Monday, April 22, 2002

Clarification: maybe it's not so much a policy of misinformation, as it is about blind allegiance. If you question management's POV, it means your "head isn't in the game." Doesn't matter how lucid your arguments are, or how well presented, the net result is that a) you don't understand the business, and b) you're pegged as not being loyal to the company. 7:49:19 PM

Here's another reason. A policy of misinformation. Let's say your revenue numbers for the last two years are the same. In a company meeting, after you've already lost almost half of your staff in a little over a year, including twelve people since February, the president talks about revenue was flat, which is remarkable given the difficult economic environment. No details about this year's numbers, except that they're "very good." Fast forward to my analysis of the same numbers. Instead of 2000 revenue = 2001 revenue, therefore, great news, I looked at each of the last two years, broken down by quarter, and you've basically got a trend of steadily declining revenue, starting in Q2 of 2000. Not so good. It's okay to be optimistic, and to want to paint a rosy picture. It's not okay to ignore other opinions, or to pretend like they don't exist. 5:48:18 PM

Cool. This is the kind of stuff I'll be researching (and possibly implementing) at the new job. More details to follow. 3:30:25 PM

From diveintomark, an article by Stewart Alsop: XP Means Extra Pain. "There's nothing in Windows XP to cause anyone to go out of his way to get it." Two words (albeit two words connected together as if they were one, in classic Microsoft style): ClearType. It might not seem like much, but for somebody who needs to use PCs, it certainly makes the hours spent on my PC much easier to read. I don't know if I agree with the math in Jakob Nielson's article, but I do agree that "the use of anti-aliased typefaces in Windows XP is the true revolution in screen design this year." 6:44:06 AM