Secret History of Silicon Valley

I have a minor in History of Technology so I really enjoy learning about the history of products, industries, and economic sectors. While I have read many histories of Cold War shaping of airplanes, the nuclear power industry, and so on, I had never stopped to think about the possible role of defense funding in the creation of Silicon Valley economic culture and infrastructure.

From: startuplessonslearned,
2 weeks ago

Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" talk at Computer History Museum 11-20-08

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"Hidden in Plain Sight:
The Secret History of Silicon Valley"

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a new education plan

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. A new president-elect, the economy continuing to tank. I have a new plan to take my previous bookkeeping experience and financials obsession back to school for CPA exam prep. I'm a bit nervous about the CPA pass rate of 30% although I used to be excellent at cramming, memorizing, and standardized tests. I plan to continue to let start-up ideas percolate up through my brain as I study depreciation and what have you. As my husband and I have been evaluating ideas, he immediately begins to think through the technical requirements while I grab a pen and start making profitability estimates. I think any additional education in financial management will help us eventually.

Obama's Campaign Machine

Eric Ries campaigned for Obama in Colorado and posted a description of his experience on his blog, Lessons Learned. Ries suggests that many companies can learn from Obama's quick learning cycle and empowerment of volunteers:

Now, I had never volunteered in a campaign before. In fact, my political philosophy is considered pretty conservative by many of my friends, and I'd never engaged with the Democratic Party in any way before. So I was pretty nervous about how I'd be treated, and pretty skeptical of the words written in that briefing packet. My experience totally blew me away. Every worker - volunteer and paid staffer alike - that I interacted with from the campaign lived these values [Respect. Empower. Include] every day. Everyone understood the campaign's values, as well as its high-level strategy. And I was always given the opportunity to do meaningful work for the campaign, as long as I was willing to be held accountable for accomplishing its goals.

I think modern companies have a lot they can learn from that experience. In today's world, knowledge workers (and especially those who thrive in startups!) are basically volunteers. They don't have to work for you - they can always get another job. They aren't primarily motivated by money, anyway. Instead, they seek meaningful work where their abilities can make a difference. If you give them that opportunity, and hold them accountable for the results of their efforts, they will move mountains for you. But if you make the mistake of telling them what to do, you'll probably be disappointed.

Obama Victory

I know that not everyone is celebrating an individual candidate's victory today, but we can all celebrate a victory over racism. I have that calm feeling I get when I think that the world works right, the feeling that I get when I live on the coasts, when I see people of color as bankers, and teachers, and business owners, when I feel like it is just as likely that a non-white person will decide my fate as it is that a fellow white one will. The feeling that our society works at least a little the way we say it does -- that a good idea, intelligence, hard work, luck can pay off for anyone.

Living in the Midwest was difficult. African Americans in Wisconsin have some of the highest rates of poverty in the country. In Madison's sea of white people, there were a few black professors and more black poor. Blacks were practically absent in the middle class. This can seem to leave one with the intellectual options of blaming "the system" in some way or blaming African Americans themselves, leaving individual European American attitudes off the hook. While I believe that the sources of African American poverty are complicated and can't be entirely explained by individual choices and bias, I like the blog Stuff White People Like as a way to see the white culture I'm swimming in.

I'm glad so many of us voted for hope, hoping we can heal some wounds, hoping we can move forward together.

Twitter I eat my hat

Seems I was wrong about Twitter. HubSpot has several great articles on how Twitter can be used to build engagement with customers/clients.

discoveries

My son woke us up in the middle of the night last night to tell us he was worried about ghosts. We all got back to sleep after a bit of reassurance. Turns out he was actually scared for a reason. He told me this morning that he saw some lights under his blanket last night. He had never noticed static electricity sparks before.


I love Handipoints -- my son loves to play computer games, I like giving him rewards for good behavior. My grading of his off-line behavior gives him points toward fun things inside the game. Today I watched him play Handipoints. (I don't often watch him; I trust their kid safety controls.) I saw him start a conversation with another kid via their avatars and invite her to his room to play. The first thing he did when they got there was to excuse himself to the decorating section to fix up his room. Great impulse, but while he was busy with that his friend wandered away. He didn't take it hard; at four, friendships are easily fluid.

twitter

I don't get twitter, at least not professionally. I prefer to use it as a mind meld, geotracking device with people who care that I just caught a cold, or took my kids to the park, or have had the same song running through my head all day.

I deeply understand that the personal is political, but is the personal professional? Up to a point, and that point stops at twitter for me. Character is important but not where someone is having dinner. What do you think? Would you and how do you use twitter professionally?