My Place

No Cheese Please

2012-01-19T20:13:00.000-06:00

Wendy's changed their menu a while back where all the hamburgers are really cheeseburgers. If you order a single with whatever, you'll get a cheeseburger. Now if you don't want that cheese, you can tell them without cheese, but they charge you that full price. It seems they've raised their prices in a sneaky way. Instead of paying an extra dime for cheeseburgers, everyone is paying the cheeseburger price whether you want it or not.

Today I'm planning a trip at work and my assistant told me that all the rental cars at a certain level have the navigation feature automatically added to the car. You can't reserve the car without navigation.

Thank you to businesses everywhere for sneaky price increases.

photo credit: thehoneybunny via photopin cc

A Siri Question

2012-01-07T13:55:00.003-06:00

I have this question for those of you carrying around the iPhone 4S.

Are you doing more or different things with your iPhone because of Siri?

My wife has one and she is using Reminders quite a bit and asking Siri to remind her of this or that at some location or time in the future. Before she had Siri, she was not using the Reminder feature very much but now she is using it a lot. I'm wondering if people are using the device in different manners, like more reminder usage, because they can talk to the phone. What other ways are they using their phones differently because of Siri?

I think that Apple needs to put an api in place so 3rd party applications can use Siri too. Imagine being able to add something to your grocery store but saying "Siri, add milk to my grocery store list." Or how about asking Siri to look up something in Evernote. Related, it would be wonderful if Spotlight on the iPhone could look into 3rd party apps too like Evernote.

A lot has been written about Siri and voice recognition becoming a game changer. I'd like to hear from those of you who are on the front edge of this new capability.

A few thoughts at the end of 2011...

2011-12-30T16:37:00.000-06:00

I finally got some peanut brittle. I was lamenting not getting or finding any all holiday season and on Christmas day I mentioned this at my parents house and suddenly I received a zip lock bag full. Life is good.

I've thinking about the interesting fact that you can tell if a person has an IOS 5.X device by the color of the text message you send to them. If sending a SMS to someone, and you are using an IOS 5.X device and the message background is blue on your phone then the other person has an iPhone running at least IOS 5.X. If the message is green, then they are getting the message as a standard text message because either 1) they don't have an iPhone or 2) for some reason it can't use the apple service. So you can tell if the person on the far end is using an up-to-date iPhone. Interesting. Don't know what to do with this, but I find it interesting. With standard text messages you have no idea what the other person is using.

It has been a busy week. Of course the holiday are part of that but we've also moved my daughter back from college as she now prepares for dental school and we've had to make a new car purchase. Someone please invent a way to make new car purchases less painful. This time I did give all the car salesmen I talked to my Google phone number so that they wouldn't be calling my home or mobile phone all the time. I recommend that to you.

I did get 5 different gift cards for Christmas this year. B&N, Starbucks, Amazon, Panera and iTunes. We have gift cards sitting on counters around the house. I've got to believe many gift cards are lost and never used which is a windfall for the retailers.

Saw a great basketball game last night in OKC and tonight we have friends coming over to celebrate the new year. We are trying caviar tonight. Right.

Happy New Year to all. May your year be filled with peace, happiness, health and prosperity.

Kindness Boomerang

2011-12-23T17:34:00.000-06:00

Pretty cool video.

Merry Christmas to you.

It is the Waste

2011-12-12T18:19:00.000-06:00

I've been stewing for months as I read or hear one person or another argue that more or less taxes need to be paid by this group or that group. I'd be willing to discuss more taxes if there just wasn't so much waste already in government. Our elected leaders can't seem to cut back on anything, can't eliminate something that is no longer needed, can't resist another pork barrel project in their home state and can't seem to find a way for our country to live within its means. We are wasting too much money!

We are in a time of crisis in Washington and our elected leaders can't even seem to agree on what to order for lunch. A super-committee is formed to figure out how to reduce our debt problems and they think it is ok to not succeed. It is not OK. You failed. Vote them all out.

There are serious fiscal problems in this country and need serious leadership to solve. I'm tired of hearing the same old hard lines from everyone. Few seem to be able to think and compromise. Vote them all out.

Here is a recent article in Forbes that reminds us that we can push the debts around, but somebody has to eventually pay the bill. Here is another interesting one, also in Forbes, called Five Simple Ways to Fix An Out-Of-Control Washington. Or here is another one that says our elected leaders should have to live by the same rules which they apply to us. Congress exempts itself from the things that they believe should apply to us. Brilliant leadership. And I liked Coburn's recent guest post on cnn.com entitled Ending Welfare for the Wealthy.

Look, I don't agree with every recommendation in the above posts, but we need serious leadership and statesmanship to sort through these complicated problems. I'm tried of all the failed dialog and collaboration in our elected leaders.

They don't seem to get it that they are failing.

Be Present

2011-11-05T15:26:00.000-05:00

Watch this.

BE HERE NOW from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

which I found via here.

Changing the World

2011-10-24T18:11:00.002-05:00

Tomb of an angelical bishop who was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1100 A.D:

When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world.
As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it too seemed immovable.
As I grew into my twilight years, on one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.
And now as I lay on my deathbed, I suddenly realize – if I had only changed myself first, then by example I might have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement I would then have been able to better my country and who knows, I may have changed the world.

I can't seem to find a definitive source for this to attribute to, but I can find it on several places across the internet. I just liked it and thought I'd share it.

Hope you are well and having a blessed day.

Mark

Written Notes

2011-10-15T21:32:00.001-05:00

Why is it that handwritten notes taken in meetings or classrooms seem to feel better than notes typed on a keyboard?

Is it the ability to circle or underline things easily? Perhaps drawing arrows from one point to another? Quickly drawn pictures?

Or is it that we've done handwritten notes for all these years and we are just more comfortable with handwritten vs. typed?

I love taking notes in my moleskin. I load up Evernote with things. But I still prefer handwritten notes.

What do you prefer? Why?

Craftsmen

2011-10-01T05:10:00.000-05:00

John D referred me to a wonderful book this past week called A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink. He recommended the book while we were having breakfast and based on our conversation where I was talking about Kickstarter and Quirky and about how I'm thinking the economy is changing in a permanent direction in favor of what I was calling Craftsmen.

You see, I think the way people are going to make a living in the future is changing and it is changing in a very permanent fashion. Gone are the factory jobs that the US and other places have thrived on for decades. They are gone to the lower cost places and they will always be moving to the lower cost places. It might be Asia now, but it will be Africa later. Those kinds of jobs are not coming back to the developed countries.

It seems to me that developed economies are shifting permanently towards services and permanently towards craftsmen who have some developed niche or skill that they market. These craftsmen can use the scale of the internet to sell their product or craft or they can work locally to meet local needs. Look at Baltz which I recently found on Kickstarter as an example.

All this circles back to the book above which chases the same ideas and develops a lot of thinking around why and how to prepare for the change. In the book Pink makes the following point:

To survie in this age, individuals and organizations must examine what they're doing to earn a living and ask themselves three questions:1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?2. Can a computer do it faster?3. Is what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?If your answer to question 1 or 2 is yes or if your answer to question 3 is no, you're in deep trouble.

There was a great post by Seth Godin a few weeks back called Back to the (wrong) School which talks to the fact that our schools are not preparing our kids for this future. And he recently posted another article about the forever recession and the coming revolution which goes further with these same points.

Whether you are raising your children who are in school or you are restless on your current job, I urge you to read the book above and stop by Seth's posts. There is serious, permanent change underway and it is important to be preparing for it.

I don't have my thinking on these ideas fully cooked yet. I welcome your comments.

Nothing to Envy

2011-09-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

I recently finished the book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and wanted to recommend it and make a few comments about it. The book tells the tale of life in North Korea in these past few years under the rule of Kim Jong II and his father before him.

This is one of the saddest books that I've ever read.

The people are starving and watching loved ones, friends and neighbors starve. One character in the book is a teacher and she tells of watching her young students starve over time. And, she couldn't share her limited food with them because she needed it.
People became accustomed to stepping over dead bodies on the street.
The leadership was revered as heros and the people just didn't seem to know different.
When someone defects, their loved ones left behind are typically taken away because they must have bad blood. Therefore, those who escape might be condemning their loved ones to prison or death.

I just read a post that included a number of pictures from inside North Korea which is very rare since the country is so closed. These pictures look like what I pictured in my head as I read the book.

In June I had the opportunity to visit South Korea and saw its vibrant, large economy in action. The contrast is enormous.

Handwritten Notes

2011-09-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I came across this wonderful post called the Art of the Note which I wanted to share. We live in the era of short messages, usually of a sarcastic tone, delivered by tweets, sms or Facebook status updates. Email is used for longer messages, but email doesn't feel very personal no matter how personal the message is intended. My own family makes fun of me because my email replies are 'yes' or 'ok' or similar short messages back to them.

A handwritten note, received in the mail is a rare joy these days. A handwritten note means someone took time with a pen, to write you a note on a notecard, put it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it and then get it to a mailbox. When someone sends you a handwritten note, they really invested in getting something to you. They spent significant time to connect with you.

A few years ago I bought some embossed note cards and envelops and started doing this and I've enjoyed it ever since. A few days ago I was at a University commencement where the speaker was clearly nervous as he told us that he had never done such a talk before. I thanked him after the ceremony and then wrote him a note later that day to say thanks for being there with us. I know I'll never hear from him again, but it doesn't matter because I just wanted him to know that we appreciated him doing what he did for us that day.

Take a look at the post above and then jump to his linked site called Letters of Note which is a site that has collected many handwritten notes through the years. Most interesting.

Don't worry about your handwriting being hard to read because nobody cares.

Send somebody a handwritten note.

Passages

2011-09-07T19:27:00.001-05:00

Last night I had the chance to visit the Passages exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Passages is an organized collection of ancient and more recent bible texts and related documents. The Green family in Oklahoma has been collecting these manuscripts for a while and they are now on the front end of organizing the highlights into a show and ultimately into a museum somewhere in the US.

Last night a lecturer from the British Library gave an excellent talk on the creation of the original King James bible and the sources that were used for that translation. He (Scott McKendrick) reviewed the sources for the KJV and then pointed out the sources that might have been used to create a better result. He went on to discuss multiple old manuscripts, their stories and the differences that exist between different manuscripts. The talk complete with pictures and detailed examples was fascinating. A reply by Dr. John Harrison of OCU was also most interesting with further examples and key points. Unfortunately, these lectures are completely sold out for the remaining dates or I would try to attend some of the upcoming sessions.

A few years ago I had the chance to visit the British Museum with my friend Dan Shields and others. At the museum, I was captivated by a book called The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs, & Pictograms by Andrew Robinson. This book told the tale of writing through the ages and in particular had fascinating bits about unlocking the meaning in unknown writing systems. A similar tale was told in the Nova show called Cracking the Maya Code which I must have watched 5-6 times. I'd probably watch it again next time I see it on. In fact, I think I'll tell my tivo to look for it... I recommend the book and the Nova show too.

I heartily recommend the Passages show while it is still in the OKC area. The show will continue till around 10/16 then it is probably heading to Atlanta. Part of the collection goes to the Vatican next year for a visit. This is a high quality collection and well worth the visit if you are nearby.

Flawless

2011-09-02T18:53:00.000-05:00

Stumbled across the video below this week and wanted to share it. You might have already seen it, but I liked the message. Take a look.

Found it on the Donald Miller blog here.

Half price surgery with this coupon...

2011-08-29T05:42:00.001-05:00

The GROUPON deal that I received today was for half price LASIK. I think we've crossed a line here. I can't see (no pun intended) selecting a doctor to use laser beams on my eyes based on who gives me the best coupon. I wonder if they have a double coupon day?

Need Good Book Ideas

2011-08-24T21:32:00.002-05:00

Ok, I'm stumped on great reading ideas. I've got multiple books started and none of them are really grabbing me right now. If you've seen what I read and have a suggestion to recommend, please send me a note.

I've been gone too long and will post again shortly. Hope you are doing great!

Mark

Exceptional Kids

2011-08-07T20:25:00.000-05:00

The world sure needs more people who can think clearly and who can work together with others to solve hard problems. There seems to be a shortage of such in Washington DC where hard problems need to be solved now. Certainly we can elect better representatives to work on these problems, but closer to home and for the future we can also raise exceptional kids who are prepared to tackle these problems when their time comes.

On the point of raising exceptional kids, I found this great post about things to do with your children to help them develop these kinds of skills. I thought so much of the post that I wanted to highlight it here. Please take a look at Creating the Conditions for Emergence.

Related, I also think our kids need to travel and see the world. I'm jealous of college kids today who have such a great opportunity to study abroad for a semester. I hope that many can take advantage of such if given the opportunity.

My Billboard

2011-08-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

A brief moment of fame...

eBibles and Similar

2011-07-22T19:13:00.006-05:00

I've been noticing that more people at church are reading Bibles on Kindles, iPhones, iPads and equivalent. It is not uncommon to be sitting in class and see 4-5-6 others close by using one of these devices. There are some powerful benefits to having these texts in electronic format such as:

Likely having the word with you all the time because it can be on your mobile platform. One can read from the word any time and anywhere.
Rapid search capability. Can find things blindingly fast which is wonderful.
Able to take notes and then search on the notes themselves (depending on the system used).
Likely can carry lots of other reference books on the same platform, certainly more than carrying lots of books around.

I really think this trend is going to continue.

However I'm wondering about what the negatives might be?

I can remember holding my father's Bible years ago and seeing the hand written notes and papers in it and thinking this is a special book. My wife has a Bible that she has been writing notes in since college which becomes more special every year. These books, which have been carried to countless studies and have many hand written notes in them, become priceless to the owner (and family) over time.

And consider that we gift Bibles as gifts to graduates or to young families with new borns. Will we continue to give a book as a gift in the future?

I don't think I will ever feel that way about something loaded on my mobile phone. If the Bible is just one more app on our mobile device of the day, then does that become less special to the person and to the family? There certainly isn't anything to hand down to a grandchild or son with the passing of generations.

Now of course, it is the message or words that make the Bible special and not the container (paper/eReader). However, I can't help but think that there will be some change in thinking and some traditions as a result of this transition. I don't have this fully thought out yet, but I'm thinking there is something more here.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Today Together

2011-07-17T20:02:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day with our church family. The main purpose of the event was for us to raise funds for missions and aid work around the world. We've been talking about it for months and we've done this every year for the past 9 years. Some of the nuts and bolts of today are that we:

Raised over $655,000 dollars for lots of different projects and people.
We had a large combined worship service that probably had 1800-2000 people in attendance and
During the worship service most or all of the kids in the church played a part with singing and the kids wore smocks that were hand made. They sang an african(?) song that someone had taught them at some point over the past weeks and months.
We fed over 1700 people lunch afterwards.
Tonight we had another worship service and then ice cream was served to all.

It is a real joy to see lots of people working together on a good cause and then seeing the results unfold before our eyes. There is just no end to what could and can be done to help others, if we just work together.

Washington and the UN are a mess and seem to waste so much. But families, churches and any good community of people can really do great things when they put their mind to it and their heart in it and they are aligned with what God wants done.

Thanks to all those who made today possible. Thanks to all of you anywhere who do similar wherever you are.

Every Life Has a Story

2011-07-07T19:27:00.002-05:00

A really great video from Chik-fil-A.

I found this over on Scott's Blog here.

Nice idea. Poor execution.

2011-06-27T21:58:00.000-05:00

This past week my wife had surgery at a local, unnamed hospital. When we checked in I was given a six digit number and told I could monitor her progress on the display in the waiting room. Sounds like a good step forward for mankind sitting in the waiting room.

In the waiting area a flat screen monitor listed perhaps 40-50 six digit numbers in many different colors. At the bottom of the screen was a small legend that explained the colors. I could barely read the numbers from a distance and I couldn't read the legend at all. I had to walk over for a closer look.

A six digit number means they were accounting for a million people. I didn't see that many in the waiting area. Why not patient 5 on that day? The colors referred to the current state of the patient moving through their process. Unfortunately they used hospital codes that meant nothing to me like Phase II and something H1DC whatever. The last state my wife was in was Phase II which I guess meant done. The colors were light green, dark green, blue, yellow, tan, and 10 other colors. I kept hoping to stay green and didn't want to see red. Later someone pointed out to me that Code Blue was not good and I remembered that the yellow, Live Strong bracelets corresponds to DNR or do not recessitate. So perhaps I needed to hope against blue, yellow and red.

I have to give the hospital a pat on the back for effort but D for execution. I should have taken a picture and posted it here but I didn't think of it till later.

A Thought on Authors

2011-06-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

I finished reading the three "Girl who..." books while traveling last week. I read The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest all by Stieg Larsson who has passed away after finishing these books. I have to say, it is sad that he has passed away as these are three very well written books that I enjoyed reading. They were quiet raw and intense at time, but the characters were interesting and the story lines so captivating that I could hardly put the books down. They were great while traveling on the plane, but then a curse when I was in the destination and wanted to get out and see places (Singapore and Seoul).

This author writes in a manner that the scenes and people are very vivid to me. Clear and interesting. I've found few authors who write like this. Long ago I used to think that Stephen King was like this when I read books like The Dead Zone and The Stand and several of his later books. King wrote in a fashion that just drew you into the story and kept you turning pages.

There was a book I read years ago by Mary Doria Russell called The Sparrow that did the same. I didn't like one part of the book, but I felt it was amazing writing. I read the sequel to the book but never read any more of her writing. I should probably go back and take another look.

I really like to read things that paint vivid pictures and draw you into the story very deeply. If you have any such authors or books to recommend please let me know.

Block the Junk

2011-05-30T14:46:00.000-05:00

For a long time I've wanted a way to block 'the bad parts' of the internet from being accessible on my network at home. I came across OpenDNS a few weeks back, I've given it a try and I have to say that I'm delighted. It provides a service where you can change the DNS address for your home network and block all kinds of things from appearing on your network at home. Pornography, gambling, hate, etc. can be blocked at the router level. This solution which addresses the problem for the whole network at one time, instead of having to install on each computer in the house, it a great step forward and a great solution. I wish I had found this earlier.

If you are trying to block such bad traffic from your home or organization, I recommend you take a look. And yes, they have a free version for the home.

Mark

Enchantment

2011-05-21T19:28:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to readying Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions by Guy Kawasaki.

It was an interesting book that focused on how we can influence or connect with others and enchant them to change. I've written elsewhere about how hard change is and this book is a perfect recipe in how to manage change. The books says we need skills to enchant others when we are facing hard problems, overcoming entrenched habits and defying the crowd and other situations.

Developing trust is another vital part of this and Guy provides an excellent list on how to cultivate trust:

Always act with honesty.
Treat people who have wronged you with civility.
Fulfill your unkept promises from the past.
Help someone who can be of absolutely no use to you.
Suspend blame when something goes wrong and ask, “What can we learn?”
Hire people who are as smart as or smarter than you and give them opportunities for growth.
Don’t interrupt people; don’t dismiss their concerns offhand; don’t rush to give advice; don’t change the subject. Allow people their moment.
Do no harm in anything you undertake.
Don’t be too quick to shoot down others’ ideas.
Share your knowledge, expertise, and best practices with others.

This book is a quick read and I enjoyed it.

I sent the author a tweet and said I enjoyed it and he replied later that day. That is enchanting too.

Its about the Grace

2011-05-18T20:00:00.002-05:00

My new friend Dan Bouchelle referred me to a blog called Church and Culture and on that blog I found a piece called Mastering in Ungrace which I wanted to highlight. The post is about grace and forgiveness in the Michael Vick case as well as in all our cases.

There is a quote I want to share from the post:

Every human being is marked by weakness; when you lock eyes with someone, you can safely assume that they carry deep wounds, have endured backgrounds of enormous family dysfunction, that they live – day-in and day-out – with areas of temptation and struggle, where they are fragile and often broken.

If you've followed along in this blog I've written many times about kindness and the impact we can have on those around us. We all need forgiveness and we all need second (and third and 75th) chances.

It is easy to says these words, but it is hard to live them daily. I need to remind myself to be kind to all around me, to be thankful for everyone's hard work (at work) and be thankful for the many blessings of the day.

Books vs. eBooks

2011-05-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I've turned a corner. This past week I had the opportunity to pick up a free book from one of my favorite authors/speakers and I could have had it signed, but I turned it down. I already had it on Kindle and I just didn't want to carry the book home and didn't feel I needed another copy.

I've collected great books for years and I have a wall of them at home. I recently did buy a hardcopy of an ebook I read and loved, but in this case I just didn't want another one.

EBooks are just too convenient, they weigh nothing, you can keep hundreds with you, you can search them and frankly they are just better than heavy, expensive books on a bookshelf.

Times are changing. What do you think?

Tweet Reflections

2011-05-04T22:23:00.001-05:00

If you follow many people on Twitter you probably have a timeline like mine. Some are tweeting happy thoughts about basketball, kids, food or love. Others are tweeting about violence in some part of the world or their own version of hate or prejudice. Still others spread faith or self-improvement When you mix these people together you get the story of life scrolling by one tweet at a time.

I was in Disney World a couple of months ago right after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I was experiencing the fun of Disney while others around the world are hurting and there were many tweet updates about the suffering and events while I was in this happy place. Weeks ago I was sitting at home watching NBA basketball on tv when the timeline lit up with reports of people being killed by soldiers in Syria. Eyewitnesses were reporting of gun fire around the world as it was happening and while I was watching a game on tv. A couple of days ago I was watching twitter when the Osama story started breaking and the twitter timeline lit up. I literally watched that story explode on twitter.

Facebook seems to be a place where friends report on sunshine in their lives or they try to be witty. Twitter seems to be a harsher peek into what is going on around the world.

Watching the twitter timeline has brought home several thoughts to me. First, the range of stories, beliefs, opinions and happenings around the world cover the complete spectrum in all directions and dimensions. Second, not everybody thinks like me or believes what I believe and everyone's experiences are different. Sometimes it is shocking how successive tweets in the timeline can take opposite views or positions on the same topic. Third, some people just try to shock to attract attention or perhaps love. These people are just sad. Finally, while I hesitate to filter the timeline to limit the things I see, I also think it is more and more important to be more selective. I've started un-following some who are just hateful or dumb.

The book of Colossians says to "set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" in Colossians 3:2 which I think applies here. In fact all of Colossians 3 applies.

Peace to all.

iPhone Tracking

2011-04-25T20:33:00.001-05:00

You've probably seen the post about the iPhone location tracking that broke in the past few days. They provide a program that will read the data from your computer and plot it on a map. Sorry, I couldn't resist even though I should not have downloaded such a program and run it on my computer.

Here is the big picture.

which shows that I've done some US traveling, some traveling around the Med and then some traveling in SE Asia. Here is some more detail of the US sites visited. I can see that I've flown through Chicago, Atlanta and Denver and I've made lots of trips to Northern California (work). I've been to Orlando for some reason involving the big mouse and then visited relatives in St. Louis. And a few other places.

We took at cruise in the Med last summer and made several stops of which most are shown. Interestingly Tunis, Tunisia is not listed but we were there. Maybe I didn't turn on the phone?

Now I live in Oklahoma and here is the map of where I've been around here. Lots of dots around Dallas and on the road between here and St. Louis.

All of this is generally correct, but I can see some outliers that I can't recall being near. For example, is shows I visited the Bahamas since I got this phone. I don't recall that trip but I hope I had fun. I'm going to look around to see if I picked up any souvenirs.

Rambling

2011-04-18T21:38:00.000-05:00

It has been a very busy couple of weeks.

At work we have a lot of interesting things going on and my thinking on all things IT is really evolving. I'm wanting more simplicity and less complexity in IT. I've also participated in two board meetings for two separate non-profits and I've enjoyed the chance to interact with smart, sharp, interesting people in those settings. I think I'm a smart guy and then I interact with some of these folks and wonder.

There many good things going around us every day and we sometimes get lost in the bad news to miss the good news.

I heard the OU women's basketball coach speak and once again she demonstrated that she is an amazing speaker. Some people are just gifted at communications. I'm sure they work at it, but some are just naturally gifted.

Last night I attended the Thunder game which ended very late and this morning I had early meetings at work. At the gym this afternoon I hit the wall and faded away and had to come home and take a nap. I was pitiful at the gym. It was sad.

In the past few days, I've met someone who is thinking about spiritual matters at a depth that I'm not even close to and it is scary and amazing at the same time. They recommended some books to read and I've ordered several of them. I've also realized that one of the bloggers I follow (I follow 237 now) is an amazing story teller. I envy the skill they have at telling a story about their life and things going on around them in a simple fashion.

In the last month, I can't tell you how many books I've read. It is nearly a zillion. I read a lot and I do it in waves and now the wave is moving fast. There are many good things to read.

I've recently been criticized by some people who do not know what they are talking about, yet there might be some truth in their comments. It kindof hurt.

I've also had the chance to help some friends which cancels out some of the ugliness. At church we had a great weekend on unity between different ethnic groups and it was an amazing experience.

Life is fast, wonderful, busy, sad and stressful all at the same time. You never know where the person sitting next to you is today. Give them a hug.

The Emperor

2011-04-11T20:45:00.001-05:00

I have to recommend an unusual book. It is called The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee and it is 'biography of cancer' through the ages. Cancer is around all of us and many are affected by it either directly or at least indirectly in a very close fashion. This book tells the story of cancer's diagnosis, treatment and understanding through the ages.

There is a reference in Egyptian writings of someone having what sounds like cancer and there is reference to a disease in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament that might have been cancer. The books talks about how it has been understood and how it has been treated through the ages and in some places, it is not a pretty picture. We've done some dumb things in the treatment of all diseases through the ages and many of those things had no impact or actually hurt those affected with the disease. The book also talks about how victims are treated by the medical community and by their own family and how it can affect a person very deeply from the time of the diagnosis forward for the rest of their lives. There are some really moving stories in the book.

I must say that the closing chapters describe the more recent understanding of the deep mechanics of cancer and its genetic roots. I left the book feeling like we are making some real progress with cancer treatment and understanding.

Speaking of Shallow

2011-04-01T07:25:00.001-05:00

So I try to do a 5km walk several times per week early in the morning. I have this dream or self image of running, but my left knee votes against that every time so I walk. Today, it is 48˚F today so I decide to put on a hoodie, gloves and a hat. It is a bit cold when I head out. On with the iPod and the Nike+ to keep me company.

A few minutes into the walk with the street lights behind me, I'm approaching a brick mailbox when my shadow crosses the mailbox and I panic thinking someone is right on top of me. I look like an idiot and then laugh at myself. Back to the music.

A few minutes later, walking along a young gal runs past me dressed in shorts and a t-shirt with her dog on a leash beside here. A few minutes later another man runs past me dressed about the same.

So here I am all bundled up in fear of the cold, walking along in the dark, scared of my own shadow, with young(er) people running around me with their dogs.

Perhaps it is time for me to get one of these for future outings.

Shallow

2011-03-28T21:10:00.001-05:00

Last week I was having lunch with a colleague at work and I commented that I felt my brain was changing. I mean that I feel like the huge number of things I read per day/week are changing the way I'm learning and connecting. I follow 230 different blogs/sites, I read a lot and I follow the news on TV, etc. The net effect of all these inputs seem to be that my attention span is changing (shorter, but I scan more) and at the same time, I'm connecting more dots together between things I read and things going on my life.

I recalled that there was a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr and after that lunch, I looked up the book and downloaded it to my Kindle. The opening chapter was one I could completely relate to as it sounded like me.

Over the last few years, I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain...I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I feel it most strongly when I'm reading.

The book describes someone who grew up as computers appeared and as the internet came into existence and it described the author's introduction to these new tools and how it changed his behaviors. I've gone through the same things. It felt like I was writing this.

The book talks about how those of us who are on the internet are being changed by the hyper-connected, hyperlinked, RSS, twitter, facebook, etc. world that we live in. We are adapting to scanning lots of material in a short amount of time instead of reading long stories/novels as previous generations have done. The book does not attempt to define one way as better than the other or more dangerous than the other, it is just different.

There is a lot of interesting material in this book and I can't talk about it all here. I recommend you read the book. I can tell you that I can see the effect in my own life and that I'm paying attention to it now.

On a Trip...

2011-03-19T20:08:00.002-05:00

Went on a trip this past week with family. Thirteen of us visiting Disney World. Some truths were learned from this adventure.

A visit to Disney World is not a restful trip. No, no, no. It is a marathon and a sprint at the same time. One must get up early every day and one must hurry from one park to another and from one ride to another. There is no rest here.
There is a very complicated optimization problem to solve in real time while visiting the parks. One must decide whether to go to Soarin' to get a express pass before running across the front part of Epcot to get in line at Mission Space or at Test Track. Or should one go to Test Track first? It is hard to tell and I think the day of the week and the hour of the day are key process input variables (engineer speak). At Magic Kingdom do you go to Space Mountain first for the express pass or to Buzz Light Year?
Sometimes despite your best planning, you can speed to your solution of the problem and then find the ride closed or temporarily offline which forces an immediately recalculation (Haunted Mansion). In other times, you can be standing in the standby line and someone might walk up to you and hand you three express passes for the same ride. (Yes it happened to us but I was wearing my St. Patricks day clover / mickey mouse head pin which explains it and should have been expected to happen).
Of course, one needs a nearly infinite amount of money to be there yet there is nearly an infinite number of people running/walking around you which leads to a mystery as to how this can be when the economy is not supposed to be good. I'm convinced that when you arrive in Orlando at the airport, if you pause and listen carefully you can hear dollars being sucked out of your wallet.
Of course, at Epcot you must visit the Boulangerie Pâtisserie and purchase the chocolate mousse.

I think the real learning is that when going to Disney World one must plan to run and go and rest later. One must go back home to rest. It doesn't matter that the Boardwalk is slow moving or there are Spas and Golf and Pools at the resort. There is some 'magic' rule that compels you to just go.
In the end, it is an amazing place. And it as a delight to spend a few days with family.

Million Miles

2011-03-07T11:57:00.000-06:00

Loved the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Wrote about it before and talked about it with several different people and even made a talk in front of group over these ideas. The book is recommended by me.

What story are you telling? from Rhetorik Creative on Vimeo.

You can find the book here.

This is one of those books I keep thinking about. OK, I may get a free copy of the book (which I already have on Kindle) by posting this in the spirit of full disclosure.

Left Neglect

2011-03-03T19:29:00.000-06:00

I wrote about the book Still Alice a few weeks back and I was so intrigued by the story and the author that I went out and found her new book. It is called Left Neglect and it another amazing story about a real malady that some experience. In this case, after a brain injury, the lead character has no sense of her left side. She literally can't see you if you are standing on her left side and she can't control her left arm or left leg. In a certain sense, they have disappeared from her worldview. What is not obvious is how to adapt to this problem and that is the bulk of the story.

Our lead character injured her brain while fumbling with her mobile phone resulting in a car wreck. Lesson there for all of us.

Again, I enjoyed these characters like the last book and I learned about a world that I did not know existed. I find myself reading these medical detective books over and over again. Bookmarks magazine this month (Mar/Apr 2011) has an article on Literary Physicians and as I turn through it, I find I've read about 1/2 of the books mentioned. I wrote down the names of a couple I've not seen... I've loved several of the books by Atul Gawande like Better.

Lots to read these days.

TearJerkers

2011-03-01T19:22:00.000-06:00

I record CBS Sunday morning each week and this past Sunday they had a story on tearjerkers in the movies and how we don't see them much more. Now I have to confess that I've been doing a major transformation of my DVD movie collection and most of my movies are sci-fi and the like and there are not a lot of tearjerkers. However, I really liked this story. If you can find it online take a look.

I mean who didn't like Serendipity when they found each other at the end, or Brian's Song where one of the characters died. Or how about that funny scene in Sleepless in Seattle when Tom Hanks character is talking about the Dirty Dozen scene...

The real killer in recent movie history is Up where we see the story of the wife who died and then far later in the movie we see what she left him. Yes, I had a tear then. If you didn't then I have to worry about you. I confess that I recorded it on Tivo and then re-watched these scenes.

Tomorrow I turn 50. Today I received my AARP card in the mail. Thank you. I have great friends, I've been around the world. I have great kids. My parents and brother and sister are nearby and I have a wonderful wife.

Yes I like phasers, starships, submarines, knives, Macs, Ice Station Zebra and the Thunder but I love my wife and kids and family and friends and yes I tear up from time-to-time. I'm alive.

I've been blessed.

Declaration of Independence

2011-02-19T16:09:00.000-06:00

In the Superbowl pregame, Fox ran a video honoring the US Declaration of Independence. It was very well done. Take a look below.

What a bold move to put your name on a piece of paper stating your intent to dissolve allegiance to the ruling government. While there are some disputes on the internet about what happened to them, it is certainly true that they took a big risk by putting their name on the paper. Here is one version of the story of those men and what became of them. To all those who died and those who suffered for freedom and liberty, thank you.

In the past few weeks, around the world, we are seeing people stand up for similar. May they be blessed.

What's on my Iphone?

2011-02-10T18:29:00.001-06:00

OK, I've finally got my iPhone perfectly configured with exactly what I need on it. Since this is now the perfect list of applications, I thought I'd share it here.

Evernote is the starting point. The tag line is Remember Everything which is about how I use it. I take pictures of receipts when traveling (and even my room number once at the hotel). I've sent legal documents, directions, great blog posts and many other things to Evernote via email and via my browser. I've seen posts on how students and teachers are using it too.
Instapaper is next and I use it to save web pages to read later. The beauty of this app is that it stores web pages on your phone (or computer) in an easy to read format without all the side glitz on so many pages.
Reeder is the tool I use for blog reading. I follow probably 200 blogs and this tool lets me work with Google Reader to quickly scan and read posts. Very simple and works well with Google Reader.
OmniFocus is the tool I use for tracking todos. A bit pricy but works well on the iPhone and links to your desktop too.
SplashID is the tool for keeping IDs and such secure on the mobile device. Can't remember all these passwords anymore and this keeps track of them in a secure fashion.
Google Voice for phonemail.
Cardstar is used to keep track of all those membership cards and numbers which I don't want to carry around.

There are several Bible apps available but the one I prefer is the one from Laridian. I like the way you can navigate from book to book and from location to location in the books. I find it easier than the other apps I've seen.

These are mostly productivity apps that help me 'keep it together' in whatever fashion it is together. I love some cool apps like Star Walk, Wolfram, Chronometer and Spyglass too. I figure I'll use Spyglass in case I ever spot a UFO and want to capture a picture with all the relevant data that scientists would need to validate my claim.

Funny Commercial

2011-02-04T19:12:00.002-06:00

I love this.

Watch this.

Dementia

2011-01-26T03:32:00.002-06:00

While on my current journey, I had the opportunity to read about a women sliding into early-onset Alzheimer's disease in a fictional book called Still Alice. The main character in the book is a professor at Harvard in her early 50s who she starts noticing gaps in her memory where she can't remember simple things. In one case, while jogging she losses a sense of where she is at for a few minutes and walks around just trying to find a landmark in an area where she has been jogging every day for years. She sees doctors and eventually gets the heart breaking diagnosis.

The book is deeply moving. You are drawn into the story and her thinking, feelings, frustrations and her world as it slowly slips away. Day-to-day you are shown her cognitive abilities slipping away. She tries to keep teaching but she doesn't quite realize that her skills are slipping away in front of her. She forgets people's names. She starts asking the same question over and over again. She develops a test for herself that she applies over the months which is sad and interesting.

In the book, the point is made that when a person battles cancer, they are surrounded by supporters and friends who are there to help them fight their was through the chemotherapy and radiation. With the diseases that cause dementia, the opposite seem to happen where friends and colleagues are just uncomfortable, don't know what to say, are embarrassed and then quietly slip away. One person in this book really lets down the main character which is heartbreaking.

I've not had to walk in the shoes of any of these characters as I've not experienced this with anyone close to me but I pray that I would be a rock for them. Bless those who are experiencing these kinds of issues and bless their caregivers. Be there for those going through this in their lives.

The book is highly recommended.

The Universe is Really, Really Big

2011-01-22T01:27:00.000-06:00

Check this out.

From Within

2011-01-13T22:06:00.002-06:00

I just finished reading the latest Tom Clancy novel called Dead or Alive which picked up about at the end of his last book of several years ago, Rainbow Six. Clancy's books always have a key thought buried in the books somewhere that is very thought-provoking. For example, in the book Clear and Present Danger there was the concept of when criminal activities arise to the level of needing a 'state response'. In the book Patriot Games there was the quote at the start of the book:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

In this book, there is a dialog late in the book that goes as follows:

Every fallen empire in history had rotted from within, and the same would be true for America. Fighting two intractable wards, an economy in shambles, banks and manufacturing giants going bankrupt... Those conditions might change over time, and perhaps even improve, but future historians would mark these events as the first signs of decay.

I think this thought is important for us to consider. What will historians say of these times?

My opinion is that we all need to live within our means, keep learning, keep families connected together and hold onto our faith foundations. Elect leaders who 'think' and try to govern with the long-term in mind, not the next election in mind. And we need to stop celebrating celebutards in all areas. Our heros need to be people who do the right things, not the beautiful people.

Acts 29

2011-01-03T16:26:00.002-06:00

Our church family is launching a study this year called Acts 29. You may have already realized that there is no 29th chapter in the book of Acts in the New Testament of the Bible. Acts stops at 28.

The idea is that the work of the church continues to this day and the acts have not ended yet. The actions that followers of Jesus are taking to this day are still writing the book and that what we do today will ripple forward to those around us and those yet to come. This goes hand-in-hand with the Write a Good Story post of earlier and the recommendation to read the book The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters which I mentioned in this earlier post about our place in this time and world.

There are many in the past who have done great things and stood in the gap to address hunger, hurt and evil. I have a friend who stands to help preachers and church leaders who are hurting and helps to mend their lives and their hearts. I can't begin to fantom what good might come from that over time. Unfortunately, just as good has rippled through time, so has evil. I hope my actions are part of a good story that is being written.

I look forward to this study and will pass along related thoughts from time-to-time. Some thoughts on this study will be posted on twitter at #MRCCActs29 if you want to follow along. Or you can download material here or by following @MRCCActs29 on Twitter.

Playlists

2010-12-31T16:44:00.000-06:00

As 2010 winds down, I came across a blog post about Editing the Playlist of My Life which I marked as a favorite and have re-read several times. Instead of focusing on the music in my life (or books or movies) I was thinking about this in a more generic fashion, just wondering about what is playing in my life as I go through my days.

The question is what is playing in my head and what is occupying my time? What do you think about first thing in the morning and before you go to sleep in the evening?

I'm going to stop worrying about some things and start thinking about new things. I'm going to work much harder at connecting with the people around me. I've purchased a couple of books on this last topic and I'm looking for more ideas and thoughts on the subject.

May your new year be blessed and safe. Thanks for stopping by.

Mark

Nativity

2010-12-23T21:25:00.003-06:00

Dean sent me a link to this Youtube video entitled a "Digital Story of the Nativity" which is amusing and interesting.

I happen to believe the Nativity story and I've thought about why it took place at that point in history. Why not 1000 years earlier or 2000 years later?

It seems that if it is was much earlier then spreading the word around the world would have been much harder. Roman roads would not have been in place and some form of stability (although complete with Roman harshness) would not have been in place. Courts and rules of law were a part of the story as well and those were needed.

Why would it have been later? Perhaps it came at exactly the right time in history where the story could spread successfully. Later would have just been late.

A Well Done Video on Mathematics in Nature

2010-12-23T12:08:00.001-06:00

Take a look:

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

I like to think of myself as a closet mathematician who in reality isn't one at all. I just had lots of it in school. Lots of it.

See here for the page where this is embedded.

Flash Mob a Singing

2010-12-10T18:02:00.000-06:00

You've probably already seen one of these, but here are two that I've seen recently. I like them both. It would really be amazing to be caught in the middle of one of these.

and here is another one at a Macy's store.

What a great song. Perhaps my favorite song of all time which is a tall statement.

Connecting

2010-11-11T21:43:00.000-06:00

Do you know someone or have you met someone that when you had their attention, you had their full attention. They were totally focused on you, looking into your eyes and deeply tuned into what you were saying? I've seen two people like this recently.

I've heard that when you meet former US President Bill Clinton that he is like this. A friend of mine told me about meeting him in a receiving line in Oklahoma City at the National Memorial and that when it was time for you to talk to him, he turned his full attention to you and no one else. It was a really amazing experience. I saw Clinton in Phoenix at an IT conference last month, but didn't get the opportunity to meet him.

Two weeks ago I attended an Amy Grant concert in Oklahoma City. Amy did a meet-and-greet before the concert for an hour or so and during that time, I watched her interact with the crowd. It was really interesting to me because she seemed genuinely interested in the people she met, she was totally focused on each person she was talking to, she didn't rush the conversations, she looked in their eyes and she seemed genuinely, genuinely interested in each person. She wasn't checking her phone for messages or posting updates on twitter. And she didn't seem worried or rushed about the concert she was about to give. We stood around for a while because we wanted a picture with her and we eventually got it. By the way, her concert was great and I bought her latest music. Check out 'Find What You Are Looking For' in particular.

I'm not a good 'mingler' and not good at focusing on who I'm with at the time. My mind wonders and I keep checking my phone for messages and email. My wife can testify to this... I want to be better at connecting with the people around me and I'm looking for good resources and ideas on this. I've been to Amazon and have purchased one book which I'll comment on later. If you have good ideas or resources on these ideas, please let me know.

I've written much about relationships in the past and I want to get better at this.

The Future of the Internet

2010-11-07T12:30:00.000-06:00

I had the opportunity to hear Jonathan Zittrain speak at the recent Gartner Symposium. He wrote about the future of the internet in a book called The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It and I have to say it is a very thought provoking book.

When he spoke at the symposium he showed us a future where the huge leverage possible by the low cost of the internet can bring some unexpected things into our future. He gave an example in his presentation where a government(or any group) could identify the names of people in pictures by creating a game on the internet to map names to pictures. A government might have a huge database of passport photos and it is possible to create a game on the internet where people around the world help map the passport photos to the pictures of the crowd. I hadn't seen that one coming but it is obvious now. Kids games on the internet could be doing work for companies, groups or countries.

I'm about 1/2 way through the book and so far he is talking about the likelihood that consumers will shift back towards move controlled appliances (iPhone/iPad) and away from the more open PCs because they are getting tired of the risks of such open platforms. The open nature of the internet makes it too easy for bad things to happen to good endpoints. So we will start using closed endpoints more in the future.

Lots of interesting things to think about.

If you haven't changed your passwords on your accounts recently, it is time.

Election Time

2010-10-29T20:03:00.001-05:00

It is nearly election time in the US.    The campaigns and the endless media circus will come to an end in a few days.

When you get in the election booth this year, please set aside the rhetoric, the negative and the "what's in it for me" of this day and instead think about what our country and state needs.   There are serious issues facing us and we need to think clearly in order to find the right path forward.   The US is at an inflection point in many ways and citizens need to take the privilege of voting seriously to affect our future.   Prepare before you go vote, and go in knowing what you are doing to do.

If people have been negative in their campaigns, count that as a strike against them. If they've been in office for 400 years consider that their time is up and fresh ideas are needed. If they keep calling the other person a liberal or some other label that has lost meaning, then vote them out. Instead of politicians, we need statesmen in our state legislatures and our US Congress and our courts.   I heard a quote years ago that Politicians think about the next election while Statesmen think about the next generation. We need to be thinking about the next generation.

I had the opportunity to listen to former President Bill Clinton speak a few weeks ago at an event in Phoenix.   He commented that we are getting too polarized in our thinking and instead of focusing on the serious issues of the day, we are focusing on what someone said 20 years ago.    We have serious issues at hand. We need to be serious about discourse on these issues.

If you are a person of prayer, then pray for wisdom and insight.

The best gift...

2010-10-26T21:00:00.000-05:00

Saw this at TED recently and wanted to pass it along and draw attention to it.

Her words remind of something I just read in the past few weeks about Job in the Old Testament of the Bible. After experiencing terrible hardships he has a conversation with God and he then utters the following words about the whole experience.

'Surely I spoke of things I did not understand things too wonderful for me to know' in Job 42:3b.

Likewise, in the book of Esther in the Old Testament has the following statement,

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

which suggests that perhaps the events of her life before that time were leading up to her being in that place at that time.

Andy Andrews has a new book called The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters which is a quick read. It tells the tale of several people who happened to be in a particular place at a particular time and how their actions had great effects on history downstream. Andy also wrote the The Noticer: Sometimes all a person needs is a little perspective and the Traveler's Gift which I've written about earlier.

We can't see the whole story unfolding around us of which we are a small part. Sometimes we can get a glimpse of how we affect others but many times, we nave no idea how the little steps, or decisions, or contacts or conversations of our days will ripple through history. There is a great quote on Kindness that I posted before along the same lines. One act of kindness might make all the difference in a person's life.

Whatever your situation might be, may you be blessed. May someone send a little kindness your way.

My Platform

2010-10-05T19:25:00.000-05:00

In the event I decide to run for office of the President of the United States, here is my platform as of today.

We have to build a fence on our borders and secure our national border. This is not an immigration issue, it is a security issue. We still want immigration because we want new ideas, people and cultures to blend into the US, but we must secure the borders so the wrong people don't get in.
We need a national ID card. IT professionals know that the beginnings of security are in identity management. We need an ID system that is the best possible and we need to have periodic reviews and re-certifications to make sure that the ID card is valid and with the right person. I can hear the ACLU folk objecting, but it is simply time. Get over it. This then becomes the platform for linking to other services in society.
We need to have a high-speed rail network connecting our major population centers and immigration centers. This is an alternative to our overloaded air transportation network. Just like Europe and parts of Asia. It is time.
We need an Apollo style program to bring alternative energy sources on-line for home, auto and work. This includes nuclear power, solar power, wind and a massive increase in natural gas usage.
We change the tax structure of the country to greatly simplify the tax process. Not exactly a flat tax, but along those lines. We spend too much on doing our taxes and on the government collecting our taxes. It is time for change.
We attack rising health costs and work towards universal health care. We have to provide care for everyone but having it done in emergency rooms like today is ridiculous. We have to start by working on the infrastructure of health care. We start attacking the costs of health care. We move all paperwork for medical transactions online and use our new national ID card to connect it all together. If you want health care, you need your ID and then your doctor can see your full health history. We start demanding that people take care of themselves and reward those who eat right, exercise, etc. More to be defined in this area.
We have to cut federal spending. It is not rocket science to realize that we can't spend more than we take in and we can't keep taxing more and more. We have to make some hard decisions and stop doing some things at the federal level.
We bring more troops and military resources overseas home. Not everything, but we have a thoughtful analysis and discussion about what is needed balanced against what we can afford.
Change the National Anthem to America the Beautiful. The Star-Spangled Banner is too hard to sing.

Bursts

2010-09-24T19:05:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite books from several years ago was Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszio Barbasi. It came out around the time everyone was talking about six degrees of separation between any two people on the planet which was a fascinating concept to me. There was another book called Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age which was similar but I liked Linked better.

Barbasi has come out with a new book which I just finished called Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do. It addresses the idea that throughout nature and in our behavior we tend to do things in bursts and not in a smooth, continuous fashion or in a truly random fashion. The way we process email is an example where we may sit down and respond to 20 emails and delete 10 others but then we walk away and do no email for hours or days.

In my own life I can see that some weekends are lazy and I do nothing or nearly nothing and other weekends I'm superman and do an extraordinary amount of work and accomplish a lot. The later doesn't happen very frequently. If you took an average of accomplishments per weekend you'd see some non-zero level of accomplishment but the variance from Saturday to Saturday is large. This reminds me of the writings about getting into your zone and doing amazing amounts of work in a short amount of time.

The author talks about how this relates to search, as an example, where in some situations searching for something is more efficient when you look around and area and then jump to a new area and look around that area. You take bigger steps in some cases and that the combination of searching an area and then jumping (burst) to another can yield a more effective search.

This idea of things happening in bursts is evident throughout nature and there are many interesting examples in the book.

The Good Soldiers

2010-09-16T19:44:00.001-05:00

I've been reading the book The Good Soldiers these past few days. It is the story of one group of soldiers based in a rather bad part of Iraq and their day-to-day experiences. Each chapter starts with a quote from President Bush about how well things are going in Iraq and then the chapter tells of how things are really going in their unit in the same day or week.

I'm about 2/3s of the way done and wanted to make a couple of points. First, I certainly recommend the book to anyone who might want to better understand what is really going on the ground in Iraq during this time period (the Surge). This tells the story that you simply could not pick up from the nightly news or from any print sources that I saw. Second, the book really gets into how the soldiers felt and thought and how they dealt with the irrationality and strain of the situation they experienced while on tour. It reinforces to anyone who reads, how much any nation should appreciate their men and women who go in harm's way. Third, the book also helps me better understand how bold policy statements and lofty goals of politicians and statesmen are frequently carried out by young men and women on the ground who pay the price for those goals and dreams. And the price is high.

No nation should commit soldiers or anyone to an effort without carefully weighing the cost.

And thank you to those who serve.

Why Things Are The Way They Area

2010-08-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

I read books on all kinds of subjects and I just wrapped up the book Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) by Cox and Forshaw. Having an Electrical Engineering background and having gone through a bit of mathematics and physics back when I was smarter (long ago) I couldn't resist the title and went for it.

This is an easy to read and understand (remember I have a Ph.D in EE) book on relativity, energy, matter and gravity and I found it to be most enjoyable. If you are at all interested in these subjects and don't want to wade through lots of math, I recommend the book.

Now if somebody could just tie general relativity with quantum theory into a nice unified bundle of how everything works and put that in an equivalent book, that would be nice.

The New Good Life and Similar

2010-08-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

I've been reading the book The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less on my Kindle these past few days. (Thanks for the recommendation Lori). I've seen several books like this in the past and some of them are quite good. In this economic climate and time there is a real need for the ideas here.

I liked the ideas in the book and agree with all his main points. However, the extreme living that he demonstrated was pretty far out there and hard to relate to for me and I think for most people. In fact, it can sour the message because most aren't going to do the things outlined in the book. The ideas were right, but the execution was extreme.

This reminded me a great book I read a few years ago about diet and its relation to health (Ultraprevention: The 6-Week Plan That Will Make You Healthy for Life). There were lots of great points and connections but at the end where the author told us what to do, it was so extreme that it was not really possible to execute. I ended up being frustrated by it.

Or how about those P whatever exercise DVDs that are on TV. How many people really do all that? I'm sure some do and I'm sure that it is great help and benefit to those who go the whole distance with it. I would suspect most play one DVD and after a day or two or maybe a week, they are done.

I have to say something about all of this since it applies at the individual, family, city, state, nation level. It all comes down to a few simple ideas.

Faith, Family and Friends. Hold onto your Faith. Keep Family Close. Cultivate Great Friends.
Live Within Your Means.
Keep Everything As Simple As Possible.

There are not guarantees and life is not fair. People get sick. Jobs are lost. Across a lifetime, there are easy times and hard times. If we can just live with these principles the road is likely to be easier.

La Sagrada Familia

2010-08-20T18:50:00.010-05:00

This month, the family and I had the great opportunity to do some travel in Europe and we began our travels in Barcelona, Spain. I have to say that I found Barcelona to be an unexpected surprise. It was alive, vibrant and full of life on every street. Shopping, cafes, museums, the Mediterranean port, culture and food. I was very taken by the city and found it to be one of the best places I've visited and I hope to go back sometime when I have more time. It is alive much like New York City.

I had always wanted to visit the La Sagrada Familia as I've seen pictures and heard the music from long ago by Alan Parsons Project. We heard that the best way to visit was to buy tickets in advance which we did and as result, we were literally the first people into the structure the morning we visited. When we walked in, we were the only visitors there for a few brief minutes. We were also the first up the elevator that allows visitors to ascend the towers for a look across Barcelona. What a delight. I could have sat there for hours and just soaked up overwhelming size and magnitude of the project and building.

What an enormous effort by those who are moving this forward. It is said that it might be another 40 years before it is done and it began in the late 1800s. There are pictures of it in its early stages so you can watch the story of this construction unfold over time.

Here are a few pictures from our visit.

A view from outside

Inside Looking Up

Another Inside Looking Up

Close Up

I listened to Alan Parsons Project 'La Sagrada Familia' while I walked around inside the 'La Sagrada Familia itself. A friend (John) commented that doing such was very Inception like which I thought was funny.

I found a great book on the building which includes the story of its construction and its history and of course all about Antoni Gaudi who is the famed architect. The book is called The Expiatory Temple of La Sagrada Familia. It is currently out of stock at Amazon.

Antoni Gaudi has work all across the region and much of it is amazing.

Related, there is a great museum of Picasso work in Barcelona. You can see his early work and the evolution of his painting style. Early works look like a child's paint by number, but then it quickly looks much better. There are also sketches and drafts that then lead up to a final painting. Very interesting and a visit is definitely recommended.

Barcelona is a great city.

Been Absent

2010-08-18T17:48:00.000-05:00

Sorry. I've been absent for a while. July and August have been very hectic. I've got lots to write about and will post soon.

Write a Good Story

2010-06-19T19:29:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Donald Miller's new book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and I have to say it is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long time. I just keep thinking about the ideas in the book and I've already told several about it. I have to speak at a symposium in a few weeks and I've already decided that I'm going to talk about the book there too. Recall that Miller wrote Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What.

The story is about Miller having to write the story of his own life and in the process, he is forced to think about what is a good story and what makes a great life. He realizes that most people live boring lives that aren't very interesting. We spend our time in front of the television watching re-runs and after a lifetime, we find we've spent a lifetime in front of the tv instead of out 'living.' Image at the end of your life your top accomplishment having been to not miss a single episode of Lost.

I recalled a quote from Eugene Peterson and Run With the Horses that was in a church bulletin that I cut out years ago:

The puzzle is why so many people live so badly. Not so wickedly but so inanely. Not so cruelly but so stupidly. There's little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insominaiacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. Aimless and bored, people amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets the headlines.

The message is that we get to write our own story. We can choose to help those around us, go on an adventure, learn a new language, get to know those around us (neighbors?) and make a difference in this world. We are the authors of what we do in this world. Don't waste it. Write a good story.

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament is about this too and Miller ties his thoughts to that book too. There is a great, one-line summary of Ecclesiastes in Miller's book.

I heartily recommend this one. I liked it so much I might go back and re-read his other books.

Write a good story.

A Long and Big Tail

2010-06-11T20:35:00.002-05:00

I mentioned in the last post that I was reading a book called The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land because I wanted to understand that period of world history better. There is much that could be said about that time period and the book, but I wanted to make a point. One can never know at the time, what impact their actions or words might have over the following months, years, decades and centuries. Actions on a single day and actions by a single person can ripple through history.

As part of the first crusades, in July of 1099 the Latin's broke through the defenses of Jerusalem and proceeded to kill a large number of the inhabitants of the city. The Muslims and Jews and anyone else who was inside the city walls were killed on that day. Historical accounts range from 70,000 killed to perhaps as few as 3,000. In any case, all agree that the killings that followed were barbaric and that men, women and children were killed. That day, and those events still echo through history with the word crusades having a terrible meaning in parts of the world. The books points out that the impact of the events didn't seem as large at that time, but they've become larger over time.

I can't begin to understand the rationale for such terrible behavior yet there are plenty of examples of such actions by both sides throughout those years and throughout history. Similarly good events have echoed when someone develops a vaccine to prevent millions from dying or someone stands in the gap and brokers peace between individuals or countries.

As mentioned recently, I was re-reading The Shack and lifted a quote from that book that relates.

Every action we take changes everything that follows.

Rewriting History

2010-05-28T19:25:00.001-05:00

I wonder how much of the history we remember is faulty and in some cases, based on fictional works that are only loosely tied to history? I saw the Robin Hood movie a few weeks ago and it is prequel to the 'story of Robin Hood' that we remember. However, that story that we remember is likely based on another movie like the Errol Flynn movie called The Adventures of Robin Hood. Your version of Robin Hood might be based on something different.

Both movies have completely different views of King Richard the Lionheart. So now I go to another authoritative source to find the true answer. Wikipedia. Perhaps somewhere in all of this is the truth. Perhaps.

Another movie from a few years ago called Kingdom of Heaven is about the crusades in and around Jerusalem in the 12th century. I like this movie but it is just a movie. It does seem to paint a slightly biased picture however because it seems to paint characters in a fashion that are needed for a good movie. Because this part of human history is so impactful on us today and my knowledge of it is so incomplete I'm now reading a book called The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. Perhaps this is historically accurate? It does reference many accounts from the era.

How much time goes by before our collective memory of history fades? Does the nightly news even report a true and 'fair and balanced' view of what happens today?

For an historically accurate report or writing or version, it would seem that it must have many contemporaries who believed it to be true. It should include eyewitnesses who saw the events themselves or perhaps just one generation removed. It has to make sense in context of what happens from the events afterward. There is much to consider here.

Books Read

2010-04-17T18:52:00.000-05:00

OK, I've neglected my book list on the right side of the blog for a long time. I briefly worked with Goodreads and actually like that site, but I couldn't make it work for me in the same easy fashion as just creating a list as I read books. So, I've updated the list on the right with probably 25 books read since the last update. I'll be updating that list going forward. Let me know if read any of these and like or dislike them.

How Old Would You Be If You Didn't Know How Old You Are?

2010-04-12T19:39:00.000-05:00

Interesting question. There was an episode of JAG years ago with Ernest Borgnine where someone asked his character what it felt like to be old (80 I think was the age in the show, but can't recall). He replied that it feels the same as 70, the same as 60, the same as 50, etc. In your head, you still feel like you are in your 20s. I think this is very true and perhaps you start being old when you start thinking of your age as old? Not sure on this. I do know that you might still think you are younger, but your bones, muscles, etc. are telling you otherwise. Perhaps that noise gets louder and louder?

Take a look at this great site with 25 Illustrated Thought Provoking Questions.

Acedia

2010-04-06T19:17:00.000-05:00

This article on thinking bad thoughts really fascinated me. I think this is much truth in this and we are almost numb to in in society today. We see the huge problems on hunger around the world and extreme poverty and we see political juggernauts creeping forward on things we don't agree with and we see wars fought around the world and we just go numb. We just are paralyzed and can't think about the issues and we can't act to improve the situation.

I've not read her book but I think I just might.

Happiness Project

2010-03-19T21:05:00.000-05:00

Check out the Happiness Project. Haven't read the book, but I might.

Positive Thinking

2010-03-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

I was thinking some about positive thinking and about its effect on the workplace. I've seen teams take on hard projects in a positive fashion and then plowed through successfully. One can't just think positive to solve all problems, but when tackling difficult tasks in life, thinking positive can have a 'positive' effect.

Consider the following quote:

Successful Thinking is a Mindset possessed by some of the greatest athletes, politicians and business people in history and modern day times. Some examples of successful thinking and positive mindset that come to mind are Donald Trump, who has been bankrupt three times, and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.

Successful people act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Successful people often find themselves in situations where risk and uncertainty is hanging over them and if they were to take on a negative mindset then failure would rear its ugly head. Instead high achievers embrace risk and uncertainty in difficult situations and keep a positive outlook. Nine times out of 10 usually end up with the results that they had in mind all along.

Positive attitude is extremely important, as it encourages individuals to approach each day, and each problem, with a bright outlook. In a team environment, a positive attitude encourages a team to work together with individual styles and personalities. Positive attitude is not only about choosing to have a good outlook through good times and bad, but also about learning to love what you do. I have observed that outstanding business people are successful because they deeply love their work.

This can be found in this article on positive thinking which is reference in this article on Enterprise 2.0 which is one of my favorite topics at work these days. I love to talk about how we collaborate better together to accomplish more things easier with less friction.

Broken Legal System

2010-03-02T19:59:00.001-06:00

Sure like this video from the most recent TED conference.

Shack Again

2010-02-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

I re-read The Shack on the plane this past week. It is nice having a Kindle where you can go back and read something again or find something again.

I love this quote:

...if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen ... nothing will ever be the same again.

This is a pretty amazing book.

Thoughts to Consider Today

2010-01-23T18:58:00.001-06:00

Conan said Friday night on his last show, "If you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I've already heard it repeated 2-3 times and here it is already posted on a web site (and this one). Great thought.

The kindness thought has been a repeated theme here and here.

Somewhat related, I want to recommend Seth Godins new book called what matters now which you can download for free. The book consists of a bunch of short, one page essays on different things to think about now. The one on Harmony by Jack Covert and Sally Haldorson relates where it says:

Harmony takes bravery, an open heart. It takes lying awake at night when one of your co-workers is having a rough patch and dreaming up ways to help.

The book is recommended. Thanks Saqib for sending me a copy.

What is Missing

2010-01-17T22:18:00.001-06:00

I was thinking about what we don't know about a story when someone tells us something. How often do we think we fully know what happened, or what a person is doing, or what a person is thinking, when really all we have is one persons perspective on a story and even that is filtered by what they tell us. Nobody other than yourself, and even that is questionable, can tell your story. How can someone tell someone else's story? Even when you tell your story, you leave out details and facts that you either don't want to reveal or leave out because you don't think they are relevant. You may not even know your own self.

Just think about the national news and what we hear as fact but really is just a reporter's perspective or bias. Or think about the gossip you hear from friends, or overhear from others, that may not contain 15% of the true story.

Next time you tell a story about something or someone, think about this. Next time you overhear a story, remember this. Next time someone tells you a story, think about what is not being said.

Most people mean well. Most people don't want to hurt. Don't assume they want to hurt or mean you ill. Perhaps we should all assume the best in people and suffer a few disappointments instead of assuming the worst.

Checklists

2010-01-10T15:24:00.002-06:00

Thought I'd connect the dots and point to a book recommendation I made on my other blog because I had earlier recommended this same author on this blog. Just FYI.

I've had three people recently and two just today say they saw the recommendation, bought the book and really liked it. One bought copies for people at work.

2010

2010-01-01T07:47:00.000-06:00

Weren't we supposed to be flying to Jupiter by 2010? I see that this movie is on tonight so I think I'll watch it to see what is going to happen this year.

Last night during the New Year's celebration in New York, they kept referring to the Y2K events of 10 years ago. It is hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since that time. I was the CIO at my company in the year leading up to that time and we did an enormous amount of work to prepare for the transition. However, I remember my CEO asking me two months before the turn of the century what I thought was going to happen and I told him it was going to be a non-event. Tada. It was a non-event.

Happy New Year to all.

A Bit of Patriotism

2009-12-14T21:14:00.000-06:00

Greg Green sent this to me and others last week. I thought it was pretty good and wanted to share it here. Take a look.

Direction and 50 Things

2009-11-21T10:59:00.000-06:00

OK, this post is really just going to point you to some other posts. Perhaps that is lame, but when I find things that look interesting, I want to collect them here (and in Evernote).

My dear friend Silas Shotwell just posted on his blog about the importance of having destinations in your life. If you have a destination in mind, then you can not what to pack and what to leave behind. It is a really great post. Please stop by and read.

Also, I came across another post this past week that attempted to distill the relevant points from lots of books and blog posts that the author had seen over the years. Another really great list of 50 Things Successful People Have in Common.

Over the last few weeks, I've found of lots of good nuggets along the way. I'll probably post a few more in the coming days. Hope these are of some value to you.

Comments always welcome.

Evernote

2009-11-15T10:02:00.000-06:00

If you use a smart phone or work between different desktops and laptops, you simply must look at Evernote. Highly recommend. I found it on the iPhone and I use it to sync between windows, mac and the iPhone.

I use it to capture great articles I find, save important emails I want to remember for a long time, keep stories that people pass along (which I mentioned earlier) and generally use it as a repository for lots of things.

Ok, this was a commercial, but it was for a great product.

Culture at Work

2009-11-13T18:56:00.000-06:00

Very good material on how Netflix thinks about its people. I really like a lot of the thoughts in this material. About culture and the importance of getting the very best people working on their problems. I really liked the concept that if you are just an average contributor, then perhaps it is time to move on somewhere else. Something to think hard about.

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

Baggage We Carry

2009-11-10T18:39:00.000-06:00

I've come to the realization that we all are carrying baggage around form hurts in our past. In some cases, it is bad stuff involving betrayal of a relationship or physical harm. Other times, it is lost opportunity and regret about things not done. Sometimes family or loved ones and sometimes work or others. We all have them. Regrets, pain, loss, frustration, etc.

I think that if we realized each other was carrying around these hurts, all of us, that we might connect with each other differently. We might be a little slower to hurt or ignore. We might be a little quicker to look a person in the eye and give a hug. It ties back to the Plato quote of earlier.

I know friends who have lost loved ones through divorce and betrayal. I spoke to a minister once about betrayal and told him that perhaps, just perhaps, that might be the worst of offenses between people.

Little Rules of Action

2009-11-09T17:35:00.000-06:00

I stumbled across this site recently and I thought it was a really good list of things to think about around the topic of getting things done. These simple rules are a good list to reflect upon from time to time. I've pasted this into my notes system on my iPhone.

Little Rules of Action

GoodReads

2009-10-27T21:13:00.001-05:00

I'm trying out the Goodreads application for tracking books that I'm reading. I've used one of their widgets on the right side of the page to show a montage (great word) of the books I've read. I've put in some of the recent ones and some I could remember. If this seems to work well over time, I might drop the list further down the page Let me know what you think about this approach.

You can get to my read shelf with the following banner:

The books are not loaded in the order read but if I stick with this, they will correct going forward.

You Should Quit Your Job?

2009-10-25T13:27:00.002-05:00

This is a really great and short video of things to think about if considering a job change.

You can read more about his post here.

New Ipod, Better Sound?

2009-10-24T13:26:00.002-05:00

I got a new Ipod this week and discovered that the sound was significantly better than the one I've been using the last few years. You see, my prior Ipod Nano made a trip through the washing machine a couple of years ago and after an extended period of drying, it seemed to work. I think I might have discovered today that it wasn't working as well as I guessed. I've also discovered that my hearing is not that good when I'm doing a walk early in the morning...

Been Traveling

2009-10-24T13:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I've been gone for a while. Lots going on. Lots to write about in the next few days. Lots of new books to discuss. Stay tuned.

Be Kind

2009-10-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

Sure like this quote. Just found it.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato

I wrote about kindness earlier.

Krakatoa

2009-10-06T19:21:00.001-05:00

Just finished reading about the explosion of Krakatoa in the book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Over 36,000 people died in the explosion and the resulting tsunami.

This island exploded and blew 5-6 cubic miles of rock/dirt into the air. The island disappeared after the explosion and it is said that the sound wave traveled around the world 5-6 times. It was heard by people over 1500 miles away. Some think of it as the loudest sound heard in modern times. This part of the world has many active volancos and is probably the hot spot for this kind of activity and risk.

One part of the book tells of stories of large eruptions there in prior years 416 AD, 535 AD and 1680 AD and probably other times. Today, the island has reappeared and it is growing taller by 5 inches per week. I wonder if this might happen again?

There are lots of interesting things in the book about plate tetonics, the connection of remote sites via telegraph, the spread of Islam, and colonial life in the 1800s.

Thanks to Pat for recommending it.

Sociopath Next Door

2009-09-27T14:01:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading the book The Sociopath Next Door where it was stated that approximately 4 in 100 people are likely to be sociopaths. The definition of a sociopath is one that has little regard for the well being of others. The book makes that point that they do not have a conscience. The book outlines 13 rules for dealing with sociopaths in everyday life. Some of those rules are:

accept that some people have no conscience.
when considering a new relationship of any kind, practice the Rule of Three regarding the claims and promises a person makes, and the responsibilities he or she has. Make the Rule of Three your personal policy. One lie, one broken promise, or a single neglected responsibility may be an misunderstanding instead. Two may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you're dealing with a liar, and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior. Cut your losses and get out as soon as you can.
suspect flattery.
do not join the game.
question your tendency to pity too easily.
never agree, out of pity or for any other reason, to help a sociopath conceal his or her true character.

If the book's claim that 1 in 25 people are like this, then it seems wise to understand these issues, behaviors and signs. The book is interesting.

New Blog

2009-09-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

OK folks, I'm dropping all the tech and IT topics off this blog as I've started a new one on Wordpress. I'm definitely keeping this one to write of personal things. If you are interested in the new blog, I'll post a link somewhere on this page, once I press publish on the other blog.

I'm splitting because I find it weird to write about technical things and other topics in the same forum. So this one will be about life, family, community, faith, fun, etc.

I find the same problem with Twitter. Do you publish personal things and business things on one twitter account?

Of course, I should point out that I'm now actively working three blogs. This one, the new one and the one I do at work where I write 2-3-4 times per week. I guess I like to write.

Clever People

2009-09-15T18:17:00.002-05:00

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away when I was a young engineer starting out in the software business, I learned and understood that the really great programmers were as much as 10x better than good programmers. There were certain people that I met along the way who were just that much better. They were the ones you went to with hard problems or to ask questions about how to do this or that to get your own job done. Gary and Jeff were early ones that I knew. Since then, I've met others in other professions who were that much better than others in the same field.

The book Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People is about these people, these teams and these organizations. Individuals and groups who are simply that much better than their peers and who deliver better results more often.

There are great points in here about people having become more global and truly clever individuals are going to move to find the best things to do in the best locations. "Global is the standard" and in my line of business where I work with people around the world, I know this is true. Retention is now the key in HR. The book identifies nine characteristics of these people:

Their cleverness is central to their identity.
Their skills are not easily replicated.
They know their worth.
They ask difficult questions.
They are organizationally savvy.
They are not easily impressed by corporate hierarchy.
The expect instant access.
They want to be connected to other clever people and
They won't thank you.

The book talks about how to lead these people with more guidance and trust rather than giving orders. You want to point these people in the right direction. One quote in the book is "My own philosophy to lead people that are smarter than me is to find ways for them to be more productive in what they want to do." It is about reducing friction in the workplace for the clever folks and everyone else. Better collaboration tools play a role here in my opinion.

The book talks about teams that didn't work and things that cause these individuals and teams to fail too.

If you are interested in this topic and looking to improve the workplace, this is a good book to read. Recommended.

Collaboration - Getting Conversations Going

2009-09-07T14:11:00.005-05:00

I've written many times here, and on my company blog, about collaboration topics. We can talk about tools all day long, but at the end of the day, better collaboration is about getting conversations started between people and groups, and about sustaining them in a productive and efficient manner. That is it. Getting people to talk about what works and what doesn't work. Getting teams talking to one another. Getting the group to see the problems. Getting all the brains working on the problems or opportunities, i.e. getting the wisdom of the crowd to have the team work together to solve whatever needs to be solved.

That is it. How do we get more brains working on a problem and thinking about how to move forward. Whether you are in a school setting working on a team project or in a company setting trying to develop a new product, the key is getting all the minds aligned and working on the goal.

If there are tools that help us do that better, like wikis and other Enterprise 2.0 ideas, then so much the better. Ultimately, those are going to be common, foundational ideas that all companies and groups will use. Everybody is not there yet, but everybody will be there one day. These tools and ideas get teams moving faster and better on the problems at hand. Less friction and overhead than alternatives and old ways.

We do goal alignment at work starting with the CEO and his staff with everyone aligning goals from there. That is a nice start, but it doesn't quite get there. Team collaboration is closer to what we need to do better.

Comments welcome.

Electronic Security

2009-08-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to highlight a web site run by McAfee that has a series of very educational videos on the need to be smart on the internet and the need to protect your computer resources. Please take some time and watch through the videos to get educated. I'm sure there are other great resources out there, but these videos are short, well done and very informative.

The videos are at http://www.stophcommerce.com/

It is a big, beautiful Universe out there. Some Designer...

2009-08-25T20:22:00.007-05:00

I recently came across this video on YouTube which talked about the Hubble Ultra Deep Field view into a dark corner of the sky. Very amazing. Follow the link above to view the video. It is bigger than will fit on this page so I had to put a link instead of embedding it here.

You know, it is a big universe out there. It is hard to get your mind around it. Years ago I saw a book in a bookstore that zoomed in by powers of 10 to the size of an atom and then zoomed up by powers of 10 to look out into space. There is a video of that now and you can see it below.

I'll just tell you what I think. I believe there is a God out there and he spoke this all into existence. There is a design. There is a purpose. There is a direction.

I respect that some think differently. It seems to me that the alternative requires faith too.

Life is measured...

2009-08-22T13:46:00.000-05:00

Attributed to George Carlin at the occasion of his wife's funeral. I've seen this before and it is posted around on the internet, but I liked it and thought I'd post it again here.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, ‘ I love you ‘ to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

-George Carlin

May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008

Three Minutes Late

2009-08-20T18:31:00.001-05:00

For some reason, every one of my meetings the last two days have had people show up or dial in 3 minutes late. My computer has its time set to an atomic clock buried under a mountain somewhere so it is not possible that I'm early by three minutes. So there must be another reason.

I'm actually in an alternate universe that is running ahead of everyone by three minutes and the atomic clock my computer syncs with is in my universe.
Gravity is lighter where I'm located and as a result the clock is moving faster than elsewhere? (not likely to affect my computer, but who really knows what might happen if gravity were different in my office.) But if it is moving faster, wouldn't it keep getting faster and 3 minutes would be come 4 minutes which would become 5 minutes, etc.
Everyone is running three minutes late. (everyone?)
It is an organized, large-scale conspiracy to upset my calendar.
other?

If you are seeing the same phenomenon, let me know as we might be able to detect a pattern.

Ignite

2009-08-11T18:20:00.003-05:00

Stumbled across this recently about a series of meetings called Ignite where speakers are given 5 minutes to tell their story. There is a good YouTube video about the purpose and how to do this and a YouTube channel with lots of the presentations available to view.

I've talked about storytelling before and I find that a skill that I need to master. Well, here is the ultimate, compact, on-the-stage storytelling challenge. We all have stories and as the how-to video above shows, there are different ways to frame our stories.

I like this idea because:

It forces you pull your thoughts together into a short version. No rambling allowed.
It forces you to rationalize your slides. No time for wasted, nonsense in Powerpoint.
And it forces you to think about what is your story? Do you have a story?

This is a cool idea. I'd love to go see one of these and perhaps try out one. Take a look at a few of the videos above. I looked at the one on Restoring the Archimedes Palimpsest.

If you have a faith story, can you tell it in 5 minutes? If you have some cause, can you tell someone about it in 5 minutes?

Let me know what you think about this.

Its a Big World Out There and Lots of People In It

2009-08-09T12:54:00.005-05:00

I just got back from a trip to Asia. Flew from the US through Tokyo (Narita actually) to Singapore where I spent almost a week. I did a day trip to Penang, Malaysia on Thursday. Good food everywhere!

When I flew home, I left the hotel in Singapore at 5 AM (or 4 PM CDT). I arrived in OKC at about 11 PM the next day. Total wall time was 24 + 7 = 31 hours in transit. There was a 6+ hour trip from Singapore to Tokyo, followed by a 9+ hour trip to Tokyo to LA, followed by a 2 hour trip to Denver then an hour trip from Denver to OKC. With the corresponding 2-3 hour layovers everywhere. All adds up to 31 hours in transit. I was a bit tired and ready for a shower. I think I watched the new Star Trek movie 5-6 times on the planes.

It is a big world out there. Lots of people heading lots of different directions and all with a story. I had a story as I walked through the airport in Tokyo and so did everyone who was around me. I passed people I'll never see again.

I try really hard to be nice while traveling because travel is so stressful anyway. I try to say thanks to the stewards on the planes and to the people in the restaurants and to the folks I meet on the streets. Just smile and say hi. One never knows how such might ripple and have an effect somewhere else, even in another country as travelers pass by. Be a light in the darkness in a simple way. Say a prayer for someone who seems to be in distress or smile and perhaps lend a hand to an exhausted mom who is traveling with two toddlers.

We should be a light all the time. It is hard sometimes because our own lights might be out. However, we should try. The world would be a better place I think. Light a Candle.

PS. I should add that I really love the folks in Singapore and Malaysia (and Thailand and China) that I get to see from time to time. Really great folks. I'm sorry I can't get there more often. I have a job that lets me connect with people in Asia and Europe and it has been a real blessing for me and my family.

Thanks to the California Pizza Kitchen Manager in Singapore

2009-08-02T14:23:00.005-05:00

I went to California Pizza Kitchen last night for dinner. Had a great Pepperoni pizza. Quiet setting. Very nice.

The check came and I realized I had left my wallet back in the hotel room. Not a dollar in my pocket. Now I'm in Singapore basically by myself this weekend. Friends are around town, but I'm not sure who might be reachable. I don't think this has ever happened to me before. I did lose my car keys once in an amusement part in MO, but that is another story.

So asked to speak to the manager. He came over and I told him I had left my wallet at the hotel. I had my passport and a mobile phone and nothing else. I asked him if I could leave my passport with him while I go get my wallet to pay. He looked at me and said don't worry about it. Finish your dinner ( wasn't quite done), relax and then get it afterwards. I couldn't believe it. And I was relieved. He said it happens more often than I would probably think.

I was there a few minutes then I just go up and left and hurried back to the hotel. I didn't have to leave my passport or anything. Got my wallet and immediately returned and asked for the manager again. He had the bill which I paid. No hassles.

Talk about a possible bad situation being in a foreign country and not having your wallet to pay for dinner. However, he was great about it.

So thanks to the manager at California Pizza in Singapore on Orchard Road for trusting me.

Celebrating

2009-07-20T12:24:00.000-05:00

I went to two funerals this past week. Monday and Tuesday at 2pm both days. One was for Tom Boker and the other was for Bob Tucker. Both funerals had hundreds of attendees. The line to visit with the Boker's lasted for over an hour, just to cycle through and shake hands or give a hug. After the other funeral, there was a similar time for the families and visitors to mingle. Both were good men and both have good families. They will be missed.

The time to celebrate good people is not when they die however. The time to celebrate is when they are alive. When we are alive. Look for opportunities to hug someone around you. Tell someone you appreciate them ( or Love them ). Write a note to someone today. Invite some friends over for dinner. Go to a ball game with friends.

This past weekend, I spent two days with my son in a class. We had a great time. He is excited about what we did and I am too. I look forward to spending time with him on this going forward. THAT was a great use of two days.

Hope you are having a great day.

Comments welcome.

Presentation Success

2009-07-16T18:01:00.001-05:00

I recently sat through a really long presentation. The presentation was full of ideas for change and lots of passion for those ideas, but as it ended, I couldn’t tell you the key themes that were being presented. I couldn’t make an outline of what I just heard. I couldn’t remember most of the key points. The presentation included lots of slides too. Clearly it had been carefully prepared and a huge amount of effort had gone into preparation for this audience. However, it didn’t work for me at all.

Now through the whole presentation, I agreed with the points. I thought it was right on. However, at the end, I couldn’t have reconstructed the presenter’s story at all. Only that change was needed.

I’ve read a lot of material on presentations. I loved most of the points in Edward R Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. I’ve also read Presentaiton Zen by Garr Reynolds and Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson. There is a hilarious YouTube video about PowerPoint Presentations from comedian Don McMillan that must be watched.

I have a style that I use in my presentations that I think works for me. It agrees with many of the ideas in the resources above, but is different in some ways. I tend to put a lot of material on every page and that is one of the key differences from the above ideas which seem to suggest that less is better. I tend to disagree, but none the less, here are my thoughts on how to do a great presentation.

1. Tell a story. You've got to tell a story that the audience can connect with. I've come to believe this a lot more lately and in fact, I'm looking for some great resources on telling stories.
2. Don't use presentation gimmicks. Dumb clipart, sound effects, fly ins, etc. are all distractions from the story.
3. Relate to the audience. Consider their perspective and needs. Solve a problem for them. Get them to invest.
4. Look professional with your slides. Consistent format, no spelling errors (hope there are none here), consistent alignment, fonts, etc.
5. Be Well Prepared. You should know more about your topic than anyone else in the room. By a factor of 50. He who prepares the most wins.

That is pretty much it. Oh, and I saw an amazing new presentation tool that you've got to see.

Comments welcome.

Better

2009-07-03T16:00:00.001-05:00

A friend at work recommend the book Better to me a while back and I finally got to it this weekend (the book queue is deep here). The book is written by Atul Gawande a surgeon and he provides some interesting insights into how the medical profession and particular parts of medicine have gotten better or are getting better.

The first part of the book talks about surgery in military hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. The key insight is that despite being understaffed and overwhelmed with work, the surgeons and teams are fanatical about measuring everything in order to spot trends and in order to find out what works and where things aren't working.

Later in the book, there is some great material on obstetrics and how they have had a richer tendency over the years to try new things in order to improve their Apgar scores. Once Virginia Apgar invented the scoring systems to measure the health of a newborn and it was widely adopted, doctors and hospitals immediately began tracking the scores and find ways to improve the scores. Things that led to improvement were adopted and things that didn't help were discarded. A measurement system was in place, a simple one, and the players in the field learned and got better as a result. A great line is attributed to her in the book, "Do what is right and do it now."

The Apgar effect wasn't just a matter of giving clinicians a quick objective read of how they had done. The score also changed the choices they made about how to do better.

Another section is on Cystic Fibrosis and "how the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has gathered detailed data form the country's cystic fibrosis centers." LeRoy Matthews in Cleveland in the 1960s claimed to have better results than others were achieving and once measurements were done, he was proven right. Furthermore, his improvement continued going forward and fortunately, his methods and better methods from others were spread elsewhere. Again, measurements are made and better practices surface. Care for CF afflicted patients improved.

The chapter on CF also talks about the 'bell curve' of medicine and there are always going to be better and worse doctors/surgeons/hospitals, etc. Interesting reading.

Where I work, we've used the Six Sigma methods to improve our processes in manufacturing, IT, HR and elsewhere. The overall process consists of the steps: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. One has to define the problem, but then measurements are critical. You can't improve something you don't measure. Whatever your problems in whatever line of work you do, measurements are key to getting better.

The author closes the book with 5 suggestion that might make a difference. How to become a positive deviant. They are:

Ask an unscripted questions. In medicine or anywhere, talk to people. Connect with the people around you.
Don't Complain. "Resist it. It's boring, it doesn't solve anything, and it will get you down."
Count something. "be a scientist... If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting."
Write something. "add some small observation about your world.... make yourself part of a larger world."
Change. Do something different. Follow a new idea.

I really liked this book. Perhaps more than many I've read recently. Recommended for anyone, whether in medicine or not. I'd like to meet the author someday.

Thanks Fred Bross for recommending it to me.

Reunion

2009-07-02T14:50:00.000-05:00

I just had the opportunity to go to my high school's reunion. Now I don't want to exactly date myself so let's just say it was between the 70th anniversary and the 5th anniversary. It was, however, long enough that a lot of showmanship that is apparent in early reunions was pretty much gone. People where there just being themselves and generally glad to see one another.

I wasn't sure I was going to go, but couple of friends contacted me and since I live in the town where the reunion was happening, I couldn't really not show up. Especially since I had a friend flying in from North Carolina to attend. I offered that friend a ride to the reunion and he declined because I think he, like me, wanted maximum flexibility to leave (or no show?).

I should also add that I had been having fun on facebook and twitter with the reunion and all the extravagant lengths I was going to in order to be ready for the reunion. Like working out in the gym for 20,000 hours or whether or not I should reveal that I was a brain surgeon and a double naught spy.

At the reunion, people were really glad to see one another. It seemed that in many cases, you didn't recognize people at first glance, but once you saw a name and looked again, it was obvious. Once the evening got started, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people that I've not seen in a long time. There were several folks that I probably talked to more at the reunion than I did in high school!

In any case, here are my reunion thoughts:

If your school is having one, go. Everybody is nervous about it. Go anyway.
Have fun and smile. Be genuinely glad to see people. Remember, everyone is nervous.
Listen to their stories. Everyone has a story.
Do connect up with people again. Get their email address or connect on facebook. You never know. It was always better to be in touch than out of touch.

Life is short. Enjoy the ride. Have some fun.

Celebrity Overdone

2009-06-28T13:32:00.005-05:00

Seems like we are over doing it on the death of Michael Jackson. I liked the guys music (two decades ago?) but really, do we need to have breaking news stories, have helicopters flying over the hospital and his home, track down his doctors, review his finances, see all his pictures, see his videos, track his surgeries, discuss all his siblings and generally act like the most important person on the planet has died? In fact, we overdo on Brad, Angelina, Kobe, Lebron, and most everyone in the media spotlight.

At church, we honor the couples who have been blessed with 50 years of marriage. Wow.

I think I'd rather honor people who have set a good example, who have worked for their community and who have given of themselves for others. Ultimately, they are the ones we need to honor.

See this and this.