Tip of the Iceberg

Category domino
If you haven't already, check out Rocky's request for more civil discourse. Lord knows there's a need for it. I was going to post a comment of my own in response, but reconsidered after remembering my tendency to be loquacious, and decided to clutter my own site with my thoughts instead of his. I'm glad Paul mentioned FUD in his response, however briefly, because I think that's ultimately what this all boils down to.

For those not already familiar with the acronym, it stands for "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt". For geeks, this phrase and its acronym have become linked directly to product bashing, such as the Notes vs. Outlook debate. For most people I know, however, these are words that call to mind one or both of two completely disparate concepts: violence and money. The current terror alert level is still "Bert" (yellow), and has been since I added a monitor of it to my site months ago. Terrorism still seems to be on the rise, but credible threats of further attacks within our own borders have faded into the background. Yet many people still live in fear (and, yes, in uncertainty and doubt) about their physical safety and that of their loved ones, whether they perceive the threat to be from terrorists, domestic criminals, or even acquaintances. But almost everyone I know harbors more fear, uncertainty, and doubt about money - specifically, the possibility of not having enough to pay the bills, or at least to maintain their current lifestyle - than about anything else. I have little doubt that my sensitivity to this is temporarily exacerbated by my current situation: namely, having to pay rent in one state and a mortgage in another, wondering if this new job will work out or if we'll be wandering off somewhere else in a few months. So my perception is probably skewed. There nonetheless seems to be a connection between this sort of FUD and a geek's reaction to product bashing.

In eight years of working with Notes/Domino, I've never worked for or with a company that wasn't using Notes resentfully, with the exception of my occasional contact with IBM. The attitude at each has been essentially this: "Well, we don't like it, but there's nothing else out there that does what we use it for, at least not as securely and reliably with as low a total cost of ownership as our current platform". A necessary evil, so to speak. For years, I took that attitude personally, as if it were a criticism of my development prowess. Then I noticed a pattern: the criticisms were primarily of the mail and calendar interface and feature set. Response to the applications I was providing was primarily positive. In fact, possibly the nicest compliment I ever received (on the job, anyway) was from a user of an application I'd developed to streamline a business process that was resented by the folks involved, but very necessary for regulatory reasons. The process owner informed me that one user's response to the application was that, "I hate that we have to do this, but if we have to, I'd rather use this to do it than the alternatives". They hated the process but liked the tool... mission accomplished. So I decided that I could happily ignore the occasional complaints about not being able to right-click to reply to an email. Which is a perfect example of Rock's point about version-specific experience: in R7, you can.

But there was a problem: the comments still bugged me. Why? I'd insulated my pride; I didn't develop Notes, I develop applications in Notes. And on the whole, people like those applications. So what was my problem? Simple: FUD. If the comments stuck, if enough people mutinied, they'd abandon the platform altogether for something else. And I'd lose my job. Why would they train me in something else that I'd be a beginner on for at least a while, instead of just bringing in somebody who's already an expert? This was probably an irrational thought; every company I've worked for has had a strong emphasis on employee development and internal mobility. But I convinced myself that to migrate away from Domino (at least for the applications) would be an irrational decision, so how could I be certain I'd be kept around? Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And if I lost my job, I'd have to sell my house... how could I find something else in time to make the next mortgage payment, especially in the same town? Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Pride wasn't the only issue... every time I let the comments get to me, I was choosing to live in fear.

As a corollary to Rock's request, I'd add another: before criticizing or defending something, take a moment to analyze your motivation for doing so. To make a ridiculous analogy, I used to use Winamp to listen to my MP3's, but now I use MusicMatch. If somebody criticizes MusicMatch and raves on and on about how much better Winamp is, or iTunes, or whatever, I don't get all up in arms to defend my beloved MusicMatch... because I have nothing invested in its continued existence. I could care less if I had to switch to another software for listening to music. So I'd suggest that we consider why we're passionate about any given software platform before we inject that passion into a conversation, and let that consideration flavor the tone of our contribution to the conversation, because our words reflect our values. And, as a community as well as individually, our values impact how we are perceived by others.