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We hear a lot about companies that are highly praised for being great places to work. It is a good thing, because being comfortable at work is an important condition for doing great work, develop yourself, and help others give their best effort. But there are also two commonplace complains: - A lot of time is wasted on badly planned or unnecesary meetings. (Sometimes it seems that all the best practices about effective meetings are forgotten the minute a meeting starts.) - It is really difficult to get even an hour of interruption-free time at the office. If your work requires creativity or advanced problem-solving skills, interruption-free time is essential for doing great work. Sometimes we loose sight that a great place to work is, in first place, a great place for doing work. That is, a place where you are not only doing things, but actually working, in the sense of giving your best effort and adding value. As managers, we put special emphasis on recruiting high-potential, high-talented candidates. After hiring them, do we create the conditions so that they can work on what they do best? Or maybe we have them just doing things most of the time? Jason Fried, founder of 37signals.com and author of Getting Real and Rework , talks about this and other ideas around work and personal productivity on this TED video. --- You can reply to this post by email.

I recently bought an 32GB HP v115w Pendrive. To my surprise, the pendrive was not recognized by the MacBook Pro Retina USB 3.0 port. However, it worked properly when plugged to the MacBook Pro through an USB extension cable. I also worked, without the extension cable, on other Apple and non-Apple machines. I suspect this problem affects other HP pendrives that share the v115w enclosure. There is a simple solution. Rotate the HP pendrive cover 90° instead of the full 180°, so that a bit more of the USB connector gets exposed, apparently enough to get the pendrive recognized by the MacBook Pro. ## The HP pendrive falls short This HP pendrive is one of those small devices measuring little more than one inch long. It comes with a non-detachable cover that hides the USB connector when it is not in use. To plug, the cover rotates to expose the USB connector. Compared to other USB connectors the HP connector is shorter. So, the problem had to be in the design of either the Apple USB 3.0 receptacle or the HP pendrive. I was not able to measure the MacBook Pro receptacle to see if it is within specs, but the HP pendrive I could measure easily. The USB connector design spec specifies that the part of the plug that exposes the connection pins must be 8.65mm plus tolerance. No problem here, this is the exposed length of the v115w HP pendrive. The spec also specifies that the plug length must be at least 11.75mm. But if you rotate the HP drive cover 180° (which seems to me the normal thing to do), the HP pendrive only exposes an insufficient 8.7mm length. Rotating the HP pendrive cover 90° gains you some more plug length, enough to make the pendrive get recognized by the MacBook Pro. --- You can reply to this post by email.

Thanks to a friend, I recently rediscovered Simon Sinek’s talk How great leaders inspire action. Sinek explains a pattern inspiring leaders and organizations follow when communicating ideas, which he calls the golden circle. Great leaders don’t talk about what they are doing, but about why they do it. > Why? How? What? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. (…) Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiated value proposition or your proprietary process or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by “why” I don’t mean “to make a profit.” That’s a result. It’s always a result. By “why,” I mean: What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? Well, as a result, the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in. It’s obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations – regardless of their size, regardless of their industry – all think, act and communicate from the inside out. It is important to know what motivates1 you–why you do things–not only because it is a great way to communicate and inspire. Knowing why we do things affects profoundly how we do them and what things we do and don’t do. --- 1. Why you do things is sometimes called external mission in organizations. ↩︎ --- You can reply to this post by email.

Maria Popova, on the The Daily Routines of Famous Writers: > A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper This applies not only to writers. Waiting for ideal conditions can be a an excuse for not facing a problem, making a decission, or just getting to work. But is this always the case? (For example, if you are planning leaving your job to start your own business, guts may not be the only ‘condition’ required.) Cal Newport, in his book So Good they can’t ignore you_1 defines the term _carrer capital as the set of rare and valuable skills you have as a professional. He explains that work can be divided in two kinds of carrer capital markets: - There are jobs where only one type of carrer capital is important, and lots of different people are competing for it. Its a winner-take-all market. Writing is such a market, because your ability to write is the skill that matters. - There are other jobs in which there are many different types of carrer capital. A variety of relevant skills are needed to be at least competent in this area of expertise. Newport calls this market an auction market. It is crucial to know what capital market your are in, and which skills are critical or not in the kind of work you do. If you are really good at what you currently do –among the best in your current job, or in your department—, then chances are you already have the basic set of skills that enables you to acquire the relevant ones to succeed in other fields. If this is the case, then waiting for ideal conditions is just a bad excuse for your fear. --- 2. Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love. ↩ --- You can reply to this post by email.

The Amazings is a startup that offers classes and courses in London, UK. These are not online clases, they are not free, and seats for each class are limited. Their teachers are called the Amazings. It gets more interesting: to qualify as an Amazing you have to be 50 years or more, be passionate or skilled, and keen to pass those passions and skills onto other people. Their mission is nicely stated on their webpage: > The Amazings was born out of a single, simple idea. Society has always learned from its elders. But somewhere along the way we have lost that connection between generations - which means losing rich, valuable, and rare skills. We’re on a mission to fix this. As expected, they point out the effort they put in selecting their teachers. They only accept as Amazings people they have met in person, after looking at their work history. An important part of The Amazing’s business model are the Amazings themselves. That is, their teachers. Accordingly, they have tailored an attractive Value Proposition for them: - They address concerns common to elderly people. Examples of information you can find on The Amazing’s FAQ Page: how do I work out how much tax I will pay?, how to find a venue for the classes, what to do about equipment, materials and tools, things to know about health and safety, etc. Lots of legal advise is also included. - Simplicity for The Amazings, both teachers and the Company. Teachers don’t sign a contract to be a teacher, they also set the price of their courses, and receive 70% of the total ticket sales for classes, or 80% for courses. The cost of the venue, materials and other equipments are paid directly by the teacher from his earnings. - The company takes care of the burden of promoting your classes and things like charging customers, managing the online platform, and other administrative tasks. Because of their model, their cost structure has very low fixed costs, and their expenses on classes and courses are nearly 100% variable. They can probably reach break-even pretty fast. And they are not on the freemium model: they charge for all their activities. A video from Panama Dave, one of the Amazings. [vimeo https://player.vimeo.com/video/54239089] --- You can reply to this post by email.