Fun flies when you're doing time...

That was a mis-quote from a prior colleague, I believe from my Superconducting Super Collider days. That would make it over 20 years ago as that was the last place I worked prior to moving to New Jersey. I can't remember the particular persons name, but I do remember him talking about being a guest ice guy at Dallas Stars hockey.

The quote comes to mind since I haven't posted to this blog in over 3 1/2 years. The fact that was when I stopped working in NYC and so lost my train commute time for writing. Since then there has been a lot that has transpired in my work life and life in general.

Those are topics for future blog posts, if I am able to break out time to write, that is.

Being that it is Christmas Eve and New Year's is coming after with it's opportunity for resolutions. We'll see...

Merry Christmas, 2017, and Happy New Year, 2018!

Dave

eReaders

Having switched from the Kindle reader to the Kindle App for iPhone several years ago, I now find it hard to read on a normal sized page. Even the Kindle App for iPad (shown) presents such a large format I seem to get lost from row to row.

I think the smaller, more focused presentation of sentences and paragraphs on the iPhone screen allows me to read faster and with greater comprehension. I find myself turning pages faster and faster.

I also like the features of the Kindle App including one-touch dictionary, passage highlighting and note digest, and popular highlights from other readers. Text search is also very good. And for ease on the eyes, the use of brightness adjust works well for varying light levels including darkness.

I'm staying with my iPhone as my primary reading device at least for now. Having ny library at my belt at all times is just too good a thing.

Morning Train Activities

Riding on 6:56 train to work.

Organizing my HFA blog to add "blogs I follow" to add blog about Enterprise 2.0.

Trying to tie together blogs and twitters to control my information input stream which is always a challenge.

Testing the export to blog from The Journal and see that there is an upgrade to The Journal 5.0. WIll have to do that to add new features to a really good journaling system. Go here to check it out - http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/

Entering the tunnel in a few minutes so better shut down the netbook and prepare for the subway portion of my commute.

Peace and Joy to you.

Busy Monday

It was a very nice and relaxing holiday weekend but I am afraid the week will make up for it. A full day teleconference today plus tasks sprinkled throughout means I will be multi-tasking (or lane changing) throughout the day.

It was a nice Thanksgiving, though, so I will keep that in mind as the week plays out.

VS bag spotted in Penn Station

Now have seen everything. A 60-something man carrying VS bag. Yes, the pink on pink kind. New York, New York.

Day Two of 2HL

Day off from work for election day. Went to vote before 7AM at VR's school. Took all of five minutes.

The day is beautiful autumn day with sunshine and fall colours. Going to get outside for a bit.

Enjoy this and every day.

Poetry in my daily life - through 12/19

12/16 - "in America, you must say it twice, and then once again..."

12/18 - "We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the
quarrel with ourselves, poetry." W. B. Yeats

12/19 - Keats untitled poem "This living hand, now warm and capable Of
earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the
tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would
wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream
again, And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--I hold it
towards you."

Seven Survival Skills

I read a blog article recently on LeadingBlog that described seven survival skills for the new age. The material is from the book "The Global Achievement Gap" by Tony Wagner.

The article is located here:
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2008/11/hiring_the_right_skill_set_and.html

The seven survival skills listed by the author are:
1.) critical thinking and problem solving
2.) collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3.) agility and adaptability
4.) initiative and entrepreneurship
5.) effective oral and written communication
6,) accessing and analyzing information
7.) curiosity and imagination

By my count that is 14 but I suspect that "good at math," is not among the seven survival skills. The MBA's who led our economy into the crapper seem certainly to be lacking in that 8th skill. Well, maybe lacking in other important skills like ethics, responsibility, and accountability.

To this set, whether 7 or 14 I would immediately add the following:

8.) Zeal for learning and embracing new methods (mindmapping, managing strengths, leading by clarity) and new technology tools (MindManager, Basecamp, Collaboration Technologies). Maybe that is included in curiosity and imagination or facilitates the rest but it is important.

Please respond with your own ideas. A priority ranking perhaps? Other missing skills?

I tested this set out with my AST team and many people seemed to be in agreement so I think this is a good set to start with.

Now, the difficult part, what is ACTIONABLE? And How? This is especially tricky with training and professional development budgets being slashed during these turbulent times.

Training to Work on a Short Week

I am heading to work on Monday morning of the Thanksgiving holiday week. I think that I need this holiday and extended time away from work more now than any time previous. A little get-away time would be just what the doctor would order.

There is a lot swirling in my mind now but too much to share in these short posts to my blog, especially while finger-tapping from my iPhone.

I did run across a very new iPhone application called Ocarina that turns the phone into a musical instrument. You blow into the microphone port and press buttons on the touch screen and you get a pretty good facsimile of the real ocarina.

A very near aspect is that the developer has included a way to use the GPS to allow others to hear players from around the world. A globe shows on the screen with music streaming up from featured players. Truly a very cool use of technology.

I imagine it is only a short time until other wind instruments make an appearance as iPhone apps. Can't wait for that flugelhorn that I have always wanted!

Enjoy the day.,,

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning and I am easing into the weekend. With a very tough week behind it's important to get some relaxation and recovery. We took it easy last night watching Kung-Fu Panda and having a combination of hot and corn dogs (yum).

I don't know precisely what the day has in store but the rumor is that there will be a BJs store marathon. Wish me luck.

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Wondering...

Either we are a free enterprise capitalist country or we are not, right? Are there degrees between free enterprise and government provided? An inbetween democracy and socalism? These are difficult confusing times.

New Peter Hamilton Book to Check Out

I spotted this book in the Hamilton Barnes and Noble bookstore. I need to check out the description and feedback on Amazon.com but if anyone knows about it, please let me know if it is any good.

I have been reading most of Peter Hamilton's work over the past several years. I find him very creative and immaginative in the science fiction genre.

Wonder if this book is any good?

I saw this in the bookstore the other day. There was a time when I would have simply bought it but with the Kindle offering books at $9.99 I hesitate to purchase the book 1.0 version.

I also need to check out the reviews and feedback to see if it is worth the investment in TRT (train reading time). I salready have about 4 books in the queue.

If anyone has feedback about this book or ideas for others to help with the social networking phenomenon as in how to make it useful rather than to simply waste time, let me know.

Excerpt of Poem from Bull Durham

Here is an excerpt from a poem that was quoted near the end of the baseball movie Bull Duram:

"Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

I found it from the poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray from the stanza:

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

The line from Bull Durham was when Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) hit a minor league record 247th home run to no notice by the baseball media.

I see that poem is also famous for the line:

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

I don't know that my brain is wired for poetry...

How to Keep Up? How to Get Ahead?

As I am riding the train this morning doing a little computing work I am puzzling over the questions of How to Keep Up and How to Get Ahead? What I mean by those questions is how to get the information that is meaningful to prevent becoming obsolete and also how to use that information to get ahead.

It's all about knowledge. Information. Not simply data blasted at you from a variety of sources. I have somewhat of an advantage because one of my strengths is INPUT. It is true that I seek input by the truckload. Much of it can be quite random and useless if I let it. I like to read science fiction. I like to watch cooking shows. I like to watch shows about how to make things, how things work, and the way things got to be the way things are. I like to discover, learn, and understand. Mostly I like to synthesize new understanding or new application of knowledge.

But how can I possibly keep up? I am a member of about a dozen list-servs offering information daily about IT, leadership, management, and a variety of other topics. My email is regularly overloaded with snippets of information I hate to filter out but I rarely have enough time to review or read. I feel like I am drinking from a fire-hose of data, knowing there is important stuff in there if I had the way to process it better, not just faster but with more depth of understanding.

Maybe there should be a page rank value assigned to data or information so a person could know better what the value is of the data coming in. Who knows? If anyone out there in blog-land has ideas, let us know. For now, I have to continue trying to sift and sift and sift. The image of the gold prospector comes to mind. It seems I am sifting the Sahara Desert, though. With more and more coming each and every day.

The Trouble with Problem-solvers Is...

Has anyone else had occasional trouble interacting with those people let's call
them "problem-solvers?" You know the type, the ones who will be offering
up solutions to things even before listening to the remainder of what
you are trying to share with them. I ran across this excerpt from the
book "Leadership Presence" and I feel it captures the issue very well.

>Here's the trouble: problem-solving alone not only fails to create good
relationships, it's anathema to them. It creates a me-you orientation
and implies "I'm going to fix your problem, which obviously you haven't
been able to fix." It does nothing to create a sense of "us."<

The authors offer a suggestion for people who have a strong
problem-solving tendency to "listen for the subtext, the meaning and
especially the emotion communicated beneath the spoken words."

Very interesting...

Tales from the Train - What's He Reading Now

I know that question is burning on everyone's brain to the exclusion of any other thing you want or need to know. Not what is the meaning of life or what will happen tomorrow. Only what could he possibly be reading now on his daily traverse to and from central NJ to NTC.

I would like to tell you, I really would, and of course You shall in my own good time. Afterall, we are not even to New Brunswick yet so I have plenty of time to delay the answer to that question.

It's been a full year of reading all kinds of things, from business and leadership books to sci fi to a book about a rampaging polar bear god to a biography of LDV to long-winded novels by Ayn Rand. Have I averaged a book a week? Well, pretty near, pretty near.

New Brunswick is here and then comes Jersey Ave followed by Princeton Junction then my stop which is Hamilton. I have about 20 minutes left. I suppose I can draw out the agony for a while longer.

I once read a book by Pat Conroy whs character spoke about a list of the 100 must read books that was given to him by a literature professor. Seeing as how this story was fiction and the student and professor both fictional I was still slightly disappointed when the list was never provided. Not even the top 10, damn. Jersey Avenue station now.

I wonder if I could write Mr. Conroy for suggestions. Well, I work at one of the premier institutions of higher learning (for?) so I suppose I could chase down (or scare up) literary types willing to make suggestions. But the top 100 must reads. That has a certain pull to it. That has power.

Anyhow, I am sure the suspense is killing you by now or at least causing you impatient types to skip over these hard-types words to get to the answer. OK, here it is. The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman is my read du jour.

I can tell this book is going to be interesting because while I like the writing the prose style is quite beguiling. What are the stones? They keep appearing in the text ina descriptive way but it is not clear. I feel that these works are literary IQ tests or methods for dwterming whether my brain is too left-brain-wired for anything truly artistic, anything truly abstract and symbolic. I hate doubting my own intelligence.

So what is it about? Read the damn book and don't take the short cuts. I know there is a documentary about it. I know I could Amazon or Google it. I choose the hard road.

Well, here is Princeton Junction so I need to prepare to detrain in a few minutes. I don't want to leave mid-thought. Have you read the Stones of Summer? If so, don't give anything away. I'll be back with an update. Enjoy the nightime.

The Where Not to Go for Coffee Shoppe

This photo represents the leading entry in the "where not to go for coffee" category. Without giving too much away let's call it Philo's Coffee Shoppe. You can see that it serves one style of coffee -- awful -- and it is completely self-service. There is a tip jar that is replenished daily so that people may remove money when forced to endure the bad coffee that is provided.

I truly don't know how bottled water combined with fresh ground coffee in a clean pot can result in such a horrible brew. The excuse that it is free is a really sad reason to even go near this. My recommendation is to go just about anywhere other than to resort to this stuff. Hey, mister, back away from the coffee pot and you won't get hurt!

More Coffee Shoppes -- Hamilton Deli

This is the Hamilton Deli near the corner of Amsterdam and 116th in New York City. It is a little beyond the normal distance one might venture for coffee if you are based out of Princeton, NJ, but I frequent this place as they have the best cup of $1.25 coffee I know. They don't sport a tip jar, either, so no supplemental fee.

They also make a mean fish sandwich called, 'Jaws' and have the best $10 salad you can get anywhere. I don't know how the price goes up so high from the base $2.50 lettuce price, maybe it's all the items I add that drive the price. We don't even want to psychoanalyze me through my salad fixings. I can tell you it changes dramatically from one salad to the next.

This may not qualify as a true coffee shoppe as there is no inside seating. It is basically a get-and-go place, but as you can see from the green awning, they offer free delivery. I will let the judges determine if this qualifies for the coffee survey. The exterior photo is of poor quality as it was about 0 degrees F this morning but this stalwart journalist had to get the story. The photo to the right is a sample of the dirty blond color I consider perfect. Of course an insulated mug is a necessity and this one is a favorite. Enjoy!

Coffee Shoppes in Princeton -- Small World Coffee

I was asked recently about my preference of coffee shoppes in Princeton with the choices being Bucks County, Starbucks, and the local entry, Small World Coffee. I thought this a great opportunity to exercise a little investigative journalism relating to something that is very important to fuel the modern manager/leader -- coffee.

Saturday morning I had occasion to reacquaint with Small World Coffee after a long time away. I used to come here frequently when I worked in Princeton as it seemed to have the most character of the local choices. It was much as I remember especially for a typical weekend morning in the village of Princeton. Noisy, bustling, an eclectic crowd from the schizophrenic populous, but also very good cafe latte and the type of dynamic atmosphere that caffeine inducement craves.

Now if you are hoping for a more serene coffee shoppe experience I would steer clear of Small World. I do remember a previous colleague who used to spend hours in the place while he was writing applications for business school. Hunter Middleton need not have worried about getting into the best business school as he was a double major as an undergraduate, with degrees in Math and Physics, and then got his Doctorate in Physics from Princeton. Not only that, he walked into the GMAT's and almost aced the damned thing. Good old Hunter...

OK, there are other memories from Small World, but that is enough of a trip down that lane for this exercise. I have always liked the Small World paraphernalia including the mugs and t-shirts. The motto, "Sleep is for the Weak," particularly resonates with me. Also the one Small World, Big Coffee, it says it all...