To check, use any graphics tool you like, that green and blue are actually the same color.

Via iran.whyweprotest.net

Via Kottke

Web professionals are often expected to be ‘always on’—always working, absorbing information, and honing new skills. Unless our work and personal lives are carefully balanced, however, the physical and mental effects of an ‘always on’ life can be debilitating.

(Via A List Apart.)

‘Can I work remote?’

I cringe. It’s Ian and Ian is a senior engineer. He’s a rock. He gets it done. I never have to ask him twice and, after six years, Ian has every right to ask to work remote. But I’m still freaked because my first thought when anyone asks to work remote is, ‘This fine person is a year away from either quitting or being fired.’ Why? Because they’re asking to leave the Pond.

(Via Rands In Repose.)

A new study in the April 2009 issue of Journal of Consumer Research reveals that our purchasing decisions are susceptible to the influence of external descriptions. When we shop, we may spend too much when we base our decisions on product specifications.

The researchers found that ‘even when consumers can directly experience the relevant products, and the specifications carry little or no new information, their preference is still influenced by specifications’. In other words, even when we can compare products first-hand, we don’t trust our own judgment. We let specifications influence our decisions.

First-hand experience
I’ve experienced this first-hand many times. I might, for example, be shopping for a new blender and find a model that I really like. It does what I need and is easy to use. It matches our kitchen and the price is right. But then I’ll notice that it only has 6 speeds and other models have 8 speeds. Suddenly I’ll second-guess myself and end up buying a different blender — one that I ultimately find less satisfying.

(Via Get Rich Slowly.)

(Via Slashdot.)

…The companies that do best in serving others are those that do best in serving themselves.

(Via Harvard Business.org.)

The curse of any effective task management system is that you get really good at capturing, prioritizing, and executing tasks. To the point that you start to believe that merely completing a task is helping your career. After a solid decade of rampant task management, I realized I needed to augment tasks with a system that would strategically guide and remind me that my job was not to do things, but to remember the interesting words in my title: manager, engineering, and products. That’s what I do.

The solution to being buried in minutia he calls the Trickle List, and it looks like this:

(Via Rands In Repose.)

Psychologists talk about two kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is what drives you to do something regardless of whether you will receive a reward. Why do you spend an hour cleaning the inside of your stove? Nobody looks in there. Your intrinsic motivation compels you to do a thorough job. We all have it — in fact, most people start out with the desire to excel at whatever they do. Extrinsic motivation is the drive to do something precisely because you expect to receive compensation, and it’s the weaker of the two.

The interesting thing, according to psychologists, is that extrinsic motivation has a way of displacing intrinsic motivation. The very act of rewarding workers for a job well done tends to make them think they are doing it solely for the reward; if the reward stops, the good work stops. And if the reward is too low, workers might think, Gosh, this is not worth it. They will forget their innate, intrinsic desire to do good work.

This is all apropos of keeping myself happy. If I can kung fu the inner mule, and keep my eye on what inspires and interests me, then excellence and productivity should be a cinch, no?

Quote is from an interesting article on compensating knowledge workers by Joel Spolsky. Link goes to “Inc. Magazine”.