In the business world, it’s easy to find perfectionists. Are you one? Perfectionism can help us have a critical eye, keep us driven and motivated to work harder, but if you end up changing direction repeatedly, questioning your choices, or stressing about small details, perfectionism will be more of a hindrance then a help. Many negative things can stem from this, the most prominent being wasted resources of both time and money. At the end of the day the outcome doesn’t generally justify the effort. Below are some suggestions to free yourself from the net of perfectionism when you find yourself ensnared.

Make a Decision and Stick to it
You make good decisions; that is why you’re managing the projects you are working on. So when you make a decision, stick to it. Try not to second-guess yourself – this just wastes time. Who’s to say your fourth or fifth decision will be any better or beneficial? If you start that second-guessing game, it can spiral out of control!

Trus t your Employees
Listen to the input from your employees after you have unveiled your plan. They are great resources and will inform you of what is possible. If they like the plan then it’s probably worth using. Their support will help prevent you from sliding into the second-guessing game that I previously talked about. Another way to prevent wasted time is not to micromanage your workforce. When you have assigned tasks, take a step back and let them manage those tasks. You hired them for their expertise in the first place, right? And before you execute your plan …

Have a Plan B
You never know what’s going to happen! An obstacle may arise that cannot be overcome, so make sure you have a plan B. A backup plan will help you from getting entrenched to deeply in your first plan and devastated if things go wrong. The more flexible and ready for change you are, the easier it is to adapt to things life throws at you.

Perfectionism can have a beneficial effect as it may make you strive to be your best, but that pressure can lead to stress and wasted time. Try to stay flexible and strive for your personal best. If you find yourself caught up in perfectionism, the steps I’ve outlined above should help. You can also read this article to learn how to avoid perfectionism pitfalls all together.

Everyday, it seems, a new technological advancement pops up in news-feeds and broadcasts everywhere. In homage to these inventions and innovations, the Technological community all comes together to vote on the most cutting edge of these advances, and the winners are announced at the T3 Gadget Awards Ceremony. Over 960,000 votes were cast this year, and the winners ultimately chosen with the help of a 6 person expert panel.  Here are a number of interesting—and sometimes ironic—choices for winners.  Please check out the full list of categories and winners here. 

Ironic Winners

One of the most interesting aspects of the Awards are the categories themselves. They run the gamut of technology, and aren’t completely focused on gadgetry. For example, there’s the Best Retailer award and even the Gadget Personality of the Year award.  It is in this category that one can find an ironic choice: Mark Zuckerberg.  Although his influence on modern communication can’t be ignored, few would debate that he’s got Clooney-like charisma. And then there’s the category of Best Commuting Device in which anything that helps you get from here to there can be included. So, the electric bicycle nominee may appear like an obvious choice. The winner, in fact, was the Amazon Kindle — which makes “getting there” easier, as long as you’re not riding the electric bicycle while reading it!

Influential Winners

Perhaps another surprise winner this year was found for the Digital Media Service of the Year award.  Yes, Mark Zuckerberg won Personality of the Year, but it was Twitter that walked off with the more important gong.  Twitter beat out the likes of Facebook and Google .  Certainly the heads of Apple, Google and Facebook aren’t crying themselves to sleep over their crushing defeats. It is important to consider that these awards are voted upon by the tech community and therefore the very people who are most in tune with and most influential in this realm and should be taken seriously by the giants in the industry.

Surprising Winners

For many, the iPhone 4 would probably be guessed as the runaway winner of the Phone of the Year award. Instead–and more importantly–because more serious tech fans cast the votes, Samsung’s Galaxy S II walked away with the award. In the Tech Brand of the Year category, Google was the big winner, beating out rivals Facebook and Apple.  Again, it’s “just the T3 Gadget Awards”, but as always, it’s preferable to be the winner than the runner-up.  And when millions of dollars rides on person to person advertising and brand recognition, every little bit helps.

From Google and Samsung, Apple and Microsoft, to Facebook and Twitter, the list of nominees is a “who’s who” of technological innovation.  Please take a moment to look over the complete list of nominees and winners, of which the Gadget of the Year and Innovation of the Year weren’t even mentioned here.  It’s truly interesting to see how fast the gaming world is evolving, how fast technologies are being created and, consequently, becoming outdated. For fun, check out the candidates from the first Ceremony held in 2008, a lifetime ago in technology years!

Many people are focused on “being green” these days. Whether it’s to avoid the impact technology has on the environment or to save money, many companies are following suit and looking into green tech and ways to save energy. When looking to conserve energy, one of the first things a company or individual must know is, what is consuming the most energy?

Japan recently hosted the annual CEATEC conference earlier this month just outside Tokyo. During the conference, Toshiba and Intel announced their recent developments in energy monitoring. It’s no real surprise to see these businesses coming forward with big developments that allow individuals and companies to regulate and monitor their energy consumption. The following are a couple of the changes they will implement in 2012 that may change the way companies and individuals regulate their energy consumption.

Intel

PC users will be able to monitor the energy consumption of their PC with the application Intel has developed. With an easy to read dashboard where the data is organized and displayed in graphs, charts, and statistics, you will be able to much more easily see how your computer is using energy.

Toshiba

Toshiba is combining their recently acquired Landish Gyr smart-meter tech with some of their own developments to bring a “smart home” offering to the table. The “smart home” gives people understanding of the energy consumption inside their homes. Toshiba is also developing a variety of cloud technologies for energy monitoring that will be available to many different types of industries including healthcare and city infrastructure.

Japanese technology companies are currently highly dedicated to monitoring energy consumption. That being said, it is interesting that many companies in the US are pulling away from this. Microsoft and Google are just two examples. Microsoft announced in June that they’re discontinuing their energy-monitoring service called Hohm. While Google announced it is taking a break from the green game by shutting down Google Powermeter.

We will see what he future holds for the green technology world. It could head further in the direction of energy monitoring or turn to something else entirely. If you have any ideas or speculation on how technology companies will become greener; please share them with us.

Apple is known for its forward thinking, cutting-edge and revolutionary inventions.  From the Apple IIe to the iPad, Apple has always been at the forefront of computing and communicating.  However, it has set the bar so high that even Apple finds itself hard to beat.  A good example is the recent release of the iPhone 4S – a truly impressive product using the latest and greatest technology available.  But to its loyal fans, people who are always expecting a revolution instead of an evolution, some might have found the launch of an upgraded/evolved iPhone 4 instead of a revamped and brand new iPhone 5, to be less than remarkable.  However, the 4S does present 3 very impressive upgrades, which should inspire die-hard Apple users to seriously consider getting the iPhone 4S.

Software

One of the most noticeable areas of improvement can be found in the amount of speed and power that the 4S commands.  Apple announced that the iPhone 4S has seven times the graphical prowess of its predecessor and is twice as powerful. It features the iPad 2’s dual-core A5 chip which makes opening apps, loading the web browser, scrolling through home screens and countless other operations smoother and faster.

Siri

One remarkable difference between the iPhone 4 and the 4S is the addition of  your very own “personal assistant” named Siri.  When it works, it is an amazing feat of technology. You can simply tell Siri to contact a colleague and tell her you’re running late.  Tell Siri, “I’m feeling like Indian food,” and she will tell you where the nearest place serving Sag Paneer is located.  However, the caveat is “when it works.”  When Siri cannot understand a particular command, area or specific person, she will tell you humorously, if not annoyingly after a while, that she can’t process the info.  Certainly this will be fixed in the future, but it would be wonderful if it worked flawlessly now.  See this article for another take on Siri.

iCloud

iCloud is Apple’s replacement of MobileMe.  It is available on all new iPhone, iPad and Mac purchases, and automatically and safely stores everything on your device’s hard drive.  Access to music, apps, photos is much simpler from any other device.  One pitfall, though, is that some MobileMe users are finding that after MobileMe created its own user ID, it has been difficult for them to “sync up.” Equally frustrating is the fact that iCloud doesn’t recognize other mail accounts that don’t contain a me.com email address.  Again, like Siri, one would hope that these issues were hashed out before the launch.

Ultimately, the iPhone 4S was predestined to be a huge seller worldwide – but are its upgrades worth the wait?  The answer mostly is determined by the type of user you are. If you need to have the most cutting-edge product available, with improved hardware, camera, voice controls and iCloud, it may be something to consider.   If the iPhone or other mobile phone you’re using gets you where you want to go, its good to know that the iPhone 4S is more of an evolution than revolution – but its pretty cool none-the-less.

When you consider the ways the cloud has changed businesses, creativity is not what usually comes to mind first. You may be amazed at how advantageous the cloud has been for those in creative industries. The cloud makes it possible for a massive amount of information to be stored and accessible to people quickly from almost any location. And thanks to the popularity of tablets, people can access that information and share it at the simple touch of a button. Here are a few ways that the cloud and tablets as a team have improved the way that creative people conduct business.

Portfolios
Portfolios used to be restricted to what you could physically carry with you and hard decisions had to be made about what to leave in and what to cut when building a portfolio. Now portfolios can be stored in the cloud, organized into categories appropriate to different clients, and accessed quickly on tablets. As you can imagine, this allows for quick interactions that can result in more opportunities.

Creative Collaboration
In the past, collaborating with individuals in different time zones was very difficult. It required sending huge files through email, working on them independently then sending them back. This created multiple versions and duplicate copies, which was confusing. The cloud allows people to work on the same file simultaneously. This speeds up the collaborative process and keep everyone on the same page, so to speak.

Brainstorming
Brainstorming and mind mapping are other things the cloud has improved as numerous people can input their ideas into one file. People can access these mind maps on tablets, get input from local collogues, and update the shared file that everyone can see. This kind of connectedness breaks down the distance barrier, which used to be such a limitation in business.

When the mobile capabilities of tablets are paired with the cloud, creativity can happen with anybody, anywhere at anytime.

Workplace education programs (WEP) can lead to positive growth in company morale. Companies can employ this in small ways with informative handouts, education breaks as a group, or by supplying full or half day classes to employees. In either case, learning interesting things keeps people inspired and exercises their minds. Employees will feel like you care about them given it supports their personal goals of furthering their careers. Knowing their company is investing in them makes them feel secure in their position.

That being said, workplace education programs can be dull and if the classes aren’t challenging enough to keep employee interest, it can negate all of the positive effects that can come from these programs.

Here are some ideas to make your education programs enjoyable.

Divide employees into groups – Groups create healthy competition and encourages collaboration. Additionally they help employees get acquainted with each other better, which can lead to a more supportive team environment.

Give Incentives – Whether given to groups or individuals, incentives can be a great way to motivate people to pay attention and work hard.

Be Playful – Turning education into a game will help with retention of the materials being taught. Additionally, games also help to develop team-building skills.

Implementing education programs in the workplace not only supports your company by creating a more educated work environment but in addition promotes personal development. These programs can be exciting and a fun strategy to break up the week. If offering classes isn’t something that your company is capable of doing in the future, try employing something on a smaller scale, such as giving your employees a subject to study after which holding a quiz. Divide the group into teams and create a game out it.  The team with the most right answers wins donuts and coffee the following day. Workplace education programs can be scaled to fit your company; what is important is that, when done right, workplace education programs can have a strong positive effect on your company overall.

Tablets and smartphones have flooded the market, making portable computing not only highly accessible but also extremely practical. It’s easy to see that remote computing is the next big leap in technology, transforming the way we interact with data on a daily basis. But what does this mean for the PC? When the iPad was launched to the public, many thought it signaled the beginning of the end for the popular PC. However, the personal computer is a foundational mainstay in the way computing is done. Even with these new technologies, we are still living in the PC Age. Here are three of the top reasons this remains true.

Desktops Are Still Needed

    Critics have been claiming the death of the desktop computer for years, yet it remains to be a popular and much used technology. Why is this? The answer is simple: power. There is no tablet or smartphone that can match the speed and utility of a well-built PC. There may come a day when we can harness the speed and strength of a desktop machine at a smaller scale, but that day isn’t here just yet.

Tablets Are Less Practical

    There is no debating that tablets are remarkable and useful tools. However, there are certain impracticalities that come with such a portable device that greatly affect functionality. PCs are still the preferred machine for typing long documents, surfing the web and using more sophisticated programs. Unless tablets can find a practical way to replicate the functionality of a PC, personal computers will remain a foundational technology.

Smartphones Are Less Functional

    Any self-respecting tech-savvy nerd has a smartphone. These machines are great for checking email, updating social media or even making a call. Some critics claim that as smartphones become more sophisticated, they will begin to steal some of the standard laptop market. However, the average basic laptop user utilizes laptops to perform higher function actions. Good illustrations of these users are students. Can you imagine writing a term paper on a small smartphone screen? Neither can we.

    While the portable industry has made remote computing better than ever, it’s still important to have faith in the importance of PCs. For more reasons why the PC age is still alive and well, take a look at this article.