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“VentureLoop connects you with venture-backed startup companies.”
IBM’s Blue Cloud and new Startups
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“Is cloud computing set to become commoditized? That probably goes without saying.”
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Startups to watch: It’s getting crowded on the Web 2.0 frontier, but there are still some startups that truly stand out. Business 2.0 Magazine identifies the ones most likely to strike gold in 2007.
12 workout tips
Scary management
Have you recently told someone on your team to do something? If so, there’s a good chance that some management training may be in your future. (Disclaimer: This blog post doesn’t just apply to software development.) We often hear that the command-and-control style of management is the “old way”, and removing roadblocks is the “agile way”. While this sounds like a good thing every time we hear it, there isn’t a quick and easy way to determine how to adjust. I often find that it’s difficult to take many of these self improvement suggestions and act on them, so I prefer internal triggers that can shape behavior in an ad hoc manner.
In this case, the key trigger is simple asking/telling someone to do something. What?! Our internal voices may find this proclamation to be borderline-insane as this is method by which we get almost everything done. But wait, there is a better way that creates self-empowering teams and removes the management dependence. The alternative approach, simple and elegant, involves explaining the expected result and trusting the teams to accomplish the resulting tasks. In some cases, the difference is a subtle change in the wording and intentions, and in others, there may be political reasons why specific commands are given. In the later, this is a trigger in itself that the political issues (often elephants in the room) should be tackled head-on instead of being obfuscated.
It’s true that since childhood none of us have liked being told what to do, and each of us wants to feel that we had some say in the planning. Using the method above solves both of these common psychological dilemmas. The bottom line is that if you can’t trust people on a team to know the intended result, there could be a problem with having the right people on the team or managing the team.
Beating the Jones in the burbs
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There are more lessons in this article than you can shake a stick at.
Fitness and the National Do Not Call Registry
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This is so true. The promotion of 100 calorie packs is just an example of mental disconnect that exists in American society. 100 calories is actually quite a lot if you consider most people only need ~1500 calories in a given day.
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I’m not sure leisurely dining would work in the US, but all of us can relate to feeling full when the main course arrives after eating an appetizer.
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I was reading the Austin paper about the upcoming expiration for many numbers. I still have many years left on all of mine.
Picture, pictures everywhere, but not a one to find…
If you are like me and capture digital pictures in almost every circumstance, the frustration of organizing all of these has crossed your mind once or twice. Two common options are (1) installing software on your computer to help keep track or (2) uploading all your pictures to an Internet site like Flickr. With the first option, the software to organize your pictures is likely to require you to open its user interface (i.e. application) to manage your pictures, and you will be responsible for transferring this application to another computer when you upgrade. With the Internet upload option, which I partially use, the idea of having all your pictures labeled, grouped, and constantly backed up does have its advantages; however, I’m not a big fan of uploading every picture I’ve ever taken out on the Internet. (Call me old-fashioned.) In both cases, there’s likely to be a license or subscription to purchase.
To alleviate this image nightmare, I’ve created a simple and free system for organizing and tagging pictures that allows for easy searching and backing up. This involves creating a directory/folder structure in Explorer similar to the following.
Each year has a folder, and within each year, there are groups of pictures with keywords as the name of the sub folder. Note that the beginning of each sub folder is a number, which indicates the month the picture was taken. This provides chronological searching, since the folders are sorted in order.
To group the pictures in Explorer, you can see a small preview of the picture on your hard drive or the memory chip from your camera by setting Explorer to show the Thumbnails view. If the preview isn’t enough to determine which folder to place the picture, moving your mouse pointer over the picture in question will provide additional details. If you are like me, I often have a set of pictures with the same date and relative time, which makes it easy to figure what goes where.
The benefits of this system are that it’s super easy to do while moving the pictures from the camera’s memory chip to your computer. Just create the folder on your hard drive with some memorable words, and drag the pictures into the folder. In addition, it makes backing up the pictures easy as well, since you can backup via the date/year. This is especially important once you have more pictures than can fit on one DVD. What’s best about this model is the ability to take the system to different computers without additional software or Internet access.
Mouse vittles
I was planning to grill some fajitas, but we decided to let the meal come to us. Click on the picture for more details.
Confrontation meets capitalism
Can the simple rules of capitalism help you with life’s predicaments? In both family and business, all of us are forced into situations where we have reached an impasse with someone else. Often the “facts” favor each party’s perception of the conflict. Before entering into a conversation that can become heated, one simple rule of thumb to remember is the supply and demand mindset. On the demand front, it’s important to never demand anything during the conversation. The goal should be to determine what the goal is and work towards an action plan that is acceptable to both sides. This is not easy to do when we think we are “right”, but it’s a simple rule to remember once the emotions start flaring.
On the supply front, it’s a good idea to start the conversation by admitting what part of the conflict you have supplied. This is the most difficult but most important part of resolving the problem because we often think in terms of facts and evidence, but the only reality is that both sides have contributed some part of the awkward stalemate. This also requires serious self-examination as the contribution may have been doing or saying nothing for too long of a time. When having difficulty identifying what your contribution may be, viewing the situation from the other person’s point-of-view can often help. In many cases, the admission of what one person supplied to the problem will result in other person following the same course, and in the end, the conversation has a much better chance of both parties having their demands met.
Regular Exercise – must have
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This is a great article. I’ve written many things about the benefits of exercise. Making a career and business case for doing is another motivational method, beyond the obvious reasons.
Continual Improvement 
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