Jeff Waters, a long time reader and supporter of mondaydots has made his first dot video! You can find the original blog post on his blog, Life up Front. Jeff uses a great story to help the viewer (aimed at the Computer Aided Engineering, project management, and new product development audience) understand the need for the Space Claimproduct he sells.
Really nice work Jeff! Keep it up and I look forward to your next dot video!
Transcript: In our last post we promised a follow up for making your contribution social media ready. We have a few basic principles that if followed can help your content avoid being ignored and capture the attention of your second and third circles.
The first of these principles is to lead with passion. Find something you are passionate about and pursue it. We see so many people using social media just for the sake of using the technology or for shameless self promotion. If you aren't passionate about your work it will show in the quality. If you want your contribution to capture attention, put your heart and time into it, there are no shortcuts.
Social media and networking have fooled a lot of people and companies into thinking they are rockstars. Unfortunately the ease of access and near zero cost of distribution have created an internet that sounds a lot like this. (bad music playing) The abundance of fake rockstars have created an audience that is willing to be your friend, but not willing to listen to what you have to say, buy your product, or help you get a job.
Transcript:
One of the most basic questions I hear from managers is: How can I do a better job of motivating my team? Should you use a bigger carrot or a sharper stick?
For the last few years I have been fascinated with Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation and its application to business, politics, education, and insurgency models. What I find most interesting is that his theory, featured in both The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution provides a prescription for a small entrant with less resources to compete with and beat a large incumbent.
One of the most basic problems I see in business today is the misalignment of the organizational structure. The process of moving an organization toward a goal in a timely manner seems simple enough, yet I see so many business go lopsided and fall short of their goal.
I was recently challenged by a friend of mine who used to teach at HBS to read "The Gamble” by Thomas Ricks and build a multi level organization model. The book is incredibly interesting (my favorite Ricks book so far) and really shines some light on the situation in Iraq.
Absolutely fascinated by the maco-level change General David Petraeus was able to impact as a micro-level force; I decided to use the phenomenon of stochastic resonance (most commonly used in examining neurodynamics) to explain how embracing the chaos between stable state organizations uniquely positioned Petraeus to make this change. Every attempt at describing the model in written form felt too much like a book report, so I decided to use Apple’s Keynote to build and animate the model.
As I built the model, my written description got better. As my written description got better, it forced me to improve my model.
I found great power in using simple dots to explain a complex model. Modeling forces you to think about getting from point A to point B, and doesn’t allow you to hide behind bullet points or a static two dimensional graphic/chart.
I will be updating this page with information on how I created this presentation; including a step by step break down of some of the elements. I am also going to use this blog to post other models of complex ideas, problems, and solutions I encounter.
