Productivity tips for managing your email inbox effectively

Filed in Uncategorized, October 7, 2005, 1:00 am by

Like everyone, I have been grappling with the problem of trying to manage the torrent of emails that hit my inbox (spam filtered out automatically, of course) every day.  I  came across this superb article by Merlin Mann in Macworld (Via Jeremy Zawodny). I immediately implemented Merlin’s suggestions but i found the cognitive cost of maintaining this folder structure a bit much (caveat emptor – this method may work for some, but it did not for me).  But I found the overall concept very useful. So I redesigned the approach a bit to fit my needs. I created 2 folders @action and @waiting (the @ prefix added so that these 2 folders appear at the top of my folder structure in MS Outlook). Whenever I receive an email, i do one of 3 things –  if I can respond to it immediately, I do so. If not, I move it to the @action folder.  If its an email that indicates action to be taken by someone else, I move it to the @waiting folder. When I send an email, if I its something I need to follow up for action by someone else, I move it to the @waiting folder. Whenever, I find time, I keep going through the @action and @waiting folders and keep paring them down. I can’t say I am perfect now, but I feel I have a better handle on my emails and I am following up better.  Since I use a blackberry and it allows you to file an email to a folder, this method is very useful. If you are looking for another technique, Priya Raju uses MS Outlook’s follow up flags to flag emails for follow up. That does not work for me because blackberry does not support it. References:
1. Rashmi Sinha has written a brilliant post on the cognitive cost of tagging which is analogous to what i felt when i had a more complex folder structure.

SkypeBay is looking more and more like Meg Whitman’s Master Stroke

Filed in Uncategorized, October 4, 2005, 1:00 am by ,

The dust is slowly settling on the Skype-eBay wedlock – which left many of us strategy observers scratching our heads (the sky high valuation is a different matter, though). Om Malik does not like the deal [But he has a good round up of opinions from many experts].  As the details slowly emerge, this is looking like a game-changing event. 1. First, Erick Schonfeld caught my attention with his brilliant hypothesis Skype+PayPal = Microbank.  We all know that PayPal does have a longtail problem and I had already theorized about Google chasing PayPal’s Longtail. 2. Skype announces a marketplace where you can use Skype Credits to buy products/services. (Via Murli – he has some interesting thoughts on this). 3. Couple of weeks back, Carlo posted an interesting article on Techdirt about how Prepaid Cellphone Airtime Credits is emerging as a currency in developing nations. People are using these credits to settle debts etc. Now if you put all of this together, its easy to see how Skype Credits could become the new micropayment currency we have all been waiting for. The beauty of this is that, you can transfer funds to your PayPal account from your regular bank account for free.
Therefore, if Skype Credits account is linked to your PayPal account, you can easily convert regular money for Skype Credits. In the reverse way, if you can earn Skype Credits through your services/products, you can either transfer it back to your bank account through Paypal (for a small fee) or you can use it to buy other provider’s services (for a very small fee for the provider), you have a well-designed micropayment platform.   We can fully expect Skype Credits to be the currency of choice for so much stuff on the Internet, that we can’t reasonably charge for, due to the transaction fee costs. Especially the developing nations may adopt this more rapidly. In summary, I think eBay has truly solved PayPal’s Longtail problem and is positioning itself to be the key toll booth on the Internet leveraging Paypal’s penetration into the e-commerce payments marketplace.  I think the sky is really the limit depending on how well Skype Credits are marketed as a currency in the physical world. Notes:
1. Skype can be used from Cell Phones using IPDrum (Via Engadget).  Since this solution still needs a computer, which is a problem in developing nations, Skype needs to come up with a BREW/J2ME application that can be installed onto the cell phone that can use the GPRS/EDGE/EVDO data services of the cell phone network. 2. Previous attempts in developing an alternate currency to solve the micropayments problem like Flooz, Beenz etc. failed.

Google may be about to one-up Yahoo’s My Web 2.0 with Star Search

Filed in Fiction, October 3, 2005, 10:09 pm by

Decaffeinated has an interesting write-up on Google Star Search – a new social bookmarking service to be introduced shortly. Considering that Yahoo’s My Web 2.0 is a bit slow, Google may have an upper hand, if it does deliver a speedy one.

Unsung Blogger of the Week #5

Filed in Unsung Blogger.., October 2, 2005, 12:14 pm by

This time I decided to cast the net farther east. This week’s featured blogger is a Filipino – Dean Francis Alfar. Dean Francis Alfar is an award-winning (about award) novelist, fictionist, playwright and comic book creator based in the Philippines.  His blog, Notes from the Peanut Gallery, turned 3 years old last month. Though, he is not exactly unsung, he may not be a familiar name in this part of the world. Text from the e-mail interview below: [Be sure to read Dean’s Guerilla Techniques. Its very interesting and useful. – Ed.]

1.  What motivates you to keep blogging? I think of my blog as many things: an online journal of my thoughts and opinions, a workbook for stories I’m developing, an exercise book for little prose or play experiments in form or manner, a scrapbook of things that affect the daily rhythms of my life – as a writer, husband, father and businessman. I blog to unwind, to exercise my creative muscles and to be able to have something I can read a few years down the line – to remind me of how I was and what mattered then. 2.  How do you identify the ideas that you post? Are there any secrets you can share? Sometimes I write vignettes, little stories that I can later use as a
springboard for something longer.  These ideas come out of the blue or are constructed piece by piece.  Once in a while, I compose an entire story on the blog.  Last year, I joined NaNoWrimo and posted a novel  (“Salamanca”) as I wrote it in the span of a month.  It will be published next year and may become a feature film. There is always something to write about, but that’s when personal capacity (or preferences) come in.  There are things bloggers choose not to post for personal reasons.  But I find that honesty makes for riveting content. 3.  What methods do you employ to overcome the “Blogger’s Block”? The occasional Blogger’s Block plus the demands of business and family life on time often make blogging a challenge.  So when writing becomes difficult, I engage in guerilla tactics, something I apply both for my creative writing and blogging.   Here’s a bit I wrote about it: Write when you can.  You are not working or studying or are
otherwise impossibly busy all the time.  Once in a while, there is a lull during the day.  Take advantage of it.  It could be 10 minutes or your lunch hour, but take it.  Instead of surfing aimlessly, start up your word processor and get down to business.  You need to learn to shut out distractions for this brief duration and focus on the task at hand. Have small goals.  You do not have the time to whip up a short story or a novel or a deep scathing multi-post blog essay indicting the government.  Choose something small, something that you can reasonable complete before your sequestered time runs out. Focus on a single idea and write a blog entry.  Challenge yourself with an exercise in point-of-view and write a vignette.  Toying around with dialogue?  Write a short scene or a sketch with two voices.  Read an interesting book last night?  Take one of the points that interested you and talk about just that.  If you like Flash
Fiction, use the writing parameters of 55 words and build a mood. Do not try to shoot the moon.  Time is against you and it’s running out fast. Write without editing.  You need to think fast and write quickly.
Ignore the occasional misspellings.  Block out the agonizing subject-verb disagreement.  Dispense with the ten dollar words unless they come naturally to you.  There will be time to edit later. Consider this your initial draft and keep in mind that if anyone tells you that they get everything right in their first draft they’re lying. The danger here is in being bogged down by glaring flaws.  But let me tell you, as you grow proficient in this technique, your automatic self-editing skills will improve as well, and it becomes easier to just move on, to get the next word down, to complete the phrase, then the sentence, then the paragraph.  There will be time for an
editing pass later on. Stop when you must.  You may not have complete control over the time you allocated.  Often, in fact, something will come up that demands your attention.  At this point, save your work (as a draft if you’re typing directly into your blog) and terminate the exercise. Do not bargain for time.  Do not attempt to finish things if they are unfinished.  You can always come back later to complete or fix things up when you have time. Spit and polish.  When time permits, retrieve the fruits of your
guerilla activities.  This is when you let your inner editor take charge. Strip, correct, delete, rewrite – but do it quickly.  This is a very short piece we are talking about, not your masterwork.  Learn to do this phase fast.  Then post it.  Or otherwise save it. The benefits of this technique are manifold:  you learn to make time
to write, you indulge your need to write, you learn to focus, you learn to write quickly, and you learn to conduct quality assurance on your writing efficiently. Note that these points apply on to guerilla writing – things are
different during the times you partition vast amounts of time for writing, like when you have an entire evening to write an essay or a short story. 4. What are your Top 5 Unsung Blogs ? (please include only those that are not in any Top 100/500 lists). Contradiction in Terms  – Nikki Alfar, author and wife
Eating the Sun – Ian Casocot, fictionist and literary critic
The Brass Buddha – Andrew Drilon, a young talented writer
Meditations in an Emergency – Christopher Barzak, one of my favorite speculative fiction writers
The Grin without a Cat  – Banzai Cat, proficient reader 5. What are your current book recommendations ? (1 or 2 is sufficient). Infidels : A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam by Andrew Wheatcroft – I just can’t put this fascinating historical analysis down.  It’s already inspired me to write a couple of stories set in Moorish Spain.

6. What is your view of the state of blogging in the Phillippines?
There is a growing community of bloggers – passionate, dedicated and quite entertaining.  The Filipino blogosphere is exciting terrain to explore. [You can explore some of the Filipino Blogosphere on this Meta Blog -Ed.]

96 BITSian Bloggers spotted so far!

Filed in General Interest, October 1, 2005, 8:58 am by

I was trolling the blogosphere for locating other BITSian bloggers and landed on Rathish Balakrishnan’s compilation of all the BITSian  bloggers that have surfaced so far. Excellent work Rathish. I have created a dedicated page on our blog with the list and added it to our blogroll. If any BITSian blogger wants to add themselves to this list, please leave a comment on this blog or on Rathish’s. We plan to exchange notes and maintain this list.