Liam Kerney

Purpose – Keep Your Options Open? Or Close a Few Doors?

Posted on May 3, 2010 by liamkerney

We often hear the advice “Keep your options open” – and while in some situations that can be a very appropriate thing to do, there are many other situations where it might be very worthwhile to consider the opposite: Limiting some options by by closing the door on certain opportunities.

Trying to keep a lot of different options open comes with a cost – the investment of time and effort.

This can apply in a number of different contexts:

In our personal lives, there are the hobbies and activities we participate in and the relationships we keep
In our careers, there are the different directions and options we can choose. Is your career focused? Or are you dabbling in different things to “keep your options open”? That may be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, depending on your current goals; but it may also be worth considering narrowing your focus (and having to close a door or two). Would that enable you to achieve more? Would you become an expert in a certain area? A thought leader?
As a company, it’s also important to consider the effect of keeping our options open. This might include things like making sure we’re focused on the right clients, the right opportunities, the right offerings, and responding to the right RFP’s (and closing the door on those that aren’t a good fit).

For example: as a company, we have chosen to only implement Microsoft based solutions – and this certainly limits our options. We have people with the experience and skills to implement on other technologies; however, by choosing to close the door on other technology platforms, it has allowed us to focus and put 100% of our effort into Microsoft based implementations – and be the very best at it! There is no question that this has helped us become recognized in the market for our expertise.

I first came across an article on this topic a couple of years ago: “The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors” (NY Times, February 26, 2008). An example they used was the Chinese General Xiang Yu, who in a battle in the 3rd century ordered his troops to sink their own boats after crossing a river, thus closing the door on any option to retreat. This is perhaps a little extreme – but it worked – the troops had no other option but to put all of their energy into moving forward and winning the battle – which they did!

The concept got me to thinking about all the various hobbies and activities in my personal life. Growing up, my parents always put me into a lot of different activities, swimming lessons, soccer, piano, skiing, etc. – definitely keeping my options open – and I’m really glad I had the opportunity to try many different things. I carried this sort of approach into my adult life, dabbling in a lot of different things (and enjoying them), but never getting really good at any. My time was getting spread really thin across different activities – not to mention the cost of trying to keep up with equipment needed for various things. So I made a list of all the activities – some I did a lot, some just now and then – and was surprised at how long it was: mountain biking, trail running, skiing, kayaking, playing in an ultimate league, tennis, a bit of windsurfing, and on and on.

I looked at the list and asked myself: what are the things I enjoy the most? What would I want to put my energy into? It really made a big difference for me to trim the list to just a few activities that I can put my time (and money) into and actually get better at them! Not just stay at the same level. I end up enjoying them a lot more too.

So with that in mind: it’s not to say we should all go out and close a whole bunch of doors, but it is worth considering the different areas of your life. Could you be achieving more or get more enjoyment from focusing your time if you did close a door or two?

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Vancouver 2010 Olympic Highlights

Posted on March 25, 2010 by liamkerney

The Olympics were awesome to experience! Managed to get out to eight events and lots more watching on TV, at bars, and generally enjoying the vibe in the City.

Highlights for me (in no particular order):

Torch and Robson Square Night
Two nights prior to the Opening Ceremony we got to see the torch run in West Van, got our picture with the countdown clock and bobsleigh, got some goodies at The Bay, met John Furlong strolling along Robson Street, and got to see the very first test of what was to become the nightly Robson Square show.

Lots of Hockey
Got to see five hockey games at Canada Hockey Place — more games than I’ve probably been to in the last five years!

Cheered on Slovakia at three games including their disappointing loss to Finland for the Bronze medal (got on the big screen during this one!)

Also got to see Finland’s women’s team win the Bronze (with Finland’s president in attendance)

Watching the Canada games on TV or in bars was also very exciting:

The shoot-out win over Switzerland on the big screen at the Richmond O-Zone
The exciting Slovak – Canada game with friends at Stamps Landing (the only Slovak game where I wasn’t cheering for them!)

And of course the Gold medal game — partly on the bus ride home from Whistler and the rest from home.

Victory Ceremony
We really lucked out with the Victory Ceremony tickets we purchased a year earlier. We happened to get the day when Ashleigh McIvor won her Gold Medal in Ski Cross!

Olympic Day
Taking a day off work to wander around the city and enjoy many of the Olympic sites:

Took in the Bronze medal women’s game at Canada Hockey Place
Took the Bombardier Olympic Line tram to Granville Island and watched the women’s Gold Medal game

Walked over to Vanier Park to see the Vectorial Elevation light display

Headed back over to False Creek and took in Saskatchewan House and live performance
Watched the extremely impressive Fireworks show at LiveCity Yaletown

Cross Country – 50km – on the last day
These were the cheapest tickets we picked up of all the events we went to ($25) and I’m really glad we did. The venue at Callaghan Valley was awesome and being a long race we were able to move around and see the racers on different parts of the course. Very cool to stand on the side within inches of them going by. Amazingly close finish with a big group within a couple of seconds of each other including Canada’s Devon Kershaw coming in fourth!

Also got to see Quatchi and Miga getting loaded onto the back of a golf cart here!

I was super impressed with how efficient the Olympic Bus Network was for getting us to and from the venue. We were parked at BCIT and on the bus and on our way in about five minutes. Same thing on the way home – no line up or waits at all.
The Gold Medal game started during the ride home and there was a guy on the bus with a tethered laptop trying (somewhat successfully) to watch the game. Twitter was more reliable though for real-time updates! Got back in time to watch the 3rd Period and OT from home.

Closing Ceremony
I enjoyed the ceremony overall, but by far the best part was how they opened it: making fun of the mechanical issues with the fourth leg of Cauldron and giving Catriona Le May Doan to light the Cauldron as she hadn’t at the opening. Brilliant!

Curling
Having never been to a curling game before and only seen it a few times on TV, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Seeing it in person was awesome! Unfortunately Canada lost to China, but it was a great game and incredible atmosphere in the rink. It felt more like being at a hockey game!

All the Canadian Athletes!
14 Gold Medals and 26 overall is an incredible result and definitely counts as Owning the Podium! So many memorable Canadian performances. My favorites:

Jon Montgomery (Skeleton Gold)

watched this on the big screen at Canada Hockey Place prior to the Finland – Germany game

Alex Bilodeau (Freestyle Moguls Gold)

kicking off our first Gold of the games and first every on Canadian soil

Joannie Rochette (Figure Skating Bronze)

a courageous performance

Ashleigh McIvor (Ski Cross Gold)

we got to see her get the medal at the BC Place Victory Ceremony

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (Ice Dance Gold)
Jennifer Heil (Freestyle Moguls Silver)

unfortunately not a Gold, but a great performance – and a great ambasador for Canada

Marianne St-Gelais (Short Track Silver)

the most excited silver medal winner ever!

Devon Kershaw (50km Cross Country – Fifth Place)

incredible performance and result

VANOC
VANOC (and all the other organizations that worked with them: Translink, the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Police, RCMP, etc) did an amazing job pulling of a near flawless event.
I was particularly impressed with the transit flow, the efficiency of the Olympic Bus Network, and the visible, but unobtrusive security.
Brian Williams of NBC said it well about the security:

“For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.” http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/02/26/2213393.aspx

Excitement in the City
I’ve never before seen this level of energy, excitement, and patriotism in the City. Just being downtown and experiencing the crowds, spontaneous singing of the Oh Canada, etc on every day of the week was amazing.

Overall an incredible experience and an exhausting couple of weeks!

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Purpose – Achievement, in spite of distractions

Posted on February 23, 2010 by liamkerney

For 30 minutes every Monday morning, we have a Habañero wide meeting to bring everyone up to speed on important news, accomplishments, and upcoming milestones for projects and initiatives from around the company. An important part of these meetings is the “Purpose” topic – intended to bring our values, purpose, and vision into context.

I hosted today’s meeting and here is my Olympics inspired Purpose topic:

Purpose – Achievement, in spite of distractions

I was at the women’s curling match last night. It was the first time I’d ever been to watch curling and I was really struck by the level of distraction that the players face: a relatively small venue packed with 5,000 fans. The noise in there, with everyone cheering, feet stomping on the aluminum stands, cowbells, and noisemakers was intense. With three games going on in parallel, there are six teams playing at the same time – and although Canada had the most fans, there was a substantial and loud contingent of American, Chinese, Swiss, and Japanese fans. So, the Americans would score a point in their game and building would erupt just as a Canadian player was concentrating on delivering an important shot in the next game over.

It was amazing to me how the players could seemingly block out all of the noise, the visual distraction from the crowd doing the wave around the rink, and the other games happening on either side of them and just stay focused on their own game and making their shots.

From 2010-Olympics

In our line of work, the distractions are different. There aren’t usually 5,000 people cheering when we’re trying to do our work; however, we do still have many distractions bombarding us: emails, phone calls, instant messages, news, other things on our mind – there’s no shortage of distractions in our work day.

There are certainly some things we can do to help minimize distractions: things like turning off email notifications, putting on headphones, and taking advantage of quiet time; however, just like the curlers at the rink, there are many distractions that we don’t have control over and can’t eliminate. In order to still perform well and achieve in spite of these distractions, we need to have a really clear focus on our most important objective. This allows us to ignore all of the other distractions on concentrate on what we need to do to achieve that objective.

The players in the curling game are able to block out all of the distractions from the crowd and the other games going on around them because they have a very clear objective they are working towards. The most important objective for them is making the shots they need to score points. Everything else is less important at that particular time.

So in our own workday, let’s think about what our most important objective is for the day. What’s the single most important thing I need to achieve today to be successful in my work? Keeping that top of mind will help filter out all of the other distractions that come up and keep me focused on the right tasks.

Have a great week!

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Opening Ceremony Highlights – Vancouver 2010!

Posted on February 14, 2010 by liamkerney

Congratulations to the producers of the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony – they pulled off an amazing show that as a Vancouverite and a Canadian I was very proud of! The highlights for me were:

1. Cauldron Lighting (x2)

My heartrate definitely jumped a bit as the awkard moments ticked by when it seemed there might be a problem raising the Cauldron (I can only imagine the frantic scrambling behind the scenes!). They recovered very well though and the choice to have Rick Hansen pass the flame to Catriona LeMay Doan, Steve Nash, Nancy Greene, and Wayne Gretzky to all light the Cauldron together was brilliant.

Even more brilliant was having Gretzky riding with the flame in the back of a pickup truck through the streets of Vancouver to light the outdoor Cauldron. I loved that there were people out in the streets cheering and able to run right up along side the truck. Seemed like a very Canadian way to conclude the Opening Ceremony.

2. Tributes to Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili

The death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a training accident just hours before the start put a damper on what otherwise should have been a day all about celebration; however, the ceremony respected and paid tribute to Nodar and the Georgian team with remarks from Jacques Rogge, a minute of silence, lowering the flags to half-mast, and a standing ovation from the crowd for the Georgian team as they entered the stadium. John Furlong’s words were particularly inspiring to the athletes:

“You compete with such bravery, conviction and pride. At these Games you now have the added burden to shine and be united around your fallen colleague Nodar. May you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and compete with his spirit in your hearts.”

3. Slam Poet

The guy going on about Canada – reminiscent of Molson’s Joe Canadian rant – was awesome! I didn’t know there was such a thing as a “Slam Poet” until afterwards.

Full Transcript of Shane Koyczan’s poem.

4. John Furlong’s speech

The speeches at Olympic opening ceremonies usually really bore me. John Furlong’s speech I thought was great though – very inspiring.

“…we invite people everywhere to share and experience — even if just for a few moments — what it feels like to be a proud Canadian.”

“…Many thousands have made tonight and the days ahead possible — But the spirit and soul of all 33 million Canadians has been sewn into the fabric of these Winter Olympic Games. This journey has not been about the few — but rather the many. All Canadians – Aboriginal Canadians – New Canadians – English and Francophone Canadians – And the myriad of cultures, micro cultures, languages and peoples that make Canada – Canada….”

Full Transcript

5. Participation of Famous Canadians

The selection of Canadians to play various roles in the ceremony was very diverse:

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Torch Relay & Downtown

Posted on February 11, 2010 by liamkerney

Very exciting to see the Olympic torch relay up close in person tonight in West Van! Cheering on Kirsten Barnes. Unfortunately my camera batteries died, so I only got a few low quality shots on my Blackberry.

We went downtown afterwards to get a picture with the countdown clock – while it’s still actually counting down! Less than two days now. Amazed at how busy it was downtown and the games haven’t even started yet. Lucked out and caught the first of what will be nightly laser / light / pyrotechnic shows on Robson Square. Very cool – especially the hockey players on the zip-line!