From Kate Carruthers’ blog:

MBAs, ethics, pledges and virginity – “as those young people mature and obtain hostages to fortune, how will they resist the forces of conformity in the workplace? How will they resist those little daily compromises that can culminate in real evil?”

Live local love continues – “The really amazing thing is how willing people are to share information, share goods, and …

Further to my post about hyper-stimulated cinema patrons in Singapore – patrons who felt the uncontrollable urge to talk and text incessantly during movies – I have now discovered the exact same behaviour during a keynote speech at a conference!

At the ad:tech Singapore opening keynote this week, I had the misfortune of sitting in front of a man and a woman who simply would not …

A walk-by pickup at a bookshop:

Spotted in Understanding the Arab Culture – a practical cross-cultural guide to working in the Arab world by Dr Jehad Al-Omari.

Most Westerners have a tendency to divorce and separate their personal lives from business imperatives. The idea that business is personal has more negative connotations than positive ones. It flies in the face of …

In reading about Geert Hofstede’s Dimensions, I came upon the following interesting proposition:

Western communications has a “transmitter orientation” – the responsibility is on the speaker to make him/herself understood.
Asian communications has a “receiver orientation” – the responsibility is on the listener to extract meaning from the communiqué.

In the first context, this means I as the transmitter have to seek confirmation and feedback as to the successful …

According to a Wired magazine article, UK vendors Vodaphone and Radio Shack both gave away netbooks to customer who sign up to wireless data accounts.

“… Computers are developing the same economics as mobile phones. Hardware is becoming a commodity. It is difficult to charge for.”

It was hard to imagine a mere decade ago that tangible, real, physical, see touch smellable hardware could be so quickly reduced …

Where there is a relationship, alignment will be a key concern.

Alignment is critical for organisations working to strong visions and causes. But less so for conventional organisations.

Alignment is critical for life partnerships. But less so for acquaintances.

Girls value: friendship, caring, collaboration, consensus and sharing.
Negatives are: alienation, undermining others, being ostracised.

Boys value: strength, self reliance, competition and winning.
Negatives are: fear of emasculation, expressions of weakness and helplessness.

So how does this affect the design of communities (virtual and otherwise), and business cultures/environments to bring out the best of each gender group?

(From Scarlett Thomas’ Popco, ISBN 978 1 84767 335 0.)

This is a follow-up to my recent post about The challenge of selling brainspace, and the general unwillingness for people to pay for the intangibles of ideas, insights, designs, planning and perspective.

Advertising agencies have long been familiar with responding to pitches that require creative up front. This is where you do free work for the client, often working off minimal information, just so as to enable them …

My friend Tanneke just sent me this link and it was so cool I had to post it straight away.

Read Robots That Survive on Kindness of Strangers on DailyGood.

I have always believed that most people are generally kind, trustworthy and nice. For most of my business life this has rung true (a few notable dishounorable ratbags aside). It is nice to see it affirmed.

And the …

Some interesting points to ponder from Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety ISBN 0-141-01486-5.

“We hold divergent views about our characters and rely on others’ attitude to accept one set of views over the other.” Could this partially explain why relationships are so important to us? We rely on our relationships to reinforce the desired views of our character.

“A snob is someone who equates social …