By
Clare on
March 10, 2012
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I first heard one of the stories from this book when listening to Tom Kelley’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture on how to be an innovator for life. I didn’t really know what to expect from the book, but I loved it! The author uses a series of often humorous, short, personal stories to reflect on and illustrate the problems with most organisational cultures and how to avoid losing one’s sanity and individuality when working in one.
My notes from Orbiting the Giant Hairball
[Disclaimer: The notes below are rough, and may be a mixture of direct quotes, paraphrasing, and my own thoughts/ideas/reminders. They're written here primarily for me (so they may not make much sense out of context, especially for those who haven't read the book)].
(17) Disruption with purpose.
(33) Orbiting is responsible creativity. Vigorously exploring and operating beyond the Hairball of the corporate mind set, beyond “accepted models, patterns or standards” – all the while remaining connected to the spirit of the corporate mission. (more…)
By
Clare on
March 1, 2012
3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
~ From Bruce Mau’s brilliant Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
By
Clare on
February 19, 2012
This weekend I read about how Target figured out a teen was pregnant before her father did. The article (and The New York Times piece from which the story was sourced – How Companies Learn Your Secrets) have been widely circulated on the interweb, but if you missed it, the summary is that Target analyse customers purchasing patterns and, based on the products bought, are able to determine (with a high degree of accuracy) if a customer is pregnant, and then use this information to send them marketing and promotional material.
Apart from feeling a little uneasy about the fact that companies are collecting and using this kind of personal information in what seems to be quite a manipulative marketing approach, what made me more frustrated was that this was another example of clearly seriously smart people (in this case the Target mathematicians and statisticians analysing this consumer behaviour) spending their time (and their intellect and talents) trying to figure out how to get people to buy more stuff (that they probably don’t need or even want).
This has got me pondering and reflecting on a number of recent articles/podcasts that have raised similar issues. Like the Panel at last year’s SXSW Interactive on the topic ‘Techies Can Save the World, Why Aren’t They?‘ in which panelist Jack Hidary commented…
There is a lot of talent being attracted to all the great game companies and the great app companies and it’s fantastic but the fact is that we have major challenges to solve. Renewable energy, mobility, transportation, all these big areas are really left unsolved. (more…)
By
Clare on
February 16, 2012
If you’re interested in subscribing to receive my ‘links for light reading’ via email you can sign up here, or you can find all the previous newsletters on the blog.
This month has been filled with lots of interesting reading so it hasn’t been easy to narrow the list down for this newsletter! Interestingly, two key themes/topics have stood out from my reading this month – introversion and questions…
Last month The New York Times published an opinion piece by Susan Cain (author of the recently released “QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking“) titled ‘The Rise of the New Groupthink‘. It’s a great article on why solitude is important in work/creativity and some of the problems with the push we see in many organisations toward constant teamwork and interaction. The article and the book release have spurred a number of follow up pieces on the Harvard Business Review blog, Scientific American and Fast Company. As part of the one-third to one-half of the population that are introverted, I also enjoyed this post on networking advice for introverts. (more…)
By
Clare on
February 12, 2012
And I saw how, if you steadily worked at something, what you don’t know gradually erodes and what you do know slowly grows and at some point you’ve gained a degree of mastery. What you know becomes what you are. You know photography and you are a photographer. You know writing and you are a writer.
Mary Jo Bang: On Learning, Self-Discipline, and Taking the Road Less Traveled
