George Bernard Shaw
Friday, August 9, 2013
George Bernard Shaw
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Are You Devoted?
"That man's crazy!" I exclaimed.
My son replied, "No. He's devoted."
I've thought a lot about this over the past month--about being devoted to something and what it truly means.
Ask yourself: Are you devoted to your husband or wife? To your God? To your family? To your employer? To your community?
Are you devoted to staying healthy? To staying educated? To staying spiritually active?
If so, what defines your devotion? If not, are you willing to pay the price to be truly devoted? How can you remain devoted?
Two mornings ago I was faced with these questions. It was 5:15 am and 15 degrees. It was dark and cold and a light snow was falling. And there I stood on my doorstep with MY running shoes on.
As I stepped off the porch and into the darkness, I answered my own questions...
....at least until tomorrow morning.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Innovator's Dilemma Summary
Sunday, November 4, 2012
On the road again...
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Bits, Bites and a Big Event
Monday, January 23, 2012
The six degrees of separation is now one degree
I traveled from Salt Lake City to Portland (1st stop).
Then to Tokyo (2nd stop).
Then to Bangkok (3rd stop).
By adding in a 4th stop you can cover 95% of the world. I added a 4th stop and went to a small beach town called Krabi. (I'd never even heard of the place before!) But from Bangkok I could have gone to nearly anywhere in Southeast Asia.
We've all heard of the Six Degrees of Separation where you can connect yourself to anyone within six social connections. I think our ability to connect has dramatically shrunk. For example, I can send a personal note to @MittRomney or @BarakObama or @JLo. Of course it doesn't mean they will read it, but I now have a direct connection to them (or their handlers).
The point is that the world is shrinking my friends! We are no longer confined within our own borders. If you're not thinking global in everything you do, your not thinking big enough.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The Most Important Thing
If you're feeling anxious and overwhelmed with everything that is piling up around you at work and at home DO THE IMPORTANT THING FIRST.
It's such a simple principle! List out your tasks, prioritize them, and then start with #1.
You may only get one thing done at work and one thing done at home today. But I gan guarantee you this: It will be the right thing!
Now I need to take a bit of my own advice and stop writing this blog so that I can do MY most important thing right now.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Help to think creatively
Future Technology Portal: Crazy futuristic ideas and images
Picocool: Random images from social media and subcultures
PrintMag: Where you can read/see innovative print design. I also found this awesome video there created by Element X Creative (check out their demo reel).
Poetry Foundation: Fill your mind with new combinations of words
Dvice: Feed your technology obsession
There are a bajillion other places to visit so, if you've got others let me know and I'll add to this post.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Encoding video for Adobe Connect
Connect with Abbas has a good description of how to do it, including the three main factors you need to consider for a good final product:
- Frame size - width & height of your video.
- Bitrate (or data rate) - how many kilobits per second are needed to display video.
- Frame rate (or frames per second).
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Best Export Settings for Final Cut Pro
1) Click File > Export
Select Using QuickTime Conversion...
Format = Quick Time Conversion
Use = Default Settings
2) Click Options > Settings
Compression = H.264
Frame Rate = Current
Key Frames = 24
Data Rate = Automatic
Quality = High
3) Click OK
4) Click Size
Select HD 1280 x 720 16:9
This produced excellent Final Cut Pro Export results that I then took into Sorenson Squeeze to compress even further.
Monday, October 17, 2011
We are all Digital Farmers
On a farm, when the chickens needed feeding, the pigs needed slopping or the cow got out of the barn, you took care of it. That was your job, day and night. As a kid, when my dad and I were irrigating our apple orchard there were times we forgot to pull the headgate out of the creek. So, late at night, I'd trudge through the woods with a flashlight to take care of the chore. I didn't like it, but I did it because I had to.
I've found that today we've all become digital farmers. We get up early, not to milk cows but to work digitally with global partners and to ensure systems are up and running.
On a farm, you'd find that a fox got in with the chickens, today it's gremlins in the network. In either case, you have to answer the call quickly and efficiently to solve the problem so that the fox or gremlins don't eat your assets.
I find that many people complain they are "leashed" to their work day and night with mobile phones and email. Although that may be true, we have jobs to do whether it's collecting the eggs, irrigating the fields or replying to an urgent client need from another country.
It's interesting that the more things change the more they stay the same. I'm just glad my office doesn't smell like a barn.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Complete feature list for iOS 5 software update
- Notifications
- Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
- New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
- View notifications from lock screen
- Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
- iMessage
- Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
- Track messages with delivery and read receipts
- Group messaging and secure encryption
- Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi*
- Newsstand
- Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
- Displays the cover of the latest issue
- Background downloads of new issues
- Reminders for managing to do lists
- Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
- Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
- Built-in support for Twitter
- Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
- Add location to any tweet
- View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
- Camera improvements for devices with cameras
- Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
- Volume Up button to take a picture
- Optional grid lines to line up shots
- Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
- Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
- Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
- Photo improvements for devices with cameras
- Crop and rotate
- Red eye removal
- One tap enhance
- Organize photos into albums
- Mail improvements
- Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
- Indentation control
- Drag to rearrange names in address fields
- Flag messages
- Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
- Customize mail alert sounds
- S/MIME
- Calendar improvements
- Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
- Tap to create an event
- View and add event attachments
- Game Center improvements
- Use personal photos for your Game Center account
- Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
- Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
- Discover new games with custom game recommendations
- AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
- Multitasking Gestures for iPad
- Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
- Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
- Swipe left or right to switch between apps
- On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
- Software updates available over the air without tethering
- iCloud support
- iTunes in the Cloud
- Photo Stream
- Documents in the Cloud
- Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
- Backup
- Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
- Find My iPhone
- Redesigned Music app for iPad
- Hourly weather forecast
- Real-time stock quotes
- Wireless sync to iTunes
- Keyboard improvements
- Split keyboard for iPad
- Improved autocorrection accuracy
- Improved Chinese and Japanese input
- New Emoji keyboard
- Personal dictionary for autocorrection
- Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words
- Accessibility improvements
- Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
- Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
- New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
- Option to speak a selection of text
- Custom element labeling for VoiceOver
- Exchange ActiveSync improvements
- Wirelessly sync tasks
- Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
- Improved offline support
- Save a new contact from a GAL service
- More than 1,500 new developer APIs
- Bug fixes
- iPhone 4S
- iPhone 4
- iPhone 3GS
- iPad 2
- iPad
- iPod touch (4th generation)
- iPod touch (3rd generation)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Just Ask
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Have you heard about the Singularity?
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Export your Facebook contacts with new Open-Xchange tool
Right now, using the service is a little bit complicated. But for those of you who are anxious to migrate all you Facebook friends over to Google+, here’s how to use it:
1. If your browser is set to block pop-up windows, turn that off.
2. Visit ox.io.
3. Click “Create an account,” and fill out the necessary fields.
4. Validate your account via the link sent to your email address. A Wizard will pop-up on your screen. Cancel that, and instead go to Mail View, which is accessible though the blue envelope icon located in the top left corner.
5. Click “Add email account” on the left side, and add the email address you use for most of your contacts. You can add additional emails later, if you wish. The email you use must be IMAP (not POP), but that includes most major email services, like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc.
6. Click the Contacts View icon (black, fourth over in the top left corner). Then select “Import Facebook contacts.” To complete the process, we had to click “…or create a fresh one for your profile” button that appears in the pop-up menu. This will ask you to add the Open-Xchange app to your Facebook account, so it’s best to be already logged into Facebook before you get to this point.
7. Click “start” and the tool will begin the export process. (This takes about 5 minutes.)
8. And you’re done! Your contacts will then appear in the Open-Xchange, and you can also download the list directly to your computer. You can now import the contacts into a range of address books and social networks, including Google+
The Open-Xchange tool, which exports only email addresses, is not as thorough as the now-defunct Chrome extension, which also included things like birthdays. But it’s good enough to get things rolling past the Facebook blockade.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Why is the Space Shuttle project ending?
Saturday, July 2, 2011
When it's Due - by Seth Godin
Here's the schedule. Follow it.
There's your in box. Empty it.
When something is imminent, speed up. When you're off the deadline machine, take a breath and poke around a bit, explore, relax.
Nonsense.
The goal isn't to do work and hand it in just before it's due. The goal is to do the work as beautifully as you can, faster than anyone else, so you can do more work.
If it takes a deadline to get you off your butt and to push past the resistance, then move the deadlines forward.
You don't work on an assembly line any more. You work in project world, and more projects mean more chances to screw up, to learn, to make a reputation and to have more impact.
When it's you against the boss, the goal is to do less work.
When it's you against the project, the goal is to do more work.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Mid-year goals
I'm a goal-setting kind of guy. If you don't believe me just ask my wife. Each year for our wedding anniversary I'll take my wife out to dinner and we use this time to talk about our goals -- for each other and for each of our four children. Besides this routine goal-setting time, I'm always thinking about what goals should be accomplished.
This spring, while on a trip to Portugal, I found myself walking through the Parque Marechal Carmona one evening. It was a really beautiful park and I had the place to myself. So, I sat down on this park bench and started writing down a long list of goals that I wanted to accomplish.
I always write my goals in four areas: Spiritual goals, Mental goals, Social goals and Physical goals. I find that when I focus on these four areas I can usually capture the bulk of what I need to work on.
The secret, I've found, is to regularly review your goals and make weekly plans to move them along. I know...it 's really hard to work on them all of the time...so you have to plan on being flexible. I try to find a quite place each week to read my goals. It could be at lunch, on a Sunday morning, or on a plane ride. But the important thing is to keep them in the front of your mind all of the time!
So, here we are at the middle of the year -- July 1. If you haven't been able to keep up on your New Year's resolutions, try dusting them out today and make a Mid-Year Resolution to refocus on them and accomplish them during the next six months.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Three lessons I've learned this year
It's been a while since I've posted anything. I like to use the excuse that I've been traveling a lot, but that shouldn't be an excuse...it should be a reason to post!
I've been learning and experiencing so much over the past few months it's unbelievable! Here are a few lessons learned:
1) You need to carry your own weather. I've found that I'm happiest when people around me are happy. The problem is that people aren't happy all of the time so I've made a resolution to try and make them happier, thereby having an impact on my environment. Here's a short video to help inspire you.
2) There's no place like home. I've logged more than 100,000 miles in the first half of this year. I've traveled to four different continents and seen some amazing sights like Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point in Europe; a Bollywood opera in New Delhi; The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul; and Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed. I don't list these things to brag and boast, rather to illustrate how inconsequential they are. Because there's nothing like coming home to your family -- pushing your daughter on a swing; riding a bike with your son; playing a game with a daughter on a lazy Sunday morning; or teaching a son to play baseball. I would trade my travel experiences -- all of them -- to have more family experiences like these.
3) Focus begets success. When you truly focus on a goal and take steps to accomplish it, you have a greater chance of success. Conversely, when you are unorganized and undisciplined you have a tendency to wander in circles, unable to attain that which you seek because you have not charted a course and diligently focused on it.
Isn't life strangely wonderful? It's like a constant puzzle that you're always trying to solve but, as one piece slips into place you see more pieces that need to be arranged. It's a never ending game of trial, error, and success. Hopefully we'll all find more success than error for the second half of this year!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Good Thoughts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Hong Kong Kaboom!
Imagine the stress relief you can experience by using virtual classrooms rather than having to drive in endless traffic to your training. We talk a lot about the convenience of virtual classrooms, but rarely do we hear about the stress relief it can have.
So the next time you plan a live training session, think about holding it virtually. You'll may save some unnecessary tension in your life and in those of your participants.
Monday, January 17, 2011
How long until I get one of these?
PepsiCo Social Media Visualization from StruckAxiom on Vimeo.
Monday, January 10, 2011
My review of Adobe Connect
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Life Imitating Art
Monday, November 1, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Josh Loses a Tooth
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Adam Barker Photography
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Moving the classroom online
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Expose Yourself by Seth Godin
Here's Seth's post:
"Expose yourself"
With so many options in media, interaction and venues, you now get to choose what you expose yourself to.
Expose yourself to art, and you'll come to appreciate it and aspire to make it.
Expose yourself to anonymous scathing critics and you will begin to believe them (or flinch in anticipation of their next appearance.)
Expose yourself to get-rich-quick stories and you'll want to become one.
Expose yourself to fast food ads and you'll crave french fries.
Expose yourself to angry mobs of uninformed, easily manipulated protesters and you'll want to join a mob.
Expose yourself to metrics about your brand or business or performance and you'll work to improve them.
Expose yourself to anger and you might get angry too.
Expose yourself to people making smart decisions and you'll probably learn how to do it as well.
Expose yourself to eager long-term investors (of every kind) and you'll likely to start making what they want to support.
It's a choice if you want it to be.