BusinessCasualBlog.com

Anti-theft lunch bag

Had to give a creative kudo to sherwood forlee for his idea of the anti-theft lunchbag. Nice web site, too.

source: http://www.skforlee.com/independent_work/lunch_bag.html

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I hate corporate change programs...

...because often I find that by the time I'm called in to a meeting for my "input" and "feedback," the decision to move in a new direction has already been decided. Often, by those who are furthest from the processes being changed, and the processes which I, along with my colleagues are asked to "buy in" to.

Michael Kanazawa, author of "Big Ideas to Big Results," wrote an interesting article about this titled, "People Don't Hate Change, They Hate How You're Trying to Change Them." You can download the 13-page PDF here for free.

Key point:

There is a tremendous amount of creativity, ingenuity and determination that is untapped in companies. The change programs so often used are flawed. People have come to hate corporate change programs and they don’t work. However, architecting a transformation or change process that is based on focusing on doing more on less, engaging people up front, and driving with leaders at all levels produces breakthrough results. The ACT process is a proven framework to start with as a guide to improving your process or putting in place a new fast, effective and repeatable change process.

Highlights:

• If you want to learn about great leaders, don't talk with them, talk with their team.
• Leadership impact isn't about how aggressive, decisive, and visionary you are, it's about how you bring that out in others... If leaders focus on their own power only, the organization becomes underpowered.
• The success rate of strategy execution and corporate change programs is 33%.
• Because so many programs fail, some execs and managers start to believe "people hate change." Not true. People don't hate change, they hate corporate change programs. (In fact, employment surveys show that the top reason good employees leave companies is over a lack of new opportunities and boredom with stagnant, never-changing, dead-end jobs.
• "Doing more WITH less" is a tired, ineffective mantra. Instead, focus and prioritize projects in order to get the best from people, rather than the most out of them.
• Phrases like "buy-in" need also to be struck from business lexicon. It doesn't work and speaks to a decision for change having already been made at higher levels without up-front participation from those closest to the issues.

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Visualizing what presidents say about the candidates.

I'm continually amazed at the developmental progress in -- and growing use of -- visualization tools to summarize data. In a previous post I wrote about the progress companies like Intronetworks has made in visualizing relationships between member profiles and member interests in online community networks. In a recent article, NY Times wrote about a data visualization tool called "Many Eyes."

Here, an experimental site from IBM's Alphaworks, Many Eyes (www.many-eyes.com), gives users the ability to upload data and collaborate with other users to visualize data sets in various interactive displays. These range from traditional line and bar charts, bubble graphs and bar stacks for numerical summaries to tag clouds, word clouds and word trees for displaying relationships and/or frequency of text-based data.

For example, below is a visual comparison of data sets using the text of speeches given recently by Presidents Bill Clinton and Geoge Bush at their respective party conventions about their respective party candidates.

Bill Clinton's Speech on Barack Obama:

George Bush's Speech on John McCain:

After importing the text of each speech, the Many Eyes engine can present a visual of the data set via several models you choose. In the cases above I chose a Wordie cloud to show the frequency of words used in each speech. The larger the text, the higher the frequency.

The visualizations above suggest the greater frequency in which Mr. Bush mentions Mr. McCain by his first name than did Mr. Clinton of Mr. Obama. Kinda gives you the impression that John is George's BFF, huh? Whereas Bill seemed a little more formal in his references of Barack as suggested by the relative frequency in the use of "Barack" and "Obama."

But interesting, too, is the frequency of other nouns used in each of the speeches. 'Seems to be a more "wordly" theme to Mr. Clinton's speech about Obama than those used in Bush's for McCain.

Another beauty of these types of visualization tools is the flexibility they afford in being able to get another view of the data set. For example, the snapshots below show a tree diagram from the same data sets, but using each candidate's last name as the root.

Clinton speech using "Obama" as root:

Bush's speech using "McCain" as root:

What jumps out at me is the "meatier context" in which Clinton's words use "Obama" than the contexts in which Bush uses "McCain."

But, perhaps most remarkable to me about these visualization tools isn't so much that they are being developed, but that they're evolving in ways that solicit input from multiple minds. IBM's platform for Many Eyes allows a user to publish her visualization in a discussion forum. This helps get the perspective and input of others on the same data set. There's no way that any one person can "know it all." And, by collaborating in a way that knowledge capital from multiple members of a group is solicited, then it opens up more opportunities for new insights to be found by examining the same data set in different ways while also protecting against biases of any one individual.

If you know of other online sites offering other visualization tools, I'd love for you to share them with the rest of us through the comments.

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Daily Highlights for BcB 09/03/2008

• From the T+D Blog: "Reverse Mentoring"

  The article above discusses is an under-used resource pool for distributing knowledge and changing corporate culture. That is, including younger members of the organization to share with more senior members of the organization what they know about current trends as well as their perspective of the benefit of those trends. Not only does this approach help with knowledge sharing, but can also benefit newer members with venues for improving communication and presentation skills. Highlights below:

  tags: businesscasual, coaching, mentoring, astd

  • In today’s workplace wiser does not necessarily mean older.
  • In today’s workplace wiser does not necessarily mean older.
  • A generation ago a senior manager couldn’t possibly imagine sitting for a lecture about any topic by a junior employee. But with reverse mentoring, that is happening with increasing frequency. Junior employees are schooling their supervisors about cultural traits, new market segments and the trendiest web pages.
  • reverse mentoring should not be interpreted as an opportunity to tutor a boss believed to be out of touch.
  • Junior employees should be aware that many changes in the workplace occurred after the baby boomers entered it, notably the wider use of technology.
  • Besides the transfer of knowledge, the practice recognizes the expertise that younger employees bring to the workplace, a crucial compliment not often paid to newer employees.
  • Procter & Gamble was one of the pioneers of reverse mentoring. Facing increasing turnover among its female employees and a resulting lack of female candidates for leadership positions, the company’s male executives were paired with younger female employees to capture information about the next generation of women as consumers and leaders.
  • When Jack Welch was CEO of General Electric, he instructed top managers to meet with younger employees to learn more about the Internet.

Daily Highlights for BcB 09/02/2008

• Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media - From 'Trends in the Living Networks'

  From Ross Dawson, author of Living Networks. Also included in the downloadable Future of Media Report 2008. (See article for link.)

  Key highlights of the 7 driving forces below. (BTW, #2 on Fragmentation is a graph I now keep next to the TV remote to justify to my wife why I'm compelled to switch channels obsessively.) ;-)

  tags: articles, trends, social-networks, society, media, businesscasual

  • 1. Increasing Media Consumption
    
    

  • Implications:
    
    Average total media consumption will exceed waking hours. Most media will be consumed with partial attention. Advertising impact will decrease.
    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    
  • 2. Fragmentation
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    Current mass media markets are ephemeral. Revenues per channel will decrease. In all except a handful of cases, production costs will need to scaled down.
  • 3. Participation
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    An infinite supply of content. Increased fragmentation of attention. Pro-Am (professional-amateur) content models will emerge.
  • 4. Personalization
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    Users’ expectations for control over their media will increase. Abuse of personalized advertising will create a backlash. Some will opt-out, and others will opt-in if sufficient value is created.
  • 5. New revenue models
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    Advertising aggregation will be central to the media landscape. Media companies will segment and unbundle ad sales and content creation.
  • 6. Generational change
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    Media channels will be increasingly age-segmented. Advertisers will accelerate their shift to new media outlets. Sharemarket valuations will reflect age profiles of audiences.
  • 7. Increasing bandwidth
    
    
  • Implications:
    
    Video on demand anywhere, anytime. Personal clouds will allow music and video collections to be accessed anywhere without local storage. The rationale for allocated media spectrum and infrastructure will fade.

Segwaying your way to a listing

• Broker Tries to Lure Sellers with Segway Promotion   

  I came across the real estate related article above with an idea I hadn't tried before.  Much has been written about how the dearth of buyers in the housing market has contributed to the anemic sales activity. But, some brokers say, part of the problem is that sellers are keeping homes off the market because they don’t think they’ll get a good price. To motivate sellers, some brokers are offering attractive incentives... Jay Burnham, a Massachusetts broker, recently came up with a new idea: he’s offering sellers a Segway... Highlights below.

  tags: real estate, marketing       

  • Jay Burnham, a Massachusetts broker, recently came up with a new idea: he’s offering sellers a Segway,        
         
  • To qualify for the Segway, the home that sells must go for at least $500,000, or about 1% of the cost of the Segway X2, Burnham said. That model sells for about $5,850,        
         
  • Although Burnham has given away only one Segway since starting the promotion in the spring, he says he plans to continue it “until the market turns around.” Four people have called him to inquire about the promotion since he gave away the first machine        
   

My video highlights from last June's San Diego Rock-n-roll Marathon (Finally!)

I thought I'd take time yesterday to finish compiling all the little video snippets from last June's Rock-n-Roll marathon in San Diego.  I figured if I couldn't run the Disney Half-marathon, then I could at least be in solidarity with my friends who did run it. 

Despite my personally disappointing finish time at the June Rock-n-Roll, it's an event I can recommend.  It's very well supported with lots of entertainers, water stations and enthusiastic volunteers.

If you've ever thought of running a marathon (sorry, no half-marathons or fun runs associated with this event) here's the website to find out more.  The course info can be found by clicking through below.  And, many group training programs (highly recommended) can be found by searching Active.com's web site.

Daily Highlights for BcB 09/01/2008

• "Edupunk" Rocks the (Virtual) House

  Do you blog? Make wikis? Twitter? Do you build mash-ups for your classes? Do you ever wake up thinking about an innovative twist on PowerPoint that will rock students so hard they'll pipe up and join the conversation? Could be you're an edupunk. Coined by Jim Groom, "Edupunk" an educational approach that combines creative drive with a maverick attitude, celebrating a kind of cocky, do-it-yourself confidence in which the educator—or possibly the student—designs the tools for teaching and learning. It speaks directly to the corporatization of education—and doesn't say nice things about it.

  tags: businesscasual, elearning, training

  • "Edupunk" is an educational approach that combines creative drive with a maverick attitude, celebrating a kind of cocky, do-it-yourself confidence in which the educator—or possibly the student—designs the tools for teaching and learning.
  • "Edupunk" is an educational approach that combines creative drive with a maverick attitude, celebrating a kind of cocky, do-it-yourself confidence in which the educator—or possibly the student—designs the tools for teaching and learning. It speaks directly to the corporatization of education—and doesn't say nice things about it.
  • In introducing the term "edupunk," Groom offered a name to an educational approach that not only embraces online technologies and communities, but any sensible tool at hand.
  • three facets to edupunk. "On the one hand, it's a reaction against the commercialization of learning—in particular, onerous copyright, things like lawsuits over patents by big corporations," he explains. "On the other hand, it has come to symbolize the do-it-yourself aspect of educational technology, the idea that people can do the same things that these expensive enterprise systems do with simple tools and simple methods, and not only can they do them, but they can frequently do them better."
  • The third ingredient in edupunk, according to Downes, is "thinking for yourself instead of being told what to think and learning for yourself instead of being told what to learn."