Abstraction

I think it was in Dreaming in Code that I first came across the term “Shaving the Yak.” The concept has been familiar for a long time, I just didn’t have the words to express it. “Shaving the yak” refers to an focus on tools to accomplish a task instead of actually working on the task itself (e.g. Use this db, or that one? This coding language, or that one, etc.)

Sadly, yak-shaving happens to be one of my all time favorite activities. This is most evident in my book-buying: When I’m interested in a topic, I like to browse and buy books about the topic much more than I do actually learning about the topic.

My house is stuffed to the rafters with books that can serve as a chronology of my various interests over the course of the last decade or so.  You can note the many Dr. Phil books, for example, and, based on their position relative to other books, surmise that I had a fight with my wife sometime in 2001. My penchant for this book-buying has to do with feeling like I’m tackling a subject without actually having to tackle the subject.

For a long time, among my favorite yak-shaving activities had to do with personal productivity. Turns out I’m not alone, either; shaving this yak is so popular it’s got it’s own moniker: productivity prOn. There’s lots and lots and lots of web sites devoted to it, and a book, and many, many gurus. And no geeky blog is complete without a missive devoted to it.

And…I’m over it.  Thing is, my day to day work involves many onerous tasks that I’d really rather not have to do.  I think I subconsciously felt that if I were only to become super-productive, some of these tasks would take care of themselves. It’s akin to buying Quicken to fix an overspending problem.  You install it, feel like you’re making progress, and then realize that the unpleasant not-spending part is still there. (Then, irritated, you go out and buy Microsoft Money instead).

So no more shaving the yak for me.  I’m quitting the habit.  And to prove I’m serious, I’ve found a couple good books on the subject.

High among my (many, many) pet peeves is the bathroom hand-dryer, the wall mounted device that blows a sad little bleat of warm air on your hands, forcing you to either stand around and repeatedly cycle the machine or just give up and smear your hands all over the front of your pants.

Now, reminding me that the potential for a great product is often right in front of you, comes a better hand dryer.

It dries with a slim jet of air moving at 400 miles per hour. The Airblade doesn’t heat the air, so it uses about 80% less electricity than conventional machines. The dryers, which will be launched in the U.S. on June 26, are getting rave reviews from early customers. “Everybody loves them,” says George Denise, general manager for property manager Cushman & Wakefield at Adobe Systems Inc.’s buildings in San Jose, Calif. “They’re high-tech. They’re unique. They work well. And I’d even go so far as to say they’re fun.”

That great products ideas are everywhere, if you only know where to look, reminds me of an aphorism — there is, right now, a tiny company (or just an idea for a company) destined to grow into a billion dollar monster. If you missed your chance as an early employee at Google (or wherever), don’t sweat it; the next Google (or Oracle, or YouTube, or whatever) exists today, right now, somewhere. All you have to do is find it. They’ll hire you, no problem. Also, once you find it, you have to stick with it even when everything is going to hell and you’re sure it’s going to be a miserable failure. Easy, right?

One of the things I love most about living in Silicon Valley is how it celebrates geeks. Everything that is geeky, everything that made high school a miserable experience, is the norm here. It’s embraced. If it happens makes you very rich, it’s even sexy. People that aren’t geeky, or are at least associated with some geeky endeavor, are assumed to be cognitively impaired in some fundamental way. Not in a “you are stupid” way, but in a “you don’t really get it” kind of way.

It’s necessary at this point to admit that every non-geek I know (including my wife) would rush to emphasize that they in no way wish to “get it,” nor do they feel their life is in any way poorer for not “getting it,” and where the hell does a geek get off denigrating another person anyway, for God’s sake, not to mention the many things that geeks “don’t get,” including, all too frequently, personal hygiene and a modicum of conversational ability.

But I digress.

My point, such as it is, is that I just learned about the Tech Shop in Menlo Park. From the Tech Shop home page:

TechShop is a fully-equipped open-access workshop and creative environment that lets you drop in any time and work on your own projects at your own pace. It is like a health club with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment…or a Kinko’s for geeks.

I think that such a great place could only exist in Silicon Valley. Anyway, kudos to Guy Kawasaki for pointing it out. Very, very cool.

One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen is a demo of Photosynth done by Blaise Aguera y Arcas at TED 2007. Photosynth is a kind of sophisticated web robot that can find images (e.g. by scouring sites like Flickr), automatically determine which images are of the same object, and knit those related images together into an amazing mosaic through which users can navigate.

It’s impossible to really understand how incredible this technology is by reading about it. Take a look at the demo for yourself, and visit the Photosynth site.

What really caught my attention, beyond the technology itself, is the social networking implications for Photosynth. It’s enables one to look at an object (say, Notre Dame, as in the TED demo) through the eyes of thousands of people simultaneously; it potentially represents our collective view of the world. Amazing.

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in previous posts, I’ve recently joined a new company and now have a totally different work schedule. My company is based in Ireland, and I’m working primarily from my office at home in San Francisco, supplemented with monthly trips to Dublin.

It’s my first experience working from home. I entered into it with great optimism about how taking control of the lion’s share of my time would create opportunities that I otherwise would not have. I could, for example, opt to take my son to a swimming lesson on Tuesdays at 11am without disrupting my work schedule at all. As long as I got the job done, there was no one looking over my shoulder telling me that I needed to work within a specific window of time. I can move the window (or break it up) any way that I wished).

On paper it sounds great, and I’m still optimistic that it will be great. But it’s been much harder than I thought it would be. Look at this blog, for example — I provided an update near daily for months before starting the new gig, and have made perhaps three pathetic updates since.

Routine is really important for productivity. At least is is for *my* productivity. Unless I structure my day into specific blocks of time, each allocated to one specific goal or the other, I find that I get almost nothing done. I like to tell myself that this is indicative of an extremely curious mind (e.g. there’s always something interesting to think about, read, or work on). That’s mostly crap. It’s really indicative of my tendency toward disorganization and procrastination, against which I fight a constant battle.

So I’m developing a routine, and am finally getting the details of my home office worked out. The results will speak for themselves in the coming weeks. If I begin the next post with “man, it’s been awhile,” you can be assured that I was less successful that I had hoped.

Well, it’s only been a week or so since my last post, but based on the carryings on I’m getting via email, you’d think that I’ve engaged in some terrible betrayal. Sorry about that.

I do have an excuse: I’ve started a new job. It’s a good excuse, because it’s a high stress event. Here’s proof:

Divorce, death of a loved one, job loss—it’s not surprising to find life events like these on the high-stress list. But marriage? A new house? A personal achievement [such as a new job]? Sure enough, these “good” events are stressful, too.

“Your body reacts to stress in the same way regardless of the cause,” says cardiologist Gerald Pytlewski, D.O., of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network. “The level of stress hormones goes up, and if the stress continues over time, it elevates your cholesterol, blood pressure and heart disease risk.”

See? And note that the fact that this is some random quote from the internet that happens to support my premise doesn’t for a moment dilute it’s truthfulness. I mean, it’s not divorce or death, but it’s up there.

Anyway, I’ve started a new job. It’s not my first new job, either — I’ve done this a couple times, and I’ve learned something about new jobs over the years, and since it’s on my mind I thought I’d jot them down.

Start before your first day
For much of my career, I didn’t think about my new job until the moment I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar area surrounded with unfamiliar people. It’s much easier if you prepare for the first day by talking with everyone you can. Talk with the person you are replacing. Talk with people on your team, and teams with which you are going to be working. I usually make a list of the half dozen or so people that are likely to be most important in my new role, then I write an email asking to set up a quick phone call to introduce myself and talk about the role. This doesn’t have to be a big production, and it can be kept fairly informal, but it gives you a chance to form some initial relationships and get a “feel” for the important issues facing the company in general and you in particular.

Talk with everyone
People are most productive when they have working relationships — when they are part of the corporate “family.” There’s no magic bullet toward making this happen — it takes time. You can jump start the process, however, by making it a point to introduce yourself and say hello to absolutely everyone you see. Schedule in person meetings with the half dozen people you spoke about on the phone. Don’t wait for people to come to you; make yourself easy to meet and easy to talk to. Ask about the company, the products, the customers, the competitors, anything and everything you can think of.

Be conservative
Be careful how you express yourself, however. When you’re the new guy, there is a strong temptation to prove your value (your amazing intelligence, the formidable breadth and depth of your knowledge, your heroic past deeds). Resist this temptation. Everyone you meet will assume that they are the expert because, as the new guy, you know nothing. Frankly, they are probably right. Even if they are wrong, pretend otherwise. Give them the opportunity to have a forum in which they can teach; it’ll win you friends.

Of course, it goes without saying that you should avoid potentially controversial or contentious subjects such as religion or politics. Laugh at jokes, but avoid the temptation to prove that you are funny (or cool, or worldly) as well. Avoid expressing strong opinions about work-related matters. Collect as much information as possible, ask as many questions as possible, but don’t pass judgement. Even if you are right — the website might actually be pretty awful, the collateral poorly written, the business plan short sighted, the accounting sloppy, but talking about it probably won’t win you any friends and is likely to earn you some enemies. The company got along just fine before you arrived, and it’s amazingly easy to say or do something that causes people to wonder who the hell you think you are.

Read everything
You’re pretty stupid going it, and it’s important to become less stupid as quickly as possible. Read everything you can about your company, your products, your competitors, your technology. Everything. Then read it again. The faster you become fluent in your particular “language” the easier it is going to be.

Find an easy, early win
If you’re talking with everyone, reading everything, and making friends, some opportunities to contribute should become pretty clear. Unless you’re in a position in which your boss is laying out things he/she specifically wants you to accomplish, you need to identify some accomplishments yourself. It almost doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it is possible to achieve within a couple months (at most) and is accepted as a legitimate accomplishment that moves the business forward in some small way. At all costs, avoid the situation in which someone says that you are “off to a slow start” in any context (e.g. if something says “he’s smart, engaged, wonderful, and, though he’s off to a bit of a slow start, I think he’ll really be an asset” really means “he certainly seems capable, but he hasn’t accomplished anything yet.”

Oh, yeah, and a sixth bonus tip:

Give yourself a break
Starting a new job really is a difficult, stressful thing to do. You know no one. You know nothing. Every detail, down to the nearest rest room and how to file an expense report, is new. You aren’t going to swoop in and change the world, so don’t beat yourself up as you ascend the learning curve.

Babies with baggies are particularly unwelcome.

My sporadic blogging oflate is due to a major change — I’m transitioning jobs, having finished my last day with my previous employer Friday only to get on a plane Saturday, fly to Ireland, and begin my first day with my new employer (based in Dublin) on Monday.

It’s been an amazing experience, not least because the trip has occasioned my first experience driving on the “wrong” side of the road. I’ve been nervous about it for some time; I imagined that I’d arrive in Ireland and my jet-lagged mind would turn the wrong way at the first intersection I encountered.

Well, so far so good. I rented my car, got lots of insurance, pushed and shoved my (modest) suitcase into the smallest car I’ve ever seen, much less driven, and started driving around on the left side of the road.

It’s an odd experience for two reasons. First, I’m not used to *thinking* about driving. It’s something for which I usually rely on muscle memory, saving all other cognitive processes for grumpily judging other drivers.

Second, the muscle memory is still very much there. I’m experiencing a kind of dual-mind in which I’m intellectually telling myself “stay left,” but every unconscious process I have is simultaneously pulling me the other direction. This duality really freaked me out when I was driving down a road and someone pulled onto the road from an intersection ahead of me. The other car turned to travel toward me, and my intellectual mind said “they are turning into the right lane,” but my body erupted in alarms “YOU’RE IN THE WRONG LANE! GET OVER!” My little car began swerving slightly to and fro as I fought with myself, but I made it through without driving off the road into the trees.

Only four more days to go, then I have to try and switch back to driving the “right” way. Ugh.

There’s a fine line with cursing.  Used skillfully, cursing is akin to a kind of salt in the sense that it can emphasize  meaning almost magically.  Jokes are funnier, anger better expressed, disappointment and dispair made richer.  In fact, the enhancing effect of this “salty language” (if you’ll forgive me) is so ingrained that many people tend to over-use it, with ruinous consequences.  Who isn’t familar with the person whose frequent curses are an uncomfortable non-sequitor?  
Anyway, three cheers for Steve Pinker, author of some of my favorite books, including the Blank Slate and The Language Instinct.  His new book includes a fantastic exploration of that most favored of hobbies, cursing:

The strange emotional power of swearing–as well as the presence of linguistic taboos in all cultures– suggests that taboo words tap into deep and ancient parts of the brain. In general, words have not just a denotation but a connotation: an emotional coloring distinct from what the word literally refers to, as in principled versus stubborn and slender versus scrawny. The difference between a taboo word and its genteel synonyms, such as shit and feces, cunt and vagina, or fucking and making love, is an extreme example of the distinction. Curses provoke a different response than their synonyms in part because connotations and denotations are stored in different parts of the brain.

I don’t know about you, but I find this stuff pretty fucking interesting. 
The subtle emotional coloring of words reminds me of a friend, fluent in Japanese, who described to me the subtle nuances of speaking Japanese in a business environment.  “English,” my friend told me, “simply doesn’t have the variety of ways to express heirarchy and respect that Japanese does.”  He explained that this difference makes it difficult for a non-native speaker, even if fluent, to successfully negotiate formal conversation in Japan without offending someone.
I took that at face value until I was waiting to board a plane to Tokyo.  In announcing that the plane was ready for boarding, the Japanese attendant flicked on the P.A. system and said “Thank you for waiting, UA803 is ready for boarding.  First class, YOU GET ON NOW!”
Now, I’m not sure there is a literal difference between saying “We invite our first class passengers to board at their convenience” and “YOU GET ON NOW,” and I’m sure the distinction was lost on the attendent (he certainly didn’t mean to sound rude). The point, though is that English has subtle emotional shadings as well.  It actually made me feel better to have the opportunity to be an offended English speaker.  Now, if ever I’m able to get into first class, I’m prepared. 

Not only do I work in the software industry, I work in the geekiest corner of the software industry, the one decorated with discarded Mountain Dew cans, one-serv microwavable containers of Beenie-Weenie, and life-size Judge Dredd cut-outs.

Nevertheless, I believe there are people in the world even geekier than I. As evidence, I offer the following:

This man is writing email on his laptop while energetically using a stationary cycle at the local gym. The laptop, balanced on his open left hand, wobbles precariously as he furiously pedals and taps at the keyboard with a single finger.

One can only imagine what he’s writing:

Dear colleaggeegess—

My wwwkeekly uppdat for thehe Cissco accnnnt ffollos…

Related to my earlier post on how selling software to very large entities (e.g. selling software to telecom carriers) introduces unusual business challenges, I thought I’d post some key characteristics of software made for such carriers.

• It works, and continues to work — with five-9 availability — at the enormous scale required by carriers
• It solves a real world problem
• It contains sustainable differentiation
• It has no “single point of failure” (i.e. single external dependency) on which is relies to deliver value
• Avoids “specials” — one off development for a single customer
• Reflects input from customers and customer advisory boards
• (If a platform) provides robust, comprehensive SDKs
• Easy to install, particularly for PoCs
• Easy to configure, customize, and integrate
• Easy to update

So I’m reading something today and learn that the same neurotransmitter (TRPM8) that is excited by low temperatures is also excited by certain chemicals, such as menthol. I always assumed that menthol’s coolness was on account of rapid evaporation, even though it’s just as cool in a closed area (say, in one’s closed fist) as it is on an open one.

In fact, I “knew” that menthol’s coolness was caused by evaporation, even though this doesn’t stand even the slightest bit of active thought. It’s a trivial enough fact that I didn’t bother to expend any bandwidth on it at all, even as it was filed under “things I know.”

The point being that there are likely innumerable other “facts” sitting around in my brain. Hopefully the worst these will do is cause embarrassment as I wax knowledgeable at some dinner party, but I’m reminded how important it is to stay conscious of — respect, even — the breadth and depth of my ignorance.

I *knew* I should have coached my team against telling customers they are stupid and crazy. I’m hanging a copy of this on the wall immediately.

I’m vulnerable to prioritizing crap that, in the end, doesn’t matter at all. Every now and then I come across something that helps return perspective. I’m grateful for that, and I thought I’d pass it along.

Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old professor at Carnegie Mellon university, has incurable pancreatic cancer. He has been given months to live.

Two days ago, he gave his last lecture:

What we’re not going to talk about today is cancer, because I’ve spent a lot of time talking about that … and we’re not going to talk about things that are even more important, like my wife and [three preschool] kids, because I’m good, but I’m not good enough to talk about that without tearing up.

Here’s the full video of the lecture. I think I’ll go play with my son now.

In a previous post I broke a taboo by expressing my feeling that “some meetings are an important, and often neglected, aspect of good management.” (Breaking a taboo, I mean, by doing anything other than denigrating the hated meeting).

And, just as everyone, I still hate meetings. Hate them. Painful. Ugh.

But I see that Tyler Cowen has something positive to say about meetings, too:

But there is good news for the legions of meeting haters: Most meetings aren’t as wasteful as they seem.

Face-to-face gatherings serve valuable if hidden functions. For example, meetings publicize information about status. Who speaks? Who finds it necessary to praise whom? Who displays a confident demeanor? Meetings help managers and employees figure out how to build necessary coalitions. They bestow social intelligence.

A good reminder of the value of consciously maintaining focus and participating within meetings. Meetings are often the primary (sometimes the only) interaction point you will have with many colleagues, particularly those hierarchically above you. Even with colleagues you see and with whom you interact every day, meetings can serve to establish lines of authority and can build (or tear down) respect among teams.

The message: no matter how painful, how redundant, or how meaningless a meeting may seem, you should focus and squeeze as much positive, productive energy as you can out of the situation. The alternative is to risk being seen negatively — no one likes a whiner or a slacker.