[29-Mar-23] Some historical data

From 7 to 69 to even more years ...

 

Great achievement and a really sustainable approach taken by Fairphone. The operating system was updated for 7 years, the phone hardware is still supported and you can buy spare parts for the modular system. Really a role model.


Yesterday the Belgian team did win against the German soccer team for the 1st time after 69 years. A great success for Belgium and their team that is in a positive flow in the moment anyway. For the German team the already difficult situation is getting even worse. A lot to be done until the UEFA EURO 2024 starts in Germany on 14-Jun-2024.


Finally the visit of King Charles III in Germany today. I wanted to check, when the last British King did visit Germany, but was not really successful. His mother was just too long the Queen.


  • Sahil Bloom: The Personal Quarterly Review
  • All you need to know about Python: Real Python Tutorials
  • An interesting approach to hiring talent: SOLITA - Join a community of diverse talent who embrace each others’ (im)perfections
  • A COMEDY MAKES PFIZER’S CHIEF CORPORATE AFFAIRS OFFICER FEEL ALONE

  • Are You Honorable or Afraid of Getting Caught?

  • AI And You: How ChatGPT Can Take Your Career To The Next Level

[28-Mar-23] The change topic again

Helpful hints to make a change ...

 

As everything is more or less related to change it is an ongoing topic to write about.


Yesterday we had our System Demo to finish the current 3 month project phase. A really good overview of the work we have done, presenting our end-to-end solution in a combined demo of several teams. We are getting better in delivering the committed work and in improving our tools and way of working in parallel. Going forward it needs to be even more simple, standardized, fast and scalable.


A way to do this is to question/change the status quo, automate as much as possible and involve all required parties as early as possible. Especially the necessary change is causing some issues and areas of fear. People start to get concerned that we are sawing the branch that they are still sitting on. The 4 practices on the picture will be helping a lot going forward with this change.


The Germany wide strike yesterday was not leading to the expected chaos as a lot of people did adapt as needed. No public/private transport by plane, train and bus was not at all leading to the traffic jams that everybody was forecasting before. People stayed at home, thanks to the COVID-19 experiences from the last two years, or used the remaining transport systems besides their own cars - e.g. bikes, taxis or e-scooter. As every employee is responsible to come to the office in time, they had not a lot of choice. yesterday Hopefully the next negotiations between the unions and companies will lead to results shortly, we had enough strikes this year already.


  • Where are Clean Energy Technologies Manufactured?

  • TED Playlist: Best practices for business innovation
  • Collaboration Superpowers: Virtual Team Celebrations

  • The New Happy: Feeling overwhelmed
  • Video: World's first robot that rides a bike!
  • Video: 7 Mistakes Every Scrum Master Makes, And What to Do About Them
  • Use AI to Your Advantage by Harnessing These Skills and Capabilities

  • 9 Signs You're A Highly Sensitive Person

  • Action on clean hydrogen is needed to deliver net-zero by 2050. Here's how

[26-Mar-23] My week 12-2023 highlights

Some more comments to the videos from yesterday

 

The Steal like an Artist video very well supports my personal belief that "Stealing with Pride" and "Copy and Transfer" is not just a minor proof of the laziness of engineers, but also an appreciation of the work of other people. Using their great work and idea as basis for reuse or a new development is a high level of valuation. Think about it.


Spending the 1hour and 6 minutes on the Leadership and Purpose video with Simon Sinek is really worth it. Yes you can do a lot in one hour, but this video is full of great ideas, story telling, real life examples and a basis for further learning and investigation. Great stuff!! Some related material to check out:


  • Four Seasons People page
  • THE VISION OF FOUR SEASONS

  • The 5 Practices of the The Infinite Game
  • Barry-Wehmiller Guiding Principles of Leadership
  • Barry-Wehmiller Launching our Cultural Journey
  • Bob Chapman, CEO and Chairman at Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc


“Everyone wants to contribute. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. Some people are on a mission. Celebrate them. Others wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them.” – Bob Chapman


Had a busy last week and the coming week will be even more busy. We start with the System Demo tomorrow, the presentation of our project results from the last 10 weeks. A lot of good stuff to show to our stakeholders and as great motivation for the coming three month. Tuesday the workshop with the homework, the team is expected to come up with a slogan or logo for their project. Will be interesting to see, how the different personality types will handle this.


On Tuesday we will be starting with our Innovation, Knowledge Sharing and Learning phase, always happening in the last two weeks of a 3-month project phase, we call it IP-Sprint. For the rest of the week we will be preparing the next planning phase starting 04-Apr-23. Much to do ...


  • Grant Snider: The Two Types of Stories: Expanded Edition

  • Chat GPT-4: The AI-Powered Best Friend We've Always Dreamed Of?

  • Sketchplanations: What drives us: autonomy, mastery, purpose
  • 20 Steps to Achieving Anything by Daryl Daughtry, Publisher

  • 8 Top Tips to Boost Your Learning (Infograph)

  • Video: MindSpring Presents: "Everybody Matters" by Bob Chapman


“Management is about telling people what to do, and leadership is about allowing people to do what they’re capable of doing.” – Bob Chapman, taken from 25 Inspirational Business Process Improvement Quotes

[25-Mar-23] Gordon Moore, Intel Co-Founder, Dies at 94

What Is Moore's Law? Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years.

 

Have a great weekend ...

Source Youtube: Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon at TEDxKC

Source Youtube: The Evolution of Leadership and Purpose | Full Speech

[24-Mar-23] Getting ready for the fun?

Give an Hour for Earth by spending 60 minutes doing something - anything - positive for our planet.

 

"Earth Hour 2023 to rally more people than ever to join the Biggest Hour for Earth" on 25-Mar-2023 at 08.30 PM your local time.


After a two days break back to the blogging fun. Sometimes you just need to focus on something else to refresh your mind. A lot of good stories and links came up during this time, a small collection for you today.


During table tennis training yesterday I did play against a much younger team member, I assume the age difference was 40+ years? Experience and overview beats youth and speed. Exactly the same, what I experience when I play against our oldest player who is 80+. You can run as fast as you want when you are always too late and the other player takes advantage of your weak points. Something the younger player had to accept as well in the end after losing two sets and the game. Next time is a new chance ...


Yesterday I had a coffee break with three of our Interns. A really interesting come-together, one coming from Vietnam, from India and Zimbabwe. All students in Germany, even speaking German, respect. These kind of meetings are great for cultural awareness, we had an interesting discussion about Easter, what it is and how to celebrate it. Next month we have three new starters from Germany, France and Cameroon to extend the already very diverse community. Looking forward to it.


Do you remember your school times and how you handled making your homework? I am confident it has nothing to do with skills, but is mainly driven by your attitude!! For the next two workshops I did ask the participants to prepare a small homework, just doing a personality test, as we will use the results during the session. After several reminders there are still people who are not aware, their listening or reading skills need some updates, and the majority of the rest is just waiting until the last minute. You can still do it on the day of the workshop, in the bus or before the lesson like in school, you could make something up or just copy the result of a colleague? 10 - 40 years after they finished school and nothing really changed, must be attitude. With the result of their personality test they might understand better why? We will see next Tuesday.


  • The New Happy: Whatever happens, be kind to yourself
  • Video: Storytelling Through Characters at Disney Parks I SXSW 2023
  • Ten great illustrations on #personaldevelopment and #growth

  • 7 WAYS TO MEET THE NEED TO FEEL SEEN, HEARD, AND UNDERSTOOD

  • Frank Sonnenberg: Terrible Role Models Make Great Teachers

  • Video: He's The Best Teacher Ever , Teacher of Life Lessons

  • The Top 4 Examples Of How ChatGPT Can Be Used In Telecom

  • 3 WAYS TO BRING YOUR BEST SELF

  • How vertical farms could boost food production in India

  • Scott Ambler: The time to fight back against artificial intelligence is now
  • How many steps a day do we really need to take? Here are the facts

  • Here's how to get older adults exercising

  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (24-Mar-23)

[21-Mar-23] The Lots Of Socks Campaign

Getting people talking on World Down Syndrome Day, 21 March

 

"World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD), 21 March, is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012. The date for WDSD being the 21st day of the 3rd month, was selected to signify the uniqueness of the triplication (trisomy) of the 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome."


See two impressive lists of successful people:


  • 10 Inspiring Famous People with Down Syndrome (2023)

  • 10 Of The Most Successful People With Down Syndrome (2019)


"I always say I am Pablo Pineda and that I have Down’s syndrome. There is a big difference between 'having' and 'being.' 'Being' can crush you down and 'having' shows it is only one feature." – Pablo Pineda, the first European with DS to graduate with a university degree - taken from 21 Quotes from Extraordinary Individuals with Down Syndrome


  • Verbal to Visual video: The Map of Emotions

  • Jason Sudeikis and ‘Ted Lasso’ cast meet with Biden for mental health discussion

  • 3 WAYS DOGS AND PEOPLE RISE

  • 5 Reasons Why Most Attempts to Create a Coaching Culture Fail

  • 3 strategies that can future-proof the global food system

  • Comic Agile: #234 – SAFe Flow
  • Video: Two 2-minute Rules to Beat Procrastination (in 2 minutes)


"People with Down syndrome can do anything. They just do it at their own pace. Give them a chance, and you will be rewarded beyond your greatest expectations." -- Madeline Stuart, taken from Madeline Stuart Quotes

[20-Mar-23] Interesting reports ... 

World Happiness and Climate Change 2023

 

"The World Happiness Report research leverages six key factors to help explain variation in self-reported levels of happiness across the world: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. Governments are increasingly using this analysis to orient policies towards happiness.

Finland remains in the top position for the sixth year in a row. Lithuania is the only new country in the top twenty, up more than 30 places since 2017. War-torn Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, with average life evaluations more than five points lower (on a scale running from 0 to 10) than in the ten happiest countries."


  • 166 pages World Happiness Report 2023 as PDF


"The IPCC prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about knowledge on climate change, its causes, potential impacts and response options. The IPCC also produces Special Reports, which are an assessment on a specific issue and Methodology Reports, which provide practical guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories."


  • AR6 Synthesis Report - Climate Change 2023

  • Are you a micromanager? Or do you just work for one? 5 ways to tell

  • 10 Bad Habits You Must Eliminate from Your Daily Routine

  • Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition

  • Achieving climate goals and renewable targets first requires solving the storage conundrum

Source Youtube: TRACTION by Gino Wickman | Core Message

Source Youtube: Where To Start When You’ve Procrastinated On Your Goals For Too Long

[19-Mar-23] The week 11-2023 summary 

The last winter week is finally over ...

 

For Meteorologist spring time started 01-Mar-23 according to the calendar it is tomorrow, the weather does already know and the temperatures go up. Time for gardening, we did start with first activities yesterday.


Just in case you are interested in all my BLOG posts from 2023 until 17-Mar-23 as PDF file in the moment, have a look on the Downloads page. The small eBOOK is available there.


Next week is kind of "the calm before the storm" week, a lot of preparation tasks for two workhops, our final system demo, 5 days innovation & training activities and the planning for our next 3 month project period. Hosting the workshops will be a lot of learning for the participants and fun for me, looking forward to it.


  • GPT-4 Is Here: Unleashing the Power of Multimodal AI and Redefining the Future of Communication

  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (17-Mar-23)

  • How Africa’s new Free Trade Area will turbocharge the continent’s agriculture industry

  • Affordable childcare is possible — and access to it would benefit us all

  • Gartner: 12 Essential Skills for Agile Developers
  • 5 months ago, I asked 70 LinkedIn creators: "What is the ONE book that most impacted your career?


Have a great next week ...

More details about Usain Bolt

[18-Mar-23] From square to circle ...

More geometric figures to explain content

 

After a discussion with my wife we came to the conclusion that a circle or several circles could be a good approach to explain and present content as well. We are not the first ones :-)


Some examples on the picture and as link below:


  • 10+ Types of Diagrams and How to Choose the Right One

  • Free Venn diagram maker
  • What is the DISC Model?


I like the Venn Diagram a lot, you just have to find the right text in the different fields to give it some content and value.


"There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good." -- Sam Altman


Two years ago from today I was still on my old BLOG hosting website and the counter did show 500,000 overall readers. Just a small anniversary today. With my switch to the new hosting website and provider on 08-Dec-22 the counter was at 1,109,000. Since then there is no real counter anymore and I have to rely on their Website analytics information. The last month total visits number was 2,915. No idea how the old counter and the new way of counting visitors match? But as I have no possibility to influence it, why bother about the topic anymore?


According to the analytics I had 12,085 total visits since 08-Dec-22.


"You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three." -- Sam Altman, taken from 200 Sam Altman Quotes

[17-Mar-23] Triangle and Square ...

Geometric figures to explain content

 

There are many triangles used to explain topics and priority setting alternatives. Besides the Success one, there is also the Iron Triangle or sometimes called the Golden Triangle of Project Management for example.


Today we have seen a first review of our new technical solution architecture, the 2.0 version of our status quo. Two more weeks to see the 1st MVP. Everybody is looking towards it, as we are on a really good track. Our challenge will be to put the green dot in the right place on the square that I came up with today. Reliability will be key as well as quality, but the new solution has to be fast and simple as well. The faster the better, as we need to scale up the daily/weekly delivery pretty fast.


And, not so easy for developers during their process, in the end the solution has to be operated by another team with less expertise. So it should be simple to maintain and reliable to reduce the effort of the new team taking over the responsibility in the future. Some more discussion might be needed, to agree the priorities and properly place the dot. Will keep you posted.


  • LET GO – 4 REMEDIES FOR EXHAUSTED CONTROL FREAKS

  • A Simple Guide to The (New) ChatGPT API with Python

  • Tokyo wants to build a future-proof city. Here’s how

  • Between Minds: Thought Leader vs Do Leader Source: Mindset and JESS3

  • How CFOs further value creation by leading on sustainability

  • Actions the best CEOs are taking in 2023

[15-Mar-23] New and old ideas?

A variety of links and pictures today

 

Google search was launched 1997, 26 years ago so easy for a lot of parents to be older than Google. On the kids side age has a different perspective, all people above 20 are old when they are around 10+.


A new release of the Scale Agile Framework version 6.0 came out today. See What’s New in SAFe 6.0


  • Why skills development is vital for shipping’s green transition

  • Hiring in 2023: How Talent Leaders Are Navigating a Changing Market

  • Do You Want to Be Heard or Understood?

  • Sahil Bloom: Unlocking the Power of Simplicity
  • What is ‘dark data’ and how is it adding to all of our carbon footprints?

  • 7 LIGHT-WEIGHT LEADERSHIP PRACTICES THAT DELIVER HEAVY-WEIGHT RESULTS

  • Management 3.0: How to Manage Time: Tips for Effective Time Management
  • Investing in Automated Hyperintelligence or Hyperintelligent AI, or how to win the global AI race

  • Personal user manuals - The approach you never knew you needed

  • Decision-Making: The 10-10-10 Method

Source Youtube: Little Girl Leads Horse || ViralHog

[14-Mar-23] Some fun facts ...

Findings of the day, be surprised

 

This was the quote related to the video, found on LinkedIn today:

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” —John Maxwell


My immediate interpretation was - who has the line/leash has the say - and my wife's comment even better - now I do understand why your line managers want to stay in their role/positions :-)


In the next Team Building workshop after the Planning phase of our project, we will be closer looking into the Personality Types we have in our project and teams. I will be using the 16Personalities test that is also featured in My new business page. The test results are distributed in 4 different roles (Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels and Explorers), each with 4 different types. We will just be counting the number of people per role and type, to keep their personal privacy. Even the participation in the test is voluntary, no pressure. On the picture some details and the known distribution by the countries represented in our project - Brazil, Germany, India and Portugal. Will be interesting to find out the details.

[13-Mar-23] And the Oscar goes to ...

“Dream big, dreams do come true. Ladies, never let anyone tell you you are past your prime. This is history in the making.” -- Michelle Yeoh with the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role

 

A great night with a lot of surprises and interesting stories. 4 Oscars for a German film, actress in leading and supporting role over age 60, and

Ke Huy Quan who did appear in an India Jones film as kid for the first time and did not play in any film for 20 years, wins the actor in a supporting role Oscar - respect and congratulations to all.


  • Jamie Lee Curtis wins her first Oscar

  • Green buildings can reduce city temperatures by up to 2°C, study shows

  • Dr. Travis Bradberry: 8 Great Tricks for Reading People’s Body Language

  • Say Goodbye to ChatGPT: Here Are New AI Tools That Will Blow Your Mind


A new week started ...

[12-Mar-23] My week 10-2023 highlights

Agile roles, comic pages and courage ...

 

One more comic page today that offers a lot of good content and easy to understand visuals - Wisdom Made Easy. The picture today shows how far we are already into 2023, week 10 of 52. 19% of this year is already gone could be time for a 1st review.


Business wise we delivered a great milestone at the beginning of the year, I did already host three workshops, another reorganization is in progress and I did send an initial heads up for the 3rd D&A Meetup scheduled for 26-Sep-23. The earlier the better, to have everybody aligned and supporting.


In private life we e.g. have a new family member, the daughter of my nephew, some admin tasks have already been taken care of, had a great short holiday and the studies of my daughters are making good progress. Looking forward to the next 10 weeks.


Tomorrow we start with the Sprint-4 Demo and then get ready to finish the current 3-month project period, with closing the open tasks, preparing our innovation & training days and organizing the next planning cycle. As outcome of the last team building workshop we are preparing local come-together opportunities in India, Portugal and Germany. As we cannot be together in the same place this is the only alternative for now.


Asking questions is my strong advice to all Interns during their Onboarding, as on the picture the answers are sometimes a surprise.


  • EMOTIONS WHEEL FEELINGS WHEEL EMOTION CHART

  • Transform your Life: Think, Do, Be
  • The Best Examples of What You Can Do With ChatGPT


Have a great start into a productive and interesting week.

[11-Mar-23] Interesting perspectives

Pictures with a short explanation

 

Digital Transformation: The Ultimate Guide (one of many explanations)

Game Theory In Psychology: Examples And Strategies


What Is a Flow State And How to Get Into Flow


  • Virtual reality is finally ready to revolutionize education

  • Your Resume - Will Not Be Read by a Human First

  • Video: Masih Alinejad's Toast at the 2023 TIME Women of the Year Gala

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective.

Source Youtube: Purl | Pixar SparkShorts

  • Reuse systems: in search of a vision for tackling plastic pollution

  • Charted: Global Energy Consumption by Source, and Carbon Emissions (1900-2021)

  • Algae-powered computing: Scientists create reliable and renewable biological photovoltaic cell

  • Where does Europe's electricity come from?

  • Beyond ChatGPT: 14 Mind-blowing AI Tools Everyone Should Be Trying Out Now

[10-Mar-23] More about courage

There is much more to find about this topic

 

The Purl video is not only a good example to support the Women's Day this week, it goes for a lot of diversity topics. Being different is difficult and stressful, but there are many opportunities for change, as you will see. Be strong, authentic and look for support.


  • The cost of ambition: new research finds almost 90 per cent of women worldwide are penalized and undermined because of their achievements at work

  • Midlife career change doesn’t have to be a crisis: Time to debunk 4 career change myths

The popular surviving bonsai from Hiroshima is priceless, not only because of its age, but also because its branches and trunk were able to survive the brutal devastation caused by the nuclear bomb. It is a small tree, a Japanese white pine, approximately two feet high, with a stout trunk, short strong needles, green and yellow in color, planted in the year 1625.


The age of the tree is really unbelievable and that in a more or less artificial environment. Great work of the gardeners taking care of it.


  • Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?

  • Five key findings from the 2022 UN Population Prospects


My next two workshops will be around Personality Tests and to prepare an Elevator Pitch based on a predefined template (WHO, WHY, WHAT, HOW). Knowing their personality types, the participants will be able to  work on the template in their preferred style or to go outside of their comfort zone to try something new and show some courage. We will see, who is doing what? Stay tuned for more insights and results.


Have a great weekend.

[09-Mar-23] Having courage

Being authentic and different ...

 

In my list of helpful comic pages two days ago I did forget to mention The New Happy, see their Be You picture today. They are always offering great analogies between their pictures, mainly made out of dots and squares, and a supporting text. Get their newsletter ...


contrarian: a person who takes a contrary position or attitude
specifically : an investor who buys shares of stock when most others are selling and sells when others are buying


You need courage to do this, but it can be very beneficial in the end. It is the same in a discussion or meeting, when all participants have the same opinion, you can just talk about the weather :-), if not there can be a lot of fun and results in the end.


courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty


Yesterday and Today I have seen several articles about courage and still had the Be You picture in my backlog for future posts. Today I will combine it all: 


  • Leaders, March Towards Courage

  • How to Get Started with Skills-Based Hiring

  • HOW TO CLARIFY AND SHARE YOUR ASPIRATIONS FOR THE WAY PEOPLE TREAT EACH OTHER AT WORK

  • Do you have the courage of your convictions?

  • It Can Be Lonely to Stand Up for What’s Right

  • TED Playlist: How fearless women lead
  • The Ultimate Guide to Workplace Flexibility

[07-Mar-23] Fun comics to think about

It possibly happened to you already?

 

Here a quick list of comic pages that I am using regularly to look at:



Give it a try and have some fun ...


"When you talk to people smarter than you, it enhances your intelligence. I do things with people I like who are smart. It's not complicated." -- from How Shaquille O'Neal Made Himself Bigger Than Ever--as a Founder and Investor


  • These are some of the surprising benefits of a four day working week 

  • Mapped: Asia’s Biggest Sources of Electricity by Country

  • Space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock honoured with her own Barbie doll

  • Fairphone 2 gets its final software update, seven years after original release

  • Women in business, with Danuta Gray

  • 3 ESSENTIAL CULTURE RULES ALL LEADERS MUST APPLY

  • pwc - Risk: See it, share it, sort it

  • Video: If Ever There Is a Tomorrow...... #motivation
  • Video: Saltwater Powered Light and Electric Power

[06-Mar-23] Get clarity about roles

Scrum Master and Product Owner working together

 

When you read the Scrum Guide or any other helpful documentation around the AGILE topic, you will easily get the theory clear, but what does this mean in your daily work?


People take a training to hopefully understand e.g. Scrum and their role in this framework. All bring their personality, attitude, experience and expertise from past projects and assignments. With this backpack of capabilities they start their new agile role. And when they are willing to follow the Cycle of Growth to Unlearn - Relearn - Change (see picture), all should be fine, but this is not the reality.


Different kind of personalities with different previous roles, now in new agile roles are working together as good as possible, but never perfect and by the books or guides out there. Ongoing training, re-training and awareness sessions could help to improve, but these are not the standards. And the involved individuals have to be willing to change from their old roles to new ones, what is not always successful.


And I did not even talk about the line management that decides who is taking which role and what to do in it. As long as we are working in hybrid environments - established organizations in an agile transformation that is not finished yet - roles and responsibilities are not 100% clear and subject to interpretation, what is causing issues. Sometimes more sometimes less.


“…the agile movement in software is part of a larger movement towards more humane and dynamic workplaces in the 21st century.” -- Rowan Bunning from 10 Quotes Related to the Agile Methodology To Get You Inspired


  • Which countries have the most gender-equal parliaments?

  • How to Revamp Your Company’s Meeting Culture

  • 13 Things Science Says Will Make You Much Happier

  • 20 Free Newsletters That Will Drastically Improve Your Life

Source Youtube: STOLEN FOCUS by Johann Hari | Core Message

Source Youtube: The Art of Improvement - 10 Questions You Need To Ask Yourself Constantly

[05-Mar-23] The week 09-2023 summary

Great customer loyalty workshop, more to come ...

 

The workshop had been delivered on Tuesday and the summary from all departments last Friday was promising. Now we just have to make an improvement plan and deliver it quickly. Any further change will help.


Another workshop is already planned, I will host the Motivation Driver workshop again for a whole department. To combine some learning and teambuilding.


In the coming week the portfolio management team will decide about priorities and focus topics for the next three month project period that will start after Easter on 11-Apr-23. Still a lot to be prepared, a good story line for the teams about the coming objectives, helping them to finish the current 3 month period and getting ready for the next one. We start tomorrow.


  • Video: Watch Tesla Reveal Walking Optimus Robot (Investor Day 2023)
  • Video: NEW WORLD RECORD | Men’s Pole Vault | Mondo Duplantis, 6.22m (20ft 5in)!
  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (03-Mar-23)

  • GPT-4 Is Coming – What We Know So Far

  • Ocean treaty: Historic agreement reached after decade of talks

  • 9 Questions That Should Be in Every Employee Engagement Survey

  • The promise and challenges of sustainable travel products

  • International Women's Day 08-Mar-2023

[04-Mar-23] Transformations ...

Speaking the same language with your customer

 

You should never underestimate the power of words and speaking the same language with your customers. Assuming you are offering agile services and your customer is a beginner in this environment? 


Then you have two issues:


  1. All agile keywords and phrases are in English and a difficulty for none native speakers, like e.g. German customers
  2. Beginners do not understand, what you are talking about as expert, so you need to find a common ground and this has to be defined by the customer


Strip down your agile language to the customer level and find a good match between the customers's and your vocabulary. Give it a try ...

  • Welcome to the Agile Guide by Wrike

  • How the TransPod System beats the Profitability of High-Speed Rail

  • CIRCULAR ECONOMY: Zero waste guide

  • 6 Trends Leaders Need to Navigate This Year

  • Grant Snider Comics: Overwhelmed

  • Gary Straughan video: Can You Really STOP Estimating? + FREE Cheat Sheet

  • THE POWER OF VALUES-BASED DECISIONS

  • 4 TOOLS TO KEEP MEETINGS ON TRACK

  • LinkedIn 2023 Most In-Demand Skills: Learn the skills companies need most

[03-Mar-23] Connecting the dots

Use the same approach for different areas

 

When I write a new BLOG post, I copy the old one and adjust the date first, to keep the overall format and page layout in sync. I just realized that my last post had 29-Feb-23 as date, it is now 01-Mar-23 :-) Next check is always the Mobile Phone formatting, text with date goes before the 1st picture!!


I did add a new link on my Interesting Links page - What is Tall Poppy Syndrome? - interesting Infographic and read.


The six Ms of strategy on the picture do fit to other areas as well. For example people applying for a new job in a new company:


  • When you are applying for a job, you bring your experience, expertise, skills and attitude as products and services
  • Your customer is your potential new employer
  • What you can bring to the table needs to fit to the expectations of your customer
  • Do not underestimate the cost of hiring versus the revenue you could generate for the employer
  • Your purpose and the purpose of the company you apply for need to match on a high level (e.g. 75+ %), to make both sides happy 
  • The market and company situation and their willigness to change old thinking processes and ways of working will impact your application experience. Something you cannot really influence


Not so far away I would say.


The consolidation of the customer loyalty workshop results today did show a lot of commonalities in the different departments:


  • The need for action versus why should the change work this time?
  • Everybody has painful stories, what is not working well and in parallel many ideas how to improve or change
  • Customer centricity and being driven by financials might cause conflicts at the beginning, but should be in sync later on
  • Lower results in customer loyalty from the employee survey could mean a more realistic and less biased view of the situation?
  • Listening to the dicussion today, the six Ms could also fit well for this topic? What do you think?

[01-Mar-23] Customer Loyalty again

Quick summary of the workshop and more ...

 

Finally yesterday we had the Customer Loyalty workshop that was mandatory for all departments. The public transport strike had minor impact and as I had the data/opinion collection parts prepared for a hybrid setup, we could easily support two team members on the phone. In the end even the people in the room did use the online data collection possibilities, much easier for me to consolidate the results and less paper handling and waste.


We collected, what people SAY, THINK and FEEL about our company. In two rounds we shared our personal opinion and what we hear from friends and social media. A good collection of information and due to different sources from 13 participants, pretty accurate I would say.


Next step will be a consolidation from all department workshops for our CFO. Hopefully the results will be used to initiate a customer centricity initiative and mindset, there is definitely room for improvement. As the idea of my adjusted workshop was to combine the required data collection with a learning experience, the Empathy test was very much appreciated. Some people were surprised about the questions and even more about their result. 


In alignment with the Customer Loyalty workshop I started to read a new book that came out the first time in 1993, 30 years ago.


  • The only thing that bothers is the customer by Edgar K. Geffroy


The German title is "Das Einzige, was stört, ist der Kunde: Clienting ersetzt Marketing" An interesting journey back in time, a lot of stuff is pretty new (back in 1993), some stuff is really visionary, and surprise, surprise still valid in 2023. What did we do in the last 30 years, not really focusing on customers I would say. And especially Germany is not famous for customer service and orientation --> The only thing that bothers is the customer ...


In 1993 there was no Google search, Social Media and iPhone yet, crazy times.


  • Watch The Incredible 70-Year Evolution Of The Cell Phone

  • From the garage to the Googleplex

  • The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?

[28-Feb-23] Picture Tuesday

Found interesting pictures with reference material

 

  • ConantLeadership: Why the Best Leaders Share Responsibility – The Leadership That Works Newsletter
  • 4 WAYS TO PROCRASTINATE SUCCESSFULLY

[27-Feb-23] Data traffic in Germany

About an interesting article today ...

 

Taken from ntv article today: "More than half of the data traffic in Germany takes place on websites of five companies. For years, mobile communications companies have been demanding that Internet giants such as Google, Netflix and Meta share the costs - and they're getting a hearing in the political arena.

Mobile providers are calling more forcefully for large online services to pay for the use of their networks. Every day, 55 percent of data traffic is generated by just five companies, said the head of telecoms group Orange, Christel Heydemann. This costs European telecommunications companies around 15 billion euros a year, she said." Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


A really big number and the mobile providers want a fair share of it. Not really a surprise and a smart way to increase revenue. But you better do not underestimate the reaction of the big five companies. They might be faster to find alternatives for their traffic than the service providers get their share of the costs via politics or in court? More to come ...


I have a new sub-page since today, see Interesting Links for details.


  • Global social media statistics research summary 2023

  • 3 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PRACTICES FOR BUSY LEADERS

  • 7 Leader Mistakes That Make Everyone Miserable

  • Video: THE COACHING HABIT by Michael Bungay Stanier | Core Message

[26-Feb-23] My week 08-2023 highlights

Quick recap of two topics from last week

 

It took some time to find the right source of the picture, but in the end I came to - Amazing Sculptures Show People Carving Their Ideal Figures Into Their Own Bodies - and even selected another picture of the ones available. For me it has nothing to do with body shaming or e.g. curvy models versus six packs, it is just a great analogy for the potential that everybody has below the surface, you just have to develop and grow it.


With the right attitude and skills you can do everything, if you have a certificate proofing it or not. I did get some feedback about my 22-Feb-23 post about certificates. I am not at all questioning people having a certificate that finally proves longtime experience or well developed expertise. As I always say "Other people need to see you as their role model, then you deserve this title. You cannot just take it on your own!!" Same with certificates, what you are doing should be fitting with the idea of the certificate and you should be filling the related role. The more the better.


I am getting concerned, when people are not covering the full scope of work and responsibility behind their certificate, or when the certificate does not at all fit to their personality type (find a lot of different personality tests on My new business page). For example not everybody should be or could be a good Agile Coach. With a low Empathy level or more interest in facts & figures than people, you better go for a Mentoring and not a Coaching assignment. My 2 cents ...


Most agile coaches should be called agile mentors, but this is a different story :-)


My planned Customer Loyalty workshop on Tuesday will be influenced by the strike in Duesseldorf, either via public transport restrictions or the airport that is impacted as well. We will see in 2 days.


  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (24-Feb-23)

  • The Top 10 In-Demand Skills For 2030

  • Sketchplanations: Without data you're just another person with an opinion

[25-Feb-23] To learn something?

How to learn new skills, T- or V-Shaped?

 

Quickly sharing some related content, have a great weekend !!


  • The Big Mac Index: A Measure of Purchasing Power Parity & Burger Inflation

  • How V-shaped are you and your people? And how will you let them grow as V-shaped employees?

  • 6 things people do around the world to slow down

[24-Feb-23] Transformations

How we change ...

 

Some changes were required to be compliant with the SEO guidelines on my BLOG platform. I did update the My new business and Beratung & Coaching pages. New URL, some clean-up and adjustments on both sites. Besides that I had to search for a broken link, it took some time to find it in the 12-Dec-22 post. Now all is fine until further notice.


I am doing my BLOG for fun and interested readers and not for money or top SEO rankings, so I do not have to be perfect. And the hosting platform is it not either, as all posts since 08-Dec-22 are part of one long text now and there are no unique URLs per post anymore. Exactly the explanation that I gave to an interested marketing guy today, who wanted to place some articles or links on my BLOG for small money. We will see, if he is still fine after my explanation and how this opportunity will go on?


Next Tuesday I will have the Customer Loyalty workshop at our location with 16 team members. Should be fine as all is prepared right now. Only issues is another strike of the public transport system in Duesseldorf. The union wants to put a lot of pressure on the next negotiation round with the employers. We will see how many more rounds and strikes are required to come to a final agreement?


  • Ranked: Biotoxins in Nature, by Lethal Dose

  • 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO PRACTICE BEING PRESENT EVEN BUSY LEADERS CAN TRY

  • What does it mean for a species to be at risk of extinction?

  • Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are

  • 4 WAYS TO DO LESS AND GET MORE DONE TODAY

  • 5 Simple Habits That Will Make You a More Successful Talent Leader

[22-Feb-23] About certificates

What does a certificate mean and who has the benefit of it?

 

A busy day after one week holiday today. Some activities needed to be initiated for the coming days and people waited for some feedback and reaction from my side. All covered, so I can go on holiday in the future again :-)


Last week we had an internal SAFe training for some of our Product Owners, hosted by an internal trainer. Every participant gets the opportunity to do a certification at the end. You have to pass 80% of the exam questions to get the certificate that is valid for one year and needs to be renewed then.


The process makes sense for our trainers - Certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPC) - as they need to host a number of trainings during a year to keep their certification. For people taking the training I have a different perspective.


In the worst case you just have to answer 80% of the questions correctly and get the certificate for one year. After one year you renew and get the certificate again and so on. It only proves you could answer the questions when required, but does not say anything about your experience working on the job.

In the best case you can easily answer the questions based on your day-to-day experience working in agile environments and renew the certificate as this is the process defined by Scaled Agile.


The challenge is on the employer side, when they try to select experts based on the certificates they provided and have no real process in place, to verify the expertise that is required behind the agile roles they are searching for. It is easy to write something in a CV, but much more difficult to properly check it by employers. Having people already with the expertise you are looking for might be helpful to check new joiners or let the team decide, we are in an agile world. So proven expertise and experience beats certificates, no surprise.


  • Mapped: Unemployment Forecasts, by Country in 2023

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  • TED Talk: The massive machines removing carbon from Earth's atmosphere
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  • Video: What Are The Top 10 Limitations Of ChatGPT?
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  • Here's how documenting your eating habits can promote healthy eating

  • Frank Sonnenberg: Good Times Build Confidence…Bad Times Build Character
  • Pawel Huryn: PM Books
  • 12+ Free Resources to Get Started in People Analytics

  • Video: The Best Examples Of What You Can Do With ChatGPT

[20-Feb-23] A quick start into the week

Shrove Monday procession again after two years

 

The procession in Cologne had the 200th anniversary and JACQUES TILLY could show his 2023 motto wagons again after a two year break, due to COVID-19 and the Ukraine war start last year.

  • Video: The Best Examples Of What You Can Do With Chat GPT
  • Video: What We Should Have Learned in School But Never Did
  • Video: THE EXPECTATION EFFECT by David Robson | Core Message
  • 12 Lessons You Learn or Regret Forever

[19-Feb-23] The week 07-2023 summary

My holiday week is nearly over

 

On the picture the Railway Station in Zandvoort, a city at the beach with a lot of history and the Formula 1 circuit as mentioned yesterday.


A combination of different buildings and holiday region styles together in one location, not really my style, but it seems to be really attractive for tourists and visitors of the Formula 1 race, once per year.


Tomorrow we go home, to have one more day off before I go back to work on Wednesday.


Have a great and surprising week.


  • Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023

  • Will ChatGPT Put Data Analysts Out of Work?

  • As more electric vehicles hit the road, our charging habits must change - here’s why

  • Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition

  • Cities aren't designed for women. Here's what's needed next

[18-Feb-23] Famous Haarlem people

A lot of painters on the list I shared yesterday ...

 

The picture is called - De Tuin (The Garden), 1893 by JACOBUS VAN LOOY. He is one of several painters on the list of famous people who were born in Haarlem, the city close to our holiday location. More details in the following article, just in case you need more details - 4 Surprising Facts About Haarlem in the Dutch Golden Age.


Today we made a nice walk at the beach and even the sun came out, but it was still windy and not really warm. Nothing to be concerned about with the right clothes and shoes.


Windy, low temperatures and cold water, I could feel it through my

rubber boots, but perfect conditions for Kite Surfers, we have seen a lot of them. Really a high-speed sport and a good fit to the Circuit Zandvoort - HOME OF THE FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN DUTCH GRAND PRIX - that is close by.

The Excel sheet overview is taken from the Website statistics provided by my Blog hosting company today. In total 9,203 visitors since 08-Dec-22, the start date on the new platform. Visitors are coming from 90 different countries, really interesting distribution around the globe.


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  • "When we break our routine, we break free from our limitations." - Michael Pedersen

  • Video: This origami-inspired helmet can fold flat to fit in your handbag 

  • Video: CG short film on the extinction of the dinosaurs | "Dinosaurs: The true story" - by P-L. Aeberhardt
  • Video: 36 Times Statler And Waldorf From "The Muppets" Were Expert Trolls
  • Why older talent should be a consideration for today’s inclusive leader

  • This new 'levitating' Chinese train will be the fastest in the world

  • Leadership Skills 2023 Report

  • Video: Tree Update 37 | How Ecosia counts trees
  • Video: Michael Jackson - Super Bowl XXVII 1993 Halftime Show (Remastered Perfomance)
  • Video: How This Chalk Artist Creates Illusions on Pavement | Obsessed | WIRED
  • Certification: It makes money, but does it make sense?

[17-Feb-23] Ready for the weekend

No rain today, had a great time

 

We did visit Haarlem today, another nice town in the Netherlands. 


"Haarlem with its many historic buildings and beautiful old squares lies near the beach on the banks of the Spaarne river. It is wonderful to stroll through the narrow streets lined by the monumental buildings built by master Lieven de Key. Visit extraordinary museums, such as the Frans Hals or Teylers Museum, and explore its countless cafés and restaurants. Haarlem is called the most Flemish city of the north with reason!"


One of the famous people born in Haarlem is Guido van Rossum, a noted Dutch computer programmer and author, better known for creating the ‘Python’ programming language that earned him the title of the "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL).


"Python is an experiment in how much freedom programmers need. Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; too little and expressiveness is endangered." -- Guido van Rossum

[16-Feb-23] The 5th season started today

The outdoor carnival did start today, until next week Tuesday 

 

Thanks a lot to Markus for sharing the ALAAF picture from Cologne today. 


After more than 2 years with COVID-19 everything is back to normal again, even the bad weather. It was supposed to be raining close to the official start at 11.11 AM. We left 12.00 PM to our short holiday at the Neatherland coast and the weather did go with us, as you can see on the picture I have taken from the living room. 


But as the experts say "there is no bad weather, just unsuitable clothing" and we are prepared.


Yesterday we have been to the cinema again, this time the new MARVEL film - ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA - interesting to see and a new start for a lot of other Marvel films in the future. With a new bad guy - Kang the Conqueror. Most obvious was that Marvel and Star Wars both belong to Walt Disney for a longer period of time already.


We have seen some reuse of scenes between the film studios, just a minor adjustment of colors and brightness, saves a lot of time and money.


  • Stefan Wolpers: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023
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  • The Most In-Demand Skills for 2023

  • Dr. Marcus Raitner: On the Wise Use of Our Insultingly Short Lifespan
  • Sahil Bloom: The One-in-a-Row Principle

“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” – Princess Diana, taken from 50 Kindness Quotes By Famous People

[14-Feb-23] About kindness ...

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see” -- Mark Twain

 

Quote taken from - 100 Kindness Quotes By Famous People. Some good ideas on the poster, maybe you can try some out? I like for example - SMILE, ASSUME THE BEST IN EVERYONE and PICK UP LITTER. Works fine and gets noticed by other people as well.


Tomorrow is my first day holiday, I am off until next week Tuesday. The project will be fine without me - when the cat is out the mice are dancing on the table, for sure.


  • German Video: So wird KI Arbeit und Geschäft verändern - ChatGPT: Meine Einschätzung | Dr. Pero Mićić
  • Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023

  • ChatGPT is absolutely remarkable. But try these 8 free AI tools to save 100+ hours of work

  • ‘Just Say No’ to These 4 Interview Formats

[13-Feb-23] Make that mistake ...

Superbowl LVII winner Kansas City Chiefs

 

The final result was 38 : 35 and only small mistakes, or the fear of making mistakes, decided the game. The experience of previous Superbowls and the confidence to win helped Mahomes to make it in the end. Well done and congratulations.


As discussion about ART does not make any sense, you have to come to your own conclusion about the Halftime Show with Rihanna. I preferred the game over the show, other people did see it the other way round. Probably depends on your year of birth?


  • International Day of Women and Girls in Science

  • 8 Habits of Incredibly Interesting People

  • The Real Reasons For Big Tech Layoffs At Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon

  • Video: Solving Cubes Whilst JUGGLING - Guinness World Records
  • Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone to form ad tech joint venture


“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi, did give his name to the Superbowl Trophy

[12-Feb-23] My week 06-2023 highlights

Looking ahead to a 2 day working week

 

Due to the hot phase of the carnival season that is starting next week Thursday and as I had to take my remaining 2022 holidays before end of Mar-23, I will be on holiday starting Wednesday. Tomorrow we will have the first Sprint Demo of the current three month period and Tuesday I am at the Campus again to say good bye to two other Interns.


This year is the 200th anniversary of the Cologne Carnival parade, a really long time that this all started.


Another anniversary has Levi Strauss & Co. - Celebrating 150 Years of the Iconic Levi’s® 501® Fit. - "We've been innovating to meet people's needs since 1853. We invented the first blue jean, and we reinvented khaki pants. Our brands are among the most celebrated names in apparel."


Today we are celebrating the 57th Superbowl, will be interesting to see, who will be winning in the end? - Only seven Black men have ever played starting quarterback in a Super Bowl. That number includes Mahomes. Hurts will become the eighth. - Super Bowl match-up between Black QBs doesn’t obscure the NFL’s racism.


Interested in a comparison of Mahomes and Hurts, see Comparing starting QBs in Super Bowl 2023.


“The best thing about it is you’re showing kids that no matter where you grow up, what race you are, that you can achieve your dream.” -- Patrick Mahomes


“With the opportunity I have, I just wanna share some light, and show these kids that you don’t have to choose the wrong way. You can do anything you put your mind to.” – Jalen Hurts


  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (10-Feb-23)

  • Video: Honda - The Cog
  • Video: WHAT YOUR AI VACUUM CLEANER REALLY DOES WHEN YOU ARE NOT AT HOME
  • Meet the ‘Oldfluencers’ – Canadian baby boomers putting a new face on aging

  • *THE BRAIN OF AN ELDERLY PERSON.*

  • What are the top 5 things people want from work? New report

  • All In On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big With Artificial Intelligence

[11-Feb-23] One day to go until LVII

NFL Superbowl 2023 (LVII) is on 12-Feb-23

 

On the picture you can see, what the Dream AI generated based on the words in the headline.


Brothers due to the Kelce family, one brother is playing for the Kansas City Chiefs the other one for the Philadelphia Eagles. And the mother is supporting both.


The women navy pilots due to a historical flyover at the Superbowl 2023 with an All-Women Team. "The Navy says the flyover will honor "50 years of women flying" for the maritime service branch, which began teaching women to fly in 1973."


The Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) of my webpage is making progress and the score is 77% in the meantime, I started at 28%. Interesting to see, how this environment works and what brings the score up.


Looking at the website statistics I do not realize a difference yet, since 08-Dec-22 the start date on the new hosting platform 8,497 visits have been counted. No idea, what this would have been on the counter of the old platform, but it does not make sense to worry about this anymore. This is history ...


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  • TED Playlist: A playbook for agile, inclusive leadership
  • 30+ Killer AI Tools That Are So Valuable That They Feel Illegal To Know — No BS

  • What is generative AI? An AI explains

[10-Feb-23] Two days to go until LVII

NFL Superbowl 2023 (LVII) is on 12-Feb-23

 

I am already looking forward to Sunday, beer is cold and some sweets are waiting for two weeks now. A special Superbowl edition. What other people are eating, check this out:


  • Super Bowl Food By The Numbers and some Commercials

  • Video: Super Bowl Commercials Teasers Compilation 2023 All Big Game Ads Teasers (8:29 minutes)

  • Video: ALL Super Bowl 2023 Commercials so far! 🏈 Superbowl LVII Big Game ads (28:13 minutes)


I had an interesting day today at the Campus in Duesseldorf. Public transport was on strike for 48 hours, to get a salary increase above the inflation rate. So no underground and buses working from the Duesseldorf service provider. Luckily I could use a regional train and then a bus run by an outside Duesseldorf provider, to get close to the Campus. Just 10 minutes walking instead of 60 minutes.


Besides taking care of two Interns who had their last day today, I had a System Demo in the morning and a Brownbag session after lunch. Both meetings with customers and a feedback cycle at the end of the session. I normally ask two questions: To rate the meeting between 1 (low) and 5 (high) and then an open question, how to improve for the future. 


In the afternoon Brownbag session we presented a less technical and more business language like overview of the proof of concept we delivered early Jan-23. We had 160 people in the audience, what was much more than expected and the presenter from our team did a really great job in telling our story. The feedback was great and a good result for the effort we spend. 


A small number was still complaining about the approach we have taken, but you cannot make 160 people happy at the same time. So a good starting point with the potential to further grow/improve in the future. We have all, what is needed.


Have a great weekend ...


  • AI timelines: What do experts in artificial intelligence expect for the future?

  • TED Talk: What should electric cars sound like?
  • International LEGO® Day 2023 - 28-Jan-23

  • Here's why ChatGPT raises issues of trust

  • Four Categories of Customer

  • Data Privacy - 5 Best Practices Everyone Should Be Following

  • Tanmay Vora: How to Create a Culture of Change Acceptance
  • Upskilling for the Age of Workplace Flexibility

  • 7 RELATIONSHIP BUILDING RULES FOR RESULTS-DRIVEN LEADERS

[08-Feb-23] Being happy or not ...

Starting with Words and Pictures by Grant Snider

 

Cambridge Dictionary: HAPPY = feeling, showing, or causing pleasure or satisfaction


I started to do regular satisfaction checks in my project in last December. The latest survey was initiated yesterday with two questions:


  1. How satisfied are you with your current role in the project, from 1 (low) to 5 (high)?
  2. What needs to happen, to bring you to a higher level, if you are not already at 5?


After one day recognition is the top voted point, perfect match to the outcome of our last Team Building session around motivation drivers, where recognition was the top vote as well. But there are some more days to go, so we will see.


In parallel the whole project team is voting for the Top 3 Role Models of 2023 so far and the winners will get a certificate as 1st recognition. One step in the right direction.


"In behavioral economic terms, when we offer recognition we are acknowledging that the recipients have met a social ideal. They are behaving in a certain manner because they believe is the right thing to do. If we then recognize that behavior with praise or appreciation, we offer a confirmation that their behavior is desirable, and do so in a manner that recipients find meaningful." -- Cindy Ventrice, taken from

Top 102 Employee Recognition Quotes To Celebrate Their Endeavours


  • Sahil Bloom: The Surfer Mentality
  • Deloitte: Talent acquisition analytics

    Using analytics for smarter sourcing and hiring decisions

  • 8 things you need to know about AI this month

  • A neuroscientist shares the 4 ‘highly coveted’ skills that set introverts apart: ‘Their brains work differently’

  • TED Ed video: Why aren't we only using solar power? - Alexandros George Charalambides and the explanation how the video was created
  • How Lil Nas X’s Performance Coach Develops Talent

  • 43 Best Resume Tips for Landing a Job in 2023

  • ChatGPT Passes Google Coding Interview for Level 3 Engineer With $183K Salary

  • These are the technology trends that will shape our lives in 2023

  • Here's why we need to get more women in transport and logistics

  • Tanmay Vora: Six Rules to Simplify Work

[07-Feb-23] Surprising correlation ...

World's Most Admired Companies and Tech Layoffs of the 2020s

 

When you compare the FORTUNE 2023 list with the Tech Layoffs since 2020, you will see a lot of same names (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet/Google and Salesforce), but why?


"The biggest tech companies may be facing relatively tough times, but the 25th edition of the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies All-Stars list suggests that the giants’ peers respect them as much as ever. For the 16th consecutive year, Apple finishes first in our annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a poll of some 3,700 corporate executives, directors, and analysts. Amazon and Microsoft tied for second."


People deciding about layoffs or analysts estimating the impact of these decisions at the stock market might have a different opinion/perspective than the employees, who have to look for a new job shortly, for sure. The further growing "War for Talent" will help them to find alternatives quickly, and with the large number of Baby Boomers retiring in the coming month and years, even better.


"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense." -- Winston Churchill at Harrow School, 1941


The reference to Churchill was on the last page in the HOW THE MIGHTY FALL book that I finished today, just to explain :-)


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  • Accelerating reuse models to achieve a world free of plastic waste

[06-Feb-23] Interesting lists ...

You might be surprised, who is on it


I know the new #1 on the Artists of all Time list, but the 2nd to 6th places are really surprising. I do not even know some of the names, mostly Classic and Country music artists.


We had an interesting discussion today about the planning cycles in our project. Every year is roughly divided into four 3 month long increments and we use an ongoing calendar over several years. For all team members to better plan their holiday periods.


The next planning will be between 04- and 06-Apr-23, one day before Good Friday and in the first week of the Easter school holidays in our part of Germany. We talked about three possible scenarios - stay with the initial plan, do it one week earlier or minimum one week later, to avoid a conflict with the holiday period. After a quick check with the Product Owners and Scrum Masters we realized that a lot of the team members did make their holiday planning, keeping the long known planning dates in mind, well done!!


In order to appreciate the smart guys we will make no changes to the planning dates. The rest either does not care or is not aware yet, so why bother? Keeping it simple ...


"Once you see the outcomes and the results, and you see how many people are helped and benefitting, you want to keep on doing it because it's so simple." -- Dolores Huerta, taken from Quote Master


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  • How Electronic Arts Improved Diversity With Something That Looked Like Bureaucracy, But Wasn’t

  • Sketchplanations: Umbrellas and funnels

[05-Feb-23] The week 05-2023 summary

A good start into February


A good variety of topics this week. And I could activate the search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities on my BLOG hosting platform for free. Will be interesting to see if it will have any impact on the number of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly readers that are shown on the website statistics page?


One downside of the new hosting platform is that the Blog posts are part of an ongoing text. You cannot address one single post with a unique URL and when you want to make a print-out, all text since 08-Dec-22 will be on paper. My mother was complaining about this today, as her weekly print-out was a little bit longer than normal.


It has also some impact on my eBOOK design, currently I try to print two pages of text on one A3 page on the new platform. Maybe I find a better approach over time?


Have a great, surprising and productive week, I will do my best:


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  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (03-Feb-23)

  • Video: How to Combat Imposter Syndrome
  • IMPACT AND LIFE PURPOSE WITH IKIGAI

  • Food waste 101: The facts and solutions

  • TED: The incredible cancer-detecting potential of photoacoustic imaging


"In Japanese culture, there’s a belief that only imperfect objects, like a cracked teacup, can truly be beautiful. This is called wabi-sabi. Try to let go of the quest for perfection, and instead accept the beauty that lies in all of life’s imperfections. The result will be extra energy, less stress and a longer life." -- Blinkist, taken from 35 Ikigai Quotes That Will Inspire You and Make You Reflect

[04-Feb-23] Helpful wisdom

Great picture covering a true story in one simple sketch ...


Three days back Tom Brady decided to retire from football for the second time. I wanted to wait a little bit, just in case he changes his mind again :-) Not yet, what is understandable, as the Greatest of All Times will now become the best paid NFL analyst on TV. I think he will be able to manage this, we will see ...


Last Sunday we did spontaneously go to our local cinema, to see the newest The Three Investigators film. The book series did initially start 1964 in the USA, but is much more successful in Germany for example. Here we call it the three questionmarks - ???. The two youngest kids are 19 and 22 in the meantime, but there is still this fascination for the story and so we took the chance and saw the film. Funny side effect, the kids only had to pay the kids price in the cinema. And we have not been the only parents with kids, but all others were possibly 10+ years younger than ours.


Have a relaxing weekend.


  • This writer analyzed 100 graduation speeches — here are the 4 tips they all share

  • Video: Langlaufen in Tirol (Wenn der Letzte der Erste ist...) - just watch without sound
  • 3 ways cities can promote new, greener mobility services

  • Performance through people: Transforming human capital into competitive advantage

[03-Feb-23] Learning never stops

Be ready to go on and on and on ...


The concept of the customer loyalty workshop was approved yesterday. We double the initially proposed one hour by HR to two hours, try to make it more personal and combine a learning experience with a team brainstorming session. In the end we will be using a Circle of Control to get clarity about our situation and possibilities. 


In the mindset of Lifelong Learning it is always good to learn something new, leave your comfort zone or get/take another perspective once in a while.


Today was a great day as we did restart bi-weekly Brown Bag sessions in our project environment. One answer to the outcome of our last Team Building session around MOTIVATION drivers that asked for more Recognition and Learning opportunities. With the session today we offered learning around Python Coding Standards for the team and a recognition for the presenter in front of a larger audience. When we can come to a higher level of common understanding about standards and priorities, we could improve the quality of our software code over time. Exactly, what we need. 


  • 3 WAYS TO FIND ENJOYMENT TODAY

  • PRESENCE: 12 SIGNS YOU AREN’T HERE

  • Video: 3,200-Megapixel Camera Is Nearly Ready

  • Video: OpenAI GPT-4 Chatbot Search Engine For Microsoft w/ THIS + NEW ChatGPT AI Tool + Nvidia PADL NLP
  • Video: My Apologies to the Simon Sinek Fans
  • 5 Big Ideas for Building Great Cultures

  • Aristotle on Storytelling in User Experience

  • No Bad Ideas or Silly Questions: How to Facilitate a Truly Inclusive Culture

  • Creating slides with MARP

[01-Feb-23] Value proposition ...

Why do your customers buy from you?


"What motivates people to choose you, to choose your products over the hundreds of alternatives? What makes your company, and your products, better than the rest? The answer: your value proposition."


What works for companies can also work for employees, as you can see on the picture today. Just copy & transfer a little bit.


"At the end of the day, the true value proposition of education is employment." — Sebastian Thrun, taken from 27 famous quotes about Value Proposition


  • TED Talk: The single biggest health threat women face
  • Infographic: Generative AI Explained by AI

  • Sahil Bloom: 10 Dangerous Lies We Tell Ourselves
  • Frank Sonnenberg: How to Determine If Someone Is Trustworthy
  • Tony Robbins | The #1 Thing I’d Teach My Kids Today

  • EFFICIENCY: ONE SIMPLE PLAN TO LOSE LESS MONEY

  • How to Do 4 Hours of the Best Work of Your Life (Without Cheap Hacks)

  • The Top 6 Reasons Digital Transformation Fails

  • Six reasons successful leaders love questions

[31-Jan-23] Show Your Passion ...

Learn from the well known experts


You can say a lot about Steve Jobs as a person, but he was great in selling products. 9 hints how to improve on the picture.


I finished my first cycle of preparation for the Customer Loyalty workshop at the end of Feb-23 today. I did add feedback cycles using Mentimeter and even the possibility for a hybrid workshop setup, just in case not all team members can make it to the Campus to come together in the same room. Now I am waiting for comments from selected colleagues to further improve the concept.

  • More details about Kevin Stirtz
  • What People Want from Work in 2023 – The Leadership That Works Newsletter

  • Google created an AI that can generate music from text descriptions, but won’t release it

  • A watermark for chatbots can expose text written by an AI

  • Thanks to Alpha Signal for proving the two links directly above
  • TED Playlist: Harnessing the future of data
  • Companies that change the game can change the world

  • Attributes of a Powerful Question

[30-Jan-23] An interesting Déjà Vu ...

Going back 24+ years in time


Luckily the Website analytics is working again, currently the counter is at 7,474 total visits since 08-Dec-22, according to the One.com approach: 


"There are two ways of obtaining data to do web analytics; from the access log files or from page tagging with Javascript in the browser. Our statistics tool gets its data from the access logs. The advantage with using log files to collect data is, that you don't need to add any code to your pages and that all your pages are automatically analyzed."


As you might remember I am currently reading the HOW THE MIGHTY FALL by Jim Collins book (please scroll back to 28-Dec-22 for details). I am half way done and came across the name Carly Fiorina last week. Fun fact is that I know her from 24+ years back, when I was working in the IT management team of Lucent Technologies. During an IT Summit in New Jersey she was giving a key note speech in her role as Chief Marketing Officer. Really impressive personality.


I also mentioned her in my [11-Feb-21] Blog post, see 2021 eBOOK page 350 for further details.


In the Jim Collins book she is mentioned in her role as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Hewlett-Packard Company (1999 - 2005). In 2016 Carly did even join the Presidential Race. What was not really well received with her activities and "accomplishments" before. A lot can happen in 18 years, to be judged by better experts than me. 

  • 11 Habits of Supremely Happy People

  • Boston Dynamics SHOCKING NEW Atlas AI Robot Automation Technology + 3D Modeling GeoCode AI

  • Gerd Leonhard #Futurist #humanistic analysis and review of #chatgpt and #generativeai gerdtalks13

  • U.S. Employee Engagement Needs a Rebound in 2023

  • “Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body.”

  • Elon Musks Idea Of Colonizing Mars Is Crazy, But Would Be A Massive Step For Humanity – Russian Cosmonaut

[29-Jan-23] My week 04-2023 highlights

One month nearly gone, 11 more to go ...


Today is the 4th anniversary of passing the 100,000 overall reader milestone back on 29-Jan-2019. A lot happened since then when I passed the 6-digit counter for the 1st time. Last year I reached the 1,000,000 milestone on 01-Sep-2022, the first 7-digit number. Due to my Blog hosting company change the counter is not available anymore and the Website analytics is still a little bit foggy and not really easy to understand for me. Just today the analytics numbers from yesterday are gone and a very small number is left. Hopefully only a mistake that can be fixed shortly? We will see next week.


The other picture was provided by Stefan Wolpers in his weekly newsletter. Here some more of the articles he shared:


  • Finding Adequate Metrics for Outer, Inner, and Process Quality in Software Development

  • Building Products With AI

  • Stefan is working for Berlin Product People GmbH


In the coming week I will be three times at our company Campus. Monday one Intern is leaving, on Wednesday another one is starting and Thursday for a face-2-face meeting with my boss. Always good to use this opportunity. And early Feb-23 all COVID-19 restrictions at the work place will be finally gone and we are back to "normal". 


Have a great, interesting, surprising and productive week. Here some supporting material:


  • The Dangerous Animals of Product Management
  • Quiz: Are you an extrovert, introvert or ambivert?

  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week        (27-Jan-23)

  • The Increasingly Important Role of AI in Customer Experience

[28-Jan-23] Spending sufficient effort

The difference between an average user and people who spend some more time on details ...


Back in 2021 I did already write in my BLOG about this topic and made a difference between spending 20 and 10,000 hours to get familiar with any subject.


Short thought jump: Due to the change of my Blog hosting company on 08-Dec-22 a lot of capabilities and functionality did become better, but some nice features are not available anymore. Since then I cannot easily reference any Blog post via an unique URL anymore, as it is just one single address https://www.rethinkandfocus.com/ now with a continuous text. It all has pros and cons and after any change the guarantee is only that it gets differently and not better in all cases.


So my workaround solution for now is to reference:


  • The date when I did write the Blog post --> [07-Jun-21]
  • Providing a link to the right eBOOK --> 2021
  • And mentioning the page you need to look for --> 220
  • Viewing documents from Google Drive even offers a Find function to come to the post faster 


I know this is not perfect, but better than nothing ...


Jumping back: So why am I in a position to host a workshop about e.g. Motivation, Customer Loyalty or Team Building? Because I am interested in the topics and did spend sufficient time - definitely not 10,000 hours, but between 5 and 10 maybe - to come into the 10% knowledge position. And finally you need to have some interest in people and like to share information, knowledge and your experience, for them to grow and for yourself to have some fun and to learn better. A Win-Win situation.


And the more workshops you host the better you become in time management and delivering the content in a fun and understandable way. You can rely on your portfolio of good ideas, icebreakers, content bits and transfer pages to prepare new subjects quickly - Steal with Pride - Copy & Transfer your own ideas. Looking forward to the next workshops ...



  • Adam Grant: The 13 New Books to Expand Your Mind in 2023
  • The $16 Trillion European Union Economy

  • FUTURE CANDY Tech Trends 2023 (only in German)

  • A…loch-freie Zonen (only in German)

  • Pollinator populations are falling, here's what that means for our health and economies

  • Harpoons, robots and lasers: how to capture space junk and bring it back to Earth

  • 3 ways to reduce gender inequality in the workplace post COVID-19



"The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate." -- by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker

Picture below from my [07-Jun-21] Blog post, see 2021 eBOOK page 220 for further details

[27-Jan-23] More Robots and AI and etc.

There is so much more to find and interesting connections to make ...


Thanks to Eric Hofmann for sharing the Charlie Chaplin picture with the following story. Here the translated version:

"Charlie Chaplin told the audience a wonderful joke and everyone started laughing. Charlie repeated the same joke and few people laughed. He repeated the same joke again, but this time no one laughed. Then he said these beautiful lines: "If you can't laugh at the same joke over and over again, why do you keep crying over the same worry?""

Steve Jobs on death and decision making:

The first review of the planned Customer Loyalty workshop did go well yesterday. We scheduled it for end of Feb-23 now and try to get as much as possible team members together at our location. Some fine-tuning is still required and I need to get all material that I plan to use also in English language, for our none German speaking team members.


My MOTIVATION workshop for the project team last Monday was very well received and I did get good feedback afterwards. I was asked to give it again for a larger team in the near future. Mouth to mouth recommendation is the best way to grow.


  • Boston Dynamics: Sick Tricks and Tricky Grips
  • You’ve heard of interior design and graphic design – but what about protein design?

  • Liquid Metal Robot : A Real Life Terminator

  • 5 ways that ChatGPT could transform Microsoft Office

  • India's Solar Canals. Lateral thinking at its finest!

  • Explained: What is ChatGPT?

  • TED: The benefits of a bilingual brain
  • 40 Nonfiction Books to Watch Out for in 2023

  • 5 PROVERBS FOR PEOPLE WITH BIG DREAMS

  • Employee well-being: The holistic way

  • Averting an energy crisis requires bold investment in renewable energy — particularly in developing economies

[25-Jan-23] Robots and AI

Some more related topics to check out


Dennis Hong is a professor and the Founding Director of RoMeLa (Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory) at UCLA. His research focuses on robot locomotion and manipulation, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.


His latest TED talk is giving great insights into the work of his laboratory, the spirit, motivation and mood of his students, worth seeing.


Besides that even the World Economic Forum is picking up the ChatGPT topic in an article today - Here's why ChatGPT is just the start of the generative AI boom


"Just imagine, in a classroom a teacher writes on the blackboard and a blind student can see what's written and read using these non-visual interfaces." — Dennis Hong


  • Video: Top 10 AI Tools Like ChatGPT You Must Try in 2023
  • Frank Sonnenberg: Live with Grace and Dignity
  • THE SECRETS TO SELF-LEADERSHIP

  • Sahil Bloom: The Ultimate Productivity Tool
  • Video: Self-Balancing Hexapod Robot. Android-based DIY Spider Robot.

[24-Jan-23] The system is up again ...

After several days the ChatGPT bot did talk to me again


As you can see, I was finally successful or reached a less busy slot in the system, to get three questions answered. The two ones I wanted to ask earlier and a third one to get the confirmation about the time based knowledge span of the bot.

Besides that I started to prepare the Customer Loyalty workshop today, based on the template provided by our Human Resource department. It is not perfect and I would have approached it differently, but these are the guidelines and I can only do some minor adjustments.


  • Agile 2: Today’s Agile Roles Are a Dead End
  • 10 DYNAMIC JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

  • strategy + business: “Like mountain air in the veins
  • Microsoft and OpenAI extend partnership


“It is not your customer’s job to remember you, it is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.” -- Patricia Fripp, taken from 19 Quotes on Customer Loyalty that Help you Appreciate Your Loyal Customers

[23-Jan-23] Helping others ...

Two workshops done and all happy customers


The MOTIVATION workshop did go really well and doing it at our Campus location made a difference. As planned I did wear a colorful shirt and most of the audience was already waiting to see it. The interaction between the team members was great and besides learning something about the wide area of motivation drivers, the interaction in a more or less none business environment and topic was very much appreciated.


Starting tomorrow I will be preparing another workshop around Customer Centricity and Loyalty. Looking forward to it ...


  • REJECTION PROOF by Jia Jiang | Core Message

  • TED Talk: Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek
  • Martec’s Law: the greatest management challenge of the 21st century

  • 3 SURPRISING TRUTHS ABOUT BIG GOALS

  • This 22-year-old is trying to save us from ChatGPT before it changes writing forever

  • 9 Bad Habits You Must Break To Be More Productive

  • The Pomodoro Technique Really Works, Says This Productivity-Hack Skeptic

  • 8 Levels Of Listening – Complete Guide (2023)

[22-Jan-23] The week 03-2023 summary


Looking forward to the next assignments after a successful week


Short break over the weekend after a really great week with the System Demo and successful delivery of our Proof of Concept last Tuesday, the new planning phase Wednesday and Thursday and the Team building workshop on Friday. As we combined the first two Sprints into a 3 week cycle, the result of an earlier adjustment in the timing due to the Christmas break in the project, there will be a little bit more time to focus on other tasks in the meantime.


Besides the MOTIVATION workshop tomorrow I will be looking into another workshop that should be scheduled for our whole team, to think about customer centricity, an initiative kicked-off by our Senior Management team for the whole company. One of the first challenges will be to come to a common agreement about - who is the customer?


A lot of the departments, especially the ones providing services to other departments, are not directly facing customers who are buying our products. So we have to make a difference between external customers and something, what we might call a business partner as example. Another opportunity to better understand the customer perspective could be the situation that some of our employees are also customers of our products. Let's make best use of these insights.


"I believe in the power of recognition and empowerment leading to great employee engagement. And employee engagement is critical to guest engagement. Employee empowerment and recognition is the core of our culture and how we achieve outstanding customer service." Herve Humler


  • A Simple Guide to OpenAI API with Python

  • The three vital technology trends no company can afford to ignore in 2023 (and one they can)

  • The 11 Best And Most Innovative New Gadgets And Devices In 2023

Source Youtube: How to Hack Your Brain to Destroy Procrastination

[21-Jan-23] Room to learn


The best way to learn is to train other people ...


The picture today, my search on the LEXICA page for "AI chatbot", looks cute and good.


Looking forward to next Monday, when I will be hosting the MOTIVATION workshop with a smaller team onsite or in a hybrid setup, depending how many team members will be participating online? Doing a training with all participants together in one room is definitely a difference to online, as you have another dynamic and see, what the people are doing during the Break-Out sessions.


And in order to be clear about who is the host in the training, I will be wearing a colorful shirt. Also useful to do an opening warm-up joke when you are taking the sweat-shirt off and the colors become visible :-)


Just now the German Handball team is playing against the Netherlands at the 2023 Worldcup in Poland and Sweden. When we win, we are qualified for the Quarter final (last 8 of 32 teams). For decades we see the competition between the two countries in Soccer, now we add another sports. The German team did really great so far and is leading by half-time 15:12, much more could be possible we will see in the coming days. 8 minutes to go in the meantime and 9 goals in front (29:20), looking good. Final result 33:26 Quarter final here we come.


Another highlight today is the start of the Divisional Round on the way to the Football Super Bowl LVII. Now 8 teams left and in every game you either finish your season or make it to the next round, excitement is guaranteed.


[20-Jan-23] Quick topics collection


Good to know, or not, before the weekend ...


Or new Aberdeen gnome arrived, the left one, but it took some time due to the Brexit changes and a lot of strikes in the UK. So not in time for Christmas 2022, but super early for Christmas 2023. The right gnome now has a partner, much easier to talk about home :-)


ChatGPT is still not reachable for me, but in the press everywhere. Luckily alternatives are popping up, seems to be a coming market and the next "Gold Rush"? And first concerns about AI created content are getting louder, something to keep an eye on.


  • Microsoft Plans to Build OpenAI, ChatGPT Features Into All Products

  • wordtune: Your thoughts in words
  • YOU: The AI Search Engine You Control
  • Rytr: A better, 10x faster way to write
  • AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit

  • How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact Project Management?

  • These were the biggest AI developments in 2022. Now we must decide how to use them


The surprising Exits of the week are Jacinda Ardern resigns as prime minister of New Zealand and Tom Brady finished the NFL season much earlier than expected.

 

My busy week finished smoothly, the planning phase was successful and the confidence vote after just two days much better than last time, even with one team more to keep an eye on. Now we have 8 teams in our Agile Release Train (ART). Today we finished the planning phase with a Team Building session around Motivation Drivers. 40+ people in two Break-Out sessions had a lot of fun and even learned something new. Positive side effect, I can reuse the workshop next Monday with another team - courageously simplify!!

  • AYODEJI BALOGUN: LEADING COMPLEX, LARGE-SCALE CHANGE WITH HEART

  • Pay Transparency: What It Is and How to Prepare

  • What organizational structure is effective? Use the Organizational Map

  • HOW DO YOU FOCUS AND MAKE THINGS SIMPLE?

  • crosschq: Recruiting Benchmarks & Metrics Report 2023
  • HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS THAT WAKE-UP PEOPLE

  • Sahil Bloom: The 4 Types of Luck
  • Atlas Gets a Grip | Boston Dynamics

  • Agile Forecasting... WITHOUT estimates?

  • 5 trends shaping the world of work -and how ministers and CEOs are addressing them

  • The Wordtune updates that put ChatGPT to shame
  • The Fastest-Growing Jobs Around the World in 2023

  • 5 Signs You’re Much Smarter Than Average

  • 30 Types of Happiness (And Why You Should Try Them All)

  • How many steps a day do we really need to take? Here are the facts

[18-Jan-23] About responsibilities


Making good progress during the busy week


The project system demo last Monday did go pretty smooth and everybody was really impressed and positive about the achieved results. We did get a lot of good feedback from the Senior Management participants, what helps for team motivation going forward.


Yesterday the final preparation of the next 3 month project phase did take longer than expected, as usual because everything has to be ready at the evening before, due to an early start the next day. And with team members from three different time zones that are 5.5 hours in range, you have to be flexible in start and end times.


Today was the first of two planning days and we tried to maximize the Breakout session times for the different teams as much as possible. More work and less administration time is the idea. Tomorrow is Day-2 and we are already pretty far with the details for the coming three month.


As you see on the ChatGPT picture the system is still taking a break, as the growing interest seems to be much higher than the currently available resources. We will see, if this changes shortly? Maybe they have a hidden selection criteria in the background that gives new users higher priority than the ones who had already some interaction with the Bot before? 

[16-Jan-23] Starting a busy week


Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the USA


A busy week is starting and not much time left besides finishing the last and starting the next 3 month project phase this week. Due to this just some pictures and interesting links today.

  • The unseen forces that can cause your great new idea to crash and burn

  • 23 BEST Things I saw in Vegas at CES 2023!

  • Is ChatGPT a Google killer?

  • Most people don't realize how powerful ChatGPT can be when used correctly - by Sam Szuchan

[15-Jan-23] My week 02-2023 highlights


First busy week after the holidays ...


A lot of stuff was still to be done after 3 weeks holiday with the final delivery date coming up tomorrow and the next planning phase starting Wednesday. The team did a great job and we are nearly ready after two Dry-Runs. All is prepared, we just cannot be 100% sure, due to unplanned illness or technical problems. Let's keep the fingers crossed.


The "10 Ways to have a better conversation" sketchnote from Tanmay Vora is a great fit to the ChatGPT discussion earlier. And as you can see on the other picture the Chatbot is currently down as the system is overloaded due to unexpected interest.


Bad timing, as I wanted to ask two more questions:


  1. What do you think about the current capabilities of yourself and what do you see as the top 3 pros and cons of the used technology?
  2. What do you know and think about the Blog behind www.rethinkandfocus.com?


Maybe later today or tomorrow the system is working again.

  • Here's how to (actually) use ChatGPT as effectively as possible

  • The 5 Biggest Fitness and Wellness Technology Trends In 2023

  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (13-Jan-23)

[14-Jan-23] Chatting with ChatGPT


Getting into more details about ChatGPT and the OpenAI capabilities


After the teaser from yesterday I did get into some more details today, created an account and had some first chats with ChatGPT. Really surprising I would say. Selective perception, the more you think about something the more you find and see about the topic.


  • Microsoft in talks to acquire a 49% stake in ChatGPT owner OpenAI


Microsoft was already an early supporter of OpenAI, now they want to get into the driving seat I would say. Either to better control, what is going on. Or to shut a competitor down, Google is already very concerned about ChatGPT.

As the NFL season is now coming to the serious part before the Super Bowl LVII in Feb-23, I did ask ChatGPT one question there, facts and figures work quite well as far as I can judge!!


Now starts the time of Tom Brady, win or go home for the season is his preferred level of pressure and stress, we will see how far it goes shortly, maybe already this weekend?

The statement of ChatGPT about the Turing Test is pretty smart I would say, shows some level of "self-awareness" and self-reflection already.


The answer to my question about the quote from my Blog post from yesterday is nice and political correct. Avoiding any conflicts and not answering anything wrong or stupid. Smarter than a lot of humans :-)

  • Animated Chart: The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)

  • Every Song With Over 1 Billion Spotify Streams

  • Top A.I. Tools of Early 2023

  • DEEP down into ChatGPT's rabbit hole

  • When Big IS the Next Small Step

  • The Dead Horse Theory by Monte Pedersen
  • Tokyo wants to build a future-proof city. Here’s how

  • How to get Scrum Teams comfortable asking for help

  • 4 leadership trends to watch in 2023

  • Want to get — and stay — employed through 2030? 10 jobs to consider (article from 01-Jul-2020)

  • 4 Ways to Rewire Your Brain for Positive Thinking

  • The Biggest Global Risks of 2023

  • Simon Sinek: If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business

  • No Trousers Tube Ride - London Underground 2023

  • The Top 26 Science Books of 2022

  • Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition

  • Can bossless management work?

[13-Jan-23] Friday 13th ...


Quitter’s Day is held on the second Friday in January. This year, it falls on January 13.


"Research has shown that people quit their resolutions for the year by the second Friday of January." Exactly my argument why resolutions make no sense. If you need it, you should start and stop in your own time and not waste your New Year with it. If not, even better.


Dan Rockwell did post a nice article about this topic today - DON’T MAKE STUPID COMMITMENTS


Did you hear about ChatGPT so far? "We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests."


When you read about a topic (ChatGPT) in very different newspapers, it gets more than less hyped in Social Media, market leaders get a little bit concerned (Google) and people you would not expect come up with this topic as well (in this case my 80+ year old father in law), you can be sure it is serious. Last time this happened it was TikTok. Some insights:


  • I Used ChatGPT Every Day for a Month, Here’s What I’ve Learned

  • ChatGPT gained 1 million users in under a week. Here’s why the AI chatbot is primed to disrupt search as we know it


Maybe a good opportunity to discuss about the Turing Test with ChatGPT? - "What Is the Turing Test? The Turing Test is a deceptively simple method of determining whether a machine can demonstrate human intelligence: If a machine can engage in a conversation with a human without being detected as a machine, it has demonstrated human intelligence."

[11-Jan-23] Nudge the world


On a way to the world we dream of


Today a collection of different links and topics that could be related:


  • Poor Habits Lead to Poor Results

  • Navy Seals Can Teach You How to Have an Unbreakable Mindset

  • Development That Pays: Let's put Agile to work! in videos 

  • The secret to a happy life -- lessons from 8 decades of research

  • These 3 smartphone apps are helping to reduce food waste around the globe. Here’s how

[10-Jan-23] Motivation workshop


Decision about the content for two Team Building workshops in Jan-23


In the next two weeks I will be hosting two Team Building workshops for different teams in size, project content and location. For a pretty small team locally at our Duesseldorf Campus and for my Agile Release Train (ART) on the last day of our next 3 month planning cycle. A much larger team with people in Germany, India, Portugal and Brazil for example. Will be interesting to see, how the same workshop works onsite versus online?


Due to a change in our ART setup in late Nov-22 that was agreed to get more focus for a committed delivery by 16-Jan-23, we have seen a lot of increase in motivation and team spirit. A good opportunity to learn a little bit more about individual and team motivation.


In the mindset of "knowing your role models", "stealing with pride" and "copy and transfer" I used the Jurgen Appelo article about The 25 Drives Grid as my starting point.


The current concept is to take a 5 step approach:


  1. Participants reading the article
  2. Selecting up to 6 of the 24 drivers for their individual motivation
  3. Discussing drivers for their team motivation in small groups
  4. Agreeing up to 6 drivers for the team level
  5. Brainstorming: What would be good ideas/changes to increase the current motivation in the team even further, or keep it at the already increased level compared to the time before Nov-22?


This will also work with the smaller local team with some minor adjustments. Keep it simple and reuse good concepts - think once use often ...


  • 9 Future of Work Trends For 2023

  • 8 Ways to Flip the Script on Negative Thoughts

  • Mushrooms and other fashion must-haves

  • The quality every leader should have to succeed in today's world, revealed

Source Youtube: HOW TO BEGIN by Michael Bungay Stanier | Core Message

  • 4 Practical Ways to Get Skills-First Hiring Right

  • Doctor Explains How the Power of Positive Thinking Improves Mental Health

  • THE POWER OF THE WEAK

  • 6 Things You Must Quit Doing Now To Be More Successful

  • 5 charts that show how renewable energy generation has soared

[09-Jan-23] First working day ...


The best way to prioritize?


Besides the approach on the picture you can also use the Eisenhower Matrix for example. For my first day after holidays the focus on Must Do tasks was sufficient. Our System Demo Dry-Run did go smoothly and with the next 3 month planning phase starting on the 18th, it was easy to separate between could, should and must do today.


"Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

[08-Jan-23] The week 01-2023 summary


A quick summary of the last holiday week


Interesting how fast 3 weeks holiday can be over. We had a great Christmas time and start into the new year 2023. And the highlight was the Hamburg visit with the Hamilton Musical. Now work starts again tomorrow and the coming three weeks will be really busy.


We have the dry-run of our System Demo inside our team tomorrow that has been moved out for one week until 17-Jan-23, to get all missing tasks finished before we get in front of our stakeholders. One day later we will already start the planning for the next 3 month phase, still a lot of work to be done by then.


Besides that new Interns will be starting and leaving until the end of Jan-23, and new contracts have to be prepared for starters in March and April this year. 


Today I have seen "The Last Word" comedy - "If Harriett’s to get her positive obituary, she’ll have to resort to desperate measures. Bribes? Threats? Should she simply dictate the obituary she wants written, word by word? Or should Harriett Lauler start living a life worthy of a glowing obituary? Even at 81, maybe it’s not too late to craft a life worth praising in print. Because as Harriett well knows, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." - I liked it a lot and thinking about your future obituary might be an interesting approach in four areas?


What would your family and former colleagues say about you, what would be a surprising factor about yourself, who did you influence to something positive and how? Great questions to think about ...


  • 5 Habits You Should Avoid to Become Highly Productive

  • What Does ChatGPT Really Mean For Businesses?

  • ChatGPT: Everything You Really Need To Know

  • The Highlights Of CES 2023 – The Must-See Products You Can’t Miss This Year

  • The 10 Best Examples Of Low-Code And No-Code AI

  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (06-Jan-23)

[07-Jan-23] Some quick pictures for the weekend


There is a lot of truth in a picture, much easier to understand


Some examples below, have a great weekend.

  • France’s plan for solar panels on all car parks is just the start of an urban renewable revolution

  • The ripple effect of a coaching culture at work

  • CES 2023 Day 1 favorites-Dell 6K Monitor, Acer electricity generating bike desk, AI exoskeleton, and more

  • A new space-based invention will radically improve climate change forecasts - here’s how

  • Animals on the brink: Why extinctions matter

  • Real-world data quality: What are the opportunities and challenges?


“If there is anything I would like to be remembered for it is that I helped people understand that leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. To repeat myself, leadership is not just about you. It’s about them.” – Jack Welch, taken from Famous Quotes on Coaching for Leaders

There is a really interesting LinkedIn post using the picture with the three kids - This post from Joe Rogan will help all of us keep things in perspective today.


  • Our 10 Favorite Book Bites of 2022

  • 4 SIGNS YOU LACK EXECUTIVE PRESENCE AND HOW TO EARN IT BACK

  • These smart mini-robots could soon clean and inspect pipes

  • Stronger material in 3D printing could one day be used on Mars - but how?

[06-Jan-23] Review of my 2022 JAR content


Writing is the path to clarity." -- Pejman Milani


As promised on 28-Dec-22 I did open my JAR today and reviewed the success and fail notes of 2022. In total I had 62 notes, 29 work and 29 private life related ones. Only 4 fails - one for the Russia invasion in the Ukraine in Feb-22, one more for the stock exchanges going down due to this. Then one for a broken Linux Mint installation - I decided to install a newer version over the existing one as alternative to a new install from scratch, what was the approach in the end as the update did not work as expected. The last fail was related to a marketing department that did not understand my NO to their offer immediately, so I had to repeat it several times for them.


A lot of the private life successes had been related to my BLOG, to the overall counter, weekly or 5 week average reader records, an article series about Symbiosis that I finished in Jan-22. Fits to the thinking versus writing picture today, as well as the Sahil Bloom 1-1-1 methodEvery single evening, at the end of your work day, open up your journal (or favorite digital tool/application) and write down three simple points: 1 win, 1 point of tension and 1 point of gratitude.


The other private life topics were related to e.g. finishing books, learning new stuff, nice holidays, meeting friends, celebrating events with the family, taking care of must do tasks (one-time or yearly), a new bike, etc.


In the work environment the success notes had been related to three main areas:


  1. Hosting Workshops
    • Several Unique Selling Point workshops for Teams or our Talent Program
    • Team Building Workshops for several teams and after every PI planning 
    • The 2nd Data & Analytics Meetup and two break-out sessions for a management meeting
  2. Agile activities
    • Nomination as Scrum Master for the New Leadership transformation project
    • Nomination as Release Train Engineer for our 2nd ART, running four PI's during 2022
    • Streamlining the project and reducing the planning effort from 3 to 2 days 
  3. Feelgood management
    • Taking care of Interns before, during and after their Internship
    • Driving the "5-minute" learning posts from 601 posts until 1,650+ in the meantime
    • Getting a lot of positive feedback from the Interns and peope following the learning posts


Was a really great experience today, to review the year 2022 based on the 62 notes. Will do it again for 2023 and did put the 1st two notes into the JAR today.

My take on Dan Rockwell's article on "2023 will be a success if _______.


  • I can follow my general direction to "Start simple, it always becomes complex over time"
  • I can become a role model for people who think, what I am doing is a good example
  • I can find more good examples like Dan and Sahil, as I am far away from being perfect. Know your strength and weakness ...
  • I have fun and can easily balance life and work and can be successful in both areas
  • I share more information and increase my number of followers

[05-Jan-23] Back from the two day Musical trip


“It is better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” ~ George Washington


We had much fun in the HAMILTON Musical yesterday and learned a lot about the main character Alexander Hamilton "one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers. He was an impassioned champion of a strong federal government, and played a key role in ratifying the U.S. Constitution. As the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Hamilton built a financial foundation for the new nation against fierce opposition from archrival Thomas Jefferson."


A great story, a great cast, good music, songs, voices and a really matching stage design. Worth seeing and listening, three hours well spend.


Before the Musical we made a short sightseeing trip in Hamburg, only downside was the rain, something you cannot influence. Great was the public transport system, really cheap prices, good connections and short waiting times. If all public transport systems in all main cities would be on a similar level, this would be a real alternative to cars. Still a long way to go for e.g. Cologne and Duesseldorf the main cities in my area, their prices are much higher and the integration of different transport systems are far away from role models like Hamburg and Berlin. 


During the Musical trip the PDC World Champion finished with a great final and a new Champion - "Michael Smith produced the performance of his career to defeat Michael van Gerwen 7-4 and claim his first Cazoo World Darts Championship title in an incredible final at Alexandra Palace on Tuesday (03-Jan-23)". Both played THE GREATEST LEG OF ALL TIME with 17/18 perfect darts. Michael Smith finished 501 points with 9 darts (7 x triple-20, 1 x triple-19 and the final double-12), Michael van Gerven missed the double-12 in the end. See the video for confirmation.


He deserved to win the 1st Championship in his 3rd final !! Super high level game.


“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” ~ John Wooden, taken from 33 Expressions That Have Stood the Test of Time by Frank Sonnenberg


  • Dan Rockwell: 2023 WILL BE A SUCCESS IF

  • Dan Rockwell: 5 WAYS TO EXPOSE YOUR INNER CRITIC

  • Sahil Bloom: 23 Ways to Make 2023 Your Miracle Year
  • The promise and challenges of sustainable travel products

  • The New Happy: You are all worthy of love
  • Why the 4-Day Workweek is Gathering New Momentum

  • The power of generosity in ecosystems

  • The route to longer life? 30 minutes a week of muscle-strengthening exercises, new study says

  • Updates to WSJF © Scaled Agile, Inc.

  • Timeline: The Most Important Science Headlines of 2022

[02-Jan-23] World Darts Championship Semi-Finals


GABRIEL CLEMENS the "GERMAN GIANT" writing Darts history again?


Another 90 minutes to go before Gabriel will play his Semi-Final at the PDC World Darts Championship, the 1st time for him and for a German player in history so far. He had a great game against the #1 in the Darts world yesterday and will play against the last year finalist today. Looking forward to it and hopefully his impressive journey will be going on to the final?


On the left side the statistics of my 5th eBOOK with respect to overall word count and the most used words. The same information for all 5 eBOOKs together with the blue background, 478k words so far.


The beginning of the year is always time for statistics, finishing old and restarting new tasks. Like the eBOOK and the word count. To review the content of my 2022 JAR is still on the list, but has to wait until the Hamburg visit is over.


As I will be away for two days, some interesting material to check out besides my 5th eBOOK :-)


  • Biggest drone display ever! - Guinness World Records

  • 23 lessons for Coaches setting yearly goals in 2023

  • 10 ways to get the most out of your time on this planet (from Jan-22)

  • HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023 (by Dan Rockwell)

  • INCIDENTAL COMICS: Effort

  • Comic Agile: #222 – The Dangerous Stakeholders
  • Tanmay Vora: Looking Back, Looking Forward!


"Every time I play darts I try to keep my poker face on and stay focused until that last dart has gone in." -- Fallon Sherrock, English - Entertainer Born: July 1, 1994

[01-Jan-23] The week 52-2022 highlights


Closing the year 2022 ...


Just finished putting together my 5th eBOOK. It is already available via the Downloads button in the main menu/page. 388 pages with all my content, pictures and links from 2022. This is more than one page per day. Have a look, worth checking it out I would say, but I am not objective ...


I did also create a PDF file with all my five eBOOKs today, just for me 2,246 pages in total, as reference and to search for interesting topics that I did cover in the past already. Very valuable once in a while, when you quickly look for different references related to one topic.


One the picture today an overview of the 4,627 visits on my BLOG page since I started on the new hosting platform on 08-Dec-22. As the statistics page is making a different between USA and the individual federal states, I had to add all up to one total number and percentage. Giving a really good overview of the main reader countries as well as the global distribution of all interested parties so far.


This week we will be going to Hamburg to see the Hamilton Musical. Finally, as we had to move the date two times due to COVID-19 before. Waiting for it will be worth it, according to what my daughters did tell me about the music and story so far. We will see in the coming week ...


  • Queen guitarist Brian May, fashion designer Mary Quant top U.K. honors list

  • The Top 10 Tech Trends In 2023 Everyone Must Be Ready For

  • The Top 5 Technology Challenges In 2023

  • Top 5 In-Demand Tech Skills For Jobs In 2023

  • The 5 Biggest Business Trends In 2023 Everyone Must Get Ready For Now

  • How To Build A Positive Hybrid And Remote Working Culture In 2023

  • Infographic: Automation May Not Come for Everyone's Job After All

I had a day off yesterday to celebrate the 19th wedding anniversary with my wife. It is called the Honeysuckle one, or Mother of pearl in Germany. The German name sounds better, anyway it was really nice and much too warm for a Winter day. Today it will be even above 17 degrees celsius, time for shorts and not New Years Eve. More global warming ...


The review of my 2022 and finishing the 5th eBOOK will happen in the coming days. Goal setting for 2023 is easy: No new year resolutions, staying authentic, sharing knowledge/ideas/experience, having fun and enjoying life-work coexistence. All the best for your 2023.


  • Scott Galloway: 2023 Predictions

  • 3 reasons why the future of carbon capture looks promising

  • This chart shows the growth of India's economy

  • Sahil Bloom: The Best of 2022

[31-Dec-22] Last day of 2022 ...


Just another 9+ hours to go in Germany


Close to the new year 2023 and the three famous people on the picture died in the last week of 2022.


  • “I was born to play football, just like Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint.” — Pelé (born: October 23, 1940 - died: December 29, 2022)

  • “Fashion is about eventually being naked.” — Vivienne Westwood (born: April 8, 1941 - died: December 29, 2022)

  • “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the center of your lives.”
    Pope Benedict XVI (born: April 16, 1927 - died: December 31, 2022)


Just assume these three would be sitting together in a train on their last journey, where ever this is going? Interesting topics to be covered: How you win three soccer World Cups as player? How you combine Punk music and fashion? How you retire as Pope and cause a lot of issues, as there is no pension fund planned and no appartment available, besides the crypt with former Pope graves :-)


They all did go their own way against the pressure and different opinions from the outside, a good concept.

[29-Dec-22] More Artificial Intelligence generated pictures ...


"Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species."


In the picture below the results of my first test run by using the Midjourney Bot on the official Discord server today. The key words had been "baby olaf skull spider woman 3d photorealistic", not so bad I would say?

The other test picture is even better, with "baby yoda surfing giant wave with spider man suite", or what do you think?


Two days to go, take a break and have some fun:


  • Join the Gretchen Rubin Challenge: Go Outside 23 in 23
  • Top Heavy: Countries by Share of the Global Economy

  • NOTHING BUT NUGGETS FROM THE TOP POSTS OF 2022

  • Digging into the details, this map compares our world’s rivers and mountains

  • Next Big Idea Club: Our 10 Favorite Book Bites of 2022
  • Why the circular economy is the business opportunity of our time

  • Achim Nowak: MY FOURTH ACT Podcast


“I will have all the answers when I am older, like why we are in this dark, enchanted wood. I know in a couple years, these will seem like childish fears, and so I know it isn’t bad, it’s good.” – Olaf taken from 90 Olaf Quotes From the Most Popular Snowman

[28-Dec-22] Status of my 2022 JAR


Quite some changes between the start on 03-Jan-22 and today, 3 more days left ...


As you can read in my 2022 eBOOK on 03-Jan-22 the JAR was to collect my "successes" and "fuck-ups" during this year. Pretty full in the meantime, I think I had more than one note per week. Reading all the details will be an interesting recap of 2022.


After the Personal Annual Review of 2022 approach by Sahil Bloom that I mentioned back on 21-Dec-22, today the next step his Annual Planning Guide, see the summary below (Sahil is offering a free template again):


  1. Establish Big Goals within Professional and Personal category.
  2. Establish Checkpoint Goals for each Big Goal.
  3. Establish Daily Systems associated with each Big and Checkpoint Goal.
  4. Establish Anti-Goals for each Big Goal.
  5. Execute against Daily Systems using the Two-Day Rule, 30-for-30 Approach, Minimum Viable Progress, or Habit Stacking models.
  6. Track and adjust using the 1-in-60 Rule Monthly Review.


Together on the JAR picture from today you can see my new book - HOW THE MIGHTY FALL by Jim Collins - he did also write the really famous GOOD TO GREAT book. So far really interesting material, but I just started :-)


“The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed.” — James C. Collins taken from 51 Inspirational Jim Collins Quotes

Some best of 2022 TED Playlists, have a look:

  • 4 Ways You Can Shape How Others Perceive You and Build an Outstanding Personal Brand
  • Vodafone's mobile network has a digital twin

  • Learning Fundamentals: My favourite books for 2022
  • Frank Sonnenberg: You Bear Sole Responsibility for Your Circumstances
  • AI generated MARVEL BABIES | Turquoise TV

There are so many ideas, what you can do to reflect on a full year, why not using the 21 questions? The article behind the picture goes into much more details and examples, have a look.


"By three methods we may learn wisdom. First, by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest and third by experience which is bitterest."

Confucius, taken from Top 100 Reflection Quotes To Gain Perspective


  • 4 leadership trends to watch in 2023

  • Ranked: The 100 Biggest Public Companies in the World

  • Boushra Almutawakel: The Hijab Series

  • The New Happy: To all those pursuing a dream
  • How deep learning can improve productivity and boost business

  • Leadership 2.0: How To Exceed Your Goals In 2023

[27-Dec-22] Some good pictures today ...


As one picture says more than 1,000 words, I am saving some words today :-)


Tsundoku - "A beautiful Japanese word for the acquiring and piling up of books without reading them. Constructed from 2 words loosely meaning piling up and reading".


Perfect fit to our sustainable Christmas tree this year, see my 23-Dec-22 post. The majority of the books have been read in 2022 and piled up in the form of a tree, so let's call it a 75% Tsundoku.


As a side note: Due to the new hosting provider of my BLOG I cannot reference single posts with the URL anymore, sorry for that. You have to download the eBOOK and search for the right post in the PDF document. Not the best solution for a one time search, but quite comfortable if you search for several times or different posts.

[26-Dec-22] Hope you had some great holidays?


Starting the remaining days of 2022


The NFL did just take a short Christmas break, because there is not much time left until Super Bowl LVII, it will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday, February12, 2023.


As you can see on the picture, the value of a whole team is not at all connected to the success in the league und the current playoff picture. The LA Rams, the last season winner and a high valuable team, is not even on the picture yet. Only money does not win championships.

An interesting information about the most innovative countries in the last 11 years, especially when you compare it with the PISA 2018 results, see Mathematics and Science on page 7 and 8 of this PDF document for example. Countries like e.g. Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland and Sweden are showing up pretty high in the ranking on both lists. Seems to be no coinidence.


The PDC 2023 World Darts Championship is picking up speed again tomorrow after a short Christmas break with the last 32 players. Still two German players in the championship that will finish on 03-Jan-23. 


  • NEVER FINISHED by David Goggins | Core Message

  • How to Improve Your Decision-Making

  • Space: The Next Frontier For Data And Artificial Intelligence

  • Rethinking The Future (by Tony Seba): The Great Transformation

  • How can individuals use their influence for positive change?

[23-Dec-22] A small Christmas break 


Taking a two days posting break to celebrate Christmas with the family


As you can see on the left picture our sustainable Christmas tree out of books is ready. Still a kind of tree, just out of paper in the meantime and with a similar silhouette. My daughters did struggle a little bit with the amount of books required and the right concept to get a tree like look-and-feel with the best possible hight. Some more years to go and we will have a perfect tree out of books, for sure. Enough DIY's are available, but finding it out on your own is also a lot of fun and better to learn about a proper building process.


Wishing you a great Christmas time with your family and friends.


“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.” -- Shirley Temple, taken from 50 Best Christmas Quotes to Get You Into the Holiday Spirit


  • Visual Capitalist: Our Top 21 Visualizations of 2021
  • Visual Capitalist’s Top 20 Visualizations of 2020
  • We desperately need to disrupt our approach to retirement saving

[22-Dec-22] A diverse list of topics ...


Interesting material to check out during a break


Make your own selection, what is of most interest for you today. And tomorrow you can make another choice ...


Source Youtube: How to Take a Brain Break | Jim Kwik                                                                                   Source Youtube: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen | Takaharu Tezuka

  • 5 Workplace Trends to Lose in 2023 and 3 That Need to Keep Going

  • pwc1: Strategic coherence for tumultuous times

  • pwc2: Empower to transform
  • pwc3: The overlooked power of day-to-day dynamism
  • FORTUNE Rankings 2022 and before
  • ECOSIA financial reports and blog
  • Plant-for-the-Planet blog
  • The best HR & People Analytics articles of December 2022


“There is nothing wrong with people’s brainpower; there is something very wrong with people’s perception of reality.” -- Dr. Eli Goldratt

“You think Yoda stops teaching, just because his student does not want to hear? A teacher Yoda is. Yoda teaches like drunkards drink, like killers kill.” – Yoda, taken from 40 Yoda Quotes That Will Leave You With All the Star Wars Feels

[21-Dec-22] Collecting ideas for 2023


Using the quiet time and holiday period to ReThinkandFocus


The Everyday Change Play Book: Because change doesn't need to be shit - arrived today already. When I am quick and the book is not that thick, it can still become part of our sustainable christmas tree, based on all the read books in the family during 2022? We will see.


My first day of the holidays and this was my highlight. The breaking news on the news channel I follow (the translation from German) - "At some distance from Earth, a team of researchers observes a large exoplanet in its death throes: According to their calculations, Kepler-1658b is getting closer and closer to its star as time goes by - a collision is inevitable."


I like the some distance from Earth statement as well as the urgency of the collision. When you read the article in more details, here an English version, you understand that the distance is 2,600 lightyears and the collision is expected to happen in 2.5 million years from now. Luckily I did not miss this message, so I am prepared in time :-)


Just in case you want to do a Personal Annual Review of 2022, here an idea from Sahil Bloom with 7 questions. He is offering a free download template:


  1. What did I change my mind on this year?
  2. What created energy this year?
  3. What drained energy this year?
  4. Who were the boat anchors in my life?
  5. What did I not do because of fear?
  6. What were my greatest hits and misses?
  7. What did I learn this year?


“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” — Phil Jackson, taken from 49 Famous Teamwork Quotes And Sayings


  • This Algae Powered a Computer for a Year With Just Water and Sunlight

  • Why Internal Mobility Should Be a Top Priority Right Now

  • Student-made solar-powered car sets a new world record by traveling 620 miles

  • unFIX: The Multiteaming Way: Organized Anarchy at a Startup Company
  • Ask Yourself What Really Matters

  • The power couple: Why solar and storage are key to reducing geopolitical risk and securing access to energy

[20-Dec-22] Year end coming closer ...


Had a great team come-together today


As mentioned yesterday we had the final whole team meeting today. We did take a look back in 2022, reviewed the status quo of the project and, what will be coming early 2023. A great session with a lot of fun and involvement. We did select the Role Model of the year - a person who someone admires and whose behaviour they try to copy.


In the end we had two winners, selected by the team and everybody had 3 votes. One was an obvious choice the other one more a secret favorite. He was very much surprised to see his name and appreciated the choice of his colleagues a lot. An early Christmas present for him.


In the end I used the opportunity to make some marketing for my Blog, especially with the India feature from yesterday. In the current Statistics visitors from India are only 13th place with 1.23%. There should be much more possible :-)


At the end of the day I started my Christmas holidays until 06-Jan-23, really looking forward to a more quiet period and some time to read a book. One on my list is - The Everyday Change Play Book: Because change doesn't need to be shit.


  • Management 3.0 Blog

  • Lisette Sutherland - Interview with Jurgen Appelo

  • 16 PRACTICAL WAYS TO BE AN INSPIRATIONAL LEADER

  • ‘A New World of Work Requires a New Way to Lead’—Stephen M.R. Covey, McKinlee Covey, and Doug Conant on Leadership in 2023

  • Differentiate Yourself as a Leader: 4 Ways to Challenge the Status Quo

  • The power of incremental momentum

  • [German only] Führungskräfte empfehlen: Diese Business-Bücher solltest du 2023 lesen
  • 10 DOS AND 7 DON’TS FOR MENTORING MILLENNIALS

  • How trees make oxygen, and other ways they are vital to human existence

  • What Santa Gets Right About Workplace Culture

  • 10 Ways To Spot A Truly Exceptional Employee

[19-Dec-22] Interesting insights


Never thought about the size and the numbers


"Hypothetically, if India’s states were to all became countries today, they would take up half the spots in a ranking of the world’s top 20 most populous countries."


When you look at the numbers you will realize that a lot of countries would fit into the whole population of India. I am working with Indian teams for a lot of time already, but did never take this perspective. You can always learn new stuff, when you are ready to change.

Find a 3.5 minute video summary of the book at Managing Transition William Bridges by Constance Jenkins Pritchard.


Our Sprint-4 Demo today was a great success and we could show a lot of progress on our journey until 09-Jan-23. Tomorrow we will finish the year with a 1-hour get-together, to recap our accomplishments, to celebrate the good work a little bit and to get aligned for our way forward in 2023.

[18-Dec-22] My week 50-2022 summary


911 visitors between 12- and 18-Dec-22


10 days running on the new Blog platform now. I still have to get used to the missing counter and the different way used as basis for their Statistics page, but on the other side there is still a lot of new functionality to explore and to be used in the future. We will see ...


The new World Cup winner is Argentina, congratulations after 36 years again, and Morocco the surprise team from Africa finally finished on the 4th place of 32 teams, respect!!


Just two days work left next week then I start my Christmas holiday until 06-Jan-23, looking forward to it. Before that we have our Sprint-4 demo tomorrow, where we present the current status of our Proof of Concept for the first time. We still have time left until 09-Jan-23 to finish it, but it will be a great 1st milestone for the teams as well as the stakeholders to see how far we did come until now. Will be a lot of pressure, but also fun and satisfaction, we will find out.


On Tuesday we will celebrate the first year of our Agile Release Train (ART) in a before the year end come together with the whole team. We will do a short summary of the accomplishments so far, maybe the outcome of the demo tomorrow and an outlook for the next year. When we deliver to our commitments, we will have a great future in the comming years.

We had an interesting discussion about our Christmas tree for this year today. It was quicky clear that we will go for a sustainable solution that does mean no real tree and not one in a flower pot with roots anymore, as the last two one we had did not survive after Christmas. We will put a light chain on the tree we have on our balcony anyway and did discuss about putting pictures of previous year Christmas trees on the balcony door in the form of a tree as our 1st idea. In the end it will be a tree out of piled books, all the ones that had been read during 2022. For more ideas see 20 Alternative DIY Christmas Tree Ideas.


  • The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (16-Dec-22)

  • The Future Of Cloud-Based Data, Analytics, and Machine Learning: Highlights from AWS re:Invent 2022

  • Five Important IT And Security Trends For 2023

  • The Top 4 Customer Experience Trends In 2023

  • Is Our Digital Future At Risk Because Of The Gen Z Skills Gap?

[17-Dec-22] Change is possible ...


More options mean more opportunites to select from, but also being open for change !!


I had to update my Blog post from yesterday this morning, as the order of text and pictures did not make sense while reading it on a mobile phone. Luckily the new Blog hosting company is offering a dedicated format option for mobile phones. I used the new option and now everything is fine. Going forward I will always check the mobile phone formatting, to be sure that every reader gets the best possible experience of my posts, because 75% of the overall readers of my Blog use a mobile phone to do it. Thanks a lot to the really detailed Statistics part at one.com.


With respect to the counter I finally decided to go with the standard Statistics page of my hosting company. Might not be perfect solution and comparable to the previous use of the counter on the old hosting platform, BUT I have to be open to be changed :-) and this is, what I do.


The Statistics page counts Total visits on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, starting on 08-Dec-22 when the domain was migrated. According to the definition below a good compromise from my perspective.


"Visit - A visit is a continuous browsing event with no more than a 15 minute break between requests. The requests must come from the same browser and the same IP. So, as long as a visitor clicks somewhere on your site every 15 minutes, it is counted within the same visit. If the visitor doesn't do anything for more than 15 minutes and then clicks again, this is counted as new visit."

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift... that's why they call it the present!” -- Master Oogway


  • Climatarian, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan: Which diet is best for the planet? (And what do they mean?)

  • Mapped: The World’s Countries Compared by 20 Key Metrics

  • ‘Wind and Solar Are Proving Themselves’: Renewables Met Rise in Electricity Demand During First Half of 2022

  • Great to see, when former colleagues are making their way to success - AmCham Bulgaria CEO Ivan Mihaylov Comments on Bulgaria's Relationship with US Investors
  • This MIT research could help us unlock smaller, lighter and safer batteries

Post updated 17-Dec-22 to have proper order on mobile phones

[16-Dec-22] Do you get this joke?


Just a matter of interest or age ...


When you like cartoons, but never heard about The Roadrunner and the Coyote from The Looney Tunes before, this joke might be hard to understand?


"The Acme Corporation is a corporation that features prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons as a running gag featuring outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times." - so much about ACME ...

In summary the key point in communication is, be aware of your audience and their diversity types, not only with respect to a