Do You Blog?

Fred Wilson, A VC in NY, wondered how many of his readers had blogs. He set up a poll and a hackpad to collect readers' blog, url and author, comma delimited There are hundreds of really interesting blogs listed. I put in two.

Browsing the list, I punched on Punctuated Equilibrium and got this:

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Ten Principles of Sound Public Policy

1. The government should only do what people (individuals and associations) cannot do for themselves.
2. A sound public policy would impose the same standards, norms and punishments for non-performance on government as are imposed on the non-state providers.
3. A sound public policy will enhance:a. Choice    b. Competition     c. Freedom
4. A sound policy would consider long-term consequences over all groups of people, not just the good intentions behind the policy.
5. Subsidiarity: A sound policy would enable governance (decisions about taxes and expenditure) closest to the people.
6. A sound policy would place incentives according to Friedman’s Law of Spending:
   a. Spend your money on yourself.    b. Spend your money on someone else.    c. Spend someone else’s money on you.     d. Spend someone else’s money on someone else.
7. A sound policy would rely more on participatory instead of representative democracy (referendums, tax allocations by citizens’ choice).
8. A sound policy will not sacrifice the rights of an individual for the interests of many.
9. The premise of sound public policy should be that people are responsible, resilient and self-governing given the right set of incentives and framework of law.
10. A sound policy should have an expiry date (sunset clause). 

Check out the list of blogs!

Three Chords and the Truth

Sunday, I was watching Justine win the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, flipped the channel and caught the 2000 E Street Band Reunion Tour Concert, Madison Square Garden, on VH1.

There they were, Clarence, Bruce, Max, Nils, Steve, Patti, Garry, and Danny Glock living the dream, the home crowd carrying them through Badlands, sending the chorus back over the band like a tropical deluge.

David Weinberger says we are the band generation, boomer bands.

Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin offers Three chords and the truth, and it's only the last part that's complicated.

Only the last part.

Find out What Is Talk Your Business?

The Company Picnic

Ah...the company picnic. Fond memories of fried chicken, hard dry burgers, 15 varieties of potato salad, a dish with melted marshmallows on top, a mystery casserole, and some wrinkled burned hotdogs.

And lots of employees with their families.

Sometimes leaders are reluctant to attend this traditional summer event (also the holiday party close to the end of the year). Other leaders look forward to these events to move the organization forward.

Why the different perspective? The benefit of attending these events may not be immediately obvious – it wasn't to me.

First thing on Monday morning after the company picnic, my boss found me and asked why I wasn't at the picnic. Had other plans, I answered. The boss said – do you realize the employees want to see you in this informal setting, and they missed the chance since you did not attend. WHAM – had never thought about the picnic from that perspective, and it completely changed my outlook on the importance of company events.

Employees come to a company picnic or holiday party because: it's a chance to socialize with coworkers and the bosses; it's an opportunity to 'see and be seen'; it's a free (or admission is bringing dish to contribute) event, and it's fun.

Leaders who look forward to the picnic are eager to mingle informally with the folks, to meet employees' families, and to see the workers in a non-work environment to gain a more complete impression of who they are. And it can be fun.

Keep in mind, while the leader may be coming to the event to see the employees in a different setting, the employees are coming to observe the boss in a non-work setting as well. They are seeing a different side of the leader – adding greater depth and richness to their view of this person who is leading 'their' organization.

Sometimes a leader should eat a hotdog with the troops to develop a stronger bond between her and the staff – and between the staff and her. A few hours of mingling in this informal setting can make a significant difference in building a stronger organziation.

Which is more compelling:

• the memory of a leader with a half-eaten chicken leg talking about when he played pick-up basketball as a kid and worked tables to get through college – or –
• some guy standing up in front of the company meeting talking about hard times, saying 'Trust me'.
  Who would you rather follow?

...And avoid that mystery casserole!

Entertaining experience - Sales Lab Video Channel

Knowledge Work

The census defines a bunch of us as knowledge workers. What exactly is knowledge work?

Is there a difference between good knowledge work and bad knowledge work?

There better be!

Last week I took the President of a Scientific Society to meet the Executive Director of a Scientific Foundation. We had a President, an Executive Director, an Education Director, two Student Shadows, and a guy doing knowledge work.

A key but under-rated prerequisite of knowledge work is go someplace else and have meetings with new people. Where do you think knowledge comes from?

As 200 people are erroneously credited with saying by the internet, The people who got us in this situation aren’t going to get us out of it!

First thing I noticed was that the two students were wearing big name tags. In solidarity, and because I think nametags improve the quality of meetings, I put mine on.

Later, when I congratulated the students on their tags, everybody else in the room admitted they had been alerted that I like to see nametags. Something to be said for consistency, I guess.

The Executive Director launched a presentation, and the President cut him short with a couple of major ideas for fundraising, better lines of business, and important immediate opportunities, referencing links to the other people at the table’s backgrounds (previously researched from the website).

That led to how the two groups could work together and what other groups they influenced that could join the effort.

Everybody was taking notes in their notebooks, to try to keep the goodness from getting away. I was doing that and also taking notes for this blog. I expect to get new solutions in other people’s meetings.

After an hour, everyone was exhausted, so we watched the slides and videos to rest up, and figure out what other information was needed.

After the video, thank you so much and exeunt.

I was last to leave, developing a whole other assignment in 20 minutes.

Went back to the office and in 23 hours sent a three page digest of what occurred, adding what should have been included, since I knew now what I wisht I’d known then, resulting in a next meeting.

So to review, a knowledge work meeting should be somewhere else, with smart people (Joy’s Law), high energy/short time, and about important work. Preparation is too easy to neglect.

Whoever wants to learn should write the notes, which are to move you forward.

How many of your meetings are that good?

When your meetings miss the mark, is it because nobody took the effort to make them good?

I have nothing against structured meetings, heck I’ve given over a dozen copies of Robert Rules of Order to various secretaries for meetings where I was presiding. (You’d be amazed at what should NOT be in minutes!)

And I have come to a conclusion that a lot of ineffective meetings are because no one has figured out howto make meetings worthwhile.

Perhaps some people need meetings to fill out their day. I’ve seen that. So THEY are having a good meeting.

I’ve seen people who need to attend meetings derail productive meetings so they can get their satisfaction. “Heh heh heh, donut, little girl?”

What if meetings aren’t work? What if meetings are the initiator of work? I’ve written elsewhere, Work is making and keeping promises.

Initiator has to do with work you take on yourself, not what is flung at you by somebody struggling to make a contribooshun without personal effort.

How has database and collaboration technology decreased the value of repeating gatherings of the usual suspects?

Who do you know who hasn’t figured that out? At an attendee cost per hour of how many hundred dollars...fully loaded?

Knowledge work is increasingly important for creating value. Knowledge work is a skill, and like any other skill, can be improved.

How would you improve?

Check out The Lost Blogging Manual – Answers you can use today!

Your Leadership Tribe

Everyone has a tribe – family and friends, other people with whom you have a relationship. This tribe is primarily involved with you in social, support, and general activities. People you've invited (or inherited) to participate in your life.

Taking it to a higher level, Seth Godin wrote about tribes, seeing them as the confluence of the leader (you), an idea (your vision), and a mission of creating change and achieving results (you and your followers). Whether it is:

• marketing a new product or service – or changing how existing products and services are sold, like the progressive sale of eBooks;
• spearheading a health mission like identifying trans fats, labeling their presence in foods, educating consumers, and virtually eliminating the presence in consumer foods; or
• eliminating steps in a process because they no longer serve a purpose – akin to cutting 3-inches off the ham before baking it – because your old oven was too small.

What about your leadership tribe?

It has some traits of your personal tribe – it provides support and offers the insight of experience. It is forward-focused like Seth's tribe but differs – you are not exclusively the lead dog in your leadership tribe.

Your leadership tribe consists of people you know, others you respect, and still others who are a significant influence on your outlook and thoughts – a super peer group in a sense.

More about the three components of your tribe:

• people you know; you have a relationship; you value their insight and input; they participate in your projects and you participate in theirs,
• people you respect, but may not know personally; you read their writings and listen to their talks; you follow them over time; they provide ideas, points of view, thought stimulation – for me this includes folks like: Seth Godin, Fred Wilson, Chris Anderson, Harvey Mackay,
• people who are an influence on you; by what they did; from their ideas and shared wisdom; because they changed the world; they achieved results; they tell the truth, have high standards, and stand by their principles – for me this includes: Peter Drucker, Jacques Cousteau, Ronald Reagan.

With your leadership tribe sometimes you are the leader of others and other times you are a follower of another's leadership. Your tribe is a foundation – tapping their experience and listening to their perspective to broaden what you bring to the project. Your tribe is resource – physical, mental, and emotional participation in your project. Your tribe is a training ground – you learn by doing under the leadership of people you value and respect, and by reading their account of other situations.

As with other peer relationships, you will have the role of a leader, a follower, a driver, a participant, and an advisor at any point in time – even simultaneously for different projects. You may appear alone to observers at times...doing all the work by yourself – in reality, your leadership tribe cloaks you with significant depth and strength to deliver on commitments and goals.

A team focuses on a goal – win the game, complete a project – while a tribe is a more organic structure – on an operational level when working on a project, certainly it is focused on the goal, but when that has been attained the tribe continues to serve its members with new insights, thoughts, sharing, mentoring, validation, and other continuing benefits. Members of the tribe with direct relationships receive inputs and provide outputs from the others.

Who do you have in your leadership tribe?

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