Google Voice – the new Newton?

Back in the day, I had an Apple Newton PDA which was an early, stylus-based (and quite large, by today’s standards) handheld computer.  It was pretty cool but one of the love/hate attributes was its handwriting recognition.  You’d write clearly (or so you thought) but the Newton would mangle the words, creating a nonsense sentence.  This became a joke that was featured in the Doonesbury comic strip and other pop culture outlets.  A classic Newton joke:

Q: How many Newtons does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Farm.

Google Voice

I’ve been using Google Voice for a while now, which is a great, free service that lets you use one, central phone number that can be dynamically routed to whatever other number you like.  One of the most interesting features is that it will allow you to “screen” incoming calls and choose whether to accept them, send them to voice mail, or send them to voice mail while you listen in to what they are saying (you can press a key to take the call if what they say is interesting).

Additionally, you can make long distance calls through Google Voice for “free” (you make a call via Google’s site and it “patches you in” so you don’t incur long distance charges).

Promises unfulfilled

One other feature that holds great promise is one in which Google Voice will transcribe your voice mails to text and email them to you.  This makes it easier to About this feature, I say “holds great promise” because it doesn’t quite have the transcription accuracy that makes this a killer app.  For example, consider this Newton-esque transcription of one of my voice mails:

Pretty hard to tell what this means.  To be fair, the bold text is the part of the transcription they had high confidence in, while the gray text is lower-confidence transcription (and they got the phone number right).

I’m hoping this feature improves – this is one promise I’d love to see them fulfill!  I’d love to be able to route all of my voice mail into my inbox for processing along with my emails.

Trust and the test of relationships

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Stephen M. R. Covey, author of “The Speed of Trust.”  Covey is an excellent speaker, because he has a way of crystallizing his points with stories and personalized exercises.

An Exercise in Trust

One such exercise was the following.  I encourage you to actually go through it right now – it won’t take long, and I think it will be enlightening.

Part 1: High Trust

Identify a person you work with whom you feel you have a “high trust relationship.”  Got them in mind?  Now, ask yourself each of the following question and take about 10-15 seconds to write down the first responses that come to mind for each question:

1. What is it like to work with this person?
2. What is it like to communicate with this person?
3. How fast can you get things done?
4. What are the results when you work together?

Part 2: Low Trust

Identify a person you work with whom you feel you have a “low trust relationship.”  Got them in mind?  Once again, ask yourself each of the following question and take about 10-15 seconds to write down the first responses that come to mind for each question:

1. What is it like to work with this person?
2. What is it like to communicate with this person?
3. How fast can you get things done?
4. What are the results when you work together?

Comparing the Results

If you’re like me, the results you see will mirror Covey’s description of the characteristics of each type of relationship:

High Trust: Open, energetic, and authentic.  Things get done quickly when working together, usually with great results.

Low Trust:  Guarded, calculating, with information hiding and “CYA” behaviors.  Working together is an energy-draining experience, and the results usually aren’t very impressive.

The Litmus Test

Covey’s point in all of this was how much trust impacts the speed and cost of getting things done, and how much more efficient & effective high trust relationships are.

But what really drove this home for me was the “litmus test” Covey offered, by which you can quickly tell the difference between high- and low-trust relationships:

• “In a high-trust relationship, even if you say the wrong thing, the other person will still ‘get’ your intent or motive.”
• “In a low-trust relationship, you can be very precise & measured and the other person will still misinterpret you.”

Powerful stuff, that.  I think I may go back and read his book again.

Always something there to remind me...

This week, I've been an adult leader at a Boy Scout summer camp and it has been a great experience. Not only has it been relaxing, it has been a refreshing week of interactions with others - adults and young men, alike.

One of the things I noticed was how well the camp we attended has created "embedded" reminders of the core values of Scouting throughout the camp. These core values are represented in the Scout Law:

A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

The goal of these points is to remind Scouts of the character attributes they should aspire to exemplify in life. At the camp this week, there were signs reminding everyone of these values and many of them were just-in-time triggers, like the "Clean" sign above (placed just outside the dining hall), and the "Thrifty" sign at the front of the Trading Post.

Of course, the challenge is always to make a good, values-aligned choice even when there aren't reminders right in front of you. With this in mind, I encourage you to think about the values that define your character from time to time.

Are there any areas around your guiding principles where you can improve? If so, what can you do to become more aligned with your desired values? Are there any ways you can embed reminders in your life to better anchor you to where you'd like to be?

-- Post From My iPhone

A new option for Project Management in Outlook

Yesterday, I wrote about a gadget to help you with implementing Getting Things Done (GTD) in Outlook, and pointed out that it also had Project Management capabilities. Today, I am writing about a dedicated gadget for adding robust Project Management capabilities into Outlook.

This product is called “Missing Link Project Center,” and its special purpose in life is to turn Outlook into a full-fledged Project Management tool.  The integration is very polished, and takes advantage of lots of information to make your life easier.

The product’s author, Kevin Moore, claims this is “The Easiest Project Management Tool for Microsoft Outlook” which is  indicative of his philosophy in building the product.

Extending Outlook to align with the needs of Project Managers

Missing Link Project Center (MLPC) does a lot to make Outlook your single pane of glass for projects. It can seamlessly integrate a view that incorporates a project calendar, associated files, associated emails, tasks, and other elements of the project (click the example screen to the right for a larger view).  Project status can also be indicated using a red / yellow / green status indicator so everyone can tell at-a-glance whether the project is on track or at risk.

The integration also occurs into other aspects of Outlook, such as Contacts.  For example, one of the things you typically do in project management is assign tasks to resources, or assign resources to tasks.  If your resource is a contact within Outlook, MLPC extends the contact record so you can add “meta data” about the contact to make reporting and tracking easier.

Furthermore, you can send an email and associate it with a task in one step, since the add-in embeds Project Management-specific fields on the email form (as show in the screenshot at left).

The same kind of form extension is also present on Task forms so you can auto-associate them with projects as you create new tasks.

The integration also tracks versions of associated project documents, so you can report on the full history of the project at any point.  This makes it easy to analyze based on a historical accounting of project scope changes, requirements that have been adjusted, the disposition of tasks assigned, and much more.

Net-net

If you use “traditional” project management tools and either find them to be overkill, or realize you are spending most of your time trying to find project related items in Outlook, it will definitely be worth your while to try the free, 30-day trial of Missing Link Project Center.  And, if you like the product, Kevin’s offering a very attractive introductory price of $49 available right now – a great price for an impressive project management tool.

So how do you decide between the GTD Add-in I wrote about yesterday?  I think it’s fairly easy: 

• If you are a GTD adopter who needs a bit of project management for your personal projects, the GTD Add-in is your likely choice. 
• If you’re a project manager over projects that involve others, then MLPC is your likely choice.

And, of course, both of these require Outlook, which means you’ll need to be in an “Outlook shop” for either of these.

As always, let me know if you have your own mojo to share on these topics (either by comment, trackback, or link).