Organizational Behavior

While the mobile endpoint is a potential game changer for businesses, it exposes mobile workers to security risks and vulnerabilities

12 October 2016 - Dimension Data, the $7.5 billion global ICT solutions and services provider, today published a white paper[1] that examines the need for organizations to transform in order to allow employees to work in more mobile workspaces. In fact, enterprises that fail to offer employees a flexible, autonomous, and creative work environment are at risk of not attracting and retaining next-generation talent. However, most workspaces are not ready for the cyber threats of tomorrow.

Gamifying Goodness: New ‘Social Impact Scoring System’ Spurs a Movement of Competitive Kindness

How nice are you? The xocial online community is calculating and curating “competitive kindness” to help mere mortals out-nice each other, and make the world a better place

Are you using your superpowers for good? One optimistic online community called xocial (pronounced soh-shuhl) is now giving cause-conscious and otherwise kindhearted businesses and individuals the ability to do good, see good, feel good and measure good.

"So the next time you call someone’s job easy — or tell an employee to go pick some low-hanging fruit — stop yourself. Respect the work that you’ve never done before. Remind yourself that other people’s jobs aren’t so simple."

- Jason Fried, Co-founder of Basecamp, How the 'Low-Hanging Fruit' Myth Is Hurting Your Business, Inc., Septemer 2016.

87 per cent of visual hacks were successful

Bracknell, UK, 21 June, 2016 – 3M, the science-based technology company, has revealed the results of a UK and worldwide experiment that demonstrates ’visual hacking’ is a significant risk .

In the UK, the rate of successful visual hacks – many of which were achieved by viewing people’s computer screens – was 87 per cent, compared to an average of 91 per cent worldwide. Alarmingly, the ‘white hat hacker’ was confronted in a global average of only 32 per cent of occasions.

With news of security breaches happening at major corporations all over the world, it’s easy for business leaders to start focusing all of their attention on outside threats. Hackers seem to be everywhere these days, so a strategy that heightens network security against cyber attacks is usually a good idea. If your business has adopted bring your own device (BYOD) policies, however, all that preparation for avoiding outside risks may be misdirected.

"The real problem we're up against is not technology, it's that management DNA in companies.... When you concentrate the responsibility for innovation at the top, you're holding your capacity to change hostage. It disempowers the little people."

- Gary Hamel, quoted by Lucas Mearian, The next corporate revolution will be power to the peons, Computerworld, June 4, 2013.

"Innovation is an art, but it is an art where “managerial” interventions can accelerate or retard the rate of progress. Much of this concerns the sources from which ideas originate, the speed by which ideas move through an organization, the invitations to participate, the attitudes of the key decision-makers and the sources of inspiration that they draw from."

- Bill Fischer, The Virtues of Having Strange People Close By, Forbes.com, May 17, 2012

"It's often the employees--rather than outside consultants--who know a company's products and processes best. According to management experts, many of the most innovative companies tend to solicit ideas from staff throughout the organization, not just the executive ranks."

-Rachel Emma Silverman, "For Bright Ideas, Ask the Staff", The Wall Street Jorunal, October 17, 2011.

With the boom of tech-savvy employees in the workforce, companies are in search of unique engagement tools to keep the Gen X and Gen Y employees interested.  In Dana LaSalvia’s article called “Building an Employee-Enriched Culture with Social Media” she wrote that “organizations should think about integrating companywide marketing messages and upgrading their employee’s recognition programs to be more virtual.” To do this, implement an intranet!

"The more I learn about Enterprise 2.0, the more inclined I am to encourage companies to throw caution to the wind: buy (or build) some well-designed lightweight tools that take advantage of emergence and game mechanics, find a few leaders willing to lead by example, and go live."

- Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0 the Indian Way,  AndrewMcAfee.org, April 7, 2011.