If you invest 10,000 hours in deliberate practice — not just doing the job, but doing it mindfully,  then you might just wake up one morning and find yourself an expert.

At least, that is one of the major themes in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, and it makes sense to me.

It doesn’t really matter what you are working; it could be on MySQL clustering, writing mobile applications (or testing them!). It might be your golf swing or your knowledge of University of Michigan football.

Today, I’m going to talk a bit about how to know when you’ve ‘arrived’, and what to do with that knowledge.

Recognizing Your Expertise

The first problem with becoming an expert is that you have few people to turn with your problems!

Let me explain.

There’s an old H.L. Menken quote that goes something like this:  “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

That means that, as an expert, when you come to people with problems, they will come up with simple solutions you have rejected. In some cases, they won’t even be able to recognize the problem as a problem.

And yes, as an expert, you will have problems. Another way to recognize expertise is by this — experts tend to have many small problems, where neophytes have one or two. (Once you break down the couple of big problems in front of you, the small problems are usually questions of tradeoffs, or worse, looking for that big breakthrough.)

It’s probably time for an example.

Pretend for a moment that you are line manager for software development in 1971. Computers are a new technology; personal computers are unheard of. Unless you work for IBM, it is unlikely that you started out as a programmer, or even saw a computer, until you transferred into the data processing department. The dominant thinking about software is the waterfall model, which makes sense to you.

Your company is forward-thinking, at least enough to send a programmer to a conference called IEEE Wescon. He comes back raving about this paper by a guy named Winston Royce. Leaping through the paper, you latch on to figure two:

Simple, straightforward, makes sense, right?

You keep reading and it starts to get more and more complex.

In the end, the author recommends this process:

Be honest. It’s 1970. You’ve never seen a computer before this assignment. What do you really think of this diagram?

You’re probably scared. It looks like a lot of extra work at best, and uncontrolled chaos at worst. It is likely that you go back to figure 2, mimeograph it, and say “we are doing this!”

I suspect that Winston Royce was an expert.

What We Can Learn From This

If you’ve ever tried to explain something to the boss, and seen the eyes glaze over, and the response “but couldn’t you use (thing you know won’t work)”, then you’ll know what I am talking about. The bad news is, even if you have a better idea, it is unlikely that the powers that be will understand what you are getting that, or even understand the problem.

Which explains, at least in part, why, so often, when we propose ideas that just make sense to change the process, the answer that comes back is ‘no.’

The classic answer here is to describe the outcome in terms of business results, and it’s a fine one. The problem is that large organizations will succeed  at least short-term, even if you make no changes. Asking for an investment (time or money) will likely lead to a thought like this in the mind of the boss: “… and now I have to go ask the director for time and money. And if this guy succeeds, he’ll take the credit.”

So my advice is a little different: Do it anyway.

If you are an expert, your boss doesn’t understand the nuances of what you do. Oh, perhaps you have artifacts and things, documents, and templates, you may be audited on following a process — but for the majority of readers on this site, the company trusts you to do something; you own the process.  Just do it, then talk about how you did it when you are successful.

There are alternatives; you can make it clear on the job, from the outset, that you are the expert, that your job is to define the process. You can think of IT outsourcing this way — the outsourcer says “just give me a check this size per month and I will run your servers.” The outsourcer gets to use his own process and the customer focuses on price and outcome. Not a bad deal, really.

I’ve got more to say here. I haven’t described exactly how to implement “just do it.” Nor have I covered the cost of expertise, and when it just might be okay to not pursue excellence — yet we are at the end of a reasonably long blog post.

More to come.

Most of us enjoy drama, that is, as long as it is where it belongs, on television.

In the office, not so much.

So it probably won’t be a surprise to any of us that the culture of downton Abbey, the English Edwardian Period, was almost a perfect fit, set-up by the culture to generate a simmering pot of hidden agendas, plots, conflict and drama.

What you might not have considered is the ingredients of that “culture soup” — and if they might exist in your own workplace.

Today, I’ll talk about three of them, … and how to spot ‘em, starting with an example.

Season three begins with the quick end of a long time partnership. Suddenly Thomas Barrow, valet to Lord Grantham, is trying to get O’Brian, Maid to his wife, Cora, in trouble, so he takes advantage of the culture.

The Set Up

Barrow find Mosley, a sort of slow character, looking for a job for a friend’s daughter. Barrow tells him that Ms. O’Brein is going to leave soon, so perhaps she could ask for the job. so Mosley asks Lady Cora, in front of a large group, if his poor relation might be considered for O’Brien’s job. The room is obviously suprised.

Then the magic happens.

Lady Cora did not know that O’Brien was leaving, but she can’t admit it, because to admit it would mean that the mistress of the house is less informed than the servants.  In order to save face, Lady Cora pretends to know about this plan, giving credibility to the lie.

Next Cora confronts O’Brien.

Well.

Sort of.

She tries, Cora is bound by the rules of the age; she can not ask directly. Instead, Cora has to be indirect, asking “Do you have anything to tell me? Is something going on? Oh I really do wish if something were going on you would tell me.”

Of course, O’Brian has no earthly idea what is going on.

Cora leaves confused and sad that O’Brien won’t “tell her the truth”, when in reality that is exactly what O’Brien did; it’s just that the indirect methods fail when the other person isn’t in on the gag.

Finally, there is scarcity and competition. The reason that O’Brien and Barrow are fighting is because Alfred, O’Briens Nephew, has arrived to Downton to pursue a career, and Thomas is not willing or eager to help Alfred advance quickly.

Saving Face, Indirect speech, scarcity and competition. Put them together, bring to a boil, and have a breeding ground for secrets and scandal, which can lead to unofficial favors, which is really just the flip side of blackmail.

It may make for good television. It’s a nice place to visit as long I have an off button, but I sure wouldn’t want to work there.

And Workplace Culture

Leaders in the workplace build culture every day by their own example. And by leader, I do not mean someone with an impressive title.

By leader, I mean that people actually follow you.

So think about it: When was the last time you said “I don’t know” when discussing something, or were willing to save face, admit a mistake?

When was the last time you were direct when a straight answer could harm you? Or helped out someone who might, just maybe, benefit at your expense?

Writing cultural critiques of Edwardian social norms, that’s easy. Spotting the problems in your office, that’s probably easy too.

Taking steps to change it yourself?  That’ll take a little more work.  (Here’s my first step.)

What else is in the soup — and how can we avoid it?

We’ve been talking to John Hunter, exploring his journey from technical employee in the United States to consultant, writer, speaker, and sometimes programmer in Malaysia, including his minimal annual income ($16K/yr) and how he generates the revenue to pay for it.

Today I close the interview, and add a few words of my own.

Let’s get back to it.

Matt Heusser: Is it a little odd, socially, to be the minority caucasian around?  Do you have VISA Issues?

John: It is not that odd for me. But I might be odd. I don’t have visa issues because Malaysia offers a long term visa I can use. That was a big part of my reason for picking Malaysia (along with lots of other things I wanted – reliable internet, good weather, can get by in English, fairly cheap, in SE Asia so I can travel around the area). My current lifestyle would probably be lonely for some but I am fine with a large amount of time on my own.

Matt Heusser: Do you have any advice for someone from a developed nation, perhaps with a mortgage, family, and day job, who is looking to do something a little different, perhaps off the wall?

John: I think building up multiple sources of income is a great start. As is sensible financial planning in general (avoid debt, save up for retirement, etc.). In my Curious Cat Investing and Economics blog I discuss personal finance issues occasionally. Getting into a strong personal finance position (no debt, well funded emergency fund and retirement, etc.) lets you take the plunge into something off the wall from a position of strength. Now plenty of people don’t do that, but I that is what I would suggest. And it is a good idea if you want to do something crazy in a few years, or if you plan on staying with the same job until you retire.

I am conservative, financially. Dropping my income to $0 and hoping I can find income would bother me, but lots of people do it. One thing to consider, if you want to rely of some income from a rental property is that your net income from a rental likely goes up over time (if you pick well). It can well be that a house you bought fairly recently, in a non-great rental area, especially if you didn’t put a large amount down, won’t be cash flow positive right away. And cash flow positive is the most important factor for thinking about it supplementing your income. My cash flow on the second house is less than 25% that on the first house for multiple reasons (the first house is about perfect as a rental, I bought it really cheap before the real estate bubble even started, plus I have had it a long time now…). So you can’t count on a positive cash flow – you will have to look at it and see if that will be a strength that can help support your off the wall plans.

I very much like the start something on the side strategy. Keep your full time job and look for contract programming work, or write your book, or create a SaaS that allows you to generate income. Plenty of people just take a leap into spending all their time on their dream idea. That has certain advantages but it just isn’t right for me.

If someone wants to move overseas I would suggest doing a great deal of reading online first (blogs of people doing the same thing you are considering is a great place for information). It would also be much better to have traveled a fair amount to at least have a clue about what you are getting yourself into.

Matt Heusser:  …

John: A couple things I want to get done in 2013. First, I want to travel more – I failed to travel nearly enough last year. I will try to do more in 2013.

I should also talk to a few more people I know to see if they have any consulting for me to help with. I don’t like marketing or sales. My strategy is just to avoid that by letting people I know (with consulting firms) use me if they have the need and they get to profit off bringing in the business and I get paid. Consulting and presenting seminars pays so well that there is plenty of money to split. I am perfectly fine leaving lots of the money on the table for someone else to have and letting me avoid stuff I don’t want to deal with.

I like the idea of a very short term consulting (IM style consulting for management or managing software development issues). I think it would be fun. I thought about trying to build the platform with another person but that fell through. I tried providing consulting that way, but it didn’t amount to much and the company closed down.  I would still like to try that idea but I do understand there are significant challenges getting customers to think of this as something they would like to use.

Finally, I want to do more on getting my travel content online – I have years of trips I haven’t put online (I also have updates for many of my web sites that I want to make). I did at least get a site started last year for Curious Cat Travel Destinations.

Matt Heusser:  Thank you for you time today, John

John: Thanks for the opportunity.

So we have a technologist who loves the work with an aversion to marketing. He makes his money three ways – through seminars and consulting, contract work, and a series of websites that draw in readers.

The high dollar-per-hour activity for John is the seminars. Being one of us, he doesn’t like the marketing, so he finds a partner to get him the work and splits the rate — in order to do that, he needs to be sufficiently differentiated from his competition, to offer something different. For John, that’s the W. Edwards Deming method of management applied to technology, but it could also be support or extensions to an open-source system he wrote. David Heinmeier Hanson wrote Rails; Matt Mullenweb started WordPress.

These are all the sort of things that a dedicated, committed person can do at night, to get things started.

Two hours a night, four nights a week, fifty weeks a year is four hundred hours a year.

I’m not exactly sure how John Hunter got to where he is. Certainly the situation of birth, of luck, and the fact that he is single has something to do with it. Yet Andrew Davis, a programer at Moodle, has been travelling abroad with his wife while programming for 530 days as I write this, with no particular end in sight.

The only thing I know for sure about John and Andrew is that, recession or no recession, layoffs, downsizing, new skilling or no, these two gentlemen refuse to be victims.

How are you doing?

Last time we met John Hunter, a digital migrant living in Malaysia.  John is a regular human, with two mortgages in the United States, who took a ‘six month’ vacation to Southeast Asia in 2011 … and never came back.

We ended with John making the claim that he could live on $1,300/month in Malaysia.  That’s $16K/yr, which, given taxes, means a minimum income around $10/hour to make a go of a forty-hour work week.  At $20/hr, that’s a twenty hour work week- anything higher than that means less hours or more in savings.  (Of course, that doesn’t include the cost of packing up your entire life, or the price of plane tickets …)

Still, it got me interested.  Just how does John generate the income to sustain that sort of life style, plus to save up for emergencies or retirement?

I’ll let him answer in his own words.

Matt Heusser: Now let’s talk about the hard stuff.  How did you find remote contract work in Southeast Asia?  Who are your customers?  How many hours do you really work a week?

John: I have several sources of income: rental income, income from my web sites, consulting income.  All I have done to find remote contract work is talk to a few people I know.  I should talk to a few more people I know (I planned to do so, but things worked fine financially and I kept myself busy so I never go around to it – if I had needed the money I would have).  I work a great deal on my web sites but the income from that is fairly low.  For The W. Edward Deming Institute I do some consulting, write their blog and present seminars.  For Hexawise I do some consulting and write for their blog.

My total hours of consulting and seminars a week averages less than 10.  I work on my web sites over 30 hours a week on average.  I make less from my web sites than either consulting or rental income.  At the very beginning the web site earnings alone (Google, Amazon and similar options) more than covered my living expenses.  That has declined significantly (for whatever reason I had a significant surge in income for about a year but it has gone away – from a bit before I left until about mid 2012).

I wrote a book last year, Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability, which doesn’t show any evidence of providing significant income yet, but maybe it will (I do not think it is incredibly likely to do so however).  I just launched it in January and have been working on marketing it.  I probably averaged over 10 hours a week for 6 months on it.  It was what I wanted to do with my time; not something I figured would pay well.

I have no question if I was most interested in raising my income I would need to focus on getting consulting and seminar work.

Matt Heusser:  You decided to keep your homes when you moved to Malaysia and rent them out.  Why did you do that?  How has that turned out — I imagine the taxes, mortgage payment, and paying someone else for upkeep exceeds the rental income, so why do it?

John: Well it started when I kept my first house and rented it out when I bought my second.  Actually it started when I was looking for my first house; part of my thinking was buying something that would be a good rental.  I was actually planning on convincing my mother or brother or someone to take ownership of half of the first house (just to raise some cash and spread the risk – having to replace a roof or whatever) when I moved into a new house.  But I ran the numbers and the return was so great it was crazy to give that up to someone else (even family).

I very much like the idea of multiple sources of income.  And I had plans of going out on my own, in some undefined way, so creating an income stream from real estate was one strategy to support that option.  My second house I was less focused on rental prospects and it shows – I paid significantly more (and it is assessed at more) but rent is about 85% of the other one and has many fewer interested tenants when I try to rent it.  My first house is 2 blocks from a metro, in a very nice and active neighborhood.

The rental income is great.  It provides a consistent stream of income.  Though you do need to understand you can have months where you might have more expenses (due to repairs) than income.  I do pay someone to take care of them for me – I actually started doing that the last few years I was there (for the first property – just to not have to deal with it myself).

Matt Heusser: Describe a typical day.  How much time do you spend working, and what else is there to do?

John: A typical day is:
1) Wake up and go onto the internet, do some reading, maybe write some, maybe do some research… while grabbing a bite to eat
2) Option to go for a swim or play basketball (I’ll do one or the other 3 or 4 times a week)
3) Do a bit of work: maybe a bit of coding, write for one of my blogs, consulting… (basketball takes longer so this is not done if I play basketball)
4) Walk to lunch (a great Indian place about 3 times a week is 5 minutes away, some other places within 10 minutes.  About once a week a longer walk (several more options within 20 minutes).  Or I’ll get delivery, eat what I have on hand or take a taxi somewhere.
5) Work some more – with online breaks or reading books…
6) Dinner, normally I just eat what I have; I eat dinner out once or twice a week
7) Working on stuff for fun

I will have plenty of days where I only really do 2 or 3 hours work and others where I do 10 or more.  I spend a bunch of time doing things that can certainly be classified as working but are certainly not the way to optimize income.  I can spend a great deal of time gathering data and analyzing it for a blog post which couldn’t really be justified if I was trying to maximize income.  I am working on what I feel like.  If I needed more current income I would have to put more effort into where I knew the pay was greater (consulting and seminars) but as I don’t have to, so I do what I feel like.  I would be happy to do more consulting and seminars, doing the work to get more of that work doesn’t really excite me so I let it slide.

The time difference means if I need communicate in real time with the USA I need to do the early in the morning or in the evening.

I just started a new activity: taking a course via coursera.org.  It looks like that might take a significant block of time (more than an hour a day), I just started this week (and am signed up for a second course taught by Dan Ariely).

After a great deal of email correspondence and a phone conversation or two, I can start to see how John is successful. I can’t help but notice that while he needs to work 10 hours a week to make a living, he ends up spending forty on business.  Plus earning that $16K won’t pay for plane tickets, so he doesn’t get a chance to get back to the United States as often as he might like.  Finally, I’m struck with how John has certain advantages over the typical tech worker in a developed economy.

So let’s dig into that, with a final piece of the interview next week, where I ask John his advice on how others can get where he is.  I’ll close with my own thoughts, including how to develop that differentiation yourself.

Stick around; we’ll have cookies.

“Move to low cost-of-living area of the world, set up shop working remote, work ten hours a week while building a huge nest egg.”

Whole books have been published on this model, along with terms like “The Nouveau Rich”, people who get to earn wealth while enjoying the easy life.

And yet …

It seems to never actually happen.

Or, at least, it doesn’t seem to happen much.  Often the people living the “Jimmy Buffett Life” are already millionaires living off interest.  Often the person speaking is selling something (perhaps a dream) more than a reality. We can do better.

Then I met John Hunter and learned about his technology business.

John is not independently wealthy.  He did not have a big IPO, and does not have have a revenue stream.  Nor does he have a best-selling book on, say, how to live cheap.  Instead, he was a practicing programmer and IT program manager who moved from Virginia to Malaysia, on the expectation of taking a year long “sabbatical,” and, if he could find a way to make it work, to stay a bit longer.

And Now

John has been in Malaysia for a bit over a year now, with no sign of returning anytime soon.

I thought he was worth talking to, and sharing here.

Matt Heusser: ’Inverting’ your life, that’s kind of a big deal. How did you decide to up and move?

John: I had been thinking about it for years.  Originally my focus was on moving to cheaper area in the USA (and with warmer weather).  At that time my plan was to make the move into a full time job – with the plan to transition out of that into working for myself in a few years.  Then I started to think of building up some sources of income (management consulting, management seminars, income from my web sites and rental income) and move without a full time job.  I worked primarily on building up web site income for years.

I was mainly focused on just building what I wanted while seeing if also I could have that make some money.  I did put a bit of effort into thinking about making money to guide my effort, but very little.  I also did a bit presenting: about one management seminar a year.

The main factors that got me to move were: figuring out I could make it work financially and deciding it was better to try something that could be great than to just do what was expected.  If it didn’t work out, then I could return to a more traditional ‘job.’  Also I found limits with my strategy of working side projects while fully employed.  I like the side-job approach,  but I had reached a point where I couldn’t move nearly as fast as I wanted on my web sites and I hadn’t made progress on seminars or consulting.

I also don’t think much of the fake barriers we erect.  There were two time where I was in a job where going part time wasn’t an option; both times I managed to convince management to let me go part time in order to get more time for my side projects.

The main reason I decided on going to SE Asia (or somewhere else cheap) was I thought I needed that very low expenses to make it work.  I also wanted SE Asia because I wanted to use some of my free time (at least 7 weeks a year) to travel.  As it turns out I think I was significantly overly conservative.  I could easily have done this by moving to a cheap area in the USA.  I think maybe my expenses would be double in the USA but still that would leave me in good shape.  This is actually very good news for me, as I am convinced I won’t have to go back to a “real job” when I move back.

Matt Heusser: What is life like in Malaysia?   How much does it cost to survive for a year?

John: I am enjoying it.  Great weather, good food, all sorts of great travel opportunities (though I haven’t taken nearly enough advantage of that).  It can be cheap.  My apartment is $800 a month (large unit, 3 bedrooms) overlooking Singapore, and the complex has a very nice pool which I use regularly).  Saving a bit on that wouldn’t be tough especially if you wanted to share an apartment (they don’t have many small units – most have 3 bedrooms though in the last 2 years they have started to build 1 bedroom units – though aimed upmarket with fancy finishing touches so not that much cheaper than older, much larger units).

Health insurance and food are cheap.  I don’t have a car and taxis are cheap (owning a car is not cheap).  Electricity is cheap but has graduated charges (the cost per unit of electricity increases the more you use, so if you go over a level they consider excessive costs rise dramatically – I did that 1 month but most bills have been under $20).  This is actually a cool economic strategy.  Essentially they subsidize electricity for most users by charging those using very large amounts of electricity (who mainly are going to be rich people living in big houses using a lot of air conditioning) very high rates.  Alcohol is not cheap, that isn’t an issue for me but may add hundreds of dollars a month to expenses for some people.

I don’t have fancy habits but I live on $1,300 a month easily without feeling deprived.  All told, surviving on $16,000 for the year is easy – not including my travel.

When I interview contractors, I think they are often cagey about income and expenses. Listing your hourly rate (or what you ‘need’ to survive) ‘sets’ the expectations of some potential customers and can drive away others — it can even alienate your peers. So when John was willing to talk about expenses, real expenses, in Malaysia, I was impressed. At $16,000 a year means not a lot per hour to survive, or else not a lot of hours a week.

Next time, I’m going to talk to John about the other side; where he got the income.

This is my friend, Darin Ninness.  I knew him mostly in the 1990’s, when he was working on Military Cadet Programs (in Michigan) and I was working on them in Maryland.  We both ended up in technology, and we see each other every few years at social events for mutual friends, so I connected with him on Linkedin.

You probably noticed that tempting box at the top, asking if I could recommend Darin for technical skills.  I have no idea if Darin knows anything about SQL Server, but there is that annoying box, asking me to recommend him anyway.

This is a problem.

Another Friend

No, I did not end up recommending Darin for anything, but last week I did receive a recommendation for my web development skills.  It was another friend from my cadet days, Leonard,  who I have not seen since 1997.  At the time we had a conversation about region tabs.  Before that, I remember a breakfast in 1995.  In the time since we probably exchanged a half-dozen emails, all about military science. Yet here he is, endorsing me for my web development expertise.

This is no surprise … but it might just be an opportunity.

How We Got Here

If you’ve been using Linkedin for a few years, it is likely that you completed your profile for the same reason I  did:  The positive reinforcement around having a better profile.

As I used the site, I would invariably get a firm warning that my profile was missing something — a picture, some job history, education, take your pick, combined with a notice that people that had that feature were some percentage more likely to be clicked on or have a job offer.  Eventually I would fill out that part of my profile, just to get the annoying box to go away.

Now that we are all trained to click boxes to make them go away, Linkedin suddenly created a new kind of box — the endorsement.  If I am looking at a friend who is down on his luck and that box appears, I might be tempted check it, especially if it would just make that annoying notice go away.

It would help if we had some way of clarifying our endorsement, with one being “he seemed interested in it at a user’s group” and ten being “I saw the guy personally perform complex tasks over a long period of time.” Still, when you combine that with the mutual admiration society I’ve been writing about (“You recommend me and I’ll recommend you!”), suddenly, the endorsements mean almost nothing.

The good news is that single word: “Almost”.

The Right Place For Endorsements

Say I am looking for hire a subcontractor in my field of software testing, and I end up on Linkedin.  When I am looking to work with someone, yes I can look at their endorsements, but I have no way to tell the quality endorsements from the bad.  So first I am going to look at the people we have in common, and what those people have recommended Joe for.  Then I want to reach out to them personally, and ask how strong the recommend is.

It is an extra ten minutes of work, per search, sometimes more.  It fails when I am working with people outside my network.  Still, if the relationship is “We see each other at Social functions and chat and he seems competent”, I suspect the answer that come back would be honest.  What does the person gain by lying?

That simple work process makes the process personal, realistic, and honest. It will take more time, but that is how a effective search works.  You can also use this when interviewing or considering a hiring offer, to find out what the person interviewing you is really like.

Skipping that step gets you the kind of results in this video (which does have a bit of strong language):

The choice is yours.

As for me, I’ll leave that kind of thing to someone else.

Before I was inspired to write by a sudden, surprise, 1% linkedin email, I was interviewing David Gewirtz, a CBS correspondent, Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of “How to Save Jobs.”

It was the David’s work on economic policy that got me most interested in an interview.  Along the way, I wanted to find out what his own life was like, and how he steers between the freedom of freelancing and the reliability of steady employment.  

Let’s get back to it.

So I just got an email from Linkedin, telling me that my account is in the top 1% most viewed.

I should be happy right?

But I can’t say I am.  Instead, I suspect that something is very wrong.   Allow me to explain.

The Problem

Last week I was on linkedin, looking up a former colleague, and to the right, the little “People who viewed this also viewed …” box showed names of other former coworkers.  You know the types:  The project manager who never had a project come in on time (they rarely came in at all), the architect whose participation in a project was the kiss of death, the executive who didn’t even seem to follow through, but always had q great ‘story’ (right up until he was fired), and so on.

Out of a morbid sense of curiosity I clicked on a few of these, and read the bios, which were certainly putting their best foot forward.

Then there were the recommendations.

Oh my goodness, the recommendations.  Each of these people was “exceptional”, they all had keen, accurate, clear, and deep insights into the problems at hand, could think “outside the box”, they were strategic thinkers and high-level change initiators, coming from all levels of the organization, including from the person that decided to let them go.

Every single one of these folks had a pristine set of “this person walks on water” recommendations.

Just.  Like.  Me.

I truely am pleased and honored that people are either seeking me out or stumbling on to my profile.  Still, I have to wonder, when it gets time to choosing who to work with, if we all look perfect, doesn’t that create a sort of “Lemon Market” where the sellers can’t tell the good products from the bad?

A More Excellent Way

Looking at those recommendations a second time, I noticed something. Without a successful project to point to, the recommendations were limited to a list of virtues, like sharp, decisive, open-door, and so on. In writing, we call this “telling” – the author makes the decision for the reader that the hero is brave, or strong, or noble.

The classic way to express this in writing is not to tell but instead “show” – have the hero fight the dragon when everyone else runs, win the arm-wrestling match with the giant troll, or sacrifice himself to save the defenseless.

My favorite stories show, they don’t tell.

So my first takeaway to avoid the lemon market is to work on myself.  I’m going to review the folks who have recommended me, to see if those recommendations “tell” or “show”, and ask for revisions.

I want to have my recommendations talk about the challenging conditions, the conditions of uncertainty, the hard deadlines and out-of-control scope — and what I did to help the team move toward an outcome we could look back on and be proud of.  And if my friends can’t write that, if they struggle to find examples, I want to find out why, and change my behavior to make things better.

A Final Thought

When I left my last long-term consulting assignment, the staff got together and made me a goodbye card.  I kept it in my desk and re-found it the other day, and just took the effort to scan it in (click for the hi-res version):

Somehow, I suspect the folks I mentioned before, with the perfect set of “walks on water” recommendations, don’t have a card like that in their drawer.  I wonder how I could get that on linkedin?

Executing the Reboot

John Bruce, an active blogger in the early 2000′s, once pointed out that when companies need help, real help, not just empire building, they want grown ups, people that actually get things done.  Making it clear that you are a sound craftsperson may just be the new linkedin differatiator — or at least one of them.

For now, I’ll settle for checking my recommendations, asking people to focus on show, not tell.

More to come.

Last time I mentioned David Gewirtz, the author of “How To Save Jobs: Reinventing Business, Reinvigorating Work, and Reawakening the American Dream.” At the time, I was talking about mergers and acquisitions, and how without creating new companies, M&A madness will inevitably lead to layoffs and unemployment. There’s a whole lot more to David’s book than that, and while we’re at it, it turns out that David is making a living as an independent, running the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, but David is doing real freelance work as a contributor for CNN, instructor at the University of California at Berkeley  check.  Editor at ZDNet, Check.

Interesting Ideas – Check. Making a real go of it – Check.

It’s time we had this guy on for an interview.

Matt Heusser: Tell us about your background, David. Have you always been independent? Did you start with one of those ‘day job’ things?

David Gewirtz: Well, let’s see. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been an “independent”. I worked for International Paper, Creative Computing, Unisoft, Pyramid Technology, Symantec, Living Videotext, and managed a very large project for Apple. I also started a number of companies and have been an employee of first Hyperpress, then Component (which is better known by its ZATZ tradename) for almost 20 years. Further, I’m also a government employee (technically). I teach at UC Berkeley and have even had to take an oath to protect and defend the State of California against all enemies foreign and domestic. Since I live in Florida, I keep a pair of Birkenstocks in the front hall in case of emergencies. Today, bulk of my time is spent working on behalf of CBS Interactive, for its CNET, ZDNet, and TechRepublic operations.

For the record, USSPI is a U.S. government-sanctioned 501(c)3 nonprofit research and policy organization, with a real purpose that it’s been fulfilling with some degree of success. CNN, for example, excerpted the work we were doing on jobs for 10 full months, every week. We have a grant from Google, and work hard to get the word out on some of the most challenging issues of the time, donating time, money, and very hard work. On behalf of USSPI, we’ve conducted training programs for various professional organizations as well as the National Defense University and, most recently, the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Matt Heusser: You’re making a living in the 21st century as a tech journalist. Given the recent melt-down in the print media, and the crowdsourcing in content, that seems like a bit of a ‘shrinking market.’ Do you agree? Why journalism, why tech journalism, and why now?

David Gewirtz: Well, it’s funny. I’ve never considered myself a tech journalist. I’m more of a columnist and a commentator, and, to be honest, only part of my living is made from that work. As I mentioned, for most of the last 20+ years, I’ve started and run technology businesses with a focus on software, publishing, and consulting. Ever since I wrote the White House book back in 2007, I’ve been moving towards more of a full-time career as an advisor, pundit, and teacher, which I find incredibly gratifying.

Matt Heusser: ’How To Save Jobs’ is about a lot more about M&A activities and a dearth of new, small companies. Tell us about the book, your motivation for writing it, and what you hoped to accomplish.

David Gewirtz: Well, it started right about when Lehman went out of business. I’d been doing a tremendous number of media interviews on the White House email book, and so I was in a lot of rolodexes. Suddenly, Lehman crashed, and four or five of the radio hosts I’d previously talked to about White House communications decided to look for any experts to interview about how to transform business in recessionary times. As it turns out, one of the only books on the topic was The Flexible Enterprise, which I wrote back in the 1990s and served as one of the foundations of the agile business movement. So, when they saw my name on that, they called.

I suddenly found myself talking about a book that was 17 and 18 years old, repeatedly. Given the condition of the market, I decided I’d update the Flexible Enterprise for more modern times. But 1994 was very different from 2009. A tremendous amount changed since then, including the Internet and the rise of China and India. So, I started to research the changes, using a variety of computer modeling (I’m formally trained as a computer scientist). After a little while, it became clear an entirely new book was needed, and after talking with my producers at CNN, who were also trying to get a handle on the massive changes in our economy, I decided to write How To Save Jobs. It turns out to have been a huge effort, but it was helped by regular feedback during the first ten or so months from many of CNN’s viewers, so I got a good, wide perspective into the problems.

The difference between How To Save Jobs and any other jobs-related book is that I approached the problem from a computer analysis perspective, not an HR perspective. I modeled simulations to see what would be necessary and how changes impacted our society. The results are what are the foundation of my recommendations in the book.

Matt Heusser: So how can we save jobs?  Can you explain that standing on one foot?

David Gewirtz: I can’t do much of anything standing on one foot! But I can say this: we (meaning the United States) needs to make jobs and employment a priority. Right now, we have a large number of programs that are at cross-purposes to keeping jobs in America or bringing them back in. Our health care system (pre- and post-Affordable Care Act) is not optimized for making American businesses competitive, and we have so much influence on our expenditures from foreign nations, that we are often squandering our national wealth to other nations’ advantage.

More to the immediate point, America as a culture is optimized for large businesses, but large businesses can’t grow enough fast enough to support the number of people who need jobs. Conversely, our tax system and our education system is not optimized for small business training and entrepreneurship, and we need to begin to put the creation of small businesses (and very small businesses) into our policies as a priority. My recommendations make up the entire second section of the book.

My interview with David went beyond the limits of a blog post, so we’ll hear more next time about his books, his life as a freelance journalist – and what’s next for David Gewirtz and the USSPI.

The last time I wrote about this I was taking about Call Centers. American Companies had outsourced phone support to other countries, often India, and the results were so bad due to cultural and communications issues that the USA companies insisted on a call center across the street so the Indian Companies rented office space across the street and hired US Workers.

A month after I wrote that article, Tata consulting opened an office for three hundred technology workers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Re-shoring isn’t coming to IT, it’s here, and the same offshore companies that started round one are taking the lead in round two.

The odd thing is, at least according to the Chicago School of Business, this shouldn’t be happening – at least on first blush.

Let me tell you why.

How did this happen?

If the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago were to come up with a slogan, it would probably involve the idea that efficient markets win.

By efficient markets, I mean markets with lower cost structures.  If you pay 2% per transaction in the stock market, and I pay 1%, over ten years, I’m going to end up with more money, right?  Put another way, if we have to pay a five cent fee on every transaction, and work to lower that amount to four cents, in a way, we made money.

If that were true, then the round-tripping of contracts to India/China/Pakistan and back agan, with its associated communications costs (have you ever tried to set up a conference call to a developing nation?), combined with the sheer overhead of managing a multi-national company, should mean that the best deal would be a local deal.

Simply put: This should not be happening.  It makes no sense.

We did this to ourselves

Thanks to the build/boom/bust cycle of American real estate, office space is available cheap.  Thanks to the layoff/outsource cycle, labor is available cheap too.  Those two efficiencies combine to create just enough cost savings to allow for management overhead and awkwardness.  (Shrinking the distance between doer and client adds efficiency as well.) Yet there is opportunity here.

A local company, with less overhead, could be more efficient. That efficiency could lead to a better contract, with more cost savings for the outsourcer and more profit for the local company.  When I think about local contracts, a few companies come to mind; Menlo Innovations, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, competes for that kind of work. Pillar Technology is a 200-odd person delivery company which had no physical offices for over a decade; the executives and staff all work from home. I once took a call from a Pillar Recruiter, working out of her home in Georgia, to do a software project in West Michigan. In 2012, Pillar opened a software studio near Detroit, but its executives continue to operate with no building, which means no gas bill, no lease, and no maintenance, reception, or jantorial expenses.

One more time: Efficient companies win.

There is an opportunity here for local companies that are efficient.

Where are the small local companies?

David Gewirtz is the author of “How To Save Jobs: Reinventing Business, Reinvigorating Work, and Reawakening the American Dream.”  In that book, he claims that we schooled the entrepreneurship out of our society – that by focusing our culture on getting a good education in order to get a “stable, secure, good” job, we actively turned ourselves away from the idea of creating a business.  When the companies merged and laid off redundant departments (or sent work offshore), those now-laid-off went to the market to look for another “stable, secure, good” job.  Multiply that by a thousand mergers and offshore initiatives, and you have a lot of unemployment and a job market ripe for hiring, but no entrepreneurs to do that hiring.

This idea of entrepreneurship is not entirely gone; companies like Pillar and Menlo are still doing impressive things, and we cover the individual perspective right here on this blog.

What’s next?  I’m not sure.  Mr. Gewirtz has recommendations in his book, both for society (more small business) and for any individual stuck in the “good job”/lay-off trap.  My favorite idea from Gewirtz is to look for other people who have good products, then either partner with them (you take over marketing, logistics, and production, to make the product “real”) or outright purchase the product idea and develop it yourself.

There are many people with ideas; Gewirtz suggests becoming a ‘finisher.’

Lessons

Writing this article has helped me realize two things.

First, that we (myself included) in the US are overly focused on ourselves.  This blog has readers from all over the world; it would interesting to hear from the current IT workers in India, Pakistan, and Vietnam on their perspectives on re-shoring.

Second,  I would like to get Mr. Gewirtz to interview on this blog.

What questions should I ask him?