The thinking not done because of the "elevator pitch" approach to business is one of the reasons so many companies are losing so much money.
AT&T is no longer trying to sell residential phone service.
Disney no longer makes animation. Instead, they want to make computers.
and so on. "There's no money in it" they whine. What they really mean is "nobody can explain in a PowerPoint presentation or an elevator pitch (30 seconds or less with no eye-glaze) how we can make hundreds of millions of dollars this quarter with no work or capital expenditure."
Everything formerly valuable is becoming a commodity while attention span is becoming the most expensive luxury in business. Nobody listens any more. Ideas and products that make hundreds of millions of dollars CANNOT BE EXPLAINED PROPERLY IN THIRTY SECONDS.
So, everyone runs from meeting to meeting, conference room to conference room frantically looking for something, ANYTHING that they can borrow to sell and get some short-term cash to the bank so the paychecks don't bounce (well, the paychecks for the half-dozen people who didn't get fired prior to the last quarterly stock-bump layoffs).
And, so business gets what they want. Accelerated PowerPoint so the elevator pitch can be 27 seconds instead of 30. Why, we're TEN PERCENT MORE EFFICIENT! LET'S FIRE SOME PEOPLE TO CELEBRATE!
It's just another icon to click. Another "efficiency token" to impress rooms full of accountants who, in the money-grab economy, are the only people who matter.
All Apple does invent one great product after another:
iPod G5 Powerbook OS X Cinema Display
(for openers)
and they invest millions to make inexpensive music downloads available (at almost no profit). But they don't sell shovelboxes at $299 each, so let's kick Apple in the face again. Sounds great.
And how is a judgement in a civil suit not a mandate?
Because only a legislature can mandate (makes law). The Judicial branch adjudicates (interprets law). Just because a judgement has the support of the law does not make it a mandate.
So let me get this straight, you seem very upset about "big government" mandating you have car insurance, but you want government to stop car insurance companies to not be able to give customers discounts who VOLUNTEER to have stuff monitored on their car.......
As long as it remains volunteer, and non-volunteers don't have to pay a confiscatory penalty, fine. It won't be that way, however.
This makes no sense, you seem mad about government regulation, but you want to answer it with, government regulation!
Right. The correct legislation should be passed. Insurance companies involvement should be zero unless I need to make a claim or pay a premium. Period.
Do you spend your day hiding underneath your bed for fear of everything that might someday possibliy happen?
No, I spend the day working my ass off to afford the 60% penalty I pay on food because I refuse to do as the grocery manager tells me.
Even stores that said they wouldn't use "club cards" now use them. They are totally pointless, but they are proof that big companies don't give a fuck about their customers.
The grocery stores charge up to a SIXTY PERCENT PENALTY for not handing over an address, social security number, etc. Why not auto insurance? And why not say, 150%?
It was. Now it is mandated, therefore it is a tax, and therefore it is government. That means we can bypass the whole "well, it's a private company so they can deep fry your rights in wombat shit" argument.
Not every 18 months, however. People in previous generations could actually expect to sign a mortgage and SETTLE DOWN somewhere. Not U-haul everything they own to some dustblown flyspeck on a side-of-the-road-diner map every 36 hours because they had a third-hand tip there might be 10 hours work available.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, says Peter Lee, an
EMPLOYED AND SALARIED
associate dean at Carnegie Mellon
The quality of graduates with programming degrees has been absolutely terrible for years now.
Wow. So the Universities are just arbitrarily passing out degrees at the exits?
so how is this new trend any different than before?
Education is meaningless in today's workplace, unless the lack of a degree can be used to disqualify a candidate, at which point it becomes the most important part of a resume.
Education is meaningless. The phrase itself sounds absurd, but it is most certainly the basis for the entirety of management theory in modern business. Cash grab is important. Education is meaningless.
And it was only a matter of time before people realize that if education is meaningless, pursuit of knowledge is also meaningless. They've taken our homes, communities, retirements, any possibility of a family and our savings and now they are taking our educations. I remember once being told "now that you've earned your degree, it can never be taken away from you." Well, until now.
We are watching the destruction of the educations of an entire generation of people. Seldom has there been a more profound tragedy.
Nine out of ten calls reach voice mail. Nobody actually answers the phone any more. Therefore e-mail is more efficient, because people actually REPLY to e-mail. The greatest irony woudl be if the phone becomes the "convergence" point and in the process, stops being a phone.
Of course, that would make sense to most large businesses. Building a product and selling it is no longer a "viable business model." (Which is why businesses/jobs are so FUCKED UP right now) Companies have to build a brand and sell that. The products are meaningless.
Here is the standard management response to automating anything:
"We don't have time for that. Just get the QA testing complete so we can start the layoffs."
This basically makes the entire question of automating processes academic. Now, if automating processes can lead to massive job loss, salary savings and bonuses, it might actually be approved.
Long-term value is never EVER approved instead of short-term pocket-stuffing, EVEN IF a business case can be made for it. I've seen near-perfect business cases (complete financials, charts, graphs, blow-dried corporate phone-flipping management prick with a light pointer hosting Wheel of Buzzwords in the conference room) made for automating very expensive work schedules, and they were a) ignored or b) shouted down.
Based on this, it's very possible that even if an automated tool could be built, and worked, it would still be ignored because it was non-standard. Yes, I've seen this happen too. Five people assigned to a project that a Perl script could do in a half hour. The Perl script completes the job, but management refuses to believe the results are accurate, so they keep the five people working on the same project for four days... and produce the exact same results.
For starters, I don't understand why there is a necessity to constantly re-invent the wheel and create gaming engines from scratch just about each time a new game is released.
Because it is easier to spend $umpty million than it is to green light an original idea.
Sure, games were much smaller then but that's why game development environments like XNA, SDL, etc. exist now in order to cut down the development times.
Which is then replaced with $umpty million for art work, levels, monster designs, etc. (note no story, characters or anything that might require a WRITER).
Sure, we all own games that we feel were worth the money and that provide us with good entertainment but I guarantee most game players have spent far more money on disappointing games than good ones.
In other news, the average cost of developing a console video game today reached $50 million, not counting the all new renderfarm. Developers complained that 18 months was still too long to spend setting up their "next generation workflow paradigms." A completely new graphics engine was then moved into development, prompting a long, drooling yawn from the gaming press. Management refused to comment and moved on to the salad course.
Redemption XII: Soaked in Money: The Curse: $Random Noun: The Sequel was delayed indefinitely to make use of the new graphics format. Management was unavailable for comment as they were busy opening another package of croutons.
Slashdot Mirror
The thinking not done because of the "elevator pitch" approach to business is one of the reasons so many companies are losing so much money.
AT&T is no longer trying to sell residential phone service.
Disney no longer makes animation. Instead, they want to make computers.
and so on. "There's no money in it" they whine. What they really mean is "nobody can explain in a PowerPoint presentation or an elevator pitch (30 seconds or less with no eye-glaze) how we can make hundreds of millions of dollars this quarter with no work or capital expenditure."
Everything formerly valuable is becoming a commodity while attention span is becoming the most expensive luxury in business. Nobody listens any more. Ideas and products that make hundreds of millions of dollars CANNOT BE EXPLAINED PROPERLY IN THIRTY SECONDS.
So, everyone runs from meeting to meeting, conference room to conference room frantically looking for something, ANYTHING that they can borrow to sell and get some short-term cash to the bank so the paychecks don't bounce (well, the paychecks for the half-dozen people who didn't get fired prior to the last quarterly stock-bump layoffs).
And, so business gets what they want. Accelerated PowerPoint so the elevator pitch can be 27 seconds instead of 30. Why, we're TEN PERCENT MORE EFFICIENT! LET'S FIRE SOME PEOPLE TO CELEBRATE!
It's just another icon to click. Another "efficiency token" to impress rooms full of accountants who, in the money-grab economy, are the only people who matter.
All Apple does invent one great product after another:
iPod
G5
Powerbook
OS X
Cinema Display
(for openers)
and they invest millions to make inexpensive music downloads available (at almost no profit). But they don't sell shovelboxes at $299 each, so let's kick Apple in the face again. Sounds great.
And how is a judgement in a civil suit not a mandate?
Because only a legislature can mandate (makes law). The Judicial branch adjudicates (interprets law). Just because a judgement has the support of the law does not make it a mandate.
In other cases (such as civil suits) the government may mandate that you relinquish damages to another party. That is also clearly not a tax.
Straw man. Different branch of government. Totally different concept. Judgements are not mandates.
So nobody made up the "real" assembler? Maybe they did understand the difference, but felt their work with that particular assembler was noteworthy.
But everyone is in such a hurry to disqualify them, so what's the point?
Er, no, a tax is when you pay money to the government.
No. A tax is when the government tells you to pay money. It is irrelevant where the money goes.
If someone sues you for something, and you lose, and you're told to pay them $10,000 damages, is that a tax?
Nope.
Nope. But the government mandates that you pay it!
Straw man. Different branch of government. Entirely different concept. A judgement in a civil suit is not a mandate.
It's not a tax
Government mandated payment = tax.
it's only mandated for people that own cars
Sales tax is only mandated for people who buy things.
However, would you rather drive knowing that if some dipshit hits you, you're screwed?
I'd rather it not be a tax.
So let me get this straight, you seem very upset about "big government" mandating you have car insurance, but you want government to stop car insurance companies to not be able to give customers discounts who VOLUNTEER to have stuff monitored on their car.......
As long as it remains volunteer, and non-volunteers don't have to pay a confiscatory penalty, fine. It won't be that way, however.
This makes no sense, you seem mad about government regulation, but you want to answer it with, government regulation!
Right. The correct legislation should be passed. Insurance companies involvement should be zero unless I need to make a claim or pay a premium. Period.
Do you spend your day hiding underneath your bed for fear of everything that might someday possibliy happen?
No, I spend the day working my ass off to afford the 60% penalty I pay on food because I refuse to do as the grocery manager tells me.
Even stores that said they wouldn't use "club cards" now use them. They are totally pointless, but they are proof that big companies don't give a fuck about their customers.
You aren't required to install it
Yet
nor is that proposed.
Yet
You do not have to send the information if it shows stuff you don't want Progressive to be aware of.
Yet
Its completely opt in, and gives benefits that justify what information is requested.
For now.
Ding! We have a winner! :)
The grocery stores charge up to a SIXTY PERCENT PENALTY for not handing over an address, social security number, etc. Why not auto insurance? And why not say, 150%?
car insurance is privately owned
It was. Now it is mandated, therefore it is a tax, and therefore it is government. That means we can bypass the whole "well, it's a private company so they can deep fry your rights in wombat shit" argument.
Businesses want to treat computers like a tool, not a core function.
Businesses want to treat people like replaceable parts.
And for that, they are suddenly disqualified from ever having a stable, adequately-paid job, even if they graduated with a degree in Computer Science?
Wow. No wonder nobody can find a decent job.
Egads. Just proves what they didn't learn.
So, they should come right out of school perfect? What would be the point of job experience then?
the economy will likely be in full boom yet again.
For the employed.
It's happened over and over in the past
Not every 18 months, however. People in previous generations could actually expect to sign a mortgage and SETTLE DOWN somewhere. Not U-haul everything they own to some dustblown flyspeck on a side-of-the-road-diner map every 36 hours because they had a third-hand tip there might be 10 hours work available.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, says Peter Lee, an
EMPLOYED AND SALARIED
associate dean at Carnegie Mellon
The quality of graduates with programming degrees has been absolutely terrible for years now.
Wow. So the Universities are just arbitrarily passing out degrees at the exits?
so how is this new trend any different than before?
Education is meaningless in today's workplace, unless the lack of a degree can be used to disqualify a candidate, at which point it becomes the most important part of a resume.
Education is meaningless. The phrase itself sounds absurd, but it is most certainly the basis for the entirety of management theory in modern business. Cash grab is important. Education is meaningless.
And it was only a matter of time before people realize that if education is meaningless, pursuit of knowledge is also meaningless. They've taken our homes, communities, retirements, any possibility of a family and our savings and now they are taking our educations. I remember once being told "now that you've earned your degree, it can never be taken away from you." Well, until now.
We are watching the destruction of the educations of an entire generation of people. Seldom has there been a more profound tragedy.
Nine out of ten calls reach voice mail. Nobody actually answers the phone any more. Therefore e-mail is more efficient, because people actually REPLY to e-mail. The greatest irony woudl be if the phone becomes the "convergence" point and in the process, stops being a phone.
Of course, that would make sense to most large businesses. Building a product and selling it is no longer a "viable business model." (Which is why businesses/jobs are so FUCKED UP right now) Companies have to build a brand and sell that. The products are meaningless.
Here is the standard management response to automating anything:
"We don't have time for that. Just get the QA testing complete so we can start the layoffs."
This basically makes the entire question of automating processes academic. Now, if automating processes can lead to massive job loss, salary savings and bonuses, it might actually be approved.
Long-term value is never EVER approved instead of short-term pocket-stuffing, EVEN IF a business case can be made for it. I've seen near-perfect business cases (complete financials, charts, graphs, blow-dried corporate phone-flipping management prick with a light pointer hosting Wheel of Buzzwords in the conference room) made for automating very expensive work schedules, and they were a) ignored or b) shouted down.
Based on this, it's very possible that even if an automated tool could be built, and worked, it would still be ignored because it was non-standard. Yes, I've seen this happen too. Five people assigned to a project that a Perl script could do in a half hour. The Perl script completes the job, but management refuses to believe the results are accurate, so they keep the five people working on the same project for four days... and produce the exact same results.
Now let's all sing the company song...
DBA: "I think we should use more stored procedures"
Project Manager: "That would be consistent with our n-tiered strategy"
Programmer: "But all of our business rules are in object libraries"
Division Manager: "Could I get the ranch dressing? Thanks."
DBA: "The right way is to put business logic in stored procedures. It's faster"
Project Manager: "We're standardizing on faster programs across the enterprise"
Programmer: "But we'll have to re-write the entire system!"
Division Manager: "Pass the pepper. Thanks."
DBA: "Oh, that's alright. We were going to upgrade the servers too. We can finish both jobs at the same time"
Programmer: "We're upgrading the hardware too?! So basically we're building the entire company from nothing again, right?"
Project Manager: "You're not being much of a team player"
DBA: "The new system will be more robust and have new features"
Division Manager: "Lets get the system built as soon as possible. We're laying off the entire division in a few weeks"
Programmer: "WHAT?! I just signed a new car lease!!"
Division Manager: "Pass the croutons please"
For starters, I don't understand why there is a necessity to constantly re-invent the wheel and create gaming engines from scratch just about each time a new game is released.
Because it is easier to spend $umpty million than it is to green light an original idea.
Sure, games were much smaller then but that's why game development environments like XNA, SDL, etc. exist now in order to cut down the development times.
Which is then replaced with $umpty million for art work, levels, monster designs, etc. (note no story, characters or anything that might require a WRITER).
Sure, we all own games that we feel were worth the money and that provide us with good entertainment but I guarantee most game players have spent far more money on disappointing games than good ones.
Agreed.
In other news, the average cost of developing a console video game today reached $50 million, not counting the all new renderfarm. Developers complained that 18 months was still too long to spend setting up their "next generation workflow paradigms." A completely new graphics engine was then moved into development, prompting a long, drooling yawn from the gaming press. Management refused to comment and moved on to the salad course.
Redemption XII: Soaked in Money: The Curse: $Random Noun: The Sequel was delayed indefinitely to make use of the new graphics format. Management was unavailable for comment as they were busy opening another package of croutons.
Just make sure it is incompatible with all the current applications so we can rewrite everything. Add a cool feature or something too.
for an unproven console?
Nintendo.
Unproven.
Remember folks. You can't win, and even if you do win, you're still "unproven." Nintendo owns what, 193% of the handheld console market?