I’m in the Q&A session, so I can type a bit now. I would recommend everyone to go see him speak; he’s a very powerful, charismatic speaker. I haven’t seen his movie yet, but given the way he injects current events and and uses impromptu wit, I think a recording would be a reasonable, but imperfect solution.

I went into the event, I was wondering if Mr. Gore was being lauded on the back of signifcant preparation and research. Clearly it is not, especially seen in his handling of questions, some of them doozies.

I think the world would have been much better and interesting if he had been President. I can see why so many people would like to see him run again.

[Updated 2007/04/29 19:50] To be clear, watching Al Gore present is interesting as an experience on two levels. One is as part of the audience, being convinced by a well polished presentation. The other level is watching an experienced speaker manipulate and move people, to handle unexpected questions, etc; dissecting his style basically. The latter was probably the more interesting for me.

Ending up with that Ford Mustang was easily the most enjoyable rental experience I’ve ever had. Zipcar even refunded me the difference between the Mustang and Civic rental costs! And the car had… 94 km on the odometer!

Saturday the 21st was the first gorgeous weekend for Toronto this year, with strong sunlight, blue skies, and a light breeze. I had plenty of excuse to drive the car as I did my part in helping out with the wedding. A more accurate picture of what I had is below:

I have better pictures including the occupants on my flickr site, as part of my non-public pictures.

I totally understand the lure of a convertible now. Responsive to the gas and wheel, some noise and rumble for show, and the sun above and wind through the hair… And of course, looking the part with dark shades and lovely passsenger!

The wedding was enjoyable, too. No, really, I enjoyed it a lot, but that’s for another post.

I have a wedding to go to today, so I booked with ZipCar for a car - a Honda Civic. This morning, I wake up to read an email that I’ve reserved a Mustang Convertible. I’m stuck with it, as it’s passed the cancellation period, and I’m a little annoyed it’ll cost me almost twice as much for the day - but I’ve never driven a Mustang before. This will be fun.

I’m not sure which is worse: getting a phone call from a telemarketer or automated spam system, or hearing only silence on the other line and an eventual click. It’s a bit frustrating; I’d rather known than not know, even if knowing was unpleasant.

Thanks, DX, for pointing out that it happens a lot in horror movies.  Great…

I’m still small-fry when it comes to the amount of email that flows through my office inbox. However, it has grown to about 80 in and 40 out per day - I’m ~1500/900 for the month of March. Yes, I do real work, too.

Those numbers are almost all normal work email; personal email is almost wholly absent. Like most corporate workers, I use Microsoft Outlook with an Exchange server. I also have a Blackberry that is somewhat to blame for my prolific email habits.

The techniques I use are designed to minimize time spent organizing received emails, finding emails, and deciphering what they were about. They are:

• Set up an Outlook rule that copies all incoming email to an archive folder. I want to archive everything. This helps for CYA situations, but also for trying to remember where I last left off with respect to a person or project.
• Install one of the desktop search engines. MSN Desktop or Google Desktop are the main contenders. I recommend MSN Desktop.
• When dealing with multiple projects, prefix the subject of any email sent out with the project name (or acronym, or other identifying mark).
• Set up an Outlook rule that moves any email from me sent to me to a special folder named “TODO”.
• Take the stance that my primary goal is to get my Inbox down to zero emails. After handling the email, or forwarding it to the next person, or replying with an answer, delete it. If I haven’t dealt with an email yet, leave it in my Inbox as a reminder.

Setting up an archive folder for everything and using a desktop search engine lets you search tens of thousands of emails in seconds, and saves you from manually organizing emails into folders. Searching with a desktop search engine is much faster than searching with Outlook’s built-in search tools - literally 100 times faster if you have lots of emails. The desktop search engines let you search by fragments of what you remember: sent by so-and-so, something about this, I think I sent it to her.

While I like Google Desktop more, from a practical perspective MSN Desktop is better in three ways:

• Can be used by non-Administrator users after installation.
• Has a preview window that displays search result contents as you go over them.
• Keeps track of moved emails, due to archiving or deletion, much better (this is the key difference).

Adding the project name to the email subject (I use “[ Project Name ]“) takes advantage of people behaviour: most people don’t change the email subject, even when they should. Thus emails that I send out have the project name in them, and emails I get back in response will also have the project name in them. This makes it easier to narrow down searches by project.

Most of my work has an initial email that starts it off. I can also depend on my peers to respond to emails that clearly request a response (i.e. they won’t forget) - and if they do forget, a project manager will hound me, at which point I’ll use my desktop search engine to remember who’s holding the ball. My BlackBerry also only synchronizes my Inbox folder and not other email folders.

Thus I use my Inbox to track my short-term work. Emails in my inbox are eithezr unread emails or uncompleted short-term work. If the work is significantly longer or is not that urgent, I forward the email to myself (writing specifically what I need to do in the subject). The “TODO” Outlook rule catches that email, and instead of sending it to my Inbox, sends it to my “TODO” folder. This works better than a task list because many emails come with attachments that I need in order to do my work. Also, with only short-term work in my Inbox, I get better value from my BlackBerry, as short emails are much easier to handle with that device.