Category: life

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Vocalizing compliments

Here’s something that I’ve been learning and experimenting with since I started working in and amongst a team of software developers. While the principle isn’t limited to software development teams, it comes up quite obviously because of the measurable nature of the work that we do.

Take every opportunity to celebrate and compliment good work.

Opportunities to diss incompetance are a dime a dozen. Instances where good work peeks it’s little head out and waves timidly are few and far between. Times when one genuinely identifies and appreciates good work are even rarer. (Pretentious shoe polishers need not apply)

The compliment needn’t be overcomplicated or elaborate. Just make a statement about what you appreciate. Some examples:

“Dude, that component you put works really well.”
“Jimmy, really love the docs you wrote on that library.”
“Hey Bill, you gotta see what Steve just did. It’s freakin’ cool.”

With software, no one wins for being vague and kind: a defect is a defect, and git commit messages never lie. But a seized opportunity to praise good work is a beautiful thing.

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The shifting concept of permanence

Over the past week, my latest geeky little project has been to take a look at all the IT infrastructure that I operate and rearrange things around a little to match its current utility. Nothing drastic, just tweaks here and there, consolidating a few VPS‘s, swapping out email services and setting up a more robust DNS solution.

Which has brought me to today’s reflection on permanence and the irony of how such a concept survives in our hyper-transient digital world.

Permanence is typically associated with physical mass and tangibility, while transience, the lack thereof. A dead-tree bank statement bears far more permanence than a PDF. Molding a lump of clay with your bare hands, more than pushing polygons. Capturing light on photo-sensitive celluloid more than voltages on a CMOS chip.

But something dawned upon me as I was fixing up some mail forwarding settings for my primary email address: I’ve changed my physical real-world address at least 5 times since I last swapped email addresses. Going a little further, I must have gone through many more mobile phone devices since I signed up for my current mobile number.

Somehow, or some why, these very transient entities (email addresses, mobile number) seem to have lasted far longer than items that we traditionally deem “more permanent”. Don’t even get me started on how difficult it is to mop up an incriminating information leak, or an embarrassing photo on your social network.

This surely begs further and more thorough discourse, but here’s where my thought ends today. Maybe you’d like to chime in: how does such a shift affect the we live, and the way we value things?

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Memento

So yesterday was #2202. And what a blast it was. Brother took wifey and I for scrumptious greek dinner out in Brunswick, after which, we adjourned to our place to play with my brand new gadget.

Speaking of gadgets, my recent experiences have led me to better appreciate the idea of sentimental items – birthday presents and all. I am just beginning to discover how tangible objects can be infused with meaning; bearing witness to past events, or sentiments that have been exchanged.

Similar to the way ceremonies mark an event on the time continuum, it seems, mementos have the inherent ability to mark a memory in finite space.

Come to think of it, this has been something that I’ve unconsciously practiced over the years. For example, almost every time there’s been a positive change with my work, I would be compelled to purchase an item, mostly as a personal “reward”, thinly veiled behind an excuse to commemorate such an event.

I’m selective about these items too. No silly medals, trophies or certificates, but things that would embed themselves in my daily grind: a wallet, a pen, some gadget, etc.

Peculiar? I’d beg to differ.

I actually think it’s a brilliant way of persisting significant transient memory to a more durable form of off-line storage. Plus, I’m kind of looking forward to being able to tell my kids, “When daddy got this wallet…”

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Consuming vs Producing

Two recent events have brought me to the apex of this thought.

First, those of you who have been curiously clicking through my “New blog post:…” tweets would have noticed that I’ve made a real big effort string together at very least a post a day (You’re reading my eleventh consecutive post, thank you for asking). Blogging daily has been my little way of intentionally producing something with latent time that I have, as opposed to mindlessly consuming.

Second, my dear wife (upon my request) bought me a Kindle DX for my impending birthday. If you’re not already aware, the Kindle is representational of a whole new class of, what I’d like to coin, hyper-consumption computing (HCC) devices. In my own opinionated, un-peer reviewed definition, these devices are design with only to serve a single purpose – making the consumption of information as frictionless and pleasurable as possible.

Why it is in every device makers’ interests to excel at such a goal is a topic for another day, but the bottom-line is, such devices, if not engaged with active intention, can very easily and quickly dull the producer in each of us.

Yes, it dulls the producer in you.

Allow me to expand on the concept of producing something. Going out on a photo shoot is producing, browsing through endless Flickr streams is consuming. Baking a cake is producing. Reading food blogs is consuming. Going out on a bike ride is producing, watching Le Tour on television is consuming. Learning a new chord progression is producing, watching YouTube videos of Super Mario covers is consuming. Pulling out a few tools and tightening up your creaky chair is producing, wandering around Ikea is consuming. Assembling Ikea furniture is gray, but you get the idea.

I think sharpening and polishing that producer edge is really important for the following reasons.

1. Producing completes a learning process. One reaps the full benefits of learning when one is forced to reproduce that body of knowledge. For example, when I had to write up a half-semester syllabus for the Interactive Media subject for the Bachelor of Multimedia program at RMIT, it was the hardest thing, but it was also the best educational experience I ever had on the subject.

2. Production is a sign of life (in the broadest, most generalised sense of the word). Live trees produce fruit; wooden shelves don’t. Polar bears produce young; not so, fur rugs. Players on the court tear muscles, grow stronger, nimbler, livelier; spectators, not so much, Et cetera.

3. The act of producing brings with itself the very therapeutic effect of a flow. Where stuffy corners of one’s life is pushed out, the vacuum inevitably draws freshness in – basic laws of thermodynamics. Or for the more poetic, Jordan River vs Dead Sea.

So the next time, right before you engage in an activity, make a mental note:

producing or consuming?

Hopefully, you’ll be all the richer for it, and the people around you should be so lucky to share in goodness of your produce.

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Freelance or Permanent

This question popped up at least 3 times in the past 6 weeks. Conjuring up an answer for it forced me to think it through very carefully.

My last permanent position was with a non-profit company. When I left for freelancing and running my own business, it was somewhat around the same time the GFC hit most of the developing/developed world. Everyday there was news of jobs being cut, organisations “restructured”, etc.

Because of the calamity all around me, it made being a business owner (or more bluntly put, unemployed) less unpalatable. The argument was, “being permanent isn’t all the secure either”. The months that followed saw me build up a convincing case for being a freelancer over being an employee.

Over the years, things changed, the work that I busied myself with evolved from juggling multiple clients and projects, to more recently, devoting most of my week to one project, for one client – not unlike what a full-time employee might be accustomed to.

When I was most recently asked why I’d remain as a contractor as opposed to committing as a permanent, the best I could come up with was:

“It’s more a frame of mind”

I has been my way of keeping on my toes, affirming and preserving my identity as an independent professional, and not overexposing myself to the whims and fancies of a composite construct.

Work matters have been rolling along very swimmingly, I hope I don’t get swept up and disoriented, because it looks like it’s going to be one hell of a ride.