Hi, Tuesday's Press featured a response by Phil Holliday to an article by Vaso Bovan in which he (Vaso) criticised the NZ hi-tech industry. I would like to support Phil's response with a few comments. I am doing this because I have a reasonably unique perspective and because I owe a debt of gratitude to the hi-tech community in Christchurch.
First, why I believe my perspective is reasonably unique: I was educated and worked for a number of years in the former Soviet Union, a country not famous for its civil rights or standard of living, but nevertheless having a very strong educational system and very strong science and engineering with world class achievements. After that I spent 12 years in Christchurch working for a hi-tech company and meeting people from a large number of other NZ hi-tech companies. During this time I was fortunate to work on projects giving me opportunities to travel to the Silicon Valley and meet there not only with my colleagues but also employees of other US companies (Verisign, Mapquest, Microsoft, Vignette, Lionbridge to name a few). Therefore I can compare not two but three quite different cultures. Without doing a blow by blow analysis of what Vaso Bovan wrote, here are my 20 roubles (I mean, 20 cents:-) worth to add to this rather emotional discussion: - The team culture in NZ is something he seems to have overlooked. I have personally heard comments in the US about how team-oriented the NZ development culture was and how easier it was to get things done. As another example, those who attended a recent presentation of Annette Dow of Binary Research will remember her comments about her US employees who vowed to never again work for an American company after working for the company she and her partners set up in the US. What will happen to this part of the culture if Vaso's model culture prevails and how will it affects end results? - On management training for engineers: I have not met here an engineer telling me that he/she wanted to do a management course and was discouraged by his/her company. I had the privilege of having my MBA supported by my company, and I know of many other similar examples throughout the industry. - The 9 to 5 mentality mentioned by Vaso is not as prevalent as it may seem from his article. I know many people here who work long hours. What I think is characteristic is that working long hours is not seen here as a requirement for being an effective engineer/manager, while in the Silicon Valley you will frequently find companies with cultures summarised in "if you don't turn up at work on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday". Interestingly enough, I have not seen any studies proving that long term success rate in such companies is higher than in more "people-friendly" companies. Vaso Bovan's article is definitely thought-provoking and raises issues that deserve to be on the agenda. But I felt that his conclusions and suggestions needed to be taken with caution, and I am glad that The Press published Phil's response to them. Cheers, Andrei Link --> via Canterbury Software email forum: Success through Connections Email your messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] Leave or rejoin the list: http://canterburysoftware.org.nz/forum.htm
