Merlin, you’ve honed this talk to a razor edge. Excellent work!

I’ve been lurking here a while; this talk was the catalyst that made me decide to register. Beautifully said. Good ideas but most important you remind me that I’m not imagining this stuff! Thanks so much for sharing.

that sounds ungrateful when he asks for the iPod version of this to enjoy away from the laptop. Really glad the flash version is available for ingestion, but I’d love to listen to it on my drive to work. Can you make this happen Merlin?

If you have Safari, and you should hehehe, it’s very easy:

1) Open this page on Safari, open the activity window (on the menu bar: Window > Activity) and search for the biggest file or simply copy this following url http://s4.video.blip.tv/1480002295812/Themerlinshow-MerlinMannAtMacworld2008TimeAttention137.flv, now open the downloads window (on the menu bar: Window > Downloads) and paste the url. All this alchemy will start the download of a .flv file of the video.

2) Now you should have a .flv file on your computer and all that you have to do is to transcode it to mp4/mov and drag it to iTunes (some programs like visualhub will do this automatically)

Now that’s the way to do it in 2 (two) very convoluted steps… ;)

I just finished listening to your preso, and, in a subsequent move, shut off Mail.app for the night. Just a quick note: We seem to be moving in some serial universe. I left Tallahassee for San Francisco and returned just as you left Tallahassee for San Francisco. I apparently filled several of your old jobs along the way (with nefarious individuals like Pete Butler and Alan Hanstein, not to drop names) and was bequeathed many of your old websites. I keep telling those guys that one day, before I die, I want to actually meet you. Don't know when it's going to happen, but a guy can dream, right? Congrats on the new baby girl, too!

I’m about 23 minutes into your presentation. You’re talking about renegotiation. I hit the pause button and thought: “What am I doing?” I think I just had a moment akin to your 3am Bocelli on Wikipedia moment. I’m gonna take my time back and do something…BUT, I’m sure I will finish watching your presentation later, as I did find myself saying: “Uh huh” and nodding quite a bit as I was listening.

Thank you for sharing this event with those of use who could not make it to Mac World. Fantastic presentation. Keep up the great work.

Thanks for posting this, a very good watch/listen.

it more and more seems to me that, for the user, this site is becoming a disappointment.

It’s great for catching up on the latest Merlin stuff — and I do admire his talks and such — but if you scan down over the page, there’s just not as much value being put in as there is promotion.

I came around to this site when it was quite new — back in the days when the Hipster was a breath of fresh air and all. These days even though there seem to be more people supposedly making content there seems to be less content to be had unless you are a GTD acolyte or a Merlin fan.

I like Merlin, don;t get me wrong, but having to take time out to see the latest and greatest Merlin expo doesn’t strike me as a great way of Getting Things Done.

I hope you take this as a respectful criticism and not as anything else. I want to see this site continue to grow and prosper but lately it seems, at least to me, like it isn’t getting that done.

This made me think of something….

When it comes to getting others to value your time and attention, I find that many times the problem is that people try to take the form of communication they are using and attempt to turn it into something that it’s not. It’s as if they are trying to miraculously morph it and change it in some different way, as if they’re discovering some new, innovative way to use a specific form of communication.

Take a phone call, for instance. Phone technology has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. The sound quality is better. There are features like call waiting, voice mail, conference calling, *69, and such. You no longer are tethered to the kitchen wall and can receive calls anywhere in your house, in your city, hell, anywhere in the country. Consequently, it also means that you could potentially receive more calls. Now, you could say that an iPhone, a Treo, or a Crackberry makes you more productive and allow you to better manage your phone calls. But the question is: Does it make your phone calls any better? No, not really. An iPhone isn’t going to make the conversation with your silly aunt from Ohio any better. For all intents and purposes, even after 20+ years of evolution in telephone technology, a phone call is still just a phone call.

E-mail isn’t all that much different. E-mail started off as just plain text. Then it grew to allow you to add emphasis, bold things, italicize things, and eventually allow you to format your text just like you would in a word processor. Now we can use HTML code in e-mails and have images embedded in them. Your silly aunt in Ohio has now discovered the stationary feature in her e-mail client and is sending you stuff with pictures of her dogs tiled in the background. Even with all the advancements made to it though, an e-mail is still just an e-mail.

We also have text messaging, instant messaging, Twitter, FAX, forums, bulletin boards, bathroom walls, and all sorts of other ways to communicate with other people. All of these have a specific form factor and serve a given purpose. There’s no way you’ll be able to use a bathroom wall the same way you would use an e-mail. You could…but your co-workers probably wouldn’t like it. Nor would they like the idea of doing a complete office meeting with nothing more than text messaging. It’s possible…but it’s not nearly as effective as doing it face to face.

So the next time you start bouncing multiple e-mails back and forth between you and your co-workers and clients, ask yourself a few questions: Would it be easier and more efficient if I just picked up the phone and called this person? What’s the most efficient method of communication given the circumstances? What’s the best way to not only honor my own time and attention but the time and attention of others involved?

Sometime a phone call is just a phone call.

Hi Merlin-
I took a look at your presentation and I think you are right about the calendar event length. I'm guilty of this myself, until today Heap CRM defaulted to 1 hour. It's not that we really thought about it and decided on 1 hour, it was just what everyone else did.

So, I don't know if you care, but Heap now has a drop-down in settings that allows you to change the default length to 15 minutes.

Guys, wouldn’t it be MUCH simpler to obtain the ipod version of this movie by simply subscribing to Merlin’s iTunes feed via Blip.tv?

itpc://themerlinshow.blip.tv/rss/itunes

:-)

Thanks, Merlin, hehe, for feeding me this idea. I am a big fan of Data from Star Trek. The thought of living on the starship is just so killing me, ahhhh.

Thanks, Merlin, hehe, for feeding me this idea. I am a big fan of Data from Star Trek. The thought of living on the starship is just so killing me, ahhhh.

Speaking of Star Trek, I think most people would kill to have the ability to deal with data on the same level as the Enterprise. Well, not entirely like the Enterprise…otherwise a lot of us knowledge workers would be out of a job.

Trouble is that most people deal with their digital world as if they’re living on the Millenium Falcon. Sometimes they can make the jump to lightspeed…sometimes they can’t. It’s a crapshoot. Meanwhile, they either got the Empire or the Kingons on their ass and are desperately trying to either avoid going to the Dark Side or get their asses handed to them on a platter.

A lot of people think that their time and attention will be saved somehow through some sort of miracle or cheat. Another gadget won’t save you; you’ll never be saved by technology. Nor can you use the Force or cheat at it like Kirk did with the Kobayashi Maru test.

Sometimes just learning how to use the technology you have in better ways, learning to be more productive, being more pro-active, and exercising more discipline are the only courses of action. Hmm…come to think of it, that does sound a lot like what it takes to be a Jedi…just without the ability to use the Force. :)

Merlin, thanks for making this available - much appreciated and enjoyed!

Even though it took me several hours to work my way through this talk (amidst other distractions), I count it as a productive day since I learned some great tips that I can quickly put into practice. Thanks!!

It was great to see you talk at the show… though the highlight was definitely meeting your daughter.