At least once a week, I get a call about metadata. Generally, the person on the other end of the phone sounds confused and distressed. They say things like, “I was told to call you and ask you what metadata is.” Or, “We want you to come to our meeting next week and give a presentation about metadata.” When I ask what, in particular, they want to know about metadata, the answer is: “We don’t understand what metadata is. We were told it’s important, but we don’t know why.”

When I’m invited to a meeting to give a presentation about metadata, I’m usually asked how large of a PowerPoint presentation I’ll be giving and how much time should be allotted for the presentation. Here’s where it gets fun. I tell the person on the other end of the phone that I will not be giving any type of presentation. Nor will I be handing out articles, documents, graphs, or anything fancy. This response is met with confusion, as in: “What do you mean you won’t be giving us a PowerPoint Presentation?” As if the only way to communicate and share information is via a Microsoft product. Sad.

Over the years, I’ve learned that the best way to teach another person about metadata is to use real world examples. I also have learned it’s best to sit with the group of individuals and have a conversation with them. This means there are no flashy gadgets, widgets, or tantalizing props. It’s just me and them, talking. Like we used to do in the old days. ;-)

What I do is ask if anyone in the room is a photographer. Or if anyone loves music and has a large collection of songs in iTunes or another media player. Most recently, I was able to use a man’s trip to the doctor’s office to explain metadata.

With the man who had been ill, I asked him what happened when he arrived at the medical facility. He said he “checked in,” paid his co-payment, and then had his vitals taken. I told him those three things had to do with metadata. I explained that when we go to the doctor, the doctor has a medical chart for each patient. The medical chart includes things such as:

• Patient Name
• Insurance Information
• Address
• Telephone Number(s)
• Email address
• DOB
• Social Security Number
• Patient ID Number
• Height
• Weight
• Blood Pressure
• Prescription Drugs you’re taking
• Allergies
• Any surgeries you’ve had

This is metadata that comprises a medical record. Imagine if your doctor did not have a medical record for each of his patients. If the doctor had two or three patients with the same name, how would he distinguish one patient from the other? The patient metadata, among other things, enables the doctor to treat the right patient.

For the guy who was a music lover, I asked him how he is able to find a particular song amidst all of the files in his iTunes library. He said he sorts his music library by band or singer’s name, and then browses the song titles.

So, here’s another real world example of metadata. When you purchase and download songs from iTunes, part of what you’re purchasing is the metadata for that song. Music metadata includes the following:

• Song title
• Artist
• Album name
• Album image
• Song length
• Song genre (Rock, R&B, Classical, Country)
• Date the song was purchased and added to your iTunes library

If  iTunes didn’t provide metadata about each song, how would you find songs by Elton John, U2 or Coldplay? More than likely, you would have to listen to a sample of each song in your media player to find the right song. This is not a smart solution. With metadata, you can search for songs in iTunes based on Artist or Song title, etc. The metadata is a huge time saver.

One guy I talked with was an award-winning photographer. I asked him if he uploads his photos to Flickr. He was proud of the fact that he bought his first Pro Flickr account several years ago (before Flickr became so well known). I asked the photographer guy if he modifies each photo’s record after it has been uploaded to Flickr. He said that  he most definitely adds information to each photo. The information that was important to him was stuff like:

• Geographic location of where photo was taken
• Subject of the photo
• Date the photo was taken
• Which camera he used
• Keywords
• Whether the photo was part of a larger set
• Which iPhone App he used to edit the photo
• Who can view his photos

I explained to him that this is metadata. You should have seen the “I get it!” look that came over his face. It’s wonderful to be in the presence of a person when they have an “ah ha” moment.

After talking about the metadata that matters to physicians, music lovers, and photographers, we segued into they type of metadata that is important for corporate documents. The guys came up with things like:

• Document title
• Date document was created
• Date document was modified
• Author
• Version
• Format (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
• Document Type (Report, Webpage, Excel spreadsheet, JPEG, etc.)
• Where the document is saved (C:\Documents)
• Keywords

I was impressed with them! After briefly talking about real world metadata, they were able to translate and apply their new-found knowledge to the business environment.

I have used this method of teaching people about metadata for about six months. It’s never failed me. If you’re someone who is asked to explain what metadata is, I encourage you to try my “real world metadata” example. It works!

It’s the first week of the new year, and many of us have made resolutions to improve things in 2012. One resolution I make every year is to simplify and organize my life. Over the years, I’ve come up with some great strategies for staying organized, so I’d like to share them with you, dear readers.

Zero Tolerance Junk Mail Policy

I get so much junk mail. It’s incredibly wasteful and can be very time consuming to manage. Also, you may have noticed this — junk mail tends to pile up over time and overtake entire countertops. In my home, I’ve implemented a zero tolerance policy for junk mail. My main goal is this: Bring as little junk mail into my home as possible.

Here’s what I do with junk mail:

1) As soon as I get my mail, I sort through it and pull out the junk mail. I quickly scan the address on the junk mail. If it is addressed to “The Resident at 1234 Main Street” or “Neighbor residing at 1234 Main Street,” I toss it in a recycle bin I keep in my garage. If the junk mail has my name and address on it, I bring the mail inside and shred it, immediately. I don’t like putting mail that has my name and address in the recycle bin. Call me paranoid, but I simply feel uncomfortable having that information available for anyone to see.

2) If the junk mail is catalogs, I go online and visit the company’s website and opt out of receiving printed catalogs in the mail. As we’ve all learned, companies sell our addresses to other companies, so if I receive a catalog in the mail from some random company I’ll never buy anything from, I visit their website and completely opt out of receiving any and every kind of literature they publish and distribute. I use the word “literature” leniently here. Most of the time, it’s simply crap.

One resource I need to mention is Catalog Choice. This is a free service that lets you to pick and choose the credit card offers, catalogs, and coupons you want. It also lets you select the ones you don’t want to receive in the mail. By using this this service, you can get rid of those annoying credit card, insurance, and high speed internet offers.

3) I subscribe to a lot of magazines and the magazine publishers sell my personal information to other publishers. When I subscribe to a new magazine, I sign up using a variation of my name. Sometimes I’ll use only my initials, sometimes I’ll use a fake middle initial, and occasionally, I’ll use an entirely made up or fake name. The reason I do this is so that I can trace which publishers are selling my personal information most frequently. When I see a lot of new junk mail being sent to “Marilyn Monroe” at my address, I know that that publisher is the guilty party in perpetuating the junk mail cycle. At that point, I  call the publisher and tell them to stop selling or giving away my personal details. They usually oblige.

4) If you want to opt out of receiving about 90% of all junk mail, be sure to read this article for a helpful list of websites you can visit to remove yourself from a host of direct marketing campaigns. One of my goals this year is to reach the point where junk mail is no longer  mailed to me. The resources in this article will help me achieve my goal.

Some of you may be thinking: “Gosh, that’s a lot of work to manage junk mail.” But which is worse: recycling, shredding, and opting out of junk mail, or letting it pile up and up and up on your kitchen counter? I rest my case.

Receipts and Documentation for Taxes

Each year, I go to Target and buy a large, plastic multi-sleeve document envelope. If you shop for the document envelopes around back-to-school time, you can find some nice envelopes at very affordable prices (also in pretty colors!).

Throughout the year, I file receipts and other documents in the plastic envelope. At tax time, it’s such a relief to know that my year’s worth of receipts are co-located in one, convenient place. It’s an extremely easy and effective way to organize your tax documentation.

If you want, you can take it a step further and create subfolders or envelopes in the uber document envelope. You might, for example, want to create a subfolder for receipts related to:

• Medical expenses
• College and school expenses
• Donations
• Professional membership and Association fees
• Home repairs

You can test this out and see what level of organization feels best to you. The goal is to organize to the extent that it feels like time well spent. If it starts to become burdensome, you may be over organizing.

Health Expenses

I have a couple of chronic medical conditions which are managed by medical specialists. In addition, I am prescribed expensive medication, I am required to have lab work done every 3 months, and I have to undergo routine diagnostic procedures. My medical expenses in a given year are far higher than the average person’s. Because of this, I like to track these expenses very carefully.

My high medical expenses triggered two IRS audits. I had to gather all my medical-related paperwork and receipts and present it to the IRS auditor who was assigned to my case. It was stressful and awful and I never want to be caught off guard again. Therefore, I am hyper-organized where medical expenses are concerned.

Here’s how I keep myself organized. I have three envelopes for medical expenses: one for medication receipts; one for doctor appointment co-pay receipts; and one for medical procedure receipts. That’s the first step. The next thing I do is track these items in an Excel spreadsheet. In my spreadsheet, capture I the following metadata:

• Date (of appointment, procedure, or medication purchase)
• Doctor’s Name
• Medical Condition
• Event (Lab work, XRAY, Ultrasound, doctor visit, etc.)
• Amount I Paid
• Payment Method (check and check number; Debit card; cash)

This may seem like overkill, but trust me, it’s not. If you’re audited by the IRS and have such pristine records, you will impress the auditor and s/he will be very happy and will thus be more cooperative.

Miscellaneous

Despite the fact that I haven’t used a phonebook to look up a phone number in about 10 years, I still receive a set of phonebooks every year. And if you happen to live in a large metropolitan area, you probably receive the main set of yellow and white pages, plus an additional set of phone books for the specific part of the city in which you reside. It’s a nice gesture, but it’s outdated and a big waste. To stop receiving phonebooks, simply visit this website and opt out.

My employer recently stopped sending paper copies of paycheck stubs. Employees can now view their paychecks online. See if your employer offers this option.

While bank statements aren’t junk mail, they can be considered wasteful. If your bank offers online bank statements, opt out of receiving the printed copy. One caveat to keep in mind: Make sure your bank can provide you with historic bank statements. You may have a need to view a bank statement from 2009, so ensure your bank provides its customers with archived online statements.

I hope these tips are helpful! Happy New Year to each of you. In 2012, let’s strive to simplify and organize our lives. :)

When I look at this photo, it makes me smile! I am proud of this family. I wish them well. More important, this photo makes me feel included and hopeful. I’m inspired by this family. I sense a lot of heart from these people. If this family is a part of our Nation’s future, I believe we’ll be headed in the right direction.

Now, look at this family photo:

If Mitt Romney has his way, he will be the next President of the USA. This scares the heck out of me. I do not feel inspired by this family. In fact, they frighten me. There are too many males, too much perfection, too much homogeneity, too many big white teeth, too much money, too many blue shirts, and way too many pleated Dockers pants. When I look at this family, they seem disconnected from mainstream America. The Romney clan makes me uncomfortable. I don’t get a sense they would care about the average person’s hopes, fears, and dreams. I feel that our opportunity for a better life will be impaired if this guy becomes President.

What do you see when you look at these family portraits? What do you want for our Country’s future?

Have you ever been to a Megachurch? How about a McChurch? I was invited to one, to attend a Christmas service. The experience left me flabbergasted!

I like Wikipedia’s definition of a McChurch:

McChurch is a McWord used to suggest that a particular church has a strong element of entertainment, consumerism or commercialism which obscures its religious aspects.

I’m familiar with the McChurch I went to recently, not because I attend on a regular basis, but because I am  annoyed by the church-related traffic I encounter every Sunday morning when I’m running errands. The traffic this church generates is so bad that two police cars come and block the intersection and direct traffic in and out of the church parking lot. Who ever architected the church did a poor job of planning or anticipating how much of a traffic nightmare it would be to have thousands of cars entering and exiting a church compound via one road. That’s right. There’s only one tiny road to enter and exit the church grounds.

The night of the Christmas service, my sister instructed me to meet in the church lobby by the Xmas tree at 6:00. The service was at 6:30 and we needed to give ourselves plenty of time to get a seat. I followed her instructions and arrived at the church parking lot at 6:00. There was no place to park; all the parking places were taken. After driving around for several minutes, I finally found one empty spot a long way from the church. I decided to back into the parking space so that once the service was over, I could turn my car on, put it in drive, and get the heck out of there.

Once inside the church, I made my way to the Christmas tree. None of my family was there, so I just stood alone by the tree. I must have looked like a guest, because a woman approached me and asked if I was visiting the church. I told her yes. At this point, she handed me a gift bag. It was heavy. The woman told me that in addition to the goodies in my gift bag, I could purchase additional church merch at the kiosk in the church foyer. In all my life, I’ve never received a gift bag from a church, nor have I heard of a church selling merchandise, or “church merch,” as the nice lady called it.

I didn’t have time to inspect the gift bag because my family spotted me and we quickly made our way into the church. Mom was already inside, saving 6 seats for us. Four of the six of us arrived on time. My sister and her husband were late which was annoying because they were the ones who invited us. They attend this church! There was intense pressure for us to give up my sister and brother-in-law’s saved seats to people who were desperately looking for a place to sit. The church had a team of people who walked briskly back and forth across the aisles, looking for available seats. They talked to one another and coordinated seating via hands-free walkie talkie headsets.

The church had three huge screens, like the screens you see at rock concerts. Because the church is so big, whatever is happening on stage is projected onto the screens so everyone can have an unobstructed view.  Suddenly, the lights of the church dimmed and a multi-media segment started.  The opening segment was the story of Mary and Joseph and how Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit with Jesus. But guess what? The story wasn’t read out of the Bible. Instead, the story was told using Facebook entries written by Joseph. Basically, Joseph was telling his Facebook friends that his girlfriend, Mary, was pregnant. His friends “Liked” the news and wrote “congrats” on Joseph’s wall. After Mary gave birth, she changed her Facebook photo to a photo of baby Jesus. The Facebook gimmick gave the biblical story an ultramodern, hip twist. This is what McChurches specialize in: using technology and social media to entertain the crowd. It worked. Everyone in the audience was laughing and enjoying themselves.

Next up, it was time to get on our feet and sing some Christmas carols. The church’s worship leaders took old Christmas carol lyrics and bent them into Black Eye Peas, Adele, and Katy Perry songs. I kid you not. We sang the lyrics of “Silent Night” to Adele’s smash hit, “Someone Like You.” And “Joy to the World” lyrics were sung to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.” While this was certainly creative and funky, I missed the traditional hymns and the original music. I guess I’m an old fashioned gal at Christmastime.

When the pastor finally appeared on stage to preach, he was more like an actor than a preacher. You could tell he was loving the huge audience and all the energy and laughter that was coming his way. He had a big ego and managed to find a way to show us a couple movies of himself that his wife made on her iPhone. If the preacher hadn’t of worked so hard to make the night about him, his message would have been much more enjoyable.

At the end of the service, I started to get antsy. I knew it would be a nightmare exiting the church compound, driving behind all the church traffic. I was picking my cuticles imagining how long it would take to get out of the parking lot. My sister noticed that I was starting to figit and she asked if I was OK. I told her I had the feeling of being stuck at the back of an airplane, having to wait while all the other passengers slowly exited. My sister suggested she ride with me to the restaurant where we were having dinner (after church). My sister said she would run with me to my car as soon as the service was over. By running, we would have a good head start on the traffic. I told her I backed my car into the space, so that would help us exit faster, too. She gave me a high five. But it was actually a low five because we were in church.

When I got home that night, I opened the gift bag the woman gave me. I’ll say one thing: that church knows how to brand itself. The bag contained:

• Hand sanitizer
• A slinky
• Coffee mug
• Stress ball
• Four pamphlets about accepting Christ into your heart
• Coupon for free sermon on CD
• 

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet, Cupid, and Donner and Blitzen.
But do you recall?
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the red nose reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas eve
Santa came to say
Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeer loved him
And they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the rednose reindeer
You’ll go down in history!

I’ve spent too much time in meetings. I know this because my tolerance for stupid business jargon is zero. Is it just me, or do you also cringe when you hear people use certain phrases and sayings? Let’s put a stop to it. What do you say?

Business Jargon: My top 100 annoying, asinine, and ridiculous business phrases.

1. We don’t have to boil the ocean
2. Game changer
3. Noodle around
4. My two cents
5. 30,000 foot view
6. In the weeds
7. Big picture
8. Paradigm shift
9. Win-Win
10. Personal sacrifice
11. Circle the wagon
12. Closing the loop
13. Tool-agnostic
14. Strategic vision
15. Low hanging fruit
16. Easy win
17. Bring our A game
18. Punch some holes in the wall
19. Take to a whole new level
20. Diversity-loving
21. Bring a lot to the table
22. Failure is not an option
23. Best in breed
24. ROI
25. Change agent
26. Hit the ground running
27. Serial over-acheiver
28. Wow factor
29. Let’s take it offline
30. Out of pocket
31. You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet
32. Give me your best WAG
33. 800 pound gorilla
34. Drinking from a fire hydrant
35. Interoperability
36. Have the bandwidth
37. Work-life balance
38. We need to architect a solution
39. Magic quadrant
40. Get under the hood
41. The take-aways
42. Lessons learned
43. Polishing a turd
44. Drink the Kool-Aid
45. Eat our own dog food
46. Social network-y
47. Trying to nail jello to the wall
48. My success is your success
49. Do you have the cycles?
50. Gaining traction
51. Brute force
52. Distinguishing capability
53. Do you want to build them or hire them?
54. If you peel the onion
55. What does your brand say about you?
56. Let’s be honest
57. Measure productivity
58. Cover your ass
59. Tear down the silos
60. Our people are our best asset
61. We couldn’t do it without you
62. Bells and whistles
63. Dog and pony show
64. Color outside the lines
65. Innovation revolution
66. The long tail
67. The outliers
68. That’s not on the table for discussion
69. Google-like
70. Foster collaboration
71. Scope creep
72. Analysis paralysis
73. Cross pollinate
74. Roll up my sleeves
75. BI (business intelligence)
76. Deep dive
77. Booyah
78. Elevator speech
79. Cradle to grave solution
80. Flesh out
81. Jazz it up
82. Key performance indicator
83. Tribal knowledge
84. Knowledge transfer
85. Newbie
86. Liaise
87. War room
88. Womb to tomb
89. Pain point
90. Wow factor
91. Piggyback
92. Dovetail
93. Instantiate
94. Quick and dirty
95. Open the kimono
96. Make it pop
97. Ping me
98. Idea showers
99. Reach out
100. Enterprise solution

Do you have a holiday potluck at work? Are you trying to think of something tasty to bake as a Christmas gift? Do you love to try new recipes during the holidays? Are you a cookie lover?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I have a great recipe to share with you!

Homemade biscotti is a great treat to bake because it’s 1) easy to make, and 2) extremely versatile.  My favorite version of homemade biscotti has chocolate chips and slivered almonds as its key ingredients. Over the weekend, though, I made a batch of biscotti using mini M&M’s. The M&M’s were a special request of a friend at work.

If you want a break from chocolate, here are a few ingredients you can use to spice things up:

• slivered almonds
• chopped pecans
• shredded coconut
• dried currants
• golden raisins
• lemon zest
• dried cranberries
• honey
• maple syrup
• Anise
• dried apricots
• figs

I’m obsessed with Brian Eno. This has been going on for about 2 months. I want to ask him out on a date. We would walk along some river, eat dinner, and then spend the evening singing and harmonizing.

I believe the origin of my Eno obsession occurred when he appeared on the Colbert Report (if you view this episode, be sure to watch the very end when Colbert, Eno and Michael Stipe sing “Lean on Me”). Coldplay’s new album was a major factor, too.  Eno produced Coldplay’s album, Mylo Xyloto, and lent his vocal skills to several tracks.

This guy is incredibly creative and unusual. He dabbles in all kinds of stuff, including ambient music, acapella singing, large-scale sculpture, 77 million paintings, etc.

Eno is interesting when he talks. Here are a few gems:

“Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.”

“I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.”

“I take sounds and change them into words.”

“If you want to make someone feel emotion, you have to make them let go. Listening to something is an act of surrender.”

“Set up a situation that presents you with something slightly beyond your reach.”

“In my normal life I’m a very unadventurous person. I take the same walk every day and I eat in the same restaurants, and often eat exactly the same things in the same restaurants. I don’t adventure much except when I’m in the studio, and then I only want to adventure. I cannot bear doing something again, or thinking that I’m doing something again.”

“Singing is really good for you. It keeps you sexy.”

At the end of my date with Brian Eno, I would kiss his beautiful, bald head.

Sorry-Grateful

by Stephen Sondheim

You’re always sorry
You’re always grateful
You’re always wondering what might have been
Then she walks in

And still you’re sorry
And still you’re grateful
And still you wonder
And still you doubt
And she goes out

Everything’s different
Nothing’s changed
Only maybe slightly rearranged

You’re sorry-grateful
Regretful-happy
Why look for answers
Where none occur?

You always are
What you always were
Which has nothing to do with
All to do with her

You’re always sorry
You’re always grateful
You hold her thinking
I’m not alone
You’re still alone

You don’t live for her
You do live with her
You’re scared she’s starting
To drift away
And scared she’ll stay

Good things get better
Bad get worse
Wait, I think I meant that in reverse

You’re sorry-grateful
Regretful-happy
Why look for answers
Where none occur
You’ll always be
What you always were
Which has nothing to do with
All to do with her

Nothing to do with
All to do with her