PowerPoint Animation -- Selection Window Time Saver

As a "PowerPoint" engineer (aka UVa Systems grad), I am ashamed to not have known about the "Selection and Visibility" feature in PP2007.

Basically, this shows you a list of all the objects on your slide, for which you can proceed to give meaningful names. This is helpful in keeping things straight when making a slide with a lot of graphics and animations. Instead of working with a bunch of objects (some of which are hidden by others) with names like "Picture 9" and "Picture 13", you can use meaningful names like"PHL in 2007" and "PHL in 2012".

To do this click on "Home", then "Select->Selection Window..." (button in the Editing window on the far right-hand side of the screen). This produces a pane which lists all the objects on the screen. You can even hide some object so that it is easier to select and manipulate the underlying ones.

I know this is my lamest post ever, but this feature made me happy for a few minutes.

Kinetic Productivity: Part I -- The Analogy

I learned today that my former co-worker has created a website called PickTheBrain.com. I was browsing some of the articles and came about one on productivity. He suggests utilizing "surges of mental activity" as opposed to forcing our mental activity into a continuous 8 hour block.

This reminded me of an interesting passage by tech whiz Aaron Swartz:

"With all the time you spend watching TV," he tells me, "you could have written a novel by now." It's hard to disagree with the sentiment -- writing a novel is undoubtedly a better use of time than watching TV -- but what about the hidden assumption? Such comments imply that time is "fungible" -- that time spent watching TV can just as easily be spent writing a novel. And sadly, that's just not the case.

In addition to what these gentleman say, I believe I've discovered a little known productivity limiter; bear with me as I coin the phrase "kinetic productivity" with respect to working life. Think back to high school physics when you were working out how much work it would take to get a ball resting at the bottom of a hill up to the top. Once at the top, you can simply roll it down the other side; converting all its potential energy into kinetic energy.

Now think of the kinetic energy as productivity. As long as the ball has kinetic energy (productivty), it can move (get work done). As it rolls along, the forces of friction (work) eventually dissapate the kinetic energy and you are left at the bottom of another hill (low mental activity).

Stay tuned for Part II in which I decode analogy further--defining the hill and methods for climbing it.

In this line of work, "Shortcuts" are "Pivotal"

My official title is Simulation Modelling Engineer, but I think I'm going to start telling people I am an air traffic consultant. And as with nearly all consultants, my best friend is the spreadsheet. My poison is Excel, but any old spreadsheet will do. Oh, that is, if it has pivot tables. I think of it sort of as a lite database where you pick all the attributes you want to look at and you string together queries using pull-down menus.

So, here's to you pivot tables. I think you might deserve one of those Budweiser commercials. But if not, rest assured you have increase my productivity greatly.

In fact, right now I'm on a little productivity enhancement mission. I printed out the Excel shortcut list and have dedicated myself to learning them as I go about my spreadsheeting.

In fact there are no shortage of Excel tips and tricks services to help you boost your productivity using what can otherwise be a somewhat frustrating tool (see here and Mr. Excel's Podcast here).

Log-in not required

Google, "Jeff Shepley" or "Jeffrey Shepley." You'll find that I ran track in high school, am a world class chef, and was a very religious fighter pilot in WWII. If I'm lucky, you may find a link to this blog.

Note that Google is a verb, and a potentially dangerous one. With the poliferation of easily searchable internet services --myspace.com, facebook.com, instant messaging, youtube.com, e-mail -- you can take your privacy into your own hands. But for some, the implications of such power appears to be lost. Stories abound of kids getting kicked out of college/work, not picked for college/a job, due to this or that embarrassing or inappropriate photo posted on the web.

One might become complacent, especially when services allow you to define who can see your page. Somehow I doubt, however, that limiting your facebook photos to "friends only" thwarts government background check-ers. Indeed, as the article linked to above quotes, some people could care less; "people would rather be embarrassed publicly than ignored privately."

E-mail can be little better. I read an article today about suggestions, sent by soldiers via e-mail, on the effectiveness of various physical coersion techniques on extracting information from Iraqi detainees, i.e., torture. Something tells me that those individuals did not expect to see their suggestions in print.

Certainly posting information or photos on-line is different than posting your credit card number for all to see, however, monetarily, the effects could be far more severe. At least with the credit card there is a charge limit and the ability to retrieve unauthorized funds spent. Unless we find one of those mind-erasing sticks from Men in Black, the same cannot be said for a reputation

Quirky Work Happenings

As you may know I started my new job on Monday. Perhaps it is just the life event I need to revitalize my blogging... maybe.

My first quirky work happening comes from my first meeting at the company. There were 5 of us in a little conference room. The table was squeeky. I did not understand what was being talked about in the meeting so I thought about how to de-squeeky the table. Perhaps this would be my most valuable contribution to the meeting. I discovered that it was loose laterally and that if I leaned against it with signficant pressure the squeeking would stop. I did so for the rest of the meeting. I am a Multi-Discipline Systems Engineer.

The second quirky thing is more of an idea. Bathroom breaks are acceptable during work hours as are the occasional trip to the vending machine. Well let's say you walk to the vending machine, buy some skittles for 75 cents and return to your office (All this while your computer was rebooting and there was nothing else to work on of course but certainly you aren't expected to clock out!). Well, the whole operation, if skillfully executed probably takes 3 minutes, perhaps 4 minutes. If you make $25/hr, for the sake of this example, in 4 minutes you earn $1.67. Maybe you should buy two packs of skittles (one for me) and take home 17 cents for your efforts and generosity.

Planes landing

At my job, I might deal with stuff like this.

Consequences of blogging

Now that I'm getting a job, I've got to fill out a background check form. This got me thinking about my past and how much any one could reasonably find out about it. As far as my past ideas and musing, Google and this blog would make them pretty clear for anybody who cared to find out.

Now, while my goal is to discuss issues solely for entertainment and enlightenment, surely the viewer's motive is important. Consider a hypothetical future boss deciding whether I should get a raise ("Well, he said some bad stuff about Bush...").

This blog shouldn't cause me to many problems (I hope) for the following reasons

It rarely, if ever exceeds a PG-rating.

Entry titles will never start, "Ten reasons I hate my..." followed by the name of my boss or co-worker.

My ideas and views, while occasionally controversial, are not of the type that are embarressing to discuss in polite company.

That said, the prospect of being read by an unintended audience has got me taking a second glance at some of my past blog entries.

My 100th post: Working better alone?

This is my 100th post! Thanks for all the support *cough* *cough* ....

Anyway, this comes by way of MR (as always).

Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the ‘illusion of group productivity”. But why does this illusion persist?

Bernard Nijstad and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam argue it’s because when we’re in a group, other people are talking, the pressure isn’t always on us and so we’re less aware of all the times that we fail to think of a new idea. By contrast, when we’re working alone and we can’t think of anything, there’s no avoiding the fact that we’re failing...

The researchers said “We suggest that working in a group may lead to a sense of continuous activity. This may provide group members with the idea that they are productive, because they feel that the group as a whole is making progress, even if they themselves are not contributing”.

Other possible reasons for why people think they work better in groups include ‘memory confusion’, the idea that after working in groups people subsequently mistake other people’s ideas for the own, and ‘social comparison’, the idea that in groups people are able to see how difficult everyone else has found it to come up with ideas too.

I have always (silently) thought I was more productive alone than in a group, but here are my list of reasons why group work can be beneficial.

• As a catalyst to get one the members up to speed. I may spend hours trying to overcome a small setback, perhaps in a mathematical proof. But if somebody in the group can get me over the hump, I may be able to do the next part with ease.
• When the task can obviously be processed parallel-ly. An oversimplified example would be if you had to solve 50 division problems. Splitting up the list will obviously be faster, even if you are typing them into Excel.
• When you would quit as an individual and go on the facebook or *cough* blog. (Am I getting sick?) Something about having a buddy or coworker sticking it out -- though they may want to call it a night just as badly -- keeps you going. That and the red bull.

Then again my first two could be done without co-temporal collaboration. Comment on more if you got 'em, team :P.