When I call my major vendors, I have a single main sales contact. This person is usually pretty darn smart about what people need and want. When we get to some details that he/she can't answer, they set up a conference with a technical lead (who may or may not also be in sales). While this conference occurs, I can tell that the primary salesman is taking hardcore notes and prepping up so he doesn't have to waste the engineer's time again on this particular subject. I've watched a good amount of these salespeople learn and grow until they no longer need to consult with anyone else.
As a customer, a salesman's admitted lack of knowledge doesn't hurt. In fact it helps strengthen our relationship because he's not only honest, but he still has the ability to point me towards someone who does know. In contrast, I quickly drop salesmen that completely bluff with high confidence (these can lead to expensive mistakes, especially in terms of volume licensing if the vendor blows it).
During lunches and other casual chats, the really good salespeople are genuinely curious about what motivates me and what is exciting me about the direction of our company. This isn't just idle chit chat - they're boning up on their knowledge. Just last week a vendor asked me "What tech news sites do you read?" and proceeded to bust out his notepad and write them down. And some of those special sales/tech pros I talk to are actually sales people that used to be engineers, but love the interaction and incentives of sales. They weren't failed engineers. They were looking for a new challenge with a potential for higher rewards, and they were extremely well equipped to earn those rewards because of their knowledge. The age old adage of "engineers are socially awkward" doesn't always stand true.
That being said:
1. Don't touch your engineers at first. Leave them in their current positions. 2. Start by coordinating some method of training your sales team on the product - connect them with engineers for a while, or get them reading materials. Do this tactfully and lean heavily towards rewarding the engineering team. If your sales team comes off as a bunch of scavengers with no respect for engineering and only want to leech enough to make profits for themselves, your engineers will probably feed them the wrong info and laugh over it later. Prep your sales team accordingly, and reward your engineers accordingly. Engineering will be doing you a huge favor here, don't screw it up. 3. Also set up a way to bring in engineering knowledge on special sales calls. Provide some sort of incentive to engineers and/or an inter-departmental billing process for sales support (when the sales guy calls on the engineer for a conference call). This measures potential abuse of engineering's time from your sales staff and tells a story to management of why engineering projects might not be chugging along as quickly. Also allows you to measure the proficiency of your salesmen (the # of calls should decrease over time for each salesman, and you can figure out the average training time until a new salesman is effective). 4. With the metrics of #3 in hand, you should be able to gage how many full time engineers might be needed for the sales team. Meanwhile you can feel out which of your engineers enjoy this new consulting duty, and see if you can't transition them to a full time sales role (provided they aren't all senior engineers whose salaries would destroy the sales margin). 5. Once you transition any engineers over, they are now officially in the sales group as "product experts" or something of the sort. Get them out of engineering, make a clean break from their old jobs, and start providing them with the same sales incentives as others (if you already haven't been giving them a percentage for their previous consulting). They won't turn into some greedy self-serving salesmen nightmares. If they worked on the products before, they're going to trust and have faith in the product enough to be solid salesmen. 6.
Clearly you've never used another GUI. The trash can in Ubuntu isn't a draggable icon - it rests on a panel and is about 5x smaller than a Windows Recycle Bin.
The numerous comments of "I use Shift-Delete" and "I just remove the bin" messages are proving I'm not alone here. Metaphorically speaking, people don't leave their trash cans in their living rooms in plain sight - and if they did, they'd probably clean them more frequently. Instead they put them under the sink / in the closet.
In terms of UI, I have to agree. My recycle bin has been much more useful in Ubuntu than Windows. Why? Because OCD or not - In Windows you have a trash can sitting right there in front of you waiting to be emptied (or "cleaned" if you will). I probably clean my recycle bin in Windows 2 or 3 times a day. In Ubuntu, I hardly notice it because sits quietly in the lower right corner.
In Windows, I have maybe the last 4 hours of data. In Ubuntu, I have the last 4 months. Definitely a use case in terms of UI improvement for myself.
Different strokes for different folks. I took the same two classes online (intro to pol sci and business writing) and loved them. For me it was faster to read and do homework than sit through a lecture...then go home and read the same material and do homework. A little tough to work past the distractions (age 21 at the time), but definitely doable.
Oh geez, I'm gonna have to explain things to my Mom after she gets the following notice in the mail:
"Great news! Our engineers have invented an amazing new technology called IPv6 that NONE OF OUR COMPETITORS HAVE: More addresses! Greater speed! Less lag! New HD content never before available! OMG this new technology called VOIP works over it! Perform online backups! And enjoy the $20 increase to your monthly bill!
That or Obama launches a "Rebates for Routers" program - 6 months AFTER I purchase an IPv6 device.
"While the goat didn't survive long due to lung defects this gives scientists hopes that it will be possible to resurrect extinct species from frozen tissue."
IMDB > Actor biographies Google Images > Special Artwork YouTube & Movies Sites > Deleted Scenes and Behind the Scenes Documentaries Blogs > Director's commentaries Apple/Youtube > Upcoming releases Ripping Disc to cleanse the movie > FBI Warning Watching mold grow > Overdone menus Surfing the net on my own > Launching my browser with your dumpy "special access" software. Root Canal > DVD Quizzes
And now...
Downloading Demos > Having them bundled
Hooray, I love more garbage that will make my movies seem even more dated when I watch them 10 years later.
Who am I kidding? They probably won't even put the demos on the disks...they'll just waste your bandwidth by using BD Live to download the demo.
I'm both a coder and a manager. When I first started, the meetings drove me bonkers. After wasting enough time, I decided to ditch them altogether with my boss's approval so I could finish a big project.
I learned my lesson quickly. After each meeting that I skipped, my boss would show up in my office (effectively destroying the block of time I was saving), and then he'd tell me about 5 more projects brought up in the meeting that were automatically approved. More work was actually created because I wasn't there to shoot down off-track and silly ideas in these meetings.
I started showing up at meetings pronto to "keep the company on track with IT and software projects". It was worth it to waste 8 hours a week in meetings to avoid months upon months on projects initiated by people who had no clue how technology works.
Windows 98 was what Windows 95 should have been. Windows XP was what Windows ME should have been. Windows 7 is going to be "what Vista should have been."
However in this case, Windows 7 is barely different than Vista. The only reasons I hated Vista was:
1. Like previous MS operating systems, they relied too heavily on Moore's Law. Only this time it bit them. Requirements for reasonable use were way too high, and hardware didn't catch up until just recently. On the contrary, people were used to their 5 year old XP running nice and quickly.
2. Vendors were still failing with drivers left and right, and then there was the whole 64 bit thing that people had been refusing to embrace.
3. The interface change was "different".
What's actually different in Windows 7? Nada. It was supposed to run faster than Vista, but the closer it gets to release time, the more I hear of "The speed is about the same, but at least our hardware has matured now."
Vendors who didn't build drivers for Vista are finally saying "Gee, we're two operating systems behind so maybe we should support Windows 7." Vendors who previously built drivers for Vista did little to no tweaking to get things working for 7. So now your support is covered.
Virtually nothing has changed other than our hardware finally caught up, and people are adjusting to the "Vista"-esque UI. So once people get used to Windows 7, err, "Vista SP3", the dumb ones will say "Why was Vista so bad?" The semi-smart ones will say "Why did we waste our money on an operating system that's not new?", and the geniuses will be cleaning up on the 2nd-hand market building home Linux servers.
Yep! Reminds me a lot of the early days of universal instant messengers like Trillian that logged into ICQ, MSN, etc. Protocols kept-a-changin', upgrades kept-a-happenin', and now it's all moot.
You said it perfectly though. This will be a much shorter war. Basic users could upgrade ICQ at the the drop of a hat. Upgrading iPod firmware to keep up with the war? Heh.
Indeed. I'm getting really tired of reading about prototypes with amazing mileage that:
1. Will never pass a crash test. 2. Don't have seat belts / airbags 3. Have no radio, AC, or other features. 4. Can't hold more than one or two people.
I've owned these amazing machines for years. They're called motorcycles.
Slashdot Mirror
the video looked more like it was going around 19fps, not 60.
He also mentions that the video recorder on his machine is slowing it down, and it gets anywhere from 60 to 120 fps without it.
Ask your roommate "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR WOULD YOU?!!!" He will then see the error of his ways and stop downloading.
When I call my major vendors, I have a single main sales contact. This person is usually pretty darn smart about what people need and want. When we get to some details that he/she can't answer, they set up a conference with a technical lead (who may or may not also be in sales). While this conference occurs, I can tell that the primary salesman is taking hardcore notes and prepping up so he doesn't have to waste the engineer's time again on this particular subject. I've watched a good amount of these salespeople learn and grow until they no longer need to consult with anyone else.
As a customer, a salesman's admitted lack of knowledge doesn't hurt. In fact it helps strengthen our relationship because he's not only honest, but he still has the ability to point me towards someone who does know. In contrast, I quickly drop salesmen that completely bluff with high confidence (these can lead to expensive mistakes, especially in terms of volume licensing if the vendor blows it).
During lunches and other casual chats, the really good salespeople are genuinely curious about what motivates me and what is exciting me about the direction of our company. This isn't just idle chit chat - they're boning up on their knowledge. Just last week a vendor asked me "What tech news sites do you read?" and proceeded to bust out his notepad and write them down. And some of those special sales/tech pros I talk to are actually sales people that used to be engineers, but love the interaction and incentives of sales. They weren't failed engineers. They were looking for a new challenge with a potential for higher rewards, and they were extremely well equipped to earn those rewards because of their knowledge. The age old adage of "engineers are socially awkward" doesn't always stand true.
That being said:
1. Don't touch your engineers at first. Leave them in their current positions.
2. Start by coordinating some method of training your sales team on the product - connect them with engineers for a while, or get them reading materials. Do this tactfully and lean heavily towards rewarding the engineering team. If your sales team comes off as a bunch of scavengers with no respect for engineering and only want to leech enough to make profits for themselves, your engineers will probably feed them the wrong info and laugh over it later. Prep your sales team accordingly, and reward your engineers accordingly. Engineering will be doing you a huge favor here, don't screw it up.
3. Also set up a way to bring in engineering knowledge on special sales calls. Provide some sort of incentive to engineers and/or an inter-departmental billing process for sales support (when the sales guy calls on the engineer for a conference call). This measures potential abuse of engineering's time from your sales staff and tells a story to management of why engineering projects might not be chugging along as quickly. Also allows you to measure the proficiency of your salesmen (the # of calls should decrease over time for each salesman, and you can figure out the average training time until a new salesman is effective).
4. With the metrics of #3 in hand, you should be able to gage how many full time engineers might be needed for the sales team. Meanwhile you can feel out which of your engineers enjoy this new consulting duty, and see if you can't transition them to a full time sales role (provided they aren't all senior engineers whose salaries would destroy the sales margin).
5. Once you transition any engineers over, they are now officially in the sales group as "product experts" or something of the sort. Get them out of engineering, make a clean break from their old jobs, and start providing them with the same sales incentives as others (if you already haven't been giving them a percentage for their previous consulting). They won't turn into some greedy self-serving salesmen nightmares. If they worked on the products before, they're going to trust and have faith in the product enough to be solid salesmen.
6.
Don't you mean a "lamer" lame?
Clearly you've never used another GUI. The trash can in Ubuntu isn't a draggable icon - it rests on a panel and is about 5x smaller than a Windows Recycle Bin.
The numerous comments of "I use Shift-Delete" and "I just remove the bin" messages are proving I'm not alone here. Metaphorically speaking, people don't leave their trash cans in their living rooms in plain sight - and if they did, they'd probably clean them more frequently. Instead they put them under the sink / in the closet.
In terms of UI, I have to agree. My recycle bin has been much more useful in Ubuntu than Windows. Why? Because OCD or not - In Windows you have a trash can sitting right there in front of you waiting to be emptied (or "cleaned" if you will). I probably clean my recycle bin in Windows 2 or 3 times a day. In Ubuntu, I hardly notice it because sits quietly in the lower right corner.
In Windows, I have maybe the last 4 hours of data. In Ubuntu, I have the last 4 months. Definitely a use case in terms of UI improvement for myself.
Somebody forgets about this feature and puts a processor in an airplane or some other type of mission-critical machine.
Different strokes for different folks. I took the same two classes online (intro to pol sci and business writing) and loved them. For me it was faster to read and do homework than sit through a lecture...then go home and read the same material and do homework. A little tough to work past the distractions (age 21 at the time), but definitely doable.
Breaking into an Apple device: "it just works."
I was talking to Slashdot and it said that YOU suck on April Fools day!
Oh geez, I'm gonna have to explain things to my Mom after she gets the following notice in the mail:
"Great news! Our engineers have invented an amazing new technology called IPv6 that NONE OF OUR COMPETITORS HAVE: More addresses! Greater speed! Less lag! New HD content never before available! OMG this new technology called VOIP works over it! Perform online backups! And enjoy the $20 increase to your monthly bill!
That or Obama launches a "Rebates for Routers" program - 6 months AFTER I purchase an IPv6 device.
"While the goat didn't survive long due to lung defects this gives scientists hopes that it will be possible to resurrect extinct species from frozen tissue."
That was about how my 8.10 experience went too.
How can Dolphins save you from the net when they get caught in them all time?
Most people, I think, don't even know what a Trojan is, so why should they care about it?
IMDB > Actor biographies
Google Images > Special Artwork
YouTube & Movies Sites > Deleted Scenes and Behind the Scenes Documentaries
Blogs > Director's commentaries
Apple/Youtube > Upcoming releases
Ripping Disc to cleanse the movie > FBI Warning
Watching mold grow > Overdone menus
Surfing the net on my own > Launching my browser with your dumpy "special access" software.
Root Canal > DVD Quizzes
And now...
Downloading Demos > Having them bundled
Hooray, I love more garbage that will make my movies seem even more dated when I watch them 10 years later.
Who am I kidding? They probably won't even put the demos on the disks...they'll just waste your bandwidth by using BD Live to download the demo.
I've used Mandrake/Mandriva a couple of times too. Ironically enough a number of computer science peers jeered at it, calling it "n00b Linux".
You know, because we should all embrace distributions that are a pain to get working properly.
I heard it used to belong to some ridiculous group claiming ufo defense or something.
Finally I can join the ranks of my wife's Tupperware, Mary Kay, and Stamping Up crowd!
I'll patent this idea first and then all your class action lawsuit moneys are belong to me!
I'm both a coder and a manager. When I first started, the meetings drove me bonkers. After wasting enough time, I decided to ditch them altogether with my boss's approval so I could finish a big project.
I learned my lesson quickly. After each meeting that I skipped, my boss would show up in my office (effectively destroying the block of time I was saving), and then he'd tell me about 5 more projects brought up in the meeting that were automatically approved. More work was actually created because I wasn't there to shoot down off-track and silly ideas in these meetings.
I started showing up at meetings pronto to "keep the company on track with IT and software projects". It was worth it to waste 8 hours a week in meetings to avoid months upon months on projects initiated by people who had no clue how technology works.
Yep, two of my scanners died in Vista. At work we can afford to order new ones. At home, Microsoft lost a customer to Linux.
A customer who happens to be an IT manager with a newfound respect for FOSS and a dislike for complex licensing.
Windows 98 was what Windows 95 should have been.
Windows XP was what Windows ME should have been.
Windows 7 is going to be "what Vista should have been."
However in this case, Windows 7 is barely different than Vista. The only reasons I hated Vista was:
1. Like previous MS operating systems, they relied too heavily on Moore's Law. Only this time it bit them. Requirements for reasonable use were way too high, and hardware didn't catch up until just recently. On the contrary, people were used to their 5 year old XP running nice and quickly.
2. Vendors were still failing with drivers left and right, and then there was the whole 64 bit thing that people had been refusing to embrace.
3. The interface change was "different".
What's actually different in Windows 7? Nada. It was supposed to run faster than Vista, but the closer it gets to release time, the more I hear of "The speed is about the same, but at least our hardware has matured now."
Vendors who didn't build drivers for Vista are finally saying "Gee, we're two operating systems behind so maybe we should support Windows 7." Vendors who previously built drivers for Vista did little to no tweaking to get things working for 7. So now your support is covered.
Virtually nothing has changed other than our hardware finally caught up, and people are adjusting to the "Vista"-esque UI. So once people get used to Windows 7, err, "Vista SP3", the dumb ones will say "Why was Vista so bad?" The semi-smart ones will say "Why did we waste our money on an operating system that's not new?", and the geniuses will be cleaning up on the 2nd-hand market building home Linux servers.
Yep! Reminds me a lot of the early days of universal instant messengers like Trillian that logged into ICQ, MSN, etc. Protocols kept-a-changin', upgrades kept-a-happenin', and now it's all moot.
You said it perfectly though. This will be a much shorter war. Basic users could upgrade ICQ at the the drop of a hat. Upgrading iPod firmware to keep up with the war? Heh.
Of course you have. I've also seen cars tow boats, carry more than 5 people, have hot tubs in the back, etc, etc...but most don't.
Indeed. I'm getting really tired of reading about prototypes with amazing mileage that:
1. Will never pass a crash test.
2. Don't have seat belts / airbags
3. Have no radio, AC, or other features.
4. Can't hold more than one or two people.
I've owned these amazing machines for years. They're called motorcycles.