Earlier today I listened to Norman Wolfe talk about The Living Organization Model.  It was a courageous presentation that really resonated with me and put into words concepts that are often hard to explain.

I hear that advice often: hire young people, they are more open, and more creative.  And that's true, kind of.  What's also true is that young people starting their careers want to fit and integrate into their tribe and step up in the ranks.  And that often leads to doing more of the same, not breaking the mold.

It's really simple: to innovate, focus on learning. Everything else will follow.

In this 2008 video, Jonathan Rosenberg, VP, Google, talks candidly about product management, innovation, their hiring process, bozos and specialists, product selection, managing dispersed teams, the "20% time" and acquisitions. Although a bit dated, the interview is still revealing  Particularly in how the company has instrumented itself for innovation.

An annotated log of the video, with links, is included in the post, too.

For the third year in a row, Nearsoft has ranked among the TOP 20 Great Places to Work in Mexico.  We are honored (and so very stoked!).  We've ranked in the TOP tier ever since we first applied for this award, three years ago.  Here's our secret sauce.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  For example, look at how our typing interfaces have evolved.

And-a 1, and-a 2, and-a 2, and…

An email conversation with a friend reminded of Tim Kastelle's point of "why it is so hard for you to get your innovative new idea to spread quickly."  Google Wave will have to deal with this problem of spreading by getting people to disconnect from their current networks and connect to Wave's value network instead.

We're in the business of bringing together distributed teams of developers for our clients, so the issue of "presence" is very important to us.  As Sean Murphy wrote in a recent post, we use Yammer, Skype and similar tools to create this presence.  These tools can also help teams working in the same building and even in the same office.

Last night Pamela Fox, from Google, gave a really good presentation on Wave Robots and the new Wave API.  The session was full of gems.  In this post I cover a few of them and include links to a live-wave of the presentation, a video recording of it and other resources.

I guess I should not be surprised, but I find it kind of creepy that there is such a thing as a virtual USPTO and even a Second Life Bar Association.  I guess that wherever the money goes, the law (and lawyers) follow.