Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Business and organizational observers in San Francisco and its environs will get a first hand view of how smart – or not-so-smart – the buyers of Genentech and Barclays Global Investor’s iShares unit are in getting real value for their acquisitions. [Update: See Kathleen Pender’s good overview column Net Worth from the April 12th San Francisco Chronicle here ]
While the buyers are different, the name of the game is the same: get value equal or greater to your purchase price.… Read the rest
Fortune Magazine’s April 13, 2009 edition has an article on Jamie Varon, who built a website called TwitterShouldHireMe.com as part of her job hunt campaign to get – guess who – to hire her. She also writes a blog called “intersected ." Her Twitter job campaign site apparently has spawned a host of imitators (googleshouldhireme.com, Facebookshoulehireme.com, etc.). [Update: Varon has also just launched a new blog site called "Shatterbox – The Way of Standing Out and Changing the World."… Read the rest
In Roman Catholic theology, limbo is that afterlife condition for those who die without being assigned to hell. For employees in companies waiting for the post-acquisition dust to settle such as Genentech, or for those waiting for part of the organization to be halved off, such as Barclays Global Investors (BGI) with its iShares division, limbo is a pretty good description of what it’s like to be inside the organization.… Read the rest
This week’s April 13, 2009 Fortune Magazine (on newsstands now, online in around 10 days) identifies tactics that they believe work in the current job market. Many will sound familiar from readers of the nine-part “Choose Me” Hire Me! series from the Life Back West blog.
Here are some of the job hunting actions Fortune identified that work:
All of these ideas are really helpful and I think complement the type of know yourself, know your message, and build your network approached advocated by experts such as Richard Nelson Bolles .… Read the rest
Eight United States teams – four men’s and four women’s – of sweaty, baggy-shorted collegiate basketball players will be running up and down a wooden court that is 94 feet long and 50 feet wide trying to claim the winner’s trophy in what’s known as basketball’s Final Four over the next few days.
Basketball, more than any other sport, is the ultimate team experience: nothing else comes close in the way five players must play well together and the lessons for business are endless.… Read the rest
Analogs and metaphors are helpful ways to communicate ideas as well as find experiences in one area that inform possible experiences in another. Albeit imperfect we can learn much from using these surrogate experiences .
It’s a proverbial "week after" in San FranciscoK-8th grade admissions scene: the week after private school admissions were announced and the week after the second round (most likely after a not-so-successful first round of applications) for public schools concluded .… Read the rest