Tag: business

Anybody who has ever looked at job requirements for technical staff has probably noticed the huge number of skills required. This may include programming languages, hardware platforms, frameworks, protocols, or countless other technical specifications. However, what you will see far less often is interpersonal skills or attitude. In reality, these soft skills are typically far more valuable.

This week, I overheard an aspiring programmer discuss how he found it “mentally draining pretending to care about business needs our values”. I immediately jumped in to try to correct his errant thinking. As the discussion continued, he made it abundantly clear that he only cared about money. In fact, the only reason he was going to school for technology was to make money.

While many people chose their profession based on financial factors, money should never be the primary motivation. Why? Because study after study has found that money is a poor motivator of behavior. Instead, people motivated by the intrinsic characteristics of a job are far more successful. For example, as a programmer, I’m motivated by helping business transform their operations through technology and by the challenge of the problem. While a large number of the applications are, in themself, boring; solving complex problems and helping businesses grow is always exciting.

For the individual trying to find a job, learn to be motivated by the job instead of the money. Not only will it help you perform better, it will help you develop a more positive attitude.

In the end, most business owners would rather have a less technically competent individual with a positive attitude than a more skilled individual with a poor attitude. For the business, they can train the desired skills, but fixing a poor attitude is far more difficult.

As the economy begins to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, people are starting to go back to work. Unfortunately, it seems some sources are suggesting that companies have engaged in sexist behaviors by only bringing men back to work. Or have they? I asked both my wife and my daughter what they thought the reason for this apparent sexism may be and they both came to the same conclusion – women were likely staying at home to take care of their children. None of the articles I read came to this conclusion.

Shouldn’t we stomp out sexism whenever we find it? Absolutely. As my daughter enters the workforce with a STEM degree, I want her to have the same opportunities as men. As a business owner, I have a simple rule for the people I work with – they must be the most qualified people I can find. Note my lack of concern for race, gender, religious creed, etc.

Unfortunately, I see a bigger problem with the assumption that everyone is bigoted: it destroys the motivation of those who are the target of those prejudices. For instance, as women see articles about sexism in the workplace, they increasingly believe that everyone is out to get them. Likewise, the constant insistence of racism creates an environment where minorities believe they’re unable to get the job. This causes those individuals to put in less effort or even give up. After all, if the system is rigged against a person, why would they bother to try?

These notions of sexism and racism end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. People give up, we see a less diverse workforce, and then point out the racial/gender makeup of the workforce to prove our conclusion.

What Do I Tell My Daughter?

When I talk to my daughter about sexism, I tell her that she is in control of her own destiny and can accomplish anything she wants to do. I tell her to ignore the reports of widespread bias and instead work hard to achieve her goals. I tell her that when she falls for the narrative that women are at a disadvantage in the workplace, she becomes the victim and is unable to achieve her goals.

Conclusion

While I have witnessed sexism in the workplace, I reject the notion that women are systematically oppressed. I believe that women are just as capable as men, and that when they begin to see themself as the victim they kill their own upward mobility through the paralysis of fear. Most importantly, I reject the politics of division and believe we all end up better when we bring the best people together – regardless of race, gender, or any other meaningless classifier.

In the early days of marketing, companies relied on print, and broadcast media. Newspapers, magazines, television, and radio provided advertising solutions for everyone. Then came the internet. During the last decade, we’ve seen marketing rapidly move to things like Google AdWords as well as social media. Today, people make heavy use of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to push their brand. Through both paid advertising as well as providing content, social media is now a major player in the marketing realm.

Unfortunately, however, this seems to be changing faster than many would like to admin. Facebook’s user base is dwindling, and Twitter is typically only used by people looking for information within a niche market – such as music or tech. Worse yet, LinkedIn – once a place for professional networks – is becoming the venue of choice for advertising. Initially, I embraced the use of LinkedIn to advertise my services to local businesses. Unfortunately, over the last year, I have been increasingly bombarded with connection requests from people who simply want to sell me products. Now, I am increasingly reluctant to connect with people I don’t know. I look for where the individual is located, and if it’s outside the US, I reject the connection. I’ve removed individuals who acted as spammers. None of this is new, of course, I’ve talked about it before (Social Media Etiquette and Sleazy LinkedIn Users).

Now, I am left to wonder where the next phase in advertising will take us. I assume others are having the same experiences, and are wondering the same thing. Mobile advertising seems to be good, but only if you’re selling games. Advertising on digital audio services such as Pandora or Spotify are great – if you’ve got the budget. I have to assume that other’s are having the same experiences I am, and so these methods are becoming less useful. I think we are on the brink of a massive shift in marketing, but I’m not sure what it will be. But whatever it is, I hope it’s less spammy than what people are doing now.

Like many small businesses across America, I use QuickBooks to manage my accounting. While it’s sometimes buggy, overall it’s a great application. So, when I got a message to setup online payments for my customers, I thought it sounded like a win. Customer’s wouldn’t have to deal with writing a check, and I’d get my money quicker. Or would I?

I typically bill customers at the end of the month. So, when October 31’s rolled around, I sent bills to all my customers. It was the first time I enabled electronic payment services, and one of my customer decided to take advantage of that service. In fact, he had paid me within 2 hours of receiving the invoice! I was excited, and eagerly waiting for the money to appear in my bank account. And I would be waiting for an entire week. That’s right. In a world where I can email someone in China within minutes, or call someone in Australia right now, it takes a week for money to electronically transfer to a bank across the city.

This isn’t the fault of QuickBooks. When I went back to their terms, I found out that 5 business days was the expected turnaround time. But for the $10 fee they charged me, I actually waited longer for the check to clear than I would have if the customer mailed me the check to manually deposit in the bank.

How is this even possible today? How is it that banks – where I can withdraw money at an ATM anywhere in the world, won’t let me move money electronically in the same time period?

Well, as it turns out, I actually received an email from QuickBooks today – their new service will offer next-day payments. Thank you, QuickBooks, for bringing payment services into the 21st century!