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.

 

Comment Conversation Done Better: Never Work Alone

If you work in a corporate environment, you may find yourself in situations where you really wish you had a sounding board so you could either ask for advice or float ideas and get feedback.

Well, wish no longer. Bren of Slacker Manager, Skip of Random Thoughts from a CTO, and I are happy to announce that we've established a resource to provide community based assistance to all of us in corporate environments, particularly those of us in management and leadership roles. This new resource is called Never Work Alone. Watercooler

What’s Never Work Alone all about?
We’ve all been through “trial by fire” management situations, and have faced difficult management and leadership dilemmas at various points in our careers. As active participants in the brain trust on the internet, we also understand the tremendous power of Community.

The goal of Never Work Alone is to provide a community for managers and leaders to share their experiences and challenges, help each other grapple with issues, learn from each other, and advance the state of the art in enlightened leadership.

How Does It Work?
We’re launching a blog and a Google group. The Google group is at http://groups.google.com/group/neverworkalone. Initially, the blog (http://neverworkalone.typepad.com) will be a weekly summary of a situation that’s reflected upon in the Google group.

We’ll solicit situation ideas via this email address: neverworkalone@gmail.com.

Each week we’ll select a situation and post it to the Google group. Group members can offer suggestions for how to handle the situation. Each week we’ll summarize the situation and responses on the blog, crediting the appropriate respondents and including links to their blogs/websites.

Of course, we fully expect that the Google group won’t be used exclusively for going over the situations. We encourage folks to go ahead and post what they’ve got and see what comes back. We’re doing the structured approach so that people with limited time, but who’d like to participate, will know where to focus their energy.

So come on in, check it out, participate, and let us know how we can make this better!

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Lifehack Reloaded: An ounce of prevention

As we move into the "cold and flu" season, I am re-running a "lifehack" post that I believe has done wonders in keeping me healthy. If you haven't done something like this already, please consider it - I see these sanitizer gadgets all the time at stores like Target for about $2 US for the holder and two bottles of sanitizer.

From June 2005:

As a very frequent flyer, I wanted to share a best practice I picked up from a friend of mine, John Palazza. After noticing that John always had a bottle of hand sanitizer with him, I realized this small idea would be handy to get rid of traveler germs as I made my way through airports and other places where the unwashed masses may gather.

I have seen the following things on planes and in airports:

  • very grungy airline tray tables that haven't been wiped in who-knows-how-long

  • people leaving public restrooms without washing their hands (not me, I assure you)

  • people of all ages coughing and sneezing all over the place

  • other things I'd rather not mention

I then see people eat off those airline tray tables.

I believe this is why I have always had at least one good bout of flu or something more exotic every year. For example, I caught German measles (aka Rubella) after a flight full of coughers about 3 years ago - apparently my childhood vaccine didn't work the way it should've.

But that didn't happen this year! I've been using John's little trick since last summer, and I've now officially made it through a season of heavy winter travel without getting the flu, or even a cold. I attribute it to the wondrous anti-germ powers of my travel-size Purell hand sanitizer, complete with its own handy little rubber harness that allows me to attach it to my briefcase.

I then sanitize my hands before and after meal and beverage service on the flight, and when I get off the plane.

If you travel a lot, why not give it a try? John puts the "Pal" in Palazza.

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[Updated]: Must see PC

If you haven't seen it yet and you have the least bit of Star Trek fan in you, you've got to check out "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning."  Check out the trailer first, if you're unsure (be patient - the site is a bit slow).

Palkki_title_1

If you go for the full movie, I recommend the BitTorrent download if you are using BitTorrent.

And one other thing - it's in Finnish, so if you're not a Finn, go for the one with the subtitles.

Poster_1Update:

If you're looking for something a bit faster to download (and in English), check out a classic Star Wars parody called "Troops" - word has it, George Lucas was very impressed with this on.  It puts the Star Wars Stormtroopers in a situation a lot like the US TV series "Cops."  Check it out!

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Shouldn't a business make money?

A few days ago, I questioned the insanity of airline pricing.  I've been doing some research on the subject, and it still seems today's model is a poor one for the long-term viability of the industry.  A big part of the problem is the "disruptive pricing" phenomenon precipitated, in part, by a lot of the new entries into the air travel market (JetBlue, Frontier, etc.).

These companies have the benefit of smaller fleets and smaller footprints, which means they need much less infrastructure and far fewer people to support their operations.  They are also "buying market share" by offering incredibly cheap seats.  Additionally, these airlines don't have nearly the cost commitment for pensions and other retiree benefits that their more established peers must manage. (And fuel costs just make things worse.)

My gut tells me this is not sustainable (unless we want to accept serial bankruptcies and a perpetual stream of startup airlines as the new reality).

It's bad business to run your suppliers out of businessClosed_1 

In my time as an IT buyer, I always felt it was my duty to negotiate a reasonable discount, but I didn't believe in forcing my suppliers into a position where they couldn't sustain and improve their own business.  After all, I want my chosen suppliers to remain viable and thrive, since the switching process is painful and costly for all involved.

So how do we resolve this in the air travel industry?  I don't have all the answers, but my preliminary research tells me it will likely mean us getting "real" about the price we pay for air travel.  Don't get me wrong - it's not that I want to pay more for my tickets (when my family travels, that means paying for 5 tickets). 

However, if we don't adequately compensate airlines for the benefits they provide in a way that allows them to run reliable infrastructure, we all lose.  I, for one, don't want to lose the benefit of air travel.

Some ideas I've seen that may help:

  • FedEx has been using a "fuel surcharge model" to insulate themselves from fluctuating fuel costs
  • The airline industry needs to get in synch on how pricing is handled (of course, the danger is "price fixing")
  • There needs to be some consistent (and sane) method to allow people who plan ahead to get better prices than last minute purchasers - this fare sale fire sale approach seems to be driving the wrong behavior

What about you - any insight to share on this topic?  Am I missing something here?

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Silence is moldin'

Skip's observations in his recent post of "No news is good news" were both intriguing and troubling to me.  I think his points are spot on, but I can't help but recognize my own tendency to hold back news, particularly good news.

It's not a part of some nefarious plan - it's more a side effect that I do so much internal processing and "self talk" that I often forget to communicate out to others.  I am beginning to develop some techniques to help me improve in this area such as:Silence

scheduling (publicly committed) status updates to people I want to keep in the loop,

calling meetings with key people to create a "forcing event" to remind me to update them and ask for their help and input

adding "Update Jim on xyz project" to my agendas for 1-on-1 meetings

I've also added a tickler item to my weekly review process to remind me: Create actions for updates on top 5 projects.

What about you - are you running a bit too silent?  Have any tips to share on this topic?

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