Who said art and geek don't mix?

Why you shouldn't use disposable cups in the office

Fact: your colleagues carry your cup with their fingers around the rim.

Fact: about 20% of all adults don't wash their hands after they visited the toilet.

Do we need to say more?

Unless you're the only one in the office, or no one will fetch you a cup, you're screwed!


And how do we know all this? Well, being microbes and all, we got a snitch on the inside ;-).

The life cycle of a company [business]

Every company has a life cycle which we can most accurately compare with the human social life cycle.

Lets take some random company. Any company really. Lets say some general multinational or GM for short.
The GM didn't start as a GM, it started like any small business at the bottom. At first, it just needed to be fed (a steady income), fed like a baby. And all it needed to do is give the people closest to them what they wanted: smiles, lots of smiles. And cute faces!
Or in the GM's case: products that the local people wanted.
After a while it became bigger and stronger. Just smiles couldn't cut it anymore. It needed to look for a way to live on a larger scale, in its neighborhood, aiming to strive and avoid being bullied. Just like any kid in school. Kids do what they do best and by adapting to their social environment (friends, classmates, school, home, family), they start to thrive when they get along and give their social environment what they want, or expect, from the child. Just like any old business would.
At some point kids, or GM's, enter puberty and often start to think they've learned it all. That they mastered it. They assume they know best and that they can tell other people what to do. Tell them that their way is best and that everyone should follow them. They lose their care for others. They start noticing they lost some real friends. Some relatives won't talk to them anymore. Communication with their parents grows more and more difficult.
Some kids stay stubborn. They remain in their dreamworld. Some even go so far that they lose all connections and basically, socially die.
Sometimes, someone will try an intervention, a reanimation if you will. Or in the GM's case, someone will drop a big bag of money, hoping the GM will better it's life.
Unfortunately, the intervenors don't get a say in the outcome of the intervention. They can only hope the kid will listen and turn around. If they do, they will enter adulthood. They've made mistakes and learned from it. A road of greatness lies ahead.
But not too fast! Any adult can become grumpy and a know-it-all. Gently losing its friends and enter the cycle towards social annihilation once again.
Or bankruptcy in the case of some GMs.
Some will try to buy friends (if you have the cash), or in the GMs case, persuade through commercials and lobbying, but everyone knows "friends" through money are the first to stab you in the back when it suits them best.

In a nutshell:
when it comes to having a business, you shouldn't decide what people want. you should listen and make what they want. Only then can you become great and stay great. All other roads will lead to your demise.

Any thoughts on the matter? Please drop us your comments below.

Disclaimer:
Any reference to existing companies are entirely accidental and not intended.