Life of Brian

Times of Transition

2010-05-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the long delay in blog entries, but honestly I just didn't have much I wanted to write about. That all changed nine days ago when Lexmark announced a definitive agreement to acquire Perceptive Software. As most of you reading this know, I was the Development Manager and Principal Architect for Perceptive for 3 of the 5 years I worked there. I'm very excited for the ownership group at Perceptive, this is great news for them and exciting times as they are able to liquidate their hard work while at the same time staking a claim for themselves in the larger organization of Lexmark. I wish them continued success and well being.

Here is my completely unsolicited and likely unwelcome advice to anyone who is part of this acquisition.

-Work hard, I mean really hard to stand out. Expect for small meaningless things to change. If the brand of coffee goes from the boutique shop to Costco beans, don't throw a fit. Perceptive has likely enjoyed a lot more perks than the average Lexmark employee. Put the enjoyment and rewarding nature of your job in perspective. If you are a whiner, and you will know if you are, STOP IT. No one likes a whiner. As a Perceptive employee, you have lots of perks a large corporation doesn't have. This shouldn't be news to anyone.

- Be humble. There is nothing more annoying than someone constantly referring to how they used to do things. Propose your ideas on their own merits, not resting on the fact they are being recycled for solve a potentially different problem.

- Expect big changes. Not that big changes are going to happen, but if you are ready for them, you won't be caught off guard. Imagine the worst case scenario... and be ready for it. What are you going to do if admin is consolidated into the larger Lexmark corporation? What if the support department is moved to the Philippines? What if your job becomes interacting with developers thousands of miles away? Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

- Stay positive. I mentioned this before, but honestly it deserves it's own bullet point. If you can't stand your manager, let it go! Who cares? You must assume that they will answer to someone, and it won't be you, in fact you'll likely never know.

Over time I've learned to respond better to changes. Transition can be fun if you let it. You have a chance to reinvent yourself. You have a great opportunity to set yourself apart and excel in a large organization. If you desire and enjoy that you should grab at every chance you get.

I haven't always made the best decisions in life, but the four items I mentioned above have never been the reason for a bad transition. If anything, not following this advice has let me down. I'm excited to see this unfold from the cheap seats. I hope all goes well for my friends still at Perceptive and as always if you need any anything, don't hesitate to ask.

-B

Wes Potts

2009-10-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

I had planned to post another installment of Software Nomad (focusing on Cerner), but I found out the sad news this week that a friend of mine Wes Potts passed away. I'm going to share some of my memories and lessons I learned from Wes.

I first met Wes when he was trying to get off of Social Security disability and come back to work at Perceptive Software. Wes was one of the first long term successful liver transplant patients (in the early 80's). In fact he had two liver transplants very close together and is one of the longest surviving patients of those operations. By the time I met him in 2004 he had already been forced to quit working once due to complications with the same illness that required his liver transplanted, however at that time he was feeling better and rather than just sit around at home, he wanted to come back to work.

This leads me to one of the first things I learned from Wes. Don't sit idle. Regardless of the state of your body, if you can contribute with your mind do it. Wes was on numerous prescription drugs to manage the pain and other symptoms, including enough morphine to kill an average person. Wes didn't always feel well, in fact he was high on pain killers almost the entire time I knew him. There were days he would have a hard time typing in an if statement, but it was very rare that he didn't come into work.

Wes was one of the founding developers at Perceptive Software and he wrote a large portion of the various products that came and evolved over time. One time, I was talking to Wes about the early days of Perceptive and he shared a story with me about how "LearnMode" came into existence. The current owner of Perceptive (different company name at the time) was convinced that they needed to make a government focused accounting package. Wes and Hugh (another founding developer) were the primary, maybe only, engineers in the company and in the process of building an accounting package, they developed a very cool stream splitting integration technique. Against the wishes of the owner at the time (and incognito) they built a technology that has long been the "secret sauce" of ImageNow. For a younger software developer, as I considered myself at the time, this was a profound story and concept to me. It hit me that I had become the 100th employee of a company built on the ideas of a couple rouge programmers. This was very appealing to me and taught me that when you know, and I mean really know you have the best idea. Go with it! I have used this lesson a few pivotal times in my career and so far, I'm batting close to 1.000. As Kenny Rogers would say "Know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em."

I had the pleasure of working very closely with Wes on a project that became known as "SmartFonts". This project was focused on utilizing artificial neural network programming constructs to perform low res OCR of screen captures. Wes was writing the neural network code and I was consuming it to perform the non-programmatic integration along with feature analysis. This work resulted in a patent application I share with Wes as well as many hours of bonding between he and I. However it never became a released product. Instead after many months of heads down development I went rogue and created a better, more maintainable product that would solve the same problem and continues to set ImageNow apart. In all this, Wes taught me to be willing to risk your success, even when it comes at the hands of your own bitter defeat. Don't fall in love with your solution because there is no guarantee that it's right, or even possible. Go with the best option at every turn.

I also remember the day that Wes went back on disability. He had been working for almost a year and his illness was just taking too much of a toll on his body. At the time I wondered why he came back at all, what drove him? I finally think I understand it. It's about the people, ideas, leaving a mark, being remembered. Wes felt he wasn't done. He had more to give and he was willing to give it because he believed in himself and the cause to which he was giving his most precious resource, his time. I'm very thankful to those 10-12 months. I learned a lot from Wes. I like to thank many of them he didn't intend to teach, but he instead taught through his example and witness of how things had come to be.

Since I worked with Wes I've seen him only a handful of times. I can remember them well. Most vividly I remember a visit Hugh and I made to Wes when he was in the hospital and everyone was pretty sure the end was near. Wes was unable to talk due to some bad drug interactions, but his mind was still working. Hugh and I spent a good 45 minutes visiting with him. He would write notes, or try and communicate other ways. We gave him the gossip at the office and watched some of the History Channel. I shared with Wes that I had recently gone down to Disney World with my family. Wes, with the help of his wife, told me about the trip his family had made many years before. They even stayed in the tree house village, which has since been shut down. It was at this point that I had another lesson lived out before me. The importance of family. The importance of memories. Wes's memories touched me that day. The passion in his eyes and his desire to share will always be a reminder to me that I need to live a life worth remembering. Moments go by so fast, most of the time all we have left is the memory of the moment.

I'm a better person because I was able to get to know Wes Potts. He showed me to not sit idle, ever. He lived out before me the power of leading through production and knowing when to put it all on the line. I also took away the importance of keeping an open mind to a better solution even when you've invested so much into a different solution. But most of all, he showed me the importance of living a life you want to remember and share with others. It is this I encourage those reading this blog to remember. What ever you want to be remembered for and whatever you want to remember when your time comes. It is up to you to make those memories. I've been told for the last 4 years that Wes is close to passing. There have been many scares. My warning to you is that most people don't get to play the "end game" of life for as long as Wes did.

Rest in peace Wes Potts and thank you for the memories that I have.

Software Nomad - Sprint Edition

2009-09-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

It is not broadly known that I did my duty as a citizen of Overland Park, KS and worked at Sprint. I spent a long and educational summer in the Long Distance Division working on the Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS). I was on the Bonanza team which was responsible for the Routing and Trunking of Long Distance Nortel Switches that powered the backbone of Sprint (at the time). My role was that of an intern. I worked on a small project that consumed most of the summer. I also cleaned up PVCS.

I enjoyed the summer at Sprint. I had a chance to see an environment of mostly contractors working on a very large scale, highly fault tolerant software system. Looking back I was exposed to many concepts that have influenced my opinion of what a cohesive software team looks like.

The entire software system was modeled in Rational Rose. Everything from class diagrams to sequence diagrams to use case diagrams. You could take the class diagrams and with the click of one button create all the .h and .cpp files, along with all the function stubs. From the sequence diagrams you could click one macro and create mountains of documentation that would describe down to the level of pseudo code what each function was supposed to do. This is by far the most mature development environment I've ever worked in.

Here are the grades as I see them.

1.) Business Need - C
      - Even though all the customers of the system were internal, I never met one in 3 months. It isn't required to meet them, but can be very helpful. We were building the typical internal development project. We thought we knew what they needed or at least we were going to build something and it was going to work for them, they really had no choice and we had no competition.

2.) Requirements - A
      - Like I said above, we had everything down to the click of a button, and every picture drawn with every arrow pointing the right way.

3.) Design - A
      - We had such a great design that the system could build itself and anyone could walk through the large function level documentation to add features to the system. CMM level 5, here we come.

4.) Implementation - C
      - Implementation was pretty well put together. We had a philosophy that once the system was up, nothing should be able to bring it down. This was pretty cool and if everything wasn't perfect on start-up we would shut down. However a lot of the spirit of the project seemed to be lost in the letter of the design.

5.) Maintenance - D
     - We were the final level of support on the software we had written. There was a team that sat between the customer and the developers to operate and manage the system. One day a very old part of the system that was already live went bad. Rather than restarting and making the system usable to the customer we allowed the system to sit in a state of near death and unresponsiveness while we troubleshot the issue. Ridiculous. This was one of the biggest mistakes I've seen so far in my career. Days went by while we tried to figure out how this could have happened. After 3-4 days we finally restarted the system and allowed our customers back in. It took another week to get access to this old source code and another week to make the 3 line fix that would hopefully prevent this from happening again. Oh yeah, in those 3-4 days we didn't even pinpoint what went wrong...

Summary:
    Sprint was fun, but not nearly as much fun as it could have been. The idolatry of the design and diagrams got in the way of making really good software and having fun time doing it. The politics between contractors who are just trying to get their job done and contract renewed and the full-time employee was also eye-opening. I learned a lot from Sprint. I'm grateful for the opportunities I was afforded there. And I'm glad I didn't take their offer to come back. The Bonanza team moved on to the Sprint ION project and was quickly let go as ION flopped faster than a stack of Chris Cakes on a styro-foam plate.

Software Nomad

2009-09-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

I had the honor and pleasure to provide a guest lecture for Dr. Arvin Agah's software engineering class. It turns out people might appreciate my perspective on software development. I crafted a 75 minute long lecture that can only be described as a hist-orial (half history of my travels and half editorial). All facts were littered with my opinion, even complete with a controversial grade card of software process for each stop on my way. Where did I start? Why at the beginning of course, Aleon.

I thought I might give a little longer version for those remotely curious of what I might have said and to serve as notes so I don't forget what I might have said.

As I see it there are 5 phases of a software process (and much of the world agrees with me).
1.) identify the business need.
2.) formal requirements.
3.) technical design
4.) implementation
5.) production / maintenance.

Sure, you could argue that I've left something out, but lets just assume I could convince you that its included in one of these phases.

So, Aleon was a small Web development company. I started at Aleon in June 1999 writing ASP code to create mostly data driven websites. Looking back, I took this job for granted. I had the opportunity to create some cool sites, and see some people trying to get their company off the ground. I'll save most of those memories for another day. When I started at Aleon it was called IES Midwest Consulting, then it became GrapeVine Consulting group, then Aleon. In this transition of names, I witnessed a company of 70 people contract down to 7.

Our process mostly consisted of making sure we kept good time records. So my grades shouldn't be any surprises, but here they are...

1. Business Need - A
- I got to work hand in hand with the customer. If we got one thing right (maybe to a fault) it was making what the customer wanted. Sometimes the customer had no idea, and then we made what we wanted, but you get the idea.

2. Requirements - F
- Right, we had none, I mean NONE. Much of what we discussed when straight from email to implementation.

3. Design - D
- We were better at this than you would think, mostly because we had to deal with the consequences of bad design by tons of maintenance, still I can't in good conscience give us better than a D.

4. Implementation - B
- We could write code, that was our key differentiator from other places that were hiring people who could spell SQL. We knew how to make websites, and we knew how to write database enabled javascript, and it was tons of fun.

5. Maintenance - C
- We did, it paid the bills, when you contract as much as we did, you run home to your existing customers for some paychecks and we knew exactly what they needed done.

In the lecture, I covered all of my previous employers (Cerner, Sprint, Perceptive Software ). I plan to upload all my content. I encourage discussion. Please let me know if you disagree with me, agree with me. Don't care... :-).

More to come, and sorry for the long break...

Ideas

2009-08-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve often wondered just what it means to have an idea or own an idea. I have an obsession with real-time news lately and I saw this go across the news wire. FriendFeed Acquisition. I find this type of business deal fascinating. Here you have a giant company (Facebook) buying a 12 person company for about 50 million bucks and partially for their product, but mostly for their ideas and the people behind them. So this begs the question, what are ideas worth? How do you measure them? How do turn them into something worthwhile?

I was looking at a website today and seeing the results of someone’s idea. I’m always in favor of people reducing their ideas to practice. It adds something to the world, it increases the mass of human accomplishment. I have recently been an inventor on several patents. I never understood why reducing the invention to practice wasn’t a requirement of getting a patent for your invention. Without the object/prototype you just have an idea. You aren’t even really sure it will work.

Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your idea dreamt up by someone else and taken further than you did. I consider that failure and a challenge. A challenge to improve on the idea, on your own idea and make something.

I’ve spent far too little time in my life working on my ideas. I find that as each one is taken from me (obviously not on purpose) that I’m getting more and more motivation to take them back, or capitalize on what I believe are the really good ones. It all comes back to time and how we use it. I love this clip & quote from Lord of the Rings.

“All we have to decide is what do with the time that is given to us” Gandolf

I started this post not knowing where it would end. So I will say this… Become accountable to yourself. It is my hope for you that if you have ideas and feel compelled to reduce them to practice, you do so. I find that making yourself accountable to a partner or friend can often move you in the right direction (or even a blog). Time is precious. Use it wisely. I’m trying to use mine better, I’m trying to add some mass to human achievement. Success or failure, I’m carefully choosing how to use my time.

The FriendFeed team took 5 months to go from the birth of a company to product. I’m just saying :-)

How fast is fast?

2009-07-24T19:25:00.001-07:00

I read this article on NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/business/25trading.html?_r=1 today and wanted to expand on just what 30 milliseconds means at the Nasdaq stock exchange. If you haven't read the article yet, I encourage you to do so before going on.

Flash orders are visible for 500 milliseconds or half a second. (The article mentions 30 and I'm not sure where they got that number, maybe that's how much faster the flash quote feed is).

So I started wondering just how much could get done on an exchange in 500 milliseconds. It turns out that Nasdaq is the highest volume exchange and they share some of their numbers of just how fast they can handle orders. http://www.nasdaq.com/services/homw.stm this is another quick read, but I encourage you to read it after...

1.) In a half a second Nasdaq has executed over 17,500 orders. Nasdaq could execute 50,000 orders and has tested their software up to 30,000 in a half a second.

2.) 250 orders could be submitted from one broker, and all of them cancelled. That's right, you can submit about 1 order every millisecond per direct account you have.

As you can see, a lot can happen in a half a second. It makes the think of the Don Henley song "New York Minute".

I'm in awe of Nasdaq to some extent. The idea that they can handle 1 Billion transactions a day with their system is fantastic to me. As a software guy, that is cool stuff.

Of course what that means to our stock market is that every millisecond counts. I think it really puts things in context when you consider how far light can travel in 1 millisecond...A light millisecond is 186 miles. So if your round trip time is less than 1 millisecond you must be closer than 93 miles. If you expect to receive and accept and acknowledge an order you have to be much closer. So how far can light travel in 1 microsecond...A light microsecond is .186 miles or about a 1,000 feet.

What I'm getting at is that a lot happens in a very small space in order to accomplish what Nasdaq is able to do with the number of orders and the performance they have achieved. Fortunes are won and lost in a half a second. in those 250-500 orders the market can move several if not dozens of points (or dollars) on the price of a share.

If you take anything away from this, change your thinking that the market is run by people in funny coats with hand signals, don't believe that the market is still run by people like Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy selling frozen concentrated orange juice in Trading Places. The market is literally run at the speed of light. If someone invented a way to break the speed of light (like Star Trek warp drive) we wouldn't travel from galaxy to galaxy, we'd be figuring out a way to use it to speed up our market and the data that drives it. We are limited today by our understanding of the laws of physics.

America the Beautiful

2009-07-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

No where else in the world are there more amazing success stories that the United States of America, no where else in the world holds the idea of equal opportunity of success as key in their culture, no where else in the world do people believe that hard work will make them rich and famous. America as a meritocracy defines who Americans are. The perception that anyone in America can overcome their starting place in society to span class or race and succeed in the face of adversity is key to who Americans are and without this, the constructed social structure that America prides itself on would be as unstable as a two-legged chair. Whether or not America is a true meritocracy doesn't matter. What is significant is that people within and outside of the United states view America as the land of opportunity. Without this belief, the very foundation that America is built on would change dramatically.

There are many arguments to the validity of labeling America as a meritocracy, where success is awarded based on hard work and ingenuity, not class standing or racial privileged. The numbers of people who have been able to extend their success beyond the social sphere that they began in are to numerous to count. American folklore is filled with stories of heroes and success. One of the richest men in the world is a product of this meritocracy that we call America. Bill Gates is an excellent example of someone who had an idea and took it all the way to the top. He succeeded in the face of failure. His story is inspiration to all the entrepreneurs that have ever had an idea. Oprah Winfrey is another example of someone who overcame their starting place in society to succeed beyond their own circumstances and surroundings. Once the daughter of a lower class Georgia family, she is now the "Queen" of daytime talk shows.

Many people have been able to succeed in America. Some have even been able to move beyond their original classes to become huge success stories and even cultural icons. There are many examples like Bill Gates and Oprah who have been able to succeed in this land of opportunity, in this land of meritocracy, but is it really true? Does America blindly reward people based on hard work and ingenuity? Is it really possible for the majority of Americans to break out of the societal binds that hold them and alter their social standing? While there are some cases in which the answer to these questions is yes, as a whole, this is not the case. As a whole, America is flawed and riddled with social inequalities that don't allow for people to move from one class to another. Just because some people can do it, doesn't mean it is true for the majority of Americans. In fact, there is a much larger case that America is not a meritocracy. Success in this country is often determined by who you know, the color of your skin or how much money your parents have. Through a process of hegemony, and white rule, the overall social structure of the United States is much less dynamic than most people would prefer you believe. When was the last true shift in power? When was the last time an entire social class was able to change their current situation?

Some people argue that in America , where a person starts is usually where a person ends. Through hegemony, the lower class tends to groom their children for future lower class jobs and the middle class usually pushes their children towards middle class jobs. Only be acknowledging their starting point can a person truly understand his or her own experiences. The concept of social imagination allows for the understanding of true success in this land where hard work is more often not rewarded.

Perhaps, more important than whether or not America is a true meritocracy is the mere appearance of it. The idea that hard work should be rewarded is no secret among most Americans. In fact, this ideology is a core belief in almost every class of American society. There may not be any other belief more important to maintaining the status quo than the idea of America as a meritocracy.

The few cases in which people have been able to transcend their original classes only serve as fuel to the perceived ideals of hard work being rewarded. The belief that you can determine your own class all but eliminates the need for class battles for power. This allows the current powerful classes to remain that way and to build the defense to class conflicts on the basis that people are not stuck in a single class. They claim to be the proof and the beneficiaries of America as a meritocracy. On a more global scale, the "American Dream" is sought after in many nations. The problems in the American higher education system are direct products of this misconception that America is a meritocracy. There is a prevalent misconception of the way in which higher education reinforces the status quo in society while claiming to do the opposite. The current move in the United States away from race based admissions and to a more class based higher education admissions policy is founded in the ideals of the United States being a classless meritocracy where biological categorization does not need to be problematized.

While it is extremely difficult to state without a doubt that America is or isn't a meritocracy, it is easier to see the implications of the perception that hard work pays off and allows anyone with a strong work ethic to succeed. The consequences of this philosophy are easily used to the advantage of the dominant social group, such as the ability to defend their position by challenging other groups to take their power based on the ideals of meritocracy. The fact that a meritocracy does not exist in the true sense of the word allows for the dominant group to exist almost unopposed by any real threat of a social revolution. People in America hold these ideals as such a corner stone of their culture that any attempt to point out the existence of only a perception of meritocracy would definitely go unsupported and possibly challenged by those who currently benefit from this perception.

C. Wright Mills examined the truth of these previous claims to the mere perception of a meritocracy. He wrote of the social imagination needed to put yourself in your place in society and that you can only truly understand your success and failure by understanding others in your same social position. This understanding is key to over coming this perceived truth of meritocracy. Society is not equal. Minorities are held to a different standard than whites in America. There is a definite, and inherent, inequality among the opportunities between races in the United States. Only through comparison to others in the same situation can a person truly understand the success that they have attained in their life.

The United States of America is not founded on the ideals of a meritocracy. Much to the surprise of most Americans, those who work the hardest do not always succeed. Nothing about American culture is fair or blind when it comes to ingenuity or vision among groups. However, most Americans hold these values as truths. Many people would equate the rags to riches phenomena of the United States to these ideals that define a meritocracy. These ideals are bred into all Americans beginning from the earliest age till death. These false perceptions server to keep those in power from facing real opposition to that power while the class structure goes on in a way that is unfair to most of the participants. The United States would be an entirely different place if people were rewarded based on the ideals and hard work.

Note: This is an old college paper that I wrote in an American Studies class and recently uncovered. I'm not sure I entirely agree with it anymore, but it did help shape my vision of this country. I feel that it is unfair to end it without adding that there isn't any other place in the world that has more opportunity to reshapre your place in society than America. With all the flaws outlined above this is still the place to live, to raise a family and succeed in business. Capitalism is the worst form of economics, except for all the others ( I ripped this off from a quote on Democracy).

There is a strange tension in our country between ideology and reality. I have come to learn this balance is necessary and an understanding of it can lead to a better reaction and increase your ability to rise beyond your class level in life.

Let me know what you think.

Software as a Service

2009-07-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

The software as a service (SaaS) market is growing and I'm sure it will continue to grow over the next few years. The key change in this market from what we were calling Application Service Provider (ASP) or "OnDemand" during the late 90's and early 21st century is the concept of multi-tenancy. This is the ability for many customers to leverage the same hardware system. The best example of this is email. The gmail servers that host many different customers (like me) are an example of sharing hardware (the email servers in this case) across many customers (me and many of you). In the Enterprise Software space Salesforce.com has had the most success with this business model.

I had the opportunity to attend the Salesforce user conference (Dreamforce) in San Fransisco last November. I will never forget it since I was in San Fran the night that Obama was elected. Truly a once in a lifetime event, but I digress. Sales applications have lent themselves to being web based due to the nature of the work. A direct sales force often needs access outside of the office more frequently than in the office.

Enough background on SaaS. The rest of this is my opinion and as such should be taken with many grains of salt.

Those SaaS providers that have multi-tenant systems have pushed hard to define SaaS as an architecture. I disagree. SaaS is a business model. It's more the concept that you rent software instead of buying it. There are aspects of a multi-tenant system that make these more profitable and appealing to customers, but it's not a requirement.

Some aspects of a well managed SaaS business include
- The ability to get a new customer started in just a few minutes.
- Good answers to how data is secure between customers. (regardless of multi-tenancy)
- Good answers to how to transfer data into and out of the system.

I have been very skeptical of the bulk movement of software to a SaaS model because I'm a big believer that the tool needs to fit the job. I have been hard pressed to find a web based (html) application for something other than email and blogging that really seems to hit the target.

I think Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a place where a multi-tenant, web based application makes sense.

I was recently exposed to a start-up CRM company. They are Soleran and their website is www.esalestrack.com I haven't seen a lot of their application, but it seems to have the majority of functionality I know that the CRM space needs. They are also a local Kansas City company. I encourage you to check them out. I sadly don't know enough to give an opinion of how good of a SaaS company they are. I do know that their business model (monthly per user fee) fits in line with the most successful SaaS strategy. One of the places I think salesforces goes wrong is with their contract for a monthly fee. They require a 2-3 year commitment to your monthly payments (and give discounts for early payments, just like my auto insurance :-). The true commitment to an application like this is storing your data in it. Once you have months of data you can't cancel without incurring a huge cost of migrating your data into another system.

I'm excited by the transformation in Enterprise Software to go towards subscription models. It opens up the door for innovation (in both application delivery) and business models. It can correctly put the burden of running the system on the those who are creating the system. I'm excited by the new platforms developing that help make these models more accessible to the common developer (Windows Azure, Amazon EC2, Google, VMWare).

"Of course, that's just my opinion I could be wrong" (bonus points to whoever can identify that ripoff quote)

Let me know what you think.

Great Expectations

2009-07-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

For the past 8 years I've heard people make varying comments about expectations.

"We have to set expectations", "we have to reset expectations", "we need to manage expectations".

What exactly are "expectations"? I like these two definitions the best (thanks to dictionary.com).

1.) the degree of probability that something will occur: There is little expectation that he will come.

2.) a prospect of future good or profit: to have great expectations.

I encourage you to pick the one you like better and stick with it.

I have learned that life goes better when you have very high expectations for yourself. It is not our job to underestimate our own worth. We live our entire life being sold short or told we can't do something. When you take a chance at the impossible, you end up accomplishing the improbable or even better, proving the impossible ... possible.

I was driving home today at 3:45 :-) I have a longer drive now that I work in KC, MO and I saw a great illustration of holding high expectations of yourself. I was merging on to I-35 from I-635 and I found myself behind a mid 90's Honda Civic Del Sol. I've always thought the civic del sol was a neat idea. For those that don't know, it's just a little two seater with a removable roof (the del sol part :-). This one wasn't in great condition and I know it's seen better days, but I digress. What caught my attention was I could tell this civic wasn't going to allow other people to tell it what it couldn't do. This car (which has never been made with an engine > 1.6 L and was front wheel drive) had a shiny new trailer hitch and Nebraska plates. This car believed it could make it all the way from NE and pulling a trailer to boot. This car isn't going to play by your rules anymore.

Have expectations for yourself. Have GREAT expectations for yourself. Without the prospect of future good, without a degree of probability that something will occur we can all lose our directions. No one else will hold you accountable the way you can hold yourself accountable. No one else will fairly judge your effort. I encourage you not to let yourself settle for something less than your best.

I was planning (and had even writting) a blog on Failure, but that seemed a little too harsh. Not to mention, I saw a CIO magazine (free subscripting, don't judge me :-) and Failure was the cover story. I don't want to seem like I'm ripping some ideas off.

I have a couple more blog entries on the way...
- I was recently exposed to a local company that is competing with Salesforce.com and I want to share my perspective on SAAS.
- I also have an entry planned on what I believe it takes to be a software company selling into the Health Care vertical.

Stay tuned if you can bear my ramblings and let me know if there are any other topics that interest you.

P.S. for those of you playing at home, I have taken the I-435 exit toward Perceptive 2 times in the first 6 days (yeah 33% of the time). Luckily it's pretty quick to hop on I-35 and make a quick recovery. Old habits die hard.

Good Bye

2009-06-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

Emotion and Logic.
Pain and Reason.
Fear and Love.
Pride and Passion

I sat down and tried to embody my experience at Perceptive Software into as few of words as possible. I found I can barely begin to express the respect and admiration I have for this group of developers and the company they represent. I am a better person for having interacted with each of you and for that I'm truly grateful. I appreciate all of your patience with my failures and all of your support in our shared success. I want to lie to myself and say that I'm leaving for you, but that's not fair. I'm leaving for the potential of realizing my dreams. The dreams that have driven me to get my first job at the age of 10, to working full time at the age of 15 and allowed me to commit myself to you and this company for the past 5 years. I'm thankful for your time and the passion you show that I find unrivaled by mere mortals.

I have had a chance to share one of the key tenants of my life with many of you so this shouldn't be a surprise. I'm a strong believer that you should live your life a little too far and that guilt or embarrassment is easier to stand than regret. When given the chance to sit it out or dance. I hope I choose to dance. :-) My philosophy isn't for everyone. I believe in taking risks. I believe in becoming unsettled for the simple chance that when you settle again you are better for it. My goal is for the role I fill in this world to never be defined or restrained. There is a lot I want to accomplish. There are needs in this world I'd like to play a major role in filling.

So why did I leave Perceptive?

Well, I remember when I left my first software job. I went to IES Midwest which became GrapeVine Consulting Group which became Aleon Web Technologies. I started at this company in 1999 when they had 65+ people and it went all the way down to 7 in 2001 when I left for Cerner and the chance to progress beyond being an ASP hired gun. At the time I went to Cerner I had a much better offer from someone else, but I wanted to change the face of Health Care in this country. I was young and an idealist with a fair amount of energy (Dangerous combination in my opinion) so off I went. When I left Cerner to come work for Perceptive. I was tired, I was beat up and ready for some place where I could effect change. My friend Brett was already here and told me what an awesome company Perceptive Vision (not yet Software) is to work for. I did my research, talked to Hugh, Susie and Scott and made my decision. So off I went.

So why did I leave Perceptive? I'm not worn out and I'm far from beat up. You can tell from what I've written above that I've never lost the idealist in me, but that's not the reason. I left Perceptive almost entirely because I found a chance at a better opportunity and I'm the kind of person willing to take a chance to get where I want to be down the road. I left a place where I knew exactly where I stood and had a great idea of what the future held. I left and have to start over because I'm willing to risk almost everything for a chance of reaching my goals and get me closer to where I want to be. In the process of leaving I feel I changed things for those I left behind. I feel I changed them for the better and I hope they agree.

I had a strange feeling today as I set at my new desk. It was the exact same feeling as my first day at Perceptive. I felt slightly overwhelmed and a little clumsy maneuvering a new codebase. It creates the same uneasy feeling in me as the start of a new romance when you are afraid to make the wrong move and mess everything up.

I already miss Perceptive Software and I truly wish you all well. I'm very thankful for all the nice well wishes you have sent to me and they mean a lot to me. I'll try to tame down the sappiness from now on. As always, thanks for indulging me by reading this blog.

Slicing

2009-06-18T19:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, I'll quit being sappy for one evening and delve into some software.

C++ is one of the most powerful languages ever conceived. The blending between elegance and access to the iron make most other modern languages look like a meat slicer at Mr. Goodcents compared to a razor sharp blade at a Japanese steak house.

However I'm pretty sure this isn't a revelation to many of you, but the classic c++ slicing problem continues to foil people just starting out.

What is a slicing problem?

Lets take this code for example

class foo
{
public:
virtual int getValue()
{
return 2;
}
};

class bar : public foo
{
public:
int getValue()
{
return 3;
}
};

void callGetValue( foo f)
{
cout « f.getValue() « endl;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
bar b();
callGetValue(b);
//what gets printed?
}

this code is intended to be syntactically correct and "it compiles" :-) . So what happens? Obviously I wouldn't be asking if this code works as seemingly intended. Is it any surprise at we see "2" printed to the screen? It should come as no surprise to the skilled and talented chefs that wield this razor sharp language.

Let me try and explain. At the heart we have a competition between being passed by value and passed by pointer. While this might not be interesting to the languages whose blades are carefully encased in a steel frame with controlled access, this is incredibly important for c++.

When b is passed into callGetValue it is passed by value which means its not really passed at all, instead a copy is made (which matches the function prototype) and that copy is available for the scope of the function. Everyone still with me?

So how can we fix this? Well, we have a couple choices.

1.)

Lets change callGetValue to look like this.

void callGetValue( foo* f )
{
cout « f->getValue() « endl;
}

And then we have to change our main to something like this.

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
bar* b = new bar();
callGetValue(b);
//what gets printed?
delete b;
}

So what is going on now? Well, instead of using value semantics we are now using pointer semantics which means that we aren't making a copy anymore, the same instance created in main is being used and the output would be "3".

There is another way (which I happen to prefer) that I'll let you discover on your own. Feel free to post it to the comments if you like.

So, when you pass variables by value, you can expect c++ to slice down to the class in the function prototype faster than a ginzu knife through warm butter.

What is my point with all of this? Know your language or you could lose your pointer (finger that is). Sorry I couldn't resist the awful joke.

Actually this lesson goes for any job, this is just an example of where many c++ developers don't know just how sharp of a tool they are dealing with. In any job and any hobby, you should always know your tools and how to handle them properly.

Be careful and happy coding!

Vegas Baby!

2009-06-17T13:02:00.001-07:00

For those of you who know me, you know I'm in Las Vegas this week. This happens to be the first time I've been to Las Vegas and might be my last. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed my time in "sin city", but I'm about to make a job change and the chances of travel are significantly reduced. I also can't ever imagine taking my family to this place. Maybe my wife and I would come, but it's not exactly our style, perhaps it's the kind of place everyone needs to experience one time.

By some stroke of luck I landed a 2500 sq ft. suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel for the price of a regular room. If you are one of my friends on facebook, you can check out the pics. (Love the new phone by the way.)

I'm finding myself sad for what I'm leaving behind (it's a suite week :-)and yet exceptionally excited for what's ahead of me. Vegas is a city constantly reinventing itself. No one seems to stay here for very long, the scenery changes very often and money is made on the volume of suckers that pass through. Vegas is a great place to make a transition.

So, here I am, in my self proclaimed city of transition, in the middle of my own transition and what have I learned? Well, I've learned there are a lot of helicopters in Vegas (Mandalay bay is right next to the airport). I've learned there are a lot of people in Vegas (all seemingly okay with giving away part of the net worth to feed the ultra tacky, opulent casinos that make this town what it is). I've learned that I'm going to miss Perceptive more than I thought I ever would. I've grown up a lot at Perceptive Software and Perceptive Software has grown up a lot around me. Of course in the end it's the people you work with that make the job. Perceptive has some of the best people I've ever met. It's funny to me because I'm starting see this blog as separation anxiety relief and a moderately lame attempt to keep my relationship with the people I've come to know and care for so much. I've had a lot of time to think these last few days and I've heard "you're not in Kansas anymore" (from the wizard of oz) every time I've had to show my ID. I've started projecting myself onto Dorthy and you all are the lion, tin man and scarecrow (sorry, not a great fit for any of us ;-). Well with all this you are probably wondering why I'm going. As I promised in my first post, that's still coming.

Thanks for getting this far and feeding my delusion (that people care what I think).

Success Criteria

2009-06-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

The other day I was having a conversation with a few people. As many conversations in my life are focused around software, this one was too. We were having the experience of reviewing a test that was not passing. At one point in the conversation someone asked the insightful question "does it work?" to which the quick and proud answer was given "it compiles.". This was the point in the conversation where things changed. The point where the differences in our success criteria became obvious.

Having a common success criteria is imperative to a team or organization. Without an agreement on what aspects make an endeavor successful you leave this open to individual interpretation. There is a great risk when you motivate in opposite directions that both will be successful and neither will achieve the common goal.

Let's return to the conversation above. Why is compiling so bad? A program must compile to be successful. Why do I think this an unacceptable answer? It's not! It's a great answer and in a world of success relativism I can't even disagree. I judge a program in part by how it looks, in part by whether it produces the desired result and in part by how maintainable it is. Never once would compiling be a criteria, I take it for granted that it compiles. However today I learned a lesson, a lesson on human interaction. A lesson on success relativism. A lesson on life.

If you got this far, thanks. You are feeding my blogging delusion :-)

P.S. I wrote this all on my new palm pre. Sorry for any spelling mistakes.

The End of the Beginning

2009-06-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

I think it's important to start a blog with something grand, so that you can constantly disappoint anyone who thinks you worthy to follow.

I once said "I don't blog because I don't walk around with the insane delusion that anyone cares about what I think or what I'm doing" (slightly stole from Woody Allen). Well, I was wrong, I guess I do harbor that insane delusion.

I plan to use this space to attempt to stay connected with people I've met in life and to give me an outlet to allow people to opt into my insane delusion. Broadcast emails just seem too pushy.

I'm about to make a job change soon and more will come in that vein as I decide what I want to say and when I want to say it.

First post down... the future is mine!