• Paul Graham - If you haven’t read any of this work, then time to start.
• Fred Wilson - A VC out of New York. Has lots of wisdom and shared experience worth paying attention to.
• Startups for the Rest of Us - A couple of entrepreneurs/developers who are sharing their start-up experiences (failures and successes). Perhaps on of the best I’ve listened to in some time.
• TechStars - Boulder, as they say, is the San Francisco of the Rockies. David Cohen, Brad Feld, and others are helping foster startups and seem to be doing a rather good job of it.
• TWiT - There are many shows here worth checking out, browse through and pick the ones that are of interest to you.
• The Dev Show - A good show if you just want to pick up a few good links, tips, news, etc. in a range of languages.

There are many others I could list but that is probably a good start. Again, read my business page for even more info.

He wrote a post on his site recently about Indie Multitasking which got me thinking. Two items in particular: multitasking and global location.

Multitasking

Multitasking, which despite the buzz over the years, is not really possible. Anyone who knows how to be productive also knows that multitasking only works if you chunk the large pieces that you are working on into sequential slots in time. Sure, you can multitask the little things but when it comes to hunkering down and working on complex problems only to be interrupted, switch to another complex problem, and then finally switch back to the original complex problem then you’re not impressing anyone. You are spending more time getting your head around each problem when you could have focused on the original problem, solved it faster, and making better use of your time. Another way to think about this is focusing within a specific context but if you want to learn more about that then read David Allen’s book on Getting Things Done and then buy OmniFocus for the MacOS and your iPhone/iPad.

Being productive takes discipline and many, unfortunately, seem to not realize this (that or lack the motivation to stay focused and disciplined). My daily routine is probably an extreme version of what most people’s work habits are but I take interruptions very seriously. I know how destructive they are and make every effort to reduce them when possible. I’m sure my fellow co-workers, family, and friends would like to reach me more throughout the day but if you don’t hit the right window in time, then I will catch you when the next time slot rolls around.

Global Location

In addition, he also talks about being a global located company where it simply doesn’t make sense to rent office space and pay for employees to work in one location. I completely agree and is something that gnaws at me more and more as time goes on. This is the Digital Age, people, not the Industrial Age. The era where you need to commute to the big city, stamp that punch card, and work under supervision of your boss is over. It is also wasteful, eats up time, kills the environment with unnecessary CO2 emissions, and can kill your motivation. No, this is the era of the New Rich where everyone is digitally connected to everyone else on the globe with real-time information and instant access. Where you can live anywhere, be anywhere, work how you want to (and at odd hours). If I was your boss, I wouldn’t care. I only care about your productivity, reliability, and your ability to get things done. How you do it and where you do it is up to you.

Anyway, read Kevin’s post for more to think about.

Google Profile, if you have not made use of it yet, is a service where you can easily maintain information about yourself. Think of it as the Google version of your about page per se. There also is a Social Graph API where you can do more interesting things with this data. All of this is free to use with minimal effort to setup and maintain. Here is my profile as an example.

The other benefit is that when people search for your name, your Google Profile will show up the search along with your avatar picture. Although, at the moment, your profile info only shows up at bottom of search results. Bummer. I would think this should be the very first things you see in Google search results but maybe they’ll correct this soon.

So deactivate your Facebook account and kick LinkedIn to the curb, Google Profile seems like the better solution for representing yourself and improving your connections.

While I love many aspects of living here, this stagnancy is the reason I have a negative view of the city’s future in technology and explains why I am up against some heavy resistance for the goals and dreams I have for improving the quality of tech jobs within this city. Yet having made connections in the community that share my understanding, I can say that there is hope.

Today, I met with Dr. Edward Cho, Dr. Bob Sebesta, and Dr. Richard Wiener in an effort to share some of my ideas for the city and offer help, guidance, and mentoring where apt. We are all of the same mindset, which is to couple academia with innovators/entreprenuers and investors. A shining example of how well this can work out is Boulder, CO (a.k.a the San Francisco of the Rockies). The good news is UCCS is already working to make this happen via Bachelor of Innovation program.

So what does this mean for moving forward? Well, the first steps are simple:

1. Kevin and I from the Not Just Ruby (NJR) group are to meet with all UCCS faculty soon to explain our vision within two weeks. We would do it sooner, but Kevin is on his honeymoon at the moment.
2. Kevin and I will speak to faculty and students during a two-hour lecture luncheon about professional development, entrepreneurship, development hunger and passion, and real-world experience. It’ll be a great chance to educate faculty and students while answering questions and receiving feedback.
3. The NJR and hopefully the Colorado Springs Entrepreneur (CSE) group, along with any other groups out there, will work with UCCS to foster new startups, retain local talent, and channel money back into the city.

All of this revolves around thinking local (much like what Kate and I are doing with our Local Dish startup). We can be self-sustainable and make life better for everyone if we all work together. …but it doesn’t happen by hand waving and hot air. It happens by getting things done. It won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight but its a start in the right direction.

I’ll be sharing the results of these efforts and more on this site as things unfold.

I find it interesting to learn how other people get things done on a daily basis as there is a lot you can learn from studying the work flow of a top software developer, guru, entrepreneur, etc. Not that I consider myself to be in the top tier but it is definitely something I shoot for.

I thought I’d share my work flow in case it is of help/interest to others. Maybe this will open up the discussion for further thought.

Since I’m an independent software developer/contractor, I generally work from home. Although, even when I need to be on the client site and stuck in a cubicle farm, I still stick to the schedule (even though I’m not as productive). Here is my usual daily schedule:

• 6:00am - Wake up, start a pot of tea, check OmniFocus next actions, calendar, and syndicated feeds.
• 6:30am - Work out while listening to a podcast (sometimes I watch video if I’m on the elliptical via the iPhone).
• 7:30am - Eat breakfast, clean up, and prepare for work.
• 8:00am - Check email and reduce inbox to zero. Kill email and syndicated feed clients. Review OmniFocus next actions and start work on software project(s).
• 12:00pm - Launch email client and reduce inbox to zero. Launch feed readers and read feeds. Maybe watch some educational videos if there is time (i.e. Railscasts, CSS-Tricks, jQuery, etc.)
• 1:00pm - Kill email and syndicated feed clients. Check OmniFocus next actions and return to working on development projects.
• 5:00pm - Stop work, launch email and reduce inbox to zero, check syndicated feeds, eat dinner.
• 7:30pm - At this point, if I’m not burnt out from the day, I’ll continue working into the night. Otherwise, I try to learn new development tricks, study a software tool, etc.
• 9:00pm - If I’m not toast by this point then I’m definitely getting glazed eyes. Trying to do any further work after 9pm usually turns into gibberish.

My work flow stems from the Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy. When your an independent/contractor/entrepreneur, you don’t have time to screw around and so staying focused is key. I believe these principals apply whether you’re an employee or on a client’s time. Its amazing how much progress you can make in a day when you reduce distractions and stay focused.

Keep in mind this is my general schedule but I might not always achieve it. Scheduled meetings, phone calls, and/or Skype chats might break the flow although I try to limit these as much as possible. It’s all about high-output even when your client or the situation you are thrown into is a complete mess.

Find what works for you. Maybe this gives you a blueprint. It works for me at least. Oh, and I suppose it goes without saying, it helps if you love what you do too. I know I couldn’t do any of this if I didn’t enjoy writing Ruby code on a daily basis.

For additional info, check out the following:

• Being a Better Developer
• Being a Better Rails Developer

I recently subscribed to the Mac Software Business Podcast and finished listening to the eight or so podcasts out there. I am really enjoying the commentary from the talented group of Micro ISV developers from such companies as Flying Meat, Rogue Amoeba, and No Thirst Software to name a few. Even Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps fame showed up in one of the episodes.

I think I stumbled across this podcast series thanks to Bob Walsh who writes excellent articles on the 47 Hats site. BTW, this is another great feed for Micro ISV news and info if interested.

In news related to this, I wanted to mention that I created a new business page on this site to capture some of the Micro ISV news and tidbits that I am finding interesting. Not much there at the moment but you might find it useful in the future as I flesh it out more.

Top Ten Managerial Traits To Have

1. Don’t forget to be human. Remember The Golden Rule.
2. Earn and maintain the trust and respect of your team.
3. Empower your employees.
4. Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the team, capitalizing on the strengths where possible. If there are weaknesses, work on turning them into strengths.
5. Be decisive but not a dictator.
6. Be able to communicate clearly and concisely.
7. Be a peer to your team.
8. Be additional help when help is needed.
9. Be responsible for tasks assigned to the team.
10. Have faith and confidence in your team.

Things to Consider

Here are a few additional sources of information worth checking out:

• Project Management Made Easy by D. Keith Robinson.
• The Myths of Innovation - Follow the link and download the podcast. I found the discussion interesting and worth checking out as it covers some of the points above and a few more.

The following is a capture of some useful getting started tips and related resources to help get your new business up and running.

Getting Started

1. Study the following web sites for context: Business - a government site for business information, My New Company - pay a fee and have someone else to setup your business for you, and Startup Nation - another resource worth checking out.
2. Follow this checklist as a basic guide.
3. Write a business plan. Here is an outline.
4. Check out the IRS Online Classroom which has a collection of online training videos. They are dry and filmed just like those wonderful driver education videos of years past but can answer a few tax questions along with use cases and examples.

Limited Liability Company (LLC) Quick Steps

Since I am based in Colorado, here are the steps I went through to establish my company as an LLC in the State of Colorado.

1. Read the new business checklist or this checklist as found on the Colorado state web sites.
2. Register your new business (cost is $50). Tip: There is no need to apply for an Federal Employer ID Number (FEIN) a.k.a. Employer ID Number (EIN) when you create an LLC but if you want to learn more check out the IRS EIN document.
3. Setup your business accounts (i.e. checking and savings) for your business with your favorite bank. All you need is your drivers license and the bank will search for your newly created business via the state web site.
4. Dust off your recycling bin and prepare yourself for a new form of snail mail spam.

Other Considerations

• Delaware Division of Corporations - Probably the best state to create an LLC. Here are some reasons why: Why Incorporate in Delaware? and How to Start, Maintain, and Dissolve a Delaware LLC.
• Delaware S Corp - Reasons for not setting your business up as an LLC should you want investment money.
• More on LLCs - More discussion on LCCs.

© Studio One Media, Inc.

It looks as if the cat is out of the bag as Studio One Media, a startup located in Scottsdale, AZ, has added more info to their public web site that describes the business, what they are about, and how it might impact you. If anyone wanted to know more about what I was working on last summer, now you know.

© Freelance Switch

A while back I attended a Refresh Denver (Web Business Startups) meeting. While the meeting and some of the notes I captured were useful, I was still left with a lot of questions. I then stumbled upon a series of interesting Freelance Radio podcasts. I recommend listening to all of them. They are, however, lengthy (over an hour in some cases) but informative.

Should you enjoy the podcasts and be yearning for more information, I would recommend checking out the rest of the Freelance Switch web site and reading my Enterprise of One post as well.

• Practical Advice on Becoming a Better Blogger.
• 55 Essential Articles Every Serious Blogger Should Read.
• How To Write Excellent Blog Content - What We Wish We Knew.
• 10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber.
• 101 Steps To Becoming A Better Blogger.
• 5 Prerequisites For Blogging Success.
• The Rules Behind Creating a Great Blog.
• How To Find News For Your Blog.
• How To Reach Major Bloggers In Your Niche.
• 10 Simple Steps To Directly Monetizing Blogs.
• 10 (+5) Requisites for Professional Bloggers.
• 23 Ideas for Finding New Readers for Your Blog.
• 5 Surefire Steps To Increase Readership 300% (or more).
• Intelligent Design and Stickiness.
• Understanding The Rules of Great Content.
• A Few Last Lessons On Blogging.

Most companies are resistant to employees telecommuting — working from home or some remote location that is not within corporate walls. However, life within corporate walls is not anything to get excited about. Usually you are given a cubicle office with a desktop or laptop and a few office supplies like staplers, pencils, pens, a white board, etc. Unfortunately, cubicles can be loud, non-private, small, and uninspiring. Yet, companies love cubicles because they are cheap and take up minimal space. From an economical standpoint, it makes perfect sense for a company to have a sea of employee filled cubicles.

For me, as a software developer, being in a cubicle is a mistake. Well, unless you practice some form of Agile development that is. I feel that when you are working deep in the code, the last thing you want is random people walking by and interrupting your work. It does not help that there is no door to close to prevent hearing conversations of fellow co-workers a few cubicles down. I have seen some people using earplugs or putting “do not disturb” signs on the outside of their cubicle walls but that only gets you so far.

I believe that if you can demonstrate talent, reliability, trust, performance, and quality a corporation should let you work from home or any location you desire. As long as the employee knows how to work from home properly, then why not? It is cheaper for the company and less stressful for the employee.

Think of telecommuting as a form of freelancing. It should not be a taboo. If you can not cut it then, yeah, a cubicle life it is for you. Otherwise, it is time to start being more economical. The money you save on gas can be better spent during happy hour on Fridays with friends and fellow co-workers!

Over time, however, I began to scratch out the phone number and e-mail address on my business cards and scribble in my personal phone number and/or e-mail address instead. I did this not out of disrespect for the company but because my experiences and personal/professional network are my own while companies can come and go.

These days I no longer use the standard box of business cards provided for me, I create my own, pointing to my digital self:

If you already have a web presence, this might be something to consider. Besides, it is the individuals that make up a company. I would rather learn more about them than be presented with the traditional corporate facade, wouldn’t you?

• Web Worker Daily - Why You May Need An Online Persona.
• Nature - Could blogs replace résumés?
• Bokardo - The Blog is the New Resume.
• Juixe Techknow - The Resume is Dead.

Being one who is rather passionate and enthused about the work I do I often wonder if my energies would be better channeled elsewhere. Like staking it out on my own and starting a business. I know it is hard work but it is also a worthy challenge especially if you believe in what you do. I have been talking to others about this and even watching friends of mine from the sidelines: BandXI, B2 International, and Ajileso. Exciting as all this may be, here are some points of reference (articles and podcasts) worth checking out:

• The Five Minute Guide to Becoming a Freelance Software Developer.
• Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail to Keep Their Best Talent
• 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job
• You Are Self-Employed.
• The Enterprise of One.
• North x East - A Comprehensive Guide to Starting your Freelance Career
• 101 Essential Freelancing Resources
• Start & Grow Your Dream Podcasting Business.
• My New Company - Provides information and services to make starting your business easier.
• Freelancing Tips - Tips for calculating your freelance wage and what you should be charging to your clients.
• Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 - An interesting podcast that causes you to think about the context in which mythical stories were told and how they can be applied to how you function as an entrepreneur.

Introduction

I have been on a quest lately to improve communication within the corporate space. I have been primarily focused on using the latest social networking technology - namely, blogging technology powered by WordPress. I thought the following might be worth sharing in case it is of use to others.

Background

Five months ago, I instigated a movement at work by setting up a blog for my team which then blossomed company-wide (well, not really but I’ll explain more in a bit). I did this because I wanted a way in which to capture what I was working on as well as see what others were doing within the team. The idea was each of us is doing interesting things so lets share it. For example, maybe the problems that I am solving apply to something another person is working on and visa versa, maybe I learned a new way of writing code, or maybe I learned a new software trick that made what I do faster. I see blogs as a way to capture these nuggets of info that can be stored for future use as well as be easily searchable. It also serves as a way in which to record breadcrumbs of information allowing someone who is following your trail to easily pick up where you left off. If nothing else, blogs help foster a community. A way to make the job just a little bit more fun and interesting. That is the idea anyway.

To help build a foundation for those new to this type of software, I have given a tech talk, written documentation, created screencast tutorials, and provided many links for reference within the walls of the company. I spent a lot of time and effort making this possible because I believed in what I was doing and I also believed that the company get would become engaged.

In addition to the educational materials mentioned above, I have also been very active amongst all internal sites (which are roughly fifteen in total). In my team alone, I am the most active blogger posting things that I learn and develop on an almost daily basis.

To me the idea and its implementation was helpful and streamlined. However, the experiment did not turn out as I had planned.

Experiences

The problem was no matter how hard I tried to educate the company and its employees, only a handful made use of it. They would much rather stick to e-mail - which is overused in my opinion (see my post on Corporate E-mail Pitfalls for more info). The paradigm shift from e-mail to blogging (or anything that supports syndicated feeds) seemed too complex versus the status quo.

Because I view blogging as a way of life, I had no good answer to their objections. I view blogging as something you should want to try it out. The value is not necessarily realized by watching but by doing. This is HUGE hurdle to overcome because people need to get their jobs done and blogging can be considered wasted time.

My motivation stems from my use of what I write because if no one reads what I write then I will. As time rolls on, I might forget certain details and having a blog is an excellent way to go back in time and dig up something that I’ve done and might need to do again. That alone has saved me many times that the benefit far outweighs the cost. Even better, once you have written about it you can easily send a hyperlink to someone who might be asking you for advice.

Though I wish my passion for blogging had been shared by my company and fellow employees, I can not say that my experiences were purely positive. Out of the fifteen sites within the company today, only two of them are active. The rest have been abandoned. By this I mean that management has requested that all employees write weekly reports once a week that summarize what they have done, what they plan to do in the coming week, and any outstanding issues they might have had during the week. These reports can be useful but most are just badly formated noise. This counts as abandonment with no real involvement.

I remain optimistic, despite my particular obstacles, and hope that over time people will become more involved.

Lessons Learned

• Choose software that is easy to configure, maintain, and use. My choice, as mentioned, is WordPress, but there are others out there that might suite your needs better.
• Make sure some basic blogging guidelines are in place and people are aware of them.
• Appoint a champion early on to lead the effort and do not take this lightly. Not only do you need a champion but one who has the official blessing and approval of management. This needs to be made known company-wide.
• Start education early. Get people engaged and pick leaders from the various teams within the company to help you spread the love (so-to-speak).
• Provide plenty of tutorials and examples. Make it really easy for those who are stubborn or resistant to change to jump in. Anything you can do to lower the learning curve, the better.
• Do not let management mandate what people should or should not do. Any time there is a management mandate then it feels more like work and takes a bit of the fun out of it. This needs to grow organically.
• Actions always prove louder than words. Lead by example. Give people something to aspire to but don’t make it so daunting that they will be easily discouraged.

Parting Thoughts

Check out an article by Path & Vinegar called Egos and Silos and Social Media. Food for thought.

Here are a few problems I have with e-mail and e-mail subscription lists:

1. Suffer from poorly constructed subject lines. Lets face it, many people do not know or care to take even the slightest bit of effort to construct a subject line that would be easily searchable and convey the general purpose of the message. Some simple tactics would be: Writing sensible email messages and Getting the Subject Line Right.
2. Suffer from randomly formated message bodies. Ever get a message that is part HTML and part text? Maybe you get people who like to use different colored fonts and font sizes. How about header and footer images, or even background images? Yeah, now were talking. It’s a kaleidescope of fonts, colors, and images while you try to find the real content.
3. Generally have bloated signatures. Sure, it might be nice the first time around but if I have to converse with you multiple times it gets monotonous really fast. Lets not forget about people who feel the need to add cheesy graphics as either part of the header or footer of their e-mail message. Then there are always those touched individuals who love to add famous quoted material either in the form of a single line or an entire paragraph to their signatures. Yeah, thanks buddy, but I really don’t care! So think about what your e-mail signature says about you before setting it up.
4. Difficult to follow message threads. Think of the multiple reply and forward messages not to mention the splinter reply and forward messages based off of a related reply or forward message (i.e. “re:re:fw:re:fw:Check this out”). Even that last sentence alone should make your head hurt. Mine does.
5. Do not have the ability to catch up on any historic conversations unless you ask people to forward their mail to you (which isn’t going to happen). Obviously, there is some history that took place but good luck learning about it!
6. Can have e-mail lists (which is like a subscription to content written by many people of which you can also contribute to). E-mail lists alleviate some of the problems of personal e-mail but are cumbersome to gain access to (either via a web interface or a complete dump to your inbox). Many times these lists are not even archived which, again, means no history.
7. Allow the user no choice on what they want to listen to. With personal e-mail it is difficult to turn off the spam once you have given out your e-mail address. Yeah, you can set up filters but wouldn’t it be great if you could just turn it all off with a click of a button or simply unsubscribe? Same goes for e-mail lists. No choice. It’s all or nothing.

My solution has been to push people away from this overused format and use blogging software to help foster communities of interest. Progress has been slow because it is hard to get people to open up and take a bit of time to jot down what they learn to reduce the strain on e-mail (example: Personal vs. Corporate Blogging).

I am curious. Has anyone else had luck changing corporate mentality? What are your successes and failures?

(click to view)

In the diagram above I placed each form of communication in a numbered column. Here are my thoughts on each column:

1. Column 1: This is the fastest and possibly the easiest form of communication. It is also the most annoying form of communication, depending on who you are, as it is the most interruptible. When you use this form of communication you should be asking yourself, “Do I really need to interrupt this person at this specific point in time?”
2. Column 2: E-mail is a slightly slower form of communication than those mentioned in #1 because it takes more time to compose. What you should be asking yourself when you send e-mail is, “Do I really need to force information on this person?”.
3. Column 3: This form of communication is somewhat delayed and also dependent upon people subscribing to this information. It is not meant for mission critical or time sensitive information, like #1 and #2, but is nice because it allows the people the choice of obtaining information.
4. Column 4: Like #3 but even slower as it depends on the person finding about this form of communication, usually by means of #1 through #3, and then finding the time to dedicate to absorbing the information.

I would also like to point out that columns #1 and #2 are time sensitive and mission critical information and should be used that way. Columns #3 and #4 should be used for information that needs to be captured but is not time sensitive. The other key point to remember is that information in columns #1 and #2 is information that your are forcing on another person while columns #3 and #4 allow people the choice of obtaining information.

Personal Blogging

What you blog about is up to you. In my case, I tend to keep it semi-professional and password protect content that isn’t appropriate for the general audience. Just browse this site if you need examples. I do, however, believe that most content should be owned by the individual and not the company as long as it is not specific to the company you work for or have worked for. This is important because these are individual experiences and should be associated with you. I also believe that it is good for the company to allow individuals to blog independently of the company because it empowers the individual to continue blogging as well as reach a wider audience. The hope is that as your network of connections grows, so will you and so will the company. Finally, it also reduces the amount of redundancy on the individual as he/she can capture content in one place.

Corporate Blogging

Now, with the above in mind, I will admit that there is still a need for a company to maintain a corporate blog and have its employees contribute to it whether it be per team, per project, etc. This might sound like duplicate work for the individual but it is not. The reason is that there is quite a bit of content that is specific to the company and most definitely cannot be displayed in a public manner. For example, consider the following:

• Schedules - Calendar and time line based information that captures goals, due dates, milestones, etc.
• News and Information - Information that is not time sensitive, unlike e-mail or instant chat, but should be available for those interested.
• Daily/Weekly Work Activities - Information related to work performed on a daily or weekly basis by the team members. This is good for the employee because it is a way to remember what took place and for management to keep tabs on progress. An added benefit might be that fewer meetings take place because everyone is “tuned” in.
• Meeting Notes - Meeting related information such as who attended the meeting, action items, etc. for those instances when a meeting can not be avoided.
• Out of Office Notifications - Information related to when team members are out of the office or on vacation.
• Documentation - Useful materials related to the how the company works, team works, etc.

These are only a few examples between and will vary depending on the situation.

In summary, enjoy what you do and take a little time to write about it. It should be possible to keep work and play separate without undo strain on you, the writer. Lastly, do not forget to be aware of basic blogging guidelines.

• IBM’s Blogging Guidelines
• Scobleizer’s Corporate Weblog Manifesto
• Business Week’s Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers
• Charlene Li’s Blogging Policy Examples

Most is common sense but some, especially the last one, talks about blogging ethics. I would go one step further and say that these guidelines should apply to the personal aspects of what you blog about. For those situations where you wish to keep things private, use blogging software that can password protect and secure this kind of content. Even private content should have a level of filtering because even though you control what family and friends can see you can not control what they might do with it (not easily anyway).