Sunday, October 31, 2004
IS OUTLOOK MUCH MORE THAN A PIM? NO! IS THERE A BETTER DESIGN FOR A MASS-MARKETED ORGANIZER? YES!
BACKGROUND: I read the other day that demand for handheld devices is down. Wireless Mag. Decline of PDA. Focal point of the story is this statement from David Linsalata, an analyst at IDC (International Data Corporation) in Framingham, MA: "In the face of intense competition from converged mobile devices capable of performing basic personal information management tasks, the worldwide handheld device market continues to struggle to evolve beyond its primary role as a PIM (personal information management) device."
THESIS: By the year 2010, we will be essentially web-based. Just as the handheld is in decline because it does little more than act as a PIM, so Outlook will be a mis-fit on the web. The consumer will demand that web-based organizers provide not only ubiquity and sharing, but that critical data be organized in a compelling format that "brings it all together". In other words, ideas, concepts, goals, directions, to-dos and plans brought together in a simple PIM-like interface that is light years beyond the DOS-based PIM interface that still dominates the market, 15 years beyond its birth. In the world of the next generation Organizer, implementing what we call The MasterList Paradigm or VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application), Outlook will be an anachronism. Just a PIM, with an email component. The field for the dominant web-based organizer is wide-open.
HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF PIM DESIGN:
1. First there was DOS. Calendars on computers was not a big stretch. The focus in the hard copy world of the calendar: planning "The Day", the week, and the month. A pure transference from hard copy world to software.
2. Contacts were also important. The focus in the hard copy world of contacts was something like The Rolodex(TM) where you could rapidly flip alphabetized cards to stay on top of your contacts and associate information with them in notes. Likewise, a pure transference from hard copy world to software.
3. But what about the third component of the PIM tri-part productivity suite, the to-do list? Where did that come from? Pure fiction. Think back pre-DOS, pre-PC, pre-1989. Who do you know that ever made a universal to-do list cutting across all their projects? The closest thing to that was the file card "tickler" systems that included precise timing of to-dos across multiple projects. More evolved in that direction, but very complex, was the Franklin Day Planner which allowed for precise timing and sequencing of to-dos, combined with a calendar element. True tickler and sequencing system designs never made it into the PIM. Indeed, the only to-do lists known on the planet back in 1989, pre-PC, were usually topic and project specific. Garden to-do list for garden project. Jones to-do list for Jones project. Grocery list for groceries. Separate lists for separate projects! Duh! Isn't it obvious that the way we really work in terms of to-dos NEVER got transferred into PIM design like calendars and contacts did? The legacy PIM design we are stuck with in Outlook and virtually every other "day planner" is a sham and leaves us all hanging when it comes to tools for managing our "real" to-do lists.
TAKE THE MASTERLIST CHALLENGE: Take a look at your computer to-do list right now. Get into a contemplative mode just for a second or two and visualize your 3 most important personal and professional projects. Now, look at your PIM to-do list, be it Outlook or some other PIM.
* Is there a single to-do listed in your PIM to-do list for your most important project?
* If any to-dos are listed in your PIM for your most important project are they visually separated in a grouping that "sets" them off from to-dos related to specific other projects?
* If there is more than one to-do for any project, are they sequentially organized?
IF THE ANSWER TO ANY OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS IS NO: Then, you can see the problem. A PIM to-do list, including Outlook's, is really no to-do list whatsoever. As a practical expedient, you are probably keeping track of the hundreds of to-dos for the dozens of your personal and professional projects on paper, on word-processing documents, or even on spreadsheets specifically dedicated to each project.
Why should your "real" to-do lists be kept the old-fashioned way when they could be integrated into your software Organizer if only your organzer wasn't a PIM, but truly utilized the relational data base power of your computer to organize, slice, and dice the most important aspect of all your work: your to-do lists.
That's why we invented The MasterList and integrated it with Outlook and your email so that you can track everything on a "project" basis, as easily as you can look at a calendar. Only The MasterList provides "true" project to-do lists that merge into a universal tickler we call the My Day List. Indeed, The MasterList is a "real" to-do list system for the software age.
As shocking as this may seem, Microsoft still doesn't get it. In terms of a to-do list tool, Microsoft Outlook is still offering the feebled PIM design, vintage 1989. What's worse, this design, although virtually useless, has become the entrenched paradigm. This vintage paradigm will fail on the web.
That's why The MasterList is still in play. That's why we are looking for major web-server players as partners and/or Venture Capital to take us to the next level, the web-server Organizer, where the project-centric matrix we propose for VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application), aka The MasterList Paradigm, will trump all PIM-based initiatives, including Outlook.
So, if you are a player interested in working with us to take our design to the next level on the web, or just plain anxious to try our PC-based design to bring all of your personal and professional concerns and interests together in an intelligent way that allows you to see everything sorted as projects, integrated with your Outlook PIM, and with relational database tools that take you to selected overviews of the big picture, why not try us, buy us, or email me to discuss how we do it!
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
BACKGROUND: I read the other day that demand for handheld devices is down. Wireless Mag. Decline of PDA. Focal point of the story is this statement from David Linsalata, an analyst at IDC (International Data Corporation) in Framingham, MA: "In the face of intense competition from converged mobile devices capable of performing basic personal information management tasks, the worldwide handheld device market continues to struggle to evolve beyond its primary role as a PIM (personal information management) device."
THESIS: By the year 2010, we will be essentially web-based. Just as the handheld is in decline because it does little more than act as a PIM, so Outlook will be a mis-fit on the web. The consumer will demand that web-based organizers provide not only ubiquity and sharing, but that critical data be organized in a compelling format that "brings it all together". In other words, ideas, concepts, goals, directions, to-dos and plans brought together in a simple PIM-like interface that is light years beyond the DOS-based PIM interface that still dominates the market, 15 years beyond its birth. In the world of the next generation Organizer, implementing what we call The MasterList Paradigm or VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application), Outlook will be an anachronism. Just a PIM, with an email component. The field for the dominant web-based organizer is wide-open.
HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF PIM DESIGN:
1. First there was DOS. Calendars on computers was not a big stretch. The focus in the hard copy world of the calendar: planning "The Day", the week, and the month. A pure transference from hard copy world to software.
2. Contacts were also important. The focus in the hard copy world of contacts was something like The Rolodex(TM) where you could rapidly flip alphabetized cards to stay on top of your contacts and associate information with them in notes. Likewise, a pure transference from hard copy world to software.
3. But what about the third component of the PIM tri-part productivity suite, the to-do list? Where did that come from? Pure fiction. Think back pre-DOS, pre-PC, pre-1989. Who do you know that ever made a universal to-do list cutting across all their projects? The closest thing to that was the file card "tickler" systems that included precise timing of to-dos across multiple projects. More evolved in that direction, but very complex, was the Franklin Day Planner which allowed for precise timing and sequencing of to-dos, combined with a calendar element. True tickler and sequencing system designs never made it into the PIM. Indeed, the only to-do lists known on the planet back in 1989, pre-PC, were usually topic and project specific. Garden to-do list for garden project. Jones to-do list for Jones project. Grocery list for groceries. Separate lists for separate projects! Duh! Isn't it obvious that the way we really work in terms of to-dos NEVER got transferred into PIM design like calendars and contacts did? The legacy PIM design we are stuck with in Outlook and virtually every other "day planner" is a sham and leaves us all hanging when it comes to tools for managing our "real" to-do lists.
TAKE THE MASTERLIST CHALLENGE: Take a look at your computer to-do list right now. Get into a contemplative mode just for a second or two and visualize your 3 most important personal and professional projects. Now, look at your PIM to-do list, be it Outlook or some other PIM.
* Is there a single to-do listed in your PIM to-do list for your most important project?
* If any to-dos are listed in your PIM for your most important project are they visually separated in a grouping that "sets" them off from to-dos related to specific other projects?
* If there is more than one to-do for any project, are they sequentially organized?
IF THE ANSWER TO ANY OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS IS NO: Then, you can see the problem. A PIM to-do list, including Outlook's, is really no to-do list whatsoever. As a practical expedient, you are probably keeping track of the hundreds of to-dos for the dozens of your personal and professional projects on paper, on word-processing documents, or even on spreadsheets specifically dedicated to each project.
Why should your "real" to-do lists be kept the old-fashioned way when they could be integrated into your software Organizer if only your organzer wasn't a PIM, but truly utilized the relational data base power of your computer to organize, slice, and dice the most important aspect of all your work: your to-do lists.
That's why we invented The MasterList and integrated it with Outlook and your email so that you can track everything on a "project" basis, as easily as you can look at a calendar. Only The MasterList provides "true" project to-do lists that merge into a universal tickler we call the My Day List. Indeed, The MasterList is a "real" to-do list system for the software age.
As shocking as this may seem, Microsoft still doesn't get it. In terms of a to-do list tool, Microsoft Outlook is still offering the feebled PIM design, vintage 1989. What's worse, this design, although virtually useless, has become the entrenched paradigm. This vintage paradigm will fail on the web.
That's why The MasterList is still in play. That's why we are looking for major web-server players as partners and/or Venture Capital to take us to the next level, the web-server Organizer, where the project-centric matrix we propose for VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application), aka The MasterList Paradigm, will trump all PIM-based initiatives, including Outlook.
So, if you are a player interested in working with us to take our design to the next level on the web, or just plain anxious to try our PC-based design to bring all of your personal and professional concerns and interests together in an intelligent way that allows you to see everything sorted as projects, integrated with your Outlook PIM, and with relational database tools that take you to selected overviews of the big picture, why not try us, buy us, or email me to discuss how we do it!
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
Sunday, October 24, 2004
HAS GOOGLE GOT THE DESKTOP RIGHT YET? NO!
CAN MICROSOFT STILL GET IT RIGHT? YES!
BACKGROUND: After shredding the clunkiness of Microsoft's Windows Explorer folder structure and Find function, Rob Pegoraro writes today in his column Fast Forward in the Washington Post: "Google Desktop eliminates the need to use the often slow and clumsy search tools built into Microsoft's Web, e-mail and Office software, the usual backstops to the Windows file-search utility -- for example, Outlook's "find" command, which by default looks through only the current mail folder, or Internet Explorer's history-search option, which scans only the titles and addresses of recently viewed pages, not their content. The effect of this is to abolish that "where'd I put this?" confusion that regularly sends me through the "find" or "search" modes of my word processor, e-mail client and Web browser to locate the item that I had read in one program or another a few days ago."
THESIS: Anything that you can search on your desktop was already created, received, or found by you once. If it had been tagged, labeled, meta-tagged, or logically stored at the moment you found it, Google Desktop Search would be a minor backup utility to a true Logical Search function. The MasterList design paradigm provides a framework for logical search, which with embedded Desktop Search (as backup) harnessed to Logical Search would make The MasterList's planned VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application) unstoppable. If Microsoft adopted this plan, it would be No. 1 on the web, with $1 billion in sure-thing additional actual revenue annually and $5 to $10 billion in new offshoot money easily achievable per annum.
We at The MasterList have that plan at the ready. We are not about to give away the Candy Store as to all the design nuances. But, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft visionaries wherever you are, let's face it. Windows Explorer, as it currently exists, is in effect dead. Windows Explorer was NEVER a good metaphor for handling computer objects such as docs, files, emails, and URL's because it didn't parallel consumer expectations. What we have heard about Longhorn does not convince us you have got it right yet. It's time to do what you should have done in the first place instead of giving us that silly icon-ated Desktop and the purposeless folder structure of Windows Explorer. You can do it right now with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. But, you still need to have foresight.
THE QUESTION IS: What's the winning paradigm when you factor in web-servers and desktop search as an overlay to how applications are utilized at the desktop level? Whoever answers that is No. 1 in the year 2010. It could be Microsoft. It could be Google. Yahoo. A-9/Amazon. Plaxo. Anybody. But only the winning paradigm will win. It is a FALSE assumption by Microsoft to assume that its traditional desktop architecture can simply "adapt" to solve the problem of staying number 1 when the web-server, not the PC, forms the fundaments of the future Operating System. It is EQUALLY FALSE for Google to assume that extrapolating web-search to the desktop gets the job done.
There were lessons to be learned when IBM missed the boat on what the OS on a PC was really all about. Those lessons apply here. Read Clayton Christensen. Change means changes. Get the point or perish. History of the world. History of all technology. End of story. Microsoft is not immune.
A computer object is a metaphysical object that is metaphorically in parallel to a physical object. As such, it can be best handled, stored, searched, and tracked by an operation conducted at the moment it is first created, received, or found, based on tagging, meta-tagging, or indexing that parallels how humans do the same thing with physical objects. It's the failure to design Windows Explorer and Outlook in parallel with normal human expectations about the behavior of physical objects, and the how-to of "handling" them, that got Microsoft into this dilemma in the first place. They got away with it as the only game in town. But now new technologies, new possibilities, and new competitors have forced a new light on the subject
To get it right, Microsoft, or anyone else who wants to be the dominant player by 2010, needs to design a logical matrix that works behind the scenes without forcing the user into labor intensive, repetitive "labeling" such as G-Mail, or simply casting your found and created objects into the computer ocean hoping Google Desktop Search can dredge them out.
So, what's the answer? Aha. As stated, no Candy Store giveaways just yet. Only to say. The MasterList embodies the answer.
MYSTERIOUS TRUTH: If where you start defines where you are going, you can always look back, get back, and still go ahead, logically. The MasterList system is a design paradigm that provides that, and in its next manifestation, as VIDA, with selective destkop search tied to it, it will trump undifferentiated desktop search. It will be better, simpler, and more logical. It will provide real focus, not play focus.
CONCLUSION: If you are at Microsoft, or a player with any of the top web-server farms on the planet, or big-time Venture Capital, we are sending you the usual communications about all this through the key-holes you have provided for such communiques. In the meantime, should you chance to read this post, please email me to learn more. We're serious. We really believe that The MasterList design paradigm when it has embedded desktop search (in feathered levels), and operates as a VIDA tied to web-servers, providing ubiquity from me to me at home and the office and me to you as ad hoc teams across the internet, with a super sweet Outlook tie-in, will render Google and all-comers irrelevant. (OK. We need to do a surface make-over to be sky blue or prairie grass brown, with cooler buttons, and skinnable. And, we have a new trick up our sleeve called WhiteBoard that we haven't implemented yet, but are saving for the web-based version.)
So, if you are a player, or just plain you, trying to be the ringmaster of your life, to get organized and get a handle on your personal action arena, try us, buy us, or email me to see how we do it.
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
CAN MICROSOFT STILL GET IT RIGHT? YES!
BACKGROUND: After shredding the clunkiness of Microsoft's Windows Explorer folder structure and Find function, Rob Pegoraro writes today in his column Fast Forward in the Washington Post: "Google Desktop eliminates the need to use the often slow and clumsy search tools built into Microsoft's Web, e-mail and Office software, the usual backstops to the Windows file-search utility -- for example, Outlook's "find" command, which by default looks through only the current mail folder, or Internet Explorer's history-search option, which scans only the titles and addresses of recently viewed pages, not their content. The effect of this is to abolish that "where'd I put this?" confusion that regularly sends me through the "find" or "search" modes of my word processor, e-mail client and Web browser to locate the item that I had read in one program or another a few days ago."
THESIS: Anything that you can search on your desktop was already created, received, or found by you once. If it had been tagged, labeled, meta-tagged, or logically stored at the moment you found it, Google Desktop Search would be a minor backup utility to a true Logical Search function. The MasterList design paradigm provides a framework for logical search, which with embedded Desktop Search (as backup) harnessed to Logical Search would make The MasterList's planned VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application) unstoppable. If Microsoft adopted this plan, it would be No. 1 on the web, with $1 billion in sure-thing additional actual revenue annually and $5 to $10 billion in new offshoot money easily achievable per annum.
We at The MasterList have that plan at the ready. We are not about to give away the Candy Store as to all the design nuances. But, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft visionaries wherever you are, let's face it. Windows Explorer, as it currently exists, is in effect dead. Windows Explorer was NEVER a good metaphor for handling computer objects such as docs, files, emails, and URL's because it didn't parallel consumer expectations. What we have heard about Longhorn does not convince us you have got it right yet. It's time to do what you should have done in the first place instead of giving us that silly icon-ated Desktop and the purposeless folder structure of Windows Explorer. You can do it right now with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. But, you still need to have foresight.
THE QUESTION IS: What's the winning paradigm when you factor in web-servers and desktop search as an overlay to how applications are utilized at the desktop level? Whoever answers that is No. 1 in the year 2010. It could be Microsoft. It could be Google. Yahoo. A-9/Amazon. Plaxo. Anybody. But only the winning paradigm will win. It is a FALSE assumption by Microsoft to assume that its traditional desktop architecture can simply "adapt" to solve the problem of staying number 1 when the web-server, not the PC, forms the fundaments of the future Operating System. It is EQUALLY FALSE for Google to assume that extrapolating web-search to the desktop gets the job done.
There were lessons to be learned when IBM missed the boat on what the OS on a PC was really all about. Those lessons apply here. Read Clayton Christensen. Change means changes. Get the point or perish. History of the world. History of all technology. End of story. Microsoft is not immune.
A computer object is a metaphysical object that is metaphorically in parallel to a physical object. As such, it can be best handled, stored, searched, and tracked by an operation conducted at the moment it is first created, received, or found, based on tagging, meta-tagging, or indexing that parallels how humans do the same thing with physical objects. It's the failure to design Windows Explorer and Outlook in parallel with normal human expectations about the behavior of physical objects, and the how-to of "handling" them, that got Microsoft into this dilemma in the first place. They got away with it as the only game in town. But now new technologies, new possibilities, and new competitors have forced a new light on the subject
To get it right, Microsoft, or anyone else who wants to be the dominant player by 2010, needs to design a logical matrix that works behind the scenes without forcing the user into labor intensive, repetitive "labeling" such as G-Mail, or simply casting your found and created objects into the computer ocean hoping Google Desktop Search can dredge them out.
So, what's the answer? Aha. As stated, no Candy Store giveaways just yet. Only to say. The MasterList embodies the answer.
MYSTERIOUS TRUTH: If where you start defines where you are going, you can always look back, get back, and still go ahead, logically. The MasterList system is a design paradigm that provides that, and in its next manifestation, as VIDA, with selective destkop search tied to it, it will trump undifferentiated desktop search. It will be better, simpler, and more logical. It will provide real focus, not play focus.
CONCLUSION: If you are at Microsoft, or a player with any of the top web-server farms on the planet, or big-time Venture Capital, we are sending you the usual communications about all this through the key-holes you have provided for such communiques. In the meantime, should you chance to read this post, please email me to learn more. We're serious. We really believe that The MasterList design paradigm when it has embedded desktop search (in feathered levels), and operates as a VIDA tied to web-servers, providing ubiquity from me to me at home and the office and me to you as ad hoc teams across the internet, with a super sweet Outlook tie-in, will render Google and all-comers irrelevant. (OK. We need to do a surface make-over to be sky blue or prairie grass brown, with cooler buttons, and skinnable. And, we have a new trick up our sleeve called WhiteBoard that we haven't implemented yet, but are saving for the web-based version.)
So, if you are a player, or just plain you, trying to be the ringmaster of your life, to get organized and get a handle on your personal action arena, try us, buy us, or email me to see how we do it.
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
Saturday, October 23, 2004
AT LEAST I'M NOT RADIOACTIVE
STORY: I've got something to say, something to do, something I was born to do, and by golly I guess I plan to do it. I suppose it's time I start screaming from the rooftops. Let's face it. This blog is my soapbox for The MasterList, in its current manifestation, and for a future vision for a desktop application that is web-based, which I call VIDA.
FIVE WHYS:
1. The MasterList is the one and only software tool that brings your life and work together at a single point of reference. Call that a "list", "masterlist", "matrix", "screen", "window".
2. We can only handle so much off the top of our mind, as we survey the everyday "stuff" of our lives. Call that stuff "action", "field of action", "complexity landscape", "mess", "chaos", "inventory".
3. We are either action-oriented or we are not. If we are passive, then none of this matters. We float on our suspensors, walk on our Air Jordans, drive our SUV's, flit from whim to whim with no goal or direction, be good little consumers, and float, flow, sometimes react and re-orient, and stand by our choices. By the way, if that's how we really are, then that's why we like "search". There's got to be some meaning in the fact that we use the term "browser" in this context. Hey. Are we serious or aren't we?
4. If we are action-oriented, there are always too many choices, too much to react to, and too little time to do it. We want flow, but we don't want to flow like leafs falling from the trees into a river of no return. We want to be able to get up, walkabout, change direction, re-orient in space and time, and choose.
5. Because, at base, we are action-oriented creatures, with minds that have unbelievable potential, that we all want to realize.
THESIS: The MasterList, as is, is the greatest tool for putting your mind into action.
THESIS: VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application), the web-based version incorporating The MasterList design for putting your mind into action, will be the greatest tool for helping people pull it all together and achieve max potential in their lives.
Like I said, I may be radiating enthusiasm, but at least I'm not radioactive. If you are interested in playing with, working with, exploring, trying, or supporting our vision of The MasterList, try it, buy it, , or Email me! to dialogue about it.
POST-SCRIPT: Ben Franklin stood in the rain, with a key on a kite, and "put it on the line". He also used his whacky persona Poor Richard as pulpit to seed a revolution. Nicola Tesla tamed lightning and, he not Edison, made the 20th Century possible as we know it. OK. I've got some ideas. Big 10 web-server providers on the planet! Yoo hoo! Please listen. This is not only about how to create the most fundamental application ever that will define for all-time the beauty, the scope, and the practicality of the web. Not only will it generate $1 billion dollars of sure-thing revenue per annum. Whoever adopts and takes the lead on our proposed VIDA design, incorporating The MasterList paradigm, also gets it right and makes the world a better more integrative place. Venture Capitalists, if you are reading, stepping forward to express your interest would be appreciated.
ADDENDUM: Jo-Anne, my partner, wishes me to note that I take my radioactivity metaphor from Madame Curie, who rolled up her sleeves and dug into experimenting with new science with world-class technological potential. I am up to my ears in working out my new ideas about VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application) applying The MasterList design matrix. When I say I am not radioactive, I imply radiance gone bad, like radioactivity did for Madame Curie. At The MasterList, we are still radiant about the potential of our paradigm, not radioactive.
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
STORY: I've got something to say, something to do, something I was born to do, and by golly I guess I plan to do it. I suppose it's time I start screaming from the rooftops. Let's face it. This blog is my soapbox for The MasterList, in its current manifestation, and for a future vision for a desktop application that is web-based, which I call VIDA.
FIVE WHYS:
1. The MasterList is the one and only software tool that brings your life and work together at a single point of reference. Call that a "list", "masterlist", "matrix", "screen", "window".
2. We can only handle so much off the top of our mind, as we survey the everyday "stuff" of our lives. Call that stuff "action", "field of action", "complexity landscape", "mess", "chaos", "inventory".
3. We are either action-oriented or we are not. If we are passive, then none of this matters. We float on our suspensors, walk on our Air Jordans, drive our SUV's, flit from whim to whim with no goal or direction, be good little consumers, and float, flow, sometimes react and re-orient, and stand by our choices. By the way, if that's how we really are, then that's why we like "search". There's got to be some meaning in the fact that we use the term "browser" in this context. Hey. Are we serious or aren't we?
4. If we are action-oriented, there are always too many choices, too much to react to, and too little time to do it. We want flow, but we don't want to flow like leafs falling from the trees into a river of no return. We want to be able to get up, walkabout, change direction, re-orient in space and time, and choose.
5. Because, at base, we are action-oriented creatures, with minds that have unbelievable potential, that we all want to realize.
THESIS: The MasterList, as is, is the greatest tool for putting your mind into action.
THESIS: VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application), the web-based version incorporating The MasterList design for putting your mind into action, will be the greatest tool for helping people pull it all together and achieve max potential in their lives.
Like I said, I may be radiating enthusiasm, but at least I'm not radioactive. If you are interested in playing with, working with, exploring, trying, or supporting our vision of The MasterList, try it, buy it, , or Email me! to dialogue about it.
POST-SCRIPT: Ben Franklin stood in the rain, with a key on a kite, and "put it on the line". He also used his whacky persona Poor Richard as pulpit to seed a revolution. Nicola Tesla tamed lightning and, he not Edison, made the 20th Century possible as we know it. OK. I've got some ideas. Big 10 web-server providers on the planet! Yoo hoo! Please listen. This is not only about how to create the most fundamental application ever that will define for all-time the beauty, the scope, and the practicality of the web. Not only will it generate $1 billion dollars of sure-thing revenue per annum. Whoever adopts and takes the lead on our proposed VIDA design, incorporating The MasterList paradigm, also gets it right and makes the world a better more integrative place. Venture Capitalists, if you are reading, stepping forward to express your interest would be appreciated.
ADDENDUM: Jo-Anne, my partner, wishes me to note that I take my radioactivity metaphor from Madame Curie, who rolled up her sleeves and dug into experimenting with new science with world-class technological potential. I am up to my ears in working out my new ideas about VIDA (virtual integrative desktop application) applying The MasterList design matrix. When I say I am not radioactive, I imply radiance gone bad, like radioactivity did for Madame Curie. At The MasterList, we are still radiant about the potential of our paradigm, not radioactive.
**************************************************
This post and all VIDA design ideas in this blog are copyrighted and are the intellectual property of Sumac Consulting Group, LLC and The MasterList.
**************************************************
Saturday, October 09, 2004
LEVELING YOUR WORKLOAD WITH THE MASTERLIST
Principle No. 4 of the Toyota Way = "Heijunka. Level out The Workload." We can do this on an assembly line by creating flow, regulating stockpiling through just-in-time delivery of inventory, dividing the line into segments that have equal time increments, and creating teams within line segments that know all the aspects of all jobs within their unit. This is a rational way to create flow and it helps level the workload.
But, just as importantly, Heijunka also includes rotation among different "setups" in a systematic way that aims at "leveling" the orders-not-yet-produced list rather than running one job for days, weeks, or even months. Orders not yet produced are the manufacturing equivalent of the white-collar to-do list. The key insight of Heijunka is that 250 orders for blue cars do not need to pile up for 3 weeks, simply because the line is setup to run a 3 week backlog of orders for 1200 red cars.
Leveling means flexible rotation of priorities to balance the workload.
With Heijunka, you can rotate and level the workload, without missing a beat as product flows down the line. It is not necessary to wait until the current "run" is finished to create intermittent tasking on variant product, without losing flow.
This principle can be translated out of the manufacturing field onto the white-collar assembly line. What is the "white collar assembly line"? Some call it The Invisible Assembly Line. Whether we are a manager of a service business, a consultant, lawyer, or any professional, or even just someone who has an excited commitment to anything (gardening, chess, sculpture), we are members of The Invisible Assembly Line. It is invisible, mostly, because its methods of production are complex and not easily reduced to rote.
What we on the White Collar Assembly Line are creating is intellectual or knowledge-based work product. Isn't a chess game an assemblage of moves that result in a winning or losing product? All of these moves are predictable, but they are so complex that human experts can still defeat computers in producing a winning product. The workers of the invisible assembly line are mostly experts whose work product is a highly complex assemblage of what is known, unknown, at hand, remote, tactical and sequenced, time-limited in competition with other projects that need attention, and subject to sudden change, attack, and conflict by peers, managers, and competitors. In contrast, on a production assembly line in manufacturing, we might be asked to produce the same 37 movements, 100 times a day in exact sequence. That's a time and motion system that is behaviorally "rote".
Nevertheless, the fact that there is a process of assemblage in knowledge-based production finds parallels with the manufacturing process and demands consideration of the idea that there may be equivalent problems and solutions from which lessons can be drawn.
In essence, as members of The Invisible Assembly Line, we are card-carrying members of a knowledge economy. A knowledge-based economy is like a guild of craftsman, not yet tethered to the machines of our production. In a knowledge-based economy, production involves systems, but they are not as easily defined in terms of time, motion, location, and sequential repeatability as in a manufacturing economy.
Knowledge-based product is relatively intangible, unlike a tactile manufactured product, which is physically, as opposed to intellectually, assembled. Because manufacturing is predominantly in the tangible realm, a production line is bound by the laws of physics as to how, where, and when the product can be best assembled. As a by-product, this tends to draw workers together into physically coherent teams. In contrast, as members of the knowledge guild, we are a loosely connected, dispersed workforce, as opposed to a tightly co-ordinated production unit. We may have more co-ordination of our professional goals and functions with people we hardly know thousands of miles away via the internet and email, than we do with colleagues 1 cubicle away.
So, looking at the assembly line analogy inherent in the Toyota Way as relates to manufacturing production, and trying to apply that to knowledge labor on The Invisible Line, how do we implement Principle No. 4, Leveling the Workload, in a way that reflects the intangible nature of our productivity in the knowledge-based economy?
First, we must tangibilize our knowledge. Where is it? Some of it is in emails and papers, as well as word processing documents that we can access from computers at our workstations. Some of it is in the vast repository of human knowledge that we can access through the internet, or by emailing, telephoning, or even walking down the hallway to discourse with our peers. Some of it is locked away in our minds, based on the cumulation of our training and experiences, and gets called upon as judgment, insight, evaluation, and decision-making.
The MasterList system is a unique, valuable, and simple way to tangibilize knowledge by harvesting it, gathering it, organizing it, and storing it in a relational database that makes disparate knowledge objects commonly accessible as a single set configured around the core of a centric theme, the humble "project".
Because The MasterList tangibilizes the production elements of knowledge-based work as text and links based on a kind of set-centric theory, driven by the definition of a project, it allows for the implementation of rational tools and methods, just like The Toyota Way does for manufacturing.
For example, if you have listed all potential tasks in The MasterList, that is exactly like knowing where all your Orders are in the Toyota Production system.
If you utilize the My Day Report in The MasterList, that provides you with a precise tool for knowing exactly what the status is on all your current task "setups".
If you take advantage of color prioritization and the triage tool time-blaster, you can take a healthy "cut" at leveling your daily workload to an amount that is "just right" for what you are capable of today, or nearly so.
And, when you go to work on any single task, you can SEE all the related tasks and knowledge objects associated with that task from the viewpoint of the "project" with which the task is associated.
All of this is in full accord with Principle 7 of the Toyota Way: Use Visual Controls So No Problems Are Hidden. That is precisely what happens when you click open a single project in The MasterList, or cut across all projects with a task report, or generate a report to study today's pending priorities with the My Day report. By tangibilizing the elements of knowledge-work, The MasterList allows it to be SEEN, processed, co-ordinated, organized, sequenced, and balanced with the overall workload.
Leveling the Workload with The MasterList begins with making a complete inventory of the workload by defining all potential tasks as they occur to you in the context of a project. That creates the base inventory of to-dos. Then, the spikes can be seen either within a single project as quantity, within the My Day Report as time-pressure, or across Task Reports or by color coding comparisons as relative priority.
Leveling occurs principally by the process of triage, which, in the lexicon of The MasterList system simply means using our convenient data manipulation tools to push some inventory further into the future and retain or pull other inventory into the present. This process of leveling creates balance and flow.
Using The MasterList system you will learn to even out your intellectual workload production and create flow. You will have an overview of all your workload, a complete understanding of the relative priorities of your most pressing workload, and a mechanism for balancing out your work without losing sight of any deadlines. Your sense of timing and sequencing within any project, as well as between competing projects will be improved.
You will be running lean. When you are running lean, you can then begin to focus on utilizing The MasterList more creatively, taking advantage of what we call the "human algorithm" to level workload and create higher orders of flow and improvement in your knowledge-based work production.
If you want to learn more about advanced leveling techniques with The MasterList, such as my personal favorite of creating a White Board Project and using a leveling technique I call a QUAD for rotating high priority and "reactive" work through the filter of a "quadrant" of task choices, why not place an order for The MasterList, then email me about specific ways to create leveling and flow in your knowledge-based workload.
For more on Heijunka and the 14 principles that comprise The Toyota Production System (TPS) read The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K. Liker.
Principle No. 4 of the Toyota Way = "Heijunka. Level out The Workload." We can do this on an assembly line by creating flow, regulating stockpiling through just-in-time delivery of inventory, dividing the line into segments that have equal time increments, and creating teams within line segments that know all the aspects of all jobs within their unit. This is a rational way to create flow and it helps level the workload.
But, just as importantly, Heijunka also includes rotation among different "setups" in a systematic way that aims at "leveling" the orders-not-yet-produced list rather than running one job for days, weeks, or even months. Orders not yet produced are the manufacturing equivalent of the white-collar to-do list. The key insight of Heijunka is that 250 orders for blue cars do not need to pile up for 3 weeks, simply because the line is setup to run a 3 week backlog of orders for 1200 red cars.
Leveling means flexible rotation of priorities to balance the workload.
With Heijunka, you can rotate and level the workload, without missing a beat as product flows down the line. It is not necessary to wait until the current "run" is finished to create intermittent tasking on variant product, without losing flow.
This principle can be translated out of the manufacturing field onto the white-collar assembly line. What is the "white collar assembly line"? Some call it The Invisible Assembly Line. Whether we are a manager of a service business, a consultant, lawyer, or any professional, or even just someone who has an excited commitment to anything (gardening, chess, sculpture), we are members of The Invisible Assembly Line. It is invisible, mostly, because its methods of production are complex and not easily reduced to rote.
What we on the White Collar Assembly Line are creating is intellectual or knowledge-based work product. Isn't a chess game an assemblage of moves that result in a winning or losing product? All of these moves are predictable, but they are so complex that human experts can still defeat computers in producing a winning product. The workers of the invisible assembly line are mostly experts whose work product is a highly complex assemblage of what is known, unknown, at hand, remote, tactical and sequenced, time-limited in competition with other projects that need attention, and subject to sudden change, attack, and conflict by peers, managers, and competitors. In contrast, on a production assembly line in manufacturing, we might be asked to produce the same 37 movements, 100 times a day in exact sequence. That's a time and motion system that is behaviorally "rote".
Nevertheless, the fact that there is a process of assemblage in knowledge-based production finds parallels with the manufacturing process and demands consideration of the idea that there may be equivalent problems and solutions from which lessons can be drawn.
In essence, as members of The Invisible Assembly Line, we are card-carrying members of a knowledge economy. A knowledge-based economy is like a guild of craftsman, not yet tethered to the machines of our production. In a knowledge-based economy, production involves systems, but they are not as easily defined in terms of time, motion, location, and sequential repeatability as in a manufacturing economy.
Knowledge-based product is relatively intangible, unlike a tactile manufactured product, which is physically, as opposed to intellectually, assembled. Because manufacturing is predominantly in the tangible realm, a production line is bound by the laws of physics as to how, where, and when the product can be best assembled. As a by-product, this tends to draw workers together into physically coherent teams. In contrast, as members of the knowledge guild, we are a loosely connected, dispersed workforce, as opposed to a tightly co-ordinated production unit. We may have more co-ordination of our professional goals and functions with people we hardly know thousands of miles away via the internet and email, than we do with colleagues 1 cubicle away.
So, looking at the assembly line analogy inherent in the Toyota Way as relates to manufacturing production, and trying to apply that to knowledge labor on The Invisible Line, how do we implement Principle No. 4, Leveling the Workload, in a way that reflects the intangible nature of our productivity in the knowledge-based economy?
First, we must tangibilize our knowledge. Where is it? Some of it is in emails and papers, as well as word processing documents that we can access from computers at our workstations. Some of it is in the vast repository of human knowledge that we can access through the internet, or by emailing, telephoning, or even walking down the hallway to discourse with our peers. Some of it is locked away in our minds, based on the cumulation of our training and experiences, and gets called upon as judgment, insight, evaluation, and decision-making.
The MasterList system is a unique, valuable, and simple way to tangibilize knowledge by harvesting it, gathering it, organizing it, and storing it in a relational database that makes disparate knowledge objects commonly accessible as a single set configured around the core of a centric theme, the humble "project".
Because The MasterList tangibilizes the production elements of knowledge-based work as text and links based on a kind of set-centric theory, driven by the definition of a project, it allows for the implementation of rational tools and methods, just like The Toyota Way does for manufacturing.
For example, if you have listed all potential tasks in The MasterList, that is exactly like knowing where all your Orders are in the Toyota Production system.
If you utilize the My Day Report in The MasterList, that provides you with a precise tool for knowing exactly what the status is on all your current task "setups".
If you take advantage of color prioritization and the triage tool time-blaster, you can take a healthy "cut" at leveling your daily workload to an amount that is "just right" for what you are capable of today, or nearly so.
And, when you go to work on any single task, you can SEE all the related tasks and knowledge objects associated with that task from the viewpoint of the "project" with which the task is associated.
All of this is in full accord with Principle 7 of the Toyota Way: Use Visual Controls So No Problems Are Hidden. That is precisely what happens when you click open a single project in The MasterList, or cut across all projects with a task report, or generate a report to study today's pending priorities with the My Day report. By tangibilizing the elements of knowledge-work, The MasterList allows it to be SEEN, processed, co-ordinated, organized, sequenced, and balanced with the overall workload.
Leveling the Workload with The MasterList begins with making a complete inventory of the workload by defining all potential tasks as they occur to you in the context of a project. That creates the base inventory of to-dos. Then, the spikes can be seen either within a single project as quantity, within the My Day Report as time-pressure, or across Task Reports or by color coding comparisons as relative priority.
Leveling occurs principally by the process of triage, which, in the lexicon of The MasterList system simply means using our convenient data manipulation tools to push some inventory further into the future and retain or pull other inventory into the present. This process of leveling creates balance and flow.
Using The MasterList system you will learn to even out your intellectual workload production and create flow. You will have an overview of all your workload, a complete understanding of the relative priorities of your most pressing workload, and a mechanism for balancing out your work without losing sight of any deadlines. Your sense of timing and sequencing within any project, as well as between competing projects will be improved.
You will be running lean. When you are running lean, you can then begin to focus on utilizing The MasterList more creatively, taking advantage of what we call the "human algorithm" to level workload and create higher orders of flow and improvement in your knowledge-based work production.
If you want to learn more about advanced leveling techniques with The MasterList, such as my personal favorite of creating a White Board Project and using a leveling technique I call a QUAD for rotating high priority and "reactive" work through the filter of a "quadrant" of task choices, why not place an order for The MasterList, then email me about specific ways to create leveling and flow in your knowledge-based workload.
For more on Heijunka and the 14 principles that comprise The Toyota Production System (TPS) read The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K. Liker.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
I RARELY PUT TESTIMONIALS IN THIS BLOG, instead dropping them at the offical website for The MasterList. But, I can’t resist this comment by Kendra Kebler, one of our users who used an older version of The MasterList and has now switched to the current version: “WOW! Bill, this is fabulous. I've had the time and the clarity of thought to work with [the new version of] Masterlist for 2 weeks now, and it has really made a difference. Since I am currently closing one business, opening another one, moving out of my office, and relocating my home to another state, all of this this week, this is a mighty, mighty fine time for Masterlist to clean up my life.” Sounds like Kendra has discovered the governing idea of Toyota Principles 2 through 8: “The Right Process Will Produce The Right Results”. The MasterList is the Right Process for anyone who needs to achieve high value-added continuous flow, where there is a demanding number of competing projects coming at you with lots of intrinsic complexities and problems.
I CAN’T WAIT TIL WE GET VENTURE CAPITAL to get our web-based version up and running. Kenda’s complement reminds me how amazing our progress has been. She approved our earlier versions, but never said WOW! Thanks, Kendra! Wait til you see what we have planned for the web-based version.
I CAN’T WAIT TIL WE GET VENTURE CAPITAL to get our web-based version up and running. Kenda’s complement reminds me how amazing our progress has been. She approved our earlier versions, but never said WOW! Thanks, Kendra! Wait til you see what we have planned for the web-based version.
