Summer is about to start, officially. This is a time when the urge to work slows down and hours are wasted gazing out windows at sunny scenery. Idea man and dealmaker Spin Williams knows all about this – though it is no longer an issue in his company.
Spin is also an efficiency expert!

Here at The Meeting That Never Ends, we’re always trying to find new ways to hike our productivity to levels far beyond those posted by other idea factories. That’s why we moved to the Around The Clock Meeting paradigm in the first place – we were simply taking too much time convening and adjourning our conferences, planning them and scheduling them and re-convening and re-adjourning, etc. Valuable inspiration-generating time was being being burned the same way your car guzzles gas on jackrabbit starts from a red light!

Now that our meeting is constantly in session, we’ve been able to dispense with pleasantries and stay productive 24/7 courtesy of regular breaks! Yes, experts from famous high-productivity workplaces like The Mayo Clinic and The New York Times agree that people do better when they interrupt their workflow with some down time. So at TMTNE, we work for twenty minutes, break for ten minutes and repeat, ad infinitum. That means in a typical day we can have up to 48 productive discussions! And people still get 8 whole hours off every single day, which is plenty of time to get some sleep, or a little food, or a bit of both! If they want to skip a nap or a meal, they can change clothes or spend intensely focused quality time with a relative or some sort of friend. Who needs more than that?

Not only does our perpetual professional parley promote productivity, it discourages a host of other social and environmental ills. With no time for employees to go “home”, there’s no longer any need for the economy to support a domicile outside the workplace! Land-use stresses are reduced. Commuting is no longer a problem. Romance is still possible, but it’s limited to ten minute interludes. That’s better because it reduces unwanted pregnancies (you have to be very focused and intentional) and keeps the mystery alive. Casual “dalliances” become a thing of the past – there’s simply no time to dally. Domestic unrest is unheard of – every conflict is a workplace situation of one sort or another, which can be easily handled by the experts in the HR department. Children are raised and educated in a series of meeting of their own, which happen just down the hall. When we go on vacation, we go together and keep working! Under this system we could (and sometimes do) switch to a year-round holiday schedule without losing a moment’s productivity because time off is simply a calculation that happens as part of the paperwork.

Some people (i.e. Corporations) call our company a “cult” or a “commune”, but I think name-calling by the competition is a sure sign that you’re doing something right! I’d love to hear what you think of our plan, but the meeting is about to resume. Let’s touch base in twenty minutes!

Efficiently yours,
Spin

I think Spin’s scenario is the wave of the future! This is where we’re headed, but I’ll have to become much more productive if I’m ever going to make it happen.

How often do you need to take a break?

Today is the birthday in 1903 of bandleader Guy Lombardo, conductor of the Royal Canadians and the cultural figure who “owned New Years Eve” before Dick Clark took it over. Lombardo’s music is clean and precise and by the more modern standards of those who were raised on rock and roll, sterile and empty.

But he wore a nice red jacket and made a name for himself at a time when a person could become a popular star simply by smiling and waving a baton. And for people in my age group, he carried an air of mystery because he did his best known work on TV, in front of my parents, after we were sent to bed.

The other thing Lombardo did is unexpected (to me). He raced hydroplanes, roaring across the surface of rivers and lakes at frightening speeds powered by engines that were loud and obnoxious in a way his music decidedly was not.

He was good enough at it to be inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame. I never would have guessed this – it makes about as much sense as discovering that Liberace was a heavyweight prizefighter. (Can we start that rumor here?)

We assume people who are known for a particular thing or make their living in a specific realm love only that and never indulge in anything different. But it’s undeniable that the Guy who seems so mild and pleasant in the video above enjoyed having the wind in his hair and could have swamped a slow boat going anywhere when he was having fun on the weekend.

What is your unexpected sideline?

It has been a few weeks since we’ve heard from Bart, the bear who found a cell phone. Apparently he’s been scouring the news wires, and is feeling a little sensitive about inexplicable inequalities. This has been translated from its original language – Ursus Textish.

Hey, Bart here.

Couldn’t help noticing this.

A bear shows up on a college campus, climbs a tree, draws a bunch of gawkers.

A guy shows up at Niagara Falls, climbs a wire, draws a bunch of gawkers.

The guy gets a live TV show and applause from a crowd of more than a hundred thousand.

The bear gets shot with tranquilizers, which makes him fall out of the tree, and then gets trucked off to “the forest”.

I’m not saying bears and people should be treated exactly the same, but what’s up with this? The bear was humiliated for doing what bears do naturally. What’s the crime? Yet there is nothing natural about a guy walking across a waterfall on a wire. Did you know bears have very, very good balance? We do!

The guy got celebrated and called a “daredevil”. But if I said I was a “beardevil” and tried the same thing, Animal Control and PETA would have a cow (yet another violation of the natural order)!

This cell phone really troubles me. Since I got a data plan, I’m seeing all sorts of things that just don’t make sense.

Your friend,
Bart

How good is your balance?