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.

 

Power now grows on trees?

In the Newark airport a few days ago, I found a place where power grows on trees. It seems Samsung is beginning to install free charging stations in various places, including the Newark airport (this one is near gates 132 & 133 in Terminal C).

I like this idea because it seems it is often hard to find the power oasis in the midst of the airport power desert. I often see travellers wandering the concourses, looking for a place to plug in - frustrated that they are all taken. This approach provides a number of convenient outlets to help travelers (and keep people from unplugging ATM's and other councourse appliances - yes, I have seen that).

Hopefully, this kind of power tree will become more popular - there is an advertisement and a sample of a cool new Samsung phone in the "trunk" of the tree, so they are getting some good branding from this effort.

Oh - and another thing - if you find this (or any outlet) in an airport, it's highly likely there won't be any available sockets. My solution? I travel with a handy travel powerstrip (click here to see my review). This approach makes it easy - I just ask someone if they are willing to share using my powerstrip. I generally find someone who's willing to do that.

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Contrast



I'm at a conference today, and the sponsor has an odd mix of blue-on-blue signage on the stage. The message is "LEARN, CONNECT, EXPLORE." I learned that your message works better when it doesnt just blend into its surroundings

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Productivity, like crime, requires motive and opportunity

Lately, I've had a non-standard routine going - more time in meetings than I'm used to, more attention-demanding things at both work and home, etc. The interesting side effect is that my days have been much more focused on "must do" than "wanna do" items and tasks. As a result, I'm not doing as many of the fun things as I'd like to - like reading and blogging.

Right now, I'm on a long layover en route to Spain and decided to carve out some time to actually write something. Whew - what a relief it is to be sitting at the keyboard blogging instead of doing emails and working on urgent items.

Diamonds form under pressure

In the past, I've commented quite a few times that one part of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system I don't use is "Contexts." The idea behind GTD's Contexts is to group next actions according to the context in which they can be performed. I found that so much of my tasks could be performed in so many contexts that this wasn't working very well for me so I quit using Contexts.

Well, the "pressure" of these past few weeks has caused me to re-think Contexts. Now, I really do have a lot of tasks that have clear contextual boundaries and I find I need to really maximize the time I spend in each context - much more deliberately than in the past.

Need begets function

As I started to try to use Contexts again, I quickly remembered one of the other reasons I was so anxious to get away from Contexts: the Blackberry does a lousy job with categories, making it hard for me to look at a context-based list.

Therefore, I've come up with a hybrid (read "bastardized") approach to help me get the right things done.

  1. I still maintain my lists using Outlook (using ClearContext, of course).
  2. Every morning, I do a daily review of my possible tasks, and look at the contexts I expect to be in that day. If there is a "must do" that doesn't have an appropriate context coming up that day, it's time to juggle what's on my calendar to create the opportunity to get the "must do" done.
  3. I use one index card (note card) for each of my major contexts, and add the items I must get done that day to the appropriate card.
  4. I carry those cards in my shirt pocket and refer to them regularly as I decide what to do next. I also carry around a blank note card that I use to capture new commitments I make during the day and to jot down ideas for other things I want to do later.
  5. At the end of the day, I check off (on the card and on Outlook) the things I've gotten done, and add any new items to Outlook.
  6. The process repeats the next day.

This takes little pieces of lots of systems - GTD, Managing Your Now, Hipster PDA, etc. but it is working for me right now. I'll probably change it up again when things calm down, but for now, this is my system.

What's my point?

I realized I had lots of motive in my life, but was lacking in the right opportunity (context) to act on my motive. By changing how I assert control over my day, things are getting better. Yes, I'm still crazy busy, but I don't feel quite as reactive.

What about you - any of this resonate? How do you deal with life when you are in these situations?

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Show me the money debacle

Though I've been a bit quiet on the blog due to some time-consuming projects lately, I've had a bit of travel time to get caught up on podcasts. One of them was very illuminating, as it has to do with the economy and does a great job of explaining how the current financial chaos happened. The explanation was on a program called "This American Life," and the episode was number 355, "The Giant Pool of Money." You can download a transcript, or buy the audio podcast for 95 cents (I think the podcast is much more captivating, but the written transcript is pretty good).

The story gets into some of the "behind the scenes" machinations of the credit crisis, and clearly shows the value of business controls. If better controls had been in place, we'd have been able to avoid this crisis. And by "controls" I'm not necessarily talking about regulations - just added business scrutiny and business rules to detect and manage risk.

The root of the problem

In plowing through all the data about what led to this problem, it seems the culprit is something I have written about before: lack of "Tone at the Top." If you're unfamiliar with this notion, "tone at the top" is the tone set by the leadership of any entity. Tone at the top is communicated through policies, principles and, most importantly, actions taken by management. As you might imagine, it also has a huge influence on how the organization will behave - people will often get away with inappropriate actions if they can do it without any negative consequences.

Many of these financial organizations seemed willing to suspend business rigor and accept things that, in retrospect, should have set of lots of common sense alarm bells. They often felt they were doing things "in the name of competition," or for other rationales that (on the surface) seem reasonable. But the bottom line is their management allowed significant business changes without demanding a thorough analysis of the risk involved. And now we're all paying the price for weak tone at the top.

Check out the piece by This American Life, and see if you agree. And by the way - some of the things you'll hear will astonish you at how insane and irresponsible they seem.

Note: You can subscribe to "This American Life" for free on iTunes, but they only keep the most recent episode up there at any given time.

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UBrand rocks

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about UBrand - a small business that makes semi-permanent markers that you can use to personalize your luggage, electronics, or just about anything you can stick things to. I mentioned that it provides a good way to make your luggage stand out from the crowd so you can spot it easier.

Well, I just got some UBrand letters and an icon and have applied them to some of my stuff, so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures here and let you know what I think. My first impressions were great - the UBrand stickers look like very high quality items, and they come in a professional package. I decided to put them to use right away.

Luggage marking

My first markup was to apply my initials to my suitcase. I picked a spot for the letters, tested the spacing, then peeled the backing from the letters and stuck them on. That's pretty much it - very simple. The letters feel like they are firmly stuck, and they have a nice depth to them. Since I have white letters on a black bag (my tried & true Briggs & Riley 22" Expandable carry-on) I can easily spot my bag. This came in handy this evening when I was trying to help the bellman find my bag in the bag check room - I just told him to look for the bag with the big, white "DAM" blocks on the side, and he found it right away. Click the thumbnail at right for a bigger picture.

Laptop marking

My other label (a cool, stylized icon of the Earth) was destined for my laptop. Just like luggage, many laptops look alike and I want mine to stand out at the security checkpoint to avoid any mixups.

I have been using bumper stickers but they sometimes tear or get worn. I now have the earth icon applied to my laptop and I think it looks pretty cool. I also feel like the UBrand sticker will last longer than a bumper sticker. Click the thumbnail at left for a bigger picture.

Summary

The bottom line? I think these will be great to personalize my stuff. I also think these will make nice gifts for my traveling friends this holiday season. They have an ever-growing selection of emblems in the UBrand store, and can even make custom ones (in quantity) if you want to provide branded stickers to your customer. Way cool.

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