Shinsato Stuff

Blog moved to shinsato.com

2006-04-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

The Shinsato Stuff blog will now be updated at shinsato.com. It's a shorter address, it's my own domain, and I'm using the Open Source "WordPress" software, which offers a lot of flexibility for managing the content on shinsato.com. Thanks to Troy Worman at 100bloggers.com who made the switch from 100bloggers.blogspot.com, which was the inspiration for the change.

Happy blogging!

Fertilizing your brain garden

2006-02-27T13:34:00.000-08:00

Growing up, the dogma of the day was that you had only so many neurons way before you became an adult, and after that, the number just declined. The neurons were never replaced. It was a dismal picture, and I could never quite believe it. Recent research has disproved this idea. Adult brains can grow new neurons, not just new branches on old neurons. Granted, this isn't new news, but the implications can hardly be emphasized enough.

A great article on Kathy Sierra's blog shows that being in an office cubical can cause brain damage, or something very much akin to it. Isn't it strange that so much creative intellectual work would be done in cubicles? Or is it really productive work after all?

Another great blog post from Kathy shows that being around angry people causes brain damage too. Researchers have found we have "mirror neurons" that match the people around us. We just have to watch someone be a rock star, and part of our brain turns into a rock star. Or being around someone who is angry causes the mirror neurons to match, and we become angry.

Perhaps the soil metaphor for our mind and spirit is a scientific one too. If our brain actually grows, maybe it's a good idea to plant good seeds. Like the parable Jesus used in the gospels. And maybe it's a good idea to keep the soil fertile too with good fertilizer. Good fertilizer for the brain as well as the soul. The mirror neuron research indicates that being around happy people would lead to healthy brain soil. What do you think would be good NPK for the head? Or the mental equivalent of healthy fertilizer?

Being a programmer, my sense is it's all about the environment. Having a healthy pleasant environment. The soil is like our experience. Going back to the issue of cubicles, is it any wonder that a company like Google is doing so well, coming up with such great ideas, when it not only gives all the programmers real offices, but Google also offers free healthy meals. How are you nourishing the environment of your life?

The Importance of Larking

2006-02-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

This post on Bernie DeKoven's FunLog, Intergenerational Playground Larking, has kind of blown me away. There's always been a feeling that play is important for your health, but this post shows scientific evidence that it helps for old people to play in playgrounds.

[...] a "team at Rovaniemi Polytechnic [Finland] [or is that "Funland"?] studied one group of 40 people, aged between 65 and 81, and found there were significant improvements in balance, speed and co-ordination after just three months of larking about on the climbing frames and play equipment.

After a bout of working on the job weekends and nights in ways that did not feel like play at all, this post reminds me I better get back onto the playground, and soon!

A Blog Diet

2006-02-05T23:21:00.000-08:00

If you're here, you probably know what a blog is. I was luck enough to first hear about blogs from my estemed Chief Technical Officer, Ramana Rao, the heart and founder of Inxight where I work. At least five years ago he said blogs were going to be big. I respected him, but I didn't get it. It seemed a blog was just a website that you write articles on. Now I finally think I understand a bit more why blogs are such a big deal, and why it's part of something much bigger that has been happening on the internet. Blogs are about a major shift from broadcast media to conversations, passive media consumption versus interactive participation.

This post is titled "a blog diet" because diet has such a tremendous impact on our health, and blogs should be a big part of every net citizen's diet. But perhaps the title should have been "a blog diet and exercise". Just reading blogs won't do it. You can't really understand the dance until you dance yourself. Don't just read blogs, find ones that let you comment, and post comments. Even if it's just "thank you, great post". You'll understand the value of this more though if you start your own. It's free, it's easy, and it's fast. I like blogspot.com, but there are others if you want to google around.

To get you started, here are a few blogs you might want to look at:

Creating Passionate Users Kathy Sierra makes technical learning fun with her Head First series of books. There's lots of great interesting and fun stuff here. Check it out.

100bloggers - One hundred bloggers post to a single blog space. You'll find lots of intersting reading and interesting folks to talk to. I post here too, check it out.

In the Blogging World You Don't Have Sex on the First Date - Here's a great bit of advice if you want to get serious about blogging. It can be a money making career by itself, but it also is a great way to market your goods and services.

Make it Great - Check out this guy's blog, it has lots of positive thinking in it, and references to the great blogs of others.

Gaping Void - Hugh Macleod has quite a following, with interesting cartoons. Might be fun, but this particular post has blogging advice - take as humor, but do take it.

Bernie Dekoven's Fun Log - It's about fun. have some every day, it's good for your health.

Building a dream house - or 3

2006-01-03T12:56:00.000-08:00

Jeff McCord, a dear friend who lives in Seattle, has been an inspiration for taking the initiative and doing what others would not have thought possible. He left home before graduating in the early days of computer gaming to get a job writing games, moving from one coast to another, collecting the royalties as he began to pursue another dream, directing films - for which he later received a degree and experimented with independent film makers in Seattle. He eventually accomplished a successful graphic artist business. In the last few years, while he's also been raising his beautiful daughter Lucy, he's put his talents to real estate.

Jeff doesn't hover in the county offices looking for people who can't pay their mortgages. Instead he has salvaged and restored a few old homes. One of which was going to be demolished, and instead he found several coinvestors, bought the house for a dollar, and with creativity and willingness to ask, he found a place to move the home. His latest project, he restored the home of the founder of REI, and transformed the rest of the yard into into three inspiringly creative and unusal homes with beautiful views of Puget Sound. He's had a lot of ups and downs with this latest project, but with belief, confidence, and gumption - it's become a reality.

Click on the pictures to link to the MLS listings, but what inspires me most is to see what some dreaming combined with perseverence can accomplish.

If there's one thing that has benefitted me most, and keeps benefitting me, and which I know has helped him accomplish what he has -- it's been to communicate, especially to ask, and keep asking. Maybe take a different approach, but keep asking.

Gifts to Resolutions

2005-12-28T06:32:00.000-08:00

This time of year, between the gift exchanges and the New Year, the resolutions start to congeald and bubble to the surface. The feelings about doing better this year, making it better. Like writing better and more frequent blog entries, and getting some pictures in here. Let's take care of that one now...
This is one piece of several made by a niece and a nephew as they waited for Christmas midnight mass. Seeing the children of siblings in New York, some new born, some teenagers, perhaps this wonderful entry from my favorite blog would be useful. It's career advice for young people, based on the changes happening in industry. If you're a parent, please read! The future is not in getting a job, we have to think different for our kids.

Hey, google this!

2005-12-13T00:07:00.000-08:00

A new verb in the english lexicon has only been around for only a few years, but it's something many of us do many times a day -- if you're reading this, you're on the internet. And I'd hope you already know what it is.

On the long drive back from visiting family, through several states (and a blizzard), we listened to The Google Story, courtesy of Audible.com. The depth of the changes that this new company has made to our society, and the changes that it's technology, attitude, and values promise to bring continue to boggle my mind. Google my mind.

A couple of young students at Stanford University cobbled together a great search engine as a fun project at the university, tried to sell it to Yahoo and a few other companies, and when these successful companies wouldn't take it, the young men were forced to market it themselves. They brought a strong value for collegiality, intense intelligence, and a desire to "do no evil". They created a powerful company culture that was about fun and innovation. Everyone at the company was required to spend 20% of their time, one day a week, on whatever project interests them most. Imagine what impact that could have were it to be fostered in all American companies. Imagine what level of passion, enthusiasm, and integrity would be required to make that work. This is what's coming. If your company isn't moving in this direction, you'd better help it get there soon. Or it's going to be a dinosaur. You know, the big beasts that used to rule, but now are gone?

Even having been in the computer industry since the late seventies, I didn't get pushed finally to take Google more seriously until a non-geek brother-in-law showed me some funny videos on video.google.com. I didn't even know about it. Hrumph. But I'd better get used to it. The non-geeks are the ones to watch to that know what's fun and what's cool on the internet.

And when I say fun, maybe I should say funds. Google is rolling in money right now, in case you've been under a rock. If you get a great idea for some web content and if you add an AdSense Google box to your site, you could be earning a decent income from the ads that people click on when they visit your site. Kids could do it. And Google's ads aren't ugly eyeball peeling blinking flashing "LOOK HERE!" ads that make you want to shoot your computer. No, they're low key ads that are designed to correspond to the interests and desires of the people who like to read the content. And they're just a line of text with a link. No flashy images. Just text. But text that earns...

Simple stuff. But brilliant. And it's things like that which will change the way we work, play, and govern. So, you might just want to pay attention! In other words, google this! Expect more companies like google to come around. They've probably already gotten started.

Post Thanksgiving Thanks-Giving

2005-11-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

This week my wife and I have been traveling between relations in the midwest, and right now I'm fortunate enough to be at the keyboard of a relative who has DSL! A few days ago in a midwest mall, I gladly paid three dollars for a couple hours of wireless internet access just to access email. I did this a few times, even when I could only use ten minutes of the two hours slots.

The ability to stay in touch with people via the internet has been a blessing. The subject of this entry is season appropriate, about giving thanks.

There's hardly a shortage of inspirations for giving thanks. Being raised by a Catholic mother in the Church, and by an Evangelical father, Christian tradition certainly supports this concept. But a modern scientific education didn't give much credence to the simple truth of the importance of thanksgiving. The police chief greeted the agnostic cop in the sitcom "Barney Miller" with a "Happy Thanksgiving", and the agnostic said "I don't celebrate Thanksgiving because I don't know who to give thanks to." The chief said "It's just a way of saying, 'How are ya, Buddy!' So, Happy Thanksgiving!". And the agnostic cop replied "How are ya, Buddy!"

Well, agnosticism was my path after high school until meditation and difficulties turned me back toward religion in my late twenties. At that point, I started to see many simple proofs for the value of Spirituality and of the existence of a higher being. And there have been a number of wonderful teachings of the value of giving thanks that don't even center on a All Knowing, All Seeing, Being in the Sky that unfortunately for many is clothed in unpalatable traditional garb that seems to need changing.

One of the great teachers and mentors that have clarified and expanded on the value of appreciation and giving thanks are Kurt and Patricia Wright. Giving appreciation actually benefits the giver by training the mind to focus on and find value. If you've ever bought a car, you've probably experienced the sudden appearance of your vehicle all over the road. Your model of Volkswagon or Ford Truck was probably covering the road in the same numbers before and after your purchase. But your mind was suddenly tuned into finding your make and model. The same goes with finding value. If you have the choice between picking up a piece of trash or a 20 dollar bill, we'd all easily choose the 20 dollar bill. Yet, when it comes to the trash we pick up and hold in our minds, most of us are much less discriminatory. Deliberate appreciation is just good training of the mind to pick up the good stuff! And the more we train our minds in this direction, the more good things and great opportunities we'll be able to see and enjoy.

A very interesting thing happened on the drive back east. Sometimes it's easy to focus on the length of the driving, the inconvenience, the poor driving habits of others, or bad road conditions. Instead I started asking value-generating questions, things that Kurt and Patricia Wright recommend we do. What do I like about this road? What's great about the snow I'm seeing? I did this for about five minutes. I had been a little depressed, and after a while my mind drifted away from this little exercise. What shocked me was realizing a short while later I was in a tremendously good mood, and I was able to offer jokes and cheerfulness that not only lifted my own spirits, but that of my passenger.

So now some practice. This is really for my own benefit, but perhaps it can be an example. What are you most grateful for this Thanksgiving holiday? What am I grateful for? I'm grateful for having supportive loving parents who've stayed together all my life despite many difficulties. I'm grateful for the love and support of my wife, and the opportunity to know her more deeply through knowing her family as we travel between them here in the mid-west. I'm grateful for a job that helps me grow as a person. I'm grateful for the Chantilly Theatre, that has taught me some valuable lessons about selfishness versus true leadership.

That just reminded me of Peter Drucker. In his book "Managing the Non-Profit Organization" was something that really blew me away, as I've spent years in self-development with less than the results I'd hoped for and Drucker relates that a good leader doesn't think "I", he or she thinks "we". Not from self-training, but because the true leader identifies with the team and focuses on the task and the mission. I'm very grateful for that lesson this Thanksgiving!

God Bless!

Spiritual Busy Signal

2005-11-03T23:17:00.000-08:00

A particular audiobook from Audible.com, called "Never Eat Alone" has been a large inspiration reccently. It's a business book that describes how to network so that you never eat alone. Business books might not seem to fit with spiritual topics. Some might consider it practically an oxymoron - business and spirit - but some of Keith Ferazzi's book was explicitly spiritual.

There was plenty of material that was great for building a career in business, but the best benefits from listening was the recognition of how important it is to find mentors and mentees. In my highschool, the home room was called our mentor group. Yet it is only as I get older that the importance of mentors becomes crystal clear.

A real aha from "Never Eat Alone" was that human relationships are not like bank accounts that get deminished from withdrawals. When we ask someone for help, we actually make the relationship stronger. Saving a favor, keeping score, are certain ways to kill our network. Learn to ask for help. It's one of the greatest benefits received from attending Jim and Michele McCarthy's software development bootcamp. So many people struggle unnecessarily when help is just a question away. But as the book shows, it doesn't harm our relationships, it builds them. We just need to be willing to help too.

What benefits the reader?

2005-10-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

Read an excellent post today on Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users Blog. It was a great post about the ONE THING you would recommend to improve things. And for blog writers, her recommendation was to reduce talking about yourselves by 80%. Make the difference with things that will benefit the reader. Whew, sounds harsh, but I like it. And I think my paragraph above qualifies, and I'd like to dedicate this blog to practicing just that, and doing it regularly.

It's a good question though, what benefits the reader? Who is the reader? The blog audience can be incredibly diverse. If the readers are friends and family, it actually benefits them if I were to write about family things. What's going on in the Shinsato clan (that's not too private for a blog!) That could benefit the reader. Like knowing that I've got a new niece on the east coast, the lovely Emma Julia Shinsato, born October 17th.

What if the readers are techno geeks like myself? That's still a diverse crowd, many of them are going to be more likely to know about technical trends before they read about them in my blog. If it's just the folks at my company Inxight, I could focus a little. But I also have to be more careful not to divulge sensitive or proprietary knowledge. I can reach them through email lists anyway. But if you're techno or not, it's an integrated part of who I am and what I do -- and I love the bleeding edge stuff. Might be some good stuff here for those readers. Like about Java, Ruby, coding standards, unit testing, extreme programming, community participation (a.k.a. Open Source). Personally, the best technical stuff I've been encountering lately has been on Kathy Sheridan's blog I mentioned earlier. Definitely go there. Her writing is great for a non-geek audience too. When I do go into geeky topics, I'll try to do it like she does in her blog, mostly!

On another technical note, I saw a video redently, called Revolution OS. It's mostly talking heads, but it's good stuff if you're into software or computers at all. It's about Linux and how it's challenged the hegemony of Microsoft. If you've been traking Microsoft's stock lately, they've been holding steady for a few years now. Not the geometric growth that made Bill the richest man in the world. And a lot of that has been from the challenge of Open Source, and most powerfully from Linux. If you want a quick primer on Linux and the people behind it's rise, go rent it.

And yes, more benefits. The theater has taken a great deal of my energies for many years, so we will be touching on that. Keith Johnstone has been my greatest inspiration, through his book Impro and through his theatrical projeny at Bay Area Theater Sports and Comedy Sports. It's been about getting over shyness, helping make it easier to make presentations (and it has). But it's also about having fun in community. These are ensemble improvisation companies, not stand up solo comics -- as funny and wonderful as they are. My greatest interest has been in team work and community performance.

And thus I will end this post with some words about the wonderful work of Jim and Michele McCarthy at McCarthy Technologies. Their wonderful work has helped reinspire me in what is possible with an aligned and inspired team, and how critical that has been to the greatest successes in software.

Good to be meeting you all, drop a note, add a comment. Conversations are always more interesting.