Link – Page 2 – BTMJ.org

Theodore Roosevelt sets a high bar for slacker America

I enjoyed this article about how productive (one of my personal heroes) Theodore Roosevelt was in a time before modern technology. (Source)

We live in an age of great distraction. Everything from Facebook and email to video games and binge TV watching can give us the sense we have done something useful with our time when, in fact, we have merely wasted a lot of days we will never get back. Many young American men, the slacker generation, would benefit from adopting Roosevelt’s “strenuous life” as a model of manhood, but it is not just a boy problem. Most of us have a slacker inside. We could do worse than to strive for the energy, disciplined time management and moral core that made Roosevelt a man worthy of a place on Mount Rushmore.

What better inspiration than that to get this blog moving again.

A guide to Jack Dorsey’s 80-hour workweek

As a fan of having a weekly framework to drive productivity, I loved this article about Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey’s weekly routine that accommodates 2 full-time jobs… (Source)

Monday: Management meetings and “running the company” work

Tuesday: Product development

Wednesday: Marketing, communications and growth

Thursday: Developers and partnerships

Friday: The company and its culture

Weekends are a bit slower: Saturdays are for hiking and Sundays are for “reflection, feedback and strategy,” Dorsey said. But from Monday to Friday, he clocks in eight hours at Twitter and then walks two blocks over to put in another eight hours at Square.

Neal Stephenson: Innovation Starvation

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

Neal Stephenson: Innovation Starvation

In his piece in World Policy Journal… (Source)

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

E.T. on Resume Design

The resume is a document, not a design statement. The design should not attract attention; the design of a resume should be straightforward and harmless. That is the best that resume design can do: straightforward and harmless.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, Auburn University Commencement Speech 2010

But even if you can’t plan, you can prepare. A great batter doesn’t know when the high-hanging curve ball is going to come, but he knows it will. And he can prepare for what he will do when he gets it.

Too often people think about intuition as the same as relying on luck or faith. At least as I see it, nothing could be further from the truth. Intuition can tell you that of the doors that are open to you, which one you should walk through. But intuition cannot prepare you for what’s on the other side of that door. Along these lines a quote that has always resonated with me is one by Abraham Lincoln. He said “I will prepare, and some day my chance will come.” I have always believed this.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, Auburn University Commencement Speech 2010

From this Fast Company article… (Source)

But even if you can’t plan, you can prepare. A great batter doesn’t know when the high-hanging curve ball is going to come, but he knows it will. And he can prepare for what he will do when he gets it. Too often people think about intuition as the same as relying on luck or faith. At least as I see it, nothing could be further from the truth. Intuition can tell you that of the doors that are open to you, which one you should walk through. But intuition cannot prepare you for what’s on the other side of that door. Along these lines a quote that has always resonated with me is one by Abraham Lincoln. He said “I will prepare, and some day my chance will come.” I have always believed this.

Doculabs: SharePoint vs. Documentum as the Pharma Platform for ECM

What should you do if you’re a pharma at this inflection point? We recommend the following:

1)      At a minimum, consider a two-platform consolidation strategy. Over the next few years this approach would bring you to SharePoint for management of uncontrolled documents, a single application suite for management of controlled documents (probably CSC FirsDoc), and a single platform for controlled DM (Documentum).

2)      But also consider a one-platform consolidation strategy. This would bring you to SharePoint for management of uncontrolled documents, and either FirstPoint or NextDocs for management of controlled documents – both based on SharePoint.

3)      Do a formal empirical evaluation of the three solution options at your organization. Do a bakeoff between FirstDoc/Documentum, FirstPoint/SharePoint, and NextDocs/SharePoint. It will require some time and resources, but the stakes are high enough to justify it. In my next post on this topic, I will explain exactly how to conduct such an evaluation.

Hat tip to @saminsimi.

Doculabs: SharePoint vs. Documentum as the Pharma Platform for ECM

Spot on analysis from this Doculabs whitepaper… (Source)

What should you do if you’re a pharma at this inflection point? We recommend the following:

1) At a minimum, consider a two-platform consolidation strategy. Over the next few years this approach would bring you to SharePoint for management of uncontrolled documents, a single application suite for management of controlled documents (probably CSC FirsDoc), and a single platform for controlled DM (Documentum).

2) But also consider a one-platform consolidation strategy. This would bring you to SharePoint for management of uncontrolled documents, and either FirstPoint or NextDocs for management of controlled documents – both based on SharePoint.

3) Do a formal empirical evaluation of the three solution options at your organization. Do a bakeoff between FirstDoc/Documentum, FirstPoint/SharePoint, and NextDocs/SharePoint. It will require some time and resources, but the stakes are high enough to justify it. In my next post on this topic, I will explain exactly how to conduct such an evaluation.