Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo, WAS: Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-07-22 14:02 +0900 (Tue), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> I too thought I would learn something about the search for quality, or
> even perfection, when I came to Japan. ...but I'm not sure what they
> have to teach the West that we haven't already made a good start on
> learning.

Right. Much of what they're doing was brought to them *from* the U.S.
via folks like Deming.

On 2008-07-22 14:28 +0900 (Tue), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>  > > Why would you build an engine that is so inefficient that it has
>  > > to work so hard that it eventually kills itself?
> ...
>  > Learn more about the people side of management, particularly managing
>  > non-engineers, and you'll figure it out easily enough.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by that?

Basically, people do not make rational decisions. We're in fact wired to
to have a strong bias to stick with our old beliefs rather than change
them, probably because there were and are natural selection benefits to
doing this. (I.e., it's in general better to be sometimes wrong than
often indecisive, as far as your reproductive fitness goes.)

On 2008-07-22 14:46 +0900 (Tue), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Josh Glover writes:
> 
>  > Now if you have a firm that is constantly working on potentially
>  > disruptive innovations like Google,
> 
> Google's engineers claim to be in a company with effectively no first-
> level managers, only engineers. That organization may be able to
> manage disruptive innovation, but only by not managing it. Leave
> Google out of it.

Actually, I no longer buy the idea that Google is startup-like-
disruptive. In some areas they might be, but I can see definite areas
where they are actively opposing the use of better technology.

One example would be in programming languages; they're stuck on C++,
Java and Python, essentially, all of which have large known weaknesses
that other more modern languages are solving. This is particularly
ironic because the main reason poor languages are used is because
companies don't have smart enough developers or feel they can't be
sure of continuing to attract enough smart enough developers, which is
obviously a not problem for Google.

The apparent reason for this, from what I've seen, is that they have
relatively primitive application deployment systems they they aren't
trying to improve. This is also an old problem that much work has gone
into solving.

>  > I hope that other big tech companies have figured that out. *ahem*
> 
> Nobody really has a handle on it yet.  Andy Carnegie may have had it
> right, but he's dead.  Hewlett-Packard is doing some interesting
> things, as is IBM, but we don't know what the pudding tastes like yet.

Actually, I'm about ready to buy Robert X. Cringly's opinion that once
a company grows beyond a certain size, it simply can't be disruptive
any more. There are too many non-entrepreneurs in it, or whatever. (He
posits that this was the issue with Windows Vista; there were plenty
of people in MS who *wanted* to make it good, and knew how to do it,
but overall they just can't overcome the momentum of the rest of the
company.)

cjs
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Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
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