New Year's Resolution: Kaizen!

If old acquaintance be forgot and never thought upon then you're not holding retrospectives correctly.

I've never been a fan of making New Year's Resolutions - their short life spans are clichéd for a reason. I've also been reading Scott Adam's new book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big", and one of the major themes in the book is that goals are for losers; winners use systems. This resonates with the Agile principle of continuous improvement through inspecting and adapting.

So my New Year's Resolution this year is not a goal, but truly a resolution. I resolve to exercise personal Kaizen. Continuous improvement has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it hasn't always carried the urgency associated with Kaizen. I'm going to experiment more so that I can fail more so that I can learn more. I'm going to schedule Introspectives (1-person Retrospectives) on a regular basis whereby I can challenge my own personal status quo.

I wouldn't be an Agile Coach if I didn't encourage each of you to adopt Kaizen as a New Year's resolution as well. If you don't like the commitment associated with that term, can you commit to trying it just for January? Each Friday in January, I challenge you to hold your own Introspective. Ask yourself what you did well and what you could have done better. You may have made good decisions, but did you make the best ones? Did you have an answer for each time you were asked "Why"?

I'll be sharing the results of my own Introspectives every Friday this year. What I share may not be comprehensive, seeing as how I don't have the time to write out all the context for my results, but I'll share as much as I can within reason. I'll also work hard to blog frequently between Introspectives in an attempt to get more of a dialogue going than I've been able to in the past.

If you decide to take on my challenge, please share your results with me. You can comment on my blog, message me on LinkedIn, or tweet me @MLCarey321. I'd love to see the effects of personal Kaizen in your life!

Why Google+ Won't Work

The last time I posted on this blog was to announce my eager anticipation of the life-changing Google Wave. Here we are 2 years later and Wave has totally replaced e-mail! Right? Wait, what? Support for Wave by Google is about to disappear and all further development will be done by the Open Source Community? That doesn't sound like a widely adopted revolution...

Google Wave had some great ideas, but it struggled with a lack of a simple, user-friendly interface that was both quick and intuitive. It tried to do too much too fast in a Twitter world.

Now, here we are. Google+ has been announced and released to a small group of demigods who hold their currently obsolete invitations ransom to the rest of the world who is dying to see how it works to they can tweet about it and let all their Facebook friends know how cool it is. And therein lies the problem. We've already chosen our drug of choice, and it's going to take an incredible first-time high to hook us enough to switch for good.

Google+ might have had a chance if it came out guns blazing, showing everyone what it could do. It could still have retained a semblance of exclusivity by using invitations - you can only invite 50 people a day to Google+. Of course, with that amount of invitations going out it would blow up pretty quickly. Then, assuming it had something really new and fresh to offer, it might keep its head above water long enough to win over a non-insignificant percentage of the Internet population.

Instead they're showing everyone what they've got without letting anyone use it. My prediction: before they can get a toehold on the Social Network market Facebook will identify the gems of usefulness out of Google+, implement those features themselves, and Google+ will be left on the side of the road like so much picked-apart carcass. I'm serious about this. Go to Google+, find your favorite new feature (aka one that's not already in place on Facebook), and see how long it takes for it to show up on Facebook. I bet the best ones are there before Google+ really opens up to the public.


Google was not the first ones to do online search, but they did it best and got in early enough to win the masses over. From where I'm standing, they're too late in the game and not hitting it hard enough to win this battle. I hope I'm wrong - I love Google - but I don't think I am.

Waves, Tweets, and the future of Communication

I'm a bit of a techie guy. After all, I'm a programmer by profession. So I sometimes feel that it is my obligation to be up-to-date on Tech-related stuff. I've known about Twitter for some time, but I've put off getting an account until yesterday. I know, I know, I'm a little late getting on the band wagon, but I'm on it now and that's all that matters, right?

Anywho, I was pushed over the ledge by watching the Google IO video unveiling Google Wave. One of its pioneers, Lars Rasmussen (he and his brother brought Google Maps to the world), mentioned Twitter as "Everyone's favorite Social Networking site", or something to that effect. That's when I realized that it wasn't just about me, it was about being true to my profession and my generation. Cheesy, I know, but it's my justification.

Okay, back to Google Wave. It is hard for me to contain my excitement about Google Wave!!! I CANNOT wait for the public beta release! :) I know it's a little long, but I really think that everyone should check out the demo. It will revolutionize communication as we know it!



By the way (I know, I spelled it out - weird), if you're curious about the terminology associated with Google Wave, check out the explanation on Wikipedia. It's pretty interesting!