Return Path Makes The List of “Best Places to Work” in Colorado Long-time readers of this blog no doubt understand my central philosophy when it comes to management. I believe that people come first. When employees are happy they make our clients happy. Happy clients happily pay for our services, which tends to make our investors happy. When you start with the people, everyone wins. At Return Path we invest a lot in our people. And we invest a lot in Team People – what we call “Human Resources” – to support those people. So what a great honor to see all that hard work and investment pay off in the form of a “Best Places to Work” honor! The…
Archives / July, 2009
Book Short: Worth Buying Free
Book Short: Worth Buying Free The cynic in me wanted to start this book review of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by Chris Anderson, by complaining that I had to pay for the book. But it ended up being good enough that I won’t do that (plus, the author said there are free digital versions available — though the Kindle edition still costs money). At any rate, a bunch of reviews I read about the book panned it when compared to Anderson’s prior book, The Long Tail (post, link to book). I won’t get into the details of the book, though you’ll get an idea from the paragraph below, but Anderson has a few gems worth quoting: Any…
A David Allen nightmare
IMG_3029.JPG Originally uploaded by heif A David Allen nightmare The comments on Flickr are almost as funny as the picture, but for those of you who can’t see the detail, I believe this is Esther Dyson peering over an inbox that has almost 4.3 billion emails in it.
Book Short: A Twofer
Book Short: A Twofer My friend Andrew Winston, who is one of the nation’s gurus in corporate sustainability, just published his second book, this one from Harvard Business Press — Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top. It builds on the cases and successes he had with his first book, Green to Gold (post, link to book), which came out a couple years ago and has become the standard for how businesses embrace sustainability and use it to their financial and strategic competitive advantage rather than thinking of it as a burden or a cost center. Green Recovery is a shorter read (my kind of business book), and it hits a few key themes:…
Self-Discipline: Broken Windows Applied to You
Self-Discipline: Broken Windows Applied to You Just as my last post about New Shoes was touching a bit of a nerve around, as one friend put it, "mental housecleaning," my colleague Angela pointed me to a great post on a blog I've never seen before ("advice at the intersection of work and life" — I just subscribed), called How to Have More Self-Discipline. Man, is that article targeted at me, especially about working out. I think the author is right — more discipline around the edges does impact happiness. But it also impacts productivity. Not just because working out gives you more energy. Because having your act together in small ways makes you feel like you have your act together…
New Shoes
New Shoes This isn't really a post about new shoes, I promise. Remember, I live in the world of pattern matching and analogies. But I did go running yesterday morning — my first run in a new pair of running shoes. I usually get new running shoes every 3-6 months, depending on how much mileage I'm logging. And I find the same thing every time: I may not realize I'm uncomfortable running in the old shoes, but the minute I put the new ones on, I realize just how far the old ones had deteriorated and just how much better life is in the new ones. Same model shoe – just a fresh pair. And I run faster, stronger, and…
Opening Night
Opening Night My brother Michael, internet marketer by day and a writer by night, had his first play produced last night off-Broadway at the Manhattan Repertory Theater’s SummerFest. The play is a romantic comedy called Fallout, and it’s my favorite thing he’s written of about 8-10 works I’ve read over the years, both screen and stage plays. This is the first time I’ve ever had a bit of a “behind the scenes” look at an Opening Night, and it was fun to be a part of it. When I think about entrepreneurial pursuits in business, I’m not sure this even compares. For Michael, it seemed to be the equivalent of a company’s founding, a product launch, and an IPO —…
Book Short: Bringing it on Home
Book Short: Bringing it on Home Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors wasn’t Patrick Lencion’s best book, but it wasn’t bad, either. I think all six of his books are well worth a read (list at the bottom of the post). And in fact, they really belong in two categories. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (post, link), The Five Temptations of a CEO (post, link), and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive (post, link) are all related around the topic of management. Death by Meeting (post, link), The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (post, link), and Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, on the other hand, are…