To be blunt, I really don’t know where I stand on how to effectively price software. The answer for me is that there isn’t AN answer. It’s one of those questions like “what’s the secret to a great relationship?” or “what’s the best job?”. There isn’t an answer. It depends on everything, you, your people, your clients, your software, the climate around you, competition, etc, etc. Warning, there are no answers in this post…..

I can tell you about one of my ideal sales experiences which was of all places, Blockbuster. Why? The main reason is that they managed to always make it about me and my goals. The first time I ever rented at blockbuster was painless. I went in, picked out a video, prepared to be sold to and wade through paperwork. Instead I flashed a credit card, signed one thing, paid some cash and was out in not much more than the average member rental time, carrying a new membership card.

I didn’t think much about it at the time but later realized how lovely this was. We’re so used to being pushed silver, gold and platinum packages and features that we hardly notice it now. In this case they recognized that all I needed was the ability to rent a video. They got me setup for that and left it there. That I greatly appreciate.

Did they miss out on the upsell? Well no. A few weeks later after having rented a whack of videos, they technically did upsell me but again it was about me. They now recognized that my rental patterns dictated that I could save some cash through joining their rewards program. They offered it once, explained the benefits based on MY buying patterns and I happily signed up. There was no fictional pitch. No “well IF you do this and IF you do that then maybe you’ll save this”. It was “you’ve rented x videos in the past y weeks. With this program you would have saved $z”. Am I giving blockbuster too much credit? Well possibly but I still never felt sold to which is more than I can say for just about every other company I’ve dealt with.

In a ruby web framework session at OSCON where the concept of opinionated software was mentioned. The rails framework and all the 37signals apps pride themselves on being opinionated.

What’s your opinion on opinionated software?

• Make Opinionated Software: “We think that’s bullshit. The best software has a vision. The best software takes sides. When someone uses software, they’re not just looking for features, they’re looking for an approach. They’re looking for a vision.”
• A Fatal Flaw in Opinionated Software: “The problem with this approach is that punishment is only appropriate for children and criminals. By actively working to make my life as a hacker more difficult, David is treating me like a child or a criminal. ”

Related to super cd, if you don’t already know about pushd and popd then read up as they’re helpful as well…

“The pushd command saves the current working directory in memory so it can be returned to at any time, optionally changing to a new directory. The popd command returns to the path at the top of the directory stack.”

• pushd and popd
• Improving the usefulness of pushd / popd / dirs troika in Unix filesystem navigation
• wikipedia page

If you end up using these commands then I highly recommend this tip.

I pitched the idea a while back to a friend for a super cd. The idea being to add a means of easily creating, managing, and using shortcuts to directories you often use. I currently handle this by creating aliases in my .bashrc like this one:

alias cddir=”cd /home/some/directory/used/a/lot”

It’s a pain, however, to manage them, recall what I named one, delete old ones etc. So my thought was to build a python program to wrap cd. You could then use some special syntax like hashing to reference shortcuts. So typing “cd #dir” would move you into the directory you saved under shortcut “dir”. If super cd didn’t feel the command was meant for it then it would simply pass the request down to the base cd.

While sitting here in Vancouver sipping a tasty americano, I finally got around to some searching to figure out how I could change directories in a shell by calling into a python script. Not quite as simple as it first seems. In searching for that I not only found the answer but I found almost the exact tool I was about to write. Adding to the weirdness is the fact it appears to be written by a guy here in Vancouver.

If you use a shell, try go. While not exactly what I had planned, it allows you to type “go -a dir” to add the current directory. Then type “go dir” at any point later to change back to that directory. I like…

Another amazing event last week at The Albion. We had a huge turnout, especially with it being cottage season. Our next event is in Sept, please sign up to attend here, and contact me if you’d like to demo.

Thanks to the following people for stepping up and demo’ing:

• John Rockefeller
• Dan Wood
• Mark Roseman
• Wyatt Carss
• Daryl Godbout

If anyone’s paying attention, things may be a little quiet here over the summer.

Next Wednesday evening is DempCampGuelph6. It’s an open event, talk about us, tell your mom, get people out! If you’re attending, please make sure to put your name on the wiki attendee list. If you want to demo, contact me.

Oh man, now there’s a title for you. Sure, I’m going to define the topic of leadership right here and now for you all. You best move on to smarter places like here, here or here if that’s your expectation.

I’ve been in a few common positions in relation to leadership, possibly in chronological order:

• Bottom of the food chain wishing someone would bestow a leadership role on me.
• A ‘manager’ supposedly leading teams.
• An ‘owner’ working to build leaders within teams.

Those experiences have given me some entry level insight into what leadership is all about. So what do I know today about leadership? Here’s my completely made up on the spot list:

1. Assigning, or being assigned, leadership almost never works.
2. Leadership isn’t a role or title.
3. Good leaders are natural leaders.
4. Natural leaders don’t wrestle, hoard, or covet leadership roles. They see voids in leadership and naturally gravitate towards them.
5. People won’t become leaders until they’re ready, which is different than crap like leaders are born, etc. Tomorrow’s leader is today’s plain old team member.
6. Good leaders are most excited about seeing plain old team members become tomorrow’s leaders.
7. Leadership isn’t a destination.
8. Leading is NEVER about making big decisions.
9. In fact, good leaders make as little big decisions as possible.
10. Natural leaders work themselves out of their roles. They see themselves as training wheels to help teams move forward until they’re no longer needed.
11. Good leaders allow acceptable voids in leadership.

So good leaders gravitate towards voids in leadership naturally, when they’re comfortable. As a leader, the ideal way to find leaders is to allow this natural progression by opening up tolerable voids in leadership within your teams. This is in contrast to creating roles and assigning them. Have I created roles and assigned them on teams? Yep and I will again, however, I view those occasions as failings on my part. Have I been on every side of every fence I describe above? Pretty much.

If you’re a plain old team member who wants to become tomorrow’s leader then my advice is to watch closely for those voids in leadership on your team. Don’t clutch and grab at them. Identify them and work with your entire team to help them move forward on those issues. When you see these voids, the worst you can do is sit back, bitch and moan about the terrible job you’re current managers are doing.

If you’re a leader trying to grow your next crop of leaders. Strive not to assign leadership roles. Think about these voids and try opening some up on your teams and see who naturally steps in. When you see someone stepping in then do everything you can to support, encourage, and make them successful. Oh, and grow a thick skin and be prepared that some people may see these voids as failings on your part.