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Thorsten Heins, the new CEO of Research in Motion, has been plucked from the relative obscurity of the chief operating officer position to fill the giant shoes of two longtime co-CEOs as they depart at the behest of angry investors. Having pioneered the smartphone industry with its BlackBerry, RIM is dangerously adrift.

As the Internet has grown from 70 million users in 1997 to 2.2 billion in 2011, entrepreneurial companies with technology at their core have disrupted entire industries and threatened or eliminated incumbents.

It’s no secret that promotion rates in most industries have slowed during the extended recession. The good news, at least in the United States, is that with the current glimmers of economic growth, the ‘’ice floes’’ surrounding upward movement have begun to break up.

In the decades since Communist leader Deng Xiaoping instituted market reforms in the late 1970s, millions of women have profitably followed Deng’s dictate that “to get rich is glorious.” Chinese women in powerful business positions include Wei Sun Christianson, CEO of Morgan Stanley, China and Mei Yan, managing director of MTV Networks, China. Backing them up are legions of ambitious women who, increasingly, are the engines powering China’s economic juggernaut.

Whether you’re searching for your first job, considering a career change or seeking opportunities while unemployed, finding a job can be one of the toughest challenges you can face. What’s the best way to approach such a task?

It’s generally understood that corporate computing has gone through three principal phases: centralized computing, the PC era and, most recently, the age of the network.

Glasgow’s John Anderson, Brooklyn’s Sackett-Wilhelm Lithography, Tokyo’s Busicom – these are the unheralded heroes of innovation history.

Let’s assume there was a corporate practice that damaged the relationship between bosses and their subordinates, kept employees from speaking honestly about themselves and their company and ultimately hurt the bottom line. Let’s also assume that there wasn’t a shred of evidence that anything good came out of the practice.