May 6, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Recognizing Talent
May 6, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I do hope in a way that they get that deal back together. There is a definite need to have at least 2 viable 1600-lb gorillas going at it in the search arena, and in this scenario, Microsoft and Yahoo need each other...
Of course - it would probably be a lot more fun with a 3-way cage match - but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Hopefully someone lights a fire under the Yahoo CEO to make this deal work.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
May 7, 2008 at 5:22 am
Well, it would be good for MS in a number of ways. Not only would they attempt to retain the cream of the Yahoo organization's crop as well as gaining their technologies, they'd be ridding Live Search of a very serious competitor - giving them an edge on Google, the remaining competition. It was really a smart move on the part of MS, I just hope they can get it back together and make it happen.
May 7, 2008 at 5:51 am
Oh yeah, this is the same Microsoft that recently stated they can't find enough qualified workers in the US, and they say we have to import IT help from other countries. Perhaps this is true, but I keep seeing qualified people losing their jobs to offshore initiatives, so there should be help available in this country. This is the same Microsoft that is spending plenty to build a large presence in India. Gee, why aren't they investing in training programs in this country?
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see if they actually come off the bucks to retain the US workers at Yahoo who are in place and doing their jobs (continuity?) or if this is just propaganda to placate the Yahoo workforce until the deal is done (so they don't skip out early) and they can put a replacement plan in place to offshore those jobs.
As far as a little competition for Google, competition is a wonderful for us, the users, so I'm all for it. Google has done a pretty good job at moving forward and not getting complacent, but competition should improve even that and yield some interesting results (in a positive sense), especially from these 2 companies with fairly deep pockets.
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it!;)
May 7, 2008 at 5:52 am
I actually think this deal made Microsoft only look desperate. The technical side of the merger would be a nightmare experience where you would probably loose most all of Yahoo's top tier technical staff and Microsoft would basically have to gut the technology and rebuild. The reason? Yahoo has a dramatically different technological culture than Microsoft. They are big on FreeBSD, Linux, MySQL, and PHP just to name a few. Their core technologies and approach are all open source. That's in direct conflict with Microsoft's approach and I believe they would try to rebuild all of Yahoo's technology on .NET just to be consistent and that would be a long, painful process. I just don't think this made sense from a practical point of view, but it did show that Microsoft is feeling the heat from google.
May 7, 2008 at 6:12 am
Great article, Steve. Thanks.
There is some good discussion going on here about the merger on a high level and its effect on employees and whether or not it will work. I think though that I'll just be greedy and take Steve's point that the best tech companies work to retain employees with good compensation (or at least try to look like it), and I think I will make this point to my manager.
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“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
May 7, 2008 at 7:07 am
Google and Yahoo are both based in the same famous valley. If Microsoft lets a whole bunch of talent go, especially in a disgruntled way, they could just hop on over to their largest new competitor and make their product better. That is quite a bit of leverage for the Yahoo workforce.
Mia
I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
-- David M. Ogilvy
May 7, 2008 at 9:00 am
Samuel Clough (5/7/2008)
I actually think this deal made Microsoft only look desperate. The technical side of the merger would be a nightmare experience where you would probably loose most all of Yahoo's top tier technical staff and Microsoft would basically have to gut the technology and rebuild. The reason? Yahoo has a dramatically different technological culture than Microsoft. They are big on FreeBSD, Linux, MySQL, and PHP just to name a few. Their core technologies and approach are all open source. That's in direct conflict with Microsoft's approach and I believe they would try to rebuild all of Yahoo's technology on .NET just to be consistent and that would be a long, painful process. I just don't think this made sense from a practical point of view, but it did show that Microsoft is feeling the heat from google.
Hotmail was originally on *nix platforms. From Wikipedia:
Hotmail originally ran on a mixture of FreeBSD and Solaris operating systems.[11] Microsoft initially tried to move the FreeBSD portion of the architecture to a Windows NT 4.0 based system, but this failed. Later a project was started to move the system to Windows 2000. In June 2001 Microsoft claimed this had been completed; a few days later they retracted this and admitted that in fact some functions of the Hotmail system were still reliant on FreeBSD.
The acquisition would have been good for MS, but for myself, I'm glad it didn't go through because I could see MS killing Yahoo Mail five years down the road, and suddenly MSN/Hotmail and Google become the major players in town for web mail.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
May 7, 2008 at 9:04 am
Trader Sam (5/7/2008)
Oh yeah, this is the same Microsoft that recently stated they can't find enough qualified workers in the US, and they say we have to import IT help from other countries. Perhaps this is true, but I keep seeing qualified people losing their jobs to offshore initiatives, so there should be help available in this country. This is the same Microsoft that is spending plenty to build a large presence in India. Gee, why aren't they investing in training programs in this country?
Actually, Microsoft does invest in a lot of training and education in the US. The problem is mainly that US education standards are set so low that they are, in some senses, in the negative numbers range.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/unitedstates/education
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002191433_gates27m.html
"The foundation has education programs in place in over 42 states and has donated 2.3 billion dollars into educating future generations of students." (that's as of 2005) from http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/bill-gates-improves-education.html
Want the ironic part of this post? I got the above, and a ton more, from Googling:
microsoft OR "bill gates" AND education
16.8-million results. Most of them about how MS and/or the Gates Foundation, are spending billions on improving US education.
Gates may be a criminal when it comes to anti-competitive business practices, and all that, but he puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to education.
If you want to see why he says there's a lack of qualified people for the kind of technical positions MS needs to fill in the US, just search SQLServerCentral for subjects like "interview" and see how bad it can get. Then search (Google/Live/Yahoo/Jeeves/Dogpile/whatever) for news and such on the state of education in the US.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 7, 2008 at 9:11 am
I sometimes wonder about what it takes to keep talent around.
I just got an email ad for from a training company that charges a lot of money for trainings (thousands of $) . I normally think of them as a bit too expensive, but today they offered the killer motivation; "Enroll now for a FREE Polo shirt".
Apparently this company thinks that allowing me the honor of being a walking billboard for their marketing wing is sufficient incentive to pay too much money for their product. And, I guess it must work for them since they apparently put a lot of effort into the ad campaign.
Maybe Microsoft and other major software companies should consider giving away more polo shirts to their employees? Then they wouldn't have to outsource to India...
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
May 7, 2008 at 9:24 am
Someguy (5/7/2008)
...Apparently this company thinks that allowing me the honor of being a walking billboard for their marketing wing is sufficient incentive to pay too much money for their product. And, I guess it must work for them since they apparently put a lot of effort into the ad campaign.
Heh. Today I'm wearing a polo that I won at a SQL Server UG meeting in Phoenix. I think the only IT-logo polo that I paid for was a Cisco shirt that I bought after I passed my CCNA. I had two, one disappeared and one was mauled by a bleach monster and had to be put down.
I'd have to REALLY believe in a product to buy their polo. On the other hand, if they give it to me....
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
May 7, 2008 at 11:03 am
I'm moving a little off-track, but Steve posts a lot of great editorials about the job market, IT careers, etcetera. So, I wanted to relay a general observation on the topic of our careers.
It appears that many of us left-brain types tend to believe that talent is measured by our skills, contributions, quality of output, etcetera. I know this is true in many cases, but after over 20 years in the business world, I've been disappointed to find that this is the exception more than the rule. In fact, I'm sad to report that with the vast majority of employers, getting ahead seems to have little to do with performance and everything to do with relationships and perceptions.
I'd be curious to hear what others think about some rules--idiotic as they seem--that I drew up for advancement. Again, these rules aren't based on ideology...they're based on my observation of reality.
1. Arrive at work before the boss does. He or she doesn't know or care whether you arrived five minutes ago or five hours ago. Your easily impressed boss only knows that, relative to him or her, you're an early bird. For some reason, that impresses them. (Note: Interestingly, leaving earlier in the afternoon doesn't penalize you and staying later in the evening doesn't benefit you.)
2. Keep a messy desk. To your ignorant boss, a messy desk is a sign of activity and productivity. A clean desk, on the other hand, means that you don't have enough work to do and can put you on the list of candidates for the next round of layoffs. Remember -- the messier the desk, the better your chances for advancement.
3. Eat lunch at your desk. Hell, you can go home an hour earlier if you want to. As with the other rules, there's no logic here. It's just that bosses perceive people who eat at their desk as being more productive. Go with it.
4. Unless directly addressed, keep quiet at meetings. Quiet people are perceived to be intelligent. If you have something that must be said, then wait until the meeting is over and tell it directly to the appropriate person.
5. Get to know the boss personally. Know the names of spouses, kids, etcetera. Find out their hobbies and political views. Then develop or show some interest. Forward an article, ask about their favorite team, ask if the wife is feeling better and what they think about their party's candidates. Always be prepared and comfortable talking to the boss on a personal level about him or her (not about yourself). Your boss will love you the way patients love their therapists.
6. Agree with the boss. If you must disagree, pose your disagreement as an option or consideration. If the boss doesn't bite, then move on. People who agree with the boss on work issues, politics, sports, etc. are perceived as being smarter, and of course, are more pleasant to be around. Afraid your co-workers might perceive you as being a butt-licker? f*** 'em. You've got a family to feed.
7. Find an excuse to contact the boss at least once while taking a sick or vacation day. It doesn't matter how lame the excuse, whether the contact is by phone or e-mail or whether the contact only takes a second. Sacrificing any of your precious energy on a sick or vacation day is perceived as martyrdom, and bosses love martyrs for the company cause.
8. Network. There are exceptions, but no matter how much they like you, bosses are loathe to give substantial raises (anything above the cost of living), even if they promote you in title and/or responsibility. So, to move up financially, you typically have to move out. Take your new title and make more money someplace else. Networking (relationships and perception) is the key (there are lots of great books on the subject).
Now, having said all that, if you're a moral person, then you'll feel some sense of responsibility to do a good job despite the fact that doing so won't help your career. In fact, you should do a good job for the sake of doing a good job. Then, you'll be working for yourself instead of somebody else (I read that somewhere).
May 7, 2008 at 11:40 am
Wayne West (5/7/2008)
Someguy (5/7/2008)
...Apparently this company thinks that allowing me the honor of being a walking billboard for their marketing wing is sufficient incentive to pay too much money for their product. And, I guess it must work for them since they apparently put a lot of effort into the ad campaign.Heh. Today I'm wearing a polo that I won at a SQL Server UG meeting in Phoenix. I think the only IT-logo polo that I paid for was a Cisco shirt that I bought after I passed my CCNA. I had two, one disappeared and one was mauled by a bleach monster and had to be put down.
I'd have to REALLY believe in a product to buy their polo. On the other hand, if they give it to me....
I've noticed that most "geek traps" are baited with (cheesy) T-shirts, caffeinated drinks and pizza. It's to the point that my "bat-sense" goes wild when I show up to a meeting and there's pizza on the table...:)
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
May 7, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Oddly enough, I've never had any trouble at all getting managers to recognize tallent. I have, however, had tremendous trouble translating that recognition into anything that can go into a bank account. 🙂
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 7, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I totally agree with Chris!
Recently had a review and after ~1hr of kudos we came to the dreaded areas for improvement section...
The negative was that I wasn't 5 minutes early every day.
I thought getting a degree and having a professional career and doing quality work meant I would be able to do the job instead of doing the time.
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