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Last night was Spring Fling, Aka Comm Prom. It went fairly well, with only one minor incident, and a lot of people having a great time. Net Impact does a great auction where they have students donate items, then they give the proceeds to one or more MBA students who are working this summer on socially responsible work. The theory is that these jobs often pay nothing or far less then students could get elsewhere, and it helps us put students where they want to be going forward, rather then where they can pay the bills from the summer. As you can see below, I took the option of black-tie option, and leveraged it.

If you’re using Mail.app for your school mail, and your school has a default signature, you can still have Mail.app add it for you. Copy it from one of your emails and go to the mail menu, then preferences. Select the Signatures tab, and then the account name you used (mine is Smith). Then just click the plus and paste in your signature. Again, I’ll post pictures later.

Ted

If you have a mac, and are at all intrested in twitter, try twitteriffic. It’s the best twitter software for any platform. If you’re trying twitter add me at http://twitter.com/tedwardm

If you don’t know what twitter is, its basically the away message from AIM/the status message from facebook that gets updated and sent to anyone who has decided to follow you. You can set your privacy so you have to approve followers first if you prefer. You can update it via mobile phone and decide if you want to get updates via phone/bb. This is the sort of thing you might turn on before going out for the night if you and your friends want to be able to update latecomers when you switch bars, or to plan things like when people are leaving for events like Spring Fling, or SF pre-parties (As a MBAA officer, I have to pitch Spring Fling)

For a different explanation, try wikipedia or the Twitter Homepage

I use Notes when I want to look up addresses, or when I want to edit something on the school calendars. Most of the time, I just use Mail.app, the mail client that comes with OSX. There are a couple tips that I have for it:

Letterbox is a nice piece of software that lets you move the preview pane from the top of the screen to the right, making the whole thing three panes wide.

I prefer to use IMAP over Pop. Without getting too technical, IMAP is designed to leave everything on the server unless its deleted, while POP is designed to transfer everything to your local computer. If you use IMAP, Smith IT can modify your mail file so that it doesn’t show up as new when you drag things from folder to folder. Mail them here

To setup mail, hit the new account button and select IMAP in the drop down (pics to follow). Give it a description like Smith, and put in your name and email and hit continue.

Enter imap.rhsmith.umd.edu in the Incoming Mail server tab. Make sure your username, with class year, is in the User Name field, and enter your mail password. This is the one you use if you get to mail over the internet, rather then via Citrix or in the lab. It may be the same, if you’ve used the sync tools

Just continue past the security screen.

On the outgoing mail screen, use smtp.rhsmith.umd.edu as your outgoing server, and click the box to use authentication. Make sure you use the same username and password you did for incoming mail.

At this point, just continue on any screens and close preferences. You’re set to get mail in Mail.app.

-Ted

You too can use the Lotus Notes client on your Mac! I’m not sure what other schools use Notes, but Smith does. Some of this will be targeted for other Smith Students, but most of it can be generalized (you may have to acquire your data files a different way)

First, you need to aquire Lotus Notes for the Mac. You can get it from IBM (registration required) or if you know me I can transfer it to you or I’ll burn you a cd if you bring me one.

You next need to get your username.id file. Smith Students can do that by connecting to “Winows Explorer” via Portal. Once there, allow read/write access and go to K:\Notes and drag the file to your “C:” drive (Actually your documents folder on your mac). In my case, the file was Emartin.id

Before you do the installation, you need to add the domain as an auto-appended search domain in your DNS. For a Smith student, the domain they will add is umd.edu. Open System Preferences and select network. Then select whichever networks you use, in my case I only use Airport. Select Configure on the network you want to edit, and select the TCP/IP tab. Then add umd.edu in the search domains box as shown below

Now go ahead and launch the installer from the disk image. The application installs like any other Macintosh application. When you run it for the first time, it will prompt you for your .id file, remember that it is in your Documents folder.

So, you know that everyone is a MBA nerd when you receive an invitation for a Happy Hour, and the invitation is a power point. Apparently, that’s the only way to do design or layout that anyone knows. It’s even nerdy when you realize that they did in fact format it according to the design rules for effective power points that we were all taught.

I have a prize to anyone who an tell me what this is and guess why I have it.

This will eventually land on my other site, MacMBA.com

(Click image for full-size view)

This is a short writeup of how I use ICal.

The first two calendars are what David Allen calls hard calenders, they are places I need to be at certain times. This is what you expect from a calendar. I use spanningsynch (it is still in beta, but if you go to the blog you can sign up) to synchronize these two with gcal calenders.
The first one, Entourage, also synchs with my Blackberry. I don’t actually use Entourage anymore, but it syncs with that too, and is my default calendar for all of these synchronizations. (Most sync programs require a default, because it needs a place to dump items from say, the blackberry, which can only handle one calendar.)

The second calendar, Gret and Ted is generally like the first, except it is also a shared Google calendar. This calendar is where both my wife and I plan our social lives or anything that impacts both of us. Again, it syncs with ICal, so its accessible on my computer or from any computer.

The next four calendars are made into a group so I can turn them all on and off at once. Each of my classes has its own calendar with the due date for all of its assignments. Each also has its own color, to make it easier to track. Turning the group off lets me concentrate on other scheduling, but I don’t need to do it often.

The other calendars are all generated by KGTD. The GTD system works in contexts, the idea being that the things you need to do may require a specific mental state or physical location. I can’t clean my apartment from the library, and there are times when I’ve got a great flow for writing, and others where I would do well to clean or to study. KGTD synchronizes each of my contexts with the calendar of the same name. Again, by clicking or unclicking the checkbox, I can make all the to-do’s for that calendar disappear or reappear. This lets me block out things I can’t do at the time. I may make groups for some of these, so I can show or hide them at once. Merlin Mann used to recommend this, but I agree with his later point that needing to do that may be a sign that you have too many contexts. I may consolidate some of my contexts, like handwrite, which is used for thank you notes for interviews and gifts and email into one category. Writing is actually for writing blog posts and articles, so it’s a different context altogether.

This is a short writeup of how I use ICal.

The first two calendars are what David Allen calls hard calenders, they are places I need to be at certain times. This is what you expect from a calendar. I use spanningsynch (it is still in beta, but if you go to the blog you can sign up) to synchronize these two with gcal calenders.
The first one, Entourage, also synchs with my Blackberry. I don’t actually use Entourage anymore, but it syncs with that too, and is my default calendar for all of these synchronizations. (Most sync programs require a default, because it needs a place to dump items from say, the blackberry, which can only handle one calendar.)

The second calendar, Gret and Ted is generally like the first, except it is also a shared Google calendar. This calendar is where both my wife and I plan our social lives or anything that impacts both of us. Again, it syncs with ICal, so its accessible on my computer or from any computer.

The next four calendars are made into a group so I can turn them all on and off at once. Each of my classes has its own calendar with the due date for all of its assignments. Each also has its own color, to make it easier to track. Turning the group off lets me concentrate on other scheduling, but I don’t need to do it often.

The other calendars are all generated by KGTD. The GTD system works in contexts, the idea being that the things you need to do may require a specific mental state or physical location. I can’t clean my apartment from the library, and there are times when I’ve got a great flow for writing, and others where I would do well to clean or to study. KGTD synchronizes each of my contexts with the calendar of the same name. Again, by clicking or unclicking the checkbox, I can make all the to-do’s for that calendar disappear or reappear. This lets me block out things I can’t do at the time. I may make groups for some of these, so I can show or hide them at once. Merlin Mann used to recommend this, but I agree with his later point that needing to do that may be a sign that you have too many contexts. I may consolidate some of my contexts, like handwrite, which is used for thank you notes for interviews and gifts and email into one category. Writing is actually for writing blog posts and articles, so it’s a different context altogether.

One of the things I noticed during the campaign is the use of action words and verb tenses. Business communication is always focused on action words and trying to increase the urgency and importance of your speech by cutting out extraneous information. This is a change from my past as an English major. I did notice a major correlation between the verbs people chose and the message they sent.

People who wanted to put forth a platform of ideas tended to use strong phrases and say I will. As an example, one candidate started with As President, I will work… and then outlined the plan that he has in mind.

Candidates who want you to get to know them used if phrases. Generally, people who started with if elected tended to spend more time telling about themselves and how open to ideas they are, and less time developing plans.

Likewise, the first group of people tended not to have topic sentences in their platforms or speeches and instead went for the “grab” to pull you into their candidacy. The second group had more pleasantries and superlatives.

In the contested positions, everyone who was more in the first group won. Even when two platforms for the same election started with asking verbs, the one that went straight to ideas beat the one that went to experience first. This was, according to the grapevine, the hardest of the two to decide between because everyone really liked both.

Overall, I think we had a really great group of candidates and people trusted that they could all get the job done. Given this background, it seems like reminding people of your past experiences didn’t help as much as outlining what you planned to do. There was a certain mindset that all of the candidates had enough of a background to get things done, the difference would only come in what they did with their background.

I think this can be extrapolated to the job searching process. Too many resumes, cover letters and interviews focus on the details of what has been done before. I think employers would rather hear what you’re going to be able to do for them. The stories about past performance aren’t impressive on their own, but rather are an opportunity to show that you have the skill base needed and recognize that this is the right time to use it. There is an important difference between how you’ve done something similar before, and how you’ve done something similar before that means you can get results now.