Stuffleufagus

It has been about four years since I first decided to step into the consulting lifestyle.  In that time one of my “children” has completed High School, and then his first year of college.  Next year my daughter will finish High School as well.

It has been an amazing four years for me – I have been able to spend time with my kids as required – but mostly I have been able to spend an inordinate amount of time learning.  Ten years ago I learned by reading books – today I learn more by surfing the Internet – it is still reading, but it is so much faster, and so much more available (and “find-able!”.

One of the things my time in consulting has taught me is that I miss people.  I miss the challenge of building teams – not just hiring people, but building functional groups that work well together to build more than any single persons could have done.

So, taking stock of my life, as I am often wanton to do, I asked myself, “What is next”?  In a year I will have two kids in college, and perhaps neither of them left at home.

It was time for me to answer the question, “What does Rob want?”.

So I looked back in my life experiences and tried to zero in on what made me the most happy – what did I love to do so much that I could do it for the rest of my life?  Raising children certainly tops my list – but I can’t raise them forever – in fact, I am already being outsourced in that position – by my children themselves.

Raising children is like building good teams - the end goal is that eventually they won’t need depend on you anymore.

I decided I needed to go back to work with people – preferably young, energetic people, and certainly people smarter than I am.  I have always been lucky in surrounding myself with people smarter than I am (and please – PAUL! – no comments that this should be easy – it isn’t).

This realization came over a several month period – I didn’t wake up one day having come to this “epiphany”.

I missed building teams.  I need to work with smart people.  I MUST work for a company that understands that I am a unique person – I am opinionated, passionate, determined, outspoken, opinionated, and outspoken.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.  And I am sorry if I repeated myself.

I need a company that doesn’t exist outside of startups – I needed security, because I will have two kids in college.  It must be nimble.  It must be willing to listen, and learn – even as it teaches.  But I also needed the excitement that keeps me engaged.  I need to constantly invent.  I need to work with smart people that will make me smarter.  I needed to be someplace that allows me to make a difference every day.  I needed to build something that affects a lot of people, because after helping build WiFi – it takes a big project to be a “big deal”.

And most of all – I need to be able to help.  My work must have value – to me, and to the people I work with.  And to the customers – who I never shy away from or refuse a conversation with.

In the next day or two I hope to share with you the company that is all of that, and more.  How much more is something I expect to find out soon – and something I hope to grow over time.

But don’t worry – I won’t change my blogging style/habits.  I wouldn’t work for a company that thought they could control my freedom of expression outside the office.

The list of companies I wouldn’t work for is rather large.  So I’ll save you that and instead share with you in the next couple days who I would work for – and I will tell you exactly why I made that choice.

written by rob

He was referring to the fact that I blog a LOT of personal opinions – even some stuff that is embarrassing. I mean, for crying out loud – I show humanity here!

He asked the question in the context of my current quest for meaningful and fulfilling employment – he was concerned that I am making it difficult to market myself. Especially he was concerned about my CoA and CoB post of two days ago.  And in a sense, he was right – I now know that both CoA and CoB read the post.  I got reactions back from both of them.  Guess which one gave me positive feedback, and which expressed concern?

But what he doesn’t realize, at least not fully – I am not just interviewing for a position.  I am interviewing companies as well.  And the company that understands and accepts the fact that I am human – and that I have opinions that I cannot keep contained within the aspects of my job – that to me, I am both defined by my job, and help define my employer through my work – that is the company I want to work for.  And if I am somehow “vetting” them through my blog, then so be it.  If they find this uncomfortable then they probably would not be happy with me anyway.  And I probably would not be happy with them.

On this blog people can learn who I am – what makes me tick, what I think is important, what enrages me, energizes me, and what I am willing to do to make a customer happy.

My friend disagrees.

He works for a fortune 500 company, and in his world, I probably would agree with him.  In his world my honesty in my blog is probably a negative. My free sharing of feelings about everything from overbearing corporate entities, power-infused doltish police officers, employees that fail to measure up  – all of these things would be negatives when it came to working in his world.

But I do not have any interest in working in his world.  I have tasted that world – and while it treated me well for some time it eventually changed me.  Into something I was less than pleased with.  I started fitting the mold – instead of questioning the questionable rules I started to enforce them – almost blindly. I was assimilated.

It is no wonder I lost the luster for what I was doing.

And honestly – my loss of focus on what was really important probably cost more people their jobs than just me. I lost the drive to “build beyond all else”.  I fell into the trap that most mid-level managers fall into – I thought I was important.  AND – I needed my paycheck.  I had grown accustomed to the power, and the salary.  I forgot that the most important thing was building products, and teams, and bridges within the organization – instead I played a defensive role for almost a year – one that cost a lot in the totality of its failure.

But unlike a lot of mid-level managers  - I learned from it.  It took me a while.  I stepped back for several years and reconsidered what I liked doing, and how that fit into what I am good at doing, and how I can get paid for doing things that I enjoy.

After an initial ambitious play at building something huge I settled down to build a few small successes.  I needed to “get my groove on”.  I needed to find my happy place and decide what I really wanted to do/be when I grew up.

I am lucky – I had the opportunity - both with my family, financially, and most importantly emotionally and intellectually to just step back.  To re-connect with the guy that made me successful in the first place.  To remember what it felt like to build something significant.

I am not a perfect human being.  Chances are I never will be.

What I am today is something better than what I was when I was winning awards – I am complete – intellectually and emotionally.  Today I know what makes me happy.  5 years ago I always thought there was something more than what I was doing.  But what I was doing was pretty cool – and I didn’t take the time to appreciate it because I was always more concerned about “what is next”.

Today I know what is next.  Build one great team.  Then build the next.  Nothing in my professional life has given me more sense of fulfillment, and nothing else ever will.  I build teams, and I can live with that - rejoice in it, even.

And I don’t regret [most] of my blog posts. I am who I am – and part of me is someone that needs to share life experiences.  For me.

written by rob

[update - it is taking an EXTREMELY long time for comments to post - and many are being held in moderation.  I am NOT trying to censor anyone.  But it is almost 5am, and I can't watch the Spam filter anymore right now.  I'll unplug your comments in the morning.  But almost 9K comments on this post, almost all spam, have caused my system to clamp down in self defense]

Robert is a reporter.  But he is also "drinking his own Kool-Aid".  He loves everything new on the web and often tells us how great it is.

Then he moves on to the next shiny lure - leaving everyone else to figure out how the last lure adds value (often leaving the company behind the technology wondering the same things).

Robert is great at finding the new shiny lures, and sharing them with us.  I just wish he would make the next (logical, I think) step - offer me some analysis.  How can a banker, or a broker - a webmaster or a PR Pro benefit from the shiny lure?  What does the lure offer beyond the initial allure?

Yes, I want Robert to think deeper and analyze things more.

And I want him to do it because I know that he can - he just has no time.  He flippers from one shiny lure to the other so quickly that he never let’s the hook sink in.  Nothing lasts longer than the first, fleeting strike.  The last video was the last video.  The next lure is the next video.

With a few exceptions, like QIK.  Maybe FriendFeed (but I think that lasts another three months for Scoble, tops).

FaceBook was THE INTERNET as far as Robert was concerned - and that lasted a long time. But Robert sees a lot of shiny lures.

I would like him to spend more time telling me (based on real research) which ones I should strike at.  Where my time and money are best spent, and why.

The "RSS Aggregator of the week" just isn’t it.

Robert’s "Social Problem" is that he can’t recommend everything to us and have us still find him credible.  And like any other "Sales Pitch" - people need to know how it will help them.  Not just Robert Scoble, but his viewers.  His "Social Problem" is that he is not having the conversation with his audience that they want.  They don’t just want a cheerleader - they want guidance.  And examples.

And finally, they want something that works for "real people" - and not just Robert Scoble.

And the most cool thing about writing this is that I know it won’t piss Robert off -  He saves that for the Gillmor Gang!

written by rob tags: Gillmor Gang

When I was 10 or 12 I had a newspaper route.  Two of them, in fact.  One was the "local" paper (from the closest large city ~30 miles away).  The other was "GRIT" (which I was actually shocked to find is still in business!).

One of the papers paid me to deliver the paper.  I was not responsible for collections.  I didn’t bill anyone.  My job was to please the customer and do nothing else.  I wore the white hat - someone else wore the black hat.

The other paper paid me collect the money as well - which people often didn’t have on the day I chose to go get it.  Which caused me to have to go back time and time again.  I was a pest to my customer, and I started to resent my customer.  This is NOT a good relationship to have with a client.

Although I didn’t really realize it at the time, this was significant.  You can’t expect your customer service people to also be your hired thugs.  It is impossible to build a relationship like that.

Years later, as I traveled with my father while he did on the road sales of paper supplies I learned that he was always the good guy - he never called his customers for late payments and he always fixed any problems personally, and quickly.

If your company calls you something like "Customer Service" or "Support", but you have to also be the collection agent (the bad guy) then you are working for a company that never ran a paper route.  At least not successfully

written by rob

A little over a month ago I took on a new client.  I was retained to move their existing applications that ran on local servers over to a hosted/dedicated server.

I do this type work fairly often - while not easy, it is something I understand.

And by "not easy" what I mean is that I like to do it so that there is very little change from the end user perspective.  All of their application links still work, all of their data is still on the x: drive, etc.

Half way through the project (which I bid at a flat rate) I realized that I could not continue - due to a conflict of interest that was not initially apparent.  I won’t/can’t go into details on that.  But I had to call this new client and tell them that I could not complete what I contracted to do.

That wasn’t easy for me.  I don’t like not finishing things I promised to do.  The client was as understanding as they could be, considering I really couldn’t tell them any details about the conflict of interest.

Of course I did not charge the client anything, even though I had well over 15 hours invested in the project.  I didn’t deliver what I promised; I certainly wasn’t going to charge them anything.

And that was that. 

Until today. 

Today I got a phone call from another prospective client - referred to me by the client I had to drop.  That is very cool.

Of course I immediately sent the first client a thank you note - considering the fact I kind of left them in a bad position I did not expect a recommendation.

Their response to me thanking them for the recommendation was, "Of course – I very much appreciated your professionalism.  Maybe some day you can reveal the conflict. ;)"

And while I cannot reveal the conflict (and they know that) I can thank them for being extremely understanding, and very kind.

Moral of the story?  Professionalism counts - even if the project is turning out poorly.  People like, remember, and respect people who treat them fairly.  Had I tried to charge them something for the work I did do, it would not have been professional.  And I would probably not have received a recommendation from them.

Of course, it really helps when you work with extremely nice people

Thanks, people (you know who you are).

written by rob