Things you can learn from Steven Segal

Corporate Life

I know, I know. Horrible actor. Hollywood kung-fu. Runs like a girl. But every once in a while, there is a little gem hidden in one of his piece-of-crap films (not to mention that there is always some B-grade hottie trying to move up from Baywatch to the big screen). Anyhow, let me set the stage for this one.

So Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) just happens to be on the same train that a bunch of mercenaries hijack and are going to use as the moving headquarters to commandeer a top-secret Government satellite to blow up the Pentagon for some middle-eastern terrorists. There's a bad guy, Travis Dane, that sends some thugs off to kill Ryback. They shoot him, and think they see him fall off the train, so they report back to Dane that Ryback is dead. Dane is unconvinced, and asks if they actually saw the dead body, or if they just assumed he was dead, because "assumption is the mother of all fuck ups". Needless to say, Ryback wasn't dead, managed to stop the terrorist plot, and killed Dane in a flurry of kung-fu blows and meat cleaver-wielding chops (Ryback is supposed to be a chef!).

So why is this relevant on corporate blog? Well, it's coming up on the end of December, and we're all in a mad panic to book orders in time to ship for quarter end. I don't know how many times I've come across situations in the last week or two where we'd have saved countless hours of work and many grey hairs, if we hadn't assumed anything. "They said they had everything in order, so I assumed everything was ok". "Everyone knows how important this deal is, so I assumed they would expedite it". "I'm part of the sales team, so I assumed that I would get credit for the deal just like everyone else". Wrong, wrong, wrong. If you really want to make sure things get done, you can't assume anything, because...

assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.

Originally Posted on: Dec 17, 2007

A better apple crisp recipe?

Corporate Life

Another commonly held misconception is that the belief of a flat earth was nullified when Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, the notion of a spherical earth has been around since Late Antiquity (c. AD 300 - 600), but it was Washington Irving's book, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus published in 1828 that propagated the notion that superstitious sailors believed they would sail off the end of the earth. However, it is simply enough to know that there was a time, when the only earth was a flat one. Why would you think anything else? Round? Come on. The oceans would drain off, right? But eventually, people came around to the theory of a spherical earth, and now, except for a few radicals, you'd be crazy to think otherwise.

But the earth was still the centre of the universe, right? I mean, the sun revolved around the earth, after all. The Greeks believed it... the Catholic church endorsed it... why believe anything to the contrary? You would have to be an idiot to think anything different. But a guy named Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a theory that the earth actually was the one revolving around the sun, and not the other way around. Then our man Galileo proved him right. So for thousands of years, we all thought that we were certain of what we knew, and guess what? We were wrong. Somebody else knew what was right, and eventually, we came around to their way of thinking. It probably wasn't easy, but over time, we began to realize that we didn't know everything, or we weren't always right. And the guy that came up with it? Well, it turns out he wasn't an idiot after all. So perhaps that co-worker has a better way of doing it than you do, and he isn't a complete imbecile for thinking that he does. And it is possible that the customer could be right, despite the fact that everything tells you that he is most likely wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, someone else has a better recipe for apple crisp.

Ma Chin's famous apple crisp
A longtime staple of the Chin diet, this crisp doesn't include oats, as most recipes do. Instead, the shortbread-style topping makes this dessert unique.
Ingredients:
6 medium apples - peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 c. white sugar
2 tbl. white flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
dash nutmeg
Topping:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. white flour
3/4 cup white sugar
dash salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 400° F. Butter/grease medium/large baking dish.
2. Place apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg in dish and toss to mix ingredients.
3. In separate bowl, combine topping ingredients and cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
4. Spread topping mix over apples and pat down lightly.
5. Bake covered 15 mins at 400° F; reduce heat to 325° F for 30 mins uncovered. Cook until topping browns lightly.

Serve warm, topped with whipping cream or vanilla ice cream.

Orignally Posted on: Nov 13, 2007

A lesson from Scotty

Corporate Life

Today's rant is about responsiveness and getting back to people. How many times is it necessary to call someone to get them to respond to my inquiry? What can they be doing that makes them so busy that they can't return my call or e-mail? I've been waiting days for that dealdesk to get approved! I'm sure you've heard these before. But in my role, I'm just as often on the receiving end of these calls/e-mails, as I am the originator. As I've blogged about below, there's a delicate balance between responding to every transaction with the utmost urgency, and keeping your sanity in a highly connected, online world. So what is one to do? Today's blog is about setting the appropriate expectations, then meeting or exceeding them.

The all-time king of setting expectations has to be Scotty. You don't have to be a Star Trek fan to know that when the Dilithium crystals were fried, and the reserve energy was gone, that the guy to get things done was Scotty (random

Clavin-ism - the actor who played Montgomery Scott "Scotty" was a Canadian; he was born James Montgomery Doohan in Vancouver). But Scotty's gift wasn't that he could fix anything - we all know he could put McGyver to shame. No, what Scotty did was set the appropriate expectations with Captain Kirk, or whomever was in charge on the bridge. Sure, it's going to be tricky retrofitting those crude Dilithium crystals from the Elaan of Troyius' necklace, but the appropriate thing is setting the right expectation. Will it work? Probably. When can you get it done? Before we die. In the end of course, Scotty gets the crystals hooked up to the anti-matter injector, they are able to fend off the Klingons, and everyone is happy (and alive).

So back in the 21st century, the thought I'm trying to instill here, is that we all can't get back to everyone as quickly as they (or we) would like. But rather than leave things hanging (or create false expectations), we can easily set the stage for the timing of whatever transaction is at hand. I'll gather the information over the next few days, so will be able to get back to you Monday. I'm booked solid today, but have some time to talk at 9 am tomorrow. I don't have the answer for you, but will pass this onto {name} and have cc-ed him on this note. How simple is that? By setting the right expectations with the people we interact with, we can lower our individual anxiety levels, and work towards improving our quality of life. Thanks Scotty.

James Doohan: March 3, 1920 - July 20, 2005

Originally Posted on: Nov 08, 2007

Technology and its effect on the quality of your life

Corporate Life

If you're Canadian, then you likely know who David Suzuki is. For those that don't, he's an iconic figure in science and nature, whose foundation strives to protect the balance of nature and our quality of life. Many years ago, I saw/heard him talk about how the advent of technology has decreased our relative quality of life. Huh? Decrease it?

I know I'm going to butcher this explanation, but here goes. David's statement revolves around the theory that any transaction carries an associated element of stress or burden with it. A transaction could be a telephone call, an e-mail, a sales call - anything that we do in the course of our day that requires interaction with others. The more of these events that you have, the higher your stress level, and of course, the lower the quality of life.

To illustrate, hearken back to the days of the Pony Express, when a transaction would take days, maybe even weeks to take place. How about the telegraph, you say? Well, that required a trip to the post office, fill out the form, and then get the telegraph clerk to tap in the morse code. It was also expensive - about $1 for a ten word message! Suffice it to say, you couldn't squeeze too many transactions into the day. So what did you do instead? You went back to the barn and fed the horses, planted crops, or perhaps went off to the saloon for a whiskey. Certainly not a very stressful day.

Fast forward about a century, and we're entrenched in the mechanized culture. It takes only a few days to receive a letter, but the telephone is now ubiquitous, and the teletype has replaced the cumbersome telegraph. Instead of a mere handful of interactions in the day, now you're handling dozens. Remember that each of these interactions take some of your attention and energy - you still only have 24 hours in a day, after all. So something has to give - either you do less transactions, or your associated personal burden goes up.

Enter the invention of the transistor, and the following transformation to a computerized culture. With worldwide IP networks and mobile services available almost anywhere, using computers and modern communications equipment, we can literally handle hundreds of interactions in a day! Now you have the associated stress and burden of not only these transactions that you handle on a daily basis, but the transferred anxiety of dealing with others expecting immediate turnaround on their interaction with you. Additionally, in the past, you would leave your work and burden at the office when you left for the day. With wireless phones, blackberry devices, and laptops, the work day no longer ends when you get home.

So has our quality of life improved with the advent of all this technology, or has the associated stress, anxiety and burden around the increased ability to transact actually decreased it? I'll leave the debate open. But what is the point I'm trying to make? We all contribute to the communications and interaction that we send to each other... I know that cc-ing others might seem like a good idea to you, but take a second to think if that person really needs to know, or will it become SPAM? Likewise when "replying all" to a message; does everyone really need to read what you have to say? The theme behind this blog is reducing chaos - this is just one little step that we can all take to decrease the clutter, and maybe even increase the quality of our lives, even if just a little bit.

Originally Posted on: Nov 05, 2007

An increasing tendency toward randomness

I didn't like the definition on Wikipedia (like that should be used as a solid source of information), so I pulled this from Dictionary.com:

en·tro·py /ˈɛntrəpi/ [en-truh-pee] n. 1. Thermodynamics. (in statistical mechanics) a measure of the randomness of the microscopic constituents of a thermodynamic system. Symbol: S

My definition of entropy came from Doc Hebden, my chem 11 and 12 professor back at Kam High - I'll come back to him later. Entropy is a measure of the increasing tendency towards randomness. i.e. if you left things unto their own, the end state would be that which is the most random distribution possible; lacking order and even verging on chaotic.

Take my kitchen counter island (peninsula, really). I built this really nice spot between the kitchen and the "not so great room" where there's a granite countertop, perfect for hanging out during those miscellaneous daily activities like having a coffee or reading e-mail. Ideally, it's a clean space, with only a telephone, laptop and a notepad on it. But over time, it ends up being a repository for everything in your arms/hands that you need a place to set it down. Over the course of a few days or a week, we've put some much stuff on there that you can't even see the counter anymore! No matter how hard we try, the natural state of the countertop is clutter.

So every once in a while, you have to fight the chaos; turn back the clock on entropy, and clean up the mess.

Originally Posted on: Oct 22, 2007