January 2012
40 posts
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Book Review: Where Good Ideas Come From →
I’m giving myself a Goodreads challenge again, and this was book 5 for me this month. I tend to read more early in the year, and my challenge is to read books more consistently. The Kindle Daily Deal helps immensely, for it constantly adds to the queue in an easily affordable way. So many books, so little time…
Where Good Ideas Come From
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of...
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Managers, you need to READ →
The more I read, the more I’m convinced that reading is a habit Alaka‘i Managers must cultivate. You must. You need to read for your own good. Reading is your window to the rest of our fascinating world, and the world is a wonderfully big, and varied place.
Management consumes us (managemeant even more so). As we dig in to all the details of our daily work, we tell ourselves to “focus, focus,...
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The Rise of the New Groupthink - Susan Cain |... →
Love articles like this which challenge convention. It’s a great thing about the times we live in: Everything can be questioned by the thinking mind, comfortable in the skin of their own values.
This one starts:
SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from...
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Waterstone's Picks: The best 11 debut novels of... →
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Ho‘omau, as nature teaches us to do →
Photo post for Talking Story today:
The value which gets highlighted the most in Managing with Aloha (by Kindle readers, enabling me to notice it) isn’t Aloha or Ho‘ohana: It’s Ho‘omau, the value of persistence, perseverance, tenacity and resilience.
“Renew. Anything worth having is worth working for. Persistence is often the defining quality between those who fail and those who succeed…...
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Making It in America - The Atlantic →
Long article, but please make the time to do so this weekend or the next.
Adam Davidson:
In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction. The story of Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run manufacturer based in Queens, sheds light on both phenomena. It’s a story of hustle,...
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How Steve Case and His Company Are Driving the... →
What happens when millions of people spend 10 percent less on new things and 10 percent more sharing old things or getting sophisticated deals? It’s easy to say that sharing is good for efficient markets. It’s not so easy to say that sharing is good for a growing economy that depends on new shoppers.
The pessimist would say that the sharing economy is a smaller economy. The...
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The next SOPA – Marco.org →
I wholeheartedly agree with Marco Arment on this: campaign finance reform, and reform of congressional lobbying practices, is where we must focus our attentions, curtailing their insidious reach so more democratic balance is restored.
Bonus Link: Video of the Day: Did Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Break Campaign Law?
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WatchStill trying to understand what SOPA and PIPA are all about? Clay Shirky helps out at TED: Why SOPA is a bad idea
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On Other Days: Creative Structure →
Structure is comforting, and I like structure. But nobody said it had to be stagnant, stodgy and boring…
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Marginalia and the Yin-Yang of Reading and Writing... →
From the classic How to Read a Book, originally written by Mortimer Adler in 1940 and revised with Charles van Doren in 1972:
When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have...
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On the 20-hour work week: All in favor? →
On Talking Story today:
There’s an interesting idea which keeps popping up on my radar these early days of our new year, and I love it. It’s an inventive call to action:
Let’s shift what we value in society today, by shifting to the 20-hour work week.
The argument behind this proposal, is that our 40-hour work week has been our convention, but convention isn’t unquestionable fact. ...
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Your 2012 Money Guide | USAA →
Another great 12x12, this time for getting your finances in good shape this year. Tailored to the USAA member (one of the best memberships you can have, IMHO) but a good prompting for everyone needing a gut-check on what you should do above and beyond checking your credit score, adjusting your withholding allowances, and filing your income taxes on time.
August:
Boost your energy efficiency.
...
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New Uses for Old Things: Kids Edition - Real... →
I have always cherished my zippered bed-linen bags (they help keep bugs like silverfish out of seasonal storage here in the tropics)… You are sure to get inspired in a “why didn’t I think of that?” way by something on this photo listing if repurposing, recycling, simpler living or anything similar is in your list of resolutions.
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kellicrowe: So why don't I enjoy Twitter? →
I can relate to this.
When I log onto my twitter account, it is like reading someone else’s outgoing phone texts:
It isn’t to me.
It has their own shorthand I don’t understand.
There seem to be a lot of half conversations.
I follow a mix of all of my interests: Star Trek, Star Wars, Jane Austen, Period movies, Friends & Scrap booking & Politics.
It should be a...
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The Quantified Year: A Family New Year’s Survey →
This is something I started doing back in 2009 using Evernote: Love that my entries there are searchable and tag-able, and that personal photos can be included, for pictures can say a thousand words…
As Tom says, looking back on these journaling entries is a lot of fun, and it can help push me in the ways I move forward too.
My own takeaway from reading his post, is that I can add in more...
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Book Review: The Misremembered Man →
The Misremembered Man by Christina McKenna My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a fortunate find for me: I’d set about loading up my Kindle with new reads before our Christmas vacation, and The Misremembered Man was on $0.99 special at the time, for a dose of fiction mixed into my usual choices. If you aren’t a habitual reader, this book is one which can remind you of the simple pleasures a good...
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Book Review: Green Made Easy →
Green Made Easy: The Everyday Guide for Transitioning to a Green Lifestyle by Chris Prelitz My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a 2011 Christmas gift from the family :) It’s the perfect book for the person who wants to live greener, and is ready to move beyond what’s become relatively mainstream knowledge, getting serious about their personal actions. The author pitches his content as the easier...
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What Must an Educated Person Know? | Josh Kaufman →
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Walter Dean Myers - Ambassador for Young People’s... →
On Tuesday Mr. Myers, 74, will be named the national ambassador for young people’s literature, a sort of poet laureate of the children’s book world who tours the country for two years, speaking at schools and libraries about reading and literacy.
As an African-American man who dropped out of high school but built a successful writing career — largely because of his lifelong devotion to books...
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Best of 2011: Our Most Popular Tips, Interviews &... →
I’ve tumbled quite a bit from The 99 Percent over the last year’s time… great to see this recap as a handy review of several articles I liked too.
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An Aloha Business for 2012 →
Last post, we talked about an approach for the January overwhelm that can appear this time of year, and our talk story about it slanted toward the personal. Let’s talk about your workplace today.
If you are a business owner, or an Alaka‘i Manager — one with Kuleana (a sense of personal responsibility, and personal accountability) within your circle of influence, whatever its scope, and you have...
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Terry Gilliam: On Ideas, Unlearning & Avoiding... →
The visionary behind Monty Python, Brazil & 12 Monkeys talks about never letting your ideas become rigid, staying out of debt, and forgetting everything you learn.
And then there’s this:
And then I start talking to younger people and I realize that they don’t understand where things come from. They don’t understand how the system works. This is terrifying. They just...
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4 Ways to Design a Happiness-Inducing Employment... →
Are you a small business owner, or a manager eager to optimize whatever the circle of influence you have? Please read this, from Corbett Barr.
Your advantage is that you get to make your own rules - so do!
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Don't Just Declutter, De-own. | Becoming... →
Excellent distinction by Joshua Becker:
“Owning less is far more beneficial than organizing more.”
Organizing our stuff (without removing it) has its shortcomings… read more.
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Value Verbing: Theme 2012 with your Aloha Spirit →
In my Makahiki letter, I’d said that I love this time of year because it is Ka lā hiki ola (the dawning of a new day) at its most pervasive moment: We human beings collaborate in self-care, and in our Ho‘ohana intentions. The whole world seems to be in sync, as we collectively look back to assess what we’ve come to know. We corral our confidences and our strengths, and then we look forward,...
“Losing the mixed pleasures of just arrived letters may not mean as much in the...”
– The U.S. Postal Service Ends Next-Day Delivery : Roger Angell for The New Yorker
What do you know to be sure? Hō‘imi ola. →
My January 1st letter is posted on Talking Story:
Aloha dear friends, Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou — Happy New Year…
December 2011
1 post
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What’s the meant in Management? →
New on Talking Story. Snippet:
When I look around me I notice: Management is everywhere. It’s in a President deciding if he should go on vacation as scheduled, or keep working. It’s in a European country deciding if it can handle bailing out another country. It’s in a father and mother thinking about becoming car-less and walking more, moving their family where jobs may pay more (or be found at...
November 2011
27 posts
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Op-Ed: In The Particular Lies The Universal ::... →
managingwithaloha:
Are you serious about releasing your Aloha into the world? Read this, by James Victore, and cheer.
We managers are repeatedly told to do it (and “it” includes a lot) for them. What you need to do instead, is do it all for you.
Then, an experience like this happens:
Case in point: Anthony Bourdain’s bestseller Kitchen Confidential was written purely out of love of his...
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Incomplete Manifesto for Growth | Bruce Mau Design →
Everyone should have something like this as their values mana‘o.
A sampling (there are 43 in the list):
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep. The deeper you go...
Bobulate: An eightfold path of Sylvianess →
managingwithaloha: [Note: Am playing with a new Tumblr for the Managing with Aloha values. Have not settled on a template yet, but you can see my work-in-progress here.]
bobulate:
With the unexpected news of Sylvia Harris’ passing this summer, David Gibson and Emily Cohen coordinated a memorial service last evening for the many who loved her.
With respect (and without blasphemy to the...
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Opinion: The cult of Penn State →
latimes:
For Pennsylvanians, Penn State football was a revered, life-changing institution, one most people would never dream of questioning.
Suddenly I couldn’t stop noticing my own deference to athletes — the way I’d overlook the superior attitude they took around my male friends who weren’t athletic, the way they got dibs on the easy classes while the rest of us pulled all-nighters and never...
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Hotels Find New Ways to Help Guests Do Business -... →
Love this trend, one I experienced for myself when at the Ace Hotel in Portland. You’d think hoteliers would have caught on long ago, adapting the Starbucks “Third Place” effect to their own lobbies and gathering places.
stoweboyd:
Business travel is changing as fast as the liquid world it is floating in, so hotels are scrambling to change their public spaces to make them...
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Turkeys and Thanksgiving in America : "The First... →
Wonderful essay and commentary from Adam Gopnik: Read it to discover how he arrives at this:
So the Thanksgiving meal should really be turkey with pesto—homegrown vanity and courage served with a pluralist topping.
Loved this bit about Ben Franklin:
That was not a finger-on-the-nose bit of Old Ben playfulness. Earlier in the turkey letter, Franklin is arguing hard about whether there ought...
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