General

For the day that’s in it, and because today’s milestone will see me commence my 51st orbit of the sun, I have been reflecting on some of the milestones that have shaped my life during the first 50 orbital cycles. In many ways, these are a template for what many life journeys look like over time but where the precise details on how the milestones happen are different for all of us, in good ways and in bad, just as it should be.

In the interest of time (and data privacy, as some of the details could be used as security questions for online systems), I’ve deliberately not divulged any specifics. However, I have enjoyed recalling those to myself and my family, and hope that you enjoy reflecting on your own individual answers with you and yours, no matter what age you are (or are not). 

I guess the ordering of the items is somewhat chronological (and telling) in my case, which can result in some curious inferences about my priorities in life at the time 🙂

1. First childhood memory
2. First Christmas morning (that you remember)
3. First day at school
4. First time riding a bicycle (without stabilisers)
5. First time shooting a gun
6. First time visiting your Dad’s place of work to see what he does all day long
7. First time catching a fish by yourself
8. First time rowing a boat by yourself
9. First time riding a horse (or donkey)
10. First time at Bingo (and winning £25, a small fortune at that age)
11. First time camping (in a tent without a zip on the doors)
12. First time swimming more than 5 metres by yourself
13. First time staying up past midnight to see the clock radio switch from 23:59 to 00:00
14. First time on stage performing at a music, arts or culture event
15. First time on TV
16. First sports day at your parent’s place of work
17. First state exams
18. First record/tape/CD (or digital music) purchase, with your own money
19. First time on an oceanic car ferry
20. First date
21. First kiss
22. First paying job
23. First bank account not controlled by my parents
24. First Godchild
25. First time paying tax (still don’t understand that one)
26. First time voting in a national election
27. First pint (Guinness, of course)
28. First hangover (resulting in lifelong aversion/allergy to a specific alcoholic brand)
29. First time passing your driving test
30. First college qualification (29 years ago today too, as it happens)
31. First night after moving out of home
32. First professional job (for which you are academically qualified)
33. First serious data loss due to not taking backups seriously (credit to Heather Maybury^RIP for using a blameless culture (before that was a thing) to help me learn from it).
34. First flight
35. First sun holiday
36. First car
37. First (and only) marriage proposal – when, where, and how?
38. First house (and mortgage)
39. First (and only) wife, where your house became a home
40. First neighbour’s house warming, who would become lifelong friends to this day!
41. First time being best man at a wedding
42. First person you’ve met who was born after Italia ‘90
43. First mid-week barbecue leading to copious amounts of Bulmers cider
44. First child, and the unbridled joy of calling yourself a Father (followed by abject fear of what lies ahead by being responsible for something so beautifully delicate)
45. First life loss (and what this can teach you about life) – one I’d rather was not on this list
46. First College Reunion
47. First time skiing (on snow), and thinking you didn’t need sun cream because it was so cold.
48. First time paragliding
49. First time arriving on a video call, expecting a single colleague but finding half of your extended work team there to wish you a happy milestone birthday, complete with photos from your earlier years that were clearly provided by members of your immediate family!
50. First loss of a parent (definitely missing my Dad today)

So as I begin my 51st orbit of the sun, I count myself very lucky to have experienced so much good in my life (with a little bit of the bad and the sad to keep me firmly grounded).

I hope you enjoy thinking of some of the moments that have shaped your life, along the same lines as mine above, and I look forward to updating the list in the years and good times ahead.

Thanks for listening!

There are plenty of spirited articles that outline techniques for more effective and efficient meetings. But assuming you’ve done the basics that the theorists recommend, how can modern software tools help you squeeze that little bit of extra time and effort out of your meetings?

In this blog post, I’ll show you some simple tips on how to use Google’s G Suite (a.k.a. Google Docs) to reduce the running time of your meetings, efficiently identify and assign actions, as well as ways for attendees to get more value from the meeting and track what actions were assigned to them (at this and other meetings they attended).

And please don’t be tempted to give up after reading the first 1-2 items, thinking you know this stuff already. Trust me, the rest of them will be worth it.

Google G Suite

Originally named Google Docs, G Suite is the current name of Google’s web-hosted productivity software offering. Along with the usual Email (Gmail) and File Sharing (Drive) services, it also comes with a variety of “office” software products, including (but not limited to) Docs, Sheets and Slides, each of which support a wide range of very neat collaboration features.

There are, of course, similar offerings from other vendors but I’ve not used those as much as G Suite. But enough about thats, let’s get your efficiency up!

1) Sharing

Because Google Docs are stored in the Google Cloud (and not on your local laptop), more than one person can access them at the same time. And in terms of what these people (a.k.a. collaborators) can do, they:

• Can View – people can see/read the contents of the document but cannot change it.
• Can Comment – people can see the contents of the document, can make comments on that content but cannot make changes to the document itself. Their changes need to be reviewed (and approved) by the document owner.
• Can Edit – people can edit the document directly themselves, or make comments on content created by others.

So assuming that you’ve already/recently created a Google Doc to track your meeting(s), and assuming you’ve outlined a very basic agenda therein, the first thing you should do is share that document with the others attendees, giving them Edit access.

That way, they can add their comments/updates ahead of time and give a verbal update during the meeting instead. Not only will this be a more engaging experience for them and others (allowing for a more focused discussion) but it will also save the chairperson the time of having to minute their verbal update, which will keep the meeting moving along. This could also give the chairperson just enough time to record actions relevant to those updates there and then, also saving them time after the meeting.

Once the meeting has concluded and once you’ve made any final adjustments to the notes/actions, you should then share the document to the final, wider audience with Can Comment access. This will automatically alert them that the meeting notes are available for review, but also allow them to ask any follow-up questions they might have but without consuming the time of all the original attendees – just the document owner.

2) Comments

Anyone with Can Edit or Can Comment access to a Google Doc can select sections of text and make a comment about them. These comments are then recorded in the document for others to see (or respond to). The document owner is also alerted (by email or mobile alert) when a comment is made in one of their documents.

It’s also possible to reference another collaborator when making a comment in a document (assuming they have access to the document). This can be done by referencing their email address (with a plus symbol before it) in the comment body. In this case, that collaborator will also receive an alert (as will the owner).

Once a comment thread (or discussion) has concluded (i.e. the question has been answered), the document owner can Resolve the comment, after which it will no longer be visible. It will always be recorded in the document history but only visible to the document owner thereafter.

3) Introducing Action Items

This is where it begins to get really interesting, so thanks for sticking with us until now.

In more recent updates to G Suite, Google enhanced the commenting functionality so that when referencing another collaborator you have the option to Assign the comment as an Action Item to them. The difference between this and an ordinary comment may not be entirely obvious yet, but keep reading and you’ll see the value shortly.

4) Auto-Assignment of Action Items

In order to initiate a regular comment (or Action Item) in a document, you first need to select some text, choose the Insert, Comment menu option, address the intended collaborator and tick the to option to Assign as Task. That’s a lot of typing and clicking, when you’re otherwise trying to listen to meeting attendees give verbal updates and transpose those into appropriate notes and actions (for them or others).

Fortunately, G Suite has a very clever feature that can help (subject to certain conditions). If the document owner (or another collaborator with Edit access) phrases an update to the document in a certain way (e.g. “John to follow up with the Sales team”) and the document has been explicitly shared with someone called John, then G Suite will automatically attempt to assign that piece of text as an Action Item to John (prompting you first of course).

This is not only another excellent time saver but another reason to share the document ahead of time (to the right people). It’s also a strong incentive to be more prescriptive and succinct in your narrative as the meeting chairperson.

5) Revealing and Reviewing Your Action items

So you and your colleagues are a few weeks into your new G Suite regime and you’ve personally chaired a good few meetings and attended several others. And in doing so, you know you’ve amassed a sizeable number of action items but have no idea which documents they’re in or how to find them (since your last browser restart did not preserve your open tabs).

So give this a try instead:

1. Go to your Google Drive home page.
2. In the Search box at the top, enter the criteria: followup:actionitems (or click the Search Options, scroll to the bottom and select the Follow up drop-down menu and select the Action items only option).
3. Voila! You now have a list of all Google Docs where there’s an action on you (including ones not owned by you).

Note that this does not work for ordinary comments – you need to be sure that the original comments were Assigned as Action Items in their respective documents.

You’re Welcome!

If you’ve been considering moving your domain to Google Apps, and you are likely to need more than 10 accounts, you might want to consider moving before 10 May 2011 as they are tightening the rules on the maximum number of user accounts you can have on the free account from that date.

Here’s the official announcement I received from Google earlier today:

We recently announced upcoming changes to the maximum number of users for Google Apps. We want to let you know that, as a current customer, the changes will not affect you.

As of May 10, any organization that signs up for a new account will be required to use the paid Google Apps for Business product in order to create more than 10 users. We honor our commitment to all existing customers and will allow you to add more than 10 users to your account for xxxxx.com at no additional charge, based on the limit in place when you joined us.

Still though, a 10 user limit is probably good enough for most personal uses and to be fair, $50 per user per year, it’s still very good value for money.