Dear treasure readers,
right now I’m not only packing treasures, I’m also packing moving crates. That’s why today’s issue is exceptionally available for breakfast on Sunday morning. Today, the treasure chest is filled exclusively with podcasts. This makes the treasure chest perfect for Sunday excursions or consumption at the lake. Or how about an alternative program to the sunday crime thriller on TV or Netflix? The treasure also fills an entire Sunday evening. There is a little downer for my English-speaking readers. The podcasts are all in German. At the end of the article there is another special nugget. It’s in English and hopefully will compensate you.
Nugget #1 is one of the latest episodes of my favorite podcast, Firmenfunk. The topics match the Companypirate blog. So I could put an episode in the treasure almost every week. In episode 36Torsten Wunderlich is a guest. Torsten is Lego Serious Play Facilitator from Munich. Lego Serious Play (short: LSP) is a method in which questions from the areas of strategy and cooperation as well as individual challenges are solved with the help of Lego bricks. We have already tried the method in our company. We were able to experience the “Think with your hands” effect live. For example, we used it in a team meeting where we set goals for the following year. This revealed the strengths and thoughts of individual team members who would probably never have come up in a normal discussion. By the way, I found the idea of using LSP in job interviews interesting in the podcast. By thinking with your hands, you raise the conversation to a meta-level and thus move away from the usual question and answer game, in which there is also the danger of rehearsed answers. Have you used LSP before? What are your experiences?
FF036 Lego Serious Play (58 min, audio, German)
Nugget #2 is getting a little more technical. I also listen to Bastian Wilkats podcast “Der Flaneur” regularly. I particularly like his very wide range of topics. It’s kind of a treasure, too. In episode E43 Tilmann Böhme from futureofvoice.com is a guest. Bastian and Tilmann “stroll” to the topic of voice technology. Language assistants like Amazons Alexa, Apples Siri or OK Google and the corresponding hardware are enormously trending. I am also professionally involved with this trend because I am convinced that language will be the human-machine interface (HMI) of the future. So we won’t press any more buttons, but talk to devices, furniture and our personal assistants in natural language. Tilmann explains very vividly and simply how the technology works. You learn what happens on the device and what happens in the cloud. The use of language assistants in the company is really interesting for me as a company pirate. The usecase phone book is easy to understand for everyone and you learn where there are still challenges. Nevertheless, there is enormous potential in this technology. And it doesn’t even have to be the hardware of the technology giants in the company. There is a telephone conference system in all meeting rooms. A virtual assistant can dial into my conference call and answer questions during the meeting, such as:
- What were the sales of the last 6 months in the automation market segment like?
- What is the forecast for production capacity utilization in the next four quarters?
- How many users from Asia have visited our store in the last two weeks and how many of them have bought something?
Perhaps such solutions already exist? I would certainly appreciate an exchange on this subject. Feel free to contact me by email at[email]tobias@companypirate.de[/email], through my social channels or leave a comment below this post.
E43: Alexa, Siri & Co: Market, applications and potentials of Voice (with Tilmann Böhme)
(51 min, audio, German)
Nugget #3 is a new addition to my podcast rotation. I have subscribed to the “on the way to NEW WORK” podcast by Christoph Magnussen and Michael Trautmann for some time, but I have never heard an episode. But last week episode #68 with Tijen Onaran sparked my interest and it won’t be the last episode that I listen to. Tijen is the founder of a PR agency and the network “Global Digital Women”, through which she is now even known worldwide. I probably liked the episode so much because I have a similar mindset as Tijen. Do what you’re good at. Be convinced of yourself. If you are not, how can others be? And when it comes to personal responsibility and self-reliance, we also tick similarly. I also have the vision of abolishing my formal role in order to achieve full personal responsibility and independence of my team members.
There is a moment in the podcast where I disagree with Tijen. It’s about motivating people to join a mission. I’m of the opinion this doesn’t make sense. I always imagine a bus stop where people stand and a bus comes and they are pushed into it. If the goal is right and understandable, I think people will come along on their own. It may not even need a common bus. Everyone has his own pace and some prefer to cycle to their destination 😉
But the part of the podcast that resonates with me most, comes in the last third. It is about diversity and innovation. Diversity is one of the three pillars of our Innovation Club. People with different skill sets, professional experience and across all disciplines come together and create innovative solutions. This is a huge force which, unfortunately, is little used in many companies.
68 with entrepreneur Tijen Onaran (Global Digital Woman) (57 min, audio, German)
For all those who don’t like podcasts or would like an English nugget, I have something to read. On Thursday Alexander Gerber and I published the first chapter of our Business-Impro-Theater book “The Art of Collaboration” together. Our protagonist Frank receives a project order and the following hours end in an proper hangover at London-Heathrow. The book is currently still available for free. But we are also looking forward to monetary support in the form of a purchase. Register now and download on Leanpub!
I turn now again to my moving crates and wish you a nice Sunday!