Noel Joel

I'm at ETECH because of Joel Spolsky, and I've realized, to my dismay, that I've been pronouncing his name wrong all this time, must like people sometimes prounounce Richard Feynman as "Fayne-man" instead of "Fine-man". I had been saying his name as "Spall-ski", rather than "Spol-ski" where the first syllable rhymes with Pole rather than Pall.

To this end, I must admit, rather sheepishly, that I had stalking intentions in mind. This feels like one of those missions where you go seek some movie star. There's a semi-famous video of some man who goes to the gates where John Lennon lived to protest him, and how Lennon actually came to the gate to have a discussion. It would be nice to say that this discussion lead to something fruitful, that Lennon had something profound to say. It's all the more amazing that someone was out there to film the thing, now that I think about it.

Tuesday afternoon, lunch was held just outside the majestic Manchester Grand Hyatt, named it seems after some wealthy family called the Manchesters, who seem to give money to Republicans, but don't seem to mind hosting conferences where liberals may be in great attendance. Money, it seems, is the great equalizer, and makes us all conservatives. Greenbacks speak louder than politics.

As I grabbed lunch, I was trying to see if I could find some place to sit, and, this meant, preferably where Joel was sitting, and this I managed to do. There was an empty seat between Brett and Ben. Now, you see, I don't particularly know either Brett nor Ben, except in the small excerpts of the Aardvark video. Ah, so let me back up on that. Joel's blogged about trying to get good talent to come to Fog Creek. Fog Creek is a small company based in New York City.

Were it not for the fact that Joel advertises heavily for his company, via his blog (and yes, even his book on usability, which, I bought way back in the day, before I even was aware that Joel had a blog), I would not know one whit about the people in the company, because I would not have purchased the Aardvark DVD. But, first things first. To get great talent to come to Fog Creek, Joel has been blogging, and even students of computer science are often quite aware of who he is. Much like Emeril, he wanted to kick it up a notch.

To get good talent often means grabbing them as interns. This past year, his team decided that they should have the interns build a product from start to end in ten weeks. This product was Co-Pilot, which would allow the brainy guy or girl to help his less computer savvy relatives to fix problems remotely. You would go to the site, help direct your loved one there, have them punch in some information, and the helper could connect to the victim's computer, and resuscitate.

To further promote this effort, director Lerone Wilson, who has a near uncanny resemblance to Tiger Woods, was hired to help film the ordeal. Four interns were invited, nearly doubling the folks that worked at Fog Creek. In the periphary of this all was Ben, who, if memory serves, complained a little about how his internship wasn't nearly so cool as Co-Pilot (but, c'mon, Ben, you got a full-time job--isn't that what counts?). Brett makes a bigger appearance, though certainly it focuses on the four guys, and Joel, and then some detours to the guy who invented Visicalc, and to the strange Paul Graham, and his bizarro world kids who were also creating a site, reddit.com.

I was struck, watching the DVD, about the kinds of unusual topics that the Fog Creek team would discuss, whiich apparently wasn't just Lerone catching these guys on a particular moment of lucidity, but really, this is how the guys talk. Brett and Babak in particular, are quite personable, readily asking questions, figuring who you are. In an odd cynical moment, Brett complains that he doesn't even like people! He notes one time how he asks someone about code, about some problem he could have figured out himself, when he realizes that he's a lonely man, at least, when he deigns to ask for such help.

The team seems to use their hair, facial or otherwise, to make a statement, though what statement I couldn't say. I have to be perfectly fair. I was sitting with them wearing my new San Diego Zoo cap, and the reality is, I almost never wear hats. I happened to wear it that day because I thought it might rain, and lacking an umbrella, I figured my piddly hat would serve as protection should nature's floodgates open. I also realized, of course, that such a hat would create some kind of distinction since most people opted for hatlessness.

Ah, the hair. Brett seems to have spiked his hair roughly up the center. Babak had a kind of goatee, punctuated by thick black glasses, that made him seem more artiste than coder. Very Greenwich Village, I'd imagine, if I even had half an idea of what that meant. Ben was the quiet one, the guy from Duke. This quietness might suggest a lack of opinions or perhaps deference to his elders, which, to be frank, are probably no more than ten years older than him. It's just a matter of prodding him to be a little more outgoing.

I ended up talking to Ben about how ironic it seemed that writing software that's easy to use, a big selling point for Fog Creek Software, would take such brilliant people to do it, but I've recognized that too, for myself. Writing programs for people is all about figuring out the tough things and presenting it easily to the user. It's depressing that no one does this for the programmer, i.e., makes their lives easier so they can make it easier for others.

Three other people were at today's table. One guy who worked for CafePress. He seemed like he'd belong on some dance floor raving away. Another guy had been working in academic settings, from universities to book publishers, before he went into business for himself, in an area I wasn't quite familiar with. The next guy was from England, by which I meant Scotland. Apparently, he does usability for companies that affect the entire company. For example, he might figure out how tellers can make themselves more usable. What actions do they do? His background was in psychology, and he was at ETECH trying to figure out how to work collaboratively. I was surprised at the number of international visitors coming to ETECH.

Today's lunch was sans Joel, who was, I gather, sitting with someone else. I had sat with him yesterday, but they were sitting with reps from a company called TechSmith, located in Michigan. They have three products they make: SnagIt, which allows you to do screen captures, Camtasia, which allows you to record actions in a window, and then annotate them, great for doing online tutorials, and Morae, which is meant to do usability tests. Betsy Weber had flown out to visit Fog Creek and conduct usability tests. This turns out to be rather unusual.

I talked to one of the guys at TechSmith, a bit of a queen, but rather interetsing to talk to. He and his colleague had went to visit some ship, which his boss(?) had said was not a battleship (it was the Midway) since battleships were named after states. To him, a ship engaged in military activities was a battleship. Apparently, he managed to get out there and enjoy it all.

For all of my stalking, I didn't actually get to talk to Joel that much. I talked to him shortly after his co-presentation with Betsy about the business program that he runs at Fog Creek. That was interesting to listen to, and I'm curious how that will work out. Its success may very well hinge on the fact that MBA programs rarely get people just out of college. They want previous work experience. He figures he can provide this, and if he's really lucky, they'll decide the real MBA wasn't so critical after all. He's just started this program, but they are expecting more people this summer.

Joel must be used to the fandom he receives. One guy from Asia (or at least, I thought he was from Asia--for all I know, he grep up in Orange County, New Jersey, and just wanted a photo-op with Joel, who was glad to oblige) wanted his picture with Joel, and that turned out to be my only photo op as well, as I took a picture of this guy and Joel as well.

To end, I wonder, in fact, if this kind of blog surfaces up, and people start discussing it over at Fog Creek, or whether it's buried under the morass of the blogosphere.

Oh yeah, I lost my cell phone.

That sucks.

I mean, really.