The Wayward Celt

Fear is the number one contributor to our sedentary lives. Comfort is the second. I realized this over the course of my past few years in Oregon, and was slapped upside the head with it this week as I prepared for a 3k+ mile solo motorcycle journey.

Simple little things began to peak their heads up and wiggle into my world. One of those was this article shared out by my friend Dayle on Google Plus: 6 Habits of Truly Memorable People (note how this is the habits of *memorable* people, not the typical ‘habits highly effective/successful’ people you normally see. Almost makes it more approachable as advice, doesn’t it… I mean heck, we can ALL be memorable in our own ways, and likely even think we already are to some extent… success on the other hand, is always something that we may feel is just outside our grasp and therefore not 100% applicable to us… But memorable? Yes, that is absolutely applicable and attainable!

In the article, there is a deep focus on DOING, and some on failing, but mainly that if you don’t do anything, well you’re not going to be interesting are you? Funny thing is, I’ve taken this idea to heart for different reasons over the past decade… not to be memorable, but rather to enjoy a life worth living. I’ve been trying hard to DO and not just be. I’m better at times and worse at others, but at the least it has always been a nagging motivator. As my friend Kerri would say: “Yes is more fun”.

But it isn’t that easy. And I know you know that too. Fear is a tough thing to ignore as we work out of that comfort zone and shift from *being* to DOING. But it *can* be done, and when it is, we often find that there was nothing to fear in the first place but our own misconceptions and worries (which by the way, aren’t effective for a single damn thing, so just let those worries and preconceived notions go now, we’ll all be much happier). We’re always better off for that new experience, even if it didn’t turn out as hoped or expected.

I can actually trace the beginnings of this shift back to 1997 when I was being interviewed in the third round process for the Orange County Sheriff’s deputy position:
During the panel interview (after the physical test and polygraph, just prior to the psych eval) I was asked what unique skill I possessed to make me successful as a deputy. My answer was driven by the only real experience I had at the time; my knowledge of human behaviour gleaned from voraciously reading and finishing 4 years as an English major. I’m sure you can guess how that answer was received. I was essentially laughed at (admittedly part of the interview process to put a candidate under pressure to see how they react) and mocked for thinking that books could help build skills to be a successful deputy. And to a point, they were right. I couldn’t just read and observe… I had to DO. Ultimately, I was happy to not get the position as a deputy trainee, as I recognized even then that while the training would be an amazing experience, the first five years of working in the jail systems would likely make me into a person I didn’t want to be. The lessons I learned about myself, through the process, however, were invaluable and I’m quite pleased to have had that experience, even if I failed at my end goal.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of taking off for a week and riding 3k plus miles alone on my motorcycle. But you know what? I can’t let fear dictate my life. So I’ve opted to DO, and become, not just be. Not only does this trip scare me by the scale of it, but I’ve also let go of a lot of planning and left it open-ended, so I can be open and flexible to enjoying adventures as they come my way. Previously, I’d have over planned any trip like this, pre-booked all my rooms, mapped out specific routes and set rigid timetables. But having gone off-the-cuff during my August 2010 ride down to San Francisco and up to Crater Lake, I found that it was not quite as scary as I’d thought, and much more doable and interesting to go with the flow. Of course, this is also a trip into the wild unknown, on roads I’ve not see outside of Google maps (barring one 60 mile stretch of I-84 heading out east…).

Roll that all up together, and yes, I’m petrified. I’ve been petrified before and allowed that to prevent me from doing anything. I’m no longer okay with that safety which my mental paralysis provided. So, in the serendipitous spirit of “being memorable”, I’m going to DO. And take pictures while I’m at it… hopefully… if I can stop by bike long enough to get off and actually snap some. Sometimes my bike just doesn’t like to stop until I can’t go anymore, so we’ll see.

Baby steps, you know… who knows what the future may hold by staying on this path…

Why not join me on this “quest”… read the 6 Habits of Truly Memorable People and start living a little bit outside of that comfort zone. DO more and see what happens…

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Ever heard of Moo.com? I hadn’t until a few years back when two of my colleagues used them for some work related business cards for out support entity to bring to our annual software conference. But, I’m not really ever in need of ‘business’ cards so I didn’t bother with them… (one of the perks to never leaving the house)… until recently.

I’ve been getting out more and more, and talking to people about what they do, what I do, and everything in between. I soon came to realize that, like my on-line life, my real world life isn’t really split into personas. So when I hand over one of my 3DC business cards, I always end up writing more on it to get the person to my other spaces. It just made sense for me to have a card for ME, to cover everything I do.

In comes Moo…. and Klout. And About.me. You see, both Klout and About.me have partnerships with Moo that provide 50 cards for only the cost of shipping (around $5.95 for me) so I figured I could take advantage and test out Moo.com’s service and quality without any real monetary risk.

First off, the ordering process is pretty slick. I was able to go from start to finish in 20 minutes, including registration, building my cards, and checking out. Not too shabby when you consider the REAL selling point of Moo: you can build multiple card images per order. In my case I tested with 7 different designs within my single order of 50 cards. Yup, you’re not locked in to one design per order. This makes for some very easy customization of low volume orders and creates opportunity to do some really nifty stuff with your cards.

The order took exactly one week to show up on my doorstep. I ordered April 25th, in the afternoon and the package was delivered May 2 in the late morning. That’s a pretty decent turn around time for what I’d consider a custom order (they likely don’t).

Here’s what they looked like when they arrived:

Overall, the quality is excellent. Heavy, but not overly bulky card stock is used, and photo quality printing means the images I uploaded were reproduced flawlessly. My one complaint is that some of the borders are slightly off. Likely this is due to the way in which I added the images, but for my picture on the text side of the card, I actually spent some time trying to understand how their border settings would print out and I was obviously mistaken as there is a white strip that I didn’t expect. So, likely some small room for improvement there. Any flaws in the images were introduced by me not Moo.

Outside of that grey area of user/system issue, I am unbelievably happy with the product quality and level of service. The entire process was simple, easy, and resulted in a product I am happy with. If I were to spend a few more minutes tweaking my settings and re-ordering, I am sure I’d be 100% satisfied here. As it stand, I give Moo.com a 95% rating in my book. Solid and highly recommended. Check em out if you’re in need of some inexpensive and adaptable cards. You won’t be disappointed.

Now, I have cards that cover who I am and what I do as a whole. Finally a tangible pointer to my online business card at www.acdntlpoet.com

(Full disclosure, the links to Moo.com above take you to my referral URL, so if you end up signing up, I get a little credit to use for more cards. By no means should you feel compelled to use the link, or even order for that matter.)

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I’ve been a bit heady and word-heavy in my recent posts here, so let’s have some visual fun once again and stop thinkin so hard…

As I noted over on the 3 Drunken Celt’s blog yesterday, Jean and I had opportunity to once again help out our friends at Big Bottom Whiskey and bottle up some of the batch 3 port finish and new Wild Bill warehouse series.

I took advantage of a break between bottlings when Ted had to re-calibrate the filler for both different bottles as well as a different proof dram. Luckily for me it took Ted longer than he’d hoped,which allowed me a decent amount of time to snap off a ton of shots around the warehouse and tasting room. I posted a number of those to the 3DC blog reference above, but I’ll also add them here, along with a few others I’m quite proud of. Once the bottling was done, I helped Ted and another friend Aaron build a base for one of Ted’s new tanks. Since I’m not a master welder, I stepped back as Aaron got to work and continued snapping off some pictures. I gotta say, I’m actually quite pleased with some of the welding images I captured… I hope you enjoy them too!

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Last week I posted the following to both Facebook and Google+, both with ‘public’ visibility:

Sitting in a meeting on “Managing your digital personas”. Not sure I agree with the advice given. I manage one identity and one persona: me. More importantly I think overlapping this way keeps me from being one-dimensional, adds interest across topics, and retains authenticity. You know it’s ME when you follow me.

I tend to post with public visibility as doing so fits within how I presently manage my own ‘digital persona’.

Over on Google+ I saw some great conversation surrounding the topic on both sides: keeping your streams separate as well as maintaining a single ‘persona’. I’ve also had some great real-world conversations about the concept, all of which have given me more to think about, but have yet to sway me from my current position. What I HAVE realized from these conversations, however, is that the roles we play in business seem to dictate what we are able to do in terms of maintaining a single persona or requiring multiple digital personas to our social presence.

What this all seems to come down to, however, is risk. With any interaction between two people, there’s risk involved. When that interaction is purely social (say out to dinner with a friend who introduces you to someone new), the risks that surround that interaction’s “success” are far less critical than say the interaction between the same thee people but this time as part of a business meeting. In both cases, however, the risks themselves are essentially the same, it is the outcome which is weighted more heavily. In the first instance the outcome may be that the individual simply doesn’t become a friend, while the second interaction may result in a lost business deal.

From the ‘persona’ perspective, managing multiple facets is the safe bet: you work to ensure only ‘vetted’ information is exposed with the intent of presenting yourself in the best possible light. Conversely, managing a single presence allows glimpses into other realms which runs the risk of showing some less than perfect facets of your life which could lead to negative impact. But you know what? It can also lead to positive impact. (I’ll tip my hand here a bit… if you’re in sales, you already know the value of finding that key connection with your client which will help you gain the advantage over your competitor.)

Let me relay a real world example which just happened to me: I recently connected with one of my business colleagues on Facebook. In quickly stalking their timeline, I noted that they enjoy similar activities outside of work as I do, some which even involve dressing in ‘funny’ clothes akin to my own involvement with the SCA. Gaining that glimpse into other parts of their life caused an immediate stronger connection, which in turn helps to build an even stronger working relationship.

Granted, the risk involved in connecting with this colleague was minimal, and surely didn’t involve potential loss of a sale…. but let’s imagine for a moment it did. Where is that balance of risk to reward? Would it be better to maintain my ‘work’ persona and focus on sales tactics to give me the edge on closing the deal, or do I simply be “me” in my social spaces and allow for that visibility and potential for deeper connections to occur?

I’m sure by now you know my answer to this. But let me show you what one of my connections said about this as well… a connection, I may add, that I now consider a friend because of how we’ve been able to connect beyond our “professional” introduction:

Pete Wright noted on my G+ thread:

I’ve been thinking this, too. Some spend a lot of time separating church and state, so to speak, work from personal. But I’m finding more and more that the organizations I work with and the brands I follow are those spearheaded by people who are not afraid to show the complex tapestry that is their authentic identity. I trust them and their organizations more when I get the feeling that they’re not hiding half their lives, which is what so much of this “digital personas” tripe ends up selling. It’s snake oil. I think of it this way: I have a different, better, perception of +IBM as a result of my interactions with you online and off.

Hear that? Pete summed up exactly what was in my head when I initially posted to G+. It is that exposure to our “complex tapestries” and acknowledgement of “authentic identity” which is so critical for all of us using social tooling in our business lives. And yes, it is even important for those of us using social tools in our personal lives too.

I’ll posit here, that we are seeing a slow, gradual, but dramatic culture shift as a result of the information social networks are providing to us. Ten years ago the understanding of professionalism would have kept most of our personal lives out of our business lives. Nowadays, however, that same separation is less important and can backfire more than the exposure can. With this shift in our social culture, it is now that grey area, that crossing of the streams if you will, which provides even greater business value. It is this grey area that now makes you more interesting, more engaging, and therefore more likely to be visible to your clients and ultimately one of the first people they think of when they need your help/services/product/etc.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at your own twitter feed, your own Facebook news feed, your own Google+ streams… and tell me, are the most interesting people in those spaces the ones who only post about one focused topic, or are they the ones posting on a myriad of tidbits giving you the sense of additional depth and breadth of knowledge or passion? I’m guessing these are also the people you’d likely look to when you have questions in their space of expertise…

What IS the real risk versus benefit here? I’d say more and more, every day, the old paradigm is shifting on its head and soon the risk will be NOT sharing as a single persona, not exposing those complex tapestries, those many facets that make us interesting individuals. That managing your single digital persona is going to provide the greater benefits and even likely seal those deals, proving true fiscal value to open and transparent social communication.

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Post script: Managing a single persona doesn’t mean it is ok to over-share or that one shouldn’t be judicious about what one shares publicly. In all cases sharing content on-line should be done with respect for your entire audience and with the intent of adding value to any conversation or space in which you share. While some content may not be directly relevant to the entire audience, it can indeed show much larger indirect benefits down the line both in terms of thought leadership and authenticity of voice.

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On Monday, I ran across a story on a local news station regarding a security breach of some DNS servers, how the FBI put a temporary safety net in place, and now how the servers will be shut down in July. This prompted a larger scale informational campaign to help computer users determine if their own systems were ‘infected’ and are using the DNS servers which are slated to go offline (when that happens, if your system isn’t using good DNS servers, you’re internet connection will be gone).

I posted this article to Facebook with the intent of spreading the word and helping people check their own systems to be sure we are all using good DNS servers. But as I went through my personal validation process to be sure that the information I am passing on is genuine, I realized there’s a lot stuff I just do and never really explain how/why. So in the spirit of knowledge sharing, here’s some tips to help you stay safe on the internet, avoid malware, and do more to protect your own privacy:

First and foremost: Lock down your privacy settings anywhere you may have an account so you can identify with whom you are sharing information. Take some time whenever you create new accounts to research and set privacy controls before doing anything else on a website.

Here’s a great write-up which explains some of the Facebook behaviours which may affect privacy, and what you can do to control it to some extent: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FacebooksPrivacySettingsAreTooComplexForANYONEToUseChangeTheseSettingsToday.aspx

Think you’re safe if you only touch Facebook settings? Think again. Google tracks a plethora of information too. You can stop Google from tracking your history (which is tied to your Google account) and opt out of the Google ads with these three links:

• https://www.google.com/history
  “Pause” will stop the tracking of your Google web history (searches and which links you followed from the results), while “Remove” will clear out the selected history.

• https://www.google.com/settings/ads/
  After opting out, you’ll still see ads, but Google won’t use your personal information to target those ads specifically to you. Be sure to opt out for both Search/Gmail and ads on the web.

• https://www.google.com/settings/privacy
  While you’re on Google, you may as well head over to the Privacy link and confirm that you’ve reviewed and set your desired preferences.

Now that I’ve touched on the two ‘biggies’, let’s focus in a bit more generally with some catch-all solutions:

• Collusion from the makers of DisconnectMe shows you who your information is being shared with -https://disconnect.me/tools

• Then try out Ghostery to block the bugs that share that info: http://www.ghostery.com/

• AdBlock Plus is another must have tool to get rid of ads and protect yourself online: http://adblockplus.org/en/

I’ve personally had success with all three of these, though your mileage may vary depending on your preferences and system setup.

But you know what? Tools and settings aren’t enough. Sometimes it all comes down to what I called “wetware” when I was working for a content filtering company: your brain. Tools and options just don’t protect us from ourselves, which is why we need to be able to think critically and be ever vigilant (bordering on paranoid) as we surf the web.

Did a Facebook friend just read a really provocative looking article? Are you sure they did? Is that the kind of article you think your friend would spend time reading and “Like” on Facebook? Do yourself a favour and don’t click the link, it’s likely a phishing attempt to get you to allow an application access to your Facebook profile and post on your behalf; your friend is likely the latest in a long line of victims.

Before clicking links, stop and hover over it. If it goes to a known server  and is relatively ‘clean’ of characters like ? or & and doesn’t end in an active file extension (like .pl, .js, .exe, etcetera) it is most likely a good link. But you need to be careful of embedded links which point somewhere other than the link text, as well as shortened links which don’t expand to show the full URL.

Which gets me closer to  the point: don’t trust links. Unless you absolutely trust the source posting the link, and the server for the link itself, don’t click it, just run a quick search instead and find the info outside of Facebook (here’s a GREAT Oatmeal cartoon which explains this without raising the spectre of malware as the reason for searching).

Let’s take the above article about the FBI and DNS servers as an example:

I originally saw the story posted by KPTV News on Facebook. Since I trust this account, and the story/link was consistent with other news they post, I clicked the link into the story. From there, however, I stopped trusting. Specifically, the story describes an FBI business partner in this case, and links to their site to ‘check’ your system to see if you are using the wrong DNS servers.

At this point small alarm bells start ringing in my head, but I head over to http://www.dcwg.org/ to check it out. Alarm bells are ringing even more since this site asks you to click a button to run a check, something you should never do unless you trust the source completely. Plus, I am a bit more dubious as the site runs WordPress as the engine. I should note here that while I adore WordPress as a platform, the fact that dcwg.org uses it made me immediate skeptical about the authenticity since anyone can build a WordPress site like that. Heck, I run 5 of my own WP installations, including this one; I KNOW anyone can do it!That all said, I’ll give credit to dcwg.org for acknowledging the need for trust and helping people validate the authenticity as well by pointing to FBI.gov hosted materials.

Rather than using the automated link in the original article (which was down due to heavy traffic anyway, but also because you should never trust sites that ‘fix’ your computer without doing your research), I used the following PDF from FBI.gov which outlines exactly how to check your system for this issue: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911/DNS-changer-malware.pdf

Since I trust the fbi.gov servers and pdf files to not auto-run malware on my system, I knew I’d be able to validate the issue by virtue of understanding the solution through text. I can happily say that I was indeed able to validate the authenticity of the problem, solution, and third-party business partner as trustworthy, but only after doing a little research before hand. (Now, you should all review the PDF file as well to understand how to correct your system, or at the very least, what the dcwg.org “fix” button will do to your system to correct the problem.)

While the above turned out to be a perfectly safe example, it really is the perfect scenario to explain how and why you need to check before you click, as similar tactics are exactly what caused people to click buttons and modify their DNS server settings in the first place.

Want to take privacy and protection to an even greater level? Check out the fine folks over at https://priv.ly/

This is a new tool being designed and developed by Oregon State scientists working on changing the paradigm of content sharing. Priv.ly is intended to take control away from the content hosts like Facebook and Twitter and put that control right back to the user, where it belongs. This works to remove companies’ rights to control and sell your data, putting your data privacy in your hands. If you are concerned with privacy you need to check these people out.

Stay vigilant, my friends. Protect yourself. No one else will.

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You’ve likely heard of the show if you’re not already a devoted fan of it or its spin-off this season: Top Shot and Top Guns. Both shows are hosted by the three-time-Survivor-contestant and television actor Colby Donaldson. Both Jean and I have become fans of both the shows and Colby as a personality, to the point where we began following Colby’s twitter stream (@Colby_Donaldson) to watch his amusing commentary and chatter during the shows.

Over the past few weeks I’ve watched twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to see Colby consistently and actively engage with a very enthusiastic audience. I’ve been impressed time and time again as he tweets replies to both silly and very interesting questions posed through Twitter with tact, humour, and a balance of mock-arrogance and humbleness. He really does “get” the social spaces and how to interact with his audience (if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was following IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines)…

Which is why I was surprised to see this tweet from Colby during Tuesday’s Top Shot episode:

Ok, perhaps not surprised, but a bit dismayed that History Channel executives seem to have a “Command & Control” attitude when it comes to social business. Not to say this was out of the blue or unexpected as “last week” refers to when Colby was tweeting during April 10th’s episode answering some questions about rumoured cancellations of Top Shot and Top Guns. In a few of his responses he noted that higher ratings were needed to pickup for season 5 which, as you’d expect, got the fan base on Twitter a bit active and tweeting to @HistoryChannel calling for renewal of the shows.

From my perspective (as someone who works in a social business role), it seems to me that the “Top Brass” has taken a reactive command and control position rather than embracing the openness and transparency which social interactions thrive on, and which have helped to drive even further interest in two of the shows running on their channel; shows which are heavily promoted on both History and H2 in advertisement spots appearing around once an hour (as an observational guesstimate, I don’t have the specific numbers).

So what happened this week after Colby ‘caught heat’ from the History Channel ‘TopBrass”? One single tweet from Colby noting his absence, and then radio silence. From a social business perspective what I saw was a lost opportunity to continue engaging the audience and building support; lost opportunities to listen to the audience and engage in conversations to improve on the channel’s investments. What I also saw was a turn of the audience from engaging in conversations relevant to the show’s content to conversations solely around the show’s potential cancellation (or renewal) and the few questions/conversation about the content there were go wholly unanswered.

The take away from all this is a real world example of how and why “command & control” mindsets won’t work in today’s social business economies. Conversations are happening regardless of your desires and policies; if you don’t engage, you’re missing out on opportunities to transform those conversations and people into real positive interactions and potentially loyal clients. Social business isn’t about pushing your ‘approved’ messaging to the masses, as it seems History Channel may believe, but rather the way to flourish is to embrace social business concepts and tools to allow for open, transparent conversations and collaboration surrounding your business. Just as critical, however, is allowing the flexibility in your organization to transform and grow, not only to identify the needs of your clients, but to proactively meet those needs and become the leader in your industry because of your ability to engage and work with your client base. That’s what social business is all about.

Serendipitously, my colleague and partner-in-crime, Kelly Smith, recently posted to her blog on “Knowledge is free- bring your own container“, in which she says:

… You can’t put this genie back in the bottle.  Knowledge is no longer in the hands of a privileged few to be doled out to the worthy. Knowledge is being openly shared and recorded, so that others may benefit…

She’s right, of course: You can’t put this genie back in the bottle, the social web has made certain of that fact. Gone are the days of successful “command & control” policies aimed to manage brand perception and hide or obfuscate poor business practices. Knowledge can’t be controlled or contained, and we are seeing evidence of this more and more everyday. The future ahead of us all (and specific to business success) is about sharing knowledge in open and transparent fashions to ensure shared successes; *being* the best at what you do, showing your clients you are agile and paying attention by engaging in these conversations rather than trying to control them and manage perception, this is the way to truly be a social business and find successes ahead…. Something I think the History Channel’s executives may not yet understand.

*** Updated 4-25-2012 ***

I am happy to report that last night’s Top Shot was again accompanied by Tweets from Colby. It seems some accord has been reached between him and the top brass, as his tweets had the same level of authenticity, information, and humour as they had in the past. I can’t find any specifics of what may have happened in the past week, but am pleased to see that the command & control mentality has been backed off. Good news, as it definitely shows that the History Channel is at least paying attention to its audience. Well done there.

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I’ve been busy lately, with whiskies on my mind!

First up are two posts on the 3DC site covering my results from round one of aging distillate on my own, followed closely by my notes from the in-progress round two tastes:

• Jason’s Age your own experiment results
• A new Age your own experiment: 100% Malted Barely whiskey

Then, of course, in between are my notes on the latest PDXWhisky tasting I was at last weekend:

• PDX Whisky tasting notes from 4-06-2012

And coming up this weekend is Stuart Ramsay’s Whisky Academy class on American whiskies being held at the Bull Run distillery in Portland… looking forward to learning more about American whiskies and what is an admittedly very new undertaking for me.

Then… as if I haven’t spent enough time around whiskies this month….

The weekend after is the annual Oregon Distiller’s Guild TOAST event where I’ll be enjoying some local drams, as well as craft distillers from around the nation. Always a fun event to discover new and exciting stuff going on… after all, it’s where I met Ted of Big Bottom Whiskey last year who just last month is able to boast a gold medal from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition! Great stuff to be found at TOAST indeed!

Rest assured, all of this activity means more whiskies related blog posts for the 3DC site, and likely more links over there from this blog

Cheers!

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Coming in to week ten and I’m still going strong, though not for the lack of some stumbling blocks along the way. Change is hard, after all, but none of my troubles were unexpected, nor that great of a hurdle. Really, all the “troubles” I’ve seen thus far revolve around my expectations and my own personal discouragement as I try to work outside of my inbox.

For me, this mild discouragement came in the form of some rather unremarkable metrics. I was hoping to see a great story come out after ten weeks of tracking both my inbox and outbox flows. Sadly, that story just isn’t presenting itself as I’d hoped. When first looking at them, I felt as though I’d stubbed my toe; a slight pain and a bit deflated, but nothing serious.  Take a look at my personal metrics for yourself (for clarity “bad” e-mail are all the types we’ve identified as potential opportunities to move those conversations to better tools, while “good e-mail reflects the automated notifications, meeting notices, and confidential communications appropriate for e-mail):

As I see it, even with nine weeks of solid data, no remarkable trend is evident. This is likely due to the fact that I’ve been working for the past few years to reduce my inbox clutter, and as such when we decided to begin tracking and formalize a more concerted effort, only slight shifts were/are evident (I’m honestly not sure why I was still secretly hoping for impressive trends to show up). In week 7 I saw a largish spike in some of the auto-notifications from one of our tools, which explains the bump in total and ‘good’ e-mails, though oddly enough I also saw a slight drop in my ‘bad’ e-mails as well, which was a good sign to me. Generally speaking the others also tracking their progress have seen similar trends.  All the while, however, I’ve been able to keep my outbox at a relative bare-minimum of sent messages; having opted for more work on wiki pages, instant messages, blog posts, and ensuring I cover questions during meetings making follow-up e-mails less likely and less necessary.

I’d love to see week nine’s downward trend continue for me, but I’m not holding for high hopes on that. Rather, I’ll rest on what I know is a true win for me, though I’m unable to document it: that my inbox has shifted from predominantly one-to-one and one-to-many messages, to simple tooling notifications over the past three years since we began more heavily utilizing collaboration communities. Had I been tracking my inbox back then, I’m sure that’s what the numbers would show me now.

Have no fear, intrepid reader, this doesn’t mean I’m beaten, broken, or giving up. No, I still see great value in driving the right conversations to the right channels, and will continue to use open and transparent communication methods to ensure our collective knowledge doesn’t find its demise through our inboxes, but rather flourishes when shared for future discovery. This whole idea really isn’t about killing email, instead it is just a provocative way to address a much-needed shift in culture to adopt collaboration tools more suited to the kind of work we do in this global economy. Effective and efficient collaboration is the name of the game these days, and email is a speed bump to the kind of knowledge sharing required for us all to be successful.
Feel like catching up with everything my colleagues and I been writing on our efforts to work outside the inbox? Check out our work blog, to which I have contributed a few posts… The following are all the posts to date surrounding our WOTI undertaking:

• Working Outside the Inbox: The Adventure Begins!
• Working Outside the Inbox, Step 1: Stop Replying to Email
• Working Outside the Inbox, Step 2: Group Conversations and Identify Use Cases
• Working Outside the Inbox, Step 3: Move conversations to the right home!
• Working Outside the Inbox: Step 4: Record Progress, Set an Example and Act as a Change Agent!
• Working Outside the Inbox: Let’s Talk About Attachments
• Working Outside the Inbox: Speed Bumps ahead!
• Working Outside the Inbox: Those pesky status updates
• Working Outside the Inbox: Put your Inbox in the upstairs bathroom

As always, if you’re playing along at home (or at work) I’d love to hear about your successes, difficulties, and everything in between!

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I get a lot of spam in my WordPress install here, 99% of which you’d never even have a chance to see, as it all gets dumped into a moderated spam folder on my admin dash. Most days I will just login, navigate to the spam section, click the little button that says “Remove all spam”, and be done with it. I might even think about searching for better plugins to install to help me control and manage the spam so I don’t even have to see it if it weren’t for one amusing little quirk:

Most of the spam comments I receive are amazingly flattering. They tell me how wonderful my content is, and how this post or that post helped them find the information they need.

Here’s one stunning example: “I already viewed plenty of sites working with such topics, for the most part of the people duplicate other site content, but each time to your site I see new & first-class stuff, nice walking.”  Love it! Especially happy to see I am good at walking! And then there’s this one, which amusing showed up on this very article: “This article is just what I was looking for a long time! Where did you get it? How could you write it so clear and so knowingly? That?s awesome! Thanks a lot!” Well, gentle spammer, you are very welcome!

Of course, it is all automated and so generic as to be laughable, but still, it kinda feels nice to have these “yes bots” around me… even if it is just for an amusing giggle as I delete them all. I just can’t bring myself to completely block them.

My hidden spam keeps me happy and sane, and that is a public service to you all. You’re welcome

image credit: (cc)  Some rights reserved by wiennat

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… and Jean has one hanging on her wall now. She named this one Hasenpfeffer (a German recipe for Rabbit/Hare stew).  Since Jean loves her cryptozoology, oddities, gaffs, and the like, I figured she had to have one of her very own. I tried waiting for her birthday, but gosh darnit, August was just too far away.

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