The print version of My Thoughtson the Founding (of HiSoftware) is available on lulu

The story of how Hiawatha Island Software Company (HiSoftware, Inc.) was founded and then how over the course of eight years it became one of the most respected companies, in its space, worldwide.


The story is written by the founder, Rob Yonaitis, after directing the BOD to search for a New CEO whose specialty was sales and after 9 years of running everything he stepped down to write this book and enjoy the smaller things in life.

This logic is covered in the book! This is a story about what it took to build a team and to become the best with 0 dollars down!

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/my-thoughts-on-the-founding/2136909

You can also buy the Authors Fictional Work "A Horror of An Office":
This is a fictional tale that is meant to be funny while combining urban legend and other fictional tales to provide a worst case office situation. William, The Founder of the company is a Scientist with Degrees in Computer Science & Aeronautical Engineering Specializing in Space Studies. William is an amateur artist & a Pilot who has authored several books. Kent, the CEO hired by William, a man of short stature that has to put his name on everything that he did not write and then frames it and hangs it in the office. He can be seen at any moment sitting in his office staring at his pc with a blank expression on his face. TC, the CFO who always works with Kent. Whenever he talks, he tells the young men in the company, his favorites, that if they work hard they can get a watch or car like his. At company parties he brags how this co. paid for his watch, this co. paid for his car, and this co. paid for his pants.

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/a-horror-of-an-office/7897800

Rob Yonaitis, HiSoftware founder, writes his 1st Fiction Novella

A Horror of an Office by Rob Yonaitis 34aLabs and HiSoftware Founder
download complete book:


A Horror of an Office

A Novella by Robert B. Yonaitis

Synopsis
I am working on my new novella “A Horror of an Office” this is a fictional tale that is meant to be funny while combining urban legend and other fictional tales to provide a worst case office situation. The company name is Blue Marine Software.

Characters

William – The Founder of the company is a Scientist with Degrees in Computer Science and Aeronautical Engineering, specializing in Aeronautics and Space Studies. William is an amateur artist and a Pilot who has authored several books. William dedicates his free time to different local charities and is a supporter of the arts.



Kent – The CEO hired by William before he stepped down from control of the company to focus on his inventions and improve his flight skills. A man of short stature that has to put his name on everything that he did not write and then frames it and hangs it in the office. He can be seen at any moment sitting in his office staring at his pc with a blank expression on his face. The type of a man that would pay a marketing company to pose a photograph to make him appear to be the tallest when he was the shortest.



TC – The CFO who always works with Kent (Partners in Crime). Whenever he talks he tells the young boys in the company, his favorites, that if they work hard they can get a watch or car like his. At company parties he brags how this company paid for his watch, this company paid for his car, and this company paid for his pants. TC can always be counted on to lie to investors or shareholders!



Johnnie – Johnnie is the VC that recommended Kent. Johnnie can normally be seen with a glass of Vodka in his hand and if there is no vodka in the office TC will send out one of his boys to the package store to get it fast. Johnnie has no idea how much money Kent and TC Steal from him nor does he know how often they lie to him.



Lilly – Lilly is the salesperson that cannot sell and has one claim to fame, she did not testify against TC and Kent at the last company that they were at together “Moon Crater Software.” Lilly has been the salesperson of the quarter for three straight quarters, not because she could sell but because Kent assigns other peoples sales to her as payback.



Sub-Stuff

The company is partnered with the world’s largest software company “Acme Software” and Kent is doing all he can to steal from them in every way possible. The story takes place in 2012 and as I have chapters ready I will post them. I look forward to all feedback.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Modelación de riesgos, y 34a Labs Prevent Server - Rob Yonaitis HiSoftware Founder

#SharePoint Server, Modelación de riesgos, y 34a Labs Prevent Server - Rob #Yonaitis #HiSoftware Founder http://tinyurl.com/lnwnnb

http://www.yonaitis.com/mysofiatranslate19.pdf

HiSoftware Founder Announces New Writings/Why - My Thoughts on the Founding

Hello All:

I have received many requests for the future chapters of this Novella. There are a few requests that have caught my attention and they will be covered one a day from now to Friday.

Due Diligence - When you bring people on-board do you have to do a background search and should you look into their past work or accept recommendations of other board members?

Ramifications - What if information is withheld, what future things can happen if board members withhold information during the process?

What and Why - What to look for as warning signs and why, like a Executive that travels with their own accountant!

I look forward to these writings and feedback on the same.

Cheers, Rob

HiSoftware Founder: New Post on Importance of Many Voices

When thinking about the HiSoftware family from the inception until the time I stepped down as Chairman of the Board and CEO, there is one unique trait that held true-Many Voices. By many voices I mean that everyone had the right to question and everyone who was hired was likely to have comments and/or a voice to add to the discussion, (view previous post on up-hiring).

For Example, unless QA approved the release a product could not be released. This meant that if there was a defect that they did not like then the product could not be released. This decision could be discussed and deliberated but there were no closed door meetings where decisions to just release the product in spite of quality issues were made behind anyone’s back, (please view my comment on why QA and Engineering process is important).

Features, new features did happen but they were never one-offs. If enough customers, generally three enterprise customers or ten non-enterprise customers requested something new we would schedule a feature meeting. We would have to understand the impact on: product, QA, Installation, Sales, Services, Documentation and how this all played into the current schedule. If everyone agreed that it could be done without impacting the product or company vision negatively then it was built. Once again notice the importance of the engineering process and quality assurance

Some environments do not allow people to point out defects or to shove them under the desk; in the HiSoftware at that time, I wanted people to point out defects. We used to have bug bashes before the release of products where we had pizza and sodas and the person who found the most defects got a prize like a Borders gift certificate or a day off on a Friday or Monday. The excitement to find defects was beyond imaginable and I should note that there was a complete pride in the product shared by all employees.

I actually remember having employees come in to tell me that I needed to do things differently, to be a better CEO and then give me a list of why and how. I listened, respected the opinion and had some coffee with the person making the suggestions and got back to work! You cannot believe the pride that people have in their company when their voices are heard and opinions are valued! Of course there are down sides with everything but an open door policy where all voices are heard is essential to great companies!

From features to quality assurance I have discussed why many voices matter, but I don’t want to forget the frontline, technical support. This is on many occasions where the “rubber meets the road”. To empower the employees-we gave all the players including sales, anyone who dealt with the product or customer service, access to the support database and mailing lists. We did this because the voices of the customers needed to be heard. The individual in charge of customer support served as the customer advocate and they also had the ability to hold up the release of a product until they felt it was ready to go to the customer.

Lastly, could you imagine writing documentation without being privy to the support database or customer advocates or engineers? The task is very difficult, as you will not know what to correct in your writing or what errata to add. In many cases the documentation lead to changes in usage patterns or workflows.

So to summarize some key points on the importance of many voices of product development:

• All people dealing with the product or customers should have access to the support database
• The person in charge of customer support should have “stop ship” authority
• The person in charge of QA should have “stop ship” authority
• The person in charge of engineering should have “stop ship” authority
• There should be a process on how new features are added
• All employees should have the right to point out what they consider miss- management as a matter of policy
• A open door policy should literally and figuratively be instituted
• Beyond just allowing multiple opinions, leadership should also act on the same opinions.

Have a great Sunday and don’t forget to check out another one of my books, Understanding Accessibility at http://www.understandingaccessibility.com/

HiSoftware Founder Comments: Why up hiring is important to company culture

In response to some comments on some of our hiring practices at HiSoftware when I was the President, CEO, and a BOD member, I thought I would write this and perhaps include it as an appendix to the Novella. Both in reflection and looking forward it is important to understand that one should hire employees whom they trust and who add to the team. My recommendations to our hiring managers-and principals that I lived by were:

• Hire someone who is better than you
• Hire someone who in some ways is not like you, seek diversity
• Read every resume and ask questions of fellow team members
• Understand any training commitment that may be required before committing to a new hire
• Ignore letters of recommendations and references as deciding factors but do read and acquire them

To address these in more detail:

Hire someone then is better then you: Do not be afraid of hiring people who are better than you. This should instead be embraced. One of the most common mistakes made by new managers and some wrong-thinking executives is to hire people that they feel will not challenge them or their beliefs. Managers with confidence issues may seek to filter out better candidates in fear of introducing competition. That is why it is helpful to have broad review of resumes across multiple parties as possible.

Hire someone who in some ways is not like you, seek diversity: Too many times a manager or wrong thinking executive eliminates resumes because of school or past employers. Appearance and business attire can also be used to quickly to eliminate a potentially valuable addition to your team. Just because a person does not dress the way the rest of the team does, does not mean they may not add great resources to the group. This type of profiling at best hurts the team and at worse may be illegal.

Read every resume and ask questions of fellow team members: It is important to make every resume available to the team. This type of openness is very important. Another common mistake that new managers or wrong thinking executives make is to charge a team with hiring an individual but then only put forward a limited set of resumes. It is important to remember that one team member may spot something that you do not; positive or negative.

Understand any training commitment that may be required before committing to a new hire: Many times people hire an individual that has everything else required to be successful except for a particular component that can be obtained through training. A common error of new managers or wrong thinking executives is to hire these people but to never provide both the support and training that they need to be successful. In doing this they can both damage the team and the individual that they hired.

Ignore letters of recommendations and references as deciding factors but do read and acquire them: This may seem obvious on its face, but is not often considered. If you ask someone for a recommendation or reference they will never give you a bad one. So in reviewing these recommendations look for something written about an individual that really distinguishes their work. Things like “team player”, “helpful”, etc are nice but not as helpful as a small personal story. Use your best judgment.

In closing remember it is important to make all hiring information available to the team and always seek to hire people that are, or you believe, could be better than you while embracing diversity. While you may not all go out for a Margareta at the end of every day, in my opinion you will end up with a team of equal and better performers.

My thoughts on the founding of HiSoftware - Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven – To be continued

While 2002 is by no means the end of the Hiawatha Island Software story or even close to it, this is the perfect year to stop the story of the founding. Make no mistake, I do not believe that the founding of HiSoftware was a bed of roses, in fact it was very hard, and there are many personal and very real stories that would prove this to be true, however the characters in those stories can tell their own tales. So to finish the story of the virtuous founding let’s enumerate the products of the year:

• Jiti Builder Office wins 5 Star ZDNET Gold award:
  "JITI Builder provides an easy-to-use platform for working with and adding meta data to your Microsoft Office documents. Although you can accomplish this by opening a document and accessing the Properties dialog box from within MS Office, JITI Builder expands the possibilities considerably."
  
• HiSoftware metadata server is released.
• HiSoftware solutions continue to gain expanding worldwide acceptance, and HiSoftware expands its partnerships to provide real advances to the quality and usability of internet and intranet content.
• HiSoftware adds key world-wide consultants to it’s advisory Board and broadens the expanding reach of its product lines. HiSoftware partners with Human Factors International and Lighthouse International to provide software solutions to support their consulting practices. HiSoftware co-sponsors international conference focusing on accessibility, in Australia, the United States and around the world.
• HiSoftware releases its first technology in the Spanish language and forges partnerships with the Sidar Foundation in Spain.
  http://www.sidar.org/ HiSoftware CEO, Robert. B Yonaitis, becomes an Advisor to the SIDAR foundation
• HiSoftware Publishing’s third title, "Understanding Accessibility" Robert B. Yonaitis (2002), surpasses 1.1 Million copies in distribution. It is released in English, Spanish and French Languages
• HiSoftware releases Hi-Caption Digital media captioning solution that gains instant acceptance by the digital media community.
• HiSoftware Releases products that work with the major Microsoft .Net Servers bringing content Quality and Accessibility to the Enterprise in a cost effective Way.

Above all I can say there was total clarity and agreement on what was the most substantial happening of 2002. In 2002 I stood on the grass outside of the office with my fellow employees. We held up the da Vinci award, which was awarded to HiSoftware by the engineering society of Detroit (ESD). The da Vinci Awards honor individuals, organizations and corporations in the engineering, construction and technical industries, whose design innovations have exceeded any legally mandated requirements, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, to further empower all people regardless of physical ability. "This year’s group of winners are very impressive," notes NMSS President, Patricia A. McDonald. "The entries we received were of such high caliber that our judges had a real challenge to meet. The ones they chose are leaders in their fields. These designers have demonstrated such commitment, vision and enthusiasm and deserve public recognition for what they have done. They have shown the way for others to follow."

Even Microsoft Corporation in 2002 saw fit to acknowledge our successes; "We congratulate HiSoftware on receiving a 2002 da Vinci Award for its accessibility products," said Giovanni Mezgec, FrontPage lead product manager at Microsoft. "HiSoftware’s products are best-in-class solutions that enable Microsoft FrontPage users to more thoroughly test their FrontPage Web sites to ensure the highest levels of accessibility. It’s nice to see great products receive the recognition they deserve."

So my friends and I stood on the front yard, with a green jade award in our hands. I had to think for a second and look back. I looked down at my hands and while the burns from the cigarettes were gone I could still feel them and I am sure that they were worth it. I looked at my friends and employees and I was proud of what they had accomplished. I remembered the consulting firm that had said they would never have a product, I had over forty. In the end I could not be prouder of everyone that brought us to these levels of success. I think it is a Mitzvah, as we were able to run a company surrounded by countless moral and virtuous acts while following our beliefs while growing the company.

As I said in the beginning, this is not a complete story; it is simply a story of the founding. Many times would pass, many challenges would be presented, but as long as I had the opportunity we would continue down the path. I want to thank you for listening to this story, and if any of you have any questions please contact me at ryonaitis@gmail.com .