(Nearly) Free Sarbucks Wi-Fi
Of course, if you've got an iPhone, or want to pretend you do, you get the free access anyway.
Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen.
Need some more PowerPoint inspiration? Check out this amazing resource list from Meryl's Notes Blog. Lots (and lots) of great stuff.
If you travel at all, you have to check out Tripit. You can forward all of your travel confirmation emails (from airlines, Hotwire, Expedia, hotels, etc.) to one email address and Tripit organizes your itinerary for you. I've been using it since the early beta period, and I love it. Highly recommended!
Have eclectic tastes in music? Want some free? Check out NPR Music. It is an amazing treasure-trove of cool concerts, studio sessions, musician interviews and profiles. Awesome!
Whenever I'm looking for something new (or old) it goes right up there on my "to check out list" with Wolfgang's Vault.
Ah, now I know the piles are there for a perfectly good reason. Thanks to Stephen O'Flynn for the tip.Paper enables a certain kind of thinking. Picture, for instance, the top of your desk. Chances are that you have a keyboard and a computer screen off to one side, and a clear space roughly eighteen inches square in front of your chair. What covers the rest of the desktop is probably piles—piles of papers, journals, magazines, binders, postcards, videotapes, and all the other artifacts of the knowledge economy. The piles look like a mess, but they aren't. When a group at Apple Computer studied piling behavior several years ago, they found that even the most disorderly piles usually make perfect sense to the piler, and that office workers could hold forth in great detail about the precise history and meaning of their piles. The pile closest to the cleared, eighteen-inch-square working area, for example, generally represents the most urgent business, and within that pile the most important document of all is likely to be at the top. Piles are living, breathing archives. Over time, they get broken down and resorted, sometimes chronologically and sometimes thematically and sometimes chronologically and thematically; clues about certain documents may be physically embedded in the file by, say, stacking a certain piece of paper at an angle or inserting dividers into the stack.
But why do we pile documents instead of filing them? Because piles represent the process of active, ongoing thinking. The psychologist Alison Kidd, whose research Sellen and Harper refer to extensively, argues that "knowledge workers" use the physical space of the desktop to hold "ideas which they cannot yet categorize or even decide how they might use." The messy desk is not necessarily a sign of disorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal with many unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers on their desks, because they haven't yet sorted and filed the ideas in their head. Kidd writes that many of the people she talked to use the papers on their desks as contextual cues to "recover a complex set of threads without difficulty and delay" when they come in on a Monday morning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. What we see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, the contents of our brains.
What's on yours?
- MacBook Pro
- iPod
- Treo
- Google Reader
- GMail
- Google Notebook
- Entourage
- MindManager
- Keynote/Pages
- ScanR
Here's a video you may have seen, as reimagined and updated by XPLANE, my new employer.
If you are sending an email with an attachment, add the attachment first, then compose the message, and then add email addresses tothe send line. Now there's no chance you'll have to send the ever-popular "whoops, forgot to attach the file" follow-up.
In fact, it's a good practice to always put the email addresses of the recipients in last, to ensure that an errant carriage return or mouseclick won't fire off the message half-baked.
1. Clear the screen. Once you’re done with the picture, graph or supporting information, you want to remove distraction, and go to a black slide so you can amplify, tell a story, or make an additional point, etc.
2. Black out the screen. Simply put, so you can walk in front of the projector. Almost all meeting, board and conference rooms are poorly designed so that they have the projector screen right in the middle of the room or stage. It should be at the right or left, so YOU can be in the middle. After all, YOU should be the center of your presentation, not your slides.
3. Totally change your mindset. Change he creation and emphasis of the presentation. This is by far the most important of all, and needs it’s own paragraph.
Resolve to become aware of news affecting your cients before they do.*
1. Using Google Blog Search or Google Alerts set up several searches for each of your clients. Use their names, industry, competitors’ names, products, etc.
2. Subscribe to the RSS feed for each search.
3. Notify your clients whenever you see something relevant to them or their industry.
Extra Credit:
4. If you use Google Reader as your RSS Aggregator, create a “tag” for each of your clients.
5. For each tag, Google Reader allows you to create a unique URL for that tag that you can share with your clients.
6. Give each of your clients their tag’s unique URL and everytime they open it in their browser, they’ll see everything you’ve “marked” for them to read.
* This post will be expanded into a longer how-to in January.
If you are a music lover, you HAVE to check out the Concert Vault. It features 300 complete concerts, from bands in their prime, all free to stream on your computer!
Right now, I’m listening to an all-acoustic concert by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young that was recorded at the Fillmore East in NYC in1970. From the website:
David Crosby - guitar, vocals
Stephen Stills - guitar, upright bass, piano, organ, vocals
Graham Nash - guitar, piano, organ, vocals
Neil Young - guitar, organ, vocals
This is the acoustic set on the fifth night of the legendary six-night run at the Fillmore East. The Four Way Street live album contains recordings from this run. This entire run of shows capture CSNY hot on the heels of success from the recently released Deja Vu LP and was during the group’s most prolific phase, as all four were working on solo albums that would soon define them as individual artists.
Highlights include the Buffalo Springfield gem, "On the Way Home," and a rare nod to Graham's past with The Hollies "King Midas in Reverse." David also sings "Triad," the controversial and unreleased song he recorded near the end of his tenure with The Byrds that was featured on Jefferson Airplane's Crown Of Creation LP. Material from the first CSN album is well represented, as are a few sneak previews from the solo albums then in progress. Neil Young's medley is also a wonderful sequence.
The acoustic set closes with a short but lovely rendition of "Love the One You’re With."
Simply amazing!
Warning, rant ahead. Logged in to Technorati this evening. Clicked on a link from “My Account” page. Here’s what I got:
If I did something wrong, don’t make me feel like an idiot. That goes double WHEN I FOLLOW YOUR LINK ON YOUR OWN PAGE!
From TechCrunch:
LinkedIn, a social networking website primarily focused on business connections has added a section to their site that allows users to recommend service providers — a yellow pages based on user referrals. From web designers to doctors, users rate service providers in a thumbs up, thumbs down voting system similar to Digg.
Here’s another article article with more:
In the case of LinkedIn's directory of service providers, users can search narrowly for services recommended by friends, or they can widen their search to friends of friends. Failing that, a global search capability is offered to allow users to search across the full LinkedIn network.
Making the system work will depend on whether LinkedIn users bother to write recommendations for other businesses, building on an existing feature within LinkedIn that encourages colleagues to recommend other colleagues.
It also could draw in new users. Most LinkedIn members currently are executives, professionals, sales people and other office workers. The new directory could attract trade workers.
Are you ready for this?
OK, this one caught me completely by surprise: I was named to a list of the Top 100 Legal Technologists in the world (pdf here) by London’s CityTech Magazine. Very cool!
As I posted yesterday, I’ve started another blog called Idea Surplus Disorder. Here are my posts so far. Check it out.
Creativity: Stop, Start, Continue and the Power of One Percent
The Return of Think Tank Tuesdays
Here’s an extreme example of the power of the blogosphere.
Step One: Write law.com article about how Mac’s suck, with at least a few technical innacuracies.
Step Two: Follow up with blog post about article, taking on”Mac Jihadists.” 81 comments and counting.
Step Three: Watch others pick up your article and criticize you in their own blogs.
Step Four: See how at least one of the critical articles makes it to the front page of Digg.
Step Five: Watch your online reputation take a major hit.
It is only a matter of time before some of these blog posts show up on the front page of Google. As it stands now, using Google’s Blog Search, a post titled “Stupid Larry” is the first result.
I know Larry and like him. I’ve presented with him at ABA’s Techshow. He’s a very smart guy, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is all part of a plan to demonstrate how blogging works — a subject he writes and speaks about frequently. However, it is also a cautionary lesson in the power of blogs and citizen media. I will say this, I bet his article is the number one page (by far) served up by law.com this week.
I have a bunch of cool stuff coming up tomorrow, but for now, here’s a bit of a time-waster:
First, check out Line Rider, a fun little flash game that you will love.
Second, watch this YouTube video of an amazing Line Rider drawing.
Third, go back and play Line Rider again and again, while marvelling about how cool the video was.
Fourth, curse me for telling you about this.
Saw this on Lifehacker: What happens to your email when you die? Suggests (linking to a CNET article) attorneys press clients to include password data in estate planning documents so heirs can get to your email, photo sharing, music, and other online accounts when you die.
Is anyone doing this?
Here’s a fascinating article from iMedia Connection on what motivates men and women to purchase things. The whole thing’s worth a read, but what jumped out to me were these paragraphs that discuss how others’ purchasing decisions impact men and women differently:
Men are willing to make a purchase once it has been demonstrated that someone else was successful with the same purchase; kind of a, "that worked for Joe, so it'll probably work for me" mentality.
Women posit things differently. It's good to know if something worked for Sally; it's better to know what Sally's motivations were for her purchase. Success in itself isn't meaningful unless the conditions leading to success are the same. (So much for women not being cut out for the sciences!) This can be thought of as, "it may have worked for Sally, but Sally bought it for reason A and I'm interested in reason B, so the same purchase might not work for me."
If you have testimonials on your site, and want both men and women to be impressed, this is important stuff.
Have ten client appointments you have to cancel tomorrow because you got stuck in trial? Don’t have the staff to do it for you? Try Pheeder. Here’s how it works:
Enter your phone number, plus the numbers of the friends/clients you want to contact.
Pheeder will call you so that you can record your name and a message.
After you hang up Pheeder will call all of your friends. Pheeder will tell them they got a message from you and then it will play your message.
If any of your friends records a reply to your message, Pheeder will call you back so that you can hear their replies.
There is no step 4. This is pretty simple really. So give it a shot!
I haven’t read their privacy policy, and don’t speak to the ethical issues of offloading client numbers and a message to a third-party service, but this is yet another cool Web 2.0–ish application that gives a peek into what’s possible. Did I mention Pheeder is free?
I liked this idea from Get Rich Slowly:
The 30-day rule is a simple method to control impulse spending. Here’s how it works:
- Whenever you feel the urge to splurge — whether it’s for new shoes, a new videogame, or a new car — force yourself to stop. If you’re already holding the item, put it back. Leave the store.
- When you get home, take a piece of paper and write down the name of the item, the store where you found it, and the price. Also write down the date.
- Now post this note someplace obvious: a calendar, the fridge, a bulletin board. (I use a text file on my computer.)
- For the next thirty days, think whether you really want the item, but do not buy it.
- If, at the end of a month, the urge is still there, then consider purchasing it. (But do not use credit to do so.)
I can think of so many places this would work. First, for those firm technology and gadget purchases or upgrades, sit on the impulse for a month. If you still think you need it, make the purchase.
Second, if you have an irrational client demand you do something that you don’t think is particularly prudent (like filing that motion to compel to get the lawnmower back from their neighbor in the middle of winter), suggest that you wait 30 days, and if they feel it is still important then, you’ll do it.
Here’s a great introduction to the much-hyped, often overused term “Web2.0” that’s worth a read.
It has been a while since I’ve pointed you towards my friend Yvonne DiVita’s blog. If it isn’t in your rotation of regular reads, it should be. If you want to know why, check out her recent post, A Business Blog Should …
Here’s a great tip via Email Overloaded: In your e-mail signature, include something like Bob Walsh does:
(I usually check email every few hours during the day.)
I’m playing around with Amazon’s new “AStore” product. It allows me to build a virtual storefront with products I choose. I’m going to change it every month with new and cool books, magazines, and gear that I personally recommend. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Got an e-mail the other day from Marcin Musiolik, alerting me to his company’s new project called Bringo! Here’s how it works:
- Find the company you'd like to call by category (credit cards, mortgages, loans, health care)
- Enter your phone # (we will never disclose your phone number to anyone, not even your mother!).
- Wait a few seconds while we navigate the phone tree.
- When we call you back, pick up your phone and you're done. No more phone trees.
Looks pretty cool. Try it out and let them know what you think in the comments to this post. And if you think your clients or customers would use this service to contact your firm, it’s time to rethink your telephone answering options.
UPDATE: Marcin tells me they are adding law firms next month. I’d sure not want to see mine on there.
Here’s some good advice for those “Contact Us” pages on the web:
Problem: Contact options are limited. …
Solution: Give customers more control of how to contact you. Provide plenty of options: phone, form, e-mail, and chat. Let them contact you their way. RADirect offers a telephone number to talk to an engineer, as well as a short form and a chat option when available. The e-mail form guarantees a response in one business day. If you click on "Speak to a System Engineer" in the nav bar, you're guaranteed a response in two hours from the point of action.
Problem: People are left to send and pray. So many contact forms and "thank you for contacting us" pages leave visitors frustrated. They don't provide any information on what to expect when someone contacts the company via form or e-mail. Visitors w