Forums

Did the special email mentioned in the blog go out?

If it did, I bet our new nuclear-powered email filter blocked it. :x

Suggestions?

ccleveland's picture

From one who works with folks who put such things in place... I love the term "nuclear-powered email filter"! Now if we can just find something to stop anti-matter SPAM!

:)

CC

terrih's picture

I know it! Spam has decreased, but not by that much. :?

attmonk's picture

I was wondering the same thing, bet Mike fell asleep!!! :shock:

TomW's picture
Training Badge

Mike, can we give you some feedback? ;-)

asteriskrntt1's picture

LOL

I have not received my special email either :shock:

pmoriarty's picture
Training Badge

No special email here either.

Spam has been pretty much steady-state for a while now. PDF spam seems to be the latest and greatest thing and we're starting to see .xls spam as well here at the internet security company I work for.

To paraphrase an old Star Trek episode, the good guys keep changing the frequency of the shields and the bad guys keep changing the frequency of their phasers. :(

drinkcoffee's picture

[quote]
To paraphrase an old Star Trek episode, the good guys keep changing the frequency of the shields and the bad guys keep changing the frequency of their phasers.
[/quote]

Heh...right. What we need is one of those "rotating harmonic phase inducer" thingees for SPAM.

dmk1's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

Does anyone know if there somewhere to download all the premium content in one place, rather than having to scroll through each podcast and download the individual links?

Thanks,
Dan

asteriskrntt1's picture

Hi Dan

There is a link on the left menu and at the top of the first interview cast (or second) that is a one click to iTunes.

*RNTT

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

I think Dan meant for the RTF files and such. I'd like such a link as well. Perhaps M&M will have an innovation.

And, if they're innovating, another super premium feature would be categorizing the podcasts by content rather than date. That would be handy. Heck, Mike could probably easily swing a quickie database with keywords so we could search for relevant podcasts. Who wouldn't love that?

jdg's picture

Will,

I noticed another feature today. Check out on the title bar Resources/Categories --> http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts-by-category/

hows that for innovating!

Josh

mauzenne's picture
Admin Role Badge

Josh,

You stole my thunder! You can't imagine how excited I was about being able to say, "hmmm .... let me think. Done!". ;-)

The "categories" page needs a bit of prettying up, but I thought I'd still put it out there. I hope everyone finds it a bit easier to find the content they're looking for.

As for the "special email" ... no, Mike didn't fall asleep. Well, ok, you caught me! I DID nap for 1.5 hours over the past 48 hours! But with a couple of pots of coffee in me, I'm rockin'!

The email will go out shortly ... BUT, since our closest friends are in the forums, here's a link to the special gift just for you all. Finally,[url=http://www.manager-tools.com/docs/Horstmans_Laws.pdf] Horstman's Laws in PDF form[/url] for all to enjoy! And, feel free to share the document with as many people as you would like!

regards,
Mike

jdg's picture

Sorry Mate,

you gotta be quick when you have so many people swarming all over your website. but hey it must be nice that we are watching it like a hawk.

I love the new categories feature and it will make breaking in new listeners much easier.

Horstman laws are going up on the cube wall!

Josh

terrih's picture

COOOOOOLLLL!!!!! :D

TomW's picture
Training Badge

[quote="mauzenne"]Josh,

You stole my thunder! You can't imagine how excited I was about being able to say, "hmmm .... let me think. Done!". ;-)

The "categories" page needs a bit of prettying up, but I thought I'd still put it out there. I hope everyone finds it a bit easier to find the content they're looking for.

As for the "special email" ... no, Mike didn't fall asleep. Well, ok, you caught me! I DID nap for 1.5 hours over the past 48 hours! But with a couple of pots of coffee in me, I'm rockin'!

The email will go out shortly ... BUT, since our closest friends are in the forums, here's a link to the special gift just for you all. Finally,[url=http://www.manager-tools.com/docs/Horstmans_Laws.pdf] Horstman's Laws in PDF form[/url] for all to enjoy! And, feel free to share the document with as many people as you would like!

regards,
Mike[/quote]

Wow. the present we all wanted!

Thanks, Mike & Mark!

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

I guess I need to get my "hawk eyes" out and find this stuff quicker. How long was it up? On the other hand, I'm going to congratulate myself on such a good idea that the brilliant M&M team concurred!

That being said, it's still not keywords with a search feature.

mauzenne's picture
Admin Role Badge

Will,

I hear you! A MUCH better search feature (keywords, tags, etc.) is on the list to deliver. Frankly, this is a HUGE issue for me ... the more content we have, the more searchable it needs to be. I agree wholeheartedly, we have a large gap to fill! ;-)

Mike

attmonk's picture

Quick everyone, while Mike is in a doing mode make some suggestions!!

Seriously, the categories are a massive help for me, for them to be searchable....almost speechless..

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

I just figured that since you have transcripts and other text files associated with the podcasts now, keywords might be pretty easy to implement.

As for anything else to get Mike to do, now that Premium content is out and he's all caught up and has absolutely nothing else to do...

Content categories are cool, but what about some kind of mind-mapping between the podcasts? That'd be interesting. Podcast A references podcasts b & C, so there's a link. If you looked at all of them at once it would probably be just a big ball of yarn, but individually it might be helpful to strengthen a particular piece of knowledge for a manager.

Oh, and where's my hoody? :lol:

gtfenton1's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

The basic truths...I was fortunate enough to read these a few years back. They helped me get the simplicity of being authentic and putting people "first" in a different way. The laws - and my resposne to them - have made all the difference. Thank you, Mark, for setting a good example.

sklosky's picture

Mike and Mark,

Thanks for the Horstman's Laws PDF.

Thanks for your hard work putting together the premium content.

It's a priviledge to be part of your community.

Regards,
Steve

garyslinger's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

[quote="WillDuke"]Content categories are cool, but what about some kind of mind-mapping between the podcasts? That'd be interesting. Podcast A references podcasts b & C, so there's a link. If you looked at all of them at once it would probably be just a big ball of yarn, but individually it might be helpful to strengthen a particular piece of knowledge for a manager.
[/quote]

Something like this? http://www.garyslinger.com/images/mtref.png

I started working on that for my own use a while back - still very much a work in progress, but a good excuse to go back and listen to some of the earlier 'casts!

G.

James Gutherson's picture

[quote="garyslinger"][quote="WillDuke"]Content categories are cool, but what about some kind of mind-mapping between the podcasts? That'd be interesting. Podcast A references podcasts b & C, so there's a link. If you looked at all of them at once it would probably be just a big ball of yarn, but individually it might be helpful to strengthen a particular piece of knowledge for a manager.
[/quote]

Something like this? http://www.garyslinger.com/images/mtref.png

I started working on that for my own use a while back - still very much a work in progress, but a good excuse to go back and listen to some of the earlier 'casts!

G.[/quote]

This is my (online) version based losely on the site Tags.

http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=3317ae5d381152eccd459ab809403a8f

(I have local MindManager map which links directly to local versions of the mp3 files and soon the premium content)

rowleymaggs's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

Jim -

Brilliant, what a great resource.

Thank you for taking the time to to create and share.

Rowley

rthibode's picture

Where's the emoticon for slack-jawed drooling when you need it?

Too good to be believed, all of it. Wow. Seriously.

garyslinger's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

[quote="JimGutherson"]

This is my (online) version based losely on the site Tags.

http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=3317ae5d381152eccd459ab809403a8f

(I have local MindManager map which links directly to local versions of the mp3 files and soon the premium content)[/quote]

OK, that MIGHT entice me to get back and complete mine! Nice work - very nice.

G.

jdg's picture

Jim,

what a great tool. Thanks for putting that together and sharing it with the rest of us. Did you use the professional mindomo or the basic version? I need to learn how to use that program.

Josh

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

Wow, I guess Jim has earned that "Creative" tag on his DISC profile. Very nice. And thank you for sharing.

Have I ever mentioned how amazed I am by this community? :shock:

davefleet's picture

I'll second (third?) the call for a simple way to download all the premium content.

Still, if that's not do-able, I think it'll be well worth the time to go through and download it manually.

This stuff is gold.

mauzenne's picture
Admin Role Badge

Help me a bit here ... before I burn a lot of brain cells on this, what would everyone find "simple"?

A list of links (right click, download, right click, download ... repeat)?

An RSS feed with all the premium content?

Mindmap with links (now, THAT was cool ... I didn't know about mindomo.com; I'll definitely be looking at that)

What else? Help me define "simple" here.

Thanks!

Mike

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

I think probably multiple approaches.

I like that you have the premium content available with the podcast itself.

I would also like to search by keyword. Results should appear with the traditional % applicable rating, and allow direct download from there. (Not too much description as then the page becomes too long.

The mind mapping would be especially cool if you could download from the entry, but I don't think it would qualify as simple. That would be a later phase and not a requirement at all in my mind.

An RSS feed with all the material would be simple. Just sign up, get it all.

How about an FTP site with a ZIPped up file of everything. Well, not the podcasts.) You could even have files organized in there depending on how people thought they'd want them. 1 file for categories, another file for numbered podcast. Same set of files either way, just to save people the trouble of doing the organization themselves.

And Mike, thank you. This is all just icing on the cake after dinner. The content itself is meat and potatoes. We're all pretty happy already. :D

MattJBeckwith's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

Mike, congratulations on the Premium Content kick-off! I have never been so excited to hand over my money.

I really like that the content is all on the pages with the shows, that is great.

I've gone through the first four of the interviewing 'casts and they are wonderful.

Thanks as well for the soft-copy of Horstman's Laws. I can hang those up at work and keep my autographed copy in the box (which I open and read often!).

TomW's picture
Training Badge

[quote="mauzenne"]Help me a bit here ... before I burn a lot of brain cells on this, what would everyone find "simple"?[/quote]

Simplest for me would be a table with a list of links (right click, download, repeat), slides in one column, transcripts in another, with a link at at the top of each column for "download all files from this column"

Whatever you come up with, I'm thrilled with what's already there!

adragnes's picture

[quote="mauzenne"]Help me a bit here ... before I burn a lot of brain cells on this, what would everyone find "simple"?
[/quote]

How about creating an RSS feed with the podcasts and the premium content as PDFs. That way all of it would show up in iTunes.

--
Aleksander

madamos's picture
Licensee Badge

Mike,
How about a Wiki so MT members would be able to work together to categorize the podcasts in a logical way?
Some of the ways I would like to see the information would be into several chains, with a suggested listening order (and implementation order).
For example:

Management Basics (aka Management Trinity)
1) O3s
2) Feedback
3) Coaching
4) Reviews

Career Enhancement
1) Your Resume Stinks!
2) Prepare for your Review

etc...

MadAmos

James Gutherson's picture

[quote="madamos"]Mike,
How about a Wiki so MT members would be able to work together to categorize the podcasts in a logical way?
Some of the ways I would like to see the information would be into several chains, with a suggested listening order (and implementation order).
For example:

Management Basics (aka Management Trinity)
1) O3s
2) Feedback
3) Coaching
4) Reviews

Career Enhancement
1) Your Resume Stinks!
2) Prepare for your Review

etc...

MadAmos[/quote]

I think this has value. I have just finished listening to the latest HBR Ideacast podcast and the lead story was on this very thing - social tagging of content and the fact that 'we' are smarter than 'I' (even if 'I' is Mike). Everyone has their own vision of the way things should be categorised and even that can change based on their current context.

sklosky's picture

Mike,

A couple of brainstorming ideas.

1. Dynamic HTML (AJAX?) that shows only a list of selectable key terms. As users select key terms, the list of related podcasts builds.

2. Dynamic HTML (AJAX?) that shows all cast and a list of key terms. As the user removes select key terms, casts are no longer displayed in the list.

3. I think that you can play tricks with tags to get similar results.

On a related note, the clickable mind map was very cool.

Regards,
Steve

juliahhavener's picture
Licensee Badge

I do like the idea of a wiki - if only because then WE are doing some of the work for you!

I'm out of the state, but when I am home, I can't wait to set up! It's hard reading all the excitement!

danstratton's picture

[quote="TomW"]

Wow. the present we all wanted!

Thanks, Mike & Mark![/quote]

Now I can hardly wait to see what the cool present will be in San Antonio. Mark's book?!?!? (For those of us unlucky to get to the first MT conference, only the attendees received the Horstman's Laws.)

agreen's picture

I have been using mind maps for several months now and would never look back. I read something a while back that it is much more intuitive way to understand information.

I have been using them to summarise my thoughts on each of the podcasts. The premium content transcripts have been great for the points I missed. I was also working on a similar version to garyslinger and JimGutherson to organise the overall content of the site. I have been using MindJet MindManager Pro, which looks very similar to mondomo. This morning I reviewed Horstmann's Laws by transcribing it into a mindmap.

My vote is for an online version of a mindmap to navigate the whole site. Very intuitive to navigate. Each topic would allow downloads of the individual topic resources - podcast, slides, transcript, supporting docs. We could even go as far as each topic having its own mindmap based on the slides. Perfect oppotunity for members to contribute here rather than have M&M developing another resource.

If it was possible it would also be good to be able to have a total content download options, similar I think to what TomW is suggesting. Maybe broken up into supporting documents, slides, transcripts. Duplicating what an agregator does for podcasts. Coming to MT late I looked into each podcast for supporting docs. Then when premium content came along had to repeat the process. Now I realise will have to repeat for a third time as more premium content is added.

Generally the site is already very good and fairly easy to navigate. As for the content it is gold! Changed the way I work and getting many in my organisation hooked.

A

James Gutherson's picture

Gday agreen - Lovely spot you live. It would be 15 years or so since I've been through there.

I live in MindManager and have done since the 2000 version. My current role does not allow me individual programs on the thin client machines we use so I am moving over to web based products for most things. Mindomo is the best Web based mindmapping app I have found and it can import MM files (and export if you pay the $6US a month fee).

The file I posted is free to edit so anyone who knows mindmapping and wants to sign up with Mindomo can have a go at modifying and keeping this up to date if they want. It can also be embedded into a web page if you wanted to. One idea to keep the work load off of M&M might be a user (fan) run Manager Tools Wiki where this type of resource could be added. I have started to use pbwiki lately but am open to other suggestions.

mauzenne's picture
Admin Role Badge

Thanks, everyone ... great ideas!

By the way, Mark and I are, as we speak, in our Texas office talking about just this! :-) (He says "hi", by the way)

Thanks again!

Mike

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

Are you standing on soapboxes and wearing Hoodies? :lol:

asteriskrntt1's picture

If we are tossing ideas into the ring, I notice that the HBR podcasts have sections or have sectioned off different topics on their casts. Perhaps there is a way to help listeners search and find content within the casts themselves? Maybe even setting up a introduction, content delivery, summation list to start would be helpful to some people.

Oh, and of course, identifying someone's soapbox moments would be interesting. This could also lead to a special release podcast (premium content of course).... Horstman's greatest rants - 932 uninterupted minutes of the best of Horstman's soapboxing. :wink:

agreen's picture

I followed up on mindomo. I have put another couple of MT mindmaps in there. I made the comment earlier that each podcast could have its own map - these are examples of that.

Horstman's Laws - http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=6f7e6bb87fe5529f6534a648aadb1fe5

Effective Meeting Protocols - http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=c5c677d41b3ed994ea6f28991efaf7a2

On posting these I started to think there might be copyright issues. I can recall comments from M&M to effect of "for personal use only".

Most of the podcasts I listen to I develop a mindmap for. Writing out the main concepts really helps embed it in my brain. When I started doing this I was doing it straight from the podcasts. Now the premium slides are available I am using those as the template. Since this is by subscription we might be taking this in a direction M&M would rather not go.

Mike / Mark could you comment and give some direction on copyright issues? I have allowed full access to the two maps in mindomo, so they can be deleted if you see fit.

Mindomo looks like a great tool. It does not quite have the functionality of MindManager and I couldn't get them to look as neat as my originals. But for a free online application it is great.

terrih's picture

[quote="asteriskrntt1"]This could also lead to a special release podcast (premium content of course).... Horstman's greatest rants - 932 uninterupted minutes of the best of Horstman's soapboxing. :wink:[/quote]

OMG! Where do I sign up? I'm not worthy... 8)

srsly, there's more solid, real-world-applicable content in his rants than in the pile of management books I borrowed at the library when I first got this job.

James Gutherson's picture

[quote="agreen"]

On posting these I started to think there might be copyright issues. I can recall comments from M&M to effect of "for personal use only".

Most of the podcasts I listen to I develop a mindmap for. Writing out the main concepts really helps embed it in my brain. When I started doing this I was doing it straight from the podcasts. Now the premium slides are available I am using those as the template. Since this is by subscription we might be taking this in a direction M&M would rather not go.

Mike / Mark could you comment and give some direction on copyright issues? I have allowed full access to the two maps in mindomo, so they can be deleted if you see fit.

Mindomo looks like a great tool. It does not quite have the functionality of MindManager and I couldn't get them to look as neat as my originals. But for a free online application it is great.[/quote]

I thought about this issue before creating my Mindomo map but I thought that by creating only an index Mindmap and linking directly to the MT pages this would be OK - The premium content is another issue, although the pages are freely visible it is the actual downloadable content that needs password access so I'm not sure there would be a problem. Please correct me if I'm wrong M&M.

A fan generated Wiki is again a different area - as I could see the possibility of M&M's work being repurposed (by their adoring fans, but still probably not kosher). I think this is an area that should have 'Official' endorsement before moving further.

lmoorhead's picture
Licensee Badge

My premium subscription has quickly become indispensable! Since this seems to have turned into an enhancement request thread :) How about the ability to "gift" a 1 year premium membership?

Peter.westley's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

[quote="asteriskrntt1"]
Oh, and of course, identifying someone's soapbox moments would be interesting. This could also lead to a special release podcast (premium content of course).... Horstman's greatest rants - 932 uninterupted minutes of the best of Horstman's soapboxing. :wink:[/quote]

I think Mark's working on this already isn't he? ...... It's going to be called the Effective Manager I believe... ;-)

mauzenne's picture
Admin Role Badge

A couple of things ...

agreen, as admirable as your intent is, we'd prefer that folks NOT start republishing MT content. The reasons are numerous, not least of which is that our attorney has suggested we don't permit it. Thank you so much for being concerned and asking ... I VERY much appreciate that!

The idea of a wiki is very intriguing to me on one level, but after seeing some of the total horse manure on some wikis, I'm not looking forward to the editorial oversight required to ensure a quality product. Of course, I wouldn't have to worry about edits by anyone here, but all those less knowledgeable folks out there good do some real damage. ;-) Having said that, it's an idea that, despite the concerns, continues to intrigue me. But don't expect anything soon.

Ok, after all that, I do have [he says sheepishly] some more encouraging words. We've developed some RSS feeds for both the Premium Content and the Interviewing Series content. This is purely BETA at this point, but if anyone is interested in testing them out and providing me some feedback, it would be most appreciated.

The Premium Feed is: http://www.manager-tools.com/premium/premium_docs_rss.xml
The Interviewing Series Feed is: http://www.manager-tools.com/MTInterviewSeries/interview_series_docs_rss...

You may add these to iTunes in a manner similar to the other Premium and Members-only feeds.

One note on the feeds ... all the content is in the feeds, however, iTunes appears to only display PDF documents. It appears to, not surprisingly, throw away anything that is not in PDF form.

For the reason above, our intent is to publish all future content in PDF only (no longer using RTF). I won't walk you through the flawed logic by which we originally decided to distribute RTF docs, but it appears clearly to have been a poor decision. As such, I will be going back and converting all the RTF docs to PDF so you can get them all in iTunes. [I hate to make this so iTunes centric, but 87% of our listeners get the podcasts through iTunes]

I'm very interested in your thoughts ... does this work for you? Any concerns I can address?

As always, thanks for the ongoing support!

regards,
Mike

Pages