About time. And product. And being more deliberate.
Had some technical difficulties publishing this episode – all should be better now. My tea kettle attacks me. Then, I go off on the news of the Uptown Borders going union – until I get that first cup of the morning. Then, peace and harmony. Links mentioned: Chemex Coffee Pot, Chemex History BikeLights.com: I use …
Continue reading “First Crack 13. Twin Cities Borders Unionized, Garrick Goes Off”
The news reports that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled had an opportunity to inspire, motivate the US troops during a recent question and answer session in Kuwait. Based on this exchange, I can’t say he succeeded in addressing the troops concerns let alone inspire them to go back into battle. That is unfortunate. “Why do …
Related to my earlier post about saying ‘No’ (Some of the Passengers, Some of the Time) fed up computer programmers at Electronic Arts are suing their employer over “extreme job stress and health problems”. NPR had the story this past weekend on Weekend Edition. Employees are gaining more control over their work conditions with each …
“Go back in history. One of the first decisions an airline had to make was, Should we carry passengers or cargo? Whenever an airline came to that fork in the sky, they took both forks…” – Doc Searles Doc makes an excellent point. Very few companies can successfully be all things to all customers. The …
I’d like to thank the PseudoDictionary for accepting a ‘metrollectual’, a term Darrel Austin and I coined over instant messaging a while back. metrollectual: An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money pontificating on the greatness of urban areas.
Special Guest: The Winter Blanket. We talk about the last 4 miles of the Hiawatha LRT opening today – from downtown to the airport to the Mall of America, winter striking Minnesota this week, and the band’s upcoming Polar Bear tour. We close with a live premiere of their new song – Neil Young Blues. …
Continue reading “First Crack 12. The Winter Blanket at Marysburg Books”
Eminent writer Bob Bly dissects the difference between direct marketers and non-direct marketers. In my experience, his analysis is spot-on. I had a client where both mentalities struggled for dominance. The incumbent mentality (non-DM) was all about branding, impression, design, and well known for it. A team of direct marketers was brought in to handle …
Marqui is paying people to test drive and blog about their content management system. From Marc Canter on the origins of the idea: When I first came up with the idea – the question was poised “what if they blog something negative?” My answer was “that’s a good thing! Can you imagine how powerful it …
Continue reading “Care and Feeding of Your Harshest Critics”
“Rating and ranking engender competition, not collaboration” – Esther Derby, An Alternative to the Yearly Performance Review I always felt annual performance reviews existed for disconnected management to reinforce hierarchy. To know that their prime purpose (in employees’ minds) of securing an individual salary increase actually incents people to not collaborate is doubly disheartening. Compare …
My sister and I recently shared a phone conversation on the state of work. While she finishes her undergrad, she’s working for a temp agency. She’s continually negotiating with the agency on work; she calls the temp agency with her schedule, they call her with jobs. When there’s a match, there’s a match. If not, …