I am now MacBen

Ben Saren — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:31:15 +0000

How come no one ever told me how cool Mac’s were before now? I kid! I’m already getting “I told you so!” emails, and I’m not embarassed to say, “you were right!” After being extremely frightened about making “the switch” as they call it, I jumped in head first and did it. Thankfully I had help from Michael LeBarron, one of our web developers. He totally helped me get up speed. (thank you Michael!)

Less than 48 hours after buying my MacBook Pro I am now 100% converted and holy crap am I happy! I’m flying around the OS like I’ve been using it for years. I’m learning the nuances and I’ve customized it to my liking. I’m taking full advantage of Spaces too. I do need a couple Windows programs, specifically MS Money, Expensable, and Quickbooks and I just used Parallels to install XP, and with Parallels’ Coherence I can actually run any and all Microsoft programs within OS X as if it belonged there. They even put themselves in the dock. That’s just so brilliant!

But most importantly, I’m back to work. I’m moving around quickly, I’m not waiting for programs to open, close, files to save, etc, and I’m not fighting my computer – it plays nice, it works – it simply works. I got a ton done today. Heck, I had to do a little work in Illustrator and I was in and out in less than 4 minutes! On my Windows machine it would take 4 minutes just to open Illustrator – and that’s no exaggeration.

I can proudly say that I love Mac and I can honestly admit that this is long overdue for me. However, I will not be getting any tattoos, or face piercings, and I won’t be putting any stickers on my lid.

Letting Fires Burn

Ben Saren — Thu, 10 May 2007 02:48:29 +0000

In my experience as an entrepreneur one of the hardest day-to-day battles is prioritizing. As an entrepreneur who is now fortunate enough to be running a funded company, this has never been more true than right now.

I’ve long been a believer in letting fires burn. By that, what I mean is, having priorities, a short list of priorities, and anything that is outside of that list of priorities is ‘a fire and it needs to burn.’

As CEO of Citysquares, my list of priorities is more strategic than it is tactical. For instance, one of the priorities on my list might be “get this damn sales engine firing on all pistons.” Really – that’s written down on a yellow piece of paper on my desk. That priority is a big priority – and it involves lots of tactics, but that doesnt mean I should get bogged down in the tactics. That’s why I hire people. The employees help with the execution, it’s my job to see it through from start to finish. Anything that is not in-line with that priority, strategically or tactically, is a distraction – a non-priority – and it needs to go on the “back burner” as they say. I don’t care for the “back burner” expression. I prefer, instead, to say that it’s a fire and it needs to burn! But hey – that’s what it is. It’s a little brush fire that needs to burn itself out. If the fire grows to be larger than a brush fire, well than it needs attention and someone needs to put it out.

Now that I have a board of directors to answer to, investors to please, goals to meet, a vision to reach, a real and growing staff to manage, this philosophy is only becoming more and more critical. Since we’ve become funded I’ve found myself doing a lot of operational things – things that just need to get done so everyone can get to work and do so more efficiently than ever before. Most of that stuff is done, and I now find myself taking a little time to regroup – to get even more focused, to assess those priorities and get situated and ready to go. I guess I need that once in a while, time to regroup and assess.

Right now, my priority is to assess my priorities. Anything else is a distraction – a fire, and it needs to burn.

Your Suspect » productivity

I am now MacBen

Letting Fires Burn