An ecosystem of socks

I don’t often read The Financial Times on a day-to-day basis, but I picked up a complimentary copy from a hotel yesterday and spotted an interesting article on the back page.

It was headlined “Accessories at the core of Apple’s plans for the iPod” (here’s a link to the article, but it will scroll behind the paywall shortly) and talked about Apple’s moves to consolidate their hold on the iPod market by encouraging an “ecosystem” of accessories.

Now I don’t actually own an iPod - instead I’ve got an iRiver, which actually does more than an iPod (it records high-quality MP3, there’s optical line-in and line-out, it has an internal microphone etc), but it lacks two things that the iPod has. Firstly, it doesn’t have the street-cred of the iPod - it’s got a look and feel that only it’s mother could love, and the earbuds aren’t white.

But also - and more importantly in the light of the FT article, it doesn’t have the ecosystem of accessories that the iPod has. Everything from an iPod Sock (that’s a knitted case to you and me) to a BMW 3-Series - Apple have brought a number of major car manufacturers on board to build iPod-compatibility into their in-car entertainment systems.

All of which make the iPod a much more compelling choice, regardless of it’s inferior specifications. And it seems that Apple have learnt from the iPod’s example with their latest product, the Mac Mini. Although it was launched only a couple of weeks ago, already we’re seeing accessories specific to the Mac Mini come onto the market.

Thinking outside the cliches

“Thinking outside the box” is one of my least favourite cliches, so when I came across Joyce Wycoff’s “whimsical journey” (her words) to find a replacement, I thought it was worth posting.

From the 125 suggestions, these are the top 4:

There is no box

Escape the matrix

Spark the gap

Thinking past the horizon

I’m not sure that any of them are actually a huge improvement, although the last one does at least have the advantage of being least of a cliche. I’ll be adding them to the Buzzword Bingo card, and waiting to see how long any of them take to appear in a Dilbert strip…!

Some pros and cons of online meetings

Some pros and cons of online meetings, from Robin Good of Corante.

Improving conference calls

While conference calls are a great way of bringing together a group of geographically dispersed people, they’re often frustrating experiences, particularly if you’re using a standard desktop phone. One of the problems of using a standard desktop phone on hands-free is the sound quality - they’re usually half-duplex meaning that you can speak, or listen, but not both; and most of the time you’ll sound as if you’re calling from the bottom of a well. All of which makes it very much more difficult to participate.

If you’re a regular user of conference calls, you’ll probably have used Polycom’s ubiquitous ’starfish’ conference phone at some point - and it’s a device that solves most of the problems I mentioned above. It’s great for meeting rooms, but not so practical on a desk - so check out a desk-top handset that includes conferencing facilities.

Although they’re more expensive than regular desktop phones, consider this - how much does your time cost, and how much time do you waste by asking everyone “Can you repeat that please?” Chances are, a decent-quality conference system will have paid for itself inside a month.

Gmail hints

We’ve had some Gmail invites to give away over the last couple of weeks (sorry, all gone for now) - but if you’re new to the service, this might be of interest.

Jim Barr’s Complete Collection Of Gmail Tips is a complete collection of all the tips he’s posted on gmailtips.com It’s worth a visit if you’re new to the service and wanting to get up to speed quickly - alternatively if you’ve been using it for a while, chances are that you’ll learn something new!

Secure passwords with nursery rhymes

I’ve lost count of the number of user accounts that I have to remember passwords for - so like most of the rest of the human race, I have a tendency to use the same password for everything. Simple to remember, which is great - but the need for a strong password is even more critical if you’re going to take risks like this.

Unfortunately strong passwords are difficult to remember, because the best ones are effectively random strings of characters - and we humans crave patterns. So here’s a quick technique to help create seemingly-random passwords that are easier to remember.

Take a phrase or saying, or perhaps a line from a song that you can remember readily, then type the first letter of each word as you say it to yourself. So if you find that you can easily remember “The Grand Old Duke Of York, He Had Ten Thousand Men”, you’d end up typing “tgodoyhhttm”. To the casual onlooker, that’s pretty random!

You can make it even more secure by throwing in a few number / character substitutions - zeros for the letter ‘o’, for example. So now our password becomes ‘tg0d0yhhttm’ - and if we used some other arbitrary switches - say ‘$’ for ‘h’ - we’ve got ‘thg0d0y$$ttm’, which looks even worse, but is still easy to remember once you’ve typed it a couple of times.

Try this next time your password expires instead of dog names and children’s birthdays, and you’ll be surprised how quickly it becomes second nature…

Curing distraction on the web

If you’re suffering from the distraction of the web when you’re meant to be doing something else, here’s a neat trick courtesy of Mark Wieczorek at MarkTAW.com:

The Internet is a vast repository of Time Wasters, and if you’re like me, the activity that signals that I’m about to lose focus is opening the web browser. So I created a simple web page with the words “Get Back to Work” in big, bold letters on top and set it as my homepage.

Simple, but highly effective!

Helicopter views

Spotted on Frank Patrick’s Focussed Performance Business Blog:

“Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.”

    — Ludwig Wittgenstein

A nice sentiment to remember when the temptation to get lost in the detail takes hold.

Creative solutions, critical skills

Dave Pollard writes a consistently interesting (and prolific!) blog on a wide variety of subjects, mainly centering around business innovation and knowledge management. There’s so much there it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with everything that he posts, but much of what he writes is worth reading.

This article from a couple of days ago is an interesting - and comprehensively argued - take on managing change in organisations. Dave’s perspective is that the only way that organisations will succeed in the long term is to enable its employees to work smarter rather than harder - and the only to ensure that this happens is to equip them with the skills and the competencies that they need.

Invest effectively in developing Critical Skills and you’ll reap Creative Solutions. That’s the best ROI you can get.

A quick summary like this really doesn’t do justice to the very comprehensively thought-out arguments - and it’s made more interesting by the fact that Dave is practising what he preaches, reinventing himself publicly along the lines that he’s suggesting. Consistently thought-provoking, he’s worth a visit.

Procrastination and how to avoid it

We all have days when despite a to-do list a mile long, we’ll find any excuse not to get on with the task inhand - or indeed any task. Regardless of best intentions, it’s all too easy to put something off when a few minutes would be enough to get the job underway or finished completely.

This article by Steve Pavlina, CEO of Dexterity Software, has a look at the root causes of procrastination and has some useful insights into what you can do to overcome it.

The solution to perfectionism is to give yourself permission to be human

They’re simple methods, but effective nonetheless - and could easily be coupled with a process such as Getting Things Done to make a good attempt at breaking bad habits. Now should I get on with updating these project plans, or make another coffee….?