Kroger is fairly common in most parts of the US, as far as I know. You won't have a problem finding a Kroger owned store in the midwest, at least. I'm sure you've heard of or seen some of their stores.
Hmmm... precisely what I was thinking. The first thing that popped into my head when I read the article was "I'd hit it!" The rest of your post is also very true.
Give me an interesting job, reasonable hours, freedom to be creative and enough tools to get the job done, and I'll be a happy camper.
Exactly. I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or perhaps I was misleading. I wasn't saying that success LEADS to satisfaction. Perhaps it does in some cases. I was saying that satisfaction leads to success. Some management theories express this, most notably the Job Characteristics Model. Skill variety, task identity, and autonomy -- all things that you describe -- are all vital to increasing intrinsic motivation, work quality, and job satisfaction. This can make a company successful! Management in most companies really need to concentrate more on job design.
People seem to have a stereotype of MBAs. Not all MBAs are concerned with the bottom line at the cost of everything else. Some MBAs study behavioral management theory, psychology of organizations, etc.
I do agree with your comments. That is the reality -- buying stocks is more like gambling than anything. Shareholders should believe in the companies they invest in, treat their investments as ownership, and seek to advance that company. Then maybe we'd have less people dumping their shares the moment the company posts a loss in a single quarter.
I disagree with his assertions that maximizing shareholder wealth at the expense of employee satisfaction is regarded as a good thing in business schools. It is obvious that Cringely has never attended a business school. I am working on an MBA and this is simply not the case. Employee satisfaction and well-being is consistently associated with success.
Yes, maximizing shareholder wealth should be a goal. Shareholders are the owners of the company. If they aren't satisfied with the direction of the business, then you've got problems. Your board and management team don't mean anything if the shareholders decide to dump them.
Cringely overestimates managerial influence on the companies that he mentions, but disregards other factors such as economic conditions and competition. Most of those companies simply could not compete with industry leaders.
I suppose that I was somewhat concerned with what last September 11th (btw, I HATE the phrase "Nine-Eleven") meant to the country for a while. It affected many people's lives, some companies, and a portion of a very large city, for sure. But, does buildings getting knocked down in a city that I've never even been to REALLY affect me? No. Maybe I'm just callous, but I didn't know anybody that died. I don't watch Dateline or MSNBC or Fox News and "relate" to the people that do. I'm getting really annoyed by the fact that TV and print news is saturated with FUD and constant updates. I don't watch very much news now.
Also, I don't believe people that say "we will never forget". Does anybody really care about Pearl Harbor anymore? Exactly. Get over it, people. The country isn't getting better because of this renewed "patriotism", it is getting worse. Stop the candlelight vigils and do something meaningful!
One of the comments on this story said that majoring in MIS was like "majoring in Word and Excel." It is frightening how close to the truth that is at some schools.
I chose to major in MIS as a compromise between my two main interests: business and computers. My school's MIS curriculum is very business oriented, which should be no surprise. An MIS student takes the same core courses as every business major (Accounting, Finance, Marketing, etc) does, along with the "technical" MIS courses. However, out of 120 credit hours, only 21 are MIS courses, with the rest being business and general education courses. The MIS courses use Microsoft software extensively and exclusively. Databases are taught using Access and programming is taught with Visual Basic. The intro class uses Excel and PowerPoint. I feel like I am attending a trade school, not a university. The scary thing is, the other students like it that way, and would really prefer more "hands-on experience" with "industry standard software" and even certification (like MCSE) offered through the university.
I figured that I would gain enough business knowledge and technical know-how to either start my own business, or get a management position at a tech company. What I am doing is wasting my time. I spent three consecutive semesters not taking a single technical course. I would have been much better off majoring in CS and taking the useful business classes as electives. I decided to take a CS minor, which consists of the most basic programming, design, and logic courses with two electives. This provides me with some technical knowledge and a way to study my interests, but I may just stay an extra year to get the degree in CS.
The bottom line: MIS is nothing but another business major. Lots of people that graduate from here (Kansas State) with MIS degrees end up doing jobs like support or grunt work for Sprint. Any of us could do this without degrees, so what is the point? Then again, a lot of them get decent jobs. MIS students are often students that cannot complete the work that is demanded of a CS student. The MIS degree offers them an "easy" way out so that they can get a big career with a big salary. They soon find that they get neither. MIS students can "use", but often cannot "build", which is the biggest difference between MIS and CS. Employers want employees that can think, solve problems, and create solutions. I'm not saying that someone with an MIS degree can't do that, there are many that can. Some of the smartest people I have ever known are either MIS students or faculty. But, most of the people with these qualities are CS majors.
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Kroger is fairly common in most parts of the US, as far as I know. You won't have a problem finding a Kroger owned store in the midwest, at least. I'm sure you've heard of or seen some of their stores.
Hmmm... precisely what I was thinking. The first thing that popped into my head when I read the article was "I'd hit it!" The rest of your post is also very true.
Have a look at Gentoo. The Portage system will keep you up to date and is easy to use. Of course, you're probably used to RPMs with RedHat...
MSBlast spreads via email? I'm quite sure that it does not. This article does need fact checking.
Give me an interesting job, reasonable hours, freedom to be creative and enough tools to get the job done, and I'll be a happy camper.
Exactly. I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or perhaps I was misleading. I wasn't saying that success LEADS to satisfaction. Perhaps it does in some cases. I was saying that satisfaction leads to success. Some management theories express this, most notably the Job Characteristics Model. Skill variety, task identity, and autonomy -- all things that you describe -- are all vital to increasing intrinsic motivation, work quality, and job satisfaction. This can make a company successful! Management in most companies really need to concentrate more on job design.
People seem to have a stereotype of MBAs. Not all MBAs are concerned with the bottom line at the cost of everything else. Some MBAs study behavioral management theory, psychology of organizations, etc.
I do agree with your comments. That is the reality -- buying stocks is more like gambling than anything. Shareholders should believe in the companies they invest in, treat their investments as ownership, and seek to advance that company. Then maybe we'd have less people dumping their shares the moment the company posts a loss in a single quarter.
I disagree with his assertions that maximizing shareholder wealth at the expense of employee satisfaction is regarded as a good thing in business schools. It is obvious that Cringely has never attended a business school. I am working on an MBA and this is simply not the case. Employee satisfaction and well-being is consistently associated with success.
Yes, maximizing shareholder wealth should be a goal. Shareholders are the owners of the company. If they aren't satisfied with the direction of the business, then you've got problems. Your board and management team don't mean anything if the shareholders decide to dump them.
Cringely overestimates managerial influence on the companies that he mentions, but disregards other factors such as economic conditions and competition. Most of those companies simply could not compete with industry leaders.
Of course, I never take Cringely seriously...
I suppose that I was somewhat concerned with what last September 11th (btw, I HATE the phrase "Nine-Eleven") meant to the country for a while. It affected many people's lives, some companies, and a portion of a very large city, for sure. But, does buildings getting knocked down in a city that I've never even been to REALLY affect me? No. Maybe I'm just callous, but I didn't know anybody that died. I don't watch Dateline or MSNBC or Fox News and "relate" to the people that do. I'm getting really annoyed by the fact that TV and print news is saturated with FUD and constant updates. I don't watch very much news now.
Also, I don't believe people that say "we will never forget". Does anybody really care about Pearl Harbor anymore? Exactly. Get over it, people. The country isn't getting better because of this renewed "patriotism", it is getting worse. Stop the candlelight vigils and do something meaningful!
One of the comments on this story said that majoring in MIS was like "majoring in Word and Excel." It is frightening how close to the truth that is at some schools.
I chose to major in MIS as a compromise between my two main interests: business and computers. My school's MIS curriculum is very business oriented, which should be no surprise. An MIS student takes the same core courses as every business major (Accounting, Finance, Marketing, etc) does, along with the "technical" MIS courses. However, out of 120 credit hours, only 21 are MIS courses, with the rest being business and general education courses. The MIS courses use Microsoft software extensively and exclusively. Databases are taught using Access and programming is taught with Visual Basic. The intro class uses Excel and PowerPoint. I feel like I am attending a trade school, not a university. The scary thing is, the other students like it that way, and would really prefer more "hands-on experience" with "industry standard software" and even certification (like MCSE) offered through the university.
I figured that I would gain enough business knowledge and technical know-how to either start my own business, or get a management position at a tech company. What I am doing is wasting my time. I spent three consecutive semesters not taking a single technical course. I would have been much better off majoring in CS and taking the useful business classes as electives. I decided to take a CS minor, which consists of the most basic programming, design, and logic courses with two electives. This provides me with some technical knowledge and a way to study my interests, but I may just stay an extra year to get the degree in CS.
The bottom line: MIS is nothing but another business major. Lots of people that graduate from here (Kansas State) with MIS degrees end up doing jobs like support or grunt work for Sprint. Any of us could do this without degrees, so what is the point? Then again, a lot of them get decent jobs. MIS students are often students that cannot complete the work that is demanded of a CS student. The MIS degree offers them an "easy" way out so that they can get a big career with a big salary. They soon find that they get neither. MIS students can "use", but often cannot "build", which is the biggest difference between MIS and CS. Employers want employees that can think, solve problems, and create solutions. I'm not saying that someone with an MIS degree can't do that, there are many that can. Some of the smartest people I have ever known are either MIS students or faculty. But, most of the people with these qualities are CS majors.