The People Part of Working with People You Can’t Be With

• Dan Rose is asking people to draw what collaboration means to them — no words! See the pictures.
• Luis calls “unwanted feedback” one of the benefits of social software. “So you see, by being able to use Quickr Entry to socially share my file with two people, I got unwanted feedback. And not in a bad way. In a very good, positive way!! …. Now that’s something that wouldn’t have happened if I would have used email instead of Quickr Entry to share the file!” Perhaps a better term would be “unsought feedback” or “unlooked-for feedback”.
• Higher gas prices is having an impact on the way people live and work. A recent survey in Canada reported: “Among those who said they have altered their work arrangements, the most common changes they reported making include increased carpooling or ridesharing (46%), driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle (33%) and telecommuting more frequently (33%). Three in 10 said they are looking for a new job closer to home.” When (if) gas prices decrease, it will be interesting to see whether these changes remain.
• Eights steps to better online meetings: (1) spend 80% of the time on topics that require interaction from everyone, (2) invite the right people, (3) meet about the highest priority items first, and more. Apart from (6) use headsets and (7) join the online meeting from your desktop, this sounds like a generic list for effective meetings.

Insights on Being Productive and Effective

• Cultured Code released a version of Things for the iPhone and iTouch, but without synchronization with the desktop edition. The latter is coming shortly. The lack of sync kills it for me — that appears to be the critical feature.
• Eric offers a great diagram on the downward spiral of deproductivity.
• Michael has a list of 10 things that produce unintended consequences. Eg, “(1) It is much easier to get into something than to get out of it; (2) The biggest problems come from a failure to attend to the basics; and (3) It always takes longer than expected.” Good to know what to look out for. How can you mitigate against these this week?

Other Noteworthy Insights

• My 12-year old son David made up this joke the other day: Why did the sick pig smoke?