Probably the best thing about Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Why does this cover work so beautifully for a book about tapping into social media?
Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
June 11, 2008 By
Three Great Jobs in the Fourth Xerox Revolution
June 1, 2008 By
In the history of innovation, Xerox (where I work) has starred in three stories so far: Xerography, personal computing and production digital printing. The first created the modern workplace, the second destroyed and recreated it. The third, probably the least familiar to end-consumers, since it is an industrial technology, might end up topping the first two — the technology is on the verge of dethroning the venerable Gutenberg press. But that’s all old hat. Let’s talk about how Xerox is poised to launch a FOURTH history-making disruption (*gasp*, most companies have trouble doing it once): making social media grow up from its chicken-throwing infancy (sorry Facebook widget coders; couldn’t resist that dig!), and turning the world of services-work upside down. And how, if you have the right skills, you can join my buddies and me in the eye of the perfect storm. Call this a Job Posting 2.0, or a Kool-Aid infomercial — I am helping recruit for 3 seriously exciting positions in the lab I work in. The kind for which you should ditch your startup idea.
[Read more…]
The Evolution of Work-Life
May 20, 2008 By
Most people think of only one notion relating work and life: the work-life balance notion. You and I of course, are smarter, and we know that the relationship has been evolving over time. Here’s a picture of this evolution. I’ll leave it for you to figure out how to correlate this to generational attitudes and important technological enabling events.
(Feel free to use the graphic for your own purposes. Linkbacks appreciated).
Megacommunities and Macrotrends
May 18, 2008 By
Big and complex problems sometimes do require require big and complex solutions. This thought was hammered home for me powerfully last week by way of a triple-punch: a conference I was attending, a book I was reading, and the earthquake in China. The conference was the IRI Annual Meeting, where I was part of a panel of speakers on the theme of “Networked World.” The theme of the conference was “Macrotrends Creating Opportunities.” On the flight out and back, I was reading Megacommunities: How Leaders of Government, Business and Non-Profits Can Tackle Today’s Global Challenges Together
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
May 11, 2008 By
I am not much of a video game fan, but I’ve noticed that skills you learn that enable you to kill the aliens at Level 1 often become liabilities at Level 2. Everyday life in a corporation, unfortunately, is not quite as explicit as your favorite video game in signaling level changes. Wouldn’t it be nice if one fine day, when you boot up in the morning, you get a big message saying, “You are now in Level 2” instead of the Windows welcome screen? Wishful thinking aside, Marshall Goldsmith’s “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” is as good a guide as you could hope for, for navigating Level changes in the career game. The book is interesting whether you are an obsessed careerist who wants to “Get There,” or merely curious about workplace psychology and sociology (I put myself in the latter bucket; being “There” seems like a lot of work, though I don’t mind occasional tourist visits).
Ronald Coase and Salvation from Anthropological Economics
April 23, 2008 By
Economics as a subject has never enjoyed healthier times — a universe of Freakonomics clones is appearing and the subject is galloping along in popularity as an undergraduate major. Yet, these are also the most worrisome times ever for the subject, because it is in danger of losing sight of the big mission — building conceptual models of the economy at large — that makes it so valuable to the rest of us. I’ll explain why it is a problem, and how the coming of The Chosen One, a descendant of Ronald Coase, can get economics back on track addressing the important problems of our century. Let’s start with a little family tree.
(portraits by Yurij Alexander)
A Map of the World 2.0 Canon
April 19, 2008 By
I have been reviewing a good many books that fall into the loose category of ‘World 2.0.’ Books that attempt to organize our understanding of the impact of Web 2.0 and social media. Structure the blooming, buzzing confusion, so to speak. So I thought I’d go meta and attempt to visualize this emerging canon. This graphic started as a tangent while I was making notes for my review of Tom Hayes’ Jump Point
The Other Games Indians Play
April 17, 2008 By
A few months ago, I read a thoroughly depressing book by V. Raghunathan, Games Indians Play: Why We Are the Way We Are
The Coming Triumph of the Strengths Movement
April 15, 2008 By
A few days ago, in the course of some routine correspondence at work with a colleague at another company, I noticed his email signature: “Win Over Others | Communication | Strategic | Analytical | Activator.” In my reply, I included a postscript, “p.s.: I’d be Intellection| Strategic | Input | Context | Ideation.” If this exchange sounds obscure to you, it’s because you haven’t taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder personality test, which is currently undergoing a fax-machine effect of sorts, creating a whole new language of interpersonal communication. The two sets of five words above are “themes” the test reveals. Chances are, you’ve taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test at some point in your career. I suspect the MBTI is currently the most widely-used test of its sort. Today, I make a prediction: the Clifton StrengthsFinder will displace the Myers-Briggs by 2011. Let me tell you why (and why you should care).
Generation Blend by Rob Salkowitz
April 5, 2008 By
Generation Blend: Managing Across the Technology Age Gap, by Rob Salkowitz is a book that might have saved me a lot of trouble. I have been managing a social media evangelism effort at Xerox for the past year, and learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way. But then, a year ago, this book probably could not have been written; 2007 was, in many ways, the year these lessons became very clear. The book tries to do three things: describe generational differences in attitudes and approaches towards work and careers, explain them, and examine one aspect of how to manage them: social computing technology. The results, respectively, are very competent, exceeds expectations and competent. Or B+, A+ and B- if you prefer letter grades. But the one A+ is well worth the cost of the book, and it is relatively straightforward to manage around the weaknesses on the other two fronts. It would have been a brilliant book if it had just focused on the explain bit.
