Reinke Faces Life

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=481263&in_page_id=1770

World’s smallest four-seater car takes centre stage
By RAY MASSEY
Last updated at 20:29pm on 11th September 2007

***Begin Quote***

The world’s smallest four-seater micro-car was unveiled by Toyota at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

The ‘IQ’ prototype is just 9ft 9 inches long – about three inches shorter than the original Mini – and is expected in showrooms within two years priced between £9,000 and £10,000.

It has enough room for three adults and a small child, but a sliding seat arrangement means it can be driven as a two seater with added boot space.

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Now call me an “injineer” but since I see that most times, people commute alone, perhaps there’s a market for a single seat “car”. My only criteria is that is has to survive a crash with a Hummer.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_10_reasons_against_google_apps.php

Microsoft Issues 10 Reasons Why Enterprises Shouldn’t Use Google Apps
Written by Richard MacManus / September 10, 2007

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Up till now, Microsoft has been very quiet about the nascent Web Office threat from Google. But today, in response to the news that IT systems consultancy CapGemini has partnered with Google to sell Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) to enterprises, Microsoft issued an email listing 10 “top questions that enterprises should ask when considering the switch to GAPE.” The questions read more like reasons why enterprises shouldn’t choose Google Apps. This list was first published by Mary Jo Foley, who says it was an unsolicited email from a Microsoft “corporate spokesperson”.

*** and ***

“2. Google has a history of releasing incomplete products, calling them beta software, and issuing updates on a “known only to Google” schedule – this flies in the face of what enterprises want and need in their technology partners – what is Google doing that indicates they are in lock step with customer needs?

*** and ***

“7. Enterprise companies have to constantly think about government regulations and standards – while Google can store a lot of data for enterprises on Google servers, there is no easy to use, automated way for enterprises to regularly delete data, issue a legal hold for specific docs or bring copies into the corp. What happens if a company needs to respond to government regulations bodies? Google touts 99.9% uptime for their apps but what few people realize that promise is for Gmail only. Equally alarming is the definition Google has for “downtime” – ten consecutive minutes of downtime. What happens if throughout the day Google is down 7 minutes each hour? What does 7 minutes each hour for a full work day that cost an enterprise?

*** and ***

What do you make of Microsoft’s response? It certainly brings up some valid criticisms of Google Apps and Web Office, but then Google isn’t claiming their product is a replacement of MS Office. Their stance is that it’s a complement – and so in that respect this list by a Microsoft spokesperson is probably an over-reaction. It looks like someone in Redmond hit the panic button a bit too early.

***End Quote***

I think Microsoft is right to be afraid.

What Google Apps does do is to bring to the fore the whole discussion of where does the computing load and data store properly reside. Microsoft is the champion of fat client (some would say obese) and local data store. Google is the champion of thin client and remote data store.

To Microsoft, I say “you’re too expensive in several dimensions”. To Google, I say “and what do I do when I am off network or you decide to do something different”. I think the right answer is a blend.

Linux, portable apps, and local data with remote backup.

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NOT RECOMMENDED

For those of you who are a diabetic or travel with one, CVS produces a small 2 ounce glucose syrup for low blood sugar reactions. (A liquid that can be drizzled into the mouth carefully to avoid choking is ideal. There is a paste, a little like tooth paste, that you administer similarly. It’s a little harder to work with than the syrup. Clearly, a glycogen injection syringe is the gold standard, but the TSA might take a dim view of it.)

Anyway, this is not recommended for airline travel. The change in cabin pressure causes seepage. (It was in a plastic bag. But everything in the bag with it was sticky.)

Imagine if you had it in your pocket? Yuck!

By extension, I would suggest that all liquids, even those sealed might be subject to the same effect.

Forewarned is “four armed”!

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>Network World’s Security Strategies Newsletter, 08/28/07
>Hacker tips published in Wall Street Journal
>By M. E. Kabay
>On July 30, Vauhini Vara published an article in the _Wall Street Journal_ entitled, “Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You.”
>The author explains that office
>workers like to use corporate-supplied equipment to “keep up with our lives. … …

Don’t forget that corporations are INTENTIONALLY blurring the lines between work / play / home. As an IT executive, I have seen:
* The corporate honchos with different sets of rules for themselves and the serfs.
* IT troops are expected to answer “problems” at all hours of the day or night. And, then turn to in the morning on time as if nothing happened.
* Projects scheduled with a “forced march” ethic in human resources. AND
* The deliberate planning of “human resources” to avoid payment of overtime and giving comp time.
So let’s not kid around that people are just goofing off all the time, watching YouTube, and playing online poker. Work has to get done. And it does get done. If you are going to fudge the margins, then you can’t get all uppity when the letter of some policy or standard is not met.

If I’m waiting for a phone conference call to assemble and begin, usually because some required honcho is “late”, don’t scream like Mayor Bloomberg if there’s a solitaire screen up. If I’m working on a holiday weekend installing a new IT system and don’t get anything other than maybe “thanks” or keep getting my regular paycheck, don’t gripe when the “big” football game is on one of the monitors or everyone’s watching a movie while the big update is ruining. At least on Wall Street, when they make absurd demands, they pay obscene bonuses.

The AFL/CIO is dumb not trying to unionize the IT workers. It’s the new sweat shop. I am astonished that some one hasn’t sued about these type of issues already.

>her “safety” measures for violating appropriate-use policies include this advice for attempting to wipe audit trails:
> “Clear your private data as often as possible.
>Better yet, don’t use your work computer to do anything you wouldn’t want your boss to know about.”

I agree that one should have your own ethical standards. A good Nun once told me that my standard should be “don’t do anything you would want to have to tell your Mother”. Works for me.

BUT!

Let’s not imbue Acceptable Use Policies as if they come down from some Olympic mountain.

For example, once upon a time, there was a corporate policy not to use AOL IM. (Why I have no idea? Pinging someone to join a conference call may tell some hacker … what?) But the corporate IT group (aka the shills for Microsoft) had no solution. Yet the executives used AOLIM, and wanted their people to use it. It was efficient. Talk about mixed messages. But piously, they made people sign annual acceptances of the corporate policies. Like Stossel says “gimme a break”. In my past executive coaching practice, as well as my stints as an ITA/BPR consultant, I counseled against sending mixed messages. People, like little children, learn by watching carefully what you do. Not what you say.

>I invite readers to read Vara’s article for themselves and then to join me in a short series of columns
>as I analyze her work from an ethical standpoint.

Having been brought up in the Ebenezer Scrooge school of employee training, where the motto was “You pretend to pay me; I’ll pretend to work”, I suggest that it’s time for everyone to grow up.

The world has changed.

Unlike KMart, there’s no Blue Light to turn on. No PA system over which we can make the announcement. No clap of thunder or bolt of lightening to get everyone’s attention. Nor any formal demarcation point, like when the calendar changes. We can’t afford to play silly games. In the global competitive environment, we need to develop our thinking.

So for example, just like I don’t expect my employer to buy me my pens, I buy my own technology. Sure I’ll use theirs for their stuff if they insist. (Mine’s better.) But, if your trash is not working, you can’t hold me accountable for the “shortfall”. Can’t have it both ways. If you want me to do 24×7 support or some other outrageous demand, then it’s OK for me to use my home computer, policies be darned, for which you don’t pay. That’s OK, but heaven forbid I answer an email from work? (Note: My personal information NEVER goes near their hardware.) Now I realize I’m a little bit of an odd ball. I’ve been a consultant, and in my own business several times. But I can see the hypocrisy in some “policies”.

New times require new rules.

It’s about generating value. Some of that value belongs to the employer and some I am allowed to retain. It’s a team sport. I need them and they need me. 50/50.

(Actually the company needs the employees more. Some wag once said “Each night, all of our intellectual capital walks out the door.” I had an old boss who use to extend that with “It’s my job to make you want to come back.” With the aging of the work force, that’s even more true today than it was then.)

Leadership and management must forget the lessons of Ebenezer Scrooge and Frederick Winslow Taylor. You manage things and lead people. Throw all the policy manuals out the window. Lead people. Teach them why you should NOT put corporate secrets into email unencrypted or waste time when your supposed to be earning value for the team. Deploy tools that make it unnecessary to “bend” rules. Share the monetary value such that unpaid OT or unreasonable demands aren’t made. Hold leadership accountable for their decisions and policies.

This line of inquiry is based on an old paradigm and is coming from the meme of “unwilling worker”. In today’s new world, the new team-shared meme must be that there is value produced which is shared by all who produced it.

We have to evolve our memes because there are a lots of very smart very hungry people in India and China that are going to eat us for breakfast if we stay stuck in “Detroit thinking” with respect to the roles of employer and employee.

In my not so humble opinion, I believe that these large corporations are going to self-destruct. The new meme will be small team size agile organizations, that can do a better job of delivering and sharing value, while “outsourcing” all non-core competency functions (i.e., HR, finance, IT). The economies of scale that allowed the IBMs, AT&Ts, GMs, and such to evolve and flourish are no longer there.

Small ‘n’ agile will outperform big ‘n’ bureaucratic every time.

And, don’t get me started on the “gooferment”.

imho,
fjohn

P.S.: I hope that’s the type of input your were looking for. My current employer is very enlightened and doesn’t have these problems that I know of.

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Network World’s Security Strategies Newsletter, 08/30/07
Ethical decision-making: Identifying the ethical issue
By Mark Gibbs

***Begin Quote***

Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that an employee, Bob, has signed an appropriate-use agreement with his employer and that he’s not supposed to use his company computer for non-work-related Web surfing.

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It’s all too black and white. Cut and dried. Either or. The real world is much more gray!

If the employee we are talking about is an hourly employee — the IT equivalent of a burger flipper — then the case presented makes some amount of sense. But, I am hard pressed why they have a fully functional browser, and expensive hardware.

I think the more interesting case is when you apply this to what I will classify as “knowledge workers”. They present a tougher case in what’s acceptable use. Proper leadership would know when the people were being productive and then trying to micro mange what people do by AUPs — which never work — would be unnecessary.

While we are talking about following rules, the rule maker’s hands are not always that clean. Sometimes there are different AUPs for the AUP-makers. AND, then we have many organizations, who want knowledge workers to provide off hour support from home without compensation, wanting to enforce an AUP. Seems like the rules are used when they are convenient.

Bottom line: Everyone must tread very carefully. And, keep notes on what is “current practice”. They’ll be useful when you negotiate your severance or can be used as evidence at your trial. AUPs are another gotcha from the Ebenezer Scrooge School of Overseer Management!

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My meme for job search is like this:

** Doctrine — why are we turkeys — thinking about thinking — how do I value things — how will I measure success or failure.

** Methodology — the process of job search — what do I have to do — what should I want to do. — effectiveness & efficiency.

** Strategy — the big picture — what am I peddling? (UVE USP) what can I sell at what price? what is my roi? Where are my customers? What are my expectations?

** Tactics — machine gun mass mailing, shotgun all in a some subset, rifle shots at key targets, pistol shots up close and personal.

** Technology — internet, computers, manual methods, mail, fax, web, phones

Under “doctrine”, I see EDUCATION as so much cheaper than EXPERIENCE. So one of my values is to seek education whenever I can get it. Free education is even better. I like to say, “You don’t have to pay tuition for every lesson. You can learn from mistakes. And, you don’t even have to make every mistake yourself!”

So here is a strategy to get some free education. Join the Telegraph’s free “Business Club”. They have some videos and stuff that is educational.

http://www.telegraphbusinessclub.co.uk/default.asp?p_id=masterclass#

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Ten minutes is all it takes! Now you can learn from the experts – the easy way.

Business Club has worked with Experts Online to film interviews with business specialists talking about topics we judge to be of key importance to ambitious entrepreneurs and the top management staff of small and medium sized enterprises.

But we know you are busy running your business. So we have edited all the content to ensure that each MasterClass covers the key points you need to know – but does not last more than ten minutes.

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Ignore that it’s from the UK. (Americans are too US centric anyway.) Ignore that it’s usually by some one peddling something. BUT do distill the lesson from it.

For example, here’s one there:

*** begin quote ***

How SMEs can compete
in the technology race

Alexandra Bottomley
Head of Marketing Operations, BT
Frank Shaw
Foresight Director, Centre for Future Studies

Seventy six percent of SMEs are sleepwalking into major business problems because they fail to invest in technology, according to research by the Centre for Future Studies. This Masterclass examines the report’s contents and explores how BT can help businesses compete more effectively.

*** end quote ***

And here’s what I took away.

* Many small players are at technology disadvantage that magnifies over time.
* People select the cheapest solution aot the best value.
* tendency to overinvest in current technology.
* Key: What do you want to achieve? How can technology help reach that goal?
* People want service and support they can trust to answer a phone call.
* “I make it my job to communicate with my Customers at least once per month”.
* The telephone is part of a technology plan.
* “A small business can use technology is incredible effective ways a relatively low cost.”
* Future-proof
* “Do you know what it is that your children will be able to do in 15 years time, that technology can’t”
* “What skills do we need to be teaching our children today to prepare for the future?”
* “What skills <that you are selling today> will be gone?
* How does one gain competitive advantage in a global world.

I think these things are great. YMMV!

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http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.80.html#subj14

I made it into Risks again. (Boy is PGN getting easy in his old age!)

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