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TwitterThe Tyler (Applying for a Job) Test
Thursday, October 20th, 2011I was reminded of this list today by my great coworking Brian. Originally inspired by the Joel Test I wrote the original version of this a while ago for what my ideal job environment would be. Some of it is web development specific and borders on prima-donna like demands, but I believe most of them apply to nearly any job.
- Do you offer all of your employees the best tools to do their job?
- Are you doing anything to make the workplace annoying?
- Does process interfere with getting things done?
- Will you trust me to set my own hours?
- Will you let me explore new ways to solve problems?
- Are you looking for a ninja, rockstar or guru?
- Can I be proud of my work and the company?
- Can we communicate openly? This begins with responsive communication during the job application process.
- Do we have a vision for what we are doing before we begin or set a deadline.
- Do you throw money or people at a problem?
You don’t write code, you maintain code.
Friday, September 16th, 2011Depending on where you read, but software maintenance is 60-90% of project costs. [reference]
Remember that.
Keep Reading » Comments OffGreat talk from Business of Software Past.
Thursday, September 15th, 2011Very much enjoyed this talk from Scott Farquhar of Atlassian about building his company.
My takeaway highlight was their company values.
- Open company
- no bullshit
- Build with heart and balance
- Don’t fuck the customer
- Play as a team
- Be the change you seek.
Weekend in the Berkshires.
Sunday, September 4th, 2011Love it up here with Johanna’s family. Went to the Norman Rockwell museum.
My favorite:
I love common sense responses.
Friday, September 2nd, 2011I’m a huge fan of Google Chrome for lots of reasons. I have my work Macbook Pro with me 90% of the time, to the point that I don’t even own another computer anymore. When my wife wanted to get a new computer, because her ancient dell laptop died, I suggested we just share a Macbook Pro. Anyway, getting it setup was super easy because all of my saved passwords, extensions, etc were synched with Chrome.
I lock my work computer all of the time, but realized that since we were sharing it, maybe I should password protect Chrome. A simple google search landed me on the suggestions page with pages and pages of requests asking for a Master Password (similar to Firefox)
I thought the response by Blair, a Google employee was perfect. I think there is a huge lack of this willingness to make a design decision and stand by it in the world.
Hi everybody,
We understand that many of you want a master password for your saved passwords in Google Chrome. You’ve laid out many scenarios in which this might be useful, but the most common is that if your computer were to fall into the wrong hands, that person would then have access to your saved passwords.
While we agree that this situation would be terrible, we believe that a master password would not sufficiently protect you from danger. Someone with physical access to your computer could install a keylogger to steal your passwords or go to the sites where your passwords are stored and get them from the automatically filled-in password fields. A master password required to show saved passwords would not prevent these outcomes.
Currently, the best method for protecting your saved passwords is to lock your computer whenever you step away from it, even for a short period of time. We encrypt your saved passwords on your hard disk. To access these passwords, someone would either need to log in as you or circumvent the encryption.
We know this is a long-standing issue, and we see where you’re coming from. Please know that your security is our highest priority, and our decision not to implement the master password feature is based on our belief that it creates a false sense of security instead of actually providing a strong security benefit.
Best,
Blair
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Bicycle Companies, Customer Service, and Scalability
Friday, August 19th, 2011I haven’t written much about work. As many of you know, I’ve had a “real job” since November, working for Cycling Sports Group, or as I tell most people “Cannondale“. We’re a pretty large bicycle manufacturer, with four major brands (Cannondale, GT, Schwinn, Mongoose) as well as some other great companies. We have a tiny, but great web development team of 2.5 people and we share space with the Web Marketing team.
Technologically speaking, we are in many ways an Enterprise company, but I’ll write more about that some other time.
This is really a rant about scalability and customer service.
I remember when Groupon first started taking off, I was doing work with a lot of independent retail stores, and some thought it was the best thing ever, some were skeptical.
My dislike of the company came from the fact that it couldn’t work. While they got huge amounts of people to walk through the door, they were only customers at a specific (ridiculously discounted) price point, but would never be customers at regular prices. Groupon would eventually turn into restaurant.com, a great business, but not the next coming of Christ.
I feel the same way about customer service. Even though he’s kind of a douchebag, Tim Ferriss laid out a great sustainable practice.
Keep the customer happy. If it is a problem that takes less than $100 to fix, use your judgement and fix it yourself.
When I hear about stuff like the Morton’s Steakhouse customer service handjob to a kind of douche, or other suck ups to known high profile personalities, I think the way most readers do, “hey, that’s great, going out of your way to make one customer feel special” It’s like hearing someone on your local news, or This American Life receive the spotlight, and think, hey, they are just like me.
But how can you make that scalable. Clearly Morton’s isn’t going to do that for all customers,or even all big spenders. But it can happen. They’ve created the dream. I just wonder if that raises the expectation to create a let-down when things are less than spectacular. Or should the focus be on creating a reliable business and customer service practices.
Keep Reading » Comments Off
A Great Explanation of “Marketing Bullshit”
Thursday, April 21st, 2011Keep Reading » Comments OffYou should understand that marketers keeps brands/products relevant to consumers and consistently innovate and update how companies talk to their audience. Who are they? Where do they go online? What are their motivations? What are the barriers to entry? How can you gain their trust?
Learning from marketing “bullshit” can lead you to develop some great opportunities.
- Adam Horowitz (@seoptimizer)