Erich Stauffer

Blog

  • My First Day at Blue Acorn iCi

    I read #donutrunbecausehappy as “don’t run because you’re happy” and I was like, ‘that’s the old me’, but then I realized that because I read it that way, I still have part of that mindset.

    Blue Acorn iCi’s onboarding officially lasts 60 days, but the initial, intensive learning period is 2 weeks. The first part (after the forms) was a bunch of reading. It then went into videos I had to watch of recordings. I was keenly aware that I was self-onboarding rather than being onboarded by a live person. However, I did have 2 people assigned to me. One was to teach me about the clients I’ll be working with and the other was to teach me how to be a BSA. I later realized I could increase the playback speed of the videos to 2x, which helped.

    I realized that a lot of the work has already been templatize’d and checklist’d. The rest are simple rules that are repeated in various situations.

    As I learned things and started comparing myself to others, I had to keep telling myself that I am a professional, I know what I’m doing, and it’s easy for me to learn new things. I then proceeded to learn new things very quickly.

    It’s occurring to me (even more so) that I’m going to be drawing from almost ALL of my past experience for this role (from client demos and working with developers at GoServicePro to executive stakeholder meetings and change control processes at Marine Credit Union to working with e-commerce and integrations at Skinny & Co to SEO and client work with my own consulting services). Even the call center work at First Merchants may come into play here. Blue Acorn even has credit union clients who they help with online check opening web workflows. A big store you’ve heard of also uses Netsuite and “Celigo” (Netsuite integration software), two applications I recently administered at Skinny & Co.

    It’s neat learning about clients they have from websites I’ve previously used. One of the companies that I’ll be working with is owned by one of the companies I worked with at Skinny & Co. This particular client I’m working with has been highlighted in the company newsletter as being a client that is utilizing Blue Acorn in ways it was never used before, which means the consulting range is wider than it’s ever been for this company. My client and another one of Blue Acorn iCi’s clients have competitors that Skinny & Co. have listed as competitors (i.e. True Botanicals and Tata Harper).

    They practice Agile Methodologies and the Scrum framework, which means they do 2-week sprints (vs a continuous flow as in Kanban). They use a Fibonacci sequence (ex. 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 13) of numbers to represent sprint points rather than a linear sequence.

    From a design perspective, they practice “Atomic Design” which is kind of like DRY (don’t repeat yourself) where things are created once and used in many places. A brand guide is a natural output of this as the design elements almost represents the ‘atoms’ in a 1-1 relationship. They call those elements in the style guide, “Design Tokens” or “style tiles” that when viewed together form a UI pattern library. The design tokens are more rigid while the pattern library can change over time based on use case iterations. They also design in high-fidelity first rather than low fidelity.

    There are a LOT of new employees here. People I’m working with have only been here for 2 days to 2 projects.

    There are many non-American-born team members. The Indian members are more obvious. The others appear to be Eastern European. In the one sprint meeting I was in, it was about 40% Indian, 20% EE, and 20% American.

    Almost all other coworkers were wearing t-shirts. I am choosing to wear a dress shirt everyday.

    There are many abbreviations being used everywhere by many different people. I’ve been looking them up and making myself a glossary.

    They use JIRA, which I have some experience with from Marine Credit Union, but the interface has changed since then.

    And as a side note, today I realized that what I learned from a single Shopify app podcast helped me in an interview to get this job (headless architecture and single page applications). It shows the power of intention as I was diving deep in my craft.

    At the end of the day I gave my manager an update on where I was at in the onboarding process. I was late by 4 minutes to a meeting today with her and my peers because I didn’t take my watch to lunch. It was really embarrassing, but I learned from it. I’m headed to the gym now.

  • How to Edit Horizontal Video into Vertical Video in Adobe Premiere

    Step 1 – Create a New Sequence

    Choose “Arris Cinema” and then go to “Settings” and change the size to 1080 x 1920. Once the video has been added, in Effects, choose “Auto Reframe” to zoom and crop the video.

    Step 2 – Export the Video

    Choose H.264 and then make sure the checkbox next to “Basic Video Settings” is checked. Click Export.

  • The 5% Rule

    How small shifts lead to big changes

    I first discovered this effect in March of 2014 when I read the Edison Energy paper on solar energy adoption. They determined that even a 5% adoption of solar energy would be enough to “tip the scales irreversibly”. This is when I coined the term, “The 5% Rule”, which I defined as when 5% change is enough to cause a systemic change.


    3 Examples:

    1.”Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption…In 2020, 4.2% of new cars were electric.”: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric-vehicles-close-to-tipping-point-of-mass-adoption


    2. 5% of people using solar energy instead of grid energy is enough to tip the scales irreversibly*: http://grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/

    *Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business by Edison Electric Institute: http://www.eei.org/ourissues/finance/Documents/disruptivechallenges.pdf

    3. 5% of people buying things online instead of stores lead to the decline of malls in America: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/03/are-malls-over.html

  • Pixar’s Soul – Themes and Reflections

    Rather than be specific, which I couldn’t be without re-watching the movie and taking notes, I’ll give you a summary of what happened and make comments along the way.

    The main character is a part-time band teacher in a middle school. The movie opens with him getting promoted to full-time work. He immediately feels let down because he really wants to be a full-time jazz musician. I felt that as I’ve often had to compromise on ‘my dreams’ for ‘a job’. And that is part of the central theme of this movie, which I’ll come back to later.

    However, as luck would have it, the main character gets a phone call from one of his former students who is in a band with a famous jazz musician and needs someone like him to fill in for someone who recently left the band. He ends up getting the gig, but dies shortly afterwards. The main character is now in the afterlife and very upset that ‘he finally got what he wanted and then it was taken away’ so he escapes to the ‘before life’ where souls are born. We have now seen a second aspect of the central theme, which is ‘for the fish to recognize water’, in other words, a misplaced search for something you already have.

    In the ‘before life’, the main character is matched with a soul who hasn’t been able to graduate to earth because they are never satisfied (a kind of opposite twin of the main character). The rules are that you have to get a spark of something you like in the ‘before life’ before you’re allowed to go to earth. The characters mistakenly believe that this is their ‘purpose’ in life and without having it or achieving it, then their life is meaningless. The main character believes their life is meaningless despite people like his students telling them they helped improve their lives. I felt that.

    The soul’s name is 22, which is the day of my birthday. I took this personally. 22 was never satisfied with anything. Nothing excited him. He had seen everything and tried everything and nothing moved the needle for him (or her). However, along the way, after being mentored by all of the great minds in history, 22 had become very intelligent, but not necessarily wise (intelligence applied). I felt that too because I’ve often spent a lot of time learning, but never really finding what I want to do in life.

    Eventually they figure out a way to escape to earth where the new soul learns about things on earth and realizes…I’m not quite sure….something about ‘living itself’ or ‘life itself’ or ‘the act of learning how to live’ is that soul’s spark. They like to learn, not necessarily do. And once learned, they like to tell other people about what they’ve learned, but not necessarily as a teacher, but as an unintentional mentor. I felt that, too. The fact that I’m sharing this with you right now shows that I’m like that. It’s why I used to blog and vlog.

    Eventually they learn, like the fish looking for the ocean, that each person doesn’t have a pre-destined purpose. The barber wanted to become a veterinarian, but he needed money sooner to pay for his daughter being born, so he became a barber. People who know him think he was born to be a barber because he is so good at it. The barber says he has found joy in being a barber despite it not being what he wanted. He realizes that he is still able to help people and in doing so, help himself. That is the theme of this movie – to realize that what you have and what you are doing is your purpose and you are having an impact. Realize what you do have and the impact you are making and think less about what you don’t. That thing you’re searching for…you already have it.

    And that’s also the theme of books like The Alchemist who goes on a grand journey for treasure that ultimately leads him back to a treasure under the house where he started. Or the idea of “diamonds in your own backyard”, a famous sermon repeated over the years about a farmer who sold his farm to go looking for treasure only to later realize his farm had a natural abundance of diamonds.

  • Lean Forward

    The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

    Jeremiah 17:9

    This is an anonymous guest post from a friend in response to my question: “What motivates you to keep going?”

    Trust me it gets dark for everyone.

    I feel it gets darker for people like us. Because we hold ourselves to a much higher standard.

    I’ve struggled with pride for a long time so much that even a person gave me a book on humility.

    Moving past that, people like us have this outgoing and ongoing effort. I don’t feel we can help it, it is a gift from God.

    There are big ass road blocks we and others face.

    Granted all of us take time off from it and get into slumps.

    But we see these glimmers of Hope and Sparkles in our kids. Will see our friends and Associates doing creative things that we know we’re capable of. We are supposed to be around we are supposed to be enjoying, we are supposed to be growing. 

    And it reminds us that we are Ultra creative and we may not have an immediate answer but we know multiple paths around something. And if we want something we find ways to achieve it or angles to try and eventually it comes.

    Then there are plenty of surprise blessings that can’t be explained other than mini miracles. So even being hard on your self there are so many positive reinforcements that your like I have to keep at it.

    We run from it sometimes my wife gets mad because I follow many mentors and should put everything up to God.

    When I talk to friends and I know they’re going through things and they ask for advice one of my favorite quotes is look no matter what the struggle is ” work like it’s up to you and pray like it’s up to God” dont just sit there and dont dwell on it.

    The take-home message for me is I’m always falling forward.

    I’ve heard it as failing forward. However that’s not how i feel. Im always falling/leaning forward.

    Like an analogy of being top-heavy. But in the sense that I’m always going to push myself toward something I’m going to be working on something, I’m going to be progressing, I’m going to be learning, I’m going to be asking for help.

    Personally I’m not the type that can sit back. Some people are like rest and be content.

    Me I’d rather be working on something or listening to a podcast. Or talking with a friend or family member.

     Even listening to interviews of people struggles and what they did in the amount of years or decades it took them to achieve what they were after. There’s a few rare things if maybe you’re an Einstein or a Tesla.

    Most other things you can find someone that’s done it and even written a book about it which proves to me it’s all possible. 

    There are lots of people that depend on me, but more motivating knowing people BELIEVE in me. 

    So take home message personally I’m always leaning forward.

    Then scientific side being  work to get hydrated for 3 days straight and see if you feel better. And workout even if its simple it will change your day by 20-80%

    Lean forward.

  • Successful People Balance the Big-Picture with the Details

    One of the biggest challenges in life is balancing the “big picture” with the details. You have to have a macro and a micro view of your life at all times.

    In life as in film editing, when you’re working on some minor detail, you have to be thinking about how it fits into everything that has happened before and after.

    Everyone intuitively understands that years are actually made up of days and days are made up of minutes, but those people who are able to take those minutes with the year in mind – those are the ones who are the most successful.

    Jason Cobb said in his video, Your Ideal Day, “When you design that ideal day and you start living it out, you know what starts to happen? You start to have an ideal week. And then you start having a great month. And then you look back and you say, ‘Wow! Look at the year that we’ve had!’”

    You have to be balancing that at all times and just try and keep perspective by going from micro to macro. The people who do that the best are the ones who are the most successful in life.

  • Remembering Sycamore Creative

    Modern Designed Bible Prints from Jason Cobb and Justin Bessinger

    Sycamore Creative Bible Prints was a company that produced Bible verse poster prints that gave us a better view of Christ (like the Sycamore tree of Luke 19) and foster a “Deuteronomy 6” lifestyle — where Scripture is fully integrated into the believer’s, schedule, conversation, and home. Jason Cobb handled management and finance while Justin Bessinger (of Little Tuba!) developed the branding/logo, built the website, implemented print rating feedback system and email subscription, and designed the poster prints.

    Sycamore Creative Bible Prints were quality pieces of art, pairing the timeless words of Scripture with a modern design. They fit in with today’s home decor yet reminded you and encouraged you with full and potent verses from the Bible. They launched their products on Kickstarter in 2014 and raised over $2000 to help fund their initial round of prints for their e-commerce store.

    Founded by Jason Cobb and Justin Bessinger, together they wanted to encourage their children with Scripture in their home. However, when they looked for Bible prints for their home, what they often found was often sappy, featured only a phrase or summarized idea from Scripture, or just too old-fashioned for our taste. So, they set out to scratch our own itch and created Sycamore Creative to produce 11″ x 17″ Bible Prints that were affordable, housed in high quality real solid wood frames, and professionally printed on thick, high gloss material.

    Jason and Justin believe that Scripture is the inspired Word of God that teaches us wisdom, history, poetry, and most importantly, God’s plan for our salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.  That’s why 10% of their proceeds went to Wycliffe Bible Translators which sends translators around the world to translate the Bible into languages and regions that had no access to Scripture.

    In September of 2014, I helped Jason and Justin launch Sycamore Creative. Jason and I traveled down to Justin’s house in Kentucky with an aspiring film producer, Chris Rihm. I was his production assistant. After the video shoot, we all drove to Madison, Indiana to eat at Harry’s Stone Grill. The Colts were playing their first game so we asked if we could sit in a room with a TV. They cleaned a room with TVs just for us.

  • Which Bud Light Seltzer Flavor Tastes Best?

    Full Review of All 4 Beer Flavors

    This video is about the Bud Light Seltzer covered in the Post Malone Super Bowl commercial. I review each flavor (black cherry, lemon-lime, strawberry, and mango) and let you know which beer tasted the best.

  • We Found an Abandoned Pipe Organ in an Old Church! Does it Work?

    My kids’s mom was remodeling an old church into apartments and found an old pipe organ, but does it work?