It Seems To Me

Thoughts and Rants on Technology, Business and Politics

After a long hiatus, this blog is relaunching on a new site using WordPress rather than b2Evolution. Please join me over at ItSeemsToMe.com

Cheers,
Heather

Never Eat Alone : And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

By Keith Ferrazzi (with Tahl Raz)

Every once in a while I read a book that profoundly changes the way that I think and act. Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi, is my current foundation rocker. This is a highly recommended book for anyone who aspires to be successful in business and in life.

I have a natural tendency towards being an introvert and it is always an effort for me to stay in touch with people. Keith Ferrazzi has set me free. His simple, straight-forward, and inspirational book spells out the principles and practices of building and maintaining a successful network. Ferrazzi claims to have more than 5,000 people on his Palm who will answer the phone when he calls. I believe him. I may never achieve such a rich contact list but I have a new-found confidence in reaching out and leveraging my network.

Ferrazzi’s philosophy is simple and profound. It is built upon the presumption you’re your network is a valuable asset. You take it with you wherever you go, to each new position, to each new encounter. The strength of your network is part of your value to a company. As a valuable asset, your network takes effort to build and maintain. Without constant maintenance it will wither into disrepair.

The key pillar of Ferrazzi’s networking philosophy is that it is not about what your network can do for you, but rather, it’s about what your network can do for others. He says that, “Real networking is about finding ways to make other people successful.” This is a deeply rewarding experience when it happens. It changes the way you look at people you meet. Ferrazzi says that if he is going to take the time to meet with someone, he is going to try and make that person successful.

After establishing his mindset for networking, Ferrazzi goes on for twenty four chapters with page after page of practical guidelines for networking. He defines the follow-up protocol after meeting with someone. Should you send an e-mail? Should you send it right away? Or wait a few days so you don’t look to aggressive. Ferrazzi says to always follow up and do so within 24 hours. Include a few comments that will help the person remember you and then follow up again in one to three months.

Other useful highlights include the Hollywood adage to never disappear. Always be reaching out. Ferrazzi recommends using whatever electronic tools and devices that suit you but take an active role in managing your contact list. Organize your contacts into those who get a monthly call or note, a quarterly ping as well as a general list that receive an annual update. Leverage the time-honored practice of forwarding articles that people may find interesting. Remember friend’s birthdays. Call people when you are in town – never eat alone.

And don’t assume that your contact list is limited to people you have already met. Maintain an aspirational list of contacts as well. Create a category for people you would like to meet and then actively look for ways to forge connections to those people.

There are thirty one chapters to this highly practical book with each chapter averaging less than ten pages. I have taken to reading a chapter each morning as kind of inspirational reading. With titles ranging from the highly practical, like “How to Leverage Conferences” or “The Art of Small Talk” to the deeply personal, like “Be Interesting” or “Never Give In To Hubris” each chapter is a treasure trove of insights and actions to make professional and personal lives more rewarding. This is an excellent read if you are looking to grow your network and your career.

On January 14, a new world record was set for solving the Rubik’s Cube. The previous record was 11.75 seconds which has now been shaved to 11.13 seconds! Can this be true? The SF Gate has a great write-up of the event. But to be truly amazed, watch this five minute video.

 But speed is not the only thing that is amazing about the new generation of speed cubers. The World Championships had 5 categories of competition:

• 3 x 3 x 3 Speedsolve
• 3 x 3 x 3 Blindfolded
• 3 x 3 x 3 One Handed
• 4 x 4 x 4 Speedsolve
• 5 x 5 x 5 Speedsolve

One handed cubing is a marvel of dexterity. But solving the cube blindfolded borders on magic. There are even a few people in the world who can solve three or more cubes blindfolded. According to Angela Hayden, blindfold cubing requires no more than the learning of 5 algorithms and the memorisation skills equivalent to remembering about 40 digits. I appreciate your modesty Angela, but solving the cube in less than 20 seconds, or while wearing a blindfold, is not just magic, it is downright awesome.

It was 25 years ago when I fell victim to my first Rubik’s Cube. I was a senior in college studying mathematics and physics. I felt an obligation to my academic disciplines to solve the little devil. A roommate and I spent three months obsessed with the puzzle. The Internet was not available yet and the tell-all books with step-by-step solutions had yet to be written. We would spend hours twisting and turning the coloured labels on the magic cube. We slowly figured out a number of moves (or “algorithms” as the cubers call them today) that would move a single cube from one face to another without disturbing other cubes. We wrote them down in our own cryptic code. By the time we had about a dozen unique algorithms we realized that we had enough moves to solve the damn thing. It was a glorious day when each face was monochromatic.

At my very best, I was able to solve the cube in 63 seconds. Try as I may, I was never able to get below 60 seconds. Perhaps if I had some optimised algorithms that I could have memorised . . . .

Watch the video again. Or take a look at the video clip of the 11.75 second world record. I caught the first wave of Rubik mania back in the early 80’s. It is a joy to see that the magic is still alive.

I opened Windows Media Player recently and immediately understood why the iPod is rocking the world. According to Steve's keynote address at the recent MacWorld, Apple has sold 42 million iPods so far. I have done my share.

I have owned 6 iPods and my partner is on her second. Two of my previous hard-drive based iPods died after hitting the hard floor one too many times, and one was stolen when our house was robbed. Now, according to my (distorted) calculations, 42 million iPods sold equates to a penetration of only about 6 - 10 million households. But lo, I digress.

Everyone marvels at the elegance of the iPod and the intuitive simplicity of the interface. I can't disagree. The Nano is an amazing device - perfect size and almost weightless. I carry mine everywhere.

But it is not the iPod's design (and it certainly isn't its price) that is driving iPod sales. No, the reason that Apple's iPod continues to trounce all of its competitors is because of the ultimate simplicity in loading the iPod with things you want to hear. Most other MP3 player makers rely on Windows Media Player, WinAmp or their own applications to enable you to transfer songs and audio files to your portable player. Unfortunately, these other media managers pale compared to the simplicity of synchronizing your iPod with iTunes. You install iTunes, you plug in an iPod, and you choose what music / playlists you want, and you take it with you. Of course, buying new music from the iTunes music store couldn't be much easier as well.

In contrast, I opened Windows Media Player the other day and it immediately started copying MP3 files to a USB thumb drive that I happened to have connected. This was going on in the background until, 250 MB of copied files later, I figured out what was happening. Navigating and organising your music in iTunes is much easier than in Windows Media Player. And iTunes only tries to add music to a connected iPod, not every portable storage device that might be attached.

Computers still have a long way to go towards being simple and easy to use but iTunes is the star player at the moment. No one will usurp iPod's market dominance by making a better, faster, cheaper, easier, more elegant, more stylish, or larger capacity player. The iPod's dominance can only be threatened by someone who can make it even easier to get what you want on your portable player when and where you want it.

All this is not to say that the iPod / iTunes combo is not without its shortcomings. But I shall leave such rants for another day.

I have become fascinated of late by the millions of people who spend a significant amount of time each week in blogging, writing, coding, recording, and all manner of publishing for little or no financial remuneration. On a recent episode of The Podcast Brothers Tim and Emile interviewed Doug Kaye of IT Conversations. Doug said that he was experimenting with an open source production model in which volunteers help with the acquisition, assembly, production and publication of content. At this point it struck home to me that the open source movement has moved beyond the great software developers who have built Linux and Firefox.

Consider these other great "open source" movements:

• Wikipedia offers 500,000 articles in English — compared with Britannica's 80,000 and Encarta's 4,500 — fashioned by more than 16,000 contributors. Tack on the editions in 75 other languages, including Esperanto and Kurdish, and the total Wikipedia article count tops 1.3 million. Behind the scenes there is a group of about 200 people who are in constant communication. They discuss standards, policies, sharing information about what is going on and play the role of an informal editorial body.
• iPodder.org recently passed 5,000 podcasts actively tracked in the directory. Many of these podcasts, such as Adam Curry's Daily Source Code, or the Richard Vobes Show are 30 - 40 minute productions presented five days per week. Creating a podcast is a non-trivial activity. It takes time, money, and effort to prepare, record, produce and publish each of these shows. Although Adam may have an ulterior motive to help promote his burgeoning company, most other podcasters are fuelled by some other motivation.
• over 10 million people have posted reviews on Amazon.cam. Thousands upon thousands of these reviews are detailed and well written. Such writing take time and effort — for no apparent financial reward.
• And of course there are the millions of blogs that are created by amateurs for no reward other than the satisfaction of having a presence on the Internet.

What amazes me is that the millions of people involved in these ventures have the motivation and the inclination to invest their time to do so. We are in the midst of an Open Source generation in which people are giving of themselves and adding value to our everyday lives in millions of small ways.

As I was growing up and entering the workforce I got the message that if you worked hard you would get ahead. Those who worked the hardest would climb the farthest on the corporate ladder. Your progress would be the source of meaning and satisfaction in your life. People worked long hours with the expectation that their careers would move ahead.

In the last few years the source of meaning appears to have changed. It seems to me that people have become wise to the limited space at the top of the corporate ladder and have redirected their interests and their time outside of work. The Open source movement allows people to contribute to ever increasing connected world in whatever way they can. Whether it is adding entries for Wikipedia, adding functionality to software, or editing audio content for IT Conversations, there is a creative outlet for everyone online. And I believe that the world is a better place for it.

Subscription based services are generally considered to be good business models. Once you have a customer hooked on a subscription it is much easier (and cheaper) to retain them than to acquire new subscribers. It amazes me, then, when I discover subscription based services that have no mechanism to notify me that my subscription is about to expire and no easy method to renew my subscription.

I used to have this problem with Audible.com. At one time I was subscribed to at least a half-dozen NPR shows from Audible with various expiration dates. My subscriptions would frequently expire and I would only discover it after a few days (or weeks) when it occurred to me that I was missing some regular content that I had come to expect. I would faithfully return to their web site to renew but only after being frustrated and finding that I had inevitably missed an episode or two. Thankfully, Audible has upgraded their systems to provide renewal notices.

This week I encountered the same negligence in subscriber retention with Spy Sweeper software. I purchased Spy Sweeper more than a year ago and have stayed current with the latest spyware definitions and scanning engine. As a result, the latest version 3.5 of the scanning engine is already installed on my system.

Recently I noticed that Spy Sweeper was prompting me every day that new spyware definitions were available. When I told it to update, nothing would happen. After a few weeks of this unusual behaviour I took a closer look and discovered that my subscription had expired.

It is a little disturbing to me that there was not a more visible notification that my subscription, and thus my protection from the latest nasties in spyware, had expired.

Nevertheless, upon my discovery, I went to their web site to upgrade. I completed my purchase only to discover further that there is no way to update my current subscription on the installed software. The only way to apply my subscription renewal was to reinstall the software and enter my new key code. This is ridiculous! — not to mention cumbersome. I happen to be travelling a lot these days and only have access to a dial-up connection. In order to extend my subscription I have to download the software again over a slow connection and reinstall.

I wrote to the help desk at Webroot asking if it was true that my only option was to reinstall the software. I also suggested that they add an item to their development roadmap: an interface that makes it easier for the end user to extend their subscription without reinstalling the software.

They responded to my inquiry with the following canned reply, serving only to exacerbate my disappointment in the company:

Hello,

We are sorry that you are encountering difficulty with our software. You will need to uninstall your any versions of Spy Sweeper and upgrade to the newest version of our software.

To uninstall, close spysweeper by right clicking on the spy sweeper icon in your system tray (by the time clock) and click on close, select the start button, select control panel, select add/remove programs, locate Spy Sweeper and, select the change/remove button, once the uninstall finishes please reboot your computer.

We have sent you an email containing your key code and a link to download the software. During your download please disable all firewall software/web accelerators/download managers because this may interfere with the integrity of the downloaded file.

Save the file to your desktop and once the download is complete open that install file by double clicking on the saved file on your desktop named sspsetup1_.exe

If you are having problems locating the file after downloading, click start, search, for files or folders, on the left choose "all files and folders", search for "sspsetup" This will locate the file for you. Double click on the file and follow the directions to install the software.

If you continue to have any difficulty with our product please re-open this ticket or call us.

Sincerely,

The Webroot Team

Spy Sweeper received editor's choice on PC magazine. I guess the PCMag Labs never ran the software long enough to let the subscription expire.

Yahoo! is now reporting my sites as the first three entries that it returns when searching for Heather Hollick. I have to assume that Yahoo! is giving priority to the keywords embedded in the web page and is correctly listing these pages high in the search results.

Unfortunately, my results in Google are still dominated by sites where my name occurs but have a higher number of links pointing to the site.

It looks like Microsoft Search returns results somewhere in the middle. My CV site, along with this blog are returned on the first page. Unfortunately, Living in London does not appear in the first few pages of their search.

Until I discovered this anomaly in Google, I used it exclusively as my search engine. Now I realize the effect of their bias: they will return the most popular sites — not necessarily the most relevant. I think I will be using Yahoo! search much more often.

I currently maintain three web sites that define my primary web presence: this site; hhollick.com, where I present my CV in full detail; and Living in London, where my partner and I chronicle our adventures as expats on assignment in the UK.

You would think that if someone were looking for Heather Hollick on the Internet, that these three sites should be at the top of the search results. Yet, much to my dismay, I cannot get the two blog sites to appear in either Google or Yahoo! searches. There are plenty of instances of my name appearing in obscure comments on other people's blogs, but my blogs are not returned. Go figure!

I am grateful that my CV site is at the top of the results for both search engines but what do I have to do to get the blog sites to appear there as well? I have tried adding my name as part of the HTML meta tag for keywords but to no avail.

I have been told that I can go out to a bunch of other blogs and post comments, linking back to my own blogs as a reference in the comment. Right! I do my share of commenting when I have something to say but I don't want to get caught up in the senseless circle of linking to other people just so they will link back to me.

I don't care if my sites are popular. I am not trying to break into the A-List, or even the B-list of blogging. But when someone is looking for me on the internet, and searches using my name, it seems to me that the search results should return the three sites that define my primary presence on the web.

I guess I will have to try plastering my name all over the blog posts. So, from London, this is Heather Hollick signing off.

Be careful out there.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

—Calvin Coolidge

As I continue my job search here in the UK, I occasionally check the online job boards for positions that might appeal to me. The job openings listed on these sites are almost exclusively posted by head-hunters and recruiters. The dynamic between these agencies and the client company presents what I consider to be a most unfortunate hiring scenario.

Inevitably, the recruiters and agencies are inundated with a deluge of CVs for each position. They whittle the stack down to a few candidates who match the job description in every detail. That is, they have 3 - 5 candidates who have previously done this exact job, in this exact industry. These square pegs are offered to the client for a fit into a square hole.

What is wrong with this picture? Why would you hire someone who has done the exact job in the same industry? Employees perform best when they are challenged—when they are stretched to grow into new areas. Instead of square pegs in square holes, you should hire people for whom your position is the next step in their career development. Identifying this potential is much harder than checking of a list of requirements but it is absolutely essential to find the people who will grow your business while they grow themselves.

The dysfunction of the recruiter / client relationship is that the recruiter is forced to put forth vanilla candidates that precisely match some sterile list of requirements. There is no room to find the dynamic, ambitious, energetic candidate who can master a new environment quickly and thrive in the new role.

And yet, I remain optimistic . . .