Wondered why they were calling her "Sweet Mayer". The title was "Sweet! Mayer... "
Honestly one of the more impenetrable articles I've read lately. Just not very clear or well written. I'm not even entirely sure there is anything news worthy here. Just some dire need on Swisher's part to make a connection between PB and J and the famous peanut butter memo. That's not enough to justify an article.
Asking people for their thoughts is a great way to get only as much real feedback as people think they're allowed to say without being at risk for losing their jobs.
A real question would be "What do you have to do against company policy in order to get your job done?"
Meta: Is it just me, or is tech journalism becoming exponentially more vapid every day?
Seems like a lot of rearranging the deck chairs. Hopefully the real work of significantly restructuring the company is happening behind the scenes where allthingsd can't see.
Can someone explain the parking barrier and turnstile changes for me in more detail? I don't get it.
Maybe I'm becoming cynical, but reading memos like this makes me resent the cubicle world of Corporate America more and more. How about Hawaiian Shirt Friday? Can you change corporate culture by removing turnstiles and parking barriers?
Some of this reminds that small things can have large repercussions on morale. There is a passage in The Illuminatus Trilogy that describes an act of culture jamming where a sign reading "no smoking" is replaced by a sign that says "no spitting" in an upscale department store. The customers and employees begin the resent the management, after all why would the management assume they would spit on the floor of an upscale department store.
As a long long time user of Yahoo services like Mail, and Groups, I have a ton of ideas that I wish I could offer. But, alas I am not an employee, just an old fart coder dog and business owner. After 32+ years in the biz what could I possibly know?
Did Yahoo never internally adopt Yahoo Mail and Calendar? if so, that would be analogous to Google using Lotus Notes internally.
How did this not happen before? Was it not obvious to previous CEOs that this level of bureaucracy was a problem?
I've said it before and I'll say this again: Kara Swisher needs to openly admit she has a serious grudge against Yahoo.
One element of the memo I was happy to see, was the dogfooding of Yahoo! Mail/Calendar, as in, people at Yahoo! will start using it rather than Microsoft Exchange. Sometimes I think powerful personalities at Yahoo! IT, with a bit too much money and people working for them, have caused a not insignificant amount of the downfall at Yahoo! by treating the company like it was a financial firm, or the Department of Defense, instead of a digital media destination. The Blackberry was an awesome communication devices from 1999-2005, but, 2008/2009+ (and certainly not 2012) is not the appropriate smartphone for a company that wants to be using the same system as their "digital media savvy" customers.
Those two steps will tell me if Mayer, a supposedly "technology" focussed CEO will be able to go head-head with Yahoo! IT. (It should say something that I even have to suggest the CEO of the company needs to go "head-head" with the IT organization)