I recently watch part of a webcast with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose. Tim Ferriss  is hard to define, but dynamic is certainly a good adjective. Kevin Rose, is the founder of Digg.com and is currently the CEO. In this webcast, Kevin quickly pushed the book, REWORK. I had heard of 37 Signals, the company of the authors, but I had not heard of the book itself. I put it on reserve in my local library and waited, and waited. Here in Columbus Ohio, I was 43rd on the reserve list. Luckily, my number was up and I got the book yesterday.

I inhaled the book in less than a couple of hours. Such an easy read and truly enjoyable. First, I can say that the book doesn’t suffer from the more is better type of philosophy. They get straight to the point. If they can fully illustrate their point in one sentence, then that is all you are likely to get. How refreshing. Actually, this ends up being a constant theme throughout the book.

The book is broken up into not so much chapters, but thoughts. Two in particular caught my attention.

1. Customer feedback. Where to store it? Their answer, overly simplified, is don’t. The logic here is that it isn’t necessary, anything worth hearing will be repeated over and over again by your customers.

2. Writing. What we learned in college is crap. Some of education’s misguided lessons.

1. The longer a document is, the more it matters.
2. Stiff, formal tone is better than being conversational.
3. …
4. The format matters as much (or more) than the content of what you write.

Just simply a great read. There really is no reason not to read it. The book covers many topics in business but can be easily applied to many situations in life. Like the tidal wave of movement behind agile programming in software development, 37 Signals embraces quick, shorter, being direct and honest. Don’t create a task list with a thousand items on it. There isn’t a good way to prioritize. Start a new list and put “Read REWORK” at the top.

Some Common Myths

1. Bats carry rabies. Bats don’t carry rabies, but they can like other animals contract rabies. Less than 1 half of 1 percent of all bats actually contract rabies. Raccoons continued to be the most frequently reported rabid wildlife species (34.9% of all animal cases during 2008), followed by bats (26.4%), skunks (23.2%), foxes (6.6%), and other wild animals, including rodents and lagomorphs (1.9%).
2. Bats bite people. Bats like any animal will protect themselves, if threatened, but the thought that bats are interested in people is silly. There are over 1100 species of bats and only 3 are vampire bats. Even vampire bats don’t feed on humans, instead feeding on animals.

Why do you need a bat house?

Mosquitoes! Bats can eat up to 1000 mosquitoes per hour. Since mosquitoes can carry nasty viruses such as West Nile virus besides being just plain annoying, I consider this a very green solution.

For more information, visit, http://www.batworld.org/

If you can dish it out, you better be able to take it as well.

Like, I have mentioned multiple times on our family blog, The MRH Technology Group in Findlay, Ohio failed to meet payroll in late 2002. The employees at the time all agreed to an offer by Matt Hartman to take this as deferred compensation to be paid at a later date. I have to admit, that in 2002, I thought that meant a couple of months.

The company would always seem to gain momentum followed immediately but some major setback. So years passed as the employees quietly joked and laughed about our so called deferred compensation. I ended up leaving the company in the fall of 2006 figuring that some type of separation agreement could be established to pay the payroll at that time. No dice. Matt Hartman was adamant that ALL employees would be paid at the same time.

To say the least, I figured this was the end of the story. Out of sight, Out of mind. Matt and I rarely saw eye to eye on topics. If I said white, he demanded black. It was just the way our relationship worked. I was his counterpoint. I doubted that Matt would see a need to pay me when you could take care of the present employees. I also assumed that because of our relationship, that he may take some pleasure in not paying me.

But, here we are. A little over seven years after the missed payroll. A phone call and a check that followed. Matt and the MRH Technology Group made good on their promise. I apologize to Matt for not trusting him, but I’m sure he understands my frustration considering the time frame (I wish the agreement had a clause for interest )

The MRH Technology Group seems to be doing well indeed. Besides from being able to pay this back pay, the company has recently moved into a new building. Good luck and thanks for the check.

I previously posted on a comparison chart for CRM software for MRH Technology Group and their software Tour de Force. While I poked fun at the fact that they didn’t list any of their competitors, they might have had the right idea. By listing their competitors, they either would have needed to only list categories that they thought they could easily come out on top, or find ways to manipulate results to suggest that they product was still superior even if other products came out on top in other categories.

The browser comparison from IE 8 is laughable and if you notice, Microsoft has taken notice and changed the chart since Lifehacker reported on it. The one I found most laughable, was the developer tools category. Now I realize most people don’t develop web applications, but those that do rely heavily on Firebug. Internet Explorer has the IE developer toolbar which is pathetic in comparison.

Have a look at their chart, but take the results with a grain of salt… I guess that applies to any manufacturer that creates their own comparison chart.

Today, I noticed that their web site had a comparison matrix pdf.  It thought that it would be really handy to both know what other products are available and what weaknesses or strengths each possessed. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The PDF lists numerous qualities in a huge number of categories but just simply states that Tour de Force is capable of those things. The document lists 2 columns Product 2 and Product 3 so apparently, we can do the leg work ourselves.

Wouldn’t this have been more appropriately called a feature matrix instead of a comparison? I expected them to actually compare things.

Let’s face it, I’m not going to do the legwork for them or you, but if you wish to evaluate Tour de Force, here is a list of some other products and applications for Sales Force Automation and Customer Relationship Management.

I am not affiliated with any of the following companies. I was previously, an employee for MRH Technology Group, before resigning in 2006. The products are listed in no specific order nor is this list guaranteed to represent all SFA or CRM based software products.

• SalesForce.com
• Prophet, Easy CRM
• Sales Outlook CRM
• TeamScope CRM
• MX Contact
• OpusFlow CRM
• Microsoft Business Contact Manager
• BizAutomation

MRH Technology Group has several very talented and dedicated employees. I am disappointed that the company seems to be drifting. I posted a while back that they were releasing Version 4. But after a year of the notice on their web site, Tour de Force is still at version 3.7 with no details on future releases. Maybe, frequent releases would be a good thing to add to the comparison matrix.

Here is my list of annoyances

1. The notification window pops up when ever new content is delivered. Cool. Only problem is that it pops up in the far right top of the application window and doesn’t seem to have anyway to dismiss it. This is a problem for me, because new content is shown in the top of the windows. A better solution for me would be allowing it to be clicked away or simply showing up in some other location.
2. I would like small status windows. Having my replies and direct messages use an entire column wastes space. I would prefer small windows for unread counts and the ability to click on it and show a larger column to review those items.
3. Groups, The more users you choose to follow, the harder it is to see what they have to say. The all friends group is great but I would like an option to hide any users that are a part of another group. So, in my case, I have a gardening group that has all of the users I follow for gardening news. I don’t want them to show up in my all friends group.
4. A group specific to the last post from each user I follow would be handy. Some twitters are noisy… really noisy. When reviewing, it would be nice to have a group that simply lists the last tweet from each user I am following.
5. Adjustable width columns. I’m still not sure about the whole layout, but if the application stays with the columns, I would like grab handles to adjust the width of each column.

Does anyone else have some of the same frustrations?

The city of Columbus has brokered a deal with Rumpke for a subscription service to pick up yard waste. The program starts on April 20, 2009. The cost is $49.50, paid in advance, for the 6-month season from mid-April to mid-October.

This program is going to be a failure for the following reasons.

1. The cost of the program is too high
2. The service is limited to a few months
3. You can’t buy in, later in the season, you still have to pay full price

The city of Columbus previously offered yard waste pickup at no charge. Considering the 2% city income tax, it was hardly free of charge but it was still available. A cost of $8.25 per month is way too high for yard waste removal. Yard waste is not the same as trash. There will be weeks, where normal households will have no yard debris. I truly would like to know what my city is doing with my money. It certainly isn’t going to our police and firefighters.

Many communities have colored bags that cover the use of the service. You purchase as many bags as you need, end of story. This would be a much better solution if residents are going to be responsible for this cost. I am confident that many of my neighbors will pile debris in common land areas around my neighborhood. They already are doing this with their trash so, I have no reason to believe that they will behave any differently in this case.

Even when the service was free, Rumpke constantly refused to pick up our yard waste, because of the bundles being too long, or they just plain didn’t feel like coming on a given week. The service limits 15 bags or containers per week. My advice is to pool with your neighbors and buy one contract and everyone put the yard waste in their yard each week.

I am still expecting the city to tell me that they are going to stop picking up our trash as well. That will be a public service disaster. I can guarantee that people wont pay for the service. They will find apartment dumpsters, their neighbors yard, parks or some other place to dispose of their waste. My city is becoming a joke and Mayor Coleman is totally responsible for our current condition.

For those of you who would like other options for yard waste, the city has defined areas that yard waste can be dropped off free of charge. So if you are lucky enough to live close to one of these locations, you can just throw all your leaves in the back seat of your car and be on your way.

Here is my Google Map of the current drop off locations.

I have been disappointed by your product placement techniques in the past but I’ve let it slide. Of course you know what I am talking about. You know when you put green peppers on sale, but put a little tiny row of green peppers in a sea of red peppers, with a massive sign saying Peppers 3 for $3.00 with a little caption underneath the price, stating green peppers only. Do the accidental full price sales make up for deceiving your customers?

But that is not what upset me today. This store, starting a couple of weeks ago, made buying alcohol difficult. When you are 40 and you get ID’d, you think it is amusing the first time. After three or four times, it is just plain unpleasant. Now, this isn’t your run of the mill ID check, this is a full out interrogation. My ID is in my wallet, in a see through sleeve. They don’t accept this, they have to touch it and feel it… well, unless you are a manager. Yes, their new process, now makes their under 18 clerks request that you remove your id so that their manager can see it. Of course, the manager can fully see that I am old enough to buy alcohol, so he/she just smiles and refuses to look at the ID now that it is out of my wallet.

I digress, today at the lovely store in Dublin Ohio, I once again, got the routine but this time, I was especially lucky to get a smarmy clerk who thought that denying me beer today was a lovely thing indeed. After taking out my ID and her insisting that it can’t be in its clear sleeve, she mockingly laughed and said that she couldn’t sell me beer because my ID was expired and that it was illegal for me to buy beer. He attitude was what annoyed me. She got a kick out of it. “My employer is making me ID EVERYONE and I finally am able to deny someone. Yeah for me!” Ugh.

Good news, is that my new friend at Kroger told me that my license expired. Goody goody.

Bad news is that I wont be shopping at Kroger in the near future. Meijer seems to have no problem seeing that I am 40 years old and frankly has better prices. The extra mile is worth it.

For all of you who enjoy interrogations at the grocery store, please visit my new favorite store and be sure to say hello to Lisa. She is soooo nice.

Kroger
7625 Sawmill Rd
Dublin Ohio
614-923-2333

“1) For every new Twitter follower in the next two weeks, I will donate $1 to DonorsChoose.org, and an anonymous supporter will match $2, for a total of $3 to U.S. public school classrooms per follower. For now, the matching limit is tentatively capped at 50,000 new followers, though I’m open to increasing it later. 50,000 new followers would mean $150,000 to U.S. public school education, and I hope to double or triple this total with a few twists.”

Tim Ferris and The Four Hour Work Week

Tim Ferris on Twitter

Actually, these are not my thoughts, but those of “Monty”.

Monty or Montague Don is one of my all time favorite gardening personalities. His cult status, has not reached the United States and most of his books are not in wide circulation. I leave you some of his thoughts from a book called “The Sensuous Garden.” Maybe you too, will appreciate his words as much or more than his obvious gardening skill.

“Apples are twisted gently on their stalks to see if they will come away and are therefore ripe, the tulip curves of a pear weighed in the heel of the hand to test but not bruise. The tips of fingers tentatively pluck at a grape and measure the give in a second of careless but incredibly finely tuned assessment. Strawberries are lifted heavily off the damp, slug-ridden soil and coddled with straw, and the furry skin of a peach, feeling so like the head of a newborn child, produces and almost reflexlike delicacy of stroking. We cup the heavy bloom of a rose in our hand, stem between two fingers, so that not only may we raise it to our nose, we may also feel its weight (and worth) in our hand.”