why did I read it? I enjoyed his other books, Outliers and Blink, as well as his TED talk.

my rating: both eye opening and fascinating.

it’s for you if… you enjoy seeing how small things/events can add up to large chain reactions in society.

it’s NOT for you if… you easily get lost jumping between examples.

would I read it again? Yes, in a year or two, maybe.

Tipping Point is downright fascinating.  Malcolm Gladwell, once again, does a wonderful job of translating a large number of scientific studies into something that can be understood by non-scientific readers.  The book centers around "epidemics", which is a word the author uses often to describe "word-of-mouth epidemics".  These epidemics are chain reactions that can spark and consume a society or specific culture.  The "tipping point" is the spark (or sparks), which set off these epidemics.  One of the more fascinating threads in this book is that it deals with people, not chemicals or physics.  Why does one brand of shoes spark an epidemic across the country, while most shoes do not?  At what point does a bad neighborhood turn around and what started the recovery?   What types of catalysts are need to open the flood gates on the epidemic? 

By the time you finish with this book, you’ll have about 15 large scale case studies of epidemics and the types of personalities it took to make the epidemics "tip".  Examples include shoe trends, cleaning up crime, children’s television shows, teen suicides, cars, cigarettes, and even Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride.  Along with the case studies, Gladwell will identify and introduce the types of personalities that work as the catalysts which cause the situations to tip one way or the other.  One such personality type is a "salesman", who wants to tell you all about some new idea or brand that they’ve discovered.  Another personality is a "maven", who prides themselves in being an early adopter of quality information and products.  A maven is someone you would trust when they told you a specific product was the best in it’s industry because you know that they do their homework when it comes to that industry. 

Gladwell’s examples are fascinating and his focus on identifying what element caused the word-of-mouth epidemic to tip are equally fascinating.  The only issue one might find with this book is that Gladwell has a lot of examples that he likes to jump around to and from.  Sometimes you can get a little lost as he references example from earlier in the book.  However I found this to be a minor occurrence.  All in all, I enjoyed and recommend this book.

For a brief introduction to how Malcolm Gladwell thinks and talks, I recommend his TED talk.  It’s fun, entertaining, and very interesting. ]]> http://www.dannyburbol.com/2012/05/book-review-the-tipping-point-by-malcolm-gladwell/feed/ 0 http://www.dannyburbol.com/2012/05/book-review-wild-by-cheryl-strayed/ http://www.dannyburbol.com/2012/05/book-review-wild-by-cheryl-strayed/#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 17:05:40 +0000 Danny http://www.dannyburbol.com/?p=1032

why did I read it? because I was excited about reading Swept and thought another travel book would be a great idea.

my rating: a train wreck

it’s for you if… you like to hear someone repeatedly complain about their life and the situations they choose to put themselves in.

it’s NOT for you if… you have no patience for wining of self destructive stupid people.

would I read it again? hell no.

If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.  Right?  Well, since the very nature of this book is an non-stop account of a woman who knows right from wrong yet continues to do wrong, I’ll continue with this review just to get the point across.

This book is autobiographical in nature about a women who decided to hike the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT) that runs from Mexico to Canada by way of California, Oregon, and Washington.  "From lost to found on the pacific coast trail," is the subtitle.  What an incredibly misleading cover.  In truth this is a book about a women who has a history and a habit of making rushed, ill conceived, and downright stupid decisions over the course of her short time on the planet.  At age 24, her mother dies and she falls into a self destructive mode where she throws away her college degree by quiting with only a few credits remaining, then her marriage by screwing around and experimenting with heroine.  By age 28, for some imagined reason, the author decided to take a few months time to herself to hike on the PCT alone.  She sounded convince that it would somehow solve her problems.  However, like the rest of her life up until this point, she’s given it a minimal amount of real forethought and planning an pretty much set herself up to fail.  She shows up with a pack that’s twice her weight, boots that are too small and no hiking experience.

Then it gets worse.  The majority of the book is not about hiking the PCT… actually, the PCT takes a backseat to the author’s constant moaning about how tragic her life is and how much her terrible decisions have made it worse… then she continues to make one bad decision after another.  The book is a train wreck.   The more you read, the more you flip back to the cover and read the subtitle again and think to yourself, "well… I guess she’s going to learn something eventually… there must be some revelation or turning point coming up…. I guess I’ll read a little more…"  … but it’s a lie.  The only difference between the author’s character at the beginning of the trail verse the end of the trail is her location.

On top of that, she make an attempt to tell the tale as if she were a scholar.  She spends all her time using an extended vocabulary only to break it with her own foul mouth as she throws out "F*** this," and "F*** that," and "F*** S*** B**** M****F*****".  This book had no redeeming quality;  not the story, not the main character, not the writing style.  It only served as one woman’s attempt to somehow justify all the terrible things she’s done to herself and others.

why did I read it? because my fiance found it and got a copy, then read me the first few pages out loud.

my rating: a pleasure to read

it’s for you if… you are interested in travel, a little romance, and/or a real-life adventure.

it’s NOT for you if… you can’t just "go with it" when if comes to a female narrator.

would I read it again? yes, in a year or two.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I read this book because Torre is a fantastic, non-traditional styled writer.  This book is beautifully written from the point of view of the author, and she has an amazing way of telling everything in an up-beat, funny, and simply-worded way.  I want to read her life story for no other reason than I would love to hear it told in her voice.

This non-fiction book is about how Torre fell for a man who’s planning on sailing across the Pacific less than a year from their first meeting.  Not only had she just met this guy, but she’s afraid of deep water and all things that lurk within it.  Still, she says "yes" to the adventure.  It’s as much an adventure as a romance, but both the adventure and the romance have their ups and downs.  Amazingly, Torre’s writing style is so up-beat that even when she’s describing the hardships of the adventure, like hours of storm induced sea sickness or the loss/damage of key equipment, it’s told through glass that’s tinted just rosy enough for you to laugh while still gasping to yourself, "holy cow!  They’re really screwed!"

The only thing some guys may have trouble with is that Torre is uncensored with her thoughts… and I sometimes found myself taken aback by her romantic and (for lack of a better word) girly point of view.  I’m not doubting the strength of her character, she’s both a tough and smart lady, it was just surprising to me to hear her thoughts, reasoning, and  visions of the future.  I discussed a lot of this specific topic with my fiance and it’s quite clear that from a woman’s point of view, sometimes you do hope to be treated like a princess and wish to be swept off your feet.  But from my point of view, Torre is independent and capable of being the hero of her own life without needing to be rescued and pampered.  "Still," my fiance tells me, "from a girl’s point of view, it would be nice to be treated like a princess from time to time."

Both sadly and wonderfully, you can’t get this book anymore.  Torre got a publisher!  This self-published edition has been discontinued while they prepare the re-release of the new book!  (Congratulations Torre!!!)

why did I read it? because I watched his 12 minute TED talk on happiness leading to success and it was awesome!

my rating: I read it twice and I recommend it.

it’s for you if… you’ve ever questioned if success leads to happiness or if it’s the other way around.

it’s NOT for you if… you can’t get passed some of his silly names for his concepts.

would I read it again? I read it two times in a row and I will probably make it a yearly read via audiobook during my daily commute.

Shawn Achor is fun and funny.  He’s practicing what he’s preaching.  The TED talk is a great example of how he presents all the findings and concepts in his book.  He gives a little insight from his own life experiences, he gives you the summary of various studies and research, and then he works it into a finding or technique you can apply to your own life.  Furthermore, I noticed a lot of overlap with the content in this book and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; however this book has more studies and research and is told in a more fun-to-read manner.

The only thing I found a little odd about this book was his names for his concepts.  For Example: "The Tetris Effect" and "The Zoro Circle" are two key concepts.  But I believe they are poorly named and easily forgotten.  If you do remember them, you have to really think, "what the heck did that mean again?"  It was this question that had me comparing this book to The 7 Habits.  "The Zoro Circle" maps to The 7 Habits’ "Focus on the inner circle."  Which means, stop worrying about everything you can’t control and focus on the small number of things you can control/influence.  The more you to that, the more you will succeed at the things you can control and, over time, your circle of influence will grow and grow.

I think this is a great book full of positive energy that will lead you to success at work and at home.  I also think this book is a great "gateway drug" into The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (which is not as fun to read, but is another step down the path of concepts that lead to success).

why did I read it? Because that jerk left book 2 on a cliffhanger!

my rating: oh, would you just *end* already!

it’s for you if… you enjoy reading hundreds of boring pages for a few dozen really exciting ones.

it’s NOT for you if… you have no patience for details that don’t actually matter in the end.

would I read it again? no.  I’m glad to be done.

I’m not going to waste your time.  Everything I said about book 2 holds true for book 3.  If you love book 2, you will love book 3.  If you didn’t like book 2, you will not like book 3.

why did I read it? because I like the first move, so I bought the 2nd and 3rd books.

my rating: slow… until the last chapters when everything happens at once.

it’s for you if… you enjoy mystery and detective work.

it’s NOT for you if… you are not okay with being loaded down with many character names and details that may or may not matter in the end.

would I read it again? nope.  I’m glad to be finished.  however I will likely watch the movie when it comes out.

Book 1 is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This is book 2 of the trilogy.  I did not read book 1, I watched the movie and then excitedly bought the trilogy for my kindle and jumped right into book 2.

I think the story is pretty intriguing and the main characters are also fascinatingly unique.  However, it’s the storytelling that distracts me and drags me down.  The author is presenting a mystery, and in doing so he gives you lots of details on just about everything so you have plenty of information for the important details to hide in.  For example, the descriptions and introductions of characters and locations are pretty in depth.  But by the time you’re reading the fifteenth character’s in-depth intro, you start to wonder if any of this info even matters.  You wonder if the ninth character, who’s name you’ve already forgotten, will even appear in the book a second time.  Then the author does the same over-inform trick with buildings or rooms in buildings, or items on shelves.  By the time you finish, you realise just how much content wasn’t even worth reading.  To top it off, a lot of descriptions of locations are these long, boring, lists of items.

In short, I liked the story and when the conflict hit it climax I was on the edge of my seat!  …but the author could have used a ruthless editor to chop out 20% of the book’s tedious fluff.  And for that reason, I expect the move to be better.

why did I read it? I think I heard about it on NPR after some of the smoke from the economic / mortgage crisis had started to clear.

my rating: eye opening.

it’s for you if… you question how money corrupts our government officials.

it’s NOT for you if… think our government officials should, indeed, be campaigning for money and re-election 90% of the time.

would I read it again? yes, probably in the next year or so.

I think money and the government is a fascinating topic.  I’m personally turned off by government candidates spending large sums of money on election campaigns.  I’m more turned off by government officials not being at work because they’re too busy trying to raise money for their next election(s).  But all that starts to add up to the question, "how is campaign money influencing our elected officials?"

This book explores many of these questions and gives some background on many of these topics.  Once the background on these issues has been explained, the author attempts to offer some possible ideas for solutions to these problems.  It’s pretty eye opening.  On the one hand, you find yourself getting upset with the way things are currently working in DC… but on the other hand it’s fascinating to hear someone suggesting real change to the way we do thing in the USA.

why did I read it? I enjoyed the last two Moore books that I read, so I went for another one.

my rating: raunchy, but funny

it’s for you if… you are interested in an alternate telling of King Lear, you like to laugh, and you don’t mind sexual innuendo or down-right sex.

it’s NOT for you if… you are easily offended. (I’m not easily offended and I almost stopped reading once or twice.)

would I read it again? probably not.

First thing, this book is purposely raunchy.  It’s told from the point of view of King Lear’s jester, Pocket.  More-so, it’s told from the point of view of the servants who are not classy, not educated, and apparently spend all their free time joking about having sex when they’re not *actually* having sex.  That will likely offend most.  I was taken back by it a few times myself.

That aside, the book was a lot of fun and it’s quite interesting to be "behind the scenes" of a Shakespeare story.  If you don’t already know the premise, King Lear is giving away his kingdom to his daughters and is ultimately trying to relax in his older years, but he makes some serious misjudgments about the constitution of his daughters’ character and throws himself into a downward spiral.  Pocket is by his side for most of this downfall, but expertly plays the royalty off each other like an epic game of chess.

why did I read it?  I loved his book The Stupidest Angel and was looking for another fun read.

my rating: fantastic and fun

it’s for you if… you are interested in more than just one religion and if you like to laugh.

it’s NOT for you if… you can’t imagine a fictional story of Christ’s childhood.

would I read it again? maybe some day.

If you have an open mind about religion, this book is both entertaining, funny, and thoughtful.  It’s fiction and doesn’t claim to be anything more than that.  However the premise, "The gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal" is a great description of what the book delivers on.  In the bible, Jesus goes from being a baby to being a full grown man in the blink of an eye.  This book tells a tale of the missing years from Jesus’ best friend’s point of view.  Biff is ordinary, but his best friend is extraordinary.  The duo play off each other’s personalities fantastically and the author cleverly assembles a story that guides Christ through many many lessons that ultimately make him the man that appears in the bible.

On the way to work one morning, I decided to track my day at Zynga.  I didn’t tell anyone ahead of time I just did it.  I’m not exactly sure why… I just love my job and wanted to find a way to explain it.  So I pulled out my phone and started snapping pictures.  This is what came of it.

I started the day by deciding to skip the shuttle.  There are a couple Zynga Shuttles that will bring you from the Cal-Train to Zynga or between Zynga buildings. I’ve made a habit of skipping the shuttle whenever possible because I’ve been trying to focus on my health lately.  A three block walk is good for my health, so I do it every day.  Zynga has also made my goal to get in shape much more attainable since we have a free Zynga Gym which I’ve been trying to hit twice a week.

When I arrived at Zynga’s front door, I scanned my badge and walked through the "Disco Tunnel" (as a few of us like to call it).  The disco tunnel is open source.  There are pages on the Zyntranet (aka intranet) that describe how crafty engineers can make their own patterns for the tunnel to play.  I walk through this tunnel every day.  It’s the bridge between the bland world outside and the energetic world inside Zynga’s HQ.

My first Friday destination is coffee.  It’s a short walk from the disco tunnel to the Blue Bottle Coffee bar, but it leads me past the permanent "ZPride" banner that tops the steps which lead down to “The Well" (where the Gym and the Wellness Center is). 

ZPride is a great example of the spirit of Zynga.  Zynga embraces minority groups and ZPride is just one example of that.  Actually, there’s also a large flat-screen monitor nearby that’s lit up with details for a Prop 8 mixer that happened here at Zynga HQ last night.  For those of you not from California, "Prop 8" was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 California state elections that "Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry" (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8 ).  The mixer and panel of speakers last night is an example of the ZPride group in action and making a difference.  I’m proud of them and feel both glad and lucky to be in proximity of this group and their efforts.

At the Blue Bottle Coffee bar I order a cappuccino.  This coffee and all of the other beverages, snacks, candy, and food within Zynga’s walls are free, but whenever I enjoy any of these things, I say a “thank you” to Zynga in my head.  I know people who work at large, globally recognized, companies (which I will not name!) that treat their employees like easily replaced commodities.  Places where managers will organize “potlucks” for people’s birthdays because the company won’t approve the budget to buy a cake once a month with “September Birthdays” printed on it.  Meanwhile, Zynga shows more appreciation for us in one day than any other company I’ve worked at ever did in an entire year.  Actually, Zynga gives so much on a daily basis that I’ve consciously tried *not* to talk about it too much on my Facebook posts because I don’t want to make my non-Zynga friends feel bad about their jobs.

While waiting for my coffee, I ran into Liz and Niblyn!  I used to work with Liz on a different Zynga game team about two years ago.  She works in Community and was/is often "The Voice of the Player" in meetings and in group emails.  She’s wonderful to work with and her dog, Niblyn, is too cute not to pet.  I end up crouched down, petting Niblyn, the whole time I’m having a conversation with Liz.  I miss working with her.  Liz is often on the same wavelength as our players and having a direct link to our users is one of the most amazing parts about working at Zynga.  I used to work on console games, and in those types of game companies you spend two years making a game without really knowing what people will think of it until it hits the shelves and people start writing reviews.  Unfortunately, by that time, it’s much too late to address any concerns players are having, so your game’s review takes a hit and there’s nothing that can really be done about it.  At Zynga we are always connected to our users and have teams full of people like Liz to represent the voices of our players.  It is incredibly beneficial to the quality of our products.  Although I miss working with Liz directly, every member of the Community team that I currently work with is equally as wonderful to interact with.  I can’t imagine working at a company that doesn’t have this kind of constant connection with our users.

It’s Friday.  On Fridays the Zynga Culinary team serves a hot breakfast buffet (on other days it’s a more "continental breakfast" style buffet).  I grab my coffee and say, “thank you,” to the gentleman behind the counter.  Next I head over toward the buffet where I bump into Brannon. 

Brannon’s a designer on FarmVille who I’ve worked with for over a year now.  He brings life into our game’s features.  We might start with an idea that involves bring the user to a new destination, but Brannon and the game designers wrap everything about that new destination in a story that help users see all the potential in this strange new place.  Then he helps players understand and interact with all the wonderful new thing to do and see until they feel at home in this new destination.  

In the buffet line, he’s already talking about some fun ideas for the game when I realize he’s wearing a Zynga FarmVille Lighthouse Cove shirt, so I ask him for a picture.  Lighthouse Cove is one of the FarmVille destinations I was just mentioning.  I was lucky enough to work with Brannon on that feature. 

Between Zynga as a whole and all the various teams at Zynga, we are often getting Zynga SWAG.  Brannon’s shirt is a reminder of this.  I have a wardrobe full of Zynga shirts like Zynga Poker, CityVille, Words with Friends, ZPride, FarmVille, CastleVille, Hidden Chronicles, and many more games, events, and internal groups.  I think I could wear a different Zynga shirt for a month straight without repeating.  This is a far cry from all my previous jobs where you were lucking to get anything with the company logo on it.  It’s also a great source of pride.  On any given day, I might see someone I don’t yet know wearing a shirt for something I was involved with.  Or I might have a stranger recognize my Words with Friends shirt and say, “I love that game! I play it all the time with my friends!”

With breakfast in hand, I started the climb to the FarmVille studio, which is on the sixth floor.  Again, I’ve decided to always walk and not take the elevator because I’m trying to focus on my health.  I opt to take the stairs from bottom to top about three times daily.  On the way, I pass by the "Loved @ Zynga" sign and testimonials.  "Loved @ Zynga" was a campaign that went on for a week around Valentine’s Day.  We often have “Player Appreciation Week” in our games, but this time Zynga had a “Player and Zynga Employee Appreciation Week.”  They had a surprise Ice Cream Social, and a surprise concert.  They also gave us all postcards that said, "Roses are red, Violets are blue, We really appreciate, Everything you do!"  Of course we each got a "Loved @ Zynga" t-shirt.  I chose a size small and gave to my fiancé.  She loved it so much that she paid to have her tailor turn it into a “baby-doll” style shirt for herself.  It’s pretty cute on her and since she’s been able to be my “plus one” on a few FarmVille team trips and events, she *is* loved at Zynga because my coworkers often ask how she’s doing and we all do things together a couple times per month.

So I walked the six flights up steps up to the level that houses both the CityVille and the FarmVille studios.  I took the steps carefully because the Culinary Team has made a conscious effort to offer us real plates and silverware.  Over a year ago, it used to be all disposable/compostable plates and silverware, but now they supply and encourage us to use real dishes and silverware to save on waste.  It creates more work for them to clean and stack the cutlery, but it’s better for the environment.  Zynga Culinary makes great meals three times a day for over a thousand people, so this small change away from disposable dishes adds up to big results.

On the way to my desk, I walked by the floor-to-ceiling sized FarmVille sign directly outside the studio and the FarmVille display case directly inside the door to the studio.  The sign is a great place for photo ops of the team and the display case houses awards FarmVille has won from both inside and outside of Zynga as well as a few T-Shirts that have been given to the team at various points in time to mark major milestones and achievements. 

My desk is next to the Disco Ball Tree, it’s kind of a mascot for the sub-team I’m on, which is team "Disco".  The studio got a makeover one weekend and magically there were various items from within the FarmVille game all over the studio.  Among them were many of the trees that are actually in the game.  Our sub-team liked the Disco Tree so much we put it right on the table, got speakers for it (yes, there are speakers up *in* the tree) and renamed our sub-team “Disco”. 

Although it seemed effortless to us, the appearance of all these FarmVille items around the studio wasn’t really “magic”.  It was the work of FarmVille’s awesome Admin, Jordan.  She makes the magic happen whenever the team needs to celebrate a milestone, have a large offsite meeting, do a complicated rearrangement of the seating chart, or just plain make some magic happen on short notice.  Jordan is amazing and it’s a pleasure to be on the same team as her.

I ate breakfast at my desk while trying to catch-up on email.  At Zynga we definitely strive to over-communicate.  There are emails coming from many different directions for many different reasons.  On FarmVille we have everything from automated emails involving the current health of the game to process-driven emails about the status of the next feature about to be released.  It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but once you master your email filters you start to realize how open the communication here really is.  For example, if I want to know the menu for this week, it’s in my email.  If I want to know how players feel about the game, I can look for the Community or Customer Service report which includes distilled and ranked player feedback on the latest features that went live in the last week.  But it gets bigger than that.  There are emails from major Zynga departments giving you an overview on how their last week or month has gone and how they can help serve you.  So when it comes to information about work, it’s all at your fingertips.

On the other hand, there are the fun emails.  Like Zynga clubs, and upcoming events.  For example, I just got an email from the "Women At Zynga" group with a spotlight on Women’s History Month.  Much like ZPride, it’s cool to see people who are happy being themselves and always offering to include others in their group’s fun.  It’s also really great being in a workplace that promotes and supports so many different types of people sharing who they are and the things that they love.  It’s a real melting pot of different interest, backgrounds, movements, cultures, and fun.

On a Zynga events note, there’s an email reminder to RSVP for Zynga’s monthly, company-wide, Poker tournament that’s happens at the beginning of each month.  I also see an email for an internal studio-wide FarmVille Playtest of an upcoming feature.  This is something we do often.  Before a new key feature is release, we go a step beyond the normal process of peer review and QA.  We actually get the feature in a playable, almost finished, state and then encourage everyone to go play the new feature and give feedback.  There’s usually a day or so planned for implementing the great feedback that rolls in from everyone around the studio.

After getting through my email inbox, I carried my dishes to the Kitchen on this floor.  Just about every floor has a kitchen and they are all themed differently.  The kitchen on the 6th floor is themed after a Candy Shop.  FarmVille shares this kitchen with CityVille.  On the way in, I walked passed a few posters.  There’s a "Work With Friends" poster that notes Zynga’s referral program; multiple posters for clubs sponsored by the Zynga Gym, like the Zynga Running Club, the Jujitsu Club and the Volleyball Club; there is also a poster for the Aids Life Cycle which an employee posted to encourage anyone who wants to sponsor them for the ride.

Back at my desk, I wrapped up some code that will serve as a proof of concept for the next feature I’ll be making.  Once it was working, I grabbed Estevan for a code review and his opinion of the approach I’m taking since he’s one of the two Dev Leads currently on the Disco pod (we call the sub-teams "pods").  On FarmVille all changes to the codebase are peer reviewed before they are actually integrated into the next release of the game.  This is a small event with huge benefits.  First of all, we catch small mistakes like typos long before they can actually cause bugs –which would involve spending QA time to find the bug, then Developer (Dev) time to fix the issue, and more QA time to verify the fix.  Second, it’s an automatic transfer of knowledge since at least two developers know about every change in the game.  It also allows for devs to learn a little about systems they haven’t used yet.  On top of all that, it allows best practices to quickly spread across the team.  You may get (or give) some feedback about how to do the same task in a better or higher quality way. 

Code reviews are not a new idea in the game industry, however, knowing about a technique compared to actually using the technique are worlds apart.  I worked at a few companies where each dev works in their own sandbox, doing their own tasks with no feedback or interaction with the rest of the team.  That approach often leads to major oversights that take days or months to recover from.  On FarmVille we strive for the opposite.  As I said, we over communicate and we’re open to feedback.  It’s common that a five minute code review will uncover techniques or pitfalls that save us many days of wasted effort compare to if the review had not taken place.

Estevan and I talked for about ten minutes about the code I had written and the code I intend on writing for this feature.  We both agree on the direction we’re heading.  We both also agree that we should bring this to the weekly architecture review meeting.  For small or common tasks, a five to ten minute peer review is enough, but for bigger changes, we have a weekly meeting called an Architecture Review.  This is a meeting where a few of the Dev Leads get together in a room and let an engineer give an overview about how they intend on changing the codebase to allow for a feature to be created.  These meetings have all the benefits of a code review but are often much higher quality since the feedback is from multiple people and the results of the meeting transfers knowledge to multiple people at once.  Again, in my industry this is not new, but you have to actually *do* it in order to see the benefits and on FarmVille, it’s already a habit.

This is the third time Estevan and I have discussed this feature and the results are better because of it.  Being on a team that encourages me to interact with the awesome engineers on the team around me is wonderful.  I feel pride and I feel privileged to be part of this team every day.  We are all constantly learning and constantly teaching.  I once describe my job to a friend as, “Every day I go to work and I’m asked to do something I’ve never done before –but every day I’m given the resources and support I need to do it.  So, every day, it gets done.  Then I leave knowing that tomorrow will be another new challenge –which is why I keep coming back day after day.”

A few minutes later, I’m off to our morning “Scrum” meeting. 

I paused for a moment to pet Emma on the way to the Disco Scrum meeting. 

Dogs are full of so much positive energy.

“Scrum” and agile project planning are more things that are not new in software development.  But again, I must stress that good ideas are only good if you follow through on them.  Knowing that exercising every day is good for you verses actually getting out there and exercising every day are two totally different things.  Only one of them will yield results.

At scrum our team will go around the room and give everyone a chance to report what they’ve done, what they are going to do and what’s blocking their progress.  Or simply, “Yesterday, Today, Blockers”. We also like to display and update a list of tasks we’re tracking as well as a calendar which shows who’s working on what and when the major milestones are.  This meeting takes 15 minutes each morning and always uncovers some small details that are easily fixed today but could have been a real time sink if we hadn’t voiced them in the meeting every day.  Again, we over communicate.

By the time the meeting was over, I was scheduled for an Architecture Review on my feature next Monday.  I need to prepare for the meeting so I added it to the list of things I need to do today.  I say “my” feature because once a feature is assigned to you; you “own” a specific aspect of the feature’s creation.  If the feature is not fun or the implementation is not good, it’s the owners’ responsibility.  Features (or “projects”) have multiple owners who all make sure their respective parts are the best they can be.  Regardless of how many people are involved, it’s my fault if I don’t get my part completed on time and with the quality I demand from myself.  Everyone knows this.  It’s what owning your work and your outcomes means.

On the way out of the meeting, I stopped by Paul’s desk for a moment.  Paul’s desk is literally right outside the meeting room door and is covered with legos for all to enjoy.  Paul is full of energy.  He doesn’t just do his job; he’s excited about finding better ways to do his job.  Last night was the “FarmVille Dev Offsite,” which I unfortunately had to miss because I had already planned to go climbing with my fiancé and the Zynga Climbing Club at Planet Granite.  Paul’s also in the climbing club but his planning skills trumped mine and he made it to the dev offsite last night.  The devs went out for bowling, drinks, and dinner (thanks to a little of Jordan’s magic, of course).  Paul and I planned on grabbing lunch together to chat about both the offsite and our night at the climbing gym.

Back at my desk, I did a Google search on “R-Trees” as a follow-up to the informal tech talk Brad gave yesterday on Spatial Sorting.  The devs often update each other on various techniques that have been added to the game or just good practices in general.  Brad is wise.  He has a wealth of game programming experience that he’s very humble about.  I’ve realized that when he talks, I should make the time to listen.  The Spatial Sorting topic is basically, “How do you sort all of the objects in the game’s world such that you can find out what’s overlapping (or about to overlap) in an extremely fast manner?”  It’s useful for detecting when objects touch or collide.  Most of the console game companies I’ve worked at in the past ten years have used QuadTrees and OctTrees, which is where Brad’s presentation started.  However it looks like there is now a better algorithm that is being used around the game industry called an R-Tree.  I wanted to read up on it because I haven’t use or implemented one before.  I read the Wikipedia page on R-Trees and got the idea of how it works.

A couple producers stopped by my desk and asked me to code-review some XML that Ali put together for an April Fool’s Day crop.  They suspected everything was fine, but they just wanted to make sure it was run by a dev before going live.  Ali is, yet another, incredible person I work with.  She and Kellie are responsible for getting all of the items in the game configured correctly in FarmVille’s content management system (CMS).  They are the intersection between the images that Artists deliver and the specifications Designers and Product Managers deliver.  It’s no small task and they are both awesome at it.  I looked over what Ali did after she explained it to me.  I trust her.  She owns her work, so I know her approach is correct.  I mostly just had to review her item’s configuration to make sure there weren’t any typos that would come back to haunt us.  Ultimately, Ali, the Artist, and the Designer did a great job reusing existing technology to do something fun and new for April Fool’s Day without any Devs having to implement any new code.  That always impresses me.

Later, while cleaning up my code for the architecture review next week, I was contacted by another developer about a high priority CMS issue involving an item in our Hawaiian Paradise expansion.  This item seems to have been released to our players and then somehow removed.  So now some players had a specific item that causes errors when they attempt to interact with it.  As I’ve already touch on, our CMS is where we configure and release all of the thousands of items in FarmVille.  Just recently, this tool was handed off to Brad and myself with the goal of me helping all the devs on my sub-team, Disco, ramp up on understanding, maintaining, and supporting the tool.  So I’ve been fielding CMS questions for about two weeks now while getting six other people setup to take on some of this ownership.  Our goal is to rotate out the CMS support responsibilities. 

An issue with the live version of the game is usually of the highest priority.  For the issue at hand, I helped get all the key people involved in a dialog using Skype chat.  In moments they took over.  Ali and Kellie, confirm the existence of the item and its current state as not released yet, but scheduled to release soon.  I added Sam, the Designer, to the chat to confirm the intended use of this item and its history.  I added George, the Alpha QA tester, to the chat to give background on how/if the item was checked in the past.  Sarah, another QA tester is added and asked to look at this specific item in the development environment right now and evaluate if it can be release to the public immediately.  Tim, the Dev Lead who initially contacted me, recaps a plan to release as soon as possible and notes that we need to get a Product Manager involved to make sure we’re executing with the priorities that are best for FarmVille as a whole before we attempt to put anything into the live game.

Then Tim announces the cause of the issue: something in the game is trying to give this item to players as one of many random rewards.  It’s not because the item was released to the live game and then somehow un-released, it’s that something in the game thought it was okay to give it to players when that was not yet true.  Now we’ve increased our options to two.  We can release the item right away, or remove it from the random rewards table in question.  Since users already have bad items in their accounts, it’s obvious that we want to release the missing item as soon as possible to correct the issue.

All of this happened from 11:31am to 11:47am.  7 people. 16 minutes.  The problem is discovered, communicated, investigated, and a plan is made that people executed on.  This is exactly the kind of ownership I was talking about earlier. Although I was originally contacted, as soon as I realized it wasn’t a bug in CMS, I did little more than identify and get the owners involve in the conversation.  Then I took a step back and let them do what they do best.  I know I can trust them to handle it quickly and correctly because they own their work.

Let me repeat that.  I know I can trust my coworkers to handle issues quickly and correctly because they each *own* their work.  I’ve heard it said that “a great job is outstanding co-workers.”  Are you seeing the pattern here yet?  I tell people Zynga gives us free food and T-shirts and they think that is why I love my job.  People think if their company would give them free food and T-shirts then they would love their job too.  But it’s more than that.  Our habits promote communication and cross-training.  Our priorities are clear which leads to coordinated and precise efforts. Liz, Brannon, Jordan, Paul, Brad, Ali, Kellie, Tim, Sam, George, Sarah –everyone has ownership and pride in the work they deliver.  My coworkers are outstanding.  My team is outstanding.  I’m blessed to be a part of this.

This is what I’ve been trying to explain when I tell people I love my job.  It’s these 16 minutes working with just 6 of the hundreds of outstanding coworkers I have at Zynga that describes why I love working here.  It’s the moment all the process, good habits, and ownership pays off and we work together like a single unit.  16 minutes.  This is all before lunch.  Imagine what we accomplish in a day at Zynga.