Being Geek by Lopp, Michael -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Being Geek

Praise for Being Geek Preface

How to Contact Us Safari® Books Online Acknowledgments

I. A CAREER PLAYBOOK

1. How to Win

A System Thinker People Are Messy A System of Improvisation A Career Blueprint A Collection of Moments

2. A List of Three

Technical Direction Growth Delivery Simplifying the Infinite

3. The Itch

Are You Answering the Phone?

The Pissed Itch Early Warning Signs of Doom

Engagement Wanderlust

The Contradiction List

Who are you leaving behind?

The reality is:

Are you done?

The reality is:

What itch are you trying to scratch?

The reality is:

Bright and Shiny

4. The Sanity Check

Stalk Your Future Job Initial Tuning

Can We Communicate? One More Softball No More Softballs Your Turn

The Close

Long, Awkward Pauses Adversarial Interactions How'd It Feel? Specific Next Steps

5. The Nerves

Question Types The Answer Process The Confidence of Knowing a Thing

6. The Button

Creatures and Structure Interview Creatures

Pissed Off Pete Chatty Patty The Poet Gotcha Greg Slick Steve Silent Bob The CEO

A Fresh Perspective

7. The Business

You Are the Business Pre-Game

How Am I Doing?

The Swag

Base Salary Title Sign-on Bonus Stock

Negotiating Roles

Offer Compromise

Lower base salary But it's OK, here's a bonus Even better, here's a pile of stock And this is our final offer

Meh

II. DECONSTRUCTING MANAGEMENT

8. The Culture Chart

Ninety Days Bridge Detecting Culture Culture Definers Game Over

9. Managing Managers

A Management Assessment

Is There a 1:1? Is a Staff Meeting a Casual or Structured Affair? Are There Status Reports? What Meetings Does He Schedule? How Often Is His Hand in the Cookie Jar?

The Essential Elements The Loop

10. The Issue with the Doof

On Experience Up Partial Information Beware the Doof Everything

11. The Leaper

On Excuses On Delivery Say Something Real

12. The Enemy

Management Transformations

The Interrogator The Prioritizer The Randomizer The Illuminator The Enemy

The M Word

13. The Impossible

A Hint of an Insane Plan Skin in the Game The Importance of Respect What He Really Wants

14. Knee Jerks

One Eighth of a Second The Jerks

Dr. No Raging Bull Still Water Distiller The Handler My Bad We're Doomed I Quit

Stages of Jerk

15. A Deep Breath

Sigh

Three Meetings

1:1s with my staff Staff "Look What We Built" meeting

Invest in the Boring

16. Gaming the System

An Entertaining System

Discovery: From Confusion to Control Optimization, Repetition, and Win: A Paradox and a Warning Achievement: Who Cares if You Win by Yourself? The Rules of the Game

The rules need to be clear. The rules must be inviolable. The playing of the game must be inclusive, visible, and broadcasted. Use money as a reward only as a last resort. It's not a game.

The Whiteboard Game

17. Managing Werewolves

A Dangerous Scenario People Lie, Some Are Evil, Others Just Want to Screw You This Isn't Role Playing; This Is Life or Death We Can't Let the Werewolves Win

18. BAB

On the Topic of Trust

BAB

In BAB, you talk shit. In BAB, you learn things unintentionally. In BAB, you're having work experiences without the work.

The Second Staff Meeting

19. Your People

Share What You Build You Tell Stories

20. Wanted

The Requisition Situation

Spend an Hour a Day on Each Req You Have I Found Them! I'm Done!

Deliberate Want Hire for Your Career

21. The Toxic Paradox

Big Fat Toxic Assumptions Go Team! A Toxic Paradox Everyone Is an Adjustment

22. The Pond

The Unspoken Royal We Do You Mean It?

The Personality

Are they eloquent in email? Are they self-directed? How detail-oriented are they? How well do they know the Pond? Do they need the Pond? Are they reliable?

The Right Job The Culture Friction Detection

Another Pond

III. YOUR DAILY TOOLKIT

23. The Nerd Handbook

Understanding Your Nerd

Understand Your Nerd's Relation to the Computer Your Nerd Has Control Issues Your Nerd Has Built Himself a Cave Your Nerd Loves Toys and Puzzles Nerds Are Fucking Funny Your Nerd Has an Amazing Appetite for Information Your Nerd Has Built an Annoyingly Efficient Relevancy Engine in His Head Your Nerd Might Come Off as Not Liking People

Advanced Nerd Tweakage

Map the Things He's Bad at to the Things He Loves Make It a Project People Are the Most Interesting Content out There

The Next High

24. The Taste of the Day

The New Gig The Taste of the Day

The Morning Scrub Practice Productivity Minimalism The Evening

25. The Trickle List

Trickle Creation The Trickle Process Structured Improvisation

26. The Crisis and the Creative

A Spectrum for Everything

The Crisis The Creative

A Personal Model

27. The Foamy Rules for Rabid Tools

The Foamy Rules

My Tools Appear Deceptively Simple My Tools Do Not Care Where My Work Is My Tools Are Designed to Remove Repetitive Motion My Tools Do Only What I've Told Them to Do My Tools Are My Tools

An Evolving Foaminess

28. Up to Nothing

An Essential Exercise in Inactivity Up to Nothing Don't Look for It

29. How to Not Throw Up

Not Throwing Up Is a Two-Phase Process

Phase 1: Practice Endlessly Phase 2: Throw-up Avoidance

Improvise

Fret

30. Out Loud

Presentation or Speech? The Unforgivable Mistake The Disaster Reduction Presentation Punctuation Something for Their Pocket

31. Bits, Features, and Truth

That Damned Triangle

Bits, Features, and Truth

Bits Features Truth

Circle of Comfort Circle Analysis

Bits and Features are the same. Truth is the same as Features.

Let the Negotiation Begin; It's About the Debate

32. The Reveal

Three Phases Three Alphas

Alpha Nothing: "I'm saying absolutely nothing." Alpha Game: "I'm game, but you drive." Alpha Drive: "I'll drive."

The Holy Shit Event Horizon

IV. YOUR NEXT GIG

33. The Screw-Me Scenario

You Might Be Lying A Rubber Stamp Affair No Guilt, No Doubts, No Fear Game On The Unforgivable Spin A Screw-Me Detection Policy

34. No Surprises

Show Me the Money

Measures Versus Content A Review Is a Conversation Surprise!

The Permanence of the Written

35. A Deliberate Career

Three Choices

Question #1: Start-up or Established?

Start-up Established

Question #2: Industry and Brand Question #3: Management or Development?

Why would anyone want to be a manager?

A Complete Opportunity Move

36. The Curse of the Silicon Valley

Apprenticeship On Language

Everyone Hates Engineering

No one knows what we actually do to build the software, so they assume it's easy We take our work personally and believe no else does Our relationship is with the bits

The Curse Geeks Gone Mainstream

37. A Disclosure

Management Is a Total Career Restart You Go to a Lot of Meetings You Are a Communication Hub Abstraction and Filtering You Will Be a Multilingual Translator Drama Everywhere Context Switcher Say No Say Yes Trust So You Can Scale

38. Mind the Gap

The Gaps

Knowledge and Ability: "Alpha Knowledge" Power and Influence: "Maestro" Network and Communication: "The Insider"

A Matter of Perspective

39. The Exodus

This Sucks

Two Threads

Tactical Strategic

The First Wave

Where does this exodus begin? Why are they leaving? Why are they letting them go?

The Second Wave

Approach #1: Wait it out Approach #2: Stem the tide

The Third Wave

Which Wave?

40. Bad News About Your Bright Future

What's Next Biased by the Now An Uncomfortable Ending

A. Hurry

You're in a Hurry

B. The Rules of Back Alley Bridge

Preparing for Back Alley Bridge Rules of Play

Index About the Author Colophon

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