Blog
Can ROWE and 20% Time Help your Company Through the Recession?
This is not the time to freak out. It’s a time of reflection and introspection for companies as well as individuals. It’s a great time to ask, “why are we here?” Are we in the right market? Are our customers delighted with our products and services? Are we in the right market? It’s a great time to do research and design and it’s a great time to start something new.
November 22, 2010
ROWE and City Planning
If more and more people start working from home, what affect will that have on our cities and communities? Will our need for office space decrease? Will traffic lesson, will we need less parking spaces in business districts? Will it strengthen or weaken our relationships at home or at work?
Certainly there will be consequences for changing the way we work. Some of them intended, lower cost for office space, higher employee engagement and satisfaction, some of them unintended. What will the unintended consequences be?
November 5, 2010
The Myth of Pursuing Happiness
Are you trying to find happiness and success? According to Dr. Viktor Frankl, you can’t pursue them directly. You can only find them as a byproduct of other things. Dr. Frankl, a survivor of four Nazi Germany concentration camps, a neurologist and a psychiatrist developed a new field of psychiatry just prior to being sent to the camps. He had travel papers that would have let him leave Germany for the US but since his parents didn’t have a way to leave Germany, he chose to stay.
November 2, 2010
Nature vs Nurture in the Realm of Success
What makes our top achievers in business, sports or music great at what they do? Is it something they’re born with? Is it an overbearing parent pushing them to succeed? Is it hard work? Most of us think that talent is something we’re born with, that you either have it or you don’t. We think that how smart someone is determines their potential. Not so much. Sure, some people have inherited advantages in rare cases, but these advantages being smarter, stronger, taller etc, have little to no relation to how successful someone will be.
October 25, 2010
Monoculture is Death
If life is diversity, then monoculture is death, if not just dead boring. Can you say potato famine? Up to 1.5 million people dead, because of a monoculture! With crops, companies or cultures, lack of diversity is never a good idea. My girlfriend is a foodie and we were watching a Michael Pollan documentary, The Botany of Desire a few nights ago. I learned that 99.9 % of apple orchards, in the west, are monocultures, they don’t grow from seeds, they grow from cloning – watch the movie or read the book if you want to know more. We have similar issues with potatoes; most potatoes in the US are the same strain. Why is this bad?
October 6, 2010
Innovation is a Virus
We have been told by patent holders, mostly large corporations, that intellectual property rights encourage innovation. Copyright laws have been extended from 14 years to up to life plus 70 years. Competition is said to accelerate creativity. Do these ideas serve innovation or corporate greed?
October 5, 2010