It is easy to stand by your core values when the sun is shining and money stacks up on the bank account but when a financial crisis peaks it seems like peoples core values crack and some evil monster takes control and spits out actions that are misaligned to the core values.

About 11 years ago a fellow student at Aalborg University and former platoon commander in the Danish army told me that the big-bodybuilder-types soldiers were brave when the war was nowhere near them but when danger closed in on them other soldiers took the lead. This is in my opinion true to companies but the problem is when managers get crazy core values and tries to save their own ass and thereby taking the employees as hostages (they did not sign up for a manager with crazy core values).

Lars Kolind is pretty sure that a lot of the good leaders have been scout leaders. I think in some degree that he got a good point - a scout leader have learned that being a leader is about helping other people and getting people to work together as a team - the core values are not money but doing good stuff, being kind to others and to have a good time.

Maybe hard times splits the managers from the real leaders?

But why keep your core values and believes when the guy with the crazy core values wins? When people goes for short term gains and treats other people bad they are likely to lose on the long term!

Why? My take…

• I believe that is important to keep being yourself if you want people to trust you now and in the future.
• I probably got 30-35 years of work ahead and I will most certainly meet the people I trashed again in the near future and that may not be that fun
• I am an INFJ Meyer-briggs-type which makes core values very important for me. I get physical ill and my soul dies (the big questions arises, who am I, how could I do that, etc.) when I do not follow my core values. Just to clarify: an INFJ type can still be an asshole

Can/Do you keep your core values when the shit hits the fan?

My believes in the world of sales:

1. I believe that networking is the key.
2. I do not think it is about selling but having the right product that people want to buy.
3. I think it is about building a great/good quality company brand.
4. I do not believe in bad old school sales tactics like cold calling etc.
5. Surprise (in a good way) the buyer when reality kicks in.
6. No bullshit.

Maybe the 6 bullet points can be summarized as TRUST!

Although the term Social Network Relationship Mangement (SNRM) do not have a clear definition it is definitely what I want

• I want to use LinkedIn, Plaxo, ecademy, facebook, twitter, etc to follow what is happening in my network.
• Having a large network I want to prioritize whom I want to follow, ie. I want to follow friends, current and old colleagues more closely than a guy I shared an e-mail with back in 2002.
• I don’t want to spend time updating people and company address records.

Taking the ‘everything has already been invented’ approach I did a quick google search and found almost nothing except for dex by Mercury Rising but I am not sure that the product fulfills my “ Social” requirement - being social by using the social LinkedIn, Plaxo, facebook, twitter, … I signed up for trial access of their software - now I only have to wait.

Should I start building a prototype? or can someone direct me to Social Network Relationship Management software?

The 6 myths are:
1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types
2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator
3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
5. Competition Beats Collaboration
6. A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization

If this is true (I think it is) a lot of companies could learn a lot.

Since I now am a dedicated Mac OS user and the WIremote app. only runs on Microsoft Windows with Windows Media Player installed I saw no reason for not making it possible for others to do further work on the project.

I removed the key registration check code from the source code (I hope it stills compiles). Since I have no Microsoft Windows with development tools I hope someone will make a new installer with the current source code.

The project can be found at: http://code.google.com/p/wiremote

]]> http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/04/14/en-pilskadde/feed/ http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/04/08/google-app-engine/ http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/04/08/google-app-engine/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:06:46 +0000 dapp http://jorgen.larsen.porcupinex.net/?p=31 Google App Engine makes it easy to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data. The environment includes the following features:

• dynamic web serving, with full support for common web technologies
• persistent storage with queries, sorting and transactions
• automatic scaling and load balancing
• APIs for authenticating users and sending email using Google Accounts
• a fully featured local development environment that simulates Google App Engine on your computer

Google App Engine applications are implemented using the Python programming language. The runtime environment includes the full Python language and most of the Python standard library.

Here is a video about developing and deploying an app on the Google App Engine:

Read more at http://code.google.com/appengine/

Pretty great on my Mac Now I got real desktop web applications!

Read more at mozilla labs

… happiness  at  work  means  treating  everybody  differently, because treating everyone the same only makes very few people happy.

Happiness at work does not come from mission statements, corporate values, whitebooks, committees or workplace policies. It comes from the things you and I do, here and now.

Randy Nelson from Pixar has another great saying: You have to honor failure, because failure is just the negative space around success.

Management  überguru Peter  Drucker  provocatively suggested that businesses should find all theemployees who never make mistakes and fire them, because employees who never make mistakes neverdo anything interesting.

Psychological  studies  show  again  and  again  that  a  fundamental basis  for  our  happiness  is  the  ability  to  control  our  own  environment.

It’s  not  the  job  of  the  manager  to  motivate  employees.  That  is impossible.  It’s a manager’s  job to create a happy  work environment  in which employees are naturally motivated.

An article from the Harvard Business School put it like this: Most  companies  have  it  all  wrong.  They  don’t  have  to  motivate their employees.They have to stop demotivating them.

Buy and read the book - it is a nice read if you believe in people and a provoking if you are and old school manager
BTW. I can recommend Alexanders blog at http://positivesharing.com

The first picture is without the use of ExpoDisc and on the second one the ExpoDisc has been used to set the white balance.

The best of it all - it works perfect in real life! A real review can be found at kenrockwell.com

]]> http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/03/15/picture-from-lynge/feed/ http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/03/15/cleaning-the-sensor-on-your-camera/ http://porcupinex.net/site/2008/03/15/cleaning-the-sensor-on-your-camera/#comments Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:35:41 +0000 dapp http://jorgen.larsen.porcupinex.net/2008/03/15/cleaning-the-sensor-on-your-camera/ It’s been more than a year ago since my Nikon D200 was to service and now I am pretty sure it need its sensor cleaned. I did some research if I need to pay the big bucks or try to do it myself -  found my answer at ByTorm. It is something that is possible to do your self if you are careful.

A quick quote from chapter one “Be Yourself— More—with Skill”:

The underlying assumption is that leadership is something we do to other people. But in our view, leadership should be seen as something we do with other people. Leadership must always be viewed as a relationship between the leader and the led.

Sometimes somebody puts my leadership values to the test but I will always (try to) stick to the motto that leadership is about relationships, communication and honesty.

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