Attitude

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Thirty years ago today I joined the Army. Two decades later I came back into civilian life, having learned a lot, grown up a bit, got married, had children and probably figured out a few things about myself. I’ve already mentioned some of the practical things I learned in the military. It’s now been almost a decade since I took off my uniform.

I’ve noticed that recruiting is up in Canada and I think that has to do with our Afghanistan mission. Young men are always looking for adventure. We have a significant share of military funerals here in Atlantic Canada, though. Even with my military experience, a degree in History and a certain level of interest, I haven’t figured out if the Afghanistan mission is the right thing for us to be doing. I guess that’s life in a complex world. There are no easy answers.

It’s like the consultant’s stereotypical response of “It depends”, to every client’s question. Sometimes, when the answers aren’t clear,  you just have to trust your gut and jump into the river and see where it takes you. I did that in 1977.

As we get more attachments, mortgages, and the lot, it gets harder to just let things flow. We want to control things. Organisations are like that. The more they’ve accumulated, the less they want to risk. But life has always been complex and risky, and will always be so. There are no easy answers – anywhere. It just takes us a while to realise it. The attitude you adopt in facing complexity, however, is up to you.

And for an attitude readjustment, you can always listen to Jimmy Buffet ;-)

My Performance Toolbox

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I’ve just created a new page that will list the practical job aids for workplace performance that I’ve developed. With over a thousand posts on this blog, they were getting lost in the crowd.

You can now find all of them listed in my Performance Toolbox. I’ve put a permanent link in the Consulting section. Of course, everything is licensed for sharing, using a Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial license.

Workplace Performance Analysis Job Aid

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In much of my work I’m asked to help out with situations that appear to be rather complex. For instance, we had a situation that required skills development for hundreds of staff preparing to implement a new nursing care methodology, all to be done in a very short time. An initial analysis, conducted in one week, showed where there could be major cost savings by focusing only on the important areas of performance.

I’ve used performance analysis methods for several projects and have found it to be a good way to separate the important signals from just the noise that surrounds many large organisations, especially those in transition. To learn more on how to conduct a performance and cause analysis, I’ve attached a job aid that I use for myself and to communicate with clients. This is one of the tools that I use to help see patterns in the chaos of daily work.

Download: jarche_analysis_process.pdf

My Virtual Office

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In Rolling Your Own Online Office, R/WW suggests several tools for telecommuting, including e-mail, forums, wikis, chat, document sharing, flowcharting and files. As a permanent telecommuter, I’m always looking for better productivity tools and I need some choice, as my clients have different needs and IT requirements.

I have several e-mail addresses and use one of my g-mail accounts as a spam filter, which transfers to my main account. I also have my domain name account, which can move with me, even if I change ISP’s. This is handy if you decide to change ISP’s and have to abandon something like the included @sympatico.ca account. Of course, I don’t want to keep all of my stuff on g-mail, so I forward my mail to the e-mail client on my computer. Currently, I use Thunderbird, which is simple & easy but I’ve been poking around with Evolution, which includes a calendar function and will probably use it when I transfer my main computer to Linux.

So far, most of my document sharing is with Google Documents, as this seems the easiest to get my clients to accept. I’m also looking at Coventi and have downloaded Zoho Office, but haven’t found any partners or clients to play with yet. Google Calendar works well with virtual teams, too. Also, I haven’t been doing much flowcharting lately, but have done a few designs on Gliffy, which is basic but is getting better.

With Gmail, I don’t have much need for sending large files. There are several file-sharing programs available, and I get offers from many of them on a regular basis. I’ve used Izimi for some files and find it works well. It’s only limitation is that your computer has to be connected for someone else to get the file, as Izimi doesn’t store your files online. This can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your needs. I’ve also used Filezilla for basic FTP as well as the YouSendIt service.

Of course, my blog and website is still the best virtual work tool. It lets me stay in touch with a large group of people – on their terms, not mine. My blog also includes a short version of my CV, listings of clients and everything else I want to share. This information decreases any friction with potential clients, as they can poke around without having to talk to me or send me an e-mail which is one less step needed in getting to know me.

Even in the short span of four years that I’ve been working in my virtual office, the tools have become simpler, cheaper and more plentiful. This is a good thing for anyone considering the path of the self-employed or freelancing.

Reverse Job Postings

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Are reverse job postings on the rise? I noted two years ago how Seb Paquet had posted that he was leaving the NRC,

He has basically created a reverse job posting, telling the world that he is available and under what conditions. Instead of roaming the streets with his CV in hand, Seb’s blog is a central location to get to know him or to catch-up on what he’s been up to. I think that these kinds of between-job postings will become popular on the web and I’m sure that someone will even give them a name and sell services around them.

I was reminded of this when I saw K. G Schneider’s Free Range Librarian for Rent post. Two years later and I haven’t seen too many of these posts, but more people are referring others through their blogs. Schneider’s post is much more enjoyable to read, and more informative, than any job post I’ve seen. Most job adverts are way too serious and don’t give you any real understanding about the work or the people. I still think there may be a business model in aggregating these feeds and adding a logic layer to the disconnected “for hire” blog posts out there.

Yugma free web conferencing

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I came across the Yugma web collaboration application a while back but haven’t had time to test it out. Chris Nadeau has been using it and says that it compares favourably with applications like Webex and Vyew. Yugma requires a download (thin client) which may limit its use for those behind the firewall.

What really interests me about Yugma is that it offers free tele-conferencing, something not available on the free/low-cost Vyew application and much too expensive on Webex. Yugma may have found the sweet-spot for free web conferencing.

Open Source Model for Developing Bids

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Nick Booth passed this on to me a while back. It’s about a bid to government that was developed in a completely open and transparent manner. The entire story and process is available at the Open Innovation Exchange:

This Open Innovation Exchange site was launched on April 22 2007 and used until May 14 2007 to develop an “open source bid” to the UK Cabinet Office, which invited proposals for a Third Sector innovation exchange. The invitation to tender for a £1.2 million three-year programme said:

“The innovation exchange will pilot new approaches to fostering, exchanging and replicating third sector innovation, ensuring that public services benefit from the approaches they pioneer. The innovation exchange will seek to connect innovators to one another, to those who might benefit from their work, including public service, commissioners and third sector organisation, and others who might invest in their work.”

We believed that we could develop a better proposal by sharing our ideas with others, and inviting comments and contributions. We succeeded in that, and delivered the final proposal on May 14. It is available here.

However , we aren’t are stopping now, and we invite people to continue to contribute ideas on how the exchange – and other collaborations in the field – could work.

Below are a set of question and answers on our original approach to the bid. Simon Berry answers some challenging questions here.

You would never see a corporation opening up its bidding process to the world and if it tried, its lawyers would strongly advise against it. But in this case, it worked. Once again, an industrial model has been flipped on its head by the Net.

I believe that this is an indicator of the future of collaborative work and shows how the open source model is not just for software development but can be used in almost all work endeavours.  The Internet is a revolutionary and powerful tool for all of us, as long as we keep it open and neutral.

Seen in passing

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If mobile learning interests you (you know, cell phones and the lot), then check out the new and improved mLearnopedia.

I was also introduced to Coventi this week, which is similar to Google Documents, but 1) it’s not owned by Google and therefore is not connected to all that other information about your Web life and 2) it features a chat bar. Think of it as a user-friendly wiki with integrated text chat. Conventi offers 3 roles – reviewer, author & owner.

Four years later …

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the-four-trees.jpg

Today marks four years as a free-agent for me. This has been a learning experience every day and I still don’t have any easy answers for anyone else considering the life of an independent consultant. The best part is the lifestyle and the flexibility while the worst aspect is constantly chasing after more work and managing cash-flow (that’s the part that people with regular paycheques don’t understand).

There have definitely been some interesting aspects to this career choice. On the positive side, because of my blog, clients have found me through search engines. On the negative side, I’ve had clients go bankrupt before paying me and I’ve also been stiffed for my services. I’ve learned something from every one of my clients and I have especially enjoyed some of the non-profit organisations, with their unique challenges.

I would not have been able to go out on my own if the Web didn’t exist, as much of my work is at a distance. I’ve had several clients whom I’ve never met face to face. However, I think that my frequent slow periods may be a result of not enough face to face encounters. People forget you when they don’t see you regularly and that’s a disadvantage of living in sparsely populated Atlantic Canada. Obviously, not everyone lives on the Web.

At this time, my hope is to celebrate my fifth anniversary.

Photo of Monet’s, The Four Trees, by Maulleigh.