iPhone iOS Apps for Travel and Tips to Avoid Data Roaming Charges

The iPhone has become an essential tool for me when travelling.  As mentioned in an earlier post, the iPhone can replace many gadgets that are helpful to have on trips, such as a GPS navigation device, camera, and alarm clock.  And in several cases, the Safari web browser app and other iOS apps can reduce the need to even bring a laptop on a trip.

Cellular data access (like EDGE or 3G) is required to make the iPhone fully functional while travelling.  With cellular data access, you can view the latest traffic, check weather with the current conditions, and access any website almost anywhere you are.  If your phone uses a United States plan and you are in the United States, coverage is available in most places and it is included in your domestic data plan.  Just make sure you have enough on your data plan to cover your needs.  If you go outside of the domestic area, there are additional data roaming charges and these fees can add up quickly if you do not get an international data plan and manage your data usage.

I recently took a trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada from Buffalo, New York.  Because this trip took me out of the United States and my domestic data plan, I took the normal precautions to avoid voice and data roaming charges.  I used Wi-Fi when it was available and took advantage of specific capabilities in several apps to get the most functionality out of the iPhone without cellular data access.

This post provides recommendations for helpful iOS apps to use while travelling by:

• Listing iPhone apps I used during the trip to Toronto.
• Providing tips on using these apps to avoid cellular data access and roaming charges.
• Giving additional recommendations when travelling with your iPhone.

LRN Technique: Going Deep for Knowledge (with Online Education)

The LRN (Learn) tenet in my philosophy is about improving as an individual and helping others grow. Some of the techniques introduced in earlier posts focused on breadth of knowledge, such as focusing on a topic for a month (Project of the Month) or by gaining exposure to new ideas (Breadth of Fresh Air).

Going Deep for Knowledge is about learning a subject beyond a surface-level exposure and the basics.  The traditional school-based courses generally focus on depth, whether in primary and secondary education to learn math, general science, and grammar, or in higher education with classes on subjects like astronomy and chemical engineering.

The internet offers new possibilities for going deep and learning a subject.  There are several excellent audio and video courses available online to you, and many of these are provided at no charge (free).  The opportunities for all of us to learn is only limited by our own willingness and time.

This post introduces you to Going Deep for Knowledge (specifically with online education) by:

• Describing its purpose in a little more detail.
• Providing a list and description of my favorite online education sites.
• Suggesting tips for making this technique more successful for you.

LRN Technique: Growth Through Traveling

Traveling outside your local area provides a special opportunity for personal growth.  With an open mind and proper planning, a trip can expose you to different histories, cultures, customs, architectures, people, environments, and perspectives all at the same time.

I have been fortunate to spend time in several parts of the United States and in over 20 countries.  Most recently, I visited Ireland for ten days in April 2011 and took advantage of this opportunity to learn and to grow.

This post:

• Provides tips on enhancing your personal growth from a trip.
• Summarizes a few of my key takeaways from the trip to Ireland.

LRN Technique: Breadth of Fresh Air (Exposure to New Ideas)

The LRN (Learn) tenet in my philosophy refers to improving as an individual and helping others grow.  In an earlier post I described the Project of the Month technique in which you learn something new by focusing on it for a month.

A related LRN technique is to expose yourself throughout life to a range of new ideas, viewpoints, and concepts across multiple disciplines.  I call the technique Breadth of Fresh Air.  The goal is awareness and stimulation, not expertise.  You may find some of the ideas intriguing to you, and you may decide to explore a few of them further either as Project of the Month topics or as in-depth subjects to which you devote months or years.

This post introduces you to the Breadth of Fresh Air technique by:

• Elaborating on the technique.
• Listing a few of my favorite sources for new ideas.
• Suggesting ways to make this technique a part of your life.

I suggest reading through the entire post before clicking on the links so you get exposure to the content of this post.  The end of the post provides a "starter set" list of videos to watch as examples.

OVERVIEW OF THE BREADTH OF FRESH AIR TECHNIQUE

The purpose of the Breadth of Fresh Air technique is to briefly expose yourself throughout life to a range of new ideas, viewpoints, and concepts across multiple disciplines that can be a catalyst for better ideas.

Why briefly expose?  This particular technique is about breadth (verus depth) of knowledge.  It is not about becoming an expert in a topic.  It is about becoming aware of ideas and what other people are doing and thinking.  Exposure typically will not provide any skills or competencies, but it can be an instigator for change and it may uncover new thoughts you can apply to your current knowledge and ideas.  Exposure does not take long, allowing you to cover a variety of topics in short periods of time.

Why throughout life?  Personal growth throughout life requires ongoing learning, stimulation, and inspiration.  Structured learning should not end after formal schooling.

Why new?   The newness is in comparison to your existing ideas, viewpoints, and concepts.  They may or may not be new to the world's knowledge.  While exposure to ideas similar to yours gives confirmation and can help strengthen your own thoughts, this technique is about stimulating your mind, challenging and expanding your own ideas, and discovering new interests.

Why multiple disciplines?  Humanities (like history, arts, and literature), social sciences, natural sciences, formal sciences, applied sciences, and professions cover the majority of human knowledge.  Exposure to pieces of each of these disciplines can make you a more well-rounded person.  It provides opportunities for you to cross-fertilize your existing knowledge with these new ideas from other areas.   If you only think of hammers and nails and you become exposed to screwdrivers, screws, and adhesives, you may find better solutions to problems you encounter.

Why catalyst for better ideas?  The ideas you want to expose yourself should be of quality, meaningful, positive, and beneficial.

SOURCES FOR EXPOSURE TO NEW IDEAS

There are a variety of traditional sources available to expose you to great ideas, such as books and magazines, seminars and conferences, schools, conversations with experts and friends, and government and non-profit organizations.  These are all wonderful and should be utilized if you have access to them.  I have listed a few examples at the bottom of this section.

We are fortunate to live in a time where access to a variety of interesting and quality ideas is fairly easy and on demand due to both technology (the internet and electronic devices) and the generosity of people and organizations that provide this information.  A few organizations encourage and facilitate this Breadth of Fresh Air technique through their websites and mobile apps.

These organizations provide exposure to new ideas, viewpoints, and concepts at no cost to the public.  The speakers are vetted so they are of good quality and are meaningful.  The ideas are presented through video, which helps visual and auditory learners and can be more engaging.  And access to the talks are available through websites (and in some cases also through mobile apps), so they are convenient and easy to view.

Here are my favorites, along with the links so you can access them.

• TED - Ideas worth spreading
• RSA - 21st century enlightenment
• PBS - Be more
• Do Lectures - Ideas + Energy = Change
• Gel - Exploring good experiences

TED – Ideas worth spreading

TED (which is an acronym of Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a group “devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading”.  It has expanded from the original focus to include science, business, the arts, and global issues, which makes it an excellent source for breadth of ideas.  It hosts a few multi-day conferences each year where dozens of invited speakers give 18-minute talks.  Videos of the best of these talks are made freely available through their website and through apps.

The videos are excellent, cover a variety of topics, and are intellectually stimulating.

Links related to TED:

• Link to TED website (http://www.ted.com)
• Link to iOS application (a third-party free app)
• Link to an iPad application (a free official app from TED)
• Link to an Android application
• Twitter account (tedtalks)

RSA – 21st century enlightenment

RSA (which is an acronym of Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) is a group founded in England in 1754 that “seeks to develop and promote new ways of thinking about human fulfillment and social progress.”  It hosts talks and discussions by experts.

RSA introduced a new series of videos in 2010 called RSA Animate. The audio of a talk is “animated” by videotaping a graphic note taking session.   This approach allows visual and audio learning from a speech and helps engage the viewer.

Links related to RSA:

• Link to RSA website for videos (http://www.thersa.org/events/vision)
• Link to an iOS application
• Link to an Android application
• Audio podcasts on iTunes
• Video podcasts on iTunes
• Audio podcasts on Feedburner (RSS feed)
• Video podcasts on Feedburner (RSS feed)
• Twitter account (theRSAorg)

PBS – Be more

PBS (acronym for Public Broadcasting System) is a United States non-profit public broadcasting television service.  PBS provides viewers several programs covering a wide variety of topics.  Examples include:

• In Performance at the White House - music from all genres, from classical to country to jazz to Motown
• NOVA - innovations and discoveries in science and technology
• Nature - beauty and wonder of the natural world
• American Experience - stories of history of the United States
• art21 - contemporary visual art and artists throughout the world
• FRONTLINE - exploration of critical issues

There are several videos available for viewing. Some of them may only be available for access in the United States.

Links related to PBS:

• Link to PBS website of videos (http://video.pbs.org/)
• Link to an iOS application
• Link to an iOS iPad application (specifically for the iPad)
• Twitter account (pbs)

Do Lectures – Ideas + Energy = Change

Do Lectures believes “That people who Do things, can inspire the rest of us to go and Do things too.”  The organization is based in Wales (United Kingdom) and holds a conference each year at a farm.

Links related to Do Lectures:

• Link to the Do Lecture website of videos (http://www.dolectures.com/speakers)
• Video podcasts on iTunes
• Twitter account (dolectures)

Gel – The world’s top creative leaders, exploring good experience

Gel (which is an acronym for Good Experience Live) is a conference and community “exploring good experience in all its forms – in art, business, technology, society, and life.”  It has made its videos from previous Gel Conferences available online.

Links related to Gel:

• Link to the Gel website (http://www.gelconference.com/)
• Twitter account (gelconf)

Additional sources for exposure to new ideas, viewpoints, and concepts

There are thousands of examples of other sources all around us.  Many websites are devoted to a narrow topic (such as food, travel, science, or technology), but breadth and variety is the focus of this technique.  Here are a few I recommend because of the quality of the information and variety of the topics.

• Smithsonian magazine - This monthly magazine (available online at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/) usually has articles covering history, archaeology, people, places, arts, travel, science, and nature.  It also has over 300 videos for viewing.
• The New Yorker magazine - This weekly magazine (some stories available online at http://www.newyorker.com/) has high-quality articles on a variety of topics, from current events to art to politics to travel.  Even the cartoons can expose you to ideas.
• The U.S. government - The amount of information produced by the U.S. government is staggering, available for free, and accessible starting from the U.S. government website at http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/All_Topics.shtml.  This is really a portal to in-depth educational sites, but I list it here because spending some time clicking on this site can give you an awareness of what is available on history, arts, culture, libraries, national parks, etc.
• Project Guttenberg - This is a collection of over 33,000 free electronic books that you can download (available at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page).  Read the classics of fiction and non-fiction, from philosophers to poets, to expose yourself to ideas, viewpoints, and concepts from great minds.

TIPS FOR MAKING THE TECHNIQUE A PART OF YOUR LIFE

Make the sources of ideas easily accessible.  One suggestion is to bookmark the links listed earlier in this post in your favorite web browser.  Add your own as you find additional online sources that you want to access frequently.

If you have a smartphone or tablet, create a page or folder with the apps and links you want to access.  This will make it more convenient for you to access in the future.

Set aside time on a regular basis to view these sources.  You are more likely to establish a routine if you schedule some time each week or month to scan through the sources of ideas.  Because many of these videos on the recommended websites are between 5 and 20 minutes in length, you may be able to fit in one or two videos during daily commutes, while eating, or brushing your teeth.

Share and discuss them with others.  This can allow you to gain additional insights from others and deepen your awareness of the ideas presented.  Watch together and you can discuss afterwards.

STARTER SET OF VIDEOS

Here is a starter set of videos.  I picked them because of the variety.

• On a social science topic:  an RSA lecture on individual perspectives of time - talk by Philip Zimbardo
• On a self-exploration topic: a Do Lecture on 50 jobs in 50 states - talk by Daniel Seddiqui
• On a business/technology topic:  a Do Lecture on the future of books and publishing - talk by Craig Mod
• On an education topic:  a Gel Conference lecture from the founder of a website with 2000+ free educational videos - talk by Sal Khan
• On a current event topic:  a TEDxCairo talk in March 2011 on the Egyptian revolution - talk by Wael Ghonim (the Google executive who was the administrator of the Facebook page "We are all Khaled Saeed", incarcerated for eleven days, and released)
• On a new invention: a TED talk on using mushrooms to replace styrofoam - talk by Eben Bayer
• On an interesting premise, humorously done:  a TED talk on trying to build your own toaster - talk by Thomas Thwaites

Happy Breadth of Fresh Air-ing!

Toolkit: Visual Event Timeline

Skype suffered a major outage in December 2010.  The company provided on its blog a postmortem from the CIO, explaining the cause of the failure, describing how it was addressed in the short-term, and discussing plans to prevent it from happening again.  The company was forthcoming and provided sufficient information to give its customers an understanding of what occurred.

When a negative event like this happens, it is important to communicate well both during the event and after the failure is resolved.  Communications during the event keeps those impacted abreast of the situation so they can plan and make decisions.  Communications after the event are important to explain what happened, why it happened, and what has been done or will be done to prevent it from happening again (or lower the risk of it occurring again to a more acceptable level).

I have been asked to lead post-mortems or to step in to situations where a problem has occurred and needs to be fixed.  One technique in my toolkit is a visual event timeline.  I saw this technique from a colleague of mine a decade ago when he gave me an update on a problem that occurred in his area.  A combination of a visual event timeline and a detailed narrative can be an effective way to communicate.  I believe the addition of a visual event timeline in the Skype blog entry would have enhanced the communication of the outage event.

This post introduces you to the visual event timeline technique by:

• Presenting the concepts of the technique.
• Providing real-life examples.
• Sharing some tips on creating a visual event timeline.
• Applying it to the Skype outage event.

The examples have been altered to avoid disclosure of any confidential information.

CONCEPTS OF A VISUAL EVENT TIMELINE

The visual event timeline has a simple purpose:  visually depict along a timeline the series of key facts uncovered, actions taken, and observations noted to effectively communicate what occurred during an event.

A visual event timeline contains the following elements:

• A timeline.  The timeline is presented as a horizontal or vertical line, bar, or rectangle.  The unit of time (for example, days, hours, minutes) displayed on the timeline is dependent on the event.  "Days" is appropriate when several days elapse between the time the event started and all issues were resolved.  For the Skype incident, "hours" is the more appropriate unit of time.
• Key messages.  These are the most important messages that help communicate what occurred.  They can be a description of the situation ("the cluster of Skype support servers for offline instant messaging became overloaded"), an observation ("Windows clients running Skype version 5.0.0152 were not properly processing"), an action performed ("disabled the overloaded Skype servers and eliminated client requests to them"), or other facts considered important in explaining the event at a point in time.  A line or arrow aligns each key message with its appropriate point in time on the timeline.
• Statistics.  These are data points, such as numbers or percentages, that provide additional information on the severity, magnitude, or status at a point in time.  For the Skype incident, the percentage of supernodes functioning properly or the number of customers affected would add relevant information.  This is optional and is dependent on the event and availability of statistics.
• Icons.  These visually highlight missed opportunities, points of failures, or points of success.  Coloring the icons red can also be used to emphasize missed opportunities and failures.
• Important lessons learned and action items.  For postmortems, the most important lessons learned and what has been done (or will be done) should be briefly noted.

REAL EXAMPLES OF A VISUAL EVENT TIMELINE

I created this visual event timeline as part of a postmortem.

(Click image to enlarge)

In this example, the timeline is displayed horizontally in the middle of the page.  The units are in days as the event began on June 30 and was not fully resolved until July 21.

The key messages are listed above and below the timeline.  The items listed above the timeline tend to refer to actions or observations of a negative nature and the items listed below the timeline contain the interactions with a vendor (SAP), although this was not fully adhered to due to space limitations.  The action that started the event (human error) and the discrepancies are highlighted in red.

No statistics are provided for this event.

Icons used include an "X" for missed opportunities and darkened circles for points of failure.  The visual event timeline clearly highlights two missed opportunities:  it took six days before the error was detected, and five days were lost due to misdiagnosis of the error.  The happy face icons show points of progress and resolution.

Because this was a postmortem, key learnings and action items are highlighted in the lower left.

This visual event timeline was used in both short debriefings as well as a long debriefing with the AR teams and management affected by the event.

Below is another visual event timeline I created when asked to help resolve an issue that had existed for a while.  Creating a visual event timeline helped me get up to speed on the history.

(Click image to enlarge)

In this example, the issue was still in existence and was being worked on.  Statistics are shown to show the number of employees or contractors impacted during this time period.  The missed opportunities and points of failure are clearly noted.

TIPS FOR CREATING A VISUAL EVENT TIMELINE

Keep the following points in mind when preparing a visual events timeline.

Be clear.  The purpose is to effectively communicate.  Do not be vague.  Avoid jargon, acronyms, and abbreviations unless they are known and obvious to the intended audience.

Be honest.  There should not be any information on the visual event timeline that is inaccurate, misleading, half-truth, or opinion.

Keep it to one page.  The visual event timeline is a communication tool to highlight the key points.  It is designed to communicate well in a 5-10 minute debriefing as well as an hour conversation.  Details of the event should be contained in accompanying written documentation (suggestion:  use Information Mapping to prepare the written document).

In some cases, a portion of a timeline can be exploded out on a separate visual event timeline if it requires a different unit of time.  For example, if a critical 30-minute period of time contained lots of failures and missed opportunities, but the overall event lasted days or weeks, a separate timeline for the same event is helpful.  For example, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could have an overall timeline and another timeline exploded out for the hours when the incident occurred.

Include only the key messages and statistics that matter.  Part of the skill of communicating effectively is knowing what to include and what not to include.  A lot of actions and observations occur during an event, but many of them are secondary to what is important.  Do not leave out important information, but do not include tangential information.  Remember that a detailed document should accompany the visual event timeline and can be referenced when discussing the event.

APPLYING IT TO THE SKYPE OUTAGE EVENT

Below is the start of a visual event timeline for the December 2010 Skype outage based on information Skype provided on its blog.  It is not complete, and I made some assumptions simply for illustrative purposes.

(Click image to enlarge)

In creating the illustrative example from the blog entry and reading the details, I determined insufficient statistical information was available to highlight the number of impacted customers and the number of supernodes available.  I also learned that the event lasted more than 24 hours to restore all services and return to normal, so a four day time period would have been more accurate.  I do feel this type of visual event timeline, nicely formatted and worded for a general audience, would have added value and enhanced the communication.


Happy timelining!