fplanque: IT world

I just finished reading "the dip" by Seth Godin. I actually didn't really know what the book was about and I basically picked it up just because it was less than $10 and because I loved previous books by Seth Godin (no doubt he's one of the greatest marketers of our generation!)

Well I'm glad I did. This is a small 76 page book, so it was pretty easy and fast to read! Actually, it could probably be even shorter and still make its point! But wow! More than making a point this book will actually pep you up and motivate you to hang in with your projects... or to quit before wasting any more time. Basically it tells you that the worst thing is to stay on a dead end track...

But for me, the most interesting part was the motivational part about how the dip before success is a normal thing to experience. If a project didn't have that painful phase where nothing seems easy and where you feel like you want to quit, then that project probably wouldn't be worth pursuing anyway... since just anyone else could do the same.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to read right now, with the down economy and everyone around loosing their energy.

Of course, the book also made me realize that a couple of my projects were sort of dead ends and that I should quit them right away. But that's part of the process! Reading this book over the last 2 days made me feel better about prioritizing my projects and cutting dead branches!

Minimum cash & time investment. High motivational return. Check it out!

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) — Buy it now at Amazon.com

I have complained a couple of times that there was no decent GTD software available for Windows... to the point I'm actually considering switching to the Mac just for that!

People keep advising me to just fall back to the real life method of using 43 folders. For the record, that is: 12 folders for all the months in the year + 31 folders for all the days in a month. You then rotate the folders in a way that will make them pop up whatever you need on a specific day.

I so disagree with 43 folders being a replacement for GTD!

While the 43 folders are part of David Allen's GTD method, they do not replace software. GTD software presents you with a list of next actions you can do in a specific context and you can choose from them what you want to do without forgetting anything important. It has nothing to do with dates and deadlines.

The use of 43 folders on the contrary lets you easily pop up whatever needs to be acted upon on a specific date.

Granted some GTD software also copes with dates and deadlines but that is not the gist of GTD.

Now... I bet the confusion has a lot to do with Merlin Mann's site, named 43 Folders (which is a cool name indeed) and talking a lot about... GTD!

Remember when DSL internet access started to come with unlimited data transfer plans? This is when everyone started using for the web for all kinds of things: this is when people actually started surfing the web!

The reason behind that is that flat rate removed the dis-incentive to surfing we had when every page we loaded added up on our bill!

The exact thing is now happening with the mobile web. Mosts carriers are now offering unlimited data plans... well at least in the US. Combine that with browsers that are actually usable like the one on the iPhone and we've got everything we need for the mobile web to thrive.

I for one, have been using the internet on the iPhone like crazy since I got it. Everytime I stand in line somewhere, I get a little netfix Don't you?

Interestingly enough though, I use connected iPhone apps just as much as the actual web browser. It doesn't change the cause though: without flat rate pricing I wouldn't use any of this.

Now the interesting thing with the apps compared to standard web pages is this: it's a new business model for the mobile web! Even if it's poised to become a nightmare when trying to support more platforms than just the iphone... (

Btw, the iPhone is the most used mobile web browser, but do you know who's #2? No it's not the BlackBerry! It's the Motorola RAZR...

How does your brain feel today?

All right, so what's the best excuse to blog something once in a while and prove I'm not dead?

Maybe a nice blog switch...

"My Internet home is now somewhere other than wordpress! And that somewhere is called: http://wherelaurinblogs.com

I’ve bought my own domain name, loaded up b2evolution blogging software, and now have the best website in the world ever!"