What is your career plan?
I knew this was the answer 25 years before it happened. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the work that I did, but it was only a couple of stairs in Life and there were more stairs before and after.
At the end work was getting in the way of my life. I had so much going on at the time and still have so much to do.
How has technology changed your job?
When I first started working, the PC hadn’t been invented yet. I saw it as an opportunity knocking, and I ran through that door. Being in that industry allowed me to retire early and be on the cutting edge of most of technology.
The irony is, the head of the data processing department at the company I work for said there wasn’t any future in personal computers. I disagreed.
How has it changed yours?
I watched people when I worked there called the thinkers. They didn’t do anything or contribute, yet didn’t get penalized so we called them thinkers. It’s sarcasm of course, but there was a lot of dead weight.
There was also FUMU, fuck up move up. They’d promote you or move you to another group if you were trouble or made mistakes.
No matter how many layoffs they have, you can still get lost in the system and not work much while getting a paycheck. You can keep your job despite being incompetent.
The other thing is to brown nose in the office headquarters in New York. While there was considerable backstabbing there, you had an advantage over remote office employees. They were allowed an extra grade of incompetence for being inside the curtain of prejudice in the headquarters. The ratings at review time were better if you worked at the club.
They had some of the most brilliant people, there were others who made me question how they kept the doors open some days.
We know it was created by a murderer who chopped up his girlfriend and is on Lenin’s birthday. The connection to communism is more than that coincidence.
It’s also not based on science, rather it is a religion for those worshipers (the uneducated).
They consistently fail to follow actual science and this year is no different. I’ve ranted about it as I find it so unbelievable that those who celebrate it want to show how wrong they are. Instead, I’ll link and put excerpts to the recent story about how wrong they got it on methane this time. I had to work with this crowd of ignorance when I got forced into supporting the fake green initiative. Even then I couldn’t believe how wrong they were, until I found out they did it for the money.
Here goes.
Remember all that talk about methane being the scariest greenhouse gas? The claims are behind the war on meat, rice, farts, gas stoves, fracking, and just about everything else in the known universe that improves human life.
Well, except farts. They really don’t improve human life that much, unless you have gas pains. Man, it sucks when you have gas pains.
The science behind the claims that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas is pretty straightforward, if you look at only part of the science. Methane indeed traps more heat inside the atmosphere than CO2, by a wide margin. It disperses much more quickly, with a short life in the atmosphere, but if you only consider the warming impact it indeed is quite powerful.
That’s the reasoning behind the war on gas. But…
When Climate Science Unsettles – Abe Greenwald, Commentary Magazine
Yeah, well, there is a huge problem with that claim. While technically true in some abstract sense, it is much less true when you look at all the effects methane in the atmosphere has on global temperatures. In other words, it is the sort of claim that relies upon your ignorance of the multiple effects of methane gas in the atmosphere–some of which are known widely, and many of which even climate “scientists” didn’t know when they made their wild claims about doom from leaking natural gas.
New research shows that methane is still a powerful greenhouse gas, but nothing like what is claimed regularly.
This is the sort of thing that happens all the time in climate research, where variables are viewed and modeled in isolation based upon a limited set of data, and then the “scientists” extrapolate the heck out of the limited data and come up with models that are, frankly, ridiculous.
Then they pick the most extreme outcomes from models with the worst outcomes, and call it “settled science.” It is exactly the sort of thing you see in nutrition research, for example. Creating simplistic models from limited data interpreting complex and highly interdependent systems as if they mirror the falling of a bowling ball and a feather in a vacuum.
And the results, as you can see in the real world, are quite different. Bowling balls and feathers fall at the same rate in a vacuum, but once you introduce the atmosphere a feather can “fall upwards” on a breeze while the bowling ball crashes down as predicted.
The research in question here reveals the complexity of reality: methane may trap heat, but it also prevents energy from reaching the earth. To some extent, the two effects cancel each other out.
Methane is a greenhouse gas with dual personalities. It heats Earth’s atmosphere 28 times as potently as carbon dioxide, gram for gram. But its absorption of the sun’s radiation high in the atmosphere also alters cloud patterns — casting a bit of shadow on its warming effect.
So rather than adding even more thermal energy to the atmosphere, as previously thought, methane’s solar absorption sets off a cascade of events that reduces its overall warming effect by about 30 percent, researchers report March 16 in Nature Geoscience.
Oops. Kinda missed that one. Oh well.
Also, you may note that key point: gram for gram. There are a lot more grams of CO2 than methane out there. Altogether the findings change the equations quite a bit, and those equations are still very simplified versions of the real world. Simplified versions that in all likelihood don’t reflect reality.
The result is “counterintuitive,” says climate scientist Robert Allen of the University of California, Riverside. It happens because of the way that methane’s shortwave absorbance affects clouds in different layers of the atmosphere, Allen and colleagues’ simulations suggest.
When methane absorbs shortwave radiation in the middle and upper troposphere, above about three kilometers, it further warms the air — leading to fewer clouds in that upper layer. And because methane absorbs shortwave radiation high up, less of that radiation penetrates down to the lower troposphere. This actually cools the lower troposphere, leading to more clouds in that layer.
These thicker low-level clouds reflect more of the sun’s shortwave radiation back out to space — meaning that less of this solar radiation reaches Earth’s surface, to be converted into longwave radiation.
One of the biggest problems with climate science, as it stands, is that it cannot explain the natural variations in the Earth’s temperatures, which have swung wildly more than anything predicted from human activity. Clearly, those natural variations need to be understood first before adding in anything that human beings do.
Not that human beings are doing nothing. We are. The scale may not be understood, but the fact itself is pretty easy to understand. We are changing the atmosphere and the reflectivity of the Earth, changing the biome, and such changes will have some effect on the climate. But any claims that we have a clear idea of what those changes will be exactly are pure bunkum. We don’t. We don’t know the scale, and we don’t know the what.
What we do know is that massive changes to the economy will have drastic impacts on human well-being, just as the vast industrialization has improved lives and extended lifespans dramatically. Tens of years have been added to lifespans, food security has been established for almost everybody, and the prospects for further improvements without industrialization of the third world drop dramatically.
And, of course, we know that every single prediction of the apocalypse has been laughably wrong.
I’ve had some doosies like Ray Gorman, Amy Loomis, Robert Adamson, Sandy Carter and others over a lifetime. Once I understood them, I also understood my job and it’s significance to them. I looked at my job a lot differently when I knew they were going to screw everyone to get to the top.
Amy works at IDC now, I pity the other analysts. Ray at Lenovo. The Chinese are tougher than Americans so happy working. The others were millionaires and just went away.
Fortunately, I played the game at a different level than them and moved along in life at a better and faster pace and in a different direction. I was able to go and do what I wanted until I couldn’t take them anymore. Life was sweet when I called the final shot and left on my terms as they still are in the salt mines. (Ray and Amy couldn’t take that I made more)
I had different goals, so I was always in a direction they couldn’t understand. It’s how I kept my life and they lost theirs. I could have been a lot more productive without some bosses continually giving me shit tasks to do on top of my real job.
Travelers flying into the United States will still need proof of Covid vaccination in 2023 — making the US the only country in the West to stick by the failing policy.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended the rule, which only applies to non-US citizens, until at least January 8 next year to ‘limit the risk of Covid-19, including variants of the virus’.
But there has been a growing acceptance among experts that Covid vaccines – while highly effective at preventing severe illness – do not stop infections very well.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), admitted earlier this year that shots ‘can’t prevent transmission anymore’.
Yet since November 2021, non-US citizens entering America have had to provide proof of Covid vaccination.
The CDC defines fully vaccinated as having had an accepted single-dose vaccine, or both doses of an accepted two-dose series, at least two weeks ago. A booster dose is not needed.
Most major Western nations such as the UK, France and Germany, have already dropped these types of recommendations.
I tried to explain legal vs illegal immigration to a colleague, Mauricio Godoy at IBM. He mistook the law and it’s consequences. I knew the history of the country and the basis for it’s existence and laws, and it is playing out like I tried to explain. I chose not to engage this one due to not wanting a fight against immaturity. It was too bad as I tried to help him. Eventually he back stabbed me and others at work.
It turns out that Legal Aliens are more patriotic, my point to Mauricio. I was only for upholding the law and it turns out I was right.
― Mark Twain
When you are not from here, you don’t learn why the history is so important. It’s also why the laws mean something.
I get that one part of the Left wants the replacement theory (get rid of white people who love the country because they will never vote for elitists and socialists like we currently have). That is not what made it the greatest country in achievement and benevolence to others. They just promise money and people vote for then, falling for it every election
Why are they forcing law abiding citizens to get poisoned, and those with diseases get to run anywhere they want once they cross.
They are about to use polio vaccine in NY for the first time in over 40 years. Who brought that in?
Fentanyl? It comes from China through the Mexican border.
So get your poisoned clot shot if you want to come in. Many are doing that now. I’d never get poisoned to go anywhere. I can see it on TV.
I spent most of my career in either Press or Analyst Relations. I have seen my share of successes and failures. I’ve been in both. We know each other well. My work includes dealing with behemoths (IBM), so I understand what it’s like dealing with a Kraken.
When I see others making mistakes, it’s cringe worthy. Tactical mistakes happen. Strategic planning mistakes are usually worth termination, like Gillette trashing men on Super Bowl Sunday. Putting incompetent people in front of a crowd is inexcusable.
I’ve seen unqualified, and that is what we have at the White House Press Podium right now. If anyone cries racism or sexism at this, you are wrong. So wrong that 180 degrees from now you’d still be wrong. There are professionals and there are amateurs. We have someone who is not seasoned enough to be where she is. It reared it’s ugly head yesterday more than the usual incompetence that is rookie material.
I’ve overlooked a lot of what has been said. Jen Psaki lied every day, but was skilled at how she said it and commanded the room. She was a professional and acted for the most part like one. So did almost every other White House Spokesperson prior to her. They handled some tough ad hominem attacks.
In the arena of politics, incompetents and charlatans can have long careers in ways that others in fields like medicine and architecture cannot. If someone botches a heart bypass operation or designs a wobbly skyscraper, the consequences of those mistakes arrive quickly and cannot be explained away. Even when their policies fail spectacularly, politicians can obscure, deflect, and mislead for years and not be held accountable.
This is essentially what we are seeing now from the Biden Administration, practiced to a more shameless and insulting degree than any of its predecessors have ever attempted. The latest nadir of this strategy happened recently when Fox News reporter Peter Doocy confronted White House flack Karine Jean-Pierre about the glaring hypocrisy of not allowing unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic to fly to the United States to compete, while untold numbers of unvaccinated illegal aliens enter the country on foot daily and are allowed to stay.
“But that’s not how it works,” Jean-Pierre said over Doocy’s indignation. “It’s not like somebody walks over.”
Millions walk over the border in full view of cameras (and hidden by coyotes) bringing fentanyl, diseases (Covid) crime and a drain on the taxpayers. They are given phones, EBT and rooms in luxury hotels. The new American dream.
THE TRUTH SLIPS OUT
When you can’t keep track of your lies, the PR mistakes happen. You step in it like KJP did. It is a rookie mistake by an unqualified person. You have to have ice water in your veins when you stand up and mis-direct questions or deflect issues. You don’t give the press the gun to shoot you with.
When Doocy pressed further, Jean-Pierre could only respond by reading talking points about how the administration is adding technology at the border and securing more funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Those bullet points do nothing to explain why thousands of unvaccinated aliens are being allowed into the country.
Such comments are indicative of either next-level gaslighting or ignorance of the issues on a breathtaking scale. Any sentient being who has followed the news the last two years has surely seen the ubiquitous videos showing thousands of foreign nationals crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, then processed by the Border Patrol.
Biden’s own Customs and Border Protection has reported 1,822,160 encounters with illegal aliens so far in fiscal year 2022, a 586 percent increase since 2017. It is reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of those people are still in the United States. Maybe Jean-Pierre was being too literal and splitting hairs, since technically the border-crossers are swimming and wading across the border, not walking. Regardless, noncitizens are clearly traversing our border in record numbers and are being allowed to stay.
How did the situation get this bad? While the border security problem has been festering for decades, it is only in the last two years that the situation has spun out of control at its current record-breaking pace. The White House, again in gaslighting mode, has blamed the spike on everything from COVID to climate change. It couldn’t possibly be anything they did, right?
Even in a sea of political spin, the truth occasionally slips out. During a recorded deposition as part of discovery in a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody against DHS and other border agencies, Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz made a succinct and honest statement. Under questioning about the number of people crossing the border, Ortiz, a 31-year law enforcement veteran, said, “In my experience, we have seen increases when there are no consequences,” said Ortiz during the deposition.
A lot of meetings suck and are just a dick measuring contest. I posted Why Meetings are a wasted of time and how to get out of them a while back.
I wanted to choke the shit out of a lot of people. Just click either work or IBM in the tag cloud to the right.
There are some people that deserve this and I’m the one that would deliver it to them, especially Sandy Carter, but that would be a long line to wait in.
There are some people I’d force choke their balls instead to end their tirades or whatever nonsense they were bringing to the table. They’ agree to my point a lot faster.
I’d use the Jedi mind trick to get people to do stuff also, like give me a raise or stop giving me a hard time.
Like a lot of things, it’s probably better for the world that I’m not a force wielder. There are too many dark side things that need doing to some people.
Since I don’t have the force, I have to settle for my usual super power.
IBM announced that it sold Watson, the Jeopardy winning computer spend-a-thon marketing ploy that was at best a failure in AI.
I wrote in 2012 that it was an advertising gimmick, and that it wouldn’t succeed.
I was in a meeting with Sam Palmisano (then chairman), who said that it wasn’t that big of a deal. It could have been, but wasn’t.
I worked with the people in IBM Research and they are some of the most creative and intelligent people on the planet. Some are so far out there that we couldn’t let them talk to reporters as they’d tell the world the keys to the castle. There has been stuff that never made it out the door, which would have started billion dollar businesses. TPTB at IBM couldn’t recognize this, or it wasn’t strategic (read make money on mainframes). They dropped the ball again on this one.
It is the marketing pukes that grab onto something at IBM and try to ride it for publicity and sales. I saw through it then and it is coming to fruition. That’s why I wrote what I did in 2012. Gini Rometty failed on this one. Sam handed her a golden goose and it got fiddle farted away in the AI world.
Here is an excerpt from the WSJ (you may need a subscription, but look at the last line about it not being a success).
International Business Machines Corp. IBM -1.12% agreed to sell the data and analytics assets from its Watson Health business to investment firm Francisco Partners, the companies said Friday.
The deal is the latest step by IBM to refocus its core business around the cloud. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that IBM was exploring a sale of its healthcare-analytics business as a way to streamline the computing giant’s operations and sharpen its focus on computing services provided via the internet. The Watson Health business uses artificial intelligence to analyze diagnostic tests and other health data and to manage care.
IBM had big aspirations for its Watson artificial intelligence to help in medical research and improve patient outcomes, but the technology’s impact has fallen short of early hopes. Partners and clients have moved away from projects that were built around Watson technology in recent years, although IBM had spent billions of dollars making acquisitions to bolster the business.
“IBM took a risk of becoming a disrupter in the complex health care industry but was only able to garner limited success,” UBS analyst David Vogt said in a note Friday. He added that the Francisco transaction probably wouldn’t have a big financial impact for IBM because of the unit’s limited success.
The big IBM secret is that it is a mainframe company still. It’s software sales are all big iron related. It’s re-focused cloud strategy runs on, you guessed it, a mainframe. They have jettisoned divisions that weren’t money makers and Watson had outlived it’s marketing hype and didn’t cure cancer.
IBM is admitting AI failure by calling it the sale of a non-strategic asset. This message of course like most of the stuff coming out of IBM is bullshit.
At the end of the day, it won Jeopardy. Deep Blue won chess. IBM sells mainframes.
The conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty.
– Antonin Scalia
It is the amendment that protects citizens against the government.
An analyst that I used to work with tweeted his commie statement about wanting to know just who were this militia? Well James G., there is your answer from one of if not the constitutionally best informed minds.
I left twitter a long time ago because of hate and snark just like this and other anti-American crap put out by people like James Governor, but I didn’t forget that it needed answering. I’m finally getting around to it.
You also claimed to be an American because you had a passport, but you are a Brit with dual passports. I don’t care because, only living the ideals and believing in America makes you an American. I know in your heart not only do you not love this country, your words indicate your disdain for it. I didn’t forget that either. You asked me if I questioned whether you are an American and yes, I do. Actions speak louder than words. In UK snark, you are what our execs called you, a wanker.
This goes for the rest of the liberal haters on what makes this country great. A lot of them are born US Citizens with generations of family who came here for a new life. Why you hate it is because you don’t understand what it took to make it great.
So James – read this:
Just look what happened to the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, China and anywhere else they took away guns from the people. It’s just that the sheep and the idiots don’t grasp the concept of freedom, and the concept of what communism and socialism do to the population of a country.
Oh, they’ve banned guns in Australia, and now have kicked Djockovic out of the Aussie Open for not being jabbed. The people can do nothing about it. He had Covid twice so he has immunity. Same for Canada. Freedom is fleeting.
Update: Russia invaded Ukraine:
So James, here’s this:
Update: I just put that woke pronouns are silly. I’ll keep finding new ways to needle them for being woke.
I was very early to LinkedIn, as I was to blogging, Twitter, Facebook and others.
When I got fed up with them going woke or being so biased that I didn’t trust them, I de-platformed Twitter and Facebook.
Recently, LinkedIn stopped allowing revenue to anyone who is in their words a climate change denier. I worked in the Green and Sustainability Industry long enough to learn these things about climate and politics.
“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.” – Bertrand Russell
As soon as there is a problem, they change their tune and are now burning coal in China and Europe.
My pronouns went from woke pronouns are silly, to ho/hum and finally they/lied, just like Al Gore and Fauci, care of Elon.
So, when I heard that LinkedIn banished one side of the conversation on anything, I changed my profile to poke fun at them. Here are some of the changes.
My education is now Faber -Knowledge is Good. I put my fraternity as Delta Tau Chi. If you don’t get this reference, you missed one of the all time funniest movies. It was also a stab at my real college that went woke. I won’t even mention them here because I banished them too. I’ve recently changed it to Sigma Epsilon Chi, Eta Pi chapter. That’s SEX fraternity, one I made up in college.
I changed my current Job to writing a sarcastic blog and not finishing several books. This is actually true. I was in their Associates Program which is for freelancers, but I’m blowing them off now.
The rest of my work life is true for now, but I don’t give enough of a tinkers damn to take LinkedIn serious now, so I’m having fun where I can.
I now want to freelance the boil of wokeness that is on the ass of regular people by elites who think they know better.
I decided I didn’t care that much about them to take them seriously. Besides, I retired because I hate the corporate nonsense. See here, here and here for the above stated wankers.
You got the bonus plan:
12 other woke companies to avoid
I retired and enjoyed the heck out of it. If you want to know what I did, go to about and about me.
I started planning for it when I was in my 30’s and knew it would be a long game to have enough. I listened to Larry Burkett of Crown Financial Services, a biblical based ministry that taught me to save and to live debt free. I posted about it a while back on how an average Joe can become a millionaire.
Was it hard?
You bet it was. There were a lot of sacrifices and a lot of learning about investing, managing money and faith in God. It turns out that we were blessed with an abundance of riches, only a small amount of which are financial.
We were alone.
Fortunately, my wife was on the same page. Heck, my Mom even taught me how to save as she lived through the depression. She could make anything last longer than possible. That woman sacrificed for us and I noticed. My siblings however never learned. Mom told me she taught each of us the same lessons, but said no one else listened to her.
I caught a lot of crap from my friends.
Working in the airline industry is very common for my family and friends. We have many pilots and flight attendants in that group.
Rick, with whom I went to school with since 7th grade, gave me a ton of grief when we were in our late 20’s. He was serving cokes for a living (stewardess) and wasted 15 years of his life doing it. He was broke when he quit.
I spoke to him one Saturday when I was at work. He told me that he only worked 2 weeks a month and was off to Hawaii for free, rubbing it in my face that I had to work. When I hung up, I knew right then that I was making a short term sacrifice for long term gain. I would be retiring early while being financially safe and knew I would have to work hard to accomplish it. I said to myself that I would make it my goal and I’d be playing golf while he was working. He still is working today, and when he got to the real world I’d had 16 years of experience. I had owned my own business shortly after that conversation. FWIW, I played golf this week and have enjoyed a long retirement while he was in tech support.
Did I get even with him?
I chose not to rub it in because the facts show our different outcomes. I’m glad I have mine. I knew I would be financially set and stuck with it in life. Every day is Saturday for me now and he is living off of Social Security.
Being an introvert, I don’t want to get into it anyway and he doesn’t want to talk much anymore. I don’t care what happens to others as I can’t control anything other than my destiny. I’m sorry he didn’t listen to me. He told me he resented that job for 13 of the 15 years he did it and hates his current job.
A theme and a pattern.
It wasn’t only my siblings and friends. When I sold my business and went to work for IBM, they were the same. When it came time for me to say goodbye, my house was paid off and we had saved. Almost no one could believe that I was pulling the plug that early. They thought it was some scandal that I had to quit and were very disappointed that the reason I retired was because I could. Most of them were keeping up with the Jones and didn’t save. I looked some of them up and they are still stuck working at the same job when I left.
At the end, IBM was a terrible place to work (see managing executive ego’s, the good, the bad and the ugly). I actually pulled the trigger a year early to get out of that hell hole. To a person, everyone said they wished that they could do what I did, get out. They were too far in debt to do so.
I turned down moving to New York to “climb the ladder” because living there sucks and I didn’t want to raise a family there. People told me when they moved to New York, they got to pay 30% more for everything, for less than I made. Again, I knew that I was making the right decision for my family not to go there to “get ahead” (behind would have been the actual case if I’d gone there).
My Father.
Dad worked until he was 70. Work defined his life. He was lost when he retired.
Working was only a means to an end for me. To be fair, I was fortunate enough to be highly successful and God decided that I should be compensated for it. That helped make it happen, but if you go back to my siblings, they earned more than me at times. They still work though as most of it was wasted on useless stuff.
Dad couldn’t understand my goals, but I had so much going on that work was interfering with my life, so I stopped. I never regretted it.
A lot of the IBM’rs died shortly after retiring because they had to work a long time. I saw that and knew I wanted to enjoy my life. Now, every day is Saturday for me.
I have enjoyed each day these last 10 years. Heck, I’m the president of the how to enjoy your retirement club. Never once did I think about going back because I didn’t have to.
If there is any lesson, it is in the post of how to become a millionaire.
Short term sacrifice for long term paradise.
After reading a post that claimed rising tides threatened the world a while back, I suggested to him that the tides fluctuate. Science plus history prove the Statue of Liberty isn’t drowning, or Florida sinking like his hero Al Gore promised. I was pointing out the obvious to no avail. I’ve rarely encountered such an elitist, who was so wrong on a subject (except Al Gore).
His argument was that climate science is hard. (It is when you only try to scare others with fake predictions and not facts to back up your position and then the scare never happens). It’s hard to defend when none of those descriptions of doom ever come true, hot or cold. The tweet below shows the Grand Tetons the same as they were 100 years ago
What is funny to me is that instead of decent discussion which I offered, I instead got an ad hominem attack on my character. It was an ill advised use of a bully pulpit as without any personal knowlege of me, I was told I was a typical Fox News watcher (I refuse to watch any news channel, especially FOX l as they all are biased in some way, read my blog and you’ll see). This is typical leftist behavior when they don’t get their way. Start saying they are racists, supremacists, Hitler, deplorable’s and so forth.
There were the other usual liberal attacks on me personally about beliefs I was accused of but don’t have, typical of when you run out of facts. I was this or that, because I wouldn’t worship Gaia and no mention of my knowledge of science and history, and especially facts. So he lied about the tides and about me. Good job there boy.
I also know that Carbon Dioxide is a nutrient for plants. That is the settled science. These idiots call it poison and wanted to tax it. Did anyone go to biology class?
The offer to talk is now rescinded because I don’t have time for Internet trolls like Tim or people who won’t get educated about what they spew. They aren’t going to believe facts and have adjusted it to fit their pre-determined outcome.
Evidence That Climate Change Is A Hoax Perpetuated By The Rich, your hero’s.
So the Greenland Ice is growing and Florida is still there. The water around the statue is at the same level it’s been for 100 years and Tim is a troll it appears and is wrong. I’ve added at hastag for TIm, a social media terrorist.
I offer a few facts, something Tim didn’t have when castigating others on social media.
The New Pause paused last month because I was ill. Many apologies for the interruption. Now, however, it resumes – and it has lengthened from 7 years 7 months to the end of April 2022. To the end of June 2022, the New Pause is now 7 years 10 months in length:
This Pause, like its predecessor, which was an impressive 18 years 8 months (UAH), or 18 years 9 months (HadCRUT4), is, as always, not cherry-picked. It is derived from the UAH monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies as the period from the earliest month starting with which the least-squares linear-regression trend to the most recent month for which data are available does not exceed zero. Whatever the data show, I show. Or, in the immortal words of Dr Roy Spencer, speaking of his dataset, “It is what it is”. In that splendid dictum speaks all true science.
The least-squares trend, which Professor Jones at the University of East Anglia used to recommend as the simplest and most robust method of deriving global-temperature trends, takes due account of all monthly values, not merely of the starting and ending values.
It sucks when you are wrong. But the point of climate change isn’t carbon reduction (Trump reduced it more than any president), it’s controlling others and grifting money.
I feel sorry for people like him. It must suck to go through life choosing to be purposely ignorant about science. It must suck to be wrong and to not change, but when you are in that deep, there is no getting out. You’ve bought the lie hook, line and sinker.
The European Union’s parliament has decided that nuclear power and gas power from plants now qualify as “green energy.” The proposal passes the EU parliament as Russia is threatening to cut off all natural gas transit to Europe in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The news was reported by Disclose TV on Wednesday morning.
JUST IN – EU Parliament declares nuclear power and gas as “green” energy.
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 6, 2022
“EU Parliament declares nuclear power and gas as ‘green’ energy,” the news account tweeted.
It was also reported by the Associated Press in a piece that reads more like an outraged editorial.
“European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to include natural gas and nuclear in the bloc’s list of sustainable activities, backing a proposal from the EU’s executive arm that has been drawing fierce criticism from environment groups and will likely trigger legal challenges,” the AP noted.
I read a WSJ article on ineffective meetings. It is about the manifesto to end boring meetings.
This brought back thousands of hours of meetings I wished I could have back or would certainly decline to attend had I realized what I know now. Most of this post is tongue in cheek unlike the WSJ, but I’ll bet everyone wishes they weren’t in so many meetings.
First, let me start out with some quotes I found from The Quote Garden, starting with the one that reminded me most of the meetings I’ve attended:
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. ~Milton Berle
To kill time, a committee meeting is the perfect weapon. ~Author Unknown
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.” ~Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”
Our age will be known as the age of committees. ~Ernest Benn
If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock. ~Arthur Goldberg
A committee is an animal with four back legs. ~John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. ~H.L. Mencken
A “Normal” person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, “Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray.” ~Alan Sherman
A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour. ~Elbert Hubbard
A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee. ~Author Unknown
A committee is a group of the unwilling chosen form the unfit, to do the unnecessary. ~Author Unknown
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. ~Author Unknown
Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club?… Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold
We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist. ~Frank Moore Colby
I don’t believe a committee can write a book. It can, oh, govern a country, perhaps, but I don’t believe it can write a book. ~Arnold Toynbee
There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee. ~Lester J. Pourciau
Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to. ~Katharine Whitehorn
Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything. ~Thomas Sowell
Usually, the meetings were a way to get other people to do your work for you, or to assign work to others they wouldn’t do or volunteer for were it not for the fact that they were at a meeting. The only time this didn’t work was when I actually needed to get a speaker for a press briefing for an interview with Time Magazine when print media was important. His manager, John Callies then VP of Netfinity or X series at IBM(x86 servers), wouldn’t let the speaker leave the staff meeting stating, “it’s only your job” as the reason. See how manage executive ego’s for more on this. I’d have never imagined having to cancel an interview with what was then an important publication due to an executives’ ego. I’ve seen bad manager moves in my time, but this was top 10 worst of the worst for me. He still ranks as the number one suit I’ve ever worked with. The below meme was how it felt to be in a meeting with him.
Execs have also had meetings in places that they wanted to visit (click on the link to see who it is), and most people knew that. That was a waste of travel time and money for a wasted meeting. There were other reasons they had meetings, but read the quotes at the beginning to find out why said were held.
Avoid training meetings, unless it was a way to be busy during a meeting you want to avoid. This is especially true of diversity training. It is a waste of time (same exact meeting every time every year for the required legal reason) but is more important than almost any other meeting, so it serves 2 purposes. No one will go against diversity training for fear of being politically or legally incorrect. It does allow you to miss another meeting and no one pays attention anyway. It’s an opportunity to get work done while the training is going on in the background. Your attendance is recorded so you are twice as effective as you complete your work, earn your mark for training and ignore the same speech you went through last year all at the same time.
MEETING RULES TO SURVIVE
The best way to deal with a meeting is to avoid it. If you can already have a meeting at a time that the scheduler proposes it or be busy and/or somehow away or out of the office. Teleconferencing kills that strategery unless you can be found traveling, but sometimes it’s unavoidable (see how to get out of a meeting below if you have to go). The people calling the meeting are really only people who want the meeting anyway.
For things to do to avoid meetings or how to goof around during a meeting, go to the link How to goof around at work.
HERE IS MY RULE WHEN TO DECIDE TO ATTEND IF I HAD A CHOICE: if there were more than 4 people, don’t go. Nothing will get done other than resulting in another meeting to have to attend. This is especially true if there are more than 1 executives, as each brings a team of competing players who guarantee the death of productivity.
The WSJ agrees with me, but goes on to say that if it has 17 people, there is no chance anything will get accomplished.
Don’t speak at a meeting if possible. It usually wastes time and extends the meeting length. There are only a couple of people who really have something to contribute, the rest want to hear themselves talk, show off their PowerPoint skills to bore you, or think they are more important if they speak. These show offs can be insufferable, but they offer time to check your email at best while pretending to listen.
This is in the department of redundancy department, but it is so important to note is to be careful when attending because the meeting leader’s purpose is to assign their work to others or get people to do work they wouldn’t do because they can’t decline in public (this is a corporate tradition). This further kills your ability to be productive at your real job. There are some who want to look important by accepting work magnanimously to show off, thinking they were climbing the ladder. Gladly accept their offer as most people have 10 hours of work for an 8 hour day anyway. Only accept it if it produces revenue or if you are the only one qualified to do it, but generally don’t, especially if you perceive it as a make work project.
Especially avoid planning meetings. A meeting to plan another meeting is one to be skipped unless you are the project manager and called the meeting, then you have to do it. Avoid these at all costs. Once nobody shows up, the meeting gets cancelled for email updates, which is a far better use of your time. As my grandfather said, they are as common as pig tracks and as useless as teats on a boar hog.
Avoid staff meetings. These are like planning meetings, but they occur regularly and when you miss one, nobody really cares (especially if there are more than 4 people). Only attend them occasionally as you work with these people everyday anyway, it’s not like you don’t know what is going on. Email your boss on a regular basis with your activity and you can plan something more productive during that time.
HOW TO GET OUT OF A MEETING
The tongue in cheek part really goes here. I’ll bet there are folks out there far more creative about this than me.
My favorite methods are to have a customer who needs you. They are your business and that overrides almost everything. Even your boss can’t deny this.
Pre-plan an emergency. I occasionally had another employee phone or knock on the door to call me out (email or text isn’t as good as that is not public enough) to get you out of a meeting. The trick is to never return. You’ll get the notes anyway, I promise. Since I worked with the press and analysts, I sometimes had a co-worker say that a reporter needed me right now. They were my customer and no one could say no. Many times there was no real emergency even if the press did call, it was the best and most efficient use of my time to leave the meeting so as to be actually working instead of being at a meeting. I usually dealt with the press immediately unless I had to do some digging to get back to them.
Attend meetings by phone if possible. You can always put the phone on mute and get your real work done, or surf the web or watch TV, which is usually just as productive. It’s easier to go to the bathroom, which brings me to…
Go to the bathroom. Offer to get a water to others when you go, then take as much time reading the sports page in the stall as you can. You are just as productive as listening to someone prattle on about their project.
Send your meeting information in by proxy. See above where someone is willing to talk. Give them your results or input so you don’t have to be there.
I realize that some meetings are necessary, so I understand that it’s the only way to get some things done. For the other majority of the time, see above.
The best meeting is a hall meeting. You run into the person you need help from and in 5 minutes, you’ve explained your need, what they can do and your time frame for doing it. Problem solved.
I also recommend having meetings with introverts and/or men. They don’t like to talk much (most of them) and want to get it over as quickly as you do. Attire requirements are less of a priority as is small talk.
Here is the net net, don’t go to a meeting if you don’t have to, get out early if at all possible and above all, don’t speak unless you have no option. Consider it a victory if you don’t attend, or a minor victory if you have to attend but don’t come out with anyone else’s work. You are a complete failure if you open your mouth and double your workload on something that is not tangential to your job or career. Enjoy your job more by having the time to actually be productive.
I’ve had PC’s since before the IBM PC in 1981. I’ve built hundreds of computers over different phases of the PC life cycle (for myself, others and at computer stores I worked at for years). I’ve personally owned many ThinkPads since they were introduced…likely between 40-50 including my multiple work PC’s. The same is true with Microsoft. I’ve worked with DOS and Windows, Windows for Workgroups, (built and wired my first network in 1994), NT, 95, 2000, XP and you name it. I first put up webpages since 1993 and every version of DOS or Windows made starting with 1.0 for both. I’ve finally had it with the declination of the quality, service, especially customer service and workmanship of IBM/Lenovo and Microsoft products.
I began to desire a different machine when the smartest guys at IBM (IBM Fellow’s) and the smartest (and of course some of my favorite) IT analysts starting using Mac’s. It told me times were a changin’.
WHEN THEY WERE GOOD
It used to be that when you went to a frequent flyer lounge at an airport, it would be a ThinkPad convention because they were so tough, now everyone is switching to an iPad which I now also love and have.
Further, when I retired, I bought what I thought would be the ThinkPad which would last me for at least 5 years (pictured below). It was the worst PC experience to date, see the beginning below.
In reverse order, after 1.5 years, one of the USB ports failed, the screen is falling apart (for the second time…the first in only months), the battery died in the first 6 months (they fixed that under warranty after 1 month of calls and forcing a manager intervention because customer service blamed me) other hardware and software problems which eventually got fixed over hours of calls (the final fix was always simple and could have been easily accomplished from the start).
I called the Lenovo help desk and not only did they refuse to fix most of my problems (all within the warranty period), but they were with the exception of one person, unhelpful to me and not proficient in English 95+% of the time (some were rude, but tech support is a thankless job). Note: I like the people from other countries and think that they are hard working so I have no problems with the people, rather the policies they are forced to adhere to put them into positions they shouldn’t be forced into. I’m clearly calling out the company, not the people here. It’s just in this case we couldn’t understand each other and they mostly were not trained or who couldn’t fix problems and just couldn’t help fix issues Lenovo created.
Here’s what my screen looks like now with use that is less than normal due to my retirement status:
SHIPPING DISASTER
This was compounded by the fact that they originally shipped me a computer which was in for repair as I found it had someone else’s password on it. Tech support recognized the serial number as someone else’s machine and I had to ship back a PC so that they could ship me what I ordered which was supposed to be new. They at first required me to pay for the return shipping for the machine which they wrongly shipped me in the first place. It took them 5 weeks to get me this wrong machine once I ordered it in the first place, so needless to say, this added to a dissatisfied experience. Let me summarize it: The 1st machine I received was in for repair which they shipped to me as my new machine. They finally agreed to pay for the shipping back to them after weeks, but I was in dis-belief by now as I had to get upper management approval 3 levels above my call to tech support to get shipping approved and the machine I ordered sent to me. This was a 6 week timeframe that I put up with to get a ThinkPad that looks like the one above.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COMPANY PURCHASED FROM IBM?
So, what happened when Lenovo bought the PC Division from IBM? Quality and customer service have apparently suffered, at least for me. It is fair to note that Lenovo is the PC leader even though PC’s are a dying breed and are now a commodity item, but that the lead is mostly due to HP executive incompetence and Dell lack of innovation.
WORKING FOR IBM PC DIVISION, MORE THINKPAD BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE THAN MOST HAVE
I worked with ThinkPads at companies before IBM. I then did communications for the IBM-PC (PSG) division back in the early 2000’s. IBM-PCs were a rock solid product that introduced many technologies from the floppy disk, HDD on PC’s, open system motherboard, the start of an incredibly successful industry, creation of millions of jobs, Bluetooth and WiFi to the industry. It was well accepted by industry leaders as the standard to compare against and I was proud of representing the machines. By then, we had slipped to about 4th place, but IBM had other priorities by then. Analysts always recognized that the IBM ThinkPad was the industry leader, albeit most of the time the expensive option. I never had a problem educating them that it was the industry leader to be compared against. I also learned from IDC, Gartner, Forrester and others that Dell and HP were sub-standard compared to the ThinkPad.
THE IBM TO LENOVO EMPLOYEE TRANSITION
The co-workers who went to Lenovo were mixed. The developers were good, with the chief designer being one of if not the best, but he obviously had nothing to do with my 410S. The Press communications team however was a joke. Much of the management that I had worked with were handcuffed by the new ownership. However, with the non-inventor taking over control, changes in leadership including many Dell executives, it has appeared to make it less than the leader of rugged laptops, a position it once enjoyed.
MY LATEST PURCHASE
Since my ThinkPad failed and the screen basically fell off (I am retired and don’t travel anymore so it didn’t have the wear and tear to justify its condition), the keyboard keeps sticking, ports not working and the other problems I’ve described have forced me to buy a new PC.
Side note: I worked with Microsoft since 1981 in one form or another, as a partner, but mostly as a competitor as Microsoft was very belligerent and went out of their way to be anti-IBM (see my joint announcement wrap up). I’ve worked with their products since DOS 1.0 which I still have installed on an original PC at home. They loved Lenovo when the purchase was made and the difference was an overnight sea change in their attitude of helpfulness and pricing.
So the combination of Lenovo’s product being poor, their customer service being unhelpful led me to buying a MacBook Pro (but I got much more computing power and a brand new experience in helpfulness).
But, both Lenovo and Microsoft lost me as a customer and I can’t be alone.
Here is my new computer, a 13 inch Macbook Pro:
It sync’s with my phone and iPad seamlessly. I don’t have weekly Microsoft security updates or blue screen of death experiences. It is powerful, I can read Windows files and have converted them, multimedia is a snap, graphics are beautiful and most of all it works without gyrations to make drivers, port configurations and software incompatibilities work. I have never before been an Apple fan except when I ran an advertising department for a few years and understood artists needs for them.
When managing a store at a computer chain, my store was recognized as the retailer that lead the nation in Apple sales so I do have experience with them. My store also was a leading promoter of the first Macintosh during the famous 1984 ad time. In other words, I know them well, but I’ve used Wintel computers most if not all of my life until now.
Further, I called their tech support and went to an Apple store and guess what, they were friendly and helpful, and it just works. I paid less for the software than the PC version (I just built a multimedia PC for my TV viewing so I am fully aware of company configured, or self built PC’s vs. Mac machines hardware and software.
THE TREND OF PC’S
Mobile devices are killing standard laptops at a rate far faster than laptops replacing desktops, but there is still a need for machines that do more than a tablet until they increase in input efficiency, storage capacity and business application conversion (there are tons of legacy apps still out there as the average person still interacts with COBOL 13 times a day). This hasn’t caused me any issues with my new laptop though, it just works.
The company that is easy to work with, keeps up with the trends and produces quality equipment will be the one who has market leadership. I have voted with my money.
I wrote a while back about doing a joint announcement with a competitor. Communications wise, it was from the standpoint of Analyst Relations. Since I also did Public Relations for many years, I had the opportunity to lead an announcement with Microsoft and Intel.
CODE NAME FIRESTORM
Recently I came across a press release that I had coordinated on behalf of the Netfinity Server (System X now, update: It has been sold to Lenovo) with Microsoft and Intel in the early 2000’s. In reality, all the work was done between Waggener Edstrom for Microsoft and me for IBM. All other parties weren’t interested enough to contribute as long as their name and content was in the release. It was done to best Oracle in the TPC-C benchmark category (there are multiple TPC benchmarks but this one worked for effect). While the machines pale in comparison to recent server announcements, it was quite an achievement in 2001 terms. The code name internally at IBM was Firestorm and had the high priority and secrecy of a CIA mission with me having to sign a non disclosure agreement that expired on announcement day just to know about it.
HOW IT WAS RUN
We had weekly internal meetings to cover the progress as what was at stake was having DB2 exceed Oracle in database transactions, basically one-upmanship in a bake-off. I coordinated it for IBM even though there was a Software Division product at stake. Since it was run on an IBM server, that established what the importance to the company was and to this day servers are still a critical product to the company (you can’t run software or have services without one). I told the then PR manager for DB2 Lori Bosio, that I would run it for them as they didn’t have much involvement in the benchmark testing (their PR group didn’t even know about it during the testing) so it was cleaner this way. She was a Karen and bossy who turned out to be a back stabber so my instincts were right. It was already going to be hard enough to work with multiple companies which turned out to be true, so this kept the cooks out of the kitchen. Moving her out of the announcement was vital to being able to get anything done at IBM.
If you recall, there was bad blood between Microsoft and the IBM PC group since the beginning of the PC era (which Netfinity was a part of, until PC’s were sold to Lenovo). It was apparent from the start to the end of this process. I had to also keep the GM of Netfinity, John Callies out of the process as he was a useless suit whose ego commanded his actions which weren’t always good for the division. The GM of the overall PC Group was also hopeless (see the letter below) so I ran the process and kept the ego maniac suit and the helpless suit from ruining things. They were part of the old IBM who got their jobs through working the system rather than competence. It is part of executive ego managing, a tool that everyone needs to know when dealing with executives.
The other PR teams jointly listed in the release didn’t have the spirit of the announcement as their focus, rather it felt like we were in the cold war. This happened even though IBM did all the work (it was built and conducted by IBM technicians, then independently verified by the TPC committee) and handed to the other companies as a freebie. Back then, Microsoft then had the clout of IBM PR during the System 360 and initial PC days when they were king of the hill and could (and did) throw their weight around.
THE PRESS RELEASE BATTLE
As I recall, there were over 30 revisions of the press release before we got to the final (below). It seemed as though every word was contested. This is how it went; I’d send a press release draft around which had the details giving all parties credit and explaining the products and process. A few days later I’d get back a draft which talked about Microsoft with relatively little mention of the process or an understanding of why the benchmark mattered to database users. It was a combination of elbowing IBM out-of-the-way to get headlines and a general lack of understanding of what we were announcing. Intel went along with us as they were confident in our ability to make a successful announcement.
The negotiations went on for about 3-4 weeks prior to the announcement until 2 days before the big day. We couldn’t agree to the verbiage and finally Wag-Ed suggested that we just each write our own press release. While I disagreed with this strategy, we actually agreed to it just to make the deadline and got it approved by the IBM executives. I didn’t want to do it as this inherently would present problems like why are there 2 separate releases if the companies are working together? However, since I knew the reporters I knew I was going to tell them the background off the record. I fully understood that a press release is merely a place holder and a conversation starter. No self respecting reporter would use someone else’s words if they were worth their salt. Only the companies really care what it says.
THE RESOLUTION
The announcement was to be made on a Monday which we could agree on for effect (good PR tactics in those days, especially with IBM/Microsoft/Intel vs. Oracle in the headlines). Our final joint call occurred the Friday before the announcement and was attended by PR teams, spokesmen and company executives (note this was the first time I recall an actual Microsoft executive on these calls). It was on this call that a Senior VP from Microsoft (who reported to Ballmer and Gates) stated through his heavy French accent that having two press releases was a stew-peed idea and which idiot suggested it (I agreed with him). I pointed out that it was Microsoft’s idea which we accommodated. I’ve rarely heard such a gasp of silence as all parties realized what was going on. They quickly agreed to do a joint release and we cobbled together what to me was a very neutral (and useless) document. I silently was grateful that he asked this question that I’d pondered the whole time I dealt with this crew.
I had known the whole time that this was a press release wording struggle and the real work was going to be done in the one on one’s with reporters after the press release hit the wires. I also was informed that Microsoft was only going to speak with a couple of magazines they viewed as their buddies. I agreed and kept quiet as I knew that this left the door open for us to lead the announcement. One has to have one’s priorities in focus and getting proper coverage was mine. I knew the reporters they wanted to talk to and they wrote my story and told me they didn’t like how pushy the W-E PR team was. See the part about relationships.
It is important to note that a press release is merely a document to get an interview except when a wire service will run it early hours to beat a deadline. It is the relationship that the PR person has with the reporters that is the key to getting results. It didn’t hurt that so many big names were seemingly working together on this and that it had the element of controversy (IBM teams with Microsoft and Intel to beat Oracle) which is a headline grabber. It was then that I knew that things would work out despite our differences.
For strategic purposes, I saved the IBM draft version of the release and used it for my press work as it described more accurately what we were doing, including a better presentation of how Microsoft and Intel contributed. Since Microsoft was only interested in the press release and thought they would get minimal coverage, I didn’t bother telling them and they didn’t care past the document.
THE RESULTS
It turned out that the IBM team did the bulk of the publicity work (we had the most invested so no surprise). There was only a few joint calls with Microsoft and Intel where the executives touted the significance of this benchmark and during which everyone worked together like professionals.
After hammering the phones and working with reporters for days, we received thousands of articles which was a shock to the other PR teams, especially Wag-Ed. While they tried to claim coverage, it was heavily nuanced to the IBM side of the story as we did the actual work both in the test and in the PR effort so no one believed Microsoft’s Wagg-Ed team.
I worked with most of the reporters who covered it to give them the real story of the benchmark, and just left the press release controversy alone. I even fed them the line that we “Blew the doors of the TPC benchmark” which got printed and made it to the halls of Armonk.
THE AFTERMATH
While I was glad it was over, I learned a great deal about working with others such as keeping the big picture in focus. It was one of the years largest announcements for our group and garnered massive coverage. I received my one and only personal email from Lou Gerstner praising the results. He stated that he had no interest in bake-off’s, but that this one was significant given what we had accomplished. This meant a lot as I thought Lou was one of the two best executives I had worked with at IBM, and I had a great deal of respect for his saving and running IBM as a company.
I also received a personal note from the head of our division. The reality was that the IBM PC group had managed to fall to about sixth in the industry by then behind the likes of Dell, Compaq, HP, Acer and E-Machines, and this was one of the more competent things the group did while I was there.
EPILOGUE
If you go to the link at the top of the page, you find that the Analyst joint announcement I did with Oracle was a far better experience, go figure. I received a personal note from the GM however. Note that he got my name wrong which caused me to chuckle and save it for the memories. Execs like Callies and Thomas cost IBM market share and progress. It was surprising that the doors opened some days in the PC division with people like that running the place. It is an indication of why they were 6th behind companies that didn’t exist only a couple of years later. The division fell off the map at IBM and was sold to Lenovo who took it back to the top of the industry.
Overall, it was tenacity over talent, execution over ego but it is how the game is won.
IBM, INTEL, MS CLAIM WORLD’S FASTEST SERVER CLUSTERIBM, Intel and Microsoft announced the world’s fastest server cluster for commercial use, recording performance levels that triple the performance of Oracle running on a Sun Microsystems cluster, at one-third the price. Using the performance measurement technique agreed to by all computer makers (TPC-C), this alliance of leaders in industry standard computing achieved record-breaking results in server and price performance. “This benchmark constitutes a solution that will entirely bypass the normal glitches and costs of second implementations that accompany exponential transaction growth rates,” said Marshall Freiman, CTO, Web Emporium LLC, an IBM customer. “It also offers scalability for e-businesses affected heavily by the transaction spikes associated with the holiday seasons. This is the type of cooperation between industry leaders that we should expect. With IBM, Intel and Microsoft making a move like this, others are bound to follow.” “Scalability concerns for e-businesses are a worry of the past,” said Perry Cain, vice president, Neoteric Solutions, also an IBM customer. “With this benchmark, we receive the cooperative efforts of IBM, Intel and Microsoft yielding a standardized and tested solution with double the transaction capabilities of anything else before. These technologies are no longer dreams of engineers.” IBM, Intel and Microsoft joined forces on this groundbreaking effort to prove that a combination of Netfinity Servers with Pentium III Xeon processors running at 700 MHz (megahertz) with 2 MB (megabyte) L2 cache, IBM DB2 Universal Database and Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating system provides a highly scalable environment. This technology combination is ideally suited for data-intensive applications like business-to-business (B2B), e-commerce and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). “With this record-breaking event, IBM has once again demonstrated the power of DB2, and has raised the bar for industry-standard servers with Netfinity,” said Ralph Martino, vice president, strategy and marketing, IBM Personal Systems Group. “IBM’s strong, productive relationship with Microsoft and Intel, and our collective ability to achieve extraordinary results as we did with this benchmark, is changing the way the world views industry-standard computing.” “Achieving strong industry-standard benchmark results is one of the leading ways to show the industry and our customers that Windows 2000 is a highly scalable operating system for mission critical enterprise deployments,” said Jim Ewel, marketing vice president for IT infrastructure and hosting at Microsoft. “Beyond the numbers, this benchmark effort illustrates our commitment to working with IBM and Intel to deliver to customers the largest and most reliable enterprise-class solutions.” “This breakthrough performance on Intel-based servers and achieved by IBM’s Netfinity 8500R server showcases the incredible scalability of our large cache Pentium III Xeon processors,” said Raghu Murthi, director of marketing for Intel’s Enterprise Platform Group. “Intel-based servers are designed for large enterprise class implementations and we worked closely with IBM and Microsoft to deliver outstanding performance and solutions tailored to meet the rapidly growing e-Business economy.” Benchmark Configuration DetailsThe configuration included an unprecedented 116 terabytes of physical disk space configured for high availability using RAID 1 and RAID 5 arrays. The Netfinity 8500R servers, containing Netfinity X-Architecture features adopted from IBM S/390 and RS/6000 servers, contributed to this benchmark’s success. Specific features that convinced the benchmark team the servers were up to the test include the 8500R’s expansive memory, the number of processors supported, the number of PCI slots available for add-on components and the amount of LAN I/O for the transfer of data in and out of the system. In addition, the setup utilizes Giganet cLAN interconnects for fast server-to-server communications. Key components of the cluster included:
DB2 Universal DatabaseThis announcement highlights IBM’s leadership in the database market. DB2 demonstrated record-breaking results in transactions and in the ability to manage the world’s largest database of more than 116 TB of online storage – this is equivalent to a stack of paper 3,480 miles high. A proven foundation for B2B applications, DB2 Universal Database Version 7 integrates breakthrough technologies that enable customers to slash development in many cases nearly in half and perform high-speed text searches as much as ten times faster than traditional relational database search engines. DB2’s ability to scale to 1000 nodes, using a single database spread across the cluster offered significant advantages in scaling and management over other data management solutions that follow a federated architecture (i.e., one database instance per machine, each requiring individual management.) Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced ServerMicrosoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server was configured using a scale out approach to run on each member of the cluster of the Netfinity servers. Scale out architecture ensures that customers creating enterprise solutions will be able to achieve the highest possible levels of scalability and reliability with unmatched price and performance; this benchmark is further evidence of the performance, scalability and economic advantages of the results that can be achieved using Windows 2000 Advanced Server. COM+ is a complete, mature set of component services for quickly building scalable, reliable applications that is delivered in the Windows 2000 Server family of operating systems. COM+, the most popular component model in the world, includes critical scalability and reliability features necessary for building large-scale applications by integrating the features of the Microsoft Transaction Service (MTS) deep into the COM component model. This integration makes it easier for developers to create and use scalable software components in any language, using any tool. Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a solution that includes additional functionality to enhance the availability and scalability of e-commerce and line-of-business applications. The Windows 2000 operating system is the ideal platform for the next generation of business computing; helping organizations Internet-enable their businesses with a reliable, manageable infrastructure that is optimized for existing and emerging hardware. Intel Pentium III Xeonprocessor at 700 MHz with 1MB/2MB of L2 CacheThe new large cache 700MHz version of the Pentium III Xeon processor has a record 140 million transistors. The processor is based on Intel’s advanced 0.18-micron process technology, and offers 1MB and 2MB of Advanced Transfer Cache memory with Advanced System Buffering, which boosts performance by placing a full-speed, level-two cache memory directly on the processor die and increasing the width of the data pathway to the processor. The processor also offers a 100 MHz system bus and on-cartridge voltage management for increased system reliability. The new processors also are built on the same form factor, enabling server manufacturers to use them with existing server platform components, accelerating time to market. For more information about: — IBM Netfinity servers and DB2 Universal Database, visit www.ibm.com — Intel, visit www.intel.com — Microsoft, visit www.microsoft.com. The Transaction Processing Performance Council is a non-profit corporation founded to define transaction processing and database benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable TPC performance data to the industry. About MicrosoftFounded in 1975, Microsoft is a worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device. Sun’s Enterprise 6500 cluster achieved 135,461 transactions at a price performance of $97.10 tpmC. IBM, Intel, Microsoft cluster achieved an audited record attested to by TPC-C (Transaction Processing Performance Council, type C benchmark) of 440,879.95 transactions per minute at a price performance of $32.28 per tpmC. Data is current as of July 3, 2000 and is subject to change without notice. For the latest benchmark information, visit www.tpc.org. Solution specification, pricing and availability information is subject to change without notice. Contact John Simonds, IBM, 919-254-9732, jsimonds@us.ibm.com or Deborah Young, Waggener Edstrom for Microsoft, 425-637-9097 deborahy@wagged.com. |
There has been a new collaboration between both Analysts and Analyst Relations Professionals emerging on Twitter called #ARchat. For the record, it occurs every Monday from1-2 ET. Here is a description for A/R professionals.
ARchat is a weekly themed conversation on Twitter for business professionals that deal with Industry Analysts and Influencers. This includes Analyst Relations (AR), Public Relations (PR), Investor Relations (IR) and Marketing professionals (especially since many in small firms function as all of the above), not to mention Industry Analysts (IA) themselves. Our focus involves both best practices and pressing issues or trends. All tweets are tagged with #archat which makes following the discussion very easy with applications like TweetDeck, TweetChat, TweetGrid or Twitter Search.
I recall the days when even speaking with a person from a competitor would be grounds for dismissal (OK, I did start working when we were still building fires in caves) and now we are collaborating on best practices. This doesn’t take the place of services like SageCircle (although they participate), rather it is the natural progression of social media in the Analyst Relations practice. I give kudos to Fred McClimans (Twitter handle @fredmcclimans) and Stephen Loudermilk (Twitter handle @loudyoutloud).
We’ve discussed issues such as the proper social media tools and other best practices.
What is interesting to me is the back channel conversations I have with the other participants during the conversation about what is going on. It makes the whole experience much richer. While there is serious discussion of what is best for our practice, there is jocularity about certain analyst’s proclivities (tweotches) or habits like Ray Wang (@rwang0) staying up all day and night.
I invite all the analysts and A/R professionals to participate, learn and contribute to this discussion.
See you there, Aloha.
Recently, I’ve done joint announcements with Oracle, SAP, HP, Tibco, Software AG and HP. As you can imagine, I’ve had varying relationships with each and I’m happy to report that the state of the A/R industry is good and that we can work together.
When I was in PR, it was cat fight supreme with territorial ism and turf wars. Most of the announcements I did with these companies when in Analyst Relations didn’t have that element. For the most part, the announcements were about standards, not products. So that went a long way towards working together. Still, if you include IBM, the companies I’ve named here aren’t known for being best buddies.
As and aside, I can say that the executives (who can be the source of most problems) all worked towards the cause of the best briefing possible.
Some things are given, like in a certain area (we just did SOA) the analysts know the exec’s by company and the exec’s know each other so I’m happy to report they acted like grown ups.
TURF WARS
With the typical name calling (from the CEO’s)and because of t the belief in your own products, the first issue to overcome is that the announcement is usually about a jointly create product or standard, not us vs. them. That rule has to be set down first and if you don’t overcome that, you have no chance at building trust, the basis for working together.
DIVIDE THE DUTIES
One company can’t dominate the duties or or it is not a joint announcement. This also forces the companies to work together to approve what the others have created as their part of the announcement. There are analyst lists, invitations, charts, follow up issues and any number of duties that need to be attended to and dived up. Once that is done, you must rely on each other and the level of trust inherently rises.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
It’s important that the analyst see this as equal amongst the companies. One company presenting more than another is a dead give away. You can’t help Q and A as the analysts will direct the question directly to a company.
LESSONS LEARNED
You either put your differences aside and work together, or you’ll never get anything done. It’s tough to do when your day job is to hammer the company that you are working with other than on the announcement. These are the days of co-opetition though. You learn to get along or you’ll never make it to announcement day.
I’ve worked at 8 different IT companies in my career and have seen many people in management roles. I’ll draw upon my career and the colorful stories for this discussion.
Managing Executives is a very sensitive issue. This process is critical to the relationship and results with the press and Analysts. Much of the time this is unseen externally, but the machinations exist under the covers for us to get to the discussion in an orderly manner.
Executives have many demands on their time and are pounded or pulled at from every angle, but they make the big bucks so butch up. They might have come from a great meeting or one that they got machined gunned to death right before the analyst briefing. Different people handle stress in different ways.
A common thread I’ve noticed is how much ego they bring, and how much control they have over it. Either way, the executive is the messenger and the content owner in the eyes of the audience. It is our job to make sure they are best prepared, deal with the issues, understand the big picture and be as professional as possible to achieve results. In some ways, we have to pull the strings and push the buttons behind the curtain to make successful analyst engagements happen.
As with the movie, I’ll take it in order.
THE GOOD
There are some executives that intrinsically get that analysts are deep thinkers, they have influence over customers, press and our reputation. The media are rarely deep thinkers, but need to be managed and have influence, albeit less and less.
The really, really good ones know that the analyst can provide great input into the strategy and can point out any holes or landmines in our strategy.
The really, really, really good ones (Buell Duncan) understand that it is about creating a relationship and that no matter how much influence they have at IBM, they can put that aside and get the message out and deliver value to an analyst discussion.
One key is they can manage their ego’s and those of the analyst (not the point of this post, but it is related throughout). The executive I’ve linked above always comes off as you’re smarter than I am, although it’s rarely true. He also accepts that criticism is part of the deal and doesn’t take it personally. I’m not sure if it was his basic nature or that he came from sales (I attribute a big piece to the fact that he’s from the south and is more polite than most) but no matter what the case, his briefings always were a home run.
These executives are of course the best to deal with. Some have higher maintenance levels than others, but when you know your big gun is going to deliver, you want to make sure his gun is as loaded as possible with bullets.
There are always disagreements over issues, but when an executive can put their ego aside and listen to input, everyone wins. These people are very perspicacious.
THE BAD
Everyone has a bad day. That can precipitate a less than optimal discourse. I’ve worked with some who just weren’t as good as others at dealing with media and analysts, although practice usually improved things. Some executives just shouldn’t be doing briefings as it isn’t their strength.
As described in the GOOD section, I’ve seen good executives come off distracted as they just got chewed out, or a multi-million dollar contract is about to be lost….it happens.
Some need more coaching and preparation than others, that’s our responsibility in communications. I’ll discuss this in the Executive Preparation post, yet to come.
There are some that are not cut out for analysts briefings. They should not be put in this situation. There is always someone else on the team who is the one really best suited for dealing with the analysts. They may not be as good with a P&L, but they get the strategy and the relationship issues. I use them as much as possible as it produces results on both the analyst and the company side.
Some just don’t get give and take. I don’t put them in the ugly as they just won’t budge on the fact that their solution is what it’s going to be, but many times they can be right. It is better for the company for them to make the tough choices and stick with our side of the argument. It rarely makes for a successful analyst engagement, but I defer when history shows that they didn’t take the analyst advice and the company or division benefits. Again, this a time where a lieutenant is best for dealing with the analysts.
I’ll bring up human nature here as I’ve been in a situation where an executive who is generally great at working with analysts has a beef with a person for some reason. In one case, both the analyst and the executive described the other person in to me terms of a deification orifice. Sometimes you just have to separate people and agree to disagree. This situation is a challenge in communications.
Some of the bad are nitpickers. The get caught up in details that are not relevant to the big picture. They are a distraction and a lieutenant is again best.
Another category that could be BAD or could be UGLY are the quick triggers. They fire off a response without considering the consequences. The reason I put it into BAD instead of UGLY is you never know how it’s going to turn out. It usually depends on the audiences’ response. Either way it is high maintenance. The quick witted exec’s can play this one well though, I’ll give them that.
I had to work with one entrepreneur who thought he knew more than anyone. He managed to pick a fight over a lie that he was making a product (disk drive) that he bought from Control Data. The reporters and analysts knew it and the company credibility was shot. I had to tell one reporter not to equate me with him as I was not going to lie for him.
The last of the bad is the death by PowerPoint crowd. They drone on and on and on and on without letting the analyst get a word in (when don’t analysts like to offer an opinion?) and everyone dreads these meetings. Their objective is to get through the slide deck come hell or high water.
These executives are hard to work with, but sometimes you have to do it and get through it.
THE UGLY
These are the worst experiences of anyone’s communications career. They also regularly put the company behind the curve with the relationship with the analyst. I have only experienced this a couple of times, but they are burned into my memory as times I don’t want to relive. Fortunately, I don’t work for or with any of these people anymore.
It almost every instance, it is fueled by the over estimation by the executives of the importance of themselves. These people also come in various flavors.
The Ugly Flavors
The Suits – These are people who have made it through the system via the Peter Principle. They pontificate, but aren’t well respected by anyone on either side and as with everyone in this category, are difficult to work with. They are found out quickly by the analyst and it hurts the cause to come to the table with them. Once, he called his assistant before a Forrester briefing to see if he could change his flight out so he could be home early and asked me to cut the analyst meeting short. This was less than professional and was very hard to explain to the analysts why he obviously was blowing them off.
Another Suit (A former head of NetFinity and IGF named Callies) incident came up when I had landed one of the highest level press interviews of my career. It was major media headline quality “Article of the Year” that anyone with half a brain would throw their best people and research at. I had to pull the speaker (his lieutenant) from the Suit’s “staff” meeting. The lieutenant was the best speaker I may have worked with and the Suit was one of the worst. Said Suit wouldn’t let the speaker go to the briefing threatening him with “it’s only your job if you leave”, or I’m more important than anyone else. As it usually happens with these types, I had to work around him to get the job done and got our name up in lights despite his efforts to torpedo any progress.
A different flavor suit flavor is described by Lou Gerstner in his book “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?” He describes an executive who wrote memo’s on how to deal with him including what type of gum to have and how to set the clocks (pg. 32). These are unusually high maintenance people who want celebrity treatment. There is a good song about this syndrome, watch the video here. Adios reality.
The Terrorists
These people give me nightmares. Almost everyone has worked with or heard about these tyrants. Nothing you can do is right, nothing is good enough and the analyst is wrong because they are right. This is different than the BAD situation from above. The BAD executive there is making a tough choice not to go with the analyst view, but it is well informed choice. The terrorist doesn’t really care about outcomes or just doesn’t know, rather it’s about what they want and their career, power and usually their insecurity. Every company has one and the main IBM terrorist, Sandy Carter has many dead bodies behind her quest to climb the ladder. She made it up the chain and managed via the Dark Side as a corporate climber who both played favorites and pitted employees against each other. We in communications had a support group for those who survived a term working for her and kept their job. Once, I even wrote a press release for one of her female employees just so she wouldn’t get fired, even though it never went out. She personally set back diversity according to the women who worked for her. I’ve rarely seen less respect for an executive. When she got promoted, her employees were high fiving in the hallway that she was leaving.
No matter what the SJW’s try to redefine diversity rules to, the smart companies promote the best performers.
Sandy used to bring us through about 50 revisions of Powerpoint charts. Most if not all changes were bad, but were done precisely as she had demanded. We were later castigated with “why did you do this, I didn’t ask for it?” She didn’t command much respect with the Press and Analysts who saw through this level (lack) of competency. It was embarrassing to be in a press conference with her. Although being a promoter of WITI, she internally hurt the path for many women, and certainly made many question affirmative action and diversity policies at IBM.
Having to sweat through every meeting prior to and with an analyst is counter productive and has never lead to the results that could be achieved.
I’ve noticed that the terrorist is found out by press or analysts by many means. Sometimes it is inconsistency in charts, sometimes it is through unusual calls and/or requests by A/R, many times it is through colleagues and sometimes it is through working with them enough times that you both understand that the executive is a terrorist, like Sandy. None of the Press or Analysts had any respect for her, just like her employees.
I’ve had one other terrorist who is now the VP of External Relations. I called him to warn him of a problem that a reporter alerted me to. It is expected that you let the person in charge of an area know if there is an issue so that they can deal with it as it is their turf. I was being the good employee (in my first 4 months) so I left a voicemail explaining the situation and doing the hand off so that I wasn’t infringing on another person’s PR territory.
I got a call back from this type A New Yorker (a former Ed Koch employee) who lambasted me for my efforts. Apparently, he was insecure as he kept reminding me that he was the boss and I was a nobody. Let me point out that this was not a morale booster for a new hire who was trying to do a good job and be a team player. Such is the life of working with terrorist Communications leaders. I found out later that he regularly abused most people who worked there. He deducted IQ points from those in the South which is another form of anti-diversity and discrimination. Most just refused to help him or stayed away so as not to have to deal with the chewing out. I’ve personally witnessed them confessing that they didn’t want to help him because of his temper. What a shame.
I checked LinkedIn and he’s gone from IBM like almost everyone mentioned here. It’s too bad for the employee’s at the new company who have to work with Ed.
Terrorist’s can come with unrealistic expectations. I to this day am not sure how to handle them. In both cases, I chose to move on and out as quickly as I could.
SUMMARY
To be effective with press and analysts, you must be able to manage the executives. Executives come with many styles. It is imperative that you learn the style and manage it for effectiveness.
Since people are different, one must adapt to each person. Just hope you get the good, deal with the bad and escape the ugly. As for the terrorist, I advise grabbing a parachute and jumping. The plane is usually going to crash anyways.
Here is a quote that sums it up terrorists for me: “They are simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating
Update: SageCircle links here with a good post on improving executives.
For you Clint fans and movie buffs, here is the song and movie opening video.
I’ve been keeping track of the analyst predictions waiting for enough time for them to post a listing of them. I think that since it is the last day of 2010, and that there is a sufficient amount of them out there, it is time to list them. Analysts are the prognosticators of the IT Industry and they should be right, but then meteorologists tell us about the weather, and they are great if they are only 50% right. In reality, they can’t tell us what next week will really be and yet we are basing many decision on what 20 years from now will be. I’m trusting that IT analysts are more accountable and have more tangible facts less subject to acts of God than the weather.
In reality, Carter Lusher and SageCircle is where you should go to get your A/R best practice as to what to do with these predictions, but I have to make some calls of my own. Here is what I’m going to use the predictions for in addition to Carters recommendations:
So here is my listing. I’ll note that they are in no particular order as I’m getting them from my feed reader as they come up. I like and work with almost everyone on this list, so I am not going to show favorites in a listing order, it will be entirely random. You will note a trend very quickly as to where most of them are going for the year. See if you can pick it out.
Analyst Predictions for 2010
IIAR video of Gideon Gartner on the state of the IT Analyst Industry. (Note that this is not a part of the trend, just that it came up first).
IDC Webcast by Frank Gens, Robert Mahowald and Henry Morris. It has a link to the video which is worth watching, but the theme begins here with the discussion of the Cloud. I’m glad they consider the Hybrid model.
Laurie McCabe of Hurwitz Associates and her 2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions. At least she waits until number 7 to get to Cloud, thanks Laurie.
Bruce Tempkin of Forrester discusses Gen Y. While not really a 2010 prediction, there is no denying the fact that the attitude, social media ability of Gen Y’rs and their length of patience is a big HR issue we all face. They will help define the workforce make up as boomers exit.
James Governor of Redmonk leads the list with 20 predictions. Note the continuation of the trend as James has Cloud at numbers 1 and 12. I admire him for also considering the hybrid model as the cloud is not one size fits all. As I work with James quite a bit, I’m surprised to see Google and Green further down the list than I expected.
Amy Wohl and you guessed it, 2010 Predictions on SaaS and the Cloud. Note the build up in the trend. I still swear to random selection, but Cloud is getting a lot of attention.
Judith Hurwitz titles her predictions as: Predictions for 2010: Clouds, mergers, Social Network and Analytics. I’ll give her credit for the Social Networks as I delve there in my predictions also.
Claire Schooley again talks about Gen Y. While not an official 2010 prediction, there is no avoiding that we’ll have to address the issues of this culture in the workplace.
Rob Enderle in 2008 on 2009 highlighting Security. I’m including this as Security becomes an issue with the uptick in terrorist activity, both online and direct attack like flight 253.
Jonny Bentwood also covers this topic in his yearly round up. He actually gets to it first and we cross over quite a few, but I’m not going to use everything in his list so that you have a reason to to there and check out additional predictions I’m not covering.
Lee Odden’s 12 Digital Marketing Predictions. There is a lot of good Social Media info here to look at.
Rob Enderle checks in again with one of my beliefs, that the Private Cloud will Win over the Public Cloud Model. Anybody picking up the Cloud trend in predictions yet?
John Levitt from AnalystXpress on the Top 10 Wireless predictions for 2010. Of course Cloud makes number 3.
Chris Collins of Yankee Group posts a Webinar on 2010 predictions. Cloud Computing is a tag needless to say.
David M Smith of Gartner discusses the Psychology of Predictions, a different way of looking at it starting with caring about being right.
Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang discuss what’s coming to 2010 in a video with Robert Scoble.
UPDATE: Laura Cecere and Alan Johnson Of AMR have come to the table with another set of predictions. You need to be an AMR client for this one. Here is a link to their press release.
2010 Client Virtualization by Benjamin Gray
So between my list and Jonny’s list, you have most of the predictions for 2010. Will the analysts be as good or better than the weathermen? Only the Shadow knows.
My Turn at Making Predictions
Since I’m listing others predictions, it’s only fair that I put out my own. Disclaimer: I’m not an analyst, so I don’t feel any need to get to 10.
1. The Cloud is important, although I think the hybrid and private models are more important than the all everything public model
2. Twitter will continue to erode the number and quality of good bloggers.
3. We need to find a new Twitter as the current model has now been compromised in security, and there are just too many people on. We need another back channel to connect with our real business contacts. Plus, I’m an early adopter, so let’s find that new best method.
4. All predictions go out the window if there is another Terrorist attack. The top prediction will be Security.
5. Success in the economy will be defined as less of a loss than we expected.
6. Who you hire from Boomers to Gen Y matters to your ability to connect to the tech crowd when considering hiring practices.
Final note. At some point this year, I’m moving Delusions to a new host. Mine is bad so obviously I’m publshing on a back up blog. Stay tuned for that .
I lost this post in the switch from Blogger to WordPress. I’m re-posting it with corrections to accurately represent the facts. I’m retired now and can tell the real story.
Intro:
It’s no secret that Software Group is doing well for IBM. Analysts should be particularly interested in how and what we are doing, now more than ever. (This part is true, they actually cared back then)
We hold a yearly analyst conference in November to discuss our issues and give the analysts who follow our business the chance to listen to our leaders and ask what they may.
Running the Event:
Each year, one (un)lucky soul gets to be the A/R liaison for this event for logistics with the strategy team. This year it is yours truly. I did it once before and it is time consuming and the details are overwhelming. It’s a job to add to your job. For the record, I’m honored to do it.
Annotation here. I wasn’t honored to do it because it sucked. They stick this lousy job on someone that they don’t think is busy enough. I’d pulled it off once in 2006 and that was a rousing success. They used this event to fire a colleague (Tom B.). When my manager Amy Loomis told me I was doing it, I said nothing in response for almost half a minute of awkward silence until she said she thought I’d be honored, why I wrote the above. I knew she had it out for me as I made more money for less responsibility than her. I knew it got to her like it did Ray Gorman, two of my worst managers at IBM.
They call it a stretch assignment, but it is a bullshit term for work that they dump on the back of some unlucky person that needs an employee screwing. There were more than 40 A/R reps to take turns at running this and I got stuck with it twice in three years.
It’s a time suck and a thankless job that I didn’t want to do. I did the best job I could to not get fired, but was stymied at many crossroads.
The first one I ran was under Dave Liddell, the best Director of Analyst Relations we ever had. He was reasonable and expected results. This one was under Sarita Torres and Amy, which made the job twice as hard. They couldn’t make decisions and were constantly interfering in the progress in the guise of helping out and giving guidance. Many times I had to not tell them what I was doing to be able to make progress to get the job done. At times it seemed they got in my way or didn’t let me do the job when appearance was at stake.
They clearly were favoring female employees as they put incompetent mangers in place who were a spanner in the works. I missed Dave and Mike Bizovi tremendously during this time suck.
At the end of the conference, it was a party for the retirement of Jerrilyn Glanville, a co-worker. I liked her and she was one of the more competent reps we had. They went on for half an hour at the end of the conference with one brief mention of me running it. It may sound like sour grapes, but that actually worked for me as I hated attention. I was glad they had the girl fest so I could catch a plane to get out of there as quickly as I could. I knew it was thankless if I pulled it off. The only real attention I would have gotten would have been if it screwed up.
I pulled it off flawlessly with maximum social media coverage never seen before at the time. None of them understood it and that got ignored. I was playing the game by a different set of rules. The analysts knew as I was the leading A/R blogger and social media expert in the group. The rest of the A/R team barely understood Twitter at that point.
I had to work around Christy Pappas also. She was a control freak who thought she helped run it when she mostly processed PO’s and got office supplies. She was more of a speed bump I had to avoid to get the job done.
So I made sure that it was run right, regardless of the managerial interference and attempted back stabbing that came with it from management.
After this, my desire to over perform, as I’d done for decades was sucked out of me. I saw how the sausage was made and it stunk. I was glad to get it over with and asked never to do it again. I retired early only 4 years later, something they couldn’t understand.
I’d been saving and paying off every debt so that I could call the shots on when I want to go. When most of them got canned a few years later, they all said they wished they could go out on their own terms like I did. They all were neck deep in debt and mortgages and couldn’t understand how I did it.
Back to the original post.
I’ve decided to blog about it as part of the Social Media outreach. There will be a second blog residing on My developerWorks (I”ll post the link in an additional blog) so that you can follow our progress and what tools we are going to use.
I’ve been working on it now for a few weeks, but we meet with the powers that be today which really kicks off the event in terms of work to do.
Request for Advice:
Since two way interaction is actual communication, I’m open for (reasonable) suggestions from the analysts who want to find out more and interact prior to the event. It will only make for a better conference.
We’ll have a closed portal only to those who are registered, so sorry competition, there are some issues off limits. We’ll provide tons of data and make the conference easier to attend and navigate than ever.
Wish us luck and don’t be afraid to send me suggestions. Jsimonds@us.ibm.com
More annotation: I put the request for advice to be able to show the girls in charge that I was working with the analysts. That way I could do what I wanted under the guise of Analyst input. It was the only way I could get things done when the girls started meddling in my work. I set the agenda and made the rules to get it done so they couldn’t screw me like they did Tom.
They don’t hold it anymore because it turned into a gabfest. The analysts cared less and less because it was a show rather than an information exchange. I think Covid finally killed it along with firing all the employees who didn’t work at the home office.
At the end of the day, I was smart enough to not let them screw me. I gave them a highly successful and well organized conference. All the time I knew I had to go through the motions, but also knew it was bullshit from start to finish.
Getting to the person you want to meet with or communicate with when you want to is vital.
Relationships ultimately are very important, but I find that an A/R best practice is knowing the Back Channel.
My First Back Channel
I’m skipping the phone in this discussion. Most people screen calls.
Backing up a few years when I was in PR, I remember when public email first started. We were using MCI Mail on DOS and 300 baud modems back in the mid 80’s to reach influential people in the industry like John Dvorak, Paul Sommerson, Bill Machrone and others. I think there were about 10 of us using it. I was beating the big PR agencies and they couldn’t figure out why, as I was working for a small company that shouldn’t have had the presence we had. We were the inside club.
Email then of course became mainstream so we lost that advantage.
The Next Tool – IM
It’s hard to believe that as much as we use instant messaging now, that at the beginning of the technology not many were using it and again it was the way to reach those who were using it. At this point, Email immunity was beginning to take hold and if you weren’t important, you fell quickly out of the realm of first responders. I read a tweet from an analyst recently who noted his inbox was so far gone that he was about to delete everything and just start over.
IM also fell to everyone abusing it and we moved on.
Twitter:
Skip forward a few years and you have Twitter. This worked until the recent explosion of everyone being on the platform and it again became commonplace. It still is somewhat effective if you are high on the other parties list.
The Point of this Post:
I was meeting with an very influential analyst a few nights ago and to be honest, I’m not that high on his list. I decided to ask him, what is his back channel when I really need to reach him. The condition was that I wouldn’t abuse it so that when I really was using it, I had something of value to speak about. He was up front and gave me a personal address that he said he will look at. Bingo.
It occurred to me that this is the best practice. First, be high on the relationship, you will get through that way. Next, find out how the analyst wants to be communicated with as a preference and DON”T abuse it.
When you use that method, you get to them and they answer. Sure they will answer you anyway out of courtesy, but at some point, you have an I need it now, or you are on the road and don’t have your usual access. In a way, it’s part of managing the relationship properly anyway.
Update: Now that a lot of social media pressure has cut the lunch/poop talk down, combined with multiple Twitter platforms, it has become a powerful tool. I find myself opening Twitter as my first site now to find out what is going on. I have refined it to include those people and topics that are meaningful to me and it gets me the information I need better than almost any other platform.
I get a lot of information from blogs still that I tweet or vice-versa and can know what is going on around the world on multiple issues. Again, refinement is the key.
I define the refinement requires that I only follow what is crucial to my interests at the time. Since what I’m following changes, so does my sources of information. That is why I’m not too worried about who or how many I follow, nor who or how many follow me. Attaining numbers is far different from attaining knowledge and information.
Platforms like this along help me eliminate bias which is killing former information platforms like the network news and print media.
I follow trends. I’ve seen much about this platform recently that has caused me to think about it. I use it sparingly and don’t post that much as I’ve always maintained that no one cares that much about what I’m doing with my time.
As an Analyst Relations Best Practice, I find that it is good to know what the analyst is doing to be on familiar terms with what they are doing. Additionally, when I can’t reach them, I direct message an analyst as a back channel and it is very reliable.
The first article I noticed though was by Zach Whittaker who wonders “Twitter, is there any point”?
I often wonder this as Twitter follows Sturgeon’s Law. If you look at the comments of this blog, it laments that many talk about lunch, flights and bowel movements.
On the plus side, he notes: “Twitter is what we call an “Enterprise 2.0″ application; not only a web application which tells the world what you’re doing, but is highly influential in the way businesses run, keeping customers and partners informed and gaining feedback on services. ”
On the negative is: “Whilst it may be a next-generation application, I still struggle to see the point it makes, or the impact it has. With the API and development opportunities, it’s certainly made an impact in developing technologies such as Adobe AIR, but besides this I fail to see why I should continue to update mine; something I haven’t done in months.”
The next thread was the Mumbai terrorists following Twitter. I’m not so sure it’s a good thing to tell them where you are if they are trying to kill you. It is not as bad though as CNN ratting out citizens trying to hide.
Recently TPTB declined $500 from Facebook to buy Twitter, so I’m wondering if they know something I don’t about its value. The jury is out for me other than as a tool to reach certain people, but I know that the hunter in me instinctually says look for cover, not expose yourself.
The first thing I read today was by Carter Lusher on this subject. He calls it getting them to Change their presentations.
As always it is a good read and of importance to Analyst Relations. After talking about this subject to analysts before, during and after presentations and conferences, I’ve developed my personal pet peeve list.
His example was an executive using a sales presentation for a deck which happens about 387 out of 365 days a year.
With that lead in, here is the list of issues I’ve thought about having done or been a part of close to 1000 analyst presentation decks (likely over that number).
1. Carter is right, don’t bring your sales presentation to the table, instant credibility loss.
2. If you can’t get your message delivered in 15 charts or less, you likely have clarification issues.
3. Analysts (most people) look at the number of charts and immediately judge what point they are going to listen to before they check email.
4. Send it in advance and ask what is clear and what is important to them to get to the point. If you have to get through a couple of set up charts fine, but say that in advance.
5. No chart is golden, (many) could (should) be sacrificed.
6. Discussion about strategy and technology is a much better use of time than chart after chart preaching.
7. Don’t take offense in chartsmanship, most people aren’t that good at it.
8. If the analyst wants to go off the charts, be willing to go as long as you stay on topic.
9. Use A/R to speak to the analyst before the briefing/discussion/meeting/conference to see what is the analyst goal and actually make charts to answer the issues, not pound your chest on what your end of year rating is based on.
10. Accept criticism where appropriate, the analyst is right.
11. Never fail to have a chart to say, what do you think or are we on topic, message, right course or other to let the analyst offere advice or opinion.
12. Consider using web conferencing if your audience is over 10 people.
13. Personal opinion here – I hate powerpoint, it’s been used as a crutch for too long and we were able to get our job done well prior to it’s invention. Please someone invent the next tool.
14. A presentation deck has a life. Don’t recycle charts too long. I’ve seen analyst eyes glaze over with “I’ve seen this before blaring in neon” on their face.
15. Be aware of your audience. We at IBM run more conferences than months in the year by at least double. I’ve seen the same charts at multiple conferences where I knew their were the same analysts (this is a similar comment to 14).
16. Leave time for questions at the end. Don’t look at the time and gauge the number of charts you can cram into it.
17. Give the analyst a copy if you haven’t sent it to them upfront. Sometimes there are circumstances that prevent one from sending early (the executive didn’t finish until 5 minutes before the presentation, been there and done that double digits).
18. If there are multiple executives presenting, have them compare notes prior to the briefing so they don’t conflict or aren’t redundant.
As I’ve noted before, I’ve worked almost all sides of this. I’ve been in PR, in AR, I’ve been the content expert/spokesperson, the quiet informer (somehow deep throat just seems wrong) and I’ve been the writer.
This week, I’ve been at a customer conference where we have analysts giving supporting presentations on SaaS and the Cloud. Most are the typical IT analysts, but there is one from a consulting group (nameless except that Lou Gerstner worked for them before IBM).
I had private conversations with the analysts at the event and we couldn’t wait to talk about what we are doing in 2009 and how everything from the credit crunch to IBM relationships are affecting what and how we are doing.
THE PRESS
Conversely, there were press at the same event only one day (they didn’t really care about the event, just the story) and we had to sequester them for interviews and likely spent more time trying not to say something wrong or reveal more than what our goals were. In truth, the conversations we had with the analysts would have been above the technical level of most reporters, but that is why we tell the analysts. They help explain it to the reporters.
What a difference.
So knowing your constituency really matters. I’ve heard horror stories about when things got printed in the press that shouldn’t have been written. I almost got into that doghouse once, saved only by the fact that the actual mistake was committed by an incompetent PR manager who works at the company we sold the PC division to.
WHY I LIKE ANALYSTS MORE
It’s because of the depth and transparency of the conversation. Sure we get called to the floor more and are told far more often that we are wrong, off base, off message, off color, but when we go public, our messages rarely fail to improve.
The depth and breadth of the conversation goes from technology to economics to social implications. All of this is very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating.
I haven’t blogged much lately, because everything that I want to say, Carter has covered, or has said better than me.
He points out the obvious errors of my ways though with these facts.
Question: I would read vendor AR blogs if they had relevant, useful, timely information (pick one)
I’ve been reluctant to blog on category 3 as I don’t want to be the site for here’s the latest IBM announcement, you can go to IBM.com to see that.
The key is relatively useful and timely. The jury is out as to whether I’ve been useful, but timely is a very fine line for me. Here’s why:
Timely for me is way before the news, that’s when I want to get to the analysts. It shows the trust and the very personal relationship we have to hash out our future prodcts, pricing and plans. That is diametrically opposed to how to blog, being transparent about what you are doing.
So what’s a mother to do? I have found that I’ve been able to reach analysts via the blog, twitter, social media back channel for speaking to them. Heck, I’ve had analysts say to me that they didn’t want to wind up in my blog for me trashing their competition for timeliness. So it’s how you use it that counts. I’m use social media as an analyst relations tool and find it an advantage over my competition who don’t use it or use it out of etiquette.
I can’t argue the points above though. Carter as usual is right on. But then I break all the rules of good blogging anyway like staying on subject and consistency, so there you go.
In an effort to keep our A/R team in Software Group as up to date as possible, we did another education call, this time on podcasting. We were joined by Steve O’Grady and Cote of Redmonk who presented on the subject, and members of our own communications team who do some excellent podcasts.
Besides having the education, we’re moving on to how we can use this in the A/R discipline. Among the usages are announcements, standards discussions and other related events where it can be either educational or directional. It becomes a piece of the informational package around a technology, standards or announcement info that can be downloaded.
We currently have a series that covers some analysts that we’ve done podcasts with on our Analyst Inputs and Outtakes, and hopefully, the creative minds in our a/r group will come up with more creative ways to use this and the other components of Social Computing. So far we’re blogging, podcasting, have a wiki and are part of the greater IBM social networking programs.
This time last year, we put up the developerWorks blog as the first external IBM blog site. It was a small snowball barely dropped from the top of Mount IBM. It turns out be an end around being able to blog at IBM who now want to establish a company wide policy that will smother and restrict effective blogging communications. Fortunately, IBM Corporate Comm’s is clueless and so behind the times and we were able to put this site up under their noses without much effort. Since we did it without asking, it now can’t be taken down as too many people look to this site for blogs. Many people are trying to get on to it so for now, we control the outbound blog content unlike comm’s department in Armonk which moves at the speed of smell.
Armonk communications is a bubble that can’t see past New York, led by a hot head who ran Ed Koch’s liberal political campaign. Their lack of vision is the bane of much of the sterile communications that you read about when IBM is discussed. While they see it as a well oiled machine, the rest of the comm’s team who actually does all the work, know that they are a ball and chain that has to be worked around to get anything done. The developerWorks blog site is a prime example of how to work around people such as those in Armonk.
It’s funny, almost like the tail wagging the dog, as we are doing what we want, whenever we want, while the rest of every word written from IBM goes under the microscope at the home office, effectively removing any creativity or actual information that might be helpful. If you don’t believe it, read a press release. It is quite enjoyable to usurp the Stalin like control that they try to impose on everyone else, and act like a regular company who understands how to deal with the media.
I decided to list my blog there as I was the first official blogger for IBM analyst relations and have set many of the policies up until now, including starting and running blogging for IBM A/R. When the corporate communications machine finds a way to destroy the effectiveness through obsessive guidelines overseen by people who have never written or likely read a blog, any control I currently have will diminish. They are so paranoid from the monopoly trial that they manage to put effective PR into the stone ages. Fortunately, they are so obsessed with the media right now, the most effective communications program is on the analyst side as they don’t understand what it is. Anytime they try to interfere, they treat A/R like pr and look silly.
At that point, my blog may or may not be on the corporate site depending on the rules and guidelines. Since I don’t care what they say (and best of all am not in NY, which the powers that be can’t see beyond) and have learned to be more creative about communicating through social media than they have, I’ll make that decision as needed on my terms. I’ll likely then be on new social media platforms that are industry wide so it won’t be tough to stay ahead of them while keeping current with the rest of the world. Since they move so slowly for fear of actually stepping out into the real world, I won’t have to worry about it for a while.
With prodding from the outside (thanks to the analyst community) and many unconnected but interesting bloggers, we got the fever. Now there is the internal blog with thousands of bloggers going at it (another IBM communication killer since the audience is IBM’ers), a mainframe blog, gamers and worst of all attention on this from the top.
What I see is momentum for blogging that started as grass-roots inertia (bottom up, not the usual top down) which I believe is best (ask RIM or Palm). Sure, we were a bit later than some companies, but it won’t be that long for us to catch up. Fortunately, I started my blog and put up the developerWorks site like we did and that is how it will be done. All we need is a few rock stars to start writing.
Now the blog plan is prominent in the outreach plans for new products and announcements. Normal companies do this and since I came from the outside where I honed my skills staying ahead of companies like IBM, it is important to connect on terms with the audience that are mutually agreeable and most effective. I knew that I’d already won and would get the message of the company I represented if there were IBM communicaitons people in the room. Sure, they were the 800 lb. gorrilla in the room, but as soon as I got time with the media or analysts, they were far more likely to work with me as A) I wasnt’ trying to write their story and B) I actually was working in the 20th or 21st century. I’ll bet those same comm’s folks were hell with tabulation machines and IBM 360’s.
So it’s more like cells dividing, people from all over the world in IBM are jumping on this as they should. Many of the execs who are the busiest people in the world are blogging Buell Duncan and IWB.
I’ve watched trends for a while at IBM, lots of hype at first, then some catch on or fizzle out, but this one has legs…the snowball is now big, and for now the only blog site at IBM until the wonks in IBM corporate communications figure out how to sterilize this also. The fact that I can write this clearly shows that they have no clue about social media at this point, nor do they move faster than cold honey.
If you’re reading this, you likely had something to do with IBM blogging brought to you by developerWorks. Thanks. We offer more information on a timely basis that is more meaningful than you’d ever find from the wonks in Armonk.
Delusions of Adequacy 