Update: 20 Sept, 2016: added Predictable Revenue and Selling with Noble Purpose.
I'd rather read a cereal box than most business books. They either put me to sleep faster than an antihistamine overdose, or retell the same wilted business ideas. Who has time for that?
Now I only read books recommended by people I admire. People like those at the Business of Software Conference. They consume an elephant's weight in books every year, so they make a great filter for recommendations.
Every year, I ask the folks at the conference what books they've read in the last year that really made an impression on them. Most of these suggestions come from attendees, but a few were mentioned in the talks too. If one of the books below catches your eye, it will almost certainly be worth your time.
*Moving Average Inc. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Buying items through this link helps sustain my outrageous reading habit and is much appreciated!
MicroConfers read a lot. This is one of the reasons I've created Passages: to help people maximize their return on their reading investment. Here are some of the books I heard mentioned, or that I mentioned to other attendees.
*Moving Average Inc. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Buying items through this link helps sustain my outrageous reading habit and is much appreciated!
There is a lot of demand for the limited supply of senior software developers in the world. My colleagues and I get several messages a week from recruiters, and many of them are laughably poor attempts to attract our interest.
How can they believe that we would leave our wonderful jobs because of health insurance, or an office "fully stocked with snacks"? I'm not sure I know a single developer without health insurance, and so many startups offer snacks that snack delivery is a booming industry!
What about the recruiters who do manage to convince a developer to write back? They often forget to build a relationship and keep the candidate's interest. Instead they lose sight of the person they're trying to push through "The Process".
How can this be? It doesn't make sense to compete for limited resources in such a half-hearted way. Those guys with the big beards wouldn't start an Alaskan gold mine with plastic beach shovels and a kitchen colander! Recruiting is an expensive activity, especially when the rest of the team should be focused on building a product. There is more to hiring good developers than sending LinkedIn form letters, scheduling interviews, and writing job requirements.
If you enjoy the read, consider signing up below. I'll send an occasional entertaining email on how to improve your recruiting process. I will occasionally send you early access to drafts of my essays on the topic.
In my last essay, I explored some ideas on how to improve results in the App Store by experimenting with ads. I ran Facebook Ads to A/B Test the Click Through Rates (CTR**) of two different images.
Based on the differing CTRs, I jumped to the conclusion that the composition of the images made the difference. In one ad, an entire iPad was shown. In the other ad, most of an iPhone was cut off, except for the screen. In other words, I believed that the way I depicted the iPad or iPhone resulted in more clicks. I didn't doubt that I was one step closer to buying a tropical island.
Manton Reece read my article and immediately wondered if maybe the iPad vs. iPhone split could account for the difference. In other words, maybe folks were more likely to click on an ad that depicted the device they were holding in their hands. I immediately slapped my forehead. My app island slipped below the waves. I vowed to figure out what really happened with my last experiment.
TLDR: Manton was correct. Also, implementing the changes suggested by Manton’s hypothesis improved my CTRs quite a bit.
A New Experiment
To start examining the Manton Hypothesis, I first tried sifting through the ad data Facebook provides. Perhaps I could see which clicks belonged to iPads and which belonged to iPhones or iPod Touches*. Unfortunately I couldn't find that information. It didn't seem like I could examine Manton’s theory with the ad data I already collected.
No worries, I can find out with another experiment! The Facebook Mobile App Ads for Installs (!) allows the each ad to target a different device. Keeping the other parameters the same, I set the underperforming ad (the one with a photo of an iPad) to only target iPads. Even one day into the experiment, it seemed like Manton was correct. The CTR for the iPad photo jumped up nicely.
After a week and a half of targeting the iPad ad to the iPad, the CTR rose from 1.5% to 3.08%. Double!
I was so impressed, I decided to try the same thing for the ad with the cropped iPhone. I targeted it to only display on iPhones or iPod Touches.
This time I didn't expect to see a huge jump in performance. Why? Remember, in the previous article, the iPhone ad was already out-performing the iPad ad. If the Manton hypothesis was the only explanation for the differences in CTR, that implies that there were a lot more iPhone or iPod Touch users getting my ads. The diagram below shows how the ad with the iPhone Photo gets a higher CTR when both ads get the same mix of iPhone and iPad users.
As the diagram shows, the iPad photo (right side) gets a lower CTR because the viewers as a whole are dominated by iPhone users. According to the Manton Hypothesis, iPhone users aren't as likely to click on a photo of an iPad. That’s why the pie is smaller on the right, and why that pie is mostly iPad clicks.
But the iPhone photo has the reverse situation: the iPhone users still dominate, but this time they are seeing a iPhone photo. So in this case the majority of the users see a photo which matches the device in their hands -- a favorable situation. This leads to the bigger pie on the left. This time the less interested party is the iPad users. They are the smaller percentage of the folks seeing the ad. Their diminished CTR has a smaller impact on the aggregate CTR.
So, what happens when you target the iPhone ad at only the iPhone users? Just as the Manton Hypothesis predicts, the CTR improved, and the impact of targeting the iPhone ad to only iPhone and iPod Touch users wasn’t as large. The CTR for the iPhone photo the week before the change was 2.686%, and was 3.128% after the change.
Ad Description
Combined CTR
CTR Targeting only the pictured device
iPad Photo
1.5%
3.08%
iPhone Photo
2.686%
3.128%
Noise
But here is an important point: the lifetime Combined CTR when I was indiscriminately showing an iPhone photo to both iPhones and iPads was 2.931%. The baseline I picked for the numbers above were for the week before my change. The improvement looks pretty small when compared to the larger baseline. 2.931% vs. 3.128% doesn't seem as exciting as 2.686% vs. 3.128%.
Why was the week-prior CTR lower than the all-time CTR? I don't know for sure. The numbers I’m dealing with here are small. I’m not spending hundreds of dollars a day on ads, and I’m not getting a huge number of installs. I don't have a $50,000 advertising budget. These tests are being done for $5 a day.
My experiments here come from 1,000’s of clicks, not tens of thousands or millions. The sample size may not be large enough. What looks like an insight might just be noise. So take these results with a grain of salt. Or, even better, run your own experiments using your own money.
If you have a small budget like this project, the best cure for uncertainty is to hedge your bets and keep re-checking your assumptions. If you have real money riding on an outcome, it makes sense to double check your work. At the very least, be prepared to revert your changes!
Making a Model
I did have another idea for examining our results. What if we could mathematically model our hypothesis and see how it fits the data. I would feel more confident of the hypothesis if I could make a model that makes a decent prediction about a different data set.
One cool thing about these Ads is that we can see the size of the potential audience for each ad. The audience for the iPad Ad is 182,000 people. The audience for the iPhone Ad is 620,000 people. The only difference between these audiences is that one targets the iPad and the other the iPhone / iPod Touch.
So, lets make lots of assumptions about the size of the audience and the probability of getting a iPad versus a iPhone user. Lets assume that if we don't target the iPad or iPhone specifically, the probability the ad will be shown on either device is proportional to the size of the audience. For instance:
now assume combinedCTR = 2.686% (the iPhone image CTR when targeting both devices) and sameDeviceCTR = 3.128% (the iPhone image CTR after targeting only iPhones)
then differentDeviceCTR = 1.2%
Now lets take the differentDeviceCTR we just calculated from the iPhone ad and see if it predicts the outcome for the iPad Photo ad in the same situation: targeting both iPhones and iPads.
In this case, the equation looks a little different because we're flipping sameDevice (now iPad, because we're considering the iPad image) and differentDevice (now iPhone):
This model doesn't seem too horrible! It predicted 1.64% CTR for the iPad photo ad when targeted against both iPad and iPhone. The reality was 1.5%. I'm pleasantly surprised. Again, the Manton theory seems quite reasonable. I'll leave it to you to see what happens if we use the other iPhone photo combinedCTR of 2.931% baseline -- the model doesn't agree as well.
Conclusions
So what do we conclude from this exercise? For one, targeting your ads specifically to the iPad or iPhone user could be worth your time. I doubled the CTR of my under-performing ad with two clicks.
Even more importantly, running experiment on your ads can really pay off. And the steps aren't difficult: form a hypothesis, run an experiment using ads, collect the data, and make a simple model. With a model, you can try to predict the impact of your change.
With this first bit of new knowledge, maybe I'll save tons of money on ad spend. And then maybe I can apply what I learned to other areas of the sales funnel. And then I can try another experiment, learn, and implement. Maybe my tropical app island isn't entirely out of reach.
I’m really glad that Manton commented on my last article. Thanks! An extra set of eyes is invaluable!
*No, it’s not called the iTouch! Also, be aware that Facebook lumps together the iPhone with the iPod Touch. For certain questions that could be important. ** Yes, technically it should be TTR, not CTR, since you tap on an iOS device.
Update May 1, 2014: Manton Reece had a great question about my results. Scroll to the end for details.
As someone with a career attached to the iPhone App Store, I sometimes feel jealous of the folks who sell things on the web. Websites can use analytics and split testing to learn lots of things about how to make their product more profitable.
In the App store, you feel lucky to see your sales numbers a day after they happen. If Apple tracks how customers found my app’s page, the number of visitors, or how much time they spent, they don't share it with me.
This shortage of information has interesting consequences. First, there are lots of tools out there that try to help developers figure out what's going on in the app store. Tools like SensorTower, App Annie, Flurry, and AppCase.
Second, you'll find lots of lore on how to boost rankings, get listed higher in searches for keywords, and how to get featured by Apple.
Finally, there are tricks we use to get better reviews in the store.
These techniques are nice, but they aren’t proactive or customer focused. Even the best of these tools tell you almost nothing about the organic traffic coming to your App Store listing. It isn’t even clear what impact an improved ranking in the app store has on conversions.
Am I supposed to take it on faith that efforts spent on improving my rankings will be repaid by increased sales? I want tools that help me build a product that customers want to pay for. I also want tools to make it easy for customers to find my product.
Rob Walling's book Start Small Stay Small advocates that a developer-entrepreneur worry about developing the product last. Finding a market for a product, and figuring out how to reach it are the first priorities. Once the entrepreneur has found a market, she can tailor the product to fit.
Can mobile app developers can do something similar? Can we learn about the market for our apps in spite of the opaque App Store, or are we doomed to just make apps and fight our way up the charts?
I don't think we're doomed. I've decided to stop treating the App Store like the mouth of Moving Average's customer acquisition funnel. Instead, I've been experimenting with Facebook's Mobile App Ads for Installs.
These ads are cool because you can target an audience based on the things users have expressed an interest in on Facebook. Not only that, but you can tap into some interesting data about who is clicking on your ads. Note that I’m not saying Facebook is the only solution. I hear that Twitter has some similar tools. I just haven’t had a chance to play with them yet.
My Facebook ads are now the mouth of the customer acquisition funnel. Each ad has a small amount of copy and a 1200 x 627 image. To make my first ad, Facebook requested two different images. Out of the gate, I would have an immediate split test! Cool. And now my customer acquisition funnel looks like the below image.
Note that I still have organic traffic that might throw off my understanding of who is getting through the checkout stage. Since this is an app that is relatively new to the App Store, and it doesn’t rank very high in any search or rankings, I can make some assumptions. The real benefit here is trying to understand why folks are clicking through the ads. I’ll be able to get a better handle on this when I install the Facebook library in the app — it is supposed to let you attribute installs to their ad campaigns.
To make my A/B test, I decided that one image would feature an iPad showing my app and one image would feature an iPhone.
I opened one of my existing iPad screenshots and realized that Facebook was asking for a strange image resolution. I spent some time experimenting on how to resize the asset from the app store to fit the Facebook ad. By the time I got the iPad mockup looking OK and then uploaded it, I was feeling impatient. Below is the image for the first ad.
Like I said, I was feeling impatient. I opened my iPhone mockup and haphazardly cropped off parts of the top and bottom of the phone so the image fit the required dimensions. Not my best work, but I figured I could always replace it. I uploaded the image and launched my ad campaign. You can see the haphazard image for the second ad below.
When I looked at my campaign the next day, which ad do you think was doing better? The second ad with my haphazard, off-the-screen iPhone! After seven days, the ad with the iPad image had a 1.6% click-through-rate while the iPhone had a 3.7% CTR. That’s a pretty big difference that held fairly constant.
With my next app update, I'll replace my first App Store screenshot image with something more like the winning Facebook ad. My hypothesis is that the continuity from the ad to the store listing will help sales. I'm also hoping that the organic App Store traffic will feel attracted to the image as well.
Let me know if you find this sort of post interesting and I'll try to write more about the business of selling a product in the App Store.
Update: Manton Reece of Core Intuition fame had a great question after reading my article, which you can read on App.net. Basically, he asks if the difference in ad performance could have resulted from the differences in iPad versus iPhone impressions. In my words, the hypothesis is: "Users are more likely to click on an ad that features the same device they view the ad on." One of the assumptions behind that hypothesis is that more of my ads are getting viewed on iPhones rather than iPads.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a way to report the iPad vs iPhone split from the past impressions. Fortunately, the ads do allow targeting along that split. To test the hypothesis, I'm going to change the iPad ad to only target iPads. If the hypothesis is correct, I would expect the CTR to increase for that ad.
If that seems to work, I will also test targeting the ad with the iPhone against only iPhone users. The hypothesis would predict that ad would also get a higher CTR targeting only iPhones. The effect might not be as strong because, again, I assume more Facebook users view Facebook on the iPhone. Still, wouldn't it be wild if I could target each specific color of the iPhone 5c?
If Manton's hypothesis is correct, I've still made the correct decision for the app. I've already submitted an update where I replaced the first screenshot with an image that looks like the second ad, but matches the target device. iPad users on the app store will see an iPad with the top and bottom cut off. iPhone users will see the same iPhone as in the second ad.
Thanks Manton, I'll have a good laugh at myself if the image composition ultimately has nothing to do with the CTR! Even if the composition does have an effect, it's a great experiment. And I'm reminded again that getting third-party opinions and doing things in public is a good idea.
*Moving Average Inc. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Buying items through this link helps sustain my outrageous camera addiction and is much appreciated!
Students who are serious about starting a real business need to attend the Business of Software Conference. A student might think that she already has everything she needs to build a business. She'll have a degree. She subscribes to Fast Company and Inc. magazine. She reads Hacker News religiously between classes, and follows the top VCs on Twitter and Google+. She even created an anonymous online social network to organize lock-picking field trips through the steam tunnels on campus. Pick/Up has matching iPhone and Android apps, natch.
But I bet she hasn't had the opportunity to meet and learn from founders who are quietly operating successful, sustainable, and profitable software businesses around the world. Until she's met that one Dane who sells image stitching and recovery software for a living, she has no idea how straightforward a software business can be. No subscriptions or viral marketing required. How can that be enough to pay the bills?
And then there is that guy that suggests that you talk to customers face to face like they did in 19th century France before the internet was invented. He also suggests that all those social media and business rules might be wrong because he has such great success ignoring them. Why doesn't he just find a business co-founder to tell him what to build? Why doesn't he just believe what he reads in articles with titles like "N Ways to Double Your ____"?
Oh, and what about that guy who sold his company for a fortune and then locked all his money into a charitable trust? He reduced all his belongings to two carry-on bags and one bike. Why would you do that? Doesn't he know that you can have two bags and still be rich?
Then there is this Business Professor, who sounds like a qualified conference speaker. But instead of talking about business plans and venture capital, he talks about what job a milkshake does! Where do they find these people? Everyone knows what a shake does. You put it in your mouth. You drink it. Why doesn't a restaurant just make the best shake and be done with it? You don't need an advanced degree for that, do you?
This other fellow has a strange idea: he wants you to try to start selling your product before you even build it. Literally. He picks a name, puts a web page up, invents prices, and lists the features. The entrepreneur only builds it if there is enough demand. Except he doesn't build it. He pays a contractor to build it. Is this even really a software business?
Delegates meet people who are like them, share experiences, and share knowledge. It helps knowing that there are other people out there who are like-minded, friendly, and are on the same path. And you also meet people that aren't like you, who have amazing crazy ideas, and completely different businesses than you do, and that's interesting and useful too.
Students are at a point in their life when they can most easily take a chance and try out a few of these different viewpoints and ideas. The one problem is that the conference is expensive by student standards. But I can help with that.
For the second year I'm sponsoring student / recent grad scholarships to the Business of Software conference through my business, Moving Average Inc. The scholarship gets you into the conference. You'll still be responsible for getting there and finding a place to stay, but you're resourceful. You'll get a ride and surf on a few couches. Then you'll have a wonderful experience making friends and learning.
If you're an interested student or recent grad and you can make it to Boston October 1-3, please visit the Business of Software Blog to learn how to apply for the scholarship.
Business of Software was engaging, inspiring, and aspirational. Frankly it’s a conference that’s helpful for anyone who does business, even though much of the topical examples are in the technology or startup context. The sheer amount of intelligence, talent, and creativity present was simply stunning. From VCs to internationally renowned high-tech entrepreneurs to old school brick and mortar entrepreneurs, each keynote speaker was clearly hand picked and sequenced day by day with great discernment and care.
Topics included disruption, people management, hiring, social media, social change, UI/UX design, culture, psychological influence in marketing and many more. Like drinking water from a fire hose, I eagerly wrote as much down as I could in hopes that I could digest everything afterwards.
Josh Linkner’s encouragement of creativity within organizations resonated with me as he spoke to choosing the road less traveled, “playing it safe has become the riskiest move of all.” With technology, the speed of disruption has increased and companies that resist innovation perish.
Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy provided excellent insight into the human psyche, “attitudes are a post rationalization of our behavior,” alluding to the fact that we change our path of thinking as a justification of our decisions - good and bad.
Aside from the awesome keynotes (which on a sidenote - I never saw anyone doze off in simply because they were so engaging and interesting), this conference was a great opportunity to meet other minds and leaders in the industry. Bouncing off ideas, brainstorming, and getting feedback on product philosophy, market sizing, development strategy, and building company culture was invaluable. As the adage goes, “A smart man learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from others mistakes.” I suspect most folks fall somewhere between the two, but I think it’s how we move forward from the mistakes and the learned mistakes of others that makes all the difference.
Through technology, business and software, we all play a part in making the world a better place. At the end of the day, this is not only a noble motivation, but a critical necessity to the improvement of humanity, revitalization of our economy and provides each individual with the realization and fulfillment of visibly contributing to the greater good.
When my article about Why Not to Make an iPhone App appeared on the front page of Hacker News, this blog got its largest traffic day ever. In one 24 hour period, there were 6014 visits. It was a lot of fun watching the visitors number explode!
I feel quite fortunate to have gotten that much interest -- especially from Hacker News, one of my favorite news sources. I think many bloggers covet traffic blasts from sources like HN, Reddit, or Tech Crunch. So I thought it would be interesting to look at the analytics of the days before and after my moment in the lime light.
Wow, look at that bump in traffic!
But the interesting metrics here are the average time on site: about 12 seconds overall. About 9 seconds from news.ycombinator.com only. And my bounce rate was around 96%.
It looks like most people never read much of my article at all. It also appears that the majority hit the back button without visiting any other pages on the site - an average of 1.05 pages per visit.
What About Mobile Devices?
This is interesting. In terms of mobile devices, iPad is the clear winner, followed by Android, and then iPhone. Android above iPhone? Oh yeah, Hacker News. My kind of people. I wouldn't extrapolate this data to the general public.
Geography
Out of the top ten traffic sources, Germany had the top average time on site: 21 seconds. The overall leader, however, was Trinidad and Tobago which sourced one visit lasting 17 minutes and 37 seconds.
Thanks Trinidad and Tobago!
Conclusions
Well, based on this one experience, I'd say that the Hacker News traffic isn't very sticky, or terribly interested in my article. I couldn't tell you if the issue was with my content or because of some sort of impedance-mismatch with Hacker News readers. Perhaps Mobile Apps just aren't their thing.
I also didn't notice any increase in my Twitter followers.
On the other hand, I did get contacted by a few people because of the article, and that's nice. The Hacker News Post also had about 20 comments in it, which I enjoyed reading. You'll notice that my original article had zero comments on it, possibly because nobody made it to the bottom. :)
The final word? Getting featured on Hacker News is a blast. Just don't expect it to magically force people be interested in your writing or your products.
This year will be my third year attending the Business of Software Conference. I love this conference, but the software developer side of me always feels confused. "Software" is in the name of the conference, but not a single line of code ever appears on any slide in any presentation. How can this be?
Well, the Business of Software Conference targets people who make and sell software for a living. It's a niche market. If you look at the other software conferences out there, they already cover how to make software, programming languages, how to make software better, how to sell a software idea to investors, and a million other technical details. The non-technical details, the stuff not covered by the tech conferences you see in the news, that is what you get at BOS.
The Business of Software conference is about the culture and philosophy of software and software businesses. We get together and talk about the side of business which is rarely discussed publicly. We discuss how to make software people want and find useful. We cover how to hire great developers and make them happy. We learn how to find and grow a customer base. We even talk about how we can be happier.
If you want to know how to be a successful software entrepreneur, make the world a better place, and run sustainable business, this is the place for you. It might not seem exciting in the Hollywood sense, but the content does inspire you. That's why I think young entrepreneurs would really benefit. I know I would have benefitted had I attended right out of college.
I enjoyed that Chris responded to his need for a hobby by adopting 30 of them. And then he made a list and started checking them off. Why start with the notion of having one hobby when you can try lots of them?
Beyond relaxation and clarity, hobbies also are opportunities to get passionate about something you might turn into a business. Maybe you can use your expertise in one field (like computer engineering) to solve a problem in another (scuba diving). Instant startup idea. By trying 30 different hobbies, an entrepreneur gets exposure to 30 different potential target markets.
I also believe that building a diverse portfolio of non-occupational experience helps with creativity. Different hobbies require different kinds of thought. Windsurfing requires the surfer to have a mental model of where the wind is coming from, how the board will react to changes in weight, and how the sail will react to changes in position. Mountain biking requires continuous planning for and reaction to the approaching terrain. The more exposure to different problem solving skills, the more your brain stretches, and your reserves of confidence build to help you get through tough patches in life.
I'd like to try more hobbies, but I'm not doing too bad in my checklist of things I've tried so far:
The co-founder was Dr. Ed Catmull, one of the original developers of Pixar's Renderman technology, and a software pioneer in 3d animation. You can read about Catmull in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Catmull.
The Wikipedia article paints Catmull as some sort of intense computer and physics geek, but the video proves that he is also an inspiring leader. If it wasn't for the fact that I just signed up to join a killer startup company, I'd be pulling all-nighters trying to get a job at Pixar.
Review materials daily. Everyone shows their stuff daily. Get over the embarrassment of having incomplete or imperfect stuff.
Reviews help you know when to stop working. When you're done you're done. Don't keep working on stuff that is good enough.
managers hate to be surprised (i.e. to find that a subordinate has worked on something without the manager's knowledge). Catmull says to the managers: "Get over it. it doesn't matter."
"Success hides problems" People put up with issues because overall things are going well, they are on a successful project. "When you're healthy and have resources, you don't need to address problems."
"We shouldn't think it's ok to be doing something which isn't great." - on the (canceled) Toy Story 2 direct to DVD effort.
"If you know the end of the movie before you start, you don't have a movie."
"If you have a good idea and give it to a mediocre group, they'll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they'll fix it. Or they'll throw it away and come up with something else."
"The goal of 'development' is not to come up with good ideas. It is to come up with groups of people who work well together."
Competitors like to copy the wrong things.
"We have to change the way we do postmortems every single film." Because the next film, the participants will game it.
After each new postmortem, we get a new theory on how to do things. Usually it is 2/3 right and 1/3 wrong.
Pixar originally thought that "the story" was the most important thing. "But then, every studio says the same thing -- even if the story is drivel!" The motto doesn't affect behavior, just like many companies' focus on quality.
Architecture catch phrase: "Build from the inside out". Pixar worked with one architect who said it, but his building was a disaster. This shows the same problem in a different industry: everyone has the same motto but it has no impact on behavior.
"Once one can articulate an important idea into a concise statement, then one can use the statement and not have to have a fear of changing behavior."
"Why do successful companies fail? For that matter, why do golden ages end? I do believe that organizations, human organizations, are inherently unstable. They will fall over, and you have to work to keep them upright. But, they fall slowly. Most people don't notice it. They let the success hide it, and blind them. They don't see it falling over. The falling takes place slow, but the collapse is quick. You have to do constant assessment, you have to look for hard truths."
"...There are two fundamental kinds of crises. One is that you don't like what you see, so you have to make changes. And the fact that you make changes in and of itself isn't a crisis, that's just hard work. What makes it a crisis is that there are a lot of people with vested interests and with positions, and you've got to actually rearrange things and it's people butting up against each other and that's a hard thing to do. It's an emotional thing to do. If you do that then you end up making a better film.
The second kind of crisis is that you release a film, and the audience doesn't like it. Now, at that point it's too late to do anything about it. But the difference between the two crises is that the first one is self-imposed, and that's the important part."
"...We have a lot of fun together, and a lot of laughter, and our job is to keep it going."
Some more teasers to encourage you to watch the video:
"It's not good enough. We know we don't have the time, but we're going to do it anyway."
They re-worked Toy Story 2 on a tight schedule, but it was brutal. Employees were injured. Now they limit the amount of time people can work, hired an ergonomist, teach pilates, offer massages, play soccer, offer yoga instruction, and more. The drop in insurance premiums more than covered cost of new programs. Catmull read lots of business books to get up to speed early on, but didn't get much out of them. Then he tried a business book summary service and realized that the business books were content-free. Or maybe some books had no content, and for the others maybe there is no way to distill the books in a meaningful way.
Finally, these are the operating principals of Pixar as quoted by Catmull:
constant review
it must be safe for people to tell the truth
communication should not mirror the organizational structure
people and how they function is more important than ideas
do not let success mask problems, do a deep assessment
These ideas shake my bones. Maybe they aren't 100% new, but they're practiced by an incredibly successful and exciting organization. How many organizations can you name that seem to have thought about their culture as much? Neil Davidson: please convince Dr. Catmull to speak at the Business of Software Conference.
I had a little trouble tracking down some of the Pecha Kucha speakers. If you happen to have a good link to share, send it along via comment or email. See you in San Francisco!
I'm counting the days to the Business of Software Conference. There seem to be ten of them, but I'm too bored to double check. Instead of counting again, I decided to do a little research about the speakers at BoS2009 (and yes, the twitter hash tag will be #BoS2009).
Why not share what I learned? Below you can find some interesting links for the speakers on day one: blogs, videos, interviews, and Wikipedia entries. I even found their twitter handles for you, where possible. You might find the Business of Software Schedule and the conference program handy too.
If you find any errors, or more interesting links, please comment below. Also, if you happen to want to sell your slot in Joel's (sold out) Startup Workshop, let me know! At the very least, send your notes to me.
Not long after I graduated from college, I stumbled across a book which explained exactly why my employer's quarterly performance reviews felt so frustrating and useless. The authors of Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead went to great length to demonstrate that performance reviews were worse than useless.
When I told my supervisor about my discovery, her reaction surprised me. Rather than being interested in the book or the findings, she was totally ambivalent. If anything, she seemed to believe more strongly in the value of performance reviews. The reviews made sense to her. It didn't matter that there was research and data indicating otherwise.
Like Abolishing Performance Appraisals, Peopleware resonates with me, but doesn't mesh well with the status quo. This sort of book would interest and inspire the engineers, but -- at large corporations -- ultimately let them down: most managers couldn't implement the suggestions if they wanted to.
For instance, about 58 of the 174 pages concern the work environment. If you work in the typical large office, this third of the book will explain how you couldn't design worse conditions for productivity. Cubicles? Noise? Interruptions? You might as well have your developers code from the local Jiffy Lube. Think of the money you'll save on office space and free Folgers coffee!
Peopleware explains why Joel Spolsky went to such great lengths to give his developers Bionic Offices, complete with windows and closing doors. Good luck convincing your typical corporation to give their engineers offices with windows. They'll have all sorts of excuses explaining why offices are a perk for management, cost too much, or don't allow for proper teamwork.
Aside from environmental issues, Peopleware addresses how to motivate developers, hire the best people, retain them, build awesome teams, and fight counter-productive bureaucracy. In other words, it's more about the engineers (and sociology) and less about technology.
This might seem like an indirect approach to productivity. It doesn't involve bossing people around, demanding long hours, or hiring consultants. You won't find justifications for treating your engineers like factory workers, buying fancy tools, or flying to exotic locations. Instead, it advocates making engineers happy and simply making productivity possible. Psychology and sociology do the rest of the work.
Unless you work at a very progressive company, Peopleware will have you constantly fighting bureaucracy, trying to fix the office environment, and struggling to make time so you can have conversations with your team. Worse, your peers probably won't understand or appreciate what you are trying to do.
Ultimately, you may find it easier become an entrepreneur and start your own people-friendly and productivity-friendly company. But maybe that's the point.
* I'm reviewing the first edition of the book, but there is a second edition of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition) available as well. You can help me and my publisher by purchasing from these links. In association with Amazon. ** Peopleware concerns the field of software development, although I believe it applies equally to other engineering fields. It probably applies to just about any intellectual and creative effort, especially those requiring teamwork.
Why? I'm a big fan of Joel Spolsky's writings and musings. Joel's almost like a software folk hero. When he and Jeff Atwood picked out their favorite books in StackOverflow podcast #12, I knew I had to read them.
Second, I'm a software henchman with entrepreneurial aspirations. Aside from losing money on a small business, I need to take some actions towards the dream. Maybe these fancy business books will help me with my biggest failings: sales and marketing.
Finally, despite my title, around 80% of my real job becomes software engineering. I don't want to be a big-company manager, but maybe knowing a bit about the management side will prove useful. I've always wondered what my management actually does.
John M. P. Knox brings over two decades of technology leadership and organizational stewardship across seven industries and multiple economic cycles. As an investor and advisor, he combines deep engineering expertise with strategic business acumen to guide organizations through complex technological transformations and sustainable growth.
John has invested in businesses like 1 Second Everyday, ShiraTronics, Empower Sleep, Tori Health, Summit, Reimbi, and Castos. In addition, he is a TinySeed mentor, the founder of MedTechConnect.net, and author of Wealth for Founders.
I suggested this book to a few attendees who run agencies. I found this book to be a really fun read. I have not read it yet, but I've heard 
is quite good as well.
Another fascinating book that I suggested to my new MicroConf friends.
went to great length to demonstrate that performance reviews were worse than useless.
* falls into a similar category: books big companies are immune to. Having read Peopleware for my virtual 
available as well. You can help me and my publisher by purchasing from these links. In association with Amazon.
