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The 50 Best Websites of 2011

Time Magazine has released its list of 50 Best Websites. In a world where social media is king, finding a positive way to stand out from the crowd is essential. 

The sites are diverse in terms of products or services, visual appeal, navigation schema, and intended audiences. Click through the entire sequence: seeing 50 strong sites in a row is a good tutorial on the importance of fit among audience, site aesthetic, level of complexity, and content – and it’ll give you a good feel for your own preferences. 

I also learned about some great services from the activity, like GetHuman with phone numbers for thousands of companies and instructions on the button to push when you call to reach a human being, Open Yale Courses to download some very interesting classes taught by some pretty smart people, and Quora to find an insightful discussion stream about a variety of topics (or in response to your question) requiring judgment or interpretation.

For those of us whose sites didn’t make the Time list, the key question is obviously why?  What does our website look like?  What message does it convey? How well does it speak to target audiences?  How easy is it to navigate?  How well does it sell our goods and services, as well as support the use of them? 

Happy website revising, everyone!                    

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10 Reasons Not to Ignore Malcolm Gladwell’s Mind-Blowing Ideas

I’m a Malcolm Gladwell fan. He has a capacity that educators treasure: the ability to review research on a complex topic and synthesize it into a teachable moment. To add icing on the cake, Gladwell also makes his teaching points usable by putting them in a form others can easily remember. Whether you buy everything Gladwell proposes or not, he gets you thinking.

BusinessInsider.com has a series on Gladwell’s Top 12 Mind-Blowing Ideas. Take a look.

Why is this important to leaders? Here are my Top 10 reasons why you can’t afford to ignore Gladwell’s work.

  1. 1.  Change and influence are complex social processes, difficult under the best of circumstances. You increase the odds of success when you understand Gladwell’s Law of the Few. One person can change the world, but it’s a lot easier and quicker for the right strategic few. Learn how to start a social epidemic.
  1. 2.  Leading is hard, and you don’t want to go it alone. Who can help give voice to your vision? You need allies, especially credible ones. Connectors, mavens, and salespeople add social weight to your message. Make sure you understand the difference among the three roles and have a few of each in your court.
  1. 3.  A sticky idea is a memorable way to frame a message – and if you can’t remember the message, how will you heed it?
  1. 4.  We are all social beings, influenced by the environment in which we live. The tacit and influential Power of Context is huge. Use it to your advantage, and you’ll enhance your influence skills. 
  1. 5.  Strong diagnostic skills involve capacities to form good judgments quickly and from limited data. That’s Gladwell’s blink phenomenon. We all can improve our powers of rapid cognition. Great leaders have it, and it serves them well.
  1. 6.  Data gathering is at the heart of informed decision making, but there can be too much of a good thing. Gladwell’s prod toward information frugality helps avoid information overload and analysis paralysis. Leadership, after all, is about action.
  1. 7.  Authenticity is a characteristic of effective leaders, but it isn’t shooting from the hip – or the mouth. We all make unconscious snap judgments that can get us in trouble if we act on those tacit thoughts before we really think them through. Better to stretch through priming: broadening our experiences and positive interactions with more and different kinds of people so that our first reactions will be more positive than those with a more narrow set of experiences.
  1. 8. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to perfect a skill or talent, according to Gladwell. Practice does make perfect. 
  1. 9. Genius is more about practice (see above), persistence, and a supportive environment and family than natural skill or IQ alone. There’s hope for us all.
  1. 10.  Talent is important. Experience key. Persistence required. But so is luck. May we all have some.
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From the Home of Mozart: The Transformative Power of Music — Individual, Social, Cultural, and Civic Development

I am a strong believer in the power of the arts for education and development. I was pleased to see an international gathering at the Salzburg Seminars in Austria this spring on The Transformative Power of Music concur.

Music opens the mind and heart to foster the innovative thinking that today’s – and tomorrow’s leaders – need. I won’t bore you with the neuroscience, just remind you that music is a heck of a swell way to rewire your brain and enhance your creative capacities. Play with others, and you enhance your skills in collaboration, listening, team work, and more.

The Salzburg Seminar Fellows felt so strongly about the issues, they drafted a manifesto for governments, thought-leaders, funding agencies, and educators.

“We believe that music is a proven gateway to engaged citizenship, personal development, and well-being. Only through urgent and sustained action can we foster a new generation of energized, committed, self-aware, creative and productive members of society."

You can find the full manifesto, the final report from Seminar, and videos of the week’s highlights (including some great music and interviews on the latest from neuroscience) at http://www.salzburgglobal.org/current/news.cfm?IDMedia=60456

It’s well worth a look and a listen, Share it with policy and decision makers you know.  And it’s never too late to start those piano lessons yourself!  The ROI is guaranteed to be strong.

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What Do You Know about India? Four Stupid Western Misconceptions

An article by Patrick French (“The Truth About India: Four Stupid Misconceptions the West Needs to Shake”) reminded me how little I know about the country on track to become one of the world’s largest economies of the future and the most populous nation by 2025. Conversations with colleagues and friends confirmed I am not alone.

I’ve put Patrick French’s new book, India: A Portrait, on my end-of-summer reading list. I recommend you add it to yours.

To whet your appetite, here’s information about India to counter some major Western misunderstandings:

India has a thriving, growing economy with benefits for many. Like China, India’s economic boom has made it a nation of rich and poor – and some of the rich are very, very rich. For example, take the case of Sunil Mittal. He left his job running a bicycle parts factory in Punjab in 1995 to start a telecom company. Airtel now has 223 million subscribers across 19 countries– and Mittal an estimated net worth of $8 billion dollars. His story is one of many.

India’s economic rise is not at the expense of American jobs. Despite the ranting of conservative pundits, trade and out-sourcing go in both directions. Mittal, for example, grew Airtel quickly by reverse-outsourcing to the benefit of foreign companies like Nokia, IBM, and Ericsson.

India comfortably embraces the paradoxes of its economic transformation. Ancient religious and cultural traditions mix easily with technological advancements and the trappings of rising affluence. French sees India as an adaptive, flexible society – and nothing “Western” about India’s embracing of new technologies and lifestyles.

Indian women are on the rise. Yes, many women in India are poor and oppressed. Others have opportunities they wouldn’t have elsewhere. Women in India lead major financial institutions, like HSBC, RBS, JPMorgan Chase, ICICI, and UBS. Women hold major political posts, and their power and numbers grow. Mayawati Kumari, for example, grew up as one of nine children in a poor, “untouchables” family near Delhi. Today she is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a state with a population the size of Brazil.

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The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year

A former student keeps me up on the popular press. His recent send is from the Atlantic Monthly: “The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year.” The article is well worth a read.

The list will be fascinating to anyone interested in social change and modern times. It’s invaluable for understanding evolving and under-served markets and for developing new products and services for them. Here’s the list – in descending order for drama – and a few comments on each item for clarity.

What are the implications for your organization? For your career? For our collective future?

14. The Green Revolution Is Neither: Solutions are expensive. Progress has been slow. We’re still too dependent on fossil fuel. In 2010, only one-tenth of our electricity came from renewable sources. Kermit the Frog got it right. It’s not easy being green.

13. The Maniac Will Be Televised: In a world of expanding social media, it takes something pretty wild and loud to cut through the noise. Charlie Sheen. Donald Trump. Colonel Qaddafi. Bottom-line, “the electronic brain of the new media has an affinity for suspicious minds.” Amen.

12. The Players Own the Game: Think LeBron James. Superstar and media darling at age 18. His move to the Miami Heat was a big deal and a sign of change in athlete culture: players realizing their power and fans wanting them to have and leverage it.

11. Gay Is the New Normal: In 2010 and for the first time, a majority of Americans (52 percent) called homosexuality morally acceptable. Will opponents of gay rights now be an oppressed minority?

10. Bonds Are Dead (Long Live Bonds): Long-term interest rates are rising slowly. The Fed has been propping up bond prices, as the government keeps selling them off to pay for the stimulus. Bonds aren’t going away, but if the Fed wishes it were out of the bond market, what does that say for the rest of us?

9. The Next War Will Be Digitized: The controller of “the cloud” controls the world. Geostrategy looks to an opponent’s vulnerabilities and seeks to concentrate damage in places that do the most harm. Controlling everyone’s data is a lot more powerful than a few harbors, office buildings, or airports.

8. Grandma’s in the Basement (and Junior’s in the Attic): Census figures show the number of Americans ages 25 to 34 living with parents up to 5.5 million or 13 percent of that age. Grandparents are moving in with children, propelled by everyone’s need to save in tough times. The multi-generational family household is back in numbers not seen since the 1950s – and the American family is redefined.

7. Public Employee, Public Enemy: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has led the charge, and public unions are on radar screens now for conservatives out to bust them and liberals surprised they care.

6. Wall Street: Same as It Ever Was: So what’s changed if: (a) the big banks are bigger than ever; (b) “interconnectedness” has increased – financial assets are moving in conjunction with one another and  rising together. Another crisis, everything falls at once; and (c) Wall Street pay is back at record highs?

5. The Arab Spring Is a Jobs Crisis: Euphoria has turned to depression. Uprisings did little to improve daily life. Emigration is up. Tourism down – by 75 percent in Egypt. No workable strategies are easy for economic security or social justice anytime soon. Unemployment is huge. One hundred million – 1/3 of the Arab world – are in the job-hungry age range of 15 to 29. Can new crises be far away?

4. Elections Work: Whether you agree with the Tea Party or not, they have brought activism and excitement onto the U.S. political stage – and a reminder that our actions at the polls mean something.

3. The Rich Are Different From You and Me: Super rich is a global phenomenon. We see it in developed economies like the U.S., United Kingdom, and Canada, and in developing economies like China and India. The very, very rich are leaving the rest of us behind. Income inequality is increasing at a rapid rate, especially for minorities and the U.S. and European middle classes hit hard by the recession.

2. Nothing Stays Secret: Internet. Facebook. WikiLeaks. Transparency is in. No one is spared. Too risky to say more.

1. The Rise of the Middle Class—Just Not Ours: The middle class in the U.S. and Europe are “squeezed.” The economy isn’t rebounding, incomes for most are not rising, and median household income has declined in real terms. But it’s a different story for the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Income per capita has soared. Jobs are increasing. Education improving. The bright side to this story: rising affluence means rising consumption. Do we have our products and services ready?