Category: Work

The best advice is that which you do not expect

I was invited by my friend and all around good guy Dan Shown to talk at his Digital Media and Society class at my alma mater, SLU. I was there to share with his students what a career with a Communication 1 degree could look like. I had the great misfortune of presenting after Jon Michael Ryan who runs around shooting amazing videos.

That’s right, the cubicle dude follows up a guy with slow motion videos. It was amazing that the students even stayed in the room when it was my turn to talk.

But talk I did! I don’t pretend to be a guru, ninja, expert, or any other ego-boosting superlatives, but I have learned a few things and was happy to share. The most important thing I wanted to hit on was that the ‘tips and tricks’ to succeed as an adult have very little to do with tools, software, programming languages, or social media platforms. It has to do with being a well-rounded person who is, at the very least, content with life.

What follows is a pretty version of my talk. Who knows, something I said might be correct and even useful. 🙂

The first thing I mentioned wasn’t about what tools to learn. I reminded students  to not work more than 40 house thinking that’s the path to happiness and success. Working 60 hours thinking your boss will recognize you for that extra effort and that it’s the only way to stand out or get ahead? Won’t happen. It’s not worth the damage it will have on your relationships. Friends, family, partners, are all more important.

You can get an amazing amount of work done in 40 hours – if you’re actually working! Just because the office culture is a particular mindset, doesn’t mean you have to follow along. Keep that strong work ethic and get your stuff done.

Reflect before making decisions – even in situation where your boss is telling you to do something. A lot of people, when given a task want to complete it immediately and without question. When the boss says, “We need a blog” don’t turn around and say “OK HERE’S A BLOG”. Use your education, your experience, your research. Think about they why of the question. What are they trying to accomplish. How will a <blog> help along those lines? Who’s your audience. Ask questions, find out as much as you can, then execute.

Have empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of the people using your thing, your service, your product, your art.

Don’t dismiss critique. Embrace it. Silence does not mean acceptance. Feedback, even harsh, direct, ugly feedback, is better than apathy.

Be able to defend your decisions. If it’s sticking to APA style, picking colors using solid color theory, or explaining typography, make sure your design decisions 2 are based in all the stuff you’ve filled your head with. Not because “I like the color green”.

I closed my dribble talk with a truncated quote from Paul Graham.

Don’t ignore your dreams;
Don’t work too much;
Say what you think;
Cultivate friendships;
Be happy.

Ive Got Some Feedback

Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious; Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, “Why would you be vague?,” arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: “You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.” Ive was furious, but came to agree. “It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,” he said. He lamented that there were “so many anecdotes” about Jobs’s acerbity: “His intention, and motivation, wasn’t to be hurtful.”

This incredibly in-depth piece on Jonny Ive, the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple, reminds me a lot of the lessons and insights learned from Mike Monterio’s book Design is a Job.

To do good design work is to relish in good feedback. Don’t think designers or developers want you to say, “I like it!” when you really don’t. We all need to be honest – brutally and politely so – with one another to make better design.

Shubhro Saha on why software engineers should write

Software engineers should write because our craft is increasingly collaborative. Open source projects invite worldwide participation, while industry products often require an army of engineers. (Google Maps has 1100 full-time employees!) Good writing– whether it be in a GitHub comment, code review, or technical documentation– facilitates clear, concise communication for projects like these to move forward.

I’m going to take Shubhro’s essay on why software engineers (i.e. programmers, developers) should write one step further. Everyone should write about their craft. Database administrators, project managers, accountants, plumbers, Wal-Mart door greeter, you name it.

Writing is thinking. Writing helps you to understand your work better. To take a step back from the hustle and bustle and reflect on what you’re doing. You ask different questions about your craft when you take a moment to think and put it down in words for others to read.

Tagging Semantic Articles Outside of the Factbox

One of my favorite Semantic MediaWiki features is the factbox. It’s a quick way to browse wiki content by property values.

What if you want a similar browsing interface within a wiki page? For example, let’s say you want a value for a property you use to ‘tag’ an article to provide a link to a list of all pages with that property/value pair. Here’s one way how. 3

For the past year one of the ways we’ve been using our wiki is to publish an internal monthly newsletter. Each newsletter article is a wiki page, with a template providing consistent navigation.

Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 1.19.10 PM

 

Along the right hand column of every article are the tags for the audience and topic areas related to the article.

linked-list

Recently I made an addition to the list of Audience and Topic Area tags to provide dynamic links to all pages with that property value. I’m leveraging the SMW Special:SearchByPropertySpace special page.

In the article template, with the property “Facets Article Topic Areas” you’ll want to use an arraymaptemplate 4 to format the comma separated list of values. 5

'''Topic Areas''': {{#arraymaptemplate:{{{Facets Article Topic Areas|}}}|SearchByPropertySpace-FacetsArticleTopicAreas|,|, }}

What this will do is take every value for the property Facets Article Topic Areas and use the SearchByPropertySpace-FacetsArticleTopicAreas 6 template to format each value. Each value is separated by comma, and our final output will be separated by a comma and a space.

In the template “SearchByPropertySpace-FacetsTopicAreas” we have the following.

[[Special:SearchByProperty/Facets-20Article-20Topic-20Areas/{{#replace:{{{1}}}| |-20}}|{{{1}}}]]

This creates a link to Special:SearchByProperty where the property name is Facets Article Topic Areas and the value is each comma separated value from our arraymaptemplate.

The replace parser function converts values with spaces to URL encoded characters.

SearchByProperty

The result is that every topic area listed on the page becomes a link to Special:SearchByProperty that shows all pages with that value.

Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 5.02.52 PM

When editors add a new article they only have to add a list of topic areas. 7 This makes in-article links to all other articles a click away without having to scroll to the bottom of the page to view the factbox.

Unreachable Time and a Rant Against Voicemail

I’ve been at my employer for over 3 years now.8 The entire time I’ve been here my voicemail message has said the following:

“Hello, you’ve reached Chris Koerner. I’m often away from my desk and don’t respond quickly to voice mail. The best way to contact me is to send me an email at me@work.net or if it’s urgent call me on my cell at 314-555-2456. Thanks!”

So, don’t leave me a VM, try my cell or email. I’ll answer my cell from a work-prefix number when I’m at work.9 I respond to email in a few hours at most.

My wife finds it amazing that I’m able to do this. That my boss doesn’t prevent this or that I haven’t gotten in trouble yet. Here’s my secret. I never asked my boss how I should make myself accessible and spend my attention. I decided that. He trusts me. I said, for me, the best way to get my attention is via email or cell call. Voicemail sucks.

Short of that. I’m unreachable. I think that’s important. Even with all the responsibilities I have and all the various ways to get in touch with me, sometimes I will not be available. I might be busy with a big project and a deadline. I might be in a meeting.10

I’m still accessible – even faster than voicemail! – and I’m polite about it. The important thing for me is making sure that the time I have allotted to get work done is as productive as possible. I use the tools I have – email, phone, IM – in the best way possible. To me, being accessible via voicemail is the same as being accessible via fax. Ancient, cumbersome, and a pain for all parties involved.

Voicemail is slow. Like most folks I read much faster that someone can talk. If I’m familiar with a topic I can quickly read an email and respond.

Voicemail also introduces ambiguity. Did they say ‘Six five seven two” or “Six five six two”? I’d have to play back the message if I missed a number, address, etc. 11

The tools we use should make us more productive and efficient. We should delight clients and co-workers with our responsiveness. Clunky, outmoded tools like voicemail don’t help us. I encourage you to look at how you’re using things like voicemail and see if there isn’t a better, more productive and friendly way to manage your attention and time.

Leave me a voicemail comment with your own ideas.