In Godin’s discussion on The Powerful Culture of Gifts, he notes there are three ways people think about gifts: 1) “Give me a gift.” 2) “Here’s a gift. Now you owe me big time.” 3) “Here’s a gift, I love you.” I think it’s very easy for people to slip into the second mode of thinking upon reading about the gift economy. We see this all the time with “free seminars” or “free networking” that are nothing more than sales pitch events. This is NOT giving away your art.
So how can you expect to make a living giving away art for free? That’s where the Circles of the Gift System come in. Godin’s theory goes that in the First Circle of true gifts you give away your art for free to family, friends, co-workers, those that you are close to. The Second Circle is the circle of commerce made up of those who pay for your art, your customers. And now with the rise of the Internet, a huge Third Circle has emerged which is that of your followers and fans–”friendlies”–who can become friends. This Third Circle helps expand the circle of commerce, as well as help you influence and improve the lives of even more people.
I am just beginning to tap into this world of the Third Circle and it is truly an amazing new frontier. Within less than a year, I have made scores of new friends (especially my Twitter “twibe”) and gained so many new resources, I can’t even imagine my future without it.
After reading Linchpin, you understand why Godin was giving us advance reviewers a chance to read and comment on the book. He was demonstrating what it truly means to be a linchpin.
Posted by @Stephen | Productivity | Saturday 30 January 2010 1:12 am
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece on Personal Kanban and how it was making it easier to put my Projects and Next Actions in perspective.
This is a pic of the updated Kanban board in my home office. I have made a few changes and abandoned some things that were in my Queue at the beginning. Also, I have split the @Tavern contexts out and moved them to the board in my office at the hotel. This was a tremendous improvement in terms of being able to see what I need to work on in my home office when I am not working in the restaurant. Very important to Job/Work/Life balance.
How Tasks Enter the Kanban System
My process for generating Next Action and Project cards remains the same, they usually come to me while I am making my daily Journal/Morning Pages entries, or when I am reading. Each new card then simply goes into the Queue and each morning I can assess the situation, choose the tasks that I feel are most important (or urgent), and move them into the Work In Progress (WIP) column (this post being one of them on the 27th).
I would like to mention an important caveat here – the Kanban board is not a replacement for your calendar when it comes to the time-specific information that you need to manage. Remember that only three things are to be entered into your calendar:
1. Time-specific actions
2. Day-specific actions
3. Day-specific information
That’s it. Because your calendar is a tool that you use to tell you where you need to be and when you need to be there, or when something is scheduled to happen. Your Kanban board is where you manage Tasks.
Use these two tools together for planning your activities. For example, during your Periodic Review you may decide that there are some Most Important Tasks that you would like to assign as time-specific (or set a deadline for completion). Enter these in your calendar, or create a Next Action Card with a due date on it. Put that card in the Queue column.
When the assigned time arrives, and your calendar reminds you of the Task, move that card from Queue to WIP. This method will work whether you use a paper planner or a digital calendar/PDA.
When you are Done
As Groundhog Day approaches, I am looking forward to moving some more things into the Done column for a simple and easy way of reviewing exactly what was accomplished in the current period. The real beauty of this system is that it replaces messy handwritten lists and gives an instant overview of what is happening right now. This overview provides a tool for managing the backlog of Tasks in the Queue and creates a “Pull” mechanism for adding new tasks to the WIP column.
The “Pull” occurs when a task is completed and a space is created when the card is moved to the Done column. As the cards move from left to right across the board I am able to see and measure the flow of work that is being completed. This visual sense of accomplishment is very gratifying!
Dave Seah has a post about how he has seen Kanban pop up in his viewscreen recently, with some links to Scrum:
I first heard the word Kanban at a presentation of the local Scrum Club. Scrum, if you’re not familiar with it, is a team methodology to create working software QUICKLY through short production cycles called sprints. This is in contrast to the waterfall model of software development, which defines the entire process from concept to deployment as a series of blocks that follow each other on a march to the end.
Waterfall, in my mind, is like starting with one giant boulder of time, from which the team must carve a working model of a city in as efficient a manner as possible to conform to the blueprint. SCRUM, by comparison, is like starting with many pebbles of time and working those individually into functioning buildings one-at-a-time; the finished city evolves one working building at a time. This isn’t a perfect analogy, of course, but in general the first approach requires much more care and diligence to make work while wasting time backtracking, while the second approach risks less by avoiding backtracking and using smaller rocks of time.
Posted by @Stephen | Productivity | Friday 29 January 2010 2:18 am
First, the video. Allen speaks quickly, he is obviously animated by the topic. Keep this in mind as you watch:
The Methodology is more important than the Technology
My Take-aways:
It doesn’t matter where your list is – if you have the method down, you can keep your lists anywhere
The cloud apps just don’t have the sophistication yet – I agree with Allen that the cloud apps need to get bigger and more robust, allowing physical interfaces to get smaller while the virtual interface fills the room
Developers should build connectivity into all of the tools that we use – proprietary devices and services are most likely not sustainable in the long term
As so many people’s To-do lists are incomplete groupings of unclear things developers should consider ways to enhance the list-building experience. Improve clarity through tagging and clearly-defined Contexts. All of us can benefit from gaining mastery of the methodology, then the technology can become transparent.
What if the following were really true? Suppose I need to create a presentation for one of our larger clients. In my office I push a button and a whole wall comes to life. A Bach harpsichord concerto starts playing. When I say “Acme Brick Ltd”, the words show up in the centre, linked to pictures of people, services, buildings, maps, all of which I can manipulate via the wall’s touch-sensitive screen. The real-time corporate data of the client shows in a small, connected box. Off to the side, I see icons of the various people I work with, along with small indicators of who’s currently online and what they are working on today. One is highlighted and blinking, because my assistant is at the moment trying to set up logistics for this particular program with the client’s staff.
I grab a keyboard, sit back in my chair, and begin to type words — concepts and themes I might want to integrate into my presentation. As I do, quotations that could prove relevant begin to scroll on another screen. Files of other presentations that have used those themes show up in another part of the wall. When I feel a bit stuck, I hit my Creative Hot Button, and randomly associated data scrolls, based on background input for this session appear.
And then imagine that scenario as a hologram in my office, which I can walk around in virtual 3D mode, creating, dragging and connecting content points in mid-air.
This tech all exists now, but it’s not integrated, accessible or easy to use. I still must exert an inordinate amount of mental energy to remember what to use to help me think about what I’d like to think about. That’s enough to put the kibosh on any creative process. Sorry, dear, I have a headache tonight.
I still believe that this is the ultimate mobile device:
WEBEX IS Dead !
Webinars for fun and profit have moved from a business cost to a business benefit – check the new technologies.
Hard to believe but Webex was a revolution in its day. We all rushed to deliver webinars for our clients, we all struggled to work out how to monetize this new medium, and we all paid the costs fo doing so.
Today you can still get all of the benefit – but without the costs!
DimDim.com has launched a free tool for webinars of 20 people and less. If you want to have more than this then there are subscription type fees – but they are affordable.
I almost want to pay them money just for the value they provide. Fantastic product.
In DimDim.com you will find everything that goes into a successful webinars product. Video conferencing, use of microphones, the ability to share your desktop or just share a power point or other document. As well as the ability to draw freehand and mark up presentations that you are reviewing.
I use it almost once a week depending on my webinar workload. Actually – I try to run more webinars because I have access to this product now.
A fantastic way for you to start engaging with your clients in a different way – merely because now you can!
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