Industry Diversity In Conferences

Better, not more “diverse”: James Robertson continues an industry-wide discussion on diversity.  I think James has some good ideas.  We do not want to choose our presenters (speakers) OR our attendees based on their gender or ancestry.  We do, on the other hand, want to have a broad perspective on what works and why, which does mean that we need to get out of our very narrow perspective.

I originally came across this through Anil Dash’s two recent entries about the selection of speakers at industry conferences.  This led to following some of the conversation at Off the Hoof.  I was surprised to see Anil bring it up, but I probably should not have been, seeing that he has been discussing the need for diversity in the industry (and its events) for the better part of a year.

I do not and can not support quotas.  By this I mean, selecting a person solely because of that person’s gender, ancestry, or whatever is not acceptable.  I think it trivializes the real difficulties that people face when we pick out one to be our shining example, as if to say, “Y’all should be like this gal heah.”

Instead, we need to start out long before the final selections, examining a much broader group of people: people of different genders, different ancestries, different ages, different places of residence, different native languages, different income levels/economic status, different educational levels (and different educational foci, different educational institutions), and different work histories.  The key word in all of this is history.  What you’ve done, where you’ve been, whom you’ve interacted with, and what you’ve experienced uniquely shapes you.  Your history makes you different from everyone else, but in the tech industry, the majority of people have similar histories in many ways.

The different histories will give us different points of view, different perspectives on where we are and where we should be going.  I contend that a well-run business is not a business that strives to make its staff fit a particular profile.  We all know what happens when the world changes around a business and no one inside the business has any idea how to respond to that change.  This is a classic (and expected) result of having too narrow a range of histories within the workforce or at least the executive suite.

Yet, we still have industry conferences where most or all of the speakers have similar backgrounds.  We already know that there are barriers that affect the opportunities for entrance and for growth within our industry (that is, they affect those who have different histories from most of our industry’s members).  We do know this, right?  Tell me that there are not any people that seriously suggest otherwise.  We know that the health of our industry depends upon broadening our staffing and executive ranks to include these excluded people.  We know that there are legal (legislative, executive, judicial) challenges ahead which really could impact us for the long term, where it is in our best interest for a broad spectrum of government leaders and decision-makers to be “invested” in the long-term success of the industry.

So why in the world are we not doing something about it?  I don’t mean X number of men and X number of women type things, but starting with a larger, more inclusive group to begin with.  This, along with a broader definition of “success,” will very likely lead to the results we want without the need for special preferences, although we may need some outreach in order to turn up the dark-skinned and female contributors whose voices have traditionally not been heard.

Adam Smith Defends Wage Increases

Whenever there is talk of increasing the minimum wage, or of wage increases in general, some business advocates talk of being forced to increase their prices.  There is even a push in Congress to use tax breaks as a way to balance the cost to businesses.

It seems that any talk of wage increases spurs talk of “cost-push” inflation.  The Federal Reserve gets very antsy at the idea of workers getting higher pay and immediately desires to raise interest rates to try to cool the economy from its overheated state.

It is sometimes good to go back to the source.  The source for classical economics is Adam Smith.  Now, I am not an economist (far from it), although I took five or so econ classes during my business program.  But I have enjoyed my reading of The Wealth Of Nations.

Again, people that claim that any wage increase harms businesses will try to defend this as classical economics or its descendant Reaganomics.  In fact, Adam Smith looked at it differently:

In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages.  If in the linen manufacture, fore example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, &cl should, all of them, be advanced two pence a day; it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of two pences equalt to the number that had been employed about it, multiplied by the number of working days during which they had been so employed.  That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into wages would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise in wages.  But if the profits of all the different employers of those working people should be raised five percent that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into profit, would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise in geometrical proportion to this rise in profit.  The employer of the flax-dressers would in selling his flax require an additional five percent upon the whole value of the materials and wages that would be advanced to his workmen.  The employer of spinners would require an additional five percent both upon the price of the flax and upon the wages of the spinners.  And the employer of the weavers would require a like five percent both upon the advanced price of the linen yarn and upon the wages of the weavers.  In  raising the price of commodities the rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt.  The rise of profit operates like compound interest.  Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much about the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad.  They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits.  They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains.  They complain only of those of other people.

I think this statement should be read out loud to every pundit and legislator.  Smith is also known to have said something to the effect that a nation’s economic wealth does not consist in how much the wealthy classes have, but in that which is available to the working classes.  Indeed, there are hardly any poor countries where everyone is impoverished.  What resources there are get sucked up by the wealthy, leaving little for everyone else.  A good aid program for such a country will attempt both to increase the total and the percentage of the total which goes to the laborers who actually produce the economic output.

Now, I am not a socialist by any means.  No one who has known the impact of growing up dependent upon government programs that change their eligibility rules every year would ever wish that upon someone else.  However, even a foolish capitalist recognizes that capitalism depends upon social order, which depends upon (at least to some degree) a perception of fairness in the allocation of resources.  Witihout that, one must strictly militarize society, so that no one dares to oppose the way things are.

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The Wealth Of Nations

I’ve once again started to read the great Adam Smith work The Wealth of Nations. I previously read excerpts and summaries of it while taking economics classes. Last Summer, I purchased the book and started to read it. As so often happens, I was unable to complete it because of interruptions and distractions. This year, I decided, will be a year of finishing things. Already, I have found several projects that I once began, which I have decided to admit that I will never complete them. Other projects are now in the midst of being revived.

This is normal in the past few years. I think I have finished exactly eight books since 2001, three of which were part of the Harry Potter series, two were Dick Francis’ excellent murder mysteries, and the other three were Kinsey Milhone murder mysteries. (Note: I have R Is For Ricochet, but have not started it yet. If it is like the others in the series, I seriously cannot stop reading it until the end.)

I generally find that many of the concepts he is attempting to describe are intuitive to me. For example, all you have to do is work for a living, and you will begin to rate things by how much of your labor it costs to get them. Doing it that way, there are a lot of things that I think I might want, until I say, “that takes X number of hours to earn and I do not think it is worth that.”

During my economics classes, I developed a generally (but not entirely) laissez faire belief in economics. I did find that once I started the intermediate level courses, I was confronted by more and more examples of what I would consider market failures. I was a business major, so I couldn’t take too many extra classes that were only tangiental to my major.

Although he does speak of the individual’s self interest, which, pooled together, acts as though the economy as a whole were being guided by “an invisible hand,” I think he does allow for areas where firm guidance by ruling authorities may be necessary. I’ll report back as I near the end of the book.

With that, let me recommend this book as a beginning point for anyone who intends to contribute to our national dialogue about government and economics.  This was written in 1776, the same time period as the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Federalist Papers, and Constitution.  Read them all and you will build yourself a foundation for thinking about national policies.  (That’s about as close as I’m getting to politics.  Now I have to take a shower.  I feel contaminated.)

technorati tags:reading, finishing+projects, economics

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Open Malaysia: ODF Support Is Also UOF Support

Apparently, someone had suggested that Malaysia adopt UOF instead of ODF as their XML-based open format.  This article concludes that by supporting ODF, UOF support is included, and that therefore, no explicit selection of UOF is needed.

ISO 26300 can be translate and interoperate well with UOF documents today, so by adopting ISO 26300, Malaysia is will also have UOF support. It is not necessary to consider UOF today, because the efforts of harmonizing these two formats will guarantee future interoperability. Already in existence are free third party tools to translate between the two formats with good documentation on the differences.

Get Going! (#2 In A Series)

Have you seen The Pursuit of Happyness yet? This is the story of a man who perseveres despite hardships and overwhelming odds, working hard as an unpaid intern to get a lucrative paid position. He (Chris Gardner, played by Will Smith) and his young son (played by Will's son Jaden), later goes on to establish his own company. I do not watch many movies, preferring to wait until they come out on DVD, so I can hear the movie instead of someone talking on their phone, but this is an exception. I would suggest that anyone who is hoping to start on his or her own way to owning and operating a business should watch this movie.

I recently read the Book of Esther in the Bible. It too records how two people overcame tremendous odds and hardships—saving their people from sure extermination and learning to depend on the unseen hand of God and boldly confronting the people and things that threatened them. Too many books and magazine articles emphasize the "I did it myself" angle, when in fact, they had people that believed in them, took chances in order to benefit them, and seemed to be acting in coordination with them, even though neither person was aware of it.

There are dozens of things standing between where you are today and where you want to be. If you stand complacently where you are, those obstacles will remain there for your lifetime. Even so, charging forward without thinking about what you will face and how it could affect you and those you care about is pure foolishness.

Where, then, should you start? You should start be assessing where you are today, and what things about that position are important to preserve, and then assessing where you want to be, and what things need to change in order for you to get there. But you should also assess whether the place you want to be is where you really should be going. If you want to be the biggest drug dealer in your city, for example, you really should not be trying to fulfill that.

Everyone has a mission, a reason why we are here, a task that we are supposed to accomplish. Your mission is not something that you can accomplish on your own, without help (even unseen help from God above and those whom he gives favorable impressions of you), for that would not cause you to grow. However, if you look back at your life, especially if you are over thirty years old, you will find something that you kept coming back to—transportation, education, religious ministry, politics, gardening or farming, public safety, or whatever.  Whatever it is, look at it in broad terms, because that is your field.  Your mission will involve doing something in that field in such a way that it benefits others in the world around you.

Having found your field, and assessed your current position, is your desired endpoint something that is in your field and you should be doing?  Are you willing and able to forego most current pleasures (including social time with some of the people that matter most to you) in order to get there?  Have you squared your life with your long-term mission assigned from above?

You see, Esther and her cousin Mordecai were able to do some amazing things.  They were of a hated and persecuted ethnic group, in a militarily powerful but not very merciful nation.  Most of them were forcibly dispersed throughout the nation and its possessions, in order to dilute their ability to rise up against the ruling order.  And yet, these two were able to overcome their fear of punishment (and even execution) in order to confront the king and his closest advisor.  When the dust had settled, the advisor, who was behind the extermination order, was dead, and Mordecai was elevated in his place.

In order to start in business, you will face obstacles, ranging from no startup capital, to city zoning laws that force you to start in the high-rent commercial district, to people who dislike you because of your birth (ethnic group, gender, etc), to people who feel that your business does not have enough history to be a serious contender for their money, to family members and friends who feel that "you've changed" because you no longer have as much time to hang out and relax with them, to old debts and current living expenses that are higher than you can afford, to bosses that expect you to give them 100% in exchange for almost nothing from them, to household members who think that you are off any time you are at home.  You will need to confront all of those things with boldness, but without being proud, arrogant, submissive, or harsh.

Read the book and watch the movie.  Settle for yourself this week what your mission is and how you can stick it out through all the hardships and pressure you will face as you start this new venture. 

This is the second in a series.  The first entry is Get Started! (#1 In A Series). 

Tags: small+business, entrepreneurship, Christianity, Bible

Mass Plus ODF: A Winning Combination

Dave Gynn wrote an article in Mass High Tech last month. He is discussing the benefits that Massachusetts expects to gain through its adoption of the ISO-approved OASIS OpenDocument Format for office applications (ODF). He also points out how important it is for an open standard to have an open source reference implementation.

The primary driver behind the decision to move to a standard document format was a desire to address the system interoperability issue that plagues most IT departments, which consist of a large number of systems that are difficult to integrate. Customers have complained about this for years, but software vendors haven't been able to solve the problem other than to suggest buying all systems from a single vendor. By standardizing on a common document format, the state will ease interoperability issues and define how they want software vendors to support them on this problem.

The Java world has the open source Tomcat and Glassfish as the reference implementations of their particular Java standards. The Web world has a de facto reference implementation in the open source Apache, with 60 to 70% of all Web sites running on Apache software. And now the office suite world has ODF file formats, with an open source reference implementation in the OpenOffice.org suite of applications.

David Gardner writes in Information Week about the progress of a rival format toward also becoming an international ISO-approved standard. "The ECMA standard must be approved by the International Standards Organization before the state government could officially declare it as a standard that can be used to ensure that state documents are permanently preserved." The process could take up to a year, and approval is not guaranteed, according to Gardner.

The State of Massachusetts Information Technology Department site does not have any current status reports on the conversion process posted. That process is set to begin with some trial projects this month, with the full conversion starting later this year, providing accessibility tools for disabled users are far enough along to ensure that those users can also do their jobs.

The Blue Mass Group, which appears a political group, believes that MSFT may attempt to maneuver things in the back room before the final implementation date. I personally dislike anything to do with politics and politicians (an upcoming political discussion notwithstanding), and BMG has confused open standards with open source, but they do have a little bit of local insight to add to the conversation.

Jeff Kaplan feels that the recent ECMA rubber-stamping approval of OOXML is just going to confuse users, especially the clueless managers and politicians that actually decide what a company does or buys.

I noted in a recent CNET article
that Ecma's approval of ooXML will increase confusion in the
marketplace. Consumers and companies now face two different document
standards. One is a proprietary-encumbered standard, the other an open
standard. Both are endorsed by standards organizations and industry
allies.

The average person, even the average corporate customer
will be confused. And when it comes to technology, the uninformed are
easily abused. Politicians, often among the most technologically
challenged, are already being targeted. It’s about to get worse. A giant PR blitz is coming. Corporate commanders are fueling the FUD missiles.

ComputerWorld's Carol Sliwa records the political maneuvering going on in Massachusetts as Microsoft apologists sought to overturn the state's decision.

The topic of document formats may have an arcane air to it, but it
matters deeply to the world’s richest software company. Document
formats have played a critical role in helping Microsoft to secure and
maintain its dominance of the office-productivity applications market,
with more than 400 million users of its Office software worldwide.

“It wasn’t the only reason that people standardized on
Microsoft Office, but it was the main reason,” said Michael Silver, an
analyst at Gartner Inc.

Still, in my opinion, the important thing here is open standards which can be implemented by anyone at any time, whether their software will be open source or closed source. Without open standards, the Internet could not function. Simply put, ODF is a more open "open standard" than OOXML is, and more openness means more competition and more creative ways to use the file format to meet users' needs at a lower price.

I would ask a question of Brian Jones of MSFT: Why is it so important to your company that state governments (MA, MN, CA, in particular) not choose another format? Why can't you take three weeks with your programmers in Mumbai to fully implement built-in native ODF support in MSFT's office products? This is really not an open source versus proprietary issue here, as the state will purchase from IBM, Sun, Microsoft, or another vendor under a proprietary license. You are taking a potential win-win situation and making it a win-lose situation. Why would you risk one of only two money-making parts of the company when you could easily keep your position as the main software supplier to these state governments?

Tags: ODF, OOXML, XML, OASIS, OpenDocument

Ever Wished You Could Ignore Something?

is the problem the fact that the rhythm is "Latin"? Or is the problem the shallowness of what is called worship?