The earth moved visibly

As follow-up to the Big One in the Washington-Richmond corridor, I give you some photos of the damage sustained during the earthquake.

Warning: photos may be disturbing.

Or not.

The agile corporation

Yesterday I spent nearly four hours interviewing for a product manager position with an unnamed big fat global enterprise software company. The business unit in question is security management, which is a field I’m very interested in. And, while there are a lot of security software companies out there, it’s been my experience that if you don’t already work in that field, they aren’t interested in talking to you. So I was quite pleased when their recruiter reached out to me back in early July.

I had the screening call with the hiring manager in mid-July, and had completely forgot about it when she contacted me two weeks ago to say she wanted me to come into their corporate HQ for an in-person interview this week. (I’d originally been told that this would take place a couple of weeks after the first contact.)

Well, okay—I prepared a 15-minute presentation on a product I’ve managed, read up to the extent possible on access and identity management, dragged out my black interview suit, etc.

On-site I spoke with a group manager, the hiring manager, a principal product manager and a dev manager. I gave my presentation on my current product, carrying on with a paper print-out when PowerPoint went belly-up on me. I fielded all questions, asked ones as perspicacious as I could and got email addresses for thank-you notes.

And when I asked the hiring manager what the time frame was for actually, you know, hiring, she told me, “Around two to three months.”

(Keep in mind that she has had two openings in a group of three since May.)

’Scuse me? Two to three months from this point?

No—two to three months from the offer being made and accepted.

It seems that “everything has to go up for Larry’s signature.”

Meaning that in a corporation of roughly 100,000 employees, the CEO needs to be consulted for every hiring.

Jeez Louise.

The earth moved

For my friends on the East Coast, especially D.C., skreeky feeling, isn’t it?

Doesn’t seem fair that you should get both hurricanes &earthquakes. But then you have all those Congressmorons overturning the laws of nature, so perhaps not surprising.

Degrees of value

Some interesting stats on the best-paying college degrees. Here’s a hint: none of them encompasses the Liberal Arts.

Now, I don’t know the source of this list, but after having been in the computer software and telecommunications fields for the past 17 years, I really have to question the placement of computer science and computer engineering in the running.

I suppose that, in comparison to degrees in psychology or Renaissance art history, CS and CE grads do pretty well. But it’s been my observation that—of the ten jobs ranked here, those two are the ones that can be (and in fact are being) shipped overseas. Or given to holders of H-1B visas imported by large corporations for the same purpose that 150 years ago the railroads brought over Chinese and Irish laborers.

So I’m not sure how long those degrees will hold value in our economy.

Welcome to my world.

A sport we can all get behind

I don’t know why this wasn’t on at least three of the 17 ESPN channels, but the 2011 Mobile Phone-Throwing Championships were held yesterday in Savonlinna, Finland.

And, as should surprise no one, the Finnish team swept most of the events. Nokia, after all, is probably the only Finnish brand pretty much known everywhere in the world. And--unlike Motorola—Nokia cell phones actually seem to last.

Now, I really wish there was more information on these events. Like—is a smartphone any better for tossing than a clamshell? Is there a technique that works more effectively than others? What kind of training to contestants have to undergo? Are there product endorsement opportunities?

And what the hell constitute “aesthetics and creative choreographics?”

The only video I could find is from four years ago and is really low-quality. So, ESPN? Get on it!