Ben Kepple’s Prosperity Gospel highlights the importance of dignity in charitable activities - especially microfinance programmes such as kiva.org.

“Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he’ll eat forever.” Lao Tzu

“When play comes first, learning comes naturally.” Playskool TV commercial.

Businesses cannot hope to begin to leverage the innate creativity and learning ability of their people if they continue to rigidly define work, training and R&D as separate, isolated silos.

If work feels like work most of the time, there is not enough play!

“A city stripped of advertising. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing.” São Paulo is doing just that. “…a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder…” said writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo.

Read the BusinessWeek article: São Paulo: The City That Said No To Advertising.

Is this part of the increasing backlash …

“I think, though, that the age of actions without consequences is drawing to a close. Let’s hope so.” Sam Leader, FlyingSolo

Consider:

Educators are increasingly using the Internet to identify plagiarism.
The blogosphere acts as a global fact checker – make claims that are untrue and you will be found out.
It is easier than every before to conduct quick character checks - Google someone’s name!
Email is often used …

Integration - what individuals (and businesses) seek to create within themselves. We are talking about being whole and acting seamlessly together. Where the left hand not only knows what the right hand is up to, but all hands are on deck, united by the same values, and aiming for the same horizon.

Differentiation - the more an individual (or a business) is integrated internally, the more differentiated one will …

Ah, nothing like good old poo humour to laugh out the week, and the financial year!

AngryAussie’s post: alli: Miracle diet pill with teeny-tiny side effect is a very funny read and obviously struck a cord with many - 322 comments to date!

It is a great (and rather extreme) example of how marketing as a profession has devolved to the point of literally spinning sh*t. Many of …

I came across this exemplar of a business that stood out because its services are actually designed for the convenience of customers.

Upgradeable.com.au sells memory upgrades for all sorts of computers - from ancient ones that ought to be replaced, to the latest and greatest.

In a commoditised market saturated with competitors, their website alone stood out because it actually provided useful information specific to different models and …

Company structures may well still be based on the factory model. But the cogs of the machine, the workers, are no longer the illiterate and externally-motivated unwashed. In fact, most knowledge workers these days do wash!

It is no longer sufficient to blindly follow last century’s “best-practices” when it comes to “managing” knowledge workers. New processes, tools and strategies founded on the basis of respect and collaboration are the …

Signage within an environment can be tricky to manage.

This is a quick snap of a Sydney hotel lobby I was in last week.

From this angle (immediately after existing the lifts), there is only a single sign visible. And it was obviously put up in response to repeated queries.

Top marks for responding to customer needs. And for a decently designed and legible sign. …

I hate dealing with People Telecom. Hate it.

Trying to speak to anyone on the phone has taken up to two hours of waiting (no exaggeration) on more than two occasions in the past. And they make promises they don’t or are not interested in keeping.

Recently, I got a new credit card (a new expiry date to be precise). As I am on an automated payment with People Telecom, …