Hug my PAD

Posted on February 3, 2010 by petervan

TEDxBerlin talk, discovered via Hutch Carpenter’s blog

View till the end.

It’s a bit funny at the end, and you can hear the audience laughing at this and not really taking the last bit seriously.

Think twice.

Think this one through ! In the same blog post, Hutch points at the real meaning of the iPAD.

Think it through. The keyword is digital intimacy. Your computer is not your computer anymore.

Think generation-M. Generation Meaning.

It’s your personal “pad”-device.

You can give it a pad.

You can hug it, it can hug you.

Try in your imagination to mix up iPhone, iPAD and those little house-robots that were so popular some years ago. I know my friend Nick has 2 in his apartment !

Nick Carr used the title “Hello iPAD, Goodbye PC”.

I think he’s right on.

Body Part Maker

Posted on January 25, 2010 by petervan

In the current economic climate, one restructuring follows the other. In my country there are some notable examples like AB Inbev, Opel (GM) Antwerp, HP, etc.

At the time of writing this post, the counter of lost jobs in Belgium since January 2009 stood at

38,296

lost jobs

And this is “only” from structured and collective redundancies. The following table comes from quality newspaper De Standaard. The visualization also represents what sectors “contribute” most to these redundancies.

It’s therefore “normal” that i see/meet/mail more and more friends and (now ex-) colleagues being hit by the recession, crisis, or whatever you prefer to call the current economic climate and resulting restructuring or transformation programs. It happens everywhere. Except at the one employer i ever had that still today shows double digit growth.

However, some of these friends were living in Golden Cages for years but were bored to hell. The shame is that they let this happen over them. Others indulged all sorts of manipulations, political maneuvers, and other techniques that did not take them for full or were just ignoring them and their ideas. Others just had the courage of sticking out there neck, but not being appreciated by the blueprint and/or differing too much with the “normal way of doing things here”.

Indeed, it seems recurring many companies that diversity in thoughts is not always welcome, despite all the window dressing about values etc. That is of course a pity, because this diversity in thoughts and ideas is fundamental to being innovative.

And it happens everywhere. Except at that one record retailer. They seem to be some kind of Tribe. Have always been since the 60’ies, with self-development programs and alike. They also continuously innovate. With green IT and own windmills etc already 10 years ago. “Cradle-To-Cradle – Remaking the Way We Make Things” applied before the book was written.

So it’s all about sustainability, made possible through R&D and Innovation in new sciences and technologies. And being part of a tribe that has innovation in its DNA. See also later in this post when we discuss the jobs and trends of the future: science and technology are at the heart of the sustainable development debate.

However, if you’re not part of such a tribe, and you get fired where you were bored, then there is light at the end of the tunnel. Getting fired could really be a fresh start of your professional life, although somebody else made the decision for you.

Have a read at “The Living Dead: Switched Off, Zoned Out – The Shocking Thruth about Office Life” by David Bolchover.

Joe read the book and here is his review:

This book is about – the millions of talented and bored to tears people rotting away in large offices, completely disconnected, disenchanted, disengaged, shuffling papers away, staring at screens, writing memos and Powerpoints, sitting in meetings deliberating in jargon that means nothing, and generating serious pretend-work….

and how our world and organizations have made this a taboo topic, refuse to recognize its existence and aggravate this problem through inadequate structure and processes (specialized business jargon, office politics, hierarchy, etc).

This is one of the most blunt books I’ve ever read – a Dilbert with the sharp facts substantiated! And you will not find one business jargon word that can qualify for a b-sh**t bingo in there.

The most interesting part is that the book is written already 5 years ago – and looking at Peter Van’s blog and the book gives a clear indication of a very alarming trend. Not for the weak-hearted! Contains some seriously ego-busting words on our Great Leaders ( the big companies CEOs) and Even Greater Gurus (the Management book writers).

What would you do if you got fired ? What would be the one thing that you would like to do for free for the next 10 years ?

Could give you a real good indication

of where your true

passion and purpose is.

But where to look first ? The report FastFuture.com report “The Shape of Jobs to Come” (Final Version January 2010, you can download the PDF here) would be a good starting point.

The report lists the 100 most likely jobs to emerge and be successful by 2030. Some of these jobs will already see the light as soon as this year 2010.

And if you have the luxury to take first take a couple of months sabbatical, then the report has in Appendix-3 an excellent time-line on what will happen when, what skills you need to master by when, and what the most probable and most looked after jobs of the future may be.

The outcome may be that you may want to follow some course on NIBC convergence technologies. (NIBC = nanotechnology-biotechnology-information technology-cognitive science) or to study Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese if you want to mean anything in the economies of growth of 2015.

Some extracts with – as usual – some personal comments.

For the longer term, the centrality of science and technology in helping to tackle the most pressing planetary challenges from poverty to clean water, environment to human health, climate change to energy supply and housing to transport are ensuring that science and technology are at the heart of the sustainable development debate

Finally they are expected to help us survive and thrive in the cyber world, whether through legal protection, counseling or management of our virtual data and ‘personal brand image‘. As a result, the survey suggests that many of these roles will be popular, well-rewarded and aspirational.

The ten key patterns of change identified in the report are:

1. Demographic Shifts

2. Economic Turbulence

3. Politics Gets Complex

4. Business 3.0 – An Expanding Agenda

5. Science and Technology go Mainstream

6. Generational Crossroads

7. Rethinking Talent, Education and Training

8. Global Expansion of Electronic Media

9. A Society in Transition

0. Natural Resource Challenges

Looks like the list we suggested for our Think Tank on Long Term Future 😉

Under “economic turbulence, we find:

Further economic turbulence and potential downturns between 2010 – 2020, followed by a more stable period to 2030 as excessive risks have been removed from the financial markets and most economies have repaired their finances

Out of the list of 100 future jobs, i personally liked very much: the body part maker, the teleportation specialist, the currency designer, the non-military defense specialist, the director of responsible investments, the mind reading specialist,

Take the Body Part Maker (possible emergence as a profession: 2020, that’s only 10 years from now !):

Due to the huge advances being made in bio-tissues, robotics and plastics, the creation of high performing body parts – from organs to limbs – will soon be possible, requiring body part makers, body part stores and body part repair shops.

While a typical organ such as a liver or kidney might be grown, other parts such as an arm would involve the complex integration of a nano-engineered skeleton, high performance robotic joints, fibre-optic nerves, artificially grown skin, synthetic flesh and muscles.

Or the Memory Augmentation Surgeon (emerging profession in 2030). It really reads like Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near” (book written in 2005 !)

This is a new category of surgeons whose role is to add extra memory to people who want to increase their memory capacity. A key service would be helping those who have literally been overloaded with information in the course of their life and simply can no longer take on any more data – thus leading to

sensory shutdown

Although the job descriptions are somewhat funny and even “cute”, the real value of the report is in its Appendices: they hide a wealth of trends for 2030.

Truly amazing. If only 10% of this becomes true, the world in 2030 will look quite different from 2010. Especially Appendix-2 is a summary of all things you should be aware of as 2015 approaches. Appendix-3 shows a very comprehensive timeline per trend.

It is in these Appendices that you can learn for example about Generational Cross-Roads:

The challenge for employers will be to create an environment where each group can feel valued and be effective. Indeed, a Randstad USA survey found that 51% of baby boomers and 66% of the generation that preceded them reported having little to no interaction with colleagues from Generation Y.

What is your company doing to get these young generations

deeply into your workforce’s DNA ?

And about Society in Transition:

Higher ethical standards and a sense of the greater good are two of these evolving trends. Increasing expectations are concurrent with a decline in trust of key institutions.

“Higher ethical standards…” See also my previous blog post on Ethical Re-Boot.

About Evolving Technological Ecosystem, the appendices reveal that:

Handheld devices expected to become the control centre of a rapidly expanding personal ecosystem – where projection / pullout screens and keyboards could accelerate laptop replacement. Key enablers include augmented reality, intuitive interfaces, semantic computing and the increasing embedding of intelligence in a range of devices – often known as ambient intelligence or IP Everywhere.

What is your company doing to get these technologies

deeply into your innovation DNA ?

And about Quantum Cryptography that:

In “traditional cryptography” the data itself is encrypted using complicated mathematical functions. In “quantum encrypted communications”, a key is sent by beaming a string of photons, representing a code, from the source to the target. If it gets to the other end and matches what the target expects, then the data gets unencrypted. The Guardian notes that if anyone tries to intercept or break it, thanks to the laws of quantum physics, the mere act of observing the stream of photons changes it – and so it fails

If you company is doing something related to internet security

your strategy for the next 5-10 years

should have some bullets and focus on this.

And it is not always about throwing another GUI at your application. Have a look at this article that suggest that Mind and Square are NOT innovative and the true meaning of innovation in financial services lies in the plumbing, not the UI.

Remember my discourse about Innovation at the Core vs. Innovation beyond the Core ?

And then there is a section on R&D and Innovation trends. Most countries and regions seem to invest more in Innovation:

R&D Takes Centre Stage: Germany is investing EUR900M by 2010 to fund R&D projects commissioned by medium-sized business and EUR65M to expand and develop research infrastructure. Norway is set to increase its Research and Innovation Fund capital by EUR685M and create over 200 new research positions each with EUR90,000 funding. France is committing EUR731M in 2009-10 to refurbish universities and research institutions. China’s 10Tn Yuan 2009-11stimulus package includes major investments in science and technology, including "key research projects related to enlarging the domestic market.‖ (University World News).

And where is Flanders ? The Flemish Government decided to REDUCE the budgets for Innovation and R&D for the next couple of years ! And some companies plan to do the same in reaction to the economic climate.

Reducing your innovation budgets

means the beginning of the end

It means that you don’t believe

in the future

of your region, company or project.

Calling in a bus of consultants to tell you how to innovate will not work. First check out How real your Innovation is. And start from there. Especially if your company has a culture of incremental innovation.

We have to invest now. As mentioned before, i believe this requires a private (non-public) initiative. Many public – government driven – initiatives seem to lead to lots of consensus and compromise, often leading to a watered down vision, or no vision at all.

I was – and still am – hoping that our Think Tank on Long Term future can kick-start this private process.

Let’s also watch-out for the Belgian Presidency of the EU for the second half of 2010. I heard they bring on board some really smart people that can make the difference. Hopefully we get in the news because we really could make that difference, rather than through scandals about drunk MP’s.

If not, we may have to start imagining a miserable future in 2030 where we will be feeling like in 2010 without Internet (kicked into our lives around 1995 for most of us).

So, if you are/get fired, the next best thing to do is probably to look into the direction of your purpose and to surround you by the people of the right tribe. Those that make you live longer not shorter. Those that truly bind not seek conflict. Those that want you to succeed, not fail. Those that are capable of saying yes, and have not been trained to find the “no”.

For further inspiration about being mentally healthy and finding the right tribe, have a look at this TED talk by Dan Buettner on “How to live to be 100+”. With thanks to the friends in Iceland for spotting this one.

Or you may just not even make it to 2030 !

Cubicle 3B23: Our company is infected !

Posted on January 23, 2010 by petervan

This week, our small innovation team got the opportunity to design and animate the department’s “All Hands”. In stead of doing the boring “we-tell-you-and-you-listen death by PowerPoint” session, we split the group in 8 break-out sessions. Each team was randomly selected, and the managers were NOT allowed to lead the discussion.

Each team had 45 min to come up with a 5 minute pitch of one of the 2010 priorities of the department. As if they would have to sell that opportunity/idea to a Venture Capitalist. A bit like a short version of the Innotribe Labs at Sibos last year.

Before this meeting, some managers were skeptical whether all folks would be able to fully participate, contribute and let their creative juices flow.

But – as you all know – creativity is a bug that is implanted from birth in every human being. And getting back to this feeling of “playfulness” is oh so important and enjoyable.

There is playfulness and there is purity.

It’s the purity of my 4 old year daughter. Full of energy, creativity and fantasy and anything is possible.

It’s the purity of your true self. If we can tap into that energy, unbelievable things happen.

It’s all about passion and drive, and what motivates us

“Drive” is btw the title of Daniel Pink’s latest book.

It’s about “the surprising truth about what motivates us”. And Daniel Pink explains it’s NOT measurement, KPI’s, bonuses, perks, etc. It’s about belief and being believed. And knowing that management does never doubt people’s abilities.

So, we got 8 idea pitches of 5 minutes followed by a Q&A of 2 minutes by the audience (not by the managers). I can assure you, i saw a lot of fun and smiling faces, and people getting energized.

And it is something very infectious.

The day after, I got a chat from another Cubicle on the other floor:

It feels good to be able to think out of the box. Really refreshing ! If you guys succeed in changing only a little but the “sub-culture” of the company, and wake up gently the people from their winter-sleep, that alone would be a big success ! And that will be needed, if we want to keep our company relevant on the long term.

Yes, this is about passion. Yes, this is about enthusiasm. Combined with purity, this is a very contagious, irresistible cocktail.

This is not new. It’s off all ages. It works for young and older humans. Have a look at this TED Talk from November 2009 TED India, just posted on the TED web-site. Kiran Bir Sethi from the Riverside schools explains how contagious the “i can” bug is.

It’s about children taking charge of their own destiny.

Its about

being aware and feeling the change

enable to be changed

empower and lead the change

leading by being

At the end of the TED Talk you see how children teach their parents to read and write. In professional life this is called

reverse mentorship

All this is VERY relevant to Innovation and how “real” your company is about innovation. You need to inject the purity of young people. New blood. Let them rethink the strategy for the next 5 years. And then take it to the next step. And let those young people reverse mentor the older generation.

Next time check out the average age of your employees. And ask yourself the question: do we have the open mind, open heart, and playfulness to indeed radically innovate this company ?

It’s about maturing from the stage where “the teacher told me” to “i can lead this myself”
It’s about not waiting anymore and following your own compass.

Like Joe told me after the meeting:

“I am not waiting anymore

to be called”

When are you going to wake up and recognize your full potential ? Your potential, your team’s potential, your company’s potential ?

When will you start protesting, because you know your company sits on a goldmine, and every day that passes, it gets suffocated in end-less political debates with many off-sites leading to no conclusions.

How much longer are you going to waste your time ?

How much longer are you going to take this ?

Open your hearts and minds to the purity of the children and go ! Who will follow ?

Are you ready ?

If not now, then when ?

If not us, then who ?

The bug has landed. It has infected our company and the infection spreads.

Big time, i believe this time

Ethical Re-boot

Posted on January 16, 2010 by petervan

UPDATE: Cool ! It seems that my site has been blocked from Myanmar 2 hours after posting this article. Now i really feel what freedom of speech means.

UPDATE-2: added some other interesting links at the end of this post.

I fully agree with Robert Scoble that Google’s threat to withdraw from China is a world changer. A huge milestone.

Image courtesy WSJ

I believe that – when we will look back some years from now – this move will be seen as the “tipping point” in Corporate Ethical Re-Boot.

In this post, is will share some of my personal views on the Google-China event, and some other ethical old game/new game type of events i observed recently in my country.

There is a tsunami of responses to Google’s position. Some good recent blogs on the subject can be found here: Wall Street Journal’s overview and clearing up the confusion/myths, Scoble’s push/pull article, Kara Swisher’s China’s Internet Behavior, and John Paczkowski U.S. State Department to complain article.

UPDATE-3: another interesting one is from Christopher Meyer “Why is Google doing Government’s Job ?”

Walter Wriston (CEO of Citicorp in the 1970s) , in his 1992 book The Twilight of Sovereignty, predicted that business institutions would take over many of the roles of the state. He had a front-row seat — maybe the whole front row — as private financial institutions became more powerful than every central bank in the world save the US Fed (until now, at least). Governments’ power in shaping world affairs wanes as access to information broadens. As another affirmation of this, Carne Ross, a former UK diplomat, now does business as an "Independent Diplomat," offering professional-class diplomacy to state and non-state actors.

A new thesis by Miranda Meyer of the University of Chicago (umm…yes, relation) asserts that non-sovereign organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah belong to a class of actors that have important impacts but are not recognized in the Political Science literature.

Miranda Meyer’s thinking is very much in line with Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book “The age of the unthinkable”

Back in 1993, Wriston’s subtitle was "How the Information Revolution is Transforming Our World." Indeed, 17 years on, who can doubt that it has? One of his favorite observations was that "information about money is more important than money itself." Google’s influence is a sign that information about information may be more powerful still.

I found two other blog posts remarkably interesting.

First there was Fred Destin’s blog on Communist China, the misbehaving superpower.

The global outcome of a fast-growing command economy has been the government-determined explosion of asset bubbles all over the world – not because China is growing, the cause assumed by most economists, but because the government is buying resources (and their future options) on the global market, forward for 5-20 years. The result: instant commodity asset bubbles, worldwide, and further destabilization for non-Chinese consumers of these commodities. Of course, if the Chinese play the bubbles wrong, they will lose even more as prices collapse.

Could the Chinese create a global catastrophe by commanding all of this leverage into the wrong assets at the wrong time, by deflating the value of high-IP goods, by forcing global competition against unsustainable cost bases, and destroying non-Chinese business infrastructure? Sure. In fact, this is almost a “when,” and not an “if,” question.

What could possibly be more

dangerous to the world than a

command economic system run

on a global scale?

This is one view, a bit driven by

FEAR

Fear is also coming into the picture when you see that US Government is starting to take position, with all it’s possible impact on the US-China relations, the world economy and the quite fragile balance in world peace (at least between the super-powers).

But there is also the view driven by the opposite of fear:

LOVE

Translated into hope for an ethical reveille, beautifully articulated in Umair Hague’s MUST READ post “Google, China, and the new High Ground of Advantage” and you start seeing a pattern:

But the high ground has shifted. The new high ground is an ethical edge. It’s not about having more; it’s about doing better. It’s not about protecting exports, pressuring buyers and suppliers, price discriminating against the powerless, and programming consumers to buy, buy, buy — it’s about making people, communities, and society authentically better off. It’s not about caring less — but caring more. It’s not about ruthlessness. It’s about mindfulness.

The 20th century high ground might let China build a few dozen Microsofts, Fords, and Gaps: industrial-era companies that make industrial-era stuff — and play by industrial-era rules. Yawn. We know how that story ends, because we’re living it: an economy, polity, society, and natural world in stagnation and decline. Dear Wen Jiabao: want fries with that Zombieconomy?

The only way to step past the industrial era’s zombified endgame is the new high ground, because only an ethical edge can do all the good stuff above. The old high ground was built for 20th century economics: sell more junk, earn more profit, "grow" — and then crash. An ethical edge operates at a higher economic level.

It is concerned with

what we sell,

how profits are earned, and

which authentic, human benefits "grow."

It’s a concept built for the economics of an interdependent world.

Ethical edge is advantage reconceived for the 21st century. It’s an institutional innovation: the institution of "advantage" rebuilt for a threadbare, fraying, global economy. It’s a radical new definition of "advantage" that blows past the stale, tired idea of competitive advantage.

For me personally, i am on the hope side, and what’s going on here is really opening the Ethical Firehose.

I have always been inspired by the work of Peter Singer, especially his books “One World” and “Writings on Ethical Life”, but had somehow lost hope due to being confronted with the sad and disappointing realities of corporate life. I guess we all got our wounds as we lived our professional lives.

Umair Hague already pointed at it: one of the cultivated behaviors in corporate life is cynicism. As i have mentioned at several occasions before, cynicism is applied by folks who have lost the ability of "opening their heart”.

The other corporate disease is “Machiavellian" behavior. I have met recently professionals who even seem to be proud of their Machiavellian “skills”.

I think it’s wrong, very wrong

I looked up in some dictionaries what Machiavellian really means.

Being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli’s The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described. Characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty: He resorted to Machiavellian tactics in order to get ahead.

And in the Business Dictionary, i found:

Conduct or philosophy based on (or one who adopts) the cynical beliefs of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) whose name (in popular perception) is synonymous with deception and duplicity in management and statecraft. Born in Florence (Italy), Machiavelli was its second chancellor and (in 1531) wrote the book ‘The Prince’ that discusses ways in which the rulers of a nation state can gain and control power. Although The Prince contains some keen and practical insights into human behavior, it also displays a pessimistic view of human nature and condones opportunistic and unethical ways of manipulating people. One of its suggestions reads, "Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature."

It’s fundamentally about dishonesty and manipulation. It’s about trust (or the lack of it) . Would you be able to trust Machiavellians ? Do you trust your leaders if they don’t apply the basic ethical principles ?

Some shocking examples come from my own country.

Last week we had our Minister of Pensions Michel Daerden showing up drunk in Parliament. It even made BBC News. I am so proud of our leaders (hmmm. this is cynicism again).

Or our ex-prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene whose famous arrogant answer to journalists was usually “no comments”: he is now on the board of AB Inbev as “independent” advisor. We have in Belgium an “ethical code of conduct” called the “Code Lippens”.

The Corporate Governance Committee was established on 22 January 2004. Maurice Lippens was appointed chairman. The Committee was created at the initiative of the Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission, the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium and Euronext Brussels.The Committee issued a single reference code for listed Belgian companies. The Code is to set out principles of good governance and transparency, which will contribute to the development of companies and to the quality of their image among investors and the general public.

Guess what ? based on the information in Belgian quality newspaper De Standaard, Directors of the Board get a yearly fixed compensation of 70,000 to 80,000 EUR plus a variable compensation, let’s say a bonus. How can you be an independent advisor to the board in these circumstances ?

Who does still trust these people ?

Getting closer to the business of financial services i am working in – and the importance of trust in this new decade – there was this related article in the Confused of Calcutta titled Musing about Trust.

There’s something very human about trust. Something more related to the Age of Biology rather than the Age of Physics. We’ve seen what happens when we rely on mathematics for ratings and values and decisions. Last time round it was called the Credit Crunch. A decade earlier it was called LTCM. Whatever.

Some of us believe passionately in the power of what’s happening today, in terms of democratized tools and access and community-based approaches to many things, from home to work to government and beyond. In fact, I’m personally somewhat at a loss as to why no one has really put together the right community-based vehicle for “climate change”, built as an open and transparent platform, on open source principles and in a global inclusive manner.

Trust is about covenant relationships, not about contract relationships. In a contract you await breach and effect recourse. The question answered is “who pays?” In a covenant the question that’s answered is “how do we fix it?”

I think we’re going to spend a lot of time in 2010 learning about covenant relationships and their role in society. At home. In the community. At work. As a nation. As the world.

Which brings me to Michael Moore’s recent film “Capitalism: a love story”.

I was chatting with a colleague in Cubicle 3B23 about this.

The person’s reaction was:

I am ashamed to work

for this industry

I think i am going to watch the movie too. Because, somewhere somehow it all starts feeling wrong and not in line with my true compass.

Other related articles

Google and the ethics of the cloud, by Nick Carr

Love and Hate Relationships

Posted on January 13, 2010 by petervan

A good friend of mine commented on one of the blog post. It’s a comment that cuts deep. Knowing the person, i think it was quite a step to be this open on a public blog. So first of all, congrats for coming-out !

Here is the original comment:

I have spent some time reading through this and other blogs of yours. And they make me react strongly in a very controversial way: I love them and I hate them; I agree and fully reject their contents.
And, beyond the very valid and daring points you make, I’d like to reflect about the channel: speaking one’s true mind, yet doing so hiding behind a screen and sometimes even a fake name.
My fear is having my own children communicating with me via a blog.

You make me reflect, to the point of writing this reply. So I guess we should both be content as the blog has obviously achieved its goal…
But I dont know if I should be happy or sad about it. After all, I could have also called you!

With respect to the fake name, this was to protect. Not myself, but somebody else. I really would like to know on what content you agree or reject. Contact me.

In response to the strong point you make about the communication channel, I believe we have to let the future emerge (We don’t have a choice anyway ;-). We have to be in this world and evolve and adapt to survive. Or we can disconnect and go to a monastery, which is a valid choice of course.

My and your children consider e-mail as really very old-fashioned. And blogs are really for guys with grey hairs. So here we are. It’s 2010.

Whether you like it or not, your and my children will communicate using Twitter, Facebook, Netlog, Foursquare etc or whatever will be applicable the next years. Like we used to send SMS’s, our kids will Tweet or whatever the channel will be.

One thing is inevitable. The on-line communication channels move into real-time. Nova Spivack coined this “The Stream”. See my post on World Wide Web.

I have btw another blog post in preparation about about a very related subject: privacy.

We seem to have passed the tipping point where the default is NOT privacy, but Public. It will then be up to you to indicate what about yourself you want to keep private. I struggle with that too. It has a lot with digital identity. If you’re interested in digital identity, i can really recommend the blog of Kim Cameron: www.identityblog.com

I encourage anyone to get into discussion with me on the CONTENT of this blog. Via the comment link, via phone, mail, face-to-face.

When i started this blog, i had some blog-shyness. That over now. I feel more comfortable with this channel now.

Probably 10 years later than the early adopters, but who cares !

How real is your Innovation ?

Posted on January 13, 2010 by petervan

I have been reading quite a lot on innovation lately. Books and blogs. But it looks to me that there is too much theory and too less practice.

I have read about many ideas to organize innovation, to do scouting, idea management, incubation, internal/external challenges, brand recognition programs. Grand theories about innovation in the core or beyond the core, or about innovation TO the core. About cultural change. About leadership and executive sponsorship.

All these are important components of a company wide Innovation Program, but all this ignores something very fundamental.

Does your company REALLY want to innovate ?

It’s more than wanting.

You must LOVE innovation

As mentioned elsewhere on my blog, i have something with “stage”. Well, maybe you do not know, but it just happens that Flanders is the host of the worldwide leader of stage-builders. The company is called STAGECO. They build the stages for U2, The Rolling Stones, Rock-Werchter, etc, etc. Oh boy, those guys are passionate about what they are doing ! So, i went to their site and look what i found:

The keyword is “loves”

Just this week, i stumbled upon this book from Jeanne Bliss.

The book is a bit off-topic with respect to innovation “pur-sang”, but ask yourself the question:

“Do you love innovation

more than your dog ?”

And love is about a relationship. In my previous life at Microsoft, we once had a consultant Max McKeowen. At that time we were discussing “Love/Hate Relationships” with customers. How did it come that people love Apple and hate Microsoft ? It ended up in a very interesting write-up and in the end a company wide program to create these Love-relationships with customers.

So, i went back to that write-up, and there was something about

HOT or NOT

Imagine the same HOT or NOT questions about your Innovation.

Is your Innovation HOT ?

I also suggest that we all turn-on our bullshit-detector. To find out what Guy Kawasaki calls the “Bull Shiitake” of your Innovation Programs.

Such a detector comes really cheap. Every human with some basic intelligence has it just built-in. In essence, your need a reality check-out your love for innovation

So, ask yourself the question:

“Does my company LOVE innovation ?”

So, ask yourself:

“are we really shooting for the innovation that Guy Kawasaki had in mind at Sibos 2009 when he spoke about “Jumping the next curve” ?

So, ask yourself what you did with

“Don’t let the Bozo’s grind you down”

I am also a big believer of “Radical Innovation” as described in Rowan Gibson’s book “Innovation to the Core.

Radical Innovation is not the same as “Risky” Innovation. By Rowan’s definition, an idea is truly radical if it passes one or more of the following three tests:

Does it have the power to dramatically reset customer expectations and behaviors?
Does it have the power to change the basis for competitive advantage?
Does it have the power to change industry economics?

If an idea does not meet the test of being truly radical, it is not going to have very much impact on either the top line or the bottom line. It still may be something that is perfectly worthwhile to do, but it’s unlikely to make much of a difference to revenue growth.

For many executives, the word radical is too, well . . . radical. It makes them feel nervous and uncomfortable. Sometimes they feel more comfortable with “Impactful” rather than “Radical” Innovation.

This is very much related to the thinking of Mark Raison from Yellow Ideas. I already mentioned Mark in my previous blog on Google and Finance 2.0 when i wrote:

…especially the implicit push for extreme – even “impossible” innovation. Last week, i was attending the 11th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation. One of the keynotes came from Mark Raison, titled “The Power of Impossible”

The Power Of Impossible By Mark Raison Yellow Ideas Eaci Ecci Creativity Congress 29 10 09

View more presentations from mark.raison.

One of his slides really summarizes this to it’s essence:

So if you’re really serious about innovation, here is a checklist of do’s and don’ts (non exhaustive list 😉

Here are some good recipes for failure

– Don’t recognize your failures of the past

– Never invite your innovation guys to the company’s leadership off-sites

– Do invite external consultants who will say what you like and ideally repeat what you’ve been hearing about innovation the last 5 years. Everybody will feel proud on how much (old) innovation thinking is going on.

– Make sure that you always insert at least one of your most conservative guys from the past in any of your innovation strategy teams to ensure there are enough brakes on innovative thinking

– Focus your innovation on incremental changes

– Make sure that you “detach” your innovation resources to help supporting this year’s business priorities

– Ask your innovation resources to help selling.

And here are some suggestions for “real” success

– Keep yourself honest. Make sure you feel 100% ok when telling your innovation story to yourself. Try it: talk to yourself in the mirror. I hope you don’t fool yourself.

– If you are serious about innovation, be bloody serious about it: put at least the same budget and resources as for your Six Sigma, Quality, or other Efficiency programs.

– Make sure that your innovation efforts are exclusively and rigorously focused on radical innovation. All the rest is just window dressing and peace of mind and “peace of board”.

– Have a monthly 1/2 day quality time slot with your full Executive Team ànd your full Innovation Team to discuss and progress your Innovation program.

– Hire lots young people. Let them incubate and propose radical innovation. With some exceptions, innovation will NOT come from the 40+ years old.

– Build an Innovation-Force of young (< 35 years) high potentials (HIPO’s)

– Make sure that your HIPO Innovators have a seat on ALL your decision bodies and committees.

– Have an HR program that focuses on building the creative and innovative skills in your company. Consider setting-up an Innovation University together with other innovators from within or outside your industry.

– Have innovation exchange programs of your HIPOs with other companies.

– Protect innovators in your company. And be VERY vocal about this protection. And do something with the appraisal of those who have the courage to stick out their neck.

– Create the annual “stick-out-your-neck” Award. With a hefty monetary prize attached to it.

– Celebrate Innovation Achievements

– I already pointed at the key role of HR on this. See Emotional Zombies and HR and Innovation and Brand, Workforce and Innovation.

And last but not least, forbid any of the following 29 Idea Killers to be used to challenge any idea in your company:

Keep yourself honest. Look in your mirror, and ask yourself “How real is our Innovation ?”

Cubicle 3B23: Let me entertain you

Posted on January 12, 2010 by petervan

The idea for this blog post emerged when a colleague visited my cubicle.

I will from now on refer to my cubicle as “cubicle 3B23”. The idea developed to write regular post under the title “Cubicle 3B23”, reporting about the good, the bad and the ugly of corporate life. This is the first in a series. Maybe it’s the first and only one. But i thought the idea was “cute” to try it out, to see where it goes and to let the future emerge.

The initial idea was to do a one-off under a different title (go the the very end of the blog to find out), but a friend told me that “Let me entertain you” makes you want to read on. So here we go.

Sometimes people come to cubicle 3B23 for some good fun brainstorming: “Do you have 5 minutes, I want to pick your brain ?”. Others put their head into cubicle 3B23 and say something like “Oh, i see you’re busy, i will come back later”. The latter usually have something “sad” in their eyes.

These are the moments to connect. In both cases i know this connection will make somehow a difference.

The other day, Joe was the one with sad eyes.

He was doubting himself, and wondering whether he should do his own thing, or continue to shut-up and play the game of being mister nice-guy.

Joe was responsible for a program incentivizing staff to think out of the box. At TEDx Brussels, i heard a better expression for that: “burn the box”.

In the planning for the new year, he was asked to run the program again. But he felt it was just not right. He felt he would be cheating the people joining the program. He was doubting whether it really mattered. He felt that he would not be able to look those folks in the eyes at the end of the program as the expectations created were just over the top. It’s a bit like the subtle difference between lying and not fully telling the truth. Both don’t feel right, and appeal to your ethical compass.

He was tired. In search for his real purpose in life. Fed up with playing games.

We had a long chat. He kept on complaining about the artificial aspects in corporate life. Somewhere 1/2 way in our discussion, i asked Joe what really kept him going. What was giving him energy. In what circumstances he felt he could be his true self. Not the self that you construct/imagine to be in synch with the big bad world out there. No, the self that silently is waiting inside you to be discovered. To be stumbled upon is probably a better way to say this.

Joe gave it a long thought, and said: “when i can inspire other people, and make them happy”. (it was another answer, but then i would reveal too much about that person).

There was a short silence, and went to my PC, searched my music collection, started a song and said: “This is you, Joe !”

The song was right on. I could see the emotional impact on Joe. The song was “Let me entertain you” by Robbie Williams.

Robbie Williams' 'You Know Me' Music Video Debuted

I am an all-time fan of Robbie Williams. He is a great performer – once saw a concert of him in Wembley stadium – and you can love or hate him, but for me he is really authentic. Even if he puts on his rabbit/bunny head on. But i deviate. Although, this post is mainly about authenticity.

“Let me entertain you” is a high tempo energizing pop/rock song, but the real secret in Williams’ are often the lyrics.

Hell is gone and heaven’s here
There’s nothing left for you to fear
Shake your arse come over here
Now scream
I’m a burning effigy
Of everything I used to be
You’re my rock of empathy, my dear
So come on let me entertain you
Let me entertain you

I could see the sparkles in Joe’s eyes. “Yes, that’s what i want !” he said. “I want to entertain people ! Make them happy. Make them move/shake their arse.”

I have to say, me too.

But for me it translates into having this strange connection with “stage”

When i was young (…), i used to be a quite successful DJ. I organized rock concerts. I was on one of the first free-radio stations (end seventies). I even was singer in a rock-band.

I was always attracted by “stage”. The good buddies feeling with the roadies. The equipment being set-up. A great show. The after party.

Also today, when we do “events”, i love being close to the stage. I love to put together a program like Innotribe, and see how that resonates with the audience. Maybe we should do a TEDx @ Sibos 😉

I love to have and to apply authentically that soft “power” to move people emotionally. I even have that “stage” feeling when i try to do a good presentation in PowerPoint, Prezi, Adobe or whatever. Always in search for some good metaphors, good supporting images, have some “rhythm”, add some music to it.

But the last couple of weeks, it started smelling “like a trick”.

It has become “too easy” to put a presentation together that is “different” than the average.

On my blog, i often experiment a very little with fonts, font colors and sizes, left/right indents etc. But it all starts smelling like a “trick”. Starts smelling like on auto-pilot. That’s why in this blog post no “tricks” with fonts. I don’t feel that way today.

I once was told that one recognizes the best the feelings of others when you recognize them with yourself. For ex if you easily spot arrogant people, that’s probably because you’re arrogant yourself. Projection that is called, i believe.

That’s why i feel a bit like Joe. I recognize the feeling. I can do more with my skills. I am in search for that something extra. Like Joe, I am not happy anymore with just well executing a job.

I want to make a difference. Not just a ripple but a wave.

My wife sometimes asks me: “Peter, why don’t you settle down ? Look at the others. They don’t worry that much.” But i can’t. And i doubt. Is this my true self ? Is this who i really am ? Or is this the image that i’d like people to have from me ?

By now you probably get a feel of the initial title of this blog post. It was “doubting my impact”. Doubting my impact when working for this or that particular company. For this or that particular audience. Not doubting my skills or my added value.

I know i have the holy fire and can ignite others.

But doubting my added value and whether at the end of the day it’s all worth it. Whether at the end of the day it all made a difference. Whether at the end of the day there is some new meat on the bone. Whether it really matters.

This blog is often walking a thin balance between telling from the field, and packaging/romanticizing the story a bit that it just triggers the intelligent reader to do something with it but without going in “full contact”. The thin balance between private and public when you go public with a blog.

One of my bosses used to say “Management is a full contact sport”.

Ouch !

Do i want to be there ? Not in the way he meant it.

But yes, i want to go “full contact” in the connection. In keeping the doors of cubicle 3B23 open. To pick my brain or to share your pain.

Who feels the same ? Who wants to share his story ? Who wants to follow ?

Emotional Zombies

Posted on January 3, 2010 by petervan

Great post on “Who needs employees anyway ?”. Discovered via Fred Zimny’s Blog.

This is based on a recent “Global Workforce Survey” conducted by Towers Perrin, an HR consultancy. In an attempt to measure the extent of employee engagement around the world, the company polled more than 90,000 workers in 18 countries. The survey covered many of the key factors that determine workplace engagement, including: the ability to participate in decision-making, the encouragement given for innovative thinking, the availability of skill-enhancing job assignments and the interest shown by senior executives in employee well-being.

Barely 21%

of employees are truly engaged in their work, in the sense that they would “go the extra mile” for their employer.

Nearly 38%

are mostly or entirely disengaged, while the rest are in the tepid middle.

Surprisingly, 86%

of the employees in the Towers Perrin study said they loved or liked their job.

So, next time you evaluate your yearly employee satisfaction survey, beware of the numbers saying that the majority of employees is happy. Even if you sense in every office, corridor and corner that is not true.

Anyway, why these rather shocking results ? The article suggests a number of reasons:

Ignorance

It may be that managers don’t actually realize that most of their employees are emotional zombies

Indifference

Another explanation: managers know that a lot of employees are flatlining at work, but maybe they simply don’t care

Impotence

It could be that managers do care, but can’t imagine how they could change things for the better. After all, a lot of jobs are just plain boring.

Reputation

The company’s reputation and its commitment to making a difference in the world—is this a company that deserves the best efforts of its people;

Leaders’ Trust

Are the behaviors and values of the organization’s leaders—are they people employees respect and want to follow?

Anybody who has ever read a Dilbert strip knows that cynicism and passivity are endemic in large organizations.

However – in my opinion – we too easily get away with joking about cynicism. In my opinion, it is the cancer of today’s organizations that seem great at the outside, but grim at the inside. They look like golden cages. They offer all the perks possible, but they ignore 3 basic attitudes for any human being to function well.

#1: To have an open mind. Companies/People who do not have an open mind tend to retract into highly judgmental.

#2: To have an open heart. The next level is that of the heart. People who do not have an open heart have developed cynicism as a defense. They have learned NOT to show their heart.

#3: To have an open will. Last but not least, when there is no room for open will, we become control freaks.

In today’s society, driven more and more by openness and transparency, these “tricks” of judging, being cynical and control don’t work anymore.

It all boils down to 3 fundamental needs for every human being:

People who are not able to express themselves (anymore), position themselves as “invulnerable”. In stead of being able to receive love, they compromise on getting appreciation. And in stead of giving love, the defense mechanism becomes one of taking power. As long as we have power games between the silos, the CEO can shout “change” and “innovation” as long as he wants, at the bottom of the pyramid nothing will change.

Surprisingly, the origins of these needs – and their fulfillment or not – is formed during the first 1-3 years of your life. In other words beyond the control of the organization you work for today.

But organizations should be conscious about these facts, and offer their employees probably the most interesting perk they can give: to follow a personal development program that lets the employee explore it’s true self.

Who am I ?
Who am I in a group ?
Who am I in the world ?
Finding your true passion.
Finding your true purpose in life.

And hopefully finding (or founding) a company that welcomes you respectfully as an employee, and gives you the chances to develop your true potential in line with your purpose.

It reminds me of Jim Collins and a 2003 blog post found back earlier today.

The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith:

1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for — what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense — what can you make a living at?

Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.

An to come back to the Global Workforce Survey:

In every industry, there are huge swathes of critical knowledge that have been commoditized—and what hasn’t yet been commoditized soon will be.
Given that, we have to wave goodbye to the “knowledge economy” and say hello to the “creative economy.”
What matters today is how fast a company can generate new insights and build new knowledge—of the sort that enhances customer value.
To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous.
Problem is, you can’t command people to be enthusiastic, creative and passionate.
These critical ingredients for success in the creative economy are gifts that people will bring to work each day only if they’re truly engaged. (Eric Raymond made this point way back in 2001 when he argued that in the new economy, “enjoyment predicts productivity.”)

For passionate readers, i can recommend in this context Eric Raymond’s book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Or a bit an older – but still very relevant book – “The Cultural Creatives”

Must be that I am some sort of +

positive guy when i turn a title like Emotional Zombies” into something positive like “The cultural creatives”

As Seth Godin was saying in his today’s blog:

One of the most common things I hear is, "I’d like to do something remarkable like that, but my xyz won’t let me." Where xyz = my boss, my publisher, my partner, my licensor, my franchisor, etc.

Well, you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later.

In my experience, once it’s clear you’re willing (not just willing, but itching, moving, and yes, implementing) without them, things start to happen. People are rarely willing to step up and stop you, and often just waiting to follow someone crazy enough to actually do something.

I’m going

Come along if you like

Education, Elites and Bologna

Posted on December 27, 2009 by petervan

I was watching this morning a television program with Christine Van Den Wyngaert.

The program was in essence about her views and role in the Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but mu attention was triggered by something she said in the introductory part of the interview.

She was referring to the dramatic decrease of the quality of our education, mainly due to the Bologna Treaty. Just have a look at the Wikipedia link or do a google on Bologna Treaty. Or have a look at the Europa site. The first sentence on that site reads:

The Bologna process aims inter alia at making divergent higher education systems converge towards a more transparent system by 2010, based on three cycles: Degree/Bachelor – Master – Doctorate.

I always get irritated when people talk about “convergence” or “consensus” or “compromise”. For me these terms have a built-in notion of quality-loss.

Indeed, Christine Van Den Wyngaert explains that “thanks” to this treaty it was not possible anymore – no, even forbidden – to offer education with the same high quality standards as we used to have.

All this in the name of democratization of education and to give everybody access to higher education.

She went on by stating that many base foundation courses of general knowledge were being reduced to the level of “kindergarten”.

And that for some professions – definitely for a judge or a lawyer – good solid foundation education about history, society, etc are quite fundamental for doing the profession.

It is getting pedantic in a sense that even talking about creating an “elite” of scientists, judges, of whatever profession starts being banned straight-away.

I do not want my child being educated in mediocrity.

It made me think of the book “The Five Minds of the Future” by Howard Gardner.

I am reading it on my Kindle as we speak.

In that book, Howard Gardner arguments that education should not only be based on memorizing lots of information, but that education (whether at school or at home) should more focus on some essential skills that will be needed in the future (of real-time, high-information-based-society).

He calls these the 5 “minds” for the future. They are:

The disciplined mind
The Synthesizing mind
The Creating mind
The Respectful mind
The Ethical mind

About these “minds”, Gardner says:

Any individual with a deep understanding of a topic or method can think about it in a variety of ways. Conversely, an individual exhibits her current limitations when she can only conceptualize her topic in a single way.

This is very similar to having a very limited palette of ways to express yourself. Sometimes you hear somebody saying “I cannot dance on this or that sort of music. If i have to dance to that music, i cannot be myself (in an authentic way")”.

That’s pretty poor, if you ask me.

The art is to expand your palette of ways of being yourself in different situations.

Having the right to (the old) high standards of education, being trained in the 5 minds of the future, learning to be authentic in many different ways: all this should be part of the educational package of any young person having some ambitions for the longer term future.

I have come to a point where i do NOT believe anymore that our politicians and the whole system of lobby groups will help us getting there.

I was making the same reflection some weeks ago, when we were having our meeting of the Think Tank on Long Term Future, when i heard my friends complaining on how bad is it is getting in Flanders with respect to getting innovation on the political or any other agenda.

The innovation and education and

cultural agenda

get drowned into a political swamp

of consensus and power games

The end result is often or nothing, or something very grey (because of the consensus), or something very Kafkaesque.

I am getting convinced we have to do it

ourselves

Bring together some smart people in our think tank, and get private funding for the innovation, education and cultural development of the Generation-M.

Because they are looking for the things that really matter.

Brand, Workforce and Innovation

Posted on December 26, 2009 by petervan

If you’re interested in Innovation, you have to subscribe to Blogging Innovation. All posts are just worthwhile reading.

They also have a group on LinkedIn.

Today’s article typically resonated with me. It’s titled: “Combining Brand Management with Workforce Enablement”.

It’s about the speech by Jon Iwata, SVP of communications and marketing at IBM on the future of the communications profession at the November 4th 2009 Institute for Public Relations Distinguished Lecture Series at the Yale Club in New York City. Full text of the speech is here.

Iwata says:

"One day soon, every employee, every retiree, every customer, every business partner, every investor and every neighbor associated with every company will be able to share an opinion about that company with everyone in the world, based on firsthand experience. The only way we can be comfortable in that world is if every employee of the company is truly grounded in what their company values and stands for."

IBM has developed an IBM Brand “System”:

Picture a framework with five columns. From left to right the columns are labeled what it means to look like IBM, to sound like IBM, to think like IBM, to perform like IBM and ultimately to be IBM. Simple enough. You could in 30 seconds create the same frame for J&J, Chevron or Ketchum. But of course it would — and should — take you much longer to fill in the details. Every word, every phrase and description in that framework would be painstakingly chosen. Because this is your corporate genome. It describes what makes your company unique. Developing the framework is hard work, but it’s only the foundation. Because, like a genome, the real work — and value — are in bringing it to life.

and also:

For example, we are now collaborating with our colleagues in HR to redesign IBM’s leadership competencies for the first time in many years. If this is ultimately approved by the CEO – and we’ll know in a few weeks – it will mark the first time in my 25-year career that the foundational elements of HR will not only be aligned with our brand and workforce strategies, they will be essentially the same.

I would like to see some examples on how this works in an environment where efficiency programs are run in parallel with innovation programs and (re)branding programs. What is the ideal role of HR in all of this ? Will HR be degraded to a “management” machine to deal with lay-offs only ?

I’d love to see more HR in a true leadership role. Leadership as opposite to management in its narrow definition of executing a course set out by somebody else. See also below the very important message about the role for HR in creating the eminence of our workforce.

About this, Iwata says:

But the building of constituency goes beyond the reaching of audiences. It gets to how a company establishes shared attraction and shared values: how it shapes not just common ground, but a deeper, enduring, shared idea.

They weren’t simply sending messages to audiences. They were creating audiences.

They weren’t shaping relationships with existing constituents. They were creating constituencies.

This is the basis of our Smarter Planet strategy. We are specifically and deliberately working to validate and stoke the optimism of forward-thinkers. We are saying to them – because we really believe it ourselves: “Your hopes for your industry, your city, your environment, your community are now within your grasp. This isn’t a metaphor. We can actually build a smarter planet.”

Our work of late tries to get at the real substance of change, the real issues on the table. The work is long-form. It’s argued, not pitched. It doesn’t focus on our products and services.

It purposefully invites people to

think

Wow !

And lastly about Building the eminence of our workforce.

I believe that 2010 will be the year that corporations grapple with and ultimately accept that their employees are engaging with – and must engage with – social media. We’ll certainly go through a necessary period when people raise all sorts of objections.

The CFO worries about financial disclosure. The General Counsel fears intellectual property leakage. HR will say we’re helping competitors recruit our people. And everyone will be nervous about criticism of management. These are all legitimate.

So the answer to all this may be another set of policies and guidelines for using social media. My employer has indeed such a set of policies. They are difficult to find, but they exist. But are another set of policies and guidelines a solution. Will the fact that each employee has to sign-off the blogging policy or any other code of conduct really change our actual behavior ?

I doubt it.

Let’s say we actually do that. Then what? Policies and guidelines may keep individuals and their companies out of trouble but, by themselves, they won’t create business value.

The key is to build the eminence of our workforce.

What do I mean by “eminence”? No matter what their industry, their profession, their discipline or their job, people with eminence are acknowledged by others as expert. It’s not simply to know a lot about Tuscan villas, digital cameras or banking. You need to be recognized as an expert. And when you show up – in person, or online; in writing, or in conversation – you are both knowledgeable and persuasive. Because being an expert and being good at communications aren’t the same thing, as we all know.

Which is why

we need to make the creation

of this kind of workforce

an intentional act,

a new discipline in our function

Yes, we need guidelines and policy – but also training, resources and support for broad networks of experts.

Related to this, i found just a couple of days ago a great post from Hugh McLeod’s site titled: If your boss tells you, “our brand must speak with one voice”, quit.

I once had a boss who didn’t like the fact that I had a blog. Especially when I blogged about stuff that was relative to our industry. Yeah, “Our brand must speak with one voice” was his idea. Yes. I know.

Actually, the reality was, HE wanted to be “The One Voice”. He wanted all the credit, and all the rewards. He didn’t mind me put ting words into his mouth– stuff I had written– so long as the outside world gave him all the credit. But he didn’t want me in any other role, other than subservient, nowheresville wage slave. He fought tooth and nail to keep me from ever becoming a rainmaker inside the company, something he wanted all for himself.

And back to the end of the speech by Iwata:

To me, this is what “values” are about… and what “authenticity” means. This is about consciously choosing a unique identity. And it’s about actually being that unique thing you have chosen to be.

In other words:

Leading by Being

Petervan Studios

Artistic Interventions – Interruptions – Provocations

Category Archives: Generation-M

Hug my PAD

Body Part Maker

Cubicle 3B23: Our company is infected !

Ethical Re-boot

Love and Hate Relationships

How real is your Innovation ?

Cubicle 3B23: Let me entertain you

Emotional Zombies

Education, Elites and Bologna

Brand, Workforce and Innovation

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