Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Personalised postage stamps

Australia Post is now offering an online system for designing your own personal real postage stamps.

You simply choose your photo, upload it, choose your design and position your photo. You pay online. For a minimum order of 20 domestic stamps the cost is $23. That's more than double the normal cost but there may be occasions when the indulgence is worthwhile.

The tyranny of office time

How do you value that inspiration you had in the middle of the night? Or the time that your subconscience is thinking about a client's problem whilst you are trying to attentively listen to your child?

Are these moments any less valuable than non-productive "Face Time"?

Bruce McEwen discusses this Business Week article and cites a lawyer bemoaning that he doesn't have time to reflect and consider problems any more, clients want instant answers.

There's no doubt that the idea of being chained to a desk ignores the fact that people can't be productive for hours on end.  It also ignores the fact that clients just want to be communicated with: as long as they understand the problem and what you are doing to solve it, they are willing to give you reasonable time to do so. That assumes there is a relationship of trust between you.

Insights from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Evelyn Rodriguez recently referred to Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when preparing for her "dwelve" (see here, here and here).

Since then she has published a note from a reader that has referred to it.

So I decided to pull my 1974 version off my shelves and see if there was something relevant to me now.

Here’s one of the sections I bookmarked:

On the topic of incompetent mechanics page 25: "Why did they butcher it so? These were not people running away from technology...these were the technologists themselves.They sat down to do a job and they performed it like chimpanzees. Nothing personal in it. There was no obvious reason for it. ...

The radio was a clue. You can't think really hard about what you're doing and listen to the radio at the same time. Maybe they didn't see their job as having anything to do with hard thought, just wrench twiddling...

Their speed was another clue. They were really slopping things around in a hurry and not looking where they slopped them. More money that way - if you don't stop to think that it usually takes longer or comes out worse.

But the biggest clue seemed to be their expression. ...They were like spectators...There was no identification with the job...They were involved in it but not in such a way as to care."

There were a couple of other interesting sections. However overall I found the book sad.

Work anxiety: does work make you sick?

This article from AFR BOSS discusses the work anxiety syndrome: where people are physically sick as a result  of stress, job insecurity, lack of control or frustration at work.

The syndrome exhibits itself in nausea, neck and back pain and becoming short tempered amongst other things.

A key quote:

"These days, worrying about our daily tasks makes many of us get them done properly and efficiently and ensures we don’t forget them. Most high-performing people often suffer from anxiety, but too much worry is detrimental, regardless of the personality.

According to an article on overcoming work anxiety by US psychologist Dr John Weaver, there are three signs of disproportionate anxiety: if the fear is out of perspective or irrational; if it results in paralysis rather than action; and if it is pervasive.

Fear that is out of proportion disrupts our ability to make logical decisions, he says, and makes us overestimate risks. When our dread rises to very high levels, the goal becomes avoidance and we can freeze during an important presentation or meeting."

The Resilience Institute recommends starting the attack on such problems with a good sleep strategy.

Elsewhere in the same issue of AFR BOSS (but not online yet) Amanda Sinclair talks about self-doubt when a person starts a new position.

MBA by books

Seth Godin started a discussion on the value of an MBA by claiming "unless you want to be a consultant or an i-banker (where a top MBA is nothing but a screen for admission) it's hard for me to understand why this is a better use of time and money than actual experience combined with a dedicated reading of 30 or 40 books."

Josh Kaufman responded with his list of 115 books, websites and blogs while at the same time acknowledging that an MBA does have some uses.

It's always hard to put together a list of "must have" (business) books. Some books which are made compulsory reading may not "ring a bell" while others not listed may be very influential.

So I'll just offer Million Dollar Consulting (Alan Weiss) and The Elephant and the Flea (Charles Handy) as worth reading on the basis that bits of both should be of interest to most business people.