The 'no asshole rule' by Bob Sutton

Maybe we should all take this rule into account...

What the F**k is Social Media NOW?

What the F**k is Social Media NOW?

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-now-4747637?from=ss_embed

Talent 2.0

Talent 2.0 & Outplacement 2.0  Defined, Explored & Explained

View more presentations from Alexander Crépin.

Source: http://ht.ly/2p77M

Foundation elements for modern businesses by Seth Godin

 When you sit down to dream up a new business, you can imagine a world without constraints. Or you can choose to build in fundamental pieces that will make it more likely your idea will pay off.

Here are some fundamental pieces of most new successful businesses. The goal is to build these elements into the very nature of the business itself, not just to tack them on. For example, the Scotch tape people at 3M can't do #5, because of the structure of retail distribution and the way they mass produce and can't track who is buying what.
You can live without some of these, but go in with your eyes open if you do:

1. Build in virality. Consider: Groupon.
2. Don't sell a product that can be purchased cheaper at Amazon.
3. Subscriptions beat one-off sales.
4. Try to create an environment where your customers are happier when there are other customers doing business with you (see #1).
5. Treat different customers differently.
6. Generate joy, don't just satisfy a need for a commodity.
7. Rely on unique individuals, not an easily copyable system.
8. Plan on remarkable experiences, not remarkable ads.
9. Don't build a fortress of secrets, bet on open.
10. Unless there's a differentiating business reason, use off the shelf software and cheap cloud storage.
11. The asset of the future is the embrace of a tribe, not a cheaper widget.
12. Match expenses to cash flow--don't run out of money, because it's no longer 1999.
13. Create scarcity but act with abundance. Free samples create demand for the valuable (but not unlimited) tier you offer.
14. Tell a story, erect a mythology, walk the walk.
15. Plan on obsolescence (of your products, not your customers).

Notes:

3. The cost of selling a subscription to your product or service is not a lot higher than the cost of selling just one, but you benefit by having sales you can count on at low cost. Your customers benefit because you depend on them more and they save time.
5. Everyone has different needs and expectations and resources. The internet lets you tell people apart and give them what they need.
7. AKA as Linchpins.
9. If you're building a business on trade secrets or lack of information among your customers, you're trying to fill a leaky bucket. Far easier to bet on the more people know, the better you do.

10. Because cheap software and the cloud are going to continue to get cheaper, and custom work that's worth anything is going to continue to get more expensive.

12. The best people to fund your growth are your customers.
13. When the marginal cost of an interaction approaches zero, you benefit by creating plenty of them.
14. We can tell.

Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/08/foundation-elements-for-modern-businesses.html

True success according to John Wooden.

 With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom.

When Your Employees Know More Than You by Marshall Goldsmith

Managing today's highly skilled professionals takes special skills — and not the ones that you may think. Oftentimes, knowledge workers know more than you do about their jobs. So, how do you manage people who know more about what they do than you do?

In such instances, you have to look at leadership through the wants and needs of the worker as opposed to the skills of the leader. Here are some quick tips for effectively managing knowledge workers.

Demonstrate passion
In days past, working 40 hours per week and taking 4-5 weeks of vacation meant that people often focused less on loving what they do. Today people work 60-80 hours a week and it's crucial that they love their work to avoid burnout. Those who lead by example and demonstrate passion for what they do make it much easier for their followers to do the same.

How to Succeed When Everyone Is in Charge? By Ron Ashkenas

Do you have more than one boss? Reporting to multiple managers is actually a pretty common phenomenon, even though many of us still retain the image (or perhaps the fantasy) of the traditional hierarchy with a single wise senior executive sitting at the top. The reality, however, is that most organizations today have more than one chain of command, and to be successful you need to navigate between them.

There are at least three variations of what we might call "multiarchies" (multiple hierarchies), and each requires different strategies.

The first type is the professional multiarchy in which different professional groups have parallel hierarchies with little or no connection at the top of the organization. Hospitals are the classic example. Physicians report up through their specialties and then loosely to a medical chief of staff; nurses are ultimately accountable to the senior vice president of nursing; non-medical specialists heed to their department heads; and everyone else is part of the "administration," which is run by the hospital president. While the hospital president is officially the CEO in this set-up, his or her power over the other hierarchies is limited. Universities and research organizations operate in much the same way; as do many government agencies which have parallel civil service, political, and professional hierarchies. A key management strategy for succeeding in these organizations is to build temporary alignment on specific issues between groups and individuals that often have different longer-term goals (e.g. research vs. patient care vs. teaching vs. publishing vs. funding).