http://strom.com/awards/321.html
Humor me for a moment and take this short
quiz:
If all four answers are yes, you might want
to get that resume put together: chances are your company isn't long for this
economy.
I was thinking about this after talking to
Victor Tsao, the founder of Linksys, about his recent announced acquisition by
networking giant Cisco. Seems that Tsao bonded to John Chambers because of their
mutual penny-pinching: both executive teams (at least nowadays) have an
affinity of flying in coach-class seats and staying in cheap motels. While that
wasn't the only thing the two CEOs bonded on, it definitely eased the way for
the acquisition.
(If you would like to read my take on the
Linsksys/Cisco deal, check out this
link for a column I wrote for VARBusiness last week.)
Surely, those wild ride days of the late
1990s are over: we live in more sober times and many of us are lucky to still
have jobs in this industry. I know many friends who have decades of experience
and are looking for work after several months. But perhaps this new corporate
lifestyle is a good thing. It could weed out all that waste. Just look at AOL
Time Warner as a case in point: what's a few billion dollars between
mega-titans? Does anybody really feel sorry for Steve Case and Ted Turner?
Corporate dishonesty is not new. Sure, Enron,
Worldcom, and others continue to gather headlines about how much nonsense was
produced by their collective accounting and finance departments, coming soon to
the nearest science fiction writers convention. But companies have been
stealing, polluting, and lying about their businesses since the dawn of time.
What troubles me is that these lessons of honesty aren't necessarily learned
all that well by corporations: they are only as honest as their weakest
manager, or next P&L statement. All it takes is one bad apple to bend the rules
a bit, and the whole house is soon taking money from the till. And if that bad
apple is the head cheese (sorry) and knowingly cooks the books, there isn't too
much the worker bees can do about it. But perhaps we are beginning to see some
kind of corporate Darwinism here: the survival of the (at least more) honest. I
certainly hope so.
Corporate honesty is a refreshing change and
a change for the better. How much of it is around in corporate America today is
a hard thing to pin down, but I bet honesty is making a comeback. After all,
many of the dishonest corporations are out of business, or out of most of their
businesses, as of late.
One of the things I am glad to see leaving
the corporate landscape of the late 90s is this sense of entitlement and free spending
that the dot coms brought to the table. I was just as guilty as the next at
strom.com: there are plenty of expense-account fancy meals in my past, and I
remember throwing a particularly nice dinner for my clients and friends in
celebration of my fifth year in business at one Interop show. (Although when I
was a consultant, I always flew coach. I just couldn't bring myself to charging
my clients for being in a nicer seat.)
In the meantime, if you want to talk to me,
you can find me at the back of the plane.
Speaking of travel, I have a bunch of trips
planned for April so perhaps we can meet up. Next Tuesday I'll be in Arlington,
Virginia at the Secure E-Gov conference, participating on a couple of panels
with fed CIOs. The following week I'll be giving the opening keynote at Daly
Computers' annual conference in Baltimore. And I'll also be attending Cisco's
partner conference and judging the Networld+Interop Best of Show awards, both
taking place in Las Vegas on separate weeks. You can track me down and get copies of my
speeches here.
Entire contents copyright 2003
by David Strom, Inc.
David Strom, dstrom@cmp.com, +1
(516) 562-7151
Port Washington NY 11050
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