Ryminate

Work No Longer Has Clear Boundaries

I just began reading David Allen's book "Getting Things Done," and already I am both  impressed, and relieved at the ideas and tools he provides for stress-free productivity.  I've been running at 100% lately, and I'm still not able to keep up on email, to-do lists, etc.

In the beginning of his book Allen states, "A major factor in the mounting stress level [at work] is that the actual nature of our jobs has changed much more dramatically and rapidly than have our training for and our ability to deal with work."  So true.  With the rapid entrance of new information mediums into the workplace (e.g., email, IM, wikis, blogs), the management of the information that makes use of such mediums has become particularly challenging.  Each reacts to these challenges in different ways: some reject new technologies, others are always struggling to keep their heads above water.

Tools similar to those provided in Allen's book need to be a part of our educational curriculums beginning in grade school.  This will be key in surviving and thriving within  what has been outlined by Peter Drucker, management extraordinare, as our accelerating transformation into a "knowledge society." 

The implications of this transformation (and our ability to adapt to it) are far reaching, and touch issues from emotional health to geopolitical power.  Addressing the latter, the nations that foster the development of the most knowledge capital will be a sine qua non for superpower status.

Thinking about an MBA???

I read a great piece on making the decision to go back to school for and MBA. You can check it out here: NoMBA.pdf.  The author, Rajesh Setty, writes on how to get by without going back to school by focusing on attitude, making alternative plans, knowledge gathering, creating powerful networks, etc. 

In discussing networking, Setty points out 5 key "network hubs" as I call them, that are useful to consider in taking stock of your own personal network.  Here they are:

1. Professional organizations in your field
2. Non-profits that are highly respected
3. Golf
4. Alumni networks
5. Political affiliations
6. Religious affiliations

Test post

This is a test post sent from my Motorola Q.

Empty your Inbox with the "Trusted Trio"

Gina Trapani at LifeHacker suggests another way to keep from suffering from InboxAsaToDoListitis.  She suggests dragging all messages into one of the three following categories (works best with Outlook):

The Trusted Trio

• Action
  

  These messages represent tasks you must complete; whether that's a response that will take more than two minutes (anything less than that, just respond on the spot!) or some sort of an action. All these messages represent an item on your to do list.

• Archive
  

  The Archive folder is your long-term email reference library. Place all the messages that contain information you may want to retrieve at some point in the long term future in Archive. Any completed threads, completed requests, memo's you've read, questions you had answered, and completed project email goes into Archive. Basically, whenever an email is "closed" but you may find it useful at some point in the future place it in Archive.

• Hold
  

  The Hold folder is a temporary holding pen for important messages you'll need quick access to within the next few days. If you're waiting on someone else to get back to you with crucial information, or you're maintaining a thread about a time-sensitive topic, keep it in the Hold folder. For you GTDers, items in the Hold folder might correspond with items in the next few weeks in your tickler file.

True quote

"You can turn a smart person into an idiot just by overworking him."

Prof. Peter Capelli, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania [via Fortune]

Australian Subsidization of Startups

Today I received an email from a good friend in Australia.  He just quit his job to start his own company.   I was shocked at the support he is receiving from the Australian government to take the entrepreneurial "leap."  Through a program called the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS), my friend attended a free 6 week small business management course, will receive a government grant of $200 per week for up to 12 months while he gets his business of the ground, and will be assigned a business mentor.  What a deal!

NEIS claims that while around 75 per cent of all small businesses fail in their first year, "only 25 per cent of NEIS projects meet a similar fate, thanks to their intensive grounding in business management issues."

Just imagine if their were similar programs put into place here in the U.S..  Talk about stimulating an economy!  Perhaps there are such programs out there, but I've never come across one.

Google Finance

Can I just give a shoutout to Google Finance!?  It just keeps getting better making Yahoo Finance (no link loving) seem increasingly inconvenient and cluttered. 

Google Finance now uses AJAX to provide live suggestions as you type stock symbols or company names.  They have also changed their financial statements so that they are uniform in format and style, and easy to navigate.  Great stuff!

Yahoo anyone?

The Competence / Charisma Quotient

I was attending a continuing education class the other day on legal ethics, and one of our presenters offered an interesting insight.  This presenter was the Chief Deputy Regulation Counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court -- or in other words, one of the higher-ups who "regulates" when a lawyer does something wrong.  She stated that the attorneys they deal with on a regular basis are invariably those attorneys who have difficult personalities.  She went on to state that a very incompetent, but very personable attorney will have far fewer greivances than a very competent, but impersonable attorney, and regular communication with clients is just as important as the work you are doing for them. 

As soon as the presentation was finished I thought to myself, herein lies a very important truth: charisma is often more important than compentence.  Once that thought occurred countless examples sprung to mind: politicians, business associates, employees, actors, etc.

From this thought came introspection:  What does my charisma to competence quotient stack up? If you were to rank charisma from one to ten (ten being the highest level of charisman), and competence from ten to one (1 being the complete competence), this quotient could actually be given a empirical value.  For example, if I ranked myself a 5 in charisma and a 3 in competence my quotient would be 5 / 3.  I'm not sure this is helpful other than to demostrate the functional relationship between the two qualities and to perhaps compare quotients between individuals.  Nevertheless, some interesting thinking.