Noise Between Stations

Category: Humans

A New Zeldman

Congratulations to the parents of Ava Marie, one child who will never hunger for lack of website knowledge.

10/5/2004
Inter-cultural communication

Brian Van der Horst’s essay on Edward T. Hall, a “Great-Grandfather of Neuro Linguistic Programming,” helps clear up some of the confusion I’ve experienced abroad. The below example of inter-cultural communication resembles how I met my wife in Germany, who must have thought I was over-sexed:

In both the British and American cultures, there are, let’s say 20 distinct steps in the ritual of courtship — between the first hello and going to bed. One step that occurs in both cultures is “the kiss on the lips.”

In America, this is about step number three. It’s something you do to establish intimacy. But in England, this is around step 18. It’s about the last thing you do before engaging in sexual intercourse.

So imagine a U.S. soldier on a date with an English girl. To get the relationship going in the right direction, to warm it up a little, the guy gives the gal a kiss on the lips. Just like in the (Hollywood) movies.

The lady in question now has a difficult choice to make. First, she thinks the guy is definitly over-sexed. After all, she hardly knows the fellow, and she’s just been cheated out of 15 steps. So either she walks off the scene immediately — in which case the Yankee says, “She is obviously over-sexed and hysterical — all I did was give her a kiss on the lips.”

Her other choice is to start preparing to go to bed. After, all the guy just yanked her action chain, and she is only a step or two away from the main event. If she follows this course, the American says, “Boy, is she over-sexed! She’s taking off her clothes, and all I did was give her a kiss on the lips.”

9/27/2004
E-Myth
I just read The E-Myth Revisited after it having been recommended to me several times. In it Michael Gerber addresses the most prevalent problems of small businesses (e stands for entrepreneur) along with his solutions. It’s a breezy read, and, although a little too preachy at times, it’s a worthwhile read.

A few notes worth remembering:
- The Fatal Assumption: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does the technical work
- Whereas before starting the business you were The Technician, now you must also be The Entrepreneur and The Manager
- The technician will manage by abdication whereas the manager will manage by delegation
- Tom Watson of IBM had a very clear vision of what the company would look like when it was done. “I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there… At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.“
- Your business is not your life
9/27/2004
First Fridays, now in NYC

You’re invited to the first monthly social meeting of First Fridays in NYC for the User Experience Design community.

It should be a good evening of simply meeting with peers to talk, network, relax, and engage.

Fri, Oct 1st, 6:30p till 8:30 at
Hell
59 Gansevoort St at Washington St (Meatpacking District)
(Between 12th & 13th Streets, West of 9th Avenue/Hudson Street)
212-727-1666
Subway: A,C,E and 1239 to 14th Street or L to 8th Ave

For more information send e-mail to: info (at) nyc.htmhell.com
For a list of other UX events in the NYC area you can also go to http://nyc.htmhell.com/

This is a UXnet event and was organized through the coordinated efforts and resources of AIfIA, AIGA, IxDG, NYC CHI, STC and UPA. If you represent an organization that you feel should also be part of future event coordination, please contact info (at) nyc.htmhell.com.

9/24/2004
An egg laying, wool-milk-pig

That’s the literal translation of this great German phrase, die eierlegende Wollmilchsau which literally translates to a pig that lays eggs, grows wool, and gives milk. As when a company is looking for someone with Java, IA, graphic design, project management, and creative writing skills.

9/23/2004
We like you, too

SFGate ran a great interview with David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue. It’s an honest look at his failure in university, his Mormon upbringing, and his take on fundamental airline operations.

I recently noticed with delight their new ad campaign, We like you, too (contrast this with Google’s Do no evil. It’s a different stance that brings different results.). It’s a little cocky, but gets to the heart of what they want to do: make customers happy. And we hear this explicitly from Neeleman:

Let’s just treat people nice. Sometimes people don’t deserve to be treated nice. But let’s just do it anyway, because that’s just the way we want to do business. And so we talk a lot about that kind of stuff.

He extends this attitude toward employees too. He defends his anti-union stance by trying to treat employees better than a union would. Last year the profit sharing program resulted in 17% bonuses.

Link courtesy of Kottke.

9/18/2004
Faster or Stronger

A shot from the preferences panel of Apple’s newest version of Chess…

I assume the application works like Deep Blue, massively calculating moves in advance to choose a better position. So it can go faster but calculate fewer moves, or calculate more moves and become a stronger player, but at the expense of speed.

It’s refreshing to apply this metaphor to business. Moving slower gives you more time to make decisions. Of course there’s opportunity costs involved, but to mentally reverse the attitudes of the internet boom can result in a new perspective.

8/29/2004
The challenge of the 21st century

Forty-nine countries have agreed to participate in a 10-year project to collect and share thousands of measurements of the Earth, ranging from weather to streamflow to ground tremors to air pollution with anticipated benefits ranging from weather forecasts to energy consumption estimates to predictions of disease outbreaks. As usual, it’s not the design of the system that’s the big challenge:

“We have been able to make computers work together. The challenge of the 21st century is to get people to work together… It will not be the technology that limits it, it will be the sociology,” Leavitt [head of the U.S. EPA] added, noting that the problem will be overcoming bureaucracy, politics, turf.

Link courtesy of Brett.

8/18/2004
Putting email in it’s place

Michael Cage, who earns most of his income through writing, takes drastic measures to organize his time:

I just want better strategies for focus. So, I bought an iBook. It does not have E-mail set up and never will. When itâ€™s time to work on important projects, I carry it into another office…. As for my main, office computer, Iâ€™ve made a life-changing shift there, as well. I only check E-mail once per day, at the end of the day….

Iâ€™ve noticed many people are happier with the illusion of progress than they are with progress itself. You can spend an entire day â€œappearingâ€ productive by banging out E-mail after E-mail, writing memos, and barely taking a break. But at the end of the day you are where you started. Low-value, low-return busy work took up your day, and you are confronted with the fact that high-impact projects arenâ€™t done. Or much/any closer to being done.

I used to do this more in my previous job, unplugging the laptop and moving to a lounge-like spot in the office. Sadly my current job lacks loungeness, and a laptop.

6/8/2004
Motivation
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…

Issues in motivating each other…
- There is a spiral effect among
- Honesty is very important in recruiting. It creates the right match between position and employee so the person’s motivation emerges naturally
- Firms should have slightly more work than staff to maintain an atmosphere of challenge
- Professionals are smart and want a variety of challenges. They usually have Impostor Syndrome
- Professionals need a meaningful understanding of their work
- And to be reminded that all of the work is important
- Outplacement is not just humanitarian, but a compliment to up-or-out and a way to build the network
6/7/2004
Coaching
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…

On coaching…
- Coaching is even more important when the market for employees is constrained.
- The best management is not the most intelligent or the highest skilled, but the best at coaching. They can make people feel special and focus their talents.
- Use the Socratic method to stimulate thought.
- Senior people coaching junior people is another form of leverage.
- Maister does the math and shows it’s more profitable for managers to spend their time coaching than to do their own work.
Manager’s performance should be measured by
- the aggregate performance of the group they manage
- 360 degree feedback
He goes on to say more about managing, that he finds there’s a big difference between the duties of a professional and a manager of professionals. The entire chapter is good, but in summary managers should be…
- patient
- willing to give credit to others
- good leaders in tough times
6/3/2004
Building your assets
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…

Ways to build your assets as a consultant:

Learn by reflecting on recent work
- alone (e.g. journal)
- with your team
- with your client
- with your peers
- with your mentor
Apprentiships are the most effective way of developing knowledge and skill. Depending on the company culture, balance apprentiships with a Darwinian system where initiative is rewarded.
6/2/2004
Your assets: six lessons
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…

Your assets as a consultant basically boil down to your knowledge, technical skill, counseling skill, and the depth of your client relationships.

Six lessons about your assets as a consultant:
1. Your existing knowledge and skills will depreciate in value
2. The health of your career has less to do with the volume of business you do than with the type of work you do and the type of clients you do it for
3. When you take control of your own business development, you take control of your own career development
4. The same is true of asset development
5. Balance using your existing skills with developing new skills
6. Marketing to existing clients is the best way to build your assets
Build experience through industry depth first, then breadth of clients

Skill in counseling consists of activities such as facilitating groups, building consensus, resolving political conflicts, etc.

You not only want to solve problems, you want to educate the client.
6/1/2004
Managing the marketing effort
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…
- Organize and reward marketing efforts as you do billable time
- Different activities require different skills, so allocate them to people according to ability and preference
- Form small teams, each focused on one type of marketing
- Ask everyone to devote the same minimum time to it
- Include junior staff
5/31/2004
Attracting new clients
More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…

Raspberry Jam Rule: the further you spread your marketing tactics, the thinner they get.

It’s always better to demonstrate than to assert.

In-person, individualized methods are always better than broadcasting.
- The first team
- The second string
- Clutching at straws tactics
5/28/2004