Yes, it’s true. I’m now part of the problem. After all the bad things I’ve had to say about Twitter, I finally took the plunge and started using my account. You can follow me on mah1. We’ll see how much I use it…

Yesterday was the close to a very sad chapter in technology history with the shareholder vote of Sun Microsystems to be acquired by Oracle. From a shareholder perspective, this is perhaps the best outcome that was possible (the alternative being the Silicon Graphics descent into permanent penny-stock land shrinking each subsequent year.) For Sun customers, it’s probably neutral since most ran Oracle databases anyway and are already Oracle customers. For IBM and SAP, this is likely bad news since Oracle now controls Java and MySQL.

For those of you who do not know, I worked at Sun twice for a span of 9 years in total. In a very real way, I came of age inside the company and gained many of the skills that have become central and vital to my approach to business and track record of results. Sun was a very special place with great people, a winning attitude, can do spirit, and fantastic innovation. But in the end, the market shift from symmetrical multi-processor machines to cheap, commodity machines running Linux was too much for the company to overcome.

Unfortunately, many of the more recent lessons I take from Sun are negative lessons about what not to do in particular situations. I’ve also really taken a close look at the difference between activity and results. Something Sun, at least as recently as 2006, didn’t have a good handle on. And the relative value of vision, innovation, strategy, and execution. Sun never lacked the former three, but had difficulty on the later topic from about the year 2000 onward.

Here are a few of the lessons I truly value that I learned at Sun:

• Act Now – Once you know something is right/wrong, act now, there is no reason good enough to hesitate (though you may be provided with 1,000 good reasons from others.)
• Execution trumps Strategy – Given a choice between a killer strategy and a killer execution capability, take the ability to get things done. You may get the wrong things done from time to time, but at least there is a foundation to work from. Ideally, you have a mix between good strategy and execution, but I don’t see that terribly often.
• All the Wood Behind One Arrowhead – This was a common McNealy-ism, but it’s really true and vital. You can’t have people pulling and different ways and expect a coherent and good outcome. What’s the prize? Define it and get everyone to go after it. In the early days of Sun, the company and it’s people excelled at this practice.
• Be hard on the issue, be easy on the people – It’s all too easy to just be an asshole in the corporate world. It’s not necessary. Yes, we have to get business done, but that’s really the set of issues that we’re working on. The people, generally, are all trying to do the “right” thing. Coach, consult, help, but don’t kill the people. Resolve the issue. There is a difference and it really is the only thing that distinguishes smart people from one another, their ability to build and maintain sustainable productive relationships while handling horrible issues.

There are many more, but these are the lessons that come to mind. In the meantime, let’s have a moment of silence for Sun. It was a good ride, and now it’s over. I hope for a smooth transition into Oracle, that many get a chance to show their worth in the new world vs. simply join the ranks of the unemployed, and that some of the great ideas and technologies gain a second lease on life.

Meanwhile, it’s good to take the time to reflect and say thank you. Sun as a company was very good to me, provided fantastic opportunities for learning and growth, and recognized and rewarded my performance during my tenure there. More to the point, there were some really great people that I had the honor and privilege to work for and with, and I’m very grateful to that community for the way it embraced me and allowing me to participate and contribute. While I’m saddened by the passing of that era, I will always hold the company, community, and people in the highest esteem.

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a long, long time. Recommend a Microsoft product: Bing.com search engine. It’s actually good, the results are reasonable and I love the added information it brings to me when searching rather than having extra clicks to dig for it. Now, is it a Google killer? Hardly. But it is the first viable alternative to Google the industry has seen in some time.

I recommend you give it a whirl (don’t forget to tweak the search options in the top-left corner for optimal results…) Try bing.com.

While we’re at it, I also quite like Wolfram Alpha, not a search engine, more of a science and reference engine – it’s also quite good at what it does (hype from a few weeks ago notwithstanding.)

For the third year in a row, my daughter and I attended the Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend. While we both managed to have a good time, the crowd is now overwhelming, or perhaps the venue is simply way too small. The crowd was so thick at times, I had difficulty getting the two of us through from point A to point B.

As an example, we were 15 minutes early for the lifesize mousetrap and couldn’t get close enough to sneak a peek – highly disappointing to the munchkin who wanted to see the safe drop on the mouse’s head. We also couldn’t see the mock naval battles, the powertool drag races, or robot fighting on account of the crowd of large, relatively rude, people.

However, fun was had with Cyclecide’s bike merry-go-round, Emiko-O’s make your own jewelry, some great alternative instruments made out of old pianos, the Lego jeep, and my daughter loved the mobile muffins. So, we’ll try again next year, but here’s to hoping they get a better, bigger venue where the crowd can be handled a bit more efficiently.

I’ve already declared myself on this subject many moons ago, so don’t view this post as anything other than status quo. Even on the far side of the world, twitter-mania is running rampant. The fact that simple multi-cast of short text messages is causing this hurts my head.

Who cares that Oprah is tweeting, I mean, really? Can’t you watch the Oprah show, read Oprah magazine, visit the website, and sign up for newsletters already? And the addition of Demi and Ashton, yuck!

CNN is running a front page on the Whitehouse jumping on twitter. Egads, it’s out of control!

Well, I’m going to go out on a limb as this meme is crossing over from the geek-o-sphere to common knowledge to say: it’s a fad. There is nothing unique, sustainable, or even interesting about twitter. Those who use it, will in the future be known as Twits. Trust me, it’s MySpace on steroids. The aspect that will survive is the notion of personal broadcasting – narcissism reigns supreme and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the only Tweet that is a good Tweet is Tweety Bird, thanks Warner Brothers and Mel Blanc.

 

Like many geeks, I like theories and laws. In fact, I have my own law: Harding’s Water Principle. Well, I’m advancing another theory that could become a law or principle, the Supermodel Software Theory.

I’ve spent the last 25 years of my life developing software. Some of it really bad, most of it simply average, and I’ve had the pleasure to work on very few extraordinary projects. I’ve been engaged in these projects as an architect, product manager, systems analyst, software developer, QA engineer, technical lead, manager, manager of managers, and executive. So I’ve seen the whole lifecycle, multiple times from multiple different perspectives.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Great software has three attributes; aesthetics, usability, and utility in a specific mixture which we’ll discuss in depth. Aesthetics are what you’d expect, is the software visually appealing and inviting. Usability covers how the human interacts with the software, is it easy to learn? To use? Do I want to use it? And utility covers the spectrum of functionality, does the software do what I need it to do to be useful?

Average software tends to be designed and developed by people who are content to benchmark. Go to any airline’s website, they all look the same, have the same features/functions, and generally behave in the same way. They have utility in common and largely compete in that arena (which is a good thing when you want to book a ticket, check flight status, request an upgrade, etc.) But, do you love to use the software? Do you want to go back? Or do you often dread fighting it to get done what you’ve set out to accomplish? What tends to be wrong is the over focus on the utility, features and functions everyone else has. Consequently there is an under investment/focus on aesthetics and usability and a lack of discipline in the selection of the features that truly matter to the user.

Bad software tends to be hugely unbalanced across aesthetics, usability, and utility. We can all think of great looking software that is useless, highly helpful software that is useless, and utilitarian software that is useless. Often, very popular software fits into these categories, for example, Dbase III (I’m dating myself by using this example) got the mix right, Dbase IV, messed it up royally. Consequently, Foxbase and then MS Access were able to take their lunch money.

Great software is like the rarest of supermodels; those people with incredible looks, a fantastic personality, and high learning agility. Why does this matter you might ask? For humans, if something looks good, it gets the benefit of the doubt (aesthetics.) That’s not enough to sustain interest, but is often enough to open the door. Now, if that supermodel has a great personality (usability) that goes along with their inherent good looks, you’re on to a winner. Why? Because ugly and mean are nearly impossible traits to fix. Finally, if we discover that our supermodel has some useful skills, but even more importantly, is willing and able to acquire new skills, we’re going to be very, very happy and we will attempt to form a long-term relationship with that person.

It’s worth talking about learning agility. Like ugly and mean, stupid is nearly impossible to fix. Ignorance can be addressed. This learning agility – the ability to transform ignorance into knowlege – is an analog to the utility layer. How we do this is to focus on a small subset of things where we can excel. Over time, by doing this consistently, the base of knowledge (or utility of software, or feature breadth if you will) grows ever more complete and compelling. But the important part is to select one area where the software can be truly excellent. In the utility portion of software development, the industry at large has little discipline, we go overboard, trying to get every feature/function under the sun stuffed into the software. While that can be intellectually interesting, it’s not particularly helpful.

The theory is: Like a supermodel, it’s essential to have pretty, nice, basic and focused competence, and learning agility in software because people are predisposed to accept the possibility of improvement when they enjoy the product. The order is vital, because people are less tolerant of highly utilitarian software lacking looks and personality (we may hope we’re better than that, but we’re not. Remember, ugly, mean, and stupid are forever. Ignorance can be cured.)

So, using the theory, the recipe for building great software is pretty straight forward. Design a compelling user interface first which ideally contains the core feature where your software will be truly excellent. Resist the urge to benchmark. Test your concept early and often with your users and adjust as quickly as possible. It’s better to be pretty, with a good personality, and only truly excellent across a narrow area to start. Once in the market, identify the next most vital utility in a narrow band, get that right and release it. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Now, does this guarantee extraordinary software? No, it doesn’t. But if this process is followed, the chance that your software will be great increases dramatically.

So, the next time you or your company plan to undertake a software project, dust off this theory and try it. Remember, the choice is yours. Escape the tyranny of benchmarking, resist the urge to load down the project with hundreds of features, and find a nice, attractive, project with high learning agility to bring home to meet the family. You’ll be glad you did…

Well, it seems that Apple has taken enough share and market leadership that it’s prompted Microsoft and the hardware companies to stand up and make an argument about the Apple “cool tax” in a series of guerilla marketing ads. Congrats Apple, you’re relevant, you’re being attacked.

Before going on, I should declare myself. In 2003, after having a PC shipped to me via UPS to be disinfected for the umpteenth time by family members I said “there has got to be a better way.” Literally, as a family IT support center (me,) I found that I was spending on the order of 20 hours a year per affected computer doing things like optimizing disks, updating virus protection, disinfecting computers when day zero threats weren’t caught, fighting hardware and software incompatibilities, and reinstalling software from the ground up at least on an annual basis. Figure this to be about 300 hours per year.

I’m a techie, I can do these things, my family couldn’t. However, as the base of computers expanded, my ability to keep up with the 20 hours of maintenance per computer per year was severely challenged. So, I decided to try a Mac to see what was different or if there was anything “better” about it. To be clear, I’m a gearhead and had been using various forms of Linux and getting great personal results, but shuddered at the prospect of sending these computers to family members to use as desktops (today, Ubuntu might change that assessment, but I digress.)

I was biased against Macs, my belief, expensive and not very useful. Funny how an OS can change all that. With the new OS, I got everything I was familiar with in Linux, power and stability, along with a user interface and applications that worked well together. The first week was a little rough as I recall unlearning all the bad habits I’d picked up through the years, but within a month I found myself saying “where have you been all my life?” to this little expensive computer.

The result was I took a stand saying “I don’t know anything about Windows, if you want support, get a Mac.” That has resulted in a strong conversion across the family unit so that today, I spend, perhaps, 20 hours in total across the entire Mac community and then mostly with issues that result in a trip to the Genius bar or hardware replacement. That represents a savings of 280 hours per year over PCs – use your own rate, what is that time worth to you? Are Macs perfect, hell no. There are many irritating aspects to them – not the least of which is this “cool lifestyle thing.”

But with the recent hyperbole around the “Mac Tax,” I thought I’d add my voice to the discussion and simply state some facts:

• Macs cost more to acquire – It’s not debatable, they do. You probably spend $500 more to acquire a Mac than an equivalent PC.
• Macs cost less to operate – It’s not debatable, they do. If you like screwing around with hardware and software, knock yourself out. If you want the machine to work with little hassle, buy a Mac.
• If a viable alternative was available, I’d try it – If I could get the usability, integration, and low cost of operation available with a Mac along with the capital acquisition cost of a PC, I’d try it. I’m not married to Apple, it’s simply the best option now.

We all know how this works, you can pay now (Mac) or you can pay later (PC) – but you’re going to pay. If you’re going to pay, then you should simply select the platform that makes the most sense for you. If you’re technically capable and want to screw around with computers all the time, and your time is less valuable, then by all means, buy a PC. If you’re more concerned with the work you can perform with your computer, you’re less technically capable or curious, or your time is extremely valuable, buy a Mac. Cool isn’t the issue, incredible convenience and delightful experience is.

If Microsoft and it’s hardware pals understood this, they’d be investing to fix the core issue instead of picking, an admittedly irritating, but irrelevant aspect in the decision for most rational beings. These dollars are best invested in curing the disease, but then again, that’s hard. Railing against a “cool tax” is easy. You now know their priorities to make your life and experience with their products better.

There you have it. Caveat emptor.