“For instance, ever more companies are realising that autonomy isn’t the opposite of accountability – it’s the pathway to it. “Rules and policies and regulations and stipulations are innovation killers. People do their best work when they’re unencumbered,” says Steve Swasey, Netflix’s vice-president for corporate communication. “If you’re spending a lot of time accounting for the time you’re spending, that’s time you’re not innovating.”

The same goes for expenses. Employees typically don’t need to get approval to spend money on entertainment, travel, or gifts. Instead, the guidance is simpler: act in Netflix’s best interest. It sounds delightfully adult. And it is – in every regard. People who don’t produce are shown the door. “Adequate performance,” the company says, “gets a generous severance package.”

The idea is that freedom and responsibility, long considered fundamentally incompatible, actually go together quite well.

What’s more, the Netflix holiday policy reveals the limits of relying on time in managing the modern workforce. In an era when people were turning screws on an assembly line or processing paper in an office, the connection between input and output was tight. The more time you spent on a task, the more you produced.

But in much white-collar work today, where one good idea can be orders of magnitude more valuable than a dozen mediocre ones, the link between the time you spend and the results you produce is murkier. Results are what matter. How you got there, or how long it took, is less relevant.

Finally, the Netflix technique demonstrates how the starting premises of workplace arrangements can shape behaviour.

In his new book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, New York University scholar, Clay Shirky, argues that when we design systems that assume bad faith from the participants, and whose main purpose is to defend against that nasty behaviour, we often foster the very behaviour we’re trying to deter. People will push and push the limits of the formal rules, search for every available loophole, and look for ways to game the system when the defenders aren’t watching. By contrast, a structure of rules that assumes good faith can actually encourage that behaviour.

So if you think people in your organisation are predisposed to rip you off, maybe the solution isn’t to build a tighter, more punitive set of rules. Maybe the answer is to hire new people.

To paraphrase one Netflix executive, the company doesn’t have a clothing policy either. But – so far at least – nobody has shown up to work naked.”

Read full story in the Telegraph – and of course we can see how unusual this policy is because it’s made the news!

Been around for a while, but just been reminded of it!

speaking of Amazing Grace… (Tamara Lowe at Christ Fellowship). Loudly touted as the ’1 minute sermon’ – well, you know, don’t like to mislead people, so it’s the ’1 minute 42 seconds’ sermon – awesome!

“The new telephone ‘scam’ has arrived.  I received a call from a ‘representative’ of BT, informing me that he was disconnecting me because of an unpaid bill. He demanded payment immediately of £31.00, or it would be £118.00 to re-connect at a later date.The guy wasn’t even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media, allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental!   I asked the guy’s name – the very ‘English’ John Peacock with a very ‘African’ accent – & phone number –  0800 0800 152 0800 0800 152 .   Obviously the fella realised I wasn’t believing his story, so offered to demonstrate that he was from BT. I asked how & he told me to hang up & try phoning someone – he would disconnect my phone to prevent this.   AND HE DID!!My phone was dead – no engaged tone, nothing – until he phoned me again.   Very pleased with himself, he asked if that was enough proof that he was with BT. I asked how the payment was to be made & he said credit card, there & then.   I said that I didn’t know how he’d done it, but I had absolutely no intention of paying him, I didn’t believe his name or that he worked for BT.   He hung up.   Did 1471 & phoned his fictitious 0800 number – not recognised.       I phoned the police to let them know, I wasn’t the first! It’s only just started apparently but it is escalating.   Their advice was to let as many people know by word of mouth of this scam. The fact that the phone does go off would probably convince some people it’s real, so please let as many friends & family aware of this. This is good but not that clever. He gave the wrong number – it should have been  0800 800152  0800 800152 which takes you through to BT Business. The cutting off of the line is very simple , he stays on the line with the mute button on and you can’t dial out – but he can hear you trying.  (This is because the person who initiates a call is the one to terminate it). When you stop trying he cuts off and immediately calls back.

You could almost be convinced! The sad thing is that it is so simple that it will certainly fool the elderly and vulnerable.  Obviously, if this scam is real, once they have your credit/debit card details, there is nothing to stop them cleaning out your account.”

The story itself is not a scam, it’s made it to the BBC as well. Sites such as Scambusters and Hoax-Slayers can help you tell if that email, etc. that you receive is for real or not.

What more do I need to say..?! Reminds me of when Titanic was out, and the common term was “It sinks…” Working on the @bigbible project as part of the #biblefresh initiative, to tackle that which is indicated by this picture – as Jeremy Paxman pointed out – that Bible knowledge is getting weaker in our culture.  Even Richard Dawkins thinks that to understand Western culture, the Bible needs to be read and understood… Found via ‘Paper.Li‘ (which made me realise how little control I have over what it says…):

It was a really enjoyable evening – no one was quite sure what to do at the beginning, but Lynne had organised it all very well. Racks for bottom half/top half, shoes & bags on the floor, accessories on the table, and as everyone came in, everything got placed on the rails. People were busier chatting/grabbing a snack to begin with, but then one person found a skirt, and suddenly everyone was diving in. Lots of comments that it was lovely to “go shopping” with “the girls” (most at the party were young mums), and the atmosphere was lovely, encouraging about lots of things – and “this doesn’t fit me, why don’t you try it”.  Once the frenzy was over, everyone sat down with some delicious olives, sticky toffee pudding & chocolate fountain (although a certain amount of, “just tried lots of clothes on, should I eat more?! oh well, why not..”). Lynne has been left with quite a big pile of clothes to take to the charity shops – there was still lots of nice things left – they just didn’t fit anyone there (there was probably about 20 of us?!)…

Read Christian Aid’s review of a Clothes Swap party.

I like working both in and out of the academy, and I think those who have worked outside of the sector make much better workers WITHIN it too…

“Breaking out of the academy may seem daunting, but scholars’ skills transfer to many other jobs. Matthew Reisz talks to four who made it to the other side. But then there is the final move out of the world of work – plan well, recommend Caroline Lodge and Eileen Carnell

Life seems unlikely to get any easier in higher education over the next few years: contracting job markets, stagnant salaries and increased workloads are all more than distinct possibilities. Some academics may be forced out of higher education altogether; others may become increasingly disillusioned with a changing sector.

The question, of course, is how one responds to this. One can grin and bear it, and probably become ever more bitter, or one can actively plot one’s escape. Here we tell the stories of a number of academics who have left the academy and built new lives for themselves. All have essentially happy endings and reveal how many academics possess transferable skills they can fall back on, should the need arise.

Much of it comes down to a question of self-definition. As long as one pigeonholes oneself as “an expert on eels’ parasites” or something equally limiting, it may be hard to think how to excite a potential employer or recreate oneself as something quite different. Yet a slight shift of the kaleidoscope can often open a range of fresh possibilities.

But while this feature celebrates the positive achievements of academics who have remade themselves, it also raises questions about the frustrations that seem to be pushing some of the talent out. Where this involves people who are talented writers, as in a couple of case studies below, there seems to be something particularly dysfunctional about it, with the universities losing their champions of “impact”, the very people who could take their work out to a broader public and enthuse potential students and paymasters.”

Read full story.

The guy who set up 4’33″ reading his short story.

The judges giving feedback… and a special commendation from one of the judges for Charly’s story “it was wonderful, and the ending was the best of all of them”

Charly relieved that it’s over!

TEDxTeen 2010 – Simon Cohen from We Are Family Foundation on Vimeo.

I had the privilege of meeting Simon this morning. I’m looking, for @bigbible, to do something like his Tole-Rants (so impressive), but I need to do it on a shoestring… The guy is engaging, interested, incisive, insightful and all round good guy. Here he is in action changing the world…