Interesting

Enterprise from Tom Peters

Found this manifesto over at ChangeThis about the real meaning of enterprise and organization. Tom describes an enterprise as:

Enterprise* (*at its best): An emotional, vital, innovative, joyful, creative, entrepreneurial endeavor that maximizes individuals’ growth and elicits maximum concerted human potential in the wholehearted service of others.

Organization exist to serve people and the bottom line is that people serve people. He also encourages businesses to adopt the Professional Service Firm Idea where your company or department offer a complete turn-key solution to your customers. Your company or department need to do work that is worth paying for.

There's also a section where he teaches us to not let our life be dictated by our competitors. Instead of reacting to what your competitors are doing, you should focus on creating solutions for your customers. In fact, he wants you to love your competitors in order to grow the industry.

We ... are the problem. They are ... not ... the problem. We have one source only of Excellence: Us.

If you are running a team, department or company, this is a must read. Even if you're not, you should still check it out.

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Facebook lets you like the web

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Facebook just released a new Like Button for you to easily share content on the web to your friends. It's basically the same Like functionality you see on Facebook comments and photos, made available to every page on the web. I've added it here on my blog where you can see it right after the article. For those who are also using Wordpress, here's the code I added to the single.php file.

 

The code is originally generated from Facebook's Like Button page which I then replaced the URL to Like with the current page url shown below.

<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()); ?>

<?php echo urlencode(the_permalink()); ?> // Use this in index.php

The button also tells you if any of your friends liked the page. Try out the button below and tell me what you think.

What adults can learn from kids

The child prodigy Adora Svitak gave a talk at TED about what we adults need to learn from kids. We need more childish thinking and wild imagination to dream up a better world. I love the part where she said that kids don't care about how hard something is or the limitation but rather they just think about good ideas. Check out the talk below.

Raising kids to be entrepreneurs

This an awesome talk by Cameron Herold at TEDxEdmonton about why we should encourage kids to be entrepreneur. I love his insight on allowances for kids. He argues that allowances train kids to expect a steady income like a paycheck. It trains them to get a job instead of starting their own venture. Instead of allowances, he tell his kids that they can look for tasks and jobs they want to do to get paid. Then they negotiate the price for the job. This teaches them about how to look for opportunity and improve their negotiation skills. Half the profit is then channeled into a bank account and later used to invest in stocks. They are taught the importance of savings and investments at such early age.

I wish I was raised this way. Every parent out there need to watch this.

Change the course of history

Four Years Go is a movement to get everyone to start changing our lifestyle to avert the incoming ecological and social collapse. We have to change the course of history in the next 4 years in order to create a better future.

As the Chinese proverb says “If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed” and in humanity’s case where we are headed is clearly some type of ecological and social collapse.

All of us have to realize the damage we are causing to our planet and rise up to change this. We need to be the change agents that will lead humanity to more sustainable course. Check out the site for more information about this movement.

Barcode that helps you shop

A group of designers came up with an idea to help those who can't tell if a fruit is rotten, pick the fresh ones.

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In supermarkets where loads of veggies is stacked and dumped, freshness may not be a priority. Keeping a track of all that’s been brought in can be time consuming and not all buyers may have a knack for freshness count. The Fresh Code offers a simple solution to this problem; it’s an intelligent barcode with a graph that indicates the freshness level. As time passes by, the graph on the barcode keeps receding, till it finally reaches “0”; indicating that the veggie needs to be dumped and not sold - Yanko Design

If only they have one that also tell you if you are being ripped off by the supermarket. I might actually enjoy shopping then.

Seven Ways To Do More Great Work

In order to be indispensable, you have to do great work. Unless you are self-employed or work for a boss that understand this, it's pretty hard to have the time to get stuff that matters done. Most of the time, you'll be occupied with busywork. Luckily, Michael Bungay Stanier (founder of Box of Crayons) offer us 7 ways to stop us from doing the busywork and do more great work. He categorizes the work we do into 3 different types. Bad, Good and Great work. The key is to stop doing or reduce time spent on the bad and good work and focus on the great.

The brutal truth is that if everyone is happy, then you're probably not doing Great Work - Michael Bungay Stanier

Check out the manifesto here or download it to read it later.

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Life is too short

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I received this last week. It's one of the painting from Hugh Macleod of GapingVoid. This is not actually the one I ordered but I like all of the Linchpin series so it's fine. 

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Life is too short not to do something that matters, not to become a "Linchpin". I know it, you know it, we all know it, so let's stop futzin' around at get on with it. Like Seth says, "Decide". - Hugh

This will serve as a daily reminder for me that life is too short to waste time and get myself to start working on those ideas. You just have to try to know if it will work.

Stop buying stuff you don't need

Annie Leonard created a film and also released a book about the true cost of our consumerism on the nature and human beings. It's a story that shows why we should stop buying stuff (at least less of them) because it is simply unsustainable. Take 20 minutes and watch the film below and it will change your perceptive of things you use everyday.

For those who are interested, here's the book.