Perspectives
Cheerfulness
"There is a great article in the McKinsey Quarterly on cheerfulness. (You may have to register with them to see the article but it is worth it.) They have done studies using Britain's Royal Navy (of all places) on the effect that cheerfulness has on employees. "...
Failed Innovation
We celebrate successful innovation but rarely look back at the failures. Since Apple is a great example of successful innovation it is good to remember that not all things they tried were a big success. The Apple QuickTake 100, one of the first commercial digital...
The Innovation Disconnect
I've been out talking to a whole bunch of companies in the corporate training space about innovation wondering all the time why they aren't using more tools such as digital media in extending their training offerings. I got a very interesting insight as to how market...
Wake up and smell the innovation!
Did you wake up this morning, resolved to do exactly the same things you did last week? I hope not. It's time to do something new but you better ask the question: Are you being courageous enough to wake up and smell the innovation? Every morning you need to wake up...
Be unreasonable
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
Playing Moneyball
If you haven't had a chance yet, then watch the movie Moneyball. It's about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane. While other general managers made their decisions about player personnel using subjective and flawed criteria, Beane...
Aaron Swartz
I was upset yesterday to learn of the suicide of Aaron Swartz, the founder of Reddit and RSS particularly so because it ties into society's debate about internet freedom. Swartz had been charged by the US government essentially for stealing academic papers in an...
Evidence Based Management
You may have heard of the new trend sweeping the world of medicine. It's called Evidence Based Medicine. It uses the best current evidence to make decisions about the care of individual patients. The logical ones among you might wonder, if they don't use evidence,...
Epic Fail
In case you're worried about one of your plans turning into an epic fail, take heart, you'll be in good company. Here are a bunch of epic fails. In 1899 Henry Ford started the Detroit Automobile Co. Unfortunately for Ford, its cars were too expensive and of low...