The SmartS Club

In one corner of the web somebody quotes somebody euphorically as giving "4 signs of a culture of innovation" (google that complete phrase and enjoy the list of cut-and-paste-authors that make you call for intelligent filters) The four signs? We get that dull list of standard soft-skills that no less than every serious company in the civilized world subscribes to - twice!: 1. Development of the employees 2. Concern for employees' progress 3. Respect for everyone's contribution 4. Teamwork and collaboration That was it. "4 signs of a culture of innovation" - Those four lala-points! To make things worse the list is supplemented by some bullet-points highlighting unmistakeable signs for 'un-innovation'(! snake-oil anybody?): a. Emphasis on sheer talent b. Categorizing by ability c-f. some modes of harassment that no employer, who isn't completely insane would ever subscribe to. Girls, boys, listen. 1-4 are the most commonly accepted soft-s...

and the best wishes for an exciting, interesting, stimulating new year! click here for a  soundtracklet for today ;)

These days I checked the net for bloglisting services to break loose from the shackles of blogs I usually read - and find some new ones. It was scary. Most of the high-ranking blogs seem to be platforms for advice. Everybody apparently insists on giving me hints how to improve my life in any conceivable aspect. Who needs that? Who believes that? Who wants to know? And who makes THEM the experts to tell ME " How to Negotiate in Three Easy Lessons "? There is this humunguous number of 'how-to'-advices combined with the 'n steps to become...(a successful rocket-scientist/a top-rated womanizer/jobless)' workings that obviously catches on. If the advice is packed into catchy phrases, numbered, spiced up, then it will inevitably make your blog one of the more clicked ones out there. Did anybody ask for this flood of advice? Don't I stand a chance to die dumb? James Altucher will not like it when I say that his site is on the shortlist of those I return to...

Almost the day when SmartS got it's remarks on emergence out, the follower-crowd got interspersed by a significant number of psychoanalysts and 'quantum-esoterics' guys. While we happily welcome every lost sould searching for wisdom also in our utterances, I, personally, get scared. Not because of the psychoanalysts. I actually might need them. But because of the scientoid babble of the others. The guy who delivers his revolutionary thoughts in 7MB chunks to the mailbox is easily complimented to the door of the spam folder (even though the subject-line is somewhat mouthwatering "polarities cosmic physics are contrary to the physical plan of expression of earth. Cosmic physics in the positive attracts positive and negative attracts the negative"). But some not-so-asked-for wisdom strains the patience of even the most diplomatically trained reader: In one mail I had to endure some lecturing about the *free will* of photons (!) (yes! PHOTONS!). Photons *obviously...