Kicking the habit

Shocking as it is, I have decided to kick two "habits" in the last month.

--The Habits
I am a Starbucks fan. For the last 8 years of my life, since I started in the working world, I have depended on a Quad-Grande Non-Fat Cappucino to start my day AND jump start it mid-afternoon. This habit cost me roughly $3,488.80 a year.

I am also a RIM Blackberry fan. For the last 3 years of my life, since I started using exchange, I have depended on my trusty Blackberry to help me find my way through days of meetings and mountains of email. I am not your wimpy Blackberry user either, I have spent entire weeks abroad without ever using my laptop for email or calendering. I have no clue how much my Blackberry habit cost me (or more importantly my company) but I am sure it wasn't cheap.

--The Quitting
During a recent trip to Miami in early November, I picked up some kind of Flu bug that pretty much knocked me out cold. During that trip (and the resulting weeks) my system was out of whack. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I decided that I should rest and relax for a week. I also decided to quit drinking Coffee and instead move to decaf green tea. For anyone around me, I apologize for that week ;-)

On my flight home on Friday night I sat next to a wonderful columnist from the SF Chronicle who was flying to Denver to cover the Broncos-Raiders game (a game that should have been called to save the Raiders embarassment). During this flight we exchanged emails and I heard myself muttering the words, "sure, email me tomorrow... I keep my Blackberry with me 24x7".

--The realization
I can be awake in the morning without coffee. I can simply invest the $3,800.00 a year spent on my cappucino fix in a way that better benefits me, such as a nice vacation ;-)

I can live without my email, my schedule, my task list and my address book while I am home on vacation for two weeks. There is nothing that will hit my inbox that desperately needs my response. If it did, they would definitely call me on any one of the 4 numbers available to reach me.

--The perks
So, I hadn't really planned on taking the entire week off. This week was supposed to be a week where, while relaxing at home, I could work on focus for the year ahead. I had promised this week would allow me to get ahead and start thinking about the plan and how to work toward the plan.

Not having a blackberry makes this 100x easier because I don't need to spend my day reacting to the diversions. I also suddenly found myself having to watch movies all the way through, engaging in conversations with my family and that ever so important significant other (not that I wasn't already fully paying attention ;-)). I also discovered that I tend to drive better when I am not trying to pound out a reply.

Now you wonder how caffeine and blackberrys are linked? I used to wake up in the middle of the night just to check my blackberry and make sure that Europe and Asia both got equal response time. No wonder I needed coffee in the morning. Without the blackberry I suddenly find myself sleeping entire nights, driving better, paying attention to people that matter and being able to think clearly.

Now lets see how long I can last ;-)

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

I am currently working on a plan to work with and support our ISV and IHV partners in a couple of new strategy directions we are working on.

This actually started as a very boring project because I didn't see where the real challenges actually were. Developing strategy is already a complicated process when you can own the strategy development and implement. It becomes close to impossible when you have to develop a strategy that relies almost entirely on implementation by partnes and complementary technologies.

It was at this point that I realized our strongest talents come from some lessons learned in kindergarten.

From a poster in my thrid grade teachers class (go Ms. Chase):

• Share everything
• Play fair
• Don't hit people
• Clean up your own mess

Sharing, Playing Fair, Not hitting people (or other companies) and cleaning up our own mess are the values that make AMD great (and create a ton of work for me).

So here is why this strategy is causing me so much trouble. I have to figure out how to engage a number of critical partners as part of a cohesive long term strategy. Ever get 10 companies to "share, play fair, not hit each other and clean up the mess"....

So as I work on what could possibly be impossible... I am comforted by the fact that I work in a company full of people that were paying attention in kindergarten. Weren't you?