Some thoughts on leadership—are leaders born or made?

Leadership is a subject that has interested me for many years and I have numerous books on it, especially those by John Maxwell and Bill Hybels.

I'd been discussing the need for leadership training within organisations with a close friend who has had much experience in the business world. The discussion turned to whether or not leaders are born or whether they can, in reality, be trained. My friend was of the view that leaders are born with leadership talent and therfeore cannot be made into leaders.

As our discussion progressed and we talked about what others were saying it became obvious to me that we needed to clarify what we meant by the word "leader". We had been thinking primarily in terms of the person who is able to lead by setting the direction others are to follow—the person who can give directions with others being able to follow in confidence, knowing that the leader's approach is sound. Is this a natural talent or can people be trained to lead in this way? I'm strongly inclined to agree with my friend that such people are born with this talent and that there is little training that can make anyone into such a leader.

So the next step for me was to find out what some of the dictionaries defined as "leadership". Much to my surprise, various dictionaries provided little insight into the usage of "leadership" or the word "leader". My Australian Concise Macquarie Dictionary defined "leader" as the "guiding or directing head", but it didn't even have an entry for "leadership". The American Websters Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary provided little additional information on "leader" although it did have a small entry for "leadership", defining it as "1. The office or position of a leader; 2. Capacity to lead". The Concise Oxford Dictionary also failed to provide a definition of "leadership". So using dictionaries wasn't a suitable source of information.

However, as we discussed the issue further it became obvious to me that the word "leader" had two totally different meanings in common usage. The first was what we had been discussing—the person who has the capacity to set the direction for others in such a way that they naturally follow and succeed. The second is far more common in today's society and refers to the position a person has, whether they actually lead or not. It refers to the person in charge, the boss, the supervisor, the political party head, the Prime Minister or President of a country.

As for the second group, these are the people who often do need training, especially in business.

I find it a sad commentary on today's society that so many "leaders" are just figureheads. Take modern-day work practices. There was a time when organisations employed managers or supervisors. But in a desire to give everyone a "say" in the running of the organisation, they are more likely to be called "team leaders". It could be a very sound management concept, but from my experience, these people rarely lead in the real world—their primary tasks seem to be to chair meetings and possibly act as spokesmen for the team. I have no problem with the overall concept of letting people have their input into the running of things but from my experience, if there isn't sound leadership the team becomes ineffective.

As for the first group, I believe anyone can improve their leadership ability, but I'm strongly inclined to agree with my friend that REAL leaders are born that way.

Two of the best leadership books that I've read are The 360° Leader and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. The first book deals with how the natural leader can lead a whole organisation from within and doesn't have to be the person at the top of the management hierarchy.

Here is what John Maxwell says in the opening pages of The 360° Leader:

"You do not have to be held hostage to your circumstances or position. You do not have to be the CEO to lead effectively. And you can learn to make ah impact through your leadership even if you report to someone who is not a good leader. What's the secret? You learn to develop your influence from wherever you are in the organization by becoming a 360-Degree Leader, You learn to lead up, lead across, and lead down.

Not everyone understands what it means to influence others in every direction—those you work for, the people who are on the same level with you, and those who work for you. Some people are good at leading the members of their own team, but they seem to alienate tthe leaders in other departments of the organization. Others individuals excel at building a great relationship with their boss, but they have no influence with anyone below them in the organization. A few people can get along within just about anybody, but they never seem to get any work done. On the other hand, some people are productive, but they can't get along with anybody. But 360-Degree Leaders are different. Only 360-Degree Leaders influence people at every level of the organization. By helping others, they help themselves."

He goes on to say:

"If I had to identify the number on misconception people have about leadership, it would be the belief that leadership comes simply from having a position or title. But nothing could be further from the truth. You don't need to possess a position at the top of your group, department, division, or organization in order to lead. If you think you do then you have bought into the position myth."

From The 21 Laws of Irrefutable Leadership, here are some of the quotes I like best from some of his chapter headings:

"To change the direction of the organization, change the leader"

"The True Measure of Leadership Is Influence—Nothing More, Nothing Less"

"Anyone Can Steer the Ship, But It Takes a Leader to Chart the Course"

"When the Real Leader Speaks, People Listen"

"Trust Is the Foundation of Leadership"

"People Naturally Follow Leaders Stronger Than Themselves"

"Leaders Touch a Heart Before They Ask for a Hand"

"Only Secure Leaders Give Power to Others"

"People Buy Into the Leader, Then the Vision"

"Leaders Find a Way for the Team to Win"

"Leaders Understand That Activity Is Not Necessarily Accomplishment"

Well, this is a giant subject and these are just a few miniscule thoughts that come to mind, but I believe they are working considering if you are in a position of responsibility, or even with no official responsibility but with a natural talent for leadership.

Added two new entries to Rob's Perspective

The following short articles have been added to Rob's Perspective:

1. Failure to Learn - Anthony Hopkins - Lessons for IT and forms management

This paper is based on lessons learned from Anthony Hopkins in his books on gas plant explosions in Australia and Texas and how they apply to IT and forms management.

2. Procedures – Handling choices within a choice

This paper deals with a new Playscript approach to handling complex routing in procedure manuals.

Amazing customs

The Encyclopedia Britannica wrote in its 27th edition, 1959, volume 7, about Easter:

"The English word, 'Easter'... corresponding to the German Ostern, reveals Christianity's indebtedness to the Teutonic tribes of central Europe. Christianity, when it reached the Teutons, incorporated in its celebrations of the great Christian feast many of the heathen rites and customs which accompanied their observance of the spring festival... The customs and symbols associated with the observance of Easter have ancient origins, not only in the Teutonic rites of spring but also far back in antiquity... the conception of the egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who also had the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival... Like the Easter egg, the Easter hare... came to Christianity from antiquity...

"And those families who, by custom, eat ham on Easter Sunday are unwittingly following an old practice of the Roman Catholics of England, who ate a gammon of bacon on Easter to show their contempt for the Jews, to whom pork is forbidden...

"In England... the Puritans... refused to celebrate Easter. Thus at first in the U.S... Easter was not observed. It was not until the latter part of the 19th century, particularly during the Civil War, that the Protestant churches, other than the Lutheran and the Episcopalian, began to mark this day by special services... The Protestant churches also followed the [pagan] custom of holding sunrise services on Easter morning."

The Reader's Digest Publication, "Why in the World," copyright 1994, states the following about Easter and its customs, on pages 199-201:

"Originally, Easter had nothing to do with the Christian calendar. Our word for the festival comes from Eastre or Ostara, the goddess of spring among Germanic tribes of northern Europe. Pagan tribes rejoiced at the coming of spring, which is why many of our Easter customs, such as the giving of eggs, have pagan not Christian origins...

"Hares are born with their eyes open and are nocturnal. Because of this, the Egyptians made them sacred to the Moon. Later, ancient Britons gave the hare magical powers, using it in rites such as fortune-telling. Some villagers in Ireland refused to kill or eat hares, believing that they carried the souls of their grandparents. Later, Germanic tribes who worshipped Eastre (or Ostara), associated the fecund hare with her, their goddess of life and spring...

"Just as pagan customs figure in our Christmas festival, so too they have become associated inextricably with Easter. Long before the beginnings of Christianity, Egyptians and Romans gave gifts of eggs as symbols of life. Easter was originally a pagan festival to celebrate the coming of spring, which marked the rebirth of life in plants, a time when many birds mated and produced young. The hen's egg, from which new life could spring, was a potent sign of regeneration. Often its shell was decorated with colours representing certain flowers and aimed at encouraging their regrowth...

"Traditionally, hot cross buns are eaten on Good Friday, but their origins, like many Eastertide and Christmas customs, go back to pagan times... The baking of special bread, flavoured with spices, was part of pagan celebrations to greet the spring and worship the sun. The ancient Greeks stamped their festival bread with a horned emblem in honour of Astarte, their goddess of love and fertility. The word 'bun' comes from 'boun,' an ancient word for a sacred ox. Cakes stamped with horns became buns marked with a cross."

Hybels Axiom — Getting back to people who call

One of my favourite books on leadership is "AXIOM" by Bill Hybels. While he is writing as the leader of a large church organisation, the book is a collection of short essays that are applicable to any organisation.

One of those essays is called "Sweat the small stuff" and I couldn't agree more with what he says. It has been my practice for many years. In it refers to the failure of many people to respond to enquiries.
Here is part of what he says:

"My peers are often shocked to learn that I send out between fifteen and two dozen handwritten notes a week to follow up with people who have helped us a Willow. Or that I respond to my critics when they take time to write. … These things may seem trivial to some people, but the best leaders I know right-size they amount of small stuff required to do their job well and they tend to those things fastidiously. They return phone calls and acknowledge correspondence."

He goes on to talk about how he requires all of his staff to respond within 24 hours, even if it is just to let someone know that their email has been received and they will get back to them later. We do the same thing in our company, except when people send us email jokes, etc. We occasionally slip up but for the most part it is just good courtesy to let people know their email or phone call has been received.

Bill Hybels book is well worth reading.

Security Block on BLOG sites

I heard today the some government agencies put a security block on BLOG sites. I can't do anything about this BLOG other than suggest that people access it privately.

However, Rob's Perspective also uses BLOG software, so I will most likely recreate it using HTML to work the same way. This may take a while due to other commitments.

In the mean time both will continue as they are.

Paperless Office

I've just about finished reading "The Myth of the Paperless Office" by Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper

What a great book! I can highly recommend it.

My thoughts on it are well summed up by two comments on the back of the dust jacket:

"Paper is the old-fashioned technology that refuses to die—and for good reason. As this pioneering study by Sellen and Harper shows, paper supports many needs and work styles better than any other medium. As a result, paper is the perfect complement to electronic documents, superior at many things, inferior at many. Want to know if an organization is working efficiently" Sellen and Harper say to check the wastebaskets—they should be full."

"The authors approach their subject with academic rigour, observing real organisations to find out how people like to work."

It has some amazing revelations about their research into the way people actually work.

Peter Costello Memoirs

When I first head about Peter Costello's Memoirs, a number of journalists predicted that they would be political attacks on colleagues and opponents. But they were way off the track. I eventually read the book and was pleasantly surprised. He was certainly frank about his long term in office as Australia's Treasurer and the issues he faced, but he was just as frank about his ethical position as a practising Christian and how that affected his decision making.

I can highly recommend the book as a valuable insight into the workings of a national government. And now that the change in government has passed, the book can be obtained much cheaper than the original price.

Clean Apple Mac PDF with Graphic Converter

I was faced with a task today that taught me something new that is well worth passing on to any Mac users of Acrobat.

I had a number of old scanned journals that had a series of articles on a particular subject that I wanted to combine as a single PDF file. That part was easy—just a matter of extracting the relevant pages and recombining them as a single PDF document. However, about a third of the pages had other material on them such as parts of other articles, advertising, etc. that I didn't need. But Acrobat had no way of removing the unwanted material. It wold only let me remove whole pages.

The solution was to open the PDF file in that great Mac application "Graphic Converter". It was an easy matter to drag the cursor over anything on the page to be deleted and press the "delete" key. To move to the next page it asked me to save, which I did, and so on through the file. At the finish, saved it back as a PDF and then opened it in Acrobat, set the page size (in this case to Letter Size), added footer page numbers and then used OCR to convert it to searchable text.

A very simple solution that is also useful for removing unwanted marks and blotches in the scanned document.

Using the OCR function has a side benefit—it also correctly orients the page so that the text isn't skewed.

Singing the advantages of Skype

Skype is one of those magnificent free software applications that has many advantages for anyone with a broadband connection.
For example:
1. It's free
2. You can chat at no cost
3. You can send VERY large files to someone else at no cost and without the normal size limitations of email
4. You can make Skype phone calls to other Skype members at no cost
5. You can make ordinary phone calls to non-Skype people at very small cost
6. If you have a video camera as I do on my Apple PowerBook, you can have video phone calls to anyone else who has a camera at no cost.

For example, I have video phone calls with my friend Alex who lives in Paris and it doesn't cost either of us anything. We're also looking at getting my 96-year-old father a new computer with Skype. He is mentally very sound, but lives in a hostel in Sydney and can't get to see us. Because of my current physical condition, it isn't possible for me to go to see him. So the next best thing is to set him up with video phone using Skype and we can talk regularly.

Shana - FileNet - IBM - eForms - Major Decision

When specialised electronic forms software was introduced in the mid 1980’s it was fill and print only. Company’s such as Shana, Delrina, Jetform, Adobe, Apple and BLOC Development Corporation were all developing various types of electronic forms software. It was another five years before workflow-based electronic forms software became available when Canadian company, Shana Corporation, added the functionality to its Informed software. Shana was subsequently acquired by FileNet, which in turn was acquired by IBM with the name changed from Informed to IBM FileNet eForms.

In my opinion, IBM FileNet eForms is the best electronic forms software available. It lacks some of the features of other software, but is so easy to use and has so many built-in functions that it surpasses everything else overall. Shana even created a web-based server known as Forms Manager so that forms created in Informed Designer for their desktop Filler software could be run as HTML forms in a web browser.

Major decision by IBM changes eforms landscape

We’ve recently been notified by IBM that as of January 31 2009 they have decided to discontinue the Forms Manager server and no longer make the Desktop eForms software available to end users as a stand alone product. If you want Desktop eForms you have to purchase FileNet P8 content management software and then pay extra for the eForms software as an add-on feature. The decision doesn’t directly affect existing eForms users who may still be able to obtain support under existing contracts depending on which version of the software they are using. But organisations wanting a LOW-COST and VERY powerful electronic forms solution will have to look elsewhere.

About a year before acquiring FileNet, IBM’s Lotus Team purchased PureEdge, renaming it Workplace Forms and then changing the name again to Lotus Forms.

I've had a chance to look at the latest release and I want to thank the Lotus Team in Canberra for their co-operation. Version 3.5 is a vast improvement over the earlier version. The interface is still not as slick as the FileNet or Adobe products but it is way easier to use. It also has a much stronger array of built in calculations than I'd seen previously and that brings it more into line with the function list of FileNet eForms, which had the most comprehensive set of functions available.

Given that FileNet eForms cannot be purchased without also purchasing P8 Content Management (or other P8 offerings), Lotus Forms is a much more viable solution for organisations wanting only electronic forms.

Lotus Forms also has some great functionality that is lacking in the FileNet product since it uses XML and is able to create dynamic forms. I agree with many forms professionals that "dynamic forms" is often a sales gimmick and has its downside, but I've come across numerous situations where it would have been very useful. So I'm now looking forward to what we can do with it.

Lotus Forms now has a converter for both PDF forms and FileNet ITX templates. I did try converting FileNet eForms into Lotus and it brought over the layouts reasonably well, but at this stage not the calculations and intelligence. Much depends on how much intelligence is built into the FileNet form. I understand that the converter was mainly for converting fill and print forms, not the highly intelligent forms that FileNet can produce. Hopefully that will come in the future. It also brings across boxes that aren't fields as individual lines and these need to be replaced.

As we learn more about the product, I'll update the BLOG with more information. But at this stage I'm far happier with Lotus Forms than I was previously. Lotus also have a low-cost easy-to-use Designer called Lotus Forms Turbo which is a great idea for a small business, but it isn’t suitable for the complex forms that most larger organisations use as it is primarily for simple forms built using wizards.

My hope is that the IBM Lotus Team will step into the picture and do something concrete with Lotus Forms to make it even easier for ALL form designers to use without having to resort to “wizards” and simplistic designs. Combining the functionality and ease of use of FileNet eForms Designer with the XML capabilities of Lotus Forms would make the product FAR AHEAD of anything else available—and DEFINITELY the very best electronic forms software.

As a final word at this stage, I have another comment for the Lotus Team. Since Adobe and Lotus are both built on the Eclipse platform, my hope is that Lotus can make their product just as easy to use as Adobe's.

But is the Lotus Team prepared to do this? I don’t know, but I sure hope they take up the challenge.

Book on web forms

I've just received a copy of the book, Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability, by Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney.

What a superb publication! The writing style is exceptional and very easy to understand.

Although it deals specifically with web forms, there is a lot of content that applies equally well to paper forms.

I can highly recommend it.

It can be obtained from www.amazon.com or in Australia from www.fishpond.com.au where Aussies won't have to pay overseas shipping charges.

Rob's Perspective

I decided to put up another website for short articles rather than using this blog for them. It makes it easier for people to find things.
The new site is called "Rob's Perspective" and it can be found at:
http://rba3.putblog.com/  .

The initial papers are the ones that have been on the web site called "A Forms Perspective", but I wanted to be able to put up more than just forms-related articles, so the new site is a simpler solution and easier for readers to get to the content.

Putting a bad system on a computer doesn't necessarily improve it

Over 35 years ago

The first computer system I ever worked on started out as a disaster. The developers had put all their effort into the computer system logic and programming, and in those distant times with programming in machine language and data entry by manually punched cards, errors were expensive to correct. But the developers overlooked the most important factor in their system—the people. But that was not the only computer disaster. As the years wore on, I experienced failure after failure as computer 'professionals' continued to put the machine ahead of people. As unbelievable as it may sound to many modern IT people, I've seen more system failures than successes in a wide range of organisations, both private and government, and the same problem continues as I write.

Am I knocking computers and modern technology and IT people in general? NO! I think modern technology is wonderful and I love what we can do today compared to what was available even five years ago. But there's both GOOD and BAD practice, and unfortunately, my experience over 40 years has been that there's a lot more bad practice than there is good.

In 1976, British author and IT lecturer Keith London, described computer systems in his book The People Side of Systems.

“Programmers often see an organisation in black and white: the nuts and bolts of document flow, clearly defined file data element characteristics, precise logical program branches, rigid computer operations schedules. The very nature of the computer itself requires that a program be specified in precise, formal terms. He is, in his everyday work, seeing only the formalized tip of an iceberg. If such a programmer becomes a systems analyst, he would now investigate and analyse. If he were to maintain his mechanistic perception of a system, his work would be doomed to failure. For he would still see only the tip of the iceberg of the formal procedures and data. The bulk of the iceberg in systems terms is the people, their jobs and their attitudes."

Today!

Even now, over 30 years after Keith London wrote, analysts and system developers still make the same mistakes, failing to consider the people and the way they work with the business system. I wish this was an isolated case, but long and continuing experience has proven otherwise.

An important lesson

When I was being introduced to business systems, I learned a very important lesson—FIX THE BUSINESS PROCESSES FIRST and then add the computer. Michael Hammer and James Champy, in their book Reengineering the Corporation, give the example of IBM Credit who “in trying to automate its operations…managed only to immortalize a bad process by committing it to computer software, making it even more difficult to alter in the future.” You’ll find more about reengineering business forms in a longer paper on our web site.

If you computerise a bad system, all you do is make the problems occur faster.

My first involvement in GOOD computer input form design was in 1979 when I was asked to work with one of our state police departments. Their approach was radically different to what I had previously encountered. Instead of being given an input layout prepared by a programmer and told to get on with the design, I was handed a copy of the draft specifications. The result was that I was able to point out where some of the input requirements were going to cause problems for the users. This led to the development of a new data entry concept for the project followed by the design of the draft forms and procedures before the real programming took place. Once the designs were worked out and checked with potential users, the programming commenced and the system was implemented very smoothly. I'm told that those forms are still in operation today.

The future

As we move further into the 21st Century we need to remember these lessons as more and more of our forms become electronic. If many software developers had their way, paper forms wouldn't exist. Even from administrators, there's an ongoing push to place ALL forms on the Internet, especially from government, but with no thought about whether that's the best way to go; no thought about the limitations of current Internet technology or even whether people are prepared to use forms that way. We're getting an increasing number of reports from government sources that many members of the public are objecting to electronic forms. I'm not suggesting that electronic forms are bad—after all, our company sells electronic forms software—but I am suggesting that we need to use them wisely. We need to put people first, and that includes internal staff as well as the public. We need an holistic approach, taking all factors into consideration—human psychological needs, user literacy, ergonomics, efficiency and corporate productivity, work flow (both paper and electronic), reliability of captured data, information accessibility, and much more.

Many managers throw technology at their problems like a person giving aspirin to someone with a brain tumour. To solve business problems you need to know what the REAL problem is and then find the CAUSE. Then, maybe—just MAYBE—technology might help to provide an optimum solution.

Usability News

Here's another good source of information on usability: Usability News.
Once you're there it's worth doing a search on "Caroline's Corner", where you'll find lots of articles by Caroline Jarrett on usability, some of which deal with forms.

Usability Professionals' Association - UPA

I have now joined the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA). It will make a valuable addition to my source of knowledge and I can highly recommend it.
The Association can be found at: http://www.upassoc.org/.

Boinx FotoMagico a great Macintosh Application

I've just installed and started using Boinx FotoMagico on the Mac.
What a great application! We'll be using it to create video training courses with presentations out of Apple Keynote with a recorded commentary. I can highly recommend it.

Failure to Learn - Anthony Hopkins - Lessons for forms management

On Thursday I commented about IT people failing to learn lessons over the past 40 years. Then yesterday I received a copy of the book "Failure To Learn" by Prof. Anthony Hopkins of the Australian National University. The book deals with the BP Texas City Refinery disaster in 2005. It follows on from an earlier book "Lessons from Longford" which dealt with a similar disaster at the Exxon Gas Plant in Melbourne Australia in 1998. BP had known all about the Exxon disaster but failed to learn the lesson.

When I read the Longford book, I was struck by the relevance of the issues raised by Anthony Hopkins to management in general and to forms management in particular. The result was a class delivered at the Business Forms Symposium in Phoenix in 2006. The associated paper is available for download from our web site.

As I thought about the issues further, It became startlingly evident to me that it wasn't only forms management that was relevant to forms professionals, but also form design. Why are so many form designers around the world still designing forms as if they live in the 1950's. I and others have written and lectured numerous times about how the old fashioned ideas of the mid 20th Century just don't work for public-use forms. Yet designers fail to learn the lessons. They continue with old ideas such as tiny boxes with "upper left corner captions" instead of questionnaires, no lines on the ends of boxes, cryptic box labels instead of plain language, "tramline" delimiters for data entry fields, etc.

The problem is heightened in the USA with antiquated legislation such as the Paperwork Reduction Act which only exacerbates the problem by reducing the amount of paper but increasing the work. Administrators wonder why so many people have trouble filling out the forms. Organizations complain about the amount of time it takes to deal with the errors people make and provide expensive help desks for form fillers. Yet with modern approaches they could reduce all this to minimal amounts.

For example, between 80% and 100% of public-use forms typically have one or more errors in the data collected, yet with best practice design this can be dramatically reduced to as low as 5%. I know of one case in Australia where it was costing $10 million per year just to correct the errors form fillers make—and that's with a country of only around 20 million people. What is the cost in places such as the USA or India with a much larger population?

So while I was castigating the IT profession for failure to learn, forms designers and forms analysts need to learn some lessons as well.

Label field alignment and eye-tracking for online forms

I've just finished reading a paper by Das, McEwan and Douglas on a report of eye-tracking for label alignment in online forms. While it didn't really say anything new, I found it interesting that it confirmed what we'd already learned over the past 25 years through observational studies and usability testing. That is, it is faster for users to have labels for lists of ballot boxes right aligned to the boxes rather than left aligned with a gap between the label and the box.  It is effectively no different to what should generally happen with paper forms.

The paper title is "Using Eye-tracking to Evaluate Label Alignment in Online Forms".

It can be purchased here.

Why do IT people make forms and procedures an after thought?

After forty plus years in the business I'm still amazed at how many IT people think forms and procedures are unimportant.

Go to a meeting and talk to analysts and as soon as the subject comes up their eyes glaze over as if it is too childish to discuss. When we tell them we design forms and write procedures they generally aren't the slightest bit interested.

Sometimes I come across someone who understands as I did recently at a meeting at IBM, but that is rare indeed.

Yet how many systems have you come across that don't do what they are supposed to do because the data collection part of the system doesn't work properly. Most systems start and often finish with forms. They often need forms during the process as well. The trouble is that IT people tend to think that because it is on a computer screen, the form is no longer a form. Yet the same general principles apply as for paper forms. Even worse are the forms often created by web designers who think that they are different again. There are some technical differences due to the way people use the screens over paper entry, but these are only minor compared to issues such as getting the language and data entry sequence right.

I often tell such people that if they don't think forms analysis is a big subject then why does it take a 500 page text book to tell people how to do it?

You'd think that after nearly 50 years of business computing and having systems fail over and over again, that they'd learn some lessons.

When will they ever learn that if they want their computer system to work properly for the end users, then they should get the forms and procedures right FIRST—before they start writing code?

When will they ever learn that forms analysis and procedures analysis are specialised professions?

Managing email

Came across this great information today. It's well worth watching.
Click here to see it.

It comes from Merlin Mann at:
http://www.43folders.com.

In it he talks aboout a tickler system.  I've started using MailTags (Mac only - maybe something similar for Windows) and it is terrific.

It does so many great things, I'd hate to be without it now.

See the following URL:
http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html