The Tortoise and the Hare

One day a hare saw a tortoise walking slowly along and began to laugh and mock him. The hare challenged the tortoise to a race and the tortoise accepted. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race.

He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise, plodding on, overtook him and finished the race. The hare woke up and realized that he had lost the race.

Wikipedia Article – The Tortoise and the Hare

wii lan adapter shopping

I am looking for a Wii Lan Adapter, and really don’t know much. Amazon seems to have three ( one, two, three) options.

Will just a generic USB to Lan adapter work (it’s cheaper, though still not gigabit)?

Any suggestions and/or recommendations?

Save the Date for PodcampNashville3 – March 6th

PodcampNashville3 will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010 – save that date now.

Years ago I went to the Mercy Lounge one Saturday, not for a concert or drinks at the bar (though those were available), but for a time of meeting, learning, and socializing with people involved in or interested in Podcasting. It was an ok event, with one stage, and some break out areas. The best thing I took away from that day was meeting Cliff Ravenscraft in person for the first time and being able to get to know him.

The next year, around the same time, came PodcampNashville2, this time at the Vanderbilt Owen School. That year I live bloged some notes. Lots of rooms, lots more people, lots more fun, and I did not make the mistake I had the first year – I stayed for the after party.

That fall I decided to go to BarCampNashville – many of the same people *work* both events, but I picked up on something additional that applies to both events: most everyone at both events is interested in learning, helping people, building ventures (could be their own business, or their own department), and something involving either better communications or technology.

It was at Barcamp 2009 that I decided that I would just go ahead and start planning each year to be at each event (podcamp and barcamp Nashville) if not any other reason to support such a great community of people striving to grow themselves or a venture to help others.

I’ll tell you more, and probably review some of my past notes (beyond any posts I can find), but today I advise and encourage you to make plans to be at PodcampNashville3. I’ll also be looking to be at a gathering of people the Friday Night before, either somewhere in Nashville, Cool Springs, or Murfreesboro area.

When you decide to attend PodcampNashville3 on March 6th, let me know & I’ll add you to a list of people to remind when more information comes out.

Paint The Picture

Today, not tomorrow, or at least the next time you are inspired to (for me it sometimes takes some time to get in the right “mood”) I want you to do something for your biggest project:

Paint a Picture

Use words, crayons, photoshop, clay, mud, or whatever media is best for you, just get that first vision captured in a tangible, or electronic form.

The topic? Your vision for that project. What you want or strive to have it be, and do.

This might be in regards to an organization you are working with (job, non-profit, start up, team, etc) or even your personal life. My plan is to do this with every major project that I am the champion of, including, but not limited to my personal website, a not-for-profit Real Estate Investor organization that I am committed to help, and a portion of the Boy Scouts of America.

Just writing this post is a part of this process for me. It’s a part of my systems. First to provide me some accountability, but also to share with people I am working with, or supporting. This is something I really want my clients and business partners to do. Not for me to “approve” or “disapprove” but first for them to remember and gain better understanding of themselves, and then to help me understand how I can better help them.

Once complete in one form, I might strive to make it in additional media. Since talking is sometimes the easiest I might start there, and then move to text, or a visual medium. Having those two versions is also important because it helps the iterative improvement process.

One thing I tend to do when building a system or business is to talk to lots of people about the idea. Even if the other people have nothing of value for me; the act of explaining, or telling the story, or painting the picture in and of itself helps me to improve the plans in real time. Thus, if you write out on a piece of paper your future story, taking and putting it into a computer will improve it, because you are working with it again.

Over the course of this year, I intend to review, revise, and rework the pictures I have painted in the past. This in turn will help me to be more focused on my goals, more motivated to get more done, and in the end more productive.

What is the picture you are working to create?

NHL Winter Classic 2010

One Hockey Game that I really enjoy watching each year has been the Winter Classic. Starting a few years ago, the game has been played outside January 1st in a baseball stadium; this year in Fenway Park. One year it even snowed during the game.

Here is a time laps of them building the ice:

I think I am going to Tivo the game, then watch it later that evening, if you wanna join me let me know.

if money were not an object

One common method for helping people discover their hedgehog concept/blue flame/purpose/mission in life is to ask the individual “If money were not an object, what would you do with your time?”

Other times speakers, authors, career and business coaches mention the “big why”: why are you doing what you are doing? Why are you pursuing your current path? And generally they stipulate that it is not, and cannot be, just because of money. Nobody (well, more or less) really wants little green pieces of paper, they want something else.

In the book Go Put Your Strengths to Work, there is an exercise where for a week whenever you get strong positive emotions from a situation or gained strength form an event, you write down on a card what was going on, and for strong negative or draining events – you do the same. At the end of a week you separate the cards and basically go through looking for patterns: what specific “who, what, when, where, and/or why” caused you to gain or loose strength? This exercise should help you:

1. gain better understanding of yourself and what makes you tick, and
2. provide guidance as to what you should do more of and less of.

This exercise is more difficult with an organization. It is not just one person, but the goals should be the same: gain a deeper understanding of what makes the organization tick & what the organization should be doing.

What if the first question when a new idea was brought up to a governing board was not “how much” or “how can we pay for it” but “does this help us achieve our purpose in life?” If that answer is “yes”, then the next questions should be “does it grow the organization in one of our primary resource areas (time, money, or brand)?” followed by, “do we have the strength & resources to make it happen?” Granted, there would be times when the answer to the last question is so obvious that the first two questions would not need a lot of time or energy spent when thinking about the projects. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to begin by asking and focusing on supporting the mission of the organization first and foremost?

I think the challenge I would give to you, future leaders and others, is to go back to whatever your fundamental business building material is. It could be an industry specific focus or not. Go through it again and each time the media asks a question or proposes a direction you should ask, “how should <enter org name here> answer this question?” or “how does this apply to <enter org name here>?”

Odds are many of the questions & plans will apply. If none of the thoughts in the media apply to each organization you are working with then you should probably find a better basis to build your career/personal life around.

If money were not an object, what would <enter org name here> do? Now, we should put all resources required for success behind that, if we possibly can, and do it. Then we should figure out what the “if we could do one more, then what would it be?” and do that.

It applies to you as an individual just as much as it does to every organization you have some level of influence on.

Hire a Pro?

This morning I was going through my RSS reader and listened to this one clip released by Dave Ramsey on selling your house on your own or hiring a Realtor.

Here is the clip: there is an ad at the beginning:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Two messages that hit me:

1. only a percent of “pros” really do the best job
2. letting people do what they do best allows better results

I am a big fan of specialization of labor; I want you do do what you have a natural strength to do, a passion to do, and causes the resources you need or want to flow to you. That means that sometimes I do work myself, other times I hire professionals, great people who will produce either better quality, faster, or larger quantity results then I would doing it myself.

There are times to do stuff for yourself. You have a role to play is helping the pros you do work with achieve their greatness, but there is also a reason to work with them.

As for that first point, it can be hard and time consuming to find a real professional – or the best of the best, or at least someone/an org that is great. That does not limit or reduce the need we have to strive for it, but puts into light that sometimes we have to spend a lot of time, energy or other resources up front to find the greatness, then develop a relationship and attempt to make sure that both parties get what they want, or one day one of the parties will go away & do something else. That’s why I attempt to help my clients and my vendors succeed, I want them to keep producing what I use/like/enjoy from them.

check this site, what site?

Here is the body of an email I received today:

The 2009 Pumpkin Carve will be held this Saturday, October 17 from 2:00-4:00 pm in our commons area. Please make arrangements to attend this wonderful event.

I would also encourage you to read the new info on our website.

Thank you.

HOA Board
_______________________________________________________________________

This email is intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it is addressed and may be privileged and confidential.
Unauthorised use or disclosure is prohibited. If you receive This e-mail in error, please advise immediately and delete the original message.
This message may have been altered without your or our knowledge and the sender does not accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the message.

Ce courriel est confidentiel et protégé. L’expéditeur ne renonce pas aux droits et obligations qui s’y rapportent.
Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce message ou des renseignements qu’il contient par une personne autre que le (les) destinataire(s) désigné(s) est interdite.
Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez m’en aviser immédiatement, par retour de courriel ou par un autre moyen.

Now, here is all the dumb stuff in this email off the top of my head:

• this is for an email in 4 days, that is good, but is the first I have heard of it … why not email or post earlier?
• there is no link to the email <— huge, what are you thinking? Check the site and not include a link to the site?
• there is no person to contact for additional info
• it’s a one off email, this is not that bad with how few emails they send out, but could be huge, and minimum is a missed opportunity
• the email address is not from the domain name
• the email address cannot be replyed to
• There is *NO* way within the email to contact anyone at the org … this might even be illigal
• there is no way to stop the emails form this org — again, might be illigal

now some of these issues don’t look huge, and if this was a one time event it would not be, but every email from this org is the same … blah blah blah, check the website with no link to the website.

Death Making

Below is a video of a segment about an Arabic tv show that is called ‘Death Making’.

I hope that the program achieves the goals that they are striving for in reduction of violence.

category to pages

Made a change this morning, one I had intended to do long ago, but it did not happen until this morning & you will probably not notice unless I tell you what it is.

It use to be that the “media” was a category, and if you hovered over it you would see:

• Text
• Photography

In that regard nothing much has changed, but behind the scenes it has. The best example is to look at the Photography; currently looks like this in the main section:

I could not do that with the old way. Might also switch the “media” page from a blog style to an area index, best example of that is the Series’ area index.

Why?
More control. The ability to present videos one way, and text a separate way is important.

I am also working towards developing a system/program/service so that we can quickly and easily build and manage personal hubs for other people.

Future:
Well, there are more advanced version of some of the page templates we are using here that have been developed, so converting to that, not sure if before or after that the whole theme will be updated to a more modern version. I know I want to use the Featured Content Gallery as opposed to the current tabbed, simply because it is more interesting visually & helps hide if I have not updated in a while.

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