Andy's Mind

One of the things that happen in our world is increasing significance of various paperwork. Of course, the term “paperwork” shouldn’t be taken literarily since most documents of various kinds are processed electronically – and this strengthens this trend tremendously. In more and more places one has to present himself through various documents, either to identify himself or to prove his worth through various diplomas, certificates and the like. It has two aspects which I find particularly odious – limiting freedom and dehumanizing relations between people. While many concentrate on the former I’ve seen very few discussions of the later. And in my opinion the field in which dehumanization I’m referring to is most visible is hiring, mainly in large corporations.

We live in the age of, what I call, “database hiring” in which people seeking work are reduced to unidimensional records in recruiters’ databases. What so called “hiring managers” are looking for is not a complex individual but a set of skills easily expressible in numbers and short abbreviations. The numbers represent years of experience given candidate claims with desired list of narrowly defined skills, the abbreviations stand for various diplomas, titles or certificates are recorded next to a name and telephone in their database. Hiring therefore is nothing more than merely formulating and running a database query with the help of a more or less complex user interface.

The language reflects this change and right now “human resources” is used much more than “personnel” or “staff”. A “human resource” is just as any other resource in company’s books, it is bought, used and disposed of when necessary. It is reduced to numbers like salary, employee category, numerical evaluation of performance as well as absence etc. which can be processed to produce statistics, create rankings etc. An employee is as disposable and interchangeable as, say, a file server or a truck. When you need a new one you just specify the desired parameters, search the database and – voila! – you have your candidates.

Consequently, to get hired one has to be able to establish a visible presence in a candidates database, which can be achieved mainly through various diplomas and professional titles – the more the better. Market responds to the need and in addition to traditional, academic titles & diplomas we now have a myriad of certifications in almost any field imaginable along with dozens of titles like MCSE or PMP.

Of course, what I’m whining here about is justified by the conditions – the need to quickly react to the market conditions, fierce competition also amongst job seekers and – last but not least – systems, tools that make it the easiest way. And, indeed, all those diplomas and titles are an indication of something – although in most cases not of what they claim to guarantee. They show more than anything else one’s dedication to a certain career and willingness to play by the rules of the paperwork world.

However, this brave new world of “database recruiting” and “human resources” comes at a cost. First, it produces people who have lots of fancy credentials but are not able to perform in the real world. I’ve met some and I think everyone who had been in the trade long enough had. Second, it filters out people who are either self-learners or who have wide and diverse interests but are not very focused. Again, I think everyone can recall an example of both from his (or hers) own experience. Third, and most important loss, is that dehumanizing aspect of those practices which I mentioned. It’s more elusive, harder to define than other results but that doesn’t make it less real.

Interestingly, truly great companies have a quite different approach to both hiring and treating their people. Google is a shining example now, recruiting its people through complex problems publicly posted on the web – if someone is good enough to solve them he passes the first selection and is in the recruiting processes. Microsoft, in the days of its greatness, and Apple also used recruiters personally approaching suitable candidates rather than database queries.

But there are some good examples outside of IT. The best is of course Toyota whose good treatment of its workers is legendary – and both financial results and quality of their products show that this is a right way. And, most importantly, that there is another way than what the rest does.

I’m reading “The Quantum and the Lotus“, a fascinating dialog between an astrophysicist and an ex-biologist who became a Buddhist monk and philosopher. I’ve been reading only for last three days so I’m now past chapter 6 or so, and yet I’ve already learned things I never heard of. The most mind boggling are the wider implications of the Foucault’s pendulum shifting in relation not only to Earth and twin photon experiment conducted by Nicolas Gisin in 1997 – an offspring of the almost century old EPR paradox.

It’s hard to boil all this down to few sentences but overall it seems that the famous phrase which pulled me towards Buddhism – “The form is empty, emptiness is form” – is more in agreement with current scientific understanding than I expected.

I also have some thoughts going around my head as I read. For example one thing that – so far – has not appeared in the author’s cosmological dialog is recognition of the fact that our perception as parts of this universe of interdependencies is inherently limited. We are unable to scientifically measure or probably even understand in terms of human reasoning anything that might be outside of it. Any speculation reaching outside is bound to be an extrapolation of our own way of thinking – just as saying that life – and especially intelligent one – has necessarily to be based on carbon biology as we know it from Earth.

Another raw, yet unrefined reflection regards consequences of the experiments mentioned. If something clearly can move faster than light (even if it is just some form of information) and stability of phenomena on macroscopic level is rather an illusion than fact then there is hope that somehow the great distances of space can be traversed. It is of course far fetched, but maybe way forward for us is not only to try to blend general relativity and quantum mechanics into one single theory but rather in unifying the understanding of cognizant, conscious part of the reality and what we perceive as inanimate matter. Because it seems that fundamentally they are intrinsically connected.

Groove is just another example of what, I think, are signs of IT (or computer industry) maturing and inevitably becoming commonplace. Those signs are stuff that just works without people generally knowing – or caring – how. Another is Skype.

Skype is arguably worse at its core functionality (carrying voice over the network) than other protocols – and the protocol itself is proprietary and unknown, as opposed to widely implemented and well documented SIP standard. Also, Skype’s rates for calls to the normal telephone network are much worse than what classic VoIP SIP operators propose (like BroadVoice which I happen to use). But Skype is winning the competition for the mass market because it just works. No complicated configuration, no additional devices, just download the software, install it and off you go. NAT? Firewalls? In most cases – zero problems.

That’s why I found even my geeky friends to use it. Reason? Simple – you can talk a complete non-geek through installing it, basic computer literacy is all that is needed.

Same about Groove. No hassle, just install it and work. They only have to tweak their business model some to become as ubiquitous as Skype already is. I wonder if now, under Microsoft’s ownership, they will figure it out – after all no one’s better than Microsoft at making their stuff ubiquitous.

I tried the Groove today (on learning that it was bought by Microsoft). And I must say that I love it. It simply solves one of my problems as a freelance consultant which has a computer at home, a laptop (or a series of laptops from different companies I work for) and occasionally a PC at an office – how to keep files consistent and up date in all those places. Groove easily integrates with the XP system I have to use and works well from behind firewalls – although I haven’t figured out yet what prevents it from synchronizing some jpeg images in one of the directories.

And I also like and understand the potential behind more complex services Groove offers for group collaboration like discussions, time sheets, calendar, meetings etc.

Now, if only a viable, cross-platform open source alternative existed… because to use its potential fully nearly everyone, or at least all people I work with on projects,would have to have it.

For now I’m already considering buying at least the filesharing option (which is not that expensive at around $70) when my trial period expires just for my own needs. And this is saying something because as far as I can remember I never ever bought a piece of software (not counting the Microsoft’s OS’s which came with the computers I had).