The workplace jerk definition I use is this: do people feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled after talking to an alleged jerk? In particular, do they feel worse about themselves?

If your potential colleagues are self-centered, nasty, narrow minded, or unethical, he warned, you have little chance of turning them into [...]]]> Building the civilized workplace

The workplace jerk definition I use is this: do people feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled after talking to an alleged jerk? In particular, do they feel worse about themselves?

If your potential colleagues are self-centered, nasty, narrow minded, or unethical, he warned, you have little chance of turning them into better human beings or of transforming the workplace into a healthy one, even in a tiny company. In fact, the odds are that you will turn into a jerk as well.

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The traditional providers of business software implementations are all happy and cushy in the knowledge that their cumbersome implementation, [...]]]> The rumors of the potential demise of SaaS seem to be exaggerated. True, there is a glut of companies, and the current business model doesn’t seem to give space to consolidation of services and customers.

The traditional providers of business software implementations are all happy and cushy in the knowledge that their cumbersome implementation, with their multi-million dollar contracts and hundreds of consultants per implementation, are here to stay: It is difficult to consider the current business without that massive attention to detail and customization on installations.

But SaaS is too young, and the processes are amenable to change still.

Businessweek’s Sara Lacy, in her article On-Demand Computing: A Brutal Slog points out the various problems that different vendors are experiencing, and the steep barriers to entry that this industry seems to have:

“SAP thought customers would go to a Web site, configure it themselves, and found the first hundred or so implementations required a lot of time and a lot of tremendous costs,” Richardson says. “Small businesses are calling for support, calling SAP because they don’t have IT departments. SAP is spending a lot of resources to configure and troubleshoot the problem.”

This is the quote that jumps at me, along with the 10 years $100 million figures: is it too soon to think of IBM and their mighty boxes, of enormous top-bottom infrastructure that gets subverted seamlessly by an innovative and surprisingly simple product? I think of dinosaurs and little animals that take their place, of open source and in-house modification instead of exorbitant consulting fees.

If configuration and user interface is the problem, there are deep issues of software architecture, openness and user experience that must and will be addressed. But all this is infrastructure, not technology.

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Now, to the point: zephoria asks for participation in her Case Study for the HBR.

Of course, in reality, few companies have their senior management, or their [...]]]> google. lower case google: you get more brand recognition and mind share by being a verb, not a brand: air is free, yet we all breath it.

Now, to the point: zephoria asks for participation in her Case Study for the HBR.

Of course, in reality, few companies have their senior management, or their possible employees, on facebook. Social media is quite recent, in geological years, although old in internet time.

But I see that, here in middle earth, people are afraid of or unaware of the possibilities of social media, opting for the more direct approach: house visit or phone message.

That said, it is interesting to see sites like linkedin generate all this interest, doubtless because people are running scared in a recession economy, and thus using all venues to enhance their employability prospectus.

Me? I do it for the social capital.

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So we have gobs of busy people that might not know a lot about computers and security clicking and surfing all over the [...]]]> You have a cognitive bias. Yes, dude, you are wrong all this time, and you don’t even know it!
Specially, now that I live in a test environment, these words become alive:

So we have gobs of busy people that might not know a lot about computers and security clicking and surfing all over the web (logged in as admin), but that think they know what they are doing. Sounds like a recipe for disaster or a great Monty Python episode involving loaded shotguns.
One disturbing finding of the report was that many users are not even looking at (and/or understanding) the indicators they have available in a browser that relate to their safety (SSL padlocks, location fields, status bars, etc). This is akin to getting off on the _wrong_ exit at 3am in an unfamiliar city holding a map. Not good.

Users are really good at what they do: they usually master complex interactions between their customers; they can find holes in the process and fix these; they develop an intricate support network to deal with daily occurrences, and they make their living processing uncounted transactions every day.
But they don’t know your tool, and they definitely do not abide by your rules.

Similarly, you are completely unaware of other people’s areas of expertise – even though you are competent at whatever is it that you do. Therefore, shut up, listen and learn.

BTW, this is why democratic, diverse and encouraging environments are always more successful that restrictive ones: the respect inherent in allowing someone else to dissent makes the system more resilient, stronger and adaptable.

And that is what you want in your app.

via rebecca blood and sentient development.

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So I went. And lo and behold, the kite became the metaphor for whatever culture I was in: It was just a matter of letting go, of lifting restrictions and eliminating poisonous influences, to start writing again.

Do you think that Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is racist? Never mind, some people do.