https://qz.com/work/1776841/zappos-has-quietly-backed-away-from-holacracy/

Whatever happened to…?

«Although Zappos’ pursuit of self-organization has been non-linear and even chaotic at times, the company is still ahead of the curve, providing others with a model for what works and what doesn’t, under different conditions—notably for its parent company Amazon, which appears to regard Zappos as an incubator of sorts for new management practices.

The academic community is taking notice as well. In 2017, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and researcher Michael Y. Lee (now an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD) published a paper exploring the limits of hierarchical organizations and the “recent surge in interest in less-hierarchical organizing.” Edmondson and Lee highlighted Zappos as a case study and pointed to the influence of holacracy in particular.

Today, several hundred organizations operate as holacracies. Some of the early adopters, like Twitter co-founder Ev Williams’ Medium, have already abandoned it. “Longstanding research tradition suggests that managerial hierarchy functions more effectively in stable conditions,” Edmondson and Lee wrote, “but faces serious challenges in dynamic conditions.”»

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-linked-disinformation-campaign-fueling-coronavirus-alarm-us-134401587.html

«State Department officials tasked with combating Russian disinformation told AFP that false personas are being used on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to advance Russian talking points in multiple languages.

“Russia’s intent is to sow discord and undermine US institutions and alliances from within, including through covert and coercive malign influence campaigns,” said Philip Reeker, the acting Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia.»

https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/05/how-to-cook-onions-why-recipe-writers-lie-and-lie-about-how-long-they-take-to-caramelize.html

Interesting little article.

«In truth, the best time to caramelize onions is yesterday. Often enough, you need to have them ready before you can start on the rest of the dish. Thus the recipe-writers’ impulse to deceive. Browning onions is slow work, and it comes first. So get a pan going after dinner, and they’ll be ready when you need them. Or throw the onions in a crock pot and go to bed. In recipe time, that’s hours and hours. In your time, the time that matters, it’s less than five minutes.»

I believe this applies to more than just caramelizing onions. All recipes seem to take a lot longer than they claim they do. This has implications beyond more than just inconvenience for us folks who like to cook and have a kitchen with enough space to make a mess. It has a lot to do with the diets of people with less wealth and less free time.

Two low-paying jobs, anyone?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no-doctors-online-groups-convinced-her-it-n1140096

Advice from social media sometimes ain’t such a hot idea. But how do we decide?

Maybe if you need a conspiracy theory to make your ideas stick, that should be a warning flag.

«“Things can get a little dicey,” said Kolina Koltai, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies the social media behavior of alternative health communities. “Not to demonize all of the groups, but when women start diagnosing and crowdsourcing health-related issues, they can end up getting bad medical advice that can be pretty dangerous.

“We’re in this weird time, like a new digital Wild, Wild West,” Koltai said. 

Judith’s dependence on the internet and social media through pregnancy isn’t uncommon; pregnant women and mothers of young babies were among the earliest and most active internet adopters.

“First-time moms are experiencing a sense of loneliness and isolation and coping with a lack of experiential knowledge that they had a generation ago,” said Deborah Lupton, a digital sociologist and professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. 

For Judith — newly married and living far from family and most of her friends — the online birth community stepped in to fill the gap. And she veered toward the wildest, the most radical content, seeking out those who would validate her choices. She blocked mainstream birth accounts on Instagram and Facebook and read only testimonials that promoted unassisted birth. Every day, she felt more radical and resolved to freebirth alone, “no matter what.”

“I think I brainwashed myself with the internet.”»

Also, I’d love to know what the racial breakdown is for women who have bad experiences in hospitals. I bet there’s a story there, too.

https://twitter.com/TheStagmania/status/1230862064098344960?s=20

Don’t know if TNR is any good*, but this tweet did highlight the best part:

«”Here was an assassin, bathed in the blood of her enemies, turning steady eyes to the TV camera and offering her talents to the public: For the small price of a primary vote, this assassin will work for you.”»

*It supposedly was, at some point, but there’s been some drama and I don’t know where things stand now.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/02/bloomberg-wealth-compared-trump-democrat-candidates/

Wealth tax, please. Or maybe a consumption tax. Either way, the super-wealthy are not paying their fair share.

https://twitter.com/tomtomorrow/status/1230735525302001664?s=20

This is a real thing. “Our tribe is better. We get access to the watering hole.”

Just Plain Tom Tomorrow (@tomtomorrow) Tweeted:
generic trump rally …
trump: I’m really stupid and racist! and so are all of you!
audience: we’re all really stupid and racist, hurray!
fox news: why do liberals insist on calling trump supporters stupid and racist?

https://twitter.com/jaythenerdkid/status/1230808136799285248?s=20

Yikes. 🙂

امنه خان (a.k.a. jay) ☪️/🏳️‍🌈/⚧ (@jaythenerdkid) Tweeted:
business cat in the streets, undercut donkey in the sheets https://t.co/pl0ZstEQNi

https://twitter.com/BofAPrivateBank/status/1225478968037576704?s=20

BofA just put this in my Twitter feed. Wow, maybe I need to get me some art.

Also… @ewarren is dead on with her wealth tax.

(BofA wants to remind me the Rembrandt is an investment and should be managed as such. For a small fee.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/most-annoying-corporate-buzzwords/606748/

«For many workers, it can be risky to tell your boss that you’re going to “come up with really random, insane ideas to see if you like any of them,” rather than that you plan to “think outside the box.” So rather than disrupting the status quo, you may just want to leverage your ability to speak Corporate in order to bring more to the table. At least until you become the boss.»

Of course… every boss has another boss. Eventually, your boss is the market (macro-) or stupid customers (micro-), so….