Business

Behind Reporting

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Have you ever had a sense that you don’t know what’s going on?

I’m not talking in the general sense (that’s your problem), but on a project, at work, or looking over some report or news article?  Yeah, I’m sure you have.

I’ve often wondered over the years as a psych major, engineer, and manager just how people can be so terribly wrong in keeping track of things.  Bad articles, incoherent software, senseless status reports all keep adding up to “duh” over and over again.  It’s sad enough that whenever I start some new project of any kind, I figure that the reporting involved is going to be wrong as a default.

But there’s something behind every meaningless statistic or confusing game interface.

That is MATH.

Math is what you use to report.  Math is what you use to say what things mean.  If you don’t have good numbers and do the right math, it’s meaningless.

This may or may not seem like a revelation, but to me it is – because having a science background, having built inventory systems, I’m used to math.  I marinate in math.  I have a minty math scent.

But not everyone has that experience.  Or interest.  Or obsession.

So next time you have to communicate data, next time you’re running a status report for a con, remember no matter how good you are at math or how much you like it – not everyone is like you.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

You Win This Time, Virus

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*sigh*

OK, I caught what was going around.  I resisted as long as I could, but I am sick.

I should clarify this, since there’s so many ways to get sick:

  1. I did not get the flu from what I can tell, but if I did it’s a mild one.  I know this as, based on what I’ve heard about the latest flu, I lack the desire to kill myself.
  2. It does not appear to be the new horror from Australia as I and the toilet are only experiencing a platonic relationship.
  3. It does resemble a lot of secondary infections I saw people getting – after having the flu.

So I kind of feel lousy, I’m not too productive, and I’m doing only about a half day of work because I want to sleep.

However note that “half day of work.”  It’s fantastic I can work at home if needed (which helps in having a cool boss and employer).  I dread to think what it’s like in places where people can’t – or won’t – take advantage of this.

Honestly, though I feel work from home has been overrated and overused, it’s also been vastly underused.  In short, work-from-home isn’t really being studied or used strategically.  Having seen viruses and colds rip through offices like a chainsaw through jello, having had friends with children discover they’ve birthed little plague carriers, I think work-from-home needs to be evaluated seriously.

Not a fad.  Not a dodge.  Not a reward.  A strategy.

We’re still married to the workplace via the shotgun of tradition.  Thinking a little differently could help.

If illness hits an area, why not make Work From Home manditory for some so you can avoid spreading disease in the first place?

Have work from home drills to see if people can suddenly shift gears?

Find out who can work from home and try them out.  I was once part of a study on this and found that A) I was 16% more productive, and B) I could really only work from home 3 days out of 5.

So let’s consider this.

Now I’m going to go feel miserable.  Yet, strangely productive.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Publishing: The New Skill

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Published using Nook for the first time for my latest book.  It was about as easy as Kindle, with a few less international options.  That’s pretty promising, as I’d usually have Lulu.com do the job.

It’s still a pain to self-publish merely for the amount of options, platforms, and issues one has to face.  There’s what to put the document in when you write, any conversions you have to make, then what tool to publish it in (I go from Libre Office to Jutoh myself).  It’s nice to be able to self-publish, but I wouldn’t call it simple.

The strange thing is self-publishing is basically it’s own skillset.  It’s not a gateway to easy publishing if you’re a writer since you’ve got to be more than a writer – or hire someone that can do the conversions for you.  Yes, the barrier to entry is far lower, but what was once insurmountable financially or business-wise is still a challenge because you need the skills to self-publish.

Writing well is still never enough.  The barriers and challenges to publishing have changed and even lowered, but they’re still there.  Success is still a lot of work.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.