Rollercoaster
Yesterday was a rollercoaster. Fortunately it was "U"-shaped rather than "A" shaped.
A month ago, on my first day on the job, I didn't know the system very well and screwed up an appointment I tried to set. Fortunately I also put it on my own personal Google Calendar, which gave me a reminder in the morning. So, there was no one assigned to go out to the customer. A hurried investigation determined that the only person who knew how to teach the software wasn't with the company anymore! I personally drove out to the tutorial session in Lansing by way of apology, despite the fact that I don't know jack squat. I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving this guy in the lurch.
It turns out this outcome was vastly superior to the original plan. It was a web committee for a church that meets in a Unitarian Universalist church building, and they were really not sold on the software they were going to get a tutorial on. I got up to the dry-erase board and organized their feature requests into "must-haves" "ought-to-haves" and "nice-to-haves". I explained how I organized the site for the church I used to work for, so it was organized around departments for different visitors instead of departments for different church staff members. In response to some of their questions I explained how the web worked as "a catalog of pointers to stuff". I made some design drawings and recommendations for how to embed Google Calendar and Livejournal so that volunteers can provide the content without needing to be trained. Due to my knowledge and personal experiences with volunteer organizations and web collaboration, they're much more impressed with our company than if I had sent somebody else out there. That took me totally by surprise.
So, saving face was solved. The remaining problem was how to make money. Well, that surprised me too. It turns out I've been underselling my skill set because I thought my areas of knowledge were too easy and commonplace to be able to compete in the market. I'll still be doing sales, but I'm being pulled back from project management for a few weeks, to serve as a tech for the company. It turns out they need somebody working in markup languages, content management systems, and mashups.
So, disastrous failure turned into success.
Comments
tammylc on Mar. 30, 2007 1:56 PM
Woot!
It turns out I've been underselling my skill set because I thought my areas of knowledge were too easy and commonplace to be able to compete in the market.
Yeah, it's easy to assume that everybody knows the things that you are adept in, but they really don't.
phecda on Mar. 30, 2007 2:38 PM
Yup, that whole right place at the right time synchronicity. Also, being able to listen to what the customer really wants.
From an architecture standpoint, the very last thing you want to discuss is actual products. But it sounds like you were able to do this for the most part. Good job! We'll make a pre-sales engineer out of you yet...
users on Mar. 30, 2007 3:06 PM
Fantastic! Congratulations and great job. I think it's been obvious to most of us that you've been selling your skill-set short, and now it looks like it might be obvious to you too. :)
flutterby68 on Mar. 30, 2007 3:24 PM
Yay, congrats!!
thefile on Mar. 30, 2007 6:16 PM
So, disastrous failure turned into success.
Welcome to the business world!
uplinktruck on Mar. 31, 2007 1:38 PM
Under selling your skill set...
Matt, you are one of the most intelligent people I know. It surprises me to here you did not know the value of your skills. The computer/web illiterate in this world need to get on the net and they they know it. Those that can afford it are willing to pay for it.
matt-arnold on Mar. 31, 2007 4:43 PM
Thanks for the support.
Intelligence, by itself in the abstract, is not what determines the level of income. There are different kinds of intelligance. When you have the savvy of knowing how valuable something is to other people and how much you can charge them for it, you can offer them the right things and spend your efforts in the right places. Then your budgetary predictions and investments of time and money are not just a crap shoot, and you can balance the flow of money to maximize how much is coming in compared to what's going out.
That acumen is the type of intelligence that determines income, and it can be measured simply by looking at how much income one has negotiated for one's self. People are not paid for the benefit they produce, so much as the benefit they can make people perceive.
Intelligence is also a function of paying attention, which has a lot to do with being interested. My biggest financial problem is that business acumen bores me.
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