Archive for August, 2007
Attack of The Resume
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Is your resume really long? Is it chock full of never ending prose? Does it cover every job you’ve held since about the age of ten? Does your resume lose YOUR attention three sentences in? Take heart, you’re not alone.
I’ve noticed a trend in tech resumes over the years. They tend to be extremely long, boring and short on anything I would consider informative. Earlier this year I swear I had a twenty pager in front of me. I wouldn’t mind it so much if people wrote overly long resumes that read like a decent novel, but most of them are bordering on nonsensical due to poor grammar and horrendous formatting. My designer friends would cry if they saw the abuse of typography committed by some of the resumes I’ve had to review over the years.
Enough criticism, now onto what I’d like to see in a resume. I really want to know what you’ve accomplished in the past. Accomplished, that’s the key word there. I don’t care about what you did day-to-day at your job. It’s nice to know that you did everything from re-engineer the next Pet Store app to water the company’s plants, but we can talk about that later. I care about answers to questions like: What have you done that has made a positive difference? What were you able to make happen that delivered value to your customers? If you can communicate that on your resume, then you have just put yourself in the top 20% – easy.
Topics: Biz, Misc | 3 Comments »
Quote From EC: “I needed my honey fix.”
Thursday, August 30, 2007
“EC” is my six year old son, Ethan. He produces no shortage of memorable quotes. This latest one came after Ethan requested and then ate a piece of toast with honey on it.
Topics: EC Quotes | No Comments »
Benevolent Dictators
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Yesterday I read a short white paper about some experiences with developing open source software for the Department of Defense (DoD.) It was a good read and relevant considering that we (Gestalt) have been pushing more and more of our software for the DoD coming out of the Joplin, MO office to the open source community. One of the points made in the paper was that successful open source projects need a benevolent dictator. I’ve always believed this to be true, but then I read Josh Berkus’ post on The Myth of The Benevolent Dictator and am not so sure now.
Josh Berkus is a lead developer for PostgreSQL. While MySQL often gets the glory, PostgreSQL has quietly earned respect by hardcore database people. I’m one of those people who has a lot of respect for the PostgreSQL project as a whole, so when one of the lead developers expresses a strong opinion I’m prone to listen. (Plus, the guy has one of the best first names ever.) Josh’s main point is that it’s too easy to say that successful open source projects need to have a benevolent dictator. There are all sorts of models that have succeeded. PostgreSQL is a democracy. Debian is a chaotic democracy. Apache is a bureaucracy. MySQL is a company. Java is a mixed bag of everything. But, it’s more fun to look to the benevolent dictator for quotes and it’s more convenient to sum up the success of open source project leadership in two words.
There has to be clear leadership for any software project, open source or not. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that open source software has been successful with various models of project leadership. The benevolent dictator is one model that has worked for Linux and others, but it is only one of many.
I realize this conclusion will likely disappoint one of my Gestalt comrades who sometimes fancies himself a benevolent dictator, but it had to happen sooner or later. At least he’ll always have “The Lovinator”, which is something that is ALL his and likely always will be. Dictate away!
Topics: Linux, Open Source | No Comments »
A Bastion of Customer Service: Home Depot
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Looks like Seth Godin has noticed the same stellar service at Home Depot that I have of late. Mind you, I’m not hanging out at Home Depot much, but the last few visits have been filled with frustration. Aisles are a mess, shelves are even worse, and the checkout clerks take “it’s not my problem” to a whole new level.
The best is when my Dad and I were ready to pay for a few items at the local Home Depot here in Joplin, MO. I suggested we go through the self-checkout. My last experience at this Home Depot told me that the counter intuitive self-checkout machines were a safer bet. My Dad spotted a clerk with an open lane so it was too late. He approached the register and asked the clerk how he was doing. The guy replied with, “I’m pretty pissed off right now,” raises his voice, “See that girl right over there at that register? She’s telling me what to do. She’s only worked here one week and she thinks she knows everything.” Uh-huh, OK. Thanks for sharing buddy.
Sigh.
Topics: Biz | 1 Comment »
Made to Stick: Unexpectedness
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Following up on my initial post on the book, Made to Stick, I wanted to touch on the second of the six major factors that contribute to making an idea sticky – unexpectedness.
Before I do that, I’ll list all six factors here:
- Simplicity
- Unexpectedness
- Concreteness
- Credibility
- Emotions
- Stories
Unexpectedness is sometimes equated with shock value. I would argue that urban legends like the one Made to Stick starts off with provide a certain amount of shock value that makes the unexpected all the more memorable, but shock value is not necessary to achieve unexpectedness. If shock value was a requirement for sticky ideas, then most of us would be out of luck.
A great example of unexpectedness in the book comes from Nordstrom. Like many companies, one of Nordstrom’s core values is great customer service. Snooze, right? But, then follow up that core value with anecdotes like this:
- A refund is given to a customer returning tires even though Nordstrom doesn’t sell tires
- Items purchased at another store are gift wrapped by a Norstrom’s sales person
- A Norstrom’s salesperson warms up a car for a customer on a cold winter day
Imagine going through Nordstrom’s orientation as “just another salesperson”, hear the spiel on “customer service is #1″ and then be surprised by the examples above. The idea of “great customer service” just took on a fresh new meaning due to the unexpectedness of the examples.
After reading the book I thought about former North Carolina men’s basketball coach Dean Smith and his simple motto of “play hard, together, and smart.” Wow, thanks coach. Next you’re going to tell us to give it 110% and remind us there is no “i” in team. But wait, Dean Smith backed up his simple message with unexpected behavior. Most assume that a coach is going to be happy with a win and upset with a loss. Not so with Dean Smith. He didn’t like losing, but if his team played hard, together, and smart, but came away with a loss, he praised them. If the team didn’t play hard, together, and smart, coach Smith would not be pleased with his team’s performance.
Both the examples of Nordstrom and Dean Smith show that unexpectedness is not necessarily driven by extraordinary events or stories, which I find quite encouraging. Now I just need to master the concept in real life!
Topics: Books | No Comments »