Weekly Pulse by William Meller | Week 31, 2022

The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.
The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.

So, let’s go with some discoveries from the week!

#1 – What Kind of Happiness Do People Value Most?
#2 – What Parents Need to Know About the Coming Metaverse
#3 – The Social Economics of Work and Productivity
#4 – How Collaboration Needs Change From Mind to Marketplace
#5 – Strategy for Startups

What Kind of Happiness Do People Value Most?

Source: Harvard Business Review 
Author: Cassie Mogilner Holmes

Summary: Sure, everyone wants to be happy. But what kind of happiness do people tend to want? Is it happiness experienced moment-to-moment? Or is it a broader, remembered happiness, as in being able to look back and remember a time as happy?

3 Highlights:

“… It’s important to note that while this research helps us understand people’s beliefs about which happiness is preferable, it does not prescribe which form of happiness would be better to pursue...“

“… We’re all too busy, and we’re driven to turn down opportunities to constantly feel happy…“

“… If you believe you want a life of happiness experienced at the moment, think twice before preventing yourself from achieving it...” 

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What Parents Need to Know About the Coming Metaverse

Source: World Economic Forum
Author: Adario Strange

Summary: In the week since Facebook announced its name change to Meta, the metaverse has been thrust from science fiction obscurity into the mainstream spotlight, leading Wall Street analysts, politicians, and privacy advocates to make it a part of their vocabulary. It’s important that parents understand what exactly ‘metaverse’ means, and any potential risks for children’s neurodevelopment.

3 Highlights:

“… It’s already hard to monitor what your kids are doing, but at least you can look over their shoulder at a screen. When they’re in VR, they’re blocked off, you can’t really see what they’re doing. Parents need to understand kids’ games, what they’re playing, why they’re playing them, and who they’re playing them with. You have to be an informed consumer right along with them...“

“… How children react to media is of particular concern because their prefrontal cortex, the area that is associated with emotion and behavior regulation, is not completely developed…“ 

“… As families transition along with Facebook and other Big Tech companies from traditional online interactions to fully immersive metaverse experiences, having a better handle on the differences can help parents better navigate this often mysterious landscape as it evolves…” 

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The Social Economics of Work and Productivity

Source: Boston Consulting Group
Author: Yves Morieux and Diana Dosik

Summary: In forcing massive numbers of people to work from home, the COVID-19 lockdowns initiated a global experiment in human behavior and productivity. The pandemic unleashed a global experiment in productivity and performance. Just as public health officials have much to learn from the crisis, so too do corporate executives.

3 Highlights:

“… Collaboration up and down the hierarchy rose by 27%. Executives communicated more frequently with other executives at higher and lower levels of the organization…“ 

“… On a Zoom call, many of the traditional trappings of leadership, such as the seat at the head of the table, disappear; screen real estate is the same for everyone. This shift in perspective encouraged junior people to speak up more often and made meetings more participatory…“ 

“… Through their interactions with employees, managers add value by getting people to do what they might not do on their own. This is the essence of vertical complementarity...” 

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How Collaboration Needs Change From Mind to Marketplace

Source: MIT Sloan Management Review
Author: Jill E. Perry-Smith

Summary: It can be a long slog from the initial concept to the final product. Even in organizations that pride themselves on rapid iteration and experimentation, most truly novel ideas either stall out at some point in development or lose their originality along the way. Identify and pursue truly novel concepts by helping the innovators in your organization collaborate in the right ways at the right times. 

3 Highlights:

“… That journey entails four phases: idea generation; concept elaboration through tests or prototypes that flesh out the idea and assess feasibility; internal promotion to get the sponsorship needed to move forward with a product; and implementation, which involves finalizing plans and specifications, creating the product, and delivering it…“ 

“… That’s hardly the stuff of competitive break-throughs. By taking a more adaptive approach to creative collaboration, your organization can increase its odds of bringing truly new ideas to market…“ 

“…  Create spaces for independent thinking and exposure to different perspectives…” 

Access the Weekly Pulse reading here >>

Strategy for Startups

Source: Harvard Business Review
Author: Joshua Gans, Erin L. Scott, and Scott Stern

Summary: Strategic opportunities for new ventures can be categorized along two dimensions: attitude toward incumbents (collaborate or compete?) and attitude toward innovation (build a moat or storm a hill?). This produces four strategies that will guide a venture’s decisions regarding customers, technologies, identity, and competitive space.

3 Highlights:

“… Many entrepreneurs worry that hesitation will delay commercialization…“ 

“… Particularly effective approaches for start-ups can be found in Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup, Alexander Osterwalder, and Yves Pigneur’s Business Model Generation, and Bill Aulet’s Disciplined Entrepreneurship. Whatever framework is chosen, however, it should involve an explicit process of hypothesis building and testing…“ 

“… In other cases, the requirements—in terms of capital, commitment, and momentum—will be clear, allowing the start-up to focus on them to make the chosen strategy work…” 

Access the Weekly Pulse reading here >>

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