Google: High School Science Club Mini Revolt. Mini? Why Not Maxi?
December 17, 2020
Ah, remember the good old days. No one knew about thumb typing. High school students contented themselves with chemistry experiments, electronics kits, and weird tin girder thingies. Now the HSSC has grown up, but has failed to leave behind the beliefs, precepts, and insights of their youth.
I thought about the then and now perspective when I read “Google AI Researchers Lay Out Demands, Escalating Internal Fight.” As if the assorted lawsuits were not enough to bedevil the senior management of the Google. I know the allegations about fiddling with online advertising are colorful, but just maybe that’s another facet of what I call HSSCMM or the high school science club management method. The idea is that teen spirit allows some bright young people to discard history, expected behaviors, and social conventions in order to demonstrate the superiority of the young mind.
Yeah, how is that working out?
Let’s recap:
- Google management seems to have an issue with staff who want to explain how smart software can become biased. How does this get fixed? Just work through the weird explanations emitted by Google and then ask the question, “Are there other ways to ignite a social issue powder keg?” The answer is, “Well, probably.”
- How can a company find itself in the litigation hot seat in multiple jurisdictions? Easy. Treat the European Community as if they were slightly dull and non-Googley critics of the world’s largest online ad system. Create a situation which allows the company to come to the attention of 40 US states attorneys general. Recite the mantra about competition and a free service. Are there other ways to catch attention of people who sue for a living? The answer is, “Well, probably.”
- A couple of days ago, the Google infrastructure with Chubby, Sawzall, and their pals crashed. Nifty. Some can get by without Gmail, but what about the father who used the fine tweeter system to share this thought: “I’m sitting here in the dark in my toddler’s room because the light is controlled by @Google Home. Rethinking… a lot right now.”
Does it seem that the HSSCMM is fraying at the edges?
Am I concerned? Nope. Just amused. I think there are lessons to be learned from these Google missteps just as there are from the SolarWinds’ misstep. (What’s the cost of remediating this minor hiccup? A few bucks? An ad like Facebook’s in the Wall Street Journal? Or an AT&T telemarketing promotion of its outstanding video service?)
Integrity, ethical behavior, and an effort to deliver solutions that work are not priorities. That’s too bad. Once upon a time, high school science clubs meant something sort of positive. Today the sort of negative has won.
That explains a great deal about the social and technical environment in which these almost comical actions are unfolding.
Do you have a HSSCMM T shirt? Messrs. Brin and Page may be wearing theirs now.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2020
The Future? High School Science Club Management
December 15, 2020
With the discrediting of MBA programs, legal training, and art history, what’s a hard charging, Type A, materialistic over achiever supposed to do? The answer, according to Fast Company, is revealed in this article: “Everyone Should Be ‘CEO’ of Their Job and Manage As If They Own That Part of the Business.” However, before I highlight some of the insights in this high school science club management schema, I want to mention that “everyone” is singular; thus, the “their job” should be “an employee’s job or his or her job,” and the plural verb “own” is a singular; ergo, “owns”. Now that the sloppy grammar is behind me, let’s turn to the post MBA world.
Here’s a passage I circled in red:
My mantra is that everyone should be the “CEO” of their own role and manage their area as if they own that part of the business.
Now let’s try to focus on the message, not the sloppy grammar. The idea is that if I need a person to paint a wall, I should allow that person to be the CEO of the work. What about selecting the color? Should the painter pick another color? What about arranging elevator buttons?
Yes, initiative.
What if the wall must be painted before the guests arrive? Is the painter to select the time and pace of the work or just keep painting when the visitors pop in the door.
What about a minor project like replacing an Oracle database with a whizzy Amazon system?
Okay? Now we have arrived at the point which makes it clear that most people who are supposed to be managers are out of their comfort zone. MBAs, lawyers, accountants, and art history majors with an influential father and a great smile have to confess, “Hey, I know zero about this Amazon AWS Quantum Database idea.”
What’s the fix for the clueless president or senior manager? Here are the tips that will guarantee a Covid response type solution or the security methods in use at companies like FireEye:
Take the initiative
Be a team player
Ask for help
Listen
Take risks.
Let’s look at each of these.
Taking initiative is okay, but when people are paid to do a job, those people need to do the job. Yes, that includes protesters at Google type companies. A person is hired for a reason; therefore, do the work. Forget slogans. Put down the mobile phone. Do the work.
Be a team player is great when there is a team. I have news for the science club management adherents: Talking on Zoom and sending Teams messages is not a team environment. Since most companies are seizing Covid as an opportunity to slash costs, yip yap about teams in a asynchronous, distributed Zoom-type world is the antithesis of team building.
Ask for help. Great idea but from whom. Should the person struggling with AWS ask his or her boss for guidance when the superior is an art history major. Sorry, cutting out canvas and stretching it is not a skill directly applicable to the Byzantine world of database system engineering.
Listen. To whom? A colleague whom one does not know on a Zoom-type call? A contractor who shows up and asks, “What’s the problem?” Does one listen to a lawyer from Steptoe & Johnson explain how to break an encrypted message, or does one seek an NSA-type specialist to do the job?
Take risks. Now that’s a super idea, particularly when the individuals may not have a good understanding of the context, upsides, downsides, and costs of a particular decision.
To sum up, the high school science club management method is not one which makes me feel warm and fuzzy. There are old fashioned ideas which seem to have some merit; for example:
- Expertise
- Planning
- Commitment
- Detail orientation
- Persistence
- Integrity
- Effort
- Thoughtfulness.
What do you get when everyone is a CEO? Check out the availability of personal protective equipment in some major US cities, the delivery of packages by the United States Post Office, and the content filtering mechanisms in place at some social media outfits.
That’s what high school science club management methods deliver and in thumbtyper time.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2020
Google Issues Apology To Timnit Gebru
December 15, 2020
Timnit Gebru is one of the world’s leading experts on AI ethics. She formerly worked at Google, where she assembled one of the most diverse Google Brain research teams. Google decided to fire her after she refused to rescind a paper she wrote concerning about risks deploying large language models. Venture Beat has details in the article: “Timnit Gebru: Google’s ‘Dehumanizing’ Memo Paints Me As An Angry Black Woman” and The Global Herald has an interview with Gebru: “Firing Backlash Led To Google CEO Apology: Timnit Gebru.”
Gebru states that the apology was not meant for her, but for the reactions Google received from the fallout of her firing. Gebru’s entire community of associates and friends stay behind her stance of not rescinding her research. She holds her firing up as an example of corporate censorship of unflattering research as well as sexism and racism.
Google painted Gebru as a stereotypical angry black woman and used her behavior as an excuse for her termination. I believe Gebru’s firing has little to do with racism and sexism. Google’s response has more to do with getting rid of an noncompliant cog in their machine, but in order to oust Gebru they relied on stereotypical means and gaslighting.
Google’s actions are disgusting. Organizations treat all types of women and men like this so they can save face and remove unsavory minions. Gaslighting is a typical way for organizations to downplay their bad actions and make the whistleblower the villain.
Gebru’s unfortunate is typical for many, but she offered this advice:
“What I want these women to know is that it’s not in your head. It’s not your fault. You are amazing, and do not let the gaslighting stop you. I think with gaslighting the hardest thing is there’s repercussions for speaking up, but there’s also shame. Like a lot of times people feel shame because they feel like they brought it upon themselves somehow.”
There are better options out there for Gebru and others in similar situations. Good luck to Gebru and others like her!
Whitney Grace, December 15, 2020
Jargon to Watch: Facebook Out Innovates with Wordage
December 4, 2020
I read “Facebook Splits Up Unit at Center of Contested Election Decisions.” The write up contains yet another management maneuver from the Oracular High School Science Club Management Methods. Feel free to ponder the article; I did not. Instead my attention was pinned by the arrow clear thinking expressed in this two word confection:
central integrity
Here’s the deck chair shuffling on the good ship USS Facebook:
Employees from Civic Integrity, who have been at the center of Facebook’s contested decisions on how to handle posts from politicians such as President Donald Trump and its influence in politically fragile countries like Myanmar, will now join teams in a bigger organization called Central Integrity under Facebook vice president Guy Rosen, according to the memos sent Wednesday and two current employees.
From civic to central integrity. Remarkable. This phrase has taken pride of place from revenge bedtime procrastination, execution management systems, and intersubjective process.
Kudos to the Facebook phrase creating team.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2020
Cloud Management: Who Is Responsible When Something Goes Wrong?
December 4, 2020
I read “Deloitte Helps Build Evolving Kinetic Enterprises by Powering SAP on AWS.” Wow, I have a collection of buzzwords which I use for inspiration or for a good laugh. I love the idea of “evolving kinetic enterprises.” Let’s see. Many businesses are busy reacting to the global pandemic, social unrest, and financial discontinuities. But kinetic enterprises!
The write up explains via a quote from a consultant:
“The future, though, is all about built-to-evolve. And that’s exactly what the kinetic enterprises are. It’s really how we’re helping our clients [to] create the right technology infrastructures that evolve with their business.”
Okay, let’s put aside the reacting part of running a business today. These organizations are supposed to be “kinetic.” The word means in the military a thing that has kinetic energy like a bomb, a bullet, or a directed energy beam. Kinetic suggests motion, either forward or backward.
The kinetic enterprise is supposed to move, do killer stuff? Obviously companies do not want to terminate with extreme prejudice their customers. Hold that thought. Most don’t I assume although social media sparking street violence may be a trivial, secondary consequence. So, let’s go with most of the time.
Set the craziness of the phrase aside. Ignore the wonky consultant spin, the IBM-inspired SAP software maze, and the role of Amazon AWS. What about this question:
When this cloud management soufflé collapses down, who is responsible?
Am I correct in recalling that Deloitte had a slight brush with Autonomy. AWS went offline last week. And SAP, well, just ask a former Westinghouse executive how that SAP implementation worked out.
The message in the story is that:
- No consultant on earth will willingly accept responsibility for making a suggest that leads to a massive financial problem for a client. That’s why those reports include options. Clients decide what poison to sprinkle on their Insecure Burger.
- SAP has been dodging irate users and customers for while, since 1972. How is your TREX search system working? What about those automated roll up reports?
- Amazon AWS is a wonderful outfit. Sure there are thousands of functions, features, and options. When one goes off the rails, how does that problem get remediated? Does Mr. Bezos jump in?
The situation set forth in the article makes clear that each of these big outfits (Deloitte, AWS, and SAP) will direct the customer with a problem to some one else.
This is charmingly chracterized as a “No throat to choke” situation.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2020
Fleeter Tweeter: Zen and the Art of Fail Whaling
November 20, 2020
I am not a big tweeter. I am not too keen on the Twitter thing although one of my team fixed up a script to notify people about a new Beyond Search story or a DarkCyber video. That’s about it. I do enjoy seeing a senior manager with a scruffy beard explain the inner workings of the fine short message broadcasting service. The idea of running two companies from Africa strikes me as particularly interesting, a bit like the old TV show in which a Kung Fu expert handled crude and clumsy bad actors with a finger flick.
Now we have a fleeter tweeter.
I read “Twitter Ends Fleets Rollout after Just One Day As New Feature Crashes App.” The write up states:
Twitter is delaying its rollout of ‘Fleets’, its Stories-like function, while it fixes “performance and stability problems”.
For a company with a new and interesting chief security officer and a summer security challenge, the Tweeter thing seems to have some technical enhancements to add; namely, beaching the digital fail whale.
Fleets of fails?
Be calm. Be very chill. Africa may be the optimal place to retire. Senator Ted Cruz might want to visit in person, not just virtually.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2020
Management 2020: This Seems Semi-Obvious
November 18, 2020
I read “Management Needs to Adapt for Out of Sight Employees.” The write up points out with scintillating brilliance:
More than four in ten (41%) decision makers surveyed worry their team won’t stay on task when working remotely. More than a quarter (28%) also feel their boardroom culture discourages remote working, and over half (59%) feel more pressure to be online outside of normal working hours. These factors indicate a need for a top-down shakeup of traditional management thinking and practices.
What about the New Yorker Magazine management methods based on the Toobin principle?
Are the survey’s findings validation of statements like these?
Out of sight, out of mind
I can feel you forgetting me
Where were you when everything was falling apart?
Am I that easy to forget?
How long before I am just a memory?
And then it occurred to me that you don’t miss me at all.
And these?
Opportunity makes a thief?
There’s no better vacation than my boss being virtual
I would prefer a job where I am politely ignored and left to my own devices with unlimited Internet access, cupcakes, and coffee.
Side gig?
Rule one on Zoom: Always be on mute
Thank goodness mom is not here.
Remote management: A work in progress with surveillance apps, video meeting logs, and millennial managers channeling Drucker.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2020
Office Text Generation
November 11, 2020
Navigate to Office Ipsum. Select an “ipsum”, jargon for nonsense text,” and enjoy the output.
Here’s an example of the content created:
Out of the loop make it more corporate please gage [sic] where the industry is heading and give back to the community what we’ve learned. Disband the squad but rehydrate as needed workflow ecosystem yet hard stop. Move the needle golden goose we don’t want to boil the ocean so we need to socialize the comms with the wider stakeholder community. We need to make the new version clean and sexy it’s a simple lift and shift job cross sabers big data and personal development radical candor creativity requires you to murder your children.
I wish this were not so close to some of the “original content” I read each day.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2020
Facebook: High School Science Club Management Faces Modest Challenge
November 4, 2020
Imagine running an elite high school for really smart people. Now think about having almost half of the people in school think you are a dork. Sound cool?
According to “49% Facebook Employees Don’t Believe It Had Positive Impact On World” seems to suggest that the senior management of ever lovable Facebook has this hurdle to surmount, crawl around, tunnel under, or leap over. The write up states:
Facebook released the results of its internal half-yearly “Pulse survey.” One of the key findings reported by Buzzfeed is that only 51% of employees believe that Facebook is having a positive impact on the world. The survey was taken by 49,000 Facebook employees in a period of two weeks in October.
How does one manage this “half don’t get with the program” issue? The write up does not consider this management question. But we learn:
Recently, the company has been working on various issues with the platform. The company first got rid of anti-vax content, then aimed to remove misinformation about the holocaust. The social media giant also took two good initiatives for flu shots and making U.S. citizens aware of voting. While those are all good things, the issues run deeper.
The challenge, however, is not limited to employees. If “Most Americans Think Social Media Has a Negative Effect on the US” presents accurate data, Facebook faces a larger management task.
Even more intriguing is Facebook’s growth runway. “Facebook Makes More Money per User Than Rivals, But It’s Running Out of Growth Options” asserts that Snap and Pinterest seems to be in “double digit year-over-year growth in users, revenue, and average revenue per user.” The reason? Advertising strategies.
“Move fast and break things” may apply to running a company in an manner that keeps half of the employees in a happy place. Maybe if management buys lunch, more people will feel good about the company’s innovative approach to making the world closer together. Maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, November 4, 2020
A Failure to Understand Google and History: First, There Is No Google History for Real Googlers
October 30, 2020
I read “Creative Director At Google Stadia Advocates Streamers Paying Game Devs And Publishers.” The write up explains why game streaming is a good thing. A Googler involved in Stadia, Google’s effort to be a player in the big money world of online escapism, wondered publicly if “Twitch and YouTube users should be “paying the developers and publishers” of the games they stream.”
The write up includes this point:
Meanwhile, I’m just wondering why Hutchinson doesn’t just go read his own employer’s 2013 study that shows just how beneficial let’s plays and game-streaming is for the industry. He might also want to realize that Google’s YouTube has an entire wing of it’s service called YouTube Gaming, built around game-streaming….But it’s probably time to educate Hutchinson on the actual facts that his own employer has made clear in the past.
Observations:
- Googlers are a-historical; that is, there is no history. This is not the Wu thing about the “end of history.” The past is a non-event.
- Googlers making statements illustrate the lack of a cohesive intellectual fabric at the Google. Googlers see the world through a lens crafted by a single Googler or a small group of Googlers clumping.
- Google lawyers, not those working on products, are responsible for figuring out what happened in the past. But those analyses are only germane to legal issues in the here and now.
This article, its reference to a 2013 Google study, and the observation of a single atomic Googler vibrating in bonus space underscore a lack of understanding about the company. The past — like the Googler who died of an alleged overdose on a yacht with an interesting person or the attempted suicide by a jilted friend of a senior Googler — don’t exist. Google invented Google. That’s for sure. However, the silliness of historical events, a record of actions, and the “actual facts” are not germane.
Google is a now outfit. History is for the non-Googleys.
Stephen E Arnold, October 30, 2020
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