A funny thing happens after a goal is reached sometimes - you naturally withdraw for some head clearing time. I've noticed this in my intellectual freedom zone that is my start-up. I'm motivated and pushed by my own actions and interests, so there's nobody else telling me what to do.
When I manage development groups, I'll usually do something following an accomplishment, take the group out to celebrate, skipping off an afternoon. Larger milestones often schedule a lessons-learned meeting to chat, vent and capture best practices. Even though there is much still to do, there's benefits of doing this take a breather approach.
I notice it in this free-form development work too. As I attain a goal, I seem to pull back and do some tidying, and do some big picture thinking. There's no shortage of next steps still required, but one seems to mentally need a bit of perspective after climbing a mountain.
That analogy is pretty good - it is like climbing a steep hill. When you reach a plateau on the way up, you tend to stop and take a breather in preparation for the next steps.
A downside though can be that it is sometimes tough to get back into the flow again. One should ensure that they know what the next steps are rather than waiting idly for divine inspiration. Just like the other development steps are planned, so should be your pauses and your re-engagements.
A technique that seems to work for me is to get back into the work by leading with to-do lists. I'm using this approach quite heavily. The rule of thumb is - if you're pausing, make a short next steps list in your log book or worklog file/blog/etc. It really has helped with productivity boosting, as you tend to make an effort to close off all the outstanding items before your next pause.
I run two worklogs these days - one is a private blog, the other is a text file in my core development area. When I'm working in the Eclipse environment I have a WhereAmI file that gets continually updated, in a very prosaic style. There I will often capture thought processes in trying to fix a problem, outlining my thoughts, the sections of code that are likely involved, even variable names and routine() names that are key. The result is that if I pause for some reason, I can quickly recover the area of activity. As well, I can recover the thought process I was going through.
The ancillary benefit is that the act of describing a problem will often evoke the solution. We see this as young engineers and scientists, talking to our mentors or supervisors. As we would start to describe an insoluble problem, you would come upon the answer half-way thru, and feel embarrassed for having brought it up. Later, I learned to have mock gripe conversations in my head to see if that turned up the solution, and often it would. The logfile/book does the same thing.
The file is also searchable, as is the private blog of course. The blog worklog I use for my other notes. Development that is not specifically in the Eclipse milieu, but also business building work, and broader interactions.
So those are just a few thoughts on managing the pauses, the tools associated with re-engaging, and not losing the threads of your engagement. Perhaps I should now turn to my task list at hand and try to make some progress following this last milestone achievement.
Researchinator reaches for the oars to find that they are still attached, functional and ready for action...
Friday, November 6, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
What Were You Expecting, Exactly?
On one monitor I'm watching a bit of NASA TV as an Ares rocket sits on the pad. Not sure what it's got on board yet, but it's fun to follow a launch of an old-school stick rocket again. NASA TV is great - they don't really care if there's a 20min shot of a rocket on the pad, with birds flying around. It's all content. No schedules to worry about for them, it seems.
Meanwhile, I'm working a bit more intensively trying to get through my latest pass thru the code for the next feature. A couple of steps forward yesterday... maybe one step back.
Still a bit curious about a VC contact last week. Reminds me of selling stuff behaviors. When selling things online, or even in the 'old' days in the paper, you'd often get a call asking if the item is still available. When you say yes, there is no other contact. One must wonder what answer they were hoping for.
Well, similarly a response from a VC, to an initial contact, was "Yes, we're interested in learning more, can you meet with us!" My response was "Sure, how about this date." Then there's no more response, and it's been several days. What answer were they hoping for?
Anyway, I won't worry too much about it. Building the business now, and that helps in the funding needs later on.
Researchinator displays some head shaking behaviour...
Meanwhile, I'm working a bit more intensively trying to get through my latest pass thru the code for the next feature. A couple of steps forward yesterday... maybe one step back.
Still a bit curious about a VC contact last week. Reminds me of selling stuff behaviors. When selling things online, or even in the 'old' days in the paper, you'd often get a call asking if the item is still available. When you say yes, there is no other contact. One must wonder what answer they were hoping for.
Well, similarly a response from a VC, to an initial contact, was "Yes, we're interested in learning more, can you meet with us!" My response was "Sure, how about this date." Then there's no more response, and it's been several days. What answer were they hoping for?
Anyway, I won't worry too much about it. Building the business now, and that helps in the funding needs later on.
Researchinator displays some head shaking behaviour...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Spotty Blogging
Busy times, and I've been sketchy on keeping this part of the routine up. Must admit that the twitter universe seems to have filled that early morning niche.
A couple of networking events lately - a Montreal one, and an Ottawa one. While Ottawa has a large group of Start-ups, I've been finding that the networking events there are too often a sea of consultants and self-appointed start-up experts (who strangely are not doing a start-up themselves just now). A few too many self-appointed gurus.
The Montreal events have had a good mix of entrepreneurs, investors and media. That's a more enjoyable session from an entrepreneurial point of view. I should try to make it to some Toronto events, or heck, even a Kingston one perhaps. Will have to watch to see if there are any there.
Researchinator is here, just not always highly visible.
A couple of networking events lately - a Montreal one, and an Ottawa one. While Ottawa has a large group of Start-ups, I've been finding that the networking events there are too often a sea of consultants and self-appointed start-up experts (who strangely are not doing a start-up themselves just now). A few too many self-appointed gurus.
The Montreal events have had a good mix of entrepreneurs, investors and media. That's a more enjoyable session from an entrepreneurial point of view. I should try to make it to some Toronto events, or heck, even a Kingston one perhaps. Will have to watch to see if there are any there.
Researchinator is here, just not always highly visible.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
What's Cooking with Google Wave?
There's a lot of internet buzz about Google Wave today. I have to give credit to Google for the hype generated. That's free advertising that you can't buy. Then all the people tweeting and reTweeting about getting invites and giving invites. That' social approach to signing up your initial users is a good idea too.
The old approach was to announce a beta and wait for people who felt like debugging your service for you to show up. With the 'invite' approach, you make it seem like a privilege to be a beta-user.
The kick off for Google Wave, if you remember was a near hour long video'd demo, which was rather sleepy to my eyes, but created some 'peer-pressure' to tell viewers that the service is very cool, even if the actual demo didn't really seem that amazing. "But if that whole room of Californians is cheering, it must be cooler than I realize."
I do see some potential to move seemlessly from the asynchronous connection of email to the increased immediacy of chat, and the threading elements I saw for what I watched a few months back.
But I also think that email - for those of us who have used it for a good 25 years - has a role that is well understood. It fits into a spectrum of connectivity. Walking up to someone's desk is the most immediate and synchronous. There is a momentary delay in engagement if they're busy, but usually there's an immediate interaction. Telephone is the next step, where the user can selectively engage. Chat is similar, but has the other issue that once you engage, it's harder to disengage and hence the ability to manage your status. Still, once you disclose your presence, you get nabbed by chat-buddies.
With email there is a disengagement. Sometimes a recipient will shoot back a reply and a few messages will bounce around for a few minutes, rather chat like, but if there's no reply for 24 hours, that's not a shock.
Twitter fits in there too, now, perhaps slightly further up the asynchronicity spectrum, but slightly more disengaged. Some users ignore their @ comments. Some people follow people who don't follow back.
Google wave will open a new can of worms, frustrating some with a stickiness that regular email doesn't have. It may lower productivity because it converts an email into a stickier chat situation. But it might enable improved distance collaboration through enabling new group dynamics.
Then there is the complexity. With existing Outlook tools widely used, but confounding many non-technical users with cryptic, non-intuitive use of scheduling, resource booking and hard-to-use receiver-list management/creation, I have to wonder if the complexity of Google wave will penetrate beyond the geek crowd.
Regardless, there's going to be new cultural adjustment required to adopt it, and the jury is out on whether it will catch or not. I don't think this is a clear slam-dunk for Google, and could potentially be their Apple Newton - basically good, but unable to cross into broad adoption by the masses.
Researchinator will, for now, let it bake a little longer before opening the oven...
The old approach was to announce a beta and wait for people who felt like debugging your service for you to show up. With the 'invite' approach, you make it seem like a privilege to be a beta-user.
The kick off for Google Wave, if you remember was a near hour long video'd demo, which was rather sleepy to my eyes, but created some 'peer-pressure' to tell viewers that the service is very cool, even if the actual demo didn't really seem that amazing. "But if that whole room of Californians is cheering, it must be cooler than I realize."
I do see some potential to move seemlessly from the asynchronous connection of email to the increased immediacy of chat, and the threading elements I saw for what I watched a few months back.
But I also think that email - for those of us who have used it for a good 25 years - has a role that is well understood. It fits into a spectrum of connectivity. Walking up to someone's desk is the most immediate and synchronous. There is a momentary delay in engagement if they're busy, but usually there's an immediate interaction. Telephone is the next step, where the user can selectively engage. Chat is similar, but has the other issue that once you engage, it's harder to disengage and hence the ability to manage your status. Still, once you disclose your presence, you get nabbed by chat-buddies.
With email there is a disengagement. Sometimes a recipient will shoot back a reply and a few messages will bounce around for a few minutes, rather chat like, but if there's no reply for 24 hours, that's not a shock.
Twitter fits in there too, now, perhaps slightly further up the asynchronicity spectrum, but slightly more disengaged. Some users ignore their @ comments. Some people follow people who don't follow back.
Google wave will open a new can of worms, frustrating some with a stickiness that regular email doesn't have. It may lower productivity because it converts an email into a stickier chat situation. But it might enable improved distance collaboration through enabling new group dynamics.
Then there is the complexity. With existing Outlook tools widely used, but confounding many non-technical users with cryptic, non-intuitive use of scheduling, resource booking and hard-to-use receiver-list management/creation, I have to wonder if the complexity of Google wave will penetrate beyond the geek crowd.
Regardless, there's going to be new cultural adjustment required to adopt it, and the jury is out on whether it will catch or not. I don't think this is a clear slam-dunk for Google, and could potentially be their Apple Newton - basically good, but unable to cross into broad adoption by the masses.
Researchinator will, for now, let it bake a little longer before opening the oven...
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Titanic Global Economic Battle
Rainy day in the city, and several more of those to come. Weather has turned cool, averaging 15C for highs, and it's all feeling decidedly autumnal. It was around this time last year, give or take a couple of weeks that I embarked on this start-uppy crusade, and the economy quickly took note and fell apart because of it. Much like the Tech-bubble burst was in reaction to my last start-up launch.
Oh sure, the Goldman Sachs, AIG, FannieMae stuff is all well and good, but they were all in reaction to my endeavour getting on its feet.
So once again it's a battle of wills. Me versus the global economy. Who can hold out longer? Will I give in and take a job somewhere before the recovery hits, or will recovery happen while I'm still hammering away on my architecture and looking for angel funding?
Researchinator grits teeth and vows to beat this thing...
Oh sure, the Goldman Sachs, AIG, FannieMae stuff is all well and good, but they were all in reaction to my endeavour getting on its feet.
So once again it's a battle of wills. Me versus the global economy. Who can hold out longer? Will I give in and take a job somewhere before the recovery hits, or will recovery happen while I'm still hammering away on my architecture and looking for angel funding?
Researchinator grits teeth and vows to beat this thing...
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Managing Difficult People
From the annals of my people management skills, here's some guidance on managing an employee exhibiting a bad behaviour. This is actually from an exchange with someone who was asking for guidance with one of their kids, but in conflict resolution, it's mostly about people, regardless of what role they are in employee, friend, child, spouse etc...
A helpful concept from conflict resolution suggests that trying to ensure your 'opponent' has an easy way out is an important consideration in your actions. Sometimes you can make a problem bog down because you haven't given the other side an easy way to capitulate to your position without losing face.
They also say you shouldn't use the word 'opponent' - but whaddaya gonna do.
Given a person who is compulsively lying, for example, it's tempting to try and repeatedly catch them in lies, preferably totally undeniable lies. In reality, once you've confirmed that they are lying, there is no additional value in attempting to continually hammer them with further examples.
So while the lying is a problem, focussing on it too much, or always trying to set up the situation to see if she lies could fail by trapping her too much, as she gets into the lie then has no way out.
Think of the example of a grounded daughter, prohibited from using the computer, but who you discover has gone online to tell her friends the score.
While it's tempting to ask "were you on the computer last night" to see if she takes it to a lie, it might be more constructive in the long run (ie to get away from lying behaviour) to say, "I see you were on the computer last night - If you needed to let your friends know you're grounded, you should have asked first. We're serious about not using the computer."
By setting the other side up to repeat their bad behaviour, it entrenches the behaviour. If you can set them up to "model" or "act-out" good behaviour, it ends up building a path towards doing it on their own later on. Also, reinforcing the prohibition, indicating that there are plausible options around it, yet pointing out the right way to determine that, also helps to avoid trapping the person in a no-win situation.
For what it's worth, a bit of advice from the people-management lexicon.
Researchinator been there, seen dat...
A helpful concept from conflict resolution suggests that trying to ensure your 'opponent' has an easy way out is an important consideration in your actions. Sometimes you can make a problem bog down because you haven't given the other side an easy way to capitulate to your position without losing face.
They also say you shouldn't use the word 'opponent' - but whaddaya gonna do.
Given a person who is compulsively lying, for example, it's tempting to try and repeatedly catch them in lies, preferably totally undeniable lies. In reality, once you've confirmed that they are lying, there is no additional value in attempting to continually hammer them with further examples.
So while the lying is a problem, focussing on it too much, or always trying to set up the situation to see if she lies could fail by trapping her too much, as she gets into the lie then has no way out.
Think of the example of a grounded daughter, prohibited from using the computer, but who you discover has gone online to tell her friends the score.
While it's tempting to ask "were you on the computer last night" to see if she takes it to a lie, it might be more constructive in the long run (ie to get away from lying behaviour) to say, "I see you were on the computer last night - If you needed to let your friends know you're grounded, you should have asked first. We're serious about not using the computer."
By setting the other side up to repeat their bad behaviour, it entrenches the behaviour. If you can set them up to "model" or "act-out" good behaviour, it ends up building a path towards doing it on their own later on. Also, reinforcing the prohibition, indicating that there are plausible options around it, yet pointing out the right way to determine that, also helps to avoid trapping the person in a no-win situation.
For what it's worth, a bit of advice from the people-management lexicon.
Researchinator been there, seen dat...
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