Random Curry

…or, All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from Dr. Strangelove…

Metadata management is an arcane discipline. Very arcane. It doesn’t make for good cocktail party chit-chat, except for those of us who never were really good at that sort of stuff. Therefore, a metadata management initiative needs to have a really good marketing plan for any chance at success in the enterprise.

I just had a meeting that illustrated this point brilliantly. A tech support person understood what we were doing and how it would help, but had no idea we were doing it. Peter Sellers rang in my head…

“Of course, the whole point of (the program) is lost…if you keep it a secret!!! Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?!?!?”

If you’re implementing metadata management, tell everyone you know, even if you risk boring them to tears. You never know who might be enthusiastic about it…

This happened a lot faster that I thought it would…

Wal-Mart puts stake through HD DVD’s heart

Maybe the market at large actually learned something from the chaos that was VHS vs. Beta in the 80s. I have no horse in this race, but now maybe the hi-def DVD market will take off, with people like me making the move instead of sitting on the sidelines while a “winner” was determined.

As Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black, “Guess I’ll have to buy the White Album again…”

UPDATE: Well, the format is now and truly dead…

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

h/t The Open Road:

That Guy Clicking Your Ad? You Don’t Want Him

I enjoy watching paradigm shifts, mainly because I like to challenge the assumptions that people make. This shift reminds me of the shift that is occurring in television advertising, sparked by the market penetration of DVRs. They are now shifting to more product placement in shows, which means that eventually every TV show will end up looking like The Truman Show.

“If I don’t see ya – good afternoon, good evening and good night!”

I don’t know whether this makes me feel better because I’m not alone or makes me shake my head in further disgust…

A Chat with Tech Support

I’ve had three really bad experiences with technical support organizations over the last six months. I have two main complaints:

• They all seem to be reading from scripts, ignoring the individual dynamic of most tech support issues.
• They assume that you’re an idiot, no matter how hard you try to display your own acumen.

For example, I was advised by a tech support person to “clean boot” Windows and add in one memory-resident program at a time until the conflict was found. At 1.5 hours per program run (due to the nature of the program), I calculated that this troubleshooting could potentially take more than 40 hours to complete. I’m not divulging my bill rate, but I assure you that my rate for 40 hours of work is more than the $70 retail price of the software.

I think it’s time to think about blowing up the current process and starting over…

(Thanks to The Open Road for the original post)

There’s a Ted Nugent song in here somewhere…

Cable Cut Fever Grips the Web

It’s heartening that conspiracy nuts can always come up with something to obsess on…

CIOs Sick of Enterprise Software Pricing, Forrester Finds

Licensing and maintenance costs have always been confusing – at PeopleSoft, we had to throw our hands up and admit that our own product could not handle our pricing model (we had to link to an Excel sheet – sheesh!). I agree with Matt here – the increase in complexity is a sign of a sector in increasing desperation.

One other thing – what do these companies charge maintenance for when they won’t support any module that is customized? The client is forced to buy a maintenance contract, but usually can’t get any support since most software is not used “out of the box.” I’m not arguing with the fact that it’s virtually impossible for an ERP support crew to support code that they (the vendor) did not write. I do argue with the fact that companies are forced to pay for maintenance contracts that they can’t use. It makes us all look bad.

United Air to Charge Some Fliers for 2nd Checked Bag

I already have a lot of reasons not to fly United, so this doesn’t directly affect me. The sheer audacity of the move is impressive, though. The following quote says it all:

“Our customer research shows that only about one in four customers check a second bag,” Executive Vice President John Tague said in today’s statement.

So, it makes perfect sense to me to chase away 25% of your potential customers…especially from a company that has steadily deteriorated over the past several years.

*Sorry for the vivid metaphor, but these people continually cheese me off…