The Holstee Manifesto

by Jean Moncrieff on May 3, 2012

Looking for some inspiration today? Check out The Holstee Manifesto!

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The Higher Laws of Business

by Jean Moncrieff on May 1, 2012

 

 

 

 

Next week I’ll be joining business leaders from all over the world at the 20th Annual Gathering of Games Conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

I first heard about Jack Stack and The Great Game of Business at the annual Small Giants conference in 2011. The Great Game of Business is all about Open Book Management (OBM) and the  idea that OBM creates an environment in which people can continuously learn and grow.

In preparation for the event I’ve been going through some reading material and came across what Jack and his team describe as:

The Higher Laws of Business

  1. You get what you give.
  2. It’s easy to stop one guy, but it’s pretty hard to stop 100.
  3. What goes around comes around.
  4. You gotta do what you gotta do.
  5. You gotta wanna.
  6. You can sometimes fool the fans, but you can never fool the players.
  7. When you raise the bottom, the top rises.
  8. When people set their own targets, they usually hit them.
  9. If nobody pays attention, people stop caring.
  10. As they say in Missouri: Shit rolls downhill. By which they mean change begins at the top.

Although each of the Higher Laws are simple and self explanatory, they hold a great deal of wisdom

A number of these are particularly relevant for the  team I am working with at present. Change is never easy, it has to be begin at the top, we need to raise the bottom, you can’t fool the players and You Gotta Wanna!

We’re looking forward to working on our challenges with other leaders at the Annual Gathering of the Games next week.

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Winter storm threatens to bury Front Range

by Jean Moncrieff on February 3, 2012

After 26 hours of travel, Chris and I have arrived in Denver to a massive snow storm:

Even if we could locate our car, we’ve decided to rather call in an extraction team to take us to the office this morning. Driving in this weather is not one of those experiences I have on my bucket list.

We got in yesterday just in the nick of time, any later and we may have been diverted to another airport. Looks like most flights in and out of DIA are cancelled!

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withTy – Emerge Studio Interview

October 18, 2011

A few weeks ago Chris and I did an interview on withTy, talking about Compass and our latest cloud based application iThawt. We’ve just come out of a really great development cycle and we’re really proud of what we have achieved with iThawt. Check it out!

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The Curious Case of charity:water

September 25, 2011

  I listened to some awesome speakers at Inc 500 the past couple of days and I want to share as much as I can with you. One of my favorite sessions was presented by Scott Harris, founder of charity:water. He’s on a mission to bring safe drinking water to people in developing nations. He’s [...]

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Electronic Medical Records and Document Management

September 15, 2011

Earlier this week I spent the better part of the afternoon in the Doctor’s office. A few days earlier I arrived home to find my eldest daughter had bandaged her ankle and was hobbling around on crutches. At first I suspected this to be one of her more cunning plans to wriggle her way out [...]

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What is iThawt?

July 6, 2011

We’ve been working on an awesome new tool for business at Emerge Studio. It all started when we implemented an ‘out-of-the-box‘ piece of software that ended up requiring a high degree of customization and resources. We started wondering how small and medium size businesses could afford, let alone justify implementing and maintaining some of these [...]

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Small Giants Summit

June 30, 2011

This month I visited Konstanz in Germany to attend the Small Giants International Summit. What an awesome event! One of the best opportunities I’ve had to meet some inspirational business leaders, share ideas and exchange experiences. The Small Giants community is all about bringing together people who are determined to be the best at what [...]

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Brighton Marathon 2011 – Got the T-Shirt

April 19, 2011

I just about crawled over the finish line. That last 800 meters felt like absolute hell and the worst part is, as I hit the 25 mile mark, they suddenly added on another 200 meters. Yes, 26.2 miles. I will never forget the .2 miles. Honestly, what an awesome experience. I was hoping to finish [...]

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Run, Fatboy, Run!

March 27, 2011

Less than a week to go before the Brighton Marathon and I’m beginning to feel like Simon Pegg in Run, Fatboy, Run. Okay, I have managed to drop off a lot of the weight in the past 3 weeks, thanks to Tim Ferriss. I tried out a low-card diet I found in his book The [...]

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