Likes to think

A fanatic is a person who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
-Winston Churchill

Well now, I’ve just recieved my first spam comment - isn’t that just wonderful?

Oh what a lovely measure of existance, joy!

Any readers wanting Viagra, you just let me know.

Why?!?!

Why, when people plan, in small businesses, large organisations or well - anywhere; do we forget to plan the execution stage?

People obsess in their planning, and even sometimes plan too much.

They plan how things will work, how they will look, what they’ll sound and feel like. They spend hours tweaking, and yet more changing things on the fly.

Books fall off the shelves about planning and project management, and good books too.

So why, with all of this planning, isn’t it obvious one should plan the execution?

What goes first? What goes last? What happens if we don’t follow the order here? Who does what? Who makes decisions? Where are the skills? What are the timescales, and the scope?

Without solid execution, any plan is destine for a hard time - and if you don’t fail and fall flat at the first hurdle, you’re constantly picking up the pieces.

De-stress a little; take your time! Because once you press “Go”, you had better have gotten it right.

I think Seth has touched on a difficult one, in “Alphabetical order is obsolete“.

He has a point, sometimes people are lazy when they design things – they go for the “we’ve always done” way. Thus, we pretty much stick to alphabeticalising everything when there are sometimes much better ways of presenting; and more importantly – navigating our way through the world.

My opinion is a slight change to Seth’s point, people should have different views, different angles for which to look at data. Sometimes the alphabet isn’t so bad.

When you look in a dictionary, it sure comes in handy.

Sure, I know what Seth might say, “just group them by meaning” AKA thesaurus; if you want to get a spelling that’s fine. But, if I hear a new word, and I can’t spell it – all I know is that it starts with a sound a little like “ahh”.

The alphabet is limited, I know, but only in so much as looking at data from one (and only ever one) angle. If you only use one viewpoint, you’re limited no matter what the point of view is.

The key point here is to look at things from a different prospective – not just in new world way – but with regards to your lists and lists of data that you scrawl through. What we need here, is options.

Also from my point of view, as someone with dyslexia – when I look through my phone for a name – I sometimes forget what I was calling for, and who I was calling. Strange, and confusing, I know – but it happens often enough for me to have to develop a coping mechanism.

All I have in my head is a sound that I look for (that’s right, alphabetically) in my phonebook. When I find the name, the subject and therefore reason for me picking up the phone becomes apparent.

Sometimes I navigate through my phone via kinesis, meaning I know how it feels; to call my girlfriend for example.

Other times, I use the ‘last called option’ – as I usually only call the same few people.

It’s all about making sure to: Every So Often Ask Why, as John points out.

So, you see – I don’t think we should scrap the whole alphabet – or even try and reduce its importance. Just help it make some well deserved friendships with other organisational points of view.

I’ve decided to make a new theme for my blog. The old one was nice, but I didn’t make it myself.

I wanted to make something to organise my work a little more like I wanted it to appear. Thus, you’ll find my new ‘beta’ layout here now.

I’ll be making a few modifications, but essentially what you see is what you get.