insights on technology

What meeting?

Wonder why your brainstorming sessions are a bust? Mitch Ditkoff (Ideachampions) gives us some of the most common reasons:

1. Poor facilitation
2. Wrong (or poorly articulated) topic
3. Unmotivated participants
4. Insufficient diversity of participants
5. Inadequate orientation
6. No transition from “business as usual”
7. Lack of clear ground rules
8. Sterile meeting space
9. Hidden (or competing) agendas
10. Lack of robust participation
11. Insufficient listening
12. Habitual idea killing behavior
13. Attachment to old (“pet”) ideas
14. Discomfort with ambiguity
15. Hyper-seriousness (not enough fun)
16. Endless interruptions
17. PDA addiction (Crackberries)
18. Impatience (premature adoption of the first “right idea”)
19. Group think
20. Hierarchy and/or competing sub-groups
21. Imbalance of divergent and convergent thinking
22. No tools and techniques to spark the imagination
23. Inelegant ways of capturing new ideas
24. No time for personal reflection
25. Pre-mature evaluation
26. No follow-up plan

Now that you’ve finished nodding your head 26 times, check out some of the excellent advice to make your next brainstorming session a success. 26 Reasons Why Most Brainstorming Session Fail (and what to do about it)

Blogs are written for all sorts of reasons. Most are a labour of love viewed by a small band of readers. Corporate blogs on the other hand can and should have a much broader reach. They can be an important part of supporting an organization’s brand.

So what makes a successful corporate blog?

First and foremost is the realization that a blog is for the customer’s benefit – not for the company’s. It’s important to remember readers will only come back if there is value for them. That’s right value for them. Not value for the company. Readers don’t care if you are providing a nice, efficient press release site.

Rick Burnes reminds us of the real reason for corporate blogs in a posting at ZDNet.

Blogs for Customers, Not About Companies

If you look closely at the search results you pull up every day (and even some of the Alltop corporate blogs), you’ll see that an alternative model of corporate blogging is beginning to emerge. Instead of writing about themselves, companies are following the lead of the other company blog in the Technorati Top 100 — Signal vs. Noise. They’re beginning to create content that’s not about their business, but that appeals to their buyer personas.

Whole Foods is going beyond their blog and publishing recipes. American Express is publishing small-business advice. Indium Corporation is writing about thermal interface materials.

In each of these cases, the company is attracting a broad audience by focusing on content that is interesting to the demographic it serves rather than content about the products it sells.

Every company that is considering starting a corporate blog should spend some thinking about how this effort can support their brand. Otherwise publishing the blog could be wasted effort.

Looking for the edge in today’s economy? Trying to increase employee engagement? Don’t forget your employees.

In this interview Tom Peters and Seth Godin tell us if you have loyal employees the loyal customers will come.

There are more interview excerpts on the site “Inside the Entrepreneurial Mind”.

• Loyal employees vs. loyal customers
• Let’s hear it for the blog
• Are Gen X employees different?
• The effect of social networking on brands
• Social networking – good for small business

Check out New Perspectives on Business. Also take a look at the other sections: “The Business of Technology”, “How the Biz does Business”, “The Business of Food” and “Richard Branson”.

The site is Open Forum, sponsored by American Express.

We often thing that life is a journey that we start at A and finish at C with very few decisions or opportunities for change along the way. In reality there are many decisions we can make. We have a tremendous amount of information available to us that provides opportunity to make a change.

Check out this 2-part video blog “Life is not so linear” from Beachwalks.tv.

Part 1

Part 2

Beachwalks with Rox is a great video blog that provides some insightful reflection and personal development. Lots of great episodes on the site.

Although it’s not Valentine’s right now, this little video is good reminder at any time. Its also catchy.

From: Mahalo Daily

With Twitter we are forced to be short and to the point. 140 characters and your done.

But could you communicate a deep and meaningful thought, a short story in just 50 words (and only 50). Rajesh Setty can. He has published some of his mini sagas together with a fitting photo. Check out Mini Sagas: Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business.

This set has 15 mini sagas – check out “Lost” and others.

Sometimes we are lost

changethis.com is a great site that has a variety of thought provoking manifestos.

I’m always amazed at those that can get things done and still have time to relax and enjoy life. Timothy Ferriss has written a book called the ”The 4-Hour Workweek”. This is a book that I am putting on the top of my reading list.

Then comes the “call to action” – implement some of these techniques in my everyday life.

The following is a short interview with Veronica Belmont on Mahalo Daily.

From: Mahalo Daily

We have all heard it before – North American’s and European’s are the wealthiest in the world. Just how wealthy are you in comparison to 6+ billion people on this earth? The Global Rich List shows you just how skewed the distribution of income has become. Enter your income and you’ll see how you rate. Try $50,000, $20,000, $8,000. This is a real eye opener. It should make us realize that we in North America live in untold abundance.

It has been over six months since I first heard about Nata Village. A vlog by world traveller and producer Jon Rawlison on Rocketboom first gave me notice about this village in Botswana that is struggling with AIDS. Jon setup a blog that allowed the AIDS education and prevention efforts in this small village to reach the global community. The Internet can be used for good and bad. This is one of many examples of good.

The blog has regular updates and photos from the village. Donations for the work in Nata can also be made on the site.

The ability of anyone to blog opens up new possiblities of sharing the Good News. Everyone knows somebody and they can be the sphere of influence in their lives.