Category: Meanderings

Playing Through

Here is their opening scenario … Your business has a big problem. You’ve thought about it, but you can’t seem to crack it. So you consult your colleagues — to no avail. Then you turn to the big guns — your industry’s top experts. They’ve got nothing. (Well, to be precise, they’ve got 40 PowerPoint slides worth of nothing, and you’ve got $225,000 less of something.) Now what? You might take some inspiration from Pete Foley, associate director of the cognitive science group at Procter & Gamble, who was looking for an inspired solution to challenges faced by P&G’s feminine-care business unit. Its R&D staff had pursued several approaches, but none of them offered the breakthrough that Foley craved. So he did the next logical thing: He took his team to the San Diego Zoo. The zoo is developing a specialty in biomimicry, a discipline that tries to solve problems by imitating the ingenious and sustainable answers provided by nature. In a working session with the company, the zoo’s biomimicry experts made an unexpected connection between P&G’s problem and the physiology of a gecko. Other ideas came quickly, inspired by flower petals, armadillos, squirrels, and anteaters. (Full disclosure: Chip led a workshop with the biomimicry team on another issue.) By the end of the day, the working group had generated eight fresh approaches to the challenge. It was as if Ideo had opened an office on Noah’s Ark. Most of us don’t solve problems this way. We start by tapping the local knowledge, and if it’s insufficient, we go looking for specialists. But what if we’re following the wrong protocol? We should stop looking for experts and start looking for analogues. It’s a big world: Chances are someone has solved your problem already. And she might be an anteater.

The Heaths @ FastCompany offer a guide to copycatting that may work when peers and consultants have failed you.

Their conclusions follow a good conversation: BRONSON: The thing is, kids should be coached in how to deal with their emotions. But we do this already – every parent and every teacher helps kids with this, in real time, as real life is happening. I believe that’s how kids learn to deal with it. Very gradually. Through thousands and thousands of real interactions. I don’t see any evidence it’s something that can be taught with a few orchestrated rehearsals of mock-interactions in a classroom.MERRYMAN: The premise of the emotional intelligence curriculum proponents is that you – you children – are not able to sufficiently develop emotional regulation and appropriate social skills and decorum on your own. Your parents are ineffective teachers. You cannot be trusted to learn how to behave from your experiences with friends and family and colleagues. You need to come to class for it. Those who don’t get these classes will lead hollow, hurtful, and overly-emotional lives.

Bronson and Merryman close their conversation on teaching children about emotional intelligence @ NurtureShock

Here is an extended quote: Remember, the goal of structured futures thinking is to come up with a picture of possible futures that will help to inform strategic decisions. The answers you’ll get from a futures exercise are rarely cut-and-dried, but ideally will help you make your decision more thoughtfully. Futures thinking isn’t a Magic 8-Ball, a process where all you need to ask is “Should we do X?” (and getting “Ask Again Later” as a result is neither useful nor surprising). It’s a subtle point, but I tend to find it useful to talk about strategic questions in terms of dilemmas, not problems. Problem implies solution—a fix that resolves the question. Dilemmas are more difficult, typically situations where there are no clearly preferable outcomes (or where each likely outcome carries with it some difficult contingent elements). Futures thinking is less useful when trying to come up with a clear single answer to a particular problem, but can be extremely helpful when trying to determine the best response to a dilemma. The difference is that the “best response” may vary depending upon still-unresolved circumstances; futures thinking helps to illuminate possible trigger points for making a decision. One important point about the difference between problems and dilemmas: with dilemmas, you will generally have a sense of the different possible responses, and have to make an intelligent choice between them. With problems, the solution is almost by definition hidden, and must be discovered. Futures thinking is much more robust when dealing with dilemmas.

Jamais Cascio says explore the future by posing questions as dilemmas to wrestle with instead of problems to solve.

Personally I am excited about the sharing capabilities, the WiFi connection and browsing for free at Barnes & Noble. 1. Sharing capabilities: One of the best things about hardcovers or paperbacks is that you can give them to family and friends … Nook users can loan books to friends for two weeks and those e-books can be accessed through PCs or smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone … 2. Android OS: The Nook is the first e-book reader to run Android, Google’s operating system written for mobile devices … Barnes & Noble hasn’t announced anything about putting out a software developers’ kit for the Nook. But it hasn’t ruled out the idea either. 3. Color touchscreen: In the world of e-readers, Nook’s dual display feature is unique. Nook has the usual black-and-white E Ink screen for reading books, but it also has a color capacitive touchscreen … The touchscreen lets readers  browse through books by flicking through them. 4. Access to 3G and Wi-Fi: But Nook is the only one to offer both 3G and Wi-Fi … On launch, it will work only in Barnes & Noble stores, all of which offer free Wi-Fi … 5. In-store browsing: … In a neat trick that takes advantage of Barnes & Noble’s brick-and-mortar stores, the Nook lets users read entire e-books for free in-store.

5 things that make the folks @ WIRED (me to) want a Barnes & Noble’s Nook eReader.

The following is a summary from the Barna Report. Less Sacred – While most Americans of all ages identify the Bible as sacred, the drop-off among the youngest adults is striking: 9 out of 10 Boomers and Elders described the Bible as sacred, which compares to 8 out of 10 Busters (81%) and just 2 out of 3 Mosaics (67%). Less Accurate – Young adults are significantly less likely than older adults to strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. Just 30% of Mosaics and 39% of Busters firmly embraced this view, compared with 46% of Boomers and 58% of Elders. More Universalism – Among Mosaics, a majority (56%) believes the Bible teaches the same spiritual truths as other sacred texts, which compares with 4 out of 10 Busters and Boomers, and one-third of Elders. Skepticism of Origins – Another generational difference is that young adults are more likely to express skepticism about the original manuscripts of the Bible than is true of older adults. Less Engagement – While many young adults are active users of the Bible, the pattern shows a clear generational drop-off – the younger the person, the less likely then are to read the Bible. In particular, Busters and Mosaics are less likely than average to have spent time alone in the last week praying and reading the Bible for at least 15 minutes. Interestingly, none of the four generations were particularly likely to say they aspired to read the Bible more as a means of improving their spiritual lives. Bible Appetite – Despite the generational decline in many Bible metrics, one departure from the typical pattern is the fact that younger adults, especially Mosaics (19%), express a slightly above-average interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge. This compares with 12% of Boomers and 9% of Elders.

Ed Stetzer discusses a Barna Report about our generational perspectives on Scripture.

When organizations inform staff about massive change, transition, cut backs, re-engineering or whatever label they place on it with the assurance that “It’s not personal” that they have to change how their organization operates to work within the current economic climate, keep up with competitors etc, and it’s not about them, the take away is “It’s about me.  It’s all about me.”  It’s about how I work, the tension factor, the fear factor about “being next to get the axe” and their relevance in the organization, to mention a few of many points. The organization is right by another definition when they say “It’s not personal”.  Way too often leadership treats its people in an impersonal way, not taking into account the emotional energy that staff bring to the table, how loyal they are, committed, and how overall they come from a place of wanting to do great work and succeed.

Donna Karlin says change is always personal, especially if some assures you “it’s not personal.”

When we meet David, he’s watching over his family’s livelihood.  The Hebrew word for youngest, qatan, implies insignificant and unimportant. One translator even uses the word “runt.” Though David is the runt of the litter, God selects him to rule over Israel. “Does it surprise you that the youngest child was caring for the sheep?” “Not at all,” Lynne said. “In ancient societies, and even today in remote areas, the weakest members of a family are often the ones assigned to care for the sheep. When we were in Peru staying with a family, a five-year-old boy, a few women, and an old man took care of the family’s sheep. The shepherds were those who lacked the strength or skill to do more physically demanding labor.”

Margaret Feinberg discusses the surprising truth about shepherds in an excerpt from Scouting the Divine

Bruce Sheiman is the author of “An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It.”  He says his goal as an atheist is to build a better world and not tear down those he disagrees with.  He writes: More than any other institution, religion deserves our appreciation and respect because it has persistently encouraged people to care deeply—for the self, for neighbors, for humanity, and for the natural world—and to strive for the highest ideals humans are able to envision. What are your thoughts?  Are we, as believers too quick to judge non-believers instead of reaching out to them?  If someone wrote an article about “Christianity 3.0,” what should it look like?

Jerod Clark @ Think Christian asks if someone wrote about Christianity 3.0, what should it look like?