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To enjoy consistently superior performance, you need to know where to focus your practice.

Timeless principles matter

I’ve been lucky and had good teachers. The best encouraged my natural interests. One of these passions, probably inspired by countless fantasy novels growing up, is the timeless and often ancient principles of art, architecture, literature, philosophy …

Brilliant CEOs look like bullies. Good boards know better.

After finishing New World, New Mind I was convinced of two things. First, more attention is needed around staging our thinking processes. Second, the authors didn’t had no idea how to do it.

So, while Cuban waves tickled the beach, …

Here’s an unsolved riddle: How do we get the minds of widely dispersed, brilliant people to focus on critical problems/opportunities? How do we synchronize greatness?

Dave Pollard brought this up a few days ago. He writes:

“… we don’t need …

Retro post #91

Great find by Johnnie Moore, John Kay’s article on Obliquity is excellent. Kay writes that goals are often best achieved when pursued indirectly – this is the idea of obliquity.

Like Johnnie it reminds me of …

Retro post: Revised based on “Look!” from November 30, 2004.

John Oliver (past President of DowElanco Canada Inc., a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Eli Lillys), once told me what he looks at when considering novel products. …

Intuition drives science and entrepreneurial innovation. Why doesn’t it play harder at the boardroom table?

Seth wants less noise.

Citing the mounting tidal wave of blog posts he suggests that “by writing too much, too often, we’re trouncing on the attention of the commons.”

He’s right if the singular value of blogs is communication …

To see further, stand on giants.

I’ve been thinking about the things corporate salary-type folks could learn from entrepreneurs. It’s actually an old idea of mine … not really an idea I guess … more of a recognition — entrepreneurs have lots to teach innovators within …

My days are a blur of chaos.  Too many new things. 

New son.  New house.  New city.  New job.  New friends.

I don’t mind the pace … usually.  But just the idea of slow makes me realize how fast I’m …

[posted January 16, 2006]

Below is the purpose I had for sift when I started this experiment.

I’m still all in on those ideas but I think the purpose is quickly evolving away from purely entrepreneurs and purely business. Just …

Here’s a chore: Define what you’re worth for a day.

Don’t turtle and say it’s your wage; or if you’re an entrepreneur, what you pull down — you’ll miss too much.

Include your thought time, all the stuff you decide …

Past, present, future: What of strategy?

Kottke writes:

“… can we have a discussion about where technology and user experience on the web are headed without using any of the following words or concepts:

Ajax, web services, weblogs, Google, del.icio.us, Flickr, folksonomy, tags, hacks, podcasting,

…

Invokative perspective on innovation.…

Gambling. It’s on my TV, in my online ads, fills my email, and spams my blog. So popular, so suddenly — why?

Back in 3,500 B.C. young Egyptions were already gambling. Now, 6,000 years later, you’d think the hubbub would …

Corporations get boards. What about personal boards?

True to his style, Dave Pollard has a giant post with lots of implications for business. To toot my own horn, I’ve written on complexity too, here the most topical piece of the bunch.

Favourite insights:

• In a complex world,

…

So, I’ve got a baby right? And like nearly every other adult on the planet I’m always putting my face about one inch from his cute little nose.

When I’m with him, I’m always right up close and when my …

I’ve been poking at sift for the last month or two. I’ve been wondering what this blog’s for. Not because I doubt the value of what all this is about. Nor do I question my interest in this work. I’m …

Went for a run this morning and spent the entire time disgusted by all the garbage in the ditches.

Am sitting in my office now and just realized the leaves are out. Bright, shiny and green.

I chose the wrong …

We used a labour coach. Maybe your company needs one too?

Non-business books can teach us a lot about business.

One of my friends is a teacher. He’s told me many times that the best way to learn something is to explain it to someone else. Well I want to learn to do a 60-second pitch, so here goes.

Over …

Great find by Johnnie Moore, John Kay’s article on Obliquity is excellent. Kay writes that goals are often best achieved when pursued indirectly – this is the idea of obliquity.

Like Johnnie it reminds me of a sports metaphor.…

I’m re-reading Edward O. Wilson’s book, Consilience. He describes the biological conception of scale that I tried to illustrate below. He breaks up the magnitude of action by space and time. So, for example, brain synapses are minute, ultra-fast, …

sift leverages knowledge and thinks on behalf of entrepreneurs.

Knowledge is only valuable when it’s useful. And most entrepreneurs soon discover the paradox of newly emerging opportunities: you know more about your industry than anyone else and you don’t know …

I’m in a strange pinch. I’ve got two opposing writing opportunities.

On one hand a regular newspaper article in the National Post that is supposed to be “punchy, witty and 100 words”.

One the other hand, an offer to write …