Education, Engineering and Learning from Open Source
When I was wrapping up last night around 10:30 I got my daily dose of Java Blogs which pointed me to a post about what Paul Graham had to say at OSCon. Berlin's main take away was that the enterprise is dead. I would say that Mr Graham is not really talking about the Enterprise as we know and love it in the IT world but is instead talking about software product companies. Kind of like Joel on Software from a few weeks ago. It is very very hard to build 'good software' in an IT shop because the main focus is on repeatability, not quality or even functionality.
Anyway back to the point of my post. What I got out of Paul Graham's talk is that much of what has passed as good for many years is actually bad. Here is an example quote
I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like. Well, that's news to no one. So how can I claim business has to learn it? When I say business doesn't know this, I mean the structure of business doesn't reflect it.
Business still reflects an older model, exemplified by the French word for working: travailler. It has an English cousin, travail, and what it means is torture.
This turns out not to be the last word on work, however. As societies get richer, they learn something about work that's a lot like what they learn about diet. We know now that the healthiest diet is the one our peasant ancestors were forced to eat because they were poor. Like rich food, idleness only seems desirable when you don't get enough of it. I think we were designed to work, just as we were designed to eat a certain amount of fiber, and we feel bad if we don't.
People do a lot more and work a lot harder on what they love instead of what they have to do to get paid. Duh. However in my expierence it is very hard for most Manager types to get this simple concept. In my opinion its because its hard to figure out how to make money from letting people do what they love. If I'm Mr. MBA working at Big Company X I really don't care if you like to program in Lisp, the company does its coding in Java and even if you would be 10x productive in Lisp I'd have no one to take over the code when you are gone because there are no other Lisp programmers out there for me to replace you with. In this mind set people are replaceable parts like Eli Whitney's concept for Government Rifels. People are replacable in this mindset and anything outside the box is squashed. Its the only thing that the typical MBA type is trained to handle, define a process and put people to work making the process happen.
Enter the startup as Paul Graham talks about. As a startup you don't have to worry about coloring inside the lines, rise or fail you don't have an MBA type sitting over your shoulder waiting for you to execute the process. Instead you get to work really hard all the time doing something you love, so it does not feel like work. I know a person that loves tennis. So this summer she got a job teaching kids how to play. She got much better at tennis because she got to play a the club for free and very often but she also got paid to play. The tennis player is very much like a geek in a startup. Throw caution to the wind, don't get a 'real job' but instead go out and make your own thing happen. You will have a lot more fun and more times than not it will feel like playing instead of working.
So now back to the Enterprise and the MBA types. What can/should be done to make it possible for them to get really good people and keep them even though they like to color out side the box? Well in my expierence it takes a couple of things. The enterprise must be more flexible in what the job looks like. As Paul Graham points out most work is just busy work making the process appear to be functioning (you must be here from this hr to that hr etc). The enterprise must loosen up and let the employees have more freedom in achieving the goals. Most people will rise to the occasion if you tell them the goal and give them very broad criteria in which to meet the goals. Unfortunately most of the enterprise type environments are fully constrained, almost to the point of making the goal unatainable. Second people must be allowed to fail, sometimes coloring outside the box leads to an ugly picutre. You have to be willing to pitch it and start over. I guess that is really just saying the same thing in a different way so perhaps its just one important thing...
Another great quote from Paul Graham's article
Woz wanted to color outside the lines but the MBA types slapped his wrist and told him to go home. So he did.
And finally the bottom line of my post. I recently started reading a book called A Thomas Jefferson Education. The correlation between the two has not quite jelled in my mind but it really struck me that the Paul Graham essay and this book are linked. In the book the author makes the assertion that there are three types of education, Leadership, Professional, and Factory. Our educational system today prepares us to be Factory workers. Don't think (or color outside the lines) instead go learn the system and do the system, even if the system is obviously broken. Sit down, Shut up and Hold on. That is what we are taught in school (less so in college but tending that way) so that we will be good at doing what we are told. Leave the process definition to the MBA types. The problem is that the MBA types are also taught to walk in a straight line, hold up their hands to speak and to draw inside the lines. Public schools are factories for turning out people that color inside the lines. People who color outside the lines are put in remeidal learning classes and people that color inside the lines are placed in 'gifted and talented' programs.
Ok so now what. What am I trying to say in this long post? I'm not really sure just yet but I wanted to get my thoughts down. One thing is for sure, I will not let my kids go to through the public school system (we homeschool). But more than that I'm trying to think through how this stuff running around in my mind will play out in my carreer. Should everyone be in a startup? I don't think so, some people have been so hosed by the factory education that they can't do startup mode. Some people are not made that way either so they should not be in a startup either. I think some of it boils down to what Simon Phipps pointed out last year a the summit. Software is becomming a lot like the old trades system. You become an apprentice where you learn to think, once you are capable of independent thought you go out into the world and make your mark.
