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Technorati Tags: Business, Home, Home and Garden, Office Products, Personal Organization

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Cover via Amazon

I recently completed Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner. This is the follow-up to their best-selling Freakonomics. Super Freakonomics is a little out of the normal productivity and business genera that I normally review on this site but it was a funny and interesting book.

The authors, Levitt and Dubner, take a different slant on microeconomic analysis by looking at analyzing such topics as:

• Why do prostitutes earn less on an inflation adjusted basis now than at the turn of the century and are prostitutes better off with pimps or on their own?
• Is television ruining a society by causing crime or improving the lives of women in rural Indian society?
• Which is more dangerous: drinking and driving or walking home drunks? (…at least for the drunk)
• Do car seats really save lives?
• Can more pollution actual eliminate global warming?
• Is it possible to cause moral decline in monkeys by introducing money?

While most would find a book about microeconomics boring and tedious but the authors’ humor and interesting topic choices did a great job keeping me engages and wanting to keep reading more. While there were points I would gladly argue with their conclusions I was never bored and enjoyed reading this book.

I would defiantly recommend this book.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Freakonomics, Global Cooling, Global warming, Stephen Dubner, stephen j dubner, Steven Levitt, Television

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Among the concepts they cover are:

1. Reduce the number of places you read e-mail
2. Let some e-mail pass by
3. Reduce the number of places you manually file messages
4. Process your e-mail using the 4Ds
5. Reduce you to-do list to once list
6. Work in batches
7. Use good judgment when sending e-mail

While these topice aren’t uncommon GTD sources the Melissa MacBeth does a great job refering each topic to a how-to.

Technorati Tags: David Allen, Getting Things Done, GTD, Mail, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Time Management

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In the past I have written about GTD techniques and my ubiquitous capture system and from the beginning I have noticed a shift in my methods and techniques.  This week I had a bit of an “ah ha moment” when reading a blog post entitled “File Under: Miscellaneous“.

The problem with the Old World

In the tangible world of wooden desktops, filing cabinets, and hanging file folders (I hate those things!) data capture and retrieval takes a lot of forethought.  In my own hard copy files I have a section for Project (major heading) and then a folder for each project (minor heading) I also have a section for hard copy Purchase Requestions that have been returned from my purchasing department.  This all appears organized and easy to file and retrieve documents but after a couple months of use (maybe less) you will find a dilemma–where to I store a purchase requestion related to Project X?  Now I need to consider a set of rules to handle this consistently.

These indexing and referencing problems become more challenging with much larger collections.  Have you ever considered asking why most libraries divide them fiction collections by authors name and their non-fiction by subject?  What happens when I want to find a vampire romance novel?

These are problems in the tangible world because I can’t have the same hardcopy in more than one place at a time.

Breaking the Paradigm in the Digital World

When I first started building my electronic capture system it was based on my hardcopy process.  Identify information, move it to relevant folder, and retrieve it based on my working knowledge of the system (where do I put my project related purchase requsitions?).  This worked well, at least as well has the hardcopy systems that I was already working with.

A couple years into using my capture system I discovered indexing tools I could use to index and search the contents of my desktop like Copernic, Google Desktop, and Windows Search.  Each of these tools provides an efficient desktop index that will allow full text search of the documents stored in your computer and when utilized in conjunction with the extended properties if a document (i.e. keywords filed in a Microsoft Office document) can all you to quickly find relevant data in any indexed folder.

This shift from a directory based system and process is no different than the world experienced when they moved from the early version of Yahoo! (remember when it was a directory not a search engine?) to Google.  The world recognized directory based systems scaled very poorly the outbreak of the Internet, on a micro level this is what many of us managing electronic capture systems learned.  The more data you have, the more referential relevance you have, the more you need to run an index based retrieval process.

The paradigm shift has a little bit of overhead (quite literally some processor overhead to maintain the indexes) but once you embrace the concept most people will recognize there is much less effort involved with an index based system.  While I personally choose to maintain some documents in hierarchal folders, like dividing reference documents from projects, to allow me to archive them once they are no longer active other document types, like e-mail, just get moved from the in box to an archive folder.  I no longer need to put much mental effort into sorting because it is easier to just search for the information I need when I need it.

Consider the impact of this shift in much larger reference systems, like a library.  Google Books epitomizes the strength of full text indexes, consider the search for “ubiquitous capture system getting things done”, I can quickly pull up some relevant passages from the text I want to review and reference.  This method would allow me to concurrently store my non-fiction novels both my author and subject making it much easier to find the Twilight series when I want to read vampire romance novels.

By embracing index based systems I made my storage system as simple as possible and never sacrifice the ability to retrieve information much more quickly than my former directory bases system.

Technorati Tags: David Allen, Getting Things Done, Google, Google Books, GTD, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Search, Search Engines, Web search engine, Yahoo

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A couple weeks ago I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. This was my third time using the automated upgrade available through the built in upgrade manager.

As usual my experience was that Ubuntu made the upgrade simple and I only had one minor issue related to my sound device not working following the upgrade. After Google Search and search of the community forums I was able to find an easy resolution.

Now if only it were this easy and inexpensive (free) to upgrade to Windows 7….

Technorati Tags: Google, Laptop, Searching, Ubuntu, Windows 7

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Like many on the Internet I have been a devote GMail user for a number of years and have grown to love the fact that it allows me to store gigabytes of e-mail on-line. Of course with this much content it becomes unwieldy to find just the right e-mail without mastering a couple of search skills.

The most important thing a GMail user can learn are some of options available for advance search and how to combine them to narrow your selection.

Advance search simply refers to combining keywords in a structured way to allow the Google search engine to operate that way the user intends. For example, instead of simply typing “John” and hitting search you can qualify the message with “from:John” or “to:John” to get only the messages that were sent from or to John. The first sample will include all messages that contain the word “John” while the the other two will provide just the messages from or to him.

Google has a number search terms available for use including:

• from – Used to identify the person who sent the message.
• to – Used to specify a person in the recipient list.
• subject – Used to search the subject line.
• has:attachment - Is used to identify messages that contain attachments.
• quotes – Are used to provide exact phrasing for the search.
• in:inbox – Limits the search to the in-box.
• in:anywhere – Searches all ares of Gmail except the Spam and Trash folders.
• after – Returns only messages sent or received after a certain date.
• before – Returns only messages sent or received before a certain date.

(Google offers a complete list of additional terms in their Support page)

Once you learn the search terms you can combine them to gain control over your messages. For example you want to find all messages from Bill regarding an Halloween party you may type a search phrase as follows: “from:bill after:10/1/2008 before:11/1/2008 subject:halloween or party”. Assuming Bill is a common correspondent this would return a much narrower set of results than just searching on “bill halloween party”.

Once you have a firm grasp of the search techniques you will be able to quickly and efficiently recall messages from your GMail in-box.

Technorati Tags: Getting Things Done, Gmail, Google, Google search, GTD, Productivity, Search, Search Engines, Spam, Web search engine

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A couple months ago I explained how I installed Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire One, unfortunately following that post the screen got damaged so I hadn’t been using the system. Recently I was talking with a co-worker who wanted to use watch MLB.com on his television to catch his hometown team when they were not broadcast locally; this gave the broken Aspire a new breath of life as a media player.

While this wasn’t a terribly complicated project I found it was a good way to take re-use the laptop with a broken monitor in a constructive way.

First, thing you need is a television that can accept VGA inputs. While this may seem to be pretty straight forward, when I bought my living room television I wasn’t considering this option and as such it doesn’t have the required input. If you have a television with a VGA input you it should also have an audio input for the laptop output.

Once you have a television with the appropriate input all you need is a VGA cable and an appropriate audio cable (usually mini plug to mini plug but could be mini plug to RCA). Since I also wanted to be able to control the computer from across the room I added a wireless keyboard and mouse, but before doing so I was controlling it from another laptop using the built in remote desktop functions (Vino).

Once connected to the television I can use the laptop as a media player for almost any media I would like, or on-line content like Youtube or Hulu.

Bill of Material:

Technorati Tags: Acer Aspire, Hulu, MLB.com, RCA connector, Television, Ubuntu, VGA connector, YouTube

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I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to do the Ubuntu install and that most functions worked out of the box.

Before starting the install I did a test run of a persistent Ubuntu 9.04 install from USB (available from pendrivelinux.com). This gave me an opportunity to validate that some of the historic “pain points”, in particular, the display, wireless, and audio would work. After a couple minutes of testing I was able to confirm that all functions were substantially working. From there I simply rebooted the laptop to run the install to my hard drive from the USB drive.

Upon completing the install there were only two areas that needed to addressed, both of which were minor, the LED for the wireless was not working and the sound/mic wasn’t working. To address the LED issues I just loaded linux-backports-modules-jaunty and to get the sound/mic to work I changed the sound devices in System|Preferance|Sound|Sound Capture both of which were detailed on the Ubuntu help site.

Following the install I am impressed with the performance, even on the lower end 1.6GHz Intel Atom and 1Gb of RAM. I have enabled the enhanced graphics themes and don’t notice any performance issues that would imply a sluggish graphics card.

As was the case with the prior version (Ubuntu 8.10) it is extremely easy to install software thought both the “Add/Remove Programs” and the Synaptic Manager so you can quickly get your productivity applications functional.

After the first week of running the new OS and going fully Open Source I have been pleased with the experiment and don’t plan to go back to Windows on that hardware any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Acer Aspire One, Intel Atom, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Open source, Operating Systems, Ubuntu, USB flash drive

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In Seth Godin’s blog post entitled “Luxury vs. premium” he defines the difference between luxury and premium goods were at their core “Luxury goods are organized waste” and “Premium goods…are expensive variants of commodity goods.” With a premium good you get better performance while with a luxury good you are primarily getting value from the signal you are sending.

I think the most important take-away from this definition is the recognition that when you are marketing a premium good or service you need to understand the intrinsic value of premium you are providing. According to Seth, “Plenty of brands are in trouble right now because they’re not sure which one they represent.” This is true not only of luxury vs. premium but also premium vs. commodity.

When marketing premium goods it is critical to understand the value proposition not only of the commodity good but also the value of the premium you are offering. In a market full of commodity goods and services recognition and communication of your value is critical and consumers need to buy into the value you are selling.

Technorati Tags: Autoblog, Autocar, Business, Jaguar, Jaguar Cars, Jaguar XK, JaguarXf, Marketing, Seth Godin

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Among the most significant features users may find is the ability to save documents to PDF, XPS, and Open Document format without additional add-ons. While much of the world is running Office this will be a godsend to people interacting with organizations who don’t run Office as a standard.

A complete list if updates is available here.

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I recently asked my Twitter community how to make the tool relevant in a business to business exchange since business purchasers don’t always have the same passion for your service as a consumer may.  Among the great responses I received were a couple stand outs.

First @MarkBonham pointed out that “[Social Media] is great for building awareness/brand with a target audience.  You want them to view you as an expert.”  Creating community interaction, responding to questions, and providing information not only allows you to stay in the forefront of your consumer’s consciousness but also reinforces your expertise.

@choirshark reminded me that even if the buyer isn’t passionate Twitter and social media remains a good way to engage.  Since social media is about Community, Context, Conversation and Collaboration you have an opportunity to continually reinforce your presence with the “cloud of influencers”.

While the content of the message may not be not be directly tied to your product and service offering you can use Twitter to remain in your consumer’s vision.  For example if you sell toner cartridges you may offer online printer support to keep your message in the forefront.  As long as you are providing value to the community they will endure some product placement among your messages.

It is important to keep in mind that within the context social media you need to provide valuable content or conversation to engage your community or they will revolt.  Since social media is about community not consumers they need to be engaged in the conversation and content.  This is no different than product placement in television-American Idol viewers most won’t mind a Coca-Cola cup in front of Randy or Simon, some viewers will be bothered by the Ford “music videos” inserted between commercials, and you would likely have viewer exodus if Fox allowed the advertising to have an obvious influence on the remainder of the content.  The viewers and community participate because they gain value from the experience.

To get the most value from social media a business my remain relevant, participate, be engaging, and helpful.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, American Idol, B2B, Business to Business, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Company, Product placement, Social media, Target audience, Television advertisement, Twitter

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Contributed under Creative Commons by *clarity*

In a recent post on luisrocks.com called “Fighting Cognitive Dissonance one Customer at a Time”
Louis makes a point that follow-up one of the most critical tools to ensure your consumers remain happy after a sale. At first this lesson my appear to apply primarily to traditional selling and customer relationships I think the implications are much wider reaching to most relationships.

As a long term manager I have coached my staff to include follow-up on the work they do to ensure satisfaction and find other opportunities for improvement. As a department head I also make a point of performing follow-up on not only the critical items but some of the less critical items on a daily basis so I can ensure quality and provide additional coaching to the team.

A couple examples that have become common in my experience as an IT manager are:

• After a programmer completes a requested application and have completed iterative design I recommend a process review of how the completed application ends up being used. Frequently users will repurpose the work to perform unintended task which are more time consuming because they don’t have the right tool or even worse incorrect because they don’t understand the process and assume they can reuse the prior work. For example a report with too many fields that needs to be manipulated to be useful or a report that is filtered and is missing critical data.
• While large help desks frequently provide customer satisfaction surveys for post call support I have found them inadequate as a measure of success. The method that works well for teams of all sizes is a follow-up conversation on a sample of calls. A couple well placed questions like the following will get more insight than one-thousand surveys:
  • Did we resolve your issue?
  • How long was your wait?
  • Could we have done anything different?
  • Can we do anything else or do you have any other issues?
• Follow-up with people whom you have not worked with for a while. You may learn there a looming issues they didn’t think were important but could be symptoms of larger problem (“you know my compute has been getting slower lately” may yield a virus or failing hard drive) or you may learn that they are avoiding support because they were not satisfied with the previous service.

While the examples I provide are oriented toward an IT department I think they are applicable to all departments providing a service and certainly for sales departments managing external relationships. Imagine the finance department asking operations if the monthly reports are adequate to manage their business, or facilities asking if the lighting in the office is sufficient, or Human Resources requesting feedback on the benefits.

At any point we are either consumers or service providers and if we consider our desire for follow-up it is easy to recognize the need.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business Services, Customer First, Customer Management, Customer satisfaction, Customer Service, GTD, Human resources, it, Managment, Project Managment

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Contributed under creative commons license by thingermejig

In a recent article called “The Light Bulb Showdown” on The Simple Dollar blog there was an analysis of the best deal between LED, CFL, and incandescent light bulbs. While this may not be the most exciting discussion it is noteworthy because it happens to be one of the easiest ways for consumers to save on their energy bills.

When researching the best light bulbs it seems that LED bulbs are the Holy Grail for energy conscious consumers but according to The Simple Dollar they have a way to go when it comes total cost of ownership.

In a test of a 7.5 watt LED, a 13 watt CFL, and 60 watt incandescent bulb they had a total cost of ownership over a 30,000 hour lifespan of $144.49, $43.65, and $187.82 respectively. While the energy savings is significant for an LED bulb the initial cost raises the total cost of ownership beyond the CFL.

While the LED may not be ready for prime time yet there are some ways to minimize your energy cost and leverage the best lighting options:

• Choose the smallest bulb that meets your needs. Most appliances will take a 40 to 60 watt incandescent bulb but since this isn’t a primary light source you can likely replace that bulb with a 5 watt CFL to reduce your overall operating cost.
• If you don’t need significant light in your bedroom replace the lights in your bedside lamps with 5 watt CFL and select either a directional light or a light colored opaque lampshade.
• For outdoor lighting there are a number of solar LED lighting options that will provide 8 to 10 hours per charge. In an outdoor environment an attractive LED lamp may provide a better looking option than a brighter, grid driven lamp and can serve the same purpose weather decorative or security lighting.
• Buy dusk to dawn, timer driven, or motion sensing light fixtures when using lighting for security purposes to ensure they are turned off when not in use or needed.

By choosing the correct light bulb and fixture consumers can save money with their casual energy use.

What are your energy saving tips?

Technorati Tags: Alternative Energy, Compact fluorescent lamp, cost savings, Electrical, energy, Incandescent light bulb, Lamp, Light, savings, Shopping, Simple Dollar, Solid-state lighting, Technology

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Contribuded by WTL Photos and used under creative commons license

Over the past couple year’s career changes have made me a much more mobile professional and as such I have become heavily reliant on my laptop, wireless, mobile internet, and Blackberry. I have also shifted my work, reading, and communications patterns over time to become more efficient and effective in my personal and professional communications.

Over the past couple months I have written a number or posts about my mobile workspace, how I integrate my laptop and Blackberry to provide a single information system, and how to work more effectively when on the road. One of the tools I use but have written little about is staring me right in the face…the internet.

As a laptop user I tend to carry most of my documents with my on the run but since the internet has become readily available to me I have started to make the shift for many of my daily communications tasks to the cloud and away from my CPU. Below are a couple examples of how I remain in touch and efficient with “my head in the clouds.”

• First and foremost I sync my Blackberry over-the-air (OTA) and though the clouds with Outlook, which I use as my desktop personal information manager (PIM). This keeps my calendar, contacts, task list, and work e-mail in check regardless of my locale. This allows me to remain active when most would be down because I know my next actions and have a way to remain in touch and reach out to my contacts. Of course the backbone of the wireless communication is the phones data services that ride over the internet.
• Over the past couple years I have moved my personal e-mail to the web, starting first with switching from POP to IMAP (which allowed me to keep my e-mail on the server and connect from multiple locations) and now I have settled on Gmail to provide me web based e-mail. I not only use a traditional @gmail.com address but also my personal domain on Gmail, which provides me access on my Blackberry (with their mobile applications) as well as my laptop or any other computer with an internet connection. Beyond their great spam and virus monitoring service I have the convenience global access anywhere I am.
• Over the years I have used fewer non-web sources for news and human interest and moved exclusively to the web, and in particular to RSS feeds. I receive not only local news but a daily stream of special interest and personal interest stories from trusted international, national, and local sources, as well as independent bloggers. In the past I used a couple desktop RSS aggregators for track my feeds but I have recently shifted to Google Reader and away from my desktop to allow me to review the daily articles from either my Blackberry (using Google’s mobile application) or any desktop with internet access. I can now read and skim my daily news as I stand in line or save articles for reference or an in-depth read later.

For personal communication I have become an avid user of social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (some of my most common) to stay in touch with my friends, family, and business contacts. I have defined a purpose for each of the tools I use to ensure they remain effective for me rather than becoming a distraction.

• While I have a MySpace account I have invested more effort into Facebook because I found in the beginning it met my needs and lifestyle better than other social networking tools. I use this site primarily to communicate and stay in touch with friends and family rather than business contacts since it offers enough applications (like photo sharing and messaging) that are easy to use for quick updates. This has become increasingly important since I moved 1,600 miles away from my home town and family in 2007—I can used Facebook to stay in touch and let the grandparents, aunts and uncles remain connected with my children and family better than through phone calls.
• Over the years I have become an avid LinkedIn user, although I am not a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION). I use LinkedIn to remain in touch with former colleagues and business partners (present and past) and make connections to support my professional life. I have found this to be a great tool to reconnect with trusted contacts and receive answers to questions, advice, and find referrals. I stream network updates to my RSS feed to gain additional contacts and see profile changes (like career changes) in my existing network.
• Twitter has become a daily tool over the past couple months. I started using it to centralize my status updates among my various social networking tools but have begun using it to reach out to my local community and make meaningful contacts. Over time I am seeing my usage shift to information gathering and sharing as my relationships expand.

While this is just a small sample of the tools I have chosen to enhance my productivity the shift from being PC oriented to cloud oriented is one I expect to continue. The tools are becoming increasingly robust and my connections to the internet are becoming increasingly fast and stable. I will continue to seek additional tools to improve my work and social process.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Getting Things Done, Gmail, Google, Google Reader, GTD, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Open Networker, mobile, MySpace, Productivity, RSS, tools

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Contributed by timsamoff

In a recent CIO.com article entitled “Why IT Leaders Shouldn’t Cut Staff” the Denise Dubie discussed the impact of loosing embedded knowledge and skill.

While I agree with Denise that this is a significant risk I also believe that CIO and other IT executives need to be creative in trying times express the value of their staff in different ways. The argument of embedded knowledge only goes so far when cuts may be deep. Interestingly in the same article a Gartner survey of 1,527 CIOs indicated that 72% believe they have the wrong people or not enough of the right people.

While there are number of strategies a CIO could take the environment is likely to change radically in difficult economic times because of new cost and pricing pressures. A couple approaches for CIOs looking to save jobs should consider the following:

• Be willing to make cuts were there isn’t a fit. If you believe you have the wrong people be willing to make some cuts to save the right people. Other departments will be offering up headcount reductions and a wise CIO will need to make certain that they identify any long term gaps in skill and need.
• Review your service offering based on the operational changes that will likely occur in the business. For example, if the company currently operating three shifts and requires 24 hour support but as times get lean make cuts to one or two shifts address the need for 24 hours support and service.
• Redirect resources from long term projects to short term cost savings and automation projects. Since cash flow will likely become tight focus on fast return items and high impact automation that will enable others to make appropriate cuts.
• Become more communicative about the work your department is doing and make sure you can express the value. Since you will likely find that new work may arise as a result of customers or suppliers trying to cut costs (i.e. new pricing and invoicing models as well as more frequent data requests) make sure you can explain the changes that will occur in the demands to your staff.
• Be prepared to express the cost impact of business decision that are going to be made since many executives may not understand the true cost of some technologies. During tough financial times IT executives need to be a partner to the business who can enable the cost reductions others need to make and ensure the business isn’t making invalid assumptions (i.e. thinking that fixed and contracted cost like cell service or software license fees go away when an employee goes away).

The reality is most organizations going thought difficult financial times are looking to cut cost, not people. If IT executives can demonstrate their ability to reduce cost with the staff they have the likelihood of saving jobs is much greater than an executive who doesn’t waiver in the changing environment.

Technorati Tags: Business, Chief information officer, CIO, cost reduction, Employment, Gartner, Information technology, License, Management, Managment, recession, Saving

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• Lose weight
• Save more money/spend less money
• Read more books
• Connect with more people

As the clock ticks from 11:59 12/31/2008 to 12:00 1/1/2009 they are supposed to magically change their habits and become better people—then days later they fail.

I avoid making New Year Resolution for two reasons:

• I am perpetually driven my established high level goals and aligned tasks. Since I focus on my goals though out the year I’m not compelled to make special goals at that start of a year since I am constantly setting and reappraising my direction.
• Habit changes take time, commitment, and effort so placing a stake in the ground on an arbitrary date and expecting to change overnight is not realistic.

While I usually spend some time around the New Year to reevaluate my priorities since things tend to slow down at work I don’t usually make major changes in my plan to correspond with the New Year.

If you are focused on New Year’s Resolutions consider changing your focus to a long term plan with action items that provide specific and measurable result. As you reevaluate your plans in the upcoming months it will become easier to measure your success and make necessary adjustments.

Happy New Year! Avoid New Year’s Resolutions, focus on long term changes, and enjoy your success.

Technorati Tags: Getting, GTD, Holidays and Special Days, money, New Year, New Year Resolution, New Years, People and Society, Resolution, Resolutions, Weight loss

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Like most corporate employees I work with a shared network attached printer. The hassles of leaving my desk to pick up my print or the risk of losing the documents among the others that will pop off the printer are nagging annoyances. To combat this I frequently pause the print queue and release it when I am ready to retrieve my batch of documents. To ensure I don’t impact my co-workers and I can prepare documents to print when I am traveling I install my network printer as a local printer, rather than a network attached printer, so that I can queue documents when I am disconnected from the network.

To accomplish this, I first configure a local printer by creating a standard TCP/IP port that will appear as follows once configured:

After the printer is configured properly you can simply Pause the printing from the queue and release it when you are ready to retrieve your documents.

While this isn’t as technical as writing a batch script I find that I usually identify documents I want to print while I am working on them can then use the printer settings, like duplex or collation, by taking advantage of the drivers’ functions; which saves even more time.

Share your Windows productivity tips by adding a comment.

Technorati Tags: Batch file, Getting Things Done, GTD, life hacks, Lifehack, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Printer, printers, Printing, Productivity, Queue, Technology, Transmission Control Protocol, Windows

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Today Seth Godin published a post that considers first mover advantage and while it is an old concept he makes an interesting distinction by using the term “first competent mover.”  It is important to keep in mind that first movers only maintain advantage if they are competent and will willing to retain the advantage.

Although Seth’s point may be valid that the first mover sets the tone it is also critical to keep in mind there is advantage to just showing up.  A competent mover will trump the first mover any day and the later movers gain the advantage of observing the fist movers failures, an educated consumer with refined expectations, and value of being the last person in the consumers’ memory.

In the winner not only need to be first but competent to maintain control of the market and agile enough to recognize change. 

·         In an auction, the first mover needs to also be the last mover to retain advantage.

·         As a job seeker or college entrant, you need to show-up, make a splash, and effectively follow-up.

·         On new product introductions you need to have a capable product, be first to market, and be agile enough to release consumer relevant changes.

Twitter has been successful in part because they were first to market but also because they were agile enough to fix their problem in a reasonable time when they had fail whale issues.  Had they not been capable to repair their systems first mover advantage would have been meaningless.

Be the first competent mover and remain relevant to retain control of the agenda.

Technorati Tags: Business, innovation, Management, Market Research, Marketing and Advertising, Seth Godin

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In a recent survey of technology workers that allowed 330 respondents to choose their four most critical tools to ensure productivity from a list of eight:

• Laptop
• Desktop PC
• VPN access
• Mobile Phone
• Blackberry
• Desk Phone
• Video Conferencing
• Assigned desk

The results were interesting because the priorities were listed as:

• Laptop (88%)
• Mobile Phone (74%)
• VPN access (68%)
• Blackberry (46%)
• Assigned Desk (37%)
• Video Conferencing (23%)
• Desktop PC (20%)
• Desk Phone (18%)

As I look at the list and consider my own tools I tend to agree with the list but find that I can pare it down further to just Laptop, Blackberry (serving as both a phone and modem), and VPN access. With just these three items I can effectively work in most environments because I can access my e-mail, intranet resources, and internet resources that I need to be effective.

The most interesting item on the list is the obvious shift from a tethered to a wireless world; people need cell phones more than their desk phones.

I am further intrigued by the implications of this list to other areas of the organization since the focus has been primarily on technology workers but I think it is worth considering the impact from the executive office to the inventory clerk. Over the years I have been working in information technology I have witnessed the shift to connected executives who effectively work in airports via WIFI and Blackberry and materials staff with Nextel’s for direct connect. The message is clear people need to be near the action and want tools that place them there.

How is your organization implementing the tools that make technology available where it is needed?

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Getting Things Done, GTD, Information technology, Intranet, Laptop, Management, Mobile Phone, Nextel, Nextel Communications, Personal computer, Technology

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1. Lean Basics to Define Your Customer Value, Eliminate Wastes, and Align IS
2. Applying Standardization to Information Systems
3. Integrating Your Order Entry into the Information Highway
4. Selecting, Enabling, and Customizing Your ERP System
5. Kanban: Reducing Inventory and Managing Pull with Suppliers
6. Reshuffling MRP to Align with Kanban and Lean
7. Mission to Go Live – Building Teams and Overcoming Barriers
8. Capturing, Managing and Sharing Information
9. Lean Accounting Systems

Most of the topics are well summarized but of all the value I took from the book I will likely return to the Thirteen Guiding Principles for a Lane Environment:

1. Automate only if it is easier, faster, and complements your culture.
2. Build Commonality to increase visibility and access to information.
3. The primary purpose of security is to avoid data corruption and provide information access.
4. Nothing last forever.
5. Systems and software inflexibility can be the greatest inhibitor of change.
6. Plain English systems instructions are better than shorthand.
7. Keystrokes matter to power users.
8. Capture everything you can about your customer.
9. Archive customer history; ‘clean house’ on internal transactions.
10. Capture information once and be done.
11. Use commonality to create in information highway.
12. Productivity for all is more important than productivity for one.
13. Huge data stores are easy to manipulate.

These principles provide guidance for managing IT systems and eliminating waste.

In addition to the Thirteen Guiding Principles it was clear that the success that the authors realized by transforming their information systems was the business ownership of the processes and the focus on processes before technology. This exemplified by the fact that they placed a moratorium on system changes during kaizen events for a year until they identified the best processes and established a system overhaul as a strategic objective.

While I enjoyed the book I did take exception to the authors’ brazen disregard for the value of information technology professionals and insinuation that it was easier to teach “business people” programming than “IT people” lean. While the authors were clearly successful in their environment retraining some of the business leaders in managing successful system management and implementation they may want to reconsider the idea of training all employees in successful lean implementation to truly create a lean culture; rather than write of the ability of IT professional to lead the transformation.

As one of the few books available on this topic I would recommend Easier, Simpler, Faster to business and IT leaders who are looking to effect change and establish strategic information systems.

Technorati Tags: Book Review, Business, Computers, Duane Jones, Enterprise resource planning, ERP, Information technology, Lean, Managment, Real number

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The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw is a quick read that I was able to complete in a little more than an hour commuter flight. While I found the premise interesting I found that it was a bit light on content and certainly not worth the price I paid for the book.

Essentially the title of the book divulges the major lessons in the book:

• Multitasking is impossible and there are switching costs associated with the tasks we attempt to do in multiple.
• Time is a fixed commodity and needs to be controlled and managed.
• Attempting multiple tasks results in all tasks taking more time than concentrated effort and are frequently done more poorly and with a greater number of errors.

While my experience and training validates each of the premises this book does little more than reiterate the points and provide a couple techniques to take better control of your time. I would skip this book and go for one that is more tactical because the lessons will be the same and you will get coping techniques.

Technorati Tags: Book Review, Books, Dave Crenshaw, Getting Things Done, GTD, Management, multitasking, Project Managment, Tim Management

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Thought the year I try to take stock of my position consistently but we all get wrapped up in the daily routine and sometimes loose the big picture—we can’t see the forest thought the trees. I take a fairly methodical three step approach to establishing direction:

• Review high-level objectives or guiding principles
  
• Identify areas that I can impact
  
• Establish SMART goals that are aligned to the objectives or principles
  
• Define action plans associated with the SMART goals
  

Review high-level objectives or guiding principles

Every person or organization ought to define their purpose and relevant priorities. For many companies this is likely aligned with creating stakeholder value while personal objectives may be more nebulous.

The objectives become driving factors for future action and provide the opportunity to define individual goals more precisely.

For example a company may establish a high level objective to, “Obtain 80% profitable growth in the next 3 years in core markets” or “Reduce order turn-around time after receipt of order.”

Identify areas that I can impact

Not every objective is something that I can directly impact or my opportunity to impact the objective may be limited. Since I cannot have a meaningful impact on all objectives I prioritize those I can influence.

If I am responsible for sales in the organization in the previous example I have the direct ability to influence growth and an indirect ability to influence the production process so my first priority would be to establish goals associated with that “profitable growth “objective.

Establish SMART goals that are aligned to the objective and principles

Once I identify areas I can influence I establish goals associated with each of the objectives but to ensure that are actionable I make sure that they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. This approach ensures that there is enough information associated with the goal to keep the responsible parties accountable for the actions.

For a company seeking 80% growth in three years a SMART goal me be to, “Identify and contact thirty new sales prospects per month” or “Win the line review with Big Box Retailer W by April”. Each of these provides specific outcomes that can be measured within a given time period so the responsible parties can be held accountable for the results.

Define action plans associated with the SMART goals

Once the goals are established actions plans are used to ensure that we know the next defined action for each goal and to measure progress. Without a plan of action goals tend to languish under the daily tasks and loose priority.

For a sales organization seeking thirty new sales prospects per month some of the defined actions may be actions like:

• “Complete online marketing campaign targeting bloggers for product reviews”
• “Attend trade show in August”
• “Establish a referral program”

Ideally each of the actions will also be time-bound and measurable to ensure deadlines to the action and definition of success.

I have found that using this method I can easily establish goal alignment that results in measurable actions.

Technorati Tags: Business, Company, Getting Things Done, Goal, goals, GTD, Internet marketing, life hacks, Lifehack, Managment, Measure, objectives, planning, Realistic, self-help, SMART, startegy

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My Mobile Workspace

Originally uploaded by mraditus

Once of the biggest opportunities for people trying to implement a new productivity system is to plan ahead and simplify their processes to be effective anywhere they happen to be.

A couple couple months ago I wrote a post about my Ubiquitous Capture System that describes my use of a Blackberry and Outlook to manage my time. To make both work effectively I have taken quite a bit of effort to reduce the foot print of my tools to remain effective even when I’m out of the office.

I frequently travel between a number of production facilities and have found that it has become critical to make sure my laptop is functional no matter where I am–so I have replicated my office in my car by keeping my needs simple.

First and foremost, I have an inexpensive CyberPower AC Inverter to charge my laptop battery. I the AC both when I am working in the vehicle or to charge my laptop between facilities so I am less defendant on having other power sources. I have paired this with an extended (9-cell) battery so I can get approximately three hours of active use between charges.

Next, since am frequently working with Microsoft Office documents and need to sync my e-mail I have mobile data services activated on my Blackberry so I can tether and connect to my corporate network via VPN. Some of my co-workers have both cell phones and data cards but I have found that having a single device saves me the hassle of managing multiple devices. Of course, I generally try to find a free hot spot rather than my Blackberry to gain bandwidth.

Finally, I try to keep my workspace clean so I am not tripping over clutter.

Taking a minimalist approach allow me to stay efficient and effective regardless of where I am working.

Technorati Tags: Automobile, Battery, Getting Things Done, GTD, Laptop, life hacks, Lifehack, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Mobile Phone, Time Management, Unclutter

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Since I allow Twitter to update my Facebook profile and FriendFeed comments I make on Twitter will frequently spur conversation in a number of venues. I also find it extremely easy to interact with the community since I manage my Twitter account with both TwitterBerry (from my BlackBerry) and OutTwit (from Outlook).

In a recent blog post on TwiTip Darren Rowse covers some of the details of how to effectively use replies in his post “Twitter as Dinner Conversation”. He likens direct messages to whispering, @replies to normal conversation and @ replies inside the comment to telling others about the subject. I found this to be a helpful analogy to understand the meaning or each method.

Over the past couple months I have found Twitter to be a valuable tool to reach out to my real world and virtual contacts and continue to try to become more effective at using it as a tool.

Leave a comment and let me know how you are using Twitter? Feel free to reach out on Twitter, I reciprocate with most followers that are obviously not bots.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Darren Rowse, Facebook, FriendFeed, micro-blogging, On the Web, Outlook, Social network, TwiTip, Twitter, Web 2.0

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A couple months ago my wife was in the market for a new DSLR camera and at that time I asked some of my “turn-to experts” about the trade off that I was making between megapixels in a point and shoot in my price range and the DSLR. They were able to give me an explanation that I have a hard time repeating based on the technical complexity but essentially they larger sensor in the DSLR results in a higher quality image at a lower pixel number.

Today I came across a great article in the NY Times addressing a similar topic and drawing a similar conclusion. Essentially with the smaller point and shoot cameras the sensors to lens ratio gets smaller resulting in more noise as the megapixels go up. A DSLR, to the contrary, has a much larger sensor (not to mention that more flexibility to interchange lenses) so the opportunity to produce better images exists.

Of course, the article comes to an ever more important conclusion that the tools don’t make the artist and the photographers’ skill makes as much or more difference.

Technorati Tags: Arts, camera, Digital camera, Digital single-lens reflex camera, DSLR, photography, Pixel, Point-and-shoot camera, Sensor

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