Some of you may have noticed that my posts have been quite infrequent lately. I have been enjoying the summer by working on jobs around the house, catching up on some reading, going out for coffee with my wife and walking the dogs.
The weather was great in early July (sunny, 25C - 29C) but lately it sucks (rain, 14C - 18C)! Newfoundland weather is really unpredictable.
Anyway, I look forward to getting back to blogging more frequently starting near the end of August.
I hope you are enjoying your summer. It’s great to relax and do different things for awhile. What do you do when you like to take a break and relax?
Last year I was very pleased and honoured to be one of the contributing authors to “The Age of Conversation” #1. This year Drew and Gavin have decided to give it another go. Our current number of 237 authors has more than doubled the number of authors on AOC#1.
I used a cool program called Wordle (saw it on Phil Gerbyshak’s blog, thanks Phil) to show all of the authors names. I also listed their names below;
Today, July 1st is Canada Day. It’s the day that my country celebrates it’s birthday (we started as a collection of four provinces on July 1st, 1867).
My province of Newfoundland & Labrador was the last to join Canada in 1949, so here at home there are mixed emotions over July 1st. This is because on July 1st, 1916, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment suffered tremendous losses while fighting as a British Colony at the battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
Here is what wikipedia says about Newfoundland’s loss.
History
On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, 801 soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment rose from the British trenches and went into battle at Beaumont-Hamel, nine kilometers north of Albert in France. After only 30 minutes the regiment was devastated. Only 68 men stood to answer the regimental role call the next morning. 255 were dead, 386 were wounded, and 91 were listed as missing in action and presumed dead. Every officer who had gone over the top was either wounded or dead.
On the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army (57,470 casualties, 19,240 dead) at the opening of the largest battle (over one million casualties) of the war, Newfoundland had also suffered its gravest military loss. To this day, Beaumont-Hamel remains the most significant single military action fought by Newfoundlanders and a turning point in the history and culture of the island. Many Newfoundlanders mark the date of July 1st not as Canada Day, but as Memorial Day, the date of remembrance for the Beaumont-Hamel battle.
Newfoundlanders remember this day with bittersweet emotion.
I am a proud Canadian and I am happy to celebrate Canada Day every year but I can’t help but wonder what Newfoundland & Labrador would have looked like today if we hadn’t have lost our best and brightest men way back on July 1st, 1916.
On a lighter note … today is also the day that Danny Cleary is bringing the Stanley Cup to his hometown of Harbour Grace, NL. Cleary is a member of the Detroit Red Wings who won the 2008 Stanley Cup and he is now the first Newfoundlander to have his name etched on the Cup.
Hockey is big in Canada and it’s great to have one of our own immortalized in hockey history.
I was doing some work on my fence last weekend. This involved hammering some new boards into place. It’s funny what happened when I got the hammer in my hand.
Not only did I get the part of the fence fixed, I also continued to hammer extra nails in other parts of the fence (which probably didn’t need any more nails in the first place).
After I finished fixing the fence I got to thinking about how driven I was to hammer everything in sight. The way I saw it at the time was that my hammer was going to fix every problem.
Do you ever get like this when you’re making an important decisions? Do you tend to try to “hammer” out the same strategy in an effort to “nail” the problem … and then along comes a “screwy” problem which can only be solved with a a screwdriver not a hammer?
When I get into this rut of thinking I find that the best way out is to take the advice of trusted colleagues who see things different from me. This different perspective always gets me back on track.
How do you avoid using the same strategy for a different problem?
I guess that data and information has been on my mind lately because I just blogged yesterday about how technology has inundated us with data and now I’m talking more about information.
I found this fabulous slide show that makes an interesting comparison between information and water. Have a look.
Have a look at this video I just found. Ferrazzi condenses most of his book in just under 2 minutes. It’s well worth a look.
I think Ferrazzi gives a refreshing perspective on the traditional networking jerk. It’s all about having quality conversations and being genuine interested in what people have to say.
It’s a struggle today to make sense of all of the information coming our way. Chris Jordan feels that the onslaught of enormous amounts of data has buried some very alarming societal statistics.
In this TED video, Jordan constructs unique pictures to demonstrate the impact of powerful statistics. Some examples of the statistics he analyzes are new smokers, drugs addictions and volunteer breast augmentations.
Jordan speaks in terms of the US but I think it relates to all of us in one way or another.
As we continue to have greater access to more data there will become an even greater need to make sense of what we find. I think Chris Jordon is on to something.
I published an article in a magazine last year called, “Making Sense of Humour in the Workplace“. I didn’t think much of it at the time but I think I struck a nerve.
It wasn’t long before the same article was published in two other magazines. Now I have the article on my website and it constantly gets the most hits out of all the articles that I have posted.
Here’s an excerpt: Well, what’s so funny about work and why should I be concerned about it? If you are looking to strengthen your career opportunities then exercising your funny bone may be just the route to take.
Laughing Together
It’s a funny thing (I mean funny-strange, not funny-ha, ha!) about humour; it’s a definite necessity to a healthy life at work and at home but we don’t always admit it or recognize its power. The daily challenges which contribute to our increasing stress levels continually drain us of energy. Humour binds us together, lightens our burdens and helps us keep everything in perspective.
Tichy and Bennis talk a great deal about the idea that decision-making is an on-going process which can be changed and tweaked at any time.
Here’s a chart taken from their article which compares the traditional view of decision-making to their process view;
Decision-making can be a very complicated, therefore when it’s viewed as a process there are more opportunities available to get feedback from all involved and to redo what needs to be fixed.
What do you think?
Can you see how any part of this applies to you when you make decisions in a group or even by yourself?
I saw this at threadless.com and I couldn’t resist putting it in my blog.
So, what in the world does a senseless haiku have to do with “Minding the Gap“? I’m glad you asked. I’m curious as to what you initial reaction was after you read this haiku.
- Did you read it, dismiss it immediately and than think that I’m nuts,
- OR did you read it, get a chuckle and then think that I’m nuts,
- OR (insert you own reaction here).
What I thought about after I read it (and chuckled) was how do people deal with people and situations that just don’t make sense? Do more people get disturbed and irritated you or do they get more curious about the person and/or situation?
What’s your reaction to people and situations that just don’t make sense?
I was reading through Garr Reynolds’ blog when I came across this cool slide show that he created for presenters. Everybody has been a victim of “Death by PowerPoint” at some time and I’m sure that we are all looking for a few pointers to help our own presentation skills.
In this slide show (don’t be intimidated by the 131 slides … it goes fast), Reynolds uses the information from the hottest brain book out there today called, “Brain Rules“, by Dr. John Medina.
I’m going to save the details of Medina’s book for another post (his book looks like a must buy for me).
Anyway, have a look at the show and see if it makes sense to you. I loved the way that Reynolds mixed common sense, Medina’s brain research and nice graphics to create a very compelling slide show.
Friday means that everyone should be in a great mood but what about Mon - Thurs?
Sometimes when I’m having a bad day, I get a little paranoid wondering what other people think of me. Later on, when I’m feeling better, I get a little ticked off when I look back at things and I think that I was really making a big deal out of pretty well nothing.
Well, my wife recently told me something to help me change my attitude when things aren’t going so great. She said,
“It’s none of your business what other people think of you.”
Small sentence … powerful message. Just think about how everyone would feel if they kept this little saying in mind all the time.
I know there are times when it’s important to keep other people’s opinions of you in the forefront but generally, if you do what you want to do (within reason of course) and don’t sweat what others think about you, then you will probably be better off in the long run.
What do you think? Why not keep this little mantra in mind when you’re having a bad day and afterwards, tell me how things went.
Sometimes I’m pretty good at getting work completed and sometimes … well, let’s just say that there are times when I feel that I am the one that put the PRO in procrastination.
Here is part of what she says, “When most people procrastinate, they postpone a task in favor of one of these three things: something more important, something trivial, or something completely recreational. Your choice out of these three often reveals the root of your procrastination.”
It doesn’t get very warm, very fast in my neck of the woods (I’m about as far east in North America that you can get), so when it comes time to mow my lawn for the first time this year, I guess you can say that it is truly a sign that summer may soon be here.
Just this past weekend I actually mowed 6 lawns. Front and back of my house, my in-laws, and my friend’s house. After I finished, I thought about what I had to show for all that work besides some nicely mowed lawns.
And then I got to thinking.
I have always liked mowing lawns but not necessarily because the grass looks nicer. It’s really because of the time it gives me to give my mind a break.
You know what I mean. I’m talking about getting lost in a particular activity and feeling mentally refreshed after it’s finished (this feeling is commonly known as “Flow“.
There are tons of activities good for getting in the flow state. One of them for me is mowing the lawn. Which ones work best for you?
Steve Bannister is passionate about ideas and people. He loves to learn and he is continually fascinated with what makes successful people tick (with "success" being whatever you define it to be). More stuff about Steve can be found on his website.
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