Stuff I read--Part 2

Another word or two about my reading habits.

While the journals/magazine referenced the last two days don't cover all that I regularly thumb through, they do represent a few favorites.

Here's what's left of that short, varied list.

I've been reading Sports Illustrated since I was a kid. Great photography and interesting analysis across the sporting world.

I remember reading stories about horse racing and fencing when I was in junior high.
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Log Home Living caught my attention a few years back. I call this my "fantasy time" reading each month when it hits my mailbox! I settle back into my easy chair and pretend I'm designing a new home on some Colorado or Vermont hillside. You know, a place to go to simply get away from everything, except the quiet, the beauty and the trout! The thought of living in a log house just seems right to me.
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A couple of inner-city teens came to our door about 6 months ago. They were selling magazines as part of a scholarship program. I never know if these things are legit, but I've never met a kid trying to sell something door-to-door that I had the heart to turn away without at least a little conversation. That is especially true in this neighborhood after dark.

Long story short: I ended up with a subscription to Baseball Digest, a compact little journal I'd seen but never read.

Pretty cool little resource that I pass along each month to my fellow baseball addict, Keith Ackerman! Every time it arrives I think of those kids at my door.
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As a Lifetime Member of Trout Unlimited, the mailing address on the monthly magazine reads "1/2050" as the year my subscription expires. I hope they are right about the date of my predicted passage!

This is a truly beautiful little journal. Great articles about water and fishing conservation, as well as trout fishing technique.

I don't let a single issue of Trout Unlimited to go unread.
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Of course, I read other publications--D Magazine, Texas Monthly and The Dallas Business Journal come to mind. But, what I've listed here are a few of my favotires.
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Responsible investing

Al Gore just won the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

I am aware that Mr. Gore is a fairly controversial fellow. He did win the popular vote in the 2000 election for President before losing the Electoral College count. No reason to go down that path any further! This is not about politics or personalities.

Last week I opened my on-line McKinsey Quarterly to find an interview with Gore and his business partner, David Blood. I found this conversation most interesting and commend it to you.

Is there a way to do business with an eye and a heart for the social good?

In other words, can a person do well while paying attention to doing good?

Here's the McKinsey introduction to the interesting interview:

As McKinsey research indicates, executives around the world increasingly recognize that the creation of long-term shareholder value depends on a corporation’s ability to understand and respond to increasingly intense demands from society. No surprise, then, that the topic of socially responsible investing has been gaining ground as investors seek to incorporate concepts like sustainability and responsible corporate behavior into their assessments of a company’s long-term value.

Yet socially responsible investing has always been an awkward science. Early approaches simplistically screened out “sin sectors” such as tobacco. Subsequent evolutions tilted toward rewarding good performers, largely in the extraction industries, on the basis of often fuzzy criteria promulgated by the corporate social-responsibility movement. These early approaches tended to force an unacceptable trade-off between social criteria and investment returns.

Three years ago, former US Vice President Al Gore and David Blood, previously the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, set out to put sustainability investing firmly in the mainstream of equity analysis. Their firm, Generation Investment Management, engages in primary research that integrates sustainability with fundamental equity analysis. Based in London and Washington, DC, Generation has 23 employees, 12 of them investment professionals, and a single portfolio invested, at any given time, in 30 to 50 publicly listed global companies.

For the entire interview, check out the link below. You'll have to go through a simple registration process, but, in my opinion, it will be worth your time.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Strategic_
Thinking/Investing_in_sustainability_
An_interview_with_Al_Gore_and_David_Blood_2005

I'd love your feedback on this one!

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