Weekly Off-Site Meetings

Connecting one-on-one with your staff

Since February 2014 I have been attending the Sioux Falls, South Dakota 1 Million Cups weekly event with a coworker. Each week I take one of my coworkers with me, we attend the event, network for a few minutes afterwards, and then head over to a coffee shop to talk work strategy. Each week I take a different colleague.

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Work Like a Nomad

Everything does not need to be done at your desk

Technically I can work from anywhere. Everything I need has been digitized and is accessible by me from anyplace with an internet connection. If my office was quarantined tomorrow, I would not miss a beat — nor would I miss my office. Because I’m a nomad, I often work outside of the office. And by “work”, I don’t mean checking email with my cell phone.

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Optimizing Your Daily Schedule

Focus on when you are the most productive

There are two types of people — morning people and night people. As best as I can tell, you are born this way and will never change, so why do we fight it? I’m a morning person— it takes me about one minute to wake up in the morning and I am at full power, starting the countdown spiral until I am zapped of energy at 5pm.

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Relaunching Computers for the Community

Connecting our community one computer at a time

I am really excited to announce the re-launch of Computers for the Community — a 501(c)(3) non-profit that takes donated computers, has them refurbished by volunteers, and then sells them for a small administration fee to those in the community who need them. Computers for the Community was founded in 2007 and has served hundreds of low-income families around Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but in the past few years it has been scaled back due to the original founder’s other commitments. Read more

The Best Blogs Delivered

Optimizing your Blog reading with Hacker Monthly

I read a lot of books every month, but virtually no periodicals. In fact the only two publications that I read every issue of religiously are Hacker Monthly and 2600 Magazine. There is a theme here, they are both curated content from the “hacker” community. But not the negative meaning of hacker, rather the meaning that refers to those who make things work better, like “Life Hacking.” Read more

Standing Desk Experiment

Sitting is the new smoking

Some of my colleagues were talking about a standing desk and how nice it would be to not sit all day long. Long lists of random studies about sitting were quoted, although not corroborated, in an attempt to get a standing desk at the office. This was perpetrated by exactly two of my twelve colleagues, so the numbers were not on their side . Regardless, we had an empty cubicle station that could very easily be converted to a standing desk in about 15 minutes. Read more