Category: Work

Two Thoughts on Cooperation

The first two posts I read in the news reader this morning were on cooperation. Both with the same “conflict is generally unnecessary” point. I thought you’d enjoy.

“…cooperation is the norm, it’s conflict that needs to be explained.”
– Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution

“…everyone in the organization that wants customers on a regular basis needs to take a breath and realize that we’re always on the same side. The challenge (and the benefit) is in acting that way.”
– Seth Godin

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Categorized as Work

An Emotion Connection Tells Us What Matters

In Newsweek’s cover story “Reading Your Baby’s Mind” on baby’s brain development, new research is profiled into the “babies learn foreign languages easily” phenomenon. The research states, a baby can easily learn a second language easily only if the secondary language is spoken by someone the baby has an emotional connection with.

“…without the emotional connection, the babies considered the tape recording just another background noise, like a vacuum cleaner.”

That’s right, language tapes in the background are just that.

This isn’t something we outgrow.

The New York Times article Team-Building With a Twist details the pains companies are going through to connect their employees on an emotional level.

As with babies and foreign languages, it only clicks if the parental figure finds it valuable enough to join in:

“Without a doubt, we’ve been able to map our chapters’ development based on whether or not the chapter president went through this experience.”

Consumer Software is the New Enterprise Software

Recently, a colleague asked for a recommendation on an enterprise asset management system.

Frankly, I’ve only had bad experiences with enterprise level software. My major complaints have been;

  • Too hard to use
  • Too expensive
  • Doesn’t map to existing business culture and processes

I ask what this system will be used for; sharing digital photos remotely.

There’s a requirement to annotate the photos for easy searching, there’s a requirement to alert other team members when new photos have been uploaded. The photos won’t be at high quality – they just need to be higher resolution than a black and white fax.

First, how many photo sharing sites are there? a dozen?, including shutterfly, ofoto, smugmug, and snapfish, picasa and open source projects like Gallery. Not to mention sharing is built into Apple’s iPhoto. As a happy customer, my first instinct was to recommend Flickr.

Needless to say, this problem has been solved for Joe Everyman. If we consider thousands of disparate registered customers one big enterprise, these apps have proven to be stable, reliable, on a multitude of platforms. Flickr’s pro account is $25 per year. For 10 team members, that’s only $250/year. I don’t know of a more reliable, easier to use client-server enterprise application that costs less than $250/year. Seems like a small price to pay for an application that’s continually being updated and provides the same volume of capabilities.

Let’s not even look at photo sharing, in the text publishing side there’s TypePad, on the project management side there’s Basecamp, in the email list management side, there’s Campaign Monitor (happy customer).

None of these services were build with The Enterprise as an explicit target. They were built to make a task easier for everyone. As such, there’s a better than even chance someone in your enterprise is familiar with these or similar tools. The benefit to an enterprise is clear, employees already know how to use them.

And they don’t cost an employee’s annual salary.

Greater Productivity By Turning Things Off

A couple weeks ago, I was having a tough time focusing. The culprit turned out to be a little red dot in my NetNewWire dock icon – the unread post count. I’ve unchecked that count in the preferences and my ability to focus has increased (Manton Reece did the same).

First, biologically, our peripheral vision is more sensitive than our direct vision. Second, our eyes are highly sensitive to the color red. Needless to say, tiny red dots arbitrarily showing up in the corner of computer screens are highly distracting.

Next step, find a way to turn off Apple Mail’s unread count.

An Unexpected Yak Shaving

One of the bathtub faucets has leaked for a couple weeks. Monday, I could no longer ignore it. That same day, Seth Godin introduced me to Yak Shaving.

yak shaving: Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you’re working on.

Tuesday, I headed to Home Depot for a replacement faucet stem seat.

According to the helpful Home Depot associate, great strides in faucet technology have been made in the 50 years since my bathroom’s was built (the faucet’s obsolete). He recommended I find a Plumbing Supply Specialty Store for the parts or pick up a new faucet. I opted for the new faucet.

Today, the Yak is clean shaven, er, the leak is gone.

Follow along if you will:

    Day 1:

  1. On Home Depot Trip #2 Jen and I pick up a new faucet.
  2. The old faucet framework wasn’t persuaded by the monkey wrench. It was however persuaded by Mr. Pipe Cutter. Unfortunately, Mr. Pipe Cutter left bare copper tubing rather than the more useful copper tubing + threading.
  3. Home Depot Trip #3 brought compression connectors adding threading to the bare copper tubes.
  4. With the faucet framework attached, it is obvious the old holes aren’t big enough for the new stems and the hole for the tub faucet is about an inch lower than the pipes will reach.
    Day 2:

  1. On Home Depot Trip #4 grab a 1 3/4″ hole cutter for the newer, bigger holes. (Where’d I put the power drill’s chuck wrench?) and a couple of pipes to reach the faucet hole.
  2. With the new holes drilled and faucet installed, I notice the faucet stem lengths don’t accommodate the wall between the plumbing and tub.
  3. Here I ponder tearing out and replacing entire the tub, surround, and wall. Instead…
  4. Mr. Hacksaw and I cut two copper tubing-size channels out of an offending 1×4, proving just enough space to connect the handles.
  5. Handles installed. Faucet installed. Leak ended. Mostly

Update 19 Mar 2005
My dad came by today and looked at the repair. Looks like I got it mostly right. Just needed to be more liberal with the teflon tape. Thanks dad.

Walking into this, I had no intention of shaving a yak. Nor did I anticipate replacing a small bit of formed metal would take 2 days. On the outset, I expected 2 hours, max. That reminds me, here’s a special bonus thought of the day from David J. Anderson: Stop Estimating.

Something takes as long as it takes. ETA isn’t known until you’re deep into understanding the problem you’re solving (i.e. doing it). In physics, there’s the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle principle: you can know a particle’s velocity or its precise location. Not both.
Let’s say ‘velocity’ is ‘doing’ and ‘location’ is ‘planning’. So, to rephrase; You can do or plan. Only doing will give you an ETA.

Overtime Hurts the Everyone

Late last week, a client and I were discussing a struggling project. The client mentioned his project team regularly works nights and weekends to meet the deadlines he had scheduled. I was stunned. This was months into a years longs project.

    There are 3 things fatally wrong with this management strategy:

  1. It devalues both the worker and the work.
    If the work doesn’t need alert, well-rested, and focused people – a machine should be doing it. Conversely, if the people don’t need to be alert, well-rested, and focused to accomplish the work – they’re on the wrong assignment.
  2. It hides the need for additional people and better tools.
    Regularly working overtime means there’s demand for more people and the company would rather exploit their existing staff than fill the demand. Productivity actually decreases throughout the day and after long enough, turns negative. This work-longer mentality keeps helpful people unemployed while others are overworked – both cases destroy health and families.
  3. It hides the need for realistic project scheduling.
    We all may be able to work faster, 9 women can’t have a baby in a month. Things take as long as they take, regularly working overtime hides this fact. Putting lower-quality time (overtime) into project introduces more defects, actually prolonging the project.

For other arguments against overtime, crunch time, and aggressive planning, I recommend:

The Creative Grotto Vibe

This morning Jen brought up the Temporary Office Space idea again. It’s something she’s brought up before. As a highly-mobile professional, the idea is very compelling. To have comfortable, secure place to send faxes grab a decent cup of coffee, and recharge off a good vibe for an hour or two, I think you can see how tempting it is.

This is why I’m tracking the next iteration of the Gate 3 Work Club.

On a smaller scale, I scanned the blogroll (opml) this morning, Brand Autopsy has a nice write-up on Po Bronson’s Writer’s Grotto.

If you’re interesting in this idea and closer to the Twin Cities, check out the Renaissance Box’s Writer’s Refuge.

Here’s a quick list of what I want from my work space (temporary or otherwise):

  • Wireless Internet
  • Chairs and tables fitting people over 6′ tall
  • Really good coffee
  • 2 reservable conference rooms; 1 for 2-4 people, 1 for 4-8 people
  • An open lofted, studio area where everyone can work quietly, and be aware of others working quietly
  • Postal substation
  • High speed, color copier

More as it comes to me.

Gate 3 Work Club Closes

Five months ago, I was excited to see the opening of the Gate 3 Work Club in Emeryville, CA.

I completely believe in the principles;

  • people like to work from home – just not all the time
  • people like to work around others

I was skeptical that Herman Miller furnishings were necessary, and thought IKEA would be fine.

Well looks like February will be their last month open…due to funding issues.

I wish Neil Goldberg the best in the next iteration of the Work Club concept.