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Marc Orchant

Work Is Broken: Here's How We Fix It

Summary

Meetings, presentations, and e-mail are a part of many people’s work day. Used effectively, each can help keep teams aligned, impart important information, and move projects forward. We now are bombarded with information from the web, blogs, wikis, intranets, search engines, and other digital sources in addition to paper. We’re challenged to develop and maintain a system for collecting, processing, and acting on all of this information. And the classic techniques we’ve relied on in the past have either ceased to be effective or have simply broken. In this essay, I’ll share some proven techniques for fixing what’s been broken.

Essay Formats

HTML (61K, will open new window)
Acrobat (pdf) File (245K)
mp3 files

• File 1 (4:12, 1.4 MB)
• File 2 (2:25, 0.8 MB)
• File 3 (4:01, 1.4 MB)
• File 4 (7:15, 2.5 MB)
• File 5 (3:19, 1.1 MB)
• File 6 (5:23, 1.8 MB)
• File 7 (4:29, 1.5 MB)
• File 8 (2:01, 0.7 MB)
• File 9 (2:47, 1.0 MB)
• File 10 (4:21, 1.5 MB)
• File 11 (5:02, 1.7 MB)
• File 12 (8:07, 2.8 MB)
• File 13 (2:04, 0.7 MB)
• File 14 (2:45, 1.0 MB)

Marc's Blogs

The Office Weblog (a blog about office and knowledge work)
The Tablet PCs Weblog (a blog about Tablet PCs)
The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog (news and opinion about Microsoft)
Marc's Outlook on Productivity (Marc's original blog)
The Tablet PC Show (a podcast about Tablet PCs with James Kendrick)

Favorite quote on productivity:
"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."
Peter F. Drucker

Biography

Marc Orchant has been building, testing, and sometimes breaking hardware and software for 25 years. A recovering graphic designer, Marc is currently the Storyteller at VanDyke Software, a prolific blogger, co-host of The Tablet PC Show, a weekly podcast, and a self-admitted "productivity maven, gadget freak and software addict". Marc is the co-author (with Jeremy Wright) of two personal productivity training programs for Microsoft.

During the dot-com days Marc led the development and implementation of a web-based digital asset management system used by a number of major motion picture and television studios in Hollywood. He traveled the country as a Market Development Manager for Agfa Digital Printing Systems and has spoken at a number of conferences and seminars including Seybold San Francisco and XPlor International and contributed articles to a wide range of print and online outlets.

Marc was a pioneer in the digital graphics industry. He helped establish the largest high-end digital graphics studio and imaging center in New Mexico where he played with a lot of really cool stuff. Marc is currently involved in the New Mexico Information Technology and Software Association and chairs its Workforce Education Alliance, a partnership between the IT industry, public education, and government that is working to integrate information technology standards and well-defined career pathways into the curriculum of New Mexico high schools.

Marc makes his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Sue, a fine artist, two kids, Rebecca and Jason, and Eliza, the world’s largest Golden Retriever (weighing in at a svelte 103 lbs.).

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