Santa Clara supervisors nix concert hall – Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal:

Santa Clara supervisors nix concert hall – Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal: :

Santa Clara County Supervisors on Tuesday killed plans to build a 7,000-seat concert hall at the County Fairgrounds. The vote was 3-2, and all three no votes cited the county’s deteriorating financial picture as a reason not to take a risk on the $96 million concert hall that would have been operated by the House of Blues.

The county had approved the development two years but was stopped by a lawsuit from the city of San Jose. Later the city settled the lawsuit and agreed to pay the county $22.5 million. The original project did not require any cash input from the county. But when it came back this time, the project, long supported by Supervisor Blanca Alvarado, required start-up cash of $15 million, which was too much for Supervisor Jim Beall.

So the county fairgrounds music hall proposal is dead — years too late, millions of dollars wasted., and god knows how many lawyer’s kids sent off to Stanford on the proceeds (the only real winners, again).

An interesting last-minute entry into the intrigue was AEG Live, who offered to pick up the $15 million tab (why? to become operator of the venue? to replace House of Blues as promoter? the story doesn’t say), but that was turned down, and House of Blues as expected, made disappointed noises but continued to refuse to open the checkbook. The county should have, to be honest, asked itself the really tough question about why it’s “partner” in this refused to take any risk or put up any money in the venue; House of Blues had the potential to benefit, but assumed basically no risk or equity in the venture. why wasn’t that a red flag to the county from day 1?

Given that promotion in the bay area is a two player market: House of Blues and Clear Channel’s corpse of Bill Graham’s Presents, it seems clear that AEG sees this as a market it can enter if it can just get the nose of the camel into the tent; but not this time. I could well see an investment here simply to create a wedge into the market for later expansion.

I have questions about the downtown plan the Sharks and City were pushing — but at least both sides were investing and had motivation to make it work and shared the financial risks.

And one wonders: does that plan now spring back to life with the county’s plan dead? Or has too much time past. And as much as we’ve lambasted the city for having to fork over tens of millions of dollars in the lawsuit over this, I have to ask: if they do end up building the downtown music hall, does that money then end up looking like a good investment in furthering that project?

Time will tell. the downtown building was financially marginal when it was proposed; today, in a softer market, is it still worth doing?

three weeks to go…

Three weeks to go. I can hear the clock ticking now. short-timer disease kicks in (like, playing Civ IV parts of the weekend….).

We’re starting to wind down the training; hopefully have it done by wednesday. I’ve got a few more coding pieces to do as well, but only one of them of any complexity. It’s all over but the, well, the end.

On the work front, we had one of those “uhoh” moments. In one of the training sessions, I was explaining the MySQl replication setup and how it’s maintained and monitored, and of course, one of the slaves had crapped out replication with an error. So I did an on-the-fly debug/diagnose/correct/verify session, and in about 15 minutes, we’d found the table that was out of sync, figured out how it got there, fixed it, got the replication fixed, and taken care of the underlying problem (when we did the first failover to a new master a whiel back, one subsystem didn’t get reconfigured; it updated the OLD master. it only updated a single table, though, so it wasn’t until that subsystem got updated properly when we failed over to the new Tiger database that the replication got hit with a table sync problem. oops).

and when I was done, doing that — from memory — one of the follks I work with asked the question “so, when you’re gone, who does that?” — and I had to say, honestly “I don’t know….”.

That made me sit back and realize that I’ve been lecturing for over 40 hours now; by the time I’m done this week it’ll be over 50. At any time, there are 4-8 people in the room listening to me lecture, plus it’s being videotaped and audio recorded (“chuqui unplugged”) for offline use. And part of me is looking at just how many resources are going into taking up the load caused by me leaving the project, and sometimes I wonder “wouldn’t it have been a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to just have listened to me and done something about my complaints when I was still willing to stick around?”

But that’s also a false statement — I’d decided to leave the project sooner or later. I’d originally thought november or december, they were asking for March. All they really did was convince me to move up the date a few months. In retrospect, I’m happy it worked out this way. And I think I’ll leave it at that for now.

but I’ll defer talking about this in detail until later. Now’s not the time.

Checked the scale this morning, first time in a week. I’m down 4 pounds from having given notice. Six more pounds and I’ll be back at where I was before this final round of stress began.

I must say I’m getting used to the lack of stress; this weekend when I wasn’t playing Civ, I actually got around to a couple of projects in the house taht have been sitting for months because I’ve been such a zombie on the weekends. With even a bit of luck, I’ll have the living room and dining room remodels ready for painting by christmas, after having not touched them since about February.

We’ve pretty much finalized the trip. North to port angeles, across the coho and on to salt spring island. then we’ll work back south hitting victoria and seattle, a drive-by of Powells on the way to the coast, then it looks like Astoria, cannon beach, Newport and Gold Beach, then maybe a day in Fort Bragg. we’ll get home a day or two before opening night for the Sharks — yes, it’s hockey season. and I have a blog to get running… (ahh! someone hide the Civ IV DVD. for a bit….)

The job front continues to bubble. nothing really to comment on — a couple of situations look really promising, and if the both turn into offers, it’d be a tough choice. I continue submitting resumes and talking to folks, and I’ll be doing some informal talks this week with people, and perhaps a phone interview on another position.

My mom is still firmly convinced someone at Apple is going to come to their senses and convince me to not leave, or something like that. Steve seems to be busy with other things, though. Besides, I still feel it’s time to rejoin the real world, and see how the universe does things.

So it’s onward, into the future, whatever that turns out to be. Amazing thing is, it turns out that leaving Apple after almost 18 years and moving on without a new job in hand is — well — a lot less stressful than my current job was. So I wish the person, whoever it is, who has to fix that replication problem when I’m not there all the luck in the world… I’m just glad the answer is no longer “me”. ohwell.

4 weeks to go…

So it’s down to the last four weeks. On the Apple side of the world, we keep trying to turn over responsibilities and do training and making sure stuff is cleaned up and a new coat of paint the like.

The current plan is to spend the week lecturing more, and trying to get some admin scripts written, and whatever else we have time for; Friday will be my last day actively touching the system (in theory) or handling questions or requests. Then next week is an “on call” vacation, where I drop out of sight and we see what breaks (my hope: to get the path to the hot tub landscaped); then I come back one more week to manage that special project the wanted me around for and to go over what the week MIA brought up, and work to get it resolved.

And then I’m gone. And whatever that means. Currently, Laurie and I are planning a “get away from here” trip, and we’re both seriously looking forward to it. One where I don’t check email first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and the cell phone stays in the hotel room. I admit I’m looking forward to some serious quiet.

While I don’t regret the decision to extend out — it was good for the project and good for my finances — I’m starting to feel some serous short-timer disease. I can see the end, I wish it’d hurry. We keep plugging away, closing action items or handing them off. My only real regret is that it prevented me from getting to Vancouver for that Haida art display before it closed; but it was worth it. I think.

Looking for what’s next continues; I spent five hours Friday interviewing with one group; I came away feeling good both about the situation and about how I presented myself; we’ll see how they think. That makes two companies where there seem to be solid possibilities that have gone beyond “let’s talk and see if this makes sense” — both really good technical situations for me, both very different environments that’ll make for an interesting challenge in deciding should it come to that (one company is large, one is really a startup; one is joining a team, the other being the team, but with a chance of building one over time). A couple of other situations. A couple of other situations are at the “talk at lunch/talk on the phone” stage, and we’ll see how it develops. One is — really intriguing but complicated.

The one thing I’ve committed to myself is to not hurry into a new situations; I’m not going to remotely worry about “finding a job” until January or later; on the other hand, if I think the situation is right (job, package, commute, stress levels, people) I’d love to settle this sooner than later.

If there’s one thing extending at Apple has hurt, it’s building a portfolio (and working on sharpening skills); It hasn’t hurt (much), but I think it’d be very useful to have non-trivial sample code pieces for people to evaluate, and — look at www.plaidworks.com — and tell me that’s a worthy site to show folks as an example of web programming and web design (hint: not remotely). Artists and designers and photographers have done portfolios for years; I think programmers, especially where there are user-facing aspects to the code, should have one, too. This is one way being involved with open source projects can serve multiple masters, too — return to the community AND create samples for people to look at.

Right now, I think it’s 60-40 that the search will be settled before the trip. that puts me much further along the path than I expected to be, even without the extension at Apple. Given what I’ve seen others go through in job searches, I’ll count my blessings and be happy.

(update: imagine my amusement when is at down and looked at a calendar and realized it’s not three weeks, it’s four. TWO weeks to Labor Day, the labor day week off, then the week back for the special project and final cleanup… Well, having two weeks to clean up my todo list actually makes me a lot more comfortable, but on the other hand…. sigh… and have I mentioned that monday morning’s suck, especially when you wake up early with pounding sinuses?)

Seth’s Blog: Advice for authors

Seth’s Blog: Advice for authors:

Advice for authors: It happened again. There I was, meeting with someone who I thought had nothing to do with books or publishing, and it turns out his new book just came out.

With more than 75,000 books published every year (not counting ebooks or blogs), the odds are actually pretty good that you’ve either written a book, are writing a book or want to write one.

(actually, to be rather pedantic; the population of the US is 290 million, give or take Rhode Island; the odds you’ve written a book are actually pretty small; the odds you got is published are pretty lousy. But as any published author will wearily tell you, it seems the entire universe seems to want to have a book written and is more than happy to share their idea with an author for half the profits….)

Hence this short list:

Hence a list I disagree with for any number of reasons. Or maybe I agree with it, but think it was phrased wrong…. Or, as my director has been known to exclaim, Seth and I are violently agreeing again… But man, have I been looking forward to having time to dig into this…

Lower your expectations. The happiest authors are the ones that don’t expect much.

Right idea, wrong phrasing. A few authors get very rich. Most authors make NO money, because they don’t get published. Some authors make a living at it — but many more have side incomes or a spouse with an income.

It’s not about LOWERING your expectations. It’s about being realistic about them. If you’re writing a science fiction novel, don’t expect to get Stephen King’s advance, or George R.R. Martin’s sales (or cover, or publicity, or shelf placement, or…). The last time I looked at SF numbers, you’d take a year or so to write a book, a year in pre-publication production, get a $5000 advance, and be on the shelves for (if you’re lucky) a month or so.

Those are pretty sad numbers. But over time, if you show consistent (and hopefully increasing sales) from book to book, your future books help keep your previous books in print, and OVER TIME, you can start generating royalty streams and improved advances. Or course, with the way the big chains dominate book purchases, if their computers decide your sales trends are going the wrong way, you’ll never sell another title to any publisher, because the chains won’t buy you. (unless, of course, the publisher really believes in you and publishes you under a new name; which has, in fact, happened).

Now, having said that, first-book wunderkind like Tad Williams exist and succeed. And they succeed just often enough that it allows other hopeful authors to believe that they, too, can make it happen. But in reality, that’s not reality.

The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you’ll need later.

I’m sorry, but how do you promote something when you have nothing to promote? And will it do any good?

I have never been convinced that it makes sense for authors to spend a lot of time promoting, unless they somehow find themselves on Oprah or the Tonight Show. In-store signings, maybe, but they work mostly after you actually have a name. I’ve done a couple of signings for anthologies I’ve been in where three people showed up over four hours.

Someone needs to show me that the time spending promotions actually makes sense. If I spend an hour on, say, Ronn Owens of KGO Radio here in the Bay Area, how many books am I going to sell? Given that I already have the advance check cashed, I probably haven’t earned it out (so I won’t see royalty income) — the amount of money coming to me from those sold books is, well, zero. If I HAVE earned out and am generating royalty, if I have a hardcover book and I sell 50 copies because listeners had to have it after my stirring talk about how Millard Fillmore installed flush toilets in the Whitehouse, that nets me a royalty of, what, $100? $150? (not that incremental sales are bad, they make selling your next book easier, but I simply have never seen proven that local promotions make a real difference on a national sales number, when you factor in that your time has value and isn’t given away as part of the promotion).

Shouldn’t you, as a writer, be off writing the NEXT book instead of spending an hour promoting this one (and selling four copies?). Someone show me the money. I doubt it comes from promoting.

(now, if your publishing house wants to send you on a book tour, and pay your expenses, and isn’t actually adding the expenses to your advance so you end up paying for them yourself in lost royalties, and you want to go visit the places they want to send you, then by all means go. but carry the laptop and write while you’re on the trip….)

Pay for an eidtor editor. Not just to fix the typos, but to actually make your ramblings into something that people will choose to read. I found someone I like working with at the EFA. One of the things traditional publishers used to do is provide really insightful, even brilliant editors (people like Fred Hills and Megan Casey), but alas, that doesn’t happen very often. And hiring your own editor means you’ll value the process more.

This one’s plain wrong. It’s your publisher’s responsibility to edit your book. If your manuscript is so badly written that it’s unsalable without hiring an editor — learn to be a better writer. Learn to edit yourself. Every penny you spend paying other people to work on your manuscript is a penny you won’t get back when you sell it. Join a writers group (a real one, where they rip apart each other’s manuscripts and piss each other off with the criticism; not the ‘we’re all friends here making each other feel better’ type. you improve through criticsism. if you want someone to say nice things about your manuscript, send it to your mother…)

If your manuscript needs an editor before you can sell it, you need to be a better writer. Period. Get back to work and fix yourself. This is a core, basic requirement of being a successful writer. And writing pays beginners badly. you can’t AFFORD to outsource, unless you see this as a hobby and you’re funding it out of your real career.

Understand that a non-fiction book is a souvenir, just a vessel for the ideas themselves. You don’t want the ideas to get stuck in the book… you want them to spread. Which means that you shouldn’t hoard the idea! The more you give away, the better you will do.

Which is, in its way, tying back to the idea of promotion. And here, I agree with Seth. Effectively, we’re talking word of mouth here. And if you can get people talking, then you can get those people to sell your book for you. Which is why, probably, you SHOULD go on Ronn Owens and promote your book, to try to prime that pump. But you should also those promotional talks very carefully to see whether they are priming the word of mouth engine, or simply selling four copies every hour of airtime; and if they aren’t, get back to work on the next book instead.

Don’t try to sell your book to everyone. First, consider this: ”

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.” Then, consider the fact that among people even willing to buy a book, yours is just a tiny little needle in a very big haystack. Far better to obsess about a little subset of the market–that subset that you have permission to talk with, that subset where you have credibility, and most important, that subset where people just can’t live without your book.

Yup. Find your market. Connect with it. Ignore the non-market. Don’t try to sell baseballs to hockey players. Find more baseball players.

Resist with all your might the temptation to hire a publicist to get you on Oprah. First, you won’t get on Oprah (if you do, drop me a note and I’ll mention you as the exception). Second, it’s expensive. You’re way better off spending the time and money to do #5 instead, going after the little micromarkets. There are some very talented publicists out there (thanks, Allison), but in general, see #1.

If hiring an editor is stupid, hiring a publicist for ANY reason is the sign of an amateur. Don’t even think about it. The only reason to consider hiring one is because you’ve gotten so successful you need one to offload the publicity work so you can have time to write again. Very few authors ever have that problem. The ones that do have agents and publishers, and THEY hire publicists FOR those authors.

Think really hard before you spend a year trying to please one person in New York to get your book published by a ‘real’ publisher. You give up a lot of time. You give up a lot of the upside. You give up control over what your book reads like and feels like and how it’s promoted. Of course, a contract from Knopf and a seat on Jon Stewart’s couch are great things, but so is being the Queen of England. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you. Far more likely is that you discover how to efficiently publish (either electronically or using POD or a small run press) a brilliant book that spreads like wildfire among a select group of people.

It all depends on whether you want to BE published, or MAKE A LIVING WRITING. There are people who do the latter via POD, e-book and small press; just not very many. Over time, that’ll change. If you want to pay the rent, let someone else figure out how to blaze the new trails. The reality is, you try to get your book published through a traditional house in New York because they are the ones who know how to get people to buy it, and who can pay you money for publishing it. Everything else is, with some exceptions, vanity press. which is fine, just don’t lie to yourself about it. And don’t assume you’ll be the exception.

Your cover matters. Way more than you think. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need a book… you could just email people the text.

Oh, good lordy. an entire article could be written on covers. And I have, actually, but I’ve misplaced it. I’ll try to track it down….

If you have a ‘real’ publisher (#7), it’s worth investing in a few things to help them do a better job for you. Like pre-editing the book before you submit it. Like putting the right to work on the cover with them in the contract. And most of all, getting the ability to buy hundreds of books at cost that you can use as samples and promotional pieces.

If you have a “real” publisher, do waht they tell you to do, and do it by the date they need it. Be aware that unless you’re Ray Feist, asking for editorial control on the cover is a great way to lose a possible contract, and get a reputation as someone publishers don’t want to work with. Besides, you don’t have a clue what makes a cover sell a book; leave it to someone who does. And if they put a rocket ship or a unicorn on the cover and your book doesn’t have one — don’t argue. Trust me.

Blurbs are overrated, imho.

But it sure is a kick seeing your name over a blurb on a favorite author (my first cover blurb was published on a Roger Zelazny novel; I was so tickled I sent him a copy to have it autographed, which from what I heard amused the hell out of him… Now, did MY NAME or MY BLURB sell many books? who knows? but the editor felt that it helped, or it wouldn’t have been there…)

Now, there are blurbs that do more harm than good; there are some authors who are well known for offering blurbs for shopping lists and utility bills. After a while, you see their name so often if becomes a turn-off.

Blog mentions, on the other hand, matter a lot.

It can; depends on the blog. depends on the blurb. and the blurb’s audience. I’m sure Seth flacking a book sells more copies than me flacking a book, in general. But what if Seth flacks a fantasy book? Would you buy a military history of WW II because Scoble pushes it?

Even on blogs, you can’t ignore expertise, context and audience. Blogs are no panacea. and a blog that has 12 readers simply won’t sell many books, unless someone happens to get it digged.

If you’ve got the patience, bookstore signings and talking to book clubs by phone are the two lowest-paid but most guaranteed to work methods you have for promoting a really really good book. If you do it 200 times a year, it will pay.

I’m sorry, I still don’t agree. Especially given you just committed, say, 500 hours that could have finished your NEXT book three months earlier. Over a period of time, we’re talking the difference between having written 8 books and ten books, and bluntly, in most cases, you’ll make more money having published ten books than writing 8 and flacking the hell out of them.

Consider the free PDF alternative. Some have gotten millions of downloads. No hassles, no time wasted, no trying to make a living on it. All the joy, in other words, without debating whether you should quit your day job (you shouldn’t!)

Or send a copy to your mom. she’ll love it. or pretend. It depends — do you want to publish? Or do you want to pay the rent? If all you want is to be publshed, have at it. but don’t pretend it’s not a hobby.

If you want to reach people who don’t normally buy books, show up in places where people who don’t usually buy books are. Media places, virtual places and real places too.

and they’ll thank you for your time, and STILL not buy your book. Find, if you aren’t paying the rent. Make sure you know why you’re doing things — money? or ego? (or both?).

Publishing a book is not the same as printing a book. Publishing is about marketing and sales and distribution and risk. If you don’t want to be in that business, don’t! Printing a book is trivially easy. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. You’ll find plenty of printers who can match the look and feel of the bestselling book of your choice for just a few dollars a copy. That’s not the hard part.

Read this paragraph, then go back up and read what Seth said about ebooks, self-publishing, small press and Publish-On-Demand a few rules ago. that’s why traditional publishing is still successful, and the rest — primarily vanity and ego. Authors aren’t good publishers or publicists or salesmen or distributors. If you hire yourself for those jobs, you’ll likely fail — and cost yourself time you SHOULD be using to write the next book. Remember, you can only make money if you have inventory to sell. you only have inventory if you write it. Anything you do that takes away from the time spent writing — cuts your future inventory, which cuts your ability to sell.

If you’re going to be a writer — write. the more you do the other jobs involved in making money OFF of your writing, the less writing you can do.

Bookstores, in general, are run by absolutely terrific people. Bookstores, in general, are really lousy businesses. They are often where books go to die. While some readers will discover your book in a store, it’s way more likely they will discover the book before they get to the store, and the store is just there hoping to have the right book for the right person at the time she wants it. If the match isn’t made, no sale.

If they DO find you in the bookstore, it’s likely because the cover attracted them. And that, of course, has nothing to do with your writing. And that’s one of the things that makes writers crazy, and why publishers put unicorns on your cover, even if there isn’t one in the book.

Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.

Amen.

fraserspeirs: WWDC, those “Top Secret” features and why your NDA observance matters to me

fraserspeirs: WWDC, those “Top Secret” features and why your NDA observance matters to me:

but it was still irritating to be told that there is still material that is “too secret” for developers. It cost us five digits to get our team down there, and to be told flat out that, sorry we’re not going to tell you everything about Leopard, kind of ruffled my feathers a little bit, even though I understand where they’re coming from.

I have a different take. While poking fun at Microsoft was fun and Steve and the Apple team clearly had a good time doing it, I took away two things from the “there are even more intersting top secret things” comment.

1) I felt Steve understood that the keynote would be considered low-key (or flat, or boring, or… etc); by coming out up front and noting that not everything in Leopard was being disclosed now was a way of avoiding having CNET do the “leopard sucks, apple is doomed (again)” article. at least until january.

2) Whatever wasn’t disclosed, it doesn’t have developer interfaces to worry about like Time Machine has, so developers didn’t need an advance notice to be ready to use it when it ships.

3) steve’s gotta have a rabbit to pull out of his hat in January. You can’t see him NOT keeping some juicy stuff for january, can you?

I think way too much is being made of this, but then, that’s normal…. (grin)

show up early for your job interview….

Here’s one piece of advice for people going to a job interview: show up early. Not just the “15 minutes early so I’m not late if I hit traffic” early, but give yourself extra time beyond that.

then, depending on how attack trained the receptionist is, sit in the lobby (or just outside the lobby) and watch. You can figure out a lot about a company that way really fast. (I’ve found “I’m here for xxxx, but I’m way early and I don’t want to disturb him yet, so do you mind if I sit here and work for a bit?” works most of the time…)

Watch the people coming and going. You’ll quickly get a feel for dress code, for how diverse (or non-diverse) the place is. The lobby is most of the time a microcosm of the building — if people are wandering around and looking happy, and the lobby is clean and in good shape and well lit, chances are this is a happy building. If you’re in a cave, and people are scurrying back and forth in a hurry and not stopping to talk to anyone, or if people look unhappy or stressed; that’s a bit hint.

If the building has a receptionist (or guard), do people say hi? do they stop and talk? or is that person part of the furniture?

You can, giving yourself 15 minutes or so, get a good handle on what life is like inside the building; not how they want it framed, but how it really is. I find it a huge help in figuring out whether this is a place I want to be — or not.

Also, either before or after, don’t be afraid to tool around the parking lot looking for just the right spot (unless they have you stuck in a visitor only lot); this one is less obvious, but one of the things I look for are too many cars needing a good wash and wax — is it because the company keeps folks so busy they can’t? And scout the neighborhoood; is your car going to be safe during the day? Will you be safe leaving at 2AM? Are their support services nearby that you want, whether it’s the Starbucks or a cleaners or whatever? If the area doesn’t have a strip mall or three, why not? Is that saying something about the area?

Finally, know what your commute time is; not what Google Maps is; not what it takes to get there at 2PM on a thursday. try a real commute at 8AM on a tuesday, so you can rationally judge what it’ll REALLY take to get there. And don’t assume the time home is the same as the time there….

The more information you have on a potential job, the smarter decision you can make on whether to take it.

The Frontal Cortex : Wine Ratings Are For Suckers

The Frontal Cortex : Wine Ratings Are For Suckers:

Everytime I walk into a wine store, and see that collage of numerical stickers (This Chianti is a 91! This Pinot Grigio is an 88!), the neuroscientist in me wants to tear them all down an go on a long rant about unconscious biases. The idea that the human olfactory system can reliably decipher the difference between a wine worth 90 points and a wine worth 89 points is patently ridiculous.

Actually, there are groups of people with well-trained and/or very sensitive noses that can. But for the other 99.55 of the population, this is right, but maybe irrelevant.

I guess it boils down to how seriously you see the difference between a wine rated 88 and one rated 89 or 91. Is the difference really statistically significant? Depends on how serious you are about wine and how well trained your palate is.

Me, I take the ratings as a continuum, to be adjusted based on what I know about the winery, what I know about the wine itself, and how much it costs. Given two wines I know absolutely nothing about, if there’s one rated at 92 at $15 and another rated at 88 for $10, I’ll buy the 88. On the other hand, a 92 at $25 and a 70 at 10 — I’ll probably buy the 92.

This is also how I deal with a wine list full of wines I’m not familiar with — and I’ve had more than one waiter come back with a bottle and tell me the wine master wanted to know how I knew to order that bottle. In many ways, it’s simple. First, I choose the varietal I want, and I look at the pricing of the restaurant. Throw out the most expensive (aka “ego”, “schedule C” or “I am showing off”) wines like Opus One (which is a damn good wine, but I can easily find and enjoy two or three bottles nearly as good for the same price, and by the end of the evening be even happier than if I’d ordered the Opus) — and by looking at what the general price range is for the restaurant, I look to see what wines are priced at about 2/3 of the high price.

That seems to consistently put me in the sweet spot of the restaurant’s wine list, without overpaying for the most expensive. It is, for instance how I discovered David Bruce Pinots, which are well worth discovering…

I guess it’s all about taking the tools you’re given and adapting them to your satisfaction, and not treating them too literally or too seriously…

Pigeon Point seawatch

It’d been way too long without touching the camera, and I had some time coming, so I made a run for the coast with the intent of heading down to Elkhorn. The weather was clear and sunny, so I stopped off at Pigeon point to sea watch a bit.

Two hours later…

Primary action today were cormorants, and more cormorants, and more cormorants. All, as far as I could tell, Brandt’s. 95% of them heading north, in groups from about 10 on up. I counted > 400 before I stopped counting. Probably about 500 for the time between 11 and 1PM.

Also seen were 40-50 Brown pelicans and 3 white. 30 adult pigeon guilllemots in a couple of flocks, plus a few individuals. Also seen were about 10 birds that were flying with the guillemots, but were white. I didn’t get a great look at them, but my best guess would be the pigeon guillemot in the adult non-breeding (see Sibley), but I could well be wrong.

also one common loon feeding down the shore in the swells; gulls seemed mostly glaucous wings, but I had one possible Heerman’s juvie — very- very dark gull.

Weirdest sight of the day: early on, I had two flocks of cormorants boogie to the south — with white birds flying as part of the flock. Both happened early in my watch in groups of ~20, where 3-4 were white and in formation. I got some shots of it, but my photography today wasn’t stellar.

I’m really not sure what they were — about the same size, maybe a bit smaller than the cormorants, all white (I’d guess tern, but I saw no black on the head at all), with orange (perhaps pale, definitely not black) beak. the blurs in the images show a swept back wing, almost quarter-moon shape, and no real coloration — white birds without any real markings. Any thoughts? I keep thinking tern, but I dunno.

(update: it looks like these white birds were probably elegant terns, which have entered the region in more numbers as the water has warmed. Global warming? nah…. it’s those damn uppity scientists…)

after, I drove south to Natural Arches in Santa Cruz, home of a gazillion pelicans and more cormorants, then along the waterfront to the surfer museum (terns in the kelp beds, one happy sea otter), and to the boardwalk, then drove home. Nice, relaxing, often out of cell-tower range drive…. (grin)

survived WWDC

Sorry for the relative quiet. The good news is, I survived the product launch of the Mac Pro that happened at WWDC. The bad news is, it took a bunch of really long days because we were crunching to be ready right down to the hairy nubs. It’s that perfect spot, where you can’t quite decide if you love the adrenalin more than you hate the stress. (hint: I’ve finally voted on hating the stress).

I was pretty much a zombie by thursday, but I took most of the weekend off and life looks a lot better. Even better, my new mini arrived, so I spent part of the weekend rewiring the office to replace the G5 tower with the new box (Intel, of course).

(what, you think I’d suddenly run off and start buying Dell?)

The Job search continues. Four more weeks at Mama Apple (although I hope to ake one of them as vacation); Laurie and I are now planning on heading out of town once that’s over for a couple of weeks or so; it’ll be nice to not have to heavily structure a trip around “be back by” dates, or even whether here’s wi-fi in the hotel. We’re going to do something we’ve wanted to do for a while, which is head off onto the islands (probably salt spring) for a few days to explore. the current plan is to spend time in Victoria and Seattle, and skip Vancouver (sigh. by extending my time to mid-september, I’m going to miss out on Raven Travelling; I did get the book, however, and it’s quite good — if you’re going to be in vancouver, see the exhibition!), and head home via the coast spending some time in cannon beach; I might put a night in in Astoria, since it’s a town I want to explore a bit. we’ll see.

Depending on how work (or non-work) goes, I’m going to try to get a week in at Yellowstone before it snows to get some serious photography in. and I’d love to get back to yosemite for the fall colors. we’ll see.

A couple of company’s I’ve talked to have really intrigued me; my intent wasn’t to take something unless it seemed perfect until January, but I’m finding I”m tempted by a couple of options that are in the mix.

this search has had me thinking — I took my first job at age 12, delivering newspapers. Since that time, the longest I’ve been unemployed is six weeks. Even in high school, I did something; many times, I had a couple of gigs, plus school, plus athletics, plus other school stuff (school newspaper, speech, theater, whatever). Great training for my current life…

Best line in any of the interviews in the last week: “you’ve been at Apple for 18 years? That’s like 4 lifetimes in silicon valley time”.

And I don’t regret any of it — but some days, I sure feel like I’m that old..

oh, boy, 1AM. off to sleep… hopefully, this week is a week to catch up on blogging, since I sure didn’t last week… Lots to talk about, and maybe even stuff worth the electrons to publish with…

101 Ways to Save Apple

101 ways to save Apple: (James Daly, Wired, 1997)

(head nod: DIGG)

Oh, this is too precious. Been there, done that, the cat sleeps on the T-shirt. I had to pull this up and comment on it a bit.

Of course, hindsight makes for easy 20-20 vision. But even form the view of being part of Apple 1997, some of this was silly.

By James Daly

An assessment of what can be done to fix a once-great company.

But who wants to live in a world without you? Not us. So we surveyed a cross

section of hardcore Mac fans and came up with 101 ways to get you back on the

path to salvation.

Okay, problem #1: geeks are crucial to the success of the company, and an important part of the user base, and without them as dedicated Apple developers, there IS NO APPLE. But having said that….

ASKING GEEKS HOW TO SOLVE BUSINESS PROBLEMS IS LIKE ASKING YOUR CAT TO COOK DINNER.

Hell, the cat may try; you won’t like the result.

1. Admit it. You’re out of the hardware game.

Outsource your hardware production, or scrap it entirely, to compete more

directly with Microsoft without the liability of manufacturing boxes.

Okay, let’s admit it. Apple DID outsource hardware; only it did it through outsourced manufacturing, not through licensing to third parties. And we already see reference to the key problem of that era: the feeling that it was a microsoft fight to the death, them or Apple. We know how that turned out (and not just for Apple, for basically EVERYTHING Microsoft decided to compete against for any number of years except Quicken; and they tried to buy Quicken…)

And for that, you can thank — Mike Spindler, former CEO of Apple (nickname “Diesel” among the Apple people there at the time; no, it’s not a positive honorific). That, folks is the key legacy of Spindler’s era at Apple: taking a competition that was already decided, making it a cornerstone of business strategy, and publically turning it into an either/or war of survival. Which is almost turned into.

2. License the Apple name/technology to appliance manufacturers and build

GUIs for every possible device – from washing machines to telephones to

WebTV. Have them all use the same communications protocol. Result: you

monopolize the market for smart devices/homes.

And you so devalue the brand that nobody cares about it any more.

4. Gil Amelio should steal a page from Lee Iacocca’s book – work for

one year without a salary, just to inspire the troops.

Let’s be honest. Real honest. Gil Amelio gets a bum rap for his tenure at Apple in many ways — I’m convinced he saved the company, or at least kept the patient alive long enough for it to be biovacced out to someone who could save it. Without Amelio, Infinite Loop would be filled with IBM engineers, or Sun, or Sony, or someone. But not Apple.

But Gil Amelio never understood Apple, not really. Not what makes it tick, not what makes it important, not what makes its employees care. he was a good numbers guy, a good process guy, and a really nice (from what I could tell) guy in general. But he couldn’t inspire a toaster to do his toast in the morning, much less a crew of Apple geeks who looked at him as grandpaw, not any kind of cheerleader. Elmer Fudd was better at motivation.

7. Don’t disappear from the retail chains. Rent space in a computer

store, flood it with Apple products (especially software), staff it with Apple

salespeople, and display everything like you’re a living, breathing company and

not a remote, dusty concept.

Actually, Apple did do this, with the “store in a store” concept. The problem Apple was running into, though, was too many dealers sold the macs badly, or used them only to help sell people who came in to buy one onto other products. There were a few really, really good Mac dealers out there — and lots of really, really bad ones.

So apple did their own stores, controlling the story and the sale. and, of course, when they did, the experts all thought they were insane. Like a fox.

12. Build a fire under your ad agency. People don’t need warm, fuzzy

infomercials about the Mac family. And who cares what’s on Todd Rundgren’s

PowerBook? People want to know about power (the CPU kind, not George

Clinton’s), performance, and price.

Half right. But GEEKS care about CPU numbers. the rest of the universe cares about “will it do what I need it to do?” — playing the GHz game has gotten Dell (and especially Gateway) and all of the others into trouble, while Apple went off and instead started talking about solutions (and building them), not gigahertz.

14. Do something creative with the design of the box and separate

yourselves from the pack. The original Macs stood out because of their

innovative look. Repeat that. Get the folks at Porsche to design a box.

better yet. hire jonathan ives, and tell him to have fun. To be honest, I’ve been seriously underwhelmed by the Porsche stuff in the computer space. Better to do what Apple did and create your own brand and style than license one.

15. Dump (or outsource) the Newton, eMate, digital cameras, and

scanners.

of course, it flies in the face of everyone who wanted Apple to do a Palm, or buy palm, or….

but one thing Apple did do; when it had third parties doing a device well, it partnered with them, not replaced them. Remember when Apple did its own printers? Now, Canon and Epson and HP and Lexmark are doing printers, and Apple sells them. Partnering can be good, when you can trust a partner (we’ll come back to that later).

17. Build some decent applications that the business community will

care about.

Or, realize that Microsoft office is what really matters, and make that a priority. stop ifghting with microsoft and partner with them.

and then go off and build some really kick ass products in OTHER market segments and instead of fighting microsoft for market share you won’t get back, grow the market and own the new stuff.

Fighting Microsoft is stupid. even in 1997, it was a failed strategy.

iLife and Final Cut and the like — creating new market is a lot better than stealing someone else’s. But it takes vision and the intelligence to see what doesn’t already exist.

18. Stop being buttoned-down corporate and appeal to the fanatic

feeling that still exists for the Mac. Power Computing’s “I’ll give up my Mac

when they pry it from my stiff, dying fingers” campaign hits the right note.

Except, of course, Apple already was, since Power computing really grabbed that from Guy Kawasaki and EvangeList. But what were Spindler and Amelio, anyway? they WERE buttoned-down, corporate guys. Apple need’s those guys — but their leader has to be more than that. Hence, the return of Steve (and Steve is smart enough to make sure they have the button-down guys, too, first in Fred Anderson, now in Peter Oppenheimer. Steve gets the public credit, but don’t for a second minimize the contributions of the CFO’s in making what Steve sees possible and profitable)

20. Tap the move toward push media

Oh, push media. Now there was a real market success….

21. Sell yourself to IBM or Motorola, the PowerPC makers.

better yet, switch to Intel!

22. Create a new kids’ computer, an upgradable Wintel-compatible

machine, in bright rugged colors that can take stickers and duct tape, and that

a young user can call his/her own.

And I always thought everyone hated the flower power iMac….

23. Create a new logo. The corporate graphic of the multicolored

apple was tired in the 1980s, now it’s positively obsolete.

Which is/was true. However, when Steve actually did this, did the mac loyalists scream. Of course, it didn’t take long to get used to the revamping of the logo; complete replacement not so necessary.

Plaster the new

logo on hats and T shirts to be worn conspicuously by Andre Agassi, Nicolas

Cage, and Ashley Judd.

Here we go devaluing the brand again. Of course, Apple actually did that for a while, both in yachting and elsewhere. Anyone remember the Apple race car? I wonder how many macs THAT sold?

24. Pay cartoonist Scott Adams $10 million to have Dilbert fall in

love with a Performa repairwoman.

Hey, even better: build great products they’ll fall in love with (and put in their stuff) for free.

Hint: consumers aren’t stupid. Marketing doesn’t save a bad product or a bad company.

27. Relocate the company to Bangalore and make it cheap, cheap,

cheap. (See Wired 4.02, page

110.)

Lots of companies ARE doing that now. My answer: check back in another 5 years. it’s going to go down in history as one of the great business disasters since, well, assuming that the “japanese way” is the only/best way. Some companies have done very well in India, and some will continue do. the lemmings that do it because they read it in CIO magazine are going to find themselves in an absolute disaster, just like any group that does things because they are told to, not because it makes sense for them.

31. Build a PDA for less than $250 that actually does something: a)

cellular email b) 56-channel TV c) Internet phone.

Here’s a great example of what’s wrong with this list: stuff geeks really want, but which (a) aren’t interesting to the general market, and for prices where Apple would lose money on every unit, but somehow, make it up in volume. Physics wins, folks. In pricing as well as life.

32. Advice to Gil Amelio: shorter speeches, tighter pants.

Dear Gil: thanks for what you did. But the speeches? No speeches, not shorter.

34. Port the OS to the Intel platform, with its huge amount of

investment in hardware, software, training, and experience. Don’t ignore it;

co-opt it.

gee. nice idea. why didn’t WE think of that?

35. Get MkLinux and BeOS to run on PowerBooks.

If there was a person who got it wrong WORSE than Mike spindler, it was Jean-Louis Gassee. Who was a big part of what made Apple almost die in the first place, but even worse, when Apple needed what he had, and felt it had no options, he still found a way to so screw up the deal so badly that Amelio was forced to go talk to Steve — and the rest was history.

If you think about it, the reason Apple is where it is today is because of two people: Mike Spindler and Gassee. Spindler had a deal to sell the company to Sun Microsystems, and got so greedy Sun walked. And Amelio was buying Gassee and Be to save Apple from itself, until Gassee got so greedy Amelio walked from the deal.

Imagine what reality might be like if either of these weren’t true.

38. Make it easier for ISVs to make applications for both Apple and

Wintel environments – if not at the desktop, then certainly at the server.

I actually was involved with one such product. It actually predated this article. Never saw the light of day, but aspects of it went on to become the Apple Network Server. Let’s just say that the idea and the reality differ strongly (although the version that ran NT probably had some legs, except Spindler was so vehemently anti-microosft he refused to allow an apple product to use microsoft systems and killed it)

43. Remain committed to the openDVD Consortium, addressing the issues

of implementing digital versatile-disc technology. You’ve always been a bridge

between the entertainment and high tech industries. Maintain it.

Hmm. Bridge between entertainment and high tech. Maybe we can work with that… Wonder how?

45. Don’t raise the Mac OS licensing fee. Cloners have helped

stabilize and even increase market share for the Mac OS; this keeps software

developers happy.

Here’s a hint: the cloners were not the friends to Apple people want to believe they were. Apple lost money on every license sold. The cloners went off and cannibalized Apple’s high end markets, making Apple’s financial woes worse. And they were more than happy — and clearly planned to — simply suck the market dry until Apple died, and then move on to something else with teh money once Apple died, because the public had decided it was all Apple’s fault, so they were the fair-haired boys, and it’d all get blamed on Apple.

Now, is licensing bad? No, I don’t think so. But that licensing deal was an absolute disaster (thank you, Mike spindler), and it took an Apple that was hurting and struggling and threw it down a well. Again, partnering is good, but only if you trust your partners and only if both sides benefit. In the licensing deal, Apple went out to the clone companies and asked them to help Apple grow the low-end market. The cloners (especially Power computing) instead built high end machines that were apple’s high end margin boxes, and ate that market alive. And Apple was stupid enough to write the deal such that it was perfectly okay for them to do this. So Apple gets whacked two ways. Every time someone bought a Power Computing, Apple lost money on the OS license royalty, AND Apple lost a hardware sale that was otherwise helping keep the company afloat. So thanks to the cloners for their help. Next time, just shoot us and kill us quickly….

49. Bring back Andy Hertzfeld and the other original Mac folks to

explain to the executive team that simplicity and design elegance are what made

You know, it really wasn’t the technology that was the problem, folks. It was the business. It was BAD BUSINESS processes and BAD BUSINESS decisions in adopting and building products and making those products work right. Bringing in geeks to discuss how to fix the business wouldn’t fix anything.

50. Give Steve Jobs as much authority as he wants in new product

development. Let Gil Amelio stick to operations.

or, just hand the company back to steve…

57. Bring back John Sculley. He would provide a convenient whipping

boy.

(hysterical laughter)

Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Sculley started the whole down spiral, by forgetting that he was a marketing guy and not a geek, and redefining himself as a technology futurist, or whatever in the hell he called himself. So he stopped paying attention to the details of the business and started trying to help design things like Newton and Pippin, and between he and Gassee, we got all sorts of really geeky, wonderfully ineffective products (like the original Mac Portable!). all while Apple’s business got lazy and bloated, processed got lost, politics became the battlefiend within the company, and products started getting boring, lazy and not terribly good in quality.

So eventually, Sculley got booted out. And replaced with… a Diesel. Who took everything that was going wrong at Apple and set the knob to 11.

58. Create dollar incentives to attract software vendors to write

for the upcoming Rhapsody platform. You have cash in the bank – use it.

Back then, you couldn’t, for a couple of reasons. First was that the cash was used to convince Wall Street and the investors in the company that the company was still viable. If that cash had bled away, so would have the company. And second — it did the same thing with employees. The company couldn’t spend the money because it couldn’t afford to look like it needed to.

60. Abandon the Mach operating system you just acquired and run

Windows NT kernel instead.

(hysterical laughter)

of course, maybe they tried that. Maybe someone like Spindler killed it. because it was more important to kill microsoft than save the company.

Nah. never mind. nothing to see here.

62. Build a computer that doesn’t crash.

my god, there’s hope for these folks yet.

now, in my eyes, waiting until #62 to say “build good, reliable products that work” shows that the priorities of this article are screwed up. Until you do this, NOTHING ELSE FREAKING MATTERS. Honest. IF you don’t do this, you do. And should.

Tell you the truth: Sculley forgot this. Spindler never understood it. Amelio did, in spades, and tried his damnedest to make it happen, but Apple (the bureaucracy) fought back, because of the politics of the company at the time. It took Steve coming back, and summarily shooting people who let the politics get in the way of fixing the company, to solve that problem (mostly).

63. Make Java work on your OS. Then develop an enterprise computing

strategy in partnership with Sun. Java is not a magic bullet, but supporting it

will keep Mac owners happy and prevent them from looking elsewhere.

Or maybe it’s not so important to TYPICAL customers, compared to geeks. And maybe not even to geeks.

64. Team up with Sony, which wants to get into the computer business

in a big way – think Sony MacMan.

Or better yet, invent the iPod, and kick Sony’s shiny little butt, and keep all the money for yourself.

65. Roll out the Mac Plus again as a hip retro machine. Make it

really, really uncool to use whizzy, leading-edge PCs.

This, from the same folks bitching about the 20th century mac about 20 items ago?

68. Retain your Apple Fellows at all costs. With Don Norman and Alan

Kay recently leaving, there is a serious drain in the Big Think department.

sometimes, what people AND companies AND projects need are fresh looks and new ideas.

71. Become a graphic design company and dominate your niche the way

Sun and Silicon Graphics do.

The way SGI *did*. which is amusing, because around the time this article was published, I was seriously considering jumping to SGI. I decided Apple was worth staying with. I seemed to have guessed right.

74. Solidify the management team. Pushing people out or allowing them

to leave does not inspire the remaining troops.

unless they are people who are screwing up the company and deserve to be shot, but the real world frowns on corporate firing squads….

75. Speed sells. Push your advantage on the speed of the processor.

until it doesn’t, and if it’s how you define yourself when that happens, you have big problems. Hello, Gateway?

78. Turn Claris loose so it can do some real damage.

Actually, probably not a bad idea.

80. Maintain existing loyalty at all costs. Use incentives like free

upgrades and stock certificates. Gimmicky? Sure. But it helps create a bond and

a religious following.

Customer religion is over-rated. So is losing money on every sale but making it up in volume. this kind of strategy merely convinces people that you don’t value your own products (so why should they?)

81. Merge with Sega and become a game company.

oh, god. that’s right. back then, Sega was actually successful. oops.

83. Develop proprietary programs that run only on Macs. Crow about

them.

Like, oh, iphoto, ilife, and Final Cut?

87. Price the CPUs to sell. Offer novice users the ability to enter

the Mac market at a competitive price point and move up the power curve as

their level of sophistication increases. The initial price keeps new buyers

away.

Okay, here’s the problem. THIS IS WHAT MIKE SPINDLER DID (or tried to). And we found out that cutting prices and cutting margins means machines cost less, and everyone still bought windows machines. so we ended up with a company with the same people buying the machines, but for less money and less profit.

Gee, great strategy.

I’m not saying price is not an issue. but price was a lot less of an issue than people wanted it to be. bad and boring products don’t sell at any price. good products sell at a premium. so why did we spend so many years trying to sell CHEAP instead of GOOD? better ask diesel about that.

91. Start a new special projects group led by either Jobs or another

passionate and creative designer to create the next “insanely great”

technology.

Or, just hand the company back to steve…

92. With each new Mac, include a CD-ROM that explains the Apple family

tree and future plans.

Or just include with every system software that actually allows people to do useful things they want to do, like, oh, ILIFE. Gimmicks don’t sell. Solutions do.

93. Develop a way to program that requires no scripting or coding.

or typing. Or lines of code. Or work. or time. no, wait, that’s the Easy Button, and someone else invented it first…

96. Partner with Oracle, using its technology for a backend database

with your friendly face.

AHHHH!!!!!!! what, partnering iwth Microsoft wasn’t enough? What evils are you requiring of us?

101. Don’t worry. You’ll survive. It’s Netscape we should really

worry about.

Ya think?

Now, seriously. The folks who dugg this into public view did it with a smirk. And I’ve done my own bit of giggling, but — there’s also a lot of good stuff in here, too. stuff that Apple ended up doing after Steve came back. So smirk if you want — could you have done better?

it’s really an interesting snapshot of a time and a place, no more or less.

Another week gone…

Chuqui 3.0: Reality sets in…:

And on the new job front: one interview this week, which I thought went pretty well (I’m a bit rusty….); intriguing opportunity, so we’ll see how it goes. had a couple of other folks want to talk, but they were all at OSCON (and I wasn’t! whine), so it was hard to get things started.

End of another week, start of the next.

One big thing that happened was I sat down with my management and we talked over my leaving and the transition of what I do (and know) to the rest of the team and the new teams being brought in to help shoulder the load and move things forward. We both agreed that my original term date made things tight, and they had a couple of special projects they really wanted me involved in, and so with a little persuasion, I agreed to extend my time @ Apple a bit longer. The current term date is now 9/15, but I expect to be able to take a week (maybe 2) of vacation during that time, and come back for a special project the week of 9/11 that I can’t say anything about now…. This actually is a change that wins for everyone, because the teams and I have more time to make sure the landing is soft and everything transfers cleanly, and I don’t have to eat vacation and savings and etc looking for a job, so it wasn’t TOO hard to convince me. And we all agree that the work schedule I’m keeping is working, so my stress levels are happy, too (well, not today; woke up to a bunch of pre-WWDC stuff I’m trying to untangle, but we’ll get there). Hey, how often can you go public that you’re looking for a job, and your director thinks he got a great bargain out of the arrangement? (heh).

I gotta say everyone’s been very positive and professional and pro-active, and it’s made it easy to want to help make this transition a success. I’m a little surprised at how quiet things have been from elsewhere @ Apple about possible positions (I know my current group wants me to get over all this and come home, but I just don’t think that’s in my best interest, or even, frankly, the project. I’ve been very impressed with how the architect who’s taking over has been taking a fresh look at things and coming up with new ideas and options; never underestimate the potential advantage of having a fresh set of eyes look at things). I continue to wander the halls of Apple with a signboard saying “will work for food”, but so far, it’s been quiet. I have to admit, part of me is ready to join the real world, anyway, so I’m not really pushing it too hard, either. But there’s been a lot of “don’t know what we’ll do without you”, but very little “so let me convince you to stay”, other than out of my current group… but while I appreciate what my management’s doing, I still think it’s best to follow the course already set….). there are definitely areas I’d enjoy working (Aperture, say, and I’ve always said I wanted to be a product manager/evangelist some day…)

In any event, I had a second interview this week (also through a direct contact by a friend who works there; folks, if there’s one thing you need to realize about the industry, it’s that contacts and networking matters; The more you let your company stuff you in a cave, the more they load you with extra work so you stop spending time with friends and getting out and meeting people, the harder it’ll be for you to find that Next Job. And don’t think companies aren’t more than happy to encourage you to cloister yourself and “go monk” for them; just don’t expect them to pay you extra to do it.

A second thing I’m realizing: if you don’t keep working on updating and improving your skill set, you’re dead. I’ve always been serious about figuring out the next stuff and getting my hands in it, and despite that, I feel a bit behind the 8-ball on some stuff. I’m working to pick it up again. This is another place where companies can really screw you over if you aren’t careful; if they aren’t willing to help you develop your career, make sure you do it yourself — if you can’t justify to them going to conferences, and can’t afford the time or money to go on your own, then commit to putting time into studying things on your own. Buy books on things and study them; or sit down and spend time with places like Yahoo Developer Network. A few samples can make a big difference.

This is especially true in the web space, where things are moving very fast. If you’re in the web space at all — you need to have a portfolio, just like a graphic designer or a tech writer might; and that portfolio should show off your ability to do page building and web techniques. I don’t (that’s going to change), and I feel like it’s a big missing piece; saying you can deal with javascript and/or ajax and/or css is one thing, having pages you’ve built they can look at is a huge advantage. All the stuff I have easily visible is so 2000, and I think that hurts. If you do this over time; when you decide it’s time, you can have it, or you can stop to build it. I’d rather have it.

And it’s important to remember: the stuff you do for your current employer may not be usable as a portfolio. And increasingly on the web space, it’s about good code and usability and interactivity (both javascript and ajax), so screen dumps of stuff inside someone else’s firewall aren’t that useful, and may violate your company IP rules to boot. So build yourself stuff you’re proud of that people can poke at, even if they’re a set of one page samples.

Now, having said all that… the second interview had some plusses and minuses. I thought I did pretty well on the technical and general market strategy of the company, but I also sat down with their VP of marketing for a while, and that may have been one of the worst interviews I’ve had in my life — we got off into customer targets and web designs and the such, and while I’d looked into the company and what it was doing well enough, I didn’t know the overall market well enough for my tastes, and I felt many of many answers were either too simplistic or plain old wrong. really not happy with that one, and it was a lack of research into the space the company lived in, as opposed to the work the company was doing. Goes to show you never can do too much research, and you never know what they may be interested in knowing. Now, for the position I was talking to them about, that might not be fatal, but I don’t think I gave the impression I wanted to.

Have one phone interview going next week, and two others pending being scheduled. Other stuff seems to be bubbling, also. When I sat down and started thinking thinking about this, I made a list of companies that I wanted to target (“I want to work for YOU!”), and it’s nice that a number of those are responding with some interest.

(What are those companies? While I’m being discrete on who I’m talking to, I don’t mind saying that the companies on my original “A” list were Flickr, Yahoo, O’Reilly and Associates, Netflix, and Six Apart; they all were doing interesting things, seemed to have a positive work culture, and used technologies that my skill set seemed compatible with.. I realize, typing this, that one other company I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while should have been on that list: Socialtext. and I’ll remedy that later today…. None of these, if you read my blog, are probably huge surprises. )

There are other companies I’d put on that “A” list, but they’re java shops and I’m just digging in, so for programming oriented things, I’m not a good candidate (yet). And I have a list of companies I’m not pursuing right now, either, but it’s short. One is Adobe, both because of the way they treated Laurie before she left and the noise I keep hearing about how well the Macromedia merger is going from the people we know there (the phrase that pays: door to door). The other is Google; that might warrant it’s own blog post at some point, but for now, I’ll just say that I’ve talked to enough folks who are working there or who’ve interviewed there to feel that it’s culture just isn’t one I’m compatible with. and I’ll leave it there). One company I had on that list, Sun, I’ve decided to pull off, and I”ll talk about THAT when I have a chance, too, but there are some signs that maybe the worst of the pain is over and they aren’t going to be the next SGI…. more later.

What am I applying for? that’s been an interesting question I’m still figuring out, beyond “looks interesting. I think I’m qualified” — but it’s included everything from really serious PHP/Perl Geek type positions to MySQL/DBA positions to operations type work to engineering manager, and occasionally off into product manager, and a few resumes into marketing-oriented positions where I think my background is particularly strong. I’ve had some people ask me if I was interested in professional services, which I’m honestly just starting to think through. It might be an interesting shift in focus. I might have to start wearing Dockers more often…

I’m trying to stay south-bay local right now, with Caltrain and city-based jobs for the right situation; some of that is preference, some of that is the logistics of life. had some feelers from other places (portland, for one. I expect if we do take a trip, I might wander up and talk to them a bit further). The only real reason we’re hesitating on relocation is that we’re just finishing up landscaping (and trying to push the internal remodelling forward) on the house, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get to live and ENJOY what we’ve done here. I don’t want to be someone who moves as soon as it’s finished to start on the next house (but I will, for the right offer).

Work has been a combination of trying to push key projects forward to points where I can disconnect from them; finished up one key special project (I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill myself); afternoons have generally been in a room with the teams lecturing on the project. the 30,000 foot view took about 7 hours, and we’re now going through in more detail about all of the functionality (and what I see as warts, things to improve, areas I’ve flagged for future features and improvements, etc…) — as well as getting all of that in the bug database. I dunno about you, but four hours of lecture a day is draining, not leaving a lot of energy for blogging or stuff, so the imaging reality blog got put on hold, as did the stuff I’m doing after that. Hopefully, this week will be a bit easier, since I think we’ll be mostly done with the long lecture sessions towards the end of the week.

So, things are moving, in generally positive ways. It’s nice to know I can attract an interview, and nobody’s outright rejected me yet (and I haven’t rejected anyone, either). The stress is down a bunch, the weight is down a bit, and it looks like we’ve got a good chance at a soft landing for the project, which was something I was really hoping to achieve.

of course, I haven’t touched the camera in about two weeks, and I think I’m going to get the hell away from the computer for a bit and remedy that…. back later.