interviews from Red Canary

The job search: Myths and Research

Alan Kearns — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:48:39 GMT

40% of candidates thought it was ok to talk about money in the interview compared to 48% of employers

I would strongly recommend that you listen to this week's podcast. It is a recording of the presentation that Andrea Garson, V.P. HR for Workopolis, gave at our recent conference held in Ottawa and Toronto.

At the 2008 Canadian Career Summit, Andrea shared some research about myths and realities of employers and the current job market.

Andrea presented a recent study that Workopolis commissioned to help understand the myths that both candidates and employers have around the hiring process.

Here are some of the key findings that Andrea shared at our conference:

Being unemployed – 60% of candidates thought being unemployed was an issue, while 56% of employers thought it was not an issue in hiring a person on their team.

16% of candidates expect an employer to check references, while 52% of employers always check references

Honesty – 71% of candidates thought it was important to share if they had been fired or laid off, while 75% of employers thought it was important to be honest.

The Resume – 84% of candidates ranked it as very important in the job search process versus 68% of employers. And, 56% of employers thought that 2 pages was the right length of resume.

Your appearance – 86% of candidates ranked it as very important compared to 71% of employers.

Suits – 64% of candidates thought a suit was optional versus 70% of employers who thought it was not necessary. Wearing a suit at an interview is more likely to be a requirement for a management or executive role.

The interview - 83% of candidates ranked it as the most important factor in getting hired versus 75% of employers.

Tests - More and more employers are removing testing as part of their hiring process, to the great relief of candidates.

Selling Yourself – 66% of candidates and 65% of employers think it is key to sell yourself in the interview process. The rest of the interview can be spent asking good questions about the company and the company selling itself to you.

References- 16% of candidates expect an employer to check references, while 52% of employers always check references. Also, 62% of employers check references with candidates over the age of 45.

Negotiation – 40% of candidates thought it was ok to talk about money in the interview compared to 48% of employers. At the more senior level only 29% of employers thought it was ok to discuss this in the first interview. Sixty-one per cent of candidates expect salary negotiation. Forty-five per cent of employers put their best offer on the table right away while 22 per cent of candidates expect the employer to put their best offer on the table right away.

One of the key messages that Andrea shared was that "everything has a cycle." She said that "companies may take a little more time and be more particular - in this new type of reality you need to be really prepared." More than ever, it is important to maintain a positive yet realistic perspective on the economy and the opportunities that are available.

Do you need professional support in your job search? Our 90-Day Career Search Program can help you get hired in a better role sooner. Check out our FREE TeleWORKshop - Are you looking for expert and unbiased career advice? Do you need some fresh ideas for your job search? Do you know if you are in the right career? Looking to take more control over your career? Book an initial consultation with me. Get started today towards a better future.

Breaking down the myths, along the road with you!

Alan

Say what? Collected quotes from two+ years of canary duty

Trevor Stafford — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:39:26 GMT

Finding my favourite quotes in Red Canary was a lot like going through the shoebox of orphan photographs I keep in my closet.

That battered, polaroid-choked carton invokes a mix of grins and groans – and I felt the same rueful nostalgia while flipping through two years of articles.

But just as fashion 'indiscretions' slide into 'style', editorial right angles ultimately get hammered straight. And I think this iteration of Red Canary has found its voice. If I can offer any proof, it's in this selection of bon mots, as collected from interviews, comments, and individuals both more articulate and credible than myself.

Enjoy.

And always.

Thank You for visiting.

Humour

"The job candidate was waiting on the couch in reception…there was a fruit bowl on the little table in front of him. He took a piece and bit in…but it wasn’t what he had in mind, so he put it back."
Anonymous
10 Interview Horror Stories

"Rule number one: I don’t work with assholes"

Stowe Boyd
'Advisory' Capital

"I chose poorly when I got my first computer, a TRS80. I had to type in 50 pages of code to play hangman."
Craig Fitzpatrick, CEO, Devshop
Devshop: Shoeing the Shoemakers

"General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters"
Guide to Hiring Women, 1943

Start-up Lessons

"With technology now, your competition isn’t just coming from Mississauga or Scarborough, it’s worldwide. You don’t know half of your competition because they can’t be Googled. You think that you only have a few competitors and you just get smashed."
Bryan Kerdman
Smooth Ex-operator

"The final fight is in software. Apple is experimenting with a new business model. It could change how applications on the mobile platform will be distributed and monetised."
Tim Tang
iPhone, BlackBerry, and the Android

"Don’t ever underestimate the role that luck plays in your life...I’d be very happy to say that all of this is my own doing, but I can’t. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to meet the people I did (in the early days) my career could’ve gone in a completely different direction."
Leila Boujnane, CEO, Idee
Picture perfect: A profile of image-recognition company Idee

"Get out from behind John A. MacDonald’s skirts and get onto the world stage. Use a global yardstick not a "provincal" one!"

Jim Murphy
One Red Question - greatest tech challenge

"There’s a lot of lessons learned in that first 30 months and a lot of mistakes made too. You have to make them and you have to learn by them, and adjust."
Kevin Dwyer
Interview: Kevin Dwyer

"Bear in mind that VCs spread their risk across several companies. You, on the other hand, only work for one company at a time. They’re not necessarily smarter than you—they just get to make more bets."
Mario Laudi
Know Thy VC

"A start-up is essentially an Agile business – you wake up every morning and never know what fire you’ll have to put out or what change of plans you’ll have to make"
Craig Fitzpatrick
Agile as a management method and organizational philosophy

"I think the Canadian headspace is that commercialization is viewed as a dirty thing whereas pure research is clean"
Charles Plant
INTERVIEW: Charles Plant, Advisor, Market Readiness Programs, MaRS

"Shut up and execute."

Roy Pereira.
Startup success: People, money and opportunity (Part I)

"I’m not so foolish to think that a website is the only aspect of technology marketing, but if the public face of your company looks like Jimmy Durante, then I have doubts about the efficacy of everything else you’re doing."
Trevor Stafford
290,307 reasons why this is the best marketing I've ever seen from a Canadian technology company

People

"Imagine a hill with two tigers, extraordinary players come with extraordinary expectations and extraordinary egos."
Ashok Kalle
Ashok Kalle: Benevolence and good business on the 'Pathway' to success

"Hire intelligent, creative, kickass people. You shouldn’t care about what language they know or whether you have a position that’s right for them."

Brad Sim, COO, Sandvine
The Sandvine Way

"90% of technology job descriptions are a lot like a bad blind date. They say the same things – in the same vaguely selfish way"
Trevor Stafford
It's not you, it's me: A blind date guide to job descriptions that don't suck

"Don’t shy away from uber-talent because of compensation. If Michael Jordan wanted to play for you, would you pay him for it? What’s winning worth to you?"
Mario Laudi
7 hiring tips for startups

"You cannot hire masses of asses and you can't settle for second-best."
Scott Broder
Mr. What's Next

"We’ve really used the mafia theory to hire: somebody needs to vouch for you...and then they’re responsible for you doing well."
Dave Wessinger CTO, PointClickCare
Profile: PointClickCare

"The raw material of technology products (whether services, software or hardware) is time. The product can only be as good as the raw material – the time and creativity of the people building it." Its best to start with great raw materials – which means hiring the right people"
Colin Toal
One Red Question - greatest tech challenge

"The cost of losing a first-year sales hire is more than $120,000. 60% of sales hires don’t make it past their first year."
Theresa Spengler
Startup Sales Talent: The Good, The Bad, The 2.0

Careers

"Because programmers don’t usually think in terms of careers, they often get blown from job to job like a leaf in a gale, until they find themselves in a dead end job with nowhere to go, and wonder 'how did I get here?"

Bruce Taylor
Career Plan for Devs? What's that?

"How drunk I am on weekends (as surmised by photos on Facebook) does not have anything to do with how I perform on the job"
Anonymous
Can you be Googled?

Why Are Good Product Managers So Hard To Find?

Alyssa Dver — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:33:10 GMT

Alyssa Dver’s book, “Software Product Management Essentials” has sold over 10,000 copies worldwide. She is regularly interviewed as a product management and marketing expert and has been published in Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Entrepreneur.

Why would anyone want to be a Product Manager? They are responsible without being accountable. They have no staff, and rarely have any budget. They are the first to get the call when there is a product problem and usually last to be recognized for the success. Their email is stuffed with cc’s from every department. Their to-do list is well beyond realistic and because there is always another version being planned, they only see momentary light at the end of each release. Anyone must be crazy to do this job! Product Managers may not be “normal” in fact. They are a different breed. Both right- and left-brained, they need to understand technical information and be creative marketers – at the same time. They are master communicators acting as evangelists and educators while digested huge amounts of financial and technical information. They have the confidence to be product champions and at the same time, need to be great listeners.

Great product managers gather regular honest feedback from colleagues and management. They know that effective communication in all forms (verbal, written, body language, etc.) is quite possibly the most important skill to being a great PM.

Product Managers need to be tough enough to withstand personal and product criticism. After all, they are perpetually showcasing and defending their 'babies' against internal and external competition.

Product Managers: Born or Made?

Finding good product managers isn’t easy – just ask hiring managers or recruiters. Product Managers don’t come out of college with majors in product management or resumes that state it as an objective.

Outstanding product managers want to know what’s new and cool so they read prolifically, watch a variety of TV and subscribe to all kinds of e-newsletters. Regardless of their product type, they expolore new consumer gadgets and technologies.

Product Managers are often taken from the internal ranks of engineering or pre-sales support. Whether sequestered because no one else wanted to do it or they simply have a knack with customers (i.e. “a personality”), product managers are often created by the organization that just can’t find someone otherwise. As such, the biggest complaint among product managers and their executive bosses is that PMs don’t come prepared to manage the business. They lack financial skills as well as the ability to create and explain product visions or strategy. There is a long distance between ‘ifthen-else’ and product roadmaps. Additionally, the multi-tasking challenges of product management easily overwhelm these types of people who are at their best when focused towards delivering a definable, measurable job. Product managers can never be perfectionists nor can they be flustered by constant interrupts. The best Product Managers are liberal arts types. This doesn’t mean that they have liberal arts degrees, but rather they are well-rounded, intrigued individuals. They are interested in popular culture, people and new technology.

It may seem obvious that one must engage customers, prospects and internal personnel in the quest to be the best possible Product Manager. However, few Product Managers talk with these audiences in a planned and accomplished way.

Outstanding Product Managers want to know what’s new and cool so they read prolifically, watch a variety of TV and subscribe to all kinds of e-newsletters. Regardless of their product type, they explore new consumer gadgets and technologies. New product ideas are often triggered by or even borrowed from other innovations. Because of the overwhelming amount of work and technical focus on many organizations, it can be hard for Product Managers to stay fresh and innovative. Great Product Managers know that creativity is enabled when they are constantly exposed to completely different, paradigm-breaking ideas.

How a PM should spend time

Ideally, Product Managers should spend 50-60% of their time interacting with outside people (customers, prospects, consultants, analysts, etc.) and 15-25% with internal personnel. This may vary depending on the product development phase but overall, if paperwork or other administration is taking more than 25% of a Product Manager’s time, they probably aren’t adding great value to the organization. In fact, great Product Managers make it part of their job plans to take communications classes and gather regular honest feedback from colleagues and management. They know that effective communication in all forms (verbal, written, body language, etc.) is quite possibly the most important skill to being a great PM.

Needles and Product Haystacks

So how do you find great Product Managers? Here are some interview questions that may help identify a great PM: Why did you select the education path you did? An ideal answer illustrates someone’s interest in general learning. They may have a business or engineering degree, for example, but did they take other non-related electives? Are they generally curious and interested in the world or are they simply interested in getting a lucrative job? Is this person a constant learner or someone who just checks the boxes to gain advancement?

Your company may not make iPods but knowing how they work might give your PM some good installation or interface ideas for your company’s product.

Are they open minded to learning new things or do they prefer to apply straightforward rules to problems that have absolute answers? Product Managers rarely obtain truly correct answers and rarely can apply proven decision making methods. What TV shows do you watch?Despite what educators tell you, watching some TV can actually relax your mind and open it up to creativity. Being tuned into popular culture, no matter what product you support, is important. Not only does it help you to participate in relationship building small talk (the chit chat kind!), but it also clues you into ideas that clearly have already won mass acceptance. What newsletters, magazines, etc. do you subscribe to (online and hard copy)?As part of constant learning, this highlights a person’s interest in knowing what’s going on beyond the obvious internal and industry news. There is no right answer here but rather a collection of different and thought provoking media is ideal. Knowing about new media and how hard/easy it is to use firsthand is great so a PM can evaluate whether it would be effective with his/her own audiences. Also knowing what one’s own audiences reads is helpful is so many ways including being better prepared to talk with/write for that press if the opportunity is available. What do you do to remain innovative? This is a tough question and relates to the above interest in staying abreast of news, innovation and a diversity of topics. However, few people do this deliberately. An ideal PM candidate will indicate that they are interested in a variety of things and make sure that they ingest all types of information to ensure their minds stay fit and flexible. How well do you communicate? A person who communicates well will know it from specific feedback and experience they have had. A great communicator works hard to constantly improve their craft by writing, presenting, and conscientiously interacting with people. Most importantly, the great communicator always seeks out feedback, quantitatively and qualitatively. Do you like interacting with people? Why? Many technical people will say that they are uncomfortable interacting with people. This is a red flag for PMs! To cull the well-rehearsed interview pitch from the genuinely interested PM, the answer to “Why” should include the ability to learn from other people, gain new ideas, and challenge their own communication skills – especially listening. What is your ultimate goal as a PM? Product Management is a great stepping stone to any other function within the organization. It is a great way to sample all the functions in order to determine one’s next career step. Often people enter Product Management to experience the heart of the business with aspirations towards being a CEO. Rarely people make PM their end goal which is not a bad thing.

INTERVIEW: Christine Tutssell, VP of Sales, Covarity

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:43:39 GMT

A lot of new companies decide to go after the ‘elephant’ and blow their brains out doing it

How did you get into sales? I started selling in the mid-1980s, by accident, really. I was hired right out of university to sell products for American Hospital Supply. They wanted to implement a new automated order entry system solution and I wound up launching the program for them. From there I moved on to selling departmental solutions. I worked in that space for six-and-a-half years, then moved to London where I sold manufacturing and distribution solutions in the MRP2 days. Then I went to Descartes, where I worked on the transportation logistics side in selling and sales management for another six-and-a-half years. Can you talk about your experiences at early-stage companies? I wanted to work for an early-stage company because I’d learned so much that I wanted to apply to helping get a new company on its feet. I wanted to make decisions about how to run the business and how best to serve the employees and customers. So from Descartes I moved to Covarity in 2004. What was the situation at Covarity when you started?

Be prepared to structure deals for the way your customer wants to buy

The company thought its customers were happy but I soon realized they weren’t. So we asked ourselves, “how can we turn this around quickly?” We identified two key clients and built strong relationships with them. They were our anchor reference customers: they acted as spokesmen for us and were very supportive. Covarity wouldn’t be where it is today without them. What was your next move? From there, we moved to building out our applications. We asked, “What do we need to do to expand our footprint and functional capability to support our clients?” A lot of new companies decide to go after the ‘elephant’ and blow their brains out doing it. They don’t have the necessary support to get the big deals done. We started with the little guys and made sure they were happy before moving on. We secured a deal with a Schedule 2 bank (Laurentian), then moved to Schedule 1 banks. It took 15 months to get RBC and HSBC signed, which was okay because we had other paying customers. But if you try to do that right out of the gate you can flop.

Putting a package together is fun but it takes a creative thinker. And that’s where lots of sales people fall down: they get into rote thinking.

What's your approach to selling for an early-stage company, from a strategic perspective? Start by identifying a couple of key anchor customers that you can get your arms around — you really need more than one. In any business I’ve worked in, that’s been critical. Without references from well-known clients, no one wants to work with you. They should be clients with whom you can build strong long-term relationships; they must understand what you expect from them and the extra service they’ll get in return. Our key clients have become important spokespeople for us and they’ve been instrumental in driving production requirements. What’s your approach from an on on-the-ground tactical perspective? Be prepared to structure deals for the way your customer wants to buy. If you’re selling to someone who doesn’t want a sub deal, you have to figure out how you can get recurring revenue over the life of the agreement, while accommodating the client. One way is through term licenses rather than perpetual licenses. With term licenses the client pays in advance every six months or annually. As you move up-market there is greater resistance to sub deals. However, these companies are very accepting of term licenses. And once you have a couple of larger clients, you can start to get a true model for the way you want to do business.

I use a personality test for sales people, which is a very accurate predictor . . . in one case, it turned up someone who’d sell his own mother. We didn’t hire him.

What's the single most important skill for a sales manager at an early-stage company? Managing relationships, both within and outside the company. In early-stage companies, the manager deals directly with clients. Company insiders must understand what you’re doing and how you can all work together to achieve your goals. What makes a good startup salesperson? Persistence, good organizational skills, the ability to manage relationships, and creativity. It takes a certain kind of person to understand the buyer’s business requirements and figure out how to package the solution in a way that meets the needs of both parties. Putting a package together is fun but it takes a creative thinker. And that’s where lots of sales people fall down: they get into rote thinking. In my experience there are two sets of traits. You can teach people the market and the product, but lateral thinking, like good inter-personal skills, is innate. How do you go about finding good startup salespeople? The best way is through your network. Get out the Rolodex or call everyone you’ve ever worked with. I use a personality test for sales people, which is a very accurate predictor. Someone may interview very well but the profile often turns up hidden stuff. In one case, it turned up someone who’d sell his own mother. We didn’t hire him. You can also work with an experienced headhunters but nothing replaces personal references. Have you ever hired the wrong person for a sales job? What did you learn from that experience? Once I got a personal referral for someone with no sales experience. I wasn’t going to look at his resume because enterprise selling requires experienced people. But I was told he could handle any challenge. He’d been a commercial lender and we were moving into the U.S. and looking for someone with marketing experience so I hired him. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to sell — what to ask or when. I had to hold his hand all the time. I don’t have time for that. You need someone who knows how to execute the sales process. It didn’t work out because I ignored my gut instinct. You mentioned in an earlier interview with Red Canary that you prefer to hire females. What can men learn from women that would make them better sales people? Women relate better to clients of both genders. This business is all about building relationships and women are better listeners.

INTERVIEW: Charles Plant, Advisor, Market Readiness Programs, MaRS

Scott Valentine — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:54:00 GMT

(Read a Red Canary article Plant wrote in 2006 while a Managing Director at Q1 Capital Partners) By Scott Valentine Charles Plant is Advisor, Market Readiness Programs at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. A seasoned executive with a Chartered Accountant's designation, an undergraduate degree from U of T and an MBA in marketing from McMaster University, Plant has enjoyed spells as a CEO, CFO, investment banker, management consultant and auditor. He estimates that he has worked with (and for) over 100 companies in his 28 year career. In addition to his role at MaRS, he is a faculty member with York University’s Schulich School of Business. You got into the tech world when the idea of a commercial Internet was little more than fancy. What was it like being an entrepreneur in Canada then? "In 1987, I founded a company called Synamics, an early player in the voice response space. Before the Internet that's what everybody was into and we had a new competitor every week. That morphed into us developing mass calling platforms. Nobody knew what they wanted or how they wanted to do it . . . the projects were disastrous. "We eventually decided to productize but even that was tough. At the time if you wanted to sell to B.C., you had to deal with the time zone issue. In Quebec, it was the language issue. In the U.S. it was 'Why aren't you American?' It was actually easier for us to sell to the U.K. than any of those places. "VC was just getting big and I wondered, what can we get? We prepped some stuff and ended up getting a term sheet from someone we'd never even met before; those were crazy times. We raised 12 million but had morphed ourselves into an area that I didn't understand, so I hired a management team out of Boston to run the thing. The company survived the telco meltdown of dot-com but nobody got any money out. "It was totally Canadian." Talk about MaRs and what you're trying to make happen there. "MaRS is a convergence centre. Our raison d'etre is to bring to together technology, capital and business. In the 10-block area surrounding MaRS, there's a billion dollars of research done every year . . . it's not commercialized in the most effective manner. "The Market Readiness Program does five things. First, there's all sorts of organizations that can help you commercialize. We provide those organizations with more resources, like putting in Entrepreneurs in Residence. They're all people who have been successful and maybe failed too, hopefully both. "Secondly, we supply a lot of market research, which can be a big hit as a start up. Thirdly, we supply a number of how to's, to answer questions like How do I put together a pitch deck or How do I write an employee offer letter?. "We also provide connections. You need a wireless apps company in Detroit? Well help you find one. And money of course. We offer up to $10,000 for project funding, and as much as $500,000 for a dozen young companies per year. People think MaRS is [purely] UofT, but we're in the business of commercializing anybody."

I think the Canadian headspace is that commercialization is viewed as a dirty thing whereas pure research is clean

One of the common challenges noted by innovators engaging in the commercialization process is that there's no federal standard for how IP is identified and assigned. And, until there is, Canada's knowledge economy will run a distant second to our southern counterparts. Your thoughts? "I know that some of the universities are struggling with that . . . I think that's a lot of whining. The universities do help out in the commercialization process. Maybe it's complex - the University of Waterloo certainly has a different approach from the UofT - but if there's a good tech, it'll still find a way out to the market. "What's more of a problem is an antipathy towards the process of commercialization. I think the Canadian head space is that commercialization is viewed as a dirty thing whereas pure research is clean. Canada spends billions on research but very little on commercialization and as a result there's a lack of a market link from research outwards." So what needs to happen to bridge that gap? Is it about bringing back something like the Labour Sponsored Investment Fund to stimulate capital markets, or is there something else that can stop the hemorrhaging of ideas and people to other markets?

There's 12 or 16 research institutions in the GTA that have come together to invest and create and an outward-looking avenue for commercializing university research. This will create probably the largest collection of IP in the world

"Canada has a systemic problem that relates to the degree of competitiveness of the Canadian industry. We have a population of 33 million people here but not really. What we really have are three catchment areas, which I define as an area with the same political and linguistic characteristics within an hour's plane ride. In Ontario, there's an area of eight to nine million. In Quebec, five to six million, and there's a smaller area in B.C around Vancouver. "In the U.S. there are seven catchment areas with more than 30 million people. There is a much greater degree of competition with 30 million, so you have to perform better. That leads to requirements to solve competitive problems, which leads to R&D that's pulled-out by someone trying to solve a business problem. "It's just not the same here. So, we're not required to be as innovative, there's not as much R&D, and not as many companies competing. That's a systemic problem that isn't going to go away. The Canadian model of feeding research and pushing it out without proper commercialization just doesn't work." Is the answer a highly regionalized model like Waterloo where you have the Accelerator Centre, the university, Communitech, RIM and such all on-the-same-page? Or is that an insular way of doing things that ultimately keeps those key catchment areas compact?? "Waterloo is a tremendous success story and it's certainly a tight community. I think that's a great thing but I'm not sure that it's a model that works at getting companies out. "In Canada, you need to start out globally and we don't spend enough on marketing to do that here. That's partially an outcome of the fact that the SR&D program pays for R&D, but R&D only. If a reasonable portion of the SR&D credit could be contributed to the marketing of what's being developed, you'd have better results on commercialization.

Another key that people miss is that there's an opportunity for government to put in regulations to drive commercialization. My bizarre example of that is the creation of the requirement for radio stations to play Canadian content created a whole music industry.

"As to the LSIF, the only people who made any money on those were the people managing the funds. The better thing to do would be to create a matching program for individual and institutional investment (to drive a spirit of partnership)." Where are MaRS, the province, and Canada's knowledge economy going in '08? "MaRS Innovation is the creation of a tech transfer office on steroids. There's 12 or 16 research institutions in the GTA that have come together to invest and create and an outward-looking avenue for commercializing university research. This will create probably the largest collection of IP in the world. In 12 months, it'll be up and running and good research identified. It's a five year plan. "On the public side, I think we're going to bumble along for a while and eventually we'll see programs like the MaRS Market Readiness Program out and accepted in the community. We can improve the stock of entrepreneurs in this country. "Over time, we'll end up with a better crop of entrepreneurs and create an ecosystem that spawns more innovation -- but it will take longer than people think." "And please keep in mind that this opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it."

It's not you, it's me: A blind date guide to job descriptions that don't suck

Trevor Stafford — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:06:54 GMT

This is a fabricated blind date between a job description (JD) and a potential candidate (TS). TS: Hi there! I'm Trevor, nice to meet you JD: Yes it is. Before you sit down I have a list of things you need to be able to do. TS: Sorry? (reads bulleted list of responsibilities) Uh, well I can do all of these things. I even... JD: Wonderful. As part of your dating obligations you'll be expected to take care of my essential needs -- creativity and innovation are important to me. You also need to work hard, because I'm the best date that you're going to find. I'm such a knockout that I don't even shave my legs. TS: So that's what was in my drink. You know, I'm really looking for a relationship where I can build on what I've learned and explore some new ideas with the right partner. JD: Don't worry, I'm incredibly dynamic, fast-paced and challenging. It says so right on my t-shirt. TS: You know, you remind me of an ex of mine... JD: That's hardly the positive attitude I'm looking for. This relationship requires a 'can-do' approach and great communications skills. You need to innovate and be creative while you work independently in a team. TS: You said some of that already. JD: It's important that you understand my needs. TS: Your needs sound like everyone else's. What about me? How will we grow and what will we share? JD: This isn't about you. I'm a stunning success story, haven't you heard? I just put out a press release! TS: That's great, but what are you like JD: Look, you'll love meeting my demands. Please show me your qualifications. TS: Oh hey! I forgot about my double root canal, I have to run. JD: When you come back we'll evaluate your suitability. Do you have strong problem-solving and communication skills? TS: Cheque please! (runs away) JD: Call me! (shouting) On second thought, just send an email to this generic address!

Sound familiar? It should, because 90% of technology job descriptions are a lot like a bad blind date. They say the same things -- in the same vaguely selfish way. In fact, the impression I get from most job descriptions is that I'd be joining a work gang in service of the great leader. My guess is that a parallel of this scenario plays out out on tech job boards and career pages across the country. Viewers click. They scan. They leave. It doesn't have to be this way.

Four ways to improve your job ads • Write down what your role offers the ideal person. Create a paragraph with that information and call it 'The opportunity' • Don't say what you want them to do. Say what they will get to do • Speak in second-person (you'll) so that they can visualize themselves in the role • Talk positively about your company and its recent wins or product developments

What HR can learn from Advertising There are headlines left, right and centre about Canada's technology talent shortage. So how do you succeed in a lean market? By differentiating. Most technology job descriptions do not differentiate, they ignore three golden rules of advertising: 1) Identify your ideal (target) candidate 2) Put yourself in their shoes 3) Speak to their specific needs and desires (make it more about them and less about you) And if I might add my own pet peeve: 4) Speak well But a job description isn't advertising! Yes, it is. Particularly when there's slim pickin's in them thar fields. A job description is the first (and usually only) contact between your company and your 'perfect' candidate. It's an advertisement for the position and indirectly for your entire company. If you were to have a conversation with a candidate, would you read a job description aloud to them? Of course not. You'd tell them what they'd be working on, introduce them to who they'd be working with, and generally try to help them feel positive about the role. Why don't job descriptions do that? Most technology jobs ads read like instructional movies from the 1950s. Just substitute a toothy 'hey, that's swell!' grin with 'we're fast-paced, dynamic and challenging', and add shiny phrases like 'problem-solving' and 'written and verbal communication' skills and you have half a tech description. How to turn what you've got into something they want You don't need to be a combination of Hemingway and Seth Godin (would that be Sethingway?) to write a good job description. I write 90% of the jobs you'll find on Red Canary and most of the time I'm able to excavate the interesting bits of a job from the sediment. Things get even easier when I know something about the company. My approach? Take that doughy, 'roles and goals' doublespeak and squeeze out the opportunity. Exhibit A Here's an example of a Senior Product Manager role for CiRBA. The original job description is actually pretty decent, I'm merely using it here as an example of how 'decent' can very quickly become 'compelling'. All it took was a visit to CiRBA's website and some interior decorating. Old Description

This privately held, VC-backed vendor of Systems Management solutions has a growing number of Global 3000 clients. Serving industries as diverse as Financial Services, Telecom, Oil & Gas, Technology and Managed Services, CiRBA enables cost-effective virtualization and consolidation. We are seeking a Product Manager to join the Product Management Team. As product manager, you will articulate product features from existing ideas, and help to develop new ideas based on your consolidation and virtualization industry experience, and your contact with partners, customers and prospects. You must possess a unique blend of business and technical savvy; a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality.

New Description

Put your stamp on a sizzling product and company that isn’t simply leading its market, it's shaping it. This role blends long-term vision, strategic decision-making, and hands-on tactical savvy. Your industry experience will give you perspective; feedback from partners, customers and prospects will help turn perspective into ideas, and your expertise will turn ideas into well-executed success. It’s the kind of job that has you racing to work on a Monday morning. There are a dozen reasons why CiRBA has been recognized as the #1 virtualization vendor to watch in 2008. Your gusto, big-picture vision and tactical skill could be reason 13. About the Company Few companies are hotter than CiRBA right now. With another round of funding behind it and top-tier partners lined up alongside, this company is out-thinking and out-executing the competition. The executive team are proven veterans and the company expects to grow by almost 100% in 2008. Serving industries as diverse as Financial Services, Telecom, Oil & Gas, Technology and Managed Services, CiRBA’s cost-effective, optimized virtualization continues to attract global interest.

What changed? Where this job description said 'you must', I helped it say, 'you get to' at a company where 'you want to'. The old description told the candidate that they would be joining a team. The new one says they will be valued. I asked myself "what would the right candidate get, career-wise, from this job?". The answer: they get to take a young product to market for a hot company. If I was a product manager I'd be drooling. Why? Because this is the kind of role that would prep me for an even more senior or executive-level job. Bottom line: a description shouldn't hand the reader a ransom note with a list of demands. It should get them excited about the opportunity in front of them.

The single-best reason to write a good job description Chances are good (especially on Red Canary!) that the person reading your job ad is gainfully and even happily employed. Some of them will be 'A-league' talent that's not really looking, but might be curious if the job could improve their career or offered a challenge. Your description needs to be extra enticing if you're going to get even a glimmer of interest from what could be an excellent candidate.

The Counter-Argument Section But we'll be swamped with unqualified applications if we lower our standards! Just because you demonstrate why a job is great doesn't mean you can't also be stringent about what you're looking for. Good candidates want to know they will be challenged. If the job is technically demanding, say so! Besides, would you rather receive 50 resumes that are terrible and one that's perfect, or 10 resumes that hover between rotten and average? But this position is dull! So what! Is the company dull? Is the group dull? Are the customers dull? Is there no room for promotion or professional growth? There's always something about a job that's cool or promising. For example: • Would a junior find growth and professional development in this role? • How much responsibility and/or autonomy would they have? • Would a developer be building from scratch? Would a sales person benefit from a strong support team or good comp plan? Would a product manager get to own a roadmap? • Would they get to work with a particularly accomplished mentor? (Note that young musical prodigies are often described as having 'studied under Maestro so-and-so'.) • What's great about your team or product or methodology? • How is the company doing? Is there job security? • How many people have you hired recently? • Is there a good chance of promotion? • Do you have an example of someone who has moved up fast? Can they comment on the position? Are all jobs sexy? God no. Do all jobs have aspects that might tantalize the right candidate? Absolutely. I don't want people who think we owe them something It's possible that you think your company shouldn't have to write attractive, candidate-focused job descriptions. It's possible that you think people should earn their jobs and that applicants are lucky to be accepted as employees in the first place.

Don't let your job description grow up to be vapid and self-serving

Go ahead and feel that way. I'm challenging some fundamental assumptions about the nature of this whole work-for-pay thing, I admit that. I also think you're dangerously wrong. If you're saying 'but we're so-and-so company and everybody wants to work here' and your company name doesn't rhyme with frugal or dapple then I think you've been dipping into the company kool-aid.

It isn't difficult to re-write a job description. I can do it in less than an hour and my guess is that you could do a much better job with insider information. If that hour is the difference between a great candidate and one who thinks that your company is demanding and self-centred, then it is time well spent.

Job Offer Etiquette and Strategy

Mario Laudi — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:02:49 GMT

When it comes to hiring, it's wise to begin with the end in mind. Making an offer of employment is your first chance to motivate your soon-to-be employee.

If you don't have a lot of money at your disposal, manage this reality at the interview stage. Get it out in the open early with the candidates that intrigue you.

The trouble is that too many managers want to haggle as if they were browsing a flea market. It's one thing to get the best deal on a pashmina scarf; its quite another to bargain with a human being from whom you hope to get 110% effort and dedication. The scarf won't let you down. But a disgruntled employee might find a way to get even when you can least afford it. 'A' Players and 'B' Budgets When it's time to consummate the relationship with an offer, many employers think they should table as little as possible. 'A' players want to bring their passion to work, and you want them to do so. Just don't ask for a vow of poverty as well. If you're getting away with lowballing in this market, you're either hiring mediocrity or have truly exciting career opportunities. If it's the latter, you're on borrowed time until someone comes along with a comparable job for better money. If it's the former, you'll inevitably end up offsetting your team's lack of talent by having too many players instead. Its the penny-wise and pound foolish story.

More Offer Etiquette •Stay in touch with your preferred candidates throughout the selection process. • Share your timing and pro-actively communicate any changes • Before you make a formal written offer - do it verbally. • Confirm that the terms are acceptable - then put it in writing. • Be sure to put an expiry date in your employment offer.

If your verbal offer will come up short on any parameter. Don't send an offer. Talk about the gaps in person. If you don't have a lot of money at your disposal, manage this reality at the interview stage. Get it out in the open early with the candidates that intrigue you. Don't let it rear its ugly head when you make the offer. Doing so will save everyone a lot of time, interviewing and anguish. When the recruit plays both sides: Candidates often have multiple offers. I love this part of the business. We get to see players weave and bob. Some give. Others take. One thing is certain: how they consummate their deal will have a major impact on their relationship. We'll take a look at this process next time around.

INTERVIEW: Mark Maxted, Senior Software Developer, Blue Coat Systems

Scott Valentine — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:41:57 GMT

You spend half your time thinking about how to break into systems and half your time thinking about how to defend them

Mark Maxted is a senior software engineer with Blue Coat Systems, a leading supplier of network appliances and tools that secure and accelerate business over the web. A southwestern Ontario native, Mark was born in Chatham and raised in Mississauga.

Maxted has an extensive and diverse educational background. He holds both an Honours Bachelor of Science (‘78), and a BA in Philosophy (‘79) from McMaster University, as well as a double Honours degree in Computer Science and Combinatorics & Optimization (‘88) from the University of Waterloo’s highly-regarded mathematics department.

Mark’s winding career path has covered a lot of territory, including key roles with several startups such as DDR, Waterloo Microsystems, FRED Systems and CacheFlow, which later became Blue Coat.

What was your path to Blue Coat?

“After my degrees at McMaster [university], I [spent] a couple of semesters in political science and a year managing the radio station. I’d taken one computer science course at Mac, but I was basically unemployable. In 1980 I wound up working on a neuro-psychology research grant – [it] involved programming an Apple II, (completely new at the time) – to present perceptual tasks, measure response times and correlate data. After that ran out, I had enough computer skills to get myself a job in computing. That may seem shocking, but this was 1980.

“I worked for a company called DDR (a startup in desktop business software market) that folded after about a year, then moved on to a company that did business apps time-sharing services on the old PDP1170’s. It was fairly obvious that the time-sharing business was going down the tubes and my choice was being unemployed in Edmonton in February – not so good – or going back to school.

Mark talks about introducing usability to an organization

In 1983 I decided I needed to get a real computing background and The University of Waterloo was the best you could get.

I did a double honours in the co-op program, which wound-up in 1988, and then ended up doing three semesters in the school’s software portabilty lab. After that, I co-op'ed my final three semesters with their spin-off group, Waterloo Microsystems, which was bought by Hayes, which went on to fold in 1994. After that, I worked with Virtek Vision Systems as a systems architect, then it was off to FRED systems and that takes us up to 1999.

“What became Blue Coat had actually started in 1996 when I was part of a consulting group that had six of us as partners. Michael Malcolm was starting CacheFlow and contracted our group to do the embedded operating system that was really similar to what we’d done at the software portability lab when I first met Mike. At the time, www used to stand for the World Wide Wait.

Everybody was expecting these large capacity increase requirements, so CacheFlow had two value propositions: reduce response time and gain bandwidth to reduce the cost of acquiring objects. In 1999 I joined CacheFlow, and was the architect for the policy system.

After the dot com bubble burst, the policy system allowed the company to

refocus on security. CacheFlow became Blue Coat in 2002 to reflect the

new focus, and here I am."

Your team build software tools that are tied to a hardware product. How would you say that compares to developing in a pure software environment like building web apps?

“Right, we sell an appliance so most of the tools I’m personally involved with run either on the appliance or in some agent associated with them. One reason that’s unique from an engineering perspective is that we own everything from the hardware on up, so there’s no excuses.

If you’re trying to write something that is going to run in the context of say a browser or a web server, you’re limited by what is already there in the platform, what the operating system provides. We don’t have that issue. If we want something that the OS doesn’t provide, we go at it and fix it.

That frees us to look at solutions from various levels – operating system, device driver, app code – any of it can be massaged to provide the solution the customer needs.

“Another difference is that we build appliances that sit in internet cores and that means that we handle a lot of traffic, so we’re very performance sensitive. If we were writing things in a general-purpose operating system – where it had to mingle with apps written by anybody else and we didn’t know what that interaction was – we’d have to be very careful and defensive in our programming; that comes at a cost to performance.

When you’re handling hundreds of thousands of requests for internet content per second, performance is really critical. So, we spend a lot more time and effort in performance than is normal in many other applications.

When you’re junior, you’re expected not to know stuff. And you’re expected to tell people so they can help you

“Security is the other thing. We really do two things: accelerate content and provide security layers. In that job you spend half your time thinking about how to break into systems and half your time thinking about how to defend them. That’s probably not something that your average web app developer thinks about much.”

Do you use Agile or Waterfall methods as a matter of course and why?

“I’ve been using rapid iterative prototyping methods since about 1989, before Agile was even a term. We don’t follow a strictly Agile method, I think it’s important to realize that there can be different components that are amenable to different development techniques. For example, some components have an RFC standard specification where you know exactly what features you have to build. Often times that can be done well with a Waterfall approach.

“However, we also provide solutions and value to customers in newer markets like app acceleration. In those cases, you can’t assume you know what the deal is ahead of time and the best approach is to go in with a small set of features and watch and listen to the customer. That tends to encourage an iterative approach. Internally, between release cycles we’ve started to move a lot more heavily in to that approach as we get focused around user interfaces and those sorts of things.

“I think that – in a space where the competition is between who has the feature and who doesn’t – as the market matures, you achieve rough feature parity and the value proposition goes up a notch. It becomes “Can I use that feature reasonably in my organization’s workflow?” As soon as you’re into that space, it’s to your advantage to think about rapid iterative prototyping in Agile or whatever methodology happens to be the flavour of the day.”

What sort of people do you look to surround yourself with and why?

“I don’t know” is a very good answer for young developers. A better answer is “I don’t know and I’ll find out”.

“I believe in hiring good people and trusting them to do their job; I don’t like second guessing people. A lot of us here have worked together long enough to know what we’re capable of as a team, so we know who is the best person to do a job and how we fit together. Really most of the division of labour around here is by mutual consent because.

“I also like people who question assumptions – they don’t need to do it continually – but if an idea can’t be justified, there’s probably an issue there. One of my things is, people shouldn’t listen to me because I have a position, they should listen to me because my opinion is worth listening to. I really like people who will think independently.

“I also like people who understand a bigger picture and can balance constraints. Sometimes, we may not be creating the “perfect” solution because of time to market or something else. Having a broad perspective that at least allows people to understand some of the non-technical issues, or at least appreciate them when it's time to compromise, is key. I don’t like to micromanage people’s time.”

Blue Coat employs a number of co-op students and interns. What does a young coder need to do to make an impression with you?

“Most of the time now I don’t supervise directly, but you can’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know. We’d much rather somebody put up a red flag early and say “I can’t get any further and I need help,” than to not tell us and have a time where we’re expecting a result pass with nothing getting done.

““I don’t know” is a very good answer for young developers. A better answer is “I don’t know and I’ll find out.” When you’re junior, you’re expected not to know stuff. And you’re expected to tell people so they can help you.”

INTERVIEW: Dave Wessinger, Co-Founder and CTO of PointClickCare

Scott Valentine — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:23:35 GMT

Toronto's PointClickCare is a market leader in providing on-demand software for the Long Term Care industry. PointClickCare's clients, which include Americare and Extendicare, rely on the company to manage the reams of clinical and financial information essential to the care of elderly patients.

Dave Wessinger, Co-Founder and CTO, PointClickCare

Co-Founder Dave Wessinger, who was raised in Milton, graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1993 with a Bsc. in Computer Science. After school, Wessinger immediately went to work in the long term care industry, eventually landing a role as IT Director for Responsive Health Management. Wessinger co-founded PointClickCare with his brother, Mike, in 1999. Wessinger talked to RedCanary about his roots in the industry, hiring problem-solvers, and the complex nature of the long term care industry. Let's have your founder's story "The unique thing is where we started. [My] brother Mike and I are partners, he's the CEO and I'm the CTO. When we graduated (in '93 and '94 respectively), he went off to be a sales rep for a software company and I went to work with our mom, who happened to be with a group that ran a bunch of nursing homes. So that was my introduction to the industry. After I got out into the real world, I was an IT director with Responsive Health Management (a nursing home chain in Toronto). I worked in a nursing unit building with an assisted living wing. I think because of that I got to really understand the long term care business and what my real opportunity was to get involved."

We've really used the mafia theory to hire: somebody needs to vouch for you to get in to PointClickCare, and then they're responsible for you doing well. That's not a policy, but we joke about it all the time.

"In 1995, [my] brother was a reseller of software in the industry. Unfortunately, the software that was available at the time was crap, there was just nothing out there. We got together in '97 and said "You know what? We can do better." Initially, we rounded out the solution Mike had been representing with some value-added products. After a while, we decided to sign a non-compete and get out there. So family is really where PointClickCare came from, and I think that's stayed with us." What's your management style? "It starts with ensuring that we solve our customer's problems. As a manager, I go out of the mould a bit and get really passionate and upset if we're not doing the things that we need to meet that goal. Outside of that, I'm generally a lot of fun, but very focused." What kind of people do you like to surround yourself with?

In our space, no-one else has ever been able to deliver on a tool that lets the HCR Manorcares of the world with 300-plus facilities manage all their clinical records and still get all their billing out and done by the first of every month. We do that.

"Basically people that give a shit. If you don't care, don't pop up on my steps. That's the only thing that matters. Long term care is basically a bunch of volunteers serving the elderly. You truly need to care to be in it, and care both about customers and the residents, which are mostly our mothers and grandmothers. "We've really used the mafia theory to hire: somebody needs to vouch for you to get in to PointClickCare, and then they're responsible for you doing well. That's not a policy, but we joke about it all the time. "If they don't work out, I'm gonna show up at your door with a bag of quarters." We went away from it for a little while and it affected our culture. Our turnover the last three years is about 25 per cent and maybe 80 per cent of that was from staff we brought in outside the mafia model." Are there any particular software languages you're looking for, or a an ideal candidate profile that you work off to do your hiring? "I think Jack Welch said it best: it's really about getting the right people on the bus and you find a seat for them later. The kids come out of school today saying "Where the hell are we going to start? Give me an opportunity, I need experience." We do some profiling and generally we try to align people's passion with what they like to do. If you're hiring somebody for a language they code or speak, you're going down the wrong path. Hire somebody who can solve a problem for you and they'll learn the language. It's about getting people that are smart enough and passionate about solving problems. And if they're not, get the hell off the bus." What's PointClickCare's key value proposition to the long term care market? "[Long Term Care Organizations] are required to fill out complex patient assessment forms and send [them] off to payer sources - in Canada, there's two, in the U.S., there's thousands. Our product simplifies that problem by streamlining their process. We [put] their focus on working with residents or family members versus constantly monitoring some complex administrative process. And interoperability is changing the game all over again. That's what's driving more and more customers to market.

The long term care industry is actually more regulated than nuclear power, but most organizations spend less than one-half of one percent on technology.

"The reason they buy is because they have regulatory and legislative compliance issues they need to deal with. There are complexities by state, by surveyor, by compliance office . . . you name it. If those issues weren't there, people would be still be using paper systems today. That's the bizarre nature of the long term care market The thing about long term care, everybody knows what everybody else is doing. It's like a game of Boggle. There's a shake-up every couple of years and all the players land somewhere else. It's a very, very small world." Your clients are some of the biggest care companies in the world. How advanced is their understanding and utilization of technology? "I work [closely] with our customers. Generally, their take is that we suck less (laughs). They like our honesty, they like our perception of things . . . I think what that really means is our stuff works and it's easy and for users to adopt, which is key with any software system. So, we solve problems at a lower threshold than our competitors. That helps our customer retention rate, which is about 99 per cent. Honestly, PointClickCare is here and doing what we're doing because we can help solve problems, and let long term care staff and volunteers concentrate on delivering a really great quality of care."

INTERVIEW: Cadman Chui, VP Marketing and Channels, PlateSpin

Scott Valentine — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:57:59 GMT

Toronto-based PlateSpin helps organizations optimize their data centre operations

Since 2002, PlateSpin has been the second-fastest growing Canadian technology company, winning awards for both its software and business execution. It is fair to say that at least part of PlateSpin's staggering success can be attributed to the creative and polished marketing team lead by Cadman Chui, who joined the company in 2004. A 10-year veteran of business and technology, Chui's resume includes high-powered organizations both in and out of the tech sector (Cybermation, Nortel, Royal Bank Financial), and a solid foundation as an entrepreneur. Chui holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and a B.A. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Cadman Chui

Chui talked to Red Canary about leadership, team-building, the greening of data centres, and why he thinks PlateSpin's phenomenal growth will continue. What was the path that led you to your current role? “From a personal perspective, I really started off on the web side of things. A business partner and I went and did a few ventures together . . . a marketing services company for one. There were a couple that didn't work out so well, of course, but we managed to build out our experience. That led to success with Crispads (a blog advertising network). I think the years of working at companies like Nortel and DataMirror, which was acquired by IBM in September 2007, were good experiences too.” How do you define your leadership style? “You cannot be afraid to get your hands dirty. And I like people who aren't afraid to voice their viewpoint. I'm not a Yes man and I don't expect it from others. I manage a team of 20 here - a lot are people that I've worked with in the past at DataMirror and Cybermation - and it's the best marketing group I've ever worked with. The people I look for are absolute experts in their field. We do a wide variety of things in our marketing group - product launches, web site stuff, brochures, events - I could manage each of those things but then I'm not leading. So, I hire specialists - top-notch creative people. I think by combining that kind of skill with a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude lets us get the job done.” How do you explain what you do to people outside of the tech world? “Depending on the type of person, I say we're a data centre software company. I tell them we're able to drag and drop servers across the internet, or that we can beam a server around like they do on Star Trek. It's a very simplistic way to explain things but people get it.” What's the key value proposition for organizations looking at PlateSpin's technology? “It boils down to labour costs. Without our software, companies have to migrate servers on a manual basis; that's going to take from five to eight hours per server. So, imagine a data centre with thousands of servers and what that would take. With our software it's 45 to 90 minutes of automation and minutes of set up time. There's your value.” The PlateSpin web site has something called a Power and Cooling Savings Calculator. Is environmental friendliness a big part of your marketing message? “The calculator is a pared-down tool that's built on the much more complex algorithms of our PowerRecon product. Basically, we're trying to give people an idea of the kinds of savings they could realize based on different virtualization scenarios. I'd say that, for our customers, green is a major factor, but cost savings is the number one priority. It's kind of that opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Green thinking is part of the equation, but from my perspective it will always be the number two benefit for our clients.” PlateSpin has grown 21,519 per cent in the last five years and increased staff ten-fold. How does all that growth affect a company? “There's a natural course towards specialization. When I first started with PlateSpin, I was both Director of Product Management and Director of Marketing. As the company has grown, a lot of different departments have been formed, and people can become a bit more isolated in terms of functions and practises. It's not quite as fluid as it once was but we still function in an agile manner.” Culturally, it's very much as it was. Our founder, Stephen Pollack, is our leader and he has his employees at the top of mind all the time. I think that bleeds through the organization. The fact that the founders are still here and running the show helps us keep that entrepreneurial feeling. Growing too fast can be dangerous but the market is way ahead of us . . . our problem is meeting demand, not generating it. If we can solve that problem, we'll keep growing at the rate we have.”

INTERVIEW: Matt Golden, co-founder Tira Wireless

Scott Valentine — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:07:34 GMT

Tira Wireless is a Toronto-based solutions provider in the mobile applications space. Ranked third on the 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Tira offers a device-agnostic platform to wireless application developers and content publishers. Matt Golden, Tira's co-founder and senior vice-president of corporate development, began his career as a lawyer, working on some of Canada's largest mergers and acquisition deals. From there, Golden moved in to the venture capital space where he focused on building financial networks, striking alliances and forming partnerships. It was during this time that he developed a strong focus on the emerging J2ME technologies market, and was exposed to the unique opportunities and challenges of mobile applications. Tira Wireless was launched in 2001. Under Golden's direction, Tira Wireless has raised some $31 million in financing, and grown sales revenues more than 16,000 per cent in the last five years, becoming a standout in the very successful Canadian mobile tech cluster. What's your management style? Day-to-day, I'm very high energy . . . lots of drive and enthusiasm. I'm a firm believer that you have to be in front of people to reach them and - to a large degree - I think that's how you build up a great customer base. I've always promoted that idea among sales and business development teams. What kind of people do you like to surround yourself with? It's a typical management flaw to look for people with the same characteristics as you because that confirms that you're great (laughs). I think there are certain skill sets required that are fundamental to being successful and I like to round out teams with people that deliver those things. Also, you want leaders who are charismatic. I mean, I'm not concerned if the CFO is charismatic but I am concerned if the head of marketing isn't. What is the biggest deal you've been involved with? Well, I was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, so there were a bunch. When I was with Osler we did a 500 million-dollar real estate deal for Marathon. But I was pretty junior then, so I was probably supervising photocopying or something. What was the 'A-ha' moment that led you down the path to co-founding Tira Wireless? Some partners and I were into a company out of Ottawa called Zucotto that was working on Java applications for mobile. It was a small investment but it came with a board position, which provided a lot of visibility in to the mobile space. We realized then that java apps weren't even running on multiple phones within the same product line, so how were they going to work across all these different device manufacturers and protocols? It was obvious that there was going to be a huge fragmentation problem. When is there a major disruption coming for mobile tech, or are we already there? We're already in a multicore type conundrum with mobile. Characterizing all the idiosyncricies and automating the constants between devices that can be re-used across the community is a nightmare. Mobile developers probably spend 50 per cent of their time re-doing code (to work on different devices). Tira's Jumplets tackle that problem by making working mobile apps available throughout an organization or community. So, from a Web2.0 perspective, mobile apps could be used to share information, target advertising, or build-out a whole ecosystem associated with the platform, without worrying about what devices the application is going to run on. Has growth changed the way you do business at Tira? From a product perspective, we have our architecture to the point where it's gone from three weeks on-site training to download-and-go. On the services side, we have to some degree shifted to life style players - mapping, major media brands - that are looking to launch web 2.0 apps or games for mobile. The things we look for in people are still the same . . . the ability to communicate with clients and adjust-on-the-fly always have been, and always will be, important for us. What do you think about the wireless spectrum auction? It's hard not to look a little further south and see what's happening there with Verizon and how they're opening things up. Opening the spectrum is great from the perspective that it will bring more competition to the industry, which is healthy, but, by the same token, I think what Google is doing by introducing the Android open-standard paves the way for an environment more like the Internet (where anyone can contribute). Because of carriers opening up and because of companies like Tira that are increasing the capacity for creating mobile content, we're starting to see really compelling apps on mobile devices. Innovators need to have that path to contribute and I think that's the way things are going in Canada. Thanks Matt.

INTERVIEW: RapidMind's founder, Dr. Mike McCool

Scott Valentine — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:11:04 GMT

Dr. Mike McCool is co-founder and chief scientist of Waterloo's RapidMind, the world's leading provider of multicore platform solutions to the software industry. McCool was born in Ohio but grew up in tiny Edmundston, New Brunswick, before moving west in his teens to study computer engineering through the University of Waterloo's inaugural co-op program. McCool picked up his BASc in Applied Sciences from UofW in 1989, before tackling graduate studies in parallel computing and medical imaging at the University of Toronto, where he received a PhD in Computer Science. McCool's academic c.v. includes additional studies in fields as diverse as human physiology and biochemistry. Let's have your founder's story I started my career as a professor at the University of Waterloo in 1994 when it was just getting to be reasonable to make videos with computers and process them. My area of research was interactive graphics . . . the history being that SGI was the dominant player of the time. During my first few years at Waterloo, inventors started making graphic accelerator boards, which were basically little parallel computers on a chip. I was interested in all the computations happening on those chips -- how they were used for different algorithms. In 1999, myself and a grad student, Jan Kautz, mapped algorithms on to a GPU directly. It was a horrible experience, we got it working but the hardware could barely handle it. We figured that eventually developers would want to add [other] features, so we talked to some people to get a list of desired features and built a simulator - a low level virtual GPU - called SMASH, the idea being to "smash" preconceptions." Eventually that becamethe RapidMind platform. What kind of people do you like to surround yourself with? First, ego is unacceptable. People need to be honest when they can't accomplish something and ask for help. At RapidMind, we try and enable our customer's application experts to do their thing. The people we look for here need enough experience to deal with those applications specialists. Our platform is generally capable but really it’s like clay. It needs to be sculpted into a solution for a specific customer. The trick for us is to engage customers with people that translate business needs and platform capabilities into a solution that fits in the customer's space. Multicore is complex stuff. Can a student or recent grad cut it with RapidMind? What we are doing is so new that experience helps but it's not critical. Some of our best people here are relatively new and young. In fact my co-founder was one of my grad students, and I still have six students active in research. One of the biggest things is, you don't get into this (multicore) for the technical interest as much as you do to solve customer's problems. In the beginning, I had pretty limited business experience and I had to learn a lot of hard lessons about how to interact with customers. People fresh out of school need time to understand these other aspects of business. You have to have strong people skills and the ability to understand customer requirements. Our solutions architects need technical skills, but they also need to be great listeners and be able to ask the right questions. What's your management style? I'm a collaborator and kind of a hands-on guy. I still do a bit of coding every month to make sure I'm current on what's going on. I also talk to people a lot and make sure everyone is aware of what the priorities are. We use Agile methods, though in my role as chief scientist I'm not really involved in project management. Reliability and performance are very important . . . I like visibility and I try to identify early-on if something is going off-the-rails. Does diversity help you straddle the fence between scientist and entrepreneur? My background is quite broad and I think that helps. When I first decided to commercialize (the multicore platform), it was clear to me that trends were pushing towards a need for the solution. But quantifying that and translating it into a business plan that made sense was very challenging for me. Explaining the technical concepts and finding enough information to justify that we felt was an obvious opportunity - that there needed to be a tool to allow the transition to parallel computing in the near future - was tough to get into a business plan, and we got turned down a couple times for grants. It was then I realized the importance of bringing in business expertise. The important thing is to recognize your limitations. The best thing anyone ever said to me is that you have to put ego outside and think about what is best for the company. If that means that you bring in other talent, it's the cost of doing business. Part of the growth curve of a start-up is realizing that you have to be a constantly changing organization." Talk about balancing your passion for innovation and research with the dull realities of company building? The excitement is to make it all the way from idea to reality. A lot of the time when you're doing research you get so far then stop and do something else. It's nice to see products being used the way they were envisioned. When I did something in graphics that showed up in a product or a game, that was satisfying. But it's extremely satisfying to think that RapidMind can make a difference by allowing developers to do all kinds of things for people all over the world. I think it's about maturity. Research is like falling in love for the first time. Building a company is like being married. It's a more mature satisfaction. What other Canadian companies or innovators impress you? There's been a really good set of innovations out of Alias (purchased by Autodesk). . . one of the better Canadian success stories, I think. Generally speaking, I'm impressed with the graphics productivity of the Stanford group. The Imagine processor was particularly interesting. I was impressed with how they stepped back and questioned basic assumptions about computer hardware to fuel innovation. What is innovation anyway? Innovation is all about asking the dumb questions like "Why has it always been done this way?" A lot of the time I think innovators are cross-pollinating. I came from graphics, which is a certain style of computing, but I also a have a hardware background. One of the things about computer science people is that they often don't know about the underlying hardware they are writing on. I think the fact that I had a hardware background initially and then switched to graphics and back to computing again gave me a different perspective. I think you'll find that many innovators have pretty eclectic backgrounds.  What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to a young Canadian tech company or entrepreneur? I'll go back to it again: ego is not useful. Confidence and persistence are. Always be thinking really hard about the things you need to accomplish in order to succeed, and if you need help, get it. You should always be going back to that key question of "What is the most important thing I can be doing right now to move my business forward?" Fact or fiction: plug-and-play auto-parallelization is a reality in the next 5-10 years? Sure, if AI is invented. The problem is that developing almost any software program is a quite creative activity. There's lots and lots of ways to look at a problem but most people have been trained to think sequentially and address problems in a sequential fashion. The fact is that there are huge differences between serial and parallel algorithms. So, a tool that addresses serial code would effectively have to understand and choose a better algorithm for parallelization. Auto-parallelizing tools can probably pick up some of that, and certainly there are tools that could assist, but I think for ultimate performance it has to involve a human in the loop to look at a problem and rethink it. Down-the-road, will multicore face a platform-splintering conundrum similar to what mobile developers are dealing with now? I think industries go through splintering and consolidation for various reasons. Splintering happens when people want to try different things and they are competing. Consolidation happens when the options have been tried and there's some agreement as to approach. There are a lot of ways to 'do' parallelization but some of them aren't very good - O.K. from a tech side but no good from a human side - these things are really hard to figure out in advance. Splintering is appropriate for this stage of the market. It may be inconvenient for someone trying to pick a platform but it should not be unexpected for this point in time. There's growing consensus in terms of a what unified (multicore) platform may look like, but the truth is that what's right for a Web2.0 server may not be right for coding media or whatever. We're just at the cusp now, people are converging on solutions that make sense. I think RapidMind is well on the path towards platform maturity. Thanks Doc.

11 Tips for Hiring Rails Developers

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:06:51 GMT

The following article was written by John Philip Green of Savvica, a Toronto-based educational technology company whose development efforts are focused on Ruby and Rails. As seen on Ruby Inside

Hiring Rails full-time Rails developers is hard. Here's why:

Surging demand. You will likely fight other companies for every recruit.
$100/hour++ freelance consulting rates are commonplace.
It's hard to evaluate candidates. In the Java or .NET world, number of years of experience is relevant, but not here. The framework is only 3 years old.

I've hired ten full-time Rails developers into startups so far in 2007, but to do that I've had to interview hundreds and learned a lot of lessons. With that, here's my best advice to anyone else who wants hire a Rails developer:

Don't use Monster.com or recruitment agencies. Use your feet instead; find out where Rails developers meet each other and go there. In San Francisco it's the Ruby Meetups, in Toronto check out PubNite.

WorkingWithRails.com can also be useful. If you must post to job boards, try 37 Signals and add your job posting to SimplyHired.

Poach! Talented but unhappy Rails developers are sulking in companies all around you. Just don't poach from friends (or me).

Don't hire someone that doesn't know Rails at all. Perhaps as with all things, you want to hire someone who has self-selected to do that job. Rails is famously easy to get started with… you can literally be running your first Rails app minutes after visiting rubyonrails.org for the first time. I won't hire anyone who hasn't at least built and deployed a couple of projects in their spare time and who understands both the advantages and disadvantages of using the technology.

Look for open source contributions. Being intimate with the open source workings of the Rails community is crucial. Open Source contributions such as releasing a Rails plugin, or fixing bugs on projects like Beast, or Rails itself, demonstrates exposure to other Rails code bases.

A personal Rails blog is required. Every Rails developer should have a blog to engage with the community. On a related note, I've often asked candidates to list their favorite Rails blogs or even show me their newsreader. They should know most of the top Rails blogs and who's behind them.

A university degree is not important. I hate to say it–I'm personally a graduate from Canada's highly-regarded Math/CS program at Waterloo–but several of the best Rails developers I know didn't study computer science at all.

Be wary of holes in proficiency. Rails developers should be fearless. Its reasonable to expect them to have a command of everything from database indices to cross-platform JavaScript. (Bonus points if they are handy in Photoshop and Illustrator.)

Avoid brand-name superstars. They will command massive salaries, sport huge egos, and ultimately not fully commit to your company. Better they gain notoriety through your projects.

Hire perpetually. You'll find that I always have an open Rails developer position, because when demand outstrips supply, you should hire when you can.

Have a company Rails blog with useful, meaningful posts (like our Email Veracity post which made it to del.icio.us/popular) to spread awareness and goodwill.

Special compensation. Money is just one technique of persuasion, everybody wins if you are more creative. First, Rails developers need their MacBook Pros and fat external screens, obviously. Trip to RailsConf should be included. I've also noticed they enjoy free lunches now and again.

Happy Hiring!