I am on the hunt for a job. This means doing a variety of fun and exciting activities, but one of the ones I do enjoy is the interview process. It’s a great opportunity to verbalize how you’ll be a wonderful employee, but also a good opportunity to find out more about the position. It turns out that the more detailed and knowledgeable questions you ask during this process, the smarter the interviewer tends to think you are. Which brings up the topic: what to ask?
Last spring I interned at the University of San Diego’s help desk. They were trying to figure out how help desks of comparable colleges and universities operated, looking at such things as hours open, student versus staff technicians, etc. So I researched what schools would be similar, based mostly on undergraduate size and then wrote a survey and sent it out whomever looked like the appropriate contact. I wrote up the results in a short article, which I’ve just posted:
I’m sure you’re well aware of the whole Digg fiasco. First, Digg announced that they’re getting rid of posts that link to the hack for HD-DVD’s. Some of their users are annoyed, and since Digg is just a collection of user-submitted links that people vote on, they bury Digg in a pile of links to the crack. Digg then gives up and says effectively, “we might get sued into oblivion, but it’s what our users want.”
There are lots of interesting, obvious questions about holding the tiger by the tail when you implement user-created and moderated sites. We’ve been talking about them for long enough that even the LA Times can cover it. This is useful to examine, but I’ll let someone else for the moment.
There are even more interesting discussions about what the heck the AACS Licensing Authority (aka: the folks who sent the original lawsuit) should do. The obvious answer is: get out of the business of trying to control your customers, but even that discussion is fascinating, relevant and widely beaten into the ground. Frankly, I’m most interesting in starting this kind of discussion with my fellow MBA students because they’re the ones who need to hear it. But they’re not reading this.
The Digg example is interesting because I’m not sure it really does represent a wide scale revolt by all of Digg’s users. Instead, I think it represents a relatively small percentage of them who were ticked off instead of educated. Then they act in a way that’s humorous, witty and attractive if perhaps self-destructive. And the action certainly holds the possibility of Digg’s destruction. Although the EFF notes that we don’t really know how much linking to this material can get Digg in trouble, they also note that Congress’ choice to cripple the US with the DMCA certainly indicates that Digg is potentially liable.
There seems to be this image of online user communities where most people take an active role, and I just think that’s probably not what’s happening. I don’t have numbers, but my guess is that the Digg incident really does show that a vocal minority can have a huge voice. This is great in a lot of ways, but it does show how very reactionary this discussion can be. If you’re trying to lead an online community like Digg, you have to be very careful about how you communicate. Digg’s initial post was trying to say, “we’ve been sent a legal notice, and we think it sucks, but we feel it’s probably in the communities best interest to reply.” Instead, what a chunk of their users heard, was “the same people we know all know are evil are forcing us to censor you.” The second message may be the truth, but it isn’t really what they needed to convey. When you make a website out of galvanizing people to act (even if it’s just post and vote), you have to realize that if you do something you know damn well will be unpopular, you should probably try to harness that community. You need to give them a voice, some sort of outlet or else they’ll make their own. Asking them for help might be much less antagonizing. Otherwise a small but vocal minority, without anyone providing context or counterpoints, can easily become a more popular whirlwind.
The last post on Digg ends with:
You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
What’s frightening is that this comes as a result of Digg’s miscommunication to its community, and its community communicating frustration and outrage back. I’m not sure the community of Digg really did pick ‘break an unpopular law and to hell with the consequences.’ Our government is designed to help stop the tyranny of the majority. Sometimes it seems like online communities need to be equally wary of the tyranny of the minority.
Twice recently I’ve read an article about virtual currencies (mainly QQ) in China and how the Chinese government is a getting a little freaked out. Frankly, I think they’re probably right to be given how tightly they want to control the yuan.
Quick links for your edification:
This is part of why the internet is so fascinating. A currency starts out, and is intended for, online trading of virtual objects. However, as has being going on for years, people are willing to pay real money for virtual objects (witness buying characters, etc.). Suddenly, we’ve jumped. Now other merchants are starting to join in, especially those that want to use micro-payments (say you want to sell access to your online book for $1). Micro-payments are hard because 1) nobody wants to go through the hassle of online paying for $1 and 2) the fees from credit cards are high enough that it’s difficult to make this economically viable (unless you’re someone like Apple who can really scale it up). So why not take a virtual currency, instead? Obviously this becomes cyclic: the more people that accept it, the more useful it becomes.
This raises some large concerns. Governments cite money laundering as a big one, but so is currency control. The more accepted a virtual currency becomes, the more it influences the physical (such as they are these days) currencies it interacts with. For example, if QQ becomes massively popular in China, and they suddenly change the way their currency is traded (for example: suddenly you can’t transfer more than $50 worth of it to any one individual in 24 hours), this could have very real effects on China’s currency and economy. That’s a hell of a thing.
There are all sorts of interesting things going on here. Which currencies are becoming popular? One imagines it starts with something that’s easy to use both for customers and 3rd party merchants, but what are the implications if you’re Nintendo and want to allow people to have some sort of “points” they can earn and trade online? Do you specifically limit this so that it’s only useful in your zone of control? This means you probably won’t have to deal with the some of these issues, but perhaps you want it ubiquitous? One imagines there is some real advantage to controlling a popular currency. Currency traders are looking into online currencies and starting to trade them, and after all what’s the difference? To them, it’s all virtual anyways.
This is the kind of thing that warms my nerdy, little heart. It’s also fun to think about this given my continuing learning about currency issues through business school.
Base of the Samosa – What’s in a name?
Due to classes and my involvement with Net Impact, I end up thinking and discussing “Base of the Pyramid” (BoP) issues a fair amount. These are often related to how to build partnerships so that businesses and the target communities (very poor people) both profit. The article above was one I found while researching SC Johnson’s efforts in Kibera, Kenya.
There are some great thoughts about being wary of defining a people solely by what they lack. In addition, one of the local NGO workers echoes my concerns with programs to Make Poverty History. They haven’t worked yet, and just throwing money to the poor, assuming the money actually gets to them, doesn’t necessarily do a lot of good. By definition this is a group of people that might be experts at making scarce resources last an incredible amount of time, but certainly aren’t experts about what to do with money.
Look at Taka ni Pato (trash is cash), a program run by CFK in Kibera and funded by the Ford Foundation. The project enables youth self help groups in Kibera to turn the community’s trash into a source of income, yet CFK has quickly learned that too much cash flowing too quickly could kill the very groups they are seeking to uplift, the groups that are now providing a much needed service to the community. Just because a group has increased income, perhaps for the first time any income at all, doesn’t mean that the group is ready to do something productive with that income. Are they mature enough to handle it? Do they have the transparency necessary to keep money issues from tearing the group apart? Do they have plans for tomorrow so they don’t spend it frivolously today? As Ibrahim Sakuda of Faulu Kenya reminds us, “As more income comes in, groups need time and help to broaden their vision beyond what they currently do.â€
Ok, some links I’ve been reading from Joel on Software. They’re all about developing software, not so much programming as managing the process. This is what I’m interested in, and it’s amazingly refreshing to read these. I’m getting an MBA at the University of San Diego, and I’m happy with the program for the most part. Lots of smart students, instructors, good coursework, too much work, etc. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t know technology if it rose up and bit them. I have remarked that it’s akin to being taught from the middle of a cornfield. Given that we’re in San Diego, perhaps it should be a beach. There is movement underway to change this, and certainly they’re doing great things for infrastructure including better wireless network (it’s in great shape now), having the Profs use WebCT, etc. Unfortunately, they are eliminating their MSIT program, so no classes on or from an IT prospective.
Here are some good articles that I should read again before I get back in the world of IT, assuming that’s where I end up next December:
- Painless Software Schedules – Software scheduling. Done poorly, it’s the bane of any software company. I could go off a big rant on why scheduling is so important, but Joel does a far better job here.
- Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service – I love customer service. Really. I come out of years of technical support, where I loved my job and excelled. I get a huge kick out of making sure the customer is delighted with our company. There wasn’t anything in this article I didn’t already do or know, but it’s good to be reminded of a lot of the basics. People in this country (world?) are trained that customer service is terrible, which is part of why good customer service is (in a lot of ways) so easy and so much fun! This is here because I have to explain all this to other folks sometimes, and it’s good it have another source.
- Fog Creek Software’s Software Management Training Program (also discussed here) – This seems like a cool opportunity. The Columbia program actually doesn’t have a ton of overlap with my MBA (one of the reasons I shied away from these instead of getting an MBA is that I think a broader knowledge of business is much harder for me to pick up on my own than knowledge of technology issues) so it’s kind of tempting. Move to New York and work with what has for years seemed a great software company and get experience and more training? More tempting than it should be. Apparently, I like pain. Of course, I also like the beach, so this seems unlikely.
- The Complete Archive – reverse chronological listing of Joel’s writing, starting with the bigger articles. I’m sure there’s lots more gold, but I need to do some homework.
My favorite valentine’s day “news” story comes from the LA Times!
I need to go to bed and re-read this when I have more active brain cells, but I really love the idea of C-level executives noting their extra-marital affairs in corporate documents. This, dear friends, is why I’m getting my MBA!
This paper provides insight into what makes learning from failure so difficult to put into practice – that is, we address the question of why organizations fail to learn from failure. We identify pernicious barriers embedded in both technical and social systems that make collective learning processes unusual in organizations, and present recommendations for what managers can do to overcome these barriers.