The FileMaker Collective

Abu Ghraib and the question of leadership

I have considered being Canadian.

At least, I'll live in a nation geographically and demographically incapable of confusing the good fortune of natural circumstance with self-righteousness. Canada will never be big, it will never have the natural resources, or the human capital to become an overgrown, arrogant uber-power.

Our nation is a gun-wielding, straw-chewing, WWF-idolizing, oversized country bumpkin who has confused the power of muscles and bullets with leadership.

We have no leadership.

Our national brand of leadership is stark in its simplicity and naiveté. We say, "Lead, follow or get out of the way." It is forged by sports, and inspired by the lifestyles set by the captains of modern media and industry.

Who's our leader? Shaq's our man. Shaq Attack, big boy in the center. Better git out of the way, cuz he'll put the hurt on you. He will win and get some bling-bling. He will win and pimp your pride so we can all feel like the mighty Shaq

(no offense to Shaquille O'neil, the human being) - We don't value leadership. We value a bastardized version of it called tyranny. Could Abu Ghraib been avoided? I have been wondering if it possible to create systems and rules to govern and prevent tyrannical behavior. The MPs claim that they didn't get enough training. The NYT of May 9, 2004 talks about the oppressiveness of conditions and the strain of resources on the prison guards who are no more than burger-flippers, secretaries and other normal folk in their regular civilian lives. Perhaps, we can state every single do's and don'ts.

"Don't parade your prisoners without clothes." "Don't take their pictures." "Don't put electrical wires around their penises." "Don't make them wear women's underwear."

"War is hell," you say. "People need the right kind of training to do this sort of tough work." Perhaps so, but I don't believe rules will ever suffice. Our basic cultural disposition, the kernels of our collective humanity are bad; and we have systematically encouraged and permitted it's corruption. I am not talking about the concept conventional morality or family-values that has gripped so much of our public-discourse. I am talking about virtue. We have moralistic thinking but it is void of virtue.

Leadership is about engendering virtue. It is about engendering reverential thinking. Reverential thinking is what guides people in the absence of law. It is an internal compass that governs our interactions with our fellow human beings in a way that brings about mutual respect and appreciation.

Pick up Paul Woodruff's meditation on Reverence. It matters.

Agile Development

The Agile approach to software development feels more valid and important each day. But sometimes, Agile seems less about methodologies than about values. I am not sure where the distinction lies; I suppose it is a values-driven methodology (?). This is important to me because I have been thinking about why we write specifications. The tradition of professional services are steeped in practices focused on reducing 'human-error' and ambiguity. Lawyers have utterly comprehensive legalese and engineers have intricate and complex plans. It seems that the very legitimacy of a professional career depends on how much paperwork and Clear and Official Things you can produce. With this tradition as a backdrop, it would be quite reasonable for software developers get nasty complexes steeped in self-doubt and anxiety if we, too, didn't produce beautifully complex artifacts of our stuff on the grounds that the lack thereof mitigates precision, introduces uncertainty and leads to conflict and project failure.

"So, you are a software developer, eh?"
"Yep, been struggling with it for five years now."
"Where did you get your CS degree."
"Eh? I didn't. But what does that have to do with software development?"
"Well, you must have gone somewhere to learn to write specifications and software plans, otherwise, how would you tell others how to build stuff?"
"Um, well, I read books and listen to people who write specifications about writing specifications. But nobody seems to have The One Completely Correct Idea of how to do this."
"You kidding me (incredulously). No wonder software sucks."
"Perhaps, but I think software sucks today because software developers are too focused on writing specifications and not focused enough on writing good software."
"I am confused...how can you write good software without writing good specifications?"
"I am not sure I have all the answers, but here's what I think. You can draw good models and represent complexity in a way that captures tasks, purpose and requirements. These will invariably be incomplete. It isn't very practical to attempt to know everything ahead of time. But these aren't specifications so much as they are an Idea of How The Thing Works..."

...to be continued

I hate email

I hate email.

Currently, I am using Mail.app in OSX. It has some really spiffy features. I love adding people to my contact list which syncs to my trusty T616 bluetooth phone. But the days of getting 5 or 6 nice, happy messages a day from friends and families are long gone. The problem is two fold. 1) The sheer volume of emails that threaten to bury me and 2) the pain of organizing and prioritizing them.

So, here's the pattern I am observing:

I read my messages, I reply to some, I start moving message to folders to organize them.
I get more messages, I read them, I reply to some, I move some.
I get more messages, I don't have the time to read all of them, I leave them in my Inbox.
I just leave my messages in my Inbox.
I keep leaving my messages in my Inbox....
several days or weeks later, I see that my message counter is in the 4 digits; I panic and start looking for flagged messages and that might have gotten buried, or replies that were supposed to be sent a week ago and I resolve to organize my messages.
I spend 3 hrs organizing my messages....

Iterate...

This is nuts!

It is the 21st centuries, and I am still diligently shoveling little messages into little folders. I have mistaken this silly exercise for progress.

The human-interactions and use-metaphors supported by our email clients are inconsistent with the realities of digital mail. Things are not neatly filed into Inboxes and Outboxes, Personal versus Work. Emails don't fit neatly into single folders like groceries on supermarket shelves, or at least, they shouldn't.

What I want is email that has smart filters. I like the iTunes approach. I want to be able to set up instant smart filters for all my messages. Let's call these things "topics", the word "filter" is a bit loaded. Email "topics" are not rules. I don't have to run them. They don't move things around. All my email is stored in one repository. All my sent mail is stored there too. To organize my email around a topic of interest, I'd create a "topic" such as "FileMaker Article on Architecture" and assign rules to it. The key is to be able to create multiple topics that filter the same repository of emails. I don't want to decide what folder or category some email belongs to exclusively. I want all replies related to a message that fits the filter to be grouped and thread-able in the same view. If it fits and if emails associated with it fits in the categories I describe, show me the email.

Here is an example. Danny sends me a reminder about some edits to an article I wrote for Filemaker.

-----
From: danny@don'tspamme.com
Subject: Edits to Articles
Date: May 3, 2004 8:38:46 AM EDT
To: Ernest@inresonance.com, Corn@inresonance.com

Ernest and Corn,

Hey guys... Have you had a chance to send your comments to Rick about corrections to be made to your chapters? I believe that they are beginning to implement the edits with the intent of completing the reformatting this week, so, if you haven't, please get them to Rick ASAP. Thanks.

Danny
----

Now, what i really want to do is to be able to look at my "Correspondences with Danny" topic and see that message. I also want to see that message when I look at "Correspondences with Corn" and "FileMaker" topics and find that message there too. Again, no moving things around!

Google's gmail seems to come close to this. I am also intrigued by ZOE

[DigitalSoap]

On Separation in FileMaker 7

The question of separating 'interface' from 'data' in FileMaker Pro isn't new. In the pre-7 (fp5 file format) days, a lot of serious FileMaker developers and users debated this issue with rigor. Now that FileMaker Pro 7 has been released, the whole question has gained a new momentum. Here are my working thoughts on the question:

Why separate?
Separation of 'application' from 'data' is possible, and I think it is a good thing. But it is ultimately an architectural decision hinged on your business requirements. That is, whether or not you separate depends a number of external factors such as the the need to scale, the scope and the risk-tolerance requirements of your solution. At inRESONANCE, we are not in the business of creating end-user software or personal "databases" that store stuff like personal contacts and addresses. We are concerned with solving light-enterprise and large-workgroup problems. We deal with multiple functional domains that frequently share the same data but have domain-based workflow and business logic requirements. And to that end, the value of keeping the shared data "shared" and the application layer appropriate to each domain they serve (and thus separate) almost goes without saying.

Where to separate?
FileMaker 7, for all its wonderful enhancements still has its limitations. For one, the field object is the only programmable object. Well, OK, there are 'scripts' but that we have a procedural language to manipulate the FileMaker environment isn't what I am talking about. What I mean is that you cannot tell layout objects to perform "calculations" like you can with fields. You cannot tell the layout field object to change colors or tell it to change its data bindings because all of that is pre-fabricated for us. This is not necessarily a bad thing. For most FileMaker users, the need to change object bindings programmatically falls into the "who-cares" bucket of consideration.

Why is this important to this discussion?　It is important because at the end of the day, the business of separating presentation-logic from data in FileMaker becomes an exponentially difficult exercise. If you want a word in a field in a portal to turn red as a result of some user interaction, you have to do this at the field level. That is, you have to make the word turn red through some calculation field. I think this is where a lot of the debate has revolved. Can you make that calculation field in a different table? (Is this what people mean by derived-data? I am not sure, please point me to that definition if you get a chance). There is some thought that you could completely divorce fields that have the job of changing the way data looks by sticking it in a different table. But the moment you do that, you have to duplicate and synchronize the data/schema between the 'pure' data table and the 'presentation' table.

I find this a bit of a nightmare. It starts to mitigate the value of using FileMaker to being with, which in my mind is the ability to focus on representing tasks and user-interaction rather than low-level programing just to make the software work. If that level of separation is really that important, I might consider pulling out RealBasic or VisualBasic.

I am choosing not to fight that battle. Until we have object properties and programmatic access to events, I'd prefer to focus on what I can leverage w/ FM7. So, at this point, i see the separation along the lines of application/business/interface vs. data. I reserve the right to change my mind, naturally :) but for now, I am building proof-of-concepts (PoCs) that have data files and one or more files for everything else.

In a nutshell, I have two classes of files. Files that make up the database and files that make up the application. I am even considering deploying reporting files to the user that talk to served databases.

Business Logic
One of the really cool things about 7's 'enhanced' (some might say 'unapologetic') relational model is that we can stop worrying about file limits and start building applications with relational database support for application/business-logic. These applications can be contained in a single file. Let me say again, our applications can now have relational database support. This is not the same thing as saying that the application talks to a relational data source; I am saying that you can concentrate on building an application and applying the power of relational structures in service of the application itself independent of where the data is stored. For example, navigation crumbs can be stored in a navigation table; user prefs can be stored in a 'registry' table with key-value pairs. These kinds of things have nothing to do with the data per se but it has everything to do with how the user interacts with the application. This power extends to business-logic. For example, I can see a workflow table where a FM7 based content management system's workflow can be tweaked for each customer by just changing workflow-sequences records from entirely within the application.

That said, I'd argue that even in FileMaker 7, it might be difficult to say "all" business-logic can be separated into a different file. (I believe Andy Lecates' "tier-model" lays some groundwork for this discussion.)

Security/Authentication
One thing I haven't done much of is deal with security management when you have two or more files that make up the entire solution. I'd love to collaborate/share with those who have crossed this bridge.

Thunderbird

So,
I finally figured out how to convert my mail from Mail.app to Thunderbird. But, converting requires that all the mbox files in each foldername.mbox folder be renamed to the foldername recursively. I am cursing my self because I haven't written any applescript to save my life (Documation hack aside) and am torn between learning Applescript to do a simple folder/file move and rename recursion vs. simply waiting for Pather's new mail feature.

Thuderbird's v0.3 release is pretty cool. Threads and the ability to apply rules to ALL messages (inbound and outbound) plus the ability to set where my 'sent' messages get stored...

AND, it has a configurable spam filter PLUS built in encryption...

When is Panther going to be out??

Ugh,

email crisis

email used to be fast and efficient. It isn't anymore. I've been wondering what has changed, and it struck me that me the emails I get these days fall largely into 4 categories. 1) Please-do-something, 2) Junk and the occasional 3) I-am-thinking-about-you, and finally, 4) news-and-lists.

Category #4 can be filtered and managed quite easily, and that aside, categories 1 and 2 occupy 90% of my inbox. Yesterday, I received 32 legitimate messages, 34 pieces of spam that my junk filter clobbered automatically and 8 other junk (viagra and penis enlargement ones) that slipped into my inbox. I spend 2 minutes on average to read and respond to each legit message, which amounts to roughly 60 minutes. Tack another 5 minutes to check my junked list to make sure I didn't lose a real message and add another 1 minute each (30 total roughly) to clean out my inbox and move things to their appropriate folders and I now have spent around 90 minutes a day on email alone.

That's 1.5 hours a day I spent on email alone. This is without any contribution to my favorite trade lists or newsgroups. A good reply on one or more lists could take up to 30 minutes a day.

I am trying to work 8 hours each day, as it is, close to 20% of my work day is chewed up by email.

It seems to me that there are different classes of email users. For at least one class, the Digerati, email, as activity is no longer just an 'easier-way' of communicating. It is the only way. It has evolved from a medium of convenience (or preference) to a medium of necessity and as such, good-emailing habits and skills is an integral part of the job description.

The question is, is doing email at a 20% cost to one's work day a phenomena that increases productivity and efficiency or one that decreases it?

The fractionalization of my attention to my core tasks is becoming a serious concern. It is a good thing that I am mildly ADD.

Phase I. Self-consciousness

Like my first college paper, I don't know where to start.

This phase, I shall call the the self-conscious phase--the critical moment of awareness, like when stepping out on to a stage for the first time in front of a thousand paying people.

This seemed like a good idea several weeks old. "Put all that stuff in your head on paper." You get this nagging notion in the noggin that those occasional moments of enlightenment are actually worth something, and you think that somehow, by harvesting all that shit that passes through your head, the cumulative spikes of IPO-worthy brain farts will actually amount to a get-out-of-jail-free ticket to our ordinary lives.

I am partly convinced blogs are invented by and for us--this class of overeducated, self-important, mostly-liberal dreamers who feel the need to opine. We must believe in a commentocracy (blogtocracy?) of sorts, where somehow, the collective weight of written voice plays an invisible hand in shaping public policy or social agendas.

That is a cynical perspective. But cynicism is a bit "old". Perhaps, people (aka we) actually do have interesting things to say.

Why are we compelled to have a digital voice?

I'd like to think that this rises above the level of simple self-indulgence.

Or perhaps, we are too close to the moment. Our collective myopia prevents us from grasping the actual from the sublime. This is pop culture masquerading as a bona-fide cultural movement in the making; a phenomena that will be transparent fifty years from now and show up in a side-bar with a pithy label in some Intro to Anthro frosh text book, like our collective obsession with fast food and Wal-mart.

Who is listening?

This blog, like all other blogs, is dedicated to something. On the one hand, it shamelessly invokes the mundane., "I am Blog. Grok that!"

When less self-absorbed, I hope these writings serve as a "private" chronicle of one life in one digital lane. Among other random things, I hope this touches on life in a startup, on culinary journeys, and my amateur fascination with architecture and design. Along the way, I hope to call out people and things that contribute humbling excellence.

As an experiment, I will not self-advertise. This blog will have to be found. But, if you know me personally and stumble across this, please drop me a note, let me know know how you found it.

Cheers,
Ernest Y. Koe

Inauguration

Another blog is born.