Dump Post: New Format

I'm back from a short but activity-packed vacation in Tofino with my old friend Patrick Di Fruscia who I had not seen in nearly 10 years. In addition to being a great travel companion, Patrick taught me a few photography tricks and as a result, I felt like my pictures improved in a matter of just a few days. Still, I have quite a bit of work to do before I can catch up to the level of his talent.

Speaking of photography, a new picture of the Tiananmen Square protests' "Tank Man" was published last week. I have used the photo seen across the world in one of my presentation to illustrate courage, but I find this new picture even more dramatic, as "Tank Man" can be seen walking towards the tanks, while everyone else is running in the opposite direction. I wonder what happened to him. I hope someday we will find out.

Some readers have written to me asking for a brief description of what the links I recommend are about. I'm testing the new format. Here we go:

1. I've never been a big fan of the "symphony conductor as leader" analogy, but this post is actually quite good: 8 Things Leaders Can Learn from Symphony Conductors.
2. Ann Bares asks "whether we should focus on being the best places or the best high performance places to work" in Rewards Metrics: Engagement versus the Bottom Line.
3. Carmine Coyote offers a very interesting perspective on motivation in Musings About Motivation and Mike Chitty responds.
4. Lots of interesting comments to Gary Hamel's post about "deep-seated impediments". The one left by Kausar Fahim especially rings true with me.
5. MBAs have been getting a pretty bad rep lately, and this podcast entitled MBA: Most Bloody Awful explains why.
6. Want to learn how to make a good presentation? Here are some lessons learned from TED and Change This, and Six Secrets of Top Communicators.
7. Art Petty offers a common sense approach to management in general and project management
8. Chris Brogan distinguishes between audience and community.
9. Mark Gould navigates the seven Cs of knowledge.
10. David Eaves discusses Public Service and Citizen Engagement in the Information Age.
11. Three ways to impress your employees
12. In what I found to be one of the most profound presentations ever made at TED, Liz Coleman issues a call to reinvent liberal arts education and criticizes the fact that "the expert has dethroned the educated generalist to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment". Watching her talk, I could think of quite a few implications for change management and the federal public service.
    

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