Ramble On

But sometimes you just have to point it out, you know?

Someone purporting to be Robert Scoble left a comment on my Techwhahuh? post. While the IP resolves to a Comcast address near Half Moon Bay, CA, and Robert has mentioned that he lives there in his blog before, I can’t help but think I’ve been trolled by someone impersonating Robert.

I did have a pretty snarky comment in my post about the blogs on Techmeme being sound and fury and signifying nothing. I get to say that pot/kettle/black, because my own blog is pretty much that (well at least the fury and nothing part). I tend to write when I get frustrated, rather than when I’m documenting a problem solved. And while occasionally borderline witty and funny, I’m nowhere near as good at the frustrated-post-with-a-point as say, Mark Pilgrim. I’m not even creative enough to keep the comic going (which is arguably funnier than me writing a long post about things, but only marginally).

So Robert, or Robert’s impersonator may have taken some umbrage about that. But the comment is absurd (that’s why I’m hoping it isn’t Robert). You don’t have to click the link - here’s the best part pulled out - the commenter states that:

“..I almost put your post on my link blog, but thought that you really wouldn’t have liked that cause people might actually read your blog then.”

(and you’d think after 15 or so years of this, from Usenet to blogs, I’d have learned to not respond to trolling, but nooooo….).

So the couple of dozen of you that do read this blog? Those of you that I work with? The ones of you I know, and whose blogs I read if you have them? Those that are actually in my social network - or just hoping I post something vaguely funny or useful again? I guess the implication of the commenter is that you don’t read. Or don’t matter. Don’t worry, you can bet your sweet bippy that I’m pretty damn annoyed. (Actually, I’ve gone from annoyance to head shaking, I wonder if there is a “stages of troll response” pyschology?)

Robert, or whoever you are, if this is about the techmeme comment, thank you for proving my point, and the echo chamber point of a lot of us in the so-called long tail.

I blog as an outlet. To connect, with friend and family. To converse. To ask questions, to maybe entertain, hopefully at times to inform (which I don’t do enough of the latter). To occasionally virtually meet new people that land here from search. To give voice to ideas and links that I can point people to. To provide a glimpse (albeit an naturally filtered one) of my (mostly) working life. And because I’m too verbose for 140 character limits

I don’t write to earn revenue. I don’t write to sell product (or even sell myself). I’m not monetizing anything. I don’t write to grow an audience. I don’t care about that. If people read, great. Welcome. I’m not so naive and non-self aware to know that what I do here isn’t at least subconsciously an attempt to influence the thoughts and ideas of those that read. But whether that’s 5, 50, or 50,000 - it would be the same words.

So commenter, I don’t need your links for people to read this blog. And it’s incredibly arrogant (yes, I know, it takes one to know one) to feel that Robert linking to me would bring people that might “actually read” what is written here.

The people that matter do already. And others that matter will find their way here just fine on their own.

My mom has a running family joke that the first word I ever spoke was “Why?” I can’t ever really figure out if it’s a compliment - a celebration of natural curiosity, and a bent to wanting to know the nature of things, not just what they are, but why the are - or if it’s a bit of frustration about my predilection toward questioning the status quo - the other running family joke is that I’d argue with a signpost. I suspect it’s both - but maybe a bit more of the latter than the former.

I’ve been thinking a lot for the last few months about the (not-so) secrets to successful organizations. How they are led, how they are managed, maybe more importantly, how each person in the organization adds to it. The thoughts I have are most likely not all that original, but that doesn’t stop a whole cottage industry that writes leadership and management books.

I finally caught up on my Dilbert feeds yesterday, and the comic from 11/04/2007 has Wally saying:

“It’s better to have the right person ask the wrong question than the wrong person ask the right question”

That’s certainly been true in every organization I’ve been in - outside of my immediate work team. You might think that surprising for an University. But Universities are as bureaucratic as they come. One difference is that you don’t get fired for being the wrong person asking the question, you just get ignored.

Thankfully, almost every team I’ve been a part of directly has been the complete opposite of this. And maybe I have a little bit of rose-colored glasses involved, but I think that every team that I’ve worked with has had success in the domains in which that team had direct influence over. And one of attributes of each one of those teams is that the team members, not just me were a) oriented to asking “why?” and b) “why?” was absolutely encouraged on the part of the team leadership.

Let me pull that out again. One of the attributes of successful teams is that the leaders and members of the team strongly encourage the question “Why?”

“Why?” is a tough question. No one really relishes having their work questioned, not in the moment at least. But the individuals and teams that have the most success come to welcome the “why” questions from others, and to ask the questions themselves. “Why are we doing this?”, “Why did we do it that way?”, and best of all “Why don’t we try this?” The questions encourage curiosity, they gets teams communicating, they zero in on the things that matter, either to the team or the individual. If you can’t answer the “why?” questions - you aren’t ready to do what you are doing, whatever that may be.

That’s not to say that “why?” always has a definitive answer. The answer could be “because I have gut instinct about this, trust me” And that’s perfectly acceptable, especially when you have a track record for having answers to the “why” questions that have built that trust prior to now. Sometimes the answers to the “why” questions also require a common knowledge base, and if you ask those questions, and don’t have that knowledge, you better be willing to learn it (and those being asked better be willing to teach it).

It is never acceptable to ignore the “why” question or to play the “because I said so” card, or worse the “who are you to be asking this question” stance.

I am so very thankful that the managers (leaders) - I’ve had at the University, particularly Bill Padgett and Kevin Gamble accepted the why questions, often encouraging and outright expecting these questions both of their staffs, and themselves. It didn’t always make fans out of others on campus that didn’t care for the questions, but it sure has created loyalty and success within the individuals and teams on their staff.