]]>Some entrepreneurs and CEOs buy into "hire the best talent available" mantra. That can work if everything goes swimmingly well. But as I said, it often does not, and then that approach is fraught with problems. The other approach is hire for culture and fit. That is the approach I advocate. #
It's difficult to balance specific skill/experience, interest and cultural fit when hiring. Most companies focus mostly on skill, and touch interest only superficially. Fred Wilson is absolutely right in his post: the culture is much more important than it usually is given credit.
Especially if you're running a consultancy, this bias untenable. Consulting is thoroughly a people business, and consultancies therefore have high expectations from their employees, and they from the company. Skill can be developed much more easily than interest in what your consultancy does, and bridging cultural differences seems Herculean by comparison.
]]>That's how I want to learn. Don't give me a book; I don't want a lecture, and I don't want a list of topics to memorize. Give me ample reason to memorize them and a sandbox where I can safely play. Test me when I least expect it, shock me with the unknown, but make sure you've given me enough understanding and practice with my tools that I have a high chance of handling the unexpected.
Michael Lopp in his essay Two Universes. Finally someone has written down how I've always felt about learning.
]]>Management is dead. To win today you need a culture and an environment where the unreasonable power of creativity thrives. Ideas are today’s currency not strategy. #
Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide
]]>Sherry Turkle makes observations about this new behavior in the New York Times article The Flight From Conversation:
Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.
And:
We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true. If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely.
Reminded me of Leadership and Solitude.
]]>]]>That’s why Valve is flat. It’s our shorthand way of saying that we don’t have any management, and nobody “reports to” anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even he isn’t your manager. This company is yours to steer—toward opportunities and away from risks. You have the power to green-light projects. You have the power to ship products.
Valve Corporation's Employee Handbook, posted in an online Forum
I've heard similar stories about companies without formal management, and they all seemed to flourish with typical human resources KPIs like unwanted attrition and sick days being at a minimum. I'd love to learn more about what makes this work.
Technology plays a major role in this. While it seems natural not to meet up with colleagues during the weekend, there's hardly a time I don't interact with my digital devices. And being constantly confronted with work email doesn't really do wonders for letting my mind explore different (or no) paths.
This is why I tend keep some elements of my digital life together, and some apart. Here's my setup.
What's your setup?
]]>Facts and (most) data are not interesting these days. What matters is original thought, opinion, and tone. If you don't have an inner idea of what needs to be said, creation becomes a chore.
Our current webdesign process is set up in a way that we deliver final text and media, which is then put online. Only in real life it doesn't work that way. Context informs content: it helps tremendously to see the text within the design. Even more importantly, creativity and collaboration are iterative and incremental. It's the continuous tweaking that moves a product from bad to good to great. Making these changes must be possible.
]]>If I’m the founder of a web based application, I’m looking for any resources possible to give iPad users a native front end to my service. Anything less adds friction and reduces the likelihood of customers sticking around.
Chris Bowler – The Importance of Touch
Couldn't agree more. Also, this reminds me of the "software as a service" and "web app" article I wanted to write.
]]>Long-term evolution indeed.
]]>Psychology as a science is relatively new. Artists like him have understood parts of it for millenia.
]]>I can focus on the words, because the rest of the environment is vignetted in a fuzziness produced by its lack of opinion on the world.
]]>Love it. I probably should be there to say these things.
]]>Basically, either advanced alien civilizations don't exist, or we can't see them because they are indistinguishable from natural systems. I vote for the latter.
For the interested news reader, the distinction between what's natural and what's artificial is already blurring in the fields of biology and chemistry. It is mind-boggling, though, that the most advanced technology might be undetectable because it appears to us as natural physical phenomena.
]]>
Some things—apps, presentations, speeches, appliances—are simple, but feel just right. I have to remind myself every now and then that it takes hard work to achieve that effect.
]]>