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.
Check out a free excerpt from Ram Charan's book "Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business : 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning" - Lisa's serving it up on Management Craft.
I've not been that "into" Ram's books in the past, but this excerpt has piqued my interest. It's on its way to me from Amazon (by the way - is it just me, or does that arrow logo on their shipping boxes look just a bit suggestive?).
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I found out about a great new tool in an unexpected way this week. I was contacted by Martin to compare notes on our exploration of Beyond Bullet Points as a way of raising the bar on our presentations, and ended up needing to exchange some large files. Lo and behold, Martin told me about "YouSendIt.Com," which is a free service that serves as an intermediary so you can exchange large files easily without clogging up anyone's email.
It's easy - you go to the YouSendIt home page, enter the recipient's address, upload your files, and press Send. The file is stored on their servers, and your recipient receives an email-based "claim check" which contains a link where they can retrieve the file you sent. Sweet!
By the way, here are some links I've gotten from Martin, Bren, and through my own research to give some other ideas for fresh new presentation styles:
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Read MoreGeoff Mulligan, the mastermind behind the killer app I wrote about a couple of days ago, saw my post and sent me some information that makes Hz even easier to use:
I've added a new feature so that you can "store" your commands in your address book. Previously if you want to check the weather you would send to hz@hz.com and put "weather 94306" in the subject. Now you can send to hzweather@hz.com and just put "94306" in the subject or, if you want to get the weather at that location often you can send to hzweather+94306@hz.com with nothing in the subject. You can now put those in your address book for future use. You can do the same for next flights - send to hznextflight@hz.com and put "pdx sfo" in the subjct. For stocks - send to hzquote@hz.com and put the stock symbols in the subject. if you always interested in certain stocks and don't want to type them in each time send to hzquote+sunw.ibm.aapl@hz.com. All of the hz commands will work this way now!
Thanks, Geoff - great stuff!
Related Posts:
I've been reading "Conspiracy of Fools" by Kurt Eichenwald and I can't believe how much of a page turner I've found it to be. If you're not familiar with the book, it's a novelization of the events that surrounded the Enron scandal - beginning in the early days of Enron (before it was called Enron, in fact) and taking you through the entire saga.
The relevant facts and historical are all there -- Eichenwald is an investigative reporter with the New York Times -- and the color and context that's been added around these facts provides a strong feel for what it must've been like during the highs and lows of this scandal.
Even though we all know how it ends, I find this to be a book filled with a sort of suspense and intrigue. And, I find it fascinating (and a bit disconcerting) how Ken Lay and others seemed to start out with good intentions, have lots of good data and advice right there in front of them, but still managed to come to the wrong conclusion. There are a lot of lessons in here for people living in the corporate world.
A captivating read. Highly recommended.
Read MoreI just realized I haven't shared one of my most indispensable "killer apps" with you. It's "Hz@hz.com" and it so flippin' awesome.
Hz is a free service (how it remains free or un-acquired is one of the 7 wonders of the world, if you ask me). It has many capabilities, but I really only use one of them. As you may know, I travel a lot and experience the dark underbelly of the travel lifestyle: flight delays, cancellations, missed flights, and re-routing. I also frequently end up in situations where I want to know if there is an earlier flight I can take to get me home sooner.
Hz is my hero. If, for example, I want to know what the next flights are from London's Heathrow to Portland, Oregon I simply send an email from my PDA to "hz@hz.com" with the subject line "nextflight lhr:pdx" -- a minute or so later, I'll get a return email with a list of all of the flights between Heathrow and Portland, sorted by the number of stops first, then the departure time. Way cool.
Here's how this helps:
Thanks, killer app - I'm home 3 hours earlier and manage to make it to Girl Scout night at a Blazers game with my daughter at 6pm!
That's one example - and I was able to quickly retrieve better flight options for a couple of people next to me - one who was also going to Portland, and another to Caracas, Venezeuela.
Hz also has a number of other functions. For example:
Finding the nearest... To get a full list of the commands, send an email to hz@hz.com with the subject "commands" and you'll get an email back with all the amazing stuff it can tell you. (or, check out the web site at www.hz.com)