A few for Friday
After a crazy week, I have a few assorted tidbits to share with you:
The new edition of Beyond Bullet Points just plain rocks.
Last week, I posted an item about Cliff Atkinson's book, Beyond Bullet Points, over on Joyful Jubilant Learning - this is a book that totally changed how I do presentations, and I have long recommended it to others.
Shortly after posting the item, I got a note from Cliff telling me that there was a new an improved edition of the book. I updated the links in all my posts about the book and ordered a copy of the new one for myself. It showed up earlier this week and I started reading it.
Let me tell you - Cliff has raised his own bar on this one. There is more analysis of what's effective and ineffective in presentations, more about why his techniques work, much more prescriptive guidance on creating presentations, and -- very handy -- a CD with tools and examples.
Free ebook on stopping procrastination
The folks at "Fruitful Time" are offering a free ebook called "Stop Procrastination Now," along with a bundled evaluation copy of their Fruitful Time software. Fruitful time is a personal task management system that was recently released.
I played around with their software and it is pretty good - I don't use it because of my unnatural dependence on Outlook, and it doesn't currently integrate with Outlook. However, if you don't have that requirement, their product could be a good fit for you.
And, in any case, the ebook is worth the read.
SameCell is ready for prime time
Some time back, I wrote about a product called "SameCell" that runs on your cell phone or PDA and alerts you when you are near someone else in your SameCell "friends list." I've been using it since then, and I like it. There are quite a few folks on my list that travel a lot, and we have discovered we were in the same airport a few times and gotten together for a drink during a layover.
They are now out of Beta test mode and in full production, with more phone platforms being supported (including Blackberry, the iPhone and iPod Touch), and some cool integrations with FaceBook. Oh - and it's still free.
Related items
The Procrastination ebook gives a pretty general view of the tendency for people to procrastinate. Don't go expecting any new found revelations about procrastination, or revolutionary tools to fight it. Some of the perspectives in the ebook directly established data and norms regarding Project Management and long lead times.
I haven't used there task management software, but the ebook feels like a lead in to try their software.
Posted by: Mike in Philly | March 06, 2008 at 09:17 AM