By tomorrow evening you will be visiting the new site with some new exciting features - enjoy.
One of the many lessons I have learned from my research both inside and outside corporate corridors:
When you are ahead - it is time to change, innovate to stay ahead.
Tomorrow you can expect a new look and feel, more opportunities to enjoy the content through different media and new possibilities to interact and add to the site.
Over the past few years we have consistently ranked number one on many key searches - we intend to add to these over the next few years.
Enjoy.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 03:50 PM
Want to get that edge over the competition if you are a speaker?
Well recent studies are suggesting that popping a Modafinil drug may be the answer. Improved mental ability without the side effects of caffeine or amphetamines, is the reward for pill poppers.
I would recommend a more natural solution. Following your purpose, and you will execute any presentation with energy and enthusiasm, regardless of conditions previous to the event.
I recall vividly addressing a major Leadership conference last year - before the keynote my nose was running like Niagara Falls, and I was finding it quite difficult to stop sneezing...as you would with a cold. The minute I turned on the microphone, as if by magic, my illness disappeared mysteriously to return.....after my three hour presentation.
When you are doing what you love with a focus on contribution, being in flow is your natural state and nothing gets in the way of an effortless, enthusiastic delivery.
So avoid the pills and find passion and flow in purpose.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 11:26 AM
What a fantastic weekend for Irish Golf as Padraig Harrington won his first major tournament, the British Open.
Much could be learned from his performance:
- the importance of focus, even when he was five or six shots behind in the early part of the round, he continued to focus on his game disregarding the leader board. Control was you can control was obviously the message. He was in the zone for most of his round.
- the power of perseverance - obviously failure is part of the game, you learn from it, readapt, and try again. He managed to exorcise his demons on eighteen the second time around with a different strategy. Any bad shot was a shot closer to him achieving his dream.
- preparation, both mental and physical - Not only could he visualise his preferred shots, he also admitted in the interview that he had convinced himself that this week was his week to shine. It was his tournament before he even played a shot.
- humble and real. I was impressed by his humility in victory. No prepared soundbyes, only emotion.
Well done Padraig, we are very proud of you.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:16 AM
"They will support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."
Nelson Mandela at the launch of "The Elders," an international group of elder statesmen whose aim is to solve world problems.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 07:52 PM
One thing that perplexes me alot - why do retail outlets insist on putting an expiry date on a credit note? So effectively speaking your peice of paper goes out of date!
Customer service at its worse, and a procedure used by many retail outlets around the world.
One could understand why many customers wouldnt be too loyal to those businesses.
Remember it cost four times more to attract a new client, in contrast to servicing an exisiting one. Wakey, wakey!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:47 AM
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:10 AM
Probably one of the attributes of a truly great Leader is empathy - the ability to walk in other persons shoes, to understand their needs and dreams and so on.
Last week our Prime Minister when addressing the ICTU conference in Bundoran, Donegal remarked that he didnt know why people who engaged in cribbing and moaning about the economy "dont commit suicide."
Empathy?
I was horrified and upset by this comment - indeed I was also very unimpressed by the handful of people in the audience who laughed at the comment.
It certainly made me think of the famous Hindu quotation which warns that " the blind lead the blind into the ditch."
Suicide is one of the biggest challenges facing our society claiming more lives than those tragically killed on the roads.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:19 AM
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Max DePree
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 06:17 PM
Happy Independence Day to all my visitors and clients Stateside.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 11:10 PM
Excerpt from Bill Gates presentation at Harvard:
"When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.
In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don’t have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.
Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.
You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.
Knowing what you know, how could you not?"
Take his lead - focus on making a difference in the world.....travel the narrow path; focus on giving, and you will receive meaning and magic in return.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:02 AM
Humility:
"Good leaders must first become good servants."
Robert Greenleaf.
“When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.”
Lao Tzu
Willing to learn.
"Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn, than when they teach."
Rosabeth Moss Kantor
Willingness to listen
“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Colin Powell
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:11 AM