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Emacs Org Mode Customization Survey

Posted: - Modified: | emacs, org

Org Mode is an outlining and TODO tool for Emacs. Except it’s so much more than that, since people have written all sorts of code to make it do way more than an outliner (or even a text editor!) usually does. Seriously, it even has a Sudoku solver. (The code is optional, so you don’t lose memory if you don’t load it.)

If you use Emacs and you haven’t tried out Org Mode yet, check it out.

If you’ve made Org Mode a part of your life, you’ve probably customized lots of little things about it. Please help the developers by submitting the customization survey to Mike McLean!

As discussed a few days ago on this list, Carsten and the other developers are interested in what and how us users are customizing Org mode. This was first done in 2009, so a re-do of the survey is useful as is for how people are using Org now, as well as a comparison to the past.

Carsten provided the function that was used before to collect the raw data and I am working on the data collection and summarization this time around.

I have place the function on Github, https://github.com/SkydiveMike/org-customization-survey
The raw elisp is at: https://raw.github.com/SkydiveMike/org-customization-survey/master/org-customization-survey.el

All you need to do is:
1. Load and eval the function
2. Execute (interactive) org-customization-survey
3. Review the buffer, cleanse for sensitive information if any
4. Email the buffer to mike.mclean@pobox.com (If your Emacs is configured for email, C-c C-c will send)

I’m looking forward to the results, which will most likely be posted to the Org Mode mailing list.

Curious about my Org configuration? Check out my annotated Emacs config.

Quantified Awesome: 116 web resources for Quantified Self

Posted: - Modified: | braindump, quantified

I like reading about other people’s adventures in self-tracking and experimentation. It’s a great way to pick up ideas and connect with other people. There’s Quantified Self, but it has a handful of authors. One morning, I went through twenty pages of search results in order to put together this list for you and me.

(In case you’re curious, it took me a little over two hours to put this together, and Google Chrome hung twice.)

In no particular order…

Blogs that discuss quantified self:

  1. Quantified Self, of course
  2. The Quantified Doctor
  3. Lifestream Blog, Mark Krynsky – QS conference notes
  4. Eric Boyd
  5. Joost Plattel
  6. Sacha Chua: Quantified – my blog =)
  7. Alexandra Carmichael at the Institute of the Future
  8. Ethan Zuckerman‘s QS 2011 conference notes
  9. The Measured Life
  10. The Future of Self-Knowledge
  11. Personal Informatics
  12. Personal Science
  13. Flowing Data: Self-surveillance
  14. Matthew Cornell: The experiment-driven life
  15. Alex Bangs
  16. Thede Technologies
  17. Hallicious
  18. Basis
  19. Eric Blue
  20. Seth’s Blog
  21. Bulletproof Executive
  22. Pioneering Ideas
  23. sen.se
  24. Matt Lucht
  25. Jon Mount Joy
  26. Red 7
  27. Quantter
  28. Neurosky
  29. Radhika
  30. The Decision Tree
  31. Habit Labs
  32. Wellness FX
  33. Where in the World is Ken Snyder?
  34. bsRUBIN
  35. Austin Yoder
  36. Jason Grimes
  37. expsychlab
  38. There Is No Wetware
  39. The Informagician
  40. Opposable Planets
  41. Design Mindfulness
  42. A Rich Life
  43. DIY Health
  44. Just Kiel
  45. Delta Self
  46. Tonic
  47. Track Ignite
  48. Feedblog
  49. Tap Log
  50. Withings
  51. Human Sensing
  52. I Grow Digital

One-offs / blogs that are hard to filter for QS:

  1. Lifehacker: Quantified self
  2. Gizmodo
  3. Jo Writes: Quantified Self
  4. good.is: The Quantified Self: You are your data
  5. Startup Happiness: Agile and lean self-development
  6. Concurring Opinions: The Quantified Self: personal choice and privacy
  7. Gary Wolf on how Quantified Self started
  8. Institute of the Future interview with Gary Wolf on health and self-tracking
  9. The Healthcare Blog: The Quantified Self and the future of health care
  10. Healthcare IT News: Couch potato Quantified Self journey
  11. Technology Review
  12. Big Think
  13. Case Organic: Track your happiness
  14. Sentient Developments: Quantified Self and Paleo
  15. epatients.net: The quantified patient
  16. Wellsphere: Sleep, Zeo, and the Quantified Self
  17. Adrian Short: Waste minimisation and the quantified self
  18. O’Reilly Radar: Quantified Self and personal data
  19. Creative Intelligence
  20. Xconomy
  21. Dream Studies: 9 holistic health apps for the quantified self
  22. Medicine and Technology
  23. Chron: As we measure our lives in greater detail, will our behavior improve?
  24. FT Magazine
  25. Network Cultures: Quantified Self 1: A fragmented analysis
  26. Open Source: Open health and Quantified Self
  27. Make: Self-experimentation unusually effective
  28. iDoneThis
  29. The New York Times: Self-measurement
  30. Kevin Kelly – also self-tracking
  31. Forbes – also adventures in self-surveillance
  32. Wandering Stan: Self-trickery for good
  33. Social Workout: Doh – time to throw away your FitBit?
  34. Double Think: Monitoring and self-monitoring
  35. Connected Health: From couch potato to Quantified Self
  36. Dented Reality: Waking up with Wakemate
  37. Florian Micahelles: Forget about genius – just think about numbers
  38. Sherrard Ewing: Running and the Quantified Self
  39. Reviving the Health Revolution: Seattle Quantified show and tell
  40. Naveenium: Quantified Self 2011
  41. Conversation Agent: The Quantified Self: identity and value
  42. Summer of Smart: Building online communities to improve public health
  43. Huffington Post: Are Self-Tracking Devices the Key to Weight Loss?
  44. Refocuser: The beginner’s guide to self-tracking & analysis
  45. Future Lab: Counting down to the era of the quantified self
  46. Future 2.0: Quantified Self and self-tracking
  47. Bytemarks: Quantified Self 2011
  48. Depression Anxiety Blog: Health Ins Quote
  49. The Ultimate Answer: Quantified Self on happiness
  50. ekivemark: #RainbowButton and Quantified Self
  51. Smithsonian: Me, my data, and I
  52. Homo Competens: Quantified Self experiment with Google+ and 42goals
  53. Design Culture Lab: On measuring ourselves
  54. Mostly Muppet: The Quantified Self
  55. Auto Despair: Self-hacking / life-blogging / quantified-self & “Moodscope”
  56. Rally the Cause: Quantified Self: Changing behavior using data
  57. Josh Simerman: New tools for Quantified Self tracking
  58. Ignatius Bau: First Quantified Self conference
  59. mdoeff: 10 interesting things from HealthCamp SFBay
  60. Samuel Life: Quantified Self – show&tell
  61. Transparency Revolution: The quantified career
  62. Amy Robinson: Self-experiment
  63. Kru Research: Sleep, Zeo, and the Quantified Self
  64. Desperate Sarah: Quantified Self

Quantified Self also posts frequent link roundups, so check them out to find more resources. Have any favourite blogs related to Quantified Self, self-tracking, or experimentation? Please share!

Survey responses for TLE: Remote Presentations That Rock

| ibm, kaizen, learning, presentation, speaking, work

Last year, I gave my Remote Presentations That Rock presentation at the IBM Technical Leadership Exchange. The survey results are finally in!

Dear Sacha Chua,

On behalf of the TLE executive and content management teams, thank you for your significant contribution to the 2009 Technical Leadership Exchange.  Thanks to your efforts, we were able to deliver high quality, business relevant content that supports the strategic development needs of IBM's global technical leadership.

Your active participation in the first-ever virtual TLE is a great example of Leading through Change!   Please accept our congratulations and sincere appreciation.

Following is the feedback received after your presentation

Session ID: LDR-407
Session Title:  Remote Presentations that Rock

Total number of attendees:  108
Total Surveys:  77

Rating Scale:

Value Net Satisfaction Index ranges (applies to questions 1-3 below) Net Impact Index ranges
(applies to questions 4-5 below)
Excellent 85 – 100 60 – 100
Good 75 – 84 50 – 59
Fair 65 – 74 40 – 49
Poor 55 – 64 30 – 39
Very Poor below 55 < 30

1. Value of the content
Total Responses: 77    Net Satisfaction Index Rating: 88.64   (Excellent)
2. Speaker’s ability to deliver the material
Total Responses: 77    Net Satisfaction Index Rating: 94.16   (Excellent)
3. Technology used for this session
Total Responses: 77    Net Satisfaction Index Rating: 91.56   (Excellent)
4. This session will help me achieve my business goals
Total Responses: 77    Net Impact Index Rating: 70.45    (Excellent)
5. This session helped me understand IBM's strategy in this area
Total Responses: 77    Net Satisfaction Index Rating: 61.04    (Excellent)

Organization       
SWG – 16
GBS – 13
Corporate – 7
S&D – 8
ITD – 8
GTS – 7
ISC – 5
STG – 10
MBPS – 2
Research – 1       

IOT/GMT       
North America IOT – 59
LA GMT – 4
NE IOT – 5
ASEAN GMT – 2
GCG GMT – 3
SW IOT – 3       

Tenure (years)       
21+ – 19
6-10 – 18
11-15 – 15
1-5 – 15
16-20 – 9       

Job category       
Software Development & Support – 11
IT Architect – 11
IT Specialist – 18
Project Management – 7
Hardware Development & Support – 6
Other – 7
Technical Services – 4
Consultant – 4
Sales – 3
Project Executive – 3
Research – 1
HR/Learning – 2       

  • Comments and/or suggestions for future activities or topics
    I liked the idea of using a personal avatar in the slides.
    challenge I always face is providing the “technical meat” of the presentation and still keep slides “simple” …
    It's a little distracting that the video and sound are not in sync.
    Great tool and presentation!
    This is great lots of interaction. Thsi is an everyday tool/skill we need. Sachae is so full of energy!
    Very often, we present remotely without a tool. All we have is a phone line and a presentation file which has been distributed.
    I think it was actually well done and helpful. Probably more so to some people. I got the sense it was to help with internal presentations vs customer presentations, and wonder whether a client facing version of this education would be valuable to the IBM team.
    By far the best Presentation I have sen in many years – subject material was right on and Sacha has an engery level when presenting that is engaging and the use of the web cam was brilliant made me feel like we were in the same room!
    Great introduction to Elluminate.  Hopefully Lotus Live will be as robust….
    EXCELLENT Session!!!  Sacha Chua did an awesome job…Her passion was evident throughout her presentation, and her use of technology was fabulous.
    the video was not in sync and thus very distracting .. so I turned it off
    A very good presentation.  The tips provided are not new but can easily be forgotten in the rush of a presentation.   I think the value of this presentation is to re-familiarize the content to the group.  Overall very helpful.
    Can we use the Elluminate instead of LotusLive (Unyte) for remote presentations?  We are told to use Lotus Live for our meetings as it is our technology.
    Thanks.
    My Job Category is People Manager – why isn't that one of the choices on the drop down.
    Loved the interactive response on the opening charts.
    good presentation – not enough tips on how to structure content
    Interesting!
    practice is key, no substitute for that
    Networking at IBM
    Very much enjoyed the presentation.  I had no temptation whatsoever to multi-task!  Thank you and you gave me some great ideas to adapt to my own style.
    This demonstrated an excellent approach to delivering presentations, with many great ideas that would increase the value

Comparing this with my previous survey results for the first TLE talk I gave (I.B.Millennials):

1. Value of the content
87.21 (Excellent) –>  88.64   (Excellent)
2. Speaker’s ability to deliver the material
92.86 (Excellent) –> 94.16   (Excellent)
3. Technology used for this session
70.93 (Fair) –>  91.56   (Excellent)
4. This session will help me achieve my business goals
63.37 (Poor, on previous scale used) –> 70.45    (Excellent)
5. This session helped me understand IBM's strategy in this area
(not previously asked) ->  61.04    (Excellent)

Improvement all around. Following  through on the next steps I identified when reflecting on those presentations in 2008, I worked on my visual communication skills and on identifying concrete next actions. End result: people have been making changes in their presentation style based on my tips! =)

Relentless improvement. Yay!