A while ago I got myself a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Shoes (the KSO model) to try the new trend of barefoot (or nearly barefoot) running. After a week or so and feeling pain in my knees and hips I decided that this was not for me and shelved those goofy shoes immediately…

Until now…

A friend recommended the book Born To Run by Christopher McDougall. This book inspired me to give barefoot running another try. In the following I like to share what I learned from this book, from various articles on the Internet and my personal experience with barefoot running.

Born To Run is one of the best books ever written about running. As G. MacDonald – one of the reviewer’s on Amazon puts it: “If, when you finish with this book, you don’t immediately get yourself outside and run like hell, then there’s probably not a drop of living blood in you. This book is the perfect antidote to everything that’s wrong with modern running and the way to find everything that’s still so right with it.”

Book Description: Born To Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong. It’s a great read, but also very eye opening concerning the running shoe industry.

The book is mainly about the Tarahumara – a hidden tribe of Mexicans living in the Copper Canyon region of Mexico. The Tarahumara are legendary for their ability to run extreme distances in inhospitable conditions without breaking a sweat or getting injured. They are superathletes whose running method would place them among elite runners of the developed world even though their society and technology are 500 years behind it. They often live in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tire or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot.

Tarahumara running is based on endurance not speed. This fact is exemplified by their hunting practices. In order to catch such wild animals as deer, wild turkeys, and rabbits, the Tarahumara simply chase after the animal until the animal drops from exhaustion. Their hunting practices are widely known in Mexico and ranchers have been known to hire the indians to chase down wild horses .

“We’re designed for persistence hunting, which is a mix of running and walking,” says McDougall. “What’s built into that kind of running is a sense of pleasure. You are designed and built and perfect for this activity, and it should be enjoyable and fun.”

After reading this book it was obvious to me that during my first barefoot running attempt I made every mistake possible: Too wide strides, too long distances to start with and not changing my running style at all. To successfully accommodate to barefoot running it was important for me to learn how barefoot running is different from running in my thickly cushioned trainers.

Some background:

From the Zenhabits article The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Barefoot Running:

For decades now, runners (including me) have been sold on the need for good running shoes — if you want to prevent injuries, invest in good shoes. Proper cushioning, and sometimes rigid motion control or stability features, were needed, and if you had injuries, you probably had the wrong shoes.

But recent studies have proven what traditional peoples have known all along — that running barefoot strengthens your feet and is a more natural way to run. Running in cushioned, motion-controlled shoes is like having your neck in a cast for a month — when you take the cast off, your neck muscles will be weak. You also pound your feet much harder with running shoes, causing problems not only with feet but knees and other joints. We’re making our feet weak, and pounding them hard — it’s no wonder we have all kinds of injuries.

From the Wired Science article To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes:

“People have been running barefoot for millions of years and it has only been since 1972 that people have been wearing shoes with thick, synthetic heels,” said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

Strong evidence shows that thickly cushioned running shoes have done nothing to prevent injury in the 30-odd years since Nike founder Bill Bowerman invented them, researchers say. Some smaller, earlier studies suggest that running in shoes may increase the risk of ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis and other injuries. Runners who wear cheap running shoes have fewer injuries than those wearing expensive trainers. Meanwhile, injuries plague 20 to 80 percent of regular runners every year.

How to Run Barefoot

As funny as it sounds but most barefoot runners use minimalist footwear – so called barefoot running shoes. Those shoes are designed to remove the cushioning and motion control of traditional running shoes. In this way your feet is able to strengthen and feel the ground more while still giving you the protection against getting cut on the soles of your feet. Some of these barefoot running shoes look even more technical and advanced than regular running shoes.

If you’re interested in trying out barefoot (or nearly barefoot) running, keep in mind that it will take your body some time to get used to it. Many people – myself included – make the mistake of doing too much, too quickly. That’s a big mistake. It can lead to pain and injury. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Start slowly: Do quarter-mile runs at most, and build up gradually. Keep barefoot running to no more than 10 percent of your weekly regimen, especially at first.
• Don’t try to run with the same running style you use in shoes
• Shorten your steps: Don’t extend your legs as far as you do with shoes. It should feel almost like you’re running in place.
• Land on the forward part (forefeet or midfeet) of your foot instead of your heels. If you feel yourself landing on your heels, shorten your stride. Be aware: Too much on your forefeet can make your calves sore.
• Keep upright and balanced. Your feet should be hitting the ground almost directly underneath you, not in front of you.
• Stay light. You should feel like you’re light on your feet, not pounding at all. Barefoot runners tend to be a little more springy in their step.
• Run quietly. If you are making a lot of noise with your steps (as shoe-wearing runners do), you’re pounding too hard. Try to run softly, quietly, like an animal.

“The human foot is a work of art and a masterpiece of engineering.”
—Leonardo Da Vinci

“People who don’t wear shoes when they run have an astonishingly different strike,” said Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and co-author of a paper appearing in the journal Nature. “By landing on the middle or front of the foot, barefoot runners have almost no impact collision, much less than most shod runners generate when they heel-strike.

The following short video shows a heel-first strike in a traditional running shoe (left) compared to a midfoot strike in Vibram FiveFingers (right):

After learning all of this and putting it into practice I successfully accommodated to running in my Vibram FiveFingers. This time I really took it slowly and changed my running style over a period of four weeks. I haven’t yet switched to barefoot running completely but as my feet are getting stronger I am enjoying it more and more. Running barefoot is about connecting with the ground, about feeling, about freedom and lightness and most importantly about having fun.

Many runners shelved their high-tech trainers in favor of naked feet — or minimalist footwear like the Nike Free, the Newton All-Weather Trainer and the glove-like Vibram FiveFingers. If you’re still skeptical at all about running bare-footed, or with very minimal foot protection here are some further resources that will give you great insight into why you should consider it:

• Born To Run (book by Christopher McDougall)
• The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Barefoot Running (article by Leo Babauta)
• To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes (Wired Science article)
• Vibram Five Fingers Shoes: The Barefoot Alternative (article by Tim Ferris)
• The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money? (article by Christopher McDougall)
• How To Run Barefoot (article by Jessica Porter)
• Running Barefoot, Forefoot Striking & Training Tips
• Wikipedia: Barefoot Running

• Is Your Office Chair Killing You?
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• Time Management
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt

Do you feel some pain in your lower back? A light numbness in your rear and lower thigh? Are you feeling a little down?

These symptoms are all normal, and they’re not good. They may well be caused by doing precisely what you’re doing – sitting. All of these can be symptoms of not having a proper chair to sit in when doing desk work. Research in the diverse fields of epidemiology, molecular biology, biomechanics, and physiology is converging toward a startling conclusion: Sitting is a public-health risk. And exercising doesn’t offset it.

"People need to understand that the qualitative mechanisms of sitting are completely different from walking or exercising," says University of Missouri microbiologist Marc Hamilton. "Sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little. They do completely different things to the body."

Feeling first signs of the above mentioned symptoms I was looking for a new office chair and came across Herman Miller’s Aeron.

The Aeron Chair is a popular office chair introduced by Herman Miller back in 1994. The chair is popular for its ergonomic design, which ensures comfort and an excellent fit for the user. It is definitely one of the best chairs around for computer users and for general office use and use in meeting or conference rooms.

"The human form has no straight lines, it is biomorphic. We designed the chair to be above all biomorphic, or curvilinear, as a metaphor of human form in the visual as well as the tactile sense. There is not one straight line to be found on an Aeron Chair."  says designer Bill Stumpf.

Its novel design has gained it a spot in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.

Have you ever wondered why people purchase a high-end chair like the Aeron even if it costs nearly a thousand dollars? The answer lies in the health benefits. If you get the right size and adjust it properly, most people can sit in them all day long without feeling uncomfortable.

Other popular high-end chairs to look at are Herman Miller’s Mirra, the SwingChair, the Ergohuman Mesh Chair and the Liberty Chair from Humanscale.

Many office workers swear by them. But are those high-end chairs worth the money? What do you think?

• Born To Run
• Wear Sunscreen
• UI Platforms: Which One Would You Pick?
• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• Time Management

The following essay was written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997. She described it as the commencement speech she would give if she were asked to give one.

When you read the speech below, you will be able to relate to some of the things Mary had written and you will enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-old I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

The most popular and well-known form of the essay is the successful music single "Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", released in 1998, by Baz Luhrmann. This song was a number one hit in several countries.

• Validation
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Man on Wire

This is based on an ACTUAL ;-) radio conversation between a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995.

Canadians:  Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.

Americans:  Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians:  Negative.  You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans:  This is the Captain of a US Navy ship.  I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians:  No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans:  THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET.  WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE  DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15  DEGREES NORTH. I SAY AGAIN, THAT’S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH – OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians:  This is a lighthouse.  Your call.

• Saving the Planet!
• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• The World’s First Computer Bug!
• Microsoft Surface Parody
• Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain with Music

What do you need to make your life look better? Will a dime do?

In a classic study at a German university, Psychologist Norbert Schwarz in the course of a day occasionally placed a coin equivalent to a dime on a copy machine for the next user to find. Later, everyone who used the machine was interviewed about their lives.

People who found the dime reported greater levels of overall satisfaction with their lives than those who didn’t find a dime.

“It’s not the value of what you find,” Schwarz says. “It’s that something positive happened to you and surprised you”. Very minimal things can temporarily put you in a good mood.

Every time something happens that is over your expectations will put you into a better mood. Often it’s the little things in life that make us happy.

Knowing about this you can surprise other people by doing something kind they did not expect. For example:

If you are a woman and and receive flowers (e.g. at your birthday) put it on the desk of a female co-worker the next day and ask her to pass it on to another female co-worker the following day. In this way the whole office will be happier for a while ;-)

With the Kindness Chain, Oprah Winfrey introduced a similar idea in one of her shows:

All you have to do to start your own Kindness Chain is to do something nice for someone else… that’s it! Encourage them to "pass it on" so the chain isn’t broken.

What did surprise you recently? How did you surprise others in a positive way? You are invited to share your own stories in the comments below.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life

Information overload has been around since the introduction of the printing press; so why do we still consider it to be a new problem?

Clay Shirky, New York University new-media professor, writer, and consultant argues that the problem isn’t information overload, it’s filter failure:

“What we’re dealing with now is not the problem of information overload, because we’re always dealing (and always have been dealing) with information overload…Thinking about information overload isn’t accurately describing the problem; thinking about filter failure is.”

Watch the video below to hear Clay Shirky’s well-argued points:

The  Gutenberg economic logic of publishing required that publishers act as filters. The Internet reduces the economic risks of publishing by allowing more and more information to be published at almost no cost.

This means it’s increasingly important for us to create better filters. Having access to information is great, but we need to filter and focus based on what we want to accomplish and what we need.

What kind of filters do you have in place to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed by too much information? Let me know in the comments.

• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• How to Support Knowledge Sharing in Your Organization?
• What Everybody Ought to Know About Twitter?
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 6 Tools to Support Knowledge Sharing in Your Organization

The number and volume of information resources on the Internet and our corporate intranets is enormous and growing exponentially. People spent a lot of time trying to find information to accomplish their tasks. Improving this process increase the competitive advantage and accelerate the adoption of new and worthy ideas.

Know-how is Know-where. The quality of decisions depends on existing knowledge. The one that use, create and share knowledge efficiently will succeed. It is not possible to keep all relevant knowledge in mind. A big challenge is having the available knowledge where it is required.

To identify relevant content it is necessary to look through many resources for those of specific interest; it will also be necessary to continuously monitor available resources (e.g. blogs, twitter, etc.) to detect new useful sources or to decide that others are no longer of interest.

This means it’s increasingly important for us to create better filters. Having access to information is great, but we need to filter and focus based on what we want to accomplish and what we need.

You can achieve this goal by connecting your team to a knowledge network. Members of each community of interest are expert in their topic and have fun sharing their knowledge and expertise with others. The infrastructure powering the knowledge network will provide straight forward tools to support social interactions, shared creation, information research, collaboration and communication. The integration into daily business is important.

The heart and soul of a Knowledge Network are the people contributing to topics of their interest and improving the quality of these topics.

The infrastructure of a Knowledge Network consists of a number of topic spaces, member profiles and shared tools. A community of interest grows around each topic.

Each Topic Space has a dedicated moderator and you may use any number of Shared Tools like a Dashboard, a News Feed, a Blog, a Microblog, a Wiki, Links, Files and aggregated Feeds. The integration of these tools with an overall news feed is important.

Each Team Member gets its own personal space and can choose to add from all available shared tools like a Blog, a Microblog, Files, Links, etc. The profile can be personalized by your team members. At least it contains a portrait image and a short role description.

Project Spaces are just special topics. The shared tools are the same. They provide a starting point for each project and contain pointers to all the relevant information. Furthermore they can be considered as shared space for ad-hoc collaboration around project specific activities. Traditionally you would do this via email. The problem is that it is locked up in our “inbox silos” and thus not accessible to any other interested team members not part of the distribution list…

To keep up to date with the activities on a certain topic you can visit the web interface of your knowledge network, turn on Email notifications or subscribe to the news feed in your aggregator of choice.

In a follow up post I will show you tools you can use to support Knowledge Sharing in your organization.

• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure
• What Everybody Ought to Know About Twitter?
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 6 Tools to Support Knowledge Sharing in Your Organization

Chris Argyris coined the terms "Double Loop Learning" and "Single Loop Learning. Single loop learning has often been compared to a thermostat in that it makes a "decision" to either turn on or off. Double loop learning is like a thermostat that asks "why" — Is this a good time to switch settings? Are there people in here? Are they in bed? Are they dressed for a colder setting? — thus it orientates itself to the present environment in order to make the wisest decision.

Single Loop learning as the most common style of learning is just problem solving – improving the system as it exists. This type of learning solves problems but ignores the question of why the problem arose in the first place.

Double-Loop learning involves questioning the underlying assumptions behind techniques, goals and values. Double loop learning uses feedback from past actions to question assumptions underlying current views.

A person who is double loop learning is asking a series of "whys" (similar to Sakichi Toyoda’s technique he called the Five Whys: When confronted with a problem you ask "why" five times. By the time the fifth why is answered, you should be at the root cause of the problem).

This is a skill that is essential for higher-order problem-solving and leadership. It is the ability to question and change the rules of a game. It is an application of Einstein’s dictum:

The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. You have to rise above it to the next level

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• Time Management
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Shu Ha Ri: The Stages of Learning to Mastery

This was written by Brian G. Dyson the CEO of Coca-Cola (from 1988 until 1994).

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work – Family – Health – Friends – Spirit, and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.

They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.

How?

1. Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
2. Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
3. Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.
4. Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live ALL the days of your life.
5. Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
6. Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us together.
7. Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
8. Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
9. Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.
10. Don’t forget that a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
11. Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
12. Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Fly like a Penguin!

In his famous 2005 Stanford Commencement Address, Steve Jobs, the CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks – including death itself.

In this inspiring speech Steve Jobs tells three stories about his most pivotal points in life:

Connecting The Dots

The first story is about connecting the dots.

Steve Jobs tells the story about his parents, explains why he dropped out of college and why this was a good decision for him.  He explains how his fascination about calligraphy in college led to the innovation in beautiful typography on personal computers ten years later.

…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards

Find What You Love

The second story is about love and loss.

Steve Jobs tells the story about his rise and fall with Apple.  He explains why getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to him, how he fell in love with an amazing woman who would become his wife and how he returned to Apple after a remarkable turn of events.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

Your Time Is Limited

The third story is about death.

Steve Jobs tells how he was diagnosed with cancer; how he barely escaped death and how the awareness of dead is the most important tool he has ever encountered to help him make the big choices in life.

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Read the full transcript of Steve Jobs’ address here.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life

After creating the earth God started to design creatures.

At first he created the Seashell.

The Seashell had quite a boring life: The shell opens, water runs through; the shell closes. Open, close, open close… all day long.

Next God created the Eagle.

The Eagle had the freedom to fly over oceans and land and he had the ability to reach even the highest mountains. For the Eagle there were almost no limits – but for this freedom he had to pay a price! Day in and day out he had to fight for prey to feed himself and his offspring. It was not easy – however he was happy to pay this price.

Finally God created Man. He showed him the Seashell and then the Eagle and asked him to decide which life he wants to live.

- After an old Indian creation myth

Even today we face the same big choice:

Do you want the life of the Seashell or do you choose the life of the Eagle?

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life

Born with no arms or legs, Nick Vujicic is a preacher, a motivational speaker and the director of Life Without Limbs, an organization for the physically disabled. If you never heard of Nick watch the videos below. Truly inspirational!

If I fail, I try again, and again, and again…
If YOU fail, are YOU going to try again?

It matters how you’re going to FINISH…
Are you going to finish STRONG?

- Nick Vujicic

Nick is thankful for what he has.
He’s not bitter for what he does not have.

Nick gives an inspiring testimony about overcoming circumstances in one’s life.

• Extreme: Lewis Gordon Pugh swims the North Pole
• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Man on Wire

Many times in life you have to overcome big challenges. It’s like standing in front of a giant wall and you have no clue how to get over it… You try everything you can to cross that wall but sometimes this is not enough. You might not have the abilities and experience to do it yet. Sometimes a little help from the outside is needed. Do not run away – appreciate that help and figure out how to make that jump!

Watch the inspiring video about a big squirrel and a baby squirrel. Will the baby squirrel manage to get over the wall?

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life

Having a to-do list is an important step towards the goal of getting most out of your time. It is very important to break things down into small steps and to assign priorities to your tasks. But how do you decide what’s getting the highest priority?

Stephen R. Covey suggest a little exercise in the  7 Habits Book to find out:

Write down on a piece of paper what to you are the most important things. The first things in your life. What are your first things? Just list five or six. Now continue this prioritization. What do you think is number one, number two and so forth? One effective way is to just cut out one – what would it be? Then cut out another one until you get down to that which is most important.

Family, health, relationships , financial basis, career, education,…? What are your most important priorities?

Once you have identified what is important in your own frame of reference you can use Stephen’s four-quadrant time management matrix to further categorize your tasks. Tasks fall into one of four quadrants:

• Quadrant  1 contains urgent and important things. This is called the quadrant of necessity, and includes things like crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects, meeting preparations, medical emergencies, etc. The strategy: Do now!
• Quadrant  2 contains the items that are not urgent, but are important things. This is called the leadership quadrant  and includes planning and preparing, prevention, building relationships, renewing yourself, exercising, recreation and empowerment. The strategy: Schedule time
• Quadrant  3 contains urgent but not important things. This is called the quadrant of deception, mostly because things in this quadrant look a lot like Quadrant  1 issues, but really aren’t. These are things like interruptions, unnecessary reports, email, meetings, phone calls, and other peoples minor issues. The strategy: Delegate, say no
• Quadrant  4 contains items that are neither urgent nor important. It is called the quadrant of waste and includes busywork, trivia, irrelevant phone calls/email, various time wasting activities, excessive TV, web surfing etc. The strategy: Eliminate

Many people spend lots of time on Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 3 tasks. The challenge is to get Quadrant 2 as big as possible. The idea behind putting first things first is to prioritize important things first instead of urgent things. All it takes is realizing that it’s all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities. Focus on activities that matter to you and say no to the rest.

Further reading / listening:

• Time Management
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Shu Ha Ri: The Stages of Learning to Mastery

Dost thou love life?  Then do not squander time,

for that is the stuff life is made of.

- Benjamin Franklin

The more time you create for yourself, the more time you have to live. Setting goals, priorities and planning is important.

To waste your time efficiently follow the guidance shown in the following video:

To get most out of your time follow the advice Randy Pausch gave in his entertaining talk on time management:

Randy’s Slides

Randy gave this talk after his famous “Last Lecture”. He discusses the following topics:

• Goals, Priorities, and Planning
• Avoid wasting time
• The 80/20 Rule
• To-do Lists
• Covey’s four-quadrant
• Interruptions
• Bosses & delegation
• Specific skills and tools
• Work-Life Balance
• Meetings
• Stress and procrastination
• Managing Email

Further Reading:

Tip: You can save time by listening to the audio versions of the above books while doing other things like driving to and from work, cycling, jogging and so on…

Time is all we have. You may find one day that you have less than you think.

- Randy Pausch

• Put First Things First
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• Top 10 Tools for Learning
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Shu Ha Ri: The Stages of Learning to Mastery

What would you tell your kids if you knew you are going to die within a small number of month?

Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University. He gave his "Last Lecture" titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams on September 18, 2007.

In this moving talk, Randy talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to his kids and students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals:

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
- Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch died on July 25, 2008.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life
• Fly like a Penguin!

This video shows the inspiring story of Rick and Dick Hoyt (Team Hoyt):

When I am running, my disability seems to disappear. It is the only place where truly I feel as an equal. Due to all the positive feedback, I do not feel handicapped at all. Rather, I feel that I am the intelligent person that I am with no limits. I have a message for the world which is this: To take time to get to know people with disabilities for the individuals they are.

- Rick Hoyt -

What I’m doing is loaning Rick my arms and legs so he can be out there competing like everybody else. There is nothing in the world that the both of us can’t conquer together.

- Dick Hoyt -

• Wear Sunscreen
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life
• Fly like a Penguin!

The following true story happened to Eckart von Hirschhausen, a German doctor who became a comedian:
(loosely translated by me)

Many years ago after an unpleasant engagement on a cruise liner I visited a zoo. I looked at a penguin on a rock and thought to myself: “You are such a poor creature… your wings are too small, you can not fly and worst of all: The creator didn’t even give you knees… My mind was made up: poor design!

After walking down a little stair way I looked through a glass pane into the pool. Suddenly my penguin jumped into the water and now he was flying… Wow! He was in his element…

Later I did a research: Penguins are ten times more streamlined than a Porsche! With the equivalent amount energy of one liter fuel they can swim 2500km. Penguins are excellent swimmer and hunter and they enjoy being in the water. They are more advanced than anything built by humans. And I thought: poor design!

Like the little penguin needs water to be in his element we all need an environment where we can develop our strengths. This story is in a way a metaphor for Eckart von Hirschhausen life itself. He realized that the hospital is not the best environment to develop his personal strengths. He jumped into the cold water and changed his environment from the hospital to the stage. Today he is a very successful comedian, speaker and bestseller author.

Think about your strengths for a moment? Are you in your element right now?

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Juggling Five Balls Of Life

Visual and Storytelling are powerful ways to create good and interesting content which is fun to read and easy to memorize.

To illustrate this let’s start with a simple experiment: Memorize and repeat the following sentence. You can read it as often as you like:

Two legs sat on three legs eating no legs when along came four legs and stole no legs from two legs. When four legs ran off with no legs, two legs picked up three legs and threw it at four legs until four legs brought no legs back.

If you accomplished this little exercise there are two possible outcomes:

1. You had problems. You had to repeat the sentence more than three times.
2. You memorized the sentence quickly by reading it one or two times.

Most of us are not actively using the right brain hemisphere. After reading the sentence five-, six or even seven times many still have troubles repeating it – and after a week nobody will remember it for sure.

If you memorized the sentence quickly you most likely saw pictures of the story in your mind. I created a visual version in case you didn’t. Click here to see the story. Now you will remember it even years later…

Kathy Sierra, the author of many computer book best-sellers and the primary author of the very popular (but for very sad reasons retired…) Creating Passionate Users blog, explains it like this:

One reason for this effect is that visual images are processed in two parts of the brain rather than just one. A pile of evidence supports that people learn more deeply from words with pictures than from words alone (Mayer, 1989b, Mayer and Gallini, 1990; Mayer, Bove, and others, 1996.), and overall, several studies combined have shown a median percentage gain of 89% effectiveness. Pretty dramatic. Some of the theory behind the gain you get when words and pictures are combined is that we use our brains more fully, processing the content more deeply, because we actively connect the words to the pictures. In other words, our brains work to make sense of the combined pictures and text, and that processing leads to more meaningful and memorable learning.

Those principles can be used in all content centric areas like teaching, writing, advertising, blogging etc. There are different techniques you can use:

Pictures AND Words

According to memory expert Kenneth Higbee, “The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is usually applied to the effectiveness of a picture in understanding what was communicated; it may also apply to the effectiveness of a picture in remembering what was communicated.”

It is much more effective to use pictures and words than just words alone. In her article Kathy point’s out that the placement of text is also very important:

…the text that goes with the images should be integrated with the pictures. In five different tests, one group was exposed to text placed below the illustration, while the second group was exposed to text placed near the illustration. Although both groups saw identical text and graphics (with the only difference being placement of the text), in all five studies the second group performed better on subsequent tests. When a reader has to keep switching between the graphic and its description, he has to work harder… on the wrong things. There’s only so much mental bandwidth in a reader’s brain, and [broken record and dead-obvious here] that bandwidth should be used for making sense of the actual topic, not for making sense of the way the topic is presented.

Comics

Scott McCloud explains in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art how comics tick, how they’re composed, read and understood. The whole book itself is a comic, just amazing, entertaining and fun to read and many lessons to learn! For everyone interested in the arts of comics.

Just look at the Google Chrome Comic book with artwork by Scott McCloud to understand the power of comics to present information.

Charts and Graphs

Use whatever type of chart or graph as long as it helps you to make your point clearer. You all know pie-chart’s, bar-chart’s etc. I won’t go into much details here. But play with annotations or different colors to highlight your message.

Mind Maps

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

A mind map is also very good way to present information and it’s worth mentioning here.

Analograffiti

Vera F. Birkenbihl, a German pioneer of brain-friendly education coined the term Analograffiti. It is a creativity technique to capture associations by using a combination of words and visuals. This is how she explains Analograffiti by using Analograffiti:

You can use Analograffiti to capture your knowledge about any topic. By only looking at this picture I remember all the stories and lessons behind the acronyms and visuals from the book I read many years ago…

Storyboarding

There are many things we can learn from good film makers. They figured out how to keep us entertained. Film makers use a technique called screenwriting to lay out storyboards. Screenwriting is the art of writing scripts for films, television or video games.

Many successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon a screenwriting template called the hero’s journey. It goes like this: A challenge is given, the challenge is rejected, the challenge is finally embraced. The world is saved!

I just started to explore this topic. One of the next books on my reading list is a screenwriting book called Save the Cat!

One thing we can learn from good filmmakers is the following: Don’t start at the beginning rather jump right into the action and get the audience involved. Think about this the next time you do a presentation. Don’t bore your audience with lengthy introductions and a history about the topic – instead jump right to the interesting parts and draw your audience in!

You can find a good write up about Storyboarding for Non-Fiction on Phil Windley’s blog.

Words alone…

You need to be a very good writer to just use words alone to describe complex topics brain friendly. You somehow need to create pictures in your readers mind just by using words. One way of doing this is by using figurative language, metaphor’s and analogies.

In the follow up post Story Power! Tools to Create Engaging Content I will show you some tools to create your own visuals, comic strips, photo stories etc. and where to find good images to dress up your content. The article is now available here.

PS: Like everybody else I hate spam and stupid advertising emails. The only advertising newsletters subscription I have for more than 8 years is from a German Cognac store. No, No… what are you thinking? I don’t have a alcohol problem :) Let me explain: Eight yeas ago I was looking for a special gift – a bottle of a very old Armagnac from a special year… That shop was the only one who had it so I ordered from them and everything went well. Since that time I’m receiving a newsletter. Not often. Maybe four time a year not more. What’s so special about this newsletter you may ask? There is always a new story to read. Very funny and intelligent. There are two characters: The easy going but cheeky secretary and the clumsy (from her point of view) boss. Here is a translation of the latest newsletter (In the actual one they use their real names. I changed the names to Boss / Secretary):

Boss: "Oh my god, oh my god, that hurts! Oh dear! Oh dear! Horrible!
Secretary: "?"
Boss: "0,7 percent less in January!"
Secretary:"Your blood alcohol content during working hours?"
Boss: "No! Our revenue!"
Secretary: "Is there still enough to pay my salary?"
Boss(bitter): "THIS is your ONLY CONCERN???"
Secretary: "Hm, yes."
Boss: "I already lost 29 gram because of all this worry!!!"
Secretary: "You better loose 29 Kilo’s – then you would almost reach your ideal weight, hahaha…"
Boss: "But the experts say the CRISIS will become even WORSE!"
Secretary: "Yes, exactly those experts who predicted economic growth not so long ago?"
Boss: "Unfortunately I had stocks from of the DONT.TRUST.ME- bank, *sigh*  …"
Secretary: "You are really an expert…"
Boss: "…now they are only worth 2 Pesos, *cry*"
Secretary: "That’s still enough for a Tequila! Vamos!"
Boss: "…back then they were at 3000$, *whine* *whimper*…"
Secretary: "Back than we also had men and not sissy girls – everything was much better. Look at it like this:  "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." *singing*
Boss: "…and now I am FINISHED!!!"
Secretary: "Finally."
Boss: "And what should we do now in your opinion?"
Secretary: "We do some special offers – that’s called “deflation” and its a sign of crisis."

You see. It’s almost like a comic strip :) Cheers!

• Story Power! Tools to Create Engaging Content
• Wear Sunscreen
• Validation
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Tell me a Secret!

Hello and welcome to bSix12 – my little place on the world wide web. My name is Rainer Falle. I am an Austrian living in the Black Forest (German: Schwarzwald) a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany.

I don’t like to write another boring about page so I suggest we switch to “interview mode” right now. I will start answering the most obvious questions – however over time I will add more based on your feedback.

What is this site about?

As I explore and learn exciting things I will share my findings by writing articles and post them here. Hopefully you will find some of these articles helpful, relevant or interesting. I am always looking for ways to broaden my horizon and I firmly believe that one way of doing this is to listen to other people’s opinions and viewpoints. In this spirit I am looking forward to your comments and discussions on this site. Your comments are very welcome as long as they’re on topic. The following illustration summarizes my vision for this site. It’s pretty simple:

What type of articles can we expect?

Those of us who use, create and share information efficiently will have a significant advantage in today’s world. I will show you how to master those challenges, show you ways to continuously learn and improve yourself and how to find people with common interests and benefit from their knowledge, experience and advice.

I am interested in technology that makes me more productive. I will write about collaboration and productivity applications and social media.

I am passionate about creating useful computer programs. I like my job as a software engineer and software architect. A lot of my writing will be about software development, software architecture, design and usability.

Last but not least I will write about things I like not covered by the above (e.g. movies, music, books, funny stuff etc.) and share some of my photos.

If you are interested in any of these topics you can subscribe to bSix12 and stay up to date with the latest news.

What’s the meaning of bSix12?

When I was thinking about a name for this site I had quite a few ideas. The most obvious one being my name (e.g. rainerfalle.com). However this site should be more like a meeting place rather than a personal profile. So the name should reflect this as well.

“But what’s a good name for a place?” – I asked myself. I didn’t like to go with an arbitrary name either – it should mean something to me and it should be timeless…

After thinking about this for a while without any notable results it suddenly appeared out of nowhere: One of my favorite books came to my mind. A few minutes later I had a name: bSix12 is a play to Asteroid B612 the home planet of the Little Prince. I love this book. It is a masterpiece written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and has lessons for all of us.

What do you do in your spare time?

I love to do all kinds of sports including squash, soccer, tennis, jogging, skiing and ice skating. Occasionally I participate in running events. I already completed a couple of marathons and half-marathons.

Beside of that I read a lot, watch movies, meet friends and I love to travel and work on interesting online projects like this site.

What’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?

42

That’s it. That’s all there is.
(If you don’t get it – DON’T PANIC – ask this question on Google and read this book)

How can I contact you?

Twitter: http://twitter.com/RainerFalle
Email: feedback@bSix12.com

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