It was fun to be able to speak at the Mntech Tech Outlook 2024 event today. Dan Abdul, Sarah Engstrom, Eric Hanson, and I introduced our companies and covered a lot of ground with Jeff Tollefson moderating. Topics ranged from GenAI, talent development, technology strategy, and more.
Upgraded to OmniFocus 4
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of OmniFocus 4.0 and today is the day! I haven’t used any of the betas so it is all new to me. It was an easy decision to upgrade because OmniFocus is one of my most frequently used apps and the cornerstone of my GTD system.
I upgraded three Macs, my iPhone, iPad, and was excited to see a proper Apple Watch version that now runs completely independently.
My initial impressions:
- The user experience is a big change. It will take me a bit to get used to it, but I can already see how it is more streamlined.
- The logical role of perspectives in the user experience is way better.
- Love that the Apple Watch version is useful. I never used the previous version and it hadn’t been updated in years. This one I will use.
I was excited to be the first to claim tonight’s MN Blockchain Holiday Party POAP! Also see related POAPs.
Brandon Ferdig kicking off tonight’s MN Blockchain Holiday Party. The evening was a fun social event as well as a recap of the events the organization has hosted over the year. Thanks to Colin Hirdman for hosting the event.
We are now a Ridwell house!
A few months ago while walking our neighborhood I noticed some of these white boxes in front of houses with a Ridwell logo on them. Tammy was far ahead of me and knew that it was a service to help you properly recycle and dispose of a bunch of household things that typically end up in the trash — particularly plastic but many other things too. Tammy is much more sensible about our environmental impact and I assumed that at some point we would have one of these too, and that time has come.
I got to see it all new when it showed up. Ridwell gave us a number of canvas sacks to put different products in. We place it all in the box and they will come on the next trip around and properly dispose or recycle the items. It seems like a pretty good service and certainly a smart idea. Tammy is particularly excited that they take styrofoam. They also handle a ton of other plastics that you cannot otherwise recycle. Combining recycling, organics, and Ridwell we think we’ll be able to reduce our landfill output to a very minimal amount.
If you want to sign up this invite link will give you a month free.
First Visit to the Haberdashery
In 2022 I worked with a style coach and it was a transformative experience. It’s been about a year now, and I have had one piece of homework that I still hadn’t done — get a suit that really fits me. Nancy Dilts had told me to make my way to Heimie’s Haberdashery in St. Paul and they would take care of me. I’ve had it on my list for a year, and finally Tammy decided to give me a nudge and she just made the appointment for me.
I worked with Richard Shallbetter and he got me measured every way possible for a custom suit. My favorite part about getting a custom suit was that I got to pick out the specific fabric combinations. Now I wait and am eager to sport what I hope will be my favorite suit ever.
And this will not be my last time to Heimie’s. I loved the experience.
It was an honor to be included in the Twin Cities Business 2023 Notable Leaders in Technology (detail page). Amazing to be part of a great company like SPS Commerce and a great team like #TeamSPS! See LinkedIn post.
We had a great brunch and even more fun taking pictures in the Red Nose Room at Red Cow Uptown this morning. 🎄🧑🎄
After visiting the European Christmas Market we walked over to the Glow Holiday Festival at CHS Field. It was fun to walk amongst all the lights and there were many activities.
We had a great time visiting the St. Paul European Christmas Market tonight. We had delicious food and checked out many different shops.
We attended our first St. Olaf Christmas Festival at Orchestra Hall. This year was themed Love and Joy. This concert has been held since 1912. The mass choral arrangements with all 500 students were wonderful. Orchestra Hall was the perfect venue as well.
First time stopping at Smith Coffee & Cafe and was very impressed with their coffee program and the pastries were great.
In celebration of our niece’s 16th Birthday she arranged a large group of family and friends to go to Feed My Starving Children and pack food this morning! Our group packed 42 of the 180 boxes for the session, for a total of 38,880 meals. It was a fun time doing good!
New Standards Holiday Show 2023
We had a fun night at the 2023 New Standards Holiday Show tonight! This is a holiday tradition of ours and is always a fun evening. There were many returning and new special guests. The show wrapped with the excellent Christmastime Next Year. 🎄
New Standards Holiday Shows: 2023, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2013, and 2012.
Cyber Monday 2023! 🚀
What is your favorite iPhone?
The other day Alex stopped by my office and asked me “What is your favorite iPhone that you have owned?” My first reaction was that sure is a random question and then it got me thinking. What was it? I gave him a quick answer and then thought that would be a fun blog post. So here we are. I couldn’t just give one, for me there are three that stand out.
- iPhone: Yeah, the first one. I stood in line at Southdale Mall outside the Apple Store to get it. I was excited by the device and felt like it was going to be a “game changer”. I wanted to have the first one on the first day so that I could experience the entire journey.
- iPhone 4: I upgraded to this one and the new design with less curved edges appealed to me. This phone also had the first retina display and it was the first one with a front facing camera. I also upgraded to iPhone 4s to get a little speed boost.
- iPhone Xs: I enjoyed the iPhone 7 with its button-less button, but when I upgraded to iPhone Xs I loved the removal of the home button. I remember thinking it would take some time to get used to, but it didn’t. The gesture interface that is now on all phones was an instant hit.
Also, since we’re on the topic of iPhones, here is a complete list of iPhones I’ve owned. I initially bought each successive generation, and then moved to upgrading every two years. Now probably every three years. The quick jump from the 13 Pro to 14 Pro was to hand our phones down to our kids. Links are all to the Wikipedia page for each one.
Things 4 Good 2023 Fall Fundraiser Insights
We had a great time hosting our 3rd annual Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser. We raised nearly $6,000 in donations for our four non-profits. A fun thing for me about the fundraiser is it lets us play the role of a retailer for a weekend.
This year we had 55 candle purchases which compares to 52 in 2022 and 51 in 2021. On average people purchased 4 candles. However averages don’t always tell the story. Most people get two candles, and then there are a smaller number of people that get a large number — usually as gifts for the holidays.
We had some new scents this year, and had more scents than we have had the previous two years. The first year we had only four scents, and last year six. This year we had eight different scents. As the number of scents go up we need to be more planful with inventory. For the first time this year we tracked which scents people picked so that we could get better insight for future years. Here is a look at rolling inventory.
Some observations:
- Winter Wonderland is always the most popular scent and we started with more than twice as many of those as any other scent.
- Old Fashioned was a very popular new scent this year and was the first to sell out.
- Plain Jane, also a new scent, had a lot of early sales and then slowed down a lot. This scent was most popular when someone bought a lot of candles as gifts.
I fed the transaction data into ChatGPT and used its data analysis mode to make a run at doing inventory planning for next year. It did a reasonable job but with such a simple dataset I could have gotten most of the way there on my own. It recommended a 30% increase for True North and 20% increase for Old Fashioned. Even though it was a simple use case, it highlighted how powerful it could be at that use case.
We offer folks a number of ways to donate and again Venmo was by far the most popular method, twice as popular as cash. I’ve offered the ability to pay with crypto for all three years, and this year we had our first donation made with Bitcoin via the Lightning Network!
Interesting data for us which will help us with next years event. We are already keeping notes for things we want to do to make next year’s Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser even better. Send us an email if you have any suggestions!
Also see 2023 Fall Fundraiser Results.
Watched Elf tonight! Tradition of ours every year right after Thanksgiving. This viewing was one of my favorites. What a great movie! 🎬🎄
A friend shared this powerful maxim with me. I have found it useful in recent conversations.
Does the question need to be asked?
Does the question need to be asked now?
Does the question need to be asked by you?
I’ve been surprised at how frequently I come to a “no” for one of these questions. 🤔