My wife started a kickass new job today (more on that later). This weekend we discussed new employees and the energy they bring to a workplace.

• New employees are psyched about the opportunity – they see the glass half-full, brimming with potential. 
• New employees don’t yet know “that’s the way it’s always been done here” – they see processes and limitations with fresh eyes. 
• New employees aren’t aware that “it’s been tried before and failed” so they are able to surface the things you should be doing but struggled to execute.
• New employees introduce themselves to everyone, because, well, they’re new and there’s no social stigma to it at all.

Was hanging out at a friend son’s 1 year birthday party the other day. A friend had his kid in one of those front-mounted Bjorn baby holders. It looked cute but the kid was pretty useless because, well, two month old infants don’t really do much.

But it had such sense of possibility because what if there was, like, a six year old in the harness. Or a midget. Then you’d have totally another set of arms that could do stuff for you. Doc Oc! Like you could be dealing a hand of poker and your six year old could be opening the next beer for you. Or in the kitchen the midget could chop onions while you dice carrots on a second cutting board. Imagine the efficiency!

Unfortunately the official Bjorns are only recommended for up to 25 lbs. So i’m totally going to need to black market this thing. I wonder if someone on Etsy can make me one that can support up to 75 lbs.

Even if you’ve never bought hotel room porn, champagne room lapdances or other prurient transactions, most people are familiar with the billing practices associated with said purchases. “Discreetly billed to your credit card as XYZ Industries” or some other innocuous sounding corporate entity to prevent spouses, bosses and other prying eyes from knowing the truth behind your $300 charge. 

I know alcoholism is not funny, but the absurd visual conjured by this passage stuck with me given that i was a WWF wrestling fan as a kid. From Wikipedia’s entry about wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts:

Also in 1999, at an independent PPV show entitled Heroes of Wrestling, Roberts cut a rambling, incoherent promo^[6] in which he heavily slurred his words. Minutes later, he staggered toward the ring, apparently drunk, for an awkward match with Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. Before the match, Roberts pulled his snake out of the bag, put it between his legs, and simulated masturbation. Because it was obvious that Roberts was unable to participate in a singles match, the match was changed to a tag team match involving Yokozuna and King Kong Bundy. The pay-per-view ended abruptly, cutting to black with the commentators in mid-sentence just as Roberts was motioning that he was about to remove his pants.

Each day i make dozens of small social gestures via technology. Some are explicit — i endorse someone on LinkedIn or confirm a friend on Facebook — but the smaller ones are really where my attention has been these days. The “like” of a friend’s FB post, the RT of someone on Twitter. Each of these is an exchange of social currency where I’m giving some significance to your previous action. 

You’ve got a great designer on your team. Their work is awesome, highly detailed and always right on target. They love to test optimizations to their initial work. You wish you had two more designers just like her.

Well since hiring is hard and cloning is even more difficult, i’ve got a slightly different approach: ask her to provide less fidelity in her designs. To do less testing and optimization. To think about each project for shorter periods of time.

What? An affront to the art of creation!

Not really, rather just banking on intuition of smart people. I rather have the partial intuitive attention of a superstar to bang out some highlevel wireframes than the fully detailed mocks of a lesser talent. And if i’ve found a superstar, i want their productivity to be high – so guide them to focus on the details only in the most important cases, and turbocharge their output by timelimiting other exercises. You don’t want engineers backed up waiting for designs, and some hastily constructed thoughts from a great designer will be remarkably better than what most people can produce, even if given all the time in the world.

I find this approach also works with product managers – a quick direction spec and prioritization from someone who knows their stuff will always beat a more detailed PRD from a more average talent.

So if you ever look longingly at someone on your team and wish you had another person just like them, think about how to increase their output by getting them to do less, not more.

On the right, new smaller plates in the YouTube cafe which will help us all be healthier and eat less.

“The album’s original artwork (a drill bit impaling an anus) was banned, so it was re-released with the now familiar skull impaled with a drill bit.” – From Pantera‘s wikipedia page proving that heavy metal is pretty much Spinal Tap.