Practice is the main determinant of success in a particular field.

[ via Scott Adams - The Illusion of Winning ]

Most people I’ve read or listened to recently discussing game mechanics focus on the value of incremental rewards, but I actually believe the correlation between the value of gaming and being “good at life” has more to do with permission (even expectation) for structured failure.

Unfortunately, outside of trying to pwn n00bs or launching a startup, your average person has almost no opportunity to iterate through structured failure. We love games, because that is one of the few experiences where we can practice the next step after failure.

I’m wondering if you could describe one of your core daily functions, and how you might be able to practice failing better to improve – aka “level in life”?

Spoke on panel this morning about employees tweeting. Zappos employee Twitter policy: “Be real and use your best judgement.”

[ via @zappos ]

If you don’t trust your employees to tweet freely, it’s an employee or leadership issue, not an employee Twitter policy issue.

[ via @zappos ]

=)

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance, but their inward significance.

[ via Aristotle ]

Think about the fact that with this change, there is no reason you couldn’t promote content, videos and contests to LinkedIn’s audience even if you have a relatively small number of  followers. Going viral on LinkedIn may provide more long-term business benefit than the short-term page view lifts we see with other channels.

[ via Going viral on LinkedIn – Freesource Agent ]

Uggh.

Personally, I am looking forward to people developing an immune response to virus’ as soon as possible, so everyone can stop trying to infect customers with a tendency to click, and instead provide customers with a reason to love.

photo (cc) by Volker Brinkmann

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.

[ via T. E. Lawrence - Wikiquote via Jeff Rosenthal ]

“Good leaders are people with a conscience who respect and reward all the four drives of other stakeholders [the drive to acquire, to defend, to bond, and to comprehend], even as they respect and reward their own drives.”

[ via Paul R. Lawrence via The Drive to Acquire's Impact on Globalization — HBS Working Knowledge ]

I can’t wait to share more about what I am learning about applying customer development in a big company, but lets just say I’m happy to be too busy doing it to talk about it. Fortunately, the godfather has some thoughts to share about Solving the Innovator’s Dilemma – Customer Development in a Big Company. (No, really, go read that now.)

“The single biggest reason companies fail, is that they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.”

[ via Gary Hamel ]

The best part for me is, rather than fighting the organization, I’m surfing the culture of my organization. My CEO just sent this article out to the management list:

[Big companies fail] not necessarily because they didn’t see the coming innovations, but because they failed to adequately invest in those innovations. To avoid this problem, the people who control large pools of capital need to act more like venture capitalists, and less like corporate finance departments. They need to make lots of bets, not just a few big ones, and they need to be willing to cut their losses.

[ via The End of Management - WSJ.com ]

Every time I hear a company, agency, or “social media guru” talk about getting something to go viral, I puke in my mouth. Just a little bit. (I won’t even get into the downside of being a virus right now.) I just wish more of these folks would use their energy and creativity to focus on being meaningful in the lives of the people they want to reach, by providing value to them.

“If there’s a formula, then you’re doing it wrong,” Glover says. “It really is a social dynamic, being part of folks’ lives in a meaningful way.”

[ via Funny or Die Relies on Social Networks and Wit in Winging Its Success | Fast Company ]

Bonus thought: The easiest way to get someone to like you, is to be interested in them.

Reading through an interesting conversation where people are talking about discovering their core values. The answers they are coming up with are all very grand and noble.

Which has me thinking two things:

1. We all want to be part of something much bigger than ourselves.
2. We have a much better understanding of who we want to be than who we are.

So, why do so many businesses and organizations aim at the least common denominator, rather than aiming for ideals? If people want to be part of something so much bigger, and want to do it for much more compelling reasons, why not give them the opportunity?