elaine posts things

What the Heck is Work-Life Blend, You Ask?

The Muse does a great job selling job listings to companies, but they do an even better job selling a certain lifestyle to the audience reading those job listings. The Muse caters to millennials’ need for “work-life blend.”

I had no clue what work-life blend meant before I started my job at Stack Overflow. I was very familiar with work life balance, given I was working at a blue chip company in the Midwest that respects employees’ family commitments. This was a benefit I appreciated objectively, but as a 22-year-old transplant from the East Coast, all I really cared about was finding purpose in my 9-to-5 job beyond earning a paycheck to fund the weekends.

Many companies are great at offering work-life balance. But many of them fail to notice that a younger generation of workers care much less about balance as they do about work-life blend. 

Think about an office—what comes to mind? Cubicles? Computers? Stuffy chairs? Suits and ties? Why can’t an office be more than a place to sit uncomfortably in front of a computer for eight hours? Lisa Bodell of futurethink talks about how innovation happens when we challenge our assumptions: what if an office were a place where employees feel happy and comfortable? What if it were a place to eat, drink, socialize, read, stay fit, and have fun. Studies have repeatedly shown that a little distraction and freedom can go a long way to boosting productivity. 

Slow Industries

It’s a no brainer that technology is changing our lives at an incredible speed. But this is more truly said of some industries than others.

Consumer electronics is perhaps where we have seen the greatest change in the past decade. Other industries like Advertising, Education and Healthcare are also picking up speed.

On the other end of the spectrum are industries that seem impervious to the changing world around them. I used to be in the business of selling bulk chemicals to companies. One time, we visited a terminal in Houston. Perhaps as a kid I would have marveled at the size of such magnificent tanks, but I was more amazed by how much the terminal still relied on physical pipes and manual labor. 

As an Apple consumer working at a desk in an office building, I am blissfully unaware of the infrastructures that have remained unchanged while exciting new startups are popping up left and right. The airline industry is the backbone of mass transportation in the U.S. (we’re not lucky like the Europeans with their high speed trains). Yet it is perhaps the most backwards of all the “ancient” industries. 

Not sure what the right solution is, but I think there needs to be a major rebalance of resources in startup land to help make much-needed improvements to these titanic businesses that have been painfully slow to adapt.

Airlines and the Fear of Flying

I dread flying. It’s not some weird combination of acrophobia, agoraphobia and claustrophobia. It has nothing to do with that and everything to do with this:

Depending on the airline, there could be a 50% chance (heads or tails?) that the flight you have booked will actually take off at the time it is supposed to take off. Often, you are delayed, and it can be for as long as 24 hours. This throws off your plans and costs a lot in money and emotional trauma. I have seen (normal) adults break down in tears and almost start a schoolyard brawl at 4am in Newark airport. 

All of this mess is the result of bureaucracy, communication failure and general incompetence. I’m convinced every terrible airline and even some of the non-terrible ones need to hire more developers to build better internal systems. This isn’t the only solution, but I think it can go a long way to mitigate the problem.

Here’s an example from my botched trip from Newark to London Heathrow this past June:

Situation: The flight (scheduled to depart at 9pm) was delayed for two hours before they announced that it was not actually a real flight (”SURPRISE!”). In other words, everyone holding a boarding pass with a seat number was screwed in a surreal, Twilight-Zone-meets-Magritte way (Ceci n’est pas un boarding pass). The reason? Because the plane, which arrived at Newark from Canada, was carrying passengers who were supposed to go to London from Chicago two days ago but got derailed in Canada for maintenance purposes (wait, angry Canadians?). Oh and by the way, these poor people were reportedly put up in military barracks while the crew slept in hotels. 

United’s Solution: Our flummoxed airport crew decided to prioritize the angry customers not really from Canada (ah, ok). They told all of us waiting at the gate in Newark to sit tight because there’s an off chance they might be able to fit some of us on this plane with the Canada (not Canadian) folks. After they spent another hour talking to each passenger from Canada and getting most of them back on the plane, they then told all of us to line up and start boarding, and we’ll just see how many of you we can get onto this aircraft without doubling up seats (Can you tell how inefficient this is becoming? It’s almost like they’re solving one of those brainteasers with the nine people who walk into a restaurant trying to sit at six-person table and only some of them can sit on someone’s lap). Ensuing mad rush to line up for a coveted seat. For whatever reason, some of our boarding passes were mysteriously denied by the scanner they used. Then after boarding the plane, some people were shepherded back off the plane because it was full. 

Before we knew it, the airport staff was in a panic, sorting through a pile of boarding passes trying to figure out WHO IS ON THE PLANE AND WHO IS NOT (McKinnon? No he got off. Stevens? Wang?). They absolutely, positively had to do this before they could give the pilot their blessings to be off (bureaucracy!). This took another two hours. Angry people at the gate. Angry non-Canadians on the plane. Blood, sweat and tears everywhere, and that included the crew and the gate staff who were taking a ton of abuse for this calamity.

Technology cannot save us from our ineptitude, but it can make ineptitude more bearable by:

• Ensuring that we do not book seats on flights that are already fully booked (and carrying angry passengers from Canada).
  

• Providing reliable information on the status of a flight so that DELAYED means DELAYED (and not that there are a bunch of angry passengers from Canada are already on the flight).
  

• Helping people who are bad at keeping track of who is on and off an aircraft to do their jobs better.
  

No one should be OK with spending a good chunk of their lives sitting in an airport. I don’t care how many trendy new restaurants and shops they build, it’s not a cool place to spend hours of your life. Let’s do something about it. 

Swipe Right

As much good as dating apps have done for legions of lonely hearts, they come with a hidden cost. 

They give us the impression that there are lots of fish out there. A dating app is like an Amazon of singles. You shop by swiping right until you find one you like and decide to click to learn more about this person (product details). In this market, actual human beings are treating each other as virtual books on a shelf, clothes on a rack. You can even trade: on Coffee Meets Bagel, you can “give” a bagel to a friend or “take” one for yourself. 

If something doesn’t go right on a date or if the two of you become a thing but for some reason it doesn’t last, any feeling of heartbreak is lessened by the knowledge that there are plenty of new choices literally at your fingertips. He is replaceable. She is replaceable. You just have to tap and swipe. 

I was sitting across from the my first date. He had this leisurely smile on his face and raised an eyebrow when I said he was the first person from my brief history of online dating that I’ve met in person. I felt like we were in a kind of 18th century waltz. We were dancing face-to-face now, but we were about to change partners soon. 

We are complex beings. But the fast world of online dating doesn’t allow us to catch our breaths long enough to better understand why he said something or who she is beneath the veneer of a happy profile. It makes us more judgmental of what’s on the surface: the mole on her chin or the offhand comment he made about homeless people in Ohio. If we had met organically on the steps of our day-to-day lives, we would have more opportunities to truly get to know and understand each other’s idiosyncracies instead of dismissing them with a careless swipe.

Once upon a time, people used to watch reruns of Days of Our Lives with tissues and a box of chocolates in response to a relationship ending. Now they just sit on their couches looking at miniature screens for potential answers to their numbness. 

I’m not saying we should all stare into the endless abyss of soap operas instead, but I do believe we should pause to think about the emotional learning that we have denied ourselves in exchange for choices and convenience.

How to Get People to Fill out Surveys (Part 2/2)

How do companies get people to fill out surveys for customer feedback or market research purposes?

I proposed a solution in my previous post, but I’ve since taken a few hot showers that sparked a few more ideas:

1. We already know that people place a premium on their time. It’s difficult to pay someone outright for completing a survey. But people also value knowledge, especially information that pertains to those who are like them, and if you’re recruiting them for a survey then chances are they will be very interested in those survey results. Give them the option to leave an email address and get the survey results sent to their inbox. That will surely incentivize a good number of people to respond.

2. Here’s an idea that might work well for those who enjoy horoscopes and Myers Briggs. I don’t see what corporations see in the value of having every employee take Myers Briggs, but I do see that Myers Briggs has essentially collected A TON of useful data about people’s preferences with the simple proposition of spitting out 4 letters that define who they are. Smart. Next time you want to understand the psychographics of your user base, create a “test” (not a survey) that will help them understand something fundamental about themselves. This is similar to the first solution, but less direct and requiring some art to implement.

The Price of Participation (How to Get People to Fill Out Surveys - Part ½)

I used to be one of those people who never responded to a customer feedback survey. Five minutes to take a quick survey at the end of this call? Nuh-uh (especially after you made me wait and listen to kitschy jazz music for 50 minutes, but that’s another story).

Then, the profession I chose forced me to walk on the other side. I quickly realized that even the most innocuous intentions of market researchers (”we honestly need to improve this shitty product”) can be thwarted by their users’ indifference. Except for a rare segment of the population (unicorns), people hate surveys—it’s almost a fact of life.

Why? I never asked myself why I avoided surveys until I started sending them to people. If I ask myself, a survey hater, I would say it’s because people don’t expect to see their opinion bring about a desired outcome (usually an improvement of some kind). They don’t see: my opinion –> action –> desired results. To them, a survey is just donating time by shouting into a black hole, and time is the most precious commodity in the world.

Potential solution?

Companies who want their users’ feedback should make the survey a dialogue. Sure, you can compensate (incentivize) people for their time (be prepared to be shocked at the sticker price), but even better, you could reply to their responses and say: “here’s what you’re telling us you want, and here’s what we’ll do to make that happen.” I think most companies already do that—use surveys to find opportunities to improve their products and services. They just need to tell their customers what they are doing. A survey doesn’t need to be an odious request or the task of shouting into a black hole—it can be a conversation.

“It Exists Already.”

Many people who come up with smart ideas become discouraged when they hear those words. 

But just because it exists already doesn’t mean it’s any good. 

I bet there is an in-market prototype of 99% of good ideas anyone comes up with. But those prototypes are usually not very good, and so no one has heard of them. 

The Macbook wasn’t the first laptop, but it has become the most iconic, prototypical laptop. The fact that the product already exists should not deter anyone from building a better version. 

Transparent Branding

Until recently, I worked at P&G where the brand guidelines are like the DNA of our products: a piece of code that guides everything a name can and cannot do, but essentially invisible to the public. 

One of the first things I noticed after joining Stack Overflow was that young companies are transparent with their “brand book.” They often have their branding guidelines on their website, free for the world to download. “Aren’t they afraid the guy down the street might copy their logo or style guide?” I wondered. 

The answer was self-evident: today, branding is simply the expression of a company’s personality—who they are, what their values are and what makes them different from their peers. Companies want to be seen as transparent, beloved brands. In small company and startup land, the brand is akin to the company’s operating principles. 

Here are some publicly available branding guidelines: 

LinkedIn: brand.linkedin.com (you can even download a zip file of the brand assets complete with design files!)

Open Table: www.otbrandblog.com

Instagram: www.instagram-brand.com

The Freedom to Love Whom You Love

Last Friday was a historic day.

The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

#LoveWins and #FreedomtoLove were some of the more popular hashtags that took social media by storm. Having the freedom to love and marry whomever you wish is a springing board for arguments in support of another maligned group: polygamists.

Is it possible to love multiple people? It’s certainly possible to be sexually attracted to more than one person. Love is a more complicated experience to define, but I believe we humans are capable of loving more than one person romantically. Extramarital affairs happen all the time, and we are quick to condemn the parties involved as if they have done something unnatural. 

At one time we were a deeply homophobic nation. I’m not saying we aren’t anymore, but we’ve come a long way. Likewise, can there be a future in which we embrace an idea that sounds outlandish and disturbing to many ears today: that we can be open to loving more than one person and marry any people we wish? 

Watch

• Dude: Check this out.
• Me: Apple Watch?
• Dude: Yeah...
• Me: Does it make you less reliant on your phone?
• Dude: Yeah! But I don't know if it's less rude to be checking your watch in a meeting or on a date...

New York, New Gig

Above: Dad and I at the Metropolitan rooftop bar. I had to strategically ask her to take the next picture. 

I’ve been terrible at keeping this blog up-to-date. Horrendous. Appalling. Odious. Beastly. 

Before I think of more self-deprecating adjectives, let me explain what’s happened in the past couple of months:

TL;DR, I said sayonara to the Midwest, moved back to New York and started a new gig! 

Now I work at Stack Exchange (better known by programmers as Stack Overflow). You might be wondering what the heck is that? Simply put, Stack Overflow is the single largest site that you know absolutely nothing about. Finding out about it is like steeping into a whole other universe. Stack Overflow powers the world we live in. You know that sleek metal thing that you are probably holding in your hands or about to hold in your hands because I mentioned it and you need to look to make sure you know exactly where it is? That thing was built by people who have relied on using Stack Overflow to build it. You know the New York Times home page? Who do you think keeps it up and running? Not the Internet Gods, no—mere mortals who use Stack Overflow to do their jobs so that you can get your morning news without thinking about how it just appears at the touch of your fingers. 

And if you are a developer/coder/programmer, you probably have stumbled upon Stack Overflow when you Googled a coding question without realizing you were on Stack Overflow. Does this look familiar? 

In short, Stack Overflow is the #1 place for developers to get answers, share knowledge, and build their careers.  Software is eating the world, and working here is like working on the engines that run everything in the world that we take for granted. If you think I’m drinking the new hire Kool-Aid, not a problem, I’ll check back with you after six months. 

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Recently I made a spontaneous decision to travel to Hong Kong for one week.  My roommate found an amazing round trip flight for $547 (!!!).  We booked our tickets that night and the hotel the next day.  The following week, we were on a plane halfway across the world.

It was thrilling. 

I had felt ennui staying put for a while, so shaking up my regular old routine did wonders for my outlook and energy. It felt good to be in a different part of the world, if only for a week.  I might sound ridiculous to the natives for saying this, but I kid you not, it was pure JOY to experience even the banal sights, sounds and smells of Hong Kong: watching grandmas doing tai chi in Sun Yat-sen Park at 6 in the morning, catching an unapologetic whiff of durian while turning a street corner, and hearing the woman’s voice in the subway stations warning you against staring only at your mobile phones!

I believe that a change in environment is not only refreshing but necessary to learn and grow.  I’m planning to travel more, to break out of the humdrum comfort of everyday life and stretch the legs and the imagination. 

Me being a tourist in Macau.

Chuck the Acronyms

Sometimes I have the urge to blog about a pet peeve. Here’s one.

Unless you work for an agency, chances are people in your organization are notoriously bad at making PowerPoint slides.  Maybe they don’t have an eye for design or they just lack the patience to center every table.  Design skills aside, an easy way for anyone to improve a PowerPoint presentation is to lose the acronyms.  Spell everything out.  

You may be certain that your audience is familiar with every acronym you use, but if your PowerPoint is outstanding and gets forwarded broadly, you could have a manager from a different department looking at it wondering what the heck you’re trying to say.

By losing the acronyms, you save your audience the effort of trying to recall what a less-familiar term stands for. You save them the trouble of guessing, and since no one in Corporate wants to look stupid asking what an acronym stands for, you either promote misunderstanding or total lack of understanding.  And if your audience happens to be a senior manager, all the worse for making them feel stupid, embarrassed or annoyed.

Unless the acronym is obvious to the mayor of Nantucket, spell everything out.  When in doubt, spell it out.  This way you will be forced to choose your words carefully because you can only fit so many words on a slide.  Spell everything out, and you will deliver presentations that are easy to follow and visually clean.

Acronyms are a necessary evil in general, but they have no place on your PowerPoint slides.