Archimedes’ Hot Tub

At a tense press conference during a hostile takeover I covered as a young reporter, I got the last question. I asked the CEO of the company under siege to tell us a joke. “A joke?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re supposed to be funny. Tell us a joke.”

Obviously, it could have been a disaster. But he whipped out a joke that not only made us laugh, it sent a message to the company pursuing his. He also made his own employees relax a bit — if the boss could tell a joke at a press conference, the takeover wasn’t going to kill them, either. I got compliments about that question for years (sadly, I didn’t have space to use the joke in my story, though the Chicago Tribune did).

Humor is a dangerous thing at work. My question could easily have backfired on me (I probably wouldn’t ask it now that I’m a grizzled veteran). His joke could’ve backfired on him. But even mild humor can help inspire people to work harder, be more creative, builds loyalty, improves health and seems to increase potential for wealth.

Thus starts the review I did of “The Levity Effect” on Big Think, Lighten Up, It’s Only Work .

Most of the book isn’t about becoming a CEO with a penchant for stand-up comedy. It’s more like the CEO as straight man, letting others have a little more fun.

For starters, they are no longer limited by physical boundaries. I use my local library, but it isn’t very big. It’s part of a regional network of libraries, which helps for borrowing books, but for academic articles, which I sometimes need, I’m pretty much out of luck. Only I’m not, as I learned from this piece on public libraries by Hiawatha Bray in the Boston Globe. I’m kicking myself a bit, because I never thought to look into Boston’s public library when I needed access to certain kinds of research. I will now.

Wow, am I behind on my posts. Blogging for money has sapped my energy for this blog.

Here’s my latest Prototype column in the New York Times, Turning Point for Touch Screens. It’s on touch screen technology and whether it’s finally going mainstream, thanks to the iPhone.

And, while I’m at it, here’s the one before that, Finding and Fixing a Home’s Power Hogs. That one was probably the most popular column I’ve written for the NYT — it made the top 10 most emailed list.

Here it is, the last page on the Net. This must be what the guy in the old ISP commercial (was it Comcast? Verizon DSL? Earthlink? I forget) found. Thanks to Cruz for sending this my way.

A book site says that “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” is one of the 100 best business books of all time. This sparked me to think about the Kindergartener’s Guide to Business.

I’m not sure if “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” really qualifies as a business book. Maybe as a motivational guide. But I do think “The House at Pooh Corner” has plenty to say about corporate life. It has Tigger, the epitome of the unmanageable employee (and aspiring CEO), Rabbit in all his micromanaging, scheming splendor, Pooh at his earnest best, fending off corporate Heffalumps with his trembling sidekick Piglet, and the Eeyores and Owls that inhabit companies everywhere. Christopher Robin, the actual CEO, appears periodically to clean up messes (a nice change of pace from today’s headlines).

I’m open to suggestions here. What other children’s books tell us something about work?