I have a livescribe pen and love many of its features. But their software is a bag of cloud crap. Basically in order to use the pen I have to sign in to their cloud stuff. Then they really try to get me to use EverNote (of hacked account fame). Then there is the fact that I need to buy their notebooks. And then on top of all that the tiny screen on the pen basically vanished on a recent firmware upgrade.
All I want to do it make notes and turn them into PDFs. If I want to "cloud" them then I will do that myself.
If this Lernstift pen gets good reviews and they keep it simple then there is a 100% chance that I will be upgrading to their product. Seeing that I love my Livescribe despite its serious flaws I would fall deeply in love with a pen that didn't require special paper, looked nice, and didn't stray from the core functionality of recording my scribbles. Most importantly if it didn't make me log in to some stupid cloud stuff.
I, too, use livescribe all the time and it is great except for the issues you point out. That said, you are able to print off your own notebooks, which mitigates one of the complaints. Maybe it is because I'm older, but I find that I can take notes much quicker with pen and paper than with a laptop or tablet (and I do type 60 wpm). That plus the audio recording is fantastic.
The only real complaint that I have with my livescribe is that there isn't a linux client. At work we run Windows so it isn't a problem, but at home, I have to run a copy of windows under vbox to access the pen. The other issues, like evernote are more of a nusiance than a complaint. While I'm happy with my livescribe, I would certainly be interested in the lemstift pen, particularly if it works with a fountain pen tip, which is my writing instrument of choice.
It isn't the glare that keeps me from seeing my smart phone screen in direct sunlight, it is the relatively dim backlight compared to the bright sunlight that keeps me from seeing my smart phone screen. Actually, I see the screen just fine. It's the lcd crystals that are the problem.
The inability of MS's teams to work together might have something to do with the atrocious stack ranking method they used for employee evaluation:
“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
That's from Vanity Faire from last year. I still find it hard to believe. I used to think Balmer hate was just sort of nerd posturing, but after reading that I realized, no, Balmer really is a clueless jack off doing nothing more than reciting the latest MBA buzzwords he learned from the latest business bestseller.
That is a formula not for long term success but ultimate failure. When you force your team members not to actually function as a team, but ultimately be direct competitors of each other you do not get the best product and you don't get it at the most efficient price point.
Maybe that's why Microsoft is no longer considered a major player by most people. It wasn't because Bill Gates left, it was because who Bill Gates left in charge.
Currently IT is in the midst of another bubble. Unlike the bubble in the 1990s with the.coms, this one is fuelled by federal monetary policy holding interest rates abnormally low, which means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists.
Can someone please explain to me why the Fed's QE means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists/
It's all about ROI. QE means low interest rates which lowers the overall ROI required to take on an investment. Bond yields are too low because of QE, so money isn't going there and stocks are too volatile, plus they will plummet once interest rates rise. The only market left is the venture market and money has been flooding into it just like before.
Even established companies aren't using the low rates to expand production, which was the intent, but instead to buyout other companies. And why not? The can borrow for 2%, which adjusted for inflation is basically borrowing for free. QE is basically giving free money to banks and businesses. If they aren't going to expand, they have to do something with it and there are only three types of investments: equity, fixed income, venture.
Our employees are just as sought after as anybody else's Ours tend to stay because we a) treat them better, b) pay them as well or better and c) they all get profit sharing in the company. When the economy went bust in 2009, we did not lay a single person off. At some point job security and quality of life are more important to an individual than wages.
Wages are just one piece of the puzzle, but in many organizations, they are viewed as the most important piece. For instance, we had a very good programmer whose performance started to drop. In discussing the situation with him, his manager found out that he was frustrated because his daughter received a college scholarship to play softball (which was good) but he and his wife were very active in her sports life through high school would not be able to attend her games anymore. While we couldn't do much about the away games, we allowed him to adjust his schedule more than the normal flex time during the softball season so that he could make the games. His productivity improved far beyond what it was before.
That was 10 years ago. Since that time, he was instrumental on two large projects. He'll be retiring in a few more years and one of his main tasks now is to head up a mentoring program for new programmers. If we had taken the route of assuming that he was just old, burned out or otherwise a non-performer, he would have suffered, the customers would have suffered,the projects he worked on would have suffered and so would the bottom line, which impacts all the employees.
If somebody wants to leave, they are free to do so. The fact that they don't very often is indicative that money isn't the primary motivator many believe it is, but in reality, it simply makes up for all of the abuses a company thrusts on its employees. The problem is that those abuses are still there and eventually take their toll.
Maybe the difference between you and us is your believe that in the end it is all about how you can pay the least for your employees. That is not a concern of ours at all. Our concern is how we can let our employees reach their fullest potential. Our manager's jobs aren't to keep employees in line, they are to help remove the obstacles that keep our employees from being successful. That's not to say that profits aren't important. However, when the entire staff shares in those profits, everybody's fortunes rise and sink together. If we pay our employees less, so there is greater profit, the employees just get it back in their share of those profits.
Not everybody believes a free market is about charging the most you can for a product. A free market also means you are free to charge a fair price for your goods and services. Maybe we would make more money if we acted like everybody else, but then again money isn't our primary motivator. It's just one piece of the puzzle.
You'd think they'd offer an upgrade path to Xbox One. But no. That's not the Microsoft way. They didn't migrate PlaysForSure to Zune. They sort of migrated Zune to Windows Phone and Xbox Music. They're not good at gracefully supporting their content buyers as the technology changes.
That's because internally, Microsoft makes decisions to keep products from eating profits of other profit lines, instead of what is best for the companies total bottom line. As such, PlaysForSure and Zune were competitors, even internally and the thought of Zune giving a break to the people who made the wrong choice was unthinkable. Let them pay the full price like everybody else. Likewise for Zune to Windows Phone and Xbox Music. When you set up your internal teams to compete against each other that is the result you get, winners and losers, but ultimately the consumer loses which means Microsoft loses, particularly when there are non-Microsoft solutions, too.
Assume Amazon, Netflix, etc., etc., go out of business, I can still use Plex or Playon to stream movies off my own LAN.
The really bad thing that would happen is the death of DVDs. DVDs were the single greatest thing to ever happen to the "public domain," copyright be damned.
And now you know why the media companies want the DVD to die. As long as you can play it whenever you want, they can't monetize it.
Well, to be fair, IBM is an International company, but they also do a tremendous amount of US hiring and consulting. They just aren't flashy about it like other companies.
> Because we can train the right people to give them the skill set needed for the task at hand. It's a lot more difficult to train for the soft skills.
Sounds entirely too good to be true. Corporations gave up on that kind of thinking a long time ago.
Actually there are quite a few corporations that still believe and practice that. They just aren't the Googles and FB of the world. But the corporate culture in the US does make it harder for that kind of thinking to persist with the demand being short term profits to keep shareholders (which really mean board members) happy.
However, most corporations in the US aren't the major conglomerates, but are actually family businesses that have grown in size over the years. These corporations are no different than any other family owned business. The values of those at the top are what set the tone for the rest of the company. If those at the top value the employees who work for them, then the company culture will mirror that. If those at the top value profits above all else, then the company culture will mirror that.
Unfortunately, what has happened in many of these family corporations, the parents have not instilled the same value system in the kids or the kids aren't really interested in the business and hire others to run it for them. In doing so, however, a whole new company set of values is put in place.
I also do consulting for companies all over the globe, specifically on the topic of hiring and there are reams of data to show CEOs and CFOs that in the long run, it is in their company's best interest to minimize employee turnover. It is simply pouring money down the drain. I also work with companies to turn their company culture around, because the two are inter-related (see, our firm does much more than just IT).
Look back to when import vehicles first started coming to America from Japan. Nobody paid much attention, particularly the major American auto makers. The cars were small, they weren't reliable, they were uncomfortable and a whole slew of other negative things. But Japan was in it for the long haul and had a different corporate culture than the US makers did so that today, they are the number one selling vehicles in the US.
Likewise, in the IT business, or pretty much any business. The company that will be here tomorrow needs to have a culture that ensures it's existence for tomorrow. Just like young people today need/want instant gratification, too many companies and their board do the same.
Here is one last tidbit. Often, we hear from managers about having employees that are dead wood, just taking up space. So we ask them why they hired them if they were that bad. They always, and I do mean always, say they weren't that way when we hired them. To which we respond, well, if they weren't dead wood when you hired them, what did you do to turn them into it?
The companies that will be the leaders of the 21st century are the ones that realize that their employees are their most valuable assets and treat them accordingly.
He did run to the Chinese first. He did run to the Russians second. He is now running to various south american countries known for their hatred of the US.
If you're trying to help the American people against their own government you might pick a better hiding place.
For one thing... he could have leaked anonymously. For another, he could have found better places to run that wouldn't have triggered a fear reaction from the American public.
He made some pretty big mistakes and he is playing with high voltage lines. You can't make mistakes when you touch those.
He was on vacation, visiting a friend in Hong Kong when this all broke, he didn't run to the Chinese, nor has he had any official contact with the Chinese according to him and the US government.
He was being pursued by the US so he left Hong Kong and flew to Russia to catch another flight. He has not had any official contact with the Russians either and has yet to enter Russia. Currently, he is in the international hall at the airport and has not passed customs. Maybe you don't travel abroad, but until you leave the international space and actually go through customs, you have not entered the country. Go watch that Tom Hanks movie where he is stuck in an airport. While a work of fiction, that part is pretty accurate.
As for releasing anonymously, he did. It was only later that he disclosed that he was the one who leaked the information (although I am not sure why he did so). As for scaring the American people, what is more scary, knowing who leaked the info or thinking there is an unknown mole in the NSA? The NSA was denying the allegations, which is why he went public.
People can argue whether he was foolish or not, but that is not the point. The rest of what you say is all circumstantial. There is no indication that he is giving information to anybody other than the Guardian and that information is actually pretty benign in the details.
I've seen a lot of people edged out of jobs. With age and seniority comes a larger paycheck. It's easier to bring in someone young, who's less business savvy, and willing to work for much less money. Many places haven't made the relationship that it takes a fresh face twice as long (or longer) to do the job of an experienced person.
I've seen plenty of people make lateral moves to other companies, trying to learn new skills along the way. That simply makes them chronologically older, but with the same skill set as the young. Since they have to hop between companies to stay employed, they also end up getting paid the same. Unfortunately, everything suffers.
Replacing experienced workers with inexperienced and lower paid workers has been shown time and time again to be more costly in the long run. We call it the MBA effect, where beginning the 1960s with the emphasis on MBAs focus shifted to maximizing short term profits. Often, though this is at the expense of long term growth and stability. Since at the time MBAs were in high demand, like IT is now, there was a lot of job hopping, so the "experts" pushing this approach in the organization weren't there to suffer the consequences. They had moved on.
Often, when decisions are made along those lines, nobody is looking at the total cost involved, including the cost of hiring and training or the lost productivity as the less experienced worker needs to be brought up to speed and become part of the team. (Obviously, if the experienced worker left by their own choosing, these costs have to be borne, but that is not usually the case).
One of the real problems is that today's IT managers often are highly educated and trained in computer sciences but not business, and are totally project focused. That works out fine for the company as the bubble is expanding, but on the downside, many of those companies cannot survive because they have the wrong people, not just in management but on their teams.
Currently IT is in the midst of another bubble. Unlike the bubble in the 1990s with the.coms, this one is fuelled by federal monetary policy holding interest rates abnormally low, which means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists. Once interest rates return, which the Fed keeps saying will happen, so that investors can get a better, safer return elsewhere, that money will flow out again. Companies focused on only short term profits will be in a world of hurt because the money wasted on the continual retraining and hiring caused by high turnover and the loss in productivity cannot be made up. That money is already gone.
Smart companies realize that their employees are not an expense, but a resource. After investing money in shaping that resource to best add to the company's value, why would you want to throw that all away and start over?
Yay for pedancy! If the FCC sells licenses to use the airwaves, then we collectively own them for any reasonable definition of ownership.
No, we do not. The FCC say you may not broadcast in this country unless you have a license. The State also says you may not drive a car unless you have a license. That doesn't mean we collectively own all the cars. The FCC regulates what may be broadcasted from towers located in the US. There is nothing to own.
If I want to go to Mexico or Canada and erect a tower on the same frequency as a US station, assuming those countries allow me to do so, there is nothing that the US can do to keep it from interfering. Now obviously, there are probably treaties with Canada and Mexico to keep that from happening, but that is further evidence that we don't own the airwaves. Nobody owns them, we have an agreement on how we will all use them, no more and no less.
Take short wave as an example, not as widely used today as it was, but it bounced signals all over the planet. Whose airwaves were they, the originating country, the destination country, the countries in transit? Nobody owns the airwaves, they are just part of the electromagnetic spectrum. People may own the content they put on the airwaves, but they don't own the airwaves themselves.
At the very least, businesses will find loopholes in these laws. The most basic one is described in the summary: data is anonymized
What we need is a catchy term or phrase that rhymes with "anonymized" but means not-really-anonymous. If we can put a popular name to this fake anonymization that is the first step in rallying the political and consumer will to stop it.
How about "I got sodomized when AT&T only said they would anonymize me. Darn spell check!"
Or "What's the difference from AT&T anonymizing your data and being sodomized? AT&T doesn't use vaseline"
"The data in question is anonymized, according to AT&T, but it includes very sensitive information such as customers' locations, Web browsing history, mobile app usage and more."
We have known for years now that there is no such thing as "anonymized" data. I found out the other day that somebody actually built a browser for viewing so-called "anonymous" data from the AOL data release some years ago.
Generally, all it takes is a little sleuthing, and all that "anonymous" data becomes anything but.
We need a law. Seriously... if you know me I am not someone who would normally say that. But we need better privacy laws in this country. The Constitutional guarantee of privacy (and yes, before you argue, SCOTUS said it does exist) simply seems to have been falling on deaf ears.
While I agree we need better privacy laws, the law cannot protect what you freely give away. If you know that the cell phone company is tracking this or that FB and Google track stuff and you continue to use those services, then that is not an invasion of privacy as you are willingly allowing it by using those services. Likewise, nobody is required to have a cell phone, so, knowing that the data is being tracked/stored/sold/whatever and you still chose to use a cell phone means that you have given tacit approval to them tracking/storing/selling/whatevering your data.
It is only a privacy issue when they don't tell you about it and don't let you cancel your contract or opt out. I mean really, where do people think Google Maps got all of those street views from?
Not that simple. All the carriers are doing it to some extent. The easiest way is don't use a cell phone at all, or at least not a smart phone and turn it off when not needed.
If you want to own the data, you have to own the network - own the hardware, own the fiber, own the towers. Then it's yours.
We collectively own the airwaves. That is enough to contractually force the companies we lease them to to give up all claims of ownership of the data about us. All it takes are government representatives with enough balls.
Ummm, no we do not. You do not even own the airspace about your property. The government regulates the airwaves, but that does not mean the people own them any more than the people own the electricity in the power lines because the government regulates that, too. At best, we collectively restrict the use of the airwaves by broadcast towers in our jurisdiction, but we don't own them.
Because of wiretapping laws, and the general unpleasantness of a massive subscriber torch fest, they are not going to do anything with your voice or data.
The US Justice department holds that since voice is actually digitized it is really just another data stream and the wiretapping laws do not apply to cell phones. There was a big hoopla about it a few months back.
Yep I'm sure they got you by the balls with the fine print which is why I said screw all the bullshit and just went prepaid.
You can get the Walmart android phone for less than $100 with the "unlimited" card (yes i know their unlimited starts slowing you down between 3-5GB,I'm not gonna do that much on a dang phone,that's what the netbook and desktop are for) and if they try jacking me around? Screw 'em, plenty of other pre-paid bunches out there, no contract means they don't have me by the short hairs anymore and so far the service has been great,I'm loving it.
Ummm, you don't think your usage is being tracked and sold through that route? I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, then.
Ummmm, that's not called promotion. Promotion means you move up in the same company.
*Woosh*
For instance, before too long, you find that you are 30 in Silicon Valley and evidently nobody wants to hire you.
The people who can't find jobs at 30 are those who spent 8 years working at one company on dead end technology only to get laid off with no current skills or connections. I've had friends hit that wall and it's not pretty to be playing catch up while burning through savings. You know those co-workers I mentioned in my previous post? They're not 20 year olds and yet they find jobs without difficulty.
Hopefully in all of those jumps you develop some management skills along the way because by 40 you'll need them to keep your job from going to some kid.
Hopefully? I plan for my future, I try to not rely on luck and good fortune.
You think you're more likely to be promoted to management or to find a new job in management (or a lead of some kind) at a different company? I've found the former an utter crap shoot to pull off (and most who I've seen do it were ass kissers foremost) and personally I prefer not to gamble on my future.
No, I don't think I'm more likely to be promoted to management. I already am in management and do the IT hiring for a very large entity. Here is what we look for in our employees: the ability to work as part of a team; the ability to communicate well with customers (internal/external) and others; the ability to eventually lead a team; knowledge of the business/industry; overall attitude; stability; project management and eventually the IT skills in question.
Why are the IT skills so far down the list, particularly behind the soft skills? Because we can train the right people to give them the skill set needed for the task at hand. It's a lot more difficult to train for the soft skills.
We work with several local colleges and tech schools and encourage them to add non-tech courses to their IT curriculum. Why? Because we aren't hiring just programmers or network administrators or whatever. We are hiring people that represent our company. Many of our IT personnel do not even have CS degrees but come from a varied background of degree programs. Why? Because, diversified backgrounds lead to better solutions.
Just like most people get their impression of their bank from the tellers, our customers get their impression of us, by the people we send to them. Technical skills are easy to obtain and at the rate that technology changes, we have to keep retraining anyway. People and soft skills, that is what we value most.
BTW, if you are interested, we have very low turnover, we are good to our employees. We have found that if you treat your employees like the valued resource they are, then they stay. It's good for them and it's good for our customers and good for us.
Then again, we are not a Silicon Valley company, so maybe that's the difference.
Last year I was 48. As part of something like a mid-life crisis, I interviewed at several of the Bay Area majors. In some ways, it was kind of a Logan's Run sort of experience, with me in the role of Old Man (Peter Ustinov). (Maybe next time I should bring some cats with me to the interview.) I was turned down by several, but received a good offer from Facebook. After a lot of careful number-crunching and soul-searching, though, I felt that I couldn't accept it. The primary reason is that I have a wife and kids. Though the offer would have been fabulous for a single guy, it probably would have been ruinous with my financial responsibilities.
I guess what I'm saying here is when discussing ageism and the Valley, one needs to be careful to pick apart reluctance to hire older people (which I don't doubt is a bias sometimes) versus the personal economics of the Valley, which makes it a marginal place to consider living for many people (and probably tends to hit families the hardest).
As an aside, I think many younger managers are nervous about hiring older workers. For what it's worth, I recently worked for several years for a guy that's at least ten years younger. Best boss I ever had. We got along and got things done.
I was all in favor of your post until you became an apologist for those who discriminate based on age (ageism is a nice way to say age discrimination). Whether the lifestyle in Silicon Valley is condusive to an older person with or without a family is a decision to be made by the person, not the company. You made that decision, to turn down FB, that was your personal decision and it sounds like you had very good reasons. But, FB must be the exception, because most tech companies won't make an offer to an older person, particularly one approaching 50. (If their culture is a bunch of 20 year olds running around like its a frat party, some 50 year old that actually fits in with that send up a bunch of red flags).
If younger managers are nervous about hiring older workers, they should be fired. Just as if male managers have a problem with hiring female workers or white managers have a problem hiring black workers. Discrimination does not belong in any workplace, plain and simple.
Those three words describe Silicon Valley. Really they do, I've seen that and heard that description for decades from people working there, and more to the point from people no longer working there. Silicon Valley is a trap for the young, once you hit 30 you are no longer employable and either have to move out or scrape by on temp job to temp job.
Silicon Valley is a great place to be from. Ageism is getting so bad in technology that were rapidly reaching parity with strippers. Combine that with H1B and how can anyone in good faith ever recommend a career in technology in the United States?
There are very good tech careers in the US, just not glamours ones like in Silicon Valley. However, if you want a stable tech career, banking is a good option, the large consulting firms (IBM, Rose, etc.) are another. You don't make the astronomical salaries like those in Silicon Valley, but you do make a good living that you can raise a family.
The Silicon Valley type jobs are like being a professional athlete. There is good money to be made, but only for a short time and then your career is over. If you go that route, you better invest wisely or have a backup plan.
You speak with wisdom, unfortunately, the people that need to hear it are the same 20 year olds who won't really give a damn until it is too late. They will have a rude awakening when they find out that the world really doesn't revolve around them.
Are you even in tech? Promotion in tech means you find a better job somewhere else and everyone wants to hire ex-fb people. The shorter people stay in a tech position the better the job market.
Ummmm, that's not called promotion. Promotion means you move up in the same company. Jumping ship to another company only works for so long. For instance, before too long, you find that you are 30 in Silicon Valley and evidently nobody wants to hire you. Hopefully in all of those jumps you develop some management skills along the way because by 40 you'll need them to keep your job from going to some kid.
If you're looking at it from the perspective of an American, Snowden was a hero early on since the initial disclosure involved the surveillance of American citizens by the American government. As soon as he started releasing information about their govenment spying on foreign government, a large number of people are going to see him as a traitor. Of course his popularity is going to decline.
(I also agree that the prolonged media focus upon the man rather than the issues isn't helping his case.)
Look at the differences between what Snowden released early and what has been released lately about foreign governments. The type of information has changed. So, either Snowden had access to much more detailed foreign operations than the domestic ones or maybe, he isn't the one releasing the foreign government data. After all, everything that has been released is fairly benign with no real damage done. Good it just be a ploy to discredit him? Just like the anonymous tip that forced the Bolivian plane to be diverted? Of course, it wasn't diverted and refused permission to land, or so we were told. But then, there were those darn pesky apologies from France and Spain.
The US government needs his popularity to decline. They don't want to make a martyr out of him.
If companies knew ALL backdoors to their products, there would be far fewer backdoors. Because companies are generally not dicks. Agreed? NSA is 'the backdoor company'. They work on finding backdoors. It is not surprising a company doesn't know about a backdoor/vulnerability in their product while NSA does.
Maybe they are behind the reason why webcams are always on, even when you think they are turned off?
Slashdot Mirror
I have a livescribe pen and love many of its features. But their software is a bag of cloud crap. Basically in order to use the pen I have to sign in to their cloud stuff. Then they really try to get me to use EverNote (of hacked account fame). Then there is the fact that I need to buy their notebooks. And then on top of all that the tiny screen on the pen basically vanished on a recent firmware upgrade.
All I want to do it make notes and turn them into PDFs. If I want to "cloud" them then I will do that myself.
If this Lernstift pen gets good reviews and they keep it simple then there is a 100% chance that I will be upgrading to their product. Seeing that I love my Livescribe despite its serious flaws I would fall deeply in love with a pen that didn't require special paper, looked nice, and didn't stray from the core functionality of recording my scribbles. Most importantly if it didn't make me log in to some stupid cloud stuff.
I, too, use livescribe all the time and it is great except for the issues you point out. That said, you are able to print off your own notebooks, which mitigates one of the complaints. Maybe it is because I'm older, but I find that I can take notes much quicker with pen and paper than with a laptop or tablet (and I do type 60 wpm). That plus the audio recording is fantastic.
The only real complaint that I have with my livescribe is that there isn't a linux client. At work we run Windows so it isn't a problem, but at home, I have to run a copy of windows under vbox to access the pen. The other issues, like evernote are more of a nusiance than a complaint. While I'm happy with my livescribe, I would certainly be interested in the lemstift pen, particularly if it works with a fountain pen tip, which is my writing instrument of choice.
It isn't the glare that keeps me from seeing my smart phone screen in direct sunlight, it is the relatively dim backlight compared to the bright sunlight that keeps me from seeing my smart phone screen. Actually, I see the screen just fine. It's the lcd crystals that are the problem.
....and that's saying something.
The inability of MS's teams to work together might have something to do with the atrocious stack ranking method they used for employee evaluation:
“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
That's from Vanity Faire from last year. I still find it hard to believe. I used to think Balmer hate was just sort of nerd posturing, but after reading that I realized, no, Balmer really is a clueless jack off doing nothing more than reciting the latest MBA buzzwords he learned from the latest business bestseller.
That is a formula not for long term success but ultimate failure. When you force your team members not to actually function as a team, but ultimately be direct competitors of each other you do not get the best product and you don't get it at the most efficient price point.
Maybe that's why Microsoft is no longer considered a major player by most people. It wasn't because Bill Gates left, it was because who Bill Gates left in charge.
Currently IT is in the midst of another bubble. Unlike the bubble in the 1990s with the .coms, this one is fuelled by federal monetary policy holding interest rates abnormally low, which means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists.
Can someone please explain to me why the Fed's QE means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists/
It's all about ROI. QE means low interest rates which lowers the overall ROI required to take on an investment. Bond yields are too low because of QE, so money isn't going there and stocks are too volatile, plus they will plummet once interest rates rise. The only market left is the venture market and money has been flooding into it just like before.
Even established companies aren't using the low rates to expand production, which was the intent, but instead to buyout other companies. And why not? The can borrow for 2%, which adjusted for inflation is basically borrowing for free. QE is basically giving free money to banks and businesses. If they aren't going to expand, they have to do something with it and there are only three types of investments: equity, fixed income, venture.
Our employees are just as sought after as anybody else's Ours tend to stay because we a) treat them better, b) pay them as well or better and c) they all get profit sharing in the company. When the economy went bust in 2009, we did not lay a single person off. At some point job security and quality of life are more important to an individual than wages.
Wages are just one piece of the puzzle, but in many organizations, they are viewed as the most important piece. For instance, we had a very good programmer whose performance started to drop. In discussing the situation with him, his manager found out that he was frustrated because his daughter received a college scholarship to play softball (which was good) but he and his wife were very active in her sports life through high school would not be able to attend her games anymore. While we couldn't do much about the away games, we allowed him to adjust his schedule more than the normal flex time during the softball season so that he could make the games. His productivity improved far beyond what it was before.
That was 10 years ago. Since that time, he was instrumental on two large projects. He'll be retiring in a few more years and one of his main tasks now is to head up a mentoring program for new programmers. If we had taken the route of assuming that he was just old, burned out or otherwise a non-performer, he would have suffered, the customers would have suffered ,the projects he worked on would have suffered and so would the bottom line, which impacts all the employees.
If somebody wants to leave, they are free to do so. The fact that they don't very often is indicative that money isn't the primary motivator many believe it is, but in reality, it simply makes up for all of the abuses a company thrusts on its employees. The problem is that those abuses are still there and eventually take their toll.
Maybe the difference between you and us is your believe that in the end it is all about how you can pay the least for your employees. That is not a concern of ours at all. Our concern is how we can let our employees reach their fullest potential. Our manager's jobs aren't to keep employees in line, they are to help remove the obstacles that keep our employees from being successful. That's not to say that profits aren't important. However, when the entire staff shares in those profits, everybody's fortunes rise and sink together. If we pay our employees less, so there is greater profit, the employees just get it back in their share of those profits.
Not everybody believes a free market is about charging the most you can for a product. A free market also means you are free to charge a fair price for your goods and services. Maybe we would make more money if we acted like everybody else, but then again money isn't our primary motivator. It's just one piece of the puzzle.
You'd think they'd offer an upgrade path to Xbox One. But no. That's not the Microsoft way. They didn't migrate PlaysForSure to Zune. They sort of migrated Zune to Windows Phone and Xbox Music. They're not good at gracefully supporting their content buyers as the technology changes.
That's because internally, Microsoft makes decisions to keep products from eating profits of other profit lines, instead of what is best for the companies total bottom line. As such, PlaysForSure and Zune were competitors, even internally and the thought of Zune giving a break to the people who made the wrong choice was unthinkable. Let them pay the full price like everybody else. Likewise for Zune to Windows Phone and Xbox Music. When you set up your internal teams to compete against each other that is the result you get, winners and losers, but ultimately the consumer loses which means Microsoft loses, particularly when there are non-Microsoft solutions, too.
Assume Amazon, Netflix, etc., etc., go out of business, I can still use Plex or Playon to stream movies off my own LAN.
The really bad thing that would happen is the death of DVDs. DVDs were the single greatest thing to ever happen to the "public domain," copyright be damned.
And now you know why the media companies want the DVD to die. As long as you can play it whenever you want, they can't monetize it.
Well, to be fair, IBM is an International company, but they also do a tremendous amount of US hiring and consulting. They just aren't flashy about it like other companies.
> Because we can train the right people to give them the skill set needed for the task at hand. It's a lot more difficult to train for the soft skills.
Sounds entirely too good to be true. Corporations gave up on that kind of thinking a long time ago.
Actually there are quite a few corporations that still believe and practice that. They just aren't the Googles and FB of the world. But the corporate culture in the US does make it harder for that kind of thinking to persist with the demand being short term profits to keep shareholders (which really mean board members) happy.
However, most corporations in the US aren't the major conglomerates, but are actually family businesses that have grown in size over the years. These corporations are no different than any other family owned business. The values of those at the top are what set the tone for the rest of the company. If those at the top value the employees who work for them, then the company culture will mirror that. If those at the top value profits above all else, then the company culture will mirror that.
Unfortunately, what has happened in many of these family corporations, the parents have not instilled the same value system in the kids or the kids aren't really interested in the business and hire others to run it for them. In doing so, however, a whole new company set of values is put in place.
I also do consulting for companies all over the globe, specifically on the topic of hiring and there are reams of data to show CEOs and CFOs that in the long run, it is in their company's best interest to minimize employee turnover. It is simply pouring money down the drain. I also work with companies to turn their company culture around, because the two are inter-related (see, our firm does much more than just IT).
Look back to when import vehicles first started coming to America from Japan. Nobody paid much attention, particularly the major American auto makers. The cars were small, they weren't reliable, they were uncomfortable and a whole slew of other negative things. But Japan was in it for the long haul and had a different corporate culture than the US makers did so that today, they are the number one selling vehicles in the US.
Likewise, in the IT business, or pretty much any business. The company that will be here tomorrow needs to have a culture that ensures it's existence for tomorrow. Just like young people today need/want instant gratification, too many companies and their board do the same.
Here is one last tidbit. Often, we hear from managers about having employees that are dead wood, just taking up space. So we ask them why they hired them if they were that bad. They always, and I do mean always, say they weren't that way when we hired them. To which we respond, well, if they weren't dead wood when you hired them, what did you do to turn them into it?
The companies that will be the leaders of the 21st century are the ones that realize that their employees are their most valuable assets and treat them accordingly.
Just explaining his mistake.
He did run to the Chinese first. He did run to the Russians second. He is now running to various south american countries known for their hatred of the US.
If you're trying to help the American people against their own government you might pick a better hiding place.
For one thing... he could have leaked anonymously. For another, he could have found better places to run that wouldn't have triggered a fear reaction from the American public.
He made some pretty big mistakes and he is playing with high voltage lines. You can't make mistakes when you touch those.
He was on vacation, visiting a friend in Hong Kong when this all broke, he didn't run to the Chinese, nor has he had any official contact with the Chinese according to him and the US government.
He was being pursued by the US so he left Hong Kong and flew to Russia to catch another flight. He has not had any official contact with the Russians either and has yet to enter Russia. Currently, he is in the international hall at the airport and has not passed customs. Maybe you don't travel abroad, but until you leave the international space and actually go through customs, you have not entered the country. Go watch that Tom Hanks movie where he is stuck in an airport. While a work of fiction, that part is pretty accurate.
As for releasing anonymously, he did. It was only later that he disclosed that he was the one who leaked the information (although I am not sure why he did so). As for scaring the American people, what is more scary, knowing who leaked the info or thinking there is an unknown mole in the NSA? The NSA was denying the allegations, which is why he went public.
People can argue whether he was foolish or not, but that is not the point. The rest of what you say is all circumstantial. There is no indication that he is giving information to anybody other than the Guardian and that information is actually pretty benign in the details.
You're lucky.
I've seen a lot of people edged out of jobs. With age and seniority comes a larger paycheck. It's easier to bring in someone young, who's less business savvy, and willing to work for much less money. Many places haven't made the relationship that it takes a fresh face twice as long (or longer) to do the job of an experienced person.
I've seen plenty of people make lateral moves to other companies, trying to learn new skills along the way. That simply makes them chronologically older, but with the same skill set as the young. Since they have to hop between companies to stay employed, they also end up getting paid the same. Unfortunately, everything suffers.
Replacing experienced workers with inexperienced and lower paid workers has been shown time and time again to be more costly in the long run. We call it the MBA effect, where beginning the 1960s with the emphasis on MBAs focus shifted to maximizing short term profits. Often, though this is at the expense of long term growth and stability. Since at the time MBAs were in high demand, like IT is now, there was a lot of job hopping, so the "experts" pushing this approach in the organization weren't there to suffer the consequences. They had moved on.
Often, when decisions are made along those lines, nobody is looking at the total cost involved, including the cost of hiring and training or the lost productivity as the less experienced worker needs to be brought up to speed and become part of the team. (Obviously, if the experienced worker left by their own choosing, these costs have to be borne, but that is not usually the case).
One of the real problems is that today's IT managers often are highly educated and trained in computer sciences but not business, and are totally project focused. That works out fine for the company as the bubble is expanding, but on the downside, many of those companies cannot survive because they have the wrong people, not just in management but on their teams.
Currently IT is in the midst of another bubble. Unlike the bubble in the 1990s with the .coms, this one is fuelled by federal monetary policy holding interest rates abnormally low, which means there is excess money coming in from venture capitalists. Once interest rates return, which the Fed keeps saying will happen, so that investors can get a better, safer return elsewhere, that money will flow out again. Companies focused on only short term profits will be in a world of hurt because the money wasted on the continual retraining and hiring caused by high turnover and the loss in productivity cannot be made up. That money is already gone.
Smart companies realize that their employees are not an expense, but a resource. After investing money in shaping that resource to best add to the company's value, why would you want to throw that all away and start over?
Yay for pedancy! If the FCC sells licenses to use the airwaves, then we collectively own them for any reasonable definition of ownership.
No, we do not. The FCC say you may not broadcast in this country unless you have a license. The State also says you may not drive a car unless you have a license. That doesn't mean we collectively own all the cars. The FCC regulates what may be broadcasted from towers located in the US. There is nothing to own.
If I want to go to Mexico or Canada and erect a tower on the same frequency as a US station, assuming those countries allow me to do so, there is nothing that the US can do to keep it from interfering. Now obviously, there are probably treaties with Canada and Mexico to keep that from happening, but that is further evidence that we don't own the airwaves. Nobody owns them, we have an agreement on how we will all use them, no more and no less.
Take short wave as an example, not as widely used today as it was, but it bounced signals all over the planet. Whose airwaves were they, the originating country, the destination country, the countries in transit? Nobody owns the airwaves, they are just part of the electromagnetic spectrum. People may own the content they put on the airwaves, but they don't own the airwaves themselves.
At the very least, businesses will find loopholes in these laws. The most basic one is described in the summary: data is anonymized
What we need is a catchy term or phrase that rhymes with "anonymized" but means not-really-anonymous. If we can put a popular name to this fake anonymization that is the first step in rallying the political and consumer will to stop it.
How about "I got sodomized when AT&T only said they would anonymize me. Darn spell check!"
Or "What's the difference from AT&T anonymizing your data and being sodomized? AT&T doesn't use vaseline"
Or "What does AT&T stand for? Always Track This."
"The data in question is anonymized, according to AT&T, but it includes very sensitive information such as customers' locations, Web browsing history, mobile app usage and more."
We have known for years now that there is no such thing as "anonymized" data. I found out the other day that somebody actually built a browser for viewing so-called "anonymous" data from the AOL data release some years ago.
Generally, all it takes is a little sleuthing, and all that "anonymous" data becomes anything but.
We need a law. Seriously... if you know me I am not someone who would normally say that. But we need better privacy laws in this country. The Constitutional guarantee of privacy (and yes, before you argue, SCOTUS said it does exist) simply seems to have been falling on deaf ears.
While I agree we need better privacy laws, the law cannot protect what you freely give away. If you know that the cell phone company is tracking this or that FB and Google track stuff and you continue to use those services, then that is not an invasion of privacy as you are willingly allowing it by using those services. Likewise, nobody is required to have a cell phone, so, knowing that the data is being tracked/stored/sold/whatever and you still chose to use a cell phone means that you have given tacit approval to them tracking/storing/selling/whatevering your data.
It is only a privacy issue when they don't tell you about it and don't let you cancel your contract or opt out. I mean really, where do people think Google Maps got all of those street views from?
Don't use ATT
Not that simple. All the carriers are doing it to some extent. The easiest way is don't use a cell phone at all, or at least not a smart phone and turn it off when not needed.
If you want to own the data, you have to own the network - own the hardware, own the fiber, own the towers. Then it's yours.
We collectively own the airwaves. That is enough to contractually force the companies we lease them to to give up all claims of ownership of the data about us. All it takes are government representatives with enough balls.
Ummm, no we do not. You do not even own the airspace about your property. The government regulates the airwaves, but that does not mean the people own them any more than the people own the electricity in the power lines because the government regulates that, too. At best, we collectively restrict the use of the airwaves by broadcast towers in our jurisdiction, but we don't own them.
Because of wiretapping laws, and the general unpleasantness of a massive subscriber torch fest, they are not going to do anything with your voice or data.
The US Justice department holds that since voice is actually digitized it is really just another data stream and the wiretapping laws do not apply to cell phones. There was a big hoopla about it a few months back.
Yep I'm sure they got you by the balls with the fine print which is why I said screw all the bullshit and just went prepaid.
You can get the Walmart android phone for less than $100 with the "unlimited" card (yes i know their unlimited starts slowing you down between 3-5GB,I'm not gonna do that much on a dang phone,that's what the netbook and desktop are for) and if they try jacking me around? Screw 'em, plenty of other pre-paid bunches out there, no contract means they don't have me by the short hairs anymore and so far the service has been great,I'm loving it.
Ummm, you don't think your usage is being tracked and sold through that route? I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, then.
Ummmm, that's not called promotion. Promotion means you move up in the same company.
*Woosh*
For instance, before too long, you find that you are 30 in Silicon Valley and evidently nobody wants to hire you.
The people who can't find jobs at 30 are those who spent 8 years working at one company on dead end technology only to get laid off with no current skills or connections. I've had friends hit that wall and it's not pretty to be playing catch up while burning through savings. You know those co-workers I mentioned in my previous post? They're not 20 year olds and yet they find jobs without difficulty.
Hopefully in all of those jumps you develop some management skills along the way because by 40 you'll need them to keep your job from going to some kid.
Hopefully? I plan for my future, I try to not rely on luck and good fortune.
You think you're more likely to be promoted to management or to find a new job in management (or a lead of some kind) at a different company? I've found the former an utter crap shoot to pull off (and most who I've seen do it were ass kissers foremost) and personally I prefer not to gamble on my future.
No, I don't think I'm more likely to be promoted to management. I already am in management and do the IT hiring for a very large entity. Here is what we look for in our employees: the ability to work as part of a team; the ability to communicate well with customers (internal/external) and others; the ability to eventually lead a team; knowledge of the business/industry; overall attitude; stability; project management and eventually the IT skills in question.
Why are the IT skills so far down the list, particularly behind the soft skills? Because we can train the right people to give them the skill set needed for the task at hand. It's a lot more difficult to train for the soft skills.
We work with several local colleges and tech schools and encourage them to add non-tech courses to their IT curriculum. Why? Because we aren't hiring just programmers or network administrators or whatever. We are hiring people that represent our company. Many of our IT personnel do not even have CS degrees but come from a varied background of degree programs. Why? Because, diversified backgrounds lead to better solutions.
Just like most people get their impression of their bank from the tellers, our customers get their impression of us, by the people we send to them. Technical skills are easy to obtain and at the rate that technology changes, we have to keep retraining anyway. People and soft skills, that is what we value most.
BTW, if you are interested, we have very low turnover, we are good to our employees. We have found that if you treat your employees like the valued resource they are, then they stay. It's good for them and it's good for our customers and good for us.
Then again, we are not a Silicon Valley company, so maybe that's the difference.
Last year I was 48. As part of something like a mid-life crisis, I interviewed at several of the Bay Area majors. In some ways, it was kind of a Logan's Run sort of experience, with me in the role of Old Man (Peter Ustinov). (Maybe next time I should bring some cats with me to the interview.) I was turned down by several, but received a good offer from Facebook. After a lot of careful number-crunching and soul-searching, though, I felt that I couldn't accept it. The primary reason is that I have a wife and kids. Though the offer would have been fabulous for a single guy, it probably would have been ruinous with my financial responsibilities.
I guess what I'm saying here is when discussing ageism and the Valley, one needs to be careful to pick apart reluctance to hire older people (which I don't doubt is a bias sometimes) versus the personal economics of the Valley, which makes it a marginal place to consider living for many people (and probably tends to hit families the hardest).
As an aside, I think many younger managers are nervous about hiring older workers. For what it's worth, I recently worked for several years for a guy that's at least ten years younger. Best boss I ever had. We got along and got things done.
I was all in favor of your post until you became an apologist for those who discriminate based on age (ageism is a nice way to say age discrimination). Whether the lifestyle in Silicon Valley is condusive to an older person with or without a family is a decision to be made by the person, not the company. You made that decision, to turn down FB, that was your personal decision and it sounds like you had very good reasons. But, FB must be the exception, because most tech companies won't make an offer to an older person, particularly one approaching 50. (If their culture is a bunch of 20 year olds running around like its a frat party, some 50 year old that actually fits in with that send up a bunch of red flags).
If younger managers are nervous about hiring older workers, they should be fired. Just as if male managers have a problem with hiring female workers or white managers have a problem hiring black workers. Discrimination does not belong in any workplace, plain and simple.
Those three words describe Silicon Valley. Really they do, I've seen that and heard that description for decades from people working there, and more to the point from people no longer working there. Silicon Valley is a trap for the young, once you hit 30 you are no longer employable and either have to move out or scrape by on temp job to temp job.
Silicon Valley is a great place to be from. Ageism is getting so bad in technology that were rapidly reaching parity with strippers. Combine that with H1B and how can anyone in good faith ever recommend a career in technology in the United States?
There are very good tech careers in the US, just not glamours ones like in Silicon Valley. However, if you want a stable tech career, banking is a good option, the large consulting firms (IBM, Rose, etc.) are another. You don't make the astronomical salaries like those in Silicon Valley, but you do make a good living that you can raise a family.
The Silicon Valley type jobs are like being a professional athlete. There is good money to be made, but only for a short time and then your career is over. If you go that route, you better invest wisely or have a backup plan.
You speak with wisdom, unfortunately, the people that need to hear it are the same 20 year olds who won't really give a damn until it is too late. They will have a rude awakening when they find out that the world really doesn't revolve around them.
Are you even in tech? Promotion in tech means you find a better job somewhere else and everyone wants to hire ex-fb people. The shorter people stay in a tech position the better the job market.
Ummmm, that's not called promotion. Promotion means you move up in the same company. Jumping ship to another company only works for so long. For instance, before too long, you find that you are 30 in Silicon Valley and evidently nobody wants to hire you. Hopefully in all of those jumps you develop some management skills along the way because by 40 you'll need them to keep your job from going to some kid.
Just saying...
If you're looking at it from the perspective of an American, Snowden was a hero early on since the initial disclosure involved the surveillance of American citizens by the American government. As soon as he started releasing information about their govenment spying on foreign government, a large number of people are going to see him as a traitor. Of course his popularity is going to decline.
(I also agree that the prolonged media focus upon the man rather than the issues isn't helping his case.)
Look at the differences between what Snowden released early and what has been released lately about foreign governments. The type of information has changed. So, either Snowden had access to much more detailed foreign operations than the domestic ones or maybe, he isn't the one releasing the foreign government data. After all, everything that has been released is fairly benign with no real damage done. Good it just be a ploy to discredit him? Just like the anonymous tip that forced the Bolivian plane to be diverted? Of course, it wasn't diverted and refused permission to land, or so we were told. But then, there were those darn pesky apologies from France and Spain.
The US government needs his popularity to decline. They don't want to make a martyr out of him.
If companies knew ALL backdoors to their products, there would be far fewer backdoors. Because companies are generally not dicks. Agreed?
NSA is 'the backdoor company'. They work on finding backdoors. It is not surprising a company doesn't know about a backdoor/vulnerability in their product while NSA does.
Maybe they are behind the reason why webcams are always on, even when you think they are turned off?