The lucky and the naive

Ignore this unrelated picture.

I met with the VP of the new company, and I'm actually psyched about working for them.

Isn't it weird? Nobody ever says that when they get bought. Am I totally naive? Or really lucky?

Children of the corn

I've been evaluating company cultures lately, in anticipation of my new employer, Company X.

I've noticed that my team has evolved to serve an audience who uses the software like grasshoppers--projects are short, fun, and out the door. While Company X's audience, using similar software, works in more regulated industries. They plan, they organize, they deploy enterprise-wide software. Like ants.

For example, when we tried to write a series of traditional tutorials, we found that nobody even opened them. Not even our technical sales force. It didn't matter how good the material. Nobody thought they had time--though all complained that they needed more learning materials

Company X has a university of tutorials, and I suspect they are well downloaded, opened, and loved.

For our users, we now create short (<1 minute), embedded videos and big graphics on blog engines, in hopes of pushing something into those busy user heads before they are off to masticate the next corn stalk.

XP lends itself to grasshopers too. Try something, then try something else. Then change your mind because it didn't work as well as you hoped. The whole darn process acknowledges our short attention spans and indecision.

That includes me and my whole team. We have become grasshoppers, moving from project to project readily and excitedly. It's so bad, the QA department gave up on us following processes a year ago, and started automating anything we might mess up at the last minute--like compiling help, putting things in a repository, keeping track of our changes, etc.

God! How are we ever going to integrate with Company X ants?

As part of my research, a man from another (ant) company (let's call it, Company I) urged me to read the book, Good to Great. It's a research-based business book that touts the long-term success of those nose-to-the-grindstone ant companies. And I'll tell you, it made me feel like a real loser realizing I was more swarm than colony.

But not for long. Like any good grasshopper, I'm off to my next chew and thinking how this story about grasshoppers and ants, how that's the story I'm going to tell at my first meeting with a Company X executive next week. Maybe he'll find room for both kinds of teams.

I'll let you know how it works out ...

unless I lose interest first.

Bought and sold

Gasp! My company was just acquired by a big east coast company. Too soon to tell what that means to anybody or any processes...but that doesn't keep us from guessing.

Best business book

In the airport yesterday, I loitered in the book store looking at popular business books. Many full of advice on how to succeed in management.

I've read several of those books. But none have served me as well as what I've learned from the serenity prayer. In almost any management situation, that advice does me right.

Take chances. Mind your own business. Understand that sometimes you'll play it too safe, and sometimes you'll cross the line. Ask the universe for guidance on that.

The good writer

Recently, I found myself dining with a group of people whose writing I respect. I wondered out loud how some people get to be stronger writers than others. Our conclusion?

One nasty teacher.

At least one. Maybe the worst thing that can happen to an aspiring writer is a B+ in Composition. Or an early teacher who adores your writing.

(Well, no sooner had I come up with my theory than I met a good writer who was always a good writer and never needed a nasty teacher. But I think she's the exception. I guess this calls for a survey.)

The happy Virtual Customer

C'mon, admit it. When you started your technical writing career, engineers were king. Right? If an engineer liked what you wrote, you could sleep well knowing you'd done your job.

But, if you hung around long enough, you learned that what engineers want and what customers want differ a little. Okay, a lot.

With the XP process, you now have a virtual customer (VC) to look at and approve your work. At first, we thought this would solve the problem of engineer versus customer, with writers in the middle. We soon learned this isn't exactly true.

VCs, like engineers, typically don't have a communication background like you. And often, they bring strong opinions about writing and documentation. So what do you do?

You become a leader.

XP only works if you become an effective opinion leader, able to talk confidently and convincingly to people with lots more power than you about communication. Arm yourself with data, facts, and confidence. But also remember that good leaders are flexible, always look at the big picture, and negotiate effectively.

You do have something valuable to bring to the process. The more you work in XP, the more apparent that becomes. Own it!

End game amnesia

Childbirth is painful. So help me, I know. And then, after the baby--you forget your agony. At least, you forget it enough that you'll do it again.

End games, those last few weeks before a release, are about the same. I can predict what will happen in every end game. Yet each time we'll respond with surprise, as though this is the most pain we have ever endured.

We'll sulk, blame, and declare ourselves victims of other people's unrealistic expectations (90% imagined we'll discover later). How can we possibly turn out good work under these conditions?! We become convinced our baby will emerge premature, defective, and unlovable.

Then, the release ships. The Help isn't so wrinkly and smelly after all. In fact, parts of it are impish and cuddly. Writers will tell me again how much they love their jobs, their colleagues, the view from their cubicles. Lions will lunch at Noodles with the lambs. Peace will prevail on the earth.

Sometimes you'll find a book with claims that childbirth doesn't hurt if you do it right. Just breathe, relax, and think right thoughts. We buy it. We want to believe we can really cheat the pain.

We believe that about end games too. If we only tweak the process here, set expectations there, prepare more in advance. And still somehow, we never get it just right.

Yet, something tells me that when the end game stops hurting, the writers will also stop telling me how much they love their jobs in the afterglow. Work will become stagnant and uninteresting.

Like all birth, anything worth spawning seems more worthwhile if you had to go through a little hell to make it so.