As some of you know, I’ve spent the last few months trying to come up with something special to do as I turn 25. I got the idea after stumbling across Julia C. Smith’s “28 before 29″ project interviewing her friends/mentors. I felt like 25 was a good year for a project because it’s my quarter century, it’s RIGHT NOW, and I’ve always felt like 25 would be a very cool age.

I kept leaning towards doing 25 new things (it’s VERY hard to get good, creative ones as PROJECT52 demonstrated) or doing 25 of something (jello shots was suggested, but seemed dangerous). Instead I realized that I do very frequently get swept up in doing a whatever is new and exciting, and very rarely take the time to stop and think about all the things I should do continuously.

So I decided that in the month before I turn 25 (Jan 9 – Feb 9) I want to do 25 things that I hope to continue doing for the rest of my life. They can be simple, or hard, but they’re all things I want to continue to do forever. In fact, the majority of them are simple things that I tend to overlook. I’m hoping that doing them as part of this project will remind me to continue doing them. I’ll try to write about them as I go, too.

This post is effectively #1 even though I’m posting it way after I started the project, so I’ve  already done: 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, and 22. I’m about halfway there.

1. Write an explanation about turning 25 (and this project).
2. Try out a new type of exercise.
3. Cook or try a food I’ve never had before.
4. Eat a nice meal in a restaurant, with friends.
5. Discover and listen to a new band.
6. Paint.
7. Sleep a full night’s sleep (8+ hours).
8. Read two books: one fiction, one non-fiction.
9. Email someone I admire.
10. Call someone important that I haven’t talked to lately.
11. Launch a Kickstarter project.
12. Go to a play.
13. Go to a museum.
14. Do something nice for Tom.
15. Give a talk.
16. Talk to someone I haven’t in a LONG time.
17. Actively think about my bucket list.
18. Call my family.
19. Spend a day without technology.
20. Spend time thinking about BIG problems.
21. Help someone who asks for a favor.
22. Watch something that makes me think.
23. Bake cupcakes.
24. Thoughtfully drink a cup of tea.
25. Write a letter to myself to be read on my 26th birthday.

As I’ve mentioned on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve recently accepted a position with Kickstarter. I am unbelievably excited. They are hands-down one of my favorite companies ever. If you are as excited as I am, check out the other open jobs.This is a big change, but it all started with just one email to jobs@kickstarter.com. In the next month or so, I want to share what I learned going through this process. But for now, here is the first email: Hey there Kickstarter! I’m so excited about the job you just posted for a Product Manager. I was going to wait and do work to send to you with the email, but I realized by the time I finished, you’d have found someone. Then, while I was contemplating what to do, a friend IM’d me to say “you’re a Kickstartin’ fool!” because he saw me fund another project, and I knew I had to just go for it! What I love most about Kickstarter is that it’s technology to encourage real life action. Action for the people who execute on their projects, action for the people who later use them- whether it lets them read a book, watch a movie, use a new and great product, and also the nearly invisible action of everyone who thinks “oh… I could do a project too!” after using Kickstarter to help someone else. Kickstarter is an inspiration to do more. I’m applying to the Product Manager job because I want to add to that experience. To share a few of my (initial) thoughts for areas to work on:

• Discovery: Kickstarter has huge amounts of data here to leverage. Right now, recommended projects tend to be very similar to what I just backed (which makes sense). However, it would be incredibly cool to analyze similarities between what projects people back, and do more advanced predicting. For instance- we could use clustering analysis to predict what people might like based on other similar individuals. It’d be really neat if I’d backed totally unrelated projects and Kickstarter introduced me to something new, that I happened to love. A simpler step might be inferring that because I like cocktails, feminism, and technology, I’d probably like a movie about women in technology, even if I haven’t backed a movie before.
• Initial stickiness: Many people I know have only backed one Kickstarter project- one by a friend. I’d love to look more in depth at the transition from being a just-for-my-friends Kickstarter user to a Kickstarter user who visits weekly (or daily!)
• Broader audience: I think Kickstarter has some of the same appeal of Pinterest- it’s not for any one type of person. How do we get the word out there further and make the product feel welcoming to people who might not feel as comfortable with technology? As an example, I casually told my mom about Kickstarter while I was home for vacation. She was very against using it until I walked her through it once. Since then, she’s funded a few projects (maybe more than me!) none of which I could have predicted, and none of them are by people she knows. I’d love to see that happen organically, without a specific tutorial.
• Identity: One of my favorite things about Kickstarter is that it reveals what people care about. I think my Kickstarter funding history will eventually show far more about my personality and development than my Twitter or Facebook do. It’s like being a mini-VC, and shows what projects I care enough about to publicly support. I’d love to redesign the profile page to let me add more details about why I backed things, or highlight and feature the projects most important to me. Everyone should be broad to show off their Kickstarter profile!
• Mobile: I love mobile. I work in mobile now, and I’m always surprised that Kickstarter doesn’t have mobile products yet. Focus is key, and the time for Mobile might not be right yet. But- I also think that a way to quickly browse and fund projects when I have time to kill would be great. And there might be things we could figure out for mobile that are totally different from the website. A long shot, but we’ll see! And of course, browsing Kickstarter would be way more fun than reading email It would even more dangerous to my budget than the Amazon mobile one-click-buy!
• Details: I love thinking about design and details too. I think the color wheel in the profile indicating which types of projects you’ve backed is awesome. I wish the color scheme transferred over to the rest of the site too – like the highlight color for which category you’ve selected (currently always green) or the progress bar for the campaign. I think a great product manager should be able to look at bigger initiatives, but also at amazing details that really help a product stand out.

So hopefully by now you’re still reading, and if so you’re probably wondering “who is Ellen, anyway?” Here are some things you might want to talk to me about:

• Right now, I’m a PM for Office Mobile Shared Services (at Microsoft), which is a long way of saying “I design Office for phones.” It’s really cool, and I love it. I just think this opportunity is too exciting to pass up.
• I recently was invited to join the Global Shapers (part of the World Economic Forum), a group dedicated to being awesome and changing the world. It really got me thinking about how I want to change the world through my career, and I think Kickstarter is the way to do it.
• I’m also part of the Awesome Foundation in Seattle.
• Related to that, in December, I wrote 14 essays. My favorite is the one on the Awesome Foundation.
• To create more spontaneity and real world interaction (which is something I like from Kickstarter!) I’m working on carpe list.
• This Winter, I decided I wanted I wanted to learn more about visual design. I took an information design class and made this poster. I’m still working on making things prettier, but I learned a lot about using Illustrator and grids. I want to use those skills to make a poster inspired by this one, but about Barcelona Chairs (which I now own two of!)
• A bit longer ago, I went to school at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. I was in the fifth graduating class, which means I helped to design the curriculum. Being part of a brand new engineering school taught me that nothing is impossible, and to be fearless. I graduated with a degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering, but got way more experience doing user centered design and leading projects than I did making circuits.
• While at Olin, I took a year off to have a start-up (Alight Learning). It didn’t succeed, but I learned a lot. I love talking about it.
• Oh, and of course, my resume.

I’d love to hear from you- and love even more to work with you! Feel free to email or call anytime. I’m hoping to hear from you soon! Ellen Chisa @ellenchisa <phone number> PS- I’m sure you could find it, but my Kickstarter page is here.

After two years, two months, and two days, my last day at Microsoft was September 14th, 2012. In that time I was a Program Manager for PowerPoint Broadcast for Symbian and the Office Hub on Windows Phone 8.

Too often I read articles from people who have quit, denouncing everything at Microsoft. People leave and immediately lash out about bureaucracy, the manager that hated them, or their unused great idea. If you want another one of those, this isn’t it.

I left for a very personal reason: I was no longer excited about my job. This realization came from a pattern I saw emerge in my conversations. I talked to everyone about all the other things I do, like the Awesome Foundation, the Global Shapers program, or Olin. It was only when people asked that I supplied the additional “and I work at Microsoft.”

As I saw this pattern repeat itself, I was surprised to realize I was spending most of my time on something I wasn’t that excited about anymore.  When I started my job I was thrilled. So for me, the question is why did I stop being excited?

I think there were two major reasons:

1. Priorities Change.I came to Microsoft to learn. I wanted to learn to be a strong finisher in addition to a starter. Through the two years I got better at hammering out details up front, and learned how to ship a finished product. I got to a point where I’d gotten what I was initially hoping for from the job. Learning these things also taught me more about what I wanted to learn in the future.When I looked ahead to the next set of skills I’d need to focus on as Microsoft PM, I wasn’t as excited.* There were other areas I was far more interested in learning about at this point in time.
2. The role models I found pointed me in other directions.I talked to a lot of people while I was at Microsoft.  The part I found most interested was talking to people who’d been around a really long time (20+ years) and tended to be in fairly senior roles. They said things like “oh, I came because it was the risky thing to do and I really believed in the technology – it wasn’t about the money. I would have made more doing something else.” They talked a lot about the freedom and opportunities to change things, and how different the company was. Some even went as far as  “yeah, I don’t know if I would have stayed this long if I’d joined X years later.”Ironically, if I asked these people what to do, they’d say I should stay (but part of their job is retaining employees, so it makes sense). I could really clearly see the passion these people had, and I respected them very much, but it also seemed that follow their path I’d need to be elsewhere.

I really valued the two years I spent at Microsoft. While there were many ups and downs, I learned a lot, met many great people, and worked on two products I’m very proud of. I’m happy to know that my work will be in every single Windows Phone 8. Also, how else would I have checked “wear a giant panda head” off my bucket list?

I’m even more excited for my next steps, which I’ll be sharing soon.

* There’s a lot of room for debate here. PM is definitely one of the most flexible job roles when compared to a traditional engineering role. I do believe you need to have a T shaped set of skills, but my goals for my area of expertise don’t align to the Microsoft goals for PM expertise.

In re-reading my blog I realized I hadn’t shared another project that I did.

This is a poster I made for Information Design at the UW (HCDE 510). The class was meant to teach you how to create beautiful print information. I’m not sure if this qualifies as beautiful, but I did learn a lot about grid systems, spacing, different types of graphs and avoiding chart junk.

This chart focuses on the smartphone market share across different axes.

One of my goals since I moved to Seattle has been to ride my bike all the way to work (it takes a while- you have to go around a lake. It’s about 28 miles).

This is the route you need to take- it goes up and around Lake Washington.

Today, I set out intending to bike to Woodinville (20 miles) and figured I wouldn’t even make that. I was pleasantly surprised. And decided to bike the rest of the way to work. I took the opportunity to take a touristy photo. Regardless, success!

I sent this email to three of my closest friends earlier to kick off this experiment. If anyone else wants to be involved in the next round, feel free to let me know by emailing me.

Hey guys,

I’ve been thinking a lot about habits and self improvement recently- particularly how to decide on what to work on. One thing I’ve been thinking about is executive coaching. Executives at company’s often use a coach, who does a 360-review of their actions. This is because people tend to have relatively poor self-perception about what they need to improve and why. Some of the most frequent questions on these surveys are (where I refers to the executive):

What should I start doing?
What should I continue doing?
What should I stop doing?

The goal of the survey is to find out how each person specifically perceives and works with the executive.

I’d like to think about how a similar technique could be used personally. People have a much harder time giving and receiving personal feedback than work feedback, because you aren’t being paid to hear it, it’s more about you as a person, and it’s too easy to argue back or get angry. It’s also much easier to write it off, because it tends to happen casually rather than in a big review.

So, I want to try this out. I’d appreciate if you guys, as some of my best friends, could answer the questions from your perspective. I’m happy to do likewise, if any of you are interested in trying out the experiment too. I want super honest answers about what you genuinely want me to stop, continue, and start doing. I really want them framed from your perspective. I.e. not “You should stop worrying,” but “You should stop worrying because it makes me feel anxious too.” Or, not “you should do less,” but, “You should do less because I feel like I don’t get quality time with you.” It’s really about how you all feel about me, and how you think I could make our friendships/relationships better. I want to focus on the things that are important to you.

This probably isn’t going to be one of the easiest things ever, or super pleasant to hear- because it contains some good things, but also some bad things. One of the ways executives “prepare” to receive such blunt feedback is by answering the questions for themselves, to prepare and see what they expect to hear back.

Once I see how this round goes/what I get out of it, I’ll probably try it with some more of our friends, or consider doing other questions. It’s mostly a research project to see if it would be valuable to build a tool around this for others, but hopefully it can help all of us too!

Feel free to take some time to think about it… I’ll check in sometime next weekend if I haven’t gotten anything back. I would really appreciate it though – so if you don’t want to let me know.

Thanks!
–Ellen

As you can tell, I didn’t manage to write one essay every single day. I’d like to claim I had less time than usual because of the holidays (isn’t that what adults always say?) but honestly, I had the time. So I wrote about one essay every other day.

What I Learned:

- The pre-thinking matters. Writing a good essay isn’t about the time when you sit down and say “I’m going to write an essay now!” It’s about all the time you’ve spent playing with the concepts in your head, reflecting, talking to others, and reforming your opinions. The first few essays came easily because I’d had them in the back of my head, knew the thesis, and just had to sit down and write it out. Some of them I’d been considering for years.

- Specific is better than general. When I ran out of essays I’d basically already written in my head, I had to spend more time thinking about the words to make my point. It got hardest when I got down to broad areas that I care about, like, “I want to write about gender.” I managed one essay on gender (made more specific through Jailbreak the Patriarchy), but i know I have far more thoughts on it. I just haven’t figured out how to take them down into distillable messages.

- Writing improves the quality of my thoughts. I like working with them and re-writing them to get to the right point. I could re-write any of the essays I’ve done so far and find out far more. It helps me think through the point, and figure out what I actually want to say.

- I like having an outlet to share my thoughts more broadly. I recently moved my domains away from GoDaddy to Bluehost, and decided to move my hosting there as well to make everything simple. In that process, I had a hard time getting my blog migrated (the XML file was too large to upload, splitting the file didn’t work, and I couldn’t just copy the directory because that didn’t generate the right databases). I was blog-less for about a week, and was surprised by how unsettled I felt. I had to ask myself “why?” because I’d gone months and months without writing in the blog before- why would a week be so bad? I’d already written a ton recently, it was Christmas, no one would miss it, etc. I never came to a strong conclusion on this- just that I felt uncomfortable not having a way to share my thoughts with the world.

- I also like having the essays to share with people I might not talk to – I was happy that my essay about the Awesome Foundation was read by other trustees, and that my one on 2+2 was read by people in the 2+2 (and hopefully some people considering it!) It’s much easier to send someone an essay than it is to request hours of their time.

- Practice helps! I feel like having spent a month trying to come up with good essays, I think about essays a lot more. I expect to be writing down my thoughts, and I try to be more tangible about my thoughts. I think I’ll be more likely to continue writing essays now that I have a good foundation. Writing has been part of my morning routine, and what I use my morning papers* for.

I really enjoyed doing this project. I’m not sure what my next writing-step will be. I’ll still be working on distilling the 50,000 words that I wrote in November. I’ll also probably keep writing essays when I have insight to share. I’ve been considering writing more letters to friends. I’ll happily take suggestions for writing projects that I can tackle next!

*Morning papers are a technique commonly used by writers to get their thoughts out. It’s usually 3 handwritten pages (or about 750words, which is the tool I use to do it).

I’m always surprised by how controversial New Years Resolutions (and goals in general) are. Some people love them, make them, and follow through (Kate). Some people make them and fail. Some people make changes throughout the year, and don’t consider New years the time for it (Erik). And some people seem to think making resolutions hurts (Leo).

I really like New Years resolutions. My approach is that if I’m trying to do something all year, I need to be able to remember it easily. So, I try to stick to one major resolution per year so I can remind myself of it as I go about my normal life. It’s more of a “habit for the year.” I also try to make ones I enjoy- If I said I was going running every day, that’d never happen. I like to give myself resolutions that I just need a little extra kick for.

2009 was “read an hour every day.” That’s been my most effective resolution so far. I actually did read an hour a day for at least the first two months, and definitely continued with the intent. I read more books in 2011 than I did in 2010 or 2009. Overall I read around one book every three days, which I think fulfills the intent well. It worked because I love reading, and I wanted to read, but usually didn’t set aside the time.

2010 was “be less flakey.” This has never been a problem for me with work. I can commit to getting things done and doing them. But socially, I have a much harder time. I don’t compulsively track my social plans, and frequently go “oh we should X this weekend” off-handedly. This often gets misinterpreted as “we’re doing X this weekend” when I usually was just making conversation. I think I’ve improved somewhat on this, but not to the extent that I should.

So in 2011 I had four, and I’ll highlight two. To be truthful, I had to look up what the 2011 ones were, and I think that’s because they weren’t as simple as 2009 and 2010.

2011 was “write 750 words every day.” I definitely didn’t do it every day, but I think on the whole I wrote a lot more than I ever have. I did many days of 750words, wrote 12 essays in December, and wrote over 50,000 words in November.

2011 also was “go to bed when I am tired.” I am better at this too! I definitely no longer stay up for no reason. If I am sleepy, I go to bed at 9pm. Last night I went to bed at 10pm, even though there were people doing things. I was tired.

So here’s to 2012.

For 2012 I want to “listen better.” I have a tendency to try to respond quickly in conversation. I tend to think about what the person said, and immediately provide another story, some advice, or something else that I want to help that. I want to spend 2012 making sure that I listen more deeply when other people talk. I want to make sure I understand and internalize their points, and look at it from their perspective (without trying to add from mine).

I think the best way to practice this is to have conversations with people – so if you’re interested in getting together for coffee with me, let me know. I’d love to talk to you, and if you want, you can tell me how well you think i’m doing at listening while you talk.

So a final bit on how my resolutions as being different from goals. I haven’t written much about goals, but if you want to learn more about those, please visit my friend Erik’s blog “the Bucket List society.”

The three big ones for me are:
- Habit – My resolutions are habits, or continuous. Goals are something that can be done in one day.
- “Finish-ability” – My resolutions are things I want to work on, and are never “done.” My life goals I can concretely check off as I achieve them.
- Desire – My resolutions are always things I want to do, to just give myself an extra kick. Sometimes goals are things that I think I should achieve, but I don’t have the day to day willpower/desire for them.

I’m excited to launch into a year of listening. Let me know if you want me to listen to you!

I’ve been having an impossible time writing essays since I’ve been in Michigan. I’ve also been having a remarkably hard time doing work for my job.  I’ve felt exhausted and unable to contribute. My leading theories were that I was tired from diving, or I was getting sick. Today I woke up alert, and still couldn’t focus.

This tends to happen every so often, because I’m not one of those well-organized, well-meaning people. I get busy; I throw things on the floor. I don’t put things away. I don’t clean things up. It doesn’t bother me at all, until all of a sudden it does. Then, when it does, there’s nothing I can do other than clean. I know I won’t get anything done until it stops bothering me, regardless of how important the work is. Most people try to address this by making lists, and then saying “I’ll remember it and deal with it later.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me.

Why does this happen? I’m easily distracted, and I have a good memory. The more things around me in a room that are “out of place” the more distracted I get. I see the clothes on the floor, and make the mental note that I should put them away. I do the same thing four times in an hour.  Then I remember it another four times.  I see the books stacked up, and try to figure out who I should give them to. I see the boxes, and wonder what’s in them, and if I need it. Every visual piece keeps nagging me until I eventually go address it.

Productivity gurus everywhere would tell me this is terrible. That I should just write my list, and focus on the most important task at hand. That I shouldn’t worry about all the undone things. The problem is, I actually can’t get anything done. It (unfortunately) does tend to happen when other things get done, so I deal with it as quickly as possible. As Nikki describes the cleaning version, “you go into manic cleaning mode, and two hours later everything is miraculously clean. I just try to stay out of your way.”

I spent years trying to force myself out of this pattern, but it is how my brain works. At the end of the day, I’d rather be much happier, and a little less productive. I’ll keep dealing with things as they bother me (regardless of priority), to keep myself on track.