A couple of posts back I got this comment from someone who reads the blog (at least off and on)...

Tom, I've been following you on and off for some time, and I gotta tell you, you come across as so self-righteous that you actually sound worse that Scoble. You're always shaking down others' trees, with your half snide comments, and you seem like the angry boy in the back of the classroom that the cool kids ignored in school. Why not try to do something positive with your blog? You're always the critic --but never the helper

It was a good comment and I appreciated it.  I responded with an obnoxiously long reply which I won't bore you with.  But I began said reply with this...

I can see where you are coming from to an extent but I honestly don’t think you’re being fair. Except for on the "always the critic" part which your spot on about and is something I've been concerned with myself and been trying to take steps to improve.

After having a few days to reflect on the subject I have to say I was wrong.

(for the record, I'm going to start trying to post more original thoughts which aren't responses to anyone else which is what I was referring to when I said I was "trying to take steps to improve."  That's not what I was wrong about)

To me there are two types of criticism, thoughtful and thoughtless.  Thoughtless criticism, like calling someone names, is a bad thing.  It contains no thought meaning that it's intent is to harm and not correct.  Like calling someone an idiot.  There's not value to that.  It's thoughtless.

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say flat out, thoughtful criticism is never a negative thing.  NEVER. 

To make this point I'm going to turn to politics which is where people tend to disagree most strongly.  Think back to the last negative political criticism you heard.  Now, think back to the last time you heard someone who you don't agree with politically say something ridiculous and ask yourself "would it be negative to correct that person?"

That's my point!  We allow our emotions to color what we see as negative.  If we agree with the person doing the criticizing than they're "speaking the truth" but if we disagree with them they're "being negative."  But the context of what the person is actually saying is the same in both cases.

So I say again, thoughtful criticism is not a negative thing.  It leads to clarity of thought and if that isn't helpful I don't know what is.  If people who don't agree with you don't tell you as much you miss the benefit of their insight.  The comment that inspired this post was criticism of me and it provided me with several insights that are of untold value to me.

How could that be a negative thing?

On Another Note... In the comment quoted above there was also an accusation of self-righteousness that I addressed in my original response. After thinking on it a little longer I think what the author actually meant wasn’t self-righteousness but sanctimony (a.k.a. a level of piety that is both excessive and hypocritical).

So just to address that real quickly the truth is he may be right. The problem with diagnosing sanctimony, especially in one’s self, is that it’s an affliction born of excess. Not just in the level of piety but in the hypocrisy as well (since we’re all a little hypocritical when it comes to morality so “bad hypocrisy” would have to be at a level that exceeds “normal hypocrisy”).  So excess is notoriously hard to identify because it isn't a set quantity.

The only defense I could give would be to say this: Never on this blog have I claimed to be better than anyone else. I look at situations and I try to find the life lessons inherent in those situations, as much for myself as for anyone who might be reading the entry. The very entry this comment was in response to was one called “What lists teach us about ourselves” e.g. I was including myself in the group being instructed by my own observations.

Given that I personally think an accusation of sanctimony is unfair (while again admitting it is largely a judgment call). That said, I would like to make one observation…

I have observed that there are two types of people in life. Those who can never live up to their own expectations and those who are perfectly content with themselves on a moral level (aka they may think they need to lose a few pounds or work out more but they are content with the person that they are). I’m of the former group and this blog is an expression of that constant attempt to make myself better. But if you are of the latter group and tend to assume those around you are as well then I could see how some of the posts here would seem sanctimonious.

If that perceived sanctimony was/is upsetting to some I apologize (both for before and in advance because I’m obviously going to keep doing it)

I was watching the TV show "Mad Men" the other day.  The show is based in 1961 and in the episode there was a receptionist who couldn't find her boss.  She asked around and was told he sometimes goes to the movies during stressful days and that he'd probably be back in an hour or so. 

Keep that in mind when reading the following article entitled "Want to attract and retain Gen Y? Better rethink everything" from AZCentral.com...

Dubbed Generation Y, there's a festering love-hate relationship between employers and this group, which I happen to belong.

One the one hand, young workers are praised for their technological savvy, specialized training and passion. On the other, they're often crucified for their long lists of hiring demands, unconventional workplace conduct and lack of company loyalty

Author Russell Perry, himself 25, gives this suggestion to workplaces...

I would argue that more than money or gadgets, we want a challenge. And we want our professional and personal lives to co-exist without eight-hour blocks of segregation.

In order to appeal to us, employers need to rethink their rules a bit. Forget rigid 40-hour workweeks. Forget traditional company hierarchy.

Before going further a little full disclosure: I'm in the age group in question. 

That said, I specifically picked the two quotes above because I think they show the contradiction in what is being said.  In the first quote the author (rightfully) points out that many Generation Y employees are complete mercenaries ("long lists of hiring demands"), demonstrate poor workplace judgement ("unconventional workplace conduct") and have no loyalty to the company employing them.  Then, in the second quote he suggests employers give those people complete autonomy ("Forget 40-hour work weeks and traditional company hierarchy")

My counter argument would be this: That's completely insane.

You don't give complete autonomy to people who only care about themselves because they will, almost by definition, abuse it.  I started this post with a personal anecdote about a TV show based in the 60s and I asked that you keep it in mind while reading this post.  The reason for that was to demonstrate that even in the 60s Employees were given all the perks outlined in the above quoted article.

Its always been a good idea to give quality employees as much freedom as you can and good companies have always had a policy to do just that.   The only thing that has changed with "Generation Y" is that they demand such treatment even before they've proven themselves to be quality employees.  That's the problem. 

It's unfair to employers when potential employees walk in the door demanding to be treated with the trust and respect of those who have already proven themselves.  So far Generation Y has gotten away with that behavior because a good economy means more jobs than workers.  But given the current economic times you have to wonder how much longer that will be the case.

As a brief follow-up to my last economic post I wanted to point out a few economic indicators.

Again, I'm not saying these numbers are good or that the housing crisis isn't a serious issue.  But in comparison to what they could be these numbers aren't bad either. 

• The Dow closed at 11,143 on Sep. 26 (right before the crisis began).  It now stands at 10,859.  That's a 284 point drop which is bad but hardly a catastrophe (and with a bailout in limbo I don't think Wall Street could get more nervous than it is right now)
• Unemployment is 6.1% (keep in mind that includes a permanent unemployment rate of about 4% which includes Students, Housewives, and others who aren't seeking work)
• GDP Increased 3.3% in the 2nd quarter of '08
• The Consumer Price Index declined .1% in August (a good thing, increase means growing Inflation).  That's the first decline in 2 years.
• Retail Sales fell by .3% in August 2008

Again, the issue isn't "are the numbers good?", they aren't.  But are they terrible?  Are they catastrophic?  Are they the beginning of another great depression? 

No, they aren't. 

This isn't a good situation.  No one's saying it is.  We're almost certainly headed for a recession, I don't think anyone's denying that.  There will be job losses, there will be credit crunches and none of it's going to be pleasant.

But the sky is not falling and I think everyone needs to keep that in mind.

OK, this is getting a little out of hand.  Like bad financial news has a habit of doing, this crisis is being blown into way more than it actually is.  So just to put in my (informed) 2 cents...There is not going to be another Great Depression

Lets look at the major factors that caused the Great Depression in the first place...

1.  Stock Market Crash of 1929: Newsflash folks, the stock market hasn't crashed.  The news isn't going to get much worse than it is right now and the stock market, at worst, dipped (and the truth is it has recovered from all the previous dips making the end result almost nil thus far). 

Bottom Line: Not happening so far.

2.  Bank Failures: Guess What, this isn't happening either.  At least, not in the same way.  When banks failed in the 30s that meant your money disappeared with them.  That can't happen now.  We have things like FDIC insurance to prevent it.  Beyond that fact, it's important to remember that the largest banks (BofA, Wells Fargo, etc...) aren't close to going out of business.  In fact, they're doing well enough to buy out the banks that are failing.

Bottom Line: Not happening so far

3.  The Gold Standard: This is a vast over simplification, I'll admit it, but that said it's still true that the U.S. Government can essentially print more money in a crisis.  They couldn't do that in the 30s.  In the 30s we were tied to the Gold Standard which meant the government was tied to a fixed amount of currency to work with.  The Gold Standard has since been abandon by every single modern Government for just that reason.

Bottom Line: Not happening anymore, EVER!

4.  Inflation caused by an Economic Boom: Keep in mind the 20s was a time of an economic boom which meant prices were at an all time high.  When everything crashed the prices didn't automatically snap to fit which meant an economic disaster.  We haven't been in an economic boom for over a decade at this point and were in fact already seeing the beginnings of a recession when this economic crisis came to the forefront. 

Bottom Line: Not happening.

5.  Massive Wage Decline: They didn't even have a minimum wage in the 30s (it was introduced in 1938 as a response to the depression).  That meant that wages could decline to almost nothing.  So businesses in a crunch drove wages down to essentially nothing which completely eliminated 90% of spending and sent the economy into a tailspin.  That can't happen now.

Bottom Line: Not happening

6.  Europe in Chaos: People forget that Europe was ravaged by World War I which left it economically unstable.  That in turn deprived the U.S. of it's primary trading partner while at the same time causing European countries to default on loans given to them by U.S. banks.  Not only is Europe not in economic chaos right now but the U.S. has tons more trading partners (China, Japan, etc...)

Bottom Line: Not happening.

7. The Drought of the 1930s: In the 30s there was a combination of dust storms and drought (commonly referred to as the "Dust Bowl") which put tons of farms out of business.  At a time when the U.S. Economy was largely driven by farming this had disasterous results on the economy.  It closed down farms, drove more people into poverty and made food a scare resource to boot.  But now we have technology to prevent such an event from having a dramatic effect on our farms and even if it did we massively over produce food and subsidize farms so it wouldn't drive anyone out of business.  On top of all that it also needs to be mentioned that farming is not what drives the American economy anymore either.

Bottom Line: Not happening.

So you can see this is a completely different situation and it's far from the severity of the Great Depression.  I don't doubt we're headed for a recession but that's economic reality.  Recessions happen.  But recessions are only made worse by people over reacting to them.  When you have supposed "experts" claiming this minor dip invalidates American Economic Policy for the last 25 years you know everyone has lost their heads. 

So I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to feel compelled to make a few more of these process based political posts.  Again, I won't comment on the candidates, their views or my political opinions.  My interest is only in the strategic decisions and the lessons we all can learn from them. 

That said, this makes such a powerful point that I just couldn't pass it up. 

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain jolted the 2008 race Wednesday by saying he’d suspend his campaign and come to the Capitol to help pass a bill to rescue the nation’s financial sector.

He also called for a postponement of the debate with his Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama, set for Friday night.

First, lets look at what McCain hopes to accomplish.  For the non-cynical among you this might be hard to hear but McCain isn't actually trying to help the bailout bill.

Realistically speaking no one person is going to make that big a difference in a discussion and especially not one who is knee deep in a partisan political election.  His being at the bargaining table on this bill only makes the thing harder to pass. 

What he's trying to do is to set himself up to take credit for the bill.  The theory is that he makes a grand gesture (stopping his campaign) and rushes to Washington to presumably "help the process."  The bill then passes (because some form of it has to) and he gets credit for pushing the bailout through which would be great PR and would push him to victory in November.

The problem with that theory is that its contingent on every Democrat in congress being stupid enough to not realize what he's doing. 

Lets look at this situation realistically now.  The other people in congress aren't idiots (at least, not in regards to politics).  They all know what McCain is doing and the Democrats know they can't allow him to succeed.  They'd be handing him the election.  So by suspending his campaign McCain has basically torpedoed the bailout bill.  

It is literally a game of chicken because the Democratic majority in Congress does not want to give McCain a win and will stall for as long as it takes to prevent that from happening.

So what now happens is that they stall and this backfires on McCain.  Because with no bill passing he either has to (a) eat his words and return to campaigning or (b) not campaign for the last half of the election.  Since "(b)" isn't really an option McCain has basically set himself up for a guaranteed fall. 

The point of this post, which I feel is so important, is how badly you can screw up when you choose to underestimate your opponents.  McCain seems to think a bunch of career politicians won't realize he's playing politics and that's just stupid.  So stupid, that it very well might cost him the election and you can't screw up any worse than that. 

Addendum: To the people sending me this link, Please stop. 

It doesn't change anything.  The question I was addressing above was McCain's decision to suspend his campaign.  That decision was purely strategic.

The link indicates McCain was asked to "give political cover" to Republicans by endorsing the Bailout Bill.  That's something McCain could easily do on the campaign trail.  Endorsing the bill does not require McCain to suspend his campaign and is therefore not relevant to the strategic decision being made.

2nd Addendum: It's days like this that make it hard for me to ignore politics completely because the strategy and "one-upmanship" is so fascinating.  This morning McCain made this statement

"I'm an old Navy pilot and I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck. I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not."

No more than a few hours later Sen. Dodd, Democrat and head of the Senate Banking Committee, released a statement saying they'd reached an agreement on the "Fundamental Principles" of the bailout. 

That's hours before McCain got a chance to even have his meeting with the President (and is almost surely an attempt to make McCain look like an unnecessary reactionary).  Worse yet for McCain (and really suprising to me) was the quote from Bob Bennett (a Republican on the Banking Committee) who said "We focused on solving the problem rather than posturing politically."  That's a clear dig at McCain and I don't see any political strategy in it.  I think he was just annoyed at McCain for claiming their committee couldn't handle the situation (which is yet another reason why this was stupid on McCain's part)

Final Addendum: Sorry, I couldn't resist this one last update.  Apparently the bailout agreement is unraveling.  I'm sorry but this is just politics at its best.  Look at this from a political strategy angle.  The Democrats dealed so they could announce an agreement before McCain's big meeting (making his "campaign suspension" look like histrionics) and now they're pulling back after the meeting (making it look like McCain's intervention did more harm than good).  In addition to that McCain's still stalled so now he has to either skip the debate tomorrow (which everyone and their brother will now be watching) or eat his own words and resume his campaign with no bailout bill in place.  This is a disaster and McCain brought it all on himself.

Though the U.S. Economy clearly affects Tech as much as any industry I don't think it's really in the purview of this blog.  That said, I did want to say one thing about this bailout proposal.

I'm seeing a lot of debate online asking "should we be doing this" or "is this too much money" and I'd like to make one quick point to those people: We have no choice.

These banks are FDIC insured which means we either give them a little money to keep afloat now or they default and we end up covering all their debts.  So while the specifics of the plan are up for debate the need to do this is a given. 

In other words, debating whether the country should do this is pretty much pointless because we'll end up paying either way and the bill is much bigger if the banks go out of business.

Well, I guess this is my moment of weakness coming back to haunt me.  I've gotten several e-mails on my Carly Fiorina post (I think it might have accidentally gotten onto the Huffington Post since they post Google Blog Search items apparently). 

The e-mails look something like this.

You are completely wrong [on your post].  That's not what Carly Fiorina said and her actual quote wasn't trying to insult Palin at all.

The whole quotes was this.

“I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don’t think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don’t think Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But on the other hand a major corporation is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States,” Fiorina said.

“It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So of course to run a business you have to have a lifetime of experience in business, but that’s not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing,”

So she wasn't saying Palin was incompetent she was saying she didn't think any of the candidates could run a company.  Next time try to know what your talking about!

Well, ok.  I posted this for accuracy but let me explain something (since the people who are sending these e-mails obviously aren't readers of this blog). 

I don't post on the actual politics of things.  I will sometimes post on political strategy but I make very sure to leave any discussion on actual candidates and issues out of my posts.  I don't believe that stuff has a place here. 

So Governor Palin wasn't my point. 

My post was focused on Carly Fiorina.  My point with that post was (a) I don't like her (Fiorina not Palin) and (b) she's SO arrogant that she sacrificed her role in the campaign to make herself look big ("oh, I ran a corporation, but they couldn't").  So the fact that she also said McCain, Obama and Biden couldn't do it just bolsters my point: That she's arrogant to the point of incompetence. 

'nuff said.

Looks like Carly might have cost herself whatever advisory role she had in the McCain campaign (and possibly White House)...

Carly Fiorina, a key surrogate for John McCain on economic issues, said on Tuesday that Sarah Palin does not have the experience needed to run a major company like the one that Fiorina formerly headed.

"Do you think [Sarah Palin] has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?" asked the host.

"No, I don't," responded Fiorina. "But you know what? That's not what she's running for."

For those who don't know, Carly Fiorina is the ex-CEO of HP who spear headed the merger of HP and Compaq and in the process came close to running them both into the ground.

I know it's pety but I hate this woman.  Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate her. 

As mentioned in my previous post I have a real love for the history of the technology industry and this is a woman who pretty much single handidly brought two of the industry's most iconic companies to their knees and ended up destroying one completely.

There is no reason, no reason on Earth, this woman should be able to get a position higher than food service and though I'm ashamed to admit it I delight in her continued failures. 

Oh, and Just to put this out there I don't have a problem with Republicans or Female Tech CEOs.  Meg Whitman (ex-CEO of Ebay and both a Republican and a Female) is like a god to me

I'm going to continue trying to keep politics off this blog if I can.  But my entire country has gone political so it makes it  hard.

That said, I still think the topic is largely pointless.

In that vein I wanted to take one of the more ridiculous political situations to arise in the last few weeks and use it to once more make the point that discussing this stuff is pointless.  With that said, lets take a quick break from Tech to look at the now infamous "Lipstick on a Pig Incident"

What's the difference between the presidential campaign before and after the national political conventions? Lipstick. The colorful cosmetic has become a political buzzword, thanks to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's joke in her acceptance speech that lipstick is the only thing that separates a hockey mom like her from a pit bull.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told an audience Tuesday that GOP presidential nominee John McCain says he'll change Washington, but he's just like President Bush.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke even if it's not what Obama meant. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

First thing to understand is that every politician has a hard core base.  Those folks that are so far out there that the candidate probably doesn't really want their support but at the same time knows they need it in such a closely split country.

So Politicians, all politicians, have to throw the fringe a bone every once in a while.  The way they do that (without offending everyone else) is to make statements that, while seemingly innocuous to anyone not completely filled with hate for the other side, speak directly to these crazed nut jobs. 

That's what the "lipstick on a pig" comment was about.  To the 90% of Obama supporters who are...well...normal the comment didn't mean anything but to that crazy 10% who read hate into everything it was a direct attack on Palin. 

(Notice how even the ABCNews author quoted above said the Obama was "clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke" even though, imho, it wasn't clear at all)

So basically this is just good political strategy.  The Obama campaign wanted to placate the crazies so they could essentially ignore them from that point on (which he has to do to win the moderates).

Now the McCain camp knows exactly what Obama is doing because, to be blunt, they do it too.  But they're trying to push the "Democrats are secretly misogynists so Women should vote for us" angle (again good political strategy) so they latch onto the comment and feign outrage at it. 

Which in turn causes Obama to defend himself by feigning outrage and their outrage. Then tomorrow the McCain camp will feign even greater outrage at Obama's feigned outrage which was in response to their original feigned outrage.  And so on...

It's all theater and I guarantee you the whole thing is as scripted as anything you'll see on TV.   Honestly, it drives me crazy.

Anyway, just another reason why I don't talk Politics on this site.

This isn't tech related but I found it kind of sad.  I've never met the man myself but I know a lot of people who have and I've never heard a bad thing about him. 

The irony is he's probably one of the biggest celebrities in the world yet I'd be surprised if anyone who reads this will recognize his name.  If you have a couple minutes watch the video below.  It's a good tribute to a man who deserves credit for his contributions.

R.I.P. Don