advocacy advice

[Larry]

It sounds like there are

many inner turf battles going on in the company or between various
groups or between you and the other group, and eliminating those bad
feelings and sticking to technical discussions will be the most
productive for the groups involved

That may be true, but resolving all the internal turf battles is, as
they say, "way above my pay grade". If I had to hold off on
implementing every technical decision until I could get agreement from
everyone in the agency who had an opinion about it, I would not be very
effective. I got approval from my own management before going forward.

 

[Larry]

The advocacy list is usually populated by

a lot of people who want to say things instead of do things, so those

of us that actually do things don't bother going there

So where do you go?

 

[brian d foy]

The advocacy list is usually populated by
a lot of people who want to say things instead of do things, so those
of us that actually do things don't bother going there

[/QUOTE]

So where do you go?

I don't go anywhere. I just do things and let other people talk
about them. I don't bother with discussions and and committees and
whatnot.

 

[MichiganBob]

I don't go anywhere. I just do things and let other people talk
about them. I don't bother with discussions and and committees and
whatnot.

So, how's the self-employment thing working out for you? Because that's
an attitude that won't cut it in the rest of the world. Most of us HAVE to
deal with other people -- people who just might have some say in how we
implement products.

 

[xhoster]

Setting a standard and having a company/group try to abide by that
standard does not mean incompetence. To take it to an extreme, what if
every group in the company wrote their software in different programming
languages?

To take the other extreme, what if every group in the company wrote their
software in assembly language to run on 286s?

The cost of development and maintenance would sky rocket.
Standards are created and modified for many reasons.

That is true. But it doesn't change the fact that creating and defending
standards which greatly decrease productivity for no good reason is
incompetent.

Xho

 

[David H. Adler]

...

So, how's the self-employment thing working out for you? Because that's
an attitude that won't cut it in the rest of the world. Most of us HAVE to
deal with other people -- people who just might have some say in how we
implement products.

I think you misunderstand brian. It's not that he doesn't talk to
anyone, it's that he doesn't get bogged down in endless committee
meetings.

Frankly, given brian's track record, you could do a LOT worse than to
follow his example.

dha

 

[J. Gleixner]

That is true. But it doesn't change the fact that creating and defending
standards which greatly decrease productivity for no good reason is
incompetent.

And we know that they have "no good reason" because????

Standards, they have. Judge their reasoning, we can not. -Yoda

 

[brian d foy]

"brian d foy" wrote...

So, how's the self-employment thing working out for you? Because that's
an attitude that won't cut it in the rest of the world.

Well, it's gone pretty well so far. I'm doing a lot better than most
of the rest of the world.

In the real world, people who get bogged down in committees and
discussion don't get much done either. I'm not saying that you ignore
other people, but that you know when to just do work. I haven't said
anything about being rude or being a jerk to other people, which you
seem to bring into this.

You might want to consider the latest craze in management: Malcolm
Galdwell's "Blink", which basically says what I said: Stop thinking
and get things done. At some point, someone in charge has to act like
they are in charge and make a decision. Endless discussions and long
meetings mean nobody is in charge.

The things that people need to know to advocate Perl are the
same things they need to know to advocate anything in the workplace:
make more friends and meet people that you don't work with. Understand
that most problems are social and don't have rational solutions.
Division of labor is not a social organization. People are more open to
ideas from people they already know and trust, and especially people
they drink with after work, play softball with, and so on.

The more time you spend talking about advocacy, the less time you're
working on making friends.

 

[Larry]

Well, this whole argument could end up actually helping me. I've met
more new people around the agency in the past few days than at any time
since I first started. Also, my presentation to the higher-ups will be
good for "visibility".