Multitasking 

Listening to the new Gillmor Gang while I try to figure something out in Flash. How would you script a button so it appends predetermined text to a text block?

Later: my rating: 4. I don't listen primarily for the entertainment; I like to hear original ideas. Doc was missed, and I was hoping to hear more about Office 2.0 from Dan and Steve.

Land of the outer circle 

The nice long NYtimes piece on Friendster today has a quote that reminded me of something I heard an organizational development consultant say a long time ago when I was interviewing her for an HR newsletter I used to edit.

Quote from the Times article: “After a while all the changes really wear on you,” said Jeff Winner, who served under three chief executives in just 12 months as the head of the company’s troubled engineering team. “Every C.E.O. represented a change of direction, and when a company changes direction, the engineers really get jerked around.”

The remark from the consultant -- as well as I can remember it -- was about how a small turn made by the top person can send employees scrambling in wasted effort. It's especially true if the CEO is a classical entrepreneur type who has big ideas and who is full of impatience.

You picture the CEO standing in the middle of a series of concentric circles, each circle representing a layer of the hierarchy. Then picture a rope tied from the CEO to each employee. When the top person makes a small turn, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but workers out there at the end of the rope in the outer circle have to have to run and scramble to accomodate the little whim. CEOs who don't see this happening are doomed. So are those who see it and don't care.

The Times piece mentions the perceived need to staff up like there's no tomorrow when you get VC money. I saw that in the startup I worked for in the late 90s. That kind of frenzied recruiting is a frightening thing to see, when it's all based on anticipated growth, before even the promise of revenue potential has been proved.