Tom Nixon

Good news: You can manufacture your own happiness

Just stumbled upon this fantastic TED talk about happiness. As it turns out, us humans are just as capable of synthesising happiness for ourselves as we are at gaining happiness from external things. It's certainly not what a consumerist society would like us to believe. This discovery might surprise a lot of people, however Buddhists had this all figured out thousands of years ago. They have long understood that the things that we think make us happy or unhappy are 'out there' and that the feeling actually comes from within, and is therefore within our control.

What gets your knickers in a twist?

My clever colleagues at NixonMcInnes just launched this viral widget for Oxfam who are campaigning to get some of the most important world issues onto the agenda at the G8 Summit. Please sign up and grab the widget for your own blog, Facebook page or other destination.

Democratising the humble attendee list

I'm really looking forward to Interesting 2008 on Saturday, and the attendee list - which is not something that would usually be worth blogging about - has a novel approach that typifies this quirky event. Usually an attendee list for a conference is something that I pour over in both a hunter-like fashion, looking for prospects to go and bother, and also like an insecure lonely saddo, hoping to find a familiar name who I can go and talk to during moments of self-doubt after the marketing director of Global Mega Corp tells me that they're 'not interested in working with a Social Media Agency, thank you very much.'

The format is that you add your name to the Attendees wiki page, then other people can come along and fill in the description bit, which leads to some interesting 3rd person perspective descriptions.

At the moment, mine says:

Tom Nixon
- Advocate of democratic & open work places, curry lover, master of a handbag dog Anna Carlson
- We bump into each other everynow and then but have never spoken - a fellow runner. Written by Curtis James

...which is a pretty accurate description (although the handbag dog belongs to the missus, not me, as I keep having to tell people), and a handy reminder that I must go for that beer with Curtis.

Talking about democratic company culture

I was interviewed last year by Anna Farmery about our democratic working practices at NixonMcInnes for her Engaging Brand podcast series. The interview never appeared on her site leaving me a bit paranoid that I had been completely boring or incoherent. Fortunately, it turned out she had just misplaced the memory card which has now been found and so the interview is live.

You can listen to the episode through the web player. The interview starts about two minutes in.

As always, interested to know what you think.

Improve brain: Go exercise!

[From The Psychology blog]

"Whether you're old or young, fit or even suffering from a neurodegenerative disorder, aerobic exercise has been found to be beneficial for cognitive health. Randomised controlled trials, along with reviews of many of these trials (such as this one in Neuromolecular Medicine), have shown that exercise improves cognitive function across the board. It has also been found to be particularly good at enhancing executive control processes (e.g. planning and working memory).

Exercise is also thought to encourage the growth of new brain cells. In the past scientists always thought that neurogenesis - growing new brain cells - was impossible in humans. New studies, though, have shown that we can grow new brain cells.

Research reviewed in Neuromolecular Medicine suggests physical exercise can promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus - an area of the brain thought to be important in memory and learning.

Verdict: The evidence for exercise boosting cognitive function is head-and-shoulders above that for brain training, drugs, nutritional supplements and meditation. Scientifically, on the current evidence, exercise is the best way to enhance your cognitive function. And as for its side-effects: yes there is the chance of an injury but exercise can also reduce weight, lower the chance of dementia, improve mood and lead to a longer life-span. Damn those side-effects!"

OK I'm off for a swim, my brain needs all the help it can get.

Paying new employees to quit

I was on holiday when this blog post about Zappos was doing the rounds but it's so good I thought it was worth mentioning again now. I'm a big fan of quirky working practices and this one is superb. I'm wondering if/how this could be implemented in my business.

"when Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period.

After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!

Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)

Indeed, CEO Tony Hsieh and his colleagues keep raising the size of the quit-now bonus. It started at $100, went to $500, and may well go higher than $1,000 as the company gets bigger (and it becomes even more difficult to maintain the all-important culture and obsession with customers.)"

Read the full article

(found via 37 signals)

Hello to the FOWA crowd!

I'm chuffed as hell to have been asked by the lovely folks at Carsonified to present at FOWA this year - thanks guys! And hello to you if this is the first time you've stopped by my blog. Very nice to meet you :)

I'm going to be taking part in a sesion entitled 'Work/life balance or Blood, sweat and tears: Which is the startup way?' in the Business track. They've got a great format planned for this where different viewpoints will be presented and then questioned by the audience allowing everyone to make their own mind up.

As you might have guessed, my angle is going to be about creating a democratic company culture based on freedom, trust, openness, work-life balance and ultimately happiness. I know they've been talking to an industry big-hitter about presenting an alternative perspective so it's going to be interesting.

Here are a few links to some previous articles where I've been discussing these themes. I'd love to know what you think. And please help yourself to the RSS feed or connect with me on Twitter to join the conversation. See you in October!

The top 5 workplace secrets
7 reasons why flexitime and duvet days are WRONG
How to make an 'employees set their own salary' policy work
Could a web agency work a 4 day week?
An easy way to add a little democracy: Open up your board meetings
Star pupils and corporate drones
Why businesses must allow Facebook at work
Hiring a director in a democratic company