Ryan McMinn

These days, there are thousands of choices for pretty much anything you would want. I think one of the reasons I am such a positive person is that once I pick something I like, I stop looking.

When I sell a stock, I stop checking the price. When I bought my apartment, I never went on Redfin again to look at prices or other options.

If there is a better deal or I picked the wrong time to sell, I really don’t want to know. As long as I am happy about the choice at the time, I would like to stay that happy about it forever.

I realized tonight that my behavior probably isn’t the norm. Carla and I are picking wedding invitations. I am kind of picky so I have had to look at a bunch. Once I saw one I liked, I decided. Carla agreed it was great but kept looking at others to make sure we made the right choice. I was happy with the one we saw and wanted to stop looking. That’s when I realized that’s how I am about everything. Why second guess when you find something you like?…

When you work with people, sometimes it takes a while for their way of thinking to make sense to you. What’s funny is that 2 weeks ago I would have disagreed, you just get so used to dismissing something you don’t understand until poof one day it hits you, maybe they were right all along.

I think in the tech business we get so caught up with getting something out the door to customers as fast as possible with the minimum set of required features we don’t value thinking about making work that lasts.

And by lasts I don’t mean 1 year or 5 years, I mean 15 years or 20 years.

My old business partner Marcus has a database he built in 1997 that’s still running the entire day to day operations for an insurance company of 25 people today, in 2012. And they still love it! The technology world has changed so much since the 90’s but this application hasn’t, it’s still chugging along adding value every day.

How much software can you still use that’s 15 years old?

There is a balance of course, but setting the bar high at making something that 15 years later stands the test of time (My equation for this is a) still runs b) customers still love it) is a truly ambitions goal that few companies can say they have accomplished.

I think I have been too short term in my thinking, too eager to follow the process or technology of the day…not imagining a world where things can last for a long time. Today it hit me, the grizzled veteran in the corner office might actually be on to something.

I do my best work by riffing off of other people. I am most at home when I get to spend my day interacting with a lot of inputs from a variety of places.  But sometimes I need some space to put it all together.  The fast paced back-and-forth environment is great to create in, but for me, insight comes afterward when the ideas sit for bit.

Today I woke up and didn’t feel very well.  It was nothing big, just the beginnings of a cold.  I decided to stay at home to prevent the spreading of my disease to the rest of the folks at work.

Since the weather was nice, I took the opportunity to go on a couple of long walks in between working from home. That space between allowed many of my thoughts to crystallize.

It’s kind of like interval training: over-saturate with collaboration, and then take a break for the important bits to surface.

I think I am going to make this process something I mindfully do on a regular basis.  Not just a weekend thing, but a deliberate break in the work week for some solitude and reflection.

I was out with a friend over the weekend that used to get mentored by the Director of Program Management for Office. He said that whenever he hired a new PM the one piece of advice he always gave them was to buy a comfortable pair of shoes..you will be walking around a lot.

As a PM you are at the center of most decisions on a team, that means you need to be collaborating and talking with everyone at all times to understand the pulse of what’s going on. You don’t build anything, you don’t test anything, you don’t design anything…you make shit happen, you make sure products ship.

When I first joined MSFT they gave me my own office, I HATED it. I need the energy of having other people around me, so for the 1^st 4 years I shared an office out of choice and loved it. When I became a people manager I had to have my own office again, but this time I made sure to get a spot in a high traffic area and keep my door open all the time. Plus I spend a large part of my day wandering the halls talking to people, getting the pulse and making sure roadblocks don’t have the chance to start.

I like being on my feet all day, lucky I have the perfect job!

I started using Kiva.org back in mid-2006, at the time I joined they had so many people signing up to lend they couldn’t even take my money. Around Christmas I was finally able to lend and I put $1000.00 in to the system. Since then I have been able to co-fund 74 small businesses around the world and lent out a total of $5600.00 with that initial investment. It so cool that I can keep using the same money over and over again to add value to people.

The delinquency rate on all my loans has been 0.64% which is amazing all on it’s own.

So go sign up for kiva.org | See my profile

Positive change is about breaking out of your role, holding yourself to a higher level of accountability for the way things are. It’s too easy to blame the structure, or the culture for why things are not the way you think they should be. The reality is that you are not being the way you should be in the moments that count.

We all know those moments that count, when you can feel the hair tingle on the back of your neck, when you feel the bottom of your stomach dip a little, when the sweat bead appears on the tip of your nose and your face feels flush.

The easy thing to do is back down (I know, I do it all the time), say it’s not my job, I don’t have control, it’s always been that way, I can’t make this happen, it’s not worth it to fight.

If the moment wasn’t important your body wouldn’t be yelling at you, if it wasn’t worth fighting for your palms wouldn’t be sweating. 

Only you can be accountable for what you feel, what you imagine and the way you believe things should be in the world actually happening. The fear, nervousness and anxiety is how you know your alive. It means you are on the cusp of real change happening.

Today I am going to try and listen to that voice, follow my instinct and see how far I can go.

Made with Paper

One of the things I come across a lot is people that have a hard time giving out praise without trying to also claim credit along the way. It’s really hard sometime to give away all the credit for something that you feel that you played a role in. But when you do it gives the recipient a new power they never thought they had, it can be the difference that pushes them into a new set of abilities.

Good people always pay back this kind of credit over time, and if you wait the rewards will be much bigger than the credit you get now.

I did a workshop this week for a Small Business Resource Center called Washington CASH (I volunteer there) about how to use CRM to help them gain repeat business and grow their business. I showed them how they can use services like Highrise and Stitch Labs to track customers and HootSuite or Desk.com to track conversations on social networks and customer support issues. 

What I learned quickly was none of them knew about any of these services, further more they didn’t even think to look online to find these kinds of services. They are so busy trying to run their businesses they don’t even know they can use services on the web to help. 

I think we take for granted that we have access to the communities and web sites that track these new methods of working. Most of the world has no idea these things are available. I still get many small businesses that have not heard of Yelp, Etsy and don’t know what twitter of Facebook are for, or that they can be used by businesses.

I think it would be awesome if a bunch of these companies all got together and pooled resources with the sole purpose to raise awareness about what small businesses can do with the web. This kind of audience (especially the 30+ folks) is diverse and really hard to reach unless you go on TV or the radio..which is expensive. They don’t spend a lot of time online looking for this kind of thing. Also they are easy discouraged by option overload (Just do a web search for CRM).

I was reminded of this Rands article today, mainly the section on venting.

Managing people I get to hear venting a lot and I often vent upwards as well. I always find it hard to remember that the person venting doesn’t want me to jump in and propose a solution they just want to be heard. It’s funny because I HATE it when I try to vent and the other person tries to problem solve, yet I end up doing that to other people. It’s hard to fight against that instinct.

The question I find a hard time with, is figuring out when the vent becomes a rant and turns from healthy to unhealthy. It’s a fine line and I think the person venting rarely is aware they have crossed it. I tend to think they cross the line too early most of the time.

I am reading Ender’s Game as a result of my friend Steve chastising me for not doing so when I was younger. There is a section where Ender becomes a commander and has to give advice to an ambitious young kid who is now in the same position he was in when he joined.

I’ll tell you how to get a toon. Prove to me you know what you’re doing as a soldier. Prove to me you know how to use other soldiers. And then prove to me that somebody’s willing to follow you into battle. Then you’ll get your toon. But not bloody well until

Toon is the word they use for Platoon. I thought this summed up how you make the transition to a leader in a very simple way and I even used it at work today to describe what it takes.

You never know where interesting ideas will come from.

I remember when Windows 95 came out, It was the first time I really felt I could use a computer to do something. I had used Win 3.1, DOS and even done some rudimentary programming on a TRS-80 but those never felt natural. I “got” Win 95, and ever since then every new version of Windows or Office I liked instantly and have had no issues using or learning.

My friend Mike was a DOS fanatic, when he installed Win 95 his first action was to put a shortcut to DOS on the desktop and head straight to the black. He hated the future at first, and took some time to make the leap. When the ribbon came out in Office 2007 many power users (and my parents) revolved against the change, I liked it.

Well today I left my laptop at home and spent the day trying to work with Win8 (Consumer Preview), and it was a very frustrating experience that left me trying to find a way to do what my friend Mike did, get a shortcut back to Win7 where I understood how to do things. I felt in between worlds and uncomfortable/unsure of what to do, how to do it or what the result of an action would be. It was the first time I have felt that way about a computer since DOS.

The only other product that has made me feel that lost was when I borrowed a friends Blackberry on a trip to Canada a few years ago. I gave up after 15 min and didn’t use it for the whole trip.

I think I will like Win8 much more on a tablet.

What do you feel when you see a similar product to the one you work on that’s just way ahead of you… I saw one today.

Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”

I blew right past this one.

Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘“Who is to blame?”

Angry at myself for not having a big enough vision, not being able to move my team fast enough. Angry at the slowness of a big company, the politics, the culture. To stuck in the way thing were I couldn’t see where we should be going.

Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”

I also blew right past this one.

Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon so what’s the point?”; 

This lasted for a few hours, I thought about giving up, giving in. That nothing I have done for the past several years has mattered.

Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; 

Phew finally got here… I can appreciate how awesome it is and how far my product has come as well. I am now inspired to learn from their great work and apply it to what I do.

I find that knowing the stages helps me get through little bumps much faster.

There is an awesome blog post about Valve here, and this morning @borisjabes sent me a link to their Employee Handbook and it’s stellar.

I have been lucky to have started a couple of business and run them (semi-successfully for a number of years) as well a now working for a large very structured company (MSFT). So I have soaked up the big difference between how they ran. Reading this handbook was like drinking a fresh glass of water after stumbling out of the desert..having a flat, open, innovate structure can work!

If it’s so simple why can’t everyone do it? Why can’t big companies tool out this handbook and make the change? Should I go buy wheels for my desk right now?

Ok so before you scaring the crap out of you boss here are couple things you should think about.

• Not every employee is ready for this kind of environment. Some might say there are some that just won’t like it, or can’t do it. I think that’s bullshit, but I concede some people may never discover their inner ability to be creative and open.
• It will be almost impossible to change one cog in a big wheel this dramatically and not get fired or marginalized. Established cultures are very entrenched, and command and control has been running the game for a LONG time.

Ok enough doom and gloom, what can you start doing today to create a better culture? Go right to page 41 on Hiring and start raising the bar.

Here are some questions they always ask themselves when evaluating candidates in a loop.

• Would I want this person to be my boss?
• Would I learn a significant amount from him or her?
• What if this person went to work for our competition?

If you are a people manager role today you can look around your org and see if this bar is true, if it’s not then you need to start making the tough calls to move people to new opportunities. Have a high bar!

T-Shaped Employees

—-From the Workbook—-

That is, people who are both generalists (highly skilled at a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline—the vertical leg of the T). This recipe is important for success at Valve. We often have to pass on people who are very strong generalists without expertise, or vice versa. An expert who is too narrow has difficulty collaborating. A generalist who doesn’t go deep enough in a single area ends up on the margins, not really contributing as an individual.

—-

You know these people in your company already, they have the ability to go deeper than anyone else on problems but can still easily collaborate across diverse groups and people. You should make sure to have them on your loops and mine them to bring in the people they respect from inside and outside the company to your team.

I really enjoyed the read and I looking forward to my next chance to interview someone!

About a year and a half ago I fractured both my wrists and herniated a disc in my back during a ski trip. The Ski Patrol insisted it was a mogul I went over not a “jump” as I was hoping since it makes the story better.

The doctor suggested that I try a standing desk as I healed and luckily Microsoft provides those if you get a doctor’s note. The desk I got was pretty cool as it had a motor to move it up and down, some folks on my team sit in the morning, then stand in the afternoon. I also bought a Wellness Mat to make standing easier on my feet, which BTW was worth every penny.

About a month in I removed the motor and I am been standing full-time since then. Today I was working in a remote office and had to spend the whole day sitting down…now my back kinda aches…I am not used to sitting and working anymore.

Other benefits

• People that stop by my office to talk stay for a shorter time, having no chairs speeds up the interactions.
• All meetings in my office are stand-up…that’s much faster
• Interviewing people standing up is fun, keeps the intensity level high
• I never get the mid-afternoon blahs, I have energy all the way through the day
• I am much more alert during the day at all time, and my posture is better standing.

I highly recommend it to anyone that has the ability to do it!

I screen and interview a lot of people as part of my job. Something happened today in an interview for the first time in my 4+ years here, I met someone new that was *meant* to work on my product.

To be clear, I have met and hired great people (lucky)…but I usually have to sell them on what we are trying to achieve. It’s the price you pay for working on a product that’s 20 years old and in the midst of a transformation of technology and customer base. So I usually leave the room thinking, hmm I think this person would do well here..I hope I got them excited enough to take the leap. But today was different..

The guy I met with started his career with our product in the mid-90’s, went to work on Lotus Notes and gradually has found his way back to us via a variety of interesting positions. But he had a common thread of interest through his career, creating things that empower regular people to build stuff they never thought they could.

Making App Building easier for people that understand their business but don’t think they can program. (*hint* I happen to think everyone has a secret programmer inside…waiting to emerge) is a hard problem that MSFT, Apple, Google, Oracle and numerous startups have tried to crack since HyperCard (there are probably earlier examples… but I am not that old yet).

I am still inspired to work on the problem because I think (a) it’s important and has big impact potential and (b) no one has solved it well.

To meet someone who has felt the same way for the past 15+ years and is still super-excited and positive about the opportunity to make it happen was inspiring. A good end to my work day for sure!

I first saw Avi speak way back in April 2006 at Demo Camp in Toronto. It was the first time I had seen DabbleDB and as an Access Developer at the time I was blown away. I have been following Avi’s career since and it’s been cool to watch the world notice him more and more.

He just blogged today about moving to Etsy http://avibryant.tumblr.com/post/21287677615/etsy and part of the post reminded me of the Inventing on Principle talk I posted about yesterday.

Three companies that I think are doing an exceptional job at that right now are Y Combinator, Kickstarter, and Etsy.

Why those three? I believe that all of them have the following property: there are people who will start businesses because these companies exist, who otherwise would not have done so.

It’s a cool way to look at how you decide what to work on next…has me thinking. Also Etsy …well played.

This talk has been making the rounds but I wanted to share it anyway because I found it really inspiring.

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.

I feel very lucky that I have had the chance to work with someone that lives their life this way…that’s my former business partner Baron Marcus. This short documentary will give you some insight into what I am talking about.

The first half the the video is very inspiring from a programming standpoint and I found my self looking at what I work on from the lens of “Creators should get immediate feedback on what they are creating”.

The second half is all about how he lives his life and is peppered with examples of famous computer folks that share his goal of having a guiding principle in their work lives. It’s funny because I think most people that meet Marcus think he is crazy, but really he is just principled…and ahead of his time.

What’s my principle? I don’t know quite yet, but am enjoying the journey to find it.

Seeing people’s reaction both inside and outside the tech world to Facebook snapping up Instagram has been like reading about the reaction to Rue being black or Titanic being real in that most of commentary is written by idiots. The tech blogs have become little more than TMZ or quasi-VC’s. It’s almost impossible to find information or opinion untainted by self-obsessed bloggers, media sites churning out PR or big media that doesn’t understand.

How do you filter? I would love some help :)

This is a great Sunday talk (via @boingboing) to watch about creativity by John Cleese, it confirmed some of the vague observations and intuitions I have had about myself (A line he uses). Much of the content may seem obvious or ground tread before, but his way of delivering it really hit home to me, it connected dots in my mind that have been waiting to connect…and I like that feeling. Also the background of a corporate event is kind of comical as well.

The one thing that really stuck out for me

Starting at min 18:00 he relates an experience he had where he realized why he was coming up with more original ideas than a counterpart at Monty Python who he felt was more talented. When the counterpart was faced with a problem, and fairly soon found a solution he was inclined to take it, even though he knew (John thinks) the solution wasn’t very original. Whereas John, in the same situation was sorely tempted to take the easy way out, and finish by 5pm, he just couldn’t, he would sit there with the problem for another hour and a quarter. By sticking at it he would almost always come up with something more original. It was that simple.

I always find that I have to stick with a problem longer than many people I work with, it’s the time I spend in that uncomfortable space of not having the right answer but pondering where I usually can connect some dots and come up with something better that what I had earlier.

The feedback I sometimes get is that I am not decisive enough or don’t stick to my convictions enough. Despite being strong about the solution I end up with, that feeling of the time leading up to it, where I go back and forth, lingers in the feedback of my peers.

He found the most creative professionals always played with the problem much longer before they tried to resolve it, because they were prepared to tolerate that slight discomfort/anxiety that we all experience when we haven’t solved a problem. I actually really love that feeling, it says to me that magic is about to happen I just have to wait for it.

The advice I want to takeaway; be clear to people that I plan to take the maximum amount of time possible to ponder before taking a decision, then when it HAS to taken I will stick with it until it’s implemented.

This quote sums it up!

Look Babycakes, I don’t HAVE to decide until Tuesday, and I’m not chickening out of my creative discomfort by taking a snap decision before then, that’s too easy!