Organisations that fail to realise the importance of being a hub will simply fail. Call it what you like, a marketplace, a center of excellence, an agora whatever, it’s a hub. You don’t have to be an expert in the subject you’re hosting but you need to have the skills to get people to share and interact, meet and greet, exchange views and practices. Not all might share the same objectives with you nor serve exactly the same ideals but if you can’t get them into a room together you won’t ever get the chance to learn from them or even convince them of the merits of your position.

If you yourself don’t have the skills to encourage hubbing, hire someone to do it or better yet partner up with someone who can. It’s far worse if you fail to realise the benefits of hubbing. Hubs are great for reporting good news stories and “embedding humanity”. Remember, new technologies give anyone the tools to create, publish or broadcast. Ineviteably, people are like moths around a flame. If the flame is bright enough, i.e the subject is attractive or offers value.
Electronic word of mouth has given power to smaller hubs to
connect people to stories they have created. Today it’s cheaper to connect, create communities and empower niches. So go ahead and be a hub. Don’t fear it.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks and we have been at the mercy of some cold, hard balled professionals and the impact has been devastating but we will overcome. I wanted to make a point regarding professionalism vs amateurism and how one without the other will most likely lead to failure of some sort. The last few weeks’ events have resulted in a few people being hurt, productivity is in the doldrums and work morale is at almost zero. It’s going to be an uphill battle to encourage the troops again and some valuable soldiers are likely to desert.

To make my point: The difference between professionals and amateurs is that amateurs exhibit love for what they do.

Yesterday, I advised a young colleague with a bright future that while being professional is important, it’s equally important to be a little bit of an amateur. A professional places less value in the human cost of decisions than an amateur will. I hope he takes my advice and when it’s his turn to advise those more senior than him on the best course of action, he’ll be a little bit of an amateur as well as a professional. This will transform him from a good manager to a great manager and eventually into a great leader. A leader who will have troops that return that love and will be ready to follow him into any battle. Battles that’ll then be easier to win because love is hard to beat.

There are too many professionals around lately. They’re not really producing more than the amateurs were. I’m seeing more destruction and less construction. Play a little tetris people.

Etymology of Amateur
In Greek: Erasitechnis < erasi- (eramai-to love) + -technis (techni)

In English: 1775–85; < F, MF < L amator lover, equiv. to ama- (s. of amore to love) + -tor -tor, replaced by F -teur (< L -tor-, obl. s. of -tor); see -eur

My (slightly modified) view on what matters is:

* An alternative culture, a brighter light
* A tight relationship with stakeholders, partners and the wider community that all give us permission to talk with them
* Doing business in a remarkable way that’s worth talking about
* A story that spreads, a tale that sticks
* Leadership

George and his crowd scored a real hit with the latest OpenCoffee. I witnessed one of the most inspiring talks ever. Direct, to the point. Jason was superb.

In summary:

Entrepeneurship is like going into battle. It’s tough and not everyone is cut out for it.

There are two types of people, those that are entrepreneurs and those that wish they were.

The only thing that stops us from starting up our own company is fear.

Everyone wants to be their own boss

The route to success is often via failure, there are always lessons in failure

You need to step up. Swing the bat and keep on swinging.

You will not hit a home run each time, but when you do it will be great

Share Knowledge: Give everything and you will receive much more in return

ACTIONS:
Within the next month:
someone to start an EC2 meetup
someone to start a design meetup
someone to start a Google App Engine meetup
Next year:
At least 5 Greek startups to present at TechCrunch50

I’m happy to help on any of the above. Email me and we can get started. Though I’m no designer.

Blogger Breakfast
I was very privileged to attend a blogger breakfast the next morning that Jason kindly hosted where, Besides the opportunity to meet fellow Greek bloggers, we had the chance to bounce some ideas off each other. Thanks guys, Thanks Jason. We hope to see you back in a year!

I’m currently reading Getting Real from 37 Signals and wanted to share some phrases from it. Here’s a first

“Build software for yourself

A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own problems. You’ll be the target audience and you’ll know what’s important and what’s not. That gives you a great head start on delivering a breakout product.”

……

“When you solve your own problem, you create a tool that you’re passionate about. And passion is key. Passion means you’ll truly use it and care about it. And that’s the best way to get others to feel passionate about it too.”

Some colleagues will recognise the concepts listed below.

Taking a pragmatic approach, one can see where it’s going and why it’s going there.

The aim is efficiency, to be more targeted and achieve more where it matters most.

1) Clarify: – Identify objectives to do and Identify objectives to stop doing. Now execute both.
2) List tasks and activities: rank in order of importance, chop bottom 20%
3) Drucker question: If it’s a fresh start, would you do it the way you’re currently doing it?
4) Binary budget: Don’t spread it thinly, ranked objectives get full funding, unranked get no funding.

Now Skydive.

This is the new way.

40 minutes of solar radiation has enough energy content to power the world for a whole year.
How do we store this energy. Storage is the problem. As photo-voltaic cells (PV’s) get more efficient, we need creative ways to store this energy.

Here’s the cycle: during the day – use super efficient PV’s to collect energy and drive compressors that compress air. During the night, release this compressed air and drive turbines to provide electricity. Can we store it as compressed air in huge underground caverns?

Only two things about speeches and presentations matter. Your audience is subconsciously asking:

A. What’s your point?
B. Why does it matter?

A friend asked if I would help with setting up of a new website. My first response: Does your organisation have the commitment and resource available to follow the process through? Can you or someone here look after this new child of yours? One that needs love, care and feeding? If not, then it’s best not to bother at all. A site that is not fresh, active or healthy is a waste of time and is doing far worse to your reputation than the good you think setting up the webiste might initially do. Think hard about it. If you can follow through and support its potential growth to the full then let’s go ahead, otherwise forget it.

I Will Find focus. I can work on whatever I want, whenever I want to. I have a boss but I must also be my own boss. She has her own job to concentrate on. I will concentrate on my current task or project, and eliminate all distractions so that I can focus on the task at hand. I’ll never get it done unless I get everything else out of the way, and really focus.

I Will Set and Meet Deadlines. Recently, I’ve been the recipient of many empty promises. It’s such a waste of time and trust (read reputation) when someone doesn’t deliver when they say they will. I’ll probably not use these providers again. Now as far as I’m concerned, deadlines are important. They pressure us providers to get the work done. When there’s a deadline to be met nothing else should matter even if it means staying up all night to finish the project.I will.

Constantly missing deadlines is just so very unprofessional. If I start to miss deadlines, I should check my workload, and I should make sure I check that the time I’ve estimated that each task will take is actually so. If I see I’m slipping on my timeframes and I’m going to miss the deadline I must communicate with my customer regularly, letting them know that that I’m running late.

1. I am a brand. I will constantly Market myself. Few people know me, fewer than I’d like. I can hang a sign on my door, or on my blog advertising who I am and what I do well but I expect that people won’t come knocking down my door on the first day. I need to constantly market myself. Constant self promotion can be pretty distasteful to many but it’s the only way to survive and thrive. I will use tools like email (I won’t spam), I’ll call potential clients and attend events where I might meet potential clients. This is a regular part of my day or week. If a client is supporting a charity or sponsoring a ticketed event, I will attend. I will give something back to my client. My client will appreciate this and introduce new business to me.

A couple of weeks ago I had an airconditioner failure in the server room. The consequences could have been catastrophic had I not realised in time. This got me thinking that I should really have a system installed that could give me a warning when the temperature or humidity was not right in there. A quick search on the web brought up quite a few really good products for few hundred dollars at a time. This should be a worthy investment. Then, for a brief moment, I put my hardware hacker hat on and thought that it can’t be that difficult to build something that would provide a similar result for a fraction of the cost. Another search brought up a neat little sensor, the Sensirion SHT11 Humidity/Temperature sensor. This coupled with a Parallax Basic Stamp2 Microcontroller would definitely do the trick. I should even be able to hook it up to a cellphone to SMS me whenever it gets hot or humid in there, or I can even hook it up to MSN and it can IM me. The Sensiron people were kind enough to send me a sample sensor and tonight I put it all together and it works a like treat. Here’s a screenshot of a little VB app I put together that reports temperature and humidity at regular intervals. Geeky !!

S
HT11 Sensor (enlarged 5x)

RSI (repetitive strain injury) is playing up really bad this week. I’m changing hands for mousing and switching mouse buttons to give my right hand a little rest. Rest is the only way to recover. Some really good software for helping a recovery of RSI by reminding you to take frequent rests and do stretching exercises is WorkRave but you need to be disciplined enough to use it.

I wish I was.

What if, at our next meeting, everyone around the table actually was ready and had anticipated everything that might come up? Wouldn’t it go faster? Or better? What if we tried something completely new and had the meeting standing up. That might make it go faster.

Meeting participants should only have 3 things to say.

1) What progress do I have to report since the last meeting

2) What do I plan to do before the next meeting

3) What potential problems do I foresee arising before the next meeting that I may need help with

(Must give credit to the Nobility for this. It was his idea.)

I’m getting a little fed up of the “It’s not My Job” mentality that has beset my workplace recently, So, I decided a couple of days ago to print off a few Nike signs as shown here.

A truly inspiring message if you ask me. 
Simple black on White A4. A laser printer put to good use.

Attitudes vary of course. We have ”Can Do” Attitudes, “Can’t Do” Attitudes, and “Won’t Do” attitudes. I can deal with the first two. We Love the first, We can teach the second but really now, can we accept the third?

Anyone that gives me the “It’s not My Job” attitude, gets a sign as a little gift.

To be fair, and because If I ever lead, I’d like to lead by example, I’ve given myself one first. It’s pinned above my desk for all to see.

One or two other colleagues have actually asked for copies so they can start handing them out too. Love it.

JUST DO IT.

I read somewhere yesterday (i’ll post the link when I find it) that one reason intranets fail is that when users see RSS or XML, it makes them feel dumb. I can understand that. I’ve had RSS newsfeeds on our intranet for about 2years now and very few actually use them. Do you think I’ve been insulting my users? I should probably be doing something to build up knowledge about what RSS feeds are and what great benefits they provide. On the Task List.

These are Getting old !! We need newer kit. Hopefully soon. I’ve never had such a spate of failures in such short a time. tomorrow is going to be another long day.

I was walking through the CEO’s house the other day while fixing a PC there and noticed his gardener has an assistant. Talk about priorities !! I don’t have an assistant – I’ve been asking for one since day 0 but it seems that the garden is more important than the system.

 Mind’s made up, I’m taking a garden administration course. I’m now no longer going to be the System Administrator. I’m gonna me the garden administrator. Probably same pay band so why TF not ! Bonus is: I get an assistant, get to work outdoors and no more stoopid users !!

 Ok, so I’ve gotta conjure up a scheme to rid us of the current gardner so I can step in when I have my new skill set. Perhaps I’ll plant some “weeds” and then post an anonymous tip on the corporate intranet that mr GreenFingers isn’t just cultivating the rosebushes but has some other recreational plantation stashed away in a little corner of the mansions gardens. That’ll do it. I’m set !!

 

 

• A functional dashboard for getting things done
  Should really only have current Items – and should not turn into an ad hoc project plan.
• Everything on there represents a commitment
• Challenging
• Todo list can become a snapshot of anxieties for the day
• 2 have done list
• think about what needs doing and what needs to be done – and try map each item to one overall objective.
• Tag todo Items so that types of tasks can be measured and reported. I may need more resources so I need a way to prove to boss that I’m stretched. Outlook Categories as tags.

This morning I realised I had a problem with a PC that is used by many. Those many really need this machine and I really need to pre-empt the frustration fast.

A failed HDD prevents it from booting and I don’t have another 40GB Serial ATA to replace and rebuild.

Thankfully, this is a relatively new PC but I can’t remember if it’s still on warranty so I take down the S/N and P/N, log on to HP’s website and start a chat with someone in support. She very quickly confirms that the PC is still in “On-Site!!” warranty and gives me a number to dial here in Athens.

Call made, technician arrives tomorrow to fix. Total time 20min.

Perrrrrrfect !!!

That’s why I love HP.

45 days ago
IMS: “Are you sure your team don’t want the Greek test?”
Me: “No. We prefer to be tested in English thanks.”
IMS:”Ok, but it might be a little different, like you won’t get the results straight away”
Me:”Is that the only difference? No problem, we can handle that, go ahead and book us.”
IMS:”Great. 11:00?”
Me:”Great !!”

Am I wrong in thinking that when one takes an examination, one should expect an absolutely perfect examination environment? I mean perfect not only in terms of the physical room as such. I also include the exam paper/interactive test/questions/answer format/delivery format.

Well, today was just perfect for proving how NOT to run an ECDL test.

Today was also perfect proof of how to throw your reputation down the toilet and also perfect for trying to prove how very professional you are by not admitting you made a mistake, didn’t prepare enough and pretty much didn’t deliver what you were paid to deliver. Oh, and before I forget, you also preferred to blame someone else. You are also to blame. We are expected to pay you therefore you are responsible for making sure the test goes off without a hitch, thereby ensuring that those being examined perform perfectly based on thier knowledge. Your testing techique should in no way hinder the candidate – today it did. It did on at least 3 occassions per candidate. I stress that these candidates are power users who have influence on other users. It will take some doing to convice the rest of the team to sit the exam based on the Power Users’ experience.

While we decide how to proceed, can you please proceed in cancelling any further scheduled tests we have.

I wonder if we should charge you a consultancy fee for helping you iron out your problems.