The Foundation of Technical Leadership

by Brandon Gregory

I’m a front-end architect, but I’m also known as a technical leader, subject matter expert, and a number of other things. I came into my current agency with five years of design and development management experience; yet when it came time to choose a path for my career with the company, I went the technical route.

I have to confess I had no idea what a technical leader really does. I figured it out, eventually.

Technical experts are not necessarily technical leaders. Both have outstanding technical skills; the difference is in how others relate to you. Are you a person that others want to follow? That’s the question that really matters. Here are some of the soft skills that set a technical leader apart from a technical expert.

Help like it’s your job

Your authority in a technical leadership position—or any leadership position—is going to arise from what you can do for (or to) other people. Healthy authority here stems from you being known as a tried-and-true problem-solver for everyone. The goal is for other people to seek you out, not for you to be chasing down people for code reviews. For this to happen, intelligence and skill are not enough—you need to make a point of being helpful.

For the technical leader, if you’re too busy to help, you’re not doing your job—and I don’t just mean help someone when they come by and ask for help. You may have to set an expectation with your supervisor that helping others is a vital part of a technical leader’s job. But guess what? It might be billable time—check with your boss. Even if it’s not, try to estimate how much time it’s saving your coworkers. Numbers speak volumes.

The true measure of how helpful you are is the technical know-how of the entire team. If you’re awesome but your team can’t produce excellent work, you’re not a technical leader—you’re a high-level developer. There is a difference. Every bit of code you write, every bit of documentation you put together should be suitable to use as training for others on your team. When making a decision about how to solve a problem or what technologies to use, think about what will help future developers.

My job as front-end architect frequently involves not only writing clean code, but cleaning up others’ code to aid in reusability and comprehension by other developers. That large collection of functions might work better as an object, and it’ll probably be up to you to make that happen, whether through training or just doing it.

Speaking of training, it needs to be a passion. Experience with and aptitude for training were probably the biggest factors in me landing the position as front-end architect. Public speaking is a must. Writing documentation will probably fall on you. Every technical problem that comes your way should be viewed as an opportunity to train the person who brought it to you.

Helping others, whether they’re other developers, project managers, or clients, needs to become a passion for you if you’re an aspiring technical leader. This can take a lot of forms, but it should permeate into everything you do. That’s why this is rule number one.

Don’t throw a mattress into a swimming pool

An infamous prank can teach us something about being a technical leader. Mattresses are easy to get into swimming pools; but once they’re in there, they become almost impossible to get out. Really, I worked the math on this: a queen-sized mattress, once waterlogged, will weigh over 2000 pounds.

A lot of things are easy to work into a codebase: frameworks, underlying code philosophies, even choices on what technology to use. But once a codebase is built on a foundation, it becomes nearly impossible to get that foundation out of there without rebuilding the entire codebase.

Shiny new framework seem like a good idea? You’d better hope everyone on your team knows how to use that framework, and that the framework’s around in six months. Don’t have time to go back and clean up that complex object you wrote to handle all the AJAX functionality? Don’t be surprised when people start writing unneeded workarounds because they don’t understand your code. Did you leave your code in a state that’s hard to read and modify? I want you to imagine a mattress being thrown into a swimming pool…

Failure to heed this command frequently results in you being the only person who can work on a particular project. That is never a good situation to be in.

Here is one of the big differences between a technical expert and a technical leader: a technical expert could easily overlook that consideration. A technical leader would take steps to ensure that it never happens.

As a technical expert, you’re an A player, and that expertise is needed everywhere; and as a technical leader, it’s your job to make sure you can supply it, whether that means training other developers, writing and documenting code to get other developers up to speed, or intentionally choosing frameworks and methodologies your team is already familiar with.

Jerry Weinberg, in The Psychology of Computer Programming, said, “If a programmer is indispensable, get rid of him as quickly as possible!” If you’re in a position where you’re indispensable to a long-term project, fixing that needs to be a top priority. You should never be tied down to one project, because your expertise is needed across the team.

Before building a codebase on anything, ask yourself what happens when you’re no longer working on the project. If the answer is they have to hire someone smarter than you or the project falls apart, don’t include it in the project.

And as a leader, you should be watching others to make sure they don’t make the same mistake. Remember, technology decisions usually fall on the technical leader, no matter who makes them.

You’re not the only expert in the room

“Because the new program is written for OS 8 and can function twice as fast. Is that enough of a reason, Nancy Drew?”

That’s the opening line of Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy, from the Saturday Night Live sketch with the same name. He’s a technical expert who shows up, verbally abuses you, fixes your computer, and then insults you some more before shouting, “Uh, you’re welcome!” It’s one of those funny-because-it’s-true things.

The stereotype of the tech expert who treats everyone else as inferiors is so prevalent that it’s worked its way into comedy skits, television shows, and watercooler conversations in businesses across the nation.

I’ve dealt with the guy (or gal). We all have. You know the guy, the one who won’t admit fault, who gets extremely defensive whenever others suggest their own ideas, who views his intellect as superior to others and lets others know it. In fact, everyone who works with developers has dealt with this person at some point.

It takes a lot more courage and self-awareness to admit that I’ve been that guy on more than one occasion. As a smart guy, I’ve built my self esteem on that intellect. So when my ideas are challenged, when my intellect is called into question, it feels like a direct assault on my self esteem. And it’s even worse when it’s someone less knowledgeable than me. How dare they question my knowledge! Don’t they know that I’m the technical expert?

Instead of viewing teammates as people who know less than you, try to view them as people who know more than you in different areas. Treat others as experts in other fields that you can learn from. That project manager may not know much about your object-oriented approach to the solution, but she’s probably an expert in how the project is going and how the client is feeling about things.

Once again, in The Psychology of Computer Programming, Weinberg said, “Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience.” Take it a step further. Don’t just treat them that way—think of them that way. You’d be amazed how much easier it is to work with equals rather than intellectually inferior minions—and a change in mindset might be all that’s required to make that difference.

Intelligence requires clarity

It can be tempting to protect our expertise by making things appear more complicated than they are. But in reality, it doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to make something more complicated than it needs to be. It does, however, take a great deal of intelligence to take something complicated and make it easy to understand.

If other developers, and non-technical people, can’t understand your solution when you explain it in basic terms, you’ve got a problem. Please don’t hear that as “All good solutions should be simple,” because that’s not the case at all—but your explanations should be. Learn to think like a non-technical person so you can explain things in their terms. This will make you much more valuable as a technical leader.

And don’t take for granted that you’ll be around to explain your solutions. Sometimes, you’ll never see the person implementing your solution, but that email you sent three weeks ago will be. Work on your writing skills. Pick up a copy of Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style and read up on persuasive writing. Start a blog and write a few articles on what your coding philosophies are.

The same principle extends to your code. If code is really hard to read, it’s usually not a sign that a really smart person wrote it; in fact, it usually means the opposite. Speaker and software engineer Martin Fowler once said, “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”

Remember: clarity is key. The perception of your intelligence is going to define the reality of your work experience, whether you like it or not.

You set the tone

Imagine going to the doctor to explain some weird symptoms you’re having. You sit down on the examination bed, a bit nervous and a bit confused as to what’s actually going on. As you explain your condition, the doctor listens with widening eyes and shaking hands. And the more you explain, the worse it gets. This doctor is freaking out. When you finally finish, the doctor stammers, “I don’t know how to handle that!”

How would you feel? What would you do? If it were me, I’d start saying goodbye to loved ones, because that’s a bad, bad sign. I’d be in a full-blown panic based on the doctor’s reaction.

Now imagine a project manager comes to you and starts explaining the weird functionality needed for a particularly tricky project. As you listen, it becomes clear that this is completely new territory for you, as well as for the company. You’re not even sure if what they’re asking is possible.

How do you respond? Are you going to be the crazy doctor above? If you are, I can assure you the project manager will be just as scared as you are, if not more so.

I’m not saying you should lie and make something up, because that’s even worse. But learning to say “I don’t know” without a hint of panic in your voice is an art that will calm down project teams, clients, supervisors, and anyone else involved in a project. (Hint: it usually involves immediately following up with, “but I’ll check it out.”)

As a technical leader, people will follow your emotional lead as well as your technical lead. They’ll look to you not only for the answers, but for the appropriate level of concern. If people leave meetings with you more worried than they were before, it’s probably time to take a look at how your reactions are influencing them.

Real technical leadership

Technical leadership is just as people-centric as other types of leadership, and knowing how your actions impact others can make all the difference in the world in moving from technical expert to technical leader. Remember: getting people to follow your lead can be even more important than knowing how to solve technical problems. Ignoring people can be career suicide for a technical leader—influencing them is where magic really happens.

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General versus Project Management

by Alan Tsuda

I’ve been asked by many beginning project management students about the difference between general and project management. My simple answer has been that the things that make a good general manager (GM) help a project manager (PM), and that the PM does a few additional things specific to projects. That seems to satisfy most, but it got me thinking about my experiences.

In many ways, I don’t see a real distinction. As a GM I’ve used project management techniques in many situations. For example, in the case of HR – specifically, developing people – I’ve often used project concepts and structures. Defining clear deliverables, acceptance criteria, timelines, progress reporting, and so on, lend themselves to good management.

Similarly, as a PM, I’ve had to use skills that are not specific to project management such as political and influencing skills.

So, from a management skills perspective, I see a vast overlap.

Maybe it’s on the leadership side of things that more distinctions arise? For me, I don’t think so. I’ve seen managers in both the general and project environments with no leadership attributes and those with great leadership (of course, there are those with management skills and those without). In my opinion, the best managers in both contexts have good management skills and leadership behavior (the next best are those with leadership and the ability to attract and motivate those with good management skills).

So, if it’s not management skills nor leadership behavior, is there a major distinction to be made?

For me it’s about the scope of responsibility. In my experience as a PM, I’ve always focused on making “it” happen. As a PM, I was more concerned about limiting scope to the extent that I could clearly define and measure success and thus increase the probability of project success. I was not so concerned about whether the project was actually the best utilization of resources in aligment with the initiatives and strategic position of the enterprise.

As a GM, I’ve been responsible for deciding what “it” should be. Yes, it can still be thought of as a matter of degree. As a PM, I’ve had influence over the strategic and tactical portfolio of projects; and as a GM, I’ve had to think about “doability.”

For example, I remember a state government-sponsored initiative where then out of work technology workers were to become teachers. As a PM, I was focused on defining a project with deliverables that could be clearly measured in a timely manner – we ended up with a 4 month project to recruit and enroll a specific number workers in teacher certification programs. As a PM, I was satisfied. I was not primarily worried about whether children would be better educated, or whether school districts would be able to hire new teachers, or whether parents would be more likely to keep their children in the public school system, or whether workers would quit as soon as tech jobs became available again.

As a GM, I did care about those things. I had significant issues regarding the usefulness of spending resources on this program. While a politically attractive initiative showing action in dealing with two issues of significant concern to constituents, it did not strike me as particularly effective in the context of improving schools or dealing with employment/job issues. It was my responsibility to decide to do it or not.
So, there’s my take on GM versus PM. Not so much about skills or leadership. Not a clean demarkation, but a difference in the scope of responsibility.

eBay & PayPal’s Split is Good for Customers

I was having a family birthday meal for my Father birthday last weekend. He was talking to my kids about the changes that he has seen over his 87 years. There have been many! I made the comment during the meal that I am sure that when my kids are Grandparents, I was sure they will be sitting around similar family gathering telling their grandchildren of the time when people carried around money in the form of pieces of metal in their pockets and paper in wallets.

It’s ironic therefore that yesterday (Tuesday) eBay and PayPal announced that they were going to split. By 2015, eBay plans to establish PayPal as its own company to make my prophecy become reality.

According to Forbes.com, PayPal was the vehicle for $180 Billion worth of currencies from 193 countries across the world last year. It also grew revenues by 20% to $6.6 Billion, which represented 36% of eBay’s profits last year.

In the past when both of these companies partnered up, eBay was the bigger and faster-growing business model, while PayPal was its convenient service to handle payments. It was like PayPal was a little brother tagging along the bigger one. The rise in popularity of mobile payments, however, has given PayPal more opportunity to grow. Now, it’s as if the younger brother has potential to surpass the older brother.

The age of electronic payments is here, and this is a massive battleground. Mobile payments were responsible for $235 billion last year in transactions (Although I think it is important to note that the remaining 15 trillion was cash and credit cards).

There are many big names fighting for their share of this growing segment of payments. Apple just announced their mobile payment system by way of their Apple Pay App that they have just launched with their iPhone 6. Also, our clientsBarclaycard have been in this market for years with Barclays Pingit App. Then there is Square, the mobile payment company that enables individuals and merchants to process debit and credit card transactions on their smartphones and tablets. Google, Amazon, AT&T and Verizon, are just a few more of the big names that are in the mobile payment business.

What’s great about this split for the consumer?

I’m sure many of you are wondering how this will affect you, the consumer. I think spinning off into PayPal is great for consumers in many ways, including:

• It gives PayPal a chance to build a new brand. PayPal has a perception problem. They are perceived as a payment mechanism for an auction site. By spinning off into their own entity, they can become a more prestigious brand in a new dynamic market. Coming out from under eBay’s shadow will let them blossom, into what I hope will become a Customer-centric organization.

• They have Customer-centric leadership. It’s great that their new CEO, Dan Shulman is coming from American Express, a highly Customer-centric company. Alos, Shulman was instrumental in American Express’ strategy to bring to market new digital payment services. Furthermore, he was a part of Virgin Mobile’s team, which is again very Customer-centric. When we training people on how to assess their Customer Centricity we use our Naïve to Natural model. Leadership is a key element of building a Customer centric company that puts the customer first in everything they do, and Shulman is the type of leader that will embrace that philosophy.

• It will attract more talent to PayPal’s team. For just a little over a decade, Paypal has been an eBay subsidiary. According to recode.net, this means that they are no longer considered an innovator. As a result, the top talent is less likely to want to work there. With their own brand to build and more freedom to test the waters, they can recruit more of the movers and shakers in the industry, which will lead to better products and services for their account holders.

• Competition is great for Customer Experience. The more options there are for mobile payments, the less tolerant Customers are for providers that lack Customer-focus, forcing all the providers to improve their Customer Experience.

Mobile Payments Are the Future

It seems that there is one big thing that happens in every generation that changes everything and makes something perfectly normal in one decade sound ridiculous to the next. Consider the pay phone. These days, the only one who uses them are people who are having affairs and don’t want their call history to show up on their phone (I’m joking, of course!). Honestly though, I would guess that the vast majority of you haven’t used a pay phone in ten years.

That future isn’t as futuristic as it may sound right now as many merchants are gravitating away from cash. Buses in London don’t take cash. Airlines don’t either. So if you want to buy that snack pack on the flight, you had better have plastic, or you are going to have to settle for Bloody Mary Mix and the teensy bag of pretzels. Many hotels and resorts don’t accept cash for rooms any longer. Even parking meters have gone cashless in many places. This one is great though, as anyone who has worked his or her way up to two hours on the old-fashioned meter one dime at a time would agree.

PayPal and eBay were a great together for many years. In their new iterations, they will likely continue this greatness. Will there be adjustments to their relationship after the split? Sure, but all the changes that they endure as an individual organizations will ultimately pave the way for PayPal to realize its full potential…and pay off in a better experience for all of us when it comes to mobile payments.

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Stop Losing Your Wallet Thanks To SALT

What if there was a product that could prevent you from losing your wallet? How about a product that unlocks your phone automatically? Soon, there will be. SALT is a new credit-card-sized gadget that fits right in your wallet. When you're near your phone, your phone is unlocked. When you leave, it locks itself. Automatically.

Smartphone users know all too well that a security PIN is necessary, but it also can be a bit annoying if you are entering it hundreds of times each day. According to SALT, the action of entering a PIN consumes nearly 52 hours of your time per year.

The SALT card is made of ultra-durable plastic, and contains a custom battery that lasts for over one year.

Setup is super easy. Simply pair the card with your phone through the SALT app. Moving forward, SALT will unlock your phone automatically as long as the card is within 10 feet of your device. No more entering your pin. All you do is turn your screen on and you're ready to go. If you walk away from your phone or accidentally leave it on the table when you walk away, your phone will be safe. It will automatically lock until your SALT card is back in range.

That's it -- all you need is the SALT card and the iOS or Android app.

Not only will the card unlock your phone, but losing your wallet will probably be a thing of the past. Your SALT card and app work together to find your lost wallet or belongings. If you misplace your wallet, purse or backpack, the SALT app will show you the last known location on a map.

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How iPhone 6 Marketing Will Change your Brand?

The day of reckoning is upon us, the long awaited iPhone 6, iOS 8 and the iWatchwere announced today. Let’s cover the basics of what was announced, and how it could potentially fit into your marketing mix for Q4 2014 and heading into 2015.

For starters – the iPhone 6 comes in a 4.7 inch screen and a 5.5 inch screen, clearly larger than the current 4 inch version. The new wave of ‘phablets’ continue to bring quality experiences to consumers who not only love bringing their mobile devices on-the-go, but also want to use it at home for more long usage.

iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iWatch:

The new devices allow for a more connected ecosystem of devices that you will see continue to expand over the next decade. For now – at the very least, you will see larger screens drive more time spent on mobile phones, stronger engagement, richer mobile ads and a rise in video consumption. It’s something that’s been noticeable with the Galaxy S5 vs. other android devices, and you can imagine given the affluent demographic that Apple reaches, those numbers will be even stronger on the new iPhones. The iWatch becomes an interesting piece to future marketing tactics as it will be an extension to your products.

App Extensions:

Perhaps the biggest announcement in iOS 8, app extensions will allow for customization and open the iOS ecosystem to 3 parties. This includes custom interaction in the notification center, sharing extensions for other apps to share content and others including 3 party keyboards, etc... What does this mean? Imagine being able to tap into instagram’s filters while in the pinterest app or sharing content from Safrai to your Facebook app without actually opening the app. Or even imagine being able to buy something on the whim from a push notification without actually entering the app itself. These are some simple cases, but you can imagine the seamless experience apps will be able to offer now and the user experience people will get to enjoy.

Apple Pay:

ApplePay is Apple’s new payment system that will allow users to seamlessly charge payments with their current credit cards via NFC and Touch ID scanning. Apple Pay also gives the opportunity for developers to allow one-touch payment processing at checkout and using your TouchID. Apple says more than 200,000 merchants will support the platform. This feature significantly reduces the barrier to logging in, making a purchase or any other behavior that requires people to input a large amount of information. Now the same information (e.g., credit card) can be stored and authorized using a person’s fingerprint — leaving significantly less friction and less opportunity for abandonment. The key thing to note here is Apple will not share any personal information (address, credit card info, etc…) with the merchant.

So what does this all mean for marketers? It continues to be a huge push into the era of big data, harnessed by the power of an integrated ecosystem and connected devices. To understand this new age of technology and how it affects marketing, it’s important to look at a few key factors:

1) There’s a tipping point of consumer usage with the majority of time spent now on phones, phablets and tablets

2) Privacy is always Apple’s top priority, but you imagine marketers will find loopholes to get more information on how consumers are using devices for both online purchases and now in the physical world

3) These devices are becoming the most trusted piece of a person’s life – now most notably as apple tries to replace credit cards and wallets

4) App usage continues to grow as do connected devices (cars, watches, wearables, etc..) – app extensions will seemingly make things smoother, and tracking media dollars now becomes more difficult than the standard world of cookies allowed. New IDs (Fingerprinting, Device IDs, etc..) should be a key to your cross-device marketing. And ensuring your app is seamlessly integrated to the new iOS 8 will separate winners from losers in 2015.

Given these 4 important factors, why would mobile NOT be an important piece of your marketing mix? Consumers are always ahead of the curve, but the wealth of data can help discover HUGE learnings for your brand. After all, the majority of purchases are still made in physical stores, with much of that initial research and product learning being done in the digital world. Mobile data is the key to bridging all the gaps in your marketing funnel.

Products like Venmo, Uber and Seamless have already proven the intuitive nature of power buyers, but now Apple is allowing a much larger adoption. What do wesee here at Pivmo possible in 2015? We see opportunities for higher impact on bigger screens, real-time messaging to drive impulse purchases - based on triggers such as location, context, social chatter, buying habits and relevancy. We see the opportunity for mobile being the most influential data source to understanding how consumers interact with all channels. We see video consumption on the rise, ultimately powering brand dollars. And finally, we see brands continue to explode through the power of mobile innovation and marketing winning over the new wave of consumers.

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How Does Apple’s iPhone 6 Stack Up Against the Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, and Moto X?

Apple’s iPhone 6 and its new iPhone 6 Plus are officially here, and both are bigger and — if you believe Apple CEO Tim Cook — better than any smartphone in the company’s history.

As we now know, the iPhone 6 is available in two different sizes: a generous 4.7 inches and a massive 5.5 inches. That makes them both significantly larger than the 4.0-inch iPhone 5s.

MORE: Apple’s New iPhones, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

And with enhancements including a high-resolution screen, an improved camera, and mobile payment capabilities, the iPhone 6 is a serious contender for best smartphone on the market.

But there’s plenty of competition from companies like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola. To see how the iPhone 6 stacks up, we’ve compared it with Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4, HTC’s One M8, andMotorola’s Moto X in a free-for-all smackdown of smartphone superpowers.

How does Apple’s latest handset compare? Let’s take a look.

ScreensThe iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have an unfair advantage in this category, in that they come in two sizes, 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches.

It’s a smart decision, though, as Apple can appeal to both consumers who couldn’t care less about owning a massive smartphone and those who are hungry for more screen real estate.

Apple’s displays also use the company’s new Retina HD technology. That means the 4.7-inch iPhone 6’s screen resolution clocks in at 1334 × 750, while the iPhone 6 Plus’s resolution tops out at 1920 × 1080.

The Galaxy S5, on the other hand, sports a 5.1-inch 1080p display, putting it smack dab in the middle of Apple’s two new iPhones in terms of size. It’s worth noting that the S5’s display is easily one of the most beautiful around, thanks to its active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display.

Samsung’s 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 4, meanwhile, aims at consumers who want a phone that’s more like a tablet. (We refuse to call it a “phablet.”) The HTC One M8 and Moto X both sport 5-inch 1080p screens. If you’re judging based on display perfection, in other words, Apple or Samsung look like your best bets.

Apple’s iPhones have long been known for their impressive displays and incredible color accuracy. If the iPhone 6s’s Retina HD screens are anything like Apple’s previous iPhone displays, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus may have this category sewn up.

Advantage: Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

DesignBigger screens naturally mean bigger phones. To keep the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus from overtaking your pockets, Apple has made both of its new handsets thinner than the iPhone 5s.

The iPhone 6 measures just 0.27 inches thick, while the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus clocks in at 0.28 inches; both are slimmer than the 0.30-inch iPhone 5s, as well as any of the Android handsets in our competition.

The Samsung Galaxy S5, for example, measures 0.32 inches, while the Note 4 measures 0.34 inches. HTC’s One M8 is 0.37 inches thick, and Motorola’s Moto X is 0.39 inches at its thickest.

The iPhone 6 comes wrapped in a rounded aluminum body that looks somewhat similar in design to the all-metal HTC One M8. Unlike the One M8, however, the iPhone 6 doesn’t have a curved hump along its back panel.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 sports a plastic chassis, while the Note 4 features a metal frame and plastic back panel. Likewise, the Moto X includes an aluminum frame and a customizable rear plate that can be had in plastic, wood, or even leather.

Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus may be unbelievably thin and sleek, but Motorola’s Moto X offers some impressive customization options. Of course, we’ll have to wait until we see the iPhone 6 up close before we give this category to the Moto.

Advantage: Motorola Moto X

CameraApple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus come with the same iSight 8-megapixel camera found on the iPhone 5s. But Apple has made some major improvements to the new cameras with its new iSight sensor with faster autofocus.

The iPhone 6 comes with digital image stabilization, while the iPhone 6 Plus has optical image stabilization (OIS). Digital stabilization uses software to compensate for camera movement when taking a photo, while optical stabilization physically moves the lens as you shoot to ensure a clear picture. (In other words, optical is better.) The cameras also offer slow-motion capabilities and better face detection.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 both pack 16-megapixel cameras with real-time high dynamic range (HDR), which combines two exposure levels to improve overall image brightness and quality. Both phones let you see how a photo would look when taken with HDR on before you actually capture it. The Note 4 also gets optical stabilization, though the S5 doesn’t.

The HTC One M8’s camera uses HTC’s own UltraPixel technology, which translates to about 4 megapixels. Motorola’s Moto X, on the other hand, uses an 13-megapixel camera.

Apple’s iSight camera has been the gold standard for smartphone cameras, and with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus offering enhanced versions of the iSight, Apple should take this category with ease.

Advantage: Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

SoftwareThe iPhone 6 runs Apple’s new iOS 8 operating system, which offers serious improvements over its predecessor, iOS 7. In addition to new notifications and the ability to communicate with your OS X Yosemite-compatible MacBook and Mac, iOS 8 includes Apple’s new HealthKit and HomeKit services.

HealthKit pulls together all your health information from your disparate fitness apps and presents it to you in one convenient location. HomeKit lets you control and monitor your iOS-compatible smart-home devices.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 and Note 5 both run on Google’s Android KitKat but add Samsung’s own customizable (and often overbearing) TouchWiz interface to the mix. Similarly, HTC uses Android KitKat but puts its Sense UI over it. The Moto X, on the other hand, runs a pure version of Android KitKat, ensuring that your experience is exactly what Google intended.

We’ve only seen beta versions of Apple’s iOS 8, though it certainly has some excellent offerings. But Motorola’s pure Android experience is impressive in its own right. For now, this category is up for grabs.

Advantage: Tie

Mobile walletsApple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the company’s first devices to use a near-field communication (NFC) chip. The feature allows iPhone fans to make wireless payments via Apple’s new Apple Pay service at participating stores’ checkout counters.

Nothing new here. NFC has been a major part of the Android ecosystem for a while now, allowing users to trade photos, apps, and websites by tapping their phones together. Google also has its own mobile payment system, the appropriately named Google Wallet, that’s compatible with most Android smartphones.

NFC has been available in Android smartphones for quite some time but hasn’t quite taken off. Many analysts say the only way NFC wireless payments would gain traction was with Apple’s help. And now that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have it, our smartphones could finally replace our wallets. But in terms of mobile payment capabilities, this one’s a wash.

Advantage: Tie

Fitness trackingThe iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus come loaded with Apple’s new M8 processor, which can measure how many steps you’ve taken and how far you’ve run, whereas its built-in barometer can detect how high you’ve climbed. Those sensors are tied into iOS 8’s new HealthKit features.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and Note 4 both offer the company’s S Health app and built-in pedometers and heart-rate monitors. HTC’s One M8 and the Moto X don’t offer any built-in health features, though you can download third-party apps for the handsets.

The iPhone 6’s built-in pedometer and barometer, paired with its ability to pull in all the information from your various health apps, give this category to Apple — no sweat.

Advantage: Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

Battery lifeTo power the new, larger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Apple has bumped up the size of its phones’ batteries, which should theoretically allow them to run all day without running out of juice. Both the Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 offer equally powerful batteries, however, that last throughout the day and then some.

The Moto X’s battery will get you through most of the day as well. We haven’t been able to test the Note 4’s battery just yet, as the phone is still unavailable.

The Galaxy S5 offers one of the longest-lasting batteries of any smartphone on the market. Apple says the iPhone 6 will have a longer-lasting battery, and the Note 4 is also sure to have a serious power plant, but based on current numbers, the Galaxy S5 is the winner here.

Advantage: Samsung Galaxy S5

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What Bad Managers, Good Managers, and Great Managers Do

A key thing I've learned in my career and my own work experience:

Bad managers tell employees what to do, good managers explain why they need to do it, but great managers involve people in decision making and improvement."

There might be more to management to that, but I think that's a pretty good start. "Lean management," or the Toyota management system, encourages leaders to live in that "good to great" range (with apologies to Jim Collins).

Bad managers bark orders. They are directive and tell employees what to do, without any explanation or context. I saw a lot of that style of management quite often during my first two years at General Motors (read my previous post about that experience) and the workplace was incredibly dysfunctional, as a result.

There are top-down, "command and control" managers in every type of workplace, unfortunately. Managers who are controlling and have all the answers want their employees to "check their brains at the door," and often say so quite explicitly — or they spread that message in more subtle ways.

At GM, front-line employees complained that they were "hired for their backs and their arms, not their brains." In hospitals, healthcare professionals (even those with master's degrees) have complained, "They just want us to do what we're told." This is not a recipe for quality, productivity, or good customer service.

A friend of mine lives in a high-rise condo building. One example of "telling" was the general manager telling employees that the doors to the resident gym must now be kept closed at all times. For years, previously, the doors had been left open unless a resident wanted privacy and chose to close them.

My friend asked one of the employees, "Why are the doors closed all of the time now?" The employee replied, "I don't know, [the manager] just told us to."

It's disrespectful to just give directives without letting people understand the reason(s) why. There might have very well been a good reason why the doors were now to be kept closed. Had the manager taken just a few minutes to share a reason why, the employees would feel better about themselves and would more likely keep the doors closed. If employees are following directives out of a fear of being "written up," they aren't in a position to provide great service.

A good condo manager would explain why the doors now need to be closed. And, if there wasn't a good reason why, they wouldn't force the change on a whim.

A great condo manager would involve the employees in coming up with solutions to whatever problem is being solved by keeping the doors closed. The employees, when being posed with the problem, might come up with the idea of "close the doors" or they might come up with something better. Either way, they would feel a greater sense of ownership over the idea since they were involved in its creation.

During my time at GM, the better of the two plant managers I worked for taught us that Lean leaders (in the style of Toyota leaders) will always explain whysomething must be done, in those rare instances when they have to give a directive. The dynamic changes from "thou shalt wear safety gloves (because I'm the boss and I told you so)" to "you must wear safety gloves (because it's necessary for your safety and we don't want you to get hurt, even though you might think there is little risk)."

Bad managers tell. Good managers explain why.

Great managers go beyond this.

Great managers might engage the employees in figuring out how to reduce the safety risk that makes gloves necessary in the first place. Maybe an employee would suggest that a different, but equally effective, chemical be used. We don't know unless we engage our employees.

In 90% of workplace situations, I'd guess, the manager shouldn't be telling people what to do, even if they are making the effort to explain why. Great managers engage people in designing their work and they continue to engage them in ongoing improvement. As I learned from former Toyota employees and the books of Taiichi Ohno, work procedures "should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves."

This mindset and approach requires that leaders set aside their egos and century-old habits. of top-down management. Managers won't have all of the answers. Instead of dictating how things get done (and expecting obedience and compliance), managers need to work together with employees to define how the work is done. Managers need to ask employees what ideas they have for improving the workplace, through the practice of "Kaizen."

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