Wow, marketing is put forward as a serious alterative to scientific pursuits, and is +4 informative. I never thought I'd see the day slashdot. News for Nerds, Stuff that matters.
Then you know nothing about marketing.
Marketing is not entirely branding (which is what most people think of, when they hear marketing). There is a very, very heavy quantitative component to marketing that most people are not aware of.
I'm a strategy consultant, and I work a lot with marketing and promotions. A big chunk of marketing involves channel & distribution analysis, analytics to understand market segments, campaign management, pricing models etc. And that involves heavy, heavy statistics and a lot of data crunching to see what people use, what's the optimal pricing, how well discounts work out, how to run effective campaigns, how to measure the success/failure of any campaign (branding, price change, ad etc) and so on and so forth.
And with the advent of the web, web analytics is another very important component, as well. Hell, there are even products out there that help you manage a lot of this (e.g. Unica - their website even talks about modeling a lot of what I talked about).
I know people with PhDs in stats, math and physics who work in marketing. They do predictive analysis to see how the market will react to a new product, what customers are buying, how best to price an offering, what stores are doing well and what are not (and why), which channels are doing well and which ones are not (and why), forecasting inventory based on past performance and YTD etc.
And there are enough journals and publications out there (such as the Quantitative Marketing & Economics by Springer-Verlag) which do serious academic (and mathematical, if I might add) research into these areas. They borrow very heavily from other subject areas, particularly physics, statistics, economics and so on.
But hey, you're Mr. Strong. Marketing is for pansies.
Unfortunately, when I do work, I do 80-100 hours a week. However, there are also weeks when I get off (and weeks when I do 10 hours). And when I do get off, I make sure that I do things that I enjoy. Balance and all that.
Indeed. If she wants to not use her math skills, that is entirely up to her. Why do you want to push her? One of my best friends took part in math olympiads and won - these days, she does fashion designing, and is quite happy doing that.
I live with my girlfriend, and have a rather active social life - and I have no TV. Never found the need for one, either.
I do travel a lot, and when I travel, there is almost no time between work and socializing with the clients and the team. When I'm home, all I want to do is either spend time with the woman, read, go climbing or work on something personal (e.g. my portfolio).
I consider myself neither lonely nor unhappy in any sense. If anything, I am extremely satisfied and very, very happy. Sometimes, I wish for the opposite - a moment of quiet when I'm away from it all.
And an intelligent, open minded individual gets more coverage than a crazed old man with a religious nutjob base. Gee.
One valued education and had an intelligent, erudite and experienced running mate while the other had a moron for a running mate.
One advocated science, education and research while the other wanted to go back to the stone age. One wanted peace while the other wanted to kill everyone and anyone who did not believe in his own kind of imaginary being.
One was running a positive campaign aimed at the future and the other was trying to say nothing but negative things.
Gee, I wonder why people favored the former (other than the religious idiots, of course). People want to stop being prejudiced and want to look forward to the future with hope. News at 11.
Of course, but if you had a libertarian executive, we could all just move into wood shacks with our guns and forget this whole economy and globalization thing.
I'm waiting for this to degenerate into blaming George Lucas, of course (and how he pillaged/plundered/raped everyone's childhood memories).
I'm going to call it the Lucas Syndrome -- sooner or later, every remake is going to turn into a discussion of blaming Star Wars and George Lucas for all their life's problems.
If anything, Herr Chancellor Paulson is a firm believer in Keynesian economics. So, while a (small) portion of the bailout money maybe taxpayer money, the vast majority of it will be paid through good old fashioned inflation.
Seinfeld poked fun of everyday life of White, Upper Middleclass, Living in New York City, people who have questionable morals. I watched siendfeld and I know no one who's life is even remotly like that, even in a non exadurated form. The latest add shows what they think of the real average family, a bunch of mizerable people who are boring and a bunch of bumpkins. Durring the 90's people not necessarly stupid, but found it more funny, as it was more optimistic times, and everyone felt that they could be just one lucky investment in a IPO away from living the trendy NYC life style. However today we are a more consertive people (in the terms of consertive that is not political). We don't expect or plan for that life style we want prefer a more settled lifestyle, as we relize that the Siendfield life style in real life would often do more harm then good. I am supprised that half of the characters didn't get untreatible STDs, or the fact when they didn't have a job they can still aford rent for a New York City appartment. How quickly they can be some Lowly assistant, to fired for their own misconduct, to rehired as some higher paying prestegious job. I think the realism of everyday life reality has changed in american culture. The 1990's Gen X started to get a foot in by the 2000's gen X owns the world. Gen X realized that this type of life isn't as glamerious as siendfield made it.
Finally, I know you probably agree with me but I have to point it out: dumb people do not DESERVE to be taken advantage of by smart people. Social Darwinism is an inherently fascist, evil, and anti-social philosophy that destroys societies and people's lives. Don't subscribe to it. Society works because of trust, and social Darwinism destroys that trust.
I think all groups are guilty of this - folks with 9-5 jobs, consultants etc. The only difference is that in some jobs, your hours and workload are crazy enough that you often don't have time to while away with that.
than some overly paid consultant that you see outside talking with other people instead of sitting at his desk and performing his daily monkey-typing activities
But that *is* why consultants get paid so much. Do you really think that people pay us so much to fly down every week to sit in front of a computer? A large part of what we do involves talking to people to get to the heart of things - the monkey typing can be done anywhere.
The root cause of a large majority of problems at organizations tends to be people-related, so talking to them is often a lot easier than spending hours running some book-ish process. You can find a lot of geeks who are smart and can do awesome things, but very few with the social skills and to use those skills where it is appropriate. And fewer still who are technically good (I club technical skills as hard skills in any area - IT, finance, accounting etc.) AND can grok other skills (e.g. IT guys who can do finance etc).
I have heard that the amount of work that you do argument and I don't particularly buy it - sure, there are some extremely productive people who can do 40 hours of work in 10 hours, but those are few and far. When you draw the bell curve, it is simply not feasible that every person thinks that they are "above average". If you can do something in 10 hours and if you are working 40 hours and slacking 30 hours, when you getting paid to *work* for 40 hours, you are being unethical.
What matters is, do you actually _work_ at work, or do you slack off?
How about actually doing work for the amount that you are paid for, and not claim that since you are being more productive, you get to slack off?
Working in consulting, you often work crazy hours and see that employees in the client offices work less than 8 hour days. And of course, a lot of people complain about how underpaid they are etc. but are seldom ready to put in extra hours or work on weekends (oh, maybe once a month is fine, but do it regularly - no way!).
So, yes, I'm sorry but if I see someone who shows up at 10 AM and leaves at 5 PM on the dot, and takes an hour long lunch and takes coffee breaks 5 times a day, they are definitely slacking off in my book. If you want to work 40 hours, at least WORK for 40 hours and not bill your lunch and coffee breaks as "work" time. This probably does not even include time being spent surfing or playing solitaire, or gossiping with their colleagues.
Therefore, I can't help but think that a significant percentage of people who work 9-5 jobs are in fact slackers, and there are very few hardworking, enterprising folks who actually *work* at their jobs. Now, you are free to disagree with that sentiment, but there it is.
I just found your other claims a bit over the top:)
I'm in management consulting, and the consulting industry in general bills people based on the time that they spend. Also, we are brought in during high-stress situations when something has really *really* gone wrong. So, that combined with over-the-roof expectations results in insane work hours.
In fact, my friends in some of the top tier firms (e.g. McKinsey) have it much worse than me. My average work week is 60-80 hours at least, and this does not include travel time. You do the math for a bad week, with travel time. I also have friends in Wall Street (i-bankers, PE analysts etc.) who make my hours look normal - good, even.
I've done 120 hour weeks. For over a month. Continuously. What's your point?
I was simply trying to point out that 15 hour days is not particularly ridiculous. Hell, if you worked from 7 AM - 10 PM, you've a 15 hour day. That's not particularly terrible.
Slashdot Mirror
You make it sound like bacon bits. =)
Then you know nothing about marketing.
Marketing is not entirely branding (which is what most people think of, when they hear marketing). There is a very, very heavy quantitative component to marketing that most people are not aware of.
I'm a strategy consultant, and I work a lot with marketing and promotions. A big chunk of marketing involves channel & distribution analysis, analytics to understand market segments, campaign management, pricing models etc. And that involves heavy, heavy statistics and a lot of data crunching to see what people use, what's the optimal pricing, how well discounts work out, how to run effective campaigns, how to measure the success/failure of any campaign (branding, price change, ad etc) and so on and so forth.
And with the advent of the web, web analytics is another very important component, as well. Hell, there are even products out there that help you manage a lot of this (e.g. Unica - their website even talks about modeling a lot of what I talked about).
I know people with PhDs in stats, math and physics who work in marketing. They do predictive analysis to see how the market will react to a new product, what customers are buying, how best to price an offering, what stores are doing well and what are not (and why), which channels are doing well and which ones are not (and why), forecasting inventory based on past performance and YTD etc.
And there are enough journals and publications out there (such as the Quantitative Marketing & Economics by Springer-Verlag) which do serious academic (and mathematical, if I might add) research into these areas. They borrow very heavily from other subject areas, particularly physics, statistics, economics and so on.
But hey, you're Mr. Strong. Marketing is for pansies.
Unfortunately, when I do work, I do 80-100 hours a week. However, there are also weeks when I get off (and weeks when I do 10 hours). And when I do get off, I make sure that I do things that I enjoy. Balance and all that.
Indeed. If she wants to not use her math skills, that is entirely up to her. Why do you want to push her? One of my best friends took part in math olympiads and won - these days, she does fashion designing, and is quite happy doing that.
That's entirely her choice, and why not?
I went to Hulu after reading your comment just to see what it was all about. :-\
I guess the opposite is also true.
I live with my girlfriend, and have a rather active social life - and I have no TV. Never found the need for one, either.
I do travel a lot, and when I travel, there is almost no time between work and socializing with the clients and the team. When I'm home, all I want to do is either spend time with the woman, read, go climbing or work on something personal (e.g. my portfolio).
I consider myself neither lonely nor unhappy in any sense. If anything, I am extremely satisfied and very, very happy. Sometimes, I wish for the opposite - a moment of quiet when I'm away from it all.
And an intelligent, open minded individual gets more coverage than a crazed old man with a religious nutjob base. Gee.
One valued education and had an intelligent, erudite and experienced running mate while the other had a moron for a running mate.
One advocated science, education and research while the other wanted to go back to the stone age. One wanted peace while the other wanted to kill everyone and anyone who did not believe in his own kind of imaginary being.
One was running a positive campaign aimed at the future and the other was trying to say nothing but negative things.
Gee, I wonder why people favored the former (other than the religious idiots, of course). People want to stop being prejudiced and want to look forward to the future with hope. News at 11.
Of course, but if you had a libertarian executive, we could all just move into wood shacks with our guns and forget this whole economy and globalization thing.
Well, you missed Star Wars.
I'm waiting for this to degenerate into blaming George Lucas, of course (and how he pillaged/plundered/raped everyone's childhood memories).
I'm going to call it the Lucas Syndrome -- sooner or later, every remake is going to turn into a discussion of blaming Star Wars and George Lucas for all their life's problems.
Excellent comment.
If anything, Herr Chancellor Paulson is a firm believer in Keynesian economics. So, while a (small) portion of the bailout money maybe taxpayer money, the vast majority of it will be paid through good old fashioned inflation.
My, you must be rewriting the English language.
Why?
Eh. Someone offered to, ummm, give me head if I removed the spyware from her machine. And she wasn't particularly unattractive, either (probably a 7).
Although, looking back, I do believe that fixing the computer was probably just an excuse.
Duuuuuuude! Word.
Well, if you have a tattoo on your penis that says "mon" then the other guy should probably walk away, very slowly...
I think all groups are guilty of this - folks with 9-5 jobs, consultants etc. The only difference is that in some jobs, your hours and workload are crazy enough that you often don't have time to while away with that.
But that *is* why consultants get paid so much. Do you really think that people pay us so much to fly down every week to sit in front of a computer? A large part of what we do involves talking to people to get to the heart of things - the monkey typing can be done anywhere.
The root cause of a large majority of problems at organizations tends to be people-related, so talking to them is often a lot easier than spending hours running some book-ish process. You can find a lot of geeks who are smart and can do awesome things, but very few with the social skills and to use those skills where it is appropriate. And fewer still who are technically good (I club technical skills as hard skills in any area - IT, finance, accounting etc.) AND can grok other skills (e.g. IT guys who can do finance etc).
Sure, and I hate the kind that you describe, too.
I have heard that the amount of work that you do argument and I don't particularly buy it - sure, there are some extremely productive people who can do 40 hours of work in 10 hours, but those are few and far. When you draw the bell curve, it is simply not feasible that every person thinks that they are "above average". If you can do something in 10 hours and if you are working 40 hours and slacking 30 hours, when you getting paid to *work* for 40 hours, you are being unethical.
How about actually doing work for the amount that you are paid for, and not claim that since you are being more productive, you get to slack off?
Working in consulting, you often work crazy hours and see that employees in the client offices work less than 8 hour days. And of course, a lot of people complain about how underpaid they are etc. but are seldom ready to put in extra hours or work on weekends (oh, maybe once a month is fine, but do it regularly - no way!).
So, yes, I'm sorry but if I see someone who shows up at 10 AM and leaves at 5 PM on the dot, and takes an hour long lunch and takes coffee breaks 5 times a day, they are definitely slacking off in my book. If you want to work 40 hours, at least WORK for 40 hours and not bill your lunch and coffee breaks as "work" time. This probably does not even include time being spent surfing or playing solitaire, or gossiping with their colleagues.
Therefore, I can't help but think that a significant percentage of people who work 9-5 jobs are in fact slackers, and there are very few hardworking, enterprising folks who actually *work* at their jobs. Now, you are free to disagree with that sentiment, but there it is.
I'm in management consulting, and the consulting industry in general bills people based on the time that they spend. Also, we are brought in during high-stress situations when something has really *really* gone wrong. So, that combined with over-the-roof expectations results in insane work hours.
In fact, my friends in some of the top tier firms (e.g. McKinsey) have it much worse than me. My average work week is 60-80 hours at least, and this does not include travel time. You do the math for a bad week, with travel time. I also have friends in Wall Street (i-bankers, PE analysts etc.) who make my hours look normal - good, even.
If that pleases you, then go ahead. All I'm saying is that not everyone has 40 hour work weeks, and some of us rather enjoy our work too!
My point is that it is not "just as ridiculous" as you'd like to believe.
If you're a slacker with nothing to do in life, fine. Not all of us are so.
I've done 120 hour weeks. For over a month. Continuously. What's your point?
I was simply trying to point out that 15 hour days is not particularly ridiculous. Hell, if you worked from 7 AM - 10 PM, you've a 15 hour day. That's not particularly terrible.
I said usually - there are weeks when 100 hours have happened. And that does not include travel and the like, so yes.
Not everyone has a nice cushy 10-4 job.
> while we think working 15 hour days is ridiculous
Really? If you say so. Some of us do work 60-80 hour weeks, or more. But go ahead...