DCO Weekend Reader - 12/12/08
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.
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.
Many times I embed rich media into the Weekend Readers that may not show up in E-mails or RSS readers. For that reason, I generally recommend you click through to my blog to read Weekend Reader posts.
Only 12 shopping days left!
As the year winds down and the holidays gear up, time gets more and more precious. Between the year-end crunch at work, shopping for friends and family and holiday parties there seems to be little time for ourselves and those important to us. So this week, I’m keeping the Weekend Reader fairly light and sticking to basic, quick reads. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of good ideas in this week’s Reader. However, I’d rather you spend the majority of your spare time this weekend curled up on the coach with your significant other sipping a glass of wine (or hot cocoa) than reading leadership tips.
My personal must-read for this week is the “eight things you should add to your weekly task list”, under personal excellence. I do intend to actually add them to my electronic task list (my lifesaver) as recurring tasks, so I can give them some thought every week. I would also encourage everyone to read the “don’t waste a crisis” article under thought-provokers.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by.
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 9/12/08
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.
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.
Whew - that was a busy, tiring week, both personally and professionally. I can’t say I’m glad it’s over, I’m never one to wish my life away, but I am looking forward to catching up on some sleep over the weekend.
As always, here’s the best of what I read over the last week.
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- The Encore Effect - a great little post with specific recommendations on how to make our “performances” remarkable; the best part is the payoff where we begin to understand the full impact on others.
- Are you a synthesizer or an assembler?
- Lessons in excellence from country music.
- Gallup research releases seven demands of leadership. Based on thousands of interviews across a wide variety of sectors, the foundation for the conclusions seems pretty solid. There are some good gems in here, particularly in the context of building and leading an excellent organization.
Thought-Provokers
- “Ah, context is everything” says Tom Peters as an introduction to a recent post. As somewhat of a subjectivist myself, I couldn’t agree more. Read Tom’s article on the art of reframing.
For Fun
Books
- Have some ideas on what a “trust agent” is? Maybe some examples? Chris Brogan would like to hear from you.
- We could all use a little help making our presentations more effective. Here’s four books to get you there.
Tips & Tricks
- This one is simply brilliant! If you are in HR or are a leader who regularly interviews top talent, this article on encouraging candidates to admit weaknesses is a must read. This is probably the third or fourth place I’ve read that admitting weakness is considered a strength for top talent interviewing for top positions. Does this match what you are seeing in the marketplace? Were you asked about weaknesses in your last job interview?
Related posts
Hey - this is fun!
Slideshare is an online service through which you can upload and share PowerPoint, Open Office and PDF presentations. You can share the presentations publicly with no restrictions, and there are options for private sharing also.
I set up an account a while back and really never did anything with it. Honestly, I still haven’t, but I was on it last night playing around some and came across this presentation that fit nicely into some of the themes we’ve been talking about here. Looking for a reason to test out Slideshare’s embed functionality, I thought it would be fun to give this a go on the blog and see how it works.
Previewing the presentation, it seems to work fairly well. Unfortunately, since the presentation is mostly text, it is very hard to read. If you would like to see the rest of the presentation (and/or see how Slideshare might work on your blog or website), simply click the “full screen” icon in the lower right-hand corner of the window. You will then get a full screen view and you can return to the blog by simply pressing the escape key, or pressing the “full screen” icon a second time.
Those of you receiving these updates via E-mail - my guess is the presentation won’t display in the E-Mail and you will have to click through to the actual post to view it. Could one of you confirm this for me?
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 8/22/08
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.
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.
Last week I promised to try to limit the number of links this week, and sadly I just wasn’t able to live up to that promise. Whereas I initially thought this feature might not even be weekly, it now appears not only will it stay weekly, but it will be chock-full of great posts and links. To help you decide which links are most appropriate for you, I’ll expand my descriptions of posts that might not be self-explanatory, to help guide your weekend reading.
This week I’m also adding a new section to the Weekend Reader: Tips & Tricks. I read a post that simply had to be mentioned and it really didn’t fit any of the four categories, so I just created a new one.
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but the weather here couldn’t be more pleasant. Late Summer / Early Fall weather gives us sunny days in the low 80’s and cool clear nights perfect for opening the windows. Have a great weekend - take a hike!
Personal Excellence & Leadership
- Courage has been discussed on this blog as a possible “essential” quality of entrepreneurship. This post examines what happens when you have to little or too much of it.
- Are your corporate (or for that matter personal) metrics not in line with your goals? If you hit your metrics can you still miss your goals?
- Some insightful comments on why leadership development might be such a popular topic these days in business.
- Positive Leadership (also a book).
- On staying committed… Warning #1 - some “salty” language. Warning #2 - may be extremely motivating.
- Are you the leader of an organization that needs a better sense of urgency? Could you use more urgency around your personal goals. Here is a good article outlining the difference between true urgency and false urgency, along with four tactics to create a true sense of urgency.
Thought-Provokers
- What beliefs support your Leadership philosophy? I’d love to see some thoughts from all of you in comments.
- Sitck with this one. It ends better than it starts.
For Fun
- This is fun and might even be useful! Screen2 lets you share your web browser with a friend or colleague. Nothing to install, safe and secure.
Books
- How to be useful: A beginner’s guid to not hating work. I’m glad to see themes like being nice and using common sense so prevalent in today’s leadership commentaries. This new book shows “how to restore courtesy in your work and your organization, and move up in the world while doing so.” It may sound a bit trite, but based on the extended overview of the book, this one may get added to my reading list.
Tips & Tricks
- The concept of one’s “personal brand” is one that I’m seeing more and more articles about. If this is an issue that is important to you, then you may be interested in this article on tracking your online brand. It’s not just as simple as “googling” your name once a month, and the author offers some tips on monitoring not only news, but blogs, forums, discussion boards and twitter.
Related posts
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.”
Related posts
DCO Weekend Reader - 8/8/2008
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.
If you would like to recommend an article, blog or book, please leave a comment with your suggestion.
This week I’m pleased to have two great lists of book recommendations, and some other recommendations via post comments. When I first started this feature, the four sections of the Weekend Reader were written somewhat on the fly, and the section on Books I thought would be the hardest to consistently have good content for. On the contrary, with the popularity of the Leadership and Excellence topic, and the number of blogs dedicated to it, I’m pleased to so far be able to find good information on recommended books.
Leadership
- Kevin offers 5 ways to incorporate learning into your work and your life. He offers up 5 questions to ask ourselves to positively navigate learning opportunities.
- I recently found Steve Pavlina’s blog on Personal Development. I haven’t read it enough to recommend it yet, but if the following list of interesting posts I found upon signing up are any indication, this will be one blog whose posts I will look forward to: Making sense of having lots of different interests (this is me and I love the positive spin on this), Steve’s brief overview of The purpose of Life, and equating habit change to chess.
- Since it’s such an important quality of being a leader, you will want to read this article on Soul Shelter with numerous tips on how to stay stressed. (Yes, that is sarcasm…)
Thought-Provokers
- Are you a PITA? No, not an animal lover, a Pain in the Arse! Following the philosophy that all of us are someone’s problem, take this test to find out exactly what kind of PITA you are.
- The Leading Blog asks: Can you Lead with Kindness? In answer to that question, they recommend a new book called Leading with Kindness. Based on the excepts they provide, I’m adding this book to my reading list (I really need to get to the bookstore). And before you starting thinking I’m going all warm and fuzzy, leading with kindness may not be exactly what you think. As pointed out in the post, you can be hard-nosed and kind.
For Fun
Nothing popped up on the radar screen this week, so I’m reaching into my bag of tricks for something fun. Ask 500 People bills itself as “public opinion polls for the world”. Basically, anyone can submit a question (with answers) to the site. Site visitors vote on the questions they like, and the current active question is closed once 500 people cast their votes. Questions can range from the absurd (”How famous you are?”) to the sublime (”Have you ever written to spammers asking them if spamming is a good way to make a living?”).
Questions can be yes/no, multiple choice (including pictures), and 1 to 5 scale. If you register with the site, you can create and ask your own questions. This would all just be an interesting social web experiment until you find the section that gives you the ability to embed the questions you create on your own website. Digging a little further, you find the section on using Ask 500 People as low-cost market research. Paid questions are asked on a private network. If you are looking for a low cost way to get wide demographic opinions on any business question involving “people who use the Internet”, you may want to consider this service.
Check out this site at your own risk. It can be a serious time-waster. You have been warned.
Books
- An overview of the best Leadership books to be published in August.
- Going one better, a list of the best Leadership books ever!
- In commenting on a recent post, Carol had some great recommendations.
