Daniel Pink has some resolutions for us for 2011, including a new term I love: Vuja de. We’ve all experienced déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before. Vuja dé is the flip side of that—looking at a familiar situation (an industry you’ve worked in for decades, problems you’ve worked
I’m going to join Daniel Pink, blogger and author of Drive, in letting you know how much fun it is to play with Google Lab’s new Books Ngram Viewer. The Ngram Viewer allows you to search for key words among Google’s archived books from 1800 to 2008. Pink compared the rates that the following words
This week’s quote of the week is more than a quote, it’s a whole poem by Katherine Pyle (1863-1938). She offers a simple message of courage that I bet we could all do well to think of and act on this year. Happy 2011! I never can do it,” the little kite said. As he
I was brave, and tried Read More »
Sparked (as always) by Seth Godin’s posts, here’s what happened for me and Engine For Change in 2010: Launched engine-for-change.com on December 28, 2009 (okay, not technically 2010, but close enough) Wrote 192 posts with 48 tags garnering 238 comments Recorded 24,000 hits Found 199 (+ or – a few each week) followers of Engine
For a moment, remove your shoulder from the grindstone, take a deep breath in, hold it, then exhale. Relax for a moment longer. You’ve persevered through a long year. You’ve earned some rest.” – what I’m telling myself this holiday week If you’re at all like me and you need to give yourself permission to
Rogue Polymath has saved me the trouble of having to write a post today. Check out his post on rejection and how to cope with it. I love the quote: Never attitude to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance.
Never attitiude to malice Read More »
You never know who’s watching and you never can tell how far your example of driving change will travel. Often, when we drive change, we focus only on how we impact the people right in front of us. In reality, we are creating second and third order effects in the people who observe our example
It helps when Seth Godin does my work for me. Check out these new business cards complete with Seth Godin quotes. What’s your favorite quote? I can’t pick a favorite, but I really like, Catering to the passionate is exactly what you should do.” – Seth Godin
…I’ll ask for it, or so the saying goes. The sad part is that too often in organizations, leaders assume they either can’t ask for your opinion without looking weak or they ask for your opinion in roundabout ways (e.g., anonymous surveys, comment cards). Few leaders seem comfortable having an open, sharing ideas conversation with
When I want your opinion… Read More »
What type of movies best describe how people behave in modern organizations? Zombie movies! Can you picture it: their lifeless eyes, their tortured expressions, their slow and painful movements, and their moaning and groaning? “Oooohhhh, only eight years, three months and six days until retirement. Oooohhhh!” Imagine a typical scene from a zombie movie: a
Don’t fear the zombies! Read More »
