Managing Chaos

May 11, 2006

Like Cliff Notes For SNA

Want to brush up on your network and brokering concepts, but don't have time to read the latest books or academic paper? Check out these three resources from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation: Networks Digest, Brokering Digest, and Network Notes. The couple page summary publications, updated on a regular basis, summarize books and papers on issues relating to social networking, giving the reader a high level overview of the issues, concepts, and research. Some of the documents have a health-bent to them, as is no surprise since they are from the CHSRF, but the overwhelming majority are appropriate to almost every audience.

March 30, 2006

HZ: Information on Demand

HZ is an free information-on-demand email service catering to BlackBerry users (although it will work with your normal email, too). It allows someone to ping them with a specific request (from flight info, stock info, and weather reports all the way down to horoscopes and jokes) and get an automated response with the information within about 1 minute. Here’s are some examples:

If I send an email to “hz@hz.com” with the subject line “nextflights bos:lhr”, it will immediately respond back to me with an email listing all the flights that will get me from Logan (BOS) to Heathrow (LHR).

If I send an email to “hz@hz.com” with the subject line “quote msft”, it will immediately respond back to me with an email listing the current stock price for Microsoft (MSFT).

If I send an email to “hz@hz.com” with the subject line “letterman”, it will immediately respond back with Dave Letterman’s guests this evening, and last nights Top Ten List.

(For the record, when I started playing with this the other day, I just missed Airtran 445, their 9:15am flight to Heathrow; Microsoft is currently trading down 0.15 to 26.70; and number 9 on last nights Top Ten list was pretty funny)

Here is the complete list of information requests that can be made using the system (please note, for something like “hzquote@hz.com”, you can alternatively send it to “hz@hz.com”, and simply put the “quote” part in the subject line):

Quote - Get stock information
HZQUOTE@hz.com - symbol in subject
HZQUOTE+symb.symb@hz.com
Stock - Get detailed stock information
HZSTOCK@hz.com - Symbols in subject
HZSTOCK+symb.symb@hz.com
HZJOKE@hz.com - Get a joke
Weather - Get weather
HZWEATHER@hz.com – Zip code or city in subject
HZWEATHER+zip@hz.com
TAFMETAR - Get TAF and METAR info
HZTAFMETAR@hz.com - Idents in subject
HZTAFMETAR+ident@hz.com
Nextflight - Next flight between airports
HZNEXTFLIGHT@hz.com - airport:airport in subject
HZNEXTFLIGHT+airport.airport@hz.com
FlightInfo - Get current flight status info
HZFLIGHTINFO@hz.com - Airline and flight number in subject
HZFLIGHTINFO+airline.flightnum@hz.com
Address - Lookup address from phone number
HZADDRESS@hz.com - Phone number in subject
Define - Get a definition
HZDEFINE@hz.com - word in subject
Birthday - Get famous birthdays for today
HZBIRTHDAYS@hz.com
Areacode - Get info about area code
HZAREACODE@hz.com - Put area code in subject
KnockKnock - Get a knock knock joke.
HZKNOCKKNOCK@hz.com
Gasprices - Get gas prices for zipcode
HZGASPRICES@hz.com - zipcode in subject
HZGASPRICES+zipcode@hz.com
Lottery - Get lottery information
HZLOTTERY@hz.com - put state in subject
HZLOTTERY+state@hz.com
Exchangerates - Get current exchange rates
HZEXCHANGERATES@hz.com
Walmart - Get Walmart locations near zipcode
HZWALMART@hz.com - put zipcode in subject
Airport - Get airport technical information
HZAIRPORT@hz.com - put airport code in subject
HZAIRPORT+ident@hz.com
Tailnumber - Get aircraft information
HZTAILNUMBER@hz.com - put tailnumber in subject
Aviation Weather - Get aviation weather information
HZAVIATIONWEATHER@hz.com - put ident in subject
HZAVIATIONWEATHER+ident@hz.com
Starbucks - Get Starbucks locations near zipcode
HZSTARBUCKS@hz.com - put zipcode in subject
Letterman - Who is on Letterman and his TopTen list
HZLETTERMAN@hz.com
Directions - Get driving directions
HZDIRECTIONS@hz.com - put start and end in subject
Movies - Get local movie theatre information
HZMOVIES@hz.com - put zipcode in subject
HZMOVIES+zipcode@hz.com
EBay - Get Ebay auction information
HZEBAY@hz.com - put auction number in subject
HZEBAY+auctionnumber@hz.com
Earthquakes - Get earthquake information
HZEARTHQUAKES+us@hz.com - us earthquakes
HZEARTHQUAKES+world@hz.com - world wide earthquakes
Whois - Get Whois info
HZWHOIS@hz.com - domain in subject
Local - Get Google Local results
HZLOCAL@hz.com - Search term and Zipcode or city in subject
HZLOCAL+search+zip@hz.com
News - Get Google News stories
HZNEWS@hz.com - News Category in subject or message body
HZNEWS+Category@hz.com
Horoscope - Get today’s horoscope
HZHOROSCOPE+sign@hz.com

The service is completely free, and has no advertising to sift though; the company makes money though customizing this for corporate clients. It’s a nifty little resource that might save you some trouble and effort, both in the office and out on the road, and could be especially useful to folks who need to change their travel plans mid-trip.

March 15, 2006

Links

Yeah, they're as much marketing as they are science and data. And yeah, Raindrop hasn't been updated in ages. But I've gotten hooked on blogs from R&D labs. Here are three to start with:

From Edison's Desk (GE Global Research Center)

Raindrop (Microsoft Social Computing Group)

PlayOn (Xerox PARC)

March 08, 2006

Costly Meetings

Jeff Phillips over at Working Smarter had a brilliant entry today on how much money an average company wastes in meetings:

The article states that a recent survey found that an average employee spends 5.6 hours in meetings each week. Throw in prep time and wrapup time and that number probably extends to almost 8 hours a week. And frankly, in my experience, that number is low. But for the sake of argument let's use 8 hours as a baseline. Let's postulate that an average worker costs a business in salary and overhead approximately $100,000 per year fully loaded. This means the average person spends approximately 400 hours (50 weeks * 8 hours per week) in meetings. That cost is approximately $22,500 for the fully loaded worker. Note that in an average work year (say 2000 hours) almost one fifth is in meetings. In a medium sized firm of 100 people, over 400,000 hours of time is spent in meetings based on this math.

For this investment, are we getting any benefits? If in an average sized business I wanted to commit 400,000 hours of personnel effort, I'd have to provide a strong rationale for how that time would be used and what the benefits would be. But since we use this time in small units scattered across the organization, no one bears the responsibility to determine what benefits the company received from this investment.

[...]

Meetings are one of the few activities where a person can require the participation and attendance of others without a real justification or value proposition. It has become almost de riguer to attend a meeting once invited, so few people miss a meeting they've been invited to, even if there's little or no value for them. The cost of these meetings is astronomical and the benefit in many cases unproven or non-existent.

August 01, 2005

Open Table

Trying to find the perfect reservation for that business dinner? Tired of trying to arrange it when it's convenient for the restaurant, but not for you? Check out OpenTable.com, a free online restaurant reservation system in use at over 3,300 restaurants in the US and UK.

July 29, 2005

Manager Tools Blog

Are you a new manager? Trying to figure out how to deal with employee issues, as well as project issues? Check out Manager Tools, a new(ish) blog and podcaster that focuses on tools for new managers. It's a neat little site, and a great starting point for figuring out how to deal with some of the issues you just haven't been trained for!