Rogue

Following link trails lands you in some strange places. Something which caught my eye and left me wanting;
Perceptive Pixel.

Last night I had a mildly bizzarre dream.

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It was going to happen eventually. After over a decade of exclusively getting my digital interactive entertainment fix from the stylish and powerfull PC on my desk, it's time to return to the couch and get a taste of the console wars again.

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I'm the first to admit that I find Fan Fiction (aka Fics) to be one of the crudest forms of literature, only marginally above that of supermarket journalism.

But while reading the latest issue of The Escapist, there was an article about just such works and a couple of links which just leapt out at me to be read.

• Lemming's existential crisis
• Tetris as a metaphor for communism

I chuckled.

While surfing about some design blogs, I came across Guy Kawasaki's and read an article he'd written about great organisations doing stupid things. Specifically what I enjoyed was his direction regarding avoiding these stupid things.

When you read this don't just think about it in an employee/employer corporate environment, think about working with clients and interacting with other people in general;

1. Say, believe, and act in a way that convinces employees that differences of opinion and diversity of thoughts are good things. Frankly, a couple of curmudgeons is a good thing for a company.
2. Don’t be in a rush to meet consensus. In particular CEOs should not rush into a decision even though the image of decisiveness is so too seductive.
3. Spell things out. It’s not enough to say, "Plug this leak in our company" and assume that it will be done legally. You should say, "Plug this leak in our company by using only legal, ethical, and reasonable methods." That’s when you’re done.
4. Move the crowns. When employees go around saying, "We need to do it this way because Bill/Steve/Carly/Larry wants it this way,” you’re in trouble. It means that employees are making decisions based on what they think will make kings and queens happy—as opposed to what’s right for the customer, employees, or shareholders. Good CEOs put the crown on the heads of customers, not themselves.
5. Restrict the use of experts to narrow areas. Never use experts to create your product roadmap or marketing plans unless you want MBAs who have never run anything larger than a school snack bar to decide your fate.
6. Ask for bad news. Don’t assume it will find you — you have to find it. You should allocate a time that’s specifically for communicating bad news.
7. Don’t shoot the messenger who brings the bad news unless he caused it.
8. Don’t reward the messenger who brings good news unless he caused it.
9. Approach budgets as working guidelines, not policies set in stone. If your budget doesn’t change for the whole year, you’re either clairvoyant (there are probably easier ways to make money if you are) or clueless.
10. Squash arrogance and greed. I’ll be honest: I don’t know how to do this. If I figure it out, it will be the topic of an upcoming blog.