Playing with Claude - Simple Animation from 1995 project

So I wanted to test Claude out to see how it would generate a rudimentary animation that took me back to my high school days. In 1995, I coded a project in Pascal, a Trigonometry Tutor app that would teach students trig, and provide a set of exam questions. The app included drawing triangles and graphs. I imagined the opening page to consist of two humanoid figures appearing at either ends of the screen, walking towards each other, meeting, then turning around to unveil a scroll banner with the text "Trig Tutor". There would be 8-bit music accompanying the animation. At the time, I settled on static images hopping across the screen, now real walking animation. I wanted to check what AI coder could do today. Here's what it produced! "Jincosoft" is cheesy, I know. Back then, Microsoft Bill Gates was my hero, so I thought one day I'll a company called Jincosoft! Click here for source code

The Hawthorne Effect, a short story

So I was going through my Trello board today, catching up on my growing list of todos, things to learn and be curious, explore (from years ago), and tackled this card "Check out Hawthorne effect". As usual, Googling takes you to wikipedia to read... I went to chatGPT and instead prompted it with the following...:

Explain the Hawthorne effect through a short-story, framing the narrative in a style, similar to Goldratt's book "The Goal". Limit the short-story to no longer than two A4 pages

The Workshop Challenge

Chapter 1: A Problem Arises

Alex Raines, the plant manager of Evergreen Manufacturing, walked into his office to find a stack of reports on his desk. The company had been struggling with productivity issues for months. Despite numerous initiatives and new policies, the output remained stagnant. Frustration mounted as Alex tried to pinpoint the problem.

Chapter 2: A Visit from HQ

One afternoon, an unexpected visit from Emma Collins, a senior executive from headquarters, threw Alex off his routine. Emma, known for her innovative problem-solving skills, had a knack for seeing through complexities.

“Alex, I’ve been reviewing the numbers,” Emma began, taking a seat in his office. “We need to figure out why the productivity is lagging. Let’s start by observing the workshop directly.”

Together, they walked to the workshop floor, where the hum of machinery mixed with the chatter of workers. Emma suggested they conduct a series of interviews and observe the workflow discreetly.

Chapter 3: The Observation Begins

Emma and Alex set up a temporary observation station in a corner of the workshop. Over the next week, they meticulously noted the workers’ behaviors, machine efficiency, and workflow patterns. To Alex’s surprise, there was a noticeable uptick in productivity during this period.

“I don’t get it,” Alex said, scratching his head. “The only change we made was being present here.”

Emma smiled knowingly. “That, my friend, is the Hawthorne effect.”

Chapter 4: Unveiling the Mystery

Emma explained, “In the 1920s and 30s, the Western Electric Company conducted a series of experiments at their Hawthorne Works plant. They discovered that workers’ productivity improved when they were being observed. It’s a psychological phenomenon where individuals alter their behavior due to the awareness of being watched.”

Alex pondered this revelation. “So, our presence here made the workers more conscious and thus more productive?”

“Exactly,” Emma confirmed. “But this effect is usually temporary. The key is to understand why the workers felt the need to change their behavior and how we can sustain productivity improvements without constant observation.”

Chapter 5: Digging Deeper

Determined to find a long-term solution, Alex and Emma conducted anonymous surveys and held informal discussions with the workers. They discovered several underlying issues: lack of clear communication, inadequate recognition of hard work, and an outdated incentive system.

Emma suggested a few strategic changes:

1. Improve Communication: Implement regular team meetings to discuss goals and progress.

2. Recognize Achievements: Introduce a recognition program to celebrate workers’ contributions.

3. Revamp Incentives: Align the incentive system with productivity and quality metrics.

Chapter 6: Implementing Change

With a clear action plan, Alex rolled out the changes. They started with weekly team huddles, where workers shared updates and suggestions. A “Star of the Week” program was introduced, celebrating top performers. The incentive structure was reworked to reward not just quantity but also the quality of output.

Chapter 7: Sustained Improvement

Over the next few months, the changes bore fruit. The workshop buzzed with newfound energy. Productivity rose steadily, and the workers felt more engaged and valued.

During a follow-up visit, Emma observed the transformed environment with satisfaction. “This is the real impact we were aiming for, Alex. By addressing the core issues and fostering a supportive environment, you’ve achieved sustainable improvement.”

Alex nodded, grateful for the insights. “It all started with the Hawthorne effect, but we’ve turned it into something lasting.”

Epilogue: Reflecting on the Journey

Alex reflected on the journey. The initial spike in productivity from mere observation had been a catalyst. By addressing the root causes and implementing meaningful changes, they had created a culture of continuous improvement. The Hawthorne effect was just the beginning—a lesson in understanding human behavior and leveraging it for lasting success.

In this narrative, the short-lived productivity boost due to observation, known as the Hawthorne effect, served as a springboard for deeper changes that ultimately led to long-term improvements in the workplace. The story mirrors the style of Goldratt’s “The Goal,” emphasizing problem-solving and continuous improvement.

'24 Personametry First Quadrimester (Jan-April) Work/Life Balance

So we're already in the month of May(!), I've missed my first quarter personal business review - hence I had to do a quadrimester review :-) A 4-month period is commonly referred to as a "quadrimester" link. The term "quadrimester" is derived from the Latin word "quadrimestris," which literally means "four months". However, it's important to note that the term "quadrimester" is not as widely used or recognized as "quarter" for a 3-month period.

2024 vs 2023 Insights and Comparisons

If this is the first time you're seeing my personal metrics, you might want to catch up on how I got here. I invented a term "Personametry" and have been tracking my time in some detail since 2016. Catch up on the history of personametry posts here.

<chatGPT>

• Family Time (P5 Family) has increased from 408.64 hours in 2023 to 488.14 hours in 2024, indicating more time spent with family.
• Professional Work (P3 Professional) saw a significant increase from 549.06 hours in 2023 to 825.54 hours in 2024, highlighting a heavier focus on professional activities.
• Individual Activities (P2 Individual) decreased from 339.81 hours in 2023 to 207.58 hours in 2024, suggesting less time spent on personal activities and hobbies.
• Sleep (P0 Life Constraints) saw a slight decrease, from 903.63 hours in 2023 to 857.69 hours in 2024, possibly due to the increased professional workload.
• Muslim Practices (P1 Muslim) also saw a decrease from 501.00 hours in 2023 to 418.30 hours in 2024.
• Time spent with friends (P6 Friend Social) and as a husband (P4 Husband) has also decreased.

These shifts suggest a trend towards more work and family engagement at the expense of personal leisure, sleep, and other social activities. This might reflect a shift in priorities or changes in personal or professional commitments.

This report delivers a comprehensive analysis of personal time allocation for the first four months of 2024, benchmarked against the corresponding period in 2023. The findings are crucial for optimizing time management strategies and ensuring alignment with broader personal and professional goals.

*Key Highlights*

1. Workload Increase: There has been a significant surge in professional engagement, with work hours increasing by 50.3% from 549.06 hours in 2023 to 825.54 hours in 2024. This increase indicates a robust uptake in professional activities, potentially reflecting expanded responsibilities or new projects.
2. Health and Fitness: A concerning decline in health and fitness activities was noted, with a 70% reduction in time allocated to these crucial activities. The decrease from 64 hours in 2023 to 19 hours in 2024 signals a need for immediate realignment of priorities to safeguard physical well-being.
3. Self-Learning and Development: Time invested in self-learning through books and other media saw a dramatic drop of 75%, decreasing from 69 hours in 2023 to 17 hours in 2024. This reduction could hinder ongoing personal development and professional competitiveness.
4. Sleep and Rest: Sleep-life balance saw a modest decrease of 5.1%, with total hours reducing from 903.63 to 857.69. While not as stark as other categories, this reduction will continue to be monitored to prevent potential impacts on health and productivity.
5. Personal Life Engagement: Time spent on broader personal life activities decreased by 14.7%, indicating potential overreach of professional commitments into personal time.
6. Husband Time: Notably, time spent in the role of a husband decreased by 40%, from 134 hours in 2023 to 80 hours in 2024. As every wise person knows, a happy wife is indeed a key to a happy life, suggesting that revisiting this balance could be crucial, lest we find ourselves investing significantly in couch time!

*Strategic Implications and Forward-Looking Statements*

The data from early 2024 underscores a pivot towards intensified professional commitments, which, while beneficial for career progression, has led to significant sacrifices in health, fitness, and personal development. To address this, strategic initiatives will focus on reinstating a balanced allocation of time across all domains to support sustained health, continuous learning, and overall life satisfaction.

Moving forward, we will implement routine evaluations and adjustments to our time management strategy. This will ensure that our commitments and daily activities are optimally aligned with our stated goals of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, fostering continuous personal growth, and ensuring physical well-being.

*Conclusion*

As we continue through 2024, our objective remains clear: to effectively manage our time to enhance our quality of life and fulfill our professional ambitions without compromising our health and personal development. This report serves as a foundation for making informed decisions that will drive improvements in our daily routines and long-term strategies.

</chatGPT>

My Reflections, what happened? I had a good thing going in 2023!

Experimenting with my own chatbot

Chatbots are all the rage these days. So I was curious about how hard it would be to integrate my own personalized chatbot, trained on all my blog content, linkedin profile and some of my psychometric assessments, on blogspot here. Why? Well because I thought it would be a cool way for visitors to my blog to interact with me. They can ask questions about my work, the content, or even find out about me. I have embraced the public profile since starting this blog, on the back of reading Public Parts by Jeff Jarvis since starting this blog in 2011, and the experiment is still ongoing.

I have limited time and am still rusty with coding, I check youtube, found this video that was mildly interesting, but I don't have much time to waste. I get impatient with installing this and that and getting the pieces talking to each other (I am no longer that guy, one of my books is calling me). Then I went to my favourite source of info on AI news, Matt Wolfe's FutureTools website, searched for the most upvoted chatbot creation service, found this one: Chatbase, and dove right in. I signed up for Hobbyist subscription, which I'm not that pleased with because the model it exposes is limited to GPT3.5-Turbo. As this is an experiment, $19 sign-up is the school fees I'm paying for saving time building the foundations myself (I can cancel at any time). I will have to make time to do the deep work needed to build from scratch, but for today, I just wanted to see if a conversational chatbot could make a useful addition to my blog.

I found Chatbase to be easy to use, intuitive and darn right simple! You don't need a coding background or be technical enough to get the chatbot going, hence the school fees. I trained my bot, "avatarMo" on all the content from this blog, included my linkedin profile and some docs. Interesting facts: I have written quite a bit of content on blogger: 10 million characters roughly 6000 pages? Chatbase Hobbyist package has a limit of 11 million characters it can be trained on. 

Here's the bot:

Advice for Technology Executives eyeing out AWS L7 Snr Manager role

As I write this post, my phonetool (a cool internal service where employees can lookup people) says I've been working at Amazon for 3 years, 3 months and 13 days (it actually feels much longer than that!!). 

 

I thought it might be a good idea to provide some advice for people who are considering applying for L7 Senior Software Engineering Manager roles at Amazon, even though I am just a sample of one. Amazon is a huge, gigantic, complex entity - so by no means is my experience, advice is representative of the company...rather I'm sharing my very own personal experience, aimed mostly at South African professionals who might be considering interviewing for senior management roles -- and are curious to learn from others who walked the path before. We are so lucky to have a global high-tech giant like Amazon operating in South Africa, offering engineering opportunities. I was even contemplating relocating back to the UK in 2020, but decided to stick it out in this beautiful country, try Amazon and live & work from Cape Town...No other global hi-tech company, apart from Amazon, offers software engineering roles in South Africa as far as I'm aware.

 

If you're considering leaving a C-level or Executive Head position behind, coming from a South African corporate, and are now eyeing out senior engineering manager roles in Amazon/AWS locally or internationally, then this post might just be of use to you. 

DISCLAIMER: I'm sharing my own personal experiences and recommendations in the hope my story could help others make an informed decision. Yes, I'm currently employed at AWS as I write this, and so far enjoyed my journey of transition, pretty settled in now as an Amazonian, despite a bit of a rough start of complete change/disruption to both professional and life streams.

My experience going into AWS L7 Senior Manager Role

Before Amazon, from May 2017 to October 2020, I was the single threaded owner (STO aka CTO) for a video streaming platform serving 50+ countries in Africa. Reporting to me were a group comprising executive head of departments and senior managers responsible for: 

 

1\ Software Delivery & Testing (Backend + Apps running on Smart TVs, Set Top Boxes, Browser Web Apps (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari), iOS and Android mobile phones and tablets, Apple TVs, Android TVs. In this org, reporting to the senior manager were: 3x Software Dev Managers (Frontend + Backend - 10 dev teams), 1x Test/QA Manager.

2\ Platform, Networking & Video Infrastructure, DevOps: Data Centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Nigeria, London, Ghana. AWS & Azure cloud. CDN infrastructure. Networking backbone, internet transit infrastructure. Devops. Application Web hosting.

3\ Site Reliability Engineering and 24/7/36 Platform/Application Operations monitoring, 2nd and 3rd line technical support team.

4\ Platform Intelligence Health Dashboards, Alerting & Analytics, Content Discovery, Search and Recommendations. An AI/ML team responsible for building video and content discovery services.This team was also responsible for building Infra/Platform/App Health Analytics consoles.

5\ Enterprise & Solution Architecture. A group of architects cutting across software architecture, video streaming, encoding and media processing platform architects. Live streaming video headends, CDN architecture.

6\ Agile Program and Project Management Office. A group of cross-functional project management experts, including program managers, release managers, scrum masters and general program management.

7\ Cyber Security, Piracy and Governance - risk management, legal, compliance and regulatory ownership. Overall IT/Security and Compliance.

I owned all the above (I designed the org structure around cloud modernization), reporting directly to CEO and was part of a the Top Leadership team. I had direct P&L responsibilities in the order of billions of rands, having authority to manage commercial relationships with technology vendors, suppliers, etc. signing licensing agreements, SOPs, reviewing RFPs,etc. I serviced business, technology and customer operations (marketing, content, acquisition, HR tech, customer support). Under my leadership, the platform scaled  to 10X scale, paved the way for a cloud-first future and created NextGen AI streams for personalized content discovery. I had delivered significant cost-savings, created a cloud-first transformation strategy and clear roadmap and built a strong leadership succession plan before leaving. I had a team of 200+ people, which extended to partner contractors & professional services. I decided to leave and was attracted to Amazon because of my exposure to AWS as an enterprise customer, I wanted to learn about what happens in the engine room of AWS.

Between 2013 and May 2017, before becoming a CTO, I was a freelance senior management consultant, taking on program director contracts where I worked with C-level stakeholders as my primary customer, running very large enterprise programs that cut-across multiple lines of business. Effectively having a virtual seat at the C-suite table, but without skin-in-the-game, helping executives deliver their top business, technology and product transformational goals. For these programs, I directed and executed large-scale program deliveries across the African continent, with project team sizes from 350-1000 people, most of my programs were tagged "billion rand programs" costing "a million rand a day". I enjoyed working 4-day weeks, took my time off according to my schedule, and worked just over 10 months a year, during that time period. 

What made me leave executive roles behind and take a risk with a mid-senior management position? In this post, I shared a deep reflection that motivated for a change. I had set my target on a new domain, i.e. cloud services, an opportunity presented itself with AWS, I applied - and the rest is history. I had made a one-way door decision, there was no looking back - but I did have a bumpy start, which in retrospect, if I had access to these pointers beforehand, who knows...