hr

Bureaucracy

posted January 28 by Chase Finch tags: ,

President Obama gave his first State of the Union address tonight.  Concurrent web surfing gave me a fresh admiration for www.whitehouse.gov, a beautifully designed online presence for Obama’s administration.  Politics aside, I greatly appreciate the transparency of the whole lot, and I am thus prompted to write a little about something I would, and plan to, give my professional career.

Global communication is improving.  You have real-time information about how many Americans were killed in battle last week at your fingertips.  College classes are being taught with no preparation other than a few Google searches (Dr. Pellerin.)  Sex-trafficking in Colombia, South America is a major concern to a church in Greenville, South Carolina.  The state of our world is transparent.

The Obama administration at least claims to be doing their part to streamline bureaucracy and waste.  With freshly redesigned news sites, we can now closely observe to see whether that’s true.  News about the earthquake in Haiti traveled instantly, and a text message is all it takes to send money.

I plan to be at the forefront of the crowd that implements more possibilities to use new-age communication to do justice.  Once upon a time, ignorance was a great excuse; now, our radius is expanding, our knowledge is vast and our responsibilities are large.

Automation

posted January 4 by Chase Finch tags:

I love automation.

As I juggle the professional hats of business co-owner, Creative Director, web programmer and part-time salesman, I am becoming increasingly aware that I am not a multitasker.  Add to that the endless decisions that come with planning a wedding in 3 months, the responsibilities of being a landlord and a tight entrepreneur’s budget, the end of 2009 found me scrambling to tie up loose ends, and doing so poorly.

I strive to impress in many areas and skill sets, but a big limitation is that I must do them in big, concentrated blocks.  Also, I program computers.  The result?  I get a sadistic sort of satisfaction in automating the tasks that otherwise would need constant care.

For those of you like me, I offer this list of tools, lessons, and thoughts.

  • Things by Cultured Code • I dropped $50 on this gem of an OSX/iPhone combo app about a year ago, and it is invaluable to me today.  It wipes out my forgetfulness, reminds me of my priorities, and allows me to schedule my big-chunk-at-a-time blocks of creation, planning and communication.
  • It takes a certain amount of discipline to switch focus.  Morning workouts, weekly meetings, and expected daily phone calls from my lovely fiancé at lunch keep me from getting too lost in one task or project to remember that some things are just plain important.
  • Use an iPhone, if solely for the purpose of instantly saving notes of things to handle later.  You won’t forget the important stuff that randomly comes up, but you don’t have to switch focus from the situation at hand.  Just make sure you have a system in place to check for, and handle, those notes every day.
  • Personal interactions can’t be automated.  Rule #1: Loved ones are always allowed to interrupt focus.  Those of us with a one-track mind require more discipline to invest in family & friends properly, and such discipline should be carefully protected.
  • Find and trust counterparts who are excellent at multitasking.  Ashleigh and Chris, here’s to you.