Catching Up to the World Through Shopping...for Software Startups

TechCrunch has an article on the trend of non-tech companies buying software startups that are related to their business or can bring a new kind of tech savvy to the company. Reading it I wondered if it might also begin to mean something when it comes to the long established practice of outsourcing software development. Not just sending it overseas but surrendering it to any outside company. I've always thought that for the long term a company would be better off with analysts that could develop a good understanding of the business and have a vested interest in it to do their planning and their relationship with internal IT staff would (Or at least could if they had good management.) be better and produce better software.

Careers Are the Craziest Things Sometimes

Ars Technica has an interesting article about a major career shift made by a NASA engineer. Mark Rober became a halloween costume designer after 9 years at NASA where he spent most of his time working on the Curiosity rover. A big shift that's really panned out for Rober, who started a company with friends to expand the idea and then sold the company to British company Digital Dudz.

How to Alienate Your Employees in One Easy Lesson

I remember reading about this management practice before but I didn't remember that Microsoft was one of the companies using rank stacking, an amazingly misguided management methodology, IMO. Basically it means that no matter how good you are, and a company like Microsoft could attract a lot of very talented people, your manager just might get you fired because someone has to be put down as the least valuable employee by some criteria, any criteria. It doesn't really matter if everyone is good and everyone contributes value, the system demands it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Snowden leaks: the real take-home - Charlie's Diary

Charles Stross has a take on a core meaning of the Snowden leaks that few seem to be discussing. Snowden represents a sociological phenomenon that will quite likely only grow.

Snowden and his fellow members of Generation Y have never known an environment where employment was something likely to be long term and a two way bond of loyalty between employee and employer is the norm. The corporation will use you and then dismiss you at the drop of a hat. What does this have to do with Snowden and leaks from the United States intelligence apparatus? Stross also points out that currently 70% of the U.S. intelligence budget is spent on contracting out to corporations that follow this "ethos". Where does the border between the government and the corporation lie in that kind of environment?

This attitude on the part of the corporations that now do so much of our government's work may be good for short term profits but it really isn't the way people are wired for the most part. As Stross points out:

We human beings are primates. We have a deeply ingrained set of cultural and interpersonal behavioural rules which we violate only at social cost. One of these rules, essential for a tribal organism, is bilaterality: loyalty is a two-way street. (Another is hierarchicality: yield to the boss.) Such rules are not iron-bound or immutable — we're not robots — but our new hive superorganism employers don't obey them instinctively, and apes and monkeys and hominids tend to revert to tit for tat quite easily when unsure of their relative status. Perceived slights result in retaliation, and blundering, human-blind organizations can slight or bruise an employee's ego without even noticing. And slighted or bruised employees who lack instinctive loyalty because the culture they come from has spent generations systematically destroying social hierarchies and undermining their sense of belonging are much more likely to start thinking the unthinkable.

Will massive private entities that are seen as treating individuals like replaceable cogs in their machinery increasingly engender an attitude where retaliation for perceived injustices is acceptable? Will government increasingly be viewed as no different than these corporations since they do so much of the government's work for them and are viewed by many as having undue influence with the government because of the power their wealth gives them and thereby deserving of the same lack of loyalty and respect? Perhaps some of that is already happening at some level and is what is part of the cause of some people's attitude towards our government. If so I am reminded of "whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" and that it most likely applies to corporations and governments as well.

Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

Commodities markets look free...to be rigged, that is.

JPMorgan looks like they are about to cut a deal concerning the rigging of energy markets. This comes right on the tail of news about aluminum markets having been rigged by some of the biggest players. Gee, could anyone have any questionable motives for pushing hard for smaller government and less effective regulations?

Businessweek's Geekiest Article Ever

BusinessWeek writes about the application of D&D to designing user experiences for websites. I just love the taking of something that would seem completely unrelated and applying it to a problem.