Honestly, no one really likes a visit to the dentist’s office. Certainly not me. But as I was lying there on my back, mind wondering, it occurred to me there were a few lessons I was not expecting to find.
 

Trust the Professionals

If you’re going to outsource anything, make sure it’s to someone you can count on. Referrals make this easier. Ask a friend. Find a good review online. Do whatever research it’s going to take for you to have confidence in the person.

If you do this right you’ll stop worrying and quickly get back to more important things. If you don’t, you’ll be micromanaging and distracted the entire time (which defeats the point). Do you’re homework and build trust with the professional, then stand back and let them do their thing. What you’re really paying for is piece of mind.

Dental Wisdom: Find a good dentist that people you trust, trust. You’ll sleep better at night.

Read More

Today’s demo was exciting.

At BigDoor, the developers (myself included) demo to the entire company everything we worked on during last week’s sprint. 

Honestly it’s one of my favorite parts of the job. We move so fast that the demo has become a greatest hits list of killer features that makes our platform so great.

With so many awesome things coming down the pipe weekly, we set the bar pretty high. So to demo something truly impressive it’s got to break the mold of normal awesome and become uber awesome.

Today, Harley Holt gave us that opportunity.

Read More

Make it easy for users to interact - no matter how small the feature.

SendGrid reduces the “Was this article helpful for you” survey in to a one click response.

Movie descriptions always let me down. They usually seem super cheesy, lame or totally off base. More importantly they never seem to describe the movie the same way I would.

“not-so-nice dog-headed beasties with lazers”

Thought I got a completely different movie.

…yeah, I guess they were kind of lasers-like. But really?.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you’ve got to let the user know some bad news, make it a little less painful with some humor.

Example: Dropbox

I’ve heard tales that somewhere deep within “The Shack”, there exists the remains of an old Radio Shack - a place where someone could reliably find electronic parts for projects.

But that’s just a ghost story to scare children who buy cell phones every 9 months.

Yaaa sure, seems like a good idea now.

Now that I’ve seen behind the curtain, the magic is lost.

 Editorial note: This won’t make any sense for most, so just let it be.

—-

I’m not saying bullshit for sensational purposes or anything, but seriously shovels are bullshit!

Especially, hoes. Hoes are used by do-it-yourselfers that frequent Home Depot on the weekends. Real gardeners would never claim to use a “hoe”. They have specific names like collinear hoes and Dutch hoes. None of this general “hoe” nonsense.

Real gardeners are many things, but they are not stupid. They invented these and other made up modifiers of the word hoe in order to confuse everyday gardeners and elevate themselves as a select group of superior gardeners.

But hoes are easy. Most gardeners look at the angled metal and the end of a hoe and “just get it”. Many find it it’s simplicity reassuring.

Well that’s bullshit.

Hoes aren’t simple. They’re a complicated tradition passed down through generations of real gardeners. Many even use two hands.

So, you want to move a small amount of dirt around? Well keep looking because a hoe isn’t just some willy nilly tool you can just grab and start pecking at the ground with.

Real gardeners have critiqued general purpose hoes on the grounds that it gets gardening wrong, mistaking hoes for a pitch fork’s job. That may be true, but bullshit. Pitch forks may get the job done, but you really should feel ashamed of yourself in the process.

In the past I’ve suggested the phrase “stick that gives my hands blisters” as a more accurate name for hoes. For if you’re truly interested in the truth and haven’t taken off your foil hat yet, you’ll realize this is the honest intent of hoes.

I’m not naive. I realize that hoes seem like an easy answer for digging holes and controlling weeds. I realize that people don’t have much time and although a hoe will move dirt around, it requires thinking to move the dirt to one side instead of back and forth. You can’t simple slap a hoe on your website. For the rest, who aren’t having any fun while gardening and really haven’t spent much thought or effort trying to use a hoe anyway, there another name the gardening world has for you: they call you a “whiner”.

Gardeners, gardeners, bullshit, hoes!

Get off my lawn,
Angry Gardener

One of the things I really like about working at BigDoor is just how right on our culture can feel at times.

Last week’s development sprint was a good one. The team cranked out a ton of quality code in a short period of time.

As we reflected back on the body of work the team decided I should wear “the horns” - some stupid hat that’s recently become a badge of honor.

No one told us that we needed a badge of honor. The team created the idea organically, because it just felt like the the right thing to do.

In other words, we celebrate our wins.

In terms of culture, it doesn’t get much more right than that.

Ultimately that dinky little hat means very little. It’s hard to wear headphones around it and it itches. But for the team it signals a job well done and the camaraderie the goes with it.

Do the right thing, and celebrate your wins!*

*hat optional