All Posts By

Mike Spotten

Dec 26
0

Stream of Consciousness

By | design, self-analysis, starting | No Comments

Stream of consciousness writing is a technique I use to open my mind and allow my thoughts spill out on the paper. With fiction writing it’s often used to explore a character or a scene without worrying about grammar or punctuation. It’s about getting into a state of flow with writing and diving into your subconscious mind.

This practice of free writing has been extremely beneficial for me in a few different aspects of my life.

I use stream of consciousness writing for working through a problem and I’vd it is the best way to be able to organize my thoughts quickly. If I’m stuck on how to organize a team or an intricacy in a design I’m working on. I sit at my computer, open up Evernote and write out the problem. Then I start to break down the problem and write as many details around it that I can, then break those down even further. I keep going until I feel I’ve covered the topic fully or have an epiphany. Sometimes it happens after a few minutes and at other times it takes significantly longer.

I’ll then take these thoughts, get rid of the unimportant parts and organize the rest. Sometimes in bullet points, sometimes in a full outline or others just a plan of attack to move on immediately. It depends on the complexity of the problem.

I also use stream of consciousness writing to analyze my own personal thoughts. I wrote about my practice of writing what I’m grateful for every day. For that practice I set a timer for five minutes and start by choosing an event that happened during the day and expounding on why it was a positive part of my life.  Finding a unique event from the day helps make it part journal as well, rather than rehashing all of the standard things I’m grateful for, and by that I mean, my family, my home, my work, and my good fortune. It is more interesting for me to consider the fact that I met someone new that day and put my appreciation towards that event. Or, even more challenging is taking something bad and considering what, if anything, could be the positive part of that experience.

As far as the best way to approach stream of consciousness writing, some people say it’s better to put pen to paper rather than using a computer, but for me I can type a lot faster than I can write in my notebook and part of the process is getting my fingers moving without my brain guiding the words on the page. I’ve also read, be in a nice quiet place without distractions, but I’ve found some of my best episodes are at my local coffee shop listening to music. I say do whatever works for you, as long as you do it.

Dec 25
0

Happy Holidays

By | self-improvement | No Comments

Over the course of the next week I’ll be taking some much needed down time after a hectic year. In no way will that affect my goal of posting every day in December, but I thought it was important on Christmas day to point out the importance of work/life balance as well as taking time off.

I heard this quote earlier this year and it stuck with me:

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.” – Bryan Dyson, President and CEO of Coca Cola, during a commencement speech at Georgia Tech.

Having a fulfilling career and following your passion is important, but you have to take care of all parts of your life. This all starts with taking care of you. “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Make sure to take care of yourself and your health and spirit, they are the cornerstones of being there for your friends and family. In the upcoming year make sure as you plan out your goals in such a way that you are taking care of all aspects of your life.

Check out this article from Mollie Spillman on work/life balance if you want some more.

Happy Holidays to you and the important people in your life.

Dec 24
0

Gratitude

By | self-analysis, self-improvement | No Comments

For a few months now I’ve been writing out what I’m grateful for almost every day. Even when I miss a day I think about it. While I’m driving or running or working on this blog.  I think about what I’m grateful for and it’s made my life better.  The days in which I take the time to write it down it could be a quick 3 minute word sketch or end up as a 20 minute stream of consciousness exercise about the things in my life that I’m thankful for.  Ultimately I’ve noticed that it directs my life in a more positive way. I feel better, more confident and happy. The reason I started was an effort at focusing on the good things in my life, rather than the negativity that is very easy to focus on if you let it.  For me this exercise has been a big change in my life and while it might not be for everyone, I recommend trying it out for a few weeks.  After the 13 day point was when I could notice the positive impact and the longer I do it, the easier it gets. Also, it’s a good exercise to find the good in bad situations.

Dec 23
0

Having a Content Calendar Made This Blog Better

By | blog | No Comments

One thing I learned over the course of the past month is how important a content calendar is, or rather, more loosely, a list of ideas to write about.

At the beginning of the month I was winging it. I knew what I wanted to write. I had a long list of topics I wanted to write about, but they were all at a very high level.

I felt the first pain from this method on day 5 wanting to write about implementing vision, but unable to clearly articulate what I wanted to say so I shifted to writing about habits instead, and I hadn’t fully thought through that as well so it came out as one of the weaker posts to date.

For me laying out the posts I’m going to write aligned with the day has been extremely helpful. Personally it has allowed me to break down posts into smaller chunks which has led to more focused posts. Plus, I look at it every day and this allows my mind to start working through what I want to write for each one as well as schedule any research I feel I need to do prior to writing.

If you’re tackling starting a blog, take a day a week and write out ideas and then break those down into dates for as often as you want to write.  It’s been a huge help to me.

Dec 22
1

Product Lessons from Mark Zukerberg’s Home AI Challenge

By | product, starting, strategy | No Comments

A few days ago Mark Zukerberg posted to his Facebook page about his experience working on building a simple AI to run his home, which he aptly named Jarvis after Tony Stark’s AI from Iron Man. And the same day Fast Company wrote an article on it. You may have heard about it.  

I also discovered that Mark Zukerberg sets a yearly challenge for himself. So, in addition to being CEO of Facebook and having a family he makes it a priority to continue to learn and grow. 

Throughout his update, there were lessons on the right way to build products. He used creative problem solving, iteration and existing software rather than building from scratch to get to his vision as quickly as possible.

From the very onset of the project he faced challenges because there is currently no common API for the home appliances. As home automation AI becomes more prevalent (and it will happen quickly) this is gap that will need to be filled.

He had particular trouble finding a toaster that would allow you to push the bread down without having it turned on. “I ended up finding an old toaster from the 1950s and rigging it up with a connected switch.”

This is an example of taking a problem and turning it on it’s head. There were probably other more complicated solutions, like reengineering a present day toaster, but he took the problem and broke it down to its smallest parts and attacked it from a new angle. This type of creative problem solving is necessary as we navigate building products.

Another hurdle was allowing Jarvis to understand voice commands. As we should when building any new product he took an iterative approach by first communicating with Jarvis via text message and later using that as a springboard to allow for voice commands.

I was particularly interested by his discovery that he often prefers to communicate with Jarvis via text rather than using voice commands. And based on this observation he determined that as we build out AI, we need to recognize that they will also need messaging interfaces in addition to voice.

Building iteratively and real world experimentation and discovery at work.  

In order to create the messaging interface he could have built an app from scratch, but chose instead to build a Messenger bot.  Why? Because it was easier. There are open source APIs to build these bots, which allowed for a strong base to start with. When building towards MVP it’s important to move as quickly as possible and often that can be done through retrofitting your ideas into existing solutions, even if it’s not as sexy as you imagine it to be when you’re dreaming of the final version.  

Beyond his iterative approach, creative problem solving, and building on top of existing work it’s important to acknowledge the very fact that he challenged himself to do this. If he had never put pen to paper and challenged himself at the beginning of the year there’s little chance that he would now have a kick ass home AI, not to mention the knowledge gained, including learnings he wasn’t expecting at the beginning, which is common in taking on big challenges. You just don’t know what you don’t know yet.

As I’ve been saying from my very first post. Start. 

Then, make small iterative progress towards whatever it is you’re looking to do. Set a goal and break it down into bite sized chunks and then break it down some more.  Make it so easy that you’d be hard pressed not to make a little progress every day.  

From beginning to end it took Zuckerberg a little over 100 hours to get to the current version of Jarvis.  Think about what you could do in 100 hours over the course of this coming year.  

What challenge do you want to tackle in 2017? Let me know in the comments below.

Dec 21
1

Amazon Go

By | technology | No Comments

Earlier this month Amazon released a cool video that spread like wildfire centered around it’s new venture called Amazon Go. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it now.

It’s a brick and mortar store. Walk in, pick out your items and walk out. No lines, no cashiers. Just go.

I was captivated watching the video and fireworks went off, “Of course that’s where we’re going!” I admit I’m a little slow, IBM put this thought into the world ten years ago. It makes sense, taking those self checkout lines from the grocery store to the next level.

For the next few days I kept thinking about it, and the fact that it’s opening in the next few months. This new concept and new technology will be live in the world. In fact, it already is. Amazon is currently beta testing the flagship store with their employees. How long will it be before “Just Walk Out” technology is in every city? How long before it takes over full grocery stores, big box stores, department stores?

And beyond that…how does it even work, really?

I found this article which gave an overview. Basically you need an Amazon account, a smartphone and the Amazon Go app, all of which I assumed.  You check in with your phone, which also makes sense. Then when the shoppers are in the store they are tracked via cameras and microphones. This is where it started to blow my mind:

“Combined with embedded sensors, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, the Amazon system is so nuanced that it can distinguish when two people are reaching for the same item based on individual skin tones.”

That’s crazy cool.

It’s a similar technology to that which is being used in self driving cars using cameras and deep learning.

But why has Amazon decided to take another step into the real world when their vision is focused on creating a business centered around giving people the ability to find anything they need to buy online. I believe they’ve made a realization that at this point people aren’t ready to buy everything online and while I think these pop-up stores will be more like convenience stores than grocery stores to start the impetus is the struggle to get people over the hump of having groceries delivered.

In my house we use Subscribe and Save for things we used to go to Costco for. Paper towels, toilet paper, energy bars, this green stuff I drink every morning and other non-perishables. There very may well be a day in which all our groceries are delivered, but we’re not at a point now where Amazon can replace running to the corner store for a gallon of milk, a quick bite, or as an excuse to get out of the office for a few minutes. Amazon Go is beginning to tackle this. This is just the start, but you can be sure they techology will begin to permeate through our society in the coming years.

Of course with this new technology there is concern that the technology will eliminate jobs of the many, and it will. There is opportunity for it support other jobs, such as the prepackaged food that they will be supplying, but for the standard cashier they’re now in as much danger as truck drivers are of the self-driving relationship taking their livelihood away.

The world is changing rapidly and this is only one of the major shifts we’ll see in the coming years. It’s an exciting time but one that must be considered and talked about. This statement from Stephen Hawking is a good place to start. It’s about a five minute read, take the time and check it out. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Dec 20
0

What Makes a Good Culture

By | team | No Comments

At a recent job interview I was asked a question that I’d never been asked before so I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts before answering and in the moment I didn’t address it as completely as I would have liked.

“You’ve said that company culture is important to you, what are the 3-4 most important things that create a good culture?”

I’ve been blessed through the years at having good teams of people to work with and specifically while at Millennial Media, two diverse teams that were both stellar and some of my fondest working experiences.

The best barometer for a good company culture is a good vibe. Your home has a certain vibe. Could be

At a recent job interview I was asked a question that I’d never been asked before so I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts before answering and in the moment I didn’t address it as completely as I would have liked.

“You’ve said that company culture is important to you, what are the 3-4 most important things that create a good culture?”

I’ve been blessed through the years at having good teams of people to work with and specifically while at Millennial Media, two diverse teams that were both stellar and some of my fondest working experiences.

The best barometer for a good company culture is a good vibe. Your home has a certain vibe. It could be warm and inviting. It could be sad and cold. Starbucks has a vibe…and not all of them have the same vibe as hard as they try. And your workplace definitely has a vibe.

Some companies just have good energy without even trying.  The team gels, there’s a varied set of personalities and you’re moving together towards something great. This energy creates your company’s vibe.

The cornerstone of this vibe is the leadership team. What they exude trickles down and infects the rest of the company. I don’t mean those pep rally meetings that happen every month or two to get everyone pumped up. Done right those can be very energizing and motivating, but I mean on a day to day basis, how does leadership work, what do they exude as they move through the office, how solid is their swagger. It all starts here.

Passion adds a layer of depth to this and a clear vision adds another giving employees a true north to follow. The feeling of “we’re all going to win together.”

Beyond the vibe, what makes a good culture?

I like to think that this article, about Google studying what makes “the perfect team” holds some of the keys to that and it’s just a portion from the book Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg. A major factor in the success of teams is the idea of psychological safety.

There’s something powerful about the feeling of safety in being able to express ideas and opinions without judgement or ridicule. I believe that the teams that I worked in had this and I believe that’s why we excelled and were successful. The article also mentioned that team members spoke a similar number of words per meeting and this was something we accomplished by taking turns around the room, though not formally.

This relates to the overall culture, because beyond energy, what makes a place great to work is the ability to be open, share ideas, and feel like you’re having an impact. Having a company wide understanding of what you’re going after it and knowing that the piece of the puzzle that you’re responsible for is being put into place is extremely gratifying.

Another thing that can directly contribute to a culture is what I call a shining light. Someone who takes up the mantle and whom other people gravitate towards. If you have someone like this in your company, cherish them and support them and watch the effect. A buddy of mine is running a team and every few months plans an offsite outing or an after work event, and takes his personal time to do things outside of work with those that would like to. It’s no surprise to me that his team is one of the highest performing teams in the organization.

Finally, culture is something you have to nurture and as your company grows culture is going to shift and change. A few of the companies I’ve been involved with have fought against this instead of leaning into it and trying to understand what the shift was about. The last key is communication. Talk to your people and see what’s going on and get a temperature.  Adjust as needed.

 

Dec 19
0

Halfway Through December

By | self-analysis | No Comments

Halfway through December!

Well, actually we’re almost 2/3rds the way through December. I intended to post this on the 16th, but between sickness and my awesome accomplishment from yesterday it got pushed to today.

It’s important to take time and look back at your progress (or lack there of) as you tackle your goals. In this case I’ve been very open along the way about the steps I’m taking towards evolving this site in bite-sized chunks, mostly at the end of other posts, but today is totally dedicated to looking back and evaluating the progress so far.

Posts:
I have posted every day without fail. Feedback has been positive towards the style of sharing the building of the site and personal stories, so I plan to keep intermixing that with high-level direction.

Posting every day has been a challenge, but one that has been worthwhile even during an unexpectedly busy month. Not every post has been stellar but they are out in the world and allow for evaluation towards the evolution of the overall theme.

Sign-ups:
So far I have 10 sign-ups, which is 10% of the way to my goal of 100 by the end of December. Through the one push I did do last week I got a 16.75% sign up rate, which I was pretty psyched about. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so at the top of the page.

Design:
I thought I’d be further along in this area, but it’s definitely taken a back seat.

I have update the theme to something more flexible and while plain, will be easy to add some flair to. I also played with some CSS to make the text more readable and update the link colors to blue from yellow…why would you use yellow?

I don’t have an About page yet…but I do have a Contact page set up.  On Day 1 the About page was a priority for the first week and here, three weeks later it’s still on the back burner. Sometimes that’s the way it goes.

I did take the time to implement the signup collection through Sumome as well as throw in a favicon because that blank page in the tab kept shouting out like an eyesore to me.

My wife doesn’t like that the dates don’t show up on mobile so I’ll be tackling that at some point in the near future.

—

Outside of these key learnings is that my initial hypothesis of having more content will translate to increased confidence in the blog itself. I was on a call today with a friend who asked about product vision and I pointed him directly to what I wrote on Defining Product Vision as well as Rapid Prototyping. Instant value to the conversation.

Moving towards the end of the month I have some fun posts planned and hope to round this all out during the week of January 1st with a look back on the overall experience and share the full analysis.

Which post has been your favorite so far? Let me know in the comments.

Dec 18
0

My First Chin-Up

By | self-analysis | No Comments

Consistency, it’s a staple of this blog which I harp on over and over again…consistently even. Today that consistency paid off for me in a big personal win. Today I pulled my body from a full hang position to achieve my first ever chin-up.  And I mean…ever.  It’s just something I’ve never been able to do and never cared about doing.

About six weeks ago I agreed to participate in a Savage Race with two of my buddies. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a 10K run with obstacles throughout, 25 to be exact. You can see our race here. I’m excited but feel ill-prepared. I’ve done the Warrior Dash (5k version, less intense obstacles) 3 years in a row now, and it’s a great time. And there’s beer at the end so that’s a bonus!

In an effort to be prepared I had set some goals to help me feel I’d be better prepared.

  1. Run a 10k in 56 minutes.
  2. Do 20 pull-ups
  3. Do 20 chin-ups

And with that I was set.  I’d been setting and hitting 5k goals over the past 6 months, and just after I hit my goal of running a 5k in 28:30, I injured my knee. So I’ve been on the bench with the first goal, but in a way that’s been good to focus on the other two goals.  I did an internet search and found this program and have been following it for a regiment of close grip and wide grip pull-ups, as well as chin-ups and today after pulling myself up to my nose for a week now I was able to do a full chin-up.  And I felt like Captain America. It’s one tiny step toward my goal, but it happened after weeks of consistently following the program I set out for myself.

It’s hard not to be frustrated when week after week it seems as if little progress is actually occurring, but when I’m doing something and I hit that point where I just can’t do any more I hear a little Tony Horton in my ear saying:

“Don’t say ‘I can’t’, say ‘I presently struggle with.” – Tony Horton, P90X

From my stint of doing P90X there are a lot of these little sayings that still stick in my head but this one is the most powerful and can be applied to any task where you’re just starting out.

So, whether it’s an exercise program, starting a blog or hitting your first seven figure year, set your goal, make incremental progress, and celebrate your first chin-up, even if it’s just a big deal to you.

Dec 17
0

From Boxy to Curvy

By | design, technology | No Comments

I saw this video today and knew I wanted to share it.  How Cars Went From Boxy To Curvy

The video is cool, but if you want a more in depth reading on the matter you can see that here.

“It turns out it was largely due to three interrelated factors: European style trends, a government-mandated push for fuel economy, and new technologies that allowed manufacturers to more easily design and create curved shapes.”

It’s important to think of the evolutionary shifts in design and understand why changes are happening, even if it’s just retrospectively.  Being able to identify those trends as they’re happening can allow you to change your patterns in real time and be ahead of the curve.

Look for more on this in future blog posts, do you have any examples in your work you want to share? Add it to the comments below.