Ultranormal

Category: development

  • Three Weeks In, A Look Back

    I know I’ve been rather quiet since leaving AOL and joining up with Music Intelligence Solutions, but as you can see from Jen’s entries, we’ve been busy. I’ve been going back and forth to Savannah, trying to both get to know the team, the vision and the plans we have for launching, and at the same time, designing architecture, doing training and helping folks get up to speed on scrum and other stuff. It’s been a lot of late night, long conversations, whiteboard sessions (note to self, get a bigger whiteboard), and late-night epiphanies while trying to get to sleep.

    I keep thinking about what I learned over thirteen years, and the people who took their time to mentor me, and the excellent managers I had who showed me how to deal with both pressure and conflict. I keep thinking about one of the first technical meetings I had way back in 1999 about AOL Search. We were just getting started with the project, and I was the front-end guy, and one of the only people involved who knew AOLserver and Tcl. So, there I was in a room with two PhD’s, with them asking me what I wanted the API to look like. Joe Dzikiewicz and Tom Donaldson sat there and asked lots of questions, we drew on the whiteboard, and I was freaked the hell out…

    There are hundreds of people I should thank for helping me over the years. I tried to count up all the people I worked with at AOL, and it’s easily over a hundred and I got close to two before I stopped. But, the person I keep coming back to is Joe. He was one of the first computer scientists who took me under his wing. I don’t have a degree – everything I know about technology is either self-taught or through experience and others helping me out. I’ll never forget an IM Joe sent me while we were working on AOL Search. It went something like:

    • Joe: Hey, things are looking good, but it seems kind of slow. Are you threading the requests?
    • Me: Am I what?
    • Joe: … I’ll call

    I think I scared him; but, he very patiently explained it to me, and then sent me off to figure out how to implement it.

    I learned so much from Joe, and from the hundreds of other people I worked with at AOL – from my first manager, Judy Winger, who “saved” me from getting fired from a really stupid e-mail I sent to the wrong manager (well, that manager was the intended target, but…), Priscilla Serling for encouraging me to take the job in Virginia, to Robin Vinopal and Mark Robinson who taught me so much about how to treat the people who work for you, and to Bert Arians and Alan Keister for giving me all the room I needed to try new things. And all the nerds, geeks and smartasses I worked with.

    It’s only now that I’m gone and have a couple weeks away that I see how lucky I was to work with all the people I did.

    I’m having a blast at MIS trying to implement all the stuff I learned over the years at AOL, and all the stuff I wanted to try but couldn’t, either because of upper management (I can only say that I learned a whole lot about what not to do from AOL’s upper management over the years) or because I wasn’t in a place to do it. It’s been a lot of fun seeing my new team embrace all the things I’m throwing at them (and I’m throwing a bunch, everything from The Cluetrain to web standards).

    It’s going to be an adventure, and before I get too far along in it, I have to say “thank you” to everyone I worked with at AOL. Without you, I wouldn’t be here, and I’ll be forever grateful.

  • And I’m Out!

    \
    They (big thanks to Shawn for organizing it and Andy, Bert and Frank for picking up the tab!) threw an awesome going away party for me Thursday afternoon, which was a great idea, because yesterday I was super sick and just barely made it in to turn in my badge, laptop, blackberry, etc and grab my boxes and mini-fridge.\
    I love the people at AOL, always have. I’ve worked with, literally, hundreds of people in my thirteen years there, and I’m sad that I won’t see them every day now. But, it was definitely time to go. Now, I’m unemployed for two whole days before starting my new job down in Savannah. If I weren’t so sick, I might actually enjoy it!

  • Last day

    Today is Kevin’s last day at AOL. He’d been there for 13 years. Can you imagine? That is the same amount of time spent in school. AOL helped him find his passion, meet like-minded people, travel the world, pay off my student debt (hey, super thanks for that), and develop into an awesome web dude. Over 100 people went to his goodbye party. Which, wow. Thanks, AOL. You’ve been awesome to us, which we’ll always appreciate. Bye now. Have a great summer. Keep in touch!\
    ETA- Oh noes! Kevin doesn’t have the internet attached to his hip anymore. I am going through withdrawal already.

  • Building Rails and Standards Tribes in Savannah

    I was thinking this morning about moving to Savannah, since the new job’s down there, and what I wanted to do to find a tribe. I have several great non-geospecific tribes already, my W3C scattered around the globe, my SxSW tribe and then my AOL tribe also spread around the globe, but mostly local to Northern Virginia (this includes “escapees” at various startups and places around the area). But, I’ll be moving to a new city, and I like having a local tribe.\
    I went looking this morning before heading over to the conference, and there’s no Refresh Savannah or Ruby Users Group that I could find through Google. So… it looks like we need to start them! I’ve got the domain names registered. Who wants to help?

  • The Triangle Will Keep on Turning

    I made it to thirteen years at AOL. It started as a summer job way back in 1995 at the AOL call center in Tucson. I talked to AOL members who needed help. I was there for the summer of busy signals, and took more than two hundred and fifty phone calls in an eight hour shift (“Yes, it’s busy. No, it’s not your computer. If you’d like credit, I can transfer you to billing. Sorry!”).\
    I’ve built all kinds of web apps, worked with wickedly smart, fun, weird and great people. I’ve had better managers than I deserve and mentors I’ll never be able to repay or express to them how much they helped me.\
    I’ve written dozens of e-mails today to folks inside AOL and out, posted to twitter and to the ficlets blog. I’m emotionally raw at this point, because I’m going to miss working with everyone and seeing them every day. I’m not good with good-byes, and I’ve said enough for one day.\
    If the previous three paragraphs aren’t clear, after thirteen crazy years, I’m leaving AOL. Yep. Last Monday, I got an interesting e-mail from a recruiter asking me if I’d be interested in a VP of Development position at a small company. I said, sure, I’ll talk to them. Several dozen e-mails, a dozen or so phone calls and an offer later, I’m joining Music Intelligence Solutions on 6/9. I’m more excited and nervous than I’ve been since Jen and I packed up and moved to Northern Virginia nine years ago.\
    There are, of course, many more things to say, but I’m worn out.

  • Nerdy Songs

    Jason posted a tweet about writing songs this afternoon and I must have been in a particularly suggestible post-nap state and instantly came up with several extremely nerdy song titles. I think almost all of these fall into to Nerd Country n’ Western, but whatever. Here they are:

    • I’m Semantic, But Wow, You’re Well-Formed
    • Since You Left, I’ve Been in Plain Old Semantic Hell
    • Why Do Our Tags Have to Branch?
    • If You Won’t Mock My Markup, I Won’t Jeer Your Scripts
    • What’s in a DOCTYPE?
    • I Sold My Soul to the W3C, and All I Got Was a Long-Sleeved Tee
    • Baby, It’s Not Really a Microformat!
    • Let’s Go Home and Append Some Child Nodes to Your DOM
    • If You Leave, All I’ll Have is Twitter\
      I’m sorry. I really am, but you’re welcome to add to the nerdy nonsense in the comments…

  • A Small Favor: Have You Read My Book?

    I sometimes check the Amazon page for Adapting to Web Standards to see if anyone’s rated it (and to see how it’s doing, of course). It’s been out for four months, and there are no ratings so far – good or bad.\
    So, I’m asking a small favor, if you’ve read the book, could you please go rate it? Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got any feedback on my chapter (#7, the one on AOL.com), I’d love to hear it. It’s the first thing I’ve written “professionally”, and I’d love to hear what people think of it, how it could be better and where it goes wrong.\
    Thank you, please continue about your day.

  • Pythagoras Switch

    The boys are in love with these videos from a Japanese kids’ show called Pitagora Suicchi (Pythagoras Switch) on YouTube and have made me watch several of them this morning. Not the worst thing I’ve been made to watch…

    \
    And here’s part 2.

  • Go See Frank Gruber In Person

    Though I will be speaking at another conference this same day still I wanted to help spread the word about the TECH cocktail CONFERENCE which is more than just a cocktail mixer event . Just last week TECH cocktail was awarded the Illinois I.T. Assocation CityLIGHTS Award, the first TECH cocktail conference will be held on Thursday, May 29, 2008 in Chicago. Frank has assured me that it’ll be solid and not at all boring. I actually work with Frank at AOL, and like him, so I trust that’s he’s telling the truth. I have no reason at all to doubt him.\
    Check out the speaker list for the event. The event looks to facilitate a place for people to learn all the various aspects of starting and running a Web business. The usual “no nonsense” approach will be alive at the conference along with their signature relaxed atmosphere so attendees will learn a lot while having fun.\
    If you are interested in attending the go register! If you go, and use the: kevinisawesome discount code, you can save a big ol’ twenty-five bucks! Space is very limited so sign up today.\
    If I hadn’t already agreed to be on a panel at RailsConf, I’d totally be there.

  • SxSW Interactive 2008

    Kevin has blue hair!

    I’m in Austin for SxSW Interactive 2008. I’ve been really busy with preparing for panels, worrying about panels, worrying about the web awards, dying my hair blue, etc. Here are some of the highlights of the week:

    • Career Transitions: From DIY to Working for the Man: I moderated a panel about the pros and cons of working for large corporations, startups, the government, freelancing and academia. The panelists were awesome: Jason Garber, Leslie Jensen-Inman, Cindy Li and Thomas Vander Wal. I think the panel went pretty well, and hopefully helped some people out.
    • Ficlets won a SxSW Web Award!!!! – I couldn’t be prouder. I posted about it over on the ficlets blog (it has my acceptance speech too). Jason deserves most of the credit, but I’m keeping the trophy. Mr. Scalzi just blogged about it too.
    • I dyed my hair blue for The International Day of Awesomeness. I’ve always wanted to, but never had the guts. Since the holiday is all about performing and celebrating feats of awesomness, I knew I had to do it. So, I spent Monday morning dying my hair and ruining hotel towels.
    • I got interviewed by New Riders (my publisher). It’s in the Voices That Matter podcast on iTunes, and they said it should be on YouTube some time today. And, here it is!
    • I got interviewed by the AOL Developer Network about ficlets and SxSW. No idea when that’ll go up.
    • I got to hang out with my friends at great events like Fray Cafe and 20×2.\
      I’m headed to California bright and early tomorrow morning and could really use a nap.