You know what we’ve found? Magical things happen when employees know they’ll get to be king for a week. Gone is the complaining about what management is forcing them to do, because rotating management gives them a clear perspective of both sides of the fence. Employees will step up and grow if you give them the chance.

—Un-Manage Your Employees, an article for My Business by Rework co-author  and 37signals  partner David Heinemeier Hansson

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management) and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog. If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website. If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.

More quotes to read.

I’ve always loved architecture, even though I can’t draw or model myself out of a paper bag.  In particular, I love to see how other people work: the choices they make to enable them to be creative, think and do their jobs.  You can go read about micro-setups like what computers and tools folks use on The Setup, but to me it’s even more interesting when you expand it to the office environment.

37Signals, a SaaS-based B2B offering for information sharing and collaboration, recently moved into new offices.  If you know anything about this company, you know they’re all about smart technology and have a progressive management style.  Their new offices reflect their business identity perfectly.  I love the decisions about materials and lighting, especially how to share the influx of natural light.  Very smart.

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management), Workday and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog. If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website. If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.

More nerdery posts.

Excellent essay by Paul Rand about how demanding many solutions to a problem leads to lower quality, waste and confusion.

One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear. He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones…

Expertise in business administration, journalism, accounting, or selling, though necessary in its place, is not expertise in problems dealing with visual appearance. The salesman who can sell you the most sophisticated computer typesetting equipment is rarely one who appreciates fine typography or elegant proportions. Actually, the plethora of bad design that we see all around us can probably be attributed as much to good salesmanship as to bad taste.

This is true for nearly any creative endeavor.  It’s too bad that some firms push them as quantity games, when in fact they should be focused on quality, pureness and creativity.

(via 37signals)

I have a preternatural fear of skeletons.  The origins of this fear go like this: when I was 8, on some nondescript day leading up to Halloween, I was walking past my father’s darkened den, which was situated at the end of a long hallway.  Back then, house phones were beige and weighed the same as a mature watermelon.  As I was walking rapidly down this dark hallway – convinced, on some level, that something was shambling after me – I glanced into the office at the huge beige phone that normally sat perched on the desk next to the door.  All at once, in what to this day is the most bizarre visual trick I have ever played on myself, the phone morphed into a giant skull, its jaw disturbingly askew, with horrible eyes too large to be human.  I remember literally yelling and running down what was left of the hall into the kitchen, convinced beyond all reason that there was a huge, wet-eyed skull sitting on my father’s desk, waiting for me.

Fast forward 32 years.

Strange, then, that I decorated my house for this Halloween in an almost pure skeleton motif.  I have a 4’ skeleton hanging from a tree outside my office with landscaping twine, an unintentional, amateur approximation of a noose.  My walkway is lit with little plastic skulls, their frozen grimaces chained together with electric cord.  I have a latex pirate skeleton – or at least half of one, as he has no lower body – perched on a stone bench leading up to my porch, a strobe light situated underneath him.  I basically have skeletons and skulls everywhere, mainly as a result of my son going as a skeleton for trick-or-treating tomorrow night.  And something being wrong with me.

The confession comes like this: when it gets dark and I’m outside amongst this spectacle, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recall The Desk Skull.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a little irrationally afraid.  I’d also be lying if I said that I’m not embarrassed by this and wonder what deep-rooted unexorcised demon made me go whole-hog with the skull business.  I’d also be lying if I said I’m 40 years old and if you think any of this is funny, then you are sadly mistaken, because once you see a giant skull on your home office desk, nothing is quite the same.  Ever.  I don’t wish this curse upon anyone, so get that smirk off your face.

So.

In non-skull related news, I have decided to parse the Internet for its most precious harvest this week, so you don’t have to.  Here’s the bounty:

• So much for the Pre saving Sprint.  It’s latest quarterly results showed a loss of $478M and 135,000 subscribers.
• Excellent feature in Wired by Amy Wallace regarding the confusing social movement to skip childhood vaccinations.
• 37signal’s Jason Fried with a speaking tip that should be common sense, but isn’t: don’t tell the audience you’re not prepared.
• In keeping with the Halloween theme, here’s a great primer on H.P. Lovecraft, one of my childhood favorite authors.  All the required reading is here.
• Here’s an awesome, 3D-zoomable demonstration of cell size and scale, bounded from everyday to infinitesimal by a coffee bean and carbon atom.
• Apple’s 2009 advertising budget is huge, but Microsoft’s makes it pale by comparison. What’s working better?  See also: you can’t brute force everything.
• Google singlehandedly shrinks the dedicated GPS market by announcing a free turn-by-turn navigation app for Android 2.0/Motorola Droid.  A version for the iPhone is also in the works.  Translated: the standalone GPS market just got marginalized.
• The iPhone is still runner-up in terms of smartphone marketshare, but the trend is more than promising.  How long will it be before it overtakes the #1 spot?
• Om Malik’s karma can destroy MacBook Pros. Three of them, to be precise.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Careful with those skeletons.

Jason Fried:

Making money takes practice, just like playing the piano takes practice. No one expects anyone to be any good at the piano unless they’ve put in lots practice. Same with making money. The more you practice the better you get. Eventually making money is as easy for you as piano is for someone who’s been playing for 10 years.

This is one of the reasons I encourage entrepreneurs to bootstrap instead of taking outside money. On day one, a bootstrapped company sets out to make money. They have no choice, really. On day one a funded company sets out to spend money. They hire, they buy, they invest, they spend. Making money isn’t important yet. They practice spending, not making.

Bootstrapping puts you in the right mindset as an entrepreneur. You think of money more as something you make than something you spend. That’s the right lesson, that’s the right habit, the right imprint on your business brain. You’re better off as an entrepreneur if you have more practice making money than spending money. Bootstrapping gives you a head start.

As usual, some nicely crystallized advice for startups/entrepreneurs.

Article in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune on 37signals’ CEO Office Hours.  37signals is an outstanding example of a company that has very literally embraced the transparency, authenticity and openness other companies claim to want but seldom demonstrate.

The crew at 37signals has a book coming on March 9, 2010, and I’ve already pre-ordered it through Amazon.

Front

Back

Pretty lively discussion going on over at SvN about the design, too.

As 37signals approaches its 10th anniversary, Jason Fried’s excellent The End of the Edge Case blog post contains a closing sentiment that resonates with everyone here on both business and personal levels:

As we approach our 10th anniversary, I’m reminded of what we’ve always known to be true: simpler is better, clarity is king, complexity is often man-made, and doing the right thing is the right way to do things.

Couldn’t agree more.  We talk about this in every meeting, every town hall, every company correspondence.

Congratulations to Jason and the crew at 37signals.

I’ll begin with Bud Caddell’s smart Venn diagram illustrating how to be happy in business:

…to which Caddell appends the following:

Over the years, I’ve found myself facing the following scenarios. (and I’ve added my two cents on how to move forward)

We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well. I’m constantly surprised at what can be monetized. And on the web, there’s a market for almost anything. But this problem requires you to rapidly iterate your positioning and the type of clients you serve. Often, we’ll get transfixed on a single direction early on (because we’re desperate to solidify our business) and we’ll miss our chance to radically experiment with the market.

We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town. Mediocrity is not a sustainable strategy. Being able to recognize your own weakness is a profound strength, and acting to improve what you do is key to any kind of long term growth and stability. Find the best talent and steal them. Learn how your competitors run their businesses, and copy what works.

We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do. This is perhaps the most fatal trap for any business I’ve worked in. These are the sirens calling you to shipwreck. You’ll hemorrhage your best people, you’ll stop loving what you do, and you’ll lose the passion that built your business in the first place. Start saying ‘No.’

Finally, an assortment of random thoughts and links, in no particular order because it’s Friday and who really orders lists on a Friday?

• Looks like the Palm Pre won’t be available on Verizon within six months.  I knew it sounded too good to be true.
• “Meet the Command Line” is about the best UNIX primer/screencast I’ve ever seen for those who have never used the UNIX command line before.  (Thx Daring Fireball)
• Dave Eggers, one of my all time favorite authors, waxes visionary on the surprisingly bright future of print media.
• An illustration of free markets at work, this time in a labor-retaining flavor. (Thx Tyler Cowen)
• 37 Signals on how job applicants should forget the resume and start killing on the cover letter.
• Since it’s the weekend and I know you really don’t want to sweep the garage, I inflict upon you the  nasty pox known as Crush the Castle.  Have fun, and remember that your dirty garage isn’t my fault.
• The Big Picture has a fascinating photojournal about sulfur mining in Kawah Ijen.  Then again, I’m the sort of geek who sits around and watches Discovery all night.  Your mileage may vary.
• Larry Cheng discusses Jeff Bezos’s question during an MFG.com board meeting: “How can we double down?

Really, truly finally, I leave you with two videos that squarely insult the intersection of human capability and Newtonian physics.  Happy Friday.

Inspired Bicycles — Danny MacAskill

Damien Walters, freerunning showreel, 2009

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