Christmas is coming. (Although if the shopping centres are anything to go by it arrived in October LAST YEAR … but that is another post). It seems as appropriate a time as any to ponder the idea of giving and receiving.

We have all heard “it is better to give than to receive”. I’ll be honest with you – I am good at giving, but utterly crap at receiving. …

It is official – Vermillion Consulting Pty Ltd has ceased to exist sometime in November 2006 (I just found out!)

I co-founded this company 3 years ago. I resigned in April 2006 when the partnership broke up because of differences in our vision for the future of the company.

Vermillion was a great adventure. And I learnt lots about myself. The time has come to summarise and share these lessons. …

Thomas Carlyle’s response to this question was: “Reform yourself. That way there will be one less rascal in the world.”

Trying to control of influence someone else, to change them to do our bidding, is usually futile. Even if we actually succeed in doing so, the relationship usually suffers for it.

In our daily attempts to get things done, it is inevitable that we find ourselves relying on someone else’s …

While shopping for a new television, I discovered that some retailers are putting actual facsimiles of their paper catalogues online (as opposed to other retailers who have searchable, database driven web catalogues).

While I can understand the cost-saving and ease of repurposing paper-based content with a scanner, the Internet and paper are two completely different media and requires different approaches to ensure usability and legibility.

Legibility is first and foremost my concern. With paper, you get much higher “resolution”; with type remaining legible at down to 4 points in size. By way of comparison, Word’s default font size is 12 points. You can also see the entire page on paper, whereas you will likely need to scroll to see the same amount of info on a screen.

Here’s my first take after reading Good Business and Flow on how to design work to better facilitator flow.

Think back to when you were last in flow –when you were engaging in your favourite hobby, and time just flew and you felt like a new person after.

Set clear goals – from the objective (number of units inspected) to the emotive (feeling motivated and respected …

Our brains are very good at supporting and bolstering our ingrained beliefs and perceptions of the world. Left to its own devices, it dutifully filters all the incoming information and stimuli to present only what supports our current worldview.

For example – I may be freely giving my attention, energy and time away to everyone and anyone because deep down inside I do not believe anyone would pay …

We use marketing and PR to influence how people perceive us. We create profiles and elevator speeches. Knowing how people perceive you is always interesting. That’s why we seek out feedback on our marketing material.

It is useful to know how you come across to people; but such insights should not be relied upon as absolute gauges to base your actions upon. You cannot count on marketing and PR …

Saw this ad in a catalogue:
Colour laser printer, 22ppm mono and 5ppm colour. 32Mb RAM, 17s to first page, 600×600 dpi, network ready, USB, parallel.

4 new toner cartridges = $954
New printer (including 4 cartridges) = $799
Difference = $155

Hey, I may as well buy 2 printers instead of a printer and a spare set of cartridges. That way, I have a spare printer the cat can use! And when …

The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Laurence J. Peter made it up in his book The Peter Principle in 1968.

If a person is good at his job, he will be promoted. Eventually, he will reach a position where he is no longer competent to do the job.

I have seen this happen in design studios where a …

My toothbrush broke the other day when I was interstate. It simply won’t turn off. So it went into my check-in luggage merrily whirling away.

I spent the flight planning when to return it to the shop, what I would say, wondering if it was still under warranty, where the receipt was, and given the charger was working would it be a shame to return that or should I …