Behind the scenes, there are a number of moving parts:

• Key-based authentication. Because I need to copy files and run commands on the production and QA servers non-interactively, I needed to set up key-based authentication using SSH. I'm somewhat nervous about using a passphrase-less key, but I couldn't see a way to work around this.
• Rsync. I use rsync over ssh to transfer files to the remote system. It's good at efficiently transferring changed files. I couldn't use –delete to get rid of old files, though, as our source tree does not include the complete system.
• A shell script with the suid bit. The shell script is responsible for exporting the requested revision to a temporary directory, rsyncing it over to the selected host, and running a few commands on the server in order to reset file permissions and clear the cache. The suid bit is there so that it takes my identity and uses the key that I set up. I resorted to suid because I couldn't figure out how to make sure that Apache had its own key. I tried associating it with the user that Apache ran as, but I kept running into "no tty"-type errors. The suid workaround solved the problem quickly.
• A PHP script that displays a form and the last 20 revisions. The form includes a drop-down box of the revisions displayed, a button for deploying to QA, and a button for deploying to the server. When submitted, the script does some error-checking, then uses system to call the relevant shell script. The script determines the list of revisions by using shell_exec to store the output of svn log … -limit 20 in a string, then using preg_match_all to match all instances of /r([0-9]+)/. Seems to work.

Technorati Tags: php, rsync, ssh, subversion

Moving tasks to the night before can support this early-morning writing by freeing up more time. The more I can do the night before, the less I need to do the morning after - and it pays off even when the exchange isn't 1:1. For example, moving the half-hour I used to spend cooking steel-cut oats for breakfast from morning to evening means that I spend just a few minutes heating up a breakfast with much more texture than instant oatmeal. I packed my lunch last night, so I just need to grab it from the fridge and head out the door. I checked my purse for my keys and badge, too. Doing these little things the night before helps me streamline my morning routine.

What else can I do to free up time? I might try watering the plants in the late afternoon or try outlining in the evenings. OpenLoops has good tips for making the most of these early morning hours, and I'm sure I'll discover more along the way.

I'd also like to look into freeing up weekend time. I used to save laundry loads and library runs for the weekend, but if I can use my weekday evenings to take care of these things, then that frees up a larger block of uninterrupted time.

Thinking about what could make the most difference in the other developers' productivity, I decided to invest time into making it easier for them to deploy code to the testing server. I had written a Makefile target that efficiently transferred only the updated files, but the other developers worked on Microsoft Windows and did not have all the necessary tools. I spent the morning writing a web-based interface for them: a password-protected PHP script that displayed a list of recent revisions and allowed people to deploy a selected revision to a separate server. Behind the scenes, it was a mess of bubblegum and string. To work around various limitations, I strung together sudo and suid and rsync and ssh key-based authentication. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. I e-mailed instructions to my team members, and they started using it right away.

After solving that problem, I focused on improving our tests. Fixing one bug often led to creating or recreating another, and these regression errors resulted in back-and-forth communication and wasted time. I explored the Simpletest automated testing framework for Drupal, and found out that I could write both unit tests and Web-based tests using the framework. However, I had a hard time figuring out why several of my Web-based tests consistently failed. I found out that the latest version of Simpletest for Drupal 5 did not understand the Location: header, which we use extensively in order to direct people to different subdomains and external sites. I fixed it and wrote a number of tests for one of our key modules. By the time I was ready to pack up and go home, I'd gotten into the swing of writing test cases.

Easier deployment and automated testing go a long way towards making a project almost a joy to work on. I'm glad I spent some time paving the way for my team and for other projects to come. =) Kaizen: relentless improvement.

We're getting ready for the next phase of our Drupal project, and it's a good time to think about how we can make our process better.

• Automated builds: I have a few Makefile commands related to pushing the latest development source code to the testing server, but the other developers can't use the commands on Microsoft Windows. However, they have access to another Linux-based server. If I can simplify the deployment process (maybe a password-protected webpage that allows you to choose which revision to deploy?), then they won't be held up when I go on vacation.
• Automated testing: We used simpletest for a few pieces of functionality, but we don't have anything close to coverage. I'd like to learn how to write proper tests for Drupal so that I can avoid regression errors, which I often made during development.
• Switching between hosts: Because we use Domain Access, I can't just use a local domain name and a copy of the server's database. My current approach is to use the same domain name as on the testing server, and then keep editing /etc/hosts to switch back and forth. An alternative might be to create a Makefile target that grabs the server's database, runs it through sed to translate all the domain names to my local domain, and restores the database from this translated file. That way, I don't need to edit /etc/hosts all the time.
• Coding environment: I'm thinking of moving my development from Eclipse to Emacs in order to be able to customize my environment more effectively. I'll post more notes about it as I figure out what works for me and what doesn't. It's a good excuse to learn even more about Emacs…

What worked well:

• Source code control, I love you so much, even if you're Subversion.
• Adding a CSS person to our team meant that the other developer and I were much less stressed out about cross-browser issues. Hooray!
• Using a defect-tracking system was infinitely better than sending e-mail around, even if that defect-tracking system was ClearQuest.

Quarterly performance feedback (our "3/3/1" process), including "upward" feedback for the managers from their staff - to help all of our employees rapidly grow and reduce the anxiety in our organization (everyone always knows where they stand); I have been told by many of our employees and managers that they have learned more at Bazaarvoice than anywhere else they have worked.  Our feedback is balanced (the 3/3/1 is a simple email form to document the 3 things you did well that quarter, the 3 things you could have done better, and the 1 initiative you are going to focus on as a result).  The upward feedback from staff illuminates blind-spots on our management team, many of which have never been discussed with them in previous companies because the feedback process was too poor to generate intensely constructive dialogue.

Sam Decker, myventurepad: Total Leadership and Bazaarvoice's Amazing Culture

3/3/1. The three things you did well, the three things you could have done better, and the one initiative that you're going to focus on as a result. Relentless improvement that gives you energy and opportunities to celebrate what you're doing well and envision where you want to go. Good stuff.

Here's what I learned because I did it well:

• Energy and excitement really helps. I focused on topics I was passionate about, picked highlights that I wanted to share, and told myself not to be intimidated by the collective IQ in an audience I couldn't see.
• Standing up is good. It makes it easier to project more energy and pretend to be giving an actual presentation. This also makes it easier to gesture.
• If you need to use the handset, use your hand to hold it against your ear instead of scrunching your neck. This not only saves you from a sore neck, but also allows you to improve your breathing. If you have a noise-cancelling headset, use that instead. I don't have one of those yet.
• If you're running out of preparation time, practice your opening and closing, run through middle parts quickly, then go back and practice enough of your opening to give you a confident start. It's important to make a good first impression. Not only does the primacy effect mean that people will remember the beginning of your presentation more than the following parts, but a strong start will give you confidence and make the rest of the presentation flow. A strong close that recaps important points and energizes people is also very helpful. Things in the middle will come to you once you get into the flow.
• Upload the presentation to Sametime Unyte instead of sharing your screen. Not only will this be faster for your audience, but you'll also be less worried about random things popping up. (It's still a good idea to set Sametime to Do-Not-Disturb or something similar, though.)
• Call in and start recording the Unyte presentation at least ten minutes before the start of your session. Things get really hectic right before the presentation. It's easier to spend 10 minutes just waiting on the phone than to try to remember to set up all of your recording while the organizer's announcing you.
• Check your social network for resources. Cattail was really handy. =) Also, thanks go to Stephen Perelgut for links and de-stressing!

Here's what I can do to make things even better:

• Bring a glass of water. No stage doesn't mean no stage fright.
• Create an activity template to make sure I remember to do everything. I'm starting to believe in Activities - I used it as a last-minute checklist for myself.
• Make sure I get a quick brief from the organizer as early as possible. I went down the wrong path with my first draft. Fortunately, the client rep briefed me last Tuesday, so I spent the rest of the day (and the night) hurriedly revising the presentation. It came out nicely.
• Reserve a room. I hadn't reserved a room because I was planning to take one of the smaller non-bookable rooms, but all of those rooms were full. Moving to the "think bar" near the windows didn't help. I should book a conference room. Even if the room is more space than I need, using that space is better than distracting more than six people. This will also minimize distractions from people asking me to quiet down.
• Keep a library of materials. I need a good system for organizing slides, images, stories, and so on.

Happy! =D

1. The Law of the Lid
2. The Law of Influence
3. The Law of Process
4. The Law of Navigation
5. The Law of E.F. Hutton
6. The Law of Solid Ground
7. The Law of Respect
8. The Law of Intuition
9. The Law of Magnetism
10. The Law of Connection
11. The Law of the Inner Circle
12. The Law of Empowerment
13. The Law of Reproduction
14. The Law of Buy-In
15. The Law of Victory
16. The Law of Big Mo [Momentum]
17. The Law of Priorities
18. The Law of Sacrifice
19. The Law of Timing
20. The Law of Explosive Growth
21. The Law of Legacy

I mentioned this to another colleague who got in touch with me about an internal conference. I had put this presentation down as one of the sessions I could volunteer to present if no one else stepped up, although I admitted I had my misgivings about how to deliver the presentation well. I told him how I felt the long list of concepts made the presentation less effective than it could have been, and that a mnemonic device or a navigational aid would make this presentation better. He was amused by the idea of a mnemonic–a 21-letter acronym, perhaps?–and said he'd pass on my feedback for some presentation coaching. Hearing that, I volunteered to give the speaker feedback myself. That would be better than second-hand feedback, I thought, and I might as well stand behind my words and learn even more in the process. =)

This challenged me to think about the presentation more. If I were presenting this, what would I do? How could it be organized to present all that rich content in some more easily digested and applied form?

I reviewed every slide in the original presentation, writing down keywords on a piece of scratch paper. I thought about questions the speaker could ask people to help them think about the topic before the explanation of the law. After the fourth or fifth law, I found myself categorizing things based on questions, using Who-What-When-Where-How-Why as my original framework. My first pass through the list gave me these categories: "who is a leader", "where you go", "how you get there", and "what you do". I created a spreadsheet organizing the topics into those categories. As I moved things around, I ended up refining the categories to these five:

Who can be a leader?
2. Influence
5. E.F. Hutton

How do you become a leader?
10. Connection
3. Process
7. Respect
6. Solid ground
14. Buy-in

What can hold you back or move you forward?
1. The lid
17. Priorities
19. Timing
11. Inner Circle
18. Sacrifice

What do you do as a leader?
8. Intuition
4. Navigation
9. Magnetism
16. Big Mo [Momentum]
15. Victory
20. Explosive growth

Where do you go next?
12. Empowerment
13. Reproduction
21. Legacy

Some of the topics can be moved around. "12. Empowerment" belongs in both "What do you do as a leader" and "Where do you go next", and it could also go into the earlier entries. I don't have a good feel for whether "1. The lid" should be in "What can hold you back or move you forward?", or "How do you get there?". If I spent more time revising this, I'm sure things would settle down.

What I like about this structure is that it has a certain cohesion about it. Similar laws are together, allowing the speaker to illustrate them with a single well-chosen story or use several stories to build upon a point. There are guide questions that prompt people to reflect as they're listening to the presentation, and these guide questions are followed by advice and examples from leaders who have taken on those challenges. There's a chronological flow that matches the leadership journey as well. Each category flows smoothly into the next, and within each category, each law leads into the next. You tell a story.

Structure is good for speakers and listeners, too. This arrangement gives you a structure that scales: you can cover the entire thing in less than ten minutes, or you can talk for hours. And because it's broken down into chunks, it's easier for you remember, whether you're presenting it or listening to it. You could probably give a speech on this from memory, and people can leave the session with a feeling of understanding the whole thing, not just the first and last chunk.

Now I'm tempted to look for John C. Maxwell's e-mail address and send a link to this blog post. It feels weird giving feedback to an author who's written leadership bestsellers, and maybe there's a higher reason why he organized those topics that way. But maybe the author hadn't taken a step back and seen things click into place… If so, then maybe he'll like this suggestion and use it to help others in a second edition of the book!

—

What would you call what I did? I really enjoyed poking inside that presentation and bringing everything together into a structure, a story. I would love to do more of that in the future. It's quite far from my official IBM role (although the presentation and communication practice will help me as an evangelist), but maybe I can bring aspects of that into my life sometime. Maybe one of my careers will be as a presentation coach… =) I'd love to learn and share more about effective communication!

What did I do well?

• Revision: I stayed up until 4:00 that morning, revising my presentation to improve the flow and include some of the ideas I got from conversations with people from all over IBM.
• Energy: Because I stayed up so late, I was tired on Tuesday. I didn't want to do a lackluster performance, so I napped during the session slot immediately before mine, and I had some tea afterwards. I reasoned that I could always listen to the playback of the session I had wanted to attend, but I wouldn't have another opportunity to redo my session.
• Presentation structure: After much thinking, I managed to find a good structure that made the presentation flow well. I used the power of three and alliteration throughout the presentation in order to make the presentation more coherent and memorable. I structured the characteristics as "changing childhoods, changing technologies, and changing workplaces". I listed the challenges as "recruiting and hiring Millennials", "working with and managing Millennials", and "selling to Millennials". Each challenge had three parts: "reach", "ramp up", and "retain". Because of that structure, I hardly needed to glance at my slides to remember where I was, and I didn't feel the urge to overload my slides with detail.
• 30-second summary: I put in a 30-second summary at the beginning and end as a courtesy to people who wanted to attend several presentations or review the slides afterwards. This proved to be handy when some people dropped by to say hi and offer encouragement before my session, as I could give them the gist of my talk before they went to a different session. I think it's a good practice.
• Presenter remote: I used Jonathan Young's Kensington presenter remote during my blogging talk at the Best Practices. I liked being able to step away from the podium, and I didn't need to refer to my speaker's notes. I also liked how the Kensington presenter fit my hand neatly. I found the same model at the Airport Wireless store in Newark, along with several other presenter remotes. I chose the Logitech presenter remote because it had a built-in timer with vibration alerts at 5 and 2 minutes, which is great in rooms without clocks. I bought it for $75 or so. If you want to buy it now, Amazon.com has it for $37.24 thanks to a mail-in rebate that ends on Monday, April 14. It looks like there are frequent rebate offers, so you should be able to find it on sale somewhere.
• Stock images: Several people asked me where I got my illustrations. I got some free ones from Stock Exchange, and I got the rest of the images from Stockxpert.com. The Stockxpert.com images typically cost $1 for a presentation-sized image.
• Discussion: I knew that I didn't have the historical perspective or the global perspective to give people the complete picture of Millennials, so I invited people to join the discussion by asking and answering questions. I had chatted with a number of people before the session started, so I knew that people had a lot to contribute. They freely shared their concerns, experiences, and insights. This resulted in a session that was not only more interactive than the jam sessions I attended, but also a lot more educational for all of us–myself included. I think this is a terrific way to do a session, as the speaker gets to learn a lot as well. There, Jim de Piante - I asked for help and I got it! =)

What can I do better?

• More microphones: It seems my presentation style is highly interactive. Next time, I should request additional microphones so that people can be easily heard and recorded.
• Better summaries: I need to get better at listening to what people say and quickly summarizing the key points for these recorded presentations.
• Video recording: I want to save up for a high-definition video camera and a tripod so that I can share the material and improve my presentation skills. Jonathan Young's setup was pretty good. He aimed the video camera's LCD forward so that he could make sure he was in frame. Alternatively, I could ask a friend to take care of video recording.
• Picture: I really should take pictures of my audience so that I can get a better count and so that I can recognize and thank people. Maybe I can ask someone to help me with that next time, so that I'm free to prepare other things I need for my presentation.
• Audio and screen recording: I have Camtasia on my system, and there's no reason why I can't use it to record my non-TLE presentations. Next time!

That was a terrific experience. I'm looking forward to the next presentation!

Maybe there's some truth to the advice, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Thanks to jetlag, I've been up uncharacteristically early. I like the new rhythm my day has taken.

Before this jetlag-assisted early start, I used to stumble out of bed, scarf down a quick breakfast, and head to the office. Waking up was a gradual process, and it took me about an hour or so to warm up for more creative work. After I returned from the office, I tried to squeeze in some personal creative time in the evenings. I found it difficult to write when my brain was tired from work. Finding the time to exercise was low on my list, as it took me away from other things I would rather be doing.

Yesterday, I simply couldn't stay in bed past 3:30 in the morning. That gave me plenty of time to exercise, plan my day and my week, and write a thousand words for my book. I arrived at the office at 8 o' clock and worked on my most important tasks. Because I had breakfast earlier, I got hungry earlier, too. Fortunately, I had brought brownies from the Philippines, and that helped me last until lunch time. I felt myself winding down in the afternoon, so I worked on some more routine tasks. When I got home, I spent some time tidying up and chatting with other people. This was a good way to relax and get ready to sleep. I was asleep by 8.

Today I'll find out if I can repeat that rhythm. This morning, I woke up at 4:30. I prepared oatmeal, then exercised while the oatmeal simmered. Exercising first thing in the morning meant that I woke up quickly and with lots of energy. I even found the time to bake peanut butter cookies. The only hiccup was that I had some filesystem problems with my laptop, so I didn't get around to writing as much as I wanted. I spent some time sketching instead.

Tonight, I'll see if preparing breakfast and lunch in the evening is a good way to use my downtime to free up some of my personal creative time. Tomorrow, I'll set my alarm clock for even earlier. I'd also like to move my morning writing session earlier, perhaps even before breakfast. Kaizen: relentless improvement.

Technorati Tags: kaizen, self-improvement

Today I experimented with my schedule again. Instead of waking up at 6 and heading to work early, or waking up at 7 and heading to work on time, I woke up at 5:30, spent some time working on my book, and then started work. It helped that I worked from home, too. It was just a matter of switching to my work context at 9, and I hit the ground running because my brain was warmed up and already in creative mode.

How can I improve this? I'm going to try waking up even earlier. I'll move it gradually, so tomorrow I'll try 5:15. I hope that this will translate into more creative time.

On Technorati: kaizen

Kaizen: relentless improvement. Making life better one day at a time.