Comments?

I like getting comments on this blog, and I always try to respond to the comments I get.

I also like leaving comments on other people's blogs, and they usually reply to me, which is cool.

So, here's the thing - I use an RSS feed to keep track of several blogs. It's a handy, automated way to stay on top of lots of bloggers. But I don't have a good way to keep track of which blogs I left comments on. So I am forced to rely on my memory (yikes!) as to which blogs I need to revisit, to check and see if my comment got a reply.

I know some blogs let you check a box that says "email me about subsequent responses," but many of those blogs get LOTS of comments, and I don't necessarily need to fill up my email box with all of those. Anyone out there have any suggestions? 

The Cult of Done

I came across this on Dan Pink's blog a while ago and just had to pass it along. 

The Cult of Done Manifesto
(originally from Bre Pettis' blog, apparently written in 20 minutes)

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
   
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
   
3. There is no editing stage.
   
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
   
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
   
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
   
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
   
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
   
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
   
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
    
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
    
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
    
13. Done is the engine of more.

I particularly like #2, the first part of #5, #8 and #13. I'm not so sure about several other points (#3 and #7 in particular, and probably #9) and I don't think I understand a few others (#1, #11, #12), but there's something in this list that resonates with me. Whether I agree with the content and tone or not, I like the way this list challenges me to think about what constitutes a good project, a good outcome, a good approach to doing stuff that matters. 

One thing I realized as I read through this list is the link between procrastination and perfectionism. OF COURSE those two go together - how had I not seen that before? And the opposites seem to go together too. Personally, I am the exact opposite of a procrastinator (does that make me a concrastinator?), and am a self-proclaimed imperfectionist. No doubt that combination explains more than half of the trouble I get into and most of my self-induced, avoidable difficulties... but I hadn't really been aware of the link between these personality traits before. Interesting.

Why?

I came across this paper towel dispenser in the restroom of  a local church, and just had to snap a photo with my ever-present fuzzy-little-camera-phone.

The instructions say to push the button, then pull the lever twice. Following these directions dispenses a certain amount of paper towel. At this point, you cannot pull the lever any more (unless you push the button again). I suppose the objective is to limit the amount of paper any given person uses. But all one need do is push the button again and then dispense two more lever-pulls worth of paper. And push the button again... and again...

I suppose the idea is to prevent people from wasting paper, by forcing them to take an extra step and (hopefully) think about what they're doing. But I suspect the press-pull-pull-press-pull-pull process could be just as mindless as the pull-pull-pull-pull approach.

If we want people to not use too much paper, why not just put up a sticker saying "Please don't use too much paper?"

Purple Cab?

While on a brief trip to Xenia OH the other day, I saw this cab and had to take a photo (with my ever-present, oh-so-handy, fuzzy little camera phone).

Why, you ask, did I take a picture of a cab? What's so special about this particular form of transportation? I just thought it was kind of funny that the "Purple Cab" company uses (drumroll please)... WHITE cabs!

How Far We've Come...

On my birthday two weeks ago, I found myself wondering how far I've traveled in my 36 years. I don't mean in an earth-centric geographical sense. I mean from a solar perspective. My brain is funny that way.

A little searching on the interweb revealed that at a latitude of 39 degrees North, the earth's diameter is approximately 19,377 miles. That means in a single day, living at that latitude (a rough approximation of my average latitude), I travel 19,377 miles as the Earth spins. In a single year, that's 7,072,605 miles in rotational distance alone! Multiplied by 36 years and we get a distance of 254,613,780 miles, just from the Earth's rotation. Not bad!

Now on to some bigger numbers. One trip around the sun covers approximately 584,014,356 miles - it would take 82.5 years of spinning around on the earth to travel that far, and that's just a single revolution around the sun! Multiply THAT number by 36 and you get 21,024,516,816 miles.

So, by the age of 36, we earthlings have traveled a distance of more than 21 billion miles as we loop around the sun. Kinda makes the 254 million miles of rotational distance seem piddly.

Anyway, add those two numbers together and we get 21,279,130,596 miles. That's roughly how many miles I've traveled so far. Cool, eh?

15 Minutes, Starting Now...

Apparently my proverbial 15 minutes of fame was scheduled for this past week.

First there was the cover story in the ISSA journal. Then the whole thing about getting mentioned in Andy Nulman's book (twice) and on his blog. Now, British blogger Trevor Gay posted an interview with me this past Saturday.

Add to that the previously unreported fact that I am quoted in Dr. Alex Laufer's latest book, Breaking The Code of Program Management (a copy of which I received last week), and I'm feeling a little bit famous. 

Not a lot, mind you, but yeah, a little bit.

Shocking Headline of the Year

My Google CNN feed shows three headlines at any given time. One of those three headlines was so important that I just had to comment on it:

"Charles Manson Spends Most of His Time Alone"

Really? Nice fella like that? Who woulda guessed?

But my real question is: Why would a journalist take the time to tell me this? The guy is in jail and has been for nearly 40 years. I sort of assumed he was alone a lot of the time. And how does that headline get picked as one of the three important headlines of the moment?

My point: as journalists continue to clutch their pearls and get the vapors over the decline of newspapers and the impending death of journalism, I'm going to remind myself that today's cadre of highly trained journalists are providing important announcements like "Charles Manson spends most of his time alone." Whatever would we do without this vital public service?

Of course, there are lots of good journalists out there who do a good job of keeping us all informed... and I'm sure they'll continue to figure out a way to do that, with or without print newspapers. And along the way, maybe we could have a little less of the historical-celebrity-murderer-update kind of journalism and a little more "here's what's happening in the world." 

POW, with Andy Nulman

I continue to be surprised by Andy Nulman's book, POW! Right Between The Eyes, which I mentioned just a few days ago. The latest surprise? He mentiones little old me not once, but twice! There I was, minding my own business and reading his thoroughly entertaining book, only to come across a pair of stories featuring "military technologist Dan Ward."

What a cool surprise.

And speaking of cool surprises, a little birdy tells me that Andy's blog has yet another mention of one of my recent projects. This time it's a presentation about, well, I don't want to spoil the surprise. Go over to Andy's blog and check out what he's saying.

I (Heart) Yellow Springs

Had a wonderful trip to Yellow Springs, OH yesterday. I've mentioned my fondness for this beautiful little town several times on this blog, and I just don't get tired of marveling at how enchanting the place is.

It probably helps that I'm all done with school and my lovely wife and I were there sans-children (they, unlike me, are NOT done with school yet). So the multi-fasceted sense of freedom was certainly part of the day's charm, but the town itself deserves a lot of the credit.

We had lunch at the Sunrise Cafe - the food was amazing - and even brought home some pie for "lunch dessert." We wandered around Darkstar Used Books (I picked up a copy of The Peter Principle for $1.50) and a jewelry shop whose name escapes me. We bought some fantastic hard rolls from a little bakery whose name I always forget (but whose rolls I never do). 

The weather was gorgeous, the town was its usual quirky self (as we were having lunch, the local Yellow Springs mailman came into the cafe to deliver the mail. I'd never seen a mailman with dreadlocks quite as magnificent as his). All in all, it was a simply fantastic day.