Productivity

Work-Life Blend: The Holiday Edition

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

It doesn’t matter really. If you’re a solopreneur, a director of a corporate business unit, a team member at an international enterprise or any other kind of role designation, you run into this.

Work and business don’t stop. In a lot of cases, they speed up at this time of year. Yet, you KNOW that you have holiday-related events and such involving family, friends, co-workers and neighbors that are unique and important. As if pressures weren’t high enough, they just got higher. How do you prioritize it all?

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Co-working and #H2H

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Citizen Space, a coworking space in San Franci...

Citizen Space, a coworking space in San Francisco, CA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the U.S. Census, more than half (51.6 percent) of all businesses that responded to the 2007 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) were operated primarily from someone’s home in 2007. Just over 72 percent are sole proprietorships.

What does this mean?
It means there are a lot of us sitting in a room by ourselves a lot of the time.  When the need to focus is keen, this can be really helpful. However, we are human beings, and none of us operates all that well in a workplace vacuum.

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3 Reasons Why Your Business Shouldn’t be on Facebook

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It’s true…..despite the knee-jerk desire to get your business into social media and “everyone’s on Facebook”, it may not be a good idea for you.  Here are three reasons:

1. You don’t have time to post anything interesting: A business page lives or dies by visits and interaction, not ‘Likes’. If the last time you posted anything was 4 months ago and it was camera shot of the front of your office or a copy of your logo, you can bet no one has returned to see what else you’ve published.  Sure, you’re busy actually ‘doing’ your business, but part of you business is marketing. If you are unable to share things that your clients and prospects find relevant, you should retire your page.

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What am I part of?

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Community
I use a lot of different tools in my work every day, as I’m sure you do. Like many computer-bound professionals, I use Microsoft Office apps like Outlook, Word, Powerpoint, and Excel (although I have had a hard time
getting used to viewing Excel more as a tool and less as an adversary, but that’s another story…). I use more than one Internet browser, since each provides different kinds of efficiencies. I use a to-do list app, a social media monitoring tool and a couple of analytics tools, and I use Evernote for all my note-taking and snippet needs…oh, and Windows Media Player for tunes (as a former pro musician, music helps me focus).

As a user of each of these, am I part of a community of experience for each of them?  Well, kind of.

Do I think of myself as a REAL card-carrying Member of these communities of experience (whatever that is….)? Not so much…until I need help or want to try something different with any of the tools.  Then I search diligently for where the associated community hangs out online and look for some guidance.

No one I know has the time to  play around with tools and services to force something. We all have timelines and milestones, and most of us want to go home at 5 PM. If someone else has done it first and better, I want to find out how they did it and model that behavior….not ‘hunt-and-peck’ around it until, hopefully, eventually, maybe I stumble across the right way to do it.

Um…..no.

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Doctor Who and Abrupt Change

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Doctor #11 and Amy with new TARDIS

Doctor #11 and Amy with new TARDIS (Photo credit: ChocolateFrogs)

I recently watched the most recent Doctor Who episode wherein he regenerates from the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) into the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi).  The final change was much more abrupt than other regenerations that I’ve seen in the newer series.  Capaldi’s expression is wonderful….he looks stupefied.  He says several things in rapid succession (my favorite is “Kidneys!  I’ve got new kidneys! I don’t like the color.”) but the one that really grabbed my attention was when he asks Clara, “Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?”  You can watch the change here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nzqm6

Disruption, recovery and space

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While completing my Masters degree I was vicariously introduced to Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School and his many works (a sample) concerning disruptive innovation.   Greatly interesting stuff and

Disruption

Disruption (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

required reading for anyone in business or those who are creative and wish to understand the business world’s take on how this is perceived and understood, as well as the potential effects thereof.

That said, disruption and innovation as buzzwords have become less exciting through overuse and misunderstanding by some technologists and businesses, particularly as they apply to their organizations.  While, as Bill Gates has said, today’s business goes “at the speed of thought”, and agility is critical, there seems to be a lack of understanding concerning the fragility of organizations consisting of people executing on previous editions of goals, commitments, hierarchies and business models.  There are degrees of change that can be accomplished that help alter the direction of a business, a ‘mid-course correction’ on company strategy, if you will.  There are also methods and timings of rolling out these changes, or more radical degrees or types of change that will break an organization.
When considering disruptive change within a company, several areas should be considered. Along side the change, whether to strategy, execution or model, leadership should realistically assess:
(A) How long has it been since the last disruptive change to the organization?
(B) How long it will take to affect the change completely?
(C) How long will the ‘after change stabilization’ take?
(D) How much lost productivity can the organization withstand while the stabilization takes place and the company can begin executing effectively on the new direction?
(E) How clearly do the members of the organization understand the reasoning driving the disruption and can they clearly see the value of the strategy?
(F) What is the degree of ambiguity this will create for all interested parties – customers, partners, shareholders, communities…..everyone….and what is required to manage it through the disruption?

Why gamification bothers me

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Gamification is a hot term in business and education today. According to Wikipedia it is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a

non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems. I have been thinking about this in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations and what really keeps people interested in what they do.

I fully believe that the singularly best way to have someone’s full attention in a project or process is to hook into that person’s passion for the project, process, idea or effort. This, as everyone knows, is not only not easy, but difficult to sustain. It can be easy to start well and then, once the excitement becomes the routine, passion can back off.

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First Thoughts in a New Community

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2012_09_17 Community Management IMG_0841

2012_09_17 Community Management IMG_0841 (Photo credit: joelogon)

OK, so I’m stepping away from the fire hose for a moment. I’m today wrapping up, if that even makes sense when you’re on the road, week #5 in my new gig as Senior Community Manager at SDL. Collecting and prioritizing my thoughts and experiences will likely take some time, if only because so many of them do not categorize very simply.

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Who’s driving?

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English: Alarm clock

English: Alarm clock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like every other breathing human being, my life is a churning dynamo of ups, downs, and decided neutrals (better known as the mundane).  As I slowly gain greater sense of awareness of the moment and the fleeting aspect of each of these moments, I am also becoming more aware of the “I” that can look at the “me” that is going through all of the changes taking places and, frankly, getting its chain yanked regularly and, usually, suddenly.  The challenge is to reside ever more in the observer “I” and not let the roller coaster of “me’s” experience drive me.

How does this manifest itself in everyday?  Consider this short episode:

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Social Media and Being a Professional

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Illustration by John Tenniel of the Red Queen ...

Illustration by John Tenniel of the Red Queen lecturing Alice for Lewis Carroll’s “Through The Looking Glass” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been in a number of conversations lately where my colleagues and friends are grappling with staying on top of their game, so to speak, both online and in the office.  Not only are we coping with the well-known information overload, but we have the desire to improve, deepen and expand our skills, knowledge and expertise.  Each of us is evolving a methodology to accomplish this, but it changes a lot and, with so much change, it can be difficult to feel like you’re really progressing.  It feels so much like the Red Queen‘s comment in Lewis Carroll‘s Through The Looking-Glass : “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

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