It’s sad when a dream dies. Sometimes it’s a relief. A couple of times I’ve run small businesses and while they were successful, they were also stressful. Occasionally, they take off and become bigger small businesses. And sometimes they last for 13 years.
My friend, Tim ran such a business. It was called NDS8. That name was a bit of a technological pun. Novell used to be a software company that made a product called NetWare. The directory that sat behind NetWare was called the Novell Directory System(NDS.) And as it was updated the version number was added; NDS5, NDS6. When Tim created his company the current version of Novell Directory System was NDS7. Tim took NDS8. The versions of NetWare and NDS continued on, but the name stuck. Eventually, Novell transformed. Then it transformed again. And again.
Through it all, Tim was there and NDS8.
BrainShare is Novell’s big user conference. You would have recognized Tim even if you had never met him. He was a fairly typical looking IT person. Average height. Brown hair. Glasses. A logo’d free t-shirt and a kilt. Yes, a Scottish kilt, as in
You know you’re wearing a dress, right?
Tim is also a former British military officer, so I typically say that with a smile.
Yesterday he announced that NDS8 is shutting down. We don’t talk as much as we used to, so I don’t know the background. But, having worked with him for years, I know how much the company meant to him. And having run small businesses, I know how attached I became to mine, and I didn’t run them for 13 years.
Tim’s a brilliant engineer. And an extremely upbeat person. I have no doubt that he will have no trouble moving into another position, whether that’s as a consultant, or joining an existing company. I know, if I were hiring, and had anything that was even close to being a fit, I’d hire him in a heartbeat. There’s the problem of him living with his family in Scotland and me in Utah, of course.
I have a few more stories of how Tim helped me when I really needed it that I’ll tell over the coming days. I’m still trying to process his news. I’m probably taking it harder than he is.
But, then, he’s Scottish, so I’m not sure I’d really know anything about his emotions that he didn’t want to share.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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A man, who was getting a little bit older, was worried about his aging wife’s hearing. Conversations had become a little more difficult. He assumed it was the natural effect of her growing older. Her vanity wouldn’t let her admit that she was having a problem. The man went to to his family doctor for advice. The doctor explained a simple test that would clearly show how well his wife could hear. The man resolved to try it that very evening.
I have old electronics. Not all of them, of course. My lovely wife gave me a new cell phone for my birthday last month. (Yes, you missed it. No, I didn’t really expect anything from you.) But, for the most part, I tend to use electronics until they quit working. I recently had a problem with my DVD player. After many years of service, the remote finally quit working.
This was actually not as severe an issue as it might at first appear. The DVD player has manual controls on the front. If we want to watch a movie, we just need to stand by the DVD player and press the FORWARD button to skip all the previews and then hit PLAY when it gets to the main menu.
All was good until one of my kids gave my lovely wife a set of Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs (Seasons 4-6) for Christmas. Our strategy no longer works. Each disk has 4 episodes on it. Using our method, we can only see the first episode on each disk. (We have an XBox in the living room that we can use, but this is the DVD player in the bedroom.)
The inconvenience of this was finally enough to convince me to do something about the broken remote. I didn’t have hopes of actually fixing the old one. Instead I bought a universal remote. The problem was that most new electronics use a 5 digit programming code. My DVD player is old enough it only knows how to use a 4 digit code. I tried putting a “0” or a “1” at the front. No luck. I searched online. I looked at blogs. I tried codes for devices that seemed “close” to mine. Nothing worked.
I finally decided I might have to take a try at fixing the old remote after all. I have a neighbor, Jonathan, who is one of those people who just knows stuff. He’s great with cars, computers, sprinkler systems and programmable Christmas light shows.
Hey, Jonathan, do you think you could take a look at this DVD remote?
What’s the problem?
It’s been broken for a while and I can’t make a universal remote work with my DVD player.
Are you sure it’s the remote?
What do you mean?
Just that it might be the DVD player.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s the remote.
When you push buttons on the remote, does it broadcast a signal.
No. Well, I don’t think so. It’s infrared, of course. So, I can’t tell.
Use your cell phone?
Huh?
Turns out that while the naked eye cannot detect infrared, your cell phone can. You turn on the camera, point the infrared device at the lens and . . .well, this.
I’m used to Jonathan showing me up in this way. It’s like he’s saying, “Here, let me share knowledge that I assumed everyone knew, but I in no way will make you feel inferior for not knowing.” It’s why I like him as a neighbor.
No, my remote is not broken. My DVD player is broken, and that’s why no amount of Universal Remote programming would work. I was struck by how often we approach a problem with the solution already in mind. Cognitive dissonance prevents us from even conceiving of the right answer, let alone finding it.
The man’s wife agreed to let him test her hearing. He had her stand facing a wall while he stood across the room.
Honey, can you hear me?
he asked in a normal tone of voice.
No reponse. So, he took a few steps closer.
Sweety, now can you hear me?
Still nothing. The man was surprised and a little sad at how much her hearing had deteriorated. Finally, he walked up until he was right behind her.
Now can you hear me?
For the third time, YES, I can hear you.
I wonder if he also had a problem with his DVD remote?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
– Bilbo Baggins
What would you think if I told you that it was twice as warm today as it was yesterday? Suppose I told you that this weekend will be three times as warm as it is today? Now, suppose I told you that none of that makes any sense?
(I know, some of you are saying, “Why do you think we come read this everyday, Rodney?” Touche.)
The fact is, twice, half, three times mean nothing in certain contexts; temperature being one of them. If I have ten people at my birthday party and you have twice as many people at your party, we can make valid comparisons about our relative popularity. But, temperature doesn’t work that way. Here’s why.
Today’s high temperature here in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Utah will be 21 degrees Farenheit. The low this morning was -3. Let’s look at those temperatures. What’s the ratio between the two? Would you say the high today is going to be seven times the low? That’s not actually true, is it. The high today is actually negative seven times the low. Just drop that one in conversation today.
Yeah, I saw where Utah’s high temperature today is going to be negative seven times higher than the low.
Sure, that’s makes sense.
By this weekend, our temperatures will warm up into the 40s. (Yeah, it’s been a crazy winter.) So, Sunday’s temperature will be double today’s high temperature, right?
Sure, but it still makes no sense. It was -3 on my way into work. At some point it heated up to zero. Did my temperature double. . .Think about it. When the temperature is 2 degrees and it goes up to 4, technically it just doubled. However, it’s still cold. . .really cold, and the temperature moved two degrees; not enough to notice. If it’s 60 degrees, and the temperature was to double, we’d all be firing up our Air Conditioning and complaining about Global Warming.
The point is that while temperatures look like real numbers, they are not. They are numeric representations of an environmental phenomenon. In other words, we could as easily reset the scale and arbitrarily add 255 degrees. So, I could say today’s high temperature is expected to be 266 degrees. Crazy, you say. Not really. Today’s high temperature is expected to be 266 degrees on the Kelvin temperature scale. (0 degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, the temperature at which all molecules stop moving. . .and only slightly colder than my car was this morning.)
What’s all this have to do with anything? Just this. We often attempt to apply math to non-quantifiable metrics. In my industry we try to figure out what a “good” customer experience is and we attempt to maximize that experience. Like many companies, we map the customer experience to a 10 point scale. But, suppose we say that Customer A gave us a score of 5 and Customer B gave us a 10. Does that mean that Customer B was twice as happy as Customer A? And trying to force “math” into that interaction would lead to silly comparisons like my “double the temperature” examples.
We see something similar in the emergency room.
Rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the worst pain you’ve ever experienced.
Trying to do statistical analysis on the pain scale would result in chaos.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to measure things. My job is all about measuring things. I love to measure things. (Did I mention I kept track of the temperature this morning?) The challenge is knowing when math can be applied to the numbers and when it can’t.
For example, telling your wife, “You’re twice as pretty today as yesterday”? Absolutely, that is a valid statement.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Hey, Rodney, where’s your office?
Ah. . .
It shouldn’t really be a hard question. Where is your office? It’s probably where your desk is, right? Or maybe it’s where your office phone is. Maybe, it’s where you dock your laptop.
None of those help me.
I can’t even say it’s where I pick up my paycheck. That’s direct deposited.
I’ve spent much of this week at my “old’ office out by Salt Lake City’s airport. For a long time, that was the answer to “where’s your office?” And a few months ago we moved buildings. We are now closer to downtown Salt Lake City. The old building is still there, and we still occupy it. In fact, three of the four floors are full of my agents. They don’t work for me directly, but they are all working on my account.
My new building is where all the executives and a bunch of my coworkers, and my manager all sit. They gave me a nice cubicle with a desk, a docking station and a phone. But, I knew I was going to spend a lot of time in my old office as well. So, they also gave me a desk, a docking station and a phone. And because I work from home once per week, I also have a desk, a docking station and a phone. The phones are set up to all ring with the same number. And they just forward to my cell phone for voicemail.
But, aside from the trivia answer of “how many desks to you have?” why bother to have a desk in my new and my old building? I have multiple call centers around the country. Obviously, I cannot be in each one of them. So, why bother to be in any of them?
Presence
In my role, I don’t have direct responsibility for anyone except myself. And yet, I cannot do my job without the help of engineers, change managers, analysts and agents. Is it important to physically be in the same room with someone you work with?
Yes
Is it always possible?
No
As we considered our move to the new building, I had to decide if I should put our Salt Lake City call center into the same category as our other call centers around the country. In other words, do I decide that I’ll simply use the phone to call across town as well as across the country? Ultimately, I decided not to.
Just being in the same room with someone helps build trust and give people common ground. If you’ve ever been on a phone conference call and heard something like this:
You know, I think that’s really a question for Bill. Can you give us your take on it, Bill?
. . .
. . .
Bill are you there?
Oh, sorry. I was multitasking. What was the question?
No knock against Bill. We’ve all put our phones on mute and tried to catch up on email, or work on that report during the meeting. Imagine the same conversation if you were in the same room with Bill.
That’s really a question for Bill.
Yeah, you know, as you’ve been talking I had this thought. . .
If you are in a physical meeting with someone and you have call their attention back to the meeting, you may have an HR issue.
So, I spend a considerable amount of time physically in the building with my agents. As we do software and phone tests, it’s much easier to stand beside the testing agents and say,
No, no click that button over there. Yeah, that’s the one.
Over the phone that becomes a frustrating game of “Can you tell me what you are seeing on your screen?”
Also, physically being in the room, in the building, means that lots of non-verbal cues can be noticed. Did the agents get agitated when they were trying to use the new software? How good do the headsets block the noise levels in our center? Is this person just having a bad day and they may need a break?
Nothing beats actually being there. I’ll continue to bounce from desk to desk throughout the coming year. The best answer I have to “Rodney, where is your office?”
“That depends. What day is it?”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Question: How do you get a group of 12 year old boys to dress up in a silly looking uniform?
I love the Boy Scouts of America organization. I joined when I was eleven years old. I earned an Eagle Scout Rank. I became involved in leadership. I’m a scouting nerd.
I admit it. I get excited not just about the opportunity to spend time in the great outdoors, (and here in Utah, the outdoors is truly exceptional.) No, I actually enjoy the badges, the rank advancements, the ceremonies and the pagentry of it.
Not everyone does. I get that.
When I was about 14, my 16 year old brother and I decided to go to the arcade. (Yes, I’m old enough that it was a thing to go to the arcade.) Anyway, I decided I wanted to wear my scout uniform. My brother begged me not to wear it. I insisted. I’m not sure why he didn’t just go off and leave me since he had the driver’s license. It was as bad (for him) as he feared. It’s been years, but I remember at least one kid making some crack about my uniform. I didn’t care. I still don’t.
But, my brother did. And now that I’m a scout leader, it’s a challenge to get the boys to wear their uniforms. My own sons are some of the ones most resistant to wearing the uniform. Since these are teenage boys, or nearly teenage, I opted for food. . .specifically food with sugar.
I tried a three-tiered approach. First, any boy that wears any part of a uniform gets a salt water taffy. I don’t even make it a big deal. I just start throwing (softly) candy at boys and leaders. The second approach is to get a little peer pressure involved. We have two patrols. Whichever patrol has the most boys in uniform earns another taffy for every member of the patrol, even the ones not in uniform. The hope was that the boys would encourage the members of their patrol to wear the uniform as well.
But, the third tier is where I saw the most success. I have a full uniform. (Of course, I do. Most nerds do.) I have the shirt, the pants, belt, socks, neckerchief, hat. I even have special scouting “necklaces.” Although, of course, we don’t call them that.
Any boy who wears a more complete uniform than me, gets the largest candy bar that WalMart sells.
And it worked. . .sort of. I could see which boys were trying to get the candy bar. Eventually, I handed out about six or eight of them. Some were to my own sons. As a scouting-nerd, it was heartening to see the boys start to wear the uniform. I was happy to hand over the chocolate.
You know what happened next, right?
Yep, as soon as they got the reward, they went right back to wearing shorts and t-shirts.
Oh well, at least I know they actually have the uniforms even if they don’t wear them.
Question: How do you get a group of 12 year old boys to dress up in a silly looking uniform?
Answer: Chocolate
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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This was the scene when I woke up to this morning.
We live on what’s called “the benches.” As in
The forecast is for 3″-4″ of snow on the valley floor. The benches should see about 8″-10″ and we should see 1′-3′ in the mountains.
Christmas morning we woke up to about 8″ of snow. That was down from last Christmas when Santa brought about 14″ of snow on Christmas morning. Then, we got a small storm New Year’s day. Last night’s storm is just one more in a line of them for this week.
Utah is not the place for you if you don’t like snow. My house is surrounded on three sides by streets. I describe it as “I live on two corners.” Those streets are all separated from my house by a sidewalk. And those sidewalks get covered in snow. There are also 16 steps from my front door “down” to the sidewalk. Between sidewalks, stairs and driveway, I have about 8 kids worth of shovelling. Fortunately, I own 8 snow shovels.
Actually, I don’t force the kids to do all the shoveling. I enjoy it. I should, I moved to Utah by choice.
The funny thing about snow in Utah is that, despite what’s in my driveway right now, Utah is a desert. We get about 23″ of precipitation per year. The state is so dry that much of that snow has very little water content. It’s “fluffy” or “powdery.” That 8″-10″ in my driveway, which I’ll be shovelling as soon as I’m done writing this, will easily move with a snow shovel. It takes about 10″ of Utah snow to equal 1″ of water.
We keep our driveway, sidewalks and stairs clear for three reasons. First, I think there’s a city ordinance or something. I don’t know, I’ve never not shovelled my sidewalks. Second, my kids are those kids who still like to earn money for shoveling neighbors’ driveways. The only rule, is “ours first.” And third, despite the snow, and the cold, we have a very active neighborhood. My neighbors are out walking every day. Some of them are getting a little older and keeping the sidewalks clear for them is the right thing to do.
You won’t hear people in Utah complain about the weather much, especially snow. We know that it brings skiers from around the world to “the greatest snow on earth.” More importantly, we never forget that we live in a desert. Every Utahn is familiar with the phrase,
We can certainly use the moisture.
The best part of my day in looking out at the snow?
I telecommute on Tuesdays.
(While I live on a “bench,” my house is warm and dry in the winter. If you are interested in helping Utah’s homeless during this time of snow and cold, Utah’s The Road Home takes donations. Stay warm and help someone else do the same.)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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No, I didn’t screw up that headline. This post is all about how 2017 turned out. I realize it’s the first week of January, 2017. It’s a time for looking forward, not looking back. Last week, I did my annual “Best Of. . .” list with the top 5 stories from the past year. Today, you might expect a set of goals or resolutions for 2017. That’s my plan
. . .sort of.
Every year at Christmas, my family has a tradition called The White Stocking. We write down a gift we want to give the Savior for the coming year. and we tuck it into a small white stocking that hangs on our tree. We’ll pack it away and next year after Thanksgiving, we’ll pull it out and with the rest of the Christmas decorations and hang it on the tree. Then, one day in December, we’ll pull out our goal and see how close we came, whether it was to be a better person, finish an important goal, or whatever. We don’t share the goals with each other. It’s just for us.
I intend to do something similar with this blog this year. I’ve written two entries today. This one that you are reading now and a second one that is scheduled to be published Friday, December 22, 2017. I’m writing the Ghost of Christmas Future post as if it were the end of 2017. What is it that I think I will have accomplished? What were some of the big events in my life?
Maybe the post will be completely wrong. (Most of my predictions are.) Maybe it will be motivation to me to help me make some of those goals come true.
I promise you, the readers, that I’ll publish it unedited, although, I’ll probably include it in a longer post with some context.
So, here’s to all of us having a happy, productive and safe 2017. (What a year it was!)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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They were perfect and I gave them away.
I’m not surprised that this post was the most popular of 2016. It talks about Howard Tayler and his online comic, Schlock Mercenary. His fans are passionate about Schlock Mercenary and they happily support anyone who will also talk about the comic.
This post also revealed, I think, something more about my motivation and how I value things. And I’m not sure I liked what it showed. If a picture is to be looked at, and a song is to be sung and a movie is to be watched, it makes sense that a book is to be read. I had lost sight of that.
Oh, the title of this post comes from an interview I did with Howard a few years ago. When he was explaining that the story of Schlock Mercenary will eventually come to an end, he said,
Then, those of you who want to collect all the things will be able to.
I didn’t realize what that was supposed to mean until much later.
Why I No Longer Want To Collect All The Things
I ended up trading those perfect books for a complete collection of Schlock volumes 1-12 that I gave to my oldest son for Christmas. Here’s a picture of them sitting on my son’s bookshelf.
They look much better than they would buried in a box.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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With all the negative stories appearing in my Best Of list, this one is actually kind of fun. Not everyone agreed with my logic, but as soon as one of them wins the Powerball, I’ll be happy to admit I was wrong.
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg Are Giving You The Powerball Jackpot
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Another post that it seems disingenuous to place under a “Best of” listing. Our response as a nation might have been inspiring, but the act itself was vile, and nothing short of evil, as a terrorist executed dozens at an Orlando nightclub.
The third most popular post for 2016 was simply a picture and the caption “We were Paris. . .and now we are Orlando.”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved