Museum Findings

I spent years in academia doing research as an anthropologist.  History has always been a sideline and it is an intriguing challenge to do an anthropology of a western community at an historical moment.  Where to go for information is one factor.

There are of course, records in the local newspaper to lead me through local concerns of the time, and there are quite a few people living who can remember the 1930s. I can interview and read. It is different from immersing oneself in a culture. I can create a multimedia presentation that perhaps will include film from the time, but I can’t film the life in process or ask wondering questions of the participants. Historical research is full of holes that can’t be filled.

Getting it Together – Again

The last 6 months have seen momentous changes in my life, but when was there a 6-month period that wasn’t so? I do notice however that it is sometimes more difficult to wade through new challenges and find patterns and processes that enable me to “keep it tidy.”

We have new plans afoot for the business and personally. In some ways they are a culmination of many threads in our lives, but having twined together, they now leave lose ends to be explored.

Clive and I share an interest in history. We are both children of immigrants – colonists, so to speak, whose families were in the thick of some of the more significant events of the past century. We are shaped by cultures with long memories. Along another thread we share a love of the digital arts, he twists in a profound knowledge of 3D modeling and I add a line on story-telling. We almost sold our home on Eby street to a woman who wanted to build a spiritual sanctuary, and that felt right, but she was forced to return to the USA. We are both concerned about sustainability and we are of an age that our parents speak with knowledge about the Depression. We like museums. Disconnected threads…..

We could not sell our home on Eby St., but now we see that this was meant to be. We are going to transform it into a museum about life in Waterloo Region in the Depression, when recycling was quotidien and people grew market gardens, not because it was correct, but because it was necessary. We have no plans to restore the building to its original form — it wouldn’t pass code anyway, but we can show how people lived, in a home built in 1931, through multimedia. The threads come together with purpose. The past is with us and shows us the way.

Freedom and Political Will

At issue is the long-lived debate about free will and consequentially, the possibility of democracy, fate, salvation, …..

Is following your nature the same as fate? A seed unfolds into a flower. Is that fate or nature? Is it the work of an unseen hand or force, orits it enacting its own true essence? The seed falls in the desert and as it unfolds, the dry winds shape its petals. Is that fate? Radiation reshapes its DNA. Is that fate? It gives rise to a seed that falls to the desert floor and unfolds. Is that fate?

That which shapes that which unfolds. Is it design, fate or context?

If the environment in which you land acts upon you, to what extent do you unfold according to your own essence? To what extent is your essence distorted? To what extent is it a good or bad thing to allow your “true self” to be molded by context, altered, adapted, and transformed? Don’t all things require context? A flower doesn’t unfold without water and soil. People don’t unfold without culture and society. Is fate simply the name we give to the context in which we find ourselves? Having landed in a context, we now “unfold” according to our essence, reshaping the context by contributing to a shared culture and by using resources, thereby bending “fate”. Do we call that freedom?

Does history unfold? Does culture, or politics?

Something to read: John Searle. Freedom and Neurobiology. Based on lectures held at the Sorbonne in 2001 and now translated into many languages because it’s a hot topic and Searle has been publishing on the issue since 1958.

History and Myth

History is a corroborated, chronological telling of a story filled with recognizable characters and events.

“Myth” is an evocative telling that often conflates time, space, and person with the intention of questioning the rules that guide everyday life. Things are paired, forms shift, and timelines are broken to reveal the limits of our assumptions. “Once upon a time” tells us to set aside everything we believe ad look at the world again.

What Colour are You?

I just tried an online quiz to test one’s colour personality. I’ve written, participated in, and reviewed lots of surveys and found this quiz clever and thoughtful although the results were unexpected. Although many entrepreneurs are Orange, I would have thought myself more Blue. In this test I was Orange.

So what do the colours imply?

• Greens are serious big-picture planners who take themselves seriously and talk about efficiencies.
• Oranges target problems and go after results regardless of the rules and reasons. Who cares why? If you want it done, let’s do it.
• Golds are task-bent and good at it.
• Blues are caregivers and good communicators.

As with lots of personality tests, my results are less clear-cut that this implies. Orange: 11, Green: 10, Blue: 10 and Gold: 5

There are lots of other online colour tests and it is interesting to go through them regardless of the faith you place in the results. As you look at what others say about you, you inevitably review your own self-perception.

So here is another colour test where I scored: 53 % extrovert and 47 % introvert.
You are dynamic, your actions are only directed by your own will and you know how to lead people. You are also intellectual and intelligent, you wonder and you inquire before taking any action. Finely you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them towards the set goals.

Validation of Ideas

If someone dismisses your ideas out of hand, ask them to explain. If they have an answer, you might learn something. If they don’t, they might learn something.

I once knew a triumvirate of professors who ditzed the idea of “Community”, a concept my mother could explain having spent the war years in a small village where the people had complex mulitple relationships stretching back generations. I was too polite to demand an accounting for why they reviled something familiar that they dismissed as a fabrication.  In my mind 2 thoughts ran in parallel: that this was their area of research so they knew something I did not, and that their feelings seemed overly high. I kept quiet. I should have asked them what they meant.

Here’s a related thread of thought: Does a market economy based on self-interest (Adam Smith: 1776) conflict with moral sentiment (Adam Smith: 1759)? Apparently even Adam Smith believed that people  co-operated, through an organized division of labour built with reference to a sense of propriety.

All people are disposed to collaborate co-operatively. Added incentives and artificial discipline exist to standardize our treatment of people:

• They shape how we deal with others, but not that we will deal with them.
• They may induce us to co-operate with those members of our community that we would otherwise keep at arm’s length and ensure that each person has a place, even if that place is outcast and dreadful.
• They establish means and methods for dealing with people outside our community.

But every individual must collaborate with others if they are to survive childhood or find the resources to live as adults. And it is their community that sets the context and defines the (initial) social network.

Looking for Ideas?

The question of innovation comes up with any company. One way to seek new ideas is to solicit them from staff, suppliers or customers. But in a meeting situation, there is a tendancy for one of the following to happen

• one person dominates the meeting with their agenda
• the person chairing the meeting has power and others in the room try to guess what he or she wants to hear in an effort to ingratiate themselves
• the person chairing has a known position and participants are wary of introducing conflicting or alternative suggestions
• old ideas are raised again and again until someone says “we tried that already”
• the limits of innovation are unknown and great ideas are introduced for which there are no available resources, resulting in deflated  enthusiasm.

One alternative is to allow people to add ideas to a suggestion box. This can be anonymous and the ideas can be added to a page on the intranet. Others are encouraged to add comments. If people are allowed to remain anonymous, it may encourage shy people to “speak up.” We introduced a page like this at JOI and the results were good. Lots of people from all parts of the company added comments and we were able to implement many of them.

If you are going to do this, make sure you are ready to discuss and act on every idea that is submitted. What may seem insignificant to upper management may be important on the floor. Consider too, that many people will put forward a small idea to see how it floats, before they try out a larger, more controversial innovation.

When to Hold a Meeting

Simple. As infrequently as possible since they disrupt the workday and if they are without purpose, they become either an obligatory social networking event with muffins or a barely tolerable excuse for the boss to ponitficate.

Hold a meeting when there is something to say

• to quelch rumours with a top-down presentation providing rules to staff about how they should handle questions from outsiders, followed by a QA session
• as a check-in to make sure everyone on the team is current with activities that impinge on their success, in which case everyone gets to speak
• to introduce new faces to the team

Have a clear agenda, set times, and a stated purpose that is imposed on the participants and which may not be impeached. Explain the rules of the meeting, whether and how invited guests may interact with presenters, and what the follow-up will be.

Leave paticipants with something in their hands that summarizes the purpose of the meeting.

Are You Being Followed?

We know we are followed by cameras outside the home. We know that our clicks are recorded as  we surf the internet. Is anywhere private?

Inroads on your freedom and privacy have been growing.  Aggregated buying habits feed back to marketers armed with the results of 1000s of psychology studies and surveys, who analyze the results and impose design on business with the sole goal of increasingly profitability.

Targeted or behavioural marketing is simply the latest step and takes advantage of new technologies and the computer power to analyse vast pools of data.

Here are some items culled from an Economist Article published in January 2009.

• Path Intelligence provides technology for tracking people through spaces using their cellphones.
• VideoMining uses cameras to watch how long people linger before they make their selection, recording their body language and whether they smile or frown, then  cross-references the information by the age, gender and race profile of the shopper
• MRI scans replace focus groups to get data on what people think of brand products.

What is one of the most important things we learned? If a person can’t choose between 2 products, they don’t buy either.  Make it easier to choose by placing products in categories that help people narrow their choice:

• A new product should be sold alongside similar products so people understand its purpose sooner.
• Divide your product line into types (oily, dry, normal; dark, mellow, espresso). It raises customer satisfaction.
• Provide a decoy product that is not as good as the main seller, so buyers can eliminate one.
• Minimize the intrusiveness of your investigative techniques so customers feel comfortable being watched
• As RFID chips become more ubiquitous, note what is in a shopper’s cart and send them messages or coupons for products that complement their purchase.

Work Motivation

Somedays, especially in winter, I find it difficult to get motivated about work. The skies are sullen; the air is frigid; and the value of re-writing the “About Us” section of some client’s website is wholly missing.

Fortunately, there are a multitude of books and articles to turn to on motivation. By reading on business-related subject, I can fool myself into believing I am working.  So what have I learned?

Motivation books fall into 2 categories: motivating yourself and motivating employees. The difference is the assumption that entrepreneurs are motivated because they are working to fulfill a dream while staff have to be motivated since otherwise,  they are only working for pay, and Workopolis has shown that this is insufficient. The fallacy pointed out by writers is that many people start a company because they cannot find work. Their company provides them with a job. Even those of us who have a dream may find oursleves working onclient-centred objectives that don’t fit our master-plan.

What motivates us then?

Word on the street: Motivation depends on delivering a positive corporate culture where employees can utilize and improve their skills and advance up the ladder.  In other words, if you want to feel good about going into work, join a company that expects to prosper for many years to come.

Next Question: What happens in the lean years?  If staff evaporate when times are tough, are they really committed when times are good?

Question 2: Has anyone studied if the assumption is true? If you provide  resources, flex time, training time, downtime, open democratic exchanges with the boss on performance issues with no personal criticism, and promise of a future, are staff more productive?  (ie producing quality work most of the time, on time).

Question 3: Why do people watch TV, surf the web and play video games instead of pursuing some noble goal at home where they have the opportunity to increase and utilize their skills?

Question 4: Does it make a difference that if an employee is unproductive, they know they will be fired? Is it possible that the most motivating factor for staff is knowing that their job depends on near-perfect work performance?

We should celebrate successes, but rewarding people for succeeding at the work they are paid to do, may not lead them to work harder. Rewards may be perceived as a company benefit, like dental insurance and an indication, since they are not evenly distributed, that the receiver is among the favoured and likely to prosper in the company as long as they continue to perform.

So on those days when the company doesn’t feel prosperous, how are any of us to stay motivated enough to slog away at it until tomorrow and the day after that? At this point the books begin to say:  remind yourself of your successes, plan how to improve business, consider ways to branch into exciting ventures…..

Or eat a bar of chocolate.