Back around the 1920′s, Universities rose to the challenge of the new industrialized era by starting to churn out MBA faster than you can say assembly line. For nearly a hundred years, MBA’s have ruled the corporate roost, strutting their knowledge of organizational behavior, finance, operations and in general how the real world of real business really worked. Now, for most people who live, play, find mates, make dates and above all work on the Internet, the usual MBA fare is about as appealing as courses on applied hieroglyphics, mule train operations... More »
I had just had an great idea for the post to end all posts at lifehack.org and all I needed was a one really good image to illustrate it. So I go over to my favorite cheap stock photography site – iStockPhoto – only to find the home page gone and this garish octopus ripping the head off some sort of cartoon figure with the message: “iStockPhoto is down for maintenance. Please try again in 15 minutes.” Bummer! Then a cold chill ran down my back: just how much of my largely... More »
In our era where there’s a million new things on the web everyday competing for attention, how do you get attention? Do Good. Take for instance Collis Ta’eed, an Australian freelance web designer, who like just about every other web designer started one of those Web 2.0 sites. Nice, but nothing special, just another blip on the swiftly flowing information river. He decides to do something Good. He creates out of nothing more than the idea in his head something called Blog Action Day – what if every blog in the world... More »
Ever do a truly crappy job at something you cared about? That was me a month ago when I put together my first YouTube video. I did it – God forgive me for my sins – because the organizer of the Business of Software Conference in a fit of Pure Evil decided the only way for speakers to get on was to do a vote for me video. For an awful lot of people out there in videoland pointing a camera at yourself seems to come as naturally as snorting apple pie... More »
A while back I revealed here the Secret even more secret than The Secret: if you want something you’ve got to go out there and do something to make it happen. I got it right, but wrong: in this future-shocked age between the old industrial way of doing things and a Brave new Virtual Digital World, what you think you know is increasingly wrong – made obsolete by the rush of new discoveries, information, occupations and societal change. Not convinced? Watch Did You Know and Did You Know 2.0 on YouTube. Nowadays... More »
A few weeks ago after realizing here just how many hands were in my attention wallet, I put at the top of my GTD projects list a new project: Reclaiming my attention. I suspect it’s going to be one of those long projects – there are so many people, companies, causes, information sources and things out there, all wanting slices of your attention until you have nothing for yourself, your work or your future. In some ways it’s kind of like all those friendly sounding companies and services out there : “Just... More »
55 Shares A long time ago, I had most of my attention. I could spend it on work, on friends and family, on a sunset after a perfect day at a beautiful beach, on what I want to do, on myself. When it came time to produce an application, work with a client or take a class I could rest assured I had enough attention in the bank to cover it. Back in those pre-Internet days, I had control over my attention spending without even thinking about it. Yes, I’d watch a few shows... More »
361 Shares Yesterday after a reasonably productive morning, I jauntily packed my gym bag, went downstairs to the garage and reached in to hit the garage door opener, started walking to my car and nearly stepped on a three foot long coiled snake. I do not like snakes. Cats are better than people, dogs are great, fish are fine. Snakes? Not fine. Definitely not fine in my garage. Definitely, positively, utterly not fine when I practically step on one wearing sandals and shorts. I didn’t know it was possible to jump backward three feet,... More »
A good friend of mine passed away Tuesday. Mrs. Murphy would come up my driveway from her home across the street for the last seven years to have a snack, see what I was up to, or just to spend a few moments with me. Her health had taken a dive six months ago when her brother, William, had passed away. She had become so frail I’d gotten into the habit of keeping one eye on our driveway for her approach and running after her and opening a fresh can if I... More »
Have you noticed over the last few years how many more communities you belong to online, and how isolated they are from each other? Last century, I could count on one hand how many active communities I belonged to: there was the town I lived in, but I hardly knew anyone. There was a couple of newsgroups I followed, until the crumbled under the weight of trolls, flame wars and above all else spam. There was the “developer community” – but it was never more than a convenient label for large company... More »
I went shopping this weekend for a new car. I entered a few numbers and in a few minutes I could see exactly the Internet Price for 41 specific cars within a hundred miles of me, and my Inbox started filling up with emails from Internet Sales Managers. I can remember just a few years ago this kind of Internet Pricing didn’t exist, and then a few years on how media pontificators would say you could never sell something like a car, or a house on the net. Now, I can find... More »
How many times have you heard from your coworkers, friends and yourself the old line about being too busy fighting alligators to drain the swamp? How often does your life seem to be a car crash of intersecting urgencies? It’s easy to get sucked into a business culture where everything is urgent, everything is a priority. You start your new job and on day one you’re thrown into crisis mode meeting hell. The next time you realize you’ve never been out of crisis mode at work, three years have gone by. There’s... More »
So there you are with your Today list, your to-do list, your project lists, your house list, your calls list and even your list of lists. You know each and ever one of the 49 things you want to accomplish today. There’s only one small problem: come the end of the day you’ve accomplished zip. What went wrong? Your focus. Now you may think you know what the word focus means – but do you? Words have very specific meanings and too often people are vague about those meanings – they try... More »
Let me tell you a little story. Among the things I do is a blog called MyMicroISV.com for people starting or running their own micro software companies. A few week’s ago, I did what I call – Site Review Monday – where I review a fellow micro-ISV’s web site from a marketing and effectiveness point of view of Scott Carpenter’s InvoicePlace online invoicing service. Now I beat up Scott a fair amount in this review – he’s got a great product, but his web site needs some major nip and tuck. I... More »
24 Shares It can be pretty discouraging when after a long week of hard work you realize you are not one inch closer to the future you want. Sure, you’ve worked all out, chopping through tasks left, right and center, fulfilling all your (conflicting) roles for various people in your life, and here it Friday, your brain feels like boiled mush and you’re bone tired. What’s worse, you know in your heart of hearts (or Weekly Review) that nothing you’ve done this week is connected to who you want to be, what you really... More »
