Matthew Holt

Tune Out Spotify Ads: Rdio Launches Free, On-Demand Music Streaming | Fast Company

2012-01-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

So far, I'm becoming a fan of Rdio.

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Tune Out Spotify Ads: Rdio Launches Free, On-Demand Music Streaming | Fast Company:

'via Blog this'

How to Build a Winning Team

2012-01-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

I found this a while ago and keep coming back to it.

MH
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How to Build a Winning Team

'via Blog this'

Your Emails are Too Long

2012-01-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

Here is another blog post written by someone else that I enjoyed. I wanted to keep it for future reference.

MH
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Your Emails are Too Long:

‘If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.’ ~David Belasco

Post written by Leo Babauta.

One of the worst problems I’ve seen when people send me emails is amazingly common: they’re way too long.

I’m a fairly busy guy, but who isn’t busy? I try to be responsive but when I get an incredibly long email there is no way I’ll answer quickly. If an email is short, I’ll shoot out a reply as soon as I read it.

So why send long emails?

Here’s a rule: a long email is never necessary. Never.

Why am I writing this? Is it a rant against people who’ve emailed me? No, it’s a general problem that I’ve seen with email, and I hope this will help people write more effectively.

How I Use Email

I’ve written before about how I ditched email. That’s only 90% true. I still do email on a limited scope — mostly for people I collaborate with (partners, designers, printers, etc.). I also respond to customer emails (refunds, download problems).

For reader feedback and comments, I use Twitter. For family communication (like my family on Guam and other parts of the world), I use Facebook (I don’t “friend” anyone other than family, and have fewer than 100 friends on FB).

That said, my email problem isn’t unique to my situation. No matter how you use email, no one you’re emailing wants to read a long essay or respond to 10 questions. We are all busy, and we all value our time.

When I do email, I try to get through all of it quickly. I don’t like to be stuck doing email all day, so I get in, read and respond or archive/trash, and get out.

When someone sends me a long email, it’s likely to be archived. If I absolutely have to respond, I probably won’t do it that day.

Please note: this post is not just about me. It’s about anyone who is busy and who values his or her time. If you send that person a long email, you are saying you don’t value his time, and you’re saying you haven’t thought out what’s important. And you’re decreasing your odds of getting a response.

Why Long Emails Suck

A few brief reasons:

It takes too long to read. I don’t have a lot of time to read, and by sending me an essay you are saying your email is more important than the other things I have to read.

It doesn’t respect my time. When you send me an email, you’re making a request on my time (to read, process, respond). If you send a long email, you haven’t edited. You haven’t decided what’s most important. You are saying, in effect, that I have to do that instead. You’re sending a message that your time is more important than mine.

You don’t get to the point. What’s the main point you’re trying to make? What’s your main question? Spit it out, or it will get buried.

You ask too many questions. I won’t be able to answer all of them without half an hour of my valuable day. So don’t ask so many — just ask one or two.

I won’t respond. If you’re looking for me to read the email right away, or worse yet, do something for you, good luck with that. I’m not a diva, but I also have things to do and can’t get to every long email. And there are many of them, not just yours.

Rules for Short, Effective Emails

Ignore these rules at your peril:

Keep it to 5 sentences. No more. I stole this from five.sentenc.es of course, but I’ve used it for years and it works. I usually try to do fewer than 5.

Figure out your main point. If you think you need more than 5 sentences, you haven’t figured out the key thing you want to say. Take a second to figure it out, and stick to just that.

Ask one thing. Don’t ask 10 questions, just ask one. Or two at the most. You’re much more likely to get an answer quickly.

Edit. If you stretched it to 8 sentences, cut out 3.

Link. If you need to refer to info, include a link to it on the web.

Post it. If the info you need to share isn’t on the web, put it there. Create a long answer or long background document (then edit it to the essential info) and post it online. Use your blog, or one of the many free tools for posting info. Create an FAQ if it’s useful. Link to it in your email.

This post, by the way, is an example of the last rule.

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The original post can be found at:
Your Emails are Too Long:

Post written by Leo Babauta.

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tweet du

New Year's Resolutions: Four Steps To Becoming A Better Leader

2012-01-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

I found this on Fast Company's blog and thought the four points were worth being reminded of as we start a new year.
MH

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BY FC EXPERT BLOGGER DUANE ZOBRISTThu Dec 29, 2011

New Year's Resolutions: Four Steps To Becoming A Better Leader:

The new year is upon us, and one of the time-honored traditions for many is the making of resolutions for the upcoming year. From losing weight to spending more time with family, there are many ways for individuals to improve themselves. For business owners of course, the options are endless. In addition to personal resolutions, it doesn’t take most owners that much time to come up with a long list of changes to implement in the future.
One function that virtually every business owner shares is leadership--and for that reason I am going to examine four ways to become a better leader in 2012.
Open the channels of communication. Every business owner knows that communication is important, but how many structure their business in a way that is conducive to organizational communication? Ask yourself this simple question: If an employee is in possession of a fact or an opinion that may be valuable to you or to others in your organization, will he or she feel free to bring it to the attention of the appropriate individual? Or are your employees so paralyzed by protocol or the fear of being wrong that they’ll keep their mouth shut?
Eliminate employee uncertainty. One of the greatest frustrations for many employees in any industry is a lack of clarity in regards to their expectations and responsibilities. Take the time to create a precise job description for every position in your company, and clearly define all tasks and responsibilities. Eliminate uncertainty and watch productivity skyrocket!
Devote time each month to employee development. In order to get the most from your employees, you need to invest time and resources in their development. Annual performance reviews simply aren’t enough. Make a point to sit down with each employee on a quarterly basis (or more frequently, if possible) and provide them with specific feedback and areas of improvement.
Lead by example. If you expect your employees to buy in to your company culture and your way of doing things, you need to practice what you preach. Take a moment to evaluate yourself. Do you offer excellent customer service? Do you communicate openly with employees at all levels of your organization? Do you meet your deadlines and deliver on your word?
If you focus on these four areas in 2012, I can promise you that you’ll become an even more effective leader. Feel free to get in touch with me to learn more on this subject.
For more leadership coverage, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
[Image: Flickr user Kicki Holmen]

Day 1

2012-01-02T07:59:00.001-08:00

A great sunrise this morning. This was the view after climbing what seemed like a thousand steps. (Maybe I'll count tomorrow.)

World's Youngest Leading Social Network Eats World's Last Major RSS Reader: Google Reader Gets Plussed

2011-12-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well...this is disappointing. Why do simple solutions needs to be replaced with something bigger and more complicated?

I'm not really a fan of yet another social networking site -- I barely use Facebook and LinkedIn now. Looks like I will have to post a blog entry for all my old shared items. Most of them were shared to be more like bookmarks for my future use.

World's Youngest Leading Social Network Eats World's Last Major RSS Reader: Google Reader Gets Plussed:

'via Blog this'

"Done Is Better Than Perfect" [Quotables]

2011-12-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

"Done Is Better Than Perfect" [Quotables]:

"Done is better than perfect" is a maxim for all of us prone to endlessly tweaking our projects and never finishing them. Ben Barry, a designer at Facebook, calls it a favorite quote. The key to moving ahead is following through. More »

My Pizza Sauce

2011-12-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

This recipe was originally inspired by Exquisite Pizza Sauce Recipe - Allrecipes.com, but I have changed it over the years. Those changes and notes were written on a piece of paper, which, of course, I could never find. Where better than to put this 'secret recipe' than on this blog -- I know no one else reads it, so this secret will remain safe.

Also great for dipping bread sticks.

Ingredients

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 fluid ounces warm water

Directions

Boil water, then let it cool before adding to mix.
In a small bowl, combine everything, water last; mix together, breaking up any clumps of cheese.
Sauce should sit for 30 minutes to blend flavors; spread over pizza dough and prepare pizza as desired.

'via Blog this'

Answers Come at Unexpected Times

2010-12-19T05:28:00.003-08:00

I was cleaning up my blog today and rediscovered a Paul Graham blog posting from July 2010 that I had shared via Google Reader. I started skimming it to remind myself why I shared it as this sentence jumped out at me: "I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower."

Any of my former managers, and current manger, will recognize the phrase, "on my drive in today, I figured out how to ______." I use it frequently. In fact, one of my managers suggested he was going to have me drive around randomly for an afternoon when we were posed with a particularly difficult question.

Graham defines ambient thought as "a kind of thinking you do without trying to." When driving, taking a shower, mowing the lawn or any other time when something else occupies your mind. Answers come at unexpected times.

Read Graham's full blog post here, The Top Idea in Your Mind.

PowerPoint

2010-12-18T07:57:00.003-08:00

We've all been in this meeting: a PowerPoint presentation with no design and the presenter apologizes to those in the back for the minuscule font, then they proceed to stand sideways and read directly from the bullet-pointed paragraphs. A good time for all.

"An outstanding 1-hour presentation takes 30 hours or more of prep time", says Jesse Desjardins in his presentation Five Ways to Not Suck at PowerPoint. I like it.

Abstract for ODTUG 2011

2010-10-31T05:19:00.002-07:00

As I understand it, ODTUG Kaliedoscope 2011 in Long Beach, CA will have a business track this year. Someone, whose opinion I respect, suggested I should repeat an updated version of my presentation from Kaliedoscope 2010 in Washington, DC. Below is what I submitted.

Managing Essbase and Dodeca Support and Development

Background: One day we woke up and realized that Essbase was being used by nine different business units scattered around the Kroger enterprise and several more were interested. Essbase has enjoyed a strong and loyal following among department heads and executives for 10 years, in large part because of the decentralized structure, which allows each business unit to operate in the shadows and control all aspects of on-going development and support. While some of the business units had similar infrastructure and processes in place, many did not. As originally laid out, IT's involvement had been intentionally limited to routine server maintenance and applying version upgrades.

Ignoring licensing, versioning, hardware and redundancy issues, each group is/was taking enormous risk because the expertise to support Essbase and one of (at least) four different user interfaces was with 1-2 people in each line of business. Essbase has become increasingly more sophisticated since the days of version 5 and, if this model is to continue, more and more technical expertise is required of the business users with each version upgrade. What happens if/when those people left the company or get promoted (or take a vacation)? We also found new comers, and in many instances existing groups, were reinventing the wheel each time they wanted to do something because they didn't understand how to utilize the tools.

The Problem:

take nine independent Essbase efforts and create a common development and support structure
support (and migrate to) a single user interface
define best practices and/or standards
draw on past successes and avoid past failures
create built-in backups and career paths
engage IT and make them a partner
continue to let the business units develop solutions

The Solution: It's complicated. And political. After many monthly steering committee meetings, center-of-excellence discussions, roles and responsibilities documents and a failed attempt or two, we are working towards a plan to consolidate support and development of Essbase and Dodeca, which is currently spread across multiple lines-of-business, and reorganize it into a single department, or center-of-excellence, using only existing resources.

Benefits

The primary benefit participants will receive is an understanding of how and why Kroger chose to create a center-of-excellence to address several business problems relating to Essbase and Dodeca, including on-going support, new development, and stability vs agility. While this presentation is specific to our experiences with Essbase and Dodeca, it could be applied to other technologies as well.

Summary

The focus of this session will be to look at one solution for consolidating support and development of Essbase and Dodeca, which is currently spread across multiple lines-of-business, and reorganize it into a single department, or center-of-excellence, using only existing resources. In addition, discuss how we brought Essbase out of the shadows and defined the partnership between the business units and IT, which allows each group to do what they do best.

Vacation

2010-08-14T20:30:00.008-07:00

I took some time off with my family and returned to Central Oregon for 10-days. We love the area and consider Oregon home.

During the trip we went on several bike rides, among other activities, but it wasn't until nearly the last day that I decided to record one of my early morning rides using My Tracks with Droid. If you're interested, click here for the stats or here for the Google map, to see what the GPS tracker recorded that morning. It's only about a 9 mile ride, but if you've ever been to Sunriver, it's not a ride you want to rush. In fact, as I was riding next to the Deschutes River, I rounded a corner and came upon the two deer pictured below. Needless to say, all three of us stopped and looked at each other for a few minutes. They let me take the picture, then I slowly moved along. These were two of over a dozen deer I saw that foggy morning.

Now it's back to the real world and begin preparing our Essbase and Dodeca apps for the upcoming budgeting season.

Managing Essbase and Dodeca 2010 ODTUG (June 2010)

2010-07-15T18:31:00.002-07:00

Here is the final version of my presentation at ODTUG in Washington, DC on June 30, 2010.

Managing Essbase and Dodeca 2010 ODTUG (June 2010)

View more presentations from Matthew Holt.

Center-of-Excellence Presentation

2010-07-07T20:39:00.002-07:00

Last week I had the honor of giving a presentation at the annual ODTUG conference in Washington, DC. As expected, I ended up making changes right up until the start of the session on Wednesday morning, but I felt it went well. The audience had good questions and several people caught me afterwards and expressed they've experienced the same decisions, and frustrations, in their organization too.

I was further honored to have Cameron Lackpour as my Ambassador and he even mentioned my presentation in his blog post "What I Learned at ODTUG Kaleidoscope Summer Camp" - see the 1st and 8th paragraphs under his recap of Wednesday.

I thoroughly enjoyed this ODTUG conference and am looking forward to next year's in Long Beach.

Hey! That's me.

2010-06-30T14:30:00.001-07:00

The sign outside my ODTUG session

Presentation on Dodeca and Essbase Usage

2010-06-19T03:27:00.006-07:00

Last February I gave a presentation to the Ohio Valley Oracle Application User Group on our usage of Dodeca and Essbase, but never posted it online. I've had a few people ask about it recently, so here it is. There are four videos embedded in the original presentation, but the SlideShare player doesn't support those. If you'd like the full presentation, e-mail me and I'll get it to you.

As I watch it back, I'm reminded that this was intended to have me narrate as I click through the slides and especially while the videos are playing. Hopefully it'll make sense without me talking.

My ODTUG Schedule

2010-06-11T05:27:00.002-07:00

Finalizing my schedule for ODTUG. There are several other sessions I'd like to attend, but as of today, I'm leaning towards the following:

Mike Nader - Building a Simple Model with Essbase Studio
Mike Nader - Creating Mini-schema and Dimensions with Essbase Studio
Edward Roske - Essbase ASO Tuning & Optimization for Mere Mortals
Buland Chowdhury - Implementing Efficient Aggregate Storage Applications
Aneel Shenker - What's New in Essbase
Tim Tow - Dodeca in the Real World: Happy Customers and Their Stories
Dave Farnsworth - Planning Tables, What’s Behind the Curtain?
Maggie Tompkins - Pigs, Chickens, and Agile Development
Gauthier Vasseur - Creating an EPM Center of Excellence
Mike Nader - Essbase Version 11.x General New Features
Matthew Holt - Managing Essbase and Dodeca Support and Development
Aneel Shenker - Building Essbase Cubes with Essbase Studio
Dan Pressman - Essbase ASO Performance – When NOT to Depend on MDX
Cameron Lackpour - HAL is Dead, DIM is Dying, and ODI is Rudely Healthy. How Do you Make ODI Work in your EPM System?
Edward Roske - Hacking Essbase: Undocumented & Unsupported
Charles Chew - EIS vs. EAS vs. Essbase Studio: Which One Should We Use?
Matt Milella - First Look - Smart View Extensions
Robert Gideon - Hyperion SmartView Automation with VBA
Shankar Viswanathan - Exciting New Developments in Planning and Budgeting for the Public Sector

Of course, this is all subject to change

My Presentation for ODTUG Kaleidoscope

2010-05-23T05:07:00.014-07:00

I'll be presenting at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010, June 27-July 1, in Washington, D.C.

My topic and tentative time slot:

#489 Managing Essbase and Dodeca Support and Development, 6/30/2010, 8:30 AM-9:30 AM

I've been doing Essbase development for over 10 years, including Dodeca development the past two years and, prior to that, created a custom VB app in Excel for Essbase. That VB app ended up being the primary UI for 6-7 years (who knew it'd last that long), but we've replaced it with Dodeca in the past year. My teams have done a great job supporting and developing solutions for our users using Essbase and Dodeca, but we are constantly living in that grey-area between IS&S and line-of-business. IS&S people think we're more like Finance, while Finance people think more like IS&S.

Over the past few years I've become increasingly more intrigued with how an organization should be structured to properly balance the creativity and immediate needs of the business user, yet maintain data quality and infrastructural integrity to protect their long-term interests.

How can the users use the tools to support their business needs without compromising the long-term supportability of those development efforts?
How much involvement and oversight should be expected from IS&S?
How much involvement and oversight should be expected from the line-of-business?
How can the organization take advantage of lessons previously learned?
Should Essbase and Dodeca development efforts be on a company's org chart as IS&S or as a line-of-business?

We've been slowly answering these questions, among others, over the past 2+ years.

My presentation will attempt to share what we've learned about ourselves over the years, how we've answered those questions and what we will look like in the years to come. If you have questions, thoughts or insights, I'd love to hear them prior to the conference. Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to matthewaholt@gmail.com. I'll be finalizing my presentation in the coming weeks and will try to post some excerpts on this blog.

Sorry, no code. However, since this is for ODTUG, maybe I'll try incorporate some examples too.

Ohio Valley Oracle User Group on February 19, 2010

2010-01-31T07:35:00.004-08:00

I'm getting excited about my presentation for the Ohio Valley Oracle User Group meeting on February 19. The topic will be Essbase with Dodeca, but I am not sure exactly how I'll give it.

I'd prefer to do a live demo, including building a view from scratch and whatever else I can get to in my time slot. It will depend on whether or not I can get a reliable Internet connection. If I can't, I'll have a PowerPoint backup just in case.

Added to My To-Read List

2010-01-17T06:49:00.013-08:00

I've always been a fan of writing things down. One of the quotes on this blog is from Fred G. Meyer - yes, the same Fred Meyer known in the northwest for it's one-stop shopping:

"Use your brain for thinking, not as a storehouse. First, write things down so
you don't have to remember them. Second, learn where to find information so you
don't have to remember it."

Great advice. And is something I adhere to whenever possible.

Managing Essbase and Dodeca applications for Finance brings with it several opportunities for forget something on a weekly, monthly, quarterly and/or annual basis. Most processes can be automated, but some can not. Even the automated processes need to be monitored. To the people that built the systems and processes, the required to-do's, tasks to monitor and potential points-of-failure are embedded in their mind and a checklist may seem redundant and a waste of time.

However, for the people that inherit the responsibility to maintain these systems and processes, a checklist becomes invaluable. It allows you to forget. It allows them to take ownership. It allows users to have a better experience.

Put your trust in the list. Review it, maintain it, follow it. Repeat.

The Freakonomics post on The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right intrigues me and it has been added to my own to-read (check)list. Is it on your list?

ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010

2009-12-18T02:41:00.000-08:00

Looks like it's official -- I'm presenting at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010. I'm excited about it, but also a little surprised by this because in the abstract I clearly stated this would be a zero-tech session. Kaleidoscope always does a great job selecting the best technical presentations and am honored they deviated from that mission to select my submission. The title of the session is 'Managing Essbase and Dodeca Support and Development'.

The Purpose of IT and Who is your Customer

2009-11-15T18:18:00.000-08:00

This was written a while ago, but is something I refer back to and think about often. Selfishly, I don't want to loose the link...so, here it is:

The Purpose of IT and Who is your Customer

The purpose of IT is to support the business. Simple and brilliant. Enough said. The second part, "who is your customer", is a bit more complicated but still simple enough to understand. Right? Read it.

Newspapers Not as Dead as You Think - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-11-11T02:47:00.001-08:00

Newspapers Not as Dead as You Think - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

I found this somewhat ironic: A Freakonomics blog posting on the New York Times website, which I read in Google Reader, telling me that newspapers are not 'as dead' as I might think. All I know is I haven't had a newspaper delivered in years.

Essbase add-in for Excel

2009-09-27T08:38:00.001-07:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The Excel add-in is critical to the ongoing success and continued acceptance of Essbase. I don't care if it's not improved, but it can not go away.

Accountants love Excel. As good as Dodeca's ad-hoc functionality is - and it is good - accountants still like their Excel. For example, a CFO got a new laptop, but, while the add-in was properly installed, he forgot to write down the server name required for the add-in. He called my cell phone on a Saturday to get that server name in order to do whatever he needed to do (even though the server name was documented on a company website.)

This would not be an issue with an ad-hoc report in Dodeca - the server name isn't required - and is one of many reasons why this feature in Dodeca is brilliant. But....accountants (and CFO's) love Excel. It's one of those things that make Essbase great.

I think Oracle was a little surprised by this fact at the ODTUG Kaleidoscope Conference. Tim talks about it at Tim Tow's Hyperion Blog: Fun with Excel.

Meet Rockets GM Daryl Morey - ESPN The Magazine

2009-09-17T03:20:00.002-07:00

This was published a while ago, but is still one of my favorite articles illustrating how data can be used to change conventional wisdom. I re-read it now and then and always come away thinking about new ways to look at and use data in my company.

Meet Rockets GM Daryl Morey - ESPN The Magazine

It also has one of the best thoughts I've ever heard: IMAGINE WHAT YOU'D WANT TO KNOW IF YOU COULD.