According to a recent Gallup Poll, about a third of all U.S. workers are dissatisfied with either the recognition they receive, their chances for promotion, or the amount of money they earn. Worse, seventy-one percent of American workers are "not engaged" or "actively disengaged" in their work. Since most of us cannot change the economy, I’d like to focus on what we can do at work instead. I'm going to share a few ...
I can’t help but laugh at the TechCrunch gang’s corporate ad hominem last week. It seemed more of a personal attack than any real attempt to provide a product review. TechCrunch didn’t merely reproach their building mate, they reprimanded them. Stranger, most of the article really didn’t say anything at all, because they were not talking to us. They seem to be too entranced by TechCrunch. I have to agree with Alexia Tsotsis’s dating ...
I was thirteen years old when I first saw it on TV. An army of blue-gray drones march in lockstep through a long tunnel into an auditorium filled with more drones dressed in futuristic, grey drab. All eyes are transfixed on a big-blue image of a man speaking from a theatre-sized screen, extolling the virtues of its ‘Information Purification Directives.’ Suddenly, a woman in orange shorts and a tank top runs into view carrying a large sledgehammer. ...
Don’t believe the world’s businesses are going social? Take this recent declaration from CapGemini’s Managing Director, Global Head of Practices, Didier Bonnet when discussing Social Business with me: “We've actually repositioned the entire practice around digital transformation. So for us it's not just changing one service offering; it's our entire focus globally for our teams to deliver and to sell.” He came to that crucial decision ...
Every time I see an anti-email blog post or even more amusingly a company that issues a zero email policy, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite Einstein lines, “"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." You have to admire CEO Thierry Breton of Atos for taking a very public stance on the issue, telling ABC, “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast ...
The world’s largest gaming company is going through a remarkable transformation into a Social Business. Electronic Arts understands that today’s technologies, unlike those of the past decade, are no longer limited to the individual. They impact everyone. Impact that’s revolutionizing the way customers communicate. Impact that is forcing companies to listen, to learn, to adapt, to change its infrastructure and culture in order to stay competitive. ...
eBay’s going social. Its protagonists are building the next generation social platform called the HUB, to increase employee engagement, collaboration and effectiveness. It is instructive to follow the evolution of their strategy in response to the growing chorus of eBay employees who were demanding social tools, or had already snuck them in. On first impression, Ramin Mobasseri eBay’s Enterprise Portals Solutions Manager and Maarten Sundman a ...
H.R. 2930 appears to be just another US Congressional Bill winding its way through the system. Yet I can imagine most Professional Angel Investors recognize (or should) the bill and its potential impact on their livelihood. The House has already passed it with a 95% majority. It’s now on to the Senate and possibly the White House. If the bill passes (watch the latest Congressional Bill Progress), you can say good bye to the Professional Angel ...
I typically like to provide context around discussions with industry thought leaders and Executives of the Fortune 500. Yet some discussions should simply be left untouched and published as-is. It’s not a short article, but the insights around IBM’s journey to becoming a Social Business is remarkable and a must read for those that are in charge of the Social Business program at their companies. Key Learnings: When IBM experiments ...
They were not incompetent or anything; they had simply broken more pumps in the last year than any previous year the engineers could remember. Not the inexpensive kind, but the large 200 horsepower, $22,000 pumps used in geothermal power plants; each blew up in a succession of preventable blunders. But then it got worse. They complained to management, suggested a solution, and management did nothing about it. Details of the gross negligence still ...
