Not so long ago in Tokyo, Naoto Kan, the straight talking populist was named Japan’s new Prime Minister. He will be facing a host of daunting tasks from reviving the nation’s stagnant economy to cutting back its ballooning national debt.

But first, like many great leaders his job is to mend fences. And that will be an urgent test of survival. He will need to win back voters disgusted by the broken promises of his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, by next month’s upper house elections.

His attitude might just fit well, as it is obviously likeable. Decisive and down-to-earth, Kan has what it takes to regain support for the battered Democratic Party of Japan. Unlike his predecessor, Kan came from an ordinary family. He got his political start in civic activism, where he was known for speaking his mind and gained popularity during the 1990s for exposing a government cover-up on HIV tainted blood products.

As what Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo said, “Kan has a chance. Because he is a credible new leader. Nobody doubts his reformist credentials.” But then the reality speaks about no real walk-in-the-park. Even though the election is his first, it will be his make or break.

Initial signs are obviously positive, according to a survey conducted by Kyodo News Agency, The Democrats’ approval rating jumped to 36.1 percent, which was up by 15.6 percent points from the previous poll in late May. People who expressed high hopes for Kan totaled close to 58 percent.

The democrats swept to power just nine months ago, trouncing the long ruling conservatives amid high hopes for change and more government accountability. But public opinion soured high after Hatoyama got ensnared in a political funding scandal, which certainly Kan don’t want to happen again.

If you have heard of the news on how the skyscraper in London would look like by 2012, you must have thought if who was the man behind the project. Well, meet Irvine Sellar, the ambitious developer of the Renzo Piano-inspired Shard of Glass in London, slated to be Europe’s tallest building when it opens in 2012.

The fact of the matter is, there will be dramatic change to London’s skyline with the emerging of the Shard, a skyscraper on the city’s South Bank. And Sellar is the one man responsible for it.

A visit to his office show how particularly very proud the developer is. It is impossible to miss the scale models and brochures scattered across his modern and trendy quarters. Even the receptionists he plans to be hire are taller than average.

The building actually started last year, and he promises it will be done in time for the start of the London Olympics, where the eyes of the six billion people around the world will be on. The current project status is they are now on the 22nd floors of the concrete core, which already surpassed length with some of the buildings around it. And still that is only about a quarter of its eventual height.

The tower will stand 306 meters tall with 1.361 million square feet floor space – 600,000 for offices and 65,000 for flats. A hotel, already snapped up by Shangri-La group will take up 200,000 square feet, with the balance set aside for restaurants, bars, coffee shops and galleries. And mostly, it will have 44 elevators!

Meanwhile, the whole project is known as London Bridge Quarter, which also include redeveloped London Bridge rail and bus stations and other buildings as well.

The whole project, known as London Bridge Quarter, will also include redeveloped London Bridge rail and bus stations, and other buildings. The whole thing will be ready in 2014.

Special events like workshops, seminars, and open houses are best opportunities to draw new customers and make your brand stand apart from the rest. Coordinating a special event can make it much easier to launch a product, suggestion, or campaign and is a best way for your consumers and even business employees to entertain and enjoy something new.

An event for your small business can be as easy as an enlightening seminar or as complicated as a contest or competition for a product launch. After deciding what your event will be, organizing and pulling it all together need some planning and strategy. Here are some tips on organizing special events for your small business

Create a simple goal plan and delegate tasks.

One of the easiest ways to make sure you’ve covered all projects and responsibilities is to increase a step-by-step goal plan. This will be a simple list of objectives for every area of the event, and will help you allot specific projects much more efficiently.

Select a leader or project manager for each project.

This can help you allocate responsibilities more efficiently and hold somebody accountable for every area. From the budget to decoration selections, name a few people to lead the project to its success, and offer them an option to report to you as the project develops.

Look for sponsors early in the planning stages.

Sponsors and other businesses in your industry can help you organize bigger events with ease; particularly if you’re on a tight budget. Sponsored events can increase your branding strategy and can even be a way to co-market some new ideas.

We always hear the words ‘leader’ and ‘manager’ be it in our life and in business. A lot of times we ask ourselves, “What qualities make a good leader?” or “What qualities make a good manager?” To many, leader and manager are the same, but they are not necessarily identical.

An effective manger will have leadership qualities an d ‘manager’ is only one facet of a ‘leader.’ A leader possesses a set of unprecedented skills and talents that inspires people to follow, to be efficient, to be loyal and productive. Many managers in the industry today have these qualities, but others also do not possess them. However, it can be enhanced through some degree of mentoring and coaching.

There are several on-going professional development programs that would target to improving the essential qualities of becoming a good leader. One of the most notable is the Toastmaster club or through books and membership in a job club or other entities and resources.

One of the implications of having a manager that don’t have essential leadership qualities and talents is sometimes they work much harder than their subordinates to product the ideal output and results. They do not know how to delegate. And in extreme cases, they may even become workaholics and would always feel their subordinates are not capable of producing results. And most of all, sometimes, this would go through affecting his personal life – families, etc.

Leadership qualities are the characteristics that propel the manager upward in the company and a long term career. The produce increased business results for the company and the customers or clients that it serves. Meanwhile, the goal of a manager is to maximize work output for the company. To do so, they must be skillful in:

• Organizing
• Planning and Scheduling
• Hiring, Staffing, and Development
• Delegating Tasks
• Controlling Costs
• Acting as a Role Model to Subordinates

In essence, to sum things up, Managers often think in terms of production and Leaders think in terms of the future. Also, Managers may follow manuals and quotas while Leaders follow their own vision and innovation.

Power is good provided only if it is used into good deeds and acts. As for Napoleon Bonaparte, “I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.”

In our world today, powers means everything – it could be a killer, a villain, a corrupter, an aphrodisiac, wealth, and among many others. But in reality, the true nature of power remains elusive. After all, the meaning to it is just a matter of perception. For 2009, here are the list of Top-Five persons in the world as compiled by Forbes.

1. Barack Obama, United States President

• Presides over world’s largest and most dynamic economy.
• Commander-in-chief of planet’s richest, deadliest military.
• Finger on button of nuclear arsenal containing more than 5,000 warheads.
• His Democrats have majorities in both U.S. House and Senate.

2. Hu Jintao, Paramount Political Leader of China

• Paramount political leader of more people than anyone else on the planet with 1.3 billion Chinese.
• Biggest buyer of U.S. debt avoided Chinese meltdown during financial crisis with massive stimulus package to encourage domestic spending.
• Still, credible estimates have China poised to overtake U.S. as world’s largest economy in 25 years — although, crucially, not on a per-capita basis.

3. Vladimir Putin

• Prime Minister might as well be known as Czar, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians.
• Vastly more powerful than his handpicked head-of-state, President Dmitry Medvedev.
• Presides over one-ninth of Earth’s land area, vast energy and mineral resources.

4. Ben S. Bernanke

• Former chairman of Princeton’s economics department and noted Great Depression scholar now guiding world’s largest economy through Great Recession; has overseen massive growth in Fed’s balance sheet, from less than $900 billion in liabilities in August 2008 to more than $2.1 trillion today.
• With federal funds rate now effectively 0%, the so-called Bernanke Doctrine calls for using monetary policy to stave off deflation.

5. Sergey Brin and Larry Page

• The two minds behind the fastest growing company Google.
• The duo is trying to put all information at your fingertips.
• Known for collecting best and brightest young tech talent at Mountain View, Calif., “Googleplex.”
• Company often named “Best Place To Work” in America.
• Google guys’ combined net worth of $30.6 billion would place them third on the Forbes 400.