Almost 10 lessons I wish I knew sooner

I just filled out a survey and when I got to the "age range" part of the survey, you know when you choose which bucket you fit in 18-25, 25-34 etc. I realized I wasn't at the low end of the scale any more. I was still on the scale just not in one of the first few options. I mean I'm even considered to be in the "protected age bracket" which I know is supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn't.

I was feeling a little bad about it, then realized I had some knowledge I could share to those younger than me. Most of it is stuff that someone told me when I was 18, or 20. But some of it is stuff that now looking back I wish someone had told me, though I probably wouldn't have listened....

Rich's lessons for the younger generation

1. Document. This is one of those lessons people tried to teach me. "Rich make sure you label that server", "Rich you should document how you fixed that" and of course my response was usually "I don't need to because I know it and won't forget". Why I thought that was a valid response I don't remember. Which is part of the reason I should have documented it. The other reason is then someone else could have done it when I was out. 

2. Train. If I wasn't going to document than I should have at least trained other people how to do things. This would have freed me up to do new things instead of me being the guy that always had to fix the printer. It sort of seems obvious now, and clearly should have been obvious then but wasn't. I mean I remember complaining about always having to fix the printer so it's not like I enjoyed doing it....

3. Relationships matter. Now in my defense we didn't have things like Linkedin.com, facebook, or even commerical use of the Intenet back then so keeping up with relationships was harder, but still I wish someone had gotten through to me how important this is. While I do much better than I used to, I keep connections on linkedin, I try to stay in touch at least via email with people and even make sure to spend time out of my day talking to my work peers. Above all else do this one....

4. Save early. My company has done matching 401k for a long time and I was too dumb to take advantage of it for like 5 years. Dumb, dumb, dumb I should have at least done enough to max out the company match. It's like turning down a raise that would give interest. As soon as you can start saving for retirement do it. Let's be honest, counting on someone else like the government, to takre care of you is not the safe bet. Be dependent, start saving now..

5. Everyone can teach you something. I had the chance to ask a CEO once what he thought was the secret to turning around a company. His answer was listen to the employees. Everyone knows something you don't. In some cases it can be as critical as "Hey that guy from Friday the 13th, in the hockey mask is behind you with an ax" to "Don't press the red button", or as mundane as "The pizza place down the street is $3 cheaper for the same size" Listen and you will learn something.

6. If we all have the same information the answer is obvious. This took me a while to figure out. When people do something "stupid" often times, like 99% of the time, it's because they had, or didn't have some information you did. We once didn't buy a company tha built a key piece of technology that I thought we should have and it seemed dumb to me that our execs didn't see that. I had the chance to talk to our CTO about it and he explained why "We estimated about 2M a year in additional revenue, but the company wouldn't sell for less then 25-30M and we just didn't think that made enough sense". Hmm OK they actually had a well reasoned thought process on it. The next time you assume someone is being stupid, recognize that they just may not be able to share all the details of why...

7. Don't cover up mistakes, explain why you learned from them. My first real boss, at a local McDonald's taught me this. It was one of the few lessons I learned and remembered. The first time you do something wrong it isn't a mistake, it's a learning experience. Don't try to cover it up, but learn from it and avoid doing the same thing again. (Then it IS a mistake). Besides if sitcom's have taught us anything, it's that you always get caught and it just makes it worse...

8. Experience matters. When I graduated I knew that I knew everything.I mean I just got done learning so clearly that meant I must know more than the people that had been doing the same thing for years. They didn't get the new way of doing things. What never actually occurred to me then was that the people that had been doing it for 5, 10 or 15 years, already knew what I knew, plus everything that happened before, including why somethings were tried and dropped. 

9 just because you know doesn't mean you have to share, or to quote "The Big Bang Theory's" Sheldon's mother - "

Now listen here, Sheldon, I've been telling you since you were five years old, it's okay to be smarter than everyone else, but you can't go around pointing it out!"

I remember when i was very young my mother and father only had one car, so my mother would walk me and my sister to Kindergarten. I was too young, but it wasn't like she could leave me home, so she brought me too. Until I got kicked out for answering all the questions. Just because you know doesn't mean you need to interrupt people with the answer, it is sometimes OK to let them figure it out on their own.

10. Yeah I know there should be ten, but hell I'm old and didn't feel like thinking up another one. Deal with it :)

Not all vendors claims are false

In hindsight I guess I'm becoming pessimistic. I didn't think so but I realized when somebody tells me something, like "These tires will get 10% better fuel mileage" my first thought is "Bull crap".

I actually though was proven wrong, well at least it looks that way (See? pessimism....).

I bought new tires for my VW Jetta TDI and was going to go with the stock ones. The sales guy at the tire place though recommended these other tires called "Ecopia" because they have better low rolling resistance. They were about $70 more than I planned to pay, which was probably $50 less than I really needed to pay.

At first I wasn't going to but they come with a 30 day return if you don't like them. (I'm sure there's a catch though). I happened to read a review and a user claimed 1-2 MPG better and with the 50k miles a year I drive that was enough to sell me.

I put them on and this morning when I drove to work I actually got 53.4 mpg over the 58 miles. I actually have done better than that on a very rare occasion (once in 3 years) but I also hit a number of red lights, and stopped at the bank ATM so was very happy with that. My average was 45.9 and usually on the ride to work if I hit 49-50 I'm pretty happy.

The one thing I did notice, that I need to get used to, they coast longer, so I need to let off of the gas sooner than I'm used to. This means I should get even better mileage as I tune my driving to the new tires.

The morale of the story though is try it before you buy it (or need to keep it). This isn't just for tires, but for everything. Many vendors claim a lot of things, but before that PO goes through. make sure they show you or at least make sure you have it in writing that you can return it for free if it doesn't meet your needs....

UPDATE on MPG
So after a week my average MPG has been 52.2MPG. TO be fair I haven't been anywhere but back and forth to work (no downtown Boston driving or highway) but this used to be around 49.5 or so and is now over 52 so I'm pretty happy. Also I looked at their calculator and think it is pretty accurate (for me anyway) http://www.bridgestonetire.com/fuel-calculator if you want to try it.

Some people think they can't impact revenue because they aren't in sales, but every department has an impact on revenue albeit indirectly at times. I've seen stats say the cost to get a new customer is 6-7 times more than keeping one. I agree, in fact in my case it's even more, but I digress...

I recently broke my lawn mower. It was 8 years old and i had gotten my money out of it. It was the cheapest one they sold and the rope finally broke. I tried to fix it but needed to get the lawn mowed since i had company coming over and wanted the place to look good. So after spending an hour trying to repair it I decided to replace it.

I ran to the local walmart and bought the next model up. I had always used Briggs and Stratton engines and this one was another one. I wanted something with adjustable wheels, so i splurged. I got it home, read the directions which were super simple, filled the oil, put it some fresh gas and pulled the handle. And pulled, and pulled and pulled. Then swore for a bit and pulled, pulled and pulled some more. 

After 45  minutes i realized it wasn't going to start so i spent a few minutes trying to get my old one working and finally gave up and realized my friends would just have to see my month long uncut grass.

The next weekend I brought it back, which was another whole story, but one for another day.

I went to Home Depot which was right next door since the walmart folks had me so mad and bought a different brand but still Briggs and Stratton engine. This one got home, got assembled and I pulled and pulled and pulled. After about 20 times it sputtered and I figured that it was the first time it probably just needed to get the fuel to the engine. It finally started and died after 5 seconds. 

I pulled, and pulled and pulled and it started and ran for 5 seconds. Pull, pull, pull, and die...

After having the second Briggs and stratton engine not work even once, i returned this too. This time i bought a Honda. Got it home first pull it started and mowed the entire lawn. I never plan to buy another Briggs and Stratton engine anything again. 

Let's look at this though. I'm no mechanic, but i I had to guess the first one had a broke wire or something electrical. The cost of the broken part was probably under $5. The second was definitely carburetor. Those go for probably $8. So for $13 Briggs lost a customer. 

Now if anyone from Briggs and Stratton is reading this and wondering how they can win me back I'll tell you.

1. Explain what went wrong with the quality process, and the steps you have gone through to ensure this is improved. 

2. Deliver me one and show me it working. The 2 stores I bought them from don't have any working, just boxed. Show me the one I want to buy working

3. Pay me back for the aggravation. I spent 1.5 hours, unboxing, assembling, testing, repacking the bad mowers. I spent 3 hours driving them around the lovely state of Maine. I  drove 90 miles at .51 cents a mile that's around $45, plus another 3 hours. I'll be nice and only charge minimum wage, though i make more than that . So 4.5 hours at $7.5 is $33.75 for a total of $78.75

So to lose a customer cost $8, to gain one back will cost $80..

Yahoos new rule is a test of "Engagelement"

Engagelement is the theory that  company culture and employee engagement is like quantum entanglement. When employees work closely and become used to working well together they retain this state even when separated by many miles.

OK it's not a real theory, well more accurately I just made it up, so its not a well known theory...

If you missed the big debate, the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, sent out a memo saying all working from home will stop in June. Not completely unexpectedly the world blew up and everyone has been talking about this for the last 2 weeks.

Sanity is starting to come back and most people realize that this was not a publicity stunt done to get Yahoo's name in the press. Though it did get a lot of press out of it.

It was not done because Marissa wants people to quit, though it sounds like at least some of the people that worked form home, did half of that. They were home, but not always working. I'm sure the will decide now is a good time to quit, they will step it up and become good employees again, or they will get fired once someone figures out they aren't valuable.

It was not done because telecommuting doesn't work. Clearly  for many functions an office at corporate us not a requirement and most of us work remotely at least part of the time. Who hasn't checked their email at night before going to bed or on a weekend when watching a game?

It was done because Yahoo is in turnaround mode and that means quite simply they have a lot of hard work to do and need everyone engaged.

Which of course is what got me thinking about engaglement. If you just don't believe in Quantum Physics you can also think of this as a UPS that occasionally needs to get recharged. Employees are kind of like that.

Employees that never come into the office become dis-engaged. They just tend to lose energy or excitement. Not all the time before you all jump on and call me an idiot, it's just hard to stay excited about the company and to fully understand what's going on if you aren't there on a regular basis. That's why most companies have regular company meetings.

Now I'm not saying that I think it is bad for people to work from home if they are sick, or have an appointment in the morning, or there is a blizzard, but when you are trying to turn around a company that is struggling you need people that want to work hard and do what is right for the company.

More tips for CIO's

A few years ago I wrote a piece for InfoWorld called "The 30 skills every IT person should know". Well it's been a while and I thought I'd update it and make it tips for CIO's. Frankly having been to a lot of CIO events, we all seem to have the same problems, so here is what I think we need to do to get better.

1. Over communicate. I can't think of any exceptions, as an industry IT stinks at communicating. Our previous CEO used to say you need to tell people 150 times before they remember. I think he was exaggerating, but too many times we assume since we emailed out an announcement for a new system to the company, that suddenly everyone is aware of and fully using it. They aren't. Let's not kid ourselves, maybe 25% of the people even read the emails. If you announce it at an all hands event, you might get 30% that remember. We need to get a lot better at this. All of us....

2. Live the real experience. I know as the CIO it's real easy to get the latest toys. Heck as an IT Director I get a lot of cool toys too. Unfortunately we also need to realize what our users are actually using. I used to make a point of always having one of the slowest laptops in the company. Any time someone would complain about an application being too slow on their machine, they would look at mine, and apologize. It's really easy to get so wrapped up in the latest and greatest gadget that we lose touch with our users. Once we do, we become targets.

3. "Undercover CIO" for a day. The CIO, to those that have never been a CIO, seems to have the best job in the world. Nothing gives you an appreciation for the other guy as actually seeing what it is like. Take a day and work the helpdesk, or test code, or fix a PC, or troubleshoot the network. Unless you are a big IT shop, the employees will probably recognize you and that's OK. You can try to wear a fake mustache, but those never fool anyone. The goal is to really see what it is like. If it's reasonable, bring one of your developers, administrators or help desk staff along with you on one of your days. If spending 4 hours in a budget review meeting doesn't get you some sympathy, nothing will.

4. Walk a mile in another C-levels shoes. It's real easy to point out all the things the other executives are doing wrong, especially if you don't really understand what it is they do. Spend enough time with them to really understand what it is they do and what problems them have in their area. Not only will you get kudo's for listening, you very likely will find ways to help them and gain a supporter as well.

5. Solicit feedback. One of the hardest things in the world is to ask people what you are doing well and not doing well, and then listen to them tell you all the things you're doing wrong. I've learned my tolerance for constructive feedback is ten negative comments. After that I have to really concentrate on biting my tongue and not getting defensive. But, once you get all of that out on the table, you can then work together as a team to resolve, or at least understand why things are the way they are. Generally though we try to hide our flaws behind metrics and spin the number to make us look better, but let's cut to the chase, if you stink, people know it, no matter what the chart says.

Now I can't say if you do these ten things (the other five are here ) you will be a rockstar CIO or that you will never get fired but I can say it will probably make you a better CIO if you do follow these steps.

If not feel free to let me know and I'll gladly refund any money you paid to read this.

Pre-data center move tips

We are getting ready to move our data enter yet again. This will be the fourth time we move this particular one so we are getting pretty good at it. It's funny how much goes into one of these that people just don't realize.

A few examples...

1. Every connection needs to be documented. If not you will not know where to plug it in once you arrive at the new data center.

2. Every server location must be documented both where it is currently and where it is going. By location I mean the cabinet and "U location". A typical cabinet has 42 U locations, some servers take 1U some can take 20U. There is a big difference...

3. Then you need to have a server move document that shows where the server came from and goes to, so that it goes on the right pallet. The right pallet is the one that matches the "go to" cabinet. It makes it quicker putting them back in.

4. All the cables at the new location need to be labelled and ideally color coded. It's much easier to find the one cable out of 300 that you need, if only ten of them are red...

5. Print out the labels ahead of time but don't put them on the cables. Otherwise you will spend too much time trying to find the next cable...

6. Unbag and untie all of the cables ahead of time too. It may not sound like much but when you have 1000 cables, even that 30 seconds per cable adds up. In this case to around 6 hours of time...

7. You can't have more than three people working in a cabinet, one in the front and one in the back, maybe one handing the cables. You also need to leave a space in the cabinets you are working on or people will just be in the way....

8. Have a separate test team and troubleshoot team, if possible. After working until Midnight on Friday taking stuff out, and then working 16 hours on Saturday putting them back in, you will be too tired to actually be that effective...

9. Have a priority list, just in cast you don't get to finish everything on time you can at least make sure the most important systems are available as quickly as you can.

10. After you are done, celebrate then figure out what you could have done better. Number 5 is a great example of learning from something that didn't quite go as good as we expected. Everyone likes to think they will only do this once, but never say never.

I'm sure once we are done I'll have some post move tips too, so stay tuned.

Some timing numbers we use...
Setting up a new cabinet (moving it in place, securing it etc) takes 30 minutes.
Racking (or unracking) a server takes 10 minutes
Plugging in one network cable is 5 minutes
Power cables are 2 minutes.

The right tool for the job - netflow

It's been a few weeks since I last posted. With the holidays, moving our corporate headquarters (and 500 people) it's been busy. Plus I didn't have anything insightful to add and I don't want to be one of those folks that feels the need to blog just to blog.

Then as Ray Barone, on "Everybody Loves Raymond" said, "sometimes material presents itself" This past week material presented itself...

In Maine having a "plow truck" is pretty much a requirement. For those not from the area a plow truck is usually an old truck, mostly rusted out that isn't safe to drive on the road with a plow on the front, brakes are optional My plow truck's power steering stopped working along with the heater so I spent a few days working on it.

I hate working on vehicles because, well, I have no idea what I'm doing.... But with the help of the internet I searched around and found out my power steering was leaking at a fitting going to the power steering gear box. It looked like an easy fix to change it so I disconnected the hose and broke the fitting in the process.

Unfortunately I couldn;t get the now broken fitting out. It was too rusted and the wrenches and sockets I had just kept trying to strip the head off and ruin the fitting. I spent all of day 1 trying to heat the fitting, and spraying it with "Liquid Wrench" to try and get it out. Finally when it got too dark and cold to work I went back online and searched for "rusted fitting removal"

Sure enough there were a lot of people with the same problem and it turns out something called an impact wrench seems to be the tool of choice. It turns out I have an impact wrench and after 30 minutes of dragging out the hoses, compressors and fittings I used that to remove the fitting in about 45 seconds. It took about 2 more minutes to put the new fitting in, connect the hose and that problem was fixed.

Having the right tool, and knowing it is the right tool is key. Clearly I had the right tool but didn't know it because I had never used it. I could tell because it was still in the plastic.

Many IT administrators have plenty of tools that they have forgotten about. One of the most powerful ones is netflow. Netflow lets you see every conversation on the network, but is very rarely used. It takes a high end switch to be able to do "full netflow" without impacting performance. I think Enterasys switches are one of the few, if not the only ones, that can do this.If you have it though it becomes one of the tools you use very frequently.

If you aren't familiar with it, check out some of the posts and uses for it here.