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.

 

Guten tags

Ariane of Neat & Simple Living tagged me in yet another "5 things" chain. This time, it's about the 5 most useful sites you use to perform your work.

That is a tough one, but here are 5 of my top sites (maybe not "the Top 5" but 5 good ones):

  1. Google  --  OK, so I'm hooked. I use it for Search, for News, Financial research and Alerts.
  2. Amazon.com  --  I am an Amazon Prime customer and, as a heavy reader, they make sure I see the UPS driver a lot.
  3. LinkedIn   --  I am in a business development / networking role, and LinkedIn helps me make new connections by leveraging my existing contacts. Pretty cool for business networking.
  4. SeatGuru   --  I've reviewed SeatGuru in the past - it is the resource to figure out how good your seats are before you fly.
  5. Digg  --  A unique lens on the news of the world. Think of it as News with community-driven editorial overlay or filter. The only categories I watch are Technology and World & Business

Now, I tag 5 more.

If you're tagged, post your five with a Trackback to me, and pass on the favor.

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Voice mails of mystery

I leave and receive lots of voice mail messages. One of my pet peeves: voice mails of mystery. These are cryptic messages in which the caller doesn't give me enough information. You know the type - a name and a phone number, with no other context for why they are calling. Is this a sales call? A friend of a friend trying to connect with me? A wrong number? If I can't tell, I typically delete them.

These types of messages have made me more conscious of the content of the messages I leave for others. I try to follow this general recipe for voice mails I leave:

  1. State who I am and where I am from
  2. State why I am calling
    1. High level - not too much detail, but enough to get their attention
    2. Bonus: a punchy point about what I can do for you, or other "What's in it for you?" points
  3. Provide a bit of context (how I found your name, any time urgency, any drivers you may care about - such as whether this is customer-related, etc.)
  4. Provide information on how to reach me - both by phone and email - for best results, say them clearly and say them twice

I also find it useful to say something like, "If you're not the right contact, I'd really appreciate your help in getting to the right person."

All of this can be completed in 20-30 seconds. If it takes you longer than that, practice condensing you point and key messages until you can do it within 30 seconds consistently.

And smile - it really helps. I also suggest leaving yourself a voice mail as if you were trying to get your own attention and see if you'd call yourself back. Try to be objective when you audit your own message.

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7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning

It's now 07/07/07, and that can only mean that the "7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning" goes live today (by the way, this very post went live at 07:07:07 on 07/07/07 Hawaii time, since that's the local time zone of JJL's primary author).  Leading up to this special day, the floodgates at the Joyful, Jubilant Learning (JJL) community blog were opened for contributors to offer 7 links that embraced learning. There are now literally hundreds of links there, so head on over and collect your prize!

I chose to offer three sets of 7 - here they are to get you started (by the way, the categories are those used on the JJL site):

First, one 7:

  1. Joy of the Journey:   My Beautiful Chaos - April reminds us of the excellence of parenting like a mere mortal.
  2. Inspired Learning, Good Questions and Great Dialogue:   On Genius - Dick Richards (Unlocker of Genius) on faith and work.
  3. Language, Words, and Vocabulary:   The Happiness Project - Gretchen on finding your "service heart."
  4. Writing and Composition:   Mind Unbound - EM about turning the tables on rejection letters.
  5. Graphics and Photography:   Post Secret - It's amazing what people can share through a simple, anonymous postcard.
  6. Information and Knowledge:   Presentation Zen - Garr Reynolds shares "One secret to a healthy life (and a great presentation)."
  7. Best Practices:   The Daily Saint - Mike's secret to productivity on vacation.

Then, another 7:

  1. Visual Learning:   Beyond Mind Mapping - Nick teaches us about developing a visual vocabulary.
  2. Discipline, Habit and Self-Motivation:   Neat & Simple Living - Ariane's mythbusting about whether you can develop a habit in 21 days.
  3. Good Questions and Great Dialogue:   Make It Great! - Phil shares 20 awesome questions for anyone to make their life better.
  4. For the Love of Lists:   Big Wes's Corner of the Web - Wes shares how he copes with GTD and its lists.
  5. Talent, Skills, and Capacity:   Beyond Code - Raj provides insight to keep you from sabotaging yourself with lame excuses.
  6. BHAGs and Bigger Dreams:   Lisa Haneberg - Lisa dreams big then Makes the dream a reality - she truly inspires me.
  7. Auditory Learning:   MBA On The Run - Some of John's favorite audiobooks to get a veritable MBA using your iPod.

Now, let's make it "triple 7" for the jackpot:

  1. Principles and Values:   Why I Failed - Steve Grossman discusses why "People would actually rather work with someone who is incompetent and likeable than competent and unlikable."
  2. Good Questions and Great Dialogue:   The Remote Control CEO - Greg's insights on great questions we can use to learn from our failures.
  3. Collaborative Learning:   Thinking Faster - How not to shut down the conversation before it even starts.
  4. Connecting and Relationships:   Slacker Manager - Our favorite Slacker enlarged something by 167% in 48 hours - find out more!
  5. Inspired Learning:   Virtualosophy - Stacy learns some cools off and learns cool stuff in an unexpected place.
  6. Inspired Learning:   Ramblings From a Glass Half Full - If a picture paints 1,000 words, how many words does a funny picture paint? Terry tells us the answer.
  7. Storytelling, Yarns and Tall Tales:   QAQNA - A fine (and funny) lesson on why you should be ready to deal with your customers - no matter what they're bringing.

I hope you'll find lots of new learning in these 21 links, and I'm sure you'll pick up some new favorites for your blogroll.

Now, continue your learning with the wondrous resources on the Joyful, Jubilant Learning site!

 

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Learning to be ‘easy to talk to’

Ok, so you thought I was going to talk about packing, right? That's coming...but first:

This evening, I was spending a few minutes catching up on the blogs to which I subscribe -- which is something I haven't had the cycles to do lately, and it is really good climb back in. One article that grabbed me is Rosa's post on Joyful Jubilant Learning, called "Learning to Talk to Each Other."

You see, Rosa is one of the people that really got me to talk to other people in "blog world" a couple of years ago, and has been a beacon for me for how to get meaningful dialog to happen. Through her blog, appropriately titled "Talking Story," Rosa writes a lot of stuff, and reaches a lot of people. But she also listens, connects dots, and "refactors" things to make them better -- that is her real gift. Some examples I've seen:

The magic happens because Rosa is easy to talk to, and that's because she really listens and shares relevant experiences with people. She gives herself to the conversation in a way that gives you the impression that she's really paying attention, not trying to think about what she's going to say next or what she's going to do after the conversation is over.

Oh - and did I mention that I consider Rosa to be one of my best friends, even though I've never met her face-to-face, and we've only spoken live once? I don't know how she does it, but she has a knack for reaching out to me at just the right time, with something I didn't realize I needed.

One day, I hope to become as good at connecting with people as Rosa.

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Resources for the curious

Life's been busy this past week (include a complete rebuild of my laptop due to a bad memory chip, of all things), but I wanted to share a couple of useful resources I've been introduced to recently. Both are research-related, and definitely worth sampling.

  • The first is a Squidoo lens on internet research. I do a lot of internet research in the course of work and life, and I found some tremendous tidbits of wisdom here. You'll also find a list of "11 Search Tips" - I already knew some from the list, and learned some new things. One of my favorites is on there:
    • "Take advantage of "type of document" searches. For opinions search for PDF and Word Docs and for statistics look for XLS documents (include chart or graph in your search terms)."
I do this all the time, to great benefit - for example, you can do a search for '<person's name> ppt' to get any posted presentations they've done. You can find out a lot about what business people are up to by doing this - tremendously valuable for networking.
  • The next is a gadget/service called Clipmarks. Clipmarks is a great (free) way to catalog tidbits from your research. Plenty of other tools let you bookmark pages - this one is different. Sure, you can save a whole page, but the coolest thing is it allows you to grab portions of a web page so you can keep only the parts you care about. You can create public or private collections, and there are some built-in features to facilitate sharing.
You can use the Clipmarks web site, but I recommend installing the Clipmarks browser integration for maximum effect (IE and Firefox plugins are available, and the social browser Flock is supported).

Coming soon - I'm beta testing a site that will be an awesome resource to get good prices on airfare. More to come when it emerges from beta.

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