2000-10 or 20-10?

In Norway we talk about how we should name the next year. We have seen the year 2000 been saying 2000 and one, 2000 and two etc. But both dates like 1814 (constitution), 1905 (liberation of Norway) and 1994 (Olympics in Norway) have been 18-14, 19-0-5 and 19-94. So now people discuss how we should say 2010. NRK have decided that they will use 2000-10, but does it make any sense? I don't think so. So I'll be saying 20-10! What will you use?

Do you read emails on Christmas Day?

After several our on the floor playing with Rygh Jr (2yrs) and Rygh Mini (9 months) have the youngest started his 2-3 hours of sleep, and the older one is sitting next to me watching one of the new Disney DVDs from last night. I started my computer to check facebook, twitter and my personal email. I also get the SMS to my work mobile delivered online, so I was reading them to – then suddenly my computer showed me that there were new mails in Lotus Notes. So what do you do when you get work mail notification? Do you read them?

I guess the answer depends on your type of work. I work as a project manager, and without going into details is my team mobilized for the customer over the holidays. If something fails will we need to fix things. Luckily Christmas Day is one of the few days in the year where will not do anything – we’ll wait until the next day – but getting status from the systems is a habit even if you are enjoying vacation. So what did I do? I took a quick look in my inbox view, and decided that non of the mail would be read before after the Christmas weekend – and then I closed Lotus Notes. Only Firefox (and maybe Photoshop) will be used on this computer over the weekend :-)

"Google reader is wrong"

“Google reader is wrong” says thenextweb. And I agree totally. This is a product where Google as tried to use a view from another application in creating a smart application losing all the logic behind the product. News can’t be read backwards, news is a live feed. You can’t become updated on what is really going on at this point of time by reading old news. News found in printed newspapers has no value in an rss-reader. You need to stay on the top of things – and if you fall behind, why read backwards – just mark everything as read – and move on. Check the hot topics on twitter, or open your favorite news provider like CNN or your local news provider. The blogs you read because you want to be updated on specific topics should be read – but news shouldn’t be in a mail-view.

Point of innovation?

Roo Reynolds wrote on Eightbar.com an entry around a virtual ad by IBM. It aired only in the US, but we in IBM can see it on our intranet. If you want more about the ad, go to the story on eightbar, and read the post and the comments. I think this ad is a spinoff from an old web commercial created by IBM. This one is on youtube, so I'll include a link to it. It is the same story, just with the web as focus. Even If I have seen the new ad on the IBM intranet, will I do as Roo, and let somebody else describe it.

The commercial starts with an employee showing off his avatar to someone else, presumably a boss. The employee is all pumped about how he can conduct business in this virtual world and how he owns an island there. The boss asks if he can make money. The employee responds with something like, "Virtual money or real money?" This sets up the boss's response that "The point of innovation is to make actual money."

Innovation can only take us this to a certain point. Even if you have the technology, you'll need to integrate the new tools and processes to get some value add.

Don't tell people you work with IT!

I'll start in the small living by this advice from a fellow colleague of mine, John Langlois PMP®. You can find him projectez.com and on his blog. The reason behind this is that when you tell people you work for a major IT company - they expect you to fix everything that has to do with technology. And I am not a trained professional in fixing personal computers - but a trained professional project manager. On the other hand, I like to fix things, but it is the demand side from family and friends that worries me. The electric work in my house has been done by the brother of my brother in laws girl friend. This would be my brother in laws brother in law. Anyway, he helps anybody with electric work, but not for free. You pay him with cash or with services - and that is how it should be. John used a quote in his blog entry that says everything:

"Never give it to them pro bono unless they helped pay for your education. People will tend to think of your work as a fun hobby. You want to think of it as a profession."

On demand work hours

I do my work by communicating. It is said being a Project Manager 90% of your job is to communicate. I would add that it is at least 90% about communicating. You need to be on top of the information doing stakeholder management, risk management and work plans. With technology the work can be done anywhere. You have some people you would like to meet in person, but all normal tasks are done with a computer, and with the right tools location isn't longer a constraint. Time is to some extent a constraint as some people isn't working always or anywhere. But this will change. Work hours will be more "on demand", and we'll need some guidance on how to be offline. How to stay offline with friends and family will be a skill we need to learn.

MAC vs PC vs Linux || South Park Style

This video was so cool that I couldn't just add it to delicious - I had to blog about it. Just to get it correct, I got the link to the video from johan.secondbrain.com. This is a follow-up from the old MAC vs PC south park parody. This new one is even better! Enjoy it!

Charge passengers based on weight

In this high oil price marked, the airliners try everything to offset the higher prices of fuel. Charging more for extra luggage is one way, but as Tom at Greenmork writes in his post "will-airlines-start-weighing-their-passengers-and-charge-accordingly" -  why not charge on total weight to be transported? He says this is politically incorrect - but is it? If you consume more of the world's resources - why not pay your share? I prefer that the market set the prices, but changing tax regulations to make the equilibrium to be closer to something that is fare in terms of environment should be a good thing. It is just the same that cars with more than 3 passengers can be charged less on toll roads – or that it is cheaper to buy cars that is more environmentally friendly. Is it fare that a person with a body weight of 50kg pays the same as one with a body weight of 150kg?

Image courtesy of kpmarek

Technologies being adopted

I read this blog post written by Boris over at thenextweb. And it made me think about what technologies we just expect to be around. My sons will never think about a digital camera as something else than just a camera. A mobile phone is just a phone, and a laptop is a … laptop. I got my first mobile phone when I was 18 years old. And it was expensive to use, and I ONLY used it for calls. Bigger technology revolutions were maybe the industrial revolution and electricity. But in terms of internationalization the technology has enabled a bigger revolution – availability. The concept of on-and-off is being exploited. We see new problems because we have solved a lot of other problems. So what new technology will be adopted over the next years that the next generation will take for granted?