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Dear friends-who-own-blogs,

I know how you have all been inspired by the young-bloggers-who-earn-1000s-of-dollars that were showcased in the recent bloggers’ meetups, and I have been watching as all of you wiped the dust off your abandoned blogs and started new ones in parallel to maximize your chances of adsense revenue by generating lots and lots of content – content the world wants to read about – like hot chicks wearning linux tshirts, or how the iphone version 3.14.15 has revolutionized the world, or more hot chicks, but using macs this time. I have seen you grow up from SEO n00bs to social-media experts in a few weeks – experts who know just the right place and font-size for the Google adsense textboxes and how to write keyword-dense text. All that is great! I wish you a lot of success and wish that you generate lots and lots of content and your eCPM shoots through the roof etc. etc.

I added all of you to my messenger with the hope of having an intelligent conversation with you someday, but when I receive 5×30 = 150 messages to the tune of “Hey, plz Digg my post http://tinyurl.com/a-list “, it makes me want to rethink my decision of adding you to GTalk or MSN. I know your intentions are harmless, but my time is precious too; I realize that you just want your “10 things to do when you are bored” post to make the Digg FP (front-page, a word you have added to my vocabulary) and thereby increase your chances of getting 1000s of hits per day, hits that can translate to a few more dollars in ad revenue (after all, who doesn’t want to get rich quick?) and I can just ignore your messages and get on with my work, or block you, or appear offline – but things start getting ugly when your IMs turn into emails, and uglier still when the diggers cced in the emails add me on GTalk and tell me to let them know if “I need some Digg help”… adding my friends to my spam list is the last thing I want to do, so instead I am writing this post.

I will let you in on a secret. Whenever you send me a “Digg this please!” message instead of a “Read my insightful post on the important topic of XYZ and Digg if you like it”, it shows my place in your grand scheme of things very transparently, which is enough motivation for me to stop whatever unimportant thing I am doing at the moment, click your link, log on to my Digg account, and BURY your post.

So my dear diggers, now that you know my dirty little secret, please understand that I do not wish to play any role (however tiny) in your quest to be the next Boing-Boing. Please have some dignity and do something that you can proudly tell your grandchildren about. Of course, if you really write something original and worthwhile though, make sure to share it with me. I’ll Digg, Stumble, Reddit and Whatnotit out of my own free will if I like what you have to say, and if I want to share it with the world.

Signed,
Your Fan.

PS. Sorry about the title.

During the past 5 months, I have made a couple of interesting observations. I am not sure whether these observations depict a general trend (which would probably be the case if my immediate social network is a representative sample of the IT industry in Pakistan), or if these cases are outliers (which would probably be the case if I hang out in strange company), but in either case, let me share my observations with you so that if this is indeed the shape of the things to come, then I can say “See-I-told-you-so” and feel smug about it after a couple of years

Read the rest …

Can I pick your brain for a few minutes? (Thanks)

First, a little bit of background.

A small software shop (let us call it ‘The Shop’) that I am helping out as a consultant has a four year old relationship with a strong and stable European client; a relationship that they are working hard to retain. In this economic phase of a high demand for experienced software professionals, The Shop’s relatively unknown name does not attract a lot of resources from the top tier, but it has still managed to create and retain a decent team with them for the last 3 years.

Now, the problem.

The trouble started two months ago, when one of The Shop’s lead developers left for greener pastures (read a larger firm paying a few thousand Rs.). He left on good terms with the shop’s management (and is freelancing for them now), but he also left a big hole in The Shop’s small structure that needed a quick replacement. Meanwhile, their client was requesting a further increase in team size to handle the ever-increasing workload.
This is when a Mr. K, a very experienced programmer and a former employee of The Shop, showed an interest in rejoining, as the pastures that he had left for earlier were drying up (read paycuts). The Shop was quite happy to have Mr. K back as he would have partially patched up the widening hole, and already possessed prior domain knowledge.

The above information is important as it shows that:

• The shop has a cool work environment, a place that people can comfortably come back to.
• The people running the shop are open-minded enough to welcome former employees back into their team instead of holding grudges.
• The grass on the other side usually looks greener than it is.

Anyway, The Shop was happy, the client was happy, and while the shop started scheduling interviews to hire support team members for Mr. K, the client sent one of their project managers from Europe to Pakistan, so that he may train and understand the team for better offshore coordination. The Shop’s CEO also went out of the way to attend Mr. K’s numerous phone calls, and agreed to most of his demands, so eventually, Mr. K signed a contract with the shop last week.

Two days after Mr. K signed the contract, the CEO told me that he had just gotten a one-liner email from Mr. K telling him that he won’t be joining The Shop after all. No apologies, no explanations and no mention of the penalties for such an action that are included as a standard in the contract. The CEO also heard from the grapevine that Mr. K has opted to join another firm.

Despite being an outsider for the most part, I was boggled by Mr. K’s arrogant and unprofessional behavior. Ignoring it this time was not an option as such behavior is not anomalous anymore – I have seen this happen more than once in the last few years. The Shop’s CEO also wants to do something about this incident instead of letting it go, and I personally think he is right because a) Mr. K signed a contract, and is legally obliged to fulfill it, or pay the penalty, and b) This action reflects very badly upon the Pakistani software industry as a whole – the project manager has arrived and is asking ‘Where is the guy that I have to train? The one who is joining from tomorrow.’

So my questions to you are:

1. Has such a thing ever happened to you?
2. If you were the shop’s CEO, what would you have done?

I am hoping that the discussion in the comments will help us in formulating an SOP/checklist that would be helpful to all shops that face a similar situation in the future.