Archive for September, 2009
social media, “finding nemo,” and you
image copyright the walt disney company, all rights reserved
i’m a big pixar fan.
i love everything about their company. john lasseter’s drive to pursue his dream until it was fulfilled is something that we should all admire and look up to. then, there’s the unsung heroes of pixar — the animators. every pixar movie made is 100% animation. that means there’s no help from motion-capture tools or other technological devices. the animation is done 100% by hand on computers.
and, of course, there’s the stories! there’s a reason pixar wins year after year at the oscars for best animated movie despite competition from dreamworks animation, blue sky studios, and disney animation studios. that reason is their ability to tell fantastic stories that appeal to young and old alike. they’re stories that we all can learn from.
why “it’s dangerous” is no excuse
when i was growing up in south philly, my family didn’t have much money. but being kids, my brother and i did what kids do anyway. we played roller hockey without helmets, gloves, shin pads… pretty much any protective equipment at all. i tended goal with nothing but leg pads, a — what we called it back in those days — waffle board, a baseball glove, and a stick (all of which was borrowed, hand-me downs, or bought with my paper route money). i’ve been hit with sticks and pucks in the face, and had more than my share of scrapes and bruises. looking back at it — it was stupid. it was dangerous. but i loved playing hockey!
fast forward about 10-12 years, and i’m wearing a suit and tie — screaming at my team from behind the bench at the penn state ice pavilion with my heart beating out of my chest in my first game as assistant coach for the ACHA division 2 ice hockey team. my love of hockey that was sown on the streets of philadelphia is the only reason i was able to reach that point in my life. we beat SUNY stony brook that night by a score of 3-2 — the #1 ranked team in the league. it was one of the greatest wins in our program’s history, and was the staging point for a season-long run that put us into the quarterfinals of the national tournament in fort collins, colorado that year.
be prepared to stop
image by clagnut, flickr artist
project management can be described succinctly in two words: “be prepared to stop.” [looks skyward...]
yes.
i’ve talked before about adding wiggle-room into your project schedules in order to handle setbacks, changes in scope, changes in requirements, and more.. this, however, is not that post.
no, this post talks about what to do when you run out of wiggle room.
wanted: information
never assume that information you have is unwanted.
this isn’t a poker game in the wild west. you don’t need to guard your hand from the eyes of everyone else. it only hurts your organization.
just because someone sent you an email, or someone told you in a conversation, or you saw it on the internet — that doesn’t mean that you’re the only one who will find value in that information as well.
in this knowledge based economy the world is growing into, organizations need to manage their information better. knowledge management seeks to answer the questions of who has the information, who needs it, and how do you bring those people together. that’s the premise behind enterprise 2.0: collaboration is key.
at other times, the value is simply in that someone knows that you know it. if you need help in decomposing that sentence, just think of yourself as a project manager or task lead. quite frankly, they probably don’t care about what information you have — but it’s important to managers to know that you at least have information. it’s there. it’s out in the open. it’s available.
i’m not sure why it is, but — much like the card game at the local saloon in the wild west — there is a lot of information guarding that happens in organizations. we get split from our main team into smaller project teams with a specific focus. then, we put our heads down and start working, looking around to share information only when asked for it. but when we do this, we’re leaving out the knowledge, expertise, experience, and diversity of thought and opinion of a large portion of our own team, and an even larger portion of our entire organization.
the person who may be able to help break open the case might not be on your immediate team; they could be halfway across the nation (or the world). but you may never know, because you’ve been guarding your information from the eyes of anyone who hasn’t asked for it.
business isn’t a crazy game of poker; put your cards on the table. why? because it may just surprise you who has the winning hand.
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