Ben Barden

Product management and process tips

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On encouraging others

From my very first full-time job, I’ve always noticed ways that software, processes, and documentation could be improved.

Obtuse software design and jargon-filled descriptions are things I find frustrating.

However, early in my career I often shared my thoughts in a negative light. Because I was highly critical, I was labelled a moaner, and sometimes ignored.

My comments could have been phrased more positively, but the ideas were there.

Over the years, I’ve learned that phrasing is important – but also that you’ve got to pick your battles. Some changes will be more valuable than others.

Social media sites such as LinkedIn are full of people with lots of great ideas. Lots of suggestions for how to improve. But many posts focus on YOU, more than anyone else.

There will always be fresh faces joining the workforce. People who haven’t yet figured out which ideas are worth fighting for. People who don’t know how to phrase things in a way that will convince other people that they have merit.

We can help to get those ideas heard, by listening and asking why they matter to the person. We can back those people, help them to pitch their ideas, and – most importantly – ensure they are credited for them if they are taken forward.

A simple acknowledgement, or a “great idea!”, or a thumbs up emoji is a good start.

The more we encourage people to share their ideas, the more they’ll do it.

I could’ve done with more encouragement when I was younger. Luckily I did find enough people who looked out for me, but I had to push past a great deal of resistance.

Don’t be someone who holds others back.

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Blogging mistakes – and how to avoid them

At a recent department tech talk, I was asked to say a few words about blogging – as I was once known for blogging about blogging.

Over the last few years, my blogging frequency has decreased a lot. With a list of failed blogs behind me, it feels somewhat disingenuous to talk about blogging.

However, you can still learn from your mistakes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. To that end, here are a few of the biggest mistakes I’ve made, with tips for how to avoid doing the same things yourself.

Starting a blog for the sake of it

It’s exciting to start a new blog. It’s much harder to keep it going.

It can be far too easy to come up with an idea and jump right in without thinking it through. First off, why are you starting a blog? What will it be about? Who’s it for?

It’s OK if you want to start a hobby blog just for fun. It doesn’t have to be part of a business. It doesn’t have to make money. But be clear on your reasons before diving right in.

An example of where I went wrong is I was writing about blogging, but never really had a point to it. There wasn’t a particular area of blogging I focused on. I didn’t target a particular type of blogger. The focus was very broad – and interest in the blog was fairly low.

Not having a plan

It’s easy to lose interest in a blog if you start without figuring out what direction you want to take it in.

Having some specific goals helps. For instance, if you write 1 post per week, you’ll have 52 posts if you keep that up for a year. But is that your objective? Does it matter to you?

Perhaps your goal is to learn something new, and to use your blog to write about how it’s going. Or you’d like to share your insights on a topic you already know – learning more along the way – and when you have enough posts, you could compile these into an eBook.

You don’t have to tell anyone else about your goals – they’re just for you. But it will help if you have a plan so you know where you’re going – and to see if you’re on track, or going off course.

Procrastination

Should I start a blog? What should I call it? Will anybody read it? Why even bother starting if it might not go anywhere?

It’s definitely possible to overthink things, and end up not having a go.

You can always start a blog and get some posts up without telling the world about it right away. I think it’s far better to get 5-6 posts up first, than to share your brand new blog name, design, and first “welcome!” post – only to lose interest and never post again.

Trying to go it alone

Solo blogging can be lonely. Finding other people with blogs who you can follow (and vice versa) can make blogging a much more social activity.

Having a clear focus can help. For instance, a blog about a specific topic can make it easier to find others in your field, than if you have a multi-topic blog where you write about anything and everything. I’m still guilty of this …

You can also write guest posts for other people’s blogs – or even start a group blog, where several people contribute.

Not making it a habit

You don’t have to publish a post every day. Readers might not want to read a post from you that often anyway!

But you can still do something every day, and find a sustainable rhythm for getting a new post up. You could write every day even if you don’t publish a post. Learn something every day. Take a photo every day. Post on social media every day. Or whatever takes your fancy.

I’ve tried most possible rhythms for publishing new content. Daily – 5 times a week – 3 times a week – once a week – or less. You definitely need a plan – and a lot of post ideas – to maintain a regular posting frequency. But the consistency of regular posting can be very good for turning blogging into a habit.

In summary

  1. think about why you want to blog
  2. have a plan
  3. don’t overthink it – give it a try
  4. connect with other bloggers
  5. make blogging a habit

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Thoughts on tech support

In tech, providing some kind of support is essential. However, I’ve found that a lot of people don’t want to do it.

Maybe I’m weird – but I quite like tech support.

Support is a great way to learn, and can be quite varied and interesting. Sometimes it’s given to new or junior team members – but I’d argue it’s important for everyone to do it now and again. Tech rarely stands still, both within a business and in the wider industry. Support gives you a snapshot of the types of things that people are dealing with day to day.

I find support to be quite social. I get to interact with far more people when doing support than if I’m buried in a project. Don’t get me wrong, I like the projects too – but I like having the opportunity to do a bit of support too.

We use Slack for our support, and I’d say it helps with keeping things friendly. Thinking about it, almost every company I contact for support does it all via email. Credit to the fine folks at Kolide for opening up a shared Slack channel with us and giving us a great way to communicate with them, so we can reach them on Slack and not worry about email.

I also find it immensely satisfying and rewarding to be able to answer questions and solve issues for people. The “big ticket” items such as rolling out Okta are huge, but sorting out smaller things is also important.

One downside is if you’re trying to focus on something and you keep getting interrupted with support requests. Teams can solve this though. I’m in a team of four and we each do one week of support every 4 weeks. It works well and keeps things fair.

Sometimes the same things come up repeatedly, and you find yourself answering the same things over and over. This is a good opportunity to write a few guides. It’s much easier to share a link than keep writing the same answer. And when the same things keep coming up, this can help you identify issues with tooling, or process improvements you could make.

I think there’s a lot of good reasons to do support now and again.

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Two years at Octopus Energy

Today is my 2nd anniversary of working for Octopus Energy. It’s been a blast and I look forward to more.

I was trying to think of something that could sum up the last couple of years. I have worked with so many amazing people – it would take a while to list them all! But there’s a much shorter answer that I think many of us can relate to every single day.

Slack.

So much of what we do day to day is connected to Slack in some way. Our Slack has everything from big announcements to the smaller, more nuanced tips and tricks. We might be reacting to something that needs attention, or proactively sharing info and guides to help everyone learn a little more.

We encourage everyone to have a profile picture, and we have hundreds of custom emojis that are often surprising when you find a new one, or a group of them – cat and blob emojis being personal favourites. These add so much vibrancy and personality to our messages.

Perhaps I’m preaching to the converted, but it’s incredible to compare the speed and versatility of Slack with the days of communicating via email.

Of course, we are far from the only people using Slack – but I think it’s an important part of our DNA.

Anyway, roll on 3 years!