On Driving and Management

Against my best instincts, I recently began using Facebook. While on the site, I managed to stumble into a message board where there was some discussion of where the best hamburger in Kansas City could be obtained. My interest was piqued immediately since I do love a tasty burger. I prepared my saliva ducts and began reading the comments, foolishly expecting that the discussion would center on the finer attributes of culinary delight that can be received when the Chef du jour is an acne-ridden 16 year old.

However, within 5 comments, the thread had completely devolved into a discussion of the cultural heritage of the commenter. When reading this, it became clear that there was a major rift between the people who live in Kansas City, Kansas versus those who live in Kansas City, Missouri. By the time the thread reached about 20 comments, the discussion had completely devolved into a discussion of who is the worst driver.

Apparently, all Kansas drivers believed that Missouri drivers were the worst and all Missouri drivers believed Kansas drivers were the worth. Now, we all know that Oklahoma drivers are the worst drivers in the known universe, but …

Document, Automate, Delegate

Everyone I know who works in IT is overworked. Really overworked! Overworked like nothing I have seen before in any other field (excluding hedge fund managers). Is IT the only profession where there is a never-ending supply of urgent work? Has the youthfulness of the IT industry blinded it to traditional work-flow management techniques? Are a few evil-minded overlords afraid they will not be valuable if they do not keep all the secrets hidden?

Why are highly skilled (paid?) IT staff performing repetitious work? Does IT just attract egos who refuse to believe something that was "that hard" to figure out could be done by someone without a degree and without 10 years of experience in the technology field?

Could it be even more simple? If we think about what challenges IT workers, maybe we'll gain some insight into what they like to do. When asked, most IT workers describe the reasons they got into IT as (in no particular order):

1. Solving Puzzles
2. Money
3. Dazzled by wires and buttons

If we understand that IT workers generally tend to think about their tasks in terms of getting them done (solving the puzzle), not in terms of how that …

NAIVE Goals

So, it's that time of year again. I'm beginning to start to put together personal and professional goals for the next year. I tend to do this process every fall so I don't get lost over the winter and watch too much television.

Everyone keeps telling me that I need to have SMART[1] goals, but I don't believe it. Anything really great that I have ever undertaken has started with a goal that was COMPLETELY INSANE at the time. There was no possible way to measure it and that was because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Clearly, I was naive when I attempted these feats, but I'll let you in on a little secret...

I didn't fail at all of them!

Perhaps by trying to relate future challenges to things I already know, I prevent myself from pursuing possibilities that I can't imagine yet? The difficulty of course, is imagining goals that are not natural extensions of your previous life experiences. How could I possibly imagine what doesn't directly relate to my past experiences? Why, by using my own creativity of course! Perhaps this is was the death of SMART for me. Once …