Today was the first day since New Year the daytime temperature got above freezing in WB. Was able to leave work a little early, during daylight, and after a quick errand, I decided to stop by Kirby Park to see if the paths were runnable. The park paths were clear, so I decided to climb up onto the levee to see if the riverside path was ok. It looked pretty dry, but on my way downhill to the car I slipped on a patch of black ice and fell right on my ass. Scraped the hell out of my right arm.
I did motivate myself to do a 6 x 1/4 mile interval workout on the treadmill back at the hotel. Not a lot of fun, but having the intervals as goals make the time go by quicker. Ran 4-miles total. Showered, then sat in the whirlpool and swam a few laps. I rarely swim - must have been inspired by “Up in the Air.”
I gave this blog a running name, but have rarely written about running. The name is only obliquely about the sport - the title is that of a wonderful Russian/Soviet movie of the 1980s. The film is Chekhovian in more ways than one. At the time I started the blog, I had run for many years, but wasn’t sure if the sport would sustain my interest. In the past year, I ran over 1300 miles, competed in a bunch of races, found a great running team and generally started feeling less like a guy who exercises and more like an amateur athlete. Not sure when, but maybe someday, “Autumn Marathon” will be a more literal title.
Prospect Park, Brooklyn 1886
Amazing photo! As someone who spends lots of time in Prospect Park, even I am not sure that I know where it was taken. Could it be main roadway bridge very close to Grand Army Plaza?
Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of our family’s move to Brooklyn. We moved into a rented apartment and the kids started at PS 29. Economically, NYC was enjoying a bull market and the dot.com boom. I had just started a position at a dot.com myself. The IT world was concerned about overcoming the “Y2K problem.”
People didn’t know it yet, but all of these things were contributing to an inflationary bubble which would burst over the subsequent 18 months. It was an exciting time. Folks made big plans to celebrate the turn of the century. December 31 turned out to be an interesting day for many, including the virtually unknown Vladimir Putin who, judging from the expression on his face, was just as surprised as the rest of us by the New Year’s eve resignation of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
It has been an eventful decade for all of us and over the next several posts, I’ll devote some thought and a few words to reflecting on all that has happened.
Excellent post on neighborhood history from the premier Brooklyn history blog, Brooklynology published by the BPL.
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Globalization has garnered particular attention in the high-tech fields for a number of valid reasons. First of all, the high-tech workforce in the US is particularly diverse in its international origins and has been since the 1960s. Second, the nature of the work, particularly in software development, lends itself more easily to remote or distributed work, than many other kinds of work ranging from manufacturing to provision of services which require an “on-site” presence. These two factors helped lead the information technology industry to become a kind of standard bearer for “outsourced” and or “offshore” business models.
My long-time employer, Sun Microsystems, was not unlike many companies in its adoption of an offshore product development model. Founded in the early 1980s by a quartet that included an Indian and a German, it employed a cosmopolitan engineering force in California for its first 10 years before initiating product localization in Japan. During the talent shortages occasioned by the dot-com boom in the late ’90s, the emphasis moved to accessing hidden talent in places like India and China. After the subsequent “dot-bomb crash,” cost savings that could be realized by employing engineers at roughly 1/4 the Silicon Valley rate became a major motivation. Recently, the idea has been that by developing products in emerging economies, particularly in the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), the company would enjoy greater success accessing those markets.
Since leaving Sun, I have been surprised at the degree to which the smaller businesses, non-profit organizations and political movements with which I have worked are also globalized. Ever wider availability of free software tools have made it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to give a professional and very “big” impression. In just a couple of years, we have moved from free email to telephone and video conferences, project management and CRM tools, custom web domains, blogs and wikis. Small organizations are now just as able to access remote talent and work with specialized vendors (outsourcers) as large companies.
These technologies have enabled very positive trends. They allow (even require) a degree of agility greater than any before - companies and movements are able to get off the ground in a matter of days. The technology also enables collaboration among individuals and groups in different countries which, in the long run, makes nations themselves more amenable to collaboration and diplomacy than to more hostile interaction. That’s a bit of a political aside in this article, but I strongly believe it to be true and worth noting.
Yet, as widespread as these technologies and work practices are becoming, my observation is also that organizations do not think through the reasons for deploying them. They almost always exaggerate the cost savings as lower wages are offset by communications, travel and other expenses. They almost always overlook the need for implementing a different (and usually more heavy-duty) form of project management. They tend to overlook the human dynamics of working in a distributed fashion i.e., are people in one disadvantaged in terms of effectiveness, visibility, enjoyment of work, career advancement, etc.?
For these among other reasons, globalized projects often fail to achieve their business objectives: I am writing a book chapter about global teams working on software projects. There are plenty of examples from my own experience that I will draw on, but would really appreciate some input from my friends and colleagues. Do any of you have stories that illustrate the points made above? Or do you disagree with my ideas and have others points to make? If so, would really appreciate your leaving them in the comments to the blog or writing to me directly.
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Tina Seelig, Stanford - Fail Quickly and Often
I recently lucked into a fabulous consulting engagement with an entrepreneurial start-up company which is launching a transformative IT product. It’s just the sort of company that I despaired of finding in New York City (such companies are much easier to find in California or in other pockets of the US). Though it’s a product I believe in and with people I can trust, I am avoiding treating this as just a job, and not only because I have not been offered an official position. I’m trying to heed advice that I pass on to aspiring entrepreneurs of all ages, given by Tina Seeling, Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures program and author of the book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. Two of her ten lessons are:
There are a hundred reasons why a company like this can fail even if the basic idea is correct - bad timing, insufficient funding, poor implementation of the concept, stronger competitors, Just to name a few. And there are dozens of reasons why I might not be the right person to help the company: not technical enough, not salesman enough, personality conflict with the founder, with colleagues, etc. But in less than two weeks, I have developed some strong ideas about what the company can do to increase it’s chances of success. I’m not going to wait for someone to make these part of my job description to start making them happen. And if I do fail, I need to fail quickly, learn some lessons, and move onto the next venture.
Spring Half Marathon
On Saturday, I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon - my athletic goal for the past six months. It was a warm, humid day and the race was huge - nearly 12,000 participants announced by the NY Road Runners club. Perhaps because of the size of the race, the weather and a head cold (the lingering souvenir of a recent business trip), I ran quite a bit slower than expected, finishing the race in an official time of 2:02:55. The first 3-4 miles felt ok - I was running 8 minute to 8:30 minute/mile pace which was around my target for the entire event. But as we ascended the final hill in Prospect Park, my energy and pace dropped off significantly. The final six miles of the race were flat and boring heading out to the beach and each one felt as if it could be my last. By mile 10-11, my pace must have been 10 minutes/mile or slower. Final time represented a pace no faster than some of my longer training runs. Nevertheless, getting to the finish line meant accomplishing an important goal which is to be acknowledged and celebrated. It was fun to hang out by the beach for a few minutes with my PPTC teammates. Running with a team is soooo much more fun that working out by myself: the “Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” is definitely overrated.
It’s summertime now, even if the calendar doesn’t admit it yet, so now is the season to enjoy the beach, some tennis as well as faster and better runs!
Photo from Flickr (via mason13a)