Team members: Bernie Dodge, Kristin Osiecki, Hao Chen

Apr 5 – 7, at Boston Cleanweb hackathon, our 5-person team built MapMyEnergy, a web app for home-owners and home-buyers to see estimated energy rating (HERS) effects on home valuations. Tech used: Rails, Bootstrap, Postgres, Heroku, Zillow API, Google Maps API. GitHub.

Team members: Kenn Butler, Sidd Tewari, Brian Butler, Hao Chen, and Daniel Stallworth (missing). In the back: Matt Liebhold, Mark Vasu.

Next up, I’m looking forward to AngelHack Boston Spring 2013 in June!

I’m excited to announce I’ll be joining Practically Green as a front end developer and working with an awesome team including Susan Hunt Stevens, Fabian Perez, Aaron Graves, Liana Reda Leahy, Sarah Finnie Robinson, Rajiv Manglani, Nick Adams, Kelsey Russell, Kendall Bryant, Corey Hanson, Phil Duffy, Maureen Oakes, and many others!

THANK YOU to the following people who have helped support me during my job search by generously sharing their time, advice, and connections: Michel Rbeiz, Brian Shea, Bennett Sikes, Brian Gladstein, Christine Moses-Chen, Kate Aurigemma, Bobbie Carlton, Natalija Jovanovic, Ash Edmonds, Sharon Rbeiz, Emmy Jonassen, Anshuman Sharma, Scott Seiffer, Rodd Halstead, Glen Dudek, Nate Aune, Eric Kachel, Jonathan Hendler, Tong Yu, Adam Champy, Colin  Brauns, Lulu Chen, Matt Veitas, PK Shiu, Nick Fogler, Carolyn McCarron-Fraser, Mike Bruny, Cliff Lee, Ryan Traeger, Chris Requena, Alexis Borys, Jake Berry, Denis Haskin, Ethan Bagley, Leah Ratnofsky, and many others. I appreciate you!

Anyway, I saw the most peculiar thing at the hospital. As I was standing a couple yards away from mom, watching all the doctors walk in and out of the room, I noticed one doctor doing something on his iPhone. The techs had just finished taking digital X-rays of mom and had it up on the screen of their giant, rolling X-ray machine. The doctor with the iPhone looks up at the monitor with the X-ray image, starts tracing all the bones with his fingers to make sure nothing looks abnormal. Then he wants to zoom into the image for a closer look, so intuitively he did the pinch gesture on the screen. Nothing happens. He seems confused. The tech helps out by pushing the Zoom In button, which is not even on the screen, but a whole arm-length away hidden among 20 other similar looking buttons. Ok, done with this X-ray image. Next X-ray image. Thumbnail image looks good. He does the pitch gesture AGAIN trying to zoom in. This time he must know it’s not how this machine is designed, but he can’t help himself because it’s how his mind expects ALL machines to work now! See how powerful the effect of Apple’s intuitive design and user experience can have on us? The techs can’t help but to crack a smile and push the zoom in button again, and they all share a laugh together.

This past weekend, I attended the Lean Startup Machine Boston, a 48-hour workshop on the lean startup methodology. This is what I learned from it.

• Intensely working with complete strangers for 26 hours is a great way to quickly and exhaustingly test how well I work with others, what strengths/weaknesses we each have, if I’d work with them again, and what type of personalities and skills complement my own.
• It is really easy to give up. The team was all excited at first. After we invalidated many assumptions and realized our first and second problem-solution hypothesis was no good, we were stuck coming up with the next logical pivot. We were demoralized. The team leader left and didn’t come back. A walk outside and a drink at a nearby bar helped re-energized us and come out of that trough of despair with new perspective.
• Talking with our target customers was the best and fastest way to learn. We spent way too much time debating amongst ourselves. For every minute wasted debating, we could have been out of the building learning from our customers.
• Reading The Lean Startup does not make you an expert at it. Putting lean methodology to the test in real world situations can be challenging. Coming up with specific, testable assumptions and creative ways to quickly validate or invalidate them in order of riskiness that give meaningful insight to the viability of the business is no easy task.
• Listening to the other teams present about how they tested their assumptions and iterated quickly was very interesting and can be good case studies.

Here is our team’s final presentation slides.

Overall, it was a good learning experience, I met a lot of cool people doing interesting stuff, and I’m glad to have done the workshop. Special thanks to my team, the mentors, and the organizers. Lean is all about learning and iterating as quickly as possible, and I plan to use the concepts behind this philosophy more in everyday life and business.

PS. Here’s my Smarterer profile.

Also, if anyone knows of any local organization that helps facilitate non-profit needs with volunteers’ skills, please let me know.

“You want to know the best marketing strategy ever? Care.”

– Gary Vaynerchuk, author, wine and social media expert

“The customer comes second.”

– Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks

Employees come first. Companies need to make sure employees have the best possible skills, power, technologies, compensation, and morale, so that they can best serve the customer.

“At Zappos, Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing With WOW.

WOW is such a short, simple word, but it really encompasses a lot of things. To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means doing something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. We are not an average company, our service is not average, and we don’t want our people to be average. We expect every employee to deliver WOW.”

– Zappos Family Core Value #1: Deliver WOW Through Service

How have I made sure I Put People First at work last week?

1. PPC (Party Planning Committee)

By organizing unofficial, team-building work events as simple as a lunch or as creative as an interoffice paper airplane contest, I make sure co-workers have a chance to hang out with each other and have some fun doing it.

2. Give Recognition

Someone do a great job at work? I send them a quick great job or thank you email with a couple of specific things I liked about it.  I’ve also been thanking people on Rypple, a web-based social performance management platform that helps managers and employees improve performance through continuous coaching, real-time feedback and meaningful recognition.

3. Be Available

I make sure I am available to everyone at work who would like to bounce around some ideas for a 20% project or who has a project plan and needs help with the development of it.  Even if someone just has something on their mind they’d like to talk about, I’m there for them.  I have a “no door” policy…literally.

4. Be (Truly) Helpful

A co-worker was sick for most of last week.  When they came back to the office, they still weren’t feeling great and asked around the office for some DayQuil, but everyone apologized and said they didn’t have any.  I got up, drove to the nearest gas station, bought a pack of DayQuil, returned to the office, and put it on the co-workers desk with “PPF” written on a post-it note affixed to it.

5. Treat Your Customers with Respect

Even if they’re non-paying customers. A co-worker forwarded me a question posted on the forum by an active member of the community.  Check out how I worded my response to him.

Is PPF also your #1 core value? If not, what’s yours?

1. Go vegetarian

Growing up, I was a huge meat eater. Naturally, at first, it was difficult for my body to adjust to the new diet. I had low energy, a pale face, got sick all the time, and most of all, I missed eating my favorite food group. Fast forward two years, and I feel stronger and healthier than ever. When someone at home gets sick, usually everyone else gets sick, except me. Even if I do get sick, my symptoms are much more mild and go away more quickly. I have to admit though, after some self debate and perspective from other vegetarians, I switched from a strict 100% vegetarian diet to about 90%. I call myself a weekday vegetarian for fun, but please don’t think labels are important. I have white meat a few times a month. When my wife and I had our honeymoon in St Lucia, I went all out and tried every kind of meat and fish there was. It was delicious. The most important thing is that I am happy with my new diet choice and with the flexibility I gave myself.

2. Stand up at my work desk

About a year ago, I decide to stand while I do my web development desk job. I hacked together some desk parts and boxes to raise my monitors, keyboard, and mouse, so I could stand while working. The first few days kicked my feet’s butt butt’s feet. After standing all day, I would put my feet up to give them a rest as soon as I got home. Day by day, my feet got stronger. Soon, I would barely notice that I’ve been busy working and standing up for hours. Today, just like with the flexibility of my weekday vegetarian diet, I stand about 75% and sit 25% of the time that I’m at my desk. I bought the Ergotron Workfit-S sit/stand desk stand, so I can easily and quickly switch positions.

3. Ban violence

A month ago, I made a conscience decision to ban violence from my life, including violent TV, movies, and games. I quit playing Fallout 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and stopped watching The Walking Dead, Terranova, Breaking Bad, and many other shows. It was surprisingly easy to do all of this. As a bonus, I now have a lot more time on my hands to spend on my family, business, and hobbies. I had an incident last Friday when I forgot about the ban and played some CoD: MW2 with some co-workers. Does team building exercise count as a good excuse? Anyway, just like with the other changes I’ve made, I like to have the flexibility of being accepting if I make exceptions once in a while (like for Avengers when it comes out).

Getting out of my comfort zone has helped my mind and body grow and adapt everyday. This philosophy of stretching boundaries and being malleable is preparing me to better deal with future challenges and situations that may be uncomfortable.

What do you think? Do you agree that it’s important to do stuff to get out of your comfort zone everyday? If so, do you have any suggestions on how to do so?

What about the opportunity part? When will it knock? Opportunities may never come if you are at home watching TV every night, waiting for it to magically ring the doorbell. You have to be actively seeking it out. Sow a seed of opportunity everyday. Simple, right? Honestly, I have just begun to follow this advice myself. This is my list of what I’ve done to sow a seed of opportunity everyday last week:

1. Asked a trusted colleague who I look up to to become my mentor/coach.

After nervously waiting days for a reply, I finally got one. He happily obliged. I am excited to be getting guidance and perspective from someone with a lifetime of experience from which I can really learn.

2. Set up weekly/bi-weekly 1:1 sessions with many talented peers at work who I admire and respect, so I can build stronger relationships with them.

I know my passions will one day take me away from corporate life and the employee mindset, so I want to take the time I have now to foster the connections I’ve made, to let people know that I appreciate them, that they’ve touched my life, and to return the favor by doing everything I can for them while we’re still together.

3. Reached out and set up a meeting with a local start-up company whose vision and nobler purpose I truly believe in.

If I could, I would became their janitor and work for them for free. That’s how much I believe they can change the world. I want to keep all doors and windows with them open for future opportunities and to help them out in any way that I can now.

4. Made a goal for myself to start writing to this blog again after a long hiatus.

Personal brand is important me. One way I will build my personal brand is to write more about my passions on my blog.

5. Reached out to one well-connected 2nd degree contact to network with him.

I gave him my list of “things I value the most at work.” Doing what you love and with the people you love is important to me, so I wanted to see if there is anything/anyone out there that is more aligned with what I am seeking professionally.

So, now I ask you — what will you do to sow a seed of opportunity today?

PS. I want to thank my wife for putting up with me these last few weeks. She’s definitely noticed a change in my thoughts, behavior, and actions. We joke around calling it a pre-midlife crisis. Thank you, dear, for supporting me through this time of change, while I find myself personally and professionally.

PPS. Stypi is a neat visualization into how one thinks. See how I wrote this. (Click “Playback” then the play button)

– Robert J. Sternberg in
The Theory of Successful Intelligence