If your job is wrapping the customers’ purchases (in this case silk saris) in a shop in India, you face a choice. You can either think “MAN, what a boring job” and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Or you can do what this guy does:
That’s happiness at work in 15 seconds :o)
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at 5 very different events:
And to my great pride, 4 out of these 5 events ended with a standing ovation. That is not really any serious measure of success, but lemme tell ya – it feels great :o)
Douglas Robar from Percipient Studios just sent me some great pics that he took from the Umbraco event, where I went a little out of my comfort zone and spoke not about happiness at work (I gave that speech at the same conference last year) but about how to create a great conference and a happy community. My awesome co-worker Arlette also came on stage and did a little dancing with the crowd. Yes, she made 300 IT people dance. She’s THAT good :o)
Check these pictures out:
There are two great events coming up in my region that I’ll be keynoting at.
The first one is WorldBlu Live Copenhagen, a local follow-up to last month’s Excellent WorldBlu Live conference in San Francisco.
The theme is democratic workplaces. Research shows that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable and more customer-focused. In the best organisations, spreading freedom at work is more than a human resources initiative – it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business.
WorldBlu LIVE Copenhagen showcases democratic innovation and radical thinking which will leave you inspired, full of fresh ideas, and connected with a world-class community of leaders!
The WorldBlu LIVE Copenhagen experience will enable you to:
Even though it is a Copenhagen event, we’re having the whole day in Danish and bringing in some great international speakers, including:
And of course yours truly :o)
Read all about it and sign up here.
The other conference I want to mention is 360 Entrepreneurship, a conference in Malmö, Sweden for female entrepreneurs. From the web site:
Don’t miss this European conference for women entrepreneurs and business owners and make the most of your potential in business!
You will have access to a Mastermind group of internationally renown, inspiring keynote and workshop presenters delivering leading edge strategies, tools and resources to strengthen your business results! Get the answers to your questions and walk away with the strategies and the tool kit you need to accelerate your business. Take advantage of the opportunities to build valuable international connections and promote your business in the 360 Business Expo.
Whether you already run a successful company or just started out, give yourself and your business the boost you deserve. Join the 360Entrepreneurship Summit in Sweden as we celebrate the potential and success of women entrepreneurs!
On May 26 we had our annual conference on happiness at work here in Copenhagen and it was our best event yet.
Here’s a 3-minute video with some highlights from the day:
Part of the video is in Danish, part of it in English.
You can also find materials, slides and photos from the conference here.
The day was absolutely fantastic and participant feedback has been phenomenal. The average rating for the day is 4,8 out of 5 – that is almost unheard of :o)
Check out this comment from Cindy:
I made up a game for my weekly department meetings to refresh and train the staff in a fun and competitive way.(I was managing a despatch department in a manufacturing company)
The Game
I made a list of questions relating to the department, it’s procedures and the stock etc.
I purchased a bag of lollies and treats (a couple of dollars taken from petty cash)
I gave each person at the meeting a bell and the first one to ring the bell and get the question right got a lollie or treat.
The overall winner was the person who scored the most lollies/treats.This game created excitement because the staff had to beat each other to the buzzer and that got them thinking at the same time. It made them all feel like a winner in the end because everyone ended up with some prizes.
However the best benefit from this game was that if they did not know the answer or couldn’t remember the answer (sometimes a person may have their facts wrong and you have been trying to enforce the correct answer – usually someone who has been there a while and think they no longer need training) that person walked away from the meeting having learnt something they will probably remember because it was taught in a fun environment.A fun way of refreshing and training.
The staff grew to love the weekly quizzes and became quite competitive about it.Try it at your next meeting
Cheers
What do you think – could this work in your workplace? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in a meeting?
Original post: Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings.
I want to say a great big Thank You and a High Five You Rock to the conference arrangers and all who attended my keynote at Talks 2.0 in Oporto on May 7. Thanks for a fantastic time – I really enjoyed it. You guys were great and the entire day was fun and inspiring.
The background for the event was serious, namely the financial crisis in Portugal, which is affecting every aspect of work life in the country.
In my keynote, I presented my view, which is that a serious crisis only makes it MORE necessary to focus on and create happy workplaces. If we don’t the resulting stress, frustration, hopelessness and cynicism ruins peoples’ work lives and private lives, it makes us less productive and creative, and it means that economic recovery takes longer.
It was my first time in Portugal, but I got a great impression of the country and especially of the people. With this much energy, creativity, passion, humor and happiness, there is nothing you guys can’t do!
Here are some materials from the day including, slides, videos, articles and more.
(more…)
I recently spoke in Portugal at the amazing Talks 2.0 conference on Happiness and Creativity in the Workplace.
At the event I announced that I would release the Portuguese translation of my first book “Happy Hour is 9 to 5” as a free e-book. Consider this my tiny contribution to workplace happiness and economic recovery in Portugal.
So here it is – it’s a completely free and unprotected pdf which you may copy and send to as many people as you like.
Feel free to copy it far and wide:
I’m releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This means that you may not change the e-book or make money off of it. Apart from that, go wild :o)
Happy reading – and please let me know how you like it in a comment here.
WorldBlu, an American company dedicated to promote democracy in the workplace, have just released their annual list of the world’s most democratic workplaces – and we’re on it.
On this year’s list you’ll see companies like Davita, Groupon, Hulu and many other great companies who have based their organizations on freedom and democracy instead of command and control.
If you scroll through the list, you will find our company sandwiched between WD-40 and Zappos.com. That’s what I call a place of honor :o) You can see the entire list here.
This marks first year that you’ll find any Danish companies on the list, and you’ll find no less than three! Apart from us, there’s also our good friends at Podio, makers of the coolest collaboration software I know and Valtech, a large IT consulting company.
The reason why we run our company democratically is simple: Democracy makes people happy and happy people do a better job. Because we run democratically, we are much better at fulfilling our vision of making many more people happy at work around the world.
I’ll talk more about this at WorldBlu Live in San Francisco in May, where I’ll be speaking along with many fascinating and cool people. I have been to every single one of these and they are the very best business conferences I’ve been to. They even beat the TED conference for the sheer energy, inspiration and cool people you meet. You should sign up for the WorldBlu Live conference right now or you will miss out on something amazing.
How about you? Is your workplace democratic? Are you involved in making decisions that impact youWould you like it to be?
Billy Waters, a loyal reader, composed this mind map of my first book, Happy Hour is 9 to 5:
Thanks Billy – it’s much appreciated :o)
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