The recent fare hike by WMATA (DC Metro) further irks me with regard to how they handle parking–both in terms of a failed ideal and poor application of technology. Many of Metro’s incentives are in the wrong place and their technology could be applied to fix it. Parking during short trips and late nights is expensive but overnights and week-longs stays can be free. What makes this particularly frustrating is that it wasn’t always this way, and SmarTrip cards could have improved the situation.

Let’s look back at how things worked before the SmarTrip cards (at least in College Park, which after my researching seems fairly similar to the overall system). If I wanted to metro into the city in the evening (departing after 7), the parking lot was free. If I wanted to take a short trip during the day, meters were available to me. All parking was paid for by cash.

But a lot has changed since those days–Metro made a number of improvements:

• Metrorail operating hours were extended on both weekdays and weekends
• SmarTrip sped up the process of moving through stations and exiting the parking lot
• Many stations have added garages
• (And though unrelated to this article, the electronic time indicators (and many online systems) improved the trip time estimating process (despite Metro’s decline in timeliness))

Two prime reasons for these changes were:

• To make it easier to park (before it was harder to get a space, and it took a long time to check out)
• To provide a safe way home for people (i.e., mitigating drinking and driving)

But it now costs me Continue reading…

In this post I’ll offer advice both on how to cancel an appointment and how to show that you respect your own time when people cancel on you. In this world of instant electronic gratification and RSVP’s with “Maybe” categories, etiquette sometimes slips by the wayside. This advice is designed to facilitate better use of your time and demonstrate that you care about the person you’re meeting with.

Caveat

First of all, don’t cancel an appointment unless you really have to. Do you think of yourself as someone who sticks to their word…as someone who people can count on? Then don’t cancel on people unless you’re sick or out of town. And if you’re out of town, let them know the minute you find out about the trip. If you must cancel because you’ve got some “big client meeting,” then it had better be a week in advance or more.

If you must cancel, here’s how to do it:

1. Apologize and make a comment about how you respect their time
2. If you have a DAMN GOOD REASON (a funeral, you’re deathly ill, etc) mention it. Otherwise, don’t mention any reason at all. Don’t ever say that you have to do something more important like a big client meeting–that’s adding insult to injury
3. If at all possible, suggest that you meet at their office or some place closer to them than the original appointment
4. Offer possible dates for rescheduling in the same email; don’t let time go by before expressing that you want to get together

Here’s a skeleton message that’s both apologetic and to the point. It also will serve to minimize the amount of back and forth by being very clear about available dates: Continue reading…

This is the first in a (most likely very short) series of articles about lack of efficiency at various locations I frequent. The purpose is not to put them down but to apply those same ideas to our own businesses and lives. It’s far easier to be a critic then to put this into practice, but well, one’s got to start somewhere.

My doctor has a solo family medicine practice with 2 or 3 assistants that serve various roles. I’ve always enjoyed his company and the kindness of his staff, and have been going there since maybe 2000. But the practice hasn’t utilized much technology, and I believe it’s to the detriment of both the patients and the staff. Here I’m going to look into how that relates both to their productivity and customer service. (I don’t think productivity should ever be an end in itself–it should facilitate more customers, higher revenue customers, better customer experience–something more than just working quickly.)

These are the issues I intend to comment on and explain how they could improve their practice or efficiency. While the lacking may be obvious, hopefully my solutions will be interesting.

1. They “kind of” have email, but not really
2. They don’t use or accept faxes
3. They have a voicemail greeting but don’t allow one to record a message
4. They can mail referrals if I provide a self-addressed, stamped envelope (circa 1995), otherwise I have to pick them up

At first glance you’re probably thinking one of two things: they’re extremely backward or they have very successfully limited their inputs. Their reasoning is probably a combination of convenience, lack of technical comfort, and resistance to change when “the system works.” But here’s where they’re missing out: Continue reading…

On my personal blog I wrote of my hopes for 2008; here I’ll explain how they relate to “lifestyle design,” a concept made popular in The 4-Hour Workweek. I mention them to you as I hope you can look to 2008 as a chance to not only accomplish things but really make life easier and more fun.

Here are my ambitions, as I mentioned on dancingwithwords:

For my sanity and social life:

• A sense of completion on a daily basis
• To buy fewer books (and better figure out what I should be reading for fun and work)
• A trip abroad
• To entertain every other month

For my work and dreams:

• 5000 users of AwayFind by 2009 (still in private beta)
• To be invited to speak at a national, non-local conference
• To have someone else handle the majority of sales and proposals for SET projects
• To blog (or have someone else working with me to blog) three times per week (mostly on technotheory.com)

Sense of completion: The first ambition is my most important one–every day I need to feel that I’ve accomplished things. There are times when responding to emails, managing others tasks, and making phone calls gets in the way of thought-intensive, tangible accomplishments. If I don’t have something concrete I’ve finished, then I’ll typically keep working and working and never feel good about it. Shutting out the outside world to get more accomplished sooner should help me with that immensely…and I’ll be a much happier person because of it. Here’s some advice for how to pull this off…

Fewer books: Continue reading…

It’s almost a new year and it’s time to remember why we work. To find a little balance. To live.

Now that it’s June, we’ll sleep out in the garden
And if it rains, we’ll just sink into the mud
Where it is quiet and much cooler than the house is
And there’s no clocks or phones to wake us up
Because I have learned that nothing is as pressing
As the one who’s pressing would like you to believe.
(Bright Eyes, Nevaeh)

It’s not June. And even though people seem to think St. Michael’s is in the Carribbean, it really is just Maryland. But tomorrow marks my annual escape to the Eastern Shore–warm weather or not–and this time I’ve exchanged my laptop for a girlfriend.

It is kind of insane how much of a role technology has played in 2007, but I have to remember sometimes that it’s just an efficient facilitator for connections, work, and entertainment. I’m so thankful for those connections, for that business, and for the aforementioned girlfriend (more than entertainment ;-).

But once again technology is just a means, and work is just a means; we don’t need to read Tim Ferriss to figure that out. Continue reading…

I’m really glad that the tech-savvy internet community did some self-policing this past month when it harped on the Facebook Beacon privacy issue. But I must sadly agree that most Facebook users have no idea about the severity of this. It bothers me to no end that they would take advantage of their users. A conversation this morning reminded me of what their more typical user is like, and how Facebook is abusing them:

Me:

Not sure if you’re aware of your privacy settings. You have Beacon enabled…

Here’s how to turn it off. Go to the link below and check the box:
http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=unconfirmed_actions

And her response: Continue reading…

Marc Orchant passed away today after a massive cardiac infarction.

Online it’s easy to feel anonymous and unimportant when there are so many already established experts, when everyone seems connected with the connected, and where some people seem superhuman in all they’ve accomplished. Marc Orchant may have been a connected and star technologist, who I look up to for the quality and earnestness of his writing, but he was also one of those rare people who didn’t make you feel anonymous. In an era where the one line email is the best you’d expect from an “A-lister,” Marc would respond with paragraphs of personal, careful thoughts to every email. He epitomized the productive person with values in the right place–he never seemed to make sacrifices. He was a great friend and his priorities were always straight.

If you ever had the pleasure to listen to his podcasts, you learned about his family, which he frequently discussed. I was always amazed at how he made time for them in between his tours of travel, writing, speaking, consulting, and gadget-testing. Everything he took interest in, he took a PASSION to. Or at least that’s how he made you feel. Just such a balanced and brilliant person.

I’m still getting my head past this. I’ll miss our calls and emails and his ever steady stream of writing. If I accomplish half of what Marc has by the time I’m his age, then my family will be proud. There’s no question that he’s left a legacy. And that he’ll live on as a role model for so many of us.

The only thing less productive than reading an email three separate times and not responding is misreading the message and responding right away. Some people come off either illiterate or disrespectful with their correspondence. Worse yet, I think it’s because they’re attempting to be productive and responsive–but both of those aims are best achieved when doing something right the first time–which both saves you time and is more professional. Working faster is not the only goal.

I ran into an old acquaintance at a business function who suggested getting together. In each email correspondence he missed something I said earlier in the message thread, forcing me to repeat myself and him to respond to many more emails. The worst part: though we both restated the date numerous times in the message, he showed up on the wrong day. When I notified him on the day-of our meeting (which was a week later) he had to cancel because he never realized that he was at fault all along and at that point didn’t have the date available. It was both a laughable taste of his own medicine and doubly frustrating for me.

This is not the first time something like this has occurred (I have so many more stories, and I’m sure you do, too). So here’s my advice, with a smattering of both productivity tips and etiquette: Continue reading…

Today was spotted with conversations from friends who want to save the world but just don’t know how. They’ve followed the path–good schools, grades, and jobs–but haven’t felt they could make a difference. My advice for them: new media.

I’m not going to lie–I’d long stereotyped marketing, communications, and public relations as necessary evils, at best. They’re rarely attention-grabbing, not usually great writing, and brand awareness is about as far as most of them get. But my opinion has somewhat changed in the last few years, especially since I heard Seth Godin speak (and enjoyed Purple Cow). Godin’s creative approach to marketing made it fun for me…and the internet is what made it much more accessible and effective.

I’d always seen the internet as a place to find your voice and to be heard. I’d always seen web design and web development as the tools to get online and make an impact. However, understanding and applying the connectivity of the internet–its inherent community–is what can really make a change. If someone wants to make a difference, they ought to learn how to use the web to spread their message. Continue reading…

I keep updating my tools, profiles, and sites. Why do it–is it worth it? Is it helping my life or my business? What’s next?

Today I’ve decided to begin moving all my photos to Flickr (well, it’ll be some time). We’re launching a web application in the next few months. SET’s website redesign (with almost all new content) will be completed by year end.

In January of 2006 I moved to WordPress (from Blogger, and before that just HTML) for dancingwithwords.com, redid the layout, and launched technotheory.com (also WordPress). I also sorted through about five thousand photos from My Image Gallery and kept about a thousand, which were then migrated to Coppermine.

I can spare you from the discussion of how I made it to My Image Gallery from Dreamweaver’s photo pages and of my failed conversion to Greymatter and/or B2′s blogging software. And of course the moves from Friendster to Facebook, the trials and tribulations of MySpace, and the simultaneous development of relationships on LinkedIn.

This stuff takes a lot of time. Why do I do it?

My online participation is primarily for three reasons: self-expression, maintenance of relationships, and business. When I put up a website in ’95 and a blog in ’00, it was for self-expression (and having a technology project seemed like the thing to do). Over time it became a way of keeping in touch. In just the last year I’ve started to see business come out of it.

But is it really worth it?

Continue reading…