When synergy leads to maintenance of the status quo, organizations end up with: Synertia!
Synertia - the effect of two or more agents working together to resist change.
11 August 2006
10 August 2006
Printing On Water
When I started this blog, most of my posts were about cool, weird, surprising technology... stuff that I might have otherwise distributed in an email to a select few people. Since that time, it's become a bit more reflective & business/life oriented, but I figure it's time to once again check in on the world of strange technology you've never heard of.
Check out this device - it uses waves to "print" letters on the surface of water.
Why? For sheer amusement, of course! I'd love to have one in my back yard!
09 August 2006
The Seven-Day Weekend
As I've probably mentioned before, I make it a point to not work long hours. I tend to come in early and leave early, and frankly I'm not too picky about the coming in early part...
At the risk of incuring a shoulder injury by patting myself on the back too vigorously, I'll point out that as far as I can tell, I'm also more productive than most of my peers (despite the occasionally abbreviated hours - or maybe because of them?)
My own little correlary to Parkinson's Law (work expands to fill the time allotted) goes like this: Work is compressible. If I really want to get out of the office early, I can get all my stuff done early. If I expect to stay late, I probably won't accomplish that much more...
I mention all this because I'm reading a wonderful book by Ricardo Semler, titled The Seven-Day Weekend. He points out that if we can learn how to read work email on a Sunday afternoon, we should be able to figure out how to go see a movie with our spouse on a Wed afternoon. And he backs it up with decades of real-world / real-work experience. Amazing book - I can't put it down.
So, it's currently 2:30 on a beautiful Wednesday. I'm going home now. Gonna take the kids to a park & play. And it's been a very productive day.
At the risk of incuring a shoulder injury by patting myself on the back too vigorously, I'll point out that as far as I can tell, I'm also more productive than most of my peers (despite the occasionally abbreviated hours - or maybe because of them?)
My own little correlary to Parkinson's Law (work expands to fill the time allotted) goes like this: Work is compressible. If I really want to get out of the office early, I can get all my stuff done early. If I expect to stay late, I probably won't accomplish that much more...
I mention all this because I'm reading a wonderful book by Ricardo Semler, titled The Seven-Day Weekend. He points out that if we can learn how to read work email on a Sunday afternoon, we should be able to figure out how to go see a movie with our spouse on a Wed afternoon. And he backs it up with decades of real-world / real-work experience. Amazing book - I can't put it down.
So, it's currently 2:30 on a beautiful Wednesday. I'm going home now. Gonna take the kids to a park & play. And it's been a very productive day.
03 August 2006
Colbert on Wikipedia
In case you missed The Colbert Report's commentary on wikipedia, you can slip on over to YouTube and watch (it's about 4 minutes long). Then go check out the Wikipedia entry on Elephants, but don't bother trying to change the content to say the elephant population is increasing - they've locked the page down.
I see this as one more piece of evidence of Wikipedia's value, strength and secure place in the constellation of human knowledge repositories. The fact that Colbert refered to it shows how popular it is. The fact that the vandalism he tried to incite was nipped in the bud shows how resilient it is. And the discussion page associated with the Elephant entry shows how thoughtful, intelligent and fun-loving Wikipedians can be.
Of course, I had a positive opinion of Wikipedia already, but this really helps to confirm it.
I see this as one more piece of evidence of Wikipedia's value, strength and secure place in the constellation of human knowledge repositories. The fact that Colbert refered to it shows how popular it is. The fact that the vandalism he tried to incite was nipped in the bud shows how resilient it is. And the discussion page associated with the Elephant entry shows how thoughtful, intelligent and fun-loving Wikipedians can be.
Of course, I had a positive opinion of Wikipedia already, but this really helps to confirm it.
02 August 2006
Meet The Mad Pigeon
I just got a note from a very cool blogger who also happens to be an instructor at the Air Force Academy. He goes by the name The Mad Pigeon, and he got in touch with me after reading the Punk Rock article Quaid & I wrote.
It's always fun to meet a punk-rocking, status-quo defying, conformity-rejecting rogue operator... and knowing that he's teaching at the AFA is profoundly satisfying.
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