RE: Tipton's COMMON opening speech -- MIDRANGE-L

Dan --

Tom Peters is like THE management guru of the 90's (and beyond).

He co-wrote "In Search Of Excellence" in the late 80's (?) which propelled
him into the management consultant limelight.

He's since written several books and speaks at his seminars. The entire gist
of his work is basically this: "These are unusual times, and unusual times
call for unusual actions done by unusual people".

I believe he's right. Look around.

An exercise he recommends (which I do, and it's an eye-opener): Keep a list
of "Ugly" and "Cool" stuff you observe.

For example:

"Ugly" -- A local department store has their clothing racks so close
together that it is literally difficult to move around the store.
"Ugly" -- I leave a voice mail message at my doctor's office and they never
call me back.
"Cool" -- My ISP has two-way cable modem service, and they actually gave me
advice on how to save money by purchasing my cable modem thru eBay rather
than through them (the ISP). Now does THAT inspire loyalty (YES!) or what?!


As you build this list, you begin to see patterns. I apply patterns to
software (why not ... we use "Design Patterns" for Object Oriented Design
all the time) to make it "cool".

-- Don

-----Original Message-----
From: Bale, Dan [mailto:DBale@TFSA.Textron.com]
Sent: March 20, 2000 12:58 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Tipton's COMMON opening speech


Please, no heckles, I have three children.  ;-)  Who is Tom Peters?

Love your idea for the parody on the 1984 ad!

- Dan Bale

-----Original Message-----
From: Schenck, Don [mailto:Don.Schenck@WL.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 12:14 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Tipton's COMMON opening speech


Read or listen to Tom Peters.

Truly GREAT stuff is done by wacky and passionate people.

ANYTHING great is done by "crazy" people. From Martin Luther to Martin
Luther King to Steve Jobs to Lance Armstrong.

That makes ME feel great, because I'm crazy and don't know my limitations
(well ... besides a 300-lb bench press).

Evangelists need to RUN the AS/400 team, from design to construction to
marketing to support. Anything less will result in ... well ... "Magic Box"
and "I AM"-type stuff.

How about THIS:

A parody of the famous "1984" ad:

People are sitting in a huge room, but instead of just watching a huge
screen, they all have screens in front of them and their all surfing the
web.

The big screen shows an AS/400, sitting there running, with a bunch of URL's
flying by to symbolize the web activity.

A hacker wearing Microsoft's colors comes running into the room and tosses a
big hammer toward the screen (like the 1984 ad).

It bounces off!

VOICEOVER: AS/400; the most reliable web server on the planet.



-- Don

-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Williams [mailto:colin.williams@technocrats.co.uk]
Sent: March 20, 2000 11:04 AM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Tipton's COMMON opening speech


Does it come down to the fact that many of companies(the Dell's,
Microsofts, Sun's and HP's) 
are run by entrepeneurs or techies, who are emotionallly attached to
their products
but IBM is run by executives, who are not?(Not that theres anything
wrong with that!)

-----Original Message-----
From: Schenck, Don [mailto:Don.Schenck@WL.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 2:14 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Tipton's COMMON opening speech


Chuck --


<<
I was illustrating a point that I know first-hand the effect of sending 
hundreds of letters to IBM. It has no effect. So why even suggest it?
>>


I remember that. What a MAJOR disappointment. It was then that I took up
Visual Basic; I saw the handwriting on the wall (and it was 
REALLY hard to
read because it was all CAPITAL letters and each word was only 
SIXCHR's long
and THEYALLRANTOGETHER <grin>).



<<
And I'll say this: action is almost worthless in the AS/400 
market. I will 
wager money that despite your efforts, despite Bob Tipton's very 
provocative speech, and despite the endless messages on this 
list, the web 
forums, and the AS/400 newsgroup, that I have no hope that IBM 
will do what 
Bob suggested in his speech: turn the AS/400 division loose on 
the market, 
and have it run by a maniacal, egotistical, charismatic figure 
that will 
irritate and motivate and succeed (as they do at Apple, 
Microsoft and Sun).
>>


Hmmmm ... *I* am maniacal, egotistical and charismatic. I'm a 
PERFECT fit to
run the AS/400 division.

Interesting aside: Listen to Tom Peters -- love his stuff -- 
talk about how
Lexmark was going NOWHERE until it split from IBM. The 
_CULTURE_ as IBM was
(is?) all wrong. I'm not making this up; Tom Peters said that.

(and if everything were right in the world, we'd all be using 
Macintoshes)

Peace,

-- Don 
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