Feeling All American!!

America may not look good but we have a lot to offer.

The United States is commemorating its Independence Day.  It is a time to look back at the nation’s history, celebrate the present and look to the future.  I am a business person and agilest.  I am also American which means I view the world with a, particularly American perspective.  This week, I want to talk about my American perspective and how it shapes my agile practice.

My European and Canadian friend tease me with the stereotype of the “Ugly American.”  To them, the stereotype posits that we American’s are uncouth interlopers with lots of money but no manners, style, culture or ideas which have value to the rest of the world.  I disagree with them politely and let the facts speak for themselves.  America for better or worse helped create the global economy in the aftermath of the second world war; we take for granted today.  America is why you can purchase a Coca-Cola in any nation in the world. 

We are not a perfect nation.  Our politics are deeply divided, and we are currently involved in on-going wars in the Middle East.  In spite of those challenges, American’s for the last century have stood up to totalitarianism, communism, and terrorism.  When asked, we have come to the aid of our allies and attempted to act as an example for the rest of the world to follow.  That said, I think our three biggest exports to the world are philosophical. Two of these concepts come from the nineteenth century; Transcendentalism and Pragmatism.  The other is from the present day – the agile reformation.  All three of these diverse ideas influence me and my agile practice.

Transcendentalism seems very high brow and something out of a high school American literature course, but we see its influence around us.  The focus on individualism and finding a spiritual connection with the divine links it with the current new age movement.  Thoreau’s ideas of civil disobedience are part of every social justice movement.  Finally, the desire to embrace nature and simplicity is the central framework of modern environmentalism.  I see the concentration on the individual and desire to make the most of one’s time on earth outlined in transcendentalism to be revealing.  Life is too short to be working on poorly run projects and being involved in drudgery.  Work must not only provide material comfort, but it must give people purpose.  I thank transcendentalism for that perspective.  

Pragmatism was a significant movement in American thinking.  Its central idea is, “…the practical application of ideas by acting on them to test them in human experience.”  In other words, a pragmatist does not worry about grand theories of how the world works.  They are concerned about what ideas “work” in the world.  It is responding to change over following a plan.  To pragmatists, an idea or action is only useful based on its practical application in the world.  Pragmatism is why all cities in the United States have water treatment.  Thanks to Pragmatists we set aside our notions of free markets and individual liberty to charge everyone taxes to make sure water is safe to drink.  To reduce the spread of cholera and dysentery in our nation, we sacrificed some individual liberty.  This a classic example of pragmatism.  For a scrum master or agile coach, it means you need to reject ideological rigidity if you want the team to be more successful; in other words, respond to change.

Finally, we have to discuss the agile movement and how it went from an American idea to a global reformation.  The Scrum Alliance has gatherings in Dublin and Singapore this year.  The Scaled Agile Alliance is spreading knowledge around the world.  Finally, business from Korea to Canada attempting to take the Agile manifesto and make it work for their companies.  The reason why we have this broad acceptance of the new way of doing business is that it delivers improved results.  We are turning out software better and faster thanks to the agile reformation than any time in the history of the industry.  It seems pragmatism encourages these new ways of doing things in the business world.

So, this “Ugly American,” takes pride in transcendentalism, pragmatism and agile.  They are uniquely American ideas which are making the business community and the world a better place.

Happy Independence Day and Until next time.

Humanities and Liberal Arts are Good for Technology

I want liberal arts in my business

Occasionally, the news of the week prompts me to yell expletives at my web browser or television.  This was a financial literacy course called, Teen Financial Education Day.  It seemed innocent enough teaching young people how to use credit responsibly, how to use the banking system, and make smart investments.  It was innocent until you saw the advertising materials which said things like “A ballerina yesterday.  An engineer today.”  As a successful scrum master and software developer this ticked me off.  This week on the blog I want to talk about why and emphasize that we need humanities, liberal arts, and the STEM in order to have a successful business community.

I graduated from Illinois State University with a major in Mass Communication’s and a minor in philosophy.  I pursued the minor because it was a subject which interested me.  I pursued the Mass Communications degree because I was going to work in radio.  I could not have picked a worse major as the radio business outside Chicago began to contract and the recession of 1990 evaporated any other jobs.  As a child of the Reagan 1980’s who said no to drugs, worked hard in school and strived to better himself; it was a very bitter pill to swallow.  I did everything expected of me by society and my elders and I was rewarded with underemployment and ridicule.

It would take me eight years from when I graduated from college to find a career in the technology field.  It was the giddy and stupid days of the dot com bubble and I went back to community college to learn visual basic.  At the ripe old age of 30, I was starting my career from scratch.  I was a self-taught technologist.  Funny thing was that my experience in newspaper, radio, and mass media made me a natural fit as a web developer.  I could discuss typography with print professionals in a language they understood.  I understood the shorthand of marketing professionals.  I knew things about color, shape and art which didn’t have to be explained.  As technology changed with the addition of CSS and XML, I was able to quickly adapt and retrain myself because I learned those concepts in school studying alien concepts like monads, existential nausea, and the payola scandals of the 1960’s.

As a liberal arts and humanity’s student, I had an advantage over my more technical colleagues because I had the “soft” skills and communications abilities to help software projects get done.  So when a bank like Wells Fargo says these skills are not necessary as part of financial literacy education it makes me want to become a hulking green rage monster.  Furthermore, when that bank is the second largest provider of private student loans in the United States, it looks like that a financial institution is trying to pick and choose which majors students should pursue.  It looks fishy at best and market manipulative at worst.

We need humanities and liberal arts in American culture.  We need humanities and liberal arts in American business because these graduates have the writing, speaking, learning and teaching skills that businesses need.  They understand different cultures.  Someone with a background in gender studies could help reduce sexual harassment in the workplace.  A worker with an understanding of Langston Hughes, Nina Simone or the Harlem Renaissance might be better explain diversity issues or #BlackLivesMatter to people who might not have that understanding.  Finally, an art history major would be a perfect choice for a UX designer or Web designer.

This is why we need liberal arts and humanities.  We need it because life is more than ones and zeros.  It is about people and inspiring them, understanding them, and helping them be better people.  It is about developing open minds and optimism about the future.  It is about understanding the past and the way our culture has evolved over the last 3000 years to become what it is today and what it might be tomorrow.  Liberal arts helps build better technology and better businesses and it is about time that others begin to see that.

Until next time.

When your office resembles high school

We grow up but never out of high school

When I was a high school student, I had an irrational fantasy about being an adult.  I truly believed when I left school, I would enter an adult world and be surrounded by grown-ups acting in grown up ways.  In the thirty years since high school, I have been bitterly disappointed. This week a few thoughts about how your office resembles high school.

Any American who attended a public high school knows that the students live in a social and cultural limbo. Over achieving strivers are wedged together with cheerleaders.  Hard rock students in black concert shirts walk the hallways with people into hip-hop wearing track suites.  The public high school is one of the few places where people from different economic circumstances, races, and levels of educational acumen are forces to interact with each other.  Naturally, they self-separated and create tribes.

As a dorky kid, I was both outcast and court jester for the insular and sad world.  Eventually, I found a niche in forensics to develop my public speaking and in JROTC to improve my self-discipline. The formative time shaped me into what I am today.

To my surprise, the mean girls who tormented me in school would resurface as marketing, human resources, and project management professionals.  The homecoming kings and athletes would transform into sales professionals and executives.  The dorky people who said not to drugs, studies hard, and developed insane technical skills.  We still answer to these monster in corporate environments.  No wonder so many of us become entrepreneurs.

The first thing I have learned is that mean girls grow up to be mean woman.  I have also learned that mean people are not worth your emotional energy.  They are going to remain mean so the best strategy is to ignore them or treat them with the contempt they deserve.  Telling someone they are being a jerk is the first step in getting them to change.  It is also good to point out to their bosses that the mean person’s attitude is why projects are not getting done on time or on budget.  You will be pleasantly surprised what happens next.  A good leader will fix that situation immediately.

As for the athletes and popular people who become executives, I have found listening to sports radio and watching ESPN sports center gives me enough knowledge to talk sports without sounding totally clueless.  It also allows you to use sports metaphors to describe technical situations.  For instance, I was building a web site and running into problems with the corporate active directory.  I told a boss that the situation was like a basketball team with a player who won’t pass the ball.  A few phone calls later my issue was fixed.

I am not suggesting that you become a tattle tale but I have discovered that when interpersonal issues prevent a project getting completed leaders behave like a high school principle and step in.  It is not pretty but in a world where dollars and cents count.  The person who gets work done is always going to receive preferential treatment over the person preventing that from happening.

So none of us really escape high school but hopefully as adults we can deal with the people who act like they are still in it.

Until next time.

Learning Servant Leadership from Marines

Marines can teach you a lot about
servant leadership.  You just have to listen.

The life of a software developer and entrepreneur is filled with adventure.  It is also filled with countless hours of meetings, moments of terror, and a few lighthearted memories.  This week I danced around my day jobs office like a portly fool to the popular summer hit “Happy” by Pharrell.  It did it because I had made a bet with one of the scrum teams that they could not get their work done at the end of a sprint.  They accepted my playful challenge and they came through for me.  I had no choice but to dance around the office.  This got me thinking about leadership and what software professionals have to do in order to be successful.

As a younger person, I remember being taught about leadership by two Marine Corps veterans from Vietnam.  Sergeant Major David Ogle and Lieutenant Colonel Richard Weidner were larger than life figures from my youth.  Like many teens in the classroom the lessons they gave me really did not sink in until later in life.  Both taught me a leader had two responsibilities to accomplish the mission goals and to look after the well being of the people under your command.  When forced to choose always accomplish the mission.  I didn’t understand this right away.  Marines made life and death decisions.  Getting a mission done often means getting someone killed.

It would only be later in life that I understood what this unusually lesson would mean.  First, a leader looked after his people because some day you will have to ask them to accomplish a mission.  The people you lead will have to sacrifice themselves and their family lives to get things done.  In a military context, they may risk injury and death.  The other part of this simple lesson was that the leader is not really there to lead others but to serve them.  This is why I noticed officers in the Marines eat last in the mess hall making sure their people ate first.  It is also why most senior enlisted men and officers did not rest until all of the people they led were safely back at base.

This left a lasting impression on me.  It also influenced me on how I lead software development team.  I refer to them as “ladies and gentlemen” since I have the rare privilege of working with co-ed software teams.  I stick up for my developers when there are struggling and give them a kick in a seat when they are loafing.  I purchase hard candy to keep them from smoking and dance around my office when I lose a bet with the team.  It just comes with the job of being a scrum master.  A scrum master is a servant leader who helps his people be the best they can be.

This is not an easy life but I find it very rewarding.  It is all part of the adventure.

Until next time.

An Easter Wish for you

The Easter Holiday and the end of lent are a time of reflection.  All of us at E₃ systems have had a busy spring.  We have moved the office.  We have started a new marketing program and we have also spent time working with the local SCORE chapter to improve our business.  We want to take time out to wish everyone a Happy Easter and look forward to more adventures in the second quarter.

Have a good holiday and until next time.

America the Disruptive

America is the story of disruption,
ask Molly Pitcher.

This last week has been a weird mix of anniversaries and events.  The Supreme Court expanded the rights of gay people with the over-turning of the Defense of Marriage act.  This happens during the same week as the 150th Anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg where this nation almost dissolved into a feudal Confederacy and technocratic Union.  We have a black president while our Supreme Court repealed election laws which made his election possible.  It is a mulligan stew of conflicting trends and directions.  I suppose that science fiction author William Gibson was right when he said, “The future is here.  It’s just not widely distributed yet.” This week the blog is discussing how this uneven distribution or ideas and technology is part of the American experience.

I began thinking about this subject when I read an article by Maria Bartiromo about the disruptive nature of software in the business world.  After a good read, it dawned on me that the entire history of the United States is the story of technological innovation and disruption.

America was discovered thanks to advances in ship building and navigation during the renaissance.  Since the first settlers landed on our shores, the American experience has been one of technological discovery and advancement.  One of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin, became the nation’s first Renaissance man and patron of science with his work on electricity, home heading and his improvements to printing.
This devotion to science and engineering is a unique part of the American psyche.  It led to the creation of the Erie Canal and the development of the cotton gin.  It made railroads possible and helped create the modern research laboratory for Thomas Edison.

Each of these technological advances caused huge disruptions.  The cotton gin made human slavery profitable for the south and railroads made it possible to defeat the confederacy during the Civil War.  Telephones and telegraphs made communications swifter and the world smaller.  Refrigeration transformed the way we eat and the web has altered the way we interact with each other.  I would argue that a solider from the Civil War placed in the middle of contemporary America would consider this a time of wonder and magic.

Each technological change has created social change.  The promises of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution were only enforced 100 years later thanks to advent of national television broadcasts in the middle of the 20th Century.  The labor movement is an outgrowth of the industrialization of our nation.  Civil rights and the sexual revolution would never have happened without Motown and Rock and Roll playing over a new-fangled device called the radio.

So when I read Bartiromo’s article on LinkedIn, I just nodded in agreement.  Software is a new disruptive influence in America.  Software is changing business and society.  It is generating piles of wealth and if you have the correct skills you will benefit in this brave new world.  If you don’t there are going to be economic and social problems.

I do not know how to solve these larger issues but I do know how to help small and medium sized business adapt to these trends.  At E₃ systems we are creating disruptive software which can track your inventory.  Coming up later this month we will be releasing our fleet management software which will help you stay on top of fleet maintenance.  This is pretty powerful stuff and it is going to be disruptive.  You may need fewer clerks in your office or you may assign those people to sales or customer service roles which might improve your revenue.

The times are changing and everything can feel profoundly disruptive but change and disruption are part of the American experience.  Gibson was right, the future is not evenly distributed but at E₃ systems we will keep on trying.

Until next time.

Getting Back to Business

Business is very democratic.

We are reaching the end of another political season.  Frankly, I am tired of the political adds, charges and counter-charges, and social media pitches which are patently false.  It is easy for people to get jaded by the process.  I know that I do.

Interestingly, when the ballots are counted and the dust settles, we American's do a pretty good job getting back to business and living our lives.  That is what I think makes this nation great is that once the election is over we can learn to live with each other instead of stockpiling weapons and heading to the hills.

One of the strengths of this kind of Town Hall Democracy is the local Chamber of Commerce.   This last week I had the pleasure to be at the Joliet Chamber of Commerce open house.  Here along with many of the other local business people we conducted the mundane routines of a democracy; drumming up business, making contacts, and networking among like-minded people.  We were not Democrats or Republicans; we were just business people. 

This kind of activity goes on year after year in relative obscurity but it makes a difference as the knowledge of how to conduct business is passed on from member to member and generation to generation.  Even though I am a high tech software start-up, I am glad to be part of this legacy.  I have even received some inquiries from engineering firms about how our software can help them manage their products.  If you want to know more please drop us a line.  

Just remember that there are only a few days left and then the election will be over.

Until next time. 

Saying Thanks

Have a great Thanksgiving

The last ten years have been a huge challenge for me and for America in general.  I can understand why people are filled with anxiety and frustration. Yet, each time this year, I make an effort to take stock and give thanks for the simple things in life.  This year I am going to share that list with you.

• I am grateful for tap water which I can drink…over a billion people do not have that luxury.
• I am glad that I have my family and friends.
• I don’t know where I would be without the support and love of my fellow parishioners at Lifebridge Church.
• After a scary stretch, I glad that I am caught up on my mortgage.
• I am grateful that even during this period of economic hardship I can start a business and find clients who are interested in buying.
• I am proud that I live in a country where we have both a Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street.  I hope the folks in the Occupy movement are as good at rocking the vote as the Tea party. 
• Finally, I am grateful to all of you who have read this blog and supported me as I go through the startup process. 

I may not have any clients on the books but I am close.  So in the spirit of optimism which all entrepreneurs must have I can gladly say my cup is full.  I am grateful that all of you have given me nourishment along the way. 

Until next time.

The Liberty of Being an Entrepreneur

The grand experiment gets another year older.

I hope that everyone has had a good Independence Day weekend.  I would think our founding fathers would be pretty impressed with the nation they created many years ago.  We are in the midst of political problems and economic challenges but I still think that we are the grand experiment of western civilization.  We are the example that other nations strive for and I look forward to the future as the 21^st century becomes another American Century.  

One of the reasons for American exceptionalism is we are able to take abstract ideas and convert them into concrete solutions to problems.  The cotton gin, telegraph, telephone, electricity, transistor, and internet were American inventions which we were able to adapt to the real world.  Seven years ago, Facebook was the product of a sexually frustrated young man.  Today, I have to promote my company on his service or face bankruptcy.  America is one of the few nations where this kind of story can take place.  You don’t see many entrepreneurs coming from France or Spain.  China seems very good at undermining human rights and violating patent regulations but they still do not have the track record of innovation we have in the United States. 

I am part of that tradition.  I created a company called E₃ systems.  What we provide is a means for small to medium sized trucking companies to use the internet to manage their inventory and bills of lading.  In the future, I will have features which use the Microsoft Tag Technology to track items and inventory with smart phones.  I also plan to make it possible to view truck driver log books and fuel charges in real time.  I plan to do this at a reasonable cost and over the web. 

No software to install and nothing to purchase.  You lease it over the web.  I think it is a reasonable means to address the challenges that the smaller provider faces. 

If America is going to recover from this recession, then it is going to take the efforts of Entrepreneurs to make a difference.    I think I am up to the challenge. 

Made in the USA - Management!!

USA! USA! USA!

Nice article from the Harvard Business Review this week.  The gist of the article is that research from Harvard has confirmed that American companies, and in particular U.S. Multinational corporations exhibit the best management practices in the world.  This is not news to me.  We are the country which perfected the Limited Liability Corporation and our successes span from world from Microsoft to Coca-Cola. 
 

It should also give pause to people who feel that we are a nation in decline.  Many of the worst managed companies are in the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China.   This gives me hope because it says that someone with a dream and a modicum of knowledge can grow a business into a worldwide player.   It should also be a cause for concern because if these nations actually learn how to manage their companies like we do they could crush the American Economy like a bug.  Being to optimist that I am, I think it is going to take a while for Russia to figure out that drinking on the job is bad for business. 

This week I am going to launch my web site and start having meeting with my local chamber of commerce and seeing clients.  I am pretty excited about that.  I think that I can help companies save money and improve their service.  I also hope that I can generate wealth and employment for my local community.  Frankly, it is time to punch this recession in the stomach and start doing business again.  It sounds a little crazy but if a bunch of us entrepreneurs try it just might happen.