Why Best Practices Often Fall Short
For many leaders, the allure of best practices is strong and their expectations for results are unrealistic. Executives tend to take the value of best practices as a given. We have an abiding faith in the idea that the most direct route to improved performance is to study what successful companies do and copy them. Best practices certainly do have their benefits. In Bordeaux, France, for instance, many wineries now follow practices recommended to them by winemaking consultants, such as micro-oxygenation, a technique that involves injecting controlled doses of oxygen into wines during fermentation. Micro-oxygenation softens tannins, which minimizes the need for long-term storage and makes wines easier to drink young.
25 Cool and Creative MacBook Stickers
As much as I hate Apple and their often overpriced hardware, I do admit that their products look beautiful and can be used just like jewelry to make you look better. Heck, one of my friends even put an Apple logo sticker on her Dell laptop! *insert a facepalm image here* However, with more and more people getting Macs these days it’s getting harder to stand out of the crowd.
Information & Advice Blog
The UK economy is recovering from the deepest recession since the Second World War and this recovery has been slower than forecast. According to the latest figures from The Office for Budget Responsibility, the economy is predicted to shrink by 0.1 per cent in 2012. Chancellor George Osborne used his Autumn Statement , delivered last Wednesday, to announce a one year extension of the "era of austerity" to 2017-18. More bad news is promised in the spring as yet further cuts are set to be announced in the Spending Review, which has been brought forward to next year. This is a bleak prognosis and it would be foolish not to expect LIS professionals working in all parts of the economy to feel the chill. But first for some of the potentially good news.
Gmail Wants You to Stage an Email Intervention
Have friends that still use ancient aol.com email addresses? Google has launched a clever new campaign to help you get them to switch to Gmail. The search giant's new campaign centers around the classic friend intervention, since clearly only peer pressure will get those behind-the-times email users to switch.
Pamela Slim’s Blog
Many entrepreneurs dream of starting a business in their garage, scaling it, then selling it to Google for a billion dollars. Such things rarely happen. But scaling happens every day, in our career, our business or our workplace. We are constantly trying to improve ourselves, share our ideas, and put in systems and infrastructure that will grow our organizations without destroying that which made them great. Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao describe in their exceptionally well-researched and readable new book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less that knowing how to scale is a critical skill for the 21st century workplace. And they have 7 years worth of research, analysis and case studies, consolidated into this great book.
Perfect Summer Bangle
Here's a fun tutorial on how to make a message bangle that's one-of-a-kind, done in the sun, waterproof and weatherproof. Even after several trips to the beach, it won't fade or wash off! Essentially, it's the Perfect Summer Bangle. Used in this tutorial: Inkodye Red Prepare.
I want to
The issue of backups is always an important one, but something we so often ignore, right up until the moment has passed and it's too late. I have backed up important material onto discs in the past (both CD and DVD), and I have also got data backed up onto several external hard drives. You should also make sure that one of your backups is off site - the distance that I once saw was something like 'double the wing span of a crashed aircraft on your house' which is rather dramatic, but not a figure that you'll forget. Obviously the best place to backup to these days is into the Cloud, and after having a look around I've chosen to go with SquirrelSave which claims to be the UK's #1 service. It's a commercial offering, costing around £60 a year, but it's all automated and works entirely in the background, which is exactly what I wanted. I also have an unlimited amount of space, which is just as well, given that I'm backing up rather a lot.
Google RankBrain: The Definitive Guide
A few years ago, Google had a problem: 15% of the keywords that people typed into Google were never seen before. 15% may not seem like a lot.
Phil Bradley's weblog
To the Chair of a professional library interest group, I’m angry, depressed, sad and disappointed that I need to write this open letter to you. You sent a member of your group onto two courses that I ran, and the total cost was £198. I try and keep my costs as cheap as I can because I think making sure we have well trained and informed professionals is important. My fee has been tightly worked out, and as an independent trainer it’s important that I get it right.
Theory U – JonathanFritzler.org
Theory U is a method for co-creating social change. Instead of trying to solve problems in a traditional manner via brainstorming, strategic planning, etc. – Theory U takes us on a deep dive into the unknown. Instead of trying to direct change, we host what is wanting to be born.
