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Managing for Creativity
theodp writes "After seeing some of the ideas management comes up with as a result of reading the Harvard Business Review, you may be tempted to hide their copies. But make sure they see this month's Managing for Creativity by Dr. Jim Goodnight, the still code-cranking CEO of SAS, the world's largest privately held software company." From the article: "Many academics and businesses have made inroads into this field. Management guru Peter Drucker identified the role of knowledge workers and, long before the dot-com era, warned of the perils of trying to "bribe" them with stock options and other crude financial incentives. This view is supported by the research of Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile and Yale University's Robert Sternberg, which shows that creative people are motivated from within and respond much better to intrinsic rewards than to extrinsic ones."
If the wife just drops her clothes, all she's getting is a sick look on my face.
I dunno. It usually does it for me when your wife does that.
Programming isn't creative? Writing code is all about thinking outside the box, how can you solve x problem?
Yes, you're right. Programming a solution for x problem is a creative act -- the first time.
But the vast majority of "business problems" are the same damn thing over and over again. Over the course of a career, the first couple of years are interesting. You're learning new things, both about whatever business you're in and thing about programming most of your college professors simply didn't know. It's cool.
Then around the fifth or so year, you start to realize that you're starting to "solve" the same problems again. Perhaps you have already or start to switch to other companies, to learn a different business. Then you learn that the new business is doing the same basic things as the old business. Well, at least your experience makes you look good...
Ten years? If you haven't moved up to management (and most programmers never do), you're either ready to switch careers or simply go mad, because you're doing the same thing over and over and over and over. No creativity needed. Hell, no creativity allowed. It's also unlikely that you can switch to some other part of the programming world, as you've been pigeonholed after your first year of working as being whatever type of programmer you started out as.
Fifteen years plus? Your soul is dead, and you're a drone, awaiting the layoffs with a sense of relief now, since dying in a gutter is starting to look attractive compared to coding up yet another goddamn employee time keeping system or whatever you've already done a hundred times before.
Remember, old programmers never retire... they kill themselves, screaming.
... but damn, I would kill for his name at any party I've ever been to.
Her: Hi, I'm Stacy...
Me: Hi Stacy, I'm Mr. Good Night
**slap**
Ok, maybe not.... but the thought of it is cool.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
Time and Money which are the same thing are also obviously the most important thing to any employee. This guy does not understand human nature. I make 50K as a software developer, and after taxes I only keep 30K. I have no home, I have no car, I have no stock options. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. I will soon have the money for a RV, and I will leave the U.S. I will run my business from Mexico in the next year or two from my RV so I won't have to work 60+ hours a week. I am tired of working for a bunch of Fascist, Socialist, and Communist that want to spend my money and print even more. I will build a weapon system to fight back against the World Nazi Police state and then you can all Nazi/Fascist can kiss my freedom loving ass.
Oh, dude. Dating the babysitter? And getting the company mixed up in it?!
OK, you've got balls; but you are asking for trouble on so many different levels...