I like Microsoft. Kinda. Well, they’re the nicest dictator in the park. Hmmm. Ah vey. Due to the tranquil hegemony enjoyed by Microsoft I have shelled out even more dollars (after buying Office 2007 (yuk interface), Visio 2007 (great!), Vista (not so great)) I have just bought a copy of MS Project 2007.
I can’t even get the packaging open. It is about as unintuitive as you can get. With the possible exception of the Office 2007 interface.
Reminds me of the “Microsoft iPod” packaging parody:
I came across this post recently on Bigpond by Meg dealing with online reputation management for businesses, and the point is made that the old line that “if you like the service, you tell 3 people. If you hate it you tell 50 of your friends” was never more apt than in a world where people can make blog entries about things.
I recall particularly this sort of issue from watching Amanda Congdon (I’ve been watching since the Rocketboom days and through to today – there seems to be Another New Project coming), when she dumped on Sprint in the US with this video and praised the boring qualities of the Volvo in this one.
Essentially, businesses need to monitor their online reputation – at differing degrees, but something has to be done. I also think people need to monitor their own personal situation – a vanity search recently turned up my photo on a French forum likening me to a young Bill Gates. I’ll run with the young part. My French is very rusty but there seemed to be an ethical debate over whether they should get my permission before posting it in the forum.
Short answer: “Yes”. Long answer: “Yes, you really should”.
I guess I can understand then why my wife won’t let me put pictures of children up on the web for fear of identity theft/stalking/very much worse stuff than this. There’s also the news out of the UK about blurring the faces of kids’ school photos online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7280088.stm. In that context I once did some work for a school with a password for a webcam that was set up in the prep kids classroom, so parents could see their charmings and darlings. The password was ‘secure’ in that it was ‘only known by the staff, the kids, their parents, and members of the past students association’. Which was about 8,000 people all of whom I am sure had a blue card. And, it hadn’t been changed in three years. That, my friend, is asking for trouble.
The post above by Meg points to some really good tools for businesses to use in monitoring their online reputation. This can be a fairly simple automatic email or much more involved. I suggest you do it for yourself, your business, and the kiddies!
A couple of months ago I reviewed the Thinking Rock application, java-based ‘pure GTD’ application to manage tasks. Since I published that review, the activity over at www.thinkingrock.com.au has been, well, somewhat less than frenetic. The application is still in beta (officially, ‘epsilon’), and there are many comments there, basically saying ‘where’s the new version’?’ After all, this current version was released on June 17 2007, and of course there’s been a little water under the bridge since then. It seems the developers, the much-loved Jeremy and Claire, are under a bit of pressure to get it together.
I was a bit drawn into that – and a lot of people seem to be walking away to find their ‘nirvana’. Usually off to something like ‘My Life Organised’. So I did take a look at what other software might exist. But I also came across this blog entry from ‘GTD Wannabe’: Are you Resisting your Trusted System? about resisting your system and tinkering with it and changing the software all the time – only to change again about six weeks later.
There are a few issues with Thinking Rock. The interface isn’t beautiful. Some of the components of the interface are frustrating (e.g. kludgy edit fields, etc).
But I’m still with it. It isn’t beautiful, but like Winston Churchill it seems to get the job done. Many of the functions I think are missing I find I can use – for instance, I never used to use projects, but I have now discovered I can ‘future date’ a project and it (and all its tasks) will roll over on the relevant date. You can also have templated projects with actions already set out for it (potentially, VERY useful – e.g. shopping lists – no more back-of-the-envelope lists for me).
I did have a problem in that, with this approach, all of my tasks are sitting on my PC rather than on my mobile device. Outlooks’ task management is hopeless (sorry, I just can’t get it to do GTD without some major elements missing, and without buying an expensive plugin Outlook knows absolutely nothing about the concept of projects). But I simply wrote a bit of Outlook code that parses my TR xml file, filters out tasks that are ‘due asap’, overdue, or due today, and my current task list is in Outlook. I can then have the tasks in my Blackberry while I’m roaming around, and simply have to mark an item complete in TR when I get back to my computer.
And here’s the most important thing. I think TR2 has crashed on me, perhaps, twice in the past eight months – and those were JVM errors. Vista in the same time seems to crash once every day, on average (admittedly on bootup, but who wants to wait ten minutes for Vista to not find a solution for a problem?). This is the longest time I have used a task management application. But I think Jeremy and Claire have written some really really good code here, and it’s very reliable, and it works. If it takes them a little while to produce fantastic reliable code, then I’m all for it.
So … yes, I’m still in the TR camp and it works REALLY well for me.
Technorati Tags: Thinking Rock,Microsoft Outlook,Blackberry
About Personal Productivity
I am always on the lookout for personal productivity tools. And it is very difficult to have any interest in this area without having, at some stage, stumbled over the "Getting Things Done" book by David Allen.Â
Whenever this topic comes up, I always give people the following backgrounders – and perhaps not surprisingly it all comes from the person who is fast becoming my favourite blogger of ‘stuff you can use’ – Leo Babauta.Â
Leo has a beginner’s guide to Getting Things Done, and even gives some hints about how he does it through his own GTD implementation. And as a man who thinks things through and gets it right, he has even come up with a slight variation on GTD – Zen to Done – which recognises that GTD is all very well and good for us who like to spend all day processing our inbox, but there is a path to enlightenment that must be trod.
Zen Habits is Leo’s blog, and although I’ve only been following it for a while it is a lifesaver so far. Anyway, enough fanatical zen – more about ThinkingRock.Â
ThinkingRock
ThinkingRock is the application that, on the basis of my research (OK, Google), most closely follows the GTD approach. You can do GTD with GTDInbox, and you can do it with Outlook and all sorts of other tools, but they all seem to make compromises and they don’t work as well in my view (perhaps subjects of later posts). ThinkingRock is actually an Australian effort (Claire and Jeremy seem to be in Sydney, so we’re practically neighbours with only 1200 kilometres separating us), and is threatening to go open source very soon. I have been using the software for about six weeks, and – if I can build myself up to the good habits espoused by David Allen and Leo and the like – there is a good chance that this perhaps may be the most productive personal productivity software of all time. Like all these things, though getting the rhythm and the habits is very important – the software is a tool, it isn’t the answer.Â
I should point that the software I am reviewing is the Epsilon version of Thinking Rock 2 (TR2). There is a Thinking Rock 1, which is the current ‘live’ version but also the one around which there seems to be ‘no buzz’ any more – I believe it is the rock-solid, complete, mature software and all its major functionality has been included in TR2.Â
The software is written in java and as a result is multi-platform (so works for people of all kinds – Apple, Linux, and the evil evil Micro$ofters 🙂 such as myself). The files are stored in a local XML file, which makes the system very portable (in fact, apparently many people run it from a thumbdrive, although I have never been confident that I can keep the files in synch using this approach – I have a laptop and Blackberry for portability.Â
To me, major issues with most of these productivity applications is the following:
Overview
The screenshot below shows the opening screen of Thinking Rock, and it is very clear and helpful – this is built around the GTD specific approach.Â
Importing from an existing task list was excellent – a simple text file that import as individual tasks. Projects then need to be created and managed from these lists.
All the components of a GTD system are there:
As I say, a very complete implementation of GTD.
Remote Access
Remote access can only be addressed through using a thumb drive approach or lugging about a laptop. Perhaps you could set up a net-drive to handle your xml file. Again – sounds terrifying for what is after all my life.
Still, there are some good reports available to carry around so perhaps that’s how I should address this and leave processing for later on.
Carry Over of Tasks
The Tickle function is very good – an item either ends up as information or a future tickle (reminder) of the job to be done. And if your productivity is driven by having a list that gets ticked off, you will be very effective using Thinking Rock.
So very good in this area – which is a wonder compared to all other tools I’ve flirted with.
Simple addition of tasks
GTDInbox was very good for helping you process your inbox – you simply emailed off a task to the system and then processed it. However there are a couple of flaws using that approach – for instance, multiple emails relating to a single task. ThinkingRock forces a manual re-compilation of the task, but it is amazingly efficient to simply tap F6 and add a thought for later processing – ensures that you don’t have to stop and do the whole thing then and there – you simply collect thoughts and process later (and, I love that it combines with the Tickles so your morning habit becomes to collect your thoughts and then process them – and you’ll process your Tickle file at the same time).Â
Reorganise and create multiple task lists.
Using the projects, priority and status components for each task, you can quickly create lists of tasks to ensure focus. A very useful tool and filter system.
Coordinating with multiple people
GTD and therefore ThinkingRock are personal productivity tools – therefore coordination with other people doesn’t come into it. Tasks come in via email or other sources, and they are added to this system by yourself. There is no integration with team productivity software and such things as MS Project Manager or such like (although you could easily import a text file.
So although it has a space for delegating tasks, you’ll be doing it manually.
Highlights:Â Pros and Cons
Conclusion
Excellent software, a very good tool, very useful in helping people get organised. Does need you to develop those good habits so I would focus on using ThinkingRock to develop those good habits and move on from there.
Overview
A significant amount of in-house developed software is often created by the in-house IT area. A key symptom is a proliferation of Microsoft Access databases.Â
Although the positive results can be significant from developing in-house software, and this approach often removes the need to purchase very expensive software (and software in some cases that does not exist), several issues should be taken into account before developing in-house software.
Technical Issues
The use of Access databases may not always be technically appropriate. In particular, it becomes difficult to integrate Access databases and maintain software application versions across a network without affecting network speeds .
Stepping Outside the Budgeting Process
Often, the systems developed appear to be undertaken as requests from end users for software that cannot be funded from the budget. Software may be developed that address the required business functionality, meet the users’ needs, and save significant up-front investment costs. However, the application of resources (i.e. a staff member’s time) is not allocated according to a business need – the IT area spends its own resource (time) for another department to save resources (budget).
It is often difficult (but not impossible) for an internal application development team to consider the issues objectively and to act in accordance with the enterprise’s best interests. As part of the same enterprise, they can face internal pressures to develop information systems that would not be developed were the arrangement at arms’ length (as would be the case with a third-party software developer that must charge fees to be economically viable).
Uncertainty of Outcomes
When software is built in-house, the cost of doing so may initially appear to be less, as there is no profit component included and any overheads are considered to be ‘sunk’ costs.
However, the likelihood of achieving the benefits is less certain. Therefore, the benefits should be reduced by this risk factor when considering in-house systems for development (or alternatively, the costs of the project can be increased by the risk factor) in order to consider properly the business case of the application development. It is not appropriate to say “this database will save $10,000 on the cost of a new off-the-shelf systemâ€. The potential benefit needs to be discounted by the risk factor that applies.
Additionally, the long-term support and maintenance of the developed information system is often not given proper consideration in the business case. Once the application is developed, there is a need to provide support and maintenance for that system in the long term and, without an extended user base (i.e. other businesses to share the costs with – as is the case with a packaged solution), the costs can be considerable.
Staff Retention
Linked with the issue of support and maintenance is the difficulty of attracting and retaining in-house application development staff. Application development staff generally prefer to develop new information systems rather than maintain existing systems. Retaining that corporate experience with the information system over the life of that information system with an in-house application development team can be difficult if the ability to challenge and extend the skills of the internal staff is limited.
In this case, a single person has created a significant number of database software applications. Although the software development environment chosen may be relatively mainstream (e.g. Java, Microsoft Access, Microsoft.Net), the risk exposure remains that future maintenance and development will fail due to staff turnover, or at least of the limits on that staff member’s available time.
Software Development Lifecycle
When a packaged application is purchased, it is expected that the software developer will carry out future research and development such that new technologies will over time be integrated into the product. With an in-house application, this is unlikely to occur – rather the system will tend to be redeveloped or have new technologies integrated only when the functionality loss is too much to bear, or at crisis points in the system’s lifecycle (e.g. when it suddenly stops working).
Risk-Adjusted Cost/Benefit Analysis
For all of the preceding reasons, there should be reservations that the benefits of in-house application development can be achieved.
Accordingly, it is suggested that any consideration of an in-house application development project take the approach of a Risk-Adjusted Cost/Benefit Analysis. Here, the business case for the development of a new in-house application solution for member management needs to incorporate a risk-adjustment factor in consideration of the costs and benefits, and provide a range of costs/benefits for consideration. That is, the uncertainty of actual costs and the uncertainty of actual benefits being realised is factored into any consideration of an in-house application development project.
Strategic Grid
Consideration of the following strategic grid in evaluating new information systems for external purchase or internal development may be of assistance:
Important questions for consideration include:
It is often valuable for a business to develop a policy for the development of in-house application development of software solutions that takes into account the strategic grid outlined, and the risk-adjusted cost/benefit analysis.