Here’s this week’s links:

• Great post about how experts cause more failures. Nice comparison between software and other processes, and how communication is often the main reason for failure, not how skilled or talented individual performers are.
• Top 200 blogs for developers.  When I see these lists I’m reminded first how many blogs there are, and then how many I don’t know about.
• Tools of Escape. In this case necessity is the mother of invention, as these ingenious tools were made by inmates in German prisons. These are AMAZING.
• A brief history of social media. Nice graphic showing the history of digital social media from 1997 to 2007.

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While I like and use Facebook and Twitter, there’s enough hype and abuse of words like innovation, transformation and revolution around all things social media that a critique is warranted - if only to  take a shot at calibrating how people talk about this stuff. I hope this post is used whenever someone feels they’re being sold something phony or that makes little sense and wants a skeptical opinion to help calibrate where the truth is.

For starters: social media is a stupid term. Is there any anti-social media out there? Of course not. All media, by definition, is social in some way. The term interactive media, a more accurate term for what’s going on, lived out its own rise / hype / boom cycle years ago and was smartly ignored this time around - first rule of PR is never re-use a dead buzzword, even if all that you have left are stupid ones. I’ve been involved in many stupid terms, from push-technology to parental-controls, so I should know when I see one.

That said, here’s some points not made often enough:

1. We have always had social networks. Call them families, tribes, clubs, cliques or even towns, cities and nations.  You could call throwing a party or telling stories by a fire “social media tools”. If anything has happened recently it’s not the birth of social networks, it’s the popularity of digital tools for social networks, which is something different. These tools may improve how we relate to each other, but at best it will improve upon something we as a species have always done. Never forget social networks are old. The best tools will come from people who recognize, and learn from, the rich 10,000+ year history of social networks.
2. There has always been word of mouth, back-channel, “authentic” media tools. In Gladatorial Rome, in Shakespearean England and in Revolutionary America, motivated individuals had ways to express their ideas and share them. Call it gossip, poems, paintings or pamphlets, there is a long history of individuals taking action to express opinions through non-official channels. The ease of using these channels changes over time, but they always exist because #1 always exists.  Of note, IRC predates some, but certainly not all, of the features twitter is heralded for introducing to the world.
3. The new media does not necessarily destroy the old. TV was supposed to kill radio - this was wrong. TV forced radio to change and in some ways improve. The web forced TV, newspapers and magazines to change, and they will likely survive forever in some form, focusing on things the web can not do well.  Its unusual for new thing to completely replace the old ones and when they do it takes years. Anyone who claims social media will eliminate standard PR or mass media is engaging in hype, as odds are better those things will change and learn, but never die. It’s wise to ask what each kind of media / marketing is good and bad for and work from there.
4. Social media consultants writing about social media have inherent biases. It’s difficult to take posts like this about social media seriously, as it’s written by someone from a social media consulting firm without an ounce of humility or perspective. It’s hard to come across as authentic if you promote a revolution that you personally stand to benefit the most from. Much writing about social media is PR people writing about the importance of PR - see a problem of authenticity here? When did PR, like advertisers, become a reliable source for what is authentic? How is SEO optimization, or similiar techniques for twitter, authentic? When a system becomes popular the greedy will game it and social media is no different. We should be worried when people with PR and advertising backgrounds or consulting firms are leading us in the ways of authenticity or integrity. The Twitter Book, from my publisher O’Reilly, takes a surprisingly reasonable, authentic and low-hype approach to social media I wish was more popular.
5. Signal to Noise is always the problem. I’m someone who would rather read 5 or 10 really good things every day, than skim through 50 or 100 mediocre ones. I find all social media frequently consists of people re-forwarding things they were forwarded that almost none of them appear to have read, as they believe they are rewarded for publishing frequently above all else. Using twitter and digg I often feel I’m in the minority since what’s popular is rarely what’s good.  If you are interested in quality, and not volume, than the size of your network matters less than the value of what’s in it. I’m more fascinated by how kottke.org and metafilter.org have kept such high signal to noise ratios for years than I am about most media tools I see.
6. All technologies cut both ways and social media will be no different. For all the upsides of any invention there are downsides and it takes time to sort out what they all are. Blogs and Twitter have made self promotion, and self-aggrandizement, acceptable in ways I’ve never seen before, and I’m guilty myself. Is it possible to write or publish without self promotion? I don’t know anymore. I suspect digital tools for social media may have the negative effect of making authentic communication harder, not easier to find, as more people, and corporations, hover right on the gray dividing line between authentic and corporate, or selfish and generous.
7. Be suspicious of technologies claimed to change the world. The problem with the world is rarely the lack of technologies, the problem is us. Look, we have trouble following brain dead simple concepts like The Golden Rule.  Millions starve to death not because we lack the food, but because of greed and lack of political will.  We will largely behave like idiots on blogs and on twitter because we behave that way in real life. Every technological revolution must contend with the fact that we bring our stupidity, selfishness and arrogance along for the ride with our generosity, wisdom and love (12for12k.org being a great positive example). This is true for any new technology we use, and invariably its this fact that plays itself out and ruins the current technological wave, setting up the frustrated landscape for the next one.  Democracy, steam power, electricity, telegraphs, telephones, televisions, the Internet, and the web have all been heralded as the arrival of Utopia, and although there has been progress in each wave, it seems there are things we want that technological change can not bring to us.
8. Always ask “What problem am I trying to solve?” The smartest thing to do with something new is to ask what is it you need it to do for you. Recognize  good marketing will not make up for bad products or incompetent services.  If your company is marketing itself well to customers, or your social life is fine, perhaps you don’t need a revolution and need something much simpler and more realistic from social media. Spend time figuring out what you need. If you want to experiment and see for yourself, that’s awesome, but know that’s what you’re doing. But above all use whatever media/communication tools or methods work for you, whether they are old or new, no matter what anyone says, including me.

If you liked this post, you might also like my general purpose essay, How to detect bullshit.

Update: @jmichelle posted a response, In defense of social media, on O’Reilly Radar. I responded in the comments.

Posted in Innovation, Web 2.0 / social software, politics, rant | 67 Comments »

Sorry its been awhile - on the homestretch for the new book, had a vacation, and also a total ISP meltdown. It’s been an interesting month :)

Here’s this week’s links:

• Fifth major delay of the Boeing 787. The story of airplane project management is interesting as unlike most projects everyone knows people will die if they don’t design it right. The way people respond to the 787 project has been interesting. The plane has still has not flown, but orders are still high.
• Iran’s Internet spying gear (built w/help from Nokia and Siemens).  The story makes it hard to go to far, but “If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them,” said Mr. Roome, the spokesman for the project.
• A brief history of Agile project management. The curious thing is how most of the criteria defined by MacCormack match what Microsoft was doing in the early 1990s. (See the book Microsoft Secrets, it’s all in there - daily builds, frequent releases, etc.).
• NYC selling subway station names. I suspect this always annoys the current generation, but later generations won’t even notice.

And here’s what’s new on Speaker Confessions:

• I want your worst speaking disasters! Can be your story or something you saw. $200 in prizes. Great list of 20+ stories already.
• Instant speaker feedback.  I saw a clever method for collecting feedback on speakers at a conference this month.

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I’m in believer in the philosophy of the small.

Part of why I quit was I wanted to work on things I could get my entire hands around (e.g. books), even if I made less money than I would for continuing to play a small role in the making of big things.  I bet I’d get more pride and pleasure from making things I loved, even if they are only used by a few people, than I would for the thousands of compromises that come with making things used by millions of people.

One of my former bosses at Microsoft, Hillel Cooperman, has not only gone on his own with Jackson Fish, a company that makes hand crafted software (you read that right), but he’s started up a little event for people who share the small and special philosophy.

What: Small and Special - a tiny conference for entrepreneurs and hopefuls

When: June 30th, 2009, 2-6pm

Where: Seattle (Georgetown)

Cost: $25!

You can find Registration details and the excellent speaker list here.

If you’re a small business owner or have thought about starting one, this is a great way to meet many locals who are a few steps ahead of you. Check it out.

Posted in Seattle, entrepreneurship | Leave a comment »

Hi there. I’m now back from my ramble through Scandinavia.

If you were at my seminar in Milwaukee (we had many questions on estimates and schedules), or struggle with bad estimates somewhere else in the world, you’re in luck.

Next week my friend Steve McConnell is doing a free webcast on the ten deadly sins of estimation. As if the regular sins weren’t bad enough, these are the ones that kill. Registration and details here.  Tuesday June 23rd, 10am PST.

And here’s more stuff from Steve’s consulting firm, Construx, on estimation:

• Construx Estimatation tool

• Estimation Poster

• Cone of Uncertainty White Paper

• Software Estimation In-Depth Class

Posted in Management, Software/Web development | 2 Comments »

The first draft of my next book, about an insider’s view of public speaking, is done!

Yay for me.

If you haven’t checked out speakerconfessions.com, you should. There’s some good material there and it gives a flavor for the questions I’m asking and answering in the book. Spread the word if you can.

I’ll be taking a break for a couple of weeks so don’t expect much to happen here until I’m back.

I’m speaking at BusinessToButtons in Malmo, Sweden next week and wrapping some R&R on both ends.  And I’ll be posting again come mid June.

Posted in On Tour, On writing, public speaking | 1 Comment »

Here are this week’s links:

• Sporks and more. I have and will always have a love affair with the spork.
  
• 10 beautiful world records.  Some are cheezy but some are in fact beautiful. Wonder how many are photoshoped though.
• Michael Jordan on failure.  I will always love this commercial.
• This is not a game. They held a competition of driving video gamers and the winner got to race in an actual driving race.  Interesting story about the process.

From Speaker Confessions:

• How to give a great Ignite talk.  What I’ve learned from doing 4 different ignite talks, including an actual ignite talk on how to give an ignite talk!

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Recently I’ve been playing tons of Gears Of War 2 for XBOX 360, because of it’s fantastic HORDE mode. I’m not a huge gamer. But find me:

1. A game/mode that has well designed UX
2. Is easy to learn, but hard to master, and fun to fail at
3. Has few annoyances (mandatory tutorials, non-skipable intros, etc.)
4. Has a team based, rather than purely competitive, mode

And I’m in. Great games, as rare as they are, are the perfect relief from long hours of writing. And if I can play with friends on the same team, all the better.

(image from Matt’s Journal)

Like real life projects, where you can can only survive by working together, the HORDE mode is based on co-operation. You can’t get very far without working as a team.

However this doesn’t stop many players from trying to do it all on their own. It’s funny, gut also sad, in HORDE to see players make the same mistakes again and again and again, just like in the workplace, for not recognizing they need a team strategy to win, not just solo tactics.

Here’s lessons from HORDE that apply to many project teams:

• team co-ordination > Individual talents .  Early on you can get by with how good you are alone. But as soon as things get intense, or you fall behind, working solo is a liability. Programmers and Managers who insist on doing everything themselves are set up to fail when that approach reaches it’s inevitable limit.
• Have a fallback position everyone knows. When everything is going to hell there is no time to make a plan. People are too stressed to think clearly anyway. This means you must have a fallback plan defined at the beginning. My friends and I call it the hiddy-hole - a spot where we will all fade back towards, that is defensible, easy to find, and likely to be where other teammates are.
• Over Communicate.  Talking matters. In Horde you have to share what you see, and take advantage of all the viewpoints. Teams that talk more last longer - it’s nearly a rule in Horde. If a minute into the game no one has spoken, it’s going to be a short game. Same goes for project management - teams that are good are sharing useful info with each other prevent things from going from.
• Stay together. The temptation in HORDE, and in life, is to seek your own glory. To go out away from the pack.  But as soon as the waves get hard enough you can’t do it alone and before you know it you’re dead because something snuck up behind you. If you stick together it’s surprise is less likely, and since you have two people dealing with it, survival odds are much higher.
• Watch your buddy’s back. One of the most interesting elements of Horde is when you’re wounded another player must come and revive you. The teams that last longer are the ones who make reviving other players a priority. It’s a reciprocal trust thing - someone has to do it first and if you don’t reciprocate they might not do it again.
• Develop a shorthand. The more you communicate the sooner you develop a shorthand. Novice players say things like “Lookout, it’s coming!” Without telling you where the bad guy is or what it is, which is useless.  He may as well just say “aaaaaaaahh!” You want an efficient shorthand that makes frequent communication efficient. “Butcher at 2′oclock from fallback”. Shorthand makes it easy for many people to communicate without burying people in noise.

Recently I’ve started playing Left 4 Dead with the same circle of friends - It’s been great so far. Also excellent team based, co-operative game design. Easy to learn, fun to play.

Are there any other XBOX 360 games with excellent co-op modes? Let me know.

Posted in Design, Management | 6 Comments »

I’m teaching a full day seminar on making things happen (project management fun) this Friday at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.  It’s $129 for the day, and i believe it includes lunch - a super bargain.

Details here:  Full day seminar at CTI for $129.

The room is almost full so they may close registration today.

Posted in On Tour | 4 Comments »

• Sketching is thinking. Just about anything you do without judgment likely helps your thinking. And you don’t have to draw well or have any training to sketch, doodle or keep a notebook.
• AMAZING photos of the Hubble repair mission. Forget what we can learn from Hubble, these photos remind me how amazing it is we put people in space.
• Bad reporting in action: NY Drivers worst in nation. The written test is almost irrelevant, don’t you think? At least it was when I took it way back when..
• If you are having a day without wonder, watch this. A time lapse video of the night sky, in the middle of nowhere, showing the milky way. Before these city things, we all could see stuff like this.

From Speaker Confessions:

• Why we say ummmmm. Some facts on one of the most annoying things about public speakers.

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Brain rules is easily the best book I’ve read this year. I don’t say this lightly as I read many books, skim many more, and read lots of things I enjoy.

This book hits the non-fiction trifecta:

• It’s about a universal subject - how we think and how our minds work.
• It’s well-written, funny, entertaining and concise.
• It’s based on research with support for nearly every claim made in the book.
• Bonus: the author admits lots of things he and the field do not know (Huge credibility points - I love this)

Unlike Pink’s A Whole New Mind, a book whose premise I’m fond of but whose arguments were often weak and in some cases absurd, the book Brain rules never strays. He follows most of his own rules in how the book is structured, one main point per chapter, one set of basic advice derived from his interpretation of research.

As a teaser here’s some of what I learned:

• Sleep makes your smarter - your brain processes information you need in your sleep
• Exercise makes you smarter - our brains and bodies work best when moving
• There is no scientific basis for how schools or courses are structured
• The left vs. right brain thing is waaaay overblown (Pink needs to read this)
• True multitasking is biologically impossible

I’m recommending the book to just about everyone - other writers, teachers, parents, friends, friends with kids, kids with friends.

If you’re not sure, check out the excellent supporting site for the book:  Brain Rules website.

Or go ahead and pick up the book here. (The hardcover version includes a DVD)

Posted in Book reviews, Recommended | 9 Comments »

Here are this weeks links:

• A story of working for the New Yorker. The good news is it’s candid and tightly written. The bad news is it’s written in twitter - here’s the archived and easier to read version.
• Small and Special (Seattle) - event in Seattle on June 30th about people who run small and special companies. Run by Hillel from Jackson Fish Market
• Obesity and overweight trends in the U.S. - if only you could buy stock in how fat we are.
• The makers of things. Nice essay on one of my favorite objects in the world - The Brooklyn bridge (here’s my essay on lessons from it)
• Stats on twitter use - it’s a small sample size but the data says about 5% of Americans use twitter.
• The paradoxes of lectures - there’s no way around it. There are strange things about the world of lectures and the quality of speakers. Here’s 3 observations.

Posted in linkfest | 3 Comments »