Ultimate Mobility, the Virtual World ...

Many many exciting things happening almost daily .... yestereday I noticed that Cisco had created a virtual hospital to showcase technology and design for the future ... the virtual world is exploding as the utility of this environment is now not only accepted, but it becoming the singular point source for interface of the global population ... we are evolving from the industrial age to the information age and the change as always is disruptive and only clear through a rear view mirror .... you may be wondering how this has anything to do with mobile musings, well, I feel we are at an inflection point and enabling the next wave is being sorted out rapidly ... to be mobile now and in the future, I think the term mobility has to be broadened to encompass not only in the real world, but the virtual worlds of the future ....

Witness this excerpt from a press release today from the Association of Virtual Worlds ... "Jacksonville, Fla. (PRWEB) February 28, 2008 – The new Association of Virtual Worlds announces plans to launch a virtual business and social world for its members.
“The brand new Association of Virtual Worlds has as its mission to provide a leadership environment for companies and individuals passionate about the future of virtual worlds and as such it makes perfect sense to be the first such association to offer its members an exciting virtual world of their own,” says founder Edita Kaye.
Dave Elchoness, Executive Director explains “providing a virtual world environment is the next step—beyond Web 2.0 with its signature social networks—into Web 3-D. Why create a virtual world for members? To provide a real-time environment for meetings, conferences, collaboration, and social interaction and engagement with less cost, disruption, and environmental impact than physical travel. It doesn’t matter if you want to meet someone from around the world or the office next door, the Association of Virtual Worlds will help make it happen in a setting that feels ‘in-person’.”
The virtual world environment planned by the Association of Virtual Worlds is being designed for both the virtual worlds veteran as well as the new-comer to the virtual experience. It will be web-based, user-friendly, requiring no special download or strain on bandwidth, just web access.
“If a member can use the Internet, that member will be able to use the virtual world currently on the Association of Virtual Worlds’ drawing board,” adds Elchoness.

The Association of Virtual Words is a global industry association for the rapidly growing virtual worlds industry. It serves as a resource for those wishing to experiment and explore virtual worlds for work or play. The Association’s mission is to educate, network, recruit, and further the membership’s collective goals.

For more information please contact:edita@associationofvirtualworlds.com or dave@associationofvirtualworlds.com

Visit Association of Virtual Worlds at: http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com

I will be blogging later a new concept I am developing to harness the power of the Virtual Worlds to collaborate and innovate ..... more to follow

Handy Paperless Replacement ...

I have been a big fan of Post-it notes since the first time I saw them ... have consumed many trees worth ... I have also been looking for replacement ePost-it solution that I would use ... I bought the Post-it software and kept it through many iterations and tried all sorts of alternatives, but they were either cumbersome to use or lacked something ....

During my morning Lifehacker read I happened on a post by Kevin Purdy that seems to have led to a great solution. Hott Notes ... this freeware application captures notes in the familiar metaphor and will create and keep them on your desktop immeidately available with a hot key combo ... I has multiple types of notes, of particular interest is the ink note (the Post-it software was the only one earlier that had this feature), this is particularly helpful to me as my portable office is a Thinkpad X61 tablet PC ... so having a quick ink note is nirvana for a tablet user ...

The list feature for the note template is also super useful for mini reminders of things to do and get or buy ... you know all you out there that keep lists of everything ... so far so good on this as I have downloaded to both my XP and Vista machines it works great ... now lets go out and save more trees ....

Post #100 .. Productivity Bonus ....

In honor of the 100th post I thought I would revisit how I use some of the highlighted apps that I have mentioned over the course of this blog, and how they are now integrated into my daily flow ...

These screenshots are of my actual desktop now and are the evolution of many stabs at creating a well integrated and simple flow (KISS method of evolution ...) The first one up is the use of StartAid a very efficient bookmark app this is web based ... as you can see by the highlghted buttons ... it is always available in my browser window. The three buttons stand for functions, the first for a normal bookmark, the second for a rapid bookmark (I use this one and later file) and the third calls up the side panel that you see in the shot. By simply hitting the second button I have my bookmark ready to go . The side panel I bring up once a day or so and it is there that I categorize my bookmarks ... so far this has been an extremely valuable addition as the speed and ease of bookmarking have made it a great tool.

The second is one I recently installed the gmail plugin for ... it is the old web favorite Remember the Milk (this link has downloads of various synch items including off line, iphone, twitter, mobile, etc) ... RTM is a great todo list that can be as structured as the best of them, but in this incarnation, functions as a quick and dirty way of keeping tasks under control and functional. RTM is also web based, so no matter what machine I am using, the current list and information is availablel. By simply entering information in the task box right at the top or setting the mail as a task will create an item ... you can add date and time, priority, notes, recurrences .. etc all of this adds to the flexibility and useful nature of the application. This, by the way, allows me to stay in my gmail window and manage items that I need to get done or schedule things as I need to ... very handy in the KISS world ...

The third item is one that was suggested on an earlier post re productivity tips and it questioned why not use Google Notebook which can be found under google apps on their services ... well, I do use it and this shot shows how it is implemented on my desktop. If you look on the bottom right corner of the screen, you will see the close notebook icon, well obviously when it resides unused it is open notebook and I pressed it and this popout window will come up ... the beauty of this is that you can write things to yourself, copy info in a cut and paste mode or simply capture the full address to refer to it later ... lots of flexibility and the smooth flow of capture and review follows the essence of the Flow ...

The last item would be one of my favorites ... see the little clipper button that is highlighted ... this is the magic copying machine to evernote .. Evernote is one of those incredibly powerful programs that will take every bit of info that you want to throw into it and hyperlink every word with a lightning fast search ... It also has inking capability and the wild abilty to search images (if you photograph or scan an image, putting it into the evernote app will allow whatever is written in the image to be searchable) ... this application has been around a while and I do believe that a new upgrade is approaching soon ... they have this one at a very reasonable price now that a new version is coming .. anyway, once you highlight what you want (notice the pc world article in the background) click the button and it takes whatever you have highlighted and transfers into a note - the metaphor is a long sheet of notetaking paper, thus the date ribbon on the side to give you a sense of chronology on your captures ... anyway, this note is now searchable for any key word or combinations you may wish, you can also tag as you see on the left, but with being able to search for any words, this may prove to be a timewaster ... the final quick trick with this one is that I print to a pdf file which allows me to attach for mail and also file for reference within my normal file system ..

Enjoy these tips and thanks for checking in at Mobile Musings ....

Mapping the Notes ...

Here is the last in the Post-it series ... I took a simple map using the template "corkboard" template included in MindManager ... here is where the visual meets the board ... you now have the visual Post-it all nicely laid out on your screen ... take all the chunks you want, braindump or brainstorm .... then you use the simple drag and move to create order from the chaos of the original board ...

This second map was the simple reorganization of the above map and allows for the order from chaos that you will be able to employ ... taking random ideas and organizing and making connections .. that is the beauty of the mapping tool ... it is a powerful way of approaching problems and allows for use of the Post-it metaphor ... have fun and play ... colors , connections, highlights, notes ... let your creativity run wild .....

Identifying the Problem ...

We have all come across problems and situations that seem out of control, people going around in circles trying to resolve something that seemingly is unresolveable .... notice that in real life problems do not emerge in neat packages that say solve me ... thus, the introduction to the system must at the core realize that these problems are nearly always made up of individual pieces or chunks that are somehow related and need to be put into their place in the answer to the problem. Whether the problem is to solve an organizational nightmare or take a product from idea to market ... it is at the very core an exercise in identifying the parts to the problem and connecting them in a way that leads to the solution ....

The book takes the process of this identification and allows that the chunks of information should fit nicely on a normal Post-it note. The ability of the note to be placed on a board and then moved and rearranged allows for the integrity of the piece but yet the ability to mobilize it to its proper place in the grand scheme of things. Thus emerges the beauty of the method to take Post-its and create novel solutions to seemingly unsurmountable problems ... kind of like examing the trees and creating the forest ....

Straker identifies six tools in his method:
1) Post-up - evolved from brainstorming, brainwriting, brain dump
2) Swap Sort - prioritization matrix, paired comparisons or bubble sorts
3) Top-down Tree - tree diagam, process-decision program chart, cause effect diagram
4) Bottom-up Tree - Affinity diagram, Set Theory
5) Information Map - relations diagram, Mind Map
6) Action Map - Process flowchart, data-flow diagram

He brings up another interesting distinction in information chunks .. he calls it FOG for Fact Opinion or Guess ... be sure to somehow distinguish your chunks for additional clarity. It will be the aim of the process to eventually create nothing buy Facts to have the most relevance.

Describing methods of discerning solutions ... you practice divergent thinking to chunk as much into possible solutions ... divergent thinking is easiest if you let your mind flow and associate freely .. no matter how ridiculous this seems or how outside the box it goes ... chunk to your hearts content ... then comes the critical distillation of the process ... convergence, let the framework leading to the solution dictate the convergent path to the solution ... in the next installment I will make the leap to computer driven processes and how to implement this ....

Melding Post It Notes and Maps ....

Like the mind meld that Spock would do in the old Star Trek ... getting information to then get to logical solutions has always been a task that is more an art than a science ... rather an odd statement as art and science seem at odds and yet the melding of the processes can often lead to the best of the solutions ... so much for philosophy ... on to the task...

I read a book a while back, Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it Notes by David Straker ... in this book from 1997 he outlined a way to solve problems using the tool that everyone has on their desk ... the yellow notes that seem to have a home on virtually every flat surface available ... his book outlines methods of getting solution sets by chunking information and drawing associations within groupings, etc .. to eventually solve a defined problem. Since originally reading the book and actually processing information in the manner prescribed I have migrated to MindManager as my tool and the computer screen as my post it board ... I remembered the utility that the original methods had on my skill set and decided to revisit the book and bring it current with the new technology ... I will present this in a short series of posts so you can absorb the information in chunks (love the metaphor ...) more to follow ....

My Heart Skipped a Beat ....

When I first got up this morning it was all over the web .... Starbucks was ditching T-Mobile for AT&T .... wow, this was sure a left turn in a right turn world for me ... my "office" service provider appeared to be changing and there was not a thing I could do about ... talk about picking the old jaw off the floor ... I kept rereading the articles and couldn't believe what a seismic shift this would be to myself and then I thought of all those souls that I see sitting at our local Starbucks and Borders locations ... what a crazy move that would be ...

To the rescue our all seeing Kevin over at jkOnTheRun who correctly ferreted out the answer, no T-Mobile is not on the outs, in fact, no extra charge you will be able to use the AT&T network to get your wifi fix at Starbucks like normal ... not quite clear at this time will be other piggybacks onto the network ... not really important though to the sanctity of my "office" ... whewwww ...

A Great Solution ...

While browsing my morning reading I noticed an intriguing post by the Web Worker Daily site ... this scenario plays out a lot while travelling and this may be the answer ... let me set the stage ... you have need of some items out of a pdf brochure that you don't have the text for or you have a doc that you need to translate to pdf for distribution ... I have programs on my desktop machine that handle these chores, but when travelling with my tablet pc I see this as a better alternative ...

The application highlighted is Koolwire and I played with a couple of conversions this morning and it works like a charm ... I had a brochure with pics and text and I sent it to: doc at koolwire dot com and voila in a minute or so, I had an rtf doc with the photos and diagrams and test all neatly in an rtf doc. This makes it easy to get the pieces out of the brochure or easily makes additions to the brochure simple work. The other way is as fast and simple, just send a doc up and the pdf file comes back. Short and sweet .. it is great to have something as simple and effective to use (note on the screen shot that you can also convert mp3 and wav files too) ...

I saw a couple of other things this morning that I will explore later today ... be back if they work ...

Easing the Path ... the Flow ...

Long time readers will know how I like to refine things to add to the flow of my work ... well I got to thinking yesterday after my last post on the idea incubator and that this is such a good idea but I wanted it not to be isolated but integrated into a flow for my workspace ... well, after searching through my older maps, I came up with one I called TOM or Top of Mind map ... I started playing with the idea and it is not far away from the dashboard idea that may use, but I think these little tweaks suit my work style far better than what I have seen out there ...

The GyroQ application that Gyronix produces has some neat features that I highlight here in the map ... notice the reference to tag feature .. well, you can customize the tabs that the app has and it simply inserts into my new TOM map the ideas ... once they are there, it is simple to move it to another section (see the item I moved to the Idea Incubator) ... notice that I have the little mind map icon there ... that is a hyperlink to the map I presented yesterday ... once I open that hyperlink, I can copy any good ideas directly to the incubator for further work down the line ... one last aside, the GyroQ will allow a lot of configuration, not the least of which is the ability to send the output to maps of your choosing, so thus I have the TOM mindmap as my basic brain dump ...

The beauty of this system is that it can be made to fit your flow and highlight those things that your needs will dictate ... I am always considering ideas, some of them need to be added to ongoing projects, some need to be sent to the incubator, some simply become action items to come back to, some .... you can see how to tailor the map to your flow and make it as innocuous a capture process as I have found ...

Great Concept ... an Idea Incubator ....

Another of my daily reads is Lifehacker and today Gina featured a link to a posting on the 3rd by LifeDev which is a personal productivity site ... the article featured a great read on the use of an idea incubator and used the parallel to watching a chick incubator and how life is life whether viewed as a chicken or an idea (lol ... my attempt at humor for the day ...) ... as I went through the discussion I could see how this parallels a lot of my efforts and it gave rise to an old tool that I could use to make the capture of the idea almost spontaneous ... I subscribe to the idea that the best work needs to flow ... like a stream, the flow is best where it is unimpeded, so disturbing thoughts as they are flowing are like putting stones in a stream, disturbances at best, dams at worst ...

I typically rely on MindManager to capsulize all of my thoughts, but after reading this, I configured it to be the catchment or incubator ... here is a quick screenshot of the map ... the trick is how to implement the system ... I have Gyronix GyroQ loaded in my computer and resides in my tray so I can call it up at any time ... well, it is a simple one line entry that I have configured to go directly to my map ... see the entry posted as an idea today ... I simply typed the idea in and sent it to the map ... the map shows another idea in the current section, I had sent that earlier and so as a review function, I simply moved it to the current branch ...

The settings for what you send are configureable, so this is really an open ended capture mechanism ... you could have ideas, refinement to ideas, additional info to ideas, etc ... you then simply move things to the proper branch or idea as part of the review process. The culmination is to hatch the idea. Simply create a new map and cut and past the branch into it to turn it into a project ...

Back to My Roots ... Keeping It Mobile ....

When I originated this blog, I had intended to pass on experiences and tips for the new bedouin lifestyle ... one of my favorite blogs, jkOnTheRun posted today on a piece of equipment that has become an essential and innocuous addition to my personal baggage ... in fact, it is so ingrained into my work flow that until I read the posting it was always so everyday ....

Well, the little sd card that I use in my camera is really a piece of stealth wizardry .... it is a usb equipped sd card that can do duty in your camera, hook directly to a computer, function as a file transfer device .... and on and on ... I keep one in my bag as it beats the size of just about any flash drive and of course I use it in my digital cameras to download photos without a reader ... such a great design and such utility ... as noted in the enclosed pic, they are introducing 8Gunits, pretty awesome stuff ... I get away with a lowly 1G card which can get pretty cheap if you search ebay or the usual outlets ....

Visually Conveying Opportunities ....

Our project portfolio is a very fluid animal .... ie, ideas and concepts are in constant flux and evolution, so conveying them to partners and marketing opportunities is a matter of consequence. Since being up to the minute is essential in the environmental area, I created this mindmap to serve as an executive summary to serve for all these purposes. I have frequently used the pdf export of this map to simply convey what is on the radar at this point in time and also to ensure that all parties in the chain are on the same page.

Taking this example a step further, by creating notes rather than attachments, when you export to word you have a diagram and information ready to use as a finished handout. By carefully creating your notes with an eye to this purpose, you can constantly update and use your most recent iteration. You can archive your efforts at any point in time by exporting to word and saving as a document ... this can serve many purposes and this can be used as a template for all sorts of uses ... how about a handout of a talk that also can be exported to powerpoint (notes in this use should be to the point and not wordy) or a knowledge base to capture ideas and document in the map or ... ??? let your mind flow with this one, typical of using mindmanager and mindmapping to visually convey opportunities ....

More Variations on a Theme ...

Had a little time on my hands today and was inspired to try a couple of ideas ... I loved the look of Cayra that I showed you earlier today ... but I still love the MindManager display .... I was thinking out loud that it would be really great to accent a mindmanger presentation with the cayra visual representation ... so here goes ....

The corkboard is a great visual and is part of the mindmanager package ... what a great look to make a visual point ... so normal as far as on office metaphor, yet unique in a presentation ... the grey presentation is a visio type of presentation ... I used the mindmanager to put in the items outside of what I had earlier today put into the Cayra, thereby creating a focus or highlight to the object ... I put the jpg that I created earlier into a branch of a mindmanager branch and added the details in mindmanger ... in the corkboard shot I simply used the whole structure ... in the visio shot I used the F4 key to focus on a node and voila, simply isolating one of the branches and adding detail for emphasis ...

This was fun and I think will be very useful for presentations ... a variation on the use of these programs ....

Interesting Blend of Tools ...

I happened on this app while reading The Mindmapping Software Weblog by Chuck Frey which is required reading for any of you who are interested in mind mapping .... in the link he highlights a new application called Cayra that appears to be a blend of two of my favorites ... MindManager and The Brain ... it has the organic appearance of the original Buzan type mind maps, but the ability to visualize complex relationships in a more associative manner ... take a look at the two screenshots ... the first shows the home view of one of their demo maps ... the second shows the expanded view with clear paths and associations established .. I think there will be a definite learning curve to this one ... I will play as I have the time, but so far it appears very promising ... there is not too much documentation, but going to the help file is essential to taking in all the features and ways to implement ... the maps are visually appealing

One feature that is immediately appealing is the simple creation of jpg files ... there is a camera icon on their toolbar, hit it and it creates screen shots of the map ... this really quick feature is very handy for inserting maps into docs or using it to blog like I did here ... give it a whirl .. free at this time ...

Creating A Psuedo Concept Map ...

Many a time I have had to try and create a concept map .. one of the better tools I have used is Gliffy that is a web based application ..... today I needed something like a concept map, but simpler ... although as I went through the exercise, it could be used to create fairly complex representations ... here is the finished item ...

As you can see, it is pretty illustrative and now I can see how to make things and represent ideas using my old favorite, MindManager ... the trick is actually two fold using SnagIt to get and manipulate jpg files ... I captured the diagram and then annotated using the snag it editor ... then I saved the second image ... opened the trusty mindmanager 7 and started to make a map by inserting the jpg into the branches ... then the magic occurs ... you take hit the shift key after selecting the branch and move it, it becomes a floating topic without the branching ... so you can see the possibilities ... a hybrid map showing off some concepts while retaining structure in a map ... by blending these two applications I created a quick representation that I am presenting ... the picture (map) is worth a thousand words ...

Creating a Map Slide Show ....

I had an interesting problem today and found a good workaround ... I use mindmanager to create maps that are sometimes related when I like to hyperlink ideas ... this is useful as I use the mapping to create concepts and present them ... today I needed to put all the projects together into a Portfolio of Projects ... well it is easy in mindmanager as you simply hyperlink the different projects to your master overview ... notice the little mindmap icons that signify the hyperlinks ... this was all well and good, but I wanted to create a pdf to hand out and send to clients that would give them the detail as if we were drilling down on the map ...

Well, here is where another program I use to save paper comes in ... fineprint is a program that I have been using for years .. it allows you to take print jobs and collate, combine, send to different media, etc .. .just a great all around utility (I particularly like to print 2 or even 4 up to cut down on paper) ... it also allows you to print and then defer doing the job, so you have all of the printouts in one file ... SO ... I first printed this map, then hit the links in order and printed each as I deferred the job ... when I got all the maps printed, I then sent the job to my pdf printer and VOILA ... maps and the drill downs just like having the map and opening the details just like on my desktop ...