Category: Business

Mark Twain On Business: Timeless Wisdom

10 Inspiring Quotes from Mark Twain

Mark Twain portrait

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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

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Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and re-evaluation.

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The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.

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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

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You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

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The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

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Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Your Thoughts?

Which of these Mark Twain quotes resonates with you the most? Do you have a favorite Twain quote not listed here?

Why Collaboration Tools Alone Won’t Transform Your Organization

Culture Comes Before Technology

Evan Rosen wrote a nice article in Business Week titled “Creating Collaboration Takes More Than Technology.”

Synopsis

In a typical scenario, the months fly by after the collaboration tools are implemented. As the seasons change, decision-makers anticipate reaping the benefits of collaboration. And perhaps they can even point to successes within particular business units or functions.

Often, though, it’s the same old story. The company remains for the most part internally competitive, hierarchical, and command-and-control driven. The tools alone have failed to make the company collaborative.

Worse yet, the tools may have created no real value, and the decision-makers who had pinned such high hopes on these tools are surprised. Are the tools the problem? More likely, the problem is the organization. When tools fail to create value, it’s usually because decision-makers adopt tools before the company’s culture and processes are collaboration-ready.

Organizations even adopt tools for the wrong reasons, primarily the belief that tools will create collaboration. Tools merely offer the potential for collaboration. Unlocking the value of tools happens only when an organization fits tools into collaborative culture and processes.

If the culture is hierarchical and internally competitive, it will take more than tools to shift the culture. Just because a competitor uses collaborative tools doesn’t mean the time is right for your organization to do likewise. If the competitor is apparently deriving value from tools, maybe it’s because the competitor’s culture is more collaborative and the tools are extending and enhancing the culture.

Recommendations

To help fix the issue, he recommends the following:

Focus on Culture Before Tools

Fit Tools into Business Processes

Adopt Spontaneous Work Styles

Use Tools to Develop Products and Services

Give the Entire Organization Access to the Same Tools

Tools ≠ Collaboration

Technology alone can’t create a collaborative environment

Culture First

Address hierarchical and competitive cultures before implementing tools

Integrated Approach

Align tools with business processes and organizational needs

Join the Conversation

Have you experienced the implementation of collaboration tools that failed to meet expectations? What cultural changes were needed first?

What They Don’t Teach You In Design School

Paula Scher on the Real Value of Design

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Another thing they don’t teach you in design school is what you get paid for…

Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace…

Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali. The complicated process is worth money. That’s what clients pay for.

— Paula Scher

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Strategist

Psychiatrist

Diplomat

Showman

Svengali

About Paula Scher

Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. She has been a principal in the New York office of Pentagram since 1991 and has designed identity and branding systems for numerous major clients including Citibank, Microsoft, and The Public Theater.

Your Thoughts?

Do you agree with Paula Scher’s assessment of what designers really get paid for? What other roles do you think designers play that aren’t taught in school?