Hello, I'm a Mac.

This is just me venting.

I choose to live in a Mac world.  My family all use and prefer Macs.  The ease of use, the stability, the design, and the quality of components are all, by our experiences, awesome!

I have to work in a Windows environment.  It's a hostile place, full of enemies who try to attack me, viruses spreading, conflicting devices, and cheap components that are constantly breaking down.  (Just to clarify, I'm talking about computing environments, not the actual work environment)

In less than three years, I have gone through four different HP Laptops.  My most recent one dying Monday and leaving me without a computer.  I can't access my work files, my email access is limited, and my frustration and stress level is building as I'm unable to get to and complete my work.  In contrast, I've had one iMac over the past five years.  It has worked perfectly from day one and continues to work as well today as it did in 2005.  The only difference is that it is relatively slow by today's standards, but for most things I need to do, it still works great.

I have an associate that resisted Macs with his company for years, but has now converted his entire company to Macbooks and iMacs.  In his words, "Our systems are faster, more stable, secure, and our productivity has increased significantly since switching to Macs."

I have been a constant advocate for bringing Macs into our work environment, but after the last 48 hours I am ready to evolve from advocate to street corner evangelist.  It's time to embrace change and fight segregation in the workplace..... Macs are more than capable machines with more than capable software for our business needs - and certainly capable of running Windows if it's really that hard to let go.

Callout to my I.S. Director (I know you're reading this) - let ME be the guinea pig and show how effective one can with even better tools to work with!

Thanks for letting me vent.

I Love Competition

Today was my son Caleb's first all-star basketball game. What a difference this was from his regular season! On his regular season team, he was clearly one of the stronger players and spent most games frustrated that other the other boys weren't as serious or skilled as He. He would occassionally play against another boy that was at his level, or maybe better, and he liked that challenge - it pushed him to up his game. Without that consistent competition though, he didn't have the external push to perform at his full potential - just good enough to get by, which was still better than most.  He had such a great time today because he said he loved the challenge of playing on a team and against a team of equally stronger players.  (His team won by 1 point in overtime!)

I couldn't help but see the parallels to business. It's our competition that pushes us to be the best. Without competition, how would we know we're the best - or not. As an advocate of education in general, I think it is great that students have a lot of choices in their education and as an employee of an actual college I also appreciate the competition. Whether it's the low cost of a community college, the short completion time of another, or the name recognition of a national leader we are forced to up our game in order to stay ahead of the increasing competition.  

We need competition though to keep pushing us to perform at our full potential. For the sake of our students and for our own longevity.  Next time you think of speaking poorly about your competitor, take some time to be thankful for them instead and how they drive you to be better.

First Impressions

I spent the evening tonight observing a group interview that emphasized the importance of great first impressions. It was interesting to see which candidates innately understood what the process was about and made a little extra effort to leave a positive first impression. It was also interesting to see how many didn't.

I've heard/learned on several occassions that it takes eleven positive encounters to counteract one negative. In other words, make a poor first impression and there is little chance of ever changing it.

During a depressed economy when everyone is cautiously entering into business relationships with a hesitation to spend money or invest in something new, we all can be reminded of the importance of first impressions - as individuals and as businesses. Take a moment to ask someone you trust for their honest feedback. What you hear, may be the key to landing that next great job or big sale.