What happens when an entry-level assistant well into her quarter-life crisis takes over the Company Christmas Party playlist?  GaGa and Jamiroquai, that’s what:

Bad Romance – Lady GaGa
R . E . S . P . E . C . T. – Aretha Franklin
Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
I Want a New Drug – Huey Lewis & The News
Working Nine to Five – Dolly Parton
Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
I Want to Break Free – Queen
Use Somebody – Kings of Leon
Virtual Insanity – Jamiroquai
Walk Away – Kelly Clarkson

And since it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year, comments to this post with your own how about them apples?! Company Christmas Party playlist will cause a very exciting [re]gift to appear in your mailbox.  Responses should contain 3, 5, or 10 songs only, please.  This is a playlist, of course.

My Hanukkah List. December, 2009
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When I was a kid, my favorite holiday tradition was drafting an official Hanukkah List.  It was always inappropriately long and was mostly made up of all the CDs and gift cards I was just dying to have.  Really, Amy?  You want another copy of the original cast recording of RENT and a gift card to Claire’s?  Again?  But you only buy those awful key chains and gel pens! Ooooh how I loved those gel pens.  Soo inky!  Soo pretty!  Soo . . . well, to be totally honest, useless since all they really did was leave messy, glittery, unintelligible streaks all over the place.
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In any event, I can’t really remember the last time I sat down and actually celebrated Hanukkah so the fact that I’m hiking up to Harlem tonight with store bought latkes and applesauce to spend the first night of this long forgotten holiday with my cousin Natasha has caused me to wax all nostalgic and draft a more useful, grown-up, and ladylike Hanukkah List.
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Happy Holidays, Internet!

By the time you read these lines, I’ll be gone.

Well, I’m not really gone.  Just over here.  So stop crying.

It’s a wee bit sad, really, this moving.  Just a tiny bit.  Kind of like when you live in your first apartment, all cozy and tiny and there’s no dishwasher and it only takes an hour to clean all 800 square feet…I’ll miss that.  Except for the no dishwasher thing.  That sucks.  So you move to your new, bigger and fancier apartment, maybe with a spare bedroom, with a shiny dishwasher and a veranda.  That’s me now, except my veranda is a cork board.  But you’ll never forget your first place, filled with memories, like all the talks of boogers and zits.  But I bet I still talk about that at my new place.  Yeah, scenery changes, but the furniture stays the same.

Also, it doesn’t snow on my new blog.  I’ll miss that.  I could probably make it snow on my new blog, but it would require learning a whole new scary language.  Called HTML.  It’s supposed to be fun and exciting.  Really I just feel like I’m on a blind date with a deaf person who grew up in India.  I’m sure he’s cool, but we just don’t communicate.  Except for high fives.  And the universal sign for choking.

So anyways, I’m over here.  Ooh!  And Adventures with Edward is over here.  Yep, he’s got his own digs now.  He’s just too big to live solely in my handbag.  I think his minute fame is making his plastic head swell.

So change your feed reader thingies, switch your blogrolls, or just come over and see my new crib.  I’ve got post its!

Freemans. New York, NY.

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Oh, hello.  Have we met before?  I used to post here all the time.  Maybe we were introduced back then.  Well, anyways, nice to [re]meet you.  Did you know that according to music blaring from my favorite coffee cart this morning, it’s the most wonderful time of the year?
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The more you know . . .
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{cue NBC peacock slash shooting star}

I’m glad I wasn’t able to do What I love Wednesday yesterday because you would have been deprived from the glorious artwork created in my very own home this evening.

Ladies and gentleman…. may I present to you….. The Pink Sticky Note Collection by JW Hughens. Some of you have seen JW create and sell art on-the-spot at a local fundraiser and tonight he engaged his parents in a bidding war over one particular piece. Inspired by the success of his sales, he raised his prices and made more! Some of the pieces shown below are still available, and JW is available to create custom masterpieces if you are looking for a special holiday gift.

While we’re on the subject of Wired, a quick shout out to my old professor Bill Moggridge, an amazing designer and very nice man.

He’s featured in this month’s edition as well, talking about design thinking and offering his ideas (or, given the IDEO approach, offering a selection of group ideas) on ‘how to tackle urban rage’ (Wired’s challenge) though design. The suggestions will be getting more press next month.

(picture by Søren Solkær Starbird, taken from Wired’s website)

so my life has been increasingly crazy this past month or so if you couldn’t tell by the lack of postings. the beginning of Oct was spiritually a rough patch for me, as I’m sure you all know I was ready for some answers and was not getting them which after over a year of praying and waiting I found myself in some MAJOR frustration! Don’t worry He still hasn’t answered the things I’m dying to know about my life, but I have a peace knowing that He is moving in and through my life right now, He knows the future and even though I still want to know, that is enough. The end of October brought many things, a wedding in which my best friend and I actually took a good picture together- haha

a reunion of friends and their precious little families- we have not all been together in over 2 years if not more!!!

Courtney, Cassie, Me, and Charlotte

Cadence and Abyela- they’re growing SO fast!!!

and of course one of my favorite holidays simply because you can dress up crazy and everyone doesn’t stare at you weird, Halloween. I struggled with costume ideas this year, I don’t like to buy them, I like to create them so here’s what I came up with when I pulled every bright thing out of my room and put it all together:)

November brought more fun times, the first of which was VERY unexpected. I’d like to title this section ”Out with the old, In with the new” I’ll let the pictures speak for them selves…

OLD

NEW

Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, I, Denae Johnson, am the proud new owner of nice car! The beast just wasn’t cutting it anymore, it’s days were numbered. God totally provided with this car, 2005- I know, it’ looks brand new right!?!! Scion XA- scion is it’s own company, but started by toyota so all the parts from the engine to the roof are toyota, that means it will run for-eh-ver! Praise the Lord for a dependable car!!! The other thing is, it’s a standard, so yes that means I’m having to recall the glory days of learning to drive on my dad’s old piece of a truck, those of you who remember that truck know what i am talking about. I’m LOVING it!! There are days when I wonder if I will ever fully get the hang of the stick shift, but then I just count my blessings for a car that I can actually leave Granbury in!

Next stop on our journey through Denae’s life… the weekend of Nov 13-15, aka, the weekend EVERYTHING happened! starting with a text about 8:30 saying Naomi Kim Patterson had arrived!!

I appreciated that she came on a weekend that was convenient for me! From there I headed to Dallas for Laura (not Grant)’s wedding, it was beautiful and so great to see friends I haven’t seen in a while. Love these guys despite their uncanny ability to “beautify” pictures…

and then I rounded off the weekend by seeing some friends in from New Braunfels for their daughters surgery. The Postits, love you guys!!

Well that bout wraps up our Tour de Denae. Right now I am working a temp job in Stephenville with a lady from church, it’s very interesting, but will probably finish up next week I would imagine, then who knows. I’ve had a couple job offers, so far nothing has panned out the way I have hoped, but He is in control so I know the right thing will come along at the right time and it will be SO sweet when it does! Got to take part in a Disciple Now weekend with the youth at my church this weekend, don’t have any pictures, but it was such a great time of fellowship and renewal. The jr/sr girls rocked! It’s such a blessing to me to have these girls in my life, I pour into them, they challenge me, just the way the body is suppose to function, gotta love it! Thanks for loving me and caring about my life! Please continue to be in prayer for the next step for me… while I’m waiting I will serve and worship Him.

I went to gentle yoga at the end of the workday Thursday and came back into the hallway outside my office afterward to find this delightful note affixed to my boots. Who’s the post-it elf? A delightful friend that I work with whose name starts with D (the handwriting was a sure giveaway).

Trabalho do Bang-yao Liu em seu projeto na Savannah College of Art and Design.

Só os orientais para tamanha paciência.

Buffalo. [Not] Buffalo, NY

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1.  I am terribly sorry how absent I have been.
2.  My life seems to be playing on the Crazytown [by Butterfly] b-side recently.
3[7].  Thankfully, come Wednesday evening, I will be on a delightfully crowded plane with my best friend Dan to number 37 of the NY Times’ 44 Places to Go in 2009.  He promised me wings and a trip to a bonafide Target.
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I….C..A..N..N..O..T….W..A..I..T….

Random facts about myself that I figured out just recently…

- I have an unhealthy obsession with post-its. Especially pink or yellow post-its. But I don’t do anything with them. I just stare at them or smell them sometimes…creepy, I know.

- I love shopping alone. Whether getting lost in a crowd or figuring out which mickey stuff toy I have to buy, I love it! Which reminds me, I still need to shop for red shorts…hhmmm…

- I smile at particularly no one or nothing at times. Oh, wait. That’s not something new, is it?

- I discovered that I have been having conversations with myself in my head ever since I knew how to think. And I never once find it creepy until now when I know what “dementia” means.

The suggestion for today was to try and save water and electricity by remembering to turn off the light switch, a power point, a tap, etc. Because we forget these things the book suggests making stickers to place next to a light switch for example.

This is a somewhat simple solution to a possibly costly memory issue, in that forgetting to flick a switch/turn off a tap costs money by way of the bill, as well as costing more in terms of environmental costs.

I have found myself being far more efficient in these areas in the last little while and hardly ever forget to turn off a light when not needed, turn off a tap when brushing teeth, etc. It did however take a lot of self-discipline and I can see how stickers/post-it’s, etc, can be handy for some people.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

Para quem se lembra do que o Professor Daniel nos mostrou no inicio do ano lectivo, fica um video realizado por um aluno do Savannah College of Art and Design que demorou cerca de 3 meses para ficar pronto. A sua temática é muito nossa conhecida, o stress e a luta que é entregar os trabalhos na data limite. Os efeitos na parede são  todos feitos com post-its Aconselho:

Vivement samedi matin!!

J’ai eu une semaine assez rock-n-roll merci, mais je m’en plains pas! Grand merci à tous ceux qui ont participé au lancement de FrancoQueer-Ottawa mardi dernier. Malgré ce que certains ont pu en dire publiquement, je crois fermement qu’un groupe LGBT francophone à Ottawa s’imposait et qu’il est grand temps de rallier les troupes afin de se faire entendre et comprendre, surtout de notre propre communauté! Les autres on répète après moi : “De quoi j’me mêle?”

J’ai également pu me faire une meilleure idée de mon rôle à l’ACFO. C’est fou combien cet organisme a grandi et changé depuis ses débuts!! Y’a pas mal de travail à faire, mais je suis heureux de voir que ma DG et moi avons des buts et des valeurs semblables dans le monde associatif : ça devrait être un mandat enrichissant, pour moi surtout…

Et enfin, l’officiel a été officialisé, le 5e Parlement jeunesse pancanadien de la FJCF se tiendra au Sénat de Canada. Je dois avouer être assez impressionné de travailler avec le bureau de l’Huissier du bâton noir (oui, ça s’écrit de l’Huissier) sur ce projet. J’ai toujours été impressionné par tout ce qui faisait partie de l’étiquette, du cérémonial, du protocole et de l’officiel… Je ne pouvais pas frapper mieux que la Chambre haute du Parlement pour ça! (lien vers Wikipédia)

Donc, en gros, ça fait vraiment du bien de se lever à 9 h 15!!

Oh, et BONNE FÊTE Grand-Maman!! ♥

I’ve been listening with great interest to the tweets on #agile over the last few months. It’s been a great way to understand what people currently think about agile projects and where the thinking is headed in relation to its use. Recently I’ve noticed a growing number of tweets on #kanban mixed in with #agile and so I finally asked the twitterati what kanban was really all about. Fortunately, I was pointed in the direction of Jim Benson of Personal Kanban.

Personal Kanban is a great website for starting your own kanban journey. In essence, Personal Kanban relates that you should:

1. Visualise your work
2. Limit your work-in-progress

There was also an image that really helped me understand what that meant in practice on the InfoQ website that I found through doing a Google images search.

So this past week I set about making a kanban board for my own project. We’re a small team of four: me leading the project, a business analyst and Holocentric modeller, an operational concept SME and the client’s project manager. We’ve just completed the project’s initiation phase and are now headed into its planning and execution.

Of course, like any of my projects, this is done using our ZenAgile philosophy. We’ve chopped up the pieces of the project into small parts and prioritised this scope in relation to the client’s needs and the time constraints of the project. I then did a high-level view of all our activities over the next 3 months, highlighting to the client when we were likely to need to start engaging with stakeholders, primarily as a communication so we could start to book interviews and workshops. I then got out our company’s project management plan template and noted one section that essentially said ’stick in gantt chart here’. After reading an article on why gantt charts are horrible and posting some commentary to PMs myself on the issue, I decided to do my own kanban board instead.

Here’s how I put it together:

• Multi-coloured post-its: So I can immediately differentiate between tasks (green), people (pink) and categories of task completion (blue)
• Individual rows for each team member: To identify who is doing what and what stage their work is up to
• Priority tasks: These are on the LHS waiting to go onto the board when someone has completed a task
• Stakeholder post-its: Because we have to consult with some key stakeholders I felt they needed their own cards. It means at any time we can look at the board and know what stakeholders are being involved in which activity
• Parking zone: The very top row is for parking. It’s when something immediately comes up that requires our attention, or when we’ve got to wait for someone outside the team to action something before the activity can move forward. This allows us to immediately start on something else and yet remind everyone that there’s something that’s stalled.
• Timestamping: If something gets approved, signed-off, or there’s an issue we just write it onto the post-it noting the details, e.g. whether it was an email, who approved it, and when.
• String: The essential bit that marks rows and columns and so we could hang different things off the lines if needed with little alligator clips.
• Alligator clips: These became a necessity because the post-its didn’t stick very well to the felt on the board but we quickly realised it would enable us to clip items of value to each task, like reminders, links to our BaseCamp collaboration site, doodles of ideas on paper, etc.

Already, it’s helping the team and our client’s project manager to see what’s going on. In fact, he commented (jokingly) as he walked past our work area that ‘nothing had moved in hours’! What we also noticed was where the process bottlenecks within the team were occurring. You’ll see already that the guy with the bottom row already has two items currently being worked on. That’s our client’s project manager. He’s so busy with his day job that he’s falling behind on the things he has to do. We’ll deal with that next week

I’m already seeing how useful kanban is with other elements of our project. I had to do my status report on Friday — part of my company’s Quality Assurance process. So I looked at the board, wrote down what we’d accomplished this last week, wrote down what was in flow as well as what tasks were waiting to be started that I could conceive we’d likely start next week.

So would I use this technique on another project? Of course! Here’s why:

• Visualisation: Everyone can see where the project is up to, from the team to stakeholders,  just by walking past
• It’s easy to setup: The team help me set it up in about 30 mins. The hardest bit was actually that the pin board was so firm that it was almost impossible to stick pins into it *LOL*
• It’s easy to change something: Unlike a gantt chart, I can just move a post-it somewhere else or make a few notes on it with my sharpie
• It’s intuitive: What could be harder to understand than post-its on a board and limiting work-in-flow?
• It goes perfectly with ZenAgile: Zen philosophy and agile are a way of life for me. Kanban just fits in with this philosophy perfectly

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