what i got out of today’s team meeting:

1) my manager is not liking his manager’s new manager that much

2) no one is smarter than my manager

3) google apps (read google docs) sucks

4) microsoft is better

5) as per my manager, his manager’s new manager hates microsoft

6) my manager is open minded and will use anything. technology is technology (see #4)

7) now that steve jobs is gone apple will start to tank and that microsoft is way more innovative than apple will ever be. (never mind that appl is trading at $425^ today and msft is $28?)

8 ) despite being older than all of us guys, my manager is way more open minded than we are. see #6.

9) no one brings a level logic to things like my manager and his manager do

10) not explicitly said, but implied numerous times, the whole world is against my manager and his manager

11) as per my manager, his manager doesn’t stick up for his own guys. (funny as i can related to this)

12) no one is better than my manager

13) ie is the best browser ever and why would anyone need anything else

14) if linux had 99% market share like m$ does, then my manager would be a linux admin because that’s how much he likes technology. see #6.

15) now that his manager’s new manager is the spreadsheet master for google docs, my manager doesn’t like being subjugated to someone else’s whims on a spreadsheet. a tad ironic, yes.

16) my manager has no problem be little-ing everyone and anyone. see #2

17) because it bears repeating, no one is smarter than my manager

18) i think “the outside world” has replaced “the real world” in my manager’s vernacular, although there is a pause before it like he has to think about it first

19) not explicitly said, but implied numerous times, the admins are stupid

20) rather than do their jobs, my manager and his manager are out to prove to his manager’s new manager that sharepoint is better than google docs, as if it’s apples to apples. or microsofts to microsofts, or well, whatever

i think those were the main points of the meeting today.

“Le serveur à l’adresse www.swivel.com met trop de temps à répondre.”

Thanks to Robert Kosara for his post on eagereyes about Swivel – and it’s untimely demise. “The Rise and Fall of Swivel.com”

I left the following comment (my typos remain intact here):

“With any startup, there are ups and downs, small mistakes and big mistakes. I joined Swivel as VP & Chief Data Officer early on and was completely blown away by the talent and intelligence of the team and the vision of the founders – Brian Mulloy in particular. I think everyone involved truly had (and some still have, as I do) the strong belief that data and tools for understanding them are the next place for the web to have true impact.

I chalk a lot of the shortcomings of Swivel to timing, not lack of vision, interest by early-adopters, mass-market appeal or talent of the team. Web-based technologies needed to assemble complex interactions (but in a simple UI) for real-time data analysis are still maturing and people’s comfort level in sharing data on the web is still evolving as well (Particularly business or research data – this was before “in the cloud” was a phrase middle managers had ever heard of, and frankly are still afraid of. And last I checked, even tax-payer funded research data sets are pretty closely guarded).

I left Swivel to run Product at Flickr and am now overseeing Product strategy at PLoS, a non-profit dedicated to making more scientific and medical research open access with open data supporting it. Through Swivel I met an amazing community of like-minded folks (like the Robert, who runs this site) that, on a personal level, make Swivel a huge success for me. People with whom I hope to have healthy discussions into the distant future about the intersection of data, the web and the impact on society.”

Some particularly nice passages:

Putting the power to publish and consume content into the hands of more people in more places enables everyone to start conversations with facts. With facts, negotiations can become less about who yells louder, but about who has the stronger data. They can also be an equalizer that enables better decisions and more civil discourse. Or, as Thomas Jefferson put it at the start of his first term, “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

and

Hal Varian likes to say that the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. After all, who would have guessed that computer engineers would be the cool job of the 90s? When every business has free and ubiquitous data, the ability to understand it and extract value from it becomes the complimentary scarce factor. It leads to intelligence, and the intelligent business is the successful business, regardless of its size. Data is the sword of the 21st century, those who wield it well, the Samurai.

My new favorite site came to me courtesy of one Shanan J. Delp. And even though they have referenced the wearing of a Ross pants suit in more than one post, I will forgive them. Afterall, they have given the world vivid imagery on what it is like to be a patron of the Fit-Lite:

Sooo, if you need to hit up that circuit in a squirrel fur-lined sleeveless hoodie, leather mary-janes (Rabat), pink socks and a wig from the Halloween sale at Walgreens while making calls back to Santa Fe to tell your grandkiddies that you made them a new dreamcatcher, do your thing girl. I’ll wait.

Enjoy. Thanks Shanan.