London, Wales, and Festival No.6 - a recent vacation - part one of two

My wife and I took what was for us an unusual trip outside the country. It was one of our best vacations ever, so I decided to record it here in more detail than is probably interesting to anyone but us.

We spent a few nights in London, a few nights in Hightown, and a few nights in Portmeirion. One general note about our trip is that the UK is friendly to vegetarians now. A little over ten years ago I was there and got by ok, but didn't see one menu with vegetarian items specified. This time we found that almost every menu has multiple "V"s on it to denote that it is a vegetarian choice. Also we noticed a fair number of places were clear about what was glutten-free.

Currency

Our first note

I had read before the trip that it is best to use normal ATMs (not currency exchange ATMs) or your credit card to get the best exchange rate. We had extra time in the US before boarding our plane though and knowing that we would be arriving late at night in the UK we decided it would be best to have a few pounds on us (yes we made a few weight jokes here and there).

The currency exchange in the airport offered an exchange rate of 1.8 at a time when the going rate was around 1.6. On top of that there were fees, so when all was said and done we exchange US for UK currency at 2.1!

Later we used normal ATMs or our credit card and received around 1.6. Partly this is because we have a great bank, but it sounds like this is the normal experience. A couple ATMs offered me an exchange rate of 1.7 or to gamble and take my bank's rate. I always choose my bank's rate and it was always better.

Flight

We booked with Lufthansa and learned the hard way that they are a Star Alliance partner. We got to the airport early, but the Lufthansa counter was closed. We waited a half-hour and finally someone cleaning the floors told us the counter wouldn't be open for a long time. We called Lufthansa and they informed us that our flight was being carried by United Airlines. I showed my eTicket to a Lufthansa employee when we were in London and he told me something was wrong with the system because it should have printed that the flight was carried by United Airlines, but it didn't. We made our flight, because luckily I'm terrified of missing flights and we were at the airport so early.

The flight over was fine though and the United staff were really friendly and we're considering booking directly with them the next time.

On the flight we both read books with maps
 in them: Between Gears and Gabriel Finley

Us BFFs shared a drink with
each other on the flight.

London

Day One

We flew into Heathrow, took the tube out to our hotel, rested up and hit the streets the next day. Our favorite place to go in London happened to be one of the first places we went, but they do not allow photography inside so I don't have any pictures, but we highly recommend you visit the Soane Museum. The museum is in the original home of Sir John Soane and is packed full of things he collected. There are many narrow passageways, an ingenious way of fitting triple the number of paintings as could normally fit in one room, and some invented and real legends. This museum is one of our favorite museums ever, behind our top two favorites, The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA and Musee Patamecanique in Bristol, RI.

Our first of many British teas. We kept
returning to the same shop each morning.

Covenant Garden - one of our favorite areas to wander around in London. We had lunch at a pub there which felt a little like more of a tourist pub than an authentic one. The next day we found a much better pub.

One of the many paper wonders at Benjamin
Pollock's Toy Shop in Covenant Garden.

One of the many paper wonders at Benjamin
Pollock's Toy Shop in Covenant Garden.

We wandered into Somerset House (interior
stair case shown) and had a wonderful lemon
cake and saw a show on tattoo art.

We saw a great show called "Poetry and Dream" at the Tate
Modern. It was largely centered around surrealist painters.

We walked by Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre, but didn't catch a show.

We walked a lot along the South bank.
It's a great place for a stroll in the evening.

I loved this guy's smile when I took the picture. He was actually pretty good and I did give him some money, but I'm not sure if I was tempted because of his ability or the irony of him setting up next to the only "no busking" sign in the whole street.

One of many book benches, "Books about Town" we saw along the South bank.

We ate at "Bill's" and of course
I had to try his/my beer.

We bought a couple ferry tickets and realized
we wanted to stroll rather than sit and wait for a
ferry. Low and behold there was some ticky-
tack on the ticket machine, so we ticky-tacked
the tickets on to it.

Somehow I thought this was "London Bridge" and not
"Tower Bridge" which led to a much long walk along
the Thames than anticipated. Why does the boring
bridge have a song named after it and not the
beautiful one? That said, the walk was much
 enjoyed, so no big deal really and it ended with
a ride on a red double-decker bus back home :)

We stayed at QBic which is an unusual hotel. People like this guy show up for dinner.
The hotel is rethinking things and have interesting ideas like no phones in the rooms
since most everyone has a cellphone now. Also the "do not disturb" sign is a little
stuffed animal you hang on the door knob. I felt a little guilty kicking the little guy
out of the room for the night.

Day Two

Experiencing a "Sunday Roast" for a couple vegetarians requires a little googling and we found "The Coach and Horses" which houses the publicly advertised "secret tea room". We thought going to this veggie friendly pub was the only way to do it (and it may be the best) but we later discovered there are a couple other places in London that offer vegetarian Sunday Roasts. It seems some sort of loaf is always the veggie option.

We saw a lot of tempting ice cream, but didn't have any the whole trip.
However, I couldn't have resisted had someone driven up to us in this little car.

We went to the V&A to see this show. I'm not sure if it was the intention, but there were metal bars from the ceiling to the floor on which many of the exhibits were hung, which gave the feeling of prison bars. (It's also trendy though to have that sort of mounting system, so it's hard to know whether it was the original intention.)

It was interesting to read about "Occupy Sandy"
from an outsider perspective. They said signs like
this one showed up all over the state, but to my
knowledge they were mostly around the shore area
and in other areas relief locations were publicized
vía social media with a lack of street signs. Either way
I agree with the V&A statement that it was an example
of how well organized efforts can be in the age of
social media and the internet.

Later at the festival it was interesting to see
another bike that was loaded with a sound
system. There are diagrams online for
building this one. Obviously though similar
in functionality, they broadcast
different messages.

From the wonderful theatre related collection at the V&A. They have an original of Shakespeare's first folio (not pictured).

This is from an empty shop window along the street.
I like it how sometimes just putting two
objects together speaks volumes to those
who know and seems meaningless to others.

We were curious about the authentic pub experience, but I'm not sure to what extent you can have it in the touristy areas in London. I read that pubs aren't en vogue with the youth as much so they've consolidated (we noticed many had the exact same menu). We enjoyed our meal and talking with the bartender, but it seemed just a touch commercial.

We ended the evening when we happened upon "The Scoop" on the South Bank. There was a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. The rewrite was done with a bit of Shakespearian skill: easily accessible humor for the masses, but retaining the deeper layers for those familiar with the original (which I'm actually not so familiar myself -- only enough to catch that something was a reference to something). Anyway, the production quality was great especially considering it was free. There were a couple ravens that were a kind of puppet that actors in black cloaks flew around. They mastered the little ticks and gestures of birds very well. Best performance of a bird ever.

They also had an interesting system where they asked you to place a little dot on whether you would have paid for seeing the show or not.

London to Hightown

Day Three

The Car

We picked up a rental car at Heathrow and I learned left side of the road driving along with left handed shifting. I didn't realize ahead of time that the stick shift would be on the other side. It only took a little while to become adjusted though (my first two cars were manual transmission). The driving habits that kept at me the whole trip though were reaching for the seat belt on the wrong side, looking for the middle rear view mirror on the wrong side, being sure to stay in the correct lane when turning, and the biggest adjustment was country roads that have literally enough space for two small cars. If a truck passes, then someone is putting their wheels off the side of the road a little.

Still I loved driving in the UK all in all. Partly because the UK drivers are the best I've ever shared the road with (granted I've never driven within London) and partly I enjoyed because of the car. We ended up with two levels of upgrades on our car (more on that later) and rented a Citroen DS3. It was a six speed diesel that had an interesting "eco" feature. If you put the car in neutral and it was moving at less than a couple miles an hour then the engine switched off. As soon as you put in the clutch, the engine started up smoothly. This actually made stop and go traffic more peaceful as when you came to a rest it was all quiet and peaceful which made me ok with the fact that I had to stop. Not only eco, but also for me it was anti-roadrage (although I'm a fairly calm driver since I drive so rarely).

So why did we have multiple upgrades? We had booked for a Fiat 500. I've been curious about them since our car is similarly sized (Smart ForTwo). They had booked all of them though, so they offered a lowered rate to upgrade to the next level of car. So we thought we would be in a little Peugeot. The staff was really nice and let us check the car out in the lot since I was totally unfamiliar with the make. We came back, signed papers, went back to the spot, loaded the luggage in the car, and I noticed we were sitting in a Vauxhall instead of a Peugeot. Our agent's supervisor got all concerned at first because the system wasn't showing that the car was rented. We walked around the lot asking employees where the car was until finally someone figured out the car had been rented. I had a few glances at their software while this went on and it looks like it's from the 1980's. The user interface looks rather unfriendly so even if it was "humor error" I'm not sure I blame the humans.

Back at the rental booth a line had formed, so after apologizing for the mistake and assuring us that we would get the model car we wanted, a rental agent said we should go to the "preferred" rental center, which had no line. They filled out new paperwork and sent us to another Vauxhall. I went back and said that we had been offered a Peugeot. Turns out they had rented all of the model they'd offered so once again we got an upgrade and it was the lovely Citroen DS3. Though the whole episode took over an hour, it was worth it.

The Citroen DS3. The background was a little dull so I had some
fun in Photoshop to make it clear there's nothing dull about it.

The Drive

I had upgraded our GPS with UK maps because I didn't want to have to adjust to all the difference in the car and driving as well as a new GPS. I had addresses written down but didn't realize you need to specify the county since a lot of towns have the same name in different counties. Luckily I guessed right each time.

As I mentioned the UK drivers are great. They are used to having to yield (as they say, "give way") to others and typically drive defensively. Throughout the trip I was only cut off once and honestly it may have been my fault as I was navigating a round-about which I'll admit I didn't get right every time. Most of the drivers are curteous and it makes for much safer roads. There was a sign along the way about X amount of accidents in Y years on the road and how that was unacceptable. I did the math on it and realized it was just a handful. I think I probably witness that many accidents on some roads in the US.

Along the way we had lunch at what seemed to us an authentic pub, The Fox and Hound in Adler (just off junction 10 M40 on the B340). We had plough man's which is a platter that includes a massive stick of amazing cheddar. Throughout the trip we had really good cheese throughout the trip and appreciated that sharp (as they say "aged") cheddar seemed to be the norm.

The Owl House

We tried out AirBNB for the first time and were so happy we did. We spent a lot of time reading through different places and their reviews, so it might be that you need to do your research. Either way though we found a beautiful peaceful place with a wonderful host that became a friend. We planned the trip as a bit of city mouse - country mouse extremes: from a hotel in London to a beach view from a BNB in North Wales.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but I'll say the Owl House is truly a magical place. If you share our spirit for adventure and the interesting things in the world you should stay there. What was great was the host is an artist and well connected to the community, so most of the wonderful experiences we had in the next few days were due to her recommendations (and our "adventure day" attitude). We dined that night at The Pheasant, which is part pub and part upscale dining experience.

Owl House Friends

Somehow I don't have a single picture of the two dogs that were at the BNB, but we have pictures of some of the cats and almost all the chickens. Some of the cats were aloof, but these two were sweethearts. The chickens also were very friendly and always greeted us with much to say.

Liverpool

Day Four

We had been unsure if we would even stop in Liverpool, but after hearing some of the tips I mentioned above we decided to head straight there. We had a great breakfast at the Egg Cafe and checked out their art exhibit. Then we stumbled upon Northern Bold St which has lots of great independent shops. We wandered around the city for the rest of the day looking at art exhibits, shops, and had the occasional cake and tea stop to rest our feet. We found a pamphlet about Philosophy in Pubs but didn't have an opportunity to try it out -- maybe next time.

This is the best donation box ever. It is a sound installation at FACT. When you drop a coin down the ramp you hear an amplified and distorted version  of the coin's travel. We spent more than a penny.	I'm sure there must be some story as to this gentleman's picture on the pub sign instead of the typical barnyard animal.	This is a display for an indy comic that was available for free as part of the Biennial.
	This is from a window of "The Hippie Hole" a clothing shop around  the corner from Egg Cafe.	Apparently there were two biennials, the independent and the official one. I hope it just shows lots of interest in art and not politics.
It's sad that this only happens every other year. They do a great job with it though.	FACT	I love how honest and direct some of the signage in the UK is.
	We saw a few of these bunnies.	There was a lot of this around the city ;)
A great place for cake and tea.		Planters made from painted milk jugs. They stuff a bit of Styrofoam in the bottom so the dirt doesn't drain out.
Not a single Beatle's reference in this blog post is to be found. Pink Floyd on the other hand...	Sand street artist. We donated and he thanked us but stayed on the phone.

Crosby

On the way back from Liverpool we stopped at the beach in Crosby to see one more art exhibit for the night. Crosby Coastal Park has Anotny Gormley's "Another Place" which are 100 cast iron figures planted in the beach.

Little Crosby and Liverpool

Day Five

Little Crosby

We started the day with tea at the Courtyard Cafe in Little Crosby. The surrounding village is beautiful and the courtyard is a perfect place to meditate on a  tea ... possibly with cake.

Liverpool

New Bird Skatepark. It was posted that it was for "experienced skateboarders".

Those crazy fraternity mice...

We had dinner at a wonderful place called Mello Mello. It has a marvelous stage (velvet curtains, raised floor, sound booth across the room), a great atmosphere, and good food.

It seemed the perfect place given this trip was during our wedding anniversary and "mello 'marry me' lasagna" was on the menu.

You'll have to expand this, but the message on the wall is asking about whether you worry about the affects of climate change. I found it interesting how weathered the paint was, which implies this was asked many years ago.

Hightown to Conwy to Portmeirion

Day Six

Conwy

On our way to the festival we stopped to see the medieval town of Conwy. It has an amazing wall surrounding the city and right where you can't miss it is Castle Conwy.

We had lunch at Pen-Y-Bryn Tea Rooms (from the 16th century). This is Welsh rarebit, which I highly recommend. It is sharp cheddar mixed with mustard served on bread. A rare bit of inspiration created this treat.

The most unique promotion of a URL I've seen. The door is the one pictured on the left and it leads to a site regarding plans for an historic hall. 

And then it was time for the festival... which you can read about in my next post

I Hate Meetings - Michael Lopp - Palantir

A bad meeting = Nth discussion on the same topic and no one owning the decision.

books by Michael

Bored people quit - that's what they do.

You are (at most) three years away from building something new. Look at resumes you'll see that people do this.

Irrelevancy is always just around the corner. And shows up usually when you're happiest.

Meetings exist to scale communication and to try to keep track of what might be about to go off the rails.

The process for making something happen = idea -> analysis -> execution
This process happens all in your head when it's just you. When it's two people you need to discuss it and sometimes it takes debate. What this is is a meeting.

The first meeting = it's not just you, together working to solve a problem, in a finite amount of time, and done as needed

All ideas get better with more eyeballs.

But now we have 30 people, not just two. Ideas are coming from every which way. Rapid and organic error correction. Low cost situation awareness. The most random shit becomes culture. Everyone knows everything and does everything.

This first round of 30 people represent the Old Guard. They don't write anything down and keep everything in their heads. They will likely have disproportionate power. Their instincts say that everything they learned at this size will work at a larger size. They run meetings based pretty much on the "first meeting" rule.

Now the company is larger and has 300 people. The company is working. Ideas are still showing up but there's lots of them, decisions are happening slower because it's hard to get input from everyone, and execution is now becoming stove piped. People are a little sad because they used to get to do everything put now roles are solidifying. Stories are retold and becoming myth. Situational awareness is now expensive. Increasing communication friction. Learning can no longer occur via osmosis (a clue to this is when people ask for a wiki). The New Guard is now here. It's stranger town.

The Old Guard can handle problems and fix things based on their political knowledge. They keep doing things the old way but this is where things go off the rails. The issue is that groups of people do not communicate at scale. We think we do, but we don't. The Old Guard just talks to the right people and things get done.

In this setup the Old Guard has no ability to anticipate problems because communication isn't scaling. Then inevitably something bad happens and someone says we should meet.

Meetings go viral when: the perceived value of the meeting goes up, it begins to seen as the only hammer available, and certain people are really good at running a meeting (they are meeting infectors and it is in their interest to exploit this talent).

The Mutated Meeting = Random people who aren't contributing, a lack of agenda, that doesn't respect attendee's time, that goes on forever and ever

Apple called people out of meetings who didn't contribute. And noise didn't count, it had to be signal.

What you need is consistent useful communication in all directions. There are three essential and good meetings that avoid things going off the rails. Preventative maintenance meetings avoid stuff exploding. The reward is silence which does take the fun out of saving the world when the sky is falling.

The one to one meeting
 the update meeting = every week, no matter what, 30 minutes at least (when you skip it trust erodes). Cheat sheet - three prepared points, a performance review, the supervisor's current disaster. The topic should be what you care about. Assume someone has something to teach you in the one on one
 the vent meeting = just nod and listen (don't get sucked in or commiserate, but lend an ear)
 the disaster = you don't want to have this
  
    
Staff meeting - every week (early), no matter what, 30 minutes (at least)
Dashboard: At apple there is the ET which is about everything going on in the company. It sets the tempo for what will happen next week. It handles the state of business
Special guest meeting: information from others and there is serendipity where you learn more
Tapestry meeting - frequently, not just when it's on fire, possibly over poker
        trying to build improbable relationships, culture, to get people to bond
        serendipity focus

All other meetings except those above need an expiration date. Never have it recur forever. You need an expiration date.

Success is (confusingly) silent. These 3 types of meetings are a way to nip problems in the bud. You should find out who is bored and who needs honest feedback.

You can only manage 3 - 7 people. Beyond that someone is suffering.

Meetings should frequently justify themselves. Vote with your feet on whether a meeting is important. Prune aggressively and get rid of unnecessary meetings.

Leveraging Logic as a Leader - Patty McCord - Netflix

It's not what you aspire to do - It's what you actually do

Fundamentals
    Company First (if you don't have a successful company you don't need a culture)
    Judgment trumps everything (intelligence, speed, intuition)
    You can just tell the truth

Teams: Visualizing Greatness
    Imagine in six months if everything was amazing and you had the perfect team. What would be occurring then?
    What would you measure (metrics, deliverables, reporting, cross functional alignment, timeline, deadlines, due dates)?
    What would it look like (winning debates, winning tests, customer feedback, data & analysis, influence)?
    What would people have to know how to do in order to pull it off?
    What kinds of skill and experiences would lead you hear?
    And only after that do you think about who is on the team.

To build the right team first you need to know what you are going to build.
If you start with who you have, you may be limited in what you can do.
You now can tell the truth.
Which means people can decide if they are motivated by the work.
They know what they can do.
They can own their careers.
They can opt in or opt out.

The steps above would allow for a world where there would be no need for performance improvement plans. In truth a PIP just exists to justify letting someone go. It is better to be honest about the work and needs of the employees from the start. Also the steps above would keep interviewing from being a sin. It allows people to be honest and for people to do their best work.

If an employee is unhappy you should tell them to go interview. It will make it easier for them sometimes to articulate to a complete stranger regarding what they want. Also it will let them know what market value is for their job. And they may realize that the grass isn't greener and they'll come back more motivated. The catch is that if someone comes back you need to say "what did they offer you" and you need to offer it because that's what "market comp" means.

Good interview question: tell me about the day you went home and said to yourself "damn I'm good"

Netflix didn't have performance reviews. They had gantt charts and knew who was performing and who was lagging behind.


Pattern recognition - how to lean people. Pay attention to patterns. Learn to observe. People are rewarded differently, wired differently, and need to be treated differently.

Learn to observe how people react to: change, challenge, the unknown, each other, unexpected interruption, learning

What Patty did to innovate within HR is to just stop doing things. No more PIP. No more vacation policy.

Humans are organized for efficiency. You cannot avoid organization, it will form.

Leading from First Principles - Scott Chacon - GitHub

One hundred years ago there was a knitting mill where the employees were not paying enough attention to the spools of thread running out. The solution was to put kittens on the factory floor to play with yarn. What's more amazing than that it worked is that people were open to it.

Five years ago the four founders of GitHub were open source developers without business credentials. They worked from their homes. They ran the company on business minimalism which means they ran until they had problems and then fixed them. They ran an open source business which means:

- no meetings
- no offices
- no work hours (work when you feel productive)
- everything is asynchronous
- people self-assign work
- maintainers, not managers
- everybody contributes ideas (maybe only a couple provide vision)

The entire company works this way (even the legal department). They call these ideas their first principles (borrowing the concept from philosophy). There's no dogma that says "no managers" -- there's the argument of "is a manager the best way to get the value we want".


The 3 year old prosecution = "why" - your ideas should survive this. Direct the three year old prosecution at your business. Same idea as the Toyota "five whys" concept.


Examples of 3 year old prosecution

OFFICE - is it the same as the factory 100 years ago. Are you doing something because it has been done in the past or because it works for you?
First principles of the office:
- a place to work (maybe you have kids and you need a space you can get away to)
- creative collaboration
- serendipitous interactions
- meet the suits (auditor meetings etc)
- interviews and onboard people
- physically ship things to and from
- event space (for public or internal)

Note that at the office GitHubbers don't talk to each other because it's more fair to those not at the office and are on chat.


THE SCHEDULE - most people work about the same hours - 9 to 5 is "core hours" for meetings - why?
How often do you need to meet in person? Only for one of these things: strategy and brainstorming and serendipitous interactions OR heads down, uninterrupted implementation
Think about the university environment: you go to a couple classes a day and then you make up your study time on your terms. You decide who you work with and when you work on what. On the other hand kindergarten is someone watching you all day. Which does your office represent?
- set your own daily schedule
- mini-summits a few times a year (hack-house) to come up with a vision - it's up to the team to decide based on need for vision of communication issues
- whole company gets together once a year
- autonomous - there are benefits to allowing your people to work on their own. This also allows you to bring more diverse people into your organization. It's easier since good people will leave other companies to work for yours. For instance GitHubbers don't miss dance recitals.

MEETINGS - what is the output of a meeting? Who generally comes out ahead in these meetings? Does it support the best ideas or certain personalities?
- chat rooms
- discussion lists (@ mention people)
- as long as it is logged someone else can find out about it on their time. you never leave people out


MANAGEMENT - what does management do? Managers solve a lot of problems, but they are not the type of problems that GitHub has right now.
Why would you have managers?
Assign tasks, coordination, facilitating communication - at GitHub they assign for themselves (everyone is a mini-manager)
Hiring and firing - informed by team, but the four founders make the decisions

Venn Diagram: your skills and interests - problems GitHub has = overlap: what to work on
This is what they tell new employees to work on

By using software to allow cross company communication they have not put personal bias or selective memory in the mix.

Pay structures - why are you doing bonuses? is it maslovian based or reward based?

Long hours - do you implicitly or explicitly look for this and is it important for the business? Is it a badge of honor or a badge of foolishness

Benefits and perks - they've decided against free food because they want to be good community citizens and have people dine at local establishments

Retention counteroffers - in the long term is this in the interest of the company to have people there only for money?

With everything go to first principles and see if the thing is supported.

For their IP assignment legal document they passed it around and let employees fork it and give input which resulted in a better legal document in the end.


Ask these three questions on everything:
What are our values?
What are we trying to accomplish?
What is the best way to get there?



Are you willing to put kittens on your factory floor?

How to Create a Culture of Shipping Product Continuously - Hiten Shah - KISSmetrics

Founder Bombs - when someone high up gives ideas to others and they have no idea how to deal with this thing that came out of the blue and seems to be a request, but it isn't clear. One person realized that a founder bomb only matters if in a seven day period it is mentioned three times

The solution to founder bombs has been for founders to be more mindful and also to find someone who can handle that kind of input. The challenge is to effectively balance all the forces.

What are you working on? Why are you working on it? - ask these questions to a lot of people and you'll learn a lot about the company culture. What's most important is to watch how they articulate what should often be the same message for everyone. It's important that people understand why the company exists and what they are doing and how it fits in.

Closed door decisions - you shouldn't hear "they walked out of the room with a decision about what we are going to do". You should be sure everyone on the team understands the goal.

"Build products people want" - Paul Graham

Shipping continuously is not enough. You have to ship the right things. Great products are created by people for people. Don't ship shit. Make the right product.

"Hire the most amazing people you can. Communicate goals. Turn them loose. Profit." - Sam Schillace, Box

Amazon's Two-pizza teams (2PT) - 6 to 10 people - this is the maximum size of a team. This reduces communication barriers and group think. Kahn likes the one pizza rule of 3 to 5 people.

At Apple they have cauldrons, 3 to 5 people. During a 2 to 3 hour meeting you put all of the ideas into the cauldron. The idea of it is that the best ideas can bubble up from the cauldron without people thinking about who had the idea since all of the ideas go in blank into the cauldron. Don't worry about who's idea it is, value the idea on its own merit.

"The ultimate goal of building a company is to have the right product thesis at the right time." - Josh Elman

A product thesis is problems, use cases, and examples

Working backwards - "We try to work backwards from the customer rather than starting with an idea for a product and trying to bolt customers into it." - Ian McAllister Amazon
Amazon will create a fake press release first. KISSmetrics will write an internal blog post in the same sort of way. It forces you to really focus on what you want to build and why. It gets everyone on the same page about the project.


Cust Dev + Research + Metrics = Thesis -> solution team review (cauldron) -> Q&A on thesis -> plan solution -> defend the solution (iterate where necessary)

Golden motion - pick one metric or goal and build around that - happens with the solution team review


Seek feedback from your team. Have a postmortem.

Send a survey to employees - ask who hit it out of the ballpark last month, what feedback do you have. They are anonymous and optional. Find ways to get feedback.

KISSmetrics recently hired a happiness manager - half of her job is like an office admin/ executive assistant - the other half was helping the whole company be happy. She handles the monthly anonymous surveys, when is someone's birthday, what is someone's favorite beer. Someone focused internally and on the whole team.

Nothing to Hide: Living with Complete Email Transparency - Patrick Collison - Stripe

Had unconventional ideas: no office, pay everyone the same, not having a phone number, not having a receptionist

Later realized an office is needed if you have a few employees. Also that compensation has to vary.

Believer in ambient transparency, where you can overhear things in the office and join in if it is important to you.

At first it was just a couple brothers and they shared an email address so they'd be on the same page. With a third employee they configured gmail so all 3 could log into each other's inboxes. Later they configured the server to automatically BCC everyone on every outgoing message. This scaled to around 6 people, but of course they needed a new solution to scale further. For each functional area there was an email address. So for instance there was "ops" and "finance" which you could CC on any email if it was relevant. A new employee configures which of many accounts they will subscribe to (there's a script for it). It gives an ambient feel of what's going on in the organization. This means they aren't surprised by things that are happening. Employees are able to discover a lot just by searching through the stream. Also people get to learn about things outside their area, like for instance "legal" is a popular list for many who have nothing to do with it. A benefit is that this system seems to reduce politics. Some of politics is controlling the flow of information, but no one can do that. Some issues are that people get confused by things or a little surprised, but they seem to get used to that. Also it can be used as a crutch for implicit agreement by merely CCing and not getting authorization. People can loose too much time in email if they don't have good time management.

Overall there is a hive mind mentality where everyone can be involved. Other tools that can help for this are HackPad. It allows for transparency. By having this overall transparency meetings can be more efficient. Especially it calms fears about the board meeting. At Stripe a random employee is always invited to the board meeting to take notes and pass them out to everyone.


Lessons learned
 
1. get an office
2. it is net better to not have project manager. better to have engineers to manage. there is a faster iteration cycle when this happens. you get twice the amount of iterations
3. self discipline matters most in hiring people
4. hiring individual contributors who can be highly useful (have people do real life activities like find bugs or refactor code instead of text book problems)
5. a change of environment can have an amazing impact. hack trips to foreign countries are extremely impactful
6. happy culture is built from hiring happy people
7. don't underestimate how much people will want to learn about other areas of the company. bring them to important meetings, be transparent
8. have as much discussion about your code as possible - ways of doing things - idioms
9. have a build and run distinction in your team. every week have 25% of the team handle run while the other 75% handle build
10. make sure that group chat happens in your company. its a communication tool and a culture tool
11. have a shipped@ email address for people to send to when you have shipped something. it feels good to send to that email address and allows people to see what has happened. do pay attention though to the results of shipping (it's not a good thing to ship a bad product)
12. have a social@ email address to allow people to easily set up group outings (like, I'm going out for a drink, who wants to come along)
13. at around 25 people have a company chef it actually makes financial since versus eating out and people love it
14. visit your users on a frequent basis and get the rest of the company to do it too
15. offices are often not good for working late into the evening. the lights are often too florescent for evening hours. get ikea floor lamps to give a warmer feel at night. it helps people do their best late at night. (this lesson has been proven each time Stripe moves into a new office as they immediately see few people staying late until they correct the lighting)
16. tell everyone why you've fired someone. it helps reassure others about what happened and why.
17. thank people profusely if they give a criticism about the company (it's hard to speak up, so reward it)
18. constantly find ways to praise those who do the undervalued work.
19. preserve values more than culture.
20. don't talk about someone who's not present and incourage others to do the same

get involved: hack pad at bit.do/cultivate - https://hackpad.com/Culture-Hacks-8WwaHfFfZfl

Things that would be helpful - group chat lines (searchable logs, all OS, inline images) they use IRC - screen sharing collaboration for code (both terminal and screen)

What *Do* You Do All Day? - Kate Matsudaira - popforms

praise isn't always proportional to effort

how do you measure performance? hours (this isn't great), lines of code (supports inefficiency), bugs & tests (doesn't work), features (how do you measure the effort though)

the better you are at your job, the less people know about it because you don't ask for help or lean on others -- you gain autonomy

in teams without managers each member is actually expected to be a manager -- someone still has to lead

we need leadership, not likership

Abraham Lincoln lost almost all elections and failed at what he did until he was 51 and became president

leadership is a decision not a position

positive use of power is good leadership

sources of power: formal & informal

informal power is charisma, expertise, or relationship based

charisma - you have it or you don't. luckily it's not required

expertise - educate yourself and you'll gain it

relationship - build trust (it is essential)
    what is trust? your relationships with everyone are important (it is a weighted graph)

    elements of trust: relationship architecture, reputation, contribution

    contribution - what you do, setting an example, practicing what you preach (never ask something of someone you wouldn't do yourself)

    have integrity - even when people aren't watching

    ask for engineering integrity - how does the system fare a few years after go live

    know your timing - analyze (incorporate) -> estimate -> (confidence) -> actual -> (validate) -> analyze
  
    being on time shows you think other people's time is as important as your time
        ... and if you show up on time you've predicted the future accurately

    think about your coworkers - who is the person you admire the most? what qualities? Now, think about yourself, do you have those qualities?
      
     make sure others feel that you feel they are important - when you walk around imagine everyone is wearing a sign that says "i want to feel important today" - how can you help them with that
   
    celebrate wins - let people know when they've done a job well - help people celebrate
  
     be open to ideas that sound wrong. ideas are fragile. take an interest in other's ideas. take a moment before responding... then explore the idea
  
     empathy and attitude - when you come to work you should have sunshine not rain clouds. be cautious about commiserating with people. listen with empathy, but try to have good attitude and not take sides, but instead reframe (are we sitting on a boat in the rain, or are we on a great adventure?)

        relationship architecture - it's the trust graph of your relationships with others. Make 2 ordered lists: 1. the most important people on your team (those that get things done) 2. the people you have the best relationships with
        there should be a lot of overlap in these lists. you need to be more intentional with your relationships
        you are the average of your five best friends
        start with the leaders. don't' focus on title, look for the people that everyone follows. the people who stand up and everyone follows.

relationship troubleshooting
            - relationships are like filmstrips
            - apologize swiftly and sincerely (don't go to boss or HR)
            - don't deflect when there is confrontation

archetypes            - the jerk - dealing with difficult people - pause - a lot of times people are difficult because they need recognition or to feel important
            - sharkasm - the passive aggressive - seek resolution with someone's interests not their position - people hear what they want to hear
            - the outspoken one - has opinion on anything - sometimes experts - repeat back what you hear to them - list options and vote (put what people say on the whiteboard so they know they are heard)
            - the strong silent type - using post it notes to vote helps - talk to introverts one on one after meetings and pay attention to them, focus - ask questions wait for answers
            - the complainer - whine and act defeated - stay positive but realistic - just state the facts and how they'll be addressed

        Focus on the long term - be deliberate with who you have relationships with. difficult people change if you change. with your support and interest people can change.

where does success come from? it's not projects or work, it comes from people

Cracking the Culture Code - Elaine Wherry - Meebo

Your reason for everything (even free food) should tie into your vision

Culture is not the things we see; it is not the artifacts (bean bag chairs, free food).

The Meebo policy is to pay for lunch if you have it with two or three employees since that fosters community.

Meebo was hyper communicative, but people were feeling out of the loop. The issue was that the mission and vision weren't clear so people didn't know how things fit together and had no larger perspective.



Culture = Artifacts + systems and values + truth

For our companies truth is defined by the market
This has problems since it changes and is short term
It is also unfair
Salaries are based on what the market pays not what you deserve

There are some uncomfortable truths you need to face and be both honest and open about.

Besides the market we rely on vision and data for truth

Look back to shape your vision -- find what people said about you in the past

Making digital life surprisingly simple = Meebo's vision

Moving towards truth is via trust. It is either given or earned



Culture tends to go from given trust to earned trust to a mix as the company gets on its feet.


Why does Zappos offer 4k to new hires to quit?

Badgeville gives stickers that people put on their laptops when they do something well. It is an example of trust earned.


Staff should be exceptional people who give 100% and deal well with change.

Culture can be groomed

Hiring is really really hard to change

Culture is top down

Leadership is same values, different actions

Adaptability is huge

Culture is not a cult -- it's a way of doing business

We are not reinventing the wheel

How I failed - Tim O'Reilly - O'Reilly

Failure: Not making sure that my team was hearing what I was actually saying.

You don't know what book you wrote until you know what people are reading

[TK:Pyramid pic]

"You can leave anything out as long as you know what it is" - Hemingway

Good fiction has way more depth than what you are given. The author knows more than they consciously reveal.

[tk Decision filter pic]

O'Reilly learned late of the sponsorship model for events

O'Reilly has strength in doing good ideas just to do them, but sometimes goes wrong because they don't know how it fits into their vision

Failure: listening to "that's how it's done"

Insight and fresh thinking should be applied both inside and outside. Just as much as you try to understand the market and customers you need to understand your employees.

Failure: lack of financial and operational discipline

Cash flow positive = putting money in the bank. O'Reilly was profitable but not cash flow positive for too long

"Happiness is positive cash flow" - Fred Adler

Amazon says, we don't spend money on anything that doesn't help customers

Treat the financial team as co-founders

Hold teams accountable to their numbers (financial or otherwise)

Tim thinks he failed when he let people off the hook on their numbers

Run lean, reinvent tirelessly

Run lean and when you pivot reassess your staff

Work hard on your internal culture

Drive by Dan Pink - autonomy, mastery, & purpose = what employees need to be motivated

Failure: tolerating mediocrity

Sometimes you need to cancel a project at the last minute because it isn't good enough. It might be disruptive but you can try to have processes that help mitigate it

"Keep stretching the bow, you repent of the pull" Lao Tzu
If you keep pulling back on the bowstring your arm will start to shake and you will progressively ruin your aim

Stand up for greatness

Failure: hiring supplements not complements - hire people that are not like you and bring more and bring diversity to the table

As a leader you should not be the best person in the company at any one thing. Applies to both strengths and weaknesses

Failure: I'll take care of that - compensate for the employees weakness is not good

A leader can be a handyman that just deals with what's lying around rather than an engineer.

The organization you build is more important then the product you build in the long term.

O'Reilly has the vision of being an education company. That's why it can hold events like Cultivate and not stray from the vision. They aren't just a book company.