About time. And product. And being more deliberate.
I bought a car last week. We’ve been looking for another one for some time and not been real happy with what’s available (anything under 20 mpg just seems irresponsible). My father-in-law has a fantastic, nearly 15 year old relationship with a dealership. He’s purchased every car I’ve ever seen him drive there. When Jen …
Continue reading “Even the Almost Perfect Customer Experience Takes 15 Years”
Back in the pre-OS X days, I used DragThing religiously to keep applications, websites, and documents at my finger tips. That mentality migrated with me to OS X – put everything in the Dock, keep it handy. Today, I shed it. Inspired partially by my preparation for the Tiger upgrade and partially by my proficiency …
As I mentioned in my interview at Podcast411.com, I had an art professor who believed everyone had 5,000 bad drawings in them. Five thousand drawings bad drawings before the good ones could come out. This perspective is re-iterated in Throw More Pots over at Crossroads Dispatches. In this same token, I’m a firm believer every …
Stever Robbins over at HBS Working Knowledge has some excellent Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload. His examples of good & bad emails are quite illustrative. My 2 favorite suggestions: Charge people for sending you messages. Ignore it. Related Posts: Get Your Email Read with Specific, Compelling Subject Lines Better Email Tips
Doc Searls: “If your paper is worth so much (and it is), and you want to charge for it, how about charging for fresh news, and giving away the stale stuff?” The ‘more-for-new-less-for-old’ model is a good one. Let’s take a look a couple industries where it seems to work well: Movies If Jen and …
Continue reading “Are Newspapers in the News Business or Fish-wrap Business?”
Yesterday, I grabbed a coffee with one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. We were talking about project teams wallowing in the unknown and stalling out. He proclaimed: “Just put a stake in the ground and move on.” His recommendation reinforces Charlie Lazor’s advice, “You really won’t know until you build it.” Both of …
Continue reading “Making a Decision is Always Better than Not.”
I caught Charlie Lazor, talking about building furniture and houses at the University of Minnesota this evening. I found this quote on prototyping invaluable: “We spent so much time arguing whether or not it work, and when we prototyped it, it worked remarkably well. We could have saved so much time, if we had just …
This morning Jen brought up the Temporary Office Space idea again. It’s something she’s brought up before. As a highly-mobile professional, the idea is very compelling. To have comfortable, secure place to send faxes grab a decent cup of coffee, and recharge off a good vibe for an hour or two, I think you can …
On MPR the other morning, they had consultant and author Marilyn Paul talking about ways to spend less time in your inbox. Her suggestion is to institute email subject line tags. You include these tags in your email subject line. Here are the one’s I remember: ty: thank you nrn: no reply necessary nbd: need …
Third Culture had published an excellent Meaning at Work Pattern Language. I’d like to thank C. Keith Ray’s MemoRanda for bringing it to my attention.