Stupidiocy - and some illustrated examples.

Some people do or say stupid things. Some people are idiots (i.e. morons).
Often times there is a correlation between the two, as it's possible there are people who do or say stupid things, and are idiots.

I would call them 'stupidiots'. What they do is stupidiotic.

Here's an example observed in North Bend this past weekend -

Yes, this is an example of a stupid person (WA license plate A23489Z drivng a Chevy gas guzzler) doing something extremely idiotic - parking a large vehicle in four parking spots. Talk about having a big ass and letting the whole world know one has one. It's one thing to not fit a GM vehicle in one parking stall. But to take up four - that's quite an accomplishment.

Please help me in congratulating the driver (WA license plate A23489Z drivng a Chevy gas guzzler) in providing the first public example (but certainly not the last) of stupidiocy!

Commentary: Microsoft job cuts - part of a bigger problem? Part III – further analysis.

It seems as though 'Mini-Microsoft' appears to be coming down from the high that he claimed was the recent Microsoft Employee meeting.

Regarding this - http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/10/case-of-microsoft-downgrade-blues.html and some of the comments flying about, led me to think up the following.



While I definitely concur about Goldman Sachs' motives, I think that's a separate discussion.



The basis of what's coming out in their report however, I think is largely on-track.


Why Mini would be fighting it so much is anyone's guess. Where could such a reaction orginate from? As someone who worked at MS for a number of years, I think I can make an educated guess, based on what I've observed.



1) All the repeated daily (even hourly) exposure to all the code, technology, and people immersed in it, I think leads many Blue Badges to believe that on some level up (likely Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Gates) ... someone ... has a visionary master plan that leads and ties products, services, strategies, business deliverables and so forth, that will prove all the naysayers wrong (i.e. "this code is so cool, look at what it can do! we rule!!!! billg and steveb just know!!")


In many ways, it's almost like code is a religion at Microsoft, in that a lot of smart people suspend their ability to observe and see reality. If you don't worship at the alter of code, you're not really part of Microsoft.




Anyways back to that 'plan' ...



Years ago, that plan largely revolved around Windows (and eventually Office) and that master plan came from Bill Gates' head. It may not have been documented somewhere, but it was articulated on some level and executed upon. We can argue about whether it was ‘innovative’ or not (I think from a business perspective, it was pretty visionary of Gates to see tying the O/S and the Desktop GUI to the PC).


But that was then.


Today's products, services, etc. require a much more complex and integrated visionary master plan, but a plan nonetheless. That requires a lot of thinking, research and planning, but most important, it really requires an understanding of what one's products do (or can do).

Only the top executives (and perhaps the board of directors) know if such a thing exists and whether they are on track. Right now and for the last 10 years, I think the consensus has been that such a thing does not. I think most people (including those at MS) are finally finding out that Mr. Ballmer has been very good at keeping the company’s two main sources of revenue going, but that’s all.


And more crucially... I think people are finding out that really what he's been doing all along for the last 10 years  is simply executing on the original plan.


The proof is the amount of money that's been spent and the poor results achieved in just about every other market/business. While I would agree that many of the technologies are in and of themselves cool, interesting, useful (perhaps even potentially profitable), as long as they are tied back to Windows and/or Office they will never be really successful (SQL Server is a perfect example - great technology, wonderful innovations. Will never be able to compete or ever be as successful against Oracle because it only functions on Windows.The entire mobile/digital platform is another).

So, how does this tie back to reactions from people who work there?


2) People there spend so much time with their noses and minds in code, that I think they get sucked into a mentality that since they view everything as code, so should everyone else, including their partners, competitors, market analysts, and yes their customers. And that view exists, even when said product or service or whatever goes wrong.


The problem is, not everyone wants to be a developer.

Many if not most customers don't see code.

They see a product or service as a solution to a problem.

If the product doesn't solve the problem, then it doesn't work.


Not everyone wants to spend time going into the Windows registry, or updating a config file. Not everyone thinks that they should have to constantly go into the Control Panel and check if a codec is correctly installed to view that file in Windows Media Player that worked a month ago – only to find out that it doesn’t, and the Microsoft overwrote the codec, and no longer supports it, and no longer gives a fuck whether it bothers you.


When a customer is paying to use a product or service (whether through money, but also time, energy, effort), said customer's experience is to expect things to work … correctly ... each and every time.

 

Why is that important?

So they can get on with their lives.

Customers don't live and breath code.

Customers aren't developers. People in general have things to do.

And when it doesn’t work, when they have to spend time, and effort in understanding why something was done by Microsoft only to realize that they are not going to be helped - > inevitably what happens is, not only to they turn to a competitor (that’s what used to happen).


Given the breath of technology available on the Internet these days, some of these customers actually find themselves saying to themselves –


“I don’t need to turn to Microsoft or someone else.”

“I can do this myself.”

The customer then becomes a competitor.

Think I'm joking? This happened at IBM (SAP was founded by a number of ex-IBM employees).

I think one will find much of that both the old view (anger and turning to some competitor) and the new view (becoming a competitor itself) taking place.

....


Combine these two issues (poor or non-existant modern visionary plan beyond Windows and Office; and an inability to really see and measure the customer experience) and I'd say it's all finally catching up with Microsoft now.

The Goldman Sachs report is really the 'conventional wisdom of the market' finally catching up.

Time will tell what that will really mean to Microsoft's leadership, shareholders, employees, partners and so forth. But I'd say, unless the company's leadership suddenly pulls out this master visionary plan and shows they can act on it and deliver results (or perhaps someone comes in to truly re-invent the company, re-organize them and move in a new direction), well ... I think more layoffs will come, but I think things will go deeper than that.

Microsoft won't disappear (no one sitting on billions of dollars of cash just disappears), but really the decline started long ago and barring any sudden changes, they are on a path to irrelevance; and an inevitable end.



UPDATE: Looks like things are moving already (http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/224089.asp):


Microsoft employees must contribute to health care in 2013



Microsoft held a "surprise town hall" meeting this morning to discuss the "evolution" of its U.S. employee benefits, requiring Blue Badges to contribute to their health-care plans starting in 2013.

Personally I don't think private companies should be in the business of managing their employees' health coverage (through benefits), but that also is a separate subject of discussion.

For now, from a business perspective, I'd say this probably isn't the best way for Microsoft to be retaining Employees.

Have you had this problem before? Getting people to listen to what you say.

For most - if not all - of my life, I've had this problem.

People never seem to ever listen to what I say. Almost every single person I've ever met (to the point that I've known them enough to call them by their first name) has at one point basically ignored something I've said, when I've made a sincere attempt to be honest and forthright.

I've been trying to understand why.

And it seems every person I've ever known in my life has treated me this way. It's like the only person in my life who ever listens to me, is myself.

Think I'm going off the deep-end? Here is a recent example ...

Some months ago, the team I'm working on was spending time setting up a system, in order to see how it worked. The plan was to spend some hours learning about how the system could be configured, set up the system per one of the configurations, then run a test to verify things worked.


So the team picked a configuration, based on our understanding of the things to set up. While doing so, one thing contained a missing field. I noted this. I was given a polite smile by most of the group, and things continued. We got to our tests, and things didn't work.


Again, I referred to back to that missing field. I suggested that we should try and figure out why this field was missed, as the instructions said it needed to be filled. My reasoning was that since we set up everything else, filling in this field should be the only reason why the test didn't work.


Apparently my verbal suggestion was ignored, because the team spent the next two hours looking at every other field and parameter in the system. And yet still the test failed.


Finally, one of the functional analysts looked back at one of the configurations and noted that a field was missing (would you care to guess? Yes it was the field I had mentioned only for the last half-day). Someone else then instantaneouly suggested that we figure out why this field was missing, as it could be the reason why the test didn't work.


The field was checked, it got filled in. The test worked. That someone else was lauded for their quick thinking.

(Almost by instinct, I felt my eyes roll upward)

....

Don't get me wrong, this isn't about adulation, or the sort. It was about avoiding wasting time looking at the problem from every possible angle, except perhaps the one place where something was missing. Yet somehow when I said it, it wasn't listened to. It wasn't until some time later when someone else mentioned it, that it was looked at and determined to be the problem.

And on the way home, I kept asking myself - why didn't anyone listen to me when I said it? Is it because I was the only non-white person? No, because there were a lot of non-white people where I worked, and none of them seem to ever have a problem. Is it because I was the youngest one on the team? Possibly, but also because I was the least knowledgable about the product. On the other hand, I went through the same instructions they did. Is it because I worked in a different part of the team (the team consisted of two developers, and two analysts. I was the only QA person)? Part of my job is to follow instructions carefully, in order to get a specific result, and to be able to reproduce results when they go wrong. That whole 'attention to detail' part of me.

Maybe I have a volume issue - maybe I speak for too long that some think it babble or double-talk?

Could it be something in my face?

Anyways that was from awhile ago. I'm no longer there, as I felt it better to live and work some place where I'm happier. Maybe in time I'll learn what the secret to getting someone's attention is ...

Wall Street profits and overall economic health.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/corporate-profits_n_748889.html

"Profits for companies in the S&P 500 soared 38 percent from the same period last year, hitting $189 billion ..."

(source article: WSJ)

 They did this not be earning more revenue (emphasis mine) ...

"Since 2008, corporate profits increased 10 percent -- but revenue was down 6 percent, the WSJ says. To achieve the impressive quarterly results, companies have had, as the WSJ puts it, to "streamline" their operations. This means firing workers, outsourcing labor and shuttering unprofitable (or less profitable) divisions."

And then there's this -

"All these corporate profits came as the country as a whole got poorer. The net worth of households and non-profits dropped 2.8 percent during the second quarter to $53.5 trillion, erasing two quarters of gains. The figure hadn't been that low since the third quarter of 2009."

So can we agree once and for all that corporate health and overall national economic health are NOT the same same? Trickle-down has always been a myth, and the proof is here.

Quote of the day - 09-11-2010 - "...disappointment is better than disaster."

That line is from Paul Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion).

Probably the single best way to explain to folks in the US (especially of the progressive nature) what would happen should they choose to -

a) not vote for the Democratic Party in upcoming 2010 US Congressional mid-term elections;

b) simply choose to stay home that day.

And this is coming from a man who isn't a fan of the Obama Administration's current fiscal and economical policies.

Moving time.

Well not as though the blog is going anywhere. Rather I myself am moving.

Frankly it could not come at a better time for me.

I'd been trapped in my job for some time. Indeed my relationship with the team I worked on and with can be best described as the one between Strega Nona and Big Anthony, with me sadly being the latter. Being able to suggest improvements based on my observations was off-limits. It seemed as though everything else I did was being directed by the team, and that they seemed to enjoy reminding me that they felt they could do my job anytime they wanted to, but that they didn't because they hated doing it.

Almost like taking out the garbage or picking up shit.

Well now they'll get their chance get their hands dirty and to be shit-pickers :).

Also, I've grown weary of this area. I've always felt it was a nice place to visit, but that the Seattle area was a better fit for me, my family, and our collective future.

As for me, it's on to a different environment and different work culture. One thing I'm looking forward to is working on a team where what I do is valued and respected not just by my boss, but by the organization overall. And that achieving my goals (i.e. being successful) not only helps the product or service I'm working on, but opens up avenues for success as well.

So expect that I'll be offline for the next few days.

What is more terrifying?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/this-is-the-hottest-year_b_696704.html

The only thing more terrifying to me than this spot-on analysis, is the sheer amount of stupidity in the comments of those who continue to deny that global warming exists.