Bruce Jack's blog

The Inventors of Careful Consideration and Analysis

2006-07-20T18:20:00.000+02:00

After reading this post by Seth Godin, I feel like I work for the inventors and market leaders of Careful Consideration and Analysis.

I'm sure not everyone around here does that (I'm sure someone out there is innovating, given our growth), but I don't think I've ever been that close to it. I may have been close once, but I showed up right after the decision to take risks were made.

That doesn't really make me happy. I'd like to be in a 'let's risk it' kind of environment. My biggest question is: how do you find that place?

dedication

2006-07-15T11:45:00.000+02:00

Apparently, blogging requires dedication, which is something I've been lacking for the past few weeks. I wonder if I need to be in more of a routine to post. I haven't been in a routine for a while now...
I haven't even had enough dedication to read all the blogs I generally read.

OK, I'm going to make an effort to post a little more often...

a few cool new words

2006-07-03T13:10:00.000+02:00

(ok, i admit it's been way too long since i posted. mea cupla.)

I really like Matthew Stibe's collection of phrases. My favourite might be administrivia...

big brother might be watching

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000+02:00

Don't forget that someone might look up your myspace or friendster account before they try to hire you. Could schools start doing this for applicants too?

This might be something to think about before posting that you like to get really drunk, or perhaps something worse.

It's not surprising that this is happening, but how many people going to get looked over because they like the Arctic Monkeys?

wanted: a rubber duck

2006-06-08T17:20:00.000+02:00

I've noticed a few times in the past that I tend to find the solutions to my own problems when I describe them aloud (before the person I'm speaking to has time to answer). So, after reading this post from Kenneth W. Davis, I might just try experimenting with my own rubber duck.

The principle is simple. Get a rubber duck. When you're stuck, tell the duck what's wrong. The act of talking to the duck will get you to look at your problem from another angle, and you'll probably discover that you knew the solution all along.

Although in his post, he describes this as a method for getting over writer's block, I can imagine this idea as being very helpful in a multitude of situations.

Does anyone have a rubber duck to spare?

kind of like a bubble

2006-06-07T15:08:00.000+02:00

Here's an interesting post from Nicholas Carr.

Don't get me wrong, I see the use of the Web 2.0 (I have a blog after all, don't I?), but we don't have to turn everything into something similar with comments and trackbacks. Maybe it's just me... but people who want everything to work like the Web 2.0 remind me all too much of the dot com bubble of the late 90s, whereby everything can be improved if we Web 2.0-ize it.

yesterday, i had 84 problems.

2006-06-06T12:17:00.000+02:00

How very fitting... just yesterday I was complaining that I had more problems than everyone else. Seth Godin puts a link to a 'fable' of a discussion between two people. One tells the other that everyone on the planet has 83 problems. After you solve a problem, another arrives, and you still have 83. There are, however, people that have 84 problems. Those people think they're the only people with 83 problems.

don't let email run your life

2006-06-04T13:43:00.000+02:00

I just read an interesting article about how to better handle your email. Thank you Jay. Jay's article links to 43 folders' article about keeping your inbox at zero.
Now, my email inbox isn't empty, but I'd say I'm not too bad at it.
Here are the rules I try to live by:

It's amazing how much time it takes to keep switching between working/emailing/working/emailing. Stop wasting time. Disable all notification that you have new messages.
Since you'll no longer be notified you have new email, read your email a few times per day. I generally do when I arrive in the morning and after lunch (sometimes also before going home).
When you read your email, try to apply the 5 D's:

Delete it (a lot of email can be deleted)
Do it. If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it now.
Delay it. If it takes more than 5 minutes, put it off, schedule some time, and do it later.
Delegate it. Lots of things you are asked to do shouldn't be done by you, but by someone else. Send it to the right person.

Now, I realise these guidelines don't necessarily apply to everyone. People doing urgent customer support can't necessarily wait until after lunch to read their email.
We have a habit of thinking that all of our email is urgent. So you really have to think about it quite seriously, is your email really urgent? Is it so urgent that you should lose overall productivity because the effect of not answering it immediately is that important? It's hard to come to that realisation, but chances are, your email isn't that urgent.

a cool little toy

2006-05-30T13:00:00.000+02:00

i just found a cool little tool that creates these interesting maps of websites. Jay Cross' Internet Time Blog gives more information.

I would really like it if you could mouse-over the little dots to get more information, or maybe even see a thumbnail of the site/image.

This is what it gave for the URL for my blog (right before this post):

manifesto, part 2

2006-05-28T17:15:00.000+02:00

Well, I just 'finished'. It was an interesting exercise which isn't over yet.
For the first five minutes, the ideas were pouring out at a rythm that I thought I would be done (I thought it should fit on one page) within the hour. Then I started having too many ideas. I won't share them all here yet, but I can give a few examples. (I'll be posting the manifesto here later)

Think before you act.
Listen twice as much as you speak. Be succinct and clear. (Remember that 10% of a message is contained in the words. The other 90% are other things, like your eyes facial expression and tone. Remember this when you speak. Remember this even more when you listen.)
Use your right brain as much as possible.
Help others. Remember that it's more important to help people in the long-term than in the short-term.
See things from the other person's point of view. (I have an example regarding an apple that I quite like, but I can't find a link right now.)
Look at this list every day for 15 minutes to see if you're following it.
etc

So much to my surprise, I came up with 21, and I don't think I'm done yet.

After all, it was a good idea to consecrate one hour. I'll put another hour aside soon to keep working on it.

The next step would be to categorise the list (using a mind-map) and see what I can do to make it clearer/easier/shorter. I have a feeling it's going to get longer before it gets shorter though.

manifesto, part 1

2006-05-28T14:41:00.000+02:00

So I've been wanting to write a manifesto for quite some time. Writing this manifesto is important, but not urgent, so i always put it off. I think part of the problem is that I always expect to finish it in one sitting. That doesn't make sense. So, today, I'm going to start my manifesto.
I'm going to give myself one hour.
I just gotta do a few things first...