November 20, 2005
Whirlwind week...
After Seattle RoadMap, had a day at home, then off again to Toronto, where I gave our second seminar for Torstar, the parent company for the Toronto Star, Harlequin Books, etc. Nice to come back to a culture and a lot of great press about how much of GTD had stuck and spread since the first one early this year. Followed by another Institute for Management Studies (IMS) session seminar there, with lots of folks from the government of Ontario and some of the larger Canadian corporations. On to Minneapolis (barely, because of 50mph winds at the aiports), to do another IMS session there, plus a day with our friends at General Mills, finishing up our pilot GTD Masters program, training internal support coaches for the process. Also gave a pro bono workshop for heads of the local organizations funded by the General Mills Foundation, part of an on-going series of management and executive development events they provide them.
While I was in Toronto I had a wonderful dinner with the head of a biotechnology startup - Peter Gallant, CEO of Pathogen Detection Systems, Inc. They've discovered a technology that easily, immediately, and accurately detects ecoli bacteria, among other things, in water systems. An informative and interesting dinner for me, because as well as leading the start-up, Peter teaches entrepreneurship at Queens University, and is quite knowledgable about the venture capital world, especially in Canada. The occasion of course was that Peter's a major GTD fan, came across my stuff a couple of years ago, and swears by the transformative power of the methods. One interesting spin for DavidCo that Peter shared, in terms of positioning, is that the risks of VC funding for a start-up are threefold: market potential, IP security, and execution. The latter is a big missing link out there, and GTD, applied, minimizes the risk of non-execution. Makes perfect sense, of course, but the trick will be to make that appropriately known to the VC firms who might want to make GTD implementation a requirement for funding.
Me and Dr. Peter Gallant of Pathogen Detection Systems, after dinner...
Posted by David at 08:59 AM | Comments (5)
October 31, 2005
New York New York
Heady time this weekend, catching up on culture. After a great seminar/work day with Vardon Capital in New York on Friday, Kathryn and I hooked up with our great friends Rick Kantor and Richard Levi and did the town - theater-wise, anyway. Saw American Ballet do Twyla Tharp's "In the Upper Room," caught the new musical "See What I Wanna See," then the Tony-winning "Light in the Piazza." On to "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and ending with Blue Man Group at the Astor. Fun to see that aspect of New York - especially in October, where we even squeezed in a run through Central Park on a glorious sunny day yesterday. Love the Big Apple.
Walking the canyons...
Posted by David at 05:02 AM
October 28, 2005
A lovely bonsai stroll
After our wonderful RoadMap seminar in DC, Kathryn and I hung around the next morning and visited the incredible bonsai section of the National Arboretum. Stunning stuff... Worth a couple of hours, if you're ever there.
One bonsai whose training began in 1875, the other in 1945...
Posted by David at 01:04 PM | Comments (6)
October 25, 2005
Denver, Phoenix, Ojai, Atlanta, DC...
On a roll with travel and delivery, non-stop for quite a few days here.
Last week did two gigs in Denver. A half-day workshop for the Executive Forum, one of those locally-driven organization-membership enterprises that brings business talent to town with a venue for companies and government orgs to utilize for management development. Folks from the Dept. of Interior, Ball Aerospace (already a client of ours), etc. Then I did a talk and book-signing at the Tattered Cover, one of the country's most respected independent bookstores that regularly brings authors to town. It was arranged by the Dept. of the Interior from Washington, which started a program of these kinds of events for government employees and has expanded to their western region because they're so successful for them.
Then on to Phoenix, where I did a keynote presentation for 500+ small entrepreneurs in a niche industry, courtesy of my friend Joe Polish of Piranha Marketing.
Back home for 24 hours to check on my bonsai, my dog and three cats, and my MiniCooper (Kathryn managed to get my front two runflat tires replaced, which I had driven to bald in only 11,000 miles!) And a catch-up project meeting with our team building our Connect club, readying for a launch in the next few months.
Then back to the east coast - Atlanta - for an all-day IMS session yesterday, with folks from Coca Cola, SmithKline, Merck, Georgia Power, etc. Running to the airport last night to catch a plane and beat the hurricane up to DC, where I met up with Kathryn. This morning did a 1.5-hour broadcast from WETA (PBS) studio in Arlington for Linkage, Inc., as part of their Excellence in Leadership program. My topic was "The Keys of Execution - Successful Strategies Leaders Use to Get Things Done." We entertained a half hour of call-in Q&A, and I was struck (again) by, no matter how lofty the stated topic, how mundane and personal the interest actually is: "How do I deal with people I'm waiting on things from?"..."How long will it take me to integrate these personal best practices?"... etc. Have to hand it to Linkage, probably the premier forum for leadership and org development...they've been the first of their ilk I think to recognize the strategic focus and leadership qualities supported by GTD.
Then I met Kathryn and we went for a long walk in the damp chilly afternoon to see the DC icons she hadn't seen since she was ten - Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson Memorials. Plus the WW II, Vietnam, Korean War Memorials in between. Interesting to notice how the hallmarks that have been memorialized for our country were all around serious conflict. It makes sense. When you are in a situation where your values require you to take human life, it can certainly be a defining moment about what those values really are. It a rather dramatic version of what I often say: you only know what your values really are when someone steps on them. Just, wouldn't it be awesome if we created memorials from equally dramatic validations about our magnificence, without the catalyst of human suffering?
Looking forward to 200+ people in the DC RoadMap Wednesday. Checking the roster - we'll have key people from the FCC, Coast Guard, Red Cross, AARP, Federal Reserve, EPA, National Institutes of Health, FAA, etc. I've always loved the energy in our capitol - though Washington is not necessarily the hotbed of entrepreneurism, it certainly is the power nest of the gatekeepers, and (though it often seems to the contrary) a lot of smart people. It reminds me of the energy of a university town, on steroids.
Kathryn just told me that George Bush is having lunch next to our seminar room Wednesday in the hotel. This should be fun. "Hi George - what's the next action?"
Fall color on a chilly DC afternoon...
Posted by David at 05:08 PM | Comments (7)
October 12, 2005
How do you get a day off your mind?
Whew. Good and bad news about my life now is that often I have days that spin almost more creative opportunities and potential open loops than I feel capable of handling. (The better you get, the better you'd better get!)
Today a good example. Spent eight hours in San Francisco today with Mitch Kapor and the Chandler group (combined as the Open Source Applications Foundation), who are dedicated to creating a personal information management application that will be accessible as a foundation for lots of collaboratively creative iterations and plug-ins, as well as a simple but appropriately sophisticated model for people to manage personally and interactively some basic knowledge-worker stuff.
Mitch created (in addition to Lotus 1-2-3) Agenda, one of the first and only products of substance that began to grapple with taming software sophistication to support how we really think. Serendipitously, I was an early beta tester of Agenda, because I was doing an early version of GTD training inside Lotus in the 80's. Mitch and some of his key people have now done GTD seminars, and he's professed buy-in to it's principles as necessary to incorporate in the long term, for personal management.
So he brought me up to spend a day giving my input into their thinking and design process. They're doing good stuff, and I've no doubt that we're still only at the formative stages of real integration of software with the best practices of productive thinking. Nice for me personally to have someone of Mitch's stature to recognize the potential for the interface of GTD with something that is attempting to support such a broad audience.
Then I took BART over to Berkeley to have dinner with Jerry Michalski, the guy who turned me on to The Brain and who was also (along with Mitch) in my San Jose RoadMap seminar. Jerry's got a handle on what he's labeled as the "relationship economy," and we had a fun dinner comparing notes about such things, including where I'm trying to guide the David Allen Company within all its contexts these days. Jerry had a couple of great suggestions I hadn't really thought of before, that could be key anchor points for some things we'll be creating. Jerry's involved in some ad hoc but extremely creative and interesting projects. I suggest you stay in touch with this guy's thinking. I will.
As I sat decompressing in the bar of the Four Seasons here in SFO tonight, mind-mapping thoughts on a napkin about today and the so-what's and therefore's and maybe-if's, galvanized with the heady conversations all day long,I'm thinking: I need two days of processing for one day of engagement!
Posted by David at 11:18 PM | Comments (4)
October 04, 2005
Lunch with Jim Fallows
Had a lovely lunch with Jim Fallows today in DC, after which he took me on a tour of the DC offices of the Atlantic. Soon to be the HQ for the whole magazine. Bit of a change, the venerable intelligent rag moving from Emersonian Boston to one of the Watergate buildings (owned by current Atlantic owner David Bradley). Fun to find out that there are several highly-placed GTD champions on the magazine, and to hang again a while with Jim, a lazy-geek-engaged soul brother, very involved in what's happening at certain horizons in ways I really admire. Jim and his wife Deb are moving to China next spring - going to report for Atlantic and the NY Times from a place that Jim says he needs to spend some time in, just because it's the thing to do now. Cool. We should be getting some great stories and important world-view perspectives from the smart straight story teller Jim is...
BTW, Jim wrote a nice column in the NY Times October 2, talking about Mac Micro and Brainstorm, amongst other things.
Posted by David at 10:54 PM | Comments (6)
Monster and the government
Just gave the keynote on productivity to a couple hundred people at the annual conference Monster puts on for their government clients here in DC. Was preceded by opening remarks from Doug Klinger, President of Monster North America, in which he noted major trends that were affecting hiring. Interesting to hear that more jobs have come on line recently than anytime in the last five years, which means it's a good time to be looking for a job, and expecting more from it.
Great audience, seemed to resonate (as most folks do, these days) to the strategic value of personal process improvement. And wow, it's still summer in the city here in the east...
Posted by David at 08:37 AM
September 30, 2005
Boston RoadMapping...
Fabulously fun GTD RoadMap seminar today - 200 people showed up here at the Copley Marriott in Boston! Lots of old timers coming back to refresh and invigorate, plus lots of new-to-the-game players.
Great Boston seminar today...
And what a great crew almost in the front row... from one of our favorite artistic/cultural enterprises on the planet - Cirque du Soleil! Turns out one of them got the GTD bug a while ago, and it's spreading in their culture. Had five of them come down to Boston from Montreal headquarters. They're big fans, want to get us into their culture. How cool.
Cirque du Soleil GTDers(and me)!
Posted by David at 03:12 PM | Comments (2)
September 29, 2005
Green Mountain days
Just finished two RoadMap seminars here in Burlington, VT, underwritten by the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation. Green Mountain has been a great client of ours for five years. Headed by Bob Stiller (a Forbes entrepreneur of the year), they're located right next to Ben & Jerry's in Waterbury, and have the same kind of "green" culture and philosophy of business. Bob started their Foundation to support the community with business and personal growth best practice resources - hence my seminars, which were attended by numerous community, business, and academic leaders. I'm always re-inspired when I get to work within a small community, where good things spread around the network very quickly. Vermont is just, well, refreshing...
Bob Stiller after dinner last night...
Posted by David at 06:24 AM | Comments (1)
September 26, 2005
Dylan
While unpacking tonight at my hotel here in Burlington (VT), happened to catch the last half of the first half of No Direction Home - the Scorsese/PBS production. Very well done...interesting behind the scenes of the sources of lots of nostalgia for those of us who trekked our psyches through the '60's. You can still get the whole thing tonight on the west coast, and the second half tomorrow night, on PBS.
Posted by David at 08:21 PM | Comments (2)
September 22, 2005
Fast forward...fabulous day...
Back from London. 24-hour chill in Ojai. Back to Hartford and New York for IMS seminars. Then a hop back to Minneapolis for our first GTD RoadMap in that fun city. What a full-bore, all-out day today, in a wonderful place that I'm just starting to get a feel for/sense of. Small, big town. Very networked.
140+ people in our seminar, on the 50th floor of the IDS center... nice. Incredibly diverse mix of sophisticated people from all kinds of corporate, healthcare, and service orgs.
And then, after a great dinner at Dakota, a fun and great-food jazz club/restaurant downtown, we found ourselves entranced by an incredible Cuban jazz group playing there, led by Nachito Herrera. Finally left after their last set. Wow. Nachito does stuff with the piano I've never heard before, and his 15-yr-old daughter belts Latin stuff out with a purity and panache I've also never heard before. Find these guys. Awesome.
Nachito Herrera, his daughter, his group...
Posted by David at 11:15 PM | Comments (2)
September 07, 2005
Our idea of a good time
Kathryn and I gave ourselves a couple of extra days on the front end of this business trip to London, just because we love being in the city so much (and we needed a wee break from our rather intense routine Stateside). This trip not actually doing much...just enjoying the walks, the neighborhood streets and restaurants, and the atmosphere. London in balmy weather is quite the inviting out-in-the-streets place.
A Hyde Park moment this afternoon...
Posted by David at 08:29 AM | Comments (2)
September 05, 2005
What time is it?
Always amazing how tough it is to fly direct from L.A. to London, in terms of body clock... We napped in today until afternoon, then a leisurely walk around Regents Park.
Greeted by a denizen Brit of Regents Park
Posted by David at 03:58 PM | Comments (3)
August 28, 2005
GTD in the Air Force
Friday I had one of the most rewarding days I can remember, in terms of GTD and interacting with the best and brightest. I spent all day with Brigadier General Randal Fullhart, Commandant of the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. Randy had run across GTD in the bookstore in Spokane when he was commanding a wing there three years ago. Since then he has given the book to all his directs, and now to all the students of the Air Force college he heads. His mission of teaching critical thinking skills to the young folks who will wind up in some of the most challenging and highly exposed (in every regard) situations on the planet has created a fertile field in which to plant the GTD gene. I'm still processing how impressed I was not only with Randy himself but with the aligned vision, integrity, service-orientation and openness to learning I experienced all over the campus.
I've always loved working with military officers in general. When they're not fighting they're learning. Wouldn't it be nice in the private (and even the public) sector, when we're not directly delivering value, we're training to produce greater value!?
My good friend Frances Hesselbein (Leader to Leader Institute) had told me about how inspiring her pro bono work and relationship was with Randy, who had invited her last year to spend time with his troops. I now know why.
Posted by David at 02:17 PM | Comments (4)
August 24, 2005
Great day with Ultimate Software
Had a very invigorating day today (yesterday really, given the time) with 60% of Ultimate Software's employees, in a GTD-Mastering Workflow seminar, near their Weston, Florida headquarters. Their head of development, Adam Rogers, has been a major GTD champion since my first book came out, and he'd softened the beach-head already in the company with lots of copies of the book, and modeling the best-practice behaviors in his division. They're growing 20% a year, niched in the mid-size business payroll software business, providing a state-of-the-art user interface and proprietary techonology to manage all the intricacies of state-by-state tax laws.
Great energy in a room with 300+ people... then on a plane to NYC, at the Ritz Battery Park writing this, late...
Posted by David at 09:33 PM | Comments (1)
August 18, 2005
Found our way to San Jose...
Wonderful time yesterday at our San Jose RoadMap seminar, with 140+ folks, probably 80% of whom were connected to the high-tech world. Along with Mitch Kapor, Jerry Michalski, Buzz Bruggeman, Frode Odegard, Jeff Tidwell, we had key players from Odeo and folks from Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Ask Jeeves, BMC, Adobe, Symantec, and more. My head's still spinning from interacting with some of the best of cyberspace!
Me, Buzz, Betty Taylor, and Jerry...decompressing
Posted by David at 09:42 PM | Comments (2)
August 16, 2005
A visit to a creativity factory...
Been running from a seminar Monday in Seattle with Group Health, to one today with IMS in San Francisco, and afterwards took the opportunity to visit with our clients/friends at Stone Yamashita in their new SOMA digs(that's "south of Market" for non-SFO folks). A fabulous 17,000-sq-ft space that partners Robert Stone and Keith Yamashita have recently set up for their creative strategy/strategic creativity sessions with major corporate clients. Stunning. These guys, aside from being GTDers as a culture, have a team doing amazing work, creating psychic and physical spaces for real collaborative thinking at the highest executive level.
Robert Stone, Kathryn, and me this afternoon in the new Stone Yamashita offices/creativity labs...
Posted by David at 10:34 PM | Comments (1)
June 28, 2005
GTDing at Provena St. Joe...
This afternoon finished a full two-day GTD seminar for the lead hospital in the Provena St. Joseph healthcare network in Illinois. Terrific group of very engaged senior managers there, offsite in Joliet, part of leadership program driven by their new (11 months) CEO - Jeff Brickman. Jeff had done my program when he was at Baystate, and thought that GTD was exactly what they needed to support his successful turnaround and new energy and direction in the facility. Certainly nice to experience some new and positive juice in the healthcare world, after so much malaise and negative spin that emerged with all the new regulations and challenges in the industry. Good work, Jeff.
Mind-mapping this afternoon at St. Joe...
Posted by David at 02:22 PM
June 21, 2005
Torstar
Had a great time yesterday doing a Mastering Workflow seminar in Toronto for a new client, the Torstar Corporation. Hadn't really known much about them before, but from my short window into the company and the people, I was impressed. Interesting to find a newspaper (Toronto Star)/publishing company making good money, doing good work, with quite a spirit of contribution and service in their atmosphere (the profitability of their Harlequin romances probably helps, too). They were ripe for GTD, which seems to be growing in fertile soil in many parts of Canada.
Nice to think "abooot"!
Posted by David at 12:48 PM
The books in my hotel room bedside drawer
I was delighted to find in my drawer here at the Westin Prince (Toronto) not only the usual Gideon Bible, but also a copy of The Teaching of Buddha. Not that I prefer one to the other (truth is truth), but it's sweet to have the option. Is both books in the drawer uniquely Canadian? Westin-ian? Toronto-ian?
From a random page opening (which often holds answer to an unformed question in my mind) of The Teaching...:
...even under the best of conditions the mind will bear watching.
ps: wouldn't it be cool to have the Koran in there make up a threesome?
Posted by David at 02:22 AM | Comments (15)
June 16, 2005
No one's exempt from the down-and-dirty
Gave an energetic one-day seminar (Mastering Workflow) with a group of Managing Directors of a global investment bank in London today. Seems there's great press for our stuff in the UK these days, so they had positive anticipation to start with, which is always nice. Sophisticated folks, dealing with typical issues, but one specific was a real hoot for us all:
One guy had a "problem" he realized he needed to morph into a "project." He and his wife had adopted a goose egg and hatched it with a heat lamp. It grew up as part of the family, joining them at the pool, etc. Problem: it craps everywhere. So, what's the project? "Handle goose issue." What's the next action? He hadn't figured that out before we ended, but he was considering options, like "Buy hatchet."
Ain't it great that we all have the same kinds of nitty-gritty that can get in the way?
Managing Directors today grappling with crap...
Posted by David at 10:35 AM | Comments (5)
June 15, 2005
Why I love the Brits so much...
Saw this arriving at baggage claim at Heathrow a couple of hours ago. Just...well, so damned civilized! (or is that "civilised"?)
Posted by David at 07:44 AM | Comments (8)
June 13, 2005
Executive coach networking...
Had a creative day delivering a presentation and networking at the Conference Board Executive Coaching event at the Marina del Rey Ritz Carlton today. Engaged, interested participants; and I got to hear and hang with some really good resource people - Marshall Goldsmith, Gary Ranker, Homa Bahrami, Richard Leider, et al. I'll try to blog about some neat bits when I get the chance. Marshall co-sponsored the event, and is the quintessential networker (highest 'E' on Myers-Briggs possible, he says); and I've appreciated his support and good PR over the years - he generally introduces me as the guy who's good enough to have coached the worst basket case around (him)!
Marshall being Marshall today on a break
Posted by David at 10:19 PM | Comments (1)
May 25, 2005
Getting wireless products and mortgage re-fi's done...
Just had two very interesting work days with very different sets of folks. Monday spent the day at Nextel in Virginia with their Wireless Products group. It was orchestrated by their VP, Danny Bowman, a super-enegertic ex-athlete who had picked up GTD paperback in the airport for its title (their slogan is "Nextel. Done."!)..and he'd become a champion. Turns out we had already done some seminars and coaching in another division, and it's always fun to have GTD triangulated like that.
(By the way, was delighted to find out that Nextel's new version of Blackberry has category capability with it's to-do list, which makes it actually GTD-friendly instead of the old simple alpha-sorted single list.)
Then shuttled up to Manhattan and gave a presentation for the first-ever conference for the whole mortgage finance industry, hosted by our super client, Flagstone Securities. 100+ financial-type execs, most of whom had left Wall Street positions to start their own more-entrepreneurial ventures in the new and rapidly growing segment of that world. Listening to them talk about the nature of those businesses and the products and services they deal in is still like trying to understand a complex foreign language (how can I have had so many investment banks and finance company clients for all these years and still not know what the heck they really do???!!! I suppose if I had a gazillion dollars, I'd have more of a need...!)
Interesting thing about Flagstone is that one of their silver bullets is a company blog that they use to post up-to-the-minute potentially relevant data from their research in that industry. It has supported their positioning as the go-to people in that niche, because it makes it obvious and out there what they know. Blogging does have that kind of we're-willing-to-show-what-we-know-(and-don't-know) spin to it, which, for that kind of knowledge work based company, I can imagine would make a difference
Posted by David at 06:29 AM | Comments (2)
May 17, 2005
Quick answer to Marc Orchant about the new seminar
[Marc Orchant caught me on Skype as I logged in, at O'Hare a few mintues ago. Thought our short dialog might answer some questions for the rest of you about the new public seminar... DA]
[3:56:07 PM] Marc Orchant says: Hi David. Got time for a quick question?
[3:56:48 PM] David Allen says: Sure... a moment. I'm in OHare
[3:57:25 PM] David Allen says: What's up?
[3:57:44 PM] Marc Orchant says: How would you characterize the content of the new one-day seminars compared to the classic two-day event?
[3:58:46 PM] David Allen says: More focus on the process of deciding where you are and what part of the models you should do what about, now... e.g. should you do 40k thinking with you spouse right now, or clean your garage --- get a planner or throw it away?
[3:59:52 PM] Marc Orchant says: Excellent. Jeff and I are trying to get some of our newer folks pointed toward attending one of the newly scheduled events. I might try to drop in on one of them myself.
[3:59:53 PM] David Allen says: Basically, what are your presenting issues in life and work right now? And how would you place those withing the GTD models, and therefore what's really strategic for you to do in what area?
[4:00:28 PM] Marc Orchant says: I like the focus. Sounds like an energizing day.
[4:00:49 PM] David Allen says: It'll have the nuts and bolts of workflow, plus more emphasis on the multiple horizons, and what to do about them.
[4:01:30 PM] Marc Orchant says: Thanks for the insights. I'll pass them along to Jeff. Oh, and congrats on the Levenger connection. I can't wait to see what you've cooked up with them!
[4:01:52 PM] David Allen says: Yeah, it'll be fun to be in that arena, too...
[4:02:04 PM] Marc Orchant says: K. Gotta run myself. Safe travels.
[4:02:17 PM] David Allen says: Me too. Ciao for now.
Posted by David at 04:07 PM
May 15, 2005
Serendipities...
Love it when that happens. Walked in to one of the Levenger Chicago stores yesterday (in Marshall Fields), and a guy buying stuff at the counter turned around and said, "I can't believe it. They were just asking me how I knew about Levenger, and I said, 'this guy named David Allen', and you walk in!" Royal Randolph, an Accenture consultant, had been in my Miami public seminar, and had, because of that, become a Levenger junkie. He lives in Atlanta, in Chicago on a project. Such fun.
Royal and me (I'm the short guy)
Posted by David at 06:34 AM | Comments (5)
May 13, 2005
In the midst of the medical center maelstrom...
Spent the whole day with 100+ senior physicians and managers at MD Anderson today, the world's largest medical facility (45 Institutes on this one campus). Pretty awesome place. And, pretty toasted folks, in terms of stress, overwhelm, too many meetings, email, conflicting priorities...the usual stuff, but particularly challenging when you care. Some of the highest-stress environments are the ones doing the best work. Because people care. When what you are doing makes a difference, and any good idea and project will help people, how do you say "no!"? Toughest call many people have to make - how do I unhook from something that's helping people? Because if you don't, you're sucking air out of the more mission-critical things you might need to be doing. These are not easy judgement calls. It's demanding a lot more rigor, to do things like challenge meetings - why are we having this meeting? (Healthcare is dealing with its own deadly virus - meeting-itis!)
Anyway, my hat's off to and heart's with all these great folks, who were as hungry a group as I've ever seen to absorb GTD...
Posted by David at 04:06 PM | Comments (3)
May 12, 2005
GTD and a real systems thinker...
Spent a wonderful afternoon and evening here in Houston with one of the brightest and most charming people I've ever met. Dr. Atul Dhir is President of the research division of US Oncology, a company that manages 500 cancer clinics around the country, treating 20% of all cancer patients in the U.S. Interesting and very successful business model - set up clinics for the standard cancer treatments (which are the majority) which can be done without having to go away to (and pay for) the "biggest and best hospital." Using local docs, close to home, out-patient modalities. They're growing like crazy. Spent a couple of hours this afternoon with a half dozen of their key folks.
Atul is an MD and PhD (molecular biology) with an MBA, trained in India and Oxford (Rhodes scholar); did M&A work for McKinsey in NYC for five years. (Just a portion of his CV!)
Atul "got" GTD a short while ago (though he shyly admits he still has a long way to go), and he and I have started a very creative and inspiring dialogue about the installation of real process - how success is often just making sure the process is right, and organic success and growth just happens. It's certainly galvanizing of my own thinking to engage with one of the most intelligent systems-oriented thinkers around, who's blown away by the underlying power of GTD and its potential. And also the absolutely critical and timely need for it now in the professional world (and how many people don't get it yet)!
Anyway, I continue to be awed and humbled by the elegance and horsepower of people like Atul that GTD is attracting. I just hope I can continue to do my part to facilitate the opportunities for "two or more to gather in the name of..."
Posted by David at 08:20 PM | Comments (3)
May 11, 2005
More fun in financial services...
Very creative session today with a senior group (60 folks) at Citigroup, at their lovely retreat center in Armonk (NY). Leslie had done a GTD for a division of theirs in Paris in March, but this was our first engagement with corporate U.S.
Interesting spin - they did a survey of the whole group ahead of time about a key issue - what were the process problems, etc. - and based upon that we framed the GTD best practices to show how, if they were implemented by the individuals involved, it could significantly improve the outcomes. Very engaged, and I think they got it. Great people to work with, and obviously a highly supportive culture for training & development these days.
It's becoming a common thread in much of my speaking and seminars with the upper tiers these days - many of the organization issues are process issues (decision-making, communication, accountability, stress), and those are personal process issues - not team or company ones (addressable only at the individual level).
...and on to Houston tonight (where I'm in a quaint old hotel writing this - the Warwick - but having to deal with dial-up. So easily spoiled, when I'm thinking that 54k is a slow connection...!)
Posted by David at 08:57 PM | Comments (3)
May 06, 2005
(Productive) days like this
I love days like this. Late dinner with colleagues last night. Ignored e-mails. Slept in, handled urgencies. Long, creative phone calls with MD Anderson (briefing for upcoming seminar for their staff & docs), Flagstone (high-flying St. Louis-based client very successfully niched in the M&A world), Fast Company (1-hr interview with a senior editor), MarketPlace (interview with one of their feature commentators). Ignored e-mails. A little workout, a little sun. All-afternoon creative meetings with Levenger folks at their gorgeous HQ facility in Delray Beach (as I said, more to come). Stroll a couple of blocks in Coral Gables to Cacao, a great Venezuelan restaurant in the neighborhood, an hour on the phone with Rick and Richard (dear friends, great consultants on our team)... and still ignoring e-mails.
Ah, the wonderfully dangerous edge of knowing how to get in control, so you don't have to be...!
"The chains that bind us the most closely are the ones we have broken." - Antonio Porchia
Posted by David at 08:58 PM
May 05, 2005
Brokers, books, and balmy...
Returned from a lovely evening at Books & Books in Coral Gables, with Steve Leveen giving his mini-workshop and signing his new book, mentioned in my blog below. Steve is an incredibly good speaker, and brings a wealth of experience and love to his message about conscious book-reading.
(More to come, soon, about the Levenger connection. Stay tuned.)
Mitch Kaplan, the owner of Books & Books, treated us to a late dinner "after the show" - wonderful guy, one of the leaders still out there of the small independent, salon/community bookstores (he has authors speaking almost every night). He's also the founder and head of the Miami Book Festival. (Also has a branch inside the Levenger headquarters store in Del Rey Beach).
Mitch Kaplan - owner of Books & Books
We were also joined by Les Standiford, author of the new Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America. I've read Les' previous non-fiction book, Last Train to Paradise, a fascinating account of the train built to Key West.
Lovely late night here in balmy Miami...
Almost hard to remember that this morning I gave a keynote (Ready for Anything: Staying Sane in a World of Too Much to Do) to 500 executives at the Securities Industry Association (SIA) conference in Orlando. I followed a panel of securities regulators talking about new rules in the industry, and they put me on right afterwards hoping that I would add a lighter touch and a salve to the heavy messages. Hopefully that's what they got! They all did get a copy of Getting Things Done, so something might stick or help out there as they unpack all their "stuff" back at the ranch...
Posted by David at 09:31 PM | Comments (7)
May 04, 2005
On Target with a small world...
Flew into Orlando this thunderstorm-y afternoon, for a keynote speech tomorrow for SIA, and just got off a fun call with Bob Giampietro, a senior exec at Target (business development). Bob and I connected a short while ago at least virtually through Buzz Bruggerman (Activewords) and also Steve Leveen (Levenger). Bob and Buzz connect through PopTech; and Bob and Steve because Bob was the guy who got Levenger into Marshall Fields in Chicago - Levenger's first retail store.
Levenger in Marshall Fields
Turns out we're doing our first pilot seminar for Target this summer; Steve's new book, The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life is now being presented through Target's book club; I'm meeting with Steve with the launch of his book in Coral Gables tomorrow night... Whew.
Interesting that Bob clued me in on Target's interest in social software, blogging, etc.; and there's a conference going on right now in Minneapolis with my buddy the Scobleizer speaking. From my experience so far, Target indeed is a hip and happenin' place. (When Marian and I had meetings with them at HQ, we were blown away by the employee population there, most of whom looked not a day over twenty-one, and dressed as if they were going to a Tribeca party...!)
Anyway, I love it when the strands come together. As a mentor of mine told me years ago, "David, every great thing that will ever happen to you will come directly (or almost) from your willingness to take a risk and meet someone you didn't know before." So far, so good...
Posted by David at 04:20 PM | Comments (2)
April 27, 2005
A day with United Educators (and dogwood)
Spent an absolutely delightful day today doing a one-day GTD seminar for United Educators, in Chevy Chase, MD. This organization does really good work handling insurance for most of the U.S. colleges and universities - kind of keeping the fires lit in higher education by minimizing the litigation risks. Several had heard me give a talk with NACUA (National Association of College and University Attorneys) several months ago in Vancouver, and the GTD virus started to spread back at the ranch! Anyway, lovely, engaged, bright and energetic group - that always makes my work fun. And, what a gorgeous spring day in Washington today, with lime-green new leaves on the big trees and stunning dogwood blooms all over.
Posted by David at 07:59 PM
April 18, 2005
The world of coffee
Gave a very fun GTD seminar Friday at the SCAA Conference (Specialty Coffee Association of America). I was sponsored there by one of our favorite clients, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (actually, by their Foundation, which is committed to spreading GTD wherever!) 'Twas a fascinating mix of people in the room - a nascent entrepreneur about to set up his own coffee house in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; growers from Mexico and Guatemala; a USAID project manager who's working with pan-African coffee enterprise; to a rep from Kraft Foods. According to my Green Mountain Coffee bud, Paul Comey, fifteen years ago there were barely 200 people at this convention. Now there are 15,000. Ah, the success of legal designer drugs...!
Posted by David at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)
February 10, 2005
Charles Staley interview
Had a great hour-long interview yesterday with Charles Staley. He's been a reader and advocate of GTD for many months now, and asked me to contribute a teleseminar session with his clan of followers. Have to admit that my own physical conditioning program has slid in priorities over the last months, so I'm looking forward to exploring Charles' approach, which I hear is really very cool....
Posted by David at 07:52 AM
February 07, 2005
Virtual travel day
I was all over the U.S. today. It's called a "radio tour" in the book trade - my publisher hires a firm that arranges a series of "drive by" interviews with radio stations (mostly AM) daytime talk shows, and I just sit at the phone all day (starting at 5am Ojai time - most are on the east coast). So today I held forth of the 6-minute key-to-life stuff - let's see, in Toledo, Tampa, New Hampshire, Minneapolis, Montana, Cincinatti, BC (Canada), Ohio NPR, Miami, and Pittsburgh. What's interesting, when I've done these over the years with my books, the people who actually heard me on the radio while driving wherever, and just "got it", and connected into the GTD thing. Real time forerunner of podcasting, obviously...
Posted by David at 05:46 AM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2005
ASTD Conference in Vegas
I gave the keynote this morning at the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in Las Vegas. Session was opened by Tony Bingham, CEO of ASTD, with a very good overview of the strategic place of training and skill-building now, in the new post-recession world. If all his surveys quoted are valid indicators (can't fault the sources), looks like gangbusters for real education delivery for knowledge workers in the coming years... I had a great time, seemed to go over well, reminding people of how some of the real process issues organizationally translate back to personal process issues of mid- to senior-level people, and that those can be dealt with. Of course, a la GTD....
Then had a fruitful cup of coffee with my friend Mike Flanagan, now VP of consulting services of Intrepid (formerly LGuide), a champion of our stuff, and a great friend-of-the-court to us as a resource for info about that whole big world of distributed education...
Back in Ojai, and it was a gorgeous sunset...
Posted by David at 05:04 AM | Comments (2)
December 11, 2004
Catching up...well, sort of.
For anyone peeking in, you can be assured that no entries means that, much like when I went ages without writing my mom, there was just much too much going on, too fast, that in order to say anything, I had to say everything, and there wasn't time to do that, so I'll say nothing. I never really learned that was not the best strategy, I have to admit.
So here goes. Last six weeks been to London, Boston, New York, Toronto, Armonk NY, Washington DC, London again, Portsmouth NH, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Miami. Did three public seminars (my last, for a while), did stuff for CreditSuisse, Fidelity, Institute for Management Studies, the Conference Board, MBIA, and Cranfield School of Management.
Have to say I had a fabulous time in the last public seminars. Folks from all over, very GTD-ready, highly engaged. I'm really blown away sometimes by the incredible network that has been building around this material. I feel blessed to be participating, myself.
Some of the DavidCo merry band at our post-Miami-GTD celebration this last week - Jesus (coach, translator), Richard (product development), Ana Maria (coach, trainer), me (lackey), Kathryn (head cheese), Jose (our associate from Santiago), Rick ((in front, marketing).
Posted by David at 06:58 AM | Comments (2)
October 31, 2004
Busy busy in the NE
Another busy set of days - seminar for Managing Directors at CreditSuisse in NY, then IMS seminars in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and DC, then swinging back through NYC and hooking up with Kathryn for a beautiful October whirlwind Manhattan outing together - Aida, Avenue Q (we have good friends that are investors that got us great seats) and serious shopping. Avenue Q is truly a treat, and I highly recommend you catch it, if you haven't yet. Topping off the good feeling weekend with my sweetie as we caught a late movie - Shall We Dance? (Another of the ilk of Moonstruck for the romantics of us in the crowd!) Then we trained to Boston, and a fabulous public GTD seminar with 100+ folks, from all over the U.S. Lots of stuff going on, just wanted to say hello... and share a picture of my lady with her new sunglasses on the streets of Gotham....
Posted by David at 05:19 AM | Comments (4)
October 15, 2004
Re-union-ing at New College
Many universes have transpired since we got back from Europe... hopped back on a plane for the east coast, with seminars for Baystate Health Systems, Institute for Management Studies programs in Kansas City and Detroit, some management team offsite consulting for a client in Indiana, back to a seminar through the University of Santa Monica... whew. Actually, I'll be in Ojai about 6 days total in 3 months.... But, it's a good life.
I am sort of taking off this weekend, meeting up with numerous others at my alma mater, New College, in Sarasota, Florida. Very cool little place that was a pioneer in the no-grade, small-class, multi-discipline reaction to the impersonal mega-versity. It's still there, and there's a special event this weekend commemorating the charter classes and those of us that helped start the place back in 1964-66. (I was there 1965-68...heady times!)
Woke up this morning to balmy Gulf breezes, which I love. (Me and the tropics just get along great!) Here's a view a few minutes ago out my balcony at the Radisson...
Posted by David at 06:28 AM | Comments (1)
September 16, 2004
Stunning days in The Hague
Kathryn and I just spent 2+ wonderful days in The Hague, which before this week I knew little of. Did one day seminar for IMS, and then explored the city. What made it particularly great was that we had recently discovered (from an article in a recent Departures magazine) a very upscale tiny hotel, Haagsche Suites, hosted by Guido and Irene van den Elshout, who go all out to provide everything from great wine to sumptious breakfast to chocolates to classical music to bicycles to advice on fabulous restaurants. They have recently renovated a gorgeous 3-story home from the 1890's, with elegant antiques, Italian bathroom fixtures, and a garden designed by a world-famous architect. And what a pleasant surprise The Hague is - very sweet, civilized, beautiful, and a manageable size. If you're into treating yourself, mid-western-Europe, look them up... (we'll certainly be back).
Posted by David at 07:04 AM | Comments (2)
September 12, 2004
European jaunt
Just a hello to any readers, from the "capital of Europe" - Brussels. Kathryn and I are on a 3-week trip across the pond, half business with four seminars I'm doing for IMS (I'm a presenter on the faculty of IMS, the Institute for Management Studies). Did Edinburgh and Manchester this last week, will be conducting seminars in Brussels Monday and The Hague on Tuesday. Kathryn and I are taking the opportunity to see some places we've never been - namely Belgium, The Hague, and then we're unhooking for a full week in Paris, with nothing to do but Paris. Yumm.
This afternoon, Kathryn snapped a pic as we were walking around Bruges, on an afternoon trip over from Brussels...
Posted by David at 11:31 AM | Comments (9)
August 02, 2004
Rockefeller rocks
Couple of weeks ago spent a half day with a great group of folks - the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The CEO, Stephen Heintz, a good friend of mine (and lovely guy) caught me at a weak moment, and I did a pro bono session with all the staff of the Foundation that administers their money. On a break I got a tour from the curator of the Rockefeller home, which is now a state historical site and can be visited. Incredible property in the most beautiful woods outside the City.... very cool. Here's a taste...
Posted by David at 09:29 AM