MacBook Air vs Sony Vaio
May 16, 2008
And here I thought the macbook air was the only computer capable of fitting into an envelope. Behold an alternative for those so stuck in the MS World they could not think of making the switch . . . . Read more
Eat That Frog - “Put it On Paper”
October 25, 2007
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
The #1 thing you can do to help ensure that you get more done is to put your goals on paper. Seriously, only 3 percent of adults have clear, written goals. When you compare these folks to their equally educated peers they accomplish 5 to 10 times more. Do you know what your goals are? Figure them out and try and get as much clarity around them as you can. Write them down, share them with others, etc . . .
I belong to a group in Nashville called Vistage and they have a “Probability of Completing a Goal” model they share with people to help them understand how important it is to write down your goals, share them and meet with someone to review them on an ongoing basis.
- 10% complete a goal when they simply hear it as an idea or suggestion from another.
- 25% complete a goal when they consciously decide to adopt and write it down
- 40% complete a goal when they decide when to do it - in other words, make it time bound
- 50% complete a goal when they plan how to do it - this means writing down specific tasks, tactics, milestones, etc . . .
- 65% complete a goal when they commit to someone else that you will do it
- 95% complete a goal when they have ongoing reviews, an accountability appointment if you will, with the person that they made the commitment with
Brian Tracy, in “Eat that Frog” suggests the following seven steps for dramatically increasing the likelihood of achieving your goals.
Step 1 – Decide exactly what you want. If you use this for work goals, discuss with your boss. What exactly is expected of you and in what order?
Step 2 – Write it Down on Paper. As indicated above, something happens when we write our goals down on paper. It’s as close to magic as you will find at work. Writing it down, will help make it more real. If you want to take it a step further, share you goals with others. That will further increase your likelihood of achieving them.
Step 3 – Set a deadline (or sub-deadlines). This is a key part of having S.M.A.R.T. goals. Set a deadline and hold your self accountable for the date. Without this, your goals and tasks will lack urgency.
Step 4 – Make a list of everything you can think of you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. Keep adding stuff to the list until it is complete. It is a living list that grows and shrinks as the project/goal moves forward.
Step 5 – Organize the list into a plan by priority and sequence.
Step 6 – Take action on your plan immediately. An average plan executed vigorously is far better than a brilliant plan that lacks action. Or as Guy Kawasaki said, “Don’t worry, be crappy!”.
Step 7 – Resolve to do something everyday that moves you toward you goal.
Clearly written goals have a stunning effect on your thinking, they motivate you, create energy, release creativity and stimulate action. What are your goals, both professional and personal? Who do you talk to about them? Do you discuss them regularly?
Word Press Plug-ins
October 3, 2007
Here are a some additional plug-ins I think we should be considering for the future blog of rv.net.
- Subscribe to Comments -Subscribe to Comments 2.1 is a plugin that allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. It is one of the most popular WordPress plugins out there for the simple reason that it helps foster a community around your blog by encouraging commenters to come back and stay engaged in the dialog
- Popularity Contest - This plugin will help you see which of your posts are most popular. Views, comments, etc. are tracked and given configurable point values to determine popularity.
- Word Press Mobile Edition - A PDA friendly interface for your blog.
- Landing Sites - When visitors is referred to your site from a search engine, they are definitely looking for something specific - often they just roughly check the page they land on and then closes the window if what they are looking for isn’t there. Why not help them by showing them related posts to their search on your blog? This plugin/guide lets you do that, works with a long list of search engines!
- Encourage Subscriptions -
Anybody want to step up to chase these down?
Mission Statement Generator
October 2, 2007
Everybody needs their own personal mission statement. Fortunately there are resources available on the internet to assist us in creating one without having to actually think about it. 
Mission Statement Generator by Dilbert
Sample mission examples:
Our challenge is to seamlessly provide access to emerging opportunities while maintaining the highest standards
or
We interactively leverage other’s parallel paradigms and assertively maintain high-payoff benefits to stay competitive in tomorrow’s world
or
It is our business to professionally enhance prospective products and services so that we may quickly create timely deliverables to exceed customer expectations
or
It is our mission to interactively create high standards in intellectual capital as well as to competently disseminate virtual deliverables
It’s addictive, seriously, go create your own. Enjoy, David
Creating Custom WordPress Themes
August 28, 2007
While we were digging around investigating WordPress in preparation of using it for RV.Net blogs. We found a couple sites that allow you to create WP Themes. Those sites are:
Word Press Theme Generator
Theme Press
I have not tried them out yet, but Pat has been so we’ll see what we come up with. If you know of any others send them to me and I will update this post.
Cafepress.com - Customize Your Stuff
August 25, 2007
I was looking for a good place to get T’s done for the group and I ran across Cafepress.com. You should really go check it out. They have all kinds of stuff you can create. I tried to do some versions of shirts we might want to use. I think I like the off white with the brown logo best personally. Does anybody have a preference? Pat can you help me out by doing a PNG of both the brown and the black logo? The final product will be much better that way.
Add Gas Price Look-up to Any Site
August 12, 2007
www.gasbuddy.com has Javascript you can add to do a zip lookup for gas prices. There are several options available to add links to your site. Props to Stacey for sending this on. Check out the GAS Temp page too - it rocks. After Chuck went to the site to get up to speed on it he noticed they had several scripts that would enable embedding. See below for the zip look-up example:
Imagine this integrated on sites where people are doing trip routing and we know the zip they are traveling to. We could display the price of gas. Or even more simply, just show the top 10 place to get gas in their local neighborhood. Pretty cool huh. Chuck is going to look into the top 10 and let us know.
Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration - MIT Article
August 9, 2007
I subscribe the MIT Journal so if anybody wants to read the full article let me know. Excerpt from the article below:
“There is a new wave of business communication tools including blogs, wikis and group messaging software — which the author has dubbed, collectively, Enterprise 2.0 — that allow for more spontaneous, knowledge-based collaboration. These new tools, the author contends, may well supplant other communication and knowledge management systems with their superior ability to capture tacit knowledge, best practices and relevant experiences from throughout a company and make them readily available to more users. This article offers a paradigm that highlights the salient characteristics of these new technologies, which the author refers to as SLATES (search, links, authoring, tags, extensions, signals). The resulting organizational communication patterns can lead to highly productive and highly collaborative environments by making both the practices of knowledge work and its outputs more visible. Drawing on case studies and survey data, the article offers managers a set of ground rules for implementing the new technologies. Read more