How to Build Online Relationships into Meaningful Networks
I was waiting for my son’s basketball game to start this morning and with the morning’s emails all drained I turned to Twitter and saw this Tweet from Marshall Kirkpatick Test: open your twitter stream, look at the 1st item in it, think of something to say in response, say it. Theory: it’s really that […]
Improv at the Office: Yes, and…
When I get really busy, I communicate less effectively. Truth is, I don’t listen as well, I get short in my responses and I cut off conversation prematurely, because I’m so focused on getting onto the next thing. I’m not proud of it, but it happens. The First Rule of Improv When I was in […]
5 Ways Email Makes Your Employees Hate Their Jobs
It can sound like a gentle wave, an eager ding, or perhaps a vibration on our phone felt from a pocket. It’s email, and regardless of how much we talk about the future of work and collaboration, we cannot ignore this blaring reality of all employee lives. Email keeps us handcuffed to our phones and […]
Meeting Requirements vs Meeting Needs
A while ago I was meeting with a prospective client who told me about how much trouble they were having with their collaboration efforts at his company. We talked for a while and I was shown a list of requirements for what the platform should have. I took that list and then went to go […]
Why Did Yahoo! Ban Telecommuting for Employees?
If you haven’t heard the recent news, Yahoo! decided to ban telecommuting and is now forcing all employees to physically come into the office to work and if they can’t or won’t then they can find a job elsewhere. At first glance this seems a bit counter intuitive to what many other companies are doing. […]
Why Your Presentations Suck!
Ok, so everybody’s presentations don’t suck. But the vast majority of them do. I know I’m not the first person to make this statement. I’d include a list of others who have said it but it would take more space than my entire blog does. Take this example slide deck from a presentation I saw […]
Me on TDD/BDD/Pairing and Jason Fried’s TED Talk and “why work isn’t done in the office…”
This talk is so right, but could it be so wrong at the same time?
…click through to see the video…
Just watch this, that’s all I have to say. Jason is so right about this topic. Here’s a few quotes to convince you.
“I’m going to talk about work, and why people can’t seem to get things done at work…”
“If you ask people the question, “where do you go when you really need to get something done?” you typically get three different types of answers; one is a kind of a place, a location or a room, another is a moving object, a third is a time…”
“The Train” < – That one caught my fancy, if you've ever talked to be about transit you know that one caught me… 🙂
"What you almost never hear people say is "the office""
"Managers and bosses will tell you the distractions at work are things like Facebook, Youtube…" "…and they'll go so far as to ban it…" "…what is this China?!"
"The real problem in the modern office is the M & Ms" < – Oh hell yeah, so very true.
"Manager's jobs are really to interrupt people…" "…they don't really do work so they have to interrupt you."
"You would never see a spontaneous meeting of employees, no, managers do that…"
Teachable Moments in PR & Crisis Management
I was recently approached by Fast Company to comment on “crisis management” at startups in the wake of the Airbnb “ranksackgate” story. I agreed to do the interview because the story was about what other companies can learn rather than about airbnb in particular. What are the teachable moments? The short article in Fast Company […]
Twitter, Jobs, Democracy & The US Elections
I recently wrote a post about the open nature of Twitter and why I’m long on its future. I know it’s easier to write “horse race” stories about who’s signing up more users, raising more funding or who’s “hot” lately. But something more nuanced is at hand that is worth debating – is the future […]
Google Wave Enters Apache Foundation Incubator
I am an unabashed sucker of Google Wave (see previous CloudAve coverage) and the two reasons for its demise are Mainstream users had difficulty seeing the value in Google Wave as a collaboration and communication platform Google didn’t flex its muscle enough to push it down the throat of users and make them see the […]
The Art of the Quick Phone Call
All this heavy talk about angels, VCs, bubbles lately. I thought I’d go for a more tactical & practical post today. The art of the quick phone call. I had breakfast with David Tisch the other morning in NYC. If you don’t know David he’s the guy who will be running TechStars New York starting […]
Oracle’s Influencer Relations: Mom Are We There Yet?
A fellow Enterprise Irregular posed this question to the EI’s relative to the maturity of the industry and the acceptance of bloggers @ Oracle Open World:Especially after the Workday session where 20 of us from small and large firms all…
Well-spent Workday @ Workday–Here’s the Firehose
Yesterday I was privileged to sit in a group of 20 or so analysts (many of them fellow Enterprise Irregulars) invited to Workday’s first ever Technology Summit. For short background, Workday’s original call to fame came from it’s Founder, Dave Duffield, an Enterprise Software Legend, who built PeopleSoft from nothing to a position of challenging […]
Those Who Can’t Do, Teach. The Hidden Dangers of Email.
Oh, the irony. Communispond, the Agency that excels sending the same horrendously dumb email year by year actually has the ***s to hold a webinar titled: Writing Skills: The Hidden Dangers of Email: Emails are so quick and easy to write – and it’s so simple to hit the Send button. But most of us […]
This Reminds Me of My Old Boss (Dilbert)
At least the ‘write down part’. His process for dealing with email was: Have Assistant print and fax email to whichever hotel he was staying in Make handwritten notations on fax, ask hotel to fax it back to his Assistant Assistant would then type it as email using his account The whole process would take […]
