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Author Archives: kevin

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Why Why Why Why Why

Posted on by kevin

Early in the 20th century, Sakichi Toyoda of the Toyota Motor Corporation developed the 5 Whys Technique to determine the root cause of a problem. Taiichi Ohno, a pioneer of the Toyota Production Systems, described the 5 Whys succinctly: “Ask …

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How Communities Start

Posted on by kevin

You care about something—an interest, activity, cause, profession, person, place, product, or some part of who you are.     And you have a hunch: there are others who care about the same thing.     So you do something …

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Plant a Flag

Posted on by kevin

Last week, I spoke with a fellow Cal grad about how to kickstart a community she’s working on. We discussed strategies for getting the attention of the specific group of people she aims to serve. Even with good intentions, it …

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Vigorous writing is concise.

Posted on by kevin

I’ve been writing more. I’m writing a short book with my partners at People & Company, and I’m writing here regularly to reflect on what I’m learning. This quote on “omitting needless words” from “The Elements of Style” struck me …

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Trying Stuff That Shouldn’t Work

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This quote is by Alan Yang (producer and writer on Parks and Recreation, Master of None) during the “Fried Rice” episode of Ugly Delicious. He says: I think there’s a point in time you start losing your edge. You learn too …

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Efficiency = Preparation

Posted on by kevin

I put some time into making my company‘s processes more efficient—creating templates and auditing our project tasks. I’ve been itching to do it. Until recently, I thought of optimizing our work as a pursuit to just get stuff done faster. …

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Common (and Less Common) Process Map Symbols

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Here are a few, handy symbols for mapping out any process. They were recapped in this lecture on process improvement and Lean Thinking.   And here are some less common ones that I use occasionally. 

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How Friends Have Conversations

Posted on by kevin

I drew this for Bailey’s essay “Why Community?” She writes: The functional unit of any community is dialogue. In our communities, we seek out our own identity through rich, repeat dialogue with others.

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Less of this.

Posted on by kevin

“People show up for the meetup but come back for the people.” — Scott Heiferman, Meetup

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Organizers Develop Leaders

Posted on by kevin

  Marshall Ganz discusses leadership and what it means to be an organizer. Ganz is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. He says: “Organizers think of themselves as people that develop the leadership of others.” And that: “Leadership [is] …

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