From 8eacb52771517c0ad7bd93cdc661633ab6c5086f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eric Gjertsen Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 16:12:19 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] "...enterprise software can be effective when selected by people who don't have to use it" ? I think you meant "can't" here? Also fixed a couple more little typos. Your analysis of inter-departmental power dynamics rings true, from my vantage point within a company where IT screws over departments all the time. The crap that users have to wade through on a daily basis is truly horrible, especially in departments with less ability to push back -- which in my experience are often so-called "support" staff, vs "line workers", and often majority women. The bit about disruption is less compelling to me. If in the case of universities the answer is to make them irrelevant, why isn't it in the case of enterprise software, to make capitalist enterprises irrelevant? ;) --- _posts/2014-08-22-chickens-and-pigs.md | 10 +++++----- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/_posts/2014-08-22-chickens-and-pigs.md b/_posts/2014-08-22-chickens-and-pigs.md index 98715c50c..8a3a10a80 100644 --- a/_posts/2014-08-22-chickens-and-pigs.md +++ b/_posts/2014-08-22-chickens-and-pigs.md @@ -32,20 +32,20 @@ Textbooks are not just expensive, they're usualy terrible. If they were great, t ### terrible textbooks -The mechanism behind terrible textbooks is the same mechanism behind terrible enterprise software. In my experience, enterprise software can be effective when selected by people who don't have to use it. The key is whether it is selected by pigs. People who have to use it are one kind of pig. People accountable for the productivity it deleivers are another kind of pig. As long as an enterprise software project is driven by pigs and the chickens are restricted to an advisory capacity, you can have effective software. +The mechanism behind terrible textbooks is the same mechanism behind terrible enterprise software. In my experience, enterprise software can't be effective when selected by people who don't have to use it. The key is whether it is selected by pigs. People who have to use it are one kind of pig. People accountable for the productivity it deleivers are another kind of pig. As long as an enterprise software project is driven by pigs and the chickens are restricted to an advisory capacity, you can have effective software. But even one chicken with direct management authority or veto power can ruin an enterprise project: They "coattail" requirements that suit their own objectives at the expense of the project's success, and you end up with nonsense. (This happens everywhere. Microsoft is suffering now because its "cash cows," Windows and Office, behaved like chickens on steriods for decades, making almost every other division and department subordinate to their goals.) -So about textbooks. It's fairly obvious that the problem with textbook quality and price is that the students are pigs and everyone else--faculty, adminsitartion, publishers--are chickens with authority. Fixing this problem could be done by routing around the whole system. For example, make universities irrelevant. +So about textbooks. It's fairly obvious that the problem with textbook quality and price is that the students are pigs and everyone else--faculty, adminstration, publishers--are chickens with authority. Fixing this problem could be done by routing around the whole system. For example, make universities irrelevant. ### why we are about chickens and pigs -Regardless of what we do or do not do with textbooks, we should always pay attention to the chickens and pigs dynamic. It's an enormously indsidious pheneomenon, and wherever you find it, you find waste and human misery. +Regardless of what we do or do not do with textbooks, we should always pay attention to the chickens and pigs dynamic. It's an enormously insidious phenomenon, and wherever you find it, you find waste and human misery. Which also means, wherever you find it, there are opportunities to make money *and* to make people's lives better. If you figure out how to disrupt textbooks, you're cracking a billion dollar market, *and* helping people get an affordable education. If you figure out how to help enterprise software developers work together, better, you're cracking another billion dollar market and again making people happy doing something they love. -So in conlusion... Textbooks are an example of the chicken and egg dynamic. It's an important dynamic to understand, because it is very common, *and* if you can crack it, you can make money while making people's lives better. +So in conclusion... Textbooks are an example of the chicken and egg dynamic. It's an important dynamic to understand, because it is very common, *and* if you can crack it, you can make money while making people's lives better. Which reminds me of another thing I once read: -> "Where there's muck, there's brass."—Paul Graham \ No newline at end of file +> "Where there's muck, there's brass."—Paul Graham