One of the keys to sticking with a to do list

Habit. Plain and simple, there is no magical special answer. Sure, there is some effort involved in this, but the key is to remove barriers so that using your to do list becomes a habit.

How do I do this?

For me, I use Remember the Milk, and have loved it intermittently for over two years. When I use it, it works great. Web-enabled, easy to use, easy mobile integration, even the print out to carry around to meetings is darn good.

I have made it a habit (again) by having it auto start when I crank up Firefox (typically via the "quit and save" feature). This way, whenever I open up my browser (which is the first thing I do when I get to work) it pops up and is staring at me.

For some reason on my client site, with the client provided PC, the Remember the Milk integration into Gmail isn’t working. It isn’t keeping me logged in on that page, though it works just fine at RTM’s site. I dunno. I thought it was a cookie issue, but if it is keeping me logged into RTM during the course of the day (and after a reboot) I don’t see that as the problem.

The inertia is removed from me using my to do list. It’s right there every morning, staring me in the face. I can’t help but use it.

"To do list" by ebby, "RTM" pic by yashima

Government contradictions, insourcing and hiring freezes

The Obama administration has made it very publicly known of their intentions to "insource" a lot of jobs being done by contractors. Typically this is in reference to positions viewed to be "inherently governmental". And I would/will applaud this, there are clear lines that need to be drawn between what roles can or cannot be performed by contractors.

However, to then make it known that there might be hiring freezes? How can this work? There are already hundreds if not thousands of vacant positions within DHS alone. If you are going to freeze hiring, you either have to rely more heavily on contractors, or leave a giant flapping hole in the services provide the country. And doing so within the DHS space has the unfortunate risk of leaving us vulnerable to various attacks, increased crime or lack of response to a natural disaster (and with H1N1 looming…).

There's clearly no simple solution, but it has to involve common sense, maximum value for the taxpayer's dollar, and the necessary services to keep our country safe.

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Remembering basketball camp

by Zador Spanish schools Spain

• My Mom packing my lunch in the grey and blue cooler that I still have. She always put an icepack in their to keep things cool. There was always a Gatorade (orange). A sandwich of some sort. Usually an apple as well. And my name was on the cooler on masking taping - "C. Stevenson"
• It was HOT! We did a good bit of practicing outside on the blacktop. Drills mostly, but games as well.
• I got pick on a bit, and one time really still is fairly vivid in my memory. I had on an Adidas shirt, and this was during their “All Day I Dream About Sports” ad campaign. Well one kid who I guess didn’t like me turned the “Sports” into “S**” and said I liked that. Now for an 8 year old boy, that was a bit disturbing. He, I guess, expected me to get really upset about it. But I played it cool, only replying “So?”. But it still bothers me and I remember how scared I was at the time.
• The head coach had a really really shiny bald head. I mean SHINY!
• The rebounding and shooting contraption. They had this device that you set up around a basket, it had netting on it that forced you to shoot with a minimum amount of arc (a good idea), and it also had three ball return chutes the get you the ball (also cool). It was giant to a small guy like me, but I loved that thing. I could shot 3’s all day by myself.
• I remember how excited I always was for lunch. Maybe my most favorite part of the day.
• 4-square! We played that a lot, I think during lunch. That was a fun game. Had to use the big red bouncy balls (also a must for kickball), and there were all these weird rules about special bounces you could earn and use. I didn’t get that part of the game. Evidently one of them was where you could grab the ball and two handed slam it in someone’s square. I hated that.
• The basketball coach also had really short shorts, the old school coach lycra material one’s. Awesome.
• I was always extremely excited to see my Mom when she picked me up.

I loved that camp, it was a lot of fun and I truly learned a lot about basketball. Up until a certain age (I think 12 or 13) I tended to be one of the top 2 or 3 kids in my age group. I was an all-star. Something happened when I was 12 or 13, I think I moved up an age bracket. But I was on a new team where all the kids new each other and were “cool”. I felt like an outsider and a dork. I went from a whirling dervish scorer, to a pass only point guard.

It's time to get ride of the corner office

or

In the course of my modest nearly 8 year career (July 9th will be the 8 year anniversary, which is the bronze year evidently), I've been able to work with some facilities organizations. Facilities? You mean the janitors and maintenance crews? Yes, those guys, plus a lot lot more. Managing corporate real estate is a large task, as it involves a heavy dollar investment for any organization.

The cost per square foot is rather shocking, and when you look at it on an annual basis, wow is that a lot of money.

All that beind said, the corner office holds a special place within corporate America. Long viewed as the symbol of "making it" in the business world, corner offices are the modern day anethema to green/sustainable work places. Corner offices block sunlight, leaving the lowly peons of the organization with fluorescent lighting. Corner offices alone as a status symbol cause devisiveness, tension and angst among workers.

Peers can become rivals when space planning and real estate demands result in one equal getting a corner office and the other not. Friendships have actually ended over this stuff.


If an organization's leaders claim to put their people first, claim that they want to create an open environment where people are valued, etc then check to see where their office is located.

Also, check out how large and lavish the CEO/President's office is in comparison to everyone else...


(pictures by redskins5926 and bellhalla, respectively)

How to survive a large business proposal, part 1

The best term I learned early in my career was "frontload". A very basic concept, the term means do as much as you can, early in the process. This is obviously the opposite of cramming. Cramming in the workplace is not fun, creates a poor quality product, results in error prone work, and creates unnecessary stress that often times requires you to burn your limited number of favors.

Cramming on the job means that there was deficient planning somewhere in the chain. Even if the cramming is a result of new unplanned for demands from superiors (which my wife can attest to), we can still frontload the new task. Frontloading can be done on almost any proposal, and I would question the merit of any proposal where you can't frontload.

The only instance where this would occur is if you were bidding on a totally new "thing" (service or product to provide) and had a very short timeline. And the only time you'd want to bid in a situation like this if your company were facing a profitability issue (maybe it's because you are bidding on the wrong RFPs?) or you had the inside track to the opportunity (in which case you have to wonder why they couldn't sole source this).

If you are lucky/cursed enough to have a Request for Proposal (RFP), make sure you read it over. Understand what they are asking for. Observe how they have provided you with a natural outline. Outline? Yeah, they order and way in which they ask questions. Make it easy for them. they'll likely have a checklist of things to find in your proposal, it'll be based on the RFP. So use their own words and order.

Plan plan plan.

Create a "compliance checklist" now. This is a list of all the little nitnoid items you need to include. They often list out a few phrases you are required to include in your proposal (or else you are noncomplient and tossed out). These are almost always obvious things like "We don't discriminate", but they are required. But also make sure you notice all the attachments they want, the font size they require, the handful of items they want you to include in an answer.

Now, take that checklist, and add to it. Add? It's already 4 pages long! Well, it needs more stuff, and these things are what will help you win.

You need to figure out what "win themes" you'll include in each section, and you'll need to include what "over achiever" answers you'll provide as well. "Win themes" are your high-level selling points. Examples might be "We've done this exact work with other clients" or "We have the most experience people in the industry" or ideally "We have the exact technology you need".

Make sure each section of your proposal has at least one win theme (the longer the section, the more Win Themes it needs). This checklist will be key when you get to the end of the process. Your brain will be fried, and you won't really be able to read the RFP again and understand it.

Your compliance checklist will be your sane self's way of helping you out.

How to run a better offsite meeting or tour

by jeanine&preston


I've learned these lessons while preparing for an upcoming offsite meeting for the leadership of my client, I'll be presenting on the trends that are going to impact them over the next few years.

• Create an agenda upfront so expectations are clear - This seems like commonsense that everyone would follow, but they don't. This is important so the attendees know what to expect, and so the presenters know what is expected of them. And please, let me know how long I have to speak, it makes a huge difference. Recently I held a meeting where I distributed an agenda ahead of time, but two of the key attendees never read the agenda and hijacked the meeting. It took me 10 minutes to get us back on track.
• Overcommunicate the time/s and location/s - I learned this lesson from the near weekly softball games I and my wife help orchestrate for a team, and no matter what we do a quarter of the people have to email/call at the last moment to find out where they need to be. This not acceptable in a business setting, so remind them a few times. Go so far as to leave a post-it note on their desk two days beforehand if need be.
• Define and review the next steps - Next stends are the post meeting's agenda, what the group has agreed to do next. If there are no next steps, then the meeting was not useful. Even if you are just "getting people on the same page" you should be able to clearly state who is going to do what next to move forward. Verbalize this as the final thing said at the meeting. Distribute this via email (or better yet a centralized task management system like Remember the Milk).
• Prepare them for the pitch - If there is any chance anything "salesy" will be presented, you need to make sure people are ready for it. This is quadruply important if you are a consultant putting your client in front of a pitch, forewarn them. And if you feel the sales pitch is too aggressive, end it.
• To read ahead or not read ahead - Read ahead material can be very helpful, especially if you need the audience to have a lot of facts and figures at their fingertips. If you present too much data without any background, they'll forget it (which can be ok if the data is merely a means to convey a specific point). If you provide read ahead material, and it is totally necessary for people to reach an educated decision, then make the expectation clear. You can even say that there will be a roundtable quiz to start off the session. Nothing like public shame to get your desired response.
• Kick the tires - If you are using another facility or space, physically go there and test it out the day beforehand (or that morning if you are doing an afternoon session). Make sure the computer and projector work, make sure the slides and videos work on that system. Make sure the temperature is acceptable. Know where restrooms are, etc.
• Decide how you will handle interruptions - Something is going to happen, whether it be the computer crashing or someone taking you off course for 45 minutes. Decide how you will handle this, give some up front planning to these things. You can't plan for them all, but you can prepare in general.
• Have a team huddle - If you are doing this with anyone else, make sure you are all on the same page.

I've screwed up several of these over the past 8 years, and it seems you have to re-learn these lessons every so often as well. Having a mindful and repeatible process for running a session greatly reduces your risk of screw up.



And if you are planning on the majority of the session to be done via Powerpoint, just know ahead of time you are fighting an uphill battle.

Developing effective marketing material for future customers

Image by Seattle Municipal Archives

My company is in the final days of finding out if we've won* a new contract with a government organization. If we have won, then we'll need to develop marketing material to promote our availability and services.

Instead of creating your standard company boilerplate information, I'm trying to create this from the potential customers viewpoint:

• What will they want to know about us and our services?
• What point of contact information do we provide? More than one to make us appear bigger, just one so there is a dedicated POC?
• Website link of course, but to which page? Maybe our LinkedIn page too so we appear hip?
• What type of description of our past work will speak to them? How can we cover a wide array of work in a limited amount of space (and attention span?)
• Who are we actually targeting?

Our challenge once we get in the door (assuming we win) is that not a lot of people will know us.

* This is a specific contract type such that there is more sales work to be done before we can start delivering results.

The most shocking internet use statistics you'll ever read

The "LexisNexis®Technology Gap Survey" was performed "to investigate whether or not there is a gap between generations of legal and white collar professionals in terms of technology in the workplace."

And let me just saw I only got to page seven before I was running around my office spewing statistics to anyone who would listen (sorry everyone).

First off, Gen Y respondents seem to either be really bad at math, over report time spent on activities or should never be allowed to do accounting as they double count to a horrific degree:

• Gen Y workers report spending an average of 17.4 hours in a workday using a PC, a PDA and a mobile phone, whereas, Boomers report spending just 9.7 hours a work day using the same devices.
• Gen Y workers report spending an average of 20.5 hours a work day using e-mail programs, Internet browsers, instant messaging programs and Microsoft Office programs, while Boomers only report spending 11.9 work hours using the same programs.
• Gen Y workers report spending an average of 10.6 hours of every work day accessing social networking web sites, news web sites, blogs, Internet forums and multimedia sharing web sites, versus 5.6 hours reported by Boomers.

The second item alone means they do almost everything in their personal lives besides sleeping while on some device. So it is readily apparent that Gen Y is addicted to technology, to a stunning (to me at least) degree.

Here's the part that had me totally aghast:

• 32% of Boomers think the Internet can decrease workplace productivity, where as, 50% of Gen Y workers think this is the case.
• 22% of Gen Y say that social networking web sites decrease theirproductivity at work, versus 0% of Boomers and 7% of Gen X.
• 22% of Gen Y say that multimedia sharing web sites decrease their productivity at work, versus only 3% of Boomers and 7% of Xers.
• 15% of Yers think Blogs decrease their workplace productivity ,versus only 1% of Boomers and 4% of Gen Xers.
• 53% of Gen Yers agree that personal devices, such as Blackberries and mobile phones, encourage too much multi-tasking.

Gen Y says they use technology of some sort nearly every hour of the waking day, HOWEVER, they also think it all makes them less productive.

UNPLUG DUDE! Turn that stuff off...


Somewhat related, "Almost three times as many Gen Y workers (39%) report using gaming programs at work than Boomers (14%)." 39% of Gen Y admit to LYING, CHEATING and STEALING from their company. They lie to their boss about doing work. They cheat the company from their time. If they bill a client they are stealing the clients money, as well as their salary from their employer.

Read the whole thing, it is informative and not too long.