Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Last week, I wrote a short post to provide a definition of innovation.  By coincidence, a friend had been having a conversation a week or so prior about the difference between innovation and invention.

After giving it some thought, I feel like the distinction rests in the context of the nature of the problem being solved.  More specifically, if the problem already exists or not.

Invention would create a solution to a new problem.  Another way of saying this solution creates a new awareness of a problem that always existed, but wasn’t yet in our consciousness.  (Philosophically, through the concept of reference, we know that the problem existed.  However, until language is created to objectify the problem, the problem does not exist in the context of humanity.)

An innovation would create a new solution to an old problem.

Where this gets unclear is when a solution solves two problems: an old and a new.

An example might be the personal computer.

One old problem (of many) it solved was that of faster processing of information and calculations.  The problem of processing information and calculations has always existed.  Therefore, in this context, the personal computer was an innovation.

One new problem (of many) it solved was that of portable, “soft” copies of information.  Until we had the ability to store information in 1s and 0s, the problem of information transfer was always viewed in the scope of ink and paper.  With 1s and 0s, information was now viewed entirely differently.  Problem created, problem solved.  The nature of information storage completely changed.  Thus, the nature of invention.

It’s no secret that I like to figure out ways to automate the work that I do.  It’s valuable and, often, it can be even more effective.

A tool I just came across to do this in Windows is AutoIT.  It’s completely free and very powerful.

In 3 hours, I was able to learn how to program it (which is easy if you have any programming experience…I’m a pretty bad programmer), then write a custom piece of code that will run certain reports and data gathering for me.

Previously, I had to do this by hand and could run about 6-10 of these a day at about 60-80% accuracy.  This consumed approximately an hour a day.

Now, I’ll be running one every hour, constantly, totaling 24 run each day.  Because of the nature of this report, this script takes a little extra time to run each report which will actually increase the accuracy and effectiveness to 95%-100%.  In addition, since I don’t have to manage it, I gain an hour a day by not having to run this report manually.  Considering that I usually run these 5 days a week, and now I can run them 7 days a week, I was producing about 40 of these reports a week, and I’ll now be producing 168 a week.

So, I’m able to produce this information at 400%+ higher rate that I produced before, at a 25%-60% greater accuracy, and I gain an hour a day to spend on other things.  To say that I’ve quadrupled my productivity by doing this would be reasonable.

Considering that my time investment was about 3 hours of time, or three days of work with the previous method, my investment is recouped within 24 hours.

Automate your tasks.  If you don’t know how to, make friends with the guy in the back office that no one talks to.  Talk to him about the things that you do over, and over, and over, and over, and chances are that he has a solution.  If he doesn’t, he’s likely to want to figure one out for you.  “Those guys” thrive on solving problems.  Just ask nicely, appreciate his help, and if he asks you to do something (like wait a few days for him to get back to you, or whatever), respect his request.

If you’re doing the same thing over and over.  Stop it, and find another solution.

For various reasons, I’m updating Nuudl.com now, instead of here.

So, be sure to head over there, and subscribe for updates!

Take the money you’d spend on a fax machine, and put it into an online fax service, such as eFax, and invest in a piece of software to….

Insert your own signature.

With this combination, I haven’t needed a fax machine in years.

All you have to do is take a good picture of your signature (preferably black ink on white paper), convert the image to black and white, and trim it.

Once you have that signature image file, save it somewhere you’ll remember.

I use PDFPen on my MacBook Pro to insert the image and “fill out” forms to fax in.  Once the necessary changes are made, the PDF file is loaded into eFax and sent.

If you receive an MS Word Doc, just use OpenOffice to save it as a PDF before editing in PDFPen.

So. Easy.

One less piece of machinery and waste, more accessibility, and more flexibility.

Even if everything screws up, take it to Kinkos or a friend.  But that’s extremely rare.  If you need something scanned, lots of places (Kinkos, Staples, etc) will do that for you and get you the PDF.

It’s a pretty easy decision.