Yeah so there just isn't much time for blogging these days. And besides, not much to blog either. Even though you think there would be: my 30 hr work week does not crowd out my actual life, so I have one right now. Basically it consists of doing something athletic like rock-climbing or frisbee right after work, hanging out with friends until midnight, and then going to bed. While fun I guess there just isn't much extreme experience to document as a result of this regimen.
Alternately, I could start documenting the trite and meaningless observations that abound such as: last night a table of 40 something men got drunk next to us & started talking business & finance loudly. Apparently, "strategic equity" is something you get really psyched about at the age of 40. And your portfolio. And ways you've found to rip off the IRS. Please dear reader--if you care about me--kill me if I start to become so lame & so evil.
Heck, kill me now. Already I'm heading in that direction--my job is slowly becoming one of strategizing & making decisions--and I find it kind of fun. E.g. what bugs to fix & features to add that will gain us the most end users, or avoid bad PR from certain naysayers. This is where the cancer starts...then someday you wake up and realize your job is to stand god-like (mickey mouse like?) on top of a mountain, waving your hands & making decisions. The artist in you weeps; you create nothing.
Posted by Alan at June 26, 2004 02:25 PMI've been feeling a little bit like that since last week. I thought it was phase but it may just be that I'm getting old. I hear 'ya though. I better snap out of it. I still have a good couple of years in my 20's. I'm sure I can find some creative way to screw up my life now. You know, give myself something to whine about later.
Posted by: Kira at June 29, 2004 05:54 PMWell... somebody has to be in charge, right? Just because you make strategic decisions doesn't mean you HAVE to become such a yuppie. Assuming your only colleagues are mortals, any large project with any kind of timeliness is going to need a team with a significant number of members. Do you really want to rule by committee? Plus, you may have more of a chance to stay directly involved in the end product than you might think.
The same way that (say) a text editor, script or IDE can be both a work of art and a medium through which other art is created... your "hand-waving" could be putting together a team and strategy -- the nature of which is your art -- that itself is a medium through which other art (say software) is created. You can participate in this art, too.
The individual decides whether to become such a bastard. The popular obsession with stocks and portfolios are the modern proof that riches are "eternally trendy"; just don't ever let yourself forget that there's more to life.
Posted by: Matt at June 30, 2004 04:29 PM"somebody has to be in charge, right?"
Nope, I don't think this is necessarily the case. There is such a thing as collaboration towards a goal. Talk to Jonas (you know to whom I referring). He & I had a discussion about this very thing this weekend, and he told me that he does not elevate himself above his team members (though he is technically a "program manager")...they can see all of his tasks & assign him new ones as well as the usual vice-versa. Sounded to me like the situation was more like "the team is in control."
In my experience this is pretty rare in the corporate world though. Not only do some people love to exercise authority & control, but there are complement personalities which welcome an authority & want to be controlled, so they don't have to control themselves. Essentially there are people with distinct "master" mentalities & others with distinct "slave" mentalities. It would be interesting to examine where these mentalities came from, if they are currently changing, etc. or are somehow more pervasive in human nature, but I don't have the time to explore it right now. Perhaps someone else would like to...all these issues of "control"--heck the very word itself--are fascinating.
Burroughs: "Is control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes." (This one always blows my mind. It's almost a koan to me.)
Posted by: Alan at July 2, 2004 02:01 PMI am likewise intrigued by the way people rise (or descend) to preconceived roles.
I would like to point out that you attacked my weakest point by far and ignored the rest.
The fact remains that he is still in control, though. Ideally, the team would be made of responsible members who all do their part to reach cooperatively toward a common goal--this would be absolutely heavenly. The scarce resource is people -- talented, scrupulous, and responsible people. When one of those three axes (axises?) breaks down is when he may (MAY) have to take control back from where he has laid it before the feet of his teammates.
What happens when founding members have the same influence (Design and Strategy decisions, financial ownership) as newer recruits? If the founding members chose perfect teammates--partners is a better word here--then fine. But control structures are in place to prevent things like popularity contests -- say voting off the founding team member. What if you were the founding member of a team with partners of lesser wisdom (good help is hard to find) but equal influence? The X factor is the fact that people sometimes fail to defer to those who know better or let pride or personal differences override their rational decision making. A small, hand-picked team has a chance of getting all the right pieces together. Maybe this is all your ideal software team really needs. In larger settings, control exists because we are humans, not just instances of consciousness.pl.
Posted by: Matt at July 6, 2004 04:47 PM