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December 11, 2001
Gary “Unblinking” Stock points out (as does Doc) that Google has put up a page of historic messages to Usenet. There are links to the first mention of Microsoft (June, ’81), the first mention of a Commodore 64 (Aug., ’82), the first thread about AIDS (Dec., ’82), Stallman’s announcement of GNU (Sept. ’83). This is great marketing by Google, letting us know that the site now has indexed 20 years of Usenet.
All hail Google the Good.
December 10, 2001
Scott Kirsner’s always-worth-reading column in The Boston Globe today describes how Parametric (now known as PTC) is attempting to become interesting again. In the late ’80s, it was an important player in the CAD market. And, with a market value of $2.2B and annual revenues of nearly $1B – that’s a lot of CAD! – it’s the largest standalone sw company in the Commonwealth of MA. Even so, it’s such a dull company that Mike Dukakis was kicked off of its board of directors because his crazy antics were too distracting. (Insert rim shot here.*) Now it’s trying to reinvigorate itself with a new line of software called Windchill that opens up the product design process to all concerned parties, from internal departments to external suppliers to customers. The software is already being adopted by such thrill-a-minute corporations as Airbus, EMC and Lockheed “Lewis and” Martin. Owners of PTC’s CAD software are averaging 14 licenses of Windchill for each CAD license. Product design is a conversation. Who’d a thought it! (Well, Doc Searls for one.)
CIO magazine has given a Web Business 50 award to the American Cancer Society for its bulletin boards and chat rooms. The boards are so important to users that the organization prominently displays the link to them on its home page. This looks like a great site.
Then there are those who take steps backwards. CIO also gave an award to K2, in part because of their cool user-to-user technical forum. Unfortunately, as the article notes, the forum is no longer up. Instead, the company has a set of technical manuals available. In PDF, to add insult to injury. (Oh, PDF is well-architected and a boon in some situations, but it is usually a dodge for companies that insist on putting their handsome looks ahead of their customers’ convenience and time.)
A reader whose name I’ve already lost, thus setting a new land speed record for forgetfulness, points us at Jones Soda where they do everything they can think of to get visitors involved. They’ll display your photos, they’ll publish your stories, they’ll even put your picture on a bottle of soda. On a quick look I didn’t see much that I actually cared about, but at least the gimmicks are customer-focused gimmicks. I guess that counts as progress.
Thanks
I got an encouraging note from Dominique. Her blog today tells a sorry tale of a show-me-your-tits job interview, a genre I thought we’d left behind us. Foolish me.
USAToday has an article that treats Chris Locke’s Gonzo Marketing book seriously. Wow! What a score! They even do a good job summarizing RageBoy’s surprisingly coherent thoughts. You go, USAToday!
December 9, 2001
This just in via anonymous email ([email protected]), and I present the message in its glorious entirety:
Pompous and pretentious. You are at your best when you merely quote the newspapers. What you say on your own is drivel.
Thank you, Post, your analysis is brilliant and your argumentation is irrefutable. I am taking two steps immediately to ameliorate the problems you’ve articulated so convincingly:
I look forward to more such critiques. Thank you, Post. Or should I just call you “Coward”?
How much do I love mnftiu? How much love is there, that’s how much. (The current set of 5 strips starts getting real funny with the third, IMO.) [1]Also in the funnies, Reuters runs the headline “Bin Laden’s Mother Disappointed in Her Son.” “Why couldn’t he be more like his brother Uli?” she asked plaintively. “Uli has twice as many wives and lives in a beautiful cave with a gorgeous view of smoldering ruins. Gorgeous. But Osama just never applied himself. What a waste, he’s such a talented boy. You shouldn’t know from such tsurris from your own children!”
[1] Thanks to RageBoy for reminding me about mnftiu, although I think technically I turned RB on to it, and it was definitely the always-funny Gary Unblinking Stock who first pointed me to the site, although someone else had told him, etc.
December 8, 2001
Almost three months after the civilized world was brought together across the political and social spectrum in an unprecedented condemnation in the strongest possible terms of various events, the hunt for what precisely those terms are has ended.
Among those who joined the remarkable coalition hunting for the strongest possible terms are:
Amnesty International: “…condemns the attacks carried out in the USA in the strongest terms possible.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations: “We condemn in the strongest terms possible the vicious and cowardly act of terrorism…”
Oxford University Labour Club: condemns ” the New York massacre in the strongest terms possible…”
The Afghan-American community: “We condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians.”
The National Union of Students: Condemns “the New York massacre in the strongest terms possible.”
National Council of Churches in the Philippiunes: “… denounces in the strongest terms possible, the attacks made by the United States on Afghanistan…”
Anti-US protestors in Kolkata: “…condemned terrorism in the strongest terms possible and at the same time spoke out at the same time against what they called an imperialist design.”
The Angolan Mission: “… condemn in the strongest terms possible these acts of terrorism…”
The Saturday School at Harvard: “The dastardly attack of September 11, 2001 must be condemned in the strongest terms possible. ”
President Moi of Kenya: “…condemned in the strongest terms possible these cowardly and heinous acts.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: Condemns “in
the stongest possible terms” “the decision of the Palestinian Authority to ban the military wing of the PFLP…”
Among those who condemned terrorism or the US reaction to terrorism in the strongest terms but were not committed enough to condemn it in the strongest possible terms were Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Philippines President Gloria Arroyo and
The UN Security Council
In addition, a group of 100 families in New Zealand condemned a new school curriculum in the strongest terms possible, the Maryland Association of Buyers Agents condemned dual agents in the strongest possible terms as a consumer fraud, and Ian Jackson protested in a posting to a Debian-Linux discussion board “I OBJECT IN STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS” to doing a release with the XT security bug unfixed.
It was agreed last night that the strongest possible terms are “the strongest possible terms” with only Angola holding out for “double damn with a cherry on top.”
I’m afraid my bad writing has hurt someone’s feelings. I referred to TheEndofFree as a “sad, sad site” in a previous blog. Oliver Travers of the site counterblogged that:
It’s true enough that many free-to-fee transition announcements sounded neither inspired nor inspiring. But if the alternative is watching these companies disappear altogether, we might as well wait and see whether they’re able to bounce back.
True enough. I didn’t mean that the site itself was dreary or unpleasant. Quite the contrary. It’s practically sprightly. But, more important, yes, it was my kneejerk anti-capitalism that had me think that the end of free is necessarily bad. I’m all in favor of paying for what I get on the Web. Except for the free stuff, of course. And whatever else I can get away with.
December 7, 2001
I spent Tuesday with Maj. Tony Burgess, Maj. Nate Allen, and the team responsible for a remarkable site, CompanyCommand.com. As an unrepentant ex-hippie and reluctantly lapsed pacifist, I was surprised how impressed I was with the Army’s style of business. This was a warmer and more collaborative environment than almost any I’ve encountered in the corporate world. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was.
Tony and Nate started CompanyCommand.com because company commanders need to talk with one another. Every Army officer serves as a company commander so that she or he will have hands-on experience leading soldiers. But there is surprisingly little guidance given to company commanders once they have gone through their training. And there are no horizontal communication channels. So Tony and Nate created a site at the heart of which are open, unmoderated discussion boards where company commanders can raise issues, ask questions, and share their insights. The site has succeeded well enough that the Army apparently is looking at ways to use it as a more or less formal resource.
When walking with Tony through the West Point campus, every cadet saluted him. Tony saluted back, as expected, but also gave everyone a “Hey, how’s it going?” or the equivalent. Not the “Sir Yes Sir!” interchange I was expecting.
The two meetings I had were models of collaboration and enthusiasm. Officers spoke with respectful awareness of rank but simultaneously with obvious affection. At one meeting, the ranking officer had also had several of the participants as students in his leadership courses, and it was clear that they admired and liked him. The conversation was frank in every regard, including in its occasional criticism of the Army, but was also good-natured and funny. The participants always went out of their way to credit others for their contributions to the project and to the conversation. “That’s a great point” they’d say before adding on to it, or “We implemented that a couple of months ago and Steve did a great job with it.” This seemed unforced and totally natural: a team of people who like one another and who are focused on the same goal.
It struck me that this team of hierarchically-arranged soldiers was so truly collaborative perhaps in part precisely because of the explicitness of the hierarchy. In a corporation, rank is informal and thus is negotiated in every meeting. People position themselves by jousting with others in subtle ways, for explicit jousting is considered pushy. In the Army, your rank couldn’t be more explicit. You’ve got stuff sewn into your clothing denoting your precise position in the hierarchy. Thus, there’s no need to joust, and teams can be more genuinely collaborative.
Believe me, this is not what I – wearing a tie dyed tee under my professionally-ironed blue pinstripe shirt — was expecting to learn.
December 6, 2001
There’s always been a contradiction of an Hegelian sort between the value of individuals with strong beliefs and the need to be flexible enough to subordinate one’s beliefs for the sake of the team. Passion versus teamwork. Commitment versus compromise. Individualism versus collaboration.
This tension is overcome in a suitably Hegelian way by the Web’s transformation of teams. In a typical hierarchical structure, teams are organized from the top down. Members are chosen not only for their personal qualities but because various groups need representation. In a webby world – a “hyperlinked organization” – teams are self-organizing. People form a team by pulling together the people they respect and like to work with, the org chart be damned.
This helps resolve the contradiction in in two ways. First, hyperlinked teams
form among like-minded people – for better or
worse. Thus, the strong beliefs of individuals are likely to be shared. Second, groups form among people who
already like and trust one another – for better or
worse. Thus, disagreements don’t have to escalate to
the “my way or the highway” point.
Hegel is, as always, right – which means we should be on the lookout for the new contradiction this engenders…
December 4, 2001
Huzzah. The hearings on the SSSCA – a proposed law about which the only question is whether its stupidity outstrips its evilness or vice versa – have been postponed, and no new hearings have been scheduled. For more details, see the EFF article.
Note: I’m on the road through Thursday with really crummy Net access, so pardon the temporary slimness of these offerings. But, I spent a really interesting afternoon at West Point. I’ll tell you about it soon…
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