Pinboard: bookmarks for robertogreco tagged 'business'

RSS

robertogreco + business 973

« earlier

[close]

select: none ‧ this page ‧ all pages no items selected

mark as read ‧ unread ‧ private ‧ public ‧ add stars ‧ remove stars ‧ delete

tag: add or remove tag

THIS IS BOILERPLATE confirm ‧ cancel

Fables of Wealth - NYTimes.com

"ethics in capitalism is purely optional, purely extrinsic. To expect morality in the market is to commit a category error. Capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones… Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones…

…neither entrepreneurs nor the rich have a monopoly on brains, sweat or risk. There are scientists — and artists and scholars — who are just as smart as any entrepreneur, only they are interested in different rewards.

…“Poor Americans are urged to hate themselves,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote in “Slaughterhouse-Five.” And so, “they mock themselves and glorify their betters.” Our most destructive lie, he added, “is that it is very easy for any American to make money.” The lie goes on. The poor are lazy, stupid and evil. The rich are brilliant, courageous and good. They shower their beneficence upon the rest of us."

politics classwarfare poverty lies incompatibility democracy kurtvonnegut finance wallstreet 1% policy government jobcreation wealth psychopathy morality ethics motivation science art corporations corporatism corporateculture businessschool business entrepreneurship christianity capitalism 2012 williamderesiewicz from delicious
12 days ago by robertogreco

copy to mine

Technology, Art, And Why The Future Of Branding Is Nonfiction | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce

"…relationship of artsy to techy people…reversed over the last 20 years. The artsiest people went into tech & it feels now like…that the arts people are the nerds. The tech people are the people coming up w/ wild ideas & going forward & building them & the arts people are the ones who say, “This is a sort of Schopenhauer-influenced post-modern blah, blah, blah.” They’re the ones creating the documentation & historical framework around projects that are pure imagination. So it looks to me like the nature of the partnerships between artists & tech people are the opposite of what they might have been back in the day, where the art boys were the crazy, wild people, pairing up with nerds to sort of envision this technological future. And now it’s wild-eyed technologists pairing up with educated, almost PhD-like artists, in order to contextualize what they’re doing more responsibly."

"An artist’s job is to sit outside what’s happening and reflect back to us where the human is in this."

change howwework context socialmedia 2012 design business branding douglasrushkoff doug technology art from delicious
7 weeks ago by robertogreco

copy to mine

DUMBO is Home
redevelopment dumboimprovementdistrict business brooklyn nyc dumbo from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Alex Payne — On Business Madness

"We mistake dumb luck for a machine that produces success. We rely on induction when we should rely on deduction, and then, having realized our mistake, we lean on “data-driven decisions” in lieu of common sense. We chase patterns that aren’t there and miss eager markets right in front of us. All this while projecting the confidence, real or manufactured, that’s necessary to play the game.

This madness takes many forms…"

"How can we be like the successful ones and not like we are: tired, confused, scared, not-rich? Just tell us the secret. There is a secret, right? There must be. They make it look so easy.

I am not a business person. I don’t know what makes a good business. It seems like it helps to have a good idea, great people, the willingness to work hard, and an absolute shit-ton of luck. Being certain about much beyond that seems, well, a bit crazy to me."

nobodyknowswhatthey'redoing patterns patternrecognition deducation induction 2012 successworship entrepreneurship processcults taylorism processcult process failure madness startup advice luck startups success business alexpayne
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Spectacular Rise and Fall of U.S. Whaling: An Innovation Story - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic

"The life and death of American whaling might seem like a precious nostalgia trip, but it's really a modern story about innovation. It's about how technology replaces workers and enriches workers, how rising wages benefit us and challenge companies, and how opportunity costs influence investors and change economies. The essay can stand on its own, without my muddying the waters with political points about how Washington or CEOs should learn from yesterday's Ahabs. Suffice it to say that whaling became the fifth largest industry in the United States in the 1850s, and within decades, it had disappeared.

And yet, perhaps with a mischievous sense of curiosity, some time late last Sunday night, I scoured my notes for a graph I remembered, which ranked US sectors by employment. Would you guess what the fifth largest sector in the US economy is today? It's manufacturing. The parallels are obvious, but also easy to overstate. Manufacturing is in decline as a fount of jobs…"

2012 employment technology jobs manufacturing us emplyment change whaling business history economics derekthompson
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

[Stop Talking] Start Making

"Reserve a spot in General Assembly's new online program, Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship. By signing up, you will receive access to a collection of classes that guide you through a structured path to starting a company people love."

generalassembly 2012 stoptalkingstartmaking startmaking stoptalking stoptalkingstartdoing entrepreneurship yvesbehar peterbuchanan-smith lewislapham hosainrahman brepettis amandahesser michaelbloomberg mariobatali kevinkelly glvo doing making business design from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Disrupters: Working Outside The Business Norm | Fast Company

[From 3. Joi Ito]

"The Japanese government once asked me to be on a committee about taxes and information technology. The first thing I said was, 'Let's figure out a way to use resources more efficiently to lower taxes.' And they said, 'No, no, no--this committee is about using computers to collect more tax.' So I asked, 'How do we reduce costs?' And they said, 'Oh, there's no committee for that.' [Laughs] That's the problem with large organizations. They create roles and constraints, and sometimes people forget why they're there."

creativity innovation business leadership 2012 joiito committees scale roles bureaucracy constraints organizations from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

A VC: The Management Team - Guest Post From Joel Spolsky

"For every Steve Jobs, there are a thousand leaders who learned to hire smart people and let them build great things in a nurturing environment of empowerment and it was AWESOME. That doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It doesn’t mean letting people do bad work. It means hiring smart people who get things done—and then getting the hell out of the way."

servantleadership 2012 stevejobs empowerment leadership management business startups joelspolsky from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

An Introduction to the Crowdfunding Revolution by Don Lehman - Core77

"Now think of side-stepping all of that. You refine your idea on your own. You talk to manufacturers and see what it would take to get it made. You work out the budget. You shoot a video marketing the idea and explaining what you need to get it done.

You launch it.

Maybe it doesn't get funded. But at least then you can say that you tried and failed on your own terms, without going tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt. At the very least, you have an interesting portfolio piece to talk about and maybe if you're feeling frisky, you refine it further and try launching it again."

doing making startups leanstartups business kickstarter core77 crowdfunding donlehman 2012 from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch | Fast Company

'Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with high employee involvement, strong internal communication, and an acceptance of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve new levels of innovation."

failure success accountability responsibility administration leadership spirit cohesion connection agency motivation focus lcproject tcsnmy business innovation strategy management culture from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

In Oakland, a pop-up retail neighborhood for urban renewal | Springwise

"Popuphood was launched in December 2011 by Alfonso Dominquez and Sarah Filley to encourage urban renewal in Oakland where — despite a thriving bar and restaurant scene — retail is struggling. The project started in the historic neighborhood of Old Oakland, filling five previously vacant store fronts with five new retail shops, including a jewellers and art gallery. The project’s main focus is to support the local community, providing them with a vibrant shopping area and giving local artists, designers and retailers the opportunity to open their own store for six months, rent free. By building cross-sector partnerships with state and federal governments and economic development professionals, popuphood hope to incubate small businesses and create a dynamic community-centric neighborhood, optimizing empty retail space block by block. The video below explains popuphood in more detail: http://vimeo.com/33187820 "

smallbusiness incubator sarahfilley alfonsodominguez 2011 popuphood temporaryspaces temporary lcproject business community entrepreneurship art pop-upretail pop-upstores oakland popup pop-ups
january 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Memberly

"Memberly helps creative people and businesses run their own subscription programs. Start and run ‘of-the-month’ clubs, quarterly art projects and more!"

tools membership glvo business ecommerce 2011 subscriptions memberly
january 2012 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Rex Sorgatz: LA is the future (kill me now) » Nieman Journalism Lab

"When the collapse hits, capital will rush out of the traditional entertainment industry faster than you can say “Lehman Brothers.” And, as in New York, talented young people with industry awareness will be there to grab that capital & create new businesses. That’s when things will get interesting. Just as New York—against all odds—became the locus of traditional business being disrupted by technology, Los Angeles will erupt with creativity around the collision of technology & entertainment. New forms of content—programming that isn’t bound by 13 episodes that are 22 minutes long!—will appear overnight. The disruption will be challenging at first, but a Video Renaissance will emerge.

And as the production & distribution costs plummet (just as they have for written media), innovation will start to appear in related industries: social sharing technology, revenue models, aggregation, and distribution. Suddenly, coders in SF will consider LA as another option for employment. Crazy talk!"

disruption mediaproduction technology business economics entertainment media video creativity rebirth collapse rexstorgatz 2012 losangeles from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Nemawashi - Wikipedia

"Nemawashi (根回し) in Japanese means an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project, by talking to the people concerned, gathering support and feedback, and so forth. It is considered an important element in any major change, before any formal steps are taken, and successful nemawashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all sides.

Nemawashi literally translates as "going around the roots", from 根 (ne, root) and 回す (mawasu, to go around [something]). Its original meaning was literal: digging around the roots of a tree, to prepare it for a transplant.

Nemawashi is often cited as an example of a Japanese word which is difficult to translate effectively, because it is tied so closely to Japanese culture itself, although it is often translated as 'laying the groundwork.'"

[via: http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/my-back-pages-what-is-hotel/ ]

nemawashi change culture tcsnmy consent consensus management japan japanese social design business frontloading conversation from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Institutional memory and reverse smuggling | wrttn

"At the end of the project someone should've been commissioned to write a book, "What This Goddamn Plant Is: And, How It Works". That book is effectively being written now, only by archaeologists."

engineering documentation process archeology knowledge via:straup institutionalmemory memory legacy tcsnmy lcproject 2011 via:blech scale scaling bureaucracy archaeology reversesmuggling institutionalarchaeology institutions business reverse culture values posterity corporateespionage reversecorporateespionage organizations recordkeeping companies management sharing via:tealtan
december 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Nomic

"Nomic is a platform for your personal economy.

We're building tools for people to share their craft, tell their story, and build relationships. Simply and beautifully."

"Nomic is a seed-funded San Francisco startup building a platform for economic relationships.

We have set out to build a global impact, Internet-scale business, create products that people love, and help advance a healthier society and better functioning economy.

We have set out to build, change the world, hustle, and have fun."

sanfrancisco personaleconomy relationships business glvo web internet society nomic storytelling social from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Bridging the Values Gap | Blog | design mind

"Clearly, the bond between society and business is broken, and the legitimacy of companies is at a new low point. Movements such as Occupy Wall Street express a growing indignation over the disconnect between the perks for a few and the rights of many. When Harvard undergraduate students stage a walkout of an Economics 101 class in sympathy with the Occupy movement to protest the ‘corporatization’ of education, it might indeed indicate the beginning of a “New Progressive Movement.” It is not just the redistribution of wealth that’s being scrutinized, however. What citizens, in the U.S. and elsewhere, demand are new, more collaborative and inclusive models of value creation that produce meaning as much as profits…

reality in many companies today is that there appears to be a gap between the articulation of lofty principles and their application, despite all the talk about purpose, social power, emotional engagement, and community-building"

hierarchy 2011 society business communities collaboration leadership organizations values self-governance ows occupywallstreet inclusion inclusiveness from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Goodsie : Goodsie

"Online retail should be easy.
Make a branded storefront without any of the traditional hassles of setting up shop online."

[From the makers of Flavors.me ]

ecommerce retail online web commerce tools glvo onlinetoolkit business design from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Freakonomics » New Freakonomics Radio Podcast: “The Church of ‘Scionology’”

"The family firm: it’s a way of life. And it’s a nice story. But we’ve got a big, hungry economy here, people. “Nice” doesn’t necessarily generate jobs. So when it comes to putting the family scion in charge of a company, here’s what I want to know: What do the numbers say?"

[Transcript: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/03/the-church-of-scionology-full-transcript/ ]

[Related: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/05/if-handing-off-a-family-business-to-the-next-generation-whats-the-key-thing-to-avoid/ ]

freakonomics inheritance business families generations us japan scionology franciscopérez-gonzález antoinetteschoar vikasmehrotra yuenglingbeer anheuser-busch warrenbuffett stephendubner 2011 research from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Caterina.net» Killing the Abraham

"Companies without a strong Abraham lose their way. If you can’t identify who is at the helm, it better be a commodity business that anybody can run (Warren Buffett: “Invest in a company any fool can run, since some day a fool will.”)…

The Abraham is especially powerful in social software, in anything that shows the people, the members, what to do, how to communicate, and how to behave. The founders dictate what the software does, how people use it, what the practices and mores are of the community. This is built into the software, and its assumptions of human behavior."…

Abrahams are often called upon to do difficult work, thankless tasks, and sometimes, terrible things, as when god asked Abraham to kill his own, firstborn son, Isaac. Steve Jobs was rightly praised for his ability to “Kill his babies” — that is, disrupt himself."

caterinafake business startups leadership creativity 2011 culture management lcproject tcsnmy administration cv behavior killingtheabraham abrahams from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Networked Society 'On the Brink' - YouTube

"In On The Brink we discuss the past, present and future of connectivity with a mix of people including David Rowan, chief editor of Wired UK; Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr; and Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of Soundcloud. Each of the interviewees discusses the emerging opportunities being enabled by technology as we enter the Networked Society. Concepts such as borderless opportunities and creativity, new open business models, and today's 'dumb society' are brought up and discussed."

future trends social soundcloud caterinafake davidweinberger ericwahlforss davidrowan mobile web internet socialmedia business startups networkedsociety society change mindshift 2011 entrepreneurship ccpgames eveonline robinteigland elisabetgretarsdottir work virtualcurrencies connectivity mobility internetofthings robfaludi botanicalls touch interaction jeffbezos networkedcities education healthcare robinteiglend spimes from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Will Dropouts Save America? - NYTimes.com

"Classroom skills may put you at an advantage in the formal market, but in the informal market, street-smart skills and real-world networking are infinitely more important.

Yet our children grow up amid an echo chamber of voices telling them to get good grades, do well on their SATs, and spend an average of $45,000 on tuition — after accounting for scholarships — while taking on $23,000 in debt to get a private four-year college education."

entrepreneurship dropouts 2011 business education unschooling deschooling startups psychology careers highered highereducation michaelellsberg networking mentoring learning schooliness schooling failure risktaking jobs work grades grading standardizedtesting from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

DEAR AMERICA: It's Time To Say A Big 'Thank You' To Amazon

"Amazon is investing (and hiring) while many other American corporations are milking incumbent businesses, under-investing in research and development, and hoarding cash. To the chagrin of some traders, Amazon is distinctly NOT "maximizing near-term profits" — it is sacrificing near-term profits. It is making less money now in the hopes of making more money and creating more value later. And it is ignoring the howls and screams of short-term traders who couldn't care less about Amazon's long-term prognosis, add nothing to the economy, and just want to make money now.

If more American companies started to do what Amazon does — ignore short-term pressures, sacrifice near-term profits, and invest for the long-term — the American economy would start to heal itself quickly."

[via: http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/12030550839/amazon-is-investing-and-hiring-while-many-other ]

amazon shortterm longterm investment 2011 self-interest capitalism business economics wallstreet occupywallstreet ows greed finance self-interestproperlyunderstood from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann's Blogging Panel at SxSW | 43 Folders

"My pal, John Gruber (from daringfireball.net), and I presented a talk at South by Southwest Interactive on Saturday, March 14th. We talked about building a blog you can be proud of, trying to improve the quality of your work, reaching the people you admire, and maybe even making a buck (in a way that doesn’t blow your deal). Here’s what we had to say:"

art writing creativity business media blogging delight obsessiveness obsession passion 2009 sxsw adamlisagor purpose risktaking trying making doing web online internet twitter credibility favar howwework audience idealreader from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

"Legal Services: VLA delivers legal services and legal information to over 10,000 members of the arts community each year. For more information please click here or call The Art Law Line : 212·319·ARTS (2787), ext.1

Education: VLA plays an important role in educating individual artists, arts professionals within arts and cultural institutions, attorneys, students and the general public about legal and business issues that affect artistic and creative endeavors. For more information on our classes, workshops, and panels, please click here, or call our Art Law Line at at 212.319. (ARTS) 2787 x1.

Advocacy: From its inception, VLA has played an important role as an advocate on behalf of the arts community in different ways, ranging from participation in litigation, making public statements about matters of interest to the arts community, and making recommendations about pending legislation."

art business law design glvo legal writing music freelancing freelancers from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Hello Etsy Berlin - Douglas Rushkoff on Etsy - Livestream

"Everybody thinks that because they can blog, they should blog."

"Why do I want to scale? The only reason to scale is to get out of the business I'm in."

"What would you rather do? Would you rather do something or would you rather manage people who are doing that thing?"

"perverse corporate capitalism of the 1990's, the Jack Welch, General Electric, Harvard Business School model, which is get out of any productive industry and become more and more like a bank"

"What Jack Welch realized is that Marx was right…whoever is creating the actual value through their labor is the slave"

"what you want to do is get as far away from those guys as possible and get as close to the bank funding that activity as possible."

douglasrushkoff economics p2p work labor 2011 etsy currency slavery jobs corporatism history banking finance digital exchange internet peertopeer capitalism karlmarx meansofexchange hierarchy localcurrency biases doing making facebook social advertising jackwelch ge generalelectric sharing scale scaling growth business entrepreneurship self-employment creativity management middlemanagement middlemen addedvalue localcurrencies from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Elizabeth Warren on class warfare, etc.

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You build a factory out there – good for you.

But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for...

Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

elizabethwarren class society us policy taxes entitlement 2011 markets economics business entrepreneurship infrastructure government from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

DROP OUT. HANG OUT. SPACE OUT. : DiGRA 2011: Ludotopians and Ludocapitalists: Gamification, Sandbox Games and the Myths of Cultural Industries

"…three things: ludocapitalists, ludotopians, & what I have roughly come to call the ludic sublime: the power of technological myth making & what this means to the future of videogames…how recent discourses around videogames reflect past trends about how we frame & understand the role of technology in society, & look critically at how these narratives are used by various forces…

Videogames will change the world, but most likely when they fade into the background. When they are prosaic, common & cheap is when we will be more intertwined with their development than we are now. When marketers stop selling gamification like snake oil of a perfect solution to ones business problems, but just as another tool of communication in the toolbox is when we need to worry about them the most."

videogames gamification ludotopians ludocapitalists culture gaming 2011 danieljoseph ludicsublime myth minecraft janemcgonigal clayshirky alexleavitt foursquare advergames advertising capitalism business exploitationware gabezicherman ianbogost from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Designing systems for transparency robustness - Joi Ito's Web

"In most powerful institutions, corners are cut & methods are used in a somewhat "ends justify the means" sort of way. There are a lot of things that are done & said behind closed doors that wouldn't survive public scrutiny, but have become common practice. In many cases, these practices aren't necessarily critically wrong, but just embarrassing or politically incorrect in some way.

I believe that Wikileaks is just the beginning of a bigger trend where it will become harder & harder to hide information and citizen counter-surveillance will become a norm rather than an exception.

I think that this will cause a lot of pain to powerful institutions - some will be overthrown or crushed. However, I think that we can build institutions that are robust against transparency if we design them that way from the beginning. It will be harder than learning to write open source software, but I believe that in the end we'll have a society that is better, stronger, more effective and fair."

politics business government opensource privacy organizations transparency joiito 2011 systems institutions wikileaks from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Want a job? Major in liberal arts: Technology firms need more than science and math skills

""This Is Your Brain on the Internet" [class]…strips down fundamentals of learning in order to come up w/ better principles designed to help students think interactively, creatively, cross-culturally & collaboratively.

…read sci fi novels & written hypertext versions of them…spent week working w/ Chinese choreographer to learn to improvise w/out a common language…worked w/ video game designer using scissors & construction paper to prototype game…passed evening w/ science writer who lets them "hear" the world as if thu his own cochlear implants…

How do you test skills this curriculum is meant to sharpen?…midterm exam…students had 24hrs to choose, write & answer a question as a group that best summarized the first half of class. 17 of them, signing off on one coherent, final essay, posted on a public website before midnight—w/ failure for all the potential consequence.

These are the kinds of skills the humanities majors of the future are learning…mix technology & communication…"

cathydavidson education classideas learning questioning questions inquiry teaching liberalarts technology 2011 collaboration creativity interactivity communication humanities cv toshare stem curriculum infosystems information informationscience language business stevejobs problemsolving perspective empathy from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Steve Jobs Insult Response - YouTube

"guy: "Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man."

steve: "Here it comes."

guy: "It's sad and clear that add several counts you've discussed that you don't know what you're talking about.

(pause)

guy: "I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms how say Java and any of its incarnations addresses the ideas embodied in OpenDOC. And when you're finished with that, perhaps you can tell us what you personally have been doing for the past 7 years""

stevejobs change gamechanging business decisionmaking decisions 1997 risktaking mistakes customerexperience backwards apple insults humility cohesion bigpicture focus from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Creativity of Anger | Wired Science | Wired.com

"To be honest, I find this data a little depressing. I’d rather have a brain that, as Osborn believed, always performs best when content and carefree. Unfortunately, that’s not the brain we’ve been stuck with. (Although don’t forget that watching stand-up comedy can improve performance on insight puzzles. Happiness isn’t completely useless.) I’m afraid the novelist J.M. Coetzee was at least partially right: “Always move towards pain when making art.”"

psychology creativity brain apple stevejobs motivation criticism anger business imagination feedback jmcoetzee emotions mood 2011 honesty upsidedown from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Steve's Seven Insights for 21st Century Capitalists - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review

"Matter. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water—or do you want to change the world?"

Master. "Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works."

Do the insanely great. "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall & nobody will ever see it."

Have taste. "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste…absolutely no taste."

Build a temple. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, & the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. & the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

Don't build a casino. "The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."

Don't pander — better. "We didn't build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves.""

business innovation umairhaque stevejobs meaning purpose tcsnmy work focus values management leadership 2011 lcproject design gamechanging from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

allen.sw.huang — Steve Jobs & Taking The Long Road

"Jobs (and by extension, Apple) has taught me (and I am sure others) a big lesson: If you want to change something, you have to be patient and take the long view. If Apple and Steve’s incredible comeback teaches us something, it’s that when you are right and the world doesn’t see it that way, you just have to be patient and wait for the world to change its mind.

Today, we are living in a world that’s about taking short-term decisions: CEOs who pray to at the altar of the devil called quarterly earnings, companies that react to rivals, politicians who are only worried about the coming election cycle and leaders who are in for the near-term gain.

And then there are Steve and Apple: a leader and a company not afraid to take the long view, patiently building the way to the future envisioned for the company. Not afraid to invent the future and to be wrong. And almost always willing to do one small thing — cannibalize itself."

ommalik 2011 stevejobs longterm apple business risk purpose design making doing self-cannibalization shortterm near-term longview vision mistakes patience lcproject tcsnmy persistence gamechanging via:rushtheiceberg from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

What they're "protecting" us from - Anil Dash

"It's a choice whether you, or anyone else, wants to accept the falsehood that liberal values are somehow in contradiction with business success at a global scale. Indeed, it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to "save" us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America's most successful company possible. I side with the makers, the creators, and the inventors, and it's about time that the pack of clamoring would-be politicians be put on the defensive for attacking the values of those of us on this side."

apple business liberalism liberals conservatism conservatives 2011 stevejobs anildash economics politics policy from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? - NYTimes.com

"Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational & high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless…The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing… You start to resist any change, any potentially risky move — like releasing a prisoner who might commit a crime. So the fatigued judge on a parole board takes the easy way out, and the prisoner keeps doing time."

decisionmaking decisions decisionfatigue cv fatigue leadership management administration tcsnmy rest glvo donothing rationality biology psychology business life mood 2011 from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

What Matters: Get ready for a new economic era

"Now we are entering a third age in which the central economic actor is someone who both produces and consumes in the same act. I like the term “creator,” as this new kind of actor is doing something more fundamental than the mere sum of their simultaneous production and consumption. Creators are ordinary people whose everyday actions create value…

Not everything in the creator economy will require interaction, any more than manufacturing disappeared during the consumer economy. But the most successful companies will be the ones that harness creator instincts, and the biggest winners will be the companies who harness the smallest creative acts."

paulsaffo 2009 via:preoccupations economics cocreation creativity creation consumerism consumption production coproduction business future google youtube
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Numbeo: Cost of Living

"Numbeo is the biggest free Internet database about cost of living worldwide!

In the past 18 months, 169851 prices in 1725 cities entered by 16615 different contributors (information updated 2011-08-12)

Numbeo allows you to see, share and compare information about cost of living worldwide, by providing online software which :

• allows users to enter or edit cost of living for many cities in the world
• calculates derivated indexes such as consumer price index, domestic purchasing power and others
• efficiently compares all information

If you find something helpful or if you like the website, take a little time to help someone else, by contributing your local cost knowledge."

costofliving comparison cities moving economics business data
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Venmo | It's like your phone and your wallet had a beautiful baby

"It's like your phone and your wallet had a beautiful baby. 
Venmo is a simple, fun, and free service friends can use to pay each other back for lunch, dinner, drinks, rent, groceries, tickets, and trips."

mobile iphone android blackberry ecommerce ewallet business social venmo ios money from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Ian Bogost - Gamification is Bullshit

"I've suggested the term "exploitationware" as a more accurate name for gamification's true purpose…captures gamifiers' real intentions: a grifter's game, pursued to capitalize on a cultural moment, through services about which they have questionable expertise, to bring about results meant to last only long enough to pad their bank accounts…

I am not naive & I am not a fool. I realize that gamification is the easy answer for deploying a perversion of games as a mod marketing miracle. I realize that using games earnestly would mean changing the very operation of most businesses. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy & performance of your competitors, I understand that mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing. For the rest, those of you who would consider that games can offer something different and greater than an affirmation of existing corporate practices, the business world has another name for you: they call you "leaders.""

design management business gaming gamification ianbogost exploitationware truth 2011 motivation leadership trends fads marketing behavior from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Blogfather

"I’m OK with this lifestyle business. It’s a put-down for a lot of people, especially in Silicon Valley. I think it’s the best thing in the world. You don’t have to kill yourself…

I never got that message anywhere in the tech community. Like, what is wrong with making a decent living in doing something you love forever? And then people put that down as a “lifestyle business.” Or ask, “How are you going to change the world or make the next Facebook?”

It’s like nobody sings unless they want to be Britney Spears. That’s stupid—we should all sing in bars three nights a week if we like it and get paid as professional musicians. Who says you have to be a superstar? I hate the whole “rock-star programmer” thing where you have to make the next Facebook.

It’s very Portland to do sustainable things that are here for a long time. You can do sustainable things and not have to slash and burn and sell."

sustainability blogs blogging matthaughey portland oregon business glvo lifestyle lifestylebusiness 2011 from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Should I Work for Free?
design business work humor visualization snark jessicahische freelancing abuse free beenthere from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Chile Behind Uruguay Converge on Brazil for World-Best Expanding Retailers - Bloomberg

"With a population of almost 16.9 million, Chile has become one of the region’s promising retail markets, driven by government incentives to stimulate consumption, increased middle-class disposable income and an urban population, according to the A.T. Kearney report. Retailing in Chile, which places consistently among the index’s Top 10, is projected to grow 10 percent in 2011, the authors said…

At the same time, Chilean retail sales have slowed. After averaging 16.4 percent annual growth in the first quarter, they fell to an average 8.6 percent in April and May and sales are projected to rise to 10 percent in June, according to the median forecast of nine economists surveyed by Bloomberg."

chile uruguay markets retail 2011 brasil business finance consumerism consumption from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

How Google Dominates Us by James Gleick | The New York Review of Books

Just ne paragraph from an interesting read, especially for those who don't know much about Google, how it works, and its history:

"The Google founders, Larry and Sergey, did everything their own way. Even in the unbuttoned culture of Silicon Valley they stood out from the start as originals, “Montessori kids” (per Levy), unconcerned with standards and proprieties, favoring big red gym balls over office chairs, deprecating organization charts and formal titles, showing up for business meetings in roller-blade gear. It is clear from all these books that they believed their own hype; they believed with moral fervor in the primacy and power of information. (Sergey and Larry did not invent the company’s famous motto—”Don’t be evil”—but they embraced it, and now they may as well own it.)"

technology internet books psychology google evil education montessori standards proprieties organizationcharts hierarchy business unschooling deschooling 2011 jamesgleick from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Unselfish Gene - Harvard Business Review

"Executives, like most other people, have long believed that human beings are interested only in advancing their material interests.

However, recent research in evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology, political science, and experimental economics suggests that people behave far less selfishly than most assume. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have even found neural and, possibly, genetic evidence of a human predisposition to cooperate.

These findings suggest that instead of using controls or carrots and sticks to motivate people, companies should use systems that rely on engagement and a sense of common purpose.

Several levers can help executives build cooperative systems: encouraging communication, ensuring authentic framing, fostering empathy and solidarity, guaranteeing fairness and morality, using rewards and punishments that appeal to intrinsic motivations, relying on reputation and reciprocity, and ensuring flexibility."

business motivation intrinsicmotivation reciprocity theunselfishgene cooperation wikipedia empathy solidarity fairness morality human humanism tcsnmy unschooling deschooling rewards punishment reputation flexibility cooperativism cooperativesystems engagement purpose commonpurpose evolutionarybiology biology psychology sociology politicalscience experimentaleconomics economics evolutionarypsychology yochaibenkler complexity simplicity self-interest selfishness behavior extrinsicmotivation 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Auteur Myth | Wired Science | Wired.com

"…it’s also important to remember that nobody creates Vertigo or the iPad by themselves; even auteurs need the support of a vast system. When you look closely at auteurs, what you often find is that their real genius is for the the assembly of creative teams, trusting the right people with the right tasks at the right time. Sure, they make the final decisions, but they are choosing between alternatives created by others. When we frame auteurs as engaging in the opposite of collaboration, when we obsess over Hitchcock’s narrative flair but neglect Lehman’s script, or think about Jobs’ aesthetic but not Ive’s design (or the design of those working for Ives), we are indulging in a romantic vision of creativity that rarely exists. Even geniuses need a little help."

jonahlehrer creativity collaboration alfredhitchcock stevejobs johngruber design film decisionmaking auteurs howwework constraints support making business teamwork leadership 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Living without money - Times Online

"Former teacher Heidemarie Schwermer has lived without money in Germany for 13 years. Our writer finds out how she does it"

[via: http://www.diygradschool.com/2011/01/can-you-truly-live-without-money.html ]

culture economics business community work germany 2009 money moneyfree exchange trading bartering from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Leadership Tips from Tony Hayward (or Not) - Rosabeth Moss Kanter - Harvard Business Review

"• Deny and minimize problems. Drop any mention of the high-minded principles you announced at the beginning of your term, such as…a culture that puts people first. Sweep them under the rug…Or better yet, find someone else to blame…

• Emphasize your own power and importance. Keep yourself front and center all the time. Rarely bring forward the rest of the team, nor even indicate that it's a team effort.

• Make the story all about you. Talk about your heavy burdens and the costs to your life. When forced to acknowledge the true victims, pay lip service.

• Never apologize, and don't even pretend to learn from your mistakes. Brush off public disapproval, and persist in the same mindless behavior…

• Hang onto your job even when it's clear you should go, in order to negotiate the highest severance package, whether you deserve it or not. Don't even consider a deferred resignation to allow for smooth suggestion. Cling to power, and keep everyone guessing to the very end."

[via: http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/07/how_our_economy_was_overrun_by.html ]

business management leadership 2010 tcsnmy administration narcissism hownottodoit hownotto inmyexperience denial power importance seenthis from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Case for Making Wages Public: Better Pay, Better Workers - Daniel Indiviglio - Business - The Atlantic

"Knowing how much money other people make would benefit workers and make the labor market more efficient"

danielindiviglio pay transparency salaries salary business efficiency equality inequality secrecy money 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Cooper Journal: Will Ford learn that software isn't manufactured?

"Automobile manufacturing companies like Ford need to acknowledge that they are no longer making automobiles with attached computer systems. In reality, they are making computer control systems with attached motion mechanisms. The digital computer is increasingly dominating the driver’s attention, even more so than the steering and brakes. If auto makers don’t give equivalent attention to the design and implementation of these digital systems, they will fail, regardless of the quality of the drive train, interior furnishings, and other manufactured systems…

Designing and building a better automobile cockpit is the tip of the iceberg. The biggest task facing Ford and other car companies is changing the way they think and the way they work."

design cars userexperience interaction typography change 2011 business from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Varsity Bookmarking Dear Graphic and Web Designers, please understand that there are greater opportunities available to you.

"Dear Graphic and Web Designers, please understand that there are greater opportunities available to you.

You have an inherent need to solve problems, visually and conceptually. There is enormous value in this, but you may be misplacing your talents.

The internet, at this time in history, is the greatest client assignment of all time. The Western world is porting itself over to the web in mind and deed and is looking to make itself comfortable and productive. It’s every person in the world, connected to every other person in the world, and no one fully understands how to make best use of this new reality because no one has seen anything like it before. The internet wants to hire you to build stuff for it because its trying to figure out what it can do. It’s offering you a blank check and asking you to come up with something fascinating and useful that it can embrace en masse, to the benefit of everyone…"

design web business webdesign benpieratt graphicdesign svpply middlemen change gamechanging making meaning purpose 2011 clientservices from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Subtraction.com: The End of Client Services

"Digital media requires something different, though. It’s not sufficient to just publish a narrative to the Internet. You have to build an experience around it, a system that lets the user experience the narrative but also one that responds to his or her inputs and contributions. Basically, to create anything meaningful in digital media, you need to think in terms of a product, not just a story.

However, it’s very hard for a design studio to create digital products on a contract basis because the messy timelines and continual course corrections that are required to launch a truly effective software product are anathema to the way clients like to be billed…The most critical time for designers to be involved in a digital product is all the time, but it’s perhaps most important for them to stick around after the launch, when they can see how a real user base is using it, and then amend, refine, revise and evolve it…"

khoivinh clientservices business design 2011 startups time from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

There Is One Apple, But Many Microsofts: The Company You Don’t Know | Epicenter | Wired.com

"But now, even as I (like most everyone else) use more of Apple’s stuff, I think I’m more fascinated by Microsoft — particularly the Microsoft that most of us don’t usually think about."

apple microsoft organizations timcarmody 2011 business software revenue hardware from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Google+: Robin Sloan thread on the Borders bankruptcy

[See also: http://www.slate.com/id/2299642/pagenum/all/ ]

"Public service announcement: I think the Borders bankruptcy isn't essentially about the book business. In fact it's much more closely tied to the real estate business. Borders had a ridiculously expensive portfolio of stores: huge spaces on glitzy corners with long-term leases (and an average of ~8 years still left on the lease, per store) that they couldn't walk away from, even as the fundamentals of their business changed beneath them.

But!—that's not like The Inevitable Fate of Bookstores Everywhere. By all accounts, Borders was just really poorly managed. The company could have struck smarter deals for those spaces, or approached its lease portfolio more cautiously, etc., etc., but didn't. It was reckless and profligate.

This bums me out, b/c I feel like Borders' bankruptcy is now part of that Death of Bookstores narrative—when in fact it's much less exciting than that. It's just the story of a company run badly."

[Read the thread too.]

thisandthat borders business bankruptcy mismanagement realestate money finance internet web booksellers books retail 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The art of working in public « Snarkmarket ["Work in public. Reveal nothing."]

"…two very different dudes…different positions…different objectives…both written in essentially the same style, with common characteristics both superficial—a smart but very informal voice that reads like a long email from your smartest coolest friend ever—& structural:

…both conjure a sense that the piece is almost being written as you read it…slightly chaotic & totally thrilling…both let you inside their heads…But!—they don’t let you all the way inside. There’s plenty withheld…here’s the genius of the style: they don’t tell you much at all…

I tend to zero in on this kind of writing because I aspire to do more of it myself, & to do it better. Working in public like this can be a lot of fun, for writer & reader alike, but more than that: it can be a powerful public good…When you work in public, you create an emissary (media cyborg style) that then walks the earth, teaching others to do your kind of work as well. And that is transcendently cool."

[See the great comments too.]

writing business public robinsloan publicthinking mattwebb berg berglondon alexismadrigal classideas transparency surprise revelation style newliberalarts chaos publicgood learning teaching mediacyborgs sharing web internet informality balance spontaneity immediacy thinkinginpublic thinkingoutloud 2011 comments questions possibility pondering emptiness from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

A Brief Note to K12 « Bionic Teaching

"That “award” certifying you as a really super X-brand teacher, that free conference registration- these are not things they do for you out of kindness. This is for them. Every single bit of it, bought and paid for. Their return on investment is pre-calculated. If it didn’t make them money, they would not do it.

Don’t get me wrong. Take the awards, take the trips or whatever- just don’t forget that they are getting what they want out of you. Make sure you’re getting what you want out of them in return. This is a transaction, a business transaction. Make sure it’s an equal transaction.

Think about what you’re doing and what it is worth. Don’t sell yourself short2 and don’t ever mistake a business transaction for a favor. These people are not your friends.

And please, please, don’t sit there thanking them for using you like some obsequious lap dog. It makes you look stupid and further encourages them to regard K12 educators as easily manipulated pawns."

branded brandededucators teaching applecertifiedteachers googlecertified apple google lapdogs tomwoodward 2011 cv whathesays business pawns from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Apple’s Shock To Corporate Computing - Quentin Hardy - At Your Servers - Forbes

"Yes, both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android machines are small and nonstandard. They require connectivity. They may not be secure. The greater reality is: They are in offices. They work. People will use them, whether corporate Information Technology managers like it or not. Like it they should, at least on the basis of cost – in many cases people are buying these themselves, remember, and the stuff costs less to operate. In the whole business of corporate computing using Internet technologies – cloud computing – these consumer devices may be the forcing issue."

byod edtech enterprise it consumerdriven apple android google chromelaptops computing business from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Austin Center for Design | An educational institution in Austin, Texas, teaching Interaction Design and Social Entrepreneurship

"Austin Center for Design exists to transform society through design and design education. This transformation occurs through the development of design knowledge directed towards all forms of social and humanitarian problems.

AC4D offers a one year program - held on site (on nights and weekends) in Austin, Texas - emphasizing creative problem solving related to human behavior, through the use of advanced technology and novel approaches to business strategy.

The program is ideal for designers, artists, business professionals and technologists with 2-5 years experience doing professional work, or for more seasoned professionals looking to change the trajectory of their careers.

Our curriculum includes instruction in ethnography, prototyping, service design, theory, usability testing, and financial company structures."

education design teaching schools highereducation alternative highered jonkolko austin texas lcproject incubator designthinking human behavior business technology humanitarian humanitariandesign socialentrepreneurship entrepreneurship prototyping servicedesign from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Have American Businesses Been Stranded By the MBAs? - Slashdot

"In his new book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, legendary car-guy Bob Lutz says to get the U.S. economy growing again, we need to fire the MBAs & let engineers run the show. The auto industry, writes TIME's Rana Foroohar, is actually a terrific proxy for a trend toward short-term, myopically balance-sheet-driven management that has infected American business. In the first half of 20th century, industrial giants like Ford, GE, AT&T & others used new technologies to create the best possible products & services w/ idea that if you build it better, the customers will come. But by late 70s, if-you-can-measure-it-you-can-manage-it MBAs were flourishing, & engineers were relegated to the geek back rooms. 'Shoemakers should be run by shoe guys,' argues Lutz, '& software firms by software guys.' Learning that China plans to open 40 new graduate schools of business in next few years, Lutz quipped, 'That's the best news I've heard in years.'"

management business books productivity shortterm mba economics bigthree technology progress measurement assessment china us from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Legal Services Wanted; Lawyers Need Not Apply - Miller-McCune

"Why a globalized U.S. economy requires new legal infrastructure devised and controlled by innovators (who will probably be something or someone other than law firms or lawyers)."

law legal lawyers 2011 globalization patents business future simplicity economics price money efficiency from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup | Mother Jones

"You: doing more with less. Corporate profits: up 22 percent. The dirty secret of the jobless recovery."

culture society politics economics business work labor us world comparison productivity 2011 overwork wages growth employment unemployment disparity inequality vacation maternityleave childcare from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme | Grist

"Since the end of WWII, our cities & towns have experienced growth using three primary mechanisms:

1. Transfer payments between governments: where the federal or state government makes a direct investment in growth at the local level, such as funding a water or sewer system expansion.

2. Transportation spending: where transportation infrastructure is used to improve access to a site that can then be developed.

3. Public and private-sector debt: where cities, developers, companies, & individuals take on debt as part of the development process, whether during construction or through the assumption of a mortgage.

In each of these mechanisms, the local unit of government benefits from the enhanced revenues associated with new growth. But it also typically assumes the long-term liability for maintaining the new infrastructure. This exchange -- a near-term cash advantage for a long-term financial obligation -- is one element of a Ponzi scheme…"

politics economics cities urban business suburbs suburbia ponzischemes government strongtowns sustainability finance infrastructure 2011 charlesmarohn future development transportation liabilities maintenance urbanism policy longterm from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Jay Parkinson + MD + MPH = a doctor in NYC (I just finished reading Bonk by Mary Roach. The...)

"I spent 4 years in medical school and 5 years in residency. I went to Penn State for medical school and St. Vincents in the West Village for Pediatrics and Hopkins for Preventive Medicine. I never once received lectures on sex and sexuality. It’s sad to think that doctors must teach themselves something so important to us all. Speaking of that, here are the other topics that were either skipped over entirely or given a blurb in a lecture throughout my nine years of medical training:

• Behavior change
• Diet and nutrition
• Exercise
• Death and dying
• Communication skills
• The business of healthcare in America (aka, how to run a practice)

These are just off the top of my head. What are the others?"

jayparkinson medicine education medicalschool lifeskills behavior diet nutrition exercise death dying communication business health healthcare comments preventitivemedicine prevention sex sexuality from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Save Our Inboxes! Adopt the Email Charter!

"We're drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues. We can reverse this "spiral only by mutual agreement. Hence this Charter...

culture writing business communication email emailcharter 2011 brevity etiquette from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The Resume Is Dead, The Bio Is King :: Tips :: The 99 Percent

"If you’re a designer, entrepreneur, or creative – you probably haven’t been asked for your resume in a long time. Instead, people Google you – and quickly assess your talents based on your website, portfolio, and social media profiles. Do they resonate with what you’re sharing? Do they identify with your story? Are you even giving them a story to wrap their head around?" 
 
"the resume is on the out, and the bio is on the rise. People work with people they can relate to and identify with. Trust comes from personal disclosure. And that kind of sharing is hard to convey in a resume. Your bio needs to tell the bigger story. Especially, when you’re in business for yourself, or in the business of relationships. It’s your bio that’s read first."

design writing business work resumes cv biography bios howto tutorials jobsearch jobs creativity entrepreneurship via:carlasilver from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Week 315 – Blog – BERG

"Your sensitivity & tolerance improve only with practice. I wish I’d been given toy businesses to play w/ at school, just as playing w/ crayons taught my body how to let me draw.

I’ve written in these weeknotes before how I manage three budgets: cash, attention, risk. This is my attempt to explain how I feel about risk, and to trace the pathways between risk and cash. Attention, & how it connects, can wait until another day…

I said I wouldn’t speak about attention, but here’s a sneak peak of what I would say. Attention is the time of people in the studio, & how effectively it is applied. It is affected by the arts of project & studio management; it can be tracked by time-sheets & capacity plans; it can be leveraged with infrastructure, internal tools, and carefully grown tacit knowledge; and it magically grows when there’s time to play, when there is flow in the work, and when a team aligns into a “sophisticated work group.”
Attention is connected to cash through work."

design business management berg berglondon mattwebb attention flow groups groupculture sophisticatedworkgroups money risk riskmanagement riskassessment confidence happiness anxiety worry leadership tinkering designthinking thinking physical work instinct frustration lcproject studio decisionmaking systems systemsthinking manufacturing making doing newspaperclub svk distribution integratedsystems infrastructure supplychain deleuze guattari cyoa failure learning invention ineptitude ignorance deleuze&guattari gillesdeleuze interactive fiction if interactivefiction
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Overworked America: 12 Charts that Will Make Your Blood Boil | Mother Jones

"In the past 20 years, the US economy has grown nearly 60 percent. This huge increase in productivity is partly due to automation, the internet, and other improvements in efficiency. But it's also the result of Americans working harder—often without a big boost to their bottom lines. Oh, and meanwhile, corporate profits are up 20 percent."

culture politics economics business work labor us world comparison productivity 2011 overwork wages growth employment unemployment disparity inequality vacation maternityleave childcare
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Germany holds onto high-wage manufacturing

"This growing appreciation of the German model is a welcome change from the laissez-faire approach to globalization that has dominated US policy & discourse for decades, dooming many Rust Belt denizens to lives of crystal meth & quiet desperation. But some of these analyses still understate the crucial distinctions btwn Germany's stakeholder capitalism, which benefits the many, & our shareholder capitalism, which increasingly benefits only the few. 
 
First, German manufacturers, particularly midsize & small-scale ones that often dominate global markets in specialized products, don't seek funding from capital markets (there's a local banking sector that handles their needs) & don't answer to shareholders. They make things, while we make deals, or trades, or swaps. 
 
Second, the key to both retention & continual upscaling of manufacturing in Germany is the composition of corporate boards, which are required by law to have an equal number of management and employee representatives."

us germany business policy making manufacturing capitalism shareholders finance unions labor wages profits 2011 from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Fish don't know they're in water | Derek Sivers

"I was born in California…grew up w/ what I felt was a normal upbringing w/ normal values.

…speaking to a business school class…in Singapore…asked, “How many people would like to start their own company some day?” In a room of 50 people, only one hand…this question…in CA, 51 hands would have gone up…

…Their answers:…“Why take the risk? I just want security.”

“I spent all this money on school…need to make it back.”…“If I fail, it would be a huge embarassment to my family.”

Then I realized my local American culture…land of entrepreneurs & over-confidence. I had heard this before, but I hadn't really felt it until I could see it from a distance.

…When I told one that I left home at 17, she was horrified…“Isn't that horribly insulting to your parents? Weren't they devastated?”

…realized my local American culture again. The emphasis on individualism, rebellion, following your dreams. I had heard this before, but I hadn't really felt it until I could see it from a distance."

culture business us family entrepreneurship confidence failure individualism rebellion risk risktaking riskaversion society values from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

A VC: Subconscious Information Processing

"My dad made me stay up very late that night until I had completed it. And he stayed up with me. He made sure I understood two things that evening. The first one is obvious. When assigned something, you do it and you do it on time. 
 
But the second thing he explained to me was more subtle and way more powerful. He explained that I should start working on a project as soon as it was assigned. An hour or so would do fine, he told me. He told me to come back to the project every day for at least a little bit and make progress on it slowly over time. I asked him why that was better than cramming at the very end (as I was doing during the conversation). 
 
He explained that once your brain starts working on a problem, it doesn't stop. If you get your mind wrapped around a problem with a fair bit of time left to solve it, the brain will solve the problem subconsciously over time and one day you'll sit down to do some more work on it and the answer will be right in front of you."

fredwilson projectbasedlearning creativity business information productivity time procrastination subconscious thinking attention subconsciousinformationprocessing 2011 persistence howwework howwelearn timeliness parenting tcsnmy advice wisdom from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Most liveable city: Helsinki [Monocle]

"Helsinki claims the number 1 spot in Monocle’s 2011 Quality of Life survey, which ranks the top 25 cities in the world to call home. Rising from ﬁfth position in 2010, Helsinki outperformed Zürich at number 2 and Copenhagen at number 3 to claim the mantle as the world’s most liveable city. An unorthodox but well-deserving champion, the Finnish capital stands out for its fundamental courage to rethink its urban ambitions, and for possessing the talent, ideas and guts to pull it off."

helsinki cities monocle 2011 finland urban urbanplanning urbanism small local scale design glvo parks art business collectives simplicity slowness appropriation life food development livability transformation from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

X-skool: Not so much a finishing school — more a starting over again school.

"Most design and architecture schools, and design firms, contain one or two people who are ready to make a fundamental transition to a new kind of design – one that creates social value without destroying natural and human assets.

Xskool is for them. For you.

Xskool is the germ of an idea: a professional development programme for mid-career designers, architects and design professors. The idea is to equip you with the ideas, skills and connections you need to help your organization change course and engage with the restorative economy that is now emerging.

Participants in Xskool will ideally be sponsored; the idea is to transform design organizations and communities, not just the individual. Xskool is not another sustainable design course."

xskool johnthackara design education schools business sustainability unschooling deschooling lcproject tcsnmy socialvalue society altgdp economics restorativeeconomy transformation gamechanging 2011 place land perception presence diversity method solidarity value from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Debating the Value of College in America : The New Yorker

"…students majoring in liberal-arts fields—sci, social sci, & arts & huma—do better on CLA, show greater improvement, than students majoring in non-lib-arts fields such as business, education & social work, communications, engineering & comp sci, & health…more likely to take courses w/ substantial amounts of reading & writing…attend selective colleges…students who score lowest & improve least are business majors."

"Professor X…“I have come to think that 2 most crucial ingredients in mysterious mix that makes a good writer…1…having read enough…to have internalized rhythms of written word…2…refining ability to mimic those rhythms.”…read a lot of sentences…start to think in sentences…then you can write sentences…Someone who has reached age 18/20 & has never been reader is not going to become writer in 15 weeks. Otoh…not a bad thing for such a person to see what caring about “things that probably aren’t that exciting to most people” looks like. A lot of teaching is modelling."

education culture teaching us business liberalarts professorx louismenand colleges universities selectivity learning writing books thewhy criticalthinking democracy meritocracy cla money economics vocational pedagogy highereducation highered 2011 from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork - J. Richard Hackman - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review [Wish someone I knew could get #1, #2, #3, and #5 straightened out]

"Teamwork and collaboration are critical to mission achievement in any organization that has to respond quickly to changing circumstances. My research in the U.S. intelligence community has not only affirmed that idea but also surfaced a number of mistaken beliefs about teamwork that can sidetrack productive collaboration…

Misperception #1: Harmony helps. Smooth interaction among collaborators avoids time-wasting debates about how best to proceed… [A description of what actually is the case follows each]

Misperception #2: It's good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team…

Misperception #3: Bigger is better…

Misperception #4: Face-to-face interaction is passé…

Misperception #5: It all depends on the leader…

Misperception #6: Teamwork is magical."

collaboration business management leadership administration tcsnmy via:steelemaley culture teams work small groups harmony disagreement teamwork consistency time meetings productivity problemsolving classideas lcproject myths from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

CEOs vouch for waiter Rule: watch how people treat staff | Protocol Advisors, Inc.

“Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with,” Swanson writes. “Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles.”

business character kindness hiring power leadership management administration control waiterrule waiters hierarchy truth from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

the connective : seeds for a grassroots internet

"Together we're going to plant the seeds for a grassroots citizen owned internet. 
 
We're cultivating the seeds and support that communities need to replace the telco's 'last mile' with a citizen owned 'first mile' of free and open connectivity."

design culture internet future business grassroots community open openconnectivity connectivity web online activism from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

COMMON | Home

"What would you do if you could do anything? 
Have you ever felt like the world is divided into two groups of people? The people who just talk about making something and the people who actually make something. 
COMMON is about making something. To be more specific, COMMON is about connecting people together and harnessing the power of true, rule-breaking creativity to launch socially beneficial businesses. Businesses that are designed to spread love and prosperity to all stakeholders. 
Our COMMON Community and COMMON Accelerator Events are dedicated to shifting from talking about problems to actually engaging in new solutions. And we believe the fastest way to do that is through collaboration. We believe the tired old concept of competitive advantage must give way to a more meaningful system of collaborative advantage. 
Our mission is to give creative people a chance to design and prototype the new capitalism."

design designactivism humanitariandesign environment social community collaboration glvo creativity tcsnmy lcproject business socialentrepreneurship incubator branding entrepreneurship startups rapidprototyping prototyping from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

How to spot a psychopath | Jon Ronson | Books | The Guardian

"From Broadmoor to boardroom, they're everywhere, says Jon Ronson, in an exclusive extract from his new book"

culture science books psychology business psychopathy jonronson behavior 2011 from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

The future is podular « Dachis Group Collaboratory

"Pods don’t answer every business problem. Like any other strategic decision, choice to go podular involves inherent risks & tradeoffs. A podular system is certainly not the most efficient or consistent way to conduct business. There is more redundancy in this kind of system, which usually means greater cost. When units are autonomous, activity will also be more variable, which means it will be less consistent. 
 
The bet you are making with a podular strategy is that the increase in value to customers, paired w/ increased resiliency in your operations, will more than offset the increases in costs. It’s a fundamental tradeoff & thus a design decision: the more flexible and adaptive you are, the less consistent your behavior will be. The benefit, though, is that you unleash people to bring more of their intelligence, passion, creative energy & expertise to their work. If you’re in an industry where these things matter (& who isn’t), then you should take a look at podular design."

management socialbusiness hierarchy mesh meshnetworks autonomy redundancy motivation flexibility tcsnmy administration leadership organization organizations passion creativity nodes networks networkedlearning networkculture decisionmaking connectivism connections efficiency chains empowerment democracy business dachisgroup podular 2011 from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

State of Play by Mike Deri Smith - The Morning News

"Does your minor want to be a miner? How about a McNugget cook? MIKE DERI SMITH considers KidZania, a revolutionary theme park coming soon to the U.S. that lets kids play at corporate-sponsored employment." [Scary.]

capitalism play business children themeparks workslavery work consumerism materialism consumption corporations corporatism education indoctrination from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

copy to mine

« earlier

Copy this bookmark: