During a trip to Germany almost 20 years ago, I came across one of those slap-of-the-head clever items in an office supply store that I use to this day. When I bought this I was so enamored with it that I actually picked up a second one, thinking that eventually it would wear out and that it would be difficult to find a replacement. Turns out that I was happily wrong on both counts; the extra one that I bought is still in its original plastic display box and a slightly different version (photo below) is widely available. The PaperFix that I've owned for all these years is silent in use, completely ecological, and the ongoing cost is zero. I reach for it at least a few times a day and with one firm press of the top can bind about 6 to 8 pages (depending on paper thickness) together.

I find magazines too bulky to carry around when there are only a few articles in them that I actually want to read. Through years of traveling and learning to eliminate weight and waste, I now tear out articles I'm interested in and put them all in a folder labeled "Reading" that goes everywhere with me, and use my Paperfix to bind each individual article.

I prefer the PaperFix over paper clips or binder clips for a number of reasons, the first of which is space saving. If you have ever had 15 paper-clipped articles in a folder and seen how they expand the girth of that folder, you'll know what I mean. Paper clips and binders have to be put somewhere when they're removed. Clips of all varieties fall off and have a nasty habit of inserting themselves into every conceivable crack in cars, briefcases and desk drawers.

Once a page is removed from the bound bundle (unlike with a paper clip) it can't be reinserted, nor can you pull out sheets from the midst of the bundle without disrupting the binding of the bundle. While the PaperFix doesn’t do everything a stapler can (particularly with thicker stacks of paper), for the vast majority of quick binding jobs it’s as good as a stapler, and takes up about a third the room on a desktop or in a drawer. It’s less expensive and uses nothing other than a press on the top to get its job done.

Despite all the wireless, Bluetooth and battery-operated electronics in my life, almost every room in our home still feels overrun with cords, AC adapters, wires, plugs, cables, and more cords. This surge protector with a simple hinged plastic cover has done aesthetic and functional wonders for the living room. Our media cabinet already obscures the electrical mess from the Tivo, Apple TV, receiver, PlayStation, et al. But our Roomba lives under a vintage breakfront that houses, among other devices, a delicate glass lamp. Not only does this plastic white box keep the cables and plugs hidden from view, but it's big and heavy enough Roomba doesn't mess with it -- no more inadvertent cord snags from said vacuum bot! Some users report that cramming an assortment of particularly-hefty or odd-shaped wall-warts and thicker wires is problematic. Fair enough. I couldn't get mine closed trying to plug in an Apple AirPort Express. Nevertheless, with 11 three-prong outlets -- as well as Ethernet and phone ports -- this protector can manage a lot of everyday e-stuff.

Elance is a global marketplace for freelancers. You post a job you want done, and freelancers around the world will bid on it in a matter of hours. Once the price and deadline are agreed upon, the work will be delivered to you very rapidly. Because of its global nature, your costs may be very low.

Elance has a pool of 135,000 pros expert in programming, design, writing, and legal matters. People use them to design a logo, create marketing materials, tweak a database, code a website, create an iPhone app. I've used Elance three times now and have had fantastic results. For instance recently I had to move 3,000 images from Cool Tools' old Moveable Type database to a new one in a very hairy non-trivial manner. Estimates from US shops for writing the necessary script went as high $6,000 and would take months from specs to testing. We went on Elance, got a bid for $250 to do it manually (without scripts) and it was done perfectly in a week. You could start a company with them. In fact Kevin Rose hired an Elancer to code the first version of the now-popular website Digg.

Elance's escrow service holds the payment and protects both the work provider and you the employer. The site provides status updates on work done, and plenty of communication between the parties. Workers must pass a competency test to qualify to be listed. Some freelancers can also pass expertise tests in a mild form of certification, say for working on java or ajax, etc. Elance freelancers did about $60 million of work last year and less than 1% of the jobs had any kind of dispute, and most of those were self-resolved by the fact that the entire transaction correspondence is logged.

While I went to Elance for cheap labor, others go to it to get jobs done in a hurry, or to find expertise that they can't find locally. (Fifty percent of Elancers live in North America.) If you have work, and you know what you want, this is a great service.

The real trick in using Elance, or its competitors RentACoder, GetAFreelancer and oDesk (which I have not used) and Guru (which I have used with satisfaction) is in being able to specify the deliverable you want without spending more time that it would take to do the project itself. This kind of outsourcing is best for bite-sized chunks of work. The more precise you can detail your job the better that Elance or the others will work for you. It's not good for consulting, hand-holding, or mind-changing assignments. But it can be cheap enough that you can try lots of things. It costs you nothing to post a job on Elance. (The winning provider will pay a 5-10% fee to Elance.) You can pay with PayPal.

And it is not just for coders. I hired a guy to run ethernet cable in our home, and others have found a videographer for their wedding, or a translator for their manual, etc. Like any remote relationship, you get what you put into it. Elance, Guru and GetaFreelancer use escrows, which protect you (and the worker). Elance has open bidding, GetAFreelancer has the option of closed bidding. To date, Elance is the marketplace that seems to have the most action so that is why I use them.

It's a great tool when you need to hire expertise.

-- KK

Elance

I recently read about a product whereby a computer beams the digital image of a recipe onto some type of eye-level display in your kitchen. Here's the low-tech way, which I've used for the last two years: take your printed recipe and use StikkiCLIPS to temporarily place the recipe up on the cupboard door right in your line of sight. When I've finished cooking, I easily remove the clip from the cupboard. The recipe isn't covered in stains. And the door doesn't have any permanent marks from the clip. Rather than traditional adhesive, the back of the clip has a bit of wax-like substance on it. This substance does get used up as you use the clip (I've used one clip as much as two dozen times). However, the clips don't mar the surface you've clipped it to -- in my case, the kitchen cupboard door looks good as new. I've also used the clips for other projects to keep whatever paper I'm using off my work space, but still in my line of sight. Another use: I put a clip in the driver's side corner of my windshield, where it holds parking stubs, so the Parking Control Officer can spot them easily and so the stub doesn't get blown out of the dashboard when I close the car door. The package cover says "the best way to hang papers anywhere." I think they're right.

-- Helen Hegedus

StikkiCLIPS
$5
(pack of 20)
Available from OrganizedLiving

Manufactured by StikkiWorks

I always thought lap desks were for the bed-bound, until the Levenger Surf desk arrived on my doorstep, an early birthday gift from Levenger's founder, Steve Leveen. The Surf Desk is a super-light desk made of the same materials used in surfboards, and as hip-looking as something one might see in Malibu. I'll admit I was a bit puzzled by the thing at first and I never imagined a lap-desk would be a useful tool, but I now use the darn thing every day! It's perfect for working with a laptop and my notes while slouching on a couch, or relaxing outside on a deck chair. In my office, I often set it atop an open file drawer as an impromptu credenza to hold paper sprawls during big projects. When I am not using it, the Surf Desk parks conveniently in a corner or propped up in my closet (though I use it so much it is hardly ever there). The folks at Levenger joke about "alternative desking," but I think the term gets at what makes the Surf Desk so interesting: it gives vastly more flexibility in choosing how -- and where -- to work. I haven't taken mine away from home yet, but the Surf Desk is so light and convenient (and presumably water proof), I'd think anyone who wanted a travel desk in their SUV, van or the like would enjoy this one. And solo surfers take note: pull out a surf desk at your local espresso bar and you are sure to draw a crowd, especially if you are close to the beach!

-- Paul Saffo

Levenger Surf Desk
$148
Available from Levenger

For sheer bang-for-the-buck, these cord management cards are tough to beat. They're cheap polyethylene sheets you either stick or screw to the edge of your desk and then snap the cables coming from your computer and peripherals into the recesses. I was tired of picking my iPod connector off the floor when it would fall off my desktop. With this, the ends of the cables are kept at the ready on your desk, which is especially great for stuff you are regularly plugging and unplugging. You can also use it to neatly route other cables coming from the back of a PC tower, like speaker and ethernet, which really helps cut down cable clutter. I've had one card stuck to the underside of my desk for about a year for two iPods (video and shuffle), a digital camera cable, and a charger for my Bluetooth headset (I find it is less visually obtrusive underneath my desk). The double stick tape they use is very sticky. I have a lacquered wood desk. It sticks great. I've never tried to pull it off, but I imagine it would be tough. I imagine if you had a smooth metal desk these would stick even better. Of course, if you were trying to stick them to a rough surface like a unfinished wood, you'd probably want to use screws. I didn't consider trying to make my own. No reason to: I got a four-pack of the Keep-a-Cable 5-wire holders at Frys for about five bucks. I gave the extras to a few friends. They love them.

-- Cormac Eubanks

Keep-A-Cable
$6 - 4-pack + shipping
$8 - 25-pack + shipping
Available from Ideal Ideas

Or $6 for a 3-pack from Amazon

Also $17.50 for 4-foot+ strips from the manufacturer

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Millepede Cable Ties

Cordinator

Velcro One-Wrap

I use this portable desk as a stationary desk at work and love it. If you need to relocate your workspace for whatever reason, it folds into a large portfolio style case with handles, so it's quite easy to move your 'hub' with you. You have to provide two pieces of plywood, which slip into two pockets to create the rigid surfaces. Installation is a snap: two metal "O" rings on either edge allow for easy hooking on any sturdy screw/nail/hook. The rings are 48" apart so they line up with any standard 16" O.C. wall stud system. I've been using it for a little over a year now. Boy is it sturdy. The case is nylon with nylon bands well-stitched to support all stress points. The ability to adjust the height is key, as I prefer to use a stool rather than a chair at my work. The working distance from the floor to my desk is approximately 36", so it's more like a workbench, except with this desk, there are no legs to deal with.

-- Jai Dixon

Plan Station Portable Workstation
$65
Available from Amazon

Or $70 from Duluth Trading

Manufactured by Finley Products, Inc.

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Levenger Lap Desk

OP Loftbed

Slouch!Buster & Nadachair

The Cable Clamp is a cord/wire/hose organizer I've found helpful, especially in dealing with items that have both long electrical cords and long hoses that can get mixed up with each other. In addition to keeping the long hose and electric cord on my pressure washer coiled separately, I'm using one of these clamps to hang my small electric chainsaw from my belt when climbing a ladder, sort of an improvised tool belt. They come in four sizes, including a Mega-size available from the manufacturer.

They're fun to use -- they close like a handcuff, with ten click-stops. They're more expensive and bulkier than zip ties (i.e. an average tool chest couldn't carry dozens of these clamps), but they have advantages over tape, cable ties, and other hook & loop products. They're reusable and, unlike tape, leave no gummy residue. They're durable -- won't lose grip after many re-uses. They're less likely to damage delicate electronics cables than a thin cable tie. And they can be opened one-handed (and closed one-handed if there is a backstop handy).

Note: I do find they can be hard to open because the trigger doesn't go back far enough to clear the teeth completely unless it is held down hard. Also, they can get temporarily bent out of shape when under stress -- i.e. the jaw won't go into the catch unless it is guided in by hand. And they are plastic, so they could get broken if something heavy crushed them or fell on them. Nevertheless, for a relatively inexpensive piece of plastic, they do seem pretty sturdy; I've used mine for about five months and haven't had to replace any.

-- Roger Knights

Cable Clamps
$13*
(set of seven clamps of three sizes)
Available from Amazon

$20 - $25*
(sets of 4 - 17 clamps in various sizes)
Available from and manufactured by QA Worldwide

[*To purchase in smaller quantities (read: $1 - $2 a piece), your best bet seems to be going into Home Depot or Ace Hardware in person; otherwise you'll be paying more for shipping than for the clamps - sl]

This neat little box hides all those computer and phone cords and doubles as a power outlet. Inside are 10 outlets and the box comes with a clever method for keeping things very organized: metal ties that are affixed to the inside. You just coil each cord, wrap a tie around it (twisting the end like you would with a sandwich bag), and stack each cord on top of one another. Unplugging is a cinch: simply find the cord you want, undo the ties and pull out the plug. I own two -- one at home and one at the office. You can keep it under your desk or on top (I have my monitor on it), and the front accessibility means you can plug/unplug items (i.e. cell phone) quickly and easily without having a mess of wires on your desk. With everything plugged in I've never had any trouble closing the lid. I once tried making something like this out of laminated wood (to match my desk). It cost about $200, didn't look as nice and wasn't nearly as convenient.

-- Vic Habersmith

Cordinator
$55
(item #: TS181)
Manufactured by Herrington

[It appears this product is not currently available online. Herrington says it's on back order, but available if you call: 1-800-622-5221 --sl]

Like many people, I've received a Kanchenchunga-sized pile of nylon conference give-away bags over the years. All very ho-hum. But after a recent conference I came home with a BBP bag. I was using an old Tumi bag, which I liked, but it was falling apart. This BBP bag turned up in the nick of time.

BBP makes a range of messenger-style briefcases. Their initials stand for "bum back packs" --- bags for people with bad backs, and they hang near your bum. They're thoughtfully designed, rugged, waterproof (ballistic nylon with rubberized interior), can be carried in a variety of ways (single shoulder, double shoulder like a backpack, slipped over the roll-aboard handle). Your laptop fits into a top-loading, well-padded, velour-lined outer pouch with a waterproof zipper, so the thing is super-accessible at airports and very well protected.

It's a better bag. And at $85 it costs about a third of the price of most of the Tumi bags (the Tumi nylon brief cases list for about $400 now, and $500-600 in leather). Actually, I kept the old shoulder strap from the Tumi, which has a leather ergonomic pad that has morphed to fit my shoulder. It works fine on the BBP. It is even better and cheaper than the popular Timbuk2 bags. To get your laptop out of the Timbuk2, you have to open the bag (two clips), then open the inner pouch (velcro). To get your laptop out of the BBP, you just unzip the shiny black waterproof zipper on the top of the outer padded compartment. And the Timbuk2 costs $115 (and more if you get little optional thingies, which you don't need on the $85 BBP as it has several extra pouches).

The medium size BBP holds my Apple 15" PowerBook G4 perfectly in the outside padded sleeve. In the rest of the bag I slide two batteries (there's a pouch just for those), power supply, dongle, a bit of USB stuff (like an indispensable 6" Treo HotSync/Charging cable, and my pen-sized radio remote controller), a power adapter, some paperwork, three books (quaint, but they're not available electronically), an iPod, cell phone, camera, wallet, keys, and bits and sundry pieces (my moleskine notebook, a couple pens, business cards, the usual). It's actually hard to make the pile much smaller. It all fits into the medium BBP.

-- Michael Hawley

BBP Hybrid Messenger/Backpack Laptop Bag
$95
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by BBP Bags

One way to carry it.

Sharpie markers are well-known for being indelible, particularly on plastic, glass and metal surfaces. Folks in labs, movie sets, and hospitals who need to mark things permanently use Sharpies. If the ink goes on, it won't come off. What's special here is that the other tip of these pens is an ultra- fine point Sharpie, fine enough to write like a ball-point pen - but permanently -- when you need to. The "industrial" version of Sharpie ink will even resist chemicals and scrubbing. Since more writing surfaces seem to be plastic-like, I find we use Sharpies all the time now.

-- KK

Sharpie Twin-Tip Permanent Marker
$1.50
Available from Amazon

What magnificent stuff. Glues together thin layers of paper products such as cardboard, photographs, foam core, even light fabrics, firmly and evenly. Most of the time it's superior to rubber cement, white glue, tape or contact cement. Comes in various formulations. 3M's Spray Mount is most versatile. You can find archival versions, too.

-- KK

3m Spray Mount Adhesive
$12
Available from Amazon

Hard-won wisdom fills this small book: How to create a team, place, or company that is productive. First published 20 years ago, and updated once since then, copies of it have quietly served as a guru for many start ups and successful projects in Silicon Valley. Neither academic nor faddish, two veteran consultant authors offer real intelligence. This book has totally informed how I do projects. I learned about the myth of overtime, the need for closure and ceremonies, how teams jell, and why everyone should and can have a window. I first read it decades ago and re-read it every time I embark on anything involving more than one person and several years of my life. Unlike a lot of management lore, it is aimed at the project level (where I want to be) rather than the large organization. The message in the book touts productivity, without ever mentioning the dreary idea of time management. It's more about optimizing people, and thus the title, Peopleware.

-- KK

Peopleware:
Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd ed.
Tom Demarco, Timothy Lister
1999, 245 pages
$31
Available from Amazon

Sample excerpts:

I was teaching an in-house design course some years ago, when one of the upper managers buttonholed me to request that I assess some of the people in the course (his project staff). He was particularly curious about one woman. It was obvious he had his doubts about her: "I don't quite see what she adds to a project -- she's not a great developer or tester or much of anything." With a little investigation, I turned up this intriguing fact: During her twelve years at the company, the woman in question had never worked on a project that had been anything other than a huge success. It wasn't obvious what she was adding, but projects always succeeded when she was around. After watching her in class for a week and talking to some of her co-workers, I came to the conclusion that she was a superb catalyst. Teams naturally jelled better when she was there. She helped people communicate with each other and get along. Projects were more fun when she was part of them. When I tried to explain this idea to the manager, I struck out. He just didn't recognize the role of catalyst as essential to a project.

*

Any regular get-together meeting is somewhat suspect to have a ceremonial purpose rather than a focused goal of consensus.

But organizations have a need of ceremony. It's perfectly reasonable to call a meeting with a purpose that is strictly ceremonial, particularly at project milestones, when new people come on board, or for celebrating good work by the group. Such meetings do not waste anyone's time. They fulfill real needs for appreciation. They confirm group membership -- its importance and its value.

*

Modern office politics makes a great class distinction in the matter of allocating windows. Most participants emerge as losers in the window sweepstakes. People who wouldn't think of living in a home without windows end up spending most of their daylight time in windowless workspace.

We are trained to accept windowless office space as inevitable. The company would love for every one of us to have a window, we hear, but that just isn't realistic. Sure it is. There is a perfect proof that sufficient windows can be built into a space without excessive cost. The existence proof is the hotel, any hotel. You can't even imagine being shown a hotel room with no window. You wouldn't stand for it. (And this is for a space you're only going to sleep in.)

Women's dormitory at Swarthmore College; everyone has windows.

*

The purpose of a team is not goal attainment but goal alignment.

*

A few very characteristic signs indicate that a jelled team has occurred. The most important of these is low turnover during projects and in the middle of well-defined tasks. The team members aren't going anywhere till the work is done. Things that matter enormously prior to jell (money, status, position for advancement) matter less or not at all after jell. People certainly aren't about to leave their team for a rinky-dink consideration like a little more salary.
There is a sense of eliteness on a good team. Team members feel they're part of something unique. They feel they're better than the run of the mill. They have a cocky, SWAT Team attitude that may be faintly annoying to people who aren't part of the group.

*

In my two years at Bell Labs, we worked in two-person offices. They were spacious, quiet, and the phones could be diverted. I shared my office with Wendl Thomis who went on to build a small empire as an electronic toy maker. In those days, he was working on the ESS fault dictionary. The dictionary scheme relied upon the notion of n-space proximity, a concept that was hairy enough to challenge even Wendl's powers of concentration. One afternoon, I was bent over a program listing while Wendl was staring into space, his feet propped up on the desk. Our boss came in and asked, "Wendl! What are you doing?" Wendl said, "I'm thinking." And the boss said, "Can't you do that at home?"

*

Organizations also have some need for closure. Closure for the organization is the successful finish of the work as assigned, plus perhaps an occasional confirmation along the way that everything is on target (maybe a milestone achieved or a significant partial delivery completed). How much confirmation corporations require is a function of how much money is at risk. Frequently, closure only at the end of a four-year effort is adequate for the needs of the organization.
The problem here is that organizations have far less need for closure than do the people who work for them. The prospect of four years of work without any satisfying "thunk" leaves everyone in the group thinking, "I could be dead before this thing is ever done." Particularly when the team is coming together, frequently closure is important. Team members need to get into the habit of succeeding together and liking it. This is part of the mechanism by which the team builds momentum.

*

Lost production due to change of personnel.

Productivity took a hit when Louise left, even passing below zero for a while as others scurried to make up for the loss of a well-integrated team member. Then, eventually, it worked its way up to where it was before.

The shaded area on the graph represents the lost production (work that didn't get done) caused by Louise's departure. Or, viewed differently, it is the investment that the company is now making to get Ralph up to where Louise was after the company's past investments in her skills and capabilities.

My office building's climate control is like a pendulum -- it swings back and forth in the general area of comfort, but never quite reaches it. I have long used small table fans, but have to leave a suitable gap between the fan and the wall/partition behind it, to avoid blocking the air flow. Now I use a Lasko "squirrel cage" blower, which takes in air from the sides, allowing it to be placed flush against any wall. The blower head is adjustable in a vertical direction. An added plus -- its design is extremely quiet, making it perfect for the office environment.

-- Bryan Quattlebaum

(In the United States, this product is sold under the Stanley brand name in a black-and-yellow package which is more likely to harmonize with a workshop than an office. A representative from Lasko stated that their original two-tone gray design is not available from retailers until the summer months. --CP)

Lasko Fan
$53
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Lasko Products

CityMax is the coolest tool on the web.��I needed a website to sell my stuff and it took me forever to find a provider that would allow me to build, host and maintain my site so easily and for less than $20.

Its awesome because unlike the other site builders out there, it is integrated with eBay, Paypal, Google, Yahoo, Shopping.com and just has everything I need. I am their biggest fan.

(CityMax claims that more than 172,000 sites have been built using their software.)

-- Kirk McClean

CityMax
$20/month or $204/year
Available from CityMax

I present to you my low-tech solution to a common hassle: what to do with all those business cards you collect? If I were an organized person I would purchase one of those nifty electronic card-scanners and input the card's data into my contact software. But I am lazy and unorganized. Instead I use an off-the-shelf binder full of transparent sleeves with 10 card-sized slots into which I pop the biz cards as I get them out of my pocket. That's the key for me: they are "organized" only by the chronological order in which I receive them. That single bit of data, which costs me no energy, seems to be sufficient to locate most cards. "Let's see I met her before him, and after that meeting." I reckon I have about a 90% percent retrieval success rate, even when hunting back a few years. Good enough for me. I've been doing this for 15 years now and am working on my fourth book.

There are a bunch of different brands. Get the ones that are a one-piece vinyl book rather than 3-ring binder. More compact, handy and cheaper. Each holds 480 cards. I use mine all the time. As a bonus, I have a remarkable fossil record of past industries, companies, and careers. If you've ever given me your card, its most likely layered here. Let's see, I met you right about......

-- KK

Rolodex Poly Business Card Book
$19
Available from
Shoplet

Also from Amazon

I haven't tried the Russell Executive reviewed earlier, but I found a similar mesh chair for even cheaper.

The arms are attached to the base and screwed on, but I personally have no need to ever remove them, and the height adjustments are easy. It has tilt lock, adjustable tilt firmness, height adjustment, and an up/down adjustment on the lumbar support.

I managed to pick one up on sale, but even at the standard $180 with free shipping, I think this is a pretty good deal. I can't speak for its longevity, having just purchased it recently, but it does come with a 15 year warranty. I'm happy so far.

-- Adam Fields

Situations Mesh Manager's Chair
$180
Staples

The Russell Executive Mesh Chair is the Aeron for people on a budget. I've had to sit in many, many different kinds of chairs in my inglorious temping career, and this one is by far the best. Both the seat and the back are mesh, so the chair breathes. The ergonomic control, while not nearly as complete as the Aeron's, is still definitely superior to any chair I've found in the sub-$300 range. As with the Aeron (which goes for twice that amount, or about $600-650 new), the arms are attached to the back, not the seat - and they're easily removed. It's light but sturdy (steel frame) and pretty easy on the eyes (a little bit biomorphic). I've been using mine since late last year and it's vastly improved my relationship with my desk.

Best of all, it's only $230 new at discounters.

-- Finn Brunton

Russell Executive Mesh Chair
$300
Available from, among others, Office Depot
Office Depot

Polysheet instant whiteboards are thick, static-laden sheets of plastic, like ultra-heavy garbage bags. Just unroll one, slap it on the wall, and instant whiteboard! Best of all, in the corporate world, at the end of the meeting, you can roll them up, take them back to your desk, and process them. After capturing the contents in your computer, wipe them off for next time!

-- S.A.

These cling to walls, to each other and most dry surfaces by static electricity. They come in very handy since you can pretty much place them anywhere you want. Put many of them against the wall and you have an instant whiteboard of any size. Dry erase markers wipe off fairly easily. Their 27 x 34 inch pad fits standard flip chart easels or conference cabinets. Rolls up for travel and storage. Perforated sheets tear off cleanly.

-- Philip Papadopoulos

[For more ways to do whiteboards, see the previously reviewed Marker Board Walls and Quartet Easel. KK]

Write-on Poly Static Cling Sheets
$30
(35 sheets)
Available from Amazon

Or $33 from Instawares
Insta Wares

Cube-dwellers have grown increasingly accustomed to capturing their mental state on whiteboard surfaces, but whiteboard access at home, unfortunately, is not as common as at work. I picked up a Quartet "Portable Presentation Easel" to alleviate this problem. It's a heavy-duty whiteboard that is height- and angle-adjustable. It's also double-sided to maximize the available writing surface. When you want to transport it, the entire assembly folds up to approximately 42" x 32". I found this tool so useful in my home office that I have since added two traditional "fixed" whiteboards, but the Quartet easel remains the most used whiteboard in the house.

-- Dhiren Patel

More and more companies wisely retreat to an offsite to brainstorm in order to remove themselves from the urgencies and habits of their offices. Problem is, these charming retreats often contain minimal hardware (by design). Easels like the Quartet will work, but lack the large space real brainstorming requires. The creative pros will bring in mobile dry erase boards like the Nomad II, which can be rented and shipped to site. They rent for about $110 per panel per day (not including shipping). My facilitator friends rave that "the stuff goes together like IKEA furniture... just a single allen wrench tool is required." I've used these and they are very handsome in the permanent office as well. Since they move easily they can second as a divider or room barrier and then be rolled into place when needed.

--KK

Nomad II
Available for rent from Kinetic Energies

Quartet Portable Presentation Easel
40" x 29" writing surface
$180
Available from Staples

Turns out that brainstorming is an epigraphic activity -- something best done on walls. Reading and writing on walls is a different function than reading a book. A broad wall-view is an ideal approach for collaborative design -- multiple views in a single glance. Thus the tremendous interest in flip charts, graphic capture, doodling, giant post-its, whiteboards, and all the electronic equivalents of those. By far the cheapest and easiest epigraphic display is a large whiteboard. And when it comes to whiteboards, you can't be too big.

The Cheapest:
You can get a magnificently large -- 4 by 8 feet --and fabulously cheap whiteboard for all of $13 at Home Depot. What you want is the Solid White Tileboard (sometimes called Melamine tile wall panel) used as a tile substitute in bathrooms. Some know it as showerboard because a couple of sheets of this and you have a nice waterproof shower stall. You'll need a $1 tube of panel adhesive to glue this 1/8 inch surface to the wall or a piece of plywood. Melamine is the same stuff official whiteboards are made from. These huge sheets are slick and work perfectly well with dry-erase markers. You can cover an entire wall for $50. You can also cut it into smaller pieces with a regular circular saw.

The Best:
Upscale from the tileboard guerilla wall, the premium epigraphic surface is ceramic coated metal. When I built my office/studio I covered an entire wall with this material. It takes a dry-erase marker with ease, but it also accept magnets, so it can double as a pin board. I layout books in progress, hang blueprints, charts, maps, or use it as an art galley -- whatever. When using markers on it there is zero ghosting after erasing (sometimes a slight problem with Melamine). This ceramic coated steel also comes in eye-saving low-gloss light gray color, so the blazing white of a whole wall is significantly muted, yet it has plenty of contrast for any marker color.

This stuff is called P3 Ceramicsteel, and it is not cheap (at least when covering a whole wall). You can get them as an unadorned sheet (a special order), without frames or mounting, but they usuallly come mounted on particle board with an alumium backing. These now cost about $200 per 4 x 8 foot sheet. I used the same material for small magnetic boards near my desk.

-- KK

Solid White Tileboard
4 x 8 x (1/8 inch)
SKU #A 253-540
$13
Available from Home Depot stores

P3 Ceramicsteel Makerboard
800-631-4514. Call them for local distributors.
Manufactured by Polyvision
(A Bay Area distributor is Fred Turner Co: 650-588-8883. They do not ship.)

I have searched for years for a high-quality, flexible project management system. I found it in Basecamp. Basecamp is scaleable to handle a handful of projects for a sole proprietor on a tight budget, or countless initiatives for a large, distributed network. It requires no downloads or software beyond the web browser. It has swiftly become THE key tool in managing our project pipeline, with milestones, to-do lists, team members and essential files. I have set up three of my own clients with the software and they all love it because they finally have a cheap, efficient knowledge management tool that does not follow a "per seat fee." Non-profit organizations seem to benefit most from this software because usually they don't have much tech support, while Basecamp offers them a seamless way to connect a project.

There is a free 30-day trial version. Pricing is based on number of projects, not users. It begins at 1 project=free, and then ends at unlimited projects = $150/month. We started with the $12/month 3 project plan, and it swiftly became so core to our business processes, we upgraded immediately. Sounds expensive, except that the program allows the owners (us) to set permissions for unlimited users, who aren't required to pay anything.

The company posted a great manifesto and so far they are living up to it and making our mom-and-pop shop a happier place to work.

-- Peter Durand

Basecamp
Free for 1 project
$12/month and up for 3 or more
Available from Basecamp

Much to the surprise of the organizational man, play is turning out to be the key to business. According to research by Michael Schrage, uncertainty is the only sure thing in business, and the way to confront uncertainty is by "serious play." A business engages in serious play when it constructs electronic spreadsheets and fiddles with alternatives, or when it can produce rapid prototypes, or assemble large-scale virtual models - all in order to reduce uncertainty. Fast-and-dirty demos, pilot programs, beta releases and scenarios are yet other ways of managing mistakes and learning. The genius of this book is that it focuses on the cultural consequences of simulations, and pays equal attention to the many ways in which models fail, or mislead their makers. Schrage sums up by saying, "The central thesis of this book is that organizations manage themselves by managing their prototypes."

-- KK

Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate
Michael Schrage
1999, 244 pages
$20
Harvard Business School Press
Amazon

Sample Excerpt:

Even the simplest simulations can yield counterintuitive insights. The message is that model surprise may be even more important than model affirmations.

*

The value of prototypes resides less in the models themselves than in the interactions - the conversations, arguments, consultations, collaborations - they invite.

*

The conventional interpretation - in science, academia, and business alike - is that we build "virtual worlds" to better understand the problem to be solved or the opportunity to be exploited. This is accurate without being true. The real reason we need to build and seriously play with prototypes is to get a better understanding of ourselves and our priorities.

*

It is increasingly apparent how often people are lured into creative collaborations by "charismatic prototypes" - prototypes that invite participation and enhancement.

*

"I've learned that you learn far more about an organization from what they won't model than from what they do." Asserts political scientist Garry Brewer... "Organizations frequently leave out the very assumptions that are most important or most threatening to their sense of themselves."

*

Most organizations wouldn't hesitate to videotape a customer focus group interacting around a new product prototype. But how many design teams videotape themselves interacting around their proposed innovation?

Some lean forward to edit or handwrite. I lean back. This light plywood surface (with elastic paper holders) propped on the tiltback chair arms serves admirably as a work surface and then stows easily.

-- SB

Maple Lap Desk
$48
Levenger
800/667-8034

I keep coming back to this book when change gets difficult. Christensen says that every innovator has an inevitable dilemma: serve the current game (customers) or the next game (new customers). You can't serve both. Therefore innovators have to ignore the demands of the present in order to create the reality of tomorrow. It's the most insightful look into the nature of revolution I've seen.

-- KK

The Innovator's Dilemma
When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Clayton Christensen
1997, 225 pages
$20
Harvard Business School Press
Amazon

Excerpts:

The research reported in this book...shows that in the cases of well-managed firms ... good management was the most powerful reason they failed to stay atop their industries. Precisely because these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically allocated investment capital to innovations that promised the best returns, they lost their positions of leadership.

*

Occasionally, however, disruptive technologies emerge: technologies that result in worse product performance, at least in the near-term... Generally disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value.

*

By and large, a disruptive technology is initially embraced by the least profitable customers in a market.

*

But while a $40 million company needs to find just $8 million in revenues to grow at 20 percent in the subsequent year, a $4 billion company needs to find $800 million in new sales. No new markets are that large. As a consequence, the larger and more successful an organization becomes, the weaker the argument that emerging markets can remain useful engines for growth.

*

It was as if the leading firms were held captive by their customers, enabling attacking entrant firms to topple the incumbent industry leaders each time a disruptive technology emerged.

*

The [non-hydraulic excavator manufacturers] did not fail because they lacked information about hydraulics or how to use it; indeed the best of them used it as soon as it could help their customers. They did not fail because management was sleepy or arrogant. They failed because hydraulics didn't make sense - until too late.

*

Not only are the market applications for disruptive technologies unknown at the time of their development, they are unknowable. The strategies and plans that managers formulate for confronting disruptive technological change, therefore, should be plans for learning and discovery rather than plans for execution.

*

Hire smart, your company wins; hire dumb, you die. People are the scarce resource in the new economy, but no one teaches employees how to hire people. Successful fast-growing companies have caught on. They now hire people who are good at hiring others. Between these book covers is a million dollars worth of hiring advice, the best anywhere. If you are in business, ignore at your peril.

-- KK

Hiring Smart!
How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game
Pierre Mornell
1998, 226 pages
$14
Ten Speed Press
Amazon

Excerpts:

You can't spend too much time or effort on "hiring smart." The alternative is to manage tough, which is much more time consuming.

*

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

*

Strategy No.3: Give an assignment before the interview. Ask the candidate to visit one of your stores, plants, campuses, offices, or Web pages before the interview. Then ask for the candidate's observations.

*

Strategy No.5: Read resumes in teams if possible. It's helpful--and faster--to read the top candidates' resumes in teams of three to five people. Teams that work well together are more accurate and insightful about potential employees than individuals are.

*

Strategy No.6: Cast the widest net possible. Microsoft assumes that the best candidates are not looking for jobs. In fact, candidates who approach Microsoft are actually less attractive to the company.

*

Strategy No.13: Ask all your questions at once. That's right. Put all your initial questions on the table up front. This strategy accomplishes three things. First, in a manner of speaking, you pass the baton. You've asked the questions, now the candidate must respond. Performance depends upon the candidate, not selling yourself and the organization. Second, more importantly, this strategy directly confronts the most common problem in interviewing: not listening, and talking too much...Third, this technique forces you to listen. If there's one practical tip you should try in your next interview, I suggest this one. Asking all your questions at once, and following up later in the interview, allows you to settle back and watch a candidate's behavior as well as listen to his or her words.

*

Strategy No. 15: Assign a mini-project to finalists. Three quarters of the way through the interview, give the candidate a task to perform. Not only does this demonstrate the candidate's behavior--it also breaks up the monotony of most interviews.

*

Strategy No. 32: Ask the references to call you back. Here is the simplest, most effective reference check that I know. It's also fast and legal. Call references at what you assume will be their lunchtime--you want to reach an assistant or voice mail. If it's voice mail, leave a simple message. If it's an assistant, be sure that he or she understands the last sentence of your message. You say: "John (or Jane) Jones is a candidate for (the position) in our company. Your name has been given as a reference. Please call me back if the candidate was outstanding."

The results are both immediate and revealing. If the candidate is outstanding or excellent, I guarantee that eight out of ten people will respond quickly and want to help....However, if only two or three of the references selected by the candidate return your call, this message is also loud and clear. And yet:
No derogatory information has been shared.
No libelous statements have been made.
No confidence or laws have been broken.

*

Strategy No. 39: Invest in people, not ideas.

*

Unfortunately, an employer's ability to hear bad news about a potential employee is inversely proportional to the time spent courting that employee.

I am reminded of a famous magazine editor's remark that creativity in his business demanded "wastage." Here's a welcomed assault on the misguided notion of efficiency, pressure, and overtime in the workplace. Great managers incorporate "slack" - an incredibly potent stance that yields more resources that it uses. More slack, better business. Down with efficiency.

-- KK

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
Tom DeMarco
2001, 226 pages
$23
Broadway Books
Amazon

Excerpt:

The best predictor of how much work a knowledge worker will accomplish is not the hours that he or she spends, but the days. The twelve-hour days don't accomplish any more than the eight-hour days. Overtime is a wash.

Since companies don't typically pay knowledge workers for overtime, any net advantage gained by extraction of overtime would be a cost-free benefit. That violates the ages-old adage that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. And sure enough, there ain't.

*

The Legacy of the nineties has been a dangerous corporate delusion; the idea that organizations are effective only to the extent that all their workers are totally and eternally busy. Anyone who's not overworked (sweating, staying late, racing from one task to the next, working Saturdays, unable to squeeze time for even the briefest meeting till two weeks after next) is looked on with suspicion. People with a little idle time on their hands may not even be safe.

*

But now into this happy scenario drop a consultant with a charter to reduce cost, the "corporate restructuring agent." Whoa, he says, what's this? A secretary? And what's she up to this very minute? He parks himself beside Sylvia's desk with his trusty stopwatch in hand. To no one's surprise, he finds that Sylvia is really only busy 43 percent of the time. The rest of the time she is...available. She's available to do stuff that you or your people find you need to have done. That's part of what's so great about Sylvia: When something comes up, she can usually get cracking on it right away.

A look of triumph now comes over the consultant's face. If Sylvia is only busy 43 percent of the time, 57 percent of her cost is potentially savable. Why, all we have to do is dump Sylvia into a "pool" and allocate 43 percent of her time to you and the rest to other people. Or have you share her with some other manager who needs only 57 percent of a full person. Or even get rid of Sylvia entirely and hire a temp for that 43 percent of the time that you really need someone. (You can be sure that the consultant will be checking back later to find out if you really need that much help.)

What an improvement. Sylvia's gone or gone 57 percent of the time, and 57 percent of what she was costing the organization goes directly down to the bottom line. Wow. In place of a person who was idle 57 percent of the time, we now have someone who is busy 100 percent of the time. Talk about efficiency!

The problem of course, is that the now-slackless secretary or portion thereof is simply not as responsive as Sylvia was. This highly efficient person doesn't get cracking right away on anything new that comes up, because this highly efficient person is too busy.

*

Managers who inspire extraordinary loyalty from their people tend to be highly charismatic, humorous, good-looking, and tall. So, by all means, strive to be those things. If you don't feel able to improve any of those factors very much, you might consider holding on to your people by designing a little slack into their lives.

*

Sprinting. There is a useful distinction to make here between infrequent short bursts of overtime --what I call sprinting - and extended overtime. Sprinting can make perfectly good sense in the right circumstances. Imagine yourself encouraging everyone to come in for a gargantuan workathon weekend to bring a project to completion for delivery Monday morning. You all stay up through the night, or catch catnaps on the carpet or on the sofa in the big boss's office. You keep each other going, check each other's work (after all, people do get tired), and keep everybody's spirits up. You guzzle coffee. You share order-in pizza or sandwiches from the all-night deli or you slip our for noodles at the Chinese place that keeps late hours. Most of all, you succeed on Monday morning, and when the crazy weekend is over, you go back to normal hours.

This is the stuff of which corporate legends are made. When you've all been through it together, and shared an important success, there is something profoundly changed about the culture of the organization. The energy is still there after the workathon weekend is long past.

The manager who makes effective use of the occasional sprint is a hero. He/She needs impeccable timing, a flawless sense of what can and can't be accomplished over a short period (there is no benefit if the delivery doesn't take place on Monday or if it gets rejected), and enough raw leadership talent to pull the whole affair together. Finally, such a manager also needs to have a huge reserve of trust to dip into, the clear sense shared by all that the call or extraordinary effort is truly extraordinary, not likely to be wasted and not likely to become a regular fixture.

*

In Region I, workers are responding to increased pressure by trimming any remaining waste, by concentrating on the critical path, and by staying late. In Region II, workers are getting tired, feeling pressure from home, and starting to put in a little "undertime" (taking the kid to the dentist during work hours, since the company owes them so much time anyway.) In Region III, workers are polishing up their resumes and beginning to look for work elsewhere.

*
"What would you do," I asked him, "if overtime were forbidden and you still had to make the schedule?" "Well, I'll tell you one thing," he answered promptly, "we'd sure have to do something about all these meetings." I paused for a moment, hoping that the words that had come so readily out of his mouth would make their way back in through an ear. But no. He couldn't hear what he'd just said. He missed it entirely.

A great dial-in teleconferencing solution for free. You just set up your call as little as 90 minutes in advance and distribute the call-in number to the folks calling. The organizer pays nothing, and participants pay only their usual long distance, which should be extremely cheap (particularly with the new flat-rate plans). The voice quality has always been excellent. In six months of use this teleconference service has never failed me one iota. I skip the bells and whistle services they offer. Since they don't charge anything on your phone bill, or take your credit card number for their free service, they hope to make money on premium services, or maybe by selling ads in the future.

Anyway you can't go wrong with this one.

-- Thomas Petzinger

[I've use this service frequently and it is excellent. In fact is the clearest teleconferencing I've taken part in. -- KK]

FreeConference.com

List of phone numbers to call

I discovered the Ott-Lite VisionSaver line while evaluating photo printers during my five years as editor-in-chief at Digital Camera Magazine. We needed a lamp that would allow us to accurately evaluate the color qualities and fading characteristics of printed output from a range of inkjet printers, and the pleasant people at Ott-Lite were happy to provide us with a pair of 18 Watt Cranes. These were such delightful products in their own right that I ended up reviewing them separately, then I bought one for each editor and designer on my staff. Even our staff photographer used them regularly for quick-and-dirty product shots. The quality of light produced by these unique 10K-hour tubes is superb, with a spectrum nearly matching natural sunlight. They are the ideal complement to a computer desk; just arc the arm in from either side of your display and tilt the head a few degrees away from you for a smooth, glare-free backlight. The Crane's balance and double-jointed adjustability is as good as it gets, and the durable gunmetal-grey finish looks nice, too. Now I use them all over my house and can no longer stand to work under any other lamp. Our Cranes have survived multiple relocations across the US as well as the daily indignities inflicted by a precocious preschooler for three years running. They're pricey at US$199 list, but I think they are worth it.

I have not tried using Ott bulbs separately in a different lamp, but can't imagine why they'd perform any differently. I have used two of their smaller lamps with equally satisfying results, but the Crane is just such a well-designed object that I haven't wanted to buy anything else.

-- David MacNeill

Ott-Lite VisionSaver 18 Watt Crane Desk Lamp
$199 list from Ott-Lite Technologies
$170 from among others Comfort House

A cost-effective method for binding reports, manuals, galleys, and booklets in a somewhat professional looking style. The hand-operated device cuts and then binds pages into a plastic comb binding. It has saved our household countless disruptive last-minute trips to Kinkos, and paid for itself after the tenth binding. It�s pathetically easy to peel combs off from booklets headed for the recycling bin. I�ve stock piled a wide assortment of combs that way. Get a variety of sizes (the combs are cheap); the largest size can handle several hundred pages.
�KK

Docubind Personal Plastic Comb Binder
item #379952893
$60
Office Depot

Not all home-office work is typing at a keyboard. That's why this home-office design book is heads above the others. Maybe you are a weaver, or a landscape architect, or antique toy restorer. When I had a chance to design my own home office attached to our house I found the clear advice, helpful design ideas and visual inspiration in this portfolio to be the best of the bunch.

-- KK

At Work at Home
Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace
Neal Zimmerman
2001, 234 pages
$23
Available from Amazon

I don't know how households get by without one of these. It quickly dispenses wide sealing-tape around a box securely and accurately. You can wrap up a package in seconds. We use it many times a week. Mine is at least 15 years old and will probably last another 15. Wide tape is often much better than the ordinary stuff, so we often find ourselves snipping off small bits from the dispenser.

Pistol-grip Sealing Tape Dispenser
$10
Amazon

These have been around since the age of dinosaurs, but they still work better than most gadgets. We use them for labeling almost anything that needs a name or number. The labels adhere well and have a clear retro look. The inexpensive plastic device is mercifully idiot-proof. Cheap too.

Dymo Compact Label Maker
Item#: 653611, $4
Frys Electronics Outpost.com
877-688-7678, 860-927-2050

Or try the Pro version from Amazon