Let's Get our Global Greeks on the 2011 TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World List!

It's the time of the year when we get to find out who TIME lists as the 100 most influential people in the world! 

Among the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that are listed every year we get to see some of the most influential people in the world - a list which includes vastly diverse personalities such as Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Barack and Michelle Obama, George Clooney, Julian Assange, The Fukushima Power Plant workers, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga, Christopher Hitchens and Mohammed ElBaradei to name but a few!

It has always been great to see some of our famous Global Greeks as one of those 100 Most Influential - Arianna Huffington, Professor Nicholas A Christakis, Tina Fey and Jamie Dimon were all included in previous years in the TIME list .

This year the polling is just as exciting - we have four of our Global Greeks in the running for the annual list for 2011 and we would love to see all of them included!

Here they are:

 Betty White 

Actress

 To read more about Betty and vote,  Click Here

   Arianna Huffington, 

Publisher

To read more about Arianna and cast your vote, Click Here

  Zach Galifianakis 

Comedian

 To read more about Zach and cast your vote, Click Here

Jamie Dimon 

 JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO

To read more about Jamie and cast your vote, Click Here

.

Right now with three days to go, only one is going to make it into the list - Betty White, she's ranking 30th right now! Arianna Huffington  is in the 167th place while Jamie Dimon  is fairly close behind her at 174 and Zach Galifianakis  at 197!

If  you would like to vote for one of our Global Greeks as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, just click on the name under the picture of the person you want to vote for.

To check the rankings, for a full list of candidates or to read more, Click Here

Voting closes in 3 days on April 14, 2011- so let's get voting...

To all our Global Greek candidates - Good luck!

Καλή Επιτυχία!

Greek PM George Papandreou & Nicholas Christakis - Two Global Greeks in Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers

Foreign Policy  100 Top Global Thinkers for 2010

No 79 ....George Papandreou 

'for making the best of Greece's worst year'

... that's the description under Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's name which comes in at number 79 on Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2010..while another of our Global Greeks, Harvard Professor, Dr Nicholas Christakis comes in at number 83! 

Congratulations to both of them! This is the kind of news we at Global Greek World love to read and share!

The list which is described as 'a unique portrait of 2010's global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who think them' includes US President Barack Obama, Microsoft's Bill Gates, IMF's Dominique Strauss -Kahn, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Foreign Policy's listing goes on to say the following about the Greek PM:

'Even before the 2008 financial crisis, the Greek economy was running on borrowed time, an ossified system that predictably buckled under the weight of the crash. When George Papandreou took office as Greece's prime minister in October 2009, he found that the budget deficit was not 6 percent, as his predecessor had claimed, but 12.7 percent, four times that allowed by the eurozone's rules. (GGW note... it has since climbed to 15 percent !!)

Papandreou has spent 2010 telling Greeks hard truths about the unsustainable nature of their welfare state -- and sounding an international warning that Greece is the canary in the European coal mine. The Minnesota-born son of a former socialist prime minister, he has rolled out an austerity plan that will raise taxes and rein in the bloated public sector, a package ambitious enough to convince Europe to keep Greece afloat even as it has provoked riots in Athens. And he has argued that the disaster should be a wake-up call for the threat sovereign debt poses far beyond Europe's borders. 

"It's not an issue of countries acting on their own," he said. "We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world."'

No 83... Dr Nicholas Christakis  
along with long time collaborator, Dr James Fowler

'for proving that social networks are more than tweets and pokes' 

In naming Greek American physician and sociologist, Dr Nicholas Christakis in 83rd place, Foreign Policy notes the following:
'Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler's 2009 book Connected explained how our weight, emotional well-being, and physical health are influenced by hundreds of people, most of whom we will never meet. This year they proved that their research has the potential to improve the largest social network of all: our global health-care system. In a paper released in September, Christakis and Fowler devised a way to predict the spread of infectious outbreaks. By assessing the most interconnected people in a social network, they reasoned, they could predict the spread of a virus before it hit the entire population. And the idea worked: By monitoring the spread of swine flu through Harvard University's undergraduate population in the winter of 2009, the researchers got a two-week jump on understanding the full extent of the epidemic. 

"If you want a crystal ball for finding out which parts of the country are going to get the flu first, then this may be the most effective method we have now," said Fowler '

Source: Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2010 

Global Greek World: Today we are ONE! Happy Birthday to us!!! Χρονια Μας Πολλά!!!

St George Lykavettos - 1st day of Spring - Sunday 21st March 2010

Today is our first birthday and of course we are dedicating this post to our readers and wonderful friends around the world!!!

We have had a great first year at Global Greek World, and we would like to thank you all for taking the time to visit us and leave comments, either here, on Twitter,  or on our Global Greek World Facebook Page! 

Please feel free to follow us and stay informed of what goes on.

Over these last twelve months we have made a lot of wonderful new friends, we have had readers visit us from 117 countries - with the USA, Greece, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia topping the list. According to our site statistics visitors have come from the following countries:

United States (US) Greece (GR) Canada (CA) United Kingdom (GB) Australia (AU) New Zealand (NZ) Germany (DE) France (FR) Mexico (MX) Netherlands (NL) Belgium (BE) Brazil (BR) Spain (ES) Italy (IT) Poland (PL) Romania (RO) Cyprus (CY) Switzerland (CH) India (IN) Turkey (TR) Sweden (SE) Japan (JP) Austria (AT) Philippines (PH) Argentina (AR) South Africa (ZA) Hungary (HU) Colombia (CO) Ireland (IE) Macedonia (MK) Denmark (DK) Indonesia (ID) Serbia (RS) Malaysia (MY) Portugal (PT) Bulgaria (BG) Finland (FI) Saudi Arabia (SA) United Arab Emirates (AE) Russian Federation (RU) Czech Republic (CZ) Croatia (HR) Peru (PE) Norway (NO) Pakistan (PK) Taiwan (TW) Thailand (TH) Ukraine (UA) Chile (CL) Slovakia (SK) Luxembourg (LU) Singapore (SG) Venezuela (VE) Latvia (LV) Costa Rica (CR) Jordan (JO) Korea, Republic of (KR) Hong Kong (HK) Malta (MT) Iran, Islamic Republic of(IR)  Nigeria (NG) Puerto Rico (PR) Togo (TG)   Oman (OM) Slovenia (SI) Ecuador (EC) Georgia (GE) Egypt (EG) Israel (IL) Lithuania (LT) Benin (BJ) Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Albania (AL) Kuwait (KW) China (CN) Algeria (DZ) Guatemala (GT) Bolivia (BO) Cote D'Ivoire (CI) Lebanon (LB)   Honduras (HN) Sri Lanka (LK)   Panama (PA) Senegal (SN) Netherlands Antilles (AN) Moldova, Republic of (MD) El Salvador (SV) Estonia (EE) Monaco (MC) Uruguay (UY) Anguilla (AI) Montenegro (ME) Qatar (QA) Ghana (GH) Aruba (AW) Nicaragua (NI) Faroe Islands (FO) Brunei Darussalam (BN) Vietnam (VN) Guadeloupe (GP) Tanzania, United Republic of (TZ) Macau (MO) Syrian Arab Republic (SY) Morocco (MA) Asia/Pacific Region (AP) Palestinian Territory (PS) Iraq (IQ) Cayman Islands (KY) Haiti (HT) Liechtenstein (LI) Guam (GU) Burkina Faso (BF) Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) Myanmar (MM) Armenia (AM) Dominican Republic (DO) Mongolia (MN)

Above all, it has been a great year for Global Greeks! 

Our Global Greeks have made headlines in many parts of the world, Dr Nicholas Christakis was named one of TIME's most influential people, Louie Psyhoyos got an Oscar for The Cove, George Efstathiou was the architect behind the worlds's tallest building,The Burj Khalifa, Greg Pappas inaugurated the Gabby Awards, promoting Greek America's best and brightest and many many more...

It hasn't been such great a year for Greece and we have featured quite a few articles on the economic crisis for those who care about this country, who have worked hard to keep the flag flying in every corner of the world and who want to know more...

We believe Greece will pull through but not without hardship in the short term of course, and undeservedly for some. In the long run, we think the Prime Minister George Papandreou, a Global Greek himself, is on the right track, but we cannot keep blaming others for Greece's difficulties. 

It is Greece's political parties, along with the system of governance which has allowed the Public Service to be blown up to these enormous numbers in places where such numbers are not necessary yet falling desperately short of numbers exactly where they are needed -  in the police force and in the beleaguered health services and schools to name just a few... 


It is Greece's politicians and successive governments who have fed that monster called corruption, either directly or indirectly, and especially by not ensuring that the laws of the country are enforced equally for everyone, thus opening Greece up for sometimes unfair criticism from many so-called allies. We do not deserve to be branded lazy, corrupt or crooked because of a small and selfish minority. 

If those who were responsible for the corruption  scandals of Vatopedio, Siemens, the Omologa and many others in the last 20 years, scandals which have cast such a terrible light on Greece and it's Governments, can be identified, and we are sure they can, then they should be punished exemplarily, no matter who they are.  

No one should be above the law no matter how high up they may be and it takes someone with a lot of guts to ignore the political cost of cleaning up the public sector. 

We think the people of Greece have had enough and they will support the efforts of anyone who does this job, and we believe that George Papandreou and his Government can do it.

Unless the laws are enforced and justice is seen to be done at all levels then the people cannot be asked to make sacrifices in the hope of ensuring a better future for their children!  

Greece has so much going for it! We believe in Greece and the achievements of our Global Greeks wherever in the world they are, and will continue to highlight all the  positive things we see.


We thank you for visiting but we also want your feedback. Please don't hesitate to let us know whether you like what you read and what you would like to see more of in the future!


Efharistoume Poly!! Ευχαριστούμε Πολύ!!! Thanks a million!!!!

Meet Global Greek Nicholas A. Christakis - one of the World's 100 Most Influential People for 2009

Photo credit: Paul Schnaittacher

Recently named by Time Magazine as one of the World's 100 most influential people, Dr Nicholas Christakis is one of our Global Greeks!

A Greek American physician and sociologist at Harvard University, Nicholas Christakis in his latest study suggests that Happiness is Contagious.

In view of all the dreadful things in life that are contagious, it is wonderful to hear that something so special can also be contagious. It would definitely have to be a Greek, with that unique attitude to life and living, to work on something so intangible but so essential to our well-being as happiness and to come up with such a great theory... thank goodness for Dr Christakis who has come out and said it - Happiness is Contagious!!

Enough misery, if we want to be happy let's surround ourselves with happy people!!

According to Dr Christakis, "a person's happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends—that is, to people well beyond their social horizon. We found that happy people tend to be located in the center of their social networks and to be located in large clusters of other happy people. And we found that each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%."

In introducing Nicholas Christakis as one of it's TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World, TIME says the following:

Social scientists used to have a straightforward, if tongue-in-cheek, answer to the question of how to become happy: Surround yourself with people who are uglier, poorer and shorter than you are — and who are unhappily married and have annoying kids. You will compare yourself with these people, and the contrast will cheer you up.

Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist at Harvard University, challenges this idea. Using data from a study that tracked about 5,000 people over 20 years, he suggests that happiness, like the flu, can spread from person to person. When people who are close to us, both in terms of social ties (friends or relatives) and physical proximity, become happier, we do too.

For example, when a person who lives within a mile of a good friend becomes happier, the probability that this person's good friend will also become happier increases 15%. More surprising is that the effect can transcend direct links and reach a third degree of separation: when a friend of a friend becomes happier, we become happier, even when we don't know that third person directly... 
(To read the entire article in TIME - click here)

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is a Greek American, born in the USA 47 years ago. A fluent Greek speaker, he collaborates closely with the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and visits Greece on a regular basis, both for professional and personal reasons as his father lives on the island of Crete for six months of the year.

Married with three children, Dr Christakis is an internist and social scientist who conducts research on social factors that affect health, health care, and longevity. He is a Professor of Medical Sociology in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and an Attending Physician (with an emphasis on palliative medicine) in the Department of Medicine at the Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As of July, 2009, he will be the Master of Pforzheimer House in Harvard College.

Dr. Christakis' current work is principally concerned with health and social networks. This work takes seriously the contention that because people are inter-connected, their health is inter-connected. This work explores two aspects of social networks: the process by which they form ("connection") and the way they operate to influence behavior ("contagion"). Related work examines the health benefits of marriage and the consequences of spousal illness and widowhood. Other ongoing investigations consider the effects of neighborhoods on people's health, the bio demographic determinants of longevity, and the genetic bases for human behaviors. His past work has examined the accuracy and role of prognosis in medicine and ways of improving end-of-life care.

Along with his long-time collaborator, James Fowler, Dr. Christakis has authored a general-audience book on social networks that will appear in late 2009: 
Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

To read more about Dr Nicholas Christakis - Click here

Dr Nicholas Christakis - Ta Nea Newspaper (in Greek)

Updated: Listen to Dr Nicholas Christakis speak on the Hidden Influence of Social Networks - February 2010