Targeting the wrong goal, writing lazy articles

I have no idea if the rank and file in other companies—say, Yahoo and Microsoft—start their day by scheming how to beat, conquer, overtake, pummel, or even “kill” other companies.  At least at the engineering and product management levels, I both hope and expect not.  I prefer to think that—like the folks I work with at Google—most individuals at other companies are dedicated to just making damn good stuff, and not particularly caring how this affects the competition.

But appallingly often it seems that what happens after stuff gets filtered through marketing, execs, journalists… well, it ain’t pretty.

Apparently, engineers and product managers don’t give a whit about users.  They care about beating the other guy.  Stealing their market share.  Even putting them out of business.  And, though as I’ve noted I’m confident that’s not an accurate depiction of what’s going on in the frontlines, I still need to emphatically call it like I see it: That attitude is wrong, it’s shortsighted, it’s counterproductive, and—more concisely—it’s absolute bullshit.

Let me give a clue to these folks who continue to moronically view—or at least portray—the exciting and complex world of technology as cross between WWF and rollerball:  At the end of the day, only the users matter.

No, I really mean it.  Stockholders are fickle, particularly American stockholders.  Competitors sometimes come and go, sometimes lose focus, sometimes totally drop the ball.  Forming business plans around their actions—whether from opportunity or fear—is just plain stupid.

But users?  They are the ones that actually, well, use your products.  Pay you money.  Tell their friends.  Convince their Fortune 500 IT manager.  They have a *need* to be productive, to learn, to feel secure, to have fun.  And there are a LOT of users… not just in America, but all over the world.  If you have 50% market share for a product, you’re probably going to make a lot of money.  If you have 3% of an sufficiently large market, you’re probably still going to make a lot of money.

There is no need to kill anything or anyone, dammit!!!  The pie is so large that a significant number of companies can have a slice (or a niche or whatever) and be perfectly happy, successful, and well-respected. 

People still watch TV.  They still use Microsoft Office.  They still even search for sites, images, music, and porn on a variety of search engines and that’s just fine.

I don’t know every single person at Google personally, nor do I have intimate knowledge of every single thing we’re working on.  But I can tell you this:  Not once (literally) have I heard someone talk about stealing marketshare, trouncing a competitor, replacing rather than augmenting something, and so on.  We ask “will people use this?” and “what could we do to get more people using it?” and “what could we do to make our users happier so they use the product(s) more and invite their friends?” 

So it deeply disturbs me to see headlines like “[blah blah blah] Microsoft killer?!” or “[blah blah blah] deadly threat to Google” and so on.  Trust me, I know that controversy and winner-takes-all stuff sells papers, gets people staying tuned to your [insert-network-here] broadcast and so on.  And perhaps others, even tech outsiders, view such hyperbole for the crap that it is. 

But what worries me is that this obscures the more important messages, the more interesting stuff:  how are products (by any company) expanding the pie?  how are they changing the way people work?  How are they affecting economic and other structures?  To what level do new products and UIs lead and alter vs. simply reflect user behaviors?

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I’m not terribly optimistic about changing the habits of the “big folks” in journalism.  They’ve been around too long and gotten too accustomed to crafting the us-vs.-them story in their sleep (either David vs. Goliath or Goliath stomps David or Goliath #1 causes or will cause Goliath #2 to implode or whatever).

But I’m going to ask you fellow Bloggers out there to eschew the lazy path.  Quit framing things in terms of battles, in terms of winners and losers.  Savor the (useful) challenge of ridding your headline vocabulary of oft-negative absolutes and instead focus more on the big picture and on nuances.  What does a particular product or product change mean for users?  From a user-centric perspective, why might something have been done?  While products may seem superficially similar (Writely stuff next to Office), how are the goals and audiences targeted and how effective is this (again, from a user perspective, not from a stock price / competitive tweaking view)?

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And perhaps, if I might be optimistic for a bit, if bloggers and journalists focus their writing on end-user issues rather than trumped-up corporate warfare, they might even find a more sizeable share of the audience pie themselves :-)

Forbidden phrases (e.g., no more Web x.0, dammit!)

Hear ye, hear ye!  From now on, the use of the following phrases is to be discouraged, if not downright forbidden:

• Attention metadata.  Attention anything for that matter, unless it’s used in a non-technical phrase such as “Put down the crackberry and pay attention to the real world for a sec, dammit!”
• Web 3.0.  Web 4.0.  Web anything.0, for crying out loud.  See my comments on Web 2.0 and Web 4.0 for more information on this ridiculous fad.  Note:  Web 2.d’oh! is okay.  For now.
• Relationship economy.  I just saw this one today.  Grrr!  Note:  Okay if used to refer jokingly to prostitution.  For now.

I’m sure there are others, but I’m getting nauseous just mulling over the above trite phrases.  And yes, I realize that it’s a sadly losing battle to do away with Web 2.0.

So… what empty, cliched, uber-annoying geek-phrases drive you nuts?

Luck, girls, flies, truffles, tall people, and 100 BILLION dollars

I’ve been duly inspired by my friend Graham.  And given that I’m too lazy / cautious / tired to do a deep and meaningful and original blog entry this evening, I’ve decided to instead just share a few thoughts about the search phrases people have used to get to my humble BLADAM 2.0 site over the last 3 days.  Each phrase is linked to the entry on my blog that the searcher clicked through to (providing a fulfilling-but-sometimes-scary-bladam-blast-from-the-past!)

First, the odd but undoubtedly heartfelt declaration:

     i have bad luck

I’m sorry, fella.  I’m not quite sure what sort of solace or answers you were seeking in this grand set of clogged tubes, but luckily another BLADAM visitor feels your pain and offers this advice:


     dont feel sad about bad luck

Well, there you have it!  Now we just need Bobby McFerrin to pop by and it’ll all be hunky dory.

Oh, and speaking of heartfelt, I had a few zillion folks visiting here searching for advice about girls (specifically, how to win them over and settle down happy ever after, or at least see them naked).  Faithful readers… let me just be straight with you up front here:  you’re asking the wrong guy, and you’re definitely browsing the wrong blog.  Do I look like Oprah to you?  [hint: the answer to that should be NO.]

So, without further ado, here are the lovestruck searchers:

     how do i talk to the girl i like after telling her i like her

Very carefully.  And potentially from a great distance if she or her boyfriend are armed, dangerous, and/or jealous.


     how do i impress a girl who likes me and i like her

Dude, get a grip.  You like her.  She likes you.  What’s with this impressing crap?  Get off the computer and go have some fun!

     how to impress a girl when we dont know her

Uh… there’s more than one of you?  I dunno about this group impressing concept.  “Okay, Jake, now it’s your turn!  Here, I’ll throw you the ukulele and unicycle!”  Personally, I’d lean towards the one-guy-per-girl sort of thing (unless you’re in the Bay Area and then, hey, as long as no one gets hurt…).  What’s that?  Oh… my lawyers have insisted that I add this disclaimer:  if you do try to woo her with a unicycle, use a helmet, please.  And a slotted spoon for catching the potato. (I have weird lawyers).

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And now we veer into slightly less romantic territory.

     flies in my apartment

That’s nothing.  I have bats in my belfry AND I’m going bananas!  Anyway, just go to the store to get some flypaper and then call your landlord.  No… don’t call him that!  You can catch more flies with honey…

And speaking of sweet (oooo… love these transitions!  Adam, were you once a newspaper editor?  Why, yes I was!)...


     calories in moonstruck truffles

Okay, let me be politically incorrect for a moment.
- Similar to the how-much-does-that-necklace-in-the-window-cost rule:  If you have to ask, you can’t afford to eat it.
- No, there aren’t low fat / low cal truffles.
- Even if there were, they’d be an affront to dog and man.
- And lastly, yes, you have a big butt, I cannot lie.

For those who CAN afford anything they ask about…


     what 100 billion dollars can buy

Whoa… er, hi, Bill!  A pleasure to have you visiting my blog!  I’m delighted to answer your question (what, Clippy was unavailable?)
100 billion dollars can cover…
- A very large portion of my student loans.
- A brain transplant for a good many members of the U.S. Congress, particularly Ted Stevens.
- And… oh, wait, I guess that’ll pretty much use up the 100b.  Still, they’re both such worthy causes!

And finally… for those who don’t have 100 billion to spend on fancy gym equipment, there’s the following:


     work outs for tall people

Certainly, that’s an easy one.  Lift short people.

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Thank you, come again!