Field Guide to Programmers

Here's something to think about as we all try to navigate the uncertain waters of 2008.

Like it or not, in most organizations HR has grown up with a forms/clerical/factory focus. Which was fine, I guess, unless your goal was to do something amazing, something that had nothing to do with a factory, something that required amazing programmers, remarkable marketers or insanely talented strategy people.

...

Microsoft and Google both have a very healthy focus on finding and recruiting Talent. McDonald's recently announced that they want to hire people who smile more. The first strategy works, the second won't. Talent is too smart to stay long at a company that wants it to be a cog in a machine. Great companies want and need talent, but they have to work for it.

[Via: Seth Godin]

Just a quick nod to a great post over on Coding Horror about the importance of interaction design... I just couldn't stop laughing about this quote from Alan Cooper.

The Ultimate Unit Test Failure:

But when it comes time to marshal the solution to the problems, we find ourselves slamming into this kind of Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of software development.

[Via: Coding Horror]

Are you the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of your dev team? Make sure to check out the recommended title too: Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think.

You can find out more about Steve Krug on his website - sensible.com [natch].

Here's a quote from the book:

It’s always interesting to watch Web designers and developers observe their first usability test. The first time they see a user click on something completely inappropriate, they’re surprised. (For instance, when the user ignores a nice big fat “Software” button in the navigation bar, saying something like, “Well, I’m looking for software, so I guess I’d click here on ‘Cheap Stuff’ because cheap is always good.”) The user may even find what he’s looking for eventually, but by then the people watching don’t know whether to be happy or not.

The second time it happens, they’re yelling “Just click on ‘Software’!” The third time, you can see them thinking: “Why are we even bothering?”

Awhile back I wrote about Dax Herrera's Google AdSense plug-in for Wordpress. I happened to be out trolling the treasure troves of plug-ins for a different site when I came across Urban Giraffe's excellent Google Ad Wrap plug-in.

The plug-in is really sweet because it allows you to tell AdSense about the relative content on your page (thus improving the ad targeting):

Section Targeting is a way of embedding special tags inside HTML to give Google's omnipresent spider a better idea of what's important on your page. This is a really simple plugin that wraps posts and comments inside these tags, in the hope that they'll lead to better search rankings.

Even if you don't use Wordpress, the idea of section targeting is powerful.

No Man's Land is a business book aimed primarily at entrepreneurs whose companies have reached the dreaded plateau in sales/profit/customer acquisition/etc. The author, Doug Tatum, calls this lull the "No Man's Land" where companies either decide to stay small, restructure and break out, or wither and die. The book definitely serves it's purpose, but I think it is also a great book for leaders who are running high-growth departments within larger corporations.

While I haven't worked for a startup tech company, I've been a customer of quite a few. From that angle, I can tell you that Tatum's book is perfect for every growing tech company. No, really. If you are running a tech company, buy this book now and read it before you reach your plateau. See what lies ahead of you and stop it before you have a real mess on your hands.

But like I said above, Tatum's advice is not just good for companies, it's good for fast growing departments within larger organizations too. If you run a high growth area, there's no doubt that you will recognize the signs that Tatum talks about in his book. His practical advice can really help drag you out of the doom and gloom scenarios that inevitably come to fast growing departments when they reach maximum capacity and need to change.

[Oh, and in case you'd like to stay small, Tatum will point you to Bo Burlingham's Small Giants. I read Burlingham's book too and I think it is spot on advice for those companies who have pegged themselves to be a certain size. If you run a smallish company and want to keep it that way, buy copies of Small Giants and give them to your executives. This will ease a lot of frustration. You might lose some growth-oriented folks, but in exchange you'll have focused leadership that understands the long term vision.]

What business does a blog about programming and E-Commerce have with posting such blatantly positive and idealistic thoughts?

I've worked with a lot of different programmers and tech folks during my career. Without a doubt, it's a tough racket. The long hours and complex, detail-driven work bends the mind at times. It makes us forget that we're human and that there's a big world out there we need to get into and explore before our time is done.

Andrew Galasetti of Lyved posted a fantastic list of things he's learned over the course of his lifetime over on Dumb Little Man. The 20th is my favorite...

20 Things I'm Glad Life Taught Me:

20. You can change the world: Every single person has the ability to change the world whether directly or indirectly. When you change your life and the lives of those around you, you've changed the world. Small things that you do can make a huge impact on the world.

[Via: Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life]

Andrew's site is pretty cool too. Make sure to check it out if you need a breather from the code and can't get outside. (although you really ought to get outside, right?)