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School is out forever


Recently it dawned on me how paradoxical my life is right now.

I completed college and graduate school. My wife is now a professor at a liberal arts college, after many years of graduate school. We have two kids, one in elementary school and one in preschool. We are essentially defined by education. Years and years of learning, plus many more years of learning ahead for our children.

Yet my current focus is to help people improve their lives by empowering them with programming skills in a short window of time, outside of the usual constructs of education. Supercharging their future by helping them get through an amazingly challenging program with a variety of rewarding paths awaiting them at the end. There is no diploma or certification that matters really for these skills – they will succeed because they now have the tools to think like a software engineer, solving problems methodically and knowing how to adapt and learn.

Really that’s the primary issue isn’t it. All of the debates around common core and failing systems are sourced in the inability to inspire intellectual independence and an inherent love of learning. I can look back and see how much time was wasted on “requirements” that were focused on rote learning rather than intellectual curiosity. So many instances of just going through the motions to get to the interesting things.

I see it in many of the college kids today. (not all of course, but many) A focus on getting the grade without caring about the learning. A repeat of what I experienced and witnessed myself, but now with the hindsight attitude of ‘How dare you squander this time in your life!’ Definitely depressing to think of all the money and time thrown away due to the system, knowing that for many, throwing even more years of additional training on top is the only way out.

Yet, when it comes to my own kids, I have trouble figuring out how to approach the options. Of course I don’t want to entirely avoid current systems, but I also don’t trust them. My daughter does well in school and we have enough extracurricular stuff going on to keep her creatively challenged, but as she gets into high school, how best to navigate this evolving future? How best to encourage limitless possibilities while still showing the “appropriate” progress in the system? I know there is no easy answer, and all will evolve as both kids continue to experience the world and voice their responses. 

The only thing I can promise is that I will support them throughout and not choose their path for them. I will not close doors – my job is to open the roadblocks where they appear and keep them moving ahead full steam. 

So perhaps it’s not a paradox after all. Perhaps the combination of professor mother and startup code school father is exactly the right combination to send that message. 

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I’m a fraud

I have a bad habit of questioning myself constantly. In the past couple years, the posts going around explaining the idea of “impostor syndrome” made me feel strange that other people were having these kinds of doubts about themselves. No, this can’t be true – it’s just me who feels like a fraud! All you other people are frauds about feeling like frauds.

After moving to Greenville, I continue to have this problem. Perhaps it’s even stronger now that my previous home and support network is so far away. It’s an entirely new community of stellar personalities and super smart people. I am simply in awe of some of the people I’ve met. They are all so confident and so driven. So clear on how they live their life and what their strengths and motivations are. I see Matthew Smith speaking so articulately and driving others to share experiences and continually learn. I see Chris Merritt rocking an amazing Grok conference, staying cool through any pressure. I work with Peter, Eric, Mason and John, watching them expand the vision of the Academy and changing lives while ensuring the culture they have created persists. I see people like Bryan Martin, Dodd Caldwell and Rob Wright working to make a big difference in the world with their talents. Plus so many other people I have met only briefly or have yet to meet, but just assume they are full of equal greatness based on the sampling to date. 

What’s even more amazing is that they are all so transparent in their own fears and worries. Hearing Bryan talk about his doubts for Hunger Crunch. Witnessing Chris and Matthew share some painful personal memories on social media. Listening to CoWorkers be open about their ignorance or doubts at Zero Days.

The funny thing is that these moments are even more evidence of their super powers. For whatever reason, I can’t see that they have their own weaknesses. Somehow I’m surrounded by super people and I’m still just the fraud.

How do I fit in? I’m certainly among the older people in this circle – how are all these young punks kicking ass like this? What can I possibly offer to this group of creative, talented, successful people? Who am I to think I deserve to be among them? 

My point is this: I’m realizing that I actually LOVE this feeling and should cherish it. Because if I’m not feeling like that, I’m working with the wrong group of people. I’m not putting myself in a community that challenges me to be better. Instead, I have a responsibility to do good work and help change peoples lives at the Academy, then throw some of my own personal projects on top of that, all while being the best dad and husband I can be.

Come to Greenville and doubt yourself with me. We’ll do great things.

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You’re doing it wrong


"You're doing it wrong." - Mr. Mom

When I was looking around the area for a new opportunity earlier this year, I found a company in Asheville, NC, that was doing some interesting things online. More specifically they had a need for true product manager, a somewhat new concept for them, but ideal for the direction they were looking to go.

The initial discussions and interviews went well, with my primary difficulty being the potential commute. Driving an hour to work was not something I welcomed, especially with flashbacks of horrible drives across Lake Washington back in Seattle. But I could convince myself to overcome that if the work challenge was worth it. I calculated what it would cost to hire someone to pick up the kids from school and deal with the new potential daily schedule. I was starting to daydream about joining the team and driving the execution of the new service, receiving many accolades from my new colleagues.  

But then in the final moments, two items surfaced that killed the dream.

I asked for flexibility in the schedule, given the new commute. I wanted to continue dropping my kids off and spending time with them in the morning, but that would likely mean a 9:30am arrival in Asheville. 

The VP I was working with needed to check with the other executives first before he would give me an answer. Now I totally understand the desire to avoid major conflict, but I would hope that someone in an executive role could make the call themselves on something like this. By not being able to just give me an answer along with with some rationale, I suddenly had a huge fear of bureaucracy. Just let me have this and fight for me later, or just say no and explain why. If I work for you, how often will this happen? 

A couple days later the approval for my selfish 9:30am start time came, but it was tied to a daily schedule of 9:30 – 6:30. Their usual office schedule was 8:30-5:30. In other words, by asking for flexibility on the arrival time, I was now expected to stay an hour later, regardless of the fact that their reasoning meant nobody else would officially have to be there. Micromanagement confirmed. The message: punching the time card mattered more than getting shit done.

I could have kept digging to see if these truly indicated the environment I was imagining, but instead I just cut it off right there and politely declined the offer. There is NEVER a time in which high pay will overcome a mismatched work environment, and you should really consider simply dropping out when those signals appear to avoid future pain. You may get a better paycheck but your soul will suffer.

Instead, I’m in an environment where I am trusted to drive results without someone watching over my shoulder. Trusted to work on my own schedule and get stuff done when it needs to get done.

For the other tech companies having trouble attracting talent: that’s how you do it right.

 

 

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Bounce!


We went to a friend’s place recently for a party and they had a bouncy house set up for the kids.

When first approaching the empty attraction my son was quick to climb up and then a bit hesitant as he adjusted to the springy floor. Soon he was going all out jumping around joyfully. His sister soon appeared with a couple other good friends. He continued smiling and bouncing around.

Then the new kids showed up. The strangers.

He slowed down and moved to the side, observing how the new participants were going to interact, judging their impact on the expanding collection of people bouncing around. There were more accidental collisions and a few intentional ones. But all in good fun. With the coast clear, he slowly moved back into the mix and resumed his bouncing.

I realized then how closely his personality is beginning to match my own. I tend to avoid conflict and take a lot of time to get comfortable with new people. We have a protective shell. 

At the time, I was telling him that he should just have a good time. But really I need to give myself my own advice. When situations make me feel like moving to the side to observe, that means it’s time to just jump in and have fun. Who cares if it gets a little bumpy?

 

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Inspired to code

I’ve been working in online environments since 1997, when I started getting into active server pages and doing some basic corporate brochure sites. Then I did production work at Disney Internet Group – lots of tables and transparent gif spacers back then. I moved into online campaigns and optimization for Microsoft’s online division and eventually into leading product management at BigDoor.

So I’ve been around online projects throughout my career, and have messed around with php, javascript, python, etc. enough to prototype ideas and communicate with dev teams. I tend to enjoy debugging too just because I like solving problems. I’ve enjoyed success in marketing and product management because of this ability to be in the middle of business needs and technical solutions.

But I’ve never been a developer. I can make simple tools that help keep things moving when there isn’t bandwidth for others to do so, but I know that it’s all just random things smashed together and not constructed in the right way.

Being around The Iron Yard Academy has made me feel that I’m completely stupid for not taking advantage of this background. I heard a student talking about Ember yesterday and showing off some new tools. Many of these people are new to programming and now they are totally schooling me. I felt compelled to do the TodoMVC demo lesson to go through the basics and better understand Ember. Amazing – they are all so way ahead of me. They now have a foundation I never had. And that’s when I took it personally.

In a way, I forgot that I’m not too far behind to build out my own ideas rather than rely on others. I let myself get old and lazy. Seeing these students change their lives by taking control and working to become professional web developers has inspired me to be more active in that pursuit. I have MANY bad habits and concepts to unlearn – but they inspire me to do more. I owe it to them to push myself too. I want to be the best resource I can be for them professionally, and that means that I need to stick with it just as much as they do every day.

Keep building!