Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

Sacha Chua rocks, as usual

Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

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2009 User's guide. First draft

2009 User's guide. First draft, originally uploaded by -Xv.

A first draft of my 2009 resolutions/guidelines. Inspired by Sacha Chua.

make eyes shine, awe, patience, focus, simplify
start early, meditation, run, food, quit
play, listen, notes, realistic drawing, hack

Tweets my friends like

Twitter lets you mark as favorites the tweets you like. Some people doesn't care about this, but others do add stars to tweets that are fun, enlightening, or both. I wanted to be aware of what my twitter friends mark as favorite, and after no obvious google hit, Yahoo! Pipes came again to the rescue.


The pipe creates a feed with the tweets that some one's contacts have marked as a favorite. Keep in mind that it only works for the up to 36 contacts that are shown in a user's page, since I did not want to get into the authentication issues required to get a full list of contacts. If you want, you can add additional users, that don't need to be your contacts.

Customize it with your accounts and grab it at http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/friendsfavs.

Credits: Microformat-scrapping the page is the only way I that found to get access to a list of contacts without authentication. I used Duane Cato's Microformats contacts extractor as a starting point, and just copied how he uses http://microformatique.com/optimus/ to grab the info that twitter kindly puts in hCards.

Passion for the craft

Denilson Nastacio's unsolicited advice to executive teams:

promote a passion for the craft rather than demanding a passion for the business. That is empowerment over chastisement. People who understand their craft are more likely to be enthusiastic about it, when people discover they can learn something new and become good at it, they are inspired; with any luck, even passionate.

When people are enthusiastic about what they do, and that boundless enthusiasm is backed by technique rather than unchecked madness, customers tend to love it too. And when that feeling of elation comes out of succeeding at a task or beating a competitor, chalk one up to a job well planed and well done, not for passion for the business.

Graphic from Creating Passionate Users

My own unsolicited advice? Read Denilson's full post, keep in mind his story about that goalkeeper's career, and enjoy being passionate (about something you can understand and can take away with you wherever you go).

Mmmm, I'm now scheduling a meeting with myself to review my latest career decisions. (Hi, M-the-sweet-hurricane! My being green with envy about your passion and focus on working on a radical career change also have lots to do with this meeting :-)

Verbose business cards

Learned from Kellypuffs that linkedin users can get 50 free MOO cards. Enter Jonathan Feinberg's Wordle (and a bit of javascript).

Another reason to want a DS...

...and another reason why Sacha Chua rocks: How to sketch with the Nintendo DS

| View | Upload your own

And while you are at slideshare, check Sacha's Web2.0@work: In Pursuit Of Passion:

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I liked the "Cynicism (...) directly affects the bottom line" quote from Dov Seidman's How. And, for that matter, falling into cynicism also makes work suck.

Milers de blocs a les escoles

Via janquim, aprenc que a http://blocs.xtec.cat/ hi ha més de 11.000 blocs d'escoles, d'accéss lliure i privat. La meva escola en té un!

Tag-decorated feeds

Tags should be a good cue to tell us if a blog post should be read or skipped. I find puzzling that most (all?) feed readers just ignore tags. Surprisingly enough, I could not find any feed decorator.

Yahoo! Pipes to the rescue: after some copy'n'paste, a pipe that decorates feeds appending to every post title its categories (for atom and rss 2 feeds), and also adds the tags to the top of the post: http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/tagsintitle

This one does the same, but also adds the results from Yahoo! Term Extraction to the top of the post. I just cooked it, so I am not really sure if the list of terms is a useful addition: http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/tagsandtermextraction

Annoying side effects: the feed name, url and description become those of the pipe, so a bit of manual work is required after subscribing to a feed. I hope they fix it...

Disappointed by "The No Asshole Rule"

Not that I'm disappointed by the concept of having zero-tolerance attitude towards assholes, but by Bob Sutton's book on it: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilised Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. The back cover promised hilarious examples in a funny, defiant little book. An enjoyable review by Guy Kawasaki and lots of good ratings in Amazon also made it look like a good read. And I have this dear friend working at Jerk Avenue, and I sort of hoped getting something for her. But the book, aside from making me take a little time to reflect a bit about my own episodes as an asshole [1][2], was just boring.

Maybe the problem is that before the first page I was already in agreement with the author, and I did not need the additional 170 pages. Or that I'm lucky enough of not having had to deal with assholes at work in quite a while. Or that I'm not involved in hiring any team. Or that I'm not a certified asshole.

Bob Sutton has done a very nice service making explicit the No Asshole Rule [3] and bringing focus to it. But I just did not need that many asshole stories and that much evidence about its virtues.

[1] A surprising book in improving my self asshole-ness awareness was Leadership and Self-deception: Getting Out of the Box (link for IBMers). I'm pasting a comment I made on Roo Reynolds blog, who said about it, "it made me think about the nature of selfishness. Not every book does that":

Your minimalist recommendation has made me read Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box . Thanks for that. I liked the storytelling approach, and, as "advertised" by you, it is really making me think. A lot.

My 2c for anyone else feeling tempted by the book: it is a book for anyone dealing with humans, no matter if the leadership stuff has any appeal to you.

[2] All this writing about my asshole-ness may convey the impression that I'm a jerk. My mum and I think that I'm quite nice. But the asshole path is always there...
[3] If you want the No Asshole Rule enforced, you can vote for Kellypuffs if you ever find that she is running for some election.

Evangelizing and toilets

One of Google's little secrets that has helped us to inspire our developers to write well-tested code: we write flyers about (testing techniques) and then regularly plaster the bathrooms all over Google with each episode, almost 500 stalls worldwide.

We've received a lot of feedback about it. Some favorable ("This is great because I'm always forgetting to bring my copy of Linux Nerd 2000 to the bathroom!") and some not ("I'm trying to use the bathroom, can you folks please just LEAVE ME ALONE?")

Stumbled upon this evangelizing technique in Introducing "Testing on the Toilet", while googling trying to decide which JavaScript unit testing framework use (yeah, shame on me, I've been doing lots of JavaScript lately without doing Test Driven Development).

They not only use a surprising evangelizing technique, but also have a great banner and motto for their blog: "Debugging sucks. Testing Rocks."

Eduqueu les Criatures (tots dos)

Ensopego amb el programa de Catalunya Radio Eduqueu les Criatures, de Carles Capdevila: interessant i divertit. Una de les falques és "un pare... i cap teoria".

Hi he anat a parar a partir d'un post a La Colometa, un blog d'un pare que parla de la relació amb la seva filla i de custodia compartida SENSE FER SERVIR MAJÚSCULES CRIDANERES, ni caricatures i simplificacions grolleres, que malauradament, són coses que no és molt estrany trobar quan es parla, a favor o en contra, de custodia compartida. També a La Colometa m'envien cap a Con Igualdad, amb un bon recull de premsa sobre la coparentalitat.

És agradable i esperançador veure que la coparentalitat després del divorci s'explica, no com una guerra de sexes que omple de vergonya (i por!), sino com una manera d'organitzar-se que granteix temps de qualitat per a nens, mares, pares, avis...

Com escriu en Carles Capdevila amb mal regust a la boca després del debat sobre custodia compartida que m'ha portat a conèixer el seu programa, "el feminisme necessita aliar-se amb aquests homes avançats que si obtinguessin la custòdia afavoririen la conciliació laboral i familiar d'ella. Que no li convé tenir-los frustrats, pringats, maltractats. Però em diu el lector que cert feminisme els posa bastons a les rodes, prefereix mantenir un sistema que, per ser antiquat, els dóna a elles la paella pel mànec en cas de divorci". Per sort, hi ha un sector del feminisme que ho entén molt bé.

Shouting "fire" in a crowded place

Ian Hughes, on a comment to a post by Andy Piper announcing a blogging break:

“I am stopping blogging” is the Web 2.0 of shouting “fire” in a crowded place.

e-ink

Jeff Berg [1], in his IBM intranet blog [2], commented days ago on having used a Sony Reader: 'astounded at how much it looked like paper'. Like a book, it is not back-lit: comfortable to read for long periods, but requiring external light.

It was the first time that I heard about Sony Reader, but now both my back and my brain would love to own this gadget.

[1] I don't know how to link to Jeff. Here you have a link to his Beginning ActionScript 2.0 book and to his wondeful video of a Chicago building being teared down.

[2] Jeff's "Fight For The User" blog is, by far, the most visually interesting in our intranet. And it's not just pretty: lots of good posts on usability and information design. He does indeed fight for the user.

Analogies and Connections

The RTP Scrolls is a place where Denilson Nastacio and his readers have some fun drawing analogies from unexpected sources, borrowing examples from Mother Nature, mathematics, physics, biology, politics and on occasion, metaphysics.

Denilson's unexpected jumping often makes me think about James Burke's Connections (an alternative view of change) , one my my favourite TV shows ever (that I haven't had the chance to watch it in 20?! years). The great news for me is that, while googling to write this post, I have learned that I'll be able to watch some of the episodes.

Enjoy!

dW chats: Grady Booch on the latest Rational tools release

Another developerWorks chat that looks very interesting: Grady Booch answers your questions about this week's Rational tools release. On Thursday December 7th, at 4:30 pm his time or 10:30 pm my time.

I did not learn about this from Booch's blog itself, but from a comment by Ferran Rodenas to a post in Kelly Drahzal's blog. The interesting bit about this is that Ferran works for "la Caixa", a very important ibm client, and it is a very good thing for me and some team mates to be able to read his posts and keep track of his blogroll. Or explore his linkedin profile and our common connections. The openess that blogs and social software have brought rocks!

Comments/Sorolls/Noises/Ruidos

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¿Quién? ¿Qué? ¿Por qué? ¿Cómo?

¿Quién?
Xavier Vergés Farreró, cosecha de 1965, barcelonés, honrado padre de familia, ingeniero, ciclista... Según algunas opiniones y miradas, tirando a raro. Según mi madre, muy majo.
¿Qué?
Desarrollo de software (metodologías ágiles, python, javascript...), seguridad y privacidad, Barcelona en un mundo plano y puntiagudo, la movilización educativa, mi desintoxicación de la red, esto y lo otro.
¿Por qué?
Porque quiero aparecer en las listas de blogs de IBM al lado de gente tan lista como Sam Ruby o Grady Booch, a ver si se me pega alguna cosa. Porque Josep M. Ganyet me riñó y me dijo que soy un antiguo y nada 2.0 si sólo escribo en la intranet. Porque, como dice David Singer (también muy listo y en las listas de blogs de IBM,), todo el mundo se merece mi opinión.
¿Cómo?
En mi mejor Spanglish, Catalanglish o, directemente, en inglés.

Disclaimer: IBM has its opinions and plans; I have mine. Any resemblance between the two is coincidental.