I've just returned from my second IBM Leadership Alliance Conference in Boston.
The IBM Leadership Alliance (formerly known as the "Lotus Leadership Alliance/LOLA") is a small invitation-only event in which IBM Collaboration leadership share what's happening in their world and engage the aforementioned groups in intimate discussion about topics of interest. By creating an environment in which we can hear from and communicate with key players (without the big stage and teleprompters!) we can learn from one another. It was a rich experience. Much of this, will no doubt influence the products and announcements at the next public Connect conference.
In this day when "social" business is promoted -- and often confused to mean social tools only -- it's nice to see that IBM's Collaboration division really gets the value of "social" as in connecting with your ecosystem in order to share, learn, and do smarter business. A quick word of thanks to Alistair Rennie and his team for creating and hosting an environment rich for knowledge sharing.
While I am not at liberty to share what was presented or discussed at the conference I think it is appropriate to point out one of the many ways that IBM communicates with key people in its ecosystem, including customers, developers and business partners to name a few.
Before you ask, there is nothing further that I can share. It's an invitation only event and we are asked to not share the contents of what was presented. I do not know who invited me or what got me on the list, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to participate.
Overall, it was a worthwhile trip for me. My hope is that the information that I learned and the experience that I was able to share in conversation will have an impact on how we all do business.
I've been socially disconnected since returning from Lotusphere. This is mostly due to big changes on the business and personal fronts. For starters, on the business side, we launched a new product, a new business model, and a new web site to tie it all together. If you have ever done anything like this you know how time consuming any of these can be, not to mention all three concurrently. I'm fortunate to work with an awesome team and Ryan Heathers, my director of consumer sales and marketing did an amazing job coordinating all aspects of this project.
Things are busy at the Mack's, too. A move, a wife recovering from surgery, homeschool for the kids, two daughters getting ready for college, and Amy's world debut of her first orchestral score on Saturday. Her score will be performed by the GBC Praise Symphony Orchestra this weekend along with the West Coast Premier of Dan Goeller's presentation of The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. I'm excited about all of these.
If you are in Santa Clarita on Saturday and want to attend the concert, let me know. If you use Lotus Notes and want to learn about eProductivity and the new free Essentials version, please check out the new site. If you want to tweet about either, I'd appreciate that, too.
Anyway, there's an update. I do plan to get back to the social side of things soon.
2010 was a whirlwind of a year, with many challenges, opportunities, and blessings. If you received our 2010 Christmas letter, then you have a glimpse at what our year was like.
Looking back at 2010
A great kick-off at Lotusphere; IBM even spotlighted our product in the technical keynote! (Thanks, Ed Brill)
A new product launch and continued business development; looking forward to closing some larger deals in 2011
Thankful for our consulting clients and eProductivity customers around the world. I enjoy reading the emails and letters of thanks we get. Neat to know our product is changing people's lives at work and at home.
For my blog readers, thank you for sharing and for your emails and tweets of encouragement.
Many opportunities for music for the girls, including the a handbell festival, multiple bell choirs, vocal ensembles, choirs, and orchestra. All of this was rounded off by a week of performances at The Master's College "Come Christmas Sing" events followed by a weekend of Candlelight Christmas concerts at Church and topped off by a Hallelujah Chorus sing at the mall. (It was billed as a "Flash Mob" but when thousands showed up to participate it lost its "flash" status. It was just a mob. It was still a lot of fun.
I was able to attend two knowledge management conferences and speak at one. Exciting things happening there as I test and refine some of my materials and concepts for a future book.
I taught my best class ever (Technology for business decision-making) at The Master's College. I really enjoy serving in this capacity. It's a great college with a great mission.
I did not have much time to pursue hobbies this year, but I made progress moving some of these forward to do in 2011
I am in awe of the many ways that the Lord provided for our needs this year, many times even before we knew we had a need. I am thankful for the many friends and family who helped and encouraged us in 2010.
A great year of home schooling our four girls. I so enjoy seeing my children learning and growing. I also like flirting with their teacher (don't worry, my wife doesn't mind). ;-)
After 10 years of study, Amy & Wendy each earned an Awana Citation Award. I'm very proud of them.
Emily & Kelly were baptized this year; I enjoy seeing my children delight in the Lord. Kathy and I are praying for their friends and future spouses.
Amy & Wendy turned 18 this year. I'm very proud of them and thankful for the godly women they've become.
I still can't watch Steve Martin in Father of the Bride with out getting angry (or at least frustrated). Not sure that will ever change.
My love for my wife continues to grow as we celebrate our 50th anniversary for the 21st year. So cool to be married to my best friend.
I realize how blessed I am to have a loving wife and children, great team mentors and advisors, and the most talented bunch of people to serve with at work, and an encouraging group of friends and family.
Looking forward to 2011
One of my many goals this year is to become more active on my blog and social networks. I value the learning I get from these activities and I will plan to spend more time here. Thanks to everyone that takes the time to engage.
Amy & Wendy are wrapping up their senior year of high school and are looking forward to college. I'm still getting used to the idea. A big shift from our one room school house where we've learned and laughed together for the past 18 years.
Looking forward to big enterprise sales in 2011 as more business recover from the financial downturn of the past few years.
I have a few new projects and products I hope to make progress on in the productivity/personal knowledge management space.
I'm thinking about joining either our church orchestra or choir this year. (I'm not sure the orchestra will want a Tenor Kazoo so it will probably be choir.)
I am still working my way through Janet Goldstein's Publishing Reset program for writers (Thanks, Jason for the tip!). I look forward to putting what I'm learning into practice and sharing with others through this blog.
I look forward to dating my wife and daughters more this year. They are each special to me and I am blessed to be surrounded by five lovely ladies.
I'm going to try to make 2011 a year of simplicity. I've shut down all but one server at home and I'm even simplifying the tech and apps I use at my desk. Of course, to achieve the level of simplicity I desire, I will probably have to venture into new levels of technological complexity to accomplish it. Go figure.
On the spiritual side, I'm excited to try a new approach to reading through the scriptures; I'll be using Prof Horner's Bible Reading System, a schedule of 10 parallel reading themes that promises a new perspective of God's Word. I have a new ESV translation of the Bible, a gift from Pastor Sumrall when I spoke in Manilla.
Finally, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Lord will work in my life and those of my family. Last year, we saw so many things (and those were just the ones we took the time to enumerate).
Finally, This year, I hope to be more quiet and observant as I seek to honor the Lord and serve him.
It's time to do a yearly review; clean up the old and organize myself for action 2011. Tomorrow, I will begin to reorganize my office, computer, and files for the new year.
I've long been a fan of visualization tools (e.g. mind mapping, charting, etc.) and I believe that a picture is worth a thousand words but this video takes that concept to a whole new level...
Presentation Zen recently blogged about a thought-provoking piece entitled, Visualizing the consequences of sugary drinks in which they describe a 30-second Public Service Announcement by the New York City Department of Health to encourage people to reduce (or eliminate) sugary drinks.
Feeling thirsty?
Think twice before you reach for that soda and consider a refreshing glass of water instead.
2009 has been a whirlwind year for the Mack Family and for me personally and professionally. I took some time to reflect on a few of the accomplishments for this past year as well as some of the goals that I have for 2010:
LOOKING BACK: A few notable accomplishments for 2009
I'm grateful for the love of my wife and children and I'm thankful to be able to serve with an awesome team of professionals at ICA/eProductivity. I also grateful for the group of key business and personal advisors; godly men who have provided guidance and mentoring along the way. LOOKING FORWARD: A few goals for 2010 Lord willing, there are several goals on my list for 2010. These include:
Launch of eProductivity 2.0, (based on Notes 8.5.1)
Presenter at Lotusphere 2010 on using Notes Productively
Introduction of eProductivity versions for mobile and cloud apps
I look forward to teaching for The Master's College again: MGT 430 Technology for Business Decision Making
Travel with my family
I hope to present a paper at the National KM Conference
I plan to present a workshop and main session on High Performance Knowledge Work at KMWORLD
I will be working on my book on High Performance Knowledge Work
Now that I'm done with school, and time-permitting, I hope to spend some time on my hobbies in robotics, CNC, mechanical music, and vintage computing
On Saturday, Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines, causing the worst flooding in more than 40 years in the capital city Manila and other areas of the northern Philippines. As my readers know, I had the delightful opportunity to visit Manila two years ago to deliver the Beyond Planning Conference. During my stay in the Philippines, I got to know many people and to see first hand the beauty and challenges in this nation. I Skyped my friend, Pastor David Sumrall, of the Cathedral of Praise (COP), and asked how he was doing. he reported that they got 15 inches of rain in just a few hours.Today, 80% of Manila is under water and more rain is on the way. As I have written before, I've grown attached to the people of Manila. As I have written before on this blog, the people I met are resilient and have a strong sense of community and service, even in the midst of trials and storms. My prayers are with 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 others in the name of Christ.
In the past, having no direct or personal connection to places such as this I would say a prayer and be about my business -- not for lack or concern or compassion, but for lack of connection. Now, with a personal connection to the people of the Philippines, this is more personal, I ask you to consider including them in your prayers and with your financial support. (I believe the Red Cross will take your donations to help survivors.)
Each of us face storms of many kinds and these can test our faith.
I know that God is in charge and our faith remains unshaken even though the storms rage around us -- Life is precious.
I remember watching the first lunar landing, narrated by Walter Cronkite. Exciting, yes. What would that same landing look like 40 years later? Here's one look that imagines how TV news would cover that historic event if it happened today.
Last December, I received this engraved Road ID goals bracelet. In 2008, I made great progress on items 1-3. That leaves only 'Buy a Mac' and 'Visit New Zealand.' Perhaps this will be the year for those two.
For now, I've just returned from a very successful Lotusphere 2009, where David Allen and I gave a presentation. I now have 1000 accumulated emails to process (I've already deleted the easy & obvious stuff), several hundred new business cards & leads to deal with, and a list of Lotusphere 2009 blog topics to edit and post.
UPS delivered a box from Amazon today. I have been expecting several knowledge management books but it turns out it was just a book by Michael Sampson.
Michael Sampson!?
Yes, that's right, Michael can now add published author to his list of accomplishments. (Sort of like being blessed with a 9th child.)
Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft SharePoint technologies to collaborate, innovate, and drive business in new ways.
But wait! There's a problem. Kathy just walked into the room and I handed her the book. Her first comment was "Where's his picture?"
Even if you are not a SharePoint user, you can still learn a lot from Michael's book. I did. You'll learn about the capabilities of SharePoint and the lessons learned from collaborative implementations gone well and those that didn't go so well.
Sitting through recent KM conferences and listening to all of the attention on collaboration and social software (stuff we've been doing in Notes for decades) made me wonder if we are not headed for another bubble. I think this video adds some perspective.
The Southern California Knowledge Management Exchange is taking place this week at the Graziadio Executive Center on the Campus of Pepperdine University. It's beautiful. From the terrace, we have a beautiful view of the Pacific.
Perhaps this post should have been called, "Microsoft may force me to switch to a Mac" (If you want to help and are short on time, follow the link at the end of this post.)
I have been running Windows XP for many years. Other than my unfortunate experience with Toshiba and the Tecra M4 Tablet, my experience with XP has been excellent. Since moving to my Lenovo T60p I have had the most reliable and productive work system in my experience. As many of you may know, Microsoft has announced the end of XP, however, their replacement, Vista, has not been well received by the IT community. (I do run Vista on my wonderful Lenovo X61 Tablet PC and as a Tablet OS it's the best, but I do feel like my productivity has taken a huge hit compared to XP.)
I crashed hard last night at about 7:30 PM local time. Now, it's 3:43 AM local time and I'm wide awake. I'd rather be on this side of jet lag. Anyway, I enjoyed a nice quiet time, reading my Bible and listening to my favorite hymns and worship songs in my hotel room. I'm normally a late night person, and while getting up early for a quiet time has long been a desire of mine, it does not happen as often as I would like. So, I'm thankful for opportunities like these when I actually get up before the clock sounds.
Focusing on the outcome This conference has required so much work and preparation that's easy to forget the purpose of the conference itself and focus on mechanics and delivery. The purpose of this conference is about helping people. I desire to be a part of that process, by sharing some of what I have learned in the past 25 years in business with the hope that others will find some of it useful and learn from it, too. I'm really excited about the vision that Pastor Sumrall has for these conferences that he does each year to help the people of Manila and I'm honored to be invited to be this year's featured speaker. It's an awesome responsibility and opportunity.
This past week, Michael and and I have been working through the content for the Beyond Planning - eProductivity Conference in Manila later this month. I'm generating content, uploading into Notes, and Michael's generating slides and ensuring thematic consistency... and, apparently, a whole lot more. I really have to stay on top of this, however, as Michael keeps slipping surprises into the slide decks...
One of the neat things about consulting for The David Allen Company is that I get invited to participate in some of the staff meetings and attend some really nice banquets. Tonight, we dined at the Ojai Valley Inn where we got to see a "pink moment."
Situated in an East-West orientation, the Ojai Valley provides for awesome sunsets. Most remarkable is how the low rays of the setting sun paint the tops of the mountains surrounding the valley, causing them to briefly glow purple for about 10 minutes - the "Pink Moment."
I learned a very painful lesson today about sitting on your wallet and I'd like to share it with you and perhaps save you the extreme pain and a visit to the doctor's office.
When I got off the plane in Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, two weeks ago, I was barely able to walk. The pain was almost unbearable - so much so that I even called my wife and mentioned that I might need her to fly to Boston to help me return to California. My roommate, Michael, got me some Motrin and ice packs and I rested for the night. By morning, I was feeling a little better, and I was able to make it through the conference with small recurrences during the week. I was even able to blog the conference with Michael.
A potential client called me this week and asked if I would be interested in delivering an eProductivity seminar to a very large audience in Asia. I told him I was. He seemed most interested to know if I was comfortable speaking to a very large audience - like 5,000-8,000 people. I said that I was and I shared that I had a life-changing event many many years ago that gave me great comfort speaking in front of large audiences. Here's what happened...
Well, the fair use laws might permit him to repurpose his video, however, as Dwayne points out the DCMA gets in the way.
I covered this topic in a business law class I took a few years ago when I went paperless for 8 weeks, which meant that I had to scan my books. I posed a similar question: Is it legal to scan your books to read on a tablet PC? It was a busy thread with may comments and even more off-blog emails traded. Ultimately, and after much research, I concluded that the fair use laws would permit this for personal use and I presented my research to my class in a presentation called, Wallpaper, Toilet paper, or ePaper.
But my research only addressed fair use of paper/books, not media. What Dwayne needs is a different kind of presentation.
Fortunately, I have one.
The clever and creative folks at Stanford University, in collaboration with Professor Lawrence Lessig, have recruited help from a few Disney characters to explain why Dwight can't legally record his DVDs to his iPod for personal viewing.
I've been focused on key client and eProductivity projects for the past two weeks; I do plan to resurface next week. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this thought on technology.
Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand whatthey do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
You may still have a few Marshmallow Peeps lying around. What should you do with them? Wikipedia has some interesting ideas but why not advance the cause of scientific research?
Today, I had a near death experience that will no doubt change me forever. I will certainly never ride a horse again. I have never really liked horses anyway; now I have good reason.
This afternoon, after church and shopping, I agreed to take my daughters horseback riding. Everything was going fine until my horse started bouncing out of control. I tried with all my might to hang on, but I started to slide out of the saddle. Just when things could not possibly get worse, my foot got caught in the stirrup. I fell head first to the ground. Fortunately, I hit my head on the horse riding next to me. This broke my fall as my head hit the ground. With my foot still stuck in the stirrup, my head continued to bounce harder and harder as the horse did not stop or even slow down. I tried to scream for help but the blood rushed to my head and I could barely make a sound. I tried to reach for the reigns, dangling in front of me, but everything kept turning around and around.
Just as I was giving up hope and losing consciousness...
I recently delivered a speech to the incoming students at The Center for Professional Studies (CPS) at The Master's College in Santa Clarita, California.
This was an exciting opportunity for me to encourage the incoming students by sharing my experiences in the Organizational Management program and to offer some secrets for success in getting through the program.
While the speech is directed to students, and adult learners in specific, the principles I share could be applied to anyone in any situation.
This week, business cohort had a reunion and my colleagues encouraged me to share the speech, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it.
This year marks my 25th year as a technology consultant and eProductivity specialist. In that time, I've learned a lot about working with staff, being self employed and, in the past 12 years, about working from a home office.
As I reflect on the past and think about what I want to accomplish in 2007, I decided to make a list of some of the things that I enjoy about my work and about working from home.
Some obvious aspects that I enjoy are the ability to follow my interests, choose my clients (that's a big one) and my work, and work from home.
A bicycle wheel that is out of balance won't run true. Neither will a life.
Just as a bicycle wheel must be adjusted periodically to run true, in life it's important to focus on the areas that require daily attention to stay in balance. Otherwise, the bumps in the road will get you.
I've kept a record of both and I find that the gap between my stated priorities and my actual priorities can be large at times. I needed a better way to manage and track my performance so that I could see if what I did matched up with my stated priorities. Continue Reading "Is it time to rebalance your life's priorities?" »
As I close this chapter, called 2006, and I look forward to 2007 I am thankful for the many blessings I enjoy. One of them is the friendships which have developed as a result of this blog. I'm delighted to have been able to help and encourage so many and I'm truly thankful for those who have come along side to do the same for me.
2007 marks the beginning of a new adventure for me - big changes ahead. Lots to blog about.
I would like to wish all of my readers good health and happiness in the coming year.
Michael's always trying for a way to capitalize on my words, especially when computers are involved. Today, as part of his relentless campaign to get me to buy a Mac, Michael's just launched a new line of apparel for clueless Mac users.
I've just surfaced from 6 weeks of intense work, presentations, and client travel. Two weeks in Ojai with the David Allen Company, two weeks to complete and work on my eProductivity business plan, and two weeks of client travel to meet with clients who waited patiently during my absence. This, punctuated by a memorial service for my grandpa, my business plan presentation (miracle did occur), a dinner meeting with Marc Orchant and a delightful visit from my good friend, Michael Sampson and his Mac. (We enjoyed a very quick Thanksgiving dinner and church the next day, followed by a brief visit aboard a special aircraft.) Blog posts on all of these, coming soon.
I am going somewhere with this. I'm setting the stage for typically serious post-travel overwhelm. Whenever this happens, I apply the GTD work flow model to processing my stuff. I'm now wresting with last 100 emails (out of thousands) and a small stack of papers, 33 draft blog topic ideas, and a business plan to revise.
So, what does all of this have to do with using a 24" LCD Panel as a tool for visual project mapping?
This afternoon, one of my mentors, Jason Womack, began a our group conference call by asking each participant how they were doing and where they were calling from. I responded:
I'm sitting in my living room, at the coffee table, calling via Skype, looking out the window.
The Sampson family quiver continues to expand. I won't be surprised to receive a robotics challenge from across the pacific for a Sampson vs. Mack.
At this rate of growth, the mini-Sampson population will soon be sufficient to support not one but TWO teams, a company of research analysts, or something grand. All kidding aside, I'm excited for Michael and Katrina. As the parents of four daughter's, we've learned that children are indeed a blessing from the Lord.
"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them..." (Psalm 127:3-5, NASB)
I've known Michael for close to 9 years and I'm honored to count him among my closest friends.
Congratulations to Michael and Katrina, on this latest addition to the Sampson family.
I'm looking forward to taking a few items off my projects list and moving several Someday/Maybe items to my active projects list. For those of you that find my blogging challenges entertaining (or amusing), stay tuned, I have a few new ones coming.
On the completion front, I've recently completed my last final exam in managerial accounting & finance. While the A that I earned in this course only raised my GPA, by .001, I know that the information I learned will be invaluable. I wish I had taken this course many years ago. That knowledge would have saved me more than my tuition.
I'm presently working on my capstone management project, which I will present this summer. Once I mark that project off as completed, I plan to move several projects from my Someday/Maybe list over to active status.
These include:
The next release of the ICA eProductivity Template for Lotus Notes
My own 10-week start-up school adventure
A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) project
A few other interesting projects, some using MindManager and ResultsManager.
I received this e-mail from the campus
computing center:
Faculty/Staff/Students:
Due to fumigation of the computer building, the computer system will be
shut down beginning December 23rd through December 26th.
The system will be turned back on on December 27th.
Thank you for your understanding.
I wonder what operating
system they are using? No, best not to go there.
Perhaps this is only funny to me because I remember listening to Commodore
Grace Hopper explain the process of debugging a computer.
If this makes no sense, but you are still remotely interested in why I
would find fumigation and computer debugging funny, click on the link at
the end of this post and search for the word "debugging."
This blog is running the latest version
of DominoBlog. I'm helping Steve test several new features. Please be patient
while he helps me sort out the RSS issue. Thanks. Eric
The
Channel 5 (NBC) news crew came by Maggie’s room today to interview her
and us about her story and these tremendous web cards. If you are in St.
Louis or you can pickup the Channel 5 NBC station from St. Louis via satellite,
be sure to check it out. Its’ a great testimony of the tremendous love
people have for her and God’s wonderful Grace ...
Just a few hours ago, while driving down
I5 to a Human Resource Management class in Santa Clarita, I noticed a low-flying
airplane near the tower at Magic Mountain. (20 years ago, as a flight student
out of Van Nuys, the flight instructor used to make me fly out to practice
maneuvers over the Newhall area, which at the time, was sparsely populated.
I thought it odd that a small plane would be flying so low, but I did not
give it much thought.) I thought it might be a CHP aircraft on a spotting
maneuver. A moment later, the plane was gone.
I have a favor to ask of all readers of
my blog: Please take two minutes to help Maggie reach her goal of wallpapering
her hospital
room with e-cards before her
next scheduled brain surgery, this Wednesday.
Fellow technologist, homeschool father, and Tablet MVP, Rob
Bushway, has been sharing
his family's ongoing experiences as they care for 9-year old Maggie, who's
suffering from brain cancer. Maggie's presently in Children's hospital
in St. Louis undergoing additional treatment. Rob's blogging
the experience from the hospital.
While she awaits another brain surgery, Maggie's decorating her hospital
room and she would like your help. Please take a moment to learn
about Maggie,
then take two minutes to send her (and her family) an e-card
via the hospital web site.
(Maggie Bushway, Room 104)
I'm a big fan of visual mapping tools.
I constantly use my white boards, my tablet. and yes Michael, even paper,
to map out and visualize my thoughts and ideas. As a visual person, I lean
towards tools and technologies that allow me to "see" what's
going on.
I understand that folks who drive in Los Angeles traffic like to look up
the CalTrans real-time traffic information to "see" what freeway
conditions are like. The freeway is 18 miles away and the nearest traffic
signal is over 50 miles away so, I usually don't need that kind of information.
From my vantage point high in the mountains, however, I see another kind
of traffic information. Day and night, I see number of planes in flight
corridors overhead at extremely high elevations. Although cannot usually
hear them, I've often wondered where they were going. I don't have to wonder
any more...
Sometimes, the best boost in productivity
comes during a crisis. Why? Because true priorities become very clear,
allowing goals reshuffle themselves according to new priorities. The unimportant
things become truly unimportant allowing the important things to surface.
This afternoon, my wife walked into my
office to find me wrapped in a towel, headset on, and engrossed in a conversation.
Not knowing who was at the other end and careful not to interrupt my conversation,
Kathy quietly stepped around the side of my desk and handed me this note:
There is an explanation. Earlier in the day, I went to take a shower. Even
before I turned on the water, a flood of ideas came to mind. I leaned out
from the shower and started to brainstorm on my white board that I keep
for this purpose.
Realizing that no one was home (my wife and kids were at VBS) I decided
to wrap myself in a towel and walk back to my desk
to quickly map out the rest of my ideas before returning to my shower.
I had only one objective - not to lose the ideas in my head before I could
write them down.
Well, I finished mapping out my ideas in just a few minutes; but then,
one great idea led to another... I was about to leave when the phone rang.
Then, it was time for a conference call with a business associate.
Kathy and I watched one of my favorite
movies last night. We enjoy adventure, drama, and the opportunity to laugh.
When a movie provides all three, it's a real treat. Yesterday, I enjoyed
a day of nonstop greetings from friends and family. (Thank you!) It was
a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday, topped by a movie that ended
with these words:
"This world
is an uncertain realm filled with danger, honor undermined by the pursuit
of power, freedom sacrificed when the weak are oppressed by the strong.
But there are those who oppose these powerful forces, who dedicate their
lives to truth, honor, and freedom. These men are known as ..."
I love these closing words. They inspire
me to do more: to do what is right, to serve others, to imagine a different
time.
See if you can finish the sentence -
without looking it up on the internet.
My good friend, Michael
Sampson, wants to know if
he smells cake?
Yes, it's true. I'm old enough to remember watching Niel Armstrong step
onto the moon.
The week of my sixth birthday, NASA's Apollo 11 crew gave me a treat:
I remember sitting front of our black and white television to watch the
Apollo
11 crew land on the moon.
I remember Neil Armstrong slowly climbing down the ladder of the lunar
lander, stepping on to the moon's surface and saying the famous words that
will be forever etched in my mind: "That's one small step for a man,
one giant leap for mankind."
Too bad you weren't around to see it, Michael. :-)
Well, at least you can see how NASA celebrated my birthday
this year.
In case you've been hiding under your in-basket,
the big
launch is this Thursday. This
evening, Amy and I drove over to David Allen's office. He was putting the
finishing touches on his new GTD RoadMap seminar and he treated us a sneak
preview of some of the materials. Very cool.
I'm disappointed that I won't be able to make it to the launch in Santa
Monica this week, but I need to focus on some big projects behind the scenes.
That's OK, serving David and his team as an eProductivity
consultant, I get to see this stuff in action all the time. It's real,
folks.
If you have the opportunity to attend, do. I think Rachelle's got a few
seats left. You'll walk away inspired and motivated; you'll learn a new
way to think about your work. More important you'll learn how to get things
done, so that you can truly be ready for anything!
James Kendrick just sent me an email to
tell me that the photos from my blog are not showing up in his RSS reader.
I thought this was a problem unique to me. Is anyone else having this problem?
This may be an issue with the way that
DominoBlog handles photos. I'll check with Steve Castledine to see what
he can do to help me fix this.
This morning, Kathy and I witnessed the
marriage of Robin and Shawn Sawyer. Shawn's a colleague in my management
cohort and for months we've been hearing about the preparations for this
day. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and unique in may ways, from the
message, to the invitation, to the horse and carriage that brought Robin
to the altar and whisked Shawn and his beautiful bride away. The happy
couple never stopped smiling. We wish you the best. Grace to you.
Watching the horse and carriage ride away, I was reminded of my efforts
to arrange for one at our wedding
in the theme of the Princess
Bride.
Then, I remembered my four
daughters... and decided that perhaps I should encourage them to be more
practical. But then...
Over on David Allen's blog,
there's an interesting discussion
about corporate mission statements. A topic that started as "hey,
this is cool" has generated considerable discussion about the
value and effectiveness of corporate mission statements.
I agree with some of the remarks shared about the disconnect between some
organization's actions and their mission statements. However, I think that's
the fault of management and how they work to develop or carry out the organization's
mission. Surely some mission statements may end up to be just a page of
sweet words, designed to attract uninformed shareholders or employees alike.
For a mission statement to work, it must become a part of the fabric of
the organization; and, it must represent the ideal and be referenced voluntarily
at all levels. It's the leaders job to bring this about. The mission statement
provides a sense of purpose and meaning; when an organization's behavior
does not match it's company mission statement it's worse than if no mission
statement existed at all.
In 20 years of independent consulting I've served many organizations where
the mission statement did not appear to match organizational behavior.
Fortunately, however, I've also served an equal number of organizations
that ARE their mission statement. To me, these organizations redeem the
concept and value of the corporate mission statement. The key is leadership.
The leaders in these organizations play in active role in defining and
communicating the organization's mission through their behavior and decision-making.
On a personal level, I've found that a personal or family mission statement
a powerful tool for personal decision making. Many years ago, Kathy and
I developed our family
mission statement. We set
out to describe the successful outcome of our role as parents. That simple
effort, and the sense of mission that resulted, has completely transformed
our family. Though we don't have it posted on the wall anywhere (we probably
should), we do refer to our mission statement often enough to remember
what it says and to evaluate how we are doing, both as a family, and as
parents. The result is that decisions that we make are made in the context
of our family mission and we see these decisions as capable of enhancing
or detracting from the picture of our ideal family outcome. I've found
it much easier to make decisions about what to be, do, or have when my
sense of mission is clear.
The other value I've found in a personal mission statement is that is forces
us to think about what
we will leave behind. Again,
the mission statement, used correctly, can be a powerful tool.
Back to the topic at hand - corporate mission statements. I believe that
they can be powerful or a waste of paper. Their success, I believe, depends
entirely on how they are created (who's involved) and how they affect behavior
within the organization (Behavior changing or lip service?)
Several years ago, I gave David a copy of a book that I enjoyed: "The
Mission Statement Book" by Jeffrey Abrahams. This books takes a look
at 300+ corporate mission statements from America's top companies. It also
offers guidance in how to create and implement a corporate mission statement.
I've just returned from a road trip with
my good friend and colleague, Michael Sampson. Michael flew up from New
Zealand to spend a day in the digital sandbox with me. From there, we headed
off together for meetings in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. We met
with David Ferris in SF, spent 4 days at the Collaborative Technologies
Conference in NYC, where Michael presented his 7 Pillars of IT Enabled
Team Productivity workshop, and then a day with David Marshak at the IBM
offices in Boston for a series of product briefings on the new offerings
from IBM. (Neat stuff coming from IBM!)
A combination of Internet and Tablet
PC issues prompted Michael to remark that this blog would be more appropriately
named "EricMackOffLine." I won't go there right now ...
While I've not made any blog posts in
the past 10 days, I apparently showed up on several other people's blogs
- mostly in conjunction with the CTC conference and the GEEC dinners around
the country - so search around.
Meanwhile, I've queued up a bunch of
draft posts and podcasts. I'll try to edit and post these soon. For
those of you who've written or posted to ask about the Tablet PC, I did
take it and use it. More on that later. I did do several impromptu demos
of Tablet PC technology, mostly OneNote and MindManager. In fact, Michael
and I did a live demo to OneNote shared sessions at the CTC conference.
While, there, I sat with Mike Jetter of MindJet and I made my case for
MindManager as a visualization tool for Lotus Notes. Let's see; what else?
The highlight of the trip was hanging out with Michael for a week. Lots
discussed, lots to share. more to come.
Michael Sampson's just arrived in the United
States from New Zealand. First stop: a visit to the Mack's and a day in
the digital sandbox. We plan to record several podcasts and post some blogs
about tablets, collaborative technology, OneNote, and MindMaps, so stay
tuned. (It may take a while for me to get these up on the web; we've got
a lot going on over the next 10 days.) For one of the first podcasts,
I've asked Amy & Wendy to join us to talk about their experiences with
OneNote.
Here's a picture of the welcoming committee at LAX:
Many of you know how I feel about hardware
manufacturers forcing me to use or remove their unwanted software from
my new computer. I call it spamware - unsolicited commercial programs.
(My most recent adventure with this was last night. I installed a
Creative WebCam on my tablet. guess what I got back, absolutely free ...
AOL. No further comment. You know how I feel.)
Here's a twist from Adobe: I downloaded and evaluated Acrobat 7.0
for use with a document imaging application. This morning, I learned that
my evaluation period has expired. (No problem, I've got the product on
order.) But, take a look at the last sentence ...
Isn't that odd? Am I to fear that an expired evaluation will harm my system?
If that's true, should we ever evaluate Adobe products? Or, is this just
an idle threat from Adobe to coerce me to buy their product? Either way,
I think it's wrong.
Last night, I enjoyed a delightful dinner
with my friend, Jason Womack, his wife Jodi, and some of their friends.
After dinner, Jason and I played with the M4 and we showed his guests how
to use Skype to make a call over the Internet - well, at least across the
room. You might say it was a geek dinner, or at least a geek dessert. It
always is, when Jason and I hang out. (Actually, as Jodi will attest, Jason
and I were very well behaved: we did not talk one word of tech for the
first two and a half hours.)
As I left the their home, I noticed
that Jason had a bike trainer (or whatever you call it) by the door. This
is a device that supports the rear wheel of the bicycle so that Jason can
practice for the cycle portion of his triathlons in the living room. Impressive?
Yes, but does he have one of these?
And, of course, Robert Scoble always
has something funny to say.
Thanks. I'm honored.
I'm delighted. If nothing else, it's
an opportunity for me to help add value to the community and to the people,
many of whom have become friends, who have taught me so much.
I'm back home, after a few days in Ojai
to serve David and his staff. David and I had a nice meeting. David showed
me some hysterical videos about office productivity. I hope he'll post
references on his blog.
Meanwhile, Buzz is organizing a geek day up in Pine Mountain Club, so it
looks we'll all be playing in my digital sandbox in the next few weeks.
As long as I'm rambling ... on the way
home, I passed through Ventura county. I stopped at a roadside fruit stand
an picked up a flat of strawberries.
I've just wrapped up a productive weekend
in Ojai, topped off by a delightful dinner earlier this evening with David
and Kathryn, Kathryn's mom, and Greg Fisk. We started by the fireplace
in the outdoor "living" room, while David grilled up some lamb
and vegetables for our dinner. Then, we moved inside to continue our discussion
around the table, talking into the evening.
There are many exciting developments in the works at DavidCo and I've been
very busy planning for new ICA* technologies for our expanding team. In
fact, I'm writing this from the new world headquarters. Ojai is beautiful
this time of year. It's not too hot [yet] and there's always a spectacular
sunset to watch.
It's not my preference to travel often, and whenever possible I try to
avoid being away from my family on weekends or for more than a few days;
however, a great place to work and great people to work with make the experience
a treat. I consider myself blessed to be a part of such a dynamic
team of wonderful people.
This trip has also been a good time for me to think about some of the projects
and products that I've got on my plate. I've decided to look into recruiting
some Notes developers to join me on a product in the works (more to follow)
and to slow down on new business development efforts. Between work, family,
and school, I'm very busy. I'm also excited.
This weekend, I finished reading Towards
a Better Understanding of History, by Bernard Norling.
In nine chapters, Norling provides an excellent overview of how to study
history. While all of the chapters contained valuable information, I found
chapter four (What Can We Really Know About History?) and six (The Role
of Ideas in History) most interesting.
Chapter outline:
Why Study History At All?
How to Study History
Things Always Change: But Always Remain
the Same
What Can We Really Know About History?
Is History the Work of Great Men?
The Role of Ideas in History
How Organizations Influence History
Economic and Technological Factors in
History
Man and His Physical Environment
At
124 pages, the book offers an excellent overview of the events and thinking
that have shaped our world. More important, it provides a framework with
which to examine "historical" information, or any information
about people and society. It's not light reading, but recommended all the
same
Many scientists are coming to the conclusion
that the theory of evolution cannot explain life as we know it, and that
the universe bears the fingerprints of a Designer. It's a fascinating subject
with startling implications. There will be a seminar on this topic in Santa
Clarita, this Wednesday evening. Interested? Send me an email.
I'm sick of a certain high-profile case
that has been all over the media. I'm not going to name the parties involved
- I won't even link to today's article in the news - because, in my book,
they don't deserve any more recognition.
Until now, I've refrained from joining this discussion, largely because
I did not want to add to the circus. Plenty of people are commenting on
the lewd details of this trial. I won't go there.
The jury will decide the innocence or guilt of the individual on trial.
But, what about the parents of the children involved? Should they be on
trial, too?
When I read that several parents allowed their children to spend time,
unchaperoned, alone, overnight, with someone, just because he's famous
and he begged them to, I cannot help but wonder who might have committed
the more serious crime.
Parents need to be more responsible; they must protect their children.
I believe that children are a gift from the Lord. They are entrusted to
us, as parents, to train, nurture, and protect. What a tragedy when the
trust of a child is betrayed by their parent.
Parenting is a great responsibility. It is also an opportunity for
great blessing.
It's been a busy several weeks. While I
enjoy traveling and visiting with clients, I am always glad to return home
to my family.
We've been plunged back into winter, with snow and heavy fog for the past
two days - so much for our Southern California weather.
I'm still making progress on a variety of projects, including plans
for a new site launch, my eProductivity podcast series, a template update,
and, of course, my continued adventures of life without a Tablet PC.
I've enjoyed the emails and Skype calls I've received over the past few
weeks; it's been fun to connect with some of the readers of my blog. Thanks
for your encouragement!
I've collected a long list of things I'd like to blog about. Most of the
items on my list require that I do some research before I write, so all
I have to offer you right now are these less-detailed posts.
I'll try to post something more interesting very soon.
Thanks for stopping by.
Eric
PS. In-line comments for this blog will be available very soon. (Thanks
Tanny!) This will make it easier for you to join the discussion on this
blog. Meanwhile, you can click on the "add comments" link below
to post your thoughts.
Yes, it's true, there are four more little feet at our
house at the moment. Welcome Nibble!
What amuses me is Michael's choice
of a digital pet name name:
A Nibble = 4 bits - 1/2 a Byte. I'm
not sure that's what Michael had in mind.
Growing up, I gave most of my pets digital names:
Cats, "Bit" and "Byte"
Hamster, "Nibble"
Sheltie, "Prefix Notation"
Prefix's
name was selected by choosing a page and line number from a computer dictionary
at random.
Prefix Notation - A method of forming one-dimensional
expressions without the need for brackets by preceding, with a string or
vector of operator, an operand string or vector that may itself contain
operators upon operands.
You are probably not surprised, coming from a geek like me.
Jeremy
and Marc
recently blogged about their A-Lists
- people they look up to in the blogosphere. Since my name came
up, I guess it's my turn to
continue the trend.
Here's my current A-List:
Kathleen - My sweetheart; the love of my life; she will forever be
at the top of my A-List. (Sorry, unlisted blog.)
Tanny
O'Haley - Tanny's
been a brother to me for the 20+ years that we've known one another. We've
collaborated professionally at many companies and we've pioneered innovative
software
together. Tanny's a great dad to his children and he's been a real encouragement
to me. This summer, my daughter, Kelly, and I were honored to be a part
of his wedding.
Tanny was instrumental in helping me get my blogs set up a few years ago,
and he and I continue to look for new ways to make and break technology.
I'm honored to count Tanny as a friend. Tanny's blog, like mine, is an
eclectic collection of posts. He's also awesome when it comes to style
and design.
Michael
Sampson - I first met
Michael in 1997. Michael was a panelist in a session I moderated on Unified
Messaging for the Electronic Messaging Association. (Wouldn't it be fun
to go back and listen to that tape?) Little did we know that our shared
interest in collaborative technologies would lead us to develop a strong
professional and personal relationship. We have other interests in common,
too. Michael and his wife, Katrina, also homeschool their wonderful children;
six of them. They are a lovely family.
This summer, Michael will fly up from New Zealand so that we can spend
a day in the digital sandbox. Michael's blog on collaborative technology,
Shared-spaces,
is my favorite way to keep up with news and analysis in the field of collaboration.
It's among the first I read each day.
David
Allen - Friend, client,
mentor. David's a neat guy and an overall fun person to hang out with.
Like me, David loves cool gear, gadgets, and technology -- anything with
wires a lots of flashing LEDs. When we get together, we are never at a
loss for things to talk about. As David's technologist, I have the delightful
opportunity to share my expertise and passion about using technology with
a guy that loves to help others. David's assembled a neat team, and I'm
honored to be among such good company. Though he doesn't blog often, (I'm
working on that) I always look forward to reading what he has to say.
Jason
Womack - To say that Jason
is energetic would be an understatement. I first met Jason, through my
work with David, and we hit it off right away. Each time we get together,
amazing things happen. I can always count on Jason to ask me hard questions,
such as "as a result of what you learned least year, what will you
do differently now?" We like tech, GTD, and mapping out extraordinary
visions for the future. Jason's become a prolific blogger, too; I really
like the way that he integrates his work into his life -- or is it the
other way around? In any case, another must-read.
Marc
Orchant - I met Marc through
his Office
Zealot GTD blog site. We've
had many late-night discussions on technology and how to put it into perspective.
I'm in awe of Marc's communication skills. No wonder he has the [well-deserved]
title of chief story-teller at his work. Lately, Marc's been providing
me with validation for all the reasons that I have decided I must have
a TabletPC. With Marc's help, I have hopes of becoming YABHTU
soon. Marc's blog,
and now his podcast are on my daily list.
Buzz
Bruggeman - What can I
say? A day without Buzz is like a day without a good internet connection.
Yes, that's it. Perhaps we should call Buzz, Mr Internet. In any case,
I'm thankful for the conversations I've had with Buzz, each one yielding
at least 180 new contacts. OK, at least 3. We'll talk about that soon,
on a podcast. I think there are probably only a handful of people left
in the world, who do not use Buzz' product, ActiveWords.
Shame, shame. Perhaps I should list them by name on my D-List, just so
that they will call Buzz and order. :-)
Nick
Duffill - I met Nick as
a result of some research to see just how well his product, ResultsManager
mapped into GTD. That encounter led to a delightful acquaintance and many
extended conversations. Nick's been blogging for just a few months. His
blog, Beyond
Crayons, is short on posts
but long on quality of content. Nick and his business partner, Nik, were
sponsors of our Children's robotics
team this year, too. I look
forward to having the guys from Gyronix on a future podcast.
Michael
Hyatt- I've only
exchanged a few emails with Michael, so I really only know him mostly through
his blog. Oops, not true. Before the turn of the century, I used both of
Michael's Y2K-related books as part of a preparedness presentation that
I put together for my church. (Turn of the century; wow; I feel old.) Michael's
raised 5 daughters, so it must be possible. An inspiration. Thomas
Nelson Publishers, Michael's
company, publishes many of the books in my library and now he's pushing
the envelope in the area of corporate
blogging. A definite bookmark.
Like David, Michael doesn't blog often; when he does, I schedule the time
to read what he has written. Michael is also one of the inspirations for
my move to the TabletPC. Hey Michael, here's an open invitation to come
over and spend a day in the digital sandbox.
And my honorary A-list. Although they do not blog, they remain an inspiration
to me.
Bill Gates - I remember attending NCC in the early 80's. There you
were, in your classic [geek] sweater, sharing your vision for the future
of computing. I also remember the detractors -- people who thought that
the things you predicted would never come to pass. Thank you, Bill, for
sticking to your vision and proving them all wrong. You've changed our
world. I admire you for what you have accomplished. Though I've never met
you in person, I have enjoyed being alive in the era of personal computing
and I look forward to telling my grandchildren ... "I was there when
Bill Gates said ..." You are welcome to come over to the digital
sandbox anytime you want. Bring the kids.
Commodore Grace Hopper - As the mother of modern computing and the
first tech evangelist, you remain an inspiration to me. I still miss the
elegance of COBOL and how much of an improvement it was to program in common
English - even on Hollerith cards. I remember your speeches, your story
about the first computer bug, and time I met you in Washington D.C.. I
know that if you were alive today, you would be blogging now as prolifically
as you spoke then. I still have the nanosecond that you gave me over 20
years ago. It hangs on the wall in my office. (I plan to blog more
about Grace Hopper in the future. Meanwhile, here's an excellent biography
of Grace Hopper, by Marianne
McKenzie.)
High screen resolution (I 'd like
to have 1400x1050)
Fast processor, Low power mode (Intel
Dothan?)
Fast video for document management/imaging/demos
Excellent support for simultaneous external
monitor
Very fast hard drive, 60 gigabytes minimum
1-2 gigabytes of RAM
Wireless 802.11 abg, Bluetooth, USB
2.0, LAN, Modem, Dock
Reliable hardware; excellent service
available, when needed.
Excellent TabletPC OS driver and utility
support
Possible
advantages of Fujitsu over Toshiba TabletPC:
Internal Dual-layer DVD-RW Drive
Option for second battery pack. (trade-off
of weight vs battery)
Option to have nothing in the drive
bay to lighten things up.
Optional indoor/outdoor wide view screen
(XGA model only)
FireWire support
Free scanner, free shipping, I can have
it soon. :-)
Possible disadvantages
of going with the Fujitsu TabletPC:
The Fujitsu weighs 22.75 lbs. (OK,
Just Kidding)
Slower hard drive, no high-speed option.
I'm not sure if shared-memory video
card is better than the M200
Dual mic array vs triple mic array
I still have to wait 10 days from order.
:-(
Am I missing anything?
UPDATE 1: Marc and James, over at the the Tablet
PC show, just posted a link
to this review.
Perhaps they will have more to say on their next show.
UPDATE 2: I just spent an hour reviewing posts on the T4010D at Tablet
PC buzz. Looks like I need
to choose between XGA wide angle indoor/outdoor vs SXGA plain vanilla.
It seems like the wide angle would be important when writing with the Tablet
on a desktop. Likewise, in brightly lit rooms, the indoor/outdoor option
might be the way to go. Ahh choices, choices. Why can't I have it all?
Just one year ago, today, my friend, David
Allen, welcomed us into his salon.
I suppose I'm partly to blame for that. What a launch! It wasn't planned,
the launch that is; we have Scoble
and Buzz
to thank for that. You can read about what happened, here.
David's been using the web to converse for
years, however, a year ago, he suddenly jumped to a new level. Hundreds
of thousands of page visits and millions of RSS hits later, the adventure
continues.
My friend, David Allen, drove up for a
Geek
Day -- a chance to hang out
and talk about anything that shows up, eat good food, and play with cool
gear. It's a rare opportunity for two boys to play in the digital sandbox.
We thought it might be fun to do a podcast and perhaps even connect with
a few folks we've met along the way. I'll be up on Skype; you can send
me an email if you would like to connect.
I've been working with Steve
Castledine over at ProjectDX
to add full podcast support to DominoBlog,
my web content and blogging tool of choice. Soon, I will have the ability
to quickly add a podcast to any blog entry and have the proper enclosures
automatically appear in my RSS feed.
My objective is to streamline my podcast encoding and content delivery
process so that I can audiocast and videocast on a regular basis about
various topics of interest.
This 28 second podcast test is the first part of that development process.
Eric
Mack On-line Podcast test #1
Introduction and podcast test of podcast enclosure tags in RSS.
Format: MP3 Size: 356KB Duration: 0 minutes, 28 seconds
For those of you, who maybe inclined to help me with the test today, please
add my RSS
feed to your podcatcher software.
Did your podcatcher software automatically download my podcast for you? (i.e. iPodder,
Doppler,
or others)
The podcast enclosure support is still in development, but I am hopeful
that Steve will have it fully operational by tomorrow.
Thank you for your patience as we iron out the wrinkles in this process.
Father Roderick Vonhögen hopes so and he's
sharing his journey to meet the Pope and convince him to Podcast. The Podcasts
narrate his journey, including confrontations with Vatican security, unexpected
trips to the hospital where the Pope was hospitalized, and now, his discussions
with Vatican Radio to show them how to Podcast - all in the space of less
than 2 weeks! Amazing.
For the past few weeks, I've been listening to the stream of Podcasts coming
from the Vatican city, as this high-tech priest shares his journey to meet
the Pope and present the first Papal Podcast. I won't summarize the Podcasts
here, because I do not want to spoil it for you. There are amazing and
unexpected twists in the Podcasts as the events unfold. I will tell you
that the Vatican is now involved and that the new few Podcasts should be
even more interesting - more than you might expect.
What I find most interesting and compelling about these Podcasts is the
use of descriptive narratives and soundscapes to pull the listener into
the experience. Hearing the feet walking across the cobblestone streets,
the water splashing in the piazza, the crowds waiting to see the Pope,
or the dripping water deep inside the catacombs under the city. Vonhögen
brings a sense of realism and wonder as well as the certain charm and suspense
that could previously only be found in a classic old-time radio broadcast.
Yet, all of this is being produced by one guy, one mic, and a minidisc
recorder.
These Podcasts are not produced by the Vatican, but by Father Roderick
Vonhögen. Vonhögen's set up his blog site, Catholic
Insider, with the mission
"Podcasting from the heart of the Roman Catholic Church." The
content is not focused as much on those of the Catholic faith as it as
on giving the ordinary person a glimpse inside this priest's world.
Althought, I'm not a Catholic, I have appreciated being able to "listen"
in on the adventures of Father Roderick as he uses his mobile Podcast
setup to bring soundscapes from the Vatican city.
Best of success to you, Father Vonhögen!
If you are going to listen, I recommend that you listen to the Podcasts
in sequence. Here are the current links as of this morning:
I just a had a delightful Skype call with
Steve
Holden. Steve produces
Tech Rag Tear Outs - a daily 1-3 minute Podcast on the latest tech
news. It's an easy (and quick) way to keep up on developments in
IT. Thanks, Steve!
My friend, Tony Fascenda, was named as
one of the top
10 demonstrators at this year's
DEMO@15
conference, where he successfully demonstrated four products in six minutes!
Tony's an exciting person to be around, a true visionary. The walls of
his office are covered with patents for various technologies that he's
invented. Most recently, Tony invented a technology, now embedded
in his SecurEdge TrustChips, that can provide an end-to-end secure connection
between IP devices and applications. The beauty and simplicity of this
technology is that it is device and application independent - meaning
that you can secure just about any internet technology (Laptops, VPN, VOIP,
PDA, etc.) without touching the existing applications or devices!
The folks at DEMO think it is an innovative approach to network security.
I think so, too! Check
it out.
Congratulations, Tony, I wish you and your team the best!
I first met Tony back in 1992 at Newspager Corporation of America (NCA).
I had approached Tony, and his colleague, Dan, with the idea of using their
wireless database receiver as a platform for mobile messaging and wireless
databases. (Their current products were primarily focused on financial
news and stock information.) Tony and Dan were particularly interested
in my activities in the messaging field, particularly the ICA Information
gateway -- a tool which I had developed to extend corporate messaging to
the mobile workforce. At he time, I was the guy, walking around with not
one, but three large pagers on his belt. I know, I looked like a geek.
That's OK, it led to some interesting meetings; the most memorable of which
was with Hubert Lipinski, founder and architect of cc:Mail. That meeting
launched my formal entry into the wireless messaging space and my involvement
with Peloria Technology Corp.
A few years later, Tony hired me as a consultant to NCA, to serve as their
Director of Advanced Messaging Applications; my mission was to develop
and promote wireless messaging technology. We were a little early for the
marketplace. The biggest challenge at the time was convincing the carriers
that wireless messaging really was a good thing - something people would
pay for - and that these huge messages (in those days, 80 characters was
a long message) would not kill their networks. I designed and promoted
the Flash! wireless database publishing tool for cc:Mail and Lotus Notes,
which allowed data to be published to the wireless device. That was 10
years ago. The closest thing I've seen since is the Pylon iAnywhere
application. One product, which I helped promote for Tony was a small handheld
database receiver, called Compass. It was much like a Tungsten C of today
but developed long before color PDAs and 802.11 anything. The Compass was
huge compared to the Palm but it did have an 8 color screen and really
was the ultimate geek accessory. Here's a photo
of [a much younger] me with the Compass unit. (You can read more of the
story here.)
I had a blast working with Tony and his team, and it was an honor to help
his company and to see Tony in action.
I have no doubt that Koolspan has a bright future ahead.
Everyone should be so fortunate as to have
their own personal blog critic - someone who will point out things done
well along with opportunities for improvement. I'm very fortunate, I have
several in my virtual camp.
I received several emails this week in response to my recent Podcast
on delegated tasks. One of
the interesting messages was from Adrian Trenholm, a web development
consultant in the UK. (Be sure to check out Adrian's work here.)
Adrian's comments and suggestions could be applied to most any of
us who blog or podcast on technical subjects. With Adrian's permission,
I've posted the email here: [URLs added]
Eric,
Just finished listening to your Podcast (over the speakers on my PC - I
don't own an iPod - in case you are collecting user data). Congratulations.
You asked for feedback, so:
1. I enjoyed the clarity and precision of your presentation - I am
in Toastmasters
so that kind of thing matters to me.
2. You used the "tell 'em what you going to tell 'em; tell 'em;
tell em what you have told 'em" technique, but I think you could have
been even more explicit in the way that you divided up the parts of your
presentation, in fact I wonder if there is a way of saying: "in the
first two minutes I will deal with x, at two minutes I will deal with y
and at four minutes I will tackle z." This would enable users
to shuffle through your presentation to relevant material.
3. Content-wise, "people first, then processes, then technology"
is always the right message and bears repeating at every possible opportunity,
so well done on that.
4. The four point plan for implementing delegated tasks seemed a bit generic
at first listen, but on reflection, I think you pitched it right, because
you want the team to discuss between themselves the mechanics of how they
are going to use the technology and that discussion becomes an important
part of setting up the right process. A prescriptive "press button
a, then button b" approach will likely discourage that discussion
of process and protocols.
5. Didn't like the jingle - it's a personal thing.
For future material on this subject, you might consider reading To
Do, Doing, Done by Snead and
Wycoff. They offer some excellent thoughts on delegation: their model
is ARC - authority, responsibility and commitment. The book is from Franklin
Covey, but the best bits works
within GTD,
which I am using at the moment (or rather getting back on the wagon with).
The other thing that you didn't mention (outside the scope, I guess) is
that increasingly teams include freelancers, and people from different
companies, so not everyone is on the same technology anyway, eg I use LifeBalance
to track projects, next actions and calendar, I still use Outlook
for email, with a system of dated flags and a filtered in-box, to tickle
appropriate mails to future dates. I regularly work with people who
use Gmail,
Thunderbird
and Barca,
and who use Mac and PC. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on
that and also on Web based project management applications like Basecamp
from 37 signals.
You have certainly got me thinking that a discussion between team members
and the establishment of protocols for delegation is an essential action
at the start of any project, regardless of the technology used. Yes,
the people and the process are the most important things. The technology
is secondary.
Well done, looking forward to hearing more.
Best regards
Adrian Trenholm
Thanks, Adrian, for the helpful feedback! Suggestions noted and added to
my checklist for future Podcasts.
I will look for your comments (and suggestions) on future posts.
Glad to know I've got at least one fan outside of the family. :-)
PS. Was the intro music really that bad? I tried for something short
and energetic.
Steve Pavlina, in his recent post, entitled:
"The Essential Missing Half of Getting Things Done," suggests
that "what's missing from GTD is the high-level part of the system."
Steve is quite articulate in his explanation of what he means. (If you've
not read his post, I encourage you to read it here.)
In short, the first part of Steve's post suggests that while he's found
GTD to be invaluable to him, GTD does not provide the process for defining
mission vision and purpose -- the compass. I agree. But then, I don't
think David Allen ever intended GTD to provide this.
Much of Steve's post resonates with me. I agree that GTD, as a methodology,
does not provide the mission or vision that a person ought to have for
their life. I also agree with Steve that it is important to know where
you want to go so that you can make sure that your actions and activities
support your vision and that you are ready for anything. In an ideal scenario,
we would start at the 50,000 foot level, working on our life purpose all
the way down to our runway of next actions.
In my experience, however, it is often difficult to consider focusing on
the larger issues, such as life purpose and objectives, when I feel overwhelmed
by the day to day; I simply cannot see the proverbial forest for the trees.
While it certainly seems logical to start with the big picture and
sort out actions later, I submit that for many people it's simply too huge
a task to start detailed planning at the top when then tedious distractions
of the day to day -- unclarified and ambiguous thoughts and ideas -- are
consuming energy that might otherwise be spent on strategic planning. I
believe that this is why I read of so many people who, after attempting
to implement the 7-habits, feel let down and find themselves more overwhelmed
than when they began.
Let me share a little from my own personal experience: For much of the
past two decades, I've designed and developed action management systems
for highly productive individuals and organizations. You would think that
with this effort I would have had total and complete clarity early on about
my mission, vision and purpose. Well, I most certainly did not. It was
not for a lack of trying either. I really wanted to have a defined
mission (one that I believed in), I wanted to embrace the 7-habits, and
I wanted to get my high-level strategy mapped out. None of my productivity
systems, while effective at managing actions and projects, could provide
me with the direction that I needed. I knew that I needed
to have clarity at a higher level. I just found it difficult to get past
the day to day to really think clearly and objectively about my higher
purpose; I was continuously distracted by the low-level stuff (both physical
and mental) that I kept piling on my plate. As a result, I found it difficult
to devote the attention required to the big picture to develop my personal
and family mission statements. High level thought in this area became frustrating
and unproductive. (Some of you may know what I mean.)
It was at this basic level -- my need to focus on personal high-level thinking
-- that GTD really helped me out the most -- not by allowing me to start
from the top down -- but by allowing me to start from the bottom up. By
allowing me to clear the decks of low-level items that were consuming mental
bandwidth, I was able to achieve the clarity that I needed to sit down
and think about bigger issues, such as: "Why am I here?", "What's
my life purpose?", and "What
will I leave behind?".
With the answers to these questions clarified and objectified, I
was then able to revisit my projects and actions and evaluate whether or
not they were still relevant to my big picture. You see, even if
I had put life on hold to work out my big picture plan, my focus would
have been distracted by the small stuff that I had not yet resolved.
In 1998, Kathy and I wrote our family
mission statement. This document,
along with my personal and business mission statements have served as guide
for making decisions that affect our family. While I do not refer
to these documents often, I know that they are there; they provide me with
great clarity when I need to make key decisions. It has been a wonderful
process to go through and I highly recommend it.
For those of you who can put everything aside and focus exclusively with
the big picture stuff, I salute you; it is a powerful process and the ideal
way to begin. For the rest of you, do not be discouraged if day-to-day
distractions keep you from developing your big picture for a little while.
I want to encourage you and let you know that you can get your big
picture goals mapped out; you may just have to do a little mental house
cleaning first.
My WeatherCam
received an unusually high number of page hits last night as people repeatedly
hit refresh throughout the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the night
sky.
Most of us saw only the darkness of night punctuated by the glow of Christmas
lights on the homes on the valley floor below.
A few people sent me urgent messages to report that around 1:15 in the
morning, they briefly observed a long object moving slowly across the night
sky.
This morning, I went through the directory of images captured last night
and I think I have found what they were talking about...
If you look very closely in the top left you can see something.
If you listen very closely, you might even hear the bells.
Tonight, I will decrease the sample interval
on my WeatherCam
overlooking the valley. The moon should be bright tonight and it may be
possible to catch some air traffic. It gets dark around 5:30 so be
sure to check back throughout the night. You never know what you might
see.
For the past many week's I've been immersed
in a large client project, one which has required several trips and which
will culminate with a series of meetings this week in Ojai. I do not like
to be away from my family, especially during the holidays, but sometimes
I must travel at this time of year to accommodate my client's schedule.
In addition to being tired from a string of very long days, I've been feeling
a little melancholy as I return to the hotel room at the end of each day;
no Lassie to bark hello, no kids to greet me, and no kiss from my sweetheart.
Tonight, I returned to my hotel room to find that something was very different;
it was not as I had left it. Indeed, for a moment I thought I must have
walked into the wrong room. While I was away, a live Christmas tree --
complete with lights tree-skirt, and ornaments -- had been placed in the
room and home-made cards and decorations had been put up around the room.
Wow!
Apparently, during the day, Kathy had contacted the hotel manager to work
out the details before she drove the few hundred mile round-trip to carry
out her mission to decorate my room and return home. You can imagine my
surprise when I returned exhausted to find this cheery welcome. It's not
a substitute for being with my family, but it is a delightful reminder
to know that I am loved, and blessed.
It's been a busy few weeks. Quick summary: 200+ user deployment of the eProductivity for Lotus Notes currently underway with others planned for 2005, the local AWANA season just ended (including another special appearance by my alter ego, Cubbie Bear) and another season has just begun, a large system deployment for a client in Ojai, the Jr. Robotics team that I am coaching is now in full-swing and we have our first competition this week, I'm into my 3rd week of my Organizational Management upper-division courses with many papers to write, a visit from Channel 9 Guy, and finally, a new wireless mobility project for the Treo 650 in the early stages of planning. All of this, on top of everything else that a homeschool father and geek has to do.
I am simply blessed to have an amazing wife, a supportive family, a great team to work with, the GTD methodology, and eProductivity help me keep it all together.
I've collected and started to draft at least 6 new blog topics. I hope to start posting these in the next week or two. Stay tuned.
It's been a busy week -- lots of consulting
and client projects to deliver and work to do for the kid's robotics team.
I was pleasantly surprised to return to the many encouraging comments and
e-mail that I received to my recent entry, Minds
ready for action. The Bible
is full of wisdom and admonition concerning the effective use of time and
effort - productivity. While not a trivial task, a cover-to-cover survey
with this focus promises to be most interesting.
The concept of collecting these notes
in one place has been one that I have been kicking around for about a year.
While I spend most of my time as an eProductivity
Specialist, showing my clients
how to put technology to work for them, I also invest time researching
methodologies and systems that I can put to use. I can think of no better
place to start looking for key principles. While I do not claim to be a
Bible scholar, I am an eager student in this area, and this subject has
my interest.
For those of you who took the time to
write this week, thanks for your words of encouragement. I'll think about
moving this off my Someday/Maybe list.
In the mean time, I'll continue to share
my observations from time to time. If you would like to receive a ping
when I do, or if you have any further thoughts or observations, feel free
to post a comment or send me an email, using the contact link above.
This passage of scripture inspired me today;
I'd like to share a portion of it:
Therefore, get your minds ready for action...
I Peter 1:13 (NET Bible)*
I became intrigued by the concept of getting one's mind ready for action,
so I decided to research it further.
According to the study commentary in the NET Bible, this figure of speech
refers to the Middle Eastern practice of gathering up long robes around
the waist to prepare for work or action. In the Greek, it literally means
"binding up the loins of your mind.”
The idea is that the wearer of long flowing robes would find it difficult
to move about swiftly or with agility. By picking up the loose ends, as
it were, we are free to move about with ease.
When we pick up our mental laundry, we are able to quickly focus on things
of importance.
Back to minds ready for action: Think about your mental robes...
What are the things that prevent you from being ready for action?
I have been thinking about blogging about some of the other productivity
principles that I have learned in my personal Bible studies. I wonder what
public interest there might be in this subject?
Comments welcome.
* For my friends, some of whom are Bible scholars, I realize that
I have quoted only the first few words of this verse, and those out of
context; I do not mean to imply that these words are more important than
the rest of the verse; far from it.
Correction 9/22/04 6:47 PM PST
I goofed. I pasted in the wrong reference for the passage above. I originally
provided James 1:13; the reference should have been 1 Peter 1:13. Fixed.
Sometimes, my little
red ball cannot solve all
of my client's remote support issues. When this happens, I rely on another
tool, which I keep nearby in a pencil cup.
Today was one of those times...
The same client, who shall remain anonymous, called again today to ask
for assistance. Thanks to the internet and a brief wave of the tool, her
problem was soon solved and we were both able to get back to work...
For the past two days, my faithful laptop
has been resetting its on-board clock to 4:00 PM on December 31, 1999.
Each time I reset the clock back to the correct date/time, it reverts to
December 31, 1999 within a few hours.
Spooky.
I've been unable yet to isolate this to Windows 2000 or to the ThinkPad
hardware itself. The only recent software change that I'm aware of was
to run a WebEx session for a client test. (I've no reason to suspect Webex;
still I've no idea why this is happening and why now.)
Michael Sampson suggested this would not have happened if I had purchased
a Mac. (There's always one out there!) Bruce
Elgort, will probably just
say that it's because I have not updated my photo since then.
Perhaps it's just my system getting back at me for my concern over whether
it would see me through Y2K.
Recently, Kathy and I saw the most interesting machine on display at a
kiosk at the Ontario Mills Mall. It looked like a high-tech medical
device with a translucent blue cover. It was actually a computer controlled
water-jet massage machine.
Kathy encouraged me to give it a try. Not sure of what I was getting myself
into (literally) I took off my shoes, stepped up, and paid my $10 for 7
minutes. The attendant took my money and pushed a button. Soon, the shell
of this kooky contraption began to open, revealing what basically looked
like a chiropractor's massage table, complete with hole for my face. I
climbed in and laid down. With another button press the clam-shell closed,
exposing only the top of my head. Inside, a giant Mylar sheet protected
me from what was to come next.
Next, the attendant put a pair of headphones over my ears so that I could
listen to some delightfully soothing music. She also handed me a remote
control so that I could control the machine or stop it quickly. Then the
fun began.
Pulsating water-jets began to move from the tip of my toes to the top of
my head. Then the row of jets cycled in the opposite direction from my
head back down to my feet. With a click of the remote, I could pause this
motion to precisely focus where the high-pressure water jets would land.
Seven minutes is about all I could take for my first water massage, although
I imagine that I could work up to longer runs. When I exited the machine
I felt tingly and energized.
Imagine starting and finishing each day under the fire hose. I guess it
is all a matter of perspective...
All in all, a good massage without getting wet or even sweaty.
There is an interesting discussion in the
David Allen GTD forum on the topic of Ministers
using GTD.
I enjoy reading about how productivity principles can be applied to various
aspects of our daily lives. The book of Proverbs is packed with wisdom
about this.
I've just wrapped up a busy but productive
week, working with the fine folks at The
David Allen Company. The team
has concluded a week of staff development, training, and relaxation. I
did a lot of work behind the scenes, deploying new technology and planning
the systems that will help the team move the company forward. As a virtual
organization, with staff constantly on the move around the world, there
are many opportunities for me to show them how to use technology to better
support the work that they do.
While I serve many of these folks on a regular basis, most of our interaction
is virtual so it's always nice when we have the opportunity to connect
in person. I enjoy what I do, and whenever I get to work with nice people
doing life-changing work, it makes my efforts all the more rewarding.
Ojai is wonderful place for fine dining, and David is a delightful host,
treating us to some truly outstanding meals. Thanks, David!
David,
Jason,
and I also talked about our blogs, the feedback that we have received,
and some of the things that we each plan to write about in the future.
Last week, I took my family out to Buca
di Beppo for an Italian Dinner,
served family-style. Kathy took my daughters to the rest-room. Apparently,
in the ladies rest-room there were several pictures on the wall.
Emily pointed to a reproduction of a painting and said, "I know the
name of that painting, it's the 'Birth of Venus.'"
Kathy asked her how she knew that, and she said she learned it from JumpStart
Second Grade.
Have you ever wanted to drag all of the messages in your in-box into a
folder just so that you could see what a clean in-box looks like? I have.
Sometimes, I have even wished that I could drag my whole office into
a folder - just so I could see what a clean office looks like.
As a technologist,
I take great pride in my ability to help my clients design and implement
systems to help them organize their information, communications, and actions
digitally. Sometimes, however, my skill at organizing bits and bytes does
not always consistently carry over from my digital life into my paper life.
If you are like me, and you sometimes get out of control, there is hope
for you. The key is learning what clean feels like and knowing how
to get back to it.
Hello, my name is Eric Mack, and I have a messy desk. (At least whenever
I am completely immersed in a project, which is most of the time.)
Last week, in a moment of such intensity, I shared that I
had misplaced my in-box. My
post apparently struck a chord as several people have written, posted in
forums, and even blogged about their messy desks. Others wrote that
my post inspired
them. One individual even
picked up on my attempt to blame my situation on entropy.
I have seen the enemy... and
his reflection is in my monitor.
Well, I am pleased to report that I did manage to locate my in-box
-- It was right there all along, hiding under a pile of incompletion and
ambiguity. All it took was some dedicated in-basket processing using my
modifed GTD workflow diagram to get back to clean.
A few days ago, David
Allen made some of us uncomfortable
by posting a photo
of his office. Yes folks,
David's desk really does look like that -- except when I'm sitting at it;
but don't tell David. (I often work in David's office, and I can
honestly say that in all of the years that I have been going to his office
I have yet to see observable signs of entropy at his desk; or even creeping
out of his in-box.)
What do David and I have in common? We both like cool gear and systems
and we both know how to get back to clean. What is different between
us? Well, David's desk always looks like a finely manicured garden, mine
is often much more organic.
Thanks to David's GTD Methodology, however, I know what "clean"
feels like and I know how to get back to that state quickly enough. I
am grateful to David and his example in this area. If you have not read
David's book,
I highly recommend it. It's been a great help to me.
For the past several minutes, I have been
wrapping up my independent research paper entitled, "CP/M and OS/2
- Key trends in 8 and 16 -bit computing."
This paper evaluates the impact that the CP/M
and OS/2
operating systems will have on the future of collaborative computing.
For my research, I dusted off my 20+ year old Heathkit H-8 Computer, with
its over-clocked (2.0 Megahertz) Z-80 processor, 64 kilobytes of RAM, and
a dual floppy sub-system with an amazing 720 kilobytes of off-line
storage. To move files to/from the Internet, I used my reliable Hayes 300
Baud external modem. (see below)
Yes, that is what personal computers used to look like.
Note the original Heath/Microsoft Manuals in 3-ring binders:
CP/M, Basic-80, COBOL, Fortran-80, WordStar, and SuperCalc,
Regretfully, I have come to the conclusion that the current climate is
unfavorable to the publication of yet another independent research report.
Therefore, I have decided to suspend indefinitely the publication of this
report. I am concerned that this important work might not receive the consideration
that it merits. Worse yet, it might show up as the subject of the next
independent research rebuttal coming out of New
Zealand.
I am not sure if my work could stand up to the scrutiny of Michael's objective
evaluation and commentary. (Besides, my web server might not handle the
traffic his rebuttal would surely generate -- at least not until I added
a second 2400 baud modem connection to my ISP.)
IBM
and Microsoft
will now never know what I have to say, and the direction of group computing
may be forever changed.
Intel deserves credit for creating a huge
after-market for creative computing products...
As the heat output of the latest Intel processors continues to increase,
new opportunities for combined cooking/computing
appliances will undoubtedly
surface.
Imagine: Rotisserie chicken while you surf. A current drawback is
that these new appliances are still costly; however, as market demand increases.
I expect manufacturers will scramble to bring lower-cost alternatives to
the market.
Last week, my laptop hard drive crashed;
I mean it really crashed. Somehow, while working at a client's crowded
desk, I managed to get my foot caught in the power cord. As I got up from
the desk and walked away, I not only pulled my laptop onto the concrete
floor, I accelerated its descent. It was powered on - at least until it
hit the floor ... The hard drive was destroyed, and the laptop is
only slightly better.
You can learn from my misfortune and from my preplanning for disaster.
Disasters such as this never seem to happen when I have free days on my
calendar. My busy schedule made recovery more challenging. Fortunately,
the night before, I had made a backup of my documents, and just a few months
ago, I had made a routine Ghost (I use Symantec Ghost 2003) of my entire
laptop drive to a spare hard drive. Since I use Lotus Notes, which is constantly
replicating with the server, I did not lose a single email or document.
I was able to take Kathy's laptop, login, and continue working. It took
me about a week to find the time to restore my Ghost and backup to a spare
laptop and to reinstall the programs that I had added since my last Ghost.
Even though it was an inconvenience not to have immediate access to my
files (those, not stored in Notes), it was comforting to know that I had
them. Further, because I used Ghost, rather than just a file backup, I
did not have to reload my system from scratch.
Lessons affirmed:
The time I spend Ghosting my laptop
to a spare drive is time well invested. I plan to do this more often.
It was very helpful to have my key documents
stored in my Notes Document libraries.
Having Notes to replicate every 15 minutes
is definitely worth it.
Next actions:
I plan to make Notes my file store;
I will look into products like SWING or Notes 6.x tools to accomplish this.
I plan to look into a directory replication
solution, so that I can keep files that are not in Notes synchronized
between my laptop and my server.
I will check out the latest Veritas
remote (WAN) backup solutions for laptops.
I plan to purchase a third spare hard
drive, make a ghost of my system, and keep it with me for instant recovery.
Do you have a current backup and Ghost image of your hard drive?
How quickly can you recover from
a drive failure?
If you would like to share your $.02,
please post a comment.
PS. I have several blog entries in the queue. As soon as I get caught up,
I'll proof and publish them.
As a technology consultant, I have influenced
many corporate customers to purchase IBM products and services for more
almost two decades. I have usually been very pleased with the response,
value, and quality received. (As an independent eProductivity
consultant, I do not profit on the recommendation of one vendor's products
over another. I am simply paid for my expertise to design what I believe
to be the best solution for my client's stated objectives.) Outside of
this, the only tangible benefit to me personally is another happy client
-- which is worth more to me than any consulting fee I may receive.
Unfortunately, this is changing, and I believe that the IBM's decision
to outsource and their method of doing so is at least partly to blame:
Somewhere, in the process of outsourcing their most vital sales function,
IBM's hardware division seems to have forgotten that customers (and their
technology consultants) want to speak with people who are both knowledgeable
about the products that they sell and who have access to the information
and internal support services to complete the sale.
Let me share just one recent personal (and painful) experience:
Many weeks ago, I set out to order 2 rack-mount servers
and 12 high-end ThinkPad laptops from IBM. I will spare you the almost
unbelievable details, but I will simply say that it took over 100 communications
with IBM over a 6-week period to complete the order for just the first
two servers. Much to my amazement, no one that I could reach at IBM had
the "information" (to be extremely polite) to be able to assist
me in helping my client with their purchase. Calls to IBM management resulted
only in e-mail from first level sales reps being sent back. After doing
some research, I found out that I was not dealing with IBM, but an organization,
located in a Southern state, to which IBM had outsourced operations.
I
cannot believe that outsourcing saved IBM any money here. At least not
in my case.
Disclaimer: This is not an essay about the evils of outsourcing offshore
to some group that does not speak English fluently. Nor is this a rant
about the potential costs in terms of U.S. jobs lost as a result. This
not a rant against any particular individual at IBM or any of its outsourced
divisions. This is a rant against the experience of being a technology
consultant who has to deal with an outsourced organization that apparently
does not understand the products, information, and process of serving its
customers. The outsourced "IBM representatives" that I dealt
with were -- to their credit -- all English speaking and all very
polite; and, they usually responded to my email or calls within minutes.
I have come to realize that these people were doing the best that they
could do with what little information (or perhaps product training?) that
they had access to.
The problem appears to be a complete lack of information and knowledge
to complete the sale or satisfy the customer, and the unwillingness of
IBM management to get involved. The walls between the outsourced organization
and IBM are apparently quite high. This reminds me of why I do not
shop at a certain chain of electronics store -- well-dressed people, some
excellent products, but little or no information or experience on the part
of the people I have to deal with to complete the sale.
If I were trying to purchase a $19.95 floppy drive or some other generic,
low-markup, computer part, I might try to convince myself that there was
no need for IBM to care about what I thought about the purchasing experience
of their customers. This was not the case. Just one set of purchases
that could initially have reached $50,000, not to mention all of the follow-on
business from this and other clients. While not a Fortune 100-sized purchase,
this is still nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure that competing vendors would
have been delighted to have the business.
What astonishes me is that I had previously made an almost identical purchase,
apparently directly from IBM, with outstanding results. The entire process
(with an IBM contact) took less than 10 days with just a few calls and
emails to complete. Both the customer and I were very pleased with
the transaction. In fact, it was because of the resounding success of that
purchase that I did not hesitate to give the next server order to [what
I thought was] IBM again.
NOTE: Long before I decided to share this experience publicly, I tried
to reach anyone in management at IBM who might have sufficient interest
and authority to help me resolve my customer's problem. Finally, after
6 weeks, and after threatening to cancel this and all future orders, I
received a call offering some assistance. Was it really necessary for my
customer or me to go through all of that?
For any of you who have bothered to read this much of my rant, thank you.
It probably will not change anything at IBM, but in a therapeutic sense,
I at least feel a little better for having shared it.
As far as I can tell, IBM does not appear have an Ed
Brill or a Robert
Scoble on the hardware
side of the house. That's too bad. Both Ed and Robert (two of my favorite
bloggers) write about various software and marketing issues and they have
the integrity and willingness to honestly examine the goings-on of their
own companies. They are not afraid to call things as they see them - even
when it concerns their own companies or divisions. In fact, Ed
just blogged about this. I
can only hope that this blog might encourage someone on the IBM hardware
side to start blogging and change my (and my customer's) perception of
this experience.
Do I plan to ever purchase or recommend IBM services to my clients again?
Possibly. I may try one more time. Personally, I own several IBM
servers and many IBM ThinkPads. ThinkPads are my favorite laptop, and I
hoped to purchase a new ThinkPad
T42p soon. I even still
have my first IBM PC! Many of my corporate customers are all IBM shops.
IBM makes great stuff -- I just wish they made it easier for me to give
them money. Customers want to deal with people who know something
about the products and who have access to the information to facilitate
the sales and delivery process. As an independent technology
consultant, I will direct my clients to purchase from those companies
that provide the best service.
I am amazed that in this economy, any company would not do cartwheels
to ensure that a customer -- or even a technology consultant that heavily
influences his client's purchases -- was happy and that there were no impediments
to receiving business from them. Happy customers and consultants will tell
a few others. Unhappy ones, well,...
I believe (at least I'm hopeful) that my current problem has now been resolved.
But, I still have 12 high-end ThinkPads to purchase for my clients. I really
do not want to switch to another brand of Laptop. (The T42p is an awesome
machine.) So here I am, representing many IBM customers, cash in
hand, trying to give IBM money, yet I'm terrified at the prospect of a
repeat experience. When I told this to one sales manager that I spoke with
at IBM, I was told that I would never know whether the next order experience
would be better than the last unfortunate experience unless I placed the
next order with them. I will stop here.
I cannot help but wonder what the move to outsource services has "cost"
IBM and other companies that have made the same choice.
I know what it has cost my clients and me, and I challenge IBM and other
companies to consider that the true cost of outsourcing can be best measured
in terms of their customer relationships.
What do you think? Should companies measure the cost of outsourcing in
terms of customer relationships? I'd like to hear from you.
With the release of his new blog,
friend and associate, Greg
Fisk, has just raised the
bar on what an aesthetically pleasing blog site can look like. Greg and
I first started working together many years ago, when the web was still
in its infancy and companies were still trying to figure out how to leverage
this new medium. His business
site says that he brands people
-- just take a look at David
Allen's site to see what he
means.
Greg has a tremendous gift for communicating visually what would otherwise
take a thousand words to do. Once you have seen Greg's work,
you will remember it - it is always remarkable.
Here's a sneak preview of the image Greg is creating for me for the upcoming
launch of my new eProductivity.NET
site.
I love it! Visual Simplicity.
See the stick
man in the corner of this
site? That's Greg's work, too. I simply described a concept for a personal
site and a few days later Greg had packaged the concept in what has become
my favorite personal logo.
I look forward to working with Greg as we upgrade the design of my other
sites. I hope you will
add this site to your RSS feed and check back soon.
PS. Greg, the tattooed guy in the corner of your site? Is that you, or
a client? (Just kidding )
Two weeks ago, I blogged about my positive
experience using Pylon
iAnywhere. Gabe and I have
been discussing a prototype mobile sales force productivity application
for the Real Estate industry. Since Gabe and I have other interests
in common, besides just using Lotus Notes productively, we scheduled a
meeting at what has become one of my favorite places to entertain my out-of-town
clients and their families. (The other is the Magic
Castle).
See if you can figure out exactly where we met from these clues...
Think you know? Here's another...
The final clue. (If you did not get the first two, this won't make any
sense at all.)
I've not been making too many posts to
this blog lately, as my attention has been focused on an upcoming client
presentation and populating my new
eProductivity.NET web site. This
new site will become the place where I plan to make regular posts about
gear, tips, tools, and software that can be used to improve personal and
group productivity. For those of you waiting for the launch of my eProductivity
with Lotus Notes discussion forum, this is probably where it will start.
In due time, I hope to bring my Notes on Productivity newsletter into this
site.
The plan all along has been that this
site, Eric
Mack On-line will remain my personal
blog site and the new eProductivity site will maintain more of a business
focus. Of course, things always take longer than they do.
Last week's blog entry: Is the Chicken Cooked? now has wings of its own. Within days, bloggers all over the world were linking to it and several people even wrote me e-mail to share how the story resonated with them. (Michael Sampson, Dennis Kennedy, Libby Ingrassia Schwarz, Skingery, to name a few) As a result of your encouragement, I will share another important lesson that I learned early in my career; but first, I would like to share some good news....
After posting my blog entry about cooking chickens, I looked up Jim Hill and gave him a call; I wanted to personally thank him for the lessons he had taught me so many years ago. To my delight, Jim was home and when his wife told him I was calling to thank him for something, he said "you must be referring to cooked chickens...." We had a great conversation and agreed to get together in person soon.
Now the lesson: In the early 1980's, at the ripe old age of 20, I began one of my first consulting assignments for The Air Force Flight Test Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. My assignment was to help the communications squadron deploy some of the first microcomputers in the U.S. Military. (see below) Part of this deployment involved an initial presentation in the base theater with 750 people in attendance, along with a live video link to Hill AFB. General Pete Odgers, who was the commander of the Flight Test Center at the time, talked about how microcomputers would revolutionize work at the Test Center, and then for the next hour and a half, I gave a presentation (using Harvard Graphics - sorry, no PowerPoint in those days) about how the technology worked and how we would be equipping the people to use this new technology
I worked for six months to develop a series of technology seminars for the 2-letter chiefs and their civilian counterparts as well as the base personnel to bring them up to speed on the capabilities of the new microcomputer technology. One of the seminars that I developed, was a 3-day computer management course for senior managers. Keep in mind that while I certainly knew my stuff, I was still the "young" computer wiz -- probably about 1/2 the average age of my audience. I wanted to make a good impression and I worked hard in preparation.
The seminar began at 8:00 AM each day, and I drove up each day from Los Angeles, which was a few hours away. On day two of one of my seminars, the managers began passing around a note while I was speaking; this went on for much of the morning while I presented. Finally, curiosity got the best of me and I stopped my presentation to ask what was so important.
A person with a sheepish grin held up the paper for me to see: I looked down at my shoes and this is what I saw... Apparently, before I left Los Angeles at 5:00 AM on that dark morning, I grabbed two similar but different color shoes from the closet and headed off for my presentation a hundred miles away. It was too late for me to do anything about it so I smiled, quietly took off my shoes, placed them on the floor next to the podium, and gave the rest of my presentation in my socks which were fortunately the same color.
At the end of my lecture, I was presented with the note that you see above. I have kept it as a reminder for these past 20 years, and as a result, I have never repeated the experience.
Needless to say, it was a very valuable lesson. Fortunately, it did not hurt my presentation, and I continued to successfully deliver services to the base for another 10 years after that event.
Lesson learned: Whenever I pack for a seminar, I always check the color of my shoes. Twice.
-Eric
For those of you who are still reading, this is the actual computer I used for my work at Edwards. I keep it on a shelf in my office. It's a Zenith Z-100: a "powerful" Pre-IBM PC dual-processor 8085 and 8080 2 megahertz design with a whopping 64K RAM! Sorry, no hard drives in those days. There wasn't much to fill them up with anyway. A typical word-processor, WordStar, only needed 32K (that's kilobytes) of RAM, and could be run from a floppy. The was also before the days of the 300+ megabyte MS Office installations. No color either. A green screen CRT was state of the art at the time. When Zenith called it a desktop computer, they were not kidding. You needed a desktop to use one. Still, it was better than using punched cards, but that is another story for another day.
Up until now, I have used this personal
weblog primarily as a private demonstration site for clients and friends
while I work to launch eProductivity.NET,
which will probably replace my company
site. This site presently
has several hidden links to archived video presentations as well as links
to live video of my office and digital whiteboard, which I use these to
allow me to give real-time presentations to clients. I've also been
posting various topics of interest, but less with the focus of true blogging
than to have a place to park my stuff for family and friends.
Tonight that all changed. With
the unexpected launch of David
Allen's weblog, my site activity
has jumped again.
I guess it's time for me to get serious and post something of real interest
beyond my WeatherCam.
I am on my way up North to visit some family today. While driving on Interstate 99 North of Bakersfield, California, I was contemplating some business decisions and thinking to myself, "God, just give me a sign."
I am presently completing a course in American
Literature, which I have found particularly interesting. This is
not your typical AM Lit course. We are studying American Literature
from a Christian Worldview and specifically, the influence that the Bible
had (or did not have) on the writers and their works.
For the past several days I have been in hiding as I work on the outline
for my final paper. My assignment is to write about F. Scott Fitzgerald's
work: "The
Great Gatsby," and how
the wisdom literature of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes would relate to some
of the character's dilemmas.
I'm tired and punchy, so here's a bit of my own advice for Gatsby on the
consequences of sin:
"If a man is having a relationship with a woman
who's husband is having a relationship with a woman who's husband owns
a gas station and a gun, it would be unwise for the man to let the woman
drive his car when she is not sober. He just might end up getting shot
by her husband."
I guess that pretty well wraps up the moral of the story, huh? Now,
all I have to do is expand that to 8 pages, double-spaced. I wonder
if I can use 36 pt...
Web users around world got a rare glimpse
of me at work today.
In preparation for a web demonstration to a client, I asked a bunch of
friends from Our Piazza to login to see if the images displayed in their
browser. Using a robotic camera, visitors were able to drive the camera
around my office as well as select from presets. It was a weird feeling
having someone watch me while I worked and I'm glad the test is complete
and the camera is now off. The best part of this test is that my office
is now cleaner than it was yesterday.
This evening, in my Old Testament Survey
Course, I had an unexpected treat. We have a guest professor for the next
two weeks - Todd Bolen. This evening he presented part one of a lecture
on biblical archeology, geography and history. What I found fascinating
was the photos and stories which Todd had to share.
Todd is an American who has lived and taught in Israel for the past 7 years.
One of his activities is a web site, Bible
Places, which features photographs
and descriptions of sites in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Greece with
an emphasis on biblical archaeology, geography and history.
During the lecture, we were treated to a PowerPoint presentation of all
of the places which he was discussing in his lectures. It really gave me
a new sense of perspective as well as a greater interest to learn more
about Israel and the Middle-East. This evening I learned more about
the geographic and climatic aspects of the region and its impact on the
history. One of the things that Todd has been doing is to retrace
the various journeys taken by famous people of the Bible so that he can
share not only a photographic perspective but a narrative as well.
Anyway, his web site shows some of his work and I believe that the smaller
images are available for free download.
It may be possible to extend your life by eating Twinkies.
In my conference room, I have a display case with various computer parts from computers I have worked on. (All are now antiques) 10 years ago, a friend brought me a package of Twinkies and 2 cans of Jolt Cola to display in my "museum."
Recently, I decided to drill holes in the Jolt cans to drain them. I noticed that the cans were now bulging out and I was afraid that they might explode.
Oh, the Twinkies - they are still there on the bottom shelf, sealed in their wrapper. Other than being hard, they look the same as they did when I put them in the case 10 years ago! I wonder what preserves them so well?
Here's a chance for me to share an interesting opportunity I once had -- something, which may surprise you. I was into championship wrestling. Before I got into computers, I was into video using 1/2" B&W reel to reel video tape. Remember that? In the late 70's, I had built a small video production studio. I landed a cushy job for a year, video taping -- of all things -- championship wrestling in Barbados. I got to fly to Barbados every two weeks, videotape a match and return to LA to edit the tape. The tapes were apparently shown in places where the promoters could not stage live events.
We were not on the tourist side of town. I was probably one of 3 white guys I saw on the island each time I was there. My client, Joe Osborne, a native of Barbados, invited me to stay at his home there during each trip. We became friends and I was welcomed as part of the family. The people I met on the island were the nicest I had ever met. I never felt uncomfortable being the lone white guy in fact I felt more welcome than I do in LA. I made many friends during my visits. It was a wonderful experience.
As far as the wrestling goes, I had a blast. I had never really seen [or cared about] this type of wrestling before. It was amazing to see a stadium full of people who took it so seriously. Fortunately, I met a young bejan (SP?) boy who taught me all the tricks of how to know who was going to do what move when. I'm not going to say that it was rigged but...
I met some of the wrestlers of the Caribbean wrestling circuit such as Carlos Colon, Abdulah the Butcher, Gorgeous George, and a guy named Mill Mascaras, the man of a thousand masks.
It was a special time in my life, and I am thankful for the new friends I made.
This month, I learned more about plumbing
and septic systems than I ever wished to know. Our system had been
improperly designed and it failed on us, just about the time several of
our pipes burst in the freezing weather. A few thousand dollars later,
the pipes were replaced, and we were able to shower again.
I feel like I must have felt in that picture, only a few years ago. I've
got a new toy to play with and I get to share it with everyone: my shiny
new weblog.
I've actually been blogging in one form or other for many years, only it
wasn't called that yet. Now that the cyber-community is starting
to blog, I plan to jump on the bandwagon too.
Unlike the stuff I've posted on my corporate
site or forums, here, I plan
to share little bit about me and my family, as well as my interests and
activities. No guarantees as to what new information you will find
here on any given day, but I plan to update it with increasing regularly
as time goes on. You are welcome to have a look around. You
may view/add to the discussions on any of the posts. If you want
to send a permanent link to any post in this blog, simply click on the
subject of the entry and then bookmark the URL.
This is an experiment with a new form of Weblogs -- using Lotus
Notes & Domino
to manage my content. After deciding that I did not want to write
my own blogging template, I evaluated several Domino-based Blog templates
and settled on DominoBlog.
I am very pleased with my selection. I am presently migrating posts from
my previous blogs into this database.
Well, I found out what an ambulance
ride is like (and how much it cost) to get through the mountains to Santa
Clarita, over an hour away. I was having severe heart palpitations,
and of course our fear was that it was a heart attack. I spent the
day in the Henry
Mayo hospital ER, while doctors
poked and prodded, tooks X-rays, and CAT Scans. I was discharged
with a clean bill of health, but confused. I believe that I had a
negative reaction to the medications I had been prescribed. Not fun.
Oh, in case your are curious, the door to door fee, from my house to the
ER -- $1750. Now THAT is painful.
I've been socially disconnected since returning from Lotusphere. This is mostly due to big changes on the business and personal fronts. For starters, on the business side, we launched a new 
