Before a movie started on a long flight, a couple of days ago, there were a couple of adverts. One for a pricey property complex in an Asian city, strap-line: “Your world, according to you”.
And then a premium car advert: “Building on your values – timeless values, such as hard work”
First person, first place. Pandering…selling
Tags: communication
I was at the MCA in Sydney this week – great exhibition on time and clocks (in the ‘seconds mater’, disorientating, modern, western sort of way). The new wing is pretty cool to look at – but deafening to wander around and, especially, to eat in. All block concrete and bouncing of airwaves.
Having mild tinnitus, and playing in a few bands, I am interested in noise. And the future of noise. I have a hunch that over the next 3 decades we will see noise in public places becoming a key issue (a bit like the journey on public smoking)
I have seen schools with impressive noise reduction in corridors (carpet on floor, soft display boards on walls) and there is already big business in managing acoustics in high end restaurants and offices. This site is starting to nudge in that direction with a focus on atmosphere.
The way we serve fancy food (course after course), is a relatively recent invention – see service a la Russe.
However, fashions change and now
1) At dinner parties, putting a file of food on the table to grab is fine
2) And many restaurants go for ‘sharing plates’
What prim and proper stuff is going on around you, that you need to question? Some default thinking?
Tags: Decision-making, trends
The world of work is changing.
For many years Goran Carstedt, previously a senior leaders in IKEA and Volvo (and now part of many initiatives from the Society of Organisational Learning to The Clinton Climate Initiative), has encouraged CEOs to recognise the need for their organisations to be ‘worthy of the fullest commitment’ of those who work in them. Like rights and responsibilities, that are two sides of a coin, this piece picks up the need for individuals to think of what will make for worthy work for them.
Tags: responsibility
Welcome back after your Easter Break.
A great piece on innovation to whet your thinking.
Tags: innovation
Our recent post and the one before got some interest …
Here is a relevant angle from the BBC.
Tags: brand, communication
We noticed the Kony2012 video used the DVF approach (last weeks Blog)…there was not that much on the problem, with far more on the solutions (in contrast to some of the climate films for example).
What has surprised us is how fast the viral movement has been greeted by analysis, criticism, liberal and local critique and now humorous mocking.
Noble purpose work is hard…
Tags: trends
Have you noticed how some change models and ideas in organisations get set out as a bit of maths (our favourite, is the oldest one of DxVxF>R…which I must admit to initially rejecting due to the mathematical nature of the approach). You can read a bit more here.
Though a recent piece from The Guardian challenges that sort of reductionist thinking a bit, when applied to people and our feelings!
Tags: knowledge
The legacy of Reg Revans is one of the two key contributions to the theory and practice of developing organisations from the UK in the mid 20th century (the other being the tradition of group dynamics developed by the Tailstock Clinic).
Revans’s work was focused on learning from experience. Some of the ways he proposed this involved the creation of learning sets of about 6 or 7 people. The stage managed way of running a learning set meeting can be useful in many teams and boards.
What about this? Instead of just presenting papers, what about presenting a challenge you are facing or a problem, and then listen to your peers and colleagues explore it (considering hypotheses for its cause and options to move things one). These methods seek outcomes like those of coaching – deepening insight into a topic and broadening the range of options a person feels they might have in a particular situation.
Next time the agenda looks a bit dull, think of giving this a go…
Tags: meetings, organisation
When cycling to the station in Cambridge yesterday morning past the railings covered with posters advertising a vibrant yet fringe (for some, controversial) cultural scene, I thought what makes a place memorable?
Is it the physical setting (eg The Lake District, a Indian Ocean beach, The Alps)?
Is it the quality of Architecture and how that fits in a particular place (eg the heart of Paris between the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre, Circular Quay in Sydney, The skyline of New York, the spires of Oxford, The Backs in Cambridge)?
Or the culture and vibe of being somewhere (eg London, Melbourne)?
So what is the (cheesy?) business analogy I will draw? What about considering all three of these when fixing an important meeting (and remember meetings are the DNA of organisational life and don’t have to be like this):
1) What sort of outdoor spaces will you have nearby – a park, a view. I recall a Scandinavian colleague who always wanted a ‘Learning garden’ the group could work in at some point nearby
2) What sort of human-made facilities will you (ideally) need – maybe informed by this list
3) And, crucially, what can you do to get the right vibe and interaction regardless of what you have chosen for the setting (which links to the other 6 Ps, other than place, from our 7P meeting planning framework – )
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