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List:       mandrake-newbie
Subject:    Re: [newbie] Re: WARNING (OT)  Destructive Software on multiboots, Jetway
From:       Anne Wilson <cannewilson () tiscali ! co ! uk>
Date:       2002-06-22 9:59:46
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civileme wrote:

> Well, I will say this once then shut up.
> 
> Sorry John Rigby, I don't agree.  I think your philosophies are warped 
> and skewed from reality.
> 
> For a long time businesses were closed communities.  Everyone followed 
> what some people studying Henry Ford had concluded: that precise control 
> was THE way to go.  It didn't matter.  The Old Boy Networks and the 
> rigid philosophies almost worldwide combined to make the business a 
> field like a watershed empire.  Absolutely unassailable as long as they 
> had the money to squash any competition that did not follow the same 
> paradigm (and was therefore perceived as dangerous).
> 
> Then along came W. Edwards Deming.  He suggested that the use of 
> statistics could improve efficiency, cut costs, make workers more 
> productive by including them in decision-making processes, etc.  He was 
> of course laughed out of the country of origin, the US, where the worst 
> of the business rot was entrenched.
> 
> Well, General Douglas MacArthur decided Deming could be the man to help 
> Japan rebuild their shattered industrial base.  They accepted the 
> methods and the training, and the beat the rest of the world to its 
> knees in the 1980s as a result, but of course as businesses go the 
> weakness of rigidity of approach set in, and others started using the 
> philosophy, so the degree of success apparently diminished.
> 
> But there is a contractor in Hawaii where the number of construction 
> mistakes is tiny compared to any others in the world.
> 
> There is a school in Alaska where in four years they went form a 40% 'F' 
> grade to 94% 'A's, and the courses in the mean time had acquired 
> objectives and purposes that were four or five times as difficult.
> 
> A global chemical company went from mildly profitable to doubling its 
> revenue in four years, with no increase in staffing and only minor 
> increases in expenses.  The degree of worker satisfaction (as measured 
> by Monday morning absenteeism and turnover) apparently doubled.
> 
> I fear that most people in business are looking for a quick profit. They 
> think ahead five minutes to a few months, and they abandon any approach 
> that does not immediately show a return.  Sorry, sometimes the more 
> efficient and trechnically correct approach takes longer.  This is just 
> another fact. 
> And the fact that these same businessmen seem to find so hard to swallow 
> that they ignore it completely is that software makers have very few 
> assets.  They try to erect barriers to protect _controllable_ assets 
> with software patents and secrecy and have made a horrid mess and a 
> genuine embarassment, so laughably far from reality that eventually only 
> soldiers and bullets will be able to make any semblance of enforcement. 
> The true assets in software industry are _people_; of the highly skilled 
> and admittedly perhaps specially talented type.  Businessmen shake in 
> fear when they pause to reflect that every night their assets walk out 
> the door. 
> Marketing is of course important, but if you have no product to market, 
> or a poor product to market, the expense of marketing and predation can 
> consume every good thing a company stands for.
> 
> So how has a group of (usually) about 100 paid people and a number of 
> dedicated volunteers produced something that could be considered even a 
> mild challenge to a behemoth like Microsoft with its thousands of 
> engineers and billions of dollars to invest?
> 
> Well that is the fact that John Rigby and others like him seem to want 
> to avoid, or denigrate or ignore.  Business does not control the best of 
> the techs, and never will again.  Environments that provide freedom of 
> thought and cooperation(something people do automatically if left to 
> their own devices) are showing tiny glimpses of their true potential. 
> But management has to restructure considerably to play a useful role in 
> that environment, and they are understandably afraid of something that 
> requires a type of management that features letting go.  The same battle 
> was fought in some schools where Teachers were unwilling to give 
> students control over their own education, but results like Mt Edgecumbe 
> and now dozens of schools across the country are hard to argue with. You 
> know, the Teachers are still there as trainers in cooperation and 
> coaches, but they no longer have to worry about controlling the class. 
> The big opposition is the folks who say, "We've always done it this way, 
> so that is the only right way to do it."

I would just like to add my 2p worth -

Having run a small business (24 employees) in a difficult sector, 
according to my ethical beliefs, I know what enormous pressure 
management is under.  The 'business world' still expect you to conform 
to their standards, while you try to meet your own requirements of 
long-term goals and ethical employment.  It's no joke, believe me.

That's why I am supporting MandrakeSoft.  It doesn't cost much to be a 
small shareholder.  If you believe in their goals and haven't considered 
this support for them, please look at it.  There's only a few days left.

Anne




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