Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the tag “Communication”

The Power of Social Recommendation I

A small planting of a seed of a set of thoughts. Again, crystallised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s marvellous Fooled by Randomness – see ‘Taleb’ search link here.

It started when I read a comment that (paraphrasing, I think – short on time to pull up the page reference): ‘there is no scientific evidence that can convince them ore potently than a sincere and emotional testimonial’

That people patronize what other people like to do. Actors who ‘become known by some parts of the public because he is known by other parts of the public’

Read more…

Why Do We Feel Better if the Wording is Changed?

“There is no doubt that bringing elements of the US strategic arsenal close to Russian territory could be used to weaken our deterrent potential,” the Russian foreign ministry said. “…in such a situation the Russian side will take appropriate measures to compensate for potential created for threats to its national security”

Now I did a degree in Politics. Scary times, but not the point of this post.

A few minutes after reading the above in the FT, I opened up a letter about my subscription to the Times. They used to send ‘Timesaver’ tokens through with the vouchers. A perk of the subscription, it meant that I didn’t need to collect vouchers for anyspecial offers available. The letter said ‘You may notice that Timesaver Tokens are no longer included. We are continually working on new ways in which to deliver special promotions to you…..’

Yesterday I spent most of my time giving 360 degree feedback to my line reports at Madgex. We use a tool called My3Things which I based on a brilliant ‘rapid’ feedback tool from a guy called Matt Clarke from beyondnowhere UK. He worked with the finance team when I was at Sainsbury’s.

The feedback tool asks the person giving the feedback to give three things they’ve really noticed about the person they’re giving feedback to. And three things they’d love to see more of.

Now you may be asking yourself whether I’ve gone mad. What do these three things have in common?

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The Pursuit of Knowledge Management

If there is one skill that I want to develop more than everything else, it is the skill of excellent knowledge management. To be honest, I don’t even know whether I have the right term. But I know what I want:

  • I want to be excellent at accessing the best knowledge for my objectives
  • I want to be excellent at the assimilation of that knowledge
  • I want to be excellent at processing and storing that knowledge
  • I want to be excellent at re-accessing that knowledge in the future
  • I want to be excellent at sharing that knowledge

The excitement I feel about what there is left to learn is vast. The thoughts of others to tap into. How this knowledge will catalyse my thinking. How it will change me. Read more…

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