Technicalities March 11, 2001 *) My Star Trek A couple of weeks ago I fell through a tear in the spacetime continuum, to wind up in a parallel universe that looks superficially similar to the one I'm used to, but in which nothing really makes any sense. I'm not entirely sure precisely when this happened, but I was keyed off to its occurrence when I saw ACOM stock trade so low that the company is worth _less_ than the cash we have in the bank. It was confirmed for me when, during a recent walk through the copy of Times Square that exists in this mirror galaxy, I saw that the guy with the "Tell Me Off" sign had raised his price from $1 to $2. Evidently in this world there are greater demands for his services. So wierdness is the theme of this Technicalities. Now if anyone has any ideas about how to get a weary star-traveler back to his home universe - the one in which the market cap of ACOM exceeds that of OGNC - drop me a line. Do you think that reversing the polarity of the dilithium crystals will do it? *) Mirror Vacations Just days after Seattle was declared a federal disaster area, the alternate-Yuju-Yen decided to go take a vacation there. I'm sure that in my home universe, Yuju is spending her time off sunning herself on a beach in Mexico, not in a place where one has to worry about possible death from an errant brick off a wobbly nearby facade. *) Fun Fun Bill Ort, David Bortnichak, and Ralph Seaman are coming down to the wire on the Cushman-Wakefield project. Coding is essentially done, now they're struggling with actually getting all the wonderful labor-saving technology they've employed to actually work. Java - mark my words, it's going to be big one day. *) Motion OK, so we're all moving again. Remember, there's a reason for this: the goal is to keep us all fresh, looking at the world in new ways. Embrace change. Seat #4 for me is back on 14, so no office any more. I've been reorged nearly back to where I started. I sit right across from Annie Sharak and Barbara Pjura. My theory is that Thor has assigned them to keep an eye on me, to give him a heads up when I'm causing trouble. Of all our deskonauts, Jamil Ellis is most put upon. His junk piles had expanded to fill the three desks surrounding his. But the move has done it all in - he has had to preside over the liquidation of his empire, and he'll live only in a small island of one cubicle. *) Math I: Geometry Like most people, I learned about the premier of the peaks when I found that perplexing paper peak pad on my desk. By my calculations, of the 8.5"x11" sheet, only 6"x6.5" is actually free from peak propaganda. So, you can only comfortably write on 39 of the 93.5 square inches on the page. I think it RELATES TO CHAN'S KEY THEME OF INNOVATION. *) Math II: Numerical Series I'm one of the people who has been around AGENCY.COM longer than most, and so I have a nearly unique perspective on the history of the organization. What has fascinated me is the numerology of the corporate initiatives: **) When I first got here, the big rollout was of the "circle of excellence". This is zero. **) Later the "Immersibility Index" was developed. It measures our success on four axes. **) Then there came the "Six Principles of Great Work". **) Now we have the "Seven Peaks". Ok, so the series is 0, 4, 6, 7,... Clearly, management is posing a puzzle for us. We have an ascending sequence, but not one whose pattern I've figured out. Right now I'm trying to devine what comes next. "The Internet Eightfold Way", a "Web Baker's Dozen"? Actually, it seems to me that 7.5 is the next number, followed by 7.75, but I'm open to other possibilities. At any rate, it's good to see that as time goes on the management of the company is able to "focus" on more and more things at once. *) Math III: Complex Analysis I'm told by my friends at Sapient that they were quite worried about the last-minute surge in "Client Value" that caused it to make the core list of AGENCY.COM initiatives. Still there was great relief when its run tailed off and - failing to make it into the top three - it wound up only in seventh place. (Right above making our desk moves more efficient.) I avidly read the booklet that explains the details of the programs, and I can see that we're well on our way to market leadership. I learned, for example, that our clients "will become more demanding", and soon they "will be expecting us to help them solve their business problems" (Peak 6). Wow, great tip - and I'm ready to help! But what excites me most actually is under peak 4, "Fastest Growth". We're instructed to "Improve existing client penetration". I'm thinking of which particular clients I want to improve my existing penetration of, and sure enough, I expect that those will help me achieve my fastest growth. If they'll let me, of course. I'm sure you're all as thrilled as I am to join AGENCY.COM on this journey. But remember the sage words of Peak 3: "We can never measure success in a vacuum". It's too hard to breathe. *) Separated At Birth? Has anyone noticed that the cartoon host of the AGENCY.COM Jeopardy game is a dead ringer for Mike Benyo? I got an e-mail with a link, and clicking on it I found myself on a page with a drawing of Benyo asking me a question. I had to guess, but I got it right. Hey Mike, can you tell me what this is all about? And by the way, what do I win? *) Letters To The Editor I got quite a lot of static about my saying last time that the techies are the "mothers" of our websites, because we're the ones who have to work so hard and stay up late to bring the sites into the world. Various people from the creative and other departments whined to me that they have to stay up late too, say before a client review. Look, fathers stay up late to make kids, they just don't work at the actual birth. In the tech department we're secure in our femininity. *) I Don't Even Have A Cell Phone Next week a bunch of us on the Genie project are going to be in London, working on the discovery. Genie is a European mobile telco and ISP. They're a demanding client who's insisting that we help them solve their business problems. That's why we're all going, really. Getting a business trip to England has nothing to do with it. *) Copyright 2001, MITCH GOLDEN, Ltd. MITCH GOLDEN believes coworkers should receive the business information that will help them live the company's mission, vision, values and attitude. So it's possible that this document may contain proprietary, competitive or other sensitive information. I doubt it though. If you have questions about proprietary information, please contact his Legal Department.