Pope’s Law of Retroactivity says “It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

There is a lesson here for acting on a strong gut-feel towards your cause, and perhaps not spend as much time seeking permission and the approval of others. The act of seeking permission and approval can instil doubt and fear, especially within a corporate situation.

Had their creators paused to seek permission, validation and approval before execution, …

As we steel ourselves to rush into another year of the rat race, this post by Natalie is worth the moment it takes to read.

I had the luxury of spending an entire day yesterday catching up on the BBC’s new Dr Who TV series. Reflecting on the magic-like time-travel technology at the Dr’s disposable:

We in the western world often take for granted the magic-like technology (relative to the developing world) we have at our disposal. We have the ability, the magic wand if you will, right now, to cure a myriad of …

…about being alive. Play is freedom, energy, spontaneity. Play is about extracting life, laughter and beauty from the stuff we think of as mundane. Play is flirting with possibility, it is playing at the boundaries. It is the taste of autonomy. Playtime is not for grown-ups, warns the voice of convention. But hey, loosen up, for play is about making the most of …

Zopa is an interesting new business concept, as reported in a Business 2.0 article.

We humans seem hardwired to focus on the details at the expense of the whole picture. Consider:

Vegan organic-only health gurus who smoke.
Committed recyclers who drive 12-cylinder petrol guzzlers.
Managers of mature businesses who sacrifice their core value capital for short-term “sales” revenues.

The over reliance on statistics, trends and projections is a form of group-think. Afterall, it takes groups of researchers, and consensus (though accepted best-practices in data processing) to distil the definitive set of numbers.

The pervasiveness of price-driven incentives does beg the following questions:
Do customers really want everything and anything cheaper or for free?
If your answer is “yes!”, where does that leave products like the iPod, luxury cars, and brand-named T-shirts?

I walked passed a shop recently that prominently displayed such a sign on the front door (no, they were not selling air conditioners - which would have made the sign slightly cute).

In the context of Sydney, how can this “feature” possibly help this shop stand out and attract customers? Is this not feature-advantage-comparison gone mad?

What can we expect next as compelling reasons to go into a shop? “Fully …

Read this Sydney Morning Herald article on Revolt of the desk slaves (thanks Lars!).

Struck me the challenges at hand are:

(a) AVOIDANCE
Conventional “management” problem solving seem to proffer simplistic, short-term, patsy and idiotic fixes. Specialising in fixes that work against human nature. Is this a case of “genuinely don’t give a stuff” or “too emotionally stunted to know how to care”?

(b) LIES
Rather than deal with a problem …