Peter Kahn 91 connections

Fox & Best Friends Ever!

Honest to God, how do these people spew this crap with a straight face? Here's the morning crew on Fox & Friends, with their take on Sarah Palin's 19th century palm pilot: CARLSON: I... more »

Flickr Stream for citizenkahn

Flickr Stream for citizenkahn

Worth reading. I like the idea of using data to by pass politics and a visible timer to keep the meeting tight
If you're interested in getting more from meetings than a gaping sinkhole in your schedule—and who isn't?—these tips from how Google handles meetings can help. Of great importance is focusing on data, not politics and grievances. Photo by ghindo. The folks over at Business Week interviewed Marissa Mayer, Google's vice-president of search products, who is known for running a tight and effective meeting. She shared six great guidelines for holding an effective meeting including one of her long standing rules: "Don't politic, use data." This idea can and should apply to meetings in organizations in which people feel as though the boss will give the green light to a design created by the person he or she likes the best, showing favoritism for the individual instead of the idea. Mayer believes this mindset can demoralize employees, so she goes out of her way to make the approval process a science. Google chooses designs on a clearly defined set of metrics and how well they perform against those metrics. Designs are chosen based on merit and evidence, not personal relationships. Mayer discourages using the phrase "I like" in design meetings, such as "I like the way the screen looks." Instead, she encourages such comments as "The experimentation on the site shows that his design performed 10% better." This works for Google, because it builds a culture driven by customer feedback data, not the internal politics that pervade so many of today's corporations.

Run Effective, Google-Style Meetings by Focusing on Data, Not Politics [Meetings]

It's far more effective to look at what the data says than it is to let a meeting turn into a whine-fest where your whole team is taken away from productive work to hear the less-than-happy members complain. Check out the rest of the article at Business Week to see some more of Mayer's... more »

2009 in Capitol Words + Colors

CapitolWords.org is a Sunlight Foundation site that “visualizes the most frequently used words in the Congressional Record, giving you an at-a-glance view of which issues lawmakers address on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.” As 2009 began... more »