The Seven Most Influential Things I Read in 2014
Posted: January 12, 2015 Filed under: Business, Change, Leadership, Misc. | Tags: agile teams, continuous productivity, Davos, holacracy, mindfulness, self organizing, Theory U Leave a comment
Amidst the flurry of year-end recaps, several bloggers did an iteration of “This Most Influential Things I Read This Year.” This is a very interesting question—here’s my take.
Theory U. “Theory U proposes that the quality of the results that we create in any kind of social system is a function of the quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the participants in the system operate from.”
Continuous Productivity: New tools and a new way of working for a new era. “Continuous productivity is an era that fosters a seamless integration between consumer and business platforms.“
Davos: Mindfulness, Hotspots, and Sleepwalkers. All the signs are present that mindfulness is reaching the tipping point.
The Re-working of “Work”. “This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years.”
Build a change platform, not a change program. How to make change the status quo, not an interruption.
Lost and Found in a Brave New World. At a time when so many feel culturally, organizationally and/or personally “lost,” how can we find our way back to the values and beliefs we hold dear? In the new world, new maps are required. The first step is to realize and admit you’re lost.
The Last Re-Org You’ll Ever Do. Three new approaches to doing business are showing promise (Holacracy, Agile Teams and Self Organizing). Viewed as way out there by some, but, nonetheless, they are happening.
Weekly Download 15.1
Posted: January 8, 2015 Filed under: Weekly Download | Tags: Fred Wilson, Oculus Rift, Palmer Luckey, technological unemployment Leave a comment
Here’s a recap of news and notes from around the Web that caught my attention over the past week or so.
The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave. This article talks about structural shifts that are well underway, including the rise of a service economy and the effects of an aging population and a more mature economy overall. We’re seeing the lowest proportion of U.S. adults participating in workforce since 1978. In addition, manufacturing employment from has declined from 30% in the 1950s to 10% now. Has John Maynard Keynes’s prediction in 1930 of “technological unemployment” come true?
Oculus Rift’s Palmer Luckey: “I brought virtual reality back from the dead.”I hadn’t read much about this company (purchased by Facebook for $2.3 billion in March 2014) until now. What struck me in this interview was that not only was Palmer Luckey lucky, but he also seems like an ordinary, down-to-earth guy. A key point was while his siblings were outside playing, he made pocket money repairing and selling iPhones. The first iPhone was released in 2007. Luckey is now 22. So the math works, but it still makes me feel old. Something I view as a recent development and about the fifth generation of something was the first job of a teenage tech entrepreneur. If you don’t believe that the world is changing fast and being shaped by innovation from a younger generation, hold on. This is moving fast and at a scale and scope that is hard to imagine.
I Don’t Want to be Right delves into the science behind changing our minds. It’s fascinating how they researched the challenge of how we can be both very willing and incredibly stubborn about changing our mind simultaneously.
“When there’s no immediate threat to our understanding of the world, we change our beliefs. It’s when that change contradicts something we’ve long held as important that problems occur.”
Fred Wilson is a very credible venture capitalist and long-time blogger. In sequential posts, he gives a review of 2014 (What Just Happened) and a preview of 2015 (What Is Going to Happen). I like his views of the new tech space. One thing in particular that struck me was his comment that in 2014 (or perhaps earlier) we transitioned from social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) to messaging (Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc). I’ve witnessed the phenomenon firsthand with my kids. How will the “instant but ephemeral” new way impact us given the previous “in the cloud forever” model of social media?
ZMAB15 