72 this year

72 two weeks ago—and glad of it. Why regret getting older? I remember being young, ha! There are lessons to be taken from living so many years. Let me mention a few here:

• The cost of youth is ignorance; you know less than you think you do.
• The cost of wisdom is pain; there comes a point where you know more than you want to.
• Nothing is ever as simple as it first appears to be.
• Certainty is one of the great sins.

I could add a few, but what I might add (for example, things like God exists and cynicism is cowardice) are not so much lessons learned as personal convictions founded in faith. I remember Rev. Robin Armstrong in St. Canices, Finglas very well.

Thinking back on those days brought back a surprise memory of the Monkees, one of the most underrated groups of the sixties and a Youtube search revealed:

It was perhaps one of the best lyrics (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil) 60's pop music produced. When the world (and I) were young, things were simple. The older I got, the more I realised that there were no simple answers to any difficult question, and sometimes no answers at all. Now there are only shades of gray. Nothing is simple, and nothing is certain. If you can't accept this, maybe you're still too young. Give it time. It worked for me.

Ways to Grow

Ideas for 2020 on Ways to Grow. (Thanks Joe!)

A checklist to get me started —you can either do the same thing or a different thing…

More of the same:

1. Persist
2. Get the word out

Doing something different:

1. Change an element of what you do
2. Raise your prices
3. Lower your prices
4. Make it better
5. Tell a different story
6. Serve a different customer
7. Enter a new segment
8. Change the downstream effects of your work
9. Earn trust
10. Make bigger promises
11. Organize
12. Get better clients
13. Do work that matters to someone

My left foot

My left foot is much better this week. It has been causing me to limp severly and stop running since January. Went to a surgeon last week and he recommended an "MRT". 

Had that yesterday.

Now I'm waiting for the report, hopefully o surgery required. Next appointment on Thursday. Running still out of the question. Still I have managed to be able to go dog walking and to write and write code, even.

My brain is learning to cope. At all levels. And the sense of humour we develope with age is helping a lot.

What I am part 2

Back from two weeks holiday in Ireland I realized something this morning, and I don't know why it escaped me for so long, it's one of those things that's just plain obvious, maybe everyone else can see it, but it's about me, so I couldn't.

Here's the thing I realized. No one knows what I do now.

Maybe with one exception, possibly I know what I do. Or perhaps I know what I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to do since 2013 looks more and more hopeless, I guess. Because a big part of what I do involves other people using what I create. There needs to be a lot of them for it to work.

Here's what I think I am.

I am an old software developer, a programmer.

I make software because it pleases me to do that, the way a potter makes pots, or a gardener tends a garden, or a cook prepares meals, or an architect designs buildings. That's it. That's what I do.

It's not my imagination. There's real software out there that I created that companies and people use.

PS: Of course I also blog, but that's part of being a software developer and a human being.

PPS: Don't cry for me Argentina. I have had it pretty good. I share my observations here. This is just one more.

Selling Kunst again

Starting to work on a new Website for Gerhard Messner raises the old question of how much influence the customer should have on the design. There are few illustrators who have a more recognizable look (and a longer productive career) than Milton Glaser.

Here's the thing: When he started out, he wasn't THE Milton Glaser. He was some guy hoping for work. The best design rule, then, is that you can't give the client what he thinks he wants.

You have to give the client work that you want your name on. Work that reflects your vision, your contribution and your hand.That makes it really difficult at first. Almost impossible sometimes. But if I ignore this rule because the pressure is on, it will never get easier.

So, Bootstrap it is!

Sportlerehrung in Trossingen

Es ist ein kleines Jubiläum gewesen: Zum 25. Mal haben die Stadt Trossingen und die Sportvereine ihre erfolgreichsten Sportler ausgezeichnet. Und jeder, der herausgestochen ist mit seiner beeindruckenden Leistung erhielt als Dankeschön und Anerkennung neben der Urkunde noch einen Gutschein für den Eintritt wahlweise in die Troase, ins Auberlehaus oder ins Harmonikamuseum.

„Es ist schön, dass so viele aktiv Sport treiben“, erklärte Bürgermeister Dr. Clemens Meier. "Die Stadt gebe jedes Jahr fast eine Million Euro für den Sport aus, für Vereinszuschüsse und für die Sanierung der Hallen. Trossingen sei „auch eine Sport-Stadt“.

Ob Ringer, Läufer, Fechter, Kegler, Handballer, Reiter, Karateka oder Leichtathlet – sie alle haben wieder Großes geleistet und durften nun den Beifall des großen Publikums in vollen Zügen genießen. Denn sie verhelfen mit ihren großartigen Leistungen der Stadt Trossingen auch zu Aufmerksamkeit über die Kreisgrenzen hinaus und standen deshalb zu Recht im Mittelpunkt.

What's the point?

Occasionally, especially lately since I've retired, some people say something like this: "It's great that you still go to work every day, but I don't see the point."

The point is really simple. I'm a software developer. I decided that's what I wanted to do when I was in my late teens. I never ask myself why I do it. When it clicked for me at that young age, it was like it probably is for a person who plays soccer professionally, or who plays in a rock band.

We don't question the point of them doing what they do, so why would people question what I still do ?

I probably know the answer. They see software development and programming as a job. If you don't have to work at it, why do you still do it?

I never felt that software was a job. For me, strange as it may seem, it was a challenge. I had great stuff to do. And I'm not finished. So that's the point.

I've been doing it for years. To me, it's gratifying to have people use my software and for me to hear what they want and the problems they encounter so I can improve things. That's an awareness of data, and it informs what I do. These are puzzles that I love. To me software is like a performing art, it's never finished, always evolving. I do it even if I'm the only one using the software. But it's much much better if there are others, the more, the better.

"I think of software engineering as one of the few skills where you can create something new and exciting *every* day. There is almost no other creative skill that allows you to do that. And it makes many software builders true artists."
-Werner Vogels, Amazon Web Services.

..Nur versteckt!

In der Regel wenn jemand ein Vortrag hält, versucht er seine Zuhörer zu neuen "Taten" zu motivieren. Ich kenne kaum eine "demotivierende" Redner (obwohl manche Vorgesetzer bewusst oder unbewusst diese Fähigkeit besitzt). Wenn jemand zu uns spricht gehen wir davon aus, dass das Hauptziel darin besteht, uns irgendetwas neues oder interessantes mitzuteilen. Alle Redner, ganz gleich über welches Thema gesprochen wird, möchten ihre Zuhörer motivieren.

Aber genau dieser Versuch jemand durch eine Rede zu motivieren ist etwas suspekt. Der Amerikaner George Carlin fand es auch komisch.

Er sagte einmal: "Wenn Du die Motivation spürst, ein Seminar zu besuchen, warum benutzt Du diese Motivation nicht das zu tun woruber geredet wird anstatt nur herumzusitzen und zuzuhören?

Inspiration von anderen vermittelt hält meistens nicht länge wenn man wieder allein ist.  

Niemand kann uns echte Motivation vermitteln. Motivation muss in und von jeder uns selber erzeugt werden. Wenn Sie wissen, was Sie motiviert, können Sie dieses Wissen zur Selbststeuerung nutzen.

"Ich bin wieder hier in meinem Revier
war nie wirklich weg hab mich nur versteckt"
-Westernhagen.

Weit weg von Zentrum

Früher gab es überall die Könige. In Frankreich zum Beispiel, Ludwig XIV und Versailles, das Zentrum der Macht. Um erfolgreich zu sein, musste man sich entsprechen anziehen und dorthin gehen. In der Nähe des Königs zu sein, das war damals das Wichtigste.
Wenn Du in Trossingen wohnst, bist Du zu weit weg von Silicon Valley um ein App zu schreiben? Wenn Du in Neuseeland wohnst, bist Du zu weit vom Zentrum der Musikwelt um Nr. 1 der Hitparade zu werden? Kannst Du, 3000 Miles von New York, Welterfolg als Schriftsteller erreichen?
Das Besondere an der neuen Form der Kommunikation ist, dass es nicht mehr nur in eine Richtung läuft. Wenn Du ein App laden kannst, dann kannst Du auch ein App schreiben. Wenn Du ein Blog lesen kannst, dann kannst Du auch ein Blog veröffentlichen. EBooks kannst Du lesen und selber erstellen. Das Zentrum ist nicht mehr geografisch fixiert. Du bist es selber, -wenn Du willst.

Sommerloch ...

  

Bei der Suche nach "Richard Manuel" erscheint auf Seite 1 ein -leider zu früh verstorbene- Musiker. Er hat einige Jahre zusammen mit Bob Dylan gespielt.



Dank Google+ erschein ich jetzt zu meiner Überraschung auf der 2. Seite, an der Wiki Eintrag muss ich noch arbeiten.

Stephen erscheint gleich auf Seite 1

-hat aber auch noch kein Wiki Eintrag! 


Wie sieht es mit Euch aus?