RSS feed
The company I work for, Synop,
does a lot of R&D, particularly in the CMS and microcontent space. We
developed one of the leading RSS readers for .NET, Sauce Reader, which isn’t our end
game, but at least gets our fingers into the blogging space. We’ve
always been a microcontent company, so although we feel like we belong
in the space more than most, Sauce Reader is actually designed with
additional purposes in mind.
Anyway, I did a quick review of CNet’s new Newsburst aggregator the
other day, and posted it on my Synop blog. While not a
direct competitor with our core R&D, they are heading in our direction,
and of course they do compete directly with Sauce Reader.
So then someone on the Newsburst team comes to my blog and thanks me
for my comments, and then asks for any additional feedback I may have,
and areas in which they could improve. This is great, it opens a dialog
up with a possible customer, and whether he realises it, a partial
competitor. Very Scoblesque of both of us, if I may coin a phrase, to
positively review a competitor in public.
But here’s the rub. How much feedback do I give? If any? And how much
of that should be on company time? We have a lot of IP in this space,
and it would be very easy for me to throw a few nice ideas their way,
just to keep the discussion alive, but traditionally you’d just shut the
fuck up really.
Scoble talks about almost anything being open for discussion, except
for confidential company IP like new products etc. Others would say
everything should be open. However this isn’t always as black and white
as people suggest. A grey area exists between embracing the chasm, the
long tail, the blogosphere, and keeping quiet about what we’re working
on. There’s no real guide, and I guess we have to make our own decisions
as to what we do and say.
As for Newsburst, I do wish them luck. Who knows, one day we could be
big competitors, or even partners. More likely, one of us won’t sync up
with whatever direction the industry takes.
There’s a saying in show business: The people you meet on the way up,
are the same ones you meet on the way back down. It’s another one of my
life mantras.
Age is a funny thing. We’re aware of religious and racial discrimination, but people have impressions of how people should behave and what they’re capable of, by knowing someone’s age. I’m not saying age is as abused as the former two, but there is an effect.
I was buying breakfast today at the local milk bar, if you can call it that these days, wondering what I’d be able to get for free or
cheap. While the woman behind the counter cooked my breakfast, the discussion then went something like this:
Woman: You meet my daughter?
I should mention for no discriminatory reason whatsoever, that she had has an Asian accent, which immediately gives some clarity to her question.
RBF: Umm… no I haven’t. How is she?
Woman: She 21 months old. She studying Uni.
RBF: Oh, your daughter’s 21 months old? And she’s studying at Uni? Why isn’t she cooking my breakfast then?
Woman: She no like the shop. She work in Mes.. Westfield, in jewelry shop.
RBF: Oh. She’s 21 years old yeah?
Woman: She come in here every so often, but not enjoy it.
RBF: Well next time she comes in, you point her out to me OK?
Woman: You studying Uni?
RBF: [laugh] No, I’m a bit past that now. How old do you think I am?
Woman: Ooh, twenty, twenty one or so. You people hard to tell.
RBF: OK. [laugh] I’ll tell you a secret. [whispering] I’m 38.
Well suddenly she was quiet, started concentrating on the cooking, and never looked back at me again.
So what’s with being 38? Maybe that put me at her age, and changed her whole status equation, having to re-evaluate how to behave, feeling that she’s exposed her family perhaps, to someone only 21 is OK, but now a thinking and experienced adult?
Or maybe it has opened up other perceived contact points for her, that make her uncomfortable. Social comfort levels tend to be based upon how many or few contact points people have with others, such as friendly, personal, knowing something private, or for the Freudian’s amongst us, sexual tension. If you consider that sexual tension is now a (completely unlikely) option, and she was talking about meeting her daughter, if I were 21, would I still be a personal threat to her? Or am I only a threat now that I’m 38? Oh isn’t the subconscious an amazing thing.
And what’s with her wanting me to meet her daughter? And why can’t a 38 year old have a relationship, meaningful or otherwise, with a 21 year old? Not that I’ve ever met her of course. But then it was all probably small talk anyway.
I’m not going to brag that I look really young, but I get it a lot, getting to know people quite well, and then have them completely shocked when they find out how old I am. Usually the friendship cancels out any age problems, but some people do change when they find out, treating me
differently.
But as we know, it’s what is inside that is important. I only feel about 28, and for about 15 years I felt 24, so who cares if I’m 15 or 65?
In the past, age played a big role in the difference between social groups, specifically from 1950s to 1980s, when science, technology, pop culture and politics were uniquely generational. However we are now returning to a time pre-20th century, when those differences aren’t as significant. Many of my friends are in their early to mid 20s, as they probably would have been in previous centuries, so I’m thinking the 20th century was a unique exception to age as a devisive trait amongst social
groups. Interesting.