Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Google maps is the best. (True dat. - Double true!)

While doing some housekeeping on the blog here, I've added a Frappr-powered Google map showing some members of the Genuine Curiosity community. As I write this, there are 28 folks who've plotted their coordinates on the map, and some have even posted a picture.

Put yourself on the map! Either click on the "Genuine Curiosity" link above the map in the right-hand sidebar menu, or go there directly by clicking here.

By the way - if the title of this post confounds you, check out this video clip from Saturday Night Live, called "Lazy Sunday." It is so well done.

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Wide open spaces. A review of "More Space"

Morespacecover On my last flight (seems like I start a lot of things that way, but that is when I have a lot of time to catch up on my reading) I read some excellent articles from some of my favorite bloggers. Here's the catch - I wasn't online, or even using a computer. I was reading a book called "More Space - Nine Antidotes to Complacency in Business," edited by Todd Satterstein (with a foreword by the inimitable Seth Godin).

The concept is simple - take nine bloggers, and give them lots of space to express their thoughts about business. The results are quite impressive.

The authors are Jory Des Jardins, Lisa Haneberg, Rob May, Johnnie Moore, Marc Orchant, Robert Paterson, Evelyn Rodriguez, Curt Rosengren, and Jeremy Wright.

The wide array of styles brought out a wide array of responses from me as I read. At various points I was intriqued, enraged, inspired, and (surprisingly) touched by the material. These folks shine in this book.

Just to give you a taste, here are some things I liked from the book:

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The polyphasic voyeur

If you haven't been keeping up with Polyphasic Pavlina, you may not know about polyphasic sleep. I wrote a bit about it earlier, if you want to catch up.

Well, today, I saw a post from Steve about Polyphasic Mutants, and it reminded me of an email thread Bren Connelly, Skip Angel, Lisa Haneberg, and I exchanged the other day. We somehow ended up talking about "polyphasic porn”, “sexy management”, and other things that would draw the kind of attention that Steve’s wakeful lifestyle have received to date. That conversation got me thinking.

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First, lets settle on the definition of polyphasic, courtesy of MerckSource.com: (poly·pha·sic) (pol²e-fa¢zik) having or existing in many phases. With that in mind, I will try to describe other polyphasic activities that Steve might be able to investigate for us in the future:

Outlandish Polyphasic Definitions
polyphasic management 3-4 hour blocks of micromanagement interrupted by short periods of inattention. This is in contrast to many traditional (monophasic?) management styles which utilize 3-4 hour blocks of inattention, interrupted by short periods of micromanagement.
polyphasic employment A technique that enables polyphasic sleepers to “double dip” or “triple dip” by holding 2 or 3 full time jobs at a time, and still work 40-hour weeks at each of them. If you sleep polyphasically and only have one job, you should be a doctor or a taxi driver. See “polyphasic porn.”
polyphasic porn When combined with polyphasic employment, this enables one person to run a successful 24-hour phone sex business.

OK, so it’s a little ridiculous. I am amused by how much voyeuristic interest Steve’s polyphasic experiment has drawn, particularly the people who (apparently) are trying to get him to stop. I think a lot of people are just jealous that he is able to stick with it (I know I am). Besides, he lives in Vegas - what could be more fitting in a 24-hour city?

Hats off to you, Steve - and I look forward to your next boundary-expanding experiment.

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Save your comments

Des (desparoz On The Go) has a fantastic technique for keeping track of comments you've made on blogs around the web.  It involves del.icio.us tags, and it's elegant in its simplicity.  I plan on starting to use this, as it will be simple with the "Popup post to Del.icio.us" link I've added to my browser toolbar. (see tip below)

Thanks for the great technique, Des!

** Tip:  How do you add a button for Popup posts to Del.icio.us?

  • Once you're registered and logged in to del.icio.us, you can find "Popup post to Del.icio.us" under Browser Buttons. 
  • Then, you just drag the link to your toolbar or add it to your Favorites to use it.
  • I have also created a an ActiveWords keyword called "pd" which does the same thing.
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