• The Summer 2009 edition of globalNEWS
• Cautionary tale for Christmas
• Measuring information consumption
• So much information, so little headspace
• Fanning the flames of employee passion
• First impressions really do count
• Management isn't...
• Being productive
• We still like feedback...

The Summer 2009 edition of globalNEWS
Welcome to the final edition of globalNEWS for 2009. For many of us, this is a time to sit back a little, reflect on the year, and anticipate Christmas with family and friends. It's a time for winding down, and smelling the roses. In the spirit of not over-burdening readers with material of great import, we've tuned this newsletter to go with the flow. But we shall be back with a vengeance early next year with more news and some exciting stories to tell (adventures beckon)! We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Cautionary tale for Christmas
Drinkers' brains are tricked into thinking a glass of white wine is better and more expensive tasting when exposed to red or blue background lighting than those in rooms with green or white background lighting. German researchers gave drinkers the same bottle of Riesling in the differently-lit environments and asked for feedback. Drinkers in a red or blue room were on average prepared to fork out as much as one euro per bottle more for the same tipple. Dr Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel, of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, concluded that ambient lighting influences how wine tastes. [more...]

Measuring information consumption
In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day - so says Roger Bohn of the University of California. His blog details the consumption of 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Before you nod sagely, information at work is not even included! [more...]

So much information, so little headspace
We try to cram zillions of bits of information into our pre-frontal cortex (PFC), the conscious part of the brain. Coaching and neuroscience guru David Rock, in his 'Your brain at work' Sydney workshop this month, observed that the brain is 2% of our body weight, yet consumes 20% of the body's resources. And the PFC is microscopic - if it were one cubic metre, the rest of the brain would be the size of the Milky Way. It'd worth bearing that in mind over Christmas: turn down the internal noise levels and let the brain run in neutral. [more...]

Fanning the flames of employee passion
How does an organisation like Sun Microsystems create a workplace where employees love to come to work? Bill MacGowan, Chief Human Resource Officer for Sun Microsystems, opines that it is because they value and appreciate good, smart people who enjoy change, innovation, and other people. 'Leadership at Sun has been successful at creating a real meritocracy. We allow people to speak their minds, and not be afraid to learn from failure.' One of the key elements in creating workplaces where employees love to do their best work is to listen to their ideas and give them freedom to act. [more...]

First impressions really do count
The current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that some aspects of a strangers personality can be judged by looking at photographs of subjects, and that self-esteem, ratings of aversion, religiosity and openness are all able to be judged from physical appearance. They found that photographs provided participants with accurate cues about personality, and that secondary spontaneous poses showed even more insight, including about the subject's various personality traits. 'As we predicted, physical appearance serves as a channel through which personality is manifested', write authors Laura Naumann, Simine Vazire, Peter Rentfrow and Samuel Gosling. [more...]

Management isn't...
...a tree or a river. Somebody invented it. Most inventions – from the candle to the compact disc – lose their usefulness. Management is for when you want people to work a certain way. For creative, complex, conceptual challenges - what most of us do for a living - self-direction works better. If we want engagement, we have to have autonomy over the key aspects of work - Task: what we do, Time: when we do it, Technique: how we do it, Team: whom we do it with. What we need is less management and more freedom: fewer individual automatons and more autonomous individuals. [more...]

Being productive
Getting things done is not the same as making things happen. You can: ...reply to e-mail ...pay the bills ...cross off to-do's ...fulfill your obligation ...repeat what you heard ...go with the flow ...anticipate roadblocks ...aim for 'good enough'. Or you can: ...organise a community ...take a risk ...set ambitious goals ...give more than you take ...change perceptions ...forge a new path ...create possibility ...demand excellence. Don't worry too much about getting things done. Make things happen. [more...]

We still like feedback...
Please feel free to talk back to us. Ask for more information or links. Comment on our news. E-mail your feedback to us, and if you like globalNEWS, let your friends know and invite them to subscribe, too! Subscription details (and how to unsubscribe) are found here: [more...]