Management

The End of a Decade's Work

Chip Lemmon — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:43:43 GMT

Well I guess I should be satisfied that I sustained a company for 10 years. But it is a bit anti-climactic. I've screwed up a lot, learned a lot and accomplished a lot since 1998. I like to think of it as a long MBA program based in real world experience. I wouldn't trade anything for the experiences I have gained over the past 10 years.

Nothing is more "real world" than being your own boss and running your own company. Nothing is more real world than not getting paid by a client for more than 90 days. Nothing is more real than being on the bench for several months watching your annual profits disappear. And yet nothing is more satisfying than knowing I did it for 10 years and did a damn good job at it.

I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. Crazy stuff other contractors do, crazy stuff clients do, crazy stuff client's employees do and crazy stuff partners do. I've been everything from developer to CTO. I've been a contract developer, business partner, CTO, Chief Architect, Sr. Developer, Project Manager, Advisor to a State Health Dept. and a member of a PMO.

I managed to survive more than 6 CTOs at one client and helped two clients when they sold their companies to other companies. I was once offered 0.5 percent, that's right one half of one percent of a start up as compensation for architecting their entire solution. Which by the way the company could not exist without as it enabled their entire offering. I even ran an off-shore operation for a while.

I was offered a job at just about every substantial client that I consulted for. I was laughed at of course when I told them how much it would cost to hire me. But that was okay because they just kept me on contract for a long time at my billing rate.

One side benefit I never expected nor planned for came around 2004. It was an introduction to the "community". I came across and subsequently hired a big personality in the .Net Community. We were friends instantly and I was immediately drawn into the community. I have met amazing people since that time from the typical .Net companies and some not so typical companies. I was given great opportunities to present to the community (which has probably fullfilled me more than those that attended my sessions.) While not as active as I once was I will always hold the .Net community in the highest regard and among some of the fondest memories over the past 10 years.

So why the long rant? Well because in March I decided to take a full time employment position and I actually enjoy it very much. And so to clean things up I have decided to close my shop. So in August 2008 I will close my company exactly 10 years after starting it. A company that has brought me joy and tears, excitement and fear. If you have ever run your own company, you'll get why this is such a big deal. If you haven't you should try it some time. It will certainly give you a different perspective on full time employement.

Maybe I'll be back on the independant side some day. But for now I've hung my hat at a GREAT company with huge opportunities. So while I focus on my new career this blog will probably fall silent.

Thanks,

--chaz

A shift in focus

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:50:23 GMT

Well for those of you who follow me and my blog (and who doesn't); a major life change signifies a shift in focus on this blog. For over a year I have been a big proponent of good User Experience. But as I have made some very deliberate decisions in my career I am assuming a role as a Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. I will still have architectural responsibilities too. So to be true to the principles of software design that I believe in, I will stay true to User Experience in my new roles, I just may not blog about it so much.

As I exit stage left from the forefront of User Experience I just have to say that the term User Experience has been over used and misused by so many. The real misuse of "User Experience" came about with the introductions of WPF and Silverlight in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, these two technologies certainly do enhance the beauty and functionality of an application. However to me User Experience is more than skin deep. The User Experience is really all about the psychology of the user in relationship to the software they are using. It is about the user's perception of ease of use, the software's ability to keep the user on task and the conversation that ensues between the two.

I've said it before in this blog, the User Experience is not owned simply by the UI designer/developer. The User Experience is the shared responsibility of the entire development team and begins at project inception. UX must be a first class citizen during solution architecture and remain so through presentation development and delivery.

--chaz

How Do You Tech Out?

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:11:00 GMT

I've been sitting on this post for a long time... I just read a post by Chris Williams about a technical interview he conducted today. It is very funny and it has inspired me to write this.

Now I have been on both sides of the fence in a technical interview as both the interviewer and the interviewed. I really hate this process from all sides. Obviously as an employer you need to figure out what somebody knows and if they are qualified for your job. As a candidate you want to put your best foot forward.

My most recent experience comes to mind when discussing this topic. I had a very technically talented interviewer. And I got one of the most grueling interviews of my life. Questions ranging from "Name 4 of the nodes you will see in a SQL Server Management Studio Tree" to "How to change the color of text in a simple html page containing only the <HTML> and <Body> tags" to "Can you Inherit from multiple classes in C#".

I was warned ahead of time by the internal recruiter that this interviewer was an MCSD and had gone through great pains to develop a technical interview that he was very proud of. And rightfully so. The breadth and depth of this interview was significant.

From an Employer standpoint, this very syntactical/text book interview is not my style. I'd much rather know that you can think. I'd like to know that you know where to find the answer to things you don't know. I much rather know what you contributed to your last project. Yeah, sure you need to know the basics, but if we are talking about MVC/MVP, or a data access block you know how to code... we've moved past the basics. Syntax is relatively insignificant. Now sure knowing that you can't inherit from multiple classes in C# and that you work around this by implementing multiple interfaces from abstract classes is important. That tells me you are an advanced developer. But knowing the syntax for what attribute to set on the <Body> tag to change the text color is irrelevant. Tell me you'll Google that or even better you'll go to WebMonkey.Com to get that answer and I'm happy.

One of my most favorite questions as a candidate is anything regarding ADO.Net. Anybody that knows me knows that I am not a very big fan of datasets much less ADO.Net. Sure it has it's place in the world and is gaining a little more validity beyond simple data transport (much to my chagrin). But I am from the use ADO.Net as a data transport mechanism via the Data Access Block camp. Pass me a dataset to hydrate my business object and get rid of ADO.Net from there. So do I know ADO.Net... well not really. But does it matter? I know how to use the Data Access Application Block. Isn't that enough? Is it?

I don't know if there are any really good answers to this. But if you do get past the trawling recruiter slime out there, you are only 50% there. You still need to pass a technical interview. As I did in my most recent experience, I simply told the interviewer to move on to the next question when I did not know the answer. I made a mental note of the question, looked up the answer later and in my thank you for your time e-mail submitted back the answers to about 10 questions I had skipped.

You are not without your computer and thus resources to research syntax, technique and tools in your daily job. So why then should you be expected to tech out (specifically syntax) without these tools. And yes maybe Visual Studio has made us lazy developers, but come on, how many of us haven't browsed the drop down list of options from intellisence. Ya gotta love the intellisence!

--chaz

"For the believers, it's time to become evangelists."

Chip Lemmon — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 20:31:00 GMT

”FOR THE BELIEVERS, IT'S TIME TO BECOME EVANGELISTS.” YES I DO MEAN TO HAVE CAPS LOCK ON FOR THIS POST, BECAUSE I AM SHOUTING! AN ARTICLE IN THIS WEEK'S INFORMATION WEEK “SPEAK UP FOR THE IT CAREER” REALLY HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD ABOUT THE IT PROFESSION. I NORMALLY THUMB THROUGH I.W. AND TOSS IT IN THE TRASH. BUT IN THIS CASE, THEY CAN'T BE MORE RIGHT. THERE IS AN ACCOMPANYING BLOG ON THEIR SITE FOR THIS ARTICLE.

Okay, I'll calm down a little bit, but mostly because the all caps is killing me. This article says a lot of what I've been thinking about the IT profession for a long time. When did IT stop being the “it” profession? We do cool... very cool things. We make the world go round, don't we? Why then has it become so out of fashion to be in IT? Outsourcing? Global competition? Ah but now I am repeating a lot of what is in the article. Go read the Oct. 3rd issue page 35. I don't need to rehash the whole thing.

Instead I want to use this space to challenge IT pros. Especially those with kids. Have you told your kids what you do? Have you told them so that they think it is cool? No, never mind cool, have you told them so they think it is important, interesting, life changing? Have you taken time to point out that every day things in their lives were planned, designed and programmed by people just like you? NO? Why the hell not? Don't you believe what you do is important and interesting?

Does your kid realize that a person like you planned, designed and wrote that cool XBox video game, the cell phone mechanism used to “Text” their friend, their Tivo? NO? Maybe that is why the enrollment in IT related college majors has dropped off the chart. Maybe we need to give ourselves props for the cool things we do. Yeah so maybe your invoice report generator or GL application isn't a video game. But you need to relate in kids terms. Do you still get a kick out of delivering exactly what somebody asked for or even better, what they need? Do you love listing the endless manual processes you have laid to rest via automation? Me too. So why not get young people charged up about it too?

Now let's take on outsourcing, the IT community's biggest cry of defeat. Shut up! We're Americans damn it. Don't cower to the pressure of cheap labor. Innovate. Find ways to reduce cost of service that protect a healthy salary and your job. We need better tools... faster. We need to be more flexible and adaptable. We need to reevaluate what it is we do. Yes a lot of us get a high from writing cool code, but there is way more to IT than programming. We have failed in the past as a community to provide the right answer for the problem. We always try to impose IT as the solution. We need to step back, be objective and look at the whole picture.

I repeat, it isn't all about cool code. Sometimes it's about being a conduit between business and technology. It's about understanding business needs and providing the right combination of solutions. Which can be manual processes, packaged automation processes and custom developed automation processes. It is not all or nothing. The lack of good advise and the lengthy time it takes to implement custom solutions has lost the trust of American companies. It has inflated the cost of home grown IT shops. We need to work smarter and closer to the business than ever before. Don't be afraid to offer a non-technical solution. Imagine yourself as a doctor of technology. Don't always right a prescription for back pain when some moderate exercise will do the trick.

Bottom line, we need to work together as a community to save our profession. Like it or not it is up to you and I to revitalize interest in IT in America. How will we do this? Start small, start with the kids in your life and start with your current job. IT isn't just programming it is Information Technology.

--chaz

Re: Higher Education writer says "Bloggers Need Not Apply"

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 22:08:00 GMT

As a hiring manager for a recent project I found reviewing someone's blog extremely useful and efficient. More efficient than rummaging through a few thousand on-line resumes on Monster. I couldn't agree more with Robert Scoble's comment; “I found it greatly helped out the interviewing process cause we could talk about deeper things and skip the "getting to know your personality" part of things.”

I chose my senior developer on my current project because I liked what I saw on his blog. In fact, I read his blog before I even called him. I have to admit I felt like I was stalking him a bit, but it really did allow us to skip the “getting to know you” stuff. I knew what he was interested in and I knew the technology he had experience with. Ironically, I don't even think I saw a resume. The blog, a personal interview and a tech review and I knew I had the right candidate.

Regarding some of the comments Ivan Tribble made in the article that Robert refers to, I think there is a very important lesson for bloggers. A lesson that was imparted to me by the aforementioned hire and my personal blogging mentor. Keep separate blogs. If you want to talk about your darkest inner most desires, passions, or dislikes DO IT! Just don't do it in your professional blog space.

There also needs to be some self censorship in your professional blog. You might feel very strongly about a shoddy product, service or the like that is very pertinent to your field of work. Nonetheless, a “Rant” is quite unprofessional. You can make the same point about your displeasure in a way that does not reflect negatively on you or your intellect. By blogging you are exposed, you are eternally “On Stage”. So don't embarrass yourself. Be professional.

Oh yeah, as your 4th grade teacher taught you... proof read before you click the “Post“ button. Spell checking wouldn't hurt either.

My $.02

--chaz