Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: staff.newyork@agency.com Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:47:18 -0500 From: "Mitch Golden" To: nystaff@agency.com Technicalities March 20, 2000 *) Yet Another Apology AGENCY.COM people are noisy if nothing else, so I often get feedback about these missives. More than one person has suggested to me that I quit my job and go off to write comedy. (In fact, Aaron called me into his office recently, and he and Ritesh made this suggestion in fairly direct terms. Ritesh also told me he even laughed pretty hard at some of my code - how should I take this, do you think?) Of course there are negative comments as well. For example, James McHugh was pretty upset last time. I did mention him, and I spoke of all the good work that he and the rest of the Colgate team were doing, but it seems that it wasn't enough. I forgot to mention the most important part: James is from Scotland. The problem, according to James, is that I didn't say that he is "truly a fine example of the Scottish stereotype to which we all aspire". You know the archetypal Scot: a hard-drinking, kilt-wearing, Gallic-speaking tough guy. A dead ringer for James. James is, as those of you who work with him know, justifiably and ceaselessly proud of his homeland. I had thought that my simple reference to James's love for Scottish food (deep fried Mars bars) would be enough to indicate his origins. I realize now that there are those of you who might have missed the point. So this clarification is by way of apology to James. I'll remember to be perfectly clear next time. *) A Welcome While I was away, the tech department gained a new asset. Sundar Ramaswami is our latest new member. Sundar has 13 years of tech experience, and comes to us from an insurance company, AIG. He sits on 14 near Chris Stetson and Debra Ronsvalle and is working on the account of a Certain Large Financial Institution and Sprint ION. Among his numerous other attributes, Sundar has the distinction of being the first person in a year and a half not to be hired by me. The Patel era begins in earnest. *) A Farewell I don't usually mark the occasion of someone leaving us. There is the inevitable night of drinks, and all wish their friend good luck. By the time I get to write about it, there isn't too much more to be said. I will make an exception in Tom Clarke's case. Tom was one of the real old timers (at least by standards of this industry, which means double digit months). Tom was a real addition to the tech department. He knows a lot about a lot, and almost inevitably I went to him first when I was bogged down with a problem. (It helped that he had the social life of the typical geek, and seemed to be around a lot on the weekend.) Tom worked tirelessly to get us to improve our methodology, and our use of UML and use cases on recent jobs is partially due to his prodding. Tom decided that he needed to move to a client-free zone, and work on stuff that involved deep, long-term projects. His last day was March 10th. He spent his last-night-bar-party trying to persuade someone else, who was thinking of leaving AGENCY.COM, that she should stay. Tom's departure leaves Tony Ward and James McHugh carrying the flag of the old Online Magic New York tech department. (James is from Scotland, by the way, truly a fine example of the Scottish stereotype to which we all aspire.) Tom told me that someday, he might come back to AGENCY.COM. In the meanwhile, he will be missed. *) Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet As I have mentioned before, I get a great deal of flack when I fail to produce one of these missives every other week or so. As those of you who follow these notes also know, for the past week I have been out of the office. This puts me in the difficult position of being responsible for keeping you all abreast of events about which I have no knowledge whatsoever. Not that I usually know what I am talking about, but I am generally in a better position to fake it. Yet I still have space to fill. Confronted with this state of affairs, I have decided to do what the American media always do in like situations: cover myself. I know it's self-indulgent, but my rationale is that I'm a member of the tech department, and so talking about myself constitutes taking about the tech department. If you read the last Technicalities you know that I have been in Florence. (People who report to me should please recall that there will be a quiz at the time of your reviews.) Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, I made the trip, along with Marysia Woroniecka and Sean MacDonald, to do a strategic discovery for Gucci. Let me begin by telling you that it was a humbling experience to say the least. Gucci is an amazing business. Just one of the products Gucci makes is wallets. Each season, the wallets are different, and Gucci's goal therefore is to design, manufacture, and sell out all their wallets every year. The wallets, and the company's other small leather goods, are not made by Gucci itself. They are manufactured by literally dozens of small 5-20 person firms of artisans, mostly throughout the Tuscan countryside. So folks, sharpen your pencils - the business problem is this: coordinate the supply of leather from multiple tanneries (while keeping a careful eye on the quality), cut the leather into pieces and distribute the parts to dozens of tiny manufacturers (knowing that each has only a certain capacity and certain skillsets) coordinate the distribution through multiple warehouses, keeping all stores stocked within a matter of weeks from when the wallet was first introduced. Did I forget to mention that Gucci is a global company and has outlets all around the world? Makes our one logisitical problem - staffing - look like a stroll through the Boboli Gardens. And that's just the leather goods. Sean, Marysia, and I spent this week learning about all of this, and trying to figure out where, in this finely oiled machine, the web fits. E-commerce, an intranet, extranets... wherever the web could improve things. Since there's still more space to fill - consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh - and since I'm sure that I'll get asked about it anyway, I'll tell you about what I did in Italy when I wasn't working. We are all children of the media age, so our impressions of other countries are formed by what we see in movies or on TV. Italy is in my mind represented by those old films by Frederico Fellini, Lina Wertmuller, et al, and they certainly present a pretty appealing picture. You know the imagery: all the beautiful people in dark tans and dark glasses tooling around renaissance cities on Vespas or in Fiat Cincquecenti. Mediterraneans with oversized, theatrical personalities in the Caffe, arguing about politics or love. Hell, if "Life Is Beautiful" is to be believed, Italy was even a pretty great place to spend the holocaust. (In contrast, the only movie I can think of set in modern Scotland is "Trainspotting".) The key to a successful trip is to spend enough time in a place to confirm these images, but not enough to burst the bubble. Thus: just long enough to enjoy hearing Italian - I have always loved the sound of the language - but not long enough to understand that there are as many boors or dullards speaking it as our mother tongue. A week or two will do nicely. Not that we had a lot of time for such things. Our Gucci clients, Rick Swanson and Terilyn Georgi, showered us with level of hospitality that would be surprising from a good friend, but was downright stunning coming from business associates. (Rick and Terilyn by now know they are stars in the Technicalities firmament, and they each asked me several times what I would be writing about them this time around. I think they're shellshocked.) Hey folks - don't you wish _you_ were on the Gucci project? And lastly, about the research project I mentioned last time: Sean and I each did purchase a pair of shoes. Terilyn claimed that, in our case, the Promise of the Gucci Brand was merely that "You will get taken seriously by the Gucci MIS department". Doesn't have the same ring to it, in my opinion. (Perhaps she thought that in the cases of nerds like us, there's only so much even a pair of Gucci shoes could accomplish, and we shouldn't get our hopes up too high.) Too late, our expectations are already set. Because I was so busy with the client, I still don't know the answer to the research problem. I would say that I need more data to fully analyse the situation. I have a grant proposal in for a longer trip to Italy to gather more data. I am, after all, still a scientist.