A friend of mine who teaches journalism at Harvard posted this video on Facebook the other day (a great testimony to the truths found in the video itself). I found it so compelling I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
My favorite line...
"If MySpace were a country... it would be the eight largest in the world."
If what's happening on the internet is any indication of the world to come, there is no doubt that our companies are falling way behind.
An interesting little article from CNN here on workplace burnout among Gen Yers.
It states...
"This year's graduating seniors may face higher risk for job burnout than their parents' generation, say business and career experts."
While that may be true, I do sometimes wonder whether all of the hype is first and foremost a problem of social forgetfulness. If we went back into the NY Times or WSJ archives and searched "Burnout Baby Boomer," would we find articles expressing similar sentiments? You have to wonder (and if someone wants to try, please let us know what you find).
Similarly, could it be that the internet and constantly expanding world of time-saving devices and services in the market have just shifted the source of burnout?
I asked my favorite barista the other day if he had big plans for the weekend. His response caught me off guard. He said, "yeah, as if it matters that it's the weekend, right?" Then, he rescinded and said, "actually, with all of the online shopping and everything else these days, you can actually get your errands done in the evenings and use the weekends to relax and have fun. It didn't use to be that way."
So whether Gen Yers really more overworked than our parents may be largely a matter of what constitutes work. My weekdays are almost fully devoted to my job, and I often bring a few hours of work home over the weekend. But I guarantee you I'll be sipping gin and tonics on my patio and spending time with my wife and dog for a good portion of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Life could be worse.
While I have no intention of turning this blog into a political device and myself have mixed feelings about the various presidential candidates, I wanted to share the Obama speech from yesterday.
The dynamic surrounding race and ethnicity in the United States may be one of the most poorly understood things about this country. In all of my travels, I have met very few foreigners who actually "get it" (that's not to say all Americans do!) and almost certainly because the racial experience in the US is such a personal one. It is rooted in some mix of years of exposure to the fallible American media and powerful individual feelings of pride, hurt, anger, and shame that are based in personal experience.
If you've ever wondered yourself why America and Americans seem so peculiar in how they handles issues of race, have a listen. The clarity with which Obama lays out the challenges and various perspectives of today is quite remarkable.
PDI has built a very intriguing, viral site for rating US presidential candidates against a set of CEO level competencies. Take a peek here -
http://www.nextnationalceo.com/
We tend to think that the only good way to evaluate a presidential candidate is based on political platform, and we balk at people who make "gut" decisions based solely on a candidate's character or demeanor.
Yet we assess the rest of the world's qualifications in terms of skills and competencies. Why the divide? Is it meaningful?
Try your hand at looking at candidates through a different lens.
To lighten things up a bit after a series of intense posts, check out the Heath brothers' (authors of Made to Stick) column in this month's Fast Company... Does this sound eerily HR?
If you like that one... or even if you don't... I would also suggest taking a look at David Roberts's Green Business column this month. It is a much more informed and eloquent version of what I tried to say in a pair of posts (here and here) not long ago.
And a picture, just for fun, of a scene of the Ciclovia in Bogota (thanks to themikebot's photostream). Every Sunday from 7am to 2pm the city closes down its major arteries to car traffic and opens them up to walkers, runners, and bikers. It's a fabulous, inspiring scene.
Viewing the ongoing debates here in the U.S., I have been reminded of this video a good friend of mine put together during the 2004 campaign.
Beyond being amusing (ignore the sounds and just watch the movements), I think it fairly accurate represents just how worthless most of the political rhetoric is. Hard to believe we actually nominate the CEO of the largest producer on earth based on such rubbish.
If you like the video, check out some of Pete's more serious work here
While I ripped on BusinessWeek's innovation article a couple of weeks back, I do have to give them credit for introducing me to the 19.20.21 project.
I have little doubt that the world of the future will be one in which the vast majority of the world's population lives in major urban centers.
The sociologist in me finds it fascinating to think about both the opportunities and challenges such a reality will present. I'm looking forward to seeing, hearing, and reading the findings of this not so humble endeavor.
Too bad it's not an open-source project - I would love to be a part of it.
I found the linked articles (1 and 2) pretty underwhelming - it seems like a good example of the mainstream business media having less to contribute to the dialogue around innovation and technology. I thought I would post it anyway, however, in case I'm being too harsh and need to be corrected.
Personally, I would venture to say that:
- People are not going to start fleeing more open communities like Facebook and MySpace for "gated networks." Do people really believe that!?
-The Kindle is going to continue to be a controversial and only moderately successful product.
-Placing SaaS for the enterprise under "Innovation Predictions" is a bit silly.
Actually, the first few slides made me think of the IBM Innovation Man commercial that began airing recently. I could only find it in Italian (just listen for 'implementazione'). -
It doesn't make me terribly eager to pick up Fortune to read through their new Technology section, either.
Interesting commentary on China's future outlook.
A couple worth noting here:
I've been largely absent from the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks. Work, shoveling snow, catching up on reading, and tending to family/household matters (i.e. the holidays) has pretty much dispelled any energy or desire I've had for writing.
And now that I'm forcing myself to pick it back up, I can't think of anything to talk about that seems terribly interesting. This is despite the fact that I've had plenty of ideas cross my mind.
Environmental sustainability, however, is one topic I've been chewing on a great deal that always merits attention.
With the talks in Bali right now focusing on the highly politicized issues of who will reduce emissions by how much, when, and by what means, it's easy to get caught up in the debate surrounding efforts to stem climate change. Certainly, when you consider the difficultly in deciding how to fairly divide upCO2 allowances between and within countries, and when you ponder the challenges inherent in reporting and enforcement, it starts to feel like an impossible endeavor. Why even bother (hint: if you're George W. Bush, you don't).
All of this makes it easy to forget the basic economics underlying emissions allowances and trading that make them such compelling ideas and so worth pursuing. Let's revisit these principles for a second.
Free markets are driven by two things – consumer demand and industry supply. While demand is impacted by everything from basic human needs to advertising to individual preference, supply is dictated by the balance firms draw between the additional expense they incur and the additional revenue they bring in by varying levels of production (economists call this marginal analysis).
To better illustrate, if I own a widget company, I'm ideally going to continue producing widgets until the cost of producing one more exceeds the additional revenue generated by selling that one extra widget. This is how I maximize profit.
So what if we pretend that the destruction of public goods like clean air and water isn't a cost of production? Doesn't that lead companies to an erroneous conclusion around where that balance sits?
Indeed, it's no different than forgetting to account for overhead when reporting earnings. Just think of how much more money your company could make if it could ignore those silly expenses.
In essence, this is what has been going on since the beginning of time. We've cheated ourselves into thinking that our operations are more profitable than they really are by ignoring some significant costs of doing business. And now our world is paying for it.
The point of allowances and trading, then, is to start factoring in – internalizing – this cost of production in order to correct the balance.
When you look at it this way, two things jump out.
As I think about the world my kids will live in, it's inspiring to imagine a place where the environmental and social impact of what we do becomes just another line-item in our budgets.
Hey, it could happen.
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