Archive for the ‘Thinking’ Category
Genius! – Bringing Augmented Reality to everyday objects
Check out Pranav Mistry at TED demonstrating his Sixth Sense personal augmented reality device! A paper computer, taking photos with your gestures, a phone call on your hand?… wow pretty amazing ideas.
Part 1
Part 2
Tags: 
2010, Welcome back – Remote Ninjas and Capital Cities
Welcome back to 2010, it has been a while since I last posted anything Techy or Samurai related it reminds me how quickly we can go from leadership thinking to management thinking when one gets very busy (My company re-launched our flagship Guitar learning product Jamorama at the end of 2009 which didn’t leave me much time for blogging, a poor excuse I know!).
As it happens it looks like Julia (my partner) and myself are moving to Wellington! (NZ’s Captial City) for a change of lifestyle and a lot more Film and Television work for Julia. So I am putting together a proposal to keep working at Rock Star Recipes but remotely!
Remote work and more interesting, remote or distance leadership is something I have become very interested in, how can we in 2010 with all the technology easily available to most businesses lead from a distance? What are the challenges? How does communication, face to face time, company culture and atmosphere differ? I suspect a culture of great communication, trust and respect is key.
I’m hoping to document as much as I can while I learn more about this and also put my proposal forward to actually experience and work as a remote staff member and remote leader…
Perhaps we are coming to a point where there is no real difference whether someone is in the office or not as long at the end results are met and accountability is key. In the 80’s they called it “Tele-Communting” more recently it was dubbed “Tele-Work” (Perhaps to make it sound more like working for those managers who could not let micro-management go?) but I think going forward it will just be “work” as the technology and easy constant contact and communication from anywhere in the world becomes the norm.
More to come…
Oh, and for those who need their Technology and Ninja fix… check out the new Nexus One powered by Google Android.
Will your tribe change the world?
A great video I had to share from the TEDxUSC conference earlier this year on tribe leadership, some useful insights and ways we can all become more inter-connected and interdependant. Joining your tribe to others and other tribes to others you don’t know will push things forward. If you enjoy this then check out the Seth Godin video I posted earlier in the year (be warned it a full hour length talk from him) or check out his book tribes.
More to come soon and some shoutouts
Just a quick update, lecture for my uni paper have finished up for the year… I’m currently on some study leave to prep for the exam… wish me luck.
So whats next for the blog? Well I have planned a series of posts with some great info on how to become more independent from your computer and make use of some of the great cloud computing tools available out there.
Also before I forget a big shout out to Simon Waterhouse a great photographer and designer here in Christchurch for his help on the photos and design of my personal development plan(PDP) assessment. Be sure to check out his great photography here www.simonwaterhouse.com
Another shout out to the great guys at Silverstripe CMS… i used this to power my PDP website… once I had the design I was able to integrate and drop in the content in just under 4 hours work! A killer speedy content management system for anyone looking to jazz up their website.
My final big thank you goes out to Juliette Powell, Author of “33 Million People in the Room” who sent me a signed copy of her book… made my day! A great read if you are interested in social media, co-creation, and where things are headed online. I was lucky enough to meet her at a conference this year and really enjoy her contributions online through twitter and facebook.
On the leadership tip, I will leave you with some words of wisdom from the women herself, Juliette Powell, enjoy….
What are you top 5 strengths on the VIAstrengths survey. Which of those 5 are your signature strengths?
Take the VIA Character strengths survey… its quite long but gets a pretty accurate top 5 strengths it should take about 30-45 mins to run through. Check the link here
http://www.viacharacter.org/VIASurvey/VIASurvey/tabid/237/Default.aspx
These are my results from the survey:
Your Top Character Strength
Love of learning
You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.
Your Second Character Strength
Caution, prudence, and discretion
You are a careful person, and your choices are consistently prudent ones. You do not say or do things that you might later regret.
Your Third Character Strength
Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.
Your Fourth Character Strength
Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.
Your Fifth Character Strength
Citizenship, teamwork, and loyalty
You excel as a member of a group. You are a loyal and dedicated teammate, you always do your share, and you work hard for the success of your group.
My signature strenghts from these 5 are:
Love of learning
Curiousity and interest in the world
Teamwork, citizenship and loyalty
These 3 give me the most joy, excitment and I would pursue them in everything I do.
Complete the optimism questionnaire and record all your optimism scores. What significance do these scores have to you and what is the next step.
Having completed the optimism questionnaire as part of the leadership paper my optimism level is apparently “-2″ that being leaning slightly into the pesimistic realm (the scale being -9 to 9).
I am taking this as a healthy dose of pessimism as I am always one to hope for the best, plan for the worst to a realistic level. This is very useful in working out risk and planning contingently around projects and goals.
However sometime a little pessimism can get you down and it is always good to try and self-improve so my plan next it to work at increasing my levels of learned optimism through positive affirmation techniques, gratitude writing and reading more about positive psychology.
I just picked up a copy of Meiron Lees “D-Stress” book from the local university book shop which looks to be an interesting and practical read around improving optimism.
Teppanyaki Time
Myself and my partner Julia went out for Teppanyaki last night, sort of a reward for finishing one of my University assessments (not to mention I’m really into Japanese food!)
Having never had Teppanyaki before I was in for a treat…
The chef was great, he had all the tricks flipping produce and seafood all over the place, bouncing eggs on his spatula and making some serious flames. At the end he wrote us a “thank you” note in salt done upside down and back to front, all very engaging and exciting to watch.
I quickly got a sense he wasn’t just cooking food… but more giving a performance… telling a story….
So wouldn’t it be great if all products and service were like this… great ideas that tell a story, feel like a performance and engage us deeply….
Do you and your company make Teppanyaki products and services? Food for thought.
The mismatch between what science knows and what business does: Daniel Pink, TED 2009
Check out this great video from the 2009 TED conference…Daniel Pink talks about the benefits of intrinsic motivation, right brained creativity & conceptualisation and the changes that need to happen to change the world of business. He also talks about some experiments conducted by Dan Ariely et al. around monetary incentives and performance.
Enjoy.
Rockstar Results…
We had (at work) a great core values session with Kendall Langston from the Results Group yesterday to really nail down just what it is that we believe in and want to ingrain in everything we do at RockStar Recipes.
This is what we came up with…
- Curiosity – To learn new things, in the future, in our history, in people and relationship building, teaching methods.
- Embracing technology - Adapting and utilising new tech as it rolls out, being tech savvy and aware of what is new and finding best places to use it (or not use it) to augment our teaching, our delivery, our work flow and our lives.
- The experience to teach – building mentor relationships, being skilled in what we teach, having great communication, producing great content and resources, inspiring students – this is internal as well as external… that is we at RockStar Recipes learn as much as our students.
- Being a musician – Being active in your music community, being creative, expression through music, seeing music as a universal language.
- Being a “tight band” (or band member) - Being a “good dude”, team player, serving the band not just the self, having a friendly vibe, laid back & focused, supportive of the other band members!
Companies don’t have core values… people within them DO and I think we have really nailed what makes us at Rock Star Recipes tick, no marketing or PR bullshit… bottom up not top down, just real honest values that we live and bring to our work. It’s just like being part of a band and we all bring our unique style and character.
We hope that our customers, fans and friends can also relate to them and join us in our movement to shape the next generation of musicians!
Seth Godin on why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department
I finished reading Seth’s book tribes a few weeks back and really enjoy his work… Check out this great video, I will be posting a few other videos and interesting internet/techy/new thinking bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks as there are no journal questions for the next 2 weeks as we are on a break from university.
