In case the name of this website hasn’t given it away, I’m a geek. I love to make technology work for me (and others) and I love to leverage technology to save myself (and other people) headaches. Now, I’m also a frugal geek, which means I try to find the cheapest — and most likely free & open-source — solution available to solve any given problem.
There are times that I’ll compromise my frugality, however, if it means less headache to maintain it. For example, Apple’s MobileMe (nee dot-Mac) service… $100 a year for an email address and 20GB of online space? Pricey, in this day and age. But so many applications integrate with it for easy backup and web publishing that the tradeoff is worth it: non-geeks can easily publish vacation photos and backup their data without worrying about what FTP means, and if they need to connect via active or passive protocol, and so on and so forth. Another good example is OS X Server.
Now, let’s look at the tasks required of a small business server: filesharing, internal IM server, backup, email & web serving, maybe a print spooler, and a wiki. The frugal person in me says “You can do all that for free with open source!” And, the frugal person in me is right: I have my own server at home. It’s serving up files and iTunes; it has a Jabber IM server (Openfire); it has a project management server (Redmine) with built-in and integrated Subversion server for version control that was seamlessly installed and configured using a Bitnami stack; I have a RAID 1 that all important files are backed up to using a custom AppleScript that I wrote; it shares our printer and scanner with all the Macs in the house using the built-in device sharing features of OS X; and I can develop web sites and test them out on MAMP. Could I deploy this same solution at the office? Sure. But would it be easy to administer? Hell no.
There’s the rub. Administration is time, and time is money. If I’m busy administering something, I can’t work on other things like billable work. If I’m fixing things, I’m not making money. And that’s where OS X Server comes in. It makes administration of most things — filesharing, user accounts and permissions, IM server — really simple. (Some other things, like the VPN, were a bit tricky, but I’ll save that for another post.) And it offers something that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere, commercially or open-source:
A wiki.
A good wiki.
The wiki that comes with OS X Server is so good, Apple could shrink-wrap it and sell it as a stand-alone product. I wish like hell that I could find something similar to run at home, but I can’t. Lord knows, there’s so much information that I could dump in there I’d spend the better part of a month entering it all in. But after it’s all in, finding information becomes easy. A keystroke or three. And I don’t have to remember which file in which folder inside which containing folder on which drive on which machine has that little nugget of information I’m looking for. It’s all right there. The problem with most current wikis is their interface is awful. Painful.
And that’s why I love the one that comes with OS X Server. It’s gorgeous. It’s simple. And it works wonderfully.
So I spent (and spend) a lot of time making wiki entries at work. I document everything. And I do mean everything. Troubleshooting flow-charts. Device manuals. Hardware specs. How-to’s. If I had to do it once, I (or someone else) is likely have to do it again, so I document it. Keyword-tag it. Photograph and label it.
And no one uses it.
I still get the same questions, and I still give them the same answers: it’s in the wiki.
Not that anyone cares. It’s so much easier to come and ask me, right? And when I tell them it’s in the wiki, more often than not they still want me to come and hand-hold them through all the information that I spent (and spend) so much time putting in there. Never mind the fact that it’s all right there, in plain English, and when they say “can you come show me?” I walk over to their machine, pull up the wiki page, and read it to them.
I don’t think I’m asking for too much: search the wiki, then read and follow the directions. And if you have a nugget of info, post it so other people can find it too. (After all, it takes as much time to make a wiki entry as it does to type an email to everyone.)
But instead of people embracing something that can make all our work-lives better, I get the same ”oh, here he goes again” roll of the eyes every time I mention the wiki; the same “I couldn’t care less” attitude whenever I casually mention that they should add some nugget of info into it. Fully 1/3 of my time is spent helping people who — if they would use the wiki — could easily help themselves, a fact conveniently forgotten when the subject of my billable time comes up.
But the wiki isn’t just about me. It’s about everyone. It’s about people sharing what they know. It’s about eliminating “silos of information” so that the company isn’t dependent upon any one person for that important piece of knowledge, whether it’s how to reboot the phone system, where to find cool free fonts, or what time the last FedEx pickup is at the drop box down the street. It’s about the office running smoothly when someone is sick or on vacation or in a meeting with a client; about being able to put your headphones on and get into a smooth flow of productive work without being interrupted every two minutes; about spending five minutes now to add some info to a wiki page to save 45 minutes down the line as you jump through the 18 hoops involved in retrieving the lost password to a stock photo website, where one person set the account up but everyone in the office shares it.
Wikis are about contributing to the whole, about making other people’s lives a little bit easier, about selflessly taking a few minutes of your time to write down some information to save someone else a few minutes trying to find that information later.
Wikis can make your work life a lot less demanding and a lot more productive. But they only work if everyone uses them. Otherwise, it’s just one person’s vain attempt to make things a little bit better.
– geek out
Two months since I’ve last blogged. Seems like longer, actually.
For those who give a damn, The Designer Geek has been exceedingly busy. Things have been hopping at my day job, both design work and admin stuff keeping me more than busy enough. I did get a chance to do some stuff in AppleScript Studio… it’s neat, but the performance is a dog. I would release what I wrote for free, like I normally do, but the performance is so bad I’d prefer not to. Instead, I’m eventually going to re-write it using Cocoa and Scripting Bridge, and sell the sucker.
I’m nearing completion of my first commercial programming project (thanks, Corey!), and I’m in the finishing stages now, just last-minute bug-hunting and feature-adding. Nothing major. Except this one regression bug which is driving me nuts.
After that’s over, I have one Cocoa app that my wife and I are hoping to release ourselves. It’s currently about 75% done, but I had to put it on the back burner till the contract job is done. I have a list of about 20 people who are interested in beta testing it, I just have to 1) go feature-complete, 2) set up the main website, and 3) set up the beta test website. Simple! I should have it done in a weekend, right?
I wish.
After that’s done, there are a few other programming projects in the pipeline:
- A friend asked me if I can write apps for the iPhone, and proceeded to tell me about an idea for an app that he has. It sounds pretty good, and seems relatively simple (don’t they all start off that way?) and I should be able to knock it out in a few weeks.
- Another app that my wife came up with the idea for that’s *perfect* for a Core Data document application. More involved, but wickedly smart and cool.
- The Windows version of the app we have 75% done. I’d prefer to use one codebase, and something like Cocotron, but I doubt that’s even remotely possible since we’re leveraging quite a few native frameworks and libraries. Between hardware integration and PDFs and database stuff…. at best we’d only be able to share the SQLite DB under the hood and that’s it. And that would mean spending time re-writing the existing code in the Mac version (and debugging it) just so we can share the same ANSI C-based DB engine? Not bloody likely.
- Re-writing that AppleScript Studio app in Cocoa + Scripting Bridge.
As should readily be apparent, I’m getting really excited about code. Design has become such a chore. The main reason is because I find myself doing either 1) production-monkey work, which is a waste of my skills, or 2) design work for clients who want to do the design work. The ones in this latter group bug me the most.
If I’m doing production-monkey work, I can at least just kick back with some tunes or talk radio or whatever and just crank through the work.
But when clients try to do the design work…. that’s the worst. One client actually has their own set of Pantone swatch books, and will hover over my shoulder, telling me which ones to use for this and that, and tell me where to put things on the page. So, what is it that you’re paying me for, exactly?
Look. I know, everyone wants to be creative. But this is my job. This is what I get paid for. This is what I’ve spent the past 12+ years doing. I know that you know your customers and your market. But it is in my best interest if I understand them too. I also will take pains to understand your business, your competition, your product/service, and everything else about you and your company. Why? Because if I know all that, I come up with more effective advertising. The better my work is, the better your sales. And the better your sales, the more work you have for me. It is in my best interest to get inside your customers’ heads and figure out what appeals to them. That’s what I do. That’s part of my job.
So when you come to me for design & advertising work, trust that I’m not just going to hack something out that’s pretty for the sake of being pretty. Understand that I want to know about your business, and I put everything that I learn into developing the concept and the look. Your customers come to you because you make the best product or have the best service. Certainly you take pride in that. And certainly your customers trust you to do your job the best way you know how. So when you come to me wanting the best advertising, tell me what you want to achieve and then step away. Trust me to do my job the way your customers trust you.
Or else get your own damn computer and do it yourself.
…is when people are wrapping up things, typing up loose ends, writing that last email, making those final PDFs to fire off to the client, and in general hurrying up so they can get out of the office for the weekend. Their minds are on what they have planned, what they have to do, and oftentimes, a cold, frosty beverage.
Friday at 5:05 is not a good time to stop someone who is obviously packing up and getting ready to head home and sit them down for 20 minutes to go over a new project. Especially one that “isn’t a rush”, “can wait till Monday to get started on”, and one where “we’re still waiting on copy and images from the client.”
Stopping someone on a Friday at 5:05 to go over non-emergency work-related crap that can wait until Monday is a sure-fire way to irritate the hell out of them.
Just sayin’.
–geek out
Y’know, sometimes work life is a real bitch. You work hard, you bust your ass, you read all sorts of stuff to stay current in your field and all sorts of other stuff to expand your business knowledge, and you hope for an eventual reward. Namely, the opportunity to use your talents and skills to make a difference. The bitch comes in when you’re right, you know you’re right, other people know you’re right, but the Decision Maker is your boss who has an ego problem. More to the point, this ego problem means that he is incapable of admitting that you, his underling, has a good idea because it makes him look bad.
Read on for the full story, and you’ll know why I’m probably having a drink at lunch.
I was flipping through the channels the other night and came across one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films of all time, Heartbreak Ridge. Mumbling, drunk, and in jail, Eastwood’s character (Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway) utters the prophetic line:
You can rob me… you can starve me, you can beat me, and you can kill me… just don’t bore me.
And right now… I’m bored. Bored out of my skull. My 12 years of experience — including all the experience in design, branding, ad concepting, copywriting, brand strategy development, and market positioning — are atrophying while I sit here doing production work. In Illustrator. While being told by my boss the nuts-and-bolts how-to on how to do what I’m doing, talking to me with a mothering tone as if I’m some fresh-faced n00b who never used anything more powerful than Word before. And entire time I’m being schooled I’m trying my best to feign interest and respect, and not to just jump out of my chair, hop in my car, and split.
What the hell.
I’ve developed ad campaigns that blew the most optimistic projections out of the water by a factor of 10. I’ve presented to a board of directors. I’ve sold great ideas to the most critical skeptics. I’ve developed brand books. I’ve done direct mail and magazine ads, print and web and multimedia, collateral and convention. I’ve set up servers, developed backup strategies, written scripts, installed, upgraded, researched, and recommended. I’ve crunched numbers, identified bottlenecks, recommended solutions to problems people didn’t even know they had, and developed procedures & workflows to make things run efficiently.
My experience in this time is that:
- Few managers lead
- The managers who don’t lead still expect the people under them to follow (”Because I’m the boss, damnit!”)
- No one will get out of my way
In short, I’ve been a Marine, even after I got out… Like the saying goes, “You can take the Marine out of the Corps, but you can never take the Corps out of the Marine.” I want to either lead or be led; most places offer neither the opportunity to lead, nor a leader to follow. At every place I’ve worked, I’ve reached a point where underutilization meets glass ceiling. It’s suffocating.
And boring.
And it sucks dick.
And it’s why I’m on the hunt for a new job.
Again.
— geek out
