Savvy Saturday March 28th, 2015

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

— Andrew Carnegie

Savvy Saturday March 21, 2015

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

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“Everything we design, designs us back”

Called ontological design, it is a concept that considers how context and environment shape our ideas. Spaces where we work impact our work. Colors make us feel more creative or more restricted in our thinking. Furniture design can impact how we interact with our clients. Spaces with hammocks and green plants can help employees feel playful and encourage new ideas and approaches.Where we do business affects how we do business (and vice versa).

Our experiences are subjective and they can be influenced by our environment. I am reminded of a quote by the famous Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan who said:

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

We often talk about this quote in terms of technology, yet there is so much more to what McLuhan says here. We are natural creators, born to create but also born to become part of the reality we construct and influence with our art, science and business.

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Savvy Saturday March 14, 2015

Savvy Saturday March 7th, 2015

THE MAN IN THE ARENA
Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship In A Republic”
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I was reminded of this wonderful quote while watching Brene Brown’s excellent presentation Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count. Here it is:

Are we social? Are we human?

Today I am sharing with you a small excerpt from Brian Solis’ blog – a blog that talks about the intersection of technology, culture and business. The reason why I think these words are important for all of us to hear and internalize is because social, as Nilofer Merchant pointed out at a conference I attended last year, is not social media. Social is being human. It’s about interaction and about getting closer to our customers to understand them, listen to them and create amazing products from one human being to another. From one organization to another. Media and social media is the WAY to do this. Not the WHY. Read on for some great thoughts from Brian Solis.

Customers and employees are still underserved and underappreciated.

Some would say, in business, social media lost its way.

Others would argue social media failed to live up to the hype.

There are unfortunately still many examples of businesses not getting it, viewing or outsourcing it as a mere “marketing” function, and operating in siloes where social becomes anti-social by design.

Without purpose and collaboration, social will always be just another thing that businesses use to defer the inevitable…change.

Even though the “cool” kids moved on, there’s a real need for businesses to become social…to become human. Our work is just beginning. Perhaps observing the gap between the expertise we have and the insight we need to make a difference is where we need to begin.

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