Comments

Tom,

Vista and Office 2007 are supposed to be a WOW projects - remember!? Maybe they'll take another of your ideas and "reward excellent failures" and give the Vista/Office 2007 creators medals, ribbons and what have you...

I love - absolutely love your book "Re-imagine". My only regret is that I didn't buy it sooner - like when it first came out.

The story:
1) I downloaded and read your powerpoints over the last year or so
2) I went to the library and read your little summaries of Re-imagine - specially the one on design - and was hooked
3) And decided to reward my persistence by buying your book

And I loved it...

There was this old saying by someone
"When Cicero finished speaking, people said - OH how well he spoke. When Demosthenes finished speaking, people said - Let's march..."

You certainly have been my Demosthenes. I'm going to do two things now (WOW projects...)
1) Re-imagine Arun Consulting - my little one man shop
2) Re-imagine Capgemini - the company whose salary payments allow me to bootstrap Arun Consulting

Thanks a billion... and if you turn up in the Netherlands, do let me know.. It'd be awesome to meet you.

Warm regards

Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at June 13, 2007 2:59 PM

Even though I am still a Mac guy, Vista is the best OS Microsoft has put out since 3.1 (which was actually pretty stable). Give Office 2007 a little time. I wasn't sure about the giant ribbon across the top of the screen, but once I found all the commands I use, I like it a lot better than the past versions.

The best part of this thread . . . Arun's concluding paragraph! I am going to go re-imagine my little one man shop and the company that supports my bootstrapping! Thanks, Arun.

Posted by S. Anthony Iannarino at June 13, 2007 3:24 PM

This is why I think you are so brilliant! Every once in a while you let us see into who you are at heart. Enjoy your time at the farm and I will eagerly await your next post. Amen.

Deputy Chief of Missions for Consulting Excitement
Elwanda Bennett (secret Office 2007 training offered in my upstairs den in Houston - free to you of course)

Posted by Elwanda Bennett at June 13, 2007 8:53 PM

With all those miles covered I sincerely hope you are carrying out carbon offseting?

Posted by mike at June 14, 2007 1:59 AM

Tom: I have a question. You've posted often about unreliable Windows hardware and issues with MicroSoft. Given that there are now plenty of alternatives (Mac, Linux etc) what makes you keep buying into Windows?

There's something odd about the leading advocate of excellence putting up with all this MS Nonsense...

Posted by Mark JF at June 14, 2007 6:29 AM

For the physical self, a good book for guidance in rejuvenating an aging body with some worm parts is Nicholas DiNublie and William Patrick's "Frameworks: Your seven-step program for healthy muscles, bones and joints". It has a self-test that identifies the problems spots in strength, endurance, balance and flexibility of the major joint and muscle systems and provides "work arounds" to avoid further damaging trouble spots. It is the only applied physical therapy book of this nature that I've found.

Posted by JMG3Y at June 14, 2007 8:48 AM

Just between you, me and the gatepost, a linux distribution such as Ubuntu (version 7.04) will run as a live CD, so you can safely have a go. If you use the 'Install' Icon, it will install very easily.

OpenOffice.org has all the office facilities you will want, and is non proprietary (Open Source). It also can save in OpenDocument international standard format.

You have been a great source of inspiration in our family in recent years, thank you. I hope my comments may now also help you.

Posted by alan cocks at June 14, 2007 12:46 PM

Tom you have obviously been on the plane too much and missed all those great Mac/PC commercials, you sound bloated and uncomfortable like PC, have an Apple, relax on the farm and become even more creative.

Posted by TJW at June 14, 2007 3:04 PM

Step 1: Enjoy your time off; that's an order! You've done enough for others for a while.

Step 2: When it's time to pick up the traces again, do check out OpenOffice.org. I started an experiment over a year ago to see if I could switch from MS Office to OO.o without impacting my clients. I didn't announce it; I just did it.

In the ensuing time, I've not heard a single client complaint, and I've only had to resort to MS Office for a very small handful of documents where their formatting didn't work when I tried to view it. I like Write much better than Word (check out their "styles"), I like Draw better than, well, MS doesn't have an alternative, I like Base better than Access, and I find I like Calc and Impress (their Powerpoint equivalent) about the same as the MS tools.

Unless something changes, I'm not going back. I have added http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/ to my daily blog review, though, to get bite-sized tips on using OO.o more effectively.

Step 3: Make a note to think about blogging and writing again in about 5 weeks, and then don't think about it in the interim. When I worked in Europe, my colleagues would say you needed to take at least 3 contiguous weeks for vacation: 1 to decompress, 1 for enjoyment and recreation, and 1 to prepare to come back to work. Enjoy that you have a few more for the middle phase.

Posted by Bill Harris at June 14, 2007 7:17 PM

We all need some rest from time to time. It just amazed me to see so many marketers asking for a break in the last month or so... Is something in the air or we just had a difficult period.
( I'm also in a ..time-out period. I even closed my main blog).
Take care and relax.. world will still go on without us :)

Posted by Madalin Matica at June 15, 2007 12:50 AM

Re the Windows comments - On 27 December 2006, Tom wrote : "I plan to RTM—return to Mac—in 2007."
That was a great idea then and is still a great idea today. Go for it, Tom!

Posted by Norman Towler at June 15, 2007 12:16 PM

Time to get a mac Tom.

It's a holiday in itself! + you'll love the instant creativity.

I suggest the new mac book pro - It's a love mark of mine.

3

Posted by andy at June 18, 2007 3:29 AM

Tom:

I have just went over to the Mac side after 28 years as a pc guy. I was sucked in by the iPod I got for Xmas, figuring if they could design something that well and make it that cool then they deserved another look on the computer front. The nub - should have made the switch years ago. I am so impressed with what Apple has done I'm well on my way to being a customer evangelist. (hint: I even put an apple logo on my car today!)

Posted by Walter White at June 18, 2007 1:04 PM

I absolutely agree with you, Tom. It has taken me far longer than three days to get used to Office 2007 and I do wonder if it was worth the effort.

Why does Microsoft need change software that millions of people around the world were quite happy with? It is even worse when they remove such things as the ability to export contacts from Outlook 2007!!!!!!!!!

What happened to asking the customer's opinion first? Ah, but of course Microsoft knows best!

Posted by Nigel Adams at June 20, 2007 10:13 AM

It's kinda weird how we folks in this community usually agree that innovation, creativity, change, development, moving on etc are all Very Good Things and how standing still is just a recipe for disaster. But then we routinely deride MicroSoft for not standing still, for moving on etc etc...!!!

Posted by Mark JF at June 20, 2007 4:18 PM

You and I finally agree on something Mark :-) Soon you will be a fan of Man United.

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 20, 2007 5:35 PM