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I love my Tivo.

I think it’s the best invention of it’s decade and a close second to the remote control, as being the most useful invention of my lifetime.

I love it not so much for it’s technology, but for it’s simplicity.  The idea was so simple, all the technical pieces we readily available, and yet it changed the way we watch television forever.

Tivo changed my relationship with television, and in doing that,  it changed my expectations of television.  If it’s true that television has more to do with our generational divide than date of birth, we should expect that we haven’t seen the real result of the impact of Tivo yet.  That’s pretty cool for such a small company.

When I think about what I want for our own industry, I really want the same thing.  I want to change the way we think about systems and business.

I want to change how we look at people in business.

I want to bring the human back to human resources while also making business work better.

I want to realize the statement Laurie said about me.  I want to make work better.

The landscape of business is becoming more complex every day.  Social norms, expectations and markets are all changing.  Rapidly.

Global isn’t an idea, it’s a business imperative for big companies.  Companies are having to make bigger decisions with less insight since management by walking around is a lot harder when you have to walk across an ocean.

We need a new relationship between systems and business and I for one, think that it’s about time.  It all starts with lofty goals in my world.

While I didn’t get to go to the talk I did get to hear people raving to Amy about how interesting it was (and ask a lot of questions about Paul!).

Her photo was in regular rotation during the breaks at TEDActive.  So now, not only can she forever say that she gave a talk at TED, she was also a prominent background for others TED memories as well.

Yes, I’m consumed with jealousy and pride.    Awesome stuff Amy, you rock girl!

photo credit: Jenny Yang

Several people I work with attended an interesting training here at Oracle.  It was a course designed to give you tips on how to do presentations to executives.  I heard some key themes included: being on message,  brief,  in control, prepared, etc.

Most importantly,  you should make sure you talk about things they care about (not what you care about) and in words they use.

It’s not just that you shouldn’t use jargon, you should be purposeful in your intent to communicate your ideas from the point of view of the audience. Of course, this is always useful, but the higher the career stakes, the more you really want to get it right.

I have a been thinking about this for a few days now as I have a much harder task in front of me than a meeting with executives,  I have to present “what I do” to my daughter’s first grade class.

yikes.

Here is what I do.

Meetings, emails, meetings, emails, IMs, emails, reviewing reports, emails about reports, twitter, blogging, email, thinking, email, email about thinking, document review, email about document review, and so on…

pretty much email. That’s what I do.  Nothing very concrete there.  In fact, I’m sure there are a lot of people who do a lot of email and their jobs would be wildly different than mine.

Of course, I’m not really worried about putting this into first grade language.  I have regular access to a first grader, and I have a good idea what she does and does not understand (or care about). But I do realize that I need to be more specific about what is in the meetings and emails or I will confuse and bore them.

So as I was thinking about what exactly to talk about, I realized that her class is already familiar with the concept of performance feedback.  They do self appraisals every day. The class uses what they call  “Reflection sheets”* to capture when they do (and do not) show evidence of following the school rules (Respect, Useful, Listener, Ethical, Safe).  As you can see, it’s an optimized process for minimal paperwork with maximum utility.

As I work to define what I do in a way that is interesting and meaningful to a first grader, I realize that maybe what I really should be doing is recommending that business consider having more reflection sheets and less self appraisals.

I am finding myself especially fond of the useful one, I think that’s worth a second look.

__________________

*I could only get agreement to have a copy if I promised to black out her name

As a mother of girls I’m highly sensative to female behaviors — those that I want my girls to exhibit and those I’d like them to avoid.  My rant today is about the inappropriate apology. I am sure that there are men who also have this annoying habit, but I tend to notice it in women.

So as a matter of public service I would like to call out those apologies that you should retain and those that you should drop

You probably owe me an apology if you

• Run into my car
• Step on my toe
• Ruin my outfit
• Say something mean to me
• etc.

You do not owe me an apology if you

• Call my house and the person you are looking for is not there
• Want to ask for 5 minutes of my time to talk about something
• Want to disagree with me about a topic or idea
• etc

Whoever taught you that you need to apologize for your existence got it wrong.  Trust me, you have a lot of great things to contribute.  Don’t tell me to undervalue you.  It’s silly and it’s time to stop.

I’m happy to share a new blog with my TalentedApps and DFoF friends.

My girlfriend Heather has started a fashion blog (I must say this is probably more for the girls…).

As has been well reported, in my world it takes a village and Fashion is one of the first areas that I’m always looking for help.  Heather has taken her advice to the inter-tubes offering great and practical tips to others.

I love her mission

High-heel wearing California Native who solemnly swears to make it her mission to find you something to wear that will earn you a compliMINT (or four).

I, for one, am a big fan of a compliment.

So, if you are interested in broadening out your blogroll consider giving Stylishmint a look.  You never know, you might learn something new and who doesn’t love that?