My first audio file, after five years. A little rant about how Twitter users are like hitchhikers - they jump in for the ride, but then become demanding, rude and overbearing.

Enjoy.

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Technorati Tags: Twitter, hitch hikers, repo man, doogie howser

Working through a meeting yesterday, and I came up with the following calculations to help you understand the probability of certain behaviours or actions occurring during a meeting:

Will the meeting be useful?

# of participants / # of decisions needed = X, where X<1 means the meeting is useful.

Will someone fall asleep?

If the (room lighting (in watts) / # of participants) > the room temperature (in farenheit), then someone will fall asleep

Will you leave to get a snack?

If on a conference call, length of call / # of participants = % chance you will leave to get a snack

Will you get stuck with work?

# of senior executives present / # or participants = % chance you will get stuck with work

Is it a colossal waste of time?

(# of “health breaks” + # of courses at lunch) / # of “breakout” sessions = X, where x<1 is an office retreat, x>1 is an association conference, and x=0 is an awards gala.

Will you start considering a new career?

# of windows in meeting room / # of powerpoint slides = X, where x<1 means you start thinking of better things to do.

Will the meeting organizer be mocked?

# of blackberries in room / # of participants = % chance meeting organizer will be mocked during his/her own meeting.

Was the meeting led by a consultant?

% chance meeting was led by a consultant = ((length of meeting) times (# of branded items left at each seat)) / number of times the following words are used (energize, operationalize, low-hanging, offline, priority, “report back,” or brainstorm)

Technorati Tags: productivity, time management, meetings

Underground blogosphere, eh? Drawing on my background in economic history, I present you with a medieval analogy:

Once upon a time, four young scribes frequented the same market square. They each had their own specialty - calligraphy, ornamentation, court documents and market hoarding - and each had built up a profitable clientele among the local carts and vendors.

Chance meetings at the nearby butcher, baker and candlestick makers brought the four together. As they found spare moments free from their demanding work, they eventually spoke about their craft.

As their skills improved, their markets grew. They discussed customers, competitors and business opportunities.

They expanded into other market squares across town, building on information they had gleaned from neighbours, family, suppliers and customers. Business was growing for all four - but one had greater ambitions.

Always a resourceful fellow, he had. been speaking to one of his customers, a fisherman. Hired to refresh his market stall hoarding, the scribe learned of a new lettering technique that helped cram more information onto each poster and sign he created.

This technique meant more effective work for his clients: their customers saw more information more quickly and more clearly. This meant more sales.

And since this new technique was unknown in their town, his work was lauded as imaginative, creative, innovative and a challenge to traditional conventions.

Naturally, any client who risked their business on this new technique had to be similarly gifted. That was plainly evident.

And no businessman was going to be outstripped by his peers - especially on something as simple, but obvious, as hoardings.

Town burghers flocked to the market square, looking for him. Business boomed. The other scribes benefited from the increased traffic, as well as the spill-off work he handed around.

Eventually, though, the burghers tired of standing among headless chickens, sacks of flour and rotting potatoes, waiting for his attention. Their business was normally conducted in hallways, not alleyways, and lunch was served on a tray, not on oilcloth.

The town burghers cleared a space for the still-young scribe in the town hall. There, he had acess to the guild offices, to the court registry, to the trappings of power and influence.

The new techniques could be applied to many facets of business: after all, there were many more ways to present information than just posters, signs and hoardings. The scribe began preaching the benefits of his technique to his new-found clients and colleagues.

His influence slowly spread beyond town hall: as the forward-thinking burghers showed off their new protoge and their pretty new signs, their friends and competitors returned to the market square, looking to their regular scribes for similar work.

Meanwhile, the other scribes in the market square, the ones who had previously specialized in calligraphy, ornamentation and court documents, had realized there was more business to be had.

It was obvious their old colleague had found great success. They had seen it with their own eyes. They heard it from their customers. Change was obviously necessary.

Talking amongst themselves, the three decided that simple duplication would not be enough. They would have to improve upon their old colleague’s work.

In practice, this meant collaboration. The fishermen had brought more examples of innovative work from ports abroad. Word of new techniques had been passed along by travellers from other towns. When clerics arrived, they brought along texts from distant centres of learning.

Innovation was progressing. Original techniques had become commonplace. Every scribe had to adapt to a more complex, but rewarding, profession.

For their old colleague, now comfortably ensconced in a community of notables and nobles, these developments presented a challenge.

How would he maintain his position of authority and influence if his innovative work was outstripped?

How could he keep his reputation as a thought leader if his profession advanced beyond him?

At the same time, how could he keep tabs on his competitors?

Especially if their work was largely conducted between individuals, among friends, and in market squares?

After all, it had become obvious business was much more easy to conduct after a warm meal, a good mug of beer and a convivial guild meeting.

It really was a sympathetic system of government: markets were influenced, to a large part, by the self-appointed regulation of the burghers, with the complicity of the guilds.

The trick, of course, was to drag, convince or connive your way into the ranks of the privileged - and then hang on with all your might.

It was all gravy from that point on.

Technorati: underground blogosphere blego

It’s three in the morning. Your office’s tiny little recycling bin is full of Coke and Red Bull cans, styrofoam coffee cups, and that bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper forced on you by the wonky drink machine on the third floor.

You’re pretty sure the landlord shuts the building’s HVAC off at 7pm - you can still smell that Dr. Pepper burp - and the flourescent lighting seems to be on some sort of irrational timer only reset by a switch forty yards away.

There are papers strewn about your office. Policy papers, spines snapped open, piled beside the HP printer. Multi-page memos folded and unfolded, underlined and highlighted, ripped at the staple thrown across the desk. Very important post-it notes with very important words piled up by the phone.

You’re working on a speech on short deadline, and past drafts are spilling out of the printer. A pile of annotated pages cover the floor around the recycling bin. Every executive, assistant, advisor and smart intern has chipped in with their comments and favourite phraseology - and they went home about seven hours ago.

Still, you’re in the zone. You’ve got some strong themes. You’ve got your speaker’s trust. You’re not tired. The ideas are popping, the words are flowing. Fatigue is only a flicker in your eyes, not a haze enveloping your thoughts.

Because you know what can happen at that point in the night: the trapeze act. Jumping from thought to thought, searching your brain for the easy transition. The speech becomes less of a work of art, and more of a compilation or synthesis.

Matthew Scully, a former Bush speechwriter, knows this is where speech writers can veer off the road:

“Another great challenge in State of the Union speeches comes around Page 10, when the entire thing can easily turn into a tedious grab bag of policy proposals. This is averted by skillful transitions. It was a point of pride that rarely have Bush speeches fallen back on artless devices like: “As we meet dangers abroad, so our work at home continues.”(NYT)

Another revealing commentary comes from Bush I’s chief speechwriter:

“State of the Union addresses often amount to not one but two speeches: the speech the president got stuck with, which sounds like a hodgepodge, and, somewhere inside it, the speech the president wanted to deliver, which sounds unified, authentic and complete.”

Such a lot of fuss about tonight’s presidential debates. 32 pages of rules. No direct questioning between the candidates. No cuban heels. Will the cameras reveal that GWB has the better head of hair? Will Perot pop out of a Jim Lehrer suit and frantically start waving multi-coloured economic charts?

What sort of debate is that? Where’s the fun? Where’s the heckling? At my college, the Trinity College Literary Institute emphasized debating as a formal skill and recreational activity. (The difference between the two? A keg.)

To win a Lit debate, you had to have a head on your shoulders, the ability to absorb rhetorical blows, a rapport with the audience, and the ability to project your voice - far. Debates were held in formal reception rooms, auditoriums, even in the quadrangle of the college. The most amusing, however, was the Subway Debate.

Two debate teams, two suitably inebriated people on each, would pile into the St. George station of the Toronto subway. Behind them would be a sizable entourage of 20 to 40 people, and they would all stream into one (already occupied) subway car.

The Speaker of the Lit would call the meeting to order and announce the topic to be debated. At the next stop, the debate would begin. Each debater stood up, stated their position, and launched into a raucous and possibly libelous argument of their position. Each was allowed 2 to 3 minutes to make his/her argument - the amount of time it took the subway train to travel to the next stop.

Other debaters, audience members and the fellow subway riders threw in comments and insults as needed, especially if the debated was flailing and failing.

The whole group continue to debate, heckle and mock as they traveled about 4 stops westward. At that point, we would all cross over to the other side of the Bloor St. subway line and continue with rebuttals as we headed back to the college - and more beer and wings.

You never know where you’ll come across a Lit veteran - like this guy.