I was filling out the form below, when I noticed something interesting. When you first expand the “Preferred Language” dropdown there are a number of languages. Those language options are filtered by the dropdown above, where you select your country. When I selected United States, I was amused to see the follow updates to the Language Dropdown:

That’s right; you may choose between “English” and “English” as your preference if you’re in the United States. Perhaps there’s a good reason for this, but it seems a bit presumptious to me. Anyone care to take a stab at what might be a good cause to do this?

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The problem I have, however, is that I seem to have time for two initiatives:

• fix the site, or
• continue blogging.

They are not completely mutually exclusive options by nature, but time constraints seem to mold them that way. I am hesitate to make comments on other blogs that would lead visitors here when the site is still inadequate. So, you would think I should fix the site first and then go social-nutso around the web. But I’m in the vibe lately for blogging and have a lot of ideas and mostly written articles waiting; I don’t want to lose momentum while toiling with design comps, sketches and CSS files.

I suppose the solution I’m after is to write at a faster pace to have a larger backlog of posts available, so I can do work on the design and structure instead of actively writing.

Why the site doesn’t work

This website is going to be more of a blog, a dialogue between me and visitors on various topics of mutual interest. Hopefully, we can come up with some pretty cool things together. But, that means I need to fix a fundamental flaw: the blog can’t be secondary.

The home page of jeffsargent.com is targeted toward people wanting to hire me. I don’t even think it’s targeted that well. The better, now adopted, approach will be to nix the home page, put the blog on the home page, and consider a “work” or “hire me” tab that talks to freelance clients. This is similar to Jonathan Snook’s setup, and I like it. I also believe that people are more likely to request my services from reading my blog and learning how I interact with people and see the world then from some marketing talk on the home page.

Also, my intensions for this site have shifted some from recruiting client work to participating helpfully in a community. This represents a change in audience, so naturally the structure and message of the site needs to be re-evaluated anyway.

So consider this an “Under Construction” notice, coupled with a request to keep coming anyway All two of you.

Your feedback is, of course, appreciated.

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Sometimes people want you to listen, and sometimes they want you to solve their problems. It’s important to know the difference.

This isn’t always easy

For a lot of people this can be very difficult advice to regularly apply. Some situations exacerbate the difficulty:

• It’s your friend
  Often one of the most friendly things you can do for someone dear to you is just listen to them. However, it’s natural to want to help your friend; after all, you care about them, right? Remember that listening to your friend and giving them a chance to vent can be more helpful than trying to give them advice on how to fix the situation they are in. Of course, if they are asking you for advice, go for it.
• You’re male
  Mileage may vary on this, but men have historically sought to be the savior of others, a knight in armor charging into battle against injustice. This can be especially prominent when you’re a male and your friend or colleague who’s speaking with you is female. I have no psychological or philosophical evidence to support this (though I’m sure there is some), but it’s been my observation. Refute as you see fit. Otherwise, try to sidestep your desire to take charge and right the wrongs; instead, listen thoughtfully.
• You’re a problem-solver by trade
  I’m looking at you, engineers, programmers, designers, architects, etc. That means I’m also looking directly at me. Our job, day in and day out, is to solve problems. It’s our passion as well as our trade. However, we also know that we have an audience, be they users, visitors, other coders, etc. We have to listen to them before we can solve the real problem they have, not the one we think we heard.

I’ve tried to follow this advice for several years, and been happier as a result. I imagine those around me are also happier when I’m not butting in to propose a solution to a problem I’ve only half-heard. Try it for awhile - I think you’ll enjoy the difference.

-Jeff

P.S. Looking for a designer or programmer who will listen first and fix second? Get in touch.

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Consider this first screenshot, entered into evidence as Exhibit A:

Exhibit A shows descriptions for a list of items. Notice that each item that is too large to fit has been truncated andhad an ellipsis appended. I want to see the full descriptions, and I notice that the column is resizeable via a mouse-drag. How handy.

Alas, Exhibit B above shows the result. When I resize the column, no more text is revealed. Instead, I have a rather large column showing the same truncated text.

Now, this may seem picky, but I think it’s a legitimate gripe - I’d rather the column not be resizable if it’s not going to do me any good. Windows Explorer shows more text when I make a column larger - it’s a behavior I’ve come to expect. Instead, this interface make me scowl and utter, “Oh…oh yeah, you suck, interface.”

Please…please don’t make interfaces painful. It’s the little things that can either bring joy or pain in an interface. My vote is for joy.

-Jeff

P.S. Need a designer who obsesses over things like this on behalf of your users? Get in touch.

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A few months ago I was feeling a lot of stress, not about any one thing, but rather with a jumble of several things. I found myself stepping outside the office 2-3 times a day to breathe some fresh air and relax. Only…I found I wasn’t relaxing, I was just stressing in a different spot, and more visibly, as I was outside the view of others.

After a few attempts at chilling out in the great outdoors (so to speak: I work downtown) I decided to visit the small church next door and sit in their shaded courtyard - A sign by the entrance called it a “meditation area”.

The courtyard is well kept, with plants adorning the perimeter and a stone wall seperating it from the street. As I sat, I stared toward some plants. In an epiphany I noticed that I was barely looking at them - I was more looking through them, and thinking about what was stressing me.

Thus began an exercise; I made it a point from then on to really look at nature, and really feel the breeze on my face when it blew through. Almost immediately I noticed a difference; all the leaves looked greener, the sky was bluer, and my stress melted away.

If there are no roses to stop and smell, stop and see the leaves. It makes a difference.

What about you? How do you relax when you’re stressed and fed up?

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If you have used FeedBurner and have any tips or favorites features of it, please let me know

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In addition to writing more I need to devote some time to addressing problems in the site. For one thing, the homepage is relatively useless right now. I intend to make blog the main page of the site, and shelve the “come work with me” stuff for now. The porfolio will still be available; it’s more effective to show someone what I can do rather than tell them, yes?

Over the past few weeks I have been writing a lot of notes for possible blog entries. Though nothing has made it to the site yet, I’ve been pleased with the number of ideas that have come available. I spoke in my standard first post that I need to “find my voice”. For now I’m going to ignore that task to some degree and focus on just writing. I know I will probably tend toward topics like design, usability, process and communication, but I can’t restrict myself right now or I’ll never get anything written.

So, wish me luck, here’s to staying on the wagon.

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Finished reading? Welcome back. What panic-mode management type are you? What type is your manager?

I’ll go first - I’m the Interrogator. I’m not in management, but if I’m giving advice or making a point to a colleague, I ask questions with a reasonably predictible answer, and then build up my recommendation on the back of the answers I receive. As the article states I’m trying to “build a sense of context”. In my case, acting most often as a peer instead of a direct manager, it’s a sense of mutual context I’m after; I want to establish a foundation of things we agree are given, and make my case from there. I also tend to use these questions to try to maintain a fact-driven (or perhaps “agreement-driven” is more appropriate) discussion. This is likely something I’ve developed after working in team where the majority of the members had strong personalities and opinions, and the meetings were often not for the timid. Keeping it focused on the facts/agreements helped keep it peaceful.

After reading the article, I’m not entirely persuaded that this question-answer-question approach is inheritly bad (the article does state that all but “The Enemy” are trying to help, albeit via micromanaging), but I agree it could be rather annoying to some personality types. If I know what I recommend, maybe I should just say it. But then, perhaps in asking my questions I’ll get an answer I didn’t expect, and maybe we’ll go down a road neither I or my colleague had considered. Like everything it’s situationally-based, and probably a good idea to adjust your management (or giving-advice) style based on who you’re dealing with.

Your turn: which panic-mode management type are you? Which type is your boss? (don’t get yourself dooced, though)

Also, if you are “The Illuminator” type described in the entry, how do you gently steer your colleague/subordinate toward making the right decision(s)?

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Despite the lackluster effort I gave Getting Things Done take 1, I was able to retain some knowledge from the book. The basic idea as I understand it is to get everything you have to do cataloged in a trusted system so that it’s off your mind, and you’re not stressing over it. Also, that system doesn’t hold just the nebulous titles of your projects, but rather the next physical action required to move that project forward, even if just a little bit. This translates into reduces your stress about projects, and keeping that stress low by having confidence in yourself and your system. I haven’t done the recommended full scale assault on my open projects (i.e. write down everything, then determine next actions for each item), but for the open projects I know about, I’ve been careful to deconstruct the project into next steps. This has been a big improvement so far.

Another tool that has become invaluable has been access to a voice recording device to quickly and convenient record thoughts or to-dos. This is related to having a trusted system; in this case, my recorder (which is actually my new cellphone) isn’t my trusted system, but it’s a trusted temporary storage device for 1) assuring myself that I have recorded the thought and don’t have to dwell on it, and 2) recording an item without me having to divert attention to my core system, thus distracting me from what I’m currently working on.

I’ll note progress here from time to time. In the very near future I’m also posting in entry about how to beat deadlines if you’re a procrastinator, a topic dear to my heart. I expect that entry will show some influence from Getting This Done and other lifehack-related material. Wish me luck. In the meantime feel free to comment and share your experience with Getting Things Done or similar systems.

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After presenting on Wednesday, our crew spent the majority of our remaining time seeing Washington. If you haven’t been, you should go - hearing me say “It’s absolutely beautiful” will not do it justice.

We drove into Redmond and through the Microsoft complex. It’s huge, with at least 41 buildings, several soccer and volleyball fields, and baseball diamond, and a handful of fountains. Oh, and geeks - lots of them, walking the streets.

Friday we had a full day, starting with a trip to the Boeing plant for a tour. Expect no pictures, as the tour guide, and security, were adamant that no cameras, cell phones, PDAs, or electronics of any kind were allowed on the tour, on pain of death and a tasering for good measure. The plant is huge (largest building in the world by volume), and can fit 990 soccer fields inside. The entire Disneyland resort can fit inside with 12 acres left over. Actually, that part might not be accurate - I can’t recall if the tour guide said it could fit it once, or thrice. Either way, it’s huge.

The plant has 6 hanger bays, 2 for each of the major planes they build there - the 747, 777, and the new 787 Dreamliner. Because security had closed the 777 and 787 bays to tours for that day (at least, that’s the convenient excuse), we only saw the 747 assembly area, but that alone was worth it. It takes a little over 4 months to build a plane. The facility is massive, and impressive.

After the Boeing plant we drove to Seattle to catch a seaplane for a 20 minute tour of Seattle by air. Very cool. After landing, we went up in the Space Needle, and stayed for about 2 hours, snapping pictures and several video scenes for the DVD we’re creating of the trip (and presentation).

All said, and excluding the terrible experiences flying to and from Seattle on Delta, the whole crew had a fantastic time. Next conference that goes to Seattle, I’m there.

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