Been catching up finally on my blogroll, and a few choice tidbits to share around:

Via Drawn -- Gremlins, in other movies. Fans are getting more and more fun to watch.



Via Kung Fu Monkey -- Ninja Tales online, from Boom! Comics:



And lastly, from Evil Bat -- another fan-made video, this time an animation around a Radiohead song. Arresting and original:



Okay, enough with the linkage. Soon, actually writing. Promise.

Labels: Unspecified Coolness

The newest trailer for the upcoming open-source movie being produced by A Swarm Of Angels:


Worlds Will Shatter - The Unfold trailer from Nine Orders on Vimeo.

Everything about this is incredibly cool.

Labels: Unspecified Coolness

Honestly, it's just been crazy. I haven't even told you about GenCon yet. But all I have time for right now is a quick drive-by:

Here's a reminder of why some of us love Steve Jobs so much. Via Community Guy:



And here's evidence I gained a level at GenCon: a player writes a Story Hour of one of my DINO-PIRATES sessions.

Fame, makes a man think things over...



More soon! Pictures of cool cars! New experiments running amok! What you need you have to borrow!

Labels: Unspecified Coolness

Khai Pad Kraphao is pretty much the best lunch around the FreshBooks offices. Though I do admit I pick out the chilies -- once I took what I thought was going to be a tasty bite of crisp green bean and found I'd chomped into an entire green chili.

I like the taste, but that was a little much. Not to gross anyone out, but I could tell exactly where that chili was in my digestive tract for the rest of the day. Oog.

But Rich and I were talking over our Thai food today, and in particular talking about the ideas of that crazy Brasilian, Ricardo Semler, and in particular particular, the notion of "public" salaries, and we decided that one of the things we liked best about that idea was how it enforced what we called "upwards accountability".

See, if everyone in the company knows when you give someone else in the company a raise, you'd better have good reasons for that raise or else you're going to have trouble answering their questions. Which forces you to actually THINK about how and why you give out raises, and to have a policy that's defensible in place. It makes you accountable to your employees, and it seemed to us, as aromas of basil, chili, and lemongrass came curling up from our plates, that such accountability is actually a good thing.

Because that accountability forces you to be active and organized, and to maintain your focus on the things that, as a leader, you should actually be focusing on. Defining your POLICY on raises is a more powerful action, a more important action, than deciding exactly how much one individual raise ought to be.

Of course, it's harder. Much easier to focus in on a narrower scope, a single relationship, than to try and design an organization. And yet, organizational design is, in my mind, the real job of a leader.

So policies that encourage or even enforce "upwards accountability" are the sorts of policies that a leader ought to seek out and pursue. We identified public salaries as such a policy. And I think public performance reviews are probably another.

I wonder if there are others?

That's the gas cap of an Aston Martin up there. Photo by Jeffrey van Bijleveld

Labels: Thinking

I noticed that I've started building up a certain body of thought on management. It's entirely ripped off from other, much smarter (though possibly not quite as intensely good-looking) people, but isn't that part of the beauty of the Internet? The ability to shamelessly rip others off while aggrandizing ourselves. Yes, sir. Anyway, here's a quick round-up of some of the more management-y posts I've made over the past couple of years:

Approach 3: The Path to Hiring Great Talent

The best strategy for finding awesome people is to spend your time making yourself more and more awesome.

Couch Time

They took the couch away, of course, and projects started falling over. Way it goes.

The Zero-Tolerance Inbox

Not doing any work is key to getting lots done. Be lazy!

The 501 Method

See, the receipts in the pocket isn't the clever bit. The CLEVER bit is that when I get home, I take everything in my pockets out of my pockets, and pile it up.

Ding Ding Ding

Every single document that isn't used is organizational noise.

Everything I Needed to Know About Management I Learned From Satan

You stop arguing when you see someone so ready to commit. Logic isn't what motivates and excites teams. Commitment in the face of risk is what gets that ball rolling.

The Secret of the Whiteboard

It's interesting to note how some technologies are so fundamental that they're almost impervious to design improvement.

Art != Guitar

All of us need new information presented to us in the context of what we already understand, or else we just keep forcing the conversation back into our context.

A Purpose Worthy of Commitment

What's drawn me to management, I realise now, is my lifelong conviction that honesty, courage, humility and compassion really ARE the best ways to get things done and to make the world a better place.

Labels: Thinking