Guitar Heroine

Recently, I was noticing all the product placement in Guitar Hero III while waiting for a turn on the wii and saw a rather obvious Pontiac logo pointing at me. Hm, thought I, that is going to turn out to be a rather anachronistic piece of product placement if GM doesn't manage their economic situation very well. How much more sensible would that have been to be variable content that could have been sold to the highest bidder by the game manufacturers?

While mulling over this economic news, perhaps you'd like to shred a few licks as well? Drop me a challenge - as you can see, I need the cash earning opportunities.

A bad process is like a flat tire

Does doing it wrong quickly mean going slowly? I don't think so. Instead, apply the get-'er-done mentality to the sources of drag on your project to make your projects successful.

I know someone once got a flat tire on the way home from work in a blizzard, back in the days before cell phones and roadside help. Considering the options, the driver decided to slow down and drive on home. Stopping would have required doing the work in low visibility on the gravel hard pack of a busy 2-lane roadside with a great deal of discomfort and possibly frostbite. Home was minutes away, and road conditions required slow travel anyway. The driver arrived home in about twice the time it normally took for the commute. Sometimes, driving on a flat tire does make sense: when the risks of stopping are great and when the route to your destination is clearly ahead.

In business, sometimes a bad process acts like a flat tire. No one wants to take the time to stop and fix it, so instead the length of time for the project stretches out interminably ahead. A car needs four good tires otherwise steering and direction changes are limited - plus you could damage the car by driving on a flat. Similarly, a faulty business process limits agility for a project and may damage the team's functioning. In a car, with that flat tire to worry about, suddenly your destination may change. Should you head into the dealership, or your friend's uncle's garage, or keep heading home? With a faulty business process, the project direction may also suffer from unclear direction.

I say if you find yourself dealing with a bad process, advocate fixing it. If you can, fix it yourself. You don't need a permanent solution although setting a precedent is nice. Call the project team together and move on with the 'fix-a-flat' approach - take half a day and figure out how, for this project, a temporary but workable process can be created.

And if your project succeeds, then you've got an especially good case to make for making your improvised process permanent.

Image courtesy of www.ericcastro.biz via Flickr

Family calendar

How many calendars do you manage for your family? Many people have one for themselves, one for work, one for the spouse, another for the spouse's work calendar, one for each kid, another for an organization you're part of... it can be overwhelming to coordinate these schedules!

Image by pouwerkerk via Flickr

I come to the challenge equipped with my experience as a project manager, where I'm used to juggling multiple schedules. Even so, the calendar offering from Google was a breath of fresh air.

I use Google calendar already for my personal calendar and to see both public performance events for Indyprov and our separate private rehearsal schedule. (Sorry fanboys, no peekies.)

Next on my list was adding my work calendar in to the google calendar I'd created for myself. Google provides 3 options: 2-way, 1-way to Outlook and 1 way to Google. I opted for the 2 way; during the work day, I'm in the Outlook calendar exclusively. I also wanted to make my personal events private on my work calendar; I did want free/busy info to show, but not all the details of doctor's appointments and any other nefarious activities I may schedule. Note, the Google Calendar Sync only works with Outlook(TM) 2003 and 2007. Here's the instructions for syncing outlook to google calendar:

To set up Google Calendar Sync:

1. Make sure you're using a supported operating system and Outlook version.
2. Download Google Calendar Sync (version 0.9.3.5) at http://dl.google.com/googlecalendarsync/GoogleCalendarSync_Installer.exe
3. Once a dialog box appears, click Save File. The downloaded file should open automatically. If it doesn't, manually open it from your browser's download window.
4. Click OK to confirm that you're aware this is an executable file.
5. Read through the Google Calendar Sync Terms of Service, and click I Agree.
6. Follow through the Installation Options and click Install to finish the set-up process.

Facebook calendars can be added to Google calendar by URL too. Unfortunately, the event details aren't provided but at least the time is blocked off. I also eagerly anticipate some kind of sync solution for Yahoo Calendar integrating with Google calendar. Sadly, none seems to be available yet.

After all the setup, I end up with an integrated outlook-google calendar that shows kid(s), spouse, and organization schedules in one place.

Hopefully, in the future there will be an affordable wall mounted electronic calendar which can support family planning. In the meantime, I could holster an ipod touch on the fridge.