Tag Archives: CEO

Microsoft Surface

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Yesterday, I got to sit in while members of Microsoft’s Surface™ team showed my CEO, Gerry Laybourne, a working demo.

Microsoft Surface&tradeI’m a convert. The interface relies on organic human gesture and, more importantly, encourages eye contact and collaboration. Truly beautiful. And the simpler they make it the more emotional and purposeful it will be.

I realize there are similar systems out there but Microsoft’s hardware implementation is novel and potentially more powerful than other multi-touch displays.

Watching Gerry interact with the surface team, I was reminded why she is such a force for invention and creativity. She has an expert’s blink response to new ideas. Her feedback was immediate and unexpected in the best sense. As a Surface™ team member said, “it feels like we’re learning more from you than you are from us.”

Team

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At Oxygen, we have a team. Knot

Building this team has been the collaborative work of years.

Our CTO, Steve, made IT a strategic asset and championed a seat at the table for software development. I introduced agile principles, carved out space for agile development practices and built a product team.

Our dev director, Luke, and coach, Kris, built a disciplined XP practice. Our product team, Ilio and Suzann, and our Scrum master, Salim, built our Scrum practice.

With Luke’s lead, the team built itself by adding exceptional talents and engaging human beings. Wendy, Oksana, Lee, Robert, Daniel and our first UX Designer, Bob. Each brings experiences, specialties, passions and humor that spurs creativity in our products and simplicity, quality, and expressiveness in their underlying implementation.

For the last year, our team has included our CEO, Gerry, an inspiring and audacious product owner.

Over almost eight years together, the core of us struggled through bad practices and mediocre projects. We taught ourselves better methods and brought in great talent providing the best fit. We grew, we availed ourselves of experienced coaches, we matured, we hit our stride. Now we contribute to our field through open code, writing, presentations and mentoring.

This team is a competitive advantage. We share values, practices, and history. We have complimentary strengths, camaraderie and spirit. We are inventive, versatile and fast on our feet. Our dedication to each other is our strongest retention and recruiting tool.

I care for these individuals and I love the team we’ve created.

The Oxygen Team

To Mine Own Self

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My company begins planning its integration into a new parent organization.

As a participant in that process I have to obey:

  1. Laws and policies.
  2. My duty as an executive to create strategic value.
  3. My duty as a manager to treat my team humanely and fairly.

I feel other ties:

  1. Guiding my actions according to ethical values and agile principles.
  2. Loyalty to my boss — he’s created opportunities for me. I owe him.
  3. Loyalty to my departing CEO — she is a visionary and a mentor. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Brooklyn Street SignsThese obligations may contend but should not fundamentally conflict as long as the integration plan we develop clearly communicates an achievable, rational outcome.

“Above all, to thine own self be true.” — Hamlet, I, iii

Inspiring and daunting advice but not to be taken at face value. For the character who delivers it has too high a regard for his own ingenuity, places himself at the center of events and meets a bad end. A creation as complex as life.

I will try to heed a fool’s words without becoming a fool. To be true to mine own self in this circumstance is not to delude myself that this situation is in any significant way about me. Options that don’t make business sense will not serve the long-term interest of anyone involved. My obligation is to work towards the best outcome for all parties given that reality.

NBC Universal Acquires Oxygen

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Jeff Zucker, president & CEO of NBC Universal, and Geraldine Laybourne, chmn. & CEO of Oxygen Media, discuss the acquisition…

As an executive in an acquired company I have agile principles to guide my actions:

  • Embrace change
  • Collaborate with the customer
  • Deliver value
  • Remove impediments

My career has included consolidation, closure, re-organizations, relocations, down-sizings and three acquisitions. In fact, none of my former employers exist as the same entity for which I started working.

Opportunities gird themselves in risk. Game on.

My management mission has not changed.

It’s Been a Good Week

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It’s a privilege to be granted authority in another person’s company.

Light Through Clouds by kjudy using Ript

It’s easy to criticize. It’s hard to raise capital and make payroll.

I have never been an entrepreneur. My passion is to build teams. To be of service. To make things better.

I’m that second generation that feeds off founding vision and hopes to sustain an organization.

This has been a good week.

  • We achieved our first business objective on our standard bearing product initiative, Ript™.
  • My CEO is championing agile values in my division’s executive team – accountability to specific commitments within a time box.
  • Managers in a peer group recognize the potential of self-directed, cross-functional teams and are interested in introducing the first scrum outside my department.

I am a cautious optimist. Success is far from inevitable. Actually, all this represents is an opportunity to start the really hard work.

Still some moments, especially ones years in the making, need to be savored.