Inspiration to learn about yourself

Through this blog posting , I came across a paper about the virtual organisation. The paper finishes with this interesting statement: "In the automobile industry, each company does its own R&D. Every innovation is patented before it ever reaches the public, which may take five years for the improvements to be incorporated in an actual car after they were originally developed. If the automobile industry started taking on an open source development model with sharing across companies and countries, the cost and prices would eventually drop, innovation and development would speed up and exceptional features would be shared across many makers and models. The auto industry could finally come up with the safe, clean energy car. The problem is that the car companies do not seem likely to support something that they perceive could put them out of business, even though this would not happen since nothing stops them from developing on their own and incorporating developments from their ...

Following up on yesterday's posting, here are 2 more ideas to develop train stations: Idea # 4: Colours between rails Painting the space between rails in, for example, bright colours would make an interesting contrast to the often rather dark colours at train stations (see photo below of track # 5 at the train station in Geneva). Idea # 5: More flowers and/or green plants How about some flowers and/or green plants at train stations – to make people feel a little bit more “at home” when traveling? As I was going by bike from Lausanne to Geneva about a week ago, I passed through the village of Saint Prex where I saw a boat full of flowers (photo below) right at the lake shore. How about placing a boat full of flowers like this at a train station? That’ll make the train station unique.

I thought about ways for train stations to create added value for customers. Here are the first 3 ideas: Idea # 1: New ways of communicating time Besides / instead of using the round, classical train station clocks at the train station, how about working with time keeping suppliers in developing other ways of showing time at the train station? Idea # 2: Ticket machines at the tracks Besides making it easy for people to buy train tickets on the Internet, for example by using PayPal , how about placing ticket machines right next to the tracks – thereby helping customers save time. Idea # 3: Interactive flat screens instead of posters I wonder why there are still posters hanging on walls at some train stations showing train schedules? Instead of using posters to inform about train schedules, how about using flat screens, the prices of which have gone down over the past years? And when you’re at it, why not use touch screens so customers can click on the train they are going to use – and ...

This video has a length of a bit more than 1 hour. It is worth watching everything. Participating is also Mr. Gary Hamel, the author of, for example, the really interesting book The Future of Management . I became aware of the video through this beyondbudgeting.net paper .

At the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, Switzerland, I walked through the exhibition The Nuclear Dilemma earlier this week. Have a look at the photos of the exhibition by clicking here . At the museum I also learned about the founder of the Red Cross , Mr. Henri Dunant. You can read the biography of the 1901 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate by clicking here .

On a square in Geneva, Switzerland , that I visited this week, several of the stones used to make the square were lit up from below. In addition, different texts were written on the stones. Here are a couple of examples: Good initiative to make people smile.

Earlier this week, I visited CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. At the start of the exhibition, I was quite impressed to read that we are made of so-called particles that are 12 billion years old. I also noticed that only about 20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee (photo below) invented the World Wide Web (WWW) while working as a scientist at CERN. You can read more about that here . Photo source

Through e-patients , I came across a story about Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald , who, at ScienceRoll , is referred to as one of the best examples of e-patients in the world.

In this article , I read about an interesting trend in Ritan-park in Beijing, China: Elderly people doing sports in the park in the morning and/or in the evening – assisted by music. The photo below is also from that article. I don’t recall having seen or heard about a health initiative like this in Europe – making it attractive for people to stay fit. Europeans, how about learning from the Chinese here?

Have a look at this interesting World Clock 2008 displaying statistics calculated from annual figures provided by various sources. I came across the World Clock 2008 through this blog posting .

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are coming up. On the Munich Re Group website , I read that, in recent years, there has been a massive increase in the revenues from the TV broadcasting rights for Olympic Games: the figure more than trebled between Los Angeles in 1984 and Athens in 2004.

In this interesting 7 minute film , you can hear about how Nestlé is creating shared value. You can read more about how Nestlé is creating shared value here .

Total yearly costs for the health system in Switzerland add up to more than CHF 50 Billion, I read in this Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs press release . In another press release , I read that costs amounting to an estimated CHF 20 Billion yearly can be reduced considerably by implementing health preventative initiatives. A couple of ways of reducing the growth in health care costs is by making it attractive for people to exercise more and by eating healthier. Together with more than 5,000 people, a record high number of participants at the well organized www.seeueberquerung.ch event, I swam across the lake of Zurich yesterday evening - a distance of about 1½ kilometres. Each participant paid CHF 20 for participating in the event. This included, for example, a warm up session managed by fitness instructors, and - after the finishing line - a glass of bouillon, a bottle of water, a warm and healthy rice meal, as well as great music played by a band. The event was sponsored by...

In this valuable June 2008 Harvard Business Review article , I read that secrets # 1 and # 3 to successful strategy execution are the following: Everyone has a good idea of the decisions and actions for which he or she is responsible. Once made, decisions are rarely second-guessed. I also noted secrets # 2 and # 4: “Important information about the competitive environment gets to headquarters quickly. Information flows freely across organizational boundaries.” In this regard: If you haven’t started using web 2.0 / collaborative technologies such as a blog at the company / companies you work for, do consider it.

EURO 2008 is over and the players from Spain are European champions. During the tournament, I observed that emotions - from players as well as from fans/guests - are not least lived out when goals are scored. For example, fans clap their hands and cheer for the team scoring a goal. Many people get up from their chairs, and some even start to sing, dance and/or hug the person(s) standing next to them. In other words: Goals scored by players contribute to making the experience for guests better. Goals are positive surprises that make people feel happier and smile. So in order to satisfy customer needs even better, how about changing the rules of the game, so more goals are scored? Here are 3 ideas: Idea # 1 : Make the goals bigger so it's easier for football players to score goals. Idea # 2 : Make the football field smaller, for example less long and/or less wide. Idea # 3 : Play with 2 balls. This idea may be a bit wild :-) Do you have other ideas?