All posts by vica

Brief September/October’16 News from Opitmist Writer

Books I write, Contemplations, Newsletters, Writing

I miss sharing my thoughts or news about my writing.

You have probably seen my writing progress here on this site, either as “Cheerleading for Writers” or new categories in the Business Blog, as well as restructured, simplified and improved website.

But I haven’t written about my writing quite in a while. Neither in separate newsletters.

I thought I had to send the newsletters only as letters to my subscribers and not post inside my blog. It’s interesting how most of us try to fit in some standards even if we fool ourselves by thinking that we are rebelling. Does rebelling itself have standards? Is the standard for rebelling the breaking of all other standards? But what are those other standards to break?

Do I have to break standards at all?

Now that I think of it, Yes, there are standards to break. But maybe they are not quite standards, but rather limits that I set up for myself, which I mistakenly consider to be standards.

I really liked sharing my Newsletters as blog posts, and sharing in them what I have been up to lately. Thus, in respect to Newsletters I am coming back to what I like doing. Writing them as short blog posts, once in a while — the while often being about one month.

So in respect to writing, this is what I have done up to this point and since the last Newsletter. I finished the very, very first draft of my future book “Cheerleading for Writers”. If you follow the blog series on “Cheerleading for Writers” you might wonder how this could be, since I have published so far only until including the letter S. This is because I allowed myself to continue writing without editing, which is necessary before publishing the posts on my website.

So now I am editing the remaining articles and will post them as I make progress with incorporating the changes on the paper onto the computer screen. I do this work in frames of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game I love playing for many of my projects and about which I have written a small book structured as a board game description. Thus the posts might appear in unequal intervals since the articles are of difference length. A spoiler alert for the article starting with T. It is quite long. 😉

I’m looking forward to discover how my project games change and develop, and what limits/standards I set for myself, as well as how I break them to create new rules.

And I am curious to hear about your breaking of standards and changes of something you have thought was so well established you forgot to question it, until your heart pushed or pulled you “by your ears” through those brick walls of the limits you’ve set up for yourself. What are those? If you don’t want to comment on them here, but still would like to share them with me, then feel free to write to my e-mail address: vib@optimistwriter.com.

Picture: Who said that you need to destroy a thing completely in order to create something completely new and fresh? Look what the Australian street art artist Guido van Helten, has created out of a silo of an old asbestos cement factory in Aalborg. He decorated it with wonderful and powerful portraits of workers from this factory.IMG_1367

Two Special Bonuses for Those Who Purchase “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled”: One Permanent and One Available Only Until September 25, 2016

S1000D

I’ve published “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled:　552+ Business Rules Decision Points Arranged into a Linear Topic Map to Facilitate Learning, Understanding and Implementation of S1000D” two months ago, on July 12th.

Today I would like to announce two bonuses connected to this book.

Permanent bonus – available as long as the book is available:

I have announced the first bonus – or rather a thank you for your purchase and possible review of the book – already in the book in the following way:

“As a thank you for your purchase, book review and feedback, I will send you a Microsoft Excel® file mapping all of the BRDP numbers and chain position numbers, plus the BRDP Group / Topic titles, OW’s words of wisdom, and full information on the BRDP defined for the first time in this work (i.e. those BRDP starting with BRDP-OW-). You can then copy-paste them into your Business Rules documentation and use the information for the convenience of your project or organization. “

In the illustration below you can see bits of the spreadsheets available in this bonus file.

BonusExcelS1000DIss4-1Untangled20160912-1

All spreadsheets in this file will be of value for you. But I think the third spreadsheet from the top (or the second from the bottom) in the image above might be the most intriguing for you. You can copy and paste the columns from this spreadsheet into the BR relationships file, or into your company’s or project’s business rules Excel file, where the BRDP are sorted in ascending order from BRDP-S1-00001 to BRDP-S1-00552, and then you will be able to filter the information in relation to the topics defined in this book. For example, after such filtering you will be able to identify whether you made all the necessary decisions on applicability, data management lists, publication module, a certain data module type, or other.

Note: this permanent bonus applies both to e-book and paperback formats.

Temporary bonus – available only until September 25, 2016 (before this year’s S1000D User Forum in Seville opens its doors):

When I finished compiling this book I realized that apart from a step-by-step Business Rules Definition Map, this book was providing something else as well. It provided a clear and comprehensive map of finding information in the specification on specific topics. These concrete topics (I identified 75 of them; you can see them already in the Table of Contents) list the related Business Rules Decision Points, which lead you to all Chapters and Paragraphs giving you information on your topics of interest, since each Business Rules Decision Point occurs only once in the Specification text.

Based on this approach I have developed a training course, which I call “Become a Skilled S1000D Way Finder (Live Online Course)”. This is a course consisting of 3 Skype-sessions,  each 2 hours long, and about 1 week between the two adjacent sessions.

Up to three persons can attend this live online course.

Today I would like to announce a very special one-time offer. It is available only until September 25, 2016, or in other words until this year’s S1000D User Forum in Seville starts on the following day.

The offer is as follows:

If you purchase the paperback of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled” and send me a copy of the receipt to vib@optimistwriter.com until the end of September 25th, then you get the chance to have with me one of the three options of the training course “Become a Skilled S1000D Way Finder”.

And here how it works:

  1. The first person who sends me an e-mail with a copy of the receipt from purchasing the paperback of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled” can have a full three sessions course with me. Two of her or his colleagues may join in, and each of the participants will get an e-book version of my book for their use.
  2. The second person who sends me an e-mail with a copy of the receipt from purchasing the paperback of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled” will have a two sessions course with me. One of her or his colleagues may join in, and each of the participants will get an e-book version of my book for their use.
  3. The third person who sends me an e-mail with a copy of the receipt for purchasing the paperback of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled” can have one session course with me. She or he will have to be the only participant during this course. But this participant will surely get an e-book version of my book for his or her use.

By buying the paperback until September 25th, letting me know about it and managing to be one of the first three doing so, you get the value of the book plus the training course, with the total value between over 250 $ and 400 $, 6 to 10 times of what the paperback costs 39.99 $.

As mentioned above this offer starts today and ends by midnight September 25th/26th, 2016. Only the first three persons, who contact me and send me copy of the receipts for the paperback (only paperback purchase classify here) of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled” will get the chance to have an exclusive coaching to become an expert way finder in S1000D.

Whether you are one of the first three who contacts me until midnight of September 25th with a copy of a receipt from the purchase of the “S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled”, or whether you come in fourth, fifth or further places, you will still have the possibility to get the bonus Excel file mentioned above.

I am looking forward to hearing from you and wish you success and fun in implementing S1000D!

Contributing to Mekon’s Bitesize on Business Rules – 1: Introducing Business Rules

S1000D

(A note beforehand: This post is attributed to both Business Rules and S1000D blogs on this site, since the post and especially the article referenced in it, relate strongly to both topics in equal strength. This means that subscribers to both blogs will receive the notification on this post twice, once for each blog. I apologize in advance for this inconvenience.

Note 2: After this post, the references to subsequent articles in this series will be posted only under S1000D business rules category. So if you would like to follow it and receive notifications on each new post on this topic, then please update your subscription here by adding S1000D blog to the list of those you would like to follow.)

lifeguard-381240_1920(Photograph © librestock.com under keyword “Rules”)

I am thrilled and honoured to announce my collaboration with Mekon on the topic of the S1000D Business Rules.

I’ll be teaching the S1000D Business Rules on their behalf. If you are interested, then please check out the training course outline here.

Apart from that I will be contributing monthly flash (i.e. very short and easily understandable) articles on business rules. You can read the first one here.

In this first article you will see that we won’t narrow the topic of business rules only to the S1000D but also to the necessity, sense, content and value of the business rules in general. So you can forward it to anyone in your team or your program even if they are neither acquainted with S1000D in detail nor with the concept of business rules yet.

I’m looking forward to hear your opinions to various aspects of business rules we will touch in this series.

Click here to go to the article.

Optimist Writer on S1000D and Business Rules: From Online Resource to a Book

S1000D

On December 1st, 2015, I started an online resource on this site to find out what could be the most appropriate sequence of steps when implementing S1000D (and Issue 4.1 in particular). In other words I tried to arrange Business Rules Decision Points (BRDP) defined in S1000D Issue 4.1 into a sequential order of taking those decisions.

While doing so, I have not only set the order but also filled in the gaps where I thought that decision points were missing.

Those who followed this work and commented on it will know that I was going to compile the finalized resource into a book and publish it.

I published the first edition of this book three days ago, on July 12, 2016.

As with any other work, this one took shape during the process of its creation. At first I called it a S1000D Business Rules Step-by-Step Guide. Then I called it a BRDP Chain, which it still is. At least in the book it is referred to as such.

However, while working with S1000D Business Rules Decision Points with all their parameters, I realized that when gathered into topics they are the most efficient pointers to various concepts and constructs offered by the Specification.

Thus the title of the book and the book itself had gotten finally a much broader sense and purpose than I initially had envisioned. The book is not only about Business Rules anymore. The book is about understanding S1000D better — that is, in a very structured and targeted way — and by that facilitating and accelerating its implementation process.

Today the title of this resource is:

“S1000D Issue 4.1 Untangled:
552+ Business Rules Decision Points Arranged into a Linear Topic Map to Facilitate Learning, Understanding and Implementation of S1000D”.

But not only the title and the scope of this resource had changed, also the content was affected. Especially, the order of the BRDPs has changed considerably as well. Therefore in order to avoid confusions and spreading the outdated information, I decided to delete the initial resource. The update of the online resource was not feasible anymore because the BRDP sequence and content around it had changed so much. I apologize if the deletion of this online resource causes any inconveniences to you!

If you would like to find out more about the book, you can do it here or click on the cover image below.

S1000D ebook cover JPG

What do you think about the change in the scope of this resource? Do you agree that Business Rules Decision Points (grouped around certain S1000D topics) identify the necessary context for certain steps in S1000D implementation?

Business Epiphanies: Managers Should Play Games and Learn How to Design Them

Uncategorized

Disclaimer: I am not a game designer. At least not literally.

I wrote a motivational book on how to learn perseverance, to make progress in a long procrastinated project, and  how to do it almost effortlessly.

As I started writing this book, called “5 Minute Perseverance Game: Play Daily for a Month and Become the Ultimate Procrastination Breaker”, I had an idea to structure it in a way a board game description is structured. So I took a description of a game my husband gave me as a Christmas gift last year and put it beside my computer on my desk.

Then I also looked for the books addressing the game design.

I found two especially interesting:

  • “The Game Inventor’s Guidebook: How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-Playing Games, & Everything in Between!”, Brian Tinsman, 2008

I must admit, I haven’t finished reading either of the books yet. Instead, I enjoy them in bits and pieces. And every time I read in them, a light bulb comes connected to my work.

A few words on my background. Most of the time in my over 20 years working career, I had to address in one way or another various management tasks, including planning and development of the operational processes, quality assurance procedures, in areas ranging from solid state physics and semiconductor device manufacturing to information technology, business process design and configuration management. Now as an owner of my own business, besides the project and time management, I also carry out reportedly the trickiest art of management, the self-management.

While I wrote my book on perseverance, I took a project and imagined I played a game with my procrastinating self to find out who would gather more points, me in making steady progress, with small 5 min-work steps every day, or my procrastination in hindering the progress.

I had so much fun with the game and the initially thought as daunting project that I wondered whether I could play this game also with other projects I have. I called my project book “game book” and started recording there moves for each project-game. The way I recorded also changed depending on how busy my day was with appointments or on my general state of mind. But the fun and curiosity on how I could structure my day and make progress in many of the projects, I need to handle during the same day, were predominant.

Recently I continued reading Brian Tinsman’s book “The Game Inventor’s Guidebook: How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-playing Games & Everything in Between!” and saw the following passage about Richard Garfield, the inventor of the game “Magic: The Gathering”:

“For years, Richard had been playing around with ideas for a game that was ‘bigger than what came in the box.’ Drawing inspiration from a classic science-fiction strategy game called Cosmic Encounter, he envisioned a game that set up rules, then let every card in the game break them in different ways. Further, no player would really know all the powers every card might have — players would constantly be surprised. Only a genius could bridge the gap between imagining such a game and actually designing it. ‘I had no idea if such a game could be designed.’ Richard recalls, ‘But I decided to give it a shot.’”

“Wow,” I thought, “Isn’t it what a successful manager, a great boss, and a brilliant entrepreneurs are? The geniuses who can bridge the gap between having an idea for a product, service, or the business development and actually doing it and demonstrating how this can be done? And aren’t our daily lives at work (and at home) the games having certain rules but with so many surprises breaking almost each of the rules?”

As I realized that, I sat there for a few seconds with an open mouth. I was in a public place when I had this epiphany, so I hurried to close my mouth and take on a nonchalant look as soon as I observed what I was doing.

A bit later I realized that the more I considered my work as a strategic game the more creative, and actually the more serious about the task I became. Truly serious, that is without drama but with utter concentration and attention for the task at hand. I’ve discovered a new (seeming) paradox for myself. The more I considered my work as a game and took with that care that I had fun while attending to my duties, the more diligent and efficient I became.

I will surely continue playing multiple project games in my working days and I recommend you to do the same. Besides if you are a manager or an entrepreneur, I highly recommend you to research on gamification, but also on game design and learn how to design games.

Here is the list of reasons why I think you should learn how to design games:

    • Saying it with words of a chapter title in Brian’s Tinsman’s book on the game design, where he addressed one of the reasons why someone would want to design a game, “It’s Fun”.
    • You’ll relax and your work will lose that dramatic scent we all are perfumed with, when we take our lives and our work much too seriously.
    • You will have a glimpse into an incredibly fun and — in an inspiring way — strange industry, a magic land of its own.
    • You might find out how your favourite games were designed and by that learn a little about yourself and why you like them.
    • You might also find a connection between your favourite board or computer games and the job you are doing. My husband, for example, loves strategic computer games and his job has among other game theory at its basis.
    • You’ll discover new ideas and be inspired to create your own ideas for the task at hand or for your team.
    • You’ll start playing games and make your colleagues smile.
    • Thus, you’ll be a pleasure to work with.
    • You’ll be more relaxed and prepared when something unexpected happens.
    • …

Somehow I think you could add to this list. So I’m wondering, have you ever had a similar or maybe even the same epiphany? Do you agree or disagree with the above? Why?

I would love to hear from you and wish you a lot of fun in your daily games.

Picture: My game book of projects.

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© 2016 by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels

The e-book “5 Minute Perseverance Game: Play Daily for a Month and Become the Ultimate Procrastination Breaker” is available for only $2.99 at: