It was a beautiful, sunny day in New York City as I rode my bike into Central Park. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pumping my legs hard to work up speed, excited to join the flow of other cyclists I expected to see on the six-mile loop road.

But when I arrived, my mood plummeted. The road was filled with runners in a race while the cyclists were relegated to a single lane. I slowed down, annoyed, as I made my way onto the bike lane.

Soon, though, my mood lifted: the cycling wasn’t as slow as I had feared. I picked up my pace and got back into a rhythm, feeling my pedal strokes and paying attention to my breath.

“Anyone who wants a high five, just let me know,” yelled one of several race volunteers who were standing along the boundary between the runners and the cyclists. Their job was to protect and cheer on the racers. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking what organizations would be like if there were designated cheerers offering high fives to anyone who asked.

Then, suddenly, a shot of fear: three people ran directly in front of my speeding bike. “Watch out,” I screamed, adrenaline spiking, as I veered and narrowly missed them. I looked back, shaking my head at them angrily.

When I looked forward again, I had to slam on my brakes; I had come dangerously close to the biker ahead of me. I berated myself for getting distracted.

Finally, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I looked around, noticing the sun shining through the trees. My body relaxed and returned to its even, steady rhythm. I focused on the road ahead.

Welcome to life.

I thought I was taking my bike on a ride. But really? My bike took me on one.

My experience changed many times over the course of a few minutes as external forces determined my mood. Happiness anticipating a great ride, frustration imagining it would be ruined by the race, relief when it wasn’t, fear when people ran in front of me, fear again, followed by guilt and self-criticism, when my distraction nearly led to a crash. All in the course of a few short minutes.

Which is how most of us go through our day. An angry comment puts us in a bad mood; an unexpected compliment cheers us up. And it’s not just things that happen directly to us (ever walk past an argument that other people are having?) or things that even seem to matter (ever walk into a cafeteria and feel like there’s nothing you want to eat?)

The truth is, it all matters to us. Which is why the smallest comment can unhinge us.

That’s dangerous because it affects our business decisions, our interactions with colleagues, the quality of our work, the way we manage others, and our attention.

The solution, though, is simple. All we have to do is nothing. But here’s the trick: it’s important to do it regularly, at least a few minutes a day.

I’m talking about meditating. Which just means sitting quietly, with your eyes closed, following your breath as it enters and then leaves your body.

Your mind will, of course, wander. The goal isn’t to stay focused on your breath the whole time. It’s to return to your breath when you’ve noticed that you’ve wandered. It’s all about the noticing.

I’ve only just begun to practice meditating regularly. What I’ve noticed is that my mind spends most of its time planning and worrying about the future or going over and over the past. How will I approach that conversation? What will I say to that employee? What time should I leave for the meeting? OrWhy did I say that? Did I respond appropriately? I should have acted differently when she asked me to help.

It’s insane. I’m insane.

Which I think is the point, actually. We’re all a little insane. We’ve got this fascinating present we’re living in, and we can’t seem to be present in it. We’re so worried about either not having lived the last moment well or not living the next moment well that we end up missing the current moment entirely.

It’s ironic because the less we live in the current moment, the more mistakes we’ll make in it and the more material we’ll have to stress about in the next moment.

My biggest obstacle? Time. With so much to do, it’s counterintuitive to take time to sit and do nothing.

Here’s the most interesting thing: sitting and doing nothing has made me significantly more efficient. 20 minutes of meditation helps me avoid hours of time lost in unproductive thought, unconstructive comments, and unstrategic actions.

A few days ago, in a meeting, someone interrupted me. When I asked to finish, he criticized me, in front of fifteen other people, for talking too much. I was embarrassed, angry, offended, and a million other things. But I took a breath, allowed him to continue with his interruption, and then, when he was finished, said what I had wanted to say. If I had reacted — told him off, called him out for interrupting me, stormed out of the meeting, talked over him — all of which I considered — it would have taken me, and everyone else, off track.

So, how does the practice of sitting and doing nothing help? It’s practice. Each time we notice that we’ve left the breath, and we return to it, we’re strengthening the muscle of living in the present and noticing. Which helps us return to the present when we’re biking. Or listening. Or working.

Some people have a hard time just sitting. If that’s the case, try this: next time you drive alone, shut everything off — phone and radio — and just breathe (with your eyes open, of course). Lots will happen — you’ll get caught in traffic, someone will cut you off, someone will let you in her lane. As feelings arise, notice them. It’s the perfect laboratory because you’ll feel all sorts of things and yet there’s nothing you can do but sit. Next time you have a strong emotion or inclination to act, you’ll have a little more presence to help you evaluate whether that action will, ultimately, help or hurt.

There are all sorts of good reasons to meditate. Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his wonderful book Full Catastrophe Living, offers good instructions on how to meditate and examines persuasive research into how it reduces stress, speeds up healing, decreases pain, and increases presence.

But I’m suggesting meditation for business reasons. Losing awareness of how we’re feeling or what we’re thinking affects our relationships, our decisions, and our actions. Those are business issues.

As I exited the park at the end of my ride, I felt energized. Present. Aware of my feelings but not controlled by them. Which was good practice because when I got home and Eleanor was justifiably annoyed that I had taken such a long ride, I had the presence of mind to recognize that she was right and apologize.

About the Author

Peter Bregman speaks, writes, and consults on leadership. He is the CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm, and the author of Point B: A Short Guide To Leading a Big Change.

(Via HBR)

Advice, Business, Communication, Leadership development, Managing yourself, Personal Management

At first, the idea of tying a bra on your face to let you breathe easier may seem ridiculous but this award-winning emergency bra is certainly an innovation.

Sexy red lingerie and heavy breathing have traditionally gone hand in hand. But a bra from inventor, Dr. Elena Bodnar, is designed to let people breathe easier. Her Emergency Bra is a protective device that transforms from a bra into two respiratory pace masks to filter out harmful airborne particles, such as those released by fire, explosion, terrorist, radiological, biological attack, and natural disasters.

Recognizing that most people don’t generally carry around specialized respiratory devices, Dr. Bodnar designed a device that would be at hand when needed. The bra was an obvious choice because the majority of women wear a bra every day and the cups are already in the shape of a facemask. She added a few design features to give the bra the extra functionality, including shoulder straps that easily convert into adjustable head straps, flex inserts along the top rim of the cups which mold tightly around the nose and bridge area, and an inner liner/filler that acts like a butterfly valve during inhale cycles.

Dr. Bodnar took out the Ig Nobel Public Health Prize last year with the Emergency Bra. The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative – and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.”

When accepting the award Dr. Bodnar said, “isn’t it wonderful that women have two breasts, not just one? We can save not only our own life, but also the life of a man of our choice next to us.”

Dr. Bodnar points out that the Emergency Bra doesn’t compromise in terms of aesthetics, shape, style or comfort when compared to traditional bras and she has now announced the commercial availability of the Emergency Bra. Currently only available in red, it sells for US$29.99 in sizes from 32B to 40C.

While it’s good to be prepared, ladies should probably avoid advertising the fact they’re wearing an Emergency Bra, lest teenage boys are tempted to start a fire or instigate some other kind of event that will result in the woman having to rip her bra off.

(Via Gizmag)

Airborne, Disasters, Emergency Bra, Filter, Innovation, Technology

On the surface, The Social Network is the story of Facebook — a website created in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 that has redefined how we connect and communicate in the 21st century. At its core, the film is much, much more than just the story of one website. It is both a micro and macro look at success, failure and the trappings of ego and greed.

The film is ostensibly based on real people and real events. That said, many of the proceedings and characters were invented for the screen. In the coming weeks, there will a flurry of discussion regarding just how accurate or inaccurate the film is with regard to Facebook’s first year. Ultimately, these differences and inaccuracies are irrelevant.

For better or for worse, the cinematic version of “the Facebook story” will be what becomes the lore surrounding the company, much as The Pirates of Silicon Valley has become the unofficial history of Microsoft and Apple for a generation of users. From a cinematic perspective, The Social Network is no more or less effective based on its factual accuracy. This is a fictional narrative, not a documentary.

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The Beginning

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The film opens with one of its strongest scenes, a five-minute interchange between a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend. Zuckerberg, brilliantly portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, speaks a mile a minute, quickly moving from one topic to the next, leaving his companion to exclaim, “Dating you is like dating a StairMaster.”

Throughout the course of the conversation, an acutely unaware Zuckerberg proceeds to insult his girlfriend, belittling her background, intellect and future life prospects. Having had enough, she ends the relationship and tells him off. The dialogue in this scene is a joy for Aaron Sorkin fans, reminiscent of the best interactions and moments on The West Wing or Sports Night.

This scene, one of the most significant additions that Sorkin made to the script — which is loosely based on Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires — introduces the audience to Mark, a man who is clearly brilliant, but who is also deeply insecure, awkward and more than a bit antisocial.

It also sets up the motive behind the project that would become the precursor to Facebook, Facemash. With Facemash, a Hot or Not for female students at Harvard (and a post-breakup lashing-out against womankind), Mark brings down the university network, gets in some trouble from the administration and makes himself an outcast on campus. It also brings him to attention of twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, two good-looking, athletic and privileged twins.

The Winklevosses (both played by Armie Hammer) and their friend, Divya Narendra, are looking to build a social dating site for Harvard men. They want Mark to work on the code. He readily agrees.

The dating site spawns a much bigger idea in Mark’s head — and that idea is Facebook. Partnering with his best friend and financier Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, Mark builds The Facebook. What follows is an almost viral spread of user adoption and rapid growth and expansion.

To those of us who joined Facebook in those early days (I believe I joined in January 2005), the sequences demonstrating the takeoff of the service will resonate. One of the most interesting things about Facebook, a site that first built its allure and prestige based on its exclusivity (the need to have a *.edu e-mail address from a supported school and an invite from another user), was just how quickly it spread. Much like YouTube, which launched about a year later, Facebook went from not existing to being everywhere, seemingly overnight.

As Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg is brilliant. I fully expect to see his name on the shortlist for Best Actor nominees when award season ramps up. He manages to make Zuckerberg sympathetic but not pathetic — there’s actually a nuanced difference. The character could have easily been portrayed as a pathetic, socially inept genius. Eisenberg doesn’t do that. He manages to play a three-dimensional character, even though the last five minutes of the film are the only times we ever see a mournful side. His speech patterns, his eye movements, the way that he walks and moves his body — it’s truly one of the best performances of 2010.

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The Second Act

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As the story progresses, the film’s focus and point of view shift. Many of these shifts take place in a more present-day setting, where Zuckerberg, Saverin and the Winklevoss twins give depositions and testimony in some of the various lawsuits filed over the ownership and business dealings of Facebook.

Much like Fincher’s 2007 film, Zodiac, The Social Network makes use of these court proceedings and depositions to build out the narrative. Structurally, this is an interesting device and one that is well-suited for this particular story. Fincher cuts quickly from scene to scene, various depositions overlapping, and testimony leads to flashbacks told from the perspective of the deposed.

As a director, Fincher is known for using subtle colors and hues in his work — from Fight Club to Benjamin Button, color is one of the most visually defining characteristics of Fincher’s work. In The Social Network, he uses slight color variations for each character’s perspective. It’s subtle but it has an influence on the energy that takes place on the screen.

The second and third act of the film primarily involve the massive ascent of Facebook and the parallel breakdown between best friends Mark and Eduardo. As Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Garfield is particularly good at gaining our sympathies. He’s the most relatable character in the film, but that isn’t to say he’s the hero. On the contrary, while the film makes it easy to empathize with his position — being cut out of one of the biggest companies founded this decade — it equally makes it clear that if Eduardo Saverin had run the business end of Facebook, Facebook wouldn’t be anything close to what it is today.

Not all the credit should go to Zuckerberg, however. Napster founder Sean Parker, portrayed by Justin Timberlake, was instrumental in making Facebook the money-maker that it is today. Timberlake, a truly gifted performer, has a more middling track record as an actor. But in the role of Parker, a well-connected playboy who quickly assesses that Facebook is the next Napster (in a viral and culture changing sense), Timberlake is charming, boisterous and believable.

Timberlake is very good in the film, but still, his character seems like little more than a plot device. His primary function is to act as the catalyst to get Zuckerberg to go out to Palo Alto in the summer of 2004. This was the summer that Facebook really turned the page, and was on the brink of becoming huge. After that summer, Facebook was clearly on the path to runaway success.

The film ends almost abruptly, which is jarring, yet fitting for its subject matter. This is the story of the first year of Facebook. The momentum was building, but at the stage that the film ends, the site was still college-only, it didn’t have apps and it hadn’t toppled MySpace. In fact, this film ends where many others would start.

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Summation

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The undisputed facts regarding Facebook are that by May 2005, just over 15 months after thefacebook.com launched, the company already had 2.8 million registered users and had received its second round of funding for $13 million. In six years, the site has gone from being something meant to bring the college experience online to something that is quickly altering multiple forms of media and gaining more and more users from every corner of the globe.

Whether Facebook is the next Google or not, I’m not sure, but it has utterly encapsulated the zeitgeist of this era of computing and communications. Facebook’s legacy and influence over the future is something that cannot be in disputed.

Watching the film, I was often struck by two things: First, how quickly it all moved. It’s almost jarring to think that the majority of the major events in the film took place over the course of 18 months. Second, I was once again reminded of just how young everyone involved in the early days of Facebook really was.

I kept reflecting on these two points because I think they underscore the narrative. On its surface, this is a story about greed and ego and how money and fame change people. And that’s all true. On the larger level, however, I think this is also a film about what happens when success literally happens overnight to individuals who haven’t even completed the college experience. How does that not affect who you are? How does that notaffect relationships and loyalties?

There is a cost for great success and a cost for changing the world. Oftentimes, those costs are paid in relationships. That’s true for widget salesmen, and it’s true for founders of social networks.

This underscores how adroit the tagline for the film really is: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment

(Via Mashable)

Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, Facebook, Film, Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Mark Zuckerberg, movies, Sean Parker, The Social Network

Football, Inter Milan, Manchester United, Sports, transfer, Wesley Sneijder

In general, September is often a difficult month: I’m catching up from summer vacation as are many of my clients, projects tend to regain momentum, the Jewish holidays reduce my work days, and our kids need more of my time as they readjust themselves to new grades in school.

But this year feels worse. On top of my regular client work, I have three strategy offsites to design and facilitate, my publisher’s edits of my next book to review, and a TEDx talk to prepare and deliver — all in a month. And then, of course, there’s my weekly blog.

Just to be clear: I’m not complaining. I feel incredibly fortunate to be so busy doing work I love. Still, it can be overwhelming.

And here’s the crazy part: I just spent the last two days tryingto work without actually working. I start on something but get distracted by the Internet. Or a phone call. Or an email. Or even a video online that has no value whatsoever. In fact, at a time when I need to be at my most efficient, I have become less efficient than ever.

You’d think it would be the opposite — that when we have a lot to do we become very productive in order to get it done — and sometimes that happens.

But when we have too much to do, we can freeze. Spinning without traction, we move fast but don’t make progress on the things that are creating our stress. Because when there’s so much competing for attention, we don’t know where to begin and so we don’t begin anywhere.

Sheena Iyengar, a management professor at Columbia University Business School, did a wonderful study that I’ve mentioned before in this blog: she offered one group of people samples of six different jams available for purchase while she offered another group 24 different jams, including the six jams offered to the first group.

With all that choice you’d think the group offered the 24 jams would be more likely to purchase one. But it’s the opposite. Those in the six-jam group were ten times more likely to actually purchase a jar of jam.

The more numerous our options, the more difficult it becomes to choose a single one, and so we end up choosing none at all. That’s what happens when we have too many things to do. We become overwhelmed and don’t do any of them.

Over the past few days, I’ve tried a lot of different things to escape this conundrum, and here’s what worked for me:

First, spend a few minutes writing down everything you have to do on a piece of paper. Resist the urge to use technology for this task. Why? I’m not sure, but somehow writing on paper — and then crossing things out — creates momentum.

Second, spend 15 minutes — no more — knocking out as many of the easiest, fastest tasks as you can. Make your quick phone calls. Send your short emails. Don’t worry about whether these are the most important tasks on your list. You’re moving. The goal is to cross off as many items as possible in the shortest time. Use a timer to keep you focused.

Third, when 15 minutes are up, turn off your phone, close down all the windows on your computer, and choose the most daunting thing on your list, the one that instills the most stress or is the highest priority. Then work on it and only it — without hesitation or distraction — for 35 minutes.

After 35 minutes, take a break for 10 minutes and then start the hour-long process over again, beginning with the 15 minutes of quick actions.

“Thirty years ago,” Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird By Bird, “my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

That’s it. Bird by bird, starting with a bunch of easy birds to help you feel accomplished and then tackling a hard one to gain serious traction and reduce your stress level. All timed.

Working within a specific and limited time frame is important because the race against time keeps us focused. When our stress is generalized, it’s diffuse, which makes it hard to manage. Using a short time frame actually increases the pressure but it keeps our effort specific, and particular to a single task. That increases good, motivating stress while reducing negative, disconcerting stress. So the fog of overwhelm dissipates and forward movement progresses.

In practice, I’m finding that while I make myself work at least the full 35 minutes, I don’t always stop when the 35 minutes of hard work is over because I’m in the middle of something — like writing this post — and I have traction. But, though it’s tempting, I don’t go over the 15 minutes of easy, fast work. When the timer stops, so do I, immediately transitioning to the hard work.

Maybe this has been working simply because it’s novel for me and, like a new diet, offers some structure to motivate my effort. For me though, today, it doesn’t matter because it’s a useful tool. And I’ll keep using it until I don’t need it or it stops working.

Am I still stressed? Sure. But overwhelmed? Much less so. Because I’m crossing things off my list, feeling myself getting somewhere on my little tasks and my big ones, bird by bird.

About the Author

Peter Bregman speaks, writes, and consults on leadership. He is the CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm, and the author of Point B: A Short Guide To Leading a Big Change.

(Via HBR)

Business, Communication, Leadership development, Managing yourself, Stress, Time management

With the 2010 holiday season coming, all the companies in the technology market are gearing up to capture their market share. What’s on your holiday shopping list this year?

If you’re anything like the millions and millions of web users around the world, you might be thinking of purchasing a smartphone, a tablet, a gaming consol or a few other geeky essentials for your friends and loved ones — or even for yourself.

According to data from Hitwise Intelligence, a web and search analysis firm, what we search and browse for leading up to the end-of-the-year holidays has a strong correlation to what we actually buy, both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. This kind of information, while invaluable to retailers and marketers, is also fascinating to us as gadget geeks.

We took a look at market share and web traffic stats from the last week of August; here’s a breakdown of how pre-holiday stats stack up for the most popular consumer electronics products:

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Apple Is on a Roll

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With major releases throughout the year, Apple’s new iPhone 4, iPad and revamped line of iPods are guaranteed to show strong holiday shopping numbers. This brand grabbed five of the top 20 spots in consumer electronics-related markets for the month of August alone — that amounts to 42.1%.

Most of this attention centers on the iPhone, which launched a new fourth-gen model over the summer, and iPad, which hasn’t stopped making headlines since its debut this spring.

But a healthy amount of consumer interest is also focused on Apple’s new iPods. Many of these bite-sized devices hold more data than ever before and are priced to sell. The iPod shuffle sells for $49, and the new touchscreen, iOS-powered iPod nano starts at $149.

The company also refreshed its MacBook Pro line this year.

In other words, as a hardware manufacturer, Apple had a gangbusters year, rolling out product after product, some of which are entirely new. It would be fatuous to think Apple wouldn’t have an equally gangbusters holiday retail showing.

Still, we’ve been keeping an eye on Android OS’ not-so-slow advance in the mobile market. While this multi-manufacturer platform has a somewhat fragmented set of devices and release dates, we are hearing rumors, “trumors” and verified reports of several exciting, holiday-timed launches. Samsung’s Tab, for example, is an Android-powered tablet that is set to launch later this fall on all four U.S. wireless carriers.

The bottom line is that although Apple is the heavyweight to beat in terms of hardware and gadgets, there’s still plenty of room for other manufacturers and retailers to succeed this holiday season.

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Games and Gadgets Make Great Gifts

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By far and away, the two most dominant verticals in consumer electronics will be gadgets and gaming.

Gaming consoles as well as the games themselves are generating a huge amount of interest with consumers, and many companies are planning on holiday launches.

Microsoft’s Xbox is taking the lion’s share of consumer interest right now, we feel due in large part to the upcoming launch of Kinect, its controller-free interaction system. Several Mashable staffers got some hands-on (or rather, hands-off) time with Kinect during a visit to Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters; to say we were impressed would be a huge understatement. Kinect’s hardware is priced to sell at $150, and the Kinect bundle will be available to shoppers beginning November 4.

As far as non-Apple gadgets are concerned, HTC’s Desire and Samsung’s Galaxy S line are both performing well. One product that took us by surprise was the Kymera Magic Wand, a gestural remote control that’s half Avatar, half Harry Potter. It’s been available for some time and sells for around $78 (£49.95).

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What Are Your Predictions?

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So, what’s topping your shopping list (and your wish list) for the 2010 holidays so far? Are you enamored of the new Droids? Are you eyeing the reduced-price Kindles? What games, gadgets and software are most interesting to you right now, and which do you think would make the best gifts?

Let us know in the comments what consumer electronics products are piquing your interest right now, and be sure to give us your holiday 2010 predictions, as well.

(Via Mashable)

Apple, Gadgets, Games, Holiday Shopping, iPad, iPhone, ipod touch, Software

Charging, Energy, Mobile Phone, Mobile Phones, Technology, Technology news