Author: Melih O.

Becoming a PM, Uncategorized 0 comments on It’s not okay to say nothing

It’s not okay to say nothing

I found out today how important it is to be vocal when you really believe in something.

First some background:

I believe that the reason that TokBox is successful right now is because we’ve built the right culture. Hiring in the Valley is a bitch, and if you aren’t careful, then you’ll hire anyone out of desperation. We’ve made that mistake before, and I’m sure we’ll do it again, but lately we haven’t.

What is the crux of our culture? I think TokBox as a company is focused around building an excellent product together. There is team buy-in to our vision, strategy and execution. Buy-in doesn’t mean consensus mind you, but at the very least we force ourselves to come into a room and hear each other out before anything is committed to paper.

At some points that community approach is challenged. People have a bad day or they fundamentally disagree with how something is being presented. It’s these days that challenge the culture hardest, and we recently had one of those days.

It happened; we acted on it quickly, and I think that at the very least the problem has been surfaced. There is a clear chink in the armor, and that’s not going anywhere. At the end of the day, we’re all people, and the dynamics of that come into play. But in immediately responding to the situation, and vocally championing what’s right instead of what’s easy I think we took a big, big, big step in showing that our culture is sustainable.

Good job us, and now on to the next challenge.

Ramadan, Uncategorized 0 comments on Another Ramadan ends

Another Ramadan ends

Someone saw the new crescent moon somewhere in the Muslim world tonight, and so another Ramadan has come to an end.

I finally figured out how to do it right from a food perspective. It’s very important to eat the right kind of meals. At Iftar I’ve tried to eat foods that are easy to digest. Nothing processed. Barely ate out at restaurants where there would be lots of sauce, and high sodium in the food.

I then had a stated goal of drinking 8 cups of water in that tiny bit of time between sunset and sunrise. The hours to eat are really starting to reduce. The days when I did this, the next day was easy. On the days that I didn’t…

For sahoor, I was a hipster to the end. Yogurt every day. Fruit everyday. Bran cereal of some sort. Turkey and cheese sandwich. It was super filling, but still super light.

Making sure that you do the food right is a huge element of how you experience the month. It’s not supposed to be painful, but contemplative. At least I’ve always said so. And this month was a good one for me.

But that will be good for another post

Becoming a PM, Uncategorized 0 comments on Don’t yell in email; it doesn’t work

Don’t yell in email; it doesn’t work

I’m on a soccer team that is a mix between very serious, competitive folks (about a third) and folks who are just out there playing because they want to exercise, have some fun and the like.

It’s tough to be on the more serious end because you end up getting extremely frustrated by the folks who aren’t taking it as seriously as you are. The right way to approach this frustration though is the difference between whether you enjoy the season and your teammates or whether you let the frustration get in the way of your success.

When I coached the JV Girl’s Soccer team at Cary Academy, I took the approach of anger. When the girls didn’t take things seriously I got angry, and they ran sprints. Or, I took away a privilege. At the half-way point of the season, I was really burnt out. I realized that the problem wasn’t the hours, girls or trying to mix a 5-day a week gig with school. It was my attitude. We had an amazing second half of the season, and I saw a LOT of growth in the girls and the team. The pride they took in their matches once they felt like it was a team they wanted to be a part of was really astounding to see, and to be a part of.

This came up again today in my mind because the team that I play for now has had the classic  mix of serious folks being committed and showing up, and the not serious folks just coming along for the ride. Today we got a bit of a flame e-mail from a player, and it surprised me. Don’t yell in email; it never works. Worse, you’re not going to inspire the uninspired digitally.

Here’s how I would handle that situation. Get to the point where we have a solid 7 – 9 players at practice every week. Then, first game of the season, only play those 9 guys for the first 20 minutes of the game. Make people earn their starting role. The team will suffer as a result, but it proves the point. On top of that, it actually rewards the folks who come to practice in the sense that they’ve earned something the others haven’t.

Create pride in the end result. Let others have a sense of ownership. And then, you don’t have to flame anyone because the outcome takes care of itself.

Fatherhood, Uncategorized 1 comment on Storytime and Picasso

Storytime and Picasso

I tried to give Micky a bit of a break this past Saturday, and so Amelia Rose and I went to the local library for story time.

We were the youngest ones there by about 6 – 7 months, but it was still lots of fun. We did a few songs, including the “Itsy-bitsy spider”, and then got to hear about Spot’s first day at school. At that point all the 7+ month olds decided to just play, and so they brought out the toys, and they had at it. Amelia Rose and I ran upstairs, and kept going with story time. We read seven more books, and somewhere between four and five, she actually fell asleep. So it goes 🙂

After the seventh book, Micky showed up, and we headed to the De Young museum. There’s a Picasso exhibit, and it’s quite an amazing collection of work. They won’t allow strollers in the exhibit hall, and so I had to carry Amelia around. It made me the center of attention as everyone came up to look at her. She loved the attention for about one and half rooms, and then fell asleep. The Picasso exhibit was amazing for the fact that each room seemed to show a different decade of Picasso’s life, which if you know Picasso loosely translates to the various periods of artistic style through which he moved. The exhibit really emphasized to me that Picasso spent a lot of time understanding a piece before creating it, and that Picasso spent a lot of time re-imaging the same theme over and over again.

It was a really amazing experience, and one I think folks should definitely get to if they can. I would not however suggest carrying around an 11 pound baby for an hour while there 🙂

Amelia Rose was just amazing, and it was fun to have daddy/daughter time together. The first of many to come.

just thinking out loud, Uncategorized 0 comments on Life update

Life update

Well it’s slowed down here a lot, and so it became clear that an update was in order. What has life brought me in July?

  • Wendy & Raif visited

    We had a whole slew of visitors come through the first half of the month. Our far, far away family descended to meet baby Amelia. Unfortunately for Wendy (and Geoff) she had to be re-admitted to the hospital due to an infection. She had a bright red inflammation underneath her oemphalocele, and it took a 10-day course to knock it out. Once she was home though, it was all magic! 

    My dad being in town was nice except he smokes too much. It caused a lot of problems in that Micky kept getting upset, and I think he realized it and got upset as well. We also put him up in a bed & breakfast in the Castro district of San Francisco which I think he enjoyed (even though he got relocated to the “garden suite”). I’d highly recommend the Parker Guest House to anyone who has folks in town.

  • Soccer/Fitness

    Still too fat and slow. I have however started to really lose weight. A trio of us at work are making it to the gym 3 times a week, and I’m loving it. Hop out for 1 hour as if we were going to coffee, and get in some exercise. Rotating muscle groups, but now I need to put some more time into aerobic. I’ve started that this week 

    My goal is to reach 180 pounds by my one year wedding anniversary. I’m at 195 lbs right now. I’m feeling pretty good about my chances.

  • Work

    I think all in all, this may be where things are best right now. 

    I got to present at this month’s board meeting, and that went really well. I’m sure for most folks that’s a non-event, but I wonder if folks who have entrepreneurial  aspirations if your first board meeting is like your first time with a girl? It was about as exciting :-p

    Product team is buzzing with too much to do, and not enough time to do it. Everyone keeps saying that’s a good thing, but I’m pretty convinced that that’s just a convenient story to tell oneself to make it all make sense. I think we’ve got an awesome few months ahead of us at the ‘Box.

  • Vacation

    Which leaves me with what I’m doing right now. We’re on vacation at an amazing house in Tamales Bay. We’re on the water, and we’ve spent the last few days grilling out, hanging out with Amelia and just re-establishing our family. It’s been awesome! Photos to come soon.

Becoming a PM, Uncategorized 0 comments on Hustling

Hustling

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but Friday was an amazing day.

A lot of pretty large projects finally came together, and I really feel like came to a conclusion. Finish lines are too damn difficult to find in their own right, but when you cross two or three together at the same time it’s really a nirvana experience.

It was an intriguing blog post by Brad Feld detailing the 99% committer that helped me realize we were stuck. Everyone wanted one more ounce of promise about direction, marketing or resource commitment before things crossed the finish line. There were good reasons for all of the above, and it wasn’t done out of malcontent or ill intentions, but nonetheless it had to be worked through. Ian let me know that we were, “paying the penalty lap”. It’s an end game that I hope to not make the mistake of replaying anytime soon.

When I announced that Friday was a good day, I got a really good ribbing. You see, I bitch and moan like crazy, and Ian only hears about one-quarter of it (poor guy). Amelia hears the rest, but she just smiles through it all so I’m not too concerned for her. Underneath all of that energy is an anxiousness born from the need to be three steps further ahead, and prepared for what’s coming even beyond that. What this process taught me though was the importance of the present.

Lesson learned: If you don’t hustle the present moment, then there is no future worth planning for.

The theme for the next few months for me is definitely going to be (a) get project started, (b) mature project into product, (c) get product out the door.

Item (a) is too easy. It’s easy to the point where you really end up trying to do as many (a) as possible without worrying about the rest. It’s hustling through (b) and (c) that’s going to win the game though, and that’s a very important skill to build.

Video chat is about to explode, and we’re on the door step of the first anniversary of the OpenTok prototype. The next few weeks will mark the first round of video chat solutions drawing their line in the sand about what/who will win the long term real time communication space. We’re definitely a flyweight trying to win in the heavyweight division, but we can bite ears off with the best of them.

And we’re going to do it by out-hustling the big boys today, and not worrying about tomorrow.

At least not too much

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Fatherhood, Uncategorized 0 comments on Bonded by relief

Bonded by relief

The children of the NICU are amazing. They fight for a world filled with anguish, horror and despair. They fight because life in its most basic form simply wants a chance. The lifecycle of a NICU baby is defined by loss. One either loses tubes, wires and IVs or loses the fight. And yet the moment of victory is very simply defined by relief. Leaving is almost never the end of the journey, and so in the absence of champagne and cheers, the staff, parents and baby simply let out a sigh of relief.

The heroes of the NICU are the nurses who become yhe support network that the family desperately needs to survive. They cry with us; they laugh with us. The nurses are vehicles of the machine above them, but in their brilliance they become the kind hand of hope connecting you to that sigh of relief as you walk your baby out the doors.

For us there were two very special doctors who saved the day. They fought for us. They believed in us and Amelia, and they got her home to us faster than we could have imagined.

And our fellow NICU parents were the late night, early morning warriors who fought this battle alongside us. Not a club we wanted to join, but one whose shield we now proudly bear.

We’re going home now. Thank you to the wonderful staff of CPMC, and to all of the heroes who helped us bring our daughter home.

song lyrics, Uncategorized 0 comments on At 4 in the morning

At 4 in the morning

There is but one Leonard Cohen, and yet we are just short of an infinite number of interpretations of Famous Blue Raincoat. According to the Wikipedia article Cohen has forgotten long ago whether he was the cheater or the cheated on, but he knows that a love triangle existed, and that a blue raincoat was involved.

I never knew of this song until I went to the Oakland show in 2009. I took Micky, who was simply my girlfriend then as opposed to my essence now. The stage became that infamous raincoat as it was washed in a sea of blue gels. The Maestro said but one line and the audience launched into a frenzy. This is the sign of a truly incredible connection between artist and audience. When someone says John 3:16, one instantly recognizes the most sacred poem of the Christian faith. It takes but one chord at an Elton John concert for the crowd to go into a religious fervor for “Bennie and the Jets”. And so it was to be that when the stage went blue, and the Maestro sang “It’s 4 in the morning/the end of December” I was instantly to begin my own indoctrination into the cult of this song.

This is no ordinary raincoat we are taught. History tells us it was in the Peabody style, and that Leonard Cohen’s lover at the time made fun of his selection. Faith tells us that the raincoat was in the style of a cocoon that encompasses us into a deep sleep to only wake up one morning to discover a world we never knew could exist.

The instant thrill of this new world is the yin to the instant pain of this world’s yang. We have in essence been delivered, but the cost we have paid is too much.

I sat on the edge of my seat entranced by the Maestro’s pain as he carefully navigated his way through each lyric of that epic ballad. I came out on the other side of “Signed L. Cohen” with only the sound of my own breathing echoing through my head.

And so it was with this last visit to Raleigh that I realized that Raleigh is my blue raincoat. The truth is that I’d rather stay in its cocoon than to come out transformed into a reality which no longer recognizes me, and which I no longer understand. There is too much pain, and too much hate. But then there’s love, nostalgia and the sweet sound of silence.

In the end, the silence won me over, but not until 4 in the morning.