You may have heard the saying (or some variation): “It takes five times to form a habit but only three times to break it.” The meaning is that for any activity to become a habit requires five repetitions but that the habit can be broken with just three missed occurrences.
Take this blog for instance! I’ve been off my regular routine due to travel to Orlando and two trips to Chicago inside of four weeks. The weekends away seeing old friends and relaxing have been great.
Tomorrow I leave again for four days in Chicago. I will be staying downtown at the Palmer House. I look forward to seeing all the changes that have happened downtown and in my old neighborhood. It has been far too long since I’ve visited some of my favorite childhood places.
The reason for the trip is to celebrate a good friend’s recent marriage at a restaurant. Yes, I’m flying to Chicago to have dinner, I am that much of a baller (not really, he’s a good friend and I told him months ago I would attend).
So after my third trip in the past four weeks I’ll be back to forming my habits (regular blog posts) all over! See you on the other side.
My Dell mini9 arrived. The mini9 is Dell’s entry into the netbook market. I have been quite skeptical of the cloud and the value of a netbook, but I’m at the airport on free WIFI and I’ve been accessing everything I need from my web browser. Webmail, my companies CRM, Facebook, Twitter…all from a 2lb, $400 laptop.
I feel the mini9, except for a few keyboard oddities and a slightly dim screen, was a great purchase. If I’m not on the Internet, computers have little value to me. Everything I do requires that I am connected. I may not match the needs of every user so YMMV.
Which brings me back to the cloud. I was at the ConnectWise conference last week where several panels discussed the threat the cloud poses to traditional IT consultants (the cloud supplants internal IT services, thereby lessening the need for IT service providers). I’ve been thinking about the cloud threat and how to move forward in a way that benefits my clients and my business.
I believe a lot of consultants will fail as their bread and butter is moved offsite to cloud services provided by Google, Microsoft and others. To remain viable, consultants will have to focus on providing their own cloud services or focus less on managing technology and more on integrating existing cloud services into business processes.
We are still a few years away from mass cloud adoption, but as I type this out on my 2lb notebook on free WIFI, I am reminded the future always gets here…eventually.
It’s a good read, but there is a page and half that has had a major impact on me, showing me where I have a huge blindspot in business and how I stop my own progress. This page and a half is possibly the most important material I’ve read in a book in several years (for me it applies directly).
The author talks about the Fallacy of Planning in a business setting. He ranks plans in this order:
Very Good
Good
Best
Fair
Poor
Why is Good ahead of Best? Simple, to arrive at Best takes orders of magnitude more planning than Good. Also, who defines Best? How much time is spent creating the Best plan? Will Best stand the test of time? Can everyone agree on Best? Would Good work just as well as Best in the real world? Is Best satisfying the client’s need better than a Good plan?
Choosing the “Best” plan leads to Paralysis by Analysis. I know this firsthand! Good plans allow for quick action and constant improvement. The most successful people in the world have acted on Good plans that they have refined over time. An actionable plan is more successful than a plan that never leaves the drawing board.
Personally, I’ve fallen into the Best trap many times. There is no such thing as a “Best” plan. Going forward the “Best” plan will be the “Good” plan that I can put into action and refine over time!
A lightbulb went off in my head when I got this concept. Thank you Harry for this valuable lesson.
Google has released a new browser called Chrome. Unlike Firefox or IE, Chrome is intended to be a full Operating System in the near future. It’s pretty clear Google wants to change the rules of Information Technology and Chrome is just a starting point.
Just like Email became Gmail, it appears Google intends to replace the PC with the GC (Google Computer). The Google Computer will run Chrome as an OS and a suite of Apps Google will provide in the cloud. Once Google picks up a decent finance package (Intuit has already moved a lot of their apps to the Web) and some sort of CRM (Salesforce - web based) Google would have a compelling package for businesses.
I think Google is the most disruptive technology company in the world. Google has stated they want to be integrated into people’s brains. Laugh if you will, but it shows the level of their ambition.
A friend has been having a lot of problems with his computer. I happened to come across this today and thought it would be worth sharing. It’s an ad touting the Lenovo one button data restore feature. I’m not a Lenovo fan, but this looks cool.
Is there anything more boring than watching Olympic Swimming? I’m not questioning the athletes. They are in great shape and put forth every effort. However, I find swimming to be the lamest spectator sport I’ve ever watched.
NBC is doing their best to build drama around Michael Phelps’ quest for medals. I watched the relay. I hate to use this word again, but it was boring. I can’t help but think the announcers are faking it.
Gmail was down today for about an hour. While this may not seem like a big deal for some, according to this link on CNET the outage also affected business customers who use Gmail.
Other web based services have gone up and down (ahem, Twitter), but the fallout from Gmail being offline, especially since it affected business clients, will be interesting.
Cloud Computing just took it’s first black eye. Welcome to the fight.
