Entries Tagged 'Working' ↓

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Originally uploaded by mdstamps

I just figured out how to blog about a photo that I uploaded to Flickr. So now you all get to see Cindy and me from this summer on Vancouver Island. Not sure which of the kids took it but it turned out OK.

As the kids get taller the angle on the pictures look better too!

Alan Cooper has published and excellent article on why the results of software projects are so unpredictable. His point is that there are two types of programmers — design engineers who like to design elegant solutions to problems and production engineers who want to develop code that is rock solid and able to be used by the wider public.

The problem, as Cooper sees it, is that both ‘engineers’ use the same medium for expression — source code. This is different than other disciplines, like bridge building, where designers use paper and computers and production folk use iron, bricks, concrete, etc. When you use the same medium it’s tough to differentiate whether you’re doing design or production work, which leads to problems.

The article is part 1 of 2, so I hope part 2 talks about how to better split up the roles, because I think he’s made a really good point. I’ve certainly been in situations when we thought we were done the ‘production engineering’ when in reality we had only really completed the design (in working code form.) We just launched it anyway and were surprised when the results were less than expected.

If any Agile Programmers are reading this — how does Cooper’s article line up with your experience?

I’m a winter bus rider and one of the things that bugs me is how tough it is to get transit information. Yes, our city transit authority has a web site but it’s touch to navigate, with a user interface that was poor in 2002, let alone today.

But today I read that Google Maps has expanded to offer transit information as part of their mapping service. If your transit organization submits the data, bus stops and stop times will be displayed on the map.

I’ll notify the appropriate authorities and am just jiggly with anticipation…

UPDATE: Well, it was harder than I thought to leave a comment on the Regina Transit site but it’s done. If you’ve got some time on your hands, check out the ‘contact us’ process here which sends you here, here and finally here (three screens of info to fill in including manditory country and home phone number fields!)

I stumbled across some really interesting posts by Tim Ferris about how blackberry addiction and, by extension, email addiction is wasting far more time than it’s saving.

Tim’s idea is to declare Father’s Day “Email Detox Day” where we’ll all go for 24 hours without checking email even one time. I’m in.

Spread the word!

Tip of the hat to Hugh Macleod for pointing me to Johnny Moore for one of the scariest videos I’ve ever seen. Not ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ scary, but creepy scary. It’s so bad it has to be a spoof, but the production values are really good. How can this happen?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaIq9o1H1yo]

New feature for Highrise. Concept to launch in 48 hours, along with rationale for the change published to all their customers and the public at large.

Simply amazing. How can companies afford to be closed with this going on?

Just finished Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. I picked it up because I struggle whenever I’m at ‘networking’ type events. I’m not exactly shy, although that’s part of the struggle, but I do have a tough time engaging in conversations.

The author takes his “connecting” activities to an extreme; although he warns against becoming someone who is driven to do nothing but expand his Rolodex he seems to come pretty darn close to the line. However, there were two good takeaways for me to work on:

I really want to improve in how I recruit people to join in my community projects. Heck, recruiting one person would be an improvement. I’m going to try looking for how I can help others through the community association to see if that helps get some reciprocation down the road.

A Question: How do you recruit people to help on projects you think are important?

I’ve been blown away by a new (for me) discovery of a software company called 37signals. They offer project management, contact management and other software all ‘as a service’ — you sign up online and start using it automatically, without any downloads or client software to install. Their latest offering is a contact management application called Highrise which launched a couple weeks back.

They have a blog as well, and here’s an excerpt from the post which stopped me in my tracks:

Thank you
It’s been just over 36 hours since we officially launched Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response. All things considered, the launch of Highrise has been our most successful product launch ever. Thank you!

Some early stats
Highrise is definitely getting a workout. Here are some early stats on the amount of data that has been added to the system so far:

Over 150,000 contacts
Over 15,000 notes
Over 10,000 tasks
Another interesting stat is that 9% of the people signed up are using OpenID. Lots of early adopters on board!

We heard you: Here come Cases for everyone
When we launched we only offered Cases on Plus, Premium, and Max plans. There was a fair bit of negative reaction to that decision. We hear you. So today we’ve made a change. Now all plans include some Cases.

They go on to explain how, based on feedback, they are changing the storage pricing; also, how to get a credit if a customer ‘over-bought’ based on the original pricing.

Let’s summarize:

36 hours old
150,000 contacts entered
Already have enough feedback to tweak the service packaging
Already decided to tweak the packaging
Already have a process to switch plans based on the packaging

Are you kidding me? My employer couldn’t do this in 36 days, let alone 36 hours. This is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen.

Agility matters.

Seth Godin used a visit to a car dealership to show that there is a very wide gulf indeed between a ‘good’ salesperson and a ‘great’ salesperson. I’ve been either working in a sales organization, or supporting our sales organization for three years now and I second Seth’s observations — it’s too easy to settle for ‘good enough.’

In a roundabout way, Seth also points to some of the contributing factors which allow ‘good enough’ to occur. In my case, our sales force has been selected more to retain existing revenues over growing new sales; it’s part of the deal when you’re the incumbent and you’re protecting your base. But our sales compensation is so skewed toward guaranteed salary (and everyone making the same salary) that there’s no real incentive to significantly grow business. Growing business means forging new relationships and that’s riskier than working within your existing customer base. But if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

The corollary to Seth’s argument is: If you don’t pay the best, and let ‘good enough’ work for your competition, your ‘best’ will eventually be working for your competition.

I’ve been mesmerized by several really good online videos lately. They are visually stunning but I realize now that I’m attracted to the music as much as anything — original music which really matches the tempo of the video.

I was a big New Order fan in the 80’s so perhaps this is a throwback to New Age music but there’s something new to it as well. For one, I find it a lot more soothing and inspiring. Music for Web 2.0? Music for the last half of the ’00s? I don’t know what to call it, but I like it.

Here’s three examples of incredible videos which are made even better by the music:

#1: I saw this video about to transition from text to hypertext to xml to Web 2.0 on Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Blog

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE]

#2: Here’s a great take-off PowerPoint presentations, which I first saw over at Presentation Zen

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWWKBY7gx_0]
#3: Another from Presentation Zen which links to a video on Trusted Computing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1H7omJW4TI]

Cool Tunes or what?