Red Squirrel's Nuts

An experiment in self-organized learning

[Edit: I tweaked the “How do we reward desired behavior” section to have the awards be iPull credit, rather than cash.]

I’m interested in exploring ways to expand and decentralize educational opportunities for as many people as possible. With the sale of Obtiva to Groupon and Mad Mimi’s steady growth, it’s now easier for me to ponder ventures that are less profit-driven and more purpose-driven. Most of my time in the coming years will be focused on developing a world-class software development culture at Groupon that inspires technical innovation through developer happiness. But in the background, like I said, I’m interested in decentralizing education, so I’ll be spending off-hours on that.

While I was off the grid in June, I came up with a crazy idea for a software platform that would help groups of people get together to learn with, and from, each other. For now, I’m calling it iPull, based on the principle that in today’s world of increasingly cheap/free and open knowledge (such as Kahn Academy, Wikipedia, and iTunesU), it’s becoming less imperative that knowledge is pushed at students, and it has become possible for learners to pull knowledge toward themselves. I know I’ve found this to be the case in my self-directed education as a software developer. (For software-development-specific themes around this, see my book, Apprenticeship Patterns.) A long-recognized feature of higher education is that most of the value comes from your peers and subsequent network, and comes less from the degree and hoops you’ve successfully jumped through.

“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.” Walden, p. 46, Henry David Thoreau, graduated Harvard in 1837

Dale Stephen’s UnCollege has more to say about this theme. So, what would happen if a fraction of the young people who are now thoughtlessly entering the US undergraduate system and heaping career-limiting loans on themselves decided to organize their own education together? iPull is my attempt to provide a platform to answer that question.

I’m finally blogging about this because I’ve had some conversations recently that are helping me drill down into the core problem that platforms like this face. At this point, the core problems are:

• Should iPull be opinionated about the internal structure of courses? Should it impose limitations on course duration and number of learners? My current thinking is that we should keep this open, but provide suggestions once people move outside the “sweet spots” for group learning.
• The downside of being open and flexible is that people who use iPull will likely have a “now what?” experience. This should be solved, especially initially, with lots of one-on-one advice from an iPull course coach via phone, chat, and email.
• How do we keep learners coming back to courses? My current thinking is that the simplest way to get people to commit is to have them pay for the course.
• How do we reward desired behavior like consistent participation, attendance, leadership, helpfulness, teaching, and insipiration? My current thinking is that course participants can use iPull to grant awards to the course-mates who are being most helpful to their learning. A participant’s award would be iPull credit, equivalent in dollar value to the cost of the course. These awards would be displayed publicly.

With all of these questions, I’m choosing the most radical answer I can think of. I’m choosing to err on the side of openness and flexibility and simplicity and non-tradition. That’s why iPull is open source. That’s why I want to see any money that flows into iPull to flow back out to the learners via food, beverages, and monetary awards from peers. That’s why I won’t use the word teacher, despite the fact that people who have a knack for teaching could most certainly use iPull to string together a set of courses that earns them a consistent income. There will be courses where one of the participants will naturally fit into a leadership role and spend significant amounts of time explicitly teaching. There will be courses where these people emerge and fade depending on the current topic. There will be courses where someone intends the former, but the latter happens. I don’t want iPull getting in the way of any of these scenarios.

I’ve been developing iPull in my off-hours for some weeks. I’ve put no effort into the front end yet, and am mostly exploring how to accomplish a minimum viable platform with the technologies I’ve chosen. If you’re curious, and have sufficiently low expectations, you can head over to iPull.org to play around.

If you’re a software developer who is interested in this project, you’ll want to know that I’m using a similar philosophy in my technical decisions. I’ve chosen a platform that I’m not very experienced in (node.js + Redis) and I’m learning as I go. If this entire idea crumbles, or the experiment fails, I selfishly want to ensure I get something out of it. In this case, I’ll leave the experience with a deeper understanding of some technologies that I enjoy. Find out more about the project over at Github.

I’d love to answer questions, hear your ideas, criticisms, and suggestions, so fire away with comments!

Five Years

I’ve been following the Self-Reliance #trust30 stream and have been mostly disappointed so far by the daily “exercises”. I guess I’m a simple guy because the only two that have resonated with me were very clear, simple calls to action. The first one was What would you write if you only had 15 minutes to live? Today’s has two simple questions.

What would you say to the person you were five years ago?

Dear Dave,

Keep doing what you’re doing. Yeah, the RailsConf 2006 presentation you just gave last month was pretty crappy, but it was worth the effort, and although you won’t ever be accepted to be a RailsConf speaker again, you’re going to be speaking at a ton of other conferences. Just wait! You won’t believe where your crappy speaking skills are going to take you. (No, I’m not going to tell you where. Be patient.)

The Rails TDD Boot Camp that you’re just starting to work on is going to require a ton of effort, especially when you’re delivering it. You won’t be sleeping much for the rest of the year. But trust me, this is the right time to be putting in some long hours. It’s going to pay off, big time. (Hint: Kevin is open to making you a partner.) Stick to your guns about Ruby. It’s going to be huge, just like everyone is hoping. And Obtiva’s projects are going to almost completely switch over to Ruby from Java over the next few years. Get over your hangups about “doing sales” because that’s how you’re going to land your first full-time Ruby gig. (Spoiler: Gary is open to making you a partner.)

Don’t worry too much about Ricky and Charlie’s (lack of) progress with speech and reading. You just saw Rose make a ton of progress with her reading skills in first grade this year, and both of the boys are going to do the same thing. I know this is almost impossible to believe, but Ricky is going to read all the Harry Potter books over the next few years.

Make sure you tell Matt Puchlerz how awesome he is. Don’t hold back on expressing your admiration and encouragement of people who are doing great work.

Don’t worry about the book you started last year. It’s the right decision to put it on hold, and there will be time to work on it again after you get Obtiva’s Ruby momentum established. (Spoiler: it’s going to be published by O’Reilly!) Also, more good news, software craftsmanship is going to finally pick up steam, just liked you hoped.

For God’s sake, Dave, be attentive to Staci, especially with the little things she asks. Just get over yourself and do some housework and yardwork. It’s seriously easy and will save you a lot of conflict. It really means a lot to her. Yeah, I know you don’t understand why. Just accept it. She’s worth it.

Oh, also, when the guys at The Point call Obtiva next year and you want to tell them you don’t have anyone available to help, I suggest shifting some people around to make sure you can help them. You wouldn’t believe where that little platform is headed. Seriously.

What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?

Dear Dave,

I really hope you’ve been spending enough time with Rose. She’s 17 now and is probably going to fly away soon. I wonder how much she’s even around these days. I bet she is an amazing soccer player and cross country runner. You have so little time left with her, so you better have been almost annoyingly present in her life during middle school and these first 3 years of high school. Did you teach her how to ski? I hope so. Have you helped her discover and learn about the subjects that she wants to explore after she graduates from high school? Have you been firm and clear, but not alienating, to the young men in her life? Have you been praying for Rose? Have you helped her think openly about her spirituality and her relationship with Jesus?

What progress have you made toward your life’s work? Has Chicago blossomed into a place where people have many options for learning about software development? Are Code Academy, Chicago Technology Academy, and i.c.stars still going strong? I hope they have spread throughout the city and beyond. I’m sure you have your hands in a few different entreprenerial endeavors, but I’m also sure you’ve taken the time to help these different organizations move forward, and mentor some of the people who might someday be your boss.

Keep investing in your marriage, Dave. Staci is an amazing person and absolutely worth the effort. Have you already started planning how you two will be celebrating your 20th anniversary next year? Wow, you guys have come a long way. Keep going.

I choose growth. I choose injustice.

If you heard my story, you might think I’m an idiot. Your strong sense of justice would pull you against the direction I’ve chosen.

I could have righteously destroyed. I could have walked away and sought out something new, leaving this wreckage behind me.

But I saw the wreckage. Though it grieves me, I won’t run from it. I will grow something out of it.

Growing is what I love. I find it much more difficult than destroying.

Difficulty is something I’ve always relished. When I’m running, I run faster uphill. When I’m growing, I grow from the pain of rejection.

I was given the gift of a good start. My roots are strong, and with His Strength and Wisdom, I cannot be uprooted.

Choose to grow. Be gracious and strong in the face of injustice.

Forgiveness is the sunlight that grows life from the wreckage.

Don’t run from it.

[I wrote this as a 15 Minutes to Live exercise, as part of The Domino Project’s #Trust30 writing project.]

For a purpose, But also

In my last post, I quoted Eric Liddell:

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.

This quote has stuck with me for decades, I guess it’s because I resonate with Liddell’s faith, and I also became a fast runner back in my college days. Nowadays, though, it resonates with me in a completely different and more profound way.

Last November I had the opportunity to travel to Malmö, Sweden. I needed some time to myself, so I gladly accepted the invitation to speak at Øredev. While I was there, I took advantage of my freedom and did quite a lot of reading, thinking, and writing from my miniature and utterly Scandinavian hotel room. It was in that little room that I had an apostrophe.

Through a series of readings, I found myself inside of Christopher Alexander’s “Network of Learning” pattern from A Pattern Language. I’d read it before, but this time it struck me like a bolt of lightning. Over the last 7 years, I had memorized and internalized the premise of the pattern:

In a society which emphasizes teaching, children and students - and adults - become passive and unable to think or act for themselves. Creative, active individuals can only grow up in a society which emphasizes learning instead of teaching.

On that cloudy day in Malmö, though, I finally was ready to absorb the sentence that followed the premise:

Instead of the lock-step of compulsory schooling in a fixed place, work in piecemeal ways to decentralize the process of learning and enrich it through contact with many places and people all over the city.

I got stuck on that sentence for a good long while and eventually sat up, realizing that this sentence described my purpose. Since that moment, this sentence has been in the back of my mind every single day. It helps me understand why apprenticeship and self-directed learning have always been so important to me. And having this sentence in mind has helped me describe to friends and colleagues what I want to work on in the decades ahead. It’s like a filter on all of my interactions that dampens some ideas and amplifies others. It led me to the Chicago Technology Academy and John Seely Brown’s New Culture of Learning. It has pushed me more strongly into supporting people like Gregory Brown’s RbMU and Neal Sales-Griffin’s ideas about a “code academy” in Chicago. And I know these are just the tip of the iceberg.

I feel extremely fortunate to have already found opportunities to work in piecemeal ways in Chicago. To participate in the progress, even on a micro-scale, toward the purpose for which I was created, is a beautiful experience.

I was eating lunch with Neal a couple weeks ago when he asked me about my story of switching from family therapist to software developer. Maybe it was because Neal was a sprinter in high school, but I ended the story with the Liddell quote. And then, unexpectedly, I spontaneously adapted it for me:

I believe God made me for a purpose: to help decentralize learning. But He also made me a natural programmer. And when I code I feel His pleasure.

The self-insight this adapted quote gives me is priceless.

I don’t know how helpful this blog post will be to anyone other than me. I’m blogging it publicly so I can more easily look back on it when I need to refocus on what it is I’m here for. If on the off chance you feel your purpose is parallel to mine, or there is an intersection, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or email me.

Dave Hoover’s Journeyman Tour

Updated on May 17, 2011.

I’m “pinching-myself-excited” about my journeyman tour. I’ve posted the latest version of the itinerary below, with links to the relevant/planned places and people. I’m looking for suggestions about most of these destinations, since almost all of them are new to me. One of the things I’m most excited about is that I’ll have my son Ricky and daughter Rose accompany me for different parts of the road trip (January 17-February 1) as photographer / videographers. I’m so thankful to be a part of a company like Obtiva, who stand behind this sort of activity where we can connect peers, competitors, friends, and colleagues with the wider community. I also have to give a major thank you to Corey Haines for the sole inspiration for this sort of behavior. And of course, a big thanks to all of the people who have invited me to talk to them about what I’m interested in talking about. Stay tuned, I’ll keep updating this as the tour progresses!

Part 1: Completed

November 9-10, Elabs, Göteborg, Sweden

• Pair programmed a bit with Nicklas Ramhöj
• Interviewed CJ Kihlbom: watch on vimeo
• Spoke about “The 9 Reasons You’re Not Apprenticing Anyone” at Got.rb

November 10-14, Øredev, Malmö, Sweden

• The 9 Reasons You’re Not Apprenticing Anyone
• The Principles Behind Groupon
• Interviewed Cory Foy and Michael “Doc” Norton: watch on vimeo

Part 2: Completed

My feelings about this part of the tour

Accompanied by Ricky, my 9 year old son.

January 19-20, Edge Case, Columbus, Ohio, USA

• Pair program with people there
• Interview Matt
• Day 1 blog post
• Day 2 blog post

January 21-23, LeanDog, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

• Visit NimblePros
• Pair program with people at LeanDog
• Presented A 2 Part Talk on a Boat in Cleveland
• Meetup with Joe Fiorini
• Blog post

Ricky flies home. I drive to Virginia from Ohio.

January 24-25, Entryway, Floyd, Virginia, USA

• Pair program with people there
• Day 1 Blog post
• Day 2 Blog post

Rose, my 12 year old daughter, joins me.

January 26-27, Relevance, Durham, North Carolina, USA

• Pair program with people there
• Led discussion on “Stretching toward Incompetency” at lunch

January 27-28, Role Model Software, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

• Pair program
• Discussed differences between craftsmanship-oriented shops
• Dinner with Jared Richardson, Chris Redinger and our daughters

Staci, Ricky, and Charlie arrive for a family weekend in the Outer Banks. Rose leaves (early) with them (to miss the incoming blizzard).

January 31, Norfolk, Virginia, USA

• Visit Brennan at WE ARE TITANS

February 1, Washington DC, USA

• Video brain dump
• Meals with Jeff Casimir and Joe Grossberg

I fly to South Africa.

February 3-4, Rubyfuza, Cape Town, South Africa

• The 9 Reasons You’re Not Apprenticing Anyone
• The Dangers of ActiveRecord lifecycle hooks

Feb 5 (fun with Mad Mimi teammates)

Feb 6 (fly)

Staci, my wife, joins me.

Feb 7-12, speakerconf, Aruba

• Spoke about Stretching Toward Incompetency

Feb 12, sweet home Chicago!

Part 3: Completed

April 2-6, London, England

• Visit the Rempt’s at Holmsted Manor
• Visit Adewale at Google
• Visit Aslak and Dan at DRW
• Visit New Bamboo to pair on Pusher
• Visit Fred at Forward3D to see some microservices and programmer anarchy
• Panel discussion on How can craftsmanship move the industry forwards? with Adewale Oshineye, Dan North, and Chris Parsons at the London Software Craftsmanship Community

April 7-9, Scottish Ruby Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland

• Keynote on craftsmanship/apprenticeship

April 10, home for Staci’s birthday

Answering some questions about my faith

When I was in Cleveland and Cape Town on my journeyman tour, one of the talks I gave was Abe, Ayn, Jerry, Chris … and me. One of the attendees emailed me last month with some tough follow-up questions relating to my Christian faith. We’ve had some epic emails back and forth since then and I figured I’d adapt some of my replies into a blog post.

The “Jerry” in my talk’s title is Jerry Weinberg. In part of my talk, I spoke about an experience I had at AYE 2004 in Jerry and Johanna’s Transforming Rules into Guidelines workshop. Through this workshop, I realized some simple guidelines I could follow that help me to do great work in every aspect of my life:

1. sleep enough
2. be connected with my wife and children
3. be connected with God

My reference to my relationship with God led to the first question…

I’m curious to know more about your faith and how you connect to God while working in a large community that seems full of cynicism of the very things you believe.

Despite that the overall theme of our community is non-Christian, I make it known that I am a Christian, and take note when I see someone else claiming a similar faith, and then try to ensure we cross paths. I have had some of the most amazing and life-changing Christian mentoring come out of the Agile and Ruby communities from two men that I look up to (Ken Auer and Patrick Morrison). Both of these guys are role models to me and have also helped me through some tough times over the years. I literally sat down and prayed with Patrick at SCNA last November. I literally stood in an opening prayer of an XP-style standup meeting with Ken’s team a month ago. Experiences like these help me connect to God in the context of our community.

Reaching out like you’re doing right now is one of the best ways I know of to connect God in the context of our community. This is called communion! :) Being open about your faith on the web opens the door to cross paths with other people who feel like there is no space for spirituality in our field.

I should also mention I’m careful about what I expose myself to in the community. Specifically, I’m diligent about trimming down my Google Reader and Twitter input to a healthy mix of people I agree with and people who expose me to ideas that challenge me. I unfollow negativity and antagonism.

Next question…

I’m curious how your view of mankind and God’s relationship to his creation affects your work as a software craftsman.

The best thing I can do is point to Frederick Brooks’ quotes in The Mythical Man Month, at the beginning and end of his book:

“First is the the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God’s delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.”

“To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one’s bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion. I am very thankful.”

God created us in his likeness. Did he plop us down in Eden as a fully-formed human? Or did we grow over millennia into what we are now? I don’t have the answer, but I believe he started things in motion and that he has a plan. I discovered when I was 26 that the sheer joy of making things, of solving difficult, logically complex problems, and bringing ideas to life via software, was one of the things that I was made to do. I have discovered more things about myself in the 10 years since then. I am thankful every day that I get to do what I was made for while providing my wife and children with a comfortable life.

The “Abe” in my talk’s title was Abraham Maslow. My talk, and subsequent tweets about Maslow led to this question…

You’ve mentioned Maslow; his writings seem to demonstrate that we are innately good. Yet the stories in the Bible describe us as tainted and in need of rescue.

Before I get to the innately good/flawed question… I just read two things from Maslow recently that actually has something to say related to Brooks above:

“The muscular person like to use his muscles, indeed, he has to use them in order to “feel good” and to achieve the subjective feeling of harmonious, successful, uninhibited functioning (spontaneity) which is so important an aspect of good growth and psychological health. So also for intelligence, for the uterus, the eyes, the capacity to love. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are well used. That is, capacities are also needs. Not only is it fun to use our capacities, but it is also necessary for growth. The unused skill or capacity or organ can become a disease center or else atrophy or disappear, thus diminishing the person.”

“We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities. Obviously the most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.”

That integrates cleanly with how I see that we are made by God to glorify him with our talents. It reminds me of my favorite quote from Olympian Eric Liddell from Chariots of Fire:

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.

Like a lot of people, Liddell had many talents. He believed his life’s purpose was to go to China as a missionary. Yet he couldn’t shake the fact that he was born to run. The beauty of his life was how he integrated his athleticism with his faith and purpose.

As I read Maslow, I see a lot of truth. He writes about human nature and the psyche like one would write about internal organs. This style actually makes it easier to integrate than if he had muddied the psychological truth he discovered within a specific religious tradition. Maslow actually believed that humans needed religion (or something like it) to achieve our full potential:

“The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love.”

I’m still reconciling the innately good/flawed conflict between Maslow and the Bible. For now, I’m integrating it via the belief that God originally made us good. This would mean the first humans were self-actualized. When we developed a sin nature, we created a series of obstacles to achieving self-actualization, and created an impassable crevasse between us and God. Maslow focuses on how to remove the obstacles in our way to self-actualization. The Bible focuses on how we can be reconciled to God. I believe God wants for all of his children to accomplish both of these things, and as Maslow recognized, a strong spiritual foundation facilitates self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow agrees with John Resig

I was reading The Maslow Business Reader on the train this morning, just an hour after retweeting in agreement with John Resig’s preference for Github commits over resumes.

What I read on pages 11 and 12 from Maslow was remarkably similar.

I have spoken about dilettantes, for instance (as contrasted with workers and doers), and indicated my contempt for them. I have mentioned how often I have tested people with these fancy aspirations simply by giving them a rather dull but important and worthwhile job to do. Nineteen out of twenty fail the test. … The test for any person is — that is you want to find out whether he’s an apple tree or not — Does He Bear Apples? Does He Bear Fruit? That’s the way you tell the difference between fruitfulness and sterility, between talkers and doers, between the people who change the world and the people who are helpless in it.

“Peak” by Chip Conley

The following is a quote dump from Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, which I read at exactly the right time in my life:

“Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread; for recognition as well as cash; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday-through-Friday sort of dying….We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.” Studs Terkel in “Working”

W. Edward, father of the total quality movement, once said that the primary duty of every leader to to remove fear from the workplace. But organizational wellness doesn’t emerge simply from the absence of fear. Fear must be replaced with a positive spirit of fulfillment and vitality.

“There’s a reason our flight attendants appear happier than those at other airlines. We take them into account when we make key operationg decisions in our company. I’m not sure our competitors do the same.” Gary Kelly, CEO, Southwest Airlines

In this age of commoditization, one of the truly differentiating characteristics of leaders and companies is the quality and durability of the relationships they create.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization….it refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely to the tendency for him to become actually in what is potentially: to become everything one is capable of becoming.” Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management

[Andrew] Kay noticed that his workers were more productive at the end of the assembly line, where finality of the assembly provided a sense of accomplishment.

But is the inability to easily measure something a valid excuse for dismissing its value?

Sustained performers are set apart from their competitors by a higher willingness to engage in activities that increase the longevity of their relationships, both internally and externally.

The shared experience of authenticity facing vulnerability and the sense of connectedness that comes from a focused team can create a true self-actualizing experience in the workplace.

Companies like Apple and Harley-Davidson have become highly successful cult brands by creating self-actualizing experiences for their customers.

Maslow believed that you could learn a lot by the “grumbles and complaints,” as he acknowledged, “human beings will always complain.” Our Joie de Vivre team knew that once we started hearing “higher levels complaints,” like what kinds of classes we were teaching in “JDV University” or how often we had fun company events, we had moved our employees beyond the base of the pyramid mindset.

Reading [Fortune’s annual 100 Best Places to Work] article (which usually appears in January) is a must for any executive who wants to understand best practices with respect to creative competency.

In our time-compressed world, maybe the greatest compensation gift an employer can give its employees is time off. For this reason, for years, Joie de Vivre has offered its salaried (and some of its hourly) employees a one-month paid sabbatical every three years of continuous employment.

What perishible asset can your company make available to your employees that would boost their perception of their compensation package?

As physical hunger needs are met, the kind of hunger people feel most acutely is the hunger for recognition.

Giving authentic recognition to peers is one of the greatest ways to ensure low turnover and high productivity.

So the mantra in your company should be, “Whenever possible, connect with your people in person.”

All work contains drudgery; yet the difference between one job and the next is whether employees have a sense of meaning in what they do.

Companies that know how to harness their technology /and/ empower their people have the potential to deliver customized service that will translate into committed customers.

Technology /enables/ great service, it doesn’t /create/ great service.

“It’s pretty easy to spot an overwhelmingly strong candidate or even an underwhelmingly strong candidate. It’s the ‘whelming’ candidate you must avoid at all costs, because that’s the one who can and will do your organization the most long-lasting harm. Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave of their own volition or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of gretting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And because you either can’t or dont’ fire them, you and they conspire to send a dangerous message to your staff and guests that ‘average’ is acceptable.” Danny Meyer in “Setting the Table”

Your customers aren’t monolithic; therefore, your pyramid needs to be adaptable depending on which customers you’re talking about and their changing tastes.

Companies that create self-actualized customers inspire true devotion and evangelism.

When a company can comprehensively assist customers to reach their highest goals, it has built a deeply engaged relationship.

In his later years, Maslow expanded his Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid from five to eight levels, with the highest level being “self-trancendence,” the almost spiritual sense of being on this planet for something beyond your own personal needs.

Ask Drucker’s famous question, “What business are you in?” or adapt it to, “What business do your customers (or your future customers) wish you were in?”

“The difference between the great and good societies and the regressing, deteriorating societies is largely in terms of the entrepreneurial opportunity and the number of such people in the society. I think everyone would agree that the most valuable 100 people to bring into a deteriorating society would be not 100 chemists, or politicians, or professors, or engineers, but rather 100 entrepreneurs.” Abraham Maslow in “The Maslow Business Reader”

The investor on a path toward self-actualization realizes that the scarce commodity in the investment world isn’t necessarily a good deal but a good partner relationship.

“The secret to great investing isn’t becoming the ultimate whiz kid at financial models or neccesarily being the shrewdest negotiator in the room, it has a lot more to do with building long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and business leaders who deserve your confidence.” Bill Price, co-founder of Texas Pacific Group

When money or ROI becomes the only language that glues a company and its investor together, it is likely this will be a short-lived relationship.

“It seems the more wealth investors accumulate, the smaller and more elite thir social circles become. With that said, they clearly want to remain active in projects, make a contribution and be ‘in the know.’ My experience is that investments allow them to travel outside of their typical social circles into other ‘communities’ for collaboration.” Jack Crawford, Jr., general partner, Velocity Venture Capital

So what can you offer to deepen the relationship with your investors? Is it taking your top investor to the Super Bowl or giving them the opportunity to try out your top-secret new product before it hits the market?

Herbisms: “don’t think about profit, think about customer service; profit is a by-product of customer service” “the customer always comes second; our employees are first” “The tragedy of our time is that we’ve got it backwards … we’ve learned to love techniques and use people.” Herb Kelleher, co-founder, Southwest Airlines

The role of our senior leadership is to create a unique corporate culture and to help it spread throughout all of our businesses.

“We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities. Obviously the most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.” Abraham Maslow

“Failed States” by Noam Chomsky

I’m trying to become more aware of what’s going on in the world. Wikileaks inspired me to dig into all sorts of different news sources. Eventually someone recommended I read Noam Chomsky, and since I had bought Failed States earlier in 2010, I grabbed it and dove in. Ouch. It was as if someone had taped my eyelids open and was forcing me to watch as my ignorance of US foreign policy was destroyed, and depressingly methodically replaced with insights into why so many people on our planet are angry, frustrated, and sometimes vengeful toward us. Ignorance is bliss, for a while, and although it was tough to take, I’m better for sticking with it and seeing us through Chomsky’s eyes. Here are a couple notes I’m leaving here for later reference:

[“Free trade”] guarantees free movement of capital while dismissing free movement of labor, a core principle of free trade for Adam Smith. p. 218

…a few simple suggestions for the United States… (1) accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court; (2) sign and carry forward the Kyoto protocols; (3) let the UN take the lead in international crises; (4) rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror; (5) keep to the traditional interpretation of the UN Charter; (6) give up the Security Council veto and have “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind,” as the Declaration of Independence advises, even if power centers disagree; (7) but back sharply on military spending and sharply increase social spending. For people who believe in democracy, these are very conservative suggestions: they appear to be the opinions of the majority of the US population, in most cases the overwhelming majority. p. 262

The Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship

Dan North says that programming is not a craft. Liz Keogh doesn’t view it that way either. Dan’s post is extensive, and I don’t have time right now to respond to the numerous important points he brings up. So, like Liz, I’ll focus on their take on the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto. I have a ton of respect for both of these people, and while Dan’s post requires some ego-swallowing to digest, I think their writings on this provide extremely valuable feedback to those of us who identify ourselves as (aspiring) software craftsmen.

I was one of the few dozen people at the software craftsmanship summit over two years ago. It was an attempt to start putting some definition around the ideals that had bonded us together over the years since Software Craftsmanship was published. It was an eventful day, facilitated by 8th Light, which culminated in a group discussion that provided enough building blocks for Doug Bradbury to draft the current version of the manifesto based on subsequent discussions on the mailing list.

My takeaway from reading the posts by Dan and Liz, and also Adewale Oshineye’s response to Dan, is that it’s time we revisited our manifesto and release the next iteration based on what we have learned over the last two years. Let’s consider the advice of these experienced, successful, and dedicated software professionals as we consider the next iteration:

Dan:

I would love to see someone rewrite the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto in terms of getting results and delighting customers. I don’t want “steadily adding value,” I want “amazing their customers every day!” Software craftsmen should be egoless, humble, with a focus on the outcome rather than the code or the process.

Ade:

…perhaps we should add a Further Reading section to the Manifesto’s website to help reduce [Dan’s] kind of confusion?

Liz:

I dislike the wording of the manifesto’s points because I don’t think they differentiate between programmers who genuinely care about the value they deliver, programmers who care about the beauty of their code, and programmers who hold a mistaken belief in their own abilities.

Dan:

Now here’s what I want you to do. I do think there should be a Software Craftsmanship Manifesto, but not the thing that’s currently out there. I think it should be a call-to-arms, feisty, opinionated, brash and everything that a good manifesto should be (I’m channelling Kevlin Henney here). I also think there should be a way for passionate, skilled programmers to differentiate themselves from the mainstream commodity bodies, and also to recognise one another, and demonstrate their value to potential employers. What could that be, and how could we make it work?