Month: August 2008

Pretty-well-known fact by now: Sarah Palin meme overtakes Twitter

Following John McCain’s announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, a “little-known fact”* meme spread like crazy over Twitter. The Austin American-Statesman helped spread the news beyond the twitterverse.

Little Known Fact: On Friday, Sarah Palin became an online phenomenon.

Moments after news outlets began putting the spotlight on the Alaskan governor who is John McCain’s running mate, users of the microblogging service Twitter.com began posting tidbits about Palin’s political views, her family and anything else they could find online.

Things soon took a silly turn. Remember the fanciful “Chuck Norris facts” that were the height of Internet humor a couple of years ago? (“Chuck Norris counted to infinity — twice. Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.”)

Palin became the subject of a new version of this running joke. Among the funniest “Little Known Facts” about Palin:

“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin CAN touch MC Hammer.”

“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is Batman.”

“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin has a brother in England who is a professional fish-slapping dancer.”

“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin invented SPAM.”

“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin was a ghost the WHOLE TIME!”

And then there’s this one, which may explain the joke’s appeal:

“Little Known Fact: Even Sarah Palin didn’t know who Sarah Palin was until today.”

According to this collection of the little-known facts as they are posted in real time, Twitter user @MichaelTurk started the meme and has his own site, Palinfacts.com, devoted to the topic. A few of Turk’s gems:

  • Sarah Palin isn’t allowed to wield the gavel at the convention because they’re afraid she’ll use it to kill liberals.
  • Sarah Palin once one a competitive eating contest by devouring three live caribou.
  • Sarah Palin once carved a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa in a block of ice using only her teeth.
  • Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.
  • Sarah Palin pick retroactively makes the theme of #DNC08 “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead”
  • Sarah Palin doesn’t need a gun to hunt. She has been known to throw a bullet through an adult bull elk.

My favorite take on this meme comes from @kopper:

Little known fact: Sarah Palin has never been rickrolled. http://tinyurl.com/palin69

* Little-known fact (in the Twitterverse, anyway): “little-known” is a compound modifier and therefore should be hyphenated.

Friday Five: productivity tips

I confess: I read a lot about becoming more productive, but I’ve been a slacker at implementing a lot of the things I read. I also confess that whenever I go to a seminar or training session on getting productive (such as the one I attended yesterday in a very crowded hotel conference room), I always feel better — for a while. Then the new wears off and I find myself backsliding to old habits that squander away time.

I’ve tried Day Timers, TimeDesign and Covey systems. I’ve used hybrid systems. I’ve tried going completely electronic. I’ve resorted back to paper. I’ve put together a hybrid of paper and paperless. But to quote Bono, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for in terms of managing projects and information.

It’s frustrating.

But productivity, efficiency, getting things done, whatever you want to call it, isn’t about just having a clean desk at the end of the day, or having all your files neatly arranged. These days, so much of it is about managing the crapflood of data that comes at you electronically, by paper and phone call, and via the drop-in. So here are some techniques I use to try to manage the flow of information. As the fall semester nears, I’m thinking now is a good time to be thinking about how to be more productive. I can always use help, so I’d love to also hear from you guys about how you manage projects and your time, and improve your productivity effectiveness.

  1. Use the out-of-office function on Outlook. Even if you’re not on the road or on vacation, much of your day is probably spent out of the office anyway, in meetings. So why not post a message that says something like “I’ll be out of the office much of the day today with limited access to email.” That way you’re lowering the expectation that you’ll immediately fire back a response, and people won’t be upset at you because you don’t. And if you happen to respond quickly, it will be a pleasant surprise. Bonus tip for managing email: Download and read The Low-Information Diet: How to Eliminate E-Mail Overload & Triple Productivity in 24 Hours.
  2. Use a tickler file. The guy from Fred Pryor talked about using a tickler file during yesterday’s seminar. This is an idea I picked up from reading David Allen‘s book Getting Things Done (highly recommended, but you can also get the gist of Allen’s thinking from the complete set of all his free articles; all it will cost you is your email address). The GTD tickler file is a series of 43 folders, 31 for each day of the month and 12 for each month of the year. The Pryor guy added two more: one for “next year” and one for “completed lists,” where you can file your to-do lists. I may add those two to my system, but so far the tickler file system has helped me to toss projects into a “future” folder to keep them from haunting my every waking moment. It helps me sleep at night. It’ll help you, too.
  3. Ignore your snail mail. Until yesterday, I felt a twinge of guilt about letting my mail lay in my inbox for days. But the guy at the Pryor seminar affirmed my habit. “It’s only mail. It could have arrived tomorrow.” Really, now. How urgent can it be if it arrives in snail mail? If it’s from FedEx or UPS, that’s a different story.
  4. Make use of couch potato time. I routinely take reading materials and unopened mail from work home with me to skim and sort through while watching sports on television or while enjoying a beverage by the pool. If I don’t get to it, I don’t get to it.
  5. Your turn. I’ve left the fifth tip open for you, the reader. What productivity or time-management tip can you share to help us on our way to a productive fall in higher education?