6 Aug 2007

Email Hoaxes and the Ignorant

Here’s something I don’t understand: People who send “virus warning” chain emails. These emails apparently warn you of a circulating computer virus and ask you to “pass it on immediately!” So these emails circulate — most likely endlessly, even after this virus (if it’s even real) is eradicated. They are chain emails and have no integrity.

This information arrived this morning direct from both Microsoft and Norton.

You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point presentation “Life is beautiful.” If you receive it, DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message
will appear on your screen saying: “It is too late now, your life is no
longer beautiful.”

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and
the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail
and password.

BS. This has been circulating since 2002 (Snopes).People that fall for this probably fall for the Nigerian scams as well. Here’s one that someone just posted on Facebook. How sad.

READ. Don’t just skim over.

Hello, I thought I would pass on an email I rec’d today from a friend:
If some person with the email address bum_tnoo@hotmail.com wants to add you as a friend - do not accept it because he is a hacker. Tell everyone on your list because if anyone accepts him/her then you get them on your list and he/she will figure out your ID, computer address, so copy and paste this message to everyone and fast because if he hacks their emails he is hacking your mail for Facebook as well.

Somehow I think the person that wrote this is smiling, seeing it posted everywhere by gullible people.

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Filed under Internet, Trends

5 Aug 2007

A Good Book

I’ve never been one to constantly be reading. I know many who can get through a book in a couple of hours and never fall asleep during the read, like I do. The latest books I read have been through referral, and that’s definitely the best way to discover new books. I prefer non-fiction, so here are some great books I’ve read recently thanks to friends or others recommending them:

How to Be Like Walt - This is possibly the best biography of Walt Disney I’ve come across. The book pulls together Walt’s life lessons and attributes like imagination, optimism, courage, integrity, and hope for tomorrow, and shows how you can apply his learnings to your life.

Blink - A bestseller about snap judgments and first impressions–and their importance. Blink shows you how the hidden unconscious plays a major role in our decision-making.

Vagabonding - Rolf Pott’s book will change your mindset about independent long-term travel. How to get started, life on the road, travel experiences you may encounter, the joy and self-fulfilling affect of travel. This will give you the travel bug.

One Year Off - Long term travel–with three kids! This is a fun tale of a family who left their jobs and sold everything to travel the world for one year. It’s a fun read and you’ll find yourself smiling throughout.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Mentioned previously by me, an enjoyable lesson in punctuation and grammar, highlighting the sad state of it in our daily life.

The Power of Now - An inspirational and life-changing guide to focusing on living in the moment and simply being present in the Now, not constantly worrying about the future and dwelling on the past, the cause of most of our pain. I’m halfway through and it creates an exciting new possibilities for self-happiness.

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Filed under Disney, Grammar, Life, Other, Travel

31 Jul 2007

Trend: Ginormous Niche Markets

Where have you not seen products or services targeted to baby boomers? This month’s trendwatching.com briefing is about such “forever trends” and these ginormous niche markets: Women, GLBT, Boomers! Here’s a brief overview:

Women
Here’s a good point — Women make 80+% of consumer purchasing decisions in the US. Maybe you’ve noticed plenty of adverts targeted to the female species (Female Fever, it’s called). “Why should boys have all the fun?” says an Indian ad for a Honda scooter made for women. Sales jumped. Also, while alcoholic beverages for women is nothing new, beer-sellers are introducing specific brands for women.

Almost every industry is touching this important niche: Investing, retail, food and beverage, clothing, shoes.

Gays
Quite a market indeed: trendwatching.com states that the buying power of the GLBT community will exceed $835 billion by 2011. There are websites devoted to marketing in this market. Lots of companies have taken a positive first step in gay-friendly advertising and it’s been shown that this has created a powerful new sales-driving segment.

And it’s not just the young. Elderly gay communities have opened up all over. Bank of America introduced The Rainbow Card which helps organizations devoted to the issues of the gay community. You will find also that lots of travel and vacation opportunities have cropped up for gays.

Boomers
This category barely needs an explanation. Baby boomers are probably the largest consumer market segment today; and it’s growing.

The world’s population is aging at a staggering rate. The 50+ population is the fastest growing segment worldwide and predicted life expectancies are at a historical high. An American turns 50 once every seven seconds. Within the next few years, 50% of the European Union’s population will be 65+. By 2030, in Italy, retirees will outnumber active workers. By 2050, the median age in Thailand will rise to 50. (Source: MIT AgeLab.) - From trendbriefing.com

Frightening. With that, you see oodles of “over 50″ social networks, dating sites, travel services, and tons of other online companies focusing on this profitable population. Medicines? Health care? You bet! The industry has a worsening strain on it, but drug advertisements and fitness products are very present.

You also find that in regards to travel, boomers are being bombarded with marketing for luxury homes, retirement locations and communities, vacations, and healthy frozen culinary delights.

All in all, these market segments are key to consumer industries. They remain solid and profitable.

>> Download the entire report from trendbriefing.com

Boomer photo from Flickr user playerOne

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Filed under Life, Money, Other, Travel, Trends

27 Jul 2007

Inbox Zero

At work, some people have said to me, “How do you keep your inbox so empty?” I see some people’s inboxes and they are so full of emails that they don’t know what else to do other than cherry-pick through them. Some items are even unread! <gasp> They have to scroll, too! I see some people’s Gmail and they never archive! They keep everything in the inbox–missing the purpose of Gmail.

One of my colleagues has a folder called “Pending - Immediate”, in which she seems to throw most things. I’m not sure what exactly “pending - immediate” means. Enter Inbox Zero, a concept that I follow and its as simple as determining whether an email is actionable. You don’t just check your email; you process it:

  1. Delete (or archive) - Simply delete things you don’t need, junk. You may want to create a single folder called ‘Archive’ to which you drag these items you don’t need, but can search for in the future.
  2. Delegate - Have someone else take care of it. What I do, if it’s something I want to check up on at some point or am waiting to hear back, I set a timer to remind myself to follow up, and/or I BCC myself when I forward the email and stick that in a ‘Waiting For’ folder. No ‘Pending - Immediate’ needed here!
  3. Respond - I always try to be prompt to respond to emails if needed. These emails should be kept to five sentences or fewer.
  4. Defer - If the email is something you can’t act on now or should be dealt with at a future date, defer it. Set a timer to remind you and place it in another spot. I typically keep these to do’s in a ‘Next Actions’ folder.
  5. Do - If it takes two or three minute, do it immediately.

And now your inbox should be empty! There should be no excuses in keeping something there. For projects (take up more than one task), I don’t put it in my ‘Next Actions‘ folder, but I create a project folder within my ‘Current Projects‘ folder in which I store any related items that I am collecting for the project. Once the project is complete, I drag the project folder to ‘Past Projects‘. And it’s out of my vision!

Then if I want a quick at-glance view of my Next Actions, I created a simple spreadsheet in which I list all the tasks, their due date, whether the status is “waiting for” (WF) or not, its importance, difficulty, and any details related to the task. I have it automatically sort by WF, then due date, then importance. Then I just check them off or update the status as I go! Some at work have called me a machine.

>> Check out Merlin Mann’s presentation on Inbox Zero to Google employees.
>> Related GTD / Productivity stuff; Life

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Filed under Life, Trends

24 Jul 2007

Your Own Cyber-Grandparent!

There are dozens of question and answer sites, some paid, some based on user responses or a social network. There are lots of places to go for advice when we need it, but what about advice from someone who has been through the trials and tribulations of decades and decades of life?

To whom do you go? Why only someone as wise as a 60 plus! I came across a wonderful service called Elder Wisdom Circle. It’s a place for younger people (in their teens, 20s, and 30s) to ask an elder for advice. They call them Cyber-Grandparents. Young people appreciate it and the elders are pleased to give advice to the youth who seeks it! Their Statement of Purpose says it:

Provide a platform for seniors 60 and over to share their advice and wisdom with younger people. To become the most widely read personal advice in the world. Provide a meaningful, enriching volunteer opportunity for our Elders living at home or in communal senior facilities. Improve society’s perception and value of our older citizens.

Your Cyber-Grandparent will respond to you individually and will provide advice based on his or her personal experiences and own wisdom. What a wonderful service. Sometimes the values of the older generation can do some good on us youngins.

Go to elderwisdomcircle.org to seek your advice.

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Filed under Internet, Life

19 Jul 2007

Blog Basics (And Metrics)

The most important asset to a serious blogger is statistics. You have to know how many readers you have, what causes people to read, where they come from, and how they find you. It does seem like common sense.

Well, the infamous Grammar Vandal I’ve been speaking about has been popularized by BuzzFeed, and lately, The Boston Globe. “How many site views did you get?” I asked her after the newspaper article was published. “I don’t know,” she said. (!) She has no stats set up on her Blogger account! I was shocked since every day I check my stats, see what clicks have been made, what search terms bring people to Thought Press, and from where visitors are referred.

“I mainly judge it on how many comments I receive,” she responds. Both myself and a colleague said to her, in concert, “That’s a terrible way to judge it …” Though a bit too late, she finally added Google Analytics and is up and running.

Other important blogger to-do’s are regular pinging after posting. Sites like Pingoat can do the trick very well and increase your traffic. Also, keeping your posts short and concise will keep your readers coming back as they may not have the time or patience to read a lengthy post. Blog readers tend to have short attention spans.

These are the basics of blogging and it’s a shame that a serious blogger, who will soon be featured on NPR, has missed the essentials in running a blog.

>> Don’t forget to subscribe for more genius like this

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Filed under Internet, Other

17 Jul 2007

Loving Your Job

Yes, believe it. There are so many companies that offer a great culture and a fun place to work. Employees are happy, productive, and look forward to work each day. After all, you spend most of your day at work, so you might as well enjoy it!

Most jobs can get boring and tedious. I pleasantly came across positivesharing.com, a blog devoted to being happy at work. Alexander Kjerulf is a speaker and consultant on happiness at work. I’ve always felt that finding a job, regardless of pay, that I enjoyed, was the most important thing. Kjerulf not only blogs about Costco’s underpaid CEO, happy email signatures, or posts signs that say, “Remember: If it isn’t fun, it isn’t working”. He just published a new booked titled, “Happy Hour is 9 to 5: Learn How To Love Your Job, Create a Great Business and Kick Butt at Work”.

The book is all about finding a job you love or loving the job you have, tools to create a happier workplace, and the motivation you need. I’m saving up to get my $29 copy and this seems like an amazing book that everyone should read. So many people are too serious at work. You need to make work a fun environment so people actually look forward to spending most of their day there!

>> Check out “Happy Hour is 9 to 5“

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Filed under Life, Other

13 Jul 2007

Grammar Arguments and Errors

You’ll notice I added a Grammar section. I figured if a fourth post about this would appear, it’s only fair.

You may know about my friend, The Grammar Vandal. She’s been all over Boston fixing improperly punctuated signs and correcting carelessly formed words (everyday). Take a look at a sign we both discovered at a new Papyrus store:

It should be ‘every day‘. It is unbelievable that Papyrus’ marketing team would make such a big mistake. I took the liberty of placing a “Panda Says No” sticker from my Eats, Shoots and Leaves book.

The latest news evolves The Grammar Vandal and the police during an effort to correct a street sign that said, “Professors Row”. Take a read and chuckle.

Singular they
Today we had a bit of an argument, which resulted in a denial to my request to become a contributer to her grammar blog. The debate was over the word they (or their, them) to be used as a singular pronoun where the article is indefinite. For example, it is argued that saying, “A good student does their homework,” is incorrect and that ‘their’ should be replaced with ‘his or her’. My friend argued that their is for plural use (’The students did their homework’). I struck back with the fact that they is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as, “[singular] used to refer to a person of unspecified sex : ask someone if they could help.” Usage defines a word and language does evolve (note the addition of ‘ginormous’ to the Merriam-Webster dictionary just this past week).

Multiple grammar and usage guides have accepted this use of the singular use of they. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage says this use of the word avoids sexism, as many choose to say a universal he instead of him or her:

“It avoids gratuitous sexism and gives the statement broadest reference. ‘They/them/their’ are now freely used in agreement with singular indefinite pronouns and determiners, those with universal implications such as any(one), every(one), no(one), as well as each and some(one), whose reference is often more individual.”

Merriam-Webster says, “The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts.” And my point is made.

Side Note >> Kate McCulley, The Grammer Vandal, makes her debut this Sunday (July 15, 2007) in the Boston Globe after cracking down on grammatical errors on Boston’s Newbury Street. In the meantime, take a look at some photos of her findings.

>> For previous posts on grammar, check out the grammar section

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Filed under Grammar

11 Jul 2007

SiCKO

sicko.pngThere have been a number of thoughtful responses to Michael Moore’s edgy new film SiCKO. Personally, I felt the movie captured the fault in the United States healthcare system with crystal-clear presentation. About 50 million of Americans are uninsured. The state of the country’s private healthcare system is a sad example in comparison to the rest of the Western world who seems to get by much better on a universal plan.

The film displays the evils of the healthcare industry, its focus on sole profit, and Western countries (Canada, UK, France, Cuba) where universal healthcare provides quality medical care and offers doctors quite a comfortable compensation. The numerous reviews and responses trumpt Moore’s work in bringing this issue to our attention, yet claim there are a few fact-picking situations, creating a bit of an imbalanced documentary.

“Moore claims that ERs don’t overcrowd in Canada. Yet a recent government study suggested that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner. Moore suggests that Britain offers quality medical care; meanwhile, one in eight Britons waits more than a year for surgery. France is held up as the promised land, with free health care, doctor home visits, and even laundry service for new moms. Not a word, however, about the heat wave of 2003 that killed 13,000 elderly because the hospital system was unresponsive.” - David Gratzer, NRO

But Moore’s website posts emails from Canadians stating, “I would like you to know that wait times to see a doctor in Canada aren’t nearly as bad as some media heads would like you to believe.” Even still, SiCKO provides yet another disturbing truth about poor government control of basic rights, handing it off to private healtcare and pharmaceutical companies whose hands are stretched out waiting for our money instead of focusing on proper care.

>> Read one response to SiCKO
>> Sign a petition for a healthcare bill and find out what else you can do
>> View Michael Moore and Dr Sonjay Gupta on Larry King Live [1, 2, 3]

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Filed under Health, News

10 Jul 2007

The Moleskine

“I bought a Moleskine,” says one blogger who needs a place to jot down his great blogging ideas.

The Moleskine notebook is said to be the legendary notebook of people like Ernest Hemingway and Vincent van Gogh. These things date back a couple centuries. It went away for a while but now is back–bigger than ever.

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” - Ernest Hemingway

It has become the cornerstone of lifehackers and those wishing to improve their productivity and ideation. We’ve hacked the Moleskine! We’ve found the best pen for writing in it! The Moleskine has become our ‘external hard drive’!

Its uniqueness has given people a reason to start writing. A standard ruled pocket notebook Moleskine costs about $11, but they come in 9 other styles (sketch, plain, music, story board). Then there are large notebooks, reporter notebooks, city books, art books, and thin cahier notebooks. I have tried to incorporate the Moleskine into my life–jotting down thoughts, ideas, lists, and journal entries–but I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like.

Many Moleskine owners use the book for artistic sketches or travel notes. Others simply document daily life. This is a trend that is worth sticking around. We all need to do a little more writing; a little more thinking.

>> Lifehacks abound around the Moleskine [1, 2, 3]
>> A Moleskine blog

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Filed under Life, Other, Trends

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