And the living is easy….

Summertime. Gotta love it. School in our district ended yesterday. Admittedly, it’s harder for me to work when I know the kids are ready and willing to go to the pool, go pick strawberries at Larriland Farms or go take a hike or go tubing.

Yes, we’ll have plenty of time to do fun things this summer. But meantime, I’ll be taking advantage of flex-time and working more early mornings and evenings so I can have more time to hang out during the afternoons. So leave a message and I’ll call you back! Or try my cell phone and hopefully, you can hear me over the noise of the waterfalls….

Duh

A startling new study published by PC Magazine
Messaging Haze reveals that the constant barrage of emails, instant messages, cell phone calls and other interuptions reduces mental acuity. No shit.

In fact, the article reveals that those interuptions are worse for your IQ output than smoking marijuana. So… should we allow marijuana in the workplace and ban email? We’d all be sharper and more productive….

There once was a man from Nantucket…

The OEDILF, or “Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form“, is currently working on entries aa- through ba-. Its a dictionary where the definitions are given in the form of limericks.

You can search, browse by topic or by author. It’s going to take a long time to finish! So maybe you want to sign up and contribute… they could use your help!

My favorite so far…. (but maybe because I just finished a project on anime & manga)

animation, anime by speedysnail (Limerick #582)
Tuning into your local kids’ station,
You’re likely to see animation:
From stop-motion clay
To Japan’s anime,
There’s many a moving creation.

Thanks to Researchbuzz for the pointer!

Equality

I read an article the other day in the Harvard Business Review Is a Level Playing Field a Good Thing? It’s really more a “food for thought” piece than an article, but it raises some great questions. Is equality in business always a good thing? The point of the article is that disadvantaged parties (countries, in the example) perhaps should be treated differently. I thought about posting it when I first read it last Monday, but decided not to. Until now.

Today is my oldest son’s birthday. (Remember that last Friday was my middle son’s!) We had the traditional breakfast in bed – whatever he chose. (He had a poached egg on a bagel with bacon and sausage.) We’re having his favorite dinner at the pool and his good friend is coming. My point is, life is not too shabby for Davis today.

I am currently working on a very intense statistical project. You know the kind – I need absolute silence and a couple of Advil every 4 hours. Andrew interupted my concentration to ask me if I was taking Dunkin Munchkins to school today. I took some on Friday for Reed’s day – so he naturally assumed I would today. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. He’s 10 and I didn’t even think he’d want me at lunch. But, fair is fair.

So, I showed up in the cafeteria with my lunch and a big box of Munchkins. And this is what Davis said….

“Thanks, Mom. Mr. Soskil told me to bring the Munchkins back to the classroom and we’re going to have them for an afternoon snack.”

So, you see, he knew I’d bring them since I brought them for Reed. Can you imagine how I’d have felt if I hadn’t? Yikes! Thanks Andrew. I owe you one.

Note: If you’re intersted in the HBR article, you can read some reader responses to it….

Birthday Calculator

In honor of Reed’s 8th birthday, check out this groovy Birthday Calculator.

By typing in his birthday, I learned:

He was born on a Monday (I remember) under the astrological sign Gemini.

The Julian calendar date of his birth is 2450608.5.

As of 6/9/2005 11:21:24 AM CDT
He is 8 years old.
He is 96 months old.
He is 417 weeks old.
He is 2,922 days old.
He is 70,139 hours old.
He is 4,208,361 minutes old.
He is 252,501,684 seconds old.

And the other thing I learned today is that his class really loves Dunkin Munchkins.

Thanks to J-Walk for the pointer.

Wasting Time

Imagine my joy reading the press release from Outsell discussing their new report. It’s about how much time people waste doing research themselves. 5.4 billion lost hours, according to them. They also show that professionals are turning to research professionals for help.

I wanted to point you to Center for Media Research – but the link isn’t working. Hmmm. So here are the highlights from their article about the report:

Search For Information Wasting Professionals’ Time

Anthea Stratigos, CEO of Outsell, reporting on the survey results, “2001 vs. 2005: Research Study Reveals Dramatic Changes Among Information Consumers,” concludes that professionals are shifting away from their Internet research methods of just four years ago to more efficiently gather information and get on with their jobs. They are now looking more to their peers and colleagues, “alerting” services, and other conveniences.

Comparing the new research with results from 2001 shows a number of trends, says the report:

• Today’s users are backing off from self-service models and relying more on information intermediaries
• Users of all kinds are increasingly interested in competitive information
• The time users spend gathering information has increased from 8 to 11 hours per average workweek, and that “gathering time” has also increased in relation to the time spent analyzing and applying it.
• Another change in this period is a strong consolidation of search engine preferences around Google, compared to the six search engines that reached reasonable numbers in 2001
• Discretionary spending for content is down among end users, a trend that puts fee-based commercial vendors at risk compared to ad-based ones

Trendwatching.com

Trendwatching says it is now the world’s most visited source for Consumer Trends and Insights. Could be. I know that I read it every month and always learn something. Subscribe free. Even if you don’t like it as much as I do, it’s definitely a good value.

Never say never

My mom taught me never to say never. You never know what the future brings. HOWEVER, I will never again have 16 eight-year-old boys over for a birthday party at my house. Particularly if it’s a 3-1/2 hour party with a scavenger hunt (read: wild boys running in traffic), dinner (read: “Can you wipe the sauce off my pizza and put the cheese back on”), cake (read: “I don’t like that kind”) and a movie. Maybe I should mention that the movie had some not so perfect word choices in it. Or maybe I shouldn’t.

If you’re one of the mothers of one of the precious boys, yours was a perfect angel.

Connecting

Though I frequently deny it, I am a social person. It’s not that I deny that I’m social per se, it’s more like I resist it. I stay in my office for hours on end, ignore phone calls from friends and family during the workday (sorry Mom) and often opt out of evening plans. I am admitting now that it’s really all self-defense.

The thing is… my friends/acquaintances are busy. They have other friends (better friends?). They have activities for their kids (if they have kids) or for themselves. Some have time-consuming hobbies and some travel frequently. So basically, they don’t have time for me. Now I know that sounds pitiful, and that’s not how I mean it. I mean that in this over-scheduled, highly competitive, fast-paced world that there seems to be little value to most people in slowing down and connecting with other people. And that is precisely what I crave.

Now here’s the rub. I don’t have time either. I take on more projects than I should – particularly the pro bono work. But giving back is so important to me. (And I think it’s important that the kids see that we give our time and money to help others.) And then there’s something that no one ever talks about – do the people that we want to be with want to be with us? Of course, I have some people with whom I really click. Those are easy. I’m talking about the people we see less often, but would like to know better. The mom from baseball who is so interesting and is working on her masters in education and making a total career shift. The woman at the gym who makes me laugh whenever I see her. You know what happens, we say “Let’s make plans to get together,” and then nothing happens. I admit, I feel like I’m in fifth grade when I try to make new friends. And I think about how Sarah, Sherry and Karen cut me out of their group in Miss Ossen’s class and told the boys I wore diapers. Ouch. That was 1974. It still is raw. (It wasn’t true, in case you were wondering.)

So what to do? Keep trying? Become more of a hermit? Act like it doesn’t matter? Be lonely? I know I am not alone in this. I suppose I can join a bowling league. Know any that play at 2:00 in the morning? I have time at 2:00 in the morning….

Indecision

This Industry Week article, Overcome By Indecision fascinated me. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be funny, but read for yourself!

And see if you suffer from EDD…