The Leaps of Technology

In 2015 when SpaceX landed an orbital rocket booster, the world changed. People have landed rockets for decades, and people have used rockets to get to space for decades. No one had put the two together before.  Now, nearly seven years later it is mostly taken for granted that we can land rockets. Another example, aluminum in the early 1800s was worth more than gold because we didn't know how to extract it from ore. Now we use it on single use aluminum cans. Electric cars might be a similar story. Currently they are really only luxury cars, but continue another 15 years of battery development to halve the price of the battery and likely raise the price of gasoline, and that trade off in initial cost versus recurring fueling costs might look even more lop sided than it is today. 

I'm writing this because I have been doing a little thought experiment lately thinking about what the world in 2050 might look like. I don't know what the future holds. A friend was recently telling me about fusion power, and that's another area where the first commercial power plant would be a total game changer. 

Those cool things being mentioned, something that I don't expect to change much are the mountains I enjoy. Specifically the San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado. They are some of the most rugged and most remote in the state, and I'm confident that many of those valleys in 2050 will not have roads, that they will be similar to how they are today. Of course they might burn in a fire, and not have the snowpacks they used to have, but in general they will probably look very similar. 

What do you think the world will look like in 2050? What will be the same and what will be different?

The Truth about Expeditions

I read a little article yesterday and at the bottom he addressed some issues of not telling the whole truth about an expedition. I've seen or heard of them all happening.

In many ways it degrades the experience. In other words, I wish that Mt. Everest was a big version of Longs Peak. An interesing objective, with lots of epic potential, but also something accessible that doesn't capture a huge media circus for people who are guided up the normal route. People have died on the Keyhole route of Longs Peak just like the South Col of Everest. In other words, soloing the Diamond on Longs Peak in the winter is a tremendous accomplishment, and not nearly the same as hiking the Keyhole on a nice August day with a guide.

This relates to my views on innovation, I feel there is very little real innovation. Most of the time innovation is the remix of other existing ideas. Is it innovative for this year's model of car to get 40 mpg when last year's had 39 mpg and the only difference is reducing the coefficient of drag by .01?

The point is: "...the truth will set you free." John 8:32

Bottom-Up Budgeting?

This is an interesting concept. So we recently had an election in the United States and one of the perpetual issues in an election is the budget. How much do we take in in taxes and what programs do we pay for? The trend is toward more taxes and more government services in developed economies. Read Capital in the 21st Century for some nice graphs on the subject. The unique thing about government election is that it is one chance every year or two years to vote for the people that will make financial decisions most closely aligned with your percieved pocketbook. That being said, the Kansas Experiment is interesting to say the least. Makes you want to move to Kansas right?

Budgets, on the whole, are something proposed from near the top, decided on by the top, and then carried out at the bottom. Program managers propose a budget, senior managers decide the budget, and the workers carry it out. The president proposes a budget, Congress decides on the budget, and a bunch of lower level government employees carry it out.

What if there was a different way?

Instead of the vast majority of funding decisions made by a small cadre of old people, what if each person, had discretion to allocate a number of dollars, based on his or her responsibility?

What if you could dictate where your tax dollars went? Would you keep the local school open? Would you repave the roads? Would you plow snow? Would you allow your grandparents to get social security? I realize that in the world of government we basically get a vote now and then otherwise don't get to decide the details. It's a complicated structure.

On the other hand, what about a theoretical engineering company? Instead of a manager getting approval for a $20 million dollar development program over three years and then going and directing 20 people for three years, who in turn have to petition for every cost to the program, each developer or engineer would have a $50,000 to $400,000 budget per year. They would have to band together and align on the goal to accomplish anything big. Yet the decision making would then be in the hands of the people in the trenches working the details. If he or she determined that some expense was worth it, he or she could pay for it.

In other words, if three people decide they have too much work and need to hire another person, they could each chip in some of their budget to make it happen. Of course, every year or so the budgets for everyone would be recalibrated based on various factors beyond the scope of this article like productivity, responsibility, leadership, etc. The idea is that a pet project of any size will only work if multiple people buy into it. Also, bad decisions are often recognized by people who report to the person that made the bad decision, yet due to the nature of heirachy no one says anything.

I don't know how exactly this would work. This is an idea in progress. Plus, I do really like the current system for forcing people to have their ideas reviewed by other stake holders. However, I think we can learn lessons from the $6 billion dollar JP Morgan London Whale. How does one person lose $6.2 billion dollars? How does one person lose a company $10 million? There must be a better way, a sort of superalignment in a team. A team where people trust each other so much you give that person your budget.

Birthdays Remind Me of What I Have Not Done

I turn 27 today. Woopee.

First, let me say that I am right where I am supposed to be, my life is awesome, the best life in the world, and God continues to bless me more everyday than I deserve. Now, let me get into all of my other thoughts.

My birthdays seem to be reminders of all of the goals I have not accomplished, reminders of the progression of others, and evidence of my sloth. Mark Zuckerberg was a billionaire at age 27. The Steves were Apple millionaires at 27. Most famous physicists had one of their breakthroughs by age 27. Rock stars seem to overdose on cocaine at age 27, okay, I don't have to live up to every legend.

I look at myself and think, 'how unremarkable.' I have not run a 2:17 marathon, I have not climbed Mt. Everest without oxygen, I am not a senior engineer or founder of a successful company, I am still single, and I have not paid off my student loans. Okay, I know that some of those are pretty serious goals, and no one wants to listen to my diatribe. However, I feel that we are not helping ourselves by lowering the bar. Lower standards, like qualifying for the Boston Marathon, are just not that difficult for thousands of people in the world. We must raise the bar! We must have higher, dare I say the highest, standards!

Look, the majority of people reading this live in the United States. We have been given life on a silver platter, compared to most other countries in the world. The poorest in this country eat better and have better access to healthcare than the middle class across much of Africa and Asia. I feel it is our duty to be all we can be. We do not have all of this wealth so that we can sip lemonade while watching the grass grow. We have this wealth so that we can push what is possible. We have this wealth so that we can innovate and our achievements might reap benefits for those less fortunate than us. For example, climbing Mt. Everest contributes to significant employment and income in a somewhat undeveloped part of the world. A less expensive and more fuel efficient car makes it possible for a family to travel safely in bad weather when they might currently only have a motorcycle.

Listen, assuming I live to be 91, I'm 1/3 of the way through my life. I've still got a lot to do. I want to change the world. I can't do it alone. You can't do it alone either, but together we have a chance. Let's stop wasting time and get busy shipping development. Let me know if I can help you.

What or Who is a Growth Hacker?

By the time I find out about most things, it is past the early adopter phase. In an effort to stem the tide of feeling not innovative I learned about growth hacker and downloaded Clinkle Wednesday. First of all, the first Growth Hacker Conference is in May. Yep, the phrase already has a conference. I learned about the term in Seth Godin's very good article about meetings, and an 11 month old blog post from Andrew Chen with comments from a number of prominent people in the start up company industry. The term was "invented" by Sean Ellis in a blog article nearly three years ago!

Trying to describe the term "growth hacker" in words that make more sense to me, it seems that the ideal concept of a growth hacker is: directly engineering functionality.

Functionality might not be the best word, usability or profitability might be better. I suppose it would be product/company dependent. In more than three words, Apple would probably do nearly as well, perhaps better, with only two commercials a year featuring Jony Ive talking about the latest Apple product. Valve probably has people that notice trends in their environments, and focus on that area, or focus on the area people just left. Google figured this out a decade ago when they simplified search to something that was very quick and uncluttered. The other companies could not match the speed, results, and simplicity of Google. More than a decade later Google still rules the world of search because they directly engineered functionality. Facebook might be losing this with the redesign and one-stop-shop complexity progression every few months. The opposite would be the concept of an employee being told to work on something, and working on it. That is not wrong at all! It is simply the perspective that is different. Looking for the problem to solve versus solving the problem that is given. Hopefully the two are the same, but I know that is not always the case. Regardless, directly engineering functionality is a great way to increase value and by repeating increase productivity.

Every day we are getting better. Every day we learn.

Utopian or Dystopian?

I listened to a segment about how we interact with robots, and it was not comforting. I encourage you to listen to the TED talks linked above, you will better understand the background. Secondly, unemployment has not been under 7.5% in more than four years. It strikes me that automation is taking over people's jobs. Next will be truck drivers. Seriously, by 2020 I expect driving to be very automated. At least by 2030 it will be mainstream. There is another 3-4 million people out of work.

The people creating these innovations have the dream of a utopian future. One where we can pursue recreation, relationships, athletics, travel, and not 60+ hour work weeks. While that is good in theory, and I would like to see it, I feel that we are getting there through dystopian progress. I mean, with the pace of innovation and automation humans are being replaced faster than new industries are created for employment. In other words, every major innovation in history has left formerly skilled people unemployed. We no longer have a horse doctor or black smith to fix our horses, we have mechanics to fix our cars. We don't have humans pick cotton by hand, we have big machines that harvest it. We don't harvest ice in the winter and store it all summer, we have freezers and refrigerators.

I see this as scary, because even with a master's degree I realize that someday what I do now will be automated. It will be 10-15 years after cars drive us everywhere, but my job is a series of choices and assumptions, which could realistically be automated. This isn't simply about truck drivers being replaced, it's about kids learning better from tablets than teachers, engineering done more consistently and with more optimized products when done by a machine, and banking done entirely by software.

My concern is how people who become unemployed because of their job being automated are to get paid? Turbotax put thousands of tax accountants out of work, and made one man a millionaire. The people at Google (or someplace else) will put millions of truck drivers out of work, while hiring a fraction of that number of people to provide continuous support to automated driving. My solution is either private industries pay large numbers of people salaries just to be on call in case of an emergency (with some sort of stipulation that they do a certain amount of continuing education), or the government provides some sort of basic minimum income to everyone. Of course we aren't really close to either happening. It will be a couple decades before engineering is automated the way I envision it. Unemployment would probably have to creep up to 20% or something before companies and governments realize that humans are being replaced like never before in the last 160 years of mechanization.

We don't really know what will happen. Hopefully I'm viewing the future and automation pessimistically. We will just have to get there one day and one hour at a time.

A Square Peg Into a Round Hole

If Apollo 13 isn't inspiring to people that humans can work together and solve problems (that we created in the first place) than I don't know what is. Sometimes I think about the things I am trying to accomplish, or the things others are trying to accomplish, and I think, 'that's crazy!' because it is so much more than he or she or I have ever done before. I feel like people with these audacious dreams are trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The doubts creep in and the haters try to cut dreams down. The thing is, square pegs do go into round holes. NASA did it in 1970 200,000 miles away from Earth with a sock, plastic bag and duct tape.

In mathematics the elegant solution often occurs after a math blood bath. A multiple page derivation leads to a three term equation. Similarly, fitting the irregular shape into the regular shape might require duct tape and socks or other innovative methods. One size does not fit all. The inspiring biography was written based on what the authors or others had already done. You and I are on a slightly different path than anyone else in the history of the world. Our course will deviate from another's biography. The point is, if the peg isn't fitting in the hole, maybe you haven't found the sock yet or maybe you ripped the first plastic bag.

Time Independent Education!!

I am way behind on my Coding Together iOS programming class! Close to three weeks behind. However, that's acceptable. It is acceptable because there is no grade for me when I finish, there is no tuition bill or next semester I need this prerequisite for. For the first time I can remember, there is no deadline for me to learn the material. There is no penalty for not learning the material by a certain time.

This is revolutionary. I'm serious. Kids sit through class for years learning the same material as a whole bunch of other kids because a teacher doesn't have the time to have 25 students all on a different page of the text book. Every so often a kid skips a grade or gets held back to repeat the lessons again. However, perhaps instead of maintaining a constant rate of learning, or a generally constant rate of learning because not all classes progress at the same rate, the rate of learning would depend on the student.

For example, given about four (12 hour) days if I were to just work on my iOS class I could complete the whole thing, except for the final project. However given the plethora of other things that I do with my time it will end up taking me three months or more. That is fine because the end result is nearly the same.

Extrapolate that to a high school trigonometry class. Perhaps there is a series of lectures, better yet interactive lectures, out there that could be used as material for the class. Students could progress with the lessons and assignments at their own rate and the teacher would be able to help students one or two or three at a time as each one needed help. Obviously there would be some bar, some set of minimum requirements, that grades would be based on. However, it allows students to go ahead if they had the time and motivation. Looking back the computer science classes I had and CAD (computer aided drawing) classes I had followed this kind of format. After a short lecture there would be an exercise to work through and some students would finish it before class was over, others would have to work on it after hours as homework. That is still like the tip of the iceberg. It allows the students to progress at their own rate, but every class like that I have had had limits on the material. It's like a text book with 300 pages that takes a year to get through. Well, some students could go through 500 pages in a year. Plus, different students are good at different subjects. If a student gets bored, even for a little bit, the chances of losing the interest of that person for more education grow.

This is on my mind because of the class I am taking, as well as the upcoming McGraw-Hill Education spinoff. As it turns off McGraw-Hill has a large office in Dubuque by the Mississippi as well as a printing operation on the west side of town. I feel that we are in the midst of an education revolution. I don't where where we will end up or if it will be better than what we have now. I don't know how long it will take or if we will go kicking and screaming or running and jumping. I do think that it will mean customized instruction for each student or at least for many different types of students. Kind of like the Star Wars clone army or Star Trek Vulcans. Education will no longer be primarily pages of written text (I'm predicting the death of my blog I suppose) but interactive experiments, even if they are mostly digital.

The Internet has changed things. It may have taken 25 years for us to have an idea of how to use it, but the sharing of information and the connecting of people sharing that information seems to be a major theme. Especially now that we have all of this information accessible from our phones and we have applications that we can touch that react to our actions.

These thoughts have been brewing in me for some time. I feel it is all about the next generation. That's part of the reason I coach. That's why I worked four summers at Boy Scout camp. I want to tell others about the great things I have discovered. So I plan to do more education on my blog going forward. The plantar fasciitis and shins splints thing is an example of what I have to share. It's not perfect. I would only call it semiprofessional, but it is a little more information that others can use to improve the world.

Compliance and Innovation

What are we doing wrong today that we do not even know? In other words, unions formed around 100 years ago to protest the conditions that were killing workers left and right. This is a progressive thing, no one was worried about AIDS fifty years ago. No one worried about atomic bombs until 70 years ago. To this day the idea of biological warfare is still more or less an unconcerning mystery.

At work we have a 30-60 minute long safety meeting every month and a two hour long compliance meeting every year, yet never an innovation meeting. The focus of large meetings (all employees or all salaried employees or all verification and validation employees) is very singular: stay safe. Rules and an organizational structure are put in place so that no time is lost in the production of the equipment we make. An important goal of course.

Perhaps more could be done? It is very easy to be isolated in the work that I do. I interact with the same people every day. I work with the people that do exactly what I do, the people that try to physically test the projects I virtually test, and the people that design the stuff we test. I'm not sure that is enough.

Compliance, Innovation and Risk

I created this little graphic to illustrate kind of how I'm feeling about the conflict of Compliance and Innovation along with the actual risk. I focused mainly on physical risks, like death. The size of the circles somewhat represents my perception of how people live their lives, most in compliance, some innovative, and a handful with significant risk. I suppose it all depends on what risks you are considering, I am sure that Toyota and Microsoft would say that they take significant risks, but I don'y really see the a Prius or a Surface as bodily risks, financial maybe, but I hope that life is not defined by money. What would an example of a game changer be? The Wright brothers 1903 Flyer, the Manhattan Project, the Internet, I suppose the iPhone, although that risk is pretty much just financial as well.

After I mocked this up I didn't really feel great about it. The problem is defining the risk. We are trained to anticipate risk and mitigate against it. The problem is that so many of the risks that we worry about (money, being liked, criminals, loneliness, police, etc) really are not worth worrying about because the result cannot be influenced by our worrying about it. In other words, I'm not going to make more money by checking my bank account. So I think a three dimensional scale would do better to incorporate the different levels of risk, compliance and innovation. Plus, these things are really multifaceted in addition to being multileveled so some sort of 20 point extruded star shape would probably be the result. For example, there is legal compliance, ethical compliance, social compliance and all different levels of those. On one level I did my socially acceptable college stint but on another I have longer hair and vacation in Pakistan. That's not really in the same league as driving the speed limit and using my turn signals. It's a starting point anyway.

One last comment on innovation, I think kids are really innovative. They come up with ridiculous ideas! Brainstorming doesn't work with older people because they just shoot each other's ideas down and many of them don't share their ideas for fear of getting shot down. Kids don't yet have those reservations.

Big Data and The LIBOR Opportunity

Does anyone else think LIBOR is ridiculous because it is prone to being taken advantage of due to human intervention? In the world where Google tracks every click everyone makes while logged in, we can’t track every loan that a major bank makes? Granted there are many more variables involved in a loan such as, credit rating of the party taking out the loan, age of the person(s), length of repayment, fixed or variable rate interest, percent size of downpayment if applicable, and more depending on the loan type. 

The point is, in one day of clicking around on the Internet I generate more data than all of the information needed to detail a new consumer loan. It seems simple to me that software could be produced that could aggregate all of the credit and loan data used by say the 100 largest banks in the world, or at least UN countries, to track both in real time and unambiguously what the rates are out there. Plus, with all of that data better information about regional interest rates would be available. This system, which of course would be implemented by several for-profit companies for lack of an ambitious government, would fall under heavy regulation. 

For example, In the last two months I have a friend that bought a 30 year variable interest rate mortgage at 2.87% for the first five years and another friend that bought a new car with a five year 0% interest loan. It seems simple to me to track that kind of data and make the summary widely available for free. Plus, there is a ton of money in it! Well, just think if you had a critical mass of large banks reporting all their loan transactions, but only you were able to divide it down to the micro scale? The national and international rates could be published and updated in real time free on the Internet, but to know what is happening in Dubuque, Iowa (or Chicago or Manhattan or Dubai or Bombay) would cost you a fee.  In a way it makes interest rates more like the price of oil which is pretty clear.

As for the regulation, unless a government wants to take the lead and run the software, I imagine it would be easy to pass a law post-LIBOR requiring the XX largest banks to comply and give a small number of details of every new loan. That is where the compliance aspect comes in, if there was ever a question about the published rate on say July 19th, 2012, it would be possible to review each and every new loan or line of credit established on July 19th, 2012 that was reported and match that with actual documents. Estimating that every American takes out three loans or lines of credit each year (I hope that is high) that amounts to about 2.5 million new loans per day. Assuming the developed world is about ten times the size of the US and new loans per year per person is the same, that is only 25 million new loans per day. I realize that sounds like a lot, but if you can boil it down to credit rating of the person, location, and terms of the loan (introductory interest rate, years of the loan, etc.) you have only a handful of cells in a row of a spread sheet. Everything is documented. The way I see it, it's a win win for everyone except the traders who made money off of fixing LIBOR and the LIBOR reporters who must have profited off of fixing it.

One last note, not directly related, but regarding accurate documentation. I am a huge fan of documenting everything. I will be the first to admit I do not want to relive the horror of my sins, but I certainly want to settle ambiguities with truth and honesty. I feel that documentation is related to education. The more documentation there is about an incident the more we can be educated about what actually happened. With more education we can come to the best solution. This is true in many things. 

Sonnet: Stressed Out!

The vote was four for more sonnets and three against which is net of one. So you all just get one. Enjoy!

Stressed Out!

I am filled, containing nothing left.

My emotion has been taken away.

Feeling, sensitivity pass bereft.

This burden we can not attempt pay.

Normal paths close into our face

“What is the point!” We plead and pray.

This is a challenge I dare never race. 

Yet the task has led me to a fray.

We say, “Where is the end and at what price!?

I have lost track of who and what is dear...

Please help me I request just a slice,

just a little comfort and less to fear.”

Onward time passes and after a pout

with some help I am not stressed out.

I wrote this July 11th this year. It's kind of a culmination of a few things that were happening to me the last few weeks. The tendonitis in my foot, projects that were taking longer for me to complete than I considered appropriate, and some social differences. I was somewhat unresponsive as I felt more overwhelmed. I dealt with the feelings of failures by retreating into my shell. Having come out the other side of this phase, I realize how ridiculous that was. I could have organized my thoughts much faster by discussing them with the appropriate parties. Thus the word pout in there. No one like to admit pouting, but it was the truth.


Since I only plan to post one of these for the foreseeable future permit me to explain why I like writing poetry. It is the ultimate aesthetic expression of written language. I feel they enhance my vocabulary and exercise sentence structure. I like writing sonnets because they are long enough to send a message but short enough that I can typically pop one out in less than an hour and I don't get bored rereading it. Plus, they have an organization. Which Stressed Out! does not follow strictly speaking. I like (and write) the English sonnets because that's what I first learned although I am open to new styles. For those of you that don't know, the line structure is iambic pentameter, which means ten syllables total in five groups of unstressed/stressed syllables. An easy example from above is the word "Please" at the beginning of the 11th line. Think of it as "pl-EASE". Then the rhyming scheme is ababcdcdefefgg, although b and d are the same above, so I would get in trouble for that depending on the English teacher. The final question you might be wondering is how often I do this? Typically every month or two. In the last two and a half years since I started I have only written 18. 


Your mission (should you choose to accept it): Write a poem. You don't have to tell anyone, Haikus totally count, but you aren't allowed to start with "roses are red, violets are blue..."

Hard Decisions, Big Risk, Multiple Opportunity Losses

There is something I want to do. I have been working toward it for years. Yet now as the time approaches the realities are sinking in. This is not easy. This is in fact dangerous. I suppose that it must be hard to separate the pretenders from the contenders.

The other side of this is that even if everything goes exceeding well and according to plan there are so many other things that I will miss, or have already missed, in the process. Is it worth it?

Ultimately, it is a selfish endeavor. How can I make the world a better place by doing this selfish thing? This does fit into the larger picture of my career goals, but then again the question can be asked how does that goal help others?

This altruistic urge is such a strange thing. I have this desire to please others and help others, yet I am so driven to do things that are selfish. There are many things that I know. There are a fewer number of things that I understand. Then there are the things I want to know. What is possible? Yet that question comes with risks because the pursuit of the limits in a finite world means that sometimes a line is crossed. No one wants to cross that line. So we hide and wait for someone else to do it.

"You're hiding from yourself. Yes you are, yes you are." - Royksopp, You Don't Have a Clue

Doubling The Rate of Failure

Ryan Hall had a blog post recently about things he knows about running now that he didn't understand a decade ago. One of those (#4) is that if you want to succeed more you need to put yourself out on a limb and fail more. It's a really interesting to articulate that. People do not like to fail. Yet it is our failures that we learn from.

I took apart my motorcycle down to the carburetor and everything looked like it worked well, yet when I put it back together it leaked again. Fortunately there is a fuel line I can easily switch off. So it looks like I will be remembering to switch off the fuel line every time I park just in case the carburetor decides to leak.

The problem has not been solved, but I know quite a bit more about how my motorcycle works. In the process I learned how carburetors work and I cleaned out my rusty (the guy who sold it lied) gas tank. Not a simple process. It is all progress.

The same thing happened at work. I was progressing through a project the way I always do, which errors on the conservative side. Then I ran into a problem that required more detail. Doing my analysis the way I have done it in the past shall not acquiesce this time.

Hopefully my foot does not really follow along those lines because I do not think that you need to get injured pursuing an endurance sport in order to have success. Most successful athletes will experience significant setbacks, and learn from them, but injury is certainly not a prerequisite to train injury free.

I just restarted a project that has been on hold for just over a year. I will need some help. It will probably fail anyway. This is some good stuff I am working on. Stay tuned. If you want to help send me an email. It will require in the neighborhood of 5-10 hours.

If Edison failed about 3000 times and succeeded only twice in the light bulb endeavor then I can certainly stand to fail more.

We have Recruitment, Retention, Retirement, and Education Wrong

I should have called this blog "DOing" so that I could just brag about my accomplishments. Alas, I must discuss the things that I learn, and my failures. There are more similar articles in the pipe along the lines of my personal failure the next few weeks. Okay, here we go with this topic.

I always thought that one goes to school, gets an education, gets a job based on that education, I suppose gets promoted several times, and if one lives long enough, retires. Ah, the simplicity of childhood! Now that I have a few years in the post-formal-education ("real") world I see it is not like that, it's all over the place! If you want to make billions drop of out college and start a company. If you want to make millions go into investment banking, no particular degree required.

First of all, an education is not a guarantee of economic employment. That's a big issue to wrap your head around. It took a fair bit of unemployment for me to understand that. What does that really mean? Employers are not looking for you. The people who stand to economically benefit from your skills aren't searching for you. Day to day business continues and the business is not getting new people to fill new roles, it is producing a product or a service. Instead of education and recruitment being related as it seems wise, they are mostly unrelated. It is ludicrous, that the ability to have a job once you graduate is not based on your education. I mean, what's the point?

In other words, companies rely on resumes of people who have been self-developed and self-motivated coming to a website or the human resources department. That way they can be screened and some of the best ones can be offered an interview. I say self-developed and self-motivated because that is how you get an advanced education. You have to be motivated to struggle for the standard four years in college. Up until about age 22 or 23 the model in society is to, seriously, do what you want. What one does during that time does say something about one's motivation.

Unfortunately, once you join the post-formal-education world an impersonal business economy directs your monetary success and your most possible opportunities. There is still a disconnect between the education that is provided to the next generation, the opportunites provided to the next generation, and a third factor, future economic opportunities. Part of the reason for the disconnect, I feel, is the lack of recruitment from one generation to the next. For example, I came up with a possible model of corporate recruitment. What if companies would offer prospective high school students something like, 'come work for us over four 10-week summer internships and we'll give you $10,000 per year, then work for us two (or three or four) years after you graduate and we'll pay whatever student loans you have left, contingent on satisfactory performance reviews. No contractual obligation, you can leave early if you want, but if you stay that is what you get.' Kids are so influential that over six or seven or eight years you could develop precisely the set of skills that you would want for a promising 25 year old.

That brings us to another issue, retention. How do you get people to stay? After all, I did jump ship twice in the last 18 months and I am sure that both of my former employers would have liked to keep me. Well, amazing 401(k) matching that doesn't vest for three years is one incentive. It is good to have a certain amount of turnover to get new ideas in. Still the cost of losing an employee and all of the extremely relevant experience is not something that any profitable business would look forward to. In the past I feel that compensation, for the most part pay, was all that was needed to retain most employees. In other words, everyone looked at their neighbors and looked at themselves and decided life was good and everyone lived pretty similar lives and nothing needed to change. Unfortunatly for companies, the Internet came along and people's horizons were expanded. It is not that everyone wants more money to be in the 1% or to travel the world or have three months of vacation, but there is a slew of interests and desires that are unfulfilled in the working population. I realize I just alienated everyone over 40 and you are all thinking that I am a lazy free loader, but take an example of a man in his upper 50s. He is a social worker who works with disadvantaged people. He helps several dozen people every week and does pretty well at it. Unfortunately, you can't sustainably help a couple score of people emotionally every week. Half a century ago he might have muscled through it to the detriment of many, especially those close to him, but now we recognize it's an unsustainable situation. So how does his employer retain this employee? Hire another employee?

I feel that one strong method of retention is recognition. I don't even mean public recognition, I just mean letting employees know that they did well on something. I feel that unfortunately, managers often don't know what their employees are doing. That is the consequence of having subordinates, one person can not do all the work or know everything everyone is doing. I am very fortunate that recently I received a three sentence email from a senior engineer I work with complimenting me on my progress the last year. It feels pretty good. On another note I have been trying to take notice of other people who are doing their jobs well and telling them that when I notice. The results are often surprising. People respond thankfully and very graciously, and a little shocked. It is as though people are waiting for a complement subconsciously, but certainly not expecting one.

Another way that I feel employers can encourage retention is to offer diversity, and I don't mean hire people with different skin colors to fill some quota. If that is solely how our culture judges diversity than how shallow are we? No, I mean exposure to experiences that are alien or uniquely interesting to an employee. For example, I work on forestry equipment, I would love to take a trip to the Southeast or South America to visit a logging operation. The people I would interact with would come from a somewhat different background than myself, I assume. Their perspective on the final result of my work would enable me to make more appropriate recommendations in the future, I assume. Plus, it would show them I care about doing the best work that I can.

Switching subtopics we get to retirement. This modern invention is ridiculous! No one is entitled to live 20+ years golfing, eating at restaurants, taking trips, and doing the things we put off the rest of our life. The entire concept of delayed-life makes me cringe. What are you waiting for! One possible solution to the retirement issue and how to afford pensions is a solution that would likely increase retention as well. For example, a 35 hour work week with a retirement age of 75. There is so much knowledge and experience and capabilities wrapped up in the 55-65 year old crowd that more or less disappears from the economy every year. How many thousands of mistakes could be prevented if those people simply listened to our ideas every week and commented?

What I am trying to convey is that I feel it would be possible for people to contribute to the economy at a younger age similar to an apprentice if companies would recognize that future needs 10, 20, 30 years down the road will require the adolescents of today instead of focusing on the next quarter or next three years. At the same time we could have more time throughout our lives with family and friends and pursuing interests outside of work and continue to meaningfully contribute to a much later age, at least well into our 60s and even 70s. I also feel that with more freedom to pursue those topics most interesting to us including at work it will enable greater productivity and to quote a friend from college "revolutionary innovation". It is all just an idea. Take it and run.

User Friendly?

Recently I had to show someone how to use a very simple piece of electronics. As I was demonstrating the two step process I realized it should not require two steps to do what that person wanted but only one step.

Often it seems that the people capable of developing things are not the people who really understand the end users. Case in point, traffic flow patterns decided by civil engineers because civil engineers know how to build roads. I know a lot of civil engineers and they are very good at what they engineer and build, but ultimately they think differently than the average driver. I don't know who would be better at designing traffic flow patterns but I am sure that some profession would be. Another example, computer programs are all written by computer programers. Again programers are great at making things work and getting software to do what I want, but sometimes it seems like the person using the software was an afterthought to the purpose of the software. The Janzen Gear ice axe was in many ways a lesson for me about the whole just-because-you-can-doesn't-mean-you-should aspect of industry.

If you are ever in the position to create a product that will be used by people, keep user friendliness in mind. After using dozens of software programs and driving tens of thousands of miles I feel we can do better. That of course starts with me since I try not to be a hippocrite all of the time. If I ever make something and you can not figure out how to use it, let me know and I shall change it. If we all make our products just a little more user friendly just imagine where we will go.

The Man Behind Apple Inc.

In case you have never heard of Jonathan Ive, I'm telling you now. This is the guy that brought us first the iMac and every significant Apple design since then. If there is one guy to blame for how cool Apple products look, it is this guy.

He is in the news because there is a rumor that he is going to leave the United States to head back to the United Kingdom, where he is originally from. Apple, it seems, will not allow him to stay with the company if he moves. I am somewhat surprised. This guy has done so well over the last 15 years that they should let him live wherever he wants and send a staff of 10 or 20 people with him. I'm sure it is more complicated than that, but I am not sure why it has to be.

2010: My Year in Review

January started with me as confident as ever about my career and my running going as well as it ever had gone. I moved out to Colorado to live with some college friends and I have to say that was an amazing three months. I met so many people. I had so many beautiful runs through the mountains. I enjoyed life. I even officially started Janzen Gear in February. However, my running took a hit as I adjusted to the altitude.

However, March came and went and I fell apart. After three months of unemployment I was totally out of money and without any interviews in that whole time, I was depressed. I was so stressed out that things were not going the way I had planned that I gave myself back pain. That was a huge life lesson about the things in my life that I value, and what is really important to me. I am guessing that it will never happen again because I have a better understanding of my own mentality.

Because of the whole money thing I packed up and went to Minnesota and worked for my uncle for six weeks in the family greenhouse. It was tough physical labor. Not what I ever expected my first job out of college would be.

In mid May I headed back west to teach rock climbing at Boy Scout camp again. It was my fourth summer at a Boy Scout camp. I had a fantastic summer. I climbed harder than I ever have before. I ran like crazy until I got a stress reaction. My friends and I had a great time. Again, it's humbling to have a master's degree in engineering and be teaching 13 year olds how to belay for a relatively small paycheck. I also attempted the Grand Teton for the first time and I led two pitches up the Casual Route on the Diamond before it rained and snowed us off. Regardless, this summer was about the relationships I have with my friends, and it was an unequivocal success. I have the best friends in the world!

I followed up the summer with a month long road trip through Utah, California, Washington and Montana and a few other states. In the psychological aspect of life I was able to spend time with two of my American friends who shared the summer of 2009 experience with me in Pakistan. In many ways it was the final chapter in my mental recovery from that experience. I also spent two days trying to climb the Nose on El Capitan solo and a day trying the Regular Northwest Face on Halfdome. The inspiration for the road trip was to do something "big" my climbing just did not pan out, I had a great time, learned a bunch, but I ended up scared and tired. So at the suggestion of my friends, on two days notice I ran the Wonderland Trail, and accomplished something "big".

Once again out of money I had the choice between staying in Colorado and making snow (physical labor) for a few months or going home in the hopes of a job offer and more Internet access to apply for more jobs. I went home, also because my grandma had a stroke this summer and my family is very important to me. I only have one family.

The last three and a half months of the year were, by my standards, uneventful. I gradually began running more miles in hopes of some good races from the 5k to the marathon in 2011. I had an interview at GE and they ended up going with someone more qualified.

By the numbers:

• I estimate from reading my own blog, that I applied to approximately 378 jobs in 2010. 
• I ran 3379.6 miles total including five 4+ hour runs and nine 100+ mile weeks. That is an average of 9.25 miles per day, every day all year. Only one personal record racing this year, 1:36 at 15 miles.
• I slept in 12 states and traveled in 22 states. 
• 11 painting started and 10 paintings finished, a record for me.

2010 was, for me, about valuing the intangible things in my life like relationships, health, freedom, and life itself more than I did when I was younger. The lessons I have learned about saving for a rainy day, starting a company, stress, communication, and other still unknown things are not all clear to me yet. I think that the lessons of 2010 will impact me for the rest of my life. I feel that events of the past year will teach me new things for years to come as I continue to mature and better understand what really happened in many situations.

Thank you all for the comments and the caring in person, on the blog, in letters, on Facebook, and in your prayers. This blog has been a great way to express myself and I plan to keep at it for years to come.

Thank you,

Isaiah Janzen

I'm Designing an Airplane

About three years ago I finally learned everything I need to to fundamentally design a plane. Two of my friends and I wrote a 62 page report where we designed an airplane and we received an A for our dozens of hours of work. I am a little lacking in the manufacturing department, but I hear carbon fiber is very forgiving. The point being, I am going to design a full scale airplane, then I will design a scale model (with features that might have to be different due to the size). Then financially willing, I'll build the scale model and fly it. If all of that goes as planned, I don't know what will happen...

Why?

At the core of this idea is something that I have more or less based my education on. I came up with the idea about eight or ten years ago in high school. It's different. No one has done it. They have done many things like it but they have not done it. Furthermore, I am a rocket scientist and materials scientist. My specialty is not getting a job, although I feel I am getting better at that, I create things. New and patentable and innovative things all come flowing out of my head. I can't turn my brain off. Therefore I am going to do some homework

What chance do I have of actually finishing any of this?

It depends on how you define finishing. The paper and computer design work will be done. The model and subsequent full sized airplane require so much experience that I do not have. Any possibility of either one happening will depend on factors like, if I am employed, how much each one will cost, and other projects I have. A full size airplane will likely take years to build and cost hundreds of thousands probably millions and have very little practical value. Although, there is some future in communications...

Just Do It.

I procrastinate. Monday I started working on a project that I've had in my head for over a year. I've had all this time on my hands but because I did not know where to start, I did not start. That was until I was sitting there after lunch and I decided to start working on it. Yep, it's another product, another invention that inevitably I will try to sell to someone. I am terrible at selling by the way.

I am not alone trying to do my own thing. It is certainly not my first choice, at this point in my life, but it is what it is. I am still trying to get a traditional engineering job. Experience and a salary would be huge for me right now.

The last few days here in Wisconsin have involved frozen sidewalks and roads and below zero wind chills. Not the kind of thing that makes me want to go out and run 13 miles. However, I made the choice years ago that I want to be as good as I can be. So the choice wether I will run or not is a choice that I have already made.

In the words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

The Last Laptop You Will Ever Own

The recent release of the Macbook Air has a many technophiles ogling. Myself included. My current 12 inch Powerbook G4 is six and a half years old. My laptop has survived over six years, and chances are I will resell it and someone else will use it for a few years. This is not terribly surprising considering the most complicated programs I have ever run on my computer are Matlab, a Halo demo, remotely accessing a server, and video encoding. Now there are remote desktop applications, such as iTeleport, for iPhone and iPad so non-phone-based applications can be used. You can use your computer from your phone. There is also a sweeping range of applications for mobile platforms that enable creation of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, gaming, video editing, mathematical computing, reading books, and location (GPS) based services. That is to say, I do not need to have a mobile computer.

What does the future hold? Smaller, lighter, better battery life, and probably flexible or at least foldable. Imagine something the size of a magazine, just a flexible and heavy, with the capability of your current computer. Or something the size of your phone that folds to the size of a magazine, or even a laptop and is as capable as your computer.

Some are touting the Macbook Air as a possible computer for light-duty users. That is somewhat of a farce or 90% of computer users can be considered light-duty users. My six year old computer was strong enough to do 95% of what I wanted it to do the last five and a half years as an engineering student. For most of the people that use computers a fast processor, huge amounts of hard drive storage and a whole bunch of gigs of RAM is more than they need. I have 768 megabytes of RAM in my current computer and I have used my computer more than most.

Now programs do become more unwieldy over time. I have a program called TextEdit on my computer, which makes very basic documents, like 1992 era word processing. It is much smaller and takes less processing power than Microsoft Word, but it doesn't do nearly as much. So over time programs will require more memory and faster processors. That being said for 90% of users the ability to use the Internet, Microsoft Office, listen to music, watch videos, edit photos and video, and play a few games are all they want or need. I feel that buying a top-of-the-line or very capable laptop now that will last the next five years may be the last laptop many people will ever own.