The Politics of Profile Pics

Social media usually aren’t my favorite venues for political commentary. Which might be somewhat surprising for those who know me – most would probably think of me as one who is happy to engage at length in political topics, often regardless of how much or little I know and/or care about them. But distilling thoughtful analysis down to 140 characters is tricky. And political discussions on Facebook has always seemed to me like preaching to the choir at best, and a demonstration in groupthink and narrow-mindedness at worst. I once posted on Facebook that I wanted a “hide political commentary” feature, and I can think of at least a couple of people I’ve defriended over the years due to excessive ranting

So as many of my friends changed their Facebook profile picture in support of gay marriage this week, I was initially hesitant to do so. To be clear, I support marriage equality for all couples – my objection wasn’t about which side of this debate I was on, but rather whether changing my Facebook profile picture was a productive way to express my opinion.

But after giving it some thought. I’ve decided to join the latest internet sensation. Do I actually think it’ll make a difference in how the Supreme Court rules? Of course not. Do I think it’ll marginally change any swing voters’ opinion, accelerating the inevitable progress towards marriage equality in the majority of states? Extremely unlikely.

But I do want my gay friends to know that they are loved, that there are those of us who recognize your committed relationships are every bit as legitimate as our own, and frankly that I can’t believe we’re still having this debate. You may not yet see the support you need when you look to the laws of the land. But I hope, at the very least, you see that you’re supported when you log into Facebook.

Letting Go

I was just about to head to a meeting, and as I reached up to close my laptop’s screen, I saw the Bing News app flash the headline. I almost didn’t give it a second thought; maybe I’m becoming desensitized, or maybe I was just in a rush. But two details of the headline made me pause for a second – the number “26″ and the state “Connecticut.” I remember thinking, “that’s a lot” and also “that’s close to home.” I made a mental note to read more about it after my meeting.

My meeting was with Dana, one of my favorite colleagues who’s as efficient as she is cheerful. We mowed through the business of the day, and before I knew it we were wrapping up. “Plans for the holidays?” she asked, and I told her about our families’ tradition of renting an Inn together in New Hampshire. “That sounds amazing,” she said, “I grew up in New England too.” Where abouts? “In Connecticut.”

I almost asked where, I almost asked if she’d heard. I probably should of, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it, and we went our separate ways. “See you tonight at the Holiday Party?” See you there.

No one in our division has their own offices, so I went into a focus room, which are these little rooms in which you can take conference calls or have private meetings. I closed the door behind me, sat down, and I clicked on the headline. I read the first couple of paragraphs and I stared into space. I saw the images of children being lead in a line through the school parking lot, I saw first responders taking charge, I saw parents holding each other. I read everything I could, which at the time wasn’t much. I cried, and, after about 30 minutes, I left.

And then I didn’t think about it. I don’t remember suppressing an urge to think about it; I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t talk to anyone about it that afternoon, and the first time I saw Katie that night we were rushing to get ready for our Holiday Party. She met my coworkers, we had a lovely evening with friends and wine and music in a beautiful setting at the Chihuly Glass Garden by the Space Needle. It’s as if the world were no different than it had been when I woke up that morning.

I’ve gone back and forth ever since – vacillating between pushing it out of my mind completely and being totally consumed by thinking of those families. I think there are some pretty obvious things we can learn, or should have already learned, from a public policy perspective. But that’s not the purpose of this post. Rather, I’ve been thinking more about what I’ve learned as a person from this, if anything.

Katie and I like to joke about the merits of being a DINK (dual income no kids) household. Over the last couple of years, some of our best friends have had children and we’ve loved becoming vicarious parents. It’s been great sharing in the joys of child-rearing without any of the responsibility or sacrifice. And when we think about starting a family of our own, it’ll certainly be an adjustment when our dining-out budget goes to diapers, our vacation time becomes pediatrician visits, and 8 hours of sleep becomes something to dream about.

But when I think what this tragedy has taught me, it’s that the hardest part of becoming a father someday isn’t going to be losing control of my wallet or my calendar. It isn’t going to be redirecting all of my energy and love into some new being. The hardest part is going to be letting that being take all that and just walk out the door into this world, all brave and curious and fragile. And that sounds terrifying.

So my thoughts go out to all moms and dads, and how stark a reminder this must be that we have a far-from-perfect world to offer your children. And, of course, especially to those parents in Newtown whose worst possible fears have been realized. Let’s see what we can do to make this world a little bit safer; let’s see what we can do to make it worthy of the love our parents put into us.

Checking Out of Foursquare

I recently decided to quit checking into Foursquare. Quite simply, after more than 4 years of pulling out my phone to check into every place of business in which I set foot, I’ve just grown tired of it.

Have you ever seen the desktop system tray of someone who’s installed every piece of spyware known to man? As I recently rejoined the workforce after two years of grad school, that’s kind of how my brain started to feel: as if there were a little piece of my own CPU dedicated to remembering to check in wherever I went.

No longer. For me Foursquare has gone the way of Weatherbug, freeing up my brain and my phone’s live tiles for higher value thoughts and apps.

I still think it’s fun to share with your friends the cool places you go, but why not just check in directly to Facebook and cut out the middleman? Doing so not only allows tagging of friends who were there with you, but also provides a built-in litmus test: is what I’m doing worthy of broadcasting to the entire world? If not, why are you wasting your time checking in at the grocery store, gym, or office? If you’re not going to share it to Facebook, put your phone down and get on with your day.

Sure, every once-in-a-while there’s a deal on Foursquare. Fifty cents off your coffee, a free order of something you wouldn’t order, or a LivingSocial deal they imbedded into the check-in. But they’re few, far between, and not spectacular. I feel like Foursquare was too slow in transitioning from (1) a neat phenomenon tech enthusiasts had to try to (2) a social utility you had to use. It failed me both as a game (did it ever really materialize?) and as a currency (what the heck are these points good for?)

Maybe in the future they’ll be an easier (NFC?) method for checking in that requires less effort. But for now, I’m checking out.

Google Invents Life Insurance

I saw the following article on Mashable with headline “If a Google Employee Dies, Spouse Gets Half Pay for 10 Years”

It’s been long reported that Google treats its employees well, from offering them free food and fitness classes to laundry service and car washes. But according to a recent report, Google recently rolled out death benefits to employees, including a generous offer to pay the spouse or partner of a deceased staffer half of their salary for a decade.

The news of these death benefits — which was first reported by Forbes — also comes with “no tenure requirement,” but it covers only U.S. employees right now. It was put into place earlier this year.

Mashable confirmed with a Google spokesperson that the benefits don’t just stop at salary. The surviving spouse or partner of a deceased employee will also acquire vested stock benefits, and children will receive $1,000 a month until the age of 19. The timeline can be extended if the child is in school full time.

Google said it is taking this approach because it is the right thing to do, ensuring that each employee’s family is taken care of if an unforeseeable event were to occur — even if there is no direct benefit to the business.

Although it might attract more candidates to apply for a position, Google said that is not the reason why it implemented the benefits — more potential hires would just be a side effect.

Now I’m certainly not going to criticize Google for doing so – it’s a benefit more companies should offer. But let’s be clear about two things:

1. What you have just described is a financial instrument that has existed for years, and it’s called Life Insurance
2. Lots of companies offer it

Again, it’s a great benefit and I’m glad that Google offers it, as I’m glad to be currently covered under Microsoft’s life insurance plan. But I am going to use this as an example of the tech media’s obsession with associating everything a company does with its predetermined modus operandi: everything Google does is about spoiling their employees and innovation, everything Apple does is hip and cutting edge, everything Microsoft does is slow and corporate. The reality is that all companies exhibit all of these qualities in various ways, but it’s just so much easier to wrap your head around if it fits an existing mold. 

Greetings from the 520 bridge

Happy evening rush hour! Today is the first day of my new commute, and I’m writing to you from the Microsoft Connector bus from Bellevue to Seattle. After a few weeks of corporate housing in Lakemont, we’re finally settling into our new home. I’m loving the new neighborhood, the house, and the fact that I can chill out and use the Internet on the ride home. I’ve not been as diligent as I should be about posting, but pledge to you, dear reader, that I’ll spend at least one trip a week doing so going forward.

The first few weeks have been incredibly busy, between starting the new job and setting up a new life in a new time zone. On my second week of work I went to Atlanta for MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange), which is a big annual internal conference of the sales & marketing groups from around the world. Met lots of great people, saw lots of cool new products, and drank the best Kool Aid served anywhere on the planet. It’s hard not to get excited, although I haven’t tried not getting excited.

More to come, and looking forward to more blogging and commuting.

the New iPad: Specs Are Back

I have to admit that I never “got” the old iPad, and I mean “got” in both ways the word can be used: I never received an iPad, and I never understood why everyone was so excited about it.  I was, and to some extent still am, in the camp that looked at it and said, “seems like a phone that you can’t fit in your pocket or, for that matter, use to make calls.”  I wasn’t sure what anyone would do with the thing since I had such a hard time imagining where it would fit in my life.  By the time the iPad launched I already had a smartphone, an e-reader, a netbook, and internet TV. In other words, I already had several gizmos that did everything the iPad did, and it wasn’t clear to me what the iPad would replace or what void it would fill.

But apparently plenty of people found uses for them in their lives, or at least found reasons why they needed to have one. No doubt, some of this is because Apple can seemingly sell anything, but clearly this form factor filled that space in between netbook and e-reader incredibly successfully. In hindsight I’m starting to get it. I still don’t see how an iPad would improve my life one iota, but I can now see what Apple saw when they looked at the pre-iPad mobile computing landscape and the needs that the products at the time weren’t addressing.  They made the perfect product to fit that niche that was just functional enough and just affordable enough, and marketed the heck out of it. Well done, Apple.

That said, I’m having déjà vu: I really don’t get the New iPad.  Specifically, here’s my argument against it: I’m having a hard time imagining a customer that sat out for iPad rounds 1 and 2, but is for some reason so enthralled with the New iPad that they must now finally own one. Yes, it has a better screen, a better camera, and it has a faster processor. But who cares? If you hadn’t bought an iPad by now, was it because the screen resolution wasn’t high enough? That the processor wasn’t fast enough? Have you ever heard someone say, “well, if the iPad camera were better then I could justify buying one…”?

This seems like an uncharacteristically incremental product improvement for Apple. At least the iPhone 4S, which was largely an under-the-hood improvement on the iPhone 4, had Siri to differentiate itself from its predecessor. I can’t believe that Apple of all companies is back to selling on specs. I thought specs were dead?  Long live specs, I suppose.

 

It makes me wonder about their product pipeline: has the well run dry, or are they just sitting this round out? Either way, I have a hard time seeing the New iPad selling at the rate needed to continue the astronomic growth trend we’ve seen in recent years. But we shall see; I’ve been wrong about this before.

“Microsoft’s Co-Founder”

For those who know me, you probably know that I love Outer Space.  I grew up seeing every movie, reading every book, and playing every game I could get my hands on that somehow involved space travel.

This summer I even made a Lego shuttle with some friends at my parents’ house:

You also probably know that I love Microsoft, so on one hand I’m elated to see all the press that “Microsoft’s Co-Founder” is getting for his new venture in space travel.  It sounds really cool.

But on the other hand, every time I read “Microsoft co-founder” I think to myself, “shouldn’t Paul Allen be a household name by now?”  It’s not like there were a dozen co-founders and it’s hard to keep track of them all.  Plus, he’s America’s 23rd richest person.

I say keep shooting for the stars, Paul. Maybe someday you’ll be known as the founder of Stratolaunch.