Visualise your Linkedin network and identify the key nodes - for free!

Well here is my linked in network! Cool, eh? It is produced by a visit to inmaps.linkedinlabs.com

What is does is map, with your permission, go and look at your linkedin account and map your connections and the links between them. It then tries to coloour code similar groups. I had no idea mine looked like this.

Not surprisingly for me the blue relates largely to my last employment and as you can see it is very networked between people. The green relates largely to a previous employment were I was also there a number of years.

In the proper app you can click on any node and see who it is and who they are connected with. It will usually, but not always - and I don't know why, embolden the links from that node. With a little visual inspection you can find the key nodes or networkers in your world.

So apart from offering an unusual wall paper design this is a pretty good tool for understanding your linkedin network and all for free.

As an aside I am thinking mine looks something like a cockerel - green for head and neck, blue for tail feathers. Would anyone care to share theirs?

Instinctive and infectious

I find it is some time since I posted here. The only apology I can offer relates to me being busy on a number of personal projects that have taken some effort to bring to closure and kept me away from the blogosphere.

Now I find myself with a little time and my mind flows to the England Rugby team who are enjoying success - at just the right time in the run up to the World Cup. As a long time England supporter I have experienced the full range of emotions across the years.

When we, England, reached the final in 2003 in Sydney I agonised over if/how I could get out there. In the end I didn't, but was found in a local pub at 7:30am, and yes, I yelled my head off when Johnny dropped THE goal.

We went off the boil, but then unexpectedly reached the final in Paris four years later. This time while I had no ticket or hotel I did get my car on the train and, with my brother and a friend, watched the final under the Eiffel Tower before driving through the night for a dawn train home.

Again we went into decline, it looked like we were trying too hard. There looked to be an over reliance on drills and pre-programmed play. No one had the courage or inclination to play the game when on the field.

So what has happened?

It may well be too soon to believe that everything is set, but given the last two showings against Wales and Italy, we have players backing themselves, supporting each other and above all enjoying playing. With Chris Ashton we seem to have a catalyst, a flamboyant one at that!

Of course the other players have to play well and I could name many others here, in fact more than the 15 who can be on the field at any one time, but it seems that Ashton's hunger and adventure is infecting the others. Just look at Mike Tindall's positioning for his try from a one handed, back handed offload from Easter - much more All Black than all White.

The papers are full of how Ashton learned his killer ability from others in rugby league, but I wonder if it is more that they helped unearth an instinctive ability, else many more would be able to copy it. Whatever the case it infects and enhances the performance of others - long may it continue.

As this blog is broadly about change I feel I have to draw some parallels. While we can drill project managers, real repeated success comes from some more instinctive qualities. When you find a star his/her example can infect others and create that holy Grail of a team that is greater than the sum of the parts.

As a leader of change the better we identify these talents and nurture them the better it will reflect on us all.

Recalibrating my thinking on recycling

Yesterday a well dressed man, driving a new silver Mercedes went out of his way to collect a 10 year old, 14 inch, colour television - not flat screen or anything like that. I will stress it was fully working, so worth something to somebody, but this was not the sort of needy individual I expected to be using the local Freecycle network. My initial reaction was "No", this ia wrong and not what I intended, but then I started thinking.

Along with many families in the UK, we have been rather wasteful consumers, accumulating the latest, newest, thing without too much thought on what to do with the old stuff. This has resulted in a cluttering at home followed by a struggle to dispose of items.

As a kid, when we had a lot less, jumble sales were the primary route for recycling while also helping worthy causes raise funds. In essence we had regular requests to the door for old clothes, bric-a-brac, books, etc. These would be collected, piled high in some village or church hall and sold to a scrum of humanity. This was sometimes a scary experience, but could be exhilarating too.

These have now declined, for a mix of health and safety and resourcing issues along with competition from new channels. On the one hand local authorities have raised their efforts in recycling. We can debate elsewhere why this is and consider some of the horror stories associated with it, but the truth is that they do it and they set pretty draconian rules around it. They ration what can go in general rubbish and demand, with threat of penalties, that the rest is increasingly separated. Just try and try a car load of miscellaneous refuse or old things to your local refuse centre and see how many different bins you need to use. Just try and put paper in with the hard plastic, or chipboard in with real wood and see the reaction and chastisement you receive.

I hope this separation is truly for processing/recycling and the days of it all being dumped in the same barge and shipped to a third world country are past, but I wonder. On the plus side it must have created hundreds of jobs across the country to police this new industry.

Another channel has been car boot sales. In these you fill your car/van with as much old stuff as you can then pay to congregate with others to set up stall and try and sell it to whoever you can for whatever you can get. This way you are much more involved in the recycling effort and collect some money for it. These used to be fun and reasonably lucrative, but seem t have passed their prime. You can now spend all day, resenting the paltry prices people want to pay, and still get left with half a car load to take home.

eBay has offered a third route. It has been a remains effective, but to a limited degree. We have put up a number of items, many have sold, including an old stone fire place and a room full of dismantled kitchen fittings. On the other hand many things won't / don't sell. We have four pine kitchen/bar stools that have failed to sell twice. We have found turbulence to be a little hit or miss.

With furniture and indeed electrical items, one would like to think someone could use them, but few charities have the ability to collect or store and none will take anything electrical. This came to a head recently when we had a large 40 inch projector TV we no longer wanted. It looked like I was going to have to pay for the local council to collect it and doubtless throw it into a container with tens of other TV's.

Then my wife heard about Freecycle, a collection of local groups where you can post things others can have, or indeed things you want, for free. It is easy to join and in minutes I had posted that large TV and added the smaller one just to see.

Almost a soon as the large TV was posted, someone "grabbed" it for their son who "will love it". The smaller TV took two days but was then collected with 3 hours. I will be interested to see who turns up to collect the big TV, but it feels better that someone will get to use it.

So, back to my thinking. Well re "Mercedes man", I have decided that it is still better this way. The item is off my hands at no cost and someone else will gain some economic value, whether he sells it on, uses it in a room he rents out or something else. I am now thinking what else I can get rid of this way and those kitchen stools are top of the list.

An added and unexpected effect is that I know receive emails from this local group and when see a mail requesting something, be it an old garden shed, a piece of office furniture or a rowing machine, I find myself mentally examining out inventory and actively considering if we can supply and indeed should we? This seems to be win-win.

I commend you to look at www.freecycle.org with an open mind.

Gravitas - the holy grail?

In reviewing the site statistics for this blog I am still amazed at the diversity of visitors. I cannot see who and I can see where the link is coming from. A lot come from Linkedin, which is not surprising at all, but an increasing number are coming from search engines, primarily Google, but not exclusively.

What is more interesting is that most of the search engine hits seem to come from searches about gravitas and how to develop it. In part this is because my blog entry on gravitas seems to have made onto the first page of results in many cases, but I find it interesting that there are so many seekers of gravitas.

I do know that it in my life it has been a common employee appraisal point when trying to explain why someone has not progressed as they would wish to. I wouldn't mind a pound for each time someone is told they haven't got the required gravitas or indeed they need to develop gravitas for the next promotion.

Unfortunately that is usually where the advice stops and the would-be success is left wondering what  to do?

So now I am wondering if there is something that could be done to help this? I see a number of coaches offering advice and I think I will trawl through and see what I can find.

It may well be worth trying to write a paper on this - would anyone be interested? Leave a comment or mail me if you would. Similarly if you have any good advice about gravitas then maybe you would be happy to share it here?

Yet another interesting avenue to explore :)

A Common Malaise

A posting from a colleague recently reminded me of something that was originally written in 1998, ie twelve years ago, but is still so relevant to today. It has been rewritten and editted many times and being a Brit the version I will include here is one that was reportedly included in The Times.

An Obituary printed in the London Times – Interesting and sadly – rather true

‘Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

• Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
• Why the early bird gets the worm;
• Life isn’t always fair;
• and Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 step brothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I’m A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

I think this just proves that some things just live on and remain relevant.

So much has happened since 1998, yet we are still facing the same challenge, maybe more so as the politicians and regulators dig their teeth deeper and deeper into things they understand less and less, but dare not admit that failing.

For any purists the original was written by Lori Borgman and can be found here .

In search of happiness!

This morning BBC Breakfast posed the question, "Is happiness a skill you can learn?"

They have set up a page with a three part challenge.

1. 10 minutes of daily mindfulness meditation
2. Writing down good things that happen to you and a letter expressing your gratitude
3. Doing one or more additional acts of kindness each day

The full page can be found here and has a work book and mechanisms for feedback.

In the current world and especially in January in the UK, which can be bleak, it is worth a try.

I will be interested to know if you think it works.

Sometimes you just get lucky!! A tale of two frauds.

This morning, just a short while ago, I had a look at my emails and found that I had bought two new PCs to be delivered to Leeds - I live near Hertford. The total was almost £2,500.

In the intervening period I have managed to successfully cancel everything, including my debit card. The only echo is that I am now without my main debit card for a few days, but otherwise I am unscathed.

The fraudsters were unlucky. Normally I do check my emails, but not until 7:30'ish. This morning however I woke just after 5am all bunged up with cold. As a result I took myself downstairs and had been dosing myself with throat spray and cold remedies, waiting for the normal family awakening. At 7am I woke my daughter and went to look at my mails. This was earlier than normal and lucky break #1

The first thing I saw was a confirmation that I had reset my safety password with my Bank - funny, I didn't remember doing this. That message was sent at 6:53am. Then I saw I had bought a gaming computer for around £1,800 from Best Buy - timed at 6:59am. Again this had passed me :).

I then found I had bought a high end laptop from Best Buy at almost £700 at 7:04am.

Luckily these were all very current. In truth the only reason I got the emails was that a) the fraudsters in the interest of making it look legitimate had used an email address using "thesutherlands.com" domain, one I own and administer. They had used Ian33, but as all unrecognised addresses come to me I saw these immediately, lucky break #2.

I quickly tried to find a way to contact Best Buy, but hesitated. I saw a contact number starting 0333 and wondered if the scam was actually to get me to call a premium number at some extortionate cost; the orders being false and intended to scare. A quick google told me that 0333 was OK, but Best Buy customer services were not open until 8:00am

So what to do, phone my bank or something else? I realised that I did have an option, As I had access to the email they set up I could reset the password and try to cancel the transactions. This I did. I reset the password, accessed the orders and cancelled them all by 7:27am. Lucky break #3 ie being so immediate and being able to reset and access the account.

At that point I phoned my Bank, who, once I explained matters, stopped the card - ordering a new one, marked the two transactions, assuring me that with the orders cancelled, that the amounts should not go through, but if they did they would be reimbursed, and also confirmed that there were no other improper transactions. This was completed by 7:45am.

At 8:00am on the dot I phone Best Buy who were very helpful confirmed the cancellations and closed the online account.

By 8:15 I think I had cleared the mess, but it had been an exciting(?) start to the day.

My wife's reaction was that I had left my card behind a bar to run a tab, but this was not the case. I realised that the fact they linked my card number to the right email domain, strongly suggests it was sourced from an online transaction. This just proves that while the technology may be secure, there are still weaknesses in the people who operate these systems - don't be complacent.

I will say that along with riding my luck, LloydsTSB and Best Buy were very helpful in resolving this little issue.

Let's see what the rest of today brings?

UPDATE:
Well I thought I was so clever and all I was missing was a plastic card for a few days. Wrong! I went to my bank with my cheque book to try and take out cash to tide me over until my new debit/cash card arrived only to find that the placemarks left by the two transactions, even though they had been cancelled, exhausted my account including the modest overdraft limit. The cashier told me that the cancellations from merchants often take three days tto process!!!

So, even though the transactions were fraudulent and cancelled, I could not get at my cash. It seems there is no way to expunged those holds on funds from the account. Instead they just have top "fall off" in a few days time. Seems a bit archaic to me, but I guess there is a reason.

Now the staff in my local Lloyds TSB branch were very helpful and within 15 minutes had set up an extended overdraft facility to cover the problem and cashed my cheque. What they did say to me is that they recommend using a credit card for online transactions, because not only do you get more protection against fraud, you also avoid this sort of problem with a cash account.

I guess I just have to wait a few days to get everything back to normal.