A Different World
September 17, 2006
Mom has been back from the hospital for quite a while now, pretty well recovered from her surgery and doing well after the first rounds of Chemo. She is doing amazingly well for an 81-year-old woman. Earlier this week when I visited my folks, they were watching an episode of “The Monkey King” this is a classic Chinese tale of the monkey king god who was summoned to guide a Buddhist priest towards the west to retrieve a special set of scriptures. It remains one of my favorite classics stories to this day. The three of us sat together watching this DVD in the living room. Some times it is surprising to discover the things I share with my folks at home. These days, I visit mom about once a week and I think of her all the time. Fact is, her time here is short and before long, she will no longer be with us. Being a parent and watching our children grow up does help me related to my mom’s experiences of being a parent, regardless, I know her life of being a mom to 7 children and the challenges she had to deal with made life very difficult for her, regardless mom always loved us in ways that still I’m still only beginning to understand. My journey as a parent is still beginning.
I was very saddened by the news of problems with Hewlett / Packard’s chairwoman, I see this as another example of what is wrong with big corporations today. My personal history with HP goes back many years. Family members have worked there and I almost ended up working there when I graduated. There was a time when HP was more of a family than just another for profit compamy. During my childhood, my brother would take me to the HP Company BBQ where Dave and Bill were part of those who served food to HP employees. It was a company who respected individuals for their skills and what they can contribute to the HP family. HP delivered a quality product to their customers with long term value and support. Such a contrast to a HP FAX, copier, printer, scanner machine purchased at one of my work places. This machine’s fuser expired two months past its warranty. Not only did the fuser in the printer section die, but it caused the short which caused the power supply to fail resulting in the machine losing all of its memory. The repair cost was 65% of a new machine and I’m pretty sure in short time, this machine will fail again. The construction is a wonder of plastic, it is designed and built to be tossed into the garbage heap shortly after the warranty has passed with the idea of forcing the user to purchase a new one.. HP did not build products like this in when Dave and Bill was in charge. I’m so put off by what they build these days that I refuse to purchase a current HP product. Dave Packard wrote a book “ The HP way” before he passed on which tells the story of HP during those years. They were one of the companies which were the foundation of Silicone Valley. Other companies like Varian, Fairchild, and Ampex were also the beginnings of Silicone Valley and ex employees from these companies started other companies in SV including Intel, Apple and many others. The technological forest was happening in Oregon with companies like Tektronix and Boeing. Tektronix was a founded by Jack and Howard and another with company with humanistic values like HP back in the day. During the mid 80’s Tektronix's published a book, “The First 40 Years of Tektronix by Marshall M. Lee” which chronicles much of the history of Tek, it's founders values and their reasons for being in the electronic instrumentation business. It was not motivated profit alone, building the best Oscilliscopes, great customer support, a quality product with a long service life, treating their employees well and taking care of them where all part of their values. John and Howard did not want a big company, in many ways, they tried to retard the growth of Tek, but market demand for what they built and other forces made Tek grow out of John and Howard's hands.
The introduction of the Personal Computer and digital electronics changed the electronics industry in ways that were not always good. There was a time when explosive growth and extreme returns on investment were expected from the “Tech Industry”. In time that bubble burst and bad times hit the Tech industry. The current idea of “off shoring” manufacturing and design of many technology products in the belief that going this direction is less expensive and more profitable runs in the minds of many CEOs. They don’t realize the problems of communications between designers and what is involved with product design and development. Many CEOs today do not truly understand the nature of what they build and only see what they build as simple numbers. So many products done today are looked upon as a simple commodity to meet marketing expectation for the short term. There are cultural differences that affect the design and production process which could end up costing more to develop a marketable product or total failure due to poor understanding by both parties involved with the process of product design and development. It is sad to see the greedy side of humanity become the driving force of investors, consumers or product users. It is also one of the ideas behind “More is Better” one look at many consumer electronics and the user might find gobs of features which add little real value to the end users real needs. Honest products that truly address the needs of its user are un-common these days and if the user expects the product to deliver a very long service life and is designed to be repaired rather than replaced, it’s considered un-fashionable.
Mom has been back from the hospital for quite a while now, pretty well recovered from her surgery and doing well after the first rounds of Chemo. She is doing amazingly well for an 81-year-old woman. Earlier this week when I visited my folks, they were watching an episode of “The Monkey King” this is a classic Chinese tale of the monkey king god who was summoned to guide a Buddhist priest towards the west to retrieve a special set of scriptures. It remains one of my favorite classics stories to this day. The three of us sat together watching this DVD in the living room. Some times it is surprising to discover the things I share with my folks at home. These days, I visit mom about once a week and I think of her all the time. Fact is, her time here is short and before long, she will no longer be with us. Being a parent and watching our children grow up does help me related to my mom’s experiences of being a parent, regardless, I know her life of being a mom to 7 children and the challenges she had to deal with made life very difficult for her, regardless mom always loved us in ways that still I’m still only beginning to understand. My journey as a parent is still beginning.
I was very saddened by the news of problems with Hewlett / Packard’s chairwoman, I see this as another example of what is wrong with big corporations today. My personal history with HP goes back many years. Family members have worked there and I almost ended up working there when I graduated. There was a time when HP was more of a family than just another for profit compamy. During my childhood, my brother would take me to the HP Company BBQ where Dave and Bill were part of those who served food to HP employees. It was a company who respected individuals for their skills and what they can contribute to the HP family. HP delivered a quality product to their customers with long term value and support. Such a contrast to a HP FAX, copier, printer, scanner machine purchased at one of my work places. This machine’s fuser expired two months past its warranty. Not only did the fuser in the printer section die, but it caused the short which caused the power supply to fail resulting in the machine losing all of its memory. The repair cost was 65% of a new machine and I’m pretty sure in short time, this machine will fail again. The construction is a wonder of plastic, it is designed and built to be tossed into the garbage heap shortly after the warranty has passed with the idea of forcing the user to purchase a new one.. HP did not build products like this in when Dave and Bill was in charge. I’m so put off by what they build these days that I refuse to purchase a current HP product. Dave Packard wrote a book “ The HP way” before he passed on which tells the story of HP during those years. They were one of the companies which were the foundation of Silicone Valley. Other companies like Varian, Fairchild, and Ampex were also the beginnings of Silicone Valley and ex employees from these companies started other companies in SV including Intel, Apple and many others. The technological forest was happening in Oregon with companies like Tektronix and Boeing. Tektronix was a founded by Jack and Howard and another with company with humanistic values like HP back in the day. During the mid 80’s Tektronix's published a book, “The First 40 Years of Tektronix by Marshall M. Lee” which chronicles much of the history of Tek, it's founders values and their reasons for being in the electronic instrumentation business. It was not motivated profit alone, building the best Oscilliscopes, great customer support, a quality product with a long service life, treating their employees well and taking care of them where all part of their values. John and Howard did not want a big company, in many ways, they tried to retard the growth of Tek, but market demand for what they built and other forces made Tek grow out of John and Howard's hands.
The introduction of the Personal Computer and digital electronics changed the electronics industry in ways that were not always good. There was a time when explosive growth and extreme returns on investment were expected from the “Tech Industry”. In time that bubble burst and bad times hit the Tech industry. The current idea of “off shoring” manufacturing and design of many technology products in the belief that going this direction is less expensive and more profitable runs in the minds of many CEOs. They don’t realize the problems of communications between designers and what is involved with product design and development. Many CEOs today do not truly understand the nature of what they build and only see what they build as simple numbers. So many products done today are looked upon as a simple commodity to meet marketing expectation for the short term. There are cultural differences that affect the design and production process which could end up costing more to develop a marketable product or total failure due to poor understanding by both parties involved with the process of product design and development. It is sad to see the greedy side of humanity become the driving force of investors, consumers or product users. It is also one of the ideas behind “More is Better” one look at many consumer electronics and the user might find gobs of features which add little real value to the end users real needs. Honest products that truly address the needs of its user are un-common these days and if the user expects the product to deliver a very long service life and is designed to be repaired rather than replaced, it’s considered un-fashionable.
posted by Rupunzell | 8:58 PM
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4 Comments
