In: Collaboration| Green| Leadership
24 May 2009In order to feel successful at being sustainable it is vital to recognize it as a developmental pathway. And that the journey down the path is best supported by a network of relationships in alignment with your goals. There I just saved you two hours of sitting in a conference breakout session. Seems like good [...]
In: Collaboration| Green| Leadership
23 May 2009The days are long at BALLE. The morning plenary was a tasty mix of Tom from the RSF social finance fund, followed by Melissa from a biofuel collective in Berkeley that just opened their own service station, followed by Michael from Dressing Room, a restaurant that has been active in farm issues and social justice [...]
In: Collaboration| Green| Leadership
21 May 2009Here at the 7th Annual BALLE conference in Denver. Today’s session explored issues facing local first groups and used Open Space (a fave) to create breakout sessions. I participated in one discussing ways for the local first group to be economically sustainable and another that addressed the role of the board in a nonprofit and [...]
In: Leadership
4 Nov 2008At an Open Forum panel for ZingTrain’s Art of Giving Great Service seminar, one of the questions that came up was, “The whole Zingerman’s culture. When you go home after work, how do you turn it off?”
Turn it… off? The panelists all blinked at each other. Is that even possible?
Great service, honest communication, servant leadership [...]
In: Leadership
31 Mar 2008Joel on Software lays out his company’s recipe for customer service that parallels our own Zing approach. How very uplifting to read about other IT groups focusing on the user!
#2 is hilarious yet practical, giving customers a graceful exit out of a user-error problem.
Of all his steps, this one really caught my eye:
#8 Give customer [...]
In: Leadership
20 Dec 2007The world of IT is different when it comes to giving great service. And not just because IT appears to be a strange cult of mumbo jumbo from the outside. Though the Zingerman’s way of service is world renowned and very, very useful, it does not exactly translate. And this is fine – that’s part [...]
In: Leadership
17 Oct 2007I was having a conversation with some partners yesterday about how, as an organization, we don’t have well developed skills in delegation – that it often becomes ‘dumping’. I then ran across a pretty good list of responsibilities for both parties in a project delegation scenario. From MIT’s department of IS&T…
When you take on a [...]
In: Leadership
4 Oct 2007Long overdue report on mini games from the Great Game of Business conference.
Why have Mini Games?
To foster teamwork and communication
To teach and reinforce business skills
To instill the desire and habit of winning, not of competing with each other
To let “cave dwellers” know they can’t bring the group down
Mini Game Design:
Choose the game.
Set the [...]
In: Leadership
3 Oct 2007This summer I participated in the U of Z Leadership Workshop by Ari Weinzweig. It was held over two months, consisting of five sessions and a project.
My classmates were all intelligent, motivated, inspiring, and enthusiastic people. We had different experiences to share, having come from different areas of the ZCoB. Together we read stimulating material [...]
The ZSN-IT site is a central place for the IT department to share the more fun and interesting aspects of our work with our clients and everyone else. This includes links to interesting tech solutions, stories about incidents, food notes, techtips, fitness counters, and whatever else we find interesting.