The Startup Weekend Experience

Peppermint, this place here was where we stayed while developing our prototype.

So I was looking for something I could get happily busy with, the mobile applications development team to which I belong was into all this business model canvas thing, and I made it as a goal to get exposed and be active in IT events. And guess what? Startup Weekend Manila 3 was announced. The event started last Friday September 28 and ended yesterday night Sunday September 30.

I really didn’t know what to expect. I have a dream of owning my own startup but I could not say that I am already into making it come true. I got a couple of ideas for a mobile application that could potentially be profitable but it still got holes in it that I did not bother to consider pitching it. So what I planned was to just be there, observe, join a team, learn, and above all, enjoy. And enjoy the whole event I did.

Deciding to join didn’t come that easy though. Being just socially awkward, I had to constantly reassure myself that I will have a good time. And despite of it all, I still ended up posting on the wall of my college friends asking for people who are interested in joining the event and coming there with me. But nobody really gave a reply that I could consider as “Yes, count me in.” Thankfully I got someone who’s pretty geeky herself for a girlfriend and she was willing to join me.

I know what you might be thinking right now and perhaps you’re right. Being both Computer Science graduates and software developers, people who are not into software development might have a hard time catching up with some of our conversations. Well that’s part of our quality time. But I digress.

We came to MINT college Friday afternoon for the kick off, the pitches, and the forming of teams afterwards. Some of the pitches were okay and some were hilarious as was intended I suppose. But we of course got our own say on things so an entertaining pitch did not ensure anybody of a development team. Unless they came there with their own team, which is the case, I think, in some groups. Well that’s pretty natural. If you want funding for your idea, you might also consider bringing in your team for votes. Each person got three chances to vote for an idea. As long as everybody’s decent enough to not keep all three votes for their own idea, things will still remain quite fair for people who just came there with their ideas and nothing more. As for me and my girlfriend, we just came there for the experience and to offer our skills.

There were ideas that looked really great for me but pretty complicated and equally risky to invest on; applications that require quite a long time to develop and another long time to profit unless an organization is already willing to buy it as opposed to solely depending on a marketing team. The rest were a lot simpler but the biggest question was how it will differ from the other applications in the market and that was a tough one to pin down. Even the idea that captured me and my girlfriend’s interest could not give a good answer to that I must say.

After the pitching, my girlfriend approached Luigi and stated our intention to join his team. Only to find out that we would form the team ourselves as although his idea made it to the top 18, no one else approached him to work on the application. The application was named Bahala Na (Come What May) after a phrase very common among Filpinos taking chances. It was basically a randomization and recommendation mobile application which on the outside may not look very different to other applications in the market. Yet we gave it a try.

It would seem ridiculous that I joined in creating it, but the thing is I believed that it would actually sell. The features may not be very unique but it was supposed to be fun and considered the culture of its market among all the applications proposed. It has a high tendency to be addictive to Filipinos capitalizing on the people’s bahala na attitude, love of funny things, and preference to quickly come up with decisions. It could potentially influence people’s choices on where to hang out and many establishments would pay either to be recommended more often or for the information on users’ behavior collectively.

Saturday, my girlfriend, being the mobile applications developer in the team, did most of the work for the prototype of the application while I worked on the backend web service that was supposed to consolidate information on places from different data sources and make it available for the application. We came up with decent prototypes but finally decided to have the application run disconnected from the web service and use built-in test data for ease of demonstration.

Sunday, I don’t know of the judges’ ranking but we placed 5th on people’s ranking without partaking on the anomalies that happened during the casting of votes (a common scenario during Startup Weekends they say and part of the fun to which I agree). Something that I could take as a proof that the application indeed appealed to the people.

The whole experience was fun. I experienced headache once in a while for lack of sleep but I had a great time. It was a great opportunity to meet other people in the IT industry outside one’s office and be surrounded with ideas and learn the things surrounding creating a startup. The atmosphere was light and devoid of any of the seriousness of work; super cool to make it short. The food and the coffee was great and there were a lot of freebies. The event was worth my weekend. If I have any regret, that would be missing that chance to actually just sit and listen to a mentor for I was quite too busy coding. Well we got another Startup Weekend for that. -aB

Train the Trainers Program

I’ve been quite busy lately. Working on a maintenance project with a pretty passive client, that’s something new. Most of the time it’s me who find ways to keep myself busy in the office. That involves sending emails to my client inquiring about certain things they need to get fixed; and also to my superiors inquiring about audit findings or anything in the company’s standard operating procedures that the project could be missing, so I can work on it. I also do some self studying on new technologies partly to satisfy my want for knowledge and partly to have more choices in future projects. But in the past week I didn’t have to do that.

The week before last, our practice manager came to my workstation and ask a simple question, “Do you want to be a trainer?” I answered “yes” right away. Truth is I always wanted to teach/train people. I really don’t know why, but I just love that feeling that you get to share what you know to other people and they would look up to you saying inside their heads that “I learned these from this guy.” But it was not a simple yes. I also mentioned that I may not qualify. In reply he told me that there will be a qualification for the position so I shouldn’t worry. And that I did. In my head all was very simple. If I know the topic I’ll get the job. If I don’t, they will surely find someone else.

But when Friday came, one of the employees under the learning and development group came to my workstation and informed me that there will be a meeting in thirty minutes. I said “okay” cooly. I was thinking that we were only going to be advised on how to properly conduct a training and all that guidelines. I didn’t know it was going to be far beyond that. In the meeting we were told that we would undergo a special training not just to learn the effective training approach but also to ultimately pass the accreditation by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). My jaw almost dropped. I didn’t know it would be as serious as that.

Still I didn’t back out. It was daunting at first but when it finally sank in to me, I realized it was a great opportunity to hone my training skills. Perhaps it would be a great plus too considering the fact that I was already contemplating on applying for a lecturer’s position in the university on weekends.

We were told that training days will be on Tuesdays for the next two months. But normally, the training for the accreditation takes seventeen weeks, eight hours a day. Apparently we’re going to cram things because being full time workers, we couldn’t afford that much time. It would be a dead serious cramming I must say with a reading material reaching more than two hundred and fifty pages for just one of the five areas we got to learn. That is already not mentioning that the reading materials voluminous as they are, are already pretty straight forward on discussing things.

Monday came and another surprise came just as I thought I was done with all of it when I agreed to take the challenge in the previous week. I checked my company email and found out about an email sent late the previous Friday telling all trainers to prepare a five-minute discussion of a simple topic for the audition to be done that day, Monday. Again, I was shocked. I was not prepared in any way. We were advised to prepare a powerpoint presentation and dress up. It was also mentioned that we should be able to finish the discussion of our chosen topics within the allotted time. As trainers we should be able to do that.

For a minute or two, I didn’t know what to do. Unlike other participants in the program, I never handled a training before. I don’t have any material in mind from which I could get a good topic I could squeeze into a five-minute discussion. I totally had nothing related to our practice (the Microsoft practice) to discuss. But then I reread the email and notice that there were no instructions telling that the topic should be related to our practice. That was when I got a brilliant idea. I decided to discuss something I worked on during the weekend, the sprite animation tutorial which I even posted here.

I was nervous about the audition almost the whole day but everything went well when I finally got to present my topic. In fact, I got a good feedback which made me happy and proud inside.

The following day I attended the first day of training where we talked about competency based training and learned how to prepare information gathering sheets, training needs analysis forms, and session plans. It was totally enjoyable and helpful. I could already visualize how effective the training will be following that approach. But all the topics just won’t fit in a day no matter how hard they try to simplify things just emphasizing on the most important portions of our extremely voluminous references. As much as we don’t want it, we have to read and study some of the details on our own. Seriously, it could eat a great amount of time from company hours. But I’m usually not that busy like what I said earlier so it was fine for me. I just do not know of the others.

Next week will be day two. I’m looking forward to learning more. But for now, I’m done with surprises. No more surprises this time please. -aB

The last time I thought of what I want, I ended up working for what I need.

Originally posted here.

No, I’m not here to re-sell the career choosing drama. I’m here to talk about the situation that the statement suggests. Well this may be partly because I’ve nothing to do at the moment, partly because I (or perhaps we) seem to always encounter the same thing, and partly because I’m experiencing a severe bout of verbal diarrhea that I better put in here so I could be a little creative with it.

So when was the last time? I guess the last time, the serious one, was when I was on my way home after taking a series of exams and a short interview in a (forgive me) small time IT company. For someone like me who has his own share of being “choosy” it could have been easy to say that I’m never gonna go back to that company. I don’t like it there. The place was just not fit for any business concerning technology. It reminded me of this lousy office that I visit at least twice or thrice a year in the past four years where everybody talks more and works less in a room brimming with papers and bulky file jackets that I certainly do not want to work at.

A more pleasant office, that’s what I want. A place where you can breathe without worrying about taking in a lung-ful of dust. One that has a perfectly working air conditioning unit that has no pails under it to catch the dripping water. One that you will at least appreciate seeing after waking up early in the morning (your house being far from work) and traveling the distance trying for hours to get a good seat in loaded jeepneys and buses. One with decent looking workstations. One you cannot call perfect but at least okay.

But considering the country’s economy… whoops let’s not dig too deep into that.

But considering the current situation in the country where a lot of businesses, even in the IT industry which are supposed to be in good status right now with all the demands, struggle for stability, I guess it is understandable that providing the employees’ every desire is not that easy. After all, what I was talking about in the last paragraphs was just WHAT I WANT. Obviously, although you can suggest such things to your employer, they might find it quite selfish. Why? For a starting company like the case of that one where I took the exams, they will surely prioritize what they need. Legalities, clients, and good software developers. They would rather work for WHAT THEY NEED.

How about you?

That afternoon while I was on my way home I was thinking. I don’t like the place but as always said, beggars can’t be choosers. I needed a job to pay for everything I cost people when I was still studying so I gave the exams my best. My college fees barely reached a thousand in those four years of stay and people will surely call me lucky but come on, that’s not all you pay for when you try to earn a degree. Just the stress will cost you platefuls of a good meal. How much more is your daily fare, emergency expenses, personal things, clothes to keep you decent, and the other stuffs? Mahal!

Truth is, sometimes the things we want are too grand for us, for our current state. Sometimes we’re too in a hurry for the things we want and we don’t attend first to the things we need, when in fact it should be a step-by-step process. At home, when one of us thinks of something grand that they want, they will surely hear this from another saying it in a loose sense. You don’t have the right to dream of that. Not yet. And it is not suppose to discourage people of dreaming big. It’s suppose to keep people sane that there are still stuffs they got to deal with on their way there to that big dream, not to mention to make them laugh as well for the seemingly unfortunate situation. I know I sound like your father now, but hey this is reality at least for people living a barely average life.

How about that company I was talking about?

I assume we know that any starting company wishes they can offer something good to applicants they really want. Perhaps a good paycheck, plus a little more than the basic benefits, and a good work environment. But they need something to work on. They need clients and projects and equipments and certainly they cannot afford to lose everything to demanding applicants no matter how excellent those applicants may be. And I think that’s just the right way of viewing things. Unless your goals are too low, I guess it’s always a struggle to achieve them anyway.

Just a quick evaluation, how many of your long term goals are things you need? All? Long term goals sweety, I doubt it.

Reality check, how many small time companies NEED excellent professionals who do not WANT them?

This is not to condemn these professionals for turning down these companies. After all, they have every right for it. We just want to expose both sides of the story. It’s not always them offering you a small salary, but also them offering you a small salary for a good reason, and we always want to be reasonable.

That afternoon I prayed. I said I don’t want to work for that company but if they will offer me a job I guess I have no right to decline it. I’m jobless, I’m not a Suma Cum Laude, maarte lang ako. I asked for a sign. Since I knew I didn’t have the right to be choosy I asked God to choose for me. I said “Since I don’t feel I have the right to decline an offer, give me just one offer and let it be it, for I’m afraid that my judgement is clouded by the things I desire.”

Well I guess He listened and recognized my effort stressing myself thinking of stuffs like this. I didn’t get a call from the company, I didn’t have to bear that place. And I can say I got to learn a few things from it.

So for now, I’m keeping my “wants” achievable. I want a life-size cow paper mache in our living room and I don’t care if it will fit there. I want that one they call Holstein. I know the breed, I searched the net for it. Give one for this poor soul please.

when a program throws an exception, the problem is not always in the code

it has been quite awhile since i last posted something. well although i could say that a number of things came up, i cannot say that they ate most of my time so as to prevent me from posting anything. truth is i could have posted a few lines but held myself back at the last moment for behind all the wordplay there was really nothing much to glean from them. well i’m no writer really but i’m writing here and i believe that if you want to be a good one, take it as a responsibility to feed your readers something sensible. surely there could be some sense in everybody’s life.

anyway, just last week i began testing this web service i created for our client. it was supposed to be utilized by the online banking system for the activation of various requests. this web service should run in the frontend and should call another web service from the backend (the mainframe specifically) for backend side request processing. during the development i had to work with stubs because i was working in our office. one can argue that i should’ve done it in the client’s development environment if permitted but i actually prefer working with stubs until i got most of the requirements done since the solution is easier to test that way.

so the time for testing the code came and i had to deploy the web service in our client’s development environment. it was pretty easy since i basically only had to change connection strings and a few more values in the web configuration file. i was informed that it was okay to input any value for the parameters of the web service method since there was no validation at the moment but when i did BAM! i received the error “Conversion from SOAP failed” when my code tried to invoke the exposed method of the mainframe web service and the mainframe’s transaction counter did not increment. i was cool at first thinking that surely i just got a line or two wrong. but when i found out that the exception was thrown by .Net’s wsdl.exe generated proxy when it called invoke, my expression was like “what the hell happened? what’s wrong?” i’ve used it before and i knew that the generated proxy is supposed to work with very little or no modification. still i tried to think of things that could’ve caused it like maybe i used the wrong wsdl file or i could not connect to the backend web service, etc. i tried applying the fixes i could think of but to no avail.

when i got back to the office, i was like “okay we’re unsuccessful but surely a lot of people could be encountering the same problem. if i could solve this, it will be something good to blog about” so i spent the remaining office hours researching on ways to connect to a mainframe web service and the common problems but surprisingly none of the google hits helped or even enlightened me. i thought i was doomed. i thought the best source would be the ones who previously worked with the web service but they are all not connected to our client now. another testing day passed and the problem remained unsolved until just last monday i tried inputting nothing in the parameters and the mainframe web service returned a different error code that was more expected. it was talking of invalid inputs. that gave me the idea that my problem was just a matter of giving the right inputs from the very beginning since there was very minimal modification done to my code. i went to the person in charge with the mainframe side of the project and asked for sample inputs and everything worked fine. well we’re not done yet testing the web service until the end of the defined transaction flow but it put end to the problem with the mainframe side of requests.

now this post was supposed to offer some sort of fix in a form of codes or instructions like i mentioned earlier. but since the problem was somewhere between the keyboard and the chair let me just leave an advice.

do not overanalyze.

we got as far as thinking of capturing packets exchanged between servers to check for discrepancies. it was a good thing that we had to postpone it because of the absence of the needed tools in the service. it would have been another failed fix in the list.

take time to consider all possible sources of the problem no matter how little or ridiculous they are.

in my case i completely ignored the possibility that the problem was caused by the wrong inputs. hadn’t i thought of giving the web service blank inputs, i wouldn’t have found out the answer to my problem.

lastly, use valid inputs whenever possible.

seriously, there’s no harm trying the right inputs especially when someone who knows them is just around.

hope you learned something from my experience. have a nice day!

some random musings (part 2)

what now? currently my task at work is to populate the database with flood maps of places all over the country. for those who are into programming, the task involves parsing a KML file, creating objects from it, then saving it to the database. i already got a script for it, the only thing is, i can only upload one flood map file at a time to the server. yeah, i know, i can do multiple uploads. but considering that the machine takes at least 5 minutes to store all coordinates of one file to the database. multiple uploading no longer appear appealing to me. it will most certainly cripple the machine. so i’m doing it one by one. which in turn gives me ample time to write something and update this pretty neglected blog.

so what’s for today. i figured i better not write something that involves a lot of thinking since i will need to keep focus on my work so i chose to continue sharing my random musings. as i’ve said before, i keep a record of random musings. i write it in a little journal that i never fail to carry in my bag. here’s another set of them and some short elaborations.

April 6, 2011
if you talk shit about other people when they’re not around, how can i trust you not to do the same with me?

this one’s pretty straightforward. this is maybe one of those questions that people tend to ask others the most even just in their heads. no, i won’t say that i’ve never talk bad of others behind their back before, but i think i can say that i’m always ready to utter the same words in front of them if i have to. that’s how i live my life. you may not call me kind or a good person but i know how to be responsible with whatever i do. but don’t get it wrong, even though it’s like that for me i of course still know how and when to be careful with what i say. it pays to always think things over before saying it.

April 8, 2011
sometimes we feel extraordinarily clever that we fail to see that by natural standards, we are actually acting foolish. oh what an irony.

i remember writing this after a moment of reflection and finding out that i often over-analyze things which ironically leads me far from the right thing. unfortunately it is not very easy to tell from one’s point of view when they are just giving things a good analysis and when they are over-analyzing and confusing themselves further. it would be good to have someone who can tell you to stop once in a while.

the following entry is a mix of English and Filipino because i talk a lot that way. but i’m offering a rough translation for those who cannot understand Filipino but would like to know it.

April 13, 2011
one of my best rules in life: to survive victoriously hindi mo kailangang mang-iwan. for once, h’wag nateng i-base ang achievements naten sa narating ng iba. it is way greater to know even just by yourself, na hindi ka basta basta mapag-iiwanan. self-respect above all praises.

[Translation]
one of my best rules in life: to survive victoriously you don’t need to leave others behind. for once, let us not base our achievements from what others have reached. it is way greater to know even just by ourselves, that we’re not someone who can be easily left behind. self-respect above all praises.

i remember writing this down when i encountered another person who simply won’t settle for a position because someone else occupies a higher one and they want to be just like that. i think it’s perfectly fine to desire something. but what’s disagreeable about it is when one does it out of envy. i strongly believe that self-respect should be above all praises and titles. what’s being able to snatch a place when one has to lose self-respect for it? when i do good that’s because i’m simply good or enjoying things. it is certainly not because i want to be better than someone. i prefer it that way. it keeps my conscience clean.

April 30, 2011
in every relationship, together with knowing that there is something wrong is knowing that there’s something that needs to be fixed. and knowing that there’s a problem that must be solved and working on it is way better than pretending that everything is doing well.

i posted it on a radio station’s Facebook page for it to be read to listeners. the DJ was asking for random lessons and i figured i should share it since a lot of listeners talk about love. by now you must have had the idea that the truth matters to me a lot no matter how painful or horrible it may be. that’s right, i’m like that. i just believe that the more we hide a problem, the more we make it complicated. the more we ignore it, the more it becomes painful to bear when the time comes that we had no other choice but to face it.

in life, i always try to keep things simple. like most of us, if not all, i don’t want to have a lot of “what-ifs” in life. so whenever i got the chance to think ahead and avoid complications, i make sure that i use it well. there are certain situations in life that once we’re in it will no longer be easy to think clearly. so if we got the chance to think things over at the beginning or while it is early, i think we better grab it. we may shed a tear or two but we just know it will be better that way.

May 3, 2011
it pays great to know humility. that’s why it’s one of the most difficult things to learn and re-learn.

i wrote this after observing my own attitude towards people especially those who are younger and inexperienced compared to me at work. they may have not noticed it but being very self-critical i knew there was a trace of arrogance on my actions and i didn’t like it. there are always things to learn from other people and one could miss it if he will only pay attention to himself. this not to mention how difficult it is to swallow one’s pride once he was proven wrong by someone he considers inferior. setting aside the things one knows definitely clears his mind and makes him more open and agreeable to others. sadly, this realization added to my paranoia but i guess i’m dealing with it well lately haha.

i may be right or wrong about these things but either way i think people could always get something from somebody’s musings. for now let me just wish you well.

cokexplosive

honestly i just got nothing to do today so i’m blogging. the past weeks had been quite busy for this certain project involving a bank but something came up and we’ve been idle for more than a week now. anyway, i just celebrated my birthday last thursday and i bought pizzas for the team. no it was not really my idea but they asked for it so that was what i bought them. after eating boxes and boxes of pizza the team just played a game of cards called ‘bluff’ and then went home leaving an untouched bottle of coke in the fridge. the following day the whole content of it was already frozen. i thought it was okay though. i just got it out of the freezer and put it down on a lower shelf hoping that it would turn liquid again. the weekend passed and just this lunch period i decided to check on it and maybe fill myself a glass. but surprise, it has turned into a cokexplosive. yeah i just made that term up for coke bottles with previously frozen content ready to explode. imagine the hilarity of seeing me hurrying to the sink so that the bottle could do its business there haha. nothing really bad happened except for some coke spills on the floor for which i felt sorry for the housekeepers. this is still a nice day.