Award winning books 2018

Use Outdoor Spaces to Find Solitude There are times, however, when you’re looking for some solitude outside. Many homes have unused outdoor space like awkward corners or a deck, porch, or terrace. Cochran says one of these could become a perfect, quiet spot to meditate, journal, or drink your morning coffee. There are easy ways to turn even the smallest, tightest spaces into a sanctuary. If it’s not frigid but merely cool, you could set up a small heater, have blankets on hand, and even buy an affordable fountain, powered by a pump, that recirculates water for some white noise. “A space like that can allow you to escape, for just a while, and feel less constrained by the four walls of your house,” she says. … [Read more...] about How to redesign any outdoor space you have—even a fire escape

The solution to this worsening crisis? Policymakers need to step up their game when it comes to connecting people to living-wage jobs, an effort that will prove cost-effective in the long run, according to Flaming. “We’re losing ground on trying to solve homelessness purely by producing affordable housing,” he added. “Giving people the chance to stay in the labor force, improve their skills, earn money, pay rent, is something we ought to be doing a lot more.” … [Read more...] about The pandemic recession could cause an enormous spike in homelessness

You can do great creative work for anybody, he adds. All it takes is to understand the brand’s business and particular personality then create work that fits: “That’s the key: to make a client shine in their clothes, not look inappropriate or stupid. Tell people to be creative and you end up with clothes that don’t fit. Just deliver on the brief and the rest will follow.” … [Read more...] about How Rebuilding A Culture Can Reap Dramatic Results: Meet The Viral Wizards Duval Guillaume Modem

Last, to measure progress against this mission, and to know if customers are being served by the team’s existence, they need measures of success. Many companies would consider these objectives, as in a Management By Objectives (MBO) system or an Objectives and Key Results (OKR) system. Call it what you will, but I believe these should be relatively long-lived measurements that tell the story of progress toward the stated mission, versus objectives that change quarterly. For example, when our Infrastructure got started, our build system, which packages our code for deployment to servers, was horribly broken. It could take half a day to build and deploy our software, and half of the time the build would fail for unknown reasons. It was killing developer productivity. So the Infrastructure team took on a measure of “time from code check-in to deployment.” In the short term, it was clear they had some cleanup to do, but over the long term, this is a clear measure of … [Read more...] about The “dozen-bagel” secret to preserving startup spirit as your company grows

Grey had tried to change before. The business wasn’t in denial, but it just seemed like the “uncrackable” problem. This time, we did it differently. Our strategy for change was to change our culture. We called this Open. It is both an expression of a culture and how we believe today’s people-based businesses should work in order to survive, evolve and thrive. It is a philosophy of collective creativity and collective responsibility. It encourages increased collaboration between departments, the agency and its clients. Any business can be Open; what follows is a brief description of how we did it, the lessons learned and the results we’re achieving. … [Read more...] about 10 Ways To Create An Open Culture