Vlad Mazek – Vladville Blog

Seth Godin is a famous writer behind many (damn near works of art) books on marketing, and one of his latest books, which you can read in an hour, is The Dip. Phenomenal book, get it. One of Seth’s things is to lay out the idea for you on the very first page of the book and then proceed to write for 50–100 pages explaining it and justifying the message he is just offering. The nutshell of The Dip is that successful people tend to know when to quit.

Successful IT people don’t know when to quit – as a matter of fact, the more attention and focus you can bring to a problem and solve it, the better you are as an IT person. But what happens if you start a company, and what happens when you apply the same type of intensity and followup to a dispute or a conversation that you shouldn’t in the first place? You end up with a long argument, going nowhere. This is not my idea, but I am offering it up for your consideration, if the person that clued me in on it would like to take credit for it, by all means, comments are open

“The Power of my Delete Key”

I follow this process in determining whether the conversation takes place or not:

1. Does this feedback make me money? If yes, read on. No – Delete.

2. Does this message get me laid? If yes, read on and respond. No – Delete.

3. Does this message get me free beer? If friends then yes, read on and respond. No – Delete.

Simple three step guide to a stress free life. Remember, not all conversations are worth having, not all people are worth talking to.

I unfortunately struggle from not implementing this as harshly as I ought to. I think you’ve all seen me struggle with this stuff when dealing with the negative public feedback from SM, SBS Show, OWN, etc. Starting today, this policy goes into effect.

In my many business and fun trips to Vegas I’ve had the pleasure of staying at nearly everything the strip has to offer, once even booking a stay at Excalibur on a two day notice.

I have to say that MGM Grand, one of the finest hotels on the strip, is also the worst one for the business traveler. If you can, avoid this hotel at all cost. Not only do they only have a single Internet feed, virtually guaranteeing saturation, but their customer service is the worst one I have experienced in Vegas. I have already been misinformed, lied to, and basically told to sit on my hands while they have absolutely refused to address an issue of their Internet access being down. They seemed quite content to shift the blame on Cox Hospitality and even CES, but acknowledged on the third call that nobody was actually working on the problem! The first complaint was answered by “We’re going room by room to help customers that don’t have access”, the second with “It’s a city-wide issue with Cox Hospitality” and final was just an acknowledgement that while they understand there is a problem, nobody is actually working on it.

I suppose it’s normal to not work 24/7, after all, not like any major trade show is in town (oh, except CES, the largest one in the world) and I suppose that you wouldn’t even consider opening the business center 24/7 if you knew your entire hotel was without Internet access and you were inconveniencing guests from all over the world.

My cost of staying at MGM just quadrupled as in the morning I will be out to get a 3G card, but in the grand scheme of things money is not that relevant because it can always be made and spent – horrible guest service and unwillingness to do anything about the problem leave a lasting mark of an organization not to deal with. In this case, MGM Grand and MGM/Mirage will be on my permanent avoid list.

One sure way to prove yourself as someone that is too stupid to work in IT (and hopefully inflict some bodily harm) is to try the same motivational techniques that are used on dumb jocks on IT people. Believe it or not, what stimulates a 400lb linebacker to run through another stupid mass does not motivate people that spent 5 years in college earning their degrees so they can work in the tech industry.

It pisses them off because instead of working or getting something meaningful accomplished, they have to listen to this marketing puke that probably had a hard time figuring out how to work the elevator. No engineer or tech wants to listen to some washed up senior executive, out of touch and out of experience, congratulate himself for an hour.

IT people, and other knowledge workers, are motivated by purpose, meaning, vision, and understanding how they fit into the solution. They are motivated by speakers that have found unique solutions, that work on interesting projects towards big goals.
Thinking about hiring a motivational speaker for your tech troops? Then for gods sake, don’t pay some self-congratulatory marketing puke that is going to motivate them to go apply for an MBA degree because of the image you’re projecting.