Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note - The Wall Street Journal.

I thought you would be interested in the following story from The Wall Street Journal.

The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323530404578203970519252566.html

The Wall Street Journal App provides a new way to experience the Journal's award winning coverage, blending the best of print and online. Special features include:

  • "Now" Issue featuring updated coverage throughout the day, with top article picks from Journal editors
  • Market Data including quote search and customizable Watchlist
  • Videos and slideshows published with free articles

Click or tap the link below to download The Wall Street Journal from the Apple iTunes App Store.

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Friday, December 14, 2012

100 Miles on the Bike? Might as Well Play Golf - The Wall Street Journal.

I thought you would be interested in this from The Wall Street Journal.

100 Miles on the Bike? Might as Well Play Golf

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324481204578177563340721582.html

The Wall Street Journal App provides a new way to experience the Journal's award winning coverage, blending the best of print and online. Special features include:

  • "Now" Issue featuring updated coverage throughout the day, with top article picks from Journal editors
  • Market Data including quote search and customizable Watchlist
  • Videos and slideshows published with free articles

Click or tap the link below to download The Wall Street Journal from the Apple iTunes App Store.

http://www.wsj.com/mobile



Sent from my iPad

An iPhone Detour to Google Maps - The Wall Street Journal.

I thought you would be interested in this from The Wall Street Journal.

An iPhone Detour to Google Maps

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323297104578177781001886480.html

The Wall Street Journal App provides a new way to experience the Journal's award winning coverage, blending the best of print and online. Special features include:

  • "Now" Issue featuring updated coverage throughout the day, with top article picks from Journal editors
  • Market Data including quote search and customizable Watchlist
  • Videos and slideshows published with free articles

Click or tap the link below to download The Wall Street Journal from the Apple iTunes App Store.

http://www.wsj.com/mobile



Sent from my iPad

Thursday, December 13, 2012

New York State of Beer - The Wall Street Journal.

I thought you would be interested in this from The Wall Street Journal.

New York State of Beer

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324481204578175684059473400.html

The Wall Street Journal App provides a new way to experience the Journal's award winning coverage, blending the best of print and online. Special features include:

  • "Now" Issue featuring updated coverage throughout the day, with top article picks from Journal editors
  • Market Data including quote search and customizable Watchlist
  • Videos and slideshows published with free articles

Click or tap the link below to download The Wall Street Journal from the Apple iTunes App Store.

http://www.wsj.com/mobile



Sent from my iPad

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Concert on 12/12/12

Saw Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame in concert tonight on the tube.  They did Comfortably Numb, perhaps my favorite Pink Floyd tune.   A lot has been written about it.  The David Gilmour twin guitar solos were done in different keys as designed but without Gilmour.  I was never a fan of the theme of "The Wall" album as it was somewhat hopeless and the lyrics were anti-education.  BUT THE MUSIC WAS GREAT.

The good news is that Apple and iTUNES is involved with the concert, so some form of it will be available after the fact.  Better than a pirated version from somebody's cell phone.
JA



Ravi Shankar, RIP

My favorite Ravi Shankar CD:  
Passages

Click here to listen to samples on Amazon.
JA

Beatles' sitar player Ravi Shankar dies at 92

Published December 12, 2012

| Associated Press

With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.


From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar.


Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.


Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also confirmed Shankar's death and called him a "national treasure."

Labeled "the godfather of world music" by Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers d

iscover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.


"He was legend of legends," Shivkumar Sharma, a noted santoor player who performed with Shankar, told Indian media. "Indian classical was not at all known in the Western world. He was the musician who had that training ... the ability to communicate with the Western audience."


He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular American singer Norah Jones.

His last musical performance was with his other daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California; his foundation said it was to celebrate his 10th decade of creating music. The multiple Grammy winner learned that he had again been nominated for the award the night before his surgery.


"It's one of the biggest losses for the music world," said Kartic Seshadri, a Shankar protege, sitar virtuoso and music professor at the University of California, San Diego. "There's nothing more to be said."


As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Menuhin and jazz saxophonist Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the West and the East.

Describing an early Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said. "U.S. audiences were receptive but occasionally puzzled."


His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s.

Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long-necked string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song "Norwegian Wood," but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.


The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison's house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.


Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired song "Love You To" on the Beatles' "Revolver," helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to Shankar and his work.


Shankar's popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.


Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use and rebelliousness of the hippie culture.


"I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world," Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival.


While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was horrified when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire.


"That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God," he said.


In 1971, moved by the plight of millions of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out to Harrison to see what they could do to help.


In what Shankar later described as "one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century," the pair organized two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden that included Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr.


The concert, which spawned an album and a film, raised millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For Haiti Now telethon.


Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi.


At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar traveled with the troupe across Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.


During one tour, renowned musician Baba Allaudin Khan joined the troupe, took Shankar under his wing and eventually became his teacher through 7 1/2 years of isolated, rigorous study of the sitar.

"Khan told me you have to leave everything else and do one thing properly," Shankar told The Associated Press.


In the 1950s, Shankar began gaining fame throughout India. He held the influential position of music director for All India Radio in New Delhi and wrote the scores for several popular films. He began writing compositions for orchestras, blending clarinets and other foreign instruments into traditional Indian music.


And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India's musical traditions.


He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar's honor, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed "West Meets East" album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.


"Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar. If you love music, it would be impossible not to be," singer Crosby, whose band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar's music, said in the book "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi."


Shankar's personal life, however, was more complex.


His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s.


In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in 1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his daughter Anoushka.

He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn't see Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact.


He married Rajan in 1989 and trained young Anoushka as his heir on the sitar. In recent years, father and daughter toured the world together.


The statement she and her mother released said, "Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as part of our lives."


When Jones shot to stardom and won five Grammy awards in 2003, Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy of her own.


Shankar himself won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his musical score for the movie "Gandhi." His album "The Living Room Sessions, Part 1" earned him his latest Grammy nomination, for best world music album.


Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar's music remained a riddle to many Western ears.


Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half.


"If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more," he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.



URL

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Apple Tests Designs for TV

I am looking forward to the final product.  The current lack of integration is a reflection of the power struggles among the content providers, network distributors like the Cable companies and the studios and the tech manufacturers.  The issues are a lot bigger than a big screen High Def TV.
JA


  • The Wall Street Journal


Apple Tests Designs for TV

Apple is working with suppliers in Asia to test large-screen, high-resolution TV prototypes. The WSJ's Yun-Hee Kim explains how Apple's move into the TV market would intensify competition with Samsung and Google.

TAIPEI—Apple Inc. is working with component suppliers in Asia to test several TV-set designs, people familiar with the situation said, suggesting the U.S. company is moving closer to expanding its offerings for the living room.

Officials at some of Apple's suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been working on testing a few designs for a large-screen high-resolution TV.

Two people said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which assembles the iPhone and iPad, has been collaborating with Japan's Sharp Corp. on the design of the new television.

"It isn't a formal project yet. It is still in the early stage of testing," said one of the people.

Apple, which works with suppliers to test new designs all the time, has been testing various TV prototypes for a number of years, according to people familiar with the efforts. The company generally tests and develops products internally before doing so with outside suppliers.

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Getty Images

An Apple store in Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

Competitors such as Google Inc. are toying around in the business of making software for televisions and set-top boxes as well, but no one offering has gotten big traction to date. Apple's move into the television market would intensify competition with some of its biggest suppliers such as Samsung Electronics Co. The South Korean company supplies key components to Apple and is also the world's biggest TV maker by shipments.

"The potential for consumer lock-in that the television creates will likely drive platform companies to continue exploring the space. As such, while the battle is just getting started on this front, we see it as having the potential to either further entrench current winners such as Apple, or completely disrupt the market once again,Goldman Sachs said in a report.

Apple supplier Hon Hai, known by the trade name Foxconn, has been expanding into the market for large high-resolution TVs, capitalizing on chairman Terry Gou's investment in a Japanese liquid-crystal-display factory that used to be owned by Sharp.

In July, Mr. Gou, through his investment firm, took a 37.6% stake in the operator of an LCD factory in Sakai, western Japan, to become a co-investor along with Sharp. Under that deal, Hon Hai receives up to half of the panels manufactured at the plant and those panels can be used for any TV sets.

The Sakai plant, which cost Sharp more than $10 billion to build in 2009, is particularly suitable for making LCD panels 60 inches or larger for TV sets. Earlier this year, Hon Hai began assembling 60-inch TVs for Vizio Inc., a California-based vendor of low-cost, flat-panel televisions, using panels from the Sakai plant.

Apple could opt not to proceed with the device and how a large-screen TV fits with its overall strategy for remaking watching TV remains unclear. Apple has also been talking to cable television operators about building a box that would carry live television, according to people familiar with the matter.

In a recent media interview, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook suggested that the company's interest in television has progressed beyond a "hobby." He likened turning on a TV today to going "backwards in time by 20 to 30 years."

"It's an area of intense interest. I can't say more than that," said Mr. Cook in the interview with NBC News.

Apple shareholders are anxious about the timing and nature of the company's plans. While iPhones and iPads are selling briskly, they believe television could be one of the next big catalysts for Apple's business as those products eventually peter out. Apple shares fell to $541.39 on Tuesday from all-time high of $702.10 in September amid concerns about the company's future profits and growth.

Apple has been trying to make its way into the living room for years. In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has been talking with major cable operators, including Time Warner Cableabout letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content.

Plenty of hurdles remain. Apple doesn't appear to have any deals with operators to sell such a device and getting them on board is likely to be challenging. The relationship between Apple, cable companies and content owners remains tense. Apple has tried repeatedly over the past few years to persuade entertainment companies to grant it rights for various kinds of TV offerings, with limited success.

Sales of Apple's current TV hardware, a $99 set-top box, are picking up but are still small. The company sold 1.3 million in the quarter that ended in September. The device allows users to access some Internet video on larger screens but doesn't offer traditional channel lineups. Apple has struck deals with video providers such as Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC to offer apps for the device.

'Still Out of Work?' How to Handle Holiday Small Talk


This is a terribly common issue these days.
JA


  • The Wall Street Journal

Holiday gatherings can be anything but festive for people who are out of work. Even an innocuous "How's it going?" can feel like a tender topic—especially for the legions of long-term unemployed Americans whose ranks have swelled since the last recession.

Frustrated job seekers may find it awkward to explain what is going on, or not going on, in their lives. (Especially dreaded: the new-acquaintance query "What do you do?")

On the other hand, hosts and partygoers trying to catch up with an out-of-work friend or relative may find themselves unexpectedly in a conversational minefield, since research links long-term job loss to other problems such as depression and declining health.

Some partygoers shy away as if unemployment were contagious or tiptoe around work-related topics for fear of hurting feelings or being asked for help. Many people feel like, "I'm busy trying to hang onto my own job. I don't even want to enter into that conversation," says Frederick Hairston, a training specialist with National Able Network, Chicago, a nonprofit that works with job-seeking adults.

Common conversation-starters—such as, "Have you found a job yet?"—can make an unemployed person feel cornered, says Marie McIntyre, a Monroe, Ga., career coach and author. "It's a logical question. But if they have, they'll tell you. If they haven't, then the conversation starts out on a sad note," forcing an admission of failure.

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Julia Rothman

Even for those who have jobs, holiday parties can be a conversational minefield. Job coaches suggest carefully framing questions to people who are out of work.

Ground Rules

Job-search and communication coaches offer some ways to approach the tricky topic of a job hunt at holiday events.

IF YOU HAVE A JOB: MAKE KINDER INQUIRIES

Avoid: "How's the job search going?"

Why: A discouraged job seeker may hear this as criticism: "What's wrong with you that you haven't gotten a job yet?"

Say instead: "How are you doing?"

Avoid: "Why don't you apply for lowerpaying jobs in the meantime?"

Why: Many job seekers already have tried this or know that they will be rejected as overqualified.

Say instead: "I hear this has been the toughest job market in decades. I wish you all the best."

Avoid: "I'm friends with the HR manager where I used to work. I'll get you an interview."

Why: Such promises inflate job seekers' hopes but often can't be kept.

Say instead: "Would you like me to make a call to my previous employer?"

IF YOU'RE JOB-HUNTING: DEFLECT AWKWARD PRYING

Question: "How's the job search?"

Avoid: "I'm so tired of this. Interviewers are rude and nobody ever calls me back."

Say instead: "I'm continuing to apply for every opportunity I can, and doing some volunteer work and networking.

Question: "You've been unemployed for a long time, haven't you?"

Avoid: "It's the worst. There are just no jobs out there. Some days, I feel like I'm never going to work again."

Say instead: "It's gone on a little longer than I'd like, but I've had some good interviews and I'm optimistic."

Question: "Is that really the suit you're wearing for interviews these days?"

Avoid: "You're a fine one to talk. Look at those ridiculous socks."

Say instead: "Those hors d'oeuvres look great. Nice to see you, I'm going to get something to eat."

When job seekers are on the defensive, casual inquiries become loaded questions, says Anne Curzan, an English professor at the University of Michigan and an expert on conversational skills. She recommends framing questions in a way that gives job seekers choices about how to respond. Instead of asking, "How's the job search going?" say, "What's keeping you busy these days?" she advises. This enables the job seeker to focus on what he or she wants to talk about, whether it is pounding the pavement, raising kids or doing volunteer work.

It can help to put questions in an empathetic context, for instance, prefacing a query with, "I know this is such a hard time to be looking for work. I wanted to check in and see how you're doing."

If other guests pry too much, a job seeker might say, "You know, that's not the happiest topic right now. Let's talk about something else," Dr. Curzan says. Or they can try the diversionary approach: Smile and toss out a non sequitur like "Have you seen 'Lincoln'?"

Hosts and other guests may be relieved, because many are anxious about being put on the spot with a request for help. Experts say the awkwardness of an inappropriate request can be defused by listening briefly, acknowledging the request and perhaps exchanging business cards, then changing the subject: "Hey, let's enjoy the party and connect again after the holidays."

But hosts and other guests shouldn't assume a jobless guest is at a party to network, says Annie Stevens, managing partner of ClearRock, a Boston leadership development and outplacement firm. She once heard a host introduce a guest by saying, "This is John. He's out of work." Not only was it uncomfortable, she says, but it disclosed information the job seeker may have wanted to keep private. Her advice: Hosts should ask privately how a guest wants to be introduced.

"Unemployment is the elephant in the room" at holiday gatherings, says John Fugazzie, a New Jersey-based marketing-and-sales executive who has been laid off twice in the past two years and who founded Neighbors Helping Neighbors USA, a job-search support group with 26 East Coast chapters. Many people still "believe that if you don't have a job, it's your fault, that it's because you're not doing what you should do," he says.

Tim Houston, a San Diego-based financial-services software consultant, says he has faced "all types of awkward social situations" since being laid off last year. He has applied for numerous positions, volunteers regularly and is starting a job-search group at his church. Still, one friend implied he isn't doing enough, and should apply for lower-paying jobs. (He has tried, and was told he was overqualified.) Another friend suggested volunteering was a waste of time. When you're struggling to get interviews, says Mr. Houston, "being criticized is especially tough."

Unsolicited advice is rarely welcome, job seekers say. One relative at a family gathering told Mr. Fugazzie, " 'I see Home Depot is hiring. You should apply there,' " he says. "I ran a $1.2 billion business. I'm sure when I go to Home Depot and fill out the application, they're going to hire me in a heartbeat." After all, he says, he knows skilled tradespeople who haven't gotten past the application stage there.

Abby Snay, executive director of JVS in San Francisco, a nonprofit that teaches employment skills, recommends job seekers take control of the conversation by describing what kind of work they do want. She advises clients to write upbeat, 30- to 60-second responses to common remarks, plus questions to draw helpful information from others. Then, she has them rehearse the lines in front of a mirror, or with a friend.

Dr. McIntyre recommends that unemployed partygoers have "a party plan." Regard gatherings as a way to meet people who might help with the job search. Dress well, don't drink too much and keep the conversation positive. "As much as you might want to go off on the idiot boss who fired you, or the rude interviewer who never called you back," she says, avoid using parties to vent. Beyond the wet-blanket effect, spouting anger or frustration suggests "you're not the kind of person someone might want to work with or hire," Dr. McIntyre says.

Mr. Hairston has members of his job-search support groups practice with each other brief versions of their "elevator pitch" summarizing their skills, experience and goals. He coaches them to attend parties ready to converse about sports or current events, and to ease into talk of the job search if an opportunity arises, without allowing it to dominate the conversation.

During an 11-month jobless stint last year, Renee Real says she fought off feelings of depression and worthlessness. At social events, she tired of hearing platitudes such as "Don't worry, you'll land something soon" or veiled jabs such as "You haven't found a job yet?"

The Denver marketing communications manager practiced upbeat responses, such as, "You're right, I don't have a job yet. I'm really re-evaluating what I want to do. Here are some things I'm exploring," she says. She also took classes, began working out, lost a few pounds and volunteered as a marketing manager for a professional group, giving her meaningful work to discuss. Keeping a healthy self-esteem and a positive focus, Ms. Real says, "usually shuts critics up pretty fast."

It also helped her land a new job in her field.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com




Workplace Distractions: Here's Why You Won't Finish This Article

I still think that if I get only three significant things done in a day, I am doing well.
JA


  • The Wall Street Journal


Workplace Distractions: Here's Why You Won't Finish This Article

Distraction at the office is hardly new, but as screens multiply and bosses push frazzled workers to do more with less, companies say it's epidemic and is hurting their business. As Rachel Emma Silverman on The News Hub explains, some companies are experimenting with strategies to keep employees focused. Photo: Bloomberg.

In the few minutes it takes to read this article, chances are you'll pause to check your phone, answer a text, switch to your desktop to read an email from the boss's assistant, or glance at the Facebook or Twitter messages popping up in the corner of your screen. Off-screen, in your open-plan office, crosstalk about a colleague's preschooler might lure you away, or a co-worker may stop by your desk for a quick question.

And bosses wonder why it is tough to get any work done.

Distraction at the office is hardly new, but as screens multiply and managers push frazzled workers to do more with less, companies say the problem is worsening and is affecting business.

While some firms make noises about workers wasting time on the Web, companies are realizing the problem is partly their own fault.

Even though digital technology has led to significant productivity increases, the modern workday seems custom-built to destroy individual focus. Open-plan offices and an emphasis on collaborative work leave workers with little insulation from colleagues' chatter. 

A ceaseless tide of meetings and internal emails means that workers increasingly scramble to get their "real work" done on the margins, early in the morning or late in the evening. And the tempting lure of social-networking streams and status updates make it easy for workers to interrupt themselves.

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Associated Press

Open-plan offices provide many distractions. Above, Zynga employees working in San Francisco in 2011.

"It is an epidemic," says Lacy Roberson, a director of learning and organizational development at eBay Inc. At most companies, it's a struggle "to get work done on a daily basis, with all these things coming at you," she says.

Office workers are interrupted—or self-interrupt—roughly every three minutes, academic studies have found, with numerous distractions coming in both digital and human forms. Once thrown off track, it can take some 23 minutes for a worker to return to the original task, says Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, who studies digital distraction.

Companies are experimenting with strategies to keep workers focused. Some are limiting internal emails—with one company moving to ban them entirelywhile others are reducing the number of projects workers can tackle at a time.

Last year, Jamey Jacobs, a divisional vice president at Abbott Vascular, a unit of health-care company Abbott Laboratorieslearned that his 200 employees had grown stressed trying to squeeze in more heads-down, focused work amid the daily thrum of email and meetings.

"It became personally frustrating that they were not getting the things they wanted to get done," he says. At meetings, attendees were often checking email, trying to multitask and in the process obliterating their focus.

Part of the solution for Mr. Jacobs's team was that oft-forgotten piece of office technology: the telephone.

Mr. Jacobs and productivity consultant Daniel Markovitz found that employees communicated almost entirely over email, whether the matter was mundane, such as cake in the break room, or urgent, like an equipment issue.

The pair instructed workers to let the importance and complexity of their message dictate whether to use cellphones, office phones or email. Truly urgent messages and complex issues merited phone calls or in-person conversations, while email was reserved for messages that could wait.

Workers now pick up the phone more, logging fewer internal emails and say they've got clarity on what's urgent and what's not, although Mr. Jacobs says staff still have to stay current with emails from clients or co-workers outside the group.

Ms. Roberson of eBay recently instituted a no-device policy during some team meetings, a change that she says has made gatherings more efficient.

Not all workplace distractions harm productivity. Dr. Mark found that people tended to work faster when they anticipate interruptions, squeezing tasks into shorter intervals of time. Workers' accuracy suffered little amid frequent interruptions, but their stress rose significantly.

Other studies have found that occasional, undemanding distractions, such as surfing the Web, can help increase creativity and reduce workplace monotony, which may help boost alertness.

Within Intel Corp.'s 14,000-person Software and Services group, workers were concerned that they weren't getting time to think deeply about problems because they spent much of their time keeping up with day-to-day tasks. So earlier this fall, managers decided to pilot a program allowing employees to block out several hours a week for heads-down work.

During four weekly hours of "think time"—tracked via group calendar and spreadsheet—workers aren't expected to respond to emails or attend meetings, unless it's urgent, or if they're working on collaborative projects.

Already, at least one employee has developed a patent application in those hours, while others have caught up on the work they're unable to get to during frenetic workdays, says Linda April, a manager in the group.

Dozens of software firms have developed products to tame worker inboxes, ranging from task-management software to programs that screen and sort email, but their effectiveness is limited without organizational change.

Perhaps no company has taken on the email problem with as much relish as Atos, a global IT services company based outside of Paris, with 74,000 employees.

After an internal study found that workers spent some two hours a day managing their inboxes, the company vowed to phase out internal email entirely.

Workers can still use email with outside customers, but managers have directed workers to communicate with colleagues via an internal social network, which the company began installing earlier this fall, says Robert Shaw, global program director for the "Zero Email" initiative.

Atos says it's too early to say whether the experiment is a success, but in an anti-email manifesto posted on the company's website, CEO Thierry Breton compares his company's efforts to reduce digital clutter to "measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution."

Office workers aren't the only ones struggling to stay on-task.

At Robins Air Force Base, in Georgia, fewer than half of planes were being repaired on time by the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex because employees were working on too many planes at once and toggling between too many tasks on each.

The base worked with Realization, a San Jose, Calif., project-management consulting and software firm, to reduce the number of aircraft in work in the maintenance docks. For example, with one type of aircraft, they reduced the average number in work to six from 11.

Fewer projects led to better focus and more on-time results. A year after changing workflow, 97% of the aircraft are now repaired on time, says Doug Keene, vice director of the air-logistics complex.

Businesses have praised workers for multitasking, "but that isn't necessarily a good thing," says Mr. Keene. "When you are focused on just a few things, you tend to solve problems faster. You can't disguise the problem by looking like you're really busy."

Write to Rachel Emma Silverman at rachel.silverman@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared December 11, 2012, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Here's Why You Won't Finish This Article.


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Sorry, I have three copies of your address...

This is a common problem.  One reason I avoided switching away from the cursed AOL for so long.  I now have several experiences with cursed e-mail vendors.  But I digress.  Check this out, I hope they make it.  Currently only works on iPhone.
JA

The new app called "addappt" works well for automatically keeping your information in your contacts list current, but as Walt Mossberg tell us, it's only available for iPhone users right now. (Photo: addappt, inc.)

Your friends and contacts change jobs, phone numbers, email addresses, and residences all the time. But keeping your digital address book or contact list current with all these changes is tedious at best and often impossible. So, the contacts on most smartphones and computers are usually out of date and incomplete.

Now, a tiny Silicon Valley startup called Addappt is trying to end all that by making your address book self-updating. The company is offering a free service and contacts app of the same name for the iPhone that matches people in each others' address books, and then automatically updates their information when changes occur.

For instance, in my tests of Addappt, one of my colleagues who was helping me try it out updated her home address on her own phone, and the new address appeared within minutes on her contact card in my phone's address book. In turn, I added an additional phone number to my address record on my phone, and it showed up in her information for me almost immediately. No manual changes were needed on either end.

Addappt users control their own information. Only the person who is the subject of a contact card can make changes that will be synchronized through Addappt. It isn't a social network, and it has no ties to Facebook FB +0.50% or Twitter. Addappt says it stores only your own record, not your whole address book, on its servers. The idea is to focus on the address book, and make it better, not clutter it up.

[image]Addappt

With the Addappt app, changing your address, phone number or other personal data on your iPhone will automatically update this information for other Addappt users in your contact list.

After testing Addappt, I can say it does what it promises. I tried it successfully with several people. I was able to use Addappt itself as my address book, or to stick with my phone's familiar contacts app, because Addappt instantly shares any changes with the built-in iPhone app, and vice versa. In fact, if you use Apple's iCloud to synchronize your own address books, changes made automatically by Addappt can be propagated to all iCloud-connected devices, including iPads and Macs.

However, this is a new product from a company with few resources, so it is just starting out. That means it has some limitations and flaws that keep it, at least for now, from being a universal, living address book.

One limitation is that because Addappt is an iPhone-only app, you can't get self-updating information for those people in your address book who don't use iPhones. The company says it hopes to add an Android version by the middle of 2013, and has longer-range plans for other platforms.

Another is that, to gain the benefits of Addappt, you have to convince even your iPhone-using contacts to download and use it. But the company makes this somewhat difficult. Every new user must apply for an invitation code to activate the app. The company says this process is needed to authenticate people, and to guard against a surge of new users, which might swamp its servers.

And the app has some flaws. It can't make a match between two Addappt users, even if they're in each others' iPhone contact lists, unless their current contact cards have the email address each used to join Addappt (it must be the top email on the contact card) or your name and the top phone number listed. Also, I found the Alphabetical index down the side of the Addappt app, meant to save you from scrolling through long lists, worked poorly.

In addition, the Addappt app lacks a Favorites or Recents list. Finally, while the company swears it will never share or sell or rent any contact information, it has yet to post a formal privacy policy.

In many other respects, however, the app is nicely designed and easy to use. Once it is up and running, it scans your address book to see if it can match any of your contacts to other Addappt users. If it can, it automatically connects you with them. As people in your address book join and use Addappt, they also get connected.

Addappt users who aren't in each others' address books can ask for permission to connect. The app includes a list of connected users, and pending connections, as well as your entire address book. In the main list, connected users are designated by small icons showing two links of a chain.

Addappt's address book itself is attractive and easy to use. As you scroll through it, the contact at the top of the screen expands to show more information—such as the city and state—and even the local time (so you don't wake people up in the middle of the night). Icons appear that allow you immediately to make a voice call, or to send an email or text, without opening the contact entry.

What information for a person in your contact book will change once you are connected to him or her on Addappt? It depends. For some things, like name or photo or job title, the other person's choices will obliterate yours.

For others, like phone numbers, which can have multiple entries, information you've entered for the person will be preserved, and the contact's own new information will be added.

Contacts' pictures in Addappt are supplied by the person whose contact it is, and are displayed in a large size on the contact card.

The product has no advertising. The company hopes to make money eventually by selling premium versions with additional features.

Addappt is a promising product that could solve a real problem. But it can't reach its full potential until it runs on all platforms.

—Find all of Walt Mossberg's columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital website,walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.