[Biz] Conducting Efficient Meetings

At Half-Price Books, a great used book store in town, I bought the book The Time Trap (How to Get More Done in Less Time) by R. Alec Mackenzie a few weeks or back. As you can imagine, this book is on how to spend time more efficiently--specifically on management and procedures in the professional environment. Though the book was written in 1972, many of the values still hold today which is very cool considering that the book is falling apart and I only paid $3 for it. That's one reason I like used book stores by the way--you can acquire things that are worth a lot of value in knowledge improvement for a low monetary value.

Anyways, one chapter that struck home with me was on meetings. I don't agree with everything but I'll summarize what I do agree with:

BEFORE MEETING

1. Explore alternatives to the meeting. Is this necessary?
2. Limit attendance to time only needed to make your contribution.
3. Keep attendance small. Only those needed should come.
4. Define purpose before calling meeting.
5. Distribute agenda in advance.
6. Time-limit meeting and agenda. Allocate time according to its relative importance.

DURING MEETING

1. Start on time. No substitute.
2. Start with and stick to agenda.
3. Allow interruptions for emergency purposes only.
4. Restate conclusions and assignments to insure agreement.
5. End on time.

AFTER MEETING

1. Distribute minutes within the next 24 hours. Minutes are a reminder and useful followup tool.
2. Provide followups! List uncompleted actions under "Unfinished Business" for next meeting's agenda.
3. Make a committee inventory and survey committees to see whether objectives have been achieved. Abolish those that are already done.

[AERO] Constellations and Fun Sporcle Test

Recently, a friend showed me the wonderful site www.sporcle.com which has become a new time-waster, although it's a slightly productive time-waster. It's essentially fun quizzes of knowledge on just about anything you can think of. Some of them are quite cool since there's also visual appeal; I like those more. I happened to stumble across this very cool constellation quiz the other day which I just had to share:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/constellations_northern.php

I haven't regularly stargazed in a while and I shamefully admit that I only got 15 constellations: Orion, Auriga, Taurus, Canis Minor, Gemini, Perseus, Pegasus, Cygnus, Leo, Delphinus, Pisces, Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, and Draco. Given 8 minutes, I naturally cheated and managed to get most of the rest from looking up my star chart. However, I still missed a few. See screenshot:

[AERO] How to Not Travel (Interplanetarily)

Re-reading Robert Zubrin's books are fun since this guy has a definite cheeky sense of humor. Over spring break a few months back, I went to New York City and checked out the American Museum of Natural History while I was there. Surprisingly, there was a section in the museum for space. That was unexpected in a natural history museum but I suppose they just have to have everything. [Image Credit: Buzz Aldrin Mars Cycler - painting by Don Dixon for Scientific American]

Anyways, while I was at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, I happened across the book How to Live on Mars by Robert Zubrin and acquired it there. This book is a hilarious practical guide for anyone seeking to leave Earth and live in life in the late 21st century. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of Martian survival which includes how to get there, what to wear (outside of course), what rovers to get, what homes to acquire, how to choose what to have in the habitat, how to not get fried by radiation, etc.

The book is for a non-technical audience but occasionally there's some interesting science thrown in with a huge warning note that says High Science Content. One thing that I found quite amusing was his rant on cyclers. I had a friend who worked on cyclers for his Master's thesis back at Georgia Tech and I wonder what he'll say about this. Let me go on with Zubrin's points on disadvantages of cyclers.

Cyclers, short for cycling space stations, are huge space stations built to last a long time for the role of allowing permanent transfer orbits between Earth and another planet like Mars. Once setup, such large structures do not have to be relaunched and people can just catch the trip by catching the cyclers in small, fast "taxi" capsules fired from each planet. Yet, there's definite issues which I have ascertained from reading and reflecting on Zubrin's intelligent rants:

1. Since it's built to last a long time, the one you're using is likely mold infested and breaking down. Unsanitary ancient bilge cans do not sound very appealing though it may be cheap.
2. The taxi may miss the cycler and if so, you just paid a trip for nothing.
3. [High Science Warning] The trip takes longer than a typical Hohmann transfer (HT) since a Hohomann transfer to Mars requires 8.5 months--round trip time will be 17 months. This doesn't synchronize with 12-month orbital period of Earth. If a spacecraft leaves Earth on a HT, it will not rendezvous with Earth when it comes back. The trip must have a Type 1 leg as well as a Type 2 leg either on outbound or inbound. Either way, passengers will be stuck with the slow boat on one way.
4. [High Science Warning] Cyclers are inefficient in its usage--not a problem for you maybe but certainly for the government paying to keep it afloat which you are paying taxes for. The minimum orbit time for cyclers designable to rendezvous with Earth is two years. However, that's not synchronous with Mars, whose orbital period is 23 months. The only solution is to have multiple cyclers with each one used for Earth-Mars transport once every six or seven years. 

Some interesting issues right? We'll see how it pans out in the future but I think Zubrin has convinced me not to support cyclers if they ever do gain a broad interest.

[Image credit: http://buzzaldrin.com/]

[Biz] Reflections on Art of the Start

I just finished reading Guy Kawasaki's book Art of the Start. Guy Kawasaki, if you don't know, is a well-known technology entrepreneur in Silicon Valley that has has started and sold a number of high-value startups. Better yet, he writes articles and books to help others understand how to be successful as well. In other words, this guy has all three traits I admire in an individual: smart, sociable, and kind. In other words, he's a mensch.

Mensch in Yiddish apparently means a person that is ethical, decent, and admirable.  The last chapter in the book is entitled "On the Art of Being a Mensch" which caught my eye naturally. To summarize, the three foundations of menschhood are:

1. Help many people! The easiest people to help are those whom you think you'll need someday. The big point though is to help those that CANNOT help you. As Kawasaki puts it, you should derive intrinsic joy from helping your fellow man and not because it's for your own benefit down the line.


2. Do what's right! Lots of businesses are so short-sighted that they focus only on the immediate and try to get away with as much as possible. For instance, if you're a jewelry retailer and you ordered the 14-carat gold ones and received 18-carat ones, will you call the manufacturer and tell them the discrepancy? If you what's right, you should and others will respect you much more for your ethical business practices.


3. Pay back society! A mensch does not have to be wealthy to give back. Oftentimes, he pays back society through things that cannot be defined by money such as helpful advice, spiritual connections with individuals, helping out people, etc. And why shouldn't you pay back society? Even if you're not at the top of the world, you can always be grateful that you at least have some of these:
   
   
   
   • Family and friends
   • Spiritual fulfillment
   • Good health
   • Beautiful environment
   • Economic success
   • Hat trick once in a while

I think these are extremely wise observations from Kawasaki that anyone, entrepreneurs or not, ought to follow when conducting their life professionally and personally. The key is that you can have a good life without being a selfish bastard. By the way, go to a bookstore or buy the book at amazon.com and order yourself a copy if you have any interest in starting a business:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Hardened-Starting/dp/1591840562

I'll leave you with this awesome talk by Kawaski:

[Biz] Thoughts on Not Writing Business Plans

I have often heard that you need to write a business plan before you go out and "do it". Honestly, my feelings are a bit ambivalent about this. To me, writing a plan is necessary at a certain point but before you get there, you don't need a plan. Conducting a thorough market study seems downright retarded when you're engaging in something that's high-risk in the first place. How do you know if it's going to work or not until you start experimenting?

At a certain point, yes, it'll be a good idea to examine your competitors. This is especially true when you have a prototype of the developed product or service and actually want to start making $. But before you get to that stage, what's the point? Seems to me just like an empty dream without any content backing it up. What do you think?