BendTech

The Meetup Group has location and time information for our May 4th book club meeting.

This month we’ll be discussing Positivity, an important book in the emerging literature about The Positivity/Negativity Ratio .

It turns out that academics have found “Positivity” to be as important for establishing and maintaining high performance business teams as it is in maintaining great relationships.  The focus is on “team dynamics,” “connectivity,” and “emotional fields.” Incredibly enough, consensus is emerging about a specific numeric value, the P/N Ratio required for “human flourishing” in business teams, relationships, and individuals.

The Losada Line defines that minimum level of Positivity and Connectivity that distinguishes teams and people able to reach a complex understanding of others and the objectives/tasks before them. Oh, and the Losada line value is equal to 2.9013 for those of us keeping track to 4 decimal points.

And apparently conscious and deliberate effort to improve Team Positivity and Connectivity works even in “explosive contexts”.

The Amazon Reviews of the book are here.

This first 7 minute video is a great introduction to the issues discussed by the book’s author, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson.  Don’t be fooled by the video title “Positive Emotions.” The BendTech book club has not been taken over by new age “feel gooders.”

Dr. Fredrickson is a serious academic psychologist and the implications of the Positivity/Negative Ratio for business and technology teams are important and have only begun to be understood. Let’s see if we can’t figure out what some implications are for business teams we participate in.

The rest of this month’s book club video cheats and book summary links follow after the jump…

(more…)

The music video all book club members must love.

Lyrics after the jump…

(more…)

I thought our book club meetup last night about Free:  The Future of a Radical Price was a great one for stimulating thought about what I would like my business to become. We had a good turnout of 10 people.  Even better, my threat to not have pizza on hand if it wasn’t eaten was taken seriously and there were only two slices left when I left the meeting early.

We selected two books for the next couple meetups.

In April, we’ll be looking at Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy. Thanks to Lloyd Fassett for suggesting this great book.

In May, we’ll be discussing Positivity, an important book in the emerging literature about the Positive/Negative Ratio I wrote about a few days ago.  More on Positivity later.  For now, check out the Amazon Reviews.

Just a reminder that the March Book Club Meetup is this Tuesday at Dudley’s Book Shop on Minnesota. We’ll be talking about Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price. We’ve got “video cheats” and a link to reader reviews up so you can attend and intelligently participate without actually reading the book too.

At the February meetup, we decided to try to put two books in the queue for discussion so we’ll need to come up with two titles at this March meetup. Come with a few ideas about books you’d like to talk about.

Here’s a topic I’d like to discuss at some point this year…  The Positivity/Negativity Ratio significant for High Performance Teams.

It seems a handful of academics have focused their attention on the dynamics of teams that perform at various levels of “flourishing.” Incredibly enough, consensus is emerging about the P/N Ratio required for “human flourishing” in business teams, marriages, and individuals.

The Losada Line defines that minimum level of Positivity and Connectivity that distinguishes teams and people able to reach a complex understanding of others and the objectives/tasks before them. Oh, and the Losada line value is equal to 2.9013 for those of us keeping track to 4 decimal points.

And apparently conscious and deliberate effort to improve Team Positivity and Connectivity works even in “explosive contexts”. Please excuse the pun.

I imagine a Book Club Meetup discussion could help to get us familiar with this relatively new academic literature and music(?) on teaming.

Seth Godin is out with a new book just today called Linchpin.  Lots of reviews are in and they’re great.  I’d be interested in discussing at the March book club meeting if others are interested.  Here are 3 videos of Seth discussing his book.

Seth also gave a talk at TED a few years back which is terrific and worth a look.

More book club video cheats, more often, providing BendTech members with more opportunity to attend book club meetings with less prep time than any other book club in the country?

Dunno about that, but whatever the answer, here are some video cheats to make it easy to talk as if informed about Nicolas Carr’s book, The Big Switch on February 2nd. Let us know if you’ll be attending so we can ensure there’s enough pizza…

There is a Mondo Pizza slice or two for all at this Tuesday’s Book Club Meetup…

Robert posted some video cheats for the Innovator’s Solution.  Here are a couple more… Be sure to check out the first one running a little over 4 minutes for a unique approach to communicating the essential ideas of the book.

Here’s Christensen on the Charlie Rose Show talking about the book beginning at 41:15 for about 15 minutes.

Our next book club meeting is this Tuesday and will feature the usual sparkling conversation about The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen.  And probably some pizza as well.  For anyone wishing to attend, but too lethargic from all the holiday merrymaking to pick up the book, here are a few video clips to get you up to speed:

For you uber-impatient types Mike Mesnick, of TechDirt, explains the basic idea in 120 seconds flat:

Possibly the best contemporary example of the Innovator’s Dilemma is the newspaper industry’s struggle to adapt to online media, as discussed by Marc Andreesen w/ Charlie Rose:

(and, yeah, I’m sure we’ll be talking about how the Bulletin is doing in this regard if, like me, you’re into that sort of chatter)

And finally, straight from the horse’s mouth, we have Clayton Christensen himself, in two parts:

The first book club discussion of the new year will focus on The Innovators Dilemma:  The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business.

I haven’t had a chance to look at the book yet.  For now, the Booklist review summary at Amazon will have to do:

The author, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, asks why some well-managed companies that stay on top of new technology and practice quality customer service can still falter. His own research brought a surprising answer to that question. Christensen suggests that by placing too great an emphasis on satisfying customers’ current needs, companies fail to adapt or adopt new technology that will meet customers’ unstated or future needs, and he argues that such companies will eventually fall behind. Christensen calls this phenomenon “disruptive technology” and demonstrates its effects in industries as diverse as the manufacture of hard-disk drives and mass retailing. He goes on to offer solutions by providing strategies for anticipating changes in markets.

More about the book including “online video cheats” later…

Hope to see you for the discussion on January 5th, 2010!