Go pitch yourself

I get a lot of calls from various technology vendors in my day job.  Some of the "pitches" are good, but most are mediocre.  This week I got one I found to be particularly lousy - and it was a voice mail, which was intended to get me interested enough about the vendor to call them back.

What do you do?

Here are some of the problems I found with this particular message:

• I have no idea who this company is.  Their name was "cool sounding" but absolutely not descriptive.  This in itself is not a problem - the problem is that I listened to the pitch but it never told me anything about why I should call back.
• I have no idea what this company does.  The description - and this is a direct quote - was, "We deliver powerful capabilities through our platform, using  patented technology."  What?

I played this message for my wife and we laughed at how ridiculously vague this statement is.

Needless to say, they didn't get me to call back, which was their desired result.

At least you got that right...

Granted, they did get a few things right on the call:

• They did say their company name, clearly enough for me to understand it.
• They did provide their name and contact number, and even repeated the number slowly so I could write it down.

But that wasn't enough.

What's your pitch?

That got me thinking - when I leave messages about my company, am I any better?  I came up with a good little "exercise" that I'd like to share here:

• Call and leave yourself a voice mail, as if you were "cold calling" someone about your business, with the goal of having them call you back to find out more.
• Listen to the message and see if you would call yourself back.  
• Is it clear what you have to offer?
• Is the message short and to the point?
• Is it clear why what you do would be valuable to someone who doesn't know about your company?
• Is it clear who you are and how to get back in touch with you?
• Bonus points: Did you give them the option of calling you back or emailing you?
• If you missed the mark, adjust your pitch, call back, and try again until you are happy with your message.
• Now that you're happy with it, recruit a friend or relative that isn't "close" to your business, and ask them to critique your message based on the same kind of criteria.  Once again, use their input to adjust and tune your message.

I found some rough edges in my own pitch, for sure.  Not as bad as that guy who told me, "We deliver powerful capabilities through our platform, using  patented technology," but I had some room for improvement.

 Give it a try - pitch yourself - and see what you learn.

Accountability and granularity

Lately, I've been involved in a debate about accountability  What's at the heart of the debate? Clarity regarding how much detail is required  for someone to feel like they have enough information to hold another person accountable.  

In my particular debate, the question revolves around accountability for some longer term goals.  The person making the commitment, let's call them Mr. Committer,  has made some bold declarations (more directional in nature, although there are some measurable aspects that are clear enough to give a "pass / fail" grade).  These declarations won't be complete for at least a year.

Starting with these bigger picture goals, Mr. Committer created a sort of "work back" list - in other words, they began to break the larger commitment down into smaller steps and arranging them in a sensible order, to create an execution plan.

When this person presented their plan to two other people for review, there was a lot of consternation from one of the managers (let's call her Ms. Stickler) along the lines of, "Hey, I don't have enough here to hold you accountable," or "I don't know what to hold you accountable for."  

Break down the breakdown

As we began to disect the situation, we discovered that the issue was primarily one of detail:

• Ms. Stickler wanted a fully-fleshed out plan with way more detail than had been presented.
• Mr. Committer complained that he wanted to be held accountable for his results - the "big commit" - and not the specific steps followed to achieve the results.
• Ms. Stickler asked, "How can I hold you accountable over the next few months if I don't have a specific set of steps you'll be following?"
• Mr. Committer retorted, "A lot can change as I learn along the way and I don't want to be locked in - how can I innovate with you bearing down on me about specific steps so early in the process?!?"
• and so forth…

Shift the focus

So how can we break this conflict?  In our case, we are trying to focus less on the detailed steps along the way and, instead, have been brainstorming some interim indicators that must be met regardless of the detailed steps we choose to follow.

This, in itself, is still a difficult discussion, but it is far more productive (and far less stifling) than a debate about what specific steps will be taken.  In other words, I think we've successfully shifted the emphasis away from the activity, and toward a focus on the desired results.

This transition has been difficult, because we are fighting human nature and personalities in the process (detailed/control-oriented personalities vs. big picture/don't micromanage me personalities).

Any tips or techniques I can steal from you?

I'm sure we didn't get to this point in the easiest way possible.  Have you seen this kind of situation before?  Have you cracked the code (or at least come up with best known methods to make this easier)?

I'd love to hear your proven techniques for dealing with this kind of issue - please share!

Is your laptop bag getting too heavy?

What better time than now to go through your laptop bag and find ways to lighten your load?  When I was preparing to hit the road this week, I noticed just how heavy & cluttered my laptop bag was.

I set aside some time on Sunday night to reduce my “travel weight” by getting rid of some things in my bag.  Here are some strategies to help you if you decide you want to lighten your load:

1. Move into a smaller place

   • Nothing forces decisions like having to fit your stuff into a smaller laptop bag.  This is a good strategy if you want to become less of a packrat with the things you carry along with you.  Don't go too far, though - remember sometimes you need room to bring back the things you bring on the road with you.
   • I have done the "try out" process on laptops before since I have a local luggage store with a very customer-friendly return policy.  I buy a bag, take it home and, if I don't like how it accommodates my stuff, I return it.  You can do the same via eBags - their selection is amazing - but it might take a little longer due to the shipping time..

2. Start with a clean slate

   • This is an extreme approach.  You empty your bag ad put in absolutely the bare minimum of “stuff” back in.  Travel like that for a while, and only add in things that a) you discovered that you really needed during a trip; and b) you are absolutely sure you will need within your next 3 trips.

3. Find lighter alternatives to the things you carry

   • This is the kind of approach that extreme backpackers take when they select their backpacking gear – ultralight tents, cups, etc.  You don’t have to go that far, but you could do things like:
     • carry a Kindle instead of books;
     • carry an iPad instead of a laptop;
     • move to a smaller / lighter laptop;
     • carry a smaller note pad instead of the larger one you’ve been lugging around;
     • stop carrying chargers you seldom use on the road;
     • find multi-purpose items (like a single charger that will charge multiple devices)

4. Audit your stuff

   • If you can’t decide what to leave behind and what to keep, audit your bag at the end of each trip.  What things did you ignore, what things did you use?  Are there things you can drop from your bag for your next trip?  If you’re not sure, leave it behind and see how much you miss it.
   • If you are a GTD follower, you could weave this into part of your inbox processing at the end of a trip – don’t just empty your inbox -- empty your bag, too.

These are just some ideas to help you lose some weight really quickly and make it easier on your back.  Got strategies of your own?  I’d love to hear them.

Sharpen your saw with THINKBook

A while back, I bought a THINKBook, which was developed by my old friend Rajesh Setty.  The problem?  I got busy and forgot I had it, so I just got around to using it a few weeks ago.  I am very impressed with this unassuming little notebook.

What the heck is a THINKBook?

In simple terms, a THINKBook is a hard-bound red notebook, about the size of a Moleskine notebook.  But it's way more than that; sure, it has ruled paged you can use for writing, but it is more than just a general purpose notebook.. This is a thinking person's journal, for challenging your thinking.  

The thinking challenges are framed by "prompters" on various topics interspersed throughout the THINKBook (see the example on the right).  There are a bunch of topics relevant to both business and personal introspection, and I like them very much.  Full disclosure, I didn't think I'd like them at first, but I surrendered to the process, tried a couple and found that they were very useful.

The structure of the prompter exercises in the book really pushes you to think at a fairly deep level, and definitely promotes "out of the box thinking."  It feels very soothing to follow this process and begin writing journal entries in the THINKBook - this is all about crystallizing your thoughts and devoting some time for your own improvement.  That's something a lot us us don't take time out to do, and I think we'd all be better off with some periodic deep thinking.

Spread the Thinking

I really like one of the suggestions from the THINKBook web site, which is to use the THINKBook as a personal and professional gift.  I particularly like the thought of giving it as a business gift, and I just may try that to see how people react.

I like the framing of the "why" behind the THINKBook, according to Rajesh:

THINKBook makes it easy to pull your people’s own best advice out of them. It can be used to super-charge group brainstorming sessions or as a trusted advisor to help you improve the brilliant idea keeping you awake at 3am.

Pretty cool, don't you think?

If you could use some time working on your own creativity and mental health, I encourage you to  grab a THINKBook and give the process a chance.  And, if you like it why not give one as a gift to someone you like (a new one, not your old used one)?

Get things done on the Mac and/or without Outlook

The dark side of the Mac:  personal productivity systems

As some of you may know from following my escapades on this blog, I have been a big proponent of the Getting Things Done (GTD) and Mastering Your Now (MYN) as personal productivity systems. At one point, I was pretty good - and very productive - using these systems.  A couple of years ago, however, I switched to the Mac and I lost a lot of momentum.

You see, I used to use Outlook as my "home base" for processing my inbox and managing tasks, and I relied heavily on ClearContext for managing my mail volume.  On the Mac, Entourage, OS X Mail, and Outlook don't even come close to the power of Outlook on Windows.  To make matters worse, Outlook on the Mac is not extensible so there is no way to do anything like ClearContext on the Mac.

I tried OmniFocus and a number of other tools, but never could find one that became a habit, so they all fell by the wayside (usually after a couple of days).

I found a personal productivity system I like on the Mac!

I have good news - I've found a personal productivity approach that is a) familiar, b) works well on the Mac, c) has a mobile approach that works.  This one comes from my old friend Michael Linenberger (creator of the Mastering Your Now (MYN) system - that's him in the video freeze frame).  A few weeks ago, I found out Michael had created an online offering for Master Your Now ToodleDo Video Training.  He has done a lot of work to apply his MYN system to a pretty powerful cloud-based task management service called "ToodleDo."

I bought Michael's video course (as I write this, the price is discounted - not sure how long that will last), and I have been using ToodleDo and MYN as my new home base for tasks.  I really like the system.  Not only does it work extremely well on the Mac and my iPhone, I find that I actually check in on my tasks regularly

It fits well with inbox processing, as I can send emails to ToodleDo to automatically add them as tasks on my list.  There are also some intuitive "commands" you can add to your subject line to adjust the priority, start date, and more on the task right from your email (I'm using OS X Mail).

This MYN/ToodleDo system will work with pretty much any mail system on pretty much any OS - a big plus in my book

ToodleDo customized for MYN

I'd used ToodleDo in the past, but it didn't flow well for me. Now, Michael Linenberger has collaborated with ToodleDo and has implemented a quick setup method that optimized the settings to support MYN.  That made a huge difference by reducing clutter in the UI and making it simple for me to understand and use.  There are also instructions in the course on how to configure your mobile client to work in this new way with ToodleDo (the mobile instructions are manual, but short and easy to follow).

With this setup in place, all your sorting, columns, default values, and so forth are set up as they need to be to make MYN easy with ToodleDo.

Why do I like MYN?

MYN is very similar to GTD, but I find it to be a bit more prescriptive - just enough to make it work better for me.  The philosophy with GTD is "Do what you need to do for the system to work for you" which doesn't alway work as well for a distraction-prone guy like me.  GTD also relies heavily on "Contexts" to drive what you do - do the thing that matches the place you are.  I had a tough time with contexts, and never felt effective in that aspect of GTD.

In contrast, MYN is more of a "Do it this way" kind of system, which is what I need when it comes to time management.

For example, MYN cares a lot about when you want to do things, and less about where you want to do them.  The diagram on the right illustrates what I think of as the "MYN Zones" for when you want to get things done.  The Critical Now tasks are ones that must be done today (they are the "If I don't' get these done I've gotta stay late" tasks).  The Opportunity Now tasks are ones you'd like to get done within the next 10 days.  The Over the Horizon tasks are analogous to the "Someday Maybe" list in GTD - you want to get them done someday, but if they don't get done it's not the end of the world.

Limits are good

Within these "MYN Zones" it gets even more structured - you should have no more than 5 Critical Now tasks on any given day, and no more than 20 Opportunity Now tasks.  Everything else should be in the Over the Horizon bucket, which can be as big as you want it to be.

I find this budgeting method to be a great forcing function as a safety valve against over-committing (that's a big problem I tend to have).

Summary

I'm just scratching the surface here, but my summary is this:

• After years of frustration I've found a personal productivity scheme on the Mac that I can actually use and stick with.
• I am a big fan of Michael Linenberger's Master Your Now ToodleDo Video Training.
• Using ToodleDo with the Master Your Now ToodleDo Video Training is really powerful.
• This method will work very well for those of us not using Outlook, and/or not using Windows.
• The ability to use this consistently on my desktop, from a web browser, and on my iPhone is very powerful.

Would love your feedback and war stories regarding productivity on the Mac - particularly if you're a distractible type like I am.