Polynomial!

Ellsworth Toohey IRL: the gaping void of Hugh MacLeod

2007-10-27T23:32:52+02:00

(Disclaimers: ruthless bashing and ranting ahead. Some dissing of Seth Godin's earlier phrase-mongering, although I do think sometimes he actually has something worthwhile to tell.)

Guru Bloggers, a fancy crowd. Or call them meta bloggers. Their main topic is blogging, their blog, their thoughts on blogging (especially on blogging about blogging on blogging). You get the idea. Of course, for actual credibility you need to own a phrase giving you a nymbus of content and authority. "Crowdsourcing", "Be a Purple Remarkable Cow", "The Long Tail" or "Social Blue Monster Objects".

So what does this taste like?

The Blue Monster wine is also part of the "Smarter Wine" conversation. The main thesis is that it's not the wine per se that is interesting, it's the conversations that happen around the wine that is interesting.

Not per se. It really depends on the people and the topic and the listeners whether the conversations are interesting or not. And if "it's the conversations around the wine", they could be fairly boring actually. But you're right: wine is a utility for socialising, and doesn't matter all that much by itself. You realized that, but that won't mean you can change anything about it.

And that is true for all social objects. People matter. Objects don't.

And "social" objects are no exemption. But here's your core slogan: people matter. I think everyone can agree with that. So everyone can agree with you. After all, "people" is everyone, so you must mean me. Feels kind of good. Always nice being not too controversial, especially if you can still play out the "radical" card fairly conveniently, being the "lonely small-time blogging cartoonist". A man of the people. One of us. And he's changing Microsoft for us, so Mum won't get have to be angry about her computer any longer.

If the Blue Monster wine idea is interesting, it's because of a most unlikely mash-up between a small, obscure winery in South Africa, and the world's largest software company.

Yes, that's all there is to it, Hugh. Such "unlikely obscurity" is a proven way to get attention for a short while. A very short while. Make the most limited-edition lithographs out of it, and better be quick. Because as Remarkable as this is, the next Purple Cow is already around the corner.

Importing different Cultural DNA into an organization is a real balancing act. Too much of it makes it impossible for the company to focus. Too little and the company withers on the vine.

Lots of social engineering here (we are slowly getting to the Ellsworth Toohey part). Just because they let you doesn't mean either employees or customers or shareholder need your Cultural DNA all that much. They like a buffoon with their wine and their software every once in a while, it sure is entertaining. Until and unless it becomes stale. They will keep buying software and wine and goods of production because of their tangible intrinsic values. They will keep not minding funny guru concepts around their products as long as they change often enough before getting boring.

None of this stuff is rocket science. Most of it is glaringly obvious.

Yes, that's the way guru stuff works. I knew that you knew your stuff, but being oh-so-open about it doesn't make it any more sophisticated.

And sadly for folks working in the social software industry, "The people who get it, don't need us. And the people who need us, don't get it."

Sounds like a hell of a business plan to me... literally. The road to frustration. After recognizing this, why keep bothering? Nobody is done a service, and doing a well-paid service that's actually in demand is a lot more gratifying. Tell the social software people to ask the guys at your winery, or at Microsoft (instead of you).

Well, Dave, your low opinion of Microsoft notwithstanding, I'm not looking at this from the executive level. I'm coming at this from the perspective of a small-time cartoonist with a blog and an internet connection.

Delusions of grandeur. I you have never heard of Ellsworth Toohey, consider yourself lucky. Enough name-dropping for now.

And from where I'm standing, it seems to me that in a big company like Microsoft, even a small thing like the Blue Monster can create a lot of value for a lot of people.

Seems to you? Things aren't always what they seem. Microsoft is creating a lot of value, as are many other software companies out there. Wineries are also creating a little value. In either case, what exactly is the blue monster adding? "Change the world or go home"? I would argue that this slogan of yours has been the guiding principle of the well-known and the unknown Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of this world long before you started creating drunken cartoons. True, they never articulated this, they merely expressed the principle in action and production, and so they are probably delighted and amused by you finding the right words.

After some 20 years madness of 16-hour days of production, someone else who wants to actually change the world can finally afford to hire a radical guru evangelist sitting in a NYC bar whose contribution is putting it into words. Nothing wrong here, but the word smith should be exceptionally careful never to reverse cause and effect or overestimate his place in the scheme of things. (Between the lines, you make it very clear that you do have a grip on this.) You can own a meme you yourself created, be it the Purple Cow or Social Object, or even a Wine brand, but not Microsoft or its equivalent. For a short while, you will sell a lot more good-old wines with brand-new cartoon labels (mostly to tens of thousands of Microsofties) and Microsoft has some much-needed mojo juice going. Make no mistake, your stuff resonates with Microsoft because that's their point of getting out of bed every day. So it's not exactly a wave of change. The kind of people bashing Microsoft won't even take notice in the way you hope for. The people who get it won't need you (for long), and the people who need you, won't get it. I might be wrong, but I actually care less about this than you.

No, I have no idea of where all this is going.

I think you do:

All I care about these days is drawing cartoons, doing interesting things with interesting people, paying my bills, and keeping my sorry ass out of the hospital, the mental asylum, the morgue etc.

A safe bet. Despite "all this", you do after all know that's the things you can count on.

Nobody can count on either a Gaping Void or the Glaringly Obvious fascinating anyone forever, or even for long-enough. From what I have seen so far, I have to assume that you know the point of your blog's name better than most people do.

About "Team Building"

2007-08-24T01:07:34+02:00

Scott Hanselman discusses ways to get more out of developers. MattH's replies hit a nerve with me:

"At a previous employer I constantly fought for more team building. It worked occasionally ... but never enough to make an impact on the team dynamics."

Well... the eagerness of such outbreaks (as I have witnessed them in others) is so blatantly saying "this team sucks" that you would be lucky if people played along, but shouldn't be surprised if they don't. Most people are not able or willing to articulate this, but projected from my own perspective:

they probably regard themselves quite highly, being skilled specialists in an emerging and fast-changing industry,
consequently, they will think of themselves as independent individuals who need no "pampering" and will establish any suggestions to the contrary as a personal insult,
needing no pampering, they will appreciate open feedback about what else or more others feel they could or should contribute to their "team", but will not react as expected to "subtle hints" or elaborate "nothing-personal" team-building exercises.

"I was trying to make a point and was sure one of the owners would approach me about expensing the party. No such luck."

I would admire the gesture, had it been out of genuine generosity with no such secret hope wishing to be mind-read because you did not permit yourself to articulate it. Ask yourself why. You wanted to make a point and I'm sure you made it---too well at that. People believed you. I suppose it was better this way: imagine they had the slightest idea of your intentions, they might have felt pressurized and might not have been able to fully enjoy the party. Maybe it was this way, maybe it wasn't---and maybe it is relieving that you cannot tell from their lack of the reaction you so optimistically expected. It might sound harsh but if you were the only one feeling like partying, it was proper that you afforded it.

Make no mistake, I'm all for the kind of enthusiasm you expose. However, I have learned that other people have their own standards (as they properly should), and there are only so many commonalities. If you cannot convince them in small ways it is useless to try it in bigger ways at such an expense---unless you really, really want to have that party, blanking out the fact that everyone else is indifferent towards the idea one or the other. Plan for moving on to a team somewhere else more to your liking, and stick it out in the mean time. Unless all this trying is personally satisfying for you in one way or another ("well *I* certainly tried my best but these guys can't be helped..." ;)

"I guess another idea (that would be hard to get approved in a small business) is the Google method of allowing people to spend 20% of their time on new ideas. Wow, what a dream."

That is probably the single best offering to motivate developers; rather than dot-com-era kicker tables or in-company spas, which pose the danger of distracting or justifying escapism from hard thinking rather than encouraging and stimulating said essential activity.

XSLT Crash Course, anyone?

2007-08-15T23:32:52+02:00

This will be fun---at least for me!

I'm going to deliver a full-day introductory training on XSLT to over ten Portal Systems programmers and consultants. My voice will be dried out by the time this is over (this was certainly the case after my last full-day workshop on SharePoint design customization that I delivered to Solarlux IT pros last week), but if you have not gotten around to getting to grips with XSLT yet, it is such a shame that I'm offering you this free download of my crash course including the PPTX slides (German-only!) and some code samples... enjoy and the share the goodness, if you please. There are probably better introductions to XSLT out there... but this is mine.

Enterprise Search

2007-02-14T12:57:51+01:00

Tomorrow and on Friday I'm off to two days packed with hands-on Microsoft technical training: Implementing and Managing an Enterprise Search Solution. Two days from 8 to 6: sounds like a whopper—so right now I'm getting up to speed a little.

Lol: Lenin at Yahoo!

2007-01-27T23:14:48+01:00

From Mind the Gap by Paul Graham:

Materially and socially, technology seems to be decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor, not increasing it. If Lenin walked around the offices of a company like Yahoo or Intel or Cisco, he'd think communism had won. Everyone would be wearing the same clothes, have the same kind of office (or rather, cubicle) with the same furnishings, and address one another by their first names instead of by honorifics. Everything would seem exactly as he'd predicted, until he looked at their bank accounts. Oops.

Trading is Farming

2007-01-16T21:37:29+01:00

I have recently developed an interest in trading and the capital markets. Just to tell you how thoroughly I enjoyed this little gem by James Sogi.

A sense of life...

2006-12-14T21:54:10+01:00

That's the spirit! House of Crouching Coders by Daniel Howard

Happy Anniversary! (If belated...)

2006-11-16T21:59:20+01:00

One year ago...

On other news, as a result of the contracting work I've done for Portal Systems so far, I have been offered a full-time position there, which I happily accepted! ;)

The Joel Wars

2006-09-01T19:01:29+02:00

The guy drops something, and hundreds of people become all agitated, bloggers and developers and forum hang-outs get in a flap, buzzing with excitement. What a rage. Goodness.

James writes:

I've come across a number of posts listing ways to increase traffic to a blog recently but none have described anything like this.

Partly that's probably because Joel Spolsky might not read (or need) any such guides... ;)

"Increase traffic to yet unknown blog" is a completely different (and for guide writers likely more lucrative) problem domain than "regularly get some new peak of buzz to an already highly visible, highly frequented A-list personal website that's been around for years and built a solid fanbase". It must be a different one: part of the rage is that Joel Spolsky wrote it---otherwise, nobody would have noticed it, nobody would have cared, from the writing alone. That's not to devalue the article or the author (though some crabbers will probably see it that way), only something worth being pointed out.

It probably applies to half of his writing; the articles that made him so popular were of an entirely different kind. Neither should this pressurize him into keeping the quality at this level at all times (we all love to freedom to rant away in our blogs; plus we never know beforehand whether and how our efforts will be received; plus it is often the right mix of well-balanced articles and outright rants that is popular with many readers) nor should anyone be tricked into believing that a similar article could create a similar buzz.

So why the fuss about the alleged irony?

Nobody asked him what technology he would recommend for writing a FogBugz-like bug tracker. So when he talks about the technology used for that project, that in no way invalidates the "contrary" recommendation he gave beforehand regarding a completely different kind of undertaking.

Seriously, it must be stressful being him. Give him a break. ;)

Attracting customers: I see a pattern here, and it's dead-obvious.

2006-08-30T04:08:16+02:00

Michelle Tampoya asks: How do we get people to buy?

Her advice is certainly good and probably useful, depending on how much you have dealt with the topic yourself before. To imply, however, as she does at the start of her article, that almost nobody else has a clue as to answers to that question, particularly in prolific forums such as the Business of Software or even at dedicated Micro-ISV blogs, is a little drastic to say the least. Such advice, and pretty much along the same lines, is pretty easy to get; it is what is preached on blogs and those forums whenever the question comes up, backed by those who have been there and done that quite successfully. (Most questions there are a variation of that question anyway; that's what business is about: how do I actually sell what I am offering, and once I got that sorted, how do I sell more? What is always interesting are the contextual particulars, the market, the competitors, the customers, the individual strengths and weaknesses with the consequent opportunities and threats. [1]

It is clear that with zero budget you have pretty much no other chance than to find other ways to spread the word. The best marketing is a fantastic product: even with a marketing budget, you'll need that. One of the most important lessons of marketing is that you simply cannot turn poo into chocolate, no matter how stretched your budget.

Still, I absolutely agree that it is worth pointing out that "no budget" does not mean "no chance", which is what many people still believe. Then again, I think this is more of a general state of mind that cannot be "fixed" easily by counterexamples or counterarguments. You may have the drive to find ways to "make it happen" no matter what resources are at your disposal or not. I'm not saying this is determined by nature or fate or nurture, rather that it depends on the context, but given an individual isolated situation, you will probably find that you belong to the one camp or the other, likely revealing our "real" preferences no matter what we wish they were. Just a vague suspicion on my part here.

Michelle writes:

As a community and web marketer, the question that first comes to me is not the how, but the why. "Why aren’t they buying?"

Leaving aside that, from what I have observed, this is the question most forum posters ask to begin with, suggesting that they have figured this mental leap for themselves already, I will point out that this is the only logical next question you can arrive at, were you to ask how to "get" people to buy your stuff.

How can other people be compelled to do something we want them to do? All possible answers boil down to two fundamental answers: attempting to force them (whether through fraud or at gunpoint), or to convince them by argument. In marketing, this is called "persuasion", but the idea is to:

either design your offering so that it is obviously and plainly visibly in the best interests of that segment of the people you have identified as your target customers to buy your solution (in which case, they will do it, and the purpose of marketing simply is to reassure them, by providing the "arguments" that are applicable in the given context, which may include in a context of, say, consumer beveridges, seemingly "silly" arguments such as refreshment or lifestyle imagery)
or, if your product is not that self-explanatory, to do the rest of the explaining because your customers cannot immediately deduce how their best self-interest is served from the evidence they have of your product or offering (maybe it is a new way of doing something, or a completely new kind of refreshment drink in jazzy colours)—in which case, the purpose of marketing is more of an argumentative challenge, but essentially the same.

I'm digressing a little but the point is that, ruling out the option of force, the only next question that you can logically arrive at after asking, "how can I get people to voluntary exchange their hard-earned cash for my product or service?" (i.e. arrive at a valuation of your product / service that ranks higher than their valuation of the sum of money you are asking for in exchange), is asking one of two "why" questions, where each will in turn lead you to the other: either "why are they not buying?", as Michelle suggested, or "why are they buying elsewhere?" / "when people do buy stuff, why do they do it?". In other words, why don't they realize (whether correctly or incorrectly aside) that my product serves their best self-interest? [2]

This isn't meant as much as a criticism of the article, as it just got me thinking and blogging after I finished reading it. Her five bullet points pretty much cover the basic prerequisites of marketing in practice, "community marketing" as it is called to contrast it with what is believed to be more "traditional", slap-in-the-face marketing.

Talking about proper marketing, I have to point out Spark This, a marketing resource that I just discovered today and that seems low on quantity (last update was in April), but for my tastes very high on quality.

[1] Yes, the highly-touted SWOT methodology appears rather obvious to me, I probably missed its essence. In fact, reading about it I could actually feel that I very seriously missed any essence there. As I so often do, I digress. But seriously: strengths/weaknesses are two names for the same thing: assessing yourself and your situation contextually. Opportunities/threats are again two monikers for the same thing: evaluating your findings of that assessment and interpreting consequences. But it is logically impossible, given that you have taken the initiative to assess, that you will not arrive at some conclusion, which was the point of the exercise, so the whole SWOT superstructure to me seems a little redundant and even pointless. Why state the obvious? People do that kind of analysis, arguably to varying degree and depth depending on an unknown number of local variables, all the time, it is a vital part of human action in general.)

[2] I realize that is nothing new since Adam Smith; for all the classical economists' errors, the Invisible Hand or Say's Law remain as timeless (they were valid before they were proclaimed) and true as ever. ;)