The Good Folks Over At Common Craft

I really like what these guys do - very quick, easy & simple.

This is something my Grandmother would be able to understand!

PS - GDC review coming soon...!

This Is A Great Book – Read It!

I bought The Elephant and The Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us watching Author Robyn Meredith on a Charlie Rose interview last summer. It was a great interview and the next day I went to the bookstore 2 days later to buy it – and all the copies in the local surrounding bookstore were literally sold out (I asked the store manager check around for me).

Well researched, organized and written, Ms. Meredith has taken a complex topic and added just a little-more-than-sufficient detail into the historical context, that provides a great foundation for understanding contemporary realities. Her review of China strongly correlated with what I knew, and her review of India was enlightening.

I think it's a great introductory / intermediate text on the subject of outsourcing in general, and with respect to these two nations in particular. For more on Outsourcing and the role that India has created for itself in this industry, I still strongly recommend Bangalore Tiger by Steve Hamm. These are good companion texts - enjoy!

Good Inspiration With Just Enough To Get You To MOVE!

At just under 300 pages, The Four-Hour Workweek is a surprisingly easy and engaging read. Tim quickly covers a number of topics. And yes, while there does seem to be some slight proselytizing to get people to take action, he makes it seem rather easy. That, coupled with him listing high-level action plans in the book & on his website, can get you motivated to take action today on architecting a different life for yourself – if that's what you want.

People will rationalize whatever behavior they want or need to. And while this book won't bring the death of any multi-national companies any time soon, it does provide structure for a lifestyle that many, many people (quite literally) day-dream about.

It's time to stop dreaming & get moving, if you're not already – get the book and apply it!

Found This Book Helpful To Create Functional System To Keep My Life Organized

First off, what I didn't like about Getting Things Done by David Allen:

• too long; I felt he had about 30% too much content in there. Chapters 4 – 10 are “the meat”, with Chapters 11 -1 3 providing the next level of useful detail.

• the first 3 chapters could either be significantly trimmed or eliminated

• the margin quotes interspersed throughout the book were interesting to read, but I found them distracting and not really adding a lot to comprehension of the content (I like reading quotes from people, and gather that Robert Allen does as well...)

That said...

I strongly recommend this book for people who really want to get “their lives” under control. I've implemented his recommendations and have benefited from DRASTIC productivity increases – and less stress and more relaxed time with my family.

While reading it I found myself taking issue with some of his suggestions, and dropped my objection when I implemented his recommendations (my justification was that what I had been doing so far wasn't getting me the intended results, so...try something different).

I'm glad I did. My wife has noticed a difference and I feel a lot less stress (and this review is starting to sound like a fabulous new diet pill commercial! :P )

Anyway, I strongly recommend this and if you are trying to have a process or system to more effectively what you want to have in your life. It's cheap to implement and the benefits are immediate.

Shameless Self Promotion - GDC08 - Check It Out!!!

If you have ANYTHING to do w/the gaming industry, you've got to check out and attend GDC! it is THE place to be (E3 and it's ilk are SOOO over-rated).

Plus, as an added bonus...I've finally succumbed to all of the requests & peer pressure - I'll be speaking this year on Outsourcing in the gaming industry, with several of my colleagues. It'll be awesome and great fun, to be sure.

(I think this is the first time I've given a presentation that was BEFORE lunch, and not after...my, the natives will be restless. At least I'm not the last presentation before the bar opens...)

Come learn what to avoid in your next outsourcing situation. Trust me - these lessons can be learned and applied REGARDLESS of what industry in which you happen to find yourself.

Plus, there's lots of weird people here and they're a BLAST to hang out with!

CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!

Cmuoniactoin

This is cool. check this out...this works ok w/human-to-human communication; I don't think it would work so well (yet) in creating computer programs (unless you had some good AI involved)...

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

(...and yet, while I can comprehend this, I'd still feel bad if I sent somethign out that was missspelled...)

:P

"Disintermediation" brought to you by You Tube, Google Video, etc.

Check this out...

When I was in the 6th. grade, I remember reading a story depicting a day-in-the-life of a student of similar age, only at some point "in the future".. They lived in houses where the beds were essentially built-in cushions in the floor, the showers were cubes with omni-directional jets of water and warm air (to wash and dry you off), and they wore spray-on clothing.

One of the things that I thought was really cool was the idea of going to school without leaving my house, which showed the student sitting in a room in their house with a television monitor showing their teacher and classmates.

We've had some form of interactive televised knowledge transmission for over 10 years now, with both the education and the medical fields leveraging the technology. But there's another reason why I find this new feature from Google interesting...

Disintermediation.

If ("when", actually) this gets coupled with better two-way, rather than one-way, knowledge transmission, Google has the ability to establish a great position for itself. MySpace is already filled with most of the demographic that want to get (or are already pursuing) college degrees. It's no great leap in logic for them to "naturally" look to the web for their course lectures (in fact, college students are citing Wikipedia references in scholarly papers, over the protests of their professors and the founder / editor of Wikipedia!). Professors can leave their entire lecture "on reserve" rather than just their written notes (which never convey the nuances of an idea).

This will also have an impact the pricing associated with getting a degree ("Eventually", anyway...). Will there be sufficient cachet associated with a degree earned this way? Yes, but it will take some time for the Majority to endorse the idea - at least in the U.S. Baby Boomers are going back to school in record numbers, for a variety of reasons. Other nations who don't have the infrastructure of estbalished universities, however, can now take advantage of this right now.

And so can anyone who has an internet connection.

Think about that for a moment...

True, they won't get the college credits for attending the class, nor the degree to "certify" their "knowledge acquisition". But they will gain the information that they can use.

And isn't that what learning's all about, anyway???