How "IFTTT" can make you seem smarter

Recently, I heard about a service called "If This Then That" or "IFTTT" while listening to the Mac Power Users podcast.  IFTTT is a free automation service that can do a lot of things for you online, automatically.

On their site, there are a bunch of building blocks to help you create automated actions, along with a whole collection of "recipes" other people have created that you can just use for your own purposes. Some examples of recipes:

• When Facebook profile picture changes, update Twitter profile picture
• If its raining tommorow, send me an email!
• Thanking people in Twitter when they mention you or RT (note: this is a bit of overkill - I tried it for a few hours - it was too much)
• star ★ a Gmail, send it to Evernote

And there are a whole lot more.  I am still an IFTTT novice, but I have stuck with one recipe I really like:

Since I've started using this recipe, every morning I get an email that tells me 10 current events or relevant news stories that I can use to seem "up" on current events.  The stories tend to be a bit technology biased, but that is a perfect fit for me.  For example, the one I got this morning was:

Of course, this information is available on a "Business Insider" web page, but I love having it waiting there piping hot in my inbox every morning so I don't have to remember to go to the Business Insider site to catch up on things.

As I mention, I'm a newbie with this so I'm just scratching the surface, but this particular automation "recipe" has made me hungry for more.  If you find a recipe you really like, please drop me a line and let me know about it.

Seeing the Big Picture

Last week, I got a copy of Kevin Cope's new book, "Seeing the Big Picture: Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career, and Company." This is a great primer on how to figure out the real way your business works - I'm talking about money and profitability.

I wish I'd had this book a year ago. I work for a company that was purchased by a private equity firm last year, and I've had to learn a lot of new things about the financial aspects of business, as they were thrown at me. A lot of what I learned e hard way is presented very clearly in this book - along with some additional information I'm sure I'll need in the near future. Do yourself a favor and learn about it before you need to apply it.

You see, a lot of us know the basics - "A business should bring in more than it costs to run the business." But there is a lot more beyond that to help us use real data to not only run our businesses, but improve them and make them sustainable and profitable in the long term.

Knowing the key elements

Kevin Cope does a great job of explaining aspects of the business in a very understandable way, whether you've got a financial background or not. The sections include:

• Cash
• Profit
• Assets
• Growth
• People

Each of them is detailed in a way that unfolds very well - each section builds on the last, so you can better understand the relationships between these key elements of a business. He also does a great job of linking them so you can understand the interplay between these 5 elements.

Furthermore, Cope explains how to use and interpret some of the "artifacts" you'll encounter as you dig into the financials of a business, including how to read a balance sheet, how to interpret an income statement, and how to get real meaning out of financial reports.

One of the concepts I've had to learn about through hard knocks is EBITDA (Earnings Before Income Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization) which is a key indicator tracked by the private equity firm that owns my company. Cope explains this very succinctly in the book and relates it to the 5 elements, above.

Not just for managers

One of the things I love about this book is how relevant it is for anyone who wants to add value to the business they are involved in. This will add a lot of value for managers, but it will also help any individual contributor better understand how they can contribute to making the business more effective. In other words, if you want to figure out how and where you can add value to your company's success, this is a great book for you.

Cope also talks a lot about how you can use all of this information to make better decisions about your business - such as how you can make pod decisions about when to save earnings, when to reinvest them in the business, how to look after both short-term and long-term horizons for your business.

If you want to brush up on your financial acumen and learn some techniques to help you add more value to your business, grab a copy of "Seeing the Big Picture" - it's like a crash course MBA.

Enjoy Every Sandwich - a powerful book

I just finished reading Dr. Lee Lipsenthal's book, "Enjoy Every Sandwich." Wow - what a book.  The author wrote this book to share his experiences and new-found perspective after he was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer in 2009, and it is a very powerful and touching book.

Lipsenthal takes you through some very touching realizations of the precious nature of our time here on earth, and provides guidance on how we can take better care of the relationships and truly important parts of our lives - whether we know we're near death or not.

For me, the most "connecting" parts of the book were when the author takes us through the journey of accepting the inevitability of death.  It was interesting to read how he dealt with his mortality, but even more interesting to learn how he took his family through the journey.  Dr. Lipsenthal's wife was truly his soul mate, and I recognized the relationship I have with my wife in this book.

Appreciate what you have

As some of you who've been with me since I've been blogging know, I had my own bout with cancer (I wrote a little about my experience here).  This was a very sobering experience, and it brought my wife and I closer.  Luckily, I made it through - I've been cancer-free for almost 13 years.  But I know the feeling of helplessness very well.

What I love about Dr. Lipsenthal's book and the journey he shares with us is that he's managed to translate his cancer journey into a set of concrete recommendations for all of us - and does it in a very inspiring way.  In this book, you'll appreciate the opportunities we have to share ourselves now with the ones we love.

Learn from the journey of others

If you find yourself in the midst of your own struggle with cancer, this book will help you, as well.  Not only will you gain some wisdom and ideas for how to make the most of your relationships during your struggle, you'll also find strength in the way Dr. Lipsenthal dealt with his cancer.  As a medical Doctor, I found his thoughts to be very powerful - both in what you can do for yourself, and what you can't.

I love this paragraph from the book:

"You get to choose the world you want to live in.  It can be a house of fear and constriction or a house of mystery and creativity.  Do you choose honor and compassion about your frailties and the frailties of others? In your world, will it be the fear of death, or the joy of life?  It is that simple."

This framing of your options, beliefs, and realities is your choice.  And Dr. Lipsenthal's reminder that we can all decide is very empowering.

You may be wondering how Dr. Lipsenthal fared in all of this.  Well, he lost his fight with cancer in Septemer 2011.  But in this book, I think he took full advantage of his "knowing" time to make sure the important people in his life felt his love for them.

This book is both sad and uplifting; about death and about life.  And it is an amazing legacy for Dr. Lipsenthal.  I highly recommend "Enjoy Every Sandwich."

Business at the Speed of Now

I just finished reading "Business at the Speed of Now," by John Bernard. Wow, this is a good book.

I know of John because I worked with him on a small project about a year ago, and I saw a lot of the things he writes about first-hand.  Needless to say, when I heard he was writing a book, I could hardly wait to read it.  Now that it's available, I recommend you pick up a copy right away.

This book is designed to help you create an environment or culture within your business that aligns people for execution, then empowers people to make a difference.  There are some great stories in here comparing and contrasting "Now" cultures with much slower, more bureaucratic ones - some of those really hit the mark for me, and will stick with me.

The book also includes a number of tools to help you assess where your business's thinking is currently, as well as tools to help you take deliberate action to move toward a Now way of doing business.

According to this book, management must provide the rest of the company with 5 critical pieces of information for them to function in the now:

1. Context ("Where are we going?")
2. Accountability ("What role do I play?")
3. Skills ("What abilities must I possess?")
4. Facts ("What data must I access to make decisions?")
5. Authority ("Do I have the freedom to act without fear of reprisal?")

From my experience, #'s 4 and 5 are the hardest transition for control freak organizations.  Fear not, there are some good tips & tools in this book to help in all of these areas.

Guidance when you need it

I read the book all the way through, and it went quickly.  Going forward, I plan to use this as a reference guide to help me focus on what I believe is the "hottest fire" in whatever situation I'm experiencing.  If you scan this list, it not only helps you pinpoint specific challenges, it also guides you to the right chapters to find the help you need.

If you're anything like me, examples and stories are among the best ways to learn. Not only does John share stories he's learned through working with companies, he also uses a ficticious company known as "BearPaw" to show you how some of these ideas work in practice, as well as show you how to create a tracking and alignment system that keeps everyone in the business on the same page about what is important.

The most important thing?

Want to get something done? Use this book to create your "Breakthrough Plan."

I got a taste of this while working with John, and he tells you how to create one in this book.  A breakthrough plan keeps you focused on a specific objective and provides triggers to ensure that resources & dependencies are identified and dealt with,  This is one of the highest-leverage activities in this process, in my opinion (and it isn't as hard as you think).

My favorite part

Yes, I liked the part about Breakthrough Plans.  But I must admit, my favorite chapter in the book was Chapter 8, in which we're exposed to the "Seven-Step Problem Solving" approach.  This is a fantastic model to guide you through a data-driven process to get everyone on the same page about the problem, the desired outcomes, the approach you'll take, and how success will be measured along the way.  Of course, a big part of the formula is accountability, which is well-handled.

If you want a taste of the book, they are offering a sample chapter of Business at the Speed of Now at the author's site. If you really want to jump into the Now, you can click one of the following links to order it on Amazon in either hardcover, or Kindle formats.

The Top 5 Things For Greater Productivity

I was just reading a great article by Brett Nelson of Forbes, called "Eight Secrets To Getting More Done In 2012."  I love the ideas he's assembled, particularly the one about "Hourly Gut Checks."

With his post in mind, I have an idea of my own to contribute:  The Top 5 Things.

The Top 5 Things

This is a pretty simple concept that I use, which I find to be very useful:

1. Start with a "mind sweep" as prescribed in David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology - get everything out of your head, out of your inbox, out of meeting notes, etc. in to one big list.
2. When you sit down to plan your week, look at this list and pick the top 5 things you need to get done this week from the list.  Try to pick the 5 things that will have the most impact or drive the most progress toward your most important goals.
3. Write your Top 5 on an index card.
4. Carry that index card with you, and review it regularly to help you focus on what is important.  As things get done, mark them off.
5. Repeat the process.

You can do this weekly, or just wait until you've done your top 5 - figure out what works best for you.

Another thing I've found useful is to use the back of the index card to record the "in the moment" priorities you end up working on, so you can review the things you chose to work on instead of your top 5.  This can be helpful in figuring out what (or who) is undermining your productivity.  Sometimes you'll find your doing it to yourself.

Got any tips of your own?  Please share!