Tag: advice

5 Reasons Why Giving Back’s Important

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As a nerd, I really believe in giving back (always have). It’s important to collaborate, help one another, and create the change we want, and that takes time.

Earlier this year, the craigconnects team and I created an infographic, Cracking the Crowdfunding Code, to show you just how effective and accessible crowdfunding is. Crowdfunding raised more than five billion dollars worldwide in 2013, and peer-to-peer nonprofit fundraising for charities is seeing explosive growth. Just a couple months ago, #GivingTuesday raised over $45 million in just one day – talk about giving back.

Here’s why it’s critical that we give back to our communities:

  1. The vast majority of people anywhere don’t usually have much of a voice or any influence. Usually, regular people, the grassroots, only manage to acquire power when they use technology to work together. The technology enables people to magnify their team power, acting as a force multiplier (code really is power). They can get people to the streets, and raise money. Giving back means giving people a voice. Long term, I want to figure out how to give a voice, using the internet, to everyone on the planet. This also means we need to speak up when something’s not right.
  2. When we work together to give back, we create stronger networks. Silos are inevitable, unfortunately. Do what you can to identify silos, and decide where you want your ambitions to go (my opinion? this is the best way to hack your career). Might be happier to find the people who want to do the job well. We can’t make change from the top down. The president’s the most powerful justiceperson in the world, but not that powerful. What’s powerful is when people in the trenches work together to get things done, and that’s what makes a difference
  3. We seem to throw money into food and housing, yet a lot of folks are still in need, so something isn’t working right. This includes military families and veterans. We need to do it better. (See: 5 reasons we need social change…)
  4. I’m kind of tired of passion. But the deal is, you really want commitment from people when they’re giving back. You want the excitement, but then they need to follow through. Following through is the hard part, and that’s what’s important. Instead of passion or excitement, alone, we need to incorporate commitment and results. People can get excited about something, realize it’s hard, then that passion might now count for anything. In short? Follow through with your passion, truly carry out your mission and show your community the results.

Any influence I get, well, I just don’t need or really want; I’ve got what I need, like a really good shower and my own parking place. Instead, I use the influence I do get on behalf of the stuff I believe in. You’ll see me either pushing the good work of people who get stuff done, or indulging my sense of humor. (Note to self: I’m not as funny as I think I am.)

To be sure, I don’t feel this is altruistic or noble, it’s just that a nerd’s gotta do what a nerd’s gotta do.

Final note to self: JUST LISTEN. That is, don’t ALWAYS attempt to solve the problem, SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO LISTEN. (Courtesy of  “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen.)

If I Were 22: Nerds, Hack Your Career

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If you’re a serious, old-school nerd, the usual way to get ahead is to invent your own stuff, or to acquire the following over twenty or thirty years of business experience. (In my case, thirty years.)

They don’t teach you this at school.

If you have normal social affect, you might know all this already, or will pick it up much faster than your nerdy co-workers.

In any case, people will quickly decide to perceive you one way or the other, and it’ll be hard to change that perception, which is what the marketing folks rightly call a “brand.”

You’re responsible for your own branding from the beginning, and if you can get it done well, right at the start, and then protect it, that’s good.

We nerds aren’t good at that, and tend to be perceived unfairly. That can be corrected over time, particularly if you have a sense of humor. Publicly identifying with Dilbert helps.

In a small company, 150 employees or less, people tend to know each other, and view themselves as a team. They actually work with each other, collaborating.

That might be the best way to start a career.

I’d consider a company over 150 people a large one, so large that people can’t know everyone else. People organize into smaller units as a form of emergent behavior. They form teams, tribes, silos, stovepipes, whatever you’d like to call ’em.

In any case, what emerges is “us versus them” attitudes, and the teams will only reluctantly work with each other, competing for resources. Teams might organize by ambition and values. Commonly, you’ll see one group motivated by a desire to build great products and to serve the customer well. Other groups might be motivated only to climb the corporate ladder, while faking an interest in good product. (A good sign of this is a neglect of customer service.)

My young nerds, here’s the deal:

  • Take control of your image, your branding, from the beginning. It even includes how you dress, since people judge you that way.
  • Decide on a small versus large company; I’d recommend small, starting out.
    (It was a mistake for me to start with IBM.)
  • If you go large, do what you can to identify the teams or silos, and decide where you want your ambitions to go. Might be happier to find the people who want to do the job well. Bear in mind that the ambition-focused tribes might find it useful to destroy the tribes who believe in good product; that’s happened to me, maybe more than once.

You, my nerd, are responsible for your career. Take charge of it.

Best Advice: Choose Your Fights Carefully

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Confrontation is a natural mode for many humans, even nerd-variants like myself.

It’s a useful emotional vent, but can also be quite profitable by polarizing interested parties, and then selling one’s services to one side or the other. Lobbyists and consultants in Washington generate a lot of billable hours that way.

Me, well, I’ve learned the hard way that confrontation frequently fails, and that I lack the motivation and skill level to render it effective or profitable.

Over decades, I’ve learned that sometimes I want to stand up for the right thing but that it’s a bad idea to do so. There are situations I just can’t win, due to lack of resources or skills. There are situations with unintended consequences which I can’t anticipate or handle.

For that matter, some things really don’t matter. To take a trivial case, at heart, I’m a grammar thug. I hear me some bad grammar, and I want to fix it. However, that’s rarely worth doing; maybe only if I help a friend avoid some embarrassment. Nowadays, I suppress that urge, or channel it through my sense of humor, using phrases like “I hear me some bad grammar” or works like “gotta” or “shoulda.”

The first battle where I remember consciously thinking about this was in 1977 at IBM Boca Raton. Bell Labs wanted Unix (Linux/Android precursor) on the Series/1 minicomputer. I figured that porting Unix to S/1 would be fairly easy, fast, and cheap, resulting in far superior software. After suggesting that, I was informed that it didn’t matter, since it was an unwinnable effort. I made a stab at it, didn’t go anywhere.

In retrospect, I should’ve fought anyway, along with others with similar opinions. The whole industry would be different.

Down the road a bit, at IBM Detroit working with GM Research, manufacturing customers told me they wanted Unix on IBM systems. While considering suggesting that, I was told to pick my fights carefully. I tried gently suggesting the idea, and accomplished nothing but pissing people off.

Later, when a traditional system was proposed for a big dealership application, I quietly suggested a Unix system, and was told that would piss off people even more, so I held my tongue.

Nowadays, there are many opportunities to confront people—for example, public agencies whose role is to help vets. I just don’t confront people; I’d prefer to show respect to the participants and work with the people who want to get stuff done. Turns out, that’s what they want, and the whole thing gets results.

(If my approach works, you’ll hear little from me, and a lot from other people who I want to get the credit.)

Other situations include press involvement; I’m often in situations where bad actors fake the news, including making up quotes or selective editing.

Sometimes correcting a lie just repeats it and makes it worse, so I’m just avoiding fights altogether. That’s too bad for the publication, since it provides an illustration of untrustworthy behavior which will return to haunt ’em.

So, sometimes fighting is the right thing, if the cause is right, and you have a shot at winning. You don’t want to make things worse.

More frequently, you show respect and work with the people who still believe in what they do, and that works for me. You can try that also.

Photo: Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock

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