Two Cents and a Thousand Words

A couple of weekends ago I was home watching a financial report on TV with my parents. (No, that’s not typically what I do when I’m home, but we just happened to be sitting on the living room couch as Dad was watching the show.) In any case, we somehow stumbled onto a metaphor of a bathtub from his old banking days. The main idea was that you need to keep x flowing into a system at approximately the same rate as it flows out of the system; otherwise, the bathtub overflows. After thinking about it, I realized that a bathtub is a good metaphor for two other important parts of my life: project flow and information consumption.

Project flow as a bathtub

I work for a services company. We deal with clients every day, in a lot of different ways. With that said, I have a great appreciation for the people who manage to schedule and budget the work that comes in while managing expectations and making everything just work. It’s one of those things that you never notice if it’s working correctly, but it’s really obvious if it gets out of whack (overflow).

After some discussions among the development team, I realized that the projects that stress me out the most are the ones where no visible progress is being made. These are the toughest types: the bug reports and feature requests come in at a race that (sometimes greatly) exceeds the amount of work that is being done on the project. In other words, the hardest projects are those that after six or eight hours of work, you don’t feel as though you’ve accomplished anything; you may even feel as though you’ve lost ground.

In project flow, it’s important to make sure the bathtub does not overflow with a continuous stream of new work that can’t be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time.

One possible remedy is to break down a large project into a few (or many) feature milestones. The ability to complete a feature in itself is much easier than completing a whole project. Another is to enforce a rule that a project must have clear objectives or boundaries within a certain phase; any additional features will be moved to a later release.

Information consumption as a bathtub

I follow a lot of people, read a lot of information, and listen to (and watch) a lot of podcasts. It’s simply overwhelming at times. I’ve been attempting over the last few days to reach RSS Zero, a modified version of Merlin Mann’s wonderful Inbox Zero system. (Inbox Zero will hopefully follow RSS Zero.) I’ve made some progress, but I’m still a long walk from the end of the tunnel.

Here’s the simple truth: there’s only so much time in a day. If you’re downloading more than 24 hours worth of content in a day, you won’t be able to listen to it all. Your information bathtub will overflow.

In information consumption, it’s important to make sure the bathtub does not overflow with an incoming stream of content that takes up more time than you physically have to consume it.

The solution may be the dreaded (or heralded) “Mark All as Read” button. Don’t worry. It’s OK. You can also reassess your feeds, podcasts, e-mail subscriptions, and everything else that flows into your readers each day.

Good luck! Now it’s back to tending my own tub.

Gifford’s opens back up for the season on Friday; if you’re familiar with my obsession over ice cream, you wouldn’t be surprised that I’ve already started a countdown. Thinking about this new tradition made me realize the other annual observances on my calendar. Whether it’s a signal of a new season or a tie back to my childhood, my annual traditions all have special meaning to me.

Here’s a fairly complete list of the events that pop up each year on my calendar. The year links lead to media I’ve created. I’ve been doing “lifetime” traditions for as long as I can remember.

• Downtown Countdown (January 1, started in 2006: 2006 2007 2008)
  I (literally) start off the new year in downtown Bangor as a beach ball is thrown off the side of a building. Yes, that’s how we do holidays in Maine.
• Gifford’s opening (mid-March, started in 2007: 2007)
  One of the first sure signs of an oncoming spring is the opening of the Gifford’s Ice Cream stands around Maine. Nothing beats one or two hundred people waiting in line to get (free) ice cream in a nine-degree wind chill as it starts to snow.
• Winter/spring sunrise trip (winter/spring, started in 2004: 2004 2005 2007)
  Each year I take one weekend and head down to southern Maine. I spend Saturday night in a hotel and wake up early enough to catch the sunrise at either Portland Head Light or Old Orchard Beach. Sure it’s cold. Sure the lighthouse is covered with snow and the beach with ice. Does that stop me? Of course not. To be honest, it’s really refreshing to have a place all to yourself with crisp winter air as the sun rises over the Atlantic.
• Mount Battie hike (mid-April, lifetime: 2002 2004 2006)
  My mother has been making the trek up the side of Mount Battie in Camden since she was a child. The tradition was passed down to me early on, and we spend a weekend day each April hiking the side of Battie. I even have a custom-made walking stick for the occasion.
• Dance concerts (late April and mid-December, started in 2004: 2006 2007)
  It should not be a surprise to anyone that I’m a huge fan of dance performances, both for their creativity and the photo opportunities. It’s a great way to welcome in the holiday season or welcome in the summer.
• Independence Day fireworks (July 4, lifetime: 2006 2007)
  My parents and I would always scope out a spot on the hill on the corner of Exchange and Hancock Streets in downtown Bangor when Dad worked at United Bank. Our old spot may now be a construction site, but we still find a place to watch the fireworks over the Penobscot River each year.
• Whale watching (mid-August, lifetime: 2002 2006)
  Mom and I (along with an occasional special guest) head down to Bar Harbor each summer to head out on a Bar Harbor Whale Watch boat into Frenchman’s Bay and the Gulf of Maine. Over the years we’ve seen sunfish, dolphins, right whales, minkes, and humpbacks. Cruising out into the open sea at 35 MPH is worth the chill you cover up with warm layers of clothing. (Why do so many traditions have to do with being cold?)
• American Folk Festival (late August, started in 2003: 2006 2007)
  The AFF is Bangor’s best event, and I’ve attended in 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007. There’s a good chance you’ll find me running from stage to stage at the yearly three-day music festival. Starting last year, you might also see me volunteering. (You may also spot me eating blooming onions, hot wings from Governor’s, lemonade, donuts, peanut butter cake from River Driver’s, and more.) I’ve discovered some great bands at the Festivals, and it’s been the home to some of my best-ever photos.
• Apple picking (mid-September, lifetime: 2003 2005 2006)
  Right around the start of school each year, my parents and I would head to Winterport to pick our own apples. Lately we’ve continued the tradition in Dixmont, filling up a bucket full of Macintoshes.
• Thanksgiving cornbread (late November, started in 2005)
  When I found my own apartment, I wanted to bring something to the table (literally) for our Thanksgiving trips to each of my grandparents’ houses. I settled on the Homesteader Cornbread at Allrecipes.com. It’s gotten rave reviews each year.
• 30holidays (November 26 through December 25, started in 2006: 2006 2007)
  For two years now, I’ve spent late November through Christmas taking one holiday or winter-related photo each day. I’ve yet to make a complete set, but it’s still a great way to get in the holiday spirit.
• Christmas tree (early December, lifetime: 2002 2005 2006 2007)
  Christmas is in the air as my parents and I head out to Piper Mountain Christmas Tree Farm in Newburgh to choose and cut our Christmas tree. Out of all of the yearly traditions, this may be the most important one; I’ve trudged through snow with strep to have a say in tree selection in the past. When the tree has been chosen, the real fun begins: hot apple cider and donuts in the Piper Mountain gift shop.
• Holiday baking (mid-December, lifetime)
  Although it’s been tougher to schedule since I left the nest, Mom and I always make time to do some holiday cooking each year. The menu doesn’t change that much from year to year: cinnamon rolls, mint-filled sandwich cookies, brownies with mint and hard chocolate toppings, mulled cider, and chocolate bread pudding.
• South Paris and the elk farm (December 24, started in 2005: 2006 2007)
  Who says the Web can’t lead to new friendships? I met Melody online in 2003, I think. After learning that her parents lived in Maine, we started a Christmas Eve tradition in the form of a visit to a local western Maine elk farm. I explained the rest of the story – including the Route 2 Christmas carol sing-along – in a blog post last year.

What are your yearly traditions?

I’m not surprised if you’re looking at the length of this post and thinking something like, “Oh, great.” to yourself. Here’s the general idea: I’m launching a new blog called Another New World today. If you’d like more of the backstory, please read on. Otherwise, feel free to just check out the new site.

I realize that I’ve been in another one of my blog posting slumps lately. It’s not intentional; I’ve just been trying to figure out which direction I want to pursue now. Over the last few months it’s become clear to me that my next project shouldn’t be a new service, community site, or anything like that; it has to be a place where I can express everything that’s taking up space in my brain.

The problem(s) with Web development

I was doing Web development before I was even connected to the Internet in 1996. I’ve been doing it as my primary occupation for just about five years. The problem with Web development is that it takes quite a bit of time to finish the process that starts with an idea and ends with a new site. There’s brainstorming, design, development, testing, and marketing. To be completely honest, I just don’t have the time.

Even if you discount the time factor, there’s something even more dangerous: Application-ADD. I’m as guilty of this condition as any developer. The forgotten part of the development cycle is the maintenance it takes to sustain and grow a site. By the time you’ve gotten to that point, you often have a new “next big thing” idea. In fact, I’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 “next big thing” ideas since I started doing Web development. I’ve completed about five of them, but I haven’t followed through. I’m just starting to understand the merits of realizing that they just won’t all be done. (It reduces my stress level quite a bit.)

But wait! I do Web development as a full-time job. When doing Web development in a client-based setting, your time is spent fulfilling the wishes of other people; often those wishes don’t align well with what you think would be best or most effective for them. Application-based development is a bit different. As one of three developers responsible for Hula, our e-commerce product, I had a fairly large amount of input into the features and overall decision-making process for the product.

And finally, there’s burnout. After forty (or more) hours of doing development a week, I often don’t feel up to the task of sitting down and wrangling PHP for 10, 20, or 40 more. I think Google’s 20-percent time rule is one of the biggest business innovations in decades, and it obviously has very rewarding benefits (see Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and others for example). Unfortunately, not all businesses have the ability to incorporate a similar program.

Passion

I read a lot about passion. It seems to be a underlying theme of the current tech boom (and our generation as a whole).

Web development isn’t my passion. I don’t wake up with a “Eureka!” moment in the middle of the night wondering if a certain CSS or PHP trick would solve a nagging problem. My passion is helping people understand what technology enables us to do, and it’s inspiring people to move forward into a new and better world. We have the ability to do so much. The difficult part is moving there.

A lot of people tell me that I’m a quiet person. That’s true, to a point: I enjoy listening to others and thinking a lot more than I enjoy talking. If we’re talking about something I’m passionate about, though, you’ll have a very difficult time getting me to shut up. When I’m passionate about something, I’m anything but quiet.

Something new for me

It would seem, then, that I should talk about topics that interest me more often. How do I combine these all into a single focus?

I found the answer in other blogs. I’ve read Boing Boing for as long as any other blog. Recently I’ve been a somewhat religious reader of John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. The answer was another blog. Writing reduces the time from idea to product, and it’s also a purer way of expressing my thoughts. I really just love writing in general (as evidenced by this post).

Tonight I’m launching Another New World, a blog about how we’ve reached today and what we need to think about before we can reach tomorrow. It will be a combination of essays and links to related information, and it will be the closest representation to date of what takes up space in the ever-changing landscape of my mind.

I invite you to check it out and, as always, tell me what you think.