These days, there are thousands of choices for pretty much anything you would want. I think one of the reasons I am such a positive person is that once I pick something I like, I stop looking.
When I sell a stock, I stop checking the price. When I bought my apartment, I never went on Redfin again to look at prices or other options.
If there is a better deal or I picked the wrong time to sell, I really don’t want to know. As long as I am happy about the choice at the time, I would like to stay that happy about it forever.
I realized tonight that my behavior probably isn’t the norm. Carla and I are picking wedding invitations. I am kind of picky so I have had to look at a bunch. Once I saw one I liked, I decided. Carla agreed it was great but kept looking at others to make sure we made the right choice. I was happy with the one we saw and wanted to stop looking. That’s when I realized that’s how I am about everything. Why second guess when you find something you like?…
When you work with people, sometimes it takes a while for their way of thinking to make sense to you. What’s funny is that 2 weeks ago I would have disagreed, you just get so used to dismissing something you don’t understand until poof one day it hits you, maybe they were right all along.
I think in the tech business we get so caught up with getting something out the door to customers as fast as possible with the minimum set of required features we don’t value thinking about making work that lasts.
And by lasts I don’t mean 1 year or 5 years, I mean 15 years or 20 years.
My old business partner Marcus has a database he built in 1997 that’s still running the entire day to day operations for an insurance company of 25 people today, in 2012. And they still love it! The technology world has changed so much since the 90’s but this application hasn’t, it’s still chugging along adding value every day.
How much software can you still use that’s 15 years old?
There is a balance of course, but setting the bar high at making something that 15 years later stands the test of time (My equation for this is a) still runs b) customers still love it) is a truly ambitions goal that few companies can say they have accomplished.
I think I have been too short term in my thinking, too eager to follow the process or technology of the day…not imagining a world where things can last for a long time. Today it hit me, the grizzled veteran in the corner office might actually be on to something.
I am a fan of contrasts. Things that shouldn’t fit together, but somehow work, fascinate me. I think that’s why I am drawn to eccentric people, like Marcus, and products that are mocked and misunderstood, like Access.
I do my best work by riffing off of other people. I am most at home when I get to spend my day interacting with a lot of inputs from a variety of places. But sometimes I need some space to put it all together. The fast paced back-and-forth environment is great to create in, but for me, insight comes afterward when the ideas sit for bit.
Today I woke up and didn’t feel very well. It was nothing big, just the beginnings of a cold. I decided to stay at home to prevent the spreading of my disease to the rest of the folks at work.
Since the weather was nice, I took the opportunity to go on a couple of long walks in between working from home. That space between allowed many of my thoughts to crystallize.
It’s kind of like interval training: over-saturate with collaboration, and then take a break for the important bits to surface.
I think I am going to make this process something I mindfully do on a regular basis. Not just a weekend thing, but a deliberate break in the work week for some solitude and reflection.
I was out with a friend over the weekend that used to get mentored by the Director of Program Management for Office. He said that whenever he hired a new PM the one piece of advice he always gave them was to buy a comfortable pair of shoes..you will be walking around a lot.
As a PM you are at the center of most decisions on a team, that means you need to be collaborating and talking with everyone at all times to understand the pulse of what’s going on. You don’t build anything, you don’t test anything, you don’t design anything…you make shit happen, you make sure products ship.
When I first joined MSFT they gave me my own office, I HATED it. I need the energy of having other people around me, so for the 1st 4 years I shared an office out of choice and loved it. When I became a people manager I had to have my own office again, but this time I made sure to get a spot in a high traffic area and keep my door open all the time. Plus I spend a large part of my day wandering the halls talking to people, getting the pulse and making sure roadblocks don’t have the chance to start.
I like being on my feet all day, lucky I have the perfect job!
I started using Kiva.org back in mid-2006, at the time I joined they had so many people signing up to lend they couldn’t even take my money. Around Christmas I was finally able to lend and I put $1000.00 in to the system. Since then I have been able to co-fund 74 small businesses around the world and lent out a total of $5600.00 with that initial investment. It so cool that I can keep using the same money over and over again to add value to people.
The delinquency rate on all my loans has been 0.64% which is amazing all on it’s own.
So go sign up for kiva.org | See my profile
Positive change is about breaking out of your role, holding yourself to a higher level of accountability for the way things are. It’s too easy to blame the structure, or the culture for why things are not the way you think they should be. The reality is that you are not being the way you should be in the moments that count.
We all know those moments that count, when you can feel the hair tingle on the back of your neck, when you feel the bottom of your stomach dip a little, when the sweat bead appears on the tip of your nose and your face feels flush.
The easy thing to do is back down (I know, I do it all the time), say it’s not my job, I don’t have control, it’s always been that way, I can’t make this happen, it’s not worth it to fight.
If the moment wasn’t important your body wouldn’t be yelling at you, if it wasn’t worth fighting for your palms wouldn’t be sweating.
Only you can be accountable for what you feel, what you imagine and the way you believe things should be in the world actually happening. The fear, nervousness and anxiety is how you know your alive. It means you are on the cusp of real change happening.
Today I am going to try and listen to that voice, follow my instinct and see how far I can go.
Made with Paper
One of the things I come across a lot is people that have a hard time giving out praise without trying to also claim credit along the way. It’s really hard sometime to give away all the credit for something that you feel that you played a role in. But when you do it gives the recipient a new power they never thought they had, it can be the difference that pushes them into a new set of abilities.
Good people always pay back this kind of credit over time, and if you wait the rewards will be much bigger than the credit you get now.
I did a workshop this week for a Small Business Resource Center called Washington CASH (I volunteer there) about how to use CRM to help them gain repeat business and grow their business. I showed them how they can use services like Highrise and Stitch Labs to track customers and HootSuite or Desk.com to track conversations on social networks and customer support issues.
What I learned quickly was none of them knew about any of these services, further more they didn’t even think to look online to find these kinds of services. They are so busy trying to run their businesses they don’t even know they can use services on the web to help.
I think we take for granted that we have access to the communities and web sites that track these new methods of working. Most of the world has no idea these things are available. I still get many small businesses that have not heard of Yelp, Etsy and don’t know what twitter of Facebook are for, or that they can be used by businesses.
I think it would be awesome if a bunch of these companies all got together and pooled resources with the sole purpose to raise awareness about what small businesses can do with the web. This kind of audience (especially the 30+ folks) is diverse and really hard to reach unless you go on TV or the radio..which is expensive. They don’t spend a lot of time online looking for this kind of thing. Also they are easy discouraged by option overload (Just do a web search for CRM).
I was reminded of this Rands article today, mainly the section on venting.
Managing people I get to hear venting a lot and I often vent upwards as well. I always find it hard to remember that the person venting doesn’t want me to jump in and propose a solution they just want to be heard. It’s funny because I HATE it when I try to vent and the other person tries to problem solve, yet I end up doing that to other people. It’s hard to fight against that instinct.
The question I find a hard time with, is figuring out when the vent becomes a rant and turns from healthy to unhealthy. It’s a fine line and I think the person venting rarely is aware they have crossed it. I tend to think they cross the line too early most of the time.