It was our Director’s last day at work, so we thought it appropriate to give him a memorable send off by properly decorating his office.

Our folks did a particularly good job on the restraining order.  Here are the details:

Windows Phone 7 was released about one month ago, and some of you in Canada may have noticed a lack of local results in both the Bing search and Maps application (also powered by Bing) in Canada. For example, you’ll try searching for “McDonalds” in Toronto (or your local city) and the results will take you to a McDonalds in South Carolina or some other US address (as shown in the image below).  Not quite within walking distance.   You also won’t see a “local” option in the search results.

Here’s how you correct this to get local Canadian search and map results:

Enable “Local” results in Bing search and Maps:

1. Go to the application list
2. Open “Settings“
3. Open “Region & Language“
4. Scroll to bottom and set “Browser & search language” to “English (United States)“

Enable voice searching:

1. Scroll to top of the “Region & Language” settings, and set the “Display language” to “English”
2. Set the “Region format” to “English (United States)“
3. Touch the “Tap here to accept changes and restart your phone” link to restart your phone and have the settings 

The two downsides to this workaround are that all distances will be provided in miles instead of kilometers and News results will source US publishers rather than Canadian ones. A pain worth suffering?  That’s up to you.

Thanks to David Schwartz for the info!

Allie Brosh bravely tackles the topic for those suffering the hidden shame of  coat deprivation.  Finally, a voice in the wilderness.

And for those of you looking for more advanced techniques, my 5 year old son provides instruction on the tag-to-toe up-and-over method.

]]>

Likely the best campaign speech ever. Watch this and count the number of times you think this guy’s head is going to explode or that he’s going to start eating people in the room. God bless US Republicans.  I’m hoping our Canadian politicians can take note and spice things up a bit.

Consider this a Public Service Announcement for all women who are upset with having small boobs to the point they’re being driven to drink. Now you can kill two birds with one stone: http://bit.ly/cISFOB. You’re welcome.

How well you do your job has very little to do with how successful you are in your professional career.   Or, more precisely, how well you do your prescribed work will account for about 10% of your overall success.  That’s according to Harvey Coleman in his book Empowering Yourself, The Organizational Game Revealed.    Briefly stated, Coleman asserts that career success is based on the 3 key elements of Performance, Image and Exposure (a.k.a. PIE):

1. Performance:  this is about the day-to-day work you’re tasked with and the quality of the results you deliver.
2. Image: this is what other people think of you.  Your personal brand.  Do you maintain a positive attitude? Do you lead with solutions to issues, or are you the person that solely offers roadblocks when others suggest changes or alternatives?
3. Exposure:  Who knows about you and what you do?  Does your boss know what you do?  Does their boss know you and what you do?  Do others inside and outside your organization know anything about you? 

Doing your job well gets you 10% of the way there?

The more contentious and possibly unsettling aspects of Coleman’s conclusions revolve around the weightings placed on these elements:  performance counts for 10% of your success, image 30% and exposure an eye-popping 60%.   Perhaps this is self-evident to some people, but when I first read this it caught me off guard.  It implies that working hard to deliver great results on what you’re tasked with is far from good enough. 

Although the book was published way back in 1996, its implications still resonate true today.   If all you do is perform your job well  then you’ll get some form of pay raise or bonus, which for some people is perfectly okay.  To get a promotion you’ll need to perform well, cultivate a positive image and proactively gain exposure to a broad array of the right stakeholders.

Observations on Promotion Discussions

Reflecting on my experiences as both a non-manager and, more tellingly,  a manager of by-and-large exceptional groups of sales and technical people, I’ll have to admit there’s a large degree of truth in Coleman’s PIE model.  When I think about management discussions I’ve been part of regarding promotions and succession planning, these typically start with someone in the room putting forth a candidate’s name for consideration.  My first thoughts aren’t usually about whether the candidate is any good at performing their job (I assume they are, otherwise why bother putting forth the name?).  Instead, I immediately jump to wondering what I know about them (i.e. their exposure):

• Do I know what they’ve done or accomplished? 
• Have I interacted with them directly? 
• Have I seen them do  presentations?
• Have I read things they’ve written?
• Have I heard others talk about them?  
• In a nutshell, are they visible? 

If I don’t know anything about the person I’ll be inclined to push back, as it  seems irresponsible to build the next generation of leaders and role models on complete unknowns.  Having said that, just putting forth the name gives the candidate exposure for the next cycle of promotions, and I’ll be more inclined to notice their activities and proactively engage them.  The final litmus test generally involves discussions surrounding the candidate’s image .  If the person is viewed as being a capable, consistent and positive change agent then it’s typically a done deal.  

Good managers can help you get some exposure, but they can’t do it all for you.  Nor can they solidify your image.  It’s really something for which each person needs to take personal accountability.

What do you think?  Have things these days changed radically or does PIE still apply?  

Not sure if anything could beat this as the most innovative and/or insane gaming setup in the world.  The creative genius behind this is John, the taxi driver from Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, pictured below.  Here are some pictures from the inside of his cab. 

       A few specs: 

• An Xbox 360 mounted on a custom platform
• 2,000 watts of audio!  (This is not a typo)
• A special compartment at the back of the cab for the Xbox controller
• An LCD screen behind each seat and on the ceiling
• A DVD player, storage for games and movie DVDs

Thanks to one of my colleagues (Sobey) for sharing these pics.  And, if you’re ever in Saint John, I’ve been told that John is also very responsive in case you’re ever looking for a cab.

How can one guy be so lucky?  I received a letter today via snail mail which explained that some South African tycoon died and that a bank worker there wants to make arrangements to give me 25% of his 118 million dollars (i.e. $29.5 million).  How sweet is that?  Now, I do feel sorry about the unfortunate auto accident that claimed the life of RICH GUY and his family, but hey, can’t stay in a funk for long with $29.5 mil burning a hole in your pocket.  I’m totally getting a piece of this action. I’m also quite pleased to hear I have a “REMARKABLE” profile on “MY COUNTRYS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.”  Think I’ll send these folks a Thank You e-card for the kind words.  Or perhaps a custom Snuggie Blanket for each of them.

First order of business when I get the cash is flying off to South Africa and setting up a training course  titled “Secrets of the CAPS LOCK key unveiled! Come learn what it does!”

Thanks, Mrs. Zatai.  Happy Days!

I suppose a lot of people are either fascinated or confused by Twitter these days. For those of you still mulling over whether or not it makes sense to get engaged, you can take some comfort in a recent survey which indicates that although a whopping 88% of Americans have heard of Twitter, only 7% currently use it, so clearly it’s still early days.  My personal journey into the Twittersphere is only a few months old.  Prior to this, I was hesitant for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

• The latest scoop on all the hottest celebrities!   Every minute of every day!  Sorry Ashton, Britney, Ellen, Kim, Oprah, etc., I’m sure you’re very nice people but I’m just not that interested.  Plenty of other ways THE MAN has to distract the masses and manufacture consent.
• 140 characters?   What’s up with that?  Visions of being inundated with valuable content like “Watching football now, awesome game” and “What time is it?!” (the latter gem is real, by the way).   I understand the SMS message size design point and all, but still.
• ADD afflicted need only apply.  Tweets are short. Blogs and books are just too long and have all those silly word thingies and reading is like hard and stupid and stuff and it like makes me tired and did you see what Kim Kardashian just tweeted!  Looks like a perfect way to promote Attention Deficit Disorder as a positive lifestyle choice.
• I didn’t think of it first!  But it’s got me thinking of the NEXT BIG THING: HyperLocalNanoBlogging.  The rules:  20 characters max, numbers permitted but no vowels.  We’ll call these small messages toots.  Sample toot from @BrtnySprs: “00ps 1 f0rg0t 2 p00”.   Still working on what’s hyper or local about the whole thing, but I’ll get there (suggestions welcome). People can post their own toots, reply using burps, or send private messages via….  Better not give too much away just yet.   You have to admit,  hyperlocalnanoblogging  just screams hip and au courant.  Angel investors, feel free to contact me for more details.

Then there’s other potential roadblocks to getting engaged with Twitter, like finding the time for it, wondering who would care about mundane aspects of someone’s life, etc.  Regardless, I’m settled in now, got TweetDeck all columned up, and getting reasonably proficient and productive.  And, most notably, I’m actually getting a lot of value from it.

So what can you expect from Twitter?   In August 2009, Pear Analytics looked at 2,000 US-based tweets over a 2-week period and came up with the following categorizations:

Net-Net:  41% of tweets are “Pointless Babble”, whereas 9% “Pass Along Value”. Not so promising.   Perhaps things have evolved since August 2009 and the signal to noise ratio is increasing, or I’m just getting lucky and finding the right 9%.   More exploration required.

L8tr f0lks,

@FrnkBttstn