Don't listen to the crowd, they say "jump."
Some managers think developer productivity is increased by having them all in a "bullpen" (i.e., several desks in the same room without walls). One reason I have heard for this is, "It increases communication. They can all talk with each other and get faster feedback." If that's so, then the executives and managers should be in a bullpen too.
Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.
Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.
âAs a result of todayâs unfortunate House vote, weâve canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site,â said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy.
via Amazon packing after House vote - S.C. Politics - TheState.com.
Economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey calls it "the Great Fact" -- the humongous increase in humans' standard of living that began about 200 years ago.
And what a Great Fact it is! It's great not only in the sense of being amazingly, resplendently good for ordinary men and women, but also in the sense of being the single most surprising and astounding change that we humans have experienced in our 70,000 or so years on this planet.
File this under "Smart Is Overrated."
â¦material incentives in random-assignment studies increased IQ scores by an average of 0.64 SD, suggesting that test motivation can deviate substantially from maximal under low-stakes research conditions. The effect of incentives was moderated by IQ score: Incentives increased IQ scores by 0.96 SD among individuals with below-average IQs at baseline and by only 0.26 SD among individuals with above-average IQs at baseline.
via Motivation and IQ, incentives matter -- Marginal Revolution.
Not only has the Massachusetts state House passed a new law barring all PEUs from collective bargaining on health care, it passed by a veto-proof majority -- because Democrats pushed the bill ...
Yes, you read that right. Democrats in Massachusetts admitted that Scott Walker had the right idea all along. In fact, the Commonwealth believes that the ability to manage health care coverage will save taxpayers $100 million in the next budget year.
And in another nod to Wisconsin, the House held their vote at 11:30 last night, hoping to avoid the kind of demonstrations that Wisconsin Democrats encouraged in Madison.
via Latest state to curtail PEU bargaining rights is ⦠Massachusetts? « Hot Air.
Planning to fail gracefully in ways that donât negatively impact customers is HARD WORK. It takes TIME, and simulated failures.
via Where There Are Clouds, It Sometimes Rains - Clay Loveless.
A hundred years ago, federal spending for each person was the equivalent of $200 in today's dollars. After FDR, with all of his massive public spending, it was $1,000. This year, it's over $12,000. How long can this continue?
Group work is largely an academic joke, a process where the weaker members of the group rely almost exclusively on the stronger, more conscientious students to carry them all to the grade they want. (Of course, the same âweak rely on the strongâ dynamic prevails in real-world group work as well.) Group work serves lazy students and professors quite well -- the low-performing students can relax while their peers complete the task, and the professors have fewer papers or projects to grade.
While easy classes and group assignments may do little to further the studentsâ actual education, thatâs not the point, is it? After all, the real purpose of many second-tier (and even some first-tier) public- and private-university business degrees is to provide the mandatory credential required by employers, who then do the actual, on-the-job training the position requires.
This is largely representative of my own experience. Via Business School: Where Education Dies - By David French - Phi Beta Cons - National Review Online.
Every time there is a discussion about cutting some government program, people line up to whine about how that cut is going to hurt somebody. Then you get the sob stories⦠So we never cut anything. Guess what? Theyâre not called Budget Pillows or Budget Tickles. Theyâre Budget CUTS. Cuts are supposed to HURT.
My Benchmarking talk has been accepted for OSCON 2011. Looking forward to updating it for the occasion. Woohoo!