How most companies’ policies get established

True? True! Laugh IT loud on the Monkey Experiment:

Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling.

Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.

One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious. But undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder.

All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why.

However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.

A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him.

This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he’s not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he’s attacking the new monkey.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.

And that is how most companies’ policies get established.

Complexity

Recently I came along Johnnie Moore´s post in which he comments on a presentation that Dave Snowden held in Singapore on “Complexity in Government“.

And I agree that in slides and podcast there is serious food for thought.

One quick takeaway:

In nature, stability and resilience are opposed. A stable system lacks resilience and a resilient systems lacks stability. So it’s ok to stabilise things if you’ve got certainty of future; if you’ve got uncertainty you can’t afford stability you’ve actually got to introduce inefficiency.. if you don’t have a degree of inefficiency in the system it loses its evolutionary potential.

Insurance against project failure

for Vendors. Pete Swabey on InformationAdvantage explains:

The number of IT projects that end in failure is staggering. According to a 2007 study by researcher Market Dynamics, 62% of all IT projects miss their deadlines, 49% go over budget and 41% fail to deliver the benefits that were expected. That is worrying enough for IT departments.

But for consultants and software vendors, keenly aware that project failure could well result in litigation, it is a constant concern. It is that concern that specialist insurer Hiscox addresses with its offering to IT vendors, insuring them against being sued by their customers. And it is a genuine danger. Stephen Wares, UK manager of Hiscox’s IT practice, tells of a small software development company with a turnover of £5 million that was sued for £18 million for the alleged failure of a project (the suit was eventually unsuccessful).

And the reasons he tells about are so well-know: bad specifications, overselling in the sales pitch, lax or non-existent change management.

The Arduino has landed…

I admit it, I am too curious to pass the opportunity to play with another gadget.

Today has a Arduino landed, fast shipped from Watterod. What a nice toy.

Some link for those that ask themselves “what the hell is an Arduino”.

The projects homepage: www.arduino.cc

Good books on Arduino from O´Reilly:

German c´t had an article recently and as a nice page with a hell of links.

Ideas for dozens answers the question “Why the Arduino Matters“, and yes, this could be true.

Jan-Piet Mens has created a monitor for Nagios and Icinga, the Naguino.

An interesting project is TinkerKit, an Arduino-compatible physical computing prototyping toolkit aimed at design professionals. Still under development, but very interesting.

And finally, O´Reilly has also a book on Arduino in german:

Ganz ohne Internetsperren

Hallo Ursula, geht doch auch so:

Gesuchter Kinderschänder stellt sich

Und das nach nicht mal einem Tag Öffentlichkeitsfahndung. Beeindruckend. Da hätten die Internetsperren auch nicht schneller sein können.

Aber darum geht es ja in Wirklichkeit gar nicht. Danke Udo für die klaren Worte.

Interesting thoughts on Software pricing

Jett Atwood on CodingHorror: Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?

Worth a reading, and interesting insight. Once you have covered the production cost for software, you just need to cover the distribution cost if you distribute electronically. Then a low pricepoint could lead to significant higher sales in total.

Google Meeting Culture

BusinessWeek: How to Run a Meeting Like Google (via)

The countdown watch is a tough element, but I guess you have to do it like this with a meeting schedule of 70+ per week.

Closed platforms are like ice cubes in a glass of water

Closed platforms are like ice cubes in a glass of water. They float for a while. They change the temperature of the liquid. Ultimately however, the ice cube eventually melts into the wider web.

Jean-Marc Liotier in a comment to an worth reading article in the LA Times about Twitter (which is down at the moment…)

(via)

various picks

Paul Graham: Maker´s Schedule, Manager´s Schedule – and why they don´t go well together

Umair Haque: The Nichepaper Manifesto

Journalists didn’t make 20th century newspapers profitable — readers did.

…

Nichepapers, in contrast, do meaningful stuff that matters the most. The great failing of 20th century news is that monopoly power became a substitute for meaningful value creation. At root, that’s the lesson that newspapers are learning the hard way.

Vanity Fair: Palin’s Resignation: The Edited Version – interesting to see what can be made with some editing of a poor speech.

Cory Doctorow in the Guardian: Chris Anderson’s Free adds much to The Long Tail, but falls short – thoughtful critique

myMoleskine – make your own pages: MSK

Web Worker Daily: 10 Useful Thunderbird Add-ons for Almost Everybody – a lot of things I yet did not know about (but so far have not looked for as well)

LifeHacker:  The First 10 Free Apps to Install on a New Windows PC – you could argue about some picks, but there is also a lot of must-haves in the comments

Der Unterschied zwischen Leistung und Erfolg

Michael Groß im Gespräch mit der FAZ:

Sie haben innerhalb von 24 Stunden zweimal Gold gewonnen. Waren das die zwei intensivsten Tage ihres Lebens?

Nein. Was intensiv war, war der 30. Juli. Da habe ich die 100 Meter Delfin mit Weltrekord gewonnen, relativ überraschend, es war ein Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen mit dem damaligen Weltrekordhalter Pablo Morales. Wenn ich ein Rennen nennen sollte, das nahezu perfekt gelaufen ist in meinem Leben, dann ist es dieses. Dann war eineinviertel Stunden später die 4×200-Meter-Kraulstaffel. Da sind wir viereinhalb Sekunden unter dem Weltrekord gewesen, ein traumhaftes Rennen, es hat eigentlich alles gepasst. Und trotzdem sind wir nur Zweiter geworden, hinter den Amerikanern. Das hat mich bis heute insofern geprägt, weil ich den Unterschied zwischen Leistung und Erfolg gelernt habe. Du kannst die höchste Leistung bringen und trotzdem nicht erfolgreich sein.