My Uncle's Insight

I went to visit my uncle the other day.

Well past his 95th birthday, this man has had a wonderful career as a businessman, community activist and entrepreneur. It's become a pleasant ritual for me to take him some cannoli (his favorite desert) and to ask his advice on work and other worldly issues.

Talking about the cannoli, I was describing to my uncle how the Italian bakery owner was telling me that each time he does some new construction work at his bakery it seems to increase his business. My uncle laughed. By the way, if I were to state my uncle's name, just about every New Yorker would recognize it since one of his projects was to establish a landmark New York Gourmet marketplace.

Anyway, my uncle laughed and said "it was always a principle of mine in business to understand that change makes people aware of you".

He re emphasized this when I said to him that I often work with people who are concerned or fixated with change. He just said, "it only helps".

Sal

Interesting Counterpoint Articles

Front page of the NY Times. Two articles about the changing workplace and the world of transportaion.

A Corporate Divorce on the Cheap
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/business/worldbusiness/15daimler.htm
Daimler, now free of its struggling U.S. partner, can look ahead to a promising future as a stand-alone maker of trucks and luxury cars.

By MARK LANDLER
Published: May 15, 2007
STUTTGART, Germany, May 14

Nine years after they exchanged vows at a huge, lavishly choreographed news conference in London, Daimler and Chrysler signed their divorce papers Monday at a sparsely attended briefing in an auditorium at an aging Mercedes-Benz factory here.

As bookends, the two news conferences vividly illustrated the dashed dreams of the Daimler-Chrysler marriage.

And published yesterday.

VENICE

For more than a thousand years, Venice has had gondolas but never a female gondolier. But now there is Alexandra Hai.

By Dave Yoder for The New York Times

As Alexandra Hai plies the canals, many people shout encouragement. She won the right to run a hotel gondola but not to be called a gondolier.
After a decade of struggle, Ms. Hai has won the right to be a gondolier — sort of. A court recently allowed her to paddle around the canals of Venice, but only for the residents of one of the city’s hotels.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/world/europe/14venice.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Ethical Implications of Emerging Technologies

This survey is from UNESCO and was prepared by Mary Rundle and Chris Conley, Geneva Net Dialogue.

I keep reading it to understand more about what we are all experiencing.


http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001499/149992E.pdf


Sal

The Inarticulate Innovator

I have written about this notion of the Inarticulate Innovator before. However, it is a concept that deserves repetition because this is an idea that is born from neglect.

In many communities and organizations, there are people who have real ideas and innovative notions to offer, but for some reason or another, do not easily choose to articulate.

I am a talker. And, I most assuredly have inhibited others at times. Group behaviours do that on a regular basis. If the ability to communicate is a real indicator of a community or an organization's overall health (mentally, physically and financially) then, it is imperative to find and encourage the Inarticulate Innovator.

In the work place this can become very debilitating for people. It can also become very liberating and healthy when recognized.

Give a click on Comments and join in.

Sal

Communities of Need

“What we're doing is we're trying to maximize our innovative ability. We don't only give care, we try to develop better care tomorrow” – Dr. Herbert Padres, The New York Sun, April 20, 2007

http://www.nysun.com/article/52864

This article tells an important story about a doctor of immense experience now leading a complex hospital environment in New York City. His background is in psychiatry.

However, his reality now resides in dealing with the fundamental issues that patients, bureaucracies and practitioners are facing everyday. The need to discover roles and responsibilities that will make sense in a world that has more format than responsive form when it comes to survival and the ability to provide skill, care and knowledge.

Take a look and see what you think. In the work place, it is common to use terms like "Communities of Practice" and Communities of Interest". I suggest, that we are all in some way members of Communities of Need. And, that includes the great institutions like hospitals searching in earnest for their working relationships.

By the way, this article was given to me by Gerry Frisch, founder of (GFA) Gerald Frisch Associates, with expertise in validating commuunication in organizations.

Mr. Frisch is working today, as I write this and targeting hospital leadership as potential clients. Mr. Frisch will not mind my commenting, that he has just entered his nintieth year of productivity. And, as a professional and recent succesful hospital patient, he brings an interesting perspective on Communities of Need.

Give a click on Comments and please, join in.

Sal