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Marc Holmes

The Unauthorised Autobiography of Marc Holmes

Microsoftie thinking about dialogue with developers. Brit in Seattle. Windswept and Interesting.


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Filed under: weeknote

Weeknote 28 - In which things are a little busy...

... but a few simple tricks of the trade should solve that situation. At least, according to the plan. Having failed to write a weeknote for the past three, I’ve hit the reset button and we’re now going with week 28. I think. Besides, I can’t remember what I did 2 weeks ago and my diary doesn’t seem to reflect what I think I did. Something’s wrong somewhere.

At work:
  • Delighted to see the birth of the B8 (Building Windows 8) blog. Loving the in depth analysis elsewhere of every sentence. You are going to Build aren’t you?
  • Reviewing a bunch of stuff from MSDN and TechNet. And other online stuff.
  • Duelling whiteboards with some vTeamies. (Insight into my brain: whenever I think of “duelling banjos” the three things that pop into my head are William Shatner, a wedding and an ex-colleague. Underlying this particular psychosis is a long untrue story but there you go.)
  • Read more research. And then some more. And then some more. Tried to mindmap my way out of resulting brain fry.
  • Planned a flying visit to the valley, and a longer one to Madrid.
At home:
  • Kids are about to start pre-school which means purchasing the necessary kit, and waiting until one of them begins to say “Mommy” to LadyH.
  • Delighted with a 1st place (my first) on Wordament. Never to be repeated. Got lucky with a couple of 60 pointers. BTW, the Wordament blog is superb and worthy of a place in your RSS feed – love the spotlight on WicketEwok who is one of the true champions of the game.
  • Talking of which, looking forward to this line of of WP7 games including Mush (at last!)
  • Following the wild success of my WP7 apps (ish) then I’m looking at JavaScript at the moment. As usual, thinking about games as a domain  and “doing it right”. I’ve sucked in a load of info, but the standout pieces at the moment are thinking about the Revealing Prototype Pattern, fiddling about with jQuery, GameQuery, EaselJS, various other frameworks and even blitting. Yeah, I know. Rly. It keeps me busy given I can’t watch Big Brother over here.
Next week: just when things feel busy enough, the boss is back from holiday. Pip pip.

Weeknote 24 & 25 - In which an achievement is unlocked...

...called something like “Non-limey” and worth about 5 gamer points as I pass the 6-month in US milestone. It’s passed extraordinarily quickly and work has moved at a fair pace. The vacation season approaches here and although we’ve got no big plans I’m hoping there’ll be time to take stock and appreciate some of the wider environment out here. Thanks to everyone for every piece of support: professional and personal on both sides of the Atlantic.
Handily enough, last week was the annual shindig in Denver and it was great to see so many ex-colleagues in such high spirits. Whether anyone remembers that is testament to those spirits.

I could write one of those 100 things that I love about America but miss about the UK but actually it hasn’t worked out like that. Before the kids we were always fairly adaptable, and my real insight into this move is that families can adapt and thrive to new environments just as easy as couples. There are also too many unknowns: nothing has really “gone wrong” yet (like a car breaking down) so the outlying experience remains undiscovered and some of the community integration hasn’t happened yet because the kids don’t hit pre-school until September. Also, Redmond is at least a little bit of a bubble, and is surely one of the few places that local radio advertise the Rolex Submariner between songs. I’m definitely the wrong target market as I wear one of these. They both tell the time, and actually at 300m underwater I expect either of them to be equally useful to me... (Can you tell I’m thinking about branded experience?)

At work:
  • Defining the ultimate question on complex issues continues to be continuously challenging. In a big dataset, even with generally accepted principles, how you quantify the reality can only work through an intensely clear question. Frustrating and rewarding at the same time.
  • Asking an organisation for something is no different than asking a person. Seeking a commitment or a promise relies on the same deep levels of mutual trust and understanding. Which reminds me of lines from a song I often quote: “Don’t tell me it’s easy to follow a process. There’s nothing harder than keeping a promise.” This also explains why I’m not the best chap in the room to run the budget.
  • Connecting and drinking. Preferably in that order, but not always.
Elsewhere:
  • Travel back and forth to Denver surprisingly pleasant.
  • Reminded of a previous life by Adam and laughed a bit as I wrote up some of the dumb stuff we used to do back then. (I mean, managing engineering teams rather than bunking off work and smoking). All software problems are people problems.
  • Dinner with an amazing sunset over Seattle with the ever amazing LadyH who has become older than me once more, but as usual looks a decade younger.
Next week: who, what, how, why. It’s all out there I’m sure.

Weeknote 22 & 23 - In which someone told me...

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...that there’s a bit of time to relax, which I assure you isn’t true. Trust me, I’ve been staring at an actual real-life Gantt chart this week and someone even suggested we needed a project manager. This in the same time period that Angry Birds launched on WP7 too.

Anyway, at work:
  • Studying the aforementioned project plan with other colleagues felt a little bit like a high stakes game of poker. No one blinked, but I think I saw a bead of sweat.
  • That said, it’s a rocking team of excellent people, so as usual it’ll all be fine.
  • Too much detail on some information. Gah.
Other stuff:
  • Too many July 4th fireworks. Possibly more explosions than in the original War of Independence.
  • Hosted a barbecue and didn’t embarrass myself by making that traditional British BBQ feast of fish fingers... Still trying to figure out the best way to make S’mores. (First adaptation: swap out Hershey’s for Lindt).
  • App sales have slowed down, but on the upside I’m owed some book royalties (I know... go figure).
Next week: catching up with friends and colleagues old and new or “Things to do in Denver when you’re not as jetlagged as you usually are at this sort of thing”.

Weeknote 20 & 21 - In which we see the birth of a New Year...

Thumba_2011-06-17_09-54-07

...of the financial variety. And all of those slick planning activities begin to fall into pieces. To paraphrase: “A plan that if it were any smarter would write a book. And that book would make Ulysses look like it had been written in crayon. And then it would read it to you.” Snapping out of my fantasy world and into real life, what it essentially means is that this weekend is the 4th of July. I’m not sure there’s a direct connection.

Work stuff:
  • Pulling together rocks, strands, themes, frameworks to provide visors on the business.
  • Thinking about “high resolution” data (or rather re-thinking about it) and resetting my own standard for describing information.
  • Building out stakeholder and systems work.
  • Lots of end of year team comms meetings means ample time at the buffet.
  • Summer email clean-out, folder re-org, document re-org, notebook refresh. Bring it on.
Other stuff:
  • My apps are selling. More on that in another post.
  • Running the trail instead of the treadmill. Ouch.
  • Marvelling at LadyH’s household development capabilities using only tin foil, blue tack, rubber tubing and Sharpie pens.
  • Avoiding being English until the 5th July.
Next week: making sense of large crowds of people.

Weeknote 19 & 20 - In which new projects kick up...

(Photo via @nathanawilliams)

... which is always fun. It’s also something I’m passionate about so that’s even better.

Work stuff:
  • The aforementioned project kick-off. Vague I know, but there you go. I do Marketing.
  • Tidying, polishing and communicating for a clean July kick-off to the New Year and rolling some resources around.
  • Thinking really really hard about entrenched assumptions.
Other stuff:
Next week. Storming still. Then hopefully some Norming.

Weeknote 18 - In which summer arrives...

... and I suck at Softball. (It’s like Rounders, but they use gloves). Actually I didn’t do an awful job – I was catcher to our CVPs pitching which feels a little like art imitates life...

Anyway, activity this week:
  • Finalising content in the run up to start of our “new year”.
  • Listened to some interesting analysis on the market.
  • Lots of debate on engines, process and technique.
But forget all that as summer has arrived, so life becomes very much like the video until the rain returns.

If you’re itching for something to do: go exploit the super-powers of IE9 Site pinning, or watch that Windows 8 video again, or definitely definitely definitely go an read Adam Nathan’s book on Windows Phone 7. Really – it’s awesome. Also, I’d recommend buying it as its delicious full colour and mainly code – so not ideal on the Kindle.

Next week: hopefully a bit of suntan/burn. At this point, I’ll take either.

Weeknote 14 & 15 - In which our boat comes in...

Image2

Although, the “rest of our stuff” is still yet to clear customs – but at least it’s not at the bottom of the Atlantic.
More confusingly, I watched Google I/O and tried to figure out why I’d buy a Netbook that’s less capable of the one I already have. Matt has it covered.
On the other hand, that HTML5 Angry Birds worked very well on IE9. (Oh, loved the deconstruction of the Galactic test drive on the IE Blog).

At work:
  • Second sets of major planning milestones are complete, and there are now multiple strands of work to do to complete various activities to help everyone actually execute the plans.
  • Fired up Visio for the first time in months to simplify (I know...) an alignment and used a utility that the VisGuy wrote for me about a year ago (for the same purpose on a different project).
  • Trawled through reams and reams of feedback from field teams and looked at how we could respond to that.
  • Cranked up the heat a notch on some final bits of execution.
At home:
  • No furniture, but we do have an excellent new train table. Awesome.
  • LadyH passed here driving test with 100%. Insufferable.
  • I did a load of XNA programming – started out with the tutorial on AppHub and then got carried away. I reckon I came up with half a dozen good App ideas this week and I’ve been trying to sound out the concepts to @dsumner. But he’s the Eduardo to my Mark.
  • I downloaded a paper on the physics of cars and decided I’m just not clever enough for that. Maybe LadyH can help – she seems to have all of the answers.
Next week: actions, reviews, rinse and repeat. Pip pip.

Weeknote 12 & 13 In which I have a house...

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... and so our American lifestyle begins properly. This place turned out to be the very first place we looked at which inconveniently meant it was impossible to trust a gut instinct and instead we had to line up a bunch of other places to convince us this was the right one. Ah well.

The past couple of weeks has been “super-busy” but we’re coming out of that shortly, and I have at least a short term goal of writing some hopefully useful/insightful posts. (I know... why start now?)

At work:
  • Various stages of planning are complete, unwrapped and distributed. Right now, we’re sifting feedback, building detail, budgeting and moving to execution modes. 
  • Lots of writing, less decks, so swapping out PowerPoint for Word. A change is as good as a rest.
  • And other stuff. Lots of other stuff.
At home:
  • It really is a home now too. We’ve rented some furniture and “the boat” should be arriving in early May which means a) I’ll have a bigger telly and b) it won’t be standing on a cardboard box.
  • And my kitchen knives will arrive so it’ll be back to culinary excellence rather than “bit of thumb” sandwiches which has been something of a delicacy for the past few weeks.
  • Meeting neighbours, worrying about bears and cougars, and new locations for grocery shopping. Inane but true.
Next week:
  • A different train leaving for a new destination.

Weeknote 11 - In which planning becomes debate...

The last week has been busy. There’s a point in any planning process where you move from thinking to debate and last week is the first part of that shift. It’s not a clear delineation as of course what actual occurs is many cycles of thought, debate, feedback and refinement.

So it’s an exhausting – and somewhat exhaustive – process of describing “the plan” (from high level to relatively coarse-grained tactics at this point).

This week:
  • Spent a lot of time thinking about words and how they really matter. Word of the week for me was ‘open’ and an old favourite of mine: ‘remarkable’.
  • Impressed by colleagues stamina and attention to detail during this week.
  • Excellent debate on strategy versus instantiation of strategy. 
  • Thought hard about feedback and where to take things next.
Also:
  • Finally signed off on a house (rental). We’ll be moving in this week. Lucky this week wasn’t too busy...
  • Building a good relationship with my new PT. Always hard to make that switch.
Next week is more about internal alignment before continuing with the next stage of planning. Oh, and moving day.

Weeknote 10 - In which it stopped raining...

At least for an hour or so anyway. LadyH is likening her life to that of Gwyneth Paltrow in Se7en. I figured she meant I looked a bit like Brad Pitt, but it turns out she meant “stuck in an apartment in a town she doesn’t know with the driving rain preventing her from getting out”. As she pointed out, it didn’t turn out too well for Gwyneth.

In any case, there’s plenty to do in the indoor parts of WA. For instance, you can drink coffee and moan about the weather. Much like we used to do in Wantage. The more things change...

At work:
  • The goat rodeo of output and alignment for a series of internal meetings next week reached its zenith. These kind of collaborative exercises (and they’re very much the same sort of style as in the UK) are always demanding and tiring but actually also rewarding as things come together, seeds are sown, and ideas reaped. Good stuff.
  • Inspiration in the form of Andy and Robin from EngineI who – I think – have cracked a conundrum we’ve been working on with 3 words. In this case: see, think, will. Excited to be continuing work on that.
  • And content, content, content: how I’ve chuckled as I’ve watched Daniel lurch from one piece to the next. Looking good.
At home:
  • The air freight arrived already. Excellent stuff as it means the majority of the kids toys are here.
  • We’ve managed to see the surrounding neighbourhoods as a family and made it to the park on one or two occasions. Kids are loving it, and we’re settling into a ‘non-standard emergency routine’ until we’re in more permanent quarters.
  • After some contract hokey-cokey, it looks like we’ve now secured the aforementioned permanent quarters. More on that next week i imagine. Main issue will be that all our worldly possessions are somewhere on the Atlantic in a boat.
  • The HandyScan app for WP7 saved my life a couple of times this week with its scanner-y PDF-y and email-y goodness. Worth the $2 and well done to the developer.
  • Talking of WP7, LadyH is now a ‘smartphone user’ and has a shiny WP7 too. Interesting to watch a rookie get to grips with it – she’s mainly using Maps and blogging the kids experiences with WPTumblr.
Next week:
  • Internal meetings will mean only one thing: feedback to be responded too in the midst of a lot of chatter.
  • I’m also trying to crack the simplicity of another mental model. I need better vocabulary. (Right click –> Synonyms just isn’t cutting it...)
  • I might look into finding some temporary furniture. And internet access.
  • I must buy more socket adaptors: one isn’t enough.
  • Spring has just got to arrive some time. Surely.

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