I think most technical people can be categorised as either Heads Up or Heads Down.

Heads Up people start at the technology and ask “How do people use this?”.  They think most about the bits of the system you see and touch and interact with and beyond that to how this fits into the broader tasks that people using it are trying to achieve.  They can empathise with people.  They worry about how the system looks and feels.  They think about the experience.   They generally prefer to work collaboratively, and need lots of feedback to reassure themselves.  They can sometimes be naive to the complexities of implementing something that looks simple on the surface, and ignorant to the trade-offs that their design decisions impose.

Heads Down people start at the technology too, but ask instead “How does this work on the inside?”.  They think most about the bits of the system you don’t see and beyond that to the underlying implementation.  They wonder how it could be improved, without any impact on the outward appearance.  They have a deep technical knowledge and an ability to think in algorithims.  They worry about performance and efficiency and optimisation.  They think about the engineering.  They generally prefer to work by themselves, and usually can tell when they have nailed it.  They can sometimes struggle to understand that not everybody is an expert like them, and dismissive of things that seem more like aesthetics than an important part of the system.

Those are horrible broad-brush stereotypes, but if you’re a technical person it’s good to understand where you fit in, as that will help you work out how you can best contribute.

If you’re hiring a technical person, it’s really important to work out beforehand which type is right for the role you have.  Any good team is going to need a well selected mix of both types of people.

Related:

Why is good UI design so hard for some developers? - Stack Overflow

Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I) – Myers-Briggs Basics

A brief addendum to my last post.

A few people have sent me this article on Gizmodo, which explains why those of you who tried to watch the third video I included directly on my site would have been out of luck (hopefully most of you were smart enough to click through to YouTube to watch it there, or not care).

This is the quote that jumped out at me:

“With or without this embedding problem, we’ll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here’s a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We’re a rock band, and it’s a great gig.”

Yes, aren’t record labels, and EMI specifically in this case stupid!

Or, maybe they are really smart and understand that you’re generally not remarkable for long (the point I was trying to make in my previous post) and now is the time to milk this particular cow?

And, while we’re on the topic of stupid, I’m surprised that YouTube haven’t come up with a solution to this problem.  I assume that Vimeo have (see below), and yet I thought all the really smart engineers worked at Google?

I recommend you go read the whole thing and be entertained and informed.

Unfortunately I can’t embed the new version of the video, as Vimeo is not one of the sites supported by WordPress.com (where I host my blog).  But, for completeness, you can watch the third video there now too.

OK Go have worked out how to be remarkable.

Their first big success was “A Million Ways” which, thanks to a video made and released without permission from their label, was the most downloaded music video at that time:

And, “Here It Goes Again”, featuring an awesome treadmill performance, is one of the all-time most popular internet videos:

So, how do you follow up hits like that?

With even better videos, it would seem.

First:

Then:

However, I think these are very unlikely to be bigger hits.

Look at the progression – the first video was amature in an appealing way (you could imagine the fun they had making it), the second video had just enough polish without looking over produced (you could aspire to have made it yourself), but the last videos looks like they belong on MTV rather than YouTube.

Also, a funky video from these guys is not news, so it’s much less likely to be viral.  ”Dog bites man” is not news.  ”Man bites dog” is news.  But, “Man bites dog a second time” is a much smaller story.

What do you think?

2009 Annual Report

This time last year I wrote a post called Quantifying Nothing, where I tried to answer the question “what do you do?” with a slightly more detailed response than “nothing!”

At the time I was feeling a bit down about how much I was achieving with my time, but I found documenting what I’d actually done quite cathartic.

So, if you’ll indulge me, here’s an attempt to do the same again for 2009.

For the first time since I left university in 1996 I spent a full 12 months without a job, as such. Despite that, it still felt like I spent a fair amount of time “working” on one thing or another.

According to RescueTime I spent 1,228 hours using my computer, with 310 hours (25%) being email. That’s 20% less than in 2008, or over 8 working weeks’ worth. I’m pretty pleased to have it back!

Excluding spam etc, I received about 4,900 emails and sent just over 3,000. Those numbers are also both a lot lower than last year, and much more manageable. I stopped automatically checking for new messages, which helps. This is all good, although I do need to remind myself occasionally that Inbox Zero = Satisfying but Calendar Zero = Depressing.

After email, the next biggest time sink was blogging. This time last year I said I would try to write fewer, more considered posts.  In the end I managed 73 posts (down from 171 in 2008), but finished up one short of my target of 30 posts worth keeping. I’m not really sure why I choose to spend so much time on this, other than that I’m constantly and pleasantly surprised by the variety and calibre of people who take the time to read what I write.

Twitter was my new vice this year. It is exactly one year and one day since I made my first tentative tweet, and I followed it with 755 more. I follow 58 people, who mostly add more value than the attention they consume. And I have 497 followers, who hopefully find some of what I write interesting, entertaining or otherwise useful. Or not, whatever.

I did a lot of reading as well as writing (I bookmarked 393 web pages on delicious, two more than last year).  At least that’s true online, because offline I once again didn’t read nearly enough, as evidenced by the pile of books that taunts me from my bedside table.

I also spent some time working with various start-up companies during the year. I was paid for some of this time, but not most of it. I really enjoyed most of it, but not all of it.

I invested in three new ventures during the year, but all of those were smaller amounts, so it’s fair to say my focus was on the existing rather than the new.

It’s been a year of mixed fortunes:

• Xero seems to have wind in their sails. Although I no longer have any day-to-day involvement there I’m still happy to be a shareholder and look forward to following their progress in 2010.
• Fishpond have had another big year and I’ve enjoyed being part of their advisory board. They are smart guys working hard on a good business. It’s exciting to think there are still so many more improvements to make.
• Others, like Areograph and Valuecruncher, have also been paddling hard all year.  We’ll find out in 2010 whether they will fly or not.

Unfortunately there are some that have not gone so well:

• Wingman was an itch we scratched, but it never got any traction, so we shut it down in April. Despite that, I enjoyed working with Koz, and look forward to being involved in future ventures with him given the opportunity.
• PlanHQ also went nowhere fast, and towards the end of the year we all agreed to cut our losses and sell the company back to Tim (one of the founders). He struggled to get his head around the obligations that come with having external shareholders, so perhaps he’ll make a better run of it now he owns it all?

Clearly I’m still learning. Often what not to do, it seems. But, I continue to subscribe to the just try stuff approach.

So, while I wasn’t working so much, what did I fill that time with?

Lots of different things…

The year started and ended with crazy endurance events. I did the bike leg (180km) of Challenge Wanaka in January, and then a few weeks ago I completed my third Half Ironman (2km swim, 90km bike, 21km run) in Taupo. I was a little worse for wear for a few days after both, but the satisfaction of completing something difficult lasts longer than the sore legs.

I also rode from Wellington to Otaki over the Akatarawas with Vaughan, as part of his ride from Bluff to Cape Reinga.

With all of that I couldn’t help but be fitter, I suppose. But, I’m also quite a bit smaller now than I was this time last year too, thanks in part to a post I wrote in May, called Keeping Score. In the comments Carolyn (an old friend and colleague) linked to The Hackers Diet. With that, and some help from an iPhone app, I’ve lost another 12kg since then. For the first time in my adult life I’m under 80kg and “normal” according to the BMI scale.  You do get what you measure, it would seem!

In total I’ve now lost 30kg since 2001. Despite still being full of advice, I am increasingly embarrassed to have needed to do this, rather than proud that I have. I don’t want to be like those people who quit something (smoking, coffee, eating too much, whatever) and then can’t shut up about it to everybody else who never started in the first place!

As well as all of this healthy stuff, I also kept busy spectating during the year. I saw Wellington defend the Ranfurly Shield again, 26 years after watching them lose to Canterbury from the top deck of the old Millard Stand. I watched the All Whites qualify for the World Cup, from just about the best seat in the house – sharing a box with some other Rongotai old boys (Sam, Terry, Winton). Plus some things that were a bit new and different for me: sumo wrestling in Tokyo, surfing at Sunset Beach in Hawaii, and …

I took my dad and my brother on a pilgrimage to The Masters at Augusta. If you’ve ever watched this on TV you’ll know it’s a magical venue, and even better in person. Spending a week watching golf might sound torturous to many of you, but it was actually lots of fun. We saw Tiger and Phil Mickelson making their charge on the final day and caught up with the leaders from our green side seats at the 16th, reserved earlier in the day simply by leaving our chairs there.  It was a special trip, and I’m pleased we took the opportunity.

I played 39 rounds of golf myself, including at a couple of the best courses in the world: Pebble Beach (where I shot 99!) and Spyglass Hill, en route to the Masters, Ria Bintan in Indonesia, and Cape Kidnappers more recently. My handicap dropped just slightly from 16.6 to 15.7.  But I also got soundly beaten by our two year old (on the Wii), so I keep my feet on the ground.

I went to TED in Palm Springs in February. It was both exhausting and inspiring. If you like the 15min videos they post on the web, try to imagine one after another after another for four days – I don’t recall ever feeling like my brain was so full! Thankfully, I wasn’t as out of my depth as I thought I might be. I met a few heroes (like Morgan Spurlock and Matt Harding), who turned out to be thoroughly nice.  And I won an awesome spot prize.  But, despite loving it, I’m not sure I’ll go back until I’ve got a more interesting story to tell (actually, the organisers think so too – I applied to go to the main conference in Long Beach in 2010 and was turned down).

I attended two great weddings: one in Bora Bora and one in Martinborough.

And, no funerals!

I saw Coldplay live in Sydney and Neil Finn live in Auckland at a special fund-raising dinner for Medicine Mondiale.

I flew on an Airbus A380 and went to the top of Taipei 101.

I enjoyed a long weekend of skiing and helicopter adventures in Wanaka.

I did the 134m Nevis bungy in Queenstown and a knee hang catch on the flying trapeze at Bintan. My fear of heights is tamed, if not conquered.

According to TripIt I was away 139 days, visiting 38 cities in 8 countries and covering over 100,000km! This included some great family trips, taking advantage of the opportunity to travel with the boys before they start school.

I realise that spending this much time with the boys while they are this age is a huge privilege. And, even still, I don’t take advantage of that as much as I might. I did watch quite a lot of Wot Wots with our two year old (wotty wotty!), and read Moo Baa La La La more times than I can count. I can also thoroughly recommend living within walking distance of a school. Our oldest started in October, and walking with him there in the mornings is often the best part of the day.

Reading all of that back, I appreciate how very unreasonable it would be to complain about anything.

So, what does 2010 hold?

I have no idea, but will soon find out I guess.

I don’t have a grand plan, beyond trying to keep calm and carry on.

I think the best I can hope for is that there will be another good collection of stories to share this time next year.