When I was going to Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy, my career counselor said she heard from a fellow faculty member that Daniel walks on water. What does that mean? Walking on water means living without limitations. Just because we’re told that we can’t walk on water and that we’d sink and drown doesn’t mean it can’t be done. From a practical perspective, I can’t physically walk on water. However, on a day to day basis, I live as if I can.

When working on a problem, I take it from the perspective that nothing can’t be done, no matter how hard or how impossible it may be. Nothing can’t be solved, it just may require a unique solution.

Walk on water.

I’m a cat person. I like their independence, but also their ability to manipulate their owners to serving their every wish.

We’ve had Mochi for exactly a year now, adopting her from the vet school in Davis, CA. We recently started looking for a companion for Mochi while we’re at work. On a whim, my wife and I went out for a quick lunch over in Ballard in Seattle. We stopped by unplanned at the PAWS adoption center and fell in love with Pepe. He was a domestic short hair with a white stripe down his back, making him look like a skunk. He had a kink in the middle of his tail and a meow like a raptor. Of the 15 or so kittens in the room, he was the first to run out and climb up our leg. It was love at first site for my wife. He wasn’t the prettiest kitten, but definitely had quite the personality.

It took a solid week before Mochi would accept him. My wife had long nights while I was traveling at work keeping the two separated and having Pepe scream all night. After a week, they finally were able to live together.

About a week ago, he started having diarrhea. He had a chest cold when we brought him home. A visit to the vets office revealed no problems. We held off on the vaccine shots for a week until he got better. Yesterday, after coming home from work, I found him laying on the couch exhausted. His body was limp and he was completely lethargic. I had work to do but instead held him on my chest while I watched TV. Holding him seemed to comfort him as he laid there with no reaction to my petting. Each time I moved him, his head dangled freely. I called the vet trying to schedule an appointment but they weren’t able to see him until the next morning.

He wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t drink. At this point, I started to worry. All I could do was sit there and be there with him. An hour later, he started to sneeze  a lot. I put him on a cloth napkin to absorb the discharge. Periodically, he would stiffen up and start wailing his paws in the air.

Another hour went by and he started to have a discharge out of his mouth. I wiped him and held him the whole time. At this point, I started looking for an emergency clinic nearby. The closest one was about 20 minutes away in rush hour traffic.

He started to breath through his mouth, struggling with each breath, his mouth opening wide. He reminded me of a raptor, the feature that we fell in love.

At about 6:35 PM, his breathing slowed. His paws were cold. I knew there was nothing I could do. The inevitable was to happen and I knew that attempting to rush him to the hospital would result in him dying at the table. I loved him too much to have him die scared in the car ride and if he made it, in the hands of a stranger.

At 6:40 PM, his eyes stopped reacting to my petting and he urinated over the blanket. His body went limp, his body wasted away. He went from a kitten with a cold to skin and bones over two days.

I sat there in shock. I called his name, petting his head. He didn’t react to my hand movements over his eyes. They had completely dilated. I touched his eye and it stayed open with no movement.

He spent his last few minutes curled up in my hands. My friend had passed.

Tukie came home within minutes, smiling as she saw me hold him in the window. I told her that he had died. She didn’t believe me. We had joked the last couple days that he looks dead at times.

We held each other, looking at his limp body. We had lost our love.

I miss you Pepe.

Here’s an ironic video of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the 2007 All Things Digital executive conference. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal asks Steve and Bill what is the principle device of the future. Ironically, Bill describes the future as a range of devices including a tablet form factor, a mobile device, a home media center, and the traditional PC. Steve then says the future is the PC.

Fast forward to today, Microsoft is struggling produce the range of devices. Instead, Apple has now produced the iPhone, the iPad, the Macbook Pro, and to some extent, the Apple PC.

So here we are in 2010, what is the future of computing five years from now? This question is incredibly difficult to answer considering two CEO’s of the top technology companies struggle to see three years out in the future.

In watching the video, I think Bill has a much better vision of the future, one where we’re not reliant on the perfect device. Instead, we’ll use a range of devices depending on where and what we’re doing. On the go, we have a mobile device similar to the iPhone. Around the house and in casual settings, we’ll pull out our tablet, or iPad. On the go, and if we need to do intensive work, we’ll use our laptops. At home, we have projectors or walls of displays that run on servers/desktop PCs. Everything will be touch based. Even farther out, Bill says the future is 3D, or some sort of “Minority Report” style flicking screens.

Most importantly, the key to this future is the ability for the devices to recognize the user and customize the applications available. I’d like to see my iPhone display my top favorite and frequently used applications when I pick it up. When I hand it over to another user, it should recognize that user and change the interface and available applications based on preferences, and security settings. This means I should also be able to work on a document on my laptop, run out the door late to a meeting and have instant access to that document on my mobile device, and come home and view it projected on my wall in my home office.

Shockingly, this technology is available and we’ll be seeing it sooner than we expect.

Disclaimer: Walt Mossberg is a terrible interviewer and I want his job.

Traditionally, companies and governments perform what is known as a risk assessment, to identify the likelihood and impacts of potential vulnerabilities, threats, and dangers. While this is a worthwhile management exercises to keep the risks on management radar, it often focuses on negative events such as internal control weaknesses, security, and disasters.

photo credit: yomy17

In light of the economic conditions, many organizations are faced with budget cuts, often in form of across the board cuts. Department heads are asked to cut a fixed percentage of their budget. However, this siloed approach means we’re over-cutting vital functions and under-cutting under-performing functions. Instead, organizations should evaluate performance on an enterprise level, identifying synergies or lack thereof.

What are the key features of this organization-wide assessment?

• High-level, broad sweeping review of all functions
• Assessment conducted by management interviews, documentation review, and observations
• Focus on performance improvements and efficiency gains
• Identifies consolidation and streamlining opportunities

What are the outcomes of such an assessment?

• Consensus on the key issues affecting the organization
• Identification of improvement opportunities
• Inventory of priority initiatives

Nearly everyone has a blog in some form or another. I so often see individuals, and even companies use a service provider to manage their blog. This is referring to the many popular ones such as Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous, and so on. They’re easy to use, simply provide some basic information and they’ll set you up with a ready to use blog with easy configuration. However, my biggest concern is ownership of data. Who owns the data you post? With the recent Facebook privacy issues becoming a hot topic, it’s time to step back and evaluate the information you post online.

photo credit: Forrestal_PL

This blog is hosted through Dream Host. I pay a monthly fee for shared space on a server. They provide the tools to assist me in installing the WordPress application, the SQL database to house the information, and ongoing backups. That middle part is the most important one, the SQL database. This means that I own my data. Every comment, picture, post, link that I post on this blog is kept in a database, that I own, can save and archive.

Here are some basic questions to ask your provider. You may have to pull up the dreaded terms of service to answer these questions.

1. Who owns my data?
2. Can I export all my data into a file for future use and backup?
3. How much control do I have over the configuration?

What do you think? Am I being paranoid or is there legitimate concerns?

The MS Office suite can be a pain in the butt at times. Even the most basic activities can easily be messed up or corrupted with bad data. Over time, a lot of formatting and hidden data is entered into a document. After a while, the document is filled with headers, styles, formats, hidden text, hidden meta data, etc. This is problematic especially if templates are not used but old documents. For example, when a previous used document is reused again for new purposes, the existing errors are carried over to the new document. Additional user errors are then added and the process repeats. After a while, a document is almost unusable.

photo credit: TheBrady

Here are some good practices:

Do not cut and paste from different documents.

Cutting and pasting carries over previously used formats. If it’s not compatible with the new document, the application attempts to use a similar format. If there are hidden data and formats, those are also carried over. When possible, copy or cut, and use paste special –> unformatted text. You’ll then have to restyle the text to your new document.

Use document styles when possible.

Rather than making ad hoc document formats, like fonts, colors, borders, etc., try to use defined styles. If it doesn’t exist, define a new style and apply it to the text. Using styles allows you to make changes to one style, which will update the entire document.

Start over from time to time

We’re not always able to follow these practices and are in a rush to meet a deadline. This results in sloppy document practices that carry over. When time is available, start with a fresh document and follow the above practices. Take those old documents out of commission and archive them. Don’t use them again.

Any other tips?

матрациEvery time I work with an organization on setting up their social media presence, I typically start with defining their business objectives, goals, and expected outcomes. This is used to tie together a social media strategic plan that aligns their mission, vision, and values with social media.

The implementation part is similar to many organizations. Most of it is fairly painful to go through the mechanic process of signing up for service, creating a profile, setting up the account.

1. Identify name, try to make this consistent across sites.
2. Create a blog.
3. Create a Twitter account.
4. Create a FB fan page.
5. Create a YouTube account.
6. Register with as many accounts as possible. Try this service.

How many of you would find a detailed checklist useful in your efforts? My vision is to create a screencast of signing up for each service.

photo credit: catchthefuture

This is a series of Frequently Asked Questions. I find my peers, coworkers, and friends asking the same question over and over. I always seem to have the answer. Naturally, I’m often asked:

How do you do all your magic?

I’m no Harry Potter or Warlock. It’s no secret. I don’t have a bag of tricks or keep a book of knowledge around. In fact, if you ask me point blank with no time to figure it out, changes are, I’ll tell you I’ll get back to you. Instead, I am an expert at looking things up. Instead of trying to learn everything, I simply learn how to search to do things. There will always be someone that can do things better than you. Why reinvent the wheel? About 99% of things you want to do has already been done.

Want to cure cancer? Look it up here.

I got challenged by my brother today to be more consistent in blog posts. It also coincided with a video I was watching by Gary Vee:

I really like him because I think he’s ADD like me. Rather than putting together a plan, I’ll just take his ideas and use it as my own. I need to evaluate where I am and how to take this blog to the next level. First step as David recommended is to just write. It may seem a little unfocused but in order to build a masterpiece, you first have to gather material. Overtime, I will focus and refine.

This is yet just another obligatory review of the iPad. I’m sure there are thousands of unboxing videos, app reviews, and fanboy videos out there. So why bother with yet another review? This is about how one Apple, or rather technology fanatic has completely drank the kool-aid and joined the consumerism bandwagon.

My home has an Apple Airport Extreme wifi base station networking several devices:

• Lexmark Wireless printer/copier/scanner
• Work computer with second monitor
• MacBook Air
• MacBook Pro
• iPhone
• iPad
• Tivo
• Two external hard drives

Steve Jobs sold us the laptop and then a mobile phone. That wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted to manufacture demand for a third product, the iPad.

A tweet today by Erica Douglass really

Wouldn’t we all be better off if we learned how to invest our money instead of mindlessly spending it on overpriced consumer gadgets?

That really hit the spot. She is right, we’ve all gotten on this bandwagon to buy, buy, buy. We all would have been wealthier had we instead in Apple instead of buying Apple products.