elizabeth grigg - the other fourth meal

Today I found out from Chris Pirillo that there's a calendaring project going on through Mozilla. One thing just from observing this Lightning / Mozilla spec page as well as the Chandler spec page: both projects are in an extraordinary low level of detail at the moment. There is virtually no high level thinking in the specs, which is perhaps fine for the task at hand. It doesn't help us outside observers, though. I would like to know, for both these projects, whether unseating Outlook is the cause celebre or is there something new for users in there somewhere. However I'm a little scared of addressing the open source crowd to ask this. I'd like to bring something useful to the table when talking to them rather than demand their projects fit my needs right off the bat. And, as my own calendar can attest to, I have precious little time. This is broken, obviously, anyone reading this blog knows that calendaring and time management is a core competency of mine, so if I can't a) organize my own calendar to make room for core work like this, and b) actually provide something nice for these projects, like a UI-level spec taking advantage of existing code, then something is seriously broken. I have to look into this.

Speaking of Chris, I've subscribed to your mailing list Seattlelist. I was born and raised in this briar patch, so I'm happy to offer any little items of use.
* Vivace on Broadway/Denny: I don't know if this is the best coffee in Seattle, but it does meet up to international standard. Do yourself a favor and order a "double tall." The latte is implied. Don't like lattes? Do yourself a favor and give up the search for best coffee until you think you can change your tune. I have seen lots of new residents and tourists screwing up in line at Vivace. Here is some advice, short of getting something pierced (which of course would give you some leeway). Do not get into discussions with the barista about the difference between all the drinks. Do not pursue a dunkin donuts style cup of drip coffee at this establishment. Do not be loud. Do not add syrup, that is a choice of last resort to be used at Tullys / Drivethrough establishments. This is about being in Rome. Best to just pump your head at the Radiohead and listen warmly to the banter other customers are able to generate with the barista. Relevant banter is your tip to them. Work up a suitable subject matter if you should be so lucky they would want to listen. All I know is following this advice got my canadian cousin who was a dyed in the wool english earl grey tea drinker hooked on coffee, which believe me in this town is a good thing.
* Dicks. If you think you might want to live here, see if you can choke down a seattle special (deluxe, fries, shake) without grumbling about ketchup being extra. A grumble means you will move away. This is like a magic 8ball thing.
* Pacific Place. Parking here is supercheap weekdays after 5pm and weekends, so this is your hub for getting downtown. Note that your car has to enter the lot after 5pm to get the rate. Between Pacific Place and M16 you will get access to all the movies that are out, so no sense reading the newspaper or internet, you'll just end up parking at Pacific Place anyway.
* This town goes North and South. If you're travelling east or west, you'll get stuck in traffic. Not very useful advice other than to set expectations.
That's it for now, hope it's not too snotty.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I mistakenly wrote to someone in India today, on usual business, without the disclaimer a considerate person would make. Something that acknowleged the tradgedy. Perhaps "If you're reading this, you're still alive, so I might as well proceed." Or "If you're not doubled over in grief, there's this tiny work related matter for you to consider." But in my rudeness I did not even acknowlege. (Note to self: get iespell installed again).

Riding home in the car, trying to get a grasp on an entire country getting flushed out like a dotcom era disaster movie. It's not possible. Kids are scared of monsters, and this is as monstrous as the world gets. Perhaps if I was deeply religious, I could take comfort in the supposed pending resolution later. Then it hit me: This is not about you. This is a natural disaster. It's not an opportunity to prove you're emotionally ready for anything. Even if it were, it's not about you anyway. Drive along now, in your blissful state, over that rickety bridge in the rain.

The conversation, right now, is about observation and self reflection. Everyone is doing it. It's brave but not hard. Make sense? Like bungee jumping is brave but not a difficult thing to do. (Like I know). I wonder about taking action, though. This seems to be skill based. Like picking up and moving somewhere that has unmeasurable and purely social results. Like starting a new people-based job when all the people are on vacation. Or take Word templates. I was happy to see new ones for useful things like a food diary, but then I saw them and how little skill went into them. Action requires skill, not clip art.

My point to this rambling post is perhaps New Years should be saved for June when we all have some time to deal with it.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:31 PM | Permalink

This is the time of year where people use their funny schedule to hunker down and analyze the course they are taking. Steer left or right? The theme goes through the holidays, and as we get older and supposedly more responsible it tends to dominate them. This is fine.

What is, perhaps, not fine, is how much we believe our own happiness is a function of our own actions. The "best practices" when it comes to personal change is to believe we can have it all, or be anything, if we have self awareness and diligence. The best practices say it's downright defeatist to blame anyone else for it, or to attribute missing pieces to outside influences.

But seriously, sometimes life just doesn't deliver the goods. It's not your fault. In fact, right now you have everything you need from a personal evolution standpoint. You are a compelling and breathtaking individual. A hundred people have crushes on you behind your back and a hundred more think of you as influential, and if that's not enough your friends and family think you are the cat's pajamas too.

So maybe it's time to live in the house we have, rather than craning our necks around the porch to admire the house we want?

I don't know. I escaped last night to watch a movie by myself. I was filled with all that old 1999 energy, and expected "American Beauty" out of "Closer" which I did not get. This is not a transformative or romantic movie, but it is a mighty good chess game. Also it's about as sexy as a movie can get without showing any. Scratch that, it wasn't sexy, but the topic was sex. They talked about happiness in the movie quite a bit. The flaw for the characters was that they believed they would be happy if everyone was dealing with them honestly, oh, and they were sure they'd be happy if they (the characters) were successful and intriguing as well. In fact, the dynamic that the characters didn't know about was that they would be happy if they just behaved that way. Nothing more. No endless questions and self assesments, just a behavior. Sometimes happiness means not asking questions. True? False? Left? Right?

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 08:47 AM | Permalink

Dave, guess what, we skip Xmas too. It started with just me, refusing to buy Xmas presents for other people to give other people. That's right, I'd be shopping my wallet to pieces buying stuff that wasn't even from me. Not sure what your marital status is but if you're a female wife type then you know what I'm talking about. An announcement was required to people who normally get these proxy gifts from me. I said "Not sure what (dh's) plans are for presents this year. I'm scaling way back. Please don't give us anything, we are happy just to visit and share a meal." That's how it started. We had money, I think, at that juncture, but no time, so the announcement was a big win.

Later we hit a rough patch, and everyone knew it, and people who didn't know it were perfectly welcome to feel resentful for not getting some stupid token present from Starbucks which said "Thinking of you, sorta, you're on my list but in the 'budget' category." Nope, most people were just happy to hear our stories. Which were good enough to make anyone grateful for what they had. The rough patch lasted a few years and Xmas was officially tanked.

Now things are looking up and I'm delighted not to do Xmas still. It's a grandchild-grandparent thing anyway. We're completely out of the loop. I chickened out on a holiday party where I didn't know anyone, and I'm thrilled to be going to another holiday party where I've known everyone for 20 years. I've "husbanded" out, over the holidays, watching too much TV and eating things from the snack aisle in the grocery store. Drinking, but not much, just like having it in the house. Definitely no shopping. Unless you count the car, which I don't. (2005 Subaru Legacy whatever-i type, by the way. Not the bad ass one. The half ass one.)

Although, yesterday I broke down and wanted to buy something for my mom. It was a rice cooker, just like the one we bought for ourselves, that has a brown rice setting and you can program overnight. It took 10 minutes. We found a parking spot next to Uwajimaya (these people know rice), found the item, ran in and ran out. They wrapped it right after we paid for it. In order to make sure this moment of weakness does not start a Xmas trend back to overcomsumption, I'll call it a birthday present to her. Whew, off the hook. Thanks to January birthdays.

Xmas is a time to relax and try to recapture your connection with friends and family, which supposedly makes us all happy. If I can just keep from reading the newspapers (is it just me, or has there been a sharp increase in people taking their problems out on their kids?) I might actually be able to pull it off.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:56 AM | Permalink

How great to read this from KC Lemson! Excellent example of someone creating her own world from all the great stuff around.

Julie is writing about happiness too.

Perhaps I should explain what I mean by happiness. There's the American kind where you work hard someplace where you have limited control and influence, and then you take a 2 week vacation where you can be happy. Then there's the Zen kind where you don't ever want anything to be any different, you have removed desire from your mental structure, so crunch week is identical to a vacation. My idea is reverse-zen, where being in the fortunate position of desiring something uniquely qualifies you for the pursuit of it, and therefore being successful at getting it. You can think of happiness as being qualified for happiness. It's like a pointer. It's not an address in and of itself.

Don't get me started on **r.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Sidebar:
Egrigg9000's inarguable tenats of design
1) Never underestimate people's love for the color blue.
2) Never underestimate Microsoft's capacity for ire when compared to Apple.
(more coming)

Main Story:
After some sleepless nights, and countless sticky notes scrawled at inappropriate moments, I can now say that the direction of this blog will change pointedly in a non-tech direction. Why?
1) If these are the posts I find more interesting from others, perhaps I should write about that too. I mean really, were you all interested in my rants about InfoPath and Web Services? I didn't think so.
2) I have started an internal blog for my new project at Microsoft. How freeing! It's unbelieveable, I can write all about work, no NDA needed, no looking over my shoulder. I don't want to be elitist or secretive, but trust me you guys outside of Microsoft would find it a really boring read. If you're at Microsoft yourself you can have a look, the URL is http://blogs/sHOTs . Please in fact do so, and comment back here, it will make everyone feel better.
3) Ultimately, I think happiness is the problem I am trying to solve, and I'm geeky enough to think it can be solved with technology. So obliquely, this blog will still be all about tech in a way. Perhaps expanded to the word "technique," but tech is all about how.
4) Commuting home today I discovered a wise woman speaking on the radio. Her name is Maysa Leak. I'm too antsy to listen to the audio and attempt a reliable quote, but it went something like this:
"If you decide to center your life around happiness, if you decide you are going to be happy, and you are ready to claim your happiness, then success will come for you. Everything will fall together. And of course there are bills and faulty romantic partners and people out to get you, but if you pick happiness as your destination as well as your fuel it will be all around you in no time." Okay that's a really bad paraphrase, lots of additional words to explain why I had such a strong reaction. But it solidified for me what I want to be doing this year. I want to be happy, and to be successful as the result of that state, and everything is aligned to making that happen, minus perhaps a few superfluous brain cells devoted to worry.

I know with taking a break from tech in this blog I may have some people unsubscribe, but if you're geeky enough like me to think that happiness can be opened up like a 1950s TV set so you can see how it works, you will want to keep reading.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 07:32 PM | Permalink

I love that bloggers are getting to write actual books. This will be interesting from a process perspective. But then I got thinking, what about the inherent contradictions between the two mediums?

For example, one of the great things about blogging is that you don't have to take every post so darn seriously. It frees you up to write about anything at all. And then, miraculously, sometimes you get back to the point by going away from it. And sometimes not. Believe me, without that freedom, some blogs would really stink. Half of the blogs I read I hope for a personal post and when there's just something on-topic I sigh and move on. But when people are pitching a book, they have to take staying on-topic very seriously. They have to have the topic all thought-out ahead of time. They have to use words like "authority" and "passion" as if either were measurable or had any relationship with causality.* So if you structure your process of writing a book as a weblog, because it's friendly, it's what you're used to, and by golly it just happens to be the subject matter, won't you be shooting your writing in the foot by taking each post so seriously?

Book writing is creative, for which there is no prescription. My advice is to just write it and see what kind of lofty** adjectives you can attribute to it later.

Not sure why I have been obsessing on what the next tagline of my blog should be. It means far more to me than it does to my 2.3 readers, I'm sure. Ideally it encapsulates the one thing I plan to uniquely offer the world over the next year or so. It should reflect a personal quality, something only I can bring to the table on the subject. It should also be career related, because even on my first entry+ I was interested in having my blog be a career tool, with admittedly murky focus on a concrete end result. The personal posts are easier to write, but I always regret them. And the fact is I don't know what I'm doing yet beyond the next upcoming week. I would love to become the authority on calendaring using today's technology++, but as that's a peripheral activity to my current job I should probably be realistic and choose something broader. There's another large topical resource, in that I'm 80% the way there from being able to claim that I'm authority on all things program management. If such a claim had any value, which it doesn't. It would provide a good, basic backdrop for blogging much like the braidy tester does for testing. But I don't know, all that background is just that, it's background. The interesting thing is what you do with your abilities day to day. As for all the old program manager stories, the good ones, I want to use them for fictional projects and not go over them online. So ixne on a tagline like "uber program manager" or some such drivel. No to "Time Chef" or "Calendar Maven." No to "Program Manager's Corner" or "You want me to what???" as the tagline either. Hence the writer's block and the lack of posting, and the fact that my 100 days was over 10 days ago and still no change. I'm taking this tagline way too seriously. Who's going to police whether I stay on topic anyway? Well, I will, and if you haven't noticed I'm a tough critic.

So, coasting along, I will probably live with this question for awhile. My 2.3 readers will be patient, as it's too much work to unsubscribe to anything anyway. But if you're writing a book, you don't have time to coast...

* Causality is the religion of sorts that most of us subscribe to, where our actions correspond at all to the results observed. Take as an example a blog with authority. Is it authoritative because all the facts were double-checked? Maybe. Maybe also the blog is authoritative because the person spoke from the heart, each and every post, personal or professional. The term authoritative is not measurable, it's a feeling. Often correct. Now, take as an example a blog with passion. Does it have passion because, believing in causality, the blogger put one of those "PASSION" posters on the wall above their monitor, with a mountain scene or a rower or whatever photograph? Did willing that the blog become passionate result in this observation from the reader? If that sounds silly, think of what you're doing to your book via your proposal. Passion is a nonmeasurable quantity too, also not prescriptive, and might come from something random such as going against the grain, or lots of negative comments. You can be more passionate about something that everyone agrees with, but that will be perceived as neutral. Perhaps passion is something like what they say about characters in fiction, you should "show, not tell" about their characteristics. (Of course you'd be surprised how many great books break this rule. Again, ixne on the prescriptive rules for a great book.)

** Or smarmy

+ Posts should go back to fall of 2002, but can't find them on Radio's server. Surprised 2003 is there at all, in fact.

++ Funny link, eh? Sometimes I wish I lived in California so I could play too. And here's proof it takes more than a blog to pull a compelling product into the same league as the iPod.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes, I'm up at 4am, but why? One reason is I haven't had more than 6 hours of sleep all week, and I've hit 6 hours. The other is I had a nightmare, a stupid one, about the baby falling out of a roller coaster of all things, and the vivid, non-negotiable feeling of loss afterward. Getting up to shake the feeling, but the sense of finality remains.

Good time to read about Syon, and offer condolences to everyone whose life he touched. He will be missed over at my old team.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 04:04 AM | Permalink

I have had the song for the commercial for "Monchichi" in my head now for three weeks. Every now and then it leaps in with one line, disembodied, like a preposition. Elevator: Head: "Oh so soft and cud del ley." Elevator: "Ding." Exit elevator, life goes on unsuspecting. This is like a cancerous growth or something. I may need surgery.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 08:58 PM | Permalink

I just finished attending the lovemarks live meeting, with Tom Peters and Kevin Roberts. It was an interesting experience, I had not attended a live meeting before. It was fairly boring compared to the audio of the seminar, which came over a phone line, but then they whipped out the surveys. It was fun to watch the audience answer and see the results right away. Fun platform, but definitely in need of more ideas like that one to win people over.

I'm not sure what to say about lovemarks. I have been a reader of hugh at gapingvoid forever, and I know he thinks lovemarks is not worth beans as a concept. Where I think both the cluetrain and lovemarks philosophies agree is that money will be made through relationships. It seems the philosophies disagree on how to establish that relationship. Cluetrain prescribes having a conversation. Lovemarks prescribes emotion-based design. I'd like to sort through both concepts on a large whiteboard, putting statements from both philosophies on an xy axis, examining which statements are prescriptive and which are interpretive. This would be an important analysis. Nobody can use the information that iPod gives us. You can only interpret its success, you can only answer "why it was successful?" Other information, such as how to start with an idea, are prescriptive and can form your marching orders as a stakeholder in a product. I think the entire lovemarks/cluetrain concepts have been mired in interpretation and fall very short on prescription. Still, there are a few seeds we can glean, and that's why they pay us the big bucks, right?

Here are my raw notes, I'll look into them more later

design is the new black
emotion leads to action
this theory is interpretive, not prescriptive
the role of design is to turn shoppers into buyers
intimacy
u2 : what was that look
love/respect axis commodity / fads / brands / lm
fun: red or blue box interactivity
speakerphone - pain
good to great walgreens
women - how to woo
can a person be a lm
piles of crap
whole foods is trying to kiss my
course in creativity, innovation, and design "its very hard"
daniel pink right brain “the new mba is the mfa”
france italy and ireland coke and mcdonalds as ambassadors
how to take the concept into action.
NOT pepper your slides with stats. It's a creative exercise done in a supportive emvitonrmnet, take london drugs and the consultation booth.
roi i=involvement kevinisms lovemarks is a book or manifesto
lm belongs to customers
no difference between the store and the product
ideas are the currency of the future
music and art scores, cut the math budgets but accountants are creative, lawyers too

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm attending my first "Live Meeting" right now. Tom Peters is talking about things by way of introduction to the lovemarks guy (Kevin from S&S).

I'm a little distracted, rsvp-ing to the Joel on Software geek dinner at the same time.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:14 AM | Permalink

I read this open letter to the democratic party.

I had an emormously hard time with Kerry's small slip of the tounge when referring to accusations of "flip flopping" on the issues. His tongue twisted all around trying to say that phrase, just calling attention to it, and that's all we as a country remember. Apparently we are not subtle people. Physical stooge brothers comedy like this will win out every time over spending media attention on something that requires any abstract thought.

I quote the open letter here in italics, and my thoughts are below:

You didn't give me clear positions on the issues. I followed the news closely all through the campaign, but I still don't understand Kerry's position on Iraq. I know he voted for the IWR, but then he voted against the $87 billion. To you, that seemed to be a symbolic stand against Saddam Hussein (the IWR) but also a principled stand against a President who was out of control (against the $87 billion). To me, that was just confusing. He said he would have done everything different, but he also said that, knowing what he knew today (the day he was asked) he still would have cast the same vote.

If you accept the premise that SH had to be taken out, you don't necessarily have to agree to spend 87 billion to do so. This is no more confusing than deciding to buy a home, and deciding what your price range is. We had him at, say 40 billion, so it's not a contradiction to see the additional money come under question. Granted this is an extreme oversimplification to illustrate this concept: you can decide to do a thing, and also decide to what degree and to what cost.

He said that he would bring allies to our side to share the burden, but he also said he would be sending 40,000 more of our troops.

You can't have both of these? We can't have both external support as well as more troops from the US?

He said that we must finish the job, but he also said it was the wrong war at the wrong place and the wrong time.

The wrong war / wrong place / wrong time speech is Kerry's observation of the poor impulse control of the Bush administration. We went into this war like a freak trip to disneyland during finals week. Once you're there (disneyland), missing your finals, should you say, well, we're here so we might as well stay forever? Or do you take a few rides while you wait for your plane, and then responsibly pack back up for school? Again, there is no contradiction here.

Huh?

If we were all 3 years old, and ran our government on the gold star system, then Kerry would have been an awful choice. Under that context, who needs a leader who can tell the difference between intention and responsibility? But the fact is, the world is complicated, and our reactions to it need be as well. Holding up a chart of binary positions a leader can take is misleading, and pure packaging.

I miss having a president who understands the world is messy, and needs to work within that context to keep everyone humane to each other. Right now we have a president who views the world as clean, polarized, black and white, and is taking appropriate action only if this was a screenplay with a happy ending around the corner. The real world won't wrap up that cleanly. Especially if voters rely more on packaging than skills to make their decisions.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:15 AM | Permalink

How could my precious ego resist trying my own name, when Ben Hammersley tried his? And of course, little miss Elizabeth Griggs with an S wins out in the land of Google Suggest. I'm not even on the map. No offense honey, doulas rock, and people love the S by the way. Just try to go a day without it, you'll end up correcting everyone. We never had this problem before the die-hard movies. The rest of you now, don't you go off and try your own name without a stiff drink, or a devil-may-care attitude, or both! I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 11:56 AM | Permalink

I'm sending out this shared album through e-mail / ofoto, but if you're one of my readers you have to click here. Here's what the e-mail would look like:

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 05:59 AM | Permalink

I was excited to see Dave Winer's discovery of the Seattle Times RSS feeds. It felt a little patriotic, I guess, to actually have hope for the local paper, despite all evidence to the contrary. However, they are not full text feeds. A partial feed is worthless. This is a big problem with the integration of blogging software, newsreaders, and perhaps the standard itself. It's a usability problem too, with the fix sometimes requiring tag work, which is the equivalent of having your client side software customers open regedit. Anyway, buh-bye Seattle Times, that was a good try, but we'll check in later. P.S. It's not your fault. Entirely.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 10:07 PM | Permalink

I have thought of a new way to write fiction. When a completely disembodied one-liner comes into your head, write it down, and then build the entire novel, scene, or character around its delivery.

This occured to me on a day that you-know-who gets to have dinner with somebody-famous and they talk about how to write a novel (and pick one out at the store, but who cares about that?). And, of course, I completely disagree.

I honestly believe that writing is reacting to the existing world in text format. It's reactive. You can't sit down and say "I want to write something scary." or "I want to write about something I love." This is not a reaction, it's a prescription, and it will never work. Not because you aren't skilled enough, or have enough ideas, but the mind simply doesn't work that way. The memory that humans have for storytelling is not query-based. This is why job interviews are so hard, the questions are so out of context (What was your biggest technical challenge), that any answer seems forced. But if you're trying to get something technical up and working with someone, you might be able to pull that past experience up more easily. And it will be a better story. That's how storytelling works, it's reactive.

Blogging works great for the natural human storytelling instinct because it inherently reacts to ideas presented by others. This is why people who don't normally consider themselves writers will find blogging an easy task. It's the difference between Tennis and a nice game of Roll the boulder uphill all by yourself. For too many struggling writers, they are encouraged to think of their task as the latter. And if you try to follow that famous person's advice, that is how it will feel.

An action item for me is to purchase a discreet tape recorder (or digital equivalent) for those one liners, none of which I can think of at the moment. 3x5 cards would work too, but there will be a lot of commuting in my near future. Yes, my PocketPC is too hard to use. Plus, its memory gets nuked every time it gets thrown across the room. I just don't trust it.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:02 AM | Permalink

This time, I was at Starbucks outside the medical offices in an area of Seattle called "pill hill." I hadn't planned to be there, I was on a personal hunger strike to combat this bug. That lasted all of three hours. Then it was "maybe I should eat something, I'd feel better." Obviously the only sensible choice was spice cake. Har. The only thing I can say about my willpower is I avoided coffee. Even I know that coffee and a stomach bug have no place together. So as the caffeine-withdrawl headache started up its engines, I tried to eat enough food to justify a couple of pills. As I said, Starbucks was perhaps a poor choice for this almost financial transaction with my body I was having. (I'll give you this spice cake, if you get distracted long enough to let the tylenol work, and then you can go back to your grousing. Deal? Oh, I'll throw in the no coffee promise. There, we're even.)

Anyway, I was floored to listen to a not-very-quiet conversation next to me. There is a certain look that women get if they are in pharmaceutical sales. The grooming is immense. The shoes shined. The hair sprayed. You can spot 'em a mile away, especially in Seattle. This woman next to me was unique because she had all this, yet she could have been the sister of (my dh's rock band's lead singer Casey Scott, who has shall we say "punk sensibility." Which is something you can have without actually being punk. But it doesn't wash off, either.) So she had a bit of an edge. I'll call her Punky.

I can't recount her conversation with her superior verbatim. Let's just say the following was communicated between the two:
* Punky's sales numbers were not favorable
* Eventually the reasons Punky kept giving for the sales numbers not being favorable were going to "stop looking like reasons and start looking like excuses." [Note: this is a great line, see my other post on reactive storytelling]
* Punky brought up the fact that the reasons her sales were not what was expected were:
a) the bar was raised without any evidence that the market could support it
b) certain baseline numbers were no longer being included in her numbers, thus painting a picture of sudden bleakness when in fact it was status quo or better
c) she was not going to resort to the sleazeball tactics of "john" (not his real name) in order to get her numbers up, that those tactics are what she's taking the heat for now, and they hurt everyone in the industry.

I left before I could get to the part where Punky gets some sort of ultimatum. This conversation scared the daylights out of me! How many other Vioxx and Phen phens are out there, due to tactics like this? And no wonder salespeople have a hard time with the concept of transparency and blogging.

And if markets are conversations, I just heard a doozy.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:00 AM | Permalink

What does "the good stuff" mean to you, when you look online for information or entertainment? Is it scarcity, such as a scoop on a product release? Or, scarcity of perspective, such as when spotting a trend?

I remember back in the early days of MSN, when they were thinking of beating NBC at their own game. Turning out "shows" presumably like friends except in flash over dialup. Yeah, they're going a different direction now. But then, the catchphrase was "compelling content." Whatever your content was, it had to be compelling or it was toast.

Then there was the descriptor "world class." Don't get me started. I once overheard a UW student describe a tech internship to his aghast friends. I listened to every word, this guy was fun. Most important is he said to his friends, "Anyone tells you something is world class, or has to be world class, just run. Drop your laptop and run." Implying that someone who would use that phrase had such a limited grasp on the specific, your very life would be in danger.

Talk to easpouse, perhaps it is.

Of course I think toast is compelling. Especially if you time the butter right.

There's no escaping the fact the blogs are writing. This means that it follows the natural pattern of the writing world: there are published people who CAN, and unpublished people who CAN'T. On a daily basis the published people churn out shlock, where the unpublished people spend most of the time agonizing about being unafilliated, until eventually a unique observation leaks in between the cracks of self doubt and a piece of good writing emerges.

What's more wonderful than a weblog good enough to pay for itself? A weblog that could.

That's the good stuff.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:07 PM | Permalink

elizabeth grigg - cockamamie scheme du jour

of course it's hard to spell

and long

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:03 PM | Permalink

I'm in that golden window of time where I know my start date for my new job, so I can relax. I also have babysitters for the kids, and occasionally a car to drive temporarily. We even get to act like we have money. It's like getting two weeks of vacation in your own house. I highly recommend it. So far I've made a happy little work wardrobe (Accenture has a dress code!) all corraled off in the armoire in the living room. This is so I can wake up early and leave the house without having to come in and out of the bedroom a hundred times. Plus, it just looks nice.

Part of the reason for my start date to be Dec 15th is that my 100day break doesn't end until Dec 6. However, some of the vast multitudes of people making money off of this position I will be holding have calculated the end date instead to be Dec 8. Which brings me to:

What exactly is your new job and what will you be doing?

and

What is your new tagline going to be for your weblog?

These questions have similar answers. I want my tagline to be the specific angle I bring to this position that's different and unique from what anyone else would bring to it. I want it to be representative of the reason why the project succeeds, with me on it. Based on what I know about the job, it will have something to do with developer best practices, their aversion or friendliness to process, and the effectiveness of various techniques. There's evangelism across groups. And a touch of embedded reporting in there too. But what does that say about me? Perhaps the tagline will be something like: Chief Storytelling Officer, MSN Tools. Because especially with dev projects and post mortems, reality is the story you tell about it afterward.

What with the holidays and a big snowstorm coming, I probably will keep the 100 days tagline in there until the first of the year, and bore you all with my search for a car instead. We just flunked out one of the beautiful new subaru legacys because of the lack of clearance for the person in the back seat, if a tall person is driving. I will go make a little shrine now to cry in front of. Sniff.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 07:51 AM | Permalink

Jay, one thing that would really help you right away is to hire a car service. Yes, a chauffeur. This is serious time you would get back, and it would just be temporary until you got your place, yes? I read once about an exec who wanted to accept a job, but hated the thought of the commute. The car service completely neutralized the commute as a barrier to accepting the position, and reportedly was key to his success, etc etc.

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There is lots to do. And I'm sitting here blogging. Sound familiar?

Last night the first thing I did after I found out I got a job was to turn up the heat. It was set at a miserly 64. Normal is 68 or 69. Then I arranged for a babysitter so me and my dh could have our first dinner out in months. Kingfish, our location of choice, was closed on Tuesdays, so we rode the bus #48 to Cafe Lago. Let's just say Lago was a restaurant I discovered in the dotcom years and sortof belongs there, wrapped in its own time travel internet bubble, and we can all visit if we want. The food was fine, elegant, and unobjectionable. This is food that rich people eat to sustain themselves, but it's not superspecial or anything. Oh, look, there's Rob Glaser two tables down. There will be another time to talk to him about old times. Last night was not the night. I do remember that the man is a winker. It's a rare guy who can use a wink as a method of content delivery and encryption. That may be just one of the coolest things about him. But last night I ignored him - we had important things to talk about.

The big questions were, what car should we buy and when, and how will our schedules go, and how will the holidays go, and what to do about paying for things now even though I don't yet have a paycheck. I know what you're thinking, there are these little plastic devices that allow you to pay for things before you have the money, but let's just say we're allergic. Last August, when we thought we had money, we picked out a Scion XB for the family. Then we found out we didn't have any money, so the point was moot. Since then, every time I have seen one on the road I have thought "boy, I'm glad I didn't buy that car." So needless to say last night I turned a simple car purchase into a big research operation. The Scion is the perfect car for us, but it's just too embarassing to look at, and I'd feel like ZZTop. I'd feel like a wannabe. It's just not right culturally. So now we're looking for a certified used minivan, with an extensive warranty and a promise that nothing will break on it, low miles, and has (like the Scion) great gas mileage and a price point of 14k. The Scion had all that and it was new. Oh well. I told my dh that each of us gets a veto about the car, and I had just used mine up, so he can console himself with that as well as his own perfectly valid veto still to be used. Then it was time to ride the bus home. Who pays 80 bucks for dinner and then rides the bus home? We do. What a couple of goofs.

I am spending today getting my act together before my start date. Emotionally it's a big thing. I was completely braced for not working. I took the kids out of school for Dec and Jan, which allowed the occasional movie in the finances. Now they're back in. I had lots of play dates I now need to cancel. Tiny tots symphony, mighty mites, soundbridge, the works. I also have to re-think the fact that I've essentially run a restaurant for the past 3 months, and this has to scale back for my working life. I may indeed return some smoked mozarella I bought at Safeway that turns out to have been expired - as my last compulsive act of frugality. ($8!) Broadly, I have to decide how exactly I plan on wrapping up this "packaging retreat," meaning it would be great to print out a couple copies of my spec portfolio just for good measure. It's too much for 2 weeks, hence the getting act together time today.

When Voodoo Vince (an Xbox game) gets his mission, he has just woken up really. He looks at his creator and listens, and then says ohkAy, as if the world was nutty and he just needs his coffee. I know how he feels.

By the way, I wouldn't trade places with anyone!

Posted by Elizabeth Grigg at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)