I have a strange mix of preferences when it comes to technology.  I like technology and find it pretty easy to learn and use.  (See rooting my Android.) But I dislike change, so I sometimes stick with old technologies.  (See how long I kept my Palm Pilot.)  Most importantly, I find it a badge of honor to figure out how to use a technology “off-label.” (See my three-way replication scheme to get music synced to multiple devices without involving a product that starts with “i”.)

Many people at the office use Google Drive, Evernote, and their local file system to store documents.  For file sharing, some people like Dropbox, others like Box, or Google Drive, or OneDrive, or Infinit.  Some shared files are on Google Drive, while others are on Evernote.  Images may be on OneDrive, while executables or log files may be on one of the other platforms.  The owners feel like each of those tools is specifically suited for different tasks – and I get it.  Some of these have better thumbnails, or more granular permissions. But now I have to have a login to each of them to get my work done. Not only that, but I also have to keep track of which kind of file can be found where.  Really any one of them (or maybe two) with some minor lifehacks would probably suffice for all of the use cases.

Which brings me to Slack.  Slack is the new darling of internal IM platforms.  It’s some combination of what Yammer and Chatter were trying to do, with tagging and simplicity of short messages that are reminiscent of Twitter.  There are different “rooms” that you can opt in or out of that are set up around teams or projects.

All and all it’s a pretty good platform.  Except I don’t need it.  It’s not doing anything for me that I don’t otherwise get through email and IM.  So it makes me less productive, because it’s just another thing I have to log in to and pay attention to.  See, I’m maniacal about my email, so I don’t find email disruptive, I find it a great way to manage things people need from me.  And I like that I can search my (google) mail and (google) IM in one fell swoop.

With Slack, now I have to pay attention to discussions that are happening there as well as those happening in my email, as well as IMs from people.  And it’s not just to know what’s happening: now I’m receiving requests for content or perspective over both email and Slack.  #Ugh.

The flip side is everyone else’s productivity.  For many other members of our team, Slack is great.  They don’t treat email the way I do, so they find it disruptive and a chore.  They like to use Slack for temporal things – things that if you aren’t actively working on something you have no need to know about.  They use it to broadcast questions where they aren’t sure who would be interested to weigh in.  And they use it to coordinate quickly around things like test servers, parking spaces, and rather than with several email reply chains.

So while it is decreasing my productivity, it’s increasing the productivity of many people around me.  Which raises some interesting questions.

• Is a slight decrease in my productivity worth an increase in 10 others’ productivity?
• Is making the people around me more productive a net benefit for me or for the company, or just a tradeoff?
• Can my productivity actually increase if that of the people around me increases?

I’m not sure.

I’ve written a few times about the interpersonal training component of the graduate program I completed.  For the past few months I’ve been trying to track down the term for a particular concept we learned about.

The basic idea that I could remember was that are likely to attribute someone else’s behavior to their personality type (which is often a harsh judgment) while we are more likely to attribute our own behavior to the situation we are in (which is often a more permissive judgment).  But I was hazy on the details.

I googled and searched and read through lists of logical fallacies and personality attributes and *finally* I found what I was looking for.

It’s called actor-observer asymmetry.  Wikipedia explains (citations removed), “Actor–observer asymmetry…explains the errors that one makes when forming attributions about the behavior of others. When people judge their own behavior…they are more likely to attribute their actions to the particular situation than to a generalization about their personality. Yet when an observer is explaining the behavior of another person…they are more likely to attribute this behavior to the actors’s overall disposition rather than to situational factors.”

One example of this that I remember from school is to think about someone in a work setting rudely shooting down a colleague’s idea.  If this person is you, you might explain it as “maybe she was having a bad day” or “she was frustrated by the long meeting they had been in.”  Those are considered “situational” reasons.  If the person in the story is someone else, you would be more likely to attribute the behavior to “he’s just like that” or “he’s always kind of a jerk.”  Those are considered “dispositional” reasons.

What we were encouraged to learn from understanding this phenomenon was that you never know what is going on in someone else’s life.  A colleague may snap at you, or be short, or belittle your ideas, but it might not be because of a deep-seeded lack of respect for you (the dispositional reason), it might because they had a fight with their son before work (the situational reason).

Interpreted this way, it’s a call for compassion at work, a reminder of which I can certainly use every so often. The idea is that if you can overcome this “asymmetry,” that is, look at your colleagues behavior through the lens of situational root cause rather than dispositional root cause, you can be more effective in interacting with them.

At my last job, I had a sign at my desk that said, “Be kind; Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”  (Total aside, but this phrase, one of my favorites, has a fascinating history.)

This is not to say, “Be meek.”  When Microsoft’s CEO is urging women to let karma negotiate their salary, it’s not the time to be meek.  There are toxic people, toxic organizations, and just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that colleague isn’t out to get you.  But that does not mean that we cannot start from a place of being kind in the workplace.

Interestingly, after I graduated from my Masters program, a meta-analysis of psychological research determined that this phenomenon didn’t actually exist – at least not how it had been formulated.  There’s now a more complex theory evolving that suggests that people do describe their behaviors differently than those of others, but in some different ways.

That aside, I do come back to the core thing that I learned from this concept: that of compassion at work.

This week I was previewing a post by our Chief Scientist about why giving RAM to Infinio is better than giving it to the guest OS or application.

One of the arguments he makes is what he calls “statistical multiplexing” which he explains with this analogy:

Think of lines at a grocery checkout. If you have one line per checkout clerk, then some lines would move faster and some slower, because of the variation of both the load seen by (i.e. number of grocery items) as well as processing speed of individual clerks. Some faster clerks can have nobody in their line, and their processing capacity gets wasted – it could have been better utilized in helping out the other clerks who are overloaded.

This leads to one of my biggest pet peeves: the people at a busy set of lines who say things like “please form X number of lines – it will go faster.”  To all the people at the TSA, the grocery store, CVS, the RMV, and the bank, listen up:  That.  Is.  Not.  True.  

When the amount of time it takes to execute each transaction is variable and unpredictable, there are very few instances where it is faster to make separate lines rather than distribute the work as late in the process as possible.  The only exceptions I can think of are:

(1) if the process of distributing the work later rather than sooner is significantly more time consuming than the benefit, or

(2) if there isn’t enough scratch space to wait on allocating the work

In the grocery example, this would mean

(1) the person saying “you line 3, you line 5” takes too long – or the people in line don’t go directly to the checkout whose light is on as soon as it goes on.  But the math would have to be pretty extreme. I mean, the traffic cop would have to be *really* *really* slow for this still not to be beneficial for the people waiting.

(2)  the store (or airport) isn’t designed to have one long windy line, it’s designed to have 10 shorter straight lines.

Not having the space can be a limiting factor, but that rarely seems to be the case.  If it were really the problem, then I wouldn’t be in so many dang lines with someone telling me that it would be faster if I ignored the natural rules of, you know, MATH.

In practice, there is a supermarket who actually implemented this.  Bravo.

How often do you find yourself saying things like this?:

“I got no work done, I was in meetings all day!”

“I didn’t get anything done, I was doing email all day.”

I think this is one of the drivers behind why we are working so hard, so long, and with such a cost to our work/life balance.  We are working – but it doesn’t feel like work.  Why?

I have a theory.

1. The number of meetings we go to that are really relevant to us is very small.

2. The percentage of email that we get that’s actually relevant to us is very small.

I’m not the only one who thinks this is true.  For example, Tim Ferris has long advocated against email.  Here’s a great post where he suggests using auto-reply to eliminate most email.  He also advises against attending meetings unless they have an agenda and an end time.  Lots of experts suggest that meetings are often over-subscribed and under-performing; the advent of the “standup meeting” is the natural antidote to that.

But I definitely don’t have a job where I can eschew email and stand up through every meeting. Still, I’ve been able to combat this idea that replying to email and attending meetings isn’t “work”.  Here’s how.

• I figured out what meetings to go to.  Some meetings are status reports from all the participants, some are working sessions, some are read-outs from a project group, some are announcements from management, and some fall into some other category.  At both Dell and Infinio I’ve looked at the meetings I attend (sometimes 4-6 hours’ worth a day at Dell, at Infinio considerably fewer) and asked “Do I need to be attending this meeting?”  Nobody ever perceived me as difficult for asking – and often I was just being invited as a courtesy.

The thing that drives me nuts is people showing up to a meeting and doing other work, usually sorting through email. Either you have to be at the meeting or you don’t.  Unless you are in an extremely dysfunctional organization (in which case, leave!), there are rarely meetings that you “sort of” have to be at.  It’s rude to the organizer, and you won’t actually feel like you accomplished anything.

• For email, I use Franklin Covey’s FAD method.  mrDiva took the course years ago and it’s one of the tips that we both still use.  Every email you get should get Filed, Acted upon, or Deleted.  Deleted means deleted – and many things you are cc’d on can be deleted.  Acted upon means you have some action to take based on the email, and those stay in your inbox  (At the end of a week I rarely have more than 10 items in my inbox.)  And Filed means you need to refer to it later, so you save it somewhere.  Now that I use Google Mail, it’s even easier because instead of Filing, I just Archive.  If I need it later, I just search rather than try to remember a folder I put it in.

And before you go all Negative Nancy on me – at Dell I was in email hell: I got hundreds of messages a day, and still managed to use this system.  Just be methodical, be ruthless, and only keep something in your Inbox if you still have to do something with it.  Face it, most people send you an email, then they come over and ask you if you got their email.  If you accidentally archive or file something you should have acted on, they’ll let you know.

Once I did these two things, I stopped feeling guilty about replying to emails and attending meetings.  I’m communicating with colleagues, customers, and vendors; I’m designing our product, strategy, and tactics; I’m understanding the bigger picture and explaining the details.

And all that is work.

I had a great talk with Christopher Kusek and Bo Bolander at VMworld about life, the universe, and everything (including Life, the Universe, and Everything).

At one point, Christopher asked me what I did for Infinio.  When I explained I did our product marketing, he said, “Oh, so you write Infinio fan fiction.”  We all had a good chuckle.  “I’m changing my LinkedIn profile right away,” I said.

But do I write fan fiction?  I think that I’d be a pretty crummy marketer if that were true.  I’m not writing fiction about Infinio – like “oh here’s this environment Infinio could work in, but only in my imagination” or “use Infinio and world hunger will be solved”

The content I write for Infinio falls into one of a few categories.  In marketing we usually think of customers as in one of three buckets:

• Awareness – someone has a problem and they are beginning to research approaches to solving it
• Consideration – someone is zeroing in on an approach and looking at the specific vendors or solutions that solve the problem that way
• Decision – someone is close to deciding which solution they are going to use to solve their problem

An Awareness asset might be something like a 2-page “What is content-based caching” primer, a Consideration asset might be something like “5 things to look at when buying new storage” and a Decision asset might be a recorded product demo.

None of that is fiction.  Although I’ll admit – I am a fan of Infinio. 🙂

I’m a problem-solver by nature, I can’t help myself.  I always look for ways to optimize systems, and I’m a whiz at things like getting ten people into three cars at four locations, and cooking five dishes in an oven that only fits three, but keeping everything hot.

Usually, it’s a characteristic my friends and colleagues appreciate.

But last week I was bested by someone who had the “right” answer.  I was at a kids’ service for Rosh Hashanah with my daughter.  We were making a pretend soup for the holiday (because that is what you do at a kids’ service for 2-year olds) and for each ingredient we were teaching the kids the Hebrew word.  Water (mayim), chicken (oaf), matzah ball (k’neidelach), you get the idea.  Then one of the kids suggested that we add parsley to the soup.

The adults looked at each other – parsley?  How do you say parsley?

I scanned my brain for the word for parsley, and came up with nothing.  Then I remembered that we eat parsley on Passover and that in that context it’s called “karpas.”  Now Jewish holiday symbolism can be complex, and some people don’t eat parsley, they eat potato, but they still call it “karpas,” so I knew that word didn’t literally mean “parsley.”

But I figured that this room of 2-year olds was going to riot if we didn’t keep them occupied and engaged, so I suggested, “karpas.”

The guy leading the service paused and thought about it for a second and gave me a cautious, “huh, ok…”  and we were about to continue with our song, when a woman in the back said confidently, “petrozelia,” the actual word for parsley in Hebrew.

Petrozelia.  Really?

I’m all for having the real answer to things.  If the most important thing was accuracy, then that is very accurate.  But it made me think about the context of when it’s important to have the right answer, versus when it’s important to have an answer that works.  I think knowing how to approach a problem, and how to come up with something that works can sometimes be as important as knowing the answer.

(As it turns out, “karpas” comes from the Greek “karpos” which means “raw vegetable.”  Looks like Toula’s father was right.)

Sometimes I wonder if marketing is really my calling.

A few months ago, I was at the Citrix Synergy show.  The booth next to ours was a company called “Extra Hop” that provides performance analytics.  Their booth was busier than ours, but the whole time I kept mumbling to myself (and to any of my colleagues who would listen)

“Extra Hop?  That’s a terrible name!  It sounds like you are adding latency to a network.”

Not two weeks later they got $41M in Series C funding.  Clearly their marketing team understands something about their customers that I don’t.

At VMworld, we were near an IT security company named Thycotic.  Yes, Thycotic.  At first I thought it sounded like a thyroid disorder.  Then someone said it out loud and it got worse.

“Why would you name your company something that sounds like “psychotic” with a lisp?”

But apparently they are one of DC’s fastest growing tech companies.  They’re on the Inc 500. Their name is not holding them back.  (Nor, by my cursory research, is their name purposely ironic.)

It goes to show you that marketing is subjective.  “Good” marketing is determined by the market, not by critics or outsiders.  Put another way, the proof is in the pudding.  Here are 11 examples of companies who changed their slogans.  Not all the ‘after’s seem better to me, but the market felt otherwise.

One of the perks of working in Kendall Square is taking public transportation to work every day.  I love public transportation!  I love the maps, the systems, figuring out how to get from point A to point B.  In foreign cities it’s one of the highlights for me.

My last job had a huge long car commute, and I was a champ at using that time well.  I’d queue up podcasts, pre-program friends’ and colleagues’ phone numbers into my phone, I’d use Waze to pick the best route, and for a while even used a breast pump on the way home.  (Moms are awesome multi-taskers!)

The goal of my old commute and my new commute are the same:

1. Get home as soon as possible

2. Use the time during my commute as well as possible

3. Optimize the morning commute for the best coffee/pastry options 🙂

Now I take the bus and the train every day.  If I’m coming from home, I take the 43 to Park St then the red line two stops to Kendall.  If I’m coming from babyDiva’s daycare, I take the Silver Line to Downtown Crossing, then walk to Park and red line it to Kendall.  Then I do the same thing in reverse at night.

Analysis

The thing in my commute that takes the longest time is walking from the red line to the office.  Since the office isn’t moving any time soon, that’s a static cost.  The good news is that I pass lots of good coffee on the way: Tatte and Voltage to name a few.

The next thing that takes a long time is occasionally waiting for the bus.  The red line seems to come pretty regularly for me, but the bus can take a while.  I do have the option of walking to/from Park Street to/from daycare or home, but it’s about 25 minutes, so it only sometimes makes sense if the bus gods are against me.

The thing that is the most stressful is getting to babyDiva’s daycare on the days I pick her up.  mrDiva does more pickups (I do more drop-offs) but sometimes I need to get her.  Worrying about if the bus is coming/will come/will come soon/will come in time is tough.  I find that if I leave just 10 minutes earlier (at 4:50) then I can stop worrying so much.

This tweet by a prominent working mom captured it perfectly:

Competing in the nursery-pickup-before-six triathlon (bus, train, drive) and hoping the trains don’t inexplicably break (again) #workingmum

— Meg Pickard (@megpickard) April 10, 2014

Iterating

I’ve tried some other stuff that hasn’t worked.  I tried getting on at Downtown Crossing in the mornings, but the walk to the red line from the Silver isn’t any closer than Park Street.  I’ve tried the 9 or 11 from daycare to the Broadway stop but that doesn’t save me any time.  I’ve also tried just walking to Broadway, but the distance is a little too long to save me any time.

Recently I figured out that I can save some time if I take the 9 or 11 from Broadway to daycare – in a way that doesn’t work well in reverse.  That’s interesting to me that reversing my commute doesn’t always work the same way as playing it forward, depending on where certain stops and bus routes are.

Tools of the trade

I use the MBTA Alerts app on my phone to track when the next bus is, and will sometimes choose the 43 or Silver Line independent of daycare responsibilities if that’s what makes the most sense.

Most days I read books, yes real paper books, but sometimes I listen to podcasts.  My favorite is This American Life which has a great show but a terrible app.  I also like The Moth, RadioLab, Planet Money, and Story Collider.  Beyond Pod is a good app to keep all these organized – it’s one of the only apps whose Premium version I’ve paid for.

I find that I can get really lazy about taking out my book and just play Dots on my phone instead, then hate myself for wasting 40 minutes.  So I try to carry my book with me onto the bus/train so it’s easy to get to rather than having to fish it out of my backpack.  I also find that it’s annoying to have to take out my T pass from my bag, but women’s pants don’t always have pockets so there’s that first world problem.

Walking 

There are a few beautiful days – maybe there have been 10 so far in my 6 months at Infinio – where I’ve stepped outside and it’s been so nice that I have abandoned the MBTA plan in favor of walking.  I can walk to work in less than half an hour, marveling the entire time that it’s still less time than it used to take me to drive to my old job.