Snow is making roads slick already in Edmond, Ok

cheap signaling or fish bumper sticker faith

 

"It is one thing to be cosmetically defiant of authority by wearing conventional clothes - what social scientists and economists call "cheap signaling - and another to prove willingness to translate belief into action." - Dr. Taleb in The Black Swan

 

#122 Moleskine Notebooks « Stuff White People Like

Ask me anything

If you ever wanted to ask, here is how:

http://www.formspring.me/tonysteward

Oh there you are

Getting ready for an afternoon of shooting. Exciting to see a low lying project becoming reality!!

Things I Want in 2010 from Google

1. I want Google Apps for a Domain to work as my Google Account (For Android devices, YouTube, and on)
2. I want to be able to give my Exchange OWA info to Gmail and to Google Calendar and for it to work like an UI for those accounts. (Just how any other Mail or Calendar program would with the right information.)
3. For other accounts I add to my Gmail "accounts and import" I want Gmail to detect other Gmail accounts I've put there and add the ability for their Gtalk accounts to be integrated. (In similar fashion as to what Facebook Chat does with different people lists).
   
4. It is great you dropped Gears - could you get HTML 5 working so we can have offline mode again across the board?
5. I want the Gtalk chat that is in Gmail integrated into Google Documents so I can drag and share documents and chat using a familiar interface.
6. I want Google Voice integrated into Gtalk so I can initiate calls and send sms through it.
7. I want my contacts on my Google Account to detect when there are other Google users with Profiles, and to ask me if I would like to have their contact information sycned with their Google Profile at first, and when they make updates. (like Plaxo but not terrible like Plaxo)

What would you like to see from Google in 2010?

Gospel Dance Aerobics - Sanctified Slide

My New Favorite Email Habit - The Batch Send

This is a bit nerdy, but during times like the holidays when I get a chance for reflection and perspective I always find things to tweak and change. One of my newest realizations is the different frame of mind it takes to create, make and move projects forward versus the frame of mind it takes to review, organize and capture.

This means that when I go to check my email inbox for new messages I am in a different frame of mind then when I am working on projects and trying to reply to emails. The main reason for the distinction is that as I work through the day and just send emails as they come to mind to be sent, I usually get replies right back - when I am in still in the frame of mind of moving things forward and "Making." But I keep letting new messages distract me and I try to review and process the new information into things that are actionable or not "Manage."

All that aside what I am doing now is when I need to send a message I save it as a draft until I am done "Making" for that project, idea or creatively working on writing the messages. Then when I am ready I send them all and then close my email. I am trying to find the most strategic times for "sending" so that I have distance from the conversations to allow myself to work. Then, when I am ready, I get in a "Management" frame of mind and go check my inbox and purely organize and sort the new messages in the Inbox Zero method that focuses on what's actionable.

It may sound weird and all but I've found it a much more sustainable and sane way of dealing with all the conversations I have versus the "Triage" method of checking and switching between "maker" and "manager" on the fly all the time.

What new things are you doing this year?

Do You See or Observe?

I have long been a fan of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the recent holiday movie has me reading through all the stories again. I love the relative ease that Holmes is able to come to conclusions based off of things that are seen by everyone else in the room, but as he often tells Watson, they aren't observed. One of the simplest examples Holmes uses in one of the first short stories is of the stairway him and Watson have walked up many times.

I (Watson) could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room."

"Frequently"
"How often?"
"Well, some hundreds of times."
"Then how many are there?"
"How many? I don't know."

"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed."

In our world of real time streams, live updates, status messages, emails, conversations, videos how much are we seeing? More than ever! But how much are we truly seeking to observe, to discern? While we can see quickly I don't know that observation is something that comes from a skim, at least not without practice. Many times in the Holmes stories, after hearing an account of facts, he retreats and ponders what he has "seen" looking for the deeper meaning and the greater truths at play. How often do we do that?

I mean, many of us read books, a lot of books in fact. But after reading them do we go back, journal in hand and review our underlines observing what we've read and finding the meaning in it? Do we even go back through and ask if what the author stated was true? We see Twitter updates and real time results, but do we seek meaning in them or just let them wiz by only considering whether it is interesting. Later in a Holmes and Watson exchange, Watson is describing the person they were just speaking with in great detail:

Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon the details."

I am not looking for some ultimate greater truth in the character of a fictional detective, but in a day and age when so many "impressions" are flying by us and the general manner we skip through them, I can't help believe that we maybe seeing, and reacting passionately, to many things with little to no importance. What is most interesting is that the sites we use to communicate these things, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube for example, are measuring the details that are important. Ever wonder why certain ads keep showing up, even though you say they are offensive? Wonder how YouTube has suggested videos for you, that maybe embarrassing for some to see passing by? In all our consumption we reveal ourselves, in the details that matter, but that we never observe. Scary huh?

I guess if there is any point in all of this it is to slow down, and learn a new "method" in this digital age. A method that sees and observes. A method that doesn't blindly consume, but that is always aware of the impact inputs have on ourselves. A method that thinks, ponders, considers and weighs, looking for the things of importance.