tobedoit:

Ransa Sofa floats over your library of Books.

After a car that drives itself, isn’t this a foregone conclusion (via Wired’s Found series)

“The thing about listening to somebody is it doesn’t have any preconditions or time limits” via

This is true of people, customers, trends. Opening your ears to someone means committing the time/resources/energy to let them get it out.

The opposite example is the census: a one shot deal, in X weeks, to get your voice heard.

Social media has made organizational listening less expensive in terms of dollars but requires more continual effort on the part of organizations in order to do it thoroughly. I know lots of people who preferred it when there was an annual survey and when results were in, planning would then proceed. We’re now receiving continual feedback. Do you iterate plans continuously?

This is where a strong internal compass comes in handy. Or as Beth Harte discusses in this post — knowing whether you’re a Customer Focused or a Customer Centric organization.  In both organizations they listen to customers, but that feedback is taken in and used very differently.

I’ve been struggling to define why I dislike calling individuals or teams who work at the same organization “clients”.

I previously worked at a Fortune 100 company know for marketing and communications excellence, where they did actually structure internal departments as individual consultancies, right down to billing each other for time worked on their projects through the central accounting office.  This worked due to an exceptionally strong and pervasive culture that focused everyone on the same end goals (and there was a very visible element to the company’s mission and brand - perhaps this is the exclusive domain of CPG companies?)

But it seems that this “client” label creates a distance — and having managed external agency relationships I’ve experienced first hand the odd feeling that we’re working in co-opetition (internally) for recognition, rather than in a spirit of teamwork where ownership is shared. And that feeling is the antithesis of the feeling of self-sacrifice and camaraderie that should be the bedrock of high performing internal relationships.

I heard this story last week from Prof. JP Dube at Chicago Booth’s Management Conference on the Economics of Social Media (webcast):

A few years back, Girl Scouts and parents petitioned the parent organization to remove trans fats from the iconic Girl Scout Cookie line. Done.

Then, as part of a badge project, two Scouts discovered that Palm Oil destroys the habitat of orangutans.

Guess who is using Palm Oil as a TF-free fat in cookies? Oops! So now our intrepid Scouts are petitioning their own organization to replace Palm Oil and actually leading a ban against the fundraiser that supports their organization.

Here’s a current summary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/girl-scout-cookies-palm-oil_n_865472.html

Here’s their petition to Girl Scouts USA: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/urge-the-girl-scouts-of-the-usa-to-stop-rainforest-destruction/

It has been a long time since I couldn’t WAIT to click on the sponsor information at the end.

Who hasn’t looked at their portfolio and just cringed in the deepest part of themselves remembering how proud of yourself you were at the moment you archived it for posterity?

Also, I had the biggest crush on Ira Glass for the longest time. And that was back when he was famously camera shy and I could only imagine his nebbish physical charms. 

gjmueller:

High School Classes May Be Advanced in Name Only

The reason, according to a growing body of research, is that the content of these courses is not as high-achieving as their names — the course-title equivalent of grade inflation. Algebra II is sometimes just Algebra I. And College Preparatory Biology can be just Biology.

(via gjmueller)

The Lion’s Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.

The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.

They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it. 

That is terrifying. 

(via ajebsary)