My Three Words: Ask, Focus, Prioritize

My friend and fellow Dad-O-Matic cohort, Chris Brogan, has been espousing the merits of "three words" for at least three years (if not more), and I have always avoided jumping on the bandwagon...until now.

The idea behind "three words" is perhaps simpler than the traditional "New Year's Resolution" routine, and thus, perhaps, we'll be more likely to retain our commitment to "three words" well into the remainder of the year and long after we have resolutely given up on our resolutions. Your three words are intended to be guideposts...  to serve as directional inspirations you can refer to at all times to ensure that the intent and spirit of your current goals and objectives are leading you down your chosen path. You set your goals. You are in the driver's seat to execute them. Your three words are there to remind you why you may have set such a course for yourself and how you intend to make it so. With that in mind, my first goal of 2011 is to give "three words" a shot. Therefore, herewith, I present...

My Three Words for 2011:

ASK. This little three letter word is very powerful. Used properly, ask can help you gain - gain knowledge, gain responsibility, even gain more business and money. Whether you are asking for the sale, or asking because you don't know, an important lesson to learn is that "if you don't ask, you don't get!" A short time into my first job out of college I had the chance to go on a business trip assisting the Founder/CEO of the company, who was also my boss. We were at dinner in a foreign land and I was thrilled to be on my first business trip. Perhaps feeling a bit full of myself (or perhaps feeling the effects of one of my first experiences with a "good" bottle of wine) I blurted out to my boss, "I think I should get a raise!" He looked at me, surprised. Then smiled, and said ok, and told me what my new salary would be. He also said it was really too soon for me to get a bump in pay, but since I asked... After all, he continued, "If you don't ask, you don't get, and that's a good lesson for you to learn." He was right, but over the years I have often forgotten the importance of asking. Therefore, one of my words for 2011 is to ASK!

FOCUS. When I was graduating High School, my English Teacher, Mr. Pospisil, who was greatly admired and respected, wrote some very nice things to me in my year book, but in the middle of all his encouraging compliments, he also said, "Don't spread yourself too thin..." At the time, I thought it was odd, but over the years I've come to recognize how prescient his words were. I like to think that I am good at many things, but as a result, I do often do too many things at once, and as Mr. P perhaps predicted, many times I have indeed found myself in the predicament of having been spread too thin. It is something I am aware of and know I need to work on, so my second word for 2011 is intended to help me heed the words of my High School teacher and FOCUS. Focus on what's important. Focus on what I am doing at the moment. Focus on what will actually "move the needle. Just FOCUS.

PRIORITIZE. My last of the three words is partially related to number two, FOCUS, but I think it is strong enough to stand on its own as word of guidance for 2011. We live in a busy world, constantly connected, constantly fed data, information, images, news, entertainment, advertisements, buzzes, beeps, tweets.  We juggle jobs, family, friends, hobbies, finances, fitness... a LOT of stuff. To plow through it all sanely and successfully it is essential to effectively PRIORITIZE. To make order out of life's potential chaos, we need to put things in their proper order. I want to work much harder and better at prioritizing in all aspects of my life, and thus I have prioritized my three words for 2011 to be sure to include PRIORITIZE.

So, there you have it, my three words... What do you think?  Do you have three words that will guide you in 2011? I had to ASK! :-)

Photo Credit: © .shock - Fotolia.com

How To Beat A Bot (By Being Human)

So, I am sitting at my computer minding my own business when a Facebook Chat window pops up and asks,

 "around? jeffrey, got a second??"  

It is from "Michael N.," an old high school acquaintance who, like so many others, I have befriended on Facebook but haven't really engaged with save for a few mass messages from other old High School friends that we were both copied on.  We are friends by Facebook standards and we certainly hung out in the same crowd on occasion "back in the day," but (no disrespect to Mike) we were not close friends.  That's why I was surprised to see a chat message from him...  So I answered,

"Sure. I am here.  How are you?

And then things got, in my opinion, a little bit weird.  No, "hey, how've you been?" or "whatever happened to so and so...?"  Instead, Michael said,

"ok cool, I know this is random, but i want you to try something real quick"

First of all, I know this is chat and Facebook and the age of instant messaging, but I'd like to think that a fellow adult who shared the same quality New York City Public High School education that I had would be a cut above using limited punctuation and all lower case letters when typing anything. I continued, tentatively...

"ok..."

And then "Michael" asked me to take some crazy IQ test.  An IQ test?  A guy I haven't seen or spoken to in decades out of the blue sends me a link to take an online IQ test?  WTF?  I didn't have to be a CSI to know that something was amiss.  I've been fooled before, but I won't get fooled again! (Yeah, all this High School talk brings back memories of THE WHO...).  So, clever me asks,

"How do I know this is you and not a bot?"

And of course I get a reply that has no relationship whatsoever to the question I just asked.  In my mind I hit Bot Bingo... no way this was really Michael!  And just to be sure, I go ahead and play the human card.  I want him to prove he's the guy I went to Forest Hills High with...

"Tell me something personal so I know it is really you..."

Silence.  No answer.  The chat is over.  Score: Human 1, Bot 0.  Chalk one up for the sentient beings!  I beat the bot!

What do you do when faced with an apparent bot? Do you try to beat it at its own game by asking questions only a human could answer?  Please share your bot beating techniques in the comments.

(P.S. I sent the real Michael N. a message that his FB account may have been hacked...  No reply so far.  He probably thinks the note from me is spam!)

Bot Photo Credit: © iBamboo3106 - Fotolia.com

Re-Kindling My Love of the Sunday Times

I am a New Yorker. I have lived in Florida for the past 15 years, but as the saying goes, you can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy. As a New Yorker, I was weaned on The New York Times and grew up in Queens with the ritual of the Sunday Times as deeply ingrained as a cream cheese "schmear" on a fresh baked bagel. The "Times" was such an important part of our lives that in Social Studies class at Forest Hills High School we even learned the "art" of folding the New York Times into a thin vertical quarter, making it easy to read it with one hand on the subway (leaving your other hand free to hang on for dear life!)

A Section At A Times...

The Sunday Times is an entity in and of itself. Thick, heavy and filled with "sections" rich with meaty, pithy content. Every true New Yorker has their favorite section: Sunday Business, Arts and Leisure, Travel, Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, Sports Sunday, Real Estate, Week In Review, Sunday Styles, even Obituaries... everyone has a section they pull out and read first. Everyone has their own Sunday Times routine. My Dad's started Saturday evening, when, on the way home from dining out Saturday night, he would always stop at the corner newsstand to get the early Sunday edition, usually delivered by 10pm Saturday night.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday...

When I lived and worked in Manhattan, my own Sunday Times routine often started with brunch and a good Bloody Mary (or two). I'd organize the sections into my preferred reading order and dive in, starting with Arts and Leisure, and ending with Sunday Sports and the Magazine. If I was pressed for time, I would set aside (and never get to) the less essential sections. The comfort of the Sunday Times ritual was such that even when I moved north to Rockland County, and years later south, to Florida, I had the Sunday Times delivered to my home and did my best to continue the tradition.

Not So Special Delivery

In time, I realized that Sunday Home Delivery of The Times outside of New York was a less than reasonable facsimile for the experience I knew and loved. The "Florida" version of the paper did not contain all the Sections and delivery service was sporadic at best. It just wasn't the same and before long I canceled my subscription, and, as a rabid consumer of online news both on my PC and mobile phone, I more or less forgot about the good old "Times."

Enter The Kindle

Since getting the Kindle 2 when it first came out, I have used it to read books and documents I send to it, but I had not tried reading any newspapers... until today. This morning I was poking around the Kindle Store when I realized I could download the Sunday Edition of the New York Times for only $.75, a fraction of what I used to pay for the Home Delivery version. So I did, and it was great. For the first time in years I enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning sitting on the couch, sipping coffee and reading all my favorite sections of the Sunday Times. I am already a big fan of ebooks in general and the Kindle specifically, and I found the electronic Sunday Times experience every bit as enjoyable as the papers of my past. I now know what my new Sunday routine is going to be. Time to break out the Bloody Mary mix!

How about you? Have you tried reading the Sunday Times or other Newspapers on the Kindle? What did you think? If you don't have a Kindle, you can get one here.