Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:15:12 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Rob Andrews" <rob@cyberpunkz.org>, "Matthew Graybosch" <matthew@starbreaker.net> Cc: "Stanley Hopcroft" <Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.gov.au>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: How does FreeBSD make a difference in a government context ? Message-ID: <009e01c1419b$9b772e60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010919220311.F54888@switchblade.cyberpunkz.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Rob Andrews >Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 8:03 PM >To: Matthew Graybosch >insights from the government and larger corperations point of >view.. You can bash them with numbers all day, but the fact remains >that in the end you have a group of older people in the management >sectors that do not understand nor have the reasoning to care as >to why or what or how to change. "If its working there is now >need to fix it. If its broke we fix what we have until it can >no longer supported due to it being outdated and decayed" > Let me offer my $0.02 here on this. It's kind of long, but I think that most people will enjoy this, and there's a lot of truth to it, even though it may be insulting to a few people. I'm an old hand at dealing with this kind of tunnel vision. I understand your impatience, but there are a few things that you absolutely have to "grok" (If you ever read Stranger In a Strange Land you will know what I mean) For starters, the majority of people in the workday world do NOT really want to be there! Yes, I know it's strange, but seriously, those older folks in management, well most of them have children, sometimes grandchildren, as well as family activities and frankly, deep down they simply don't want to put their energies into their job. Most of them have all these other non-job related things that are much more important to them. Now, as people get older, these non-job parts of their life get bigger and bigger and more important to them, while the job parts of their life get smaller and smaller. This is why, after all, we have such a thing as retirement. To add to this, as the years pass and the majority of people work longer and longer, they get paid more and more and more. Eventually, in the tail end of their careers, the majority of people end up in a situation where they really don't want to be there but they are getting paid so much and they have so many personal financial commitments (not in the least is their own retirement nest egg) that they begin to feel completely trapped. Now, if your under 40 years old, you probably will never get anyone over 40 in your workplace to ever admit this to your face. But it's the truth for most people. So, you can see why it is that the majority of older managers detest change. Change means they have to learn things, and learning things takes energy. They would far rather go home and read the newspaper with the grandkid on the lap than read a technical manual and learn about this newfangled operating system, FreeBSD. Now, not all older managers are like this. Certainly, most of the CEO's and such you read about running multimillion dollar companies are workaholics and don't think this way. Certainly, any manager worth a damn is not like this. But many of the divisional mangers, the "middle management" is a lot like this! So, what do you do about it, how can you get past this? Well, the answer is so rediculously simple that I'm amazed how many younger workers don't see it right away. Espically as we've been RAISED on a diet of television and the fucking awful advertising that's poured into our brains, anyone younger than 40 ought to be a damn expert in advertising by now. Simply put, you got to identify what it is that makes Microsoft so attractive to these types, and present FreeBSD is such a way that it DOES IT BETTER. And, to this type of manager, the A #1 thing that Microsoft has that is so incredibly attractive to them, is the PERCEPTION that Windows doesen't need a lot of time or energy or effort to use and understand!!! So, they think "Gee, I don't have to take a tech manual home to read to understand this stuff, so I can spend the evening playing Bridge with the wife" Now, in REALITY, the Windows operating system is a vast, complex, complicated piece of software, with thousands and thousands of man-years of development in it. The perception that it's simple is one of the biggest, fattest, lies in the software industry today. It has gotten so bad, as a matter of fact, that Microsoft has begun scrupulously avoiding SAYING outright that Windows is easy to learn because nailing them to the wall with this kind of statement is like shooting fish in the barrel. But, they even more intensley have tried to give the impression that it IS easy. A tremendous amount of this is pure marketing. For example, take a look at any Microsoft print ad - ever wonder why there's no more than 10 words on a full page ad, and most of the ad space is thrown into the color blue and a face shot? If the software advertised is even present in the ad at all, it's got a tiny bit of space in the corner. The impression they want to convey is "few words - few thing to remember - easy - Ogg like easy! - Ogg buy easy!!!" So, the lazy, worthless upper managers, who mostly couldn't install Windows on a new PC to save their lives, have swallowed this BULLSHIT hook line and sinker. Now, take a look at how the typical younger Tech interaction with this type of manager goes: Fossil: "Hey, did you get that NT server restored you were working on" Tech: "Yup, it's done, what a piece of shit, come take a look at this!!" Fossil: "Hmm, what you got going there" Tech: "Look at this new FreeBSD system, it's so cool" (Manager looks over shoulder at tech typing "cat textfile | grep "something" | sort > resultsfile" on a completely black text mode screen) Fossil: "Hmm, I've never seen that before" Tech: "Oh, this is great stuff, look at what I can do" (tech continues to issue cryptic commands at a high rate of speed into this black text screen, perhaps calling up vi and making a bunch of sort and replace commands with strings like /\/.\/\/\/../\./\ in them) Fossil: "That's nice, so what is all this for?" Tech: "Oh, this one server will replace the 3 other Windows servers we have" Fossil: "Hmmm" Scene ends with manager walking off and thinking to themselves "Not on my watch it won't" Now, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG HERE!?!? I'll tell you - you've just completely blown every rule in the book about good presentaiton. If you really want to get rid of your Windows servers and replace them with FreeBSD, the exchange REALLY needs to go something like this: Fossil: "Hey, did you get that NT server built you were working on" Tech: "Oh man, this is unbeliveable, it is not working at all, look at this!" (Tech Cntl-Alt-Deletes the NT server, and both of them watch it get half way through the boot process then blue-screen and dump it's guts) Tech: "This crap started yesterday and I've been waiting on hold for 2 hours to talk to Microsoft Support" (Tech points to his desk phone on Speaker and playing the raccus Microsoft on-hole advertising) Fossil: "Gee, do you think you can get this solved today and the server back" Tech: "Oh, man, no way, we will be lucky if we can get any of the critical data back by the end of the week!" (Tech then launches into a long explanation of how tremendously complicated a new NT installation will be as well as how many reboots and service packs and patches will be needed to be installed, followed by a long explanation of how the unreliable backup may not restore anything) Fossil, beginning to panic: "Is there anything we can possibly do in the interim" Tech: "Well, I have this FreeBSD server I've been experimenting with that might work out until the NT server is backonline" Fossil: "Let's see it" Tech: "Well, I've got the user accounts in here already" (Tech then switches to the FreeBSD console which is running the xdm graphical login screen, logs in, immediately runs Netscape and calls up Webmin, then clicks on a few icons to display the user accounts) Fossil: "Hmm - will this work?" Tech: "Oh, yes, I already ran a few tests already while I was waiting for Microsoft support" Fossil: "Well, put it online" Scene ends with manager walking off and thinking "I don't understand why Microsoft isn't getting back to us, we have a Silver support, what good is all that damn money we pay to them" I hope this should illustrate what you need to be doing to effectively advocate FreeBSD to this older set of managers. Remember, these aren't BAD people, they are just driven by goals that are much different than yours. Primariarly, they want a system in place that the PERCEIVE will consume the smallest amount of their time possible. The fact that most of them would never be able to do something as simple as adding a user account on either a Windows or a Web-enable FreeBSD server is entirely of no consequence to them. We are dealing with pure perception here. Techs inexperienced in the ways of organizational politics invariably tend to spend MORE time talking about systems they LIKE using than systems they HATE using. They may say 10 words about how horrible the NT server restore was to their manager, then say 1000 words yapping about how it needs to be replaced by FreeBSD. What you have to realize is that both the 1000 and the 10 words are going in one ear and out the other - what is sticking in the managers mind goes right back to that Microsoft marketing advert example. More words means more complexity and more time spent, fewer words means less complexity and less time. The idea that's unconsciously formed in the manager's mind is that FreeBSD is going to take a lot of their precious time and energy while Windows won't. If you want to get FreeBSD in, your going to have to spend some time slogging through the mud and don't lose the least little opportunity to tell your manager in tremendous, excrutiating detail just how much screwed up the Windows systems are that your working with. No screwed up design flaw, no wart on the butt of the Windows operating system is too small for at least 2 hours of carping about how much time was burned up getting around it, fixing it, or restructuring things to deal with it. And, don't forget to spend as much time as you dare burned up on hold on the Microsoft support line. Your organization want's Windows because it's supported - well By God you damn well better show them what Microsoft support is REALLY like. If you never call Microsoft support and instead get all your Windows fixes by digging around on the Internet - why then don't you see how easy it is for Microsoft to claim how great their support is? How can you tarnish something that nobody in your organization has ever USED?!?!? By contrast, say as LITTLE as possible about the warts on the FreeBSD operating system's butt. In fact, you need to make sure that every time you mention FreeBSD it's in conjunction with how you were able to use it to bridge over some hole in the Windows network. And, you want to make every effort to put any graphical interface available onto FreeBSD, even if you never use them. I mean, I can update a DNS record about 6 times faster with a test editor working directly on the zone file, than I can with webmin - but by God I make darn sure that when I'm demonstrating DNS on FreeBSD that unless the person I'm demonstrating it is a dyed-in-the-wool techie, I never show them anything other than the webmin interface. Anyway, ABOVE ALL you need patience, patience, patience!! That pair of jeans you bought at The Gap - well you probably got a diet of 1 YEAR's worth of Gap advertising poured into your brain before it made the connection. But, as a result of it you unconscously believe that the jeans at The Gap are better than anywhere else - despite the fact that The Gap is buying them from the same Taiwanese sweatshop that everyone else is using!! ANYONE who has mastered FreeBSD has got far, far FAR more intelligence than what is needed to master and understand these little perceptional tricks. Sheesh - advertisers do this to you 1000 times a day - and there's some tremendous morons out there advertising with quite a bit of success. Quit being the victim of this perceptional brainwashing game that Microsoft is playing and take charge of it, and use it for your own ends!! Remember - YOU are RIGHT NEXT to your mark - your manager. You see him or her every day. Microsoft simply does not have the kind of access to their marks - your manager - that you do. The only reason that they are winning this game is because they know all about what I've just told you and you don't. But if you choose to start playing, there's no way in hell that they can win against you. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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