The Chris Motes Blog

"The plural of anecdote is not data."

Just read this post from Brad Feld: The Facts

I use anecdotes all the time to build cases for a product decision. This point reminds me that backing up an anecdote with beautiful cold hard data makes the sell a lot easier.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hilarious
Originally uploaded by cmotes

It is good to give thanks on Thanksgiving.

I for one am particularly thankful that movies in India have English captions. I don't know what I'd do otherwise!

IM at work... disruptive or not?

Here’s a cool paper on the impact of IM at work: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/garrett.html

The coolness of IM has worn out on me. I have hundreds of IM contacts. I get maybe 100 IMs on an average day from 10-20 people on average. I have my IMs set to come up as minimized vs. front and center on my screen. But the lure is hard to ignore - when that window starts flashing I'm hitting Alt-Tab within seconds.

I’ve said for a while that IM is massively disruptive for me… but what do the masses say?

Here’s a visual on the answers to a 1000 person survey:

 

Here are those answers segmented by IM / non-IM users:

 

A lot more non-IM users strongly agree that they rarely complete a work task without getting interrupted that their IM-using counterparts.

 

A smaller group strongly disagreed with the statement, and that group was skewed towards IM users (I’m in that group!)

On a side note, I am now going to go through and delete all of my contacts that I haven't IM'd in a year.

11/10/07

Tomorrow is my 3-month wedding anniversary. Marriage is hugely rewarding. But one thing I've learned is that you have to learn how to be good at being married. It doesn't happen overnight, especially when you're someone like me who has been single for a loooong time. I have my ways of doing things. So does she. You have to make them work together. It's a challenging process that stirs up a lot of heated emotions... but in the end it is fun and very fulfilling. I prefer it 1000x more than the alternative!

I'm 35 now. My mom sent me dark chocolate which I hate, and some XMas ornaments from Fitz and Floyd which is the master of all bricker brack in the world. I wish she would not send me stuff that only she likes. But I'm really glad that she is around, and glad that she is my mom, so she can send me whatever she wants and I'm fine with it. That's a learned talent - the ability to filter through potential frustrations to get down to what matters. Truth is that one day I'll be sad when she's not around to send me that stuff I don't want anymore.

So whether it's my wife or my mom or whoever... the people who are most important to you will always do things that raise your blood pressure (assuming you spend time with them). But frustration is short-term and time teaches you to appreciate those things.

On another note... we had a 5.6 magnitude earthquake a few weeks ago. It was the largest I've ever been in. It felt like a wave went across my floor. It lasted about 15 seconds, then there were a ton of little aftershocks. Lisa and I decided that the backyard was the place to be in an earthquake. We hope.