High School Science Club Management Goes Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
August 17, 2022
I read the stories about Facebook and Google trying to manage their paid humanoids. Both companies, not surprisingly, are pulling tips from the “Universal Guide to Running a High School Science Club” and its Annex 1: Never Do These Things. The two estimable companies skipped the Annex. Why read something at the back of a user manual. That’s for those who are smart, just not brilliant.
Among the tips in my copy of the Universal Guide was this one: “Never tell a fellow science club member to work harder.”
Another precept was: “Never tell a fellow science club member to quit if the alleged humanoid did not like what the president told them to do.
Both Facebook and Google appear to have pushed to the “work harder” and “go away” approach. Brilliant, right?
Even the Silicon Valley type of “real” news outfit Protocol published an article focusing on this management approach. “Don’t Be Meta or Google: How to Tell Workers They Need to Be More Productive” has some management advice for the fellow travelers; to wit:
the idea that underperforming individuals are solely responsible for their companies’ large-scale financial troubles is probably inaccurate, and you don’t want your productivity pep talk to give that impression. Launching a companywide campaign to improve productivity is absolutely reasonable, as long as you’re not alienating employees in the process.
Yes, Harvard Business School, here we come!
I am not sure what’s crazier: The management methods of the high school science club or the faux-Drucker inputs from a “real” news Silicon Valley type online publication.
The write up adds:
Sharing a specific game plan to improve productivity is key to avoiding chaos.
Yes, is the corollary “sharing is caring”?
That method was not part of the Woodruff High School Science Club in Central Illinois. My fellow members believed themselves to be budding wizards. One of the best and brightest had his first date and ran the train signal. The train won. Not a best nor brightest moment as I recall.
“Management” was, in my opinion, a no show at some of the zippy Silicon Valley outfits for which I labored until I threw in the dead fish in 2013. The idea that the methods of a high school science club would contribute to management science would have been laughable about a decade ago. Now that Facebook and Google type outfits have to manage, the adolescent guidelines of the unread Annex seem oddly appropriate.
Had Google solved death, Mr. Drucker would be available to provide some management guidance to the “real news” and the Facebooks and Googles of the world. I am not sure “don’ts” work… at all.
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2022
Google: If True, This Is a Management Moment
August 15, 2022
I read tabloids when I ride the subway in New York, Paris, or London. Nope, to Madrid’s and Moscow’s undergrounds. No thanks.
I spotted a New York Post article called “Google Execs Threaten Workers with Layoffs: There Will Be Blood on the Streets.” Wow, blood on the streets of Mountain View. Pretty exciting. I also liked the “threaten” idea. What an outstanding and sensitive management move… if accurate.
Let’s assume, just for chuckles, that the article is accurate.
I learned:
Google executives are telling their employees to shape up or ship out, warning that layoffs are coming if results don’t meet expectations. Employees who work in the Google Cloud sales department said that senior leadership told them that there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general.”
And, pray tell, are those expectations. More chat applications? How about some big time acquisitions that go exactly where? Motorola, hello, hello. What about a high lift project like solving death? Oh, sorry. Been there and failed at that. Maybe mending fences in Australia? Yeah, that is a good idea once the most recent fine has been paid.
The write up quote the Google top dog as saying:
… he wanted to solicit ideas from his employees on how to get “better results faster.”
Okay, that certainly opens to do to some creating thinking. Based on my attending law enforcement and intelligence conferences, the quick money comes from fraud, human trafficking, selling contraband, and possible a few weapons deals. I would toss in getting in the fulz business as another “let’s noodle that” idea.
My personal perspective is different. I think the actual term is my viewshed, but I could be wrong, a practice I have explored in my 77 years of muddling along. Here we go:
- Google embodies the management methods of what I call a “high school science club.”
- The company had been purposeful when refining its “clever” search system and obtaining inspiration from GoTo, Overture, Yahoo ad sales technology. Once achieved, the once sharp lens lost its ability to focus
- The culture of the Google in interesting. Foosball, bean bags, volleyball, and car washes complement the weird caste approach to food. Change may not come easily into this good organization.
But maybe the write up is incorrect. Google is nothing more than the best managed online advertising outfit in the world. See. Money works to explain the reality. Blood? Hmmm. Possibly an overstatement?
Stephen E Arnold, August 15, 2022
The New Yorker Magazine Gets Close to a Key Precept of Google Senior Management
August 11, 2022
I suggest that anyone interested in the bizarre personnel decisions which have become as notable as Google’s amazing announcements about its technology read “Google’s Caste-Bias Problem: A Talk about Bigotry Was Cancelled Amid Accusations of Reverse Discrimination. Whom Was the Company Trying to Protect?” The article did not appear to be behind a paywall, but you may be asked to spit out some cash to read the interview.
I am not going to discuss the ins and outs of the interview, its factoids, or the motivation for the comments.
I have several observations:
- The New Yorker has identified and made visible behaviors which have been ignored by other “real” news outfits; for example, Yahoo News. (Yahoooooo!) The question is, “Why?”
- The consequences of certain decisions have been fascinating. Dr. Timnit Gebru departed and set out to do the Don Quixote thing? Blake Lemoine, the fellow who thought software was alive, is now free to share his insights on podcasts. By doing this, he highlights some of the thought process of Google professionals. Then there was the cult. I don’t want to think about that.
- The high school science management methods of the Google have certain deep roots. I am not sure if these are cultural, bro-behaviors, or some other protein firing in the carpetland crew. What’s clear is that only Meta’s management methods are in what I would call the Sergey-Larry league. Maybe it’s the water in Silicon Valley.
Net net: The New Yorker’s Delphic soothsayers are definitely on to something that business school gurus have been skirting for years.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2022
Oracle: Marketing Experience or MX = Zero?
August 10, 2022
How does one solve the problem MX = 0? One way is to set M to zero and X to zero and bingo! You have zero. If the information in the super select, restricted, juicy article called “Oracle Insiders Describe the Complete Chaos from Layoffs and Restructuring While Employees Brace for More” is accurate, the financially lucrative Oracle database system is unhappy with the firm’s marketing. Not just the snappy PowerPoint decks or the obedient database administrator documentation. Nope. Everything is apparently a bit of indigestion.
The write up which is as I have mentioned is super selected, restricted, and juicy is a bit jumbled. Nevertheless, I noted several observations I found interesting. Let me summarize the 1,100 word report this way: Lots of people from marketing and customer experience (whatever that is) have been fired. Okay. Now let’s look at the comments that struck me as significant. Keep in mind that I love Oracle. Yep, clients just pay those who can make the sleek, efficient, tightly integrated components hum like an electric motor on a fully functioning Ford F 150 Lightning. Here we go. (My comments appear in italics after each bullet.)
- “The common verb to describe ACX is that they were obliterated,” said a person who works at Oracle. (I quite liked the use of the word “obliterated.” Was Oracle using a Predator launched flying ginsu management bomb or just an email or maybe a Zoom call?)
- “There’s no marketing anymore…” (My question is, “Was there ever any marketing at Oracle?” Bombast, yes. Rah rah conferences. Jet flights after curfew at the San Jose airport. But marketing? In my opinion, no.)
- “There’s a sense among many at Oracle of impending doom…” (Yep, upbeat stuff.)
- “We’ve been kind of working like zombies the last couple of weeks because there’s just this sense of ‘What am I doing here?” (The outfit on the former Sea World exit excels at management. Well, maybe it doesn’t? How does the Oracle hit above its weight? That’s a good question. Let’s ask Cerner about the electronic medical record business and its seamless functioning with the Oracle database, shall I? No I shall not.)
- “…Oracle’s code base is so complicated that it can take years before engineers are fully up to speed with how everything works, and workers with over a decade of experience were cut…” (Ah, ha, Oracle is weeding out the dinobabies. Useless deadwood. A 20 something engineer can figure out where an entire database is hiding.)
Net net: I hate to suggest this, but perhaps some database types think using AWS, the GOOG, or the super secure MSFT data management systems is better, faster, and cheaper. Pick two.
Stephen E Arnold, August 10, 2022
Forget Fragile: The Future of Tech Means Failure … Maple Leaf Own Goal
August 4, 2022
Canada presages the future. Syrup, uranium mines, tar sands, and Rogers — The backbone of Canada. Maybe I should not include Rogers in the list after reading “How a Coding Error Caused Rogers Outage That Left Millions Without Service.” I learned:
a coding error was introduced that triggered a cascade of events, resulting in a massive outage that left millions of Canadians without cellphone, internet or home phone service for at least a day. The shutdown of one of Canada’s dominant telecommunications networks created widespread chaos.
Now Rogers is not along with the own goal problem. I noted “Major Microsoft 365 Blackout Raises Tough Questions for Software Giant.” And lest we forget “Google, Oracle Cloud Servers Wilt in UK Heatwave, Take Down Websites.”
I know I have heard presentations in which really rich people have explained that chaos creates opportunities. These people should know. I was an advisor to an individual who had at one point more than $9 billion. (Alas, he has been removed from the hockey game of real life. Maybe a rest home near a lake? I have lost track of the wizard.)
Yep, chaos, disruption, problems that scream for solutions. An investment wonderland, but what about those who simply empty the trash in wonderland?
The future, it appears, rests with individuals who are responsible for a single keystroke. Put the == in the wrong place and one does not output user satisfaction. According to the Rogers’ story, one gets no emergency phone service, no WiFi (pronounced in some parts of Canada wee fee which I love), dead Interac debit machines, and – of course – no phones. (Teens with Rogers mobile services were apparently unhappy.)
And the promised fix?
This Sunday [July 24, 2022], in an open letter to customers, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri vowed to invest more in testing, oversight and artificial intelligence to improve the reliability of the company’s networks. He put the price tag of the changes at around $10-billion over three years.
Yeah, smart software and oversight. By whom? GenXers and GenYers? Perhaps the tooth fairy?
Several observations:
- The cloud services like Rogers apparently believe their own marketing babble about fail over, redundancy, and uptime. Belief is, as the article makes clear, is not reality in the zippy world of big time telco clouds and services.
- The idea that the best, the brightest, and the smartest technical professionals work tirelessly to keep the service online earned an F as in Failure. No front row seat in the advanced class for these whiz kids.
- The customers who missed tornado warnings, a report about a dangerous person, or what to pick up from Canadian Tire en route to the the campground in Saskatchewan were in the communications dark.
Net net: Big companies forget the statement”
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The nail was a single error in a single line of code. Thus, the future: Chaos or opportunity. You choose. I am glad — thrilled, in fact — that I am old and will miss the future. Have fun!
Stephen E Arnold, August 4, 2022
Big Tech: Is Big Change Next to Impossible?
August 3, 2022
I read “The Disproportionate Influence of Early Tech Decisions.” The article adds some specificity to the notions of technical debt and why the Roman empire ended up with people wearing fur in the summer recycling stone from gigantic weird buildings jammed together. There are nifty quotes about the nature of things. (Lucretius and De Rerum Natura, right?)
The more recent article states:
… everybody knows that it’s hard to migrate a database or rewrite code in a new language, so this status quo wouldn’t be surprising anywhere you find it….What is more surprising is that it’s not only the big stuff that has a tendency to stay fixed. It’s the small and medium-sized elements as well.
I interpret these observations to the plight of the Silicon Valley type of big tech outfits. I believe that the observation applies to pinnacles of technological capability like the US air traffic control system and the Internal Revenue Service. If you have a backlog, just shred it. Effective. Simple. No big tech needed.
The article illustrates how expedient (maybe just bad?) initial decisions persist through time. There are examples of fixing and adding, but the persistence of initial conditions is a characteristic of some companies’ products and services.
The point which resonated with me was:
Simply this: software has inertia.
Bingo!
I noted these statements too:
quality is more of a sliding scale than it is a good or bad dichotomy, and I’d argue that many small companies optimize too much in favor of speed by trading away too much in terms of maintainability by shipping the first thing that was thrown at the wall. And this fails the other way too, where major believers in academic-level correctness agonize over details to such a degree that projects never ship, and sometimes never even start.
So what?
The people and time required to figure out how to implement meaningful technical change impose a significant cost. Cost translates into management’s need to kick the can down the road, change jobs, or ignore the mounting problems. Early decisions manifest themselves in systems whose problems cannot be addressed; management decisions which to an outsider appear to be downright wacky; and big companies struggling to escape their past.
I never “meta” a high tech outfit that I could not google or rely on a one day delivery that stretches to 10 days or more or an operating system unable to print a copy of this blog post.
Vulnerable? You bet.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2022
Microsoft: Excellence in Action
July 25, 2022
I wanted to print one page of text. I thought a copy of the cute story about the antics of Elon and Sergey might be nice to keep. My hunch is that some of the content might be disappeared or be tough to see through the cloud of legal eagles responding to the interesting story. Sorry.
Nope.
Why?
Microsoft seems to be unable to update Windows without rendering a simple function. Was I alone in experiencing this demonstration of excellence? Nope. “Microsoft Warns That New Windows Updates May Break Printing.” The article states:
Microsoft said that the temporary fix has now been disabled by this week’s optional preview updates on Windows Server 2019 systems. This change will lead to printing and scanning failures in Windows environments with non-compliant devices.
There you go. Non compliant.
But wait, there’s more.
But wait there’s more!
“New Windows 11 Update Breaks the Start Menu Because Microsoft Hates Us All” explains:
It looks like Microsoft has once again shipped dodgy Windows 11 updates, with reports suggesting that the two latest cumulative updates have been causing serious issues with the Start menu. The updates in question are KB5015882 and KB5015814, and it looks like they’ve introduced a bug which causes to Start menu to disappear when you click to open it.
What do these examples suggest to me?
- A breakdown in basic quality control. Perhaps the company is involved in addressing layoffs, knock on effects from SolarWinds, and giving speeches about employee issues
- Alleged monopolies lack the management tools to deliver products and services which function like the marketing collateral asserts
- Employees follow misguided rules; for example, the Wall Street Journal’s assertion that employees should “ditch office chores that don’t help you get ahead.” See Page A 11, July 25, 2022. (If an employee is not as informed as a project lead or manager, how can the uninformed make a judgment about what is and what is not significant? This line of wacko reasoning allows companies with IBM type thinking to provide quantum safe algorithms BEFORE there are quantum computers which can break known encryption keys. Yep, the US government buys into this type of “logic” as well. Hello, NIST? Are you there.
Plus, Microsoft Teams, which is not exactly the most stable software on my Mac Mini, is going to get more exciting features. “Microsoft Is Launching a Facebook Rip-Off Inside Teams.” This article reports:
Microsoft is now launching Viva Engage today, a new Facebook-like app inside Teams that encourages social networking at work. Viva Engage builds on some of the strengths of Yammer, promoting digital communities, conversations, and self-expression in the workplace. While Yammer often feels like an extension of SharePoint and Office, Viva Engage looks like a Facebook replica. It includes a storylines section, which is effectively your Facebook news feed, featuring conversational posts, videos, images, and more. It looks and feels just like Facebook, and it’s clearly designed to feel similar so employees will use it to share news or even personal interests.
That’s exactly what I don’t want when “working.” The idea for me is to get a project, finish it, and move on to another project. Sound like kindergarten? Well, I listened to Mrs. Fenton. Perhaps some did not heed basic tips about generating useful outputs. Yeah, Teams with features added when the service does not do the job on some Macs. Great work from the Windows Phone and Surface units’ employer.
Net net: Problems? Yes. Fixable? I have yet to see proof that Microsoft can remediate its numerous technical potholes. Remember that Microsoft asserted that Russia organized 1,000 programmers to make Microsoft’s security issues more severe. In my view, Russia has demonstrated its inability to organize tanks, let alone complex coordinated software exploits. Come on, Microsoft.
Printers!
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2022
Googzilla Made to Look Like a Specially Enabled Dinobaby
July 25, 2022
I read “Google Gaffes: 9 Branding Misfires from the Smartest Company Around.” Two thoughts. First, we have one addled dinobaby or maybe two who are language challenged. Second, no wonder this outfit cannot manage its professional staff. Those are people. The information in the article is about services. The write up states:
From Android Automotive to YouTube Music, Google regularly misses the mark in branding its offerings
Branding? I think some synapses are shorted or incorrectly infused with logic proteins. The duplicative names and the apparently duplicated services illustrates what one might call a lack of strategic cohesion.
I won’t repeat the nine flubs. Three stand out as particularly remarkable, probably on a par with the now infamous New Coke from the friends of the dentistry world in Atlanta, Georgia. Here’s my pick of the litter:
YouTube Red, YouTube Premium, and YouTube Music and Android TV and Google TV and Google Play Movies & TV and Google TV (but not that Google TV)
Amazing. Google wants to cut costs, increase margins, pause hiring, stop hiring, publish important articles, fire authors of important articles, help creators, harm creators, sell subscriptions to YouTube, give YouTube away with amazingly irrelevant ads, etc.
This is not a high school science club effervesced with a box of free electronic components. This is a science club drunk on their ability to solve cubic equations and play Foosball. Sounds like a great place to work. I would point out that the author of the nine misfires is unlikely to land a job at Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind. Not Googley enough to see the brilliance behind Red, Premium, Music, TV variants, Play Movies, and chat. How many chat apps and services has Google crafted?
Oh, well, dinobabies are creative.
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2022
Google Challenges NSO Group As PR Champ
July 23, 2022
This factoid — if true — is amazing for two reasons: [1] A glimpse of Googzilla’s Big People Operations’ procedures in action, and [2] Google may knock NSO Group off its top spot as a PR magnet for media personality-journalists.
The scoop is the property of a former Buzzfeed writer, a Davos fave, and a LinkedIn podcast personality. The artificial intelligence / machine learning expert named Blake Lemoine has been allowed by the Google to find his future elsewhere. You can read the Buzzfeed-type write up “Google Fires Blake Lemoine, Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient” and revel in:
In his conversations with LaMDA, Lemoine discovered the system had developed a robust sense of self-awareness, expressing concern about death, a desire for protection, and a conviction that it felt emotions like happiness and sadness. Lemoine said he considers LaMDA a friend.
I like the “friend.”
Quick question: Will Mr. Lemoine be allowed to interact with the digital friend when he chases gig work or angles for a new job in the very stable, never hyped, and certainly not crazy world of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Money and the Google business card are tough to lose. But a “friend” like LaMDA which Mr. Lemoine legitimately believes to be a person. Come on now. Alive? You know like a person whom one can take to an exhibition at the Tate?
The Engadget write up quoted an expert pundit resource as saying that Mr. Lemoine’s statements about LaMDA being alive as
On stilts. I like that because why not personify nonsense as illogical outputs as a stilt walker. On the other hand, thinking LaMDA is alive is almost as credible as the claims of cyber security companies which promise protection from bad actors. Yeah, stilts.
Let’s recap.
- Google wants to solve death and announces quantum supremacy.
- Google shows AI/ML experts the door for saying, in effect, Google’s smart software is wonky. Hasta la vista Drs. Gebru, Mitchell, and Chatterjee! [Yep, each one allowed to find their future elsewhere in the rock-solid, really credible world of AI/ML.]
- Mr. Lemoine— now a former Google AI/ML expert — asserted that Google’s smart software is alive.
- Google’s Big People Management System allegedly bids farewell to Mr. Lemoine.
- News of the termination rockets through the datasphere displacing NSO Group and Elon Musk/Twitter as the headline and PR grabber of the moment. Wow. Too bad for Pegasus and Musk I think. (Some at NSO Group and Tesla might want this Lemoine “it’s alive” confection to persist.
- A Google management case study takes shape. Lucky MBA students!
Reality or sci-fi? That’s a good question.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2022
Management Theory: Zucking for Efficiency
July 7, 2022
I read “Mark Zuckerberg: We’re Turning Up the Heat at Meta So Employees Will Quit.” I wonder if the blue chip consulting firms — once some of their legal problems subside will embrace Zucking? “Zucking” is, according to the article, the new management mantra at the estimable social media company. Not long ago, imitation became the engine of innovation at the firm: A Discord clone, the TikTok envy resolver, and big boy decision to step back from some high school science club projects. Now, according to the cited article:
Facebook parent Meta wants to cut ties with workers who can’t meet newly raised performance expectations as the company prepares for an economic downturn…
Does anyone remember MySpace? Is this the specter of past social media high fliers accepting the idea of gravity. I am thinking gravity of legal situations, gravity of some advertising customers, and the Jupiter pull of TikTok attracting former Zuckbookers the way our French bulldog does fleas, ticks, and mud. Unstoppable? For sure when French bulldogs are in the woods.
The write up adds another less than positive observation:
Zuckerberg indicated that Meta plans to slow its hiring plans for engineers by at least 30% this year – adding roughly 6,000 or 7,000 workers rather than the 10,000 it initially expected to hire. Some roles that are currently empty will stay unfilled as Meta dials up pressure on current employees.
Wow, a new management concept to galvanize companies finding themselves in a storm: Zucking. When will Zuck Management Practices become a book? Oh, how is that investigation of a former senior manager going? Efficiently I presume.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2022
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