Four years ago this week, on December 8, 2006, after responding to a simple, virtual Match.com ‘wink’ from Rob (aka, mustangrodevot78@talkmatch.com), a life-changing relationship commenced. Amidst thousands of Match.com profiles, Rob selected my dating resume and lightly and proactively reached out to me.

According to DatingSitesReviews, in the past year 17% of people who married met on a dating site. Similarly, many employer and employee relationships also are kindled online, and those numbers are increasing.

Akin to other online, social media and job search venues, Match.com facilitates courtship conversations for those willing to put themselves out there. As Karen Swim eloquently commented on my original Match.com post, “The bottom line is that it is all relationship building. You have to put yourself out there and be willing to ‘meet’ new people and have a willingness to meet but not commit until you find the right fit.”

And so we did. Akin to job search and interview prep, after our initial, artfully and honestly created resumes (profiles) were shared, we extended the conversation through email.  Our intent was an engaging, thorough, yet enticingly and strategically edited communications exchange that would serve to both fulfill curiosities while also whetting the appetite for more.

To paint a picture for you (and with Rob’s permission), I share one of his early emails with me, as we danced around the possibility of an in-real-life (IRL) meeting.

I share his complete email (versus a snippet), including the little details, to show you both his willingness to engage across both the everyday, simple things as well as the more intimate feelings one experiences when looking for, connecting with and buying into a romantic and possible life partner. This combination is integral in creating a hook that virtually compels an in-person meeting and furthers the courtship.

Similarly, in job search, individuals willing to dive a bit deeper and knit a message that pulls threads of their past and present through the fabric of their target reader’s (hiring manager, recruiter, etc.) cloth, will boost the emotional appeal of the message, and thus opportunities for career courtship success. Ultimately, too, the choice to proceed more deeply into the interview process and perhaps even an employment marriage, increases.

Here goes. Note from MustangRob (e.g., mustangrodevot78) via TalkMatch.com!

Dec. 8, 2006

I’m off on Thursdays and Sundays so Wednesdays and Saturdays are usually when I go out if I do. Saturdays are usually pretty busy for me at work and I don’t like being tired and off my game if you know what I mean. So Fridays I tend to take it easy or at the very least make it an early nite.

My first name is Rob. My password was just Mustangrob; the site gave me this one. Mustang because that’s what I drive. I’ve owned several old and new, so I’m kinda into them.

Ummm, how would I show my romantic side? I think a first date should just be fun, the romance should be saved until everyone agrees that’s what they want; does that make sense? I mean, I don’t want to bring flowers to you just to find out you’re a flower hater!! ha ha. But walking around the Plaza just holding hands is romance to me. Especially if the hand you’re holding enjoys being there. Getting close under a street lamp for that first kiss after a great nite of dinner, laughter and some good music who wouldn’t like that? Ok your turn I really want to know what makes you happy and your own idea of romance.

As well, I’ll share two interview-cinching emails that swiftly led to my initial in-real-life meet-up with Rob and a meeting follow-up note that fortified my feelings. Consider this: are your career communication messages creative, real, pragmatic, yet appealing?

In this email, Rob responds to my questions: What makes you happiest … and what are you most passionate about?

Dec. 9, 2006

It’s really quite simple for me. I want to be missed when I’m not around. I don’t want to crowd the person I’m with and like you I want to look across the room and know she will be looking back at me mouthing something sweet because she really means it and can hardly wait to get me to herself again. I am passionate about my cars and my work. And I am passionate about my  relationships, pals or my lover or my family, and I call a lot of people family that I am not kin to by blood. This has been great, but I really must bid you goodnight sweet dreams and lets really consider a get together, k?

And this email blended a bit of humility, a dash of music and a dollop of flattery.

Dec. 9, 2006

Very nice. We will surely get along where the music is concerned. I’m also a closet ABBA lover shhh our little secret, ok? By the way I looked at your pics again. NICE!! Well I’m headed to bed so, can I look forward to a response to the pics I send tomorrow sometime in the next few days? Even if you don’t like them will you let me know you got them? I’d appreciate it. Thanx for talking tonite. I really enjoyed it. Stay happy and don’t ever stop smiling, you do a great job of it –Rob

Finally, this one-liner lightly and magically pushed my post-first-date buttons. I suspected our relationship would sustain.

Dec. 15, 2006

Hey sweety, I’m headed to bed and so have a great night and I’ll talk to you later. So how are we doing on this “clicking thing?”

Simply put – both dating and job search are about ‘putting yourself out there’ and being enticing! Words, their context, their nuance, their romance, their lilt and their pragmatism all combine to raise an eyebrow and make a heart skip a beat and compel a reader to take action, to pick up the phone and call or even to accept a call from the inviting party. The ultimate goal, therefore, is finding the right-fit partner for longer-term engagement!

In the last 10 years, there has been an incredible transformation in society: people, now more than ever, crave the ‘Next Big Thing’, often for different reasons.  Venture Capitalists want to know what the next huge innovation is going to be, so they can seek out a Start-up, fund it, and cash-in with a 100X return on investment.  Technologists want to begin developing experience on the latest and greatest platform (or delivery mechanism) to get ahead of the curve to enhance their careers.  Consumers want to be on the cutting edge, craving the new technological hotness to retain their mechanized superiority, conspicuous consumption style.

The funny thing is that Technology is changing at such an incredible pace that it’s difficult to track it.  Consider:

3D printing, an amazing manufacturing capability, is making the production of prototypes and unique components downright affordable.

Hydrogen powered cars are on the horizon, assuming that Energy companies can deliver large profits on the safe sale of stable hydrogen bricks.

Even the evolution of current, ubiquitous smartphones allows technically challenged people to stream live TV or manage their home thermostat.

We live in an amazing age, where innovation is happening almost as quickly as we can absorb it.  At no time in human history have advancements occurred this quickly.  And yet, the single most critical thing continues to lag behind the technology curve: human beings themselves.

Now, this isn’t going to be a post about how mankind should eradicate hunger or nuclear war or poverty.  It’s not Jerry Maguire’s ‘Manifesto’.  No, this is a challenge for you, the reader, to stretch yourself in the new direction YOU want to pursue.  If you don’t have an idea for yourself, try one or more of the following:

1. Be more technical – It’s funny, but I’ve never heard anyone complain “I wish I was LESS technical.”  Learn about the technical components in the solutions you currently support and how they fit together.  If you already know them, spend some time helping the BA’s and PM’s understand them.
2. Learn your organization’s core business – Most people only live within their immediate work responsibilities.  Take a step forward and understand the direct benefits your work provides to the end user – their perspective will certainly enlighten you.  
3. Find mentors – All of us want to improve.  Select someone you admire, and learn about them.  Investigate who they are, how they do things, and if you are able to, establish a relationship with them.  You can have mentors in your personal and professional life, as many as you like.  The key is to strive to improve yourself in the ways important to you.
4. See the world through your child’s eyes – Start by listening to the Harry Chapin song ‘Cat's in the Cradle’.  Think about the fact that you are 100% of your child’s world the day they are born, and that they immediately start towards 100% independence every day until they move out.  It’s a sobering thought for both parents and parents-to-be, something to always remember.
5. Do ‘It’ today – If there is something that needs your attention, try to get whatever ‘it’ is done today.  Tomorrow is promised to no one, and procrastination is a sneaky, shadowy being that can slowly take over your life.
6. Be kinder – In today’s difficult realities, a little kindness and understanding can go a long way.  Our society’s behavior, more than ever, is shaped by snarky demagogues who make their living by ripping others.  We are better than that, and as Abraham Lincoln said almost 150 years ago, let’s strive to listen to our better angels.

Ultimately, I would prefer that you look inside yourself for inspiration and the self-improvement of your choosing.  It will mean more to you, and ultimately the rest of us, if you believe in the ‘upgrades’ you seek in yourself.  Your life is a story, and the end has not been written yet.  Keep moving forward, and don’t settle for less than your best.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

I usually like the advice that John Rosemond, a parenting expert, gives in his columns. However I agree with Yuri, an introverted professional, who wrote to  critique a recent column in which Rosemond offered advice to a worried mother of a 4 year old twin.

She said, “My 4-year-old son is not fully engaged when he has a friend over for a play date. His twin sister makes friends easily and the difference between them is glaring. When I arrange a play date for him, he is excited but then, after the friend arrives, he gradually slips off to play by himself. Afterwards, he will tell me he really didn’t have a good time. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can help him become more social? I don’t want him to become a loner.”

Rosemond gave some advice about encouraging the boy  to socialize in small doses and wisely told the mother to relax. However his ending statement was not received well by Yuri. Here is what he said,

“….. Introversion isn’t life-threatening. Furthermore, most child-introverts are no longer introverts by the time they’re in their thirties.”

This implies, Yuri wrote, that there is something wrong with people who are naturally introverted. He told me that getting that message early on is a difficult barrier to overcome. And what evidence, he asks, does Rosemond have that introverts are no longer introverts in their 30’s! Quite the contrary. All the evidence points to at least 50% of the population being introverted.

It is interesting that society’s message to socialize and connect starts at a very early age. No wonder introverted pros have a hard time playing to their temperament in our organizations. The message in our culture is that it isn’t cool to play alone.

It’s that time of year again.  You probably have 2-3 more sprints before your production freeze starts.  Or if you’re one of the lucky ones that don’t have a production freeze, year-end looms. 

But, your Agile self-directed team has some other self-directed ideas that are weighing on their minds.  Those ideas are affectionately called:

• Thanksgiving
• Christmas and 
• Vacation bank (better know as “use it or lose it”).

So you are now entering the season of Negative Velocity.  As your company closes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, you will start seeing that your planned velocity will drop.

But most of our clients have planned for that by managing overall FTE’s (full time equivalents).  What is more difficult to plan for is the loss of synergy due to these vacations.  Especially when some of your senior key team members are out.

I’m offering a few strategies to help your team work through the holiday season and meet your product development goals:

1.  Get the tough items done now – normally, the product owner will prioritize what features should be built within each sprint.  As an IT leader (or potentially Scrum Master), you should work with your product owner to prioritize the really tough items prior to these outages.

2.  Simplify – analyze all of your user stories that are greater than 13 in complexity on a Fibonacci scale.  Commit to splitting at least 3 out of every 4 of those user stories into two sub-stories.  This will simplify your sprints and increase velocity (since more of the team can tackle these simplified stories).

3.  Cross train – you have 2-3 more sprints before year end.  Assess where you will have development domain expertise vacation gaps during your sprints.  Then build a cross-training map between team members so that they have development & testing responsibilities for other areas.

4.  Take your medicine  – build a reasonable plan now accounts for these outages, particularly where domain expertise is missing.  Work closely with your product owner to get the most important things done, working around your team outages.

There’s no exact science to meeting year-end sprint commitments.  Agile encourages transparency, so provide that visibility your business owners (who will also be in the season of negative velocity).  If you do that and plan for negative velocity, you can combat that with sprint plans that are success-based.  You may even find you can maintain your velocity through better planning. 

Special thanks goes out to Sunita Arora and Mark Wells from MATRIX’s Professional Services team for their contributions to this blog.

On my morning drive into work, I shuffle between several radio stations. News Talk, Country, Top 40, and "Family Friendly." On Monday morning, I found myself engaged in a conversation that was taking place on Atlanta's Q100.

The topic: are we too "plugged in"? Particularly, they were focusing on kids that play video games and watch movies for hours each day.

But, that evening, as I was thinking through the conversation and the amount of time that the parents and kids spend in front of their computers, TVs, videos etc., I started thinking of how social media has elevated the amount of time professionals spend "plugged in".

Twitter. 4-square. Facebook. Apps. iPhones. Droids. iPads. iPods, Kindles. Blogs. The list could go on and on.

I was sitting on the couch and took a moment to look around. The scene in my house looked like this:

My wife and I were both on our laptops.
The TV was on.
I had Twitter, Facebook, and a blog up.
Both of us had our cell phones near our lap.
One ear-bud of my iPod was in so I could hear the music I wanted to download.
And did I mention I was trying to carry on IM chats with several kids in my church youth group?

Don't get me wrong, I love social media (obviously). And the technology that our generation has at our finger tips is nothing but astounding.

But, being in a business where "building relationships" is key, it's hard to learn the boundaries. According to HR Examiner, the most influential recruiters are those "plugged in". In fact, 100% have a blog, 40% have more than one blog, 96% are on Facebook, 88% on Twitter, and on average have over seven different presences in social media (LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc). 

Should I even touch on how many passwords you need to remember?

So, my question to you, does our generation know how to unplug? Is there an app for that? Should one of the 3,000 text messages teens send per month say "turn off UR cell". I also believe one of the main reasons 64% of Americans watch TV online is so they can multitask.

It's hard. Trust me. I tried last night and lasted till about 9pm when I checked the weather online, then found myself bouncing off into four other sites within a matter of minutes.

My prediction for social media in 2011 - people will be seeking "balance". Learning how to leverage the powerful tools, yet not spend their energy trying to be in all conversations at all times - becoming better at targeting the right conversations.

So, now that I've written this blog, I'm going to turn-off my computer and go for a run. . . after I check Facebook one last time.