Like a lot of other writers, I follow a blog by a literary agent named Nathan Bransford. His blog is so popular, he recently recorded his millionth unique visitor. And I thought, “Well, that’s nice.”

But this morning, Nathan showed what a stud he is by putting that web traffic to good use. This is from his post today:

You may have already heard of Heifer International, an organization that works to fight hunger by giving needy families around the world and in the United States livestock, training, or other assistance that helps improve their livelihood. Heifer has been recognized for its work in Fast Company and Forbes, among other places.

I know we’re going through tough economic times, but if you have anything to spare this holiday season I hope you’ll consider making a donation. And, in order to encourage people to spread the word, for every comment someone makes in this post between now and 5PM Pacific time, my wife and I will donate 50 cents $1.00*.

Now that, my friends, is a good use of your web traffic! Five other bloggers followed suit (they’re listed at the bottom of his post), and are matching various amounts.

Since my blog is just a pastime, I don’t get that kind of traffic. So I just donated $50, and hope other people will do the same.

Oh, and if you think you don’t have the money? You do. Go visit Global Rich List to see how rich you actually are, and how changing your spending patterns a little would make a huge difference:

$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy you an ER DVD box set OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

Happy holidays!

Last.Fm’s Year in Music: New York, London, and the World | Design & Innovation | Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/lastfms-trends-year-new-york-london-and-world?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A fastcompany%2Fheadlines %28Fast Company Headlines%29

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Paula Scher of design firm Pentagram offered a poignant quote in a recent Fast Company article:  “I don’t like technology because I don’t like to talk about technology”. Besides a sympathetic nod to my own beliefs toward technology, I appreciate her quote because it has a direct parallel to architecture, the design of space, and the field within which I currently operate. Scher was speaking about her work in the context of having a discussion about how a visual design concept is accomplished, graphically and technically. She said when she explains her idea, she does not want to talk about “HTML, Flash” and the languages of the code programmers. Scher is razor-focused on design issues—concept, experience, finished product—and to her the execution is, frankly, a waste of time. Amen, sister!

As a licensed architect with a half-dozen work environments and over ten years in the field in my rear-view mirror, I can say with confidence that most architects are mistakenly identified as designers; most architects are actually technical specialists. As a profession, we are tested for our license on technical merit, not creativity or design superiority. In fact, in most firms it is anathema to actually discuss design. Architects would rather banter about building codes and egress, specification verbiage, or how to (properly) detail a soffit. Our lunch times are not hotly contested arguments over beauty, color, proportion, axis, positive and negative space, sensory experience or Vitruvian firmness, commodity and delight. Only in select boutique design firms or among a coterie of young, idealistic recent architecture school graduates (after hours) will there be discussion about how recent trends in real estate, graphic design, advertising, the latest issue of any interior / architecture / industrial design magazine, business, pop culture, a design conference, any writer, painter, recent play, show or cinema has affected their project or personal thoughts on design.

This is because most architects don’t talk design. Design is too etherial, too subjective and gray, too reliant on rhetoric, salesmanship and belief. Most building design professionals crave concrete (pun intended) solutions, things that have right and wrong answers and can be proven by cross-referencing, calling up product representatives or comparing cost per square foot. So many prospective architects graduate with one major insecurity:  an undeveloped sense of design. They did not educate themselves well, did not get it in school, did not spend the time to study, practice, read or understand the finer points of what makes an environment stimulating. They did not learn to think, communicate graphically (draw), orally or even write well for that matter. When they got out of school, they sought safe harbor interning at an average firm learning how to put drawings together, detail, and administer a project. Never mind that it does not take an architecture school degree to do any of those things. Design work was left to the lead designer of the firm (whew!) because every firm has one, and only one. Graduates that can design, atrophy in places like this because architects are paid to solve problems, not waste time on design.

To me, the space and experience of architecture is the thing, the design, not the type of studs, drywall or fire stair. For me, knowing how to detail is no more relevant than a web designer knowing how to program code.  Architects need to understand there is nothing wrong with providing design vision:  this is what it should look like, and this is how it needs to perform.  I don’t care how it gets done. We need to get over the guilt of being a designer like it is second-class citizenship. A design expert’s bailiwick is as relevant as the seasoned project manager’s. The counter argument is that clients, the real world, do not pay for design. Bull. Ironically, architecture firm principals are the only ones who do not grasp the significance of design. Corporate America pays for design because it recognizes the only way to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace is design.  This is done through innovation, not exercises in sizing downspouts. As Scher put it so well, people should be sweating the design, not the details.

When a “White Christmas” came a little early and brought with it over two feet of snow, my family and I decided to enjoy the calm after the storm before we got to work clearing off the cars, the driveway, the walkways, etc. Most of our neighbors had finished by then so our house was a prime target for entrepreneurs trolling the streets in search of snow removal work. In past years, we might have been solicited by a lone teenager, if that. But yesterday, we had more than a half dozen people ring our doorbell, offering to do that work for hire. It’s been a tough year for many, my family included. Yet we are blessed in that we have a home that requires shoveling when so many do not and although my sons were perfectly capable and we could ill afford the cost, we paid a man and his teenage son to clear the snow.

A family whose young daughter is a classmate of my son’s, lost their home in a fire last week. As PTO Corresponding Secretary, it was up to me to send a request to our nearly 600 member PTO families for donations on their behalf. I honestly didn’t know what kind of response I’d get this close to the winter break with Christmas just days away. Candidly, I’ve been disappointed with the level of volunteerism that I can usually expect. But people surprise you every day, and I’m happy to say that the outpouring of gifts and good will did much for my Christmas spirit.

Fast Company reports that gift giving is up and lists retailers who’ve used cause-related marketing effectively this season. At the grocery check-out line today, I watched a woman lose it when the clerk asked if she’d like to make a donation to a local food bank. Apparently, she’d been asked one time too many. Others were outraged or amused as she stormed off but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She may be going through lean times of her own and it’s hard to help others when you may also be in need. Still, I never begrudge a small donation at the grocery store since I’m lucky enough to be able to buy food. The $2.00 that in the past might have bought me a grandé tea at Starbucks now goes into Salvation Army coffers. And because my love of reading began at a young age, I always manage to donate a new children’s book to Barnes & Noble each holiday season. This will be a very lean Christmas for my family but not as lean as it will be for others and that’s why I give. Because as the dear Sisters of St. Joseph often reminded me, “only by giving, are we able to receive more than we already have”.

The iPhone App post inspired me to share some of the blogs I read on a daily basis. At the opening of the academic year 2009/2010 at Maastricht University Dutch entrepreneur Marc van der Chijs said: “Dont read the news, read stuff from the source as it happens.” His statement made me think about the power one has in being up to date. Since technology and entrepreneurship are two fields that I like to be up to date.

Here are some of the blogs that I can only recommend reading:

Entrepreneurship

• Retire at 21 - Offers some very nice interviews with young tech entrepreneurs and a nice brag list of the top earners
• FastCompany - The online content is just as great as the magazine content and I like to use the feeds to forward stories that I found interesting.
• Young Entrepreneur – Great content for up and coming businesses from the perspective of young entrepreneurs and those who want o become such.
• Inc. – Another great magazine with terrific content to stay ahead of the business game.

Technology

• Scobelizer (Robert Scoble) – Best tech blog with a personal opinion touch. Robert’s content is always great and informative.
• Mashable – Just the greatest resources on social media developments, rumors, and trends. Also, I like the format and the writing style.
• Silicon Alley Insider – Great news resources to see what is going on at the “other side”. Very informative and often funny content.
• Wired – My favorite geek, gadget, and geniuses magazine. That is all.

People

• Marc van der Chijs – Marc is – among many things – the co-founder of China’s largest video portal. I really like how he is using Twitter and his Blog to keep people in the loop on what he does.
• Jason Calacanis – Jason is probably one of the most respected people in internet entrepreneurship. He is one super active internet entrepreneur and I like everything that he is involved in.
• Paul Graham – Paul is the co-founder of Y-Combinator, an incubator that has brought up more than 140 start-ups.
• Matt Mullenweg - Matt is the founder of WordPress and a true tech-startup idol of mine. The projects that he is involved in are awesome and inspiring.

The Software I Use

Most of the blogs I read through RSS feeds. My favorite prog here is NetNewsWire for Mac. I love the Google Reader sync ability so I can the exact same feeds on my iPhone and PC. The program works just fine on all three platforms.

Fast Company has an excellent feature about Ashton Kutcher’s clever approach to the new media world, and it is a must read.   Among other highlights,

The Katalyst HQ series illuminates what Kutcher’s production company wants to become: not just a home for his television and movie projects but also a go-to source for brands looking to deploy what’s called “influencer marketing,” a squishy hybrid of entertainment content, advertising, and online conversation that finds its audience via video, animation, Twitter, blogs, texts, and mobile. “Entertainment, really, is a dying industry,” says Kutcher. “We’re a balanced social-media studio, with revenue streams from multiple sources” — film, TV, and now digital. “For the brand stuff, we’re not replacing ad agencies but working with everyone to provide content and the monetization strategies to succeed on the Web.“

Fast Company put together a list of the 100 most creative people in business. It really is an interesting read, if you need some motivation to get your shit right, check out some of the stories and ideas behind this impressive list of tycoons. Includes JJ Abrams, Tyra Banks, Apple’s Chief designer, Maurice Sendak, Tyler Perry and more.

“There are no rules about creativity. Which made constructing our list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business a tricky task. We looked for dazzling new thinkers, rising stars, and boldface names who couldn’t be ignored. We avoided people we’ve profiled in the recent past. We emphasized those whose creativity addresses a larger issue — from the future of our energy infrastructure to the evolution of philanthropy to next-generation media. So read on. Enjoy. Quibble. Complain.”

For reasons not entirely clear to me, I regularly receive “Fast Company” magazine, and for reasons even more obscure, I really enjoy reading it. This is not to say the magazine isn’t great, but it’s about business, particularly the intersection of business and technology, neither of which are subjects dear to my heart. Often, there are articles concerning the out-of-the-box successes of innovators in the tech universe, and these interest me because my son seems to be headed in the (erratic) direction of Unguided Missile/Genius of Geekery. This is not the result of any parental direction, although I am personally thrilled to have someone on-site who can open a zip file and create a website from scratch. It’s just, honestly, what he loves best. (He told me only yesterday that his greatest ambition is to be a member of The Geek Squad).

Recently, “Fast Company’s” editor explored whether gifted techno-geeks like his son (and mine)  needed a “regular” college education, or whether they could really just be recruited and molded by employers right out of high school,  the same as NBA players. The author acknowledged that most, if not all employers still want to see at least a Bachelor’s degree; he concluded that for the time being, his family’s plan was to keep looking at colleges and to proceed with a standard education. The notion that it might not be necessary for Sam to get a standard four-year degree  intrigues and bedevils me.  What is the value of  formal post-secondary education, particularly the kind I received at a liberal arts college,  for a person with clear passion, talent and direction that might better be developed in a vocational school or professional setting rather than in a series of academic classrooms?

This is not a novel issue; when I was in college 27 years ago, a friend majoring in Biochemistry at a large state university complained bitterly and incessantly about the fact that he was forced to take humanities and something called “American Thought and Language” in order to graduate. He is now a patent attorney and earns an astronomical amount of money. Two years ago, a young neighbor graduated from the same university with a 4.0 GPA in Computer Engineering, explained to his mother that he didn’t really need a Master’s degree to be financially secure, and immediately secured a job in Chicago earning more than my entire household. Both of these men are  admirably well-rounded in terms of appreciating art, music and literature, but in neither case did they need to be taught about  it in order to succeed in their chosen work; they were required to take arts and letters classes which they hated, and loved the arts in spite of, not because of taking mandated humanities and writing classes.

I myself started out at a Conservatory of Music, which was, quite honestly, single-focus vocational training for young musicians with almost no traditional academic offerings. I missed the diversity of a less specialized program and made a change, but for many “real” musicians that I know, four years of good lessons, exposure to orchestral repertoire, and some music theory and history prepared them to be what they are and always planned to be:  good musicians. If you plan to be a musician, a chef, or a film maker, there are schools where you can train with a sharp focus on your chosen field, and graduate with a valuable credential recognized by orchestras, restaurants and studios. If you are really talented, you often require no schooling at all to be hired; if you can win the audition or dazzle an executive chef or director, you’re in. No one would argue, I think, that such talent would be improved by four years of general education in Biology 101 and World Civilisations. Better rounding, yes. More ability, absolutely not.

So if four years of standard college curriculum doesn’t result in greater earnings or increased talent for the average person-with-a-gift, why am I so disturbed by the idea of my own kid skipping college altogether or attending some institution focused on Advanced Practical Geekery? It may be my own background; I am the product of liberally educated types and have an English degree of my own, and was taught by word and deed from the time I was in elementary school that people should learn things, and know things, and not only the things in which they were naturally interested.  I graduated from college knowing all kinds of stuff, not only from my own studies, but based on conversations and arguments with other students about everything from natural selection to Kant. I got interested in something, I looked it up in the library, and I learned. Knowing all of those things was fabulous, and I wouldn’t change it if I could, but I had not one actual job-related skill on graduation day.

For me, it was  the right choice. I had explored a world of thought and possibility, learned how to find things out, and eventually, after some mistakes (like law school) figured out where my talents met someone’s willingness to pay for them. But what if I had always known where I was headed. Well, more to the point: is it even possible to “always know where you are headed?” Is it possible to know when you’re eighteen? If you think you know, should you be challenged, broadened and made to consider other options? Should it matter whether your passion is practical (like cooking or troubleshooting networks) or impractical (like writing blank verse or making collages using recycled cloth)? Does everyone need a degree to “fall back on,” even if that degree comes with massive debt and no actual skills? Should a parent  like me with a liberal arts bias put pressure on a clearly other-directed child to keep his educational focus general, at least through college, “for his own good?” I can make it happen that way, because we’ll be paying for most of it, but is that a good enough reason to override a young adult’s natural inclinations?

If you are waiting for the answers, you should definitely make yourself comfortable; it may be six years before I can even scratch the surface on this one. If I knew that there was a post-secondary program devoted to the perfection of moving wires and motherboards, and Sam still barely tolerated the reading of novels and the study of People in Groups, I might just think it was okay to let him go, and hope that at some point in his life he would gravitate naturally towards books and the other cultural frippery that makes my heart beat faster. This decision would be even easier if his interests held steady, and I knew that he had fully explored the humanities during his high school education so that he had some base of knowledge other than technology. If he was offered the opportunity to go to work right out of high school at Google or Apple, I would probably still think that he should have a sheepskin in his back pocket for just-in-case, even if it was old-fashioned and probably unnecessary. Maybe he’ll decide on his own that he wants all that a general education can offer him; that is, of course, my most cherished hope.

The world is changing fast, and it is possibly a sad, vestigial notion that a bright kid whose parents can afford to pay for college should automatically take that path, but do I want my bright kid to be disarmed unilaterally in a field of MIT and Harvard grads? Right now, today, I do not.

Bill Taylor

* * *
What better way for business thinkers to celebrate the holiday season than with the gift of great ideas? As the year 2009 — as difficult, divisive, worrisome, and hopeful a year since, well, 2008 — draws to a close, my friend Seth Godin, the innovator, writer, and blogger extraordinaire, has persuaded 70 other innovators, writers, and bloggers to participate in a project he calls What Matters Now.

The idea is simple: Each of us suggests one word — literally one word — that all of us should think about in 2010, and then takes one page to explain why and how that word matters.

The result is an intriguing, inspiring, and at times downright moving collection of unconventional wisdom that is available free to everyone as of this morning. I urge you to download the PDF, process its diverse ideas, messages, and calls to action, and then share it with as many friends, associates, and colleagues as possible. Think of it as an intellectual yule log meant to brighten your spirits and light a fire for the future.

[Note: If you wish to receive the What Matters Now pdf, please contact me at interllect@mindspring.com.

What struck me about the ideas in What Matters Now is that they arrange themselves into a few distinct (but related) categories. (The collection itself does not impose these categories, this is my interpretation.) A bunch of the words involve the stuff of human emotion and motivation — what makes us tick. Seth begins the PDF with a riff on generosity. “When the economy tanks it’s natural to think of yourself first,” he writes. “You have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. Getting more appears to be the order of business. It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we’re rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time and money, but most important generous with our art.”

Hugh MacLeod, a blogger and cartoonist with a truly distinctive voice, offers a take on meaning: “The best way to get approval is not to need it,” he writes. “Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.”

Happy Holidays!

* * *

Taylor is an agenda-setting writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. His new project, Practically Radical, chronicles the radical shifts transforming business and the practical steps that will determine who wins. His most recent book, Mavericks at Work, has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller. As co-founder of Fast Company, he launched a magazine that earned a passionate following around the world. He is an adjunct lecturer at Babson College and a former associate editor of Harvard Business Review.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

Again, if you wish to receive the What Matters Now pdf, please contact me at interllect@mindspring.com.

Scintilla

\sin-TIL-uh\ , noun;
1.
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount; the slightest particle; a trace; a spark.

Friday I had an interesting meeting with Dawn Meyerriecks, who has just begun her new role as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Acquisition and Technology. (Read the DNI’s statement on her appointment here in pdf, her bio here, and some reaction – all positive – here and here.)

Never mind what we actually were talking about, she asked me in so it isn’t appropriate to write about that. But to be honest I spent my drive home thinking about the atmospherics and significance of her holding that post in any case.  In a companion post later (“The Purple History of Intelink“) I’ll comment on the significance of her prior background in the Defense Department.

But more striking, right off the bat, is the fact that DNI Dennis Blair has an impressive number of women in high-ranking senior leadership positions. And it’s not just the number, but the particular positions they hold that I like: Dawn Meyerriecks is DDNI/A&T, Priscilla Guthrie is Assistant DNI and Chief Information Officer, Marilyn Vacca is Assistant DNI and Chief Financial Officer. Lisa Porter leads the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency IARPA (I’ve written about her before).

The scientific, technical, and financial leadership of the U.S. intelligence community are all women!

Now, overall that’s not equal parity in numbers, but it would make the legendary Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (mother of COBOL) proud, and should serve as an interesting motivational spur to the broader movement to have women better represented in the sciences, in engineering, in STEM technical fields of all kinds – an effort which begins in our educational system with local projects like the neat Women in Technology Project in Maui and but continues through professional activities such as Women in Technology International (the WITI professional association, with an impressive advisory board that includes techno-cosmonaut Esther Dyson). We’ve even witnessed active movements in the last couple of years to attack the challenge of appropriately including representative numbers of women at tech conferences. 

For more on many of those efforts you can follow the excellent “Tech Her” blog by Telle Whitney, who has been instrumental in the phenomenal Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, “a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.” Every woman I know in technology – and many men - either attended or wanted to attend the Grace Hopper Conference this fall in Tucson.

I’m also impressed by the newly-launched Stemming.org, a collaborative blog/community for women in science, technology and math, launched by Cambridge, MA programmer and web designer Clara Raubertas.

During my time in Silicon Valley I knew celebrated women CEOs (Kim Polese, Carol Bartz) who were conscious role models but first and foremost were great technologists, and this issue is typically framed by an understandable focus on women CEOs. Susan Wilson Solovic, CEO of SBTV.com, has written about the gender disparity on the CEO front and lists a number of causal factors beyond the gender socialization at young ages. Fast Company also does a regular list (“Women in Tech: the Entrepreneurs“).

But to my thinking another important metric is a bit lower and throughout organizations: watching the number of women in key technical positions throughout an enterprise. At Microsoft we’re rich in that way, including many of my friends in Microsoft Research, like Natasa Milic-Frayling, Lili Cheng, Jennifer Chayes, and danah boyd. From my own experience in the IC, I know the Grrl Band now astride the intelligence community to represent a large and increasing number of talented female scientists, engineers, technologists, and financial wizards in the community. Most can’t be named (you know who you are), and their ranks should be still larger.

As a final motivational mark, here’s a very neat video from the recent Grace Hopper Conference, “I am a Technical Woman.”

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Glenn Croston’s Blog

Climate talks got underway in Copenhagen on Monday with representatives from 192 nations. A great many people around the world see climate change as the greatest global threat we face, likely to adversely affect billions of people in the decades ahead if nothing is done. The feeling is not universal though; some people and businesses view efforts to fight climate change as the threat. For businesses changing their perspective to match a changing world, efforts to fight climate change and build a greener economy hold the opportunity of a lifetime.

Read more from Fast Company blog

SUP3372

Fast Company really took the blogosphere by storm when it launched. With contributors like Seth Godin and Tom Peters, the magazine really killed the sacred cow and shed light on some brilliant insights and practices followed in different parts of the world. Then, they took some of their most popular and their most insightful articles and made into this blockbuster book. I had bought this book around last year and this is the second time I’ve read this. You HAVE to read this book if you are fond of learning about the different ways business is actually being conducted around the USA.

My favorite topics were:

1. The Brand Called You – Tom Peters
2. Free Agent Nation – Daniel Pink
3. The Agenda-Grassroots Leadership – Polly LaBarre (also co-author of incredibly amazing “Mavericks at Work – READ THIS !)
4. What are we after? We are literally trying to stop time! -  Bill Breen
5. Grassroots Leadership: US Military Academy – Keith.H. Hammonds
6. And now, the Hard Part- Chuck Salter
7. The Thrill of Defeat – Bill Breen
8. Gospels of Failure – Jena McGregor
9. Join the Circus – Linda Tischler

A highly skilled mason was retiring.  He had built hundreds of great houses for his boss.  He was weary and looking forward to retirement. His boss asked him to build just one more wonderful house for someone special.  The mason was not happy.  He had lost interest in building  great houses, though he was fit.  He agreed reluctantly and built a not-so-great house. The walls were weak and the roof was not great.  His quality of work was unusually poor.  As he bid a goodbye to his boss, his boss handed him the key of the same house which he built last and said – this was my farewell gift to you, my friend, I hope you like it.

Our Attitude affects everything. The Fast Company magazine is a fantastic place to read about Attitude.  You can read some fascinating stories on attitude at Fast Company.com; notable amongst them is the Zappos Story and the Amazon story.  Hire for Attitude and Train for Skill – that’s how Southwest Airlines hires people.

The Gita has the most profound material on attitude that you can find.  This verse recited by Lord Krishna, “Karmanye vaadhikaarasthe maaphaleshu kadachana” is a real punchline on attitude.  It’s meaning – “You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results your activities, and never be associated to not doing your duty.”   Do your duty with detachment to end results and results will automatically follow, is what it means. A fast paced, almost fiction like depiction on Lord Krishna and his teachings can be downloaded for free here.  You won’t be bored and the intricacies of the plots are truly amazing.

The latest issue of Fast Company has a very stirring editorial note on Attitude.  He describes how the young Facebook, Twitter generation folks are overturning corporate hierarchies and building businesses.  They don’t respect and couldn’t care less about corporate management structures and have scant regard for listening to deadbeat managers about what cannot be done and how we cannot do something.  They are adopting novel but simple ways to get things done.  It leaves larger corporations gasping for breath. He talks about the celebrity Ashton Kutcher’s attitude and how he is transforming the media landscape.

In these gloomy recession days, Dr. Wayne Dyer’s talks and book on “The Power of Intention” could also bring some cheer and a change in attitude.  Give it a try.

Credit: Gigaom

Another interesting article by Kit Eaton from Fast Company talks about one potential downfall and that is in Europe. To quote:

European banking and credit card systems are very rapidly switching away from magnetic strip technology towards the smarter, more secure in-card chip tech.

Further:

It’s such a vastly superior system that there are even mumblings that the E.U. may ban magnetic bank cards pretty soon. This will pose a significant problem for Square, which relies on the low cost of its hardware components and fancy in-smartphone processing to work. For Square to disrupt the European electronic banking system, it will need a newer, more expensive piece of hardware that can interface and decode the in-card chips directly–this will complicate its business model pretty severely.

While these are easily surmountable problems, it’s increasingly clear that the markets for VAS is going to be a very interesting conundrum: Service delivery depends on handset features. Handset features depend on handset manufacturers. The profitability of handset manufacturers is based on number of people purchasing the handset. Number of people purchasing the handset depends on the number of ways that the customer can use it. The number of ways the mobile is useful depends on the availability of applications available for the handset which again depends on service delivery. Someone missing? Yep, telecom service providers with their undifferentiated services are going to get the revenue for their undifferentiated service. It kinda scares me that most of our clients are the telecom service providers or the equipment manufacturers (manufacturers of the network equipment such as BTS, antennas, etc.)

I agonized for a few days over what kind of brilliant advice I should share with you on this 1,000th post since the launch of the BrandBuilder blog before finally realizing that no. 1,000 is no different from 999, 1,001 or 356. So no more pondering, no more worrying about writing an epic post (the time for that will come again in due time), and no more waiting around for inspiration to strike. Today, instead of talking about social media, brand management, who does what well and who does what poorly, let’s just talk a little bit about leadership. Corporate leadership, that is.

And instead of doing all the talking, I will let people with a whole lot more experience than me give you some tips about how to become a better leader. Great stuff that transcends the typical leadership quotation mill.

Anne Mulcahy – Former CEO of Xerox

In a crisis, you have the opportunity to move quickly and change a lot – and you have to take advantage of that.

Change doesn’t happen if you don’t work at it. You’ve got to get out there, give people the straight scoop, and get buy-in. It’s not just good-looking presentations; it’s letting people ask the tough questions. It’s almost got to be done one person at a time.

There’s not a lot of room anymore for senior people to be managers. They have to be leaders. I want people to create organizations that get aligned, get passionate, get really inspired about delivering.

Stories exist at every level of the company. Whether it was saving a buck here, or doing something different for customers, everyone has a story. That creates powerful momentum – people sense that they’re able to do good things. It’s much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy.

I communicate good news the same way I do the bad news. I thank people and make sure they feel a sense of recognition for their contribution. But the trick is always to to use the opportunity to talk about what’s next, to pose the next challenges. Where do we want to go? How do we want to build on it?

Margaret Heffernan – Author, The Naked Truth

Nothing kills morale like a staff’s feeling helpless. This often plays itself out when there are rumors of a new strategic shift or a major personnel move, or worse, when the papers are littered with bad news about your company. A big part of boosting morale is about constructing a haven of logic that offers individuals shelter from any storm. At its most basic, leaders have to communicate their awareness of business conditions and place their plans in that context. Each time [a CEO outlines] a future that comes true, he demonstrates his own competence and reinforces trust.

The happiest people aren’t the ones with the most money but those with a sense of purpose – a sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves. At least some of this has to derive from work. The purpose of a business, then, must be explicit and go beyond boosting the share price or fulfilling some bland mission statement. People want to believe that they are part of something meaningful. The sense of purpose doesn’t have to be grandiose or revolutionary, merely credible and anchored in values.

Purpose is achieved through goals, and the acid test for any leader is defining the appropriate ones. Too small, and celebrations soon ring hollow. Small goals breed cynicism. But too-big goals produce helplessness. Although it can be temporarily thrilling to rally around a big corporate slogan like “kill the competition,” the reality is that employees can’t do it alone and they can’t do it quickly.

Alignment between corporate goals and personal development has never been more critical. The more unpredictable the outside world, the more urgent the personal quest for self-determination. What employees look for in leadership is a sense that their personal journey and the company journey are part of the same story. When these goals aren’t aligned, employees tend to whine with others, eager to share their sense of anger and injustice, polluting morale. The only way to combat this and get back on track is proper feedback. Give employees the tools to influence their own fate.

Get a life. Keeping morale high is like being on a diet: It requires constant effort and is never over. New ideas, stimuli and motivation come from all around you. It’s the larger life, after all, that gives purpose to the climb.

Alan Deutschman – Senior Writer, Fast Company – writing about how IBM builds new businesses

Look for opportunities that can become profitable [billion-dollar] businesses in five to seven years. You’ll probably find them by talking to customers rather than to brilliant researchers in the labs, who are are looking further ahead.

J. Bruce Harreld – IBM

You want to celebrate failure because you learn something. You need some level of security to say ‘I screwed it up,’ and be comfortable that you won’t be fired.

Marcus Buckingham – Author, Break All The Rules

Turn anxiety into confidence. For a leader, the challenge is that in every society ever studied, the future is unstable, unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous. By far the most effective way to turn fear into confidence is to be clear – to define the future in such vivid terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate, charming or brilliant. What they must be is clear – clarity is the essence of great leadership. Show us clearly who we should seek to serve, show us where our core strength lies, show us which score we should focus on and which actions we must take, and we will reward you by working our hearts out to make our better future come true.

See? Told you these folks know what they’re talking about.

Thanks to Fast Company’s March 2005 issue for providing much of today’s content. (I have quite the collection.)

Cheers.

Imagine you are walking along a wide sidewalk downtown Your City, USA.  In front of you and to the left you spot a table.  People are handing out vitamin supplement samples… for free. Do you take one?

A block later, you encounter another table set up.  It’s a different group, but also handing out vitamin supplements for a small fee – say $0.25 for a mini bottle.  Do you buy one?

Now, guess which table was more successful at encouraging people to try vitamin supplements?

A recent Fast Company article citing a similar experiment conducted by J-PAL has created a bit of a stir in the social enterprise blogosphere this last week.  First, BOPreneur Paul Hudnut wrote a very thoughtful and somewhat provocative post titled, “Is It Right to Have the Poor Pay?”  Shortly after, Francisco Noguera at NextBillion posted this equally interesting response to Hudnut’s comments.

The Fast Company article concluded that J-PAL’s experiment, which demonstrated that free mosquito nets were more widely adopted than paid-for nets, had proven false the widely-held belief that it’s right to have the poor pay small fees for development-related goods and services because doing so encourages a sense of ownership.

Really?

Hudnut’s post makes the great point that, while it may not always be appropriate to have the poor pay, “charity doesn’t scale.”   Noguera agrees that “free” sometimes is the best approach, even though market-based approached are generally preferable.  He also remarks on how cross-subsidies can make the latter possible within a social enterprise model.  Both make wonderful points.

But what about the simple fact that “free” is virtually ALWAYS going to be preferable to consumers!  Especially when the alternative is a small fee.

I haven’t read the J-PAL study cited in the Fast Company article, but if it’s as straightforward as it sounds, the outcome should be no surprise to anyone.

The real question is not, “To free or not to free?”  The real question is, Do you measure success by how many mosquito nets you hand out?

If so, maybe free is best. But I’d prefer to measure success based on what % of people are using their mosquito nets six months later.  Or perhaps the % of mosquito nets that are still effective (i.e. in good shape) after 12 months.  Or the change in the number of new malaria cases in the community after 3 years.  If these are the outcomes you’re trying to impact, maybe selling them a mosquito net at a small fee still is the best solution.

Which brings me to my real point here.  Businesses frequently have to create markets and stimulate demand through consumer education and advertising (though internet startups are increasingly doing this through free).  With effort, they get people to value their product enough to pay for it.  Should international development be any different?