Replay

In the December Communications of the ACM republished Judy Robertson's blog from November of 2010: Game Design through Mentoring and Collaboration. It's apparent creating games and simulations can be an effective way to teach. So let's get people creating.

Game Design through Mentoring and Collaboration.Judy Robertson retrieved 15 December 2011. http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/101956-game-design-through-mentoring-and-collaboration/fulltext

Blog Spam

It's funny, I've been watching my readership rise and was curious why I was getting my views were coming from Russia. A little research and low and behold, there is some advertising/phishing strategy out there to monitor new posts and use the source info to lead back to an advertising site. Hopefully, I didn't get anything from Russia with love.

This brings up the question of why write if no one is reading? Because it is good practice at the very least it lets me retain my touch typing skills.

Cheers

Strange Brew

This has been a strange week. I read Eric Jackson's The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives on Forbes.com the day after watching this little gem from Dan Pink speaking to RSA: RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us.

So take some time watch and read. Then think about this, are we paying our top performers stupid?

We Believe in Meetings

We're very very busy and we have a lot to do and we haven't got a minute to explain it all to you...
 Sandra Boynton ¹  

We believe in meetings - all that have been scheduled, all that are now scheduled, and we believe that there will yet be scheduled many great and important meetings. We have endured many meetings and hope to to be able to endure all meetings. Indeed we may say that if there is a meeting, or anything that resembles a meeting, or anything that we might possibly turn into a meeting, we seek after these things.
Mary Ellen Edmunds ²

Several years ago, my friend Walt, told me in disgust there were members of the church council who used meetings as a way to get away from their wives, the way other men went to the bar. This was a socially acceptable way to avoid responsibilities that made them feel uncomfortable.

I think there may be managers doing the same thing. Rather than spend time with their employees they have meetings to cultivate a sense of importance. I can't make that decision right now. I'm busy. I get this feeling even though I work for a company that has very good guidelines around business meetings:

• If you go to a meeting and you don't know what the meeting is about in the first 10 minutes ask. If no one can tell you leave.
• If you don't receive an agenda, refuse the meeting.
• If you receive a meeting invitation and you don't think you should be there, refuse the invitation.

Is it just me?


1. BusyBusyBusy,  Rhinoceros Tap, 1996 - Available here
2. 14th Article of Faith, Retrieved from http://www.byhigh.org/Alumni_A_to_E/Edmunds/MaryEllen.html 3 January, 2012

Truthiness: The customer is always right, except when he isn't.

Truth is a slippery concept - there is the mathematical definition of a Boolean - true/false, it is or it isn't. There is the scientific definition of it's true until it isn't. And there is the social definition of consensus - it's true because we agree it is. There are some gaps between these definitions and then we add issues with the concept of right. I'm right - you're wrong.

Last week we had a an interesting experience in the Truth when my eldest son missed the bus. His Mother, who now needed to take him to school, was not pleased. Her version was simple - our Son was dawdling. His version was also simple - he was hurrying as fast as he could and the bus came. Likely both are correct. Both are true, if contradictory.

There is only Time

Try this on for size - there is only time.

1. Time is not money. Money is time.
2. There are no goods only services. Goods are tangible evidence of services.

The Work Life Firewall

... as employers require individuals to check digital devices and respond 24/7, there's no clear separation between home and work. Samuel Greengard ¹

One of the key revolutions in medieval Europe was the idea of the ownership of time. It allowed Europe to create new institutions and was for good or ill one of the underlying cornerstones of the Industrial Revolution. It created the framework for the modern corporation. It also create the framework for social revolutions in slavery, child labor, and education. It is one of the things that makes being a "wage slave" satisfactory. It condenses time into money and allows us to trade money for time.

Electronic devices may inadvertently be reversing this. We may be heading back toward a world of serfs with little to no choice. With all the talk of "work life integration", some people may be losing the ability to manage time and are letting tasks manage them. There's the risk of tasks that garner our attention or that appear urgent push out the things that are truly important. With the frenetic pace many people have created for themselves and their overbooked lives, most lose the ability to take time to reflect and actively choose what is important.

Electronic toys - like the one I am typing on, have the ability to take over our lives. One of my former managers had the habit of working at odd hours to ensure he had a "work life balance". It was not unusual to receive emails composed and sent at 2:00 am, when the man was on vacation. I still entertain the fantasy of being his boss and putting his cell phone and lap top under lock and key when he leaves on vacation. I see many people trading freedom for a higher status, larger paychecks, more company owned devices with the expectation they will take the lap top - cell phone - tablet home and be available. It appears they believe that being busy is the same as being important - that the volume of work that they cram into their lives equates to having a life in balance because they can attend family activities.

I view cell phones as electronic leashes. If you give me a cell phone, I expect you will call with an expectation I will respond. I don't want to be so important I need to be available at anyone's beck and call except my children. And then only until they are self sufficient. I've built firewalls into my life - as was so succinctly put on my last review: does his work and goes home. And the projects are on time, and the fire drills are ignored. The non work troubles stay out of work. Work troubles don't go home. The work lap top stays off, except for the occasional important late meeting. The occasions are rare.

There is a movement called the Sabbath Manifesto. They're recommending we disconnect periodically for time to reflect. It sounds like a great idea to me. It's another firewall to keep life and work separated.

Sources:
¹ Samuel Greengard,  Communications of the ACM, 10/2011 Vol. 54 No. 10, Living in a Digital World, pp. 17-19