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jstrauss – Page 12

Flickr Machine Tags Rule, Y! Local & Yelp Don’t

I *heart* Flickr machine tags. The integration with Upcoming (e.g. Flickr & Upcoming) is a model of Web 2.0 bliss. Yes, I’m a nerd (this post definitely goes beyond the more flattering “geek”). But, watching my identity (and thus content) seamlessly span the best-of-breed services of my choosing makes my heart melt — seriously, I’m that big of a loser. And the most beautiful thing about it is that this integration has absolutely *nothing* to do with the fact that these two products happen to both fall under the same purple corporate umbrella. The Flickr machine tags API is totally open and can work with any site that applies for an application key. (I must add that 360 tried to do a lot of this type of stuff with the ill-fated Feeds, but the implementation was just too proprietary and confusing to really catch on.)

If Web 1.0 was a land-grab of getting users to store stuff with your service (and holding on to it as tightly as possible), Web 2.0 is about creating added value with stuff that’s not locked-in to and may not even be stored with your service. Yahoo! Photos used to gladly allow you to upload high-res images, but only paying subscribers could get them back at their original resolution — this is mercifully no longer the case. Flickr never tried to use your investment in their service as a coercive force (either to get you to stay forever or to pay to leave). Instead, they focused their energies on features that created value on top of your initial investment of uploading and possibly annotating your photos. To succeed in a market with no real switching costs (e.g. the consumer internet), when users invest in your product, you must use that investment to make it better for them to stay not to make it harder for them to leave.

As big a mental shift as this is from the business models of only a couple of years ago, I feel like this type of philosophy is pretty much conventional wisdom at this point (at least in my circles). That’s why I was so shocked to see that neither Yahoo! Local nor Yelp are using Flickr machine tags to link photos to establishments in their databases. Instead, both ask you to upload your photos directly with the sole purpose of correlating with that establishment. Puke!!! I already have my chosen best-of-breed photo sharing service. Why are you *forcing* me to duplicate that effort and use your crappy single-purpose tool as well?!

I took the above photo at the Great Western Steak and Hoagie Company in LA this weekend. I thought it was a pretty cool photo, so I uploaded it to Flickr from my phone. Tonight, I was going through this weekend’s photos adding tags etc. And instead of placing this photo on the Flickr map (which is an awesome, but unscalably time-consuming feature), I wanted to link it to local reviews of the place where I took it (and maybe even write my own review). I was disappointed, but not wholly surprised to find Yahoo! Local doesn’t yet have Flickr integration (disappointed because they’re in the same Business Unit, not surprised because the overlap between audiences is probably relatively low). But when I pinged my friend who works at Yelp to see if they had Flickr integration hidden somewhere on their site (a feature that would have totally gotten me to switch from Yahoo! Local, which only integrates with my less useful 360 identity, to Yelp), I was sorely disappointed.

Not only was she unaware of the machine tags feature on Flickr (admittedly, relatively new), but even after an explanation insisted that Yelp was more interested in having me upload my photos to them than making it easier to integrate with the service where I (and I’m sure a substantial portion of their user-base) *already* upload our photos. I guess my disappointment stemmed from the fact that I had been tricked into thinking that Yelp was a Web 2.0 version of Yahoo! Local, but then it dawned on me — it’s really Web 2-faux. Yes, it’s got the sexy, young, geek-chic brand identity that we’ve come to associate with the second coming of the consumer Internet. But when you actually take a look past the surface, there’s nothing more than an old-school reviews site with some excellent (and “cunningly cost-effective“) hipster marketing. I would hire Stoppelman and co. to take my stodgy old product and give it youth appeal without substantive changes anytime, because that seems to be exactly what they’ve done with Yelp.

Once I came up with this little hypothesis, I scoured the Yelp site for any evidence of true openness. Any developer APIs? Nope. Content syndication? Yes, a couple of RSS feeds — but, that’s more Web 1.5. Any identity portability in or out (MySpace badges and the like)? Not that I can find. Yelp employees (cuz “Yelpers” are the users), come one you can do better. Facebook has some awesome APIs, and I’m sure you guys share a huge overlap in target demographics. Why not hook up to that and import all my relationships without me having to recreate my entire social map from scratch in your system? Or create badges so I can display my Yelp activity on other sites? Or hook up to Flickr machine tags so I only have to upload my photos *once* — oh, we covered that already.

Om was talking today about social networks as a feature of all products. He brings up a good point of the inevitable commoditization of the technologies that spawned Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. But, I think there’s a more important point to be made than the trend towards the elimination of the standalone social network — and that’s the demand for social network neutrality. I may use a lot of different services online (and will only continue to use more), but there is only one me. The companies that offer me cool services to express myself while allowing me to connect these various dots of my online identity into the meta-picture of my choosing will have the competitive edge on the post-2.0 Web.

Welcome Vista! (and other news)

I would like to be the second Widgeteer to publicly welcome Microsoft Windows Vista into the world. And here comes the shameless plug: Yahoo! Widgets 3.1 (our current version) officially supports Windows Vista, making ours the leading Widget platform for Vista with over 3,700 Widgets available for you early adopters to start using *right now*.

Anyway, per the parenthetical in the post title, there’s also some other news that seemed to get lost in the whole Vista launch hullabaloo. Today, after 2 years, 7 months, and 16 days at Yahoo! and a little over 8 months as a product manager, I shipped my first product. (Can you believe CNET missed that?!) It’s nothing major — in fact, it’s kinda been my side project for the last 6 weeks while we work on some bigger sexier things (coming soon…) — just a Yahoo! Search gadget for the Windows Vista Sidebar and an accompanying page that aggregates downloadable software from Yahoo! available for Vista. (Note: You must have Vista actually installed for all of this to work properly)

This first definitely means a lot to me — it’s what I’ve wanted to do since I came to Yahoo!. And, what means even more to me is all the hard work put in by the people who made it happen. Thanks to Jeff, Billy, and Alfonso at The Skins Factory for your tireless efforts as well as to Brady, Marcus, Ariel, Anne, Shane, John A., Arlo, and Ed for your help. And, an extra special shout-out to Derrick and John H., who burned the midnight oil to get it all live on Vista launch day.

Making this week even better is the very positive response to the blog post Ed and I worked on over the weekend (thanks to Zealous, Brady, and Thi for their help as well). While TechCrunch called the post “surprisingly unbiased,” my favorite analysis came from a French blogger, who said it was (and excuse my rusty Francais) “a superb lesson on the transparency and authenticity of teams at Yahoo!”. It is really gratifying to see an honest and open approach to communicating with our developers and users pay off in this way. All of us on the team are extremely passionate about what we are doing, and I feel that shines through.

Which brings me to the final bright spot of this week, the team. Those of you who know me personally know that the last 8 months haven’t been the easiest. When I came into the group, there was a bit of uncertainty. But, we have continued to work hard — building great products while also building a great team. And even though we’re all working our tails off, it seems like I’m having more fun coming to work everyday because of who I get to work with and what we get to do. Yesterday, one more piece fell into place. But, we’ve got a few more spots left to fill. So, check out the jobs that show up when you do a search for “Widgets” here.

Three things to smile about this week, and it’s only Tuesday.

Grammar Wars

For a couple of people who work in tech, Ed and I argue over grammar and usage a lot. We’re currently working on an upcoming post for the Widgets Blog, and got into it over the English use of the French word “naitre,” as in “nee.” I originally used it in the French masculine (“ne”), which Ed then changed to the feminine (“nee”). At which point, the following IM conversation ensued:

Me: u made konfab feminine?
Ed Voas: i guess i did.
Me: ok
Ed Voas: but i suppose it doesn’t need to be
Ed Voas: just so used to seeing it that way
Me: conformist
Ed Voas: in fact, i think in its english use, it’s always nee
Me: no
Ed Voas: yes
Me: u and arlo decide if u want it to be an homme or femme
Ed Voas: hey, we don’t speak french here, and according to even dictionary.com, nee can simply mean “formerly known as” and there is no entry for ne.
Me: oh, and dictionary.com is such an authority
Me: i heard it just replaced the OED as the scrabble bible
Ed Voas: well, the cite is from AHD, so suck it
Me: im going to blog this and have a poll
Ed Voas: ok. good luck with that.
Ed Voas: and the next time you use “begs the question” wrong, we’ll see if anyone cares
Ed Voas: or “moot”
Me: i use moot correctly
Me: we established that
Ed Voas: point being, you suck
Ed Voas: i should be a debater
Ed Voas: and in conclusion, neener.
Me: oh thats totally going in my post!
Ed Voas: the 6 of us will appreciate that

I think Ed is technically right in that English has totally bastardized the correct usage of the French original. But, that’s not a reason to give in. I’m standing on principle that a foreign word should retain it’s usage rules when appropriated in another language — even if those rules are not normally applicable in the new language (e.g. the gender of an object).

Nerdy enough for ya? Weigh in below to help us decide the battle of the grammar-inclined Widgeteers.

In Training (for now)

Back in November, I entered the Yahoo! Turkey Trot 5k on a whim. I have been running semi-regularly for a couple of years now depending on work (so, “semi-regularly” is probably a little too generous). I generally do 2.5-3 miles at a 7:30-8:00 min mile pace, depending on how much I’ve been running or not running at any given time. One day back in September when I had been running a little more than usual, I just decided to keep going and ran a personal best 6 miles. I actually felt like I could have kept going even further (after 4 miles I slowed down to an 8:30 min mile), but had to stop because of a meeting. I think it was that run that made me decide to still do the Turkey Trot, my first ever race, even though I was coming off several weeks of not running and didn’t get in the training I had planned.

The thing that scared me the most about the race was that I always run on a treadmill and have yet to figure out how to properly pace myself without one (I don’t really like wearing a watch when I run, which is the biggest issue). So, I decided to pick someone who I thought would run at a safe pace for me and challenge him to a match race. While it was a good idea in theory, my chump-picking skills are apparently a bit rusty. As we were walking from the meeting point to the starting line, I sidled up to Holger and, not so humbly, challenged him to a friendly match race (I believe my exact words were something like, “I couldn’t possibly lose to you, even though I haven’t run in weeks”). Well suffice it to say that I got mine. Not only did Holger beat me by 1 min and 13 seconds, but I nearly killed myself trying to keep up (not having a watch and falsely assuming that his pace was as slow as my normal one made me think that I was running slower than usual).

In the end, I actually won my age group and did it at a respectable pace of 7:32 min per mile. The joy of that victory was somewhat tempered by the fact that there were only 4 other people in the Male Under 30 group (however, I did take a bit of pleasure in the fact that this guy was one of them and finished 1:37 min behind me — sorry dude). But, none of that erased the fact that I lost my obnoxious challenge. I tried to make up for it by being a relatively gracious loser and giving Holger the gift certificate I won.

Anyway, Dag, the guy who got a bunch of us from Connected Life to run in the Turkey Trot, has been getting people to sign-up for the San Francisco Half-Marathon on February 4. I figured that if I started running hard 3 days a week 4 weeks before the race that I could have a reasonable shot of completing 13.2 miles in a not embarrassing time (or at least without walking). Well, t-4 weeks was last Sunday, and I ran exactly once last week. So, I’m thinking that the Half-Marathon might be out of reach this year. However, I want to start running more anyway. So, I’ve decided to pretend for the next 3 weeks that I’m going to run on February 4 (regardless of the fact that it’s also Super Bowl Sunday and the weekend of my mom’s birthday — but, what’s wrong with a bit of self-delusion for a good cause?).

Today was my first day of training, and I ran 4 miles at ~7:55 min per mile. I barely made it, which is not particularly encouraging. But, I was really sore from assembling furniture this weekend (you try crouching and crawling on the ground for 8 hours), and I’m hoping that had something to do with my suckiness today. I’m going to try to run again tomorrow, but I think I’ll just do 2.5 miles at 8:00 min per mile. On Thursday, I’m going to try to crack 6 miles again and hopefully hold it close to 8:00 min per mile.

Anyone want to handicap an over/under on how long this lasts?

As mentioned, I ran 4 miles @ 7:55 min per mile on Tuesday, then I ran 2.5 miles @ 7:43 min per mile on Wednesday and 5 miles @ 8:06 min per mile yesterday. Today, I rested — because it’s the Sabbath (no, actually that’s tonight and tomorrow). I plan to take the weekend off from running, and we’ll see what happens Monday.

Hooray for Yahoo! Go Mobile 2.0

It has yet to be officially announced as far as I can tell, but the Web and WAP sites appear to be live. So, I think it’s safe to tell you…Yahoo! Go Mobile 2.0 is here!!!
Check out http://mobile.yahoo.com/go on your PC or http://us.get.go.yahoo.com on your mobile phone.

The website says it runs on 73 phones from Nokia, RIM, Motorola, and Samsung (though, I have been testing it out on a Nokia 6682, which is a “supported” phone, and it has had serious memory issues — but, I think that’s because the 6682 is a pretty wack phone). So, unlike v1.0, normal people (i.e. not geeks with Symbian or Windows Mobile devices) will actually be able to use it.

I’ve been playing around with the product for the last couple weeks, and I have to say that it’s the first thing in a long time that I’m really psyched about. And, not just because I work at Yahoo!. This is legitimately something I want and want to use *every*day. And, everything about the launch, from the website to the download flow, seems to be well thought out and designed to make the user smile.

I wish I could say I was directly involved in this project, but I haven’t worked on it since June. Congratulations to everyone who has been. I know how hard you guys worked for this, and I hope you are as proud of the final result as I am. Way to go!!!

Inside the Mind of (a) Yahoo!

For better or for worse, Yahoo! has always been a pretty siloed organization. Each major Business Unit is very much a reflection of its leader’s personality and style. While the famed re-org promises to reduce the number of these silos (and make them more aligned with logically distinct business objectives), it shows no signs of reducing the autonomy of BU leadership — which is a great thing in my book.

The head of the BU in which I work, Connected Life, is Marco Boerries. And he is one of the main reasons I’ve remained at Yahoo! through all of the shit that has gone on in the last 18 months or so (there’s a big part of your answer Kareem). This is where the siloes come in handy — no matter how crazy things have gotten in YMG or with Panama, those of us in Marco’s world have been able to focus on our goals and have largely had the tools to achieve them.

For those of you not in the know, the mission of the Connected Life BU is to extend Yahoo! “beyond the browser” — specifically, that means mobile, digital home, and the PC desktop. Working in Connected Life is all about taking bleeding edge products and technologies and bringing them to Yahoo!’s mainstream audience, which is extremely challenging but always exciting. And, to my initial point, it’s also a lot about executing on Marco’s personal vision for how consumers will use Yahoo! across devices. Now, normally that would irk someone as headstrong as me — having to follow someone else’s lead. And at times, Marco and I have had some pretty heated debates. But for me, and a lot of other people I respect, it’s pretty hard to disagree with most of what Marco wants to get done.

Back in November, Marco was asked to deliver the opening keynote at >play. It provided a rare public glimpse into the philsophy that drives the vision behind some of the most interesting (IMHO) things going on at Yahoo! today. I posted about it at the time, and vowed to put the full deck up at some point.

So, here it is: http://straussnet.gorjk.com/random/PlayKeynote.pps

(Note to Y! Legal folks: this is information that has already been vetted by PR and presented in public)

And in the tradition of Ian‘s fantastic BarCampLA1 preso, here’s the text-only version:

“It’s the Consumers, Stupid!”
Technology = Consumer Empowerment
The Internet is the Ultimate Democratizing Innovation
Delivering Consumers What They Want is the Best Strategy
Case Study — Digital Music:
iPod/iTunes/iTMS = total vertical integration ->
Plays for Sure = completely open ecosystem ->
Zune = total vertical integration

There is Another Way
 You don’t have to build everything yourself, but you can’t leave it all to chance either
Through close partnership with industry-leading network operators and OEM’s, Yahoo! is extending our consumer-centric view across the value chain

What Consumers Want
It’s Not About Bringing the Device to the Internet
It’s About Bringing the Internet into the Device
Device-Optimized Experiences Leverage Features Unique to the Device
Example — Flickr:
Mobile Phone = Upload -> TV = View -> PC = Manage

What About Content?
Publishers want their Content Distributed as Widely as their Business Model allows
The Internet is Lowering Costs and Enabling New Business Models
Content Delivery is no longer a Publisher Pain Point
Content is no longer Scarce
Consumers care about the Relevance of Content, not it’s Source — “Tier 1 to Me”
“Context is King”

Social Relevance is the Key
Too Much Choice is the new Consumer Pain Point
Attention Management is the new Frontier of Innovation
The Evolution of Attention Management — Web Content:
Editorial = Y! Directory ->
Automated = Google Search; Y! Search ->
Social = del.icio.us; Digg; Y! MyWeb; Technorati

Notes:
– “Context is King” comes from a presentation Randy‘s been giving inside Y! and has promised to blog about (going all the way back to this post)
– “Attention Management” is a term I first heard from Ian
– 9 days after Marco delivered this presentation, Bear Sterns released a report called “The Long Tail: Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment”

My Christmas Odyssey

Like many, I had a bit of a time getting to where I was going this holiday. However unlike most of them, my issues were pretty much of my own doing. The 32.5 hours between when I first left my house and when I finally arrived in Aspen provided some interesting (mis)adventures. And thanks to Twitter (with a little help from Flickr), I managed to capture most of it in what I like to call my Web 2.0 travelogue (comments in [ ] were added after the fact).

Enjoy…

[December 22: I called a cab for a 5:45pm pick-up to catch a 7:05pm. I was planning to check 1 bag (+2 carry-ons), but I had checked-in online and United now offers online bag check at SFO. The cab was there on time, but I didn’t get downstairs until 6pm. Then I realized I forgot my laptop charger. Ok, now it’s 6:05pm and we’re just leaving the Marina. As long as we get there in 20 minutes, I should be fine.

We actually make it there by 6:25pm. But, I forgot that this is the Friday night before Christmas and the airport is pretty packed. While United.com makes it sound like the online bag check is just a simple drop off, I spend 20 min in line before the agent tells me to just try to gate check the bag. I then end up arguing with a security guy for 5 min about whether or not I can bring 3 bags through security — guess who wins. It’s now 15 min before my flight is supposed to leave and they tell me I have no choice but to get in line to be rebooked.

Well, I know that means I’m not going anywhere until after Christmas. So, I furiously cram the contents of my backpack and the backpack, itself, into my other 2 bags. Get through security with 2 bulging bags, flight leaves in 5 min. Run to the monitors (keep in mind that one of these bags has my ski boots and all my ski clothes, so running is not easy) to see what gate my flight’s at. It’s delayed by 20 min, hallelujah! Get to the gate, and then the fun really starts…]

Me – Flight cancelled. But, at least they’re rescheduling it for tomorrow morning. Higher powers willing, I’ll still be on the slopes tomorrow. 07:49 PM December 22, 2006 from mobile

[The details of what transpired in the 13 hours between these two Twitter updates are, and will remain, somewhat shrouded in mystery. What I do know is that after arriving home from SFO around 8:30pm, I repacked my bags (2 back to 3) and booked a cab to pick me up at 4:30am the next morning. Then, I figured I’d pop by the bar for a drink or two. Well, two drinks turned into more, and the next thing I know I wake up 3 hours after my flight was supposed to leave.]

Me – Ok, now I just straight up missed my flight… 09:01 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Roger – That sux js 09:18 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – So, I’m on my way to Oakland to try to catch a 10am to Salt Lake. And if I don’t make that (which I prob won’t), I’m driving 1200 miles. 09:31 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Ok, I’m driving. 1,200 miles = 12 hours, right? 10:04 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Roger – Thats the spirit 10:19 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

[Here’s the route I took (had to use G Maps, because Y! Maps gives a different (some would say wrong) route.]

Me – Mile 0.1 – Oakland, CA; Mental state: hung-over and not fully grasping the reality of the situation. 10:40 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Patrick – Red bull+funyuns 11:19 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 40.3; GPS sez: arriving @ 5:45am; Mental State: GPS don’t know shit! 11:18 AM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 106 – Roseville, CA; GPS Sez: arriving @ 5:42am; Mental State: need Gatorade 12:13 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 182 – Truckee, CA; GPS Sez: arriving @ 5:19am; Mental State: Tahoe is far, but Aspen is farther. Still need Gatorade. 01:19 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 263 – Churchill County, NV; GPS Sez: arriving @ 4:58am; Mental State: Pissed that the Pontiac G6 cruise control doesn’t go over 105. 02:18 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 300 – Somewhere in NV; GPS Sez: arriving @ 4:45am; Mental State: 1/4 of the way there & sobering up. This doesn’t feel like such a good idea [anymore] 02:39 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 333 – 95 miles East of Battle Mountain (“Halfway to everywhere”); GPS Sez: arriving @ 3:47am; Mental State: Gatorade + Combos = bfast of champs 03:11 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Cody – Battle Mountain. Famous for a giant “BM” emblazoned on the side of the mountain. Awesome. 03:13 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Ian – Strizzle, I think you’re onto something. Channeling Hunter S. via Twitter. 03:14 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 350 – Mill City, NV; GPS Sez: arriving @ 3:42am; Mental State: Can’t wait to see Battle Mtn now, thanks to Cody. 03:19 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

[Getting the Twitter updates from my friends definitely helped me make it through the unending bleakness of Northern Nevada’s high desert. Though, I was pret
ty disappointed to not see the “BM” when I passed Battle Mountain — Cody’s update really made me chuckle for a good 20 miles.]

Flickr: Somewhere in Nevada
Somewhere in Nevada
4:28 PM December 23, 2006

Me – Mile 474 – near Elko, NV; Busted by the fuzz 🙁 04:33 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

[Ticket for going 100mph in Nevada = $347 — I guess it’s for the best that cruise control wouldn’t let me go any faster. If I wasn’t already regretting the decision to drive, this definitely put me over the top. But, there was no turning back at this point…]

Me – Mile 541 – Beverly Hills, NV; Mental State: Forgot how dark it gets out here. Need caffeine. 05:31 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 573 – Somewhere in Eastern Nevada; Mental State: Worried. Fuel light came on 32 miles from next gas station and it’s 27 degrees out. 06:02 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

[What I didn’t mention was that I had passed a town with gas about 28 miles earlier and decided to keep going, even though the fuel gauge told me I only had enough gas to make it 4 miles past Wendover. Why would I do such a thing? Because I didn’t want to stop before I hit the 600 mile mark, duh!]

Me – Mile 603 – Wendover, UT; Mental State: So much to celebrate – 1/2 way there, made it to UT, didn’t run out of gas 😀 Beef jerky time! 06:43 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 730 – Salt Lake City, UT; Mental State: Wishing I had bought a car adapter for my iPod. Just heard Ferg-alicious for the 5th time. 08:16 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

[I believe the final count was “Fergalicious” 6 times and “London Bridge” once. Why not change the channel, you ask? Well, in most of these places, other than the one top 40 station, every other channel (and usually there were only 2-3 others) was either Xmas music or people talking about Jesus.]

Me – Mile 847 – just East of Price, UT; Mental State: Sick of fing Xmas songs! 10:17 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 899 – Green River, UT; Mental State: 3/4 of the way there and thinking I can do this. Stopped for more caffeine. 11:11 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Patrick – I’ve been to green river. Its a little scary there. 11:12 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – There appear to be only 3 radio stations here, and right now they’re all playing songs about Jesus. 11:19 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 933 – near the UT/CO border; Mental State: Still amazed at how much space there is! Roads that go straight as far as you can see. 11:39 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Patrick – Its gods country js 11:40 PM December 23, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 964 – Westwater, UT; Mental State: Thinking about an awesome 2 day rafting trip that started here. 1 of my top 5 fave life experiences so far. 12:00AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 969.3 – UT/CO border; Mental State: “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” – wOOt! 12:04 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 1,004 – Grand Junction, CO; Mental State: Sad it’s dark out. This is where the really pretty part starts, and I can’t see it. Missed Hwy 6 too. 12:30 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 1,058 – Rifle, CO; Mental State: Stopped for a roadside “break”, and the snow, the cold, the sound of the river reminded me why I did this. 01:19 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 1,084 – Glenwood Springs, CO; Mental State: Running on fumes (me, not the car this time). But, only 40 miles to go. Sack up! 01:33 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Mile 1,117 – Snowmass, CO; Mental State: Might be too excited about skiing tomorrow to sleep tonight. 02:05 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

[Somehow, this update got delayed being posted on Twitter. So, I reordered it and used the time I sent it from my phone.]

Me – 1,123.8 miles, 15hr 37min (3.5hrs less than GPS said!), and one moving violation later, I’m here. Except for 1 small problem: I’m locked out. Lol! 02:23 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

Me – Managed to get in the house and get some sleep. Woke up to 3+ in of fresh and still comin. Gettin on the gondola now. Ready to rip shit up! 10:20 AM December 24, 2006 from mobile

So, that’s it. I made it having only missed 1 day of skiing. That plus the cash costs of the rental car, gas, and, of course, the speeding ticket, seem a fair price to pay for my idiocy. But those who know me, know that it probably won’t keep me from doing something like this again (in fact, this reminds me of the time I went to North Carolina for a wedding and missed my flights going and coming back — spent more time in transit than at my destination).

Anyway, I’m glad to be here with my family (not to mention the nice snowy mountains). Here’s wishing everyone as happy, if less adventurous, holidays.

Change is good, but not easy

I had a somewhat synchronistic experience yesterday that made me want to write about this subject. First, I was reading my monthly Wired in good old paper form and came across this blurb:

Almost three years ago,Scott Kirwin was Wired‘s pissed off programmer (“The New Face of the Silicon Age,” issue 12.02). Tossed from his job and raging against globalization, he had launched the Information Technology Professionals Association of America to lobby against offshored work and imported workers. These days, Kirwin still works with computers. He’s just less pissed: In June, he shuttered the ITPAA. “I don’t view outsourcing as the big threat it was,” he says. What changed? Well, Kirwin found better work as an analyst and software architect. And he noticed that the talents that make him valuable – open-mindedness, a willingness to take risks, flashes of ingenuity – couldn’t be reduced to a spec sheet and emailed to Hyderabad. If more Americans develop such abilities, Kirwin believes, the use of Indian programmers could even improve our economic outlook. Outsourcing isn’t going away, he says. “But in the end, America may be stronger for it.”

This happy-ending story got me thinking about a blog post with the first half of this one’s title. In my professional life, I constantly find myself arguing on behalf of disruptive change. So, I am always looking for examples to help me in what generally devolve into emotional arguments instead of rational discussions. The concept of creative destruction has been part of the discussion of economic theory for over 50 years. But, the human mind (while incredibly able to adapt) is inherently change-averse when it comes to the underlying assumptions of one’s daily life.

This reflexive defense mechanism is probably a good idea in this case, because Schumpeter‘s theory is a macroeconomic phenomenon — it only holds true at the scale of entire industries or economies, and it provides little consolation to those individuals and firms destroyed so that others might be created. Which is where the second act of synchronicity and the second half of this post’s title come in. Last night, I decided to watch one of the two Netflix movies I’ve been holding on to for the last 6 months (you’re welcome, Netflix). Roger & Me is Michael Moore‘s first film, and it just happens to be a documentary of the microeconomic impact of creative destruction in action — specifically, the devestation of Flint, MI in the late ’80’s due to drastic changes in the US auto industry.

While I don’t particularly care for Michael Moore (even though I am a liberal Democrat) and I disagree with his fundamental premise in the film (that the auto-industry “owed” the people of Flint because that’s where it began), I found his account of the personal and social impact of these events to be extremely poignant. The trade-offs between the advancement of the greater good and the cost to individuals are never easy (John Rawls proposed a theoretical means of making these decisions with his difference principle, but no one has figured out yet how to put it into practice systematically).

I really don’t have a point to make with this post, per se. I guess I said what I had to say with the title alone. Progress is generally good, but how good really depends on how one goes about it. There is a human element to value creation, something that won’t show up on any balance sheet. I think good leaders know this and guide their actions to maximize their own concepts of this holistic value (objectively measuring such value is precisely where implementation of Rawlsian principles starts to break-down), and not just the financial bottom-line. As Kant said, a human being “must be treated never as a mere means but as…an end at the same time.”

One potentially happy sign that progress is improving on itself comes from a comparison of these two examples of creative destruction. Only now, more than 28 years after GM started eliminating jobs in Flint, is the city showing evidence of a sustainable social and economic transition from its roots as the birthplace of the world’s largest auto-maker. Yet, those who feared similar economic devastation from the rise of software development outsourcing appear to be thriving just three short years later. While this is hardly an apples-to-apples comparison, it is encouraging to think (right or wrong) that in only two decades change has actually become a little easier.

Odds & Ends for 2006-12-11

  • In the words of our Engineering Manager, “hey so now that you’re famous, can you put the job description up on your blog?” I actually did post these job descriptions before, but I didn’t quite have the same readership way back then (i.e. before last Wednesday). So, here it goes again: the Yahoo! Widgets team is looking for client developers with Win32, C/C++ and Carbon/Cocoa experience. If you know anyone who is interested, please have them apply via the links below or email bmayes -at- yahoo-inc.com 
  • Another member of our team, Brady Wood in Product Marketing, deserves special credit this week for simultaneously spearheading browser marketing efforts at both Yahoo! and Google. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and Brady’s trying not to let it go to his head too much.
  • And finally, a little known irony that was overlooked in last week’s feeding frenzy and of which I was just reminded today: I’m still the face of Yahoo! Investor Relations. ROTFL!!! That’s been up there for ~2 years now, and I had totally forgotten about it — I wonder if now they’ll take it down or leave it up longer?