drought has taught him a hard lesson: It is too difficult to keep animals. He lives on animals. His traditional way of life has been completely destroyed(毁坏) now. Without the food aid (援助) they got, Tede is certain that they would starve because there are no other sources to feed themselves left.

Sadly, the same can be heard in almost any developing country around the world. Almost one billion people go to bed hungry each night. The food system is broken. In Turkana, not enough rain has fallen since 2005. They measure rainfall not in days or weeks but in minutes. More and more people are being forced to rely on food aid, but people like Tede don’t want food aid. They want to work and create their own economy. It’s our responsibility to fix the system so that they can support themselves.

Drought is impossible to avoid but famine (饥荒) is manmade, and unless enough money is provided to develop a basic infrastructure (基础设施) for people in the area, thousands more lives are sure to be lost.

【推荐3】I’m running some 3,550 kilometers. To be more precise, this jog is mostly around my neighborhood in Ottawa. It is the distance by air to Vancouver that my friend Lucy and I are doing. If we make it, Lucy and I will get on a plane to Vancouver and compete in one of the BMO Vancouver Marathon weekend races. We may not win medals, but for sure we’ll have cake for my seventy-fifth birthday at the finish line.

The workout for big birthdays represents a big change for me. I used to hate birthdays, especially those milestone ones. No longer feeling young is horrible. As I approached my sixtieth birthday, Lucy suggested setting targets to mark milestone birthdays. “That way you are looking forward to something, not dreading it,” she pointed out.

By doing those expanding my world or demanding new skills, I feel myself growing, not shrinking. For my sixtieth, I got it into my head that I should do an Olympic distance triathlon (铁人三项赛), which turned out to be a real milestone. After over four hours on the course, I was last among the 95 competitors. But I was the oldest woman competing, so that made me first in my age category. Since then, I’ve looked on the special days as a call for trying something different. For my sixty-fifth birthday, I went to run a half marathon. And I finished seven activities that took me out of my “comfort zone” at seventy.

I’m fortunate to have celebrated so many birthdays in good health and spirits, so whether I succeed in running to Vancouver or not, I’m grateful for the opportunity. One thing I’ve learned in taking up these challenges is that there are many possibilities for new adventures and achievements, even as we grow older. So do spend every day of every year with a definite end in view, which will release your energy and make you happy.

【推荐3】A friend of mine met with an accident driving in the darkness. His legs were so hurt that he couldn't move. What was the worst was that he found himself unable to ask for help—his mobile phone went out of work. Nothing could be done but to wait in cold wilderness. 8 hours later, day broke, and then the rescue arrived.

It is almost unimaginable that he could stand the horror in the darkness for so long. Even more surprising was his explanation: “First of all I checked up my physical conditions and found myself not in fatal danger. As there was no way to call for help, I leaned back in my seat trying my best to keep the wound from bleeding. In this way I dozed off.”

His story put an end to my regret for the failure of an exploration adventure that happened last year. A group of young men tried to explore a mountain cave and got lost. Unable to find a way out in the dark cave they were frightened and ran anxiously without a sense of direction. Finally they fell dead in fear and exhaustion. The place where they got lost was only about 10 meters away from the opening of the cave! If they tried to calm themselves, they would probably sense a faint light shining not far away.

Don't you think that you can compare it with life itself? When you meet with obstacles in life and work, you are lost in darkness. Mind you it's unclear yet and you needn't put up struggle immediately. But a person who can afford to do so must have foresight as well as a great courage.