Search results matching tag 'How I work'

Conducting Effective Web Meetings

BuckWoody — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:51:56 GMT

There are several forms of corporate communication. From immediate, rich communications like phones and IM messaging to historical transactions like e-mail, there are a lot of ways to get information to one or more people. From time to time, it's even useful to have a meeting.

(This is where a witty picture of a guy sleeping in a meeting goes. I won't bother actually putting one here; you're already envisioning it in your mind)

Most meetings are pointless, and a complete waste of time. This is the fault, completely and solely, of the organizer. It's because he or she hasn't thought things through enough to think about alternate forms of information passing. Here's the criteria for a good meeting - whether in-person or over the web:

100% of the content of a meeting should require the participation of 100% of the attendees for 100% of the time

It doesn't get any simpler than that. If it doesn't meet that criteria, then don't invite that person to that meeting. If you're just conveying information and no one has the need for immediate interaction with that information (like telling you something that modifies the message), then send an e-mail. If you're a manager, and you need to get status from lots of people, pick up the phone.If you need a quick answer, use IM.

I once had a high-level manager that called frequent meetings. His real need was status updates on various processes, so 50 of us would sit in a room while he asked each one of us questions. He believed this larger meeting helped us "cross pollinate ideas". In fact, it was a complete waste of time for most everyone, except in the one or two moments that they interacted with him. So I wrote some code for a Palm Pilot (which was a kind of SmartPhone but with no phone and no real graphics, but this was in the days when we had just discovered fire and the wheel, although the order of those things is still in debate) that took an average of the salaries of the people in the room (I guessed at it) and ran a timer which multiplied the number of people against the salaries.

I left that running in plain sight for him, and when he asked about it, I explained how much the meetings were really costing the company. We had far fewer meetings after.

Meetings are now web-enabled. I believe that's largely a good thing, since it saves on travel time and allows more people to participate, but I think the rule above still holds. And in fact, there are some other rules that you should follow to have a great meeting - and fewer of them.

Be Clear About the Goal

This is important in any meeting, but all of us have probably gotten an invite with a web link and an ambiguous title. Then you get to the meeting, and it's a 500-level deep-dive on something everyone expects you to know.

This is unfair to the "expert" and to the participants. I always tell people that invite me to a meeting that I will be as detailed as I can - but the more detail they can tell me about the questions, the more detailed I can be in my responses. Granted, there are times when you don't know what you don't know, but the more you can say about the topic the better.

There's another point here - and it's that you should have a clearly defined "win" for the meeting. When the meeting is over, and everyone goes back to work, what were you expecting them to do with the information? Have that clearly defined in your head, and in the meeting invite.

Understand the Technology

There are several web-meeting clients out there. I use them all, since I meet with clients all over the world. They all work differently - so I take a few moments and read up on the different clients and find out how I can use the tools properly. I do this with the technology I use for everything else, and it's important to understand it if the meeting is to be a success. If you're running the meeting, know the tools. I don't care if you like the tools or not, learn them anyway. Don't waste everyone else's time just because you're too bitter/snarky/lazy to spend a few minutes reading.

Check your phone or mic. Check your video size. Install (and learn to use) ZoomIT (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx). Format your slides or screen or output correctly. Learn to use the voting features of the meeting software, and especially it's whiteboard features. Figure out how multiple monitors work. Try a quick meeting with someone to test all this. Do this *before* you invite lots of other people to your meeting.

Use a WebCam

I'm not a pretty man. I have a face fit for radio. But after attending a meeting with clients where one Microsoft person used a webcam and another did not, I'm convinced that people pay more attention when a face is involved. There are tons of studies around this, or you can take my word for it, but toss a shirt on over those pajamas and turn the webcam on.

Set Up Early

Whether you're attending or leading the meeting, don't wait to sign on to the meeting at the time when it starts. I can almost plan that a 10:00 meeting will actually start at 10:10 because the participants/leader is just now installing the web client for the meeting at 10:00. Sign on early, go on mute, and then wait for everyone to arrive.

Mute When Not Talking

No one wants to hear your screaming offspring / yappy dog / other cubicle conversations / car wind noise (are you driving in a desert storm or something?) while the person leading the meeting is trying to talk. I use the Lync software from Microsoft for my meetings, and I mute everyone by default, and then tell them to un-mute to talk to the group.

Share Collateral

If you have a PowerPoint deck, mail it out in case you have a tech failure. If you have a document, share it as an attachment to the meeting. Don't make people ask you for the information - that's why you're there to begin with. Even better, send it out early. "But", you say, "then no one will come to the meeting if they have the deck first!" Uhm, then don't have a meeting. Send out the deck and a quick e-mail and let everyone get on with their productive day.

Set Actions At the Meeting

A meeting should have some sort of outcome (see point one). That means there are actions to take, a follow up, or some deliverable. Otherwise, it's an e-mail. At the meeting, decide who will do what, when things are needed, and so on. And avoid, if at all possible, setting up another meeting, unless absolutely necessary.

So there you have it. Whether it's on-premises or on the web, meetings are a necessary evil, and should be treated that way. Like politicians, you should have as few of them as are necessary to keep the roads paved and public libraries open.

Stand-Up Desk 2012 Update

BuckWoody — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:40:19 GMT

One of the more popular topics here on my technical blog doesn't have to do with technology, per-se - it's about the choice I made to go to a stand-up desk work environment. If you're interested in the history of those, check here:

Stand-Up Desk Part One

Stand-Up Desk Part Two

I have made some changes and I was asked to post those here.Yes, I'm still standing - I think the experiment has worked well, so I'm continuing to work this way. I've become so used to it that I notice when I sit for a long time. If I'm flying, or driving a long way, or have long meetings, I take breaks to stand up and move around.

That being said, I don't stand as much as I did. I started out by standing the entire day - which did not end well. As you can read in my second post, I found that sitting down for a few minutes each hour worked out much better. And over time I would say that I now stand about 70-80% of the day, depending on the day. Some days I don't even notice I'm standing, so I don't sit as often. Other days I find that I really tire quickly - so I sit more often. But in both cases, I stand more than I sit.

In the first post you can read about how I used a simple coffee-table from Ikea to elevate my desktop to the right height. I then adjusted the height where I stand by using a small plastic square and some carpet. Over time I found this did not work as well as I'd like. The primary reason is that the front of these are at the same depth - so my knees would hit the desk or table when I sat down. Also, the desk was at a certain height, and I had to adjust, rather than the other way around. Also, I like a lot of surface area on top of a desk - almost more of a table. Routing cables and wiring was a pain, and of course moving it was out of the question.

So I've changed what I use. I found a perfect solution for what I was looking for - industrial wire shelving:

I bought one, built only half of it (for the right height I wanted) and arranged the shelves the way I wanted. I then got a 5'x4' piece of wood from Lowes, and mounted it to where the top was balanced, but had an over-hang I could get my knees under easily.My wife sewed a piece of fake-leather for the top.

This arrangement provides the following benefits:

Very strong
Rolls easily, wheels can lock to prevent rolling
Long, wide shelves
Wire-frame allows me to route any kind of wiring and other things all over the desk

I plugged in my UPS and ran it's longer power-cable to the wall outlet. I then ran the router's LAN connection along that wire, and covered both with a large insulation sleeve. I then plugged in everything to the UPS, and routed all the wiring. I can now roll the desk almost anywhere in the room so that I can record, look out the window, get closer to or farther away from the door and more. I put a few boxes on the shelves as "drawers" and tidied that part up. Even my printer fits on a shelf.

Laser-dog not included - some assembly required

In the second post you can read about the bar-stool I purchased from Target for the desk.

I cheaped-out on this one, and it proved to be a bad choice. Because I had to raise it so high, and was constantly sitting on it and then standing up, the gas-cylinder in it just gave out. So it became a very short stool that I ended up getting rid of. In the end, this one from Ikea proved to be a better choice:

And so this arrangement is working out perfectly. I'm finding myself VERY productive this way.

I hope these posts help you if you decide to try working at a stand-up desk. Although I was skeptical at first, I've found it to be a very healthy, easy way to code, design and especially present over a web-cam. It's natural to stand to speak when you're presenting, and it feels more energetic than sitting down to talk to others.

How I Work: Staying Productive Whilst Traveling

BuckWoody — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:48:28 GMT

I travel a lot. Not like some folks that are gone every week, mind you, although in the last month I’ve been to: Cambridge, UK; Anchorage, AK; San Jose, CA; Copenhagen, DK, Boston, MA; and I’m currently en-route to Anaheim, CA. While this many places in a month is a bit unusual for me, I would say I travel frequently. I’ve travelled most of my 28+ years in IT, and at one time was a consultant traveling weekly.

With that much time away from my primary work location, I have to find ways to stay productive. Some might say “just rest – take a nap!” – but I’m not able to do that. For one thing, I’m a very light sleeper and I’ve never slept on a plane - even a 30+ hour trip to New Zealand in Business Class - so that just isn’t option. I also am not always in the plane, of course. There’s the hotel, the taxi/bus/train, the airport and then all that over again when I arrive. Since my regular jobs have many demands, I have to get work done.

Note: No, I’m not always focused on work. I need downtime just like everyone else. Sometimes I just think, watch a movie or listen to tunes – and I give myself permission to do that anytime – sometimes the whole trip. I have too few
heartbeats left in life to only focus on work – it’s just not that important, and neither am I. Some of these tasks are letters to friends and family, or other personal things. What I’m talking about here is a plan, not some task list I have to follow. When I get to the location I’m traveling to, I always build in as much time as I can to ensure I enjoy those sights and the people I’m with. I would find traveling to be a waste if not for that.

The Unrealistic Expectation

As I would evaluate the trip I was taking – say a 6-8 hour flight – I would expect to get 10-12 hours of work done. After all, there’s the time at the airport, the taxi and so on, and then of course the time in the air with all of the room, power, internet and everything else I needed to get my work done. I would pile up tasks at home, pack my bags, and head happily to the magical land of the TSA.

Right.

On return from the trip, I had accomplished little, had more e-mails and other work that had piled up, and I was tired, hungry, and unorganized. This had to change.

So, I decided to do three things:

Segment my work
Set realistic expectations
Plan accordingly

Segmenting By Available Resources

The first task was to decide what kind of work I could do in each location – if any. I found that I was dependent on a few things to get work done, such as power, the Internet, and a place to sit down.

Before I fly, I take some time at home to get all of the work I’d like to accomplish while away segmented into these areas, and print that out on paper, which goes in my suit-coat pocket along with a mechanical pencil. I print my tickets, and I’m all set for the adventure ahead. Then I simply do each kind of work whenever I’m in that situation.

No power

There are certain times when I don’t have power available. But not only that, I might not even be able to use most of my electronics.

So I now schedule as many phone calls as I can for the taxi/bus/train ride and the airports as I can. I have a paper notebook (Moleskine, of course) and a pencil and I print out any notes or numbers I need prior to the trip.

Once I’m airborne or at the airport, I work on my laptop. I check and respond to e-mails, create slides, write code, do architecture, whatever I can.

If I can’t use any electronics, or once the power runs out, I schedule time for reading. I can read at the airport or anywhere, actually, even in-flight or any other transport. I “read with a pencil”, meaning I take a lot of notes, which I like
to put in OneNote, but since in most cases I don’t have power, I use the Moleskine to do that.

Speaking of which, sometimes as I’m thinking I come up with new topics, ideas, blog posts, or things to teach in my classes. Once again I take out the notebook and write it down. All of these notes get a check-mark when I get back to the office and transfer the writing to OneNote. I’ve tried those “smart pens” and so on to automate this, but it just never works out. Pencil and paper are just fine.

As I mentioned, sometime I just need to think. I’ll do nothing, and let my mind wander, thinking of nothing in particular, or some math problem or science question I’m interested in. My only issue with this is that I communicate to
think, and I don’t want to drive people crazy by being that guy that won’t shut up, so I think in a different way.

Power, but no Internet or Phone

If I have power but no Internet or phone, I focus on the laptop and the tablet as before, and I also recharge my other gadgets.

Power, Internet, Phone and a Place to Work

At first I thought that when I arrived at the hotel or event I could get the same amount of work done that I do at the office. Not so. There’s simply too many distractions, things you need, or other issues that allow this. Of course, I
can work on any device, read, think, write or whatever, but I am simply not as productive as I am in my home office.

So I plan for about 25-50% as much work getting done in this environment as I think I could really do. I’ve done some measurements, and this holds out to be true almost every time. The key is that I re-set my expectations (and my co-worker’s expectations as well) that this is the case. I use the Out-Of-Office notices to let people know that I’m just not going to be 100% at this time – it’s hard for everyone, but it’s more honest and realistic, and I’d rather they know that – and that I realize that – than to let them think I’m totally available. Because I’m not – I’m traveling. I don’t tend to put too much detail, because after all I don’t necessarily want to let people know when I’m not home :) but I do think it’s important to let people that depend on my know that I’ll get back with them later.

I hope this helps you think through your own methodology of staying productive when you travel. Or perhaps you just go offline, and don’t worry about any of this – good for you! That’s completely valid as well.

(Oh, and yes, I wrote this at 35K feet, on Alaska Airlines on a trip. :) Practice what you preach, Buck.)

How I Work: A Cloud Developer's Workstation

BuckWoody — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:55:00 GMT

I've written here a little about how I work during the day, including things like using a stand-up desk (still doing that, by the way). Inspired by a Twitter conversation yesterday, I thought I might explain how I set up my computing environment.

First, a couple of important points. I work in Cloud Computing, specifically (but not limited to) Windows Azure. Windows Azure has features to run a Virtual Machine (IaaS), run code without having to control a Virtual Machine (PaaS) and use databases, video streaming, Hadoop and more (a kind of SaaS for tech pros). As such, my designs run the gamut of on-premises, VM's in the Cloud, and software that I write for a platform.

I focus on data primarily, meaning that I design a lot of systems that use an RDBMS (like SQL Server or Windows Azure Databases) or a NoSQL approach (MongoDB on Azure or large-scale Key-Value Pairs in Table storage) and even Hadoop and R, and also Cloud Numerics in F#.

All that being said, those things inform my choices below.

Hardware

I have a Lenovo X220 tablet/laptop which I really like a great deal - it's a light, tough, extremely fast system. When I travel, that's the system I take. It has 8GB of RAM, and an SSD drive. I sometimes use that to develop or work at a client's site, on the road, or in the living room when I'm not in my home office.

My main system is a GateWay DX430017 - I've maxed it out on RAM, and I have two 1TB drives in it. It's not only my workstation for work; I leave it on all the time and it streams our videos, music and books. I have about 3400 e-books, and I've just started using Calibre to stream the library. I run Windows 8 on it so I can set up Hyper-V images, since Windows Azure allows me to move regular Hyper-V disks back and forth to the Cloud. That's where all my "servers" are, when I have to use an IaaS approach.

The reason I use a desktop-style system rather than a laptop only approach is that a good part of my job is setting up architectures to solve really big, complex problems. That means I have to simulate entire networks on-premises, along with the Hybrid Cloud approach I use a lot. I need a lot of disk space and memory for that, and I use two huge monitors on my stand-up desk. I could probably use 10 monitors if I had the room for them. Also, since it's our home system as well, I leave it on all the time and it doesn't travel.

Software

For the software for my systems, it's important to keep in mind that I not only write code, but I design databases, teach, present, and create Linux and other environments.

Windows 8 - While the jury is out for me on the new interface, the context-sensitive search, integrated everything, and speed is just hands-down the right choice. I've evaluated a server OS, Linux, even an Apple, but I just am not as efficient on those as I am with Windows 8.

Visual Studio Ultimate - I develop primarily in .NET (C# and F# mostly) and I use the Team Foundation Server in the cloud, and I'm asked to do everything from UI to Services, so I need everything.

Windows Azure SDK, Windows Azure Training Kit - I need the first to set up my Azure PaaS coding, and the second has all the info I need for PaaS, IaaS and SaaS. This is primarily how I get paid. :)

SQL Server Developer Edition - While I might install Oracle, MySQL and Postgres on my VM's, the "outside" environment is SQL Server for an RDBMS. I install the Developer Edition because it has the same features as Enterprise Edition, and comes with all the client tools and documentation.

Microsoft Office - Even if I didn't work here, this is what I would use. I've just grown too accustomed to doing business this way to change, so my advice is always "use what works", and this does. The parts I use are:

OneNote (and a Math Add-in) - I do almost everything - and I mean everything in OneNote. I can code, do high-end math, present, design, collaborate and more. All my notebooks are on my Skydrive. I can use them from any system, anywhere. If you take the time to learn this program, you'll be hooked.

Excel with PowerPivot - Don't make that face. Excel is the world's database, and every Data Scientist I know - even the ones where I teach at the University of Washington - know it, use it, and love it.

Outlook - Primary communications, CRM and contact tool. I have all of my social media hooked up to it, so when I get an e-mail from you, I see everything, see all the history we've had on e-mail, find you on a map and more.

Lync - I was fine with LiveMeeting, although it has it's moments. For me, the Lync client is tres-awesome. I use this throughout my day, present on it, stay in contact with colleagues and the folks on the dev team (who wish I didn't have it) and more.

PowerPoint - Once again, don't make that face. Whenever I see someone complaining about PowerPoint, I have 100% of the time found they don't know how to use it. If you suck at presenting or creating content, don't blame PowerPoint. Works great on my machine. :)

Zoomit - Magnifier - On Windows 7 (and 8 as well) there's a built-in magnifier, but I install Zoomit out of habit. It enlarges the screen. If you don't use one of these tools (or their equivalent on some other OS) then you're presenting/teaching wrong, and you should stop presenting/teaching until you get them and learn how to show people what you can see on your tiny, tiny monitor. :)

Cygwin - Unix for Windows. OK, that's not true, but it's mostly that. I grew up on mainframes and Unix (IBM and HP, thank you) and I can't imagine life without sed, awk, grep, vim, and bash. I also tend to take a lot of the "Science" and "Development" and "Database" packages in it as well.

PuTTY - Speaking of Unix, when I need to connect to my Linux VM's in Windows Azure, I want to do it securely. This is the tool for that.

Notepad++ - Somewhere between torturing myself in vim and luxuriating in OneNote is Notepad++. Everyone has a favorite text editor; this one is mine. Too many features to name, and it's free.

Browsers - I install Chrome, Firefox and of course IE. I know it's in vogue to rant on IE, but I tend to think for myself a great deal, and I've had few (none) problems with it. The others I have for the haterz that make sites that won't run in IE.

Visio - I've used a lot of design packages, but none have the extreme meta-data edit capabilities of Visio. I don't use this all the time - it can be rather heavy, but what it does it does really well. I also present this way when I'm not using PowerPoint. Yup, I just bring up Visio and diagram away as I'm chatting with clients. Depending on what we're covering, this can be the right tool for that.

Tweetdeck - The AIR one, not that new disaster they came out with. I live on social media, since you, dear readers, are my cube-mates. When I get tired of you all, I close Tweetdeck. When I need help or someone needs help from me, or if I want to see a picture of a cat while I'm coding, I bring it up. It's up most all day and night.

Windows Media Player - I listen to Trance or Classical when I code, and I find music managers overbearing and extra. I just use what comes in the box, and it works great for me.

R - F# and Cloud Numerics now allows me to load in R libraries (yay!) and I use this for statistical work on big data loads.

Microsoft Math - One of the most amazing, free, rich, amazing, awesome, amazing calculators out there. I get the 64-bit version for quick math conversions, plots and formula-checks.

Python - I know, right? Who knew that the scientific community loved Python so much. But they do. I use 2.7; not as much runs with 3+. I also use IronPython in Visual Studio, or I edit in Notepad++

Camstudio recorder - Windows PSR - In much of my training, and all of my teaching at the UW, I need to show a process on a screen. Camstudio records screen and voice, and it's free. If I need to make static training, I use the Windows PSR tool that's built right in. It's ostensibly for problem duplication, but I use it to record for training.

OK - your turn. Post a link to your blog entry below, and tell me how you set your system up.

How I Work– Working From Home

BuckWoody — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:54:24 GMT

I work from home – and I would find it difficult to work any other way. For decades I’ve worked in traditional offices, cubicle-farms, and open-plan work areas. I find them too bright, too loud, too distracting, and in some cases, too depressing to be effective. Working from home offers me a zero-commute, largely stress-free way of working that I really like. I just find it one of the most effective, efficient and enjoyable ways to work.

But there are some caveats.

I’ve read a lot of blogs that talk about how difficult it is to work from home, articles that explain how ineffective home workers are, and how it’s difficult to monitor and manage remote workers. I find those interesting, since I’ve not experienced that. I thought I might take a few moments to explain how I work at home, and the attributes that make this style of working most effective. Every person is different, so perhaps it’s a combination of factors that make working remotely successful for one person and not another.

Personal Work Style

I am a very self-motivated person. I am goal-oriented, which means that when I’m given an assignment, I start a work-back schedule and immediate sort out my time and start working the tasks to get to the goal. And I don’t have to be given a specific goal – if my company gives me the direction they want to go, I’ll make goals that take us both in that direction. That’s a large part of working remotely – you have to be self-motivated.

I also like to focus during certain periods of time. No music, no talking, no e-mail, twitter, or Facebook; no interruptions, just an hour or so of “heads-down” work. I don’t work like that all the time, but when I do, I want that extreme focus available. Working remotely allows me to control the environment enough to do that.

In fact, I don’t like having set tasks to do each day. I can certainly do that kind of work, but I’d much rather work towards a goal, and set up my own tasks.

To work remotely, you’ll need to be self-motivated as well. In many cases, those who work remotely don’t have a daily stand-up meeting or scrum that they are part of. That means no one is watching to see if they are on-task – and for some folks, that allows them not to be as focused as having that pressure of knowing they are being tracked.

You’ll need to be able to stay focused on the work you need to do. It is incredibly easy to be sidetracked when you work remotely. You have to be ruthless about looking forward to the goal, creating a schedule and staying on that schedule. I live and die by my Outlook Tasks. Every e-mail I get is turned into a task if there is anything needed from me. I make those tasks visible to my boss, so he knows at all times what I’m up to without bothering me for status. When I finish the work, I close the task.

You’ll need to be able to be “compartmentalized”. When you’re at work, be at work. When you’re done, shut it off. When you’re working at home, it’s far too easy for those lines to become blurred, and for your home and work life to mix. Some of that is unavoidable, but I minimize it as much as I can. Even my family helps – they know that when I’m in my room that serves as my office with the door closed, I’m not home. I’m at work. Unless it’s an emergency, they treat it as if I’ve left the house.

That doesn’t mean I work 9-5 – far from it. I get up very early, and make coffee, open up the house, and turn on the laptop. I check e-mail (but I don’t answer them yet) social networks, and my RSS feeds (I have several hundred I glance through). When my family wakes up a few minutes later, I stop work, we go for a walk around a pond near our home (about a half-a mile) rain or snow. We come back, I get back to work on the day’s tasks. I stop again, we eat breakfast together, and then my wife is off to work and my daughter is off to school. I’m now ready to start phone calls, client visits, or work on architectures and solutions. When I can I eat lunch, take the dog for another walk, and get back to work. My daughter comes home from school, and I stop and chat with her about her day. She goes off to do her homework, and I get back to work. When my wife gets home in the evenings, I stop work, cook dinner, and then read most nights when I’m not teaching college. On the weekends we go various places around Washington and Oregon, and on Sundays I go to church. I do have to work a weekend here or there, but I don’t work on Sunday – or even open the laptop very often – unless I have to. That’s my schedule, and it suits me not to have to sit in traffic or deal with office politics. I’m most effective this way.

Work

Not every job can be done remotely.

I chose the Role I have at Microsoft carefully, and in the largest part because it allows me to work remotely. My job is to support customers when they are investigating using our technologies to solve a problem. It’s at various parts of the sales cycle, but I’m assigned a territory (the entire Pacific Northwest of the U.S.) to work directly with our clients and whatever team at Microsoft is helping them at the moment. I currently work with Windows Azure, specializing in things like architecting systems, data systems, and security. That means I’m either on a web-conference, at the client’s office, or working architecture designs. That lends itself well to working remotely.

So your work needs to be able to be done remotely. If you’re able to use e-mail and the phone/webcam to communicate, if your work doesn’t require a lot of in-person meetings, and if you’re able to work independently and then submit your part of the work to a larger group using a computer network, then you’re probably able to work remotely. Also, if your work involves visiting clients often you’re not in the office most of the time anyway – so you could probably work remotely then as well.

Environment

Having the location and tools to work remotely is essential to success. First, you need a place where you can work. I have a home office, a dedicated room in the house that I use for work. It has a door, and when I close that I can isolate myself for calls, web broadcasts, collaboration and to focus. For me, a specific, private room or place in the house is very important.

That being said, I very often take my office with me to another location. When the family leaves for the day, I can pick up my laptop (I use a Lenovo X220 with SSD’s and a lot of RAM, with Windows 8 and Microsoft Office) and head outside when the weather is nice. I grab a cup of coffee, head to the porch, and stay heads-down on the work. Sometimes I go to a coffee shop, sometimes I go to the Public Library, a University of Washington location, or just by a lake or stream. When I am remote I take my phone with me.

You’ll need a fast Internet connection – business class if you can get it – if you’re doing web conferences. You want to remain professional, and nothing says “I’m an amateur” faster than a spotty network connection, especially if you use an IP phone. My company doesn’t pay for the connection, I just treat it as my commute-money. It’s worth it. And you’ll need a backup. I do have a MiFi device in case I’m by that pond or mountain or when the Internet goes out – I don’t rely on public Internet when I’m out. And I try to be on my business class Internet when I’m on a call or web conference. If I have to I’ll drive in to a Microsoft office to use a dedicated connection if the one at home is out. I won’t compromise the client’s experience on my convenience.

I have an inexpensive server in the house, where I run Windows 2008 R2 Server. I have several VM’s there that I remote into, and those are my demo machines, development workstations and so on. I back that up to an external drive which I keep at a friend’s house. I also make sure all of my critical work files are kept in Windows Azure storage for a remote backup.

I use my regular laptop for just a few tools:

OneNote – For everything. I use it for typing, a light spreadsheet and math tool, graphics, presenting (yup, that’s what I use), whiteboarding, everything. I use my Windows Live SkyDrive for all my notebooks, and then I open them using the local OneNote tool. That way I have the rich tool interface, backups of all my data, and when needed I can use the web OneNote to do my work on any computer connected to the Internet. I can even share out the NoteBooks (I do this all the time) and work with clients or internal teams real-time. It’s a one-product SharePoint, at least for me.
Outlook – From e-mail to RSS feeds to calendar and tasks, I live and die on Outlook. Once again I use the “fat” client for almost everything local, but connected over the web interface whenever I need to, and of course that’s backed up on corporate.
PowerPoint – don’t be a hater. I love PowerPoint. In fact, every time (every single time) I’ve seen someone whining about how bad PowerPoint is I find out they stink at using PowerPoint. If you take the time to learn it, you can do everything from presentations to simple designs, whiteboarding and even full on training sessions using it. I also store the Presos on my Skydrive, and I can (and have) presented from Office Live Apps.
Visual Studio – I do all my coding, database and data work, and design work in VS. I check all my code into GIT or VSTS, depending on the client.
Lync – One of the best communication tools I’ve used. It’s my IP phone, internal chat, internal groups, webcam presentation, and a really nice collaborative whiteboard tool. I do entire design sessions using only Lync.

You’ll have to decide whether you like a noisy, busy environment, or a quiet, serene one. I like both, depending on what I’m doing. I normally work mostly here at home listing to music, but from time to time I’ll get out where there are more people I can interact with.

Communication

You’ll find that working at home can be very solitary. The whole point of being away from everyone is that you’re away from everyone – but this can be a problem. You need periodic interaction. I have regular staff meetings online with my team, I stay connected and chat often using Lync, and I do visit client and Microsoft offices from time to time.

And I use social media. Twitter I use for general chatter, and I do this throughout the day when I’m waiting for a compile or some other task to finish. Facebook is where I post more family or longer interactions. LinkedIn, which I use a great deal, is for only work-related information, chats, groups and so on. Can these be time-wasters, or not be useful? Of course. That’s where the self-discipline comes in. I put into those networks exactly what I want out of them, and when I’m busy, I shut them off.

I don’t like e-mail. I get tons of it – but I try to use the phone whenever I can. I think that’s especially important for a remote worker. I also make sure my boss knows what I’m up to. I want to make sure come promotion time that he knows I’m effective, efficient, and valuable. That means chatting with him on a weekly basis, and letting him know my successes and challenges. I don’t want our first conversation to be at review time.

And I go to in-person events as often as I can. From PASS to SQL Saturdays, user groups, anything I can make time for. These are not part of my job – I’m not paid to do public speaking, nor is it a requirement of my job – but I’ll volunteer to speak so that I can go to an event.

The key is to develop your lines of peer-to-peer contacts with whatever tools you like so that you’re not an island. I use Lync, internal groups at Microsoft, and LinkedIn to stay up to date with my industry peers. There’s a lot of chaff in all of those, but I put the work in to make them effective for me.

Company

Your company has to buy in to all this.

If they simply allow you (begrudgingly) to work at home, you’re doomed to fail. You’ll be left out of the loop, not invited to meetings, forgotten, and your professional brand will slowly wither and die. You have to get your manager and your company to see the value in your not taking up space in their building. You have to sell it.

Microsoft is very remote-worker friendly. They have an entire set of tools to make us successful. We have training for working remotely, and our managers are trained to have remote workers. Some do that well, others don’t. I don’t work for the managers that aren’t good at managing remote workers.

So it seems that there are a lot of factors that go into making a successful remote worker – it’s not just staying at home in your pajamas, checking e-mails now and again. It’s a combination of how you work, what the work is, how well you can stay connected, and the level your company supports you.

And I love it.

Windows Azure End to End Examples

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:45:59 GMT

I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring.

Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use.

And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use.

CodePlex

CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server.

If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage.

The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want.

Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8

Tailspin

Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well.

The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource.

The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended.

Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx

Azure Stock Trader

Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform.

That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs.

I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure.

The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.

Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

How I work: Standing Desk Update

BuckWoody — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:30:43 GMT

<This is a non-technical post, at least mostly>

Back in January I wrote a post on switching to a stand-up desk arrangement. Since then folks have asked me if I stuck with it, how it worked out, and will I go back to sitting down to work. I thought I would post a few thoughts here on what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.

I’m still at the stand-up desk - but not working it quite the same way.

You can see the setup I created in that link above. I didn’t spend a lot of money, and I didn’t have to do that much re-arranging to make it work. The first day was fine - no problems at all. The second day…not so much. My feet and my back hurt. That continued for the first week after I started….

But then things got better. It wasn’t so bad. In fact, I went to a couple of meetings, and I found sitting down for a long time was uncomfortable. But the standing thing wasn’t perfect, so I added a pad to stand on as I mentioned in the post. That made a world of difference. But it still wasn’t perfect, so….

I added a barstool. I had a wooden one first, but just didn’t use it because it didn’t adjust correctly and it wasn’t very comfortable. So I bought this one:

And that’s been WAY better. Now, every hour or so, I sit down. If I get tired, I sit down. If I can’t move around because I’m trapped on a phone call, I sit down. It’s never for more than a few minutes or so, but I do take those breaks.

With one more exception - some days I’m physically tired, like when I’ve hiked on the weekends or something like that. In that case, I take more breaks. I bought some Ethernet-over-power adaptors to run my network out to the yard, and I sit out on the porch swing and work for a while. I need the connected wire since I use VoIP and need a fast connection.

I’ve also moved my office around a bit, and have a Windows Media PC (that and OneNote are Microsoft’s best-kept secrets) so I can watch Ted Talks, listen to Windows Media Player Internet Radio, watch the University of Washington when they have Computer Science lessons and so on in the background. In fact, I hooked up my computer’s speakers to the pass-through of that Windows Media Center PC, with it’s good speakers. I have the video camera set up for Lync calls, and I use Mouse Without Borders to move the keyboard and screen on the other PC.

So I’m pretty happy with the setup. I’ve now heard three separate reports on the radio about how sitting is bad for you, so I feel vindicated in the choice. And I think I’ll work this way from now on, if I have the choice.

Book Review (Book 8) - The Elements of Persuasion

BuckWoody — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:57:23 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for January 2012 was: The Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman.

Why I chose this Book:

As I mentioned in a previous review, I think good storytelling is an essential part of any career. Communication is basic in not only our professional but personal lives, and everyone I’ve met responds well to stories, from children to executive audiences. Not only that, learning to tell a story helps you formulate concepts about the topic, which is yet another way of learning.

I heard about this book from a couple of folks, and it landed within search of “storytelling” and “business”. Whenever I just search for “Storytelling” I either end up with lists of stories (which is fine) or lists of children’s books on storytelling (which is also fine) but neither of these are quite what I’m looking for.

A quick search on Amazon and I located the book, and then a quick check of my various e-library offerings and I downloaded it to my laptop for reading.

What I learned:

This is a “selling” book, but not like you might think. It’s not a book of a quick sale like at a car-lot or a “quick-sale” environment. It’s more along the lines at the executive level and longer-term sales - those involve stories as well.

Sadly, this is another “business book” - the kind I normally don’t like much. There are typical case-study layouts with lots of examples, but in my mind not enough didactic information to actually help you develop a good story-telling mantra.

Even so, I learned some interesting things about the process these authors use. Some of the case studies are interesting, and I did pull out that a story should work towards a single, defining sentence. This isn’t unique to this book, but it is a reinforcement of what I’ve learned elsewhere. Although nothing to do with storytelling, I did like the reference to Lockheed’s “14 Rules”, which I hadn’t read before. They also break down the storytelling process into five elements, which is actually covered better (in my mind) in a book called “20 Master Plots” , which may actually be the storytelling book I’ve been searching for.

Or perhaps I should just write the one I’m looking for.

At any rate, not sure I would recommend this book to others - perhaps as a check-out, but not a purchase, at least if this is for the same reason I looked it up.

Raw Notes:

As I read, I take notes - it’s called “reading with a pencil”. These are the notes I made to myself, in no particular order and with no context other than the book itself:

Stories are interesting to us all.
Describes five elements in a story, but in fact this is for only one type of story. Other books describes more story types.
Very standard business book, but there are good tips in some of the chapters.
Explained how to connect with the audience, good points Spends a lot of time referring to other books The book of five rings Work towards a single, memorable sentence.
Changes partway through into stories about stories. This is better.
A mix of storytelling and sales, although this was touted for sales, feels much more like selling than storytelling, advertisements.
Interesting story about memory championships, where contestants memorize cards. They use unusual stories.
Look up Lockheed and the 14 rules

Team Foundation Server (TFS) in the Cloud - My Experience So Far

BuckWoody — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:45:13 GMT

I recently joined a software development project that involves not only myself and other internal Microsoft employees, but a partner and a customer as well. We are building a hybrid solution that uses assets on premises as well as Windows Azure for processing. When we put the team together we picked a methodology (Agile) for the project (we use multiple methodologies at Microsoft - whatever the project needs) and then we started talking about Source Control.

We’re all comfortable with various tools for check-in-check-out, branching, and so on. We have all used GIT, SVN, and TFS. Some of us have even used Source Safe in past, but that’s another post. Each company has a full set of Source Control systems in place. But using each other’s systems requires logins, firewalls and the like - so we decided to use the TFS Service Preview to run the entire project from “the cloud”. Here are my experiences with that.

The process was really simple. In fact, we talked about using the cloud TFS in the first SCRUM, and the team was working from the Work Items list that afternoon. The original account login provides a web interface to allow people to join the team. Each of us happened to have a Live.Com address, so we just invited those addresses to join and they got a link, like this:

projectname.tfspreview.com

I’m using Visual Studio, and it’s a requirement for TFS preview to have SP1 installed, and this patch: KB2581206

From there, I opened Visual Studio and navigated from the main menu to Team and then Connect to Team Foundation Server. I’m given this menu:

Selecting port 443 and HTTPS (for security) and then ensuring the lower link has the “tfs” appended as the location, I opened the project.

(This VSTS screenshot is of a project I did in my University of Washington class I teach - I never show client code or names in a blog post)

From there it’s a normal set of operations. Right now the preview doesn’t have some things I’d really like, such as an automated build or some of the testing tools, but you can read this blog entry to learn more about the entire sign-up process, and what the team has planned.

Each day I log in to the project, and I’m given this new sign-in option:

I click the option, and I open the environment, hit My Work Items query, and get to work. All in all, a seamless - although basic - experience. The speed at which we could set up and work on a project was really sweet. It’s remarkable how un-remarkable this is - I just do my work each day, everything is running and backed up in the cloud. I think that’s the point.

Cloud Computing In Action: How I work with Live Mesh, SkyDrive, and Office Live Workspace

BuckWoody — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:27:44 GMT

Recently I had an tweetversation with a couple of friends on some confusion around two of our products: SkyDrive and Live Mesh. Like most of our software, there’s no single way to do things. That can be a strength or it can cause that confusion. They asked if I would blog how I work with these two products, and what advantages there are to this way of working.

Before I start - this is specific to these two Microsoft products. If you’re a fanboi of another product, that’s great. Awesome. Go for it. You don’t have to use these. There’s no law about it or anything. It’s all good. I use the products you see below because I evaluated lots of them, and these work the best for me - not because I work at Microsoft. But do what makes you happy.

Let’s start with what each of these products do. Live Mesh synchronizes files to various locations. You can create a file on one PC, save it, and then when you fire up another PC that file will be copied from the original location. It’s a mirror of the file, and it exists in both places. You can change the file on the second location, and it will be copied back to the other system, stepping right on top of it.

SkyDrive is a storage system. You can store lots of data in there - larger than most of the other free offerings.

Office Live Workspaces allows you to integrate SkyDrive into your local copy of Microsoft Office, so that you can create, save and edit a document and it will be stored in SkyDrive, and not only that, it will keep a local, synced copy so that you can work offline. But it also has a web-based subset of Microsoft Office. You can create, edit and work with Microsoft Office documents with no software installed at all. From Linux, Mac, a cell phone, whatever has a browser. In fact, we’ve released one of my favorite products, OneNote, in iPhone and iPad flavors, which also buffer down the file as if you had a PC and Microsoft Office.

I rely on these each of these products every day. Here’s how I use them.

I use Live Mesh to copy my entire “Data” directory - files, music, everything - from my home “server” to my work and other systems. Since SkyDrive has a limit, I only send certain files to SkyDrive using Mesh. Just the ones I need access to from non Microsoft-OS devices. Of course, this means I have to leave my home server turned on - which I do anyway since it’s my media server, web server, TV, etc. But everything else I sync to about four computers running Windows.

For my OneNote files - quickly becoming the center of my universe - and anything else I want to access from anywhere, all the time, I use SkyDrive and Live Office. Here’s how that works.

If it’s an MP3, Visual Studio Code, a training video or whatever my customer needs, I save it in SkyDrive, mark it public, and send them the link. Done. Any device that can render these can access the file over the web. Since I play in a group on Sunday, I even put my music there (I use MuseScore) and then I can pop the music up on my netbook right at the pulpit and leave the paper at home.

For OneNote or other Microsoft Office documents, I create the document first in Office Live. Once the file is open, and before I even type in it, I click the button marked “Open in OneNote” (or Word, or Excel, or whatever) and from them on I have that file linked in the local system, and a shadow copy for working offline. I can also work with that document from the web using my Linux or Apple OS’s if needed. I recently attended a very Microsoft-hostile environment, so everything from the presentation to the code review for Windows Azure I did from Live Office and my SkyDrive, all from my Linux Laptop.

As I’ve always said - use what works. This arrangement gives me the ultimate flexibility. I have my data from Live Mesh synchronized on multiple systems. More than once I’ve deleted something I needed, or changed something. I simply boot up the other device without being connected to the web, copy the old version off, and then let it connect and sync. I also back up my home server once a week to a set of local drives, so I have offsite and onsite backups. I can work from anywhere I have a browser, or someone that will let me borrow a device. I have all my presentations ready to present from any system, even if mine breaks.

Hopefully this helps - and hopefully it inspires you to write a blog entry on how you use your favorite cloud products. There are always multiple ways to do things, and I love to learn.