Conference 7.286::digital

    
    *  Charlie Holleran?
    *  Pesatori?
    *  Lucia Quinn? - now heading business strategy for CSD
    
    I say let's hire that Seattle-base PR company which has successfully
    CRAFTED B. Gates and Microsoft image today (whew, I forgot the name
    now!). Let that company figure out which AD company should be hired!
    
    Seriously folks, this is the PR company that turned the delayed Windows
    3.0 into a marketing/propaganda hit instead of a potential fiasco!
    
    
    
    
    uh..uh.. yep, it is difficult even to blow our horns (deservedly
    in this case), isn't it?
    

    I'm not a big noter but this one takes the cake.  I cannot believe our
    PR folks ignored this.  If no one replies with a good explanation in
    this note, I will personally call BP's office. There's still time to
    make a hit with this.  

    
    	Having fought the Digital bureaucracy for the past four years day
    in, and day out, to:
    
    	A. Get system orders accepted, scheduled within a "realistic" lead
    	   time, actually shipped, then...
    
    	B. Get administration to invoice correctly, then assure the
           appropriate discount is applied, etc...
    
    	C. Insure that the ordered configuration is the same configuration
           to shows up on site, then......
    
    	D. Explain to the customer that all the screw-ups above won't
           happen again....
    
    	
    	MIT would probably be better off with H-P. Digital it appears is
    bound and determined to continue being the worst company to do business
    with any customer could hope for. I am furious. I received an order for
    $250K in June, it is now July 23rd, the order still hasn't been
    scheduled, the customer is now cancelling every piece they can get from
    somewhere else, and I am about to lose another reseller I recruited to
    our competitors because we are braindead as a company. Hopefully I can
    get the package this week and go somewhere else where sales is
    appreciated, instead of here where we are considered the problem. Then
    all the rest of you can figure out how to survive without sales. You
    will be the first company in the history of mankind to do that. I just
    cannot believe how incredibly screwed up this place is. If I were in
    BP's shoes, I'd do an Amoco on this place. 
    	Amoco announced yesterday, in Chicago, that they are eliminating
    4500 headquarters jobs to become better focused. The announcment stated
    that over 75% of the cuts would be managers, and the rest corporate
    staff. They will succeed. Can you guess why?
    	Meanwhile,.....
    
    	

    God, this is excruciatingly frustrating!  There are lots of companies
    out there who are succeeding despite mediocre and even inferior
    products and we keep stumbling over ourselves in spite of the fact that
    we produce superior quality goods.  Engineering high quality, complex
    products is always going to be difficult; but getting them out the door and
    delivered to a customer in a timely fashion has got to be made easy if
    we expect to stay in business.
    
    It's like a football team who keeps outscoring their opponents, but are
    in last place anyway because the coaches keep forgetting to report the
    winning scores or report the score incorrectly - really now, that should
    be the easy part!

    18+ years with the company and this wouldn't have surprised me at any
    time of any year.  Our financial problems are being blamed on excessive
    expenses and bad marketing.  Hah!  The problem is that we
    can't/won't/don't know how to accept a customer's money.  We
    can't/won't/don't know how to make it easy for someone to walk away
    from their very first meeting with DEC with a box under their arms. 
    Until we do it is intuitive that we
    can't/won't/don't know how to turn a tidy profit.

    I can believe what I am reading;  I am in the CSC and am ONLY
    a css, crs ( not sure of title anymore ).  But, I can attest to the
    FACT THAT ABSOLUTELY NOBODY LISTENS to what the customer wants, or 
    needs.  I hear to much from the customers DAY in and DAY out,
    everyday!!!  Tune never changes. 
    
    
    
    Jeff

    I think 3257.76 has identified a group who can handle the PR for SL-9.
    Any group called "late marketing" must be the ones!
    :-)
         <<< HUMANE::DISK$CONFERENCES:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;1 >>>
                        -< The Digital way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 3257.76                   NEW TSFO for Q1 ??                       76 of 77
ASABET::LONDON                                       13 lines  22-JUL-1994 17:22
                              -< No Age is Safe >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I do not agree that Digital is just hitting the people who have been
    hear 10+ years.
    
    As a member of the late marketing development program, there were about
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    50 people who got tapped ages 21-24. - Between 5 months and 1.5 years
    with the company.
    

re: .4

>    God, this is excruciatingly frustrating!  There are lots of companies
>    out there who are succeeding despite mediocre and even inferior
>    products and we keep stumbling over ourselves in spite of the fact that
>    we produce superior quality goods.  Engineering high quality, complex
>    products is always going to be difficult; but getting them out the door and
>    delivered to a customer in a timely fashion has got to be made easy if
>    we expect to stay in business.

From the "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries & Trout":

1.  The Law of Leadership.  It's better to be first than it is to be better.

        If you're the first to market in a category, you will tend to always
        dominate that category (assuming you don't blow most of the other
        laws).  Category = segment in marketing talk

        If you're not first to market in a category, it's nearly assured that
        you'll never own that category.

-----------------------------------
Being BETTER does mean you win ... MARKETING EFFECTIVELY means you might.

>        Amoco announced yesterday, in Chicago, that they are eliminating
>    4500 headquarters jobs to become better focused. The announcment stated
>    that over 75% of the cuts would be managers, and the rest corporate
>    staff. They will succeed. Can you guess why?
>        Meanwhile,.....

	At least Amoco seem to understand where most of the problems
	originate from.

    Dear Greyhawk,
    
         I look out keenly for your contributions and I understand your 
    outburst of rage and anguish over our supply chain.  However, I think 
    you know better than most of us that this Digital creature is now 
    very unlikely to adapt and survive.  To do what is necessary would be 
    a matter for surgery-- "The operation was a great success.  
    Unfortunately the patient died."  What we are now engaged in is in 
    chopping all the limbs off the torso to see whether they, and it, 
    will remain viable afterwards.  I think a transplant, into another 
    body corporate, is the only way this can happen.  As for the head 
    ...!
         
         I wish I could believe someone is seriously reading your entries 
    other than us grunts.  What I really believe is that this is just 
    regarded by management as a forum for the unhinged, malcontented and 
    impotent.  Why don't you try to get 100 people in sales to write in 
    unison to BP or Enrico?  You could say, for example, "Fujitsu's 
    supply chain works(*).  Outsource ours to them PDQ."
         
         I noticed that you seem to have worked all Saturday morning.  
    This is another sale; focus on the king as well as the courtiers and 
    attendants.
         
         dave_P
         
    *	 (Does it?)  

deja-vu... sad but true

over a year ago, my husband (a former DEC employee) had $250,000
to spend on storage devices.  he tried for WEEKS to get a DEC/digital
sales rep to call him back... left NUMEROUS messages w/ NUMEROUS
people and voice mails... he wanted to give DEC a chance to get into a customer
who only bought HP/SUN stuff... the deadline approached where they HAD
to have the equipment...

... the customer still only buys HP/SUN stuff

not surprised by anything any more
sarah

    
    	Hey Dave,  be assured, they do read notes!  My comments a couple of
    months ago about the POINT system have come full circle!!!
    
    				Malcolm.

    re: .11
    
    Who needs your husband's lousy $250,000.  
    
    Just get rid of 5 or 6 DECcies... that'll make it up.
    
    

    
    Re: et al. -
    
    	Unfortunately I took this very topic up with RP personally at lunch
    in Hawaii last year. He said he understood the problem between "senior
    management focus" and "middle management results" and that he was going
    to correct "that problem" immediately. This was October of 1993.
    	I'm, truthfully, much more upset at our failure to fix the supply
    chain problems (manufacturing has been screwed up for over two years
    now-before you all go crazy at this just remember who we compete
    against, and the fact that they, SUN,IBM & H-P, deliever better quality 
    consistently faster than we {StorageWorks and Workstations are two
    wonderful examples}) than the field/corporate middle management ones.
    	Trouble is that the two are now going hand-in-hand. As another
    close DECie friend said today "The wheels may not have fallen off yet,
    but the wobbling is making it real tough to steer".
    	I'd personally be honored to explain to RP and Enrico what they
    need to do, but my feelings are they ain't gonna like the message nor
    the solution. C'est la vie....
    
    		the Greyhawk
    faster than we)

>         <<< Note 3266.10 by CHEFS::PARRYD "It beats the real thing" >>>
>                            -< Go for the juggler >-
>
>    Dear Greyhawk,

What'd the poor juggler ever do to Greyhawk ?

    re .03 -- Greyhawk stay tuned.
    BIG CHANGES RUMORED coming down the pipe.  Massive layoff of all L1 and
    L2 managers, more downsizing of sales support.  Maybe the Amoco
    experience will ensue.  But my two cents is different....I believe they
    will systematically purge from the system every salesperson worth his
    or her salt, and replace us all with raw college grads willing to work
    for $30K base and a 60% commission plan.
    My condolences on your terrible day.  I've been experiencing much the
    same thing for the past two years.
    Funny how noone every thinks to ask the salesforce what we would do to
    fix the problems ???

    G'day All,

    I was angered by this whole sager when I first read the base note and I
    have had time to reflect on what has happened.  To be quite honest with
    you the management is incapable of managing this company.

    Many years ago the companies I had worked for wanted the wonderful VAX
    11/785's and much more did they come on time, NO, this was at a
    research institute we had FPS attached processors, we designed chips
    for the defence industry, money was no object then.  Digital didn't
    want our money. We used the VAX systems and quite a lot of them for
    design rule checking and much more, we used the FPS for number
    crunching.  This is going back nearly 10 years.
                         
    When I got out of the defence industry, I some how managed to get
    caught up with ALL-IN-1 IOS.  I worked for Digital's 5th largest
    customer worldwide, when they bought products believe me they bought
    big.  We asked for shared file cabinet under version 2.% no one knew
    about SFCP, we were told it didn't exist, we bought it for a 3rd party.
    This is just one small example of what happened 5/6 years back and
    nothing has changed.  I hate to say this but this pattern was repeated in 
    Australia.

    There is a sense of frustration at the stupidity of this company in
    that we cannot even make a go of things.  How comes in this very
    competitive market with declining margins we can see IBM posting a $US1
    billion profit for the 2nd quarter.  Something is very wrong here.

    I'll give you all some good news to finish this note.  We have seen
    sales of machines and DEC MAILworks, LinkWorks and TeamLinks on OSF/1
    and OpenVMS taking off.  Customers want our products but they hate the
    way we do business.  As I mentioned my customer waited nearly 3 months
    to get an Alpha ready machine but they waited because they are loyal
    customers.  We are living on good will.
    
    Can BP who said that he wanted no excuses management please explain why
    this happened, without making excuses !!!  On the other hand looking at
    our past record can we blame BP ?  The culture of Digital is wrong we
    need to change, we need a kick up our backsides for not delivering, for
    not being creative.  When I talk about we I mean all of us because I
    don't see much change in our attitudes.  BUT those who are in a
    position to change things and aren't doing much need to wake up PDQ.
    
    I am very frustrated.
    
    Sunil

re:                    <<< Note 3266.16 by SWAM1::MCCLURE_PA >>>
                                -< Stay tuned >-

    	
<    BIG CHANGES RUMORED coming down the pipe.  Massive layoff of all L1 and
<    L2 managers, more downsizing of sales support.  Maybe the Amoco
    
    oh, now isn't THAT just peachy!
    
    now we're gonna save all the L3 and above manglers, put them in charge
    of the gofers, gucci suits, sports cars, et al.
    
    aren't THESE the self-same folks what made all those wonderful
    decisions that GOT US IN THIS MESS?
    
    tony
    

Don't forget the mass scramble to boot individual contributors so that the L1 
and L2 managers have a place to land.

8^)

In the part of the company I work in, L1 managers are individual 
contributors (IC's) who also have some (0-8, average 3) other IC's 
reporting to them.  They are called L1 managers because (as well as
being IC's in their field) they are directly responsible/accountable
for servicing that part of Digital's business in which they work.

Our L2 manager is also an IC, as well as having L1 managers and IC's 
reporting to him.  It's the same for other L2 managers in our department.
In addition, the L2 managers do some limited Strategic Planning.

It's when you get to L3 managers that the responsibility seems to shift
to mainly Managing managers and Strategic Planning.

So, at least in our department, if you hit L1 & L2 managers, you're still
hitting people who are primarily IC's.

    Well, in our organization, L1 managers are essentially "schedulers",
    having long since been stripped of any real authority and P/L
    responsibility (back when they HAD those responsibilities, we made TONS
    of money for the corp.), and their main task seems to be pretty far
    removed from what *I* think an IC is.  
    
    Now, ya remove most (or all) of these folks from their present tasks
    and *their* bosses, ya wind up with folks who've gotten to L3 (and
    above) only recently (as the result of the continual scrambling over
    the last 2-4 years) and who really don't know what the hell is going on
    in our business... I can name one or two exceptions, but that's about
    all.  
    
    Result?  NOBODY has their rudder in the pond and steerage becomes
    impossible.  
    
    As for L1 mgrs here slipping down to IC level?  They have, by now, lost
    all their technical abilities.  By that I mean, what technical skills
    they have NOW is over 6 years old... and not much use...
    
    just one man's perspective.
    
    tony

    And, besides! 
    
    It's NOT THE L1 managers that GOT US INTO THIS MESS... ANY MORE THAN
    IT'S THE IC's WHAT GOT US HERE!
    
    
    	OK, CHILDREN!  I DON'T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU TATTLED, SO YOU'RE ALL
    GONNA BE WHACKED!
    
    (yes!  I know I yelled!  I'm ANGRY!)
    Tony

    RE: .0
    
    Why did we miss that opportunity? Because we're not hungry. Why are we
    not hungry anymore? Because we've lost the spark of excitement. Why have
    we lost the spark? Because it has taken too long to steer us out of
    trouble as a company. And this is very definitely senior management's
    fault.
                                                             
    At this point the no-gooders are fired and the do-gooders have left by
    themselves. And we are left with a large biomass that could be turned
    into something exciting or could just die. There is light at the end of
    the tunnel. But is is unclear if we're standing close to a small opening
    or deep into a tunnel with a large opening. Reports vary. I think the
    biggest problem is that we keep trying to get the crew out throught the
    same darn tunnel. Meanwhile we repeatedly starve new tunnel seeking
    expeditions to death.The vast majority have gone so numb that they
    believe that the only way out is to go with the flow and just plod along.
    
    The autonomy is gone. We are gridlocked. Everyone has either a rope
    around their wrists or around their neck. Those who'd like to make
    decisions to change things can't. Those who can make decisions don't
    want to put their ass on the line. The traditional incentives for good
    performance are gone, ranging all the way from turkeys, 10 year dinners
    to being allowed to send jokes in mail messages. These are small things
    but in the end they create that special family feeling. We've turned
    into a job shop. And the writing on the wall says that the job is to
    power off the lights.
    
    The only way out, I think, is to reward and stimulate innovation. Let
    line managers have more control over their budgets. Create innovation
    centers where the base salary is low and you get bonuses as percentage
    of your small group's profit. Virtual equity in the group is divided
    and controls your dividend. Sort of like a harnessed startup
    environment. Risks are higher but so is the paybacks. People that sign
    up for jobs in these innovation centers would make a much bigger
    personal committment that we do today. A percentage of Digital's
    budget is set aside as virtual VC money to get these groups
    bootstrapped. Likewise, the Virtual VC people get paid in proportion
    to how well their investments pay off.
    
    Anyway, where were we .. craters? We have lots of them here in ZKO. And
    we buy only premium gear from DEC to analyze them.
    
    >Per
                                                      

    
    	Per -
    
    	Yes, we are gridlocked. And true, we don't have a clue about either
    the size or the scope of the lights and tunnels. However, we appear, in
    the US anyway, to have found someone who just may have the focus
    necessary to actually do something. Harry Copperman is his name, and he
    is President of the Americas (sounds good to me).
    	Harry had a "talk" with all the DM (level 3)-type managers last
    week. The excerpts I received from someone who was there and took good
    notes were a clear indication that we at least today have a plan. Since
    the new Digital is starting from ground zero after this Wednesday, it
    is comforting to know somebody has a plan I can buy into.
    	Stay tuned fellow noters and kibtzers, as they say in Scotland,
    "This is going to get real interesting...."
    
    		the Greyhawk
    
    		
    PS - If anybody out there can explain to moi how a file from VMS A1 can
         be put into a notes file here, I'd be real appreciative. Thanks.

>    necessary to actually do something. Harry Copperman is his name, and he
>    is President of the Americas (sounds good to me).
    
    
    President of the Americas? Not too sure Bill Clinton will be pleased
    to hear about this...

    re A1->VMS
    
    SEL the message.
    DT (Doc Transfer)
    SV or SVC (Send to VMS)
    Enter VMS file spec
    Pray its not a postscript doc.
    
    
    Alan

    re: A1->Notes
    
    Go to the GPC menu; SELect conference and note; REply to the note; 
    hit next screen to select the document you want include...
    
    Dave

    Grayhawk,
    What is so special about Wednesday??
    

    
    	Thanks for the help with A1 to Notes. Will post my document as a
    seperate note for comments. Wed. Aug 3rd is sales layoffs day in the
    US, according to all who should know about these things. Wonderful.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Grayhawk,
    The stuff already started to hit the fan in the N.Y. offices! I know of
    at least three that got the package.
     
    

A few things to follow up on jeff's orignal note.

After 2 days of phoning to purchase the system originally, the MIT team was
ready to call SUN and order a sparcstation (much slower, but someone would
answer the phone and take an order).  They perservered over tremendous pressure
and finally were able to order a system.

The basic line was "how many are you ordering ?"  An answer of 1 was not the
answer sales was looking for.

Finally, someone said they could get the workstation there around June 20th
(wich was much better than the late July date quoted after a lot of trouble).
It actually arrived June 13th or 14th, in plenty of time to be set up, and have
all of the necessary image analysis software installed and debugged.

The workstation was driven down to Baltimore to the Space Telescope Science
Institute (STSI) (where they run the Hubble from) and used during the impact.
The turn around time to go from raw data to a calibrated image was just
minutes, much better than STSI's 40+ hours. (I forget the exact comparison- its
something like 13 minutes vs 40-something hours - but between the processor 
speed and efficiently designed analysis, it was large...by then end of the
impact, STSI had their analysis time down to 4 hours or so, still no where near
the speed the axp was doing.

I don't think people realize that EVERY single image from the Hubble space
telescope that was published during the impact was produced on that one
machine.  (Number crunched, and printed from there)  And the only reason you
saw pictures so quickly was because of all the advanced work getting the axp
set to crunch data (which it did very well).

And finally, someone from Digital did call and leave a message regarding
the AXP system used to do the work, but thats as far as it has gone.  The post
impact observing is going on right now, and all of the astronomers are still
busy with it, following the evolution of upper level cloud structure in the
Jovian atmosphere.  Thus, who ever called may not get an answer until late 
august or early september at the earliest.

	Tim 

	Writing from an insider's perspective, my fiance is the one that
	purchased the system and did all the work for the impacts (and all of 
	the press conferences with the results)

    re: -.1
    
    Good to hear that a project I formerly worked on is making good use of
    the newer technology. To clarify though, STSI only receives the data
    that the Lockheed folks working for NASA 20 miles away forwards are
    part of managing Mission Operation.

    Although the title of this note says that a PR opportunity
    is wasted I don't think that this needs to be the case. A
    Digital ad showing an impact photo togehter with some of the
    info written in .-2 is still very timely. Discussions and
    articles on the impact are still being presented to the 
    general public and will probably continue to be for the coming
    6 months or so...
    
    re roelof

> Discussions and articles on the impact are still being presented to the 
> general public and will probably continue to be for the coming 6 months or
> so...

The invited talks on the impact are already being arranged for the course of
the next six months.  Also, data taking is continuing.  The most recent Hubble
images of Jupiter arrived on Sunday night.

>	Tim 

>	Writing from an insider's perspective, my fiance is the one that
>	purchased the system and did all the work for the impacts (and all of 
>	the press conferences with the results)

  Did she speak at the press conference, or was she behind the scenes? Just
curious.

>  Did she speak at the press conference, or was she behind the scenes? Just
> curious.

Spoke at the press conferences, and on many other tv shows.  

The opportunity is by no means wasted (which doesn't mean it won't be).
There will be images of the impacts themselves coming in by slow boat
from the Galileo spacecraft for months to come, so SL-9 will not
disappear from public consciousness all that soon.

Come on, PR, pick up the ball and run with it.

Steve

A camera crew was out at MIT yesterday making a promotional video for
Alpha AXP.