What I Did on my Sick Day

I was laid up for most of Tuesday and half of Wednesday, possibly from food poisoning. I had to lie very still to avoid the stabby feeling in my guts.  I’m all better now and on the good side, I had hours and hours of uninterrupted research time on the Internets.

Here’s what I was up to:

1. Turning over all accounts and files related to the website I created
2. Looking into free data analysis and visualization tools and resources
3. Taking online classes in the C programming language from this guy on YouTube
4. Fiddling with Yahoo Pipes for a media monitoring effort
5. Lots of lying and sleeping in the mummy position – Michael called me Paigepalegic

Here’s what I learned:

1. It’s useful to go through the motions of implementing a business idea just to go through the motions of exiting; my website was literally and virtually a ‘business in a box’ for someone else. Cha$hing! I’ll go ahead and give credit here to someone I learned a lot from in this: Jarom Adair.
2. IBM sponsors a bunch of cool research geared towards collaboration and visualization. And it makes its stuff easy to find, hoping someone will come up with a brilliant way to apply or reason to further develop protoypes. Check out this site, a NY Times site deployment, this one, and these three Twitter feeds.
3. C really is a lot easier than HTML or CSS, the two languages I can claim I know other than English and non-verbal body.
4. Yahoo Pipes looks deceptively easy.
5. I love being physically active and am thankful that I still have the ability to run, bike and paddle around on this blue-green Earth!

Anna Wintour the Creative’s Blotter

I just watched “The September Issue” on Netflix and felt so moved that I thought I’d scuttle over to my 16 square feet of office space write-off and blog about it.

links to the preview

The ‘documentary’ is starts off with you in a face to face interview with the real “Devil (who) Wears Prada” while she explains that she thinks people may mock the fashion world but it’s because either they don’t understand it or they feel left out. You can’t tell if she really is an ice princess or the woman who has the hutzpah to put the “industry” in “fashion industry.” By the end of it, I thought the latter.

The scenes were almost all shot in HD and many were of beautiful sets and fashion shots. I suffered a 7 year addiction to Sex and the City and never give a hoot about haute couture but was enthralled with the presented story of how Vogue, no, Anna basically decides what products high-end and low-end stores alike will sell 5 months out.

I actually liked Anna and wouldn’t have a problem with her in person because I like her perfectionism. I think that by following her lead I could actually get along with all those fashiony-types whom she works with. They’re the ink and she’s their blotter.

Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates: Round 1

But Bill Gates just stood there coolly, looking Steve Jobs directly in the eye, before starting to speak, “Well, Steve, I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found that you already had.” http://ow.ly/1oPxV

Snowmageddon Stranded me in Santa Monica!

No I’m not complaining. I’ve gone shopping, seen sites, jogged along the beach at sunset…what more could one want out of being snowed out of DC in February and “stuck” on the coast of the peninsula that faces Malibu?! I anticipated a return to DC after only a few days here so I kept myself on East Coast time. I’ve always wondered what it’s like getting up early and now I know – it’s like being asleep by 9. Heh.

I’ve been meaning to update my blog with my goings-on but my BFF Sarah beat me to my romp around town last weekend, complete with pictures. I just have an emo shot of me taken with my webcam in my room at the Channel Road Inn. I have been doing a lot of business writing and especially reading. My hair is a mess from being let down after a jog. It’s 8:30pm local time and I’m ready for bed!

What I Didn’t Know About How Planes Fly

I’m flying to LA and Germany next month and normally break out into sweaty anxiety just when imagining airplanes. I’m cool up to 25,000 feet but somewhere between 28k and 31k I decide the I am likely to be sucked out into space like little Jackie tells Robin Williams’ character in Hook or flip over and fall to the ground.

But I know it’s safe and I really want to take the trips so I am preparing mentally and physically. This time I don’t want to be carrying-on my own single serve liquor bottles in plastic baggies (yes the TSA folks let you do that and get a kick out of it).

I’ve decided to learn about physics. Please note I dropped out of H.S. physics when I just couldn’t wrap my head around scientific notation (I still don’t get it).

Today I discovered this Webpage that sets me at ease when imagining the plane tipping.“The top of the wing is rounded and the bottom of the wing is more straight. Air takes longer to travel over the top of the wing than the bottom, which results in more pressure on the bottom, hence the lift. Right? The main reason planes fly is far simpler: wings force air downward, which in turn force the wing (and therefore the plane) upward.”

Best Global Brands of 2009 Infographic

aled 27%.

“and the Rebirth of Unitasking”

There has been much ado about the results of this recent Stanford study that exposed folks who claim that they can ‘multitask’ at work not only can’t, but their overall quality goes down when they try. I completely agree.

A new employee emailed me while he was in the conference room doing in-processing paperwork. He asked a completely unrelated question and I responded back with “aren’t you paying attention in there?!” When he responded he could multitask with a :) at the end of his email, I shot back a link describing the study. Cute? Maybe. Multitasking? No. The result? I noticed he forgot to sign in the signature block.

I have a love-hate relationship with managing my tasks and due-outs. I like Franklin Covey’s guidance that there’s urgent things and then there’s important things; anything can be urgent if you let others set your priorities but only a few things are actually important. But ‘highly successful’ people are mum when it comes to emails and phonecalls in a role like mine where you’re the responder as much as you are the originator.

My second “real” boss taught me the concept of triage: if it’s from him, respond right away. If it’s from or CCs his boss, don’t mess anything up. People at all levels ping you for the status as if all you had to do was ‘just add water’ to the CC chain. You can have your information three ways: fast, detailed and accurate but you can only pick two at a time. And giving email updates to updates should be last on anyone’s to-do list if they’re really collaborating.

I propose a social contract of the work environment to salute the rebirth of unitasking: I’ll try to tell you my time frame for a quality response if I can’t get back to you within 48 hours. If you don’t hear back from me that day, assume I’m working on it and have aptly prioritized it to be done asap. I’ll expect the same. If it’s important and urgent, we’ll collaborate immediately.