January 16, 2012
2 notes
It’s freakin’ hard to do. Great blog post, huh? No seriously though. I have learned an awful lot recently from speaking my mind on controversial topics. It comes naturally to me to say what I think and I’ve never been the person to go along with things when they don’t seem right. Maybe it’s just the way I see the world, my perfectionist personality, or perhaps it’s my industrial engineering background, but I can’t help it. I’m just always trying to improve everything - make it just a little bit better than it currently is. I don’t believe there’s ever a point at which you can say nothing needs to change. About practically anything. You can always go one step further, be just a little bit better. That’s my opinion anyway. So I tend to notice when something could be better and I try and share my opinions. Once I post my heart and soul to the public domain, that’s when things really get interesting.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
So first let me start with people’s reactions to controversial ideas. We all know that we as human beings are resistant to change. It takes a lot of work to affect change, especially on something where people’s opinions are mixed (just look at the US government). Many people also tend to defend the status quo. At least as their initial reaction to a challenge or criticism. Others are better at looking objectively at differing view points and potentially seeing the merits, but I don’t think this comes naturally to most. Therefore, the first reaction is often to reject change because there’s nothing wrong with how things are now. (Obviously.)
The one who yells the loudest wins.
It’s true that well known people are hard to compete with when you’re just some random. But nobody is right all the time. Often a fresh perspective on something can make a huge impact. This ability to objectively work with diverse perspectives is coveted in any business team worth it’s salt. I think we all tend to forget this sometimes. For the record, I think it’s tacky to tear down someone by talking over them. Especially if you haven’t taken the time to really think about what they’re trying to say objectively. But that’s just me.
So you’re saying I should jump off a cliff??!
Ugh. No, really I’m not. Did you even read my post? The ability of people to twist your words, to exaggerate or read into things, is insanely huge. I learned that even if I were to re-read a blog post 1,000 times, placing every word in every sentence perfectly so as to get my message across exactly as I intend, people would still see something that isn’t there. Or at least, that isn’t what I was trying to say. Then as the writer you’re faced with, do I defend myself against these outrageous counter points or just ignore them completely because they’re so off base. It’s a tough position.
When I write something, and I imagine this is true with a lot of people, I’m just sharing my point of view. Perhaps I’m trying to be persuasive but that’s because I’m trying to get people to think about things a little differently. I personally am never writing a piece to tell everyone that they are 100% wrong and I am 100% right. That’s just silly. I don’t think I’m perfect and the authority on everything. I’m not trying to pick a fight, so please don’t start something immature because I spoke my mind and you didn’t agree. Feel free to disagree. But also, please feel free to stop and consider for a second, and challenge your own views. Besides, it’s in your own best interest to really think about your argument before you put it out there and potentially make yourself look like a fool.
OMG, she’s such a ______
What are we 10? What’s with the labeling and the judging. Someone actually used the argument that I’m from the midwest to explain why I just don’t get how things are and am wrong. I actually laughed out loud when I read this comment. Perhaps they were joking but I’ve had some pretty outrageously ignorant and just plain goofy responses to my pieces so I wouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes these kinds of responses are funny, sometimes they are down right cruel. I immediately get the urge to defend myself. To say, “hey I’ve spent plenty of time in cities all over and the geography of where I currently live has exactly nothing to do with this.” But that will never work. Frankly, I don’t feel that I should need to defend myself against something so ridiculous. And then someone agrees with the person’s assessment and then it just goes downhill from there. Unbelievable.
I secretly agree with you.
My most recent blog post that was controversial discussed my opinions on sexism and inappropriate content at professional events. A LOT of people were on my side and that was amazing. But I found it somewhat disappointing that quite a few rather big name folks in my industry whole heartedly agreed with me in private (via DM on Twitter or emails) but said exactly nothing one way or the other in the public view. I get why that is though, it’s because of what I’m talking about right now.
When you put yourself on the line, and say what you think publicly, it becomes dangerous. I imagine the larger your reach, the more backlash you get just from saying one thing. To go up against some of your fans on a controversial topic is just not worth the headache. I get it, I really do. The problem with this though, is if the people with the greatest ability to reach others fail to stand up for what they really think, nothing’s ever going to get any better. Thankfully there are some leaders out there who aren’t afraid, I just wish there were more.
People are inherently good.
Despite all the headache and the harsh disagreement, I’ve found that most people are really good on the inside. For every one person who has made a rude judgement or responded harshly to something I’ve said, there have been five more people who were kind and supportive. That’s probably even more than I would have expected. I feel now more than ever that speaking your mind on something you’re passionate about is even more essential to do when the topic is something touchy. People are scared to bring it up, but you won’t know what they are really thinking until you do. So despite all the difficult lessons I’ve learned, I will continue to say what I think. More good comes of it than bad, and it’s the only way to make my world a little better.
So, thanks for the support people! And expect to read more of my strong opinions in the future. (If you’re willing to hear me out.)
November 9, 2011
101 notes
Dear Mac/iOS Developer Community,
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes who may be different from yourself and attempt to understand/have compassion towards that person’s feelings, especially if their feelings are different from your own. If you do not consider yourself to be a particularly empathetic person, there’s no need to read any further.
I attended a Mac developer conference recently and overall had a great experience. I had the opportunity to meet and get to know many great developers while learning a few things too. Unfortunately, I left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. This feeling I attribute to a lack of conduct standards, and a failure by many of us to understand the changes in the industry that have been occurring, like it or not, over the years.
Here is what happened. I sat down to listen to a talk that I could tell by the title of the talk, was going to be inappropriate. I thought to myself, I’m at a respectful Mac conference, the organizer is walking around in a suit and conducting himself very professionally, I’m sure it will be ok. This was, in fact, a poor assumption. The speaker prefaced his talk by basically stating there was a little substance, but that most of the topics were being presented simply because of the sexual or otherwise inappropriate jokes that could be formed from the topics. For instance, jokes that can be made about “autoreleasing”. I’ll let you think about that for a second and you basically understand how this went. About ten minutes in, I was thoroughly disappointed in the immaturity and inappropriateness and walked out of the room. As others informed me later, it did not get any better. There were tidbits of information weaved in, but the overarching theme remained the same.
Sadly, this was not the only offensive point in the week. The highly respected keynote speaker managed to weave in a reference to a female celebrity’s “tits and ass” in his discussion, which I found awfully distasteful.
Now, I know that being one of the handful of women in attendance at the conference, I am in a serious minority in terms of the way I experience and react to things such as this. I also know that it’s quite possible that others would not be offended as they may have the same, in my opinion immature, sense of humor. Yet, in discussing with others, including members of my team, I found that I was not alone in finding these references uncomfortable.
Why is it that an inappropriate talk would even be permitted on a stage at any respectable conference? How does this in any way further the advancement of the software industry at large, and the Mac community especially? In my opinion, it sets us back quite a bit. During one of the much more informative and respectable talks of the week, the topic of diversity was brought up. The speaker pointed out the fact that the Mac community is full of mostly men from an educated and higher income background. The context was in discussion of how we tend to gravitate towards like minded people. And in fact, it’s impossible to argue that this is a truly diverse field by any means because women and minorities are grossly underrepresented as I’m sure you know.
However, what this experience and other similar encounters I have had in the last three years as a Mac developer have started to suggest is, maybe the Mac community doesn’t want people like me to be comfortable? Perhaps they would rather keep this a boy’s club forever, and it’s simply irritating when people like me disrupt that.
Wow, does that thought scare me. Coming from a different industry where diversity is praised and encouraged, could it be that software developers want the exact opposite? Clearly not all of us. But, perhaps some of the organizers of this particular conference gravitate toward that mindset.
The Mac development community has changed a lot over the years. There are new iOS consulting companies popping up all the time. Macs are in more homes than ever before in history. Mac developers are hiring business partners, even donning suits sometimes, and prancing into major corporations to work on exciting applications. It’s a new world, folks. And as a result, there will likely be growing pains.
All I ask is this…
First, if you are in a position where you can control the conduct and standards at a software event that is intended to be in any way professional, you are therefore obligated to do so. Or at least warn people who may be attending otherwise, so we may steer clear.
Second, before you start to defend this kind of inappropriate behavior in a professional setting, think about how you would feel if I were your daughter or your sister. I’m not against inappropriate humor by any means, I just think there’s a time and a place. This was not it.
Do we want the Mac community to be a place where anyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. feels uncomfortable?
Diversity is great. It shows that our field is growing up. But diversity can only happen with acceptance, tolerance, and the ability to empathize with those who may feel uncomfortable, even if you yourself do not. I sincerely hope that at future Mac community events, I will not be similarly offended.
Thank you to the wonderful guys who provided support and feedback in preparation for this article. It’s nice to know we have some gentlemen out there in the Mac community!
Sincerely,
Brit
Update: After getting in touch with the conference organizers, I have a lot of hope regarding this issue. They were very concerned, apologetic, and acknowledged that this should not happen at a professional event. Thank you!
October 21, 2011
114 notes
The other night I was debating with a friend whether or not it was truly possible to have major success in your career without your job coming first. She believes it’s simply not possible. You’re either family oriented or job oriented, but something always must win. I was nearly persuaded. But after she left I thought about it some more, and decided it is possible to achieve major success and still put your family first. We just have different definitions of success.
What does a successful career mean to you? We tend to see people with lots of money, lots of power, lots of fancy shit, and important titles as being the definition of success. That is I suppose one way to look at it. Those people are often depicted as being on call for their job 24/7, Hong Kong on Monday, London on Friday, with never a moment’s rest. These are images that I myself am victim of accepting as what it means to be successful at one time or another.
As a little girl I remember picturing myself as CEO standing in the corner office in the high rise of some elaborate futuristic skyscraper with a headset in my ear making deals. Other days, I was a world renowned surgeon saving lives every day. Of course those are descriptions of successful careers, without a doubt. Those are also descriptions of intense, demanding careers where it is probably darn next to impossible to put your family first one hundred percent of the time. I mean, soccer practice or saving a life? Although I don’t know from experience since I’m neither a corner office CEO at a major corporation, nor a surgeon. But there are certainly a lot of other definitions of success. They’re just not as popular or glamorous.
I watched the pilot of a new show on the CW called “Hart of Dixie” and was further convinced that I was onto something. Yes, yes I know. But I love Rachel Bilson and the basic premise fits perfectly with this internal discussion I was having with myself. In the show, the character, Dr. Hart, is an ambitious, driven doctor soon to be cardio-thoracic surgeon at the best hospital in NYC who suddenly finds herself in small town Alabama as a general practitioner. The show sets you up to understand that over the course of the season she will come to realize that she doesn’t need the fancy hospital in NYC or a fancy title to be happy. In fact, that’s not who she really is inside, simply who she thought she was supposed to be.
We’re so ingrained to believe that success is defined by money, power, fancy titles, fancy houses, irreplaceable importance in an organization, etc, etc. However, those are just the most in your face types of success out there. Maybe that is how you define success. Maybe that’s what you aspire to achieve for yourself. That’s fine; I used to. Now I think of things differently, though. And I realized that my new viewpoint comes from re-defining success for myself.
When I was just starting my career out of college, I took a consulting job where I was flying back and forth to Miami every week. I worked fairly long days, pretty standard for consulting, nothing crazy. I lived in a hotel out of a suitcase that was perfectly packed every week. About one year into this, I was so incredibly miserable. That was simply not the life I wanted to live. There were more important things to me than whether the client was happy and the software was ready for “Go Live.” I wanted to cook meals with my boyfriend after work. Hell, I wanted to see my boyfriend after work. I wanted to not feel like I had to check my email over the weekend in case something went wrong or someone might need me. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with pursuing a career in consulting. I’m simply pointing out that for me, it was not what would make me happy in life.
Shortly thereafter, I quit my job to pursue something more in line with my personal goals. I redefined success. Instead of thinking corner office at a Fortune 500 I went for 2 person indie software startup instead. I love my job now. Wherever it takes me, at least now I know what it feels like to be real with myself. Through this path over the last two and a half years, I have found a lot of success. For me, success means balancing a love of life, with a love for the work I do. It means always learning, always pushing myself, always tackling challenges, solving hard problems, all while trying to contribute useful products to people around the world. That’s my new definition of success. What’s been the most interesting part of this journey so far, is that my life is actually more satisfying now than at the fancier job. Things are not always what they seem I suppose.
So, moral of the story. Define your own success. Figure out how your life fits into it. Then pursue whatever track helps you achieve that success. Even if it means abandoning the track you’re on.
I recently read in the book, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, about the CEO/founder of HP, Mr. Packard. He was a wealthy and very successful man. But he went into work everyday because he had a passion for what he did. He lived in the same modest farm house after making his millions. His idea of a good time was “getting friends together to string some barbed wire ” on the farm. He wore flannel shirts and drove a regular car. When he passed away, his rather large estate was donated to charity. Mr. Packard defined success quite a bit differently than one might expect. All I can say is, that rocks.
August 11, 2011
10 notes
I recently attended a traveling Cirque du Soleil performance called “OVO” which was an insect themed performance. If you haven’t seen a Cirque du Soleil performance before, you must go because they are fantastic! When you arrive, you enter a humongous tent and are immediately transported to this bizarre kind of circus that’s all grown up. The costumes are incredible, the music is live and fantastic, the sets are extravagant and capturing, and the performers are amazingly talented. It’s a great experience. But the thing that really sets a performance like that apart are the details. Nothing was overlooked! From the elaborate costumes to the scenery, to the pre and post show entertainment, you could tell that someone had been over everything with a fine tooth comb. Naturally, I related this to software.
Great software is all about the details too. It’s the little things that picky development teams refuse to overlook, that really make a user’s experience with software exceptional as opposed to just fine or average. Certain personalities tend to be more detail-oriented than others, but I find that developers seem to be more often than not, concerned about the details.
With so many apps out there these days, it takes more than just functionality to make your products stand out. I think the details take you that extra mile. You don’t just throw fields onto an editing screen and call it a day. Even if it’s just simple text input, you really have to think about the layout, the appropriate width and height, is this blue the right blue, how strong should the font be, etc. We can’t afford to forget the user’s interaction at every level. If you’re writing low-level code, think about performance considerations. Could the user experience a slow down with a large data set? Think about your team as well. Who may have to work in this code file in the future? Is your code clear, organized, and concise? The more details you take the time to really consider, the better!
Ok, wait. By now, you must be thinking in the back of your head, “That’s great and all, but then I would never ship! Who has the time to leave no stone unturned in their app?” Yeah, I don’t either. And I certainly have not mastered this balance yet.
Here are some of the ways my team currently manages this dilemma:
- Make small adjustments/improvements in incremental releases (the first release cannot be perfect, but over time will get better)
- Prioritize tickets regularly to sort out the most important issues to the user, and which tickets can wait a little longer (we think about a ticket as must-have/nice-to-have/ or should consider)
- Never create a new UI without showing at least one other person, preferably several, for critiques and improvements
- Capture all ideas for improvements so that they are not overlooked or forgotten
- Use mockups! Even if it’s just a piece of paper or scribbles on a chalkboard. It’s amazing what you can eliminate before you even begin coding if you do this often.
- Test! This is one area that we are trying to improve on my team. It’s so critical to have others test out your changes before you send them out to the world. Catch as much as you can before it gets out there.
If you’ve never looked back at a feature you did and said… “Wow, was I drunk when I did that?!” then you deserve an award. For everyone else, I think it’s important that you’re willing to go back and re-work a feature (even if it seems minor) when it’s just not right. If you’re satisfied with mediocrity, then by all means leave it. But you are taking a big risk that users will overlook the details too. My guess is they won’t.
Right now, I have so many things I want to improve about the product I work on that it can seem overwhelming at times. The steps above seem to help break it down into manageable pieces. Just saying it’s good enough, though, will not allow any product to stand out. Details, details, details.
April 6, 2011
13 notes
Not the actual concept of achieving a balance of work and life, of course, that you can do. But the phrase “work/life balance” has been thrown around so much by companies that don’t have a clue what it means, touting their excellent work/life balance and benefits, that it has become virtually meaningless.
A company at which employees must fit their sick days and personal time into a set number of days in a year does not have a work/life balance. A company at which employees must request time off and hope that they are permitted to go on vacation during the time they have selected, does not have a work/life balance. A company where employees cannot easily rearrange their work schedule when something comes up at home, without feeling pressure from their manager or team, does not have a work/life balance. A company at which employees feel guilty about taking time away does not have a work/life balance. A company at which employees who wake up ill still consider toughing it out to go into the office, say it with me, does not have a work/life balance! The definition of achieving balance implies that there is equality and in all of these situations, work clearly has the upper hand. The scale is tipped in favor of the job, and the personal life must always accommodate the job.
I think we have been entering a new era, with tech leading the way, where the question is no longer how good is the work/life balance at a company, but rather how people-centric is it there. At a company that is people-centric, managers recognize that their people are all they really have, and thus treat them very well. Vacation days are available when desired, and possibly not even tracked (this is something we do at our company). The benefits are actually beneficial, with good health coverage, retirement, profit-sharing, and more. The dress code (or lack thereof) is relaxed. People-centric companies are extremely flexible because they understand that in order to attract the best people, you have to be willing to treat them like human beings, not tools.
Personal mentality also comes into play here for sure. We as a society are workaholics which can be a very unhealthy approach to life. I love my work, sometimes it’s hard to stop working at the end of the day, but we all need a line in the sand. There has to be a point at which you say “I can get to this another day, I’m going to make time for my friends and family now.” Those of use who set the example by making time for our personal lives frequently will encourage others around us to do the same. Then perhaps people-centric philosophies will become the norm.
Is your company people-centric? If not, perhaps it’s time for a change!
