Question centers mostly around entertainment content with intrinsic value (i.e., films or music).
How much time do you spend on pursuing (or facilitating the pursuit of) the individual who downloads a piece of IP outside of any approved distribution channel versus how much time you spend on people trading illegally in IP for gain (i.e., selling DVDs of a new release illegally taped at the point of theatrical release)?
Do you have a sense at what point in the value chain the leaks seem to be happening and where in your opinion should the focus of law enforcement be in stopping those leaks? Do you look more at the studio courier who has his hands at on the master copy for a few hours or do you look more at peer-to-peer systems? Do you see trends in your focus in one direction or another?
IÂm not going to defend jargon, but please bear in mind that business users also get insane about all the unexplained acronyms and jargon that they have to listen to when they try to understand IT.
This isnÂt really the issue, I donÂt think. Although itÂs true that the media buyers are typically more conservative then even the media producers, and they would have to be convinced that the new way worked as well as the old way in reaching eyes.
More of an issue is that current advertising payments work based on the number of viewers at any one time-- in part driven by time of day, if people can access what they want, when they want, thereÂs a risk of a fragmenting market base and IÂm not sure that 10 people watching 10 different shows would cause a group of advertisers to pay the same as one advertiser would pay for 10 persons watching 1 different show.
But I also tend to think that the models will co-exist. I mean, youÂll always have tv which is free-to-air and time-bounded. Shows which are "good enough to see when theyÂre actually on"-- new episodes of dramas, news, sports events, etc. These channels will continue to be advertiser supported in much the same way that they are now.
At the same time, youÂll probably also have some kind of SVoD capability so that people can access certain kinds of niche content on demand based on their base subscription fee-- science fiction archive, classic films, cooking shows, aerobics, whatever.
On top of that, there would be pay-per-view video on demand options-- potentially giving the viewer the chance to do an IP search in archive for really whatever they want.
The advertising models will definitely take a while to shake out, but they range of possibilities is more, not less. Which is the point, of course, right?
Ive been someone who honestly thought that I would never pay fees for services online, but recently (and without much fanfare) ecircles shut down. It was at the point where I didnt have it anymore that I realized how much I used the service (to keep in touch with my very far-flung family) and how much I would regret its passing. And I thought-- "Really too bad, the Yahoo groups arent even close. I wouldnt mind paying to get the exact same service."
I think perhaps a lot of companies are using the same logic-- feeling like theyve now gotten people used to it and now they can ask for money. I suppose whether it works or not will come down to two things:
How easy is the payment method? Micropayments still dont work well, so it has to be a big enough service to justify paying an amount where its cost effective for the service provider to process credit card transactions on the amount. (people pay for sending SMS willingly, for example, because the payment is painlessly integrated into the phone bills)
Is the service a satisfier or a delighter? In other words, is it just something thats nice to have, or is it something thats really useful and offers a primary advantage over other ways of carrying out the same service? I would have paid for ecircles because it offered a significant enough advantage over regular email correspondance. I would not pay for Yahoo Groups because while its nice to have, it doesnt offer enough of an advantage over email to really justify the cost.
How do they select partner businesses?
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Looking at most of the assignments listed on the Geekhalla page, I'm interested to see that they're primarily working with for-profit businesses. I wonder both why they aren't doing more for technology infrastructure in the non-profit sector (schools & hospitals & governments) and on what basis they select their partners.
Believe me, the integrators don't want time/material contracts any more than you do. At least, the one I work for doesn't. However, when clients regularly ask for fixed price but do not have adequate specifications (often not even an adequate business case) then we either have the choice of offering a hugely inflated fixed price contract (and generally we'll only do that if it's a Really Important Customer) or a time/material contract.
The first thing that I'll do if I'm managing an engagement is to offer a time/material 4-6 weeks requirements phase or phase 0-- generally 1-2 consultants,an IT architect, and a project manager, depending on what's known, the complexity of the project, and the deadline. Based on the outcome of that engagement, we can provide a realistic planning, an organizational structure (who can we provide, who can they provide) and even-- gasp-- a realistic budget. When I'm able to get the customer to agree to a realistic planning phase, then I can bring a project in on time and within budget.
This may differ depending on the kinds of projects that you do, but I often feel-- as far as requirements go-- as though I were standing in a department store and have to make a purchase and the only information I have to start with is "The item I seek is blue. The item I seek must open and close."
A client can protect itself against most of the worst ethical practises of consultancy houses by being clear about its requirements! And remembering that requirements are more than lists of features. A customer who can, for a particular project, provide the following items will be light years ahead of their neighbor down the block who calls Very Large Company and tells them they need "something with personalization, something with CRM":
Business case (unique selling point)
Stakeholder list (who's going to use the new system)
User scenarios (how are the stakeholders are going to use it)
Pre-existing constraints (we have lots of expertise in xxx, so it must utilize xxx databases)
*****
Given this information, a good consultant/IT Architect can help place requirements in context of importance and will not have the room to recommend gratuitously useless software pieces.
I see more cases of missing information/cluelessness than I do actual dishonesty.
Well, this is by-and-large true. *full disclosure* I work for IBM global services. We provide support for a lot of third party software-- particularly internet publication systems (which are a real pain in the butt, let me tell you!)
My advice if you're going to go this route is as follows:
In cases where very specific skills are needed, make sure the support people provided really do have experience. You can ask for business partner support if they don't.
Understand carefully what the limits of IBM's support will be. Often we will manage the support, but will not be responsible for it if the software really goes wrong. A subtle but crucial difference.
But we aren't half bad at it, if I do say so myself.
I'm going to sound cynical now. But believe me, I imagine the failure rate is actually higher than 50%-- but you can't place the blame on the big 5 completely. Take a long hard look at the whole market-- clients, suppliers, vendors, etc.
When you're trying to answer a large RFP (somethin g I do frequently-- I work for a big 5 company as an integration consultant) you generally see a situation where the RFP is *amazingly* badly written. The requirements are unspecific, the priorities are not well defined, and huge pieces of important information are routinely left out.
Here's an example. I just lead us to losing a $5 million bid-- in part because we refused to give a specific technology solution or plan. Here's why. The RFP was impossible-- everyone who answered it as asked was lying. Instead of requirements, they hired a business consultancy firm to do an overview of competor features and then they included every single one of those features without prioritization in their RFP. The level of detail was amazingly poor. The requirements read things like (this is *not* exaggeration)-- we want the site to be 100% secure; we want a crm system. No idea that they needed to define level of security or features of the desired crm system before we could possibly make a prediction about what software/hardware solution would be best.
Mind you, this was also a client that I know very well. Their core strength was marketing and brand image. Every IT project I'd ever worked on with them suffered from serious deficiencies in project management, training of end users, and (in general) change management. I knew there was no way that they either wanted or could handle what they claimed to be asking for.
Our proposal lost because we told them the truth. We said, look, you haven't really done your homework-- you don't need a technology solution now, you need some process. First you need to set up a decent project structure. Then you need to drill your requirements down and prioritize them according to your limiting factors (good, fast, cheap), then you need to choose technology to meet those requirements. We offered to bring them through these stages, but we refused to make any promises about what could be done when.
Even though the IT manager and the client project manager for the project desperately wanted to work with us, in the end they (the management) chose the IT integration partner who said 'good, brilliant-- great job-- we can do xxx for $xxxx in xxx days, and look at our cool technology'. The project is going to fail. I've got friends inside who told me that they've already exceeded spending expectations by close to 1 million and they're still 4 months away from launch. Furthermore, they aren't getting the system that they, the clients, want-- they're getting the system that the technology partner has chosen. It's just insane.
But what should my managers do? I talked them into telling the truth this time, because I thought the project had such a high potential to blow up in our faces. But they lost the bid. In a time when people are fighting tooth and nail for signings. You know what's going to happen the next time a similar RFP comes in? They're going to send a presales guy armed with drawings of our 'e-business architecture' and a fistful of buzzwords and promises. And they'll be right. Because that's what clients want to hear.
Yes, I am available for work more of the time. However, I have a lot more flexibility in my time as a result. I'd rather work more and have more responsibility for managing myself. That's stressful, but it's much less stressful than having to punch the clock for no other reason than some suit tells me to do so.
I think when I work too hard it's not a result of technology as much as it is a result of the combination skills shortage and downsizing trend-- I often find that there just plain old aren't enough resources to do the necessary work.
Of course, perhaps I complain less because I work in Europe-- "short vacations" are relative when you start with 26 paid days vacation.:)
I think youre doing the right thing, even if its the more-work thing. I understand the impulse/imperative to publish the hellmouth stories (I think it would make a heck of a book) but I thought some of the concerns of the posters about copyright were well raised.
At the risk of being redundant Id add my voice to the suggestion that permission to publish slashdot comments in other forms. However, Id remind that once you start putting in that permission choice, the lawyer types will have to ring round exactly what permissions are involved-- I think it would be one of those examples of a place where good fences make good neighbors.
I think you did a good thing for the whole community by dealing with these issues squarely.
There is a single business modelwhich will be rewritten and that cant accomodate change.
suitsdo nothing in an organization except stand around imposing bloatware and quick releases on poor developers?
Should the management and support staff listen to the developers in an IT company? Yes. Are they the only people who should be listened to? No. Successful products are created by an integration of efforts and every other discipline involved in that company (usability expert, marketing guy, account manager, accountant, sales dude) is *necessarily* part of that process regardless of business model.
Besides, in my company the suit who causes the most problems goes under the title customer. And him Id find it hard to get rid of.
I tried very hard to overlook this for a very long time, excused it on religious grounds, whatever.
But he keeps talking about it, and not "I think marriage should be for a man and woman" stuff, but 'I think it should be illegal' stuff.
I may not agree...defend to the death...right to say it... whatever, whatever... but I find it repugnant and it makes it harder and harder to like anything he writes.
The problem is that by your own definition ("publish lies knowingly"), Demon wouldn't be guilty of libel. Demon publishes nothing "knowingly" on its Usenet servers. Your logic would essentially make passive publication (serving as a channel of conversation) impossible or it would result in the same situation you're seeing in the UK now, massive prior restraint. ISPs are not set up as publishing houses (with review processes) but rather as carriers-- alternative communication channels. The libelous communication in question wasn't even posted by a Demon subscriber, for heaven's sake! They just carried access to the Newsgroup in which it's published.
What bit about the difference between a common carrier and a publisher don't *you* understand?
If you want to discuss the issues, discuss them. But please don't behave as though there were some sort of window on truth which you're privy to and others aren't. Things hardly as clear-cut as you describe. Godfrey sued Demon because he would have gotten laughed out of US court for suing the ISP through wich the post was originally published. Rightly so, I think.
As I understand it, part of the problem when you have to prove a statement you've made true is that you have to provide primary sources of evidence-- i.e., documentary evidence and/or witness statements. Furthermore, the person suing for libel does not have to demonstrate that damage has been suffered. The plaintiff is also not required to release evidence that may aid the case of the defendents. (So as I understand it, if-- for example-- phone records of the plaintiff would strengthen the defense-- they may not demand that the plaintiff turn them over.)
The burden of proof is solely on the defendent. And, obviously, if you can't use (for instance) other publications to back up your statement (not primary evidence) then it's hugely expensive to defend.
Directly following the death of Diana, the attempts to reform the libel law got hopelessly confused and bogged down into calls for the right to privacy for public figures.
People regularly take advantage of the fact that British libel law is so repressive to go after people and companies who would be untouchable in other countries. This effect will (I think) magnify now.
Yeah, regional encoding sucks deeply and it's very hard to make any kind of case in its favor. The only good thing I can think about it is that if it weren't for the different regions a lot of artists would probably never get paid percentages because the creative bookkeeping that goes on in Hollywood ensures that even huge hits show a loss. The countries outside of region 1 often don't complain because it generally goes hand in hand with some kind of sweet distribution deal totally owned by one local distributor who makes huge amounts of money. Opening the market would hurt these local big shots also.
Until they cut this region thing, I am *incredibly* resistent to buying a DVD. Even though I want one, and I do want one.
You wrote: "The only chance is a real leap of faith by the VCs, and I fear they are too large for that. Put the Linux people in charge."
Sorry, I disagree. Put the managers in charge. By managers I mean the people who have demonstrated the ability to help foster sales (or foster whatever income model you have for the company); the ability to recruit, motivate, and retain staff; and the ability to understand and implement the vision. (Note that I said the vision, not the technology.)
I'll go further. They don't need to know a *thing* about Linux from a technical point of view. What they do need to do is understand the market and what kind of business model a product like Linux calls for and implement that. If the business model is quite different, as you seem to be saying it is, then there's going to be the tendency of many managers to force a square peg in a round hole and that will have to be compensated for.
We've all worked for brilliant technical people who suck as managers-- who micromanage, who drive people away, who overspend while tilting at windmills. It's very rare that someone is brilliant in more than one direction (look how rare it is that they're skilled in even one!), and management is a skill just as real as being really good at coding.
You seem to be laboring under an assumption that I used to have before I started working for corporate clients-- namely, that they have even the smallest clue what they're doing in regards to technology.
Remember, everyone in the business world is suddenly in the technology business as IT becomes part of everyone's core competancy. Worse, there aren't enough people with skills (particularly in the corporate/money sector) to give them any reasonable advice about what the best choices to make are. I'm constantly terrified because I work as an advisor on a pretty high level, and while most of my advice (except in the tiny areas where I really am a subject matter expert) boils down to "find someone who knows what they're on about", many of the people I meet doing a similar thing give advice on things with which they have absolutely no experience. Best example was that I recently met a consultant engaged on generating a report for an investor on a possible architecture-component-of-networks business. Six months ago, this guy was in medical school, but now he felt that he didn't need any subject matter expert to assist him in writing his recommendation on whether to invest because he 'knew the consulting methodology'. He was from a name brand consulting firm who you'd all recognize and who is often called in to provide advice in the due diligence phase of investments. It's really frightening.
And, you're right, there are serious drawbacks to taking VC money. They're going to expect to have a say in your company and god help you if you don't have someone who's strong enough in sales to sell your vision to the people who are funding you. There's a good article in FindLaw that summarizes some of these issues.
They've got to be aware that a lot of people were waiting for Playstation II, but that now because of the recalls, there's a perception (correct or not) that it's going to take much longer to come out. A gamer signed into the 'free'-dreamcast-only-I-have-to-spend-ten-more-mon ths-on-this-network plan might be much less likely to go buy a playstation II.
If they really see their core market as being the kids (12 to 24 year olds), then I'm guessing they're taking the gamble that mostly these things are bought with parents' money and that parents are going to be uninclined to spring for two game consoles when there's already one in the house.
Dunno. It may be that since they're delivering an actual tangible product, it may be just the right time for investors who want to believe in the new economy, but are getting cold feet about companies whose worth they don't feel capable of judging because the hype is starting to curdle and they can't see it/don't understand it.
Handspring has taken a fair amount of heat for their order fulfilment problems, but on the other hand I've heard very little except good things about the Visor itself. Moreover, the tide seems to be really shifting towards handhelds and suddenly products aimed at/solutions meant for seem to be abounding. It's the sort of situation that can spark market interest, IMO. (deserved or not is another story)
Only proving that given a chance, marketeers will come up with all kinds of ways to drive useless spending by companies desperate to find ways to spend their marketing budget.
I foresee a future where start-ups who build cheap custom-built keyboards spring up to take advantage of the craze for keyboards as marketing effort. In the true tradition of consultant-speak Gardner will start to release papers discussing "keyboards as an affinity apport to brand horizontal portals". Portals will experience a brief re-surge in popularity as they release associated keyboards. There'll be women's keyboards that have buttons taking you to women.com, a cooking page, and a pregnancy calendar. The businessman's keyboard will have hard links to the stock tickers, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. Jodi.org will release a net.art version that takes you to themselves, Hell.com, and a random site of the day. Colleges will release a standard keyboard for freshman with connections to the safe sex page, alcohol counseling centers, and the campus bookstore online (with a special key for a credit card offer).
Then some genius will develop keyboard extensions that allow you to map your personal bookmarks to your keyboard. It will somehow snap on or slide out. It will initially be developed by some corporate bigwig who tries to ship the add-on preprogrammed with all his corporate URLs and is incredibly disappointed when still nobody visits.
Instead of useless stacks of mousepads, we'll have useless stacks of keyboards. Little kid will become furious with his pre-teen sister when he finds that she's replaced his Squaresoft keyboard with a Backstreet Boys keyboard and he pushes one of the function keys expecting to go to the Chocobo racing fan site and instead ends up at 16 Magazine online.
MIRANDA. O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in't!
IT companies arent where you really see the pain of this. By and large, the IT houses have already been grappling with the skills shortage for some time now and have (at least sort of) caught a clue about how not to treat people.
But most of my clients are not in traditional IT, and they seem to have a really horrible time retaining people with anything like IT skills. I keep telling them the reason they need to hire externals like myself (for much higher prices) is because they suck at responding to the market and creating the appropriate work environment.
This said, I wonder sometimes about myself, and how Id survive if the economy ever took a serious downturn. When I was just out of school I worked all kinds of shit jobs-- (early 90s, there wasnt much around) temporary secretary, presentation support, help desk. & I dont think I could survive at that kind of job anymore. Im used to a job where I would be astonished if anyone asked me to be at the job at a certain time if I didnt have a reason or a meeting. Ive been in "get there when I get there" mode for so long, I dont think I could punch the clock. Im also accustomed to working from home whenever I feel like it, or going in the middle of the day for hair or dentist appointments. I take these things, this very flexible lifestyle, for granted. I work very hard, but I start from the assumption that my boss is only interested in where I am and what Im doing in regards to getting the job done.
Perhaps the article is right and therell be a new generation of kids who will take these things for granted. But I just dont think that my bosses have made these changes because they suddenly have realized that they should trust and empower their workers, I think theyve made these changes because they dont want me to quit. Should the market change again, I think well see a whole other ball game.
A lot of the fears people have about these rulings seem to be addressed by the bad faith section of the rules. Understood simply, you seem to have to have had bad faith in registering the domain.
What interests me is that they seem to be rather loosely interpreting bad faith in this context and it could get pretty crazy when there are domain names that are very general.
For instance, I live in the Netherlands and I own a.com domain that represents a very general, very common word in Dutch-- the word that means "people". I originally bought it to develop a project that was shelved. I'm still holding on to the domain, because I still hope to develop the project at some later date. Now, I'm sure that there are Dutch businesses that have this word as a company name who could demonstrate that I am not currently using this domain. They might argue that I'm holding it to sell. Would this constitute bad faith?
Or I'll use a fictional example. Let's say that someone manages to buy a very desirable domain consisting of a normal word. They want to sell it, but they realize that hanging a for sale sign on it would be tantamount to admitting bad faith. So they hang their bookmarks off the page, or a list of links. They put some link exchange banners on it and leave it there. How is the court going to rule on this? Right now, domain squatters are still stupid enough to hang for sale signs, but as they get more clever how is ICANN going to decide the difference between a real tiny.com and a site that's for sale in bad faith?
We need more TLDs, this is going to get *complicated*.
Theres a tendency to confuse a companys philosophy with a companys staff & its pure wish fulfillment to assume that just because you dont like their software philosophy, M$ *must* be a horrible place to work and full of stupid clueless people.
What Microsoft does brilliantly is keep their client firmly in mind. When Im dealing with my clients, I have to admit I often ask myself "What would Microsoft do?" as part of my effort to stay focused on the same issues. I dont like their software. I certainly dont like their approach. However, I admire the way they nurture their client relationships and the way they understand how the people who are going to be purchasing their products think. And I know from experience that they have a lot of really talented people working there (both technical and non-technical)
If we mindlessly hate and fear everything Microsoft rather than learning what lessons we can from the things they do right, then we will ultimately lose because everything we do will be reaction, not action. Methinks you need to learn what you can from any source.
Slashdot Mirror
Question centers mostly around entertainment content with intrinsic value (i.e., films or music).
How much time do you spend on pursuing (or facilitating the pursuit of) the individual who downloads a piece of IP outside of any approved distribution channel versus how much time you spend on people trading illegally in IP for gain (i.e., selling DVDs of a new release illegally taped at the point of theatrical release)?
Do you have a sense at what point in the value chain the leaks seem to be happening and where in your opinion should the focus of law enforcement be in stopping those leaks? Do you look more at the studio courier who has his hands at on the master copy for a few hours or do you look more at peer-to-peer systems? Do you see trends in your focus in one direction or another?
Thanks!
Is that not also a strategy for success?
Alas, not the one that always works...
IÂm not going to defend jargon, but please bear in mind that business users also get insane about all the unexplained acronyms and jargon that they have to listen to when they try to understand IT.
This isnÂt really the issue, I donÂt think. Although itÂs true that the media buyers are typically more conservative then even the media producers, and they would have to be convinced that the new way worked as well as the old way in reaching eyes.
More of an issue is that current advertising payments work based on the number of viewers at any one time-- in part driven by time of day, if people can access what they want, when they want, thereÂs a risk of a fragmenting market base and IÂm not sure that 10 people watching 10 different shows would cause a group of advertisers to pay the same as one advertiser would pay for 10 persons watching 1 different show.
But I also tend to think that the models will co-exist. I mean, youÂll always have tv which is free-to-air and time-bounded. Shows which are "good enough to see when theyÂre actually on"-- new episodes of dramas, news, sports events, etc. These channels will continue to be advertiser supported in much the same way that they are now.
At the same time, youÂll probably also have some kind of SVoD capability so that people can access certain kinds of niche content on demand based on their base subscription fee-- science fiction archive, classic films, cooking shows, aerobics, whatever.
On top of that, there would be pay-per-view video on demand options-- potentially giving the viewer the chance to do an IP search in archive for really whatever they want.
The advertising models will definitely take a while to shake out, but they range of possibilities is more, not less. Which is the point, of course, right?
Unless, of course, they actually get the consumers to pay for the service.
If he started earning money for them with their IP, the media companies would work with Satan himself.
But first Kazaa would have to prove that they could translate their free users into paid users. Unlikely, IMO.
I think perhaps a lot of companies are using the same logic-- feeling like theyve now gotten people used to it and now they can ask for money. I suppose whether it works or not will come down to two things:
Believe me, the integrators don't want time/material contracts any more than you do. At least, the one I work for doesn't. However, when clients regularly ask for fixed price but do not have adequate specifications (often not even an adequate business case) then we either have the choice of offering a hugely inflated fixed price contract (and generally we'll only do that if it's a Really Important Customer) or a time/material contract.
The first thing that I'll do if I'm managing an engagement is to offer a time/material 4-6 weeks requirements phase or phase 0-- generally 1-2 consultants,an IT architect, and a project manager, depending on what's known, the complexity of the project, and the deadline. Based on the outcome of that engagement, we can provide a realistic planning, an organizational structure (who can we provide, who can they provide) and even-- gasp-- a realistic budget. When I'm able to get the customer to agree to a realistic planning phase, then I can bring a project in on time and within budget.
This may differ depending on the kinds of projects that you do, but I often feel-- as far as requirements go-- as though I were standing in a department store and have to make a purchase and the only information I have to start with is "The item I seek is blue. The item I seek must open and close."
A client can protect itself against most of the worst ethical practises of consultancy houses by being clear about its requirements! And remembering that requirements are more than lists of features. A customer who can, for a particular project, provide the following items will be light years ahead of their neighbor down the block who calls Very Large Company and tells them they need "something with personalization, something with CRM":
Business case (unique selling point)
Stakeholder list (who's going to use the new system)
User scenarios (how are the stakeholders are going to use it)
Pre-existing constraints (we have lots of expertise in xxx, so it must utilize xxx databases)
*****
Given this information, a good consultant/IT Architect can help place requirements in context of importance and will not have the room to recommend gratuitously useless software pieces.
I see more cases of missing information/cluelessness than I do actual dishonesty.
anyhoo
My advice if you're going to go this route is as follows:
- In cases where very specific skills are needed, make sure the support people provided really do have experience. You can ask for business partner support if they don't.
- Understand carefully what the limits of IBM's support will be. Often we will manage the support, but will not be responsible for it if the software really goes wrong. A subtle but crucial difference.
But we aren't half bad at it, if I do say so myself.When you're trying to answer a large RFP (somethin g I do frequently-- I work for a big 5 company as an integration consultant) you generally see a situation where the RFP is *amazingly* badly written. The requirements are unspecific, the priorities are not well defined, and huge pieces of important information are routinely left out.
Here's an example. I just lead us to losing a $5 million bid-- in part because we refused to give a specific technology solution or plan. Here's why. The RFP was impossible-- everyone who answered it as asked was lying. Instead of requirements, they hired a business consultancy firm to do an overview of competor features and then they included every single one of those features without prioritization in their RFP. The level of detail was amazingly poor. The requirements read things like (this is *not* exaggeration)-- we want the site to be 100% secure; we want a crm system. No idea that they needed to define level of security or features of the desired crm system before we could possibly make a prediction about what software/hardware solution would be best.
Mind you, this was also a client that I know very well. Their core strength was marketing and brand image. Every IT project I'd ever worked on with them suffered from serious deficiencies in project management, training of end users, and (in general) change management. I knew there was no way that they either wanted or could handle what they claimed to be asking for.
Our proposal lost because we told them the truth. We said, look, you haven't really done your homework-- you don't need a technology solution now, you need some process. First you need to set up a decent project structure. Then you need to drill your requirements down and prioritize them according to your limiting factors (good, fast, cheap), then you need to choose technology to meet those requirements. We offered to bring them through these stages, but we refused to make any promises about what could be done when.
Even though the IT manager and the client project manager for the project desperately wanted to work with us, in the end they (the management) chose the IT integration partner who said 'good, brilliant-- great job-- we can do xxx for $xxxx in xxx days, and look at our cool technology'. The project is going to fail. I've got friends inside who told me that they've already exceeded spending expectations by close to 1 million and they're still 4 months away from launch. Furthermore, they aren't getting the system that they, the clients, want-- they're getting the system that the technology partner has chosen. It's just insane.
But what should my managers do? I talked them into telling the truth this time, because I thought the project had such a high potential to blow up in our faces. But they lost the bid. In a time when people are fighting tooth and nail for signings. You know what's going to happen the next time a similar RFP comes in? They're going to send a presales guy armed with drawings of our 'e-business architecture' and a fistful of buzzwords and promises. And they'll be right. Because that's what clients want to hear.
Feh.
I think when I work too hard it's not a result of technology as much as it is a result of the combination skills shortage and downsizing trend-- I often find that there just plain old aren't enough resources to do the necessary work.
Of course, perhaps I complain less because I work in Europe-- "short vacations" are relative when you start with 26 paid days vacation. :)
At the risk of being redundant Id add my voice to the suggestion that permission to publish slashdot comments in other forms. However, Id remind that once you start putting in that permission choice, the lawyer types will have to ring round exactly what permissions are involved-- I think it would be one of those examples of a place where good fences make good neighbors.
I think you did a good thing for the whole community by dealing with these issues squarely.
- There is a single business modelwhich will be rewritten and that cant accomodate change.
- suitsdo nothing in an organization except stand around imposing bloatware and quick releases on poor developers?
Should the management and support staff listen to the developers in an IT company? Yes. Are they the only people who should be listened to? No. Successful products are created by an integration of efforts and every other discipline involved in that company (usability expert, marketing guy, account manager, accountant, sales dude) is *necessarily* part of that process regardless of business model.Besides, in my company the suit who causes the most problems goes under the title customer. And him Id find it hard to get rid of.
But he keeps talking about it, and not "I think marriage should be for a man and woman" stuff, but 'I think it should be illegal' stuff.
I may not agree...defend to the death...right to say it... whatever, whatever... but I find it repugnant and it makes it harder and harder to like anything he writes.
What bit about the difference between a common carrier and a publisher don't *you* understand?
If you want to discuss the issues, discuss them. But please don't behave as though there were some sort of window on truth which you're privy to and others aren't. Things hardly as clear-cut as you describe. Godfrey sued Demon because he would have gotten laughed out of US court for suing the ISP through wich the post was originally published. Rightly so, I think.
The burden of proof is solely on the defendent. And, obviously, if you can't use (for instance) other publications to back up your statement (not primary evidence) then it's hugely expensive to defend.
Directly following the death of Diana, the attempts to reform the libel law got hopelessly confused and bogged down into calls for the right to privacy for public figures.
People regularly take advantage of the fact that British libel law is so repressive to go after people and companies who would be untouchable in other countries. This effect will (I think) magnify now.
Until they cut this region thing, I am *incredibly* resistent to buying a DVD. Even though I want one, and I do want one.
So Lucas can wait. Less temptation for me.
Sorry, I disagree. Put the managers in charge. By managers I mean the people who have demonstrated the ability to help foster sales (or foster whatever income model you have for the company); the ability to recruit, motivate, and retain staff; and the ability to understand and implement the vision. (Note that I said the vision, not the technology.)
I'll go further. They don't need to know a *thing* about Linux from a technical point of view. What they do need to do is understand the market and what kind of business model a product like Linux calls for and implement that. If the business model is quite different, as you seem to be saying it is, then there's going to be the tendency of many managers to force a square peg in a round hole and that will have to be compensated for.
We've all worked for brilliant technical people who suck as managers-- who micromanage, who drive people away, who overspend while tilting at windmills. It's very rare that someone is brilliant in more than one direction (look how rare it is that they're skilled in even one!), and management is a skill just as real as being really good at coding.
Remember, everyone in the business world is suddenly in the technology business as IT becomes part of everyone's core competancy. Worse, there aren't enough people with skills (particularly in the corporate/money sector) to give them any reasonable advice about what the best choices to make are. I'm constantly terrified because I work as an advisor on a pretty high level, and while most of my advice (except in the tiny areas where I really am a subject matter expert) boils down to "find someone who knows what they're on about", many of the people I meet doing a similar thing give advice on things with which they have absolutely no experience. Best example was that I recently met a consultant engaged on generating a report for an investor on a possible architecture-component-of-networks business. Six months ago, this guy was in medical school, but now he felt that he didn't need any subject matter expert to assist him in writing his recommendation on whether to invest because he 'knew the consulting methodology'. He was from a name brand consulting firm who you'd all recognize and who is often called in to provide advice in the due diligence phase of investments. It's really frightening.
And, you're right, there are serious drawbacks to taking VC money. They're going to expect to have a say in your company and god help you if you don't have someone who's strong enough in sales to sell your vision to the people who are funding you. There's a good article in FindLaw that summarizes some of these issues.
If they really see their core market as being the kids (12 to 24 year olds), then I'm guessing they're taking the gamble that mostly these things are bought with parents' money and that parents are going to be uninclined to spring for two game consoles when there's already one in the house.
We'll see if they're right.
Handspring has taken a fair amount of heat for their order fulfilment problems, but on the other hand I've heard very little except good things about the Visor itself. Moreover, the tide seems to be really shifting towards handhelds and suddenly products aimed at/solutions meant for seem to be abounding. It's the sort of situation that can spark market interest, IMO. (deserved or not is another story)
Might do okay. *shrug*
I foresee a future where start-ups who build cheap custom-built keyboards spring up to take advantage of the craze for keyboards as marketing effort. In the true tradition of consultant-speak Gardner will start to release papers discussing "keyboards as an affinity apport to brand horizontal portals". Portals will experience a brief re-surge in popularity as they release associated keyboards. There'll be women's keyboards that have buttons taking you to women.com, a cooking page, and a pregnancy calendar. The businessman's keyboard will have hard links to the stock tickers, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. Jodi.org will release a net.art version that takes you to themselves, Hell.com, and a random site of the day. Colleges will release a standard keyboard for freshman with connections to the safe sex page, alcohol counseling centers, and the campus bookstore online (with a special key for a credit card offer).
Then some genius will develop keyboard extensions that allow you to map your personal bookmarks to your keyboard. It will somehow snap on or slide out. It will initially be developed by some corporate bigwig who tries to ship the add-on preprogrammed with all his corporate URLs and is incredibly disappointed when still nobody visits.
Instead of useless stacks of mousepads, we'll have useless stacks of keyboards. Little kid will become furious with his pre-teen sister when he finds that she's replaced his Squaresoft keyboard with a Backstreet Boys keyboard and he pushes one of the function keys expecting to go to the Chocobo racing fan site and instead ends up at 16 Magazine online.
MIRANDA. O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!
But most of my clients are not in traditional IT, and they seem to have a really horrible time retaining people with anything like IT skills. I keep telling them the reason they need to hire externals like myself (for much higher prices) is because they suck at responding to the market and creating the appropriate work environment.
This said, I wonder sometimes about myself, and how Id survive if the economy ever took a serious downturn. When I was just out of school I worked all kinds of shit jobs-- (early 90s, there wasnt much around) temporary secretary, presentation support, help desk. & I dont think I could survive at that kind of job anymore. Im used to a job where I would be astonished if anyone asked me to be at the job at a certain time if I didnt have a reason or a meeting. Ive been in "get there when I get there" mode for so long, I dont think I could punch the clock. Im also accustomed to working from home whenever I feel like it, or going in the middle of the day for hair or dentist appointments. I take these things, this very flexible lifestyle, for granted. I work very hard, but I start from the assumption that my boss is only interested in where I am and what Im doing in regards to getting the job done.
Perhaps the article is right and therell be a new generation of kids who will take these things for granted. But I just dont think that my bosses have made these changes because they suddenly have realized that they should trust and empower their workers, I think theyve made these changes because they dont want me to quit. Should the market change again, I think well see a whole other ball game.
What interests me is that they seem to be rather loosely interpreting bad faith in this context and it could get pretty crazy when there are domain names that are very general.
For instance, I live in the Netherlands and I own a .com domain that represents a very general, very common word in Dutch-- the word that means "people". I originally bought it to develop a project that was shelved. I'm still holding on to the domain, because I still hope to develop the project at some later date. Now, I'm sure that there are Dutch businesses that have this word as a company name who could demonstrate that I am not currently using this domain. They might argue that I'm holding it to sell. Would this constitute bad faith?
Or I'll use a fictional example. Let's say that someone manages to buy a very desirable domain consisting of a normal word. They want to sell it, but they realize that hanging a for sale sign on it would be tantamount to admitting bad faith. So they hang their bookmarks off the page, or a list of links. They put some link exchange banners on it and leave it there. How is the court going to rule on this? Right now, domain squatters are still stupid enough to hang for sale signs, but as they get more clever how is ICANN going to decide the difference between a real tiny .com and a site that's for sale in bad faith?
We need more TLDs, this is going to get *complicated*.
League for Programming Freedom -- organization that opposes software patents and user interface copyrights.
Free Patents Pretty much what the name says. Patent reform. No software patents. Etc.
Patently Absurd-- Great, but old, article from Wired about the Patent office.
HTH
What Microsoft does brilliantly is keep their client firmly in mind. When Im dealing with my clients, I have to admit I often ask myself "What would Microsoft do?" as part of my effort to stay focused on the same issues. I dont like their software. I certainly dont like their approach. However, I admire the way they nurture their client relationships and the way they understand how the people who are going to be purchasing their products think. And I know from experience that they have a lot of really talented people working there (both technical and non-technical)
If we mindlessly hate and fear everything Microsoft rather than learning what lessons we can from the things they do right, then we will ultimately lose because everything we do will be reaction, not action. Methinks you need to learn what you can from any source.