Darke Distractions

Recent events in my life (some of you will know what I am talking about!) have got me thinking about how we approach a problem, a task, a challenge, or just day to day things.

My usual approach is usually quite a gentle one, non-confrontational, normally quite sensitive to the feelings of anyone else involved, or the fragility of the subject in hand.

Upon recently coming to wits end with something that I could no longer fathom how to deal with, I took advice from a friend, and although to me the advice seemed strange, and slightly uncomfortable, I followed through with the advice.

The advice, of course, was to do with a woman. My usual recourse is to be the most charming, gentle, kind and understanding guy out there, but after a long period of confusion it seemed to be going nowhere..

So the advice was to do just the opposite: in effect,  make the other person so jealous and unsure about things that she is forced into a position where she has to act, or where she will want me to pay attention to her so much that the ‘power’ is all in my hands.

Sometimes listening to advice from friends is good, sometimes acting on that advice is good, sometimes no so. Whilst I cannot say that in this case it was necessarily the worst thing I could have done, it didnt really lead down any productive avenues. I did however sort out the situation with my usual approach, which seems to work a lot better, and in a way makes me glad to think I am not doing everything wrong!

So what does ANY of this have to do with the title?? You may ask.. I am getting there!!

My point is, there are often two different ways of approaching a problem, do different ways of tackling that problem, even if they might have what looks like the same outcome.

You can come across a problem and just wrestle it into submission, delving away into levels of application stack that you should not be anywhere close to, forcing strange and spurious checks all over the place to catch something, bashing out a 500 line script to eventually get the outcome that you desire.

It might work! It might provide results.. but you are just lying to yourself when you say you can keep it going, that it is maintainable, that you are comfortable with the way things are. (I am not sure if Im talking about code or women any more!)

Or

You can find out about the problem, you can learn about the nuances and quirks and niggles of the code, of the application, and you can take it gently, respectfully, honestly, and write something beautiful, something that you can look back on and say ‘I did good there’.

Your choice!

That might have been what things felt like in the .com boom, but now, like the .com bust, things are feeling a lot more tight. The effect of the credit crisis is having a much more pervasive impact on all industries and all sizes of organisations.

I recently read a very interesting blog entry by David Hobby, a great photographer and teacher whose blogs are eaten up by many a keen photographer, including myself.

The premise is this: A lot of people are finding themselves with a more free time due to less work, and a lot of companies/organisations are finding themselves with less cash, and this is a great time to build up some great relationships and make use of the conditions that we are finding ourselves in.

The idea of coming up with personal projects which could be of use to someone else, and hence joining forces, is one way of going about this.

Chase Jarvis, another great photographer,  has also blogged on this topic, and he has offered to take his WHOLE team anywhere in the world for ONE project which catches his attention, out of all the applications that anyone can send in..

“Whether it takes three weeks or three months or longer — if something sounds like a good match, creative, or cool to me, then I’ll contact you, and I’ll do that shoot for free. It will be fun.”

How mad is that?? And this is not just one person, this is a whole team.. (take a look at this link for a glimpse at one of the projects he has worked on).

I have, maybe more out of necessity than choice, offered to do work for free within the photography arena for quite a while. It is, after all, an investment in contacts, experience and a good portfolio.

What I am talking about now is taking this approach across other industries..

Q: Thinking of finishing off a great little Team Management application, but don’t have the budget to do full user testing on it, before inflicting it on the rest of the world?

A: Ask around a few companies, they might be dying for something like this, and quite willing to let their guinea pigs staff endure a few bugs which would be fed back to the developers for the cost savings of getting a free product with first line of feedback on features and changes!

Of course, this does not mean we have to come across as desperate or rubbish, rather that we just do what we have always done, generate some great relationships, whilst getting to play around with pet projects that might never get to see the light of day in other circumstances!

I hope this gets the juices flowing!

Random ramblings of rambuxious rants and rivetting redactions to follow