Author: Leonid Mamchenkov

RSS + IFTTT + Evernote = Backup

This post is just a test.   I’ve created a new personal recipe using IFTTT service, which will pull the RSS feed of this blog, and create a new note in a specific notebook of my Evernote account.  This is not recommended as a backup solution of course (you should do a proper filesystem and database backups), but if it works as good as I imagine, then I can use it for part of my RSS aggregation.  For example, I follow some blogs that I’d like to save most of the posts, but not all, and then search through those.  With a similar recipe, RSS feeds can be pushed into my Evernote account, and I can then just delete those notes that I don’t need.

Anyways, if you haven’t tried out IFTTT or Evernote, I strongly recommend both.  Those services are magical.

Open space office kills productivity by 66%

While going through this article on noise pollution, I came across this:

If you can hear someone talking while you’re reading or writing, your productivity dips by up to 66%.  Open floor-plan offices distract workers without them even noticing it. In a classic study published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1998, researchers found that employers were highly distracted when they could hear conversation around them, and less able to perform their duties. Another classic study found that noise in the office also correlated to increased stress hormone levels and a lower willingness to engage with others. According to Sound Agency case study, when sound masking technology was used in an office, there was a 46% improvement in employees’ ability to concentrate and their short term memory accuracy increased 10 percent.

Most of the time through my working years I’ve spent at open space offices.  And here are the things I have to say about them:

  • I tend to hate them.  There were companies and teams and offices where it worked well and made sense, but those were exceptions. Most of open space offices are there for one and one reason only – cost reduction.  And that feels!
  • Noise pollution is a factor.  Some people cope with it better (naturally or via headphones with music or white noise), but I am not one of them.  I find it nearly impossible to concentrate when there are other people around.   Even if they don’t talk, they still move, and make noises.
  • Open space offices do help to improve collaboration, team building even sometimes.  Again, not something that works everywhere, but I’ve seen it more than once.  When the team members are not too far away from each other, and all of them work on the same sort of things, and once the chemistry of the group gets going, open space can be quite handy.
  • If the company doesn’t notice a 66% productivity reduction in an employee, it can probably afford it.  Chances are, it will probably have no idea how to handle the guy at the top of his performance.  It’s almost funny, but I’ve seen it happen before.

I don’t have a silver bullet solution to the problem yet, but I do like the recent trend of companies that care about people’s productivity, offering a combination of offices – open spaces, closed offices, meeting rooms, playrooms, etc.  That’s probably not ideal either, but having the choice is nice, I guess.  Now, if only there was a cheaper alternative…

 

The problem of a small country

Cyprus Mail reports:

FORMER supreme court judge Panayiotis Kallis has resigned from the committee of inquiry tasked with probing the circumstances which led the economy and banking sector to the brink of collapse.

In a letter to the President and the justice minister, Kallis said he felt obliged to step down citing a possible conflict of interest with his sons’ law practice.

In the letter, Kallis explained that he could not in good conscience continue his work as his sons’ law firm has taken on clients challenging the ‘haircut’ on deposits at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus.

That in itself did not constitute a conflict of interest, Kallis explained. However, he subsequently discovered (on Monday) that some of his sons’ clients plan to argue in court that the haircut and the winding down of Laiki are the result of inadequate supervision/negligence by regulatory authorities such as the Central Bank and the lack of corrective fiscal measures on the part of the state.

I certainly do appreciate the openness in such a sensitive issue.  But I also wonder if we have enough people in this country to staff such a committee.  I mean, it should consist of people who are competent enough to understand and investigate the problem.  Yet, on the other hand, we live in a small country, where everybody is connected to everybody, and where competent people are scarce resource.  Is it possible to find enough competent people who aren’t somehow in conflict of interest in regards to the problem that has affected the whole country?