A look at business, law and life from a technophile.
Life
Be careful what you plug-in, you may get what you ask for
0So I had this friend that told me about the rabid stealing of rss feeds on sites that would claim credit for your work. He encouraged me to install a plug-in to give notice to people about the stolen content.
That was great when I was just posting to my own blog. However, when ConnectBlogs offered to syndicate me (and I accepted), the copyright infringement accusation came through as well.
In short, please ignore the trailer to the last post. ConnectBlogs has full permission to syndicate me and my ramblings.
Shoreline Web – A Business Plan
0How many of you have visited shoreline ridge’s website within the past weeks? Despite our difference in space and time, I can tell that the answer is 0. The reason is that someone had a few “good ideas” and put up a website without a plan. Unless you’re lucky and stumble upon the right idea, you need a reason, a mission to get the job done.
That means that you need to start with purpose and an idea of the “squishy” words of how you want your users to feel. For shoreline, the answers are “community,” “fun,” and “friendship.” Everything that we put on that page should be relevant to those words. So if I have a widget, let’s say a calendar, I need to make sure that my calendar has the capability of forming community, fun and/or friendship. If my calendar events relvove around when rent is due and fees go up, I’ve probably missed the boat.
So where do the ideas of what we need come from? The target market! If you are connected, you can run ideas past them, and get an initial impression. For instance, the Shoreline community wants a classified section. People are not only motivated to get rid of stuff they don’t have room for or don’t want to move (especially the international students), but also residents that are looking for cheap stuff.
Keep an eye on shoreline.utah.edu. You’ll be able to judge how well I follow my own advice and target my market.
Directing Green Desire – How not to tick off people
0I was talking with a friend about how a new IT person came in and without notice, rewrote the website template and asked for approval to migrate the website to the new template. In the time it took to write the website and the email to get approval, the green IT guy might have set up his demise.
He’s probably lucky that I was talking with my friend before my friend visited with her colleages and lynched him. There’s two sides to the story and thus two solutions, but let’s hit the problem first.
The Problem
My friend (who is not in IT or marketing) spent a year with her colleagues coming up with the design and layout of the website. It was a fusion of ideas, and had a coherent look to it.
The IT guy saw a website that lacked web 2.0 features and knowledge such as usability, minimalism and reducing the amount of glaring white. Unfortunately he didn’t understand the company, the users nor did he have any taste in color schemes.
My friend was planning on talking with other leaders and asking if they had assigned a website revamp after all that hard work. As they all would have likely said no, then the IT guy was going to look like he didn’t have enough to do and didn’t get the organization.
The Solution
Communication before action. If the IT guy had talked with my friend and proposed some changes, like usability or user focusing through color, my friend would have appreciated the desire to work with the team and expertise.
On the other hand, leaders should recognize that people fresh out of college (like this IT guy) don’t have all the skills, especially organizational culture ones. A frank conversation about how to handle cases like this in the future, while recognizing his contribution will go a long way toward building a good working relationship. The key is to remember that this IT guy is motivated. He just needs some direction and people skills. Whatever you do, you don’t want to kill his motivation. And, yet, this situation was headed exactly that way.
So how do you fix your feelings? Get a fresh perspective. My friend asked me why he would redesign the website without asking and what was so good about his version. I was able to show her that while his color and design lacked coherency and attractiveness, he had used some good design principles and technology that was lacking on the original.
The guy straight out of college wants to make a name for himself. Instead of standing in his way, teach him how to do it. The organization, and dare I say it, you will be better off if everyone shares how to succeed, instead of everyone clinging to their own successes.
Why Most Arguments Suck – Make Yours Better
0Ever wonder why there’s a whole lot of sparring and not a whole lot of understanding these days? It’s because people only argue from their point of view. A persuasive argument leverages the other’s peson’s beliefs and speaks from their perspective. Today’s “debates” with their “sound-bites” are just rallying cries and not true argument. A true argumentor finds the kernel of disagreement and sifts through the chaff of agreement.
Here’s my rules of argument:
Rule #1: If you don’t understand the other side’s argument AND can justify it — don’t start arguing, start asking.
For rule #1, I think about the abortion debate. I think about all the people who accuse each other about being “killers” or “legislating my body.” If you’re berating the other side, there’s no use arguing because neither side will give in.
A good persuader will ask first, rephrase their beliefs looking for confirmation and then argue.
For argument’s sake let’s take the side of pro-life. We would ask someone when they believe life exists and choice retreats. They would likely answer “at birth.” So it might seem that our kernel of disagreement is at what point life exists. But that’s not true: you need to test it with an assumption. Try asking this question: if at any point during a pregnancy, with minimal invasiveness, an embryo could be transferred to a test-tube with no ill physical or mental effects, would you support this alternative to abortion? Notice we’re still talking about their beliefs, but we’re finding out whether their objection is to a chain a woman’s body to pregnancy without a say or something else. If the answer is negative, then follow-up questions should find where or if that switch could ever be made.
Rule #2: Be willing to do the same exploration AND change your mind.
It’s not worth talking with someone unless you both can benefit from the other’s experience. However, if you’re following rule #1, it is difficult to have a closed mind. You might be sure of yourself, but not closed.
Turning the last situation around: a pro-choice person would ask the pro-life person when a person should be forced to sustain someone else’s life. Should I be required to give up one of my kidneys to save someone else’s life? my child’s life? Should I be required to feed my child at the expense of my health? What if there was only enough sustenance for one of us – which is right? which should be required by law? How far should a pregnant person be required to go to save the baby’s life? bankruptcy? house? to protect the baby’s life? alcohol? seatbelts? Find the limits where people switch and then confirm in your own words.
Rule #3: Talk in their language, not yours.
If you are arguing you should have 2 goals: acquisition of information and persuation. You’re not going to be effective in either one if you force someone into your framework of understanding. Use their words and their framework. Their foundation and beliefs are different and that’s GOOD. Its your job to understand it.
Notice my word change above depending on who I’m talking to: baby vs. embryo. A framework is not complete without terminology. Look at math and physics. If you don’t know the terminology, you can never hope to understand the framework (proofs).
Rule #4: If it changes to violent, stop and walk away.
There are a few reasons to be violent, either by raising your voice or getting physical. The only things that come to mind are protection from robbery or protests against the majority stomping on the minority (think Martin Luther King). Generally, there are better ways to solve things.
In fact, if you stop when someone gets hot under the collar and don’t give them a reason to label you (that guy is just a bully, or he was blowing smoke because he came unglued), you just made them think about why they’re steamed and why you’re not. People like to be consistent and don’t like to be mad without justification. If you don’t give them that justification, they might just think about what you said.
If you’re the one hot under the collar, consider why you feel that way.
For example, I don’t get mad at people who call my wife or mother nasty things. I know they are fantastic individuals. I usually comment about how their comment says more about them than my family and walk away.
Hiatus Over
0Without getting too personal, my long hiatus is over, school and family have calmed down (at least more than they were) and I can get back to more enjoyable things like blogging.
Why you need Crucial Conversations
0If there is one book I would recommend, I would recommend Crucial Conversations. It’s like the miracle cure, the miracle gro, the fix-my-work-and-home medicine. That’s pretty big talk for anything, let alone a book. Even if you don’t believe me, then consider that American Express gives classes on it, Steven R. Covey wrote the forward, Dain Hancock from Lockheed Martin endorses it, and Wolf Creek Nuclear gives training on it. This is not your ordinary self-help book.
So it’s important, but what is it? It basically outlines why we are awful at important conversations, when to recognize important conversations and how to achieve mutual success in important conversations. If you’ve ever seen someone tackle a difficult conversation with finesse – whether stopping the boss from doing something unilaterally stupid or achieving harmony in their marriage despite discussing “the promotion” that requires a move – you’ve seen someone understand what’s really important in a Crucial Conversation.
This is not a book about getting your way. It is about bring knowledge out of everybody while keeping everyone involved in the conversation. Its about why we clam up or fight and destroy any good things that could come in conversations that are important to us.
In short: Read it. Its a lifechanger.
Job Search: IP Advice
0I had someone at career services ask me to give advice to a fellow student on how to break into the IP scene with a weak background (physics minor). Here’s my response:
I’m going to start with giving you my 2 cents and then answer your questions. Remember that my advice is as good as you pay for it, so take everything I say with a healthy dose of checking out my reality with others. Everyone who’s successful has an angle, and here’s my take (which may not be yours). If I’m too blunt, please forgive my bluntness. I want you to understand how your employer is thinking. The key is to make yourself fit what he wants. It’s not to tell him how great you are (you’re not great, you have potential).
Let me start by saying that there are 2 major factors to patent law employment according to the employers I’ve done informational interviews with: field of study and experience. Those are the qualifications, if you don’t meet those, you will have a difficult time getting in the door. After that, everything else is about differentiation. Field of study is very difficult to change, since it’s what you know and what you’ve studied. We’re talking wisdom and years of knowledge, so its not easy to change. Relevant experience is where you can make a difference right now.
With your minimal technical background, I would see if you can go clerk part time for free. You’ll gain experience and training and exposure to good people in the know. In exchange you’ll give your minimal services for free. I’m told (and I believe) that new clerks cost more to train than they make. You’ll be diverting time from someone who can bill $200-$250 an hour into a personal tutor in patent law and what to do. For clerks that have the right technical background, law firms realize that this is how the new people get up to speed. For your iffy background, you’re going to have to prove yourself. This means: passing the patent bar, clerking for free/credit and knowing the right people. You have the ability to effect the first 2, while your fellow students can get you connected with the last one.
Ok, enough with the generals, let’s get onto your questions:
QUESTION: I’ve been able to arrange to take the classes I need.
Job Search — Panel of Success
0Perhaps one of the big stressors of school is how to seek and find employment. I was asked to be part of a five student panel on strategies on finding a job. The following are what I thought were good take-aways from the panel.
Network – Unless you’re the best of your class, most people don’t get picked up without being recommended or known to the hiring person. You can do this through pro bono (volunteer) work, trade events, temporary jobs, friends and classmates. Go, attend, and mix! Check out linkedin, where you can use your friends and colleages to get you places you didn’t know you could get.
Do something different – It’s all about making yourself stand out, whether its through a recommendation or activites. If you want to do business law, take a finance class. If you want to do entertainment law, take a flim class. If you want to work in high tech, take an IT or Engineering class. John (a member of the panel) said that he went to Guatamala for the summer to improve his Spanish. The point is that you need to be more than school. Also, be aware that your answer about why you chose to do your something different can imply that your interviewer isn’t as competent as they should be (ie — answering that an MBA really understands business implies that your interviewer might not understand business — a better answer is to say that you can acquire that knowledge through experience or class, and you chose the class route).
Do the important standard stuff – If you’re in law school, that means to try and get on a journal. It means that you should attempt to have decent grades. Excelling in the common gives your interviewer ways to compare you to the pack. Often times the standard stuff is just a cutoff and not a deal-maker (ie you might need only good grades, and stellar grades doesn’t buy much).
Get experience – This can be through a job or volunteer work or unpaid internships. Your interviewer would generally rather hire someone that has an idea of what’s going on rather than someone at ground zero. It also says that someone else trusted you enough to accept your work, even if unpaid.
Be professional – Dress for the part. It is almost always easier to dress down than up. Do your research on the company. Ask questions about their goals and where they want to be in five years. You want to look available but not desperate for the job. Don’t brown-nose. Be confident in your answers (when asked what you want to do, don’t say that you might want to do something or something else … your mind can change).
Work differently – If your school has on campus interviews, do them. But, also discover who is not on that list and go see if you can interview with them. Your chances are better with those you discover because you’re not competing with everyone in your class. Go to out of state job fairs. See if your career services can connect you with out of state career fairs. You will be inherently different than the other applicants because you will be from somewhere else. Let diversity work in your favor.
I heard a funny saying about law school: Law school is like a pie eating contest with the winner getting more pie. Big Firms and Corporations are not for everyone. Sometimes the intangible benefits of working at a small firm are better suited to you.