Here's a cool Website. I saw this on Tech Crunch. Fotowoosh will turn any picture into a 3-D image. (VRML) format, meaning you currently need a VRML reader to see it (future browsers will likely build this functionality in). In a week or so, the company say, users will be able to upload a picture and have a 3D animated image returned to them in a Flash widget that can be embedded on any website. The 3D image is constructed in Virtual Reality Modeling Language.
I read about this book on The New York Times RSS feed, but it's so long ago that it's probably lost now. It's now on my "books to read" list. "True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership" by Bill George with Peter Sims (Jossey-Bass, $27.95). The trouble with these leadership books is that they challenge me to be better, but I guess that's a good thing, right?
Some excerpts from the Times article:
Then there is Daniel Vasella, chief executive of the Swiss company Novartis. He suffered from asthma, tuberculosis and meningitis as a child in Switzerland and had to spend long periods away from his family. A sister died of cancer and his father died in surgery.
Mr. Vasella initially decided to become a doctor so that he could help ease the type of suffering that he and his family endured, but he then was drawn to the pharmaceutical field.
In his role at Novartis, he has driven his scientists to come up with live-saving drugs quickly because he has an emotional connection with patients. "As C.E.O., I have the leverage to impact the lives of many more people," Mr. Vasella says.
That's a common thread in the strongest leaders, Mr. George argues: they have a deep desire to serve a greater goal beyond simply making money.
In general, the book paints a portrait that clashes with the image of isolated and greedy C.E.O.'s that appears in the popular press. Those certainly exist, Mr. George says, but he argues that many of them are impostors certain to fail. The best leaders are those who have values, or a "true north," that other people in their organizations come to appreciate, he said.
"Leaders whose goal is the quest for power over others, maximizing wealth or becoming famous tend to look to other people for satisfaction and acknowledgment of their status," Mr. George writes. "In public and in private, they display a high degree of narcissism."
"True North" also reflects a clear change in ideas on leadership , a moving away from command-and-control figures like Maurice R. Greenberg, former chief executive of the American International Group, and toward more collaborative management styles.
Increasingly, the key is to realize that the game isn't about "I," meaning the C.E.O., but rather about "we," meaning the team. "The role of leaders is not to get other people to follow them, but to empower others to lead," Mr. George writes. "They cannot elicit the best performance from their teams if they are in the game primarily for themselves."
Several other insights in the book help put the issue of corporate leadership in a new light. One is that a leader can, in fact, display certain vulnerabilities to others. A leader does not have to pretend to have all the answers all the time.
10:23:04 PM 
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