Flashback: The Level 5 Sessions

I had to pause for a bit and reflect on 2008 and 2009 a bit.  2008 in particular was one of the worst years of my life aside from 1987 (father passed away) and 1997 (mother passed away).  I experience my first time being laid off from a job.  I have never been fired from any job in my life, so getting laid off, and on very short notice was not only a shock, but, well, I'm sure some of you are well aware of how that feels when you have a family and are barely keeping up on bills.  That put us so far behind that I'm sure we can ever catch up, but who knows.

In 2007, a mutual friend got me in touch with Brian S. Tucker.  We had a few conversations about some ideas Brian had and what he was hoping I could do to help him make those ideas work.  Mind you, these were all his ideas, and I was only one of quite a few other players involved.  Brian had a crazy idea (at the time) to start a web site devoted to subscription-based training videos for various Microsoft platform products.  The first phase was a free upload site called BlogcastRepository.com but his ideas was to develop a premium service called the "Level 5" Guides, which would involve paid monthly subscriptions.

2008 wasn't all bad, at least not after April. When Brian heard I was unemployed and having a tough time finding another job, he got in touch with me and helped push me to produce more content and help promote his site and become a win-win situation.  The combination of having someone keeping me involved and working towards a goal, kept me away from depression and solitude.  Those may sound trivial, but when you're laid off during cold weather months, and all your friends are busy at their jobs, your life can be come very lonely and scarry. 

I can't stress enough how important it is to just stay busy.  Especially if you can get outdoors as well.  I did that while still hunting for another job. But early-2008 was not a good time to look for a job.  Every single place I went to had a freeze on hiring due to fears of how far the economy was going to sink.  Everyone kept trying to encourage me with things like "with your skills" or "with your background" … "you should have no problem finding another job".  But that actually made it worse because the more rejections I got (or stark silence) the more I began to doubt my skills and marketability.  Human nature: Easy to study, much more complicated to experience.

Brian put himself, and his family's future on the line, to finance and push to make the dream a reality.  They endured a ton of shit with banks, developers, business people and trying to market their idea to both content authors and potential subscribers.  It was a stretch to assume it could be successful, and there were times when it didn't appear it would work out, but they never gave up or let pessimism creep in.

This happened within a few weeks of being laid off, and I used that down-time to gear up, ramp up, and man up to producing 17 sessions on WSUS 3.0 and 18 sessions on Windows Server 2008.  The latter of which was just barely out of beta/CTP when I recorded those.  Looking back they were very basic and almost embarrassingly amateur, but at the time it was all I had.  I needed to pay the mortgage, feed the kids and keep the electricity and water turned on.  Brian came through, and when I needed it most.  He didn't hand me any crying towels or pat me on the back either.  He knew my predicament and still insisted on me doing my best, just like everyone else who participated.  That gave me back much-needed respect and at least a little self-confidence.

Together with Edwin Sarmiento, Abhishek Joshi, Andy Dominey, Dennis Rietvink and a few others (very few), we pushed into what was at that time uncharted territory.  But it worked.  I was humbled by the credentials of these other guys, and Brian himself.  I wasn't sure if I belonged in that group, but Brian convinced me to step up.  The margins paid to us from the subscription sales weren't a lot but they absolutely saved me and my family.  That picture above was my rig and recording "studio" in our garage during that time.  It truly is worth a thousand words to me.

As the site began to grow in popularity, and more subscribers came aboard, we were soon facing the dilemna of what to do next.  What topics should we focus on?  What features should we dive deeper into?  We emailed subscribers to get feedback, but hardly anyone replied.  At that point Brian had to take on additional consulting work (which he had already been doing for quite a few years) in order to fund the business to a higher level.  In mid-Summer 2009, he took a job in Washington, D.C. where soon after he suffered a heart attack, and was recovering in the hospital, when he took a turn for the worse and passed away in August 2009.

Since Brian's passing, the site was not being managed and spammers began to victimize it badly.  Subscribers were asking what to do about cancelling payments and what the future was.  Unfortunately, I had no answers, and neither did any of the other authors.  We were as confused as anyone else.  In any case, I miss Brian and will never forget how much he helped me and many others in his short life.  May he rest in peace.

In May of 2010, Mike Rood contacted me to begin the process of finding who was managing or owned the site.  He was able to negotiate the purchase of the site from Julie Tucker.  I haven't heard anything since August 2010.  I e-mailed Mike to find out what the latest news is, so I hope to have something good to report soon - finger's crossed.

If You Repeat Something Enough Times…

After months of listening to Ford fanatics blabber on about how Ford didn't have to take a hand-out, while GM did, well, I've had enough.  Time to vent a little.

First off: You cannot compare GM with Ford in this context. Aside from cars, they have nothing in common. Check out the list of "products" and "services" GM provides to the US government (read: DoD) and it should spark your brain juices. One makes consumer and commercial stuff, the other supplies a good portion of our military. They can't let a vital defense supplier go under. Period. It won't happen.

Second, Ford didn't "roll up their sleeves" and put in "elbow grease" to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps". They fired shitloads of veteran workers and shut down plants, and "leveraged" their foreign supply chains (read: cheaper labor and parts). That's not "hard work". That's fucking people. That's fucking families and ENTIRE communities. Big difference.  But the Ford PR machine has done a great job of smearing icing on a cardboard cake.

Now, was Ford wrong to cut back? No. They did what they had to in order to stay in business and please their shareholders. That's what a business is supposed to do. But don't put on the costume of superhero and claim it was something else. Call it what it was: a cutback. A downsizing.

Third: For all the talk about how they’re JUST NOW focusing on “quality” and “value”, I have to ask, and YOU should be asking this also: What were you doing all this time up until now?!  Screwing us.  That’s what.  To be fair, this is not a Ford problem, it’s been an American car problem for 30 years.  Chrysler and GM were also letting us down.  But as soon as the economy ripped the rug out from under them, boom! Then they wake up and start trying to make cars people “want”.  I know I’m not alone in feeling that they waited too long and made it obvious they only woke up in order to benefit them, not us.

If you use words like “luxury”, “class” and “sophistication” don’t point to a Ford Edge or a Chevy pick-up.  Those words do not apply.  Words still matter to some of us.  Using words like “affordable”, “smart” and “practical” work better for most of their products today.

I’ve owned a lot of cars in my life.  Driving a car is not the same as owning one.  It takes time to learn how a car behaves.  I’ve owned vehicles from GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Subaru.  I have no favorites.  I can say though that I will never willingly buy a “new” car from GM, Ford or Chrysler.  Used cars, maybe.

2008, 2009, 2010…

I felt like reflecting on the past year, if only for a minute.  Thinking back, it was a truly mixed bag of fortunes.

2008 was probably the worst year since my parents passed away in the 90’s.  I lost my job early in the year, and began a long a struggle back from financial chaos that ensued.  It was early in the Recession, so things were declining pretty quick.  It all started to turn around for me in June of that year, when I was hired back at a former employer, and so far has continued to be a very positive experience.  I was lucky indeed.

2009 was going pretty well, until mid/late Summer, when I lost two friends without any warning.  One died of a sudden heart attack, the other from suicide by cop (seriously).  Neither of them ever showed signs that would have indicated their fates were even remotely possible.  I still think about them often.  It’s a hole in my life that will take some time to heal.

During 2009, I was fortunate enough to be allowed to take some courses towards an MCSA and an MCITP certification, which I achieved.  My oldest daughter graduated high school.  We still have a house and electricity.  We still have a family.

I’m not sure what to expect from 2010.  The past two years have been rocky, but with bright spots as well.  If that means 2010 will be bad but will offer up more bright spots, then I suppose that’s not entirely bad.  Stay tuned…

My Thoughts on the Recent Autodesk Layoffs

I found out today from a good friend about the reductions announced at Autodesk.  What I also learned was that someone I really respect and enjoyed working with was one of those unfortunate folks who were let go.  I don't work for Autodesk, but I feel like sometimes I "did".  For those that don't know much about me, I spent almost twenty years working with Autodesk products as a developer of add-on software.  So when things get shaken up in San Rafael, or anywhere throughout their organization, I usually hear about it and I always pay attention.  When I heard that some good people were let go, while some terrible people were kept, I was a bit upset. 

I won't provide any names, but I will say that their choices of who to let go are being noticed by a huge community outside of their company.  Customers are going to notice because some of them (like my company) are getting sick and tired of dealing with the shlock being put in our faces to deal with instead of the skilled folks they keep under lock and key.  Instead of shuffling the deck, they threw out some Aces and kept some bad cards.

Years ago, before Carol Bartz came aboard, Autodesk was focused on customers and developers.  That's how they grew the business.  From the ground up.  Things got stupid in the boardroom and that's why Carol was brought in: to clean house and straighten things up. But she went wrong in two key areas:

1. She shifted the focus away from customers and developers towards shareholders.  Almost to the point of exclusion.

2. She allowed the company to get distracted in too many directions outside of their core competencies.  Remember AutoCAD 2000i?  The home design series?

Lucky timing of a few acquisitions and key licensing deals are what kept their stock prices afloat for so long.  That and squeezing their backroom developers for drips of innovation to meet shareholder demand.  The days of letting them play and invent crazy stuff were drying up because that's too costly and difficult to control.  Shareholder value.

So, almost ten years after I sat in an ADN conference room and listened to the VP tell us all that Mechanical Desktop was being replaced by Inventor, and Architectural Desktop was being replaced by Revit, well, we still have MDT and ADT.  That's execution for you.  I don't blame the developers for that.  I blame the boardroom.  And today's news is also another bad decision I blame on the boardroom.  No wonder our district has endured almost a dozen sales reps in the past eight years.  Who would want to work under that mess?

I know there's little chance anyone at Autodesk reads my rambling mess, but in case someone there does:  Next time you decide to lay off someone, start by asking your customers to rate the Autodesk folks they deal with.  I mean EVERYONE they deal with.  Not just the official boilerplate faces that show up to sign subscription deals and fly off before the ink dries.

Wow - Layoff Bonanza?

Home Depot, Caterpiller, ING, Spring, Philips, and Pfizer.  Total headcount is 48,000 plus 26,000 at Pfizer alone!  That's 74,000.  Not all at once obviously, but still.  Holy crap!  That "stimulus package" better be on target and on time or 2009 is going to become a bloodbath.  I'm really lucky to be working for a company that's got a backlog of huge projects and a lot of IT and non-IT positions yet to fill.

Not-So News of Tech

Newsbin Pro 5.5 was officially released after a lengthy beta trial.  I love the way those guys handle their development cycle.  Not too long.  Not too short.  Just right.

KiXtart 4.61 Beta 1 was posted January 2.  The new Replace() function is nice, as are the bug fixes.  If you're still using an older version, my God: get off your butt and move to 4.60 at least.  Geez.  You'll be glad you did.  Tastes great and less filling.

Tech Layoffs galore this past week: Microsoft, Intel, Sun, Disney, TI, Sony, Oracle.  Add to those over the past month or so: IBM, Logitech, EMC, TDK, Motorola, Ericsson, Nortel, Cisco, AMD, Digg (Revision3).  But the most tragic?  Starbucks!!!  Oh my God!!!  I'd rather they lay off government workers than Starbucks people.  Have they no common sense?!?

Apple released an update for their Remote Server Admin Tools.

Question of the Day:  How can anyone juxtapose two seemingly diverse arguments about the impact of Steve Jobs' absense?  That (a) he was an important [if not THE most important] force in the shaping of Apple and its continued success, and that (b) Apple can continue to innovate and succeed without him?

Inspired by the work of Paul Thurrott, I posted my very first Windows 7 Theme Pack (soon to be renamed "Style" pack) for Virginia Beach.  Check it out (if you have Win 7 installed).  It won't bite, but it has a few nice photos I've taken.

Have computers really solved more problems than they've created?  If you answered that question in less than 30 seconds of intense thought, you're fooling yourself.

Even More Layoffs

In addition to the post I already made about some recent layoffs, check this out. Circuit City takes the prize with a liquidation and closure totalling roughly 34,000 layoffs. Most of the respected economists insist we are only at the beginning of this mess. About half seem to think the "bottom" will be April or May. Others think it will rebound slightly when the weather warms and then drop again in the Fall before recovering in early Q1-2010. Sheesh.

So I have ask all the mortgage agents, bank execs, credit lending firms out there: Was the greedy short-sighted bullshit all worth it?

More Layoffs

Announced in the last seven days...

Delta Airlines: 2000

Blue Cross: 1000

Saks: 1100

Neiman Marcus: 375

Plantronics: 18% (specific number not given)

Autodesk: 750

Barnes & Noble: 100

Motorola: 4000

Pfizer: 800

source: LayoffBlog.com

More Layoffs

International Paper: 1500

Alcatel-Lucent: 1000

Fairchild Semiconductor: 1100

Novellus Systems: 10% (global workforce)

In addition to the TechCrunch Layoff Tracker, here's another over at the Seattle Post/Intelligencer

The Layoff Counts for the Week

Layoffs announced within the past 10 days:

Citi Group = 53,000 (over several years)

AT&T = 15,000

DuPont = 2,500 (plus 4,000 contractors)

Bank of America = 35,000 (over 3 years)

Dow Chemical = 5,000

Sony = 8,000

Stanley Tools = 2,000

Sara Lee Foods = 700

State Street Corp = 1,800 (estimated)

Viacom = 850

Adobe = 600

Pratt & Whitney = 350

Anheuser Busch (InBev) = 1,400 (US only)

DivX = 21

NFL = 150

NBA = 80

Principal Financial = 550

NASCAR = 70

Almost every financial analyst quoted on TV this week seems to agree that this is only the beginning.  Most think it will taper off by April or May, 2009.  But nobody really knows.  It could be sooner, or longer.

What galls me is Cerebus Group saying they felt it would be "irresponsible" to pump any more funds into Chrysler (which they own), however, they are gladly holding their hand out for cash from the pending "bail-out".  That's just wrong.  Write your congressman and tell them you won't stand for it.  The owners won't pay up, but they want us to pay up?  F that.