The process of making the list was inspirational – there are no boundaries and no limitations. It’s intimate and personal and it forces you to answer questions about what you want to accomplish in life, where you want to go, what brings meaning to your life, what is important, what milestones you want to achieve and what you need to accomplish to live a life without regret. For me the list was complete when I had someone to share it with, someone to help my dreams and aspirations become reality. To date, we’ve completed 13 items on my list and 6 on his, representing a 9.5% completion rate. At this rate, it will take us around 30 years to complete both of our lists and that is only if we don’t continue to add to them.

In the midst of thinking about my career goals for 2011, I thought I’d get an early head start tackling a few items on our Century List. The plan is to spend the next 100 days working on 10 items from our lists. The timeline is for motivation as I’m deadline driven. In no particular order, below are the 10 goals we’ve set out to complete by February 8, 2011.

1. Read the Night Sky: Be able to locate 10 constellations
2. Bungee Jump
3. Learn to juggle with three balls
4. Master the Rubick’s cube
5. Volunteer for a great cause and motivate others to join
6. Build an amazing sandcastle (one worthy of a photograph)
7. Live a week without spending money
8. Train for & run a full marathon
9. Renew a friendship with a long lost friend
10. Spend a date on the bus: spend an entire day on a bus reflecting on the past and planning for the future

Since I’ve had a lot of messages from my readers to get back to blogging – I’d love to hear from you:
Do you have a Century List?
Are you planning to make resolutions for 2011?
What are the top 3 things you have/would have on your Century List?

I would encourage everyone to have a Century List. How about incorporating all of your annual resolutions into a list that becomes an extension of who you are. You can keep it in Google docs, so that it is easily accessible, shareable and you can add to it anytime you want. Here are a few sites that can help you jump start your Century List.

Good Luck.

When I left a job I loved at Microsoft for island life, many were skeptical. I wrote this great email to all of my colleagues that High Risk = High Return. Six months later people still tell me that it was the best departure email that they’ve ever read. I suppose it’s because the email is a clear reflection of me and my pursuit of happiness. I haven’t changed the world yet, but I sincerely hope I’ll have the opportunity to try.

I’m a PC Geek, but I can’t help but love Apple’s old ad Think Differently because it showcases people that rise up to challenges and make a lasting imprint on the world. Sometimes change is what we find when we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities. I could not have said it better, Think Differently.

Sometimes happiness sounds better with a Y. I love Will’s speech to his son, coaching him to pursue his dreams: “You want something go get it, period.” – Pursuit of Happyness Movie

I grew up with an inspirational friend without arms and legs. This next video reminds me of her and her passion for life. If you look into her eyes, you’ll quickly realize that there is nothing she can’t do – thanks for the powerful lesson in life Lindsay. Nick Juvicic has a similar story – “I Love Life”.

Nothing worth pursuing is without risk, but you have to at least attempt it. What are you waiting for?
Happy Inspirational Wednesday.

Does running my AC unit at 25°C cost less than 23°C?
What does it cost to keep numerous devices plugged in when they are not in use?
Do old devices really cost more to run?

If the answer to the last question is ‘yes’ and the value is significant, I’d like to use this as leverage to upgrade a few ancient electronics (wouldn’t you?!).

According to research, an entertainment system on standby power is costing you an estimated $76 per year*. If that’s only one room in the home, imagine what all your standby devices are actually costing you. My mission for the day, count how many things I could unplug based on usage patterns in my home:

1. Phone Charger (~once a week – I use a Blackberry, which tends to hold a charge for about a week)
2. Electric Toothbrushes (while we use them a couple times a day – they can last for a week without being charged)
3. Printer / Scanner (~once a week)
4. Electric Kettle (~ three times a month)
5. Toaster (~once a week)
6. TV (we actually got rid of this completely)
7. Hot water heater (we actually just flip a switch whenever we want hot water)

What would you unplug?

*Details: Based on an entertainment system configured with a DVD player, VCR, video game console, subwoofer, and amplifier left on, but not active, for 19 hours per day at $0.117 cost per kilowatt hour. (Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration; U.S. Department of Energy; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and The Neilsen Company)

The simple math:
On average if you consume one bottle of water a week, that one bottle will equate to 52 bottles a year and approximately 3500 in your lifetime (give or take).

The estimated global annual bottled water consumption is around 200 billion gallons and according to the International Bottled Water Association the US are the largest consumers of bottled water – consuming 8.665 billion gallons annually (2008). Based on the table below, the average person in the US consumes around two .5L bottles of water each week. This is up 32% over five years despite the mainstream acceptance of reusable water bottles.

The scary truth, it can take up to 1000 years for a plastic water bottle to decompose, which means a lot of unnecessary plastic is piling up in landfills and recycling sites. We have an opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint.

Image from SIGG

One Solution
What seems like a simple solution, we set up water booth fill stations in high traffic areas. These would be similar to water fountains – except that one side of the unit would sanitize the reusable bottle at high pressure to kill bacteria and the water source would be purified, filtered and locally sustainable. Given that the majority of bottled water is just filtered multiple times, your resulting cold refreshing water from a water booth would be similar to the brand name bottled water supplied on the market today. The water booth could even allow the consumer to select a vitamin or flavor supplement to include in the fill up. Given 90% of the cost of bottled water is associated with producing the bottle, lid and labeling, a water booth could offer water at a fraction of the price of bottled water. Like the obsolete 25 cent telephone booth – we could have a 25 cent water booth – with proceeds allocated to environmental causes.

I’d personally love to see the ‘green’ companies out there adopt a booth to maintain in their store, reception area or lunch room. Not to mention in malls, parks and high traffic areas. I hope Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Fiji and other bottled water companies are listening.

As a numbers person, it’s easy to get caught up in sales & operational data that you fail to count things that have personal meaning – so I’ve set out to count things that matter. Last week I started counting the number of times I use the word ‘can’t’. I hit 6 and reflected on all the things I thought I couldn’t do. For example, I’ve always thought I couldn’t wink. To be honest, it never really bothered me. To me, winking was not a skill I could market myself with. The thing that bothered me was that there were six things I thought I couldn’t do. The idea that I was trapped by the the mere thought of not being able to do something – motivated me to learn. I actually went on the web and found a few ways to teach myself to wink, and it worked. I can now wink!

image @ www.clker.com

What are you passionate about that you can count?

The article states the average person spends 12 hours a day enjoying media at home, a large portion of which is enjoyed simultaneously (i.e. TV & Web). This represents a 240% increase since 1960. I’m not sure how I would have filled a day in 1960, but it’s clear that the web and tech gadgets have completely changed the way we live and learn. On a recent subway ride, I observed that awkward commuter stares have been replaced by an obsession with checking and responding to emails on smart phones, playing highly addictive games on handhelds, and balancing Starbucks on electronic reading devices. Is it possible that we know more about the lives of our distant acquaintances on Facebook then our own family members? I’m not complaining because I’m a technology junkie, but I can’t help but wonder if my multitasking skills can be leveraged to manage a life rich in real-world experience alongside rapidly changing technologies.

Inquisitively, I took the two quick multitasking tests highlighted in the article… My Result: I am a multitasker – through and through! It turns out that I often struggle with focusing on one task when a number of distractions are presented, but I maintain accuracy and vigor switching between several tasks with ease. I’d love to coin myself a “super multitasker”, afterall I did have 6 applications, 8 browser windows, 12 queries, a phone call and several emails on the go. The truth is – I would rather put my PC to sleep than close all my applications for a complete shut down… now, if only I could balance my personal life this way.

Try the quick test for yourself and see how you fare.
Test your Focus
Multitasking test

Measuring Switching Costs

Can you Ignore Distractions?

Can’t wait to hear about your results!

As a numbers person, I struggled with tangible ways to use word clouds. After an hour of testing different options, I came up with a few interesting ways you might use Wordle . As a bonus, I even found a way to incorporate numbers.

1. Bio. If you’re like me and dislike writing your own biography, why not put a new age spin on your personal resume by publishing a Word Cloud Bio. I loaded my resume into Wordle with the following result:

My Professional Word Cloud Bio

The Insight Effect Word Cloud

Favorite Quotes

4. Lotto Picks. If you want a new way to pick lotto numbers – try loading the recent winning numbers. I pulled all the winning numbers (up to today) for the Canada Lotto Max, which just started in September 2009. I excluded the Max millions because who wants one million when there’s a jackpot of 50 million!
(Side note: Probability wise, all numbers have an equal chance of being pulled in a lotto draw). Good Luck & if you win using the information feel free to send me royalties!

Lotto Max Winning Numbers

Leave me a comment with your ideas and experience with Wordle!

Many companies have made managing their data a number one priority, but with the vast amount of data available they are struggling to understand it. Translating data into insight is arguably an arduous task. While many software programs including Microsoft Excel 2007 are capable of running an algorithm or confidence interval there is a fine line between what is statistically significant and patterns that have meaning. Extrapolating insight from data is a science that was designed for the Data Guru.

Data Guru’s have an aptitude to see information through a polarized filter, meaning that they can block out elements that create noise to identify patterns and trends that matter. They’ve moved well beyond one-message-fits-all-customers to a calculated equation, which customizes each interaction with the customer to optimize relevancy and value. The data guru goes beyond new age database marketing to interpreting outliers in sales patterns, methodically reducing operational expenses and forecasting sales well into the future. Fundamental to their data analysis is a strategic view-point on why things are happening and picking out the golden nuggets that matter. Here are a few guiding principles:

1. Data doesn’t lie, but people often do. What you trust is up to you.

2. Insightful findings are in your data, but biased opinion may mask it. Subjectively searching for a specific validation may cause you to miss objective insights and more importantly the whole picture. The insight effect occurs when an unbiased analysis provides significance and meaning to a company regardless of whether it was the expected outcome.

3. Many patterns are statistically significant, but not all patterns are significant from a business perspective. In some cases, an outlier in your sales data says more than the upward trend – you need to see beyond the data to present the figures that truly matter.

4. There are many ways to visualize information, but not all visualizations are proportional. Be weary of graphs that are not made to scale. Simple example: if you show a cumulative graph of your sales year-over-year the result will be an upward trend; unfortunately, this does not mean your sales have increased year-over-year. Flowing data picked up on the following misrepresentation by BP.

BP Cumulative Graph on Oil Spill

In contrast here is a Proportional Visualization of the top Social Media Subscriber Base
built in Many Eyes

5. Statitistics have value, but not all statistics can be taken at face value. What works for one company or brand may not work for yours. When all else fails refer to principal #1 and trust the numbers.

With shrinking marketing budgets and slowing sales due to economic conditions, companies are struggling to stretch their marketing investments. A great way to focus your marketing efforts is to invest in areas your customers value. If you haven’t spoken to a Data Guru, I encourage you to start the conversation.

This is the question a new Ted talk asks you to answer
Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Simon reminds us that people buy because of ‘why you do something’, not ‘what you do’. When you inspire people with your products, your cause, your brand they become ambassadors and they will carry your message on to the public. A Harvard Business Review on loyalty, published in 2001, analyzes a similar point. The number one driver for growth is your customers willingness to evangelize your products, cause or brand. So how do we find these types of people?

I think you need to start with a great group of marketers that believe in what you do. It’s hard to create inspiring ideas if the people you are relying on lack the drive and passion to tell an emotional story. You need to find people that cut through the marketing clutter to create a message worth repeating. At that point, make sure you’ve got insight and know who your customer is and how to reach them. It usually helps to have great analytics people on your team. Finally, look for ways to create emotional connectedness with your customers. If you haven’t tried a hand-written post card to your loyal evangelists, what are you waiting for?

Thanks Simon for a few great quotes to inspire us all:
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it!”
“We follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to.”