Zach Holman, from GitHub, on slide design for people with a non design background. Slides he made to support one of his talks were submitted to Hackers News. To Zach’s surprise, they quickly gained popularity for their design. He then followed up with a short article on his personal blog covering his guidelines when it comes to designing a set of slides.

Via: Zackholman.com

• There are over 150 companies hiring at SiliconMilkRoundabout this weekend with over 500 technical jobs up for grabs at London start ups (with salaries from £20k to £100k

• There are 3,134 Graduate technical jobs available in the UK and over 1,000 in London currently listed on Adzuna.co.uk, the UK’s most comprehensive job search engine.

• The average Banking IT salary is £57k which is 19% higher than the average tech start up salary. Tech startups offer greater job satisfaction and the upside of options, but this salary gap is what the start hiring community is up against.

• 23% of start ups currently hiring in London are offering stock to graduate tech employees; 0% of banks hiring graduates are offering stock.

• Despite their age, workhorse languages such as C and C++ continue to remain at the top end of the software development landscape in terms of use and job potential. That being said, Ruby, Hadoop and HTML5 are the fastest growing “in demand” tech skills with employer demand up 70%+ year on year for all of these search terms

• Graduate Mobile developers can demand a premium, with the average graduate salary for iPhone developers at £34k and Android developers at £35k, 20% higher than the average graduate tech job.

• Despite what appears to be an abundance of tech jobs in the UK, 13.1% of computer science graduates remain unemployed (source: HESA). 7,000+ computer scientists graduated this summer from University in the UK.

If you’re running a company and you are doing something that either requires an investment or attracts the attention of competitors or other parties interested in buying a part or all of your stock or your business then sooner or later you’ll run into the words ‘Due Diligence’.

The response to those words ranges from indifference to fear or even hostility, mostly based in a lack of understanding or familiarity with the process. In this (small) guide I’ll try to clarify the process and the reasons why it exists, give an overview of the process and a bunch of tips on how to successfully navigate a due diligence.

Read part 1 @ jacquesmattheij.com
Read part 2 @ jacquesmattheij.com

Why? Because unfortunately, being awesome can oftentimes just mean – delivering on time!  Being on time with software development projects is not something to be taken lightly.  It’s a huge feat.  Such projects are notorious for being over time and over budget.

Delivering on time on a regular basis means you are reliable.  Being reliable may not be sexy, but it is so incredibly necessary for client satisfaction.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be known as the mailman of the industry you work in i.e. the ones who ‘always deliver’.

Now these things don’t happen overnight but as a colleague from long ago once said to me “Bela, mighty Oaks from little acorns grow”.  Or was that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”?  So here’s a first step that I have found to work wonders, on my stress levels if nothing else.

Managing incoming client communication

Think about it.  A question that takes 15mins to answer may not seem like a big deal but if you have 100 queries (not an exaggerated figure) that are potential bugs to be investigated, changes to be discussed etc that’s 1500mins = 25 hours = just over 3 working days that may not have been accounted for in the initial time estimates provided to the client.

It isn’t effective to deal with all incoming client communication in a reactive way.  If you’re dealing with a large volume of incoming client communication in relation to a project, don’t drown in it or ignore it.  I’ve started to group the queries and deal with them in a managed, rather than ad hoc, way.  This way you can quantify the time it will take to tackle all these questions/requests etc, estimate the impact it will have on delivering your project overall, and then take an informed decision on how to proceed.

The systems and processes you use are up to you – it doesn’t matter so long as these tools do what they’re supposed to do i.e. make you more effective, efficient and help you deliver projects on time.

Last night, I was at Techmeetup presenting the rough plan for the startupcafe mobile app.

I have to say, I got a bit of a curious reaction.

Let me give a bit of context first … Startupcafe started about a year and a half ago because a few of us were frustrated that we were going to startup events, but there was no central place to find out about them. We thought it would be a good idea to post news and events for other people to hear about, as well as pointing out local successes to help make startup life a little bit less lonely. Eventually, we’ve even gone on to do interviews and write up proper articles – something none of us have trained for.

Like quite a few other meetups in the city, it is really ran by a group of people that are doing it in their spare time. It’s a labour of love. Despite the hours, we love helping people and the reactions that we get when someone has found something of value through us. It’s a side project.

Last night, I presented about the startupcafe app. It really didn’t come about because people wrote into us asking for an iPhone app, or it seemed like a get rich quick way of making money. Instead, it was just something much more simpler: I had been playing around with Titanium (a framework which allows you to build cross platform mobile applications using javascript and CSS) and wanted a little project to work on while learning it.

Before the end of the presentation, I was asked why I wasn’t following lean startup principles. Why was I presenting a list of features and not the process by which I will discover what customers wanted.

I guess this was a little unexpected. I love lean startup principles and practice them in my day job at Interface3: talking to customers, spending time understanding their pains and testing out customer validations. But I hadn’t linked them to this side project because the point of this project wasn’t to make money, the point was to learn about how to build apps in Titanium. I rarely get to do any heavy duty coding in my day job any more and I really don’t want to get too rusty. I’m a geek. I like to play with new shiny frameworks. I like to make stuff.

The point of a side project is not to make money: its supposed allow you to learn stuff and have some fun.

There is a time and place for lean startup principles BUT if we followed them for every aspect of our lives, then …. it just doesn’t sound right. Life shouldn’t be that serious all the time. Side projects aren’t meant to go anywhere. They’re supposed to be things that companies wouldn’t invest time or money into. They’re places for creativity and to do something unusual.

A few people suggested that I should set up a survey and send it to the community before coding, and their point was that I shouldn’t cram too much into the app. So I’m going to take that on board. My next step will be to knock together a little survey to find out the top thing that a startupcafe mobile app would do.

But forgive me if I don’t strict startup priniciples for this one. I’m building the app because I want to see how easy it is to build mobile apps quickly and easily using Titanium over writing Objective-C. Not because I think that we’ll get rich by doing it.

Incidentally, let me leave on this one parting shot. I thought the audience last night wasn’t exactly supportive of the projects that were being presented. I know that quite a few people have questioned how to encourage collaborations (and sparks to happen) at Techmeetup beyond the beer and pizza. If the point of the side project presentations was to encourage those types of sparks to happen, then maybe the community could be reminded that side projects are side projects. If you encourage people to present things, then criticise them for almost entertainment value, then people will think twice about presenting again. In the long term it will do more harm than good.

While I’ve been learning to master the art of running long distances, I’ve accidentally found a treasure trove of inspirational and insightful stories about the unlikeliest of runners becoming runners. First, there was “What I talk about when I talk about running” by Haruki Murakami (of Kafka on the Shore), then “The Courage to Start“, by fellow trombonist, John Bingham, and recently, I’ve been following “The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer“.

This week, one trainee-runner’s account seemed particularly poignant:

It took me a couple of weeks to realize that I was not going to be 31 years old and out of shape and go out there and train for a marathon and be competitive. That was hard for me because I have always been competitive; liked challenge. The first two Saturday morning runs I ran too fast and was in bad shape by the end. I couldn’t figure it out; the runs weren’t even that long and I felt like I was going to die. After listenting to Dave and Forrest [the course instructors] I realized I was probably going at a pace that was too fast for me. So I slowed down, forced myself to stop seeing it as a competition, and just tried to focus on enjoying myself … Once I made these changes I started to really enjoy the whole process.

It struck me that this statement could be akin to starting your own business – especially in reference to the work-life balance.

Entrepreneurs tend to be competitive and each business is a challenge. Ultimately, everyone wants to get ahead. This is understandable since we’re constantly told that few startups survive. The statistics are against us. We need to move quickly, react and keep moving. Driven by the sense of urgency, we want to go fast, often working long hours and little time for R&R.

However, at the same time, doing too much too fast can risk burnout. The long hours, weekends, and the constant merry-go-round of networking events can be extremely draining. At some point, you will just stop enjoying working in a startup, stop wanting to get out of bed in the mornings, and find excuses not to be doing the hard stuff.

It’s a hard balance. How do you find the right pace between moving the venture forward, at a pace where you can enjoy the ride?

Drawing from my (limited) running knowledge and the above quote, I guess the answer could come in two parts.

The first is experience. Looking back, when I started running I simply ran as fast as I could. There was no other pace. There was simply on and off. Over time, I began to relax and found that I could go slightly faster and sometimes, slightly slower. The gap between the two was little at first, but then, it grew and it grew. Now I find that I can vary the pace fairly easily. I’m guessing that working out the right work-life balance in startup life will be similar. I just hope it would come quicker, easier and with less growing pains.

The second is attitude. For me, the aim for the first marathon is simply to finish rather than beating the world record. Maybe that can be translated across to entrepreneurship, where the focus is on building a company, rather than building the next Google in the first go. Dreaming big is good, but just don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it the first time. So, part of the process is to figure out what you want out of this experience, what sort of company you want to build, and what will result in a situation where you will “enjoy” yourself or your successes? The focus isn’t to say that you shouldn’t aim to build a big company, but rather, it’s ok if it takes you 2 or 3 attempts to get there.

It’s certainly food for thought …

Finally, I can’t leave without pointing you to other people in the startup community that are running too. You should check out Jennie Lees’ post on running; Hilary Singer’s running counter on her blog (I’m still waiting for the kayaking counter to go up), and finally, Rachel Lane is running lots to raise money for breast cancer charities. In fact, if you’re feeling generous, feel free to sponsor her for her efforts.

BUT, some of us love Mother Nature too, and our monster appetite for all things new and improved in techie toys is having a considerable environmental impact by feeding landfills/waste treatment plants etc and poisoning our soil, water and air. The fastest growing waste stream in the UK is apparently that of electrical goods. So what is a self-respecting technology lover to do?

I ask because I stumbled across a website recently called www.lastyearsmodel.org which does what it says on the tin, i.e. promotes holding onto your gadgets and resisting the allure of upgrading before extracting the maximum value and pleasure out of your existing technology. Apparently there is a growing movement towards being a late adopter. Historically techie laggards were thought of as poor and lacking a critical level of intelligence but now according to an article in The Independent (16th Sept 09 edition) a growing number of educated people with means are choosing to make a such a stand on principle.

Will personal concern over environmental impacts be a major influence in the purchasing behaviour of the average technology-loving consumer?  I don’t think so. It may have enough influence to arouse small feelings of guilt but not enough to stop us from upgrading whenever we want. For the health of the planet to be a significant factor when deciding whether or not to upgrade there would need to be an effective and coordinated marketing and communications effort to deliver a coherent and sensible message - specifically about upgrading - to techie consumers about the extent to which our purchasing habits are having a negative environmental impact.

I think our upgrade culture is a reflection of something greater. It represents our inability to focus on and extract the maximum utility and pleasure in NOW – from our current jobs, current relationships, current lifestyles, current toys and tools. We’re often looking off into the future (near or far) in search of that happy feeling and driven towards the next thing whether it be a purchase – a bigger or better music system/car/house/ etc – a relationship, a job, a lifestyle…

There’s nothing wrong in looking for the next thing to have but it would suck to wake up at the ripe old age of 85 to find that happiness and contentment eluded you as you could never fully enjoy what you had because of what you wanted.

Who Moved My Cheese, written by Spencer Johnson, is a well known book and has been out for a while. Though it sneakily jumped off the shelf and into my small hands only recently, I had heard about it much earlier but not gotten around to reading it. You’ll be able to fully devour it in your lunch hour…it’s short, simple and easy to read – written like a small kid’s story.

In a nutshell it is about those four characters, cheese and a maze. Cheese can represent anything you like…money, customers, love, and so on. The maze is where you look for your cheese. The four characters reflect aspects of yourself in relation to change.

The insights can be applied to both your professional and personal life. There’s no need to take it too seriously and tear the book apart as some silly reviewers have done. Like I said, it’s a very simple book and a bit of fun. Being able to identify with one of the four characters may help focus your mind and give you some perspective during those occasions when you happen to be lost in the complexities of your situation.

I use it as a simple and humourous tool to enable myself to take appropriate action / adopt a healthy perspective whenever I find myself on the brink of stamping my foot and crying ‘but it’s not fair’!

I’m happy to share my copy; the next time I’m up in Edinburgh and you catch me at an event, feel free to tap me on the shoulder and ask to borrow it