Joe Wikert's DisruptorFest

Returning to the office

Countless organizations are emerging from the pandemic and looking to resume something close to a normal, in-person office environment as possible. The reality of course is that almost everything has changed these since early 2020 and the new normal is still being defined.

One of the biggest casualties I've seen in the past year-plus is the hit to corporate culture. Some organizations were already largely virtual so they didn't pay a price but the rest of the world operated face-to-face and limped along with endless Zoom meetings. If we've learned anything in the past year it's that technology simply cannot solve every problem. Serendipity is a terrific example; there's something special about that unexpected hallway conversation which sometimes leads to a new idea or solution. If anyone has found an amazing virtual serendipity platform please let me know.

As the great office return continues it's tempting to think that old floor plans should be completely discarded and layouts should be reimagined with the pandemic in mind. I'm very supportive of creating hotel space for hybrid employees but I'm not convinced anyone can accurately predict the percentage of onsite employees we'll see 12 or 24 months from now. Every month is an opportunity to learn something new so it's wise to avoid prematurely declaring a long-term solution.

Another part of this that bothers me has to do with how employees are encouraged to return. I'll admit I don't have a solution for this but it's something we all need to think about. I'm referring specifically to the fact that employers need to create an environment employees crave and are looking forward to re-entering. (Yes, I said an environment employees actually crave.) This isn't about free food or ping-pong tables; it's about the broader organizational culture and how employees feel when they walk in the door. I have no doubt some organizations figured this out long ago but I'm also certain they're in the minority.

This isn't the solution to the problem I just mentioned but I do think FOMO will eventually create a gravitational pull for the return of some fence-sitting employees. Again, that's not the solution but it will be a factor in the return process. I say this because it's one thing when everyone is out of the office and nobody's missing out but it's a totally different situation when some are in while others choose to remain remote. There will definitely be more times where remote employees aren't fully in the loop or simply miss out on too many of those in-person serendipity moments. I believe this will require many months though, or possibly more than a year, to surface.

Lastly, flexibility is key for both employers and employees. As I mentioned earlier, there's still way too much we need to learn about the new normal and it's critical for everyone to remain open-minded and make all the required course corrections along the way.

Think Again, by Adam Grant

I typically determine the value of a business or self-help book by the number of times I stopped to highlight portions of it along the reading journey. After recently finishing Think Again, by Adam Grant, I can say it's easily the most highlighted and thought-provoking book I've read in quite some time.

In fact, there are too many highlights to squeeze into this article so I recommend you buy a copy of your own. In the meantime, here are just a few of the best excerpts I'm still thinking about...

The curse of knowledge is that it closes our mind to what we don't know.

The single most important driver of a forecasters' success was how often they updated their beliefs. The best forecasters went through more rethinking cycles.

As a general rule, it's those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking, both because they're more likely to privilege their own perspectives and because their perspectives are more likely to go unquestioned.

When we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking. Yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen.

Resisting the impulse to simplify is a step toward becoming more argument literate.

When someone knowledgeable admits uncertainty, it surprises people, and they end up paying more attention to the substance of the argument.

Rethinking is more likely to happen in a learning culture, where growth is the core value and rethinking cycles are routine.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.

In the face of any number of unknown and evolving threats, humility, doubt, and curiosity are vital to discovery. Bold, persistent experimentation might be our best tool for rethinking.

Reinventing pen on paper

I'm a borderline obsessive note-taker and I've wrestled for years with bringing notes on paper into the digital world. The hack I've used for the past few years is to simply take a picture of my written note pages and then move them into Evernote. That works, for the most part, but I also end up with a stack of notebooks to toss at the end of the year...if only I could bring myself to actually toss them. OK, I'm a borderline hoarder too.

I've also never gotten comfortable using a stylus on a tablet. For whatever reason I insist on writing on paper with a pen.

A few months ago I was ready to take another shot at stylus-on-tablet and splurge on the reMarkable 2. In fact, I was days away from clicking "buy" when a colleague sent me an email from one of his friends who had an awful customer service experience with the device. That saved me $400 but left me with my old solution...until I discovered the Rocketbook.

Rocketbook is an erasable notebook with pages designed to upload directly to Evernote and pretty much every other digital note platform. They have a number of notebook formats and I opted for the Fusion. It's super thin and simply requires the use of erasable pens. There are probably other pen options out there but I went with the friXion clicker. In fact, I bought a bunch of them in different colors at Walmart.

I've been using my Fusion for several weeks now and I love it. The first page shows all my tasks for the week and notes associated with them. At the end of the week I use the Rocketbook app to take a picture and have them automatically loaded into Evernote. I then wipe the page clean with a damp cloth and I'm ready for the week ahead. The notebook is filled with other pages for drawings, notes and pretty much any other use you can think of.

Adding up the notebook and the pens I'm all in for about $45, or about 10% of the reMarkable investment.

Not only is the Rocketbook Fusion a great solution for my needs, it's also a regular reminder that pretty much anything can be reinvented and disrupted, even pen on paper.

The unexpected benefits of simply asking "Why?"

Curiosity is an important attribute for any successful businessperson. It's something I always try to measure during an interview, for example. That's because I've found the more curious someone is, the more likely they are to embrace change and want to learn new things.

I'm frequently amazed at how rarely we ask each other "why?" over the course of a day. Some people worry the question will be interpreted as them challenging their colleague. Others feel they just need to do what's asked and not question the logic behind the request.

In reality, "why?" is where learning often starts.

I've often wondered how many times something I thought was a simple request turned into a major homework assignment for someone else. The higher you are on the org chart, the greater the likelihood your requests become the new top priority. Again, there have been countless times when what I regarded as a low-priority, 5-minute task suddenly caused a team to drop what they're doing and spend half the day answering. Ugh.

I try to be specific by saying things like, "this is low priority" or, my favorite, which is, "if this takes you more than 5 minutes it's not worth doing." Despite those guidelines I've still experienced plenty of situations where my request derailed other higher-priority activities.

One of the things I've started doing is regularly encouraging the team to ask me "why?". More importantly, I now say, regardless of my request, if it's going to take longer than 5 minutes to complete please be sure to ask me why I need it. This not only helps provide context for colleagues but it also leads to better open communication. Better yet, sometimes when answering the "why?" I'm forced to think further about my request and realize either (a) it's not what I really need or, better yet, (b) my colleague has a better way of helping me answer the problem I'm trying to solve, and that's priceless.

So do yourself a favor and encourage more of a "why?" culture throughout your organization. I promise you'll appreciate the results.

The failed promise of turning webpages into a podcast

How many times have you found an interesting article on the web but you have no time to read it? This happens to me every day and despite the variety of save-for-later reading tools out there they all tend to fade into the background and I forget to go back and read what I've saved for later.

When I saw this article on Springwise I immediately took a closer look at the solution it described. The article talks about how a "web browser extension transforms saved articles into podcasts." It turns out this extension is like many others; it simply does a text-to-speech conversion and creates an MP3 file. IOW, there's no connection to a podcast stream. So although the conversion produces impressive human-sounding results (click here to listen to my previous article), it falls short of the promise of transforming anything into a podcast stream.

This seems like a potentially enormous opportunity and gap for someone to fill. Imagine a one-click solution that truly gathers all your saved articles into a stream for your favorite podcast platform. What if that system eventually became so popular that audio ads could be injected dynamically, creating an income source? OK, yes, there would be a number of IP rights issues to potentially overcome but I could also see a model where that revenue stream is shared with the IP owner, alleviating that legal issue. Another interesting feature would be where I could follow others and listen to the articles they curated in their feed; as we've seen with other platforms, those with the biggest following also earn some sort of affiliate income. There are loads of possibilities here and it's all about transforming the written word into audio for broader consumption.

If something like this already exists please let me know. I'd use it every single day and I'm sure there are millions of others out there who would do the same. It's also one of those rare problems where I'd gladly pay a reasonable price to solve.