Something I learned about software development

While the title might suggest this post is something most non-technical people would find boring, let me reassure you this lesson has nothing to do with computers or software development. I just learned it while doing software development.

This post on The Daily WTF (Worse Than Failure) sparked it.

OK, so here is what I've learned:

If you have a problem to solve, ask yourself first if this problem is something that many others have had to solve in the past. Also ask yourself if, because of the extreme commonality of the problem, there might be a tool, or a ready-made solution out there, somewhere, that you might get your hands upon. And use.

Chances are good that if you have a nail to drive into a board, there's something already invented to do that. All you have to do is obtain the tool, and voila! you've solved your problem. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered some supposedly smart programmers who think there's no handy-dandy already-written routine available for comparing two dates. Or anything else really stupidly simple, like that. And I'll bet some of the more interesting, complicated problems also have solutions, as well. Particularly if they have been encountered before.

Yeah, I know my words of wisdom are pretty lame. But you'd be surprised how hard a really simple thing can be.

Multiverses and the nature of creation

I read this post concerning the existence of multiple universes, and the existence of a creator. But of course, it made me think of the story I've been writing. I have a multiple parallel universe story. In fact, my two universes (that I've invented, so far) are very, very close together. But so far, I have not injected the notion of god or a creator.

One of my characters is starting to wonder if their sudden transportation to this alternate universe has a meaning. She speculates about it, apparently trying to reconcile the unknowable, in her mind. Of course, we all want meaning in our lives; she's no different. (And here I am treating a made-up character as if she's real! Well, she is real, she's just not physical.)

I tend to believe everything is simple coincidence. There's no reason for it; it just is. Of course, how we react to what we find and what we do in response to it ... that is where the rubber meets the road. We don't need a reason other than to be able to say: I saw an opportunity, so I took it. We only fail if we don't act, and with everything we have, as well. I'd want my creator to think that way. Who's to say it isn't that way?

So, one of my characters believes that everything is coincidence. The other also pretends to subscribe to this idea, but she still wants there to be something ... more. That they were engaged in time travel experiments without knowing it, and that something went very wrong that they didn't/couldn't predict ... that smacks of "things man wasn't meant to know." As if. The only crime is not using what you have, no matter how it was acquired.

I know my story is made up. I'm leaving all that creator stuff to someone else much smarter.

Crackergate, redux

I found this article by way of Ed Brayton's "Dispatches from the Culture Wars".

I have blogged a few times about the importance of our freedoms, including that of speech, and have cited very wise Supreme Court Justices on this subject, as well. But this statement:

... any speech that is banned is speech that must be said, and any expression (provided it's non-violent) not permitted is an expression which must be made ...

This nails it, for me. In business we talk about red flags all the time. A "red flag" means something that is a problem; something that must be looked at. Banned speech is a red flag. Banned expression is a red flag. This exchange of controversial ideas must be permitted precisely because it's controversial.

Because if we are really free, then why is anything banned, at all?

Q: Should atheists be barred from public office?

How long this poll on atheists holding public office will be active is anyone's guess. Probably not that long. The question is the same as my title, above. (It's also been hijacked to where it's now 97% - No, and 3% - Yes.)

I found the following comment (possibly trolling for disagreement) on a post in the blog of a prominent Science Blog writer. Said blogger may also have non-theistic tendencies, as well. On to the comment:

If a man will not acknowledge a Creator, why would he show any reverence for creatures?

If an atheist is consistent in his beliefs, he has every reason to be a tyrant when given authority over others. He has no compelling reason to respect anything in creation.

I find this curious because of the very invalid assumptions this commenter is making. I want to take them one at a time:

1. "If a man will not acknowledge a Creator, why would he show any reverence for creatures?" Wow. Leaving arguments that seem to claim that babies believe in a Creator without any prior knowledge, this would suggest you need belief in a deity in order to be capable of love. Let me suggest that babies and animals do not know or acknowledge any sort of Creator deity, and they are certainly capable of love. But reverence isn't, strictly speaking, love. They just seem synonymous, to me.
   
2. "If an atheist is consistent in his beliefs ..." Curious. I thought an atheist didn't have these kinds of "beliefs." Otherwise, there is nothing at all consistent/inconsistent about what an individual believes. It has nothing to do with anything.
3. "... he has every reason to be a tyrant ..." I am not aware that non-belief in a deity means one must completely disregard others. Disregard for others is sociopathic behavior, and certainly not part of any "atheist manifesto."
   
4. "... no compelling reason to respect anything in creation ..." Other than his acknowledgment that other people and things do, in fact, exist. This doesn't require any sort of belief system, except belief in the existence of the world. Kind of hard to ignore for most people, I'd think. Of course, there may be reasons for one to not have respect, but one basis for respect is acknowledging the existence of something. I respect my car, but I'm pretty sure some guy built it.
   

Only when you can make such broad, baseless assumptions about someone, can you believe such statements as these are reasonable.

So, on the surface the poll question seems curious. As was suggested, a better question could have been "would you vote for an atheist?" which is much more to the point. Both questions hint at the same kind of non-pluralisic thought, but the second one is more valid. We really can't keep someone out of public office for such capricious reasons. I mean, what if we tried to ban all redheads? Makes as much sense--that is, it makes none. But, if you don't like redheads, then you have every right to be utterly ignorant and bigoted, and not vote for them. Can't do anything about that but try to change your mind.

I think we can easily accept that non-believers are just as capable of love, respect, and reverence as anyone else. It doesn't take belief in some supernatural god to see the majesty and magnificence of a mountain. Or in the cosmos. This universe is a truly amazing place, regardless how it came into being. Scratch any scientist and you'll find a very (insanely) curious kid who wants to explore everything and eventually know everything. If there wasn't amazement at what they find in the universe, then I doubt they'd be interested in learning more about it. You can believe everything was created, or you can believe the opposite. It doesn't change your level of engagement. What I'm driving a is this: Many scientists have no faith in deities. Sociopaths are few in number, many fewer than even atheistic scientists. I want to suggest that the most ethical and moral among us have chosen science. It's that insane drive to know, and to act well with that knowledge.

Writing: Viewpoint and Tense

I subscribe to a blog/podcast called Writing Excuses. This week's episode is "Viewpoint and Tense, part 2" though it certainly stands on its own.

Most genre fiction (in my case, science fiction) is written in third person "limited" viewpoint. That is, an invisible narrator is telling the story, but the narrator doesn't know everything that's going on. Usually this means the narrator gets inside the head of a character and tells the story from that character's viewpoint. Until he/she switches the viewpoint to another character. Some writers can juggle several different viewpoints and keep them all straight. Brandon, Howard, and Dan (the Writing Excuses guys) recommend keeping to two or three characters.

The story I'm writing is told in the third person limited viewpoint, and mostly from one viewpoint as well, that being of my male hero character. Most of the rest of the story is told from my female hero's viewpoint. Sure, there's gender bias in my choices, but since I'm male it makes (some) sense. It's easier for me. A small, but significant percentage of the story is told from my secondary female hero's viewpoint. The rest is told of necessity from the viewpoints of various other characters, mostly in scenes where my heroes are not present.

I've written extensively in first person, but not in the sci-fi genre, yet. First person can be interesting, but of course you're limited by what your story teller knows and sees. Third person lets you know and tell more, but in the limited viewpoint you still can't jump outside the knowledge of the characters, since you are always working from some given character's perspective.

Now, on to tense. My first draft is written in present tense, mostly because when I began I was working on the draft for a script. Well, I'm still working on a script so almost everything is happening "now." This does make things like flashbacks somewhat tricky to baseline, but as long as I can establish that we've jumped out of strict timeline order, then it works reasonably well.

On the subject of tense, I've noticed I have a tendency to slip into past tense. It happens all the time, and I am continually fixing these lapses. Kind of makes one wonder if it would be easier simply to write in past tense and be done with it, eh? All writing is practice, so I suppose it just means I need more practice.

On a slightly different topic, but still apropos of writing and my story, in particular, I believe I have come up with a way of showing the progression of time. If we were still in our world, then showing the date at each such juncture would be appropriate. That would help set the timeline pretty accurately. That is, if we had a calendar in the world of my story. But we don't. So, how then can I show the passage of time, unless I am continually saying things like "fifteen days from then" or "five days in the past"?

I've decided to show the phases of the moon. There's enough of a correspondence between chapters that the changes should be fairly representative. What I mean is, between scenes or chapters, there shouldn't be too much change in the moon such that it would be confusing. I might also show a text label, such as "waning half" or "nearly full" or "new." I haven't tried out this idea yet, so I have yet to see how well it will work.

I have dates assigned to the entire storyline. Most of them are 117 years in the future, though. With the exception of the few scenes that take place in the "facility" where they have a computer that knows the exact date, the rest of the story takes place in a primitive world where the most reliable way of reckoning time is the moon. And the seasons. Besides, in many ways, does it really matter if some event takes place on June 6th or June 8th? For the most part, it's quite good enough to say "several days later" and be done with it.

Perfect example of splitting

The news out of Knoxville isn't good. This is what happens when an unfortunate man becomes so powerless and disenfranchised that he seeks a solution to his anguish by striking out at others as if they were to blame for his failures. We all know these folks he injured and killed were not responsible for his plight. As the title suggests, this black-and-white world view is called splitting.

In general, how would you attack something so nebulous as "the Liberal Movement"? What embodies such a thing? Now, the church he entered was a Unitarian Universalist church, which seems to be a rather liberal institution, but of course none of those folks actually prevented him from getting a job. No one person or group did. I hate suggesting it, but I think he may have fallen under the misguided influence of certain "conservative" radio commentators, who seem to see an ung-dly liberal bogie man in everything. Wow, us liberals are more powerful than we thought.

Ironic that our administration for the past 8 years has billed iteself as "compassionately conservative," and yet this man sought to blame liberals for his problems? Methinks he's confused. Of course, since he opened fire in a church and killed two people, his abundant confusion would seem self-evident.

Man, it sucks being under the bootheels of an unfeeling economy as aided and abetted by an elitist "conservative" government whose only accomplishment has been to put us in this situation, then blame others for their own incompetence. Brillant.

Obama charms French president

Give this brief news article a look-see. My only comments are that it's too bad it's the French. It's like saying vice-president Cheney endorses you. It's unlikely to work in your favor.

Mystery Meat Navigation

OK, this will be a short post. Maybe. Oh, and it's also a rant, of sorts.

I prefer to keep scripting turned off for almost every site I visit. No popups, no auto-downloaded trash, little advertising ... you get the idea. In my humble opinion, it's like using a condom--it only makes good sense if you're going to engage in questionable behavior. Like surfing the web.

I really hate sites that rely on JavaScript just to function properly. What? Do they think the whole world uses Internet Exploder? Apparently. That said, I don't mind some really useful sites with good reputations, like Amazon.com, using JavaScript. I mean, if I'm going to send them my money, I guess I trust them not to abuse the web relationship. My rule is: if I don't know you, you don't get access to my script engine. Period.

So I surfed to Vincent Flanders' site Web Pages That Suck where he talks about Myster Meat Navigation (MMN). Ironically, you have to use JavaScript on his site just to see all the sucky examples he has. Wow. Ironic. But I digress.

Why can't web sites use plain, simple links that tell you where they lead? I do. My web site doesn't use any script, for any reason. It could be that I don't know how to code JavaScript, but that's not particularly relevant. "Plain old" html works pretty well, and combined with CSS, you can make an attractive site with sizeable fonts and adjustable margins that doesn't--and won't--get in the way of the person visiting. I think that's what's important. Don't you?

Flash animation has its advantages. It also sucks big time if you use it for your home page, because as a non-script webaholic, I feel like I'm the blind man in the world of the stupid. I can't see your wonderful flash-based site, so I just click away. We both miss out.

And another thing. What's up with not having a site that a page reader can simply read? What's up with having text that can't be sized? I dunno about you, but something is really wrong with web site design if they think these types of sites are good.

OK, not so short. But you get the point.

Summer 2008 "Gadget Love" Review

Seems the last time I posted about my gadget addiction was about 1 1/2 years ago. I did post about my bad experiences with a Logitech G7 "gaming" mouse back in October, and about some of my experiences with various word processing programs, but other than that (and my "new" speakers) it's been a rather long hiatus. So, without resorting to jokes about "my long hiatus" (heh), here is my latest installment of "Gadget Love":

1. iPod Nano 3G. I have the 8GB one; silver/white. Very cool little device. Works very well, sounds very good. Plays most MP3s that I've tried. I did not buy this thing, it being a gift from my employer, but I can still recommend it as a really good and really portable music player. I have something over 7,000 songs in my MP3 library, so I have plenty to listen to. It holds about 1,000 songs at the hefty bitrate I like to use. I have the Belkin leather iPod case. Not bad.
   
2. To go with the iPod, I bought the Belkin TuneCommand AV docking station with remote. Plugs into your stereo (or any powered speakers with dual RCA jacks, or if you buy the right cable). The remote can move between songs in the current playlist and adjust the volume. You cannot navigate to/from the iPod menu. That you still have to do by hand. I did not pay $150 for it, mind you. A month ago it was $49 from the big A.
   
3. Western Digital Caviar 500GB WD5000AAKS SATA disk drive. $85 at NewEgg.com. Who knew a bare-bones hard drive could be a "portable"? Because ...
   
4. Vantec NexStar hard drive dock. Available from ThinkGeek.com. USB or eSATA docking station for any 3 1/2 or 2 1/2 inch form factor hard drive. Yeah, I have it plugged into a USB port on my computer, and the 500GB hard drive is the external backup for my computer. Has a power supply and an eSATA cable with PCI adapter. Presumably I could hook it up that way. We'll see. I get 20MB/sec transfer when backing up files.
   
5. Kingston DataTraveler 8GB thumb drive. Has a retractable USB plug, so it doesn't need a cap (that can get lost). Faster than my old Seagate 5GB mini hard drive (which got dropped so I decided to retire it before it broke for good). So far (1 month use) it has been 100% reliable. And $30, too.
   
6. Cannot recommend the OCZ 4GB drive I reviewed 18 months ago. Loses files. Most disappointing. Buy the Kingston, instead.
7. I use D-Link USB hubs. I have two, and they simply work.
8. I have an ancient Iomega 80GB external hard drive I bought maybe 5-6 years ago (really!!). It still works flawlessly, and it runs virtually 100% of the time, backing up my wife's computer. My old ZIP drive finally broke, and it looks like it cannot be replaced, but from my experience Iomega makes good stuff.
9. MediaMonkey music library organizer and player. Not as good a player as Winamp, which I also own, but organizes your music library like a madman. It will use Winamp as a player, but can't show you what files you have queued up in the Now Playing window. You have to look at Winamp to know that info. Very sophisticated user interface, with very few bugs.
10. GoodSync backup/sync software. Made by the same people who make RoboForm, Siber Systems. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but this is a must if you want a tool that can/will keep your portable thumb drive sync'ed with your hard drive, and it with your backup drive, etc. I own 3 copies (one for my home computer, one for my work laptop, and one for my wife's computer). It's very easy to set up, and it is foolproof and option-filled, for the inveterate geeks among us.
11. Logitech V450 Nano mouse. Sexy and black. Just bought this to replace my aged Logitech MX1000 laser mouse that was starting to miss clicks. I believe I really do like the smaller mice better than the larger ones. This mouse is designed for laptops, and the USB dongle is ... in a word, tiny. Has 2 AA batteries, wich they claim will last a year.
12. Gave my Logitech V320 mouse to my wife. No, no problem with it, she just needed a cordless mouse for her work laptop, and I already had my VX mouse I've been using. I bought the V320 because it's symmetrical, and I could use it left-handed (the V450 is also symmetrical). Nice mouse, and stows the dongle underneath.
    
13. Shure E2c earbuds. I'm sure they work for some people. I could not find a small enough sleeve or foam to fit my ear comfortably, or that didn't want to fall out almost immediately. Yeah, I know--yr doin it rong. Fuck that. Personally, the cheapie earphones that came with the iPod work better, and they don't fall out as easily. I probably shouldn't trash these puppies, but $70 should buy a better fit than none at all. I use the Sennheiser PX100 on-the-ear headphones at work. They are primo, but your ears get sore after a few hours.
    
14. Plantronics Explorer 350 Bluetooth headset. It works, but you have to charge it using the USB adapter cable--there's no other way. Also, it picks up a lot of ambient noise, which might be expected.
    
15. Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE sound card. Had to buy this to replace the crapped-out one that came with my computer. Cheap enough, and it seems to work, but I think next time I might invest more money in a better quality card.
    

That's about it, for now. I have tried/used other gadgets and pieces of software, but nothing I'm still using regularly, or that I would care to mention.

Look for a new music review, soon. I've been obtaining a lot of (free and legal) download music in addition to my regular purchases of albums from the Amazon.com MP3 download site. Also discovered the OGG format, but only Jamendo seems to get it right. Their MP3 encodings are often distorted, which bums me out greatly.

So, look for other stuff, soon.

Band: After The Ice

I'm not sure if someone else suggested them or if I found them on my own. But you really should check out After The Ice. Here is their official web site. You can find their album on Amazon.com MP3 Downloads, but I found them on Jamendo. This means you can download their EP for free. But it's even worth paying $3.96 for.

Their web site has a cool art gallery exploration game, with the prize being you find their Mixer. It's a Flash-based music-making "game" that I found very interesting, though somewhat limited. Let's hope they add sounds and instruments and let you mix and match them.

The final song on the EP, "Tube Screamer" features the talents of their lead vocalist, who is quite talented. I'm keeping my ears open for their LP--they're that good!

Just remember I told you about them.

Regarding political satire

I've seen the New Yorker cover that portrays Obama as a towel-headed muslim and his wife as a terrorist.

My only problem with this is that some people will believe it. Of course, it doesn't help my already poor opinion of the magazine, either. They're pandering to a bigoted and racist base, but I won't be one to tell them they can't publish the cover, or say any damn thing they please. But people is really ignorant, and some will believe the most fantastical things imaginable. Who's to say this won't be one of them? Obama is some kind of America-hating muslim? Sure, why not.

Behind his "outrage," I'm sure McCain is chuckling. He can't buy this much good publicity for the negative racial stereotypes I'm quite sure he'd like to nail to the foreheads of the Obamas.

The Cracker Sacrilege

There's been a lot of furor over two recent events: 1) a student "steals" a communion wafer (i.e., doesn't eat it), and 2) a popular atheist blogger criticizes the Catholic uproar over it. It's not my job to report the news. I cite this article from Ed Brayton, since he does. (Report the news, as it were.)

I'm not Catholic, but I have family members who are. I think. I dunno, they married good Catholic girls. Again, I think. Heh.

Anyway, though PZ Myers could have been polite, he doesn't see the need to truckle to someone else's delusions. From his perspective, a loony is a loony, and deserves no respect. Frankly, I have to agree with that assessment. It is a fracking cracker. The crime has only been to criticize things others appear to hold sacred. I suppose, folks, if you can't take the heat for your beliefs, then it's time to reexamine those beliefs. Could it be you have some doubt, lingering there in the dark?

This is about faith. Either you have it, or you don't. If you do, then this too shall pass.

Followup to my previous post, and Hellboy II

Last week I posted that I'd come up with the ending to my story, "A Far Sun." Now, I've written it, and not only that I have a song to go along with it.

This epilogue is a bit more than one page (it's just over 4 pages--1,200 words), but it puts the final "period" on the story, and sets up the next one. Oh, and speaking of a set up ...

There will definitely be a third Hellboy movie, assuming this new one (Hellboy II: The Golden Army) doesn't bomb in the theaters. It shouldn't. It may have its flaws (it definitely has some rough edges) but overall it's a really good story and I enjoyed it almost as much as I did the first one. But you have to know this: it's a love story. On more than one front.

I won't spoil it with any ... er, spoilers, but it starts rather slowly and has an odd scene near the end of act II that seems to be a set up for a theme in the third movie, since this particular subplot doesn't resolve, here. There is also a prophesy (I think they're almost required in today's action-adventure, superhero movies) and of course the thing being prophesied doesn't happen in this movie. Go figure. I'd say more, but to go further would be to go too far. Heh.

If you liked the first movie you'll probably like this one, so check it out.

I now have the final page of my story: A Far Sun

Yesterday I had some "downtime" so I wrote out several pages of notes in my Moleskine notebook, and in the process of thinking through where I wanted my story to go and how I wanted to end it, I actually did come up with the ending.

And I like it a lot. I'd just love to tell you all about it, but I really must keep it secret so you'll all be willing to read the thing when it's done, just to find out what happens at the end.

My ending idea also set up, at a minimum, the second story. And at lunch today I speculated on the nature of the third story (OK, I had some help from teh Spork--he's really good with that sort of thing). It's not that I'm planning to write three stories based in this world and on the culture I've invented, it's more that I could write more than the one story I've already got.

Over the long holiday weekend (since American Independence Day was this past Friday), I sat down at the computer and read through the entire story (all 120K words), again, just so I could get back in gear to write some more. Oh, I'm writing, all right! Now, I'm comfortable with what the story is about (I was a bit sidetracked, before), and I know exactly what the primary conflict is. And yes, they defeat it at the end. Why, of course they do.

I'm less concerned with the length and the pacing, but I think it will still work out. I've also been looking into the possibility of podcasting the story as a radio play, and getting voice actors (most likely friends) to do the various parts. I don't read that badly, but I still don't like my voice all that much. On the other hand, I do have a theme song for the podcast, and considering my budget for such a production, I can even afford the licensing fees.

And yes, eventually I want to make this into a web comic. I think it could really benefit from the visuals, and I'm not crazy enough to think it would ever become a movie.

So stay tuned. Things are going to get (more) interesting.

Pretty much not-news: Employees are important to your success

One of my favorite harping points about the business world I inhabit is the question about quality, and about customer service. Well, OK, make that two of my favorite harping points; there are others. But that's not important right now. What I want to talk about is customer service ...

Via the indirect idea that treating your employees as you treat your customers can be a very good idea. Depending upon whom you talk to, it can be the secret to success. Hence the title to this post: Employees are important to your success.

I caught this post on a blog I subscribe to. She doesn't post often enough, but the quality is good. Here's the "money" quote from the article.

If you're trying to create remarkable relationships with your organization's customers and you don't create them first with your employees, your gig doesn't stand a chance.

Frankly, I am amazed this is a novel idea, at all. Businesses (well, mine is, anyway) are scrambling around trying to figure out how to give their customers that certain "wow" experience, but haven't yet figured out that everything starts at the top. Let me explain.

Creating an environment (actually, it's a culture) in which customers are valued and treated like the friends and benefactors they are is the (not so secret) wet dream of literally every CEO on the planet. Well, the smart ones are thinking this way. What also amazes me (yeah, I'm still able to be surprised, now and then) is that many heads of companies don't think they owe the same excellent treatment to their employees.

If you're a CEO (or other capital "O" in a large corporation), chances are you rarely, if ever, interact directly with your company's customers. Honestly, you have better things to be doing. Instead you rely on your employees, the non-"O"s that pick up the phone or stand behind the counter. But listen to this: you don't even get to interact with the direct, front-line employees, yourself. Yet you want to instill in everyone the notion that customers are important. Having the annual "all employee meeting" in the local sports arena, while valuable, won't quite cut it in the long run.

So, what should the CEO do? Remember I said that everything starts at the top. You're the big boss, and you have a killer idea, so how do you get that idea out? You have a meeting with your direct reports, who meet with theirs, who meet with theirs, etc. Of course this works if you have a new widget idea. It tends to break down when you're trying to change the culture, unless you actually adopt a new culture with your leadership team. I think this is harder to do in a way that gets filtered down to the lower levels.

So, what should the CEO do? I have some suggestions, and they're not even hard to understand. They may be hard to implement, but this is because of human nature. We can't change human nature, but with consistently applied training we can teach humans a new way to act. First, we lead by example. Yes, this does mean the CEO needs to treat his direct reports--the leadership team--the way he wants his company's customers to be treated. With respect, fairly, rationally, evenly, reasonably. We've heard the customer is always right; they rarely are. But if we're reasonable with our customers, most of them will be reasonable right back. Most.

The company must have open and straightforward policies toward their customers. In many industries, the trust the consumer has of the company is very important. So being straight about what you're about and how you will treat your customers is essential. I've heard this called transparency. Nothing hidden, nothing obscured. Everything clearly laid out and stated.

The company must be accountable to their customers. That means they do what they say, and always do their best to follow through. We're humans and we can make mistakes, so things will get missed, but this then is the second aspect of accountability: we acknowledge the mistake, apologize for it, then make it right. No excuses.

I've already mentioned fairness and respect, but really these are aspects of the final requirement: treat us as human beings. We could say this a variety of ways, but I like human treatment the best. Let's simply acknowledge that we're all real people; not numbers; not statistics. And more importantly, we're not the problem to be avoided, we're the reason for being. We're customers, and without us you wouldn't have much to do.

So far all this has focused on customer relationships, and those are neither news nor why I'm writing this. I'm inspired to write because, surprisingly, no one seems to think that if the company treated its employees with the same tenets of fairness (human treatment), accountability, and transparency, that the employees would be inspired to do the same for their customers. Too easy to understand, but old habits are hard to change.

Most employees' experiences with their own company revolve around the areas of human resources, and their own local manager. Maybe in a small company you get to know the big boss, but in a large company it's embodied in how people are hired, fired, and the policies around how they're to be treated (HR) and in management--the person who gives you your performance review. Of course, that person also has a manager, and they also deal with HR. And this is a key idea.

My proposal is to have the company come clean with their employees. Go completely above board and treat everyone in such a fair, open way, and with respect and human consideration, that they feel good about working at your company. They feel a part of "the family" as it were, and as such they'll be much more likely to take a personal interest in having their customers feel the same way. When we're good people working in a good company, we have no qualms about letting others know this.

Nowhere does this require paying employees more money (though fair pay is essential), nor does it require giving away the store (that would not be reasonable). It does require good working conditions, consideration for the fact that we're all humans with lives outside work (I think this is a really big reason for the executive-to-regular employee disconnect--executives are company drones: they have no lives), and it requires being open and honest when business needs drive unpopular changes. I have an example of this.

Several years ago my company implemented a change in the company paid leave policy. They did away with conventional sick leave, and combined sick leave and vacation into "your time." Yeah, you need to take a day off? It's "your time." Sick--same thing. The HR people sold this to the rank and file, saying "see, you're going to get extra vacation days each year!" when in fact for most of us who do get sick occasionally, this amounted to a loss of time off. Only the young, who can still burn their candles at both ends, thought it was a good idea.

Anyway, the worst thing they did was lie to us. And by they, I mean the company: executives, HR--everyone. (See, this is exactly how not treating employees right can create an adversarial situation. One that can most easily translate to the customer.) How they lied was in telling us that they didn't know how much money it was going to save the company. That's just plain stupid, on several counts, not the least of which are 1) what idiot would make such a large policy change without knowing the economic impact, 2) what idiot would approve a major change that would cost the company more, and 3) what idiot would think that we (the employees) are that stupid as to believe what you're saying. I'm not a CEO, but that's not because I'm not smart. For pete's sake, if a lowly IT architect can see the stupidity, what are the chances that most others will, too.

OK, long story. Don't lie to your employees. Don't hide the truth. Don't capitalize on or take advantage of their ignorance. Fix it--educate them. Be open and honest. If you're doing something underhanded, well then, you'll only get what you deserve. But if you're really trying to do the right thing (and this is only what you would have your customers believe), then being honest and treating your employees with the respect they deserve just has to be good for business.

I have other anecdotes that describe high-level corporate policies that are in direct contravention of the "we want our customers to feel we're good to do business with" idea. I have to paraphrase to protect the culpable, but suffice it to say, my company hasn't yet figured out that if you treat your employees the way you want your customers treated, they'll get it and start actually treating your customers right. And, let me finish by saying: And not before then.

This is your daddy's rock & roll!

Check out Mandrake Root. Shades of Deep Purple or maybe Kiss (when they were good). They definitely rock like nobody's business.

Like I said, this is your daddy's rock & roll.

BTW, these guys hang out on Magnatune.com. Check it out. Lots of good music. Cheap. And the artists get 50%. I have a download subscription ($54 for six months) and I download bunches of music. So go there, and get down.



The Seventh Mirror by Mandrake Root

I especially like "One in a Million" and "1000 Color Rain". "Love on Wheels" is most evocative of Deep Purple. Whoof!