poignant – Page 11 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

‘bucks sailor went where ..?

Quite some time ago, I came across this, in Lucca:

and considered it as grossy antagonistic “Starbucks opening soon here” sign.
Later, I read up what the co. has on their own site about the logo. Which has some vague story about a 16th century Norse woodcut.
The thing being: The church (it is) in Lucca was built, and veryveryvery probably decorated, long before. So, had some Norse sailor been there? This is much more possible than latter-day non-historians tend to believe… Norsemen even had kingdoms et al. in Italy for centuries, or at least raided there quite regularly so why not? Time to dig deeper; is there really no History major who’d like to do a thesis on this? The co. we speak of, should have some nice study grant ready, right ..?

And of course there’s the research already written out here (in Italian, only just (i.e., entirely) can’t read it) about the origins of it all in the first place — the last pictures referring to the coffee you get ?? [Hm, I’m still a fan for romantic reasons, of their freshbrew]

Guess

OK, your guess (sic) as to what these real actual companies do:
Qwerly, Zlio, Adatao, Viggle, Zoosk, Hipmunk.

Wrong. What they really do here.
Now, the next round: Loopt, Xobri, Heroku, Bump.

Who dreams up these names anyway; yes an algorithm huh your idea about my stupidity is a mirror’s reflection farther away from truth about me you can’t get. But it demonstrates the creativity levels at those start-up / boot camp sweat shops nicely that such a visible, outstandingly creative element is left to such an apparently un-truly-creative, boring machine.

No pic today; your score’s too low.

How to Not Authentic

Oh how Ecce Homo it is … In the search for authenticity, exposing one’s pathetically empty on that subject. Of course, referring to this here column on the desperation of searching the real deal — that straight away exposes itself as not the thing by definition through having to search for it.
But then, probably part of the still-bearded class. Too young (mentally) to know what real retro is (about), only just too old to envy One D…

Wryly smiling … And:

[If you know where / what that is: The actually authentic… (?)]

Hipmap

Once mapped, hipness lost of course. Like ‘beards’ went, two years ago.

[Via Gizmodo]

Fun / stagnation

About the difference between boring and Inspirational! in business.

Old	New
Process, procedures, work steps	Request for direction
Compliance	Demonstrating failure; to learn
Punishment for (anyone’s! esp. higher-ups’) failures	Coaching towards more errors
Stepping out of line (even by casual remarks hinting at less than 100% drone motivation) is failure	Pivoting (even for your contribution) is near-mandatory
Succes is obedience to the gallows	Success is coming up with / doing the hitherto infeasible, unthinkable
The ones exploiting drones (licking up / kicking down) and (only) best versed at sticking to their chair, are promoted	Promotion? We don’t do rank and file here; we like your creative more or less
You’re fired – just because you’re a number that turned up in the lottery – that’s held every couple of months because bosses are bored and utterly incapable of coming up with anything revenue-increasing i.s.o. cutting costs and shrinking is growing, right? Even when the shrinking cuts out exactly the very growth-enhancing competences you need ever more desparate.	You’re allowed to pursue a career elsewhere, too but we don’t want to lose you. What can we do to make you like it even more here?
“(The ‘innovator’s dilemma’ is that ‘doing the right thing is the wrong thing.’) As Christensen saw it, the problem was the velocity of history, and it wasn’t so much a problem as a missed opportunity, like a plane that takes off without you, except that you didn’t even know there was a plane, and had wandered onto the airfield, which you thought was a meadow, and the plane ran you over during takeoff.” (as here; very instructive)	The same.
Fade to grey	“I’m Cool”

Your Things’ Id, Ego, Super-Ego

Just putting it out there; my pres at the very successful IDentity.Next conference last week in Noordwijkerhout. Though it is without any actual speaker notes, you may still get the points – or we may have a discussion about certain uncertainties therein.
I’ll stop now; too much in the unwind mode still, due to the great discussions on the spot.

So, here it is. And this:

[Things creeping up on you; Zuid-As]

Meet no more, continuously, and excel

I posted before on the atrocities of current-day meeting practices. And on the changing role of the Document, here.
The latter, provided some thought towards predicting the demise of the former: When we’re connected (at the information level, not mere technically) constantly and continuously, wouldn’t all the errors of meetings be resolved (resolvable) by not having them anymore, or at least, re-styling them in a wholesale manner?
First, a picture:
[Reflections of – the way life used to be (lyrics)]

I mean, all the meeting errors have been allowed to play out because the in-charge’s liked them, for the display of faux leadership caricature they provided. But with the change towards always-on mesh communications, which is do-or-die, the very reasons to have meetings diminishes. Social advantages of meeting F2F, that were collateral ‘damage’, may still be around but in the form of having drinks. Who’d need more? and now recognize the benefits outright, without the formal hassle and hilarious chair and topper pomp.

Though I treasure the value of the Document, if, very big if, it is in itself an attempt to Masterpiece. Which it sometimes is, in organisations, but then, so desperately few would survive public muster. Yes, there’s a trend towards deployment of Narratives everywhere. But that’s not what I mean here. I mean stuff like Books, nuggets of Culture carried through the ages. Where mere documents, even, let alone casual socmed conversations, will leave no (! storage re-use needs, TLA?) trace of your existence. As the Greek Hell beyond the underworld: In the underworld, even the villains were still known by name. But beyond that, in Hell, wailed the spirits of the Forgotten, the nameless. That truly was as bad as hell could get. And, of course, true heroes would attach to the pantheon, become stars and constellations. Do you strive for that, when filling out the TPS report at Initech? If you had to look that up, you’re on the naïve side of young…

Well then, to summarise: Meeting mania is curable, and Documents sharpen our skills. What a blunt conclusion. But don’t blame me when your greatness takes off.

The two faces of digital transformation

A plain reblog from Esko Kilpi, on the future of information flow within the organization. Very thoughtful. If only you’d be allowed to read it and not be stuck in printed documents …

Detachment

First, this:
DSCN9250
[Fantasy, sorcery, in the end Harry wins. Porto]

Just to start your day with a bit of freshness.

Then this: Hardly any surprise that Big Corp advertises like a headless monster
7e55ec92-20ab-11e4-8ead-22000ab926d3-large
Where the ‘joke’ is that this is from a company (note: it’s just an example, others are similar (..?)) where staff is pushed to the edge to deliver on hardly-quality-related shortest-term-possible KPIs, have had to hand in holiday days to keep up the profit shares of the partners (‘voluntarily’ as otherwise it might be illegal), etc. etc. Stepping one millimeter out of line is punished with all but physical beheading. So, the ad is just false advertising of the worst, culpable, kind, or displays the utter ignorance of those involved.

Or both. Which again are signs of dinosaur behavior. Detachment of where actual work is done. Same as outsourcing production abroad and claiming ignorance about work conditions – ignorance on purpose is still very, very culpable; do we need a SOx for what should be normal, human, humane treatment of employees ..? Hopefully not, as this would open the floodgates of totalitarian bureaucrat advisors and consultants once again (…), yes those that Holier Than Thou folks (see above) who display to don’t know a thing about practical management. As proven (!) by Mintzberg.
Detachment. Isolation, islands of bounty at the ‘top’. That will be swept into oblivion by a mere floodwave. Where a tsunami’s approaching.

Oh, for the unattentive reader: There’s a great many posts on this site (just do a search) that I am not against leadership, by actual leaders… This just being a rant against the falsehood of advertising and against bad ‘leadership’ …

On how life is

For most of us, this is the metaphor of life. About how you aim for the best future, but are held back by accident and others are just more … lucky?
It seems. Because the article isn’t about how others may be in even slower queues, or the purpose of life. To make it to the (your) end. Not even the fastest. Or the zero impact of talent (which is a form of luck) or a bias for effort (same). But to not care.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with
[Queueing up, in a sense]