Built by a startup company called Pwnie Express, the Pwn Plug is pretty much the last thing you ever want to find on your network—unless you've hired somebody to put it there. It's a tiny computer that comes preloaded with an arsenal of hacking tools. It can be quickly plugged into any computer network and then used to access it remotely from afar. And it comes with "stealthy decal stickers"—including a little green flowerbud with the word "fresh" underneath it, that makes the device look like an air freshener—so that people won't get suspicious.

Failure to create some form of predictability will result in chaos. Failure to create some sort of well-maintained Barbaric chaos inside the company guarantees that a fast-moving, ambitious, risk-taking and ruthless someone else - someone outside the company will invade, because they know what you forgot: hacking is important.

Unangenehme Mitarbeiter Low-Performer zu nennen ist eine neue Entdeckung der Manager und Personalchefs. Der Anglizismus läßt die Sache eleganter klingen. Ein ausgesprochen zynischer Begriff in Zeiten großer Arbeitslosigkeit und gestiegenem Rentenalter. Als ob der Druck schon nicht hoch genug wäre! Im Internet finden sich zahllose Seminare, wie man diese Low-Performer ausgrenzt. Mit Mobbing hat das natürlich nichts zu tun. Man schikaniert sie nur systematisch mit allen Mitteln, was auf dasselbe hinauskommt. Mobbing macht krank. Es ist an der Zeit, daß deutsche Gerichte dem nicht mehr hinterherhinken.

There are both new and old books in this list. For the naysayers: Don’t forget how easy it is to succumb to hype and to phrases like “anything older than 3 months is irrelevant”, “it’s the age of the app”, “desktop is dead”, and so on. That’s simply not true. Reading these books can be very beneficial for you and for your business. The concepts are still valid, the ideas can be still utilized. Even if the world has fatalistically moved on (and it hasn’t), you can’t catch it up without a strong foundation. Many things are cyclical or ageless. You can re-combine ideas, find patterns, get inspired and most importantly, learn new things. These books are a nourishment for your mind. And hey, it can’t hurt to read something different than you are used to read!

toread bekommt Nachschub

One great value of Google+ is that it makes a great platform for cultivating visibility. If your organization is hoping to “save a seat at the table” in between sales calls, one way to do this is to create compelling content that nurtures your business relationships by educating your community and by making them the hero in their own story. Said differently: If you want to nurture leads while they’re still at the wide end of the sales funnel, using Google+ is an effective addition to your content marketing strategies.

Using Google+ for Content Marketing

First, realize that Google+ indexes any post you submit to the “Public” sharing option, meaning that the information in such a post is searchable in Google (the search engine, not the social network) within a few hours. This means that if you wanted to write about being the “best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee,” as part of your post, it would become searchable content. So, let’s extend that.

It’s not enough to write a post that just says “AJ Bombers is the best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee.” I mean, you can say that, but it won’t be that interesting for people coming along to read it. Instead, you might consider writing a post about “7 Reasons AJ Bombers is the Best Restaurant for Kids in Milwaukee,” wherein which you talk about the features of the restaurant such that a parent would be able to recognize the value for themselves. Because you can include videos, I would do so. For instance, I’d show off the “P-Nut Delivery System”:

If you can’t see the video click here.

Why? Because any kid seeing that thing will immediately start pestering their parents that they MUST go to a place that delivers peanuts via a steel BOMB flying overhead and smashing into a target.

Mix It Up A Bit

You can post text, video, photos, links, and place information on Google+. Using a combination of those post types is probably the best way to get the most attention. For instance, in my tests, if I post only text, I get one level of response. If I add a photo to the post, I get almost 50% more engagement, every time.

You can’t post video and a photo, for instance, but if you post video, I’d include a few sentences about what the video is about, and/or maybe some useful search text. I’d also include a link to whatever might be pertinent, as well. If you do place data, be sure to include a photo, maybe something candid. This helps people engage a bit further, as well.

Build an Editorial Calendar

If you want to incorporate Google+ into your content marketing strategy, I’d consider building an editorial calendar, even if you use it just lightly. For instance, if you post something like the post above, that comes off as a bit heavy-handed in the self-promotion department, I might do an interview with a restaurant guest as my next post, or maybe something off-topic, or maybe a non-work-related video interview with a server or a chef. I don’t know about you, but wouldn’t it be a bit more interesting to know that the person who made your burger is also a competitive street luge racer?

You can build an editorial calendar in a spreadsheet, or on a Google calendar, or wherever. The point is, when you lay out the month in some kind of visual format, you’re less likely to overwhelm your audience with a specific kind of post. Would it be helpful to see a sample? Here’s something super simple:

Editorial Calendar – Sample

Monday 1: Post photo from weekend showing leaves changing.
Monday 2: Video clip from ESPN College Game Day coverage.
Monday 3: Article link to post about grass fed beef findings.
Monday 4: Re-share a community member’s post (pass it forward).
Tuesday 1: Write up new menu changes (w/photo of new fries).
Tuesday 2: Congratulate Tim on winning local “Best Of” award with link.
Tuesday 3: Video post about watching baseball at our bar.
Tuesday 4: Off-topic. Anything.

Break That Down

You’ll see that, in this example, I recommend 4 posts a day. That’s to cover a 24-hour community. Also, posts on a service like Google+ flow through the stream pretty quickly. It’s probably not overwhelming to your readers to see 4 posts from you a day, and judging by the content I mentioned above, it wouldn’t be that hard to get those kinds of posts up.

So, in my example, I’d map out at least a week worth of content, and maybe use that as a way to look at how this ties to the rest of my marketing efforts, too. For instance, if I’m trying to get more people onto my email newsletter, maybe I’d make that the “call to action” on one or two of the posts, and see if I could get more takers from my Google+ community. Also, if you’re having a seasonal event, you can spread content about that event between your email newsletter, your blog, and also your Google+.

Feel like too much? It might be, to start. But it depends on what you’re doing, your goals, and what you’re hoping to accomplish with Google+.

Does This Work for Your Industry?

Technically, yes. You can post content of whatever kind to whatever industry. If you’re selling storage to big tech companies, this works. If you’re selling legal advice, this works. If you’re selling education to students, this works.

But How Does This Get Me New Prospects?

However, what this doesn’t accomplish is that it doesn’t rustle up all kinds of new customers. This isn’t lead generation work at this point. This is community nurturing work. This is helping to cultivate visibility. However, when you have prospects, and when you have people looking around to better understand you, and wondering if they should do business with you, can you see how the above content might help the process?

Save Your Seat at the Table

In between sales activity, we have to have something to talk about. Sometimes, we use that time to seek referrals. Other times, we use that time to nurture our existing customers. Some times, we use it to help guide our prospects closer to a sale. It’s up to you what you want to do with it. But this is one way of building up that content.

Are you on Google+ yet? If not, it’s free. Swing by Google+ and claim your account.

And if you want to connect with me, you can find me here, or just follow me via this Widget:

Knowledge company Designboost is launching a new quarterly online magazine called BoostReview. The first issue is focusing on Design for Life. It’s not about the design world itself. It’s about how we can shape and design our way of life. The first issue consists of four chapters. Ten filmed interviews with some of the worlds most acknowledged designers, an interview with Ilse Crawford, a visit at the Mind-sets exhibition by Ineke Hans and a brief story about the importance of a holistic mindset when designing.

Another good thing - BoostReview is optimized for both the iPad and the iPhone.

Brian Halligan's and David Meerman Scott's new book, announced today and available in August this year

We’ve heard the concept from Chris Anderson, in his book Free. If you want to ultimately make more money and win more fans you first have to give away a lot of stuff. That’s right, give it away. Like we all do in the social media space.

Anderson made a reference to the Grateful Dead, one of the only bands that allowed fans to record concerts and make their own bootlegged tapes. In fact they practically encouraged it. Why? It was simply a way to deliver greater service to the only constituency that mattered to the Dead. Who cared if it cut into album sales? It won the hearts of millions, generated greater attendance at live performances and a produced a community of self-proclaimed Dead Heads.

Other influential sources, including the Atlantic, have referred to the Dead’s “management secrets.” In an article published just this March, Joshua Green wrote,  “The Dead’s influence on the business world may turn out to be a significant part of its legacy. Without intending to—while intending, in fact, to do just the opposite—the band pioneered ideas and practices that were subsequently embraced by corporate America.” Here, too, Green refers to the Dead’s novel idea of focusing on its most loyal fans.”

Well, it may not be a new story, but it’s finally a new book. Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. Leave it to my two friends Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott, pioneers of inbound marketing, to take the case a step further and remind us that it was this legendary band that helped invent modern marketing and social media. A press release issued this morning states that, “For years the band broke almost every rule in the music industry book and profited as a result.”

In fact the band used the very techniques we are all learning to master now in order to differentiate itself from the all those other bands that emphasized record sales instead of fan satisfaction.

In the book’s foreward, the ultimate Dead Head of all time, former basketball great Bill Walton asks, “Who would have ever thought that it would be the Dead’s business and marketing models that would today be the envy of the culture they all fought so hard to change.”

I’ve seen the authors’ deck on the subject and read a previous blog post, but my advance copy won’t be here for another week. So whether the topic merits an entire book is a question I can’t answer. But as Brian says in the press release, “it’s a concept that really resonates with people.” How can it not?

If the book is half as cool as the cover, it will be the next social media classic.  Congrats Brian and David on getting it done.

Note: Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead will be available in August, 2010.

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There were plenty of high profile people at the Economist event in March, but hands down the best session was a simple interview with Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar.

Martin Giles from the Economist did the interview, and did an excellent job letting Catmull cover some excellent territory.

Lately many more people are talking and writing about the application of design thinking to intangible problems, design not only as a verb but as a way of — as Herbert Simon wrote — improving situations. I felt a need to review what has been said and define the term for myself before I could put it into use. Ways of thinking are always difficult to define, but I’m reminded of how Lao Tzu said “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” yet he still managed to write a book about it.

Based on a review of writing on the topic, I have synthesized for myself what I understand design thinking to be…

“In How to Start a Startup I advised startups never to let anyone fly under them, meaning never to let any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. Another way to fly low is to give users more power. Let users do what they want. If you don’t and a competitor does, you’re in trouble.”

"However, there are a growing number of firms such as IBM, Toshiba, and Cerner Corporation that are becoming über-connected workplaces"

Desktop software may soon be a thing of the past. This is especially true in collaboration applications–the kind project managers and work groups use. Web-based solutions from SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers are quickly replacing networked office servers. The reasons are compelling. To name a few:

* Secure, remote access from anywhere with an Internet connection
* Lower software costs
* Little to no setup costs
* No need for technicians to setup
* No long-term commitments
* Centralization
* Compatible with any operating system
* No updating
* No patching
* No backing up
* Add new users instantly
* No computer dependence

“The truth is that most US academic prose is appalling – pompous, abstruse, claustral, inflated, euphuistic, pleonastic, solecistic, sesquipidelian, Heliogabaline, occluded, obscure, jardon-riden, empty: resplendently dead.”

Microsoft is a lot more vulnerable than you think.
While I will not claim any year to be the Year of Linux, Linux is making great headway into Microsoft’s markets – both server and client, though slowly on the client side. Slow but steady does win the race.

Let me add 'fire fighters' to the too-dangerous-to-fail crowd. They love attending the daily issues instead of figuring out ways to fix them for good. It makes them feel needed and many companies even hold them in high esteem for all the wrong reasons.

As we can see, HR need to be dissolved in people’s day to day life in order the above mentioned projets don’t impact them heavily and from time to time but lightly on a day to day basis. HR people will not have to run directly these projects in their name but to help managers to extend them in people’s everyday life. By so doing, employees will be impacted by HR projects just by doing their job.

The danger I feel in all of of this is that design becomes the next marketing, a catch-all term for things that hard-driven business leaders know they should pay attention to (like customers) but are easy to dismiss as fluffy. I'm a believer in all of it (even marketing!) of course, but I wonder if there's something more fundamental about what traditional designers do that could serve as a bedrock for a curriculum in business design.

„Je planmäßiger Menschen vorgehen, desto wirksamer trifft sie der Zufall.“

IBM was nearly one of them. Because of its reliance on hardware and mainframes for the bulk of its profits, IBM came very close to disappearing in the early ‘90s. Plans were under way to split the company into a series of individual units. In "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?", Lou Gerstner wrote ". . . keeping IBM together was the first strategic decision, and I believe, the most important decision I ever made - not just at IBM, but in my entire business career."

examines both the benefits and the pitfalls of working remotely from the standpoint of both employees and their organisation

More than a few business pundits have drawn parallels between the flat, decentralized "corporation of the future" and the ad-hoc collection of actors, producers and technicians that come together around a film and disband once it is finished

Studies of corporate performance reveal a growing link between certain kinds of technology investments and intensifying competitiveness.
by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson

hmmm, dunno ... The vendors who really get it, who are driving this include Wordpress, Google and 37 Signals. The losers in this game will be Oracle, SAP and lots of other traditional enterprise software vendors ...

“Good business sense” has created a great culture of waste we see around us today in the Western world. It has created misery – Tianjing sweatshops making shoes and Sydney sweatcubicles making pointless mobile phone plans

overhiring has turned Google into one of the world's biggest skunk works, in the best sense of the term. We're going to see a lot of software and even hardware innovation emerge from all the kids working there.

KPMG started a three-part series on the corporate use of social networking and collaborative software tools. You can listen to their podcast and read the text of the podcast.

a journal article on managing ‘artful’ processes.

Wikis At Work Wikis can bring a sense of involvement and innovation to an organization--if they're implemented wisely. Here's how Nokia, the Canadian Meteorological Center, and Angel.com are putting wikis to work.