[New Rules] The Vibe in My (Dolores Park) Neighborhood

In Pareto’s world , big things count a lot, but small things count as well. The trick as it were to is make sure you nail the big things very well, and make sure to do the smalls things well too.

It sounds easy to do but my experience is that it’s hard to execute. Many companies – and their functional departments –  try to do it all at once – sort of the spaghetti testing method en masse– throwing it against the wall hoping that most of it sticks.Read the rest

[Jurassic Park] The New Big (Company) Kid on the Block

I drove to my client, a company on the Peninsula, past what was formerly Genentech Inc. (acquired by Roche) in South Francisco, on the same day that General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

If I had driven further south I would have passed buildings that formerly housed Bay Networks and 3Com, long gone former or diminished competitors of Cisco, and by a location that was Informix (subsumed by IBM), Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle), and Silicon Graphics , a leader in computer graphics in the mid-1990’s and a recent bankruptcy participant, acquired by Rackable Systems.Read the rest

[New Rules] The Pure Digital Manifesto: “Wait! Have You Seen THIS On Video?”

Life changes, and at times, it changes very quickly. For organizations it can be a game of relentless catch-up as they move to adjust to the benefits – and challenges of technological shifts.

With most people and companies finally getting a solid handle on simple older workplace technology from the 1990’s like e-mail (“Do we really want to put out an all-employees e-mail saying those things?”),Read the rest

(Still) Time to Be Greedy – Why Your Firm Needs a Brand Called “You”

This is the last in a series of three posts dealing with “brand.” A piece on employment brands in general and a post on personal brands preceded,  and this item provides some examples and how to’s. As someone who’s been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years, and also been directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations, I have a pretty good idea why some firms recruit well (and others don’t), and how people can take their best foot forward as either a job candidate or consultant / vendor.Read the rest

(More) Time to be Greedy: Why You Need A Brand Called “You”

This is the second in a series of three posts dealing with “brand.” A piece on employment brands in general proceeded it and some company employment brand examples and how-to’s will follow. As someone who’s been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years, and also been directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations, I have a pretty good idea why some firms recruit well (and others don’t), and how people can take their best foot forward as either a job candidate or consultant / vendor.Read the rest