Living Frisbee

Self Check

livingfrisbee — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:19:30 +0000

Managers: Your employees are real people with real lives.

They are unique and far more valuable to the people outside of work than inside.

Do you want to be responsible for wasting irreplaceable moments of their life with busy work that they feel responsible for completing, but ultimately means nothing?

Don’t take advantage of loyalty.

Respect their work an their lives.

Strive to remove barriers and to remove extraneous activities.

Allow them to finish early, work on projects that excite them, go home early when the job is done and don’t worry about “Getting your moneys worth”.

It’s not about you and your ego, or trying to look good to your superiors.

Thoughts on: Responsibility

livingfrisbee — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:24:43 +0000

If you look at being given tasks as an intrusion to your workflow or an offense to you because the task “isn’t something you are in charge of”, it’s time to realize that your attitude and your method of dealing with change is flawed by your inability to delegate properly.

Your negative attitude could also stem from the knowledge that you could complete the task if you chose to, but you’ve decided to protect your personal agenda rather than help the organization.

Being “too busy” to help is usually an artificial abstract of the mind, and not an accurate assessment of the resources needed to see the task to completion.

image attribution: http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=285

Disconnecting

livingfrisbee — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:23:48 +0000

Disconnecting is the hardest part.
Setting aside a tech-free day can make one feel anxious when used to the constant drumming of information.
It’s not this nonsense that one feels like they are missing out, but more the difficulty with stopping and assessing within one’s head rather than on Twitter or Facebook or a blog.

Spending time with paper and pencil is an exercise in focus.

I want to know your favorite books you’ve read, not what transient technological exercise you’ve performed.

Too many sacred cows; not enough orders for hamburger.

livingfrisbee — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:52:45 +0000

Why is it that you’re doing things the way that you do them?
Have you always done them this way?
Is there a good reason that you haven’t reconstructed your processes to reflect changing times? I’m not talking about change for changes sake. I’m talking about reviewing why and how you accomplish your work, and how it may be inhibiting you from doing better or removing barriers to success.
Technology allows a type of introspection that isn’t available in other mediums. Non physical processes and procedures make for rapid change and adaptation… If you let them.

Too frequently, the sacred cow of “This is how we do it”, or fear of upsetting the comfort levels of those around us give us permission to sit in our rut, never leaving our base camp, never climbing higher toward the summit.

Fearlessly slaughter that cow.
Grill it up.
Fill up.
Start climbing up!

The Cyclical Nature of Information Gluttony

livingfrisbee — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:08:30 +0000

You’ve grown fat and slow in your technology journey. Time to ditch the Samsonite full of RSS feeds, “friends”, social media douche-baggery, and get back to doing your best.

Not everyone has sold themselves whole hog into using “The Web” for every aspect of their lives. For those who do attempt to make this trek, there are several points in the journey where the sojourner tries to collect and place their flags on every piece of information they think *might* be useful or *might* have to follow/friend/whatever. This is akin to feature creep or permissions creep. You slowly pack more and more into your bags, and soon your entire scope of discretionary time is claimed by “checking in” and keeping up on what Everybody Else has been up to.

Every six months or so, I take inventory of what I have been putting into my digital rucksack and ask myself if what’s there is really helping me any longer.

Close your FaceBook account if all it’s doing is sucking up more time than than benefiting you. Trim your Twitter Following if you spend more time scrolling past them than reading them. Stop updating that worthless location based, badge collection app (because, God do we all find it annoying). Stop joining “social media” websites. They aren’t really social, and all you are doing is wasting brain cycles.

To the best of your ability: Quit being a digital pack rat.
You’ll truly thank yourself.

Why can’t I use the computer I want?

livingfrisbee — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:30:28 +0000

Old prejudices die hard; and the ones entrenched in IT departments are responsible for increasing customer dissatisfaction with technology. Increased dissatisfaction results in users abandoning the technology prepared for them in favor of solutions that actually fit their needs. Further, they will increasingly see IT initiatives through lenses of distain. Users of technology in these environments shun policies and procedures that may have been intended for the good and safety of the network and the users on it. instead of jumping through hoops, they will create their own technology paths.

Rather than support their customers needs, we have hamstrung them to use systems and deal with barriers that are more artificially maintained rather than representative of real restraints that are needed to maintain the integer of the network.

Should users be allowed to do or use whatever they want? Of course not. One should be using technology appropriate and capable to the work being performed.
Users are not able to function without slick setups and preset options. Anyone working with their home baked set of tools needs a good skill set and be willing to take a great leap of faith that one can support themselves after their IT department has abandoned them due to shortsightedness and myopia.

Beyond the borders of what. Is allowed… this is often where new solutions to forgotten problems arise.

Calcified IT will be circumvented.

The Creed of the Technology Sherpa

livingfrisbee — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:08:09 +0000

This isn’t getting nailed to any big wooden doors, but I believe this does represent how a new breed of IT professionals and technology early adopters should act in their capacity as technology leaders.

The five tenants…

1. We are to be Technology Enablers and Community Advocates.

2. We must strive to build a plan that drives adoption of technology without fear.

3. We will work to accept all new and disruptive technology as a positive force for change to the betterment of all we guide.

4. We must learn to allow Outlier Issues to be what they are; nothing more than an outside chance that should not determine the technology use of others. To this end: Outdated and inexperienced notions of technology should not hamper adoption to those that are capable or willing to learn.

5. We will remember that, like water, those we guide will attempt to take the path of least resistance when it comes to utilizing technology, even when we have provided a different path.