Source:Valleywag
So it’s past midnight at the Valleywag holiday party when I answer the door. “Owen’s totally wrong about that Facebook thing,” blurts out Kara Swisher, whom I hardly know, in the conversational space most people would waste with a vacuous Hello it’s good to see you can I come in. “What’s with Loudmouth Gay Guy,” she adds, nodding toward a tipsy guest. “Handle it, will ya?” I used to wonder why Owen had such an obvious thing for Kara, but I get it now: Kara Swisher is the ruthless-yet-right reporter we all wish we could be. But we can’t be her. Back to book reviews for me. (Photo of Swisher not impressed with the animatronic reindeer by … oh wait, I took this one.)
Source:Valleywag
When Inc. posted a 1,279-word “Field Guide to Your Tech Staff,” I couldn’t shake the suspicion the piece’s real intent was hey Slashdotters! Everybody click here! For those of us unable to spend 10 minutes looking busy by reading the printer-friendly version, I’ve boiled it down to a PowerPoint stack of bullet points. Because they hate that.
Habitat
- Dark room — allows focus, rests eyes
- Headphones — get deeper into the zone
- Desk organization — pristine or cluttered, it’s intentional. Touch nothing.
Psychology
- Perfectionism — “good enough” isn’t good enough
- Gadget lust — latest gizmo is badget of honor
- Intellectual curiosity — figure out how things work, absorb info from multiple channels at once
- Systematic thinking — nothing is magic, it just needs to be problem-solved
- Wrong? Never! — hoo boy, no kidding. Wrong = failure
- Competitive nature — being smartest is important
Motivation
- Recognition — take them to lunch and let them talk about latest accomplishment
- Playtime — Google’s “20% Time” policy leads to huge R&D breakthroughs
DO to get along with geeks
- Try to gain basic understanding of technology
- Provide context — Not “will it work?” but “will it work by June for 1,000,00 hits per day?”
- Cross-pollinate IT with other departments
DON’T
- Wait until you need their help to befriend IT people
- Add a tiny last-minute request without bumping deadlines
- Let non-tech employees bypass proper channels for IT requests
(Photo of Not Yours Pony courtesy of dev.splunk.com)
![]()
Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
This entry was posted
on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 10:37 am and is filed under Top, silicon valley users guide, 100-word-version.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
