Pages

September 28, 2012

My Netfllx Top 10

I've reviewed many Netflix top 10 suggestions and they're usually clones of each other, with The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, and Arrested Development somewhere in the mix. If you haven't watched these shows, you should, but if you have and are hungry for more, this is your list.

House of Cards - Ian Richardson is diabolically haunting. If you like Machiavellian political dramedies like the West Wing, this show is right for you.

Luther - Idris Elba is the reason to watch this show. If you liked him as Stringer Bell in The Wire, you'll like him as Luther. Be warned, it's Law & Order SVU + Criminal Minds on steroids.

Peep Show - The first person perspective is really original and works well with the two lead characters in the show. It's a hilarious but awkward show like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Arrested Development.

Jekyll - James Nesbitt is such an amazing actor. The expected persona switch he makes between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is striking. Like most British shows, it's short and sweet.

Sherlock - How would Sherlock Holmes solve cases with modern day technology? This show answers that question. Who knew another Homes series could be so well done.

Intelligence - Trade craft and meta-politics behind police work revealed. The only other show I can think that weaves plot lines like this is The Wire.

Twin Peaks - Slow, methodical, and creepy. A cult classic that Kyle MacLachlan makes so funny at times. If you watch it, there's a point where you'll feel like you should stop. Heed that instinct.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within - Switching to movies, this is a political action drama not to miss. The Fraga character is enthralling to watch and the corruption so infuriating.

Mesrine - You won't recognize Vincent Cassel in this. He's so hard-edged and powerful to watch. Throughout the movie, I felt like I was watching it on the big screen instead of my laptop.

Winter's Bone - Is that Katniss? No. It's an amazing actress with barely a movie to her name who shows up and gives it everything she's got. This movie will leave you hollow and surprised. 

September 27, 2012

How do you know if you're really working?

"Doing focused work for 5-6 hours a day is really hard. We forget this because much of what keeps businesspeople “busy” during the day is plowing through email or sitting in random meetings or socializing. We waste hours to this daily ho hum. Yet through it all we trick ourselves into thinking we’re being productive since we’re 'at work.'"
This quote came from Ben Casnocha's Behind The Book, a worthy, wiki-like long read about what went on behind-the-scenes of writing "The Start-Up of You".

It is certainly not the most important quote in what is an extremely comprehensive and personal diary of events in an author's life. It isn't even that original.

But, in length, form and delivery, it's the best explanation of how "work" works. Let's dissect it.
"Doing focused work for 5-6 hours a day is really hard." 
Many would scoff at this, touting they pull all-nighters and work 12 hours a day, but until you actually track the time you spend on projects, as Ben did using Toggl, you never know the difference between "work" and work. There were only a handful of times - crunch time - when Ben actually pulled 12 hour days.

This is not to say that time spent thinking about a project doesn't count. I have young memories of sitting in my dad's office watching him work, and the majority of the time he would sit there silently mulling over something in his mind. Occasionally he would write something down or whiteboard a few diagrams, but it took him a while to get down to writing a proposal or brief or press release (which now I know is what he was doing). Ideating is extremely important, and perhaps even trackable, but consistently drumming out 5-6 hours of focused work each day is in fact really hard.
"much of what keeps businesspeople "busy" during the day is plowing through email or sitting in random meetings or socializing." 
This is the filler time before Miller time (I had to). It's what pads those 12 hour days. Rarely can I imagine knowledge work being done for such a long period of time. This is not only speaking from personal experience but also observing many colleagues, consultants and entrepreneurs at work. Some of them are brilliant at what they do, but burnout doesn't come from working the whole time, it comes from coping with the distractions. The CIO in my last job used to come in at 7am and stay till 7pm because he found the first few and last few hours to be the most energizing and productive.
"We waste hours to this daily ho hum."
Most people like to work, create, review, ideate, and produce. Whether it's knowledge work or not, there's a personal worthiness attached to these activities. The distraction comes from meetings, workplace politics, water cooler talk, office social media and general social media. Again, this is not to undermine these activities, it is to downplay them in the context of the term, "productivity." I often get right to the point in a conversation or engage deeply in a person's challenges, hearing them out, mulling over solutions, assessing the situation. This is too abrupt for some people and that's understandable. More ice breaking is involved in some contexts over others. But it still doesn't fall under productive time. 
"we trick ourselves into thinking we’re being productive since we’re 'at work.'"
Going into the office everyday has it's bonuses; free coffee (sometimes), business broadband, colleague proximity, consistency, printer/scanner/fax, etc. Yet, for those that have the option of working remotely or have freelanced before, there is a lot of productivity in freedom of location too. Sometimes, "because the possibility of communicating is so easy, it is often taken for granted"(thanks Lifehacker), and becomes diluted in its necessity. 

Bottom line, you don't have to be in a specific place for work to happen. Occasionally, I miss having a place to dump my stuff, but if it's coffee and wifi and a printer/scanner/fax I need, I turn to a free coworking space or a library. At the least, I can go into a Starbucks or B&N or use the scanner app on my phone to replicate what expensive office technology offers. 

There's always a way and that's what work, in essence, boils down to. If you need to get stuff done, you'll do it one way or another. You'll put the 5-6 hours of focused work in and come out of it sighing with relief that you just got that creative good out of you and out into the world. It may not be ready for show time, but it's there for you to look at it again. And you'll do it again tomorrow when you're recharged to take it on again. 

Consider this an ode to a well crafted paragraph or a redundant, perhaps thorough dissection of what makes "work", in fact, work. I see it as another way to tell if you're really working. 25-30 hours a week. That's it. Good luck finding what gives you focus. 

September 26, 2012

The single most important message of the Social Good Summit

I spent the past couple days and the weekend at the Social Good Summit, watching, networking and tweeting. The format was executed really well. Literally, every 15-20 minutes there was one panel of speakers after another, from the eloquent Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. whose prodigious use of Twitter made the public he serves loyal fans to the brilliant Hans Rosling, who has an amazing knack of creating a visual narrative for public health data to the electric Todd Park, the CTO for the White House who is down right fun to watch as he makes government seem like a fun place to work. I'm geeking out of course, but celebrities like Forest Whitaker, Deepak Chopra, and Mira Sorvino also made an appearance to speak about their personal missions around social good.

If I were to sum up the Summit in one sentence though, it would be:

"Everyone has a voice."

This was mentioned so many times that it became exhausting, but the point of the message was to use that voice since technology now allows you to do so. Mobile-savvy entrepreneurs, conglomerate tech company CEOs and a few ambitious teenagers from disparate countries spoke about the power of the mobile phone to change the world. It was a consistently motivational message peppered with real-world examples.

Couple of interesting things happened at the conference that are worth mentioning. The first day, lunch was served on plastic plates and cups. Being a social good conference, this was tacky and not very thoughtful. Since "everyone has a voice", people openly discussed and tweeted this fact and the next day the plastic changed to recyclable paper. It was pretty remarkable and sparked another thought stream of BYOC or BYOP; bring-your-own-cup / bring-your-own-plate. Sounds extreme, I know, but it was voiced and that was the point.

The other point to note was that while everyone had a voice, they were using it within their closed online social media networks more than they were with each other in person. I met more people there through twitter than I did through traditional face-to-face networking. Now this has some pros, like avoiding the first few minutes of small talk awkwardness before you figure out what you click about, if anything. But on the other hand, people were glued to their mobile devices so much that their attention span in live conversation was sporadic and limited. The phone was more their voice than their larynx.

It was amazing to see the buzz generated around and through the Summit unfold. The main goal was to legitimize social good and that's a smart move in a single bottom line world skeptical of the risk/reward proposition. Some people had made millions working in social good (though that wasn't the point) and some affected billions of lives (which also wasn't necessarily the point). By the end, it was obvious that social good wasn't simply a concept, it was a movement that worked through familiar financial and business models to impact scaleable change on the people and planet level.

It wasn't SXSW, but it certainly wasn't HIMSS. It was a conversation that would traditionally be one way if it weren't for social media. Next time, I would take it one step further and let the audience ask questions of the speakers and have the moderator curate in real-time. Make it more interactive for the audience instead of simply mobilizing them as a PR force.

This blog is my voice so I'm using it. I continue to stay excited about the developments in social good and would gladly attend the Social Good Summit again next year. It'd be far more interesting as a speaker. Though, which conference isn't? 

September 24, 2012

Work on stuff that matters

Here are three video links I've emailed out more times than I can remember about doing work that matters. Ideas include the role of citizenship, creating for the sake of creating, and appealing to the purpose behind your work. Enjoy.

1. The Gardens of Democracy



2. The Clothesline Paradox & the Sharing Economy



3. How Great Leaders Inspire Action

September 19, 2012

Achieving Oneness

As I was biking through the park today, the uphill climb became effortless all of a sudden. My legs, body, and hands seemed irreversibly connected to the bike itself. I was flowing fluidly uphill with this two-wheel metal contraption underneath me, but it wasn't separate from me. I was a part of it.

We were one, but even that's not quite right. Rather, there wasn't any question in my mind that we could have been two. My body swayed perfectly and in tune with the bike's motion, my breathing timed to the rotation of the pedals, the weight of my arms evenly distributed for functional balance. Everything felt easy.

I've experienced this before when driving and walking too. In the case of walking, the pavement and I were separate to begin with and then we weren't. As I remember it, my body and the pavement just worked together and I felt more relaxed and connected to my surroundings.

If you can connect with inanimate objects such as the bike, the car, and the pavement, it's not a stretch to extrapolate this feeling to animals. People who ride horses, elephants, or camels regularly express being one with the animal's motion. They know when to slow down or speed up, read signs of danger and even emotionally understand the animal's needs. The word "whisperer" is often used to describe those that seem to naturally have this ability.

From inanimate objects to animals, I'd venture you can feel this way with people as well. Sometimes it's just really simple to talk to someone and you can't tell why. Every conversation starts off where you left it, a day, a week or even a year ago. I feel this way with some of my friends and occasionally with people I just met. You "click".

To summarize this feeling more generally, you and something other than you start as separate and then something changes to make you and that other than you the same. That's oneness. 1 + 1 = 1, perhaps. The idea of flow in psychology comes very close to describing it:
"In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand.The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task  although flow is also described as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one's emotions."
Alignment, disappearance of oneself, spontaneous joy, channeling. These are emotions that can only hint at the reality of the feeling. But how do you activate it? How do you flow or be one with something or someone on cue? What do you do to connect with someone who you feel separate from?

In my experience, the process is very educational. A sharing of knowledge and understanding between two entities. With inanimate objects, it can only come with experiential education. You bike enough that you start learning about its idiosyncrasies - the stiffness of the brakes, the rotation of the pedals, the balance of the frame - and start shifting your body to match them.

From my little experience with animals, I'd guess the learning process is very similar. Attention and mindfulness are key. If you're just riding the animal to get from point A to point B, that's one thing. You jump on and go and get what you need from the animal's strength. But if you recognize that the animal is taking the journey with you and listen to its needs, achieving oneness is that much easier.

How does it work with two people or even a group? The simple answer is empathy, but initiative really decides how quickly you'll feel a stronger connection. For example, when you meet someone new, how often do you extend your hand first? What does it say about the interaction? It's an amazing feeling when two people extend their hands at the same time for a handshake. That immediate connection and the timing is very telling.

Same goes with greater levels of connection. How often do you initiate a hug? A kiss on the cheek? What have you accepted culturally and what do you feel comfortable with? The start of an interaction doesn't define its entirety, but it can set a powerful tone for developing a connection. Context matters in that your initiation may put someone at ease, or make them uncomfortable. No reason to over think it, but be conscious that how you initiate can have an impact on feeling one with another person.

After the interaction has been initiated, a certain level of rapport must be established before flow sets in. This is usually small talk about the weather or current events. Too often, people get stuck here and don't get to the point of flow. I see this as another lack of initiative, on both sides. In order to be one with someone who you currently feel separate from, you have to ask questions, put yourself in their shoes, see the world through their lens, just as they are attempting to do the same for you. You have to grok them before oneness can take place:
"To understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience."
Think of a great party you've been to. Recall how the music, food, and people made you feel. Think about the ambience, and even the way people moved through the crowd. What made it so great? I'd wager it was a strong feeling of belonging. A feeling of oneness with everyone and everything there that made all the social awkwardness and disjointedness disappear. You grokked the vibe and were part of what made others grok it too.

Being curious and willing to learn about other people while sharing your story can be really fulfilling. It's educational for both sides and combines initiative equally. It moves you down the path of initiation, rapport, and empathy all the way to oneness. I'll give you a few examples from business, which suffers terribly from separation between the customer and the supplier. It doesn't have to be this way.

Think about brands and businesses you have an attachment to. They understand what you need and you go back to them again and again because of how they make you feel. It could be cheerful customer service before the 2nd ring, discovering slips of paper in your egg carton with the names of the chickens who laid your eggs, or a simple salutation customized for you that stands apart from all the auto-generated messages you receive in your email every day.

Achieving oneness is really about the way we approach the world. Whether inanimate objects, animals, or people, we bring something to the interaction that changes it, either bringing others closer or moving them further apart.

On that note, I'd like to hear from others about their experiences of oneness. This post will go to twitter and G+ so please share your thoughts.

September 12, 2012

How to measure growth from a triple bottom line perspective

From a single bottom line perspective, growth is financial and limitless. The only way to grow is up, and as quickly as possible. Revenue maximization, market share, and industry leadership is the guiding mindset.

Growth eventually reaches a threshold though where the next unit of growth provides less value than the previous unit did. In economics, it’s called the law of diminishing marginal utility. The growth curve basically plateaus out. If you’re bigger than everyone else, being just a little bigger makes little difference.

If growth isn’t just about going upwards, then what is it? From a triple bottom line (TBL) perspective, growth is about going outwards, spreading horizontally rather than vertically. For example, instead of asking, “how much did the company grow financially last year?”, you might ask, “how satisfied were my employees, customers, and vendors?” Instead of increasing an already high profit margin, you may look at increasing training or volunteer hours, or recovering costs from energy savings.

More specifically, if you’re an electronics manufacturer with huge surpluses, look at your supply chain and check your recyclability, quotas and waste production. If you’re a grocery chain with Whole Foods-like potential, double-check your food sourcing and look for sustainable products you can put on your shelf.

In the pursuit for greater financial growth, economic impact on employees, community and environment often takes the back seat. The essence of TBL is to provide checks and balances, not put things on hold, but to pay forward the benefits we’ve worked so hard to accrue. It’s a mentality that guides us down a path where people and planet are given some, if not equal, consideration along with profit.

September 7, 2012

Single vs. Triple Bottom Line

There's a house in my neighborhood that has a great front yard with beautiful flowers. You pass by and you can't help but admire them. As you do though, you might just get sprayed by the water sprinklers that reach over the short fence. Or you might step through the puddle forming on the sidewalk and even the muddy grass next to it, because the sprinklers have been on since early morning.

After getting myself or my shoes wet, my appreciation of these flowers changes. Knowing the sprinklers are on most of the day makes me admire them that much less. Are they still beautiful considering the disregard of the sidewalk and the water wastage? It's a matter of opinion, but even someone who appreciates their beauty can't ignore the negative affects. They're real, annoying and resource-intensive.

I've been using this example a lot over the last month to explain the mentality behind single versus triple bottom line. Profit matters just the way the beauty of those flowers matters. The question is are we accounting for all the factors that make that profit possible? We know the positives of wealth production. What are the negatives? Who are the people affected? How is our environment changed?

After answering those questions, is the profit as meaningful as it was before accounting for these people and planet factors? That's the key question each one of us has to answer for ourselves. The answer is neither right or wrong, it simply reveals the guiding force behind our local and global decisions.

It's hard to account for factors that aren't readily visible, especially when profit is involved. But just like in the case of the flowers, the impact on people and planet is real, whether we notice it or not. Triple bottom line is simply a way to consider those factors. If our decisions change because of it, then we know how we feel about those flowers.

September 1, 2012

How do you know you know better?

When I was fresh out of college, I had a job to get, an apartment to find, and new friends to make. Those were my objectives and I hung on until I got all three done. I didn't know any better. I didn't think about what kind of job I wanted, just that I needed one and preferably one that paid well. I didn't care where the apartment was as long as it was close enough to my job and a scene I wanted to be a part of. I wasn't selective about my friends, filtering only through mutual interests and hobbies.

Over the years, I learned that who you work with is more important than what you're doing. I moved to enough neighborhoods in NYC to understand their cultural differences and choose based on what best fits my lifestyle. And friends came and went, so I began selecting for longevity, not just common interests. I didn't know any better before and now I think I do.

But how do I know I know better? What if the filters I'm working with are all wrong? I don't believe this question is from a place of insecurity, but rather curiosity. I wonder what I'll know in 5 years that will make me rethink what I know now. And I wonder how I can cut those 5 years into 3, or even 2.

Though it takes time to gain experience to better understand yourself, how do you know you know better? What benchmarks do you use that let you know you've grown? Or devolved? Or stayed the same?