Tuesday Feb 16 the Palo Alto Fellowship Forum had about fifty folk assembled for the 6th meeting of the 61st year at the Westin Palo Alto hotel -- including HP oldtimers Al Bagley, Don Hammond, Bob Grimm, Skip Ross, and Peter Moseley. This is a group of VERY accomplished individuals, most with long-term Bay area roots, and a lot of perspective about HP history.
I had a lot of fun with some of the sidebar anecdotes that necessarily accompany any talk these days about HP, including the one about the HP 35 market study that member Bill Waters did while at SRI, concluding that it was probably not a winner (something that Hewlett ignored...)
Out of time in the main setting, I had a lot of questions afterwards in a small group. One in particular made a point that he had lived next door to Bill Hewlett for 25 years, "an incredibly nice man". Asked for any specifics, he said, "Bill always dried dishes with his wife Flora" which of course says a lot about this genial giant.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Holiday week
This week features two talks in the local area -- one at the Fellowship Forum in Palo Alto tomorrow (Tues 2-16) and one on Wednesday at Cisco. Both allow guests, if someone from the respective organization sponsors you...
Last week on Monday, Greg Loew sponsored a talk for me at SLAC, the National Linear Accelerator lab. Physicists galore, and great questions. Lots of history from this major facility in terms of Nobel Prizes and other key physics awards. For example, the J.J.Sakurai prize for theoretical physics was awarded to a neighbor, Stan Brodsky, in 2007. The Hans Bethe prize, the Irving Langmuir prize, the James McGroddy prize and the George Pake prize are among other key prizes given annually by the American Physics Society, and this team wins an uncommon number of them.
Mike Roberts, a good friend from Washington D.C. involved in the international nuclear fusion program, has been associated with this group for years. We had a stimulating time, and a great dinner afterwards. What a privilege!
Last week on Monday, Greg Loew sponsored a talk for me at SLAC, the National Linear Accelerator lab. Physicists galore, and great questions. Lots of history from this major facility in terms of Nobel Prizes and other key physics awards. For example, the J.J.Sakurai prize for theoretical physics was awarded to a neighbor, Stan Brodsky, in 2007. The Hans Bethe prize, the Irving Langmuir prize, the James McGroddy prize and the George Pake prize are among other key prizes given annually by the American Physics Society, and this team wins an uncommon number of them.
Mike Roberts, a good friend from Washington D.C. involved in the international nuclear fusion program, has been associated with this group for years. We had a stimulating time, and a great dinner afterwards. What a privilege!
Illinois trip
Last week, landing in the middle of a "nice" snowstorm in Chicago and driving 140 miles on black ice to State Farm's headquarters in Bloomington, IL was an exciting time. Apparently readers of the HP book thought so too -- Amazon sales boomed over the three-day weekend something phenomenal. Started on Saturday morning, hitting #13,329 by 8:30am, then #9,453 by 1:20pm and #9,022 by 4:10pm (I don't watch these numbers very often...). By 6:10pm, it hit #8,080, and then on Sunday it hit #7,143 by 2:20pm, ending the day at #8.675 at 9:15pm while watching the Short Track skating at the Olympics. It has relaxed today back to #13,509 at 11:30am, still "phenomenal" given that it has been out for several months, with NO advertising
Ray Price and I did have a nice presentation at the Champaign-Urbana campus on Thursday, and we were featured on a local TV show that day as well (to be aired later). Ray's colleagues were wonderfully supportive and we had a great set of questions and discussion later. We agreed that this has been quite the experience, one to savor for the friendships and the deep inquiry that it seems to have stimulated. We are indeed "lucky pups"
Ray Price and I did have a nice presentation at the Champaign-Urbana campus on Thursday, and we were featured on a local TV show that day as well (to be aired later). Ray's colleagues were wonderfully supportive and we had a great set of questions and discussion later. We agreed that this has been quite the experience, one to savor for the friendships and the deep inquiry that it seems to have stimulated. We are indeed "lucky pups"
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Google Engineering Management Week
A rare privilege today, to talk at Google's author series for the engineering teams and managers. Kepler's supported the event, selling a dozen or more books on site. Probably a hundred attendees, plus others in separate 'beamed-in' rooms. The theme I used was "relevance to today"
I began with the New York Times quote this morning from ex Microsoft VP Dick Blass, where he posed the question of why Microsoft is 'killing innovation'. It was a compelling article, easy to lay alongside the sad spectacle of the Presidential Commission on Competitiveness, and say "what the hell is going on in our boardrooms and at the top of our companies?"
Then posing the three issues we see at Media X -- collaboration, participation, and complexity -- I outlined how Media X comes at those questions, and then suggested that the book is a direct outgrowth of such inquiry. From there it was a simple and fun task to select a couple of projects as examples.
A key thing -- easy to do -- was to correlate Google practices today with the "old HP", especially with respect to "Citizenship" and "Employee Dignity". Another statement that resonated was about the satisfaction / happiness factor for employees. How many stay late at night, because they love what they're doing rather than fearful about losing their job?
Stimulating questions -- lots around HP Culture and its modification since 2000; some around the apparent success of HP in the last decade on Rev/Profit/Growth, with much higher feeling of pressure or worse. I left, feeling enormously energized by the teams at Google -- this is a very talented, very dedicated, very confident group!
I began with the New York Times quote this morning from ex Microsoft VP Dick Blass, where he posed the question of why Microsoft is 'killing innovation'. It was a compelling article, easy to lay alongside the sad spectacle of the Presidential Commission on Competitiveness, and say "what the hell is going on in our boardrooms and at the top of our companies?"
Then posing the three issues we see at Media X -- collaboration, participation, and complexity -- I outlined how Media X comes at those questions, and then suggested that the book is a direct outgrowth of such inquiry. From there it was a simple and fun task to select a couple of projects as examples.
A key thing -- easy to do -- was to correlate Google practices today with the "old HP", especially with respect to "Citizenship" and "Employee Dignity". Another statement that resonated was about the satisfaction / happiness factor for employees. How many stay late at night, because they love what they're doing rather than fearful about losing their job?
Stimulating questions -- lots around HP Culture and its modification since 2000; some around the apparent success of HP in the last decade on Rev/Profit/Growth, with much higher feeling of pressure or worse. I left, feeling enormously energized by the teams at Google -- this is a very talented, very dedicated, very confident group!
CMU presentation
Tuesday Feb 2 I had a wonderful afternoon at Carnegie Mellon West Coast Campus, talking mostly about the HP book, but also reminiscing with some of the faculty (Steve Rosenberg, Ted Selker, Stuart Evans) about how design criteria have changed, along with the companies.
A surprise for me -- shouldn't have been, but was -- is how unaware most of the students were with the heritage of their own school. Herb Simon and Allan Newell were 'unknowns' to the entire room, and granted, it was 55 years ago that they started the AI program at Carnegie Tech (which was a name they'd not heard either). SEI -- the Software Engineering Institute -- which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month -- was likewise a "zero" for the students. For me, SEI was a 'zero' -- they persisted in teaching process to the near-total exclusion of tools until you get to Level 4, thereby setting back software engineering practice a full ten to fifteen years, but ensuring their own consulting fees for that entire period.
Code coverage tools, which they disdain to this day, likely could have uncovered the issues bedeviling Toyota's "fly-by-wire" gas pedal -- such tools adopted twenty years ago would have altered the safety of airliners, automobiles, and most every 'real-time' software environment in the meantime. Instead, we all fly on, drive on, or ride in elevators, etc. "the lowest bidder"
Good questions at the end, especially re distinctions between invention and innovation. It is easy to think they should 'know' some of the things I find important; there is no question that they know a host of things that ARE important that I will never learn -- the kids today are smart, Smart, SMART, and it is such a privilege to get to talk with them on occasion.
A surprise for me -- shouldn't have been, but was -- is how unaware most of the students were with the heritage of their own school. Herb Simon and Allan Newell were 'unknowns' to the entire room, and granted, it was 55 years ago that they started the AI program at Carnegie Tech (which was a name they'd not heard either). SEI -- the Software Engineering Institute -- which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month -- was likewise a "zero" for the students. For me, SEI was a 'zero' -- they persisted in teaching process to the near-total exclusion of tools until you get to Level 4, thereby setting back software engineering practice a full ten to fifteen years, but ensuring their own consulting fees for that entire period.
Code coverage tools, which they disdain to this day, likely could have uncovered the issues bedeviling Toyota's "fly-by-wire" gas pedal -- such tools adopted twenty years ago would have altered the safety of airliners, automobiles, and most every 'real-time' software environment in the meantime. Instead, we all fly on, drive on, or ride in elevators, etc. "the lowest bidder"
Good questions at the end, especially re distinctions between invention and innovation. It is easy to think they should 'know' some of the things I find important; there is no question that they know a host of things that ARE important that I will never learn -- the kids today are smart, Smart, SMART, and it is such a privilege to get to talk with them on occasion.
Monday, February 1, 2010
I missed your speeches so far...
Well, we learned some fascinating news last week
Out of a list of hundreds of books, ours was the #3 best seller in the Stanford Press catalog for the first four months of fiscal 2009/10 (from September 1 thru Dec 31). Since ours wasn't available until late October, that's amazing. All told, sixteen or eighteen hundred books to date
The keys undoubtedly were two events in early December:
1. the NPR radio show, which is available in case you missed it, at
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R912041000
2. the Computer History Museum YouTube video, is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9GVC4FH2gU
Both of these were ably moderated by Dave Iverson, of KQED. Wonderful host
Out of a list of hundreds of books, ours was the #3 best seller in the Stanford Press catalog for the first four months of fiscal 2009/10 (from September 1 thru Dec 31). Since ours wasn't available until late October, that's amazing. All told, sixteen or eighteen hundred books to date
The keys undoubtedly were two events in early December:
1. the NPR radio show, which is available in case you missed it, at
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R912041000
2. the Computer History Museum YouTube video, is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9GVC4FH2gU
Both of these were ably moderated by Dave Iverson, of KQED. Wonderful host
Attending a February event?
Some of the talks (listed in the last Post) are open to the public, such as the two at universities -- Carnegie Mellon, and University of Illinois @ Champaign-Urbana
The person to contact for CMU is Stacy Marshall @ smarshall@west.cmu.edu (tomorrow @ 1:30pm)
The person for UIUC on Feb 11 is Ray Price @ price1@ad.uiuc.edu
The Google talk this Thursday is open only to Google employees and guests. Contact Shoshana Abrass with questions at shoshana@google.com
The SLAC talk, next Monday Feb 8, is hosted at the Panovsky Auditorium at 4:15pm; it is open to Stanford faculty and staff and their guests. Contact is Greg Loew, galoew@slac.stanford.edu
The Fellowship Forum in Palo Alto Feb 16 is open to members and their guests only; Skip Ross is the contact at waross@closereach.com
The Cisco talk is on Feb 17, open to Cisco employees and their guests. Filomena Pereira is the organizer, at fpereira@cisco.com
The person to contact for CMU is Stacy Marshall @ smarshall@west.cmu.edu (tomorrow @ 1:30pm)
The person for UIUC on Feb 11 is Ray Price @ price1@ad.uiuc.edu
The Google talk this Thursday is open only to Google employees and guests. Contact Shoshana Abrass with questions at shoshana@google.com
The SLAC talk, next Monday Feb 8, is hosted at the Panovsky Auditorium at 4:15pm; it is open to Stanford faculty and staff and their guests. Contact is Greg Loew, galoew@slac.stanford.edu
The Fellowship Forum in Palo Alto Feb 16 is open to members and their guests only; Skip Ross is the contact at waross@closereach.com
The Cisco talk is on Feb 17, open to Cisco employees and their guests. Filomena Pereira is the organizer, at fpereira@cisco.com
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