The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
– Hunter S. Thompson
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Colbert cartoons insults Danes
Last night, american TV-pundit Stephen Colbert on his show The Colbert Report attempted to “fix” the growing controversy over the Muhammed cartoons by insulting Denmark with his own scribblings.In two cartoons, which he drew himself, he managed to offend such major Danish icons as Hamlet, Hans Christian Andersen and Queen Margrethe. To top it off, he even went after Lars von Trier. We Danes cannot let this pass. Colbert admits to being afraid of muslim retaliation – let’s show him that Danes are not to be trifled with either.
You can see the segment here – but be warned, it is strong stuff. (5MB, 1 min, wmv).
I hereby declare a special Danish Fatwah over Stephen Colbert, to be removed only after he apologizes unreservedly to all of Denmark.
Sign your name in the comments, to support our protest! If you have any ideas for specific Danish penalties we might threaten Colbert with, please add those also. Maybe we can exploit his irrational fear of bears.
(Image taken from Madsenblog who also spotted these horrible slurs).
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Moving soon
There will be no new posts for a few days, while I prepare to move this blog to a new server and onto WordPress (which is of course open source and free :o)
The blog will be back later this week with new posts, a new design and (yes, finally) an RSS feed. The URL will remain positivesharing.com, but all permalinks to previous posts will change. Sorry.
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Muhammed cartoons
Wikipedia has an up-to-date overview of the whole brouhaha over the Muhammed cartoons.
What many seem to be missing is this: The problem is not Islaam, the problem is fundamentalism. There are fundamentalist moslems, yes, but also fundamentalist christians, jews, hindus, anti-homosexuals, conservatives, communists, etc…
And while fundamentalism seems to be on the rise these days, I believe there is cause for optimism. Today fundamentalist movements and organizations everywhere are being crowded by an increasing modernism driven primarily by science and mass media. Lately the internet has been pressuring them even further.
Fundamentalists everywhere currently lash out in panic at seeing their base erode, and we’ll see it again and again, though less and less. In that light it’s hardly surprising. I mean, we can’t really expect fundamentalists to go out quietly, can we? :o)
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Podcasts from the WorldBlu Forum
A short while ago I spoke at one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to: The WorldBlu Forum on Organizational Democracy. Previous coverage here, here, here and here.
The organizers have put up podcasts with many of the speakers including Dan Pink, David Weinberger and … me (7 min., 8 Mb mp3) being interviewed by the charming and delightful Susanne Goldstein. I somehow manage to go all the way back to Aristotle and the Dalai Lama and then talk about happiness at work and how it relates to democratic workplaces.
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eXtreme Projects
eXtreme Programming is a process used to structure software development projects. It is radically different from more traditional methods, in that it defers more of the detailed planning till later in the project. Most traditional methods try to answer all the big questions up front. This makes it less susceptible to changes that occur during the project – something that can otherwise seriously disrupt software projects.
eXtreme Programming, or XP, is based on a set of principles that at first may seem awkward and counter-intuitive, but which actually support each other nicely, resulting in a process that is:
- More efficient
- More predictable
- More flexible
- More fun
Since I switched from the IT business to making people happy at work, I’ve used some of the XP principles in many other situations, where they have proved to work just as well. Here is my list of which XP principles translate to non-IT projects, and how to utilize them:
Frequent small releases
Rather than spending a long time building up to one huge release, find a way to divide your project into several smaller releases. This means that your product makes contact with the real world sooner, and allows you to better incorporate feedback from actual customers/users. in XP, you want to release something every 2-3 weeks, which is certainly preferable to working on a project for 6 months, delivering it to the customer and THEN learning that it doesn’t fulfill their needs. And don’t tell me this never happens.
Iteration planning
This means breaking the current goals down into tasks that are small enough to be accomplished in 1-3 days. Based on these estimates, the teams decides which tasks to include for the next deliverable. This means that the work immediately ahead gets broken down into small, manageable pieces and you can easliy track progress.
Move people around
Rather than assigning fixed roles to each person, let people switch roles. This enhances knowledge sharing and learning and also helps avoid information bottlenecks. XP also lets people choose for themselves which part of the project they want to work on.
Daily stand-up meetings
You’ll be amazed how much faster meetings go, when people can’t sleep in their chairs. in XP projects every day starts with a stand-up meeting to coordinate the days work.
The customer is always available
That way you don’t have to guess what the customer wants/intends/needs. You can easily and quickly ask.
Pair programming (or pair work)
This means that no work is done by one person alone – each and every task is tackled by at least two people. This may seem inefficient at first, but experience shows that people do better work when working together and it also enhances cross-training and team-work.
Simplicity
Choose the simplest solution that could possibly work. Don’t get fancy when simple will do.
Create spike solutions
If you’re faced with a difficult choice, don’t analyse it to death, trying to look for the right solution. Instead create spike solutions – quick tests that allow you to try various possible solutions out. This gives you fast, specific, real-life data to let you choose and helps avoid paralysis by analysis.
Collective code ownership (or collective project ownership)
Everybody owns the whole project. This helps avoid bottlenecks and that unpleasant situation where people feel that they own a part of the project and seem reluctant to share knowledge or accept criticism on their “property”.
No overtime
Period!
I believe that these principles can be applied to many kinds of projects and I have done so myself with considerable success. Are they always applicable? No. Read the XP entry on when to apply XP for some inspiration on when to use XP – and when not to.
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Pixar gets it
The Holllywwod way of organizing a movie is by using only contract labour. The vast majority of movie people, from grips and gaffers to high-paid actors, are in essence self-employed and are hired for one movie at a time.Pixar goes against this trend, by focusing on people:
Contracts allow you to be irresponsible as a company. You don’t need to worry about keeping people happy and fulfilled. What we have created here – an incredible workspace, opportunities to learn and grow, and, most of all, great co-workers – is better than any contract.
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We’ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a people-centered business. Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We’re trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It’s no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it’s a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people.Says Randy S. Nelson, the dean of Pixar University.
Among the advatages cited are:
* People learn to work more efficiently together through long-term collaborations
* People can better support each other through difficult creative processes
* A culture of learning
* People have more fun
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Ping-pong matrix style
This video is really, really funny!
It also shows how conditioned we’ve become to Matrix-style slow-motion, bullet-time, 3D-rotation effects.
