[…] As far as Mr. Nguyen is concerned, pursuing his labor of love is enough reward in and of itself.

After the Mac Freeware list, I found a comprehensive list of free software. It is amazing the amount of geek-time dedicated by programmers to code for free and for the greater good of humanity. There are hundreds of programs. The NY Times runs an article, Death by Smiley Face: When Rivals Disdain Profit quoted above, discussing these not-for-profit ventures and the impact they have on established for-profit business.

A few of these initiatives have a huge impact, leaving no place for other for-profit operations. Others leave enough room for improvement (in terms of usability, integration with other software, scalability,…) for a commercial application to be developed, and then again, the the profit is in the right spotting of the opportunity and in the selling of the application. Pure marketing! Not computer skills.

My guess is that most of these initiatives have little or no impact on the commercial application. A few exceptions:

• The Firefox browser is, arguably, one of the most successful and it has about 10% market share, but microsoft is not sitting and watching.
• On the server side LAMP platforms are widespread, as well.
• And Apache alone has a 70% share of web servers (netcraft) and running strong.

The MBAer moral of the story: Before jumping on a high-tech venture, check the neighborhood, and think twice about moving if you see some smart smiley loving faces coding for free.

An office filled with cubicles

The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

I feel blessed right now: I believe that, so far, I have avoided my fair share of Seagull Managers. Let’s hope the trends keeps this way. Now that I think of it, understanding the manager’s perspective helps. As some of my colleagues, not interested in the why of my managers’ behaviour (nor in walking a mile on their shoes) label them as seagulls.

New month, new skillset. Taking into account all the new vocabulary I am going to be learning during the MBA, I figured I could get a headstart with this educative list of words. Take advantage of it and learn as much as you can. Use it in your next meeting or report and you will become the star of the company.

Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.