Disorderly Content

Back around the time the dotcom bubble burst in the Valley, I was working at a small and wholly disfunctional software firm. Things were so bad on the engineering side that Management put me in charge of getting the product on the right track, even blessing me with the title of Chief Architect. Okay, I demanded the title as a combination of reward for what I was taking on and a sign that I had to be listened to. But that's by the way...

The company's product was supposed to handle natural language command processing; you'd type what you wanted and it would figure out what you meant. One problem with the approach was that it relied on agents: dozens or hundreds of little software modules that would recognize a word or phrase, which would be combined with the work of other agents to build up more complex concepts. And that was a problem because the bigger the vocabulary, and the bigger the set of things it needed to understand, the more of these agents and the longer it would take to get anything done.

This was a huge problem, but it wasn't one the guys in charge had any interest in solving. Where I worried about making the core software do what had been promised, and do it while we were all still alive, the CEO, CTO and such were only concerned with adding more features they could use to excite customers. But still I tried, both to convince the execs that we needed to solve the scalability problem and to figure out a way it could be done.

Even after I left, I'd find myself trying to solve a possibly insoluble problem. Many mornings I'd be in the shower, mulling possible approaches, before reminding myself that it didn't matter! By then the company was dead, long dead, and nobody would devote a moment's thought to making their software work. Except me; it might be days, it might be weeks, but there I'd be, trying to find an answer.

And so it went for the past eight years. I didn't think about it much, at least until a couple of weeks ago when I ran into the former VP of Marketing at a photography Meetup. We talked about some of the old horrors and generally had a good time reminding ourselves of the insanity we'd survived.

But something must have clicked. Because there I was in the shower a couple of days ago, and suddenly I had an answer to the problem. Not complete, of course, and not enough to commit to code. But I had an approach to making all that agent stuff more efficient. Which of course is irrelevant. Nobody cares about the problem, and nobody will ever hear about the solution. But it's nice to know that I don't have to think about it any more. At least in my mind it's done. And it all got done in the back of my mind, which is a good place for it.

No, I'm not referring to the election. This is work-related.

Early this morning I got meeting request from my VP in the UK. It was for tomorrow morning, when I'll be on the road to Los Angeles for my annual Farscape geekfest, so he rescheduled it for this morning instead. I could tell something from his tone, although he's rather like Eeyore at the best of times. But when the HR director got on the line I knew.

Short story: I'm once again among the unemployed. I've been RIFed. Laid off. Declared redundant. Not surprising when your customers are mostly banks and brokerages. Just one more victim of four years of Republican free market radicalism.

The good news is that I'm prepared. The better news is that I can focus on some things I'd rather be doing. So it's a little bit of a shock, but I'm doing okay. In many ways I feel sorrier for the folks I'm leaving behind.

Update 11/05: After talking to a couple of now former colleagues, I decided to head to the mall for a little lunch. My Panda Express fortune cookie knew just what to say:

GOOD THINGS ARE COMING
TO YOU IN DUE COURSE
OF TIME

Nice to know. Oh, and I stopped at the Apple Store on my way out, where I bought myself a 16GB iPhone 3G. I may have to give up my 3G-equipped Dell, but I still feel the need for speed!

I wanna work for these guys.

Here's one of those stories that ought to make you go "hmmmmm..." It seems that security guards at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California are out on strike. Their immediate beef is that their employer (not Kaiser, but a company called Inter-Con Security that provides Kaiser with contract services) won't let them form a union, which they can do under a loophole in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that applies specifically to security guards. And why are these guards so determined to form a union? Because their jobs don't give them health benefits. And there's enough irony for anybody's diet: these guys work at hospitals and they don't get health care! And the law won't let them form a union to balance the power of their employers unless that employer says it's okay. Which of course they don't want to do, because they might have to start treating these guys with respect. And that'll cost them money, which might affect the compensation of the guys at the top. (Okay, I'm inferring that last. But somehow it seems a safe bet.)

A couple of days ago I received a LinkedIn invitation from a former colleague. Nothing odd about that; it's what LinkedIn is supposed to be for. But this one was special. It came from my former manager, the VP of a startup where I spent a few interesting (in the Chinese curse sense) months. What's odd is that this particular VP fired me, the first and (so far) only time that's happened to me. Ours was a contentious relationship; he had a tendency to stretch the truth well beyond its breaking point. (When someone tells you repeatedly, "I am an honest man", the one thing you can be sure of is that he knows otherwise.) On one memorable occasion he told a potential customer that we had passed a validation suite that we had never actually run! I waited until after the meeting to raise the... umm... variance between his remarks and reality, but in retrospect I can't be surprised that I was terminated a month or so later.

So I guess I'm surprised to hear from him, and even more so that he believes I'd consider letting him into my circle of respected industry contacts. Or maybe he thinks old age has softened my memories of that time, or of my bitterness at finding myself suddenly unemployed. If so, he don't know me very well.

I've had enough jobs (okay, more than my share) to know that there are bosses from hell, there are mismatches between employer and employee, and then there are situations where the world is collapsing around you and things just suck. So I don't take sides automatically when I hear about what one participant claims is an injustice. Still...

The blogosphere (do we still call it that?) had news a few days ago about a blogger who was fired for blogging. That was followed a day later by a post written by his former employer, giving his reasons for the termination. Which seemed weird to me; I'm used to employers not saying a word in public. (What they tell the remaining employees may or may not bear any resemblance to reality, but to the outside world they keep quiet.) So I was already feeling both uncomfortable and suspicious. And now we have the response of the ex-employee. Having worked at both large firms and small ones, and having once been terminated with extreme prejudice, as the spy novels say (although I don't mean it in that way) by a manager who was less than a model of honor or responsibility or honesty (when a marketing/sales guy keeps using the phrase "I am an honest man", you can bet your bottom dollar he isn't), I know which side I believe. It probably doesn't help that the firm at the heart of this He Said/He Said debate is called Mercenary...

Over the last couple of days I've seen several posts about SGI's announcement that they're EOLing their systems based on MIPS processors and the IRIX operating system. (You can read about it on Slashdot if you're interested.) This is a strange milestone for a bunch of reasons: first, because one of my last major efforts when I worked there was to evangelize the move to Linux and Intel. This was a good move, although it wasn't nearly enough to turn the company around; it addressed the relative performance shortfalls of MIPS, it saved the company a ton of processor development money their small market share would never let them recoup, and with Linux it addressed the big and growing problem of attracting and keeping software vendors' products on the platform. The move to Linux was an exciting one, and something I was proud to be a small part of.

But as I say, it wasn't enough. SGI was dying; I kind of knew it when I left in late 1999, although my departure was more about being treated shabbily by managment than about the writing on the wall. Still, I'm saddened by one more sign that the best place I ever worked is moving yet another step closer to the grave. I'd say I'll miss it, if it weren't for the fact that I'd already begun to miss the SGI I loved long before I actually left.

If I haven't been my usual diligent self, you can blame work. )I certainly do.) I just spent a week commuting up to San Francisco to help a client install and make use of my company's software. The work went well, the customer was pleased, and spending time in SF is hardly a chore. That commute on the other hand...

I took advantage of Caltrain, which is both cheaper than driving (have you looked at San Francisco parking lately?) and a lot less stressful. What it isn't is fast or particularly convenient. End to end the trip takes a little over an hour at best, not counting the waiting around if I didn't time my arrivals perfectly. Which of course I never did, since missing a train meant either waiting around a long time for the next one or getting stuck on a local.

But there's an upside to all this, beside the obvious pleasure of collecting a paycheck. And that's that twice in the past couple of years I was in the running for positions at Macromedia, now part of Adobe. In San Francisco. A longish walk from the Caltrain station, in fact. So this was a taste of what might have been. And suddenly not getting those jobs doesn't feel so bad. My work-at-home commute from the bedroom to the living room is much more to my taste. And of course every day is casual Friday around here...

At work we use a web-based service for time sheets and expense reports. I've been filling out my time sheets dutifully every week, even though they don't actually say anything interesting. They're really useful for people who have billable hours, a group that doesn't include me. But no matter; if they'll keep paying me, I'll keep filling out the forms.

But with that, you can understand my surprise when I got an email from my manager about a missing time sheet. I went into the reporting system to look for the missing week, sure it must be a mistake. And what I discovered is that the programmers who built the system had missed something. The system records weeks within months, so if a month ends in the middle of the week, you have to fill out one sheet for the first part of the week and a second one for the rest. So there are more than fifty-two weeks in their accounting: five in January (one partial week at the end), five in February (a partial at the beginning and another at the end) and so on. And it turns out the first week in April this year consists of a single Saturday. For which, of course, I neglected to account. Hence the automated message that claimed to be from my manager. So I went in and submitted an empty report, which I assume will keep them off my case.

Which reminds me of a possibly apocryphal story from my college days. In the dorms at RIT, we all had phones. And Rochester Telephone gave us accounts for our phones, so they could bill us for any long distance calls. The story is that one student only made local calls. And each month he would receive a bill for zero dollars. After several months of this, he started getting threatening notices. It seems the system noticed bills going out, but no payment coming back in. The notices got more and more hostile, until he decided to take action. He wrote and mailed a check for zero dollars and zero cents. And that was the last time he heard from him.

Good story, I thought. Even better if it's true.

From a former employee of a former employer (but not a colleage, since our tenures had no overlap) comes news that said employer is no longer. Nazomi Communications, once known as JEDI Technologies until Mr. Lucas's lawyers took exception (and who couldn't have seen that coming?) is now history, a dotcom-era technology company whose investors finally had enough. Their website is still up, at least as of this writing. Which brings to mind that old saying: "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." I guess they figure it out eventually, even on the Internet.

A week into my new job, I received a little care package from the folks at headquarters. Inside was a laptop, which I suppose will prove useful, and an American Express card. So I called the 800 number to activate the card. And was asked for the card number, which isn't a problem. And the last four digits of my Social Security number, which is also not a problem. And the last four digits of my business phone number. Now, that might be a problem, seeing as how I don't know that number yet. And the automated system doesn't take to long pauses terribly well.

Fortunately, the customer service rep it forwarded me to didn't need that information. So I guess the card is ready for use. Although personally I'd rather keep using that American Airlines MasterCard. Miles, you know...

Spent a few minutes at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara this morning. (A job fair, if you must know.) And as I was walking by the reception desk I noticed something new. Like a lot of moderately upscale hotels, the Westin has a concierge desk to help guests with travel, dining and other arrangements. But something was different; there was no one behind the desk. In fact, I realized the space behind the desk would have been a tight squeeze if anyone had been there. There was a guest in front of the desk, talking to someone. And as I came around I saw the big flat screen monitor on the wall and realized that the concierge had been outsourced. There was a video camera on the desk, and the concierge, dressed in standard hotel garb and with the hotel display behind her, was helping the guest. But as to what country she was speaking from, I couldn't say. It struck me as strangely impersonal and personal at the same time. But having dealt with outsourced support at places like Earthlink, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that even upscale places are looking to cut corners.

I've been using Indeed.com to comb job listings for potential employers. In addition to collecting all the listings from all the other sites, Indeed lets you set up RSS feeds for your searches. One of mine is for the word evangelist, which is generally prefixed either implicitly or explicitly with technology or product. But not always, as this opening demonstrates:

Job Description: MUST BE FLUENT IN KOREAN. Lead bible studies and fellowship activities. Oversee religious education and outreach programs. Conduct religious worship and perform other spiritual functions. Provide spiritual and moral guidance and assistance to members. Confer with clergy members, congregation officials and congregation organizations. Work Schedule: 9AM-10PM; Sun- Tue-Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat (35 hrs/week). STAFF MUST SEE COMMENTS FOR REFERRAL INSTRUCTIONS.

The location: Bayside, New York, where I grew up. The employer, believe it or not: the State Department of Labor.

What a pity that I don't speak Korean.

A perfect example of seeing a need and filling it: Geek Squad provides an absentee note generator for all the nerdly among us who will be suddenly unable to make it to work or class or whatever tomorrow. Of course, it won't help you if you encounter your manager or teacher on line at the theater, but what's life without a few risks? Me, I have my ticket for Saturday. Besides, being unemployed means never having to say you're under the weather. Even if you are.

It's your basic good news/bad news joke. Or it would be, if it were funny. The good news: the unemployment rate in Silicon Valley is down: from 5.1% in November to 4.7% in December. The bad: it's only down because the number of people leaving town was slightly greater than the number of lost jobs.

You can read about it in the Murky News. But what it makes clear is that the job engine here is still slowing down, although the rate at which it's slowing is itself slowing. Hardly cause for celebration, unless you have a job and are hoping for lower prices in the local housing market. Which still hasn't happened, despite all the air that's been sucked out of the economy since the Internet bubble burst. Maybe next month. Or the one after that.

Joi Ito writes about how PeopleSoft employees are joining LinkedIn like crazy in anticipation of the post-acquisition layoffs. Almost 4000 new members in the last month.

If you haven't discovered it yet, LinkedIn is a personal connection network, sort of a Friendster for business relationships. I joined about a year ago, although so far I haven't seen any real value. Still, it's free. And it's a chance to reconnect with former colleagues. Including 6000 soon to be ex-PS employees, if the layoff rumors are true.

One of the challenges of working in the ecommerce space is understanding the other firms and their businesses. Is that company over there a competitor? A potential partner? A customer? Often I'll read their websites in search of some insight. And I'll come away just as ignorant as I started.

That's why it's such a pleasure to run into these guys. Because, although they've left me as clueless as ever, they managed to do with without synergizing this or infrastructuring that. They're my kind of company. Granted, they're no ZomboCom. But who is?

(Thanks to "yet another f*$#&@! learning experience" for the link.)

Joel Spolsky has a wonderful website called Joel on Software, where he writes the kind of reasoned and compelling articles on the software industry that I could write. Well, maybe I could, if I were a whole lot smarter, a whole lote more intuitive and maybe a little bit more articulate. Okay, a lot more.

His latest piece is called Camels and Rubber Duckies. And in spite of the title, it's a thorough analysis of how product pricing might work. If it did work, which of course it doesn't. Joel explains the reasoning behind various pricing models and their pitfalls. He considers all the assumptions behind the models and then points out why every single assumption breaks down.

If you've ever wondered at the way people assign prices to products, it's well worth a read. Heck, even if you find business topics to be as dull as a congressional speech; he's that good.

Didja ever notice that companies always schedule their holiday parties for a Friday or Saturday night? Think that's because they'd rather you be useless on your own time instead of theirs?

As you may have guessed, my startup had its holiday party last night. And I'm feeling more than a little bit fragile as a result. Don't think I made too much of a fool of myself, if you ignore the weird maneuvers on the dance floor. (And boy, do my muscles ache! It's more than the hangover and the lack of sleep talking!)

One other valuable lesson: attempting to take pictures in a dark room is a waste of effort, especially when both you and the subjects have been drinking. Even if the camera can find something to focus on, any attempt to calculate a proper exposure with near and far objects is bound to wash out the former and not do much with the latter.

Still, it's not all bad. My coworkers thanked me for going to the trouble of taking pictures. Maybe they'll forget to ask about them and never know how big a mess I made. It's not like any of them have discovered this place yet, right?

IT Conversations has an audio lecture by author Malcolm Gladwell that talks about the flaws in supposedly objective product testing. His descriptions of why Herman Miller's testing of their Aeron chair should have told them to forget the whole thing, and Coke's confidence that New Coke would be a hit, are fascinating as they show how flaws in test methodology can give you exactly the opposite results you should be getting.

It's something I realized a long time ago: that people believe that numbers are objective, despite the fact that what they're measuring are often too complex to be described by a single value. Are SAT scores objective? They're objective compilations of the results of a students answers, that's true. But the decision as to whether an answer is right or wrong isn't always an objective one, especially once you move off technical subjects and into the humanities. And how individual test questions are scored, the way these scores are combined, those are based on whole series of subjective judgments on the part of the test developers. Judgments that never see the light of day.

It's amazing how many things we know that are at their core unknowable. And how many attempts to turn engineering-style rules of thumb into provable science fail in the end. But they do make entertaining stories along the way.

I've often thought over the years that if I ever get sick of high tech, or more likely they get sick of me, I'd like to try my hand at something related to travel. Having a website full of travel stories and photographs has me convinced that I might have a talent for it. And loving visiting new places and telling others about them makes it a natural.

But of course any job is first and foremost a job. And as this piece demonstrates, writing for a travel magazine can be its own very special kind of hell. Suddenly high tech doesn't seem like such a bad gig.

An interesting article in Wired about product branding, what it used to mean, what marketing people think it means and why it suddenly matters a whole lot less than it used to. Working in a small startup with visions of grandeur, I hear our marketing people describe their efforts to sharpen the company's brand and the messages behind it. But if the thesis of this article is right, and it makes a compelling case, brands only work in a few rare cases.

The idea in brief: Brands used to be about protecting the customer. My brand identifies the maker of my products and promises a level of quality that you've come to expect. If someone uses my brand on their product, they're claiming my reputation for quality. Not just saying their product is as good as mine, but that their product is mine.

But somewhere along the way, brands became about the maker rather than the customer. So a company keeps others from using a similar brand for wholly unrelated goods, like Lucasfilm suing a rap performer who calls himself Luke Skywalker or a former employer of mine with the temerity to call themselves JEDI Technologies. Even though the use of the brand doesn't risk confusing a customer (the two sets of products aren't even remotely related), the brand itself has become property to be protected.

But what's changed is that product quality is less tied to brands these days and more tied to the products themselves. Thanks in part to the Web, we can get information about a product as soon as it's available, if not sooner. And that includes both professional and customer opinions. So we don't rely on the fact that it's a Sony or a Nokia or a Nikon; we can learn instantly whether the specific product is any good.

And that makes those brands a lot less relevant. If a maker stops producing what the customer wants, brand loyalty isn't going to keep them buying anyway as it might have done (for a while at least) in the past. Nokia stops making clamshell phones, and suddenly Nokia isn't the hot brand in mobiles. The brand's value rises and falls with the products.

Interesting reading. It certainly made me think. And I wonder how long it'll be before the marketing crowd accepts the idea. (Found on Boing Boing.)