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Offline for a few days
By Paul | July 4, 2009
Unfortunately, Telecom New Zealand has not provided a particularly good service during a forced change of Internet Service Provider.
This means I’ll be pretty much off-line for a few more days apart from tweeting from my mobile.
See you when things get back to normal!
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Name of eProductivity Software Winner drawn
By Paul | July 3, 2009
A little while ago I announced the opportunity to go into a draw for a free full license of eProductivity for Lotus Notes. Thanks to Eric Mack for providing this license worth $399 and for allowing this draw to take place.
This morning the draw was held and the winner of the eProductivity license is:
Bruce Lill
Congratulations Bruce. You have 7 days from now to claim your prize by posting a comment on this post. I’ll then get the details to you.
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Archiving email with eProductivity
By Paul | June 29, 2009
My Lotus Notes email database was getting a bit large. Almost a gigabyte in size to be precise, so I decided to archive for the first time in 4 and a half years!
eProductivity has a wonderful ability to integrate with external databases. (Thanks to Eric Mack for pointing this out to me.) I figured I wouldn’t ask for guidance, as I wanted to see how easy this would be and to find any issues that a newbie was likely to face. Here’s what happened.
1. I created a new database using a standard Lotus Notes mail template.
With my workspace open I clicked:
File > Database > New
I named it Pauls email archive and clicked OK
2. I copied the database as a link
From the “Workspace” view I single clicked the database to select it without opening, then I:
Right Click > Database > Copy as Link
3. I associated this database with eProductivity
From eProductivity I went to eProductivity Preferences:
eProductivity > Preferences
I chose the “General” Tab > “External Databases” > “Database 1” (I’m using Database 2 only for this demo!
Then I pasted the doc-link that I had just copied. I knew it had succeeded by the little blue symbol that appeared.
I selected “Show on Main Navigator”
Then I chose “Save & Close” and closed and reopened my eProductivity mail file.
When I reopened my eProductivity file I saw the new external database at the bottom of the left hand navigator.
4. I started transferring emails to be archived
A word of caution here. For some reason, Lotus Notes handles “sent” mail differently. During recent times I’ve been filing both incoming and outgoing in a folder (in the right column). When you then archive it moves the whole of the incoming fine but it leaves a copy of the outbound in “All documents”.
This is an issue because when you archive its not likely you’ll want to archive all documents (as this includes projects and actions) and that would mean picking your way through things. This is time consuming (trust me on this).
My suggestion is that you archive sent mail directly from the sent mail folder.
With this covered archiving my mail was dead simple. I selected the emails I wanted to archive then:
File > Move To [your archive name]
I chose the folder I wanted to archive the emails to and that’s it. I checked my archive file the emails were right where I expected them to be.
5. Although archived my mail file had not reduced in size!
This surprised me but apparently I’m database illiterate. I needed to compress my mail file to reduce its size. (Thanks to Vaughan Rivett for the advice)
I closed my mail file (making sure my welcome page didn’t refer to it). I went to the Workspace view and:
Right click > Database > Properties
Then chose the “i” tab and click “compact”
This took some time to compact because of the size of my database. The only sign that was happening was a note at the very bottom left of Lotus Notes.
When it had finished I had reduced the size of my mail file by almost 70%.
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Draw for Free eProductivity
By Paul | June 28, 2009
Last chance to go in the draw for this fantastic prize.
See here for how to enter.
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Interesting RSS Reads
By Paul | June 27, 2009
It occurs to me that it could be useful for my readers if I was to regularly post links to the best blog posts I’ve read.
So here’s the first of what I hope to be a very regular feature:
Productivity
Join the GTD Fan Page on Facebook
When tools (eg Lotus Notes) become personal
GTD is an attention management system
Leadership
John Maxwell chats with Dave Ramsey
The necessity of obstacles - Part 1
The necessity of obstacles - Part 2
Should you respond to criticism
Technology
Microsoft may sell Windows 7 on flash drives
Gmail Tip - Use Gmail drafts to mail yourself unallowed files
Warn users of malware on Facebook and get banned
Other
Why do the left hate the private sector
Broken bat nearly impales Green
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Stranger in a Strange Land - Accepting the Impossible
By Paul | June 26, 2009
Photo by JackBrodus
Sometimes I feel like I’ve arrived on earth having spent my formative years being brought up by Martians on a world where things were possible simply because everyone already did those things. And now I’m on earth wanting to do things only to be told, “That won’t work?” or “I’ve never seen that work before”.
Harrumph!
I hate being around naysayers. I abhor being around people who say, “That’s not how we’ve done it in the past.” And I particularly struggle to show grace to those who simply don’t want to try new things just because we might have a spectacular failure.
What is it that people are afraid of? Why is change such a scary thing? What is it about the chance of failure that makes people want to keep getting the results they’re getting even when they’re not happy with those outcomes?
As a leader, how do I motivate others, (both under my leadership and those who I report to), to take a chance? How do I get them to accept… no welcome… no embrace and seek change?
I figure it takes a few steps but I’m sure I’ve missed some things out. So, as you read through these, feel free to exclaim. “I disagree,” or “You need to include this step too!” and include them via the comments section.
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Get people to Buy-in to the Vision
Even before discussion on doing something different, if you want people to embrace it, they need to both know why it needs to happen and be excited about where you’re all heading.
Simply put, people need to know that any hardship and sacrifice that any change will bring, (and it inevitably will), the benefits on the other side are more than worth it.
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Get people to Own the Change
People need to know they’ve had input and been a part of the process when change is going to affect their lives. Involve them in the process AND communicate the decisions that come out of the process.
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Give people Time to Accept the Change
After the communication people still need time to get to a stage where they can embrace the change.
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Communicate the Success Stories
When changes are made problems will always follow. Expect them! But know that the pain of the problems will be felt by all the people involved in the change.
So tell them about the successes that are happening. This is where they know that the benefits they dream for are worth the sacrifices they’re making to get there.
Feel free to disagree.
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20 Questions to Ask Yourself
By Paul | June 24, 2009
Michael Hyatt recently posted 20 Questions to ask other leaders giving us an amazing list based questions asked of him by Michael Smith of ClearView Baptist Church.
Photo by -bast-
At the end of his post, Michael suggested we ask these questions of ourselves and then blog about them, to enable us to all learn together. So here’s my first…
1. Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?
The person who has had the biggest impact on me as a leader is Andy Westrupp.
Andy is a Salvation Army Officer who is currently in a senior leadership role in New Zealand. But he was the Corps Officer (Senior Pastor) of Johnsonville Salvation Army when Raewyn and I, along with our children, turned up when we moved city.
To watch Andy lead and grow a church and to have him speak into my life as he grew me as a leader has greatly impacted how I go about leading a church myself. As it happens, my wife and I now lead the very same church that Andy and his wife Yvonne lead when we first met them.
Why did Andy have such a big impact and why has it stuck? If I had to say just one thing that affected me it would be that he modelled what he expected. Values to Andy were, and are, not things written on paper but what the culture of the church is all about. And this culture only comes about by a modelling of the values by its most senior leaders.
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