Vistaprint Lessons Learned – Part 2: Career and Leadership

This is part two in my ‘Vistaprint Lessons Learned’ series.  I only have four lessons this time, but I think they’re important. I’m sure I learned more than just four lessons about working efficiently, but also these lessons are more about continual improvement than many of the software development lessons were.  Therefore, I’ve spent a lot of time on each of these lessons, and I’m sure I”ll continue to spend a lot more time on them in the future.

Vistaprint Lessons Learned – Part 1: Software Development

Over the last two years at Vistaprint, I’ve grown a lot – both as a developer and in general.  I learned some lessons through mistakes I’ve made, things that I saw being done correctly, and by observing processes that could have been more efficient.

Over the this and the next two blog posts, I’ll cover the lessons I learned in three different categories – software development, career and personal development, and lessons that could be applied to a company.

Work updates

I don’t talk about work much on here (well, less than I talk about anything else), but I figure there’s something other people might finally be interested in – a rapping review of VistaPrint:

http://www.45n5.com/permalink/business-card-rapper-vistaprint-review.html

He’s really bad, but I’m still impressed that we inspired this…

In other news, I signed my first patent application today!  It was actually submitted yesterday, but they said it would be ok if everyone signed it today.  My co-inventors are my manager Jay, and coworker Terence, but the patent is listed as Daugherty et al.  There will be another one in a few weeks, on the second half of the work I did (even though we ended up not using it for our own site).  Patent applications aren’t publicly available for two years, though, so I think I shouldn’t go into too much detail here, in case it’s covered in my NDA.

Orwellian Writing

Yesterday, Guy Kawasaki posted a great essay by George Orwell on how to write well.  Since I enjoy reading this sort of thing (and constantly hoping to someday write this well), I thought I’d repost it here:

—————————————————————————————–

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art Of Schmoozing”

Last month, I wrote about attending a Churchill Club seminar on startups. I recently discovered that Guy Kawasaki, the moderator of the event, has a blog (he even has a video of the Churchill Club seminar). I found Guy a very easy person to listen to, and reading what he has to say has only reaffirmed my opinion of him as a thoughtful, articulate person. For this reason, I was particularly interested to learn he has to say about networking in his post “The Art of Schmoozing.”

Guy’s number one rule of schmoozing is that you have to realize the goal is to determine what you can do for other people, not what they can do for you. Cast in this light, schmoozing isn’t so bad. Unfortunately, as far as it applies to me, I’m not sure what I can offer most people in a networking situation; I’m still a student, so I don’t have a lot of experience or connections. This is something I may need to think about for a while, and hopefully the trick will just be becoming aware of opportunities to help people out.

The next few rules from Guy remind me very much of the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. For me, the essence of this advice comes down to Dale’s suggestion to “become genuinely interested in other people.” For example, Guy advises asking open-ended questions as the trick to becoming a good conversationalist. I like this advice, but personally I try to take it one step further by remembering the underlying idea. Don’t just ask questions to begin a conversation, listen carefully to other people, then make sure to ask questions that show you have heard what they said and have thought about it. I’ve been working on this in interviews, and though it may sometimes feel like you’re playing dumb by questioning everything, everyone appreciates having someone listen to them and take them seriously.

Finally, Guy offers two more pieces of advice that I found worth mentioning. One is just a reinforcement of something we’ve all heard before: follow up. This allows you to take the step from having an interesting conversation with someone and turn it into a real relationship. I know this is one piece of advice that I will need to remember next week after the career fair.

Last, Guy suggests that after you have done a favor for someone, you ask for the return of the favor. I had never heard this advice before, so it’s worth thinking about for a little while. Guy’s reasoning is that it’s better to be on equal footing because “keeping someone indebted to you puts undue pressure on your relationship.” Another reason to continue exchanging favors is that it continues your relationship with the person you have just met.

All in all, an interesting column from an interesting guy. I’d suggest reading it to anyone who, like me, is trying to become more outgoing or needs to prepare for a networking event like a career fair.