What's New for the week of March 27, 2006

We're all in Albuquerque at a Consulting Skills workshop.

Jerry spent last week finishing up at the ICE Writers Conference, then preparing for his Consulting Clinic Workshop next week. The Consulting Clinic is for AYE "graduates" only, and it will be a full, glorious week, with all AYE hosts participating to improve the "consulting" part of AYE.

Don has started posting the program. See ProgramScheduleAndSessions2006.

Steve did sight-seeing in the Santa Fe area on Saturday and Sunday. He went to the Bandolier National Monument, climbed into some Amerindian ruins, and let his imagination run wild about civilization long ago... He is thrilled to now (Sunday) be in Albuquerque for the Consulting Workshop. He says, "I am joining a terrific group of participants for the workshop. And Jerry is leading the event. I know it's going to be terrific week full of learning."

What's New -- March 21, 2006

Dave is doing more work on our web site site as well as backing up the site.

Don is headed to a class in Foxborough, MA. In addition to learning new software, he'll use the occasion to renew friendships and meet new friends.

Esther's been working on a book with Diana Larsen, and this week they turned over the latest round of revisions to the publisher. Watch of Tuning Up Teams: Retrospective Toolkit and Recipes later in the year.

Jerry made four presentations on writing this week, including three at a writers' conference about the Fieldstone Method and one at the New Mexico SPIN group about the significance of writing in process improvement activities.

Johanna is completing her 2+ week trip to Israel with teaching project management workshops and returning home mid-week. She will be quite happy to be home again.

Steve invested many hours last week learning about Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) for a reporting project. The challenge was restoring his state after lots of interruptions, which seems to be a subject on the minds of many in the AYE community.

Adrian Segar's "Getting to Know You"

A new article has been posted to the AYE article page. The new addition "Getting to Know You: Using a Round Table to Start an Event", by Adrian Segar, discusses using a round table format to quickly meet people. Follow the link from the Article page.

The website gets a touch-up

The AYE website just got a new coat of paint. Overdue, yes, but that's what sometimes happens when other things demand more attention. The site update project had been sitting on my "To Do" list for several months. I'd even done the "Getting Things Done" bit, and had broken the work out into small, concrete, actionable next steps. But several of the steps were bigger than the blocks of time I had available, and the project got stalled. Amplifying my own effectiveness here required recognizing that this was about needing bigger blocks of time, and then doing the commitment juggling necessary to make that happen.

The new design puts the weblog front-and-center, which will make it easier for us to get timely information to you. Over the next few weeks, we'll be posting details about sessions and guest presenters, and some new articles.

Comments and suggestions about the site design (and content) are always welcome. Send them our way.

Context Switching - Great Idea or Waste of Time?

I just had to say something about Johanna's Context Switching article. Then George Dinwiddie wanted to say something about about what I had to say about what Johanna said, and then threw in some stuff from Dale Emery. You can go to George's blog and get the pointers to all the comments. Since George has some "To Be Writtens", I plan to help him. Don

What's New for the Week of March 13, 2006

Here's the news this week:

• Jerry helped lead a seminar on what's involved in becoming a full-time professional writer. Next week he'll lead three writing clinics at the ICE conference in Phoenix.
  
• Don is in a class about learning to better understand people and how to better work with them.
  
• Steve returned today (Sunday) from a wedding celebration. The fun part was Ann Rae, his wife, was the minister. Her cousin and spouse asked Ann Rae to become an Internet minister so she could marry them. Steve participated in the design, practice and execution of the wedding. And he danced with the family and took lots of pictures. He says, "Ann Rae did an incredible job. She integrated humor and seriousness so that both were enhanced. She loved doing it, although she was naturally nervous. The event was an incredible experience for everyone, especially Ann Rae. I am proud of her."
  
• Dave is retooling the AYE Conference website. [Ed. note: HURRAY!]
  
• Esther pitched her totally unsatisfactory new ski boots and had the old ones
  remounted -- so she's having fun on the hill in lovely, lively Lutsen, Minnesota. But she'll be back at work on Wednesday.
  
• Johanna is in Israel, finishing this assessment. Her challenge is staying awake long enough to call her family.
  

We have our first new article of 2006: Convincing Management That Context Switching Is a Bad Idea.

We also hope you read and participate on the wiki. One of the current threads is TypesofCodeReview.

Jim McGee's reading list for improving effectiveness

If you want to know what to read next while waiting to come to AYE for amplifying your effectiveness, check out this post on Jim McGee's blog.

Jim has concocted an outstanding list of 25 essential books for improving your effectiveness. (Disclaimer: Three of my own books are on the list, which is why it was brought to my attention, but don't let that discourage you from reading the others.) - Gerald (Jerry) Weinberg

What's New for the Week of March 6, 2006

Here's our host news this week:

• Jerry is on the road researching another novel.
  
• Dave is building diagrams of effect to help a client gain leverage over process scaling issues.
  
• Esther is working in her office in Minneapolis this week.
  
• Don's finishing a prototype proof of concept for a client and then leaving for class until 3/16.
  
• Steve is home catching up on work and play.
  
• Johanna is in Israel, doing an assessment for a client. She's having a wonderful time at work. She also had a great time using the Voice of Reason with the hotel when the wireless didn't work in her first room.