Fast Company magazine is looking for the most influential person online: Influence Project. Well, that is certainly pretty interesting…I wonder if there might be a way to parse and analyze this information with regards to topics of influence, what it is that people are talking about.

Here is the basic summary:

ABOUT THE PROJECT

We started with a simple question: Who are the most influential people online right now?

That’s what The Influence Project is designed to answer. By participating, you will have your picture appear in the November issue of Fast Company magazine as part of an amazing photo spread. The more influence you demonstrate, the bigger your picture will be.

You may discover that you’re more influential than you think.

Influence is not only about having the most friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother to check it out? And what’s the likelihood of those people then forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread?

This is the type of influence we’re looking for. We want to find the most influential person online.
Who knows? It might even be you.

So, I decided to sign up, and find out what kind of influence I might have. This is not a popularity contest, nor is it some hunt for fame. I know that I am certainly not in the “Most Influential” category, though with several thousand subscribers there is something going on.

So here is my request, if you are a subscriber or visitor and you came to this site looking for information on Productivity or learning to use Social Media for your small business, then please click this Influence Project link and help me to find out how I can better serve you – the readers.

Thank you!

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For those of you notebook fiends out there, some cool add-ons to our favorite notebook:

Matt Reimer points to a DIY SD Card wallet you can make for your Moleskine notebook:
Moleskine and Me

On the road I’m never without my camera and the way I take pictures it’s sometimes nice to have spare SD cards with me. I found this wicked Instructables tutorial by a user called Pipeski on how to make your own SD card wallet that fits really well inside a Moleskine notebook. Definitely worth a look!

Andrew Bosley created a tool he calls The Brainstormer:

When I was in school at SJSU, studying visual development and illustration, I was always trying to give myself little concept projects to keep myself sharp and thinking. So I created a list of objects, persons, things, etc. and a list of styles, adjectives, etc. These very large lists were in the back of my very first Moleskine (an address book used as a sketchbook). The idea was to combine an object or person with a style or adjective (ex. Byzantine submarine or subterranean factory) to create unique and interesting combinations to concept out and illustrate.

I found it useful in it’s crude form, but always wanted to turn it into a small, more sophisticated pinwheel format. Finally, a few months ago, during a lull in freelance work, I decided to make it happen.

Patrick Ng created a Moleskine Sketchbook/Diary in a leather cover (click over to see the pics!):

The day I decided to use the Moleskine 18 months weekly diary from July I knew I would have problem pulling out what I need from my bag. It has the same size and look as the Moleskine sketch book I’m using. Knowing that I will be using both quite often in this coming half year starting from my trip to Tokyo next week, I did something drastic in 30 minutes.

If you have seen any cool Moleskine hacks or add-ons, let us know in the Comments.

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Carol Roth has put together quite a list:

95 Strategies for Work/Life Balance When You Work From Home « Unsolicited Business Advice from Carol Roth

More and more entrepreneurs are setting up a home office, which means that more and more entrepreneurs have to find a way to balance their work and the rest of their life. This topic was brought to my attention by a regular CarolRoth.com contributor, Adelaide Zindler of Home Office Mommy, so thanks Adelaide!

As usual, I reached out to my network of valued experts and entrepreneurs and I am excited to present 95 strategies to help achieve some semblance of balance in your life when you are working from home (in no particular order).

I contributed a tip (#11) “Balance Through Productivity“

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Time management is a common focus here, but something that is not often discussed is just what good is all this time that we are managing?

There are several reasons to be concerned about your use of time, and there are times when you should feel free to just “be”.

Here are five things for you to think about, as an exercise in investing your time:

1. Time allows you to rest and recover – We all need downtime for recuperating from stress. Pushing yourself and overcoming challenges are excellent ways to invest time, resting is the best way to use some of the time you gain from your investment.
2. Time allows you to increase your focus – Invest the time that you gain to think about bigger things, your 3-5 year goals, your Someday/Maybe list. What do you want to have time for doing later?
3. Time allows you to gather the facts – Gaining a true understanding of your situation takes time. Investing time in this way creates a larger picture for you to evaluate.
4. Time allows you to see how things turn out – Once you set a plan in motion there are frequently some variables beyond your control, and waiting is all that you can do. Invest this downtime to prepare for the next stage of your project.
5. Time allows you to create balance in your life – All work and no play leads to a heart attack. Invest the time that you gain to be with your family and friends. Connecting with your circle is energizing and can be a link to discoveries you may not have expected.

How do you invest your time, and what do you do with the time that you gain?

Workspace: Meet at The Apartment :: Articles :: The 99 Percent

Meet at the Apartment also revolutionizes the concept of a meeting by taking meetings into new territories – places that inspire a different kind of thinking and interacting. For example, “One of the signature features of Meet At The Apartment is that you can brainstorm while sitting around the kitchen table. We recognized that everyone loves to hang out in the kitchen, eating snacks and brainstorming. So we put a meeting table in the kitchen!” In addition, specific design choices were made to optimize focus and attention. As they explain, “Meet at the Apartment employs a very stylized black-on-black décor throughout the upstairs area of our space. It was not only a design tactic but also a strategic decision, as it dismisses distraction and allows the guests to be the focus.”

[...]

And to ensure that any meetings are successful, Marc and Sara rely on four basic rules:

1. Bring outside people into the meeting to facilitate and participate. Bring in people that are in a different business than you are to lend a fresh perspective.
2. Think through the flow of the entire meeting and optimize the right times to brainstorm, take a break, etc.
3. Prioritize on action – make sure you don’t leave the meetings and jump right back into your daily workload. Leave with tangible next steps and fast-track the results. Follow up — make sure the meeting is not a one off.
4. Every meeting should have a moment of celebration – when people get together you should celebrate success and people on the team. Embrace things that are moving in the right direction.

We agree that workspaces and meetings should be re-thought, so we’re glad that spaces like Meet at the Apartment will be popping up in cities around the world. Hopefully, they’ll set the bar for everything else!

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Last month I was given the opportunity to get a sneak-peek at Laura Stack‘s new book “Super Competent” (to be released on 9 August).

I sat down with it a while back and started to read, keeping notes on the parts that struck me. I really enjoy reading business and personal development books, and there have been a few lately that were real stinkers, I didn’t bother to finish a couple of them.

This book is not like that, it has some very useful and actionable information.

The 6 Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best

“Success with come to those who can accomplish more in less time & consistently perform at their productive best. The people who achieve their fullest potential are not simply competent; they’re SuperCompetent.”

Stack defines what she calls the 6 key areas for achieving super competency:

1. Activity – Determine what you should be working on
2. Availability – Make time for it
3. Attention – Focus on those tasks
4. Accessibility – Organize the information needed to complete it
5. Accountability – Be responsible for your results
6. Attitude – Never give up

To anyone familiar with the principles of Getting Things Done (which most of you reading this should be after following this for 3 years!) these are the essential steps to accomplishing your tasks and goals.

Managing Your Activities

Crossing things off your list means that you actually need to sit down and do the things that need to get done. Stack calls this the Activity Key and recommends the following for your List Management:

1. Start with your smallest key tasks
2. Clean up your workspace
3. Prioritize the rest of your tasks, focusing on valuable activities
4. Delete the things you know that you are not going to do
5. Preserve your energy for the things that advance your goals
   

I know that most of this is familiar territory, but it is interesting to see it arranged in this order. GTD tells us to clean up our workspace first, then move on to prioritizing ( In the workflow: Collect, Process, Organize), where Stack starts off by applying the “Two-minute Rule” (if it can be accomplished in two minutes, do it now) to those small key tasks. I am not sure that I agree with that, as quite a few people that I have spoken to about being productive complain about getting bogged down in those little Two-minute activities. Many actually spending a big chunk of their day on them and not having the energy to tackle the big stuff, which Stack leaves until last on the list. I think that you need to consider your energy levels earlier in the process.

Managing Your Attention

The strongest chapter in the book covers your “capacity to concentrate on what you are doing.” Stack covers all of the bases, including:

• Avoid multi-tasking
• Capture your thoughts on other topics that come up while you are working on something, then put them aside
• Pay closest attention to the tasks that have the greatest return on your investment of time

Accessibility or Having a Unified Filing System

Unfortunately, in her effort to make all six start with the letter “A”, she runs into a bit of a contextual problem with the chapter on Accessibility. Stack uses the term to describe your ability to access your information and archives, while the term has a different meaning for me that made this chapter difficult.

Accessibility, to me, has to do with managing the way that others can interact with you, gaining access to your attention. But this is a small quibble and I suppose simply my own weakness.

Organizing your filing system and having access to your data and archives is an essential part of your productivity practice, and Stack provides some useful tips on creating and maintaining such a system.

Not Just another Productivity System

Super Competent is not just another system that you have to learn in order to become wealthy and influential overnight. Stack builds on and explains how you can learn from other systems to find the right way for you to get done with your tasks and achieve your goals. When this book hits the shelves next Monday I recommend that you give it a look. It is well worth your investment of time.

Here are my hand-written notes that I took while reading the book, click on the thumbnail to see it full-sized:

[Editor's note to the FTC: I did receive a copy of this product for free in exchange for writing a review, no other compensation or expectation of a positive review was expressed or implied.]

Rypple has put together a short quiz to determine your Productivity Style. This is my result:

Well, that’s for sure. I suppose that now this means I have no choice but to consider how to best get a handle on these commitments and ideas…as if I don’t do enough of that already. But I haven’t been sharing it with you very much. That is something that I can change.

You can take the GTD IQ Quiz here. Come on back and share your results, I’d love to chat about how we can help each other out.

Capture

I am borrowing this post concept from my friend Dave Seah, who regularly shares his thoughts on what he is doing and working on at his Agenceum blog. I am coming off of the “weekend” (2 days off in a row!) spent with the Lovely Bride and need to get focused on what lies ahead this week.

First, let’s take a look at the calendar:

• It is gong to be fairly busy at the Tavern this week, I have a half-dozen or so 90-day evaluations to do for my new service staff. Most of them are seasonal employees, but I am looking at this from a Linchpin Way perspective. Personal and professional development is not seasonal, so why should they be treated any differently? I am batching the actual paperwork portion, then will schedule the individual meetings.
• I have a couple of calls to some of my SOBCon colleagues scheduled this week, I am looking forward to re-connecting and learning more about what they are working on.
• “Draft posts for December” – I wrote a note to myself in my planner to create some blog posts that I can complete and publish in the Holiday Season. Things tend to get hectic in December with family obligations and all of the goings-on at the Tavern. Getting a jump-start on blogging is a good idea. Scheduling some time for that.

New Projects

One of my internet clients has a couple of new projects for me that I need to lay out and design this week. Also, I have 2 new possible clients that are looking to create a web-presence that need proposals. This is going to be a good week for ICMM.

Tiki Tuesday at Wolfe's Tavern

Tavern promotions are also in my dashboard this week, my new Assistant Manager and I need to sit down and put together some fun things for our customers. Today, for example, is Tiki Tuesday, and our regulars love it. They have been asking about what we plan to do every other night of the week…

I am thinking more in the direction of food-related fun, rather than more entertainment.

Reading materials

I am doing a lot of reading, Drood by Dan Simmons has me completely captivated, and Laura Stack has written a new book on Productivity titled “Super Competent – The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best” and it is a worthwhile read. I am just about halfway through, making lots of notes.

Working evenings at the Tavern makes for a late night, and coming home after midnight has its own special challenges. I tend to be pretty wound up so it is very difficult to get to bed. Reading is a good way to relax and unwind.

Non-work-related Activities

All work and no play will make Stephen a raging lunatic, so I am looking forward to getting some recreational activities into my schedule this week. I picked up a kayak at the LL Bean outlet in North Conway yesterday (what a steal!) and I am excited about getting out on the lake. The Lovely Bride likes to go down to the beach and go swimming after work, so now we can enjoy that together (I’m not a big swimmer). Also, I will be able to use it to do some fishing out away from the shore.

Okay, this seems pretty good for the first Staff Meeting, please share your thoughts in the Comments. What can we do to make this exercise more valuable?

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

I purchased this book on 12 June, and started reading it shortly thereafter. It is an amazing book, a thorough and well-though-out expansion of the ideas in this presentation by Shirky (Link to Clay Shirky on Cognitive Surplus). He has been thinking about this for a couple of years and it shows.

Means, Motive, Opportunity and the Current Economic Crisis

Cognitive Surplus is the term Shirky uses for our free time, or the time that we are not spending making a living. In this book Shirky describes the history of cognitive surplus and the massive potential for its use and development.

Shirky describes the background of events and technological developments that have allowed humans to spend less time doing the things they need to do to survive – the creation of “free time”.

Before the invention of television people used a great deal of this time for social interaction. The advent of TV, and the marketing that financed its production, pulled people away from social and group activities and into passive consumption of entertainment.

People also started to turn to TV and favored programs if they were lonely (of course they were lonely, no one gets together for ice cream socials or barn-dances any more!), with the on-screen cast replacing or standing in for their personal, real-world, social network.

As an aside, I find it interesting that TV broadcast companies are called “networks”…

Social Networks in the Internet Age

With the explosive growth of the Internet, however, we find that people still have a fundamental need to connect and share with others. Suddenly people have the opportunity to be sociable again, with an incredibly low barrier to entry. In addition people are creating and nurturing connections to other people that share very narrow interests. In the past it could be difficult for a person interested in, say, model trains, to find and interact with others that share that interest. The Internet has destroyed the barriers of geography and publicity, enabling these people to find each other easily and have conversations, create relationships, and share their experiences.

Today it is only a matter of investing a few minutes in searching Google (or Flickr or Facebook or Twitter…) to find others actively sharing their thoughts on any topic imaginable. This is having a revolutionary impact on the use of free time, the active employment of our cognitive surplus, because people really do want to share, to collaborate, to create things.

Two Thousand Wikipedias

One of the most amazing examples of the potential of applying our cognitive surplus to something other than TV involves the collaborative effort that is Wikipedia. According to an estimate, Wikipedia represents the result of the application of about 100 million hours of human thought. To give that some context, 100 million hours is about 50 thousand full-time jobs lasting one year. All of it is contributed by volunteers for free. In their spare time, putting their cognitive surplus to good use.

“Sure“, you might say, “but how much free time, this cognitive surplus, is there anyway?”

Well, Americans watch 200 billion hours of television each year, or the equivalent of two thousand Wikipedia projects. Think about that for a minute…

Imagine if even a fraction of that passive consumption of TV could be re-directed toward something productive. It makes me feel guilty about the one evening a week that I spend in front of the TV with my Lovely Bride.

Moving Away from TV

Recent studies indicate that for the first time ever there are groups of young people that are actually watching less TV than their elders. I would be willing to bet that these groups probably fall into fairly specific demographics: 20-something, early adopters of technology, largely self-educated (learning more in their free time than they do in “lowest-common-denominator public schools), web-savvy, and completely uninterested in getting a “job” and working for The Man. I say this because in this time of recession where about 1 in 6 people are out of work, creating your own stimulus is undeniably attractive.

In my own experience I know half a dozen young people like this that are preparing to start their own business. They work hard and don’t watch TV. One young man I know doesn’t even own a TV, but he does have a computer and a great idea for a business.

Means, Motive, Opportunity

So here we are, faced with economic uncertainty, a depressed economy, and an amazing asset – our collective cognitive surplus – sitting idly by watching “Real Housewives of New Jersey“. Couldn’t we put this asset to better use? Shouldn’t we? Is it not a moral imperative? Perhaps not, but I think that we should all be putting at least one hour a week into creating something amazing. And remember, amazing is what you say it is.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Learn something – Read a book, take a class, go online, whatever, but learn something new. How to paint with watercolors, how to tie a fly, how to create YouTube videos to promote your business.
• Make something - Create a new product or service for your business, or an online store.
• Teach something to another person – Could your neighbors or co-workers benefit from learning about something that you know how to do? Drag them away from their TVs too, and share your knowledge.

What are your thoughts on how to use your own cognitive surplus? Please share in the Comments.

…and it’s Big Brother coming your way: (from NoisyRoom.net)

From TorrentFreak:

After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result.

Yesterday, an event took place here in the United States that got little comment – cue the crickets… WordPress host Blogetery and 73,000 WordPress blogs were shut down, marking the beginning of a modern day 1984 society in the US. A chill rippled through the blogging world and the internet sparking 1st Amendment fears and a Constitutional outcry from those paying attention.

I remarked that this was “Possibly the biggest violation of Constitutional rights I have seen in my lifetime…” I twittered, facebooked and sent this out to the largest bloggers on the web. Silence ensued, apathy reigned and a disquieting sense of despondency descended. Only The Radio Patriot commented on the fact that their Google, Blogger account just vanished some time ago and that it now feels like ‘1984‘ in the realest sense of the title.

I agree with the author, back up your sites, and have an alternate hosting plan in place.

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