Category: Observations Page 36 of 90

Minimal Viable Meeting

On April 1, 2015

It is very hard to write and to think when all I want to do is to crawl into bed and sleep. I want to ignore my alarm and stay firmly held between blankets and mattress. I Want to pretend the day is not existing and no one needs me for anything. I want to make-believe.

But instead, I am at work. I left my bed. I rode a train for an hour. I got to work. Work is happening.

Slowly.

As the Internet is down for everyone. The cafeteria is unusually busy. The water cooler chatter is high. The paper-thin walls surrounding my office are even more annoying than usual because all I can hear is the office next door socializing, laughing and carrying on. All I can hear is people having fun.

A workday holiday. However temporary it may be.

Meanwhile I field calls about this afternoon’s event. With questions I can’t answer because I simply do not know. How will this work over a tethered connection? I don’t know. I laid out the options given the setting for the event. It’s what we have to work with. Will we be back up by then? I do not know. No one knows.

If we are, great. If we are not, prepare yourselves for a Plan B experience.

These things happen. They are not ideal but I’ve found in my professional career things are rarely ideal. The best we can do is to come up with a workable plan. What is the most important part of the session today?

The audio. You want people to be able to hear what is going on in the National Office. You want the voices heard and the questions answered. The slides are a nicety. The video is a bonus.

The point of this event is to answer questions from your staff and to share the directions of the agency. That can be done, in its simplest form through text.

Email. Web page. Nothing fancy.

When unexpected things happen, focus on what the point of the session is and build up from there. Don’t get hung up on what you planned to do. Focus on how to get your message and information out to your staff. The rest is just windows dressing.

The Ruralist

By Carl

On March 25, 2015

In Observations

The older I get, the more I miss the small barely two stoplight town I grew up in. It’s only 60 miles west of me. It’s a place where my father still can’t get land-based broadband internet. It’s where I grew up without cable TV because the cables stopped at the end of my road. And there weren’t enough people to justify running them back to the few houses that sat on acres of land.

J.D. Bentley writes in The Ruralist

The most redeeming quality of big cities is that their people choose to congregate in small, dense areas, leaving the bulk of the earth to the rest of us.

As I’ve entered my third decade on this earth, that line resonates deeply with me. I grew up with cows and deer for neighbors. I grew up without a working knowledge of the Nickelodeon schedule. I grew up in a quiet place. Where I could sit outside and barely hear another sign of humanity. I’d walk in the woods and take long bike rides past apple orchards and corn fields. I relished the silence. The wind in my ears as I raced down hills and pedaled like a maniac up the next.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to move out of the little town. I could not wait to spread my wings in a bigger city. I escaped to Richmond, VA for college and lived there for a several years afterwards. Then I returned home to the outskirts of Washington, DC. First living in Northern Virginia across the river from it, and now in Maryland to its north.

I like the area where I am now. It’s quiet enough it could almost be mistaken for rural. There are deer and rabbits nearby. I pass geese, ducks and the occasional heron (I think?) on my walk to the Metro.

That’s where the illusion ends. When I cross the barrier from wildlife to concrete and board a train descending underneath DC and into the heart of the city.

By day, I am city dweller, though at least I am close enough to the National Mall and Capitol Reflecting Pool I can still enjoy the ducks, green spaces and people-watching.

But I miss the quiet nights. I miss falling asleep to the wind whipping through trees and across open fields. I miss the cows and occasional rooster.

I miss hearing a world not powered by motors and processors.

Be Personable

By Carl

On March 16, 2015

In Observations

When you work in tech support, you often don’t know who you are talking to. You don’t know if they’re high-powered or the new intern. You don’t know their level of technical ability or their patience.

But one thing you do know is they are human. So talk to them like it.

So many times, I get an email back from a tech and all it says is “This account has been deactivated.”

That’s nice, computer. I am happy you processed my request in an efficient and timely manner. But it would have been even nice if I knew you were a person too.

Now let’s compare that to:

Good Morning Monica,

I’ve deactivated the account for John Morris effective immediately.

Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Thank you,
Carl T. Holscher

I address Monica by her name.
She is a person. I am a person. There’s no reason I can’t address her by her name. It’s add a little humanity to our interaction.
I told her exactly what I had done.
That way, she knows immediately what this request is about. It doesn’t rely on her to remember what she had asked me for. She’s busy. She doesn’t have time to sit around and wait for me to get the work done. She is doing other things, so don’t make her guess.
It also verifies to me that I have made the correct change. It’s easy to make a mistake, especially when dealing with a large number of requests. Repeating back the action I took helps me to double-check myself.
I used my name.
I am not a team. I am not a group. I am an individual and I did this work for her.

Whenever I am about to send an email to someone, I ask myself if this is the email I would like to receive.

If it is, I hit send. If not, I take a moment to improve upon it. Spending those extra seconds can make a big difference in how you come across to your customers.

It’s hard to be as warm and friendly over text. But it is easy to impart some humanity in your words. Use them.

I can’t hear you Tweeting

By Carl

On March 9, 2015

In Observations

I have Twitter filters. I love my Twitter filters. It makes the service bearable to me. I thought about it this morning when I was reading TweetBot as I waited for the train this morning. TweetBot is where I have most of the filters setup because it’s easy to do.

It’s also where I interact with Twitter most. When I got to work, I booted up my computer and opened TweetDeck, and the noise went to 11. I’ve written about Mute for a happier Twitter before. But on the verge of the Apple Watch event, I’ve added some new filters.

With all the Apple Car (???) talk, someone posted this wonderful filter: (?i)(Apple.*Car)

I added that immediately and all the car talk stopped (for me.) From there, I added Apple Watch because I can’t care about the watch. I don’t want something on my wrist that does anything but tell the time. My watch is e-ink. It tells time. It does nothing else. It’s perfect.

Since I last wrote about this in December, I’ve added a few new filters that makes my life more sane.

LRT
I don’t care about your Last ReTweet (which is what LRT means. It’s ok, I had to ask too.) I turn off Retweets for most people so I don’t need to hear the commentary on the Retweet I didn’t see.
Game of Thrones
First, I muted it because I didn’t care about the show and was tired of hearing people talk about it. Then I watched the entire series in a couple of weeks. So I keep it muted because I still don’t want to hear people talking about it non-stop. I don’t even care about spoilers. I’m just not that interested.
Apple Watch
The same thing goes for the Apple Car. I don’t care about these things. I especially don’t care about them before they’re even released. It’s not a product I care about and the religious fervor around it isn’t interesting to me. So I mute it because I just don’t care.
Apple
Yes, in a fit of frustration and exhaustion I muted the word Apple. So I’m sorry if you’re raving about some delicious honey crisps, or your distaste for Granny Smith. I’m not going to see it. I’ve hit Peak Apple News. And I’m over it. I don’t care about Apple. I don’t care about the company. I don’t care about the products. I don’t care about the executives.

The rest of the things I’ve muted lately are short-term things. Usually it will be something from a TV Show, a conference or something else I either don’t understand or don’t want to see in my stream. I mute them for a week, figuring the conference will be over by then and the TV show meme will have run its course.

If I am going to use Twitter, I am going to use it on my terms. I used to feel guilty about muting people’s Retweets or unfollowing people I wasn’t interested in following anymore. But now no longer worry. I create the Twitter I want to use. And I’m not going to worry about it.

Free Movie Screenings

By Carl

On February 27, 2015

In Observations

Recently, I’ve been able to see a couple of free screenings. I have no connections nor insider knowledge. All I’ve done is created an account at gofobo. The tickets are distributed through their site. Then, I signed up for Advance Screenings. That site will alert me of any new screenings in the area.

Since I’m near DC, there are a number of theaters in the area showing a variety of films. Many times, the showings are already full because they were released to a radio station audience first, or some other outlet before I get notified. But I’ve been lucky recently with getting passes to a few. Here’s what I’ve seen in recent weeks.

The DUFF

The DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend. It’s a film that tries to be She’s All That or Mean Girls but falls short of those lofty goals. It was a fun teen popcorn movie. I enjoyed it, though I would not have paid to see it in the theater.

There were a ton of screenings for this movie. It seems like they were trying to get a lot of people in to see it before it was released. I don’t know if they were worried about its performance, but it was a fun film and the audience I was with enjoyed it.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service looked good because who doesn’t like a spy film. And it’s got Samuel L. Jackson which is always a good sign. I really enjoyed the movie and would have paid to see it in the theater.

I liked the knives-for-feet of Gazelle. I enjoyed the twist on swordplay without the swords. Samuel L. Jackson was a great villain. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I enjoyed that women were more than just eye candy in this movie, though that final scene felt unnecessary.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is Hot Tub Time Machine without John Cusack and with Adam Scott. There were some funny parts but it was a mediocre sequel to a mediocre movie. At least most of the original cast was back, though I can’t say that made it a better movie.

The movie reminded me of Idiocracy because of the kind-of stupid future world we’re transported to in the film. I enjoyed Gillian Jacobs and wish Chevy Chase would have had more than a brief cameo. All-in all, it was a throw-away sequel.

Run All Night

Run All Night was Lian Neeson running around all night shooting people. It wasn’t a Taken movie because he had a son to defend this time rather than trying to rescue his daughter.

It was a mindless action movie and I enjoyed it for what it was. I’m not sure if I’d pay for it in the theater. It was good. I enjoyed the performances but it’s also a story that’s been done over and over. Old friends, one doing well, one poorly. Family gets in the way and people die by the truckload.

The studio must have high hopes for this movie because not only were our bags searched, we were metal detected. This was the only movie of the bunch where this happened.

When I go to movies, I enjoy the escape. I want to sit in a dark room, eat salty and sweet snacks and go to another place.

I love going to the movies and I hate how expensive it has gotten. So even though the movies I’ve seen aren’t ones I would have paid for, I’ve really enjoyed going to the theatre so often.

So here’s to more screenings and seeing movies in the theatre.