I’m fond of simple stuff. Yeah, some things are complicated. But many things get overlooked because of how simple they appear to be. People just don’t see them, or think that they can’t be very important because they’re so simple.
One of my bosses used to say, “Never be afraid to look for the obvious and to ask the simple questions.” (This from a man who spent his career orchestrating rocket-science financial transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars.)
I try to remember that Rule of Simple with anthropology. There’s plenty of complexity in anthro. But at work, when I’m using anthro glasses to examine organizations and come up with practical recommendations, there’s a lot of simple stuff that can be a big influence on people’s behavior, the resulting social dynamic and thus organizational performance.
A recent New York Times article by Carol Pogash gave a great example. It turns out that many schoolkids who qualify for subsidized meals don’t eat them. Kids will go hungry rather than eat free food. Why? Continue reading The Rule of Simple: cafeteria design and student behaviors
Hurrah — I’m finally back at Casa ORA, after a two-month hiatus for holidays and work.
The potential Microsoft-Yahoo merger is big news here in Silicon Valley. In many of the articles, there’s a throwaway comment about the two companies having big cultural differences — but there’s usually not much of substance said beyond that (other than the usual tropes of “Silicon Valley hates Redmond” and “Yahoo is boring because it’s not a startup anymore”). The meme that “organizational culture differences are a threat to M&A” seems to be widely-accepted trusim…but beyond that, it can be hard to find much of substance on the issue. (If you want to cut to the chase, I list a few sources for more information down at the end of this post.)
(There was one article that used baseball and football as metaphors for the two companies’ cultures, which IMO gets more points for creativity than insight. Although I’m tickled at the notion of using sports metaphors as a symbolic taxonomy for professional groups….so what company/professional group are the hockey players? the Olympic equestrian team? Ping Pongers?…OK I’m off topic.)
Back to corporate culture and M&A: Grant McCracken and I chatted on this topic last week. I’m not an expert on Microsoft or Yahoo, but the conversation got me thinking about M&A and organizational culture in general. We know a lot about the financial issues of M&As; those are easy to track, and that news doesn’t look encouraging (the truism is that 60-80% of mergers fail to meet financial targets). But what do we know about the cultural issues of M&As? (Side note: mergers do differ from acquisitions, but I’m treating them as one broad organizational dynamic in this post.) Continue reading Mergers and acquisitions: when corporate cultures collide
When surfing through YouTube and other Web 2.0 zones, I’m always struck by this recent explosive democratization of celebrity, thanks to the tools that have enabled online participatory culture. If it’s true, as Shakespeare wrote, that “some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them,” then Web 2.0 has certainly increased the range of options to achieve fame, or to have fame thrust upon you (as in the Star Wars Kid).
As a result, more and more of us netizens are having celebrity experiences: Continue reading The democratization of celebrity and the online experience
There’s a comment that I hear frequently, when talking about social networks with folks who themselves aren’t heavy users: “What’s with those people who have hundreds of friends on their friendslist? Nobody has *that* many friends.”
The unspoken judgment is that people with “too many” names in their social network “don’t know what a real friend is” and are probably shallow and superficial in their friendships.
There are a number of reasons why some people rack up the headcount on their friendslists. (It’s well known that a few people are into the game of it, chasing the high score.) But there is a practical reason for having a lot of contacts: online social network tools are a great way to manage your weak links. Continue reading Businesspeople managing their weak links: or, why some people have 500+ contacts on LinkedIn
The Stanford Social Innovation Review Fall 2007 had an interesting article called “Harnessing Purity and Pragmatism” (subscription required).
The point of the article was that people who work for social change tend to fall into two camps — the “work for change from the inside” folks (the pragmatists/compromisers) and the “work for change from the outside” folks (the purists/non-compromisers). The study looked at various NFPs along that spectrum of purity-pragmatism, to look for patterns of outcomes. Continue reading Purists vs Pragmatists in driving social change: which is better?
There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal called Young Collectors about kids as young as age 4 who have multiple-thousand-dollar allowances for art collecting. That got me thinking: what the heck is that about, kids who can barely tie their shoelaces and the parents have them buying art? Then I thought, it’s probably the same reason my young nieces are allowed to “drive” the ranch tractor: because their parents think it’s a good learning experience.
It’s a big issue for parents: how to best prepare a child for adulthood? How to introduce children to adult activities and responsibilities? Continue reading 4-yr-old art collectors and the professionalizing of childhood
There’s a great article on the Ikea Hackers culture that’s sprung up in the last few years: Romancing the Flat Pack: Ikea, Repurposed. (Warning: New York Times usually requires a login.)
The article talks about how people take Ikea components and create different things out of them: guitars (wow!), other furniture, art pieces, etc. A lot of these are whimsical, like a weiner-dog bench or a surfboard table. For more examples, check out this blog. An official Ikea representative was reportedly thrilled and said this was an example of people finding the Ikea brand to be friendly and fun.
This is one more way in which Ikea is Legos for adults. (Note: lots of people have made this Legos=Ikea observation before me, so I’m not being original here.) Continue reading Ikea Hacking: Ikea as Legos for adults
There’s an article in BusinessWeek for August 29. (But first — a Moment of Love for BusinessWeek for their ongoing articles on some of my favorite business-y topics like design, ethnography, etc.).
Wanted: VPs of Design. More designers are reaching the executive ranks. But where are they getting the general business knowhow they need?
Article summary: more companies are creating executive roles for designers — which means designers need broader business management skills, which they are acquiring through various methods, including mentoring, in-house corporate training, and external business-school-type training.
First off: this is all good news IMO for designers, companies, and consumers. The Design Exec (DE) role continues the trend of corporations recognizing the importance of design to their overall business motion. Victoria Postrel discusses this at length in her book The Substance of Style and in her blog The Dynamist.
At a more meta level: I love how organizational charts are both artifacts and drivers of how companies are thinking about themselves, and about what and who is important. Continue reading Exec jobs for designers, and org charts as artifacts
I’m fascinated by the New Craft / DIY, so I loved hearing Dale Dougherty speak at an open session at Xerox Parc recently.
Dale is a longtime O’Reilly Media leader and is currently editor of Make Magazine and one of the founders of Maker Faire, so he’s been watching this new wave of Craft DIY for as long as anybody.
He covered a lot of ground so I’ll just give a few highlights: Continue reading Dale Dougherty on modern craft & DIY
