The water-cooler, coffee-making machine and photocopier are all venues for employee interaction in the workplace. They're places where amid idle chit-chat and gossip, important ideas and information are sometimes exchanged. It's precisely this kind of exchange that organizations are trying to encourage. Engineering similar social interaction in the organization has proved extremely difficult however.
For example, at Scandinavian Air Systems (SAS) in the 1980s, part of the headquarters received a radical makeover. It was transformed into a street scene with shops and meeting rooms. This was no doubt a pleasant change from the usual corporate HQ foyer, but it didn't make much difference to employee behaviour. Open-plan offices, hot-desking and other tweaking of the internal office architecture also had mixed results. Nowadays companies are increasingly global and what's more increasingly virtual. The water cooler interaction doesn't happen any more, so water-cooler culture can't percolate into the wider corporate culture.
Fortunately for organizational heads (as well as lovers of informal conversation) two business school academics, John Weeks (an assistant professor at INSEAD in Fontainebleu France), and Anne-Laure Fayard (an assistant professor at Brooklyn's Polytechnic University) have deconstructed that water-cooler or photocopier moment so as to bring us the rules of engagement. How did they do it? Simple, they just videoed people's behaviour in the photocopy room - not after the office party, though.
So we all know when someone is lying, right? It's a key negotiating skill. Those telltale signs are a real giveaway: fidgeting, a shifty demeanour, refusing to look you in the eye, nervous blinking, stroking the back of the head, scratching the nose etc.
Wrong. Recent research from Dr Samantha Mann, a psychologist at Portsmouth University in the UK shows that rather than fidgeting and looking shifty, liars tend to be thinking harder; so they're actually moving less. Self-adaptor gestures - like touching the hair, face etc, - are less common with liars. So too is pointing.
Some gestures are more com-mon with liars. The metaphoric gesture - holding hands apart to show size, as in "the fish was this big" - are 25 per cent more common with liars. Emblematic gestures - putting the thumb up to indicate everything is OK - are also slightly more common with liars. As is the rhythmic gesture - jabbing finger into air.
Mann has also carried out research on suspects' behaviour during police interviews. Liars blinked less than the truthful suspects. They also paused more often while speaking. In fact 81 per cent of suspects paused longer or blinked less when telling fibs.
So next time someone tells you that they can't.... go any..... lower ......on price, while, looking you in the eye without blinking, making a "go lower" gesture and occasionally jabbing the air-it's safe to assume there is still a little way to go on price.
If you think a mashup is a fry-up with a difference, think again. Mashups are websites or web applications that mix content from different sources to create a new service. The content usually comes from a third party through a public interface or a web feed like RSS.
If blogs revolutionized internet publishing then mashups are promising to do the same for web development. Now people are mashing up data sourced from popular sites like Amazon, eBay or Google and reconstituting it for general consumption.
housingmaps.com, for example, combines Craigslist and Google maps to show where properties are located. There are many other examples that use Google maps, check them here.
When Guy Goma pitched up at the BBC for a job interview as a data support cleanser (whatever that may be) he got more than he bargained for. Instead of finding himself in front of an interviewer being grilled on the finer points of data cleansing, Goma was mistaken for another Guy -- Guy Kewney -- an IT expert, taken to a studio and asked three questions about the Apple v Apple court case live on air.
To Goma's credit, he thought it was all part of the job interview. He kept his cool and answered the questions - albeit a little tentatively. Afterwards, Goma was apparently confused as to why the questions were not more job-related and the interview so short. He did say he would be happy to come back and speak about any situation, but he wanted to be better prepared.
More remarkable than his sang froid is how quickly Goma has become an internet celebrity with his own global fan base. Check out his brief BBC appearance at www.guygoma.com.
So take note organizations: to engineer the water-cooler experience you need all three factors - privacy, propinquity and social designation. SAS's street concept linking shopping, eating, medical and sports facilities, and multi-rooms with comfortable furniture for meetings failed. Why? Lack of privacy for a start. Who could have guessed having that chat next to the office water-cooler was such a big deal.
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Online networking is one of the big ideas storming the internet at the moment. Top of the pile of online networking outfits is LinkedIn. People get to create virtual networks of contacts - or connections. Some go for volume - open networks. Some go for trust - trust-based networks. Idea-Log interviewed LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman who says both work, but in different ways.
Why LinkedIn?
The internet is really good at helping find the right people. Most people's career opportunities come through how they manage their central relationships. A lot of what makes you a senior professional, and part of what gives you new opportunities in your career, is based on who knows you and who trusts you.
We create an ability for people to help each other and exchange favours, because our view of the universe is that a lot of business is a non zero-sum game. It takes only 30 seconds to provide a connection to someone that may be extremely valuable to them. And they can subsequently reciprocate the favour. The net result: they helped each other in each of their businesses.
LinkedIn has spawned its own vocabulary like "connection hunters" --people focused on boosting the number of people they connect with. Did you expect this?
I was a little surprised at how strongly committed some people are to the open networking paradigm -- "I will connect to 8000 people, and help all these people connect to each other." You can't have 8000 trusted connections, it is not humanly feasible.
But people have different motivations. Some want to make sure that when someone searches within the network for the kinds of things that they do, their name will show up as a high rating. Some do it because they have a philosophical belief that it is all about helping other people, and being connected. And some people do it just because they are trying to win the game. I don't think there is a game to be won, but they think so.
So do I need 3000 people in my network to produce results?
No. Basically the cut-off point when you start to get interesting results from LinkedIn comes at about 10 to 20 connections. I know people who have had enquiries about getting hired either as a services professional, or as an employee with 10 to 20 connections. Most people's connections range from between 80 and 1000.
A short slogan says a thousand words. At least it can do in the hands of a good writer. It may only be a few words. It may look simple. But writing a great slogan demands a rare talent.
When it comes to a brief summation of the virtues of a fizzy drink Coca Cola is legendary for its brilliance; over 100 of those catchy little numbers during a long corporate lifetime stretching back to 1886. From the minds of various marketers and copywriters have emerged such bijou slogans as: enjoy a glass of liquid laughter; Coca-Cola is the shortest distance between thirst and refreshment; it's the real thing; have a Coke and a smile; always Coca Cola; and many more.
Politics and propaganda love a good slogan: New Labour, New Danger; Labour isn't working; ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country; tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime; speak softly and carry a big stick etc. all good examples of the political spin-masters' craft.*
Now FIFA, the association in charge of the world's greatest game - that's football - are getting in on the slogan act. For the World Cup 2006, each of the 32 finalists at the games in Germany was invited to come up with a slogan for their team. Fans voted via the FIFA website with each team's winning slogan adorning its Hyundai-supplied coach.
So how did the football fans stack up against history's greatest sloganeers? Honestly? Not that well. Something's obviously got lost in the translation. Several lack the succinctness of a great slogan: Ukraine's: "With our support, Ukraine cannot fail to win!" and Sweden's: "Fight! Show spirit! Come on! You have the support of everyone" spring to mind. Some are a little odd: For Germany: "Through Germany and 2006"; For Switzerland; "It's Swiss o'clock". A few are nearly there: "One Nation, One Trophy, Eleven Lions" (England); and "To the finals with fire in our hearts" (Croatia) ... but not quite.
But, even if they don't win the cup, the Japanese can be proud of the slogan emblazoned on the team's coach as it winds through the streets of Munich: "Light up your Samurai spirit!" ... er might that be Sake?
*(Conservative Election slogans, 1997; JF Kennedy speech, 1961; Tony Blair as Shadow Home Secretary, 1994; Theodore Roosevelt in a letter, 1900)
The US Institute for Crisis Management (ICM) defines a crisis as "a significant business disruption which stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect the organisation's normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and governmental impact on its business"
Accurate information is essential. Attempts to conceal facts and manipulate the situation tend to backfire pretty quickly. Honesty is the best policy - even if there is nothing to report. Speed is important. In the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 it was a couple of weeks before CEO Lawrence Rawl visited the scene. Not a good signal in terms of priorities. Amid the media clamour, actions speak louder than words. The response needs to be top down. The level of response is an indication of the importance management places on the problem. Predicting problems requires a coherent strategy. Companies need to be prepared for a crisis. Bad things happen, so review and rehearse options in advance.
