On 8 Sep 98, Michael A. Stone wrote:
> a sense of excitement in developers has three uses, all
> of which i consider essential to doing things properly:
Mm. Some years ago I took a job as "documentation and marketing
manager" (an odd mix, but anyway) with a brash little software start-up in
Ottawa. The company had begun life as a DTP systems-integrator, selling
PCs with laser printers and software, and was doing OK. Then its CEO had
the bold idea of trying to develop a Windows-based vector graphics
application that could compete with the then-far superior packages
available for the Mac. We called our package "Corel Draw", and rest is...
well, you know.
Anyway: that was my one experience, three years' worth all told, in the
hothouse of high-end software development, and I certainly recall that it
was "excitement" that fuelled 90% of the operation. It gave us bravado,
endless energy and a sense of invincibility.
The intangible aura of excitement that permeated every working day
pushed us to work impossible hours, take on vexing programming
challenges without a blink, and to hop on a plane with a half-hour's notice
to demo the product at a trade show, or meet with big guns at Microsoft
or IBM. (We were working hard on an OS/2 version back then, speaking of
moribund operating systems [were we?] I still have occasional blood-
chilling flashbacks about the time I had to demo a totally flaky pre-beta
OS/2 version in front of 300 people at Comdex, IBM brass included --
gawd. What a debacle :)
But at the time I simply didn't care -- this was *exciting", dammit, and
that excitement engendered fierce loyalty to the company, and a
willingness to do whatever it took to keep that excitement coming.
Constant travel (limos at either end), four-star hotels, partying with the
columnists at major PC magazines, negotiations with "Redmond", stock
options, all that; it was highly seductive to say the least (and probably
helped kill my first marriage, sigh... was away for weeks at a time, and
even when I was "here" I wasn't really -- my head and heart had been
seduced, as I say, by The Company.)
I ran into a guy last month who was a middle manager at Corel with me
back then, now a senior VP; asked him how things are now that the
company is a staid old veteran in the software wars, with branch offices,
a few battle scars and so on. "Well", he said, reflecting for a moment, "it's
OK... I'm making some serious coin, that's for sure... but it sure ain't what
it used to be back then. Now it's just a job; back then it was *exciting*."
It's also worth noting that Corel's stock has been sliding steadily for quite
some time now, and it has recently laid off a heap of workers. Just
another bloated and reactionary Fortune 500 software house now, I guess.
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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