Monday, July 12, 2004
Wasting several people's time at once, without a meeting!
I've just finished a project developed in VisualWorks, a Smalltalk environment sold by Cincom Systems, Inc. A few months ago, they asked if they could do a User Story on me and my project for use in their promotional literature and website. I agreed, and last month spent about an hour with them doing a telephone interview. They wrote it up, and sent me a draft to check. At this point (this morning) it occurred to me that maybe I should check this out with my management. I really should have thought of that before.
It turns out the User Story can't be used. My employer (the Federal Reserve Board) has a policy that it can never be seen as endorsing any product, ever. Why? I haven't been officially told yet, but I can surmise why. The Fed makes a fine target for publicity-hungry politicians who want to see their names in the paper. Criticizing the Fed always seems to get you good notices, whether your criticism is valid or not. Since most of the public has no idea whether your criticisms are valid or not, it's a win-win proposition for the pol.
I can easily imagine a competitor of Cincom complaining to their congressman that the Fed pressures banks subject to it's regulatory authority to use Cincom's software. That would, of course, be ridiculous, but that's never been a hindrance to such complaints that I'm aware of.
So, like I said, I should have thought of this earlier. Sorry to have wasted Cincom's (and my own) time. And yours too, reading this!
It turns out the User Story can't be used. My employer (the Federal Reserve Board) has a policy that it can never be seen as endorsing any product, ever. Why? I haven't been officially told yet, but I can surmise why. The Fed makes a fine target for publicity-hungry politicians who want to see their names in the paper. Criticizing the Fed always seems to get you good notices, whether your criticism is valid or not. Since most of the public has no idea whether your criticisms are valid or not, it's a win-win proposition for the pol.
I can easily imagine a competitor of Cincom complaining to their congressman that the Fed pressures banks subject to it's regulatory authority to use Cincom's software. That would, of course, be ridiculous, but that's never been a hindrance to such complaints that I'm aware of.
So, like I said, I should have thought of this earlier. Sorry to have wasted Cincom's (and my own) time. And yours too, reading this!
