Videos

Video: Merlin's New Time & Attention Talk

Merlin Mann — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:39:27 -0500

Macworld ‘08: Merlin Mann / “Living with Data”

Last month, I premiered a new presentation at Macworld San Francisco 2008 called “Living with Data” (previously). Since this talk was part of the “Vision” track, I used the opportunity to start gathering some threads around the idea of time and attention that had been floating around my head for a while (I think you can see the genesis of some of this stuff in my IDEO visit).

The IDG folks were kind enough to post a movie of my slides + the audio. Unfortunately a lot of folks were having trouble getting to the page (it doesn’t appear to have a permalink), so here’s a Flash version you can watch from right here:

N.B.: The first slide is white; the video is fine, and you are not tripping. Presumably.

As I say, this was the first edition of a talk that’s already starting to evolve rather quickly. The slides are available at Slideshare, and you can yoink yourself an embeddable version right here:

Thanks to Paul Kent and Kathy Moran at IDG for being such wonderful hosts. And very special thanks to Mike Monteiro (and his now-famous meeting tokens) for inspiring the talk in the first place.

Addendum: Related links (to stuff mentioned in this talk)

Meeting Tokens & “The Red Merlin” by Mike Monteiro
Mule Design’s “Feed Store” - Those awesome shirts (and, eventually, where you can buy your own meeting tokens)
Evidence Based Scheduling - Joel on Software - “A schedule is a box of wood blocks.”
New College of Florida - Merlin’s alma mater [which would never in a million years admit him today], where you don’t actually get credit for doing macramé. As far as I know.
Inbox Zero posts and free video - Merlin’s popular posts and talk on dealing with high-volume email
Merlin’s IDEO visit - Popular video from my talk with Scott Underwood at the storied design firm’s Palo Alto HQ
The Now Habit - Excellent book on procrastination
Getting Things Done - Merlin’s favorite book on personal productivity
The Sullivan Nod - Would you like some cheesecake? Yeessssss…
Opportunity Cost - If you do this, then you can’t do that.
Defensive driving - “Its aim is to reduce the risk of driving by anticipating dangerous situations, despite adverse conditions or the mistakes of others.”
Peter Drucker - “Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909–November 11, 2005) was a writer, management consultant and university professor.”
Neckbeard - “Also known as a Scarf, Trevor or Throatee. Pejoratively, a beard grown to hide a double chin.”
Andrea Bocelli - “Andrea Bocelli (born 22 September 1958) is an Italian operatic pop tenor and a classical crossover singer who has also performed in operas.”
Walter Sobchak and entering a world of pain. - “Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. “
Merlin Mann: Speaking - Sure, you can hire Merlin to speak to your group. Here’s how.

”Video: Merlin's New Time & Attention Talk” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 14, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Macworld Expo '08: Merlin talks with the makers of 1Password

Merlin Mann — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:28:57 -0500

Aha! Embeddable video for a third MacBreak interview at Macworld ‘08 has turned up — this one’s with Dave Teare at Agile Web Solutions, makers of 1Password.

As we discuss in the video, I’m really looking forward to seeing 1Password’s secure password bookmarklet for iPhone.

MacBreak: Macworld 2008/Agile Web Solutions

And, as a bonus — just so Dave can catch up with his some of his countrymen’s peerless pop music — here’s videos of three of my favorite Canadian bands.

Flashing Lights / “Highschool”

Sloan / “The Good in Everyone”

Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shoreline)

”Macworld Expo '08: Merlin talks with the makers of 1Password” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 22, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Macworld Expo '08: Merlin visits with Panic, Agile Web Solutions, and James from New Jersey

Merlin Mann — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:52:25 -0500

Macworld Expo wouldn’t be the same for me if I didn’t have the chance to hit the floor and talk to the kids for MacBreak.

This year, I returned to Tiny Town to talk to my new internet boyfriends, Cabel and Steven, at Panic, Dave Teare from my beloved 1Password, as well as the charming James from New Jersey who says he doesn’t want to punch Steve Jobs, no matter what.

MacBreak 121: Macworld 2008/Panic Software

Merlin Mann chats with Cabel and Steven from Panic Software.

MacBreak 123: Macworld 2008/Jersey guy

Merlin Mann chats with James from Jersey about flying, beverages, and theoretically punching Steve Jobs.

(I couldn’t find embeddable video of my interview with Dave from 1Password, but you can download ‘er directly)

”Macworld Expo '08: Merlin visits with Panic, Agile Web Solutions, and James from New Jersey” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 20, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Best of: Our Favorite Videos

Merlin Mann — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:05:24 -0500

Back at work killing time? Sure you are. After all, it’s nationwide “Thumb up your butt” week, right? You bet it is.

So, from the archives of 43 Folders (and the on-hiatus Merlin Show), here’s four of my favorite videos of stuff I’ve done. Hope you like ‘em.

“Inbox Zero” Google Tech Talk

58 minute presentation at Google’s Mountain View campus; July 23, 2007
(original post)

It’s amazing to me that this little fellow has now been watched 213,000 times (If you’re counting, that’s over 23 person-years of viewing time. yikes.)

Anyhow, I really like how this turned out, and it’s been very cool to hear how many people this has turned on to the idea of doing something more responsible with their email.

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Interview: Jonathan Coulton

10-minute interview with internet troubadour, Jonathan Coulton
original post

I conducted this interview with the wonderful Jonathan Coulton right around the time I found out I was going to become a father. Have to say that, given my mood at the time, I found what he had to say inspirational.

I’d love to catch up with Jonathan again some time and see if his email mojo has gotten any more satisfying for him since we talked.

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Merlin Show Interview: Jeffrey Veen

16-minute interview with Google’s Jeff Veen
original post

Jeff’s been a swell pal and great guy to work with (I managed projects for him back in the day). In this particular instance, Jeff’s insight into how to move aside the BS and get to the kernel of things is not to be missed.

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IDEO “Know How” Talk

1-hour conversation at IDEO’s Palo Alto campus; September 9, 2007
(original post)

Sure, I was high on the Theraflu, but this gave me the chance to talk about the idea that’s most got my attention right now: “How do we deal with the lack of scarcity in our electronic world?”

Many thanks to my pals at bOING bOING for putting this on lots of people’s radar screens. Much appreciated.

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”Best of: Our Favorite Videos” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 27, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Merlin at IDEO: "Know How" Talk with Scott Underwood

Merlin Mann — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:06:47 -0400

Scott Underwood from IDEO was kind enough to invite me down to their Palo Alto HQ for a tour of the renowned design group (they designed Apple’s first mouse!) and to participate with him in one of the company’s internal “Know How” talks. It was very informal (and — because this was during my recent “100-year sinus infection” — I was completely high on cold medicine).

We talked about Getting Things Done, life hacks, knowledge work, nostalgia for scarcity, and the problem of getting addicted to productivity advice, among many other topics. This one’s a tour de force.

Video runs about an hour, and yes: I am wearing a handsome Big Lebowski tshirt. Abide.

Click To Play

Mea culpa — this was an intimate little gathering held for the benefit of those in the room and wasn’t intended as a for-video talk show shoot. So audience members’ questions were not recorded on-mic. Apologies for you not being able to hear them, but I think you’ll mostly catch the gist.

Many thanks to Scott Underwood for inviting me in and for hosting the talk, and thanks also to Eric Stangarone, who shot the video and who was kind enough to permit me to share this with you guys, as well. Awesome company. Great people.

Update 2007-10-09 08:14:45 PST

Oooo…almost forgot — alternative media formats (thanks, Blip!)

”Merlin at IDEO: "Know How" Talk with Scott Underwood” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 09, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Clever "Real Life Quicksilver" video

Merlin Mann — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:27:36 -0400

Very fun video by Matt McInerney — what it would be like if Quicksilver came to life outside your Mac. I sure like it better than living in a YouTube thread.

Quicksilver in Real Life from Matt McInerney on Vimeo.

[via: tumbl.us]

”Clever "Real Life Quicksilver" video” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 23, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

gDocs and Apple would taste great together

Merlin Mann — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 13:23:05 -0400

I’ve become an ardent Google Documents fan over the past few months — especially as its support for Safari has improved (didn’t say perfect; just improved). I use it for collaborating with clients and 43f guest authors, as well as for managing small projects and keeping various small teams organized. Personally, I find it simpler than a wiki and a lot more powerful than using a static .doc.

My favorite use right now is to use a single shared document as a common space that 4 or 5 people have access to and that they can use to give each other to-dos, ask questions, etc. I know stuff like Basecamp does this better and certainly with more sophisticated features, but I’m really attracted to the simplicity of the one-document approach — especially for informal, remote teams.

I think my gDocs cincher was the first time that it occurred to me to see if I could even look at my documents on my iPhone; I was gob-smacked to see that it actually worked. Obviously it’s not optimal for doing lots of editing, but you can see and perfunctorily edit your documents without a laptop, and that’s just pretty mind-blowing to me.

As I’m wont to blather on about on MacBreak Weekly, I just can’t rid myself of the suspicion that Apple and Google will eventually formalize a relationship around the suite of Google tools and the iPhone. It just seems like such a great fit — especially if they can work up some kind of conduit for .Mac syncing that lets you keep everything humming along without manual updating. The idea of combining iPhone portability and style with Google ubiquity and power could pose a small but fascinating challenge to conventional big business apps.

Finally, the thing that got me thinking about all this in the first place this morning is this adorable video explaining how gDocs works (thanks, Mike). As far as I’m concerned, there’s just not enough use of string in modern demonstration videos.

”gDocs and Apple would taste great together” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 22, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

If life were like YouTube

Merlin Mann — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:00:33 -0400

Ok, it’s Friday, and the team and me are pooped from several weeks of site-making. No profound tips today. I’ll just leave you to your weekend with a wonderfully timely video.

I’ll confess that the escalating assiness of internet comments was a huge factor in deciding to move to a membership-based site (yeah, I know it’s no panacea, but it sure doesn’t hurt). Said assiness is illustrated beautifully in this video, portraying a world where life is like a YouTube comment thread. Awesome (if very NSFW). Have a great weekend. Pwnd!

”If life were like YouTube” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 21, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"