Who asked for this?

Who asked for this?  "Energy Dome"

Who asked for this?
Who asked for this?
Who asked for this?

My staff during the 27-year gig was encouraged (by me) to think creatively.  Often IT people are labeled as nerds, slightly above accountants of the fun scale.  That was not the case under my mentorship.

We led our industry and our clients in the emergence on corporate email, intranets and company websites.  That might be worth a "what?" but in the late 1990s these were not the norm many industries.  Around 2005 we released our sixth or seventh version of our company intranet.  It was a bit progressive at the time providing not only resources for internal operations but culling press releases and news from our clients, industry and partners.

Apparently someone thought that unnecessary.  I was asked to demo the intranet to a senior C-level staff member. At each point in the demonstration I was asked "who asked for that?"  In most of the many responses to that question it was truthful to say "No one did.  We thought of it?"  This was trouble.

Just a few years later "innovation" became the hot buzzword of the management world.  The organization created a formal structure for "innovation" which included submission of ideas, formal review of the suggestions by those without ideas of their own and limited funding. Implicit in that effort was reigning in IT innovation and it was successful at curtailing IT leadership in the industry.

As managers we spend far too much time on problem employees and the the slight shortcomings of decent employees.  The opportunities for your own leadership is to focus on the good performance of employees and the people inherently bringing about change.

It was my wife who reminded me of this "Who asked for this?" conversation.  It put a bit of a damper on an otherwise pleasant holiday weekend.  I appreciate that.  Actually the Norwegian half of me appreciates it.  Good weather is not really all that enjoyable.  It simply means you can get your outside work done.  The damper kept me from a few accomplishments.


Authoritative Versus Charismatic Leadership? 

Not everyone is cut out to be a manager and fewer as executives.  You have to be comfortable with the unknown, ambiguities, politics, criticism, performance issues, etc.   For two days I've been thinking about Emile Durkheim and his discourse on authoritative versus charismatic power and leadership.  This has been a recurrent theme in my perception of management opportunities.  In it's simplest explanation we follow some leaders because they are charismatic.  They have have the presence, the ideas, the voice and the looks and your belief in them that makes you follow them without question.  Since I think about WWII a bit I'll suggest FDR and Winston Churchill.  The counter is authoritative leadership/authority.  Of course we might think about world leaders who kill or suppress their opposition but we see it in all organizations regardless of size.  Authoritative leaders have their power because of the rights and authority assigned to their organizational position, now because of their charismatic influence.  We follow them because we have to.

Of course I've used this simple dichotomy over the years many times, and long enough to forget that this was not Emile Durkheim's work but Max Weber.  It's been forty years.  I should still remember.

Steve Jobs = Charismatic
POTUS (current) = Authoritative
POTUS (previous) = Authoritative
POTUS (FDR) = Charismatic
POTUS (Reagan) = Charismatic

Who has your back?

People who have served in the military have a unique perspective on organizations.  The training is focused on making you efficient on core activities and good at a narrow range of skills.  While non-military organization's departments and functions are frequently at odds in the military you rely on the guy or woman behind you knowing and doing their job and even more importantly covering your back.  It's a bit of a commitment, and often to people who are friends, non-friends but under the same mission and rules of engagement.  I'm going to look at the Zappos training world.  They put new employees through a rigorous training program focused on customer service.  At the end of training everyone is offered a cash settlement to quit.  I'm curious how much of the training focuses on covering each others' back?

For those not having served on land, sea or air I recommend Restepo.

Outplacement Firm...

My goal is to wrap up my time with the outplacement firm who has been very helpful.  At completion I'm going to write a review of their contribution to this "next phase" of my life.  My personal consultant is currently on a sabbatical and I'm on a sabbatical so two sabbaticals lead to, well...nothing at the moment.

Turkeys...

The coyotes have kept the turkey population down but there are two males courting three females in my front yard daily.  The other neighbors chase them away.  I find that the turkeys keep the neighbors out of my yard and that is fine.

 

Look under the carpet...

Small Business...

Remodeled Restroom

 Last fall we had a break-in at the small business.  The intruders threw a large concrete block through an opaque window, probably thinking it was an office.  It was the rest room.  The wall caved in and it took a while for me to get the majority of the work done and as in most projects there are always a few little things that linger on.

For many years I attempted to be really good a everything I attempted to accomplish.  Now I've become comfortable with saying "it's good enough."  As I stared at the trash can and a box with a few tools and paint that I was using for the minor but never-ending touch-ups I was reminded of the comment that someday everything you do will be thrown away.  That completed the restroom remodel.

Instead of Target, Walmart...

Target is a subject often re-visited here simply because my former employer did a great deal of work for them and the Twin Cities is the location of their headquarters and...well, I used to really like Target.

As I headed off to work on my daughter's old house (now that my commitment on the new (old) house is complete) there was a need to pick up a few items.  Target now has defined their future as re-visited groceries, fashions and upscale home furnishings.  I needed a furnace filter, some window glazing and a really stiff cleaning brush to deal with the residual of a totally deteriorated rubber-back carpet, all of this dirty work.  Target is for clean people.  Walmart is for people who like dirt, work in dirt or are comfortable dirty.

Story has it that when Walmart opened in Mexico the stores were first built like those in the US.  Sales were not good.  Walmart fronted their retail centers with large parking lots.  People in Mexico ride the bus and did not like or take the long walk across the asphalt.

It was 150 yards from my vehicle to the front door.  Once inside there was probably another 600 yards of shopping.  In the old days you would have parked downtown, somewhat centrally, and visited the hardware store, the paint store, the show store and probably watched a little TV through the Sears & Roebuck window.

Know your customer.  Know your vendors.  Support small business.  Be happy with the big box retailers that know your needs.  Repeat:  support small business.  Worse case is when the big box  retailers care more about Walmart that their customers.
 
Looks can be deceiving...

This attic expansion space was remodeled, perhaps just updated a few years ago.  The carpet was sort of 1970s but for attic space it seemed OK.  Now as we update and stage my daughter's old house to get it on the market we're re-visiting all that seemed OK a few years ago.

Organizations now all talk about innovation and strategic plans and being nimble in a quickly changing market.  It's important to spend a little time looking back, too, not because anyone cares about your history but because most of your management staff typically has been around for a while and because your vision statement and mission statement (no one has ever been able to provide a succinct differentiating definition of those to me) come from that history which is all know and molded into the future which none of us know.

The carpet was rotten underfoot when we thought it was OK.  Over time it might have shared a bit of an odor as it reverted back to powder and felt a bit squishy to the bare feet.  A smell test and a bare foot test are both good for organizations. 

Outplacement firm...

Two days ago via LinkedIn I saw that the local office of my outplacement firm had a management change.  The head guy clearly was leaving the executive rank and returning the the consultant hallway.  That led to reach out to my consultant.  I've been on sort of a sabbatical because of time conflicts but want to leverage a few of their electronic resources and bring closure to the program both for my sake and the outplacement firm.

My consultant was on sabbatical.  It's sort of a what condition is your conditin in situation.

Amazon Echo...

My regular pitch in the tech world is for the Samsung Chromebook which I've not been using daily for at least three years.  Printers, phones, tables, notebooks, wireless, bluetooth...really at a point who cares?

I have a Sonos system in place for music and it's great, simple to set up and a pleasure.  Obviously it's much easier today to leverage cloud storage and whatever device you might be touching to hear your tunes.  At the teaser price of $99 I did purchase the Amazon Echo which goes by the name 'Alexa.'  This, I like, too.

  

I Hate Pencils

2014 is the last year that I have W-2 income from my 27-year gig.  There was some severance pay.  I appreciate that.  Every year from 1965 through 2014 I had "earned income" shown on each successive W-2.  For no particular reason I have all those tax returns despite the only requirement for seven years of retention.  The last ten or so are all electronic courtesy of TurboTax and PDF retention.  It is strange that I have all the paper copies but might actually be missing my 2012 TurboTax working files.  That's about the time I started to utilize more cloud storage and it's entirely possible in configuring each of the computers to share the appropriate directories I may have deleted a directory.  If my memory serves me correctly www.dropbox.com saves deleted files for 30 days.  Given that there are 365 days between one April 15th and another you can see the potential for a problem.

Now I use www.backblaze.com which does backups behind the scenes and given the assumption that I keep paying my bill I should have copies forever.  Retrieval is not as quick and simple but that's fine.    All of this is getting more complex.  Becoming a total nerd I now travel with the $249 Samsung Chromebook, my daily goto PC, a loaded Thinkpad with a few specific applications and all all sorts of backup power things, cables, etc.  Also in regular use are a couple of desktops, a great Compaq notebook with a chronic battery problem and a couple of repurposed notebooks running Ubuntu and Fedora Linux.

Some of those computers have external backup USB drives, there is a terabyte or two of Seagate backup hanging off the network and a drawer full of thumb drives and CDs.  One of my tasks is to get all this together is a reasonable content management system.   That's been my goal for a year and there's only been a very small start.

Here's my recap of taxes for 2014.  We have a small business which is an LLC.  Taxes are filed on the federal 1065 form.  Turbotax Business also produces the K-1s which show the income/losses for the business.   I'm using TurboTax Premier or Platinum or Titanium or Kryponite (which is the name of another good backup solution) which intakes K-1, W-2, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-B, rental, other small business and farm income.  Rental property is interesting because it's considered passive income, more or less all the time despite however many hours you put into repairs, dealing with tenants, etc.  There is a cap on how much loss you can claim.  The consulting business come through as well and more or less loses money.  The farm is a sinkhole.  Each year as I close in on APR 15th it strikes me that most farms and beekeeping operations must lose money and if your food business/cafe makes money it's a fluke.

I spent most of the weekend on taxes and most of that time on the parts that lose money.  Finally at 11PM I'd have enough.  Unfortunately I'm reminded that last year, this year and other years around this time I start to dream about tax forms and TurboTax and checking all my lists that remind me to check passive loss limits, farm conservation expenses, property tax allocations, insurance costs, etc.  It seems that I spend more and more time working on tax issues that simply don't apply to my particular situation.

This leads me to restate my closing Facebook post of yesterday:  "by the time I finish my taxes I hate pencils."  Obviously I don't really hate taxes.  It's simply that Quickbooks, TurboTax files, spreadsheets, etc., all get to be a bit much, and why is it that banks don't recognize my pain and keep all transactions and check images and credit card transactions online for eighteen months to ease the pain.  My credi union likes to respond to that query with "we recommend that you download your transaction history every three months."  I simply stare and think about hating pencils.

Fifty years of W-2 income might be enough.  Late last week I had a good conversation with another co-worker who I respected.  He's 64 and I offered to share everything I know about Social Security with him.  He asked if I was doing anything "professionally."  I am but certainly there is no evidence that anyone is going to give me a W-2 or a 1099 for 2015.  It's possible I'll get a 1099 from Google or Amazon.  That's my single income goal for 2015.  I think that 1099 income might represent more enthusiasm, more expertise, more innovation, simply more intellectual opportunities than W-2 income.  Some people figure that out much earlier in life.

Taxes will be complex for 2015 but I see more focus and simpler rewards for 2016.  By then I will not make ridiculous statements about hating pencils.

Of course in the dark, not sleeping, thinking about tax forms, I thought "why don't your just get a gig doing taxes."  Why didn't I think of that before?

Reminder Regarding 'Level'

Small Business...
During the recent tiling of the bathroom I needed to draw some guidelines on the wall.  One of my tool bags has a laser level that would work.  Another, a gift from someone I no longer talk to, sits unopened on top of a refrigerator in the basement.  Frankly, I should just put it in the donation box.  Despite the cost and usefulness of the gift it's always going to remind of some family members that just are not worthy.

Big Business...
It's interesting how difficult it is for organizations to define (and continually refine) their mission, create a morphing vision of future trends and customer needs and keep employees focused and on track.  Each manager needs to coach, cajole and leverage their resources in the general direction of the future.  There are not a lot of shortcuts but you do need to move quickly and stay on task.

Re-visiting the big Target layoff I did confirm that those laid off were given severance packages that were reflective of years of service and were quite generous.  They also contained a provision that employees laid off be 'available.'  If Target reached out to you after the layoff and you could not be reached you'd be in breach of the severance agreement and ... well, you'd lose some of the benefits.

At first I thought that a bit harsh.  I believe it's reflective of Target's admission that they were not 100% positive of the people and the timing of the layoff.  Organizations need to be humble and admit that their judgement is not always correct.  That's where Boards of Directors come into play; they leverage their experience outside the organization, question current practices and make recommendations on senior staff and major business strategy.

Outplacement Services...
This past week I did reach out to my outplacement firm.  Due to small business demands, settling some real estate issues, finances, etc. I put myself on a sabbatical from using their services.  Over the next 3-4 months I want to use some of their online resources and training to refresh myself and then thank them and move on.  The executive consultant assigned to me has been a good help.  In some ways I wish I'd waited a year before starting the engagement there.

Much of their work centers on getting the person making the job change excited, structured and motivated.  I'm tough to motivate or structure.  I liked one of their recommendations which was sort of a one page marketing plan for yourself.  Don't just throw a resume in everyone's face.  Give them your marketing plan and ask what they think.

Mentors are important.  Organizations have started to figure that out.  Typically bright rising stars will be assigned a senior person to be a resource.  I think that we should all have individual Board of Directors to guide us.  Apparently some families can do that.  If you come from a dysfunctional family or a family of tradesmen and you want to be a Doctor or a farmer or an academician they might not be much help.  Friends are a potential but friends are often best left as friends.  Women seem to do well in keeping friends.  Men seem to lose their friends as they work themselves towards heart attacks, paid off mortgages and death.

I'm going to re-visit this board of director concept with the outplacement service.  Some of the consultants there are totally full of themselves.  Others seem like people struggling to just develop their own future.  It does appear that those of the second group are more open to suggestion and guidance.  That will be added to what may be only a couple of additional conversations with my executive coach.

The Level...

My mother was the youngest of four sisters.  Always she was close to the next oldest and quite distant from the other two.  Her close sister was married to Don Nelsen who was born in the same town and grew up a few blocks from the four sisters.  His father was a 14 year old Danish immigrant who started a business harvesting ice from the local lake and distributing it throughout the summers.  Following WWII when refrigerators began to replace ice boxes he started a house moving business which was logical given his experience moving heavy things that did not  want to move.

Don and his brother Russ worked with their father Chris in the house moving business and took it over as Chris aged.  My father died when I was three.  My mother's sister and Don became another set of parents.  When I purchased my first home in 1978 Don gave me a two foot level.  In the house moving business there was more frequent use of levels than one might imagine and keeping things level and plumb in life is good advice.  I've used that level on every home and property I've used and pulled it out in lieu of the laser levels when setting tile.  Don always referred to levels as "whiskey sticks" since the fluid did not freeze.  Thirty-seven years after the gift I'm still using the gift whiskey stick.

When Don passed away 25 years ago I took his Stanley level which still had his name on it.  In a symbolic gesture I checked the accuracy of mine against his.

I'm going to work on this concept of applying a level to organizations.

  

No Job "Alumni"

The outplacement service...
It appears that I've been moved to 'alumni' status with my outplacement firm.  They are really a valuable resource and very helpful in getting one's head around the next phase or job in your life.  As advice I would recommend that no job last longer than five years.  For many reasons, some stated or alluded to here, my gig

Pope Francis - Five Year Job

was 27-years.  Leaving that takes some getting used to.  Had I won the lottery it would have been simple but that was not part of the program, not that I did not try.

It's not clear what the 'alumni' status means.  I'd like to re-visit some of their resources so I'm checking with my personal consultant.

The five year advice idea is pretty standard.  Even Pope Francis has stated that he may follow Benedict's lead and head back to South America in a few years to get back to what he likes to do, not what others' want him to do.  That's good advice.

Small Business...faced with changing standards...

The small business is a cafe.  Everyone's home kitchen needs updating every few years.  Certainly refrigerators and microwaves die and you drop something hot or heavy on the floor, etc.  The cafe is like having 200 people a day come in your kitchen to eat.  They all spill things.  Food falls out of them from who knows what orifices and it gets ground into the carpet.  You schlep hundreds of pounds of food into the prep area and set it all on the same counters and floor locations.  Parts wear out.

There were a number of broken floor tiles.  This space was built out at least twenty years ago.  The cracked tiles in the prep area were unsightly and perhaps something the next inspector (health/food) would decide to be the source of the next plague.  Matching tiles is problematic.  Apparently 8x8 ceramic tiles are no longer in style.  Unable to find grey tiles I found red, black and white options.  White seemed logical.

Installing tile does have sense of reward and if you are methodical it is something everyone could do.  Not having removed tile I checked out YouTube which had a number of nice videos suggesting that with an inexpensive grout saw and a few other tools this would be a simple process.  Over the past few years I've found that the more I have to work with older equipment, vehicles, tools, etc. the more I've had to reach for a big hammer.  Now every garage sale is a search zone for another three or five pound one-handed hammer or sledge hammers or picks or adzes...tools that really are about brute force.

The grout saw seemed worthless.  In the video a few strokes caused the tile grout to easily be removed, be swept up and made quickly into the trash bucket.  Perhaps the effort at least 'scored' the grout.  The BFH was called into play with the risk that it might do more damage than good.  The YouTube videos suggested that not removing all the grout, followed by a 'smash' attack might break more than you want.  Fortunately no new damage was caused during the removal of twenty tiles.  Replacement was straightforward and painless...except that I'm drawn to the white tiles in a sea of grey...but I'll get over it.  The tiles cost about $22, the grout was $16.  I miscalculated on the thinset adhesive and had to make a run to the hardware store but kept the cost under $25.  The grout saw was $8 and $4 for some extra blades.  The three pound hammer came for $2 at a garage sale about six years ago on a hot August Saturday.  A couple was selling their lake home and the man had all his tools laid out on tables in the garage.  Other shoppers were offering far less than the marked prices.  I knew that some day I'd be selling my tools and paid him $2.

Brute force has it's place.  Ideally you have equipment that you maintain.  You deal with the problem aspects before they become big problems, and replace worn and broken parts.  Organizations need the same attention.  Target did not make the sounds and performance of a tuned machine for a long time.  The new guy Cornell is fixing Target with a three-pound hammer.  That's what happens when coaching and managing fails.

Early Spring...

Work, Annoying...

• my 98 year old aunt was paying ATT for long distance service.  it took 30 minutes to get that disabled and the $34/month charge stopped.  five minutes with Centurylink and $8/month solved the problem.
• I needed to change my eBay password and telephone contact info.  the phone number was 18 months old and from the 27-year gig (old job).  I spent 20 minutes trying to change, actually find the number change option in my eBay profile.  Were it not the case that I spend a lot of time online I'd find that OK.  The customer service rep was fine and walked me through the process, certainly thinking I was some sort of neophyte, not a former CIO.  well...I did pass on the opportunity to suggest 'user experience' testing.
• I do use Keepass for my password.  It seems implausible but I have over 400 entries.  How would I explain that there was a time without passwords that require upper and lower case letters, special characters, no letters that spell a word and nothing similar to any previous password or user ID.  My Google password is the only one that I don't routinely have to look up in Keepass.  In 1978 I worked for a state agency doing statistical analysis.  My recollection of the user name or our primary system is long gone but the password was 'evaltinu.'  
• passwords that expire with no online method of re-setting is quite annoying.  Organizations that fail to realize that it's a 24x7 computer world are not worthy.  "Your password has expired.  Call our office between 8:30 and 5:30 M-F."
• Today (March 17) I received a letter from a financial institution  mailed March 10 confirming my election to receive all statements and communication electronically.

Working at Miscellaneous

Impending bathroom upgrade....

I could have written down the measurements or emailed them or texted them or entered them into Gtasks or Evernote but I took a photo.  It's not clear that that makes any sense.

Farmhouse plumbing....

Apparently you use whatever you have on hand and skip the standard essentials that you don't have.  The plumbing in the cellar was unbelievable.

The half-life of remodeling/upgrading...

The last seven trips to my daughter's new (old) house for "little things" to fix have all been described as the "last trip."

Strategic Plan Review...

As a courtesy I reviewed a strategic plan.   I used to write sections starting with a blank screen, a sense of history, broad perspectives on the future and a big can of green Monster.  It's not really my plan to read too many more plans; I'll write a few.

Pinterest...

It's starting to make sense.

Monetizaton...

Thursday I need to focus before Amazon cuts me off.

Impending Work and Work Impediments

Daylight Savings Time
For whatever reason changing our sleeping patterns is disruptive.  Exactly why to we wait until a particular day to "change the clocks" and adjust.  After all these years you'd think that I'd start this change a few days early, perhaps in 15 or 30 minute increments.

This leaves me a bit crabby.

Impending Work
The last decade has included a number of ventures, including expanded beekeeping, some rental challenges, the "small business" of my wife and daughter and "the farm."  For years we drove past a small farm on the way to our rural property.  Over time you pick up on things, noticing the movement of cars or equipment, tracks, or the lack thereof, in the dirt or snow.   There was a small farm house, a metal clad legacy barn and a Quonset hut.  As they say, we "bought the farm."  It's been an interesting project.  We've producec significant quantities of fruits and vegetables and have begun some restoration projects.

In the mid 1800's every county in Minnesota east of the Mississippi was covered with 150' white pine trees.  By 1900 or so all of those white pine in Minnesota and those of Wisconsin and Michigan had been taken by the lumber barons who left massive amounts of debris in their wake.  We're close to Hinckley, MN, which was the general location of a massive post-logging fire which killed many people and which torched the earth.  The farm is in that zone of devastation.  We've been planting white pine and red pine trees for over twenty years and for the last eight on this farm property.

The farm house is occupied by a caretaker couple who are there primarily to keep the meth heads from stealing whatever copper is left in the house and the barn.  We've done a few upgrades for the caretakers.  The next project is to replace the bathroom floor.  For whatever reason this one is waking me up.  Not knowing what's under the floor, worrying about the bolts holding the commode, facing the certainty of bad shutoff valves is disturbing my sleep. 

Bad Night's Sleep...
Sunday afternoon I took down a half acre of small poplar trees which will be the site of further red pine plantings this spring, following the frost departure.  This left me a bit tired.  I went to bed about
midnight which was eleven yesterday and anticipated having trouble getting up at seven which previously was six.  Instead I'd awake at 4:30 AM trying to figure this out.  Last night I replaced DVR for or satellite TV system which had previously been mailed to two wrong addresses.  I'd like to eliminate that cost given my current dependence on Amazon Prime and Netflix.  There appears to be no reason to continue.  at 4:30 AM there was nothing I wanted to watch in the wide range of weird reality shows.

Replacing the DVR took much linger than I expected but it was somewhat flawless and the online

chat option did get three questions answered.  Given my lack of interest in having the second TV work I skipped that.  Now at 4:30 AM I did have to reach for three remotes to watching something.  I cannot get the Satellite system remote to work with the TV so used to TV remote to start that and cycle through the input options.  The Satellite remote showed me 150 channels of nothing.  There should be a reality show about people trying to get their remotes to work.  Finally the Roku remote presenting "classic" films from Netflix.  I'm not sure who I'm enjoying more, Patton or George C. Scott.

The fourth device is a temperature sensor.  It's cold in MN.  We're 100 miles away for our rural property.  I have two systems to keep me abreast of temperatures that notify me when in-house temperature drops below 40 degrees. 

Work Impediments...
So much for my past serious interest in images.  

All this video stuff is nice but I believe it's the written word that really sticks.  I'm distracted from work and from writing, about work and other.

The most positive accomplishment recently was further progress on eliminating the tedium of grinding.

  

No photographs
Boiler
Me
No Grinding