Book Review – Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Chris Anderson is the editor of Wired, one of my favourite magazines. He has written two great books based on HBR articles. The first was “The Long Tail” – an awesome concept (Google it). Now, he has offered us another view of how the Internet is changing the world. It’s “Free”. A deputy editor at The Economist (my favourite magazine of all) has written a review. You can read it here, or below. Buy the book at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com or Kalahari – South Africa.

Chris Anderson is a guru of the information age. Under his editorship, Wired, the voice of the digital world, has won zillions of prizes. His speeches on the economics of the internet command vast sums. He’s a brilliant journalist; I know that, having worked with him before he was a big shot. But it is as an author that Anderson has gained most fame. He writes, broadly, about how digital technology has made the world a better place. His first book, The Long Tail, was hugely influential. In the bricks-and-mortar world, it said, in which the costs of marketing and distribution are high, companies make money by selling vast quantities of a few blockbuster items. In the digital world, in which the costs of marketing and distribution are low, companies can make money by selling small numbers of lots of different items.

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S+B’s Best Business Books of 2009

Booz & Co’s Strategy + Business ezine is one of my favourites, and one I always make time to read. Last week’s edition looked at the best business books of 2009, selected by their top team, and helpfully categorised.

If you want to read their reasoning, and some excellent background comments, start here. All I am going to do is list the books (and make it easy for you to buy them – choose from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net – for South Africa):

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Book review: Upstarts

I was sent the following book review from a trusted friend. I have not read the book yet, but have it on order, and trust the guy who sent me the review. It looks like a good read…

Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success was written by Donna Fenn who has been an expert on small business trends and entrepreneurship for over 20 years. Buy this book at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net.

In Donna’s book, she discusses how Generation Y is changing the business world and creating a whole new crop of entrepreneurs. Inspired by the success of past generations of entrepreneurs, these young entrepreneurs are creating cools startups that are changing the way we do things.

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Good to Great… to Gone!

Jim Collins got it wrong. Not totally wrong, but wrong enough that we need to be careful (as always) about who we listen to when designing companies for future success. Too often, leaders take a shortcut and blindly apply models they find somewhere else, without doing the work to adapt it to their culture and context.

Jim Collins is, of course, the international superstar guru author of “Built to Last” (buy at Kalahari.net or Amazon.co.uk), “Good to Great” (buy at Kalahari.net or Amazon.co.uk) and most recently, “How the Mighty Fall” (buy at Kalahari.net or Amazon.co.uk). His first two books are the two best selling business books of all time. His latest is bound to follow suit.

I have to declare that I am not the wildest fan of Mr Collins. I have read too many reports from the research teams that have worked with/for him, and are very disgruntled at how he has used their work without giving them any credit. I also received my copy of “How the Mighty Fall” yesterday, and was amazed to turn to the back cover of the book and see a single quotation, made by none other than… Jim Collins. I’m still to read the book, but I wonder if “hubris” and “arrogance” are possible ingredients in how the mighty fall? (Certainly “humilty” was a key element of his “Level 5 Leadership” principle). I’ll say more on this at the end of this (long) post… (But, then again, maybe I’m just jealous).

That personal comment aside, though, the question nevertheless remains: Are the models Jim Collins presents worth following? This is especially important since two of his “Good to Great” companies have recently gone bankrupt, and on average the whole lot have performed WORSE than the general stock exchange index over the past year or so of the recession. Are the principles in Collins’ books eternal? Or do they belong to an era that no longer exists?

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Marcus Buckingham takes aim at women

The guy is no fool.

Marcus Buckingham, author and strengths uber-guru, knows what he is doing. He first shot to prominence with a series of books about personal strengths. I think that his book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths” (also sold under the title of “Strengths Finder 2.0″ – see Kalahari or Amazon to buy it) is one of the best personal development books ever written, and I regularly state in my seminars that I think everyone in the world should read it.

Now, he has released his latest book, and it is aimed at the lucrative women’s market (and has gone straight to paperback, too). The book is called, “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” (buy it at Kalahari or Amazon). I managed to get an advance copy, and really enjoyed it. It’s typical of his style – maybe even more chatty than previous books. It’s simple, down-to-earth, but amazingly insightful. And I think it will fly off the shelves into the many women’s groups that meet around the world every day.

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How to motivate talented people in tough times – a story from Time Warner

Harvard Business Press is releasing a well timed book called Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down by Sylvia A. Hewlett in October 2009. I’ve been able to gain access to an excerpt from the book which provides and example of what Time Warner is doing to keep staff motivated. It’s a great example of what companies can do during the recession to keep their talented staff motivated. Best of all it’s simple, costs little and is getting good results. You can read the excerpt below and look out for the book when it is published in October

Time Warner has embraced a high-level, high-touch, low-cost program as part of an overall effort to help raise morale and engage employees. The media company’s Chairman and CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes hosts Skip-Level Lunches with small groups of employees from across Time Warner’s corporate offices in New York City. Approximately every four weeks, Bewkes sits down with ten to twelve individuals for a two-hour lunch, talks candidly about his plans for the organization, answers questions, and listens to employees’ thoughts and perspectives. Human resources and department heads choose the lunch guests. They select employees who do not report directly to the CEO and usually have little or no access to him. Although the guest list is always diverse—ranging from senior vice presidents to administrative assistants—attendees are typically high performers and high-potential employees. They are also seen as “connectors” and “influencers” — well-respected employees who are likely to share their lunch experience and the CEO’s perspective with colleagues.

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Jim Collins on why companies fail

Jim Collins, author of the best sellers “Good to Great” (buy at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net) and “Built to Last” (buy at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net) has now turned his attentions to failed companies (he does have a lot to choose from right now). Anyway, his new book is “How The Mighty Fall” (buy at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net).

Here is a review from The Economist:

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The war for talent is still on – and it’s going to get worse

At TomorrowToday, we are predicting that the recession is only exacerbating the long term trend of companies needing to battle for the talented and appropriately skilled employees they need in order to be successful. We are particularly concerned of a talent exodus as soon as the recession begins to end – your best employees who are sticking it out now, surviving your bad recession-time employee engagement policies, are likely to up and off when the head hunters start calling.

But there is a talent shortage even now, in the midst of recession.

Are you ready to keep fighting the battle for top talent?

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The author as performer

The FT (Financial Times) had a great piece recently on how authors are now using the art of dramatic storytelling to enhance the value they add when doing live presentations based on their books. Specifically focusing on Malcolm Gladwell (who seems to be living my dream life) and TED, it’s a great read if you’re interested in writing, speaking, communicating ideas and the art of the dramatic in business life.

Read it online here, or see the extract below.

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The Meaning of the 21st Century

One of the most important books I have read in the last year is James Martin’s “The Meaning of the 21st Century” (Buy it at Amazon or Kalahari). The subtitle explains: The Megaproblems of the 21st Century.

You can hear me talking about it on a ClassicFM book review show.

I recently came across the author’s website, and found this excellent summary of his book. From James Martin’s own website:

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Keeping it Simple

Reading Gillian Tett’s excellent book, ‘Fool’s Gold: How unrestrained greed corrupted a dream, shattered global markets and unleashed a catastrophe’ (Little, Brown 2009 – buy it now at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net) reminded me of a memorable saying of the legendary Liverpool Football Club manager, Bill Shankly.

Shanks, commenting on the Beautiful Game once said, “It is a simple game made complicated by those who ought to know better”. I suspect that wisdom reflects much of the corporate jungle that we have created. Beyond the financial practices of murkey credit derivatives there is the complex HR web that is understandable to only a select few. I recall being asked to sit-in on a review process of a large SA blue-chip company as they unveiled their ‘Talent Management Programme’. The programme had been the careful design of a specially designated group and was the culmination of over a year’s endevour. As the graphs, flow charts, spiral graphs and every manner of powerpoint graphic unfolded so the comprehension (amongst the other HR practitioners present) evaporated. It was madness, incomprehensible madness. But of course to question, critique and point out the obvious would have been akin to career suicide. Not being constrained by such concerns, I of course did question, ask and critique. Naturally I have not been invited back.

The point is we continue to make simple things complicated. This is especially true when it comes to the central issue of people within our organisation. Quantum Mechanics teaches us that, when it comes to the very essence, the very construct of our universe, ‘relationships is all there is’. Trust is the foundation, the currency, of all relationships and it was ultimately the breakdown of trust that, according to Gillian Tett led to the current economic crisis we have now. Simple things made complicated. Simple things allowed to be obscured behind elaborate processes, policies, systems and structures. Just who are we kidding? It is time to get back to the ’simple things’. It is time to realise that to make organisations work well, we don’t need the elaborate, the complex…we need to understand and do the simple things well.    

Is it wiser to hire people without meeting them?

I’ve just come across a great article from Fast Company. It’s around hiring new people. And we all know that once the economy turns, and business increases, we’re going to need new people.

This particular article focuses on how we weight interviews in the hiring process. And how we may be making some very large mistakes in the process.

With so little proof that interviews work, why do we rely on them so
much? Because we all think we’re good at it. We are Barbara Walters or
Mike Wallace, taking the measure of the person. Psychologist Richard
Nisbett calls this the “interview illusion” — our certainty that we’re
learning more in an interview than we really are.

Late last year Malcolm Gladwell released his new book ‘Outliers’. It’s a long story to go into on a blog post, but I’m of the opinion, having read the book, that you’d be better off simply choosing candidates born between January and April and ditching the rest. Quicker, cheaper, and some great odds : )

It certainly is going to be interesting to see what we learn once the re-hiring starts up?

Graeme Codrington suggests books on Classic FM

Graeme Codrington was recently interviewed on Classic FM’s “JSE Direct” show. It is a book review show, and Graeme highlighted two books he feels everyone should be reading, if they are interested in tracking key trends that will be shaping the world of work over the next 10-20 years.

They are: Ken Dytchwald, “Age Power” (Buy it at Amazon) and James Martin, “The Meaning of the 21st Century” (Buy it at Amazon or Kalahari).

Subscribe to out PodCast feed to listen to the interview:

• :: iTunes
• :: RSS

Learn how to make an impact by writing well

Do you ever write reports, marketing pitches or sales proposals?  Have you ever experienced writer’s block, where you stare at a blank screen and wonder where to start?  I have.

I wish I had read ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott earlier in my career.  It would have made writing, especially the dry business kind, so much easier.  ‘Bird by Bird’ is a highly-rated, easy reading book about how to write well.  It focuses on fiction writing but also applies to any type.

Here are 3 useful tips from the book that sound obvious yet, when you are really busy at work, you can lose sight of the basics:

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If you have talent you stand alone – If you have ‘talent plus’ you stand out

I recently read a book titled ‘Talent is Never Enough’, written by John C. Maxwell (buy it online at Kalahari.net or Amazon.co.uk). In this book the author emphasises the truth that talent is often overrated and frequently misunderstood. A common error made by people standing on the sideline, is accrediting an individual’s great accomplishments to talent alone. The book reminds us that this view is, in most cases false and misleading.  After all, if talent alone were enough, why are there so many talented people who are not highly successful?

Business leaders the world over are obsessed with the term talent, many of these leaders think talent is the answer to all of their problems. Author of ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink’, Malcolm Gladwell, notes that many companies and consultants put finding people with talent ahead of everything else. Gladwell believes this talent mindset is the new orthodoxy of American management. … Continue Reading

Flexibility can offer alternatives to downsizing

Cali Yost, author of Work+Life, and Fast Company blogger, contends that “using strategic work+life flexibility can help organizations avoid at least some layoffs. Reduced schedules, sabbaticals, telecommuting and flexible scheduling are not just isolated, downsizing tactics. They are part of a broad, coordinated growth and cost-cutting business strategy with multiple benefits that include, but are not limited to, creative downsizing.” A study of 100 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) co-sponsored by her company reveals that CFOs are using strategic flexibility to reduce their workforce without severing ties with employees.

According to Yost, “…nearly one third of CFOs used flexibility as a workforce reduction strategy, allowing them to stay connected to employees through contract project-based work, reduced hours with full-benefits and sabbaticals with full benefits.”

Yost urges employers to consider working flexibly before considering layoffs. She shares an example of a company that found a creative way to deal with dwindling budgets and minimize employee suffering. In 2008, Sigma, a full-service advertising agency in New Jersey, asked its employees to consider part-time hours or monthly sabbaticals as a way to avoid layoffs. “When given the choice, Sigma found employees were more than willing to take time and a reduction in pay, rather than leave the company,” said Yost.

These are tough times. None of us wants to take a pay cut. But earning less may be better than earning nothing.

Extracted from original at Business Lexington website.

ROWEing business towards success

Picture this:

You don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn every morning.  You can have a lie in.  If you don’t feel like commuting into work, don’t.  Go shopping, go to the movies, visit a friend or do some housework.  Only work when you feel like it.  As long as you achieve the work results that are expected of you, your time is your own.  Spend quality time with your family and friends, finish your chores and admin, focus on your hobbies while delivering good results and advancing your career.  You have work life balance and the company also prospers.  Everyone lives happily ever after.

A fairy tale? Bliss?  Utopia?  This is a true story.  It is called a ROWE and it works at Best Buy.  ROWE is a Results Only Work Environment.  In fact, it works so well that Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, who implemented the system at Best Buy, have written a book to encourage other companies to do it too.  Their book is called ‘Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It.’

It is not pie-in-the-sky stuff.  People are talking more and more about focusing on outputs, results only and giving the new work force the freedom and flexibility which they seem to crave.  In the new world of work, more power is clearly devolving from the organisation to individuals because workers control the most lucrative means of production – their brains.  Leading management thinkers have predicted that temporary networks of talented people to work on projects will be more productive than the hierarchical, command and control hierarchy that characterized the industrial age workplace.   If this is how the world of work will look, then a move towards a results only work environment could be very effective.

Understand behaviour by understanding the brain

Do you have problems managing large groups of people?  I have a solution for you.  Read on.

There is limited space in our brains.  Our brains are similar to a Tupperware container  - you can only fit in so much.  There is a name for this – in cognitive psychology, they call it ‘Channel Capacity’.   You have different capacities to absorb and process different types of things.  You have an intellectual capacity, feeling capacity and a social capacity.   

The part of your brain that deals with complex thought and reasoning is called the neocortex.  Primates (monkeys and apes, including humans), have the biggest brains of all mammals and the neocortex is particularly large.  For years, scientists have wondered what determines the size of the neocortex.  Is it eating habits?  Is it intellectual ability?

A British anthropologist called Robert Dunbar discovered the answer – the larger the neocortex, the larger the social group in which the primate is able to operate effectively.  Humans have the biggest neocortex of all primates so we can operate better in larger social groups than say chimps or monkeys.

Dunbar’s research determined that the biggest group in which humans can cope effectively is made up of 150 people. 

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New Book: Future-Proof Your Child, by Graeme Codrington

Book Launch:

Future-proof Your Child by Nikki Bush and Graeme Codrington

Penguin Books is pleased to invite you to the launch of Nikki Bush and Graeme Codrington’s Future-proof Your Child, an essential book for 21st-century parents.

“Stop the world, I want to get off!” is the regular refrain of time-pressured parents today. “Give me an experience and I’ll promise you a relationship,” is the mantra of their children. The world has changed. The future has changed. Childhood is changing. Raising children has never been more challenging – or potentially rewarding.

Here’s a book purpose-built to help you take control.

Proceeds from sales at the event will go to the Play with a Purpose foundation. We’ll see you there!

Event Details

• Date: Wednesday, 29 October 2008
• Time: 7:00 PM for 7:30 PM
• Venue: The Auditorium, Indaba Hotel, William Nicol Drive
  Fourways, Johannesburg | Map
• Refreshments: or add your own
• RSVP: Leanne, leanne.douglas@za.penguingroup.com, 011 327 3550

Book Details

• Future-proof Your Child by Nikki Bush and Graeme Codrington
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9780143025801
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

If something is wrong, why are people not proactive enough to fix it?

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is an excellent book.  In fact, it was so good that I read all 267 pages in one sitting.

In 1964, a young lady called Kitty Genovese was chased and brutally attacked on a street in New York City.  That sounds tragic but not as tragic as this – 38 people witnessed the attack from the windows of their homes.  No one intervened or called the police.

After much analysis and media attention, it was decided that this event epitomized the alienation and anonymity of people in New York City.  Living in a crowded city like London, I can relate.  People are always in each other’s personal space so, in order to protect yourself, you zone them out.  Indifference becomes a conditioned reflex.  That sounds like a pitiful excuse so two New York psychologists investigated the Kitty Genovese attack further. 

These social psychologists staged emergency situations to determine which witnesses would help and when they would act.  The outcome was fascinating – the severity of the event did not affect a witness’s decision to help the victim or take proactive measures to solve the crisis.  The number of witnesses to the event determined whether people helped or not.

Gladwell says, ‘The lesson is not that no one called despite the fact that 38 people heard her scream; it’s that no one called because 38 people heard her scream.  Ironically, had she been attacked on a lonely street with just one witness, she might have lived.’

This is known as the ‘Bystander Problem’.  It means that, in a group, people are generally less responsive because they expect everyone else to act.  If no one does, they assume it is not a big problem.  Responsibility for taking action is diluted by a group.

The penny dropped for me because I experienced the ‘Bystander Problem’ many times at work.  As a manager, I was often shown problems that could have been solved earlier if someone used their initiative and was proactive.  But no one did this and now I understand why – when there are many people involved, they expect others to act.  Responsibility is diffused among the group.

I didn’t realize how sensitive people are to their environment.  Gladwell calls it the ‘Power of Context’ and says the moral of the story is that if you want people to change their behaviour – help someone in need or solve a problem at work – most of the time you can do this by considering the small, subtle details of their immediate surroundings.

Lucy Kellaway

If you’ve picked up a Financial Times, from time to time, you may have been introduced to Lucy Kellaway. I discovered her while wondering around iTunes looking for interesting PodCasts. And interesting is just one tiny word to describe my journey with Lucy Kellaway.

I know I’m opening myself to plenty by suggesting that she’s my modern equivalent to business that Luther was to the Catholic Church. She’s been a wonderful breath of fresh air, forcing me to be honest about business today. Forcing me to be honest as a consultant working with people who are ‘in there’ each and every day trying their best to make it all work.

Apart from finding the courage to find a way to invite her to South Africa, I’ve also spent a fair amount of energy and headspace wondering plenty about her philosophies around how business works?

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The Next Empire/s

The latest edition of Strategy+Business has a great article on a new book looking at USA, Europe and China. Here is an extract:

What can the U.S. do to maintain its competitive position against the E.U. and China? Foreign policy scholar Parag Khanna believes the answer lies right under our noses.

Only 30 years old, Parag Khanna has spent more than two years traveling to more than 100 countries, hoping to see firsthand the flash points of geopolitics and globalization. From his observations emerged a book, the recently published The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order ???????? ????? ????????(Random House, 2008), a thought-provoking look at the future of global competition. Khanna posits that the struggle for global economic and diplomatic influence over the coming decades will pit three empires — the United States, the European Union, and China — against one another on a battleground that he calls the “Second World.” This group comprises countries in five critical regions — Asia outside China, Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America — that hope to achieve full industrial development through economic and strategic alliances with one or more of the three major blocs.

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos

I met Tim Keel in Uganda last year, where he and I attended a conference. It was about reconciliation, learning leadership lessons from Africa and about postmodern communities of faith. I spent some time with Tim, and really enjoyed his approach to life. At that point, he was just finishing up his latest book. It has now been released, to some acclaim.

Tim is a pastor of a church in the US. So, he writes from a faith community perspective. But his insights about leadership are universal and timely. I highly recommend his book. I have just got it, and am reading through it, so here is a review I received about his book.

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos
Buy it at Amazon.com

Book Review By Nanette Sawyer

I’ve been hungry for a book like Tim Keel’s Intuitive Leadership . It’s the newest book just out through the emersion books line. Once I opened the book, I ate it up. Like a wonderful feast, I had to force myself to stop eating and set it aside to digest for awhile. And digestible it is. Written with beauty, nuance and a personable style, Keel makes you feel you’re sitting at table with him deeply engaged in a hopeful, passionate conversation about the activity of God in the world and our lives. His insightful accounts of biblical stories shine bright lights into the texts we think we know, but he sees more. As he tells the stories, they shine floodlights into our contemporary situation.

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Boomers Turning 60 – coming into their branding prime

Boomers are variously defined as those people born from the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s around the world. Most researchers use the end of the Second World War as a reference point, which means that as of 2006, this group of people has started to turn 60. They are not old, though. Don’t be confused about that. This demographic tidal wave will have a greater effect on institutions and businesses than the aging of any previous generation. Because of the size and spending power of the boomers, mature values and trends will dominate marketplace realities.

The Chief Marketer recently put out a list of 5 ways in which the Boomers will continue to shape the marketing and branding landscape. Here is what they said (from author, Brent Green):

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Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young & Old Can Find Common Ground, by Jennifer Deal

A few years ago, some of the TomorrowToday team attended a workshop by Jennifer Deal. She certainly challenged our thinking. Her contention was that all the focus on generation gaps in the workplace was obscuring the fact that there are many similarities between people of all ages. She is right, of course – and it is a good “corrective voice” for business to hear. As much as there are certain distinctive characteristics of different generations, each person in your company is nevertheless still that: a person, a human being. As such, they have certain drives, ambitions, requirements and characteristics that should not be neglected.

Jennifer Deal has now turned that research into a book. We were sent a review and summary of the book, and thought you’d be interested in reading about the 10 principles for engaging staff, young and old. This is a great book that will help you not become stuck when thinking about different generations, and not overcompensate for generational differences.

You can purchase the book at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net.

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Rethinking Leadership

The more I look, listen, read and learn, to more convinced I am that our approach to leadership education and development needs a major rethink. Rather than focusing on static ’snapshots’ leaders need to learn how to identify patters, articulate ideas and provide metaphors that enable accurate interpretation of what is happening within their personal and business networks. The temptation (and legacy) is to default to finding ‘technical solutions’ – those answers that sit within the current paradigm and which can be analyzed, measured and managed – rather than engage in the true work of leadership; that of engaging themselves and others in the necessary ‘adaptive challenges’ at hand.

‘Adaptive leadership’ according to Parks in her book ‘Leadership can be taught’ (which explores the philosophy and methodology of Harvard leadership virtuoso Ron Heifetz – purchase online at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net) involves looking beneath the surface, embracing new mindsets, new learning and new behaviour; engaging complexity – seeing the whole and challenging deeply held assumptions and values. The kind of leadership that engages both heart and mind. In a predicable world where tomorrow resembles today, the old approach to leadership can survive. However, we no longer live in such a world. We live – and have to lead – in a world that is ‘tiny’, a world that is connected, a world of bewildering paradox and one that is no standing still. This world requires a new type of leadership and those tasked with teaching leadership will find less relevance in past models and will have to themselves, learn from the future.

The Thunderbolt Kid

I don’t know if you ever finish a book and feel like something different has happened? Something different to how you feel after finishing other books? Today I finished “The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by Bill Bryson. I felt something different. It’s difficult to explain what, but I felt it at a deeper level than usual. Felt it in a different place and felt a different kind of thing. And while I can’t really pin-point where or what, I do know it felt good. I finished, put the book down, and just sat, stared, tried to think, feel, ….. and when nothing really special happened, I just got up and moved onto the next thing.

It’s a clever book, and being my first Bryson book, I assume it’s clever in the way that he’s known and talked about to be clever. It’s about him growing up in the 1950’s. But it’s really about America, Des Moines, to be specific in the 1950’s. And while I’m not American in any way, shape or form, I knew enough to appreciate and connect with much of what he reflected on.

It’s also about the changes that happened in America and the world toward the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s.

If I had to sum the book up, it would be in a sentence Bryson ‘pens’ on page 267 of the copy I was reading. Toward the end of the book. It was a sentence that grabbed hold of me and I haven’t been able to shake it off. It possibly, probably in fact, says more about me than about the book and what Bryson was trying to say. But perhaps not? Perhaps I’m right on the button?

“We were entering a world where things were done because they offered a better return, not a better world.”

Definitely worth a read : )

Ten Faces of Innovation

I was recently sent the outline of a book, “The Ten Faces of Innovation”, by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman (Profile, 2005) – buy it online at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net. In our work on “Invitational Innovation“, we have been telling clients for a long time that just like there are different types of personality, there are different styles of innovative thinking. Not a big thought, really, but an important one, nevertheless.

This book appears to put some nice labels on different innovation types.

… Continue Reading

Millennial Kids: Too Confident

In our presentation on the different generations, “Mind the Gap“, when we talk about the Millennial Generation (born 1990s and 2000s, or slightly earlier in some countries – USA defines them as born 1984 to 2000), we often say, “they’re confident; so confident, they’re almost arrogant”.  When I was a youth worker in the 1980s and early 1990s, the big issue was helping young people develop self belief and self esteem.  I think we overdid it.  Now, a new study of US college students proves this point.

The Associated Press reports:

Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

“We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children repeat that back,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. “Kids are self-centered enough already.”

[The research] examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006. The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,” “I think I am a special person” and “I can live my life any way I want to.”

The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students’ NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.

Twenge is the author of “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before” (buy it at Amazon.com).

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Nature-Deficit Disorder in our children

The title of the book grabbed my attention: “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”. Its by Richard Louv (get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). I haven’t read the book, but The Economist magazine quoted it extensively in an article about young people in the US not being interested in visiting the country’s national parks.

One of the thoughts is that technology, digital entertainment, malls and other amusements have pulled young people away from the National Parks. That is probably true (see article here or below).

However, I wonder if there is another way of thinking of this. Most game parks pride themselves in being technological stone age. “Its part of the appeal” they would say. To get away “from it all”. Well, maybe Millennials don’t want to “get away from it all”. After all, most of these parks have tarred (or least well graded) roads, electricity, running water and other amenities. So why not wifi access, good mobile phone coverage and Internet cafes? Why not? Sure, you might want to have rules about being aware of others and silence, etc. But why shouldn’t you be able to stand on top of a majestic mountainpeak, watching a spectular sunset, and MMS a picture of it to your mate?

Just a thought…

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