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The Rule of Thirds

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Photo by Aaron Escobar via Creative CommonsPhoto by Aaron Escobar via Creative Commons

I learned one simple thing years ago that helped me more than I think anything else I’ve learned in awhile.

What is it?

You can’t make everyone happy.

 

I’ve tried. It just doesn’t work.

When you do try to make everyone happy you eventually end up feeling defeated and burned out. At the end of the day you’ve wasted part of your life on trying to please people who do not want to be pleased.

I eventually learned to accept what I call the rule of thirds. I’m not the first one to come up with this, but it is very useful so I thought I’d share it here.

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a mental system which you can apply to your day to day life to help alleviate the mental load of worrying about making everyone happy.

The rule of thirds is as follows …
When you create something in life (a business, products, a presentation, public speaking, an idea, something at work, etc – it doesn’t matter .. its anything) people are going to react in one of three ways:

  • 1/3 of people are going to be positive about it
  • 1/3 of people are going to be indifferent about it
  • 1/3 of people are going to be negative about it

As soon as you realize that this is the way the world works, the easier things become.

Give a presentation on XYZ Topic at your local MeetUp? Most may like it, some may hate it, and some are indifferent.

You can’t make everyone happy … and that’s ok.

Thats why this world is great. We all have different opinions, emotions and things we enjoy. Everyone is unique.

So the next time someone trolls you online about something you’ve done, just realize what bucket they’re in and move on with your life. Don’t let it disrupt your day.

Why Podcasts Have Become Popular

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Photo on 5-7-15 at 6.17 PM #3

The way we consume video content is changing.

Netflix. Hulu. You Tube. HBO Now. Amazon Instant Video. DVR.

The way we communicate is changing.

Email (always is popular). SMS/Text. WhatsApp. Facebook Messenger. Voxer. Telegram.

The way we physically get around is changing.

Uber. Lyft. Sidecar. Curb.

The way we listen to audio is changing.

iTunes. Google Play Music. Spotify. Pandora. Rdio (RIP)

The way we educate is changing.

Kahn Academy. Code.org. Code Academy. MIT/Standford/Etc Free Online Classes.

The way we research things changed about two decades ago.

The Internet. Wikipedia. Blogs.

What do all of things have in common?

They’re all on-demand.

We live in a world where we can now determine when and where we will reply to a text message or email. We get to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. We get to usher a cab/ride when we need to go somewhere at any point in the day. We get to listen to the music that we want to listen to when we want to listen to it. We get to learn what we want to learn when we want to learn it.

Many industries are getting disrupted by the on-demand economy.

Radio has been changing for years

Radio is ineffective because it’s live. I can only listen to what is on, right now, pre-programmed by someone who has tastes that are marginally similar to mine.

Don’t like a song?

Too bad. Listen to it.

Don’t like this ad?

Too bad. Listen to it.

Podcasts Are On-Demand Radio

That’s all there is to it. They’re on-demand radio that give you the ability to fast forward, rewind, save for later, etc.

Can’t listen to it now?

No problem. Listen to it later when you have time.

Can’t listen to the whole show?

No problem. Listen to the rest when you have time.

Miss something?

No problem. Hit rewind and listen to it again.

This is one of the reasons why Howard Stern remains a powerhouse on Sirius/XM. Though his show is not a podcast it is consistently replayed all day and through his off time during the weeekends/etc. If fans miss a show, they can tune in and catch it any time of the day. Without this, his show would be far less popular, IMO. Unfortunately not everyone can listen to it at any time they want but this consitent replay exposes his show as an on-demand show. Listeners listen during the day when they have time.

This is exactly why podcasts are becoming popular.

Podcasts are On-Demand Radio.

Download it and listen to it when you have time. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Whenever.

That is why Podcasts are becoming popular.

If you’re an Android Developer/Mobile Developer you might like my podcast – Fragmented. Its a podcast about Android Development that I host with Kaushik Gopal.

Killing Your Project Quietly – The NIH Assassin

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nih-syndrome
Image by daviddoctorrose via creative commons

NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome is a condition in which developers (or business owners/managers) feel that they need create something themselves instead of using a perfectly viable existing solution.

This usually manifests itself in the form of “That costs to much, let’s build it ourselves and save the money.”

Funny thing is … this usually costs exponentially more in the long run.

NIH Syndrome can kill your project/company faster than you think.

Let me explain why…

Let’s assume you’re evaluating an analytics package for your web or mobile application.

You have two options here –

  • Use an existing off the shelf product (Google Analytics, Keen, MixPanel, Localytics, etc – there’s a ton out there). These range anywhere from free up to a couple hundred a month – anywhere in that range.
  • Build an analytics package yourself (cost: You think its free, ohhhhhh not so fast – it’s not).

You opt with option #2 – build it yourself. RE: None of the existing analytics packages provide the functionality you need so you decide to build your own.

Bad move.

 

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Most likely an existing product/service will do the job for 80%-90% of the companies out there, for the majority of their use cases. With a little tweaking you can get everything you need out of it. You just need to understand the tools.

Most business savvy and time conscious companies will decide to use the existing service instead of building it themselves. These companies realize that they are not in the market for creating a new analytics package. Unfortunately, not all companies are that fortunate.

I’ve consulted for companies where engineers go rogue and build everything themselves because they feel their solution is superior.

This is a problem.

Unfortunately these diversions are exactly what end up costing the company tons of time and money and it could have all been avoided if the proper questions would have been asked. When NIH Syndrome rears its ugly head often enough the team becomes so distracted with their own creations (aka: Shiny Object Syndrome) that the engineering department begins to slow down product development due to the new distraction that has nothing to do with their market.

How do you know if you’ve developed NIH Syndrome?

I tend to use this steadfast heuristic as a baseline for all NIH syndrome based evaluations.

If you ever find yourself saying or thinking …

“We don’t need that, we can build that ourselves.”  or “That costs too much, we can build it ourselves for cheaper.”

Then you most definitely suffer from NIH Syndrome…

You may also suffer from NIH syndrome if you insist that you must …

  • build your own analytics package
  • build your own status page
  • implement your own encryption algorithm
  • build your own blog solution from scratch
  • build your own internal testing tools when existing ones work better but you lack the understanding
  • build your own monitoring software
  • build your own API protocol
  • implement your own CSS language
  • build your own logging framework
  • build your own router

Sure, there are exceptions to the case, but if you’re a small company then there is no reason to be building solutions that do not serve your target market.

When is NIH Syndrome not a syndrome?

When the existing solutions truly do not match your business needs!

If you find that the existing solutions are far more cumbersome to use than building something new and you can validate that with numbers (time vs effort vs ROI, etc) then go for it.

So… how do you go about validating if something is worth building vs using an off the shelf solution?

Evaluating Off The Shelf Cost vs Build It Yourself Cost

Every time you start to think “I can build that” or “Thats expensive, let me build it” perform this quick task:

Ask yourself this – How much time do I think it would take to build, support, bug fix and feature enhance a custom solution that matches the existing off the shelf product? Take the number of hours, multiple it by $100/hr (yes your time is worth that much – at minimum) and then look at that number.

I bet you its over $5,000 at a minimum if not $8,000-$10,000 or more! For some solutions its probably closer to 25k-50K.

Furthermore, that number is for your quick and dirty approach not a polished app like the ones you can buy on a monthly subscription.

Now look at the the price of the existing solutions. Take that number and multiply the monthly price times 3 and times 6 (You’ll be able to figure out if a solution works well for you at 3 months and most definitely by 6 months).

Lets say the off the shelf solution is $150 a month. I know what you’re thinking “Whoa, thats a lot” .. not really when you look at the numbers though!  150 * 3 = $450, 150 * 6 = $900

How much money would you rather spend? $900? or $5K-$10K?

I’d rather spend the $900. I’m sure you would too.

The Hidden Gotcha

gotcha

Here’s the hidden gotcha about NIH Syndrome – if you do decide to build something yourself you also lose all inherient momentum you’ve gained working on your product. All of your engineers time, effort and mental energy gets put into this infrastructure component instead of pushing the product forward.

When you suffer from NIH syndrome, not only do you lose money in the long run by building it yourself, but you lose money by losing market share and attracting new customers.

The next time you begin to get the feeling of “we can build that ourselves” (for any reason) go back to the cost section above and run some quick mental math. Remove the emotion and make a logical decision and use something that exists so you can go back to serving your customers by building your product, not a new shiny object.

 

The Single Best Thing You Can Do For Your Career

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If you’re looking to break out in your industry and looking to take yourself to the next level there is one thing that can help propel you into opportunites you never imagined. What is it?

Public Speaking

It’s true. No doubt about it. I attest most of my success to a fateful day in 2008 (May 31st to be exact) when I spoke at Desert Code Camp in Phoenix. That was my first public speaking event in a professional setting, ever. The topic?

Intro to Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control
You can find the slides for that talk right here on slideshare.

I’m serious, that’s my first foraye into speaking. The slides are terrible and embarassing, but everyone loved the talk at the time. In fact, the people liked it so much that when I signed up to speak there I was able to see how many people were going to be at my talk in advance. The web app that code camp was using at the time had that feature (it was a different one than Desert Code Camp uses now, but similar). Long story short, my talk went from the “small classroom” to the medium room, to the large room to the auditorium at a tech college I was speaking at. Fun fact – the presentation was at UAT to be exact and thats actually where I went to college.  I was very familiar with the auditorium and knew how many people it could fit. At the time I went it was 172 people.

How many people were there when I presented? Well over 172, there was standing room only and it was one of the most popular talks of the day. This is not a humble brag, but I am actually saying this for the exact opposite reason. I’m saying this because when I got on stage, I was scared shitless. To this day I remember walking on stage and then walking off, going outside, calling my wife and telling her how I did, going home and falling asleep from the sheer exhaustion of stress and terror that I just experienced. I do not remember any of the talk whatsoever. Kind of crazy how the mind will do that to traumatizing events.

Terror? Stress? What? Why? You may ask. You had a popular talk. You might think. You’re right, I did. People loved it and I got a lot of professional attention because of it, and it helped my career. The important thing to note here is that this was my first professional talk, ever. The most people I’d ever spoken in front of prior to that event was maybe 10-12 people, and that was during a work lunch when you go around the table and talk about something (such as a team building event). 172+ people? ABSOLUTE TERROR, PANIC & FEAR.

The thing is, public speaking has often been rated in many publications as the one thing people fear far more than death itself. Thats a pretty bold statement. More than death itself? I don’t know about you, but I love life. Sure, its full of stressors and other things that are out of my hands at time, but I love being alive. I’d much rather get in front of people and talk than die. But … thats the reality of the situation – people are scared to get in front of crowds and speak. So scared that they’d rather die. Think about how many people you know that say “OMG, there is now way I could do that, I’d die”. Yeah. Exactly.

That one day led to many job offers eventually. Not just full time offers but consulting offers and offers to do bigger and better things. From speaking I ventured deeper into blogging and then into more writing in general. I kept speaking and eventually got noticed by some consutlingn firms. I worked for them for awhile and kept speaking as well. Companies usually love when you speak in public. You’re a public face of their company (in this case, part of the engineering deparment). Eventually I got enough offers for external contract jobs that I decided to jump and go work for myself as a consultant. I did that six years ago in 2009. I went full time independent consulting. How? All from speaking.

If I had never got in front of people and spoke about what I knew I’d never be in the situation I’m in now. I’m foreever grateful to those who gave me the opporutnity to speak, to hire me and to bring me on to help their team. Thank you.

Fast forward many years later from my initial speaking engagement and I’ve now spoken to crowds of 400-500 people at times with no fear. As with anything – the more you do it, the better you get at it and eventually you actually kind of get used to it.

I challenge you to go out and speak. Find a local user group, a code camp, a meet-up of some sort. Just go out and share your knowledge. Don’t be scared. Will you know everything? No. Will there be someone in the crowd who knows more than you? Yes. Regardless, you need to get out there and do it. You’ll be glad you did. It will open doors you never knew existed.

Is Google IO Worth It?

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Update 2017-04-04: I’m revisiting this because I’m once again at an inflection point – do I go this year or not? I found myself running the numbers again (as I do in the post below) and what I came to the conclusion is: I don’t think its worth it. Why the flip-flop? Well, simply put … last year was a disaster from what I hear. Also, I’m looking at the schedule and I’m not convinced its that I’ll learn a ton. What about the social aspects and networking? No doubt that it is a huge thing. Networking and such is the primary draw IMO. Hang with me for a second though … Unfortunately, with my new estimates I’m seeing the costs, for an indy developer like me, to be around $4,500. The cost is lower than the calculation below because this new calculation cuts off Friday (I’d be leaving a day early and flying in late the night before the conf). At this point I ask myself … “If someone told me Google IO would cost me $4,500, would I say ‘HELL YEAH!’ or would I say ‘No.’?” To me, that’s an instant “No” (please read this post by Sivers on “HELL YEAH” decision making). Lets recap …. $4,500 for a conference? I’m also cutting it a day short? Meh, no thanks. For that level of money the conference had better be something that I can ONLY get while in person, and preferably something life changing (you can go on amazing vacations for this same amount). Maybe thats what you’re doing (treating this like a vacation and you’ve never been to CA/GOOG/etc. In that case, cool. However, I’ve been to the valley before, there is no allure there anymore. On the flip side of the coin though … if I were a full time employee and I only had to pay 1/6 of this amount it would be a HELL YEAH, unfortunately thats not the case.

Update 2015-09-01: After getting more and more involved with the Android community over the last year+ I’ve found that Google IO is worth it. You just have to know where and what you’re doing it. In the end, it’s about networking and learning and exposure. Getting out there and being with like minded folks. The post below outlines how it feels when your expectations of the event mimic the advertisement of the event. I do feel like it’s mis-represented and the content could have been more on topic with developers and the tracks could have been clearer. 🙂

 

This is the question I asked myself last year before I went to Google I/O 2014. I’m an independent consultant who has to foot the bill for all of these types of trips. So not only does the ticket price get you in the wallet but so does the flight, hotel, meals and time off of client work. After weighing the options, I spoke to previous attendees and figured out what they got out of the conf and I figured it was a no-brainer. Totally worth it based upon their personal feedback.

I still decided to calculate the costs. When all said and done, this conference can easily cost any consulting firm around $7,500 per person.

You might be shocked, but let’s break it down.

  • Google I/O Ticket: $900
  • Flight: ~$300
  • Hotel in SF near Conf: ~$1200 (if you’re lucky)
  • Meals/Etc: $300
  • Lost Billing Time: $4800

Billing time is calculated at a very common rate of $150/hr for most consulting shops that perform quality work. Again this is a rough estimate.

With these numbers, you can ask yourself “Is going to Google I/O worth $7,500? It’s ultimately up to you to decide, but here’s what I determined …

I Came, I Saw, I Left Depressed

I know that may sound harsh, but it was exactly how I felt when I left Google I/O 2014. You may be wondering “its nearly 8 months since the conference happened, why is he bringing this up?”. Simply put – I was not sure what the network effect would be of Google I/O. The network effect does not happen overnight, it takes some time and that’s what I wanted to give it – more time.

I’ve probably written this post a few times now, each time I’ve deleted it. Yup, typed it into the editor, reviewed it, edited it, then deleted it. Today, it feels right, so I’m writing it and posting it.

On my way to Google I/O I was pumped. The only other conference I’ve been to of this magnitude was TechEd in Orlando in 2008 (I think /build is the new big one in place of TechEd, I think). When I went to TechEd I was blown away. Seeing that Google was the new hotness in the industry, I figured this con would blow TechEd out of the water. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I showed up with some teammates from MyFitnessPal  and we walked to the Moscone center where the conference was. I was dumbfounded. There was a line wrapped one and half times around the building. This was the line to get into the Keynote. INTO THE KEYNOTE. It was 4-6 people wide and looked like a gigantic snake of people around the building. We got in line and waited. If it’s this popular, it’s got to be good, right?

After about 35-40 minutes of truffle shuffling around the building we got in. There were barely any seats left and the line still went around the building. Crazy. Seat nabbed, time for action to begin.

The keynote was nothing spectacular. A new OS which looked cool, Android Auto, Android TV, and Android Wear all came out of their shell in a big way, but I’ve been skeptical of all of these technologies for a bit. Not because I don’t believe in them, but because I don’t think they’ll work right now. I feel that these technologies that we have (wear, auto, tv) are all stepping stones to something bigger and better. We have to go through this phase of technology to get to the better stuff. People hate vendor lock-in and that’s exactly what Wear, Auto and TV are: Android Vendor lock-in. Don’t get me wrong, I love Android – I can’t stand using iPhones. What the developer side of me saw was cool new tech, but the realistic business side of me saw vendor lock-in and a fight for a portion of the market. I saw three new products that needed to have some major push behind them to work and I didn’t feel any of them were going to get the public relations and developer relations attention they need to succeed. In my eyes, I was looking at something that was not a huge starter for me. The one exception to that was Android TV with the ADT-1. Mixed with Chromecast I think there are a lot of opportunities to take existing tech to the next level (in some areas).

The keynote being a bust wasn’t really a concern of mine. To me, keynotes are usually huge marketing webinars, but with $1000 ticket price to watch in person. Honestly, think about that next time you’re in a big keynote (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc) … Does this feel like a webinar? Probably. You’ll be surprised. Next up was the sessions.

I went to numerous sessions throughout the days. Covering Wear, Material Design, Async Design Patterns and so forth. All from Google employees. If I had to rate them, most of them would be 4-5 stars out of 10. Not because the presenter stunk (though there were a few of those) but because the content was so shallow that I felt like I was being shown the magic and nothing behind the curtain. I felt like some of them were mini-keynotes for niche areas of Googles product teams.

All Is Not Lost

While the sessions were a big let down I did find some amazing other areas of the conference. Usually these were on the floor. I wouldn’t call these sessions but more watch and learn labs where the presenter is talking to 10-30 people around an open podium. I got to witness how to use Dart and some advanced features of Android. How to write Go and so forth.

Another area that myself and a couple employees from MyFitnessPal took advantage of were the hands-on labs. You could pull up a chair and try out some code. I was able to learn polymer quite quickly and then if I remember correctly I did a bunch of AngularJS because it was something I had already been playing with and wanted to dive into more. The Android topics were all very shallow and didn’t go too crazy. It was all stuff that I had done before. I think those courses would have been great for a beginner though.

The most interesting area of the conference to me was the open discussion/presentations that were around entrepreneurship. Two of the best talks I heard were very short, but packed with insightful tips for those interested in building apps/companies. These two talks were my sanity savers at Google I/O. Those two talks were by Aaron Harris of YCombinator and Adora Cheung of Homejoy. These talks should have been much longer and more open. Both were packed.

Google Goodies

As with every Google I/O goodies were to be had. I was able to make it out with the following:

I was also lucky enough to speak to one of the Google TV folks and asked him if I might be able to get my hands on an ADT-1. He said they were all gone but he’d take my info just in case, but he re-assurred me that I would most likely never get one. 3-4 months later a magic box shows up at my door – it’s an ADT-1. I don’t remember your name good sir, but thank you very much. I’ve been playing/testing/etc for a bit. 🙂 From my research online it looks like ADT-1’s are being sold for around $350 through various channels (EBay, Craigslist, etc).

Extraciricular Events

Though the Google I/O sessions were lack luster one great thing was the Google I/O party. They had great food, great drinks (lots of micro brews) and great entertainment. It was good to be with friends, meet new ones and have a good time.

The other events that made this trip better were the other parties going on in the area. Twitter’s being the first one. This was a great place to go. Lots of great people and such a cool vibe. Bit thanks to Hemal for getting us in there. We also went to the first Big Android BBQ in SF. Met some cool folks there and I’m still rocking the Phandroid pint glass that I got there to this day. There were many parties, too many to get to. That’s where it seemed like the real networking came into play.

Was It Worth $7500?

No. Not really. You can take all my goodies away and I’d still stay the same thing and I would not be upset. I feel that this conference at one time may have been a great event. Unfortunately in 2014 Google I/O turned into a marketing conference and the content was rather shallow. I hope that changes, because I love Google’s products and I like the Android platform alot. However due to what I experienced in 2014 I have no interest in attending in 2015.  I look at it objectively – do I feel that am I going to get $7,500 in value out of it? Combine the learning, the networking, the goodies and the mental vacation from being away from the office and I have a quotient for me that says: Nope, doesnt work. Again, this may not be the case for you, but this is the case for me.