TV Cables and Communications Media

Reading Kneale Mann's piece on multi-media communication reminds me of hooking up a new television recently. There was the TV with all of its HDMI, component, S-video, RCA and USB connection ports. Then there were the various devices we wanted to be able to connect and a collection of various types of cables for each connection type. I found the process of hooking everything up to closely mirror my experience with differing modes of communication.

Not that I'm likely to pursue a doctorate anytime soon, but probably 25 years ago I decided that if I ever did, I would want to do my thesis on how mode of communication affects content and the quality or effectiveness of communicating and how content and/or communication intent does (or should) affect the mode chosen. My fascination with this hasn't wavered, so it's probably no surprise that trying to choose the right cables for the right devices would make me think of the choices we make in communication every day.

I'm a huge fan of Twitter these days, but certainly not for everything. This bit of musing is a good example of a thought I can't fully express in 140 characters or less. Others are not so quick to see the value or, if on the verge of being convinced, are certain it's only likely to create more work for themselves.

"I can't even keep up with my Inbox - I spend two hours a day trying to keep email under control!" whined another attendee of the Portland Lane Powell social media seminar for businesses that I sat in on earlier this summer. I say whined because this particular gentleman didn't seem particularly interested in arriving at a solution, but others certainly share his basic sentiment. My own feeling is that such people are looking at the problem wrong, and in so doing, are making it seem much bigger than it really is.

My basic assertion is that if we collectively choose the most appropriate mode of communication for the situation at hand and the specific players involved then we effectively reduce, rather than continue to increase the effort expended for communication purposes as more options come along. And this is where the TV cables seem relevant to me.

Although there are limits to how many of which kind of connections are possible, the television is happily agnostic - it is capable of receiving just about any type of input currently used today. On the other hand, the older satellite receiver I'd chosen to connect doesn't have so many choices, the DVD player has a different set of options and the Roku box handles just about every type of output imaginable. Add to the mix the older stereo with RCA as the only audio input option, and it made for an interesting puzzle.

Although there are multiple HDMI ports on the TV, I only had one HDMI cable and only one HDMI-capable device, so that choice was easy. From there, it wasn't tough to decide which device of those capable of using the component cable should get it and how best to apportion out the remaining S-video and RCA cables. Always though, it was a question of matching up device capabilities, ports, and availability of cable.

Basically we have to do the same thing with communication methods. Personally, I'm best with written thoughts. I can read them quickly when I'm the receiver and I can think about what I'm saying before I send it out. But email and Twitter aren't always available. And written communication may not be a preference for the person on the other end. Even when writing might be a functional option, it may not be the optimal mode of communication for the content itself. Just as most people still consider it gauche to break up via voicemail, I wouldn't care to learn of a close friend's death via Twitter when a phone call or even a more personal email might be possible.

Ideally, choosing the best communication medium for the job at hand increases the effectiveness of the communication while it reduces effort. If it feels like more work, someone is probably making less-than-optimal choices - or perhaps the best communication method for your particular need hasn't been invented yet.

As for me, I'm rather like the television - happily multi-modal for the most part even though I do have personal preferences. What are your preferences? And how do you apportion out your communication capabilities? It's worth thinking about. Once I'd paid attention to all of the connection capabilities with the television, I realized that it might be useful to track down one more HDMI cable. Taking careful inventory of your communication needs could yield similar insights. It all comes down to sorting out what's optimum for the players, the situation, and the job at hand.

What's the best way to share what you have to say?

Tales Worth Telling

One thing I am, is curious... about a lot of different things. Some of my very best work has been the result of following my curiosities. I've always hoped that various great thinkers are right, that "curiosity has its own reason for existing" (Albert Einstein), that it is "one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind" (Samuel Johnson), and that "curiosity is the key to creativity" (Akio Morita).

Whatever else can be said of curiosity, certainly it's true that curiosity is a sure cure for boredom (Dorothy Parker). Her assertion that there is no cure for curiosity probably explains the extraordinary amount of time I often spend in the black hole of the internet.

Alastair Reid has his own views on curiosity and whether it may have killed the cat - "Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all." Reid's poem, Curiosity has remained one of my favorites over the years.

Since I spend a fair amount of my time indulging in my curiosities, perhaps there can be some benefit from sharing my curiosity-driven investigations and travels. Who knows, it might be as simple as shortening the time you spend satisfying curiosities of your own, or maybe it will provide further fuel for investigations that may take you someplace new and wonderful.

News and current events make me curious. Popular culture makes me curious. And I'm finding the Google Hot Trends in searches are an endless source of fascination. I don't know that I'd want to spend all my time sharing what I learn about what searches people are making but it certainly would make the time spent chasing down that stuff a bit more worthwhile. We could always give it a try anyway to see how well it works.

A sampling of a few of today's hot search trends on Google...

Starbucks is closing 600 stores. People apparently want to know more about that, especially which ones are on slated for closure (thanks to West Seattle Blog for the link to the full list). Hopefully your favorite one isn't on the list. If it is, the one across the street will probably do just as well, don't you think?

And while lots of people know Salma Hayek, the producer of Ugly Betty and Oscar-nominated actress in the movie, Frida, apparently they're not so familiar with her now-ex fiance Francois -Henri Pinault. Or perhaps it's just that it's easier to find news of their broken engagement by searching on his name instead of hers. Celebrities' lives are always wildly exciting for the general populace for some reason, and I'm not always sure why.

The Science Friday searches are apparently two-fold. On the one hand, people could be wondering more about Earthrace, the bio-fueled boat profiled in today's Science Friday broadcast that recently completed an around-the-world trip in 60 days, 23 hours, and 49 minutes, breaking the world record. Or they could be searching for more information about the announcement that NPR will be drastically reducing funding for the popular Science Friday. Or both. Good news and bad news sometimes travel together.

One search that was hot earlier in the day and is now in the process of being eclipsed by more recent topics of interest is CDARS. The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry program allows you to invest up to $50M in certificates of deposit at one bank, bypassing the standard $100,000 FDIC-insurable limit by allowing banks to apply their own interest rates to CD's purchased from other banks through them. I believe that's how it works anyway, based on what I've read so far. I wouldn't recommend taking my word for it.

In any case, with the current status of banks and the mortgage industry causing some people such concern that bank runs are even making the news, it's no wonder that increased protection is of such interest today.

Bite of Seattle is the one that truly has me puzzled though. Is Google Hot Trends showing me what geographically proximate people are searching? Or are other people really that interested in our annual summer food festival? And if it's somehow the latter, how are they hearing about it? Seeing that people are now suddenly much more interested in the Aquatennial of Minneapolis (trust me, you do not want to click on the blog that proclaims itself to be the official website for the festival without a rock-solid virus-scanner installed) and a collapsed crane in Houston, I'm thinking maybe The Bite really is that well-known outside of Seattle (or there are just htat many of us here asking the question). Go figure.

So that's as much patience (and time) I have for tracking things down today. Clearly it's always a moving target, so I have to draw the line somewhere. It will be interesting to see how far this thread travels. In the meantime, feel free to comment on whether you think it's an idea with legs or not.

What makes you curious?

In the Thick of It

Startup Weekend Seattle is a locomotive - not sure if we've quite picked up enough steam yet to have left the station and start covering some distance... but we're at least mostly aboard.

There are a few of us making regular - and sometimes overlapping - posts, so be sure to check it out often!

What keeps you motivated?

The High Road and the Low Road

My world is full of technology. Everyone's is these days, for the most part. Sometimes there are some interesting juxtapositions between high tech and low tech aspects of my world. Today, in addition to self-checkout at grocery stores and hardware stores, you can also rent movies from a vending machine for a dollar a day, right there at the grocery store. How cool is that?

Last night, I rented Stranger Than Fiction from a DVD rental machine. All three of us loved the movie. Small Person laughed out loud as soon as he realized that Will Ferrell's character could hear the narrator, and everything about the film - from the graphics that showed how his brain saw the world, to the real end of the story - really worked. What really stuck with the junior member of the partnership, though, was the author's typewriter.

By the end of the movie, Small Person was expressing a wish for a typewriter that he could use, a manual one, no less. It turns out, that I have one - my high school graduation present from my parents. For some reason, he was interested in the typewriter being portable too and it turns out further that this is exactly what I have. Before we all had computers (let along laptops), my parents wanted me to have a portable typewriter so that I could be anywhere in the world and still write - letters, manuscripts, resumes, whatever.

And after all these years, I still have my old portable Olympia B-12 and it's in terrific shape though it hasn't exactly seen a lot of use lately. Even so, it works great and has some rather cool features - like an automated space bar, and a backspace key - that weren't so common on manual typewriters. Of course, manual typewriters - portable or otherwise - weren't exactly common either by the early 80's.

In any case, even with the ribbon pretty dried out because it's been ages since I've used or replaced it, Small Person happily sat down to type on it right away, coming up with some rather amusing stuff in the process. If you happen to run across a story about a wristwatch that's as unhappy about screaming as it is about having ended up lost and on Mars, in all likelihood it started here in this house.

His keyboarding skills are fine but the added pressure needed to get the keys to strike right was a bit tough for him. We figure it's good finger-strengthening exercise for the piano, though, and keep encouraging him to stay with standard fingering rather than lapsing into two-finger keyboarding.

So how strange is this - a digital native going back to visit the old country, seeing for himself why QWERTY keyboards are the way that they are and learning about platens, end-of-line bells, carriage returns and so forth and so on? Next session, I'll teach him about correcting mistakes in the world where backspacing doesn't equal deleting.

For now, I'm just letting him enjoy himself.

Meanwhile, I myself am playing on the computer with ActiveWords, after having heard about this pretty nifty little tool at a recent Seattle Lunch 2.0 free lunch/networking event for geeks. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about capturing keystrokes just yet, nor do I have good data yet on how much memory the application consumes. I can say, however, that the ease with which I can now launch some of my favorite applications makes it pretty slick to use and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg.

For instance - I have also worked out how to use ActiveWords to navigate to URL's I visit a lot. Right now, I'm navigating quite a bit to a couple of different Basecamp accounts, one for Startup Weekend Seattle, and another that we've set up for one of my closest friends who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

What we decided was that all of the logistics around battling breast cancer - researching information, gathering the right health care professionals, strategizing and making plans, mobilizing all of the friends and family who are offering to be resources, and so forth - was just like managing the kinds of projects some of us do for work. And so now we have Project Boob Management, which makes me - for the time being anyway - the Project Boob Manager. Life takes odd turns.

As useful and interesting as high tech can be, I find it can also take over our lives in ways that are not so helpful. Now that we both have laptops, there are times when I realize that Tall Person and I are both in the living room together, navigating around in our own personal online worlds with little or no conversation between us. Something similar happens when we read sometimes too, but somehow it's different and even more disconnected when it's the computers. It's times like these that I see how important it is to strike a balance between high tech and low tech.

For those of you who who agree and are still striving for that kind of balance in your own lives, you might be interested in the Soul Tech workshop put on by Leif Hansen. If you missed out on tickets for Startup Weekend Seattle, it might be a great way to spend your Saturday afternoon this weekend. I wish there was a feasible way for me to be in both places at once, as it's a topic I feel strongly enough about to sometimes wish it was my workshop. Leif is good people though, and I'm glad he's getting such great attention for his work.

In the end, high tech that helps facilitate more human interaction - by making it easier to find each other and work together, or by saving time and reducing stress so that we have more time to spend with one another with fewer headaches - is probably some of the highest and best use of technology. Where it interferes with human interaction is probably a mistake, something I'm far more likely to think about the next time I go to the grocery store and am making the choice between using a check-stand with a real-live checker and going through the automated self-check.

Those automated movie vending machines are way cool though, just about any way you look at it. I have even noticed DVD kiosks in hospitals. I know from past experience that sometimes connecting over a good escapist-type movie can be a great way to recover from surgery or get through chemo if it's one of those times when no one really feels like talking that much.

I'll be sure to add that one to the Basecamp-supported Project Boob Management idea list.

And you should feel welcome to add a comment if you have questions, thoughts, ideas, around taking the high (tech) road vs. the low road.

How is technology helping or hindering what's important in life?

Recall

If others are like me, people are waking up to the memory that this was the day. This was the day we started calling September 11 or 9/11. And while we might wish we could take it all back and trade it in for another day, this is the one we've got.

For most of us, it was a flashbulb memory-creating event. My tech support manager role six years ago meant that unlike most west-coasters, I was wide awake and walking in the door at work about the time the first plane hit the first World Trade Center tower. And then of course, a lot followed after that, both professionally and personally.

Last year, I figured enough time had passed that I could delve into the memories etched into my mind by the events of that day, see what lasted and what was worth remembering. The result was Memories of the September 11 World Trade Center Attacks - 5 Years After - a piece I wrote for Associated Content that focused on the impact that day had on me as a tech support manager and a mother while colleagues and family were dealing more directly with the attacks and their aftermath.

Like the memories themselves, frozen in time, that piece is but a snapshot. Others have their own September 11 experiences and memories to share. We were all affected - in profound ways and in small ways too. While we can't rewind time and send it all back, we can choose how it shapes us and how we choose to remember.

In so many respects, September 11 changed so much. In others, 9/11 and its aftermath maybe didn't change enough, in my opinion. But that's a different piece.

Today is about honoring the fallen, the memory, and the lasting shifts in our lives. Find what's good about it and hold on and let go of the rest. That much we can do.

You're probably thinking things today that are different from normal. Let's share stories - send thoughts and memories to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll sift through the sands of time and memory together, looking for what's good and worthwhile.

Which memories are the most important to hold onto?

It's the Conversations

While I was reading Harry Potter on Saturday, Brad Feld was commenting on comments. Once again, I have to say, he's right on target.

Like Harry, I want to see all of it and learn the real truth (as much as that's possible anyway) - even the parts I don't like. By Sunday, when I'd finished the book and was curious about others' reactions, I went looking around for some. The review I read was, quite frankly, riddled with inaccuracies and spoilers - with some inaccurate spoilers for good measure - and didn't seem to really get the point of the book.

It was the comments, though, that helped me put the review into its proper context and provided me with a window into what everyone else was thinking. Just be prepared to do some wading and some thinking for yourself to weigh the different points of view.

My own comment yesterday to the tall person in our house was that where critics used to hold a great deal of power before, it seems that the commentors wield equal or sometimes even greater power now. It was sort of interesting to see a critic subjected to some of his own medicine. I just hope he didn't choke on it. I'm sure JK Rowling is mostly unhurt by his words.

If we thought blogging leveled the playing field before, commenting on blogs and articles and whatnot takes that notion a step or two or three further. Commenting is the new blogging.

In fact, I frequently find now that I learn as much or more from the comments than from the original post. Although it takes some perserverence and quite often some teeth-gritting (especially when the topic is particularly polarized), it's in the comments where I find the shades-of-gray middle ground I seek and trust so much more than the lambasting, "I'm right and you're wrong" blacks and whites that so often show up under some byline. I realize there's plenty of lambasting in comments too but that's not all that happens in that space.

I have always found the same to be true in business too. I can come up with some pretty decent ideas on my own. The ideas get better when I engage others in conversation and we comment on one another's trains of thought.

As a manager, I always made better decisions when I heard the different comments from various members of my team. I don't mean in a push-me-pull-you kind of way where my opinions would swing wildly, depending on who I'd talked to last. Instead, I always did my level best to carefully consider the different points of view and the points worthy of merit that were raised and responded to in group discussion.

In the online world, this kind of group discussion takes place in the form of comments more than anywhere else. Whatever it is we're commenting on is just the starting point. Brad's idea that we should be able to manage comments the same way we're beginning to manage other sources of information is a good one.

It would be nice to find all of the comments by an individual (to assess how on target the person tends to be overall), across sources and platforms. I'd love to see us be able to somehow tag and organize various groups of comments and perform searches on the resulting data.

I bet if we were to discuss it further, we'd come up with even more ideas about how to use comments better. If you have comments or ideas about comments, send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's get a conversation going.

How can I make comments contribute to furthering the discussion and growth of ideas?

Not in My Right Mind

I don't know about the rest of everyone, but sometimes writer's block turns into something more like writers' bottleneck. At such times, it would probably be helpful to just move onto the next topic instead of staying stuck. There's a message there somewhere. I'll figure it out & get back to you... well... sometime. In the meantime, given that I let myself stay stuck for so long, let me just point out that I'm thrilled to discover that a) some play can have a purpose and that b) there are really good, left-brained/analytical minded-appealing reasons for developing and engaging right brained thinking too. And some fun ways to go about it.

My father, a leftie, would probably be pointing out about now that given the link between brain dominance and opposite handedness, only the lefthanded are in their right minds. As bad a joke as that is, it's actually related to some of what I've been exploring lately more in-depth.

One of the perks of having a small person around the house is having ready access to Lego bricks - one of my all-time favorite toys - so I was pretty jazzed to learn not-so-recently-now (back in November, at the International Coach Federation conference) that there are some good justifications to playing with them that go beyond just having fun. The Lego Serious Play folks say you can actually unlock important information by playing with Lego pieces as a way of facilitating communication between the two halves of our brains - and yes, it does seem to work. At some point, I'm sure I'll get licensed to facilitate this process... I'm that interested in it. If you're interested in it too, be sure to let me know as it might influence how soon I get in to get this done.

Not only is the process fun, it's also based on sound brain theory, which means that it meets my definition of cool, being both neat AND useful. This engaging both halves of the brain to get at better answers is definitely in line with what I've been saying for years, even if it hasn't exactly been out loud. As far as I can tell, an analytical approach that is open to intuitive-based quantum leaps of thinking will always (and I tend to use absolutes rather lightly) be far more productive than either approach alone. This is what I call being logically creative. LSP not only helps make that process possible, the brain theory upon which it's based explains why it's so useful.

And now Dan Pink explains in hard terms why we should care to even look at a right-brained approach to matters when so many of us got where we are and achieved our greatest successes by focusing on one that is strictly left-brained analytical. With hard data that the most analytical mindset can appreciate, he explains in his book, A Whole New Mind , how and why that road is a dead end if it's the only road we travel. It's worth reading. And if it means nothing to you, then I'm guessing that what I do and how I do it probably means nothing to you either. No harm, no foul. When you're ready, we can talk.

I'm guessing though, that a lot of tech folks will get it if they stop long enough to really think about what's involved in their work. The ones who understand why it's important to be able to take ping pong, pool, or foosball breaks from time to time in the afternoon - because tech work is as creative as it is logical - will get it. Those who understand the need for logic laugh long and hard at the total lack of logic in, say, the Kids in the Hall sketch where the guy actually thinks he'll get the car started by washing the windshield. And who doesn't love a good laugh? The thing is, those who also understand the importance of the creative element will probably keep their jobs longer.

And if you accept the basic premise, then what? Figure out how to nurture and tap into that creativity, I guess. Playing with Lego bricks (with or without the Serious Play element) is one way. So is any creative endeavor, really... crafts or other artistic expression, music, you name it. The folks at Face the Music use writing and performing blues tunes to engage creativity toward a useful end, so do check them out if that's an appealing-sounding option.

I'm interested to hear your own observations about blending logic and creativity - send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know... do you believe they belong together, or are they separate pursuits?

How can you use creativity to expand the reach of logic?

~~.~~~.~~~~~.~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

My 'New' Friend Judy

Have you ever done something that seemed so simple at the time and it turns out that the impact is far more enormous than you'd anticipated? I had one of those the other day and it's still flooring me. I realize that even though it's one of my very most favorite things to do that not everyone else loves to fly. So I was very hopeful that I could be of some bit of service for another Judy's Book member when she asked about how best to calm her fears about flying. I had no idea the responses would be so positive or that there would be so many of them.

Having done a fair amount of flight instructing, I came to the conclusion early on that one of the biggest deterrants to students taking the controls with confidence was their concern over hurting the airplane should they make a mistake. As soon as I worked that out, I made sure that the very first thing we did as soon as it was safe enough to do so was to let them stomp on the rudder pedals a bit and then rock the wings good and hard and then push the yoke back and forth too. Unless they were the airsick type, I got them really going - just not all three together; I didn't feel much like scaring any prospective students with getting ourselves into a spin, even if I did know how to get safely out of one.

Every single one of them felt more comfortable afterward once they realized that there was nothing they could do (at least with me there) that would hurt the airplane or cause us to fall out of the sky. Knowledge, when you get enough of it, is power.

Small person (though he doesn't seem to need it) is getting a taste of this concept. He agreed to be a control group subject in an autism study, part of which involves taking an MRI. While it's another thing that I don't quite get, I know that a lot of people are afraid of MRI's. The closeness of the tube and the odd noises apparently bother a lot of people. There definitely seems to be a pattern around how people react to noises that they can't place. I've never had an MRI myself but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be a problem for me. I haven't noticed any claustrophobic tendencies and I figure instead of causing fear, the noises would be far more likely to seem like a puzzle to me that needs working out.

Small person doesn't particularly care for loud noises though, so I was glad when they gave him a "practice MRI" during our most recent visit to the research center. As it turned out, he had no trouble at all lying very still in a mocked up tube with headphones playing the normal noises of an MRI machine. In fact, he looked like he might be falling into a meditative trance! We'll play the CD they gave us at bedtime anyway so that he can be used to the sounds well enough by the time we do this for real that he can just fall asleep in there.

See - when we're afraid of the unknown, the best thing to do is to make it known. The same is true in business of course. When people don't know what's happening, they tend to make up the most dire scenario imaginable. It must be in our genes. The trick is to help each other identify what's really going on and to communicate that as much as possible. Even when the news isn't great, it's usually better than the story we've cooked up in our imaginations. And even if it weren't, it's far easier and better to make plans and take action based on the truth than on some fiction. We make better, more effective and more meaningful choices that way.

This sharing information must also be natural too even though the healthy version of it doesn't always take hold in corporate culture. It's a phenomenon I've been watching with interest as I watch Judy's Book continue to grow and evolve. People aren't just sharing reviews about goods and services. They're sharing information and ideas that go beyond stores and restaurants and who to trust with your car. They could be sharing these ideas with one another individually and yet there is something deeply satisfying about making sure that more than one or two other people can be helped by what you know. And in an era when we're so spread out and not in close connection with very many other people, the internet as a facilitator (as opposed to being a substitute) can be a real help at times. Plus, it solves the puzzle of figuring out who knows and who needs to know and matching them up.

How do you share information most effectively? Share what works for you by sending it to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - or send whatever is currently keeping you awake with worry... either way, we'll all benefit as we work through it together.

What helps you move past fear into effective action?

~~.~~~.~~~~~.~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.