Mood:  a-ok

Could you run your workplace, entity, organistion, etc without committees?  Have you ever tried to do so?  What would have to happen for it to work?

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 1:13 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Can you move with the times?

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:20 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Obama is on the wrong side of history.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:18 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Steve Jobs RIP - long live his love of the 'outsider'. 

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. (Apple Inc.)"

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:13 PM NZT

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Thank you!

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 4:57 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Want to be successful today?  Make sure what you do or produce or sell or market is high quality.  Then make sure that the distribution of it is low cost.  The service or product can be expensive but the distribution cost must be low or zero.  This is the new way.......

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:16 PM NZT

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I have a linkedin profile....  most people have a resume or a CV posted and a list of jobs they have done upto and including the current one....  I am not looking for a job....  I am looking for work....  So I have taken a slightly different approach.....  After all how you describe what you do and who you are depends on how you see the world around you, no?

The way I see the world is perhaps explained by the introduction to my linkedin profile..... 

"My profession is different:

I design bubbles of success. I will gladly come to your site for up to a month and/or work as an online resource. I am not available to become an employee or staff member."

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 10:12 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

The economy is global but bubbles are local.  Greece has a local 'government debt bubble'.  Ireland has a local 'private debt problem'.  Iceland has a local 'global debt problem'.  US has a local 'bank debt converted to government debt' problem.  Germany has a local 'euro currency debt' problem. China has a local 'economic growth bubble' problem.

Those are all the old bubbles that are deflating.  What are some of the new ones?

What bubbles are you deflating?  How is the deflation working out for you?  What new bubble(s) do you hope to build or be part of? 

Everyone loves a bubble.  I am coming to believe that we can't live without them........

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 1:42 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 5 October 2011 1:54 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Life is always geniunely 'hard' for someone at some time.  It seems to me it is made harder by those who love to complain.  Indeed, so much of what is 'hard' today for people comes from the noise, chatter, and clutter of our digital networks.  We are trapped in a cacoon of opinions.  We are held captive by our desire to be an 'insider' - to feel that we know what is going on in our world.  Problem is most of 'what is going on' is based on gossip not fact.

The hard life is lived by those who block out most of what the social/mainstream media brings them.  They live this hard life as an 'outsider' - they are not bound to the gossip that most absorb.  Guess what, they are loving their lives.  One such person is Warren Buffett.  Look him up on the web.  Listen to what he has to say.  You may find that living 'the hard life' is easy.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:28 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

How are you going to take advantage of the emerging digital economy?  What skills do you have that are appropriate to a digital world?  What new mindsets or habits will you have to cultivate to be successful in a digital economy?  How creative do you need to be to go digital?

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 10:37 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

It seems the world is on a slippery slope to bad times right now.  One simple indicator of this is the lack of tolerance for 'rough and tumble' debate.  People around the world are too precious. Take the BBC interview with a Euro Zone expert who was referred to as an idiot by one of the panel discussing the issues of the day.  The English journalist kept referring to the Euro Zone expert as an idiot - so he walked out of the discussion.  

What hope do we have if the people with influence today are so thin skinned as to take offence at being called an idiot.  Surely there were idiots on both sides of the debate so let's just get on with it and engage in the rough and tumble until we make some serious headway.

I recall being a kid who called another kid an idiot. This slur prompted him to take his bat and ball home with him so we could not continue the game. I would have thought that the euro crisis is a bit more important than a kid's backyard squabble.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 1:08 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 30 September 2011 1:25 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

It is so easy 'these days' to fill our heads with stuff.  By 'stuff' I mean the ramblings of commentators and commentors on social media, TV, talk-back radio, and newsprint.  Producing and rejurgitating 'stuff' is a new business in the digital economy.  Sure this kind of stuff was around before the printing press but its distribution back then was limited.  Whereas today its distribution is unlimited.  

Problem is this stuff - like fast food - is addictive.  It is a drug.  Once we succumb to it we find it hard to give up, turn off, or leave out of our lives.

Today my mind is numb with noise, chatter, and clutter.  How are you doing?

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 11:06 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Digital technologies can boost productivity enormously but only by changing the way we live and work.

We live with digital technologies today in the same ways our parents and their parents did.  So the productivity dividend of digital change is left on the table. The main use of digital technology today is for the convenience of consumers and workers.  It is more convenient to do banking online than over the counter.  It is more convenient to tweet to your social network than meet face to face with people.  It is more convenient to use an ipad than a newspaper when traveling on the bus or train.  

The real productivity gains from digital technologies will come when we revise the way we use labour in our economy.  Stripping out the jobs that are no longer needed - those that served face to face contact - will be a good start.  When those jobs go they will be replaced by contracted work not new jobs.  The pay for this work will be high than it was for those old jobs.  The demands of this new work will be much higher.  The education levels of these new contracted worker will be much higher.

Work done on contract by a higher paid, better educated, and more mobile workforce is what is needed for a country, state, community, or enterprise to succeed in the emerging digital economy.  These workers will be rewarded well if they can adapt to the new digital discipline of producing high quality work at the time and in the space it is needed.  

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 12:23 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

After his interview with BBC television went viral, independent trader Alessio Rastani has been called immoral, satanic, and a charlatan.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/who-is-alessio-rastani-20110928-1kw8a.html#ixzz1ZDThJ210

Most people say what most other people want to hear. Are they charlatans?  Are they immoral?  Perhaps they are but they never get accussed of being so. 

But when a market trader honestly says I am out to make money from the coming recession then he is a bad egg.  Perhaps he is a bad egg, I don't know.  Certainly, he is different.

When you live your life simply saying what people want to hear the problem is that you start thinking that way too.  

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 3:59 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

I sense that social networking is far less valuable than people claim it to be.  It is over hyped for the true use value it delivers to participants.  I can't prove my case for a bubble but I do sense it is there and it is filling up with noise, chatter, and clutter.  The use value of social networking is limited.  Indeed I suspect the use value of social networking is precisely the same as it was one hundred years ago.

Today the perceived use value of social networking is being inflated by the numbers of connection people have on Facebook.  But is someone with 1 million links to 'friends' on Facebook able to glean any increase in  use value to someone with just 50 links? My guess is no.  So the notional use value of social networking on Facebook is being vastly over stated. The use value is being artificially inflated and thus we have a bubble forming.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 4:59 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

People often do not know what they do not know.  Well it seems that old axiom is obsolete.  Today people simply Google what they do not know and then they know.  So often people say "I just Googled it!"

2011 has seen 'instant Google experts' popping up everywhere like mushrooms after a good rain.  The claims some people make about their knowledge is remarkable.  Perhaps, they are more knowledgable.  Perhaps, they still do not know what they do not know. 

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 11:33 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Are you considered inspirational?  If not why not? What would it take from you for your colleagues, family, or community to consider you inspirational?

Show leadership?  Befriend everyone?  Be generous?  Be creative, innovative, and different?  Belong to groups that do unusual and inspiring things?

Ask more questions of yourself and everyone around you?

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 2:58 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

There is no greater time to be successful than right now.  As we head into troubled economic times, the opportunities for those willing to be  be quirky, and different are enormous.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 1:24 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

If you are young this is your time.  If you are old this is your time.  If you are in the middle this is not really your time.

This is a time for dramatic risk taking anchored by risk averse choices.  If you are raising a family then it is a time for you and yours to be as secure as you can be. The risk taking is with your kids.  Encourage them to be creative, experimental, and open to a plethora of worldly experiences.  They will gain so much in this time of uncertainty and gloom if they are free to explore their own creativity.

If you are young adults then you have the world at your feet. So too if you are older and in the final stages of life.  The key for both groups is to secure your life in some aspect - economic, relationships, etc - and then be radical in most other aspects.  Embrace the digital economy, travel, seek adventure, etc.  The digital economy is your friend if you are willing to be bold, risk taking, and refuse to just tag along with your peers.

Life is full of challenges ahead, there is no doubt about that, but it is also full of rewards for those of us who can find the right balance between taking risk and being risk averse.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 1:43 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 23 September 2011 1:58 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Woke up this morning to read about 'markets' in panic.  What are 'the markets'?  Nothing more nor less than you and me acting in percieved self-interest. When we hit the panic button though we may not be acting in our own or others best self interest.  We are usually acting on a position we have taken that is not going as well as we had predicted, expected, or hoped.  We panic because we have no redundancy in our position.  We are forced to do the opposite to what we thought we would be doing.

When groupthink becomes panic then we all suffer.  The market is fuelled by groupthink - at its core is a group of people driven to act on either their fear or their greed.

Panic is here again....  it is never a good thing but it is worse for those of us who are caught in its groupthink.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 9:36 AM NZT

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