I'm convinced that this whole hostess economic death and magical comeback was just a masterful marketing exercise with the following goals:
1) renew interest in their product which everybody was taking for granted.
2) hide the fact that they (guessing here) added nasty stuff to their ingredients to increase shelf life.
Maybe 2) required an assembly line modification and they creatively found a way to use the downtime.
As someone who has been working for more than 10 years I find the idea of doing superficial things to cheer people up as just another example of bad management. The only people who it works for are young employees with no goal in life but to surf porn at work.
How do you make work more fun for your employees?
By allowing them as much freedom in doing what they like to do best. So get out of their way. Let them express themselves in their work and take ownership of what they do. Do not manage them, but lead, guide and mentor them.
If you are not technical with a proven track record, then don't innovate, analyse, design or mandate things that you don't understand. Always consult your team, discover whose inputs you can respect and trust, who is good with what and let that knowledge guide you. You work for them, not they for you.
Protect them from the crap from the top, even in total disregard of your own ass if it is the right thing to do.
They may be totally incapable of managing people themselves, but they are smart and they watch what you and your bosses do. They have a gut feel of what is right and how things should be done, even for your job, and they feel very strongly about it.
So by all means, trust, respect and protect them and they will give you the same in return. Your bosses on the other hand will throw you to the wolves any day.
Now who would you rather have as your friend to have fun with?
BTW. I'm looking for a job. Not sure if that makes me:) or:(
They will get thousands of new story ideas and only hire a handful of people. That doesn't mean they won't use the ideas of people they don't hire.
Look at The Apprentice. Trump makes more money with the show than he would be paying the individual that wins. So he is already smiling even if he hire a dufus.
Look at Rockstar. Again they make tons of money with the show, if they have a bad year because the public doesn't like the guy/girl that much, they just host a show again next year and make more money.
I am also a South African, also not living in the country and I dislike my current premier and his party.
BUT,
You don't have a clue how much money they spend on development.
South Africa spends 7.5 % of their GDP on education.
They have spent $4.5 Billion USD on housing over the last 10 years. That's government spending. Additionally the financial sector has agreed to provide an additional $6.5 Billion USD in loans to people earning the minimum legal salary. Try getting a loan in the US if you earn $250 USD a month.
I currently work in the Phillipines and this place is far more corrupt than South Africa. They have twice the population, many of which poor and their efforts at providing housing to these people are pitiful in comparison.
Programmable calculators are in general allowed in electronic engineering degrees where remembering the equation is less important than the application there of.
I was never asked to write down the equation for something in an exam and in any of the math courses the maximum points ever received for proving theorems were always less than 5 %.
Hi,
I'm currently contracting in Asia and have always prided myself on my ability to infest the companies I work with, with Linux.
Currently about 50 % of my 25 member development team uses Linux. I was quite proud, but...
Yesterday I visited a company where the CTO, after another virus bout, just made an executive decision that everyone will run Linux. So now 90 % of the 160 employees use Linux.
They save time and they save money and Linux skills are cheap in Asia. Its a match made in heaven.
Reading people's comments it seems that there are a few things wrong with the world we live in.
Lawyers. Boy what did we get ourselves into when we started that profession. It sounds that they pretty much determine themselves what they get paid. Maybe lawyers should be outsourced from India so that they could get a reality check. Software developers for example don't get 30-50% of the money their company makes on their product even though the company depends on them to make it.
Doctors. Seems they make far too much money whether they are good or not. If you are good at what you do, you earn good. If average, then you're average, etc. Seems that we feel that extortion is ok if someone might save your life, then again they might just kill you.
CA's. The world is full of them running companies they should not be running. Full of themselves and overpaid, what can I say that you don't know yet.
Maybe outsourcing could normalize all these things to everyone's greater good?
In the recent elections in the Philippines, somebody sent a letter to the local newspaper reading: "I would rather vote for the evil I know than the devil I don't"
He/she was referring to voting for Gloria (GMA) instead of Fernando Po Jr. (FPJ, the actor).
If I was american I would rather vote for Bush because I have seen how he operates. Kerry from afar looks to me like a big fake. He's always whining about things that are relevant (or should be).
It seems as if the elections are turning into something like "The next action movie star"
Every day I am amazed at the lack of skill and knowledge in IT personnel. 9 out of 10 of them should never have been a sys admin, programmer or support person.
I think Microsoft is largely to blame. When people leaving school suddenly awakened to the fact that you don't just get handed a well paying job, Microsoft were pushing MSCE, etc. on the technically challenged masses.
In the end only Microsoft gained. The masses eventually got paid less because of the laws of supply and demand, but still companies felt that they were bestowed with armies of skilled people certified 'smart' by Microsoft.
Actually the armies of idiots might be the one thing that gives Microsoft staying power in companies. Migrate to Linux? Unless you re-hire your whole IT department you are in big troubles. At least your department will be much smaller. If you cannot even manage something you are certified for, what about something that actually requires a brain. Now make that idiot a manager and it becomes impossible.
I must apologize for using 'idiot', its a relative thing. I am smart in technology, but an idiot when it comes to stuff like financial investment, legal matters, fixing cars, etc. See, no harm done.
Now helpdesk personnel need to be patient. Thats where the Filipino's shine, pleasant and patient, but not very smart on the technical stuff no matter what they tell themselves.
I guess its a catch 22, very few tech savvy people will work in a helpdesk. Maybe it will be the first true mass market for good AI?
As an African I know that his is one prediction that is not going to become reality.
There's a few places in Africa worth the trouble.
In the south, only South-Africa and only if the government can control itself and not become like the rest of Africa. In the middle, maybe Ghana. Up north, maybe some of the Arab countries.
The 35 new models is a good example of why they are losing market share.
Most of these phones are aimed at deferentiating Nokia phones through looks or coolness factors.
In reality these phones are in most cases a pain to use and have no common feature set.
This might make sense in Hong Kong or Scandinavia, but not in the rest of the world. People want usable phones, with consistent keyboards, reliable and consistent features. Also Nokia are really not doing anything innovative on the application side.
Think how much it must cost them to 'research' all these different products.
What they need is a few good models. The 6600 seems to be a good platform base. One or 2 models for each segment of the market.
Most important, if you want to target the consumer and not the operator (another big mistake), actually go and do market research according to user demographics and actually manufacture phones accordingly. You cannot expect to sell phones only 2 % of the market wants.
Like I said, start talking and LISTENING to the operators. They make money out of their customers on a day to day basis and KNOW what their customers want.
The only way in which hardware will ever be free is if the 'hardware' vendor's core business isn't hardware.
He must make his money elsewhere and preferably by selling things with the hardware he gives away.
Now this presents a problem. If his hardware is a commodity, then chances are open-source software will exist for it which will reduce his value proposition.
His alternative is to make the hardware proprietory. Proprietory hardware must have some clear advantages over the other options or they just won't sell.
Somebody said that what is important when you hire somebody is their ability to think and not the qualification.
I personally know 1 or 2 developers with no formal training but who are excellent developers and thinkers. This is by far not the norm though.
Having said that. Someone with 3 years of University level math behind them has a lot more experience in solving complex problems and using their brains than someone who has done a 6 month course in some arbitrary programming language.
I know that my engineering degree has given me the ability to think and solve complex problems. It has also given me huge amounts of background information and knowledge which normal programmers don't have and as a result I can make informed decisions and focus my attention, compared to just fiddling around until I find something that works and probably won't understand the solution.
The depressing part today is the number of watered down BS degrees you get these days. The trend seems to be to make the subject matter simpler if you cannot find enough people who are smart enough.
I interview BS graduates who took physical education and psych. in their final year! They have perhaps 10% or less of the exposure that a proper degree would give you not even mentioning the depth of the knowledge. Despite this they have 'Computer Science' degrees, and are touted as internationally competitive professionals.
This trend is why programmers are commodities today. The same holds for system admins. There are too many people who have no aptitude or interest in technology, performing tech jobs. Why? Because it (used to) pays well. A programmer or system admin should be someone for whom its not just a way of putting bread on the table, but an addiction, a way of life. Guess how many system admins don't even have a pc at home...
2 things,
1) From a manufacturer's viewpoint I would rather be proprietary Nokia than proprietory Mcrosoft.
2) You as a consumer picks an operator. The operator picks the phones available to you. Their choices are in some cases influenced by ignorant business people and clueless CTO's. They pick Microsoft because it is SOOOO cool to be able to show a Powerpoint presentation from you phone.
Be Smart, pick a smart operator and support a market where you still have a choice.
Us foreigners always find it amusing when Americans label themselves the hardest working or most productive.
I honestly haven't found one statistic on the Internet that do not compute to the average American working 40 hours/week LIKE most of the world.
I do however believe you have a point with this silly 10-12 days vacation a year. And although I currently only have 15, I think your position sucks in that regard.
It is probably why your yearly hours of work seem high, you don't take time off. On a day to day basis it doesn't amount to much difference though.
As for productivity. I have heard numerous foreigners with green cards relate how they are valued in the States because they work harder and more productive than the locals.
There is value in the proposition of working less and spending more time enjoying life, even though at a lower standard. It is a cruel thing to work hard most of your life, really losing out on spending time with those that are dear to you and then ending up old, maybe rich and your kids doing the same things you regret. Its a cycle that must be broken.
Actually the link to the bbc was very interesting.
I suspect the Nigerians are so happy because of the freely available drugs and the fact that they have so many 'friends' they send email to.
The Aussies seem to be more happier on a daily basis than in general, maybe due to the beer o'clock tradition:)
Mono is useful for Microsoft as a altenative to J2EE. Once it has won the war against Java/J2EE with Mono's help, it will turn on Mono and squash it like a bug.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm convinced that this whole hostess economic death and magical comeback was just a masterful marketing exercise with the following goals: 1) renew interest in their product which everybody was taking for granted. 2) hide the fact that they (guessing here) added nasty stuff to their ingredients to increase shelf life. Maybe 2) required an assembly line modification and they creatively found a way to use the downtime.
So those guys that are using it for facts... Be sure that at some point your wife will have relations will the guys who are not using it for facts.
And I'm unfortunately not trying to be funny.
As someone who has been working for more than 10 years I find the idea of doing superficial things to cheer people up as just another example of bad management. The only people who it works for are young employees with no goal in life but to surf porn at work.
:) or :(
How do you make work more fun for your employees?
By allowing them as much freedom in doing what they like to do best. So get out of their way. Let them express themselves in their work and take ownership of what they do. Do not manage them, but lead, guide and mentor them.
If you are not technical with a proven track record, then don't innovate, analyse, design or mandate things that you don't understand. Always consult your team, discover whose inputs you can respect and trust, who is good with what and let that knowledge guide you. You work for them, not they for you.
Protect them from the crap from the top, even in total disregard of your own ass if it is the right thing to do.
They may be totally incapable of managing people themselves, but they are smart and they watch what you and your bosses do. They have a gut feel of what is right and how things should be done, even for your job, and they feel very strongly about it.
So by all means, trust, respect and protect them and they will give you the same in return. Your bosses on the other hand will throw you to the wolves any day.
Now who would you rather have as your friend to have fun with?
BTW. I'm looking for a job. Not sure if that makes me
They will get thousands of new story ideas and only hire a handful of people. That doesn't mean they won't use
the ideas of people they don't hire.
Look at The Apprentice. Trump makes more money with the show than he would be paying the individual that wins. So
he is already smiling even if he hire a dufus.
Look at Rockstar. Again they make tons of money with the show, if they have a bad year because the public doesn't like
the guy/girl that much, they just host a show again next year and make more money.
Its a new business model.
I am also a South African, also not living in the country and I dislike my current premier and his party.
BUT,
You don't have a clue how much money they spend on development.
South Africa spends 7.5 % of their GDP on education.
They have spent $4.5 Billion USD on housing over the last 10 years. That's government spending.
Additionally the financial sector has agreed to provide an additional $6.5 Billion USD in loans
to people earning the minimum legal salary. Try getting a loan in the US if you earn $250 USD a month.
I currently work in the Phillipines and this place is far more corrupt than South Africa. They have twice the
population, many of which poor and their efforts at providing housing to these people are pitiful in comparison.
Ask any system administrator and they will tell you that most of the existing computer users in the world don't have the
expertise to use it.
Long time ago part of why I used Linux was
because I hated Microsoft.
Now I couldn't care less, I'm a Linux user and
Microsoft will die as all things do.
Now I really would like to see AMD have the
same market share as Intel, Microsoft's henchmen.
Unfortunately Intel has the better mobile presence
at the moment.
At least now Apple notebooks will be faster. Who
cares about Mac OS X anyway.
Apple is in the business of making money. Have you tried to sell gcc lately?
You get Intel compiler on Linux too. What do people use? gcc because its free.
Programmable calculators are in general allowed in electronic engineering degrees where remembering the equation is less important than the application there of.
I was never asked to write down the equation for something in an exam and in any of the math courses the maximum points ever received for proving theorems were always less than 5 %.
Hi, I'm currently contracting in Asia and have always prided myself on my ability to infest the companies I work with, with Linux. Currently about 50 % of my 25 member development team uses Linux. I was quite proud, but... Yesterday I visited a company where the CTO, after another virus bout, just made an executive decision that everyone will run Linux. So now 90 % of the 160 employees use Linux. They save time and they save money and Linux skills are cheap in Asia. Its a match made in heaven.
Reading people's comments it seems that there are a few things wrong with the world we live in.
Lawyers. Boy what did we get ourselves into when we started that profession. It sounds that they pretty much determine themselves what they get paid. Maybe lawyers should be outsourced from India so that they could get a reality check. Software developers for example don't get 30-50% of the money their company makes on their product even though the company depends on them to make it.
Doctors. Seems they make far too much money whether they are good or not. If you are good at what you do, you earn good. If average, then you're average, etc. Seems that we feel that extortion is ok if someone might save your life, then again they might just kill you.
CA's. The world is full of them running companies they should not be running. Full of themselves and overpaid, what can I say that you don't know yet.
Maybe outsourcing could normalize all these things to everyone's greater good?
In the recent elections in the Philippines, somebody sent a letter to the local newspaper reading: "I would rather vote for the evil I know than the devil I don't"
He/she was referring to voting for Gloria (GMA) instead of Fernando Po Jr. (FPJ, the actor).
If I was american I would rather vote for Bush because I have seen how he operates. Kerry from afar looks to me like a big fake. He's always whining about things that are relevant (or should be).
It seems as if the elections are turning into something like "The next action movie star"
Hydrogen cars will remove the polution from where you live and keep it at the power plant or factories.
Seems like a benefit to me.
Every day I am amazed at the lack of skill and knowledge in IT personnel. 9 out of 10 of them should never have been a sys admin, programmer or support person.
I think Microsoft is largely to blame. When people leaving school suddenly awakened to the fact that you don't just get handed a well paying job, Microsoft were pushing MSCE, etc. on the technically challenged masses.
In the end only Microsoft gained. The masses eventually got paid less because of the laws of supply and demand, but still companies felt that they were bestowed with armies of skilled people certified 'smart' by Microsoft.
Actually the armies of idiots might be the one thing that gives Microsoft staying power in companies. Migrate to Linux? Unless you re-hire your whole IT department you are in big troubles.
At least your department will be much smaller.
If you cannot even manage something you are certified for, what about something that actually requires a brain. Now make that idiot a manager and it becomes impossible.
I must apologize for using 'idiot', its a relative thing. I am smart in technology, but an idiot when it comes to stuff like financial investment, legal matters, fixing cars, etc. See, no harm done.
Now helpdesk personnel need to be patient. Thats where the Filipino's shine, pleasant and patient, but not very smart on the technical stuff no matter what they tell themselves.
I guess its a catch 22, very few tech savvy people will work in a helpdesk. Maybe it will be the first true mass market for good AI?
As an African I know that his is one prediction that is not going to become reality.
There's a few places in Africa worth the trouble.
In the south, only South-Africa and only if the government can control itself and not become like the rest of Africa.
In the middle, maybe Ghana.
Up north, maybe some of the Arab countries.
The 35 new models is a good example of why they are losing market share.
Most of these phones are aimed at deferentiating Nokia phones through looks or coolness factors.
In reality these phones are in most cases a pain to use and have no common feature set.
This might make sense in Hong Kong or Scandinavia, but not in the rest of the world. People want usable phones, with consistent keyboards, reliable and consistent features. Also Nokia are really not doing anything innovative on the application side.
Think how much it must cost them to 'research' all these different products.
What they need is a few good models. The 6600 seems to be a good platform base. One or 2 models for each segment of the market.
Most important, if you want to target the consumer and not the operator (another big mistake), actually go and do market research according to user demographics and actually manufacture phones accordingly. You cannot expect to sell phones only 2 % of the market wants.
Like I said, start talking and LISTENING to the operators. They make money out of their customers on a day to day basis and KNOW what their customers want.
I totally agree with you, the last 10 years of music has been an embarrassment to mankind.
That said, more than 90 % of people are idiots with actually no taste in music, so I guess our theory can't be correct.
Just let IE die and make the world a better place.
The only way in which hardware will ever be free is if the 'hardware' vendor's core business isn't hardware.
He must make his money elsewhere and preferably by selling things with the hardware he gives away.
Now this presents a problem. If his hardware is a commodity, then chances are open-source software will exist for it which will reduce his value proposition.
His alternative is to make the hardware proprietory. Proprietory hardware must have some clear advantages over the other options or they just won't sell.
All in all, a bad idea unless you are Microsoft.
Somebody said that what is important when you hire somebody is their ability to think and not the qualification.
I personally know 1 or 2 developers with no formal training but who are excellent developers and thinkers. This is by far not the norm though.
Having said that. Someone with 3 years of University level math behind them has a lot more experience in solving complex problems and using their brains than someone who has done a 6 month course in some arbitrary programming language.
I know that my engineering degree has given me the ability to think and solve complex problems. It has also given me huge amounts of background information and knowledge which normal programmers don't have and as a result I can make informed decisions and focus my attention, compared to just fiddling around until I find something that works and probably won't understand the solution.
The depressing part today is the number of watered down BS degrees you get these days. The trend seems to be to make the subject matter simpler if you cannot find enough people who are smart enough.
I interview BS graduates who took physical education and psych. in their final year! They have perhaps 10% or less of the exposure that a proper degree would give you not even mentioning the depth of the knowledge. Despite this they have 'Computer Science' degrees, and are touted as internationally competitive professionals.
This trend is why programmers are commodities today. The same holds for system admins. There are too many people who have no aptitude or interest in technology, performing tech jobs. Why? Because it (used to) pays well. A programmer or system admin should be someone for whom its not just a way of putting bread on the table, but an addiction, a way of life. Guess how many system admins don't even have a pc at home...
2 things, 1) From a manufacturer's viewpoint I would rather be proprietary Nokia than proprietory Mcrosoft. 2) You as a consumer picks an operator. The operator picks the phones available to you. Their choices are in some cases influenced by ignorant business people and clueless CTO's. They pick Microsoft because it is SOOOO cool to be able to show a Powerpoint presentation from you phone. Be Smart, pick a smart operator and support a market where you still have a choice.
As far as I know Novell has J2EE interests as well...
Us foreigners always find it amusing when Americans label themselves the hardest working or most productive. I honestly haven't found one statistic on the Internet that do not compute to the average American working 40 hours/week LIKE most of the world. I do however believe you have a point with this silly 10-12 days vacation a year. And although I currently only have 15, I think your position sucks in that regard. It is probably why your yearly hours of work seem high, you don't take time off. On a day to day basis it doesn't amount to much difference though. As for productivity. I have heard numerous foreigners with green cards relate how they are valued in the States because they work harder and more productive than the locals. There is value in the proposition of working less and spending more time enjoying life, even though at a lower standard. It is a cruel thing to work hard most of your life, really losing out on spending time with those that are dear to you and then ending up old, maybe rich and your kids doing the same things you regret. Its a cycle that must be broken.
Actually the link to the bbc was very interesting. I suspect the Nigerians are so happy because of the freely available drugs and the fact that they have so many 'friends' they send email to. The Aussies seem to be more happier on a daily basis than in general, maybe due to the beer o'clock tradition :)
Mono is useful for Microsoft as a altenative to J2EE. Once it has won the war against Java/J2EE with Mono's help, it will turn on Mono and squash it like a bug.