Education and Business: A Tough Combo

Achival's Blog brings us Why Education Startups Don't Succeed. It's an interesting read, especially for anyone who has been involved in the online education business over the past decade or so. The entire piece is worthwhile, but I particularly liked the bulleted list of don'ts at the end.

DaVinci's Resume

Back in 1482, a job-hunting Leonardo DaVinci sent a letter to the Duke of Milan. This letter got into the hands of a guy at The Ladders (a job search site) and it made the rounds recently as DaVinci's resume.

DaVinci's resume is interesting, but I prefer a geek's take on the DaVinci resume.

Taking Working From Home Seriously

The Post had an article a bit ago As Cuts Loom, Will Working From Home Lead to a Layoff? and parts of the article bothered me.

"That's what it feels like we're returning to. Work as many hours as you possibly can. Make yourself indispensable. Don't ever complain. Don't ever ask for anything," she said. "I'm just horrified we may as well just forget the last 20 years."

One little sentence in this bothers me: "Make yourself indispensable." Umm... This seems like what everyone should be doing. She probably didn't mean it, but the article read to me like "We've had a sweet deal for a while, but now it's time to start working hard."

Two of the hardest-working, most indispensable people I know are women with flexible work schedules. To me, the article seemed to imply that now is the time for women who have flexible work schedules to start making themselves valuable. This attitude is an insult to people (especially women) who work hard even if they have flexible work arrangements.

Web Stuff Friday: White People and Demotivation

Stuff White People Like is very insightful. It's like having an instruction book for all my white friends, coworkers, and spouses (OK, I have just one spouse, but the sentence seemed to work better with everything plural.)

Stuff Educated Black People Like is actually pretty good as well. As an EBP, I must say that the accuracy is pretty decent.

Despair.com is incredibly cynical, tongue in cheek, and fun. Their demotivators are so much better than Successories motivational posters. Some of my favorites:

• Apathy
• Ambition
• Consistency

Actually, the list of my favorites is too long. Just check them out.

Most Boring Business Trip Ever

Tomorrow I will head out for a business trip. Some friends of mine get "business trips" to Cancun, San Francisco, Florida, or Tuscon. Many of these trips involve drinking, golf, and all sorts of debauchery. Now for my turn. I am heading to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) conference in the whitest city in America: Salt Lake City, Utah.

This is the week when the strippers and hookers make 80% of their annual revenue. Alcohol will flow freely. The booth babes are unequaled. In short, let's just say that what happens in Salt Lake stays in Salt Lake.

Anyway, as a result of these three days of hedonism, my posts might lag a bit. I'll be either drunk or hungover constantly, so cut me some slack.

Now to go check the batteries on my TI-83 Plus.

Good to Great: Great People

A friend of mine's work woes have me thinking about business/management stuff. It is really hard for me to write coherently about this sort of thing, so I'm sorry for the particularly incoherent ramble.

Some day, I will figure out how to start a company of my own (or at least glom on to someone else's idea and be there at the beginning) and when that happens, smart, hardworking people will be my first hires. When people look at what helps companies go from good to great, it's all about hiring great people, and then putting them in the right positions. If a company doesn't hire and retain great people, then the company is screwed. Having the great idea is not sufficient. Lots of companies start with great ideas. The difference is that great companies hire great people, put them in the right places, and then let the team generate great ideas and drive the company in the right direction.

Anyway, here are some completely random thoughts:

• Managers should be more interested in helping their staff be excellent than in their own glory. I don't care how smart a manager is. When it comes to managing, the most important thing is the ability to foster an effective work experience for your people.
• If you are smart (or at least knowledgeable), hard-working, and ethical, others will recognize this and will want to do good work for and with you. Work hard and do good.
• Communication is really important. Great decisions require great information. Very often, bad decisions are made because the right people didn't have the right information. Communicate effectively or accept that bad decisions will surround you wherever you go.
  
• Make teamwork happen. Great execution is all about having a superior sense of team. Most people will work harder and better for a good team than when they feel like they are alone.

BTW: I'm not saying that I do any of these great things or have any of these great qualities, but I really appreciate them in others. My strategy is to work with smart, hard-working, ethical people, then try to blend in.

The Day

• Workout: crunches and push-ups
  
• Music: Beastie Boys, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M, Jean Michel Jarre
  

Working in an Office: Snapple Stories

Today was a pretty boring day until someone came into the office and mentioned a couple stories from the early days of our company. These stories wouldn't be particularly interesting to anyone outside the company, but they really amuse those of us who were around and shared these experiences. Here is a snippet from an email that is the beginning of one of these stories:

At today's cook-out, I had put 2 snapples in the ice cooler to keep cold. Someone accidentally took them not realizing that the snapples were not everyone but for me. I don't drink soda.

Please buy me two snapples as replacement for the ones you mistakenly took. I am for you cooperation and honesty. No questions will be asked if you replacement them. Thank you.

Anyway, this email (which was sent to the entire company by the man in charge of our IT) set off a chain of responses and satires that are now the stuff of legend. The so-called "Snapple" incident is one of the great jewels from our company's early days. We have all worked really hard for our company, but we also work for each other and shared experiences like this have helped to create bonds. Frankly, I often feel like I am in a high-tech sweat shop cranking out lessons. The pace is relentless. Brief moments of levity really help.

Telecommuting is great, but there would be no Snapple story if we all worked from home. Crazy, stupid stuff like this helps to make the crap of an office more bearable.

The Day

• Workout: crunches and push-ups
  
• Music: Curtis Mayfield, Led Zep, Kraftwerk, Crystal Method
  

Friends Are So Cool

I had a really brutal week at work last week. Two stories from work will describe how crappy it was.

First, a former Project Manager of mine who is not known for being particularly touchy-feely was passing by as I was getting some seltzer from a vending machine. She literally stopped and just gave me a hug from the side. Anyone who knows her and hears this is a bit amazed. She can be a bit brusque at times, but she came through for me when I could use some recognition of the crap I was going through.

Second, a really cool friend/co-worker sent me an email:

Something traveling in the wind tells me that you could use some good music to cleanse your mind...

http://youtu.be/mSo76txMsYs

The music helped (Yoav is pretty cool), but the thought helped even more. Having people who care when you are having a tough time is great. Having caring people who know how to help you is absolutely incredible.

The Day

• Workout: short run
  
• Music: Yoav, Squeeze
  

A "Real" Company Going Public

My company went public today. From where I sit, this really has more headaches than benefits for me.

First of all, some of the headaches: Because we are a "real" company now, we need to start doing things the right way. The problem is that we are only doing things a little bit right and that creates several problems. For instance, here is what happened with the project I'm starting on. Back in May or June, we came up with an approach for the project that involved three phases. Based on very little information, some folks came up with numbers for how much each phase would cost. These were total guesses that were pulled out of someone's hind quarters. Now it's six months later and the approach for phase 3 has us requiring a budget that is significantly bigger than someone's random number from May.

This is bad enough, but because we start working on these things way before they get approved, some things I'd like to cut have already been done and thus can't be cut. This leaves me having to cut pure muscle out of this product. This situation doesn't make anybody happy. Management didn't know or understand the cost increases as they happened. We didn't understand the budget ramifications of everything we planned to do (most of us are not budget people.) Nobody feels like they have enough information to make really good decisions.

Like a real company, we are trying to stick to a plan; unlike a real company, we have no clue about how to make a decent plan that can be adhered to. There are many other ways in which we are not really a real company, but are trying to act like one. I won't go into them here since I promised to avoid talking about my company. I am giving myself a pass for today since we went public.

Now for the meager benefits. The company has not communicated much about the IPO, so we all just learn about stuff from the Internet. In November, we learned that the strike price would be about $18. People with stock options did some quick calculations and said "yay." Later, it came out that there was a 5.1 for 1 reverse stock split. This means that someone with 5,000 shares of stock instead has about 980 shares. Of course the split had happened before the stock price was set, but the price had raised hopes for people. Now, a bunch of people who gave 7 years of their lives to this company are a bit underwhelmed. They shouldn't be, but such is human nature.

Some thoughts on all of this:

• Don't count on getting rich from stock options even if you work your butt off and the company seems like a great idea. No matter what, it's a crap shoot. Owners and high-powered execs get big bucks in these situations. The rest of us rarely get the big bucks.
  
• Don't bitch about "only" getting thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of free money just because you had dreams of hundreds of thousands.
  
• If you are lucky, you can find a job that pays the bills AND is meaningful, satisfying, challenging, and gets you in contact with good people. Finding a job that also makes you rich is a bit much to ask.
  

The Day

• Workout: dumbbells, crunches, dips
  
• Music: The Talking Heads, John Coltrane, The Beatles
• Deee-Lite - Say Ahhh...