HSSCMM: Real Media Notices That Alphabet Management Misspells Stability
May 19, 2019
HSSCMM means in my small world in rural Kentucky the “high school science club management method.” HSSCMM is a wonderful acronym for many reasons. First, it requires that one have multi-year experience as a member and “officer” of an American high school science club from an era when high schools (public and private) had a Science Club. Second, appreciation blossoms when one thinks about the pranks the high school science club talked about and sometimes pulled off. A modern manifestation of the prank has been MIT students’ putting horses, autos, and MIT on a roof. Heh heh heh. Third, understanding is enriched with a modest brush with honest to goodness Googlers and seeing up close and personal the way in which adolescent thinking and global power blend in delicious ways.
Reading “Inside Google’s Civil War” does take a step in right direction on the path to Googletown. I learned:
Google paid former executive Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package, despite facing a sexual misconduct accusation Google deemed credible.
Intriguing, but were there other interactions of significance between “super” Googlers and the “peasant” Googlers? That might be something to explore.
I noted this insight about the GOOG:
Google was purpose-built to amplify employee voices.
Who knew? How could the HSSCMM foster insider behavior among insiders? How could the shining star of the Silicon Valley implementation of HSSCMM become a digital shibboleth? Perhaps the “we’re better” tendencies extended to the individuals who really were part of the true in crowd. The one percent of the one percent is a reasonable way to visualize the partitioning of the GOOG.
Googletown has to evolve. Twenty years is a reasonable amount of time for the sprout of online advertising to take root and flourish into the mighty oaks of science club experiments nourished by rivers of cash. True, some “oaks” have withered and died or been killed to make room for new developments. WebAccelerator perished to allow Google to focus on solving death. And the progress in cracking that challenge can be viewed through Google Glass I believe.
Now the Google approach to management is attracting the attention of “real” journalists looking at “real” issues inside the company.
In my opinion, the rock to flip is the one spray painted with the graffiti “HSSCMM.” There is a management biome thriving out of the bright Mountain View sunshine. The interpersonal interaction angle is one thread which when pulled may lead to the hemp rope strong enough to pull the good ship USS Google to the dry dock.
Googletown’s demographics, its super stars, and its in- and after-school behaviors may have stories to tell and lessons to teach. I am not sure if the phrase “civil war” captures the reality of digital urbanization. HSSCMM warrants scrutiny, not laments.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2019
Silicon Valley Management Crises Escalate
May 10, 2019
Early in my career I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. There was lots of chatter about management from the MBAs. I listened, and I learned that management was a slippery fish.
Now the engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who are in charge of a couple of successful Silicon Valley firms are dealing with slippery fish, and some of these creatures are poisonous.
Let’s look at two examples.
The first appears in “Google Employees Ask Alphabet CEO to Address Walkout.” The idea is that employees are not happy, and they want to make this clear to colleagues and the real journalists who pay attention to real news. I learned:
The plea for Page’s involvement comes after months of worker protests against the mishandling of sexual harassment incidents, along with retaliation against those who report it, including the demotion and modifications of roles that female employees who reported harassment held.
Google denies retaliation, and some of the world’s smartest people employed by the online advertising firm are unhappy.
Unhappy employees means trouble with a capital T. There may be a Meredith Wilson opportunity here.
The second has been captured in statements from Chris Hughes, one of the “founders” of Facebook. This Facebooker has been on talking head TV, but the article “Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes: It’s Time to Break Up Facebook” does a good job of recycling the opinion piece Mr. Hughes crafted for the New York Times. I noted:
Hughes says that Zuckerberg has “unchecked power” and influence “far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.”
Okay, a founder and “friend” of Facebook is criticizing the company. The fix is painful because breaking up is hard to do.
Okay, two examples.
The Google problem is a revolt from within. The Facebook problem is a revolt of the insiders.
Neither Google nor Facebook is handling the management challenges in a smooth, friction free way.
Maybe it is time to call in the MBAs along with lots of lawyers to help with this Iron Man events? The high school science club is just not working. Sure, the money is still flowing, but like a gurgling Mauna Loa, further events are inevitable. Foosballl and colorful mouse pads won’t do the job. And algorithms? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2019
A Disconnect: Department of Defense and the Silicon Valley Scooter Riders
May 2, 2019
I have a short conversation with a real reporter about why Silicon Valley top dogs cannot keep their puppies in line. There are walk outs, sit ins, and dust ups about what senior managers expect and what their code monkeys do.
Defense One published an interesting summary of this jar of pickled pigs feet, the ghastly green and pale pink delights once popular in rural Kentucky.
“The Pentagon Is Flubbing Its Pitch to Silicon Valley” runs down the gap between the Silicon Valley jefes and the Department of Defense. The summary is quite useful, and it includes hot links to several high-value books.
But the highlight of the article was this observation:
Surveys have shown us for decades that tech executives are quite politically liberal, albeit rather libertarian on regulatory issues. But it’s becoming clearer how much more progressive their workers are than the bosses.
One key point is tucked behind this statement. The leaders of Silicon Valley companies are used to getting their own way. People used to getting their own way expect those whom they pay to do what they are told. Entitlement? Arrogance? Upbringing?
Probably a pinch of each stirred into an ego centric soup.
The chasm is widening and there is no easy way to cross it. The split within the large firms has been identified by Defense One. Now what will the newly privacy infused Facebook, the online ad giant Google, and the Amazon bulldozer do?
No answers from Harrod’s Creek, of course, because scooters versus smart weapons is a tough call for some to make.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2019
Google: Management First, Then AI?
May 2, 2019
Uh-oh, these outside boards are not working for the Google. We learn another has fallen from Engadget’s piece, “Google Reportedly Disbands Review Panel Monitoring DeepMind Health AI.” This move follows news that, earlier in April, Google scrapped its Advanced Technology External Advisory Council. Apparently, certain members of that council were problematic choices. Writer Christine Fisher tells us:
“Now, Google is disbanding a UK-based panel that’s been reviewing some of its AI work in healthcare, reports The Wall Street Journal. This board came together in 2016, when DeepMind — a British AI company acquired by Google in 2014 — launched a healthcare unit called DeepMind Health. The board was meant to review the company’s work with the UK’s publicly funded health service. But panel members reportedly questioned their access to information, the power of their recommendations and whether DeepMind could remain independent from Google. Last year, Google talked about restructuring the group, but instead it appears it will do away with it altogether.”
As Fisher notes, these failures are poorly timed for Google, as the whole industry faces consternation around the ethical use of AI technologies like DeepMind’s. At least something will come of this—on its way out, the disbanded panel will publish a report about what it had learned so far.
Perhaps Google should ask IBM Watson what to do? The Google developed AI seems to be unable to deal with ethics, staff management, and financial management.
Cynthia Murrell, May 2, 2019
The Google: Just One Example of a Misfire
April 30, 2019
Forget the financial reports for the online ad giant. Sure, the negative reaction may be indicative of Red Bull-fueled MBAs, but the GOOG isn’t going anywhere different or fast. There are signs of trouble in Sillycon Valley in general and at Google in particular. You don’t need me to remind you that the moon shots are still on the launch pads. The management methods are not humming smoothly. The warm and fuzzy love seems to be dissipating, replaced with talk of regulations, fines, and maybe, just maybe jail time for certain behaviors.
I want to highlight one example of the internal processes at the GOOG which may be beep beep beeps of a sensor designed to send a warning to some 23 year old manager. Navigate to “Google Teases a Cheaper Pixel Phone Launch and Confirms Pricey Pixels Still Don’t Sell Very Well.” Here’s the passage I found thought provoking:
We have Google confirming that it’s been having a tough time selling expensive Pixel 3 handsets in the past quarter.
The faithful, it seems, aren’t particularly faithful. The behavior mimics the actions of a certain senior Googler and a marketing professional. The result was difficult for the marketing professional. Now the casual approach of the high school science club is producing mobile phones which deliver unappetizing consequences.
I noted this statement:
Thanks to Google’s just-released earnings report for the first quarter of the year, we now know that Pixel sales during the March 2019 quarter were even weaker than the same period last year.
Then this:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was “hammered” during a different part of the call about the company’s poor Pixel performance.
That’s enough. You get the idea.
I want to point out that the Google is misfiring. Just try to look at older email on the Gmail system. Nifty interface, eh. What about the YouTube function that does not allow a new video to be uploaded because it is already on the system. That’s a clever trick because the video is not yet on the system. And possible ad fraud? Maybe 30 percent of clicks come from bots? And those employees alleging that the company has taken steps to punish them for speaking out about certain company policies?
The numbers add to the woes of the phone unit, the staff management challenge, and the regulatory hammer being lifted over the head of the Googlers.
Yep, the phones are not selling as hoped and, of course, the Android OS is not fragmented.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2019
Alphabet Spells Management Challenge
April 27, 2019
The Bloomberg outfit published allegedly accurate information about Google’s interesting approach to management. “Google Staffers Share Stories of ‘Systemic’ Retaliation” reports that there is a disagreement about how to run the online advertising railroad.
Was management responsible for this train wreck? Perhaps the employees were at fault. Were the staff on the train punished?
Whoo, whoo, whoo. That’s the laboring engine sound one can hear in train stations in places like Patna Station or Bayshore when one stands near the tracks.
The sounds from the Google, according to Bloomberg:
On Monday [April 22, 2019], two of those organizers, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, wrote an email saying Google had punished them because of their activism. The two asked staffers to join them on Friday to discuss the company’s alleged actions, and during the meeting they shared more than a dozen other stories of internal retribution that they had collected over the past week. Like many meetings at Google, participants could watch via a video live-stream and submit questions and comments.
Chug, chug, chug. The Guardian newspaper sounds its whistle too.
The little engine that could continues to pull the freight for Alphabet Google senior managers. Bloomberg pointed out:
Google management publicly endorsed the employee walkout in the fall, giving the blessing for staff to vent frustration. But as dissent continued to rise inside Google, the company’s lawyers urged the U.S. government to give companies more leeway to reign in rebellious employees from organizing over workplace email. Google made that filing in a case pending before the National Labor Relations Board involving alleged retaliatory discipline against an employee. Another complaint involving alleged retaliation against staff was filed with the agency this week.
I think I hear the Alphabet Google Express announcement: “Unhappy passengers may debark at the next stop. Termination Junction. Next stop, Termination Junction.”
On one hand, a person who takes money to get a job, benefits, access to Foosball tables, and a Google mouse pad has an obligation to perform work. The idea is that the employer employs, and the employee does what he or she is told to do.
On the other hand, a person who does not like the work should do what? Quit? Protest? Talk with reporters from Bloomberg? Look for another job? Undermine software that sort of works?
What’s interesting to me is that the Alphabet Google train itself may come off the rails due to management missteps. I term the approach of some Silicon Valley high technology companies as the HSSCMM or High School Science Club Management Method. Sometimes its works and sometimes it appears to not work as the club members expect. What’s up with that?
Train wrecks just happen. Often with little warning. But in this case it looks to me as if one or two cracks in the drive train have appeared.
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2019
IBM: Drugs, Web Pages, and Watson
April 22, 2019
I read “Watson For Drug Discovery”. I don’t pay much attention to IBM’s assertions about its IBM Watson technology. The Jeopardy thing, the HRBlock thing, and the froth whipped up about smart software bored me.
This story was a bit different because, if it is accurate, it reveals a lack of coordination within a company which once was reasonably well organized. I worked on indexing the content of the IBM technical libraries and oversaw the leasing of certain data sets to Big Blue for a number of years. That IBM — despite the J1, J2, and J3 charging mechanism — was a good customer and probably could have made New York commuter trains run on time. (Well, maybe not.)
The Science Magazine story focuses on IBM pulling out of selling Watson to invent drugs. I mean if anyone took a look at the recipes Watson cooked up and memorialized in the IBM cook book, drugs seemed to be a stretch. Would you like tamarind for your cancer treatment? No, possibly another spice?
The factoid I noted in the article is that even though the drug thing is history, IBM keeps or kept its Web pages touting the Watson thing. I snapped this screen shot at 641 am US Eastern time on April 22, 2019. Here it is:
The Science Magazine write up (which I assume is not channeling its inner Saturday Night Live) states:
The idea was that it [Watson} would go ripping through the medical literature, genomics databases, and your in-house data collection, finding correlations and clues that humans had missed. There’s nothing wrong with that as an aspirational goal. In fact, that’s what people eventually expect out of machine learning approaches, but a key word in that sentence is “eventually”. IBM, though, specifically sold the system as being ready to use for target identification, pathway elucidation, prediction of gene and protein function and regulation, drug repurposing, and so on. And it just wasn’t ready for those challenges, especially as early as they were announcing that they were.
Failure I understand. The inability to manage the Web site is a bit like screwing up Job Control Language instructions. When I worked in the university computer lab, that was a minimum wage student job, dead easy, and only required basic organizational and coordination skills.
IBM seems to have lost something just as it did when it allegedly fired old timers to become the “new” IBM. Maybe the old IBM has something today’s IBM lacks?
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2019
Facebook: Friends Are Useful
April 16, 2019
I read “Mark Zuckerberg Leveraged Facebook User Data to Fight Rivals and Help Friends, Leaked Documents Show.” I must admit I was going to write about Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind’s smart software which classified the fire in Paris in a way that displayed links to the 9/11 attack. I then thought, “Why not revisit Microsoft’s changing story about how much user information was lost via the email breach?” But I settled on a compromise story. Facebook allegedly loses control of documents. This is a security angle. The document reveal how high school science club management methods allegedly behave.
According to CNBC:
Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps.
If true, the statement does not surprise me. I was in my high school science club, and I have a snapshot of our fine group of outcasts, wizards, and crazy people. Keep in mind: I was one of these exemplars of the high school.
Let’s put these allegedly true revelations in context:
- Facebook has amassed a remarkable track record in the last year
- Google, a company which contributed some staff to Facebook, seems to have some interesting behaviors finding their way into the “real news” media; for example, senior management avoiding certain meetings and generally staying out of sight
- Microsoft, a firm which dabbled in monopoly power, is trying to figure out how to convert its high school science club management methods in its personnel department to processes which match some employees’ expectations for workplace behavior.
What’s the view from Harrod’s Creek? Like the Lyft IPO and subsequent stock market performance, the day of reckoning does not arrive with a bang. Nope. The day creeps in on cat’s feet. The whimpering may soon follow.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2019
Crazy Consulting Baloney: Ambient Data Governance
April 13, 2019
I spotted this phrase in the capitalist’s tool. That would be Forbes Magazine, an outfit which publishes some pretty crazy management recipes. Navigate to “How To Prepare Your Company For Ambient Data Governance.” Click thorough the ads and the pop ups. The reward is a write up about “ambient data governance.” I must admit that I don’t have a clue why this phrase is necessary. Governance by itself is a limp noodle. What company has governance today? Wells Fargo, Facebook, or another one might wish to nominate? You pick. Management of most companies takes short cuts; for example, killing products after announcing them and putting the name of the product in advertisements (a nifty play at Apple, a company with governance one presumes).
Here’s a passage I noted:
Forrester recently issued a prediction for 2019, saying, “Ambient data governance will take the trauma out of old-school governance,” and predicting that “ambient data governance will prevail as a strategy to automate and intelligently scale data policy deployment while learning and adapting policies based on data consumer interaction.”
Okay, Forrester. Selling reports and consulting or is it consulting which yields reports? I just don’t know.
What does one do to become adept at “ambient data governance”? Easy. How about these astounding recommendations:
Appoint a chief data officer. Make sure this person can walk. This is the “ambient” I deduce.
Become data literate. Okay, what’s data? What’s literate mean in this context?
Evolve to an insights driven organization. Yeah, anyone at Forbes read Darwin? Intent-driven evolution is an interesting concept. The method does not work too well.
There you go. A recipe for governance. More like a recipe to write an article in the capitalist tool and hook a crazy buzzword to Forrester. SEO at work. Rev your Harley’s engine, Malcolm. Speed away from this management jargon accident.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2019
High School Science Club Management Method Number Three: Lay Low
April 10, 2019
I spotted a business related post in the article “Google Founders Have Skipped All Of The Company’s 2019 Town Hall Meetings.” The write up states:
Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have yet to make an appearance at any of the company’s weekly “TGIF” town halls in 2019.
The “real news” story opines that transparency may not be a Google core competency. I noted this passage:
Their withdrawal isn’t entirely unexpected, according to a company source. The cofounders planned to step back their Google involvement when they formed Alphabet in 2015 — a holding company that contains Google proper along with “other bets” in areas such as Waymo’s self-driving cars, and companies focused on life science and anti-aging. The idea was to give Google CEO Sundar Pichai the ability to assert his own leadership during a tumultuous time. The cofounders remain actively involved with the other bets.
Okay, a reorganization, creating a new “face” for the company, and avoiding any type of spotlight which might lead to awkward questions about business practices—these are part of the standard operating procedure for those embracing the high school science club approach to management.
“Bro” culture doesn’t capture the spirit of HSSCMM or H2CS2. That is unfortunate because a failure to recognize the hallmarks of perceive entitlement makes it difficult to realize that the leaders of Facebook are going to be scrutinized. Google is simply more skilled at H2CS2.
Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2019
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