Richard for real

This is quick summary of presentation I did today at my uni’s study abroad fair. These are basically seven principles for maximing the use and pleasure of a limited period spent in a new location. All based on my personal experience as an Erasmus exchange student in Amsterdam last semester, but it should be applicable for other places and situations as well.

1. Learn the language

Even if English is widely spoken, knowing a few words and phrases of the local tongue will get you long way. It’s also a great of showing respect for and increasing your understanding of the locals you meet.

2. Conscious socializing

The uneasy feeling of not knowing anyone in a new place can easily make you bond with whoever comes in your way. This can lead to great things of course, but there is also a risk that it will keep you occupied from opportunities later on. Try to assess people as you would with anyone back home, especially during the first two three weeks.

3. Spare time occupations

A great way to get involved in a new community is to take up a familiar hobby or sport in the new context. This is a great way to connect with people with whom you have common ground, and a good entrance point to local networks.

4. Be a foreigner

Don’t limit yourself to being just an exchange student or just a guest worker. Frame yourself as a foreigner and you will see a lot more posssibilities. The expatriot community is a rich source of information, services and connections.

5. Bring what you want to be

When you are packing, don’t go for the things you use the most. Go for what you would like to use the most. This goes for clothes (bring more shirts to force yourself into a business look for example), accessories, gadget, books and everything.

6. Makes the most of mobile

I found a smartphone with internet access to be many times more useful in a new place than where I am more familiar. Just time you will by not getting lost is worth the investment in a mobile internet bundle.

7. CouchSurfing

This hospitality exchange community is an invaluable resource of information, events and people. It will definitely help you to get on the fast track to integration.

I had a rather (for being me) twitter intensive day so far today, so why not give this old draft a brush up and let it fly? Here are the twitter hashtags I’d really like to see in action:

#helpmetranslate – When google translate just won’t do it. Add on the relevant languages and someone will be there in a sec to help you out.

#randomlunch – For everyone seeking new company. Throw in your location and life-changing opportunities may come your way over a bite.

#commuternews - My friend @JonasLundstrom has started this locally in Skåne, Sweden. It’s fun and useful for knowing what trains are crowded, etc.

#BigIn[insertcountryhere] - Let others know what’s on the agenda around you. Help people get more global.

#globalinsight – Along the lines of the above. For the stuff everyone should know.

#twitlation – I often come across very interesting tweets in minor languages. When I do I sometimes translate them to English and RT. But I miss a proper label for this activity.

So what’s your favorite and what do you want to do on twitter?

Beer

Hoegaarden
Singha
Sailor’s beer, plastic bottle with metal cap
Mosaud-mate, Mr X help me out on the spelling

Thoughts

The discussion ranges between philosophy on one end and tools on the other.
Shuffling info should be the desired modus operandi instead of copy/paste. For this to our software needs improve text handling, for example to be able to differentiate the name of a person from that of a company.
Mr Y is looking for a unified tool to handle all his to-do needs. From capturing ideas to calling people.
The tricky part is to catch ideas fast enough on a non-pen-and-paper input device. Voice recorder? Then it has to be channeled to the right place, efficiently.
Always think about the next action!
Mr Z says his phone is for organizing while his laptop is for producing. I think I would like to be able to do both on both.
To really get stuff under way you sometimes need to apply some Viking berserk gtd, said Mr X, inspired by his boss.
Mr Z was slightly frustrated by his transition from producing to coordination. Nowadays he rather delegates than produces himself, even if the latter would be more efficient.

Online tools

Gimp, open source PhotoShop
Inkscape, open source vector graphics?
Timescape, ??
Share-o-holic, for spreading the things you like
Remember the milk, = gtd
Monity, ??
Read it later, offline storage of webpages you want to check out
OneNote, productivity by Microsoft
Evernote, for writing everything down
TullDo, another to-do site
Del.icio.us, sharing is caring
Posterous, ??
Yahoo Pipes, apparently very useful for channeling your stuff

Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite, location services

Tips

Use “#word1 OR #word2″ to make better searches on Twitter
Mails and posts from a phone will be shorter and probably more reader friendly
Use the wrench menu in Google Chrome to add Google wave notifications
Use Excel for being creative and organizing thoughts dressed in words, as long as you turn off the grid (remember that excel was the first software to feature tabbed browsing)

Recommended reading

Getting things done by David Allen
One minute manager
A perfect mess, (creating and maintaining order actually drains a lot of energy in relation to what you get)

Anonymized (SWEnglish I know) quotes

“When you die you will still have stuff on your todo lists. Live with it.”
“Give a problem, then give a solution.” People will be more inclined to act your way.
“2008 – the digital seventies.”
“My broadband is 10 MB/sec, but when I start creating something with these lumps [hands] I feel like a 56K myself.”
“The first time you delegate something it will always be less efficient than doing it yourself.”

Google stuff

Google notes – development has ceased, must alert my friend S so he migrates all his stuff
Google docs – easy to use and great, but hard to find for me. Use it for documents, spreadsheets and forms. A bit like Google wave
Gmail – turn on auto suggestions for search in labs. Go over labs every now and then. Why doesn’t search work like on normal Google web search?
Google voice – what exactly will it do and when will I have it?

Business concepts

A more human yet digital project management toolbox, coordination platform
A standard for virtual business cards, like ambadoo

Sites to watch

Engadget
Gizmodo
Lifehacker
Readwriteweb
Mashable

Upcoming events

Thoughtmade
TedxOresund

// Mr unsecretary

My first ever post typed up on my beloved HTC Hero. So it will hopefully be more reading friendly than they normally are.

Like so many times before this post describes an obvious conclusion I arrived at when talking to a good friend. She was complaining about her inability to make decision and stick to them. In some extreme cases she has even tried deciding “yes” for a day, to evaluate the feeling of it. Then the she would wake up the next day and be all like “no” to see what that felt like.

This seemed very tiring and ineffective to me so I suggested she should use some technique to make decisions and stick with them. We were talking about cooking at the time so this model, or principle, I invented can be described as a chicken-beef model. Or tofu-beans model if you prefer that.

Suppose it’s Tuesday and you’re thinking about whether to make chicken or beef when your friends come over on Friday. Instead of making a preliminary decision for beef and then reconsidering it for the rest of the week I suggest that you take immediate and decisive action once the decision is made. In this case it would mean stopping by the store on Wednesday, or even sooner, and picking up the beef. What you need to do is follow up your decision with an action, which indicates what direction you chose and maybe even eliminates other options. The action could be no more than a token thing like writing “beef” on your list of groceries needed, as long as it firmly tells you that the decision is made and is not allowed to take up any more mental energy.

Another related method for choosing what to eat is to buy groceries in loosely measured amounts. If you follow the recipe when cooking you will hopefully end up with a few leftovers. You then feed these leftovers into an online cookbook and repeat the whole process with the recipe you selected based on the leftovers.

And here’s my soundtrack writing this post. Happy cooking!