Damn! Why did April Fools' day have to be on a Sunday? I had so many pranks planned on my poor colleagues.

One of my favourites pranks (though it only works once) is on people who get a lot of telephone calls. Take a small bit of transparent tape and use it on the "hook" of the phone to keep it permanently depressed. The next time the phone rings, your friend will pick up the receiver and speak into it but the phone will keep ringing.

OK, that's not a true April Fools' day prank, but it's fun nevertheless.

What you shouldn't do at the workplace, however, is play any of these pranks. (It's titled "43 Pranks to Play at Work That May or May Not Get You Fired", but trust me, you shouldn't play any of them.)

Found this interesting quote on the Web:

"Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.''
-- Genghis Kahn, Bukhara 1220

Am I a descendant of Genghis Khan, I wonder? ;)     
(yes, that was a joke!)    

It's important that your site search works and doesn't return results like this. Could this be a sign of things to come? :)  

Our CEO addressed the company on Thursday. Among other things, he absolutely ruled out the possibility of any layoffs in the company. Unlike some other big name web solutions companies (Hi Pradeep Kar!), we're not going to fire people, directly or in other sneaky, despicable ways. As Hemant talked to the company, he kept asking me for figures on the layoffs and I kept reeling 'em off. Later, he asked me how I had all this on the tip of my tongue. I told him that I had friends in most IT publications who keep me well informed. After all, the IT journalism industry is a small one. Cyber Media, the Indian Express group, and Jasubhai are pretty much the only serious players in this game (after Media Transasia quit the IT publications business). Most people in the business know one another. And Yahoo messenger allows me to keep in touch with my friends constantly. Gotta love the Net. 

Today's links

'Polite, Personable' Error Messages

Design for buyers: In e-commerce, usability is important, but it isn't always enough to convert users to buyers. Why? Because even if a user can easily buy something on your Web site, it doesn't mean that they will buy. Users don't go to your Web site to be sold. They go there to buy. Your site needs to give them guidance and information so that they can be confident enough to buy a product.

Corporate sites skimp on the facts: A new study indicates that corporate Web sites often fail at what might seem most important: getting out the corporate message.

Keyboard shortcuts: For a timesaving list of keystroke shortcuts for most of Microsoft's most popular programs, check out Microsoft's Keyboard Assistance (Comments: I wrote a 4 page article on this for the January 1998 issue of Computers@Home)

About FogCreek: Joel Spolsky's company. This is the link to his "About us" section. I was impressed like hell with the way he's written it.

At last! It's here!

I am ecstatic. My copy of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams has arrived. Hailed as the best book on software management by Joel Spolsky and by much of the software industry (even though they seem to ignore much of the book's advice), I just had to get my hands on this book (even if it cost me Rs. 1500 - a mini fortune). This book, according to Joel, was the reason that Microsoft had such a brilliant team of programmers and managers (it was compulsory reading there). I was told that it justified much of what I've fought for in the past, including giving technical people peace and quiet, eliminating performance incentives and appraisals, and why overtime has lousy results.

When I found it at my house after returning from work, I had to immediately start reading it. I finished half the book in a couple of hours and intend to finish the other half today. This book is good! Why don't more software companies CEOs read it? At last I have the "proof" to back my opinions.  You can read one of the chapters online. Please do.

I know what I'm going to do with this book. I'm going to make sure that everyone in my company reads it; at least the people making decisions :)

I've taken a decision to stop buying anything from Fabmart. Their servers are busy way too often for my comfort. I've tried buying from FirstAndSecond, who, while having a good collection of books, are lousy at fulfilling orders. I got my "ships in 1 day" book after a week. Apparently, it was "not available in primary warehouse" (wonder how it ships in one day then) and my "ships in 2 days" book is not available right now. Bah! A trip to the local bookshop might be more productive. At least it provides instant gratification. 

"If you do things the way they've always been done, you'll get what you've always got"

- Jack Welch

Conventional wisdom is not necessarily right all the time. It's an unwritten rule of nature that for a few to succeed, many must fail. Call it an offshoot of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory. This applies to the stock markets, career growth (that's why there's only one CEO), and companies as well. If the way to succeed were well known and universally followed, it follows that most people and companies would be successful. But it isn't so. Sometimes, to get ahead, you have to toss conventional wisdom aside and have the courage to do things differently.

As I look at most companies, I see several management practices that seem "logical" and "common sense", but are outright wrong. I may not be offered a contract to write a management book for a long while, so I'll use this wonderful medium called the Internet to put my thoughts on management down and dispel a few of the myths about management. Some of these topics include core competence v/s diversification, leadership and vision, recruitment, company meetings, performance appraisals, incentives, motivation, exit interviews, marketing strategies, project management, quality assurance, etc. (I know thats a lot of stuff, not to mention a very unorganised list :)

I hope to dwell on at least one topic every week. Let's hope I find the time to write all this. I have been inspired to do this by Joel Spolsky, who writes an absolutely fantastic column on software management on his site, Joel on Software. I highly recommend that you read ALL the articles in his archives. Most of them are top notch. I can empathise with him in several instances, since I'm in the software business myself.

My focus this week is on that most useless of management concepts, the "mission statement".

Does the following seem familiar?

"[Your favourite company] is committed to satisfying our customer's needs with products that are of the highest quality and adhere to world-class processes, in time, every time, while keeping in mind the best interests of our shareholders and investors."

Most mission statements I've seen revolve around this theme. If you wanted me to put the basic message in bulleted points, here's what it would be:

• We want to make high quality products and ship them on time
• We want to become a big world-class organisation.
• We want to hire the best people and keep 'em
• We want our stock price to go up (oh yeah, that's what "value to our investors" means)
• We want to make money - lots of it!

Well... DUH!

You mean you actually needed a Harvard MBA CEO to figure all this out? Really? Well, let me give you a little tip. These are the basic aims of any business, and putting it up on high quality paper and laminating it doesn't change anything magically. But yet companies set up committees who spend days away at a resort trying to figure out what their mission statement should say. There are even books devoted to this, just in case you needed some lessons in business basics.

The truth is that the mission statement is just an exercise in egocentric pats on the company's own back. What's sad is that the CEO usually believes that by hatching a mission statement, the company will suddenly see the light and all employees will start working towards a common goal. It doesn't happen, folks. You need a vision for the company (and not a redundant mission statement) and convince your employees that you can make it happen. If you have to explain the blatantly obvious to them and tell them that they are supposed to make high quality products, you've got a seriously sick company. Fix the root problem first.

If you want a mission statement, save yourself some time and money and go to Catbert's mission statement generator.

Aha! People are beginning to send me mail about the CNET India layoff (see my earlier weblog entry).

Here are two of the messages:

K Vasudevan wrote:

Hi,

I saw your note about CNET. Good site, but went under. I used to know a couple of people who had moved  over to CNET from very good companies. I wish them well for them to move on in their careers.

That they could even move their site in this speed only indicates the criminality of their minds.

Regards,

K Vasudevan

Keith wrote:

A little token of my esteem for c/net. Sorry to hear about your situation.

I created the simon character for mysimon and one day last month c/net waltzes in, tells me that some people at c/net know 3d animation and they're giving them my job. They also proceed to lay off 1/3 of mysimon along with me. Fuckers.

He did a great graphic. Check it out!

--

Good graphic, Keith. Loved it!

I'm getting more coverage. SiliconValley.com has linked to my website in an article titled "CNet exec finds Net media waters choppy". Go on, read it.