Mark Freedman’s Blog

Running a user group is extremely rewarding, and I’ve been lucky enough to be involved doing so for over a year. I’ve been very fortunate to have great partners in Leo Junquera and Louis Edouard. It’s been great for us to have been able to run a code camp just after a few months, and we’re already planning our second one. But I also believe it’s time to take this to the next level.

There have been a number of new formats tried by other groups, and I’d love to experiment with some of those, but there are also some others I’ve heard people discussing. Here are some ideas my team has been considering, and some thoughts I have behind them.

Panel Discussions / Debates
In this format, we’d have two to three experts on a particular topic, and have them face off either against each other or moderate an audience debate. Ideal topics can include:

• The ever popular ORM debate
• Conventional Web apps vs. smart client apps
• Silverlight vs. AJAX web-based front-ends
• Agile methodologies vs. waterfall
• Scrum vs. extreme
• TDD vs. Conventional Design Methodologies
• Code generation vs. Application development frameworks
• MVC vs. Web Forms
• Windows Forms vs. WPF
• Monorail vs. Ruby on Rails

There’s nothing more stimulating than a real passionate debate that encourages audience participation. It’s hard to fall asleep during one of these, even after a long day’s work.

Open Spaces
As described on the Mix08 Website, this format is a way to bring together groups of people interested in a common topic to have an interactive discussion. In an Open Space session, there may be an expert who is passionate about (an often complex) topic leading a discussion. A few of these could be happening at the same time, and people just gravitate to their area of interest, jumping from one to the next, and are encouraged to participate if they’re truly interested and have something to add.

I haven’t had the opportunity to attend one of these yet, but it sounds very exciting. From what I understand, the format is loose; as a matter of fact, there is no real format. You can gather around informally and just debate on a topic, or you can gather around someone’s PC as they’re demoing a technology or technique. As Jeremy Miller commented when describing the first ALT.NET Open Spaces event, “with the Open Spaces format you basically skip the boring parts and get right to the interaction.”

Geek Dinners
These are informal get-togethers on a regular basis at a restaurant of common choice, where the environment is conducive for discussion among like-minded geeks for the purpose of learning or otherwise interacting with others who share technology interests. I’d love to organize this at least once per quarter in the Stamford, CT area.

Study Groups
These are groups that meet several times (weekly?) for a short burst of time (a month or two) to help each other study a technology they’re interested in, most often for the purpose of achieving certification. Yeah, some people think certification is overrated when trying to decide who’s really qualified for the job, but it’s a milestone for many in our field, at least as a measuring stick for ourselves. There’s a group in NYC, but I think it would be beneficial to start one in the Stamford, CT area, also.

Shared Stage
I’m not sure if there’s an official label for this, but we can share the “stage” with several other members for 15 minutes each, to lead a discussion on a topic we’re interested in or have some expertise in. In this way, people who are interested in one day giving full presentations on their own can get a taste of what it’s like before getting too overwhelmed. Plus, when they see others in the same position, it can make them feel a bit more comfortable and less alone. This can help grow a new group of promising speakers and future superstars. We could model it after the Speaker Idol events given at Tech Ed, only less competitive (unless that sounds enticing).

Ice Breakers
Some groups actually hand out name tags to people attending the meetings. I think this is a great idea for getting to know each other on a first name basis. I’m very embarrassed to say that even after a year, although I recognize faces, for the life of me I cannot remember most names of regular attendees. I also belong to a camera club with my wife, and they do this regularly. People do get to know each other much faster, although many try to avoid getting “tagged” at first. It’s a real ice breaker, and makes the whole experience a lot more interactive.

Summary
I think many of these ideas share a common thread — the opportunity for much more interactive experiences for the members of our community. This is what I find most exciting about this. In my experience, there’s nothing more interesting than a learning environment in a social setting. Unless a speaker is very engaging and gifted, sometimes full-length presentations can get a bit dry, and the experience can become a little stifling. Often, the best part of the night is at the very end, as people start informally discussing the topic or related topics on the way out the door. That last half hour or so after the event is often the most enjoyable part of the evening, so why not make it the entire evening? There’s nothing that many of us would enjoy more than two to three hours of engaging “conversation” with our peers.

So let’s make it happen!

If anyone has any ideas on this topic, please comment here, or contact any of us at the user group.

I find it fascinating, and at the same time a bit uncomfortable that we are never exactly who we think we are. Our personas shift slightly depending upon who we’re interfacing with at the time.

Our core personalities remain, but different sides of ourselves come out when interacting with different people in our lives. There’s usually a “common” us that comes across when meeting someone for the first time, at least in the first few minutes. But it shifts rather quickly into an actual persona that we can’t help but filter through in our dealings with this person forever more.

With some people, I automatically shift into a more leadership, mentoring persona, while with others it’s more subservient, and with others it’s more domineering. Still, with others, it’s more chummy. But the most fascinating part is how quickly it settles into a permanent role, and it often doesn’t seem to make any logical sense based upon hierarchical position, status, or role.

Is it chemical? Is it aural? Is it based on something locked inside us from early childhood experiences? It’s probably a combination of all of these. I guess this is why we decide early on if we like someone or not, and why a personality conflict seems to exist before opportunity for one even presents itself.

As I became more aware of this phenomenon, I tried experimenting by pretending that I’m dealing with someone else. But I believe for most of us, this is simply not possible. It feels forced and unnatural, and we quickly revert back to our roles in the relationship.

I’ve also tried this experiment at meetings, thinking it may be more difficult because of the variety of personalities in the same place, but the personas seep through depending upon who’s getting my focus at the time. I think a lot of this awareness is inward, and not as obvious to the people around us. But you start to pick up similar behavior with people you are very close to.

I can see it in my wife’s relationships, but outward observation is not as distinctive as inward — I can sense a few minor persona differences in her relationships, but I’m sure there’s a lot more color in her awareness than I could experience. At the same time, I’m sure she sees me only slightly different in my interactions, but inwardly I feel my personas more distinctly.

So who is the real me? The real you? Is it the sum total of all our interactions with others? Or is it our inner voice? Is this a good thing?  I believe it’s just different sides of our true selves, and what makes us such a complicated species.

My wife is a photographer, right on the cusp of going professional. People who are familiar with her work constantly turn to her for advice on photography and Photoshop. They want to know what tools she uses to get the results she gets, such as what lenses and Photoshop plug-ins to use. Often they end up disappointed that their results don’t match up to hers.

The thing that they, and many people tend to miss is the fact that the tools can only get you so far. Just because you may use the best tools available, it doesn’t mean that you know how to take advantage of those tools. It takes practice using the tools, experience in choosing which to use for the appropriate situation, dedication to the efforts of producing quality results with those tools, and obviously the natural ability of the user.

I remember hearing a story about a woman who threw a cocktail party for friends, and during the night she played her baby grand piano for her guests. She performed beautifully, and at the end of the evening, one woman came up to her and said, “I’d do anything to be able to play like you.” The host replied, “No you wouldn’t.” The guest was taken aback, and asked what she meant by that remark. The host explained that it took many years of dedication and practice for her to play like she does, and that the guest didn’t really mean what she said when she claimed she’d do “anything” to play like her.

Just because you’d like to be accomplished at a certain talent or task, and just because you obtain all the best tools to help you get there, it does not guarantee success. You can’t automatically reach your goal without learning how to use the available tools, learning about your capabilities in the process, mixing the ingredients in just the right way, and producing the right results.

On The Business of Software blog, someone asked if there’s a risk in revealing the tools they use to produce a successful product, and if it would give a competitor an edge in doing so. My point is that just knowing what tools to use will not make someone a stronger competitor. It’s no real secret what type and size bat Babe Ruth used throughout his career, and anyone could have gotten their hands on a replica or his actual bat, but that does not mean they’d get the same results as The Babe if they did so.

Likewise, there’s no real secret of the availability of the tools the person on the blog mentioned. Anyone could find them, read about success stories from people using them, and trying to use the tools themselves. If you’re able to produce something of value using the tools available, it’s a combination of so much more which provide your unique solution, so don’t worry about the competitors who are probably using most of the same tools anyway.

When it comes to estimating, developers live in an idealistic world. Despite repeated experiences of constant interruptions causing projects to overrun estimates, developers tend to look at subsequent projects with wishful thinking.

It’s strange. Most developers associate so much pain with the last minute rush to deadlines, you’d think they’d surely tack time onto their next estimate. Developers absolutely loathe the following required and unavoidable tasks that occur almost every day:

• Interruptions by managers
• Interruptions by other developers
• Bug fix requests by QA
• Status meetings (Scrum and other)
• Design meetings (theirs and their teammates’ — ok, they usually find some enjoyment and challenge in these)
• Deployment meetings
• Code Reviews
• Etc. (does “etc.” warrant a bullet?)

Yet, with so many of these cutting into their daily attempts for focused development, you’d think they’d take these into account when estimating the next project. Developers dream of a world where they could lock themselves alone in a room for days, with coffee and junk food, and just code…

(taking a break to dream… niiice…)

…and nothing will ever kill that dream, no matter the pain of what they’ve just been through. It’s an admirable stubbornness and idealistic mindset, but it just ain’t realistic.

Developers, (developers, developers,) if you can’t convince yourself that you’ll be doing more than coding, for your next estimate pretend that you’re working at least 30% less than a full week. Just pretend you’ll only be working 25 to 30 hours per week. Now how long will it take you to complete the project?

Of course, the next thing to tackle is the complaints about interruptions, even after proper estimates…

Here’s an example of “user abuse”, which has remained throughout several versions of Microsoft Outlook. What do you think clicking the check box will do? If I’m never asked again, what would Outlook do automatically in the future? Would it always send a receipt? Would it never send a receipt? Would it always do what I select now (Yes or No)?

Always avoid this ambiguity in your applications. Would you like this type of message interrupting your flow? Would such a message cause you to avoid ever selecting the check box out of fear that you just told Outlook to always send a receipt for all future requests? You may certainly feel that if you change this default, you’d never be able to find the way to reverse your answer in the future, since Outlook options are so buried (a topic for a future article).

Always try to stand in your users’ shoes. You don’t want to be accused of “user abuse”. I call this “user abuse”, and not just “user interface abuse”, because in the end, it’s how you treat your users that counts.

The easiest way to solve this is by changing the check box to read “Make my answer the default, and don’t ask me again.”

You may wonder why I don’t recommend adding multiple options. Quite simply, message boxes should be as unobtrusive as possible. Rarely, if ever, should a message box do more than ask a simple question. As a matter of fact, even the absence of a check box would be more acceptable than an ambiguous one like this. If it were easy to find the option to turn off receipts in general, it’s likely the Outlook developers would not have added this option to the message box at all.

Be kind to your users.