Walter | Cooler Insights

The Importance of Closing the Loop

April 15, 2011 • Blog • 2 comments

One of the most fundamental lessons in any professional, personal or social endeavour is to close the loop. Don’t leave things hanging in mid-air or wait until they’re forgotten (and forgiven). Chances are that they might come back again to haunt you if you don’t hit that nail on the head until its well and truly level.

Now closing the loop doesn’t mean that you should try to go for quick and easy wins all the time. Occasionally, one needs to consider if closing a small loop may result in tearing open a larger issue in the long-run. However, the key principle is that you should not leave issues or projects in limbo as far as you can help it.

Revisiting Ethan’s Gift of a Lifetime

April 10, 2011 • • 5 comments

Slightly more than three years (or 40 months) ago, my wife Tina and I gave our son Ethan a Christmas gift of a Marang tree as part of NParks’ Plant a Tree Programme. Over the months, we’ve always made it a point to revisit our tree every now and then, just to see how healthy it has grown. Occasionally, I will also jog to the trail area where the tree grows just to see how well the sapling is doing.

On a recent trip to the Marang Trail at the foot of Mount Faber, we’re glad to see that our tree is still doing well and growing both tall and lush. To me, this tree is especially meaningful when I make the connection between how my son Ethan grows and how the tree increases in size and girth. Let’s hope that it will continue to spring forth and grow, just as my son Ethan continues to mature and grow as a young boy every day of his life.

Ethan gazing at the map of Mount Faber park at the foot of the hill.

Touring and Learning from the Tate Modern

April 8, 2011 • Blog • 1 comment

Occupying a disused power station in the heart of London beside the River Thames, Tate Modern is one of the world’s leading modern art museum. With an impressive display of art from 1900 to the present, Tate Modern attracts some five million visitors annually, and is one of a family of four Tate galleries in the UK (which includes Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives).

Collectively, the Tates cover the national collection of British art from the year 1500 to the present day, and of international modern art. All their collections are accessible online, and the Tate Group embraces an extensive social media engagement strategy encompassing Facebook, Twitter, Youtube videos, photos on Flickr, a Video Channel, and a Blog.

The Power of Visualisation

April 6, 2011 • Personal Branding • 1 comment

Courtesy of About Health

“Begin with the End in Mind”

That’s one of the immortal “7 Habits” created by the late motivational guru Stephen Covey as one of his cardinal 7 Habits of Successful People.

However, what happens if you keep imagining all the possible things that can go wrong in your minds? What sort of end would you have?

When Analysis Become Paralysis

April 3, 2011 • Blog • no comments

Courtesy of Geek and Poke

In the field of strategy and planning, there are two age-old dilemmas which one commonly encounters in the process of doing one’s work, namely:

1) How much research should we conduct?

Mischief in the Museum

March 29, 2011 • Blog • 1 comment

Can we allow ‘real life’ games in our museums ala Da Vinci Code and the Louvre? (source of image)

Should we allow people to ‘play’ in the museums? How much leeway should we provide for spontaneous citizen initiated activities and when should we say no?

Nina Simon of Museum 2.0 highlighted recent buzz-worthy examples of unsolicited ‘pranks’ in two hallowed institutions: The Met and the Smithsonian Institution.

6 Lessons in Japanese Resilience

March 27, 2011 • Personal Branding • no comments

Against the cataclysmic forces of Nature, few have responded as well as the Japanese (courtesy of Joseph Friedman)

Have you wondered what made the Japanese such a resilient and robust group of people? How do they overcome the challenges of living in one of the most disaster prone areas of the world?

Often, it is in the worst of times that you see the best in people. Nothing is more true than how the Japanese faced the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the Northeast coast of Japan.

Zooming in on Zappos

March 25, 2011 • Business and Management • 1 comment

Tony Hsieh, CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Zappos.com (courtesy of Sunni Brown)

UPDATE: 28 November 2020 — Tony Hsieh has tragically passed away in a house fire at the age of 46. May he rest in peace.

Few companies are as zealous as Zappos in ensuring that excellence is ingrained into every single process, person and policy of the organisation.

Radical and almost ruthless in their quest for the holy customer grail, Zappos is famous for legendary strategies which few of their competitors dare to take up.

Author: coolerinsights