Bubble Timer
If you do anything that involves time, such as living, and have ever had the inclination to 'spend time' more wisely, etc..., check out Bubble Timer. The concept is simple, by tracking how much time you spend on things, you can analyze your habits as data and find concrete, practical ways to improve your use of your time going forward. Then, you can see how you've improved and improve your improvment, ad infinitum.
"Wait," you say (you being me), "there's no way I'll use it. The very factors that undermine my foundation will just undermine my efforts to track it." Not so hasty. That you said this is a sign that Bubble Timer is for you. The happy folks at Bubble Timer have made a very slickapp that makes tracking time as fun as poking at bubbles. So, from the depths of your darkest hours of blocked workage and frustrated communication, you can emerge as your child-self and poke at a few bubbles and revive the rational side of yourself with the joyful knowledge that you just gave your future self the ability to look back at this depraved moment with a scientific eye, one that may just prevent it from recurring quite so often. In short, it brings a glimmer of hope to despair and a framework for practical self-reflection to generally unproductive and self-perpetuating nagging, gnawing moments of self-doubt.
They also have an iPhone app, if you're into that kind of thing.
If you still not convinced, then check out the company's stance on privacy of data collected. Sean Johnson speaks out against RescueTime's (another time isv) tendencies toward usage of time tracking as a managerial tool as opposed to a tool for personal improvement. The discussion that ensues in the comments between Sean and a voice from RescueTime is THE best discourse on privacy-spyware implications in the office that I have read to date. If not that, the Heideggerian reference that is the title of his blog "Being and Time" should assure you that you're in good hands.
Stack Overflow
The link of the day is Stack Overflow. It is a forward looking democratization of the forum concept, populated by some of the more exceptional programmers and tech mangers out there and driven by one of the more sticky and innovative initiative systems out there. Aside from the valuable information and the catharsis of grokking with the old piers, users can gain extra cred through earning 'badges' based on participation and the community's reaction to that participation. This is a great crossover from the gaming world, challenging participants to explore dimensions of community that they may otherwise overlook or not engage by enticing them to achieve quantifiable performance goals. Love it.
Grok
"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man."
- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a strange land.
I got this from wikipedia, then copied the main definition here for vanity's sake:
"To grok (pronounced /ˈɡrɒk/) is to share the same semiosphere or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein's view, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed. From the novel:
"... quote above ..."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment." Other forms of the word include "groks" (present third person singular), "grokked" (past participle) and "grokking" (present participle).
In an ideological context, a grokked concept becomes part of the person who contributes to its evolution by improving the doctrine, perpetuating the myth, espousing the belief, adding detail to the social plan, refining the idea or proofing the theory."
"To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier... That's why I don't want to hear people's ideas. I'm not interested until I see their execution."
- Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers of CDBaby and MuckWork on Startup Success
Even in this age of fear based news, war and famine, contentious politics and avian flu, it is difficult to be a pessimist with people like Derek Sivers in this world.
Derek Sivers is the man behind CDBaby and now MuckWork who parlayed the simple need to publish his own CDs into a company to sell his friends albums as well into a scalable web business into a massive payday, which he parlayed into a tremendous charitable organization designed to aid independent musicians in a much more comprehensive way.
In this interview Derek speaks candidly about his journey from a musician into the big business of music showing that tremendous success can come from following natural, compassionate intentions and be fed back into scaling those intentions to a tremendous degree.
http://startuppodcast.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/show-40-derek-sivers-cdbaby-and-muckwork/
If you're into the business site of the web, I highly recommend subscribing to this podcast. It's worth going back and listening to the entire season.