My best friend from high school told this story of their family on vacation – on their way to their holiday destination, three kids in the back of the car, mom & dad in front, they got a bit lost. A bit like National Lampoons European vacation (albeit somewhere in the Carolinas if memory serves) Dad G started driving around and around a traffic circle trying to determine which exit to take. Among the heated discussion of which way to go, someone lights up from the back “Dad, what are we doing!!?? (driving around the traffic circle when we’re supposed to be at the beach having fun already!)” – Dad replies in a stern shout …

WE’RE HAVING FUN!!!

I tell this story – no matter if my memory actually serves me well – often. The reply – ironically funny in it’s own right (especially as Rob tells it) – reminds me that you can’t force the end result. Fun / funny is simply a side effect – and you certainly can’t force it – other than in the ironic/watching-people-squirm sort of way (and you definitely don’t want that!).

The point of feeling fun – of feeling ‘buzy’ – is that you’re actually doing something fun or as a result of success. It indicates that people are all on the same page, are relaxed, are doing anything other than supposedly having fun. Fun is the side benefit of the activity / mood. It’s not something you can really set out to have with any authenticity. Which is why the article in the Economist struck a chord with me. At first I thought that maybe I’m too cynical to believe the Zappos way could be fun – that sometimes work is — well, work. That bummed me right out, because of all times, I’m actually enjoying work these days. And that cynicism crept right up and hung off my back.

But then I circled back to the HBR article one more time today and had a re-epiphany: set the goals of the team around performance, around risk, around ownership – anything other than around having fun. I hope that Zappos has the right priorities to enable their CEO’s vision of corporate culture. That somehow they’ve managed to align the priorities of their employees in such a way that fun is the result. I really wish Create fun and a little weirdness wasn’t in their list – but simply a footnote to their 10 principles. Maybe having that point 3 doesn’t insert employee cynicism within their organisation – but I think it gives every other leader a cop out. The copycats will focus on 3 and nothing else.

As the Economist piece points out, CEO’s who aim to mimic an environment of the Zappos case study focus on the end result – of the “FUN FUN” bit – and lose the focus that actually generates and enables fun in the first place. They lose the focus to create a stable, goal oriented, grounded workforce that’s able to take chances – that doesn’t feel scared to fail – that doesn’t mind a bit of egg on their face when they shoot too high. Not all companies can be Zappos from the ground up (and certainly not when a culture is already in place). Sure you have to learn and take points from others – but embrace who you are, what you can bring to the table, and what makes your company and employees tick. Only then will employees enjoy their success and maybe even learn to enjoy the opportunity to take a few lessons from a bit of failure.

And here’s why I’m a bit miffed at the whole discussion: I think the BBC missed an opportunity to look at how the internet is changing not just language, but complete concept of regional culture. I know it didn’t start with the internet — movies, TV, and radio, and national newspapers made even the most colloquial language within a country ubiquitous – but also hinted at behavior and expectations of uniformity. The barrier to cultural exchange broke down to the point where 14 year olds who had never seen a surf board in their life were using ‘hang loose’ and dressing like white rappers dragged through Sears (in other words, not very authentic). Growing up I was always amazed and thought about the waves of popularity through the country – watching trends start on the West Coast, pop over to NYC, filter through the eastern seaboard, and migrate West. Or start in FL, move to NJ, hit NYC, then bam – throughout the country. I mean, seriously, someone has to take the blame for popped collars. Who started it?? I blame this guy.

But what I found interesting about cultural exchange through the mass media within the US, I find absolutely fascinating to watch through the internet on a cultural level. I expect to be able to not only suss out an interesting London property through Google maps, but now find myself navigating and exploring places I’ve seen on holiday, exploring places I’ve never been in order to get a feel for the place before I arrive. I can get a feel for how a town is laid out, see their signs, and not be a complete foreigner in a foreign land when I arrive. And while blogging and Twitter are tip of the sword here, Youtube, Chatroulette (Mom, be careful with that link), and even down to checking out world news sites have taken our picture of the world and it’s inhabitants, and exploded our expectations of finding unique culture. Chalk up part down to mass commercialization (I was floored to find out the popularity of 7Elevens in Thailand!) but also down to our access to the fire hose of data and knowledge that we call the internet.

But moving on – lesson learned for me: even after umpteen years living in large metro areas, I still need to do a better job of keeping my belongings in sight.

The positives:
First off, the laptop had been on a time machine backup for a few months – but unfortunately the backup had filled up & I had taken to just hitting cancel. Not smart. But I also keep source code checked into a subversion server & email is all server based, so there won’t be a huge problem getting back up & running w/ new hardware.

The negatives:
A few things are just a pain: first, my visa to stay in the UK was in the backpack. Dealing with that will take weeks off my life. My prescription sunglasses as you might know if you’ve ever purchased these sorts of things before, are priceless to me & useless to someone else. So I have a bit of an incentive to get these things back – and thought the stolen laptop might inadvertently come to my aid.

I have dropbox & xmarks on the computer – programs that automatically hit a server and do things (like sync a file directory & sync my bookmarks). Now chances are the thief will just drop a fresh install on to get around my login password & wipe the computer clean before selling it on. But – if – and a big if – they actually manage to get my password or figure out how to login any other way those two programs will hit & I’ll be notified of my new friend’s IP address, hopefully getting me one step closer. A long shot to be fair.

But to the point – there’s an open source project that I’ve (too late) realized would have helped me that much more: Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen. It works in all operating systems and not only is it Open Source but also completely free. We like. It is now going on all my computers & recommending that my office install on all portables as well.

Also, I should have registered mobile belongings here at the UK’s property registrar which may have helped stop the person selling on the laptop on the open market.

Finally, I’m thinking of several ideas which might electronically tie items to me. Say, if my bag had a RFID chip & talked to my phone, I could program it to go off if my bag went out of range….though peripherals are in development and look half baked at the moment, it’s rumored that the next iPhone will have reader built in…here’s hoping…

Walt Whitman

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

It avails not, time nor place–distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d…

————–
I’m overall still very happy with the move to London – but at this moment, right now, I miss NYC. I feel like I’m in high school again with a crush on two different girls.

Incidentally, here’s a tip for all you wireless roamers: when you’re on the road, especially in a public wireless network, it’s best to be really careful about surfing so as to keep your belongings secured at all points (”Did you pack your own bag?”, “Was your bag with you at all times?”, “Have you let every person in the airport know your email password by sending it unencrypted over our unsecured wireless network?”) . I can never remember to be that careful, so here’s what I do – be ready to be geeked.

I setup a secure ssh tunnel and proxy my web traffic through that. I happen to have a few servers that I can run this through, but you can always use your broadband connected home mac (or PC with ssh-server installed). At the command line, I type:

ssh -D 9999 evan@freshkills.xyz.com -p 22

Then in Firefox, I go to my network preferences (Firefox, Preferences, Advanced, Network, Settings) and select “Socks Host” and type 127.0.0.1  with 9999 as the port. This routes all network traffic in Firefox through freshkills.xyz.com over ssh (secure shell).  Fun stuff, I know.

Oh – by the way – check out http://www.no-ip.com/ if you want to setup a free url that points to your home machine at all times. And remember to update your router to handle ssh traffic!

I’ll be a little different than our 500 sqft apartment in Manhattan, and much much different than our 1200 sqft cottage in South Mimms. Looking forward to using the garden! They don’t have it pictured as the house is covered in scaffolding at the moment, but it’s really quite nice. And there’s a sub basement for storage! It’s a wet basement (floods when it rains) but if we keep stuff up off the floor it should come in quite handy. Only thing I’m not looking forward to is the parking – but life is full of tradeoffs, isn’t it.

More pictures when we move – the 16th of Dec.

Cheers!