An story on NPR this morning about Grind, a new co-working start-up raises some intriguing questions about where organizations may be evolving in an increasingly freelance economy. JaegerSloan: Workers share office space at Grind, a co-working company in New York City. Those who want to use Grind’s facilities are vetted through a competitive application process. [...]
Tagged Design, NPR, OrganizationI’m giving a talk next week to the North Shore Interest Group of the Harvard Business School Club of Chicago. The announcement is below. We’ll have Internet access and about 45 minutes. What would be on your list of must see items? Must know stories? Most useful perspectives? The comments are open for your input. Or [...]
Tagged HBS, Social mediaHere’s a relatively short talk by Adam Savage of Mythbusters at TED-Ed on how curiosity and simple ideas lead to discovery. Savage is an excellent storyteller and these are stories worth hearing. I’m particularly taken with his observation that it can sometimes take years before you understand why your brain holds on to a particular idea. [...]
Tagged curiosityBob Sutton’s Work Matters Blog continues to be one of my best sources of managerial insight. One of the challenges of managing is choosing whether and when to intervene in your organization (presuming that micro-management is not your goal). In this recent excellent post, Sutton offers the distinction between two classic acronyms as an excellent diagnostic [...]
Tagged diagnostic, Knowledge work, managementThe New York Times recently ran an excellent overview of the evolving state of data analytics. Big Data’s Impact in the World – NYTimes.com: “The story is similar in fields as varied as science and sports, advertising and public health – a drift toward data-driven discovery and decision-making. “It’s a revolution,” says Gary King, director [...]
Tagged analytics, Big Data, decision makingI’m just wrapping up a course I’ve been teaching at DePaul’s School for New Learning on Understanding Organizational Change. I’ve grounded the course in a view of organizations as dynamic systems from the perspective of Jay Forrester, Donella Meadows, and Peter Senge. In the last few sessions, we’ve also been discussing the notion of Wicked [...]
Tagged DePaul, LLS435, Organization, systemsBeginner’s Mind. Mindfulness. Reflective Practice. As the New Year gets underway, I’m juggling ideas on how to push forward on several fronts including McGee’s Musings. All have to do with rebalancing the mix of new thinking, ongoing learning, and drawing on experience. They also all have to do with variations on the notion of doing [...]
Euan Semple’s first book(of many I hope) has just hit the net in e-book format. It’s already on my iPad awaiting my next flight. I’ve known Euan long enough to know that it will be excellent even before I read it so I am recommending it now. I’ll follow up with a review later. – [...]
Tagged Euan SempleI’ve often struggled with the notion of definitions when working in organizations. On the one hand, too many of us hide our ignorance and uncertainty behind a wall of jargon and terminology. Terms fall in and out of favor and their relationship to the underlying real world is often less important than their value from [...]
Tagged Knowledge work, OrganizationToday marks the tenth year that I’ve been writing here. Like all things organic the pace ebbs and flows. Topics evolve and morph. Technologies appear and disappear. Over all this time, the reward that turns out to matter most is the opportunity to make and build relationships. This week brought an excellent example. I was [...]
