DCO Weekend Reader – 8/15/08
The web is a vast repository of opinions, commentary and occasionally, wisdom. Here’s a selection of the best articles I read over the past week.Â
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion. Weekend Reader is a regular feature here at DCO, and you can read past Weekend Readers here.
Wow – LOTS of links this week. I’m not sure if I just enjoyed everything I read or if there really was that much good stuff this week. Either way, you should find plenty here to keep you busy over the weekend. The good news is, most of these links are short reads with a lot of value-add content. I promise I’ll try to be more selective next week.
Leadership
- The importance of conversation as part of your leadership practice.
- 5 tips for implementing innovation.
- A good quick read on 5 barriers to decisiveness and how to overcome them.Â
- A great list of beliefs that support leadership. I’ll be reconciling this one to my initial list of essential leadership qualities to see what I might have missed.Â
- Related to the bad habits post below, here are some examples of how too much ego can get in the way of effective leadership.
- Please, no complaining.
Thought-Provokers
- A Nice Guy Bill of Rights. Are you a nice guy? Is it hard for you to say “no” or to be firm with someone. Well you can be a no-nonsense leader and still be a nice guy. Here are some simple thoughts to get you started.
- This post was titled The Secret of the Web. I think it’s good everywhere.
- Do you have a bad habit or two that might be holding you back from that executive position you applied for recently? Check out this list and see. (Personally, I found myself guilty of the first two and will begin paying attention to these immediately).
- File this one under Dress for Domination. What color clothes do more winners wear? You may be surprised.
- The lengthened shadows of leaders.
For Fun
- Using online tool Dipity, you can create a visual, scaleable timeline that looks great. Check out this timeline of Internet fads, or this one on the conflict in Darfur. Signup is quick and painless. Adding “sources” like photo-sharing site, YouTube and blogs, you can add rich media to your timeline. Timelines can be embedded into websites, and tools are offered to link into various social sites. While I’m not sure I will use Dipity right away, I like the concept. It seems to be an easy way to relate history via rich media. What I don’t see is a way to create a timeline and package it up for stand-alone presentation. This is a new tool, so stay tuned for future features.
Books
- A list of 5 books covering the topic of the value of social media to the enterprise. Don’t discount this topic – social networking is here to stay and smart leaders will understand it and use it.Â
- I just read a great quote on books, attributed to Winston Churchill:
“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them–peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances.”
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