A weekend of innovation

I was scheduled to fly down to Tampa to see my brother this weekend... but that didn't happen... we drove instead... Why? Because spending 2 days away from my wife made me frustrated and annoyed. Signs I married the right one. :-) Once I knew she was going to be with me everything changed... Really a nice reality... Let's see what else has happened this week. Well, work is going fine, can't really discuss it as openly as I'd like to here, but it is good stuff. What else, oh Jiujitsu. I am officially back training again. I missed a day this week, but I'm back at it this week. They have a quote that I really like, "A black belt is a white belt that never quit." I can relate to that since I have been training on and off (mostly OFF) since 1994. Yes, that is almost 20 years... And yes, I'm still not a black belt... which says something about the instructors I choose... they don't promote unless YOU deserve it... no "black-belt factories" for me... I'm patient. As most of my friends know, I just want my purple belt... that has been my goal since I met a few people Brian D, Brian J, and Cliff M. I met them when they were all purple belts and now they are all black belts, but.. I would love their skill as purple belts... who knows where I will end up, but that is my goal for training... until I achieve it and then I'll have a new goal.

What else? Surface, smaller iPad, iPhone 5 vs Galaxy 3, Dart, etc... Look that stuff up... I'm going to talk about coding as a craft and not get into the political battle of how the surface is supposed to be brilliant because it has a keyboard (uh, bluetooth keyboard for iPad) or how Windows 8 is designed for touch surfaces and we are supposed to run it on laptops, I don't have a touchscreen laptop or desktop... Ok, I'm not going to talk ANY MORE about that for now. Moving on... I am getting more and more involved in coding as a craft, not just a problem solving. I have realized I can solve most problems pretty quickly... but now I have reached a point where I want to know can I solve it faster, better, more maintainable, and simple. We (developers) come up with these insanely complex solutions to prove our worth and how "clever" we are... I created a factory, that would generate a dynamic factory based on they type, to create the concrete of the first factory, to get the correct data for the class... why not, uhm, get the data directly? Now don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of using interfaces and making code testable, but I don't believe in creating abstractions for the sake of abstractions. CMS - Content Management Systems are what almost EVERY company is trying to create in their own niche market. Library Management, Insurance Policies, Medical Forms Processing, Education Attendance and Curriculum, Part manufacturing/inventory, etc... But they all think that they have a BRILLIANT idea for a new product... and how this book relates to this topic which relates to this person who is taking this class... or how this insurance form relates to this line of business and how that relates to this customer because they run this kind of business. It comes back to one things - DATA RELATIONSHIPS. I don't care what you call the data entities, they are all solutions to the same problems... I need a schedule of my tasks... What does that mean to data? "I" that is the context... "schedule" that is a time criteria, "tasks" that is the entity that needs to be delivered based on the context for the time criteria... Great, do you need a daily schedule, an hourly schedule, a weekly schedule, an annual report... etc... Yes, it IS that simple... let's try it in another context... I need a list of parts that need to be delivered to make this complex part. "I" = Context, "List" delivery structure, "Parts" = entity... those parts need to be related to the complex part. Now, a single part may come from 20 different manufacturers, then you need to know who can deliver it the quickest and will all the other parts arrive at the same time, so I can build that complex part, or is there a bottle neck... BUT... the process is the same... Data relationships. Library Science is a dying art, not because of the skill set, but because companies do not know what it is or how to use it. They organize data. Think about that... they know how to manage data correctly... that IS their skillset. So train them in the basics of Database Design, and watch them go... Sorry, random side note there, a friend of mine has a daughter who graduated with a degree in Library Science and couldn't find a job in that area... sad but true. Ok, moving on... Simple conversation no more babbling... "Data relationships are key in delivering data to the right people in the right format at the right time" - John Mann. That is my mission statement... That is what I am going to create. Whether the delivery mechanism is a smart phone, a tablet, a letter in the mail, email, tweet, status update, etc... We have SOO much access to SOO much information... but WHAT is important to you at this moment... I don't care that Michael Phelps swam for 10 records if I am in the middle of business meeting with clients from Japan. I do care if I am at home watching another event in the olympics and that he is about to swim for a new record... and my tv could alert me to change to that event, and my phone could give me a status update if I decide not to watch it live... tie it all together... and give people what they WANT... but they may not know right now what they want... but it is our jobs as innovators to help direct them to the information and solutions to make their lives more fun, make them feel more educated, and help them do tasks easier. Let's start the next industrial revolution... WE can. And that will solve economy issues, as long as we move away from greed and move toward humanity... it will solve a lot if we WORK TOGETHER... Ok, I'll save that discussion for another time... Thanks for stopping by... Who knows, maybe Mann for 2016... What do you think?