This is my daughter. Look at her. There’s this aura of infinite possibilities – she’s ready to take on the world. Nothing will stand in her way to explore this world that’s hers. We all used to be like that. We all had this fire in our eyes. Each morning we couldn’t wait to get out of bed, ready to make this world our world. We were curious. Eager. Had so many questions. Tried things out. Fell down. Tried them again.

And then life happened to us. Or better, institutions stood in our way. Pre-school. Kindergarden. Norms. Criticism. Homework. Schedules. School. Cruel teachers. Critical teachers. Grades. Norms. The system integrated us. We integrated the system into our lives. Into our thinking. And being. We graduated. When we were lucky, we traveled for a while. Found that joyful life experience again. But now it was time to join the workforce. To fit in. To accept mediocrity. Suddenly, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. Weekends and vacations are the only remaining highlights. We are slowly killing off everything that made us happy and curious in the first place.

Hold on, we just got a second chance.

The Great Recession is the biggest opportunity we will encounter in our lives. The Great Recession equals major hardship for many people but it also marks the end of the corporate era. If you’re corporate drone, your job will be eliminated very soon. If you try to fit in to make it in this world, you will struggle for the rest of your life. In order to succeed, you have to become an artist.

That’s the premise of Seth Godin’s newest book “Linchpin – Are you indispensable?” We have to become more human, creative and generous to be seen as unique and irreplaceable. And, most importantly, we have to ship. Meaning, we have to produce. Not spending hours on email trafficking, Twitter scanning, blog commenting. No, shipping. Producing. Doing. We can either give in to the lizard brain, the little part of your brain that is concerned with survival and is the reason for your procrastination and all your irrational fears. Or we can create our own destiny. Our own reality. And, at the same time, change the world.

Seth Godin’s Linchpin might be the most important book you’ve read in a long time. Hopefully, it will change you and your thinking. We’ve been working with major Fortune 100 corporations for years, even decades. We understand how tough it is to implement cultural change. But, it’s necessary. Actually, it’s imperative. Would you rather help your company change or see it vanish?

Seth Godin’s Linchpin and Hugh McLeod’s Evil plans (he illustrated Linchpin because he’s one) will give you the motivation and desire to change the world. We started our company with the goal to help transform businesses and change the way we work and live. Seth Godin distilled our thoughts in a neat and exciting package. Now it’s your turn to take the ball and change the world. We hope you’re ready.

Image courtesy of ‘While you weren’t listening’

My daughter is obsessed with quantity: “How long? 5 minutes? Oh, that’s such a long time.”

“How many days until I go back to school? 2 days? That’s such a long time.”

My favorite:

Me: “You can only have one.” Daughter: “But I want 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 19!”

She’s not much different than the rest of us. If you can’t quantify it, it doesn’t exist. We get trained early on focusing on grades, sizes, personal records – give me any quantity, people will flock to it. And so they do, at their own peril. Just ask the math wizards on Wall Street who almost brought the economy to its knees with their models, derivatives and CDO’s.

Data linked with analysis doesn’t tell you the truth. It provides an assumption of the truth. Nothing more. Any Black Swan will destroy this assumption in an instant.

We see this pervasiveness and blind belief in data everywhere: Employees are resources that need to be utilized. Brands consider people targets that need to be tracked and hunted down by more and more ads.

It’s time to grow up, my daughter will one day, and learn that quality is often more important than quantity. You can’t compare 5 minutes at the dentist with a 5 minute hug of your loved one. Employees have non-quantitative strengths that are not measurable. We just know they have them. Just like products and services have non-quantitative strengths that transforms a product from a commodity into an object of desire.

Sales people are often measured by the quantity of their calls, not the quality of their interactions. Customer Service agents are being judged by the number of calls they handled, not the value they provided to customers. The list is endless.

Sure, we need to constantly improve our data sets and optimize them. But, the altar of data is not worth praying at. Leaving non-quantitative factors out is a road to nowhere. Integrating measurement into a more holistic, dare I say, human perspective should be the goal. Let’s use data and technology as a tool to better understand, innovate and change the world. Time to grow up. Who wants to be stuck in the “2,3,4,5,6,19″ rut forever?

Another year, another attempt to blow up innocent people . Years ago it was the shoebomber, now it’s the undie bomber. Tomorrow it might be the armpit bomber or the denture bomber, how about the stomach bomber?

And what is the answer? Let’s take our shoes off, let’s focus on the lists with 500k+ possible suspects and, most importantly, let’s deploy more technology: Body Scanners are the new black even though some people have doubts this new technology even works as promised.

While Dennis Howlett focuses on the combination of internal conflicts and gaps in processes designed to red flag individuals that contributed to failure, I would like to focus on the human factor.

Eons ago, I worked as a Station Manager for United Airlines in London. Right after the Lockerbie disaster, we were tasked to implement profiling into our check-in processes. I was tasked to integrate an Israeli mindset (ICTS, an Israeli company, responsible for the security of all United flights from LHR) with the mindset of US travelers in the early 90’s. What I liked about ICTS was that they didn’t rely on technology when checking passengers/cargo. They relied on the human factor. Unfortunately, I can’t disclose any of their suspicious signs but all of them made sense. Don’t you think it’s bizarre that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab flew to Detroit without any luggage? What is he going to wear in -20 degree weather? Who pays expensive tickets in cash anymore? If so, why? See, the real story behind good security is to integrate the human factor:

If a story doesn’t make sense, let’s try to make sense out of that story. Or search the passenger thoroughly. During my work at United, I encountered thousands and thousands of passengers. Some displayed many suspicious signs. Some only one. It didn’t make a difference. 99% of the signs we could resolve within a minute. The rest we focused on. And, if not resolvable, we searched them. And, I’m talking about real search. Yes, we would have even found a syringe taped to underwear.

Why is that?

Because we didn’t focus on technology and try to start an arms race with people that dedicate their lives killing innocent passengers. We focused on people. We focused on how people would feel and act when they are trying to kill 200 fellow passengers. They are nervous. They display signs. They are different. And we adjusted our model each and every day. We made sure employees get to do different tasks each 15 minutes because they tend to burn out and become less ware of suspicious signs. By discussing individual cases with employees and making daily judgements if we made the right decisions. And adjustments how to deal with tomorrow’s threat. Technology was just an after-thought. Shouldn’t it be always that way?