At work, I use a laptop plugged into a dock connected to two screens.  At home, I run a 24″ iMac I’ve had for at least 6 years now.  It’s been a pretty nice machine overall, though it did crash two years ago, costing me a lot of time and effort to recover files.  Most of them I just let go though.

But getting to my iMac is now a pain.  Since purchasing an iPad, 90%+ of my computing experience is handled capable of being done on the couch.  Before that, I was still downstairs on the desktop, but it was annoying to Teresa that so much of my time was middling away downstairs and not hanging out with her; it was annoying to me too.  Future generations are going to laugh at having to sit in one place while using a computer.  In fact, I think the term computer will likely fall out of favor in time as so much of our communication will be dependent on computing and done so with a multitude of non desktop items; it will become a redundant phrase.

The only real issue, for me least, is the ability to write consistently with other types of devices.  It really doesn’t work.  And I’m someone who had already skipped the writing with a pen and pad genre.  Keyboards are necessary.   My desktop will likely be put out to pasture pretty soon.  It will still be around, but chances of it being used consistently is low. Chances are I’ll buy a laptop that I can write with on the couch, in bed, and on the go as necessary.

At work, we’re moving toward “iPad Pro” or “Surface Pro” type devices that have all the power needed to do most types of common Office work, but can be plugged into a dock OR taken with on a trip to Mumbai.  It’s a few years away due solely to the lack of investment initiative from larger organizations, the technology is pretty much here now.  My organization is particularly committed to Office suite and microsoft underlying technology, but even they are seeing Apple devices in widespread scenarios.

It’s funny how fast things move.  Buying an iPad totally changed how I do most computing, despite the fact that I still want a laptop.  Most people won’t even need that, outside of work.

Adios desktop, thanks for the good times.

It has been very slow in terms of posts lately.  The main reason is that I don’t sit down at my computer downstairs much any more, and can’t really type on an iPad or other device in such a manner that makes writing posts time efficient.  I’m considering getting a personal laptop in the future, but it would be a long ways off.  Until then, I suppose this blog will continue to be slow.

For some brief updates:

I finished reading Walden again about a month back.  In reading it again, it seems likely that most folks wouldn’t enjoy it much.  It’s laborious to read through (not nearly as bad as something like Infinite Jest or even Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and does not offer much interms of a story.  It is an ongoing walk through Thoreau’s life in a time when things were very slow.

Yet you can see the joy he takes in knowing his surroundings and the time he spends in nature.  He loved life.  He poured over the intricacies of the forests and all his senses could take in.

His advice on living life to it’s fullest and walking your own path are something that has lit up my travels for many years and gives the courage to wander away from the herd.  He was a special person with a captivating outlook.

Times have changed greatly.  Sometimes I find myself wondering about the confluence of technology and our normal, every day lives.  Wondering about what’s really valuable and why we do the things we do.  We still have that special something that makes being alive such a tragically beautiful thing.

On another note, I started reading a book called “Grendel” which is a reversed perspective on the epic tale “Beowulf” and it has been a lot of fun.  Very interesting to see the evolution of the character.  It’s off the beaten path reading and worth while if you’re in the mood for something different.

This season in metro of MPLS has been unseasonably rainy.  The grass furiously rises daily and must be continually mowed to battle it’s unkempt nature, lest the neighbors deem your lot unworthy.

Home ownership continues to offer it’s trials, with all the rain comes water in the basement, seeping in through the cement or up through the tile.  Though it is a relatively small amount, we need to redo the gradient of the soil near the house in order to combat it, hopefully in the next few weeks.  Still a great deal more to do inside as well.

Should these small inlets continue to be intermittent, all the best to you and yours.

Life goes on, so it goes.

Today I’m at home, pretending to take a vacation day.  The dogs are wrestling around or outside chasing after one another.  Good music fills my living room and kitchen and a good cup of coffee sits near at all times.

It’s my first real day of vacation for 2014 and it’s sorely needed.  I say pretending because I’m too obsessive about work to let emails that can be taken care of go for very long.  It makes me think about what life was like a decade ago in my first job after college.

It was a great job really, I worked for the CEO of a smallish company in Minnetonka.  We were essentially a consultancy for promotional marketing and strangely my role was that of the person in charge of actual marketing the company.  It was small shop, about 12 sales people, an admin, a few graphic designers, two operations people (much of the work was importing from China), the CEO and myself.

Back then, email was how we communicated, but it wasn’t something you did out of work.  You cut off after 5 or 6pm and picked up again at 7 or 8am, depending on the time of year (Fall was busy season, 10-12 hours for everybody.)  So issues arising during the off hours just had to wait!

Things have changed drastically as smart phones have become pervasive.  This is the part where I go all “get off my lawn” and complain about how we work too much and life is too busy, etc., right?  Well, actually no.  Having access to urgent issues and being able to answer in real time is valuable for businesses and myself.

The ability to know what  to respond to and what to let alone is a very real skill set, one which I need to work on myself.  Not everything needs an answer.  There are many other socially contextual changes with email that have evolved too.  Should you use emoticons?  Do you send emails to direct reports after hours (family time and timeline expectations of answers)?   Can you use email as a way “talk” to others with frequent, rapid responses?  All contextual.

The interesting thing is that these “rules” aren’t actually rules.  They are guidelines different in different scenarios and they will change.  Teens today text and communicate very differently than we did, and to assume that they will adapt to the organizations they grow up to work for is backwards, the organizations will have to adapt to them.  It’s all moving forward, faster and faster.

When I think about  how fast everything has gone since graduating college, it boggles the mind.  And it’s only going forward, faster and faster.

Every year seems faster than the last.  So many relationships, so many friends and coworkers and new things to learn.  So many things to be thankful for.

One of them is the first vacation day of the year, where I get to reflect on all the wonderful things that have happened, while pretending to take the day off.

In February of this year I decided enough was enough.  The circular nature of fitness and seasonal adjustment needed to ramp up exercise was already old.  Living in Minnesota means that six months of the year getting outside for exercise is a true chore.  You either brave the elements or go to a gym, the latter being a decent option but most people will tell you that even getting in a car to GET to they gym is harder during the cold months.

For a long time I’ve wanted to purchase an elliptical to workout during those tough winter months.  I tried an exercise bike donated from a good friend, but it just didn’t take.  Thankfully, tech has come far enough along that working out at home and watching video content simultaneously was possible.  Even better, computing is  now far enough along that tablets mean you can play games or keep up on social media, etc.

Long story short, living the dream!  We purchased an elliptical with a guaranteed service contract for five years, which means if it break we don’t have to worry about buying another.  And we sprung for iPads (birthdays) as well so now it’s easy to keep busy while getting in cardio.

It seems like it is more and more difficult to get in the amount of exercise necessary to be in good shape.  I don’t foresee it getting any easier either.  So figuring out ways to form habits and life hack exercise into a daily schedule will be more and more valuable as time goes on.

This weekend, my credit card company Capital One pulled the old bait and switch routine.  Essentially this is advertising something at what is perceived as a very good deal, then switching to something else that is less desirable for the buyer.

It’s a common tactic in retail and online selling.  ”iPads sold for only $10.77!”, “$39 for a trip to Mexico!” etc.  Sound familiar?  Should you have spent any of the last decade not living under a rock, you’re probably familiar with them.  Hopefully you’ve learned that most anything that looks too good to be true, is.

I realized the other day I had a $59 charge for a membership fee with Capital One.  This had never been present before, in roughly four years of using the card.  It is possible that this fee happened in prior years, but doubtful as I monitor my finances weekly and often more so.

The very reason I chose this card initially were the perks associated:  two travel miles for every dollar spent, no annual fee, as well as some additional things that weren’t high on my radar.  Those two were enough.  The idea is to use your card to pay for normal expenses and redeem accrued miles for vacation trips, etc.  It’s a nice bonus.

However the existence of a membership fee significantly discounts the value of the perks.  $59 in fee equates to 5,900 miles, which is slightly less than $3,000 spent on the card.  That is not a huge amount to spend on a credit card in a year, but that’s really not the point.  The point is that the card was advertised as no annual fee.

Large companies such as this will send you new terms of service in the mail and expect that you read through all of it.  My assumption is that 90%+ (including myself) do not bother with these kinds letters as they are cumbersome and often in legalese.  A lawyer would tell you that it’s the company right to change terms of service, and technically it is.

A marketer will tell you that this is abusing the relationship you’ve spent so much time to develop in the first place.  And that you’ll lose the customer for doing so.

Companies want profits.  They build their market offerings to reflect that need for profits.  Initially to capture a customer, they will build something like the credit card offer above, which is enticing.  At later dates, they may change the offer to optimize profit, e.g. new annual fee.

Credit card companies already make a good deal of money by me actually using them as a method of payment.  Every time I swipe the card, the place I buy from pays a small amount for the ability to use them.  They also make money on other partnerships, and large amounts on interest of employed capital.

I understand the ongoing need for growth.  Situations like this are based on asymmetricity between wanting financial gains and integrity between the relationship with a company and customer.  This is the bait and switch.

Long story short, Capital One refunded my fee as a one time courtesy.  They were actually quite kind on the phone, but acted as though the situation was one where I was confused.  This wasn’t a confusing situation, it was one where a large company change TOS to garner additional profits and sacrificed a relationship to do so.

At this point, I’m unsure whether to get a new card or not.  I have a year to decide if it’s worth the $3,000 per year spent or not. There are other options, probably better ones.  I will definitely evaluate them.

Net net: Capital One had a great customer relationship with me before this, but is now at risk of losing me due to the bait and switch.  That risk was avoidable.

Many things.  Time, effort and importance.

The biggest reason to name something is so that people understand it has a name.

Naming something makes it worth discussing formally, which in turn takes time and effort.

Naming something well will define it as an idea.

Because naming something poorly means it will be forgotten or disregarded if not an inherently strong concept.

This and last week were those of annual reviews.  Most organizations do these kinds of things in order to review a person’s performance.  It’s one of those things that has been done for a long time and correspondingly will continue to be done for a long time.

Large organizations do them for a few reasons, the main being a fail safe for having to fire people.  This is absolutely necessary from a legal perspective, however firing people shouldn’t be done annually, it should be done as necessary when someone isn’t doing a good job.  Often the annual review provides a time to set a limitation on the poor behavior and then axe the miscreant in question at a (sooner) later date.  Good stuff!  In all seriousness, this is actually a good part of annual reviews, there are poor performers out there, and it probably isn’t the right role for them.

Other things happen in larger organizations–raises, promotions, new opportunities.  Lots of good things there.  Again, these are not necessarily activities that should happen annually but there is a tendency for that time frame to work.  People doing well should be rewarded to continue their positive output for an organization.

Smaller organizations, from what I can tell, do these annualized reviews because they seem like a good thing to be doing.  The big guys do.  People need to get some feedback on what they’re doing, so why not an annual review?  At first glance this makes sense but there are a lot of reasons to aim higher.

One of the big issues with annual reviews is the time gap between performance appraisals.  One year in business time is a HUGE parcel on the space time continuum.  SO MUCH changes in that time that it’s difficult to recall if you’ve done well against stated objectives (which hopefully the organization has) or if the scope/expectation changed so much that it seems like the performer didn’t live up to what was agreed upon.  Often this is not an issue, due to the general knowledge within the group in question, e.g. the boss was the boss same time last year and realizes what’s going on.

But many times, that’s not the case.  Misalignment between previous goals and what’s actually important now reflects poorly, or indifferently, on a person’s output.  This happens for all kinds of reasons:  a new general manager dictates a different direction, a competitor launches something that alters a market enough that the organization must realign resources, a key team member leaves, etc.  The only thing that stays the same is change, and it’s reflected in annual reviews.

Solving the time frame thing is relatively easy.  Start doing smaller increments (semi annual seems about right.)

Solving human nature is nigh impossible.

Great managers understand that their job is to motivate and get the absolute best out of employees.  Their best.  That’s an important idea here, because what actually is their best may well deviate significantly from what the manager considers their best, if they subscribe to this ideology.

Humans are flawed in many ways.  Perspectives on someone’s ability or ceiling or best work is subjective.  And although we mean the best, as managers, we have a tendency to try to “fix” the things we see in others.  Often these perceived areas for fixing are simple differences in the way we do things.  It is in this way that organizations largely become mirror entities of the people that run them, as they continually project their work values to their direct reports, which cycle downward.  This is not inherently bad, there’s a good reason so many large organizations benefit from leadership that does this.  Yet it is intrinsically biased and many managers may miss the boat on valuable skill sets that aren’t in line with their own work style.

Good managers realize their biases and attempt to work around them using tools like 360 feedback and personality testing, but these also miss the mark for many people.  360 feedback can often have rose colored glasses as people seek to stay away from tough conversations for fear of repercussion.  Personality tests, though scientifically viable depending on the tool, do not necessarily provide strategies to improve work flow so much as state a person’s tendencies.

The bottom line is that reviews as a whole are tough.  Promotions and the like are easy, but tough conversations are not.  Having those conversations in a perennial, stress inducing, work load heavy format is much worse.  This goes without stating the fact that they are a lot of work, for managers with a great deal of direct reports, it is very cumbersome.  And, dirty little secret, most managers make the direct report write it up anyway, then edit it as they see fit.

So at the end of the day we’re left with a bloated process that tends to focus on the negative, takes a great deal of time and effort and is not uncommonly missing information due to dated expectations.  It may well be better than nothing, but there is undoubtedly a better way to approach assessment at work.

I began reading Dune while in Belize.  It is an epic tale of a prescient son who would become leader of a foreign sand planet, Arrakis (or Dune, to outsiders.)

The characters and ideas presented in this book are very unique.  It covers off on the interesting side of interplanetary economics, biology and science.  It adds in a great deal of action and cultural inference that other science fiction books don’t necessarily cover off on too.  There’s a lot to like with this book.

It is, however, not an easy read.  It is lengthy and if you aren’t engaged by this kind of content (it was newer to me) it would be difficult to get through all of it.  I read the first half of the book quite quickly and then slowed a great deal on the latter half.

There are many other books in the series, of which at some point I’ll likely partake.  At this point however, I’m back into reading Thoreau’s Walden, and at what a fantastic time!  Spring is upon us, despite today’s poor weather, and there is nothing so blooming eternal as Spring.

I would recommend Dune to others who enjoy science fiction, and especially intergalactic tales, but it should be taken on with the knowledge that it is deep in scope…and reward.

Winter has dragged.  I haven’t written in some time and, well, if you pay any attention to this you’d know that.  And any is more than what I’m willing to donate, evidently.  A sad drudgery, that.  Yet there is hope, spring blooms eternal and something of that natural call.

Not certain what to make of all of it, actually.  It happens every year, but this year is new, of course.  So I’m left at odds, even now.  All the best.

Politically astute is a common phrase.  You hear it often in business and government.  Essentially it means to be adept at understanding situations and people and turn them to your own advantage.

At face value that sounds like something everyone would aspire to.  Why wouldn’t you want to turn a situation to your advantage?

Ultimately turning a situation to your own advantage often means turning it against others.  This is the guiding principle of a zero sum game, there are only so many spoils and as such all players are playing for themselves.

To put this into context, you can consider businesses or objectives of a government.  In business there are only so many people who can buy in a market.  If that number of buyers is limited, and it always is, the amount any one business can make is limited as well, which builds competition between companies offering similar products or services that meet the needs of the buyers.  That ongoing competition is the “invisible hand” coined by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations which regulates markets on it’s own due to people voting with their dollars.

So inherently in that situation you see organizations attempting to be astute to the needs of the market and nimble enough to meet them.  Sometimes they will attempt to dictate standards in the market or create problems in order to solve them, among hundreds of other things.

On a more micro level, within organizations of all kinds including government, there are individuals who are looking to improve their own position.  It’s very normal for most humans to strive for higher rungs on Maslow’s hierarchy and today that manifests in all sorts of competition within organizations, most of it perfectly moral and some less scrupulous.

Being politically astute is about understanding the environment and people within and acting in such a way that benefits yourself.  The term “political” isn’t necessarily a bad one in and of itself, however in today’s world it has a negative connotation with many people.  It’s viewed as not being trustworthy and to be completely honest I think some politicians aren’t worth trusting.  In fact, there are probably many.

A question exists:  should we be astute and look to improve our lot?  Or should we be honest?  Here’s a tweet from the other day, thinking about the topic.