I have in hand a couple of one year MSDN Subscriptions with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.  Never you mind where they came from, but they didn’t fall of the back of a truck, they are legitimate. 

These are not for me, they are for YOU.  However, there are only two of these and according to my quick Twitter poll, a lot more than two people who’d like their own MSDN Ultimate.  Therefore, I pose to you a very simple contest.  Leave me a comment or send me an email telling me why you should get a subscription.  I will choose the winners late this week.

{Edit: I should be clear: I’m looking for community influencers here.  Tell me how this prize will touch more lives than just your own}

Last night I did my first stop on the Mix it Up! tour: the Indy NDA group in Indianapolis, IN.  These guys have got it made.  They have an absolutely fantastic group of people, a great location, and a TON of swag at every meeting.  I was pleased to be bringing some t-shirts and copies of Expression Studio only to show up abd find 20 books, a webcam, and various other nice prices already on the swag table.

These guys are hard-core too:  Their attendance is 120 people and up for every event, and they hold various SIG groups right after the main user group meeting.  After I did the Mix it up content they invited me into their Architecture SIG meeting to discuss the MVC pattern and we ended up talking about map reduce and the Parallel Extensions for the .net framework.  Thanks, guys, for having me, and maybe I’ll be back again.

Despite the obvious advantages of approaches like Scrum, deadlines are a fact of life in the business world.  There are what I consider “artificial deadlines” and “real” deadlines.  If a sales person and a client agree, in a vacuum, that Feature X needs to be done by March 27th, that is probably an artificial deadline.  Where did this date come from?  Is it even possible for Feature X to be done at all, let alone in this time frame?  “Real” deadlines involve some real-world event happening which is going to happen whether you’re ready to take advantage of it or not.  Silverlight must be able to stream video before the Olympics.  The industry trade show happens on this certain date.  We will run out of operating cash on this date.  These are real world events that present a risk or opportunity; they will come and go even if Feature X never happens.  I know of no hard and fast rules for separating real deadlines from artificial ones, but there’s often a certain “taste” to the artificial ones.

Regardless of the real-ness of a deadline, committing to one should not be taken lightly.  Even if there is no real business consequence for missing a date, it affects your credibility.  Consultants who lose credibility have a hard time earning long term success.  Employees who lose credibility get “tuned out” by their co workers over time.  Products that lose credibility sit on the shelf/lot/floor.  Companies who lose credibility have a hard time earning and keeping customers.

Nonetheless, sometimes a deadline that you’ve agreed to simply cannot be met for any number of reasons.  This is often OK, but I try (not always successfully) to follow one simple rule I learned 9 years ago from a much more senior consultant:

You can only push a deadline out by an amount of time equal to {Deadline} minus {Today}.

For example: if the deadline is in a month I could conceivably push it out another month without looking like a moron.  If the deadline is in a week I could ask for another week.  If the deadline is 2 days I could ask for two more days, or partially deliver, or pull some heroic hours and get it done anyway.

This isn’t an arbitrary statement, we can see how this makes sense.  Consider a situation where the deadline is 5 business days away and you ask for two more months.  Did you leave the biggest risk or uncertainty for last?  How intelligent was that?  Did you do a poor job of discovering what needed to be done?  Did you over-promise on how quickly you could deliver a solution?  Did you agree to various scope changes without any concession on timeline?

To put it differently, we can propose a way to calculate the magnitude of the planning/managing/over-committing/qualifying mistake.

let maxPushbackDays = deadlineDate – today; // give us a number of days

let pushbackDaysRequested = someNumber; //How much more time are we actually asking for?

let mistakeQuotient = pushbackDaysRequested / maxPushbackDays; //Give us a quotient

Here’s some simple math that gives us an arbitrary number.  If my maximum sensible amount of time I can postpone delivery is precisely equal to what I ask for, I get a “mistake quotient” of 1.0.  If something is due in two days and I ask for two more business weeks, I get a much higher mistake quotient of 5.0.  If something is due in 10 business days and I ask for 3 more days, I get a mistake quotient of .3.  Missing a deadline is never good, but it may help to think about things in a quantitative manor in order to plan what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. At an MQ of .3 you might only need to say “If you look at it this way, it’s really not that bad, we’ve discovered this misconception early enough to correct scope and deadline now…” whereas at 5.0 you might need to have a very compelling story indeed.

Of course, with “real” deadlines it’s different.  If the Olympics come and go and you didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, what then?

Back to basics: If you’re going to be late, it’s best to let it be known as soon as possible so there’s time to react.

"Everyone wants to save the planet, but no one wants to help mom do the dishes"

-Unknown

We are increasing the failure rate of projects and decreasing quality of- and relevance of- software projects in America by the way we treat our top performers.

I have written in the past about what I feel is one of the greatest sicknesses in Corporate America - namely that businesses have an impendence mismatch between that which will actually help the organization meet its goals and that behavior which finds itself rewarded in the same organization.  I haven't always put it so gently.

The Corporate Ladder, and the drive to climb it,  is having a negative impact the profession of Software Architect.  The Software Architect is in some ways falling victim to what I call Fry Cook Syndrome.  In my late teens and early 20s, I was a fantastic burger flipper and all around food production prodigy.  A point comes when the owner/manager can no longer justify further rewards to a lowly burger flipper and so I was promoted to Supervisor.  The problem was, although I could make delicious burgers and a beautiful sundae I was not in possession of any leadership abilities.  Sure, working hard and leading by example is a step in the right direction, but it won't turn a sarcastic college kid into a good leader.  Furthermore, the business had lost a top producer in the attempt to reward him.

While I joke about Fry Cook Syndrome all the time this article isn't about Architects getting into something they aren't suited for.  This is about the how the organization recognizes and rewards Producers.  We have some groundwork to lay down before we tackle the core issue: Titles, Perspectives, and Recent History.

Title Wars

I once worked at a consulting company where for a long time we were able to pretty much choose our own titles.  This led to one person calling themselves "Senior Internet Architect".  Not to be outdone, the next person crowned themselves "Principal Architect", while a "Chief Enterprise Architect" won the day.  I have even heard of someone who calls themselves a Galactic Architect; presumably the architectural needs of the Galaxy trump those of the mere Enterprise.  Attaching nonsensical names to ourselves as part of an effort to be "More Architect-y" than the next Architect is clearly a sign of cultural sickness.

Perspective

I was recently operating under the ostentatious title of Director of Solution Strategy.  In a way, I'm at a crossroads where my current position would lead easily into a more management or Enterprise centric role on one hand and back into more solution architecture and technical leadership on the other.  One thing that has repeatedly spilled out as I have meetings with interested parties is that I need to ship systems  right now and I don't want to get further from directly solving problems.  There is a process of turning requirements into code and fully participating in it means getting your hands dirty.

I was once working with a most excellent architect.  He understood his particular business, was a great abstract thinker, could write code as good as anyone's, but he felt he had an issue with how he and his group were fitting into the organization.  The high level architects, he claimed, needed to get away from "shepherding projects".  I never forgot this statement for two reasons.  For one, I thought that "shepherding projects" was a good way to put the leadership responsibilities of a good architect.  For two, I thought "Well, what else should your team be doing day-in, day-out?"  When did it become taboo for technical people with Computer Science degrees to write code?

In other words, who's going to help with the dishes?

The Evolution of the Architect in Corporate America

As of the time of this writing I've been programming in The Real World for about ten years.  While I cannot personally say this with any degree of certainty, I see enough anecdotal evidence from talking to More Experienced folks that there was a time when the average software developer was more technical; back when there was a Computer Science degree but not an Information Systems degree, perhaps; back when everyone looking for programming work had done their share of pointer math and taken a compilers class or studied the Unix source code.  As more and more businesses discovered the benefits of software systems, the demand for software developers grew faster than the supply.  The supply did not show signs of increasing at a satisfactory rate for two reasons.  The first reason was that a career in Computer Science or any core Engineering discipline was even less sexy in the recent past than today.  It just does not attract people in large numbers and the culture seems to be especially abysmal at attracting women.  The second reason is that compared to many other things Computer Science is hard for a lot of people.  Hard coursework weeded out a percentage of the people who were otherwise interested in being a software developer.

While an answer to the first problem seems to require a massive cultural shift and may only take time, businesses and colleges conspired to create a partial solution to the latter issue.  The Information Systems degree and its derivatives were born.  In these degrees the math component was toned down a bit - most of the businesses did not require programmers with hard core knowledge of Calculus.  The programming was toned down - you might still take C++ classes and write data structures from scratch but you wouldn't be studying compilers or Unix source code.  Businesses soon began to write real systems in higher level languages, so soon C/C++ was considered optional as well. 

Some people come out of these programs and thrive, some people demonstrate a career-long lack of polish stemming from lack of a true Computer Science background.  Only some parts of a system really required this training - Parts like the high-level technical vision for large systems.  The Architect of a system came to be known as the smartest guy in the room, needed to keep the simple proletariat developer in line...

The Problem

I assert that for various reasons there are not enough high level technical people focusing on Solution Delivery because everyone wants to be An Architect who doesn't get their hands dirty in the lowly tasks of writing code or requirements.  When I talk about people involved in Solution Delivery I mean the people who create the architecture for a solution, implement some of the use cases or modules, help other developers get things done.  I'm talking about the people who go to requirements meetings to help the business, and come back to find a line of people looking for code-level help waiting at their workstation/cubicle/office.  These people might be discussing the impact of frameworks on their project with the Galactic level Architects.  These people are on the conference calls with partners.  These people are often considered to have the best estimates, the most accurate perspective, the people you go to if you want to know how the project is really doing.

Companies large and small need people who can help get things done.  As Joel recently wrote, this can often mean that writing code is the most valuable activity.

This might be a good time to re-read Philip Greenspun's ancient wisdom.   A good software developer is often ten times more productive than a mediocre one.  A good software developer who is capable of higher-order abstract thinking, with some leadership abilities, who is not oblivious to organizational politics will often rise to the level of Some Kind of Architect.  Some times this is good, other times the company has just pulled a Fry Cook Operation and in the process hurt themselves and the entire profession.

Businesses are using career path and compensation to incent people to endeavor to become higher and higher level architects and avoid writing code.

Geek Culture is subsequently being transformed in such a way that the title of Architect is becoming more about prestige and pay grade than about one's duties.  I've even seen people declare that they "Architected the HTML and JavaScript for these pages...".  Is that their way of saying "I am awesome at HTML and JavaScript", or a way to declare that they are not "just a mere programmer" ?  I wonder.

The problem is that businesses don't understand the value of writing good code, the true value.  The developers with a proper mindset of Software Engineering and Craftsmanship may very well be providing their highest value possible to a business when they are turning requirements into code.  Too many managers view writing code as a low-value task, something that's just a stepping stone on the way on the way to something bigger.  This ultimately leads to a culture where writing code becomes a "guilty pleasure".  The organization goes about systematically promoting the best developers and the organization suffers for it.  "What can I do?", a manager might wonder, "I can only pay a software developer $75,000 but the pay scale for Enterprise Architect goes up to $125,000."

Nonsensical constructs like this will quickly motivate people to do anything to attach the word "Architect", or "Architected" to themselves or their work.  As Phil so rightly observed, great developers can often implement large systems or tremendous modules entirely on their own, but the organization fails to recognize this as an extremely valuable talent that ought to be rewarded.

Call to Action

None of this is to say that we don't need great Software Architects.  Hell, I (like everyone else) consider myself a great Architect/Application Designer and sometimes those skills are just what's needed.  Businesses big and small need to stop considering writing code a low-value activity.  Software Developers need to have soft skills just like everyone else today.  We need to recognize the value of great developers, we need to recognize that highly skilled developers with human skills who can also quickly turn requirements into code should be rewarded in proportion to the value they deliver and not because of an ostentatious title.  We need to remember that it takes True Craftsmen to deliver great systems and that Craftsmen should not be second class citizens.  We need to be sure that people can be successful without needing the title of Principal Inter-Galactic Senior Integration Architect.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have some UML diagrams to finish.

Key Democrats criticized President-elect Obama's economic stimulus plan today.  John Kerry called it "A return to trickledown economics."  This development is fascinating for a number of reasons.

First and maybe least important - the unified Democratic party, the combination of Congressional seats, State Governors, and the Executive office all under Democratic control so feared by the Republicans doesn't appear very unified after all.  The infighting has started before inauguration.

Second, and slightly more interesting, is the fact that these particular tax cuts and so forth are absolutely not the platform that Obama ran on.  Is he and out-and-out liar, or is he only now recognizing certain aspects of reality regarding the true costs of big government programs?

Third, we must thoughtfully consider John Kerry's use of trickledown economics as a bad word in the context of recent history.

I won't (yet) try to argue that Trickledown, or Reaganomics, or Supply-side economics is the best system for raising the standards of living of the entire nation.  For now let's just examine the popular opinion as to the results of Reaganonmics.  It was called Voodoo Economics.  It has been claimed that it didn't work, that it could never work, that it was a laughable disaster.  Walking down the street, one would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks of Supply Side Economics in a positive context.

Now let's just break this theory and it's opponent down into simple bite-sized notions.  Supply Side Economics states just what its name implies: that the economy does best over all by encouraging Production through whatever means.  Typically more freedom and less taxes is considered to be means of encouraging Production of goods and services.  Damon opens a factory in order to produce Glow in the Dark Towels.  The opening and operation of this factory including borrowing money, dealing with suppliers, marketing and advertising firms, hiring workers, buying land, contracting with builders, and so forth, will be a positive impact on voluntary business dealings between individuals.

In the other corner we have the Keynesian view, the view that Consumption and not Production is the best driver of the economy.  This encouragement to spend boils down to market distortions and wealth redistribution, but these are not bad as far as the pro-Keynes camp is concerned.  If the masses are unable or unwilling to consume, then the government must step in for them: spending everything it has and then borrowing more and printing money to keep on spending.    If the government can spend enough, we can float across tough times until individuals are willing to start spending again.  There are a lot more middle class spenders than factory owners, the thinking goes, and together their habits represent a much stronger force on the economy.  For now leave be the question of what the government should spend this funny money on.

Now we come to my point.  The original pre-crisis Obama plans involved some tax increases on the wealthy and a great deal of government spending on "building of infrastructure and green jobs".  Obama supporters praised these ideas, and the irony seems to have been lost on nearly everyone.

The notion of creating jobs and increasing prosperity by building infrastructure and creating goods and services is a Supply Side concept.  Contrast this with the idea of just giving every middle class American $1,000 on the condition that they spend it.  The idea that Production, not Consumption, will rescue the economy, is stolen directly from the so-called conservative side of the fence.  Why is Production the answer when the government is the producer, but not when private owners are the producers?  The answer is simple: because the Profit Motive has been removed.  The ethics of altruism tell us that it's moral to open factories and produce energy "for the benefit of everyone" but a private business engaging in the exact same activities and competing with others for profit is immoral, barely to be tolerated by a "progressive" state.

Obama has gone from government spending on infrastructure, which appears to me to be a smoke and mirror operation to reap the benefits of supply side production without calling it such, to an even more blatant supply side tactic: namely lowering taxes across the board and even on the wealthy. 

Whatever else he may be, Obama appears to me to be an intelligent and educated man.  He knows that big government welfare state policies can only be afforded by a wealthy nation and only then to the degree that they do not make the creation of wealth too difficult, too inconvenient, too undesirable.  At some point, he knows, the disincentive to produce is too great and the lifestyle enjoyed by Soviet Russia is the result.  He recognizes that when the chips are down, when there's no more wealth to "share", when printing even more money can't work, that only one thing will work.  He looks at American history and economic reality and sees that only by giving the freedom to engage in production and trade can creativity and hard work be unleashed, wealth quickly created.  Only by lengthening the leash given to this nation of smart and hard-working Americans will people take responsibility for their own actions and ultimately create enough wealth he can use to accomplish his redistribution goals later.

Obama supporters thought he would be a great redistributor, cashing in on our general prosperity in the 1980s and 1990s.  The .com bust, the Federal Reserve, and George Bush have beaten him to the trough though. 

It must trouble them to see him backing off his altruistic plans, but reality is the final arbiter in any clash of ideals.

So, this weekend involved a road trip to Missouri for some family business - namely seeing my grandfather while he's still see-able.  A fringe benefit of making this trip was that my mother had received an iPhone from my uncle (confused yet?) and she didn't want to pay for the data plan.  So, guess who has an iPhone now?

I bleed Microsoft red.  I chuckle at the fantastic claims of Mac addicts.  Still, I've seen the iPhone in action and it seemed to be a nice little device. 

Inflammatory statement #1: Unlike many of the Microsoft-hating Mac-worshipers and Java fiends, I still have a solid core of objective thought and rational epistemology.  By this I mean merely to say that I'm not going to forego what may be a really nice gadget just because Apple makes it.

First Impressions

Obviously the thing is sexy.  It's curvy; it's sleek; it's reassuringly heavy for such a small and fragile looking item.  The sexiness is the first clue that this is a different thing made for different people than, say, my AT&T Tilt.  I can't remove or replace the battery.  I don't see a place to add a storage card.  I can't insert my SIM card without surgical tools.  Apple does not make products for "Tweakers".  This is meant to be a "finished product"; future be damned.  Still, towards this goal it's clear the device isn't cheap.  It's got 16gb of internal storage and feels like it's well made. 

From initially playing around, it seems easy enough to find settings and launch programs.  Like Windows Mobile, it takes some getting used to not needing to "close" a program, just hit the Square button to return home and move on to the next thing.  While I maintain I'm objective in terms of technology, I can't claim to be objective in terms of Gadget Discoverability.  I have used far too many gadgets for far too long and written too much software to have a good sense of how usable the Average Dude would find the iPhone, but I expect it's very usable.

Since this was "gently used" before landing in my hands, the first thing I did was look into some kind of Ultimate Cold Boot so I didn't have to manually remove my uncle's bizarre mix of Dragonball Z soundtracks and bad 80s metal or contacts and text messages.  To my delight there is in fact a "Totally erase everything" button, which I did.

Setting Up

I have become very dependant upon Outlook synchronization for my Tilt (and 3 smartphones before that) so I did make sure there was some way to sync Outlook contacts & calendar to this thing before accepting it.  This is done through iTunes.

Huh? iTunes?

Yes, Outlook synchronization on vista is accomplished via iTunes.  I'm not sure why this would be.  Is iTunes the only foothold Apple has on Windows?  Are they trying to trick me into using iTunes?  Do they assume anyone with an iPhone must be using Vista only because of some dire need and they're trying to supply a pleasant all-in-phone experience?  I'm not sure.  What I am sure of is this is where my double-standard detector started going apeshit.  This "Duh, you need to have iTunes to move contacts to your phone" type of thing is precisely the sort of behavior that Microsoft has routinely been crucified for no matter what explanation is offered.  I chuckled to myself, chose not to go to the iTunes store on launch, and plugged in the iPhone.

I was greeting with an appropriate settings screen asking me when and what and how much I wanted to move from Outlook to the iPhone.  I expected as much based on Active Sync Mobile Device Center and chose not to move anything yet until I'd felt my way around.  I also see that I need to download a new iPhone software version which is not surprising since my family elders previously owned this gadget.  I was shocked and amazed at how long it took me to grab this and maybe I'm mentally fried from the long car ride today but it wasn't easy to see where I could find the download status of this 250MB update.  I've managed to have two glasses of wine and write this entire article up to this point while waiting for something to happen.   I just downloaded 67MB of iTunes and I'd say this was about 10x slower byte for byte.

I now have a progress bar on the iPhone.  It's moving as slow as paint drying but I've done phone updates before so this comes as no surprise.

On to the past

While I wait on the update, some more early impressions. 

From my hotel in SmallTown, USA I was able to get on WiFi and mess around with this thing even though I had not yet moved a SIM card to it.  Based on the commercials, two things immediately struck me.  First, even on 10MB WiFi, the thing is not remotely as fast as you see on TV.  This, in fact, resulted in a huge "truth in advertising" lawsuit in the UK when a magazine showed that what takes 20 seconds on TV in fact takes nearly 3 minutes with a 3G iPhone.  Here in America, though, Apple can do no wrong so I doubt any such challenges are coming.  The second thing I noticed was that I expected nearly everything to respond with screen orientation changes when I tilted the thing, but found only Safari gratifies this and only after thinking about it for a while. 

Speaking of Safari, this is one of the places where this device shines.  While there's certainly no reason for me to run Safari on my desktop, the rendering and scaling of web content on the iPhone is top notch so far.  I just re-did my blog skin with a lot of painful CSS work to appease both Firefox 2 and IE7, and was very pleased to see DamonPayne.com show up perfectly on the iPhone.  The previous owner did not have DamonPayne.com bookmarked (WTF? Does he live under a rock?)  so getting there involved some typing.  As someone who's used and evaluated eleventeen-brazilian mobile devices in the past ten years I was pleasantly surprised at the near-usability of the on-screen keyboard.  Tactile-response is still king in my book but the iPhone keyboard was tolerable.

Back to Freedom Zero

My iPhone has finally updated itself and, though I have been playing with the damned thing for two days with no SIM card in it, I am now met with a screen which won't let me do anything until I insert a SIM card.  Jeff Atwood's Freedom Zero post is appropriate here.  It's getting late and I need my beloved Tilt for meetings tomorrow, so I'll try quitting the Tilt cold-turkey tomorrow afternoon and see what happens.

My wife is drooling over my Tilt (she has various Medical software for WinMobile) and my Zune so I need to make this transition happen stat.  I haven't told her she's not getting the Zune because I'll use iTunes when it's the last way to listen to music on planet earth.  One thing at a time.

The Terski got me into Seth Godin maybe a month ago.  Good stuff.  Marketing and Excellence in Business are becoming increasingly relevant to those who wish to get beyond Code Monkey status.  Not that there's anything wrong with being a code monkey.

While discussing one of Seth's recent posts with a co-worker, he made the simple observation that

"There's something wrong with the old school."

There's something wrong with the old school.  No shit.  He was talking about the music industry.  The auto manufacturers come to mind too.  So does the entire Real Estate industry.  So do a lot of things.

It should be pretty obvious to any reader that I'm in favor of laissez faire capitalism, and yet for a while I've been meaning to write something on what is wrong with business in America right now.  No, it's not greed.  It's not that there's not enough regulation.  It's not that there's not enough skilled workers in America.

Our corporate culture is in some ways broken.  I think there is a lack of vision, an out of touch quality, a laziness and a weakness in the leadership of many of America's big businesses.  In the past 20 years, more and more of us look at Dilbert and our first reaction is not to laugh, but to see reflections of our own work day in the pointy haired boss.

Out of Touch to the point of insanity

I'm still driving my Subaru WRX that I got in 2001.  It's a great car.  By the end of 2002, Subaru was importing around 10,000 of these per year.  This car is very Japanese, it's a 2.0 liter turbo-charged all wheel drive four door that's fun to drive and practical enough for me; I get around 27mpg.  Detroit's answer to the WRX and to the Lancer Evolution and the other cars that followed was more or less that Americans don't want cars like this.  Americans want Corvettes and Mustangs and SUVs.  Yet, the WRX, the WRX STi, the Lancer Evolution, the Nissan GT-R, and others show that Americans clearly do want cars like this.  The Ironic Icing on the Cake of Incompetency is that if you look at the overseas offerings from companies like Ford you'll find (wait for it) things like an all wheel drive turbo-charged car that sure looks fun to drive.

Instead of thinking and doing, Detroit spends their time and money lobbying the government to take choices away from you, to making sure the law protects them from having to change with the times and with consumers' wants.  Our engineers and workers are great, our leadership is killing us.

The music industry couldn't be more out of touch.  I don't think I even need to expand this point?

Status Quo vs. Innovation

As Seth pointed out in the already referenced story, a business with a strong brand will ultimately find itself with two choices.  It can use this brand to build the Next Big Thing or it can do its best to keep the Next Big Thing from happening.  Think about how hard the Music and Movie "content" industry has fought digital distribution.  Their price for losing this battle is that Apple Computers, of all people, is considered by many insiders to be "calling the shots in the music industry".

My favorite example in this realm is the Real Estate industry.  If you've ever bought or sold a house you probably have a vague notion that there is this thing called an MLS (Multiple Listing System) and this group called the National Association of Realtors.  Getting your home on the MLS means that if there's a buyer for your home, they'll find it.  You pay a 6% commission for this service.  Some brokers will work harder than others to sell your house, but you're really paying a fee to get into the MLS. 

From my point of view, the National Association of Realtors has spent most of their time in the past 20 years protecting this 6% commission model under the ostensible banner of "protecting consumers".  They even got laws passed in some states making it a legal fact that brokers had to charge a 6% commission.  Then Buyers Agents came along, representing the home buyer in this important transaction and they wanted part of the commission.  Then The Internet came along and companies sprang up who would charge a much smaller fee (less than $1,000) to get your home into the MLS (the most valuable thing a seller can do) but leaving you to do the work of actually showing your house to sellers.  The NAR and many local MLS franchises went to work outlawing the operations of these companies in order to protect the Old Guard and had a degree of success until the DOJ got involved. 

The net worth of most Americans is tied up in the value of their homes.  Suppose you have no debts and no assets but you managed to put 20% down on a $300,000 home.  Your net worth would be $60,000.  Commission on selling the home would be $18,000, or nearly a third of your net worth.  Despite how infrequently you sell your home, why would you want to give a significant portion of your net worth to brokers if there's a good alternative?

The Realtors had a captive and grateful audience.  They could have become the Internet Real Estate solution for brokers.  Instead, they tried to stuff the genie back into the bottle, they tried to hinder the online business models of their members in order to protect the status quo.  Brokers instead had to go outside the MLS, they had to pay technology companies to build their websites, to build the systems they use to communicate with their buyers and sellers, the systems that show homes on Google Base and other content aggregators.  The MLSs left this money on the table, and now they've lost it forever and they can expect to see themselves slowly decline in relevance.

Culture of Fear and Stagnation

There is an underlying current of fear and stagnation in many American businesses, especially the larger ones.  Managers and executives do not take risks.  They don't learn new things.  They spend their days solidifying their own power.  They have to force their employees to be at their desks between 8am and 4pm rather than advocate virtual offices because otherwise they'd have no idea how much work their employees were doing!  Your manager probably does not reward risk taking because their manager probably does not reward their risk taking and all the way up to the top.

Chances are your manager has been in his or her job longer than you, and they've got a career path to protect.  How much of the upper management at your company has been there longer than five years?  Longer than ten?  Is the company you work for providing incentive for and rewarding good behavior or are they rewarding people who Do Their Time and erect walls around their Empire?  When was the last time you saw an announcement go out in your company saying "Damon took a risk and he failed, but ultimately it was a good risk that could have payed off big for this firm" ?  You've probably never heard that at work.  You've probably at some time worked for a business that claims to to desire one kind of behavior but clearly rewards the opposite.

If your manager is new, are they shaking things up, bringing in new ideas and processes?  Or are they tripping over themselves in their hurry to appease the old guard?  How many of the policies you're supposed to be following at work are there because your manager/company is a afraid of being spied on, afraid of competition, afraid of being sued, afraid of having to change.

Does your manager reward smart risk?  Do they do the right thing even if it means putting their empire at risk?  Do they trust you to do your job once you've proven trust-worthy?  Do they try to give you what you need to be successful?  Be sure to tell them you notice.

What's the Answer?

None of this is to say that young people have all the answers, that "thinking outside the box" is always what's called for, or that all of our corporate leadership are frightened little empire builders.  My own manager is almost too future-looking sometimes.

Companies and individuals, big and small, are shaking things up.  Apple is forcing the music industry to change.  Tesla Motors is close to proving Detroit wrong.  Southwest is growing while other airlines flounder.  Despite ever-increasing regulation and taxes, America is still the most free nation in the world and that means opportunity.  What can you do?

• Don't do business with dinosaurs if you can help it.  Don't reward bad behavior.  When something new comes along that shows that someone "gets it", do business with them instead if you can. 
• Don't break the law or act unethically.  On some level, I think we all know that intellectual property is still property.  It costs millions of dollars to make a movie, so don't pirate them.  When breaking the law is your protest, the response is all too often more laws and less freedom.
• Don't work for dinosaurs.  This might be the hardest one to follow, and will in fact not be a real option to many of us.  Still, if you're a top performer, chances are you can work elsewhere even in the worst economy.  Work for someone who gets it, or start your own business.
• Encourage those who show good leadership when you see it in action.  Some Project Managers are only able to walk around and ask you what the percent complete on a task is.  When you encounter the ones who are really providing guidance and removing barriers so the project gets done make sure they know you get it.

Shake things up.  Do better.  Succeed.  There's something wrong with the old school.

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/red-wine-may-reduce-incidence-alzheimers-17841.html

Red wine, you just keep getting better.  Not only do you cure cancer and prevent cancer, you combat Alzheimer's as well.  Scientists are wasting their time with on this nonsense with stem cells and sequencing genomes and so forth - red wine is the answer to everything.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm heading to Thief Wine to get some medicine.

Cheers!

This article on Engadget HD today greatly amused me.

Research finds that people still heart physical discs, greatly prefer Blu-ray to streaming

While the "HD streaming rulez!one11!1!" bandwagon was quickly filling up after Netflix announced that it would be bringing such a service to the Xbox 360, the numbers just don't substantiate the claims that physical discs are doomed anytime soon. Sure, for the budding technophile, streaming is just the next great thing, but for the average joe / jane, the tried and true disc still holds a great deal of importance. A recent study by market research firm SmithGeiger found that out of over 2,000 surveyed, "HDTV owners familiar with Blu-ray favor the format over downloading and streaming by a margin of nearly 10-to-1, with about 70% of respondents citing the fact that there's a physical disc to keep as a key factor in their decision to buy Blu-ray." It also found that 96% of BD users were "familiar with downloading and streaming services, but that two-thirds believe watching a movie on Blu-ray is a better overall entertainment experience." Sure, BD has its flaws, but not having to re-rent an HD film after a remarkably short 24-hour window sure is nice, huh?

No kidding.  The cries that physical media was dead reached their highest volume as it became clear that Blu-Ray was going to win over HD-DVD.  The people making these claims were either:

1. Analysts who must not watch many movies at home (ergo are relatively clueless on these dynamics)
2. HD-DVD supporters/fanboys trying a little et tu coque to ease the pain of their loss by saying BD's days were numbered as well.
3. HD-DVD supporters with huge vested interests in media streaming
4. Random outfits not necessarily associated with HD-DVD, but with huge vested interests in media streaming

Media streaming has such a long way to go it's not even funny.  I am certain that we'll get there, but consider the following facts and anecdotes:

1. I have yet to see a streaming solution that offers basic DVD features: chapter selection, audio selection, special features, multiple audio streams, multiple subtitle options.  This takes bandwidth and increases technical complexity of this delivery mechanism.
2. Ditto #1 but for the advanced interactive features of Blu-Ray: online features, PiP, advanced programmability, etc.
3. Quality.  Last time I checked HD Cable bitrates top out at around 9mb/s for audio plus video.  Right now this is overwhelmingly Dolby Digital and MPEG-2, with some outfits moving to MPEG-4 for better video compression.  While not bad compared to normal TV, this is a far cry from the 40+ mb/s I have on numerous Blu-Ray discs or even the relatively lean 18+ mb/s on say the King Kong HD-DVD encode.  Some people will not be able to tell the difference, and some won't care, but a lot of people do.  If you have a sound system you care.  The larger the TV you have, the more you'll be able to notice the flaws.
4. Delivery.  While some people have the option of 10mb/s U-Verse, 18mb/s cable, or 150mb/s fiber in their home, that is still a relatively small # of people and not increasing very fast.  A lot more folks are still slumming it with 3mb/s or 5mb/s cable because they either can't get or won't pay for the faster options.  Where I live, 1.5mb/s DSL is my best option.  I could literally get a Blu-Ray from Amazon.com with 2-day shipping before I could download even half of a high quality movie.

The convenience of just instantly grabbing a movie over the PSN or Netflix, or even queuing it up while I make dinner has appeal.  I will not, however, pay money to watch something of less than DVD quality in my home theater on my 106" screen.  Those of you who will, enjoy your mediocre entertainment! 

So, I was at Drinking Right throughout election night.  It was a good time and I met various "right leaning" area bloggers.

As I had been saying for quite some time, unless the polls were outrageously skewed, Obama was going to be our next president.  Fairly early in the night, when Fox news an CNN called Pennsylvania for Obama, I said it was a done deal.

First, I am happy that the victory was decisive, much more decisive than the past couple for certain.  I'm glad to see that we won't be wasting time on recounts and "hanging chad" type nonsense.  I thought McCain's concession speech was gracious and appropriate; it may have been the best speech of his campaign.

Taking Obama on his word, I expect him to greatly increase the size of the government.  While my wife and I make less than $250,000/year I expect that # to change.  Through this and various other hidden items (such as the extra payroll taxes I previously identified) I expect my own tax burden to increase significantly by no later than Q2 2009.  The degree that his various other plans are implemented will be the degree to which we move towards Germany-style chronic 12% + unemployment and zero GDP growth year to year.  GDP typically grows even with your population plus a little extra for technology-driven per-hour productivity gains.  If your GDP is staying "flat" but your population is still growing 3% a year or so, that's a chronic decline folks.

We'll see what we'll see. 

The Republican Party and the Religious Right have taken some serious losses here.  I attribute this to the Republican Party hitching its wagon to the various would be Theocrats in the evangelical christian population and to laying down their former mantle.  The republicans clearly no longer stand for small government.  As many pundits are saying, it will be fascinating indeed to see what comes next for the GOP.  Will they

1. Try to return to small government, low taxes (without deficit spending), and some semblance of individual rights?
2. Simply move to the Left since a populist platform seems to be  getting democrats elected?
3. Decide that they didn't go far enough and that Sarah Palin and those like her are the future of the GOP?

Obviously I'm hoping for #1 but I wonder what the chances are.

This election season has taken far too many mental cycles for too long.  I'm glad it's over and I sincerely hope the nonsense about Obama being an assassination target is indeed fear mongering nonsense.  Among other things, America needs some stability right now.