Blog. Insight, issues, opinions and productivity solutions

New Insight Article: Fostering Company Soul Through Internal Company Exhibits

Posted on June 12, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Creating educational exhibitions has always been a fascination of mine (in fact, since I left the cube farm and became free to choose my consulting work, I’ve been engaged in creating three exhibitions, and counting). So it was only natural that throughout my career, wherever I worked I ended up driving the creation of the local exhibit showcasing our technology and our company to visitors and employees alike. I firmly believe that the internal type of exhibition can play an important role in maintaining and fostering the organizational culture, and in this new insight article I share my reasoning –.. Read more

BrainYno: the Ultimate Solution to Information Overload?

Posted on June 5, 2013 · Posted in Individual Solutions

The holy grail of Information Overload solutions Interruptions are a major component of Information Overload (indeed, they cause more harm than the rightly reviled second component, email overload, as I’d shown here). However, we’ve known for years that not all interruptions are created equal: the damage depends on the context. An unrelated phone call while you’re taking an exam certainly does more harm than one when you’re slouching in front of the TV. Microsoft Research had developed a wonderful application some years ago called Priorities, which looks at every aspect of a knowledge worker’s attentional context to determine whether to.. Read more

Better Place is gone, leaving our world a sadder place

Posted on May 27, 2013 · Posted in Off-topic

Two years ago I made a hopeful off-topic post here upon sighting a parking lot with charging posts for Better Place’s novel electric vehicle system. I titled in “The future is here!”. Today I made another sighting – I went into a gas station I haven’t been to before, and there was the wondrous structure you see in the photo – a robotic battery swap station for Better Place’s cars. A few dozen of these stations are said to exist around Israel, but this was the first time I saw one. Alas, I was a day too late to rejoice. .. Read more

Intrapreneurship and the Hewlett Packard Medal of Defiance

Posted on May 24, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

click image to enlarge I was reading the InnovaScapes Institute blog and noticed in the “About Me” sidebar the statement that Chuck House, its author, holds HP’s only Medal of Defiance, awarded by David Packard for “extraordinary contempt and defiance beyond the normal call of engineering duty” This sounded fascinating: a top corporate executive recognizing contempt and defiance – heck, insubordination – as a desirable behavior in an engineer?!  Given my interest in promoting Intrapreneurship, my curiosity about this unusual medal was intense. Fortunately I know Chuck well, having had the honor and delight to collaborate with him when we.. Read more

Enounce MySpeed: a Highly Recommended Time Saving Tool

Posted on May 15, 2013 · Posted in Individual Solutions

The problem with video I am ambivalent about video instruction. On one hand, it adds a richness unavailable by other channels. On the other, it takes time to view – and, unless I need to learn how to perform emergency brain surgery, a written paragraph is faster to read by myself than watching a talking head read it to me. With text, you can skim and jump around – it’s a Random Access medium; video is inherently serial and limited by the average person’s verbal speed. With time an increasingly precious resource in our hectic age of information overload, wasting.. Read more

New Insight Article: Intrapreneurship – How to Do It and Live to Tell the Tale

Posted on May 8, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I’ve spent a long career as a change agent in a large corporation, even if at first I didn’t call the role by that name; it just so happened that I was always trying to execute my “day job” in ways that pushed the envelope and made my employer adopt novel practices and directions. It was an exhilarating career path, though not without its frustrations. I know how exciting, how rewarding – and how difficult Intrapreneurship can be. In my latest insight article I share some reflections on the practice of intrapreneurship, and give you my take on how you.. Read more

The Advantages of Flexible Careers in the Enterprise

Posted on May 1, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I know a woman who has a PhD in biology, but now makes a living as R&D manager in a small electronics firm. And doing a great job, evidently. That’s flexibility for you. Used to be, if you studied biology, you’d be a biologist, and that was that. For most people, that’s the way it still works; but if you look around you’ll see a sizable minority of people who simply don’t care – they do a great job at whatever they feel competent to do. Me too, I suppose – I studied applied physics, went into forensic science and.. Read more

The Legitimacy – or Otherwise – of Ultra-brief Emails

Posted on April 18, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

A devious solution to email overload A friend pointed me to a post  that offered a simple and highly unusual solution to email overload: change the signature block on your desktop email client to read “Sent from my iPhone”. The idea, the writer explained, is that this will make you “feel more comfortable offering short, direct, and concise replies to incoming emails, thus improving your email productivity and freeing up time to do other more important work”. This is certainly devious, is probably effective, and the logic seems unassailable… but it raises a question: why would you need it? Surely.. Read more

How to Secure the Isolation You Need to Be Effective

Posted on April 10, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

The acclaimed American novelist Jonathan Franzen has an unusual way of ensuring he can concentrate and be creative. To quote the NY Times: Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. He did so in a Spartan studio … behind soundproof walls and a window of double-paned glass. The blinds were drawn. The lights were off. And Franzen … wore earplugs, earmuffs and a blindfold. Kudos to the Franzen for being a touch typist, but here I want to focus on his statement: “It’s very, very hard to concentrate. You have to hold your mind free of all the clichés”… Read more

CAPTCHA: A Wonderful Adventure in Exhibition Space

Posted on April 7, 2013 · Posted in Off-topic

Somehow my career has repeatedly led me into doing unexpected and wonderful things. One such piece of serendipity has been the role I landed at the Jerusalem Science Museum as the curator of an exhibition in honor of Alan Turing. This project took a year and half, and gave me the occasion to work with some amazing people at the museum, interact with many more from around the world, and learn so much about that tragic genius, Alan Turing, of which I wrote here before. Now we’re finally done, and the exhibition is open to the public. It wasn’t my.. Read more