Frank Patrick's Focused Performance Blog

Topical linkage at my new online home

2010-03-22T06:00:00.001-04:00

Topical linkage at my new online home

Project Management
Productivity
Marketing
Management
Web Development

Read all my linkage on Tumblr
http://frankpatrick.tumblr.com/
RSS Feed

My Tumblr site will get you stuff that would have ended up on Focused Performance, plus other stuff of just personal interest. There are tags on posts there to help you focus on particular topics if you don't like my politics, taste in music, or sense of humor.

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/fpatrick

If you're interested in topics related to interactive or mobile marketing, social media, SMS text, web design and development, I'm also one of the contributors to my employer's Twitter presence at http://twitter.com/us_again. You won't get only me there, but also a bunch of really smart interactive marketing professionals.

(As of May 1, Google is turning off ftp upload support for Blogger blogs, so reminders like this will end then.)

All good things must come to an end...

2010-03-13T09:16:00.002-05:00

All good things must come to an end...

If you still read or subscribe to this blog, you haven't seen much in the past few months, and this will be the last post you see from here. My last previous post from back in September 2009 was a fitting final ironic link post.

Having originally set up Focused Performance to support my 1996-2004 consulting practice, my energy and time for writing meaningful pieces has dissipated and almost disappeared. Three jobs after my consulting days, I've become immersed in the world of social media, and have gotten into the worlds of Twitter (for primarily links to topics previously covered in Focused Performance), Facebook (for connecting with people I really know), LinkedIn (for business contacts and networking with folks with whom I have more tenuous connections), Flickr (photos), and Tumblr (for "micro-blogging" a mix of Focused Performance topics, personal fun stuff, and social commentary). And I'm still trying to figure out Google Buzz and Foursquare.

As a result of this spreading of my online life, I've been thinking of retiring the Focused Performance blog after 9 years. And this last month, Google's Blogger team (whose platform I've used since the beginning) announced the end of ftp publishing which I depend on to integrate the blog in the old FP site. It will be easier to just let this live on as is with no posts, and start a new blog, but I think I'll stick with my current collection of outlets for now. Maybe I'll revisit some of the best of this old blog in my new haunts. Maybe I'll launch another blog down the line. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

It's been a good run. I've "met" a bunch of great people online through this blog. And I hope that you'll find it worthwhile to follow me through my other touch points in the interweb.

Read me and my linkage on Tumblr - http://frankpatrick.tumblr.com/ - (RSS Feed)

My Tumblr site will get you stuff that would have ended up on Focused Performance, plus other stuff of just personal interest. There are tags on posts there to help you focus on particular topics if you don't like my politics, taste in music, or sense of humor.

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/fpatrick

- There's also a bunch of people in the list of people I follow that you'll recognize from my FP posts...Clarke, Joe, Jack, Jim, Johanna, Esther, Steve, and others. (To these folks, thanks for all the insights. I often counted on you for ideas to riff on here on FP.)

If you're interested in topics related to interactive or mobile marketing, social media, SMS text, web design and development, I'm also one of the contributors to my employer's Twitter presence at http://twitter.com/us_again. You won't get only me there, but also a bunch of really smart interactive marketing professionals.

Friend me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/fpatrick

...but only if we already have an offline relationship, please. I'm trying to keep my Facebook limited to family and friends (in the traditional sense of the word).

Join my business network on LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/frankpatrick

Again, I'll be more likely to accept a LinkedIn request if we have more than just a blogger/reader relationship, but unlike Facebook, I'm a bit more flexible with my LinkedIn connections.

Thanks for your support over the last 9 years.

Be seeing you...

-- Frank Patrick

The Ultimate Productivity Blog

2009-09-29T12:51:00.000-04:00

The Ultimate Productivity Blog -- Enough said.

Recent Twitter Activity

2009-09-28T07:04:00.000-04:00

Recent Twitter Activity --

follow me on Twitter

My Tumbleblog

2009-09-28T06:00:00.004-04:00

My Tumbleblog --

War or Project Management? Or both?

2009-09-23T09:45:00.000-04:00

War or Project Management? Or both? -- Came across this embedded in a Slate article on Afghanistan...

At one point, euphemistically referring to troops as "resources," McChrystal writes, "Resources will not win the war, but under-resourcing could lose it." Another way to reads this sentence is: Under-resourcing could lose the war, but more resources won't necessarily win it, either.

So true. So true.

Test of Posterous through blog

2009-09-20T15:58:00.001-04:00

Nothing to see here. Keep moving.

Calling Bullshit on Project Management 2.0

2009-09-19T07:27:00.000-04:00

Calling Bullshit on Project Management 2.0 -- OK. I've got your attention with my over the top title. Sorry about that.

Actually, over at Glen Alleman's Herding Cats: Top Down / Bottom Up = Project Management 2.0? Not with this approach, he doesn't so much call bullshit on PM 2.0 but rather on an unconvincing setup and payoff of someone else's promotion of the idea that purports to blend the best parts of "traditional" (for want of a better word) and "agile" PM.

I can't stand it when the presentation of good ideas are ruined by poorly developed logic and arguments promoting them.

Magic Numbers - Project Management

2009-09-17T14:45:00.001-04:00

Magic Numbers - Project Management -- From Scott Berkun, The magic numbers of project management, an exploration of some of the games played with estimates.

One of the things he doesn't mention in the "what to do instead" section is to make the estimation process a conversation and the open use of range estimates (buffers) for the project as a whole. This takes the pressure off of everybody to come up with [the impossible] accurate estimate.

Other professions have learned how to predict uncertain futures as reality. Not enough PMs try.

MS Project 2010 Unveiled

2009-09-17T14:25:00.000-04:00

MS Project 2010 Unveiled -- ComputerWorld reports that MicroSoft has opened up on the next version of MS Project, the application we all love to hate. It's apparently picking up the "ribbon" interface that has me still re-learning how to do things in Office 2007.

Brian Kennemer at Projectified is highlighting some of the features, including a Team Planner and a Timeline view. I'm sure he'll be coming out with more.

My big questions are whether they're fixing the print function so it's more intuitive about what'll show up on a page without going through multiple iterations of Print Preview, and, more important, if the scheduling engine will let you level resources BEFORE identifying a critical path.

Resource Management?

2009-09-12T09:05:00.001-04:00

Resource Management?

When You Are Thinking About Hiring

2009-08-31T06:06:00.007-04:00

When You Are Thinking About Hiring -- The way things are moving at Again, this may be helpful advice soon...

Seth's Blog: Two ways to hire (and a wrong way).

One of the ways sounds like speed-dating.

Great week from TED

2009-08-30T06:49:00.001-04:00

Great week from TED -- This week's 4 TED lectures were the best collection of 4 in a row in a long time...

Dan Pink on the difference between "What sciences knows and what business does" regarding motivation and incentives...

Natasha Tsakos on the intersection of science (technology) and the arts, featuring an impressive multimedia theatre piece...

The always-enlightening Hans Rosling with his magic data toolkit, challenging the audience to compare their "mindset" against his "dataset"...

...and Eric Giler invoking the "demo gods" for wireless transmission of electricity - way cool tech.

Bejing Flea Market Slide Show

2009-08-29T07:55:00.000-04:00

Beijing Flea Market Slide Show -- kkfung at Lenscape.org mashes together videos and photos from a range of sources, including Flickr accounts. He asked my permission to use about a half dozen or so of my pictures from the Panjiayuan "dirt market" in Beijing. Here's the result...

Panjiayuan Arts & Crafts Market from kkfung on Vimeo.

Multitask

2009-08-14T18:24:00.000-04:00

Multitask -- It's been a while since I've posted here on my blog...been distracted by Twitter and Facebook. Too easy to drop snippets and links in those sites. But given my history of ranting about multitasking in a work context here, I just had to point you to this ~~game~~ simulation. How many activities can you split your ~~time~~ attention among?

Unfocused? - Not Really - My Infinite Summer

2009-07-20T16:38:00.000-04:00

Unfocused? - Not Really - My Infinite Summer -- About of a third of the way through the 1,000 page Infinite Jest, I've committed to it. Brittney Gilbert, at the Infinite Summer blog, has a great post on the experience, that matches mine. From You Have Chosen To Be In Here...

Infinite Jest takes focus. I cannot listen to music while reading this novel, nor can I take it in with television on in the background. I can't skim parts and still get the gist. The text requires 100% participation on my part. It has become a meditation. I have to be present and mindful in order to fully ingest the words before me. I cannot click to open a new tab, to check to Twitter to see if anyone famous has died, or refresh D-Listed. (Which I am proud to say I have not done even once during the drafting of this post. Yet.) It's just me and the lavish landscape Wallace created.

"I am in here."

I have chosen to care about this book, to give it a place in my life. In doing so I am rewarded with messages in IJ about the importance of being present. Of just breathing. Themes abound in IJ about focus, about choosing what it is that you pay attention to, and how crucial it is to do that with the utmost care. If only because our whole lives depend on it.

...

The non-linear (to say the least) structure, the constant change in voice, forced flipping, always flipping, to the back of the book for endnotes are elements that don�t allow you to get lost in a story. "You are reading a book," you are often reminded. You are in here. You are not Cinderella at the ball or Hermione at Hogwarts, you are reading Infinite Jest. You may get caught up in the frenzy of Erdedy's panicked wait for pot, but not for long. Soon you are reading Infinite Jest again...

I'm glad it's the first real piece of fiction I've picked up in more than a few years.

Plans and Guesses

2009-07-14T13:49:00.000-04:00

Plans and Guesses -- From 37 Signals - Let's just call plans what they are: guesses. In the end, it's all in the monitoring and adjusting of your guesses along the way.

I Could Be Tempted

2009-07-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

I Could Be Tempted -- Now dropped to $299, the Kindle could tempt me.

I'm reading the 1000-page Infinite Jest this summer and my wrist is starting to cramp up on me holding the book. The Kindle could save me orthopedic surgery in September.

Chart of the Day: Turning a Corner?

2009-07-07T10:05:00.000-04:00

Chart of the Day: Turning a Corner? -- Check out this well done interactive graphic - Turning a Corner? - from the New York Times. Good depiction of data over time.

This I Believe

2009-07-03T19:27:00.002-04:00

This I Believe - Quoted at Predictably Irrational: Asimov on evidence:

"I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I�ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." - Isaac Asimov

Keeping Social Media Real

2009-07-02T10:43:00.000-04:00

Keeping Social Media Real -- This morning my feed reader served up a piece from Inside Facebook on established, but quickly spreading Facebook apps. The part of it that made me simultaneously smile and shake my head was a comment, in "emperor's new clothes" fashion, pointing out that the top movers in the list were essentially useless diversions.

It reminded me of another piece I had set aside earlier this week as potential blogfodder. Scott Berkun, in this piece - Calling bullshit on social media - brings some common sense contrarian commentary to the commotion and consternation* surrounding social media...

For starters: social media is a stupid term. Is there any anti-social media out there? Of course not. All media, by definition, is social in some way. The term interactive media, a more accurate term for what�s going on, lived out its own rise / hype / boom cycle years ago and was smartly ignored this time around - first rule of PR is never re-use a dead buzzword, even if all that you have left are stupid ones. I�ve been involved in many stupid terms, from push-technology to parental-controls, so I should know when I see one.

But he goes beyond the buzziness of the words, and digs deeper on a few often overlooked points and advice to further his case...

We have always had social networks...

There has always been word of mouth, back-channel, "authentic" media tools...

The new media does not necessarily destroy the old...

Social media consultants writing about social media have inherent biases...

Signal to Noise is always the problem...

All technologies cut both ways and social media will be no different...

Be suspicious of technologies claimed to change the world...

Always ask "What problem am I trying to solve?" The smartest thing to do with something new is to ask what is it you need it to do for you. Recognize good marketing will not make up for bad products or incompetent services...

As usual, the "..." in my snips indicate that there is a lot more good detail to read at the original piece.

And, of course, I'm passing this on not to denigrate the creative work in and application of these growing channels. But they are just channels, parts of the whole media/communication landscape. Those of us who work in them tend to get all hot and bothered about the possibilities, but we also run the risk of enabling clients' excitement about sometimes questionable applications. So we do need the occasional slap across the face by a piece like Burken's to keep us rooted in reality.

* Sorry about that. Every once in awhile I fall off the wagon and back into my alliteration addiction.

Disappointing Outlook

2009-06-25T09:32:00.000-04:00

Disappointing Outlook -- From Sour Outlook by Jeffrey Zeldman:

"It's outrageous that the CSS standard created in 1996 is not properly supported in Outlook 2010. Let�s do something about it....

"...Participate in the Outlook�s Broken project. All it takes is a tweet."

Read the stuff I skipped at Sour Outlook.

Horror Story: A $90 Million Text Message

2009-06-24T08:36:00.000-04:00

Horror Story: A $90 Million Text Message -- Unsolicited SMS text message leads to $90,000,000 in fines: Stephen King Horror Story: Simon & Schuster Text-Messaging Case Sent Back To Lower Court | mocoNews.

Moral of the story...Make sure you get permission in your mobile marketing programs involving SMS.

Surprisingly Uneventful

2009-06-15T18:36:00.000-04:00

Surprisingly Uneventful -- Moved focusedperformance.com to a new host over the weekend. Surprisingly uneventful.

New question: What to do with the possibility of putting up 24 other domains? First (and only) on the list - a "Channel Frank" portal at fpatrick.com? Maybe.

Deadline

2009-06-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

Deadline --