Oskari's activities...

Here's some nice articles I made notes on, thought I'd share them with you. --Oskari

The Rise of the New Groupthink

• Creative people are often introverted, should be extroverted enough to discuss and share ideas. But independence, individualism and introspection are equally as required. We need to be comfortable working alone. 
• Introversion fosters creativity by “concentrating the mind on the tasks in hand, and preventing the dissipation of energy on social and sexual matters unrelated to work.” -- Hans Eysenck
• Newton was one of the world’s great introverts: William Wordsworth described him as “A mind for ever/ Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”
• “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible,” Picasso said.
• Culturally, we’re often so dazzled by charisma that we overlook the quiet part of the creative process. Consider Apple's Steve Jobs ja Steve Woz.
• “Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me ... they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team.” - Steve Wozniak
• Privacy also makes us productive. In a fascinating study known as the Coding War Games, consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister compared the work of more than 600 computer programmers at 92 companies. They found that people from the same companies performed at roughly the same level — but that there was an enormous performance gap between organizations. What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn’t greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed.
• The reasons brainstorming fails are instructive for other forms of group work, too. People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work; they instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own; and, often succumb to peer pressure. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.”
• The one important exception to this dismal record is electronic brainstorming, where large groups outperform individuals; and the larger the group the better. The protection of the screen mitigates many problems of group work. This is why the Internet has yielded such wondrous collective creations. 
• Marcel Proust called reading a “miracle of communication in the midst of solitude,” and that’s what the Internet is, too. It’s a place where we can be alone together — and this is precisely what gives it power.
• Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.

The Evolution of Work: Coworking

• Freelancers are certainly a force in today’s world of work – with a maturing collective voice. In USA alone, there are over 40 million independent workers. 
• How to stay productive without interactions with colleagues? 
• Humans are designed for interaction and collaboration – and to many freelancers this state of “aloneness” can become untenable.
• "Office Loneliness" can be a formidable challenge. Studies show that perceived loneliness can lead to multiple problems, including sleep disturbances and the inability to fight disease.
• Working at home is is a challenge: with a myriad of distractions, ample opportunities for procrastination that limit productivity. As a result, many find that a location specifically designated for work is the best option – increasing the opportunity for both focus and effectiveness.
• Coworking offers openness, collaboration and a sense of community and offers an opportunity for one to create a more sustainable (and potentially fulfilling) work lifestyle.
• Utilizing a coworking space is a clever option for freelancers, slashers, and start-ups who find themselves without their own designated space.
• Coworking is not magic. As with any work environment, distractions do exist – and problems such as interruptions, could still befall your time in a coworking space.

Get ready for coworking 2.0 

• "Born as a social movement to build community, reduce isolation and also, for some, save the environment from the effects of commuting, coworking is undergoing a fundamental shift in its nature from a social movement to a solid business sector" -Steve King
• 'The BIZ': Coworking has been around since 2006, but in the last 18 have seen solid business models beginning to emerge. The future looks good.
• 'The PURISTS': Many people are much more motivated by other issues than money and building a business, and many of those will continue to be successful with their model. e.g. Office Nomads in Seattle. The owners there are committed environmentalists, committed to their community and their neighborhood and see coworking to push forward that social agenda in a way that they feel good about.
• Hybrid terms have begun to emerge: e.g. jellies and makers’ spaces to startup incubators and internal collaboration spaces within corporations…
• However, the expansive future of coworking does seem big enough to accommodate a wide range of models. Coworking is at the convergiong point of many contemporary global trends. Coworking is bound to grow and diversify.
• King estimates about 700-800 coworking spaces to exist in the U.S. 

Open offices: companies test out shared workspace

• One trend of the day it thez “shared economy” changing the way individuals transact (think shared cars, holiday apartments and workspaces).
• In an exciting pilot project fifty big Dutch companies are opening their offices to each others’ employees. Thus on February 1 workers arriving at their company headquarters may find themselves working alongside unfamiliar employees; not new co-workers, but new coworkers.
• The project is called Werken Onderweg, or Work On The Way, is an experiment into how open big businesses can be with their workspaces. For six months, employees from the participating companies can drop into any of the other corporate offices for work. Outside freelancers will also be allowed to take part.
• Participating companies include the biggest Dutch telephone company, engineering multinationals DHV and Arcadis, research group TNO, the insurer Achmea, infrastructure groups Strukton, Imtech/Peek and more. Several government departments have also agreed to take part. Also many coworking spaces are also participating by allowing these corporate visitors to drop in at no cost. More than 75000 employees will have the opportunity to work in a location that suits them.
• 'The biggest objection to sharing workspace is usually security. This is tackled so that companies don’t need to open their entire building and its secrets to the outside world; they can set aside a certain area to be used by visiting workers.

Pollinators: The New Breed Of Innovators

• This article is about the advantages of an untethered work force that buzzes in and out of companies, moving from project to project, cross-pollinating ideas (and companies) as they go. 
• "The downside of the recent economic layoffs is that that well-trained, experienced individuals have been let loose into the workforce. The upside is that these people are buzzing with knowledge and experience now available to everyone."
• Within the bounds of their NDAs, pollinators help make organizations use external talent intelligently, be more innovative, more competitive, and less stuck in “this is how we do it here” silos.
• Pollinators can be anybody top players, recent movers to a new city, young college graduates or experienced mid-level practitioners trying to escape their cubicles
• Being an independent consultant can provide invaluable experience: great experience and a wide knowledge base that would be impossible to gain at a single job.
• "Pollinating is a platform that allows people to share and let everybody grow, while extracting the golden honey called ideas."
• New ways of thinking or problem solving can make a difference. Being different is not always good for its own sake, but being different can send the rockets of innovation soaring.
• To accelerate new thinking, we should put people from different perspectives together and apply different "filters" to the same problems.
• Externals are often allowed access to other business units and upper management across internal hierarchies. They talk to everybody in the company, from to lowest to highest, which helps them understand the various perspectives within the organization.
• But being a Pollinator is not all blue skies. Pollinators are rapidly deployed and also top results are expected soon.
• Cross-cultural pollination cab bea really beneficial to overcome "cultural blindness"

I got these articles via

twitter.com/kottarainen

twitter.com/saarikko

facebook.com/mbauwens

...thanks guys!