At Croke Park in Dublin with my mate Pete about to watch the Springboks play the Irish
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Arthur Alston
Sent using Blackberry Wireless Device
G'day and welcome to some of my stuhf.
I am a South African doctor with an MBA who lives in Switzerland and works as an International Product Manager for a multinational pharmaceutical giant. I have lived and worked on three continents and plan to add another before I turn 40, preferably in a city by the sea.
I am an iconoclast, an aggregator, an early adopter, a strategic thinker and a pragmatist. I am curious and love to learn new things.
My interests range from digital media and marketing, the pharmaceutical industry, economics, politics, sport (in particular kitesurfing and poker), social media, peer-to-peer networking, genealogy, to companies like Apple and their iconic products.
Besides the aforementioned, my passion is personal productivity (based on the GTD methodology) and how to deal with information overload. I write about that at The Productivity Paradox.com
Oh, and I don't - for one moment - think that any of the content of this site will be of any value to anyone, but it's quite cool to have a place to store some of my stuhf online.
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Arthur Alston
Sent using Blackberry Wireless Device
I have often wondered about the differences between what the Left stands for versus the Right, because sometimes I find myself agreeing with Leftist statements and at other times with those of the Right.
This is the first time I see the whole picture and things make a bit more sense to me now. I will have to spend a bit more time studying the graphic to understand it all .
For some reason I tried to fold a paper aeroplane recently and completely fumbled it. I just found this and thought I would share it here for future reference.
Innovation is “a creative idea that has been made to work”, wrote David Hussey in his book “The Innovation Challenge.” “It can be as basic as a procedural change in a distribution system or as complex as entry into a whole new market.” Innovation has been a subject of fascination for centuries. At the end of the 1500s Sir Francis Bacon wrote: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils: for time is the greatest innovator.” John Jewkes, author of “The Sources of Invention”, reviewing the history of the subject, wrote:
There seems to be no subject in which traditional and uncritical stories, casual rumours, sweeping generalisations, myths and conflicting records more widely abound, in which every man seems to be interested and in which, perhaps because miracles seem to be the natural order, scepticism is at a discount.Peter Drucker suggested seven areas where companies should look for opportunities to be innovative. The first four are internal to the company; the last three are external:
1 The unexpected success that is rarely dissected to see how it has occurred.
2 Any incongruity between what actually happens and what was expected to happen.
3 Any inadequacy in a business process that is taken for granted.
4 A change in industry or market structure that takes everybody by surprise.
5 Demographic changes caused by things like wars, migrations or medical developments (such as the birth-control pill).
6 Changes in perception and fashion brought about by changes in the economy.
7 Changes in awareness caused by new knowledge.
I work for a company that talks about innovation constantly, there are countless definitions. My personal version has always been: smart ideas that are executed smartly.
I like this one by Savid Hussey: a creative idea that has been made to work. It resonates with me.
The second part of the quote by Drucker also makes a lot of sense. In line with these areas where companies should look for opportunities to be innovative, I always think of how Tom Peters put it: innovation happens when someone is pissed off enough to do something about it.
Cool, I like this version of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The original pyramid was:
- physiologocal
- safety
- love/longing
-esteem
-self actualisation
or as a friend of mine used to say: shelter, food, pussy and strange pussy.
