Disambiguator

You’re a smart person. You made good grades. You get all the jokes and you generally understand what’s going on. Good for you.

Now you’re a manager. If you avoided the temptation to hire people dumber than you, your staff is at least as smart as you are. Now what?

People want to feel valued. They want to help others and to solve problems. Warning: Don’t solve the problems for them. You’ll ruin their job. If you solve all the problems and then tell people how to implement the solution, your staff will rightly conclude that you don’t need problem-solvers; you need minions. They will go work for someone who needs a problem-solver, leaving you with an open seat to hire a drone.

Showing confidence in your people requires that you leave some problems unsolved. Put the need on the table in its raw form and let your smart people suggest alternatives; then give guidance. Don’t reject all the solutions and solve the problem yourself. That’s worse than giving them the answer in the first place because now you’ve not only reminded them of your employee-as-drone expectation, but you’ve wasted their time as well.

Letting go of being the chief problem solver requires humility. If you feel insecure outside of being the alpha dog engineer, you’ll struggle as a manager. Hopefully, you are finding new satisfaction in learning management skills like envisioning, planning, mentoring, encouragement, team building and other skills required by a growing organization. As you empower your people to be valued problem solvers, the organization can grow and pick up speed.

Writing a succinct and compelling one-minute pitch is hard. This online tool from Harvard University helps by breaking it into pieces and helping you analyze the length and timing.

Here’s where I ended up (click to enlarge):

I have been a long time fan of Gmail. When I got the chance to use Google Apps mail for my company and keep the great features of Gmail, I made the leap.

For the most part, everything works as expected. It’s fast, available almost every time I need it, and it the user experience is smooth. Until it’s not.

Today, for example, I wanted to update my Services for the domain. I logged in, turned on a service and turned off another… then hit the Save buttton. Here’s the highly informative message I got:

Naturally, since these apps are always available, I translated “later” as “5 seconds later” and tried it again. Same result. Generously expanding my notion of later to five minutes, I tried again. You know the answer already.

So the question is, when will I be able to do perform a function that I cannot do now? In two minutes? An hour from now? Tomorrow?

The issue is not that services go down. No one believes that computers never have problems. The issue is one of setting expectations properly so that people who are using your service don’t waste their time. If you tell me, for example, that “The server is too busy. Please wait 30 minutes and try again.“, I might not be happy, but I know what to do next: Pop into the break room and refresh my coffee, chat with the new employee for a few minutes, and come back (or, perhaps, do some real work). What I know NOT to do is keep trying the same function in my linear-progress-zealot fashion, hoping that I can check it off my list in the next 10 minutes.

Well, that was a lot of words for me. I hope the blog server is working when I hit the Save button on this!

When the project is over, it is the people I worked with that get remembered, not the project.

I don’t remember who won the methodology argument (if it was won at all), but I do remember the tone of the discussion and how team members treated each other.

I don’t remember who said what in various meetings, but I remember who was wise, kind, helpful.

I remember the Julia Roberts laugh of one and the thoughtful gifts of another.
I remember the creative puns of the architect and the good-natured banter of the QAs.

I remember the cheerful morning hello and the warm smile that lights up a room.

Projects are never about technology. They are always about how a group of people can use every tool at their disposal to help others be successful. Projects come and go. The people are what matters. Always the people.

The answer to “who” is: Michael Wilkes. This pie chart is the answer to “what.” How the core skills, developed over 28 years, break down to create a unique software project asset.

• Business Analyst – Passion to get it right, prevent rework
• Developer – Decades as a coder, problem solver
• Designer – Practical UI design based on real-world experience
• Project Manager – Focused on delivering, time-to-market

I used Wordle.net to mix the words related by my Business Analyst role. Here is the result. Click on the image to see it full size:

title="Wordle: Disambiguator"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/3407379/Disambiguator"
alt="Wordle: Disambiguator"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

As a former chapter president of the Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA), I contributed time, organization, and consensus building to our merry little band of technical do-gooders.

The ICCA, however, is where I first learned how to be specific in my verbal marketing (a.k.a. Info-Minute, elevator speech). At our chapter meetings, person after person would stand up during intro time and say something like, “My name is Bob the geek and I’ve been doing computers for about 5 years. I can handle about anything that people need with computers.” Snore-fest.

Then one day, a fellow named Mark stood up and pulled a credit card out of his pocket and said, “I program smart cards,” and sat down. I will never forget Mark or the lesson learned: In a room that seemed full of competitors who all did the same thing (when expressed generically), Mark stood out by having a specific niche and, by doing so, created a room full of referral partners.

Like Zig Ziglar says… it’s much better to be a Meaningful Specific than a Wandering Generality.
 

Our Best of 2010 post included DimDim, our favorite free online screen sharing software at the time. Within days, SalesForce.com announced the purchase of DimDim. Suddenly our free account had a notice that soon it would no longer be free. Welcome to life on the internet!

So… a fresh round of research later, we have a new list for you. Each of these products has a free version and requires no installation of software. In other words, you can jump right in and create an account — then use it to share your screen within minutes.

Happy collaborating!

• Yuuguu
• Vyew
• Mikogo
• Banckle

Just for you, I went through ALL of the PC Magazine Top 100 websites of 2010!
Here are six that you should think about using (or using again)…

Dimdim (http://www.dimdim.com)
Free online live meetings. Share documents, make your pitch or collaborate with partners. Dimdim’s simple user interface lets you focus on holding great meetings.

Google Docs (http://docs.google.com)
Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings and more. All online. All free. What’s better than free?

MakeUseOf (http://www.makeuseof.com)
Like the name says — this site is chock full of things that are actually useful. Unlike some sites that only try to wow you with what is cool and hip, this site focuses on sites, services, software and more that you can use to save time, save money, and just plain execute better or faster. I have many sites bookmarked in my Google reader, but I return to this site again and again for practical stuff that I can use and/or pass along to others.

Amazon (http://www.amazon.com)
Sure, they sell books. But did you know they sell tons of other things in twenty-eight categories from Automotive to Watches? I bought nearly all of my Christmas gifts online this year. Can you imagine all the time (and dents) I saved by NOT getting near a mall? If you value your time as much as I do, you’ll keep a running wishlist on Amazon and order from them whenever you can get the free shipping. It’s a breeze.

FlockDraw (http://flockdraw.com)
Sometimes words are just not enough, especially for your friends and prospects that are visually oriented. When you can’t get your point across verbally, toss them a custom link from this site and draw a diagram together — right now — without even signing up! Brilliant.

Fiverr (http://www.fiverr.com)
Need an article written? Site promoted? Video testimonial created? Poem written? Get it done here — where everything is $5.00. Are there strange people here? Yes. But also the gifted and creative. Sometimes their boredom is your opportunity. Troll for some good deals but buyer beware.

PURPOSE-DRIVEN

Is your website clear on its purpose? Take a moment to review our massive list of goals that your website can have. If your site is not producing material results for your business, perhaps 2011 is the year to refine its focus and breathe new life into your online presence.
http://sitemast.com/services/website-purpose

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