Arno Ghelfi for Bloomburb Business week published a visualization this week breaking down current U.S. social media internet usage by activity and age. From top to bottom are the more active users to the more passive. Age groups run left to right. I particularly like the categories of social media users not only because it seems to be logical breakdown but because it resonates with me relative to my own internet usage. Though I really think that Boomers and Seniors are more active in social media than this report is giving them credit for. I’d actually like to see the data and review the methodology by which it was collected. Nevertheless it is an excellent visualization.
Google Apps – Get constant enterprise innovation with Google, saving your company the time, money and hassles of managing these IT solutions yourself.
www.centraldesktop.com – Central Desktop’s is a web based SaaS solution for businesses to collaborate, manage projects and connect their people. It has great centralized document management and version control capabilities.
www.tomsplanner.com – Create and share Gantt charts online with Tom’s Planner Gantt chart software. No more messy excel spreadsheets.
Mingle – Mingle, the agile project management tool, was built from the ground up to adapt to constantly changing processes, business priorities and program/project structures within your development environment.
MindMeister – Free web-based realtime collaborative mind mapping tool for brainstorming and project management (with iPhone app).
FreeMind – A Free Open Source Graphical Mind Mapping solution written in Java.
www.basecamphq.com – Trusted by millions, Basecamp is the leading web-based project management and collaboration tool. To-dos, files, messages, schedules, and milestones.
5 PM – Web-based project and task management application for your team. The powerful features are accessed through a smart customizable interface.
Goplan – is an project management and collaboration tool for individuals and teams. Tasks, Tickets, Calendar, Time tracking and Documents.
Bananna Scrum – Banana Scrum is a Web-based Agile tool for teams that use agile development methods, primarily Scrum.
Time Meter – Application designed for time and expense tracking that works under Microsoft Outlook.
@Task – Offers project management software as well as task tracking, project life cycle, workflow, gantt charts and other project tracking software and services.
Fedora – A Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in free and open source software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. It is built by people across the globe who work together as a community: the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project is open and anyone is welcome to join.
MyPHPAdmin – A free software tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the World Wide Web. phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations with MySQL. The most frequently used operations are supported by the user interface (managing databases, tables, fields, relations, indexes, users, permissions, etc), while you still have the ability to directly execute any SQL statement.
WordPress – A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.
Joomla! – the dynamic portal engine and content management system.
Magento – The PHP based eCommerce software platform for growth that promises to revolutionize the industry because of its modular architecture and unprecedented flexibility.
GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). Freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
SugarCRM – Commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM). CRM software for sales force automation and customer support deployed on demand or on site.
Open Office – A multiplatform and multilingual office suite compatible with all other major office suites.
OSTicket – Open source support ticket system simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, and easy to setup and use.
Elgg – A leading open source social networking engine which can be used to power your social network. It includes blogging, networking, community, collecting of news using feeds aggregation and file sharing features. Everything can be shared among users with access controls and everything can be cataloged by tags as well.
Open Atrium – is a platform for building team portals that can be extended to meet highly custom knowledge management needs for large organizations’ intranets and extranets. It starts with “out of the box” features like a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a case tracker, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage content. These features can be expanded to meet unique needs for large organizations so that full scale enterprise collaboration sites can be built with Open Atrium as a base. By fully leveraging Drupal, all of the strengths of Drupal can contribute to creating custom features for Open Atrium within a framework that is already tailored for team collaboration.
Below is a example of a website service for data visualization offered by a company called Tableau Public. This particular visualization is from Stephen McDaniel of Freakalytics and demonstrates how to display complex relationships between multiple metrics by looking at the stock market patterns relative to economic conditions from 1901-2008.
A couple years ago I read a great book, from the New York Times Best Seller list, called “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni“. Lencioni uses a fictional setting to discuss very real issues that anybody in Middle and Upper management would immediately recognize assuming they had any degree of perception during a typical staff or team meeting. The issues are not clear cut (again realistic) and can easily favor one function or department over another. The team leader patiently takes them through a team building process.
In this fable Kathryn Petersen has been tapped as the new CEO of DecisionTech, Inc. This start-up company is well funded and well staffed with quality personnel, but for the past two years has been unable to produce meaningful results. Sound familiar? As if that task wasn’t daunting enough, Kathryn has to deal with the complexity of working directly with the former CEO. He is now heading up business development and is an integral member of her team. I’m sure you have similar dynamics going on at your level of management don’t you?
At the core of the book is a model related to creating high functioning teams. The pyramid below summarizes the 5 key areas that you need to address starting at the bottom and over time, working your way up in order to build a high functioning project or management team.
Dysfunction 1: Absence of Trust
These quotes of Kathryn’s, the CEO, seemed to clearly define this dysfunction:
“Trust is the foundation of real teamwork.”
“Great teams do not hold back with one another.”
“They (team members) admit their mistakes, their weaknesses and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”
“I see a trust problem here in the lack of debate that exists during staff meetings and other interactions among this team.”
Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict
“If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, idealogical conflict.” Failure to do so results in:
No collaborative solutions.
Solutions that lack the input of all team members.
A team with “artificial harmony” – skin deep team approval. Tacit agreement followed by people pursing their own interests anyway – sound familiar?
Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment
Essentially this is failure to buy in to decisions.
Share Opinions: “It’s as simple as this. When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board.” Weigh in before they buy in.
True Consensus: “Consensus is horrible. I mean, if everyone really agrees on something and consensus comes about quickly and naturally, well that’s terrific. But that isn’t how it usually works, and so consensus becomes an attempt to please everyone.” And when this happens you have a weakened solution that probably will not work well.
Dysfunction 4: Avoidance of Accountability
The pyramid continues to build on itself. There must be commitment before there can be accountability.
“People aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought in to the same plan.”
Dysfunction 5: Inattention to Results
“Our job is to make the results that we need to achieve so clear to everyone in this room that no one would even consider doing something purely to enhance his or her individual status or ego. Because that would diminish our ability to achieve our collective goals. We would all lose.”
If there is going to be ego, it should be collective ego that is greater than the individual egos. Similarly, people are going to look out for their own interests. However, the team’s interests (results) should be more important than individual interests.
Id’ recommed this book to any senior leader or person responsible for a group of people tasked with meeting a common set of goals. It doesn’t matter if you believe the group is currently dysfunctional or not, it would help you take that group to the next level either way.
In my Leadership MBA class we have been studying many of the issues put forward by the Global Strategy Institute. In particular I liked this visualization or mapping of the future that they presented. Click on any node on the map to read more information about a particular event that the future has in store.
The CSIS Global Strategy Institute is dedicated to promoting long-range thinking about the big global issues that loom before us. To this end, they created a “map of the future” for the years 2008 through 2012. Public and private sector leaders across the country (and the globe) will have to contend with certain inevitable events, unstoppable trends, and predictable developments over the next four to five years. GSIS’s goal is to paint a picture of what the landscape will look like and to identify the major signposts we can anticipate. They have grouped these coming events into seven categories: science and technology; politics; major conferences; forecasts; construction; sporting and culture; and important dates.
Today’s leaders function in an environment marked by rapid change, ever higher levels of complexity, and ever shorter decision time frames. This map is the CSIS Global Strategy Institute’s modest attempt to help us all elevate our thinking beyond today’s headlines and to anticipate the competing obstacles and opportunities we can expect to navigate in the future. As we retreat to higher ground, the hope that we gain clarity and a sense of direction for the years ahead.
Rumor is that Apple will be releasing the iTablet perhaps in March – announcement should be in late January and that they will start around $1000 price point according to Techcrunch. I can hardly wait to see it. Below is a video that shows one of the things Apple could do with such a device besides making the Kindle and Nook look like a pager by comparison. Given Apple’s roots in education and their recent foray with higher ed. podcasts, I’d say textbooks on the iTablet will be a VERY real possibility.
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 . . . . Continue reading »
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?
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.
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!
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
This is a very interesting study PEW just released on Internet Video viewing.
“Online video now reaches a mainstream audience; 57% of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day. The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing. The majority of adult internet users in the U.S. (57%) reportwatching or downloading some type of online video content and 19% do so on a typical day.”
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:
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.
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.
Citizen ads are new to me. Stacey mentioned them to me so I searched and found this business week article about them she had mentioned. Seems this latest fad exploits the idea of having your product/community zealots produce your advertising. Interesting, I wonder if this will really take off? Is it a really something people should consider or not. Any opinions?
I noticed that TechCrunch was using this, should we add it? They have a write up on AddThis you may want to review as well. If we want to add the AddThis widget to our site, the customization tool is here. We can try it out here and see if we think it will be something to add to the RV.Net Blog.
Benefits of AddThis Widget are:
Easy Bookmarking – Makes it very easy for your visitors to bookmark your website or blog, and subscribe to your feeds (support most bookmarking and feed reader services)
Social Traffic – Helps your visitors promote your website or blog to the social bookmarking services, which will bring back more traffïc to your website or blog.
Less Clutter – Saves real-estate and reduces confusion on your website. You just put one button; we worry about all the other buttons for you.
Statistics - Provides valuable statistics showing what content your visitors bookmark the most on your website or blog, over various time periods (and more soon)
Free - All this is completely free, and will remain free.
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. 
