Lessons Learned Episode 5: EDI and the Best Boss Ever
(See the bottom of this blog post to follow the whole "Lessons Learned" series.)
When we last left off, I was driving down the highway saying to myself, "I love this job!" And I did. Then began a long period of being courted by a genius who would become a client for many years and influence my business through the Y2K rollover.
One day, on my way to the job I loved, I got a call from a former co-worker. He was now a customer service manager at a software company, and he wanted to introduce me to his boss. We organized a dinner meeting, which was quite unusual for me. I had a little daughter and I generally worked a long, but basically normal day (7AM until 5PM, plus commute).
The dinner was arranged and I met with my friend Rob and his boss, Michael. After a few formalities, Michael asked me a series of very specific technical questions. He wanted to know my understanding of data transfer and manipulation at a detailed level.
For example, he asked me how modems created the most stable handshake. I had recently left a job where a glass wall separated me from a rack of modems that were the heart of a multi-million dollar operation. And we had a separate fax-on-demand system with 100 numbers on a DID line. I knew excruciating detail about how this traffic moved.
Then he asked about data packets, how they're constructed, and why SPX requires IPX to be routable. Again, I came from a background where "technical" people knew that kind of thing by default. Then he wanted to know whether a very specific problem of data transmission was possible with extremely small, mission critical files in a TCP/IP environment. And so forth.
And the big question was, how could he get an always-on Internet connection that didn't break the bank. Believe it or not, this was a legitimate question in 1996. I happen to have a friend, George, who owned a local ISP. So I agreed to assist. Of course, George didn't believe this could be done without a Unix box, and Michael thought everything had to work on Novell.
George supplied the T-1 and I sold Michael his first Windows Server. And then the courting began.
Michael asked to meet with me regularly, on Wednesday evenings. He would supply dinner and pay me my exorbitant consulting fee. All I had to do was to show up and answer questions. There were no questions that came close to revealing confidential data. He just wanted to understand everything possible about the technical side of the Internet. This was a very lucrative job.
Michael was a sponge, and one of the few absolute geniuses I ever met. He understood the technical side of Novell better than his Novell engineer. He was mediocre programmer, but understood the technical side of C and Delphi programming at a detailed level. And he understood programming well enough to manage the programmers and their projects. He consumed knowledge quickly and integrated it into his existing knowledge almost instantly. It was a joy to feed him more and more data, faster and faster.
These meetings continued. And I did some occasional work for Michael for special projects. He had a fulltime network admin in-house. With about fifty employees, his company employed twenty programmers. Pretty much everyone and everything in the company existed to make the programmers happy and productive.
One of the coolest projects I was ever a part of was reconstructing the programmer offices so that everyone had a "cubicle" - with four-foot walls. In other words, everyone could see and hear everyone else. They were extremely interactive all day long. This virtually guaranteed a higher level of team work.
It was cool for me because these good sized "cubicles" were also wired with fiber optic network connections. To the desktop. In 1996. Why? Well, as Michael explained, "When a programmer hits compile and it takes thirty to sixty seconds, they stand up and start wandering around. When it takes three seconds, they take a sip of coffee." Of course, there were beefy servers to make it work.
Each station was also designed for comfort and productivity. Almost all of the electrical, phone, and network outlets were installed above the desk level. So you could get to them! And they each had a shelf with gaming toys.
Michael encouraged programmers to kick off by six o'clock, and often provided them with pizza or some other food. Then he let them play multi-player games on the fiber network late into the evening. If you're not an old nerd, you may not realize how freakin' cool that was. The team identified as a team. They worked as a team. They played as a team. They worked hard, but they did not over-work. And most of them DID realize how lucky they were to have such a boss.
Eventually, Michael lured me away from HP because 1) I had reached the targets set for me in the contract, and 2) he had a challenge too big to turn down. Plus, I felt like I needed to have one client, not two. In service to my family, I notched down my workload once again, but increased my income significantly.
Michael's business developed a point of sale and inventory control software. He had recently been working on the next level of this: EDI or Electronic Data Interchange. Specifically, X12 EDI, which works great with XML and phone line connections. My challenge: Make this work on the Internet. The big players, including IBM Sterling, had put hundreds of millions of dollars into their modem-based communications. So they were not quick to consider the Internet as an alternative.
Michael's inventory system was modem-based and proprietary. But he realized that if he moved to the X12 standard, he would have the knowledge to then add Internet-based EDI traffic and potentially be first (or early) to market. The biggest challenges were that the data packets were extremely small and had to be completely secure. So I was hired to create a packet design that was secure, as small as possible, and as reliable as modem connections.
Without going down a nerdy rabbit hole, all of this was completed in less than six months. In the meantime, we were working with brands like Nike and Wrangler to move them to EDI. The world of EDI grew in big spurts whenever a major player (manufacturer or distributor) forced partners to use it. For example, when K-Mart adopted EDI, every small supplier had to get in the game. When Nike adopted it, all resellers had to move to EDI. Back and forth it went.
That business took off, and I was honored to play a role in it. Michael spun off a company just for the EDI product. We even won a Microsoft Retail Application Development Award for it. I still have that.
Gradually, that job morphed into being a network administrator and responsible for more and more of the network - and their transition from all-Novell to all-Microsoft. Luckily, the Novell administrator saw the writing on the wall before I got there. He was eager to learn all the new technology and go get trained and certified in Windows Server and networking.
But with those changes, my job became less and less interesting. I loved the big challenges. I thrived on Michael's genius and absolute commitment to the best technology. As the fiber incident made clear, there was no budgetary limit if the outcome was worth the investment.
One important lesson I learned was that business owners like Michael exist. When I started taking on new clients, I worked hard to find these people and help them to be successful. That has served me well.
The Best Boss I Ever Had
Cynical people might say that Michael was just another business man taking advantage of employees. But I promise that was not the case. He did many things to keep his employees happy, healthy, and productive.
We had one person in charge of all the programmers. His job included travel to Europe (Eastern and Western) to recruit. Recall that Eastern Europe was still struggling to get to its feet after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we hired several programmers whose first language was not English. Michael helped them find places to live. He hired English teachers to come in and help them learn English.
On the holistic side, he paid a chiropractor to be in the office one day a week. Anyone (programmer or not) who wanted to see the chiro could just sign up on the sheet. Michael paid for it. And there were little things, like unlimited supplies of vitamin C tablets at convenient locations around the office during the winter months.
I remember two employees who had extended illnesses. One was out for more than six months. Another (the lead programmer) was out for more than a year. Both of them were paid their full salary in their absence and welcomed back on a gradual basis when they were ready. This is not required by any laws. This is the behavior of a boss who understands the value of his employees and works to make sure they know he has their back.
Michael was also the embodiment of Management by Walking Around. He would occasionally just walk up and down the halls, stopping at every single office and every cubicle. He talked to every employee no matter what their position. It could be just a common hello and note about the weather or sports. But if anyone had a complaint, concern, or new idea, they would mention it and he would get involved.
Everyone felt valued. Everyone felt heard. Everyone felt like they were part of the team. Everyone was recognized for their contributions. And everyone felt like they were doing something that mattered to the team.
Was Michael a perfect boss? No. But he was certainly the best boss I ever had. He truly embodied the belief that your employees are your greatest asset.
The Wind Down
As I mentioned, I loved that job. But when it got to the point that I was maintaining systems, applying patches, and upgrading backup systems, it was a lot less interesting. So, after much thought, I went to Michael. He was afraid to lose me and tried to talk me out of it.
So we made a deal. I would notch down my work (and pay) to four days per week. Then three. Then two. Then we'd discuss what the future looked like. And so, I transitioned from being a contractor who had one big client at a time to the model most of us practice, with several clients.
I was lucky to have met Michael. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. And I was lucky that he agreed to let me transition slowly. It gave me time to start attracting other clients and move to the SMB IT industry that I have loved for so many years.
And I was lucky that Y2K was just around the corner.
BTW ... Michael sold the "lite" version of his point of sale system to Intuit and it became the first QuickBooks point of sale system. He eventually sold the EDI company to St. Paul Software, one of the premier players in the small business side of EDI.
I have always tried to be a good boss. But after working with Michael for a few years, I gained a "gold standard" against which I could measure my performance.
Next time . . . How I Moved from "Corporate" to SMB IT.
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