People Matter ∴ Do Good

Lead a vivid life that does good

Month: March 2010 (Page 2 of 3)

174 | 365 – Coal Wagons

16 March 2010 /

Day174.jpgBack in the New Zealand Rail days, the Railways thought they were in the railway business. They thought they had no competition and they were wrong. They were actually in the transportation business and their competitors were trucking companies. For passengers the competition was bus companies and then airlines.
 
In business, knowing what business you are actually in is critically important.
 
Finally though, with new management, Kiwirail have sorted this out. They are not in the transport business or the railway business. Now their competition is static walls as they compete for taggers.
 
Not really true, but maybe a good idea for Jim is to run a competition for taggers to ‘beautify’ the Huntly coal wagons and them arrest them all afterwards.

Another day. Another trip to Auckland.

173 | 365 – A Ping-pong’s social life

16 March 2010 /

Day173.jpgThe social life of a ping-pong ball sounds like an interesting thing to write about. After all ping-pong balls do get around.
 
When they are moving, they move at pace. With a bit of spin they are reasonably hard to predict. There are even different classes of ping-pong ball, high-performance down to functional but breakable.
 
My third form Tech Drawing teacher used to make us write 250 words about the social life of a ping-pong ball and share it with the class. This was his form of punishment, and it’s worthy of note that the following year he left teaching to be a funeral director.
 
Anyway, the moral of this post, “Ping-pong balls don’t have social lives.”
 
[Thanks to Stas and Sam Kelsen for their help in the taking of this photo. I like the way it streaks, but the ball is still in focus.]

172 | 365 Hot Spots

15 March 2010 /

Day172.jpgLast year our business had a massive metaphorical blaze. The term fighting fires was a dramatic understatement as we fought to contain a major issue that caused people grief and cost a heap of money.
 
As I pondered this shot that I took of a big warehouse fire at Tristram Marine a couple of thoughts struck me.
 
Firstly firewalls. The fire in this building was contained to the point that they will be reopening the showroom at the other end of the building tomorrow.
 
My second observation is hot spots. Today, the same fire appliance that was in this shot was still at the fire to dampen down hotspots.
 
Last year we lacked firewalls. Processes and systems to contain issues as they arose, and stop them becoming a raging uncontrolled blaze. As a result we spent a lot of time dampening down hot spots.
 
I’m reminded that as leaders and managers we need build firewalls. Simple purposeful systems, that protect our organisations from large disruptive metaphorical fires.

171 | 365 Oscar

14 March 2010 /

Day171.jpgAnd Oscar goes to … Jayden!
 
Chartwell Kindergarten have Oscar. He joined Chartwell in July 2009 and each weekend Oscar gets to go home with an exceptional kid. While Oscar is at home, he gets to go on all kinds of adventures and the families print photos and place them in Oscar’s diary.
 
Yesterday Oscar got to drive some diggers at the Agoge Digger School at Boys Day Out. (Not the coolest thing he has done. He has been to Brisbane!)
 
I really like the idea of having an Oscar. I like the way to seems to be given without many rules, the teachers just decide. And not everyone gets a turn with Oscar, there are more kids than weekends. When Oscar does come home, the diary makes it more special and it encourages the family to get involved. This in turn makes the child feel even more special. Their aim is to strengthen the kindergarten and the families. It does that well.
 
A cool idea!
 
One that is portable into business and other organisations, although a large cuddly monkey might need some rethinking.

170 | 365 Glocal

13 March 2010 /

Day170.jpgMy ONE shirt was used as a map on a couple of occasions last night at Agora Goes Live. This is a shot of Octaves Ibounga and a couple of the team from Jerk Freaks (a jerk dance team), pointing towards their home countries of Congo and Egypt. The Jerk Freaks are part of our Glocal community.
 
Glocal is a term I read recently. It’s a term that came about in 1989 and describes the changing convergence of people and cultures. Glocal describes a culture that combines both local and global. A culture where we can locally affect global, and global can connect directly back to local.
 
New Zealand is becoming more and more a glocal community. Global people from varying cultures, birthplaces and history converging locally.
 
Very exciting.

169 | 365 Candle in the Dark

12 March 2010 /

Day169.jpgAs a teenager lighting and sound were my thing and I can remember attending a course with a renowned lighting designer for the performing arts, whose name alludes me.
 
At one point during the course we had to create mood for a tent scene on the stage using lighting effects and one single candle.
 
Having that one candle on the stage made the design difficult to say the least. In a pitch black theatre, where you literally can’t see your hand if it is an inch from your face, a candle is exceptionally bright. The light it generates can’t easily be softened or turned down. People sitting in close proximity of the candle were illuminated by its presence alone.
 
20 plus years on, I can still remember a lot that I learnt on that course, about how the eye works, about how we see black and white in the moonlight, about creative license, and about how bright a single candle can be.
 
Every now and then you meet people who are like candles in the dark. Every now and then I meet someone whose flame burns so brightly in the dark patches of this world that it lights up everyone around them.
 
If one small flame can make a difference, maybe I can as well.
 
 

168 | 365 – Almost home

11 March 2010 /

Day168.jpgTo have a home, a real home, a safe home, a loving home, is there any sweeter thing?
 
Home is a place, but not the building. Home is the people, the laughter, the sadness, the exciting and the mundane.
 
At home you are best known and best cared for.
 
And yet for many many people in New Zealand don’t have a home. They have a place they call home, a roof over their heads. But it is not a home, certainly not in the sweetest sense of the word.
 
I flew to Christchurch yesterday morning for meetings, was scheduled to get home at 8:30pm last night. By lunch time our meetings were done, and Tere graciously dropped me at the airport and I caught the last direct afternoon flight.
 
I was home for dinner, home to chat with my kids. I was tired as it has been a very busy last 7 days. But I was home.
 
There is no sweeter thing.
 
 
168 | 365 – This is a shot of the Q300 as we turn onto finals over the Waikato River to land home in Hamilton.

163 | 365 Bright Spots

6 March 2010 /

Day163.jpgI like this photo because of the way the sun fuses with the water to create bright spots that look like small liquid fireworks (without the risk of burning your house down).
 
Spent the last couple of days thinking about bright spots. Things that are working.
 
It’s been refreshing because by default I focus on dull spots, i.e. things that need fixing, rather than seeing the cool picture that bright spots create.
 
The goal in seeing bright spots, is to work out why they are bright spots, and then try and replicate it to dull spots. Hmm, a complex train of thought.
 
Basically looking at why things are working, rather than focusing on why things aren’t working.

162 | 365 Pondering

5 March 2010 /

Day162.jpgI love the view out of my office window. I enjoy gazing off into the distance towards Mount Pirongia, which is 27km away to the southwest of the city. I am captivated by the movement of cars and trains journeying to their destinations at the bottom of the road.
 
When I’m on my mobile, I often get out of my seat and watch the world go by my office. I’ve been known to get caught leaning on the window ledge, just pondering, considering, thinking. Across our driveway is a café. I’m sure that people must look up from time to time and wonder what the weird guy is doing just looking out the window. “Get a real job” they probably think.
 
Yet a huge chunk of my job is thinking. And thinking can be really really hard. But without thought we carry on through life without change.
 
Without change nothing improves.

I got reminded that I need to think more yesterday. To ponder more.

So today will be a day of …

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