Productivity, innovation, community & more (Top3ics, 1 Dec)

Over 40 new resources Hub’d since the last missive, so in this edition I’ll pass you some great longreads to enjoy as the nights grow long, the productivity tips you’ll need to actually find the time to read them, and a free set of steak knives. The Christmas season, after all, is almost upon us.

But before anything else, don’t miss this abject lesson on How Not to Respond to Criticism on Social Media, courtesy Politico Europe: This is what happens when you poke the Politico Europe wasp’s nest, by the Universal Jon Worth.  Bring popcorn.

As always, browse all issues and subscribe.

Productive meetings & innovative organisations

First up, above: a wonderful ‘do we really need another meeting?’ flowchart, courtesy I am done with bad meetings by Paul Boag, to which I have to add:

• Meetings, an internal note Paul Adams sent to his team of Product Managers, Designers and Researchers at Intercom,
• 8 other resources on making better meetings.

Or perhaps the problem with those meetings is that there’s someone always there talking about “disruptive innovation”?

“too many people who speak of “disruption” have not read a serious book or article on the subject. Too frequently, they use the term loosely to invoke the concept of innovation in support of whatever it is they wish to do…”

If that sounds familiar, read What Is Disruptive Innovation? (HBR), by (among others) Clayton M. Christensen, who coined the term.

Follow up with How Innovative Is Your Company’s Culture?, or be a little more practical and check out reWork with Google, their new site designed to help you improve your company.

More: 132 resources tagged innovation.

Personal productivity & Internet addiction

If the problem’s closer to home, try out some personal productivity tips like Destroy Your Inner Multitasker or Master the Habit Loop to Break Bad Habits and Build Better Ones.

Or perhaps you’re problem’s deeper, and you need to detox? Read Addicted to Distraction (NYTimes), and consider the argument that as websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction, the net should be regulated like drugs or casinos.

More: all 53 posts tagged productivity; the 23 tagged GTD (Getting Things Done), including my own personal system; 43 tagged psychology 

Give your brain a break

If you’ve resisted internet addiction then use your time well with some longreads.

No, don’t reach for the latest airport bonkbuster - give your mind a good stretch instead with news of its impending demise/augmentation, depending on whether you read The Doomsday Invention, Ray’s Wildest Prediction or Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’.

Or just enjoy the most beautiful theory. It’s general relativity, btw, and you’ll understand why if you give this article the time it deserves. 

And this just in: Kristin Beck: A Navy SEAL in Transition, for those still confused.

More: 10 longreads (it’s a new tag)

Communications, Community & Authenticity

Instagram’s popped over my horizon a lot recently, with How to Tell Powerful Narratives on Instagram and Why Instagram Captions Are the New Blogging, before Instagram’s Latest Platform Tweak pointed out that it isn’t quite the same.

You may have missed: Instagram, of course, was also supposed to be all about authenticity (19 resources), until 19-yr-old Essena showed us all that it isn’t (see Big Bad Selfie, from last edition). 

Authenticity will perhaps always be the Latest Thing’s USP until the marketers jump on board - see How to Thrive in the Live Streaming Revolution.

Which brings me to Doing your thinking in public, where I riff off Jay Rosen on how blogging has evolved - and which explains, inter alia, why I maintain my Hub and this newsletter in the first place:

I feel that it’s somehow more honest to do your learning and thinking in public. By sharing what I’m reading – the ideas and resources that go into this blog and my day job – I’m keeping myself on my toes.

I’ve also recently posted:

• Communications, community & participation: learning from NHSCitizen, summarising key learnings from my HangoutOnAir with the Democratic Society‘s Anthony Zacharzewski about NHSCitizen, considered by some as the most ambitious and exciting Participation projects of the past 20 years.
• How do you organise communications skills?, on arranging the increasingly complex, overlapping world of communications skillsets and management;

And finally, who could resist Communication usually fails, except by accident?