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Hah!

Today I brought a bowl of candy into the office. Josh grabbed a mini-bag of M&M’s and dumped it out on his desk. Five M&M’s rolled out. He grunted and said in a disgusted tone,

Indeed. Those bags are labeled “Fun Size” but come on, it’s hard to really have fun with five M&M’s. They need to be bigger. (Are you listening, Mars Inc.?)

On Wednesday Alex received his school laptop. All of the students in the high school engineering program get a personal laptop to use for the school year. There’s a $75 fee but overall it’s a fantastic deal. And they’re brand-new Macbooks, fully loaded with all of the software you’d expect a high school student to need.

Of course the school says the students shouldn’t install anything on their laptops, because if they screw up something then it’s a problem for the school to fix it. Apparently there’s some fee you have to pay if you need the school’s IT department to re-image the machine. So they strongly discourage any sort of tinkering with the system.

So, predictably, Alex brought it home and immediately came down to my office and asked for the wireless network password so he could jump online and start downloading software. He wanted to get some “widgets” for his desktop: things like a weather app, a cool clock, a scientific calculator, a dictionary, etc.

It struck me as funny because that’s exactly how I behave. As soon as I get a shiny new toy, I want to pop the hood and see how it works, make some changes, tweak the settings, whatever. So I was completely supportive, and enjoyed watching him mess with the computer.

I think this will be a great experience for him, and really get him into computing more. He’s been saying for years that when he grows up he wants to be a programmer, but he doesn’t really do anything about it– like learn some languages or actually write programs– so I’ve been skeptical. Now that he has “his own” laptop he might start down that road. We’ll see.

It was almost 60 degrees this evening, in what was probably the nicest Halloween weather in the last decade. The kids canvassed the entire neighborhood, which has a total of 189 houses (including ours), so they came home with an impressive stash. Then there was the usual hour or so of trading, where Snickers got swapped for Reese’s and Twizzlers for Skittles, and so on. I’d like to think they’re learning valuable life skills about bargaining or something.

I just finished reading “Built to Sell”, which one of my clients graciously sent to me. What a great book. It gave me some good ideas and validated a few things that I’m already doing.

My goal isn’t really to sell Zing, but one thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is put myself in a position where the company sort of “runs itself” and gives me a lot more flexibility with my schedule, and the freedom to work just a couple of days a week or take long vacations with my family. The book addresses that idea really well, so I feel like as I move toward the goal I’ll not only be able to do what I want but also position myself for a sale if I decide sometime in the future that it’s a smart move.

Another concept that really struck a chord with me was the idea of focusing the business on a single thing. Don’t be too broad and hope to cover everything a client might need; do one thing and do it well. Over the years I’ve toyed with the idea of hiring a graphic designer so we have some in-house capabilities with graphics (many clients ask for them), or hiring a marketing person who could address some of the things our clients need. But I’ve always resisted, feeling instead that I’d rather be a really stellar web programming company and leave those other things to people and agencies who specialize in them. This book reassured me that it’s the right approach, and that I shouldn’t worry too much about design or marketing or search engine optimization or whatever.

A big action item I’m taking away from the book is sitting down and really thinking about how my business is structured, and which sorts of projects are the ones we should pursue. In other words, are we really good at certain things? Do we enjoy doing those things? Are we profitable when we do them? It’s no surprise that some projects are just black holes that suck us in and leave everyone (my team as well as the client) feeling drained. They’re no fun, they don’t turn out very well, and they end up costing us money in the end. I need to look hard at those kinds of projects and be prepared to just turn them down. I’ve done that a few times in the past few months, and it was a good feeling. I hate to pass on projects and the potential revenue, but at the same time I don’t want my team feeling unhappy about working on them and I certainly don’t want to lose money or have a company badmouthing Zing because things didn’t go well.

Along those lines, I need to study the past few years of invoicing to figure out what types of work really bring in the money. Because the nature of our work is so highly specialized, it’s often difficult to nail down a fixed price for a project because I know things will evolve as we work on it. As a result, it’s typically better for everyone if we bill on a time-and-materials basis so we can deliver exactly what’s needed and not feel like we need to cut corners to meet some artificial deadline.

I think the biggest challenge for me is taking the steps necessary to extract myself from the day-to-day operation of the company. Although I enjoy the technical work and I need to do the sales and business development stuff with potential clients as well as existing ones, I think it makes Zing rely very heavily on me. I want to continue being involved, of course, but some processes need to be shifted around so I’m not the only person who can do these things. I have a great team of programmers, but none of them really want to take on these management responsibilities. So the hurdle is figuring out how to accomplish this.

All in all, it was an enjoyable book and certainly thought-provoking. Hopefully I’ll be able to make some changes with Zing and position myself for that retirement I’ve been thinking about since I was twenty-seven.

Yesterday it was 60ish and sunny so we had a good game of ultimate. Today there’s a foot of snow on the ground. How cool is that?

This is an actual e-mail message I received from a client today:

I struggled a little with how to respond. See my discussion of how to tell a client their idea is dumb.

You know it was a good diving catch when you find grass inside your underwear two hours later.

And I had two diving catches today. Both for the score.

I’m working on a project for a client, and the primary users of the web site will be on an iPad. The site is supposed to behave much like an “app” (although it obviously won’t be a native code app). It’s a fairly substantial project, so I decided that in order to be most effective, I’d need a tablet to test it as I’m building.

So I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab (ten-inch model).

It showed up yesterday and while I was unpacking it, all three of the kids came into the room at different times and exclaimed, “Dad, you got an iPad! Cool!”

No, it’s not an iPad, kids. But I guess iPad has become synonymous with ten-inch tablets, just as Band-Aids and Kleenex have captured their respective markets. No one cuts their finger and says, “Hey, I think I need an adhesive bandage!” or has a runny nose and asks for a “facial tissue”.

Last night I spent a little time loading it with some apps– the same apps I have on my phone, actually. That’s a benefit: since both devices run Android, they’re compatible in that way. I must admit the tablet experience is pretty sweet, though. A touchscreen of that size is an entirely different world than a three-inch smartphone screen.

So far it’s been fun. I wonder if the novelty will wear off, though…

I think one of the most challenging parts of my job is telling my clients “That’s a dumb idea.”

Of course I don’t say it in quite that way… that’s what makes it hard. It’s a careful game to play: listening to the idea, understanding it, asking some questions to make sure it’s really as dumb as I think it sounds, and then gently explaining why it probably isn’t the best option.

It happens surprisingly often, actually. The clients have a lot invested in their web sites– and I’m not just talking about money; they really believe in what they’re doing and they want to be the best. At times they struggle to understand how other people (their customers and the public in general) perceive their site, so when they ask for something it’s because they think it’s really cool or new or flashy. Then it’s my job to occasionally point out that their customers don’t like being confused or frustrated or overwhelmed with new stuff if it gets in the way of what they want: finding information, buying a product, downloading some software, whatever.

Don’t get me wrong: I really like my clients. Many of them have become friends over the years, and without exception they’re good people. And one of the reasons they pay me and my team to work on their projects is because we’re candid about their ideas. I want them to succeed, because their success is also Zing’s success. So I might joke about dumb ideas (and in fact they often are) but it’s in a positive way: what can we do that might be even better than that idea?