A One-Eyed Man is King

Things are so crazy for me these days, I can barely remember to put on pants before leaving in the mornings.  Let me break it down for you.

• Day Job – On my business card it says Chief Technology Officer.  No one really knows what a CTO does (shut up Justis), but at times it feels like being spackle.  You kind of spread one around and hope it fills all the gaps.  But seriously, I love my job.  I get to do a bunch of Lab/R&D type work testing out new products and figuring out where things fit.  I also get a huge lift from seeing technology put to good use and make people’s lives easier and more efficient.  It’s a tremendous amount of work to keep all the balls in the air, though.
• Nashville IT Pro User Group – This endeavor started out as a “why not?” kind of thing and has actually come into being.  We had our first meeting yesterday and we had 18 people there.  I was thrilled to hear so much positive feedback and was very encouraged by the turn out.  Once we got past some minor logistical issues (like the outer doors being locked so no one could get in) it went very well.  We’ll be meeting the last Tuesday of every month, which will be great for the community, but also is looking to be a significant amount of work.
• This Blog – I’ve been trying REALLY hard to post like clockwork on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Whether or not anything I write here makes any sense at all to you, it really clarifies things in my head for me.  I have to come up with the ideas, do my best to make them interesting and then actually sit down and write them.  Believe me, at times. it’s not as easy as I make it look.
• Personal Chef Cook – I can’t call myself a Chef.  I’ve never been to Culinary School (although I do my best to live vicariously through my brother Dan), and I seriously doubt I ever will, but I love to cook.  I’ve been acting out my little chef fantasies for my friends on weekends and so far they haven’t seemed to mind.
• Community Theater Widower – My multi-talented wife has been working as the Music Director for the Old School Theater’s production of Tom Sawyer.  She is HIGHLY dedicated and really cares about music and serving the community this way.  I’m always thrilled when she takes on jobs like this, because I end up spending a lot of time with my three kids on the weekends. 

Combine all this stuff with the surgery, flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, and colds that this Petri-dish we call a family has been through just in the last ninety days and my Outlook calendar is pretty slammed.  I have to admit, though…life is pretty good.

And it is good.  I broke down and bought a Kindle the other day and it just showed up.  I have to say, I really like it.  I knew it was going to be compact and sleek, but I really am amazed at how well crafted the device is.  Also in the exceeding expectations department, I was dumbfounded by how easy the ordering/delivery of the book was.  Stunning.

I know there is nothing new here, so at the request of a friend of mine, I’ll be doing some speed trials with this.  You may have gathered that I read a lot.  I also read very fast, at least I did on paper.  So I’ve selected a business book – Drive by Daniel Pink, a fiction book – First Lord’s Fury by Jim Butcher, and a technical book – Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper.  These should give me the gamut as far as how reading on the Kindle stacks up versus paper for me.  More to follow.

We recently had a local company come in and talk to our development team about Kanban and Lean Software Development.  Their product is called LeanKit and the 5 Users/1 Board version is completely free.  You can register, log in, and have your board set up in about 3 minutes.  I love the interface and how simply they have executed the system.  Anyone who’s managing projects with a small team should definitely check this out.

The tool is pretty sweet, but I was equally interested in their explanation of the principles of Lean/Kanban.  Two of the “pillars” of this way of thinking are Delivering Customer Value and Continuous Improvement (maybe you’ve heard the term kaizen).  Anyone who’s ever ready this blog knows that I’m all about both of those things.  I’m really excited to learn more about all of this and see how it plays out in the real world.  I’ll keep you posted.

I think a lot about success.  The nature of my job demands that I be aware of the definition of success on every project.  (Believe me, easier said than done.)  I read about other people’s ideas about success.  I am certainly awash in what society views as success.  I have definite ideas about what success looks like for me personally. 

Over the past couple of weeks, the development team at Sommet has been all but chanting the mantra “Fail Faster”.  We’re trying to increase efficiency, communication and transparency (as I’m sure all teams are trying to do) all at once, and this refrain keeps coming up.  If we fail early and often, we will get to success faster, right?

The famous quote by Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, goes:

It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure… You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all.

For many years, I have been extremely lucky.  I have been able to achieve some really amazing things by failing only a few times.  (They’ve been doozies, though trust me.)  As a result, and in violation of Mr. Watson’s maxim, I do indeed tend to think of failure as the enemy-or at least the opposite-of success. 

I could ramble on this topic for some time, so let me just cut to the chase.  Every single time you get it wrong, you are that much closer to getting it right. It doesn’t matter if you are a business owner, a stay at home parent, or the guy working at the snack bar.  Analyze those failures, make small changes, and try it again.*

Thanks to Alex, Jim, Kristin, James, Evan, Dan, Elijah, Steve, Joey, Matt and Bryan for letting me learn from you guys every day.  It’s an honor and a pleasure to work with you all.

*(These are precisely the same steps as troubleshooting any problem…duh.)

A guy I knew years ago used to say, “What’s the difference between a consultant and a trusted advisor?”  The answer:  All of your money.  He almost always got a laugh with that one, but just last week I was reminded of just how true that can be. 

How can you tell the difference between a consultant, a hired gun, and a person that you can trust to give you the very best advice for your situation?  Here are a few thoughts:

1. Time.  I’m sure everyone can think of a professional in their life that dings them for every second possible.  A lawyer, a mechanic, an accountant, maybe?  Not that there’s really a problem with that, after all everyone needs to earn a living.  The trusted advisor goes above and beyond the “billable hours” mentality and really takes the time to understand the business and its needs.   
2. Perspective.  I think all consultants, both good and bad, want to deliver results.  It seems to me that their point of view can make all the difference.  If I look at a solution from the vantage point of the dollars that I will make first and the value for the client second, that makes me a consultant.  If I have truly taken the time to understand a business, its people and its goals, then I can really understand value first and worry about the money I will make second.
3. Investment.  I’m talking about truly being (I hate this term because it gets abused so much) a partner.  I honestly feel that your success is my success, your challenges are my challenges and that your failure is my personal failure.  How well you do matters to me.

I got to witness a great field tech who has achieved all of these things in action last week, and it was a thing of beauty.  That’s the bar to which all of us as service providers should be striving.  Thanks for the reminder, Will.

I kid, I kid.  I read a couple of books this week that really hit me between the eyes and made me realize how complacent I seem to have become.  The first is A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink and the second is Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? by Seth Godin.  I highly recommend them both to anyone in business, but especially to technology people in business. 

A Whole New Mind is a look at the end of the Information Age characterized by knowledge workers and MBA types, and the rise of what the author calls the Conceptual Age which will be dominated by more creative types that can synthesize date, make relationships and add value through design.  Mr. Pink has a very easy writing style and offered some great ideas on how to develop your right brain and thereby be able to add even more value in whatever you do.

Linchpin really blew my mind.  I like Seth Godin’s style a lot, and I was looking forward to reading it even before it showed up on my doorstep.  A linchpin is someone who leans into “the resistance”, the part of all of us that wants to play it safe, and just gets things done.  As Seth says over and over, they ship.  It doesn’t matter if your IQ makes Einstein look like Paris Hilton if you don’t ship.  The book was inspiring to me and made me want to live up to exceed what I expect from myself. 

I really felt both of these books as a one-two punch of much needed motivation and self-discovery.  They have shifted my perceptions and I am newly energized by the challenges that I encounter daily.  I’m not really dissatisfied with my life, I’m just no longer willing to settle.