Thwart Mediocrity

Reading children’s books aloud is therapeutic for one who reads corporate email all day.

Giving gifts is so much better than getting gifts ever was.

Watch every word you say. And how you say it.

Today’s toddler will treat touch interfaces like we treat keyboard and mouse.

Exposing a child to exotic foods young makes her less picky as she grows older.

Never change a diaper on a bed.

You can never spend too much time with your children.

Limit TV, but make sure to record Word World on PBS. Best show ever for kiddos.

Parenting manuals are like business books: one book will directly conflict the next.

I’d rather stare at a finger painting from my two-year-old than any museum piece. (And I took enough Art History in college to know van Eyck from van Gogh.)

Two books I’ve repurchased after losing (don’t ask me how I can lose a book, because it baffles me, too):

The first is Jose Saramago’s The Tale of the Unknown Island. If you aren’t familiar with Saramago (don’t worry, he’s sort of obscure here in the US), he’s a Portugese writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the late nineties. Saramago writes in a stream-of-consciousness style that can be a little laborious of a read, but man, it’s worth sticking to (try my favorite, The Double). For The Tale of the Unknown Island, imagine Plato’s cave – a parable – almost a children’s story; simple but deep. Take an hour and read it and you’ll thank me.

The second is George Leonard’s Mastery. I devoured this first during my Personal MBA run with Matt four years ago.

What Leonard teaches: enjoy the plateau – the flow of practicing a skill – rather than relishing in the short-term satisfaction of a climax.

I get all caught up in the climaxes – the eagle putts of life.

The essence is in the six irons on the driving range and learning to shape the shot.

I’m running all three at home now. I’m most satisfied with Ubuntu (Jaunty Jackalope).

It’s free, fast (running on a seven-year-old machine like a champ), and provides a pretty big sense of accomplishment. Even enjoying the command line.

The Mac is still the fave (I like the juicy iMac screen), but it comes with random shutdowns. Plus, I hate the Mighty Mouse.

But for the price, Ubuntu is king.

I’ve given fair shots to Mint, Quicken Online, and pretty much every other personal finance tool that pops up.

But for our regular checking account, a spreadsheet that acts as a register going backward and a budget going forward is our perfect solution. We’ve kept it current for five years running.

All deposits are there going forward — as are recurring bills and budgets for groceries, gas and other expenses each month.

When we spend in a budget category, we decrease the remaining budget balance for the month when we add the expense.

Simple yet effective.

Last month, my good friend Tim McAlpine flew down to Austin to take a roadtrip with me to surprise DeAndre with his new job, gear, and Prius.  En route to Waco, Tim flipped his recorder on… twice.  We thankfully got the second take.

If you want to hear me say some pretty off-the-wall stuff including yelling at a reckless driver at the Flying J truckstop, give this podcast a listen.

Today Ava turns six months old.

So much to be thankful for this amazing Thanksgiving.

One website launch; Young & Free Texas campaign finals (congrats, DeAndre’); gigs in South Dakota, at TCUL Marketing, and SWOMfest ’08.

Without fail, my CEO asks me each time I see him, “Are you having fun!?”

Today, our Microsoft Surface developer unit got installed.  We have crazy ideas and we have developers itching to turn those ideas into reality.

I’m having fun.

I started our corporate blog shortly after arriving at TDECU but didn’t announce it internally or externally.  I’d make occasional posts but there was no traffic.

In fact, I didn’t care about generating traffic; I cared about content.  I felt that seeding the blog with compelling posts was a necessity before a huge launch.  And I was planning to coordinate the launch with the rollout of our new corporate website.

Then last week, that little blog went from less than ten visits the prior day to over 1,000 the next.

What happened?

It became useful.

It became our instantaneous communication line to our scattered communities.

Now, we have contributers posting across our organization – not being assigned to blog but asking for ways to contribute to the conversation.  

Also just in the last week we’ve been using other social media (namely YouTube) and both integrating it into the blog and the landing page of our corporate website.

What Ike taught me is that when you’re doing something special offline, there’s no faster or more effective way to get the word out online than through social media.  (Not that I didn’t know that already, but it was nice to be proven right.)

Google Reader tells me that “from your 161 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 3,824 items.”  I won’t even estimate how many tweets I’ve read.

Time for some spring cleaning on my feeds and on Twitter.

And time to start using this blog as a personal creative outlet.  I’ve been talking too much business lately.  In the past month, I’ve made 42 posts across three different blogs.