Eric Mack On-Line

The LEGO Mountaineers are getting ready to go to the U.S. FIRST State Competitions. I challenged the team that if they could get a perfect 400 score I would take everyone out for fresh doughnuts at the Bear Claw Bakery. They have been practicing for weeks, doing everything they could to optimize their robot, tighten the programming source code, and rehearse all movements to shave off a few seconds wherever possible. It's very rare for a team to achieve a perfect 400 score, in fact we used to think it was impossible. Inspired by The Flying Geeks, the kids learned that it was possible and set their sights on a perfect four hundred score in 2.5 minutes.

Next stop: The Bear Claw bakery, then the State Competition. If they win that, they will go to the Nationals. Their goal is to win the nationals and get invited to the White House!

The team has been working hard for months. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do at the competition and to celebrating their accomplishment with them.

Some of my readers may know that I have been working to create the Ultimate GTD Implementation tool for Lotus Notes. Well, the past few months have been filled with accomplishment.

The eProductivity Beta is done.
I am now conducting workgroup pilots.
We completed the eProductivity Beta earlier this month and we are now deep into the eProductivity workgroup pilot program. This is where I work with productivity-minded individuals and workgroups to show them how to use eProductivity to get things done, using Lotus Notes.  The feedback has been excellent. Most surprising is how many people - even those with little or no awareness of David Allen's GTD methodology are able to quickly pick up and use the many eProductivity features we have created.  That's my definition of a successful productivity tool!

There seems to be a real need to a way to quickly and easily link actions, emails, and calendar entries to projects - all of which we do quite well.

I plan to keep things under wraps (e.g. I'm holding off on the web site launch) for a while longer so that I can focus on the workgroup pilot and collect the valuable feedback that our pilot program members have been so generous to share. No need for the distraction of a public launch until I'm really ready to open the flood gates. Already, it's daunting to keep up with the requests from people that want to join the eProductivity pilot program. (If you have a productivity-minded team of 10-15 people that are serious about getting things done with Lotus Notes, let me know. I have a few more slots for groups I can work with.)

I'm on an Internet diet, and it's working
In an effort to keep my easily-distracted brain on-task, I have temporarily eliminated all non-purpose-specific Internet web surfing and Internet news from my daily diet and reducing my RSS consumption to a few key sites just a few times a week. It's given me an amazing productivity boost.

So, great things on the horizon. I'll be back, to my blogging in February - unless my children's robotics team wins the state competition, in which case I'll be back, as a proud father, to share their accomplishment.

I've been head-down, working hard with the eProductivity deployment team, so no blogging for 2008 yet.

This video it too good not to share. From CES this week...
(via: James Kendrick)