Benoit Tremblay

Can innovation be claimed?

“This is our latest innovation”
“We’re innovating once again”
“Innovation is at the heart of everything we do”

This probably sounds familiar.

We hear and read those everywhere. Almost up to a certain point where it becomes meaningless — so overused, that we don’t pay much attention anymore.

In defense of long emails

Write short emails — preferably a few sentences maximum with clear expectations. People get hundreds of emails everyday and in an ADD world, nobody reads anymore. Apparently.

At least that’s what you’re being told.

Focus is stepping back and choosing what to ignore

It’s easy to think of focus as just consciously putting more energy or time into something. It is, in a way, but without ignoring everything that gets in the way, it’s nearly impossible.

That’s why focusing is so hard. If it was just caring more about something without having to compromise or to let go, it would be really easy.

On the contrary, ignoring involves putting things aside, sometimes irritating a few people and making though choices as to what matters and what deserves your time.

So before trying too hard to focus on one thing, it may be a better idea to take a step back and define what has to be left out, what has to be ignored, what is eating all your time and energy.

The cost of ignoring may vary — sometimes it’s money and sometimes it’s relationships — but then focus just seems to happen.

The blank slate that is Excel

Excel is being used to do quite a lot of things. Things it generally wasn’t designed to do — Interface design, project management, databases, invoices and more. I’ve seen it all.

It often ends up being a mess, awful to look at and impossible to maintain. But sometimes it’s quite impressive. Even surprising.

Shield people from your work anywhere, anytime lifestyle

Would you pick up the phone at 10 PM and call a colleague for something that doesn’t require immediate attention? Probably not, but yet, most are shameless about sending emails late at night or even during weekends.

We do so because we expect email to be unobtrusive. It is, if you consider people have work-specific devices, but clearly that’s not the case. We carry our emails everywhere with us, on our phone and personal computer.