… you just got to have some. When I was at Delani — now SwiftK — there was, I thought, an unhealthy obsession with patents. The line was that the only way to get investors was to have patents. VC Fred Wilson weighs in on software patents today. He suggests that the best offense is a good defense.
Tags: Workplace
I told myself I would never blog about blogging. It’s like watching a movie about the making of a movie. To the outsider, it just seems like self-gratification that you’d rather not watch. In this case, at least you’re not paying for it.
I had a conversation with a colleague today about blogging. This person is potentially very influential in our organization and I see blogging as a way for her share her ideas “through education not mandate.” (An excellent hook from Jim Phelps.)
The beauty of the blog is that it’s a two-way discussion. So in addition to us hearing this colleague’s perspective on, in this case, technology; others can give feedback on what they think as well.
Let’s say that my coworker decides that the architectural decisions I’ve made are crap. For example, my decision to use Informatica PowerExchange to populate an ODS. (registration required) And I get on my blog and talk about how wonderful it is. The blog gives my colleague a forum to express his differing view. In fact, if he wishes to hide his identity, he can post anonymously. His feedback gives me the opportunity to address the issue out in the open. Because chances are there are other people who might agree with his view.
Jim Phelps’ had a recent discussion that illustrates this beautifully. A student at Stanford did a research project to use Google results to rank undergraduate schools. Jim blogged about it and then emailed a bunch of his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about the study. There were a lot of flaws in the research, but it was ultimately a pretty cool project. Jim was able to turn this criticism into a healthy discussion about his school’s web presence.
If you’re going to make a mistake, make it out in the open. Communication is a good antidote to suspicion.
I know I’m being a little naive about the social dynamics in the workplace. And I have to confess that my ulterior motive in getting coworkers to blog is that I am interested in what they’re working on and what they’re planning. But I see a lot of potential in blogging to improve communication in our organization.
Tags: Workplace
I always seem to get this wrong, so please excuse this note to myself.
SELECT gpa,
DENSE_RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY strm, class_nbr ORDER BY gpa DESC) class_rank
Since the PeopleSoft table naming convention is to use as many underscores as possible, I’ve run into many snafus since the underscore is a special character in SQL. Clark (via Linda) showed us some ways around this.
select count(*)
from dba_tables
where table_name like '%\_UM' escape '\'
COUNT(*)
----------
113
1 row selected
This query, below, would pick up table names like PS_EXT_ACAD_SUM.
select count(*)
from dba_tables
where table_name like '%_UM'
COUNT(*)
----------
132
1 row selected
Some food for thought when working with NULL values.
select count(*)
from ps_dwsa_prog_dtl
COUNT(*)
----------
657662
1 row selected
select count(*)
from ps_dwsa_prog_dtl
where acad_sub_plan ='13'
COUNT(*)
----------
13
1 row selected
select count(*)
from ps_dwsa_prog_dtl
where acad_sub_plan <>'13'
COUNT(*)
----------
148559
1 row selected
select count(*)
from ps_dwsa_prog_dtl
where acad_sub_plan is null
COUNT(*)
----------
509090
1 row selected
I’m running the new nightly build of Thunderbird 3.0. If you are using Thunderbird and don’t have it installed. Consider it for two reasons:
(1) Folder Views: Including Favorite Folders and Unread Folders
I used Favorite Folders all the time in Outlook and have really missed it since the switch. I have so many IMAP folders that I’m always scrolling around. Bringing back Favorite Folders helps because I can promote folders for current projects to the front.
The unread folders view is something that Outlook didn’t have. I really like it. It’s much better than the brain-dead “unread mail” search folder in Outlook & Thunderbird because it’s still subcategorized by folder. So the tags I apply to my incoming mail are reflected in the unread mail view. ie, Service Center tickets (high priority) aren’t lumped together with Toad listserv blather.
(2) Fixed named entites bug in RSS reader.
Very annoying when your RSS reader doesn’t work with one of the most popular blog platforms out there. Thanks to the writer at Chronos Digital Technology for the tip.