Book review: The art of systems thinking

November 25, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

Systems thinking is the key to understanding many of the problems that we face today as individuals and organizations. Peter Senge defined it as one of five key disciplines necessary to create a learning organization, but systems thinking is useful far beyond that. This book, subtitled "Essential skills for creativity and problem solving", is … Continue Reading ››

Happy At Work, Leadership

Exercise

November 23, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

Check out this quote from an article in Fast Company:

A nine-month study of 80 executives found that those who worked out regularly improved their fitness by 22% and demonstrated a 70% improvement in their ability to make complex decisions as compared with non-exercisers.

A couple of days ago, there was a doctor on TV talking … Continue Reading ››

Open Source Business

Free books

November 23, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

A lot of people talk content. Baen are delivering, and have been for a couple of years. And oh yeah - successfully! Most of their books are available on paper or as ebooks, and in many cases you can read the first few chapters for free.

In the Baen Free Library you … Continue Reading ››

Change, Leadership

Quote

November 20, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A … Continue Reading ››

Book Reviews, Science/Technology

Book review: Det gener

November 19, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

Tor Nørretranders has written an excellent book about generosity. It has gotten a decent amount of media exposure since it came out, mostly due to some (literally) sexy catchphrases. But the book has merit far beyond easy catchphrases. Humans are generous, artistic, flamboyant, playful individualists. And what's more, we're the happiest when we can … Continue Reading ››

Silly

Infocom adventures

November 17, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

I used to love playing the Infocom adventure games on my Commodore 64. Yes, they had no graphics and no sound. But they did have excellent text and the cleverest, most infuriating puzzles. Also the games had an excellent parser, that could even understand input like "Put the x in the y using z" … Continue Reading ››

Change, Leadership

Appreciative Inquiry resource

November 13, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

I just stumbled on an article describing Appreciative Inquiry. It's an excellent intro from the author of "The thin book of appreciative inquiry".

There isn't much information on how to get started using AI, but the governing principles and values of AI are described. And most importantly, there's an actual case story … Continue Reading ››

Book Reviews, Happy At Work, Leadership

Book review: Birth of the Chaordic Age

November 12, 2002 Alexander 1 Comment

This is one of Dee Hock's favourite tricks to play on an audience. "How many of you recognize this?" he asks, holding out his own Visa card. Every hand in the room goes up. "Now," Hock says, "how many of you can tell me who owns it, where it's headquartered, how it's governed, or where … Continue Reading ››

Book Reviews, Change, Learning

Book review: The thin book of appreciative inquiry

November 11, 2002 Alexander 1 Comment

Appreciative Inquiry is an extremely effective and fun method for introducing positive change. It bases itself on the assumption that improvement can be achieved by focusing on the positive and doing more of that. Normally when we try to improve something, we do the opposite. We focus on what doesn't work, and try do less … Continue Reading ››

Science/Technology

Google sets

November 10, 2002 Alexander Leave a comment

There's a new, seriously cool feature currently being tested on Google, called Google sets. You name a couple of items and Google will attempt to expand that and find more items matching your examples.

Starting with "Bill Clinton" and "George Bush" might give you a set of american presidents while "apples", … Continue Reading ››