Reflecting on my post and the ensuing in-depth discussion
Fostering involvement and buy-in – what the cat taught me

The very act of us discussing the very topic of transparency is transparency at work! Isn’t it ironic.

If I were a more conventional business, I would not be engaging in this discussion. And certainly not in public and with someone who could become a potential customer (ie someone I have …

I had this thought during a conversation with Stilgherrian last week after a meeting - fairness is about being transparent.

Regardless of a person’s actual intentions, if they are open and transparent with you, they are giving you the choice of engaging with them further or not. More info = more empowered choice for you.

Does all this make any sense to you?

As I am sitting here putting the final touches on a seminar on business blogging, I caught this “magic media moment” on the news: “an unscripted and unleashed punter giving some big wig in a suit a large slice of his mind on the state of Sydney trains.”

It was a classic moment. One moment there’s the “big wig” spewing the usual PR-contrived rhetoric about …

From AdPulp, by way of Stilgherrian:

The tall towers that house our corporations are the new palaces of our day, the places where real power resides, but those towers are full of paradoxes. Made of glass, you can’t see inside. They’re pillars of our democracy, but they are run as totalitarian states. Their names are reduced to a set of initials. Their leaders are …

Often when I am making dinner, the cat would want to know what I am doing. If I ignore him, he usually gets more insistent and annoying.

So I simply show him or let him sniff at the carrots (or onions!) I am chopping up. He then knows what I am doing and loses interest. (Or if it is meat, he gets more excited and …

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the originator of TQM (Total Quality Management), put forth 14 points of organisation behaviour change towards better performance.

Stilgherrian’s post on being real on the web brought to mind Deming’s eighth point: Drive out fear.

Point 8: Fear is a barrier to improvement so drive out fear by encouraging effective two-way communication and other mechanisms that will enable everybody to be …

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 …

Some initial thoughts on how a value net can be better than a traditional organisation in today’s world.

Agile – because there is no committee or management tiers, decisions and actions are much faster.
Accountable – each individual takes responsibility for their work; their survival depends on accountability and quality output.
Adaptive – the right individuals can be selected at the right time to produce the right outcome. These individuals can …

I just had another spam phone call from a certain large telco. Apparently I have magically qualified for another of their specials.

From a customer conversion point of view, these were the challenges presented to me:

To determine how much I will save with the offer, I need to dig out my phone bills. I was having dinner.
The spammer started rattling off all these convoluted combinations of rates, plans, and …