But I’m not in sales..

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I’m sure you hear it a lot. “I’m not in sales. I do customer service, IT, operations, HR, etc.”  At the end of the day everyone is in sales.  But I didn’t always understand what that meant.  Are we still holding grudges against the used car salesmen of old or is it the telemarketers who disturb our dinners?  I have come to view sales as the ability to speak authentically about something you believe in.

Each and everyone of us exists to solve someone else’s problem.  It might be as simple as giving a status on an order, or resolving a customer complaint to as complicated as designing or developing a complex product or service.  You still have a customer you are serving and you still desire to do the best job you can (or I hope you do).  Every one of these interactions are a “sale.”  You are talking through a problem and identifying tangible steps to take to resolve it with the best time and resources you have available.

I credit my time at Soundpath for this enlightenment.  This was a business, created by lawyers to service law firms.  The founder knew her market and the pain that conferencing and conference call billing caused for these firms.  Prior to establishing the business she reached out to her connections and asked about their pain points.  Her vision was always to create a business that took the inconveniences of implementation, training and billing away from the law firm administrators.  Sometimes this meant that we had to admit we made a mistake and work with the client to resolve the issue, and rebuild that trust.

The first iteration of what ultimately became our customer portal was simple but not particularly pretty.  But it solved an immediate pain.  We continued to work with law firms and their billing vendors to understand their systems and design our products to better serve our clients.  I can say by the end of it, every feature of that application was attributed to a specific pain of our customers. I know this because they told it to me and my team.  There was a time that I could name the IT administrator would raised the inquiry and led us down the path of finding a solution. I have been away from it for several years and can still recall a few.  How many can say your product was built 100% based on customer feedback?

We layered products and services over core data and processes to solve immediate needs.  I could comfortably and with confidence speak about our what our company had to offer. I had established the relationships to take new ideas to our customers and ask for their input. They valued my opinions and asked for best practices.  To me this is sales.

The On-Demand Workforce

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It is true that there is some critical mass at which real problems get solved.  The evolution of causes has proven this.  I find that the constant chatter and conversations about women on boards, women in technology, women in STEM jobs, women in senior positions are all good.  The more we talk about, the more it is seen as a critical issue and the more ideas batted around will result in long term solutions.  While some might argue that some conversations are healthier or more positive than others, even the extreme points of view can drive further conversation and creative thinking around the problem.

One of the more interesting commentary I found has come from Jody Greenstone Miller, Founder of Business Talent group.  She has been promoting her viewpoint that time is the real issue for women.  She promotes moving away from quantity as a deciding factor in “A Team” designation, as well as a critical factor in project workload.  Once you remove minimum time as a requirement for professional or project success, you must think about and plan work accordingly.  This is not to say that professionals would not be available outside the defined times.  It is the requirement of time that is removed.  Ultimately, jobs must be designed around how much someone is willing to work, with a structure so that the job or project can get done in that allotted time while still helping those individuals meet their professional goals.  Ms. Miller has validated her approach in her business model.  She works with top talent to define their constraints and find work that matches their skills and limits.

I’m living this approach right now.  I’m choosing my projects and setting my goals on my terms as a consultant.  I provide my expertise in technology operations, process and project management to a small company that needs those skill sets.  The number of hours I work shift depending on the shift in workload at the company and the lifeload of stuff that happens outside of work.  I make myself more available when my family is at work and school, and less available when they are home.  This does not mean everything ceases.  I will still take calls, and periodically scan and respond to emails, but I’m not sitting in front of my computer actively acting on my task list. I add value to the organization for which I’m consulting.

Wingham Rowan, Founder of Slivers-of-Time, spoke about this new type of job market at a TedSalon Talk in November 2012. His premise is that employers can absolutely use a pool of extremely flexible, talented, skills workers.  While his focus leans toward service oriented businesses, however I think the premise can be expanded to our entire economy.  Business fluctuates and it would be beneficial for organizations to have access to talented, skilled employees to fulfill projects and processes.  The ability to have access to this pool of people on relatively short notice would be incredibly beneficial.  This would allow businesses to stay lean and enhance skills and talents as needed.  This model is being supported by services like Guru and oDesk (I’m sure there are several others, but these are the ones that come to mind).

At the end of the day, does it really matter how or when you complete tasks or accomplish your goals?  It does require that the expectations are clear and goals are aligned.  It’s all about the on-demand workforce to support the on-demand economy.

My Hiring Principles – Intelligence, Quirkiness, Certifications and Situational Testing

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The current state of the job market has resulted in tons of articles on the best way to hire.  I read one this morning that said companies are putting people through incredible numbers of interviews before making any decisions.  I have worked as part of a hiring committee in a small business, conducted interviews and made hiring decisions by myself, for my own teams, and have also been in the unique position to hire my replacement in a larger organization.  Of course, I have also seen my fair share of hiring decisions made by others, all with relative levels of success.

As a general rule, I tend to live my life by surrounding myself with interesting and smart people.  I believe that you can teach smart people almost any skills they need to succeed.  Obviously though there are benefits to having an existing connection to the person and having them have some technical skills, but if the person is smart and has a desire to learn new things, you can train them for success.  This worked well for me a small business services company, one with a technical spin.  I oversaw a team of Indian programmers, along with a handful of people who processed all the customer invoices; answered all the billing inquiries; managed all the software development projects, including timelines, mockups and testing; wrote the RFP responses to our customers; on top of managing all the corporate infrastructure (phone system, computers, networking) and technical interface with our wholesale service provider.  Not one of my team was educated in technology.  My most technical resource had degrees in philosophy but had been involved with computers on the side for many years.  The others were mostly employees who came to the organization through the customer service department as a temp, was retained and showed interest in doing more for the organization.  In all cases, these employees continued their technical educations and remain in more technical roles today.

Another trait I look for is that little spot of quirkiness or uniqueness.  I find this tends to make life, and work more interesting.  It is the source of that unique perspective that introduces innovation into the organization and onto my team.  It is the thing that raises the lingering questions and drives  an individual to want to find a solution.  Colleagues and I would ask candidates situational questions, related and unrelated to work.  These ranged from how do you address the cranky customer who is unfamiliar with technology, doesn’t have someone to help him and can’t make it work; to what would you bring to the office potluck on the first day of the job.  We cared less about the exact answer and more about their thought processes and reactions.

This is the same reason we introduced a basic test for our customer service candidates.  It was a basic test of job related excel, powerpoint, and internet search questions.  We told candidates that it was imperative to be able to ask questions to properly support our high touch clientele.  We said that this was a test to gauge a very rough sense of their skill sets, however that was less important than their ability to ask questions.  Any employee was available to answer their question, but the most important component was that they be able to ask it.    I was always amazed by the number of people who gave up before they even started and those people who did very poorly but never asked a single question.  I’m not sure if they thought we were kidding or were afraid.  But ultimately we figured out that passing this test did a really good job of predicting success at our organization. There was one particular candidate who failed the test, but followed up through the temp agency requesting a second chance, did his homework and ultimately was hired.  This candidate ended up being a great asset to the organization and learned a significant amount along the way.  It was the tenacity of this individual that changed our mind.

The last point I’ll make about hiring relates to certifications.  A certification in itself doesn’t predict anything about how well a person does.  It means they received a certification for attending a class. A class is a structured environment with a set curriculum that most likely will not mimic the reality of the situations at your business.  I would rather see a few years of concrete experience in that same skill or technology over a long list of certificates.  I’m not saying there isn’t value in pursuing knowledge and learning new skills, but show me you can leverage those skills to help me solve my problems.  There are ample methods to showcase the skills you have learned even immediately after you completed a certificate program.  Leverage those technology or skill specific networking groups, find a non-profit who could really appreciate some assistance or create a project of your own that demonstrates your expertise.

In Commiseration of the Marissa Mayer WFH Decision

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As has everyone else, I’ve been fully inundated with news about Marissa Mayer’s decision to cancel all work from home options at Yahoo.  Part of me really wants to be (and to some extent is) annoyed with the decision.  However the other part of me says that work from home introduces some real challenges, and there is a time and place to require people to come into the office.

I have spent the last year working primarily from home in a consulting role for a small data analytics company, that has office in DC and Arkansas and customers across the nation.  This meant that I could work flexibly around my children’s school schedule.  It also meant that I could get online later in the evening to delve further into issues or respond to inquiries.  Prior to this I managed a team across VA, OH, CO and India with customers in Ireland, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Georgia.  I’m comfortable with managing separate time zones, different priorities and cultural differences.  This does not mean it was easy.  The primary business office was located in Georgia and technical operations was based in Colorado.  I had employees in neither of those places.  This made it increasingly difficult to have those casual conversations and accidental run-ins that are necessary when negotiating priorities and solving issues.

I solved this by travel fairly often to both offices. I often required my team participate in calls late in the evening or early in the morning with our Indian programmers, or our Ireland or Asia-Pacific customers.  When I was in town, in either location, I tried to have lunch or dinners with team members, counterparts or customers.  This established those relationships.  However, I still saw challenges without having that presence.  When one of my employees said he was looking to move out of state, I took the opportunity to introduce some new blood onto our team, and into our ops office.  His work from home status was only a minor element in the decision not to keep him on.

A major initiative of mine was to integrate my team better into the organization, and work collaboratively with other teams.  This was hindered by my teams remote status.  They did not have the connections to other employees, had no desire to make those connections and definitely slowed the progress of this goal.  One might argue that this was a result of the specific people not the policy.  However, it did lead me to the decision that new additions to the team needed to be brought into the office, at least in the initial phases to build those relationships with other teams.  It would considerably smooth the progress of our development efforts and increase the serendipity moments.

I appreciate Marissa Mayer’s courage to make unpopular decisions in her quest to turn around Yahoo. I can understand why this would be good for the organization in the foreseeable future.  That said, if all companies took such drastic measures, it would greatly diminish my own personal well-being, as a mother and contributing member of society.

 

Lessons Learned from Planning a Job Fair with a Volunteer Army

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I’ve spent the last five months planning a job fair using primarily a committee of volunteers.  While event planning is done every day by event planners, and marketing folks, this was ultimately a 500 person event spanning 3 hours, plus another 2 for setup.  I have had small roles in larger conference planning for prior companies, but have never had this as primary responsibility.  I learned a lot in the process.

1.  Be organized – The number one lesson to planning a successful event is organization.  This seems obvious, but can be challenging when dealing with volunteers.  Often times, documentation from prior years resides in people’s heads rather than on paper.  Take the time to lay out what you need to accomplish, with goals, rough timelines and fill in the rest as you go along.

2.  Use all of your resources – I had a primary committee who worked on job fair planning, but I was not shy in reaching out to other committees that had a shared interest, or could help us.  This event is a core benefit for sponsors so it made sense to really engage and integrate a sponsorship committee liaison.  We had several conversations with communications about what they will do and how we needed to target our audiences.  Additionally, there were reasons we had to rely on our main office for support.  It was a collaborative effort, but make sure you don’t lose sight of the end goal.  You can’t single-handedly accomplish a successful event on this scale without taking people up on their offers, and asking for the assistance you.

3.  Try new things – I felt my role as leader of the event planning team was to generate new ideas and expand our reach to make this the most successful we could.  This meant being willing to identify new exhibitor prospects from county lists of honored companies, reaching out to small growing organizations who might not previously engaged with the organization, and incorporating more social media marketing.   Each of these ideas were successful in varying degrees, but we wouldn’t have known that without testing the ideas.

4.  Have a backup plan – Whenever new ideas are introduced it is imperative to start thinking in terms of backup plans.  For us this meant being creative about where support service organizations would be positioned within the job fair; inviting wait listed companies to attend the event to network, but encouraging them to check-in to see if any tables opened up (2 did and were immediately filled as a result of this contingency).

5.  Over communicate – It is imperative to make sure you are over-communicating.  There isn’t the luxury of patiently waiting for something to happen.  Lay the information out for everyone involved to see and know and meticulous track your progress along the way.  This allows you to adjust as ideas positively or negatively impact your target outcome.

6.  Shameless promotion – As the leader of the planning committee it is important for you to be seen promoting your event.  Even if your network is small, your committee and those involved need to see you putting the event out there.  This will encourage them to follow in your footsteps. This should be done at all stages and for all audiences of the event.

7.  You can’t please everyone – All you can do is make sure everyone is well informed about what’s happening and you are doing your best to make sure both exhibitors and attendees are as prepared as they can be.  You can not control exhibitors participation – from providing details for job seekers so they can research in advance; presenting their company with engaging displays, table decorations or give aways; or actively engaging job seekers.  You can merely provide the tools for their success, but at the end of the day there is only so much you can control.

I had a really good experience.  I had a great team who helped guide me through the process, and staid on top of their own tasks.  We had 190 recruiters and 300 job seekers, with few hiccups and very positive feedback.

Do we have to “sexify” tech?

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Last night I attended the keynote address for Social Media Week DC “smwdc” where Linda Abraham, founder and CMO of comScore; Steve Case, formerly CEO AOL; and Aneesh Chopra, formerly CTO of America and currently candidate for Lt. Governor in Virginia, all spoke.  While everyone had something interesting to say, there were clearly a few different spins taken.After the event, I met up with a friend and her colleague, a technical project manager and a social media/marketing manager, and we had some really interesting conversations about what we had heard.  This post is about what stuck with me, how that differed from them and the subsequent conversation.

One of the first things that Ms. Abraham mentioned is that startups require scrappiness.  This made a lot of sense to me if you look at being scrappy as willing to use all the resources at your disposal and aggressively pursue your goals.  There also might have been a little personal affinity for the word, given that it has been used to describe me (in the context of martial arts training).  Interestingly the initial impression of my colleagues was that it was the wrong word.  The negative connotation was overpowering the message.  

Ms. Abraham spoke about women using technology differently, and really driving social media use and e-commerce.  Men, however, are primarily running these companies or providing the necessary seed capital.  This has led her to the next logical question of women in tech.  Her biggest insight was that women just don’t throw their hat in the ring the way men do.  They tend to focus on their actual skills rather than their potential.  The discussion after the event leaned toward Ms. Abraham having been a more uninspired speaker than Mr. Case or Mr. Chopra.  It was a common opinion that we as a group (my colleagues and me not the entire audience of DC tech meetup) didn’t often think about women in tech, or being a woman in tech. After explaining my involvement with Women in Technology, the DC non-profit professional group with the goal of advancing women in tech from the classroom to the boardroom, it was easier to talk about it.  There was some chat about how most of the women who talk about the issue are on the dowdy side.  Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg were called out specifically as two fresh faces on the forefront of the conversation about women in technology.  It was noted that Yahoo might be a little dowdy in nature, a company not really seen right now as on the cutting edge.

So the question then became “Do we really need to ‘sexify’ tech?”  This was a little bit counter intuitive and I think concerning for the three of us.  There was some concern that we might be falling back into the “binder full of women” type scenario.  This isn’t the first time this has come up.  The European Union released a video in June 2012 called “Science: It’s a girl thing” that highlights women in short skirts and stilletos surrounding by images of lab equipment, formulas, etc.  This was immediately attacked as an affront to women.  It was also immediately parodied by Dartmouth graduate students in one of their science programs.  Three pacific northwest tech women, known as LadyCoders, created a kickstarter project to teach women how to be more successful in technical organizations and roles.  They identified “unconscious biases that marginalize and undervalue the female perspective” as the true issue.  Critics attacked them stating the women were “antifeminist and bowing to a corrupt system rather than working to blow it up. (Seattle Met 012313)”

The one positive is that everyone is talking about this.  With enough people talking, we can generate some critical support and find a disruptive way to increase the pool of technologist, and therefore increase the pool of women in technology.

What I learned from taking Assessment Tests

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As a general matter, I’ve always been a little hesitant to be boxed into a corner by personality of assessments. My volunteer work with Women in Technology has allowed me access to the Predictive Index and the 360Reach.  I was promoting these to other men and women so decided I should take these myself.  This entry is about my personal experience and what I learned.

1.  Simple and quick:  The Predictive Index is a simple test where you answer two questions: one involves selecting attributes that you would use to describe yourself and one involves selecting attributes that you believe others would use to describe you.  If I recall correctly, you select about 10 attributes each.  There is also a 20 minute explanation exercise you have with an experienced PI interpreter. The 360Reach requires that you do a self-assessment, followed by solicitation of feedback from employees, clients, customers, mentors, family, etc.  There is a similar premise that you are selecting attributes that best describe yourself (or attributes are selected for you from those you have included).  It is a little more difficult in that you are only allowed to choose x number of attributes, as few as 3 and as many as 10 for each of the different questions.  There are also a couple of creative “projective” questions in the 360Reach that you are required to have your recipients respond to.  For me, these included “If you were a household appliance, what type of appliance would you be?” and “If you were a breakfast cereal, what cereal would you be?”

2.  Accurate: For fairly simple methodologies from an end-user perspective, it is incredibly accurate compared to how I live life.  For example, I chose to leave a good position at a large organization in 2011, in pursuit of a smaller, more agile environment. The PI determined that I’m “strongly venturesome in taking risks and focusing on the future.”  I would argue that this coincides with someone who is willing to leave a position, looking for greener pastures, without the next opportunity lined up.  The 360Reach assessment categorized my number one brand persona as “rock.”  “Rocks are always there for you.  You can always count on them.  Reliability is a core attribute of theirs.”  This matches my circle of friends.  While I don’t consider myself close to lots and lots of people, those I do consider close are ones that I would always be there to support.

3.  Perspective is everything:  This lesson was probably the most interesting to me.  The PI assessment is completed solely by you.  I would think that you could bias the questions so that the align better, or you are more critical of how others perceive you, or even more critical of yourself.  As I understand it from Teri Kinsella, who did my PI interpretation the test ends up balancing out in the end.  Of those people who admitted trying to game the system, their results still more accurately reflected their true personality.

With the 360Reach, the first person to complete it was a family member, who defined me as a leader.  In most cases, those results are going to be more skewed towards your success.  The second person to complete it had a very different perspective of me, who defined me more as a project manager.  This made sense as I tried to compile a good balance of friends, family, mentors, colleagues and employees.  This group of people knows me from different jobs, volunteer opportunities, or even just family or friend situations.  My context to them is different, therefore the it makes sense to see two different POVs.  The importance and impact of differing perspectives was also obvious in one set of feedback from someone who did not identify themselves as my employee that felt “I tend to motivate by intimidation” versus the person who clearly identified themselves as having worked for me that  felt “Dagny showed amazing patience when I had the pleasure of working for her.  It was under her that I was able to quickly develop my skills through a combination of trial by fire and the confidence that came with knowing that I could make mistakes along the way, as long as I didn’t make the same one twice.  She fostered a great working environment that was both challenging and fun.  She has an uncanny ability to hone in on what motivates an employee, and uses that to get the best out them.”  Interestingly, the initial comment was removed prior to the end of the assessment period and not included in the final report.  While that might have been a heat of the moment response, it’s something to be conscious about.  Each person has their unique perspective and motivations.

If you are interested in learning more about Predictive Index assessment, you can visit this PI definition or visit the PI Worldwide website.  To learn more about the 360 Reach, the Reach site is best.

Women hold more college degrees, but still elusive in tech

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I continue to ponder the issue of women in technology as I plan the WIT job fair.  Several things have happened recently that have added to this mystery.

1.  I searched Meetup.com for female tech groups in DC and found 5 out of several hundred that specifically target women.

2.  I was recently networking with a female computer engineer who said that she was one of a few women in her program and was also one of the few that wanted a life outside of computer science.  She socialized while her fellow classmates did the extra credit or personal programming projects on weekends.

3. I asked my husband, who has 20+ years of software development experience how many female techies he knows and he said that he has known 2 in his entire career.  When I shared the statistic that approximately 1/3 of techies in DC are women, he asked if that included technical project managers, database administrators or technical writers.  These are all questions for which I do not know the answer.

4.  I have been reading the “The End of Men: And the Rise of Women” by Hannah Rosen.  There are definitely some interesting perspectives in this book that have me thinking if these are the reasons there are not more women in tech. (statistics and speculations come from the book.)

  • Women earn more than 60% of all bachelor’s degrees
  • Of women 65 and over, women make up 23% of degrees in science and engineering while those 25 to 39 account for 45.9%

There begins to be speculation about why girls are more successful at graduating from college.  One theory is that boys and girls are wired differently and boys as a general rule prefer systems and movement while learning.  Girls are most successful because of their self-discipline and delayed gratification.  Boys are more likely to spend their time playing video games, rather than doing schoolwork.

Now I feel like all I’m left with is questions.

Does this mean that girls focusing on school and going off in college getting degrees, while boys are playing with video games, and leaning towards computer skills and programming?

Are women who get science and engineering degrees getting them specialties other than computer science and programming?

Are women dissuaded by the perceived culture of techies sustaining on pizza and beer in a dark office cave?

I know that I’m not the first one to raise the question, but these are the questions that come to mind as I focus on my most immediate projects.

Scrum and the Art of the Obstacle Course

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What do you need to get through a complicated, every changing software development project and a Tough Mudder obstacle course?  A great team is a good starting point.

This concept isn’t new.  Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle talk about it in “Agile Software Development with Scrum.”  They liken building software to running an obstacle course.  “Agility, flexibility and adaptability are required to succeed (p 99).”  They argue that following a set plan won’t get you to the finish line.  It is the art of balancing everyone’s skillsets, collaborating at each step, and openly communicating that allows for software development success.  Schwaber and Beedle further push the point by emphasizing that the team needs to self-organize and lead the efforts.  A manager, project owner, product owner, or other stakeholders can only assist the natural order of the team.

This resonated pretty well against everything that I heard about the Tough Mudder, and similar obstacle course races.  The Tough Mudder started with a 30-something fit men demographic who could probably “brute-force” their way through many of the obstacles.  That demographic has evolved to include 80-somethings and more fun focused teams,  In all cases, it has become less about “brute-force” and more about collaborating on the best solution.  Competitors have challenged Tough Mudder obstacle creators by using obstacles in unanticipated ways.  Like the agile team, a coach is going to be able to provide minimal support during the actual obstacle course.  It is his/her job to prepare the team for the challenge and eliminate hurdles prior to show-time.

Having managed multiple software development projects, this approach seems pretty intuitive.  Each team member knows their strengths, weaknesses and skillsets.  They will also be first to see the challenges.  Therefore, it makes sense for the team to to manage themselves, with a coach to nudge them in the right direction.  This approach requires an incredible amount of trust between team members.  Once this is established there should be a cohesive and collaborative group to overcome the typical challenges in software development.

Where are all the Women in Technology in DC?

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As Co-Chair of the Workforce Development Committee (WFD) of Women in Technology (WIT) for the past 6 months, I have had the pleasure of being introduced to several local companies as part of WIT’s Meet the Company series.  For each of these events, WIT partners with one organization in their facility to showcase, the business, technology and culture.  The hosting organization invites executives to speak to attendees and provides opportunities for attendees to get the know the company, the recruiters and executives.  WFD meets with company representatives before and after the event for planning, setting expectations and lessons learned.  One of the recurring themes of these interactions is women in technology – where are they and how do companies hire them?

According to Women Who Tech, “women account for 32.3% of the IT workforce in Washington DC.” Women in Technology, a non-profit with almost 1000 members and a mission to advance women in technology from the classroom to the boardroom, identifies 22% of members as current holders of technical roles.  I know there are many members who previously held technical roles, but have since moved into more managerial or strategic positions.

So what makes it so hard to deliver women in technology to these companies, at these events?  I don’t think it is the event itself, as the companies are clearly interested in attracting women in IT, and are trying multiple methods, of which the WIT event is only one.  So, what is it about women in tech that makes them so scarce?  Is it that most of these events are in the morning before the workday or in the evening after work, times women are usually with their families?  Is it that women in tech are secure in existing jobs and therefore are not networking as much as they should?