Blog

October 23, 2015

Greg Thomas

Words I Strongly Dislike

Employee a person employed for wages or salary, especially at non-executive level. I strongly dislike this word, it is one of the few words that I go out of my way to use (BTW this definition is taken straight from Google).  If I am about to type it, I delete it and find another word to use; users, members, team, people, something, anything. It takes away all other aspects of someone wanting to work with you, as though the only reason they are working with you is because they can monetary compensation.  The best part of this definition is the delineation

October 21, 2015

Greg Thomas

Measure the Mark

Each year, I take stock of where I was one year ago and what I accomplished in that time. This servers to answer a number of questions; Have I grown as person? Have I challenged myself? Am I proud with how I have conducted myself with others? Was everything I accomplished worth the sacrifice to other areas?  Did I choose wisely? Am I on the right path to what I want to accomplish? For everyone one of these questions, the follow-up is the always the same – “If not, why not?” – why am I not being challenged, why did I

October 20, 2015

Greg Thomas

Take the Complex, Make it Simple

I’ve blogged about taking something complex and making it simple before (and half a million others  have as well so its good we’re all on the same path) but beyond that I am a big believe in the install and a user’s first experience with your “thing” – product, device, software, hard drive, et al – is a lasting impression. Today, I was looking to install WordPress on Windows 2012, knowing I’d need MySQL and PHP and hook it up to IIS, or do I use Apache,  etc, etc and then do I need PHP MyAdmin.  The list goes on just

October 18, 2015

Greg Thomas

The Waffle Project

We’ve all been on “that” project, the one that is plagued with problems, the one that you’ve been on for 6 months and you can’t seem to the team motivated on. It’s not a problem with the team or the purpose, somewhere it just waffled into what is today – people are doing things but it’s not really going anywhere.  No one wants to set an end date to walk a way from it, it just keeps going – taking on new features, working through bugs, trudging along. Ask anyone and no one wants to part of the Waffle Project –

October 17, 2015

Greg Thomas

The Anatomy of a Complaint

A complaint always comes to you in a few ways – in most cases it is either very loud (i.e., an explosion in a meeting) or very soft (i.e., someone coming into your office, slumping down in their chair, feeling dejected). Whichever the case I’m constantly amazed at the overall contrast between the need for people to make the complaint vs the desire to do something about it.  These are two very different things and they originate from the above – getting it out – feeling like you have unloaded and/or transferred it to someone else which creates this initial bit