On the shoulders of rather short people

Since my last post I have done a variety of weird and wonderful things, which resulted in me being sufficiently distracted/busy/miles from a computer to forget to post anything about them! Very quickly, I have:

• Written a 50,065 word novel in 30 days as part of the general insanity that is NaNoWriMo
• Flown a glider
• Flown a small aeroplane
• Gone snorkeling at the Poor Knights (and managed not to drown!)
  
• Spent 10 days in an old canvas tent in Christchurch with around 3,500 other girls/women (Girl Guide Jamboree 2008)

Onward to the actual purpose of this post, which I hope may be more interesting!

Scott Hanselman recently published a post entitled "Standing on their shoulders and paying it forward" which contained the following paragraph:

If you have a blog, Dear Reader, why not take a moment at the beginning of this new year to write a post about the people that helped you get where you are? Parents? Teachers? First bosses? Friend? Spouse? Whose shoulders are you standing on?

The idea struck me as a laudable and sensible way to start blogging again in a new year after a long break. A list of all the people upon whose shoulders I stand would be more than long enough to cure a severe case of insomnia, so I won't inflict that on any of us. The crowd of people who have supported, encouraged and generally kept me sane over the years is huge and I am tremendously grateful to each of them. There are, however, a couple of people who stand out and have provided advice which I still quote and is helpful to more than just me.

Without further ado, may I present two women whose determination, frustration with me and patience despite it have left me with fond memories, pithy phrases and no few blushes of shame at how much I took them for granted.

#1 - a high school science teacher who placed her students far above herself - Ms Bailey

"Don't let your schooling get in the way of your education!" a hand-made poster on my bedroom wall once proclaimed. A unorthodox sentiment to have come from a high school teacher but one which proved a true and often useful guide. I had the privilege of being in Ms Bailey's classes twice - once as a 13-14 year old sitting compulsory 4th form/year 10 science, then again as a 15-16 year old in an accelerated class covering the critical sections of the 6th form / year 12 chemistry, physics and biology curriculums. In both cases some characteristics stood out: flexibility, humility and a strong focus on putting students first.

To a class of grumpy 13 year olds who didn't want to be in a compulsory science class, she posed a question: "What would you like to do in science?" To the unanimous response of "Blow things up!", she acquiesced, and found a way. A university project of mine years later began from the memory of learning to manufacture pure oxygen and hydrogen gases, measuring them carefully then taking a bottle filled with precise proportions into the middle of the tennis courts before lighting a match and watching it fly. And this despite a fear of explosions, which we only learnt about later!

To a young girl frustrated by an astronomy curriculum covering things she already knew, she granted permission to leave classes to pursue a personal project. The result sparked an interest in black holes that lasted years and left me dreaming of pursuing a career as a cosmologist and drawing singularities on paper for my friends during economics class.

Faced with a young idealist on a crusade against evolution, she again granted the permission for the project and weathered the ongoing discussion throughout the year with patience and politeness. Listening, questioning, proposing alternatives, but never ridiculing, she made the lunchtime discussions a time I looked forward to eagerly and left me feeling respected and capable. She also had the insight to use the opportunity as one of the few means anyone ever found to get me to work: if my grades dropped she quietly and simply became unavailable until they rose again.

A Biology expert struggling with the more complex Physics of the sixth form curriculum, she had the humility and grace to accept correction from a student - stunning an adolescent psyche wired to run on selfishness. Presented with my apology, her quiet insistence that she would much rather be embarrassed than allow the other students to learn something incorrectly left me more than impressed.

Having become a person in whose office I felt comfortable discussing my ideas, hopes and dreams, she shot down my thoughts of becoming a high school physics teacher with the simple statement "Don't you dare!" Again, more than a little unorthodox and certainly a surprise, but, yes, me as a physics teacher would not have worked well! In the same conversation she encouraged me to remember that there are far more areas of study in existence than those we cover in school, to try different things I hadn't thought of and thus to discover what it was I enjoyed. That approach resulted in the Computer Science and Psychology studies I enjoyed so much, and is one I advocated to a friend only last week.

For keeping me interested, pushing me to do more than the minimum, inspiring me with possibilities, pulling me up short when I needed it - thanks, Ms Bailey!


#2 - as cliched as it is, true nonetheless - MUM

All mothers, by definition, are important to their children. They all seem to accomplish miracles on a regular basis; resulting in most of them having in their possession some article or other with the legend "Best Mum in the World". Despite the stereotypicality of it, I insist on acknowledging how important my mum has been. :)

There are too many stories to tell here, but the traits I'd highlight if I could would be:

• her constant pushing for the best - for me and of me
• her stubborn independence
  
• her focus on the practical - making it happen no matter what crazy dream I came up with
• unconditional love - not only for me but for any of the wide selection of people she 'adopted'; demonstrating more than anyone else I know the ability to be there and to care no matter what a person may have done
• keeping options open - the one technique for any and every situation!
  

You want to be a nurse? That's nice, dear. Why not a doctor?

You want to be a Cosmologist? That's cool. How about we go look at how you can get qualifications for that and where you can study.

You want to be a Physics teacher? Ok... let's look at how you can do that. Just make sure you keep your options open!

You want to be an Interaction Designer? That's cool. Let's look up some universities that specialise in that. Look, there's one in London...

You want to write a novel in 30 days? I think you're mad... but, here, have some chocolate, it may help!

You want to learn to fly something? Ok, I'll give you a couple of trial flights for your Christmas present - make sure you check out all the options!

Mum has slowly become the person I go to with crazy ideas, disappointments, successes, confusion. No matter what the problem may be, she'll always be able to come up with a list of options - to check out and keep open!

Big Girl

Well, it's amazing how many things can come out of one little trip...

An item about my trip to Girls' High appeared on our company intranet earlier this week with a link to my blog post about it. This resulted in the page views on my blog quadrupling for a couple of days and a variety of senior staff members pulling me aside to tell me they thought my blog was great and comment on a variety of things. The positive feedback has been really encouraging and people have been very supportive of some of the ideas I've been writing about and providing more ideas and resources to help me achieve what I want to. Good times!

I also had a female colleague get really enthusiastic about doing more school visits with me to keep promoting IT to the next generation of girls. There's a few people who've expressed interest now and we're all meeting up next week to "come up with girl power strategies". It's a really neat feeling when other people start jumping on your bandwagon. :) So we're now looking at publishing an article, offering to speak at some Wellington High Schools, perhaps visiting the Universities too, hosting a work visit for keen students and a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day! Exciting times, especially when some company directors are included in the group of interested supportive people.

This morning I received a really sweet card signed by the girls I spoke to last week and a letter from their teacher as well to say thanks. It was a very warm fuzzy moment reading all their comments - I was amazed at how many of them said they were considering IT as a career now! It turns out the class teacher also sent a thank you letter to my boss... which resulted in him nominating me (at some length) for our weekly award this week.

Overall, it's been a very warm fuzzy day/week on all counts!

Some of the warm fuzzies have been pretty scary too. Mostly as a result of me taking on a Team Lead role now but partly, I think, from the sheer amount of publicity I've gotten lately I'm doing / being asked to do lots of things I would never have imagined doing at this point in time. Notably:

• Needing to get a 'Sales' code for my time sheet
  
• Organising and running meetings with clients
• Not having enough time to do what I had planned because of meetings, things to follow up, queries from people etc
• Doing time and cost estimates for whole pieces of work
• Spending an evening mingling with and amusing clients for a client function
• Being asked to help interview someone (next week)

I was complaining to my project manager about this this afternoon - "Lots of scary things are happening this week!" - her response was: "Yes, you're a big girl now!". Don't get me wrong, it's great, exciting and a privilege; I just can't help but find it all a little scary sometimes when I start to wonder if I'm really worthy of the confidence people are placing in me. All I can do is try to be as worthy as I can I guess! And cover my monitors with post-it notes to avoid forgetting things.

I've been musing that this is something else to talk to any future groups of high school students about - as being somewhat unique to the IT industry I think. This is an industry where companies are growing fast and people have an opportunity to grow incredibly fast if they want to. It's not that long ago that I was a lowly new graduate who had to ask her mentor what a stored procedure was...

Who am I?

I figure, since people seem to be reading this and someone at least has done a search for posts labelled 'Me', that I should probably provide some kind of overview of who I am. It should also give you some idea of whether to pay any attention at all to what I say. Wait... maybe I shouldn't after all...

I work as a Software Developer for Intergen in Wellington, New Zealand. Currently doing mostly windows forms development with a fair amount of SQL Reporting Services and Oracle thrown in. I've also been playing around with SQL Integration Services lately which is good fun. Intergen took me on as part of their graduate program and have been great at providing me with opportunities and supporting me to try things and take on more responsibility.

I started work in January 2006 after finishing my degree in Computer Science and Psychology at Massey University in Palmerston North. When I started my degree I was majoring in Information Systems and wanted to be a Business Analyst but I did an introductory programming paper just to see what it was like and loved it so much I changed majors. Now, I'd like to be an architect eventually. The Psychology major was because I've always been interested in usability and, as I usually put it, "I want to understand how both computers and people work so I can get them to work together without throwing each other down stairs". Plus, it was heaps of fun :)

I was involved in leading a church high-school-age (13-18 year old) youth group for 3+ years while in Palmerston North which I loved. When I moved to Wellington I started leading Guides (9-13 year olds) which has been a new challenge and lots of fun. I love spending time with young people; I find their energy and enthusiasm for life contagious and enjoy the feeling of being able to make a difference somehow.

When I'm not at work or Guides I'm a bit of a bookworm. I found the BBC Top 100 book list last year and am currently trying to read all of them - as at 26/04/07 I've read 68. It's been a (mostly) fun exercise and I've read and enjoyed lots of books I would normally never have picked up. Good times :) Normally though, you'll find me with my nose in epic fantasy of some description - most notably Robert Jordan, David Eddings, Robin Hobb and Janny Wurts, although that list could go on and on!

The other major way I tend to occupy any time that may be left in a week is getting people together for strategy board games. (Please note, this is nothing like Monopoly or Scrabble.) My current favourite is Munchkin but we also play a lot of Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride Europe.

So there you are, one fairly long rant covering (hopefully) all the things you never wanted to know about me :)

Tick

Had a conversation with a project manager recently in which she said that she tries to figure out what motivates each person on her teams and what relieves their stress. In short, what makes them tick. She says I was easy - it's all about the chocolate!

Admittedly, I do love my chocolate and I have been known to accept undesirable tasks on the condition someone buys me chocolate. But I think she's missed a couple of things which are pretty major. I function not solely on chocolate but also on feeling like I've accomplished something useful. This made up of 2 things:

1. Accomplishing something, anything! This means seeing progress, being able to cross something off the list, having some sense of achievement. We all need this, projects where progress seems to go backwards have been described by workmates as 'soul destroying'.
2. Other people (colleagues or clients) appreciating what I've done. Recognition matters lots to me: a piece of paper with 'well done' on it will often stay on my desk for weeks! This is the bit that transforms "I've done something" into "I've done something useful".

No amount of chocolate will turn around a project where developers' work seems to be leading nowhere and no-one is acknowledging the effort they put in. I was involved in a project that ended up like that last year and the turnover rate was unbelievably high. Chocolate does contribute towards the second one though: "Someone bought me chocolate therefore they must appreciate me somewhat".

The other thing that I've noticed about myself is that I'm an information junkie. I'll put up with pretty much anything (including a lack of chocolate!) if I have all the information around what, who, when and why. Especially why. On the other hand, if I know something's going on but I don't have the details I get very frustrated very fast. One of my workmates in particular tends to try and 'protect' me from some of the larger client issues we come up against, I don't think he realises I'd be less stressed being involved than wondering what everyone else is trying so hard to fix. If I have a reason for what I'm working towards I'm very happy giving it everything I've got.

I wonder how many other people 'tick' this way. I wouldn't be surprised if both feelings of useful accomplishment and needing information are pretty common drivers for people. Maybe this is something to keep in mind when leading teams - ensure there is a sense of progress, provide recognition and give the team all the information you can about the bigger picture.

Buying people chocolate doesn't hurt either :)