Category: Life

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Life Work

Redirecting Beams

For the audio fans out there: I discussed this topic on episode #358 of The Amp Hour

The past couple of years have been a mix of life events for me: I started my course full time, immediately jumped back into the work force (part time), traveled a bunch, started new projects, sold my old stuff, moved to Chicago, I met my podcast co-host in person and started my life over. It’s been a wild ride. Though there have been ups and downs, I’m super grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve been able to work with.

And since I only seem to post on this blog when I have big news these days, I’ll cut right to the chase: I’m starting a new role as a “developer advocate” at Hologram in mid-September.

Hologram is a start-up based here in Chicago, focused on making  cellular data more accessible for internet-connected hardware projects. This takes the form of a SIM card that can be used with a wide range of cellular hardware. The business model is based around enabling projects to connect via cell towers and then charging for data and services. This is currently possible with other carriers, but not in a flexible way and definitely not in a friendly way for developers; this quickly becomes apparent for devs with a large number of devices and not much data needed per-device. The other neat thing is the ubiquitous nature of the SIM card. As an MVNO, Hologram works across a wide range of cell tower operators and in-between mobile carriers, meaning that devices using these SIM cards will work in a large range of the world.

My job will be talking to people building hardware or software and describing the benefits of using Hologram over something else. So…uh…how’d I do?

The past 3.5 years working at Supplyframe have been great. I have really enjoyed writing for the Supplyframe Hardware blog (something I helped create) and running the monthly hardware meetup called Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic (HDDG). One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I really do enjoy communicating information about electronics, even if I’m not the one with the expertise; this should have been apparent from my continued interest in running The Amp Hour (where Dave and I regularly interview people in the industry) and Contextual Electronics (where we have started a forum to get more community involvement and outside opinions).

Working as the “expert” has been increasingly rare as I moved away from daily electronics design. While I think I have become a better interviewer for the podcast, I think my ability to talk about everyday engineering challenges has faded. There is no replacing everyday anecdotes derived from the stress of creating electronic products. I’m looking forward to creating more hardware projects as part of Hologram, even if they are only example projects to help illustrate a point.

This will be the first time I’ll have co-workers and an office to go into in a long time (since 2014). I’m a bit more nervous about this, simply because it feels like I’ll be stepping backwards in terms of “freedom”. But one thing I’ve learned about remote work in the past few years has been the challenges of communication. Even with the near-infinite modes of communication available to us, nothing replaces face-to-face interaction.  I would find myself looking forward to trips out to the corporate headquarters at Supplyframe because of the high-bandwith transfer of information that is possible when you’re sitting around a conference room table. So joining a local company is a cautious step back towards what I think is important in my working life.

That brings up thoughts about other things that are important to me. In fact, many of these things were present at my former job and I want them to be present at any future employer, including Hologram:

  • Motivated, intelligent co-workers — This is an absolute must for me, but I realized over time that co-workers provide a feedback loop that allows me to create better work.
  • Connection with hardware people — Not necessarily just engineers, but I really enjoy connecting people that are excited about hardware. I started a meetup here in Chicago to do just that.
  • Hands on hardware design — This is something I was moving towards at Supplyframe and something that I get to do as part of my course. But I’m excited at the prospect of making hardware solutions for people looking to connect to the internet and solve problems.
  • Work that has impact — At Supplyframe I was communicating with engineers that were solving real world problems. At Hologram, I’m hoping to also work with people that are solving problems using cellular connectivity.
  • Learning opportunities — I am particularly excited about learning more about how cellular networks work “behind the scenes” and best practices for getting devices hooked up to the internet. This in addition to learning more about how to market to a new group of potential customers.

That last point is important and was tied into my decision to move jobs to this new opportunity. I have been trend-watching on The Amp Hour and as an EE over the past few years. There will always be subject matter experts with deep knowledge around a very focused topic (think “analog design”), but this has inherent risks. Companies that require this depth of knowledge continue to disrespect it; they outsource work to job shops or take advantage of the fact that there are fewer options for these kinds of employees. I think for opportunities as an employee or an entrepreneur, it’s necessary to have a hand in all parts of the process. As a result, I want to focus on more and more of the product design cycle, including sourcing/logistics, firmware and software. I recently wrote about the concept of a “solo engineer“; and while I am interested in working in-person with coworkers on a daily basis again, I truly believe the engineer of the future is capable of achieving a full product design using online services and persistence in their product vision. From an electronics standpoint, chip companies continue to consolidate and offer bespoke chip solutions for very targeted application. I think the solo engineer of the future will be tasked with finding and connecting a potential solution as fast as possible. Optimization is less important than proving out the design. This fast design cycle pace is unlikely to slow anytime soon. Not only is this a skill I’d like to work on (fast iteration), I think there are pieces missing in my ability to get a device operational as fast as possible (the software/platform piece). I’m excited to learn alongside all of you.

Again, I want to reinforce just how grateful I am for everyone I’ve met and interacted with over the past few years. It has been a really wonderful journey and I can’t imagine having done it without all the advice and friendship I’ve gained along the way. I hope to return that favor to others in the coming years; if you have a project you want help getting online, let me know!

Categories
Life Podcast

A bundle of glass on the seafloor

I’m writing from a plane to Australia, coming off a couple days of holiday in Queenstown, New Zealand. Something was tickling my brain that inspired me to start writing

By the end of my 5 days, I wasn’t exactly yawning at the mountains and beautiful scenery. But I also wasn’t snapping pictures of it non-stop like I did at the beginning of my trip. This is felt like the “hedonic treadmill“. Humans are very good at acclimating to the things in life, including the good things. I stopped to think about another way this acclimatization has impacted me:

The internet has impacted my life more than I ever give it credit for

We all pay it lip service when it’s brought up, but how often do you stop and think about it? Really, how often do you think about how much the internet has changed your life? Perhaps more than I do. But I know I’m used to it. I’m human, I’ve adapted. In fact, I’ve adapted so much I still get upset when I have less-than-stellar wifi (see Louis CK’s bit about wifi on planes). We adapt because it’s always there. The internet and constant connectivity has become such a big part of my life, it has become easy to ignore. So as I fly through the air in a magical metal tube writing on my supercomputer and listen to unlimited music over wifi…I thought I’d take the opportunity to pause and call out my opportunity.

First, let’s talk history: About 8 years ago, I joined a then-small site on the internet called reddit. I had been blogging for a couple years prior to that. A year and a half after joining reddit, I responded to a thread asking whether there are any electronics audio podcasts. There weren’t, so I made my attempt at doing a podcast by myself. It was…not great. But in doing so, a fellow nerd heard my attempt and suggested we try recording one together. After me and Dave recorded 3 episodes, Mike Harrison (from Mike’s Electric stuff) gave our show a name: The Amp Hour.

In the years since, Dave’s following on YouTube has risen to an astounding 400K+ subscribers. I was still working at industrial electronics companies in Cleveland while he started making a living out of it. I took a hint from this move and started my own venture nearly 4 years ago, starting to build an online course about electronics. That directly led to me quitting my engineering job to try my course full time. Shortly thereafter I ended up joining another company. That opportunity has since allowed me to travel the world and write about electronics and meet a wide range of electronics hobbyists and professionals.

All of this was made possible by a bundle of glass on the seafloor.

OK, yes it wasn’t just the intercontinental fiber optic internet lines. There are a lot of other things like laser diodes and networking equipment and the rest of the infrastructure of the internet. But regardless of how much stuff is involved, it really amazes me how much those data pipes have enabled in my life. It amplifies when I think about the events that have transpired as a result of my involvement with The Amp Hour.  Dave and I talk weekly (sometimes along with guests) and connect at near perfect audio quality and minimal lag. How would have we even come close to doing something like this years ago? Writing letters or emails back and forth, maybe? Or satellite links to somehow connect video broadcasts? Sending audio files via tape or wav files? A sometimes-working connection via ham radio when the ionospheric conditions were just right? The truth of the matter is, Dave and I would have never met and our lives would have taken different paths. I wouldn’t be a podcaster, I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have had. I would be living a different life. It’s crazy how much these small decisions have led to my current scenario.

I’ll be meeting Dave in person in a couple hours. I’m looking forward to it. I have been joking on the show that we might just get into a fistfight since we enjoy bickering about topics on-air. The truth is I really respect Dave and have been grateful to get to know him over these past 6.5 years. We give each other feedback on business decisions and discuss things happening in our lives. I’m sure it’ll be weird to see finally see each other in person, but I’ll shake his hand as an old friend.

The internet doesn’t just enable random connections (which this started as), but it enables people to find like-minded people. Even on this trip and the few meetups I have done so far, I hear the same things when I bring people interested in electronics: “I didn’t think there were others interested in the same stuff I am”.  I have always told people this is the best thing about events like “Bring-a-hack” after Maker Faire and the meetups I do in SF, LA and Chicago. Electronics people aren’t known for being particularly social, but it feels good when you find your peer group (or “tribe”). Feeling like we belong is an important part of being human and the internet allows us to find groups we connect with, even when the groups are super niche.

So three cheers to the internet and the shoulders of giants it was built upon! The bounty of the internet continues to bring nerds together from near and far (with more meetups being announced shortly). I look forward to connecting to many more people in the years to come.

Update:

6.5 years later…

A post shared by Chris Gammell (@chrisgammell) on

Categories
Life

Intermission: Act 1 of 3

I turned 33 last week.

While I have no guarantees of making it to 99, I like the idea that this birthday could potentially mark the first third of my journey to living to 99. Who knows? I could live even longer…or I could die tomorrow. Either way, I like the idea of being a third of the way to a destination; the numbers tickle my brain. It also presents a good time to pause between the acts in the play of my life and make some announcements.

Before I do, I want to explain that I have no reason to explain myself. I still feel compelled to. I think it’s because this will act as a marker for future things, future announcements. Talking about the things that have happened will make it easier to talk about other things that will happen. “Ooo, cryptic, Chris. Just get on with it already!”

Midwest, but more…west.

The biggest piece of news is that I moved from Cleveland to Chicago last week.

2551783570_7dfab464a3_b

This is a rather big change for me. I spent more than 12 years in Cleveland and I was a big advocate for the area (I also was a “colonist”, as I tried to recruit others to move there). I went to school at CWRU, took a 2 year hiatus working in Austin TX and then headed back to Cleveland. That’s also about the time I started this blog. Jeez, 8+ years ago.

Cleveland has been in the press a lot lately: the Cavs winning the championship last season (meh), the Republican National Convention (the city didn’t burn down! woo!) and generally more economic development coming to the region, both in and out of manufacturing (yay!). I’ve always liked it in Cleveland. I liked it when I went to school there. I even liked it through the disastrous financial crisis of 2009. Mostly I liked it when I hung out with the people who understood and liked the city. Really the people were one of the few reasons to stick around, since I haven’t worked for a company based in Cleveland for two and a half years (unless you count mine). So I’m glad I am still going to get that midwest vibe with Chicago, even if it ends up being a little grittier or different.

Wait, why the move?

Yes, you’ve figured it out. This is not the only change that happened in my life. My move was motivated by a big change in my personal life, namely splitting up with my now-ex-wife.  That was a year-long process made official a few weeks ago as well. I’m obviously sad it didn’t work out, but I couldn’t have asked for a more civil and adult ending to a relationship. For that, I’m really grateful. We’re still friends and we talk often.

This also led to a whirlwind of other large life events that normally accompany such a split and a move:

  • Selling a house.
  • Selling my car and going car-free.
  • Getting a new apartment in the city (change of lifestyle).

Needless to say, I’ve been under some strain lately.

But…California!

Yes, any time I mention that I have moved (especially to people in tech), I get the question, “Why didn’t you move to California??” While I understand where they are coming from, I get a little upset at the assumption that the only place to work on electronics/tech is California. No one asks Californian tech workers, “Why don’t you move to Shenzhen?? That’s where all the electronics are actually made!” I don’t plan to lay out all the reasons for choosing Chicago, but I will say it was a conscious choice and the right choice for me right now. I still travel out to California regularly but I’m interested in being a promoter for hardware outside the ecosystem of electronics out there.

Curtain Up, Act 2

While I’ve gone through a range of emotions in the past year, I can’t stress how excited I am for the future

Starting over again at 33 for my personal life is a little bit stressful, but I can’t be anything but grateful. All of the things that led me to where I am today, all of the people I’ve met and all of the things I’ve experienced; all of these things have enriched my life and made me the person I am.

As for Chicago, I’m really really excited to be living here. Travel is easy to the entire continental US (and major flights to Asia or Europe), there is a growing startup community (including a huge new hardware space) and the people seem to be a creative, down-to-earth crowd. I’m interested in meeting new people and bringing people together around hardware and I hope to be doing that in my new home.

If you’re stopping through Chicago at any point, let me know! I would love to meet up and show you around.

 

Thanks to the Vancouver City Archives for the Intermission image and Bert Kaufmann for the picture of Chicago.

Categories
Life

Language Barriers

Despite my love of words, I have never actually picked up another language. I have “studied” both French and Japanese in school for multiple years, but neither of those stuck past a few phrases and vague recognition. While the courses are often emphasized in education, actual long term proficiency (or really long term practice) is never a priority. Thus, American kids don’t normally speak two languages unless a second one is learned at home.

I’m currently in Germany and headed to Serbia soon. I have been in both of these countries once before and rather enjoy the sounds of both languages (obviously I glean a couple of “freebie” words in German, so I’m a bit more partial to that). For both languages/places, I feel super awkward about my linguistic cluelessness. Something I pride myself on is my proficiency of communicating with other humans (ie. explaining an engineering concept to a non-engineer); but in other languages, that skill is completely worthless. It’s like I’ve lost a portion of my brain. It’s like I’m helpless.

I have friends who have started picking up languages by daily practice with tools like Duolingo (a really great app in it’s own right); but the successful ones are those who are immersing themselves in some way. It seems that the key piece is not just grammar or vocabulary, but being ok with working on your skills. Perhaps the most key skill is dealing with the imminent awkwardness of learning a new tongue.

I’m not sure when I will have time to pick up a new language, but I might try to put myself into a situation where I don’t have a choice.

Thanks to Laura for the awkward photo

Categories
Life

Modes Of Communication

I have been working on a new mode of connecting with others in the engineering community. It’s been a slog to get people to try it out and use it regularly, but I totally get it. I have so many modes of communication these days:

  • Email (multiple email addresses)
  • Text (multiple phone numbers)
  • gChat (tied to multiple email addresses)
  • Slack (multiple “rooms”)
  • Twitter DM (multiple Twitter accounts)
  • Facebook messenger
  • Skype
  • LinkedIn messages
  • IRC
  • Forums (I run one of my own, though I hardly have time to visit it)
  • SupplyFX (the new site I’m working on)

It really feels like a popularity contest. Any platform is only as good as the one with all the important people on it. This is called a “network effect“. Getting to that point is the hard part. Convincing enough people that it is worthwhile to spend time in one platform vs another.

Aside from thinking about how to get more people to adopt another platform, I feel quite a bit of stress about the range of platforms that I’m already on. What if I’m missing a message? What if someone I’m trying to get ahold of missed my message? Do I try other channels? What if it’s a conscious act (ignoring me)? What if there’s a platform I should be on that I’m not?

It feels like a set of social groups that you can bounce between; sometimes it’s just talking to an individual…sometimes it’s talking to a group. There is definitely a FOMO feeling in there as well (without the accompanying torschlusspanik).

The worst part is also the best solution. Picking one or two methods and sticking to them. In theory, this makes a lot of sense. Our brains can only handle so much stimulation and input, and we really should spend time talking to others in person or working on interesting things. A lot of these modes of communication can be used as escapes instead of connection platforms (people on forums all day arguing about making something instead of making things, posting random nonsense to IRC channels, etc). The downside to this is the assumption that if someone really needs to get ahold of you, they will jump to the platform you have chosen, even if just to grab your attention for a bit. That’s depressing if no one actually jumps over. Sure, it’s ego, but limiting myself to one platform could throw into sharp relief that I’m not really needed for much.

I’m going to keep trying a variety of these platforms and will probably even try out new ones as they pop up. As I have written about recently, I’m most interested in increasing my in-person connections, because those will be the most meaningful (even if the cost is highest for those). I’m planning to reduce communication platforms in the future, but for now….I’m pretty easy to find.

Categories
Life Music

I’m selling my drums

I’ve been playing drums since I was 8 years old; sooner than that if you count pots and pans. But if I look at reality, I haven’t been playing drums for a couple years now and finally decided it’s time to pass them on to another person. Well. Sell them.

The drumset itself was nice enough and I played the hell out of it many times. I even used it to record a few songs with my college band and played some fun gigs. I’m not really sad about getting rid of this set of drums. It’s that I know I’m not going to buy another set for a long time. Maybe ever. So it ultimately feels like an identity issue. I used to be a drummer. Now I’m a former drummer. It’s interesting to think about when that transition actually happens.

I’ve already written a bit about the changes in my work priorities, but there have been changes in my personal life as well. It may seem like a silly example, but switching instruments seems indicative of these changes. I play piano (and sing) instead of drums now. What does this mean?

  • There are no restrictions on sound or when I can play (I can use headphones with my piano).
  • I am making melodic music and singing along.
  • I am the lead player, not a backup player.
  • I don’t require other people to make fully formed songs (experimental drums-only songs aren’t my thing).

The third one is probably the biggest. I don’t want to be the background music anymore. Plus I have always loved singing and that is a very unlikely proposition as a drummer.

As I wrote in my last post, I’m evaluating what got me to the point where I’m living in the isolated suburbs; but since I’m here, I’ve optimized for not having other people around. Finding bandmates requires that they are on the same schedule as me, like the same music as me and are interested in playing music with me. That’s a pretty narrow set of people. I like playing music too much to wait on others to decide they’re ready to play.

So I will celebrate this next step in my life. It’s really a part of a larger trend, I think. I know the general thing makes me happy (music), but I need to find my place in it so I can continue on (piano). Since I have already moved moved on and I still have music in my life, it makes the transition easier. But maybe I’ll go bang on those drums one last time…

Categories
Life

Nodus Tollens and Torschlusspanik

Logolepsy

One thing that I always loved on The Amp Hour was coming up with alliterative titles for the episodes (my favorite word is still “ostrobogulous“, used for episode 162). After roughly 150 occasions of naming shows like this and realizing the increasing amount of time it takes to come up with each one, I decided to move away from the practice and simplify. However, this instilled a fascination with odd words (see also: Logolepsy). There are even a few words that I “invented”, usually by combining latin bases I could figure out, smashing together entire words or by changing the case of a word.

Recently I encountered the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. This is a project to inject unique words into the common lexicon to describe…well, common feelings. I should note, I’m way late to the party; this site has been around and covered in the media for years now. That doesn’t make it any less awesome. I love the bold nature of inventing words to help out the population. I will continue to do that as I can and will use one of the author’s inventions below. Amazing how the internet works though, isn’t it? Just throw words out there and sometimes strangers pick them up.

This post is not actually about words. It’s about my recent difficulty voicing some feelings I have encountered. I discovered two new words, which hopefully replace the paragraphs of explanation it would normally require. And although me using new words to describe these feelings doesn’t particularly ease the description of emotions from one human to another (me to you), perhaps it will on the second pass, should I mention these feelings again. If nothing else, I hope these words introduce a bit of logolepsy into your life.

Nodus Tollens

The first word is nodus tollens:

Nodus Tollens

I am getting older, as we all are. But as I continue to move towards my goals in life and the goals keep shifting, this has me looking backwards, not forwards. Specifically, looking at and analyzing how I got to where I am today. I don’t regret anything in my life; quite the opposite, actually. I’m super grateful for all of the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met. It’s more of a feeling of “how did I get here” (thanks, Talking Heads, for never allowing me to say that phrase without singing it).

This is especially how I’m feeling professionally. I have had some wonderful opportunities in the field of electronics, but as I move away from hands-on electronics and towards product management, I see it all differently. I don’t dislike it, far from it. It’s more like I’m analyzing the parts that got me to where I am; more importantly, how those same pieces will impact my future.

Torschlusspanik

The second word is Torschlusspanik. This is a German word (not from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows):

Torschlusspanik

This word literally translates to “Gate Shut Panic”, and was offered to me on Twitter when I was describing the feeling and my interest in finding a word that represents it. The description I gave was the manic, physical feeling one gets from the feeling of FOMO (or “Fear Of Missing Out”). Not just the general anxiety that the world is moving on without you, but a specific experience that you can visualize and predict the outcome. This has happened to me even (and possibly especially) when I know the event will never come to fruition. If you’ll excuse the stream of consciousness description, this is what I would have fully described on Twitter:

It feels a bit like a treasure hunt…It’s not actually a treasure you’re seeking though. Instead, it’s a piece of knowledge. It feels like I have just discovered that I’m on the edge of finding the meaning of life or figured out 98% of an extremely valuable equation. I’m not there yet, but it’s within my grasp. It’s a race against time, if I can only reach a certain landmark first…but suddenly, as soon as I realize it is a thing that I want, I feel that all the world has figured it out at the same time….and now I’m not just in a race against myself and the clock, but looking around I realize that the window of opportunity is closing and each person is a potential competitor. I can see the goal, but the closer I get, the more anxious I feel to get there.

The bit about others figuring it out at the same time is never actually the case. The feeling is surely some form of a cognitive bias, but I couldn’t figure out which one…perhaps the Frequency Illusion/Baader Meinhof Phenomenon? Really it’s my brain projecting my newfound information onto the world that I see. As a result, the feeling of anxiety in the present increases, with no actual impact towards future events.

Two words, together

Combined, these two words point towards my somewhat recent and frantic desire to “figure things out”. What do I want in life? Where do I want to end up? Who are the people I want to surround myself with?

Of course, deciding on the future is a gradual course and requires habits, as I mentioned in a previous post. My resultant feelings are an anxiousness to move towards some end goal, as I have always done. Instead, I need to enjoy the ride. I’ve never been good at enjoying the ride. Chaos and serendipity has resulted in some of the best events in my life, things that I remain grateful for. However, I would never have chosen those paths if presented with the option.

While my dive back into the world of words is a recent thing, I believe this entire introspective exercise was caused by this beautifully written post on Raptitude, called “Where the wealth was all along“. It discusses the reassessment of life events once life is over. You’re sitting in a studio reviewing video montages of your life and not just the highlight reel, but also the near-misses. Those are what haunt me. This passage in particular:

Where the wealth was all along

Only in a world of true abundance does one have the opportunity to worry about the things they are missing. But that’s how lucky I have been, and again, I can only state my gratefulness towards my path in life thus far. In fact, that is the point of the article and the “wealth” that the author writes about:

Abundance

The piece goes on to say that in the infinite possibilities and paths our lives can take, the majority of us choose the safe option, but also cherish the connections we already have. I feel that way and believe I have acted that way in the past. But my mind turns to the “fifty undeveloped relationships” for each one currently in my life. Perhaps it is my engineer brain doing an optimization. Want more deep connections in life? You need to meet a LOT more people.

I believe that is the underlying urgency I feel these days, the “closing of the gate” and the anxiety that comes with it. I seek to increase the number of undeveloped relationships, in the hopes that I will gain yet another deep relationship I can cherish at the end of my life. Whenever I’m offered a tour or a walkthrough of a new place, I’m often ambivalent about what I’ll see. But I go along in the hopes to meet new people. The same goes for meetings. The same goes for my upcoming travel. I am happy (and lucky) to go see a bunch of historical sites in Europe. But I’m really looking forward to meeting new people, from new walks of life. Perhaps this is my best tool to combat the feeling of torschlusspanik. Perhaps the only way to not care about the gate closing is to go with the flow.

The nodus tollens comes from looking back onto my personal, career and life choices: in what world does an engineer expect to be hanging out with other people? It is, of course, true that engineers spend much of their career dealing with the intricacies of interpersonal relationships, but I didn’t know that at the beginning; I definitely didn’t choose the engineering path for the people! Another example of serendipity, I suppose. But then again, most professions require human interaction, so perhaps I would have turned out OK regardless.  The nodus tollens also causes me to analyze the events that led to me living in the isolated suburbs of an industrial midwest city. That hardly optimizes for human connection. Many of the decisions I’ve made have been towards career success, but not towards human connection. It turns out that I long for connection and it seems that I should start to change my habits to favor it.

Consectary or Ultimation

Introspection is not a normal activity for me; it definitely doesn’t happen on the scale of this article very often. I’m sure whatever reasons I list explaining my current state of mind aren’t the only reasons, but other underlying reasons will likely take longer to discover. Overall, I think it’s pretty healthy to do this once in a while. I think it’s where art comes from. It even makes me feel alive for some reason. Like I should have been feeling this all along. Why should the “plot of [my] life” ever make sense? Why aren’t we always reassessing? I am going to do my best to sit in this discomfort, enjoy the ride, write about it a bit more and–obviously–discover (or invent) new words to describe what I’m feeling.

Categories
Blogging Health Life Music

Habits, Not Goals

Part of this site used to be public, but is now hidden; it’s a list of goals that I have for myself over the long term.

I went and looked at it recently and realized I have achieved 3 out of 5 in one manner or another, but probably not to the extent that I initially imagined achieving the goal. For example, one goal was “have a music studio in my house”. Recording equipment is super easy and cheap these days and I have it for all my music instruments…does that count? I dunno. I say yes.

But in thinking about revising those goals, I realized there was no way to know if I would ever reach them. More importantly, there’s no way to know if I would want to reach them by the time I actually did. That’s what’s crazy to me. I can set a goal to become an astronaut now (hard pass), but on the path towards becoming an astronaut it’s very possible that I could find out I want to be terrestrial biologist or a children’s author or something I’ve not even heard of yet. You just never know where your path will take you. I got to see a talk on this very subject at XOXO last September and I go back to watch it often. Nicky Case is a wonderful speaker and this was exactly what I needed to see at that point in my life:

So instead, I’m focusing on habits. Really, that’s why a lot of goals exist in the first place. It’s focusing on something far in the future so you can figure out the steps required in the near term. Instead, I’m going to try and change some daily habits to see how that moves me towards a better tomorrow, especially since I have no idea what that will eventually look like.

This actually all started with an app install. I saw a list of “must have apps” and tried installing one called Habit Bull. It’s really quite simple. You input the habit you want to build and every day you track either how much you did of that thing (ie. how many minutes did I read) or whether or not you did it at all (ie. Did I read today?). I normally choose the latter as it makes it a very simple exercise. I also started very slowly. I started with a singular goal,

“Did I walk the dog today?”

Obviously that has benefit for the dog, but also for me. It means my head is in the right place. It means I’m not putting my work above all else. It means I’m getting a little bit of exercise for myself. But that simple question allows me to stay focused. I’ve gradually added other things that seem to indicate daily success.

My most recent one was, “Am I working at my bench by noon?” I have worked from home since I quit my full time engineering job 2 years ago (wowsa, that long ago?). While that sounds like an easy goal (it is), it focuses me on not just reading and responding to emails all day upstairs on the couch and instead being near my electronics. The environment helps me focus even if I’m not working on electronics directly. It also makes me do a little bit of work to go upstairs and grab yet another cup of coffee, which means I might get to sleep at a decent hour later that night.

This all hinges on using the app daily, which I’ve been doing pretty consistently. Even if I miss a day, the “yes or no” nature of these habits makes it pretty easy to remember and back fill from memory. Over time, I hope these habits will become permanent, but my priorities may also change. For instance, right now I’m learning my third instrument (piano) but who knows what I’ll want to learn in the future (tuba?). Also, I should mention that the app is not the real thing that’s driving me to do these things, so much as the idea behind them. Had I been a pen and paper person, a simple log book could have driven me to similar levels of success.

Obviously, writing has not been on my list for a long time. I’m not sure it will be any time soon, either. I like the idea of writing and I think it helps my career, but I’m not sure it’s as much of a priority for me. Another on my list is trying to make a video each day for Contextual Electronics, and that would take priority as that’s my main communication medium these days. Regardless, I like the flexibility and the focusing on things I can get done in the short term. It has helped me focus what I want in my life with regards to health, relationships, career and personal fulfillment on a daily basis.

If you see more articles from me though, perhaps blogging made it onto my list.

Image via the YouTube video of Nicky’s talk.

Categories
Life

The magic of books

What is it about books? They still hold a place of magic in our society and to me.

I have had a few opportunities to write a book or two now, at least the offer to begin writing one or talk about writing one. I have passed on all of them so far. Not because I don’t want to. I actually would quite enjoy it. However, talking to all the people I know who have written (technical) books have told me two things:

  1. It’s really really really hard
  2. It’s really worth it.

How am I supposed to process that? I suppose it’s much like asking someone whether their time in the military was worthwhile. They became a stronger person because of it and opportunities may have emerged because of their new credentials. But it probably wasn’t fun every single day and it wasn’t a quick process. I suppose when you really step back and look at it, the same is true for anything worth having.

Still.

The last time I met with someone to discuss a possible book, I couldn’t help laugh and think about the fact that it’s 2014 and “everything” is digital and we were talking about a book. A set of ideas captured statically and printed on paper not to be updated for a few months or whenever the information was needed to be updated. Hell, this blog gets updated more often than that sometimes (and that’s not saying much).

Still. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it a bunch. It got me to post again.

Categories
Life Work

Don’t Wait For Permission

I have corresponded with a international student for a few years now. I honestly can’t even remember how we met online and it doesn’t matter. He showed interest in my work and we started talking and have continued as he has graduated from US university and found a job locally. Recently he asked me:

I don’t like my current job. How can I get a job at Google?

I asked him why he wanted to move to Google. High pay? Exciting work? Big challenges? A recognizable name on a resume? All of these things can be had at other companies, many that are easier to get to than Google. Without having someone on the inside of Google that knows his work, I told him that he will be forced to go through the same process that every other interviewee does when applying to jobs posted online…and that’s a lot of competition. Not that competition is bad, just that there are so many better ways to find interesting, rewarding, high paid work.

So here’s the advice I give him and to all of you and any other recent graduates or young people looking for work:

I recommend you pick an open source project you think that Google would work on (or any other target company you’d like to work with). Maybe it’s a robot. Or a new API. Or a delivery service for soggy cereal milk (really?!?).

Next, start working on that project. If you can’t find an existing project, start your own (I started the BenchBudEE as part of Contextual Electronics because I didn’t see anything else in the marketplace). If you can’t do it alone, find some others that might be interested in the same topic. Find discussion boards or subreddits around the topic to find like minded people (hopefully with complementary skill sets)

Finally, spend all of your waking moments not at your job or school working on this project. You won’t be paid at all and likely never will be for this project. Work really really hard on it. At the end, you’ll either have one of two things

  1. A job offer from Google (or whichever company you were targeting)
  2. A great project and great experience.

If you don’t want to do the hard work when you’re not already working for Google, they likely won’t want to hire you in the first place.

Don’t wait for a company to give you permission to do interesting work. Go out there and find it and do it. The world is a playground!