Digital Digressions

Surely We must be smarter than this? Lessons in Leadership from Monkeys

This great post got me really depressed this morning. It's all about a science experiment with monkeys, where they get soaked with cold water as soon as any monkey tries to climb a ladder in the cage that has a bunch of bananas placed on top. Before you know it, the monkeys are beating up anyone who tries and moreover, the new ones introduced to the cage quickly get beaten up too if trying to climb the ladder and join in the beating, even after the soaking with cold water has stopped.

It's a depressing tale of habit over initiative, settling with culture rather than asking the question why. I found it particularly depressing as I'm an idealist at heart and believe in people's ability to rise above stupidity (at least eventually!) and be smarter than that. I pray I'm not wrong, but this experiment sounds awfully like some bad workplaces I've come across in the past..

So the conclusion being that if you want culture change, you will have to do more than just tell people that's what you want.. if the Pavlovian conditioning is too strong you need something equally strong (if not stronger!) to balance it out, moreover something more than extrinsic motivation and then back it up with people leading the change themselves by being role models or like Gandhi famously said: Be the Change You Want to See in the World.

Best of 2006: Oldies but Goldies

So here we are; another year nearing it's end so I thought a good way to start clearing the path for new exciting topics to be meditated upon in the new Year, would be to first celebrate some of the all-time most popular posts on this blog. Without further ado here goes:

1. Life Observations in a Nutshell: best bumper stickers This hilarious selection of one-liners will have you chuckling long into the night.
2. The Secret of Happy Employees Happiness at work really isn't rocket science; very similar in fact to what makes us happy in our everyday lives too.
3. The Myers-Bricks Recruitment Method is of course a hilarious take on the famous Myers-Briggs test so liberally applied in recruitment these days.
4. A Procrastinator's Guide to Getting Things Done getting organised is really this simple. Honestly :)
5. How to Encourage Innovation in Business some rules for revolutionaries
6. Life Observations in a Nutshell: Best Bumper Stickers part II the follow up to the most popular post ever; here are some more additions to an almost unbeatable collection already
7. Death by Powerpoint never be accused of making a boring presentation ever again - here are a few tips and tricks to keep you going
8. The Essence of Intelligence is in the Ability to Understand Others nuff said
9. Worst Analogies Ever use with caution; you have been warned!
10. Running Creative Brainstorms: a Collection of 'Non-Method' Methods use these and harness the creativity of your friends, employees, family members...

So there we are - hopefully these nuggets will keep you laughing and thinking until I think of something else to blog about. :)

Don't Have a Band? Don't Worry - Get a Robot!

This is just the best take on Christmas carols ever - my colleague Flemming Sorensen at LEGO who is simply a genius with all things mechanic, robotic or LEGO, decided to see just what a Mindstorms robot was capable of and here is one great take - Flemming and the robot playing Jingle Bells together. He's one of those people when you think you've hit a brick wall and an impossible task, ask Flemming and he'll do one of those wistful looks into the horizon and say: hmm... let's see.. and before you know it, he will have thought of something you didn't think could even be done. So get yourself in a Christmassy mood:

Or get the full Xmas medley here Christmas Medley with Mindstorms NXT Robot where the Mindstorms robot also plays a bagpipe solo all by itself!

Deeper Sense of Luxury

In an earlier post I talked about what makes a good toy, contrasting two rival consumer mindsets against one another as partially to blame for the problem with toys imported from China: on one hand the desire (or expectation) for safety and quality at knock-down prices; on the other hand - the (almost) accepted transitory nature of many products and the subsequent unwillingness to spend money on products where safety and quality are taken extremely seriously.

So where the true cost of quality has eluded people, and the effects of low quality not being completely clear (until now), it has been an easy option for many companies caught in this dilemma to go for Chinese-manufactured products as keeping manufacture in Europe or the US would simply have created prices that consumers would not be willing to pay.

However this is beginning to change. First indications of this was the emergent trading up, trading down trend where people deliberately sought to save money through highly thrifty shopping for everyday essentials, yet splashing out on upgrading select items in luxury outlets. Yet, contributing to the warped sense of value is of course the flip-side to all this, where reports and documentaries detailing how many luxury labels charge a premium for the 'perception' of quality they embody, but in actual fact many products are manufactured just the same as ordinary priced items. Luxury items simply command a higher margin, with labels pocketing the change.

What people are beginning to understand is what exactly the elusive term 'quality' means. It appears that Quality functions like a broad stroke term to encompass high expectations on:

•     Material
•     Finishing
•     Design and Usability
•     Functionality, features and compatibility
•     Ethics and sustainability
•     Health and Safety
•     Environmental Impact
•     Service and replace-ability

Many still refuse to pay the premium that this may translate to in the short term, but as we increasingly begin to be able to factor the costs of the long-term impact of such choices - it becomes very hard to sustain the argument. Leading this change is the growing attention paid to corporate social responsibility and initiatives like the Deeper Luxury report by WWF UK where the media response to this could be the tipping point for the Industry as suggested by CSRwire

Media Response to WWF-UK Report on Luxury Brands Could Be Tipping Point for the Industry.

Last week over fifty newspapers and magazines from Britain, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Switzerland reported on the corporate responsibility of the world's largest holding companies of luxury brands. For the first time they had been ranked on their ethical performance in the report Deeper Luxury: Quality and Style When the World Matters, which was published by environmental group WWF-UK. The news went 'viral' through trade journals and blogs on fashion, jewelry, and celebrities.

The report "could herald a huge change in the way global luxury brands operate," states Fashion UK.(1) 'The luxury goods industry looks like it's having its own Nike moment," suggests UN corporate reporting expert Dr Anthony Miller, referring to the mid-90's criticism of labour practices in Nike's supply chain that made the company invest heavily in its corporate responsibility programme. Within days, Just-Style.com reported that "PPR Group commits to improving sustainability" as a result of the publication.(2)

 

Jesus Saves - Buddha Does Incremental Backups

This title I actually came across on a T-shirt, which I found hilarious, because an all consuming worry recently made me buy yet another external hard drive, this one now a Tera-byte (1000 gigabytes) to use to back up my various data currently spread across other external hard drives and my computer(s).

This is it - my volume of physical possessions is gradually decreasing (i.e new music albums, printed photos, design visuals, printed matter) as I rejoice in the space efficient way of storing all this information on my computer. Equally it fills me with worry to know that a growing part of my life in the form of memories and content I value is living not readily to hand to be leafed through, touched and felt, but as a collection of zeroes and ones on a hard disk that may just one day decide not to start, or get infected by a virus or God forbid just be carried out in the pocket of some enterprising burglar. I can't quite fathom him running off with my library of books which take up half of our living room, or the vast collection of academic paperwork, but hard disks are far more juicier a price and guess what? If you don't like the content on it, you can always erase it (!) and put something else on it instead.

I'm also really excited by the new operating system from Apple, called Leopard or OS 10.5, which has this nifty feature called Time Machine, which keeps track of all the versions of files on your hard disk so you never accidentally lose a file again. However, I did spot a problem with this though - where it addresses the problem of backups in the past where everything is more or less backed up and it can be arduous searching through your backups to find specifically the one file you are looking for - if you lose your entire hard drive on your computer and have to start from scratch, I'm not sure Time Machine can help with restoring everything all at once.

That means incremental backups of your entire system are still worth while - having it all, done regularly, ready to be restored in its entirety at the touch of a button, backed up on a drive you hide somewhere in a secure place away from your computer, just so that should things get nicked - your memories aren't one of them.

More great geek-wear from Syswear

What Makes a Good Toy?

All the recent attention focused on the toy industry courtesy of safety concerns seem to have not just caused any Chinese-manufactured toys to be viewed with suspicion and sent parents trawling through the Internet in search of advice on the matter, but also caused a wider shift in spending patterns link as parents increasingly worry about finding something for their little ones this Christmas, which won't get recalled in a few months time when someone licks it and finds it poisonous.

This in my mind doesn't just touch on ensuring even better quality control on toys, but brings in to sharp focus two potentially incompatible value-systems: on one hand - the desire for safety and quality; on the other hand - the (almost) accepted transitory nature of many products (temporary diversion rather than long-term joy) and the subsequent unwillingness of some to spend money on products where safety and quality are taken extremely seriously.

Certainly in the toy industry nobody likes to point fingers and it is a matter of ensuring that each manufacturer takes responsibility for this, however with a lot of the focus on price, China has in recent years been a very tempting solution for many trying to keep abreast with a larger consumer trend of continuously wanting everything faster and cheaper than before. Quality takes time, it costs too and that can be a problem if your company's business model can't support the investment in it.

Back to lamenting toys I was recently asked what in my opinion makes a good toy, so here's my personal list of criteria:

1. Age appropriate - small children in particular like to put everything in their mouth and are very  tactile in their play and exploration of the world - that means that the materials used and size are essential in making the toy safe. Older children have better fine motor skills and have stopped 'chewing' on everything to figure them out so can better handle small pieces.

2. Hands on - minds on: children's gross and fine motor skills along with coordination mature earlier than other parts of their brain so it is important that their toys stimulate movement and coordination, both on large and small scale. The ability of the toy to engage your mind and imagination is essential as children learn about both themselves and the outside world through their imagination.

3. Easy to learn but challenging to master - this gives the toy longevity and guarantees interest over time.

4. Many ideas and opportunities - it is important to be able to learn through the toys, but if they do not encourage experimentation and idea generation the learning will be short-lived

5. Fun alone and together - being alone and together is important for kids, both with their own peers but also with their parents, so toys that can handle both enable role-play and storytelling that kids both love to hear and to do for themselves, alone and together.

Now some toys tick all the boxes, others only some, but it's important to remember than there are many kinds of toys, each with their own strengths and a good mix is important too, but above all they must all encourage play, the more the better!

 

 

Making a Difference While You Still Can

Whenever people ask me who I work for I more often than not instantly get a smile from perpetual strangers and some of the most touching personal stories about the role LEGO played in their childhood or still does for their own children. It is a wonderful privilege to be here and equally I feel it is an enormous responsibility I and my colleagues carry to ensure LEGO remains something kids (young and old) all over the world love.

Sometimes though, people get a bit sick of all our passion and think some of our emotional outpourings about how important creativity is for children a little schmaltzy - maybe because side by side with us on the toy shelf are countless other products aiming at children, some not even safe to play with and some so calculating in their approach that the only conclusion you could arrive at is that all toy companies must be evil exploiting little hands and minds with pointless diversions. Ironically - to some extent I would agree, there are plenty of products out there that fall in that category. To the same people, LEGO is also just another company, with politics and silly stuff and nothing of the 'specialness' that our fans talk about. To this though I have to vigorously disagree and explain why I'm here.

Before joining LEGO I worked for a UN-sponsored children's charity and one of our big focus areas was Agenda 21 and empowering young people to be part of the sustainable development of their communities. This work brought me in touch with young volunteers from all over the world and I got to travel to such disparate locations as Latin America, Africa and China on projects that were all about getting young people to take leadership of their own futures.

Despite how incredibly important the issue, it is heartbreaking how many young people out there are the victims of hunger, famine, war, AIDS or just the sheer lack of education, of opportunity and how very hard work it can sometimes be to inject hope into the eyes and minds of this generation on whose shoulders the future of the world rests. There is nothing more depressing than meeting 10 year-olds who have lost the will to live, because everything around them has been destroyed and they are consumed by hatred of the soldiers and people who killed their loved ones.

More depressing is the fact that they have never had the luxury of play, of discovery, of gradually gaining confidence in exploring their ideas and growing up to be curious and adamant learners, convinced in their own ability to make the best of a hopeless situation. But that is the gift of a creatively stimulating toy.

And thus for me, every year I go to the Toy Fair and am depressed in my heart and soul over how many rubbish toys are produced, pointless gadgets, little gimmicks that elicit a smile and 5 minutes of diversion before they too end up as landfill I know now for a fact that I could never work for another toy company than LEGO. Why? Because LEGO is more than a toy -

It is a mighty tool with the potential to reshape your mind and your thinking, but disquised as an innocent child's play thing it is not locked up in science labs as the exclusive tool of neuroscientists, but instead its out there, in children's toy chests around the world, giving the best gift a parent could ever give their child: the gift of creativity, of hope in a better future and the belief in your own ability to prevail over difficulty.

That is why I'm here.