It's Labor Day today -- a good time to reflect on the 7 months since I left my full time job at Microsoft to figure out "what's next?" Seven months is at the same time both long and short; not quite a school year's length, but certainly bigger than a breadbasket sized vacation. It's the longest amount of time I've gone without a fixed agenda in my life, so that's personally pretty big. The time has also breezed by, almost in the blink of an eye.
I count myself as exceedingly lucky to be able to take this time off. The way I've come to think of it is very long runway stretching out in front of me. At some point I will need to pull the stick back, raise the nose and take off, but to do that successfully requires two things. Firstly, you need an idea of what direction you intend to fly -- otherwise you are up in the air, burning fuel possibly going in the wrong direction -- bad news because life is short and finite resources need to be used wisely. Secondly, it requires enough ground speed to successfully take off without crashing back down to the ground -- no sense lifting the nose up until you've established proper momentum. This is why long runways are a good thing.
So what have I been up to these last seven months?
Reading: I've always been of a strong reading bent, but rarely do you get a chance to immerse yourself without major distractions. With this in mind, I spent a few of the first months delving into the broad subject "what makes something great? high quality? worthwhile?" -- and why do so few things meet this bar? Heady stuff - right on the border of New Age nonsense. There's a real danger of falling into one of two useless ravines...Useless Ravine #1: It's all subjective -- there is not absolute standard good or great, beauty is in the beholder. Useless Ravine #2: It's mystical -- there is an absolute good, but you'll never find it rationally. I have come to believe there is a thin and high ridge between these two chasms, and that the path is meaningful. For this the best reading I can recommend is Christopher Alexander's "The Nature Of Order" - volumes I to IV. It's a tome, thousands of pages really -- but insightful and actionable all the way through. Well worth the investment.
Relaxing: By relaxing I mean hanging out, drinking coffee, going skiing, and generally wandering through some days. Perspective comes from the tension between relaxation and intense activity where contrasts can be drawn.
Reflecting on past work: Leaving work I was given advice by quite a few people stating "This is a kind of breakup after 14 years working for a company with a strong culture - a culture that has changed dramatically though the years (both positive and negative). You're going to go through some emotions as you separate yourself and find out what is you and what was Microsoft, what was past and what is present." Sure enough, the experience has distilled some strong opinions in me. I've developed strong opinions on what creates innovative capacity and what diminishes it in an organization; more on this in a future post.
Designing: Few people outside the world of software understand how joyous an experience designing code can be -- with it's mixture of creative problem solving, innovation, clever compromises and insights, it can be every bet as satisfying as writing a novel or painting a great work. On the other hand, simply "writing code" can also be a dull, slow moving and soul-sucking experience when constrained by large organizational imperatives -- what I imagine Hemmingway would feel if he had to author the yearly Sears catalogue to put food on the table, or Picasso if he designed cardboard packaging for breakfast cereal (why are my Cheerio's all squares?). Reality oscillates between these two poles of the transcendent and creative and the dull and bureaucratic - some degree of both is necessary, but too many people end up with the latter. In the past months I've been developing and designing on both the web and for mobile devices and staking out some new ideas; great fun.
Doing a bit of work for some friends: It's nice to be able to pick up a little lunch money and help out friends as well. With this in mind I've been doing a small amount of embedded systems development for a friend's company; helping them solve a few critical problems. I've also been doing some writing for friends at Polar Fitness. I've got a periodic column on the intersections of fitness, recreation and technology (see: http://www.polar.fi/polar_community/blogs).
Finally, over the past few months I've started to pursue a startup idea that's been in the back of my mind. It's a mobile devices/mapping-technology concept that related to some research work I led while working for MS in Germany. Prototypes and business plans are being developed -- we'll see where it goes! Having crossed some of the initial hurdles we'll be looking to see if we can get funding for our effort. If that works out, there'll be much more to write about on this front. If not, it's a still a long runway in front of me...momentum and direction are being determined.
Hope the Labor Day is a great one!
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