Each Morning Starts Here

Is it Still Morning?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 21:07:00 +0000

I persevered and got it done.

Then I got out.

That was a stressful period. I slaved away trying to find a balance of achieving the stuff I needed to do, hold together the organization, meet the needs of the customers. All that happened, and a big restructuring came together with several sleepless nights.

New supplier relationships kicked in, customers continued to get what they signed up for, and apart from one or two surprises, everyone seemed to come out happy.

The balance sheet especially.

Given that the 'biz' was no longer losing money, I moved on to plan X - escape. So I gave a couple of months of notice that I'd be leaving, and set about writing down how to do EVERYTHING. That was ready - as was some overlap time - as a new person was acquired, and I made an escape.

The mornings now? A whole new ball of stressors, but in a better way. I'm pushing on some new start-uppy potential stuff, and casting about for a new gig in a tough environment. Meanwhile, things could be a lot worse.

Remember This Thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Yes, I've read all the websites and blogs about dealing with anxiety. If you've launched a start-up or a start-up-like environment you know what I'm talking about.

Strangely I'm going through the most stressful/anxiety filled project of my career and it's not really a true start-up.

This is a very start-up-like environment though. It involves a small team of staff and a few volunteers in an organization that includes dealing with the public. I'm rebuilding the business, and putting all the pieces into place. I'm doing everything from marketing to back-end office tools development to managing recruiting to finance and accounting. It picks up from the points to which I have brought other start-ups.

I'm going to blog a lot about this to help me deal with the stress, so I should develop an appropriate euphemism.   In my previous anxiety-therapy blog entries, I was dealing with the "oceanography."   I don't know what I'll use here, but I'll see what fits as I go forward. Maybe food services or something.

Now I'm running this company - it's been around for more than a decade, and has some reasonable public-support, but it has been stagnant for a long while, run by fairly marginal sorts. It hovers on the edge of technology, but it hasn't been a technical leader in ages.   It uses my business and technical skills but in a very operational sense. My core R&D skills are handy in terms of overcoming challenges - but all the challenges are mundane.

I keep telling myself that this role is a sort of philanthropy thing. I'll work for a quarter of a normal salary while helping this somewhat socially conscious agency to do a better job and fix all the major problems so it can last for another decade or two.

So I've done a bunch of that stuff. I deal with a board that is partially meddling and partially apathetic. I have a staff that is paid rock bottom and performs as one would expect at that level. I should probably fire half of them, but if I do then I've got to do their jobs while I search for replacements, and there aren't enough hours in the day. Plus finding replacements at this level means searching for weeks to probably end up with someone just as unreliable and untalented.

No, the only path forward is to fix the organization, make it financially functional so that I can add staff at reasonable pay levels, then turf out the losers.

So I'm well on my way. Think of the biz as two parts. Let's use a hot-dog wagon analogy. I've fixed a major problem with the hot-dog supplier and the cart, but I need a better spot.

I've got the street lined up and the, say, city permission to move the truck there, but they're making it hellishly slow. So I'm sitting here waiting for bureaucracy to follow through.

Anyway, I won't stretch the analogy too far.   It's Monday morning and I'm going to have to get into the hellish work-day activities.

Why all the anxiety and stress in this role? I'm not sure yet. I guess my reputation is on the line, and there are thousands depending on my organization, plus a handful of staff (even if they are marginally skilled). That carries some of its own stress. There is a board and my representations to them that I can fix their organization - which I've already made huge strides toward. None of this stuff feels particularly weighty on me.

When I dig to find the source of the stress, I keep coming back to my first love - the R&D world, crafting stuff that nobody else has done, working on a world stage in that the patents and prototypes I've fostered in the past are typically the first time those things have been done.   I think my stress is partly that while I'm crafting a new path for this languishing business, even though I'm turning it around and have moved them out of the red and toward a brighter future, I'm not pushing that other envelope anymore.   Life is so short and there are so many interesting things to do, I feel like every day I'm not working in that space, I let other ideas and opportunities drift away.

My whole plan was to spend maybe a year in this 'food services' operation. Rescue the org, pursue one or two 'exciting' new directions that are a bit closer to my past R&D space ('oceanography!' lol).   I need to keep my eyes on that prize and work a parallel plan that includes my exit.

The good news is that the stock market continues to thrive and my diverse and meticulously crafted portfolio surges ahead from the doldrums of late 2008.   Even though that doesn't treat my stress levels, it does remind my more logical intellectual brain that I'm in a stable position financially in spite of my tiny salary in this project.

I'll probably continue to dump my story here as self-therapy going forward. I'll try to celebrate my successes in this role, and not do the endless-brain-loop on the large forces that stand in the way of progress. My typing here should save some of my loved-ones the hassle of listening to my broken-record replays, and provide some reflective references for the future.

Side Projects - Good thing or...?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:14:00 +0000

My main now almost 2yr old project has been a tough slog. I've made a ton of progress, but I'm facing some waning enthusiasm. I've only shared the results with a few people who give it high praise. I need to start shopping it around to the appropriate folk, but I was hit with an energy sapping dry period where my network access was knocked out just at the same time as I finished a collaboration with a University group. The resulting frustration sapped my energy and eagerness.

I've started a couple of side projects just based purely on their intellectual interest, and they have gone reasonably well. They are short period things, so I can achieve a fair bit in a short time. It's really that barrier - achievement cycle that drives me... and I guess most researchers. You know at each challenging road-block that many people who have independently came along the same path have been turned away. As you overcome the challenge, you are rewarded with a sense of accomplishment.

Still, working as a lone-gun on a project means you don't get any peer recognition for the work. It's pretty pure in the sense that you are encouraged only by the personal elements.

Yet I worry about whether all the substance of my effort will be for nought.

Each Month Maybe?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:49:00 +0000

As things get busy, I've been letting this slide. Also as things get quiet.

Okay, it's no big surprise. There are very few blogs with a single author that continue to thrive years after starting up, and I'm sadly average.

Still progressing in my project, though my thoughts are often about how it's unlikely to go anywhere. Finding funding and finding collaborators is more effort than I can muster. Still I pursue the vision in the hopes that after I stabilize it, I can get a bit of attention that way. If nothing else, I'll have an interesting little freestanding service that maybe pulls me in $50 a year or something above the cost of running it.

And the vision is still exciting. I'm doing something that nobody else is doing, or can show a means to accomplish with today's technology. That's gotta count for something.

Researchinator strangely plugs along...

Rotating Hats

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Hat shifting has been happening more rapidly as I near exposure time for my project. Shifted from Django work to python/app work now back to javascript/AJAX/Django today. I'm trying to make content within a page change without the rest of the page changing. I've done that already for inserting some media into the middle of the page, now I need to recreate that but for some hierarchical navigating.

That also involves traversing a database to figure out the levels of hierarchy. This could get a bit messy, so will invest the time in planning rather than just jumping in.

Researchinator swaps hats from lethargic blogger back to worker...

Riding the Wave

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:38:00 +0000

The transition from winter, such as it was to spring has brought a good solid couple of weeks of sunshine and above normal temperatures. Plus the days here in the northern hemisphere are getting longer. I know from several decades of experience that with this period comes unexpected positivity.

My strategy is to ride that wave of positive energy for the win!

Researchinator sez that is all.

Your Work Buddy Really Helps

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Working for long stretches on your own has a few pitfalls, a few challenges and several benefits.

The benefits are obvious - no interruptions, intellectual freedom, total ownership of successes (and failures) and flexibility in work methods.

The challenges are pretty easy to figure out as well - but if you haven't done a large project on your own, some of this might be new.

Motivation can be an issue - just getting the initiative to start the day. Focus can also be a challenge - it's not hard to get distracted by interesting little things along the way and find yourself miles from where you were headed (can anyone say Twitter?). Thirdly, there's the challenge of planning and finding the right amount of planning. It's tempting to form a rough idea of a direction in your mind then pursue it without writing anything down. When you don't need to explain to anyone, it might seem a reasonable path forward. But then you'll find, it's easy to forget (or mis-remember) the chosen path, weeks after you decided on one.

On the pitfalls front, mistakes are less easy to find when your work doesn't have to 'plug in' to someone else's work. As well, our brains are much more happy working 'multi-modally.' That is, not working only in internalized mode, but in others such as speech, written words, images, diagrams. All these other modes of operation allow our memories to be better 'cross-linked,' making our memory and learning more resilient, recallable and less prone to errors. We naturally get these multi-modal crosslinks when we work in teams. We write and publish documents that are shared. We talk in person or on a phone. We stand around and sketch diagrams on white-boards. All these things strengthen our vision of what we are doing, where we are going.

An invaluable tip for managing the work-alone situation is to build in a work-buddy system using simple electronic tools. When your project involves computer work, and you are on the machine all the time anyway, a blog or even a simple text file is a good means to invoke a virtual work-buddy to help you along.

More casual than a workplan, less onerous than a formalized logbook, a work-buddy log can keep you on track, focussed and maintain some continuity from one day to the next.

I don't find it so useful in long term planning. A small, more formal document is still better for that from my experience. Setting long term goals still seems to benefit from gantt-chart-like tools where you can visualize concurrent tasks, and linkages. But for the near- to mid-term, I've worked well with this work-buddy log approach.

Style and Structure.

The most important part of the blog is establishing a simple structure, but simplicity is key. If there are more than four or five elements to the structure, you'll forget them. So what I use is

Dates - they are the backbone of the whole system. So making them standout is important. I use a double underline, because some of logging is done in a text only file (for rapid access). On my online (but private) 'blog' based Work-Buddy log I let the system do the dating for me, so I can concentrate on the rest.
Plans. I make numbered short plan lists whenever I can think of two or more things I should be doing, then I hammer away at that list.
Bugs - I log any bug in my development work with an all-caps BUG: tag so that I can easily find them again.
To-do's - I log any thing I should remember to do, but don't need to do right away, with a TODO: tag. Again, I can find those easy.
Finally, accomplishments. I start lines that highlight an accomplishment with a text arrow '->;' This is a minor but important thing. It may sound silly but typing that arrow becomes a kind of 'reward' for completion of an item. E.g. a bug fix, a listed goal or a todo item.

With those elements I manage to create a structured place where I can describe my thinking process and work through details of how to move forward. Often, I find that just articulating the makeup of a problem in conversational-toned writing will lead you to a solution.

I get excellent continuity between work sessions by wrapping up my days with a "First thing tomorrow..." instruction to myself. It's sometimes hard to recall where your mind was as you wrapped up the day, and a verbose instruction about where you want to start your day is very helpful.

My comment about a 'text-only' file is worth highlighting. While in a development environment, I'm working with text files that are computer code, thus having a text-only file in which I'm logging my progress and thoughts is a very easy, light-weight way to keep up the work-buddy system. If I had to switch to another application, or a browser to log things, it might just put enough of an impediment in my path that I wouldn't do it. Plus a document with fancy titling, styles, margins etc might also be enough of a deterrent. Let alone opening a large behemoth like applications (hello MS Word) before you can start logging.

When working on other things (e.g. web-based projects), I do use the browser based blogging approach. In a tabbed browser, it's very easy to have one of those tabs be an open blogger session. A blogging account set to private (so you're not sharing your detailled design details with everyone) is a good way forward. For some, privacy might not be an issue, and getting occasional comments on your thoughts might prove fruitful (or distracting!).

Which ever way you approach it, the ability to review your recent thoughts, or solidify thoughts enough that you both retain and apply some rigour to them is a very helpful tool when working on large projects by yourself.

Researchinator turns to the work-buddy to see where we left off...

General Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:37:00 +0000

A busy week, with a consulting engagement on one hand, and integrating new features into my desktop code going on simultaneously. On the consultation side, I'm providing review and critique services on funding proposals. The usual challenges there always flummox me. While I meticulously craft my proposals and ensure no questions are left unanswered in my own work, I continue to see people applying for big government bucks who can't be bothered to fill out their proposal to the guidelines. They leave entire sections empty never acknowledge that their might be competitors and don't understand simple concepts like "intellectual property." One applicant seemed to think that IP meant ability of their team to read and think deep thoughts.

On the app side of things, I'm in the midst of a crash-fest with multi-threaded UI control just now. I'm reasonably confident that I'll be able to wrestle this to the ground, but I'd really like to put the development to bed with something stable and roughly competent at meeting design intent so that I can turn the money-chase back on. It feels tantalizingly close, but then it has for about 8wks.

I suspect I need to peg a new date in spring sometime to make some tough decisions, for now though, the intellectual tension is somewhat rewarding and the progress is certainly nice.

Researchinator out...

Ten Requirements for Geek Certification

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:20:00 +0000

Have you noticed that everyone is calling themselves a geek now as a badge of some kind? They are often people who have no business claiming that moniker - good looking, successful celebrities, movie stars, TV personalities with entourages, arts grads with no technical skills. It seems that if they use the Internet, they feel they can claim it as ticket to geekdom.

I, for one, am outraged - well, slightly perturbed perhaps. As someone with good geek bone fides myself, I recognize the signs of geek-fakery. Perhaps because I can dance on both sides of the line, I have gained some insight into our make-up when I see one of my 100% grade A geek friends exhibiting their geek-dentials.

Sure, I talk tech, wear glasses, occasionally write code intensively, and could even competently construct a star-wars vs star trek timeline. But I also can hide the inner geek and exhibit depth and competence in fine arts, witty banter across gender boundaries, choose quality wine and have a penchant for international travel.

Thus, having occupied both sides of the geek frontier, on different days of the week, I thought I should speak up, and voice my opinion on some basic requirements for certified geekdom. Hell, if I had some spare time and cash, I'd start a geek certification authority to ensure that Geek Guild members are not infiltrated by impostors.

So on that topic, here is my list of Ten Requirements for Geek Certification:
A Certified Geek™:

Can explain what "Hello World" means, is, and can demonstrate in more than one language.
Can sort a list of Star Trek characters into categories by series (and list which one's made cross-over appearances)
Owns and has used a hand-held GPS device and have used it while walking
Has participated in some sort of role playing game
Can recite by rote several laws of science (e.g. physics, chem, math), and a few equations
Knows what prime numbers are.
Can recite Pi to MORE than 2 decimal places.
Both knows and has written down the words "foo" and "bar" at some point
Has more than three email accounts and more one website
Often launches a sentence beginning with 'Actually...' to clarify a cliché or euphemism heard in casual conversation

I sadly fail on item 4 - so I suppose certification can still be granted with a single miss on the list.

Finally, I should point out that geeks and nerds are separate demographics. The nerd is often a geek, but nerdliness speaks more to the social awkwardness and lack of fashion sense that are often present in a geek, but do not define them. Geekiness fundamentally has a technical, information & skills element to it that cannot be faked with ill-fitting clothes and an awkward turn of phrase.

So, sorry, but nerds will have to find their own professional association and certification body, though as Geeks, we will happily admit nerd emissaries at our symposia.

Approaching Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Next week is that big announcement, and the media is starting to notice the new competitive landscape that is emerging. Funny how the certainty about what's happening becomes clearer as the day approaches. This sort of stuff is living proof that all the crazy conspiracy theories out there could never be true - it's impossible to keep big things quiet.

See this NYTimes article which explores the Amazon vs Apple battle brewing. I fully expect that the kindle installed base won't be enough to save it. A year from now, they'll have to introduce a substantially reworked kindle, or it will be kindling.

Meanwhile, I'm slogging away on my project. Django focussed lately, and making some progress. As nice as it is to have such a powerful framework on my case, complexity breeds complexity. Trying to keep it under check.

Researchinator continues along the path...

Evolving Media Landscape and the Zero Dollar Invoice.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:24:00 +0000

I watch the evolving media delivery landscape with interest. Here are a few thoughts to explain why I think we are on the verge of perhaps the third big leap in media. First was the Gutenberg Press and moveable type, next was the Internet, and soon the zero dollar invoice meets media.

The Environment
Unfortunately for media outlets, an economic downturn has come during a media revolution. Print -- and arguably TV-- are faced with a movement to online media that leaves key revenue sources like classified ads and other broad classes of advertising virtually dried up. Finding a new business model to replace the broken one remains a major challenge

Evolving Technology Picture
We have seen the emergence of the Web, blogs and Twitter result in an immediacy of news dissemination with which conventional media cannot compete. These new forms still suffer from deficiencies in depth, rigour and from a lack of well-defined channelization, but the allure of immediacy is a key draw. Ironically that same fast-breaking immediacy was the basis on which conventional media defined success for many years. But online content consumers are left to find their own sources in a sea of content, rather than being able to choose from an array of coin-op boxes or flipping through the channel line-up on their remote control.

Enter the tablet or 'slate' device.

Well, to an extent we got the first peek at elements of such a device with the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch. A small device with a high quality display and decent network access gave us a first sense of comfortable, mobile access to the media organs we already preferred on our laptops. The rapid explosion of apps from the associated AppStore took that one step further, and we were able to disconnect from a browser-based presentation to reader applications designed for dedicated content given to us for free from specific media outlets - the AP Newsreader, the BBC newsreader and many others among them.

The stage is well set for new devices in this category.

The Kindle device emerged along the way as well - providing books from Amazon, but also other content. While I personally thing the design is quite poor, even in its second generation, there has been strong uptake on the device, and it's unique approach to network access is part of that. It has a proprietary pipe rather than an open do-what-ever-I-want-to-do-with-it one. But the form factor, look and feel are a failure that only tech-hungry early-adopters and less discerning members of the early majority could love.

In a week we will see a new device from the thought leader in this space, Apple. Presumably - if rumours are to be believed - they will introduce the first devices in their tablet family, purportedly called iSlate - perhaps two devices as big and slightly bigger than a paper-back novel, but as thin as a stack of 6 or 8 credit cards.

More important than the form factor, for print media anyway, is that newspapers and magazines are apparently being given the means to make this their new channel to market. It couldn't have come at a better time. Apple will control the first entry into a portable, ubiquitous electronic print media marketplace, by delivering an attractive platform with broad appeal. Expect well over two million units to be in users hands by this time next year.

The Challenge
As if the challenge of introducing a product in this space isn't challenge enough - and Apple knows this from their experience with the Newton a generation ago - there are some substantial challenges for the media outlets themselves.

With merely the features of the iPod Touch, a new iSlate could probably still succeed in the marketplace. But Apple is not often one to rely on an incremental path to product success, and will be looking to a compelling media offering as the iSlate's extra delight, in the same way that the AppStore is the delight behind the iPhone/iPod Touch (Why don't they just rename that thing the iTouch?).

Media Outlets face a challenge in embracing electronic delivery without a product like the iSlate. Many are making noises about paying for content, but they must surely know that this is untenable in the web browser universe.

It has been well known in the online services and portals world that if you take a web-based offering with say 10Million users/participants/members and introduce a nominal fee-for-use, you will quickly find your portal left with about 150 dedicated users in about a month.

It isn't just the prospect of paying money that will send the users to the nearest competitor, rather it is due to the whole incremental user-cost associated with making payment happen. A user cannot simply pay as they would dropping a few quarters into a newspaper box and pulling the door open. Online payment comes with a bevy of privacy disclosures and onerous acts of exposure involved. One must not only provide their true identity information - name, address, phone number - but a payment method as well, most likely a credit card. I won't get off on my pet tangent of true micropayment service business opportunities (I think there is a huge one still waiting) but suffice to say that this step is a substantial impediment.

The New York Times has announced that it will begin to charge for more than occasional content access starting next year.

If they are going to charge for more than occasional use under a conventional browser based universe, how would they do it? First, they would have to differentiate between occasional and frequent use. There are only two ways to achieve that - with browser cookies that track your visits (and are easily cleared, rendering the approach useless) or with registration. The registration approach has two options: to allow what I'd call 'casual' registration, where you use simply a 'name' and email address, or alternatively to use 'strict' registration, where you have to provide verifiable user information and credit card info. In that latter approach, you would start incurring costs upon exceeding your free usage threshold, in the former you would be pushed into 'payment-info-please' screens upon exceeding such a threshold.

Neither is very appealing, and really the strict approach is the only real option, and even that is rendered useless when we look at how media consumers actually access content. We don't pick an outlet and stick with it, we graze, sometimes over dozens of papers, blogs and other media sites. The prospect of having a strict-registration protocol with each is totally a non-starter. Thus the NYTime plan is untenable, unless we turn back to a now proven Apple model.

The iPhone/iTouch (okay I said it) has succeeded in introducing a solution to the issue of onerous payment systems through an approach known as the 'zero dollar invoice." This is a commendable achievement, and is likely the element that makes a solution to the new media delivery impasse palatable enough to succeed.

While the NYTimes has declined, in these pre-iSlate days, to explain how there path to pay-for-content will work, it seems crystal clear that only through the clout of an Apple + iSlate would they be able to make it work. We will no doubt see them as a flagship service on the new device.

Their success will absolutely hinge on an Apple controlled payment system to get around that multiple registrations problem. In the same way Apple's ecosystem for small portable apps revolutionized the mobile industry and left ALL serious competitors trying to make their own AppStores, the success of portable media is also wrapped around centralized payment. Media outlets would never get individuals to register for disparate sites all with their own desire to collect your personal information and credit card data. Without an iSlate solution, they would fail with further demonstration of the 10M to 150 transition effect.

When the iSlate is introduced, your existing iTunes based payment system will be able to send you zero dollar invoices for any of the free print-media content that will be necessary to provide 'trainer' products for iSlate users. Zero cost media will be vitally important just as free apps on the AppStore were vitally important for iPhone/iTouch users. Until we all get a few zero dollar invoices, we don't totally trust the system, and are wary of our latent credit card info sitting on Apple's servers.

The extra boon for media outlets is that not only do they get revenue through Apple for subscriptions, but surely their content will include ads that look very comfortably like old-style newspaper advertising. I predict success, and furthermore, I think this is why we are quietly seeing a few astute buyers trying to scoop up failing media outlets and local papers at bargain prices before the rush begins.

We are on the verge of a print media revolution. The NYTimes will likely provide free content for a while on whatever we call the new 'AppStore' (NewsStand? BookStore? PrintShop?) They have a bit of a challenge to manage the no-payment-now-but-pay-required-later approach. That's not possible with iTouch Apps. The model there is that you either pay or don't pay as you load the App. There is no transition from free to paying dependant on behaviour (e.g. exceeding a usage threshold). They could achieve it by simply having "NYTimes Lite" and "NYTimes Pro" App-equivalents. But these are implementation details that will work themselves out.

Suffice to say that the end of the dark days for media may well be upon us. Now, if you are a reporter, you just need to get a good grip on your desk to get you through the next 6-12months.

Researchinator is socking away a few dollars in the hopes of being able to read the paper again, without killing trees...

Same or Different?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Accomplishments. How do you react to them? I have some sort of 'buyers remorse' that follows on the heels of achievements. I'm briefly elated at my perseverance and excited about the progress, but then I feel kind of deflated about the whole thing. The challenge has been accomplished and it's receding into history. It's old news.

I tend to think that people are only as good as their last accomplishments. After battling a bevy of barriers and seemingly unreachable goals that were tougher than those previous, you always wonder a bit whether the next ones will be even more difficult.

There are two kinds of people though - those who get comfortable at their ability to do something, then do that same thing over and over, and those who treat an task as a stepping stone to another different and equally (or more) challenging task.

Once I've completed task X, I don't think much about ways in which I can do another X, I'm eager to do a Y.

So with a recent set of bugs and features fully squashed, and next steps clear and waiting for me, I'll have to shrug of the deflation of the last task's completion and push forward.

Researchinator is staring down a Y...

DevLogging and Getting Value From It

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:35:00 +0000

Referred back to my development logs of a year ago and I can see where I was in my project back then. Whew, wouldn't want to be facing all that work again. I think I'll do another off-site backup just for safety.

But I'm thinking I'd like to get some extra value out of that work-log. A thought is to pull it into a full featured editor and run some auto-indexing on it. Haven't looked at the state of those tools lately, but I'm assuming something will use dictionary help to identify stuff that might be index worthy. Would be a good longer term developer reference for when I get the sure-to-arise questions "Why the hell did you do that!?"

It's rewarding to see that I've made so much progress. I can't help but extrapolate and wonder how much further this project has to go tho.

Researchinator relishes the coming completion of this phase...

Knee Deep

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Just in snow though. Winter arrived today in our corner of Canada. It had been a nice November, but now we're getting it. Twas nice to get out for some lunch in spite of the weather. The morning was spent learning what I had done for one complex element of my application software, so that I can hopefully make an informed decision about how some UI changes this afternoon should be implemented.

My existing code seems to partially explore the two options I've been considering. I need to think carefully through it and choose a path forward. It's not just an 'A' versus 'B' thing... it may include an 'A' and 'B' approach. I don't think there's a 'C' approach, and I don't think there is a none-of-the-above option either. I'm leaning a little more 'B' than 'A', but well, maybe not.

It's one of those kinds of days. I think the right answer is making an answer, rather than thinking too long to find the perfect outcome.

Researchinator struggles with alphabetic option selection...

Alliterative Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Four ways to ensure your blog entries are popular

1) Cool Use lots of cool buzz words and wear sunglasses in all your avatar pictures
2) Crisp Use short words and keep it to the point
3) Clear Don't get off topic, or you will lose the people who follow you based on subject.
4) Celery Eat lots of celery.

Now is that a good list of pointers for bloggers? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps they are good points, but when I see lists like that, I always wonder how much the accuracy and efficacy of the list has been compromised to achieve the alliteration.

Perhaps Coolness, Crispness, Timeliness and Brevity were a better choice for the items in the list, but if the author is obsessed with only using 'C' words, the latter two might fall off the table.

It gets more concerning when you see lists of 8 or 10 points all starting with the same letter. By the time you do that many, you are really searching for words with the same letter. Sure, English is pretty versatile. Instead of "Timeliness" I could perhaps say "Clock" or "Coordination" - but unless you luck out with the synonyms, it is usually clear that you're digging by that point.

Anyway that was just bugging me this morning after reading through a few blog posts purporting to guide my entrepreneurial life: success means using the letter "C" or something I guess.

Researchinator gets on to more important things, the letter 'D' perhaps...

Five Ways to Motivate Yourself on a Lethargic Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:19:00 +0000

A cup of tea in hand and moving slowly thru the morning. The trend for blogging (this is not a trendy blog if you hadn't noticed) is to make every entry about a list. Well, just to aid in your productivity, here's my list of 5 things I like to do to make progress when I'm not being as productive as I like.

1) Luxuriate In It Think back upon the last few days, have they been productive ones? Brains work best in an environment of variety. Working consistently on the same thing in the same way is not conducive to either productivity nor happiness. If you've had a few good days, let yourself take it easy for a few hours, better yet, get away from your desk and take a walk or something that changes the view for a bit.

2) Dangle a Reward That's a reward, don't get carried away with the dangling. Set yourself a very short term goal, pick something achievable and provide yourself a reward for doing it. For example, need to write a document, and you just aren't getting started? Hold off on that next coffee and tell yourself you can have it once you've created the empty document, and the title page. Maybe crafted a very-rough-and-sure-to-be-reworked Table of Contents. Set a time for it, perhaps 20min, and be sure to both hold firm to that as well as go get the reward. You made progress, that's very uplifting to the spirit as well.

3) Make a List A big de-motivator is having several things on your plate that need to be done. Even though they might seem clear, often there is some underlying uncertainty about exactly what constitutes completion of those items, so make yourself a bulleted list and just list the things you need to do, but make the items concrete. Not "Work on analyzing the competition" but "Make a table Documenting 5 competitors and their comparative characteristics." Similarly don't list huge, long term projects, but major steps: so not "Design new Website" but instead "Sketch out 3 front page layout options for approval"

4) Relish Deadlines If you're like me, you find yourself more productive when a deadline is looming. So if your nearest deadline is weeks away, you might find yourself lethargic. Take a look at that upcoming deadline and think about some intermediate steps. Now here's the tricky part, most of us need some threat to make the deadline have the magical power. So jot down those intermediate steps and send them to someone who'd care, preferably a colleague on the same project or your supervisor. Promise to hit those intermediate steps - bingo, now your ass is on the line. You look like a twit if you don't pull it off, so work at getting there. You might just find you deliver them and meet your "real" deadline earlier than expected. Oops, raises anyone?

5) Get Feedback This is a sneaky way to trick your own brain into action. Find something you've done recently that others would know about, pick it up (if it's pick-up-able) or think of a summary statement for it in your mind then go to that person (or send an email) and ask for feedback on how you did, or even better, what could you have done to make it more successful. A co-worker is fine. Even better, pick a person you don't like. The result? You'll probably, not necessarily overtly, get defensive. That's very primal energy you're feeling, it's fight or flight. You've already ruled out flight, as you went to them without needing to. So now channel that feeling of defensive energy into your next todo list item!

There you go a five item list. Some you've heard before, but I think some will certainly be subversive new ideas for you. Now am I eligible for Twitter link-backs and angry dissenting comments?

Researchinator turns to item 2 for inspiration...

Sometimes Titles Can Be Larger Than Articles

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:33:00 +0000

Meh

Changing Landscape of Tools and Languages

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Planning a weekend escape to the outdoors. A late autumn, not quite winter thing. Should be nice.

Meanwhile I'm shifting back and forth between python and javascript/AJAX stuff while also reading up a bit on jQuery. The latter looks interesting, some of those features appear to offer some good benefits to my stuff. Will have to plan a migration, or exploration of it anyway. For now, just raw .js and hope that continues to provide good predictable results on most browsers. The landscape of tools and languages, and development environments, and hell, just OS versions is constantly changing. Would like to do some upgrades, but need some stable time first.

Fighting a migraine this morning too, as if I needed some distraction when trying to be productive. Such is life - I'll pretend this is a simulation of raucous staff noise, and my goal is to persevere and still be productive. Yeah, that's it.

Researchinator... well... you know...

Exposing the Gears

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Met up with my student project team this morning. They seem on track. Struggling to understand one or two concepts, but are basically getting it.

It's interesting to see this architecture through other eyes. While it all seems clear to me, I'm aware constantly that it might not seem that way to someone else, and so try to evoke that perspective where possible. Even with explaining it to someone, it's not the right level of depth until they start trying to work on elements of it from a technical implementation perspective. Then the comprehension evaluation becomes much more valid.

One might understand what their transmission does, but until you open it up an start removing gears, you're never really sure how well you understand it.

In discussing the project it always leaves me enthusiastic and pumped to see the project financed and working flat out. But I know the stats are against that ever happening. Still, I hope I can at least persevere to get it live and out in the wild on trials before I have to admit failure.

I guess that's my typical approach to life. Expect the worst, but try for the best, and hope to be proven wrong.

Researchinator totally hopes for some pleasant surprises...

Monday Housekeeping and Firefighting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:14:00 +0000

Morning starting with technical challenges remaining from the weekend. My primary email and website is down, due to my hosting company changing nameservers, and my registrar being unable to propagate my new nameservers after 3 days.

Not too impressed, I wish this was happening on a different account, but unfortunately I'm currently bouncing emails from friends and family, and unfortunately some professional contacts should they be trying to reach me.

Can only hope it's resolves shortly, but will be looking around for a new registrar soon.

I also have to think about Django hosting. I see a nice list of Django capable folk, but I'm also considering the google app engine hosting option, but will read a bit more about how hard it is to get a Django presence up. Perhaps try it with a dummy app first to see how it works.

I've also seen some details on how to get Django running on Amazon EC2, though there are some CPU time costs associated with that at earlier stages.

The morning is ticking away, and I'm still isolated... but I'm at least glad that my hosting and email are separate from my broadband service ensuring that the failures I have on any front is never wiping out everything else as well.

Researchinators mundane day is progressing slowly...

Oh the Highs, and the Lows...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Well, the lows anyway. The highs are few and far between for the start-up maven. There are pleasant euphoric moments when something works. And others when some high-falutin' VC will return your call, (before quickly backing away at any sign of risk). There are moments of supreme satisfaction when you face a barrier, hammer away at it for a week, then see it crumble before you.

But the lows, oh the lows. Slaving away with no support, for months on end. You just KNOW there are a dozen big technical barriers still ahead, and two dozen people who are going to lethargically block your path in sluggish disinterest, flippant lack of vision for anything ever being different or better. The dwindling savings are great too. Knowing you're forgoing a six-figure income while you burn cash in spite of your penny-pinching ways.

Then with all that weighing on you, up comes the next technical barrier. You know you can get through it, but you also know that it will involve many hours of slogging. What once was stuff you'd assign to a junior employee, and support them along, now you have to do yourself. It's a hard row to hoe, when you know your skills are better used elsewhere.

But perseverance is the key to success in entrepreneurship. If you can look at what you've done and be sure that you are taking a pragmatic approach to the product and a real market opportunity, you know there must be a path through the challenges.

Having been in 'the industry' for a couple or so decades, the most frustrating thing is seeing that projects and products I defined for other companies but which couldn't find traction among those who wouldn't buy in to the vision, emerge 10 years later as a brilliant new product from some other firm. Oh, the foregone first mover advantages. Oh the many ground-breaking advances lost to history but for the handful of people who saw the demo. For each one of those things, there's some former executive dope who probably tells people "Huh, we had a plan for that ten years ago, but we killed it."

But I'll take responsibility for all that failure myself. For each or any of those things that failed due to big corporate reticence and lack of vision, I should have persevered to the point of taking the design to customers in an end-run around the vision-less multi-layered marketing echelons, packaged up the design and requested ownership for external spin-out, or perhaps just blatantly stolen the design and launched on my own, and settled later if anyone noticed. But I didn't, so I'll bear that burden myself, and grumble about what could have been.

Researchinator struggles along....

Pausing, Logging and Keeping Up Momentum

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:53:00 +0000

A funny thing happens after a goal is reached sometimes - you naturally withdraw for some head clearing time. I've noticed this in my intellectual freedom zone that is my start-up. I'm motivated and pushed by my own actions and interests, so there's nobody else telling me what to do.
When I manage development groups, I'll usually do something following an accomplishment, take the group out to celebrate, skipping off an afternoon. Larger milestones often schedule a lessons-learned meeting to chat, vent and capture best practices. Even though there is much still to do, there's benefits of doing this take a breather approach.
I notice it in this free-form development work too. As I attain a goal, I seem to pull back and do some tidying, and do some big picture thinking. There's no shortage of next steps still required, but one seems to mentally need a bit of perspective after climbing a mountain.
That analogy is pretty good - it is like climbing a steep hill. When you reach a plateau on the way up, you tend to stop and take a breather in preparation for the next steps.
A downside though can be that it is sometimes tough to get back into the flow again. One should ensure that they know what the next steps are rather than waiting idly for divine inspiration. Just like the other development steps are planned, so should be your pauses and your re-engagements.
A technique that seems to work for me is to get back into the work by leading with to-do lists. I'm using this approach quite heavily. The rule of thumb is - if you're pausing, make a short next steps list in your log book or worklog file/blog/etc. It really has helped with productivity boosting, as you tend to make an effort to close off all the outstanding items before your next pause.

I run two worklogs these days - one is a private blog, the other is a text file in my core development area. When I'm working in the Eclipse environment I have a WhereAmI file that gets continually updated, in a very prosaic style. There I will often capture thought processes in trying to fix a problem, outlining my thoughts, the sections of code that are likely involved, even variable names and routine() names that are key. The result is that if I pause for some reason, I can quickly recover the area of activity. As well, I can recover the thought process I was going through.
The ancillary benefit is that the act of describing a problem will often evoke the solution. We see this as young engineers and scientists, talking to our mentors or supervisors. As we would start to describe an insoluble problem, you would come upon the answer half-way thru, and feel embarrassed for having brought it up. Later, I learned to have mock gripe conversations in my head to see if that turned up the solution, and often it would. The logfile/book does the same thing.
The file is also searchable, as is the private blog of course. The blog worklog I use for my other notes. Development that is not specifically in the Eclipse milieu, but also business building work, and broader interactions.

So those are just a few thoughts on managing the pauses, the tools associated with re-engaging, and not losing the threads of your engagement. Perhaps I should now turn to my task list at hand and try to make some progress following this last milestone achievement.

Researchinator reaches for the oars to find that they are still attached, functional and ready for action...

What Were You Expecting, Exactly?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:12:00 +0000

On one monitor I'm watching a bit of NASA TV as an Ares rocket sits on the pad. Not sure what it's got on board yet, but it's fun to follow a launch of an old-school stick rocket again. NASA TV is great - they don't really care if there's a 20min shot of a rocket on the pad, with birds flying around. It's all content. No schedules to worry about for them, it seems.

Meanwhile, I'm working a bit more intensively trying to get through my latest pass thru the code for the next feature. A couple of steps forward yesterday... maybe one step back.

Still a bit curious about a VC contact last week. Reminds me of selling stuff behaviors. When selling things online, or even in the 'old' days in the paper, you'd often get a call asking if the item is still available. When you say yes, there is no other contact. One must wonder what answer they were hoping for.

Well, similarly a response from a VC, to an initial contact, was "Yes, we're interested in learning more, can you meet with us!" My response was "Sure, how about this date." Then there's no more response, and it's been several days. What answer were they hoping for?

Anyway, I won't worry too much about it. Building the business now, and that helps in the funding needs later on.

Researchinator displays some head shaking behaviour...

Spotty Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Busy times, and I've been sketchy on keeping this part of the routine up. Must admit that the twitter universe seems to have filled that early morning niche.

A couple of networking events lately - a Montreal one, and an Ottawa one. While Ottawa has a large group of Start-ups, I've been finding that the networking events there are too often a sea of consultants and self-appointed start-up experts (who strangely are not doing a start-up themselves just now). A few too many self-appointed gurus.

The Montreal events have had a good mix of entrepreneurs, investors and media. That's a more enjoyable session from an entrepreneurial point of view. I should try to make it to some Toronto events, or heck, even a Kingston one perhaps. Will have to watch to see if there are any there.

Researchinator is here, just not always highly visible.

What's Cooking with Google Wave?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

There's a lot of internet buzz about Google Wave today. I have to give credit to Google for the hype generated. That's free advertising that you can't buy. Then all the people tweeting and reTweeting about getting invites and giving invites. That' social approach to signing up your initial users is a good idea too.

The old approach was to announce a beta and wait for people who felt like debugging your service for you to show up. With the 'invite' approach, you make it seem like a privilege to be a beta-user.

The kick off for Google Wave, if you remember was a near hour long video'd demo, which was rather sleepy to my eyes, but created some 'peer-pressure' to tell viewers that the service is very cool, even if the actual demo didn't really seem that amazing. "But if that whole room of Californians is cheering, it must be cooler than I realize."

I do see some potential to move seemlessly from the asynchronous connection of email to the increased immediacy of chat, and the threading elements I saw for what I watched a few months back.

But I also think that email - for those of us who have used it for a good 25 years - has a role that is well understood. It fits into a spectrum of connectivity. Walking up to someone's desk is the most immediate and synchronous. There is a momentary delay in engagement if they're busy, but usually there's an immediate interaction. Telephone is the next step, where the user can selectively engage. Chat is similar, but has the other issue that once you engage, it's harder to disengage and hence the ability to manage your status. Still, once you disclose your presence, you get nabbed by chat-buddies.

With email there is a disengagement. Sometimes a recipient will shoot back a reply and a few messages will bounce around for a few minutes, rather chat like, but if there's no reply for 24 hours, that's not a shock.

Twitter fits in there too, now, perhaps slightly further up the asynchronicity spectrum, but slightly more disengaged. Some users ignore their @ comments. Some people follow people who don't follow back.

Google wave will open a new can of worms, frustrating some with a stickiness that regular email doesn't have. It may lower productivity because it converts an email into a stickier chat situation. But it might enable improved distance collaboration through enabling new group dynamics.

Then there is the complexity. With existing Outlook tools widely used, but confounding many non-technical users with cryptic, non-intuitive use of scheduling, resource booking and hard-to-use receiver-list management/creation, I have to wonder if the complexity of Google wave will penetrate beyond the geek crowd.

Regardless, there's going to be new cultural adjustment required to adopt it, and the jury is out on whether it will catch or not. I don't think this is a clear slam-dunk for Google, and could potentially be their Apple Newton - basically good, but unable to cross into broad adoption by the masses.

Researchinator will, for now, let it bake a little longer before opening the oven...