Did you make a new years resolution?

What timeframe did you choose for this conscious act of change? For most people, a new years resolution only lasts a couple of weeks or months because there is no plan to support the change. People who resolve to quit smoking forget that the act of buying cigarettes is part of their daily routine, perhaps when they buy a newspaper. To support the decision to quit, it isn't just the tactics that need amending, it is the strategic level as well.

From a business or personal point of view, do you have a plan. Can you answer the question – "Where will you be in five years time?"

Planning is by it's nature a strategic activity, you need to step back and assess all of the variables, inputs and future scenarios and plan a path through it all. With so much uncertainty in the world it seems like a daunting task, but as Seth Godin stated last week, 

The oughts (the "uh-ohs"?) were a tough decade on a macro level. Front page news events will give the textbooks plenty to write about in the years to come.

But on a micro level, on a personal level, this was a decade filled with opportunity. The internet transformed our lives forever. Opportunities were created (and many were taken advantage of). And, like every decade, just about everyone missed it. Just about everyone hunkered down and did their job or did what they were told or did what they thought they were supposed to, and just about everyone got very little as a result.

Maybe ten years is too long a period of time to plan for. So how about seven?

Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you're doing right now?

If your answer is, "not much," perhaps you should consider a new plan, one that might generate a different answer, or, at the very least, be a more fun way to waste seven years.

Do you have a strategy to innovate, or be different from the pack – cause if you don't plan for it, you are likely to just be along for the ride.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Your Plan

Technorati Tags: Innovation, leadership, planning, strategic, strategy

If you’d seen my desk lately, you’d understand how I feel about organization – I need it, but it doesn’t come easy. I’ve written previously about Xobni, another Outlook addin that helps sift through email madness, now it’s scheduling time.

Plans, proposals, phone call slips, reports, budgets, business cards – it’s all there – and the dream of the paperless office looks like a farce. Email is easy, and hides the disorganization that is inherent in Microsoft Office. For personal email, Google Apps rules the roost.And then there are the meetings. I have lots of meetings and need to stay on top of the when, where and what it;’s about, but also the scheduling – I don’t have a personal assistant to do that for me – and that is where Tungle comes in.

Setting up meetings with multiple attendees can be a challenge at the best of times, but with people using different email and calendar clients and leading busy lives, it only makes sense to use an online scheduling service like Tungle to ease the meeting timeslot troubles.

It sits as a link on the Outlook Toolbar, or in Google Calendar and when scheduling is needed, click the button and tungle walks you through the process, looking at your contacts as you type in their names, pulling the existing information from your calendar, and once you’ve sent out the information, updating the calendar view with the availability of suggested attendees.

Tungle works with my existing calendars, both home and work, pulls contact information and provides an easy interface for respondents as well. Also, if you’re into publishing your free/busy status, this ties into LinkedIn, Facebook and other scoial networking sites, and you can even pop a widget on your blog too!

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Tungle – the Scheduling Lifesaver

Technorati Tags: Calendar, Facebook, Google, Google Calendar, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Tungle

THE meeting spills over into its second hour. We are discussing an employee productivity initiative. At the moment, our most talkative committee member is describing a similar effort at another company. Her descriptions are peppered with self-consciously clever turns of phrase and images.

Another participant chimes in with the idea that we need some kind of incentive system to reward employees for behaviors we want from them. This is the same solution he offers for every problem, at every meeting.

Then, our self-appointed parliamentarian interjects a long story about a previous institutional effort — to make the point that our team is not the proper entity to recommend the kinds of changes we are proposing.

I, meanwhile, contribute nothing useful.

Finally, the woman who set the meeting calls it quits and tells us we’ll continue the discussion next week. We drift back to our offices wondering what went wrong and how to make up for the wasted time.

This meeting occurred many years ago, but others that are distressingly similar happen at companies everywhere, every day.

Source: Preoccupations – Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time – NYTimes.com

Reid Hastie form the University of Chicago offers some sobering advice to those who lead meetings – Take responsibility for the outcomes of a meeting.

Simply put, he summarizes this in a couple of points.

1. Why are we having the meeting – what are the tangible goals – what do you want to have accomplished by the end of the meeting.
2. What is the cost of holding the meeting. Who needs to attend, how long should it go for.

There should always be a benefit to holding a meeting, focus on what that benefit is, and ensure that this is reflected in the goal or outcome desired. This article is a timely reminder to all of us involved in professional, social or civic organizations to review how we run meetings on a regular basis, not just to change things for change’s sake, but to improve the efficiency of the organization for everyone’s benefit.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Meetings

Technorati Tags: Business, Company, Education, meetings, New York Times Company, United States, University of Chicago

I love technology and social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr etc all hold a great appeal to me as they add contextural content to the web in a social setting. However, many people see these social media opportunities as an extra-curicular activity, one that should occur outisde of the workplace. I’ve seen it work both ways.This post is about the Twitter phenomenon, short 140 character posts, similar to text messages on a cell phone that allow people to upadte and converse about the goings on in their day.

Take for example the blogger Darren Rowse from Australia who has been blogging about blogging for a couple of years. Now some might say that it’s not real work, but I’d argue differently, as he’s making real money. Darren has just recently launched a second blog, this time about Twitter, Darren has been using Twitter for a few months now and has compiled a video of reasons why people love Twitter, (on his new Twitter Blog)…

ProBlogger Twitters

For Engineers, communication between clients and peers is important, as is building a relationship and trust. As such a tool such as twitter can be used to bridge the gap between  email and face to face conversation with regular updates that are archived in time as well. There have been arguments against using twitter for work, (the most ridiculous in my mind being that the 140 character limit means you can’t put in a disclaimer!), but I like reading about times when Twitter has made someone more productive in their work environment…

Twitter is my watercooler as I work solo from home (or a local cafe) in Alaska. It is my finger on the pulse of social media and things happening in the Lower 48. It is my way of touching base with friends, acquaintances and people who I’d like to get to know better.

WebWorkerDaily » Archive 10 Everyday Ways to Use Twitter for Work «.

I welcome anyone who hasn’t used this to join in and build up a community. And if you are already on Twitter ,you can find me here – @urbanworkbench.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Twitter for Engineers

Technorati Tags: communication, engineering, Internet, social media, Software, tools, twitter, webworker

Could you do your job from home?

And by 2015, according to demographer Wendell Cox, there will be more people in the country working electronically from home full time than are taking public transit.

Suburbia’s not dead yet – Los Angeles Times

Telecommuting makes sense for many industries, even in some cases those that have been traditionally face to face service based. Businesses that are required to account for carbon emissions may have to take it to this level for offsets. If employees are not driving, could a business count that as an offset?

A bonus question: Would your boss be up for it?

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Telecommuting Away Gas Prices

This is not to be confused with a previous post about the four hour work week, rather, it seems that Utah has run the numbers on the environmental cost of having government employees at work five days a week, and opted for a four day week instead…

ksl.com – Governor lays out plan for 4-day work week

Gov. Jon Huntsman announced today that Utah state workers will soon only have to work four days a week. Most agencies will switch over to four, 10-hour work days a week.
The "Working 4 Utah" initiative is being welcomed as an energy- and money-saving change for the state. Huntsman says the alternative work week will formally launch in August.
"It has never been done on the statewide level, so we would be the first state actually rolling this out," Huntsman said. "So, July we’re going to be working very closely with departments and agencies making sure we anticipate … all of the issues and challenges that’ll be associated with doing this right."
The new four-day, 10-hour schedule would apply to about 17,000 state workers — about 20 percent of the total state workforce. All those people wouldn’t have to commute on Fridays, and the offices where they work — about 1,000 buildings statewide — won’t have to be heated or cooled, and lights and computers would be turned off.

This is a great idea to reduce the carbon footprint of a whole state government. Is this the future of employment? Or will it go further to include telecommuting?

[adsense:468x60:1:1]

HT to Save and Conserve.

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as The Sustainable Utah Four Day Work Week

I’m intrigued by the ability of crowds to make good decisions. Elections are a perfect example of a diverse enough crowd making a better decision (more often than not) than an individual alone. It would be ideal to harness this decision-making power for more general decisions than we typically do. Need to decide which of two or three options would be the best way to proceed… don’t just ask the experts, a better decision can be made by a diverse and independent “crowd”.

What’s stopping us from doing it, (except the fear that a worse decision will be made)? For me, it is the fact that it is nearly impossible to get a sample of participants that are truly independent in their decision making thoughts and processes.

Surowiecki in “The Wisdom of Crowds” states…

The more influence a group’s members exert on each other, and the more personal contact they  have with each other, the less likely the group’s decisions will be wise ones.
The more influence we exert on each other, the more likely it is that we believe the same things and make the same mistakes. That means that it’s possible that we could become individually smarter, but collectively dumber….

Can people make collectively  intelligent decisions even when they are in constant, even erratic contact with each other?

The theory can be extended to the application in small communities, (and I’ve been guilty of this as well!).

It actually may hinder decision making on the whole, when people, usually with good intentions, put forward their biased views in newspaper articles or on blog posts. As the crowd becomes more homogenous, one would think that the decision making would improve, but by removing the diversity of opinion, the effect may be that the community “becomes individually smarter, but collectively dumber”.

If you actually care about the opinion of the common citizen, (and getting the best outcome), when it’s time to make a decision, maybe it’s best to hold back on sharing your opinion.

Here is a summary (thanks Wikipedia) of the way to harness the power of crowds in decision making…

The Wisdom of Crowds – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diversity of opinion Each person should have private information even if it’s just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts.
Independence People’s opinions aren’t determined by the opinions of those around them.
Decentralization People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
Aggregation Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

If a crowd’s opinion is already jaded by a vocal minority, the opportunity to practice the power of citizenry participation has been lost. That’s good to remember next time you feel like you need to lead the sheep away from the edge of a precipice.

Decision-making is tough at the best of times, but when it comes time to determine whether community consultation is an option remember the four states above that need top be present for a good decision to be made. The theories presented in this book are pretty compelling, and the author is careful to state the research that supports when and how crowd wisdom can occur.

How have you experienced crowd wisdom or ignorance in your world?

This post was written by Mike Thomas for UrbanWorkbench.com ©2010.

Originally posted as Community Decision-Making and Independence