epiphanatic » 2003» May

Posted on 05.27.03 by jstoner @ 12:24 am

Employment, questionable how ‘gainful’ it might be.

Apparently Citigroup is starting a big push into financial services for ordinary folks. They want one of their retail arms, Primerica, to build itself up into a services powerhouse: mortgages, refis, insurance, mutual funds… Idea being a single point-of-contact analyst provides you with a good overall strategic view of your resources, and can guide you better. That refi frees up some income, now you can put the rest in a mutual fund, come out even farther ahead. An idea with some potential.

They called me. I went through some presentations and interviews. “We’ll train you, we’ll support you, we’ll share the cost of the your certificates, we’ll get you started. You even have a good shot at a management position.” It sounded good, but I looked closer.

It’s a commission-sales position with no salary. Which is common enough I suppose, but not what I need right now. And there’s no marketing push to start the thing up, just me out there pounding the pavement and selling my friends, and recruiting new sales people. Once they get the business off the ground, then they’ll start with the marketing and branding and ad campaigns and stuff.

So, I feel two kinds of discomfort about this: first, until the thing is off the ground, it’s Amway in corporate drag. Which doesn’t interest me, or take care of my current needs. And second, Citigroup is touting this as a major initiative, but starting it on the cheap. If it’s a major new direction for your company, demonstrate some commitment. It’s not like they don’t have the money.

I mean, OK, if you’re going to give salespeople a base salary, you won’t be hiring people like me. That’s fine. Just don’t jerk my chain.

Filed under: life
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a close call with gainful employment

Posted on 05.26.03 by jstoner @ 10:05 pm

I’ve had long-term correspondence with the folks over at Objectwave. They seem very cool. They’re a small Chicago consulting firm. Fairly high-level stuff. Some interesting product-ish tools give them leverage on their projects. They had a project they wanted to bring me in on, as a full-time employee of theirs. We’ve been back-and-forth about it for weeks. Didn’t work out with the client. Crap.

Not the first time that’s happened with them. I’d like to work with them. I guess it’s hard to close a deal these days. The hard part for me is the uncertainty: I’ve gotten to the point psychologically where I can stop filling the empty space with expectation, but I’m still uncomfortable with just not knowing.

Dammit, I need some work.

Filed under: life
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extreme programming: some first impressions

Posted on 05.19.03 by jstoner @ 1:04 pm

This post is pretty techie; my non-techie readers may want to ignore it. I promise I’ll try to be less esoteric.

You techies have probably heard all about Extreme Programming. I myself am familiar with the ideas, though I’m only begining to experiment with using them. I have not fully integrated test-first methodology into my development habits, but I do operate in a highly iterative fashion as I write code. I can see the benefits as I alter my habits and move in that direction. I think the coding and testing XP processes look generally salutary.

The problems I see in XP are more at the front-end of the process, working with business stakeholders in a highly iterative and interactive fashion. There seem to be some assumptions there:

that software developers can function well as business analysts: That they can communicate effectively with non-technical personnel; that they understand the business of the customer; that they have well-developed business sense;
that management is willing to cede some authority/accountability in favor of the flexibility created by a more give-and-take relationship between IT and its customers;
fundamentally, that political boundaries between core business and IT organizations–internal and external–are essentially superfluous.

I would like to work in an organization where these assumptions are true. But my experience indicates they don’t always hold. If these assumptions hold in your organization, you’ve already solved or avoided a bunch of problems much more difficult than anything XP addresses.

The gurus who came up with XP seem a little shortsighted. A lot of methodolgy movements seem to spring out of the “hey, this thing works, lets bottle it and sell it” impulse; it’s interesting to note what someone chooses to put in the bottle.

Filed under: science|technology
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John Stoner of the Moment

Posted on 05.12.03 by jstoner @ 12:22 am

Much as I might like a good oatmeal stout, this is not me.

(I was googling myself, which is just as masturbatory as it sounds.)

Filed under: of the moment
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the yellow meme in history

Posted on 05.09.03 by jstoner @ 1:00 am

Wilber Esoterica Alert: if you haven’t read any of Wilber or Graves, you may not understand the following. Check some of the links to the right (especially Spiral Dynamics). I think it’s fascinating stuff, but if you don’t like it, ignore this.

In the spiral dynamics documents I have read, all the memes through green are described by example. And once you grasp the concepts, it’s easy: I can’t think of John Ashcroft without thinking “blue meme.”

But second-tier memes are described in qualitative terms that can be a little hard to grasp. The reason given is that they are still emerging, and there aren’t many examples of them yet to point to.

I suppose that’s true, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t historical examples. Green meme may be easy to find today, but we can see it in Thoreau’s writing over a century ago.

There is one other reason second-tier memes may be a little hard to find in the past. They will tend to camouflage themselves, appearing orange in a blue-orange context, or orange-green in an orange milieu. They willl not stand out as themselves, but will appear only as subtle variations, moving the action forward.

For example, I suspect Thomas Jefferson had some yellow-meme mastery. He probably operated in a blue or blue-orange social environment, but his impact was distincty orange. As I understand it (and I’m no Jefferson scholar), he was described as saying what he had to say to persuade any audience, to the point of being known as manipulative.

I’ve had a long debate with myself as to whether Abraham Lincoln brought some yellow meme to bear. In fact, I’ve been toying with the idea of stereotypical professions among the memes: red-soldier, blue-cop, orange-scientist, green-activist… perhaps yellow-politician. To really master politics, you have to master the yellow meme. Dealing with diferent contituencies, playing different emotional chords, bringing appropriate mindsets to particular situations. Finding the right aspect of yourself to resonate with those around you, and move things on up the spiral. These seem to me to be aspects of yellow.

Filed under: wilber crit
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