Disqus - Latest Comments for mlloyd

Re: The Great Public Market Reckoning

CJ — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:51:31 -0000

Pay your tuition by calling an old pal you haven't spoken to in years and go have a cup of coffee.

Is this a great time to be alive or what?

Absolutely. People poo-poo the internet all the time, I've learned so much because of this medium - I'd never give it up.

In terms of paying if forward, I'm doing my best to mentor youth who are growing up where I come from. If I can give them just a 1% better chance, it's more than worth my time. I take a lot of the lessons I've learned here with me. It works.

Re: The Great Public Market Reckoning

CJ — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 14:33:44 -0000

I feel like I should pay you tuition for that one. Appreciate the education.

Re: You Can’t Please Everyone

CJ — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:55:54 -0000

Jack Palance once said "Confidence is very sexy". It was in a commercial but still, so very truthful.

Feedback is important but so is the confidence to ignore it when necessary. I just recently told my son that learning the rules is the second most important thing to know about life. The first? How to break them. It's much more important but the lessons can't be learned out of order. The conversation got started around grammar and turned into a life lesson.

How does it relate to confidence? Have you ever seen a humble rule-breaker? I haven't. If you're successful, you've almost certainly broken a rule or two to get there. It takes confidence to do that.

Humility is overrated. One of my favorite rap lines is almost a throw-away: "Brash. I didn't get a thing when I was humble, and why should I be?" When you meet me you'll instantly like me. You'll find me competent, charming, and confident. You will not find me humble and it has not played against me yet.

Re: You Can’t Please Everyone

CJ — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:45:01 -0000

As a poker player, solo-preneur, and a guy from the hood - bluffing is a great tool in the tool belt.

I've stood before teachers and bluffed my ass off based on 20 pages of a book - happened to be the right 20 pages.

Being a good poker player is as much about knowing when to bluff as when not too - probably more the latter than the former.

Coming from the hood, walking into a room full of folks who look nothing like me, don't share my experience, speak differently, and view me as an outsider...and I them...bluffing helped me navigate that world until I learned enough about it to not have to.

And as a solo-prenuer running a pretty successful consulting shop, selling a potential client on what I CAN do is a lot more important than IF I've actually done it before. If you know you can do it by the time the client needs it, then the truth is a lot closer to the bluff than you think.

Anyway, sorry I missed that post, I have a lot of thoughts around the grey area between what you can do and what you have done and I think that's what Fred was trying to imply. Bluffing, in a lot of cases, is doing what you say you can, even if you haven't done it already.

I wouldn't be here without the bluff. Neither would a lot of folks.

Re: Tumblr

CJ — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 13:47:23 -0000

Bigger question is: - where is David Karp going?

And why wouldn't he buy it for $3MM?

Re: Zooming

CJ — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 09:20:26 -0000

In my previous life working IT for a high profile recruiting company, video played a huge part in the culture of the company. This was early 2000s and I'd say the interview mix was 25/50/25 - where it starts on the phone, moves to video, then final qualification was in person.

These were 6 figure and above roles so the money was there to do every interview in person, even when it required flying but the time wasn't. Because video was so important to the business side of the house, it became an often used tool on the operations side as well. Made communicating and meetings much more productive.

It's interesting to see the rest of the world start to catch up on video. After leaving, I was always surprised how many people didn't use it and how less effective meetings are because of it.

Re: Employee Equity: How Much?

CJ — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 18:05:39 -0000

Sounds like the perfect thing to franchise.

Re: When Things Just Start Working Again

CJ — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:20:25 -0000

I'm a natural problem solver. There is almost nothing more satisfying to me than solving problems but I feel the opposite as you on this one. My motto: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That goes for the magically fixed as well. I applaud and quickly dismiss things that start working magically. Better to spend my cycles elsewhere where I can get more value.

Re: Smart Thermostats

CJ — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 21:43:24 -0000

Big fan of Ecobee here too.

Re: A Doctor For Sensitive Issues

CJ — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 09:44:03 -0000

"The idea behind Nurx is that too many people put off going to see the doctor because they are ashamed, it is awkward, or it is inconvenient. And this is particularly true for sensitive issues."

So true, especially with younger folks. Removing the stigma is a long-term game, but removing the human and therefore the embarrassing interaction, as they are doing, is quicker and can have an impact now. I applaud them for this.

Re: The Heretic

CJ — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 10:35:35 -0000

Funny. I had a CTO tell me that I'm great, incredibly skilled, smart, whatever, but my rep was irreparably damaged there. He told me I had options, I could quit and go make more money and have a better career elsewhere or I could stay and do the hard work of rebuilding my rep.

I debated it and chose option 2. I outlasted him, was promoted, twice, and left a promotion on the table when I left.

My point here is that his candor helped turn around a situation where I'd just gotten way too comfortable. A lot of the reasons why my rep was burned were false and perception issues, but I fought to change the perception and in doing so learned SO much more and enabled my current career - owner/operator of a consulting firm.

I've thanked him many times for that conversation and he doesn't understand why it was so impactful to this day. He was right, I could have left and made more money. But in staying I built character that I was missing even though I didn't notice it.

Something in your post reminded me of this - I think it's how great employees can be hiding in plain sight and just sometimes need a good, candid, conversation.

Re: The Heretic

CJ — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 09:51:19 -0000

Just be careful that your heretics aren't your Cassandras. Seeing the future, uttering warnings, and being ignored as the ship breaks against the rocks. I've seen that happen more times than not because bad management is almost universally incapable of acknowledging its own flaws and Cassandras almost universally incapable of shutting up when they see failure or bad decisions on the horizons.

So yeah, definitely get rid of real heretics, but ensure that your heretics aren't hidden Cassandras first.

Re: Pixel Slate RIP

CJ — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 09:20:08 -0000

Only 19? No way - maybe 190? The biggest risk to Google is their own inability to focus on anything longer than a year or two.

Re: Pixel Slate RIP

CJ — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 09:18:22 -0000

Check out a Surface Pro 6. It's either this or an iPad Pro in today's world and honestly, the Surface is just way better for productivity. I keep trying to make my iPad Pro work but it just doesn't for me.

Re: Helium

CJ — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 17:10:52 -0000

I saw the title in my email inbox and thought you were weighing in on the growing Helium shortage.

This isn't too bad either. Seems like a pretty cool device and idea. Puts me in the mind of a real network for those Trackr devices and such. They would benefit a lot from an IoT network they can tap for geolocation.

Re: A Small Change To The Comments

CJ — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:51:40 -0000

The inability to tolerate diversity of viewpoint without 'slander' as defined by @Amar above. The inability to have conversation is precisely the reason we're where we are in this country.

Once we finally realize that conversation is not zero-sum, then maybe we can move forward as a nation. That the goal isn't to 'win' or rather that 'winning' isn't proving someone wrong, but understanding the other person's perspective - even if you don't agree.

I guess that's why empathy works so well. And I guess that's why not everyone can be a hostage negotiator(not everyone has it). You have to be able to understand a person's viewpoint, sympathize with their struggle, all while possibly thinking they are DEAD wrong. But, their objective is immaterial, the result - getting the hostages out safe, is all that matters. You can't do that without empathy. I'm rambling.

I hope my point was made somewhere in there. LOL

Be Well JLM.

Re: A Small Change To The Comments

CJ — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:07:31 -0000

People who don't submit their ideas to the marketplace of ideas are just cowards unable to defend their ideas.

Maybe not cowards - maybe indifferent due to incivility of debate on the internet. I've been on the internet since before there was an internet. I've honed my craft and it's served me well online and off. But not everyone has that experience, and they'd just rather not deal with the often uncivil nature of internet discourse.

That said, I complete agree with this:

Ideas are refined when they clash.

It's like how you realize how much you know when you have to teach someone else - same with an idea. When you have to defend it, you realize how well you understand it and believe it.

Some of my best friendships have been formed with folks I have a fundamental disagreement with on certain hot button topics. Because these folks were willing to discuss, defend, and acknowledge/change if appropriate. And they turned out to be good people to boot. Just ideologically different than myself.

I've also witnessed a community flame out when all of the dissenting opinions were weeded out. It became a boring love-fest with no one challenging group think. And, while the community still exists, the engagement is much, much lower than its height. And its sad, because they're good folks too. Just nothing much to talk about when you agree on everything.

Re: A Small Change To The Comments

CJ — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 09:31:09 -0000

I think it's important to balance usability with accessibility and this seems like a good step in the right direction. I don't always want to scroll through 4 pages of comments related to an issue that I feel was resolved in the initial one or two comments.

Another issue I've had since I've been a visitor is the bigger comment threads consume a LOT of resources on mobile and tend to make the browser/phone sluggish which tends to limit my commenting to the PC or email back and forths in the type of interactions that are now tucked away. I wonder if this is an inadvertent fix for that as well.

Re: Mementos

CJ — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 06:08:53 -0000

I'm glad you were able to return home Donna - sad for your neighbors and friends.

Re: Retail Space Available

CJ — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 15:11:07 -0000

I believe it works that way in most places that aren't Illinois. I'm not a real estate guy or tax guy(though I do know a bit about property taxes, you have to in Cook County or get swindled) so can't argue the technicalities.

What I do know first hand is that there is a ton of empty commercial real estate in the Chicagoland area in desirable locations that have opted to remain empty and when Rauner is willing to sign this bill it means to me that it's gone from obvious to egregious as he's a pretty pro-business republican governor.

Re: Retail Space Available

CJ — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 14:03:59 -0000

It's happening in perpetuity here.

Re: Retail Space Available

CJ — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 13:57:44 -0000

Here you go!

https://www.dnainfo.com/chi...

Re: Retail Space Available

CJ — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 10:21:37 -0000

In Illinois it can be more profitable for retail spaces to remain empty due to a tax write-off that can be claimed. Alternatively, renting the space for less can lower the amount of that write-off if the space goes vacant again so lots of landlords opt to just keep the rents high and the spaces empty which can keep neighborhoods blighted.

Re: Feature Friday: Gmail Predictive Typing

CJ — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 08:11:46 -0000

It helps immensely in business communication where:
a)I have a lot of clients so a lot of email and
b) I'm less concerned with being unique and more concerned with either conveying a decision or using the email as a paper trail for future follow-up.

I love this feature and it's cut down my email communication time noticeably.

Re: Competing To Win

CJ — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 12:11:05 -0000

Yep! And the word has probably already been used to describe them by some. /shrug