Grace wrote a great post about idea creation and making sure to act when inspiration strikes.  I have this happen to me ALL THE TIME and I am always jotting down cool ideas wherever I can.  I honestly have a problem concentrating if I don’t write them down, because they will be bouncing around inside of my head all day.  But, I wanted to take her post one step further, I created a theoretical Coinstar for the mind.

What happens to ideas once they are written down in a notebook?  I have a lot of pieces of paper floating around my desk and I have been trying to figure out what to do with them all.  During one of these crazy Mid-Atlantic snow days, I sat down and created a system to organize them.

The purpose of the system was to filter all of my crazy ideas to reach my goals.  Jenny Blake wrote a great post about automating her money, I thought I could use that system with my random ideas.  So first I sat down and thought about what I want to achieve in the next few years.  I thought about what types of ideas I usually have and my goals and connected them all together.  Behold, the idea flowchart.

(Picture of the flowchart on my wall, in all of it’s nerdery…)

The picture is kind of small, so I am going to give you the gist of my the flowchart.  Once ideas pop into my head, I frantically scribble these ideas onto any piece of paper that I can find.  From here, there are four possible paths the idea can take.

Watch/Read/Listen/Eat/Buy Notebook – This notebook is pretty self explanatory.  I write down things to watch on television or the movies, books and articles to read, new music to listen to, things to buy at the grocery store and miscellaneous things that I need to buy at the store.  This is actually a pretty common tactic used to spend less money.  The logic behind the trick is that if you write it down what you would like to buy instead of buying it right away, it makes you think more critically about your purchases.  For me, the watch is replaced with Netflix, read is replaced with Amazon.com, and listen also lives in my iTunes wish list.

Business Idea Notebook – Business ideas and brainstorms go into my business idea notebook that I keep at my desk.  This where a lot of my ideas are going, because most of my interest lately has been in business.  Maybe for you it is a home decorating notebook, a dog training tip notebook, or a notebook with ideas for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters.

Google Docs – My Google documents account is used for reference, book notes, business strategies and cool quotes that I want to remember.  Also, if there are some reference documents for ideas, I will keep them in Google Docs.

Free Time, Long Term Tasks – I keep a list of random tasks and phone calls that I should make when I have the time to do them.  That is where most of the rest of my jotted notes will go.  “Remember to call Comcast and tell them to come out and service their terrible cable modem.”

Now this all seems kind of OCD, maybe my engineering training has started to work its way through.  What do you guys think about this system?  Is it a great thing or have I developed a case of cabin fever?  I would love to hear in the comments.

(Peyton, the quarterback who never misreads a defense, misread late in the fourth quarter and lost the game for the Colts in Super Bowl XVI)

Obviously, the biggest story out of the sports world today was the Super Bowl highlights and the champion New Orleans Saints. N’orleans played a great game and had many game-changing plays. But most of the debate centered around the mistakes made by Indianapolis Colts players. One of the moments in the game that played over and over on ESPN was the drop by wide receiver Pierre Garcon. Pierre started to anticipate getting hit and lost his concentration while trying unsuccessfully to catch the ball. The other mistake was Peyton’s fourth quarter interception that was returned for a touchdown to all but win the game for New Orleans. Both mistakes changed the momentum of the game and led to the Saints’ eventual win.

What struck me was how much these plays were replayed, criticized and picked apart every half hour on each sports show. “What if someone would have looked at me while I worked for three hours and analyzed it with this amount of detail? I’m not sure how I would handle it,” I thought to myself. Some people would argue that this is the reason they get paid the big bucks, to handle the media scrutiny. I still argue that it would be tough to handle. Peyton was compared unfavorably to Super Bowl quarterbacks from the past, even though he won a championship four years ago!

Another story, definitely not as big as the Super Bowl but worthy of headlines, is the story about how Danica Patrick is headed to NASCAR. She has done pretty well in the Indy Racing League, but never dominated like others (Juan Pablo Montoya) who have made the jump. What’s most interesting is that all of you know who Danica is, but probably few of you know Juan Pablo. If not for her racing records, then you probably know her because she has her face plastered all over the GoDaddy Super Bowl advertisement every year. This most likely is what led to all of her criticism from people who might think that she has gotten by on her looks, even after she posted great results in a difficult professional racing league. There is no doubt that her introduction to NASCAR will bring even more undo criticism to the young driver.

Celebrities and professional athletes are used to this kind of public bashing. It is the widely accepted as the cost of being famous. But now criticism can be leveled at anyone with a website or email address. The internet and social media has given everyone their own voice, which is sometimes used to criticize.  As someone who writes on a blog, I open myself up to criticism every day, even if the criticism doesn’t seem justified. It is a fact of life in our new, highly connected society.

The thick skin of a celebrity is something that is critical to have when writing for everyone to see.  I have been working on my own thick skin as I interact more and more with people online.   There is no doubt that I can learn from Peyton, Danica or other widely criticized celebrities.

What kind of trouble have all of you had with criticism, online or in person? Do you think that relationships over the internet will get more or less civil as the social media removes anonymity from it’s interactions?  I would love to hear in the comments.

How do we know whether a product is broken and beyond fixing?  Did it perform its job?  Should I get a new model or keep this one?

Take a car for example.  In a sample size of one, you think that you are going to get an understanding of how well or how poorly something performs.  Most often, you base your entire idea of a brand based on that one sample size.  This is the problem that Ford and the other American automotive companies are facing now. Too many people have had bad experiences with previous cars that they never will get the idea or memory of their old car breaking out of their head.

My laptop broke last week, so I was recently in the market for another one.  The old Dell machine has served me well, but how do I know if lasting three years of daily use is enough?  I only have one example of their product on which to base my opinion.

So where should we look?  Maybe consumer reports are the answer, but I have heard they have become a little biased.  I might turn to one of my friends, but he only has one example of his own.  Should I just ask Twitter about the best brand?  If I followed their advice, I would have then had to have gone with a MacBook for twice the price.

Maybe I should talk with someone who repairs computers.  I followed the last piece of advice and went to the repair shop to make my final purchase.

A powerful force in getting people to keep using a product is the inertia of not wanting to change.  Most people talk about inertia as a bad thing, but it can sometimes be used for good.  Changing is hard to do and most people don’t like it.

Some people are early adopters that like to have the newest things all of the time. But I would argue that most customers will have the inertia to not switch away from your product right away, especially if they are having a good product experience.  Who wants to go to a new place to get your haircut when you have an old place that does it exactly how you want?

In the end, inertia won out for me.  I went to a great computer repair shop and store and ended up buying a new Dell laptop. What do you all think, was it inertia that kept me with Dell? Something else?  I’d be interested to hear in the comments.

(If I had a television, this is probably how my setup would look.)

When did Brett Favre get intercepted during the Saints – Vikings game?  What started Adrian Peterson’s fumbling meltdown?  How did Drew Brees engineer the game winning drive during overtime?

I didn’t know any of these answers yesterday because I don’t have cable or a television at my apartment.  I know who won, because one of my friends texted me the final score.  I could see most of the highlights while watching ESPN at the gym.  I was able to watch the Colts – Jets game at a sports bar by buying a beer and a cheeseburger during the three hours of the game.

Am I crazy for not having cable?  It’s a funny thing when you tell people that you don’t have cable.  They stare at you like you have two heads.  “No cable?  Wow, that’s weird!”  I’m not one of those people who looks down on people who watch television.  I plan on getting one when I am finished paying my bills from last year.  I am still in budget lockdown mode and wrestling with the idea of handing over 60 bucks a month to the cable company when I can get most of it for free on the internet.  So, as I wrestle with the decision, I decided to open it up to you all.  The pros and cons are broken down below:

Advantages to having cable:

• My entertainment is more intentional, meaning that I wont just turn the television on for white noise or when I am bored.  I have to search for shows on the internet or Hulu, which makes me more conscious of what I am watching and I am usually much more entertained.
• I don’t have to schedule my television watching time around when a show airs.  I know that this can be done with TiVo or a DVR, but that is also more money per month and isn’t factored into my argument.  Most shows can be found either on Hulu, Netflix or somewhere else on the internet.
• Extra (on average) 60 dollars in my pocket to invest in traveling, movies that I really enjoy, books or maybe even to save!
• It gives me more incentive to go to the gym because they have cable there.  OK, maybe this one is starting to reach a bit, but I did catch up on my SportsCenter earlier today while I was at the gym.

Disadvantages to not having cable:

• During football season, I miss Monday Night Football, my college football team’s games and SportsCenter every day.  This either causes me to miss most of my beloved sport, buy food at a bar or beg my friends to let me come over and watch.  However, now that I live in Maryland, most cable services will not play my favorite college or NFL team’s games anyway.  I would have to go to the bar to catch the games if I didn’t buy NFL ticket.
• If Hulu decides to charge for their content, my saving money without cable theory goes out the window, depending on how much Hulu decides they will charge.  All of what I watch now is either from Hulu or Netflix.  But after paying for Netflix and a burger and beer at the bar a few times every month (especially during football season), my current solution might be just as expensive as buying cable.

Is it crazy?  Does it even make sense to not have cable?  Am I actually saving money by not having it?  Should I be finding a better use of my time than debating with myself whether to buy cable?  I am really interested to hear what you all have to say; whether or not you have cable and why.  Let me know in the comments!

View outside 30 Rock

People ask if it was hard to pack up and move to a new city for my new job. The short answer is “No, it wasn’t.”  Although I have amazing friends in Michigan, I had been unemployed for a long time and was fortunate enough to find a job opportunity in Baltimore that was even better than the job I had been laid off from ten months prior.

So on paper, the decision was an obvious one. But I knew that I was going to need to learn to keep in touch with family and friends better than I had before because I was further away from all of them.  Just as importantly, I wanted to make sure that I get closer to the friends I have made primarily online, namely those of you reading this blog. You all will be my life support as I gain more face to face friends here in the area.

Two weeks ago, I was able to meet my best friend that I know only online in real life in New York city.  She was an amazing tour guide and even nicer in person than online!  I had a really great weekend and I am so glad that we have connected.  It’s amazing how social media allows you to meet people with whom you have so much in common and yet have never met because they live so far away.  The thing that surprised me most about that weekend, however, was the overwhelming feeling of calm that I had Sunday morning walking back from my hotel.

When I walked down the avenue through some random neighborhood in Brooklyn, I had an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be OK.  It was a different feeling than I have experienced in a long time.  Being without a job can wear you out mentally.  You put on a brave face and do your best to network, scour the internet and cut your bills.  But, in the back of your head, you are constantly pushing yourself to work harder.  During unemployment, weeks and sometimes months go by with no tangible results other than a phone log of dead-end job leads.

But the feeling today was different.  I had found easily the best omelet I have ever eaten at a corner diner, the sun was shining without a cloud in the sky, and I was on my way to see one of my good friends, whom I hadn’t met in person until the day before.  There was so much possibility around me, not only in the row homes in the neighborhood, but shown in people’s faces. It was a neighborhood full of hipster t-shirts and designer dog food being sold from vans parked on the sidewalk.  Much of the thriving cityscape was foreign to me, something I hadn’t seen since I was in Chicago.

For the first time, I felt like everything was going to be ok.  I was now among the employed and no longer had to think about the next time I would have to ask my parents for money.  The information about whether my car payment was on the 7th or the 8th of the month was no longer relevant to me because I now was sure I had enough money to cover it.  Grocery store trips were no longer stressful because I knew that my debit card wouldn’t be declined and I wouldn’t have to deduct items from the bill while people behind me in line grew impatient.

In the center of the picture is the Statue of Liberty from my view in Brooklyn.

Just then, waiting for the street signal to tell me I can cross, I look to my right and see the Statue of Liberty.  The statue must be miles away and looks minuscule from my point of view but her shape is unmistakable, shining from her location in the water near the city.  This is the first time that I have been to New York city, so this is the closest that I have been to the statue in person and I am surprised by how shiny it is from this far away.

“Things are going to work out,” I tell myself again.  Then I notice that the signal has changed and continue my journey down the avenue with an ear to ear smile.

Matt is one of the first people I connected when I started blogging and experimenting with social media.  I am at awe at both his work ethic and the community he has been able to build at Life Without Pants.  So when he asked who would like him to write a guest post as part of his 50 blog grand tour, I jumped at the chance to participate.  When he agreed to write me a post, he asked me what topic I would like him to focus on while writing the post.  It turns out that I was feeling like a wise-ass that day, so I repeated the line from Billy Madison: “I choose…Business Ethics.”  To my surprise, he was like, “Yea!  That’s great!  I could write a great post about that!”  That great post is below, as part of the Guest Blog Grand Tour. Subscribe to the Life Without Pants blog RSS feed and follow him on Twitter to keep in touch!

Odds are, if you graduated with a business degree, Business Ethics was part of your curriculum. For a semester, we’re instructed on the right (and more importantly wrong) ways to do business. But somewhere along our path, like a lost puppy, many business owners and professionals lose their way, and the line between what is and isn’t ethical behavior begins to blur.

What I’ve seen firsthand, in several instances, is a common pattern within the “corporate” environment. At a business’s initiation, relationships are golden – they serve as the foundation for any business to establish itself and grow upon. But once some success is achieved, once a company gets a taste of fame and fortune, those relationships that were so important gradually become less and less of a focus.

I spent some time as an account rep at a large ad agency before my move to Chicago earlier this year – a company that defined what it meant to build up outstanding relationships, and then break them down. It seemed so crazy to me that a company could be so willing to abuse their hard earned partnerships – and what I witnessed was the systematic burning of bridges. When one person wouldn’t agree to terms, we’d pull out almost every trick in the book to get the best results.

Our results were top notch –  what we delivered to our clients could not be beat. But at what expense? How many people would we have to piss off to get our way? How many promises would we have to break? Not only were we damaging our reputation, we were crossing the line into unethical behavior.

This type of business may very well be efficient for a while – but as the old saying goes, what goes around comes around – and eventually – maybe not today – maybe not 5 years from now, but eventually, abusing long-term relationships will come back to bite you in the ass.

A lot of big business owners should think back to their college days – back to their semester of Business Ethics. And think back to how their business all began –  when they gave a damn about relationships and valued how important they were to their current success.

Who’s doing it right? The Zappos example rings true again. You want to talk about a company who puts relationships and dare I say, “fun” as the core of their businesses success? Look no further than what Zappos has accomplished. A company founded by a group of friends, and through the years, up until their near-billion dollar sale to Amazon, an organization who never lost sight of their core values. Have you ever heard anyone question Zappos ethics? Exactly…they must be doing something right.

That’s not to say there won’t be temptation along the way to wander down an unethical path. But be careful who you hurt – you may end up on Steve Buscemi’s “People to Kill” list ala Billy Madison.