real-time
We seem to talk a lot about Nike and Nike+. Maybe it’s the tanagramster team’s passion for running or Nike’s well rounded approach to digital ecology. It doesn’t really matter because we, the consumer, want more. The following list is a summary of features we’d like to see on the iPhone 3GS version.
1) Emergency response – As an urban runner, on of my biggest fears is an attack or accident that renders me unable to seek help. I would feel better if I had an option to alert loved ones or authorities with a simple button press or even better, after an accelerometer detected shock followed by no movement (accelerometer or sensor). Perhaps we could use MobileMe Find-my-phone or the GPS to send coordinates to those who need to know? Even a quick access link to a speakerphone dialed 911 call would be appreciated. Obviously there are risks with auto dialing emergency services, but I think safety catches could be engineered into the solution. I wonder if Nike could partner with these guys?
2) Notes Transcription – This one is a little quirky, but I do some of my best thinking during a run and would greatly appreciate a capture device more secure than my memory. Mic-in-headphones technology would likely be required for this, but we’ve got that. Speech-to-text tech would make this better, but I’m not holding on to his idea because I’m pretty sure the noise of the run would confuse the system pretty quickly.
3) Telemetrics – I have no doubt the folks at Motorola want or have something like this, but us pro-sumers would love live run streams for loved ones and trainers as we slog through our local runs. Consider the opportunity for coaches to monitor multiple runners’ performance against individual profiles. It’s an easy connection to make for team efforts, but what about sports consultants coaching paying individuals through a Marathon.
4) VOIP Push-To-Talk (PTT) – Technology similar to Skype (not the PTT part) would allow a coach or teammate to provide real-time insights / conversation regardless of distance.
5) 3rd Party Integration – In a world where services are currency, Nike has still not embraced allowing third-party developers (hardware or software) to add their personal twists to the plus ecology. If they offered a SDK, the market could take their hardware and grow it into all sorts of interesting spaces. Perhaps their lacking revenue model is to blame?
5) Playlist Sync OR Local Area Music Broadcast – It’s nice to run with friends, it’s extra nice to run to the same music (same tempo). The ability to sync music or share music via bluetooth or wifi would be awesome. I could use the same tech on the ski slope. Extra credit for developing a networking architecture that expands distance as the number of paired machines increases.
6) GPS Integration – This one is a no brainer. The Nike+ system needs to be manually calibrated (i.e. you type in a distance after a run). Instead we think it would be great to intermittently start the GPS chip (every 1 min to save battery) to determine actual progress. Not only would this data be useful for calibration but it would also be nice to automagically draw routes. Clever web services monkeys might even be able to create a function that alerts you if you are approaching another Nike+ user and allow you to contact them, race them, etc.
7) Digital (virtual) Running Mates – Illness kept me from running the last Human Race, but there is another opportunity for Nike+ to network their communities. Imagine as you are beginning your run, your Nike+ app speaks into your ears that there are X number of runners of similar skill starting at the same time. After being presented the option, you opt to join the group and during your run you can chat with them via VOIP technology. Imagine those runners are scattered across the world. WOW! “Hi, what’s your name?” “I’m Roy from Manchester, and you?” You get it…
I hope the fine folks at Nike don’t consider these ideas as criticisms. More than half of our office is wired into their service and we adore their smart combination of style and tech. As fans for life we just want to help. See you all at the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle!
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on February 4, 2010
It seems every other discussion I enter as of late has something to do with privacy and or the things “they” know about us. Maybe it’s the paranoid circles I travel, or maybe we are seeing the beginning of a significant change in our human paradigm. Digital technology is maturing and enabling us to connect/interact/react in ways we never before imagined. Human nature drives us to interact (you remember that “No man is an island” junk from High School?) and Digital technology is superpowering our ability.
Remember life before Facebook? How many old friends have you lost touch with? How many viable relationships could you maintain before Facebook? How many can you maintain now? (I have 181)
It’s a little overwhelming to think that we are actively crafting a Digital overlay that will enable Digitally enabled beings to interact with other Digitally enabled beings or objects across space (think telekinesis), time (think time-based stitched panoramas made from FLICKR images chronologically navigated), and wordless communication (telepathy?). Imagine being able to see and hear and interact with objects from amazing distances. Imagine wearing a digital outfit. Imagine.
As Augmented Reality, the superimposition of the Datasphere onto reality, becomes more viable we will gain access to vast amounts of real-time data and there are a few issues we need face very soon.
Privacy – The ‘Millenials‘ have already succombed to the collective and have given away the illusion of privacy. Social media products like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have become platforms for their near-narcisistic need to self-proclaim. They communicate outwardly, freely and without fear. The rest of us, especially those who remember the 60’s are going to face challenging times over the next 10 years. Data availability and detail will continue to improve and we will all be faced with a choice: Does data serve or punish me?
What does it mean that marketers know where I live and what products I’m inclined to buy? Is my cellphone constantly broadcasting my location accurate to the meter? Am I being monitored for selfish reasons? Ok, you can sit down and stop shaking…. It’s not as bad as you think. We at Tanagram firmly believe Digital will serve us in powerful and meaningful ways and we spend a great deal of time imagining what those might be.
The truth – You ARE being watched. There, I said it, and nothing exploded. The fact is the Marketing Industry is facing one of the most challenging times since its inception. Gone are the days when they could ‘tell people what to believe.’ Gone are the days where they could produce a single, one-size-fits-all message that compells consumers to purchase products. Digital has made us (consumers) much smarter and because of this, we require much more sophisticated communication and interaction to even begin to consider a product relationship (that’s what it is when you become loyal to a brand). We the consumer have become extremely powerful and marketers are afraid.
So what evil things can they do with their monitoring? Well, that’s where we take an unexpected turn. You see, the only way they can sell is with the truth. They can no longer pay talking heads tell us what to think, lies are posted on Twitter for thousands to view seconds after they are broadcast. The backlash from a malformed or misguiding ad-campaign can cost millions in revenue but even worse it can cast the originator as not reputable and have significant long term effects. Everybody remembers Blackwater, right? Their brand was so destroyed by blunder and lies they had to rename as Xe. So if they can’t lie to us, how can they push their products? They have to connect with us like real people, meaningfully. To do that they grab gobs of data and look for consumers who would actually benefit from and are interested in the products they sell. They then do their best to be helpful and useful so you, the consumer, will learn they are trustworthy and legitimate. They spend fortunes on non-profits and other ‘Cause Marketing’ to be viewed as contributing members of society. Ultimately, they work very hard to maintain a real relationship with you. You see how mild mannered this once arrogant monster has become? Joking aside, they cannot take your free will. You will continue to be a fickle and informed consumer and they cannot afford for you to think that they have any intentions other than serving you the best they can. Also, there is no mind-control chip. They cannot hypnotise you into stupid purchase habits (for me this is a non-issue, I only buy stupidly) and if they could, they wouldn’t because the consumer backlash would destroy them.
So what do we do with these needy, shivering, whelp marketers? We give them our data. Why, because they will serve us better if they know our likes and dislikes. They can’t afford to annoy us anymore and they don’t want to waste money trying to sell to those who are disinclined. Broadcast advertising is going away. Advertising of the future will take place at a personal level in meaningful ways. Here’s an example: Perhaps you are driving home, late from work and you haven’t prepared the family meal. Your local preferred local grocer sends you a text message offering a discount on cooked chicken dinners (or your favorite dish) and saves the day.
That is where we are going, we just have to make the choice.
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on August 14, 2009
Deploying a new or revised application can be a scary process. Are you confident your user-centered inquiry captured all of the needs? Are you certain your customers will like the new system better?
Typically, we’ve found the more expert the user—meaning the greater the amount of time they have invested in understanding your application’s complexities—the more likely they will be averse to change.
We’ve developed application UX for military pilots and there are few people who have spent more time learning an application (think thousands and thousands of hours). The good news is there are ways to insure your new release is a success.
Make sure your updates reflect real user improvements
Changing to a different platform is NOT a good reason to ask the customers to use a new application interface. You must learn how and plan to better serve them. Observation is your best tool: watch your customers work and look for opportunities to improve their workload efficiency (we call this workload assist), their decision-making efficiency (we call this cognitive assist), and provide them tools to forecast and measure the impacts of their decisions (we call this real-time performance assessment). Having used the above techniques with our cranky pilot user groups, we saw very positive results.
Enhancing your site is a marketing event. Be prepared to sell it
For your upcoming deployment plan on having a number of communication channels open to educate and engage your customers. Your goal is to solicit feedback, and develop trust. Nike+’s new “beta” site is a perfect example of the power of conversation.
Here is a shot of their existing site (not authenticated):
Notice the strong “hero” content talking about the value propositions of the new beta version. They even provide a link to the new version immediately below. It’s important to convey to your customers what they will be getting in this change and how it will impact them. Nike+ has done an excellent job with this.
Here is a shot of the new Nike+ beta site (also not authenticated):
The new site picks up where the old site left off explaining value and benefit for users. We won’t go into the specific benefits of the new site; suffice it to say they spent the time and learned what the users needed.
Teach the value to authenticated users
Once your customers authenticate into your system, you have enough data to be able to show them how your new system will better serve them. Take this opportunity seriously: Show them.
Here is a screen of the old Nike+ interface (authenticated):
Note the link-callout stating “see your runs in the new Nike+ beta.” This link provides a direct comparison of the dashboard pages and exposes the customer to a real-time comparison of the applications. It is also a “vote” button.
This is a good time to mention one of the strongest tenants in this approach: NEVER TAKE AWAY THE OLD SYSTEM. You have to wait like an observant parent for the child to discard the item before you can make it disappear. This is because the old system is their safety net. The really exciting part of this approach is that we can measure the users who have opted to use the new interface moving forward and those are SOLID conversion rates. If, after you deploy a new app using this technique and you don’t get many people willingly converting to the new application (voting that it’s better for them), call us. You more than likely missed a real need in your redesign or aren’t clearly communicating the improvements to your customers.
Provide feedback mechanism
The following three images really just show various views throughout the site, but notice two elements that remain consistent. The “feedback” tab on the right of every page (the last image shows an expanded view of the features) and the “Beta” flag in the upper right corner. Feedback is extremely powerful. Enable it, respond rapidly to the feedback and build trust that you are serving the customers’ best interest. Also, don’t disqualify this input channel just because it’s qualitative in nature. While accuracy of submissions will vary, bug notifications tend to be pretty accurate (something they can react to) and feature requests tend to be lofty but always worth validation. Our favorite part of this approach is the customers’ ability to send congratulations to those who developed the site. As developers/designers/strategists/etc, we need to realize we are part of the application ecosystem too. Kudos go a long way for both parties in building trust and respect.
Note the “return to classic” link on this page. Always provide an escape hatch for those who aren’t quite ready to convert.
This image illustrates the feedback toolset. It’s a third party app and very well done.
Measure measure measure
You can see at the bottom of each screenshot that my browser is reporting NO CP for all of the pages. This may be because Nike+ is using a beacon free traffic analysis tool, or more likely have forgotten to add analytics to their ecology. It’s important that the systems we design capture as much data about the use of the system (and its data) as it does capturing its core data (the data it was designed to share/collect). What we’re saying is the movement between data points by users is as valuable if not even more than the datapoint itself. These measurements can be formed into insights that can help you build a stronger relationship with your customer. That’s something the competition cannot steal.
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on July 8, 2009
The dust has settled, we’ve caught up on our sleep (Rudy is a sleep camel), and now we would like to reflect on the Phizzpop competition. We really had a blast “Phizzing” and “Popping” the challenge. While we don’t usually share intimate project details with the public, Phizzpop was purely conceptual work so there are no lawyers to hunt us down. That said, we’re thrilled to share the gory details with you.
Assignment
Our assignment, from a high level, was to engage teens between the ages of 13 to 18 and get them excited about the 2016 Olympic bid. We were to build a system that would empower them to show their support, build a community, and create momentum showing the world that the 2016 Olympics could be held no where else. The result had to include a rich interactive experience using Microsoft Silverlight technology, three days to design and build it and 8 minutes to present it. You can download the full assignment document here. It’s a great read, very well prepared.
Method
Tanagram, with development partner Geneca, responded to the challenge using the same processes we use to develop social architectures for clients like Tribune Interactive.
- Understand target demographic and project goals
- Define quick-convert subset(s), key penetration points and growth/sustain model
- Prototype, test and evolve
With three days to produce results we didn’t explore the situation with our typical rigor and we didn’t have the opportunity to field test prototypes but initial feedback on the results has been very strong and we’re very satisfied.
Understand target demographic and project goals
During our presentation I joked that Rudy spent the weekend hanging out at American Apparel watching teens. Truth be told the internet and some high-level research from our friends at Ogilvy provided us with our pool of insights. Obvious findings included teens are extremely socially motivated. They care a great deal about social status, peer recognition, and to a large extent fame. Interesting findings included 97 percent of today’s teens carry a cell phone and do a great deal of connecting via SMS or text messaging. The phones they carry are not rich media devices like the iPhone but instead hand-me-down Motorola Razors, or cheap carrier-branded phones.
Project goals included:
- Building a large community rapidly (the Olympic bid decision is October 2, 2009)
- Designing a system that would be valuable before, during, and after Olympic events (we added 2012 AND 2016 to our goals)
- We added building a system that would capture and execute upon the goals of WorldSportChicago, an Olympic bid leave behind organization dedicated to encouraging youth to achieve athletic excellence
- We added help change the U.S. perception of exercise and athletics including motivating people to get out and burn a few calories
- We added pushing the social networking domain by exploring real-time connectivity experiences
Define quick-convert subset(s)
The key to rapidly growing a social network is to leverage the power of multiples for expansion. This is done by identifying those members of your demographic set that are most easily captivated and converted to use your system and giving them tools to recruit new members for you. We chose “athletically inclined youth” as our champion subset because we found they were most likely to have knowledge of and be interested in the Olympic institution, they were already participating in an athletic program, and likely had some form of basic support network (meaning potential recruits) already in place.
Key penetration points
Key penetration points are valuable offerings that enhance the lifestyle of the champion subset. Key penetration points for our system included:
- A place to record and publish athletic achievement
- A place to voice opinions and build integrity among a community of peers
- A platform that provides easy addition and presentation of text, audio, photos, and video streams
- A mobile component that leverages available technology in ways currently unavailable to our champion subset
- A system that encourages real-time participation and interaction multiple times daily
- A brand association that improves the desired perception of the athlete
Growth/sustain model
We found that one of the keys to the degree of success of an athlete was a strong support network. Friends, family, peers, and even competitors connected to give support and guidance for the athlete in training. We designed our system to enable athletes to recruit a support network by adding fans to their distribution list for their training blog. With a meager goal of converting 1 million athletically inclined youth each recruiting an average of 10 fans we were satisfied that we had a model that would expand appropriate to our needs.
We built a ranking competition / reward system into our model to help motivate the recruiting process. The athlete’s ranking in our system would be determined by the number of fans in their network, the amount of interaction with the system, and donated calories provided by exercising fans.
Fans, once signed up, would receive both blog and statistics (i.e. new best time) updates from the athlete and could respond with messages of encouragement (improving ranking). Fans could also “donate” calories burned doing basic exercises to athletes to further add to the athletes ranking score. It was critical that all of these activities be tied to the Olympic bid. At the very start, sign up as an athlete or a fan includes a digital petition showing support for the 2016 bid. Athletes could also flag themselves as Olympic potentials in the system and in doing so gain additional ranking points and benchmarking capabilities.
Athletic training requires dedication and daily commitment. Our system was designed to be a key component in the training process and because of that it would be very relevant to our champion subset’s daily needs. We designed our system so that athletically inclined youth could capture/monitor their training progress, share it with their supporters and even benchmark it against peers and Olympians. Our system would provide connections between athletes at various levels of training; novice athletes could connect with Olympians for inspiration and guidance, expert athletes could connect with others for support and to share best practices. To maximize the value of the interactive system we built a rich-media blogging platform that enabled athletes to post (in addition to text) audio, image and video streams of meets and other events. The video blogging system was enabled by Microsoft’s Silverlight Streaming cloud service, a system that allows simple upload, conversion, and hosting of video files (up to 10GB for free). Our goal was to develop a system that enabled athletes to build a digital record of their career, a monument of their effort.
Finally and perhaps most exciting to us, we built our system to be fully enabled through SMS. For the demonstration we used a 3G GSM modem connected to an ActiveSMS server to show a small scale version of what our system was capable of. For purposes of the presentation we did not expose the full feature set (even though we sent and received ~300 SMS messages in a period of 8 minutes) but our system was designed to enable subscription, bi-directional communication to multiple subscribed circles (perhaps by sport) for both athletes and fans, performance statistics entry by the athlete on the field, and the ability to send cheers to athletes as they compete. We thought it would be cool if athletes carrying a cellphone on silent could get occasional nudges (vibrates) from fans wishing them well. Testing would determine if this was annoying or distracting. We were on the fence.
Why Big Shoulders?
Carl Sandburg has had his poem “Chicago” associated with far too many initiatives but for us we referencing it allowed us to talk about Chicago without making our concept about Chicago (the Olympic bid is a U.S. initiative) and it also allowed us to talk about a support network in an interesting manner. Big support comes from big shoulders.
A note about athletics in the U.S.
It will probably not come as a shock that athletics in the U.S. are in decline. We found one study tying the decline in athletics to the tripling of obesity in teenagers since 1974. Another study found that today’s teens are less able to get and hold jobs because of lacking athletic experiences. Obviously studies all have their slants, but it’s clear to us that athletics in America need our help. We built our system to allow fans to donate calories with the hopes that if one person did 10 push ups and it wasn’t that hard and did it again, perhaps they might consider a regular exercise routine, maybe even develop over the years to have Olympic aspirations of their own. Physical fitness is a key health issue in the U.S. increasing fitness will reduce health care costs, improve stamina and positive attitudes in practitioners and even teach values like honor and commitment. The value of hard work is a lesson being lost on today’s teens and America will benefit if we can find a way to teach it.
Big Shoulders screen shots
Big Shoulders home screen pristine
Big Shoulders home screen with SMS text flowing in background
[caption id="attachment_439" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Big Shoulders home screen with Rudy hot state"]
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Big Shoulders home screen with Rudy Details open
[caption id="attachment_441" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Big Shoulders home screen with Rudy Stats screen open"]
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Big Thanks!
Special thanks to the folks at Microsoft (Chris, Bob, Josh, Brian, Sara) for inviting and supporting us. Thanks to our team-mates at Geneca for their support. Supreme thanks to Rudy Chou and Matthew T. Boeke for staying awake for three days to develop this awesome concept. You guys rock!
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on December 2, 2008
Significant real-time data immersion is not available for the consuming public yet. More data is available than ever before, but the traditional web browser experience has to grow up quite a bit before it begins to tax the cognitive capabilities of the average human with regards to information flow and memory. Sure, bad design is overloading us already, and yes you can watch real-time posts to DIGG, but imagine 7 to 12 real-time feeds simultaneously informing the user of the state of a given system. According to Micah Endsley [1] we can handle it, now we need to design it. One of the core principles of real-time information design is the establishing and maintaining of situational awareness.
Wickens defines situational awareness as “the continuous extraction of information about a dynamic system or environment, the integration of this information with previously acquired knowledge to form a coherent mental picture, and the use of that picture in directing further perception of, anticipation of, and attention to current events” [2][3]. The Air Force Research Laboratory similarly, and perhaps more simply, defines situational awareness as “how accurately a person perceives his current environment relative to the reality of that environment” [4].
Applying situational awareness to the goal of improving user interface, Davenport identifies three key areas of awareness encountered by the human participant: systems awareness, task awareness, and spatial awareness [5].
- Systems Awareness
This is the human participant’s ability understand the state of his or her equipment. In the cockpit, for example, systems awareness is often abstract and usually requires aggregation of various gauge indications. Knowing that the engine is running hot means nothing by itself, but combined with other systems indicators, may indicate a potential problem.
- Task Awareness
This is the human participant’s ability to accurately obtain information relating to tasks relevant to his or her goals. Understanding the current state of all tasks that are underway is critical as poor task awareness increases cognitive load, diminishing overall situational awareness. Good task awareness also enables the human participant to make informed decisions when making changes to the planned task.
- Spatial Awareness
Spatial awareness can be broken into two sub-categories; Global and Local. Global spatial awareness is an understanding of the position of the human participant and his or her equipment in the world at that moment. It is the ability to accurately determine relative relationship and trajectory of objects within a global 360-degree sphere of influence and often pertains to the human participant’s relation to a target destination, anticipation of upcoming objects, and other spatial directional judgments. Local spatial awareness pertains to the attitude (vector and velocity) of the human participant’s equipment. This is particularly important when dealing with moving platforms such as aircraft. During observations of pilots using simulator software, it was repeatedly noted that during increased times of cognitive load the first errors made were related to spatial awareness. As the local spatial orientation of aircraft changes rapidly and frequently, the related local spatial SA tended to be the first awareness lost.
Interestingly, because situational awareness is the process of aggregating understanding it becomes evident that a failure at any time during aggregation can cause a series of failures much like a highway pile-up. The aviation community calls this cumulative effect of related incorrectly executed action loops a “Chain of Errors.” The National Transportation Safety Board has documented that a catastrophic failure, like a plane crash, is seldom caused by a single incorrectly executed action but instead by the cumulative effects of multiple incorrectly executed actions.
Situational awareness becomes even more critical in dimensional immersive experiences but we’ll save that discussion for another day.
References:
- Micah R Endsley et all, International Center for Air Transportation, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT, September 1998 Situation Awareness Information Requirements for Commercial Airline Pilots.
- Amy L Alexander and Christopher D Wickens, University of Illinois, Aviation Human Factors Division, Savoy, Illinois 2003 The Effects of Spatial Awareness Biases on Maneuver Choice in a Cockpit Display of Traffic Information
- Amy L Alexander and Christopher D Wickens, University of Illinois, Aviation Human Factors Division, Savoy, Illinois 2004 Measuring Traffic Awareness in an Integrated Hazard Display
- Michael T. Brewer, Major, USAF, April 2000 An Investigation of the Non-Distributed Flight Reference (NDFR) Ownship Status Symbology
- Clark E. Davenport, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB OH, May 30, 1997 Displays for Spatial Situation Awareness: The Use of Spatial Enhancements to Improve Global and Local Awareness
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on August 11, 2008
Take a look at these guys! First Avenue Machine (thanks Rudy) makes CGI video content that is so hyper-real it’s impossible to separate from the reality it’s superimposed onto. We can’t link to it (Bad flash developer! BAD!) but scroll down their projects window and take a look at “Sixes Last.” With Moore’s law still intact we are soon coming to the point where this type of rendering will be possible in real-time.
More fun:
This is a cool link of candy based drum machine.
Really really nice Hodgin work.
And a really cool blog about “advanced beauty”.
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on July 23, 2008
Merlin Mann recently gave a talk to the folks at Google about his Inbox Zero process for managing high volume inboxes (www.inboxzero.com). While Merlin’s talk was entertaining and well done, I have to be honest, I was left feeling a little underwhelmed by his overall message. He says himself his method is simple common sense and that’s what it is. Luckily, I chose not to end my journey there. Desperate as I was for any help with the hundreds of emails I get a day (some at the talk claimed an unfathomable 600-a-day!) I decided to give Inbox Zero a try. I’m happy to say there’s no turning back now; I am officially a fan and I learned something about myself along the way.
The basic premise is the practice of scheduled email processing sprints (short 5-10min) with the goal of getting messages out of your inbox. There are five actions you can do to any message: delete, delegate, defer, respond (only if you can do it in a few lines), and archive. You may be wondering why it is so important to get email out of your inbox? It’s all about your state-of-mind and the impacts are huge. I had no idea the weight my inbox placed on my life as I spent the entire day using it as a to-do list and watching messages come in minute-by-minute to be responded to in near real-time. Managing my email took so much time I often found myself looking at the clock wondering where the day had gone. Some days I had no time to do my job (or at least the fun parts). The one thing I did get from my email-as-chat behavior was stress, giant fattening scoops of it. Stress has been a very big issue in my life as of late with a new baby, a growing business, a new house being manhandled by contractors, and Russian bomber flights resuming. To my surprise, my wife noticed a change the day I started practicing Inbox Zero. She keeps telling me how much calmer I am now.
The benefits of Inbox Zero don’t end there for me, I learned a little about myself along the way. As I started processing emails, I discovered some actions happened more frequently than others. To some extent this is supposed to be the case, but I don’t think my order is, well, optimal. Take a look for yourself. Here is my current processing ranking:
- Delete – My most common action is delete, as it should be. Most messages are meant to get information into your head and once it’s there, they have no further purpose.
- Defer – This might seem like a bad thing, but the truth is once I finish my email sprint, I can return to thinking about the projects I’m working on and as I work on each of them, I can dig into my Action folder and address the emails relevant to that project. The act of scheduling your day (or NOT allowing your inbox to schedule your day) is very empowering. Deferred messages go into my first of two sub folders titled “Action” awaiting my further attention. My action folder is holding at about 25 messages right now, but never fear, it’s easy to prioritize and respond to a list that short. Obviously my goal is to have zero defers, but I’m not in a rush. Wow that felt good to say. There is room for improvement here, however. As I practice my craft I hope to reduce the number of messages I need to defer. Instead shifting more weight onto the other processing actions.
- Respond – Respond is my third most common action, but significantly less common than the first two. As I mentioned above, most messages are meant to get information into your head. Many of the messages that require response can be satisfied with one or two sentences. No time for a novel that someone else doesn’t have time to read. I delete most messages after I respond.
- Archive – Emails that contain information I may need for future reference go into the second of my two sub folders, my “Archive” folder. The search tools in Outlook and Mail.app are pretty fierce and much more efficient than searching categorized folders. I used to keep all project emails to CMA (sorry not the Country Music Awards) but looking back, I’ve never ever needed one of them so now I just say no. Also, now that I detach attachments from all emails, I archive very few messages as a file backup. I feel like I used to be a pack rat, my email used to own me: not anymore.
- Delegate – The action I do least frequently is passing on work to … wait a minute!
Here’s where the bump on my head starts pushing the anvil towards the sky. Delegate is last? This is not good. As a Director working with a whole bunch of extremely talented folks who can do most everything better than me, it’s a bad thing when the last thing I do is delegate. My job description starts with the word delegate. So what do I do now? Well the first thing I’m going to do is go through my Action folder and delegate as much of that work as I can. After that I’m working very hard to increase my delegation ranking. I’ve done some thinking about why this pattern formed and I’ve boiled it down to my control freakish nature. That means I will have to pay special attention that I don’t slip back into this pattern. CFS is a sneaky sneaky disease. Hopefully now that I’ve admitted there is a problem, I will find the road to recovery. Isn’t it strange where and how you learn about yourself? Maybe Inbox Zero won’t solve your woes, maybe it will. I can only recommend frequent questioning and exploration of your daily activities as a means of learning more about yourself. Thank you Merlin Mann!
Posted by Joseph Juhnke on August 19, 2007
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