March 15, 2013: Doug Mamilor
March 15, 2013: Doug Mamilor
‘It was the best of [days],
It was the worst of [days].’
We sat around the plush meeting table, half a dozen techies in scarcely concealed languor at the thought of enduring yet another three hours of businessmen jousting to oblivion in deciding whether or not to launch a product that they did little to develop besides pushing paper.
I have always found corporate “go-live” meetings a fascinating avenue for observing the interplay of these crabs in their buckets. They constitute an intriguing community, if it isn’t too great a slight to use that word. No friends, foes or leaders — only their objectives and the fellow crustaceans that must never reach theirs. They grab unto and tear each other to pieces, scattering each other’s opinions far and wide with great enjoyment.
This particular meeting followed the same genial constitution where the conveners suspected their partners, their partners suspected the conveners, and they collectively suspected the consultants — namely us — who were making a general pretense at being objective with no more definite purpose than to escape the peril of making enemies of either party.
I have learned in my forced participation of these travesties that they all end in a pensive deadlock, and that upon arriving at said deadlock, the click-clacking of snapping pincers ceases for a moment as the company entrusts that pivotal article of opinion to the quiet bystander who had yet to be bothered to cast a vote.
My business is to ensure that the lone rider is me.
Silence is golden. It always wins you the podium and will often accompany it with the seal, I mused while I rose to address the sea-food in the bucket.
As I glanced over their clueless eyes and battle-ready pincers, I recalled how Stevey Jay of treasured memory made a point of teaching his people at Apple how customers have no idea what they want, and how it is incumbent upon developers to show them. Warped as it may appear, I assure you that you never want to be confronted with so great a peril as an end-user with an idea.
‘We had everything before us, we had nothing before us’… but in the end, I won.
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Doug Mamilor is a programmer who spends his days leading a company, and his nights reviewing his plans for world conquest. When his interest in either wanes, he can be found gaming, writing, defending the AMD Radeon, re-watching Avatar, The Last Airbender, Star Wars, FullMetal Alchemist or LOTR… or eating chocolate cake. Oh and Mamilor is a real name