Three Tips to Give Your Business the Edge

The new economy is not measured in currency but attention. This is not news - Herbert Simon was talking about it in 1971. Attention demands time, and to get time we need to be smart in how we work. The idea of the workplace ecosystem, a collaborative body, is increasingly being recognised by change innovators as a powerful agent for productivity. We like working together and we work well together.

Here are some ideas for you to help get more time in your life, through smarter workplace practices:

1. Take the initiative to start the conversation.

"Being able to work with others is an important part of being an entrepreneur"
- Amy Rosen, President and CEO, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Actively look for criticism, feedback, opinions from everyone that you can. Even if they are not experts in the field or on the same level as you. Being able to articulate your thoughts to them will help you simplify and distill your ideas. This will create a dynamic, collaborative atmosphere and, as the Work Futurist Jeremy Scrivens says, will create a positive and accountable workplace ecosystem.

 

2. No meeting can ever be longer than 1 hour.

The shorter the better; meetings must be pointed with a measurable outcome. Anything being discussed for longer than an hour is not meant for a meeting: more time talking about doing work means less time doing work. If there is a lot of content to talk about, send it around beforehand and talk about key issues within the meeting itself.

 

 

3. Team spaces are as important as solo spaces.

Why did the "work from home revolution" never eventuate? Because people feed off each others energy. We don't like working in isolation: we are social animals that need others to excel ourselves. Team spaces can be anywhere, for formal meetings or ad hoc conversations, the only rule is no phones, tablets or laptops. Personal devices, while great for certain things, isolate and distract.

nsquared has a vision to move the business world forward by creating better tools for pointed, meaningful interaction in your workplace. If you are interested in what we do, or if you are interesting in joining any of the events we host about workplace collaboration, keep up to date with our Twitter or Facebook or join our VIP mailing list. 

Have a productive day!

"Within The Power of Humanity:" The Launch of the Tesla Powerwall

This week Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Powerwall and set about a media frenzy. What makes this product launch different from any other? The fact that it addresses one of the key challenges facing the future of power, and by extension the future of our climate: energy storage.

The Tesla Powerwall, Musk claims, is the "missing piece" to a world of sustainable energy. It is a battery for the whole home or business, charged by the huge "fusion reactor in the sky". The product itself is a wall-mounted device marginally bigger than a standard home flat screen TV which Musk says owners can mount in their garage or outside their house. At $3,500 USD, much of the discussion surrounding this breakthrough technology has been regarding the economic viability for average homeowners: does this product, many are asking, deserve to be already sold out until mid-2016? Some have claimed it as revolutionary, others say it is a "toy for rich green people". What has been largely unaddressed in many mainstream media, however, is the human impact.

During the launch video, Musk makes an interesting comparison. In a lot of developing countries, rural areas or island states, mobile phones leapfrogged landlines in terms of usage. The infrastructure of landline telecoms was unnecessary. Likewise, the Tesla Powerwall will eradicate the need for a large scale energy network for the parts of the world that do not already have it. A technology that connects, empowers and enriches the world, whilst at the same time dramatically helping to curb carbon emissions, seems like an extraordinary product.

nsquared stands for advancing the world collaboratively, and the Tesla Powerwall is an exceptional example of realising this vision. The future is looking bright.