The Island Weekly » business

F is for first

Anne — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:48:10 +0000

First come, first served.

First things first.

One German translation would be “eins nach dem anderen” — one thing after another; break it down. The other would be “das Wichtigste zuerst” — the most important thing first; prioritize. I don’t think there is an equivalent phrase with both meanings in German. Wow: yet another example of how much we leave unsaid and up to context in English, whereas you tend to spell things out in German.

Trying to get through deadlines and Christmas preparations, maybe you’ll enjoy this cute little motivational sketch as much as I did.

Conductors are managers

Anne — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:17:19 +0000

Helmut and I loved Itay Talgam’s presentation of famous conductors and their styles, from the TED conference in Oxford. It’s actually not just a mirror of styles of management, it’s also a prism of culture, as control is organized in very different ways. So, which of the conductors appeals most to you: Carlos Kleiber, Ricardo Muti, Richard Strauss, Herbert v. Karajan, Carlos Kleiber (again), or Leonard Bernstein?

Losing face in English

Anne — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:02:58 +0000

I woke up this morning thinking about the debate on this blog on Westerwelle. It seems to me that this is an interesting case of a person losing face in public because he is being forced to speak English. BTW, I think the discussion has showed that both sides lost face: Westerwelle was most obviously on the spot. But as in most issues of saving face, the person who puts the other one on the spot is also implicated in a communicative situation gone wrong.

Do any of you have stories or insights to share about the issue of a foreign speaker losing face in English, or because of English?

Dan Pink: Rewards and incentives don’t work

Anne — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:10:08 +0000

At TED Dan Pink (a favorite of mine) presented surprising evidence showing that rewarding performance financially does not lead to higher productivity in competing individuals and groups when any skill at all is involved. Rewards work well enough when the competitors just have to complete a simple task quickly. But as soon as they have to actually think outside the box, using the right brain, any financial reward actually lowers people’s productivity.

So what raises our productivity? What really motivates us? What makes us tick as economic animals?

Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

“These are the building blocks for a completely new operating system for our businesses,” he says. He then goes on to talk about how Google and Atlassian have instituted autonomy and self-direction in their companies (13:00).

Seen on Ann Michaelson’s blog

United Breaks Guitars

Anne — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:01:48 +0000

United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s guitar, so he wrote a song about it and used YouTube to get his way. In his words:

“In the spring of 2008, (my band) Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.”

United is not only paying damages but have said they will use the whole incident for internal customer service training.

Here’s a lyrics worksheet with gapfills – can you hear the missing words? united-breaks-guitars

mashable.com Der Englisch Blog

Question: Which skill would you like to develop?

Anne — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:57:23 +0000

There comes a time when you realize that you’ve been working hard in one direction or area and have become quite good at what you do. Generally it happens in the middle of what my husband Helmut calls “die Schuftphase” (when you’re slaving away at full throttle). So you’re being very productive in your current position. That’s a critical time, because when you start marking time – or not moving forward – you really need to ask yourself what comes next.

Have you thought about developing any special skill, something that you haven’t had time for before? It might be work related; you might want to skill up. But equally likely it will be more general and have to do with opening up new vistas. I’m thinking about a few different areas I’d like to develop. I’ll tell you about them in this week’s podcast. How about you? Write or tell me whether you are thinking about professional development or perhaps about getting more involved with a hobby of yours. Or could it be that you’ve already started?

to slave away – schuften, malochen, sich abrackern
at full throttle – mit Vollgas
to mark time – auf der Stelle treten
to skill up – zusätzliche Fertigkeiten erwerben
to open up new vistas – neue Perspektiven auftun

Was ist das Blogprojekt? Mehr dazu unter Englischlernen mit Anne!

Subscribe to the Island Weekly podcast by RSS or in iTunes. Set up your own blog by sending an e-mail to post@posterous.com

When Money Buys Happiness

Anne — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:48:17 +0000

Do we shop compulsively, and if so, how can we stop?

It seems that most of our shopping behavior is in fact quite sensible. Geoffrey Miller’s new book, “Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior” seems to prove that.

In collaboration with John Tierney in the NYT Dr. Miller issued an open invitation to NYT readers to try this exercise:

List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists.

Over 200 people responded. The results are very interesting.
Items appearing on both lists most often were:

Houses
Higher education
Travel
Electronics and entertainment media
Some particular brands and models of cars

The items appearing much more on the ‘expensive’ than on the ‘happy’ lists were:

Children
Marriage ceremonies
Divorces
Taxes
Health insurance
Most cars
Boats

And the items appearing much more on the ‘happy’ than on the ‘expensive’ lists were:

Sharing meals with friends
Alcohol
Bicycles
Camping gear
Pets
Hobbies
Adult education
Church
Books
Music
Artwork
Leisure software
Quality beds

NYT Tierney Lab June 29, 2009: When Money buys you happiness

Have you bought anything lately that didn’t cost much but made you happy? Why exactly did you buy it? Describe the circumstances and your expectations at the time. What joy has it brought you since?

PS: See Tyler Cowen’s review of the book: “The core thesis is the Veblenesque point that marketing plays upon our weaknesses as evolved, biological creatures, obsessed with signaling”. Miller provides “proposals for lowering the cost of our signaling.”
See Colin Tudge’s review in Literary Review: “To find mates we must signal our mate-worthiness. This is best achieved not by shows of toughness and belligerence, but by displaying what are now recognised as ‘the big six’ qualities: intelligence, openness to ideas, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability, and extraversion. In short, it pays to be nice, funny and creative.”