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Submitted by juliahhavener on
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...a thank you to Mark and Mike for their relentless pursuit of our betterment. A sincere wish for happy holidays of all types to everyone in this community.

I am off to the airport to pick up the prodigal son, and have taken the next week (and a half!) off of work to spend with my spouse, my three children, and my family.

Manager tools? I've finished reading Getting Things Done and have most things in order at the office (still a few things to finish up) and my home desk now has a DESKTOP! I've cemented my first mentoring relationship, and I'm very excited about it. I start back to school the second week of January. And...I should come back to the office in time to interview for a position that will officially take me into the leadership team with my company.

2007 is looking to be a year rife with opportunity and I'm looking forward to it immensely. Thank you, Mark and Mike, without your work, it probably wouldn't be looking so bright.

What am I missing? RSS feed reader for news/periodicals. I know I heard a specific recommendation on one of the member-only podcasts, and I listened to the one I thought it was in and cannot find it. What do you use? What do you read?

Julia

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Julia-

Thanks for the kind words! Sorry this took so long.

I use NewsGator's Outlook Inbox, so stuff shows up in Outlook like emails. I can either read them as mails, or there is a folder in Outlook that displays them much like other stand alone readers do.

My reader file is pretty narrow. Other than all the Manager Tools places I have to keep up with, I pay attention to a couple of other blogs, and some WSJ newsfeeds. I just don't get a lot of new information from blog reading.

Mark

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Julia,

I have found that a personalized Google Homepage allows me to aggregate the on-line news sources which I regularly read (WSJ.com, CNN.com, Business Week, and some local & national newspapers) along with the blogs I do read using Google Reader all into one portal.

My Google Reader pulls RSS feeds from the Manager Tools Forums, Manager Tools Blog, some specific topical blogs (Lean, Manufacturing & Marketing) and one or two general interest blogs.

Now, granted I don't travel much so I don't have to worry about mobile access to feeds or having it delivered to my inbox.

Happy New Year!

G.R.

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Thanks, both of you! I don't use Outlook on this pc; I'll check into google's setup!

Julia

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Thanks to GR's reminder, I can add that for my Treo, I also use a Palm RSS feed reader called QuickNews that is really brilliant. I get all my feeds on my palm.

I don't generally respond from my phone - though I could open the browser and do so pretty easily. I simply use it to pay attention when I have time. You might think that my use is a bit different, insofar as I am looking for obligations - that is, if someone posts here, I'm often the one responding. BUT, I don't actually respond... I just use it to allow myself to think about whatever is posted - sometimes for several hours before I can light up my laptop and actually post. This early warning use works very well for me. And, the stuff I do read on it is simple and fast.

No, it doesn't sync with my NewsGator Outlook reader. I think that might be nice, but we're only talking maybe 500 feed posts a day (on a busy day), so it's not hard to remember. Sometimes I mess up, but it's a non-event.

I am thinking about expanding my RSS usage... but the issue for me is quality of content. If I could get my client managers' schedules and schedule changes fed to me... THAT would be brilliant. (And no need to suggest something like Airset that allows rss reading of someone's online calendar - I already use that, but would never do so with/for a client).

Mark

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I think quality of content is the big reason I haven't used (felt the need for) one to date. However, I've heard several mentions of good information I want to be better at keeping up on. It seems several of those come in RSS feeds as an option that would be pretty valuable for me.

I'm about due for a phone upgrade, too. I think in my next phone I'll be looking for better browsing/rss ease of use.

So, Mark, how's the book coming?

Julia

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Book's done.

Mark

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Getting such positive results today! Availability of the set of interview podcasts? I'm staring down the possibility of not one, but two major interviews in the next couple of weeks, I'd dearly love to have the wisdom before them.

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Oops! Sorry, but not in the next couple of weeks.

Mark

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[quote="mahorstman"]Book's done.

Mark[/quote]

I really need to stop reading feeds in traffic. This little two word answer almost caused an accident when I saw it.

Put me down for a bunch. As in more than two but probably less than 50 (for now!)

Congrats on finishing the book. Can you get us out of the dark now? Do you have a publisher? Are you self publishing? Can we buy an original, signed manuscript? Do I get to play you in the movie?

Yeah that last one went a little too far. Consider me standing by waiting to melt my corporate Amex with purchases of the book.

Mark Polino

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I will NOT self publish, and have spoken with editors.

Patience... the publishing business's processes are taking over.

Mark

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[quote="mahorstman"]Oops! Sorry, but not in the next couple of weeks.

Mark[/quote]

Ah, well, it was worth asking. Luckily, my supervisor is very good at interviewing and being interviewed and has already said she intends to make sure I'm ready for this. I did watch the Kellogg presentation and definitely intend to go for a solid close, too.

This year is shaping up to be interesting. If it gets as interesting as it may, I think I'm going to be very grateful to have MT here!

Julia

p.s. While dropping my son off at the airport, I did finally find The World is Flat, so I'm looking forward to reading it.

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Congratulations Mark!

I love your new blogging on the M-T home page.

Happy New Year!