Comments on: commodity

By: thermocarb

thermocarb — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 03:26:24 +0000

Hello there,
Iwas browsing the web and found this blog. Some interesting quotes. Keep them coming!
Alice
thermocarb

By: Alan Gutierrez

Alan Gutierrez — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 04:26:37 +0000

Unionized coders? Talk about prima-donnas! How does that work at all?
Recently, I had a woman tell me that I had to explain what I did to other people in fifteen words or less. She didn’t call it this, but its the elevator pitch. Make the connection.
I know full well there are no connections for me here in New Orleans, which is in part why I choose to live here.
Not everyone should be hawking themselves to everybody they pass in the street. Maybe if what you do is a commodity that’s the way to go, but if you wanted my services, you’d know where to find me.
Hmm… Think I’ll post this on my blog.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 00:46:28 +0000

“Commodification” just means you’ve been doing a fairly mechanical job that has suddenly been exposed to competition, either automated or human. Like when unskilled UAW workers suddenly noticed that robots or Malaysians could now do their job just as well. Or when programmers who hadn’t upgraded their skills in a decade found out that a fresh high school graduate with the right tools could produce in a few minutes an application that took them a month.
I work in a government IT shop, surrounded by unionized coders who don’t see why they should be forced to learn anything new when COBOL and DB2 have served them so well for for so long. Surprise!

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:49:07 +0000

Sure Hamish, but that could be a good thing. Makes the dinosaurs die quicker.
Perhaps we’d get used to a model where a corporation, instead of lasting 30–100 years, lasts 5 or 10?
Although what that would do to Wall Street, I have no idea.

By: Greg Hurlman

Greg Hurlman — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:48:30 +0000

Don’t forget the programmer’s corollary: If an ordinary person *thinks* he understands what you do, you’re already halfway to becoming a commodity.

By: Hamish

Hamish — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:43:24 +0000

Corporate Rule:
If you allow the demystification of what you do to happen, then others will understand. Thence commoditisation, etc. Kinda explains why there is very little straight talk in corporate life, especially amongst the middle ranks. Want a straight answer to what happens in the company, ask the mail boy or ask the CEO in private, and generally they know and can explain it. Ask the middle of the curve and all you get is obfuscated bullshit.
The middle class is under threat percisely because you only need a few smart hands on the tiller, and e-mail covers what used to be the role of ranks of middle management, i.e. communication. The older army guys I have worked with called it command and control. It works well, because it also allows the build up of corporate memory. “We won’t do that because we did it before, and it had nasty consequences that weren’t obvious…“
Still, that can be commoditised. Only bad thing is that everyone who knew anything about the organisation has been fired, and the cheap McJobs that replace them are not going to allow the creation or dissemination of new ideas. So, suddenly you get a corporation which is a low margin one trick pony. Works fine if you want to be Walmart or Dell, but innovation like in the Pharms business or the high end IT stuff, you’re whacked. The one trick pony will fail, but not until the exec team that are currently in charge have taken out the cash, and gone to play golf with the other denizens of their gated ethnic monoculture communities.
Carly Fiorino (HP CEO) springs to mind.

By: john t unger

john t unger — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 07:16:20 +0000

Hugh,
Thanks for visiting and commenting at my blog. Made my day!
You might be amused by my thoughts on the commodification of commodification, part of a longer work that I’ll be posting when I get time to edit it a bit more thoroughly.
Check it out here: http://johntunger2.20six.co.uk/archive/2004/08/16/i1v8kstxned0.htm

By: Brenda

Brenda — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 04:03:07 +0000

I happen to have one of those jobs “ordinary people” don’t usually understand (hell, we spend most our time trying to figure it out ourselves, for this very purpose). Any chance you’d offer this design in the business card offerings? I’d buy a bunch, really. I bet I have some friends who would too.