6/6/2011Since I am an efficiency nut (or at least a nut!) I often talk to people about efficiency and effectiveness. In fact our purpose statement at Sector is all about "building human capability to create positive change in organizations, and the world". So here's a 5 minute chat on Collaboration Tools and getting more done, while reducing your carbon footprint..
How does technology make your life more efficient? Greener? What about SharePoint and Live Meeting in particular? Feel free to disagree with me – I'd love to hear your perspective!
All the best!
Gerry Brimacombe
gerry@sectorlearning.com
Click the image above to play the video, or go to this URL: http://youtu.be/R1aZ2wXH1Is
5/5/2011
I was talking with a very successful young man yesterday who says he now takes 4 months off every year. He uses that time to rest, think, study, and reward himself for the hard work he has accomplished. He told me that you can give someone 8 hours to complete a task, or give the same person the same task to do in 12 hours… in either case they would take the whole of the allotted time. He applies this principle to himself and to his work. Innnnterrrestinng…..
He also told me about a series of YouTube videos on this subject by Brian Tracy. As you know from a previous post (Drive and Talk at the University of Auto) that I am big Brian Tracy fan, so I had to go check that out! Below is the link… this stuff is timeless.
According to Tracy, the principle above is called "Parkinson's Law". Stated simply: the work will expand to the time allotted.
And when I posted this video to Facebook, Paul Lemberg immediately responded with his own series of videos:
Gerry, depends on how buttoned-up you are, but if you're more of the "distractable" type, here's a great Performance Enhancement Program for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYDuKFwBIFU (1 of 15)
Great stuff!
What do you think? I am open to your comments here, or email or Facebook!
"Time" to go!
Gerry Brimacombe 3/28/2011
I have emceed this event for the last three years; this will be my fourth.
Please join me in celebrating an "Unsung Hero" in our Community, Enid Elliot!
Hope to see you there!
Gerry
3/18/2011
I am probably breaking a few laws here, but it's fun Multitasking in the car!
I love listening to Audiobooks in my car…and here's a discussion about it, while driving!
If you want to get Audiobooks for yourself, I suggest eBay, Russell Books in Victoria, download from iTunes, audiobooks.com, or let me know and I might have one or two I can lend you!
Click the picture to play the YouTube video.
Talk to you soon!
Gerry
gerry@sectorlearning.com 2/9/2011
Jim Collin's book "Built to Last" discusses what great companies have in common, and a foundation of PURPOSE and VALUES came up over and over again.
Below is a 4 minute segment about Sector's values and how we use them every day. We are very proud, and a bit silly ... but mostly proud.
Enjoy!
Gerry Brimacombe
Click on the picture to launch the video, or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIlQITbbdsw
1/15/2011
Hello Y'all!
With the miracle of iPhone4 Videography... Can we use those words for me running around with a cell phone camera?... I recorded a 3-minute clip of the recent changes to Sector's physical space for you.
Enjoy! And let us know if you plan to attend our Open House Party (February 8th 5:00-7:00 PM), so we have plenty of wine and appys!
Cheers!
Gerry
11/30/2010
Okay, so I am a bit enthusiastic. I get going on stuff and I want DO IT ALL…NOW…RIGHT NOW! So when we started planning a few key strategies to take our business to the next level, I said "Oh! Oh!  And at the same time we can do this and this and this and…." Well, you get the idea.
Here's what we had planned for December:
- Renovate the main classrooms to add a small 1-1 training room and a webcasting studio.
- Redesign and rebuild our course registration system to streamline the student experience and improve the back office.
- Relaunch the "Sector eClass" product to fully utilize the webcasting studio and broaden our reach.
- Develop a marketing plan to drive all of this.
Then I decided, since we are really gaining speed with our SharePoint 2010 courses and there is some definite interest, we should also organize a SharePoint 2010 Launch event to promote our SharePoint 2010 offerings…
Then I thought, since we are doing a marketing plan, why don't we also step up our social media presence…
Then I figured that since we are rebuilding the course registration system, why don't we also redesign the website…
Then I proposed that since we are going to be closed December 18th – January 3rd, I should also redesign the front office…
On top of that, I just won a curriculum development contract that I committed to be on ½ time.
Then I wondered if maybe I should try a raw food diet in January as well…
(Now you know how my brain works.)
Well as I write this, even I can see how crazy-making it would be. But it wasn't until meeting my business coach, Brent Hammond, yesterday, that he said something along the lines of "focus on one thing at a time and you will be more successful" (deep, eh?). That smartened me up a bit. (Also my staff told me to back off.)
 I was reminded of an early morning walk a few years ago. I was musing about a different expansion plan, and I almost stepped on an earthworm on the path. I stopped and watch the worm make his way. I noticed how he (she?) moved: slowly, not exactly in a straight line – I saw the parallels to growing my business right there! But what really struck me, and it is the reason this post is entitled "Lessons of an Earthworm", was that the worm would stick part of his body down, and then stretch out with the remainder. The stable back-end provided a foundation for the front-end to reach out and grasp for a new "foothold", and then pull the back forward. I love nature and always try to learn from the beauty and the simplicity…and this analogy really helped: keep part of my business stable, grounded, and predictable, while allowing parts to grow and risk and explore… Am I making any sense? I think I am … more than I was earlier!
So here's the revised plan:
- In December, renovate the main classroom to add a small 1-1 training room and a webcasting studio, including rearranging the front to make a desk for Chris Stone and better align my desk.
- Starting December, and completing February or so, redesign our course registration to streamline the student experience.
- Promote the "Sector eClass" product, and SharePoint 2010 courses through free webinars.
- Hire someone to help develop a marketing plan to guide and support this effort.
- Have Chris Stone upgrade all the classroom virtual computers to ensure Office 2010 and Windows 7 classes are full-speed-ahead in January.
- Hold an Open House Party to show off the new space (and chat about webcasting and 2010) on January 18th, 2011.
 Get a hot tub at my house to relax and reward, and spend time with my family over Christmas.
The hot tub is coming Thursday. We dug up quite a few worms in preparing the foundation. They didn't seem bothered. J
Meandering, happy, and moving in the right direction,
Gerry
gerry.brimacombe@sectorlearning.com
11/8/2010
Thoughts on Innovation and Technology
I had a lunch with one of my senior BC Government contacts last Friday. It sounds like Innovation continues to be an important topic as we all try to find better ways to do all the work we have. In particular, BC Government is predicting huge skills shortages in the Management layer in the next 3-5 years. Big, debilitating, skill shortages that can't necessarily be solved with "the same old methods". Or to quote Einstein:
So I thought I would put down a few ideas on Innovation which I have gleaned from my research, and from the Innovation Workshop that we teach at Sector.
The simplest solution is usually the best. Look for the simplest way of doing things! Complex systems and solutions are harder to implement, harder to maintain, and more expensive all round.
Leverage what you have. I have seen many cases of organizations purchasing or developing new computer systems to solve business problems that could have been solved with existing systems...or better management...or better training. But we tend to have "shiny ball syndrome" (as my friend Jeffrey Wallace used to say): we don't have time to learn what we already have, so we allow ourselves to get talked into the next exciting new initiative or "shiny ball" - it's new so it must be better.
A good example of this is Microsoft SharePoint. Anyone who owns a Microsoft Server license (2003 or newer) is allowed to download the base version of SharePoint for free. With a little configuration, the world of a fully customizable, web-based collaboration software package opens up. There is a lot you can do with SharePoint, but there is also a fair bit of "figgering it out" required (training or trail-and-error). So the "shiny ball" approach would say "let buy or build something brand new". So the innovation here is it think creatively about what you have.
Innovation is not just "new technology"! Innovation is about creating ideas and putting them to practical use. Yes, there are amazing technology tools out there, but let's resist the temptation to always through technology solutions at every problem. One Innovation Workshop resulted in a $10 million savings for a company because they decided to change a process flow. (Not a technical change at all.)
Watch out for thinking along the lines of "we do it that way because that's the way we've always done it." I would encourage you to think exactly the opposite. If your business or system or process hasn't been revisited for a while – a year or two – then let's get excited about possible opportunities to improve or replace it. I would prefer my clients to say "we need to look at how we do that because that's the way we've always done it."
- Finally, make sure you understand what Innovation is, as an organization, and understand your capacity for Critical and Creative Thinking. There are some fantastic books, websites, tools, and trainings that can help you step it up a notch. And boy those notches can be big!!
I welcome your thoughts and comments on this topic.
Happy innovating!
Gerry
10/2/2010
Here's a simple solution to something that for a long time has had me saying "there must be a better way".
Over the years, as a business analyst, project manager, facilitator, manager, and trainer, I have run a lot of meetings and built a lot of agendas. Typically, my agendas include a table that looks something like this:
|
Item |
Responsibility |
Time |
|
1. Review Agenda for corrections or additions |
GB |
9:00 – 9:05 |
|
2. Review actions from last meeting |
GB |
9:05 – 9:15 |
Notice the time column: I like to have the start and end time to make it easier to keep on track. So that's great, but the challenge of course is when you are building the agenda and moving things around, or trying to make the meeting fit a certain overall duration. There's a lot of calculating and recalculating. I have tried variations of this, and even developed an Excel spreadsheet to calculate the times based on duration. But I don't want to use Excel, I want to use SharePoint!
One of my clients creates and recreates agendas all the time. I am helping them build templates for SharePoint Meeting Workspaces, and I wanted to simplify the way they calculate and recalculate the start and end times. I thought I was going have to do a bunch of fancy code and maybe workflow to populate fields, but check out this simple, elegant solution:
(If you want to skip to the punch line, here's a video demonstrating the Agenda list in action.)
Here's the step-by-step to implement a SharePoint Agenda list that make the calculation of start and end times pretty easy.
- Start with a standard (Meeting Workspace) Agenda list.
-
Rename the Time field to be Start Time, and add the Description "Enter the agenda item start time as hh:mm (24 hour clock). Include leading zeroes, as in 09:00."
-
Add a numeric field called Minutes:
-
Create a calculated text field called End Time, with the calculation =TEXT([Start Time]+Minutes/1440,"hh:mm"). This just adds minutes to start time, and converts it to a text time field. (Yes, I know it shouldn't be this easy, but it works!)
- For convenience (this is optional) create a numeric field to sequence the agenda items. (I call mine Seq or Sequence.)
- Now, just populate the agenda items: without worrying about start times, just fill in the Duration and Sequence number. Use whichever view or entry method you like for that. (Come to think of it, I may want to create another view for this which doesn't have Start Time and End Time.)
-
Create a Datasheet view called "Create Agenda" as shown below (it must be a Datasheet view, but go ahead and display the fields in whatever order you want). Notice it sorts by Seq number.
-
Which makes the agenda we entered above look like this:
-
Then, here's the simple magic.
- Using the "Create Agenda" datasheet view,
- Enter the Start Time of the first item in HH:MM format. (Note: you must use the leading zeroes [09:00, not 9:00] and 24 hour format [13:30, not 1:30].)
- Now work down the list, either copying the End Time of the previous item, using Ctrl+C, and paste into the Start Time of the current item, using Ctrl+V. (Here's a video to demonstrate that.)
- If your agenda changes, just repeat step 9.
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I welcome your comments on this! And if you want more tips via email, sign up for our newsletter in the box to the top right.
Gerry Brimacombe
www.sectorlearning.com
gerry.brimacombe@sectorlearning.com 8/30/2010
Innovation vs. Problem Solving
I want to recognize the parallel between Innovation and Problem Solving. These activities are fundamentally the same. The only difference is when you are "problem solving" you are coming from a place of negativity or lacking: "Houston, we have a problem!" Then, through the creative process you come up with ways to solve that problem, bringing your situation (profits, risks, self image, employees satisfaction, whatever) back up to stasis or the status quo.
When we talk about Innovation, generally we talk about making good things better. You may already be doing fine, but recognize that "fine" is not good enough in this day and age if you want more profit or better results. Therefore you might apply the creative process to improve your situation.
I'll illustrate this with the following simple graph:
Innovation Defined
Often when we hear the word "innovation" it is referring to new technology (far too often in my humble opinion). In our Innovation Workshops we define "innovation" as "creative ideas put to productive and profitable use." This may be through technology, but it doesn't have to be.
Note the use of "productive and profitable." There is no point generating new ideas if you aren't going to apply them, right? The proof is in the ACTION!
Several times in our Innovation Workshops, the participants have come up with $10,000,000 ideas. Note that, in my opinion, true innovation is an efficiency multiplier, not just an addition. We seek solutions that are 10 or 100 times better than what we are doing, not just incremental improvements.
In future blog posts, I will discuss Innovation in relation to Technology. |
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