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- September 13, 2006
Productivity via Keanu Reeves
September 13, 2006Read moreI had a MOST EXCELLENT insight about two movies featuring Keanu Reeves:
In Speed, the bus will explode if it drops below 50mph, and so it has to keep moving. This has some bearing on being focused in my day-to-day; I find I tend to lose focus when I get up and move to another part of the office or the house, because I’ll get drawn into something and then distracted. BOGUS! But I realized that if I made sure to keep my feet moving (literally!) I tended to not get stuck. The brilliant part: remembering to keep moving is much easier than remembering to keep focused. This is somewhat similar to the roomba productivity I was thinking about a few weeks ago.
In Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, one of their catch phrases is Be Excellent to Each Other and Party On, Dudes! I can’t help but think that ties into productivity somehow. For me, it captures the spirit of doing things for the right reasons.
- September 13, 2006
Ask Me a Random Question
September 13, 2006Read moreI recently was asked to come up with some ideas for an article or two. I was having trouble coming up with an idea to write about, because the writing space was too broad. Since just asking for random ideas seemed to work for The Bee Story, I thought I might see if lightning strikes twice and conduct a little experiment.
My Writing Process
SO…how to generate an article idea? For me, it comes down to identifying a few things I can “hook” my mind on.
- Find a research challenge, like learning how to do something, or teaching a best practice, or gathering data. My problem is that there are so many things I’m interested in, picking one is a pain in the butt.
Find a personal experience that somehow relates to the challenge. It could be that someone has made an observation or experienced something recently, and they tell me about it. That usually triggers a research avalanche on my part. It also helps if I know a little bit about the audience I’m writing to in terms of personality, life, and career experiences.
Find a tricky application that requires a bit of insight or sorting out. The more befuddling the issue, the better…I like trying to make clarity out of mud. I draw the line, though, at issues that come down to “belief”…I think people are entitled to their own beliefs (as I am to mine), so I focus topics that are debatable based on observation, experience, and verifiable events and facts.
More succinctly, this all might be expressed as the packaging of a set of thoughts to match a particular scenario comprised of INTEREST, EMPATHY, and SITUATION.
Making Up Assignments
Usually I write based on impulses I’m feeling at a given moment, never having thought of an article series or “editorial stance” that I might take. If I were to start an audience-driven editorial board, I might try implementing a process that looked something like this:- Submit a TOPIC OF INTEREST, and identify a SPECIFIC PART OF IT that has caught your interest. Explain that interest.
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Describe how that specific part of the topic of interest came to your attention, in the form of a brief narrative.
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Pose a question stemming from that interest, tied to some relevant aspect of your life, career, or philosophy.
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p>Anyone want to try this out? Submit your ideas in the comment areas. I’ll write up something based on submissions, if there are any. And if anyone else would like to write something based on the submissions, let me know and I’ll link to your post as part of the experiment.
- September 13, 2006
Story of the Day
September 13, 2006Read more
Ok, so The Printable CEO™ VI: Menu of the Day is completely NOT DOING IT for me. I’m glad I released it, but like its ordinal compatriot Star Trek VI, MotD has failed to live up to my expectations. It’s just not fun and useful enough, though it does look cool in places :-)
Not all is lost, though! The very act of putting myself through the process has given me an insight: the act of writing down what I was going to do is really the primary impetus behind a productive work day!
I know, I know, big duh! But I think getting to the point of tricking yourself into doing the writing is the ESSENTIAL SCAFFOLDING I have been looking for. So, what’s a fun way of doing that?
Well, I like writing stories! Hmm!
Storytelling has been on my mind a lot lately. I had also started writing a series that I called Storytelling By Design, trying to figure out the link between stories and business.The reason stories are on my mind? I think they’re what drives me as a designer. In other words, I think that design is a way to make stories, and that BEST design results in the BEST stories. In the retelling of our favorite stories, we are both inspired and educated; we also learn methodologies that can have a positive effect on our lives…empowering!
So the next form or tool, I believe, will provide scaffolding for creating that “opening story of the day”. If we can teach people how to write a good story for themselves in the context of their work, maybe that’s all the motivation that’s needed.
EDIT
I updated the picture to be more fun and story-like…the old one was kind of a stretch!
- September 12, 2006
My Favorite Website
September 12, 2006Read moreA buddy IM’d me just now, faced with the unenviable position of having to pick a favorite website out of zillions. I figured I would be just as screwed, but then something popped into my head, and I realized I truly did have a favorite!
It’s HybridWorks, the website of some kind of graphic design studio in Japan.
Why is it my favorite out of many more, um, useful and perhaps informative sites? Well…this is the site that has absolutely the most masterful use of color I’ve even seen online anywhere. There’s not one sour note, colorwise, that I’ve been able to find. I love the boldness of the illustration, and again the use of color gradients is simply outstanding. The artist or artists have a keen grasp of subtle color complements, accents, tone, proportion, and form. And if that isn’t enough, the interaction is crisp and to-the-point, well-sequenced, and mesmerizing to watch. The level of pixel craftsmanship is also very very high.
There are a lot of sites like that, so I think what puts it over the top for me is its baffling and mysterious nature. I find myself drawn into it in a way that is kind of hard to explain, so I’ll just give up and say I just like it unconditionally; that’s a rare and wonderful thing. The site may speak a secret language that only my innermost subconscious thoughts can understand. Take, for example, The iCorn Movie…what the heck is that about? Every time I watch it, though, I am a little bit changed for the better.
Weird!
- September 12, 2006
How Do You Start Your Day?
September 12, 2006Read moreSo I’m running through Menu of the Day and am realizing how out-of-touch I am with some of my process. There are some interesting things I’m already noticing:
- Schedule Grid is a convenient note-taking area…needs to be bigger. And the damn grid dots need to be aligned better! Some useful emergent task notation happens here too.
As an emergent PLANNING tool, though, this isn’t working for me. I ran right back to TextPad and made my simplified ToDo list. What’s interesting, though, is that the PROCESS was to list things I needed to do, group the related tasks together, then make a guess at how much time it would take to tackle is task group. The Schedule Grid, though, helps get a sense of the amount of time in ways I didn’t expect…cool!
The best way to execute this form, I’m increasingly thinking, is as a smart scheduler / outliner software tool, combining elements of a “thought processor” with tracking and reporting.
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p>Out of curiosity, I’m wondering if anyone out there is willing to share what they’re doing today in this post’s comment area, describing the steps taken to get the ball moving. I think everyone will find it interesting, and it might give me some insight into why this form isn’t working right. Thanks!
