Scoble misses the point

Scoble “bashed” Tony Chang for his post on Google’s 20% time policy (not that I think Tony is right either). Scoble seems to have changed his tune a bit when prompted by Aaron Hockley in his comments. Robert goes on to admit that “Lots of people also get stuck in ruts and don’t know how to get out. This might be a good method for getting out and finding something new to work on.”

It is very hard to have a revolutionary or even evolutionary idea when you are in the trenches day in and day out. You need time to step back reflect and assess where things are up to and then go forward. A policy like 20% time helps in this area.

Now back to Tony, he suggests that only companies with “lots of data” could make the process work. I think he is missing the point that 20% time is not about leveraging what others in the organisation are doing it is about coming up with something completely new. For this you don’t need lots of data, what you need is a management practice that supports your efforts. When the idea does not work out, you are not looked at at a failure or if you never come up with anything from your 20% time.

The point is that an organisation needs to provide a supportive environment for employees to experiment, learn, develop and invent. At Google this process if 20% time, at Microsoft :-

“One is to just do it and say heck with the consequences. One way is to submit a
Thinkweek paper. One way is to join someone who is already doing what you want
to do. One way is to email one of the mailing lists that is pretty close to what
you want to do. One way is to just email Bill Gates and tell him your idea.”

Other organisations have other processes the fact is each organisation needs a process that works for their culture.

Amazon missing books?

I have been trying to find a couple of books on Amazon without any luck, however they do appear at Dymocks here in Australia. Maybe they are yet to be published in the US I’m not sure but it is the first time I have not found what I am looking for on Amazon.

I guess I will get them locally, which is probably a good thing anyway, support Australian businesses.

Corporate Blogging Policy

Michael Hyatt (from Working Smart) CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing has set out with his in-house counsel to design a corporate blogging policy.

Michael says he has spoken to a Microsoft blogger about their unwritten policy “Be Smart” and decided they needed more, which is probably a good decision. He has decided to post a draft of the policy for two reasons, firstly to get feedback and secondly it might help other organisations.

While I am not an IR or legal expert the policy looks like a great starting point, many of the comments are very relevant and should be considered as well such as who owns the content. The policy is clear and easy to understand, I would expect that in most organisations such a policy would form part of a general Internet Usage policy.

I would strongly suggest anyone who is looking at developing a blogging policy look at this draft and Sun’s (via Tim Bray).

Are you a cultural misfit?

Steven (The Asia Pacific Headhunter) pointed me to a really interesting item published yesterday on Radar (a blog like site run by The Sydney Morning Herald).

While the item is an interesting read which I can relate to and know of people who have been “cultural misfits” it is the comments that really interested me. Not even the next item in support of Paris Hilton has had the same reader reaction!

I am just glad I am not a recruiter in Australia based on the comments, lower than a used car salesman? Unfortunately I do know many recruiters and while most of them are not like the ones described in the comments, many are.

Ideas for corporate RSS feeds

Elizabeth Albrycht from CorporatePR has 10 interesting ideas for the use of RSS within corporations, while mainly externally focused they do offer food for thought on internal applications.

1) Email is an increasingly problematic communications tool due to the growth of spam and the overwhelming amount of email most businesspeople receive.
2) RSS is perfect for the online press room.
3) Keep your partners informed.
4) Keep your customers informed.
5) Provide specific informational categories so people can just receive what they are most interested
6) Make your resource centers/online libraries dynamic!
7) Put your events to work for you online.
8) Capture and publish the buzz.
9) Set up a feed for special promotions.
10) You can just as easily create private (password-protected) RSS feeds as public ones. These can be a great way to keep employees, partners, customers informed of company happenings, events, promotions, office closings, and other information you don’t necessarily want widely available.

Each of the above 10 items can also be applied to internal applications in different ways but the general themes stay the same.

Bloggers, spammers face clampdown

This has been popping up on many sites over the last 24 hours. I wonder what will happen in the long run.

We have had several pushes in the last few years in Australia to regulate and control what happens on the internet, all have failed. Being a bit cynical I wonder if it is just big business, government, brother, media etc wanting to keep control of what is going on and what is said. Which if that is the case, are we not moving more and more towards George Orwell’s 1984?