Perspective

My mom fell down and broke her hip. I flew over to spend some time with her at the hospital. Suddenly everything looks different. It's amazing how one's perspective changes when confronted with serious health matters.

Call your parents or your loved ones and tell them that you love them. Even if you are really close and there are absolutely no problems in your relationships, still, call them and tell them one more time. Make their day! And yours too.

Life is good.

I am on vacation, writing from a lakeshore in Pennsylvania. This week is all about family, water, nature and kayaking. Will be back blogging about resumendation.com in a few days.

For now, if you are reading this, go and create an anonymous profile. You think you do not need one? I would LOVE to hear why you think that.

Yes! One dow, many more to go.

I am happy beyond being able to explain. Something amazing happened today. Yes. The first person created an anonymous profile on resumendation.com - it happened today at 3:45PM.

Thank you anonymous individual. I do not know who you are, but I love your profile. You clearly got the essence of what I am trying to do. You mentioned what you are doing and created a custom section to describe your hobbies. You can't do this in a regular resume, no way.

I never expected to be so excited about a single new account, but I am. I do not know if resumendation.com will be a success, but I now know that at least one person understands what the site is all about.

You put yourself out there, all out, with no fear and no concerns - your true self is available to anyone who might want you or your services. Now I wonder if you are feeling better after opening up like that?

Thank you anonymous individual.

Is software ever done?

When is software done? When is a website done? Is it even possible for a software product to be done? I believe it is. Too many products keep adding features until they turn into unbearable mass. I used to like Microsoft Word - it is too complicated now. I don't mind complicated, but I would give up many features for a more reliable product and less bugs. Skype used to be wonderful. It keeps constantly getting worse, for some years now.

Why can't more software developers focus on what their product is supposed to do, do it well, and let it be. Don't worry about more features. We don't want features, we want software to be a tool that works. My refrigerator does not keep adding features. I got it 7 or 8 years ago and I am happy with the service it provides.

I think we, as software developers, should learn from mobile apps. Mobile apps are small, inexpensive, fast loading, usually do one thing well, and that's it. Want additional features, get  another app that offers the additional features you want and use it along with the original app and the original features. Love it.

So, with all af this in mind, I decided to completely rewrite our homepage. I want to make it short and clear, with very little words. Once I am done, I will leave it be for a very long time, I hope. Take a look at what I came up with. I am actually fairly happy. The message is short and straight forward. Check it out... let me know what you think.

I wanted to convey the following:

1. You can show who you truly are, as long as you are anonymous. 
2. Most of us are more valuable than what we believe to be. There is no need to pretend and lie. The truth is actually very good.
3. Being accepted to work or into a college is so much sweeter when you are accepted for who you really are. No games, no BS. Try it once and you will never want to look back.

Drop me a note, let me know if I managed to convey the message on resumendation.com

Creating is easier than explaining

Now that resumendation.com is getting some (little) traffic, I decided to mention it to my ice hockey friends that I play ice hockey with a couple times each week.

This was not a premeditated decision and not a planned event, it simply happened. The subject of job searching came up in the locking room after the game and I went for it. I told my friends about resumendation.com and then I realized something important. Creating the web service was easier than explaining it to other people. I had a good opportunity to explain it, a friendly audience, but I was not able to capture their attention. My story was not cool, not clear, not organized, there was no flow to it and I lost the audience after a minute or so. I clearly do not have my story telling act together.

Coming up with ideas - yes, I can do that. Not all my ideas are good, but I definitely have plenty of them.

Turning ideas into products (software or hardware) - yes, I can and do that. Not always very well at first, sometimes it may take me a while until the result is good enough, but I can create. Making something out of nothing is what I enjoy doing.

Expressing my ideas in words - that is real hard. It is easier for me to crate an algorithm, or write thousands of lines of code than describe what I do in simple words. Coming up with a clear, short and simple to understand description of what I think or do is always difficult for me. Words are not my favorite communications method. I find words too limiting. But how do you communicate without words? I don't know :-(

Some people have the talent of using the right words at the right time at the right intonation, I am not one of those people. Something I clearly need to learn. I am going to write a description of resumendation.com, make sure it is clear and short, and then learn it by heart.

This will be my homework for the upcoming weekend.

Too many distractions

I still have a problem with resumendation.com homepage. It has too many distractions. Need to make it simpler and focussed on our main objectives - getting people to create anonymous profiles.

I think that the problem is the "Find" box on the bottom of the home page. The "Find" box is supposed to enable head hunters and potential employers to search for a person they need, right from the resumendation.com homepage. I wanted to make it real easy for them.

Now I am thinking, why distract the users with a search box until there are enough anonymous profiles to search for?

The solution: I eliminated the search box and made the page a bit less cluttered. Less distractions, good. Until we have enough profiles worth searching for, searching will be done from the menu on the top of the page. I will return the search/find box to the home page when we have more anonymous profiles.

I am happy for now. Home page looks focussed, much better than a couple of days ago.

A change is coming

Resumendation.com is live for a couple of days and I am already anxious. I know, I know... things take time... But still, I think the home page is not right. You see, resumendation.com is intended for three groups of people:

1. Professors, who will use resumendation.com to write recommendations for their students.
2. Students, who will use resumendation.com to ask their professors for recommendations.
3. Every person that dreams about a better life, wants to be discovered, yet must remain anonymous.

Professors, I hope, will use resumendation because it solves a real problem some of them are having. I designed the system to hopefully address their needs and make them want to use it. 

Students will use whatever their professors will tell them to use. That is life... I did design the system to be easy to use and beneficial for the students. Students will benefit from a well organized repository for all of their recommendations that can follow them through their entire career. Students also will benefit from their comprehensive yet anonymous personal profile that can be found on every search engine.

Every human being I can think of could use a better opportunity. This is not only about jobs. This is about  an opportunity to be who you really are.

So here is my problem with the home page: I do not believe it clearly describes all of the above. I do not know how to write a short enough description, and I cannot expect the public to read one that is as long as the above. 

My solution, for now: I added a reference to "Human being" in addition to "Student" and "Professor" on the bottom of the page and linked it to the anonymous profile manager.