If you like Heath-Robinson, you’ll love this.
Life in the Imperial Court
This is wonderful — an account of what it was like to work at Microsoft in the early days.
So you’re in there presenting your product plan to billg [Gates], steveb [Ballmer], and mikemap [Mike Maples]. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he’s rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you’re saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don’t know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn’t looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.
At some point in your presentation billg will say “that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve heard since I’ve been at Microsoft.” He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can’t really let it faze you. Moreover, you can’t afford to look fazed; remember: he’s a bully…
Worth reading in full. Thanks to Billt for the link.
The Digger gets it
Rupert Murdoch, writing about ‘mixed media’ in Forbes.com…
Those of us in so-called old media have also learned the hard way what this new meaning of networking spells for our businesses. Media companies don’t control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options. Of course a film is going to be a success if it’s the only movie available on a Saturday night. Similarly, when three networks divided up a nation of 200 million, life was a lot easier for television executives. And not so very long ago most of the daily newspapers that survived the age of consolidation could count themselves blessed with monopolies in their home cities.
All that has changed. Options abound. Fans of small niches can now find new content they could never before. Going elsewhere for news and entertainment is easier and cheaper than ever. And people’s expectations of media have undergone a revolution. They are no longer content to be a passive audience; they insist on being participants, on creating their own material and finding others who will want to read, listen and watch.
That’s the bad news, apparently. But,
The good news is that we are learning–and fast. Take the type of media I know best–news. News is in more demand than ever, but the vast network of Internet-savvy news junkies want their news with several fresh twists: constantly updated, relevant to their daily lives, complete with commentary and analysis, and presented in a way that allows them to interact not just with the news but with each other about the news. They won’t wait until six o’clock to watch the news on television or until the next morning to read it in isolation. This plainly provides a challenge for news providers but also an opportunity to be far more engaged with the audience.
Companies that take advantage of this new meaning of network and adapt to the expectations of the networked consumer can look forward to a new golden age of media.
Translation: stick with those News Corp shares.
Quote of the day
Writing about horticulture has suddenly reminded me of something Dorothy Parker once said. She was challenged to come up with an interesting sentence with the word ‘horticulture’ in it and responded:
“You can bring a whore to culture, but you cannot make her think.”
Now, back to work.
Twitter: big idea or leading-edge uselessness?
I’m puzzled by the buzz about Twitter: why would anyone want to know the tiny details of what I am doing at any given moment? But lots of people I know are intrigued by it and I can’t quite see why.
David Weinberger has just posted the best case I’ve seen so far for paying attention to it.
I’ve been twittering. I’m not entirely sure why, and I feel too old for it, but I’m finding it fascinating. And more than that.
Twitter and other such sites (e.g., Jaiku) are “microblogs” where you can post very short messages (e.g., 140 characters) and see the scroll of messages posted by your buddies. You can Twitter via the Web site, IM, or SMS on your cell phone.
In general, people seem to post what they’re doing at the moment, plus occasional quotes and ideas of interest. So, by definition it should be trivial. But, Twitter is about the intimacy of details. Without it, I’d hear from people maybe once a year, when I run into them at a conference or they send a holiday newsletter. (Actually, I don’t get any of those any more. Two explanations: 1. Blogging has obviated them. 2. Nobody likes me. Third explanation: Both of the above.) We then engage in the odd ritual of narrative construction called “catching up.” We give the headlines in each of the big areas in our lives. The kids are fine, the job sucks, we botoxed the cat, etc. But with Twitter, you see the day-to-day life of your friends.
A lot of it of course I don’t care about. But it turns out that I do like hearing that Paolo Valdemarin, an Italian friend I see every couple of years, is sitting on his porch, drinking wine and watching the sunset. I do like hearing that Jessamyn West, who I unfortunately run into very rarely, is working on a presentation to librarians, which she then shares with her Twitter pals. I do care that BradSucks, a Canadian musician I’ve only met once, is rehearsing for a live show. This is, to mangle Linda Stone’s phrase, continuous partial friendship, and it’s a welcome addition to the infrequent, intermittent friendships we’re able to manage in the real world.
It helps that the volume of flow is so impossibly high that there’s zero expectation that anyone is keeping up. “Hey, dude, why didn’t you know that? I like twittered it two days ago?” is just not a reasonable complaint.
I don’t know if Twitter or one of its new-and-improved competitors will survive, or what it will become. It’s hot at the moment, which usually means that it’s not going to be hot soon. But it’s a powerful platform for something, and even in its current state, it addresses our desire to fill every interstice with social connections.
A matter of perspective
Michael has a lovely picture comparing the bulk of a book he’s bought about the internals of the Mac OS X system with that of the Mac mini that hosts his blog (and is powered by the aforementioned operating system)!
Horticulture and software
Sue was a wonderful gardener and she left me with a nice garden — but without the knowledge, skill or time to maintain it properly. Now I find that I’ve got a serious problem with Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria to you) which Wikipedia tells me is “a common weed in the carrot family”. This seems to me to be a terrible libel on the carrot family, an amiable and delicious tribe. GE is a fiendish pest — and one that is virtually impossible to eradicate. It is, as this site helpfully puts it, “one of a handful of really nightmarish weeds. You have to be completely committed to getting rid of it as it takes constant vigilance and persistence. White flowers are produced from May to July.” The main way to keep it under control “is through constant vigilance – never allow the weed to flower or seed”.
Hmmm…. Contemplating this depressing news, I was struck by two thoughts. The first is that anyone who finds a remedy for this weed will not only do the world a great favour but become deservedly rich as well. In that respect, a cure for Ground Elder would be a much greater contribution to civilisation than any number of social-networking sites. The second thought is that Microsoft must feel about Open Source software much as I feel about Ground Elder!
Wikipedia claims that Ground Elder was brought to Britain by the Romans. Wish they would take it back then.
Before the fall…
It’s funny what one finds in suit pockets. I have one posh, hand-made suit which I wear in the same way that admirals wear swords — on ceremonial occasions only. Rummaging in its pockets this morning I found this menu from Sartoria, an oh-so-New-Labour eaterie in Saville Row. It’s from a dinner party on the evening of Monday, January 26 2004, hosted by then Chairman of the BBC, Gavin Davies, who wanted to talk about the BBC’s ventures in the online world. Everyone present was aware that the report of Lord Hutton’s inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly was to be published on the following Wednesday, but we stuck resolutely to talk of online matters. In the Gents on the way out, however, I had a brief conversation with Gavin during which I wished him luck for the week ahead. It was clear from how he replied that he expected a tough time. But it was also clear that he expected Hutton to hand out blame all round. He was wrong: m’learned friend produced a whitewash, and by the end of the week both Davies and his Director-General, Greg Dyke, were gone.
As it happens, I think that Greg Dyke handled the Kelly story ineptly, but the ironic thing is that the BBC report that triggered Dr Kelly’s suicide and the Hutton Inquiry was essentially true. The Intelligence ‘dossier’ was indeed “sexed up” to persuade the British public — and Parliament — to support the Blair/Bush invasion.
The Blair legacy
This week’s Private Eye cover. Says it all, really. And yet, if it weren’t for Iraq, he would probably be remembered as a great reforming Prime Minister. As the man said, all political careers end in failure.
Stand by for the crash
The prime motive for a bubble in any field of human activity is the delusion that investing is a one-way bet. Britain (and, to an even greater extent, Ireland) is in the grip of a crazed property bubble. I don ‘t often agree with Will Hutton, but this time he’s spot on.
The risk of history repeating itself is known, but too few people believe it. Not the clubs of four or five young people ‘co-buying’ in order to have a chance of getting into the housing market. Not the wave of buyers of flats that are bought speculatively either to be let or which just stand vacant (and which now constitute one of the prime drivers of demand). Seventy percent of the 20,000 flats built in London last year were bought by buy-to-let speculators.
Neither they, nor those who lend the money, appear to be concerned that prices will fall. Cheltenham and Gloucester has just decided that it will finance small buy-to-let borrowers to buy up to nine properties rather than the three at present. The Bank of Ireland, according to the Financial Times, has just raised the maximum it will lend to any one entrepreneur by eight times – from £2.5m to £20m. It is risk-free lending. It may be that the yield from rents is lower than the costs of borrowed money, spelling disaster, but as property prices only rise, nobody worries. It is stories like these that prove we are in a bubble…
What’s funny about bubbles is that everyone knows, really, that they’re in one; but most assume that they personally will be ok.