No magic ratio is out there. Instead, decide what is acceptable service to your customers. Say you decide "we do not want customers in the queue longer than five minutes". If you can meet your target 90 or 95% of the time, your staffing is sufficient. If not, that doesn't automatically mean you have to hire more people, but you might. Work towards the goal of service and not headcount
Don't be afraid to spend a little out of the gate. Increased up-front expenditures on training and web development can save more money than hiring additional staff.
If your people know the product and don't have to send it through 17 levels of support managers, they will be able to handle more inquiries quicker. If you take the time and expense to build an industry-leading support website, your people can immediately direct people there to the exact right answer and move on. It will save you money in the mid-term.
Also, use technology as a way to get the most out of your people. A simple solution like ICQ can put the resources of all of your support people at the disposal of each customer who calls in for help.
But above all, it's the people you hire. Spend a bit more up front for salaries and training and equipment. Get the best people. Don't accept the churn-and-burn strategy of support staffing. No one, especially in small companies with tight margins, likes to be told to spend, but the money you can save in turnover, incompetence, and, worst of all, lost customers is so much more than those early costs.
Seems all the people peddling survival wear this time last year need a new line, and they have found it either in impending weather/geological disasters or in economic crash or collapse. Greenspan's now-famous "irrational exuberance" phrase drew a large crowd of people waiting to see the train wreck. These hucksters are rarely chastized if the future proves them wrong, and they usually make vague enough claims either to postpone evaluation until people tire and forget or to find one or two tenuous points to claim "I was RIGHT!!!".
Of course every economist will have a different outlook on the short-term prospects of the market, especially within the tech sector. Shiller has a sound foundation for his position, I'm sure. What was the quote back around 1929..."when cab drivers start giving you stock tips, it's time to get out." Now we have e-brokerages featuring hairdressers trading market advice in their commercials. Pretty interesting parallel.
But just as irrational exuberance can lead to bad exposure, so can an irrational exit strategy. I have little sympathy for the day-traders and other hoping to make what has always been a long-term investment into their get-rich-quick plan. We are now into a new step in economic education in this market. First we learned that you can make money. Now we are learning that a few safeguards are necessary in order to protect that money and grow it over the long term. Not at all new principles but a new lesson for people who had until now not bothered to learn it.
OK...anyone from Slashdot want to take this up?
on
Why Not MySQL?
·
· Score: 2
The piece states early on, "If it's good enough for Slashdot, it must be good enough for OpenACS, right?"
So we've heard why not to use mysql...any of the Slashdot team want to tell us what they like about it, how it performs for them, and why they chose it?
"This website ONLY WORKS with AOL and IE running under Windows . So don't go to that site! We've been there. Remember CompuServe, Prodigy, and, yes, AOL about a decade ago? All proprietary and closed in terms of both access and content. Than along comes the Internet which blows those closed services out of the water. Most fizzle. AOL survives only by becoming an ISP for the dumbmasses. Unfortunately, no one has ever gone broke underestimating the American people, but so what? No shortages of alternatives exist thanks to the open model of the internet. If someone tries to close it up, they will be routed around in the marketplace just as the online services of the 80s were. Amazing what passes for "monopoly" these days....
Sure they are...to a point. With programmable calculators that most are using now, one can program all the formulas you'll need to get by that next test or whatever.
But then take the calculator away...the student is lost. We teach them how to punch in the formulas that will solve the problem, but we have slowed down in our teaching of the theories behind the problems. A financier can punch up most any asset pricing model she wants, but without an understanding behind those theories, the wrong model may be applied.
Education in part is to give students basic principals which can be applied later. If those things just get programmed into a calculator or computer without much teaching as to the "why", you'll have problems.
While we all snicker at the Reed - M$ partnership, other tech companies (as well as MS) have been turning up their lobbying efforts for years now. Microsoft's apparent goal of lobbying GWBush seems an understandable countermeasure when you realize that firms such as Sun and Oracle have been unloading dumptrucks of money at the feet of the current administration and, as the linked article points out, certain congressmen who support the DOJ's action against Microsoft. If they are "buying influence" as some of the posts here claim, where was the outrage and calls for reform when Microsoft's competitors sent more and more money to those who would see to it that the DOJ action would have a full head of steam?
Has Microsoft been the subject of this DOJ attention in part because they didn't pony up to the administration as certain Silicon Valley firms did?
We can't even agree on a text editor...getting behind politcal candidates seems next to impossible.
Oh, sure, there are occasionally galvanizing issues such as specific privacy abuses or even DVD encryption, but on the whole, members of this community have 622 views on any subject. Even on those key issues, there are substantial differences on how to approach them.
A big "problem" of liberty-loving, independent-thinking people is that it's hell to organize them. Like-thinking in-step factory workers, sure...they'll unionize or fall behind the candidate they're told. In this industry, though, and with the level of independence demonstrated on this site alone, everyone has their hot buttons that will cause them to head in a different direction. As a result, politcally speaking, it would be a Herculean job to get a majority behind specific candidates.
If you have 2 Slashdotters, you'll get 3 opinions.
IE is already at, what, 5.5? If the next big release of Netscape were to be released 5.0, there would be the perception that it is still "behind" and catching up to the IE releases. Netscape 5 would be out there, and then when IE 6 comes out in (3-6) months, there would still be the perception of Version Lag.
It has generally become accepted that the 4.0 browsers were essentially similar in terms of features, so the WinTel masses have been trained to compare the NS and IE browsers by version number.
OK...you produce your own record/CD/mp3. Then what? Get it on MTV. Get it played ad nauseum by radio stations. Get a nice write-up in Rolling Stone. Get on some nice concert bills. Get lotsa copies in the local music store's bin. I'm no fan of the industry and $16+ CDs, but I do understand that they add *some* value not only in production but also in marketing, logistics, and promotion.
MP3 is fine, but mom and dad don't use WinAmp (yet). This market is skyrocketing for sure but still tiny in the big picture. Unless you're the independent band that probably wouldn't go through regular industry channels anyway, you need much better distribution and promotion than "hey...come download from my website!" The CD will remain the leading method of (legal) music distribution for years.
Follow this link for a discussion he's having with Dave Winer on this very subject.
Catalogs and logistics
on
Middle Media
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· Score: 1
So some guy says "If [e-tailers] want to grow as a sales channel, catalogs can be a vital part of their business."
That may be so, but it's much easier to go the other way (go from a thriving catalog business into dotcom land). Why? Many existing catalog companies already have a solid logistics network in place. Look at Lands End or direct companies like Dell who have been in the logistics business a lot longer than they have been in the online business. Setting up your database and slapping up a storefront is one of the easier parts of this process. The real work is done in warehousing, inventory management, shipping, and order fulfillment. In the point-click-get it tomorrow world, those who master logistics will become industry leaders. Oh, I know that's not as sexy as saying it's some new media paradigm, but it's powering the companies that are getting it done.
I hope a lot of these dotcoms aren't getting into the catalog business just because they know people like to read things on dead trees. That's kind of the equivalent of a company putting up a brochureware website because they know everyone's getting online. Running a catalog mail-order business can be very similar top running a good online business but only if you set it up right with a solid structure of order fulfillment behind it. Many catalog companies get that; they've had decades to streamline their distribution, and they can make the move online rather easily. New media? Middle media? Hardly. More like just one more new channel for a proven existing way.
I have never met anyone at the top of their field who got there by being a 9-to-5 clockwatching kind of guy or gal. It helps to love what you're doing to put in more than what is "required", but those extra hours are most often the seeds to your personal development.
If you are content where you are, put in the 40 hours. I'm not advocating 80+ hour weeks...balance in all areas is necessary. If you work too much, you will probably not have what you want in family or social areas. If you only work enough to get by, though, your career and financial goals will likely not be met. It's tough to find the right balance between your personal development and your goals outside of career, but it is possible. I'm grateful to have an employer who recognizes and cultivates that.
Its interesting that people get upset when they are asked to put in over 40 h/w. They are already working until sometime on Tuesday (or Wednesday if you're a high-achiever) for someone else and not themselves, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone as much as a few extra hours do.
Anyone else gulp at that? Two cynical guesses at the outcome:
1) A call for more government regulation of the internet
2) Notice the companies they have invited. Companies that have been affect...and MS? Will we see the solutions put forward by those companies endorsed by the US govt?
Now I know making more people aware of security issues is a Good Thing. Doing it half-assed though isn't.
The state of economic education in the US is poor enough already; Katz furthers some big misconceptions that need clearing up.
Nothing companies do is free, whether that be giving its employers computers or paying corporate taxes. Ford shareholders may be swell people, but they have limits on how low their returns may go. this may be a minor expense in the big picture, but the price of your next Explorer or Escort will ever-so-slightly reflect the increased expense.
But the biggest economic falsehood that Katz furthers is that money not "given away" is idle. While we shudder at the thought of people being able to tell us what do do with our "excess wealth" or "free time" (anyone experienced the wonderful 'compulsory volunteerism'?), it is a basically wrong assumption to think that money can only be used for socially good purposes ONLY if it is given away.
So Gates or whoever has this huge pot. He could donate it, sure. He could also buy a yacht. Awful corporate greed, right? Well, maybe, unless you happen to be a yacht dealer or builder who relies on that purchase for your living. OK, so he could add on to that monstrous house of his. What narcissism, right? Sure, unless you happen to be one of the technicians or architects or builders who will do business with him.
Even if all Gates does is slap his fortune in the bank, it is still being used to make loans for someone's first home or seeding the next great startup. The only way anyone's money goes unused is if it sits under your mattress, and in Gates's case, that would have to be one honking big mattress.
I feel pretty confident that Katz would consider it a proper use of Gates's money to buy Katz's book. Any of us who have money to spend have earned it, and whether it is spent buying Katz's book, buying a yummy Publix sub, or given to the guy on 34th Street, it benefits someone, and it is none of your damned business how it is spent. That we derive some sort of return (be it physical...I have a yummy sub in hand or emotional...I feel good donating money) is irrelevant.
This ignorance is amazing, and people keep falling for it. Now, all we have is Katz making value judgements on how money we earn should be spent. Just be thankful he has no power to act on those judgements.
Have I missed it, or when did/. ever claim to be or act as a journalistic site? I know "news" is in the slogan, sure, but all this site is (said appreciatively) is a place for people of like interests to talk about what matters to them. It's a high-tech CB, a virtual water cooler.
I hope in all this that the/. community has not begun to take itself so seriously as to think it now must conduct itself with the utmost journalistic integrity. I don't think the point of Slashdot has ever been objectivity...because it's entirely about "stuff that matters" to us, objectivity is inherently out the window.
I know that "journalistic integrity" isn't directly related to "editorial independence", but some of the reaction to this merger is to treat Slashdot as if the New York Times had been bought. Yes, we all expect that stories of interest to us on all sides of things continue to be published. That's a serious implication. But to hear "journalism" tossed about in this discussion is looking at things the wrong way.
Without the huge open-source community here behind it, Slashdot is just another weblog, and that does not change just because the ticker symbol does. Don't lose sight of that.
This bit of news could have quickly turned into the latest knee-jerk "they patented WHAT?!?!?" story. Instead, with a bit of checking, you were able to hopefully circumvent at least the most ridiculous part of the submission and let readers know what the real issue of the story is. Hope to see a good bit more of that.
Oh, wow. Perhaps the only thing more scary than some monolithic "corporatism" that Katz worries about is the implication of statements like this. OK, Jon. How big is big enough? Who decides? You? The DOJ? We see statements with similar implications these days like "He makes too much money" as if we have any place in that discussion.
Folks, as big as TimeAOLWarnerEverything gets, no one can force you to use their products and services. If it really gets "unwieldy", more efficient competitiors will undercut it. Only one entity has a monopoly on the legal use of force, and it sounds as if a lot of people are willing to give that entity more power to in order to prevent these "evil" companies from getting "too big" - whatever THAT means.
I'm beside myself...we bemoan ATM fees and cast Case as this week's incarnation of Big Brother while acquiescing every day to what really affects our lives.
Here's another book you've no doubt thrown into the kook pile...see what happens when Atlas Shrugs.
How many of us have taken file folders or disks home or telneted in late at night to get a bit more done? Will any work done over the coffee table have to stop or risk this regulation? Why or why not? These are issues they're going to have to decide...what consitutes enough work to make it a home office? How much before my home must have wheelchair access or a "you must wash hands" sign in my bathroom?
Sorry, but with hundreds of years of misuse of the Commerce Clause and more recent examples with the ADA, I can't have much faith that any definition they choose will be narrow enough not to affect most every employee, and thus we have the regulation and possible inspection of every private residence.
Better prepare the sign: 55 days without a workplace accident in this home.:-)
I'm fully confident that news and entertainment brokers are very aware of when the millenial change occurs (Clinton himself was asked about that and responded with a chilling endorsement of mob rule). But they're just playing dumb this year and will be ready to market and reap the hype from the real change of the millenium in a year. There are two chances to cash in.
"Nah...last year was our Y2K stuff...now you need to buy our real millenial issues"
I did make clear that there is a fundamental American value in making sure that neither heavy-handed government nor unfair business practices stamp out competition.
I eagerly look forward then to the Vice President's plans both on allowing opt-out of Social Security and also school choice - two current monopolies of the US Government in which the current administration is more than willing to use the power of "heavy-handed government" to "stamp out competition".
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be afraid to spend a little out of the gate. Increased up-front expenditures on training and web development can save more money than hiring additional staff.
If your people know the product and don't have to send it through 17 levels of support managers, they will be able to handle more inquiries quicker. If you take the time and expense to build an industry-leading support website, your people can immediately direct people there to the exact right answer and move on. It will save you money in the mid-term.
Also, use technology as a way to get the most out of your people. A simple solution like ICQ can put the resources of all of your support people at the disposal of each customer who calls in for help.
But above all, it's the people you hire. Spend a bit more up front for salaries and training and equipment. Get the best people. Don't accept the churn-and-burn strategy of support staffing. No one, especially in small companies with tight margins, likes to be told to spend, but the money you can save in turnover, incompetence, and, worst of all, lost customers is so much more than those early costs.
Of course every economist will have a different outlook on the short-term prospects of the market, especially within the tech sector. Shiller has a sound foundation for his position, I'm sure. What was the quote back around 1929..."when cab drivers start giving you stock tips, it's time to get out." Now we have e-brokerages featuring hairdressers trading market advice in their commercials. Pretty interesting parallel.
But just as irrational exuberance can lead to bad exposure, so can an irrational exit strategy. I have little sympathy for the day-traders and other hoping to make what has always been a long-term investment into their get-rich-quick plan. We are now into a new step in economic education in this market. First we learned that you can make money. Now we are learning that a few safeguards are necessary in order to protect that money and grow it over the long term. Not at all new principles but a new lesson for people who had until now not bothered to learn it.
So we've heard why not to use mysql...any of the Slashdot team want to tell us what they like about it, how it performs for them, and why they chose it?
"This website ONLY WORKS with AOL and IE running under Windows .
So don't go to that site! We've been there. Remember CompuServe, Prodigy, and, yes, AOL about a decade ago? All proprietary and closed in terms of both access and content. Than along comes the Internet which blows those closed services out of the water. Most fizzle. AOL survives only by becoming an ISP for the dumbmasses. Unfortunately, no one has ever gone broke underestimating the American people, but so what? No shortages of alternatives exist thanks to the open model of the internet. If someone tries to close it up, they will be routed around in the marketplace just as the online services of the 80s were. Amazing what passes for "monopoly" these days....
Warding off telemarketers AND lawyers with one statement?!?! "Killer app" anyone? :-)
Sure they are...to a point. With programmable calculators that most are using now, one can program all the formulas you'll need to get by that next test or whatever.
But then take the calculator away...the student is lost. We teach them how to punch in the formulas that will solve the problem, but we have slowed down in our teaching of the theories behind the problems. A financier can punch up most any asset pricing model she wants, but without an understanding behind those theories, the wrong model may be applied.
Education in part is to give students basic principals which can be applied later. If those things just get programmed into a calculator or computer without much teaching as to the "why", you'll have problems.
Has Microsoft been the subject of this DOJ attention in part because they didn't pony up to the administration as certain Silicon Valley firms did?
A movement so unabashedly full of itself deserves a good parody....and here it is:
The Gluetrain Manifesto
Oh, sure, there are occasionally galvanizing issues such as specific privacy abuses or even DVD encryption, but on the whole, members of this community have 622 views on any subject. Even on those key issues, there are substantial differences on how to approach them.
A big "problem" of liberty-loving, independent-thinking people is that it's hell to organize them. Like-thinking in-step factory workers, sure...they'll unionize or fall behind the candidate they're told. In this industry, though, and with the level of independence demonstrated on this site alone, everyone has their hot buttons that will cause them to head in a different direction. As a result, politcally speaking, it would be a Herculean job to get a majority behind specific candidates.
If you have 2 Slashdotters, you'll get 3 opinions.
It has generally become accepted that the 4.0 browsers were essentially similar in terms of features, so the WinTel masses have been trained to compare the NS and IE browsers by version number.
OK...you produce your own record/CD/mp3. Then what? Get it on MTV. Get it played ad nauseum by radio stations. Get a nice write-up in Rolling Stone. Get on some nice concert bills. Get lotsa copies in the local music store's bin. I'm no fan of the industry and $16+ CDs, but I do understand that they add *some* value not only in production but also in marketing, logistics, and promotion.
MP3 is fine, but mom and dad don't use WinAmp (yet). This market is skyrocketing for sure but still tiny in the big picture. Unless you're the independent band that probably wouldn't go through regular industry channels anyway, you need much better distribution and promotion than "hey...come download from my website!" The CD will remain the leading method of (legal) music distribution for years.
Follow this link for a discussion he's having with Dave Winer on this very subject.
That may be so, but it's much easier to go the other way (go from a thriving catalog business into dotcom land). Why? Many existing catalog companies already have a solid logistics network in place. Look at Lands End or direct companies like Dell who have been in the logistics business a lot longer than they have been in the online business. Setting up your database and slapping up a storefront is one of the easier parts of this process. The real work is done in warehousing, inventory management, shipping, and order fulfillment. In the point-click-get it tomorrow world, those who master logistics will become industry leaders. Oh, I know that's not as sexy as saying it's some new media paradigm, but it's powering the companies that are getting it done.
I hope a lot of these dotcoms aren't getting into the catalog business just because they know people like to read things on dead trees. That's kind of the equivalent of a company putting up a brochureware website because they know everyone's getting online. Running a catalog mail-order business can be very similar top running a good online business but only if you set it up right with a solid structure of order fulfillment behind it. Many catalog companies get that; they've had decades to streamline their distribution, and they can make the move online rather easily. New media? Middle media? Hardly. More like just one more new channel for a proven existing way.
If you are content where you are, put in the 40 hours. I'm not advocating 80+ hour weeks...balance in all areas is necessary. If you work too much, you will probably not have what you want in family or social areas. If you only work enough to get by, though, your career and financial goals will likely not be met. It's tough to find the right balance between your personal development and your goals outside of career, but it is possible. I'm grateful to have an employer who recognizes and cultivates that.
Its interesting that people get upset when they are asked to put in over 40 h/w. They are already working until sometime on Tuesday (or Wednesday if you're a high-achiever) for someone else and not themselves, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone as much as a few extra hours do.
Anyone else gulp at that? Two cynical guesses at the outcome:
1) A call for more government regulation of the internet
2) Notice the companies they have invited. Companies that have been affect...and MS? Will we see the solutions put forward by those companies endorsed by the US govt?
Now I know making more people aware of security issues is a Good Thing. Doing it half-assed though isn't.
Nothing companies do is free, whether that be giving its employers computers or paying corporate taxes. Ford shareholders may be swell people, but they have limits on how low their returns may go. this may be a minor expense in the big picture, but the price of your next Explorer or Escort will ever-so-slightly reflect the increased expense.
But the biggest economic falsehood that Katz furthers is that money not "given away" is idle. While we shudder at the thought of people being able to tell us what do do with our "excess wealth" or "free time" (anyone experienced the wonderful 'compulsory volunteerism'?), it is a basically wrong assumption to think that money can only be used for socially good purposes ONLY if it is given away.
So Gates or whoever has this huge pot. He could donate it, sure. He could also buy a yacht. Awful corporate greed, right? Well, maybe, unless you happen to be a yacht dealer or builder who relies on that purchase for your living. OK, so he could add on to that monstrous house of his. What narcissism, right? Sure, unless you happen to be one of the technicians or architects or builders who will do business with him.
Even if all Gates does is slap his fortune in the bank, it is still being used to make loans for someone's first home or seeding the next great startup. The only way anyone's money goes unused is if it sits under your mattress, and in Gates's case, that would have to be one honking big mattress.
I feel pretty confident that Katz would consider it a proper use of Gates's money to buy Katz's book. Any of us who have money to spend have earned it, and whether it is spent buying Katz's book, buying a yummy Publix sub, or given to the guy on 34th Street, it benefits someone, and it is none of your damned business how it is spent. That we derive some sort of return (be it physical
This ignorance is amazing, and people keep falling for it. Now, all we have is Katz making value judgements on how money we earn should be spent. Just be thankful he has no power to act on those judgements.
I hope in all this that the
I know that "journalistic integrity" isn't directly related to "editorial independence", but some of the reaction to this merger is to treat Slashdot as if the New York Times had been bought. Yes, we all expect that stories of interest to us on all sides of things continue to be published. That's a serious implication. But to hear "journalism" tossed about in this discussion is looking at things the wrong way.
Without the huge open-source community here behind it, Slashdot is just another weblog, and that does not change just because the ticker symbol does. Don't lose sight of that.
This bit of news could have quickly turned into the latest knee-jerk "they patented WHAT?!?!?" story. Instead, with a bit of checking, you were able to hopefully circumvent at least the most ridiculous part of the submission and let readers know what the real issue of the story is. Hope to see a good bit more of that.
Oh, wow. Perhaps the only thing more scary than some monolithic "corporatism" that Katz worries about is the implication of statements like this. OK, Jon. How big is big enough? Who decides? You? The DOJ? We see statements with similar implications these days like "He makes too much money" as if we have any place in that discussion.
Folks, as big as TimeAOLWarnerEverything gets, no one can force you to use their products and services. If it really gets "unwieldy", more efficient competitiors will undercut it. Only one entity has a monopoly on the legal use of force, and it sounds as if a lot of people are willing to give that entity more power to in order to prevent these "evil" companies from getting "too big" - whatever THAT means.
I'm beside myself...we bemoan ATM fees and cast Case as this week's incarnation of Big Brother while acquiescing every day to what really affects our lives.
Here's another book you've no doubt thrown into the kook pile...see what happens when Atlas Shrugs.
Sorry, but with hundreds of years of misuse of the Commerce Clause and more recent examples with the ADA, I can't have much faith that any definition they choose will be narrow enough not to affect most every employee, and thus we have the regulation and possible inspection of every private residence.
Better prepare the sign: 55 days without a workplace accident in this home.
"Nah...last year was our Y2K stuff...now you need to buy our real millenial issues"
Maybe they're just holding out...
I eagerly look forward then to the Vice President's plans both on allowing opt-out of Social Security and also school choice - two current monopolies of the US Government in which the current administration is more than willing to use the power of "heavy-handed government" to "stamp out competition".