Bumped His Head

The Modern Fool

2011-12-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Although most often associated with English courts of Medieval and Renaissance times, the Court Jester has actually appeared throughout history as an important member of Royal Courts around the world. Jesters came in two flavors, the "natural fool" and the "licensed fool". The natural fool appears to have been pure entertainment for the court, and was often afflicted with some type of mental or physical disability. (This period of history was not known for its political correctness!) The licensed fool was a completely different case. Their job was to be critical of the Monarch and the Court - often using fairly severe ridicule to make his point. Court Jesters were given great latitude by their Monarch, allowing them to say things that no other member of the Court would dare to say. They often made enemies of powerful members of the Court, but as long as they were favored by the Monarch, they were safe. For example, a story is told of a Persian Fool who, when the Shah asked whether there was a shortage of food, said: "Yes, I see your Majesty is eating only 5 times a day." Fools were also often responsible for telling the Monarch bad news. When the French fleet was destroyed by the English Navy in the Battle of Sluys, the French Jester told King Philipe VI that the English Sailors "don't even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French."

I believe the modern corporation has revived the ancient tradition of the Court Jester. The modern Court Jester is now known as the advisory business consultant. The business consultant is now a fixture in the boardrooms of many powerful CEOs and corporate elite. You have probably seen them - they hover near the seat of power, acting as personal advisors and confidants to their corporate monarch. Just like the Fools of Olde England, the business consultant is often the only member of the executive team that can truly be openly critical of anyone or any idea without fear of repercussions. As long as they are favored by their benefactor, they can wield enormous power, and they may have more direct access to the top decision maker than any other member of the executive team. Very few people outside of the top corporate tier are even aware of the business consultant, let alone the influence they carry. They are paid to stay behind the throne, and they are often very good at working from the shadows.

From where I'm sitting, that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. Sure, your picture isn't going to be displayed in the company's annual report - but in many companies, you may enjoy a much longer tenure than the majority of the senior leadership team. But more importantly, the business consultant enjoys a freedom of thought and action that is found nowhere else in the corporation. In most corporations today, it seems that to get to the big table, one of the most important skills is the ability to interpret, process and respond in veiled and encrypted corpspeak. No one speaks their mind and everything that is said must be instantly and carefully analyzed for hidden maneuverings that may result in a loss of status among your peers. This seems to go beyond mere "politics" - it seems to have risen to the level of a TV drama - every week there is a new crisis, and alliances shift every 10 minutes.

Only the business consultant seems to be above the daily fray. It's not that they are unaware of the nonsense - they are absolutely listening to, and understanding, the corpspeak debates - it's just that they are much more likely to cut through the BS and say what really needed to be said without trying to hide it within multiple layers of personal ladder-climbing moves.

I find this a curious example of human behavior - and I also find it fascinating that this type of behavior has been present within groups of powerful human beings for thousands of years. What is it about the human condition that causes this model to so often be repeated? It baffles me why a corporate president would populate the executive offices with the best minds they can find - and then still feel the need to hire an external consultant as a "trusted advisor".

I suppose it is possible that the executive business consultant is simply another status symbol - like the corner office, the first class travel and the $1000 designer shoes - all the cool kids have at least one. If that is the primary purpose, that's very disturbing. These same leadership teams are downsizing employees, shrinking benefits and requiring employees to take unpaid days off to meet analyst estimates - and yet they are paying a business consultant an amount equal to the salary of 3 or 4 employees.

Another explanation is that the use of consultants may be seen by the executive team as a way to reduce personal risk. When a decision goes bad, it at least gives the president a way to deflect some of the blame - "Hey, I was advised by the best consultant in the industry and we did everything they said to do. No one could have known this was a bad idea." Of course, the consultant will be fired, but the president might survive.

I know this sounds cynical - and (of course) no executive would ever admit to these reasons - but I think they make about as much sense as having a roomful of bajillion dollar senior executives that need a consultant to tell them how to run their own company. At least the medieval courts had an excuse - the royalty was composed of Lords & Ladies that inherited their posts, and eventually, the royal gene pool started getting pretty shallow. As far as I know, inbreeding isn't typically a problem in corporate boardrooms - yet...

Artificial Intelligence

2011-12-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

No, this is not another story about killer robots....

I just finished "Patches", a science fiction short story by Lesley Choyce. It is about a dystopian society where all human beings were connected to a central information store called "The Source" through a skin patch that provided a direct interface between the human brain and "The Network". The Source was sentient, and had taken control of The Network and all humans, issuing pain and information through the patches to maintain order in society. An android appendage of The Network made a statement that all human beings were equal and they were no more than a collection of their biological parts. His belief was that because the Network contained all the information known to humans (by tapping directly into their brains and all other data storage devices) it also possessed all the actual knowledge in the world - because knowledge and information were identical. A small group of humans, struggling to free themselves from the Network, completely disagreed, and said that knowledge was much more than simply a collection of information.

I think this story points out a very likely failure in a machine ever achieving true artificial intelligence. It seems very plausible to me that a machine would be unable to discern the difference between information and knowledge. I think this concept may be one of the fundamental barriers that must be overcome for any machine intelligence to achieve sentience.

Unfortunately, many corporations are falling into this same trap - and I believe IT professionals have merrily led the corporate leaders down this false trail. Since the beginning of the computer age, we have been chanting the power of information - and we have said that without good information, a company cannot make good decisions and is doomed to failure. Heck, even our own names for what we do: "Information Technology", "Information Services" or even the old "Data Processing" show that we are focused on the collection and management of the information - not the knowledge that information represents.

There is no better example of this than the typical corporate HR form used to apply for a new job. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the ridiculous amount of information an applicant must provide in order to apply for a job using the typical online recruiting systems. I would claim that most of this data provides nearly zero additional knowledge to the company - it certainly is not used during the typical hiring process, or if it is, it is used only in the most crude way to filter out candidates and reduce the size of the potential candidate pool.

The same is true for a vast amount of other information gathered from all across the corporation. There are massive amounts of data being collected, massaged and reported that provide little or no additional knowledge to the company. This represents a huge expenditure of corporate resources for absolutely no business value. It also demonstrates a fundamental problem within many corporate boardrooms: the inability of senior business leaders to define the key metrics that are used to run their company.

There are certainly some companies that have defined their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and they really do use those metrics to make tactical and strategic decisions. If you work in one of these companies - you are fortunate - count your blessings. It was only when I moved to a company that did not have defined KPIs that I learned that it was even possible to run a large corporation without good business metrics.

What is really sad is that it seems these companies do not understand or recognize the issue. To them, sitting in an Executive Team meeting and suddenly asking: "How did the flood in Thailand affect our sales to Southeast Asia compared to how our sales were affected in 1980 by the election of Ronald Reagan?" is a critical data point that will drive all future corporate strategy. The rest of the executives turn to the CIO and say: "That's a simple report, you have all the data, right?" And the CIO's response is (of course) "I'm sure we do, we'll have that for you later today."

After delaying 3 critical projects and pulling four straight all-nighters, the report is finally produced and scheduled to run weekly for the executive team meetings. However the CIO is mad that your data warehouse and business intelligence tools are so poorly implemented that you couldn't meet his expectations. When the report is sent to the executive team, there is a "thank you" reply from the CEO - and nothing is every heard about that report again. Six weeks later, you check the logs for that report, and you find that there has been exactly one person who has ever accessed the new report - the IT analyst who was tasked to make sure all the reports run successfully every week...

OK, the report criteria I used for this example was fictional, but everything else was a regular occurrence. The senior leadership believed it was perfectly acceptable to ask any random "I wonder..." question and the data would be available and the report easily produced. It never occurred to them how disruptive their seat of the pants management style was to everyone involved in producing those ad-hoc reports. And even worse, the ad-hoc reports were often not actually used for anything - they were apparently just an idle thought that wasn't actually the basis of any decision making process.

In some companies, this behavior is combated by purchasing more ad-hoc reporting tools in an attempt to provide the executives and their staff the ability to run their own reports. That may work in larger companies where their is enough staff to cater to the executive whims - but not in companies that run much leaner. Unfortunately, expecting executives to do their own ad-hoc reporting is a foolish hypothesis - it's simply NOT going to happen, and the result is the worst of all worlds - you have spent the money on the easy to use tools, you do not have the staff to do the ad-hoc analysis, and the executives are still asking the questions and looking at the CIO to provide the answers.

Now, let's say that you are finally fed-up, and you decide to launch a new business intelligence initiative. The consultants tell you that step 1 is to define the KPIs that are used to drive the business decisions. So, you go to the executives, and you ask: "What are the key metrics that drive your decision making processes?" You get a blank look, followed by the typical executive 2-step shuffle that makes this your fault for not providing the executive with the proper information for them to make *this* decision. You have no choice but to beat a hasty retreat and rethink your chosen career path.

When you get back to your office and calm down, you realize a startling fact: the executives do not really know how they make decisions. They *are* making decisions - they do it every day in all parts of the business - but they simply can't define what information they use to do it. Even more frightening, you also realize that if they have not defined those metrics, there is absolutely no way the decisions they do make can be consistent, logical or data driven. Good grief, no wonder the decisions often seem to be somewhat random - they *are* somewhat random!

In an ideal world, the key business decisions are driven by specific data elements and threshold values. Above the threshold, the decision is X, below the threshold, the decision is Y. If you have all the key operational metrics defined, your business can almost run on remote control. At least, that's what the business consultants and best selling authors say. Of course, in the real world, there are always un-quantifiable factors that influence the decision. It might be office politics, shareholder sentiment, perceived risk or simply a hunch. However, should you let those influences drive your decision in the face of opposing data? Of course, if you do not have the data (opposing or otherwise), then those influences are all you have. That doesn't seem to me to be a prudent business strategy.

Developing KPIs really is difficult, I'm certainly not trying to say it is easy, because it is not. You must force yourself to determine the key operational decisions, and also determine what data you use to make those decisions. In addition, you *must* also determine the threshold values for each data element. Without a defined threshold to tell you whether to move the lever left or right, you are simply looking at data without a business context. You may find that some of your decisions are based on trends - upward, flat or downward - once again, without knowing how you will use the data, seeing the data will not help you make the decision.

I suspect that some executives do not really want to define their decision making processes. They may believe, or want others to believe, that their decision making is a combination of unique insight, luck and magic that is only found within their well-paid head. If I was an investor in a company with leadership like that, I would be very, very nervous. I don't want to invest in unique insight, luck and magic - that might be OK for betting the longshots at Santa Anita horse races, but not my 401k money! I want leadership that can articulate how they run the business, and I want to know that they aren't just flying by the seat of their pants.

I urge all business leaders to take a critical look at the information they are collecting, processing and reporting. If you can't directly link the data to a specific business decision - then stop collecting and reporting on that data - it's a waste of your precious resources. Encourage employees to question all requests for new data and new reports. "Because the VP wants it" is NOT a good reason. Every report should have a purpose, and "I've always run that report on the 3rd Tuesday of every month" is NOT a valid business purpose. Don't just collect information - always strive to create knowledge.

The Big Lie

2011-12-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

Is honesty a dead concept inside corporations? Why do managers lie to their employees? Is it all just to protect the company against litigation? "Open and honest feedback" is a catch phrase in the majority of corporate statements on ethics and values - but I believe the reality is that the vast majority of corporate leaders refuse to give *any* feedback - and when they do - it will be (at best) corp-speak: legally blessed yet completely meaningless. At worst, it will be a complete fabrication - a lie to satisfy the employee and make them shut-up and get out of their office.

I recently read a blog (sorry - I didn't save the link) by an HR recruiter that said that the primary reason many companies do not provide feedback to job candidates is that often that feedback simply starts an argument with the job candidate and leads to job candidates responding with an abusive reply. I'm sure that's true - especially when the interview was as ridiculous as some of the interviews I have been on - and you then find out that it was a waste of time because they promoted an internal candidate or they give you a BS reason that is an obvious brush off. Of course, some candidates are also just jerks - and they would blast back at any failure to be hired.

However, is that really a good excuse for a company not living by their own corporate values? Perhaps they should change the corporate values to say "Open and honest communication, when it is convenient and doesn't lead to conflict." In addition, even a system generated "thank you for applying, however you have not been selected for this role" is FAR better than simply providing nothing back to the candidate. How rude do you have to be to invite a candidate in for a face-to-face interview, then simply never respond to the candidates phone calls or emails asking for a status? Are you really that busy, or do you simply have so little thought for another human being? I suspect the latter - because job candidates are not really people - they are just resumes or names in a database.

Of course, it's not just the recruiting process where honesty is dead. Lack of honest communication runs rampant through organizations. I pity the poor employee who actually believes the senior executive when they give the "I have an open door policy" speech. The typical senior executive wants to hear only "It's done" from their employees. If you are part of the inner circle of a corporate leader, you can see the planning that goes into the half-truths, misdirection and spin-doctoring at the top - of course, you won't see the planning that goes into the spin applied to *you*...

The typical justification for not being honest when speaking to employees is that managers "must do what's in the best interest of the company." If they actually told the employees that they will all be replaced within a year with lower cost offshore contractors, the employees would all bail and the corporation would grind to a halt. So, the managers lie. They say that the future looks bright. They say that you are a key member of the team that will lead the company into the future. They say that there are no plans to cut staff. They say these things at the same time they are working with HR to eliminate your position, meeting with candidates to "upgrade" you for another resource and/or working with offshore staffing firms to move your job to Bangalore, Bucharest or Shenzhen.

Once upon a time, when a company wanted to use a different technology, the project would include training for the existing IT staff so that they would be able to work with and support the new technology. Now, the existing staff is simply replaced with new resources already trained in the new technology. If there are still older legacy systems that also need to be supported, contractors are hired until those systems can be replaced. The IT staff is rotated with the systems, and since the typical life of an IT system is 3-5 years, that is also the maximum time you can expect to keep your corporate IT job.

OK - so looking at this from the CEO's position, what's wrong with this scenario? He's getting the best IT resources for the lowest cost, and he doesn't have to continuously spend money to train his internal staff. After all, once they are trained, they might just leave the company for another gig anyway.

I see several issues with this short-sighted strategy:

1. No functional business knowledge continuity - It is tempting to believe that the tech geeks in your IT department don't need to understand how your business operates. That is dead wrong. The more the technical staff knows about how the business operates, the better your systems will match your true business requirements. Translating functional business requirements into technical system designs is the absolute key to any successful technology project. It is the difference between happy & efficient users, and an expensive pile of useless HW & SW. Fail to recognize this at your peril.

2. Failure to form a Business-IT partnership - If you have fallen into the fallacy of believing your IT staff doesn't need to understand your business, then it must follow that you believe all business knowledge must come from the business users. Congratulations, what you have just established is the typical Business vs IT organization where neither understands the other's world, and the business sees IT as simply a group of techies that need to be told what to do. Conversely, IT sees the business as demanding technophobes that have no clue what they are asking IT to build. There can be no partnership without understanding, and there can be no understanding without knowledge being shared in both directions. This requires the ability to build long-term relationships at the employee level - not just at the executive table.

3. Lack of Innovation - It's all well and good to hold the CIO responsible for the long-range IT strategic vision - that's his job. However, the CIO often does not see the day-to-day technical challenges that are faced by his staff. It is very common for these daily challenges to drive ideas for improvements in processes and systems that represent the source of innovation within the IT department. If your staff is composed of specialists in your current technology and augmented with low-cost contractors, you may very well have limited the amount of innovation that will be generated by your staff. An employee looking at a maximum of a 3-5 year gig has very little incentive to maximize efficiency - particularly if that efficiency means a new technology that will ultimately result in them being replaced with another specialist.

4. No commitment - You are simply fooling yourself if you think your employees are unaware that a new technology means the end of their job. They absolutely do know - they know because they are not receiving training on the new system, and their role on the implementation project is limited to "data conversion and migration" or "legacy system interfaces". It will only be a personal desire to do good work that will keep your staff motivated. You haven't earned their commitment and, quite frankly, you don't deserve it. You will blame your project manager and the project team for not hitting their milestones - but really, you should be looking in the mirror to see who is to blame.

I'm not an executive (clearly!) but to me, the possible gains from this type of short-term thinking does not seem worth it. Not when very expensive, business critical systems and projects are on the line.

There is another solution - don't lie to your employees. If you believe a new system will mean an employee will be replaced, then be honest with them. Tell them the end date, and give them an incentive package to stick around and hit that date. The money is a pittance compared to failing to complete the new project. Companies want it all - they want their employees to be happy little trolls toiling away in the salt mines, and they also want the ability to sweep them to the gutter when they aren't needed any longer. But it won't work. Even the flying monkeys knew she was an evil witch.

The Rise of the Machines

2011-12-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, I'm a long-time fan of science fiction. Intelligent robots are a huge part of the science fiction universe. The concept of a robot is very old - accounts and stories relating to mechanical automatons have been found in ancient Greece and the Zhou Dynasty of China. I suspect the idea is actually much older. It would not surprise me if soon after man was intelligent enough to figure out the concept of "work", we then tried to figure out a way to have someone or something else do the work for us. So, in this post, I'm celebrating some of my favorite robots and sentient machines from books, movies and TV.

Caveat: This is MY list - my opinions. If you disagree with me because I left your favorite 'bot off the list or I don't have them ranked the same way you would - too bad. Honestly, I really don't care what you think - go make your own list!

10. T-800 Terminator - First up, in 10th position is that unstoppable metallic man - The Terminator. I'm actually partial to the inner metal frame version of the T-800, without the Arnold outer-skin. The skeleton just seems so much more menacing. You might wonder why I have chosen the original T-800 instead of the later, liquid metal T-1000 or the really hot but deadly female T-X. The answer is obvious: because the T-800 ultimately kicked their liquid asses! Even though the T-800 was the good guy in the second & third movies, there's really not a lot of redeeming qualities to the Terminator - he's your basic killer robot. Don't look here for any insights about the human psyche - he just kills things.

9. Andrew Martin - This robot is from a book titled "The Bicentennial Man" by the undisputed king of robot stories, Dr. Isaac Asimov. It is NOT about the horrible Robin Williams film of the same name. Asimov created the terms "robotics" & "positronic brain", and in perhaps the greatest concept in all of SF, the "Three Laws of Robotics":

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

However, it is not these laws that cause me to include Andrew Martin, in fact, he was not the first Asimov robot with the Three Laws. No, what sets Andrew Martin apart is that over a period of 200 years, he actually *becomes* human. He began as a fairly mundane household servant android, but he had something no other robot had - a spark of creativity. With the help of many organic upgrades and a brilliant legal team, Andrew eventually proved that he was indistinguishable from any other human being. The court still refuses to declare him legally human because his brain does not age and eventually die. So, Andrew takes the final fateful step - and asks a robot surgeon to allow him to age and die. However, the robot surgeon refuses - because to it, Andrew *is* already human and the operation would violate the First Law. Andrew manages to convince the robot surgeon that he is not human, and finally *does* become human in the eyes of the court. Of course, to the people who have known Andrew for 200 years, he has ALWAYS been human...

8. Gay Deceiver - Gay Deceiver is not strictly a robot, and she is definitely not homosexual - she is a sentient computer. She also happens to be the navigation computer in a Ford car/aircraft/spacecraft/time machine/universe translating machine. Gay Deceiver was the creation of Robert A. Heinlein, arguably the greatest of the Grand Masters of SF, from the book "The Number of the Beast". She is a very special craft - able to move between universes as well as time and space. In addition, Gay Deceiver is also a typical RAH female character - smart, funny, sarcastic and she loves to talk dirty. At the beginning of the story, she is not sentient - but thanks to programming upgrades and some magic from Glinda the Good while visiting Oz, Gay Deceiver becomes much more than just a flying car.

7. H.A.L. 9000 - In 7th spot, we have another sentient computer, the H.A.L. 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) from yet another of the Grand Masters of SF, Arthur C. Clarke in the very well known book "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the outstanding Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. HAL was a GREAT villain - never showing ANY emotion as it systematically kills the entire crew of the spacecraft, except for a single crewman. On one level, HAL is just another killer robot - yet its soft, non-emotional, non-threatening manner is anything but evil. We must also remember that Arthur C. Clarke wrote this story in 1968 - before man had set foot on the moon and only 7 years after Alan Shepard made the first orbit around the Earth. I think that if I had to choose between fighting the Terminator robot or HAL, I would choose to battle the Terminator - HAL makes the Terminator seem about as smart as a can opener.

6. Gort - Gort is the robot guardian from the great 1951 film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Hollywood must be completely out of ideas. It seems like every great old SF movie is being remade with one of the overpaid pretty boy actors and millions of dollars in computer graphics. The 2008 remake with Keanu Reeves is a horrible film - and what they did to Gort is a travesty. The *real* Gort was the perfect robot enigma - never uttered a word, never displayed the slightest hint of emotion - he just followed the orders of his master EXACTLY. Gort was most menacing when he was simply standing completely still. Nothing the puny humans could do affected him in the slightest, yet a mere glance from Gort was enough to vaporize guns, tanks and men. Try that Terminator!

5. Lost in Space Robot - Yeah, he *really* got screwed when it comes to his name. I mean come on! "Robot"??? The Robinson family was supposed to be a bunch of geniuses, and Robot is the best they could come up with? OK, offcially, his name is "Robot B9", but "B9" is NEVER used after the first show. And let's face it, Will Robinson would have been dead a hundred planets ago if it wasn't for the Robot saving his butt by yelling "Danger Will Robinson!!" and waving those weird pincer arms back and forth. If you have watched the original pilot of Lost in Space, you know that the robot started out as a kill 'bot programmed by Dr. Smith to kill the Robinson family. However, after Robot failed in his mission, he was completely reprogrammed by Will Robinson and became a sentient robot and trusted friend. Robot certainly had his weaknesses - he was constantly losing his power pack at inopportune moments, and he was apparently very easy to disassemble - he literally fell to pieces several times. However, he was still a really cool late 1960s robot - complete with a big flashing light when he talked, a head piece that had curious spinning and moving doo-dads and, best of all, he could shoot lightning out of his claws! When I was a kid, I wanted a Robot of my own - and if I couldn't have a Robot, I wanted to *be* Robot...

4. Robby the Robot - Robby is the quintessential movie and TV robot. His first appearance in the pivotal 1956 movie, "Forbidden Planet" set a new standard for all movie robots. For the first time, a robot was truly a character in the movie - not just a mechanical prop or killer machine. Robby also made appearances in many other movies and TV shows - easily becoming the hardest working robot in Hollywood history. Occasionally reverting to a mindless machine, but often with a personality. His resume of appearances would be the envy of most Hollywood actors. Ranging from 3 episodes of "Twilight Zone", 2 episodes of "Lost in Space", "The Monkees", "Columbo", "The Love Boat", "Earth Girls are Easy" and many others. Robby was cool because his "head" appeared to be a bunch of weird relays that clicked and clacked when he was thinking. Unlike the Lost in Space Robot, Robby had hands with fingers and legs instead of treads. This proved to be a problem in the Twilight Zone episode "Uncle Simon", when he was pushed down the stairs by Uncle Simon's niece Barbara. If all of this is not enough to make you love Robby, remember that he also got to fondle Anne Francis in 1956!

3. R. Daneel Olivaw - Only Dr. Isaac Asimov has earned two entries on this list - and the reality is that several other Asimov robots could easily have been included. "R" stands for Robot, and like all of the Asimov robots R. Daneel has the Three Laws built into his positronic brain. R. Daneel Olivaw appears in many Asimov stories, and is apparently the most recurring of all Asimov characters. He is the first "humaniform" robot, meaning that he looks human. In the Asimov universe, this was rare, and was actually outlawed on many worlds. He is also the first robot detective, and he appears in several stories with his human detective partner, Elijah Bailey to solve crimes involving humans and robots. The robot detective stories were some of the first Asimov stories I ever read - and I was instantly hooked. They were like Sherlock Holmes stories, but with robots - how could I not love that! The crimes R. Daneel and Elijah solved were invariably related to the Three Laws, and it was through careful examination of the facts and how they could still fit the Three Laws that the cases were solved. The stories also often included other humans who were prejudiced against R. Daneel because of his human form. His partner, Elijah, was, of course, one of the few humans who treated R. Daneel as a person and not with revulsion. There is a Star Trek Data-like quality to R. Daneel, as he attempts (and often fails) to apply logic to explain the actions of humans. It was also through R. Daneel Olivaw that Asimov introduced a new "Zeroth Law of Robotics" that states: "A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." This modification allowed robots to act for the greater good, not just the individual, thus avoiding many of the conflicts that would cause a robot's positronic brain to freeze when forced to choose between two different First Law violations. R. Daneel Olivaw is truly one of the great robot characters in Science Fiction.

2. Marvin the Paranoid Android - Douglas Adams is one of my all-time favorite authors. I absolutely love British comedy and science fiction, and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (HHGTTG) is some of the absolute best! Of course, the books are much better than the 2005 movie, but in my opinion, the star of the movie was the voice of Marvin, who was played by Alan Rickman (Professor Snape from the Harry Potter movies, Die Hard, Galaxy Quest) Who can resist a depressed robot that mutters under his breath great lines like: "Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't." Or this famous line: "And then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side." Marvin is not really paranoid - that's just the name given to him by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the ex-president of the galaxy and con man. Marvin is most definitely chronically depressed - and he has often been compared to another great depressed character of literature, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Because of some unfortunate accidents with time-travel, Marvin claims to be three times older than the universe and 50,000 times more intelligent than humans. And that is the genius of the Marvin character - to him, the most interesting conversation Marvin has ever had was with a coffee machine.

1. Bender - And so, we finally come to my #1 all-time favorite robot. It is none other than Bender Bending Rodriguez from Futurama. I'll bet some of you are wondering how, with all the historic and important robots on this list, could I choose a cartoon robot from a silly TV show as my favorite robot. It is quite simple - Bender is exactly what I would expect a sentient robot from the far future to be. He drinks, smokes, gambles, cuts down his friends, steals, lies, chases fembots - in short - he acts just like a human! Isn't that what being sentient is all about? He actually thinks - not the pseudo intelligence of the typical fictional robot. He doesn't try to be like a human, or wish he was human, he is simply who he is - Bender! That is real sentience - the freedom to think whatever you want and be an individual. Bender tells the world: "Bite my shiny metal ass!"

So, there you have it - my top 10 list of all-time favorite robots and sentient computers. There are also MANY honorable mentions that could have been on this list, but were excluded for one or more reasons:

R2-D2 - If he's so smart, why can't he talk?? And C-3PO? The only reason he even had a job was because R2-D2 couldn't talk.
Rosie the Jetson's maid - missed the list by only a hair, I'm pretty sure Alice from the Brady Bunch was modeled after Rosie.
Robocop - Very cool guy, and that gun is awesome, but having a human brain is cheating.
Data - Poor Brent Spiner, I almost included Data only because I feel sorry for him. Robots do not get crowsfeet around the eyes.
Mechagodzilla - Any robot that can shoot missiles out of his fingers is pretty cool - but unfortunately, Mechagodzilla was not sentient, he was run by remote control by the aliens from the 3rd planet of the black hole.
Frankenstein Jr. - An excellent 60s Hanna-Barbara cartoon, with great voice work - but it seems pretty silly to create a 30 foot tall robot that looks like Frankenstein, and then feel the need to give it a secret identity and a mask.
Cylon Centurions - The original shiny metal Battlestar Galactica Cylon Centurions with the oscillating red eye were very cool - but I could never figure out why they were needed - the battles took place in space and the ships were always blown into a million pieces - why did they need armored battle droids? They were also barely sentient - they were dumber than a box of rocks.
Daleks - The Daleks of Dr. Who were actually cyborgs, not robots. As with Robocop, having an organic brain is cheating.

The incredible variety of stories, films and TV shows that include robots proves that humans are fascinated by the concept of artificial life. Yes, many of them are the simple killbot of the "technology run amok" genre - but not all of them are so simplistic. There are plenty of examples of robots with real personalities. Those are the robots I prefer - it's the difference between the robot simply being a prop and actually becoming a character within the story. And so, to all my electronic and mechanical friends, I salute you!

Corporate Role: Henchman, Evil Sidekick

2011-12-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

I often place people I meet into stereotypical fictional roles. Many fictional authors keep their characters in these roles because it is very easy for the readers to identify the role and build out the rest of the character's personality in their minds without requiring the author to explain why the character made every decision or took every action. If a character is identified as the evil stepmother, then it's no surprise to anyone that she hates the beautiful stepdaughter. Of course, the real world is not supposed to work this way. Real people are all complex beings capable of a wide range of thought, action and personality. Or are they?

My own character seems to shift - some days I'm the noble but generally ineffective Tonto from the Lone Ranger, sometimes I'm the well-meaning but bumbling Dr. Watson from Sherlock Holmes and other days I am definitely a "Red Shirt" on a Star Trek Away Team waiting to be blasted to smithereens or turned into a block of salt by an alien. I'm rarely the Hero or the Villain - generally I'm a supporting member of the cast. In the past, being the trusty sidekick has generally been a good gig - yeah, I get knocked on the head or shot in the leg, but usually, I'm soon ready for the next adventure - and it's much better to be a sidekick than a faceless member of the crowd or an evil henchman. As the baby mastodon living under Fred Flintstone's sink would say, "it's a living."

However, I have recently run into people in the workplace that are most definitely occupying the role of Evil Sidekick - and they seem to be doing it with glee and gusto - and they are thriving in their villainous role. These folks are not just aggressive personalities or bullies - they really do believe they need to hold everyone around them down, destroy anyone who disagrees with them and that any aggressive action they take against co-workers is justified and sanctioned by their bosses.

I find this perplexing. We live in an age of political correctness, corp-speak and brand protection uber alles - and yet - corporate leaders allow and encourage the Evil Sidekick to disrupt business processes, sabotage projects, assassinate peers and work completely outside the "open and honest" communication channels that the rest of the employees are required to follow. Why? The typical answer whispered in closed door discussions when the Evil Sidekick is not around is: "because the CEO/President/C-level VP likes him and wants him to question and challenge the status quo." Hmm - I have many problems with this explanation.

Why does the current corporate culture require an Evil Sidekick to question and challenge the status quo? In a healthy organization, shouldn't ANY employee be able to challenge the current processes?
Since the Evil Sidekick disrupts and destroys all ideas and processes he does not control, how do you know the results obtained by the Evil Sidekick really are better than a collaborative approach?
Once the Evil Sidekick has destroyed all his peers and demoralized his underlings - then what? Where does the Evil Sidekick fit in your long-range vision of a successful company?

I want to make it clear that an Evil Sidekick is NOT the same as a Court Jester. The Court Jester had an important job - he was an advisor to the Crown to prevent the Court from becoming a group of yes-men. That doesn't mean the Court Jester is allowed to assassinate the rest of the Court - if he tries - then the Court Jester has become the Evil Villain or the Evil Sidekick.

I suppose one reason the CEO/President/VP allows the Evil Sidekick to run unchecked is because the CEO/President/VP is (of course) NEVER the target of the Evil Sidekick. He/She is Evil, not stupid! If anyone complains about the Evil Sidekick, the CEO/President/VP just assumes the complainer is a weak whiner. The fact that at the same time the Evil Sidekick is whispering in the King's ear that the complainer *is* a weak whiner also doesn't hurt.

The Evil Sidekick is poison to a corporation. In my humble opinion, a smart business leader does not allow the Evil Sidekick to exist in their organization. No matter how great a superstar you believe them to be, one employee can never produce enough to equal the harm done by tearing down everyone around them. They are NOT providing healthy, constructive debate - they are simply jerks. Excise them from the organization like the cancerous tumor they are!

What Happened To The 70's?

2009-12-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

The completely laid-back teens from the 70's are now running our corporations with an iron fist. What happened to them? Why are they now overly-sensitive to ANY voices that do not march in lockstep with the drumbeat of the corporate galley-slave task masters?

I was a teenager in the 1970s - and the '70s were a time of great contrasts - it was after the drug heyday of the 1960s, yet my high school was full of stoners who got high at lunch - and drug use by high school kids was significantly higher in 1977 than it was in 1967. Being "born again" was the backlash away from the free love generation, and yet in 1975 the incidence of Gonorrhea was 3X higher than in 1965. The 1960s might have taught everyone how to do it, but in the 1970's more of us actually did it. The 1970s gave us Debbie Gibson, Andy Gibb and the Bee Gees, and it also gave us Van Halen, Ted Nugent and Kiss. It was a strange and confusing time to be a teen - but it was also considered relatively stable compared to the turbulent social upheaval of the 1960s and the worldwide economic and political changes of the 1980s.

The teens of the 1970s went on to create Microsoft, Apple & Dell and we also built the Space Shuttle. They powered the economy that destroyed the Soviet Union and tore down the Berlin Wall. In the 1990s, they were the middle managers who created the internet and drove the dot-com explosion. And now, they are the senior executives who run companies with an iron fist - controlling how their employees dress, speak, act and use the very technologies they helped to create. What the hell happened to them? How did they go from smoking pot, listening to Ted Nugent and having sex in their Camaro's (well, probably not Bill, but other kids were!) to now ordering the monitoring of their employee's email messages & Facebook posts, and purging anyone who does not march to the beat of their Armani-suited corporate drum?

I am very worried about the state of our corporate environment. The college graduates entering the corporate world today must be prepared to suppress their individuality for the sake of the corporate brand they now represent. They will be told that protecting the brand is their most important job - more important than any personal belief or idea they may have. Oh, the orders will be shrouded in corp-speak and called an "Employee Handbook", "Statement of Values" or "Social Responsibility" - but make no mistake, the primary purpose for them is NOT to protect the employees - it is to protect the brand FROM the actions of their employees.

Conform or die.

If we quash all individuality and self-expression, we also eliminate creativity and innovation. And that's what has me so confused. Why can't today's senior executives see the danger? Is it as

simple as the old "absolute power corrupts absolutely" adage? Have they really completely forgotten what it was like before they got their preferred parking spot and corporate credit cards? I do NOT believe that only the uptight do-gooders from high school ended up running corporations. That just isn't the way the world works!

Some of you might recognize this situation - it seems to be very similar to the early 1960s, when corporations hired the Mad Men to make sure their brand was seen only as the corporation wished it to be seen. Of course, it was easier then - there was no internet, no blogs and no youtube that could instantly give anyone's words a worldwide audience. Control the media ads, and you controlled the hearts and minds of the entire world. Unfortunately for the corporations and the Mad Men, the early 1960s turned into the late 1960s - and the corporations became "The Establishment" - hated and shunned by an entire generation.

Is that where we are headed? Another social revolution? It is undeniably true that societal and cultural norms rarely stay constant for very long. We move in cycles - just as the conservatism of the Victorian age led to the Roaring '20s, and the stability of the 50's Happy Days led to the riots and protests of the 60's. I really have no idea what is coming - but I do think we're approaching an inflection point where something will change. Happiness in our jobs and careers is becoming a scarce commodity. We're working harder and longer than at any time since the sweat shops of the industrial revolution gave rise to the labor movements, unions and communism.

I know this sounds very maudlin. It is meant to portray my frustration at the fear & inequality

the average corporate employee (AKA drone)

must currently endure. It appears the old counterbalances of labor unions and entrepreneurial opportunities are weak and no longer effective at limiting the barely legal abuses of the corporate overlords. I'm certainly NOT advocating a return to a time when the unions held huge amounts of power that caused ridiculous inefficiencies in businesses. I believe an employee *should* be paid based on their skill and performance - not only on their years of service or payment of union dues. HOWEVER - when the corporate environment is built to provide all benefits to the top leadership at the expense of their employees, I call BS. That is theft - theft of the employee's skill and hard work without the compensation of job satisfaction and a career path for the employee.

There's no easy answers for this one. The corporate masters will continue to tell their serfs that they should be happy to have any jobs in this time of economic upheaval - and then they will drive home in the Mercedes, Porsches and Maseratis that they bought with their $6 million/year total compensation packages. Meanwhile, their employees are reading the latest email from the CEO telling them that in order for the company to make their forecasts, the employees will have a choice of using 5 days of vacation this month or taking 5 days of unpaid leave.

Let me know when the next generation takes over as our corporate leaders. Maybe the teens from the 80's will do a better job. Then again, maybe not...

The Corporate Noose

2009-11-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know its been FAR too long since my last post. I wish I had a really good excuse, like my new job has kept me too busy, or I was traveling on important secret business for the CIA - but alas, the best I can do is admit that I've been spending all of my time playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. It's not even a particularly good game - just a completely mindless distraction. But ENOUGH - I am going to try to keep the words flowing. In this case, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Quincy, MA on a business trip - and between the boredom and the two vodkas I had with dinner, I think I am ready for a new installment of "Bumped His Head". The real question is: Are you ready? Too bad - I really don't care either way...

What is the dress code where you work? Do you even have a dress code? If not, you should thank the gods. I do, and it seriously chaps my hide. I consider "Business Casual" one of the greatest evils in corporate America. It represents much that is wrong with the corporate life, and it symbolizes exactly how idiotic and narrow-minded the vast majority of our world's economic & social leaders really are. But first, a little history lesson...

Most of what we consider modern "formal dress" can be traced to European royalty and their courtesans. Probably the man who most influenced man's modern dress was Beau Brummell. Brummell was an Englishman from the late 18th century who is considered the father of English "dandyism". Brummell, who was a friend of the future King George IV, was himself NOT a member of the royal class, but had many associate and friends within the socialites of England & France. In fact, Brummell was most famous for simply being famous, and for being considered the pinnacle of style - which makes him the 18th century equivalent of Paris Hilton.

Brummell was extremely fastidious about his appearance. He rejected the standard breeches, ruffled collars, powder and wigs of the aristocrats and instead introduced a much more understated dress consisting of close fitting trousers, jacket and a complexly knotted cravat. He also meticulously bathed and groomed himself. It was said that he took 5 hours every day to groom and dress himself, which means that I suspect he didn't have a 1.5 hour commute in L.A. freeway traffic. Dandyism eventually became a social & political statement by non-aristocrats against the upper classes. When the middle class could adorn the epitome of style, they were essentially thumbing their noses at the aristocrats.

Fast forward to the present. Today, the perfectly tailored suit, dress shirt and silk tie is the uniform of the corporate elite. The term "The clothes make the man" is more true today than it has been in the last 30 years. But why? Why are the clothes I wear important to my employer? Am I somehow a smarter or more productive employee because of the color of my pants or the length of my shirt sleeves? Does wrapping my neck in a tightly knotted piece of silk cloth make my thoughts and words more important and worth listening to? According to many corporations, the answer is apparently YES. But I say the answer is a resounding HELL NO!

The late 1990's were a great time for the casual dresser. The tech explosion on the west coast meant that employers were more interested in what you knew and what you could produce rather than how you dressed. Jeans, shorts, sneakers and t-shirts were the standard uniform. Then the tech bubble was popped. The tech worker was once again considered an outcast social misfit that needed to be put into their place by their betters in finance, sales and marketing, and part of that return to power was the return of the corporate "dress for success" mindset. Of course, in my view it was not the tech guys who were responsible for the tech bubble and the crash - it was the finance, sales and marketing dweebs who over-leveraged, over-hyped and over-sold the ideas of the technologists. And for doing that great job - those finance, sales & marketing boneheads became the CFOs & CEOs running today's corporations.

Today, we are struggling to recover from a near economic collapse. A collapse primarily driven by those same finance, sales & marketing leaders. This time they over-leveraged, over-sold and over-hyped the insurance & financial industries. And STILL, they remain in positions to dictate the dress codes and social norms of corporate America. Why? I have no freaking clue. Tell me - when were you happier with your job, your life and your financial future - the late 1990's or today? If your answer is the same as mine - you have those captains of industry to thank.

Remember those old episodes of Bewitched and the Dick Van Dyke show? Old Darin Stevens and Rob Petrie wore their gray flannel suits everywhere. They could be just sitting around the house, and they would still be wearing a suit and tie. Even in the 1960s, did anyone really do that? I can't believe they did then, and I know they don't today. When we think the corporate secret police aren't looking, we wear jeans, shorts, sneakers and t-shirts. We have no problem being seen by our neighbors, friends and family wearing casual clothes - and yet on Monday morning we set aside our own preferences to satisfy the whims of the people in the corner offices.

They say things like "We must project a professional business image" and "It shows respect for our customers" - I say: Bullcrap! It's about control - the ability for an executive to dictate and control every employee in a very personal way. That exercise of power gets them off - and it makes them feel better about their own self-doubts. It makes me wonder what those executives are attempting to compensate for - but I'll let you fill-in your own details. They also use the "slippery-slope" argument to claim that if there wasn't a dress code that employees would show up wearing gangsta' baggies, Hitler costumes and G-strings. I have a simple solution to that - how about we simply let people wear whatever they want AND we let everyone else point at the stupid people and laugh derisively? There's nothing like good 'ol peer pressure to weed out the outliers who haven't got the sense to know the difference between casual and idiotic. Let's face it, there are some people that it just doesn't matter what they wear, they will still end up with their picture on peopleofwalmart.com.

To those who say "What's the big deal, it makes your boss happy, just do it!" I say, you're right, how I'm dressed shouldn't be a big deal - in fact, it shouldn't matter at all! I think what we need is collective courage - the courage to stand up, pull off the corporate noose, put on our jeans, and show the task masters that we will take this idiocy no longer. I'm mad as hell, and I don't think you should take it any more! So - lead the charge - convince all of your co-workers that they should dress however they want every day. Tell your boss to pound sand - make them decide whether wearing slacks and a tie is more important than running the business.

And what became of Beau Brummell? His lifestyle eventually caught up with him. He was buried in debt, and he died alone, penniless and insane from syphilis. That's hot!

High-Tech Worker In A Low-Tech Company, Part Three - The Final Chapter

2009-08-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

My good friend Billy Shakespeare dressed weird, but he really knew how to string words together. I sometimes wonder what he would think of blogs, facebook and twitter. I suspect he would have made some hilarious youtube videos. But I digress...

This is the third installment in the continuing remembrances of a high-tech worker in a low-tech company. The first and second chapters were very fun to write, and I hope they were just as fun to read. I suspect this will be the last episode in this theme for a while. As time goes by, the memories (and my brain cells in general) of that period are fading, and quite frankly, I'm simply ready to move on and put that horrendous experience where it belongs - swirling down into the cesspool of my past.

But that's the bad news. The good news is that I *do* have a third episode for your consideration. First, the standard disclaimer:

Disclaimer: Both of these stories are true and personally witnessed by yours truly. None of these are reposts from Snopes or anywhere else. Any similarity to stories you may have read elsewhere should be chalked-up to the fact that there are idiots everywhere and our species is doomed.

Now, I present the finale to this trilogy:

Doing Nothing *Is* Sometimes The Best Move
The Accounting processes used by corporations can be a bit complex - and that's why they spend millions of dollars to purchase and maintain expensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, and also why they often have large staffs of trained accounting clerks whose sole job is to use the ERP system to perform the transactions for purchasing, order entry, accounts payable, accounts receivable and all the other financial processes needed to run a $2B+ public company.

Or, you could do what my company did...

The primary requirement to be a member of our accounting staff seemed to be the inability to have any desire to learn. These departments included some of the longest tenured employees in the company - including several people with over 30 consecutive years working at the same jobs. I would like to be able to say that this long experience made them valuable members of their departments - but alas, I can't. What it did was make them completely impervious to any attempts to train them on changes to the systems and processes they used every day. We once needed to make a significant change to the ERP system that included several changes to the processes used by the Purchasing department. As part of this project, we partnered with an extremely experienced group of consultants who were experts in the ERP software we used. One of the first steps in the project was to have the Purchasing department step us through all of their key processes and use the existing ERP system to demonstrate what they did on a daily basis.

During one of these sessions, a Purchasing clerk was going through her operations and came to a step that involved submitting a job to be processed and then waiting for it to complete before moving on to the next step. After the job ran, she started to move to the next step, when one of the consultants suddenly said: "Wait - can you please go back and open the log file from the job you just ran?" The Purchasing clerk had a bewildered look on her face and said "What?" After explaining exactly what the consultant wanted the clerk to do, a file was shown on the screen that contained only one line of text. The consultant said: "That's what I thought, you don't need to run that job, it doesn't do anything." The Purchasing clerks (and their manager) were completely befuddled.

The consultant then went on to explain: "Look at the line in that file. It says 'No records found.' That means that job didn't actually do anything. That is exactly what it should say, because that job doesn't need to be run - it is useless." The Purchasing clerk then said: "But I always run that job, that's the way we've been doing it for years." But, she had absolutely no idea why she had been told to run that job, or what she thought it was supposed to do - all she knew was that it was step #10 in the process and she had been doing this dozens of times a day, every day, for 10 years. If we had not needed to make the system changes, she would *still* be running that job. True story!

Be Prepared!
Has there ever been a medical event as completely oversold by the media as the H1N1 Swine Flu? According to the news reports, we were on the brink of a disaster the likes of which had not been seen since the Black Death. Luckily for the human species, the wildfire has not materialized. In fact, to put the H1N1 pandemic into perspective, the CDC says that in a typical year approximately 36,000 people in the US die from flu-related causes - this is for ALL types of flu. To date, 320 cases of H1N1 have resulted in death in the US - much lower than many other strains of flu. Hmm - that doesn't quite sound like the level of mass carnage the media prepared us for during night after night of hyperbole.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very happy that the disaster has not materialized, and I'm all for the CDC making sure we are fully informed - even if the press completely misinterprets the data and turns it into a hype circus. But, the folks in leadership positions at large corporations are smart enough to cut through the BS and focus on the facts, right?

Then there's the company I worked for...

In the midst of the H1N1 media frenzy, I received an email from one of the mindless butt-kissers that was also my peer in middle management. The email wanted to know if we had developed an emergency IT response plan for the Swine Flu. Emergency IT response plan? WTF? Why would a company that runs restaurants need an "emergency IT response plan" for the Swine Flu? What was this, a scene from Andromeda Strain?

Now, let me be clear, the company operated and franchised restaurants. Those restaurants were essentially autonomous - the franchised restaurants could operate indefinitely without any support from the corporate office, and even the company operated restaurants could (and did) easily operate for days or even weeks without any IT support from corporate. But, apparently, a couple of attention whores in the corporate "risk management" department decided this would be a perfect opportunity to boost their own careers by capitalizing on the media hysteria surrounding H1N1. Like Alexander Haig, they wanted to assure the people that "they would be in control" during this time of crisis.

In my 25+ year career, I had never heard of ANY company having an "emergency IT response plan" for an outbreak of the flu. What's my plan? Well, how about this - we tell people to wash their hands and we muddle through with a short staff for a couple of weeks until the flu passes. There - I'm done. But (of course) it was even worse than this.

Apparently, this was not the first time the "risk management" boys had played this game. They had previously responded the same way during the "Avian Flu" outbreak, and they had actually convinced the IT management to prepare an "emergency IT response plan" specifically for an Avian Flu disaster. It should now be pointed out that since 2003 there have been ~300 confirmed deaths from Avian Flu *worldwide*, and *NONE* in the US. Whew - I'm glad those risk management experts are protecting our company from these disasters!

Good grief - this company had been experiencing declining sales for several years and was bleeding cash while executing a never-ending series of failed marketing campaigns. BUT - they were ready with a plan for how the IT department was going to respond in case 25% of their staff got the chills and diarrhea! True story!

I have no deep-meaning lesson to convey from these two stories. In my humble opinion, these were simply stupid people who were tolerated (and promoted) by equally clueless corporate leadership. I believe it is every thinking human being's duty to expose stupidity. I know it can never be eradicated - but it also should never be tolerated. As Bill Engval says: "Here's your sign."

This trilogy of business brainlessness has been fun - and very cathartic. But at the same time, it makes me incredibly frustrated and sad. Every one of the primary characters in the six stories I have presented is still gainfully employed in the same positions they held at the time I had the misfortune to work with them. As you read this, I'm sure they are merrily committing random acts of idiocy and making some other reasonably intelligent coworker do additional work in order to correct the senseless stupidity. My sympathies go out to those poor souls - I feel your pain!

The Only Constant Is Change

2009-08-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

My father recently celebrated his 90th birthday. That in itself is a phenomenal achievement, but when you consider that he suffered his first massive heart attack in 1975, you begin to understand just what kind of amazing accomplishment this is. After a quadruple bypass, implanted pacemaker/defibrillator, angioplasty, titanium hip replacement, spinal discectomy and double cataract surgery - he has had more technology put into his body than went into the Dell laptop I'm using to type this post.

My father was born in 1919. Holy time warp - think about the things that did NOT yet exist in 1919. For example, here's just a random smattering of items that do NOT include many of the really HUGE events of this time period:

The pop-up toaster was invented in 1919.
The first band-aid was invented in 1920.
Clarence Birdseye invented frozen food in 1923.
Dr. Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926.
Pez candy was invented in 1927.
Bubble gum was first produced in 1928.
President Coolidge authorized construction of Boulder (now Hoover) Dam in 1928.
The first parking meter was installed in 1935.
Canned beer was first sold in 1935.
The first night professional baseball game was played under electric lights in 1935.
The ballpoint pen was patented in 1938.
The first successful helicopter flight was in 1939.

And that's only the first 20 years! Senior citizens often say that "everything changes so fast now" - but I disagree - I believe the world has *always* changed, and further, it has *always* changed quickly and dramatically - at least since the industrial revolution began in the late 19th century. There is no doubt that the spread of changes around the world is much faster now - our very quick worldwide communications and transportation systems have enabled that rapid spread to occur. However, just because my father was not aware of Robert Goddard's first liquid-fueled rocket flight until several years after it occurred did not prevent that event from initiating huge changes to our society that ultimately led to Alan Shepard orbiting the Earth in a Mercury capsule in 1961. I claim that world-changing events have almost always been happening at a rapid rate - we are simply putting them into the common knowledge base much sooner now than we did in the past.

One of the great challenges of my entire adult life has been attempting to explain to my father what I do for a living. Even back in my aerospace engineering days, he really had no idea what an engineer working for a big defense contractor like Lockheed or Northrop actually did every day to earn a paycheck. My father was a farmer and lived on a farm his entire life. He once asked me "Why do you still need to come up with new things for airplanes? Hasn't everything already been invented?" Wow - that one made me pause. How could I explain the endless ways in which new requirements change yesterday's design, or how even small increments in technology could provide new capabilities that could not previously be accomplished, or made reliable, affordable, etc. But when I compare the changes between, for example, the airplane of 1919, with the airplane of 1939, I see MUCH more change than when I compare the airplane of 1989 with the airplane of 2009. In fact, many of the airplanes built in 1989 are still in service today - and the same could probably not be said in 1939 for airplanes built in 1919!

Electronics and computer technology have certainly changed the world. But, can you honestly say those technologies have changed the world MORE than the electric lightbulb or the internal combustion engine or the airplane? I claim no - computers have NOT.

Humans have an incredibly short time frame of reference. We think 100 years ago is a lifetime (and of course it is - in human lives!). But as I discussed in the previous post on our much more successful ancestor H. Habilis, we are barely a blip in the anthropological time scale - never mind the geologic or galactic time scale. But attempting to think along the scale of eons forces our human brains to eliminate the details - we are forced to abstract the timeline such that only scientists such as paleontologists, geologists, etc can do better than "time before the dinosaurs", "time during the dinosaurs" and "time after the dinosaurs". Our puny brains have a terrible time visualizing and understanding anything that can't be measured by our own 5 senses.

But, I really wasn't intending to veer off into the murky subject of our place in the cosmos. Suffice it to say that I follow the Douglas Adams view: "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun." We should remember that when we start thinking our own pitiful few years of existence are really critically important.

*IF* I have a 90th birthday, it will be in 2051 - 42 years from now. How much will the world change in the next 42 years? Unlike most pronostigators, I will say both sides of the coin are true - the world will change hardly at all AND the world will also change dramatically. I won't try to make specific predictions. The science fiction world is littered with the evidence of the underachievement of human beings. Remember the campy TV show "Space: 1999"? How's that moon base coming along? And "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Don't even get me started. But, absolutely no one predicted a worldwide, internet-based retail ecommerce industry or even internet porn prior to the introduction of the affordable personal computer. I have no idea what the next 42 years will bring!

What I do know is that my grandchildren will think I am a fossil who simply can't comprehend the world of 2051, and they will also be unable to visualize the ancient world of 1961. At the same time, my children will see the world of 2051 as not all THAT different from their childhood in the late 1990s & early 21st century. That ongoing dichotomy is somehow comforting...

The Church Of The Corporate Ladder

2009-08-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's time to take the gloves off. At the request of a few friends who shall remain nameless (cough *gutless* cough) this diatribe is going to be a bit edgy and address one of the verboten subjects of polite conversations - religion. (pause for collective gasp from the blogosphere) No, I'm not going to debate the relative merits of snake-handling versus self-mortification, I want to talk about the hypocrisy of devout religious zealots who also happen to be part of corporate leadership.

So, first, I'll apologize - if you are a very religious person, you may find some of my comments offensive. Please recognize that I'm not attacking your religion - I am attacking the hypocrites who proudly proclaim their religious beliefs, but are also willing to take out anyone by any means necessary to further their own corporate careers. I freely admit that I am NOT a religious person - 8 years of parochial school saw to that - but I hold no animosity towards anyone who actually lives the teachings of their chosen religion. However, if you are just a wolf using your religion to ambush your opponents - then I suspect your God has a special section of the everlasting fire waiting for your @ss.

Religious corporate leaders really are a strange bunch. I have a hard time understanding how plotting and scheming the downfall of your opponents and your own rise up the corporate ladder fits in with God's divine plan. I absolutely understand how it might fit with the person's master plan. Let's look at the advantages the outwardly religious person might have in the corporate game.

First, there is the obvious - the ability to maintain a holier-than-thou attitude over everyone else in the room. *They* know the *right* thing to do, and anyone who disagrees is clearly aligned with Satan. Maintaining a pious and angelic look on their face is very important in order to pull this off. Of course, there is no outward condemnation of the non-believing heathens in the meeting, but a gentle "I'm not comfortable with the moral ramifications of this approach" is more than enough to get their point across.

They also have the advantage of holding everyone else to a higher standard than they themselves actually operate. They can hamstring their opponents by working behind the scenes on evil plans while constantly pointing out and being outraged at any less than divine actions taken by their foes. This continually puts everyone else on the defensive and makes them less likely to attempt their own initiatives for fear that their plans will not meet the moral standards set for everyone except the devout.

Look at one example - let's say in a fit of frustration you send an email to a co-worker complaining about the latest underhanded trick pulled by the resident religious hypocrite. In that email you drop a few f-bombs and point out a few shortcomings in the hypocrite's genetics. If that email were to somehow make it's way to one of the religious corporate leaders (even if it is not the actual target of your wrath) the outrage and retribution will be swift and overwhelming. You will be accused of being "vulgar" and of having morals lower than a crack whore. It won't matter if you have heard many others (including other religious hypocrites) using the same language or expressing the same sentiment - YOU are now the unclean, heathen outcast who will be declared an evil person by EVERYONE who fears they may someday be the target of the Holy Rollers.

I have absolutely no problem with a company being run according to a set of strict religious beliefs - as long as the rules apply to everyone on an equal basis. I may not choose to work there - but anyone who does knows and accepts the culture. What I cannot stomach is the hypocrisy of a company's leadership that pretends to adhere to strict rules - but only when it suits them, or when they know other people are looking.

I wish I knew of a suitable defense against this particular type of slimy corporate toad. However, I really don't have an answer. The best I can come up with is to simply get as far away from that company as quickly as you can. The senior executives CAN minimize the issue - by simply ignoring the sermons and being willing to tell the devout ladder climber to go pound sand. The only thing the halo-wearing scumbags will respond to is realization that their current path does not get them to the next rung of the ladder. However, if the senior executives lack the spine to stand up and tell the righteous reptiles to knock it off, you are screwed and you need to get out before you are branded with a scarlet letter.

It's been said many times that some of the greatest evil has been committed in the name of religion. I would probably modify that statement to say "in the misuse of religion." There's nothing inherently wrong with the vast majority of religions. If they help you get through the day, great. But when religion is used as a political tool for your own benefit, you are a bloated toad who should be skewered on your own pious pitard.

So - how about it? Do you know a particular jackass that claims to be an elder in his/her church, yet is not above bald faced lies and unethical behavior in order to advance their own career? I would like to hear your story of how a religious hypocrite screwed you over during their rise to divine status in the Church of the Corporate Ladder. Leave me some comments!

High-Tech Worker, Low-Tech Company - Round Two

2009-07-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted about a couple of the technology-challenged folks I encountered as a high-tech worker employed at a low-tech company. At the time, I mentioned that I had many more stories to tell, and I have received quite a few requests to post the next set of tawdry low-tech tales. So, here ya go! Once again I will make the same disclaimer that I made in part 1:

Disclaimer: Both of these stories are true and personally witnessed by yours truly. None of these are reposts from Snopes or anywhere else. Any similarity to stories you may have read elsewhere should be chalked-up to the fact that there are idiots everywhere and our species is doomed.

Now, for part deux:

Spaminator
Spam is the bane of the 'net. It is like the weeds that grow in your garden and in the cracks in your sidewalks and driveways - you can pull it, chop it or spray it and you may be able to control it for today - but it will always be back. There is one flavor of spam that has been around since the very early days of the internet - the fake notifications that tell of "secret" coupons or deals from well known national brands. Many large brands have been targets - including many restaurants, retailers, automakers, electronics companies, etc for anything from free cars (Honda) to free beer (Miller). You've probably all seen some of these, right? Did you ever think any of them were real? Granted, there are occasionally genuine offers that are similar - like this one - but come on, it's just spam, right?

Well, some people apparently take them just a bit more seriously...

One particular Chief Executive Officer was forwarded a well known spam that promised that our company would send a $50 coupon to anyone who forwarded the spam email to them. One of the store franchise owners had apparently been sent this email and wanted to know what the corporate office was going to do to stop it. This CEO immediately tasked the IT department to "stop these emails from being sent." Huh? It's spam! This CEO was dead serious - they thought there was some way for us to intercept and stop these emails from being sent - not just from our company servers, but from every mail server on the internet!

Our explanation that this is not how the internet works, and that there is no central control center we can call to have these emails stopped was met with the classic "you clearly misunderstood my last order - try again" look from the CEO. The head of the IT department eventually had to meet with the CEO and explain that this was not something we or anyone else could control, and that the vast majority of people in the world understand that these types of emails are just annoying fakes. A letter was then drafted and sent to all the restaurant owners, and a notice was placed on the company web site declaring these emails to be fake. I am willing to bet the CEO *still* believes we are just incompetent and there must be some way for those emails to be stopped. True story!

Anti-Social Networking
Internet discussion forums are a great way for people with a common interest to socialize, share knowledge and engage in healthy debate and disagreements. Forums are not new - they are as old as the internet. Many companies are using private discussion forums as a way to share information between employees, or with customers and/or vendor partners. Unmoderated public forums can get extremely unruly - but there are many moderated forums that manage to discuss very contentious issues and remain civil. Most private forums are much easier to manage - because (in theory) the members are all there for the same reason.

And then there is the forum that was built at our company...

The communications department wanted a discussion forum added to our private company portal. The users of this portal included corporate employees, the franchisees and the franchisee's employees. The public had no access to this portal or the discussion forum. Sounds fairly easy, right? There are dozens of free internet forum software packages available, and some of them are used in very, very active public forums. But, a private forum actually has a few unique requirements that are not an issue in public forums. The first is that we didn't want the forum users to have to login to the forum after they had already logged-in to the company portal. Since several of the best portals now support directory services like LDAP or AD, that wasn't a big problem and was easily solved.

However, the communications department and the marketing and legal departments apparently had a completely different view of how a discussion forum is used than I did. They were extremely paranoid that someone might post something that was not favorable to the company. I explained that could be controlled by having moderators police the forums and delete or edit any offensive posts. But that wasn't deemed good enough.

They decided that corporate employees could read the forum, but could not post. That would prevent a corporate employee from saying something that might be construed as putting the company at risk. It didn't matter that the corporate employees talked and emailed to these same folks every day - the forum was deemed "different". All questions asked by the franchisees and their employees would need to be posted by the forum admin who was also a communications department employee. If the forum admin did not know the answer to a question, then they would contact the relevant department, obtain an answer, and then post the forum response.

The brain trust also decided that the forum would ONLY be used for the franchisees and employees to post "Best Demonstrated Practices". If they knew about something that worked, they were asked to post a story explaining it so that the other franchisees could benefit. There was no Q&A forum, no general discussion forum - there were ONLY forums for them to post their tips & tricks.

Can you guess what happened?

Well, since corporate employees couldn't post to the forum, they typically visited the forum once, then left and never came back. Why should they? What fun is a forum unless you can participate? I suppose reading the posts from the franchisees could be interesting, but that leads to the second problem...

The franchisees weren't posting either. It seems that they weren't all that eager to share their "tips & tricks" with each other. They wanted to communicate with each other, and many of them did through email, but there was no way they wanted to post where corporate could see and know who was posting. In addition, since there was really no forum for them to post questions or just have general chit-chat with each other, the entire "social" aspect of the discussion forum was completely missing.

The result? Six months after launch, there had been a total of 6 posts to the entire forum - and that includes the post from the forum admin saying "thank you for your post" to the one guy who actually posted ONE "best demonstrated practice", and also the post from a franchisee who complained that the free item he had received from a franchisee conference had arrived broken. In short, it was a complete failure. The forum software itself worked great - posting was easy and simple. But the many weeks of effort to install, configure and modify the forum software were completely wasted by the desire to have complete control over how people engage in social interaction - completely missing the entire point of web-based discussions. True Story!

Well, there you go - two more examples from my files. Both of these stories share a common trait - the desire to control the uncontrollable. In the first story, the CEO needed to discover that it really isn't possible to control the breadth and speed of worldwide email communications. It shows a complete lack of understanding for how the internet has changed the dissemination of information - which is really, really scary when you consider this was the leader of a $2+ Billion company. The second story is also about control - the desire to control how people communicate with one another, and not recognizing that when you attempt that level of control, people will simply find a different way to communicate in order to bypass the oppresive controls. Don't worry - I have many more stories coming to future posts!

This Is News?

2009-07-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Do you still watch the news on television? I haven't used TV as my news source for several years. However, when something really significant is going on, I have no choice - the news invades into my viewing whether I want to see it or not. They are preempting my entertainment with the drivel they think is news. There are no journalists left in television. Edward R. Murrow must be turning over in his grave. It's hard to believe there was once a time when the news was the trusted source of the truth - and that when a "Special Report" interrupted the broadcast schedule, you paid attention, because the world was about to change. Apparently, we've had some *really* significant events lately, because the news has been blitzing more than Dick LeBeau. Let's run down a few of the earth-shaking news stories that have the entire news industry in a tizzy for the last month...

(Jon & Kate + 8) / 2
This absolutely takes the prize for the biggest non-story. Let's see - family with 8 small children has a film crew follow them everywhere they go for a couple of years, and now the couple is getting divorced. Wow, who could have seen that coming? But somehow, this story was not just plastered on every gossip/media tracking/scandal show - it was also a huge story on the network news. Interviews were shown on ALL of the major news shows, with analysis of who was the unhappier party, what this means for the kids, etc. This is news? Really? According to the U.S. government, 7.5 out of 1000 US residents have been married, and 3.6 out of 1000 US residents has been divorced. Gee, I don't recall seeing any of the other thousands of divorces on the news. Sure, I feel sorry for the kids - who wouldn't - but any divorce involving children is going to impact the kids - this is NOT news! The only part of this story I found interesting was how in the world a guy could hook-up with a mistress when he has 8 kids and there are film crews following your every move. The entire story is sleazy on many, many levels, but wow - that dude was an operator!

David Carradine Was Weird
If David Carradine had fallen down some steps and died, it would have been a page 6 story with a small headshot picture from Kill Bill. If some nameless schmoe had been found tied up and dead in hotel room in Thailand, that wouldn't have made the US news at all - of course, it also probably wouldn't have made the news in Thailand either. I admit this was a weird story - but does this belong on the mainstream news channels? Exactly how does this affect the world economy, or the state of our public schools, or the war on terrorism? OK, David Carradine was even weirder than we could possibly imagine, but I'm no longer surprised by anything one of the Hollywood crowd does. I expect them to be deranged and deviant. It isn't news. Once again, the life and death of a naughty celebrity was somehow considered newsworthy by an industry that pretends to take the higher ground.

We Are The World Of MJ
You didn't think I was going to forget the story that was bigger than the first meeting of the new US President with the leaders of some of the most powerful countries on the planet, did you? What can I say about this spectacle that hasn't already been said 24x7 for two weeks? Nothing. I was a little too young to pay much attention when Elvis died, and I was definitely too young to remember when JFK was assassinated - but from what I can tell the Jacko media frenzy was on par with JFK - even though the actual attendance and personal feelings of the general population for the person were probably much less. In other words, the news did not just report the story - they created it. The JFK funeral was held on November 25, only 3 days after the assassination. The MJ funeral was held 12 days after his death. I admit that some of that time delay was caused by the coroner investigation - but a lot of that time was spent planning the huge media events. Good grief, they flew the leader of the free world's body half way across the country and they had a state funeral attended by over a million people in 3 days! Can you imagine what the modern news services would do with an event on the scale of the death of JFK? That's a frightening thought!

TV news has become yet another reality show. They show us 15 second teasers during prime time commercials to get us to watch the 11 o'clock news. The news reporters look for the most entertaining witnesses to interview, and if they can't find a scared child, a sobbing woman or a angry man, the reporters will interview each other. Celebrities increase the value of any story, and the more outrageous the situation, the more coverage it will receive. So, now we have reality shows pretending to be news, and we have nightly news pretending to be reality shows. Thank goodness for the invention of the DVR!

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

2009-07-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

(With apologies to Robert Heinlein) 40 years ago today humans accomplished the greatest engineering feat since that first bronze-age inventor learned that round objects make moving things easier. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo 11 lunar module on the surface of the moon. Mankind had reached across the emptiness of space and walked on land not attached to their home planet. The Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, Hoover Dam - they all pale in comparison to this achievement. It makes me proud to be a member of the human species, and to have been fortunate enough to have been alive when it happened. I have no doubt that this event, and the entire space race of the 60's & 70's are directly responsible for my decision to become an aerospace engineer.

And so, I hope you will understand why I take it very personally when I see that the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 has also brought out some of the most ignorant humans I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I am, of course, talking about the conspiracy theorists who claim that the moon landing was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the US government and maintained for the last 40 years. Believe it or not, these mental midgets have not only been around since shortly after Apollo 11, but they have thrived and grown dramatically in the internet age.

I'm not going to use this medium to show and debunk their claims - there are many, many sites on the web on both sides of this issue. Instead, I would like to discuss these clowns from my own cynical viewpoint, and give a little explanation of why I am personally offended by their obnoxious ignorance. I will say this much - every single one of the "inconsistencies" they claim as evidence of the hoax is complete and utter nonsense. They have absolutely no understanding of basic physics, engineering or the space program, and there is NO credible basis for any of their claims. We absolutely DID land on the moon in 1969!

I was recently on a well-known audio discussion forum where a thread was started that asked members to vote whether they thought the moon landing had been faked, and to then state why. Over the next several days I debated post-for-post with some people who were adamant that it was all an elaborate government conspiracy and hoax. The poll results indicated ~18% of the 180 respondents believed the moon landings were fake. As usual with lies, d@mn lies and statistics, I think those poll results do not really represent what they seem to show. Don't forget that an internet poll is not truly random. It would be heavily skewed toward representing those people who have strong enough feelings about the subject to actually cast a vote. What the results really mean is: ~18% of the forum members who were interested enough in the belief of fake moon landings voted that the landings were a fake. But what that discussion did clearly show me was some of the fallacies and misdirected ignorance that is prevalent in our "modern" society. It was really an incredibly depressing display!

One of the very surprising observations was just how incredibly close-minded the conspiracy crowd can be. They are very willing to put forth a claim of evidence of the hoax, but when their own evidence and very basic scientific principles are used to debunk their claim, they will simply ignore your counter-claims and dismiss your use of science as your own opinion. They simply cannot be convinced to see anything other than their own beliefs. No amount of logic, physics, experimental results or mathematical proofs will cause them to waiver in their basic belief that the conspiracy exists, therefore anything counter to that belief must be part of the conspiracy. They have boxed themselves into a corner, and their own ego-driven paranoia will never let them out of that position.

It also became very clear that one of the reasons that they could hold so tenaciously to their beliefs is because they are simply ignorant of basic physics and engineering. For example, one of their claims is that the many photos and videos taken during the moon walks could not have been accomplished, because the "surface temperature" of the moon can reach up to 250 deg F, and that would have melted the film used in the cameras. There is a simple explanation: the moon is not like the Earth. The moon is airless. On the Earth, the "surface temperature" heats the air above the surface through both convection and radiation. The air and the earth's surface are in contact, and that quickly heats the air to very nearly the surface temperature. Anything located in the air is then heated by the air via convection, as well as by the radiant heat from the direct sun and the surface reflections. But that is not the way it works on the airless moon. Since there is no air, there is no convection heating. The camera is heated only by the radiant heat from the surface and the sun. By insulating the camera, and keeping it out of the direct sun and not in direct contact with the surface of the moon, the astronauts were able to keep the film from becoming too hot. In fact, the cameras contained temperature sensors so the astronauts could make sure they did not have problems. But the hoax believers would NOT accept this explanation. They refused to acknowledge the difference between convection and radiant heating. Why? I think it is because they are simply ignorant of the basic concepts of heat transfer that are taught to every first year physics student. Since they did not have this basic knowledge, they could not understand the counter argument. Once again, their own ego-driven paranoia prevented them from recognizing that physical principles may exist that are outside their level of understanding.

It is precisely this ignorance of their own limitations that makes me the most frustrated and depressed. No one can explain to them how a complex problem can be solved with engineering and science if they are unwilling to learn the engineering and science! If I say that acceleration is the second time derivative of distance, should they believe me? My statement is true, and I could show it by experimentation, but linking the experiment to the math requires that THEY (not me) understand the concept of a time derivative, and that requires them to understand the first chapter of any calculus text book. If they aren't willing to learn these concepts, then they will never be convinced, because any explanation will ALWAYS be just words that can be doubted. Peeling away the rhetoric, we find a basic problem - they do not believe that a properly trained engineer may be able to solve a problem that is too complex for they themselves to understand. Good grief, how egotistical is that?

Consider a few of these questions:

Can an engineer design a way for the human eye to see a person sitting in a completely dark room?
Why does a shower curtain get sucked *in* to the bathtub when taking a shower?
Is it possible for an engineer to design an object that can be heated to 1000 deg C and then picked-up with your bare hand a few seconds later?

Could you answer these questions? If you couldn't, does that mean these problems cannot be solved and that anyone who claims otherwise is part of a conspiracy to defraud you?

In order, here are the answers:

Absolutely - it could be done easily using an infrared sensor. The person sitting in the room would be much warmer than the surroundings, and the sensor could easily pick them out.
This is actually a bit tricky. When I was in college, I was taught that it was due to the Bernoulli Effect. In 2001, a physicist created a computer simulation demonstrating that the Bernoulli Effect did not fully explain the lower pressure, and that there is also a vortex effect due to the swirling droplets. Either way, like many things in the real universe, this simple phenomenon has a not so simple explanation.
You betcha - this is exactly how the space shuttle tiles are designed to operate.

There are plenty of things that I don't understand that I take for granted because I trust that other, smarter people *do* understand those things. I like to think that I *could* understand most of them if I really tried, but I certainly would never think they can't exist just because I do not understand them. I don't know how an LCD monitor works, but that doesn't stop me from believing in laptops. I also don't know how or why a plant uses Nitrogen, but that doesn't stop me from believing that fertilizing my lawn will make it greener. The guy at the nursery store said it would, and I believed him and bought the fertilizer. The size of the problem shouldn't matter - I either believe others can solve complex problems that I don't understand, or I don't. But it's up to me to make the effort to learn!

The people who say we could never have landed on the moon are saying that all of the engineers and scientists who accomplished this incredible feat are frauds and that they were not smart enough or talented enough to have done it. That is personally insulting and simply another example of their own gargantuan egos. Solving complex problems is what engineers and scientists do - and they absolutely did it in this case. The incredible amount of new technology that came out of the space program is staggering. Astronaut James Lovell said it very well when he was asked about Bill Kaysing, one of the first moon hoax kooks:

The guy is wacky. His position makes me feel angry. We spent a lot of time getting ready to go to the moon. We spent a lot of money, we took great risks, and it's something everyone in this country should be proud of. - James Lovell

D@mn Skippy! So, on this day, be proud of what we once accomplished. Do not let the wacky conspiracy kooks take this day away from you. Finally, go out and hug an engineer - there's no telling what they may come up with next!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbwZL-EK6CY

The High-Tech Worker In A Low-Tech Company

2009-07-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday, and on this auspicious and historically significant day, I am taking the opportunity to vent a little. Given my luck, *this* will probably be the post that causes my career and life to go up in smoke - but what the heck - it's my birthday!

My career has taken me into both high-technology (aerospace & electronics) and low-technology (restaurant) companies. Although they each have their challenges, I must say that being a high-tech worker in a low-tech company was without question the more frustrating experience. There were many days when I was ready to pull out what little hair I have left. I didn't realize how many assumptions I was making on a daily basis until I was faced with an entire industry of people who had zero experience and understanding of the technology surrounding them. It's not that they were stupid (well, not most of them) but they were ignorant - and they were making just as many assumptions about my world as I was about theirs.

Disclaimer: Both of these stories are true and personally witnessed by yours truly. None of these are reposts from Snopes or anywhere else. Any similarity to stories you may have read elsewhere should be chalked-up to the fact that there are idiots everywhere and our species is doomed.

Now, for two entries from the all-star list of forehead slappers from my 5+ years as a high-tech worker in a low-tech company:

Shortcut To Nowhere
I'll start with one my favorites - the infamous desktop shortcut to nowhere incident. One of the accounting clerks was responsible for verifying that a step in the monthly close process had completed successfully. The verification consisted of opening a report generated by the ERP system and making sure the totals tied together. She wasn't responsible for running the job that created the report - just for reading the report and verifying the results. She did this process on the third Tuesday of every month, and had been doing it for over 10 years.

However, on this particular third Tuesday, she had a big problem. We received a frantic phone call from her manager that the ERP system was "messed up" and that we couldn't complete the monthly close. Oh crap! She said she was getting an error message saying something about a file being missing, and she wanted to know why we had deleted her files. Wha??

We checked the server - and everything looked fine. So, we visited the user. After enduring the typical "Why do you guys always change things without telling us?" (we don't) and "If you don't fix this you are in big trouble!" (what else is new!) She finally showed us her problem. She went to her desktop, double-clicked on a Windows shortcut and got a Windows error. "See!" she said indignantly, "It does that every time!" After pausing for a moment, I said "Umm, you aren't in the ERP system? What is that shortcut supposed to do?" She looked bewildered, then said "What's a shortcut?" OK, obviously I wasn't going to get anything else useful from her!

The shortcut pointed to a file located on the shared file server. That file wasn't at the location specified in the shortcut. The user said "It always worked before". We now started a search of the file server to see if we could find the file - and we also began questioning other users about the file.

Eventually, we pieced together the answer. The missing file was an Excel report created by a batch job in the ERP system. That job is manually run on the third Monday of every month by another accounting clerk in a different department. She was sick on Monday. Her manager had submitted the job, and had run the job with incorrect inputs and the job had failed. Since the job was written to first delete the old file then create the new file - well, you can guess the rest...

That batch job had been written by a developer who had left. The accounting department ran the job but they had no idea what the job was supposed to do. An IT tech had created the desktop shortcut to the report many years ago because the accounting clerk kept forgetting how to open the Excel report. She had no idea what the shortcut was for, all she knew was that she was supposed to double-click on that icon on her desktop on the third Tuesday of every month. True story!

Executive eMail
My second story moves up to the top of the food chain to a CEO. You really can't get any more low-tech than this senior executive. Can you imagine someone in business today who doesn't use a computer at all? No email, no web - nothing. Oh, you can send the CEO an email, and you may even get a response - but the CEO didn't use a computer or Blackberry or any other electronic device to do it. Here's the process used by an industry leader running a $2B+ company:

An email arrives at the CEO's inbox.
One of the CEO's two Executive Admins located at the corporate office opens the email and prints it out.
The printed emails are then delivered to the CEO - and since the CEO is often traveling, the printed pages are usually delivered via overnight shipping to wherever the CEO happens to be. If the Admin determines it is an urgent message, the email may be faxed to the CEO, or even read over the telephone.
The CEO receives the stack of printed emails and hand writes a response on each page. It is not unusual to see her reading and writing responses during meetings.
The stack of responses is shipped back to the corporate office via overnight mail.
One of the CEO's Executive Admins reads the handwritten response and types and sends a reply email.
You receive your reply "from" the CEO.

The number of things wrong with this picture are simply mind-boggling. That quick note you sent to the CEO resulted in a piece of paper being flown across the country and back again! So much for email being a greener alternative to the paper memo! Did you really believe the confidential email you sent the CEO was private? Guess again - it was also read by at least one Executive Admin and whoever else handled the printed email and the written response. Did you think sending an email might get the information to the CEO quickly? Nope - your email is subject to the whims of the shipping companies - and the location of the CEO and the weather along the route. But even more than these practical aspects - this is just wrong - a low-tech zone has been created around the CEO like a protective bubble. The rest of the world is rushing forward to make electronic communications faster, more secure and full of rich media - but this CEO is pretending that the technology clock has stood still since 1978.

What chance did an IT professional have in a company run by this CEO? How could an ERP upgrade or an increase in data bandwidth be explained such that this senior executive would understand the importance and impact to the company? The answer is 1) none, and 2) you can't. True story!

Trust me - these two stories are just the tip of the iceberg. I think I'll save the rest for future posts - this garden is simply too fertile to harvest all at one time.

There are plenty of corporate IT stories about silly users on the web. But why? The personal computer has now been around for 30+ years. My 90 year old father reads email and can use a laptop touchpad well enough to play solitaire. And yet, there are still professional employees in large corporations who avoid technology whenever possible and see absolutely no reason why they need to do anything differently than they did before some IT geek placed a PC on their desk. Is this only a phenomenon of the low-tech business? No, of course not - but in my experience a company that has a large number engineers & scientists has much less tolerance for this kind of nonsense. There were plenty of challenges for an IT professional working in a company full of techies, but at least I never had to worry that my users didn't know how to use a mouse.

So, call me a typical arrogant IT geek - but if you were able to logon to your computer, start your browser and read this story, then it's a good chance I'm probably NOT talking about you!

Remembering A Great Engineer

2009-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today I am going to break from my usual cynical diatribes to remember the birth of the greatest inventor of the modern age. Who am I referring to - Thomas Edison? Alexander Graham Bell? Orville & Wilbur Wright? No - I am referring to Nikola Tesla, who's birthday was July 10, 1856. Happy 153rd Birthday Niky!

OK, unless you are an engineering history geek (like me) you're first response was probably "Who?" That's because Tesla also has the dubious distinction of being the most royally screwed man of all time. Tesla was screwed over by EVERYONE - fellow inventors, his employers, the US Government - everyone. You *might* recognize the name Tesla from the "Tesla Coil" your 7th grade science teacher used to thrill you, or perhaps from the movie "The Prestige" where Tesla was played by David Bowie. But Tesla was much, much more.

Nikola Tesla's list of achievements is staggering. He was granted over 275 patents, but many people think there were many more that are lost in the patent archives of the many countries where he filed his patents. Here's just a few of his greatest accomplishments:

The Induction Motor - used in every electric tool, vacuum cleaner, electric cars - anything that runs on AC electricity and spins, whirs, lifts or moves.
The Tesla Coil - in addition to being a really cool special effect for horror movies, it also led to the use of x-rays, fluorescent lamps and the high-discharge lights used on street lamps, large buildings and sports venues. It is also the basis for the wireless transmission of electrical power.
AC Power Transmission - the electrical power you depend on to have lights, television, computers and DVD players is made possible because Tesla figured out how to get the electrical power from the power plants to your house.
Harnessing of Niagara Falls - Tesla was the man behind the construction of the Niagara Falls power plant by Westinghouse, which provided AC electricity to all of New York City.
Radio Control - In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a remote controlled boat to the public and was granted a patent for "teleautomation" the same year. This led to the development of guided torpedoes, missiles and other remotely controlled devices. Please note that this was several years before Marconi was granted his patent for the wireless telegraph! Marconi actually used several of Tesla's patents in his wireless telegraph.
Spark Plug - Tesla received a patent for the "electrical ignitor" that allowed the spark plug to be developed for gasoline engines.
Radar - At the beginning of WW I, Tesla described bouncing high-frequency electrical energy off the metal hulls of ships in order to detect the ships at sea from a great distance. This was decades prior to the actual development of the first radar.
Particle Beam - As WW II was about to break out in Europe, Tesla wrote a detailed technical description of a directed energy weapon that he believed would make war obsolete. It was the first description of a charged particle energy weapon.

As brilliant as Tesla was, he was also completely unable to reap the benefits of his contributions to the world. He was cheated by Thomas Edison and never paid for his complete redesign of the previously inefficient Edison electric motors. After spending years fighting with Edison on AC power transmission and the creation of the Niagara Falls power generation plant, he gave away all of his royalty rights to George Westinghouse in order to keep the Westinghouse Corporation afloat and prevent the robber barons from taking the company. The US Government mysteriously allowed Tesla's patents for wireless radio to be infringed and co-opted by Marconi, allowing Marconi to become fabulously rich while Tesla received nothing. It seems as if everyone except Tesla became incredibly wealthy from his work.

In Tesla's later years, he became more and more eccentric - becoming obsessed with avoiding germs and caring for sick NYC pigeons. He became extremely secretive, and his ideas became increasingly more fantastic. Some of those ideas have never been fully understood, and unfortunately the mixture of hyperbole, science and lack of thorough documentation means that much of his brilliance has been lost or ignored. In 1943, just a few months after Tesla's death, the US Supreme Court ruled in Tesla's favor and agreed that he was the owner of several key patents used by Marconi to develop the radio. It was, of course, too late.

When we think of great inventors, we usually think of people of like Thomas Edison. But Edison was a brute force inventor - he was self-taught and he often did not understand the science underlying the devices he built. He succeeded by continuous & non-stop experimentation and achieved success only after many, many experimental failures. Tesla was exactly the opposite of Edison. Tesla was a brilliant mathematician and engineer. He developed his products after first studying and understanding the science involved. Edison distrusted and rejected AC power because he couldn't understand the principles. DC power was much simpler, albeit also much more limited in it's usefulness. Tesla was also believed to possess a photographic memory and to practice what was called "picture thinking" where he could visualize an invention in great detail before ever attempting to begin construction. There could not have been two more different styles than Edison & Tesla.

During the infamous "War of Currents" between Edison's DC power and Tesla & Westinghouse's AC power, Edison went after his former employee with a brutal and vicious propaganda campaign to discredit AC power. Edison used his wealth and political friends to portray AC power as hideously dangerous and a disaster waiting to happen. Edison filmed animals being electrocuted by AC power, including the killing by electrocution of a Coney Island circus elephant named Topsy. He also funded the development of the AC-driven electric chair for human executions, and lobbied to have execution by the electric chair be known as being "Westinghoused". Ultimately, despite Edison's efforts, Tesla's AC power was chosen as the superior technology. Unfortunately for Tesla, the years of fighting with Edison had left Westinghouse near collapse. Tesla tore up his extremely lucrative royalty contract in order to save the Westinghouse company. Westinghouse survived and flourished, while Tesla was left with financial problems for the rest of his life.

I know of no other historical figure quite like Tesla. No one else contributed as much to advance modern technology, yet received so little - certainly not wealth and not fame outside of engineering geekdom. I do believe the internet has dramatically increased the visibility and knowledge of Tesla and his accomplishments - and I think that is only fitting. I believe Tesla would be quite pleased that a worldwide network of interconnected data storage and computing machines is now available to nearly anyone in the world. I also think he would be disappointed that we still have to plug those devices in!

Education Means Anything Except Teaching

2009-07-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

As my children have navigated their way through the California public school system, I have had a parent's view of another of my favorite examples of the decline of the human species - the education system. I need to throw out a disclaimer that I am NOT a product of the same school system - I was sentenced to 8 years at a small Catholic school, and was not released into the public school system until high school. So, my personal experience was MUCH different than the modern public school - but I think that also allows me to look at the current system as a complete outsider.

My kids were very fortunate, a brand new elementary school was opened in our neighborhood when my oldest son entered 2nd grade. The new school was really excellent - the principal was top-notch and she hand-picked her crew of teachers. However, even this ideal situation was flawed. At my son's previous school (only 3 miles away) the first grade program had embraced a hand writing method called the D'Nealian Method. OK - I don't know why they felt they needed to use a method that none of the parents knew anything about, but if they thought it was an improvement - OK. But unfortunately when he got to the 2nd grade, they announced they had abandoned the D'Nealian Method and gone back to the more traditional Zaner-Bloser Method. So, after having the slanted, curly D'Nealian method drilled into him for an entire year, he was now told everything he was doing was incorrect, and he now needed to try to both advance his skills AND re-learn the basics at the same time. Since 1st and 2nd grades are critical in the development of writing skills - he was seriously screwed, and I honestly believe this affected him at a crucial time and continues to affect him. My daughter (who is younger) was more fortunate and did not have this disruption.

But, all-in-all, elementary school was fabulous - especially when compared to middle school. Middle school is an absolute nightmare. It is the worst combination of jaded, uncaring teachers plus draconian, inane school policies plus obnoxious, viscous preteens - all jammed together in an over-crowded and under-maintained facility. Kids learn some important skills in middle school - they learn there is safety in groups, they learn that the weak become targets, and they learn that adults will not always be around to save them. Is this really what we want to teach our 11 to 13 year old children? But it's not just that it isn't a safe environment - they also fail inside the classrooms.

The middle school curriculum is bizarre. For the first time, kids are categorized and segregated - both by their abilities and also by their interests. But God help your child if they don't fit in one of the available categories. Your child has one big decision to make. If they want to take ANY music, then they give up all of their electives and take music for the 3 years of middle school. They are not able to take shop or computers or art - only music. Or, if they choose not to take music, then they can choose from a variety of electives - but they can not take any music classes. Why? Who decided that at 11 years old you need to decide that music is more important than anything else? It is yet another ridiculous and arbitrary rule created by the group that believes they are the only ones who are qualified to know what is best for our children - the educators.

The educators like to blame the parents for not helping to educate our children. I call Bull Crap. The school system doesn't want our help. If they did, they would actually communicate to the parents about the assignments that are coming up, the topics they are teaching and references we can use to help our kids complete the assignments. A very small minority of teachers use tools like Parent Connect to inform us of the scores our children have received - but even the best of them give us those scores only AFTER the assignment - they do not tell us what the assignment is, or when it will be due BEFORE the due date. Why not? Don't they know what assignments they are going to assign? Isn't it nearly identical as it was last year and the year before? Here's a new flash to the school system - the parents can't help if we don't know what you are doing in the classroom! You can't honestly believe we are going to find out everything from our kids, can you? Have you talked to our kids? They can't remember what they had for lunch, let alone what assignments were issued. You claim that it is the kids responsibility to keep track of the assignments - but which is more important - the lesson in accountability or turning in the book report? Gee - since you only issue a grade for the report, maybe that should be the priority, no?

The schools are completely focused on the state testing scores. That's really a shame - because focusing on standardized testing is not going to produce better students or better human beings. Should there be standardized testing? Yes, there should - it is the only way I know to evaluate a large population. However, there is a fundamental problem with using standardized test scores and ignoring that problem completely oversimplifies the reality of teaching children. As an example, I use my own experience in a college engineering class. The department head decided to evaluate the different teachers all teaching the same class by having each teacher submit two questions for the final exam. Every class would take the same final, and the test would be composed of all the questions from each of the instructors. When I took the final, it was obvious which two questions came from my instructor. I easily solved those problems. The questions from the other instructors were MUCH more difficult - I didn't understand the problem statements and I didn't have a good grasp on how to approach the problem. When I spoke to students from the other classes, they felt exactly the same - the problems from their own instructors were easy, but the others were extremely difficult.

What does this example show? It shows that how problems are presented is just as important as the core concepts being learned. All of those instructors were presenting the same concepts - but how they presented those concepts and the example problems they used to illustrate the ideas differed. I have no doubt that with enough time and with access to the right reference materials, we could have all figured out all of the problems - but in a test environment you don't have a lot of time or any references - you either recognize the problem and the solution approach, or you probably aren't going to get that problem correct. I believe the same situation affects the state standardized testing. Problems that the kids recognize are solved easily, those that are not recognized are probably not solved. Of course there are kids who do well no matter what - and there are kids who will not do well - but the vast majority in the middle of the bell curve are the ones being hurt - and that is the overwhelming majority of our children!

Of course, the schools are focused on the state testing because their funding is tied to the test results. I'm not sure that's the right metric to be used for school funding. It's tempting to make the funding performance based, because we want the schools to have incentive to succeed. I agree the schools need to be held accountable for their performance, but if the standardized testing is flawed (and I claim it is) then that's the wrong metric to use for funding decisions. I would rather see the schools judged against standards, but controlled more locally. And part of that local control is parent involvement in the policy decisions at their schools. I'm not talking about the PTA or the other pretend organizations - and I'm also not talking about the school board or the other political/bureaucratic bodies - I'm talking about parents with kids currently in the school with a seat at the management table and with direct input and visibility into the operations of our schools and how the money is spent.

Would this work? I have no idea. Could it be worse than what we have now? I very much doubt it! I believe it would elevate the issues that matter to parents, and it would blunt the schools penchant for using the parents as their excuse for their own poor performance. I want the accountability at ALL levels on ALL parties - the kids, the parents, the teachers AND the administrators.

Language & Hypocrisy In Corporate America

2009-07-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

How many of you have bosses that cuss like drunken sailors? Do they drop F-bombs in meetings and everywhere else? If you do, you are not alone - in fact, it is one of the most common taboo words in the English language. It is forbidden in newspapers, forbidden on network television & radio and forbidden by the vast majority of corporate HR policies (check for code words in your policy manual like "obscene" or "vulgar") And yet - most of us hear it spoken nearly every day in those same corporate workplaces.

Let's examine a few of the most respected public figures who have been caught using this troublesome & taboo term:

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz dropped one during a quarterly analyst call.
Senator John McCain reminds us he was a Navy man.
Prior to being Vice-President Cheney, he was Salty Senator Cheney.
Vice-President Biden proves it is used equally well by both Dems & Reps.
Even a Pretty Woman will drop one (or several).
Don't heckle Babs at a concert, or she'll lob a nuclear-sized one right on your head.
Even Tinkerbell's boss, Disney CEO Robert Iger will throw one.

Let's face it - if you aren't afraid your immortal soul will instantly go down in flames, you have probably thrown out an F-bomb at least once.

But in 2009 there are also employees at corporations across America that are being fired for writing an F-bomb in an email. That, boys and girls, is called hypocrisy.

It doesn't even have to be one of those scalding mass emails that the disgruntled Columbine kid sends to the entire company - it happens to employees that send "private" emails to each other. Of course, there is no such thing as a "private" email inside a corporation - many corporations can and do screen employee email boxes - and they can and do fire employees for the contents of the messages they send. (This is the subject of a whole 'nuther article that is yet to be written!)

Why? What is it about this word being used in an email that is so much worse than simply saying it out loud? Good grief, technology-based communication has become ubiquitous to an entire generation - and yet we still treat the spoken work differently than the written. I understand the difference between libel and slander, and the permanence of the written word, but given the rise of cell phone video & youtube, can you really be so sure that your spoken words aren't just as permanent as an email? Every one of those political and celebrity gaffs I listed were verbal - and after a short google search, they appear to be pretty darn permanent to me!

I admit that I have a real problem with hypocrisy. If a CEO wants to run their company by a set of strict family or religious rules - fine, go for it - but don't throw F-bombs during closed door meetings and then act outraged when an employee writes the same word in an email. In my opinion, that is MUCH worse than the choice of a particular word. Either live by the rules you make, or eliminate the rules.

When I write: "What a freakin' jerk", you know exactly what I really mean - in fact, I'm willing to bet a good majority of you subconsciously substituted the main star of this article for the placeholder word freakin'. If I write "What the fudge?", you also know what I meant. In fact, just writing "F-bomb" or "F--- You" provides exactly the same impact and mental image as using the actual unforgivable word. Some might say "Yeah - so why not just use a substitute?" My response is exactly the opposite: If it means exactly the same thing, why is the substitute OK and the taboo word is not? I'm sorry, but anyone who uses "freakin" or "fudge" or "flippin" as a polite substitute (as I have done throughout this diatribe) is a fraud and a hypocrite.

Words are symbols used to convey meaning within the context of their use. I will make the claim that there are no "bad" words, no more than there are bad numbers or letters. It is the intent and the use of the words that is important, not the words themselves. It has been stated that "the ultimate offensiveness of words is determined entirely by pragmatic variables such as speaker–listener relationship and social–physical setting, as well as the words used and tone of voice" (Jay & Janschewitz, 2007, 2008; Locher & Watts, 2005). There are abusive emails that contain absolutely no taboo words - and there are emails full of profanity that are not abusive. Corporations and society in general needs to take their blinders off and pull the plugs out of their ears - it's just a freakin' word!

What Happened To The Holidays?

2009-07-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Humans ruin everything they touch. We take every idea to such a ridiculous extreme that it becomes a defiled parody of the original intent. Independence Day is perhaps the least corrupted holiday left in the United States, but even the 4th of July has become an example of human insanity. I am a rabid capitalist - but this is the dark underbelly of the free market system.

You want examples? Good - every cynic should be ready to back-up their statements with proof.

Have you ever tried to buy a small American flag in October? Good luck. You will probably have to go online or perhaps find a specialty flag store. During the last 2 weeks of June they sell them at every 7-11, gas station and grocery store. Apparently, there are only 2 weeks a year that Americans are willing to purchase our nation's most recognizable symbol.

Is there a weird annual natural phenomenon that causes the worldwide supply of oil to drop during the weeks surrounding the 4th of July, causing the price of gas to shoot up 25%? And on the flip side, when did it become mandatory for 80% of the population to be *somewhere else* on Independence Day? Every July 2, everyone suddenly has this irrepressible need to rush 300 miles away from their home like refugees from a N'awlins hurricane.

I really like fireworks - they are the next best thing to actual explosives (I've been a pyro since I was a kid). But the laws for buying fireworks in Southern California are absolutely bizarre. Selling *any* type of fireworks (even the really wimpy stuff) is illegal in most counties and cities. However a few enterprising cities have made *buying* fireworks legal - as long as they are sold by licensed vendors. Using the fireworks is still illegal everywhere outside the city limits of those towns - but since there are no rules about where the people buying the fireworks come from - the town does a tremendous business during the weeks preceding the 4th. People come hundreds of miles to buy their fireworks from the non-profit organizations that are the licensed vendors. There's nothing quite as satisfying as buying cardboard tubes filled with flammable gunpowder from the Senior Center or the St. Francis Catholic Church. Hey, its for a good cause, right?

Why do we do this to everything around us? We take everything 50% past the point where it makes sense. If 1 pound of something is good, then 2 tons of it must be GREAT. More is always better, moderation is for wussies. I suppose it's another aspect of the silly super-size mentality that pervades today. They don't call us "consumers" for nothing - that is our primary role in the world today - to consume as much and as quickly as we can. When we don't, entire industries fail, and with it goes the world's economy.

So do the world a favor - on this 4th of July drink beer until you pass out - the economy is counting on you to do your patriotic duty!

A Modern Hunter-Gatherer

2009-07-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not a very evolved human being. I define myself by my ability to provide for me and my clan. I guess that makes me not very much different from my Lower-Paleolithic ancestor Homo habilis. Bring home a woolly mammoth for dinner, and you are the big hero. Come home empty handed, and you might find yourself evicted from your cave and the main entree at the home of a sabre-toothed cat or hyena.

As a society, we like to pretend that there is a huge difference between us and our rock-throwing forefathers. Personally, I don't see much difference. Sure, we have much more stuff - and we have made the world a much more complicated place - but - peel away the technology, the pretentious social & political trappings and the other luxuries that come from being the top predator on the planet, and what are you left with? You are left with a group of two-legged hairless apes scurrying around trying to bring home dinner.

In fact, an argument could be made that Homo sapians still has a heck of way to go to be able to claim to be as successful as Homo habilis. H. habilis is believed to have lived from about 2.5 million to 1.6 million years ago. They survived for about 900,000 years - that's about 50,000 generations. H. Sapians has been around for only about 200,000 years - less than 25% of H. habilis. We will have to survive waaaaay past the Star Trek era to match that!

Beyond simple survival and species longevity, we may have much more to learn from H. habilis. It has been conjectured that the social structure of H. habilis was the first group to cooperate in activities such as hunting, food gathering and tool making. The longevity and success of their species may have been due in part to their relatively peaceful coexistence with neighboring groups and their willingness to work together instead of competing. Believe it or not, there is actually a term known as "primitive communism" attributed to Marx & Engels to describe the egalitarianism of early hominid societies. I doubt very much the early humans were very concerned with the oppression of the masses by the capitalists - but if it got more meat in the cave, great!

So, if I am just another grunting, stick-waving hominid, what does it mean to be unemployed? We have no way of knowing what H. habilis would have done with a member of the clan that temporarily couldn't contribute. They rest of the clan might have cared for him (state unemployment insurance) or they might have had him for dinner. The latter might certainly also explain the success of their species - there is nothing like a little thinning of the gene pool to strengthen the following generations. It would also have made sure that able-bodied workers got off their butts and back to work as soon as possible!

No, I'm not advocating cannibalism as a solution to unemployment - at least not while there's still so many other (better tasting) species for us to eat. This is not a treatise on how to solve unemployment. I'm just pointing out that the funk that descends on the unemployed may have very deep-seated roots in the human psyche. A person who has spent their entire adult life as the primary provider for their family cannot easily become a non-productive member of society without it also affecting their mental self-image and how they view their place in society. Maintaining the belief that you CAN reenter the workforce is a critical part of surviving a temporary unemployment. When you start believing that you can no longer be a provider, you are entering a very dangerous downward spiral.

What can you do to keep your chin up while being ignored by dozens of recruiters on a daily basis? Well, one way is what I am doing with these blog posts - I am using this blog as an outlet for my frustrations and also as a way to keep my brain active. If I can write a bit of drivel that I am proud of, then perhaps I CAN still use my brain to provide value to an employer. Find an outlet that allows you to be proud of something you do, whether that is writing, consulting or just working on projects around the house.

So, to my great-to-50,000th grandfather H. habilis, I salute your indomitable spirit, your ingenuity and your skill with a stone axe. I will not let you down!

Reality? Bah!

2009-06-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

My dislike of the entire genre of "reality" TV shows is reaching a fevered pitch. The longer they survive, the less reality is involved. Even shows I will watch, like "Deadliest Catch" are pissing me off. Who watches the really crappy shows like "The Bachelor", "Super Nanny" and "Big Brother"? And if you do - have you no shame? I know of no clearer demonstration of the decline of the human race than the rise and persistence of reality TV shows.

I'll speak plainly - these shows are to television as the WWE is to ancient Olympic wrestling.

It's hard for me to believe that the same industry that produced "Sopranos" and "X-Files" is happy making seven seasons of the "The Biggest Loser".

I do get the whole "they are cheaper to make" concept. I really do. But that is exactly what is now causing me to call bull crap. The latest round of reality shows have become more and more manipulated through editing and other post-production games. They are shooting more and more hours of film in order to edit it down into the fabricated storyline the show wishes to tell. The scenes are displayed out of sequence, out of context and with all vestiges of "reality" removed. Characters are born, drama is created and the heroes live to fight another day. What we are left with is a show that is as much fiction as a sitcom - but with really lousy actors.

I think what has sent me over the edge was a recent episode of "Deadliest Catch". The previews and commercials showed one of the main characters calling the Coast Guard on the radio, with a cut to a Coast Guard helicopter taking off from a frozen and ice-laden dock. Uh-oh - this is Big Trouble! As the episode progressed, the boat is shown laboring through increasingly dense ice flows when one of the main engines blows - oh crap! Of course, the very next scene shows them reaching the dock safe & sound. The Coast Guard? Oh yeah, that was actually a call made by the captain as he was *leaving* the dock (with his engines repaired) to ask the Coast Guard how far out from the harbor the ice went. The answer? "About a quarter mile." The next scene shows them happily steaming out of the harbor free of the ice. Umm - OK, I guess that was mildly entertaining, but this is the equivalent of a traffic jam caused by gawkers of a freeway accident hoping to see a dead body in the opposite lanes. You got me to look, but there was nothing to see.

Of course, this isn't really the first time reality shows have been on TV. Aren't game shows and talk shows really just another form of reality TV? We watch because we are hoping someone will do something incredibly stupid. Wasn't that the entire premise of "Let's Make A Deal"? Monty Hall picked the most outrageous person in the crowd, and we were all entertained by making fun of them as they were humiliated on national TV. Good clean (and cheap) fun.

What's really missing from today's reality shows is the reality. I say show 'em live and uncut. That's reality - the hours of boredom, the passive-aggressive relationships and the endless toil for very little gain. Yeah, right - I would rather watch "Wheel of Fortune".

My prediction? Reality TV "contestants" will eventually require a SAG card, and they will demand higher pay and royalties. Hopefully, that will mean the end of this nightmare.

My Turn At The Trough

2009-06-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

Being unemployed means applying for unemployment insurance from the EDD. This is a brand new experience for me - until now I had previously been continuously employed since graduating from college in 1984. I successfully negotiated the EDD UI web application and also had a short phone interview with an EDD rep. I then waited for the first check to arrive...

After waiting the obligatory 10 working days, I began to get worried. So, I revisited the web site looking for a status. They have an automated phone IVR system that can be used to get status. The first time I called, it required me to go through an incredibly bizarre process in order to set a PIN. The IVR asked me the following questions:

Social Security Number (not followed with a #)
UI Check Dollar Amount (whole dollars before taxes only - no cents - followed by a #)
Zip Code Used On Application (5 digits not followed by a #)
My Birthdate (6 digits not followed by a # - does anyone remember Y2K?)
Phone Number Used On Application (no area code - 7 digits only - not followed by a #)
My new PIN

Holy touch tone Batman! It took me 4 tries to get my PIN set. If you enter a number incorrectly, it gives you one chance to correct it, and then it disconnects you, forcing you to call back and start from scratch. Not counting the EDD phone number to get connected, that process requires 22 key presses just to set my PIN. I probably did over 100 key presses due to my finger fumbles and screw-ups.

After 30 minutes and two index finger cramps later, I was finally past the PIN gate. I am then told: "There have been no checks issued on this account". Well duh! That's why I'm calling! So much for the automated system - another fine example of technology making everyone's life just a little better.

Being the persevering professional that I am, I moved on to plan B - calling the EDD support line. So, after removing the ice pack from my index finger, I called. I was met with an automated answer that said: "We are currently receiving more calls than our system can handle. Please try again later." *CLICK* Click? Click! What the heck? This is a support line? I've seen more support for the Taliban at a Bush family reunion. So, of course, I assumed it must have been a fluke - I called back - same thing!

I then found the following little ditty in the EDD FAQ:

Why can’t I get through on the telephone?

When our telephone systems receive too many calls the telephone network becomes temporarily overloaded. If that occurs, you will hear a message that states, “We are currently receiving more calls than our system can handle. Please try again later.” This tends to happen between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., and the problem should resolve itself in a few minutes. This is also likely to occur on our busiest days (Mondays, and days after a holiday).

Once you have reached our telephone system, and you make the menu selections to speak to a Representative, the system routes your call to the location with the shortest wait time. However, if it appears that your call cannot be answered within 10 minutes because of the number of callers already waiting, you will hear a message advising you to call back later. To avoid this possibility, you may want to call on Wednesday or Thursday, which are our least busy days.

OK! Once again, technology has made everything better! We can now automatically hang-up on people whenever we get too busy - perfect!

The EDD is getting hit with a double whammy. With an 11.5% unemployment rate in California, they are being swamped by a huge spike in unemployment insurance claims. In addition, the disastrous California state budget means the EDD can't hire any additional help.

Hmm - here's an idea - how about we route all the phone calls coming into the EDD to the floor of the California legislature? I mean why not - those assemblymen & state senators don't seem to be accomplishing anything with the budget, so they might as well do something constructive. Plus, if I am going to be hung-up on by the state, it might as well be by the guy that is supposed to be representing me.

While we're at it, here's another idea - how about we randomly select 500 people waiting on hold in the EDD support line queue and have THEM fix the state budget. Could they do any worse? Could I? Heck, I'll do it for half the salary of a state senator, and I promise that when I get a real job, I'll step away from the state trough. Show me a politician willing to make THAT promise!

Mr. Governator: I am available to start immediately.

Corporate Recruiting Is Broken

2009-06-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

From my first post, you know that I am looking for a new job. I have to admit it's been quite a while since I last looked for a job (ie. the previous century). However, I have now been on both sides of this story - I have been a hiring manager trying desperately to find great employees, and I am now a employee desperately looking for a great company. One of the big changes since I was last in the job market is the use of 3rd party "talent management" systems to allow the corporate HR departments to manage job postings and collect information from applicants. These systems are typically integrated into the corporate web sites and allow the applicant to search and apply for the current opportunities at that company. Sounds good so far, right?

I'm here to tell you this system is broken. With very few exceptions it is an excellent example of technology in search of a purpose and of a process that the majority of the users will not complain about - because they are all desperately trying to get a job, and it is unlikely that telling the HR department their process stinks is a good opening gambit. Sounds like a job for a devil may care cynic...

Let's start with step one - many of the companies use the same 3rd party providers. A couple of the largest vendors are taleo and kenexa (apparently, having a meaningless name is a prerequisite). I see these two quite often and each time I do I *cringe*. Each company is a completely separate instance of the talent management system - which means I am required to create a new profile for every company. Yes, I know that's more secure, data segregation & protection, yada-yada - but please, couldn't they have allowed me to create ONE user profile that could be reused at each of the companies I visit that use taleo? I have typed my name, contact information, job history and education into taleo dozens of times. It's a huge waste of time. Ironically, taleo & it's ilk are most often used by the largest companies. Smaller companies tend to stick to the large job boards, like Monster, Hot Jobs, etc - and at those sites I *can* create a reusable profile.

OK, that one I hang on the talent management system vendors. Time to move on to the hiring companies themselves. The information they collect from each applicant just for the slim chance they may *possibly* give the applicant a call back is bewildering. You need the name and phone number of all my previous supervisors? Really? You need my salary from a job I left 10 years ago? Really? Why? I'm a firm believer that information that isn't actually used shouldn't be collected - not because of any privacy concerns, but simply because it's a waste of time for the user to type it in and a waste of server resources to hold on to it. If it isn't needed to decide whether to call me back, then don't collect the information! They are collecting data from hundreds of applicants and actually using 10% of the data from maybe 4 or 5 candidates. Madness.

Finally, I need to state what is perhaps obvious to job seekers, but not often discussed within the company. The HR recruiter's primary focus is NOT to find the best candidates. Every job seeker knows the truth - the HR recruiter's primary job is to eliminate candidates such that whoever is left, must (by definition) be the right candidate. The overly-complex talent management system and the pile of collected data is all part of that truth. The more data that is collected, the more likely it is that something will be noticed that eliminates that applicant from further consideration. Hmm, does that mean the candidate with the best chances is the one who provides the least information? I think this is especially true when non-high tech companies are trying to recruit high tech employees. The in-house recruiters are simply not knowledgeable enough on technology topics to evaluate the candidates any other way.

As a hiring manager, I was always frustrated by the lack of qualified candidates being forwarded to me by my internal HR recruiters. A common practice of desperate hiring managers is to get outside recruiters to send them resumes, and to then forward those resumes to the internal recruiters. Of course, the internal HR recruiters hate that - they don't want to deal with outside recruiters and placement fees. But think about it - what this really means is that the huge fees paid to taleo and the other talent management vendors aren't actually working at all - that entire system is a waste of time and money for *everyone* - job seekers, HR departments & hiring managers. It all sounds good, and I'm sure the sales teams do a masterful job of showing the value of the solution during impressive demos - but does anyone stop and actually consider whether the technology has made the process better?

When good candidates can't get to the hiring managers, and the hiring managers can't find good candidates - that is a broken process!

Cynicism 101

2009-06-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

I recently saw this line on a company's employment site: "Cynics, pessimists and curmudgeons need not apply." Well, that certainly caught me up short. I am a self-professed True Cynic, and I am also hunting for a job, does that mean I need to stop and reevaluate my life? Am I holding myself back by having a "bad" attitude? That's not good!

But wait, is being a cynic a bad thing? Maybe I need to back-up and figure out what the heck a cynic really is.

I hate stories that contain a dictionary definition of a word - that is so lame. However, looking up the word "cynic" returns a rather interesting history. A history that has significantly changed the meaning of the word from it's origins.

It starts in ancient Greece, with a wacky group of philosophers that called themselves the "Cynics". These dudes believed that happiness meant living in agreement with nature, and that this world belonged equally to everyone. Suffering was caused by making false judgments about what was important in life. They rejected *everything* associated with the conventions of their modern society - religion, manners, style, money, power & decency - they believed in only the pursuit of virtue through the most simplistic and non-material living. Wow, that sounds like a barrel of fun, doesn't it?

Historians believe ancient Cynicism gave rise to Stoicism, and may have led to many of the austere aspects of Judaism, the rather socialist ideas of early Christianity, and ultimately to the Vow of Poverty still practiced by many orders of Catholic monks and nuns.

Sometime in the late 18th century, the term cynicism took on a different meaning. It focused on the distrust and rejection of the motives of others, and on the jaded & negative attitude toward just about everything and everyone.

That's pretty much where we are today - a cynic is generally regarded to be someone who questions the motives of others and who looks for the black heart in the silver lining. So, is this bad? And, more importantly, when I call myself a "True Cynic" am I aligning myself with the ancient Greek philosophers, or with the modern pessimistic curmudgeon?

The short answer is both. I look at the world around me and I see plenty of false judgments causing suffering. There is no doubt in my mind that this world would be a better place without the petty power struggles that happen at all levels - from a married couple to entire nations. However, I hesitate when we begin to talk about everyone having an equal share of this world. We may have all been *created* equal, but apparently a huge number of us were dropped on our heads shortly after that. Isn't it possible that many of the "false judgments" made by people are simply because they are stupid? Is it a false judgment if they *thought* it was the right thing to do, but they were just too dumb to see the outcome?

This is also where I begin to part ways with the modern definition of cynicism. I do absolutely doubt the altruistic motives of most people, most of the time. In business, looking for how someone benefits from the position they are expounding is very rarely the wrong path. However, I also think there are many instances when the person is not evil or purely power hungry - they are just plain ignorant. The implication that a cynic always thinks a person generally acts in their own best interest is incomplete - I think a person generally acts in what they believe to be their best interests. That doesn't mean it really *is* in their best interests!

So what am I defining to be a True Cynic? Well, I believe the world really is a very silly place, and most of that silliness is caused by the fact that humans as a whole are a VERY silly species. We are capable of producing individuals that can achieve wondrous things - and we are also capable of creating entire civilizations based on truly idiotic tenets. Therefore, when I call myself a cynic, I am speaking of the world and the human species as a generalization. The trick is to find the subset of our species that was not dropped on its head, and when you do - hang on to them! Call me a cynic, ironic, sarcastic, sardonic - just so long as you call me to dinner.

Is Introspection For The Weak?

2009-06-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

Driven, focused, assertive, high-energy - I often see these & similar traits listed in job postings for middle and upper management positions. And certainly, it's hard to argue against a company that wishes to employ leaders who can actually lead. But it also seems to me that there may be another side to that coin. If all of your leaders are gung-ho generals ready to charge up San Juan Hill and carry all of their troops with them, is there anyone in your organization willing to stop and consider whether a frontal assault is the best strategy - let alone whether what's on the other side of that hill is even desirable? Shouldn't an organization also have a few folks that are occasionally willing to look inward and question their own judgment? Or is introspection only for the weak?

In my experience, corporate senior executives are never wrong. They might have been misled by subordinates, or given insufficient information, or even taken a calculated risk that was predicted to be the correct path - but they are never simply wrong. Now, don't misunderstand me, their superiors in the corporate food chain might think they were wrong - and that is usually followed by a company-wide email announcing that another executive "has left to pursue other opportunities". And that (of course) simply teaches the rest of the executive team to never be wrong.

The first rule of sales is "Always be selling" - and I think the predominance of Sales & Marketing executives being elevated to the top spots in corporations has led to a breed of senior executive that is incapable of introspection. They are always selling - their ideas, their strategies, their tactical plans. Anyone who has been in a budget planning meeting with an executive knows it is a pure sales pitch - you are trying to convince that executive to buy your plan. The senior executive probably has no idea whether your plan will work or is even feasible - but they know a good pitch when they hear it, and if you aren't supremely confident, you will be roasted alive.

OK, so the pitch was good and you get your budget - now you MUST deliver. The executive approved your plan, so your plan must be good - to think otherwise would mean the unthinkable - that the executive was wrong. That can't be right. So, the only alternative is that your plan is fine, and YOU are wrong - you simply need to buck-up and git 'r done.

So what have we done? We've created an organization where no one is ever wrong and failure is not an option. I call Bull Crap. Such an organization doesn't exist. Stuff happens and no amount of planning sessions, executive reviews, service level agreements or consultants will create the mythical zero-defect organization. You have two options: 1) Pretend you live in the magical kingdom of Never Wrong and start lopping heads whenever you are disappointed by your underlings, or 2) Be willing to admit that EVERYONE needs to be willing to set aside their narcissistic, ego-driven sales mask and recognize when it's time to take a step back. If your subordinate is willing to risk your wrath by questioning the plan - then encourage that level of introspection. If ALL of your subordinates are willing to do the same, then you can listen to a raised concern and be confident that the rest of your team will give you their honest opinions and either confirm the issue or have reasons why you still move forward. On the other hand, if you surround yourself with employees that simply feed your ego, you really can't trust any of them - and you will blissfully charge forward to your doom.

Is introspection for the weak? I say no - I think introspection requires MORE courage, MORE focus on the end goals and MORE commitment to success.

Not A Smart Move

2009-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Every site giving tips on finding a new job tells you to be careful about what you post on the internet. That makes sense - you certainly don't want to scare off any prospective employers with discussions of your depravities & deviant proclivities. So, what's one of the first things I do? I start my very first blog. Not a smart move.

Why would I do such a silly thing? Well, it could be because I'm absolutely convinced that a prospective employer will read *my* blog and instead of thinking I'm a moron, they will be so awed by my deep insights and mastery of language that they will be compelled to instantly offer me a position on their executive team as the CGMO (Chief Grey Matter Officer). Or, it could be because I have decided to shuck the yoke of corporate life and make my living as a thinker and writer, and this blog is my first step down a road that will bring me fabulous fame and fortune. Or, it could be because I'm an idiot. Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

In my humble opinion, the best blogs hold to some sort of theme. The posts are not just random nonsense on anything that tickles the author's fancy - they are *specific* nonsense that tickles the author's (and hopefully the reader's) fancy. So, what will the theme of this blog be? That has been a very difficult decision. After MUCH more thought than I anticipated would be required, I kept coming back to the same point - cynicism.

Cynicism?
Those who have spent any time with me will tell you that underneath (and not far underneath) my outer facade of jovial, good-natured professionalism lies a True Cynic. I'm cynical on a wide range of topics - from the future of the human race to the genre of reality TV (actually, those two topics are connected). If I am successful, I will challenge your preconceived ideas, amuse more people than I offend and be considered a complete idiot only by those who know me best.

And for any prospective employers out there: No, I wasn't really thinking about the long-term ramifications of this decision, but now that you have pointed it out, I think you are right - it really wasn't a smart move.