This time of year we tend to subject ourselves to tough review. We zero in on our practices and tendencies and resolve to take up new, positive habits--and, more importantly, to break the bad. It can be a productive exercise if approached with a clear eye and dedicated follow-through. My question:...
One of the things that attracted me to Red Hat in the first place was that it was a company with a strong sense of purpose. Red Hat was a company full of believers, people who felt that the open source development model was simply a better way. During my first few months as CEO, I traveled to Red...
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." That chestnut has morphed from sales proposition to object lesson on the perils of clinging to convention in less than a generation. We've ditched the dark suits and "sincere" ties of our father's IBM for black turtlenecks and jeans, and we've embraced the "think different" ethos of Apple's celebrated campaign : "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently."
American society appears to be undergoing a crisis in trust. Most of the major organizations that we depend upon, including governments of all types, corporations, our health care system, our financial institutions, and our schools all seem to be failing us. Indeed, I do not believe it is an...
One of the most important roles to fill when trying to build a passionate community is the storyteller . Edelman SVP Steve Rubel hit the nail on the head in a recent blog post entitled The Rise of the Corporate Transmedia Storyteller . From his post: -- "The reality is, however, that organizations...
This post originally appeared in Tim O'Reilly's Google+ feed and on O'Reilly Radar . This tweet by Steve Case ( @stevecase ) struck home for me, because in the aftermath of Steve Jobs' death I've been thinking a lot about O'Reilly, wanting to make sure that we streamline and focus on the stuff that...
Most of the time you take your office computers for granted. OK, there’s a niggle or two, but generally the IT folks can sort it out. Occasionally, though, it gets more serious. When the system crashes regularly or a virus hijacks the network there’s no easy alternative: you need to upgrade the...
The authorities at Merriam-Webster have declared “austerity” the defining word of 2010 . That may be an appropriate reaction to all that’s transpired this year (and built up over this decade), but the word—and, more to the point, the feeling —that permeates this shabby, hangdog year is loss. Look...
The competition for the world’s first management innovation prize has officially closed—and the judging has begun! We’d like to send out a hearty thanks to the hundreds of MIXers who poured their bold thinking and tremendous effort into crafting STORIES and HACKS aimed at tackling the moonshots of Increasing Trust , Reinventing Leadership , and Taking the Work out of Work . We are inspired and energized by the sheer variety and originality of the submissions—and we and our panel of Mavericks are hard at work on the difficult task of choosing just a few winners.
Open Management: The idea of our time depends on the most eternal values. "Open" just might be one of the most crucial ideas for the future of business. This is very evident with the focus (not to mention, hype) on open innovation in which companies in a systematic way combine internal and external...