Month: November 2009

Being busy is just an excuse

Now, I know that I’m not going to be very popular in what I’m about to say here but I truly believe it to be the case. There is a HUGE difference between being busy and being productive.

Lately, I’ve come across so many people claiming to be ‘busy’ and blaming this for having failed to get something important done. It is becoming that common now it is really starting to annoy me. Why? Because it is a total cop out I believe. The bottom line for most of these people is that ‘being busy’ is simply an excuse for not setting correct priorities. ‘Busy’ is typically a state in which people believe they need to be to achieve something, but in reality they are simply in motion without moving. They are merely creating action for action’s sake in the belief that they are being productive.

It’s human nature that there are things we like to do and things we don’t. Being productive usually means doing stuff that you don’t like doing AS WELL AS as stuff you do. Most however, fill their time with stuff they like doing but which is generally of such a low priority that they shouldn’t be doing it at all. In a word, they procrastinate. Procrastination doesn’t meaning sitting around twiddling your thumbs, it means failing to do what NEEDS TO BE DONE and you can just as easily achieve this by being ‘busy’. The issue for such people is that they do not value time appropriately. Just because you have eight hours a day ‘at work’ does that mean you have to spend that total time ‘working’? Definitely not! If I can get the same amount of productive work done in six hours, or four hours or even two hours why do I need to fill the remaining time with useless unproductive tasks? Because that’s what everyone else is doing I hear you say and therein lies the problem.

Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t make it right does it? Being productive is about what works for YOU not what everyone else SAYS works for you! We all have exactly the same amount of time allocated to us each and everyday, yet why do the vast majority of people always seem to be ‘busy’? Stressed? Tired? Unable to do what they need to get done? Simply because they have failed to prioritize their time correctly. Maybe they’d prefer to re-read their emails than actually starting on that report or maybe they’d prefer to surf the web just a bit longer rather than actually resolving an urgent problem. Sound familiar? It should be, because this how most people operate.

Another painful truth I’ve come to understand is that YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING! Thus, you need to prioritize. I’ll pretty much bet that if you prioritize correctly you’ll find you’ve been doing stuff that you don’t need to do at all. There is going to stuff you like doing, but to get the more important things done you are going to have to stop doing stuff, period. If it produces a low return on your time investment its gotta go. Do you leave your money under your mattress earning no interest? Unlikely. Most people put it somewhere where it will earn the maximum return. That is called INVESTMENT. Now tell me, what is more valuable? Your time or your money? Hmmmm… you can never get more time but you can always get more money, so I’d have to say time. Wouldn’t you? So why the hell do most people do their best to not only waste their own time on low priority tasks but also allow other people to also waste their time? Unfortunately, it is generally the worst offenders who can’t even see this fact.

If you are finding that you’re constantly ‘busy’, if you find that you are constantly letting things slip because you are ‘busy’, I’d say you need to take a long hard look at your priorities. It is probably going to involve some pain but the payoff to your health and well-being is well worth it in the end. If you think I’m joshing, stop and take a look at those around you always seem to be ‘busy’. Are they actually getting stuff done? Are they simply creating motion for motions sake? Are they using the excuse of being ‘busy’ to prevent you from giving them something that actually NEEDS to be done?

So you’ve been warned. Don’t keep coming to me saying that you’re ‘busy’ because if this keeps happening I’m going to leave you being ‘busy’ and find someone who can make time for what I need and I am unlikely to return. The inability to prioritize your own time automatically tells me you are unlikely to value my time as important. Sorry, but MY TIME is important so I ain’t going to let you waste it.

SharePoint Webinar resources

The first in what will be an ongoing series of webinars presented by the CIAOPS has been completed (An Introduction to SharePoint – 091112). Some of these will be free and some will have a small cost associated with them. When they are free, like this one was, I will post the video to YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t allow you to post videos greater than 10 minutes in duration so I have had to break the webinar into 4 parts which you can access via the graphics below.

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 1

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 2

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 3

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 4

 

If for some reason the links don’t work simply go to my YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/directorciaops

 

If you want the complete video to download and view simply send me an email (director@ciaops.com) and I will let you know how to obtain it. Also if you have any feedback please let me know as I want to keep improving what I offer.

 

At this stage I’m think that the webinar in two weeks will focus on actually using SharePoint at a basic level. For example, uploading documents, adding meta data and so on. I’ll confirm exactly what the next webinar will be and when it will be here. In the meantime, enjoy the presentation.

Never forget

image_2_0D75B7BC

91 years ago today the guns fell silent on the bloodshed that we refer to was World War I. As a result Australia lost almost 60,000 killed and over 150,000 wounded which represented 65% of those who embarked for war. As a percentage this is greater than other nations such as Britain and Canada whose commitment (and losses) were also significant.

 

It is not until you experience the country side in which a great many of these losses were sustained, do you appreciate how different the world is today from that time 91 years ago when simply surviving each day was a monumental feat. It is only then that you begin to contemplate what a different world it could have been if they had not gone to war, perhaps naively. Even after experiencing the horrors of war most continued to serve with distinction, which for most people today is simply unbelievable.

 

Relic of Mon St Quentin at the Australian War Memorial

 

We owe a huge debt to these people who have fought and died in all wars to protect the land and lifestyle we now simply take for granted. Of all the locations where Australians have actively participated in military actions none, for me, stands out like the battle of Mon St Quentin on the 30th of August 1918. It is here that we were awarded 8 Victoria Crosses, the highest decoration that can be bestowed on soldiers, yet ask any Australian today and is unlikely that have even heard of the action. To me, that is simply wrong. To me, this is not good enough. To me, we must never forget their sacrifices and the sacrifices of all our soldiers.

 

If you do nothing else to remember the day the guns feel silent then spend a moment and read about, in my opinion, a battle that demonstrated what courage and determination were all about. In essence, understand the remarkable achievements Australians made over 90 years ago and in doing so never let their memory fade. Never let their contribution go unrecognized and at the going down of the sun say we shall remember them.

 

For more information about the Australian Battlefields of World War One – France see my web site www.ciaops.com/guides/battle. Click on the link 1918 to view the battle of Mon St Quentin.

Avoid multitasking

I was reading a blog post from David Mackie about how he finds he needs to work with the TV on in the background. He was considering this in light of the article – ‘One thing at a time’ which again further points out the fact that multi-tasking is a sure way to kill your productivity. I replied to David’s post saying that firstly, having the TV on in the background is probably not true multi-tasking merely distracting because you don’t NEED to pay attention to it. Secondly, if you find that it does improve your productivity then there is nothing wrong with that PROVIDED that it is actually improving your productivity.

I recently came across the article – ‘If you only do one thing this week, avoid multi-tasking’ which again provides ample evidence of the inefficiencies of multi-tasking but the following caught my attention in relation to David’s post:

‘And if you think that cannot apply to you because you’re a whiz at juggling tasks, consider the recent findings of researchers at Stanford University in California: people who routinely multitask are the worst at ignoring irrelevant information, regularly switch between tasks and have poorer short-term memory – in short, all the skills needed to multitask successfully.’

My point being that unless you MEASURE your productivity how are you every going to know doing something is making it better or worse? Having the TV on in the background MAY make you feel more productive but is it really? You’ll never know unless you MEASURE and experiment. There is also plenty of research about the effect that music has on concentration, especially the so called ‘Mozart effect’ which I am experimenting with now. At the end of day all this doesn’t count for squat unless it actually works for YOU!

Improved productivity is something that needs constant work and discipline because it is so easy to fall off the wagon and end up browsing the web for cats flushing toilets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jKeGyUCJE
and as you can see I have exactly the same problems because I have found the video on cats flushing toilets!

The next question is how do you start to measure your productivity? Here’s a few of my suggestions:

Rescue Time – http://www.rescuetime.com. Great piece of software that tracks the time you spend doing different things on your PC. A free and paid version is available.

Manic Time – http://www.manictime.com. Another great free piece of software that tracks just about everything you do on your system in a huge amount of detail and provides a really nice interface to see exactly what you are doing.

OneNote – http://www.onenote.com. Part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs, which will be included in every version of the Office 2010 release. Amazingly handy for recording most ad-hoc information on a day to day basis. Combine it with an Internet hosted SharePoint and it really shines.

Theses are probably the top 3 applications I use to measure/improve my productivity but as I said it is always an ongoing process so if you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Google-juice

Everyday I’m finding more and more benefit from Twitter as method of promoting my business. I am always intrigued when I get new Twitter followers who ‘protect their tweets’. Ah why? Are you saying something you don’t want everyone to know? If you are doing that, why are are doing it on the Internet? Why are you also doing it on with a third party who effectively owns whatever you post up there? It just doesn’t make sense.

After recently reading the book “What Would Google Do” I have a much better appreciation for the need to generate as much ‘Google-juice’ around my business as possible. Twitter is an excellent method of doing exactly that. Don’t believe me well I’ve just type ‘robert crane’ into Google and look what appears:

It is probably a bit hard to read but I have a Google entry on the first page thanks to my postings in Twitter (currently the 6th entry!). I don’t think I could every achieve this with any of my web sites or blog but thanks to having an open Twitter account I’m getting some excellent Google-juice. I think this is pretty good given I’m up against a very famous (or infamous name-sake).

There are plenty of reasons for keep information private and I think the best advice that I could give is that if you want to keep it private don’t post in on the Internet no matter what form. And for heavens sake don’t post it to Facebook. Conversely, if you want to promote yourself or you business take the advice from “What Would Google Do” and make your information available to Google to index at all times.

Let the SharePoint webinars begin

As promised, the first of what hopefully will be many webinars provided by the CIAOPS, will commence next Thursday the 12th of November. Here are the details:

091112 – An Introduction to SharePoint
Topics covered:
– What is SharePoint.
– Why use SharePoint.
– Versions of SharePoint.
– Basic operation of a SharePoint site.

Presenter: Robert Crane
Date: Thursday 12th of November 2009
Time : 10.00am (Sydney, Australia time)
Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: Free
Level: 1 (Basic)
Prerequisites: None

Details
This webinar will help you to understand what SharePoint is and how it can be used in a business environment. It will provide you with a basic understanding of SharePoint technologies and the versions that are currently available.

Registration: To register send an email to director@ciaops.com.

I am aiming to present a webinar like this every two weeks or so. Some of them will be free to attend and others will require a small payment (AUD$39 ex GST typically). The aim is to provide a series of webinars that takes attendees through the range of skills they need to not only understand SharePoint but also to be able to successfully install and maintain the product.

So, if you are interested at all in learning more about SharePoint then I urge you to register for the upcoming webinar. If you have any questions or want further information about this or other webinars I have planned please do not hesitate to contact me (director@ciaops.com).

Views on YouTube reach 300,000

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Almost exactly 3 years ago, while working at Saturn Alliance, I created a YouTube channel to post a number of technology videos. About 12 months ago I created a new CIAOPS YouTube channel and stopped posting anything to the Saturn Alliance account. Yet as you can see the Saturn Alliance account has now surpassed 300,000 views, which I find truly amazing. Why? Because I honestly believed that very few people would be interested in what I posted, but clearly due to the breadth of the Internet I was wrong. It is sort of like this blog, which I can’t honestly believe anyone except my mother actually reads, but to those who do I say thanks.

 

While recently attending SMB Nation 2009 I was in a session about using social media tools like YouTube inside a technology business. I went along because I felt I really needed to learn more but as it turns out people where still struggling to understand how they could use technologies like YouTube. The experience I shared with them was how I came to creating the Saturn Alliance account.

 

Saturn Alliance had always struggled to provide users with effective information about their systems, to allow them to do more for themselves and therefore save some money rather than calling for support all the time. I had created plenty of documentation including pictures and step by step procedures but users just never seemed to pay attention to anything that was written down. The most common process I found users continually struggled with was rebooting a SBS 2003 server. Normally, I had to talk them through the process which, in reality, is very straight forward. This created a huge amount of frustration on the part of the business and myself as I was always being interrupted over and over to hand hold the same users through the same process.

 

It was clear that most people are far more responsive to video rather than text so I therefore created a simple video about the process of rebooting a SBS 2003 server. This worked a treat, but typically when a user needed to reboot I had to email them the video. Of course they never saved the video in a place for easy reference which meant I had to continually email the video over and over again. This did not make any sense as it was almost like them simply calling up. The solution was to post the video on YouTube.

 

Now all I had to do was email the user a link to the video which they could watch immediately. Problem solved, and I created a few more to help customers, thinking no more about what was possible beyond this. Because the YouTube videos were public I soon found quite a few people not only watching the videos I had created but also commenting and contacting me. That got me thinking, was I missing an opportunity here? So I started experimenting with branding the videos and was amazed at the results.

 

The end result was 47 videos in 2 years with the Saturn Alliance account and a growing number of videos at the newer CIAOPS YouTube channel. I am pleased to say that I still receive lots and lots of feedback on what I have created and continue to welcome any suggestions. So if you haven’t see what’s up there, take a look and let me know what you think.

 

To those businesses who only see YouTube as something that needs to be blocked I’d say think again. I’d say start looking at it as an opportunity you can exploit to actively promote your skills and your business. I know that I do and see it as a very important piece of an overall marketing strategy going forward.

SharePoint Operations Guide on Facebook

I have to admit that I’m still grappling with the multitude of social networking sites that you can avail yourself of, but probably one of the top few is Facebook. I already have a Facebook page, and feel free to friend me, but I wanted to create something to help keep people up to date with the Windows SharePoint Operations Guide and SharePoint in general. After doing a bit of research the best option seems to be to create a Facebook page because it gets indexed by Google. So that’s exactly what I’ve now done and you’ll find it here :

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Windows-SharePoint-Operations-Guide/167213188332

It doesn’t have a huge amount of information there yet and I am still trying to learn the best ways to deliver my message through this but if you are on Facebook then I’d appreciate you becoming a fan. Not only that, I’d appreciate any feedback on what to do and how to do it because as I said, I’m no expert with Facebook.

I’ll be interested to see how this Facebook page compares to the other Windows SharePoint Operations Guide group I created over on Linkedin, which can be found here:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/1922207/

They both do similar and different functions but I get the impression that the Facebook page may be available to a wider audience.

It will be interesting to see which medium works best. So if you are a member of Facebook or Linkedin then I’d urge you to sign up to the Windows SharePoint Operations Guide and help me work out which is the best method of getting SharePoint information out to people.