Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti in Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

links for 2008-03-31

• The Opinionated Marketers: Twitter: social networking or broadcast medium
  on the Nashua Telegram's use of Twitter to broadcast headlines in real time. Waiting for a newspaper to rename itself after Twitter.
  (tags: newspaper nashua nh innovation twitter telegram telegraph)

Shiawassee River Paddle Event - May 18 2008 - Holly to Fenton, Michigan

Shiawassee River Paddle Event
Sunday, May 18, 2008

Start : WaterWorks Park in Holly, Michigan

End : Strom Park in Fenton, Michigan

Distance : 7 scenic miles of numerous twists and turns

Canoe Rental available with Heavners Canoe Livery

Schedule :

10:00 am : On-site registration begins WaterWorks Building, Broad Street

11:30 am : Introductory Ceremony North side WaterWorks Park

11:45 am : Experienced Canoeists Start at Millpond, Broad Street

12:15 pm : Novice/Youth Canoeists Start at Millpond, Broad Street

12:45 pm : Kayak/ Single person canoeists Start on Shiawassee River, Broad Street

** 1:15 pm : Leisure/fun paddle Start on Shiawassee River, Broad Street **

6:00 pm : Final river sweep completed

On-site availability of snacks and water.

Shuttle transport from 1pm – 6 pm for continuous transport of boats/ people

Trophies for First and Second Place in all three races.

For more info and photos, visit websites :
www.headwaterstrailsinc.org
http://shiawassee-river.blogspot.com/

Registration Forms :
http://www.headwaterstrailsinc.org/RiverRaceregistrationform2008.pdf

Questions ? Call Sue Julian, 248-634-3513.

Rain or Shine !

links for 2008-03-30

• Uraku - Bowling Green, OH
  dol sot bi bim bop in ohio!
  (tags: bibimbop ohio dolsot via:choconancy food restaurant reviews)
• Kanban; or, management by post-it note
  on using kanban as a software process management tool; note to self, review as a queue management process for proposal development
  (tags: kanban management 5s process systems postit software)
• Economist.com - John Maeda debate on technology
  "Having choice is good, especially when the available choices are all excellent ones." don't agree with this; cf Barry Schwartz "Paradox of Choice".
  (tags: science technology choice fallacy simplicity complexity)
• Chocolate & Zucchini: Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream
  mix until smooth equal parts evaporated milk and nutella (or equivalent); freeze in ice cream freezer.
  (tags: chocolate recipe ice-cream nutella yum dessert)
• A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites - New York Times
  “Some of our retail clients have pretty horrible site search,” he said. “So for them, this will be a benefit. For our larger clients, we’ll probably ask Google to turn this off.”
  (tags: site-search google search)
• Lin.ear th.inking: Do mountains exist?
  What is the real definition of a mountain? Sure, we all know one when we see one - or do we? Go ahead - try and define this concept in a rigourous way...
  (tags: geography neogeography mountains ontology existence to-be-or-not-to-be)
• Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Lean Dentist Podcast
  This podcast by Mark Graban with Dr. Sami Bahri, “The World’s First Lean Dentist” is well worth listening to.
  (tags: lean quality kanban dentist management process)

Ten secrets to success (or, ten things that I aspire to doing regularly)

1. Send a postcard.

2. Go for a walk.

3. Use the library.

4. Keep your inbox at zero.

5. Find a group to go to lunch with regularly.

6. Say thank you.

7. Keep track of what you do.

8. Keep track of what you promise to do.

9. Always carry something to write with.

10. Get enough sleep.

I wish I could say that I do all this, but at least it's something to aim for. And I wish I had the infinite patience to hyperlink all of these, but I don't, so take it on faith that I've thought about and written about them before.

Technorati Tags: pnb, lists

Lou Rosenfeld's site search analytics workshop slides

Lou Rosenfeld has a new workshop about analytics for the search within sites - the sort of information that is quantitatively and qualitatively different from general search terms and behavior because it's within a closed domain (e.g. an intranet) or because people who are looking for something have already found you.

| View | Upload your own

He's looking for comments and feedback - thanks.

Technorati Tags: analytics, search, louis-rosenfeld, slideshare, workshop

links for 2008-03-29

• Akteurszentrierte Darstellung sozialer Netzwerke
  "Convoys Over the Life Course: Attachment, Roles, and Social Support."
  (tags: socnet networks sociology software)
• AdWords Training Classes - Improve your PPC management and optimization skills! | Own Page One: Search Engine Visibility Blog - Online Marketing Strategy and Tips
  The first training class open to the public will occur April 11, 2008.
  (tags: ppc annarbor purevisibility adwords)
• Bloug: Slides for my new workshop
  Lou's teaching a whole day on site search analytics? Is there really that much to it?
  (tags: analytics presentations search slides usability)
• Write a thank you letter.
  A handwritten message in flawless penmanship can leave an indelible impression -- especially if you use simple stationery, minus any flowers or animals.
  (tags: career thankyou letter handwriting penmanship)
• Kanban in Action
  By setting a kanban limit we can guarantee to the Governance Board that we are meeting our commitment to dedicate a certain percentage of our resources to sustaining activity, without dedicating specific heads.
  (tags: agile kanban management process technique whiteboard postit via:ourfounder)
• RFID kanban cards
  Bosch has outfitted each production line with RFID readers and created an application in which the RFID tag embedded in a paper kanban card assigned to a particular container is interrogated four times
  (tags: rfid kanban process accounting metrics measurement)
• Kotobuki, Sylvania OH -- toledoblade.com -- A [short] guide to local exotic tastes
  Primarily a sushi restaurant, Kotobuki introduced dol sot bi bim bop about a year ago, and Mr. Chung says it's transcended his Asian customers and become popular with people who've heard of it.
  (tags: bibimbop dolsot toledo sylvania ohio a2b3 food eats restaurant reviews)
• 5S red Tags
  tags for identifying things that don't belong, so that you can properly dispose of or scrap them.
  (tags: 5s redtag kaizen discardia via:jhritz)
• Clutter: Celebrate Discardia Starting Today
  Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It's about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. (dinah's holiday)
  (tags: discardia clutter gtd howto 5s lifehacks organization via:metagrrrl)

slimtimer - observing what you do, so that you can report on it later

I need to be mindful of what I am doing all the time, so that things get done and I don't just wander off into cyberspace. (Cyberspace, remember that, data gloves and VRML and the metaverse and all that? Yeah. There.)

There are two fundamental issues in time tracking for me: accurately logging the start and stop of each task, and determining which bucket of pre-assigned tasks it goes into (or determining that a new bucket needs to be allocated to describe that task).

There is a great interview of Caterina Fake by Tod Maffin on CBC Radio, back when Flickr was in Vancouver BC and new and hip and was Canadian content, and Caterina talked about Flickr's use of tags in this way:

"The way that most systems had worked prior to this sort of tagging system is that you would in advance of knowing what you were going to categorize had to put together a category list and that involves a lot of cognitive overhead that you really don't want to engage in at the time uploading photographs and labeling them makes tagging so successful add tags on the spot you know beach sunset fire sand enter"

it's a rough transcript, but I've listened to this piece dozens of times and the phrase "cognitive overhead" sticks in my brain. I don't know where that piece is online, but it should be....

so, slimtimer. "beach sunset fire sand" then start the timer. never mind that you hadn't planned in advance to go to the beach, you'll account for that later.

Technorati Tags: slimtimer

Kanban; or, management by post-it note

I wrote a few years back about a mini-kanban that John Hritz had put together to remember to refill washer fluid. There are a lot of colorful sticky notes around my workplace these days, so I thought I'd read up on how kanban-inspired systems are being used for process management in the software development and other non-manufacturing worlds.

Some inspiring examples (with post-its to illustrate):

Corey Ladis on Kanban systems for software engineering:

A perfect state of flow may be very difficult, or at least uneconomical, to achieve in a robust product development process. But we can get pretty close with a well-tuned kanban pull system. We have managed to combine most of the flexibility of craft production with most of the control of a pipeline. Work-in-process is limited, and cycle time can be managed. Most importantly, it is a highly transparent and repeatable process with all of the right conditions for continuous improvement.

oh, wait a second, this is starting to be spooky: Jim Benson's notes on the new people at his Modus Cooperandi:

Corey Ladas - Corey has been a proponent of iterative and evolutionary design methods since the early 1990’s, and was an early practitioner and vocal promoter of Agile methods at Microsoft. Corey began collaborating with David Anderson at Microsoft in 2004, united by a common interest in the application of Lean, Theory of Constraints, and Statistical Process Control methods to software development. In 2007, Corey joined David at Corbis to implement kanban systems for the development of enterprise IT projects.

Time to talk to Jim...

Technorati Tags: kanban, management

Detroit suburban SMART bus transit routing in Google Transit

The Detroit area SMART bus system now has routing and schedule information in Google Transit. It gives bus numbers and times for rides across the metro Detroit area, and plans the next available trips for you.

With all of this data it now looks almost possible to schedule and plan transportation from Ann Arbor to large parts of metro Detroit on public transportation. Mind you it's a little roundabout, but you have two choices:

- take Amtrak Ann Arbor - Detroit - Royal Oak - Pontiac, 3 trips/day
- take the Michigan Flyer bus to Metro Airport, switch to a SMART bus, and connect to routes from there - allow plenty of time for transfers and to find your stops.

I haven't timed the last of these, but I'm sure it's at least three hours, maybe four if you get a bad transfer time. (ouch) But it does, indeed, look possible, perhaps even interesting in an adventure travel sort of way.

Technorati Tags: maps, google-transit, bus, annarbor, neogeography

links for 2008-03-25

• Binary marble adding machine
  Wooden adding machine driven by marbles.
  (tags: awesome marbles calculator creative engineering design)
• A Brief Message: No Resistance Is Futile
  Write less. About six words. Maybe seven.
  (tags: art text via:judell writing paulford)
• Conversation Quotient
  What’s a friend worth, if they don’t click on your ad?
  (tags: marketing socialnetwork monetization analysis media social)
• twitterverse – Userscripts.org
  Change the prompt for your Twitter question to whatever you want with this greasemonkey script. What would you rather be doing?
  (tags: twitter greasemonkey hacks hacks-done-late-at-night)