Fake news. Alternative facts. It's weird to think that these are now part of our regular vocabulary in 2017. You would have thought that the information age would have ushered in an era where everybody could keep up with the latest and greatest information. Turns out that is only partially true: we're getting the latest information, but it isn't always the greatest. It certainly makes sense why this is the case. News organizations have to make money, and with subscription models like newspaper falling to the wayside, that means these news organizations have to get your attention somehow, even if that means exaggerating or straight up lying. Ryan Holiday does a great job of explaining this in more detail in his well-written book, Trust Me, I'm Lying . The good news is that there is a silver lining. At least for folks like me.

I like to tell my friends that I lost the weight but not the appetite. And my appetite for pizza is never satiated. Thin crust, thick crust, it's all good to me. Well... not all of it. I honestly can't say Little Caesars is disgusting, but it is definitely not favorable. If I had to choose between Little Caesars and pretty much every burger place on the face of the earth, I would go for the burger, for sure. Clearly, I am not in Little Caesars' demographic. Still, I have to hand it to the company. They have changed their business model and marketing plan in a way that has made them once again a key player in this over-saturated industry. Let's take a look at how this sub-par pizza maintains relevance in today's modern society.

If you asked me last year if I was a creative person, I probably would have said no. The last time I took an art class was probably in eighth grade, and the reason I didn't continue in high school was because I was not particularly good at any of the art projects in grade school. Even with my musical ability, I was still told that I was not a creative person. Merely, I was just good at replicating what I could hear from something else or from reading sheet music. I believed it. For years.

Running was a big staple in helping me lose weight and remains important in helping me maintain that weight loss. I'll be honest: I don't necessarily find running fun like some people do, but I can't overlook the fact that it's certainly effective. I was never a runner before losing all my weight, and it still surprises me how far I've come in about two years. Where I couldn't run a full mile before, I'm now training for my first full marathon. That's insane to think about. If I can do it, you can certainly do it, too. Here are some tips to help you get started with running.

It should come as no surprise to you that I'm struggling to see how the church (or faith) as a whole can do a better job at connecting with our postmodern society. In an attempt to eliminate the word "can't" from my vocabulary, I am doing what I can to contribute to a new movement to help re-integrate or re-introduce faith to folks. To that end, I reached out to some people in the church about literature regarding this, and there sadly isn't much. However, there is still some. In particular, I was recommended to check out this series of books called FRAMES. This series of nine books analyzes different topics regarding modern society in short, concise books. Books that contain a lot of information portrayed in neat graphical forms.

Let's take a step back to 2007. Hard to believe it's been a decade ago now! The first iPhone was just being released to the public. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were still in their infancy. Tablets and smartwatches didn't exist. And MySpace was still a big thing. Today, pretty much the opposite is true of everything mentioned above. The Apple Watch has more than double the processing power of the first iPhone. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are going strong along with new folks like Instagram and Snapchat. And while MySpace still exists, it is only a mere shadow of its former self. Things change. The IT industry is easy to point out because of its rapid, tangible growth, but this isn't to say other things have changed. Music artists and book authors no longer need major publishing deals to share their work. Uber and Lyft have created a whole new industry out of ride sharing. And who else remembers when McDonald's used to only have one drive thru and breakfa...

I'm a tech enthusiast all the way. I frequently visit tech blogs, keep up to date with the latest stuff that I don't own myself, and adopt the latest stuff that my budget affords me. If I could afford it, I'd always own the top of the line computer, smartphone, tablet, and smartwatch. My friends and family look to me to help them troubleshoot through any issues, and I'm almost always consulted by those same folks when they're about to make a tech purchase. So you might find it weird that I've recently moved back to using paper for some things. Technology is great, but I've found that it's not appropriate for every scenario. That said, this post is definitely more geared toward my tech-savvy, younger crowd who are apt to use tech for everything. I hope the insights shared here give you a refreshed perspective on the ol' paper and pen.

The Office is easily one of my favorite shows. While I wasn't a fan of the last few seasons, I think the first couple are absolutely timeless. Steve Carell's Michael Scott character is fantastic. For those of you not familiar with the premise of The Office , its a sitcom with the main premise being a group of regular office workers coping with the childish antics of their boss, Michael Scott. Michael is, essentially, the boss from hell. He has very little self awareness and constantly makes tasteless jokes at the expense of his associates. Things like degrading an Indian woman by mocking her culture with poor stereotypes with an equally atrocious accent. As a viewer, you can't help but question how. How did Michael Scott end up landing this position? He clearly isn't suited for the job. Well, the show actually does lightly explain it at one point, and it's a sadly believable premise that occurs regularly in many organizations today.

When the iPhone first released the App Store as a part of iOS 2.0, they pushed hard for everybody to create native applications for their phone. It certainly made sense for them. If they could create a platform where people could engage with all sorts of content on a singular device, then they could sell a lot of that device. Certain companies jumped onboard and made quite a name for themselves utilizing this new platform. I'm thinking about social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. These fundamental apps showed the potential of what a company could do with a native app, and it didn't take long for everybody else to jump on the app bandwagon. But I personally think this was a poor mindset for many companies, this idea that "We need an app because everybody has an app!" Sure, it makes sense for companies like Mojang with their top selling Minecraft: Pocket Edition, but does it really makes sense for every company? I don't think...

A focus on keeping one's ego in check is super important to me. So important that I named the blog to reflect this idea. I talk about this concept all the time both to help you and to help myself. I am plagued daily by the temptation to think more of myself than I actually am. Ego is the Enemy  was recommended to me by a friend by coincidence. I don't necessarily know if this person is aware how important this topic to me is, so I jumped at the chance to read this book when it finally became available in my Overdrive app. It's the book that finally pulled me away from my Nintendo Switch long enough to get my personal development back on track. Allow me to reflect now on what I think about this book now that I've finished it.

I don't know what it is these days, but people have the tendency to beat around the bush before getting to a point. Maybe it's that they're unsure if what's on their mind is right or wrong. Maybe they don't want to offend somebody. Or maybe it's simply that the person doesn't want to come across as brash or cocky. This is an issue I've encountered a lot, both in the past and in the present. It's a huge time waste, and it can be detrimental to productivity. For example, when a group is asked to provide feedback on something that is quietly not well received, the room usually goes dead silent for a little while until somebody finally speaks up offering some vague compliment. The compliment, of course, serves as a means to remain respectful to the presenter, but the presenter usually takes it and runs with it. After all, they only heard "good things" about it! In reality, nobody liked the idea.

If you've been in the work world long enough, I'm sure you've come across SMART goals at one point or another. SMART is a conveniently created acronym to help a person build essentially "reasonable" goals. These criterion are defined as the following: Specific (simple, sensible significant) Measurable (meaningful, motivating) Achievable (agreed, attainable) Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based) Time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time-sensitive) At first blush, I think most anybody can agree that these are good things to hold to. I've seen them practiced in organizational performance development, and I know they were deeply espoused in my Master's degree. But I'm not sold on these criterion. When trying to recently use this formula for myself, I found myself frustrated by the limitations imposed by this method. Just like the title of this post says, I don't think SMART goals are all that smart. Let's ...

At the beginning of this year, you might recall a post where I shared this idea conveyed by Dilbert author Scott Adams in daily writing down your aspirations in hopes that they will eventually come true. (If you want a refresher, here is a link to that post .) Now that we're deep into March (which is insane to think about), I wanted to reflect on what I think about having practiced this weird pseudo-science for a few months.

This last week, my life has been consumed by a video game. My personal productivity time has fallen off a cliff, and both my blogs have suffered from lack of content as a result. I still haven't beaten the game quite yet, but I'm finally coming around to a point that I'm okay balancing my play time back with my personal productivity time. As much as I am sorry for not posting a lot of content this week, I am also not all that sorry either.

Think about the last family vacation you planned. It's exciting to think about what your family and friends might do and the places you'll travel. But there's quite a few factors that play a role in planning a vacation. Things like... Where are we going? Who all is going? How many days will we be gone? How much are we willing to spend? What form of travel will we be taking? And so on. You get the picture. This isn't a bad thing to do at all. Rarely will you find people that step out the door on a vacation with zero plan in mind. But how many people follow their very precise plans once the vacation takes place? Oftentimes, things change at the very last minute. Folks on a road trip might pass a billboard for something cool they had no idea existed. Many people will change those plans last minute and be happy they did so. Others will stick to their original plan and likely end up regretting doing so, always wondering what it would have been like to venture of...

The Nintendo Switch and new Zelda game launched this past Friday, and "addicted" doesn't even come close to how enthralled with this game I am. Between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I would wager to say that I have put a solid 20 hours into the game already. I don't normally get like this, but... dang. This game is so good! As you might know, I have a baby at home. She's just over two months old and is an absolute joy. Just because, here's a shameless photo of her being cute with my Nintendo Switch: The Switch's launch and her presence honestly made for a little bit of a quandary. As much as I love my baby, I just did not want to peel myself away from this game. What should I do? Maximize my play time or spend time with her?

I struggle to write this post because I don't want my words to be misunderstood. I don't want somebody to read this as a means to put down the church or ever give it a chance, as that's the last thing I want. I'm not willing to say that the institutional church as we know it today is a failure. But for as many drafts as I've written about this topic, I couldn't not publish it.

We've come a long way with technology; it's truly amazing. Things like teleconferencing, simultaneous document editing, and virtual whiteboarding have made cross-country business a reality. Companies have begun to recognize this and now regularly hire full time teleworkers. It's weird to think that I have worked with people for years that I may never meet in person. Here's the thing, though: I'm just not convinced teleworking is the future. Where I think people are experimenting in this space now, I don't think even think advances in technology will cause teleworking to be a mainstream thing. In fact, I think we're going to see more of a swing back to collocated teams over virtual teams. Let's explore the five reasons why I think the future does not lie in teleworking.

Nintendo's brand new console, the Nintendo Switch, is set to launch in a few days, and I am absolutely ecstatic about it. Heck, I'm even taking the day off work. I've been a fan of Nintendo for pretty much all my life, and when you pair a new console with a very highly anticipated game ( The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ), I am all in. Nintendo is definitely putting a lot of weight behind the release of this new console. They've been doing the typical things like setting up places across the country to preview the console, and they notably had a commercial during the Superbowl this year. But perhaps the most interesting thing they've been doing lately is something I have never seen emulated by any other company.