Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

0-3, but they have a blog

It is tough to be a Green Bay Packers fan this year, but I found they have a blog. Players Nick Barnett, Ryan Longwell, and Scott Wells are writing for it.

No new posts since yesterday's loss...

Dee Hock on Hiring

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity;
second, motivation;
third, capacity;
fourth, understanding;
fifth, knowledge;
and last and least, experience.

Without integrity, motivation is dangerous;
without motivation, capacity is impotent;
without capacity, understanding is limited;
without understanding, knowledge is meaningless;
without knowledge, experience is blind.
Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

-Dee Hock on Management, M. Mitchell Waldrop, FC5, Oct:Nov 1996

Weekend Music - Marsalis Jazz

Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition asked Mynton Marsalis what his five favorite jazz recordings are:

• John Coltrane Quartet - Crescent (1964)
• Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin (1958)
• Thelonious Monk - Thelonious Monk Play Duke Ellington (1955)
• Duke Ellington - The New Orleans Suite (1970)
• Charlie Parker - One Night in Birdland (1950)

WSJ has some clips from these albums on their website.

[Just a reminder all my music links go to iTunes.]

WSJ Weekend Edition - Thumbs Up!

Today is the launch of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition. Free to subscribers, this paper comes on Saturdays. It is three sections deep.

The main news section up front. It has some nice weekly summaries and previews. Their Hot Topic looks like it will be interesting. It takes up about a half page and gives a great briefing of a weekly topic. This week it is the Roberts confirmation.

The second section is Money & Investing. This is the section I normally skip, but in the weekend version, you get a personal finance angle. The articles seemed a little too focused on high wealth strategies (hedge ideas to protect gains on your house and discount-broker package deals). The one thing it did get me to do is look through the market data. I think that will be a good thing to do on a weekly basis.

The final section is called Pursuits. This week they have everything from a review of the new Disney Park in Hong Kong to an extensive article on new restaurants opening around the country. They are going to have regular features on books, film, food and drink.

So, a big thumbs up!

I keep hounding all you business people to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. They have just given you another reason with the additional weekend coverage. Go get it now!

9 Tips For Change Agents

1. Be open to data at the start. "Even if you think you know what you're doing, chances are you don't know what you could be doing. Open up your mind to as much new thinking as you can absorb. You may find different and better ideas than the ones your organization started with."
2. Network like crazy. "There is a network of people who are thinking about learning organizations. I've found you can get in touch with them easily. People say to me, `I can't believe you talked with so-and-so! How'd you do it?' The answer is, I called him."
3. Document your own learning. "People in the organization need to see documentation for their own comfort. The smartest thing I did was to create a matrix of ideas from leading thinkers. I documented two categories of thinking -- the elements of a learning organization, and the pitfalls to avoid."
4. Take senior management along. Turner's own education included benchmarking trips to Saturn, Texas Instruments, Motorola, General Electric, and other companies known for their innovative approaches to learning. "Some of the people in the senior group were very skeptical," Turner says. "It helped to take them on these benchmarking trips to show them other companies that were actually doing some of the same learning practices."
5. No fear! "You've got to be fearless and not worry about keeping your job."
6. Be a learning person yourself. "Change agents have to be in love with learning and constantly learning new things themselves. Then they find new ways to communicate those things to the organization as a whole."
7. Laugh when it hurts. "This can be very discouraging work. You need a good sense of humor. It also helps if you've got a mantra you can say to yourself when things aren't going too well."
8. Know the business before you try to change anything. "I don't think you can do this work if you're just a theorist. I've been a sales rep, I've been in a marketing job where I worked with the operations side. So when I go about the work of creating a change strategy, I already have an understanding of the people in our organization and what they do."
9. Finish what you start. "I made a list of change projects we'd started and never finished in the past. We called it 'the black hole.' I determined early on I didn't want to be part of a second-rate movie."

-9 Tips for Change Agents, Nicholas Morgan, FC5, Oct:Nov 1996

8 Principles for Learning

These are learnings from a study put together by Xerox and the Institute for Research on Learning:

1. Learning is fundamentally social. "Many of the greatest benefits of training are unintentional. When you come out of a training program, you often perform better. But is it the training that's critical or the interaction during the training? You may be able to perform better simply because you have better relationships with people who you can now call."
2. Cracking the whip stifles learning. "If you are a supervisor and you see two people talking in the hallway, don't say, `Get back to work.' Recognize that this interaction creates a community of practice that stimulates learning -- and it may be precisely what they need."
3. Learning needs an environment that supports it. "XBS used to think of space in terms of cost-per-square-foot. When you look at a cubicle and you see that it's so small that another person can't get in there, you know something's wrong. For learning to flourish, you need to restructure the physical design of the office to encourage interaction, social learning, and peer learning where and when it happens most effectively -- informally."
4. Learning crosses hierarchical bounds. "Camp Lurn'ing included all levels of the company. Supervisors, fifth-line managers, and all kinds of operators train together. Inclusiveness inspires cross-functional learning -- it's a powerful motivating factor."
5. Self-directed learning fuels the fire. "Who knows better what needs to be learned than the people doing the learning? XBS has thrown out the model of HR-driven training. People have a say in structuring their own training, and that means they're more eager to learn."
6. Learning by doing is more powerful than memorizing. "At Camp Lurn'ing, participants used team simulation exercises in which they assessed customers and devised strategies. They recreated the work environment and learned by doing. This is much more effective than sitting at a desk and listening to a lecture."
7. Failure to learn is often the fault of the system, not the people. "Rather than blaming people for lack of motivation, examine how the situation is either motivating or debilitating. Look for patterns of participation and exclusion."
8. Sometimes the best learning is unlearning. "For a long time people have learned that it's best to keep their mouths shut and do what they're told, even if it's not consistent over time. The key is to break those habits and make engagement something that's not only encouraged but also rewarded."

-8 Principles for Learning, Christina Novicki, FC5, Oct:Nov 1996

50 Reasons Why We Can't Change

1. We've never done it before.
2. Nobody else has ever done it.
3. It has never been tried before.
4. We tried it before.
5. Another company/person tried it before.
6. We've been doing it this way for 25 years.
7. It won't work in a small company.
8. It won't work in a large company.
9. It won't work in our company.
10. Why change--it's working OK.
11. The boss will never buy it.
12. It needs further investigation.
13. Our competitors are not doing it.
14. It's too much trouble to change.
15. Our company is different.
16. The ad department says it can't be done.
17. Sales department says it can't be done.
18. The service department won't like it.
19. The janitor says it can't be done.
20. It can't be done.
21. We don't have the money.
22. We don't have the personnel.
23. We don't have the equipment.
24. The union will scream.
25. It's too visionary.
26. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
27. It's too radical a change.
28. It's beyond my responsibility.
29. It's not my job.
30. We don't have the time.
31. It will obsolete other procedures.
32. Customers won't buy it.
33. It's contrary to policy.
34. It will increase overhead.
35. The employees will never buy it.
36. It's not our problem.
37. I don't like it.
38. You're right, but...
39. We're not ready for it.
40. It needs more thought.
41. Management won't accept it.
42. We can't take the chance.
43. We'd lose money on it.
44. It takes too long to pay out.
45. We're doing all right as is.
46. It needs committee study.
47. Competition won't like it.
48. It needs sleeping on.
49. It won't work in this department.
50. It's impossible.

E.F. Borish,
Product Manager,
Milwaukee Gear Company,
Product Engineering Magazine
July 20, 1959
[This was published in the November 1993 prototype version of Fast Company].

Back to the Future - Introduction

I have been reading back issues of Fast Company over the last week. I got some old issues from Jack and Tom. I now have issue 2 through 15, a smattering of 20 somethings, and everything from 45 on.

There is clearly material that is dated (articles about mouseballs and service that burn CD-ROMs for $100), but there are articles just as relevant today as they were written. I am going to highlight the stuff I ran across over the next couple of weeks.

Fast Company has always been great about making all of its material available for free, but reading it off the website doesn't hold a candle to reading it from the pages of the original magazine.

Ten Favorite TUAW posts

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is giving away a Ipod Nano. The only thing you have to do is post your 10 all-time favorite posts from TUAW. So, here we go:

1. What are you listening to? - In this post, they asked everyone to look at their iTunes and post what their 5 most played songs were. This was great because it was community based, easy to do, and it was guaranteed to have accurate results (Here were my five).
2. The New York Times on Mac Geniuses and the Halo Effect - This was a great summary post that highlighted some great facts about the Genius Bars. I would have missed this had you not highlighted it.
3. Freeware February: Notational Velocity - I was watching every day for what new tools you could bring into my life. NV is wonderful and a integral part of my workflow now.
4. More birthday tributes for Steve - PodBrix are way cool and you brought them into my world.
5. MacDevCenter on 20 Cool Tiger Features - I was quick to upgrade to Tiger and mostly enjoyed Spotlight. This post showed me some other things I could appreciate by going to 10.4.
6. Make NetNewsWire Sing - This is the second most important program on my computer after Mail. This was a great tip and helped with slowdowns I was getting.
7. T-shirt bears quote from Jobs' Standford Speech - This was great for two reasons - the shirt is hilarious and you guys have a link to video of Jobs' speech (I didn't know I could watch it).
8. When was your Mac Born? - This was a cute post. For people who consider their Apple a part of their identity, it was a great way to become even more attached.
9. iTunes 5 shuffle got more random - I was always on the side that they must have some special programming built into the shuffle. I know it wasn't true, but it sure seemed like it. I found it really interesting to see them add it as a feature (and I saw it on TUAW first).
10. How to Create a podcast with .Mac - I liked the possibility of no bandwidth charges with putting my files up on .Mac. But what is great about this post is it referred to a TUAW post the day before that I had missed. The topic was how Apple just put a cap on bandwidth. It pushed me to pursue other avenues.

To summarize, TUAW helps me see things that I don't often have time to find myself.

Citizan Journalism of Katrina

Alvaro was in New Orleans.

His photo album shows you the before, during and after of Katrina. Each photo has his commentary.

Worth checking out...