The current issue of Harvard Business Review (unfortunately unavailable online) has a great series of articles on innovation, what fosters innovation and how to harness it. Theodore Levitt went against the tide and said in an article that innovation in the workplace is not necessarily a great thing. It has some good articles. If you have access to it, take a look.
I was talking the other day with a colleague about job satisfaction. He used to work in a very large and established company. He was miserable. There was way too much bureaucracy, work was uninspiring and his boss was a highly political creature. Finally he left. He joined a valley start ups. From $55,000 that he was making in his previous job, his salary jumped to $105,000 within two years. Job content was great. He felt glorious. A year later, he got laid off. For the next 9-10 months he didn't have a job. His savings got wiped out. He sold his car. He lost his confidence. He seriously considered trying to get into financial services in an entry level capacity (he did his MBA in finance and systems). His family reminded him that this would never have happened if he had stuck it out in his previous job. He has finally landed a job in a very large corporation. He now says that all he wants in life now is stability. He would never again trade stability for job excitement. He is also very clear in his mind that he joined an internet company not for the money, but because he was so incredibly unhappy in his previous job.
I think most of us who drifted into the Internet sector went in looking for cool stuff to do, not so much for money. Money happened to some. But the great majority of footsoldiers in the web technology space never made lots of money. They were in it for the ride. And it was a great ride. But looking back, we didn't substantially change the way things happen. The internet boom did manage to shake up the traditional mainstream fortune 2000 companies and made them substantially receptive to new technology (at least for a while!). But as I sit here and look at the corporate landscape in North America, I don't see any paradigm change that the web has wraught. The promises of web based collaboration, marketplaces and transactions et al remain largely unrealized.
Peter Martin, a deputy editor in Financial Times died last week of cancer. FT (which has a great web edition by the way) reprinted his reflections on the bubble years. It is very well written.
I need to rant about the traffic! Let me record for posterity the driving conditions around here:
Most drivers don't seem to think much of the left or right blinkers. It is usually your job to anticipate when someone may want to cross over to your lane. They are seem inordinately fond of the horn. I have heard more people honk in the Connecticut - New York commute in the last seven days than I probably have in the last one year in California. Of course with such liberal use of horns, everyone has gotten inured to its use. Most don't even bother to look when you honk. I come from a country where blowing your car's horn seem to be a national pastime. But unfortunately, I now find it difficult to invoke my bloodthirstiness in such matters. Age catching up I guess ..
The transport systems suck. The roads are narrower. Well, I can appreciate that in older cities like these it is very difficult to shut down the roads for repair since so much traffic is plying over the bridges every day. But I am also yet to see a a single place where U turns are allowed. The road signs are confusing as hell and often won't make any sense to anyone other than those living in that area.
The traffic is terrible. The only place worse than this during office hours is probably the beltway in DC.
Please note that I am not trying to say in a roundabout way that I am missing California. I am fine! It is just that I am used to driving being a pleasant experience. And I now have wake up at 4.30 AM tomorrow morning to reach Pennsylvania by 9 AM - a journey which should not really take more than two hours.
Update: I chickened out. I am leaving for PA tonight rather than tomorrow morning.
It was quite exhausting running around like headless chickens looking for an apartment over the weekend. But we managed to close it on sunday evening and also moved most of our stuff. So in the evening, a friend who helped us move and I were walking around downtown, thirsting for a chilled beer. We saw this charming outdoor place with nice umbrellas, chi chi decor. Well dressed twenty somethings were guzzling beer from what appeared to be oversized beer bottles. We gravitated towards it. It is only after we sat down and asked for the menu, we noticed the writings on the umbrellas: 'DRINK SPARKLING WATER'.
I couldn't believe my eyes! Half the crowd was paying good money to drink mineral water.
Connecticut is quite pretty, but the traffic during peak office hours is surprisingly bad. We reached New York last tuesday morning and it has been quite crowded since then. I have been living out of a suitcase in a hotel, checking my personal mail in the hotel lobby downstairs and rushing to office in the wee hours in order to avoid the peak traffic hours. It is lush green and hilly around here. The buildings in the downtowns have a feel of decaying elegance about them. I would love to explore. But first things first. We have been desperately apartment hunting. After packing, it is second most irritating activity involved in moving house!
This is all a little sudden. I picked up a small contract in upstate New York last week and we are moving there on monday night lock, stock and barrel. Everything is a bit of a mess right now. Packing boxes all over the floor, the phone ringing off the hook, trying to find a car shipping company that'll get my truck there on time .... I 'll have to start at work on 14th. That didn't really leave us with much time to wrap up, pack and say good byes.
I would later on vent here on the whole job search thing (the short description: it sucks), but right now I must get back to packing. I loved living in Northern California . I had a great time here, made wonderful friends and grew a great deal both professionally and emotionally. I landed here in the middle of '99 and caught the last phase of the go go 90s - extravagant dotcom parties, sponsored cruises in the Bay, snowboarding trips et al. It was nice while it lasted :-). But even now when the party is over and the tax refunds to the out of work tech workers is creating this massive deficit in California , Bay area is still a great place to work. It still has the largest concentration of brilliant technical minds on the planet. It has one of the most accessible and beautiful outdoors available in the country, the most adorably snooty people on the face of earth (all of whom think that this is the center of the earth) and is an oasis of tolerance in these uncertain times. Nevertheless, I am very glad that I am moving. Things got quite bad. The web is not a good place to talk about work. But what I feel right now is an incredible sense of relief. I have lived in mid-atlantic earlier and liked New York. Hopefully, we'll like it again.