Pieces Don't Fit Anymore - follow-up

The last post generated a relatively high number of comments, and I want to address a few of them. Someone made the point that employee blogs don't contribute to productivity. As measured by what? I have no idea if my blog helps productivity, but I like to think that it isn't hurting any. I'm fairly sure that Jeff M's internal blog adds a lot to productivity. At the bottom of a previous post I mention why speaking out can help. If people feel some empathy from others, or have an opportunity to vent, or realize that they're not alone, how can that not help? I can't speak for this blog, but I know other blogs have had an impact on management decisions and communication. If people feel that someone else is speaking out and it makes them feel better, how can that not be good morale, and therefore good for productivity?

I found it almost quaint that one commenter seems to think that IT is around to fix laptops. There's no point in me trying to defend the role IT plays, or to compare the value of IT to Intel manufacturing. IT is a pure cost center, and needs to be run as efficiently as possible. If you don't get why losing people at the top of the performance and skill set pool is bad for Intel, then I can't explain it to you. There actually will be impact beyond getting your laptop fixed.

The only comment I considered blatantly incorrect was the one stating that employees with over 10 years experience add less value and don't have good ideas. No doubt there is some dead wood at Intel, but if you've been there more than a couple of years, it should be obvious that length of tenure is not a factor in focal. Everyone is required to be competitive. There are a few places people can hide for a while, but the process is fairly good at eventually identifying below average performers. One indicator of innovation at Intel is invention disclosures and patents. Go take a look at correlation between patents and tenure, and then get back to me on the lack of fresh ideas from experienced employees.

And then there was the commenter who wrote:

It's damn annoying to keep reading complaint after complaint from those in a service organization lamenting about how hard they have it. What, not enough time to work on your level 32 Dork-Wizard on World of Warcraft?

which I found quite funny. He also pointed out IT people are expendable. True. But he may want to consider that, like all Intel employees, he is expendable as well.

In the news II redux

I need to correct something in my last post and didn't want to just slip it in there and pretend the mistake never happened. I mentioned that I was having trouble with the comments on the Silicon Forest Blog. The author of the blog sent me a not apologizing for the issue, saying it seems to be working fine, and asked how he could help. My immediate reaction was "Uh oh. I just flamed another blogger (and a real writer) for his blog comments not working without even checking to see if it was me." So I fired up IE, and it works fine. Clearly there's some issue with my Firefox configuration, but also an issue with me. I apologized in email, but want to do so here as well. Inexcusable for a tech guy from a tech company to be so careless (and lazy) when having a simple problem.

So thanks for the note, and sorry for casting aspersions on your blog. Mike is well known to readers of the Oregonian, but I highly recommend his blog as well. He's a good writer and obviously a very decent guy.

Parallax Blog II

I'm working a few posts that need a little more time. For now, a few blog updates. I've made some minor changes to this blog, and will be making a few more. I removed the email subscription option since it was ugly and nobody seemed to be using it. I'm adding a subject grouping which should be done this week after I go back and attach subjects to each post. Look for some other minor changes over the next week or two.

I'm sorry to see that Pentrino VI at The Unofficial Intel Blog appears to have moved on. He preceded me with an external Intel blog and did a nice job. I'm sorry to see him gone. I don't have any other information, but wanted to thank him for his blog and wish him well.

I'm working on a Q1 earnings post to talk about the quarter, products, and other related matters. Some recent news that may impact earnings: Intel got back $275M from the IRS this quarter based on the results of an audit. Assuming the accrue this in Q1 that could give us a little boost. Intel also announced more details the upcoming Penryn and next year's Nehalem processors. There's some opinion out there that Intel's processor designs are copying those of AMD. (There are no comments that Intel is stealing anything, just that design ideas, such as integrated graphics, are coming from AMD first). I seriously doubt that Intel is following AMD's path, but we'll see where this news goes.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes follow-up

I had some good responses to the last post. I recommend reading the comments if you haven't done so. I also got a few emails and wanted to share some of that feedback well. One person noted that most Intel people aren't as generally upbeat as they used to be when replying to a "how's it going?" question. They noted that most people are just "fine" or "hangin' in there" rather than something like "great!" Another emailer mentioned that there appears to be a lack of autonomy and empowerment that we had previously, leading to lower morale. People still have a lot of work to do, but they feel less personal ownership and responsibility, at least in IT. I'll need to think about this one - is it a cause or a symptom? And is it an inevitable result of IT becoming more process focused and moving to standardized tools?

A couple of people asked about the internal blog that I've mentioned a few times. I'm hesitant to post the full URL of the blog because it contains the last name of the blogger. Given that he's already out there with another blog this may not matter, but I'd rather play it safe with someone else's identity. From the Intel network go to blog.intel.com, then click on Employee Blogs, then scroll down to the Ms and look for the only blog with the number of comments over 1000. If these instructions don't get you to the the blog, try this: ask the person sitting in the cube next to you for the URL to Jeff's blog. If that doesn't work, try the person on the other side of you. Good chance that one of them is reading it. There are several other good internal blogs as well, and Jeff has conveniently just mentioned some of them. So going to his blog gets you pointed to a bunch of others as well.

BIG EDIT: I took this post down yesterday when a couple of you emailed to asked what the heck I was talking about. I had a couple of paragraphs in here about earnings that didn't make sense. As I've mentioned, I work on many posts at once and had pasted another post into this one. I couldn't get to it yesterday to fix it so I just took it off line. Sometimes I wish I had an editor.

Regular Song

Some of you are asking about my intentions with this blog given my diminished posting rate. And someone posted this comment to my lone January entry:

Excuse me, but why do you blog if you never actually blog? You actually have some interesting insights that others at Intel fail to share, but a monthly posting is about as effective as Paul having someone write his blog entries for him.

That's a fair enough question. I know that I won't keep readers without writing regularly. My intent is to post at least once per week - a goal I am clearly not meeting. It's largely a matter of time. I've been balancing some unexpected life events and some travel for work. I also spend a fair amount of time on these posts, and if don't finish one it could me many days before I can get back to it. Finding uninterrupted blocks of time to finish my posts has been a challenge.

But those are excuses. I'll do my best to write more regularly. I have plenty of topics started, but they don't always develop the way I'd like them to. During the recent lull I started a couple of posts that were intended just to get something out there, but I wasn't comfortable posting just to post.

Thanks for the interest. I'll try to keep up a more regular pace.

Assorted things

I always have several posts partially written. Right now I've got about five going, and you should some some of them here soon. In the meantime, a few miscellaneous items.

My Focalization posts were referenced in the Mini-Microsoft blog. This guy (or gal) writes a nice blog with many topics that are familar to those of us at Intel. I've added this blog to my short list of links to the right not because he referenced my blog a couple of times, but because I think many of you will enjoy reading it.

Intel just created a bunch of new VPs - 13 to be exact. I don't know how many VPs Intel now has but it seems like the percentage of VPs is increasing. As far as I can tell, these people aren't changing jobs or getting more responsibility. I'm not sure what the VP title means at Intel now. Is it just a retention tool? There were some frustration expressed on the internal blogs about promoting people who were likely responsible for creating the mess to required us to fire people (downsize) this year. I don't know what adding additional VPs means, if anything.

I added a feed for comments over there on the right, just below the feed for posts. Not sure why I didn't do this earlier, but now those of you using a reader can get comments there as well.

Some questions from the mailbox:

Q: why do you think it's ok to use people's names in your blog. Isn't that an invasion of their privacy?
A: I try to only use names of people who are already known publically. When I discuss the Intel CIO or other execs, they are already known. I won't intentionally mention any one by name who isn't a public figure. I suppose this puts the new IT VP on notice that his name my be showing up here. (I've never seen any behavior from this guy that I would use as an example of bad behavior here, so he's probably safe.)

Q: Why do you think you have the right to write this blog.
A: That's a good question. Part of my answer is another question: why do you think I don't have the right to write this blog? My goal is not to harm Intel, but to talk about working there openly. I won't reveal any secrets, and my goal isn't to cause Intel harm. Given that, I think it's reasonable for me to blog on these topics.

Q: Why are you blogging anonymously? Wouldn't your blog have more impact if Intel knew who you were?
A: I don't know if it would have more impact. I'm choosing to blog anonymously for several reasons, some of which I've written about. The bottom line is that I know there would negative consequences for some of my writing. There not be any formal HR action, but there would be negative reaction that would impact my career. I also don't want to spend time talking to other employees about this blog at work, for their sake as well as for mine. And lastly, if people knew that I was blogging it would likely impact my ability do my job. My management and others may choose not to share information with me for fear that it would end up here, and my ability to influence could be diminished. The bottom line is that I can see some downside and not upside to disclosing my identity.

Parallax Blog

I almost can't believe that I'm going to blog about blogs, but I am. While I hate to divert eyeballs away from my own blog, I will risk it to mention a few recent blogs and blog entries that offer a different view of Intel and this blog. For any of you who haven't seen or read about it, Intel has some IT folks writing external blogs. And most amazingly, IT asked Jeff M. to be one of these bloggers. Jeff is known for writing an internal blog that is insightful, sardonic, sometimes hysterical, and that often pushes right through the envelope.

Josh of the (non-anonymous) TinyScreenfuls blog has decided to entertain all questions about Intel. You may want to swing by and see what kind of responses he's getting and posting. I expect it will generate a lot of interesting traffic. Kudos Josh.

And PentrinoIV of The Unofficial Intel Blog wrote a post about my post about this not being a free speech zone. I guess opinions are now like blogs, as everyone seems to have one.

I have to wonder (conceitedly) if the external blogs, and especially the inclusion of Jeff as a blogger, has anything to do with the rest of us out here blogging. Is it possible that someone at Intel decided that if people are going to read about Intel, that it may as well be on intel.com? I have no idea, and I tend to doubt that there would be a direct cause and effect. But if there is, that's the best impact I could hope for.

And to answer a question I got in email, I don't know any of these bloggers personally. And while I appreciate the image, we don't all hang out together at Starbucks in our sweatpants, laptops open, blogging away in a caffeine fueled, techno-speaking geekfest. (And yes, I know it's possible for me to know Pentrino VI and not realize it since we're both anonymous. One thing you learn working with a ton of smart, competitive people who specialize in logic [aka nerds] is that if you aren't exact and explicit, you get called on it.)

! Free Speech Zone

I've been doing some unexpected traveling which has kept me from posting regularly. I'll try to get a few posts in this week, but first I need to do more housekeeping. I'm still behind on e-mail, so if you haven't gotten a reply from me yet please be patient.

Moderated comments are enabled on this blog, so they don't become visible until I OK them. I can either publish them or ignore them, but I can't edit them. I went with moderated comments rather than just allowing them to automatically post due to a concern about people mentioning non-public figures sharing confidential information.

Over the weekend someone submitted a comment that I won't post. The commenter was recently laid off and was making a point about why he may have been targeted. I was sorry to read that he was redeployed, and his point was valid. But then he went on to make an judgmental comment about an unrelated group of people. I considered publishing the comment then responding to to it, but I caught myself. Anyone is free to think or write whatever they want about other people, but this isn't the place to do it. I won't post my political or religious views here and I won't allow them to be included in comments. This isn't a free speech zone.

A few have asked about getting an RSS feed from this blog, so I added a subscribe button on the right. There is also an email subscribe option for those who want it. I would opt to use something other than my work email address for this. Note that won't see any of these email addresses and won't do anything with them if I did.

Please Mr. Postman

I'm working on a few posts that should be ready to publish shortly. In the meantime, I'll cover some housekeeping and address some email questions I've gotten.

A few of you have asked why I'm blogging externally rather than using the internal blog system at Intel. There are few reasons for this. First of all, I like that Intel has an internal blogging system for employees. There are several blogs that I read regularly. I'm not sure where the exact boundary is between acceptable or not for blogging internally, but I can almost guarantee that I'd be crossing a line with this blog. There's one particular funny, popular, insightful blog inside Intel that recently retracted a post that poked fun at the CEO after an open forum meeting with employees. It was a humorous, insightful, and well written post. The blogger said some things that many of us were thinking, but was far funnier than most of us were in our own heads. I didn't think any less of the CEO after having read it, and actually was impressed that Intel would allow someone to post that blog entry. But then it was gone shortly after being posted.

Did someone ask the blogger to take it down? I don't know - he wrote that he removed the post voluntarily. I'm guessing he removed it after having a conversation with his boss or HR. I say this because, as a fellow blogger, I doubt he would have written and posted an entry he was not comfortable with. And why would a smart, funny guy retract a smart, funny post? Btw, I fully support some boundaries - clearly you can't let employees say anything they want on an internal blog. But it's determining where that gray area is that causes a problem, and that one retracted post was an indicator for me. So that's why I'm writing out here and not in there.

I've gotten comments from a few non-Intel people who are reading. One from an Intel spouse, and a couple from friends of Intel people. They seem to appreciate the perspective they're getting here. This wasn't intended, but if this blog helps give non-Intel employees a better perspective, I think it can only be helpful.

I was asked about the post that disappeared for a while last week. I don't know what happened, but it was moved to my blog drafts folder. This may be a quirk of the blog software, or more likely something I did. While I will edit for punctuation and readability after posting as needed, I don't plan to remove any entries, or heavily re-edit (as I did with one post). My posts will stay out there, and I'll make corrections or address issues in subsequent entries if needed.

A couple of folks asked whether or not they should be reading this blog from inside Intel. I can't really answer that, as it's a personal choice. Like many employees I tend to access the Internet infrequently during the day, and I think it's considered acceptable. Please do what you feel comfortable with.

Blog's Labours Lost

I was writing a long post about managers admitting mistakes. I had it 90% done but did something stupid and lost it. I am apparently destined to re-learn the lesson about saving drafts of my work many times. I'll get it rewritten in a day or two, and for now will share a few other items.

There was an interesting article about Intel culture in the Oregonian a couple of weeks ago. It's a good article, but I don't agree with all of it. It's a short read.

Traffic to this site is fairly low. But I'm still surprised to be getting any traffic at all. The visitors I am getting can probably be attributed to the generosity of Josh and PentrinoVI IV. I thanked them both privately for mentioning this blog on theirs, but wanted to do so publicly as well. Thanks guys! I recommend checking both their blogs if you haven't yet (they have permanent links in my Other Interesting Blogs section).

Things are starting to heat up as we approach the next round of cuts. I've had several conversations lately with people from one sub-group that is going to get hit hard. (I'm choosing not to say which group out of respect for them.) They've all be told that about 75% of their ~100 person group is going to get laid off, and they don't know yet who will be keeping their jobs. These guys know their chances are not good, and are scrambling to line up temporary assignments or find something outside of Intel. Most impressive is that the people I've spoken to are philosophical about it. They all want to find something else, but none of them are angry or bitter. Real pros, these guys.

We'll see more and more of this over the next couple of weeks. Some people will take it in stride, some won't. No one way of reacting or handling this situation is better than another. Those who are laid off need to get through it the best way they can. Most people just want to work and go home to their families. I don't have any sage advice to offer. As I said in a comment to a previous post, this is hard on everyone at Intel, and doubly so when you start seeing people you know and like being impacted.

I appreciate you reading, and especially appreciate the comments I've gotten. I had originally posted a longer version the "Don't Speak" post which read much better and had more impact, but I thought it was too long and whittled it down. Someone had read the original before I edited it, and commented that they were unimpressed with shorter version. So going forward I'll worry more about content than length. Let me know what you think and I'll consider making adjustments.

I Dig Everything

I had to step out at lunch to mention that this blog has been dugg by one of you. Four votes and one comment isn't exactly going to get it moved to the top of digg.com, nor is the fact that I'm targeting a fairly narrow audience. But I appreciate it anyway.

View From the Inside

I suppose my first blog entry should explain why I'm starting an(other) Intel blog, and why I'm starting one now, and what my intentions are.

There's at least one other external (not inside Intel) employee blog, and it's good. But I want to write about some stuff that isn't posted there. I don't want to compete with other bloggers, but hope to compliment them.

Intel is in a transitional period. Most people who read the business section of their newspaper know this, and everyone who works at Intel knows this. I'm looking for a place to share some thoughts and hold discussions that can't take place on a company blog.

My goal is write about working at Intel and other related maters. Or whatever happens to spill out that day. This blog will be primarily written for Intel employees, but anyone is welcome to read it. I'll try to keep the use of jargon and TLAs to a minimum. This is not intended to be a forum for Intel bashing, revealing confidential information, or being (too) vengeful. My hope is to be informative and respectful, funny and enlightening. We'll see about that.