Notes:
The first rule in sales school is "get in front of the customer".
In
The Silent Language Edward Hall explains that our non-verbal
communication is very important to understanding a person's true
meaning. You don't get those non-verbal queues sitting alone
in front of a computer screen.
Email is explicit. People YELL IN UPPER-CASE, or are they merely
emphasizing an interesting point. You can't know unless you see
them when they are typing iwc why not just talk with them?
Email only cultures require the backing of enough face time to
build the necessary relationships.
[piss me off] I was working in a company in the German part of
Switzerland. It was multicultural. I sent an email with the
term "you piss me off" to native Swiss German speaker. He took
great offence, because he thought I said "you piss off". There's
a German insult "Verpiss Dich" which literally means "piss on yourself"
or you can imagine the literal translation. The words were
inflammatory to the recipient, but I didn't know this. I didn't
understand his flame back. It got way out of control. If we had
exchanged the words face to face, we wouldn't have gone nearly as
far.
Some programmers don't want to talk with the customer. They want
to "just code". Code is not an end into itself, rather it is a
tool of the customer. Software is a service industry. Packaging
your software in a box and putting it on the shelf at CompUSA doesn't
eliminate human interaction. CRM is one of the biggest costs in
most software companies.
Your peers are a valuable resource. They have experienced life
and their careers differently. They are the closest to your work.
They can give you the best feedback and help you grow the most.
Many bosses don't consider interacting with their subordinates as
work. They like to hide in their shells. They probably
became bosses, because they have experience. Tap that experience,
it's valuable. Get your boss involved in your work and you'll
learn and grow.
The value of a network goes up as the square of the number of
nodes. Great stuff, but the communication cost goes up as
well. The more people on a team, the harder it is to communicate
effectively.
XP can't work in large teams. In my experience, software doesn't
work well in large teams. You have a few people doing most of
the work and the rest are not being very effective.
XP promotes communication through practices such as pair testing,
planning game, customer testing, and unit testing.