Gymnastics

I'm interested in productivity and in creating environments that best foster it. In this piece, I will first seek to challenge just how productive you really are. Second, I will discuss some things you can do to increase your independent productivity. Finally, I will offer my opinions on the benefits of creating a culture of productivity - what I call, perhaps pretentiously, a culture of success. 

First things first: You are not that diligent. You're will is not that strong. You may think that you're more studious, more industrious and more persistent than everyone you know, but the fact remains that, alone, you are relatively weak. You have probably convinced yourself otherwise, and that's not because you are liar but because you are a gymnast. You are incredibly apt at performing all sorts of cognitive gymnastics. Within the constraints of reality, you are able to convince yourself of almost anything. You were at work for ten hours - four of which you spent surfing the net and two of which you spent at lunch - but that doesn't matter. You "worked" for ten hours today. While your ability to bend truth and rationalize serves a functional purpose (it is surely evolutionarily adaptive) when it comes to assessing your real work output, your system is anything but objective. You can never trust a gymnast. 

Just how productive are you? I challenge you to leave the cognitive gym, step outside, and look at your output objectively.  If we define work as directed focus towards a specific goal, for a given hour where you sit down and "work," just how much are you really accomplishing? Within a given sixty minutes that you have committed to achieving a particular task, how often do you interrupt that task to check Facebook, talk to a friend, or surf the internet? Track it for yourself; keep a journal and collect some data. You'll be inclined to enter that gym again, to skew the data on your real output, but you'll be stronger than that. You'll have recognized that: 

1. Distraction is normal. There are so many stimuli in today's environment that are continually reinforcing that it's no wonder you find yourself distracted. It important not to internalize this shortcoming. 
2. Training yourself to overcome the distractions takes time. You're not going to become perfectly productive overnight. Recognize that progress is incremental; small steps forward are better than no steps at all. 
3. It is in your best interest to track your real performance. Understanding your real output will allow you to improve, saving you time and energy in the future. 

Having recognized these three points, your perception of your real output will be much more objective.

Having an understanding of your real average output in itself will improve your productivity, but what else can you do to improve it?  Much of the time wasting you engage in is proceduralized, often occurring outside your awareness (this is exemplified in Facebook checking). Tracking your performance will help you break these automatized tendencies.

To improve your output beyond these internal improvements, you must turn to your external environment. Take note of your work area. Is it conducive to productivity and goal accomplishment? Take one step further back. Is your lifestyle and culture conducive to productivity? Are your friends motivated and productive individuals? If they're not but they want to be, then you're in luck. Take control of your external environment and make it work for you, not against you. Have your friends hold each other accountable to your goals. Check in with each other to track your progress. Take down time together. Sell them on the benefits of being on the same schedule and sharing a common goal. You'll be shocked at how much your individual productivity will increase once you are working in a group committed to being individually productive, once you are in a culture of success. You won't have to be in the same room; you won't even have to be in the same country, but by sharing the same personal goal as other people and holding each other accountable to that shared goal you dramatically increase the likelihood that you will individually successful. We all know that alone improving your productivity is daunting. Sharing the same goal  (and do note how broad undefined a common goal such as productivity is) dilutes its intimidation and renders it more digestible. Monitor your individual performance and put your environment to work for you. 

Commentary on Stardom and Celebrity Today

The following are excerpts from Jeffrey Sconce's A Vacancy at the Paris Hilton. Sconce's essay speaks to the complexity and evolution of stardom and celebrity today. Sconce notes that despite being condemned by much of the public, Paris Hilton's intertextuality reaffirms her star status. He suggests the only way to put an end to what he calls the "meta/meta famous" is to overwhelm them with media; to permit them to become so intertextualized that it comsumes them, leads them to obsenity. According to Sconce, these vacuous celebrities need to become wholly visible 24/7 to once again become invisible. Sconce's writing, albeit overly colourful, is elegant and well-constructed. I very much enjoyed his wit and insightful reflection. 

The signifiers of fame have become so completely detached from expressive talent that any residual investment in “creativity,” “genius,” and/or “depth” has long since evaporated from the scene (twenty years ago, Rupert Pumpkin in his most pathetic fantasies of fame and fortune still wanted to be a good comedian). In this respect, “talent” now appears increasingly to rest on an ability to reflect a leisure, pleasure, and discrimination back to the masses in the form of idlenss and spectacular consumption. As [Paris] Hilton's career demonstrates, her entire persona depends on her signature inability to do or contribute anything productive, making her fame the most pure and tasteful of all. In fact, since her entire persona depends on performing the role of a talentless and parasitical socialite whose only desire is to consume and be consumed as famous, then it necessarily follows that Hilton's “success” in any given endeavor – music, TV, film, animal husbandry – would sully and thus threaten to undercut the entire foundation of her career.

...

To whit: an American Idol contestant enters the audition room and proves within seconds he has absolutely no talent, looks, charm, or charisma. Clearly about to be dismissed, he pleads earnestly with the panel, “Make me into a product, mold me into whatever you need to move records.” Despite this demonstration of eager pliability, “mold-me” Idol does not pass on to the next round. The show on his face reveals he truly believed his performance of insider knowledge would be the key to the kingdom of fame. Surely Simon, Paula, and Randy will respect that I, too, know this is all a charade, that with today's studio and promotional wizardry, even Helen Keller could be on Top of the Pops.

...

Success now equals unlimited access to self, money, and sunshine. And, as fame becomes increasingly detached from talent, achievement, or even potential, we can look forward to a world where, more and more, only less and less talented people will be drawn to Hollywood – like cloned moths bonded by gradually disintegrating genetic code attracted to an increasingly simulated flame. 

Voting: The Uncool Extracurricular Activity

The Ontario provincial election took place on October 7^th. With only 49.2% of Ontario's population voting, it was the worst voter turnout in history. Interestingly, this decline in electoral participation is not uniform across voting age groups. Rather, it is voting decline in 18-29 year old demographic that accounts for the majority of the total decline. So why the apathy? Why the disenfranchisement?

This apathy towards the electoral process and politics more generally is reflective of politics as a niche interest. I believe that to the youth of today, involvement in politics is considered to be analogous to involvement in an extra-curricular activity: one partakes in it if one is interested, but opts to do other things should one not fancy intramural basketball, the debate club, or the student council. To this demographic, political involvement is a choice, an option; it is not a responsibility, a civic duty. Here lies the problem with politics-as-extracurricular-activity: there are many more interesting extra-curricular activities to partake in.

The media, fearful of declining political viewership, have sought to make this extra-curricular activity more exciting. In-depth coverage, real analysis, deliberation and discussion – the media as an information commons – has been replaced by a new form of political entertainment. Politics in the media has become a cheap action flick, with coverage that barely scratches the surface of most issues and a platform that compromises true discussion and discourse in favour of short youtube style clips. But the media are simply meeting the demand. The youth of today will not watch a real debate; imagine if CNN were there to broadcast the notoriously long-winded 1858 Lincoln and Douglass debates; they would only be able to talk about the fullness of Lincoln's beard and the sweat on Doug lass’ brow for so long. The youth of today might, however, watch a 30-second clip summarizing one.

So what do we do? As a 22 year old, a member of this apathetic entertainment seeking demographic, I believe that the solution lies in changing the political brand. If politics can once again be viewed as a means to enact change, to voice one's opinion, to share one's stories, to fight for what one believes in, this will go a long way to correcting its extra-curricular status. Partisan politics and recent events like the recession have not helped facilitate this perceptual adjustment. It is an uphill battle, but if the political establishment can convince the youth of today that they are not a school club but a vehicle of accomplishment and change, the media will follow, and perhaps then political involvement will once again regain it's place in the minds of today’s youth as a civic responsibility.  

Wood

Jan Gunneweg likes wood. He's built wooden sunglasses, wodden wheelchairs, and now wooden track bikes. See more of his work here.


From Fastcodesign

Eric Ries @ Toronto's Rotman

I saw Eric Ries speak at the Rotman School of Business yesterday. Here are my reactions.

I've been following Eric for a few months now and have bared witness to his rockstar makeover, best embodied in his Wired editorial photo. I sat down not sure what to expect.

Boy, has ER ever honed his speaking talent. Sure, he repeats stories and metaphors, but they work (my favourite of which is his Ghostbusters entrepreneurial analogy - "most entrepreneurs are waiting for the Marshmallow Man to show up!"


When asked if lean was the only way to start a business, Eric responded that everyone should grow their business as they see fit but employ a lean mentality. For example, in terms of scalability, one should not invest in prevention but in the ability to respond quickly ("just-in-time scalability"). Eric made the distinction between asking customers what they want and building a product around your customers. He affirmed that customers do NOT know what they want, that genius design is real and encouraged. Experiments are run to determine how users behave, not what they want. Lean, in this sense, is about using capital efficiently (both time and money).

From this talk I learned that lean is not a prescriptive doctrine but a philosophy, a partnership that holds everyone accountable to their goals and ambitions. And this last point is the real key to lean, particularly it's meetups: Lean is about holding each other accountable to ones goals. It is a motivational tool - in that sense, it's amazing that Ries was able to market it so!

I'm looking forward to exploring more lean meetups and meeting more people here in Toronto.