This is Your Brain on Facebook

Are you a Facebook addict?  Take heed, comrade, your countless hours tagging photos and using super-poke are a tell-tale sign on how you want to work:

• Knowledge workers crave validation.  You solve hard problems, right?  In fact, the software business is constantly humbling to even the most experienced professional.  Not only do you have new problems to solve every day, most of them would never have crossed your mind if they hadn’t been thrust upon you by an irate customer or overworked colleague.  While you are resourceful and talented, we all want to hear “good idea” when coming up with a solution.  Isn’t validation from our friends the reason we joined Facebook in the first place?
• Group decisions are usually good decisions.  Given tough the problems we face, group input can be invaluable to give different perspectives that ultimately lead to a better solution.  Need a good, healthy recipe for dinner?  Post the question to your group and see the volume of response.  It’s going to turn out way better than the leftover mac and cheese you were thinking about re-heating.
• A successful project involves many, many people.  Are you in sales?  I guarantee your most successful deals were touched by many people throughout the cycle.  Many of which may have been nothing more than a single comment you used in a meeting, then forgot quickly afterward.  But that minute piece of information may have been just enough to generate the lead, sway an opinion, or convince a key influencer.  The more of those you can get – and retain -- the better.

The beauty of collecting these one-off comments?  They’re often spot-on.  After posting a comment on my hotel in Dallas, a fraternity brother I haven’t seen in years let me know about his favorite hotel bar in the area.  Having known him in college, I knew his expertise in this area would be superb.

That, my friends, is the definition of value-add.  Now if he can only give me advice on a Windows-based ad-hoc query solution…

Happy Ping.fm is back

Ping.fm is back. It went down for a minute tonight, and to celebrate its return, I'll post to my blog from Ping.fm on iGoogle. Nice!

Organization Tips for Multi-Taskers

From my IBM blog.  I've since become less of a fan of "multi-tasking" -- but the organization tips remain.

Self-described "management consultants" are seemingly everywhere, but I still find personal management ideas fascinating.  There's something creative about rote organization of "stuff" in our lives.  Maybe it's the notion that time is increasingly valuable -- the more technology enables us, the more important it is to prioritize our work and our lives.

For the past few years, I've been drawn to David Allen and "Getting Things Done" for several reasons:

• Simplicity
• Emphasis on delegation (the right person for the right task)
  
• The concept that there are slices of time throughout the day that go unused -- and using them to do the right tasks can improve your productivity dramatically.
• The psychological benefit of following a methodology is as important to productivity as the organization itself

While Allen's methodology is great, it is rooted in paper-based methods and manual work flows.  Much of your day consists of executing tasks, and you must know which tasks to execute and their priority.  For example, if I spend 15 minutes in a taxi, I'm in a place where I can make required phone calls.  But I have to have a list of what calls to make and their priority to use that 15 minutes effectively.  In addition, if I one of those calls is to one of my employees, I should have a list in front of me of delegated tasks, so I can use that phone call to quickly go over status or answer questions.

Given the number of projects, clients, employees, and other strata in our lives, lists will quickly grow large and tasks will need multiple categories.  Allen's company has released some software products to help you manage, but I found using the Outlook plug-in to be cumbersome:

• I'm not always in front of my computer.  In fact, when I travel, I may use my Blackberry as much as my computer on most days.
• Categories in Outlook are difficult to manage, but are the only feature that can implement the methodology.
  
• I don't run my business, or manage my day, using Outlook (or Lotus Notes, for that matter).  And there's no single  medium that can serve that purpose.

About 12 months ago, I started using a little Web 2.0 site to manage my tasks, and it's now invaluable in my daily organization.  RTM is nearly perfect, since it has the key functions I need to get things done:

• Tags replace the concept of categories.  Simply associate any number of tags with a category.  For example, if I need to call a client, I can tag the task with the client name and a tag for "calls" -- so I can quickly find it on my taxi ride.
• The ability to add a task from anywhere as you think of them.  The Web interface is quite good (I particularly like the keyboard shortcuts) and has a nice adaptation for the Blackberry browser.  Tasks can be added via email via an address you receive when you register.  I've also started using integration with Jott, which allows me to add a task via a voice message.  This is important when I need to add something, but can't type it in (driving, for example).
• Due dates, reminders, and priorities associated with every task.

Some other good ideas can be found in various blogs, including Allen's site and GTD Times.