Perspective, presentations, the movie business and Up 3D

Image by ZakVTA via Flickr

I never thought I’d spend $40 for admission on my family of 3 for a movie and feel like I got a good deal, but that’s exactly what happened this past weekend when we saw Disney/Pixar’s latest, Up, at my local theater in 3D.   It wasn’t because of the 3D effects, although were impressive and vividly clear in the digital theater my familiy went to, but because of the very moving story.

If you just look at the trailer, this looks like it’ll be a movie about a cranky old man who ties balloons to his house.  Once you understand his perspective and realize why he became so cranky, the story takes on a surprising depth and validates why you should take the time to understand why someone is behaving the way they are in any of your relationships whether they be business or personal.  Experiencing this movie also slammed home the point about how important it is to get your audience interested at the beginning of any presentation and made me ponder on the business model movies seem to be inching towards.

Quote of the Month: Lloyd Dobler

Cover of Say Anything

It’s June, which here in the US means “Dads and Grads” is the most repeated (and my least favorite) phrase in advertising for the next month. For those of you graduating from something in the face of a difficult job market I repeat for you the best movie answer ever to being questioned about your job future:

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”

—Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything

3 Key steps to CYA

When I make a mistake, I own up to it. One time, I had the brilliant idea to wash my wife’s new car with a coarse scrub brush, which of course scratched the finish nicely. I messed up and got it fixed.

What I hate more than anything, though, is being blamed for a mistake that isn’t my fault. Often, this happens when someone else made a mistake and either remembers a series of agreements you made with them differently than you do or they are outright lying about a set of previously acknowledged facts. Either way, now they are saying it was all your idea to use the scrub brush and they had nothing to do with it.

When this happens, prevention is the key. How do you cover your ass (CYA) so you don’t own someone else’s mistakes?

Total Picture Radio with Peter Clayton

Peter Clayton runs an excellent career podcast over at Total Picture Radio and was kind enough to have me as a guest.  We talked about the premise for nerdguru.net and my recent adventure with “What’s your best career advice using EXACTLY 6 words?”

Take a listen to the 16 minute podcast over at Peter’s site when you get a chance.

Marketing for Nerds: Brand Social Strategy

Which exchange would you rather have:

Marketing person: “Can you set up a company blog for us?”

You, software person: “Sure.”

or

Marketing person: “Can you set up a company blog for us?”

You, software person “I’ll do whatever you guys want, but are you sure you really want that?  There’s a Forrester report out there that says blogs are the least trusted form of communication between a company and its customers unless it’s written a certain way.”

The second one, if delivered in a deferential way so as to not setp on the toes of the marketing person, will show that you’ve been keeping up on trends and get you extra respect when the time comes to have your performance evaluation.  With that in mind, I’m going to try a new category of posts geared towards marketing trends you should be aware of.

This first one examines a post over at Groundswell on brand social strategy.

Book Report: Outliers

Cover of Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell has called his latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success, an apology for his own success.  While that’s accurate, it also sells the ideas in Outliers short.  Really, it is about how big a role chance opportunity plays in being successful.  It’s actually a little scary when you think about it, but ultimately it makes some pretty compelling arguments that often minor changes in approach can have huge impacts on outcome.

My favorite stories from the book, which is just as good if not better than The Tipping Point:

Classic Nerd Guru: The Mid-Year Accomplishments List

For reasons outlined below, Q2 ended for me April 30 and I just finished my habitual mid-year accomplisments list.  Even if you have a more traditional calendar and your mid-year doesn’t hit until June, it’s a good idea to start thinking about this.

The article below ran last year in July (several months late for me), but served as a good reminder for me this year of the different places to look when recalling the variety of things I’ve been up to.

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Many years ago, Dave Packard noticed that his accounting staff had to put in overtime at the end of December in order to process all the necessary paperwork to close out the financials for the year and he didn’t think that was fair for them to have to give up family time in that way. So, he moved the start of the fiscal year to November 1 (moving it back to December 1 complicated Thanksgiving plans) and thus HP’s unusual financial quarter boundaries were born.

That’s a really long-winded way of saying I’m late when it comes to completing my mid-year accomplishments list, which I should have done in May but am only getting to now.

Why make a mid-year accomplishments list? Well, what did I do last November? Uh, off the top of my head I can’t remember. If I can’t remember that now I have no hope of remembering it in October just before my performance evaluation. Hence the need for a mid-year accomplishments list.

First, I looked at my last end of year accomplishments list. Mainly, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t accidentally taking credit for something that happened in that October/November timeframe twice, as it would not only be unprofessional to do so but I would also feel pretty stupid for getting nailed stretching the truth later when I could have prevented it.

Next, I went through month by month to see if I could remember what it was I was spending my time with. I find it’s helpful to think of what was going on in my personal life as those things stay with me a bit more. Case in point, I know where I had Thanksgiving dinner (on the Disney Wonder cruise ship) but I have no idea who I met with right before that extended U.S. weekend. Using that technique, here’s what I came up with (as with the actual performance evaluation, each line item is written with a leading verb in the same way you would do for a resume):
November:

• Handed off program management responsibility for a major presales marketing site to a development manager teammate
• Worked with third party vendors for an external data center exit
• Created and presented an architectural overview of all projects to our new Vice President

December:

• Suggested and oversaw implementation of an extension of the external data center hosing provider when the negotiations that took place in November fell through
• Prepared version comparison spreadsheet for more than 40 web site programs so that, in anticipation of the FY09 planning processes coming in January, software stack version upgrades (OS, database, middleware, etc.) required to keep up with HP data center standards could be identified and enumerated properly
• Generated a potential project list for IT streamlining during FY09

January

• Provided coarse level estimates (small/medium/large across 3/6/9 month durations) for 30+ projects for the preliminary FY09 planning process.
• In conjunction with 3 Solution Architects, generated fine level estimates (specific man days per week) for 10+ projects
• Crafted a process with business teams for evaluating 3rd party vendors that could be engaged with HP IT oversight
• Conducted a technical evaluation of two 3rd party vendors as part of the emerging process

and so it goes for 3 another months worth of material.

Next, I looked through my email archive.  Specifically, I sorted through my “Sent Items” folder looking for items that had attachments to them (because that meant I was delivering some work product to somebody) or that went to recipients I don’t normally work with (meaning I was expanding my influence).  That was good for at least 2 more bullet items per month.

Finally, I looked through my file system (which, like a lot of people, I have organized by project) to see if there was something else I might have missed.  The results, after about 90 minutes spread across 3 days, was a list of about 3 dozen items spanning 6 months worth of work and should provide a good foundation for my performance evaluation in the Fall.

Quote of the Month: Dan Canin

Cover via Amazon

At the recommendation of one of my bosses, I’m reading a book called Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales, which examines the psychology behind accidents (aviation, space flight, hiking, rock climbing, etc.).  It takes a very interesting look at how we are capable of being very intelligent but have blind spots in our thought process.  In a weird way, it is very similar to the recent Wired article featuring Teller about the psychology of magic.

On page 113 of my paperback version, Gonzales quotes Lockeed engineer Dan Canin who was commenting on the trade-offs between safety and pushing boundaries with NASA:

“Shit happens, and if we want to restrict ourselves to things where shit can’t happen . . . we’re not going to do anything very interesting.”

We all take on projects with a certain amount of risk.  In Mr. Canin’s case, that risk equates to whether or not people will live or not, something I’m not experienced with seeing as I’m pretty sure no web site ever reached through someone’s screen and attacked them.

Still, the path to greatness usually comes with risk.  The Apollo astronauts knew there was a pretty good chance they would die but they took on that risk in the name of pushing boundaries.  Space Shuttle launches sometimes become common enough that we almost tend to think of them as commercial flights, but they aren’t.

In order to make new discoveries, to “do anything interesting” as Mr. Canin put it, comes with risk.  But when you mitigate those risks and avoid them, the results can be spectacular.  Don’t assume you can make those big leaps without the risk that comes along with it.

Hanselman: Looking for balance in The No Asshole Rule

Microsoft blogger Scott Hanselman has an interesting post today on behavior and attitude in the technology world.  This quote best summarizes his framing of the subject:

However, it depends on what you feel strongly about and if what you feel strongly about outweighs what you believe others might feel. You need to be yourself, but you there ARE social norms, and others feelings, that should be considered.

@mstum on Twitter said: I’d rather have honest f-bombs than gentlemen hypocrites… Honest and direct people are so much easier to work with.

But can’t one be an honest gentleman? Why is online (or offline) use of the F-word and general crassness somehow exemplary of “honesty?” If someone swears and slams their hand on a table in a business meeting I don’t immediately think “Whew, finally an honest person!”

Being generally pleasant and helpful isn’t sugarcoating, it’s being pleasant and helpful.

Coding Horror: Who’s your buddy?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror ran an article back in March on pair programming that was in the same vein as the entry I wrote last month, Impressing your friends as a motivator for exellence.  For all you non-coders out there, pair programming is a software engineering practice where, as the name implies, you work in tandem with another person on a project so you can constantly check each other.   You have someone else to run things past before a broader audience sees it and, by extension, impressing that person becomes part of your mindset when creating output.

It’s always better with two, isn’t it?  Hewlett and Packard.  Gates and Allen.  Jobs and Wozniak.  Brin and Page.  Disney and Iwerks.  The list goes on and demonstrates that working in pairs can be extremely constructive.

As Jeff says in his article: