Car sillyness, and a car I WANT

Over here they have an excellent article WITH PICTURES of the new dash board of an M class mercedes. In essence it is an LCD screen with a computer drawing the gauges....

The commentary in the comments is priceless...

BTW Ferrari has had LCD's embeded in their dashboard for a while now (Enzo, 612) -- granted they don't display gauges (pure digital guages are too slow for fast cars) but it's not exactly pioneering

this is excellent... Looking here we see the flight deck of the new airbus 380 to see that, although gauges are "too slow" for a car, they are OK for a jet...If you dig around that site, you will find that screens are used in most jets and a growing percentage of general aviation aircraft. If it is OK for an F-18 (never mind the Heads up display) I am thinking it is OK for a car.

moving on from there, we get...

What happens when that TV stops working?.... thought so!

which is so much different than when my speedometer breaks...as is true in my car now. I have never understood why people think that making it a "screen" means it is more likely to break than a regular gauge (which does a fine job of breaking on it's own... If it breaks, you won't have your speedometer or your night vision, and you'll have to look at the radio to change the channell. Bummer. Oh - also you'll have to look at the shifter to see what gear your in (and it's automatic so you won't be shifting anyway...)

How people think the web made people nasty...

wherin I feel like an old fart.

Started here to see what Scoble was talking about I clicked here, which led to here and that finally led as well to Mena here.

There is a bit of a discussion about people, essentially, not being very nice. Is the "blogosphere" this beutiful place with birds chirping and people dancing or something else? I would argue that the question was answered back in the usenet days. Blogs are just usenet dressed up. You could post whatever you wanted, and people would discuss it with you. Now, by having a blog you get a bit more control in that you can delete peoples comments that you don't like, whereas back then you didn't have pictures and someone was going to eventually call you a nazi.

I have talked before about how people trying to make the "blogosphere" be what they want it to be are a bit misguided and arrogant, and I think this trend continues.

People failed to tame usenet, and I see no reason that Blogs will be any different. People will say what they want. They will phrase it in a way that will be a little misunderstood or is a little dogmatic. Someone will take offense and call them a nazi. Repeate, wring, and rinse as needed. You can hope for something different, and you can defend your own blog, but ultimatly history is just repeating itself.

Holy crap I feel old for saying this. I think most of the people in that conversation that got me thinking this should be old enough to have looked at Usenet, but I could be wrong.

Pace of technology in Computers...

As opposed to my last post, I think the pace in computers is on a tear right now.

It is, however, I think being done for the sake of technology. I think the last few years "post crash" as people may think of it, have been what Biology is in now. New technology is made in these interludes, but just not all over the place.

The computer/internet world right now is in the "technology for technologies sake" phase. It is an invigorating phase to be in, but the shake out phase afterwards is brutal. I think of the next phase as the "Yes, but what does it do for me" phase.

I have talked about "cool for the sake of being cool" before, but it is always followed, at some point, by the "how do I make money" or "How do I answer the question/solve the problem" phase where much coolness is taken out back and spanked.

Pace of Technological Innovation

I was at the ASCB meeting this week, and was at the Neuroscience meeting earlier in the month. I talk to people all the time about their great ideas and how I should give them lots of money to fund them/buy them etc.... I, in the biological sciences, think we are in a bit of a slow down period. Note, I am NOT saying that everything has been discovered and that science is over. I AM saying that we are in a slow period. This is my, purely subjective and personal, point of view on the matter.

I think in the 90's there was a burst of technology that flooded biology. This was good. KO mice, transgenic mice, microarrays, phospho-antibodies etc.... all came along and really stood things on it's head. Now, I think, people are scratching their head and trying to figure out what to do with their toys. There is still improvement going on, but it is perfecting and incrementally improving things not fundamentally remaking things.

I think this is good, but it does make my job harder. I need badly to find the "next thing" and to do that it has to be out there. In the mean time, my feet hurt from walking past every poster at every show. And I am just not seeing the "next thing"

So - Either I am stupid. -or- I am impatient -or- People really are hunkering down and using the tools that they have developed in order to actually answer some biological questions as opposed to just serve as technology platforms.

personally, I actually think it is a good thing. People will have to get back to actually answering a question as opposed to just making a technology. They will have to think about problems and not about technoloy. I think this will lead to a lot of break throughs in human health and fundamental understandings of 'how stuff works'.

For a person who needs to license technology and isn't currently paid to figure out how stuff works....this is not such good news.

How to find out what companies want....revisited

Back when I started writing this blog, I was on a kick of talking about my day job and how I interact with university tech transfer offices... That sort of faded as not too much has changed. They are still un-usable, un-searchable, and user-hostile in their approach.

Today, I get an email (as did everyone who subsrices to the Tech-Ex email list), from a person at yet-2.com asking, essentially, how I do my job. It was parsed as "companies looking for technology", but that is my job. I am torn whether or not to subscibe, as I kind of hate what is going on here.

Between yet2.com and techex, I may end up having to pay for what is now free. I don't really like that model, as once I find what I want, the people I am talking to are going to want money as well. Further, for the most part, 99% of what we deal with is a wash-out and so I don't really want to pay to fail. I realize Pharma is working to fail as rapidly as possible, but we fail differently than they do. They are trying to wash drugs out of a program, whereas we have a really good track record of actually shipping what we set out to build. Sometimes no, but the default setting is yes. Many times, a bit of a slip in delivery...

SO - I really want to just take the tech transfer offices out back and knock them around...if they even just opened a free blog here at Blogger (and I don't even work for blogger!) then their stuff would be more findable and better organized than if they pay people to build them a web site.

Amazing. They are going to make my job harder AND make me pay for the honor!

Secret Information in Public = BAD

I was just at a MAQC meeting, which involves a whole bunch of companies trying to agree on something. It has gone really well as a consortium, and I am not normally a fan of these things. Frequently they drag on for years, hold many meetings, and make no progress. This is a welcome exception!

At the meeting are, essentially, every competitor of ours. This is a situation where you need to assume that EVERYONE cares about you. So... things you shouldn't do that I was able to snoop on.

• Don't open your laptop and read your email. I will read over your shoulder and learn stuff I shouldn't (occured so many times I can't count)
• Talk on your cell phone anywhere near the conference hall and not expect not the be heard. I listened to a competitor talk about the launch plans for a product we had heard rumors about. I now have a launch date and we are already preparing our response. I was sitting around a corner from the person so they didn't see me.

I realize that everyone "can't live" without their email and cell phone. I think people would be surprised to find that they CAN live without them, and that in fact at an industry meeting you SHOULD live without them. Eyes and eares are everywhere. It's not being paranoid, it is being realistic.

Another example : Recently one of our marketing directors got a call from a friend she used to work with. The friend works at a company that isn't really competitive with us, but is sort of off to the side. The friend, in long storytelling tradition, told the director about our new product and it's launch plans. Our director was floored. Turned out the friend listened to one our brand new field people talking on his cell phone in a lounge in London Heathrow. Then, she sat next to him on a flight and read his email. The new guy got a severe tounge lashing for being stupid, but it does highlight the point.

You aren't being paranoid, they really are out to get you.

Getting Caught up in it....

There are big things afoot in the industry.

Companies for sale. Products being release. Big stuff!!!!

But you know what....I still have to do my job.

Unfortunate, but true. With everything going on, I still have to put one foot in front of the other and get stuff done. Getting caught up in the hub-ub, calling friends, gossiping etc... is all fun, but it doesn't pay the bills. I get a bigger buzz out of doing some of the stuff that gets talked about, but that is much harder work.

Why keep doing it?

I guess it comes down to me wanting to be the one who is being talked about, not being one of the ones doing the talking.

Links about post Ph.D. life, and comments on them

Here, focussed on CS degrees. I don't agree with the top bit, but the warnings section is good. The statement "Don't get a Ph.D. if you don't want to do research is, to my mind, old school. I don't "do" research (althogh I am not divorced from it), so don't agree with this part. The warnings section is rock solid.

More on CS thesis. There seem to be a lot of sites out there about Ph.D.'s in CS. Less in other fields (or my google mojo bites...)

A bunch of links, some better than others... The third link is very true in my case. Professionally I totally seperated from my base when I went commercial. Now years in to it, I have new network, but it is tough at the beginning. This mates well with my discussions on interviews. There is a lot here for the humanities that carries over to what I have been writing, so they may not be as weird as I thought they were. Still seems weird to have paid for graduate school (yes, in biology we are paid to go to school....).

Humorous take on why to get a Ph.D...ummmm I went to different school!!!!!

This is an incrdibly good summary of how to get through grad school and afterwards...

There are probably more, but this is some stuff I was reading ( I really need to get a life...)

Presenting Science in order to get money

Recently we went through the process, as we do somewhat quarterly, of reviewing projects to see what we keep working on and what we kill. In addition we go over what has just launched, what is about to launch, and general other strategy discussions. Leaving aside what actually happened in the meeting, here are some take home messages of how to talk people out of money, or how to keep your project alive. These cover more than just this kind of presentation, so are probably generalizable to other fields.

• If you want a "YES" and you get it, shut up. More talking on the subject can only lead to "NO". You already have the yes, adding more to the discussion only hurts. You can't do better then yes. If the person was already disposed to agree with you, and therefore they say yes before you have made it all the way through your presentation, STOP. You don't need to do the rest of the presentation just because you can, you need to STOP. We know you work hard, talking more doesn't make that more/less clear.
• On projects that are known to be unpopular, the less said the better. If you get grilled, it will happen whether or not you have a lot prepped. If you are up there for less time, and no grilling happens, count yourself lucky and sit down. The project lived to fight another day.
• ALWAY assume that senior management talk to each other outside of the room. Don't change your presentation based on thinkning that A knows something because you think B talked to them, but don't be surprised when controversial things you are going to present go smoother or downhill more quickly. I watch as A and B talk outside, and there is communication there and surprises are prefaced and groundwork is lain. IF this isn't happening, run for the exits as your senior management is incompetent and your company is in deep doo doo.
• Too much detail won't help. You should not ever assume that people want to hear everything. Hit the high points, get the approval, and get out the door. If you give too much detail, eyes glaze over and you move on....It just pisses people off an makes them tune you out. If you actually have something to say, then they will miss it as you already put them to sleep and they aren't paying attention any more.

These really tie in to what I had said about presentations, and it is really a lot of follow on to that, but the point is - Public Speaking matters. The more you do it, and the better you get at it, the easier your job is.

Personally, I suck at written stuff but am pretty good at speaking. This was pounded in to me in the field, so I am biased toward encouraging everyone to get in to the field. Customers will beat you up. Learn or die (or intellegently be designed....)

More not to do at an interview....

Don't, and I base this on several from today

• Wear a T-shirt with a sport coat over it. Some stylish T-shirts, OK. Not a crappy white one.
  
• Say "This is my dream job" with stars in your eyes. If your impressed by me, I am not by you, as you will be working with people smarter than me. We pay people to give good solid answers and use their brains, not blow smoke up our rears. IF - I read it wrong, and you were trying to brown nose your way to a job, then your horrible at it and you should move on...

This may be a continuing thread over time, and I am sure HR people have many worse stories of people doing horrible stuff, but I always imagine those people at lower level positions. Both people mentioned above have high level degrees. Conclusive proof that education doesn't actually teach you useful stuff.

Yahoo Finance Message Boards : Fiction or Nonsense?

Anyone who reads the Yahoo message boards for financial leads should just save themselves a lot of time and mail their money directly to me. I promise to use it in some decadent and wasteful manner, with possibly completly frivilous side effects.

Why would I say such heresey? Becuase I know what is happening at our company. I am, technically, an insider with access to non-public information. This makes reading the message boards entertaining becuase everyone who actually posts (and let me be clear here, I DO NOT POST on them) claims to have the knowledge that I actually have. Except in cases where two people are arguing and there are only two possible outcomes (thus, logically, one of them has to be right) I find it almost universally true that the people have no clue what they are talking about.

Posts normally demonstrate that the people, in fact, haven't even read the most basic bits of information about the stock they are talking about. I can't give good examples of this, as you would then figure out where I work, but people should be able to read our 10-Q's and other filings and refute the message board people in about 1 minute. If you cheat and use google, then your time may be even faster.

When people say "I have inside information" they NEVER do. They post some amazing drivel that I am ashamed to read.

I will say that the posters are all talked about at work. We cheer on their next bout of stupidity with great enthusiasm. When a particularly ripe nugget of stupidity is posted, word travels quickly and everyone reads it.

I apologize for not being able to give solid examples of the nonsense, but to point you to a company would sort of give me away. BUT - Please please please please don't base your stock picks on what you read on message boards. OR - if you insist, please leave me a note in the comments and I will send you some sort of address to which you can mail the money.

problems with Blogs

The real problem with a blog in my job is that I travel. Others are able to do that, but I have to do the rest of my work as well, so posting has been light although I have stuff to be said...


Oh yeah.... and Civ IV was released, so that didn't help...

Addictive computer game series should be illegal, as they consume WAY too much of my time.

Response to Questions

Two posts earlier I was asked some questions by Suhit in the comments... Here be answers. He is talking about how he, as a non-tech person, can break in to tech. He is looking more on the IT side of things, but thinks much of what I am on about may hold true. He may be right, but I am not too helpful there (of course thinking that I am always correct....)


My idea was to learn technology and understand it the way I would do if I was investing in the stock market. Enough stuff to differentiate between what the individual companies are doing and its strategic importance and the direction of the entire industry but not as much as a tech guy.

Is that a good way to think about it?

What do you suggest? How do I get upto speed on something?

Also, how will you assess what I know?


My thoughts on this:

Dangerous. Knowing where the industry is going is neccesary and useful, but you need to have some idea of where you want it to go. I resonate better with people who say "I think that *this* is interesting and that by bringing together *these guys* and *these guys* maybe we could go there" or "This company is doing cool stuff, and that will lead to here and that is cool becuase then you can do this". It can be from what they have said they will do, but I want you to have an opinion about it and beleive it. You need to show some passion about things and have picked winners and losers. I want you to think that some company is wrong, becuase by doing that you will have to have a reason and you will have to have put some thought in to it. Just reciting back to me what the industry is doing now is, I think, a base level criteria for being at the interview. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't be in the business. Having a truely beleived in opionion about stuff is harder, but more attractive to me.

I will PROBABLY disagree with you. I am rather opinionated that way. However, this is NOT a negative. We are on a streak now of only hiring people who I think are wrong, but the showed intellegence in their arguments and showed that they actually beleived what they were saying.

I keep saying "beleived" and I mean that in far more than the "your lying" sense. I mean that in the evangelical religious sense. BUT - you need to be able to change this deep beleif on a dime when the data says you should. When is that? I don't know... you know it when you see it. I am probably to quick to change my mind sometimes. I can, and this annoys the hell out of my wife, very deeply and truely beleive the opposate side of an argument with only a minutes warning. If I am wrong, I have to change, becuase reality doesn't really care too much about my opinion. If I can sense that you are like that, I will be more likely to push to hire you.

The warning I would attach to that last paragraph is that not everyone agrees with me. There are, and they are also succesfull, people who beleive in the "Full speed ahead=we are right, you are wrong and reality doesn't matter" statements around. I don't mix well with them....

I had previously said "Be yourself" during interviews, and this is a case where you are going to have to do that as you don't know whether you are getting me or the other guy ahead of time.

How will I assess?
I will ask questions and see how you answer and what you say and whether you listened to my question. Can you answer my follow on questions? Is there depth to your answer, or are you just parroting stuff back that you heard elsewhere? Summed up above as "Do you beleive?" because you have to understand in order to beleive (where this concept departs from the religious overtones).

Is this a good way to think about it?
Yes, subject to caveats above. Did I mention beleiving?

What would I suggest?
Read everything in sight that you can understand. There are lots of intro's to this and intro to that and intro to the other. Read them. Know them. Read and understand company reports. Annual/quarterly reports have to have the dirty laundry in them. I know what is "known" in the industry and what is in the reports goes beyond what even most in the industry "know". It is all in there in small print. Read everyone of those that you can get your hands on for the industry you want to go in to and know what they say. You will get a fuller understanding of what the real issues are.

Skip market research reports. Frost and Sullivan and the ilk are, for the most part, more useless than toilet paper. If you have to use that, you probably are in trouble. People buy these to justify their jobs and to show that they are spending money. Reading the ones for our industry is dangerous as what they "Know" about our company is so funny that you may hurt yourself laughing. Using that as a baseline, you have to assume that the rest is crap as well.

Read the PR. It is fluff, but gives a big sense of where people SAY they are going. Go back to the quarterly reports and compare. Frequently entertaining for the complete opposate picture they present.

Know where the money comes from. Who are the customers? How much money do they have? How can they spend it? You may have to ask people this, but it is always good to know.

Other.... I am sure will come to me, but as a homework assignment goes that is probably pretty heavy lifting....

Don't lie during interviews.....no really.

DON'T LIE TO ME.

No really. Today the gentleman that I was interviewing for a more senior position made claims about working somewhere as a consultant. I asked some more about who he knew there, and got that he really had only read the web site.... the problem was that I was working at that company during the period that he claimed to be working with us as a consultant. In fact I was the one doing the job that he claimed to be doing. We were a start up with one site, so it's not like he could have worked at another office. There were, at varying periods, between 20-40 people at the company. He was completly lying.

Lesson : The world is a very small place. You will get away with the lies sometimes, but others, like this interview, you won't.

Note: I didn't tell him during the interview, or after. He will never know that he was totally caught out in the lie.

Further, I told others that had him later in the day so that they could follow up. There is another woman, who wasn't interviewing him, that worked with me at that previous company, and so between us we gave people questions to ask about that company. We also gave them the answers. He failed all which was entertaining to all of us. He was led on a bit just to screw with him and see what he would say about this company that in reality he never worked with. His interviews late in the day were all cut very short and he was out the door early. If this happens to you, now you know why.

...more about non-tech in to Tech companies

On my drive home I was thinking about what I had written, and may be a bit harsh. We are hiring people in with minimal tech experience, but we bring them in as Associate product managers. These are the junior wood chucks of marketing (this is a great example of a statement that will get lost in translation to most other countries, and something I wouldn't say overseas at all) (to translate - a junior wood chuck is the absolute lowest person in the organization. They have full authority to make coffee, but not much else). They are brought in there because they will be taught stuff. Then they learn and learn and learn, but it is a long road from there to the top.

My other comment about "once in it is easier" really rings true. Then you have experience, so the whole "doesn't know" is quantifiable to us. You have proof that you do know, so that discussion moves on to what kind of shoes you wore to the interview etc... (and I am only half joking here, as I have heard that said during a review. I already hadn't respected that person, and that comment did nothing to help...)

It really is all about Risk to us. The more evidence we have that you will do a good job, the more likely we are to hire you. For those with a tech degree OR lab experience (essentially, do you know what we are talking about) we know that we have 1/2 the battle won. We, obviously, push a bit on the tech experience to make sure you aren't completly full of it. Then we just push on the business side. SHow Tech mastery, and some business thoughts, and risk to us is managable/understandable.

Lacking the lab experience/degree then we have to push on the business side to see where you are or how good you are. If you are fresh out of school, then that is hard as well because then we have an unknown business person with no tech background. Risk, to us, is maximum. For a cheap enough salary, you are attractive. At that salary, you probably can't live in San Diego.

For experienced business people, it is a bit easier. We will push to understand your business thoughts, and will make sure you understand HOW to learn the tech info. At that point we are looking to see if you have shown the ability to learn other things in the past. Risk to us is the same as for tech with no business. Managable/understandable.

So - These posts sound like some serious downers for the non-tech person getting in to the tech world. Yes, empiracle evidence shows they are there. How did that happen? I dug around and asked some, and here in a very unscientific poll, are some answers..

• Worked for a friend at a start up for 5 years. Got the experience that way. Start up stopped, then we hired
  
• Came up through Sales. Sold other stuff, then transitioned to technical products, then too marketing (step down in salary to make the jump) then rose up the ladder
• FINANCE. Many/Most/?All? the people in finance DO NOT have tech backgrounds. CFO's don't, in general, have the strong tech background. It isn't needed.
• Started as associate product manager, and over 10 years worked way up to Senior product manager.
  
• next step is director, and this person will have to leave to do that and that will be a loss for us. This problem is trying to be solved, but is hard. Lot of institutional knowledge in her head.
  
• This is the long slog up. The education has been pretty hard, but she is really bright and works her butt off, so has made it

So - it is doable.

Taunton, a clueless publishing house

The following email, with names removed, is the response from Taunton to my wifes question... This is, while outside of my direct involvement, a walking talking example of how NOT to respond to customers. My wife really wants this book, so was trying to find out how to get it... These would be the publishers suing Google right now, which is a whole seperate other laugh.

Their response is at the top with my wifes original email down below.

I will say, upfront, that if I ever catch customer service at my company giving this kind of response I will be pissed. "We have no evidence"....um....$300 counts as evidence. Run a search yourself. The undertone here is telling the customer they are an idiot. If push came to shove, and they weren't going to ever re-pront, which is what it looks like, then just say "We are sorry but we don't have any" but saying "Look at Ebay" or "We don't see any evidence" just makes you look stupid and out of touch and pisses people off....

So - we post online and see if anyone ever see's it. With the other response, I would have just said "bummer" and let it go, but the stupidity assumption on their part annoys me a lot....


> From: CustomerService@taunton.com
> To: *****wife email address *****
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:47:32 -0400
> Subject: Re: Product Inquiry
>
> Dear Ms. ***wife last name***:
>
> Thank you for your inquiry. I apologize this book is so difficult to find.
> I have confirmed that it is out of print and there are no plans to reprint
> it. We really do not have evidence that this book is so high in demand.
> Unfortunately, we do not have any copies for sale. Perhaps you can try
> EBay or other online book sources. Good luck and thank you for your
> interest in Taunton Press publications.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> ***removed customer service person name****
> Customer Service
>
>
>
> To: <customerservice@taunton.com>
> cc:
> 10/22/2005 Subject: Product Inquiry
>
> Dear customer service,
> I've been trying to get a copy of a book called, "Knitting Lace: A Workshop
> with Patterns and Projects" by Susanna Lewis which was published by Taunton
> Press in 1992(?). To my surprise the only available copies I could find
> were selling used, online from 150 dollars (some in "good condition" for
> 300$)! Since there is no way I can afford to pay these prices, I have a
> couple of questions. If the book is that much in demand why was it
> discontinued? Is there a way I can get a copy at list price (between 20-30
> $)from Taunton Press directly? Please let me know.
> Thank you.
> Best regards
> ***Wife Name****
>
****Removed address and Name****

Non Tech People in to Tech positions

So, two posts ago I was asked about a non-tech person getting in to business management in a tech company. What would I look for? I will add to that and say What would I ask in the interview? What would I expect you to know?

This is, becuase it is all I know, limited to the biotech world. It may carry over to the computer world, but I am not doing tons of interviews there so I can't really say that. My previous company was a bioinformatics company, and I only did a few interviews there and they were on the sales side of things.

So... with that salt helping..

What am I looking for?

• You better know some of the tech. If you don't you are dead. You better have taken some courses or have some link to the technology. I don't think we can take a complete Biology virgin and do anything with them.
  
• That said, for an associate product manager, which is the bottom of the bottom for marketing, this would probably get waived IF you had a some (1-3 years) of business experience in a related field.
  
• You better, more specifically, know OUR technology. Take classes, talk to people in the field, read books, but you have to do have done something so that I can think you will be able to learn what you don't know
• The risk we are taking is that you won't learn it, so to overcome that you have to show me that you have learned some and will be able to learn the rest. I will have to, at the interview review, be able to say "I think he can learn what he needs to know" or "She seems bright enough to pick it up" or variations on that phrasing. Essentially, you will have to get the tech eventually to some level so I have to beleive that you will be able to do that.
• Stratagic thinking goes a long way. I am specifically talking about marketing or business development here. The tactical stuff that I do on a day to day basis could, I think, be taught to a rather bright monkey. Take license pass to legal. Take Red-line and send to customer. Take product brochure and buy advertising....etc. The day to day stuff you have to get right, and is critically important, but does posess a high degree of "programmable" work. The trick is looking 2 months to 5 years out. Where are those tactics taking you? Why are you placing ad's? Why are you licensing this technology? Why are you....doing any of the day to day stuff you are doing? What is the context and the goal?
  
• SO - that leads me to try and figure out how well you think strategically. Given that if you are better than a reasonably bright monkey, we can teach you the day to day stuff. But will you take it to the next level? Will you be able to contribute to bigger picture ideas? Will you be able to be more than a smart monkey?
• This, for a non-tech person trying to get in to our company is a ticket they can have that the tech person may or may not have. If I beleive that you will have something to add there becuase you "Think differently" (to borrow from Apple) or whatever you want to call it, then you stand a better chance than the average Joe/Jane.
• BE CAREFUL. If you trot out some Thinking Different and I get the sense you are being overly clever just to impress me, then you will get dinged hard. Being different just for the sake of being differnt is terminal. It needs to make sense. It needs to be a good idea. It needs to flow from you naturally (related to my interview point of "be yourself") or it will just sound like a contrived thing that you have trotted out there in order to try and set yourself apart during an interview. I am likely, in a fit of boredom, to just try and rip it apart. My comments during the review are likely to be "engaged in verbal masturbation" or some such. These are not the comments you want flowing from my mouth as they do not lead to your employment.
• This does NOT have to be some big thing, but can be just a series of little things.
  
• If possible, see if it has been tried in our field before. This is related to know our company. If you are going for a marketing position, it would be a good idea to have looked at what we are doing now and understand our position and placement of advertising and positioning. If business development, you better know where our CEO said we are going. You better, in fact, know everything publically said about where we are going. Some ideas about how to get there will help you.
• The non-tech person will have a higher bar on business questions than the tech person, so the above comments are more required for them than the tech person. You have to realize that "Doesn't have the tech backgroud" is something that is going to be said, so given that hole, you need to have ideas about other stuff to get over it. You need to be more prepared than the tech person to answer business questions.
  

Book learning doesn't count. I don't know how to say this any more bluntly, but I don't care what you did in class in your MBA. While interesting, and a good sign that you completed, it doesn't actually tell me how you will work. I have been through more school than you have, and it didn't teach me too much, so I don't give you too much credit for it. It is a ticket that you have that gets you in to the interview, but don't rely on it for too much more.

• Example of a good way to use it " I haven't done this, but an idea from class would be to do X, how do you think that would work?"
• Example of how NOT to do this " I would do X." with no further qualifiers.
  

If X is stupid, then in the first example, I will explain that nicely. In the second example I will just think you are a know it all book worm who will be a pain in the butt to have around as you will keep doing theoretically interesting stuff that doesn't earn us money or is stupid for some technology reason that you don't know becuase you don't have the tech background to catch yourself.

Non tech people have a harder road to get started, but this falls away after a few years. I would say them getting in the door is MUCH harder, but once in (assuming they are bright) that they are fine.

I think that they are capped in how high they can rise in many companies. No all, but many. For Biology, you see an awfull lot of MD's and Ph.D.'s in the CEO office.

I want to point out here on the end a significant point. If you are outside of biotech, which is inherently technical strategy to some level, then this won't apply. For the head of many companies in the computer space, they are essentially developing commodity goods. The software programs are being sold to a non-tech audience and so having a non-tech person in charge, and having many non-tech people on the business side, is probably fine. In fact, it may even be an advantage as they won't get wrapped up in the technology and will be able to look at the product and go "Dude, this sucks" whereas tech people, with an inherent understanding of a lot of the background, will not catch a lot of the problems.

SO - that is just a further qualification of the "This applies to biotech" that I started with.

Suhit - you stated in a previous comment that you didn't agree with some points. Please spell that out and either I will explain myself more fully (which may lead to you agreeing even less!) or soften what I was saying. Either way, I would be interested in hearing that.

Cultural differences in Sales

Being a world wide company, I get to deal with people from all over the world (logically stunning opening sentance, I know). Thus, we deal with many cultures within, essentially, most conference calls. There ARE cultural differences across the world. Stuff is done differently everywhere. How you talk, what you say, how you close the deal. ALL changes across the world.

However. Much doesn't change.

People buy stuff from people they like/respect/trust. There are versions of this, but at the end of the day people are pretty loyal to GOOD sales people. Good can be defined as "good" or as being "powerful" if that is the way your country swings, but I think it fair to say that good sales people, in ANY country, can overcome product loyalty from the customers.

This came up recently in a discussion with the german application scientist. He was saying, as he gave a very boring practice talk to a group of us that wanted to die, that in Germany people wanted all the data and they didn't care how long it took. Further, germans only bought based on data, not on emotion. He, and I want to state this quickly before I get yelled at, is german. born, raised, educated, and scientifically trained in Germany. He was WRONG. I have sold in Germany. Very well in fact. I was selling with a French guy. We were an excellent team, but we certainly weren't german and we weren't dumping data on their heads. I was, in addition, not making jokes and was a lot better dressed than I was when visiting academic labs, but we weren't boring the pants off of them.

You make the changes you have to make to fit the cultural role of a sales person, but you still have to 'entertain' the audience, and you still have to connect with the customer. Without the connection, they will NOT buy. Even if they are German.

Job Interviews for Business positions in the tech world...

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EDITED to add this disclaimer :
This post really talks about me (and others) inteviewing people for the business side of a biotech job. I have NO IDEA what this discussion of people applying for technical positions in the company go through. Some of this may apply to them. Some might not. So take this with that addition of salt.
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So we are interviewing a lot of people right now, and so every day I am asking people, in effect, "Why should I hire you and not the person who was sitting in that chair a little while ago". We only get to pick one, Why You?

Why have I selected the people that I have?

Ummm... I don't know...but I will tell you some of the knocks on people that I have said, or heard said, in recent days.

• She wasn't technical and he didn't have her business experience...I pick him as it is shorter to teach business than to teach technical and we have a lot of business experience running around.
  
• He didn't listen to the questions and answered before I was done....meaning he didn't actually answer what I was going to ask.
• He said "Team" too much. What did he do? Did he actually own any part of the thing? Did he own the outcome? I don't want someone who goes to meetings, says a lot, but doesn't come out with anything to do because they have dumped it all on my head.
• He is in for sticker shock moving here from Iowa, we'll never get him becuase he won't be able to buy a house.
  
• OK - this isn't fair, as we wouldn't know that he wouldn't accept, but it is the reality of trying to get people to move to San Diego. They are all over it up until they look at house prices...and then their head explodes. We did feel this guy out for the offer, and forced him to look at housing, and then he withdrew his name.
• NOTE about above. This followed the week before when we made an offer to a woman to move from New Jersey, and she declined after sticker shock. Once bit, twice shy. We warn people before the interview, but I don't think it sets in until they are looking at an offer. I know that is the way it was for me, but I still came.
  
• He really didn't know anything about the company.
• He wanted to work here because it would be an easy commute not becuase of who we are.
• He said he hated travel, which is odd for a position that states it will have 70% travel.
  

SO - If, as several of the people leaving comments (Hi sreen) are going for job interviews, I would say or hear any of this about you....it doesn't help you.

Rules, and these are repetitive to what you will hear elsewhere, and include 1 thing you can do nothing about....

• KNOW OUR COMPANY. really...you should have looked at our web site and you should know a bit of our history. Know how much money we make. know what our goals are (listen to the replays of our quarterly conference calls in the investor section of the web page). You should understand where we are going as a compay if you want me to think you will help me.
  
• KNOW THE PRODUCTS YOU WILL DEAL WITH. To the extent possible, you should know what your talking about. You won't know everything, as we don't publically announce the products we are releasing in 6 months, but anything that we have been selling for greater than 6 months, you should have under control.
  
• BE YOURSELF. This is the one that you have no control over, but that is the most important for your future happiness. If you are going for a finance position, I don't want you to be like me. If you are going for a business development position, you should not be anti-social or shy. If you want to be an application scientist, you should be able to talk in public. ETc... there are personalities that match to jobs or too ways of doing jobs, and I (and I think everyone else, whether they admit it or not) have 'ideas' about what those are. If you are in the interview so focussed on who you think I want to see, I will likely be annoyed becuase I can sense something doesnt' feel right, but I won't know what it is. You will get dinged becuase I just didn't like you. This is related tot he BE YOURSELF. If the job is going to be totally wrong for you, you are probably being done a favor by not getting it.
• STORY : As an Application Scientist, I worked (and this is obvious...) with other application scientists. There was one guy who just wasn't flexible. He was going to give you THE talk he was going to give, regardless of what you wanted to hear. He wasn't evil, he was just very set in his ways. He was miserable in the job, as he was constantly being beaten on for not being the right fit. He moved off to an internal product design position, and flourished. Unfortunatly, he doesn't get those 2 years of his life back.
  
• WHAT YOU WEAR MATTERS. You never lose points for wearing a coat and tie (men) or a business suit (woman, and yes I probably have that wording wrong)... point being. I will be in business casual. You should be better dressed than me. This is stupid, I freely admit, but it is true. You are being judged on it.

I will say, just to mess with you a bit further, that I am normally totally unprepared for an interview. I am working on something, Outlook tells me that I have an interview, so I start to wrap up figuring that the schedule will be behind, and then you will show up. I will then be scambling to find out about you and your past and why you want to be there and work with us. I have not thought this through ahead of time, so part of what you are being judged on (and this is probably very specific for me...) is your ability to help me figure out what is important about you. If I think I haven't got anything, I will just flat out ask "What should I know about you for when we make the decision?". This is not the best sign, becuase it means I am running out of time and realized that I need something coherent to say at the discussion meeting.

So - you go in. I will bet, that for the most part, all the hoops that are jumped through don't matter. I think, and my Uncle who is older and a judge said this to me, that the decision is made on how I am going to think about you in the first minute or so that we meet. Most of my questions are pre-set to be judged against this filter. I think most people do this, and the other criteria that are out there are just to give us a way to put that bias out for general review.

I won't tell you "relax" or anything like that, as that never worked for me, but I will say just roll with it, know as much as you can, and be yourself. Say "I don't know" if you don't. BS'ing me won't help you.

This is related to What to do with your Ph.D.

Evolution.....

It probably isn't a surprise that I am not a big proponent of "intellilent design" and am embarrassed that in Pennsylvania (PA , as there is no way I spelled that correctly!) right now there is a court case going on about this crap. In that vein, you should understand why I think this is funny.