Archive for June, 2009
social media: the value of “wasted time”
a co-worker of mine wrote a blog post recently about the “social media wave” and how it’s easy to be caught up in this tsunami of facebooks, myspaces, twitters, and more. with all the social media sites and services out there, in order to keep your head above the water you must have a strategy; you need to understand social media — not just use it.
i mention tracy’s post because of the discussion that it caused in her comments section. people see social media services as time-wasters. many corporations (including the united states’ military, though some restrictions have been relaxed) have even denied access on their networks to certain social media sites. unfortunately, it is a commonly held belief that these services cause more harm than good.
but do they really?
one of the questions asked in my conversation with someone was, “how does blogging help a plumber fix a leak? or how does twitter help an accountant balance the books?” i thought this question showed a great deal of ignorance about what social media is for, and what it does. i’ll take these two examples and explain further…
the first step is taking the first step
photo by wpmorro, flickr artist
when you’re staring down the barrel of a deadline or a large task ahead, you might be thinking, “how in the ____ am i ever going to get this done?! this is impossible!” but the best way of getting where you’re going is to not think about where you’re going, only about where you are. if you keep thinking about how you’re going to get to your destination, you’ll never reach it. having problems getting that report done for your boss? can’t find the words to put in your term paper? struggling to code that application for the client?
just start working.
forget about the finer details. don’t worry about getting things done right the first time. pro tip: things are never done right the first time! so why worry about it? just get the ball rolling.
start building up momentum. Read the rest of this entry »
“WHERE’S YOUR FLOWCHART, BABY?!”
those words were spoken by a great man: none other than ‘terrible’ terry tate — office linebacker.
it’s a simple phrase, “where’s your flowchart, baby,” but it’s an important one. it’s important because a picture is worth a thousand words. flowcharts can help you in so many ways. here are just a couple…
flowcharts are a decision making tool
you can use flowcharts to help you in your decision making. if you have a process that is repeatable, you can set up a flowchart to help direct that process to an end goal. if for each data dump you receive from the client, you need to classify it as belonging to one of two or more categories, a flowchart can help you place it in the right bucket. “does this have personally identifiable data? if yes then a, if no then b.” you can walk that tree all the way down to your final buckets: “this belongs in the transactional database.” or “this belongs in the data warehouse.” — etc.
more after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
find your forest
photo by mike_lockie, flickr artist
it’s going to happen. no matter how much you plan ahead, or how much you think you might know — how comfortable you are in your abilities… you’re going to lose sight of your overall vision.
scope creep happens, and unfortunately it happens often. we all want to create amazing things, and we all want to deliver the very best we can to our clients. many times it’s the client who makes the changes! but either way, changes happen. instead of doing x, we do x and add on y because it makes x better in some way.
one of the most difficult things to do is telling ‘no’ to people who say, “you know what would be good?…” but there are times when it’s absolutely necessary. why? well no matter what you’re doing, you always have a main mission; every step you take along the way should be made to help you reach that end state. simply put, anything else is ancillary. so why do we always lose sight of where we’re going?! Read the rest of this entry »
1, 20, or 80?
the Pareto principle says that 80% of the effects of something come from only 20% of the causes. it’s certainly something that i have encountered in my work. as a consultant helping to analyze the business needs of particular resources, i see a lot of resources and how they affect an organization. i can say with a high level of conviction that this pareto principle holds true for the vast majority of instances.
i was reminded of this when i saw a tweet from a colleague with a link to a bit of research completed on twitter users. from the article, research shows that most twitter users are those, “hey, seeing what this twitter thing is all about,” people who never return to the service… however! the top 10% of twitter users (in terms of their number of tweets) account for 90% of the overall tweets on the service.
“what gets measured gets done”
photo by Balakov, flickr artist
i heard an interesting quote from a co-worker just recently. he said, “what gets measured gets done.” what’s more he said, “i learned that from a time management course that i showed up late for.” and he’s right! as they also say – “when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
it’s nice to think that you can trust people to do what you expect them to do, but it’s hard for people to stay motivated when they know they’re not being watched. if a professor or teacher says they’re not going to grade homework, chances are that students won’t do it (or at least do it well).
it would be great if you could count on people without leaning on them, wouldn’t it? now, let me ask you this question: how many people thought this post was about other people? now how many people thought this post was directed at YOU? Read the rest of this entry »
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