Team Taskmaster

It’s the last week of Team Taskmaster’s run, and I’m rounding up some of the most helpful and popular posts from the past year and a half. On today’s agenda: How to survive — and even thrive — when dealing with workplace meetings.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know my top pet peeve is wasteful or inefficient meetings, especially when they start stacking up like planes on a congested runway.

One way to avoid the curse of the adjacent booking is to end each meeting 10 minutes early. If Outlook makes you schedule a meeting for an hour, end the meeting at the 50-minute mark to give attendees time to “commute” to their next engagement.

If you find your attention slipping during a meeting, don’t beat yourself up; just break out your sketching skills. Why? Because doodling can improve your concentration.

Don’t forget your Emily Post guidelines even in a less-than-fab confab, of course; mind your meeting manners to help things go smoothly. (My number-one faux pas? Don’t multitask in a meeting!) Avoid using corporate jargon — it obscures clarity and makes it harder for everyone to understand what you’re really saying.

Whenever possible, avoid subjecting your meeting invitees to death by PowerPoint. But if you must present a slide deck, check out these four scientific rules for improving your PowerPoint

And finally, observe these eight ways to avoid meeting hell. Your team will thank you.

Have any other suggestions for making your meetings better? Add them in the comments section!

(image by markhillary via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Gizmodo had a post today about Powermat, a wireless charger for up to three electronic devices. I heard the buzz on this product while it was in development and was interested to see what kind of press its debut has been getting.

Gizmodo’s take? “Wireless charging is still in its infancy, but the idea is great: you have a lil’ mat or platform onto which you can toss your gadgets and let them charge. No tangled wires and fumbling around.”

Rachel Metz of the Associated Press likes the Powermat, too: “There’s something thrilling about cutting (most of) the cords.”

Sounds good, and I’m all about simplifying and streamlining and boosting efficiency. But I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid quite yet.

First of all, it’s pricey: $100 for the mat and an additional $30 to $40 for the special case for each device you’ll be charging. Do I really want to shell out $220 when I can just plug in for free?

Second, would I prefer to travel with a big mat (and its attendant cord, which of course needs to be plugged into an outlet) rather than bring my device chargers — some of which are pretty low-profile USB connectors?

A big ad blitz for Powermat (estimated at $10 to $15 million) kicked off this week, so I’m sure you’ll start seeing it everywhere. And it’ll be retailing at Target and Best Buy in a month or so. In the meantime, check out this admittedly clever commercial for the product.

Are your PowerPoint presentations putting everyone to sleep? Is your business culture so steeped in slide decks that your audience immediately zones out when the lights go down? If so, you need to do something to spice up your slides and get people to pay attention.

Cognitive science to the rescue! Last year, Harvard scientist Stephen M. Kosslyn spoke in a symposium about the visualization of data and how people can best present information in a PowerPoint format. Writer Annalee Newitz summarized Kosslyn’s four rules of PowerPoint.

1. The Goldilocks Rule: Present a “just right” amount of data. Too much is overwhelming; too little won’t get your point across.
2. The Rudolph Rule: Guide your audience to important details, just as Rudolph’s red nose guided Santa. If you present a piece of key data in a list, make it a different color or size, point an arrow to it, highlight it, or circle it in red. In a pie chart, pull out the important sector. Our brains are wired to immediately notice what’s different, and this helps your audience distinguish what’s important from what’s background information.
3. The Rule of Four: Never offer more than four pieces of information at once. Why? The brain can generally only hold four pieces of visual data simultaneously — so when we take in the visual information on a slide, more than four items starts to overwhelm us.
4. The Birds of a Feather Rule: If you want to indicate to your audience that several items belong in a group, make them similar by giving them the same color or shape. Or group them very close together.

For more details, read Newitz’s full post, with examples. Or check out Kosslyn’s book, Clear and to the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations. And happy PowerPointing!

I read an interesting post over the weekend from Diane Mermigas, who writes about the big-picture implications of technology. She discussed Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s assertion that multiplayer video games are good training for workplace collaboration.

Schmidt, speaking at the G-20 in Pittsburgh, said the game world teaches players how to build a network and to use interactive skills and thinking. Collaborative dynamics can be easily seen in the big changes in open-source applications, notes Mermigas, and consultants and analysts are embracing the idea of using a multiplayer game approach to build a more effective workplace.

One example of a game that translates well to the business environment is World of Warcraft, in which players work both with and against each other in mastering increasingly difficult challenges.

Says Mermigas,

The adopted personas, strategies, execution and teamwork make WOW a reasonable template for dealing constructively and creatively with real-world challenges working with others. As more participants join a carefully-designed work environment and  knowledge economy, the more valuable its resources become, and the faster players increase their improved performance.

Interesting parallels, don’t you think? I’m not a gamer myself but I can see where the crossover could apply.

Might the workplace of the future include a gaming room along with a break room? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

What productivity suite do you use in your workplace? Most likely, it’s Microsoft Office, the undisputed heavyweight champ in that space. But a new contender may soon be nipping at Office’s heels.

The challenger is Google Docs, the Web-based word processor/spreadsheet/presentation application from Google. A new survey by market-research firm IDC finds that 20 percent of respondents said Google Docs is “widely used” in their workplaces.

Yes, it was a small survey (262 people) and it didn’t prove that people are using Google Docs instead of Office, rather than as an adjunct. But it does point out that Google Docs is gaining momentum, since an earlier IDC study (2007) found that just 5 percent of respondents characterized it as widely used.

Google’s official blog says over 1.75 millions businesses, schools, and organizations use Google Docs, with an additional 3,000 signing up each day.

That might speak volumes for its increasing popularity, but folks with loads of experience in the tech industry, like my former colleague Preston Gralla, note that client-based suites are still more trustworthy than Web-based ones, at least for the moment (remember Google’s infamous outage?).

Cloud-based computing is not necessarily ready for prime time in the workplace, concurs PC World’s Ian Paul: “It’s not all rainbows and light when you dance in the clouds, because eventually a storm rolls in.” Paul points out that while online storage is incredibly convenient, even a behemoth like Google isn’t immune to problems and glitches that can cause you and your business time and money — or even lost data.

What do you think?

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Oh, you want me to join your meeting for a quick info download? Great. Don’t forget to tell me to build a PowerPoint presentation.

Instead of letting me speak to the group for three minutes to explain the new initiative, make me present a slide deck. With bullet points. And, preferably, with cutesy little graphics. Bonus points for animated slides.

Make sure we take time to futz with the A/V setup, pull the blinds, and make sure everyone in the room has a good sightline. Burn a little time by making me stand up in front of the group and assigning some random person to click through my presentation for me.

By all means, have me read verbatim from the PowerPoint slides. After all, it would be heresy for me to be spontaneous, natural, or (God forbid) collaborative with my audience.

Remind me to make 14 hard copies of the slide deck to pass out at the conclusion of my talk, which has now taken 20 minutes instead of the anticipated three. Why? Because no one was paying attention to the presentation anyway, so they might want to read it later.

Also, it makes people feel important to walk away from a meeting with a sheaf of paper. Let’s not worry about the trees or the company’s “Go Green!” initiatives.

And above all, never mind that it took me a grand total of two hours — building the slide deck, making copies, and presenting — to convey information that, again, should’ve taken three minutes, max.

What a great use of my time and a fabulous way to boost my productivity! The corporate reliance on PowerPoint for all purposes is clearly a wonderful, wonderful thing.

If you productivity hounds didn’t have enough to worry about already, here’s a new factor to take into consideration: Your favorite organization tool might be harmful to your health.

The Environmental Working Group has released a list ranking more than 1,000 cell phones and smartphones by the amount of radiation emitted. According to the organization’s research, the BlackBerry Curve (8300 and 8330 models) and the BlackBerry Bold 9000 were among the smartphones emitting the highest amount of radiation.

Why is this a concern? Although there’s still debate about whether cell-phone radiation is truly harmful, the EWG says studies find significantly higher risks for brain and salivary gland tumors among people using cell phones for 10 years or longer.

Well, you’re probably not going to ditch your smartphone, but here are 5 ways to reduce your risks from cell-phone radiation.

1. Choose a device that emits less radiation. Happily for BlackBerry aficionados, another model — the Storm (9530 and 9500) — is among the lowest-radiation choices.
2. Use a headset or speaker. If you use a wireless headset, take it off your ear if you’re not on a call (some models emit continuous, low-level radiation).
3. Talk less. Your phone doesn’t emit radiation when you’re checking messages, only when you’re chatting.
4. Text more. Texting uses less power (and thus, less radiation) than voice calling and also keeps the phone away from your head.
5. Call only when you’ve got strong signal bars. Using your phone in a weak-signal area requires more radiation to get the signal to the tower.

I watched an interesting BNET video by Edward Muzio this morning that discussed why e-mail starts fights. The premise: if communication is made up of tone, visual cues, and words, e-mail is a terrible medium for it.

Why? Because words, according to researchers, account for just 7 percent of any overall message. The remainder is tone and visual cues, which just don’t come across in e-mail.

I wrote last week that you might not be as funny as you think in e-mail. But aside from humor falling flat, the real danger in using e-mail as a conveyance for your thoughts is that a misinterpretation of your message can lead to big trouble: hurt feelings, frustration, resentment, anger…all things that can damage your working or personal relationships.

What’s the remedy? Simple. According to Muzio, you should save e-mail for factual communication only — setting meetings, conveying data, and so on. When you get into sensitive or emotional context, deal with it in person (your best option) or over the phone.

That’s a challenging proposition for a writer like me. I often believe I can say things better on paper than I can in person, so I’m more likely to send a long, well-crafted e-mail to deal with a problem than to pick up the phone. But Muzio’s comments have me reconsidering that approach.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments section. And take a look at the video to judge for yourself.

The folks at Pear Analytics have determined that a whopping 41 percent of postings on Twitter are “pointless babble” (their words). And to this I say:

What’s wrong with pointless babble?

Yes, I know that overuse of social media can be a huge time waster and productivity killer. But tweeting a bit during the workday, even if it’s about something mundane like where you’re going for lunch, is a pretty decent way to give yourself a mental break or blow off some stress.

You’re not sharing any earth-shattering observations with the Twitterati. So what?

Think about the person-to-person conversations you have every day at work. Aren’t many of them equally trivial? Yesterday alone, I had discussions about the best flavors of gelato, why Microsoft makes computers that take forever to boot, and whether snakeskin or patent is a better choice for strappy sandals. (Snakeskin, hands-down.)

Nothing there that’s going to establish me as a genius, but these little exchanges connected me with my co-workers, gave my brain a change of topic, and increased my engagement by reinforcing the fact that there are fun (and funny) people in my workplace. After a few moments of idle chitchat, I’m refreshed and ready to get back to work.

So I think pointless babble has a place, whether it’s in your office or online.

What do you think?

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Recently, I wasted an enormous amount of time trying to send a bloated (892 MB) Word file to a colleague. First, my ISP refused to let me send such a large attachment.

I tried sending from another e-mail account; this time, her e-mail blocked it. We tried going through Yahoo! mail — way, way too big.

I zipped the file, but because it was chock-full of graphics, it didn’t shrink enough to make much difference. Finally, I just made a PDF of the document and e-mailed it that way.

Had I only known that there are much better ways to send monster files.

1. The first is the trickiest, but if you’re tech-savvy, it works well: Set up your own FTP server and send files that way. Of course, you’ll need to know a lot of geeky details, and this may not work if you or your recipient are behind firewalls. Another downside: FTP won’t encrypt transferred files, so if security is an issue, this isn’t a good solution for you.
2. If you’re not up to that challenge, there are services out there that’ll do it for you — for a fee. For example, ShareFile, Box.net, and Egnyte provide secure online file storage and sharing. There are plenty of companies to choose from (just Google “online file sharing”), including offerings from Microsoft and Adobe. Costs can vary from a reasonable monthly charge to “Zoinks!” so shop carefully.
3. You can also go the free route with peer-to-peer options like PipeBytes, WikiSend, and Files2U. Probably not as secure as going through a top-tier file-sharing service, but some of these free services do offer password protection.

And of course, if time isn’t a factor, you can send a file the old-fashioned way, via optical media or a flash drive. But with these other options at your fingertips, who needs envelopes?

What file-sharing services do you recommend? Share your suggestions in the comments section.

(image by lotyloty via Flickr, CC 2.0)