I’m about a month overdue on this, but I have to take a moment and outline the many changes I’ve made in the last month. First, I changed jobs. For the last two years I worked with Jeevan Nomula over at GCA in New Tampa, FL. We were a group of about 10 contractors working for Intercontinental Hotels based out of Atlanta. I served as a Team Lead and Designer for a Java ESB for the company’s reservation and availability apis. It was a great team to work with and Jeevan was a fantastic boss. But as you may know from following my blog, I have really fallen in love with Rails over the last year, and I really wanted to spend some time working in that full time, so I took a new position with Interactive Media Marketing. They are based five minutes from my house and develop Miley Cyrus’s official web site and fan club.

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For years I’ve questioned the stubbornness with which companies cling to the Industrial Age’s workplace environment and management strategies. In an age of new technology, new work skills, and a new desire by employees for an opportunity to go beyond being simple workers, to creative influences with input and ownership of their projects, so many companies and managers continue to treat their employees like expendable resources that can be burned down to ash and simply replaced with a new job posting. As well, work environments are stale, don’t inspire creativity, and fail to treat the workers as responsible adults (which, by the way, inspires them to trust you and perform at a higher level).

Two articles were published this week on these topics. First, from Robert Dempsey of Rails for All and Atlantic Dominion Solutions, with his article The Changing Role of Managers, in which he discusses how his role as Project Manager has evolved through trial and error, and describes his main role as PM with these words:

The main role of the scrum master [project manager] is to remove impediments that hold back the development team from being productive. Impediments might be lack of tools or clients taking a long time to respond. The scrum master also ensures that there is as little outside interference as possible.

He goes on to say that the manager’s role is that of leader, and that trust is a major element in team success. He provides a list of books he read as well on the topic.

In the second article, from Jason at 37signals, titled, Workplace Experiments, he discusses some of the new benefits they are experimenting with to keep their team fresh and happy, and thus in the end, far more productive than the teams that work away their lives (not to mention cutting down on the high hidden cost of employee turnover). 37signals is experimenting with:

• four day work weeks
• helping pay for their employees to learn new things and expand themselves; everything from learning to fly to learning to cook
• credit cards for discretionary spending (books, conferences, software)

Not all experiments may work, nor be affordable forever, but I loudly applaud the effort to shake things up, treat the employees like you really value, respect and trust them, and make an effort to look for new ways to enrich their lives and help them fulfill their passions.

Remember:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
~ Annie Dillard

The Simple Dollar has posted an article titled, “15 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Career”. My favorites from the list are:

Make a list of all of the things you did today/this week/this month to help your organization, and file them away.
I started this several months ago, with a private WordPress blog. I keep a record of my work accomplishments for the week, which I can later use to update my resume. I also keep track of my personal daily accomplishments, which I update at the end of each day. It’s a great way to look back at the day, and be reminded of success, as opposed to looking at the unfinished items still on your task list, which tends to have the reverse effect.

Design some classy business cards
I planned to do this for a long time, and ironically, I just sent the design to the printer last night for my cards.

Send a thank-you note
I’ve done this before after interviews, but it’s an interesting idea for around the office thanks. The article suggests that the handwritten thank-you note implies you put more time and thought into it, than the pre-printed or emailed note.

Now that my business cards are at the printer, I plan to do a note card that matches the style, that I can use as a thank you card.

Work on your writing skills
Keeping a personal journal, as mentioned above, can also help you work on your writing skills. Since I started my personal journal a few months ago, I’ve written over 90 posts. They aren’t necessarily as well thought out as they would be if they were for public consumption, but a few of them have already gone from my personal journal to being posted on one of my blogs.

Send a quick contact email
I like the idea suggested here. It’s difficult to know what to say when contacting someone like this, but the suggestion is to simply update the recipient on what you have been up to since the last contact, and ask what they have been up to.

Note: 37 signals has just launched a new application, called Highrise which is designed to help you manage your contacts.

Clean your work area
I did this at work recently. I spent some time and money to decorate my cube (I’ll post some pictures soon), including some matted pictures, plants, etc. It looks cleaner, and more like I care, and is much more comfortable to work in.

Make yourself more presentable
I like the suggestion to wash your face again in the afternoon, and brush your teeth after lunch, if not only for hygiene, but just as important for that fresh feeling, which might help you get through a long, tiring afternoon.

Also, along with this is to dress nicely too. Even if you don’t have to dress up for work, but prefer tshirts and jeans. Ensure your jeans are good quality, ironed, and your shoes are new looking, etc. You can dress down and still look like you care.

The full article, and the other eight suggestions, can be found at the Simple Dollar.