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Interesting interview Nancy did with Aaron Leonard at World Bank in September 2013. Makes me think about a lot of things, including how different technologies label us generationally with each generation (only ten years apart in some cases because of the creation and adoption of new communications media) using different tools and how this affects collaboration choices. Excerpt: "Right now email is the reigning champion in the Bank and if we have any hope of getting people to work differently and collaboratively we have to first get rid of email."

Infograph by online bank First Direct in UK; article by Michael Sebastian, Ragan's PR Daily, April 17, 2013, on 12 types of social media personalities; has some merit IMO.

Blog by Matthew forti on Measuring Leadership Development, November 28, 2011 Neighborhood Builders by Bank of America builds high performing community-based nonprofits and gives them multiple three-day sessions of leadership training for the ED and emerging leader. Excerpts: "1. Develop a detailed theory of change. It isn't worth spending a dime on measurement until you've carefully defined which leaders you intend to target, what specific training and other programming they need, what they will gain, how those gains will be applied, and what should ultimately result." 2. Measure with mixed methods. 3. Continuously measure to improve impact. 4.Build rigor over time. Leadership programs don't need to build a full-scale measurement system right from the start. The best programs are intentional about whether and how to improve the rigor of their measurement over time, based partly on what they want to do with the results.

WSJ/Digits by Courtney Banks, January 21, 2011 Quote: ""Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line but not cross it. I would argue that implanting things in your brain is beyond the creepy line. At least for the moment, until the technology gets better."" 6. In an August 2010 interview published in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Schmidt posited that someday people would need to be able to change their names on reaching adulthood, in order to avoid embarassing information about them recorded on their friends' social-networking sites: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time … I mean we really have to think about these things as a society." 5. Speaking on a panel at the Techonomy conference in August 2010, Mr. Schmidt touted how Google image-search technology could be used to identify people: "If you have 14 pictures on the Internet, within a 95% confidence interval we can predict who you are. You say you don't have 14 pictures? You have Facebook pictures, so there."

blog post by Jennifer Gilhool, 6.4.2013 "You are connected to work 24/7. You don't need your lap top to be connected. You are connected via BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad to name just a few. These devices no longer provide flexibility. Instead, they tether you to the office. They enable you to work all the time and anywhere. And, now, many companies believe that is the definition of flexibility: "'What flexibility means today is not part time,' the head of work-life at one large organization told me recently. 'What people want is the ability to work anytime, anywhere.' That's true if your target labor pool is twenty-somethings and men married to homemakers. The head of HR at another large organization asked, when I described the hours problem, 'What do you mean, how can we get women to work more hours?'" - Why Men Work So Many Hours, Joan C. Williams, May 29, 2013 Harvard Business Review Why Your Manager Doesn't Want You To Innovate Ron Ashkenas Ron Ashkenas Contributor LinkedIn: Busting 8 Damaging Myths About What It Can Do For Your Career 85 Broads 85 Broads Contributor Someone has taken the "human" out of "Human Resources" departments across America. And, this behavior is not limited to operations in America. I work for a multi-national corporation that cannot seem to wean itself from the 24 hour work day. Colleagues in China often begin their day with a 6:00 a.m. meeting and end it with a meeting that begins at 10:00 p.m. or, worse, 11:00 p.m. To combat this problem, the company leadership agreed to a global meeting policy. The policy provides that global meetings should occur only between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. and that no meetings should occur on Friday nights in Asia Pacific. Further, the policy provides a 10 hour fatigue rule. In other words, there should be 10 hours between your last meeting of the day and your first meeting on the next day. First, if you need a global meeting policy, you are in

"Women's entrepreneurship has hit a media tipping point. The question is: Is it just a passing media fad that will soon be a blip on the radar screen, or is it actually a real, fundamental economic force that's reshaping the world? I think it's safe to say that it's the latter. Women-owned entities in the formal sector represent approximately 37% of enterprises globally - a market worthy of attention by businesses and policy makers alike. While aggregated data is often challenging to find, the recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) found 126 million women starting or running businesses, and 98 million operating established (over three and a half years) businesses. That's 224 million women impacting the global economy - and this survey counts only 67 of the 188 countries recognized by the World Bank."

Harold Jarche's lament, January 12, 2015. "Salaried workers and consultants use what I give away in order to earn their livelihood. For the most part, I am fine with this, as it raises my profile and the level of engagement. But it seems we are entering a time when people expect to get whatever information they need for free and feel no obligation to support the people who create it. I am beginning to question my current business model. Last week I was twice asked to work for free. In each case the person asking me to work for 'exposure' was a salaried employee. My bank has yet to accept exposure as a form of payment." Jarche goes onto say that he is changing his business model because this isn't working.

Very good, practical article by Marco Albani and Kimberly Henderson, McKinsey & Company, July 2014 on companies and social groups joining forces to protect the environment. The seven tips to make such alliances successful work for all partnerships/odd couples IMO. 1. ID clear reasons to collaborate. "The effort needs to help each partner organization achieve something significant. Incentives such as 'we'll do this for good publicity' or 'we don't want to be left out' are not sufficient." -Nigel Twose, director of the Development Impact Department, International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group 2. Find a fairy godmother "It is important to have a core of totally committed, knowledgeable people who would die in a ditch for what the organization is trying to achieve." -Environmental NGO campaign head 3. Set simple, credible goals 4. Get professional help "It is very important to have an honest broker. The facilitator must be neutral and very structured and keep people moving along at a brutal pace. You need someone who can bring things to a close." -Darrel Webber, secretary general, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) 5. Dedicate good people to the cause "If a company like ours believes something is strategic, then we resource it like it is strategic." -Neil Hawkins, corporate vice president of sustainability, Dow Chemical LOVE #5--HAVE SEEN "COLLABORATIONS" FAIL IN STATE GOVT. BECAUSE GOOD PEOPLE AND SENIOR LEADERSHIP WERE NOT BEHIND IT. 6. Be flexible in defining success "Partners think that collaboration will change the world. Then it doesn't, and they think that it failed. But often the collaboration changed something-the way some part of the system works and delivers outcomes. It is a matter of understanding the nature of change itself." -Simon Zadek, visiting fellow, Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Beijing 7. Prepare to let go "I've been absent from the FSC since 1997.

List of Canada's top 100 best diversity employers with examples of what they have done to promote, inform, support diversity and inclusion. Great quotes in the TD Bank profile by Hanen, and Han. Bringing your whole self to work is the goal which means your sexual orientation or helping elders in the home or your culture, etc.

good article by Sam Polk, July 2016, on how sexist talk by men about women catapults even worse behavior by men

good blog on why PDFs fall short on usability by journalists and others who are not looking to print them out

mentions wage theft experienced by NFL cheerleaders, fast food workers, low-wage workers

Nice blog on focusing--understand your priorities on importance and urgency axes; take command of your schedule by defining time blocks; break down big tasks into steps; distract yourself intentionally by stretching, going for a walk, doing routine tasks that don't require brainpower.