Show and tell

The 'Steve Jobs was an amazingly creative thinker and leader' anecdotes will seemingly not be stopping anytime soon, and that is probably just fine. One of the latest, and that particularly caught my attention was related in this recent piece on Business Insider, Here's the Simple Yet Brilliant Challenge Steve Jobs Posed to Employees During Product Meetings.

Here is an excerpt from the BI piece:

Ken Rosen, a managing partner at consulting agency Performance Works, which worked with Jobs at Apple and at NeXT, shared one way Jobs was able to get the NeXT team thinking about design from different angles. 

The challenge was simple: each person would bring a product he or she respected into their team meeting.

"It could be anything, [even] a paperclip," Ken Rosen, who worked in marketing at NeXT, tells Business Insider. "People brought in very different products, from electronics to a paper notebook to a jump rope."

Jobs wasn't interested in criticizing or judging the employee based on what product he or she brought in. Rather, the assignment was about broadening the way the team thought about product design.

[Jobs] just really wanted to develop an organization where people knew what good products were," he says. "He wanted to develop a vocabulary and a kind of nuanced sense of judgement about what a good product really was."

I think this story is cool for at least two reasons. One, it shows a willingness and a predisposition to look for ideas, inspiration, and even answers to NeXT's particular product and design challenges from just about anywhere. Notice Jobs did not instruct his team to bring in examples of their favorite competing computers or even broadly similar products in the electronics family. He asked them to bring in any products that resonated with them.

Good ideas can come from everywhere, anywhere really.

The other reason this story is cool is that it probably helped Jobs understand better the point of view and the design sensibilities of the members of the NeXT team. It is one thing for a team member to sit in a meeting and offer comments on a design sketch or a prototype, but it is quite another for that same person to carry in an object or a product and explain to the group what it is about that object that they find compelling. The exercise wasn't really about rating or evaluating any of the particular objects that the team brought in, but rather to think and see what good product design really was.

Fun story for sure. Probably something worth trying sometime in your shop as well. And of course after reading I had to think about what product or object I would bring in for workplace show and tell...

Hmm. I do love my little Acer Chomebook, (used to write this piece). I also might consider my Adidas Superstars, (classic sneakers for the uninitiated).

Good question.

What would you bring in for show and tell?

Ten things to watch in 2014

At the start of the New Year the marketing/branding/digital design firm JWT releases a really cool and interesting collection of '100 Things to Watch' for the upcoming year - a collection of new ideas, trends, technologies, societal shifts, etc. that are meant to stimulate thinking and generate discussion. Many of the 'things to watch' are kind of uber-trendy and destined to be largely unimportant and fleeting, (fast food tofu, Oculus Rift, and Chinese Wine), but others, particularly the tech trends that JWT identifies have the potential to be more significant, enduring, and even influential in the design of workplaces and the nature and manner in which work is performed. And last year we even had some fun talking about some of these items, 'Adult Playgrounds' in particular, on the HR Happy Hour Show in the past.

The entire JWT slide presentation is embedded below, (email and RSS subscribers may need to click through), and after the deck I'll pull a few of the 'things to watch' that are likely to be more relevant and meaningful to work and workplaces.

JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2014 from JWTIntelligence

So which of the 100 things should you as an HR and Talent pro be on the watch for?

Here are just a few from the JWT deck that I think you should keep an eye on.

6. Ambient Commerce - As a means to improve customer service, 'ambient' systems will use data and signals to track consumer needs, anticipate them in advance, and provide products and services before they are even requested. This is the 'smart refrigerator' that orders more milk for you one day before it thinks you are going to run out (or it spoils). For our workplaces, meeting this expectation of our customers is going to require us to spend more time and resources on new systems and methods to better understand what our customers are likely to want to do next based on what they have done in the past.

8. Arrested IRL Development - Growing up online and attached to your smartphone could mean an entire generation of new workers with less or even limited understanding of how to work, communicate, and socialize in real life (IRL). For HR and the workplace this could mean more time and attention spent in new hire onboarding programs on things like running and participating in meetings, writing and communicating more formally, and even how to handle yourself at a business meal or corporate cocktail hour.

11. Beacons - These are the signals that network-connected smartphones send and that are going to be increasingly used to identify, track, and customize the on-site shopping experience for customers at all kinds of venues. Retail store, museums, and even sporting events are just a few of the potential applications of this technology. For HR and work the implications are vast - but the first and most likely could be in retail or other high customer touchpoint businesses. Workers can be given much more specific, targeted information about customers and prospects prior to making initial contact, and will be required to process and evaluate much more information prior to engaging the customer as well.

25. Contemplative Computing - This is a big, catch-many things kind of idea, but the important element is meant to answer the question of 'How can our computing/devices/social networks become less of a distraction and burden and more of a helper, guide, and trusted advisor?' For work and workplaces, it is almost certain that many of our employees are already feeling significant information overload, (that is getting worse by the day), so smart organizations will take steps to ensure the systems and devices that employees use are not placing even more stress on them, and rather, are actually helping them get their jobs done, (which will make them less stressed out).

35. E-cigarette Regulation - This could be a big 'nothing to see here' kind of trend, as it can be really simple, especially for workplaces, to interpret and treat E-cigarettes the same way most of us treat tobacco products already (banned at work, we won't hire you if you use them, if you do use them be prepared to pay 476% more for your company-sponsored medical insurance, etc.). But if the E-cigarette market continues to grow, and employees and customers push back on rules and regulations that restrict their usage, then HR will need to sort out the best way forward. Or you could just pro-actively ban them tomorrow and not worry about this one.

37. Equal rights for men - This one might provoke some calls of BS from readers, as the workplace has pretty much always been a man's world, so rather than try and convince you on this, I will just pull the quote from the JWT slide and let you make your own determination if or when this trend might impact your organization. 

According to our research, men feel it has become harder to be a man today, and harder to succeed in the working world as a father and husband. Watch for a rise in male-focused support systems and advocacy groups as society comes to understand that many me would be well-served by some of the mechanisms in place to boost women.

41. Glanceable User Interfaces - Think about the best, most helpful, and easiest to use apps you have on your phone right now. Chances are they provide just the right amount of information to make a decision or get a needed update in just a glance or a swipe. So much of how we process, take in, and interpret signals and information is happening on tiny screens that we operate with one thumb that designers and developers are challenged to make what is presented on the first glance be meaningful and relevant. For you, it means one thing primarily - distill your delivery of information as far down as possible, and make it work on a 4-inch screen. Unlike this post, which is going to clock in at over 1500 words I bet.

47. Hashtag fatigue - What once was a clever way to help organize and make findable related information on social networks has morphed in many instances into an incredibly annoying game of 'Look at me and look at my stuff'. If you are a heavy Twitter user you know what I am talking about - people and brands 'hashtagging' unrelated (or even every single update) content with a popular or trending hashtag in a desperate and pathetic attempt to be noticed. If you do this personally or as a part of your HR/Recruiting game, you should stop. #Imeanit.

50. Human Touches - This is the natural backlash to an increasingly technology augmented and disconnected world. JWT sees opportunity for organizations that can figure out ways to supplement their technological interactions with customers (or for HR, employees or candidates), with personal and more human touches. This is not going to be easy for most, as the same technologies that enable processes to succeed at scale simultaneously work against the ability or capacity to allow more human contact. If you can figure our the best way to balance these conflicts however, you will likely have an edge in the markets in which you compete.

63. Minute to read it - In our increasingly busy, over-stimulated, and time-crunched world accurate estimates for the length of time it will take to read a report, process a transaction, or even sit in a meeting or phone call are becoming more and more important. How much more could you get done if you could only be more precise about how long it will take to actually get something done? For HR and Talent - maybe pushing back on your HR Tech providers to build this kind of predictive estimation into their tools would be a start. Think of annual benefits open enrollment or processing a self-appraisal. Giving employees and up-front (and smart, as it should be a learning algorithm) estimated length of time to complete would be a real win in most organizations.

That was 10 things that I thought were interesting and/or had some potentially relevant implications for HR and Talent pros, but looking through the entire list I could not stop at 10, so here are two more bonus trends to consider in 2014:

72. Robotic Security Guards - You know I could not resist shoe horning some Robot content into a piece like this, right? To me, this one is kind of a no-brainer. The technology already exists, the demand for this kind of solution seems likely to be significant, and it could even be a way to slowly introduce 'companion worker' type robots into more settings. In 2014 you might just have your first interaction with one of these.

97. Verified Reviewers - Ever wonder if those Yelp or TripAdvisor reviews that you rely on to make restaurant or travel decisions are actually real? Or if they are being left my people with similar tastes and sensibilities as yours? Well this trend, similar to the traditional old school newspaper movie or food critics, points to a future where the usually anonymous online reviewer ascends to a more verifiable (and possibly influential) position. What might that mean for your HR or talent role? Probably something that points to the importance of strong and trustworthy brand advocates, be they external to the organization, (thinking former employees most likely), or internal ones (that have developed a reputation for integrity that moves beyond company or brand shills).

So that's it - another epic take on the upcoming trends for next year, (I am sure you are sick of them).

What do you think? On the mark? Crazy?

Time will tell.

If you take a few minutes to have a look through the entire list, let me know what other 'Things to Watch in 2014' you think will impact the world of work.

SPORTS WEEK #4 - Visualizing data - sports and otherwise

Note to readers: As I have had a really busy Summer and early Fall preparing for the now recently concluded HR Technology Conference, the posting frequency here has been pretty diminished lately. Additionally, I find myself well behind my regular number of 'sports' posts that form the basis of my contribution to the annual 8 Man Rotation E-book on sports and HR. So I have declared this week of October 21 to be 'Sports Week' on the blog. I'm shooting for 5 days of sports-themed posts to make sure I don't get dropped from the 8 Man crew. So if sports takes are not your thing, check back in a week of so, when I will probably have another equally inane theme working.

Onward..

As I wrap up 'Sports Week' on the blog I figured for a Friday I would keep it simple take the easy way out and point your attention to the always interesting, frequently amazing Information is Beautiful site where the contenders for their annual Information is Beautiful awards are being featured.

The awards are meant to showcase and honor excellence in data visualization, infographics, interactive data presentation, and tools with which to analyze and interpret data and information. And, as luck would have it, several of the submissions in the Data Visualization category have sports themes, as sports continues to be a ripe area for advanced data analysis, and for new ideas about how to examine and interpret existing data sets.

The chart on the right side of this post, a graphic that presents some analysis and comparisons of the playing statistics of the 2013 NBA All-Stars naturally caught my attention, and there are similarly well-crafted and visually appealing submissions about soccer, bike racing, baseball, and more.

But beyond the mundane world of sports, there are more serious and probably more important visualizations and tools that you should check out over on the Information is Beautiful site.

With the seemingly endless amounts, types, and increased speed with which we are becoming inundated with data about our business, our workforces, our labor market and more, it has become more and more important that the ability to understand and present complex data in a relevant, meaningful, and accessible manner is a skill set any successful modern leader will need to possess.

Sure, the charts and tools that are over at the Information is Beautiful site might be a little bit beyond your capabilities with design, and might be a little too much for the presentation of the more banal kinds of data we often deal with as HR and Talent pros, but there is certainly lots in terms of ideas and inspiration that anyone can take from such visually stunning displays.

Ok, that's it, 'Sports Week' is wrapped, be sure to come back next week for an equally hard hitting series on the types and properties of the various Halloween candies and treats.

Have a great weekend! 

At least the creative jobs can't be taken over by robots. Wait, what?

I know I have beaten the 'robots are coming to take our jobs' angle pretty much to death here over the last few years, and I really want to move on to other things like what we can learn about leadership from Kobe Bryant and the Mamba Mentality, and why Jasper Johns is America's greatest artist, something about the automation of formerly human jobs keeps sucking me back in.

Check this excerpt from a recent piece on Business Insider titled How Facebook Is Replacing Ad Agencies With Robots, about some of the behind-the-scenes machinations that result in those often eerily smart advertisements you see on your Facebook timeline and newsfeed:

Facebook is working furiously to find more ways to make ads work better inside its ecosystem. Many of those ads, however, are untouched by ad agency art directors or "creative" staffers of any kind. And a vast number, from Facebook's larger e-commerce advertisers — think Amazon or Fab.com — are generated automatically by computers. 

If you're an e-commerce site selling shoes, you want to serve ads that target people who have previously displayed an interest in, say, red high-heels. Rather than serve an ad for your brand — "Buy shoes here!" — it's better to serve an ad featuring a pair of red heels specifically like the one the user was browsing for.

The ads are monitored for performance, so any subjective notions of "taste" or "beauty" or "style" or whatever go out the window — the client just wants the best-performing ads. There's no need for a guy with trendy glasses who lives in a loft in Williamsburg, N.Y., to mull over the concepts for hours before the ad is served.

It might be easy to miss in that description, but the key to the entire 'no humans necessary' ad creation and display process is a technology that is called 're-targeting' - Facebook (via some partners it works with), knows what products and services you have shown interest in out on the web, and then the algorithms try to 'match' your browsing trail with what the advertiser hopes will be a relevant ad. Since the volume of people and data and browsing history is so immense that a person or people couldn't actually create all the possible ads the process might need, the algorithms do all the work. 

So if you stopped at that Rasheed Wallace 'Ball Don't Lie' shirt on the online T-shirt site this morning, don't be surprised if you see an ad for similar on your Facebook feed tonight. 

Not a big deal you might be thinking, it's the web after all, and algorithms and machines run it all anyway. 

The big deal if you are a creative type person in advertising or media planning is this - if these kinds of re-targeted and machine generated ads show some solid ROI, more and more of the ad budget for big brands will follow. Budget that could be used for TV spots, print campaigns, or even more innovative games and contests on social networks, (that still, for now, have to be hatched and launched by actual humans). If machine-generated ads drive more revenue, (or drive revenue more efficiently), than traditional and expensive creative, then we'll see that impact in staffing. 

Traditional ads often run in media where it can be notoriously difficult to determine success - how valuable and how much revenue for a brand like Budweiser can be attributed to an obscenely expensive Super Bowl ad?

But these computer generated Facebook ads? The system can see in real-time how they are performing, which versions of a given campaign are more effective, and they can learn and adapt in reaction to this data. They are smart, so to speak. Almost everything about them from an ad standpoint is 'better' than the creative ad in a magazine or on TV.

Except for the fact that hardly any people are needed to create them. Depending on your point of view of course.

Be nice to the robots.

The Etch A Sketch and Letting Go in Order to Create

Over the weekend I caught the news that the creator of the legendary Etch A Sketch toy, Andre Cassagnes, passed away at the age of 86. The Etch A Sketch, with its iconic plastic red frame, gray slate 'writing' surface, and its dual white rotating draw wheels was an instant it from its debut in 1959.  Over 100 million Etch A Sketches have been sold since, and even in the age of computers, smartphones, tablets, and powerful design applications, the Etch A Sketch still remains popular, with a new batch of 'Sketchies', (I am not sure that is even a term, I might have just made it up), joining the ranks every year.

The singular feature and benefit of the Etch A Sketch is it's impermanence - don't like the way a drawing was turning out, simply stop, shake, and start all over. You'd literally 'wipe the slate clean' and could begin anew. Today that doesn't seem like a big deal, in this modern age of the digital 'undo' and where the marginal cost of saving one more version or taking one more digital image is essentially nothing. Back in the 60s and 70s this was a really big deal - the toy's ability to reset itself and allow the creator to start over without wasting any raw materials was a massive benefit.

But the impermanence of the Etch A Sketch worked the other way as well - if you managed to create something valuable and meaningful with the toy, (admittedly, not that easy to accomplish), you'd be tempted to set the toy down for a while, to show your creation to friends and family, and to make sure NO ONE got too grabby with your creation, lest some inadvertent jostling destroy your art.

Eventually though, you'd be forced to let go in order to continue to play with the Etch A Sketch, for as fantastic the device was, it could only 'hold' one creation at a time. To continue to create, to explore, to perhaps develop something new that could exceed in beauty or cleverness the prior effort, you'd have to bid farewell to the old and set off on creating something new.

It's an interesting dilemma really, one that many of us face today, the desire or tendency to cling too long and too fast to what we've done in the past that can constrain us from looking at today's problems and tomorrow's opportunities with fresh, unclouded eyes.

The Etch A Sketch forced you to let go in order to move forward. That was it's limitation and it's charm.

Have a Great Week!