Archive for the 'Biz' category
HarvardBusiness.org
via Why Leaders Need Stories: A Lesson from Don Hewitt.
There are three reasons why a good story can be a useful leadership tool:
To inform. We all want the facts, but if a leader wants the facts to matter he needs to add a little seasoning. Stories can take raw data and give it life. For example, why not use a spreadsheet to tell a story about rising sales, or declining quality? Use the data to make your points. Then, flesh out that explanation with stories about the effect on individuals, teams and the company as a whole.
To involve. If you need to get people on your side, you need to involve them in the process. You need to engage their interest. For example, if an executive needs to persuade people to support an initiative, she can describe how the initiative will benefit the customer but also emphasize how it will improve the lot of employees, too. (More customers, more sales, more revenues, more jobs, more opportunities for promotion, etc.)
To inspire. Employees become jaded; there is only so much “importance” they can absorb, even when their jobs are at stake. So it falls to leaders to find ways to inspire their teams. Stories are the ideal vehicle for inspiring people because successful ones can dramatize the human condition. A story about a customer service representative who drove to the house of a customer to rectify an error, or a sales person who drove through a raging blizzard to close a sale, can quickly become the stuff of corporate legend. These stories give sustenance in times of travail, and say to an employee faced with long odds, “If he can do it, so can I.”
To add to this article, leaders need stories to create a culture, or even a culture change. Think about a leader in your past who has shared a story of amazing triumph or disastrous failure to a department or organization. The story tells will always paint a picture as to what is needed by everyone in the company, whether it be personal sacrifice, accountability, experimentation, or the ability to break rules when bureaucracy creates needless hurdles.
Categories: Biz, Leadership
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HarvardBusiness.org
via Should Work Make Us Happy?.
According to Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton, we are living in a unique era, when we are encouraged to seek happiness through work. The idea of work as a source of fulfillment has been around much longer (championed by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century), as has work as a source of meaning (articulated by Victor Frankl in the 1940s). Yet work as a source of happiness is something else. De Botton believes that while work has been important in all societies, it is now so closely tied up with our identity that the first question we ask new acquaintances is not where they come from, but what they do.
In his new book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, de Botton interviews a range of workers, from rocket scientists to biscuit manufacturers to accountants to artists to find out what makes jobs fulfilling — or soul-destroying. One of the most disturbing discoveries he makes is that most of us are still working at jobs chosen for us by our sixteen-year-old selves.
Categories: Biz
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Gina Trapani
via Forget the Business Card. Just Google Me.
It’s pretty simple: Google is the new business card. Professionals who want to remain contactable, even as they hop jobs, want to stay high up in web search results. Updating a personal blog is the labor-intensive way to do this; setting up a LinkedIn or even a Facebook page can also get someone with a unique name high up in search results.
For people with a common name — or a name similar to someone with a stronger Internet presence — Google Profiles comes to the rescue
Categories: Biz, Tech
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I went to The Donut Whole for the first time today. They just opened after the first of the year and I think I found a new (and more affordable) location for donuts, coffee, and studying for homework. It’s a creative and innovative alternative to traditional donut & coffee shops; the store is arranged to accommodate both art and music performances while their delicious donuts easily out perform some of the other local shops. Their hours are 6am to midnight, but their drive-thru is 24 hours.
I especially dig the art on the walls, the nostalgic and creatively recycled decor, and the friendly staff. Their chocolate/peanut-butter donut was amazing along with their reasonably-priced mocha espresso. I really liked their selection of hard-to-find beverages, such as micro-brewed root beer.
From their myspace page:
Wichita stalwart Michael Carmody and longtime Old Town dynamo Angela Etter have partnered to bring you hot, fresh, tender cake donuts made from scratch and rich, delicious, top-quality coffee drinks.
At The Donut Whole, we believe that the Big Three donut conglomerates produce donuts with holes — but no soul. Our donuts are made with tried-and-true traditional craftsmanship, given a fun modern twist with novel flavor varieties and creative toppings. (We even offer a vegan variety!) Wherever possible, our ingredients are all-natural and sourced locally to reduce our “carbon footprint” — so when you eat a Donut Whole donut, you’re eating the end result of KANSAS labor. Munch ‘em with pride!
Our store will be open all day and night, and will offer convenient drive-up service, free wireless internet, live acoustic music, art shows, donut eating contests and more — much more than your traditional donut shop.
Categories: Biz, Kansas
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Propser Vice President of Operations, Doug Fuller, reported today that Prosper will not proceed with their debt sale. This will likely anger many lenders as they hope to get a refund on some of their bad loans. However, Prosper seems to have good reason to not proceed at this time. The highest bid to buy up the defaulted debt was 1.5 cents to the dollar. Consumer credit card debt that is barred by the statue of limitations still gets .5 to .75 cents to the dollar. As it turns out, debt buyers can get a surplus of debt from credit card defaults, leaving Prosper’s “novel” debt assets to be relatively unconsidered. As Prosper waits to find better solutions for Lenders, they are now also creating a new status of “Charged Off.”
Categories: Biz
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