We have probably all seen the classic Peanut’s cartoons where Lucy wants Charlie Brown to kick the football.  Poor Charlie Brown goes to kick the ball and Lucy takes it away making Charlie fall on his back and sigh.  We’ve all had people give up on us, or worse we have given up on ourselves.  So whether Lucy lives within us or is around us, never give up and always remember to keep on keeping on.

Phoenix – 1901

My favorite color for clothing is gray but my favorite color overall is lime green which is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day next week.  I bought these shoes on Zappos and they are either the ugliest or coolest shoes ever (still deciding). 

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

Click the image for a larger view.  I know this topic is morbid but it is fascinating isn’t it?  Source: http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/

Loved this post by Scott Berkun about the cult of being busy.  Thoughts?

I recently replied to a Internal Communication LinkedIn group question and wanted to share it with a larger audience in hope others would be able to benefit and reply to it.  Evidently others liked it so hope you do as well.  Don’t forget to comment on it so we can all learn from one another!

The question: “What messaging and tools have you used to convince the non-believers that your intranet site will benefit them.”

My answer: “This may not help you and you may have done much of this, but I’d start with asking your users what new and existing features on your intranet site would/do benefit them the most. If you need a quick answer another option is to look at your site analytics to tell you much of what users are going to today and look to improve upon that.

I see our intranet as the “one stop shop” for global communications so the more you can aggregate global communications to show value (while still retaining usability) may help. So many employees have to check email, the Intranet, hard copies, voicemail, calendar, tasks, and more which takes time so find a way to aggregate those conversations to one location and make it dead simple. Post communications that are going to provide value as well because if you are not careful the communications your Executives ask you to communicate sometimes is not what your audience finds useful or relevant so never forget to focus on what your content consumers want and need to read.

Make your intranet social so your audience is more engaged and if possible implement features which allow the audience to share, subscribe to, and filter so the content is more valuable and applicable to them. Part of the reason society likes Facebook and Twitter are they are giving us very personalized content from sources we want to get our information from (except all that Farmville and Mafia Wars stuff).

Keep your content fresh and add polls on your site which engage your audience and at the same time allows you to get insight into what they want. Think about Facebook for instance, they have polls and applications surfaced on them all of the time and they can use that information to better target advertising to you and ultimately be successful (make money).

In Jack and the Beanstalk Jack found some magical seeds which grew the giant beanstalk right? I think of the beanstalk as the Intranet. I feel there are 4 essential things for beanstalks to grow which are soil, fertilizer, water, and sun. I see the soil being the infrastructure, the fertilizer being new Intranet functionality, the water being its users/audience, and the sun being your company’s culture. The only problem (at least one of them) with my analogy is eventually Jack’s Beanstalk was chopped down and the giant fell with it.

Now its time for the full disclaimer which is I wish I could take my own advice! Hope to hear from everyone else…”

Source: http://www.burnabrain.com/

Source: http://designyoutrust.com/

If a sink doesn’t have a sink what do you call where you wash your hands?  This restroom inside the Bistro 33 Rocklin was so great I had to take a picture of it.  I mean a TV in the mirror and a sinkless sink?  Fantastic…

**Update – Jill asked how you wash your hands when there is no sink and I guess I really should have clarified that!  You probably can’t tell in the picture but the granite is angled toward the wall and there is a small gutter to funnel the water down a pipe just beneath the back of the granite.

My sister had her second child, Austin Eugene Powell last night at 9:17pm who came into the world at a perfect (and very lucky) seven pounds.  I was at church when she called me the first time and I only got to speak with her for a minute before she needed to go.  I went back into the classroom at church and learned of a prayer request for her.  About 3-4 minutes into the prayer requests our pastor started praying for my sister and at that exact moment my phone rang again and it was my sister which I thought was very awesome.

I called her back a few minutes later (shortly before 8pm) and was able to talk with her for a good 20 minutes.  During that call I learned she had gone into the doctor earlier in the day for a checkup and they found her to have elevated blood pressure so they admitted her at that instant and quickly decided to induce the labor.  When I spoke with her she had just received her epidural which went fine and a little over an hour later Austin arrived into the world.  Congratulations lil’ sis and big Mike, I am very proud of you two.  I talked to everyone this morning and Evan, Austin’s big brother sounded very happy in the background upon meeting his new brother for the first time.  It doesn’t get much better than that…

I live in the Bay Area and I’ve always had a commute to and from work each day.  I’ve learned to make the most of the time in the car by listening to technology podcasts and my favorite is This Week in Tech (TWIT).  Earlier in the week I blogged about Conan O’Brien following a random person (Sarah Killen) which suddenly made her famous (at least on the Internet) over night.

This week Kevin Rose decided to do the same thing with Leo Laporte on TWIT and I know this is geek humor but I found it very funny.  The random person Kevin chose is named Lisa Etheridge who had only a handful of followers and her last tweet was “I hate technology” so they thought it was quite fitting.  Leo promised to send a random follower of @LisaTickledPink an iPad.  I also learned how to embed a YouTube video so it would start to play at an exact time so hope you enjoy this video right when they start talking about the prank/stunt.

“Meet the iPad. It has a revolutionary, 9.7-inch, high-resolution, Multi-Touch screen. And it can run almost 140,000 apps from the App Store. All in a design thats just 1.5 lbs and 0.5 inches thin. For as little as $499.”

Anyone who has been to StumpTown Coffee will say it is better than Starbucks (including myself).  Agree or disagree?  Read the Time Magazine article here.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to a tire after jumping a curb, here is the answer.  Christina’s Grandpa’s car is just fine but it was one heck of a ride.

Beautiful day in California today.  I didn’t spend any time in front of a computer so the only interesting things to add to my blog today are these beautiful pictures from today’s trip.  OK it wasn’t the most manly day as you can tell but it was fun.

Christina and I went to Bistro 33 Rocklin with her Grandpa and best friend Jean this afternoon.  The interesting thing about the restaurant is it is located inside of a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Rocklin, CA.  I had a burger and fries and I was telling Christina on the way back tonight it has to be one of the top 20 burgers I’ve ever had (and I’ve had quite a few).  I’d definitely recommend it…

Christina and I went to see Up in the Air tonight and I loved it.  It it definitely a movie where you will walk away from it with lots to think and talk about.  I think just about everyone can relate to at least one aspect of what the main character goes through with his work, love life, and family.  I think I could relate to just about everything in the movie so it seemed to hit home especially hard for me.  I like a movie that ends on a positive note but I also like movies that leave you with your jaw still on the floor which was the case with this movie.  I’m pretty generous with my movie reviews, I either like it or I don’t and in this case I’d give it a 10 (a must see).

European Poker Tour Berlin has just been robbed by six gunmen with machine guns. It is alleged that they have made off with less than a million Euros from the poker tournament. One of the guards was injured trying to capture one of the robbers. It seems everyone is okay except for the guard who was injured in the head. Panic and chaos ensued throughout the tournament as seen in the video.

“Training wheels are a thing of the past thanks to the revolutionary Gyrowheel. Gyrowheel not only keeps the bike from falling over, it also teaches correct riding technique. Gyrowheel senses unbalanced biking and re-centers the bike under the rider’s weight when the bike starts to wobble. Training wheels can’t do that!”  >> See more

“We’re asking people to change the way they think about teaching kids to ride bikes.” – Daniella Reichstetter