Work Smart & Play More

Putting ideas to the test

By nature I’m a tinkerer; I like to play around with new and different things.  So when I have an idea the first thing that comes to mind is that I have to try it out.  I recently came across an issue in which I tried to register for a Twitter handle, but it was already taking by someone.  I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has experienced this problem.  The issue in this situation is the this particular handle has become stale, meaning that the person has never sent a tweet and the account was created in 2010.  This was the seed that generated the inspiration for my idea.

Twitter is just one location in which this could occur, there are plenty of other examples: domains, Tumblr, Facebook, etc.  I started to search for online exchanges, in which individuals could procure or release handles from someone else.  There are plenty of sites for domain exchanges, but I couldn’t find anything for other types of digital handles.  So what is a tinkerer like myself going to do?  … go out and build it myself.

Fade to stage left, in comes handleswap.com.  I decided to start coding again and build a site in which people can identify what handles they either want to acquire (swapin) or release (swapout).  The initial focus is on Twitter handles, because they have a decent API and I wanted to solve my immediate problem, which was to get the handle I’m looking for.

Currently it is against Twitter’s policies to buy or sell handles, so handleswap.com doesn’t deal with the actual exchanging of handles just yet.  (Don’t tell anyone, but this is being worked on.)  What you can do however, is to let people know the handles you want to swapin or swapout.  The best part is that all you have to so is send a tweet.

To SwapOut a handle, just send a tweet and include “@handleswap #swapout”.  This will let the system know that the owner of the tweet wants to release that particular handle.

To SwapIn a handle(s), send a tweet and include @handleswap #swapin as well as include the twitter handles you would like to acquire, eg: “@handleswap #swapin @handleyouwant, @secondhandle”.

If you feel that this idea is worth pursuing, please let me know by sending a tweet to swapin or swapout a Twitter handle.

Not just nerds in a corner

I was inspired to start blogging again after attending a talk given by the CEO of Etsy, Chad Dickerson.  The talk focused around the importance of the engineering culture at Etsy and how it’s helping the company move faster than they thought they could.  For those that don’t know Chad, @chaddickerson on Twitter, was the CTO until July of this year and has been the driving force behind Etsy’s engineering team.  Chad discussed how at Etsy, they have a “just ship” mentality that has manifested itself as a means to ship code to production by anyone at anytime, even by members of the board.

Although I am a strong proponent of continuous deployments, I’m not going to argue the merits in this post (we will save that for another time).  I would however like to focus on an underlying theme that was touched upon during the talk.  The reason why Chad was able to build such a culture within Etsy is their view on technology.  The engineering team is a true partner in the business and not just to the nerds that are put in a corner and only consulted with when there is a system problem.  Looking at the technology teams as core to the business allows for more collaboration between the groups creating better alignment on the overall company objectives.  It seems like such an obvious thing, but in my experience the technology teams are typically treated like the little brother that you don’t want but have to keep around.  Lets face it, almost all businesses today rely on technology for day-to-day operations, and Etsy is no exception. The technology is the backbone of that organization.  I don’t want to trivialize the amount of effort that I’m sure the team put in to get to this point, this was not an overnight process.  The point I’m trying to make is that the company supported this approach and could have only been accomplished with that support.  Chad, please keep up what you are doing, you are not only a great example for technology companies to follow, but I think for CEOs of all types.

You can find out more about Etsy’s engineering culture at their Code As Craft blog.

Most thoughtful gift

I consider myself a very fortunate man. I have everything I need. I’m not bragging, this is just how I feel.  Because of this, when asked on special occasions (b-days, father’s day, etc.) what I want or what people should get me, my typical response is “I don’t need anything.” I realize that this can be frustrating for family & friends that are trying to do something nice for me.  No one feels this frustration more than my wife. So what do you purchase for someone that doesn’t need anything?  You get them something that can not be bought, and that is exactly what my wife did. For father’s day this year, she gave me something we could all use more of, time.

After a fantastic breakfast that she and the kids made for me, she got everyone ready and took the kids to work with her. My gift for father’s day was time to myself. This is something I haven’t had in a very long time. I could do what ever I wanted for the day. In case you are curious, I went to the movies and took a long walk through the Great Swamp.

This gift of time allowed me to clear my mind and reflect on what I consider important & valuable in my life. We spend too much of our lives IN our lives, not able to take a step back and appreciate what it is that we have.

Time slips by too quickly, as I’m reminded everyday when I look at my oldest daughter.  Against my approval, she has transformed from a cute little girl to a beautiful young woman. The lesson here is to make the effort to enjoy your life and the people in it, you only get one shot at it.

Why is the why more important than the what?

I haven’t pooped in a while, so I figured it was time.  Take it easy, I’m not being literal, I’m referring to an older post I wrote.

Have you ever wondered why some people’s thoughts/ideas solicit more of a reaction than others?  Why do some companies have a stronger following than their competitors in the same business.  According to the speaker in this video below it has to do more with how things are being communicated as opposed to what is being communicated. Not only that, but when things are communicated in this specific manner our reaction is more biological than it is psychological . I think the speaker does a better job of describing this than I could, so take a look a the video.

So the question to each one of us is, what is our purpose?