Dying by principles in Bruges

If you want to live by some principles, then you have to be careful what principles you choose. You should also beware what are the exit conditions (to disregard these principles) you define. Or at least investigate thoroughly before applying a principle. Cause if you don't, you are a goner for no reason.

To understand what I mean, you have to watch In Bruges. However I do not recommend you do so if you are in a sensitive mood, or with a girlfriend, wife, kids... you get what I mean. This movie is a step higher than Two Smoking Barrels in blood spill, nostalgia and especially regret.

I still do not get it how the city of Bruges has allowed this movie. I shiver even at the thought of going there, not to mention that I do not want to check neither the city square, nor the cathedral, nor nothing...

On BPM Methodology by SAP

Moist von Lipwig (from the Discworld) knows that if you seek successful operations, you should make your products easy to consume.

SAP knows the same. To speed up BPM adoption, they provide their customers with BPM methodology advices available on an SCN Wiki page. There are also other materials that you might find useful.

On the restrictive side of tribal behavior

Today I participated in a very indicative meeting which demonstrated that tribal behavior can restrict communication and exchange of ideas.

One of the topics discussed was how we, in our department, use one of the company-wide systems. There were many proposals and interesting ideas. What stroke me was the assumption that we should find our own workarounds and then think about the implications they will have on the system and the other users.

I pictured ourselves as members of small tribes (departments) in the vast greatness of a dessert (the company system). Even though we all fight to survive (deliver on time), we devise our own solutions and never take advantage of the economies of scale.

This made me feel sad. We are pretty strong in our knowledge of the system, but apparently quite reluctant to share that knowledge with the outside world. Behaving in the opposite direction to what Seth Godin proposes severely diminishes the chances of spreading our ideas.

Sad but True.

Perls, Tribes and Business Processes

Is it possible to say that the following relations are true:

perfect teacher, perfect student, perfect textbook (as in The three golden pearls)

to

perfect common goal and tribe leader, perfect tribe members, perfect tool or communication media (as in Tribes by Seth Godin)

to

process optimization, process members organizational culture, supportive organization/tools/machinery (as in Business Process Driven SOA using BPMN and BPEL)

?

Terry Pratchet on Money. The Matrix. Silly Money.

I never stop amazing at the amount of everyday issues covered in the books of Terry Pratchet. As I was re-reading Going Postal, I enjoyed the examples he gives on money, greed and consequences. Probably you will enjoy it more to find them on your own. I will just hint you here the one that I like the most: "money ... is kind of a shared dream". The magic works until somebody wakes up. Just like in the Matrix. While you sleep - you are fine. When you wake up - you are scared. In the end it is up to you which life or pill you choose.

To keep the smile on your face, here is a link to the wonderful Bird and Fortune explanation of the current Financial Crisis.

Collaboration Workspace

There is a very fluid like connection in my mind from the Tribes, through the post Slack to the community moderators training I am taking part of. Actually, it feels like riding on the crest of a wave. When ready, I would be happy to share a link to this new community with you.

For the moment, a slight hint would be collaboration workspace.

Going Corporate

Junior Postmaster Groat has been in this junior position ever since he has moved one step up the ladder. Actually lower than him is only the apprentice.

This simple Going Postal story reminded me of Cul-de-Sac from The Dip. Even worse is the fact that this symbolic Junior Postmaster is the position probably many of us occupy in some large organization. Our last hope is that there is always hope, as long as we keep searching.

Achievements through sacrifices

Yesterday the temperature difference was especially harsh. I was appropriately dressed, so did not really felt the cold. This fact brought to my mind an interesting thought. I was achieving my short term goal of not catching a cold this day. However, I was tampering my long term objective of strengthening my body through measured dosages of stress. If by some reason I had to bear the cold without my gear, I would be less resilient and perish more easily.

Similarly, to survive an economic crisis, a company should protect itself against the currently harsh conditions (by laying off people, cutting R&D or marketing or HR budget and similar). The important point to keep in mind is the plan how to emerge as a stronger player after the crisis (in this case R&D effectiveness turns out to be a key factor).

This can be summarized as follows:

make a balance between
long term and short term
goals and achievements
and decide which one to sacrifice
(preferably surviving long enough to judge upon viability of our plan)

Guy Kawasaki

A link from Ekaterina's blog lead me to these rules How to Change the World

Apart from having a nice post about a very interesting car (Audi R8) it has some interesting observations on Macintosh history in the making and About information on effective learning. So, I think I will give it a try ;- )))

Language as The barrier to entry

Sometimes "small" things, such as the language you use might prevent your expansion to a new market. This is the case with, in my opinion, the best site for mobile phones tests:
The people who work there are incredible professionals. They always know where to look for details and can help you actually feel what it is to have this phone. As they are pretty strong on their market, they can afford not to adhere to the restrictions of the advertisers and so they provide unbiased opinions.

If by any chance you understand Russian, go and indulge yourself. If not, find somebody who does. The not so full English version of the site is also there. In the extreme case, use Google Translate. Whatever way you choose to go, it will be pity to miss this resource while preparing for the next buy of your phone companion.

The stress surrounding the change

It still amazes me how much stressful a small change can be, even to the extent of willingly returning to the previous and probably less optimal situation. (In addition, the physical attraction to an object that I am used to is something near the end of my understanding.)

Three days ago I have changed my phone with a new one from another manufacturer. My old one was so badly damaged by the years spent in my pocket that some of its more desired functions were not functional anymore. The new one is shiny and have so much new things to get to know. However, the effort it takes to get acquainted with it led me to reevaluation of my decision to start this change. The solution for the moment is to use both of them for the time being.

This is a simple example from my own experience. Nevertheless, it made me think about the feelings of the employees, that are asked by their managers to learn to work with a new version or even a product from a new vendor. I am confident that even if they were enthralled at first, they needed encouragement to keep going.

What could be used in such cases is some mentoring, some positive example and a hope that we can get over the troubles. Even if there is no such example for our specific problem I can bet that a new one would be more than happy to be created by me, you or your friends ;- )))