jan de man

Not alone

Even the respected Tom Peters has his moments when he loses his temper over big business.

Read here.

//jan

Process vs content

Seth has written an important and impressingly short riff on the difference between content and process knowledge. 

Impressing because it is easy to get lost in this discussion. 

Important because we need to be able to detect and distinguish between the two in the new world of work.

//jan

Some office laughs

Thank you

Once in a while I try to remind myself of the privilege I have to be able to express my thoughts and opinions. I have the freedom to do so. And I have the means to do so.

I sincerely thank you for reading my blog. Without you it would be rather pointless. It is my goal to continue posting on a regular basis, roughly once a day during weekdays. That is the easy part.

The challenge is keep content as interesting as possible. My strategy is to keep to the theme - the new world of work - but allow myself to explore it broadly and post pretty much post anything that I believe can be connected to the theme. Once in a while I'll allow myself to divert, if I've found something of general importance/interest or because I've been pissed off by something that I wan't to share.

So, once again, thanks for stopping by. I hope to keep earning your interest. And should you have any feedback or comments, please share them. They matter a lot to me.

//jan

PS. My category list has disappeared. Seems I have to recreate it. Bummer. My first problem with Typepad since I started the blog. DS.

Small is big

Marvelous example of the attitudes that build in the new world of work. Also a case of explaining the value in smallnes. The small is big manifesto. Yeah.

//jan

Swedish heros

So, the top 200 managers of Ericsson are freezing their pay. FREEZING. Not cutting. And only their fixed salaries. Not the bonuses.

For this amazing act of solidarity towards the owners, customers and the thousands of employees that have been laid off, the company is awarded this incredible PR coverage in the largest Swedish daily: first headline of first page, first page of business section and a whole page in the business section. 

Who is most crazy? The top managers for dreaming up this non-event, media for covering it extensively, or me for reacting...?

//jan

PS. Click pictures for enlargement. Check out the pictures of the seven guys in the top management team. The other five can be seen here. All Swedes. One woman. Wild bunch.

    

Small is Beautiful

A fabulous snippet from E.F. Schumacher's classic Small is Beautiful: 

"And what is my case? Simply that our most important task is to get off our present collision course. And who is there to tackle such a task? I think every one of us, whether old or young, powerful or powerless, rich or poor, influential or uninfluential.

To talk about the future is useful only if it leads to action now. And what can we do now, while we are still in the position of "never having it so good"? To say the least–which is already very much–we must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence. 

To give only three preliminary examples: in agriculture and horticulture, we can interest ourselves in the perfection of production methods which are biologically sound, build up soil fertility, and produce health, beauty and permanence. Productivity will then look after itself. In industry, we can interest ourselves in the evolution of small-scale technology, relatively nonviolent technology, "technology with a human face", so that people have a chance to enjoy themselves while they are working, instead of working solely for their pay packet and hoping, usualy forlornly, for enjoyment during their leisure time. In industry, again–and, surely, industry is the pace setter of modern life–we can interest ourselves in new forms of partnership between management and men, even forms of common ownership."

Written 35 years ago. Would have been smart to have begun our work already then. But next best is to begin now.

//jan

What options does a small town have?

My home town Vaxholm, 35 km north of Stockholm, is struggling with its smallness. As I see it local politicians are posed with a dilemma. 

 

No one would doubt that the town's smallness is a (if not the) major attractor of new citizens. People consiously chose to leave the bigger suburbs to Stockholm and Stockholm city itself to enjoy things like more space, more community and closeness to nature and water.

The dilemma is that this is making the town grow. More people are moving in than out. Also, a vast amount of the new citizens (including myself) are families with young children - thus increasing the demand for services such as utilities, housing, schools, day care, sports, culture, etc.

And - in order to finance this growth – the town needs to grow more. Because once a large investment is about to be made (in a school for instance) it is only natural to build in assumptions of continued growth to make the investments "profitable". Hence, local politicians start consciously and sub-consciously to focus on growth and make the small town bigger. In this process they tend to be surprised that there is resistance to growing the town. 

 

As much as I am sceptical to people's general resistance to change, I can in this case see the logic. People move to Vaxholm because it is small. When politicians seem to design away the smallnes people get frustrated over politicians doing away with the most valuable asset of our town.

 

A more interesting, but probably also more difficult discussion would be to develop a strategy for the town that embeds smallnes instead of growth. What exciting development options could pan out from such a process?

 

//jan

New arrivals

Time to indulge.

 

-- posted from my iPhone

Observing smallness

This week I call upon myself to study smallness and all the benefits from it. Bigness already has such a lead in our minds that I think smallness could need a little coverage and push.

Also, I sincerely believe that smallness is an integral part of the new world of work. Through networks many small players can become big - if they need to. And when they don't need to they don't suffer too much from the lag of being big. 

Certainly there are industries where my reasoning is a little flawed. On the other hand those industries perhaps aren't too significant in a context of sustainability... [I think of mining, car manufacturing, airlines and other businesses built on economies of scale - but also largely built on exploiting natural resources].

So, hopefully I'll turn up some interesting clues. Also, I'll be reading the books on small I ordered last week and that should show up on my doorstep today.

Oh yes, I should get that work in progress done - the thoughts on the new world of work. Didn't make it last week.

Have a great week!

//jan