Inspiration to learn about yourself

In 2007, TrygFonden donated 100,000 teddy bears to 39 hospitals across Denmark. Experience shows that teddy bears spread happiness to children, i.e. increase the value of the hospital product. What do hospitals in the country, you live in, do to cheer up children who come to the hospital to have an operation done?

"Die Kosten der Alters- und Pflegeheime sowie der Spitexdienste könnten von 7,3 Milliarden im Jahr 2005 auf rund 18 Milliarden im Jahr 2030 ansteigen. Der Kostenanstieg könnte gebremst werden, wenn sich beispielsweise der Gesundheitszustand dieser Bevölkerungsgruppe verbesserte." Source "Übergewicht haben in der Schweiz in den letzten 10 Jahren in der Bevölkerung stark zugenommen, besonders bei den Kindern. Es ist, wie auch im übrigen Teilen Europas, ein ernst zu nehmendes Problem." Source Investments need to be made to help/encourage people to continuously improve their own health. But which type of investments - and how? Following up on this posting suggesting that a great city has good conditions to work out, I’d like to mention zurichvitaparcours , a very interesting initiative by Zurich . At the vitaparcours located in several hundred locations throughout Switzerland, you can go for an open air workout. The photo below is from the vitaparcours in Langenthal ...

In this posting , I mentioned the initiative "Tag der offenen Tür", through which companies invite people to come and see where they work – thereby promoting dialogue even more. To get inspired even more, have a look at this good 4½ video:

To what degree are you asking questions? And to what degree are you encouraging other people, you work with, to ask questions? Get some inspiration for asking questions from this proverb .

"Very often the best way to test an idea is not to analyze it but to try it " , Paul Sloane writes in this eye-opening article . Which idea have you tried out lately – for example with your customers?

I read today, that Technorati is currently tracking 112.8 million blogs. It’s not only the hierarchical companies that I wrote about in this posting , which can benefit by using blogs to communicate. I believe that a wide variety of different companies in many different industries will gain an advantage by using blogs. For example, blogs make it possible for people to - independent of time and place - communicate with, for example, customers, as well as with other people across the company’s functions and hierarchies. If you haven’t yet asked the manager of the company/companies, you work for, to write a blog, how about trying it?

I came across the 1 minute movie below through TED . I think it’s quite an interesting idea that a choir in one country sings another country’s national anthem. As described on YouTube in the text about the movie, I think this initiative has potential to change the way we think about other countries. Apart from the French choir featured in the movie below singing the national anthem of the United States, you can see and hear Kenya sing for India here , and/or listen to Japan singing for Turkey here .

There are several ways for a company to open up more. I have found out that through the way company buildings are made, a company can do quite a lot. To be very concrete: Using windows could be a way of advancing openness. This morning, I drove around the neighbourhood, where I live here in Zurich, to have a look at the buildings of some of the companies that work here. I wanted to see to what degree they use windows in their buildings. I was actually very positively surprised to see that many company use nice, big windows, so people working in the building can see out - and people outside the building can see in. It promotes - in a way - an open, friendly, welcoming atmosphere, I think. Here’s a photo of one the better examples – a building at Siemens :

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In my April 5 posting , I wrote a little about the need to get even better at finding, using, and developing talent. Coupling this need with the traditional, hierarchical way, many companies are still organized, there seems to some room for improvement. What do you think? | View | Upload your own

On Wikipedia, I read that Leonardo da Vinci is considered to be one the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. The Italian was a scientist, a mathematician, an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a botanist, a musician, and a writer. What an extraordinary curiosity Mr. da Vinci must have had. Reflecting upon the many talents of Leonardo da Vinci, I asked myself the following question: Although some people may have greater talents for some things than other people have, every person has a talent for something, I believe. My question is: Are we all doing enough to help each other find, use, and develop talents , i.e. to do what we can become really good at doing? I imagine that we could all create more value faster, if we worked more on this. What do you think? According to work done by people working for the Boston Consulting Group , managing talent will be one of the key challenges in Europe in near future. To know more, have a l...

According to a recently published Trip Advisor survey of some 1,400 international travellers, Brussels is the most boring city in Europe. You can read more about that here . I somehow found it quite hard to believe that Brussels makes only small efforts to invest in city development. Being the capital of Europe , I should think that Brussels has a responsibility to not only take a step up and show the way for city development itself – but also a responsibility to advance development of cities across the European continent. All the best with the needed changes/renewal/development! I have one wish: Please don’t spend too many resources on too many meetings / too long discussions. Try out things instead - continuously. And get the people involved doing it.