Windows 8 in the Enterprise

I am a big fan of Windows 8.  I watched Hanselman's video early on, and I "get" the OS and what Microsoft is trying to do.  I have it installed on my desktops and laptops at home and absolutely love it. So when it came time to try out a Windows 8 tablet in the enterprise, I jumped at the chance.  Our support department loaned me an HP tablet with a build of Windows 8 on it to evaluate briefly.  Here's what I thought of it:

Network support:

For whatever reason, I was unable to connect to my work domain and remain connected.  This is not limited to the HP tablet device as our infrastructure group tried unsuccessfully to help me get my home laptop with Windows 8 on the network.  This wasn't a problem with older versions of Windows.

Mobile Iron support:
Our company has chosen to use Mobile Iron to deliver a mobile experience.  Mobile Iron explicitly does not support Windows 8.  This means that the best we can do with these devices is wifi on the local domain.  That’s not a great solution because it’s not truly mobile.

Ease of use:

The outlook client for Windows 8 works in the desktop only mode.  This means that the interface is not optimized for touch.  This makes Outlook difficult to use without a mouse.  The docking station the HP came with did not include a trackpad or a mouse, so I was constantly switching between touch and the keyboard, which isn’t particularly comfortable.  Compared to an iPad, it feels clunky and unnatural just to browse email.

Summary:

I know our organization is not ready to handle Windows 8.  Our choice of mobile vendors doesn’t support it.  I don’t know if the difficulty getting on the network is Windows 8 or my domain account, but for me, it’s an unusable mess.  Also, based on the difficulty of getting the device configured for use and the lack of Mobile Iron support, it’s also possible that Windows 8 isn’t ready for organizations, either.  I ended up giving the tablet back within a day, just very very disappointed.

I would love to hear any other opinions of people who have tried 8 in the Enterprise

The Myth and Danger of Experience

I was having a discussion with a veteran developer the other day.  During this discussion he laid out a problem that I knew another developer in the company had solved a while back.  Or at least it sounded the same. It was at least worth a five minute conversation in my book, and I advised him to talk to the other developer.

His response? 

“I've got twenty-five years experience writing code, and I don’t need anyone else’s input.” (paraphrased.  It was close to that, though.)

I was taken aback.  I am a strong proponent of collaboration.  I've heard and live the aphorisms.  You know, along the lines of “None of us is as smart as all of us.”  

Why in the world would anyone, presented with a willing second set of eyes and an open invitation to collaborate, refuse?  Fear of having to change what you've already done?  Fear that the other person will know more/you’ll be embarrassed?

Another thing that was said during that discussion:  "I can code on my own.  I have done this long enough to be accountable for the code I write.  At what point am I responsible for the work I do as an individual?" (paraphrased again.)

Again, I was agog.  My response was "Well, honestly, I feel that collaboration works well right down to writing lines of code.  It's called pair programming, and I would like to see us do more of this kind of work."  

He looked at me as if I'd said the sky was green and the grass was blue.  

I don't know.  I thought that in software and in life, as you got more experienced, you realized how much you don't know.  Like Socrates said, "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."  Except something about software development breeds in certain people this hubris, this certainty that they do not need other opinions, that they do not need to collaborate.

And in doing so they do not realize how isolated and shallow that "deep body" of experience actually is.

I don't assert whether solution that the veteran developer proposed was a good one or a bad one, given the requirements.  Only that if it was a good solution, a five minute conversation would not have changed it, and might have shared organizational knowledge around.   Instead, the siloing continues, and I continue to strive to break the silos.

Finally, Innovation from the Auto Industry

I remember when the Saturn brand was first launched.  It came with the promises of revolutionizing the auto industry.  That they were building cars without the "stuck inside the box" thinking that plagued the auto industry at the time.

I couldn't wait.  For me, that meant cars that came with six wheels.  Or at least let the wheels rotate a full 180 degrees so you could parallel park more easily.  Or a door design that really stood out.  Or a fundamentally different shape.  Three rows of seating, but only one seat per row, like a hot dog.

What we got (this is hearsay.  I've not owned a Saturn personally, though I have ridden in a few, and know some Saturn owners) was a slightly different customer experience and a bunch of average looking cars that I couldn't get into without banging my head on the door frame (long torso exceeded tolerance).

I've longed for a solution to the whole car thing.  This idea that people would get into a long term loan to pay half to a year's salary for a motor, four wheels, a couple seats, and a steering column (ok, sure, you want A/C too) always seemed ludicrous.  It also seemed ludicrous that the price of a car never seemed to drop either, the way they seemed to drop for TVs and other consumer items.  Yes, I know that there are a lot of things that make these types of purchases different, but as an average consumer, I never felt that the features of new cars adequately made up for the fact that price of new cars didn't seem to be coming down.

On top of that, as I've aged, I feel a larger push to use only what I need to use when it comes to resources.  I'm not the kind of fellow who feels comfortable in a vehicle where gallons-per-mile is as reasonable a unit of measure as miles-per-gallon.  I never understood why, despite all the concern about fossil fuels, cars never seemed to get much better.  They got better, sure.  I'm talking doubling or tripling, though.  That's what I wanted.  Orders of magnitude better.  That's what science is supposed to do for us.

The battery technology is great, but even batteries themselves haven't gotten much better in about 100 years. Someone even pointed out the other day that electric cars have been around since before 1900.  That shouldn't have blown my mind, but did.

Auto makers keep trying to push more electronics inside the car.  USB?  Bluetooth?  Wow.  Little tablet mounted in the dashboard?  Big whoop.  Car talks to you?  Old news.  This is not the kind of advancement I want.  I want advancement in the core capabilities of what a car really is: a transportation device.  I don't want to hang out in my car.  I don't want it to be a little bachelor pad with disco lights and a flat screen (obviously, my idea of a bachelor pad is a little off).  I want a better car.

While auto innovation isn't exactly gangbusters , there is some hope on the horizon. There's progress on the self-driving car: GM and Nissan both say they'll bring a lot of this tech to bear by 2020, but those won't go mainstream for another decade, and ubiquity is a ways off.  The real game-changing impacts of that technology (Automobile-as-a-Service or AaaS) are so far off that I'll need another car by then.

And I'm actually thinking about this one.  I'll say this.  I'm in no way related to this company, other than I am a super-fan of what they're trying to do.  I don't get any commissions, nor have I been able to go to one of the events to drive one.

The high points for me

• 84 mpg highway - this is one heck of a leap forward.
• Perfect commuter car - it's for when you're just driving yourself and don't want to drive around a heavy box full of air.
• $6800 - I liked the Smart car and could have handled the fact that it drove poorly if it wasn't priced the same as cars twice its size that handled better.  At this price point, you could get a lot of people into these commuter cars.
• Groovy colors - Yeah, it matters to me.  I like groovy colors.

I appreciate what they're doing.  They're innovating.  They said, "How can we make a car that's less expensive and can still get better mileage than most cars get today?"  And then they got to the drawing board and did it.  Now even if they miss their mark and are off by a grand and 10 mpg in the wrong direction, that's still an $8,000 car that gets 75 mpg.  That's still remarkable.

They're not on the market yet, but they are taking pre-orders.  I've not put mine in, but I'm sorely tempted to do so.  I really want to wait to see how they handle before taking the plunge, and if they got to my area for a test drive, I'd be much more willing to plunk down the down payment.

What are your thoughts?  Would you drive this car?  Would you buy one without a test drive, just to support innovation?  

What is My Passion?

So after I wrote about Finding Your Passion, I thought I might write a little about my journey towards finding my passion.

Note, I have many passions, the greatest of which is learning new things.  This means that any job I take can be my passion, as long as it changes frequently enough to be challenging and educational.

I love finance.  I think the whole industry is fascinating.  I have always been involved in investments firms on the buy side, but I find everything fascinating.  Equity, fixed income, derivatives, pricing, valuation, research, automated trading, risk modeling, economics... The field is huge and vastly entertaining.

I am lucky enough to currently hold a position in a financial services company, developing software, improving processes, helping the business find technology solutions, helping integrate and update vended software, managing projects, leading teams, educating and inspiring co-workers, and asking good questions.  I like what I do, and I love my colleagues.  I could easily do it forever.

So what in the world would ever make me want to leave?  I have been thinking about what kind of things I want to accomplish, so here are some things that really excite me.

I love educating people.  Not just when I was a teaching assistant in grad school, but in every organization I have been in.  I've always pushed new ideas and relentlessly developed myself and others, but in my current organization, I started a program three years ago for my technology team to meet weekly to discuss libraries, patterns, trends in tech.  I present frequently, but almost everyone that attends gives a talk or two.  We are creating new speakers, and good community collaborators.

Recently this has come through most importantly in my volunteer work with That Conference.  I write content for a lot of communications.  I'm responsible for the emails to attendees, to speakers, to sponsors, a great deal of the printed program, and the welcome letter.  In a very real way, I am privileged to be a large part of the public voice of That Conference.

And I love it.  You know that Community Conferences changed my life, and I'm hoping that my involvement in That Conference will change the lives of other people.

Technology that saves people's lives, or saves them time, or makes them happy also is really intriguing to me.  Possibly nowhere else is this present in the idea behind the self-driving car.  I've blogged about the benefits of that in the past, but the short answer is that self-driving cars will save lives, save relationships, and save valuable natural resources.  I'm dying to make this a reality, and if there was ever a chance for me to help out, I'd be very interested in contributing. Legal, political, software, being involved in town halls, anything.  Let me help.

Something that leverages my love of data would be awesome, too.  Recently I did a little statistical analysis of the game of cards called War.  I did this because I wanted to learn to use the statistical language R, and I was honored to be able to speak about my experience at the Lake County .NET User Group.  Math, statistics, and data are awesome.

I'm not just a content generator, either.  I love to edit, to polish, to finish, and to critique.  I've done a whole bunch of technical editing for Pearson, Addison-Wesley, and Prentice Hall over the years.  I am quite proud to have worked on most of the books in Thomas Erl's series and to have praise quotes on a great number of his works.

Last, I guess I must like writing, too.  I do the occasional bit of blogging here, and would definitely be open to collaborating on a book, if I were able to find the right project, with the right collaborators.

Your turn.  Hopefully I've managed to stir in you some feelings about what you're interested in.  What's your passion?

Bachelor Blitz

I’m not a bachelor, but a couple times a year, my lovely wife takes the kids to go visit remote family for a week.  This leaves me as essentially a bachelor.

And when they’re gone, some of those bachelor tendencies creep in. 

If I have a meal, it’s just one plate, fork, and glass.  Into the sink they go!  Load the dishwasher?  Not likely!

Laundry?  Heck it’s not building up quickly!  Why do that?  Take off your socks?  Do they really need to make it upstairs to the hamper?  Nope.  On the floor by the couch they go.

Got packages from Amazon?  Empty boxes pile up by the garage.  Cats play with the packing materials and drag it around.

Painting the bathroom (my current project)?  Between coats, the extra rollers, paint pans, and even the bathroom hardware off the walls sits on the kitchen island. 

Playing video games between home improvement tasks?  The controllers and remotes end up wherever they end up when you last left off.

So basically, it looks like a place under maintenance, crossed with a college dorm room.

But by the time the family comes home, this place has to be spotless.  All hardware and home repair stuff stowed safely back in the basement or the garage.  The dishes done and the sink clean.  The laundry done and in baskets.

And I’ve done it every time.  Did I have to spend the final 24 hours of every trip cleaning like a madman?  Not at all.  I manage this lifestyle with the periodic Bachelor Blitz.

Originally, I started “blitzing” with my kids.  Like most kids, they hate to spend time cleaning up.  But when Mommie’s out on a photoshoot, instead of telling them they have chores, I’ll tell them it’s time for a 15 minute blitz. 

During the 15 minutes of the time-boxed blitz, we run around and find things that need to be done.  Socks on the floor?  Gather them up.  Put the dishes in the dishwasher.  Run the accumulated stuff to the basement.  Run the vacuum through a couple rooms.

Sure, the purists would say that it’s better to take care of things as you go.  That you should pick up after yourself as you go.  I don’t really disagree, but for me that’s not always been practical.  The 15 minute blitz done every couple hours is a solution I can live with

And when the family is gone, I actually schedule half-hour or hour long blitzes.  I wash down surfaces, run the vacuum over the whole house, do several loads of laundry.  During this time, I also do any very short repair tasks that might need attention.  Sand a rough spot.  Spackle a wall and touch up the paint when dry.  Change light bulbs, spray down the house.  Whatever it takes.

Blitzing is a great way to get things done, and is another great example of the adage that "small efforts, repeated over time, will almost always surprise you." 

Offer Your Opinion

"Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks."

I've just returned from That Conference, a polyglot technical conference held up in the Wisconsin Dells every August.  It's an awesome place where collaboration happens, and everyone learns a lot.  Ideas collide, and people partner.  It's truly an eye-opening experience that inspires by design.

Many of the folks who come out have strong opinions.  Some very strongly held.  What makes That Conference special is the lack of fear people have while sharing their opinions.  They share opinions openly and without fear of judgment, because, as Clark Sell affirmed as he kicked off the week, "None of us is as smart as all of us."

So that got me thinking about opinions.  Closely held opinions, or ideas, are worthless until they are shared.  Sure, they inform private decisions, and even public actions, but in terms of contributing to a public discourse, opinions are much more powerful when shared.

This works exceptionally well if the opinion is well founded in logical thought, and the opinion holder is open-minded enough to change that opinion in the face of evidence-based reason.

This also applies, strangely enough, in the area of customer surveys.  I'm sure we've all been annoyed by the survey pop-ups on various web sites we use.  "I see you're on the website!  Can you spare a minute to answer a couple questions for us?"

I almost always take these surveys.

Why?  Because if I'm on a site, it's almost always because I chose to go there.  And if I did, it means that I value their product or information.  And if it's worth it to me as is, wouldn't it be worth more if I had a little input about what was good and what could be improved?

This all comes back around to community, raising your voice, and having an impact in improving all those things you find good in the world.  As you all know, community conferences changed my life.  This year Doc Norton talked in his keynote about how many connections we have to other people, and how we can subtly influence their lives without thinking about it.  Imagine what would happen if we choose to offer our opinions to positively influence the things around us.

Imagine what we could do.

Imagine what you could do.

Now go do it.

Community Conferences Changed My Life, and They Can Change Yours

2012 was the first time I attended a community conference.  I'd been hearing for years about Codemash, and I finally got it approved so that I could attend.

No kidding, the conference changed my life.

Up until then, I'd been a corporate drone.  Excited about my craft, sure, and always engaged in learning more.  But otherwise shielded from the true development community by a familiar company directive: "We're not a software company; we're a <insert domain here> company."

Codemash really opened my eyes to the world behind the world.  It woke me from the Matrix.  And since then I've decided to speak up, and be part of The Cult of Do.  I want to be a driver, not just in my life, but in the community that I see can benefit us all so much.

It motivated me so much that I decided to commit to something crazy.  I decided that I was going to become a voice in the community and recently gave my first big-boy technology presentation at the Lake County .NET User Group meeting.  Another great community organization dedicated to making great technologists even better.

And yeah, I'm a .NET guy.  I have been since 2001, and I know it best.  But I'm interested in all kinds of technology.  I had a great time meeting up with the guys at OpenHack Naperville and talking Ruby, for example.  I love mobile and HTML5 development.  All of it is fun, and it's like I've rediscovered everything I liked about programming.

Now I don't want to diss big conferences like Build, Mix, or TechEd.  They have their place, and I've learned a lot from them.  The community conferences, however, are so much more vibrant and full of life.  They are places of people sitting and coding in the hallways.  They are places where the speakers are so excited about their topics that they donate their time to evangelize.

And then Clark Sell and I got to talking.  He was starting up a community conference in the Wisconsin Dells called That Conference.  I had to be part of it.  I worked with a fantastic group of volunteers to put on what was the best technology conference I've ever been to.  The most energetic, the most engaging, and the most educational conference I could have asked for.

That was just the first year.  Last August.  2012.

Recently I had a discussion with an engaged, enthusiastic, and very talented developer I work with about the relative merits of TechEd and That Conference, both of which he's been to in the past year.  He told me that TechEd was good, but that the enthusiasm of That Conference was infectious.  The speakers didn't all have the same corporate polish, but what they brought was something more.  Something different.

And that's what we're offering with That Conference.  It's the importance of community. It's completely technology agnostic, and there are sessions for everything from hardware to software. I think you should come out and join us.

Better still, we've inked a deal with the Kalahari Resort and got That Conference scheduled out for 2014 and 2015 already!  Plan your training budgets accordingly!

Change your life.  Enjoy your career.  Come have dinner or a beverage with me, and let's talk about how community can work better for you.  Or contact me through my website.