Six years ago, Amy and Wendy memorized Red Skelton's patriotic
commentary on The Pledge of Allegiance:
Red's commentary offers a glimpse into the meaning of these words and what it means to recite the Pledge as an American.
If you have never heard it, I invite you to
watch this video from July 4, 2002.
Here's something else to think about:
Freedom is never free.
Whether at the physical or spiritual level, the freedom that we enjoy today came at a great cost. This Fourth of July, let us give thanks and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.
The sign-ups for the
eProductivity preview program continue to pour in. We decided to increase the # of preview kits we will offer to 200 so that everyone that completes the application will be able to participate.
It's been interesting to read the forms that people have filled out to learn who uses Windows (99%) and who uses Mac (< 1%) and which versions of Notes folks are using. (Lots of activity in Notes R6.x and R8.x) and what challenges people face trying to get things done in Lotus Notes. I'll have lots to share as times goes on.
Meanwhile, I'd like to offer a special thanks to the bloggers that have picked this up, and I encourage you to visit their blogs:
Michael Sampson: eProductivity for Notes is About Ready To Go ... Eric Has a Special Offer Chris Blatnick of Interface Matters: eProductivity for Lotus Notes...Want To Be Way More Efficient? Stephan Wissel: Procrastinator Professional and (e)Productivity Ben Poole: Do you want to get things done? Oliver Starr of GTD Times: Eric Mack to Launch eProductivity: your chance to get a preview in this post (If I have missed anyone, please let me know. If you are a GTD or Notes blogger, let me know and I'll add you to our pre-launch list.)
I am preparing the preview kits and will send them out in batches of 25 as the completed applications are received. I plan to send the first batch tomorrow morning.
Some folks wrote with questions, e.g. what versions of Notes?, will I get a free trial?, etc.. I refer you to
the eProductivity Preview Invitation which has all of the details. (Be sure to scroll down the page as there is a lot to read.)
Thanks, I look forward to posting great news, soon.
Eric
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
My blogging's been pretty limited for the past six months -- I've been hard at work on the public launch of
eProductivity™ for Lotus Notes®
As you may know, we completed the eProductivity beta program in early January, 2008 and for the past six months we have been doing pilot programs with various companies around the world. Now, we are getting ready to share eProductivity with the public. (I know, it's been a long time.)
People in the pilot program tell us that they
recover up to 30-minutes each day in time spent processing their email or managing their projects and actions. They also love the Weekly Review Coach that we have built into eProductivity. I think it's the ultimate
GTD® implementation tool for Lotus Notes; however, don't take my word for it. I'll leave that for you to decide. I’m about ready to push the GO button and formally launch the commercial version of eProductivity.
Before I do, I want to make sure that our end-user download and evaluation process is easy to understand. I’ve decided to invite the first 100 people that respond to participate in a 24-hour preview of eProductivity.
If this sounds interesting to you, read on…
Continue Reading "24-Hour Preview of eProductivity for Lotus Notes" »
My heart goes out to the people of the Philippines. Before I left for church today, I read about the
disaster in the Philippines this weekend as a deadly Typhoon Fengshen unleashed strong winds and heavy rains that caused great destruction, leaving tens of thousands stranded on rooftops. The death toll is high and the the fate of the passengers on the ferry that capsized remains unknown.I received a text message yesterday from my friend and client, Pastor David Sumrall or the
Cathedral of Praise telling me that they had been without power for the past 14 hours. Water in the streets is many feet deep.
I have grown attached to the people of Manila as I had the opportunity to
serve them last year as I delivered an eProductivity conference. The people I met are resiliant and have a strong sense of community and service, even in the midst of trials and storms. (Seems like we are all in storms these days... How's your faith?). In all, I know that God is in charge and our faith remains unshaken even though the storms rage around us. Life is precious and we know how long our time on earth will last.
My prayers go out to the people of the Philippines and the COP community and those affected by this Typhoon. I'm sure that as things stabilize, Pastor Sumrall and his staff will organize opportunities to minister to those in need and I pray, too, that this will be a time of great testimony as people experience God's love through the service of the COP community.
I'm off to Ireland for the
ILUG 2008 Conference.
Ian and I look forward to hanging out with
Bruce,
Ben,
Ed,
Alan, and many others. If you plan to attend, send me an email or find me. Ian and I will be there wearing our way cool white eProductivity logo shirts.
This year's conference promises to be a great one with many speakers and the opportunity to network with key folks in the Lotus Notes community. I'm also excited to have been invited to be one of the speed geek presenters; I plan to show off some productivity tools for Lotus Notes. 12 presentations in 1 hour. Should be fun.
Each year the ILUG organizers outdo the previous year's conference. This year is no exception; as part of their marketing & promotion campaign
Paul Mooney arranged for Aer Lingus to temporarily paint their entire fleet of aircraft with the ILUG Shamrock so that we would get into the ILUG spirit as soon as we took off...
It will be a fast trip but I plan to make it a productive one. If you plan to attend let me know. Time permitting, I'll also try to blog a little.
Over on the Notes on Productivity blog, I asked Notes users two questions about
what gets in the way, when implementing GTD in Lotus Notes.
If you currently use, have tried using, or are considering using Lotus Notes as your GTD implementation tool, I hope you will post your thoughts...
I usually do OK tracking individual actions and small and medium sized projects. These are items for which I can easily envision the completed state - I know what "done" will look like and I know I will mark these complete in a few days or weeks. Sometimes, however, I have projects where the completion date is not days or weeks ahead but months or years ahead. I find those harder to keep in front of me. Even with regular review, I sometimes find it hard to keep a sense of time about a project that is off in the distant future.
As I prepare to launch eProductivity, a
GTD implementation tool for Lotus Notes, I need to keep one or two key milestones in sight at all times. Specifically, we have a few big milestones - things like "launch web site" or "Prepare for meeting with David" or "Deliver presentation to IBM" that we have been working on for many months or in the case of the product launch, several years.
Several months ago, I watched a NASA Shuttle mission video and I was inspired by their countdown clock and their mission elapsed clock. I decided that I needed my own countdown clock, so I decided to create one for myself.
Starting with a countdown clock mechanism that I purchased on-line, I created a custom clock face and built five eProductivity countdown clocks. I set each one to the date of a key milestone. I kept one clock for myself and I sent the other four to key people on my team. Now, I have a tangible reminder of the event and the time remaining to complete. I've had the clock on my desk for a few months now and it's been a fun reminder of an event that I am looking forward to. The key question "What's your next action?" keeps me focused on the little things that I need to accomplish to achieve my goal.
It's been a fun way to get things done.
Eric Mack On-Line
Each year the ILUG organizers outdo the previous year's conference. This year is no exception; as part of their marketing & promotion campaign Paul Mooney arranged for Aer Lingus to temporarily paint their entire fleet of aircraft with the ILUG Shamrock so that we would get into the ILUG spirit as soon as we took off... 
I usually do OK tracking individual actions and small and medium sized projects. These are items for which I can easily envision the completed state - I know what "done" will look like and I know I will mark these complete in a few days or weeks. Sometimes, however, I have projects where the completion date is not days or weeks ahead but months or years ahead. I find those harder to keep in front of me. Even with regular review, I sometimes find it hard to keep a sense of time about a project that is off in the distant future. 
Starting with a countdown clock mechanism that I purchased on-line, I created a custom clock face and built five eProductivity countdown clocks. I set each one to the date of a key milestone. I kept one clock for myself and I sent the other four to key people on my team. Now, I have a tangible reminder of the event and the time remaining to complete. I've had the clock on my desk for a few months now and it's been a fun reminder of an event that I am looking forward to. The key question "What's your next action?" keeps me focused on the little things that I need to accomplish to achieve my goal. 
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