This post is much of the reason why I have done a poor job at blogging (will correct that soon enough)

Today is the day - we can finally shout it from the rooftops...

Official Announcement:  http://telligent.com/news-and-events/news/intel-capital-to-acquire-20-million-stake-in-telligent/

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 23, 2008 – Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment organization, today announced an agreement to acquire a $20 million stake in Telligent Systems, makers of social computing solutions and business intelligence tools. Based in Dallas, Telligent will utilize the funds to expand its sales teams and territories, including growth in international markets, as well as increase its marketing and advertising initiatives and product development plans.

In September of 2004, Rob Howard reached out and asked me to chat about joining newly-formed Telligent.  While jumping around like a kid in a candy store, I was also terrified at the thought of being grilled technically by Rob Howard & Jason Alexander.  (I think I ate 2 bites of lunch and threw up afterwards :p).  However, instead of an in-depth technical interview, our discussion was around a larger vision.  With Scott Watermasysk, Rob & Jason talked about their plans to build a Telligent as a solutions company - focusing around our Products and Service offerings.  Back in 2004, Rob & Jason talked about their vision of a product called Community Server, which would serve as the online collaboration platform of the future - bringing blogs, forums, galleries together in one platform to better facilitate collaboration.   With our second child on the way, I was a little nervous going to a start-up company.  However, my strong belief in their vision, commitment to the business, and demonstrated leadership qualities - along with my strong desire to build a world-class Professional Services organization, I accepted the position and became Telligent Employee #5.  I am proud of our company - and have our team members to thank. 

4 years later, here we are talking about an investment.  This is a huge day for Telligent.  We're extremely excited for the possibilities and the next steps for our company.   We've been hard at work planning this investment for quite a while now, and it is exciting to be able to blog about it.   We're going to aggressively expand many of our our teams (including our Professional Services team - who is set to almost double in the next year alone).  Our leadership team is laser focused on continuous improvement of our business and better servicing our customers.

To our customers, thank you for your trust and partnership with Telligent.  To our team members, THANK YOU for your hard work and dedication.   

As Jason said, "hold on to your hats", it's going to be a fun ride.

My personal blog site is finally up!  w00tas.  I've had this domain for a long time now, and embarrased that I just put it to use.  After countless days/months/years of ribbing by members of the Telligent team (fact that I work for a community company but my blogging slowed down to a turtle's pace) - I decided to get back on the blogging train.  I'm embarrassed to work for a Collaboration & Social Networking company - without a web presence of my own.  Instead of making bold claims with the blog (i.e. daily blog post), I promise to post thoughful, informative, funny, and/or intriguing items that are worthy of sharing.

I previously blogged at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottdockendorf, and will keep that blog as reference for previous posts.  I decided to start anew with this blog, taking a fresh look at topics that interest me in the Technology, Software Development, Personal Productivity, Business, and other categories (with some Green Bay Packers, Dallas Stars, and other sports related items thrown in :) )

With this site, I'm "dogfooding" Telligent's new product, Graffiti CMS, which we will RTM in the very near future. If you are in need of a "Content Made Simple" solution, please give Graffiti CMS a try.

The site is being hosted with the fine folks at OrcsWeb.  If you are in need of a hosting company, definitely consider them.   They have offerings that are sure to fit your needs.

Thanks for your interest, and I hope to positively impacting the blogging community.

To steal a line from Rob Howard , "If there is a hell, my inbox is it."  I'm almost determined that other than too many meetings (more to come on that soon) my primary source of personal productivity drains is my Inbox and my poor management of it. 

• I'm an email packrat - I keep email messages like there is no tomorrow (just in case I'll need to review it again).  I have messages saved all the way back to my first day at Telligent (& previous employers).  I recently searched my inbox for a topic, and found a good amount of threads related to past company events, Company-All low-importance-dog-piling joke threads, etc...
• Sub-Folder Hell  - Tried to organize via sub-folders, but ended up killing a cockroach with a shotgun. 
  • Too many sub-folders
  • Duplicate folders for the same topic
  • Many folders with "@-" or "&-" to get them atop the alphabetic list of folders
  • Folders for events that have long since passed still sitting off the root of the Inbox (badly needs to be deleted or filed)
• Reference Material
  • Reference Material In Multiple Locations - With the increased workload - I've becoming increasingly impatient.  If something takes more than 30 seconds to find, then the reference/filing/retrieval system does not work.  I've been reading to recommendations for this, and unfortunately the recommendations are all over the map.
  • Reference Material Difficult To Find - Desktop Search has saved my life.  Being able to return search results (with email, files, etc..) within seconds is simply invaluable.  I was reminded of this (painfully) when Vista's Desktop Search and Outlook got in a nasty fight (where it stopped indexing emails).  I was completely crippled.  Having to search through all the reference folders manually was extremely painful.  That's when I realized that things MUST change.
• Leaving Outlook Open All Day - Too many times, email controls our lives at work.  You would think with as much time as we spend in email that it would be under control, right?  Email consumes my day.  It distracts us from delivery and even day-to-day actions (how many times do you find people hunched over staring at their laptop, Windows Mobile/Blackberry/IPhone oblivious to the world around them? 

I'm declaring war on email (and my management of it!) 

=== PRODUCTIVITY AFFIRMATION ===
Over the next 30 days, my goal is to improve personal productivity (with regards to management of email) by:

• Get to "Inbox Zero" on a weekly and ultimately daily basis
• Streamline my reference material into a simple, easy solution
• Take control of the day - remove the need to feed the email monster at every available minute
  

=== HOW ===

1. When I need to get something accomplished, I will simply close Outlook. 
2. Block out a few hours a day to respond to email. 
3. Implement some kind of work system, I'm leaning towards GTD.  I used to think this was a mechanism for managing email, but it is much, much more.
4. If you plan to be out of email for a significant time, Use OOF messaging as a courtesy (i.e. "Heads down with urgent tasks.  Responses will be delayed")
5. Better use of Outlook Rules to filter out non-emergency emails

Questions for you:
1.  How do you manage your inbox?  Are you an email packrat or do you run lean & mean?
2.  Do you start each day/week with an empty inbox?
3.  How do you manage your reference material?  A single reference folder?  Lots of small files with a single purpose?

Reference:

• Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" Video & Slides - 43 Folders link to Inbox Zero posts
• GTD - Official Site - 43 Folder's "How To Get Started"

Hello, my name is Scott, and I have recently become productivity-challenged. The first step in resolving the problem is admitting you have a problem, right? J

The Problem:

Ultimately, I’m just not satisfied with where I am according to my personal and professional goals.  I’ve realized that after taking my old “system” for a test drive these past few weeks, it does not support today's workload.

I’m reminded of this at times – the signs are evident. I take notice when team members preface their questions/requests with, “I know you’re busy…” and “Just wanted to check on status…”, and “bump/ping” emails…   Also, “feeding the email monster” has become a constant habit – and is driving the majority of the work week. (You would think that all this time spent on email, our inboxes would be empty, right? Wrong.) I looked around the office and opening the laptop bag, I realize that have too much stuff - files, papers, post-it-notes, digital pictures of notes from the dry erase boards. All of a sudden, files and information weren’t as organized as I would have liked – and finding specific bits of needed information took longer than 30 seconds to find. Projects continue to find their way on your plate more frequently than the completed ones.

Sound familiar? Regardless of our line of work, everyone has “stuff to do”. We have goals, projects, tasks, deadlines, deliverables, and need to effectively communicate with others. To be effective, we must be able to get in front of our jobs - email, tasks, update to-do lists, assist & inspire fellow team members, follow-up & respond to email, reach out to customers, etc…

How To Resolve:

I am on a quest for Productivity Utopia. I want to accomplish much more with family, work, health, volunteer activities, hobbies, etc.. Over the next 60-days, I am going to take blog readers down a journey with the goal of “Becoming my own Personal Productivity Zen-master.”

I've been motivated by such blogs as 43Folders and Life Hacker.  (Gina Tripani's book, Life Hacker, is a MUST read for all professionals that like to flex their technical muscles. ). They have such a positive, motivating message - focusing on helping readers reach their inner "producivity zen".  It's come time to soak all of them in – share with others - and find what works.  I need to find a "system" that is easily and consistently repeatable and share with those who are interested in reading.

Why blog this journey?

· To share my thoughts, findings, and “things” (technology, or otherwise) that I discover or learn during the journey with others

· To learn how others have tackled improving their systems – how they have accomplished, and maintained efficiency and improving their productivity & performance.

· To motivate others who might be having the same conundrum but resist taking the next step – due to their already full plate.

Please join me with my Personal Productivity series, found here - http://scottdock.com/personal-productivity/.  If you are so inclined, please share your thoughts - what does/does not work for you - and recommendations for others. 

Thanks to everyone at the Dallas .NET User Group for providing the opportunity to deliver my "Building Middle-Tier Solutions with Visual Studio 2005" presentation.  Thanks for those in attendance - all 136 of you!  I had a blast - I hope you found it of interest.  While I started off a little verbose (trying to explain "why" this approach could be beneficial), things really started rolling once we dove into the code. 

For those who requested the materials, you can download them here.

Furthermore, thanks for all those that attended.  I appreciate your interest, support, and your time spent with the .net development community. 

Hey guys... I apologize for the delayed posting of my talk materials.   They are coming soon... Promise!

If you are interested in Telligent's Community Server Developer's Conference, but were not able to make it, check out Kevin Harder's LIVE FROM CSDC blog post - he's updating the blog post as it happens!

My personal blog site is finally up!  w00tas.  I've had this domain for a long time now, and embarrased that I just put it to use.  After countless days/months/years of ribbing by members of the Telligent team (fact that I work for a community company but my blogging slowed down to a turtle's pace) - I decided to get back on the blogging train.  I have to build up my credibility with ScottW again before he will add me to the Telligenti blog roll. :p

Instead of making bold claims with the blog (i.e. daily blog post), I promise to post thoughful, informative, funny, and/or intriguing items that are worthy of sharing.

I previously blogged at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottdockendorf, and will keep that blog as reference for previous posts.  I decided to start anew with this blog, taking a fresh look at topics that interest me in the Technology, Software Development, Personal Productivity, Business, and other categories (with some Green Bay Packers, Dallas Stars, and other sports related items thrown in :) )

With this site, I'm "dogfooding" Telligent's new product, Graffiti CMS, which will be reaching it's first Beta status very soon.  If you are in need of a "Content Made Simple" solution, please give Graffiti CMS a try.

The site is being hosted with the fine folks at OrcsWeb.  If you are in need of a hosting company, definitely consider them.   They have offerings that are sure to fit your needs.

Thanks for your interest, and I hope to positively impacting the blogging community.