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May 9, 2006

Read this article. If it pisses you off, then you need to think about what you're doing that it talks about.

I cannot possibly emphasis this one point enough: You will never retain people just because you pay them money. Salary is a trade. I do work, you give me money. I will make an appropriate salary from anyone I work for. Really. It is the intangibles that count. Do you treat your people like smart, necessary, critical parts of your company, or is your theme "Sit down, shut up and stop talking to me"? Is your benefit plan one you can point to with pride, or does it meet the minimum level of suck to be called a plan? Do you balance your benefits between what's best for your people and what you can afford, or is cost always the driving issue? Is the only contact you have with your people required or optional?

There's no amount of money you can pay me to hide things like contempt for your employees. When you spend more time orienting me on the history of the company, rather than what the company does and how it does it, you don't want informed employees who get the big picture. You want drones at a desk who will do what they're told without complaint. When things like Corporate Challenge or other such events come up, and every participating company but yours has a loud group of supporters including senior management, you don't care if your company does anything, you're just participating to fill in a checkbox. When the only time people are asked for feedback on major initiatives, or even informed of them is after they're moot, you don't want people to take possession of their jobs and duties. You want them to remember that it's your company, your money, and they should be lucky to have a job at all.

If you think people are happy in an environment where they are treated like little more than drains on your bonus, think again. That's not desire keeping them there. That's a crappy job market, and/or enough time invested in the pension plan that leaving would cost more money than it's worth. Neither are loyalty. Loyalty cannot be bought, imposed, or created by fiat. You must earn it every day, and if you think otherwise, you have none. But if I'm pissing you off, then you probably don't care.

Maybe when your people dump you like a bad spouse, you'll realize your mistake. Then again, probably not. Bad spouses tend to not realize these things either.

Technorati Tags: Business, Leadership, Management

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April 1, 2006

So now there's yet more "Teh Dr@mA" in "Teh Bl0g0sph3r3". It seems that Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, authors of a book extolling the glories of blogging, did a little song and dance for Amazon, and were just shocked when the CTO of Amazon, Werner Vogels, didn't fall all over himself to embrace employee blogging, but instead started asking question along the lines of "What will blogging do for Amazon?"

A CTO is a technical officer. Not to be redundant, but the Chief technical officer. It is Werner's job to ask hard questions about anything technology - related, because it will be his job to manage it. Warm "Chicken Soup for the soul" answers may make it in PR/Marketing, but to a CTO? No way. Of course, the standard silliness has started, accusing Werner of not getting blogging, being out of touch, etc. <Sigh>, it's official, blogging v not blogging is the new computer religious war. We're better at them than anyone, including religion. Not surprisingly, I agree with Werner in both point and style.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Books, Business, Relationships, Technology

He was right to ask hard questions, and in a confrontational manner. From what I can tell, Werner's been blogging for quite a while now, at least as long as me, maybe longer. (When it comes to blogs, three years is a long time). He gets blogging. But when you want his company to jump on the blogging bandwagon, he has to do his best to poke holes in the warm, fuzzy, happybunnythoughts that most bloggers use as a reason. It's annoying as hell. I know I've asked Chuck, who is Werner's analogue at digital.forest, my ISP, about perhaps doing things a different way, and while Chuck always listens, he asks really tough questions, because it's his job to do so. I don't get all hurt by this, in fact, I feel good about it, as it means that there's at least one region of cold, ruthless reality between d.f. and a bad idea, or even a good idea that's not right for them.

That last bit is, I think, the part that a lot of those all infatuated by blogging don't get: ...a good idea that's not right for them. See, not all businesses are the same. You can't point to Microsoft and Amazon and say Since blogging works for Microsoft, it works for Amazon too. That's ridiculous. You can't even point to two computer companies and say that blogging is a requirement for success in that industry. Obviously it's not, not even close. Robert points to other companies who have used blogging successfully and says "See? Company <N> does it, and made money, therefore we all should do it" That's silly, and such an invalid thing to say that I wonder if perhaps Robert just got going and his mouth ran away from his brain.

Of course, because you mention blogging, Dave Winer weighs in with the worst analogy ever: To me, asking why you should use blogs is like asking why you should answer the phone. It might be a customer, a developer who wants to use your services, or a reporter who wants to write about the company. Your competitors answer the phone, so you should too. Dave, there's a world of difference between someone taking a positive action to contact you, and someone wanting to sit back and make you do all the work to communicate with them, at least in everyone else's world. The whole "everyone else is doing it" reason is so dumb, that I'm surprised that someone with a rep for being as smart as Dave would even consider it. But since he said it...Dave, didn't your parents give the "jumping off a bridge" lecture?

Shel goes into some other reasons, and uses edge cases, or "A few people at Amazon want blogging". I'm pretty sure a few people at Amazon want a porn star in their cube naked and ready, but that doesn't make corporate - sponsored hot sex a good idea. (However, Werner, if you ever DO go with the "free porn stars for employees" thing, for that, I'd relocate to earthquake-ville. I'm there for you man, I got your back.) Even worse, Shel talks about "The Wisdom of Crowds". Shel, I'll tell you now, the only consistent characteristic of a large group of humans is stupidity, perhaps followed closely by being easy to manipulate. Pet Rocks anyone?

The thing I keep keep seeing in this is that the blogger's assumption is entirely based on "It worked in other companies, so it's a good idea for everyone", and it's damned near morphing into "If you don't blog, your company is doomed". Both of those hypothesis, (they're not even close to being good enough to deserve the "theory" label) are false, to the point of being near-dumb.

First we have to ask, What is Amazon? We have to make sure we understand what we're talking about, in this case, Amazon. They're a reseller. Amazon makes nothing. They don't have a physical product. They make money by making it stupidly easy to buy other people's product through them. They have done this so well, that 90% of my gift shopping is done through them. It would be more, but I do get out occasionally, with money even. Amazon's "product" is how easy they make it for me to buy crap. So comparing them to Microsoft, or a winery, or anyone who makes things and sells those things that they make is not going to work. You'd have to compare them to other middlemen. CompUSA. Best Buy. CDW. Barnes & Noble. None of which have blogs, at least not according to the search engines on those sites. Search for "blog". Barnes & Noble come the closest with the book clubs section, but Barnes and Noble have physical stores. They benefit greatly from establishing the kind of relationships that get people in their stores.

Amazon benefits from making the buying of stuff, all kinds of stuff, really, really, easy. One-Click does not encourage people to stick around, in fact, it helps them leave faster. A brick and mortar store shudders at this, but an online-only store works for that. Make it easier to get in, get out, and they've done their job. I don't want to deal with pages of opinions from employees on books. Hell, I don't even like the opinions of other customers, why do I care what an employee i've never met thinks of a book? Of what use is that to me? Amazon has only one thing to market to me...ease of buying stuff. They do that every time I go there, because every time I go there, it gets easier to buy stuff. That's their product, their reason for existing. Robert and Shel were simply not prepared for someone to say "I don't care about everyone else, they have different business models. What will blogging do for Amazon?" The lack of homework - doing, research - doing, and clear - thinking - doing on Robert and Shel's part is obvious in their reaction.

Blogging is not a magic spell. It is a way to increase communications channels, but it is not right for everyone. Perhaps when the BlogBoys start to view it more realistically, they'll get a better reaction.

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February 16, 2006

Okay, I know this will seem scary, and strange to the Windows people at Microsoft:

But to the rest of the world, Windows Mobile is NOT in fact, a completely different platform than Windows. Telling me that Groove is cross platform because it runs on XP and Windows Mobile 5/2003 makes you look foolish.

One day, the rest of Microsoft¹ will understand that Windows* is a single platform.

But don't hold your breath until the entire senior management of Microsoft has quit or been fired.

¹other than the Mac BU

Technorati Tags: Mac OS X, Heterogeneous Networks, Technology, TEH STOOPUD, Windows

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February 2, 2006

Okay, so read this bit of idiocy.

Whiskey

Tango

Foxtrot?

Let me get this straight. This moron listens to his iPod cranked to the max and now it's Apple's fault. John Kiel Patterson, Idiot, is suing Apple because: Apple’s iPod is “inherently defective” in its design and can contribute to hearing loss.not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings.. Patterson's suit is claiming that Apple’s iPod is “inherently defective” in its design and can contribute to hearing loss, however, The suit doesn’t indicate whether Patterson has suffered any hearing loss from using his iPod, according to the Associated Press.

That's right, he doesn't even know if his hearing is damaged, and if so, if the iPod did it. But that's not going to stop John K. Patterson, the biggest jackass in Louisiana from suing someone. Check this out: Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

I SWEAR to GOD, if this idiot even gets taken seriously, I'm going to start suing companies based potential for damage from products. Cars can kill you, the exhaust can cause cancer, gasoline is TOTALLY toxic if you drink it. Guns? Oh dear god, give me a moronic precedent like this, and I'll be able to burn Benjamins with the money I'll get from the gun companies. The only difference will be, I'll admit I'm doing it because I'm a greedy, amoral bastard who wants to take other people's money. At least I'll be more honest than John K. Patterson, Idiot.

Let's be clear. He's saying that the ABILITY of the iPod to play loudly is the problem. No one forced him to crank it. No one held a gun at his head and made him listen to 115db for days at a time. Steve Jobs didn't threaten to sell his family for dogfood if he didn't max the volume on his iPod and leave it there. The iPod didn't break, and only play at that volume. There's no defect that causes the volume to only be that loud. John Kiel Patterson, Idiot, cranked that sucker clockwise until the bar hit the far right end, and that's now Apple's fault for letting him be a moron.

Even better, he's using a French law to bolster his case. Well, in France, it's illegal to make such devices that play at over 100db. That wasn't a voluntary decision by Apple, it's what you have to do to sell iPods in France. They don't do it anywhere else.

So this moron, this acephalic idiot, this entitlement queen has decided that since he's incapable of oh, TURNING IT DOWN, because I guess he's UNABLE TO WORK A SCROLL WHEEL, then it must be APPLE'S FAULT. Because heaven forbid that anyone tell John Kiel Patterson, Idiot, that maybe TURNING THE DAMNED THING DOWN MIGHT BE A GOOD GODDAMNED IDEA!!

If this guy gets anything but repeatedly kicked in the nuts by the judge, every resident of Louisiana, and every.single.employee at Apple, from Steve Jobs to the friggin' GROUNDSKEEPER, then the USA is doomed. There's only so much state-supported stupidity a country can have and still survive.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Business, iPod, TEH STOOPUD

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January 25, 2006

Disney bought Pixar, and Jobs is now on the Disney Board of Directors...

They're about to get Steved...they just don't know it yet...

Technorati Tags: Apple, Business, Pixar

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