andrewnicol.net - blog

Casting Vision by writing an eBook

Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

His words echo part of the thoughts that have been going through my head over the last month. How do I lead agóge so that it can become a really ingenious company? How do I teach people to think more? To be more creative? And most importantly to take their ideas and make them happen!

At work we have an internal blog and I write a weekly review, that is never weekly, but that's an SOI thing. 

Anyhow, I sat down and started thinking about all of the stuff I had to get out of my head about being ingenious and creative and thinking and execution. As I mulled over the content I realised that it would never fit into a blog post and spreading the message over 5 or 6 weeks would dilute it significantly.

I then had an idea to write an eBook. A small, 6 pages, electronic book which is called "being INGENIOUS @ agóge". Cherie then gave me the idea to personlise it, which I did and then I actually printed it and sent it to everyone in  the company. I guess its no longer and eBook although is available on our internal blog.

It has been generally well received and I will probably write another one some time, but the aim of the eBook is to not just write stuff. It's aim is to reinforce our vision, and in this case just one small part of it. There is very little in the eBook that is new, it is just a different way of saying it.

When I wrote the eBook I was doing my job. Casting Vision and Leading my team. It is a different way of doing it but in my role 'my imagination is more important than my knowledge'.

I forget that often!

[PS I might post the eBook in the future, once our competitors are so far behind us in being ingenious, so as to give them a fighting chance! :-) ]

[PPS After I wrote the eBook Seth Godin posted a blog called "You should write an eBook". He wrote one that now easily sits on more than 2 million computers. I feel a small sense of satisfication for coming up with the idea on my own, then having it reinforced by him]

[PPPS You can read a small excerpt of the ebook at www.viewpoint.net.nz]

Random Thoughts

I love mornings like this morning. You can hear the rain falling like a thousand tiny water falls on the tin roof. The house is quiet because most houses are at 5am. And I have time to reflect and think and scheme a little. As I do that my mind is drawn to a couple of quotes I read recently that are quite deep but v cool.

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it" - Alan Kay

"The kind of thinking that will solve the worlds problems will be different to the kind of thinking that created them" - Albert Einstein.

Wasting your advertising dollars

"A couple of years ago, Amazon.com announced that they were going to stop their advertising all  together. No more magazine adverts or TV. Instead they decided to invest all of their advertising dollars into providing free shipping of books." ...

Read @ www.viewpoint.net.nz

INNOVATE

You owe it to yourself to create something remarkable one day!

Seth Godin

Is Your Job Just a Job?

"Your days can seem really long (and your life seem really short) if you're spending your entire career wasting time merely trying to earn some money.

Being engaged at work is seductive. It means that you're spending a big chunk of every day doing something you love, something that makes a difference. You get to motivate other people and create things that last. Unfortunately, this sort of opportunity is scarce and (apparently) getting more scarce. The gift I can give you is this: Since your boss hired you to make something happen, you now have permission to build something remarkable. You have the opportunity (on your boss's money) to build a project that will energize you and your co-workers.

You can do it.

The biggest insight about soft innovation is that anyone can do it. It's not based on your power in an organization, or your desire to become an entrepreneur or how creative you are. My goal is to sell you on your ability to champion an innovation in your organization. To find the Purple Cow and a team to build it. Then do it again and again."

This is a quote I enjoyed at 3am when I was trying to read myself back to sleep from Seth Godin's Book "Free Prize Inside"

Time Management meets the Monkey

A post of mine on www.viewpoint.net.nz about the One Minute Manager meets the Monkey. Like the rest of the books in the series, it is written in narative style.

The key lesson for me is:

Rule 4: Check on the Monkey: Proper follow-up means healthier monkeys. Every monkeys should have a checkup appointment.

In summary, it was an easy read with some timely reminders about getting your people to solve their own problems.

Read the full review [Here]

Where is my freedom of choice?

I passionately hate how two faced our country is becoming. The government claims to want to give people freedom, but only when it suits their self centred agendas.

People can now have a legal choice to buy sex for money or 18 year olds can buy alcohol or people enter into same sex marriages, but I cant choose to smack my kids. Please understand, I am not stating a view on the other things BUT my point is why, if people can have these choices, can't I have a legal choice to smack my kids?

The anti smacking bill was deferred on Wednesday night due to heavy debate. It will now not be back before parliament until after Easter (school holidays for our MP's is a good thing this time)

Here is the thing that annoys me the most about the bill. When it started off its purpose was to remove Section 59 of the crimes act. At the time Sue Bradford said we aren't trying to outlaw smacking, we are trying to stop people using it as an excuse to beat their kids. (There have been 2 examples of parents found not guilty as a result of using Section 59 as a defence)

Beating their kids it turns out in Sue's vocabulary means smacking. She now seems to use the words 'smack' and 'beating' interchangeably.

I wrote a submission for the original bill (which is a lot different to the current one). Here are a couple of key points

This bill will not in any way reduce child abuse. The people that abuse their children are often living on the other side of the law anyway, and will not, and do not give a damn about the bill. They will still abuse their children. ...

I long to be a great father to my children, and have a deep desire to see them grow up as law abiding citizens. I smack my children infrequently. They are generally sent to their room first, I then discuss the bad behaviour with them, and if it is significant and warranted they will get a smack on the hand or bottom with my hand. It is not damaging in any way, rather they learn quickly what is, and isn't acceptable behaviour in our society. I believe that this law will make that action illegal, will therefore make me a criminal, when all I have is the best interests of my children and our future society at heart.

I hate child abuse. This bill will not fix that! We must instead retrain our parents, in many cases first teaching them right from wrong and dealing to the social problems we have. Then, and only then, will child abuse reduce.

Please do not make ordinary parents like myself who long to raise great kids the criminals. I beg you.

YOUR FUTURE

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

THE LAZY EMPLOYEE

Lazy people irriate their employers, like vinegar to the teeth or smoke in the eyes.

King Solomon

Freightways get scanners

A post of mine at www.viewpoint.net.nz on Dean Bracewells comments to the NZ Herald about technology in Freightways

"And whilst we've been lining up to make that decision about the technology in the vans we've been focussing very heavily on ensuring we deliver our core service, which is getting packages to the right place at the right time."

The article serves as a timely reminder, well to me at least, that technology matters very little if you are not delivering your core service. In NZC's case that is providing consistency and reliability.

Click [Here]