Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Open Innovation: What if Work Were Everyone's Business

How much value do you put in one breath? Consider that we can go three days without water, and up to twenty days without food. For breath, we're talking minutes. The greatest freediver can teach you techniques to breathe better. Relaxing helps: “Calmness. Stillness. Barely-there-ness. There are dreamlike contours to the plunge.” The limit of breath holding is dictated by your metabolic rate. It regulates how little oxygen and how much carbon dioxide you can tolerate in your body. Similarly, the limit of creating a safe space for holding innovation depends on the company where you're operating. Your culture regulates... Read more →

Incentives do Work: Some Lessons from Crowdfunding

How people make decisions is a topic of constant study and reflection. Alone and together. For example, I've wondered when do individuals make better decisions than teams? Do people do what they in their process? Or is the process rigged to back the decision with data post-hoc? I wrote an entire series of articles to zoom in and out of when and how people use information in marketing. Behavior is often automatic, and also cultural. Words have the power to persuade and close a sale, before anyone has reasoned on the details. When researchers analyzed 45,000 Kickstarter projects, they found... Read more →

The Connection Between Narrative and Culture

“Economics has re-discovered the power of folklore: the themes in world folktales are linked to current culture.” Professor Ethan Mollick shared a recent study that exemplified this core concept. Cultures with stories where tricksters are punished are trusting; stories where men dominate have more gender bias; stories of risk rewarded have more entrepreneurship. These are the findings of a working paper by Stelios Michalopoulos and Melanie Meng Xue. They found that those patterns hold across groups, countries, and second-generation immigrants. The myths at the origin of the collective imagination are at the root cause of success or failure. It makes... Read more →

Why we Need More of the Right Kind of Books

I love books. The ones I've read, and the ones I'd love to read. Reading is a form of freedom. Libraries and bookstores are some of my favorite places in the world. Growing up, we had a library of 5,000 books in the house—so much possibility. Right at a point in my life when I also had the time. Though there's always time for good books. Lately, I started reaching out to people who I think should write one. Because we seem to miss the books we could really use. Whenever I come across a substantive body of thought—usually in... Read more →

Can we Make Transformation Natural?

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a translator. From parent to sisters talk was my first interpreting work. Then it was from teenager to mother. Not just language. Turning ideas into things was a favorite. But also creating experiences. I've had several careers. After the jobs above. Simultaneous interpreter and translator for neurological development. That's where I picked up the strong foundation of what makes humans work... and what doesn't. Marketing, communications, strategy, creative, product in five industries all followed. With considerable overlap. Coaching and advising evolved from there. Transitions were much easier early on. Almost natural.... Read more →

Vendoring in Culture

I read a lot of other people's writing. I recommend it, especially in the form of good books. One of the unspoken rules of many writers is that you don't blackbox something if you don't need to. Writers quote authors—a dependency—for efficiency, not ignorance. In my case, you can assume I've read at least one of their works for context on their thought process. But in writing, as in thinking, you can also copy someone else's idea and modify it for a different purpose. The work you do to reframe a concept allows you to get a deeper understanding of... Read more →

Want to Make an Impact? Prepare and Do.

“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.” — Carl Jung Want to make an impact? Connect with your mind and examine your consciousness. Every other option becomes an act of vandalism or hubris rather quickly in the modern sense of the word.# For many involved in knowledge work, professional services, or even technology, an actual exchange of value is hard to measure beyond the immediate. But there's a way to prepare for and build over time. Put into this context, it's not obvious you could translate impact into positive effect, influence, or change quickly. But that's... Read more →

Words for the Year

The most important things are often the hardest. Each month this year had its challenges. It also had its gifts: that was the focus all along. A recap of the words that carried the day—and will take us into the future. January—impact February—culture March—belief April—habits / behaviors May—perspective June—change July—perception / behavior August—productivity September—attention / power October—role of corporation November—clarity December—lasting Lasting turns into impact through decision-making, and the cycle continues. Creators use words to expand their thinking, anchor action in meaning. Words are human footprints on the world. How lasting? What impact? Read more →

A Reading List for the Culturally Curious

“Looking at life from a different perspective makes you realize that it's not the deer that is crossing the road, rather it's the road that is crossing the forest.” Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., Muhammad Ali was an activist and philanthropist who became known in America and the world as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time. His convictions cost him at least four years of peak performance. Sports Illustrated declared the heavyweight “Sportsman of the Century” in 1999. Ali won numerous awards throughout his career. But it was his appeal that won him a large following. As... Read more →

The 3-5 Books That Sit on My Office Shelf

This came as a question to me via Jose. It's very appropriate because companies pay me to write. That's also (but not only) why I read a lot. The other reasons include broadening cultural horizons, which often includes disagreeing with other authors. Rarely with the classics, though. Because the classics don't try to sell me a framework, mostly (more further down.) 3-5 books I reference often enough to keep on my office shelf. They've changed little over the last ten to twelve years. You'll see many references to the thinking, research and practice of the authors in my writing as... Read more →