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Max Hemingway

~ Musings as I work through life, career and everything.

Max Hemingway

Category Archives: Productivity

Our Acceptance of Modern Technologies

06 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by Max Hemingway in 21st Century Human, Productivity

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21st Century Human, Productivity

I was sent a meme the other day which apart from making me laugh, actually illustrates our acceptance of modern technologies over a period of time and is the reason for this blog post.

Not sure who created the photo/meme so unable to credit at this time (so thanks internet).

We can explain Technology Acceptance through a model. How we use and perceive technology changes from person to person. There are also external factors that can effect our perception. Lets look at the meme as an example.

Previous advice from fuel vendors has always pointed at not using a mobile at the fuel pump. This information was spread through via an email stating that an influential figure in the fuel market said it was dangerous to use a mobile near a pump. This had a wide impact and the “Do not use your mobile near a fuel pump” sticker was born.

This guidance has been since shown to be a myth and was a topic of Myth Busters experiments. It was proved as busted back in 2004 and that in fact there is more danger from static electricity getting out of the car. This has in the main been accepted and in a complete turn around now and keeping up with modern banking and consumer trends, allow the payment of fuel through a mobile phone (of course you should always follow the latest legislation for use of a mobile whilst driving).

There is a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (defined by Fred Davies 1989) that can be used to look at how a technology may be accepted through its perceived use and usefulness.

The model is based on four constructs:

  • Perceived ease of use
  • Perceived usefulness
  • Attitudes
  • Actual behaviours

These constructs are linked as per the model diagram below:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Technology_Acceptance_Model.png

The model suggests that when users are presented with a new technology, a number of factors influence their decision about how and when they will use it, notably:

Perceived usefulness (PU) or (U) – This was defined by Fred Davis as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance their job performance”. It means whether or not someone perceives that technology to be useful for what they want to do.

Perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) or (E) – Davis defined this as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort” (Davis 1989). If the technology is easy to use, then the barriers conquered. If it’s not easy to use and the interface is complicated, no one has a positive attitude towards it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_acceptance_model#CITEREFDavis1989

The External Variables are factors that can effect the four constructs such as

  • Social influence
  • Design
  • Content
  • Entertainment
  • Cost

Social media is one external variable to add to the list, that has a growing impact on the PU and PEOU. Going back to the petrol pump analogy, in the video earlier referenced an influential person in the industry is quoted as saying don’t use mobiles at the pumps. In todays world the use of social media would have this message out quicker than an email, influencing how the product is used, myth or not. This has an influence on our perception of the technology.

The model however does not account for people doing things not as planned or rational. Here is a good video explaining the Technology Acceptance Model:

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Pen based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex 2023

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by Max Hemingway in Productivity

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Productivity

Another year and another release of the popular Chronodex time management diary system for Jan to Jun 23. As usual this is split into two publications and each covers 6 months of the year.

I have blogged about using this format of time recording before and its uses (see further reading). I have now invested in a stamp version of the Chronodex so I can incorporate this into my regular journaling/diary writing within my preferred Moleskine Journals.

Chronodex 2023 by Patrick Ng – scroll down to the downloads to get different formats.

Further Reading

  • Chronodex 2023 by Patrick Ng
  • Pen based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex
  • Pen based Productivity Tools – Chronodex Daily Scheduler and GTD
  • Pen based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex 2018
  • No Batteries Required: My Personal Journal

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Top 10 Tech Podcasts for 2023

04 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by Max Hemingway in 21st Century Human, Productivity, Tools

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21st Century Human, Productivity, Tools

Following my last post on my PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management System), where I covered the use of Podcasts as one of my inputs into the information I consume, here are my top 10 Podcast recommendations for 2023. These are mostly technology based podcasts, although some have a wider scope.

1. The Digital Human (BBC)

In The Digital Human podcast Aleks Krotoski (Broadcaster and Journalist) explores the digital world and the topics that affect, grow and change it.

2. a16z Podcast

The a16z Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future with regular multiple podcasts. The a16Z podcast is produced by Andreessen Horowitz a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.

3. TED Radio Hour

The TED Radio Hour podcast brings together some of the best TED talk topics across a wide range of topics. This is a great way to get to hear about the latest information about TED talks.

4. WB-40 Podcast

In the WB-40 podcast hosted by Matt Ballantine and Chris Weston they hold conversations on how technology is changing how we work.

5. Tech Tent (BBC)

In the Tech Tent podcast broadcaster and journalist Rory Cellan-Jones talks about the latest stories in the tech world.

6. FT Tech Tonic

In the Tech Tonic podcast by the FT (Financial Times) it investigates the promises and perils of this new technological age – the digital revolution.

7. The Vergecast Podcast

The Vergecast podcast is hosted by Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz, where they present a weekly view of tech news, whats happing now and in the future.

8. Tech Swamp Podcast

The Tech Swamp podcast covers global tech policy and business headlines, tidbits of tech history, and topical policy deep-dives on legislation and regulation in the U.S., EU, UK, and around the globe.

9. Tech Stuff Podcast

The Tech Stuff podcast hosted by Jonathan Strickland explores the people behind the tech, the companies that market it and how technology affects our lives and culture.

10. Back to Work Podcast

In the Back to Work podcast Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin discuss productivity, communication, work, barriers, constraints and tools.

What are your top 10 Podcasts for 2023?

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Sageous Advice from Daily Stoics

03 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Max Hemingway in Productivity, Tools

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Productivity, Tools

See Hear SayFurthering my Personal Journalling I have decided that for 2020 I would give the “Daily Stoic” book and journal a go.

I am doing this along side my normal daily journaling and keeping the two separate for now at least.

I’m up to Journal number 28 with 4380 pages written so far and still going strong.

A couple of colleagues have tried the Daily Stoic before and gave it good reviews. The books basically take passages and quotes from Philosophers/Stoics  Epictetus  55 – 135 AD, Seneca 54 BC- 39 AD and Marcus Aurelius 121-180 AD and provide translations into modern life.

Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world – Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

3 Days in and its going well so far starting my day with the relevant dated page in the book, followed by writing down some Morning and Evening reflections into the Journal. It will take all year to complete the book so will need some habit forming to do this morning and evening. I can see times where this is not practical and would need some planning as carrying the books around is not something I really want to be doing too much. This is where some of it may end up as a digital entry added in at some point in the future.

The advice so far has been on self reflection on choices, learning and saying no to get to those things that matter. You could say it is common sense, but for me its getting the right mindset using some guidance.

Is it worth doing this? At the moment I would say its a bit early in the journey and writing to decide, however so far I have found the advice to be good and the use of the reflection time to be worth while. Writing down notes on what I have read/learnt is a great method of remembering and does reinforce my thoughts. It will be interesting to see if I am still doing this in a few months time and look back against what I have written.

I would like to hear if you have used these books and your thoughts.

Links

The Daily Stoic Website

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius

The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living

 

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Personal Knowledge Management System – Revised for 2020

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Max Hemingway in Digital, Productivity, Social Media, Tools

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PKMS, Tools

As the new year has begun, its time to review my Personal Knowledge Management System (PKMS) on how I consume information and knowledge, I have blogged about this before and have updated for 2020.

I still split and keep apart my personal and professional lives on Social Media, although occasionally they may cross where appropriate.

Since the last time I wrote about this the amount of information and data that is available has grown and multiplied on a huge scale. Keeping track of what you need to drink from the fast flow of the firehose of information is itself something that needs managing. This is why I have set up my feeds in the manner illustrated below.

PKMS

Personal Life

Personal Journal

Journalling in both a Personal and Work life is a useful tool to keep notes on your thoughts and ideas. In my personal life I still opt for recording these in a Moleskine – See my blog post No batteries required for further details. I find the Moleskine a great notebook to use and the pocket version a good size to use.

Social Media

I separate from my work life from my personal life using things like Instagram and Facebook for friends and family with appropriate security settings in place. Even with those settings you still need to consider that once something is online, it could be public in the future. Wikipedia lists 186 Social Media Websites and this list is out of date. I choose a few mainstream that I am comfortable with. 2020 may see me have a look at some of the others to see if there is any benefit or other data I am missing.

Professional Life

Research

This is split into several areas and these are a few of the inputs that I use to grab information, feeds, data from:

  • Podcasts
  • Audio subscriptions
  • Videos
  • RSS Feeds
  • Web Searches
  • Blog Posts

Podcasts cover both Audio and Video casts that I watch/stream online or download to my Media Player (Audio and Videos) to listen to on journeys (Audio). The mobile is a great device for using as a media player across these casts.

Flipboard

Flipboard provides another stream of data that I consume bringing in news feeds from many sources around a series of topics. It does work well on a mobile device allowing you to flip the pages through the articles.

Feedly

Feedly provides an aggregation tool which I use to collect the stories from blogs and web sites I regularly pull information from.  This provides a list of stories that can be scanned tin a few minutes on a single screen without going via multiple sites. Clicking on a story will bring up a snippet from the source site and provide the link to read the source article if required. Using a series of key strokes you can read the headlines, then move down the articles at a reasonable speed, stopping and opening when needed.

Sources can be categorised to allow an all view or just whats new in a category.

IFTTT

IFTTT (If This Then That) provides a level of automation to my lists from saving articles to creating alerts on topics and triggering different actions as needed to my devices. I would like to automate more of this PKMS to bring the information I need, but it can also help to scan other information to help innovate and see other points of views.

Thinking / Learning Time

This is where view the data streams through the tools and assimilate and think about what has been reported/said. I also use this time to learn and take courses.

Courses

Coursera is a great site to used, but there are lots of others from Industry and Vendors to open learning sites that I use as needed. Relative exams and certificates are then added to my LinkedIn pages.

Blogging and Being Social

From thoughts and research I will write about things through my blogs and publish these into Social Media streams such as Twitter and Linkedin.

I have also been producing a few podcast episodes with other technologists and will look to do some more in 2020.

I have been using GitHub to mainly support some courses but its there as an option to publish data and code in the future.

Do you have a Personal Knowledge Management System or using tools not mentioned above?

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Digital Fit in 2018: Pack Learning

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by Max Hemingway in Digital, Productivity

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Tags

Digital, Digital Human, learning, Productivity

Pack LearningHaving been involved with code clubs, STEM and learning in the workplace over many years, I have interacted with different types of learning. Each style has its place and different styles, suit different people.

Since our birth we have been learning and have done so every day since. The subjects and topics change but our ability to take in information is vast.

We have learnt as a pack at School and gained benefit from each others insight. As we move onward’s in our life, we loose some of opportunities to learn in a pack. The days of going on a classroom based course have been few and far between as these day’s the use of the internet and online courses makes solo learning an easy option, but how many of us actually go further and interact with the message boards behind the courses to help others out, perhaps only venturing there when you have a problem that you don’t understand.

Adopting the habit of checking the forums behind a course and helping others learn, does help re-enforce the subjects and topics that we learn and brings in different points of view. Interacting with others in these forums helps drive the Pack Learning mentality and increases the strength of the Pack.

Remember there are no silly questions. It’s just a level of understanding of the subject or topic. Next time you take a course, help someone and re-enforce your own learning. Be part of the Pack!

 

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Journey to 21C Human – Getting your head space sorted

11 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by Max Hemingway in 21st Century Human, Productivity, Uncategorized

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21st Century Human, Productivity

MeditationFollowing on from Episode 4 of Technologist Couch Podcast with Lewis Richards I have started the 10 for 10 that we discussed using Headspace.

However the service has had an upgrade and the Basic Level now includes 3 Basic sections so I’m going to spend the next month doing 30 for 30 instead.

The Headspace website describes these packs as:

  • Basics
    • Train your mind for a happier, healthier life by learning the fundamentals of meditation and mindfulness.
  • Basics 2
    • Discover more about your mind and start to deepen your practice.
  • Basics 3
    • Overcome some of the more common obstacles in meditation and learn how to apply mindfulness to your everyday life.

You can set these for 5 or 10 minute long sessions. 5 seems too short so I’m going for the 10 minute sessions and see what happens.

Andy Puddicombe, the man behind Headspace has a good 10 min Ted Talk as to why you should take 10 mins out a day.

Have you managed to clear 15 minutes in your busy schedule lately?

To confirm, I am no way associated or getting any funding/promotions from Headspace.

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Journey to 21C Human – Refueling my Body

09 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by Max Hemingway in 21st Century Human, Productivity

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21st Century Human, Productivity

FoodFollowing on from Episode 4 of Technologist Couch Podcast with Lewis Richards I have decided to give Huel a try for a while to see what it can do for me.

Huel is a powdered food that you mix with water and contains all the nutrients that the body needs. I like the fact that there is no food waste afterwards.

Huel is a nutritionally complete powdered food ​that contains all the proteins, carbs, and fats you need, plus at least 100% of the European Union’s “Daily Recommended Amounts” of all 26 essential vitamins and minerals​. So you know you won’t be deficient in any essential nutrients.

Huel contains a carefully chosen blend of Oats, Pea Protein, Flaxseed, Brown Rice Protein, MCTs from Coconut, Sunflower Oil, a bespoke Vitamin and Mineral Blend, Vanilla Flavour and a Sweetener.

We are in the middle of a food crisis. Modern food production methods are inefficient, inhumane, and unsustainable. The world produces 1.5 times enough food to feed every person on the planet, yet over 800 million people do not have enough food to eat. In the UK, 30% of all food is thrown away. 100 million children in developing countries regularly go hungry and are significantly underweight.

On top of that Britons are getting fatter and more unhealthy. 64% of adults are overweight or obese and obesity related conditions are on the increase. Over 4 million people have diabetes, and over 15 million are classed as borderline diabetics. “Almost two in every three people in the UK are overweight or obese and are therefore at increased risk of Type 2 diabetes” Chris Askew, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK . Something has to be done!

– Source Huel website

I am going to work on a 1-2 meal replacement to begin with to bring my body round to this way of eating and see how it goes. My goals are to loose some weight, get a bit fitter and energy levels.

I have already been using the Huel product for a few days and I can feel some change in energy which is good and some weight loss too as I am watching my food calories correctly.

Following some good advice from Lewis on the breakfast mix:

  • Breakfast: I have Vanilla flavoured Huel in the morning with 2-3 Ice Cubes and a shot of espresso which does make a nice ice coffee drink.
  • Lunch: I have is a Vanilla flavoured Huel with ice if possible. I find it nice slightly cool, or left in a fridge before using.

I have Vanilla and Coffee flavoured Huel and they have now launched a new berry flavour which I might try in the next order. you can use the Huel product as a flour to cook with as well, or add your own flavourings to it.

Will be good to see how this works out over a couple of weeks.

To confirm, I am no way associated or getting any funding/promotions from Huel.

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Pen based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex 2018

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by Max Hemingway in Productivity, Tools

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Productivity, Tools

ChronodexIts good to see that Patrick Ng has released the first part of the Chronodex for Jan to Jun 2018. Now in its 6th year of production. Still a favorite of mine due to its design and ease to use.

This is primarily meant for the Midori Traveller Notebook system, but it can be used without.

There is still a place for journalling using a pen rather than a blog post as discussed here No Batteries Required: My Personal Journal.  I’m now on Journal 22 and still going strong with those daily entries.

Link to downloads:

http://scription.typepad.com/blog/2017/12/scription-chronodex-weekly-planner-jan-jun-2018-released.html

 

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Digital Mindset – Millennial Mentor

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Max Hemingway in 21st Century Human, Digital, Mindset, Productivity, Tools

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21st Century Human, Digital, Mentor, Mindset, Productivity, Tools

Mentor

As we head towards the New Year and think about our New Years resolutions try setting one to have a Millennial Mentor.

Mentoring is traditionally thought of as top-down or older-younger mentoring, but this barrier is being regularly being broken now with mentoring working as an equal arrangement and skills learning.

Millennials coming into businesses are growing up with the latest trends and technology, and it is second nature to them. For those who are of an older generation, its often a learning path to get up to speed with the latest trends and technologies.

For some people their mentors are at home in the form of a family member, for others this could be a Millennial who is in your business.

A conversation on twitter I was having around Digital Mindset   @SuzannBalog Replying to @Max_Hemingway – Talk to a millennial – my son said last night ‘gosh mom, you had to learn this stuff…I don’t even think about cuz I grew up with it in my hands ‘

This can be a two way mentoring setup with you learning about the latest trends and technologies from today’s young people, whilst they learn business skills and how a business could adapt and use the trends and technologies.

You may already be mentoring and your mentee could become your next mentor.

 

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