One of the challenges of a campus environment (or park, golf course, beach, etc.) in the Pacific NW...goose land mines.

My brother and I have lunch together a few times a week, which means I walk to a cafeteria in another building. Today I found myself navigating the goose poop on the sidewalks. From the evidence, several others had already failed this navigational challenge. I'm glad I don't share an office with any of them.

This just struck me funny. Should Microsoft hire poop scoopers to clean the goose poop from the sidewalks? Maybe we just need to clean the carpets and floors more frequently? Perhaps install boot scrapers at every entrance? Or on a more serious note, follow in the footsteps of Seattle and get rid of the geese?

Me? I just see it as an excuse to play a little hop-scotch on my way to lunch. My daughter will be playing that soon so I'll need the practice.

~tod

I think it's pretty fair to say that public humiliation is not an effective way of motivating people. People can argue the definition of what constitutes humiliation or degrees of how it is applied, but the sum of the story seems to be that it just doesn't work.

I also think it's fair to assume that this is common knowledge for most managers. We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with self-help information and training through work, internet, magazines, tv, books, etc. Honestly, if you're a manager and somehow didn't catch this tidbit of news then you really have your head in the sand. And if the perpetrator's boss doesn't notice and deal with it, then you've got a potentially bigger problem on your hands.

Speaking of common knowledge let's take this a step further. I think most would agree that publicly humiliating people actually deters motivation and creates hostility. It's entirely possible that no hostility existed before said humiliation technique was applied, but I would bet my beach-front property in Mexico [I wish!] that there will be some lingering resentment after the fact. I know that it pisses me off.

Oh, and a lot of other people feel the same....

~tod

PS: I'm speaking solely about motivating people to do something, not punishing them for a crime committed.

I read The Scarlet Letter in school.  Granted, it's been more than 20 years since then, but I remember that when used as a punitive system public humiliation can have unintended consequences.

From The Seattle Times:

Sen. Mike Carrell is sponsoring a bill that would require people convicted of drunken driving to put fluorescent-yellow license plates on their cars for one year.

My gut reaction was "sure, why not," but then I started thinking about it a little more. Could this simply be a modern (aka: humane) method of inflicting mob justice?

~tod

The other day my lead walked into my office and asked me a question about a meeting we both attended. He then followed it up with "do you have it in that magic book of yours?"    He meant my Moleskine notebook that I take to every meeting.

For years I struggled with how to take and organize my chicken scratch from meetings [aka: notes]. First there was the spiral tabbed notebook organized in some manner according to the colored little tabs. I ended up with 2 or 3 of these floating around as I unsuccessfully tried to categorize everything. Next there was my paperless attempt with OneNote, which is an awesome program that I use regularly, but having to drag my laptop to every meeting [and all that entailed] soon became more irritation than anything else.

Then a few years ago my manager at the time gave everyone in his group a Moleskine ruled notebook. Using the KISS principle, this has been my note taking system of choice ever since.

• All notes go here. Whether they're from meetings, training sessions or notes to myself for action items...this is where they live. Caveat: I'm talking about notes containing reference information. I don't use this for small actionable notes to myself like 'pick up Valentine's card for my awesome girlfriend.' That sort of actionable stuff is either in my Outlook Tasks or an Appointment to remind me.
• Ordered chronologically. The next set of notes simply goes on the next page and no need to worry about what category or folder to put it in.
• Title each page with a short, descriptive title and the date (e.g.: Feature Crew Meeting for X ... 2.12.2008). I can easily thumb through it based on the date [I'm very date/time driven] and quickly find the notes I need to review.

Now, this book goes with me to every single meeting. It doesn't take 5 minutes to boot up or require me to categorize each meeting. Plus I have a single place for all my notes. It's my magic book.

~tod

In the last seven years there have been four increases to the first class postage rate, according to Wikipedia. This May there will be another penny increase.  At least now we have the Forever stamp [instead of those stupid little 1-cent stamps]!

~tod