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Archive for August, 2019

Happiness Means Good Values

Wednesday, August 28th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130132803@N07/18778753910/

Over the last couple of days we’ve been looking at what makes workers happy.

We know it’s not fun and games or even money, so what?

Rather repeat the same stuff I’ve been saying for the last 11 years, consider what John Hall, co-founder and president of Calendar, says.

… workers aren’t liable to fall in love with a company over a handful of gimmicks and perks. … the things that really matter when it comes to sticking with an employer for a long time go deeper than decorations.

What are they?

Well, they aren’t rocket science — except to bosses whose heads are stuck in the past.

Here are four basic values, according to Hall (details at link), that are a good place to start.

  1. Democratic Values
  2. A Common Cause
  3. The Freedom to Fail
  4. A Culture of Improvement

See, not rocket science.

More about giving your team the same environment you wanted at some point in your working life.

Or maybe you just wanted to be promoted so you could treat your team as you’ve been treated by your own bad bosses.

My best recommendation is to look in the mirror long enough to decide which kind of a boss you want to be.

Image credit: Nichole Burrows

Who is Happiest?

Tuesday, August 27th, 2019

Yesterday we saw how companies often equate ‘happy’ with fun and fun with games.

Beyond that they seem to think that money buys happiness and will solve most, if not all, motivation issues; an attitude especially prevalent in tech.

That would mean that the well-paid employees with plenty of games at Google and Facebook are among the happiest workers. Right?

Wrong.

Not even close.

Who are the happiest, with the highest job satisfaction level?

According to a new survey from Bloomberg’s Work Wise (tada) the top five happiest professions are:

The median salary of four of the five is just under $50K

Tech doesn’t even make the list.

More proof that happiness is about far more than money, let alone games.

Image credit: Bloomberg

Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: Making Employees Happy

Monday, August 26th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cityskylinesouvenir/4427873040/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Why is happy so often equated with fun, as in “if you’re having fun you’re happy.” What makes you happy? A beautiful sunset? Your kids/grandkids? A quiet walk? Time with loved ones? For most people, It takes more substance than fluff to make them happy.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Company culture has been jerked around ever since a few pundits decided that “fun” was the primary component to having happy employees.

Worse, “fun” was equated with silly stuff, such as games, pranks and goofs.

While these things do energize some employees, they don’t do it for long and certainly not alone.

It’s well-proven that happy employees are more productive, but creating happy requires substance.

The components of long-term happiness are things such as challenging work, continued learning, opportunities to grow, clear communications, fair bosses, etc.

All of these require more thought, effort and skill from managers than installing a few foosball tables or gamifying the project.

Flickr image credit: CityLineSouvenir

A World of Real Change

Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

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Whether you’re talking invention or innovation, it’s important to remember that it’s often the simplicity of a solution, as opposed to complexity, that makes it truly elegant. Along with simplicity, practicality is important, as seen in the MYCOmmunity Toilet, and focusing on plain old common sense can create a viable business by addressing American bias against ugly produce.

Here are a few that actually have world-changing potential.

Following up on yesterday’s idea to re-freeze the Artic is best described as ‘back to the future’.

A California-based company called SkyCool Systems is in the early stages of manufacturing a cooling system that’s more energy efficient than anything humans have used for a century. It’s doing it using radiative cooling, a concept that was used in the Middle East and India hundreds of years ago.

Inventions like this are potential game-changers as the world stares down a growing climate crisis, spurred by emissions pumped into the atmosphere by human activity. Globally, about 12% of non-carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to refrigeration and air conditioners, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

There is a lot of the talk about “food disruption,” mostly focused on new ways to grow food, plant-based protein, etc. But ending food waste would go a long way to feeding the world’s population.

Europe is way ahead of us when it come to reducing food waste.

Nearly 2 million tonnes of food is wasted by the food industry every year in the U.K. alone. Of that waste, 250,000 tonnes is still edible, equating to roughly 650 million meals. When you consider the 8.4 million people in the U.K. struggling to afford to eat, there’s obviously a problem.

And that’s where the Danish-born Too Good To Go app comes in. The app, which is available in 11 countries in Europe, is simple: it connects users to stores, such as supermarkets, restaurants and bakeries, that have unsold, surplus food.

Getting a job when you’ve been in jail is beyond difficult, especially when 40% of the FBI data base is incorrect. Now there’s an app for that. Teresa Hodge and Laurin Leonard came up with a way for companies, landlords, etc., to get more accurate and nuanced background checks.

R3’s software assesses criminal records, as well as credit histories, employment experience and information self-reported by individuals, and produces a numeric indicator for each individual predicting future trends. Scores run from 300 to 850, to mimic the standard framework for conventional credit histories. The higher the number, the less risky the person.

Finally, on the lighter side, innovation women will really appreciate — convenient and safe.

Gina Périer and Alexander Egebjerg have designed an industrial-standard female toilet for festivals and outdoor events that allows people to pee sitting down quickly and safely.

Named Lapee, the pink plastic structure has three urinals arranged in a spiral, with curving back rests that provide privacy while allowing the user to remain aware of their surroundings.

All of these, even Lapee, have the potential to create major change in our world.

Image credit: Fritz Ahlefeldt (Hiking Artist)

An Idea that Really Would “Change the World”

Tuesday, August 20th, 2019

Ask any entrepreneur about their idea and at some point most will claim it will “change the world” in some way — such as making it easier to hook up.

But some truly want to change the world֫ — or at least help save it.

And not all are young, nor are they techies.

One of the most impressive I’ve heard about recently is Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha, an Indonesian designer, and his two colleagues, Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa.

Their idea?

To re-freeze the Arctic and transform sea water into new ice fields.

Kotahatuhaha’s team set out to create a prototype for the “re-iceberg-isation” of parts of the Arctic by freezing seawater into hexagonal blocks of ice that nest together to form new ice floes.

Audacious?

Definitely.

Change the world?

Absolutely.

Video credit: Dezeen

Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: Are Investors Watering Down Innovation?

Monday, August 19th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/5726811997/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

There’s not a lot on TV that I like, but I used to really enjoy Shark Tank. Past tense; haven’t watched in several years. Why? Two words: lifestyle products. With very few exceptions that’s what was being presented, whether an app, a product or a service. I understand that entrepreneurs create stuff that will get funded, and while I’m not saying they are bad investments or that the entrepreneurs don’t mean well, I am saying that I don’t care about them. They won’t change the world or even improve it. Uber and Lyft are good examples; they haven’t decreased traffic, as they claimed they would, in fact, they’ve increased it. Most in the “life style” category are focused on “personal care.” (Have you noticed that sometime in the recent past “personal growth” morphed into “personal care”?) More packaging in the landfills, more time on the screen, more focus on self — so not my mindset.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Innovation isn’t nearly as mind-boggling today when compared to what startups were doing in the late Seventies/early Eighties when I started working with them.

That’s not surprising when you consider who gets funded these days.

A recent Reuters report found that the majority of Silicon Valley startup founders that receive Series A funding come from the same pedigreed cohort: either they previously worked at a large, well-known tech firm, a well-connected smaller tech company, they previously created a successful startup, or they come from one of three universities—Stanford, Harvard, or MIT.

Not surprising when you consider the attitude of Valley stalwarts like Paul Graham of Y Combinator, who publicly stated that he would be unlikely to fund someone with a strong accent or a woman.

It’s been 15 years since I first wrote about the proclivity of managers to hire people like themselves and more over the years showing it leads to homophily and the negative impact that has on a company.

It seems it’s no different for investors.

They are funding people like themselves who were raised, educated and worked along paths similar to their own who they either know or are introduced to them by a friend.

“Like a lot of the investments [Instacart] that have come our way, a friend of a friend talked to us about it, and told us about it, and encouraged the founder and the CEO to come and chat with us. One thing led to another.” –Sequoia partner Mike Moritz

When you fund from a homogenous group, no matter where they are, creativity and innovation are watered down, because those groups tend to be insular and badly interbred talking mostly to each other.

If you’re fishing from a pond of rich white guys, you’re mostly going to get ideas that address the needs of rich white guys.

AKA, people like themselves.

Image credit: Frits Ahlefeldt

The Source of Big Tech Power

Tuesday, August 13th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lenifuzhead/186870915/

As quoted in yesterday’s Golden Oldie, Columbia law professor Tim Wu said, Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.

His premise is that the more convenient something is, e.g., Amazon, the more likely people will gravitate to it, rather than trying something new.

Think about it.

Amazon. Facebook. Google. Microsoft.

Over the years, many companies, from startups to giants, have challenged them and have either been bought, bankrupted or buried.

Either can be a solution when your resources are almost unlimited, whether the money is spent on acquisition or increasing convenience.

Simple as 1-2-3-4

More convenience = stronger addiction = fewer competitors = greater monopolistic actions.

So the next time you find yourself concerned or complaining about the power of big tech try looking in the mirror for its source.

Image credit: Alena Navarro- Whyte

Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: Convenience is Killing Creativity

Monday, August 12th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/syobosyobo/146211210/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Good, bad or silly, ideas for products are generated in response to a problem or need. It doesn’t matter if the problem/need only exists in the entrepreneur’s mind (think Jucerio), it’s still the driving force behind creating whatever. So what happens when there are no perceived problems? When the current whatever is treated as THE solution?  Innovation takes a nosedive and monopolies thrive.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see ads for stuff that responds to voice command, especially when it’s for stuff like changing the TV channel. I guess that using the remote takes either too much energy or too much intelligence to work it.

Everything today is about convenience, a trend I’ve been suspicious of, although I wasn’t sure why.

However, after reading an op-ed piece by Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia and the author of “The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads,” called The Tyranny of Convenience I’m starting to understand what about it makes me itch.

In the developed nations of the 21st century, convenience — that is, more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks — has emerged as perhaps the most powerful force shaping our individual lives and our economies.

Granted I’m known as a digital dinosaur, but there are some conveniences — washing machines, telephones, cars, email, and Skype chat, among them — I’m all for — although I see no reason they need to be smart .

However, I have no cell phone, avoid any app, service, etc., provided by Google, clean my own house, wash my own clothes, shop for my own food, and do my own cooking just as I’ve done since I was 18.

I search using startpage.com, no ads, no tracking and my life functions just fine without always being connected. I’m not on social media and don’t suffer from FOMA; I meet friends for meals and fun and we talk on the phone in-between.

I suppose that all sounds very inconvenient these days, but I’m never bored and enjoy the feelings of accomplishment that come with doing stuff yourself, as well as figuring out better ways to do it — it’s called ingenuity.

I’ve seen many “convenient” items come to market years after I came up with a similar approach to use for myself.

Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows (emphasis mine).

Professor WU (or someone) needs to do a follow-up article entitled, “How Convenience Killed Creativity and Strangled Entrepreneurship.

Image credit: jim212jim

What is Wisdom?

Wednesday, August 7th, 2019

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The last two posts were all about wisdom.

What is ‘wisdom’?

Some people are smart;

quick or prompt in action, as persons

having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability

some are considered intelligent

having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals;

very occasionally someone is described as wise

having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion.

Wisdom is described as

knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.

If you’re still not sure of the difference, all I can say is that you didn’t read the two previous posts carefully enough.

If you want a deeper, more philosophical look at wisdom, check out this post in Psychology Today.

Image credit: VBC17

Wisdom From Kids

Tuesday, August 6th, 2019

I first wrote about Six Words back in 2009 (here and here) and again in 2013 (here).

Six Word was started by Larry Smith after hearing about Earnest Hemingway.

When challenged to tell a story in six words, Ernest Hemingway came up with “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

I signed up and have since enjoyed all the varied thoughts and ideas offered in just Six Words. More than a million people have contributed their thought6s and ideas..

Last week my email had something special that isn’t online. It came from Larry’s son, Lucas.

From the email.

“I wanted to get involved, so I worked with him to have kids write their best life advice.”

The piece was print only in the special monthly [NYT] kids’ section, but you can read proud dad’s backstory here.

I read The NYT online, but have no access to the print edition.  However, Lukas shared his favorites.

The authors may be young, but you could do a lot worse in life than taking their words to heart.

Both image credits: Six Words

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