P.T. Scoble, the Master Promoter?
Robert Scoble's recent piece on getting your blog noticed has stirred up a person or two. Some say it is brilliant, others call it manipulative. I say it is both. By teaching others to promote their blogs, he promotes his blog. Is that not the essence of a value-for-value transaction?
At any rate, you can color me on the bandwagon. In fact, Robert's item on promoting your blog reminds me a bit of a book I recently read, Become a Recognized Authority in Your Field in 60 Days or Less. If that title sounds unabashedly marketing-ish, that's because it is. This book is 100% about self-promotion, which is unpalatable to some folks. But I'm digressing - the point is that the spirit of Robert's post was very much in the spirit of this book. I was in the middle of the book when I read Scoble's post, and the two just seemed to complement each other well.
I'll shut up now.
Quitting the Computer Industry?
Did you ever consider quitting the computer industry when things were at their bleakest?
I definitely considered it after being laid off last year. A friend of mine was (and still is) making money hand over fist with his commercial debt collection business, and he offered me a job (I worked in that industry while in college). However, I was able to hustle and pick up enough clients to launch my custom development practice pretty quickly. I've always been able to make money in the industry, even if things were volatile and my cash flow was spotty (sometimes VERY spotty!). That being the case, I've continued to stick it out. I have to admit that during the bleakest days of my personal IT recession, a certain quote came to mind:
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damned fool about it."
I'm keenly aware that I am one of the lucky ones. I know a few guys who did get disgusted and quit the industry entirely. These were sharp, competent guys, too. One fellow was out of work for 18 months before he finally said "to hell with this" and started a T-shirt shop. I know another guy who got a job managing a Starbucks. Then there's the fellow I met who makes more money as a waiter than he ever did as a web designer. There are others.
It's sad when this happens, because all the fragile-ego'd geeks that remain in the industry usually don't know how to validate themselves without tearing down another geek, so when someone decides to cut his losses and leave, he's often derided behind his back by his peers. "He didn't belong in the industry anyway", "Good - now there's more room for the real IT people", "If he was really worth anything he'd have been able to hang on" are all comments I've heard made about people who have left the industry.
That kind of intra-industry back-biting infuriates me (and is one of the reasons IT work is increasingly relegated to "computer janitor" status, but I digress). The cream doesn't necessarily rise to the top. We all know at least one guy who is severely under-skilled but has managed to get and keep his position out of pure, blind luck. Isn't it possible that a lot legitimately competent sysadmins and developers might suffer from the opposite kind of luck? I think so.
Deciding to leave the industry is not a referendum on your worth as an technician. It just means you are a person who is able to recognize when it is in your best interest to try something new. And that, I think, is the sign of a very sharp mind. And I'll tell you what - once I'm in hiring mode, I'll be looking to lure some people back into the game.
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Management By Advocacy
During a conversation with a colleague yesterday, the subject of managers that do more harm than good came up (imagine that). We each had our war stories of organizations that appeared to survive by economies of scale alone, as their actual operations were so crippled by internal politics and poor decision-making that actual productivity was out of the question. I think everyone in the workforce has worked for at least one company like that, which is a shame.
I have worked for several different types of managers, some good, some bad. And I've managed others, sometimes well, sometimes poorly (although I like to think the poor management is a relic of my early career). What I take away from all this is an observation - some will agree, some will not - on what makes a manager successful at managing and what does not. Here's the observation:
A manager will be successful to the extent that he becomes an advocate for his team as opposed to a commander of his team.
That's it. The best managers are neither controllers nor commanders; rather, they are passionate advocates for their developers. In my admittedly arrogant and idealistic opinion, the chief role of any manager should be to set some goals for his team with their input as a reality check, then do everything he can to eliminate the obstacles that stand between his team and their goal. Let's face it - any manager that feels the need to micromanage people in this day and age is just admitting that the hiring policies of his company stink.
I cannot count how many times I have seen a project that included a manager who established an adversarial relationship between himself and his staff, presumably for the purpose of setting up a scenario in which he can "win" by imposing his will on them. I've always thought this was a weird way to accomplish a business goal. The most respected and successful managers I've known and worked for (and have red to emulate) take a stance of advocacy for their people. Sure, if good managers have superior knowledge of a thing, they may direct a team member to "do it this way", but it will be in the form of mentoring. And if they don't have superior knowledge of a thing, they don't pretend to.
I remember one fellow I worked for. Somebody once tried to go over my head to him when they disagreed with the way I was building something. He politely listened to their case, then shot them down. He explained why what I was doing was just fine. He was on my side - for that matter, he was on the team's side, because he saw himself as part of the team rather than above it. A lot of managers are never on their team's side when push comes to shove. The default assumption seems to be that the team needs correction. More often than not, the team just needs to be trusted.
As usual, I'm not saying anything we don't already know. I'm just saying things we don't always do.
Taking Firefox For a Test-Drive...
True to form, I waited until after everyone else had their say on whether or not Firefox is useful before trying it myself. But here I am, finally with a freshly-installed copy of Firefox, surfing the web. So far, the only difference I notice is that the favicons work, which is cool but not really compelling enough to upgrade.
Anyway, I've committed myself to using Firefox exclusively for two weeks, just to see what all the rave reviews are about.
Eric Sink Says "Don't Fake the Plural" - But I'm Not So Sure
In his latest Business of Software column, Eric Sink focuses on what he calls Micro-ISVs - software companies comprised of one person.
In the article, he urges one-person companies to not use the term "we" self-referentially in their marketing materials; rather, small companies should own up to the fact that the whole company is comprised of one person. Here's Eric's take on the matter:
Don't fake the plural
I don't think micro-ISVs should try to hide the fact that there is only one person in the building. Conventional wisdom says that even a one-person company should use the word "we", but I think it often ends up looking silly.
This seems particularly true today in a world where weblogs have become so popular. More than ever before, companies like to see a glimpse of the person behind the product. The result is that a lot of one-person companies are speaking in the first-person plural while a lot of larger companies are speaking in the first-person singular. Doesn't this seem kind of weird?
Now, since I'm in the process of launching a micro-ISV, this article - and more to the point, this admonition of "don't fake the plural" - was of interest to me.
I have a slightly different take on this - I think that whether or not you present a corporate image that suggests a multi-person company depends upon your product and market. For example, Eric mentions that Steve Pavlina seems to do just fine being the only person behind Dexterity Games, and that Nick Bradbury has done great things with Bradsoft, but I have to wonder - would the marketplace so readily accept a one-man show that was producing something more business-critical, like an HRIS or MRP system? My gut and my personal experience tell me that this is not likely. Steve and Brad are making games and newsreaders, respectively. If these guys folded up their businesses overnight (which is the real fear people have about one-man companies), how big of a negative impact would it have on their clients? Probably very little. I say this not to belittle their accomplishments, because I admire them both very much. I mean only to point out that they are offering products that are non-mission-critical to anyone (which is probably a smart move on their part). By contrast, I build custom business tools that companies use to either make money or save money - if I were to go belly-up there is potential for damage to my client's businesses. Now, since I work primarily with small businesses, a lack of scale works in their favor - they're small enough to handle the business on pure hustle in an emergency. But what if a one-man shop wants to grow up a little and do business with Fortune 1000-sized companies? They have a lot more to lose if a one-man vendor goes south on them.
Case in point: Back in 199-something, when I was a team leader at former employer, I led my dev team through a custom dev project for one of my old employer's clients. In 2003 I got word that the client had parted ways with my old employer and was looking to have some custom modules built to bolt on to the product I had built for them way back when. Figuring I was a lock for the job, I called my old contact at the client company to get some specifics and prepare a bid.
To my dismay, I was told that they were unwilling to accept bids from "one-man show". They indicated concerns about support, about availability, about the possibility of my being hired away, about their ability to get the level of service they were used to from larger vendors. Not once did they express concerns about my ability to do the actual work (I asked). But in all these things, they were right. Never mind the fact that the revenue from that project would have allowed me to staff up and turn down any other projects for a good year or so, dedicating all my time to this client. Never mind the fact that they were pleased as punch with my previous work. The bottom line was, one guy working from his house - no matter how competent - was simply not the type of business they felt comfortable dropping large amounts of money on to entrust with a critical business system.
The kicker is that the company they ended up going with was comprised of a whole 5 people - that's not exactly a big shop. But those 5 people had a real office with a real T1 line, they had a decent corporate image, and they could afford to dedicate one staffer full-time to this project from the get-go. I could have dedicated myself full time to the project, too, and I had all the necessary expertise, but I was not (in the client's eyes), a "real" business - I was just some guy who writes software. I can't help but wonder how it would have played out if I had invested some time in a corporate image that "faked the plural" and gave the impression that I was part of a larger team. At the very least, I would have been allowed to bid.
Of course, this was a very big client company. None of my small business clients care that I'm a one-man operation so long as I take good care of their project, and I do. But if a guy hopes to grow his business and work on projects of a non-trivial nature, is it not in his best interest to project an image slightly larger than life in order to attract business that might otherwise not notice him? I'm not talking about deception here - if you can't perform the work and meet the expectations, then you shouldn't pursue the business - but if you have everything the client needs except the image, is it not wise to polish up your image as well, even if that means making your operation look larger than it is?
I mentioned above that I'm planning to launch a micro-ISV myself. As a rule, I have never referred to my current consulting practice as "we"; it has always been clear that I am a one-man operation. But at the same time, I can't say I have any real philosophical objection to one-man companies who use the term "we" in their marketing communications. And I won't say for certain that I'll never use the term "we" self-referentially once I'm in the products business and start trying to make sales to larger companies. Knowing me, I probably won't. But if it gets in the way of winning business that I know I can deliver on, I will re-think that stance - no question.
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