I’ll bet you don’t know as much as you think about what’s really happening when someone screws up. This article from the archives of The New Yorker about implicit and explicit learning and the difference between choking and panic. It’s the kind of information that isn’t used constantly, but will help you understand and solve the really sticky people problems that flare up when someone fails.

“Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct.”

Surprise! It’s the shaping up to be a very tough year; one in which you have the choice between hunkering down, laying off, wimping out and whining about it or grabbing opportunity, taking calculated risks and going for the brass ring. Newspapers are facing a double whammy. They were already under siege before the crash, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a choice—and if they do we all do.

“In truth, all our staff losses are in part an inability of management to identify and pursue new product opportunities, and in part an internal aversion to change.”

Finally, an interview with Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience at Google, about innovation, downturns and healthy internal competition.

“The other groups at Google aren’t willing to accept that the only people who get to have fun and be innovative are the product managers and the engineers. It’s innovation envy. So what happens is, the Human Relations department wants to be innovative. They want to build HR policies like no one’s ever had before. Some of these people want to build facilities like no one’s ever had before. The finance team wants to bring the company public in a way that no one ever has before.”

I hope this information helps you lose the fear,  sets your eyes on that brass ring, and sparks your own innovative ideas.

The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll miss, but you’ll still be miles ahead of the folks hiding down in their bunker.

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Just two links for your pleasure, today, but each hold more than two goodies.

First we have The Best of BNET 2008. It includes links to their best stories, as well as videos and podcasts. Dig around; I think you’ll enjoy it.

Next, for my tech-oriented readers, are The Hottest Tech Developments of 2009 from Business Week. Yes, I’m sure there are more detailed lists, but you don’t need a tech education to enjoy this quick look at OS software.

That’s it for Odd Bits this year. Don’t forget to share any interesting odd bit links you have in comments or send them to me and I’ll use them to the next Odd Bits post. (You’ll find contact information in the right column.)

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Year’s end is drawing closer, southeast Washington State is facing its first Artic storm in several years, it’s late and I’m feeling silly.

So I dug into my digital clippings and found some fun stuff that made me smile and thought it would be good to share it with you.

• OK, OK, I’ll include one that has corporate culture relevance—at least to those bosses who can see past their short-term nose and embrace productivity-raisers that aren’t mainstream—such as napping.

• Hmm, I suppose I can actually justify including this one in the name of innovation. Anyone who has watched Unwrapped on the Food Channel knows how fascinating it is to see how different foods are made. But did you ever stop to wonder how many of the foods you love were invented accidentally as opposed to on purpose?

But the next two are strictly in the name of whimsy, silliness, and off the wall weirdness.

• From my old stamping grounds comes weird news at SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. It offers up links to all kinds of strange, often funny, news items. The original post I read was dated February 16, 2007, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to access, so enjoy the current ones.

• Finally, a link to The Darwin Awards, one of my all time favorite sites, along with information on it from About.com. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the awards, here’s a brief overview (paraphrased).

“A chronicle dedicated to individuals who have given their all in an effort to improve our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of killing themselves by the most extraordinarily stupid means.”

Great for a laugh and especially great for the ego when you think that you’ve done something stupid; read a few of the posted winners and no matter what you’ve done it will shrink to manageable levels.

That’s it for another Saturday. There’s enough here to keep you warm with laughter no matter what your weather is today.

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There’s not a lot of funny stuff out there today, but if you have a slightly twisted sense of humor you can find more funny stuff than you would think.

First up is compensation at AIG. In October the company spent just shy of a half a million dollars on a weekend meeting at a resort; when people got annoyed they canceled another 160 events valued around $8 million. A month later, in return for their bailout the top seven execs in the ‘Leadership Group’ (isn’t that a laugh) agreed to skip bonuses this year or salary increases through 2009 and CEO is taking an annual salary of $1.00. Whoo hoo. Of course, nothing I looked at mentioned a ban on stock options.

Next is a topic close to my heart. I love seeing common knowledge written up, especially when it’s common knowledge that the pundits keep refuting. BNET’s Dog and Pony spells out ten reasons that middle managers are more valuable than CEOs. Why? Because they’re the folks who drive customer retention.

Finally, I found a report entitled Executive Excess 2008 from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. “S&P 500 CEOs last year averaged $10.5 million, 344 times the pay of typical American workers. Compensation levels for private investment fund managers soared even further out into the pay stratosphere. Last year, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million each, more than 19,000 times as much as typical U.S. workers earned.” I’m not saying that they’re completely impartial, but then, who is? Every group that publishes a study has its own ax to grind. It’s your responsibility to sort it out.

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First up today is a review from Knowledge @ Wharton Of Dov Seidman’s HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything … in Business (and in Life). The book focuses on building a corporate culture where “”how” matters more than “what” in business, and how “should” matters more than “can.”" Seidman believes that “companies and their people can operate in both a principled and profitable way.” He believes that “A leading company should be a company of leaders.”

Next, and interesting interview on IT World with CIO Tony Scott who is charged with creating a culture of innovation a la Google at Microsoft—wow, talk about a challenge!

Third, a look at Charles Liang, co-founder and chief executive of $600 million Super Micro Computer, a 15-year-old computer maker with 850 employees. Liang is a one-man management band, so the big question is what happens if he goes poof?

Finally, from Business Week, the opportunity to nominate your choice for the best—or worst—Manager of the Year. The worst category offers the most opportunity, but for a greater challenge think about who deserves best. Please share your nominations here, too.

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Bloggers know that coming up with interesting topics and original content every day, as opposed to big blocks of quotes from articles and other blogs, is difficult. Writing for Saturday is especially challenging because you never really know who is cruising around or what the mood is.

Additionally, I’m always finding interesting articles I want to share, but they don’t really “fit,” so I’ve decided to offer up those odd thoughts and links on Saturday; hopefully finding at least one thing to pique your interest.

• In my (probably) final comment on this subject I’d like to offer up my congratulations to all those Alaskans who put ethics in front of tradition and ousted Ted Stevens from his Senate seat. The Senate thanks them, too, since now they don’t have to choose between honoring ethics or doing business as usual.

• An interesting post on the problems for women in IT with links to several additional articles and posts. The problems for women in technical fields such as IT are myriad. Few women ever have to worry about the glass ceiling, since they rarely rise that far. Rather think about the glass floor and non-existent elevator; the former prevents entry for most and the latter sees to it that the ceiling remains out of reach to the few who pass the first barrier.

• From the NY Times an advisory on avoiding the ads that inundate you at every turn and every milieu. Lots of useful links to help you and some great final advice that I live by.

• New software from MIT’s Dr. Alex Pentland offers a future promise of a way to analyze your everyday chat to determine the unspoken thoughts that lurk behind the words. The potential improvement in interpersonal communication could be enormous.

That’s it for this Saturday. Please let me know if you like this feature or it should be sent back from whence it came.

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