A likes B too much and B leaves. C and D like each other and think no one knows, they do. C and E like each other and gang up against F. I leaves when G is promoted. H is great at their job which makes J and K jealous. No one likes L. M is letting their team down and causing resentment. N watches, always watches. O hates P and everyone knows, including P. Q is ambitious and “deserves more”. R is too good to listen to anyone. S is exceptional, S is loved by everyone, S is fantastic, S loves their job, S resigns. T is for trying. U thinks they are a god, they are not. V takes chances, gets things done and never asks for anything. W works hard but always fails, everyone loves W. X works hard and is quiet, reliable, loyal, dedicated and great at their job, everyone forgets about X. Y always needs to be first, Z just is.

Related posts:

1. Busy Work

I use Evernote to keep a growing list of blog topic ideas, but I also sometime use it to actually write the blog posts.  Sometimes I start one.. and then leave it alone for a bit and writing “offline” gives me a better user experience sometimes.

The Problem

Once I have written the post, I then open up WordPress and copy and paste it into a new post.  This works nearly perfectly.  Formatting like bullets, bold, links, etc are all retained.  There is, however, one huge problem – paragraphs are not spaced properly when your post is published.  This naturally will depend on your theme and the css you use, but here’s how it looks on my own site:

The reason for this issue is that Evernote uses the “div” tag around each paragraph instead of “p”.  Again – this may work perfectly on your wordpress site if the theme has been set up correctly, but I know a number of people who have experienced this same issue and so I thought I’d document the solution.

The Solution

All we need to do is replace the div tags with p tags.

1. In wordpress, click on the HTML tab.

2. Select all of the text in the editor and copy to the clipboard.

3. Go to a text editor - on Windows you can use Notepad - and paste in the text from WordPress.

4. Then select “Edit” from the menu and then “Replace..” and enter “<div>” in the “Find what” field and “<p>” in the “Replace with” field and then select “Replace All”

5. And then enter “</div>” (note the “/”) in the “Find what” field and “</p>” in the “Replace with” field and then select “Replace All” again.

6. You can press cancel to close the find/replace dialog.

7. Now copy the contents from the text editor to the clipboard and replace the contents in wordpress (replacing all <div>’s with <p>’s)

And that’s it.  It’s a pain.. but sometimes I find writing in Evernote more convenient and so it is worth putting up with this little issue.

Related posts:

1. iPad app for writing blogs: DraftCraft

With all this austerity going on around us, television news channels and some newspapers have produced various “special reports” trying to explain what it all means.  They’ve been pretty good at explaining complex macroeconomics concepts, but they never quite got to the basics in my view.  So here it is.

Governments have two ways to raise money- transaction fees and confiscation.

Transaction Fees.

We’re all used to paying transaction fees.  If you sell something on eBay, you pay a transaction fee.  If you sell your house, you pay commission to an estate agent. Some discount airlines charge a transaction fee when you use your credit card to buy tickets.

You are also paying transaction fees to your government every day.  When you buy something at a department store and have to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) or sales tax.  When you import a product you may have to pay import duty.  When you sell your home and have to pay “stamp duty” (UK).  When you buy fuel for your car it has both fuel duty and VAT.   And on and on.

Confiscation

The other way governments raise money is by confiscating your money.  This might be in the form of an income tax where a portion of your income is confiscated from your paycheck each month.  It might be when you make a profit from selling an asset (e.g. in the stock market or a second property) in the form of capital gains tax.  It may also occur when you inherit money from a deceased relative in the form of a death or inheritance tax.

Personally I think that using “confiscate” instead of “tax” is a clearer expression of what is occurring.  The word “tax” no longer means what it did in many countries due to its ubiquitousness.  Think of the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood stories and how the Crown practically bankrupted both land-owners and peasants with its excessive taxes:

Sheriff of Nottingham: [to the collectors] Well, what sort of day have you had? Productive, I trust.
1st Tax Collector: I only wish your trust was better placed, milord. It’s getting harder than ever to get the taxes out of them.

Generally, I think that people don’t mind paying transaction fees – providing that they are reasonable.  This is the cost of “doing business” in one country compared with another.   There is an element of choice when it comes to transaction fees too – you choose to consume and therefore accept the transaction cost of doing so.

Confiscation on the other hand is an emotive issue – and an intentionally emotive word.  Most people understand that confiscation taxes are appropriate in any modern society providing that they are applied fairly and reasonably.  I don’t know of many governments that confiscate fairly and reasonably, but I wish they would.  Perhaps if we change the nomenclature, we can change the behavior.

No related posts.

Journaling

These are not necessarily “dear diary” moments, but they can be.  The main point is that it provides an opportunity to let rip.  To get all those thoughts out of your head – both negative and positive.  It provides an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth.  It has been proven to reduce stress.  It helps with problem solving – sometimes when you write the problem out, you start to see the solutions that may have otherwise been blocked.  Its said to enhance intuition in that you can start to better understand how you handle particular types of problems or recognize trends in events or relationships.  And the list of benefits go on and on.

Psychologists, counselors, life coaches and other personal development professionals have been recommending journaling for decades (also sometimes known as “Journalysis“).

So what does this have to do with business or better management?

Applying this technique to business and in particular to managers in your business can have a great impact. Some have called this approach “management by reporting” but I think that phrase can be misunderstood or possibly implemented incorrectly.  The KPI’s that you may normally include in a “report” are important, but the narrative is just as important in my opinion.

Here’s how I use it:

• Each direct report / manager sends me a weekly report.  This can be on a Friday or a Monday – it is their choice but once chosen, that day needs to be adhered to.
• During the week, they should record their achievements, events, progress, issues etc.  (this is phase one of their journaling)
• On their report day, they write a report and send it by email.  It has the following structure:

1. KPI’s ( if applicable )
2. What they achieved, progressed, etc that week, summarizing from their journal (I don’t really want to or need to know the details – this is phase two of their journaling).
3. What they plan to achieve, progress, etc the following week.
4. Any issues that need addressing with me.

It takes a while for people to get used to this approach, but once they do – they find it quite cathartic.  Again, it’s important to place an emphasis on the narrative.  The process of writing out what issues they dealt with, what progress that they achieved, and what problems that occurred in summary form allows them to take stock of their week and plan for the coming week in a more effective way.

This approach gains many of the same benefits of journaling for personal development – reduces stress, self-analysis, awareness of weaknesses and strengths, identify patterns, etc.  I find the reports useful – but they are really for them and it is rare that they don’t see their immense benefit.

This is a simple, yet effective technique that I have found incredibly useful.. perhaps you will too.

Related posts:

1. Management Tip: Trust but Verify
2. My top 5 list of business books for small business owners
3. How to select a business partner

• Recently, Evernote announced that their latest round of funding was not an exit strategy for its founders but a foundation for building a “100 year company”
• I read Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh that describes how Zappos was built and their philosophy to business.
• I’ve been revisiting Good to Great  and Built to Last by Jim Collins
• We’ve reenergized our own focus on culture and values at my company with great effect

Normally, my business planning horizon is 6 months, 12 months, 2 years and 5 years.  I have a solid plan for the next 6 months and 12 months and then have a vision and top line goals for 2 years and 5 years out.  I’ve always worked this way.  It allows me to stay agile in the short term but set course for what I have always considered to be a long-term horizon.

But recently I have had this paradigm shift and I’m not sure if it was serendipity or confirmation bias.. but it seems evident that for a business to stand the test of time it has to rise above the products and services that it offers now and look for what makes it different regardless of what it sells.

For Tony Hsieh and Zappos it was Customer Service / Experience.  They sell shoes, but they seem themselves as a company that provides unrivaled levels of customer service.. the shoes are just the way to make that happen.

For Steve Jobs and Apple it is about innovation and design – Apple could sell cars and you know that they would be beautiful and amazing (and expensive), but Apple is no longer just a computer company.

Its hard to have a long-term product strategy if you are in an industry that changes quickly and continuously such as anything in Tech.  If you don’t innovate and reinvent yourself you will simply fall by the wayside.  IBM has done it (reinvented themselves).  Google are trying to do it.  Microsoft needs to start doing it.  You can plan your product lifecycles in the short and possibly medium-term but anything more than five years out becomes more challenging in any but the most static of industries.

So in order to plan long-term as a business you need to rise above your products and services. The products you sell or the services you offer today won’t be the same in 50, 60 or 70 years from now, so what does your business stand for in the long-term?  Is it your company culture and value-driven business approach?  Is it your innovation?  Your total focus to the customer experience?  This is such a great mental exercise - think about how you can differentiate your business today in a way that is detached from what you actually sell but will stand the test of the time.

Start asking yourself how your business can become a 100-year company – the result will likely be a stronger business in the short-term too.

Related posts:

1. Customer or Client?
2. Jack of All Trades is a Weak Business Strategy

This was a great question and I thought about it briefly and came up with the following list – mainly around topics that don’t seem to get taught anywhere yet are so essential to a successful career.

Time Management and Goal Setting

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey – if you have to read one book on becoming a more organised and effective person, this is it.
Getting Things Done by David Allen – this books takes becoming organised to the next level – it requires a bit more discipline but will raise your game that much more again.
Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy – this is a very easy read but has a powerful message.. if you want a “first step” book towards personal development, then perhaps this is it.

Success

Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy – this is the best “getting your head straight” books that you can ever read.  It is more or less an amalgam of many other books bringing the main concepts behind success together in one place.  It will stick with you.
Awaken the Giant within by Anthony Robbins – this is a classic and has the power to transform your life.  Read it once, then get the audio books and listen to them over and over.
The Psychology of Winning by Denis Waitley – an old book that you may need to get second hand these days – but no less relevant.
Seeds Of Greatness by Denis Waitley – perhaps this book should be required reading in UK schools?  We need a moral compass and reset values.  This book will deliver in a simple and straightforward message.

Finances

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki – one of the best books for understanding personal finance that have found – at least in a simple, overview point of view.  One of the points that still sticks with me is understanding that your house is not an “asset” (not while you have a mortgage at least).
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey – this is a very relevant and topical book centred on becoming debt free.  It is very US-centric – but like Rich Dad, Poor Dad the lessons are still valid to overseas readers.
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko – in a world where celebrity and bling, this books discusses the “true” millionaires.  Those that live quietly, frugally, and unbeknownst to many – even there own neighbours.

Related posts:

1. My top 5 list of business books for small business owners
2. Listen to Audiobooks
3. I need a Kindle to go with my iPad

The Wikipedia definition of a strong password is:

Password strength is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting guessing and brute-force attacks. In its usual form, it estimates how many trials an attacker who does not have direct access to the password would need, on average, to guess it correctly. The strength of a password is a function of length, complexity, and unpredictability

The problem is that most people are generally terrible at picking passwords – certainly at picking “unpredictable” passwords.

So here’s my approach for selecting passwords for people that I am sure will help you too.

We’re going to use the PCTools.com Random Password Generator for a lot of this.

1. Once we connect to the site above, let’s select the following options:

The options are:

• Password Length – this should be at least 8 characters long – but not more than 10 characters if you want to make easy to remember (which we do)
• Show Phonetics – this can be useful but not essential.
• Include Letters – we absolutely want passwords with letters in them
• Include Mixed Case – although not essential, adding mixed case can really strengthen a password and so I would recommend that you use this option.
• Include Numbers – this will help strengthen your password to and does not simply mean replacing “O” with “0″ (oh with zero)
• Include Punctuation – this setting will totally wreck the “easy to remember” element of this process and so I leave this setting switched OFF.  We can always add punctuation after – manually.
• No Similar Characters – this is a useful option to have switched ON so that we don’t get 1′s and l’s which can be confused and impact its memorability.
• Quantity – we want to have the largest number of passwords to choose from, so bump this up to the highest number – 50.

Once you have these settings correct, then press “Generate Password(s)” and see what your options are:

As you can see, this is just a quick excerpt from the list of passwords.  What I do is scan the list looking for passwords that are completely random and odd.. but ones that you could remember.  These are usually ones that have a nice distribution of vowels to create combinations that could be words.. but aren’t.

For example, here is one that I would select from this list:

So as you can see - spava6AN - is a completely random password.  It includes mixed case, a number and should be relatively easy to remember.

Let’s try it in a useful too called “How Secure is My Password“:

As you can see – this password would take a “standard” desktop PC using a “brute-force” methods to crack passwords – 10 days to do so!

What’s also nice about this tool is that it also points out an element that might be missing from your password – in this case it doesn’t have any symbols or punctuation that can really help strengthen your password further.

Let’s add an exclamation mark (“!”) to the end of our password – spava6AN! - and try it in the same tool to see what we get:

And there you go – now your password would take 12 years to crack just using standard technology.

So – please change your simplistic passwords to something more secure and use the approach outlined here to help make them easy to remember too.

Related posts:

1. How to auto tweet and create your own Twitter bot

I read a few tweets recently referencing the new UK Dominos Pizza iPad app and as its Friday, I’m hungry and we have nothing else in the fridge, I thought I’d give it a go.

First impressions are really positive. The app has a recently nice interface – clear, simple to use with strong signposts that help walk you through he ordering process.

Once you register, the app downloads the menu relevant to your local Domino’s branch – including special offers and deals.

You can simply order straight from the menu, but you can also completely customise your pizza with additional toppings, crusts, and ‘half and half’ orders.

Once you are ready to order, Domino’s will take you through the checkout process which is all very slick with lots of attempts to upsell you with desserts, sidesm and the rest. It’s only slightly annoying as to be fair, it’s pretty well done.

When you order, you can choose to collect or have it delivered and have a choice of payment options – including PayPal which is a really useful option if you are short of cash on the night.

When your order is placed, the Dominos’s provides a dashboard slider that shows you the process of your order – ordered, prepared, baking, in delivery, delivered. This is a really useful feature too.

The Good

(how I wish this DraftCraft app has bullets / lists)

* easy user interface
* makes placing orders simple and perhaps easier than calling in for some reason
* PayPal is a great option for payment – especially if you don’t have any cash on hand
* access to the full local menu including special offers
* will now be my preferred method for placing orders from Domino’s

The Bad

* The slider that describes the status of your completed order is not clear – you can move the image around and totally mess up the progress bar
* I think there is a bug involving mobile phone numbers – I had to delete my registered mobile number in order to actually place the order tonight. I hope they can fix it.

All in all, this is an excellent app and sets the new standard for restaurants who want to take orders online.

Posted via DraftCraft app

No related posts.

The wordpress iPad app is nice, but does not provide a pleasant environment for writing blogs in my opinion. And so when I read about a new app called DraftCraft designed for doing nothing else but writing.. I thought I’d download it and give it a go. In fact, I am writing this review using the app now which seemed the most appropriate method to test it.

Just write

First impressions are positive. It really provides you with a nice clean UI in which you don’t need to think about issues like HTML, templates, etc. The idea is the you just focus on writing.

There’s only basic formatting options – partly down to a limitation with the iPad itself I suppose, but this isn’t a bad thing really as sometimes you can a bit too much time messing around with the layout.

You can embed photos:

But once again you have very limited options in terms of editing them.

The key is in the Name

This is a very nice app for writing blogs and getting your thoughts down in a clean and user friendly environment. There are limitations to the formatting you can apply – lists, bullets, headers, etc. Photos can be embedded, but any editing needs to be done outside the app.

The name of the app is DraftCraft and if you want a place to simply store your drafts, then this is the all for you. I have done this before in Evernote, but the DraftCraft environment is far more pleasant.

Publishing

You can post to WordPress blogs and a handful of others (Blogger, LiveJournal, etc) but depending on how much reformatting you will require you may only want to use this app for writing and then copy and paste into the WordPress app. Or send it to your WordPress blog in draft form and then edit it there.

All in all – nice app for writing, limited in functionality – but that may be exactly what you need to get your thoughts down.

Posted via DraftCraft app

Related posts:

1. Dominos Pizza iPad App
2. Blogging with Evernote Tip

In 1994, I dropped about 30lbs in weight very quickly and unexpectedly.   This combined with some very shaky hands and a rapid heart beat made it pretty obvious to get some medical attention.  I went to my primary GP who spent several weeks performing a variety of tests.  When the results were in, I was invited back to discuss them with him.

“You have diabetes”, he told me.

“Are you sure”?  I asked.

“Absolutely, no doubt.  You’ll need to adjust your diet and I’ll refer you to an endocrinologist who will advise you on your treatment moving forward”  he said.

I had to wait six weeks to see the endocrinologist.  During that time, I educated myself on diabetes.  Changed my diet.  Prepared for my new life as a diabetic.

When I met with the endocrinologist, he told me that I didn’t have diabetes.  I never had diabetes and should never have been diagnosed as such.  He was dumbfounded by the diagnosis based on the symptoms that I was presenting.  He told me that my condition was actually hyperthyroidism – an over-active thyroid.

During the following months, we tried various treatments to see if my thyroid gland would perhaps “reset” and return to normal.  It didn’t and in 1996 I had radio-iodine treatment which effectively destroyed a large part of my thyroid gland and I have been taking thyroxine tablets daily ever since.

The level of thyroxine is monitored every 6 months or so with a blood test.  After an initial levelling – I have been on the same amount – 100mcg – for 14 years or so.  So advised by a number of doctor’s who work in my local health centre and analyse my blood tests.

In recent years, I had complained to my wife that I didn’t feel as “sharp” as I once was.  I have a pretty active brain  - as I am sure most of you do – but it didn’t feel as active as it once was.  The ideas for new businesses, changing the world, whatever – weren’t flowing at the velocity and volume that they did before.  I complained that I lost my “mojo”.  Lethargic.  Mentally dull.  I wrote it off as simply getting old.

At the beginning of this year, after taking one of my regular blood tests, I had an unexpected call from one of the GP’s at my practice.  He was concerned about my levels of thyroxine and asked how long I had been taking my current dose.   He said that although my levels were considered within the “normal” range, they were at the very low end of that range and it was a widely held view that it was healthier for patients to be at the top end of the range and not the bottom (where I was).  He asked me how I felt and I told him. He wanted to increase my dosage gradually to see how I respond.

In April I went from 100mcg to 125mcg.  Took a blood test June and waited to hear the results.  Nothing.  So after a couple of weeks, I called the health centre to ask about it and the nurse reviewed my records and said that the doctor (a different one) determined that my test was “normal”.

I asked for the doctor who was conducting my tests to call me and he did.  He told me once again that my level of thyroxine was too low and would like to increase this again.

I recently took another test and made sure that I spoke to the correct doctor when the blood tests were in.  We are increasing it again but he said we are close to where he would like to see me.

Here’s the thing.  I feel like myself again.  I have so many stupid ideas again its not funny. Most of them are terrible, but they flowing again.  I have new levels of energy.  I am “mentally sharper” whatever that means.  I am happier.  I am more motivated. But – as far as my thyroxine levels are concerned –  I am still “normal”.

I wonder how many other people are getting incorrect levels of treatment because of some sort of “normal” range of acceptable performance.  14 years of being told that I was within a normal range, while I was slowly losing a little piece of myself.

Today, I am thankful for a doctor who decided to look beyond the “normal” range and talk to me and ask how I felt.  He has changed my life, I am sure of it.  Thank you Doctor.

No related posts.